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The military is seeing a higher COVID-19 infection rate in young people. Here’s why. – Military Times

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The militarys biggest age demographic is testing positive for COVID-19 more often than civilians in the same group, the Pentagons top doctor told reporters on Thursday.

Increased testing is the presumed reason why.

Though Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Friedrichs, the Joint Staff surgeon, did not provide the specific infection rate for troops aged 18 to 24, he said its slightly higher than young adults nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not post centralized data about infections by age.

We believe that the slightly increased confirmed case rate in that age group is a result of the success of ... allowing us to test at the entry to basic training, at the exit to basic training and at many other points in an active-duty service members career, Friedrichs said.

Put simply, so many young troops are either beginning their military careers or preparing to deploy overseas that their positive rate is skewed higher, officials said. Overall, the militarys infection rate stands at just over 1 percent, the same as the U.S. population in general.

The finding comes after several months of ramping up testing has put the Defense Department at 60,000 tests a week a figure first proposed by Army Gen. Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs chairman, as a daily goal back in April for a total of more than 540,000 since January.

Part of that plan, which came in four tiers of priority, includes testing every recruit who ships to initial entry training, either upon arrival, upon leaving or at both points, depending on the service.

They are part of the tier one group, along with high-end counter-terror units and nuclear deterrence commands, like Air Force bomber and Navy submarine crews. Next up are deploying and redeploying troops, followed by troops leaving on or returning from overseas assignments.

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We dont exactly have those specific numbers in terms of what percentage are asymptomatic versus symptomatic, Air Force Maj. Gen. Lee Payne, who heads up DoDs coronavirus testing efforts, told Military Times, but his team is working to compile those and break them out by tier.

As of Wednesday, more than 26,000 service members have contracted COVID-19, and more than 14,000 of those cases are still active.

Payne added that about half of positive tests are coming from personnel going into clinics either with symptoms, to prepare for a medical procedure or as part of a contact tracing effort because of their proximity to another positive case.

The rest of the tests, probably about 20,000 or more per week, are symptomatic, because those are people were screening for mission readiness, he said.

That asymptomatic testing has helped control outbreaks, he said, because anyone who comes back positive is then isolated, and their close contacts are also tested and isolated.

To date, three service members have died and under 500 have been hospitalized, rates far below the numbers for U.S. residents, which include more than a 3 percent mortality rate currently.

For the military, however, the question becomes how sidelining tens of thousands of troops for as little as two weeks, but into multiple months if they are recovering from symptomatic illness affects mission readiness.

Luckily, Friedrichs said, those cases havent come all at once,

Weve been able to minimize the number of outbreaks that have taken an entire unit down or an entire capability down, he said.

However, the number of cases continue to rise, as states with large force concentration like Texas, California, Arizona and Florida grapple with record-breaking spikes.

Officials have pointed to community transmission in those areas as part of the reason for rising cases in the military, while at the same time, enforcement of face coverings, social distancing and outright bans on crowded places like bars and restaurants have been left up to individual units.

Weve not seen any widespread evidence that whats occurring in the 18-to-24 demographic is because theyre not following the rules, Friedrichs said.

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The military is seeing a higher COVID-19 infection rate in young people. Here's why. - Military Times

Antibodies From Recovered COVID-19 Patients Being Tested As Way To Prevent Infection : Shots – Health News – NPR

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Blood plasma the yellowish, cell-free portion that remains after red and white blood cells have been filtered out by a machine and returned to the plasma donor is rich with antibodies. Plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients might prove useful in preventing infection as well as in treatment, scientists say. Lindsey Wasson/Reuters hide caption

Blood plasma the yellowish, cell-free portion that remains after red and white blood cells have been filtered out by a machine and returned to the plasma donor is rich with antibodies. Plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients might prove useful in preventing infection as well as in treatment, scientists say.

If you're bitten or scratched by an animal with rabies, your doctor can give you a shot to prevent the virus from taking hold in you and causing an infection. The same concept is now being put to the test for the coronavirus.

Most people who get sick with COVID-19 produce antibodies in their blood that seem to protect them from reinfection. A study is now underway to see whether an infusion of those antibodies can protect someone who has been exposed to the virus and is at high risk of infection.

One of the first volunteers for this study is a physician who treats transplant patients at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Jonathan Orens had a close brush with the coronavirus involving not his work, but his family.

His daughter from Los Angeles wanted to come home to be near her sister, who was about to give birth to her first baby. Orens says the traveling daughter was careful about protecting her health in Los Angeles and did everything she could think of to stay safe on her flight to Baltimore.

"She wore a mask, she wore gloves, she had sanitizer, she had wipes," he says. "The load on the plane was relatively small." They chose the Fourth of July as a travel day, knowing that even fewer people were likely to be traveling that day. "We actually bought the two seats in the row to keep her away from everybody else."

She wore masks through the airports and in the car ride back to her parents' house. Once there, she kept her distance from them.

Just to be sure, about a week after she arrived, she and her parents went for coronavirus testing.

Though she had no symptoms, "she was positive," Orens says. "And fortunately my wife and I were negative." But they were still at high risk of contracting the disease, given the close contact with their daughter.

As luck would have it, one of Orens' colleagues at Hopkins was just starting a study to see if purified blood serum from people who have recovered from COVID-19 called convalescent plasma could prevent the disease in someone else. Orens and his wife, who are in their early 60s, are entering an age group at higher risk of serious disease if infected with the coronavirus. They signed up for the experimental treatment.

Half the people in this clinical trial get an intravenous infusion of convalescent plasma, while the other half get an infusion of blood serum that had been donated before the pandemic emerged (so it lacked protective antibodies). Neither the participants nor the doctors treating them know who's getting what.

The infusion took about an hour, Orens says. "I didn't feel anything except for the pinprick from the IV, and we went on our merry way."

He now returns to the clinic for regular blood tests.

"We'll follow him along to see if he develops symptoms and if he turns positive," says Dr. Shmuel Shoham, who is directing the study. Shoham says he plans to enroll up to 500 patients though, in the best-case scenario, if the treatment is highly effective he won't need to study that many people.

In addition to recruiting patients in Baltimore, "right now we have sites in Houston, sites in Alabama," Shoham says. "We're opening up additional sites in Dallas and Arizona. We have sites all over Southern California."

He's also involved in a second study that looks at whether plasma will prevent serious illness in people who are infected but not sick. He says if both of these strategies work, they could help a lot of people, even in the absence of a vaccine.

"That would give people a lot of confidence, I think, to go back to school, go back to work," he says, "because if somebody gets sick it's not a tragedy --because we can protect them and protect those around them."

These studies are among a growing number of experiments involving convalescent plasma, both as preventive measures and as treatments for COVID-19.

Dr. Jessica Justman at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York tried to launch a similar study this spring. Good news for New York but a complication for her study was that the disease had largely abated in the city, and she didn't have luck recruiting people to participate.

"Compared to March and April, people have become less worried, less scared of COVID and perhaps a little bit less inclined to go for a preventive treatment," Justman says.

That situation could turn around if the disease roars back in her area. And Justman says the idea is well worth pursuing. A similar strategy works against other diseases not just rabies, but hepatitis B, botulism and a potentially serious viral infection in babies called respiratory syncytial virus. In fact, this general strategy dates back more than a century. Shohan was involved in a study that attempted to use convalescent serum to treat the flu, and it was not successful so it isn't a cure-all.

Piggybacking on this strategy, drug companies are gearing up to manufacture antibodies, instead of collecting blood from recovered patients. But those products monoclonal antibodies wouldn't be cheap.

"What I like about the convalescent plasma idea is that if it worked, I see it as something that could really be scalable in resource-limited settings," Justman says, referring to developing countries where expensive pharmaceuticals are frequently out of reach. "And I think that's where convalescent plasma has this really great potential."

As for the Orens family, nobody fell ill whether that was due to in part to treatment or luck, nobody knows. Their quarantine period ended just in time for a quick trip to New York after the baby's birth to see the new mom.

"The plan is to drive up after she is out of the hospital. Hopefully, everything will go well, and we will all be outside," Orens says. "We will see the baby from a distance. I've already been informed by my daughter that I am not allowed to get anywhere near the baby. And then we will turn around and come back to Baltimore."

It's hardly the way he was hoping to greet his first grandchild, he says, "however it's the price we have to pay to bring this pandemic under control."

The researchers in Baltimore hope to know by mid-September whether the convalescent plasma will in fact inoculate people from COVID-19.

You can contact NPR science correspondent Richard Harris at rharris@npr.org.

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Antibodies From Recovered COVID-19 Patients Being Tested As Way To Prevent Infection : Shots - Health News - NPR

Aim For The Head: Max Brooks On Zombies And Coronavirus (Cinema Junkie) – KPBS

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Everything you need to know you can learn from zombies. Author Max Brooks pretty much laid out a lot of what we're been dealing with during this coronavirus pandemic in his novel "World War Z" that came out in 2006. He will have a virtual panel at this year's Comic-Con@Home called "Zombies and Coronavirus: Planning for the Next Big Outbreak." Brooks says of his panel, "People can expect to hear us discuss this real plague that we're dealing with. But through the metaphor of zombies, because the best tool of education is pop culture." His panel is at noon on July 24 but the YouTube link will remain on the Comic-Con Channel even after the convention ends, which allows anyone to watch the discussion any time. We also discuss his new book "Devolution." I know this is not cinema but it is zombies, which I love, and Brooks is the son of filmmaker/comedian Mel Brooks and film actress Anne Bancroft so there is a cinema connection!

In addition to his writing, Brooks holds duel fellowships at the Atlantic Councils Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Modern War Institute. Check out a podcast that aims for the head.

Speaker 1: 00:00 Zombies are a great metaphor for this pandemic because they spread just like a play. You have issues of infection, you have issues of protecting your loved ones. You also have big issues like a zombie plague shutting down the economy. People fearing for their livelihoods, as well as their lives. Unlike other horror monsters, which tend to be very small and isolated and intimate zombies are big. And so

Speaker 2: 00:26 That's right. Like I've been saying for years, everything you need to know, you can learn from zombies today. I'll be talking with max Brooks, author of world war Z and the new book devolution we'll discuss Sambisa Corona virus, Bigfoot and comic con at home.

Speaker 1: 00:54 [inaudible]

Speaker 2: 00:54 Welcome to another episode of listener supported KPBS cinema junkie podcast. I'm Beth Mondo. As a fan of zombies, I have to confess and love max Brooks because not only is he a great writer, but he gets how zombies are the perfect blank slate for social commentary. Something that George Romero established with the film that defined the modern zombie night of the living dead

Speaker 1: 01:29 [inaudible].

Speaker 2: 01:31 Brooke says world war Z perfectly predicted a lot of what is currently happening with the coronavirus pandemic. And he'll be hosting a panel called zombies and Corona virus planning for the next big outbreak because Corona virus forced Comicon to cancel its physical show for the first time in its 50 year history, the panel will be online as part of comic con at home. The good news is anyone can attend the panel for free and you don't need a badge. And the panel will be up on the Comicon YouTube channel even after the convention ends on July 26th. I know I've been straying from film a bit in the past few episodes, but in addition to loving movies, I love pop culture and how it can be a useful tool in spreading ideas. Plus Brooks is the son of filmmaker and comedian, Mel Brooks and film, actress, and Bancroft.

Speaker 2: 02:21 So there is a cinema connection. I need to take one quick break and then I'll be back with my interview with author max Brooks, max. So to start with, I just want to say that when the pandemic hit, my family kept meeting on zoom and we wanted to have a book to read for our family book club. And of course I suggested world war Z. I got voted down by all the academics and they chose Albert [inaudible] the plague, which is also fitting, but I felt like everything I needed to know about our pandemic current pandemic was in your book. And I saw that you were by a number of major

Speaker 3: 03:00 News outlets at the time. How did it feel to have written that and to kind of have it be so spot on for what was happening?

Speaker 4: 03:12 It felt disappointing. And, um, I guess very upsetting because I didn't really set out to predict the future. But what I did was draw on the past and disasters tend to come in very predictable cycles. So finding the patterns of disaster is a constant, no matter what time we're living in, because we're still people. Cause it doesn't matter where, and when we exist, we still exist as, as homo-sapiens with the same thought processes and emotions. And we tend to deal with disaster in a very predictable way. So of course I was always hoping that we would have done a better job this time around this is probably, I mean easily, the largest Homeland disaster in my lifetime.

Speaker 3: 04:04 I really feel like pop culture can always teach us a lot of things. What do you wish that maybe politicians or the general public could have learned from your book?

Speaker 4: 04:13 Look, this is why I write what I write you. You mentioned earlier that instead of reading my book, the academics in your circle, how we're reading Alvera Kendall, this is the problem with academics. This is why we are where we are. There is a massive gap between those in the know and the rest of us, the experts are trapped in a feedback loop of intellectual incest and they have lost the ability to communicate what the public needs to know. The voter, the taxpayer, the boss, my two think tank jobs, the Brent Scowcroft center for strategy and security through the Atlantic council and the modern war Institute at West point have shown me that we have a cultural divide as wide as the grand Canyon between the sheep dogs and sheep liked me. So what do we do? How do we educate the voters? How do we grow a thinking critical electorate that will take care of itself? Well, one way is pop culture. And I don't mean literally high literature. I don't mean the stuff of academia. I mean, what regular schmucks like me would read or watch or listen to popular culture because we need to engage the populace. That is why I write what I write. That is why I write the way that I write, because what I'm trying to do is talk about these big, important issues in a way that somebody like me would not only understand, but might also be interested in.

Speaker 3: 06:12 So in reaching that populace comic con seems to be a great way to do that. And this year you have a panel on zombies and Corona virus planning for the next big outbreak. So who are the other people on the panel with you and what can people expect from this?

Speaker 4: 06:29 Well, I'm not going to even pretend to introduce the experts on the panel and all their credentials. Uh, what I will say is our model, I think is, is it could be a very successful model because it's a fusion of people who understand the facts and then people who can communicate those facts. And that's what we're talking about on our panel. We're talking about coronavirus, we're talking about real virology. We're talking about public health because public health can be very different than medicine or science. Public health is really about mass psychology. And how do we engage the public with all these facts? So we're going to have a very lively discussion about what we're facing here and what do we do about it? Because especially in a pandemic, it's got to start from the ground up. And the problem is we've been, we've been hammering away at the experts in this country for too long and the experts have retreated. And therefore here we are, and we don't even know what to do. And certainly in my lifetime, I've seen two of the most important elections be lost by the smart person who can't talk to the person who can talk, but can't think

Speaker 3: 07:51 Talked about the stages of a pandemic. So explain what those are.

Speaker 4: 07:55 Initially, you have, uh, the great denial and this is a very, it's a very common thing. This was the middle ages. When the plague would come into villages, people would say, well, I'm a good Christian. Uh, it's not going to hurt me. It happened in my childhood with AIDS. Well, I'm not gay. I'm not an Ivy drug use. I'm not a Haitian. Can't happen to me. Uh, same thing with this, you know, Ooh, I'm young, I'm strong. Uh, it's like the flu. It's going to go away. It's a hoax, blah, blah, blah. Can't affect me. Right. Denial. And then you have a tipping point. Uh, and that would be say in the middle ages, when the local priest would get sick, Oh my God, if he can get sick, we can all get sick. It happened, uh, in a, with AIDS. When somebody like magic Johnson got HIV and it's happening now, it happened now where the virus just exploded, exploded across the country. And we've, we've had two great panics. The first was in the beginning. Oh my God, it is, we can't stop it. It's rolling out of control. We got locked down and, but we still had enough denial mixed in, well, the weather's going to get warm. Don't worry whether it's going to take care of it. Well, it's a hundred degrees where I am right now. And I don't see that killing any virus.

Speaker 3: 09:13 You've also talked about the role that fear or panic can play in it in a pandemic. And that it's just as infectious as the virus itself. And how does that complicate the situation?

Speaker 4: 09:24 Well, of course, panic always does more damage than the actual problem. And that's in everything. That's in war. That's an economic recession or depression. When Roosevelt said we have nothing to fear, but fear itself, he wasn't just being flowery and poetic. He was trying to communicate a basic fact, which is, Hey America, there's really nothing wrong. We're just afraid to engage in the economy. If we all just got out there and bought and sold and spent and invested, we could beat this, but the fear is holding us back in something like this. Panic has the potential to kill more people than the actual disease. Now that has not been the case in the beginning. I thought it was. I thought when I started to see people, you know, get in fights over toilet paper, I thought, here we go, food riots have started. But so far we've been pretty good at keeping our panic in check.

Speaker 3: 10:17 You recently wrote a comic called germ warfare.

Speaker 4: 10:20 There they are everywhere in the food. We eat the water. We drink the air we breathe. They cannot be seen with the naked eye. They are the microbes, the bacteria, the viruses, and while most are harmless or even helpful, the dangerous ones have killed or crippled more human beings than all the Wars in history. For most of human history, we had no idea where diseases came from or that microbes even existed. So cures ranged from utterly useless to absurdly harmful bleeding, leeches, drilling holes in the head.

Speaker 3: 11:10 How did that come about and why, why did you want to write that? What was kind of your goal?

Speaker 4: 11:16 Well, initially I, as, as part of my duties at the modern war Institute, I wrote an article on Zika. Remember when Zika was coming through, once again, that's the them disease. I'm not a pregnant woman. I'm never going to get pregnant. What do I care? And Congress was dithering when it came to funds to protect us all from Zika. And so I wrote an op ed saying, listen, your job is to protect us. And you've spent trillions of dollars trillions since nine 11 to protect us from a terrorist, watching a nuclear attack. Well, here's an actual threat right here on our shores that could kill people. What are you doing about it? What if Zika had started in a lab because a germ weapon is the exact same thing as a natural virus, the effect is the same. You get sick, you die. That caught the attention of the blue ribbon, bipartisan biodefense panel. And those are people like Tom Ridge and Donna Shalala and Joe Lieberman. And they asked me to come up to Capitol Hill to take part in their first hearing. Cause what they're trying to do is protect us from the next round of germ warfare.

Speaker 4: 12:29 And I noticed all the experts speaking there, wasn't a, uh, public outreach expert. And I said, what I'm saying to you, uh, that if you don't find ways to communicate what we're discussing here in this room, it's not gonna make any difference. So we put our heads together and we called out bearer Kemo wasn't available. So plan B was to write a comic book and try to reeducate the public about the history of germ warfare, because it's been happening since the beginning of civilization, since people in antiquity were dipping arrows into manure and blood to cause infection. Uh, when the Mongols catapulted plagued bodies over castle walls and world war II, the Japanese had a massive bio warfare program. Uh, while we were developing our Manhattan project, they actually were dropping plague bombs on China. And to this day, we don't know the casualties. We suspect in a hundred thousand and possibly a million debt. When you talk

Speaker 3: 13:35 About world war Z and also your own personal way of looking at things, you've mentioned how you look to connections and that's something like climate change, isn't merely an environmental issue. It can turn out to be something else. Same like a zombie outbreak is not just about the virus. It's about a lot of other things. So talk about that kind of approach to looking at these problems.

Speaker 4: 13:56 Well, I, I first started to think about these issues critically when I wrote zombie survival guide, because I thought, well, what if there were really zombies out there and how would I protect myself? And obviously I start with physical defense. You go to the George Romero night of living dead. Uh, okay. The coming for the farmhouse. Do you go in the basement or do you stay upstairs? Neither go up the stairs, break the stairs behind you. They can't climb. You're safe, but wait a minute. Now you're safe. What about dehydration? Starvation, malnutrition accidents, infection, regular disease. What about all these other things? Because I realized that, uh, most people, if zombies were real, would not die from contact with zombies, they would die from what the military calls second and third order effects because the greatest threat is to chew through the threads that keeps society together.

Speaker 4: 14:56 This is wonderful. First-world safety net that we all take for granted now of plumbing and sewage and refrigeration and vaccines. What's going to happen when the zombies break all that. And we're back in the middle ages. So starting along that line of thought brought me to world war II, which was big picture thinking, big strategic thinking, how do you fight a war? Because most people will not dive direct to enemy contact. And that took me to the modern war Institute and it took me to the Brent Scowcroft center and it really has affected everything I've written, which is seeing the connections, the big picture, because like you said, an environmental crisis is not just about dead polar bears. It's about millions, possibly billions of people not being able to feed themselves, which will crash into possibly their culture, uh, which will then become economic, which will then turn violent. And before you know it, you've got Wars on your hands. So that's how I look at problems. I look at the big picture and then I try to find a way of communicating that big picture. Uh, be it zombies, uh, even Minecraft or the new book Bigfoot. There's a great pop culture. Interesting, fun way to get people to think about the big picture.

Speaker 3: 16:21 Well, cause I was going to say it's difficult. You know, we've got people who have a 240 character, Twitter capacity or 32nd sound bytes on the news and making connections is a very complex kind of idea. And it seems like that's very hard to get people to think about that because it's not as tangible as like, Hey, I'm okay. I'm not seeing any problems.

Speaker 4: 16:46 Yup. It is hard. It is hard, but it's not impossible. In fact, we used to be really good at that in world war two, we were the best in world history at harnessing the power of storytelling. Our government reached out to Hollywood and said, listen, we were in the fight of our lives and our people are going to have to serve and sacrifice and change everything. And we need you to explain why even Walt Disney won't come here. Yeah. We know you love Hitler, but I'm sorry. You're going to have to, you actually have to talk about why he's the enemy. And we did that and we had a great president who was a great communicator. Franklin Roosevelt. When you talk about it being difficult, he know how to do it. Even before we got into the war, he tried to sell Lend-Lease the idea of loaning or basically giving weapons to the British, to fight the Nazis. How are you going to do that? And he said, listen, if my neighbor's house is on fire, I loaned him my garden hose. So he puts the out before the fire spreads to my house. And then when the fire is out, I want my hose back simple. And he was derided by the intelligentsia, the academics as talking like a child and you know what it worked and Lenley's went through and we gave the British a fighting chance

Speaker 3: 18:12 A little bit about your background. I mean, what led you to be this kind of person who can write pop culture books, like world war II, but also be part of the modern war Institute. I mean, it seems like very disparate things coming together. And what did you study in school or what's kind of your background for this?

Speaker 4: 18:31 A lot of this came starts with my dyslexia. I'm painfully dyslexic. So there's nothing wrong with that. But there is when you are educated in the late seventies, early eighties under the Prussian model, which most of us are still educated under. And what I mean by the Prussian model is memorization. And then time to regurgitation of facts. That is the industrial model of education. And my brain just wasn't wired for that. So school got in the way of my education. So I was, I was cursed and blessed with this curiosity. I wanted to learn about the world, but I wasn't getting anything from school. So I had to learn through entertainment and I learned through star Trek. I learned through Twilight zone. I learned through Tom Clancy books first time ever read for pleasure. The first time I ever had the guts to pick up a book and sit in a corner and read was, I was 16 red Hunter Rocktober.

Speaker 4: 19:26 And thank God Clancy was like me. Clancy wanted things to be realistic. He did his homework. So I walked away from his books feeling smarter, same way with star Trek. It's all based on real science. A Twilight zone was all morality, plays everything. I read my God, Robert Heinlein. I learned more from him than I probably ever did from any of my professors. And I sure as hell learned more from the genius of comedy of standup comedians than I did in any economics course. You want to break down the basic premise of the wage slave versus the owner of the means of production. Well, you can waste six months of your life or you can listen to one Chris rock joke who says, Hey, I'm not talking about rich. Talking about wealthy. Shaq is rich. The white man who signs his paycheck, that's wealthy. And so from all of this, I knew the kind of writer I want it to be. And so when I went to college, I studied history. And even in grad school, I studied obsolescence, which is film production. Everything I learned was obsolete. And then I just started to write and I knew the kind of writer I wanted to be, which was Tom Clancy. So I had to just do years and years of intense research in order to make my work grounded in facts. You mentioned

Speaker 3: 20:48 Your new book, a devolution, which is about Bigfoot,

Speaker 4: 20:52 Big foot destroys town. That was the title of an article I received not long after the Mount Rainier eruption. I thought it was spam. The inevitable result of so much online research at the time I was just finishing up what seemed like my hundredth op-ed on Rainier, analyzing every facet of what should have been a predictable and preventable calamity. Like the rest of the country. I needed facts, not sensationalism. Staying grounded had been the focus of so many op-eds because of all Rainier's human failures, political, economic logistical, it was the psychological aspect. The hyperbole fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people. And here it was again right on my laptop screen, big foot destroys town. Just forget it. I told myself the world's not going to change overnight. Just breathe, delete, and move on. And I almost did, except for that one word, big foot,

Speaker 3: 21:59 I only got to read a small excerpt that they sent me. So I didn't get through the whole book yet. But tell me, tell me about the project. And it does seem like you're trying to bring that same kind of level of realism to big foot that you brought to zombies in world war II.

Speaker 4: 22:14 Yeah. What I'm trying to talk about in devolution is our overreliance on technology specifically technology without a backup plan, because that's, that's where, uh, the great tech minds of our, of this new century are going there. They're moving fast and breaking things and they're not in considering what could go wrong. That's one theme. Another theme is, uh, urban people trying to anthropomorphize nature and put our own sense of what we think nature should be without respecting it. Because I don't think you can save this planet, uh, the natural balance of this planet until you get to know it first and start to play by its rules as a guest in his house. But if I did all this as a, as a Ted talk or a series of op EDS, or just a straight out book, what would read it? I would either bore people to death, piss them off or scare them away. But if I reach back to my childhood and use one of my deepest, darkest childhood fears, Sasquatch as a vessel for these ideas, then I can take readers on a great ride. And before they know it, they've learned something.

Speaker 3: 23:30 So devolution is your newest book. Tell me a little more about,

Speaker 4: 23:35 Well, the, the book begins in the high tech high end eco community of green loop, uh, nestled in the cascade mountains. And these are not off the built the hippies. Uh, this is the grid. Uh, this is telecommuting to work. This is drone deliveries of your groceries. Uh, this is all the modern technology, allowing people to live with the comforts of the upper East side of Manhattan, but while still living in the pristine, beautiful wilderness, uh, it's the model for the future. It's the green revolution through technology and it works until Mount Rainier erupts. And this community is not only cut off. It's forgotten because the eruption blows out in the other direction towards Seattle and they're outside the blast zone and they're out of groceries and winter is coming and these highly paid highly educated David Sedaris fans don't know how to change a light bulb. And that's not the least of their problems because the eruption has also driven a pack of very large, very hungry Sasquatch creatures away from their traditional foraging ground. And they have to stock up on food for the winter as well. And they come up against green loop, which to them essentially looks like a pen of sheep. So if you are going to distill my book into one sentence, it would be IRA, glass and Fran Liebowitz versus big

Speaker 5: 25:05 Journal entry. Number seven, October 6th, animals. They're everywhere. Squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits. I get little guilt shivers. Whenever I see rabbits look over at me, like they know I helped chop up their sister, their deer too. I've seen half a dozen. I can see their ribs. They look thin, hungry and nervous. All the animals seem skiddish. Three times I watched them freeze. Every single one, like someone hit pause on a movie and they all stared back in the same direction toward Rainier. At first I thought it might be something with the volcano. Animals are more sensitive to that stuff, right? Or how's pet supposed to know when an earthquake is coming. It didn't have anything to do with rainy or, I mean, nothing else happened each time they froze or they afraid of something besides the volcano, they're all moving in the same direction. Migrating. It looks like away from the eruption at the freezing are they being okay? I just had to stop before writing that word. It sounds melodramatic, but pursued. How far back does your fascination with big foot

Speaker 4: 26:21 Go? It goes back to when I was about six, maybe eight years old, uh, in the late seventies, early eighties during the height of the first Sasquatch craze, when all these fo Bigfoot documentaries were coming on TV and scaring the hell out of me. And I was always fascinated by it. And I was wanting to write a big foot book, but like all my books, I wanted to ground it in reality. So I went deep into the research, not just of the Sasquatch lore, but I wanted to study real primatology, real apes, because if Sasquatch did exist in my mind, it's nothing more than a species of great apes living in North America. So I had to study that I had to study the technology of green loop. How would an eco community really function? I had to study a real vulcanology how Mount Rainier would really erupt.

Speaker 4: 27:06 And it will someday the USDS has confirmed that. So a lot of book learning, a lot of talking to experts, but also a lot of hands on. I actually had to go to the area where I pinpointed really to see if my characters could walk out and let me tell you, they can't even walk in it's that punishing without a road it's brutal terrain. Uh, and I even had to make the kinds of weapons that my characters have to make just to see if it could be done, because remember these people, uh, they're intellectuals, they're weapons are wit, uh, so they've got to make physical tools to protect themselves.

Speaker 3: 27:43 Well, you mentioned that that was one of your fears. And I'm curious, how do you view your relationship to horror in the sense like I've interviewed people like Clive Barker and you know, he doesn't seem troubled by nightmares, but you seem to draw on kind of your own personal fears to fuel these stories that you're doing.

Speaker 4: 28:02 Oh yeah, no, I'm, um, I always write for me and I always read about things that scare me. Uh, but that being said, uh I'm I was sort of calling myself an anti horror person because whenever I see horror films or later in life, when I was actually reading her, uh, I was always thinking of how would I survive? So I was always trying to solve the problem. I'm a problem solver. You know, I don't look at horror the way my very first zombie movie, it was Italian zombie movie where everybody just got killed. I'm not, I'm not that I'm George Romero's proteges will not protege. I'm his student, I'm his disciple. George Romero set up a series of rules. Figure them out. You survive, make bad choices. You die, which guess what? That is life. So I'm always trying to put a hopeful, spin on everything I write and hopefully people get scared, but hopefully they also are hopeful.

Speaker 3: 29:01 Well, you bring them towards Romero. And do you think the fact that he invested the first kind of modern zombie film, the night of living dead with the sense of a social conscience, do you think that kind of has colored the genre ever since then? And, and zombie seemed to be this perfect blank slate to deal with so many things,

Speaker 4: 29:21 You know? Yes and no. I think that, I think more so than not the people that follow George, uh, don't listen and don't get it. And they just see the Gore and the violence and maybe throwing a little sex to titillate. Um, but they don't get the deeper meaning and they don't get the, what George was trying to do was hold up a mirror for ourselves. But some people do, some people fall directly in his footsteps like Edgar Wright and Simon peg, and gave us, I think one of the greatest, not zombie films, but films of the decade, which is Shaun of the dead, which was the British version of clerks.

Speaker 6: 30:00 Do you ever think modern life is not for you? You do the same dead end job every day. There's no I in team, but there is an I in PI and there's an eye in meat pie. The anagram of meat is team.

Speaker 4: 30:17 I think that was genius. It was insightful. And it taught us a lot about this generation of Britons, but it did it through a zombie story.

Speaker 3: 30:27 So for you, do you think that zombies are scarier than a virus? I mean the sense of a zombie, something you could see coming at you, but a virus is this invisible thing to the eye and people who can carry the virus may not show any symptoms, which do you find kind of scary or for you?

Speaker 4: 30:43 I think the zombies can be a perfect, um, zombies can be a perfect metaphor for a virus because to me the fast zombie is something like Ebola, which is so scary. It provokes a response when Ebola hit in West Africa a few years ago, it was so obviously terrifying that we marshaled the entire resources of the United States and sent the U S army to West Africa to hit that virus head on. And we want the SLOs zombie, the zombie that you can underestimate that you can blow off is this virus that we're facing right now because in order for a plague to be successful and be that plague to be airborne or waterborne or walking on two legs, it must have baked into its strategy, the ability to slip under our radar. That's why my zombies are always slows zombies because initially they have to be underestimated. The same thing with this virus.

Speaker 3: 31:48 Now, a lot of your book, a lot of world war Z is based on history in terms of your drawing on things that have happened in the past to kind of be predictive of what happens in this Somby apocalypse. Why do you think we are so unable to learn from history?

Speaker 4: 32:05 Honestly, I think one of the reasons that we're unable to learn from history is it's, uh, is it's not being taught better. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry to say that I'm a history major and some of my best professors were historians and I love historians, but for every amazing, interesting, insightful historian that I've met, I've just met a lot of, um, boring schlubs who just go through the motions and they teach us the, when the, where, and the whole and the, but they don't teach the why they don't make it human. They don't connect our hearts to the hearts of those who came before us. And I know that because I've been lucky enough to have history teachers who have done that from high school through college, whenever I've had a professor who has allowed me to walk in the shoes of those who came before me, I realized, wow, we're the same.

Speaker 4: 33:09 And the problems we're facing now, the problems that they've faced. And if we can learn from them, we can save ourselves the death and destruction that he fell down. But that takes a high quality of history teacher. And personally I would, and I wouldn't just go in college. Cause I think for a lot of people at the time you get to college, it's too late. I would start early. Should I start in kindergarten? I mean, personally, I think, uh, I think we need to overhaul the teaching system because too many teachers are not taught to actually teach. And what I mean is they know the facts, but they don't know how to reach these hearts and minds. And I would, I would raise up the profession and I would pay them a decent living wage for God's sakes and make teaching an exciting, attractive profession. So you can live a good life and still teach because it's one of our most important jobs. And I see too many teachers, we treat them like soldiers, they get shitty pay and they get no support and their budgets are always being cut and they're trying so hard and they're always being sabotaged. So I would put the resources behind our education the same way I would put it behind our national security

Speaker 3: 34:40 And talking about connections. What do you see this pandemic connecting to in terms of something in the past? Is there something, you know, early on, there were some comparisons made to the Spanish flu, but there were some, you know, scientists said, well, that's not really the same, but is there something we can look to in the past to give us some sort of direction, how to move forward now?

Speaker 4: 35:02 Well, I think that the, the best example we can look to is the plague of my childhood, which was AIDS. Uh, there's still no cure. And it took too long, far, far, too long for any kind of effective treatment. And far too many people died unnecessarily, but what turned it around was not some miracle of science. What turned the corner on this horrific blight was social consciousness. It was the people, it was changing our behavior and going from free love to safe sex and starting to understand what were the transmission parameters of AIDS? How do we protect ourselves? Uh, there was a massive public education program in the United States in the 1980s. And I was part of it. I was educated by that C a recoup, our surgeon general mailed out a pamphlet to every single American home to educate every single American, the facts about AIDS. Why can't we do this now, if we had a national education program about this virus, about this Corona virus, we'd stop. It. It's that simple. We do not need a vaccine. We do not need an effective treatment. We do not need a magic bullet. We just need everyone to do their part.

Speaker 3: 36:34 Well, and then additional connections. Cause you had mentioned, I listened to one of your talks that you had done, I think at the Naval war, um, Academy. Uh, but you talked about connections in terms of one thing turning into another. And in this case it feels like the pandemic with people sheltering at home and not having the same sort of distractions that they would have otherwise connected to George Floyd's death and going out to protest. So what kind of connections do you see in that realm of how we're at the point we are now?

Speaker 4: 37:11 Well, I used to try to predict the future. Exactly. It would make me a liar or an idiot. Uh, but I will say that you can see the potential second and third order effects of this plague. Uh, it's obviously already massive unemployment. We're having a huge recession now, which could very well tip over into a depression. If we don't solve the plague, we can't get the economy going. It's that simple. First you solve the public health crisis. Then you solve the economic crisis. If you try to do economics before you do public health, it's all just going to blow up in your face as we've seen. So we see the economic problems, which in turn will create more social problems because you're going to have the merchants of hate, uh, on radio and television and the internet, trying to blame people, trying to sell blame.

Speaker 4: 38:05 Like it's a product, Oh, you're, you're poor. You lost your house. You can't make your mortgage payments. Well it's cause because those in power are giving it away to somebody else blame them. So you're going to see more divisions because there's a lot of money in dividing us. You're going to see a national security issues because for the first time in my lifetime, a little germ has taken a nuclear aircraft carrier off the high seas. I think you're going to see a reorganization of weaponry around the world. Certainly more attention paid to German warfare. I think if we don't get our act together and pull our heads out of our asses and not only solve the plague here at home, but help our friends and allies around the world, somebody else will. And that will be China. And this plague may end up being the greatest threat to democracy.

Speaker 4: 39:03 We've seen since world war two, because if the Western democracies, RNA are unable to prove that democracy can keep their people safe and healthy, the Chinese will prove that their new version of fascist capitalism will. So I think that the, the ramifications are, are endless. And do you have any final words or closing comments you'd like to make? I'm always hopeful. And I think that over the course of my writing and research into conflict, what I've learned is that Americans are at their best when things are at their worst and that's not, that's not pie in the sky. That's not kumbaya. That's just the facts. We talked earlier about history. What we can learn from history. What I have learned is that no country has made this much social progress. This fast as the United States of America. Our last president could have been a slave of our first president.

Speaker 4: 40:18 And I dare anyone to challenge me on that. As far as any other country, making that much progress, what Americans have going for us is our ability to reinvent ourselves. Uh, we're living a certain way one day and then something gets in our way and we have to change ourselves. We have to change our behavior. Uh, we have to change our, uh, our way of doing things without art changing our core values. And Americans are very good at that. We, we are a freedom loving democratic people, and yet somehow we have changed our behavior over the years in order to face new crises, we did it with world Wars. We've done it with depressions. We did it to end slavery. Nobody forced us to end slavery. We did it in our own civil war. Uh, we have given rights to people who in 1776 weren't even allowed to exist. So Americans have the ability to dig ourselves out of any hole. And that's why I am infinitely proud and hopeful when it comes to solving this

Speaker 1: 41:34 Present crisis.

Speaker 2: 41:35 Well, I want to thank you very much for taking some time and I'm really looking forward to your comments.

Speaker 1: 41:40 Thank you, Brad. You were very patient with me,

Speaker 2: 41:50 Brooks, author of world war II and the new book devolution. Thanks for listening to another episode of the cinema junkie podcast. I hope you'll head over to comic dashcam.org and check out Brooks's zombies and Corona virus panel as well as more than 300 hours of other diverse programming. So till our next film fix I'm Beth Armando, your residents, cinema junkie

Speaker 1: 42:53 [inaudible].

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Live Coronavirus News Updates and Analysis – The New York Times

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Cases in New Jersey, which recently plunged to their lowest levels since the pandemic began, are rising again.

Just a week ago, New Jersey recorded its lowest seven-day average of new daily cases 224 since the numbers peaked in the state in early April, according to a database maintained by The New York Times. But cases have been rising since then, and the state has averaged 416 cases per day over the past week.

The increase, which came after the state moved to ease a number of restrictions, has worried elected leaders and public health officials, who say that young people who are enjoying summer parties are not taking enough precautions.

A party that dozens of Long Beach Island lifeguards attended has been linked to 35 cases of the virus, according to the states health commissioner. A house party in Middletown, N.J., has been blamed for 65 new cases; 52 of the people infected were between the ages of 15 and 19, Gov. Philip D. Murphy said. Judith M. Persichilli, the state health commissioner, said Wednesday that 15 Rutgers football players had tested positive.

And a house party in Jackson, N.J., about 65 miles south of Manhattan, drew more than 700 people on Sunday night, leading the police to issue tickets to its organizers. More than 100 cars were parked outside, and it took the police more than five hours to clear the scene.

Officials with the governors office noted that despite the uptick, New Jersey continues to be among the six states with the fewest new daily infections per 100,000 residents. Some of the increase in the past week also can be linked to a lag in testing results, which they said are sometimes delivered in large bulk batches, skewing the daily case counts.

Perry N. Halkitis, an epidemiologist and dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, agreed the delay in testing results muddies the daily data report. But he said the seven-day trend is alarming.

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Rise in New Jersey coronavirus cases linked to indoor house parties, governor says – NBC News

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Indoor house parties are contributing to the increase in coronavirus cases in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday.

At the outset of his news conference, Murphy said he understood the desire to gather indoors.

"We've all had our routines turned upside down for the past four months and we want to blow off some steam with friends," he said. "None of us can fault anyone for having that notion."

He added: "And with the weather we've been having on top of that, I understand the desire to escape the heat and head into the air conditioning."

But, Murphy said, people cannot continue to have crowded house parties. "They are not safe. Period."

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"They are how coronavirus gets passed around more efficiently," Murphy said.

The governor said a "series" of recent house parties including one attended by young people between the ages of 14 and 19 in Middletown have been linked to more than 50 new positive cases. Additionally, a party on Long Beach Island has now sidelined nearly three dozen Surf City lifeguards, who have tested positive for the coronavirus, he said.

And on Sunday night, there was a massive house party in Jackson that was attended by an estimated 700 people. Murphy said it was not yet known how many coronavirus cases may arise from "that out of control party," but the state health commissioner, Judith Persichilli, believes there will be many.

"This is no time for anyone to be vying for induction into the knucklehead hall of fame," the governor said. "And unfortunately, all of the above instances qualify."

Over the past four days, the state has reported roughly 2,000 new cases of the coronavirus, Murphy said. "We are now back plus or minus to where we were roughly a month ago in the daily numbers of new cases," Murphy said.

He urged residents, young people in particular, to wear face masks and to act responsibly.

"Remember this: Just because you are younger and hopefully less susceptible to the ravages of COVID-19, is not an excuse to let your guard down," he said. "You are not immune."

There have been at least 183,793 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in New Jersey, with 15,798 deaths, according to NBC News' tally.

Murphy said the danger of indoor gatherings is the reason his administration halted a planned restart of indoor dining. On June 29, Gov. Murphy said plans to allow indoor dining to resume July 2 would be postponed indefinitely because of a surge in coronavirus cases in the South and West.

"I'm not going to say that indoor dining is like a house party because it isn't," he said Wednesday. "But when one party in an air-conditioned house leads to dozens of new cases, it should give us all pause."

Janelle Griffith is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

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Rise in New Jersey coronavirus cases linked to indoor house parties, governor says - NBC News

Misinformation on coronavirus is proving highly contagious – Modern Healthcare

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) As the world races to find a vaccine and a treatment for COVID-19, there is seemingly no antidote in sight for the burgeoning outbreak of coronavirus conspiracy theories, hoaxes, anti-mask myths and sham cures.

The phenomenon, unfolding largely on social media, escalated this week when President Donald Trump retweeted a false video about an anti-malaria drug being a cure for the virus and it was revealed that Russian intelligence is spreading disinformation about the crisis through English-language websites.

Experts worry the torrent of bad information is dangerously undermining efforts to slow the virus, whose death toll in the U.S. hit 150,000 Wednesday, by far the highest in the world, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Over a half-million people have died in the rest of the world.

Hard-hit Florida reported 216 deaths, breaking the single-day record it set a day earlier. Texas confirmed 313 additional deaths, pushing its total to 6,190, while South Carolina's death toll passed 1,500 this week, more than doubling over the past month. In Georgia, hospitalizations have more than doubled since July 1.

"It is a real challenge in terms of trying to get the message to the public about what they can really do to protect themselves and what the facts are behind the problem," said Michael Osterholm, head of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

He said the fear is that "people are putting themselves in harm's way because they don't believe the virus is something they have to deal with."

Rather than fade away in the face of new evidence, the claims have flourished, fed by mixed messages from officials, transmitted by social media, amplified by leaders like Trump and mutating when confronted with contradictory facts.

"You don't need masks. There is a cure," Dr. Stella Immanuel promised in a video that promoted hydroxychloroquine. "You don't need people to be locked down."

The truth: Federal regulators last month revoked their authorization of the drug as an emergency treatment amid growing evidence it doesn't work and can have deadly side effects. Even if it were effective, it wouldn't negate the need for masks and other measures to contain the outbreak.

None of that stopped Trump, who has repeatedly praised the drug, from retweeting the video. Twitter and Facebook began removing the video Monday for violating policies on COVID-19 misinformation, but it had already been seen more than 20 million times.

Many of the claims in Immanuel's video are widely disputed by medical experts. She has made even more bizarre pronouncements in the past, saying that cysts, fibroids and some other conditions can be caused by having sex with demons, that McDonald's and Pokemon promote witchcraft, that alien DNA is used in medical treatments, and that half-human "reptilians" work in the government.

Other baseless theories and hoaxes have alleged that the virus isn't real or that it's a bioweapon created by the U.S. or its adversaries. One hoax from the outbreak's early months claimed new 5G towers were spreading the virus through microwaves. Another popular story held that Microsoft founder Bill Gates plans to use COVID-19 vaccines to implant microchips in all 7 billion people on the planet.

Then there are the political theories that doctors, journalists and federal officials are conspiring to lie about the threat of the virus to hurt Trump politically.

Social media has amplified the claims and helped believers find each other. The flood of misinformation has posed a challenge for Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, which have found themselves accused of censorship for taking down virus misinformation.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned about Immanuel's video during an often-contentious congressional hearing Wednesday.

"We did take it down because it violates our policies," Zuckerberg said.

U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat leading the hearing, responded by noting that 20 million people saw the video before Facebook acted.

"Doesn't that suggest that your platform is so big, that even with the right policies in place, you can't contain deadly content?" Cicilline asked Zuckerberg.

It wasn't the first video containing misinformation about the virus, and experts say it's not likely to be the last.

A professionally made 26-minute video that alleges the government's top infectious-disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, manufactured the virus and shipped it to China was watched more than 8 million times before the platforms took action. The video, titled "Plandemic," also warned that masks could make you sick the false claim Facebook cited when it removed the video down from its site.

Judy Mikovits, the discredited doctor behind "Plandemic," had been set to appear on the show "America This Week" on the Sinclair Broadcast Group. But the company, which operates TV stations in 81 U.S. markets, canned the segment, saying it was "not appropriate" to air.

This week, U.S. government officials speaking on condition of anonymity cited what they said was a clear link between Russian intelligence and websites with stories designed to spread disinformation on the coronavirus in the West. Russian officials rejected the accusations.

Of all the bizarre and myriad claims about the virus, those regarding masks are proving to be among the most stubborn.

New York City resident Carlos Lopez said he wears a mask when required to do so but doesn't believe it is necessary.

"They're politicizing it as a tool," he said. "I think it's more to try to get Trump to lose. It's more a scare tactic."

He is in the minority. A recent AP/NORC poll said 3 in 4 Americans Democrats and Republicans alike support a national mask mandate.

Still, mask skeptics are a vocal minority and have come together to create social media pages where many false claims about mask safety are shared. Facebook has removed some of the pages such as the group Unmasking America!, which had nearly 10,000 members but others remain.

Early in the pandemic, medical authorities themselves were the source of much confusion regarding masks. In February, officials like the U.S. surgeon general urged Americans not to stockpile masks because they were needed by medical personnel and might not be effective in everyday situations.

Public health officials changed their tune when it became apparent that the virus could spread among people showing no symptoms.

Yet Trump remained reluctant to use a mask, mocked his rival Joe Biden for wearing one and suggested people might be covering their faces just to hurt him politically. He did an abrupt about-face this month, claiming that he had always supported masks then later retweeted Immanuel's video against masks.

The mixed signals hurt, Fauci acknowledged in an interview with NPR this month.

"The message early on became confusing," he said.

Many of the claims around masks allege harmful effects, such as blocked oxygen flow or even a greater chance of infection. The claims have been widely debunked by doctors.

Dr. Maitiu O Tuathail of Ireland grew so concerned about mask misinformation he posted an online video of himself comfortably wearing a mask while measuring his oxygen levels. The video has been viewed more than 20 million times.

"While face masks don't lower your oxygen levels. COVID definitely does," he warned.

Yet trusted medical authorities are often being dismissed by those who say requiring people to wear masks is a step toward authoritarianism.

"Unless you make a stand, you will be wearing a mask for the rest of your life," tweeted Simon Dolan, a British businessman who has sued the government over its COVID-19 restrictions.

Trump's reluctant, ambivalent and late embrace of masks hasn't convinced some of his strongest supporters, who have concocted ever more elaborate theories to explain his change of heart. Some say he was actually speaking in code and doesn't really support masks.

O Tuathail witnessed just how unshakable COVID-19 misinformation can be when, after broadcasting his video, he received emails from people who said he cheated or didn't wear the mask long enough to feel the negative effects.

That's not surprising, according to University of Central Florida psychology professor Chrysalis Wright, who studies misinformation. She said conspiracy theory believers often engage in mental gymnastics to make their beliefs conform with reality.

"People only want to hear what they already think they know," she said.

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How Accurate Is Coronavirus Testing? It Depends On The Test You Take – WBUR

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Getting a coronavirus test in Massachusetts may be getting easier, but just how accurate the test you take depends on the type you get.One of the more common tests administered in the state provides a false negative result in nearly half of cases.

"We wish we had a fast and accurate test on the market, but that's not the case," says Dr. Shira Doron, infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center.

There are three types of coronavirus testsbeing done:

Although antigen tests are faster and can be scaled up quickly, they have a high false negative rate in some studies as much as a 40-50% and some recent research suggests they may produce an elevated false positive rate, too.

In Massachusetts, PCR tests are most often used. The state Department of Public Health lists all positive antigen tests as "probable" until the positive result is confirmed with a PCR test.

Doron says the benefit of the antigen test is it can be done quickly with a nasal or saliva swab, and the turnaround time for results is faster than many PCR tests. With so many labs and testing sites reporting backlogs due to greater demand in places experiencing dramatic upticks in cases, she says that quick turnaround is important.

Accuracy is also an issue for PCR tests and varies widely depending on its type and manufacturer. Doron says some PCR tests have been found to miss positive cases 30% of the time. She says for sicker patients, some hospitals use tests with a better track record, like the PCR test called the Abbott M2000 Realtime system.

"Overall, we can't give an accurate sensitivity of a test. We just don't have a perfect test."

"We wish we had a fast and accurate PCR test on the market, but that's not the case," Doron says. "Proponents of fast testing say we need abundance over accuracy perfection can be the enemy of the good, particularly if you're talking about asymptomatic people or decreasing the risk in a mass setting like a school. Where you're deploying testing widely to decrease the risk, it might be OK to use a less sensitive test. Overall, we can't give an accurate sensitivity of a test. We just don't have a perfect test."

Between pop-up testing sites, doctors offices, worksite testing and self-administered tests, most patients don't know what type of coronavirus test they're taking, either. Doron says that's important and patients should ask, especially if a test is related to an urgent health care issue.

"Many peopleare getting tested for travel and not a situation where the top priority is accuracy. It's just a paper-in-hand kind of thing," Doron explains. "In that case do whatever is cheapest, easiest and fastest. But if you're sick and worried about quarantining yourself and protecting loved ones, then you really need to know. Then it becomes more important to make sure you're doing a PCR test and one with a track record of accuracy."

Many labs doing the testing have received emergency approval to speed up testing by doing what's known as "pool testing," where batches of samples are tested together. Unless there is a positive, the tests are not individually processed. Quest Diagnostics, which opened its Marlboro lab in March, has such approval.

This week, Quest said it received federal approval for a new technique that will help it more quickly extract viral RNA to speed up test processing. Quest says it has the capacity to process up to 135,000 tests per day.

Despite the questions about testing, Doron says she's confident that Massachusetts will have enough quick, fairly reliable processes to accommodate the influx of college students, as well as expected spikes in testing demand as the state phases in its reopening.

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How Accurate Is Coronavirus Testing? It Depends On The Test You Take - WBUR

Watch live: World Health Organization holds press conference on the coronavirus outbreak – CNBC

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[The stream is slated to start at 11:00 a.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

The World Health Organization is holding a briefing Thursday on the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 17 million people worldwide and killed at least 667,808, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

On Wednseday, the World Heatlh Organization advised public officials against trying to achieve so-called herd immunity to Covid-19 by allowing it to rapidly spread throughout their communities, saying it will overwhelm hospitals and kill a lot of people.

Most scientists think 60% to 80% of the population needs to be vaccinated or have natural antibodies to achieve herd immunity, Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's health emergencies program, said on a live Q&A streamed across multiple social media platforms.

"Whatever that number is, we're nowhere near close to it, which means this virus has a long way to burn in our communities before we ever reach that," he said.

Herd immunity is necessary to really contain a virus, according to epidemiologists. That is generally achieved once enough people either get vaccinated or survive the virus so they have the antibodies to fight off new infections and the virus doesn't have enough new hosts to spread.

Last week, officials of the World Health Organization slammed "unacceptable" comments made by the U.S. Secreatry of State Mike Pompeo.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the claims made Tuesday in London by Pompeo that China had "co-opted international institutions like the World Health Organization" were untrue and a distraction from the global coronavirus pandemic response.

"The comments are untrue and unacceptable and without any foundation for that matter," Tedros said at the news briefing. "WHO will not be distracted by these comments and we don't want the international community also to be distracted."

CNBC's Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

Read CNBC's live updates to see the latest news on the COVID-19 outbreak.

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Watch live: World Health Organization holds press conference on the coronavirus outbreak - CNBC

Polis says cease and desist order issued to company behind Weld County rodeo – 9News.com KUSA

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Polis also said during a news conference Thursday that the last call order is among the 'least bad options' for preventing coronavirus spread.

DENVER Gov. Jared Polis provided an update on Colorado's response to COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon, where he said the Attorney General's office is issuing a cease and desist notice to Live Entertainment, the company that organized an event in Weld County on Sunday that drew a large crowd.

Polis called the event a "super-spreader event" and said an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 people attended.

"The Attorney Generals office, on behalf of CDPHE, has sent a cease and desist letter to Live Entertainment, the organizer of the July 26 rodeo and concert in Weld County," The Attorney General's office said in a statement. "The order prohibits the company from holding any future Colorado events that would violate executive and public health orders related to the size of outdoor gatherings, social distancing, and the statewide mask order."

Asked about an executive order moving last call for alcohol at bars and restaurants from from 2 a.m. to 10 p.m., Polis said it is "one of the least bad options" available for fighting to spread of COVID-19.

Watch the full press conference:

On Wednesday, a judge refused to grant a restraining order to prevent Polis' order from taking place.

Asked about President Trump suggesting the election in November be rescheduled due to concerns about mail-in voting fraud, Polis said the election will happen in November.

"Our democracy will not become a causality of this pandemic," Polis said.

Polis also said IKEA calculated the amount of unemployment benefits its Colorado employees have applied for, and is donating around a million dollars to the state's COVID-19 relief fund.

On Sunday, on a private farm in southeast Weld County near Hudson, hundreds gathered for a concert and Mexican bull-riding competition, no masks or social distancing required. And no permit required, either, according to Weld County laws.

The event promoter has already gotten into trouble this year for hosting a similar event in Elbert County a month ago that resulted in a COVID-19 outbreak and sent at least one person to the hospital.

Polis likened attending large gatherings to drunk driving during a news conference Tuesday afternoon, during which he presented data that shows the state teetering on the edge of potentially concerning trends in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is more like drunk driving than it is juggling knives in the privacy of your own home, Polis said of a large gathering that happened in Weld County over the weekend. When youre drunk driving, youre putting yourself at risk, but youre also putting others at risk.

Colorados hospitalization numbers have stayed in the mid 200s in recent days well below the states capacity but above the data from early June.

Following a day and 1/2 of testimony, Judge Brian Whitney refused to grant a temporary restraining order that would've have prevented Polis' executive order on last call from taking place.

Several bar owners testified Wednesday morning, hoping to be granted a temporary restraining order that would allow them to operate outside of the order while it's challenged through the court system.

Even before the order went into effect on July 23, bars, such as the Blake Street Tavern, vowed to sue over the action, which is set to remain in place for 30 days.

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Polis says cease and desist order issued to company behind Weld County rodeo - 9News.com KUSA

Thanks to COVID-19, everybody wants Densitys technology tracking building occupancy and use – TechCrunch

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Before the COVID-19 epidemic, Density was being used by companies like TechCrunchs parent company, Verizon, to see how it could better use office space after the Yahoo!/Aol merger. Now, thanks to the COVID-19 epidemic, everyone wants the companys technology to track building and room occupancy and use.

Its one reason why the company managed to raise $51 million in a new round of funding led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from previous investors like Dick Costolos 01 Advisors and the Los Angeles-based investment firm, Upfront Ventures.

The primary driver [for demand] has been being able to reopen buildings safely and to do so without invading privacy, says Density chief executive Andrew Farah.

And while the company started out as a service for data-loving tech companies, retail stores and coffee chains, it has now become a ubiquitous technology needed for every business with shared space, said Farah. That means fulfillment centers, grocery stores, warehouses and meat processing plants, in addition to something like TechCrunch headquarters.

What will the company do with all that money? Spend it on sales, marketing and actually getting the tech into customers buildings, according to Farah.

A lot of what were going to invest in is customer success, core infrastructure and growing our product and sales, said Farah. The first time our customers hear about us is when they get on a demo for a sales call.

New orders for the companys hardware and software service are pouring in, he said. And these orders range from $20,000 to $50,000 pilot projects to seven-figure, thousand-unit initial deployments. All of our customers end up tripling in size from their initial land, he said. Density charges a one-time fee of $895 for installation of its sensors and another $800 per-sensor per-year for access to the data.

Density works through both channel partners and direct sales, according to Farah, and the urgency of its potential customers has led to the massive uptick in funding.

A lot of customers are trying to solve a problem that they had last week. Theres a sense of urgency from real estate and safety teams that we havent seen before, said Farah.

Behind all of this is the demand from employees for safe, socially distanced public workspaces as the country continues to battle the COVID-19 epidemic that continues to ravage the U.S.

And while COVID-19 may be todays main selling point, investors like Upfront Ventures Mark Suster saw the value in Densitys technology much earlier. The investment thesis for me combines my belief in computer vision as a next-gen I/O (3) along with my thesis that The Innovators Dilemma or Deflationary Economics drive all of the largest success on the Internet (4). Todays people tracking solutions are hugely expensive and mostly used in retail environments, Suster wrote in a blog post announcing Upfronts initial investment in the company, back in 2016. The costs have greatly limited adoption and we think thats about to change in a massive way.

A 2016 animation of Densitys tracking capabilities via GIPHY.

At Kleiner Perkins, the latest firm to back Densitys computer vision-based technology, the investment was a year-long process.

I had heard through the grapevine that they were going to talk to investors, said Ilya Fushman, a new director at the company and one of Kleiner Perkins partners, who had first begun speaking with Farah about a year ago.

Fushman said that Kleiner was interested in the real estate market, and its commitment to Density falls in line with another recent investment in Proxy, a startup providing cardless and fobless building access controls.

If you look for market sizing, which we do, there are few markets that are as big as real estate, Fushman said. Its also a market thats historically been under-penetrated by technology. A lot of building management is done on pen and paper when it comes to space utilization.

Both access control and utilization have been areas that more companies need to get a handle on thanks to the COVID-19 epidemic, which made backing a company like Density a natural fit, he said.

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Thanks to COVID-19, everybody wants Densitys technology tracking building occupancy and use - TechCrunch

Healthcare Analytics Market Research Report by Technology, by Component, by Deployment, by Application, by End User – Global Forecast to 2025 -…

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New York, July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Healthcare Analytics Market Research Report by Technology, by Component, by Deployment, by Application, by End User - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940834/?utm_source=GNW

The Global Healthcare Analytics Market is expected to grow from USD 11,461.21 Million in 2019 to USD 40,781.56 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 23.55%.

Market Segmentation & Coverage:This research report categorizes the Healthcare Analytics to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets:

"The Prescriptive Analytics is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period"

Based on Technology, the Healthcare Analytics Market studied across Descriptive Analytics, Predictive Analytics, and Prescriptive Analytics. The Predictive Analytics commanded the largest size in the Healthcare Analytics Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Prescriptive Analytics is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period.

"The Services is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period"

Based on Component, the Healthcare Analytics Market studied across Services and Software. The Software commanded the largest size in the Healthcare Analytics Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Services is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period.

"The On-Cloud is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period"

Based on Deployment, the Healthcare Analytics Market studied across On-Cloud and On-Premise. The On-Premise commanded the largest size in the Healthcare Analytics Market in 2019. On the other hand, the On-Cloud is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period.

"The Clinical Analytics is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period"

Based on Application, the Healthcare Analytics Market studied across Clinical Analytics, Financial Analytics, Operational & Administrative Analytics, and Population Health Analytics. The Financial Analytics commanded the largest size in the Healthcare Analytics Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Clinical Analytics is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period.

"The Healthcare Payer is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period"

Based on End User, the Healthcare Analytics Market studied across Healthcare Payer, Healthcare Provider, Academic Organization, and Biotechnology Industry. The Healthcare Provider commanded the largest size in the Healthcare Analytics Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Healthcare Payer is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period.

"The Asia-Pacific is projected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period"

Based on Geography, the Healthcare Analytics Market studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region surveyed across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region surveyed across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region surveyed across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. The Americas commanded the largest size in the Healthcare Analytics Market in 2019. On the other hand, the Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period.

Company Usability Profiles:The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Healthcare Analytics Market including Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc., Cerner Corporation, CitiusTech Inc., Health Catalyst, Inc., Inovalon, Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, McKesson Corporation, MedeAnalytics Inc., Optum, Inc., Oracle Corporation, SAS Institute, Inc., SCIOInspire, Corp., Verscend Technologies, Inc., VitreosHealth, Inc., and Wipro, Ltd..

FPNV Positioning Matrix:The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Healthcare Analytics Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape.

Competitive Strategic Window:The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth.

Cumulative Impact of COVID-19:COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market.

The report provides insights on the following pointers:1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments

The report answers questions such as:1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Healthcare Analytics Market?2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Healthcare Analytics Market during the forecast period?3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Healthcare Analytics Market?4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Healthcare Analytics Market?5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Healthcare Analytics Market?6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Healthcare Analytics Market?Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05940834/?utm_source=GNW

About ReportlinkerReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

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Healthcare Analytics Market Research Report by Technology, by Component, by Deployment, by Application, by End User - Global Forecast to 2025 -...

The 6 Biggest Technology Trends In Accounting And Finance – Forbes

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The explosion in data that has launched the Fourth Industrial Revolution, an era when business will be transformed by cyber-physical systems, has enabled several technology trends to develop. Every business can leverage these important trends and should pay attention to how best to use them, but accountants should really evaluate how these six technologies can be used strategically to achieve the companys business strategy.

The 6 Biggest Technology Trends In Accounting and Finance

1.Big Data

Data is crucial to make business financial decisions. Today, data isn't just numbers and spreadsheets that accountants have been familiar with for years; it also includes unstructured data that can be analyzed through natural language processing. This can allow for real-time status monitoring of financial matters. Data is the fuel that powers other technology trends that are transforming finance and accounting in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Even the audit process has been digitalized. In the financial realm, data produces valuable insights, drives results and creates a better experience for clients. Since everything leaves a digital footprint, the unprecedented digitalization of our world is creating opportunities to glean new insights from data that wasnt possible before. These insights help improve internal operations and build revenue.

2.Increased Computing Power

Just as it is for other companies, all the data created by our digitalized world would be useless or at least less powerful if it weren't for the advances in computing power. These changes allow accounting and finance departments and firms to store and use the data effectively. First, there are the cloud services from providers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft that provide scalable systems and software to leverage that can be accessed wherever and whenever it's needed. Edge computing has also grown. This is where the computing happens not in the cloud, but right where the data is collected. The adoption of 5G (fifth generation) cellular network technology will be the backbone of a smarter world. When quantum computing is fully adopted, it will be transformative in a way that cannot even be predicted at this point since it

will catapult our computing power exponentially. Quantum computers will be able to provide services and solve problems that werent possible with traditional computers. There will be tremendous value in the financial world for this capability.

3.Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence can help accounting and finance professionals be more productive. AI algorithms allow machines to take over time-consuming, repetitive, and redundant tasks. Rather than just crunch numbers, with the support of AI, financial professionals will be able to spend more time delivering actionable insight. Machines can help reduce costs and errors by streamlining operations. The more finance professionals rely on AI to do what it does bestanalyze and process a tremendous amount of data and take care of monotonous tasksthe more time humans will recover to do what they do best. New technology has changed the expectations clients have when working with companies, and it's the same for accounting. AI helps accountants be more efficient.

4.Intelligence of Things

When the internet of things, the system of interconnected devices and machines, combines with artificial intelligence, the result is the intelligence of things. These items can communicate and operate without human intervention and offer many advantages for accounting systems and finance professionals. The intelligence of things helps finance professionals track ledgers, transactions, and other records in real-time. With the support of artificial intelligence, patterns can be identified, or issues can be resolved quickly. This continuous monitoring makes accounting activities such as audits much more streamlined and stress-free. In addition, the intelligence of things improves inventory tracking and management.

5.Autonomous Robots

Robots don't have to be physical entities. In accounting and finance, robotic process automation (RPA) can handle repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as document analysis and processing, which is abundant in any accounting department. Freed up from these mundane tasks, accountants are able to spend time on strategy and advisory work. Intelligent automation (IA) is capable of mimicking human interaction and can even understand inferred meaning in client communication and adapt to an activity based on historical data. In addition, drones and unmanned aerial vehicles can even be deployed on appraisals and the like.

6. Blockchain

The final tech trend that has significant implications for accounting and finance professionals that I wish to cover is blockchain. A distributed ledger or blockchain is a highly secure database. It's a way to securely store and accurately record data, which has broad applications in accounting and financial records. Blockchain enables smart contracts, protecting and transferring ownership of assets, verifying people's identities and credentials, and more. Once blockchain is widely adopted, and challenges around industry regulation are overcome, it will benefit businesses by reducing costs, increasing traceability, and enhancing security.

To learn more about these technology trends as well as other key trends that are shaping the 4th industrial revolution, you can take a look at my new book, Tech Trends in Practice: The 25 Technologies That Are Driving The 4th Industrial Revolution

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The 6 Biggest Technology Trends In Accounting And Finance - Forbes

Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions Actuators and Radiation Hardened Technology Head Back to Mars on NASA’s Perseverance Rover – Business Wire

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ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions (CAES) announced today that its actuators and radiation hardened (RadHard) microelectronics are heading back to the planet of Mars as part of todays NASA MARS2020 Perseverance Rover Launch. The MARS2020 Perseverance rover mission is part of the NASA Mars Exploration Program's long-term robotic exploration of the red planet. Designed to advance high-priority science goals for Mars exploration, the mission will address key questions about the potential for life and challenges of future human expeditions to Mars.

"We are very excited to head back to the red planet as part of the Perseverance launch. Space is one of our passions at Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions and developing solutions for space and space exploration is in our core DNA, said Shawn Black, CEO, Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions. With the previous NASA Mars Curiosity Rover mission, CAES actuators and radiation hardened integrated circuits completed a 350 million mile journey and three years of daily tasks while withstanding the challenges of the grueling Martian atmosphere, including -120 C temperatures and a volatile dust environment. Our range of low, medium and high torque designs are built to endure a wide variety of motion-related activity and are ready for the mission ahead.

CAES actuators will drive the Perseverance rover wheels and provide steering motion, move the high-gain antenna and perform remote sensing mast deployment. They are also be featured in the instrument pack designed by Malin Space Science Systems. The Perseverance rovers electronics and payloads are based on Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions UT699 LEON microprocessor, which handles the computing functions for the motor controls as well as the UT54LVDS217 LVDS Serializer, UT54LVDS218 Deserializer and a variety of memory devices including the UT8MR2M8 MRAM, UT8Q512K32 SRAM and UT8QNF8M8 NOR Flash.

About Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions Space Portfolio

Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions is a premiere provider of mission-critical technologies for commercial, civil, military, and other government spacecraft. With a space pedigree spanning nearly 40 years and technology on nearly every spacecraft in the free world, CAES offers a full range of solutions for the worlds leading launch vehicles, satellites and space exploration spacecraft. Key capabilities include radiation hardened (RadHard) and high reliability microelectronics, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), electronic manufacturing services, LeanREL components, motion control and positioning, antennas and apertures, radiation effects testing, RF, microwave and millimeter wave microelectronics, motion control devices, power solutions, intellectual property cores, avionic solutions and LEON/SPARC processors. For more information, visit http://www.cobhamaes.com/space.

About Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions:

Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions is the largest provider of analog and radiation hardened technology for the United States aerospace and defense industry. With a broad portfolio of off-the-shelf and customized RF, microwave and high reliability microelectronic products and subsystems, CAES offers a complete range of solutions for the entire signal chain from aperture to digital conversion. http://www.cobhamaes.com

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Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions Actuators and Radiation Hardened Technology Head Back to Mars on NASA's Perseverance Rover - Business Wire

Congress grills Facebook over its acquisitions and feature cloning – Yahoo Tech

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During a massive antitrust hearing, Congress tried to force Mark Zuckerberg to answer some of the toughest questions yet around Facebook's acquisitions.

The companys 2012 deal to buy Instagram for $1 billion came under particular scrutiny when lawmakers quoted from several emails among Facebooks top executives, who talked about the need to neutralize a potential competitor. In another note, Facebook CFO Dave Wehner described the companys strategy as a land grab.

Zuckerberg expanded on the idea in another email. We can likely always just buy any competitive startups. But itll be a while before we can buy Google, he wrote. Later, when asked about the quote, Zuckerberg said he didnt remember writing the note, but said it sounds like a joke.

It wasnt the only incident Zuckerberg claimed not to remember.

Some of the most intense questioning on the subject came from Washington Democrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who repeatedly asked Zuckerberg about Facebook's strategy of trying to copy competing apps. It led to a rather incredible exchange, in which Jayapal asked about Zuckerbergs interactions with former Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom and Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel, both of which Zuckerberg said he didnt recall.

Has Facebook ever threatened to clone the products of another company while also attempting to acquire that company, Jayapal asked. Not that I recall, Zuckerberg said, prompting Jayapal to remind the CEO that he was under oath.

She then asked Zuckerberg if he had used Facebook Camera to threaten Systrom into agreeing to an acquisition.

Im not sure what you would mean by threaten, Zuckeberg said.

Were there any other companies you used this same tactic with, she asked, pointing to Snapchat and Zuckerbergs well-documented pursuit of the company.

I dont remember those specific conversations, he said.

Jayapal ended the questioning by calling Facebook a case study in monopoly power.

Your company harvests and monetizes our data, and then your company uses that data to spy on competitors and copy, acquire and kill rivals, she said. Youve used Facebooks power to threaten smaller competitors and to ensure that you always get your way. These tactics reinforce Facebooks dominance, which you then use in increasingly destructive ways. So Facebooks very model makes it impossible for new companies to flourish separately and that harms our democracy.

Zuckerberg wasn't the only CEO in attendance to face questions about his companys acquisitions. Google CEO Sundar Pichai was also hit with tough questions around Googles acquisition, and subsequent merger with DoubleClick.

And Amazons Jeff Bezos was asked about Amazons pursuit of diapers.com, and its plan to win against the competing online retailer, which eventually resulted in Amazon buying the company. Bezos, like Zuckerberg, cited a faulty memory.

Youre asking a lot of my memory, he said.

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Congress grills Facebook over its acquisitions and feature cloning - Yahoo Tech

The cheapest Cam Link clone you can buy actually works pretty well – The Verge

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As The Verges resident live-streaming reporter, I do a lot of streaming on my own time, both because its fun and because I want to know a little about what its like for the people I cover. Thats meant Ive gained a healthy appreciation for the various pieces of gear that make streaming possible because streaming is the opposite of effortless. Things break constantly, and most of the time for no obvious reason. (There but for the grace of god go we, etc.) All of that said, Ive found that upgrading my stream setup is one of the few true pleasures I have left; theres nothing quite as satisfying as adding a new camera or microphone or chat command that might elevate a viewers experience.

It is in that spirit the spirit of perpetual tinkering and perpetual upgrades that I bring you the cheapest, best piece of gear I own. It is a no-brand cam link that retails between $11 (eBay, but beware shipping times) and $26.99 (Amazon). This device is one of those magical things thats made possible by the confluence of online retail, consolidated manufacturing in China, and a global postal service. It simply couldnt have existed before.

As a clone of the popular Elgato Cam Link 4K (which retails for $129.99), all the device does is convert HDMI to USB, which is conceptually simple but technically more complex. The best of these devices do this conversion very quickly and at high fidelities; Elgatos version even handles 4K resolution. Due to the pandemic and the legions of people whove joined Twitch and YouTube, however, the brand name models have become difficult to find, which is where this weird little knockoff model comes in. My colleague Grayson, a motion designer at The Verge, tipped me off to it one day in early June, after he saw an excellent video review of the device from the YouTuber EposVox.

I thought the review was convincing, so I figured Id try it for myself. My friend and fellow streamer MikeAM took the plunge with me; we decided wed try to upgrade our video streams on the cheap because hey, why not? We each bought a 2018 GoPro Hero, some micro HDMI to HDMI cables, a non-HDCP HDMI splitter, and, of course, one of these cards. The difference was instantly apparent. Id been switching between my Logitech C922 and a Panasonic Lumix GH5 (which I borrow to shoot a late-night show on Twitch), and I could immediately see how much clearer the GoPros video was than the C922. (With a splitter, the HDMI converter doubles as an extremely cheap capture card for a console, though Id personally recommend shelling out for the more fully featured Elgato HD60 S.) The experiment worked.

Naturally, the star of the show was the capture card. It has a lot of limitations: it can only support 1080p / 60fps input, and its output maxes at 1080p / 30fps or 720p / 60fps. It also converts the image to MJPEG, which means the colors are sometimes a little wonky. (I used a filter in OBS to desaturate the image.) It also sometimes lags, which is a problem because you cant actually Google how to fix the problem theres no manual, really, and troubleshooting is nonexistent. The other thing to remember is that not all of these cheap cards are created equal; if you pick up one thats billed as USB 3.0, or one that looks a little different, that is an entirely different device.

But if you can work within those limitations, the device is a dream. Its plug n play: the card shows up on your computer as USB Video, and it works anywhere youd put a webcam, which includes Zoom, Discord, OBS, and more. The price point is also unbeatable. Lately Ive been using it with the Lumix. Its always a joy to plug in because I know its going to work. If you want to see what it looks like in action, feel free to follow me on Twitch.

Otherwise, if you have a camera that outputs HDMI and dont want to (or cant) shell out for an Elgato, Id say pick this little guy up. Its a cheap upgrade that, for me, has absolutely been worth it. Go see for yourself.

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The cheapest Cam Link clone you can buy actually works pretty well - The Verge

Former ‘Thone Clone’ Elroy Hefner remembered as caring, conservative legislator – Omaha World-Herald

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The World-Heralds Statehouse reporters round up news highlights from the Legislature and state government into the Capitol Digest a daily briefing for the political newshound with a busy schedule.

LINCOLN Former State Sen. Elroy Hefner of Coleridge one of the conservatives dubbed Thone Clones was being remembered Thursday as a caring and considerate legislator.

Hefner, who represented his northeast Nebraska district from 1976 to 1993, died Sunday at his home from apparent natural causes. He was 96.

His oldest son, Bill, said that his father liked to help people.

He said he once left the dinner table on Sunday to take a phone call from a constituent, and talked issues for a half hour.

Veteran lobbyist Walt Radcliffe said that his clients didnt often agree with Hefners conservative stances. But the senator, he said, was approachable and truly a gentlemen to work with.

There was never anything that was mean spirited about him, Radcliffe said.

Hefner, a Republican, was one of a group of conservative senators who were called the Thone Clones because their views aligned well with then-Gov. Charley Thone, who was governor from 1979-83.

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Former 'Thone Clone' Elroy Hefner remembered as caring, conservative legislator - Omaha World-Herald

Lucasfilm Reportedly Has Plans To Bring Yoda Back Via Cloning – We Got This Covered

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The legacy characters will always be a hugely important part of the Star Wars mythology, but in the recent movies it felt like Disney and Lucasfilm would much rather return to the well over and over again instead of mining the untapped potential of new faces, planets and galaxies that have never been seen in live-action before.

A lot of fans rolled their eyes when it was revealed that Palpatine was coming back to establish himself as the main villain for the third trilogy in a row, and as great as it was to see Billy Dee Williams return as Lando Calrissian, he didnt exactly contribute much to The Rise of Skywalkers plot.

Meanwhile, Han Solo might be one of the most iconic figures in popular culture, but that didnt stop his origin story from bombing at the box office, and theres even been reports that the studio want to bring Luke Skywalker back in a future project despite Mark Hamill making it clear that his time in the role is done. The general consensus is that the Disney era of Star Wars has been sorely lacking in originality and creativity, and if what were hearing now ends up panning out, then things show no signs of changing anytime soon.

According to our intel which comes from the same sources that told us Ahsoka Tano would be appearing in the second season ofThe Mandalorian, and that [SPOILERS] would be revealed as a traitor in The Rise of Skywalker in a future Star Wars movie an as-yet-unnamed villain will attempt and ultimately succeed in cloning Yoda in an effort to turn the benevolent Jedi Master into a puppet they can use for their own nefarious means.

While it cant be confirmed exactly which movie this is said to be happening in, weve heard that it would most likely be the proposed solo outing for Daisy Ridleys Rey rather than the three recently-delayed films that were pushed back to 2023, 2025 and 2027. And the idea of another perennial favorite returning to Star Wars yet again certainly fits in with Lucasfilms approach to the franchise.

That being said, even though Baby Yoda is clearly where the money is, and Mandos companion has also been rumored for a big screen appearance of his own, itd be hard to see longtime fans getting on board with the idea of an evil Yoda. But alas, this is what the studio currently has in mind and itll be interesting to see if they actually go through with it.

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Lucasfilm Reportedly Has Plans To Bring Yoda Back Via Cloning - We Got This Covered

How Star Wars Bounty Hunter Influenced The Clone Wars Canon – Screen Rant

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Released as a prequel to Attack of the Clones, Bounty Hunter deepens the Clone Wars by filling in plot holes and enriching established characters.

Six months after the release of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, LucasArts released Star Wars: Bounty Hunter,a video game prequel that expands on the film. Filling in plot holes and enriching characters, the game is a vital part of Star Wars historyand its relevance extends well beyond the prequel films and intoThe Clone Wars.

Despite having a war named after them, the clones of The Clone Wars have a murky history. While the conspiracy behind the clones' creation is eventually explained, no explanation is ever provided for why Jango Fett served as their template. Attack of the Clones just matter-of-factly states that Jango is a renowned bounty hunter, the template for the clone army, and the father of Boba Fett (who is an unaltered clone of Jango). The lack of detail and Jango's ignominious death make the the entire context appear contrived for the sake of fan service with Jango only existing to shoehorn Boba into theThe Clone Wars. From the perspective of Attack of the Clones, Jango is a throwaway character.

Related: The Mandalorian Is More Like Jango Fett Than Boba

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter fills in the history behind Attack of the Clones, and, in so doing, proves Jango deserves his clone legacy. Jango earns the riches of fathering the clone army by hunting down Komari Vosa, a Jedi-turned-drug lord. Vosa's illicit operations threaten Darth Sidious expanding influence, so Sidious' apprentice, Count Dooku, puts a bounty on Vosa with the intent of offering the victorious bounty hunter, who would then be a verified Jedi killer, the opportunity of being the the template for the Grand Army of the Republic. Jango's selection as template results from an elaborate scheme hatched by Sidious and Dooku, and is justly earned as Jango demonstrates brutal efficiency worthy of acknowledgment by Sith Lords. Star Wars:Bounty Hunter turns a plot hole into riveting drama.

Over the course of Star Wars:Bounty Hunter, players not only see Jangos ruthlessness, but also his loneliness. Jango makes it clear he doesnt trust anyone, yet he still longs for connection. Jango's banter with his partner Roz, as well as his nostalgic attachment to a mentor's ship, imply his desire for relationships. That is why, upon accepting Dookus offer, Jango asks for the unaltered clone, whom he names Boba. No longer just a plot point, Bobas entry into the prequel-era contains genuine pathos.

Aside from legitimizing Jango, Bounty Hunter humanizes Count Dooku. Vosa is Count Dookus former apprentice, and her drug empire became so expansive because, as Sidious puts it, Dooku allowed her to live. Dooku explains his lack of action as an experiment to see what Vosa could do, but its a weak excuse. From his stuttering to the way he tenderly touches her corpse, Dookus mannerisms betray his feelings. This dilemma reemerges in The Clone Wars when Dooku is ordered to kill his newest apprentice, the assassin Ventress, to whom he gifted Vosas lightsabers. Dooku, like he did with Vosa, caves to his masters demands and orders Ventress death, but he voices opposition. Sidious, of course, doesn't tolerate insubordination and uses Dooku's compassion as an excuse to chastise, and even brutalize him. In The Clone Wars episode, "The Lost Ones," Sidious chokes Dooku while mocking his failure involving Vosa, saying "This is not the first time you have proven to be clumsy." Dooku commits countless atrocities bythe end of The Clone Wars but thanks to Star Wars:Bounty Hunter his villainy becomes tragic rather than one-note. Within the Sith Lord once existed compassion, compassion terrorized out of him by Darth Sidious.

Star Wars Bounty Hunter may not be official canon any more, but weighed against its contributions, that is irrelevant. The game takes a seemingly contrived plot and turns it into a gritty story that deepens characters and stories from The Clone Wars. Star Wars:Bounty Hunter is essential Star Warsmedia.

Next: Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Could've Been LucasArts' Uncharted

Joe Rogan Says Gaming Is "Real Problem" & Waste Of Players' Time

Nicholas is a freelance game writer for Screen Rant, a regular contributor to Goombastomp, and former Game Informer intern. A graduate of the University of California San Diego, Nicholas got a degree in philosophy and loves to dive deep into the artistic side of gaming.

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How Star Wars Bounty Hunter Influenced The Clone Wars Canon - Screen Rant

Clone troopers feeling remorse amid execution of Jedi – Dork Side of the Force

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MADRID, SPAIN - DECEMBER 15: A Commander Cody clone trooper figure is exhibited at the 'Star Wars Exhibition' at Telefonica flagship store on December 15, 2017 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Eduardo Parra/Getty Images)

Star Wars fans are familiar with the evolution of the grand army of the Republic and the final dreaded outcome that was to befall the clones troopers.

After three long years of war, clone troopers across the galaxy dropped their Jedi comrades like a bad habit in an instant and without warning once Order 66 was issued by Palpatine.

But did at any given point in time any of the clone troopers feel guilty and/or full of remorse before, during or after the slayings?

Not likely.

We are familiar with Rex and other clone troopers that were not included in the mass killings of the Jedi. But for those that partook it was just like flipping a switch, one second your fighting alongside the Jedi and the next you are blasting them away.

A key thing is that only the Jedi (and still the separatists) were targeted by the clones. Any senators or other beings who were sympathetic to the Jedi were kept alive as long as they didnt fight with the troops. As we see is the case with Bail Organa at the Jedi Temple, when he asks whats going on.

Bail Organa arrives at the Jedi temple upon seeing the smoke. He exits his speeder and is greeted by clone troopers. Whats going on here, asks the senator.

Theres been a rebellion,sir, dont worry the situation is under control, replies one of the troopers, who then aims his blaster at Organa and states, Im sorry sir, its time for you to leave.

Bail Organa replies, and so it is. He turns to leave as a young Jedi attacks the clones, but alas the numbers are too much and the youngster is killed. Senator Bail Organa cries out in horror and bails into his speeder and doesnt look back. He later recounts this harrowing scene to masters Yoda and Kenobi.

Interesting then that the trooper is able to differentiate Jedi and Organa, after he has just blasted down many Jedi in the temple. There likely was no remorse for the Jedi because Order 66 was akin to a switch being flipped. An order implanted since day one. Only Sith would be truly evil enough and posses ruthlessness and cunning needed enough to organize a mass extermination of Jedi and have it play out more than a decade later.

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Clone troopers feeling remorse amid execution of Jedi - Dork Side of the Force

TV and Film Review: The Clone Wars Season 1: The Gungan General – Fantha Tracks

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When The Clone Wars first aired back in late 2008, Lightsabre.co.uk guest reviewers looked at the show, giving their initial gut impressions on that groundbreaking first season but not every review was completed, and so those reviews written at the time were never published. In a brand new article, Adam Lamping looks back at the twelfth episode of season one The Gungan General.

Fail with honor rather than succeed by fraud.

Dooku held for ransom! After escaping capture by Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the villainous Count Dooku fell into the clutches of pirates led by the brigand Hondo Ohnaka. Eager to get custody of Dooku, the Republic agreed to pay Hondo a hefty sum in exchange for the Sith Lord.

But Anakin and Obi-Wan had not counted on the treacherous cunning of Ohnaka and his band.

Adam Lamping

Picking-up right from where the previous episode, Dooku Captured left-off, The Gungan General opens with Obi-Wan and Anakin waking-up in a prison cell and chained to Count Dooku, having been drugged by Hondo. With the impending arrival of the ransom for Sith Lord, Hondos crew, led by Turk, seek to double-cross the pirate captain, and take the spice for themselves. Jar Jar accompanies Senator Kharrus to Florrum, and as he is so often prone to do, becomes more of a hindrance than a help, seemingly contributing to the senators death when the Republic gunship is shot down by the pirates. As a result, Jar Jar becomes the highest-ranked individual in the group, with Commander Stone and the Clone Troopers all looking to him for leadership.

Amidst a constant stream of bickering between the Jedi and Sith, Dooku engineers an escape for the three of them, though their freedom is short-lived, and they are returned to their cell. You can never keep a good Jedi down though, and its not long before Obi-Wan has used the Force to influence a weak-minded Weequay to open the prison door, allowing him, Anakin and Dooku to make a break for it.

Then it is back to the skirmish between the pirates and the Republic party, with the former getting the upper-hand, allowing them to make-off with the spice. Jar Jar makes a smart observation about the indigenous skalders, who sense when it is safe to hide within the acid geysers, and subsequently following the lead of the creatures to climb out just before the geyser erupts! It is not long before the group are seen riding the beasts, catching-up with the pirates and regaining the ransom.

Meanwhile, Anakin, Obi-Wan and Dookus efforts to evade Hondo are once again unsuccessful, resulting in the two Jedi being tortured, much to the delight of the pirate captain.

Turks desperation to obtain the spice sees him taking three tanks in a show of force, while Jar Jar accepts the responsibility of being the one to go out and negotiate with the pirates. Cue more clumsiness from the Gungan, which, as weve seen before, ends-up working out for the best, resulting in the destruction of the tanks and the power lines that service Hondos base.

The loss of power to the prison door means that Dooku is able to walk out of his cell and overcome his guard, while Anakin and Obi-Wan are also freed and quickly regain their weapons to turn-the-tables on Hondo. In the process of making his escape on one of the pirate ships, Dooku shows no mercy to Turk, while the Jedi, displaying more noble traits, allow Hondo to live another day.

One interesting point to make about this episode, is that it is one of a few where Jar Jar is voiced by B.J. Hughes, and not Ahmed Best.

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TV and Film Review: The Clone Wars Season 1: The Gungan General - Fantha Tracks