What we’re learning from Iceland this week is as fascinating as it is crucial to fighting the coronavirus epidemic: That somewhere in the neighborhood of half of everyone testing positive for the coronavirus will show absolutely no symptoms.

The hard data, out of Iceland, straight from their (impressive) health ministry’s dedicated COVID-19 page:

– As of March 25, Iceland has administered 12,615 tests.
– Of those tests, Iceland has found 802 confirmed cases.
– While it might not sound like a lot, in a sparsely-populated nation of around 364,000 citizens, it’s an impressive number. They’ve nearly tested 3.4 percent of the entire country (compared to the United States, and according to the COVID-19 Project data tracker: we’ve tested 432,655 of our 327 million citizens, or just a tenth of one percent of our country’s population). Iceland currently claims to have tested more citizens per capita] than any other country in the world.

Needless to say, Iceland’s efforts are revealing fascinating and potentially lifesaving details about the virus. And via BuzzFeed News, it’s how they came to the striking conclusion about symptom rates, emphasis ours:

“Early results from deCode Genetics indicate that a low proportion of the general population has contracted the virus and that about half of those who tested positive are non-symptomatic,” said [Iceland’s chief epidemiologist Thorolfur] Guðnason. “The other half displays very moderate cold-like symptoms.”

Consider: Right now, in America, if you don’t have a fever, or aches, or any other cold or flu-like symptoms, nobody would tell you not to go to the store. Nobody would tell you not to leave your apartment. Unless you had been in contact with someone who tested positive, showed symptoms, or to an epicenter of the outbreak, nobody would advise you to self-quarantine. Because nobody would be advising you to quarantine, you could still be spreading the virus to other people — and of course, in any of those places, other people who should be quarantined could be spreading the virus to you.

This is the value of widespread testing. If we knew you had it, we would tell you: Isolate yourself, stay inside. In America, we’re currently testing mostly just to confirm suspected cases of COVID-19. In America, in order to get a test, right now, you’re likely on your way to or at a hospital. Or you have symptoms (labored breathing, high fever) that could send you there. In Iceland, again, they’re just testing, testing, testing, whoever they can, whenever they can.

They haven’t implemented a lockdown or a curfew, but they have banned gatherings of over 20 people, advised quarantine measures, and again: Test, test, test. Having widespread testing allows them to isolate those with the virus, and thus, the virus itself. Even more, it empowers Iceland to continue some semblance of life as it normally is — more than many, many other places in the world without the kind of testing operation that they have can say for themselves right now. In other words: Iceland’s citizenry might be small, but what they lack for in size, they more than make up for in power — by doing nothing more than being accounted for, handing out an urgent lesson the entire world can stand to learn from right now.

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Dying Off

The Great Barrier Reef just suffered its third mass coral bleaching event in just five years, and officials are now giving even more dire predictions for the reef’s future.

Australian officials have now downgraded the long-term outlook for the Great Barrier Reef to “very poor,” reports Agence France-Presse. The bad news drives home — yet again — that we are already facing very real consequences of the climate change crisis.

Widespread Damage

The new bleaching event is particularly troubling because it’s far more widespread than the two that occurred in 2016 and 2017, AFP reports.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the agency that updated the reef’s prognosis, reports that there was “moderate or severe bleaching” even in areas that hadn’t yet been damaged at all during previous bleaching events.

Heating Up

The Australian government says that it’s exceeded its emission goals and is ahead of the pack, as far as keeping to the Paris climate agreement is concerned, but experts told AFP that it still needs to do more.

There’s an “urgent need for reef-safe climate policies,” Shani Tager of the Australian Marine Conservation Society told AFP.

READ MORE: Great Barrier Reef suffers mass coral bleaching event [Agence France-Presse­]

More on the Great Barrier Reef: Scientists Testify: The Great Barrier Reef Can’t Be Saved Through Current Efforts

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Meanwhile, The Great Barrier Reef Had a Horrible Bleaching Event

For emergency physician Joshua Lerner, the American government and healthcare industry’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is so inadequate and fragmentary that he likens it to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union.

In both crises, Lerner writes in a Scientific American op-ed, people on the front lines worked tirelessly to save others’ lives despite being equipped with makeshift, insufficient protective gear. Back then it was scrap metal meant to shield against deadly radiation. Now it’s home-sewn masks and reused hospital gowns being used to treat patients sick with a dangerous virus.

“Please don’t tell me that in the richest country in the world in the 21st century, I’m supposed to work in a fictionalized Soviet-era disaster zone and fashion my own face mask out of cloth while others in our country hoard supplies for personal use and profiteering as so-called leaders sit around in meetings hearing themselves talk,” Lerner writes.

It’s embarrassing, Lerner argues, that America’s massive corporations haven’t mobilized against the pandemic.

Companies like 3M, he writes, should have already stopped everything to churn out medical supplies like masks and gowns at a massive scale. Amazon should be lending its massive logistics network to quickly distribute tests and medical supplies to hospitals across the country.

“I don’t want talk. I don’t want assurances. I want action,” Lerner writes. “I want boxes of N95 masks piling up in hospitals, donated from the people who hoarded them or from stockpiles of less critical use.”

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Vacuums to Ventilators

British company Dyson — best known for its sleek vacuum cleaners — has announced it has designed a new ventilator called the “CoVent” in just ten days, according to CNN, to help the UK treat coronavirus patients.

The company is planning to produce 15,000 ventilators to help fight the pandemic, 5,000 of which will be donated to other countries.

“A ventilator supports a patient who is no longer able to maintain their own airways, but sadly there is currently a significant shortage, both in the UK and other countries around the world,” company founder James Dyson wrote in an open letter, as quoted by CNN.

Race to Production

Just ten days ago, Dyson received a call from UK prime minster Boris Johnson, asking the company to help the country’s National Health Service by supplying ventilators.

The newly designed CoVent ventilator is a portable battery-powered ventilator that can be mounted to the side of a hospital bed.

Ten Days

Ten days is an extremely short turnaround time to design something so complex.

“The core challenge was how to design and deliver a new, sophisticated medical product in volume and in an extremely short space of time,” Dyson added. “The race is now on to get it into production.”

The news comes after tech magnate Elon Musk announced late last night via Twitter that he’s planning to reopen Tesla’s Gigafactory in Buffalo, New York to also start manufacturing ventilators.

READ MORE: James Dyson designed a new ventilator in 10 days. He’s making 15,000 for the pandemic fight [CNN]

More on ventilators: Elon Musk: NY Gigafactory Will Reopen to Produce Ventilators

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Vacuum Maker Dyson Designed a New Ventilator in Just 10 Days

Streaming Slowdowns

According to a new report by Broadband Now, a consumer advocate website that compares U.S. internet service providers (ISPs), many cities are experiencing internet slowdowns during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

Out of the country’s 200 most populous cities, 88 “have experienced some degree of network degradation over the past week compared to the 10 weeks prior,” according to the report. Three cities “experienced significant degradations, falling out of their ten-week range by more than 40 percent.” Most cities, however, didn’t find their speeds deviate by more than 20 percent.

New York City, one of the hardest hit US cities by the coronavirus, experienced slowdowns of up to 24 percent last week.

In many of the hardest hit areas, though, increased demand from households streaming “The Office” for the 14th time while self-isolating hasn’t affected speeds at all. “Cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Brooklyn, and San Francisco have all experienced little or no disruption,” reads the report.

Speed Bump

Broadband testing service Ookla also found that median download speeds dropped an average 4.9 percent compared to last week.

According to the Speedtest Global Index by the same company, the US is number eight in terms of fixed broadband speeds, with Singapore, Hong Kong and Monaco taking up the top three spots. But not everybody has access. According to a 2019 Pew Research report, 33 million people in the US are still living without internet.

To cope with the onslaught of streamers, YouTube announced it will default to standard, rather than high, definition for users worldwide. Facebook and Netflix have also decided to cut the overall quality of their streams while the pandemic continues, for the same reason.

READ MORE: 88 out of top 200 US cities have seen internet speeds decline this past week, 3 cities by more than 40% [TechCrunch]

More on the virus: Vacuum Maker Dyson Designed a New Ventilator in Just 10 Days

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There are those who have been around the block, and then, there’s this guy: A 101-year-old Italian man has survived the 1918 flu, a World War, and now, the coronavirus. What’d you do today?

A patient known as “Mr. P” was admitted last week to Infirmi Hospital in Remini, Italy after testing positive for COVID-19. Mr. P was born in 1919, as the 1918 flu pandemic — which would go on to kill an estimated 600,000 Italians — was in full-swing. And on Wednesday night, 101 someodd years later, Mr. P was discharged from the hospital, and taken home by his family.

The Vice Mayor of Rimini, Gloria Lisi, provided a statement to local newspaper ReminiToday about the man. The (incredibly poetic) statement, roughly translated, reads:

“Given the progress of the virus, it could not even be called a ‘story like many’ if it were not for a detail that makes the life of the person returned to their loved ones truly extraordinary.

Mr. P., from Rimini, was born in 1919, in the midst of another tragic world pandemic. He saw everything, hunger, pain, progress, crisis and resurrections. Once over the 100-year-old barrier, fate has put this new challenge before him, invisible and terrible at the same time. Last week, Mr. P. was hospitalized at in Rimini after testing positive for COVID-19. In a few days, it became ‘history’ for doctors, nurses, and the rest of the healthcare personnel who treated him.

A hope for the future finds itself in the body of a person over a century old, as the sad chronicles of these weeks mechanically tell every day of a virus that is raging especially on the elderly.

Yet, Mr. P. made it. The family brought him home yesterday evening, to teach us that even at 101-years-old, the future has yet to be written.”

Per the Hopkins Map, as of this writing, Italy leads the world in COVID-19 infections resulting in death, and is likely to overtake China within the day for total confirmed infections. But their rate of infections continues to slow, and the country’s lockdown appears to be working. The reality of the math is brutal, but Mayor Lisi isn’t wrong: The future, as doubly evidenced, isn’t entirely bleak, and has very, very much yet to be written.

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Keep on Swimming

Canadian artist Julie Laurin recently started a livestream of tardigrades — microscopic, eight-legged micro-animals also known as “water bears” — wriggling around on Twitch. And it’s exactly the kind of thing we need right now.

You can watch a full, narrated hour of tardigrade action on Laurin’s Twitch channel.

The stream, first spotted by Boing Boing, is part of a project called “A Tiny World” that explores microscopic life that surrounds us.

Good morning! Here's a little Tardigrade that I collected in a sample of balcony water yesterday. @tardigradopedia pic.twitter.com/hwcC0cOMxv

— A tiny world (Julie Laurin) (@atinyworldorg) March 25, 2020

All Around

“By sharing this journey with you, my hope is that maybe you’ll be inspired to get your own microscope, or to look closer at the little objects and creatures all around you!” Laurin’s description of the project reads on an official website.

So where is Laurin finding all of these critters? In dirt found on her balcony. “There are hundreds and hundreds of #Tardigrades that live on my balcony and I think they thrive in this brownish-greenish film and dirt that has formed over the years due to improper draining,” Laurin wrote in a tweet.

Little Water Bears

First discovered by biologists in the late 1700s, tardigrades are tiny micro-animals that can be found in a huge variety of environments, from oceans to sand dunes.

They’re also immensely resilient creatures: they can survive the vacuum of space, adapt to severe dehydration, and can even block intense blasts of radiation. But they might have an Achilles heel after all, according to recent research: global warming.

READ MORE: It’s fun to watch tardigrades squirm around on Twitch, adorably [Boing Boing]

More on tardigrades: Scientists: Global Warming Could Kill Tardigrades

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This Livestream of Tardigrades on Twitch is Oddly Soothing

Planning Ahead

Even if we band together as a planet and prevent some of the worst impacts of climate change, some parts of the world could gradually become so hot that people can no longer live there.

That means that millions could find themselves in search of a new home. But instead of migrating as climate refugees, a growing number of researchers and design experts suspect they could stay put, according to OneZero — by digging into the Earth and building subterranean cities beneath the ones we live in today.

Digging In

In some places, people are already doing this. OneZero lists places like Coober Pedy, Australia, where the entire town exists in 30-foot-deep trenches and caves so people can escape the unbearable desert heat.

There are underground regions of cities in Japan, Mexico, China, and Finland. More are being constructed in places like Singapore and the United States. But architect Esteban Suárez has a grander vision: massive, underground cities that resemble upside-down skyscrapers.

“We thought it would be very interesting,” Suárez told OneZero, “instead of going up with a skyscraper, what would happen if we dug down through these layers of cities?”

Not Ready

Suárez originally wanted to build his so-called Earthscraper in the heart of Mexico City to mitigate low-income workers’ unsustainably-long commutes. But the city blocked it because he would have had to dig through culturally and historically-important sites.

“We need to go vertical in this city because urban sprawl cannot continue growing,” Suárez told OneZero.

READ MORE: As Disasters Mount, Our Cities May Need to Move Underground [OneZero]

More on the future of cities: Professor: Pandemic Will Force the Rich Into Hiding

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USA Number One

On Thursday, the United States went flying past every other nation’s count, to  claim the title of the most coronavirus cases in the world. As of this morning, the United States has upwards of 94,000 cases, while China currently stands at just past of 86,000 — despite the fact that China has four times the population than the US.

The number of deaths is still comparatively low in the US at around 1,400 (Italy, by comparison, is at a staggering 8,200 deaths so far).

It’s a grim reality — an entire country of 330 million people has come to a standstill with people self-isolating at home to keep themselves and the people around them safe.

Testing, Testing

And the trend is very likely to continue as the US has been extremely slow in testing new patients. South Korea alone has tested more than six times the number of patients, as NPR reports.

Countless patients have been turned away because they simply didn’t meet the prerequisite symptoms — or because hospitals simply didn’t have any tests available. Others were denied any treatment because they didn’t have health insurance.

Bleak Outlook

The US economy is in shambles right now. The news comes after almost 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment claims last week — the highest number in recorded history. The next highest weekly number of claims was in October 1982 with just 695,000.

But competent leadership is hard to come by right now with Trump in office. While the number of cases and deaths are soaring in the country, president Trump announced on Tuesday that he would like to have the country “opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” as CNN reported, despite the fact that doing so could have disastrous consequences, according to experts.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated the number of American deaths due to COVID-19; the number is 1,400, not 3,200 — that’s China’s current count. The article has been updated to reflect the accurate number.

READ MORE: U.S. Surpasses China In Cases Of Coronavirus [NPR]

More on the virus: Bill Gates Is Pissed: “We Should’ve Done More” to Stop COVID-19

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Border Patrol

Mexican protesters shut down the border with the United States on Thursday by blocking roadways, fearing American travelers spreading the deadly coronavirus pandemic to their country.

“There are no health screenings by the federal government to deal with this pandemic,” protester Jose Luis Hernandez told USA Today. “We’ve taken this action to call on the Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to act now.”

Turn Tables

The protesters, wearing facemasks, told the BBC that although the border is supposed to be closed to all but “essential” business, travelers from the United States are still being allowed through with no health screening.

It’s an ironic reversal, as the U.S. has cracked down on border security under the Trump administration. But now, flipping that dynamic, the U.S. has more confirmed cases of COVID-19 than anywhere on Earth — whereas Mexico only had 500 as of Thursday, according to the BBC.

Bad President

The protesters are also angry at Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who they say isn’t taking the outbreak seriously.

Public health officials in Mexico are calling for strict measures to limit community transmission, according to USA Today, but López Obrador has refused to tell residents to stay home — a move that could mean the virus will spread regardless of whether the country cracks down on its Northern border.

READ MORE: Protesters in Mexico block lanes at Arizona border crossing to demand stricter coronavirus screenings [USA Today]

More on the future of cities: Professor: Pandemic Will Force the Rich Into Hiding

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Mexican Protesters Complain That Americans Are Spreading COVID-19

Online Matchmaking

Thanks to the global pandemic, sports leagues seem to be shut down across the board. Even gathering in a New York City park for some casual kickball has been banned — and would be extremely dumb even if it hadn’t been. So, what’s left?

Get hyped, folks: We’re all getting into eSports now. With gatherings banned, many major video game competitions are going online, according to The Verge. While there are still challenges inherent to bringing eSports totally online, the industry is far better positioned to do so than just about any other sport, so it may be the best way to scratch that competitive itch for the time being.

Welcome!

For the uninitiated: competitive video gaming has been a major spectacle among fans for years. It’s no Super Bowl, but some games and championships can fill stadiums. There are huge pots of prize money for professional teams, the celebrities of the eSports ecosystem. Commentators keep the crowd riled while tightly-controlled tournaments happen on-stage.

So while moving video game tournaments online sounds trivial at first, it actually requires a massive logistical restructuring, The Verge reports.

No Peeking

Remember playing Halo with your siblings? How they’d peek at your corner of the split-screen display and know exactly where to go to kill you? Well, that’s actually a problem for competitive gamers too — unscrupulous players could tune in to livestreams and get an advantage.

That’s why there are still challenges to sort out, The Verge reports, like broadcasting tournaments at a delay to make sure players can’t watch. But compared to organizing a physical sport, eSports still has an advantage for continuing in quarantine.

READ MORE: How the biggest gaming leagues are adapting to an online-only world [The Verge]

More on vidya games: Fortnite Didn’t Do Anything New. That’s Why It Will Shape The Future Of Gaming.

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Goddamn, I Guess We Need to Get Into eSports Now

Take Two

UK prime minister Boris Johnson downplayed the coronavirus pandemic for weeks, before finally reversing course in mid-March to treat the outbreak seriously.

“The British government and its advisers had the chance to learn from what was happening in Italy,” wrote Bloomberg two days ago, in an excoriating essay. “They blew it.”

And now, in a darkly poetic stroke, Johnson says he’s caught COVID-19 himself.

Too Late

During critical weeks, as the virus started to take hold in the UK, the “bouffant and boorish” Johnson declined to advise the general public to stay home.

That finally changed about a week ago, after experts warned that it could cause hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, with Johnson issuing new guidelines that citizens should attempt to minimize contact with one another.

Moving Forward

The 55-year-old Johnson plans to remain in self-imposed quarantine at 10 Downing Street while he gets over the bug, but he says he’s going to keep running the government — via, in his own words, “video-conference” — while isolated.

Over the last 24 hours I have developed mild symptoms and tested positive for coronavirus.

I am now self-isolating, but I will continue to lead the government’s response via video-conference as we fight this virus.

Together we will beat this. #StayHomeSaveLives pic.twitter.com/9Te6aFP0Ri

— Boris Johnson #StayHomeSaveLives (@BorisJohnson) March 27, 2020

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All Bets Are Off

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided to suspend its enforcement of environmental laws indefinitely in light of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, as The Guardian reports. The move sends a clear signal: pollute with impunity.

“This temporary policy is designed to provide enforcement discretion under the current, extraordinary conditions, while ensuring facility operations continue to protect human health and the environment,” EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler wrote in an announcement.

Outrage

It’s a move that has enraged environmental advocates. “The EPA uses this global pandemic to create loopholes for destroying the environment,” youth climate leader Greta Thunberg tweeted today. “This is a schoolbook example for what we need to start looking out for.”

“Outrageous,” tweeted Representative Mark Pocan (D-WIS). “Suspending all environmental regulations indefinitely? This has nothing to do with coronavirus. This has everything to do with protecting Big Business.”

No Laws

To get around environmental laws, all companies will have to do is prove that they had to violate them due to the pandemic. Oil refineries, many of them in Texas, have already been blasting past the limits of carcinogenic benzene emissions, according to The Guardian.

Worse air quality could actually end up making the pandemic much worse. “Excusing the potential release of excess toxic air pollutants and other pollution that exacerbates asthma, breathing difficulty and cardiovascular problems in the midst of a pandemic that can cause respiratory failure is irresponsible from a public health perspective,” a letter penned by former head of EPA enforcement Cynthia Giles reads, as quoted by The Guardian.

READ MORE: Trump administration allows companies to break pollution laws during coronavirus pandemic [The Guardian]

More on coronavirus and the environment: The Coronavirus Pandemic Drastically Reduced Carbon Emissions

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FOH

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, more employees are working from their homes, more than ever before. But does that mean managers and business leaders let up with their bizarre, over-reaching workplace surveillance? Not a chance.

In an office, surveillance tech can be justified a little bit: It’s defensible for an employer to not want workers using company computers for personal business. Surveillance software also be used for cybersecurity. But now? Bloomberg reports that workplace-surveillance software is flying off shelves and being forced on people working in their own homes — a massive breach of trust and privacy.

Ease Up

The range of surveillance tech being forced upon workers today is appalling to the point of absurdity. Some companies impose software tracking whatever the employee does — specific programs can even flag employees who print their resume — others take a picture through the laptop’s camera every few minutes.

Bloomberg reports that some employers have even required employees to join an all-day video conference, just to keep an eye on them.

Double Standard

Of course, executives frame the surveillance as a way to boost productivity. But some, like Axos Financial Inc. CEO Gregory Garrabrants, one of the highest-paid banking execs in the world, puts it more bluntly.

“We have seen individuals taking unfair advantage of flexible work arrangements,” Garrabrants wrote in a memo reviewed by Bloomberg. Slacking workers “will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination.”

The most telling part? Axos spokesman Gregory Frost refused to say whether Garrabrants was subject to the same surveillance — and we have a pretty good hunch about that.

READ MORE: Bosses Panic-Buy Spy Software to Keep Tabs on Remote Workers [Bloomberg]

More on surveillance tech: Walmart Patents Tech for Eavesdropping on Workers

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Knitting enthusiasts are hard at work filling a giant, gaping hole in the nation’s supply of face masks for healthcare workers. And they’re growing in numbers. The New York Times called them “a sewing army” in a recent report.

Despite their good intentions, the simple fact is that home-sown cloth masks are nearly useless in protecting against the virus, as Wirecutter reports, and should only be a very last resort for practitioners in the field.

In the age of coronavirus, personal protective equipment (PPEs) like surgical masks, gloves, and face shields are becoming increasingly hard to come by. And that’s really bad news: without healthy healthcare workers, no treatment. No treatment, more deaths.

“Homemade face masks are not considered [PPEs], and should be an option only when there are absolutely no respirators or face masks left, and used with other protective equipment, such as face shields,” CDC spokesperson Arleen Porcell told Wirecutter in an email.

“It’s important to note that this strategy is considered a last resort and does not adhere to the typical standards of care in the US, but acknowledges the hard realities on the ground,” Porcell added.

The best case scenario for practitioners remains to be N95-certified respirator masks, as they catch more than 95 percent of particulates. Surgical masks simply create a physical barrier and don’t seal.

Studies have confirmed the fact that homemade cloth masks are pretty terrible at catching viruses. A 2013 Cambridge University study found that tea towels and vacuum cleaner bags were far closer to the effectiveness of actual surgical masks in blocking a certain type of virus.

And then there’s the fact that people might think their cloth face masks can do more than they actually can — in fact, a false sense of security could actually do more harm than good. By touching a contaminated surface and then the mask could actually end up with you getting infected yourself. Besides, homemade masks aren’t properly sterilized.

So what can you do? Here’s the upshot: consider donating money to your local hospital so they can afford to buy proper PPEs. Leave the respirator masks at the store — they won’t protect you from catching the virus, only protect the people around you from get it from you. With a national shortage of respirators, don’t hoard them for yourself and make sure that healthcare practitioners on the front lines have access to them instead.

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This weekend, a report by the French Ministry of Health claimed that the use of ibuprofen the active ingredient in Advil and other anti-inflammatory drugs could worsen the symptoms of COVID-19, the deadly disease caused by coronavirus sweeping the entire globe right now.

In light of a letter published in the journal The Lancet advising against the use of ibuprofen, Frances health minister Olivier Veran tweeted on Saturday that in case of fever, take paracetamol [commonly known as Tylenol] If you are already taking anti-inflammatory drugs, ask your doctors advice.

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization followed suit and is officially recommending against taking ibuprofen to treat symptoms of COVID-19 at least until further notice. WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters that experts were looking into this to give further guidance, as quoted by Science Alert.

In the meantime, we recommend using rather paracetamol, and do not use ibuprofen as a self-medication, Lindmeier said. Thats important.

Before the WHOs recommendation, Reckitt Benckiser (RB), producer of the popular ibuprofen drug Nurofen, said that there still was no evidence to support forgoing the over-the-counter drug (and its also worth noting that RB has an interest in promoting its own product).

Appropriate use of ibuprofen and paracetamol is still currently being recommended by most European health authorities as part of the symptomatic treatment of COVID-19, the company wrote in a statement. RB is not aware of any evidence that ibuprofen adversely impacts the outcome in patients suffering from COVID-19 infection.

We do not currently believe there is any proven scientific evidence linking over-the-counter use of ibuprofen to the aggravation of COVID-19, the statement read.

Other experts agree the speculation is baseless at least for now.

Its all anecdote, and fake news off the anecdotes, Garret FitzGerald, chair of the department of pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania told The New York Times, also before the WHOs recommendation. Thats the world we are living in.

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While most patients who caught COVID-19 ended up making a full recovery, some are dealing with long-term effects of the coronavirus.

In an analysis of 12 patients who recovered from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, doctors at the Hong Kong Hospital Authority (HKHA) found that several of them now have reduced lung capacity, according to Business Insider.

They gasp if they walk a bit more quickly, Owen Tsang, medical director of the HKHAs Infectious Disease Center, said in a press conference. Some patients might have around a drop of 20 to 30 percent in lung function.

After scanning the patients lungs, doctors saw signs of organ damage.

Thats far too small a sample size to declare that COVID-19 necessarily causes long-term damage, but it could be a warning sign that doctors should keep an eye out for potential complications.

Its not yet clear how applicable these results are to the outbreak at large or most other patients hit by the disease.

But even on its own, its a troubling sign that more severe cases of COVID-19 could lead to more medical problems in the long run, even after patients have kicked the virus itself.

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After the Coronavirus, Some Patients Face Ongoing Lung Damage - Futurism

A hospital in Brescia, Italy, which is near one of the regions hit hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, is reportedly turning to 3D-printed replacement parts in order to keep its intensive care unit running.

Specifically, the hospital needed extra valves for ventilator devices sooner than its usual supplier could send them, according to 3D Printing Media Network. So on Friday, it called in local 3D printing companies that were able to design and manufacture the valves on-site.

As a result, ten patients were treated with a ventilator that night, 3DPMN reports. Without the valves, their severe COVID-19 cases may have gone untreated in the overwhelmed hospital.

Since then, more companies have 3D printed dozens more of the valves in a bid to keep the hospital well-stocked for the foreseeable future, according to 3DPMN. Cristian Fracassi, the technician who made the first ten, posted on Facebook that hes working on making another hundred for the hospital.

There were people in danger of life, and we acted, Fracassi wrote, as translated by Metro. Period. Now, with a cold mind, lets think. Firstly, dont call us, as some have, heroes. Sure, people were about to die, but we only did our duty. Refusing would not have been a cowardly act, but murderous.

Stanotte si va a dormire sapendo di aver fatto qualcosa di utiledomani la consegna. Un grazie speciale ad Alessandro

Posted by Cristian Fracassi onSaturday, March 14, 2020

Each one of those parts corresponds to an individual patient who needs intensive care and can now be oxygenated in the hospital, illustrating just how dire the outbreak situation can get as small parts break or find themselves in short supply.

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An Overwhelmed Italian Hospital Is 3D Printing Replacement Parts - Futurism

Berger Time

When Ars Technica senior space reporter Eric Berger asked Buzz Aldrin, the second man to have walked the Moon in 1969, what he would do while practicing social distancing during the coronavirus outbreak, Aldrin had some choice words: Lying on my ass and locking the door.

Aldrin is familiar with the concept of spending time in quarantine. After the Apollo 11 Command Module landed, he, along with commander Neil Armstrong and module pilot Michael Collins, had to spend three long weeks in quarantine to make sure no nasty bugs from space could spread on our planet.

The three men were first moved to the Mobile Quarantine Facility, a converted Airstream trailer pretty tight quarters for three adults. They were then airlifted to a secure building called the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. Years later, once the Moon was proven to be barren of life, NASA discontinued this practice after Apollo 14.

When Berger asked Aldrin for some advice for the millions of people currently self-isolating at home, the now 90-year-old former astronaut reminisced of his own time in quarantine. Well, Mike Collins and I used to exercise and jog a little bit around the hallway.

Aldrin also questioned if his and his teams temporary home was really capable of holding microbes in.

We looked at this one crack in the floor, and there were ants crawling in and out, Aldrin said.

Most of the rest of his time, he said, was spent doing paperwork.

READ MORE: Buzz Aldrin has some advice for Americans in quarantine [Ars Technica]

More on quarantine: As Coronavirus Rages, Elon Musk Refuses to Close Tesla Factory

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The Second Man to Walk on the Moon Has Some Quarantine Advice - Futurism

As governments around the globe crack down on journalistic freedom and censor their national press, Reporters Without Borders is working to deliver uncensored news to the public through an unlikely channel: an enormous library housed inside the popular block-building video game Minecraft.

Even in the most restrictive countries where news is censored across the web like Chinas crackdown on the spread of information surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic citizens can now receive their news by loading Minecraft and flipping through the virtual bookshelves of The Uncensored Library.

Inside, you can find articles and information about the journalists that are being censored in their own countries, said Robert-Jan Blonk, senior interactive producer atproduction company MediaMonks, which helped build the library, in an interview with Fast Company. We share these stories through the books that live in that library, and people can just openly read them, because even in the countries where these journalists are from, youre able to play Minecraft.

The massive digital library which contains more than 12.5 million Minecraft blocks, and took 24 builders from 16 different countries over 250 hours to design and build houses real articles written by five journalists from censored countries including Russia, Mexico, Egypt, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia, providing unblocked news to readers through a savvy internet loophole.

Even if government censors try to hack and delete the library, multiple other server hosts in other countries are prepared to take over and protect it, according to Fast Company.

Inside the library, which also received design help from design studio BlockWorks and creative agency DDB Germany, is a giant circular rotunda showcasing flags from countries around the world, off of which branch wings of the library organized by country. Readers and gamers can simply download the game and map, walk their characters into the Russia wing, pick up a book, and read an article from grani.ru, a blocked site in Russia that reports on the government and protests in the country.

Journalist Hatice Cengiz, fiance to Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was assassinated by the Saudi government worked with the developers to help include her late partners censored articles in the game. Articles also appear from other journalists: Nguyen Van Dai, who was exiled from Vietnam, Javier Valdez, who was murdered in Mexico, Mada Masr in Egypt, and Yulia Berezovskaia in Russia.

Announced on the World Day Against Cyber Censorship, the projects goal is to not only provide access to censored journalism, but to bring awareness to the threats to the freedom of press worldwide, as well as the draconian treatment of censored journalists whove stood up to their governments.

This is such a unique way of bringing attention to censorship, Blonk told FastCo. We hope that with so many players and so many people that we basically bring this problem up again. People die because theyre being censored.

Read More: This beautiful library in Minecraft lets people access the work of censored journalists from anywhere [Fast Company]

More on censorship: China Censored Info About Growing Pandemic on Social Media

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This Virtual Library in Minecraft Gives a Voice to Censored Journalists - Futurism