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With Just $130K In Funding, Indias Nimo Planet Is Looking To Challenge Tech Giants With Its Smart Glasses – Inc42 Media

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Last week, Mukesh Ambani and Reliance introduced JioGlass to much hype and catapulted India into the smart eyewear craze. While the unveiling of JioGlass brought about umpteen discussions and debates on social media around mixed reality and how Reliance Jio is looking to conquer it, the reality is that the product is developed by a deeptech startup Tesseract, which was acquired by RIL in 2019.

JioGlass, when it launches, will join the club of products such as Google Glass, Magic Leap, Microsoft HoloLens, Oculus lineup of devices and more in the heads-up displays and smart eyewear segment. But it wont be the only Indian product in the list if Nimo Planet has its way.

Kochi-based Nimo Planet is part of the burgeoning hardware tech startup ecosystem in Kerala and the deeptech startup has launched its smart glasses in beta with a select set of 200 beta testers. Founded in 2018 by Rohildev Nattukallingal, Nimo Planet launched its first smart glass in 2018 and has further iterated on it to launch the beta version this month.

Nimo Planets Smart Glass is not only proprietary hardware thats custom-made for the company, but also runs a custom Android-based operating system called Planet OS, which is claimed to be geared towards productivity. It is said to have features such as multi-screen multitasking, support for 1,000s of work and productivity apps, compatibility with existing laptops and mobile devices.

Talking to Inc42, Nattukallingal said that the hardware is fully compatible and optimised for Planet OS, which is built on top of the Linux kernel and Android. This, in turn, helps the company ship with low-powered hardware that can fit in the body of the glasses and optimise the software experience more thoroughly.

Nattukallingal said the idea behind Smart Glass was to create a computing device for multi-screen productivity. He said he had been using iPads for work, due to their portability and convenience, but struggled when he needed multiple screens. Having a portable multi-screen monitor enables more effective work, regardless of the location. And that is the core focus for Nimo enable work from anywhere.

The six-member team behind Nimo Planet has already built hardware futuristic solutions. In 2016, the team had built Fin Robotics, a wearable tech gadget which can be worn on the thumb making the palm a digital touch interface. The ring called Neyya was launched in retail stores like Sky Walk, Bloomingdales etc. However, due to conflicts with advisors and inventory loss in the US, the company discontinued the product.

The same team moved on to the next vision of creating the Smart Glass. The core focus was to design something thats super portable and at the same time delivers bigger screen experience and I thought in the form of face spectacle that will help me to solve that problem, Nattukallingal added.

In 2018, Nimo built a prototype, which could be used with a USB and a processing unit nearby. Just like Google Glass, the user could see a virtual screen pop-up at a three-meter distance to open different apps and interact with them. However, unlike Google Glass, Nimo incorporated the display into the lens of the glasses itself rather than projecting an image.

With feedback from users and testing, the team kept iterating on the design and finalised the current beta version, which will be ready for production by the end of the year.

Mimicking a standard pair of spectacles, Nimo enables the user to see a virtual screen on the lens, which actually looks as big as a 60-inch display thanks to its proximity to the eye. Essentially, the display fills up the users vision when its in use. With head-tracking sensors, users can operate windows and apps on up to six virtual screens.

In terms of tech specs, Nimo Smart Glass comes with HD-equivalent display for each eye, an unnamed Qualcomm-based processor, up to 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, and support for WiFi, Bluetooth connectivity. It also features the sensors for head tracking, a custom voice assistant and is said to support 1000s of productivity apps.

So clearly, Planet OS will be the key to success and app compatibility will be a major challenge. Talking about this, Nattukallingal told Inc42, Thats [Planet OS] helping us make hardware smaller because we did a lot of optimization, so the apps that the user is going to run on six different screens will not use too much battery. We have made interactions to open multiple tabs as screens instead of closing one and opening another. All this is already built into the OS now.

Smart Glass will support existing Android applications and app developers dont need to rewrite any of the existing apps from scratch. But how does the screen virtual screen work?

This has three support input systems Bluetooth input devices, a companion smartphone app and the head-tracking sensor.

At the moment, users can connect Bluetooth keyboards and mice to operate the OS. Because we are focusing on productivity we want to help people to save time and work from anywhere. When people are travelling and cant use a keyboard and mouse, they can use the smartphone as a keyboard and mouse with the Nimo app, he added.

Finally, the companys head tracking sensors can also enable users to give cues and perform actions. This would be further combined with voice cues for input. In the first version, we are not putting any speakers, people can pair with any of their existing Bluetooth speakers for the sound like AirPods or headphones or speakers because we want to make things simpler in the first version, he explained. The display has 26-degree diagonal FOV (field of view) for maximum immersion.

The battery in the beta version is said to work for 4 hours in normal use, and can be then extended for up to 7-8 hours of usage with a charging case. Overall, the product is priced at $699 at the moment, though this could change in the future.

Nimo is targeting enterprises in India and the US market initially, as several of them have gone full remote owing to the pandemic and may stay on the same path for a while longer. It is also directly focussing on employees for better productivity.

The first production units will be available to users by the end of the year with pre-booking already open. The timeline for delivery is Q2 or Q3 2021 at the moment.

We have a different pipeline for 2022-23 with more features, better display and more capabilities. The core areas that we are more interested in the future are health and entertainment. But right now, the focus is completely on productivity, he added.

The company is engaging with a manufacturing company in Taiwan for the beta and final production. However, Nimo is registered in Singapore and India. All the global operations will be considered from Singapore. Major certifications will be taken care of before the shipment for each country, he added.

At present, the company is working on streamlining the OS. It is also finalising the industrial design for the device and the mechanical design.

While the concept of smart glasses has been around for half a decade and more, its picked up pace this year with every major tech company now said to be working on its version of smart glasses. For instance, Apple and Facebook are rumoured to be working on AR glasses. Microsoft already sells an AR headset called HoloLens, but this is limited to developers. Facebook also revealed an early version of its holographic optics for thin and lightweight virtual reality in a research report.

Google launched Glass in May 2014 and retains an enterprise version of the product. It also recently bought North, a Canadian manufacturer of light, natural-looking smart glasses that are similar to Nimos concept. Even Amazon is after the smart glasses market and announced a pair of Alexa-enabled glasses called Echo Frames.

While the likes of Oculus, Magic Leap, Microsoft HoloLens and other HUDs or head-ups displays are fully immersive, they need to be connected to PCs or other devices. NImo, Google Glass and Apples upcoming wearables are standalone systems that dont offer such an immersive experience and are built for productivity or notification checking, rather than experiential usage. Nattukallingal claims that such experiences need multiple cameras, high processing power, bigger batteries and that is why they are costly. Microsoft HoloLens costs above $2,000. These glasses have got too many components inside and they need super high computing to do that, he added.

He claimed that even standalone smart glasses are not up to the mark when it comes to immersion without the bulky hardware, which is Nimos strong point. When you put these glasses on, you see a pretty small screen and thats full of information like single text and small images. The Google Glass failed because of that as user experience was very bad as wearing these feels like additional robotic things without solving any problems just delivering some animations on the small screen, he adds.

The differentiating factor for Nimo is that it is not focusing on VR-like immersion. Due to our core focus on productivity, we are optimising the operating system and all our software to match that direction, including the design hardware, and thats our IP too. And were going to innovate more and more into that direction in coming months, he added.

Against such capital-equipped technology giants who have poured in millions of dollars into developing these glasses with the best technology talent in the world, Nimo Planet cuts a diminutive figure. It has developed its proprietary prototype with just $130K in funding till date.

Even at the design stage, we take into consideration the cost and how we can optimise the complexity of making the hardware. We also keep a check on how we execute without using too many components in the glass and make it simple that also help to save a lot of costs and at the same time, the focus on the target use case is the focus, Nimo Planet founder Nattukallingal.

The company has raised funds from angels like Innov8 founder Dr Ritesh Malik, Ravi Linganuri along with a few US-based angel investors. The board also includes Advisors such as Aneet Chopra, Stephane Kasriel, Malik and Linganuri. The company has also filed a couple of patents including on the operating system, design and input interface. The company is also in the process of raising $4 Mn as its seed funding round.

Talking about using this capital wisely, Nattukallingal said that the company has built everything in-house and the team is taking a very low salary. He also emphasised that having been in the hardware industry in the past, Nimo had the right contacts for vendors and the focus areas for production.

Thats the core thing, you should be super focused on what you want to build and to whom, then a lot of unwanted costs would be reduced. And then you need to have the right connections with the vendors, manufacturing companies, etc. to make it happen, he added.

China’s aggression is undermining its tech giants’ global ambitions – Nikkei Asian Review

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

James Crabtree is an associate professor in practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He is author of "The Billionaire Raj."

TikTok makes a curious bellwether for a new age of techno-nationalism, with its apoliticalteenage audience and frivolous lip-sync videos. But the Chinese-owned app's decision to quit Hong Kong, alongside its ban in India, illustrates a deeper shift in the fortunes of China's biggest tech businesses.

The likes of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holdingand ByteDance, TikTok's Beijing-based parent, have long sought to transform themselves into global operations. Geopolitical tensions between China and the West are now making this aim much harder to achieve. Just as TikTok may soon be banned not just in India but also in the U.S., so the odds are growing that other Chinese tech groups will find their dreams of global growth frustrated too.

TikTok pulling out of Hong Kong was, at base, a sign of desperation. The app has grown wildly popular since its 2017 launch, amassing 800 million users and contributing a fair chunk of its parent's estimated $100 billion valuation.

But China's draconian new national security law raised concerns over data privacy in Hong Kong, while TikTok hoped its departure would help it avoid awkward questions about it and its parent's ties with the Chinese state -- for instance how it stores users' data and whether it would have to provide such data to China's authorities.

Those hopes now look forlorn. ByteDance has tried to keep TikTok separate from domestic apps like Douyin, which offers similar quirky short videos to Chinese users. TikTok now has an American CEO and says its operations are independent from Beijing. "We have never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked," it said recently.

Such claims did little to convince India, which banned the service in June on national security grounds in the aftermath of Himalayan border clashes with China. Nor is it likely to win over U.S. President Donald Trump, whose Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on July 6 that the U.S. was examining the service.

On the face of it, the notion of TikTok as a national security threat is laughable, with its jocular content and youthful clientele. But such accusations underline how easily Chinese tech companies now come under suspicion, especially those that keep data on millions of users. Put another way: if TikTok can be considered a national security threat, then so can almost any other major Chinese digital business.

India was a particular blow to TikTok's plans, given the app's popularity in its potentially vast market. But in pushing a ban Prime Minister Narendra Modi showed TikTok's peculiar vulnerability, in large part because its audience was too young and powerless to offer much in the way of a complaint when the service was blocked.

Facing a tough election, Trump may well feel that banning the app makes political sense for him too. Governments in Europe are likely to increase their scrutiny of TikTok and other Chinese tech services, from gaming apps to cloud storage providers like Alibaba.

At one level, the main beneficiary of TikTok's troubles will be other U.S. tech groups, and Facebook in particular. TikTok's rapid popularity made it a plausible rival to parts of Mark Zuckerberg's business empire. Facebook paid TikTok the compliment of aping it by launching Lasso, a notably unsuccessful clone that the company soon plans to close. Now TikTok has been turfed out of India, however, and with the U.S. perhaps to follow, Facebook is left with one fewer competitor to worry about in its most important markets.

But it also signals how hard it is for any company to become a genuine global tech platform. U.S. companies like Facebook are already barred from China. Indian tech policy is becoming more nationalistic as Modi stacks the deck in favor of local tech champion Reliance Jio. And now major Chinese internet groups are facing extreme scrutiny in the U.S. and elsewhere.

This does not mean that the era of Big Tech itself is in decline. Companies like Facebook and ByteDance are growing more powerful, not least in the aftermath of COVID-19, as investors have sent their share prices soaring in anticipation of recession-defying growth. Many will continue to grow abroad too, as Google showed on July 14 with plans to invest an eye-catching $10 billion into India by 2027.

Nor does it mean that China's tech giants must stop expanding internationally; there are plenty of markets with more welcoming governments, including in Latin America and Southeast Asia, which has been a first port for companies like Alibaba and Tencent Holdings as they move abroad.

But it does leave China's tech giants facing a choice. Either they scale back their global ambitions in many advanced economies. Or if they wish to operate in places that are suspicious of China, like the U.S., they must develop a radically localized business structure to convince their critics that services like TikTok are indeed distanced from Beijing.

Such an approach would mirror the way some U.S. companies develop "in China, for China" subsidiaries to allow them to sell to Chinese consumers. And it is roughly this approach that ByteDance is trying to follow, in suggesting that TikTok is able to act independently in individual countries.

Even so, the odds that this will win over sceptical policymakers in the U.S. are slim, just as it did not do so in India. It also suggests that China's continued geopolitical assertiveness is now undermining the global reach of its tech sector -- torpedoing in the process its own government's aim of turning national internet champions into true global tech standard-bearers.

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China's aggression is undermining its tech giants' global ambitions - Nikkei Asian Review

US Tech Giants trying to survive the Chinese Market – Market Capitalize

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

China and its economy wield great power over the American giant including the likes of Google, Apple and NBA; this week has certainly proven the same. Appeasing the Chinese government on every matter is non- negotiable for the United States based companies; it is a cost they have to pay if they wish to access the country market.

It has been proven time and again that these companies are left with little or no control or freedom to speak on vital issues, the latest of them being the ongoing protests in Hong Kong for democracy.

In other words, China does not need these US companies as much as they need China if they need to manage their bottom lines and profit margins. When compared to the state- backed Chinese firms, the share of US tech giants is pale in the market according to data aggregated by Statista.

For instance, tech giant Google holds only a 3.2 percent stake in the Chinese market as compared to its 88 percent stake in its home country.

Against Google stands, Baidu, a Chinese tech conglomerate that dominated the market share with its 76.7 percent. In order to gain more ground and standing in the Chinese market, Google has attempted projects like Dragonfly which was designed as a censored search engine for China; however it turned out to be a failure.

A similar attempt was tried out by Facebook which keeps getting banned by the Chinese government. Though banned currently in China, Facebook has 2.9 million Chinese users, given that it is still not banned in Hong Kong and Macau. Notably, a 1,1 billion user base is enjoyed by Chinas WeChat app, a social media messaging app.

Then options like Ubers merger with Chinese ride- hailing competitor Didi Chuxing in 2016 come to mind, a step that Uber took after it kept incurring tremendous losses due to the fierce competition with the latter.

Earlier this year, Amazon shut down its Chinese market place owing to its meager marjet share of 0.5 percent in China against the dominating Alibabas Tmall and others.

Link:

US Tech Giants trying to survive the Chinese Market - Market Capitalize

Advertising giants agree to evaluate mutual definition of hate speech – Axios

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an industry body consisting of the world's biggest advertising companies including a few Big Tech companies has agreed to evaluate some issues collectively, including deciding how to better define hate speech across the entire industry.

Why it matters: Social media companies have faced increased scrutiny for how they moderate content on their platforms. This is a step towards tackling the issue together, despite the fact that it's mostly a formality for now.

The backdrop: GARM was created last year at the annual Cannes Lions Festival to tackle brand safety in advertising.

What's happening: In a note to advertisers, Facebook's VP of Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson said that the industry, via GARM, has settled on four areas to take immediate action on: definitions of harmful content like hate speech, measurement, audits and suitability controls.

Yes, but: Tech platforms still maintain their right to more narrowly define and police hate speech individually.

Between the lines: Everson often sends emails like this to advertisers. She is considered the face of Facebook's sales and advertising teams, and often serves as a leader within the industry to address tough issues.

Worth noting: GARM hosts working groups to discuss issues in advertising often. The group's policy recommendations aren't rules that every member must follow, but they are agreed-upon steps that the industry should take to tackle and define pressing problems.

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Advertising giants agree to evaluate mutual definition of hate speech - Axios

MPs say tech giants have ‘failed to tackle’ Covid-19 infodemic and Government must regulate them now – Press Gazette

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

A group of MPs is calling on the UK Government to immediately launch a new body to regulate social media giants whose bosses have failed to tackle the Covid-19 infodemic.

Julian Knight MP, chair of Parliaments DCMS Committee, said: Evidence that tech companies were able to benefit from the monetisation of false information and allowed others to do so is shocking. We need robust regulation to hold these companies to account.

The coronavirus crisis has demonstrated that without due weight of the law, social media companies have no incentive to consider a duty of care to those who use their services.

The committee suggested delays to online harms legislation promised by the Government 15 months ago have helped coronavirus misinformation to spread virulently.

The MPs, who have been investigating the Covid-19 infodemic for several months, also said evidence suggests tech companies have been able to monetise misinformation for themselves and others.

They said that efforts by the companies to tackle misinformation through warning labels or tools to correct the record have fallen short.

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Press Gazette launched a campaign, Fight The Infodemic, calling on tech giants to do more to tackle misinformation.

The committees full report, which can be read here, also lays out evidence to show how misinformation is allowed to spread on social media.

It said: We know that novelty and fear (along with anger and disgust) are factors which drive engagement with social media posts; that in turn pushes posts with these features further up users newsfeedsthis is one reason why false news can travel so fast.

This is opposite to the corporate social responsibility policies espoused by tech companies relying on this business model.

The more people engage with conspiracy theories and false news online, the more platforms are incentivised to continue surfacing similar content, which theoretically encourages users to continue using the platform so that more data can be collected and more adverts can be displayed.

The report recommended: The current business model not only creates disincentives for tech companies to tackle misinformation, it also allows others to monetise misinformation too.

To properly address these issues, the online harms regulator will need sight of comprehensive advertising libraries to see if and how advertisers are spreading misinformation through paid advertising or are exploiting misinformation or other online harms for financial gain.

Another section of the report focused on the role quality journalism can play in fighting misinformation. The MPs expressed concerns about funding issues experienced by news organisations because of Google and Facebooks domination of the online advertising market.

Earlier this month, the UKs Competition and Markets Authority called on the Government to create new powers to regulate the digital ad market to create greater competition and improve the quality and accuracy of journalism.

The DCMS committee said: Tech companies rely on quality journalism to provide authoritative information. They earn revenue both from users consuming this on their platforms as well as (in the case of Google) providing advertising on news websites, and news drives users to their services.

We agree with the Competition and Markets Authority that features of the digital advertising market controlled by companies such as Facebook and Google must not undermine the ability of newspapers and others to produce quality content.

Tech companies should be elevating authoritative journalistic sources to combat the spread of misinformation. This is an issue to which the Committee will no doubt return.

A Facebook spokesperson said: We dont allow harmful misinformation and have removed hundreds of thousands of posts including false cures, claims that Coronavirus doesnt exist, that its caused by 5G or that social distancing is ineffective. In addition to what we remove, weve placed warning labels on around 90 million pieces of content related to Covid-19 on Facebook during March and April, which prevented people viewing the original post 95% of the time.

This month we also launched alerts at the top of peoples feeds encouraging users to wear face masks, a media literacy campaign and a special mythbusting section of our Covid Information Centre. And since February, we have directed more than 3.5 million visits to official Covid advice on the NHS and UK government websites.

Our free daily round-up of the biggest news about the world of news

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MPs say tech giants have 'failed to tackle' Covid-19 infodemic and Government must regulate them now - Press Gazette

Contact Tracing, a Key Way to Slow COVID-19, Is Badly Underused by the U.S. – Scientific American

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

There is no coronavirus vaccine. Medications for COVID-19 are still being tested. Across the U.S., states that once acted as if the pandemic was going away are setting new daily records for infections, hospitalizations and deaths. There is one proved tool that has helped other countries stem the pandemic, but in the U.S. it is severely underused; the Trump administration tried to cut financing for it from the latest pandemic relief bill, say reports this week. And it often meets resistance from the people it is intended to help. The tool is called contact tracing.

The tracing approach is built on a simple idea: When someone tests positive for the new coronavirus or becomes sick with COVID-19, you find all the people the infected person came into contact with, because they, too, may be infected. Then you help them quarantine for two weeksalmost everyone who becomes sick will show symptoms within 14 daysso they do not accidentally spread the virus any further. The goal is to stop the chain of transmission, says Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who has created afree online course to train contact tracers.

Contact tracing is a tried-and-true method that epidemiologists have been using for decades to tackle everything from foodborne illnesses to sexually transmitted diseases, as well as recent outbreaks of SARS and Ebola. Its a great tool for bringing an epidemic into the suppression or containment phase, says special pathogens expert Syra Madad of NYC Health + Hospitals, which leads New York CitysTest & Trace Corps contact-tracing program.

Large-scale contact-tracing programs in places such as South Korea and Germany have been instrumental in suppressing the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Within days of detecting its first case on January 20,South Korea created an emergency response committee that quickly developed wide-scale virus testing, followed by an extensive scaling up of the nations network of contact tracers. Germany similarly committed resources to mobilizing a tracing workforce. Inbothcountries, cases have dropped dramatically.

By contrast, tracing efforts lag in the U.S., where COVID-19 cases hit record highs in mid-July and which leads the world with more than 3.7 million infections and more than 140,000 deaths. The country has no national strategy for contact tracing, says Adriane Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs at the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). Instead the federal government has said to states, do as you wish, she adds. This week, the White House moved to block $25 billion for tracing and testing in the latest pandemic relief bill being considered by Congress, according to news reports, contending that states already have funding.

Yet many states do not have the money to start large tracing programs. In fact, state public health departments across the U.S. were drastically underfunded even before the pandemic. Since 2008, local health departments have lost close to 25 percent of their employees.

The result is a patchwork of programs with insufficient money and uneven implementation. NACCHO estimates that, given national levels of confirmed cases, the nation needs at least100,000 contact tracers. And that number would cost local, state, territorial, Native American and federal public health agencies at least $3.7 billion. So far, however, no federal dollars have been specifically allocated to contact tracing or to any federal contact tracing programs, Casalotti says.

A look at some individual states makes it clear that the workforce has not reached the scale required in several places. For instance, Arkansas recently announced plans to hire350 new contact tracers, which would bring its total to about 900. But based on the number of current cases, the state actually needs 3,722 tracers, according to acontact-tracing-workforce estimator developed by the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at George Washington University. In Florida, where the pandemic is surging terribly, the same estimator calculates that 291 tracers per 100,000 residents are needed. Yet as of early July, the state had onlyseven per 100,000. And cases of COVID-19 surged in Texas, even as contact tracers working for the Texas Department of State Health Services were taken off the job.

Some states and local governments have increased operations. Massachusetts has launched a large effort, and New York and Washington State have also mobilized strong programs, says Margaret Bourdeaux, a physician and research director of global public policy at Harvard Medical School. In California, San Francisco has called up city employees, such as librarians, to join its tracing workforce.

Yet making contact-tracing programs successful means more than just boots on the ground. Tracers are trained to help people think through who they might have been in contact with. Though numerous phone apps now aid in identifying potential contacts, technology cant solve the problem of convincing someone they should pick up the phone when a contact tracer calls, says Mary Gray, a social scientist at Microsoft Research, who also has affiliations with Harvard University and Indiana University Bloomington. It is the reason we are failingbecause we keep searching for something else we can buy or put into place. We have not conceded how deeply human this process is.

Contact tracing is built on trust. The first call from a tracer is the beginning of a relationship, Gurley says. Its not just explaining what someone needs to do; its also explaining why. From there, the contact tracer will follow up every day to make sure the contact is getting the support that person needs to maintain self-isolation. Contact tracers have to be good at building rapport, Gurley says.

The U.S.s divisive political climate can make this process challenging. The systemic racism that has disproportionately affected people in minority groups with the virus may also make them more hesitant to disclose their personal information, Madad says. With all the political rhetoric about immigration, people in [immigrant] communities may be afraid to talk.

Elizabeth Perez is bilingual in Spanish and English and works as a contact tracer in San Francisco. She mostly speaks with people in the Latino community, and she says that doing so in Spanish can help her build trust. Ramss Escobedo, who works in the same program, says that sometimes individuals worry about the information being collected. Occasionally, reluctant people give out incorrect phone numbers, and the team has to do some detective work to track down potential infected cases.

New York Citys program has approached this problem by recruiting contact tracers with diverse backgrounds from within local communities, Madad says. More than half of the contact tracers in her program are from the hardest-hit zip codes. Theyre part of that community, she says.

One of the biggest challenges is misinformation being disseminated on social media. BuzzFeed News reports that Facebook posts and YouTube videos spreading hoaxes and lies about contact tracers have received hundreds of thousands of views. Some of these posts compare tracers to Nazi secret police and falsely say they take people to internment camps. Others suggest they should be greeted with guns. Contact tracers report they have faced death threats.

The next action that comes after a tracer has identified a potential infected persongetting that individual to adhere to quarantinehas proved exceptionally difficult in the U.S. For stopping the spread of a virus, however, isolation is absolutely key. You can do the contact tracing all you want. But if youre not also providing these support services people need to isolate, it wont work, Madad says. No one is going to quarantine for 14 days if that means losing a job and income or abandoning caregiving.

That fact is why the availability of services to support people in quarantine, such as housing, childcare, income or meal services, can make or break a contact-tracing program, Madad adds. For example,South Korea transformed existing public and private facilities into temporary isolation wards and has ensured that people quarantined via contact tracing receive a twice-daily check in from a public health worker, as well as deliveries of food and other necessities.

In the U.S., these kinds of resources have not been offered, by and large. New York City has set up quarantine hotels where people can go, and so have a few other localities. But efforts such as these are not widespread, and they are not enough tomeet the needs of every community.

At this point in the pandemic, that shortfall is a desperate problem, according to Harvards Bourdeaux. We are looking into the abyss, she says. Contact tracing at the large scale that is needed might seem overwhelming, but what other choice do we have? Bourdeaux asks. You cant have an economy, you cant have open schools, you cant have normal life if the epidemic is raging and uncontrolled. Until we have effective medications and a vaccine, she says, testing, contact tracing and quarantine are the most effective plague stoppers in existence.

Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here. And read coverage from our international network of magazines here.

Originally posted here:

Contact Tracing, a Key Way to Slow COVID-19, Is Badly Underused by the U.S. - Scientific American

Group calls for standardized data collection to better track Covid-19 – STAT

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

In a new review of the Covid-19 response across the country, a group of public health experts conclude that critical data the public needs to assess their risks and tailor their behaviors is often unavailable.

The assessment, released Tuesday by the nongovernmental organization Resolve to Save Lives, calls on states and communities to start recording and sharing standardized data on 15 key metrics, so that people and health departments can get a clearer picture of how the response to the pandemic is working in their area.

Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve, which is an initiative of the global health organization Vital Strategies, said there is currently both a glut of data and a scarcity of information a situation that needs to change if the country has any hope of gaining ground against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

People are just drowning in case counts and testing numbers, and theyre not seeing whats really important, Frieden told STAT in an interview in which he explained the thinking behind the plan.

More important than the sheer number of Covid-19 tests administered is the number of tests processed within 48 hours, said Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many test results he estimated maybe as many as three-quarters of tests conducted are processed days after the swabs were taken. That tells the tested person whether they were infected at the time of testing, but cant be used as an indicator of their current Covid infection status.

Other metrics that should be commonly collected and reported, the group said, include daily Covid-19 hospitalization rates per capita in each community and state; the percentage of licensed hospital beds occupied by confirmed or suspected Covid patients; the percentage of new cases among quarantined people; and the percentage of new cases with a known epidemiological link to previously confirmed cases.

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesotas Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy, said the type of standardized data collection and reporting that Resolve is proposing is a key tool for combatting the spread of the virus.

I dont know how you can judge where youre at if you dont have this kind of information, he said. I think the informations not just timely for whats happening today but it allows you then to plan for what you must do to bring those numbers down tomorrow.

Frieden acknowledged some state officials may have at least some of the information, but it isnt being posted because they are afraid to share it for fear of being blamed for the sorry state of the pandemic response. A lot of these indicators, if we reported them, would be bad, he said.

But Frieden said the public has the right to know these key facts, many of which need to be broken down by age, sex, race, and ethnicity.

If and I admit its an if if we can get states to report this, then were going to be in much better shape. And in the absence of strong national leadership, at least being on the same page is something that can help us get our response to a much better shape, he said.

What gets measured can get managed. And what gets measured and reported publicly, can absolutely get better, he said. Right now, were not managing this response well at all.

Asked why an NGO, not the CDC which he led through the 2009 flu pandemic is trying to rally states to collect standardized, useful data, Frieden sighed.

We are where we are.

Read the original post:

Group calls for standardized data collection to better track Covid-19 - STAT

COVID-19 UPDATE: Gov. Justice reports active church outbreaks in 7 counties; will hold meeting to discuss reopening plan for colleges and universities…

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

ACTIVE CHURCH OUTBREAKS IN SEVEN COUNTIES During Mondays briefing, Gov. Justice announced that several new church-related outbreaks of COVID-19 have been identified at places of worship in Grant, Logan, and Wood counties.

Last week, the Governor announced that additional church-related outbreaks had already been identified in Boone, Kanawha, Raleigh, and Taylor counties.

Between all seven of these counties combined, these outbreaks account for about 75 total cases.

Weve absolutely got to stay on top of this with all in us, Gov. Justice said. Please know that the church setting is the ideal setting to spread this virus.

The Governor urged all West Virginians in church settings to follow the States safety guidelines, including using every other pew, maintaining social distancing, and wearing face coverings.

I know these things are really difficult to do, Gov. Justice said. But, for right now, they have to be done because, if we dont, all were going to do is lose more people.

We could very well lose a lot of our grandmothers and grandfathers people who have so much wisdom to still continue to pass on we absolutely dont need to be losing these great West Virginians.

COVID-19 UPDATE: Gov. Justice reports active church outbreaks in 7 counties; will hold meeting to discuss reopening plan for colleges and universities...

Coronavirus daily news updates, July 21: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world – Seattle Times

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

With the coronavirus crisis worsening in the United States and emergency relief about to expire, President Donald Trump is resuming daily virus briefings and talking with top Republicans in Congress about the next step for another COVID-19 aid package.

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Washington say theyve developed a promising vaccine candidate.

Throughout Tuesday, on this page, well be posting Seattle Times journalists updates on the outbreak and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world. Updates from Monday can be foundhere, and all our coronavirus coverage can be foundhere.

Only a tiny fraction of the population in many parts of the United States had antibodies to the novel coronavirus as of mid-May, indicating most people remain highly susceptible to the pathogen, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency also said the number of actual coronavirus infections is probably 10 times higher than reported cases, confirming its previous estimate of a vast undercount. There are about 3.8 million reported cases; the CDC data suggests the actual number of infections could be 38 million.

The data appeared Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine as the nation struggles with a wily pathogen that can produce no symptoms at all, or sicken and kill 138,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus to date.

Large swaths of the nation are in turmoil as many communities debate how to reopen schools this fall, wrestle with rising virus-related hospitalizations and, in some cases, roll back restrictions to restart a flailing economy.

Read the story here.

The Washington Post

A majority of registered voters in Washington who were polled this month remain wary in the face of COVID-19, with nearly three-quarters saying they wear masks regularly and 59% saying that any reopening should be at least paused for the time being.

According to the Crosscut/Elway pollgauging public opinion on pandemic response and policing, which was conducted by phone and online earlier this month, 35% of participants said they or someone they know personally has contracted coronavirus, which causes COVID-19.

Nearly 50% of the respondents said they are not yet back to their normal work routine and more than 30% reported wearing a mask at all times in public, in- and out-of-doors; 43% said they wear a mask in public when indoors or unable to social distance outdoors.

People are taking this pandemic seriously, said pollster Stuart Elway.

Questioned on politics, 49% of the 402 respondents gave Gov. Jay Inslee positive marks for his handling of the pandemic while the same number viewed his record negatively. About 45% of those polled said they intend to vote for Inslee and 14% said they favor GOP candidate Loren Culp.

According to the poll, released on Tuesday, a little over 25% want to reimpose state restrictions to contain the virus, and a third said the state should put reopening on hold to see how things develop. However, 38% said the state should continue reopening, and learn to live with the virus.

Christine Clarridge

Residents from 31 states including Washington must now quarantine for 14 days when arriving in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, as dozens of states experience rising positive COVID-19 rates.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo acknowledged Tuesday that the quarantine is imperfect, but said the quarantine could help protect the states against the risk of increased spread. The list of states no longer includes Minnesota, but now includes Alaska, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Virginia and Washington.

The infection rate across the country is getting worse, not better, Cuomo said in a conference call with reporters.

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut last month issued a joint travel advisory that requires a 14-day quarantine period for travelers from a list that now includes 31 states, including Texas and Florida, where COVID-19 appears to be spreading.

The advisory includes states if their seven-day rolling average of positive tests exceeds 10%, or if the number of positive cases exceeds 10 per 100,000 residents.

Read the story here.

The Associated Press

As the world continues to watch the number of COVID-19 cases increase (and daily records being broken), patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis, aka chronic fatigue syndrome, want to tell those recovering from coronavirus to listen up.

COVID-19 patients may be at risk of developing the neuroimmune condition ME/CFS, which depletes ones energy. ME/CFS, which leaves 75% of those affected unable to work and 25% homebound or bedridden, impacts 15 million to 30 million people worldwide, and symptoms may be triggered by an infection, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says some people diagnosed with coronavirus are showing symptoms that resemble those seen in ME/CFS patients.

The ME/CFS community is saying: 80% of us had some sort of virus and that went away, and were still stuck with all of these symptoms, said Sanna Stella, an Oak Park resident who was diagnosed with ME/CFS. If youre a patient, you really have to listen to your body and not all those shoulds we tell ourselves. Because if you keep pushing, for some of these patients, it really will make things a lot worse.

Read the story here.

Darcel Rockett, Chicago Tribune

UW Medicine laid off about 100 staffers, the hospital system announced Monday.

The layoffs include those who work in outpatient therapy, laboratory medicine, population health, enterprise records, information technology and voluntary psychiatric care.

UW Medicine previously announced the closure of Seven North, its voluntary psychiatric care unit.

This was a difficult decision, and we sincerely regret the hardship this will create for the employees affected by these layoffs, said Lisa Brandenburg, president of UW Medicine Hospitals & Clinics. As a critical provider of healthcare in the Pacific Northwest, we recognize the need to allocate resources in new ways so that we can continue to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and meet all of the health needs of our patients.

COVID-19s disruptions, including the cancellation of many elective procedures early in the pandemic, have caused financial hardship for the health care system.

The organization sent furlough notices to some 5,500 staffers in May in an effort to shore up its budget.

Evan Bush

The new coronavirus has been present in Washington state since at least January, when a Snohomish County man received the United States first known diagnosis.

Yet, public health officials and researchers still dont know how many people have been infected because many people who have the virus show mild symptoms or, in some cases, no symptoms at all.

The state Department of Health (DOH) and UW Medicine are setting out to discover how prevalent COVID-19 is across the state by studying the blood of Washingtonians.

Were still trying to really understand, at a state level, wheres the virus really been? How many people have had it? And how does that vary between different parts of the state? said Dr. Keith Jerome, head of the virology division in UW Medicines Department of Laboratory Medicine.

The survey is expected to provide a clearer picture of whether certain populations for example, racial and ethnic groups, or people working particular types of jobs have been infected at higher rates, Jerome said.

Serological surveys detect whether people have antibodies that develop in response to the body fighting an infection. Specimens for an antibody test are collected by drawing blood, as opposed to the nasal swabs used for diagnostic tests. Antibodies can develop five days to two weeks after symptoms stop.

The study is also intended to provide data to inform policymakers public health decisions as cases of COVID-19 continue to mount.

Washington state saw its largest one-day total on July 16, with 1,267 new cases. As of Monday, 47,743 people in the state had been infected, including 1,453 who have died.

Read the story here.

Ryan Blethen

Floridas skyrocketing coronavirus death rate is now higher than any other state, edging out Texas, which has about 25% more people.

Florida recorded another 134 deaths Tuesday, bringing its daily average for the past week to 115, topping the 112 deaths a day Texas has reported during that same time, Associated Press statistics show. A month ago, Florida was averaging 33 coronavirus deaths a day.

Overall, 5,317 people have died in Florida from COVID-19 since March 1 and nearly 370,000 have tested positive for the disease. About 19% of tests have returned positive in Florida over the last week, compared to 10% a month ago and 2.3% in late May.

The state reported that an additional 517 people have been admitted to hospitals with the disease.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has a scheduled news conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss the outbreak.

The Associated Press

The Justice Department on Tuesday accused two Chinese hackers of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of trade secrets from companies across the world and more recently targeting firms developing a vaccine for the coronavirus.

The indictment, which officials expected to discuss at a news conference, says the hackers in recent months had researched vulnerabilities in the computer networks of companies publicly known for their work in developing vaccines and treatments.

The indictment includes charges of trade-secret theft and wire-fraud conspiracy against the hackers, who federal prosecutors say stole information not only for themselves but also details that they knew would be of interest and value to the Chinese government.

The charges are believed to be the first accusing foreign hackers of targeting scientific innovation related to the coronavirus, though U.S. and Western intelligence agencies have warned for months about those efforts.

Last week, for instance, authorities in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom accused a hacking group with links to Russian intelligence with trying to target research on the disease.

Read the story here.

The Associated Press

More than one in five people in Delhi have been infected with the coronavirus, according to a study released Tuesday, indicating that most cases in the Indian capital region have gone undetected.

The National Center for Disease Control tested 21,387 people selected randomly across Delhi, the state that includes New Delhi, and found that 23.48% had antibodies to the virus. Adjusting for false positives and negatives, it estimated that 22.86% of the population had been infected by the virus, Dr. Sujeet Kumar Singh, who heads the institute, said in a news conference Tuesday.

Delhi, with a population of 29 million, has officially reported 123,747 cases and 3,663 deaths. The study, however, indicates more than 6.6 million likely cases, with most not identified or tested.

Read the story here.

The Associated Press

As pressure mounts for teachers to return to their classrooms this fall, concerns about health risks from the coronavirus are pushing many toward alternatives, including career changes, as others mobilize to delay school reopenings in hard-hit areas.

Among those opting for early retirement is Liza McArdle, a 50-year-old high school language instructor in New Boston, Michigan. She considered the health risks and the looming instructional challenges trying to teach French and Spanish with a mask obstructing her enunciation, or perhaps a return to virtual learning and decided it was time to go.

Were always expected to give, give, give. Youre a teacher. You have to be there for the kids, McArdle said. And now its like, Oh, yeah, now you have to put your life on the line for the kids because they need to be in school.

Teachers unions have begun pushing back on what they see as unnecessarily aggressive timetables for reopening. The largest unions say the timing should be guided by whether districts have the ability and funding to implement protocols and precautions to protect students and teachers, even if that means balking at calls from President Donald Trump to resume in-person instruction.

On Monday, a teachers union filed a lawsuit to block the reopening of schools in Florida, where state officials have ordered school districts to reopen campuses as an option unless local health officials deem that to be unsafe. Educators in several cities have called for the school year to start with remote instruction. Some have joined demonstrations in Arizona, where three teachers sharing a classroom during summer school tested positive for the virus and one died.

Read the story here.

The Associated Press

A judge has recused herself from hearing a lawsuit filed by Georgias governor to get Atlanta to stop enforcing a mask mandate and other measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, causing a hearing scheduled for Tuesday to be canceled, according to the attorney generals office.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kelly Ellerbe had scheduled a hearing for 11 a.m. Tuesday on Gov. Brian Kemps emergency motion. But a spokeswoman for Attorney General Chris Carr said the hearing is not happening because Ellerbe is recusing herself. Further details were not immediately available.

The state plans to seek another emergency hearing once the case has been assigned to another judge, Carr spokeswoman Katie Byrd said in an email.

Atlanta is among at least 15 local jurisdictions statewide that has ordered people to wear masks in many public places to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. In a lawsuit filed Thursday against Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the members of the City Council, Kemp argues that local leaders do not have the authority to impose measures that are more or less restrictive than those in his executive orders.

Read the story here.

The Associated Press

Kris Higginson

Some of the best recipes are the oldest ones. One such classic, burnished by time: this summery lemon cake.

You need only five ingredients to make your own delicious flour tortillas. Seattle teen chef Sadie Davis-Suskind explains how.

"Marrying Millions": Nonie Creme is rich, Reese Record is not, and the Seattle couple is headed for reality TV. Age and wealth gaps aren't issues for them, Creme says, but filming the show has had its moments.

Kris Higginson

UW researchers say theyve developed a promising vaccine candidate that induced a strong immune response in monkeys and mice. Trials of the vaccine, created in partnership with a Seattle biotech, may start this summer.

President Donald Trump has reversed course on masks, tweeting it is Patriotic" to wear one. He added a photo of himself wearing one: There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President! He's also bringing back his public coronavirus briefings.

Congress and Trump are deeply divided over virus aid as emergency relief for Americans nears its expiration date. Among the toughest issues: school reopenings and a payroll tax cut.

An overwhelmed New York hurried to open a new hospital for virus patients, at the cost of $52 million. It treated just 79 people before closing.

Workers have sued Whole Foods, accusing the grocer of discriminating against them when it barred them from wearing Black Lives Matter face coverings while on the job.

The Beefeaters guarding the millennium-old Tower of London are facing job cuts for the first time in their storied 535-year history.

Kris Higginson

Want major coronavirus stories sent to you via text message?Text the word COVID to 855-480-9667 or enter your phone number below.

Seattle Times staff & news services

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Coronavirus daily news updates, July 21: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world - Seattle Times

NFL and players union agree on daily Covid-19 testing to start training camps – CNN

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

In a league-wide memo obtained by CNN, the NFL outlines the screening and testing guidelines now in place. Coronavirus testing will commence at the start of training camps and last for two weeks. Results from those weeks of testing will dictate a move to test every other day.

The memo says that players are required to test for coronavirus twice before entering team facilities for the first time. Tests must be separated by at least 72 hours.

On Monday, Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL's chief medical officer, outlined the guidelines on a conference call with select media including ESPN.

If after two weeks of daily testing the results for all team members are at or below 5%, testing will shift to every other day.

"Our union has been pushing for the strongest testing and tracing protocols to keep our players safe," according to a statement from the NFL Players Association confirming the agreement.

"The testing protocols we agreed to are one critical factor that will help us return to work safely and gives us the best chance to play and finish the season."

Possibly zero preseason games

Also on Monday, the NFL offered the player's union the opportunity to play zero preseason games, according to a source familiar with the negotiations between the league and the union.

According to the source, the league started at four, which is the custom number of preseason games played per team. That offering then went down to two games, and then to none. The union has not accepted the offer, the source says.

"Precise points on the discussions between the NFL and NFLPA:

"1. NFL didn't offer or give up preseason games for us. They had the right to set those (or not) under the CBA already.

"2. NFL didn't "concede" on health and safety issues. We implemented the best protocols together.

"Of course our union had to advocate hard for all of these protections because everyone wants to ... start and - most importantly - finish a full season, but the fact is we all conceded to a virus that is still rampant in our country. Crassly put: no protections, no games, no $," Atallah wrote.

The players are being encouraged to wear "non-intrusive wearable sensor technology" that the league says will measure respiratory functions, heart rate, and sleep patterns, according to the document. Players are advised to utilize the offered antibody testing but will not be required to participate.

Team training camps are set to begin July 28.

NFL and players union agree on daily Covid-19 testing to start training camps - CNN

COVID-19 Daily Update 7-18-2020 – 10 AM – West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of 10:00 a.m., on July 18,2020, there have been 225,385 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 4,894 total cases and 100 deaths.

In alignment with updated definitions fromthe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the dashboard includes probablecases which are individuals that have symptoms and either serologic (antibody)or epidemiologic (e.g., a link to a confirmed case) evidence of disease, but noconfirmatory test.

CASESPER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (25/0), Berkeley (545/19), Boone(57/0), Braxton (7/0), Brooke (37/1), Cabell (226/7), Calhoun (4/0), Clay(15/0), Fayette (101/0), Gilmer (13/0), Grant (21/1), Greenbrier (76/0),Hampshire (46/0), Hancock (51/3), Hardy (48/1), Harrison (135/1), Jackson(149/0), Jefferson (263/5), Kanawha (486/12), Lewis (24/1), Lincoln (20/0),Logan (43/0), Marion (130/3), Marshall (80/1), Mason (27/0), McDowell (12/0),Mercer (68/0), Mineral (70/2), Mingo (49/2), Monongalia (686/15), Monroe(14/1), Morgan (20/1), Nicholas (19/1), Ohio (173/0), Pendleton (19/1), Pleasants(4/1), Pocahontas (37/1), Preston (89/25), Putnam (105/1), Raleigh (92/3),Randolph (196/2), Ritchie (3/0), Roane (12/0), Summers (2/0), Taylor (28/1),Tucker (7/0), Tyler (10/0), Upshur (31/2), Wayne (145/2), Webster (2/0), Wetzel(40/0), Wirt (6/0), Wood (193/10), Wyoming (7/0).

As case surveillance continues at thelocal health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certaincounty may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individualin question may have crossed the state border to be tested.

Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR.

Please visit thedashboard at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.

Read the original:

COVID-19 Daily Update 7-18-2020 - 10 AM - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

WHO concerned about COVID-19 impact on indigenous people in the Americas – UN News

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

More than 70,000 cases and over 2,000 deaths were reported among this population as of 6 July, according to the UN agency.

There have been at least six cases among the Nahua people, who live in the Peruvian Amazon, latest information has revealed.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus explained that because indigenous people are among the worlds poorest and most vulnerable groups, they are especially at risk of contracting the disease.

Like other vulnerable groups, indigenous peoples face many challenges. This includes a lack of political representation, economic marginalization and lack of access to health, education and social services, he said, speaking from Geneva during the regular crisis update.

Indigenous peoples often have a high burden of poverty, unemployment, malnutrition and both communicable and non-communicable diseases, making them more vulnerable to COVID-19 and its severe outcomes.

WHOs Regional Office for the Americas recently published recommendations for preventing and responding to COVID-19 among indigenous peoples.

The agency also is working with the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin, to step up the fight against the disease.

WHO also used the briefing to underline the importance of contact tracing to suppress COVID-19 transmission among indigenous communities and the population at large.

The process is essential as more countries begin to re-open after lifting lockdown measures.

One of the lessons from the recent Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was declared over the last month, is that contact tracing can be done even in the most difficult circumstances, with security problems, Tedros told journalists.

Dr Ibrahima Soc Fall, WHO Assistant Director-General for Emergency Response, said contact tracing helps break further transmission of COVID-19, thus reducing its caseload and impact.

What we need to understand is that contact tracing is not an isolated practice. It is part of the best practices for epidemiology, he said, speaking in French.

WHO has welcomed promising news about a potential vaccine against COVID-19, as research into treatments in multiple countries, continues.

An experimental vaccine developed by Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, appears safe and triggers an immune response, according to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet.

It is good news, said Dr. Michael Ryan, Executive Director of WHOs Health Emergencies Programme, though he cautioned that the data is very new.

Dr. Ryan said the vaccine was given to 1,000 healthy adults aged 18 to 55 years. None appeared to suffer any serious adverse effects, other than chills, muscle aches and headaches, which were expected.

But again, there is a long way to go, he said. These are phase one studies. We now need to move into large-scale, real-world trials, but it is good to see more data and more products moving into this very important phase of vaccine discovery.

Dr. Ryan reported that 23 COVID-19 candidate vaccines are currently in clinical development.

See more here:

WHO concerned about COVID-19 impact on indigenous people in the Americas - UN News

Summer vacation plans stay the course in spite of Covid-19 spikes – CNN

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

(CNN) Not long ago, Lori Morell did something radical: She flew. On an airplane. All the way from her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Reno, Nevada. It was time for her annual family vacation at the Mourelatos Lakeshore Resort in north Lake Tahoe, and she wasn't going to miss it.

"I'm going to live my life and nothing's going to stop it unless it's mandated," says Morell, 42, who works within the Department of Justice and has been spending summers in Lake Tahoe since she was a toddler.

Morell is not alone in her insistence on taking previously planned trips -- or spontaneously deciding to hit the road -- pandemic be damned.

Michelle Wild says her kids live for their annual summer road trip and that this year Covid caused some modifications but otherwise went off without a hitch.

Courtesy Michelle Wild

Different people are traveling in different ways. Some are driving. Others are renting RVs. Still others, like Morell, are hopping on planes.

And the question remains: why? Why are some people forging ahead with planned trips, despite the fact that the coronavirus is raging across the country?

No one reason

That's why Scott Gorenstein didn't cancel his family vacation to Lincolnville Center, Maine, where he's summered for over 50 years. "It is collectively our favorite thing to do and place to go," says Gorenstein, a media and talent executive with Sony Pictures Television, in New York. "It would be very disheartening to cancel and a blow to our psyche."

What's more, his 80-year-old mother, who lives in Philadelphia, hasn't gone anywhere since March. "She needs something to look forward to, and our annual trip is at the top of that list," he says.

For others, traveling is about ticking items off a bucket list, and they want to continue to do so. Alisha Brown, 46, and her husband, James, booked a two-week trip to Egypt with Osiris Tours for late October. "Our goal is to hit every continent," says Brown, an accountant in Houston.

Alisha Brown and her husband James booked a two-week trip to Egypt with Osiris Tours for late October in an effort to tick another box off the bucket list.

AFP/Getty Images

It's not that she doesn't worry about getting sick. She does. But she's been social distancing, wearing a mask and washing her hands diligently for the last few months.

"We've been doing everything we needed to be safe," she says. "But at some point we're like, 'we're going to have to live with this.' I have Purell wipes in my bag. I can wipe down things I feel uncomfortable with, like elevator buttons."

Since the only way to get to Egypt is by plane, Brown booked two seats on Emirates with extra legroom. She's also planned private tours on the ground. "The only place where we're with a number of people is on the four-day Nile cruise, but we have someone who meets us on the dock and takes us on our own tour," she says.

The family vacations

Some families are continuing with their trips because they don't want to disappoint their kids, which is how Michelle and Tom Wild of Buffalo, New York, feel. Four years ago, the couple bought a 31-foot RV so they and their two sons could explore the country.

Michelle and Tom Wild bought an RV a few years ago so they could take long road trips with their two boys.

Courtesy Michelle Wild

"My husband makes a big PowerPoint presentation before we go. We look online and at books and on apps to find the coolest things to visit in every state," says Wild, 38, assistant director of nursing at a hospital in Buffalo. "My kids live for this trip, more than anything else -- even Disney! I didn't want to take that away for them."

They saw some friends and family, but slept in the RV, which has a kitchen and bunk beds. "I wasn't nervous," says Wild.

The Wilds saw some friends and family, but slept in the RV, which has a kitchen and bunk beds.

Courtesy Michelle Wild

"The self-isolation really started to get to people, they were getting severe cabin fever (pun intended) in their own homes and started craving a change of scenery," says spokesperson Miguel DeJesus in an email. "We represent the next best and safest option: close to home, private and somewhat remote, no common areas, no interaction with staff, away from crowds, immersing in nature and the outdoors."

The great outdoors

In June, Sue and Matt Scaffidi went on a hiking trip with travel company Backroads.

Courtesy Sue and Matt Scaffidi

Sue Scaffidi, 50 and her husband, Matt, of Buffalo, returned from a June hiking trip with Backroads to the Blue Ridge Mountains, in North Carolina and the Great Smokey Mountains, in Tennessee. It was their fifth trip with the outfitter.

"This is our anniversary gift to each other," says Scaffidi, 50, who works in healthcare. "We'd been talking about where we want to go since November and booked the trip in early January. Then Covid hit and we were like, let's see what happens.'"

Although they had originally planned to fly, the couple decided to do the ten-and-a-half hour drive by car. Once they arrived at their hotel, she felt safe. Guides did temperature checks in the mornings, guests wore masks in the vans, and breakfast, lunch and snacks were laid out in advance, limiting physical contact.

The Scaffidis hiking trip took them to the Blue Ridge Mountains, in North Carolina and the Great Smokey Mountains, in Tennessee.

Courtesy Sue and Matt Scaffidi

"You're very self-contained, no one else is walking down your hallway and dinner is outside," she says.

Risks weighed

As for Morell, she, too, made sure she was going to be as safe as possible. She flew Delta, which is capping passengers and blocking middle seats through September 30. They hand out sanitizer; all customers and crew members are required to wear face coverings

She also spoke in advance with the owner of the resort, Alex Mourelatos, who told her about the safety precautions in place, which includes leaving a 'rest' day between room cleanings; not having housekeeping during guest's stay to limit person-to-person interaction; and leaving extra disinfectant in the rooms. While guests don't have to wear masks on property, they are asked to socially distance.

"I'm not worried," she says. "I pray that I don't get it, but I'm not going to live in fear. I'm not in a high-risk category and I'm going to social distance and wear my mask, but I'm also going to paddleboard. How much more socially distant can you get?"

Summer vacation plans stay the course in spite of Covid-19 spikes - CNN

Concern over rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in South Africa – The Associated Press

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

JOHANNESBURG (AP)

There is growing concern that South Africas hospitals may not be able to cope with the numbers of COVID-19 patients expected in the next two months.

Neighboring Zimbabwe imposed a dusk to dawn curfew, banned large public gatherings and reduced business operating hours to try to slow the spread of the disease.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa continues to surge, accounting for more than 50% of cases in Africa and making it the country with the fifth-highest number of cumulative reported infections in the world.

South Africa has 373,628 confirmed cases, including 5,173 deaths, according to figures released by the health minister.

The rapid rise of the rate of infections in the country has raised concerns about whether South Africas hospitals will be able to cope with the influx of COVID-19 patients when the peak of cases is expected between August and September.

Many hospitals in Gauteng province, South Africas virus epicenter that includes the largest city of Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria, are already feeling the pressure of increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients.

Health minister Zweli Mkhize warned earlier this month that the country did not have enough hospital beds equipped to treat the expected numbers of COVID-19 patients. He appealed to citizens to wear face masks, now mandatory in all public places, and to keep a distance from others.

We are extremely concerned that fatigue seems to have set in and South Africans are letting down their guard at a time when the spread of infection is surging, said Mkhize, in an address to the nation last week.

Zimbabwe has reported 1,713 cases, up from about 50 two months ago, and President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday evening announced a night curfew, banned political, religious and social gatherings, and reduced business operating hours in order to try to slow the spread of the virus.

Mnangagwa said the curtailing of freedoms we have always enjoyed, and had grown accustomed to was necessary, although some claim the banning of political gatherings is aimed at suppressing an anti-government protest planned for July 31.

The accelerating spread of COVID-19 in South Africa could be a precursor to what will happen in the rest of Africa, said World Health Organization executive director of emergencies, Dr. Mike Ryan.

I think this isnt just a wake-up call for South Africa, We need to take what is happening in Africa very seriously, said Ryan at the WHO weekly news conference in Geneva on Monday. Many of those countries exist in the midst of fragility and conflict, many of them need external help support.

___

AP journalist Farai Mutsaka in Harare, Zimbabwe, contributed to this report.

See the article here:

Concern over rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in South Africa - The Associated Press

These five women were starting businesses in Lynn. Then COVID-19 hit, and the challenges multiplied – The Boston Globe

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

The other newbie owners echo her sentiments. Rachel Miller, who had been chef at the former Clio in Boston, opened Nightshade Noodle Bar last December in a tiny space in downtown Lynn, serving the Vietnamese and Asian-inspired dishes for which she had gained a pop-up following. Sommelier Sarah Marshall started Lucille Wine Shop in January, wagering that Lynn and surrounding communities were ready for her specialty wine and beer, plus tastings and classes. And Estefani Orellana Garcia and her mother, Fidelina Garcia, opened Estefanis, serving Central American and Mexican specialties on bustling Union Street, just a few weeks before the governor temporarily closed down indoor dining in Massachusetts.

The shock to hospitality businesses everywhere continues as restaurateurs assess whether offering takeout and opening dining rooms at reduced capacity makes financial sense, all while worrying about the health of customers and employees. These owners have the same concerns. Miller tells of crazy, long days after Nightshade Noodle pivoted in early spring to takeout and delivery and she reduced her staff to only a few people. The first two weeks were slow, but then rocked, and since then she figures she and her tiny staff sell just as much as before with half the staff. There is now a little patio with a pickup window, a rarity in the neighborhood, and takeout Wednesday through Sunday.

But, she adds, Ive definitely found a new sense of purpose. Miller, who was drawn to Lynn for its diversity, also found a deeper sense of community, donating a portion of profits in June to the North Shore Juneteenth Association and the NAGLY, the North Shore Alliance of GLBTQ Youth.

Mulfords Uncommon Feasts has become not just a takeout and delivery restaurant but a retail space for products from farmers who lost other restaurant accounts. She wanted to support them and offers their products on her takeout menus along with prepared foods. Ive completely shifted my perspective, she says. Catering and larger events are off the table, and in fact she cant see opening her airy dining room again in the near future because we cant do service the way we want. But artists in the Lydia Pinkham Building where the restaurant is located have presented online shows. The small patio is surrounded by the bustle of Western Avenue, she says, where trucks rumble by and children play in nearby spaces. It all feels fun and vibrant.

Estefani Orellana Garcia grew up in Lynn and is fiercely proud of that. After graduating from Bentley University and spending several years working in accounting and finance, she decided she hated the corporate world, and realized she wanted something more fulfilling.

With her mother, she opened Estefanis in the heart of the city, on the first floor of a residential building that her family owns. Their goal, she says, has always been to make their city better. The restaurant serves dishes of her Guatemalan and Salvadoran heritage, plus popular Mexican specialties, and its very much a family affair with her cousins husband as chef, her mother running the kitchen, and Orellana Garcia dealing with social media, customers, and everything else. Since reopening in early May, theyve been doing takeout and delivery, but the restaurant space is large so Orellana Garcia is considering trying indoor seating.

Marshall, of Lucille Wine Shop & Tasting Room, was able to stay open throughout the shutdowns, but found she also had to find new ways of doing business. It was almost like starting a second business, she says, as she added curbside pickup and home delivery, substituted in-store tastings with online events, and began to put her eclectic inventory online. The first couple of weeks were very stressful, Marshall, who was formerly sommelier for Oleana in Cambridge and Sarma in Somerville, says. But there were silver linings, she adds. I wasnt planning to do e-commerce for a year or so but now that shes got online ordering up and running, shes glad thats out of the way.

Now after months when every single week was a new animal, she is beginning to feel more confident that customers will gravitate to her very personal customer service and curated inventory. The neighborhood and her customers have been loyal and supportive, ordering cases of wine and joining in virtual tastings. More clients now are feeling more confident about coming into the store, and shes getting calls about private events (16 people or fewer) in the future.

The other women also found loyalty in customers. People deliberately shop with us weekly, Mulford of Uncommon Feasts says, adding that, surprisingly, shes even getting new customers. Its growing our connection to Lynn, she says.

The difficulties are real, too. Orellana Garcia says that when Estefanis reopened to offer takeout, there were shortages of supplies every week. One week it was trays, another week bags, another food compartment boxes. One week there were no containers anywhere, she says, and she had to figure out ways of getting supplies. Although she had waitressed in college and her mother had been a banquet waitress, the whole restaurant business was so new to them that she admits to Googling how to open a restaurant. Now shes getting comfortable with social media as Estefanis birria tacos, with slow-roasted beef and a Mexican favorite in Los Angeles, is taking off, attracting customers from as far away as Maine and New York.

One benefit, all the owners say, is a sense of women working together. When Orellana Garcia couldnt find supplies for takeout at Restaurant Depot, she said, Rachel [Miller of Nightshade] said she would share some. Mulford, Miller, and Marshall also talked of earlier collaborations with other women owners.

The owners have formed like a little club, says Miller. Its huge to have women-owned businesses.

For, as Marshall of Lucille Wine Shop says: If I can survive opening through a pandemic, I can do anything.

Alison Arnett can be reached at arnett.alison@gmail.com.

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These five women were starting businesses in Lynn. Then COVID-19 hit, and the challenges multiplied - The Boston Globe

Whistleblower Reality Winner has tested positive for COVID-19 in prison – The Verge

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Former intelligence contractor and whistleblower Reality Winner has reportedly tested positive for COVID-19. Winners sister, Brittany Winner, tweeted her diagnosis earlier today. Winner is currently incarcerated in a federal medical prison in Fort Worth, Texas, where an outbreak has sickened hundreds of inmates and killed at least two.

Winner is seeking compassionate release during the coronavirus pandemic, citing underlying medical conditions. An early petition for release from her imprisonment at FMC Carswell was denied in April. Shortly afterward, Carswell reported its first coronavirus death: Andrea Circle Bear, who died after giving birth on a ventilator. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported last week that 130 people had contracted COVID-19 at the prison; the most recent Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics show over 500 cases. An appeal is currently pending.

Winners attorney, Joe Whitley, told Law.coms Daily Report that he hopes the court will take the outbreak into consideration. I hope the BOP is equipped to handle the geometric surge in cases, effectively at all their facilities, but I am concerned that may not be the case. According to Daily Report, Winners sister says she is currently asymptomatic, and one of her cellmates also tested positive.

Prisons have emerged as one of the most dangerous hotspots for Americas coronavirus outbreak. Attorney General William Barr has ordered prisons to prioritize releasing inmates to home confinement, but numerous reports have demonstrated confusion and delays in the process although some high-profile Trump associates, like Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, have been released.

Winner, who previously worked for the National Security Agency, accepted a plea deal for espionage in 2018 after leaking a report on Russian election interference to The Intercept. She is currently scheduled for release in November 2021.

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Whistleblower Reality Winner has tested positive for COVID-19 in prison - The Verge

Facebook suspends anti-mask group for spreading COVID-19 misinformation – The Verge

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Facebook has removed one of the largest anti-mask groups on its platform for violating its policies against spreading misinformation about COVID-19.

The About section of the public group Unmasking America! which had more than 9,600 members described it as here to spread the TRUTH about masks! It made several claims which have been widely debunked about masks obstructing oxygen flow and having a negative psychological impact. It is a psychological anchor for suppression, enslavement and cognitive obedience. When you wear a mask you are complicit in declaring all humans as dangerous, infectious and threats, the post stated.

It is one of dozens of such groups easily found in a search for unmasking on Facebook. Some of the groups are private, meaning a group admin has to approve new members before they can join. But the theme is the same: the groups oppose the public health intervention championed by medical experts. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends people wear masks in all public areas, which should limit the spread of the virus. These Facebook groups are for people who dont want to wear masks, and there are a lot of them.

Facebooks action came after an inquiry about the group from The Verge. We have clear policies against promoting harmful misinformation about COVID 19 and have removed this group while we review the others, Facebook spokesperson Dami Oyefeso said in an email.

According to Facebooks rules, if a group shares false news repeatedly, the platform will show the groups content lower in users News Feeds and stop suggesting people join the group to reduce its growth.

The Unmasking America group page included posts of photos from members wearing masks emblazoned with the Make America Great Again slogan or other references to President Trump, usually as a way of protesting mask requirements. Other posts described experiences dealing with stores that require masks, and many posters asked how to claim an exemption from mask rules.

An image of a Face Mask Exempt Card issued by the Freedom to Breathe Agency was linked to prominently; one poster advised others to print it, laminate it and use it. The number is legit. No such government agency exists and law enforcement officials have warned that such cards which use a version of the justice departments eagle logo do not carry the force of law, The New York Times reported.

Among the private groups are the Million Unmasked March group, which has more than 7,800 members. Parents are powerful! We are a group of moms, dads, grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers, friends, nurses and anyone who is concerned with our children wearing masks to school in fall, the groups about section reads. We believe that our children wearing masks to school is physically and psychologically damaging. Join us in saying NO MORE MASKS! And the Unmasking Fear group, which has about 400 members, is promoting an August 1st event rallying against mandatory masks.

Medical experts, however, say there are very few medical reasons to preclude most people from wearing cloth face coverings when they go out in public. About two dozen states now have some kind of public mask requirement in place. Even President Trump, who has been largely resistant to wearing a mask in public, tweeted Monday that it was patriotic to wear a face mask when you cant socially distance.

Facebook has taken several steps to attempt to stem the flood of coronavirus misinformation on its platforms, with mixed results. A scathing report in April from human rights group Avaaz found 100 pieces of misinformation regarding the virus on Facebook were shared more than 1.7 million times and viewed about 117 million times. Facebook announced April 16th that it was adding a warning label when a person liked, commented, or reacted to a post with fake coronavirus information. Also in April, the company said it was removing pseudoscience from the list of categories advertisers could use to target potential customers to prevent potential abuse in ads.

In May, the company released a report describing its use of artificial intelligence along with human fact-checkers and moderators to enforce its community standards. According to the report, in April, Facebook put warning labels on 50 million pieces of content related to COVID-19, and since March 1st, has removed more than 2.5 million pieces of content related to mask sales, hand sanitizers, and COVID-19 test kits.

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Facebook suspends anti-mask group for spreading COVID-19 misinformation - The Verge

COVID-19 Daily Update 7-17-2020 – 10 AM – West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of 10:00 a.m., on July 17,2020, there have been 219,947 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 4,710 total cases and 100 deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the death of an 84-yearold male from Cabell County. We are deeply saddened by this news, a loss toboth the family and our state, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary.

CASESPER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (24/0), Berkeley (537/19), Boone(52/0), Braxton (5/0), Brooke (31/1), Cabell (205/7), Calhoun (4/0), Clay(15/0), Fayette (96/0), Gilmer (13/0), Grant (21/1), Greenbrier (74/0),Hampshire (44/0), Hancock (50/3), Hardy (48/1), Harrison (134/1), Jackson(149/0), Jefferson (261/5), Kanawha (464/12), Lewis (24/1), Lincoln (15/0),Logan (41/0), Marion (122/3), Marshall (74/1), Mason (26/0), McDowell (12/0),Mercer (67/0), Mineral (69/2), Mingo (39/2), Monongalia (643/15), Monroe(14/1), Morgan (19/1), Nicholas (19/1), Ohio (174/0), Pendleton (18/1),Pleasants (4/1), Pocahontas (37/1), Preston (88/21), Putnam (96/1), Raleigh(89/3), Randolph (194/2), Ritchie (3/0), Roane (12/0), Summers (2/0), Taylor(26/1), Tucker (7/0), Tyler (10/0), Upshur (31/2), Wayne (141/2), Webster(2/0), Wetzel (39/0), Wirt (6/0), Wood (190/11), Wyoming (7/0).

Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR.

Please visit thedashboard at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.

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COVID-19 Daily Update 7-17-2020 - 10 AM - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

6 burning questions for Covid-19 vaccine developers headed to the House – STAT

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Some drug companies say well have a coronavirus vaccine by the winter. Others say thats an irresponsible prediction. Some promise to forgo profits on a vaccine, but others believe theyre entitled to their monetary due.

Now, lawmakers can force the industry to get its story straight. On Tuesday, executives from five drug companies leading the vaccine race are due at a congressional hearing to talk about their progress in developing a product the entire world desperately needs. Representatives from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Moderna, and Pfizer will appear in front of the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

People weary of the constraints Covid-19 is placing on lives are pinning a lot of hopes on the promises those companies have made, particularly when it comes to when a vaccine might be ready. But there are still looming questions, from who will get a successful vaccine first to how much it might cost.

Here are six burning questions the panel could pose.

Most of the manufacturers in the hunt for Covid-19 vaccines are making very bold promises about how quickly vaccines will be ready to be deployed and how rapidly theyll be able to produce their vaccines to the kind of scale needed to combat the pandemic. Many are promising tens, even hundreds of millions of doses by early 2021, and some even predict they can scale to the billion-dose range within the next calendar year.

But in a recent interview with Harvard professor Tsedal Neeley, Merck CEO Ken Frazier warned that these predicted timelines are doing a grave disservice to the public.

For one thing, he said, vaccine development takes time. The fastest vaccine ever developed before now was the mumps vaccine, which took four years.

Cutting corners is a risky business, Frazier suggested: If youre going to use a vaccine in billions of people, you better know what that vaccine does.

Implied in the statement is the risk that any problems that might arise from use of the vaccines would throw fuel on the fire of the anti-vaccine movement, which is already sowing doubts about the safety of these fast-tracked Covid-19 vaccines.

Frazier also warned that giving people the sense a vaccine may be coming soon allows politicians to downplay other tools that can suppress spread of the disease, such as [wearing] the damn masks.

The most pressing question facing the drug industry is how soon it can come up with an effective vaccine. But right behind that is just how much itll cost. And the industry could answer now by committing to a price before a vaccine is approved.

The U.S. government has some leverage for such a demand. With the exception of Pfizer, each of the companies at the table has received substantial federal funding to support its vaccine development. Through the governments Operation Warp Speed project, taxpayers are on the line for more than $3 billion in research support, and the National Institutes of Health is picking up the tab for at least three massive vaccine studies.

So, what does the American public get in exchange? Some manufacturers have promised to sell their vaccines on a not-for-profit basis, at least for the extent of the pandemic. Others have not. Either way, its looking increasingly likely that the novel coronavirus will not simply vanish once the current crisis subsides, meaning there will demand for vaccines for years to come. If thats the case, will companies come to charge whatever the market will bear? Or are they willing to make pricing commitments now?

Since the start of the crisis, news about vaccine trials has made global headlines, moved markets, and seeped into politics. But the process of disseminating that data has been inconsistent. In May, Moderna put out a press release with vague positive language about its early-stage trial, frustrating experts who wanted more. Pfizer chose to upload its data to a preprint server, where scientific papers are posted without peer review, while AstraZeneca is holding out for publication in the Lancet.

A working vaccine is key to restoring anything resembling normalcy, and the public is desperate for information on the process. But without standardizing the current system, the public is left to parse press releases, rumors, and, worst of all, Twitter. Can the companies developing vaccines establish a system whereby the world gets clear, timely updates on their progress?

The second a coronavirus vaccine proves to be safe and effective, the entire world is going to be calling its manufacturer. The U.S. has already moved to secure millions of future doses, and the European Union is reportedly negotiating to do the same, but whats the plan for the world at large?

Scaling up manufacturing is a time-consuming process, meaning drug makers will be dealing with a constrained supply in the months following a vaccines approval. Beyond the wealthy nations that are already locking in bids, how can countries in the developing world ensure they get access?

That may seem like a question beyond the scope of a House hearing, but the U.S. has a public health interest in vaccines being widely available. With an economy deeply reliant on global trade and travel the U.S. will be at risk of another Covid-19 outbreak as long as the virus persists anywhere in the world.

Some manufacturers are suggesting that there may be enough data to warrant emergency use authorizations as soon as October. If that happens, vaccines destined for use in potentially billions of people will be deployed after mere months of human testing.

In the U.S., manufacturers are shielded from liability if a vaccine or drug developed in response to a health emergency causes injuries to people who receive it. That protection comes from the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2005.

If that protection were not in place, would vaccine manufacturers be willing to roll out vaccines on such a slight evidence base? Will they make them available to countries that dont offer similar protection against liability?

The major manufacturers are all making vaccine at-risk, meaning they are already working to produce at commercial scale, even before they determine whether their vaccine candidate actually works. The goal is to have large amounts available for use as soon as the Food and Drug Administration green-lights a vaccine. If some candidates fail to clear the FDAs bar, that product will be destroyed.

But manufacturing vaccines is a notoriously unpredictable enterprise. During the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, the start of mass vaccination was delayed by several months because the manufacturers had trouble scaling up production. The doses arrived as the fall wave of the pandemic was subsiding in the U.S. That happened with a vaccine that manufacturers had decades of experience producing. So it wouldnt be surprising if some of the companies have or will hit snags. In fact, it would probably be surprising if all the projects sailed through on the very ambitious timelines that have been laid out.

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Safe Pregnancy As COVID-19 Surges: What’s Best For Mom And Baby? – NPR

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Pregnancy is a time of hope and dreams for most women and their families even during a pandemic. Still, their extra need to avoid catching the coronavirus has meant more isolation and sacrifices, too. Leo Patrizi/Getty Images hide caption

Carissa Helmer and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for five or six months by early April, when COVID-19 started to spike in the Washington, D.C., area where they live. Maybe, they mused, they should stop trying to conceive for a few months.

But then a pregnancy test came back positive.

"We were, like, 'Oh well I guess it's too late for that!' " Helmer says, laughing.

In some ways, she says, there are a few convenient aspects to being pregnant now starting with being able to work from home. Before the pandemic, she and her husband both commuted 90 minutes each way to their jobs in the city driving to the subway, then taking the train downtown. Because she's now working from home in her job in the subscriptions department at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Helmer is able to get more sleep and has been able to combat morning sickness with ginger ale and crackers. "On the Metro, you're not allowed to eat or drink at all," she says.

But other aspects of the pregnancy have been tougher than she expected. For one thing, she's had to go to all of her doctor's appointments by herself.

"It's completely understandable," Helmer says, "but I think that that's something ... we hadn't anticipated in a first pregnancy that my husband wouldn't be able to be in the room."

Carissa Helmer and her husband, Timothy, had been trying to get pregnant for months when COVID-19 first spiked in the Washington, D.C., area where they live. Helmer says she's found a few things convenient about being pregnant now: being able to work from home, getting more sleep, and not having to deal with morning sickness on the subway. Deborah Helmer hide caption

Then there's the delicacy required in making rules about visits from relatives.

"We've been trying to be really strict with them," Helmer says, advising extended family: " 'You know, it's really important that you're quarantining for 14 days before you come and visit us.' I think that's been a little hard to explain to some folks, just to tell them that I'm more at risk, and it's not anything against them."

Though she sounds relaxed, Helmer tells me that she's worried about getting the coronavirus.

"I'm terrified," she says. "My husband's still going to the grocery store, and that's pretty much the only place that he goes. And the only place that I go is the doctor's office."

Digging into the data about COVID-19 and pregnancy

How worried should expecting parents be about any extra risks the coronavirus might pose to the mom or developing fetus?

The answer and advice may continue to change, public health officials say, as the evidence rolls in. In June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study showing pregnant women may be more likely to develop a severe case of COVID-19 than other women their age when they become infected with the virus. And just this week, physicians in France published a case study that strongly suggests a newborn caught the coronavirus before birth from his mother via the placenta.

"Where you can, you need to decrease your exposures. But that has to be practical," says Dr. Laura Riley, an OB-GYN at New York-Presbyterian Hospital who chairs the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine, and has been involved in devising pandemic guidelines for practitioners and patients on behalf of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Because this coronavirus is relatively new to humans, the evidence about the added risks it imposes on a pregnancy is scant. The June CDC analysis was partly reassuring, suggesting that women who get COVID-19 when pregnant are at no greater risk of dying from the virus than nonpregnant women their age, though they do seem to be at somewhat greater risk of developing a severe case of the illness.

The study reviewed more than 91,000 U.S. women of reproductive age who had a lab-confirmed coronavirus infection; of those, roughly 8,200 were pregnant at the time. Compared with other women of reproductive age who tested positive for the virus, pregnant women more often went into the intensive care unit and were more likely to need mechanical ventilation.

The data also showed that pregnant women who are Hispanic or Black may be at higher risk of infection than white pregnant women. (Black and Hispanic people in the U.S. have been found to be at greater risk of contracting the coronavirus and at higher risk of death from COVID-19.)

But there were limits to the CDC study that are worth noting, Riley says limits that may have made the added COVID-19 risk to pregnant women look bigger than it is.

First, pregnancy status was only known for 28% of the women of reproductive age who tested positive in the study. That means some infected women who went on to deliver perfectly healthy babies were likely not counted. And for those whose pregnancy status was known, data on race and ethnicity, symptoms, underlying conditions and outcomes were missing for a large proportion of cases. That, too, may have skewed their findings, the researchers who did the analysis say.

Then there's the matter of hospitalization rates for pregnant women. Many hospitals have implemented universal coronavirus screening for anyone admitted to a hospital's labor and delivery unit. What the evidence analyzed by the CDC doesn't reveal, Riley points out, is whether a pregnant woman was being hospitalized because of symptoms of COVID-19, or because she was going into labor.

"You can't tell from this data who came in because they were sick with COVID, and who came in because they were just going to deliver and were oh, by the way, COVID-positive," Riley says.

Plus, she says, it's hard to tell from the CDC data whether a pregnant woman was admitted to the ICU because her case of COVID-19 was severe, or because that particular hospital was only equipped to handle a pregnancy involving COVID-19 in an ICU.

There was one finding in the CDC data that does stand out to Riley as potentially worrisome: "It seemed pregnant women were more likely to need the mechanical ventilation, which suggests more severe disease."

Still, even there, she says, the number of coronavirus-positive pregnant women in the study who were sick enough to need a ventilator was quite small: 42 women out of 8,207 that's half of 1%.

Riley says her own OB-GYN practice includes many high-risk pregnancies including some older women, some who are pregnant with twins or triplets, and some who have underlying health conditions such as chronic hypertension or diabetes. So does this new data change what she tells her patients about pregnancy in the age of COVID-19?

Not really, she says.

"What it underscores, and what I tell my patients," Riley says, "is you just need to remain diligent in terms of all those things that we know work [to prevent infection with the virus]. We know social distancing works. We know that wearing a mask works. We know that washing your hands frequently works." Guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also advise "limiting contact with other individuals as much as practicable" and urge patients to "maintain an adequate supply of preparedness resources including medications."

Where it can get harder for her patients, she says, is that, to keep the mother-to-be protected, partners and other members of the household need to take those same precautions. "That may not be so easy," Riley says, "but it's absolutely critical."

If pregnant women do have symptoms of COVID-19 or have been exposed to the coronavirus, they need to let their doctors know so they can be tested and receive appropriate care, Riley advises.

''Am I just going to be housebound the whole of pregnancy?''

Taking every precaution can mean staying close to home.

Kate Bernard lives in Austin, Texas, where she works at a music nonprofit and sings with her band KP and the Boom Boom. Originally from Yorkshire, England, she met her husband 10 years ago on a trip to Austin, and they married 2 1/2 months later.

Kate Bernard met her husband, David, a decade ago on a trip to Austin, Texas, and became pregnant in March. These days, she says, she's grateful to be able to do her work for a music nonprofit from home. Kate Bernard hide caption

Their world changed suddenly in mid-March: "The coronavirus lockdowns were just being announced that week that we got pregnant," she says.

The pandemic led to canceling the gigs the band had scheduled, and Bernard says she's not sure how she would have fared if she'd had to perform, considering her pregnancy-induced nausea and the Texas heat. These days, Bernard says, just 20 minutes outside in the heat makes her queasy, "and some of those gigs were outdoor gigs where you're playing for an hour, two hours."

To try to steer clear of the coronavirus, she's doing her nonprofit job from home. Bernard says she's grateful that's an option she has been able to work in bed whenever the sciatic pain in her back flares.

"I just can't imagine having to get dressed and get myself together" to go to the office, she says she figures she would have felt compelled to keep her pregnancy under wraps at work until the end of the first trimester.

Not that concealing it would have been easy in her small, open-plan office. "We've just got one bathroom, and they'd have heard the puking," she says, laughing. "They'd have known."

Bernard says her life has been a roller coaster since March, and the current surge of coronavirus cases in Texas only adds to her concern.

"We don't know when this is going to end, and it doesn't give you hope when the numbers are going up in the state that you live in," she says. "Am I just going to be housebound the whole of the pregnancy?"

Before the new CDC data came out last month, Bernard had been encouraging her husband to go places such as a downtown park or swimming at Austin's aquifer-fed Barton Springs Pool. And she had been hoping to swim in the pool at their apartment complex and engage in other activities that bring her joy. But now she feels like they'll both need to be more cautious, and the pools have closed in light of the pandemic. In addition to being pregnant, Bernard has asthma another risk factor that can make COVID-19 more severe.

"I like to make my own mind up about things," she says, adding that she and her husband both "try and think outside the box and live our life alternatively. But I just think it's just better to be safe than sorry at the moment."

Undeterred by COVID-19

So, do pregnant women really need to be housebound for nine months? Riley, the New York OB-GYN, says that would not be realistic.

For one thing, they need prenatal care. "Yes, we can do some prenatal care by telehealth, but we can't do it all that way. We can't assess your baby with you at home."

Plus, there are many other reasons to get out and move your body, she says: "Your mental well-being is not to be ignored." The need for fresh air or to take a walk are part of staying healthy, and going to work may be necessary financially, Riley says.

Dr. Carroll Medeiros is a professor at Brown University's Alpert Medical School and an OB-GYN at Southern New England Women's Health. She says many of her patients in Providence, R.I., don't have the luxury of working from home during the pandemic. Many are also Hispanic or African American.

Classified as essential workers, a number of her patients are still going in to do their jobs often at hospitals or nursing homes, she says or they live with an essential worker, and that, too, increases their risk of exposure to the virus.

Some of Medeiros' patients work in a factory where roughly 70 employees became infected with COVID-19.

"These people are mostly Black and brown," Medeiros says, "and it just shows the inequality. You have less of a chance of having a really good job in this country if you are Black and brown."

Many of her pregnant patients are worried about catching the virus, Medeiros says, but "it's hard for them to take off time when they feel like they are most at risk. You take off time you might lose your job."

Despite all the anxieties and the unknowns, Medeiros says she hasn't seen indications in her practice that people are avoiding pregnancy out of fear of the pandemic.

"They are very few and far between people who have told me, 'Oh, you know, we've changed our mind. We're not going to do it right now,' " Medeiros says. "People have come to have their intrauterine devices removed and to start trying. I don't think it's deterred anybody. But they have a lot of concerns about it."

''That hopefulness of having a child''

In Austin, Bernard anticipates that when her baby is due in December, the U.S. will still be grappling with the risks and effects of COVID-19.

And the current unrest over racial injustice and policing has added extra stress, Bernard says.

"I've just got to have hope for the new life," she says, "that bringing a baby in, we're going to teach it right from wrong. I think that's what I'll be holding on to that hopefulness of having a child. And rather than it being doom and gloom in the current times, having hope that the next generations will do a better job."

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