70 soldiers and trainees at Fort Leonard Wood test positive for COVID-19 – News-Leader

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Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images Nearly a month before community spread was first detected, "sustained, community transmission" of the coronavirus in the United States began in late January or early February, a report from the CDC says. A "single importation" from China was followed by "several importations" from Europe, the study's authors found. "As America begins to reopen, looking back at how COVID-19 made its way to the United States will contribute to a better understanding to prepare for the future," said CDC Director Robert Redfield. Wochit

During a two-day period, 500 soldiers and trainees at Fort Leonard Wood were tested for COVID-19. Of those, 70 had positive results, according to a news release.

The soldiers and trainees were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 48th Infantry Regiment.

"Due to the aggressive mitigation strategies in place, the number of infected and exposed individuals has been minimized to the greatest extent possible, and contained within one training unit," the release said. "Affected individuals have been isolated or quarantined as appropriate and in accordance with CDC guidelines. In addition, all impacted buildings, dining facilities and training areas within the unit area have been sanitized in accordance with CDC guidelines."

Upon arrival to Fort Leonard Wood, all 500 soldiers and trainees were medically screened and tested by health professionals at the beginning of their 14-day controlled monitoring phase of basic combat training and all test results at that time were negative, the release said.

Keep reading: Some Missouri counties offering free COVID-19 tests

Four days after the end of the groups controlled monitoring phase, a trainee reported to Harper In-processing Health Screening Facility with symptoms, and immediately, all 500 were tested again, resulting in the increased positive test results, the release said.

According to the release, all those who tested positive are being cared for and monitored according to CDC guidelines and have been isolated to prevent the potential spread to others. Most of those who tested positive are asymptomatic and none have been hospitalized.

"Contact tracing continues to be performed and aggressive measures are continuing to be used to ensure that further spread of COVID-19 is minimized," the release said. "Fort Leonard Wood continues the strict enforcement of social distancing and the wearing of cloth face coverings to mitigate the spread of the virus."

Others are reading: Soldier at Fort Leonard Wood tested positive for COVID-19

"Our people military, civilians and families and their health, welfare and safety are our highest priority. We continue to assess, refine and coordinate prevention and response efforts on post and in the local area to ensure the well-being of our personnel and local population," the release said. "Fort Leonard Wood leadership remain in close coordination with local and state public health authorities and have assessed that the local communities are not at an increased risk."

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70 soldiers and trainees at Fort Leonard Wood test positive for COVID-19 - News-Leader

Williams: America is battling two lethal adversaries, COVID-19 and racism. One is deadlier. – Richmond.com

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The mood in the Museum District was curiously carefree on the sun-kissed afternoon following a night of arson and destruction.

Bubbles blew from a machine on the balcony of an apartment on Arthur Ashe Boulevard, across from the scorched United Daughters of the Confederacy building, where the message BUILT ON OUR BACKS was scrawled on the exterior.

Theres a riot going on, in Richmond and throughout the nation, in the aftermath of the 9-minute torture and death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody last Monday. The image of the white police officer pressing his knee into the black mans neck burned into the brain of a sick and smoldering nation, pent up physically and emotionally.

America is battling two potentially lethal adversaries, COVID-19 and racism. Too many folks think neither is a real problem.

Our black literary prophets saw the potential for this moment, from James Baldwin to Langston Hughes, who asked of the black American dream deferred: Does it sag like a heavy load? Or does it explode?

That were still unclear about the individuals, groups and motives behind this past weeks detonation doesnt speak well about the cohesion of the social justice movement.

The message of grassroots activists and peaceful protesters has been hijacked by looters and arsonists. The images are racially diverse, complicated and confusing. Salt Lake City, with a black population of less than 3%, is on curfew following protests. Its unclear whos fueling the lawlessness, though suspicion has been cast toward right-wing and left-wing provocateurs.

If we and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks ... do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world, Baldwin wrote in 1963.

If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophesy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!

Prophesies are warnings, and America and Richmond cant say it wasnt warned. Our peaceful efforts to avoid this moment were met with resistance.

When black football players took a knee in protest of the sort of police misconduct that took Floyds life, they were assailed by no less than the president of the United States. The leader of that peaceful protest, Colin Kaepernick, has been blackballed from the NFL. Im sure his protests are looking not so unreasonable today.

For years, when the Virginia General Assembly was controlled by Republicans, our efforts to relocate Confederate monuments or add context to them where they stand were rejected.

These protesters didnt wait for permission, adding their own context in the form of often-profane graffiti.

Dont complain about the riots if you did nothing to acknowledge or address the injustices that sparked them. Policing the tone and methods of oppressed people only compounds their oppression.

Americas unwillingness to address police brutality in a meaningful way reflects its slow walk in acknowledging our discomfit with its glorification of racist iconography. Martin Luther King Jr. would be impatient with the pace of change. After all, he wrote a book titled Why We Cant Wait.

King called a riot the language of the unheard. But I must say, the language is hard to translate beyond its frustration. Raw fury is a poor substitute for strategy and leads to contradiction.

If black lives matter in Richmond, why were two of the targets of vandalism a black dentist, Dr. Randy Adams, and a venerable African American business, Waller & Company Jewelers?

If black lives matter, should these mass gatherings be occurring during a pandemic that has been particularly deadly for African Americans?

Andrea Simpson, an associate professor of political science at the University of Richmond, was a teen-age participant in the civil rights movement in Memphis during the late 1960s. She is a critic of Black Lives Matter and argues that social justice movements need visible leadership and structure.

Your message and how you want things to be redressed must be crystal clear to everyone who hears it, and you repeat the message over and over again, she said.

Part of staying on message is heading off violent distractions, from within the ranks or without. Im not sure whos directing what Im seeing, and toward what end.

America burned during my 1960s childhood, fueled by police brutality in places like Watts and Detroit. The Kerner Commission charged with investigating the unrest described a nation moving toward two societies, one black, one whiteseparate and unequal.

That the description still fits explains a lot. America feels broken.

It cannot be overstated how destabilizing the Trump presidency has been. A nation whose institutions were never as durable as imagined, and whose narrative was never as benevolent as the hype, is exposing the inequities baked into its foundation. The frenetic gun purchasing, dating back to the election of the first black president, seems less like a natural exercise of Second Amendment rights than the amassing of an arsenal for a cataclysmic confrontation.

For young people feeling betrayed by the American Dream, the racial inequality that led to Floyds death amplifies the economic grievances theyre experiencing. They want to tear the system down and start over. But I fear the undisciplined and violent among them are playing into the hands of a president whose talent is demolition, not repair; exploiting societal rifts, not healing them.

Tearing down is easy. The real work is in realizing a dream deferred and mending a fractured nation. We must dare everything to end this nightmare and achieve our country.

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Williams: America is battling two lethal adversaries, COVID-19 and racism. One is deadlier. - Richmond.com

One New COVID-19 Case on Maui Brings Hawaii Total to 652; 95.7% Recovered – Maui Now

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There was one new COVID-19 case reported today on the island of Maui, pushing Hawaiis COVID-19 case total to 652.

To date, 608 people (95.7%) have recovered including 110 in Maui County. There are currently 27 active cases in the state.

The breakdown by island includes the following:

The Hawaii State Department of Health reports that there were 608 individuals released from isolation; and 83 cases (13%) that have required hospitalization. A total of 591 patients (91%) were residents.

Maui Countys count increased by one from yesterday. Of the 120 cases in Maui County, at least 110 have been released from isolation, and 22 have required hospitalization.

To date, there have been 17 COVID-19 related deaths in Hawaii, including 11 on Oahu and 6 in Maui County. Lieutenant Governor Josh Green notes that Hawaii has the lowest mortality rate in the US at 1.2 deaths per 100,000.

*Positive cases include presumptive and confirmed cases, and Hawaii residents and non-residents; data are preliminary and subject to change. Note that CDC provides case counts according to states of residence.

Includes cases that meet isolation release criteria (Isolation should be maintained until at least 3 days (72 hours) after resolution of fever and myalgia without the use of antipyretics OR at least 10 days have passed since symptom onset, whichever is longer). (The cases that have died and one case that has left the jurisdiction have been removed from these counts).

One case is a Lnai resident whose exposure is on Maui Island and who will be remaining on Maui Island for the interim.

Maui County now has six COVID-19related deaths.

Maui Memorial Cluster: (Update 5.19.20)

The outbreak at Maui Memorial Medical Center in Kahului was considered closed as of May 19, 2020. The cluster of individuals linked to the Maui hospital outbreak totaled 52 including 38 health care workers and 14 patients who had tested positive, according to Maui Health. DOH officials say it appears the outbreak may have been driven by a single healthcare worker who was allowed to work while ill.

Other Highlights for Maui County:

Hawaii Governor David Ige on May 28 said that the 14-day travel quarantine will be extended for domestic and international travelers past June 30, but an official announcement will be made at a later date.Gov. Ige also mentioned that he and all four mayors have been working for the last three weeks to coordinate reopening of interisland travel and said they would make a decision within the next few days regarding plans on when to lift the interisland quarantine. In the meantime, Mayor Victorino has requested that the interisland travel quarantine be lifted on June 15.

An employee at the Maui Memorial Medical Center has been quarantined at home since the hospital learned of the individuals positive antibody detection on Friday, May 21. Asubsequent COVID swab test at the hospitals emergency department came back positive on Saturday, May 23. Hospital representatives say its too soon in the process to determine a source of the infection but have stated that the case is not related to the Maui Memorial Medical Center cluster of 52 individuals that was deemed closed on May 19.

Increased access to Haleakal National Park began on May 27. The public is now allowed in the Summit District from the park entrance to the summit at the 10,000 foot elevation between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Park entrance fees are temporarily waived. Sunrise and sunset viewing are not available at this time and the parks visitor center buildings, Kipahulu District, crater and backcountry areas remain closed. Commercial and special use permits also remain suspended.

Governor David Ige approved Maui Mayor Michael Victorinos request to reopen most businesses and services with modifications starting Monday, June 1, 2020. This includes clubhouses, dog parks, playgrounds and skate parks, all county parks and beach parks, select county pools, dine-in restaurant service, tattoo parlors, aestheticians, massage therapists and other personal services. Earlier openings included: hair and nail salons on May 25; and drive-in religious services on May 22; and certain retail shops at shopping malls in Maui Countyopened on May 11.

Governor David Ige signed his 8th supplementalemergency proclamation on May 18, effectively extending the eviction moratorium and extending the 14 day travel quarantine for both mainland and interisland travel through the end of June. The governor also unveiled his four step Roadmap to Recovery and Resilience Plan. He said the state is ready to move from Phase 1 of stabilization to Phase 2 of reopening and called the latest phase Act With Care.

The County of Maui started allowing passive recreation at beaches effective on Saturday, May 16. This is for a trial period only of two weeks (from May 16 to 30) and will be reassessed.

Also the 98th Maui Fair, which was scheduled to take place over four days in October, is cancelled for this year due to public health concerns. Organizers say the event was cancelled at the request of the County and will be held sometime next year.

On Tuesday, May 5, Governor David Ige unveiled details of his 7th Supplemental Proclamation, that allows for the next phase includes the reopening to include: non-food agriculture such as landscaping, floral and ornamental; astronomical observatories and support facilities; car washes; and pet grooming services. This also includes some retail operations.

On Monday, May 4, apatient on Maui who was diagnosed with COVID-19 over a month ago and had been on a ventilator, was greeted with a celebratory exit from hospital staff who lined the halls upon her departure.The single mom of three came into the Maui Memorial Medical Center 36 days prior and had a slow process to recovery, according to a hospital spokesperson. Also, Maui Health re-opened the Maui East unit as a medical surgical unit and it is no longer serving as a COVID-19 unit.

On Wednesday, April 29, Mayor Victorino identified a short list parks, golf courses andlocal businesses that quality for limited opening under the first phase of a reopening that began on May 1, 2020.

On Tuesday, April 28, local government leaders visited and toured the outside of Maui Memorial Medical Center in compliance with the hospitals COVID-19 no-visitor policy,and received an update from Maui Health on response efforts at the facility.

On Tuesday, April 28, officials confirmed thatan elderly Lnai womancontracted COVID-19 while she was hospitalized at the Maui Memorial Medical Center. The womaninitially tested negative for COVID-19, but a recent test came back positive. She will remain on Maui until she is healthy enough to return home to Lnai and she no longer poses a risk of transmitting the virus to others. The case is documented as a Maui Island case and there are still no confirmed positive cases on the island of Lnai.

Maui Health on Monday, April 27, confirmed that a Maui Medical Group hospitalist who provides care to patients at Maui Memorial Medical Center has tested positive for COVID-19. The provider was tested for COVID-19 two weeks prior by Maui Medical Group, was asymptomatic, and the results were negative. The provider then became symptomatic and self-quarantined at home. On Friday April 24, a repeat test was performed and on Sunday April 26, the results returned positive for COVID-19.

A joint statement was released on Wednesday evening, April 22, from Mayor Michael Victorino and Merrimans Kapalua restaurant confirming the location of the restaurant grouping from March, which consisted of three COVID-19 positive individuals and between 65 and 100 exposed contacts. Health officials say the grouping does not currently pose a significant risk to the community and refrained from labeling it a cluster.

Two individuals from the Ka Hale A Ke Ola Homeless Resource Center on Waiale Road in Wailuku on Maui were moved to a Department of Health quarantine facility after one of them tested positive for COVID-19. The other man who was awaiting test results has since received word that his test came back negative and he was released from quarantine. Monique Yamashita, Executive Director at the facility said 48 individuals including staff and guests were tested on April 24 during a mass testing event. She provided us with an update on May 1 saying all tests came back negative. Also the eight staff that had contact with the COVID-19 positive individual were back to work within a week after all tests came back negative. Yamashita said the facility is still being vigilant with the continued use of PPEs, washing hands and taking other precautions to protect staff and guests.

Update: (5.18.20) All Prior Cases of COVID-19 at Hale Makua are Now Negative: Two home health patients with Hale Makua Health Servicesand a nursing home resident from Hale Makua Kahuluiare now negative for COVID-19. The asymptomatic resident who had tested positive has sincereceived two consecutive test results showing they are negative for COVID-19. As for the home health cases, one client has been released from isolation andhad recovered in April;and the other client has recently received two negative COVID-19 tests so has been released from quarantine as well.

Maui Now learned that a mother who underwent a caesarean section delivery at the Maui Memorial Medical Center in April later tested positive for COVID-19. The source of infection at this time is unknown however, Maui Health noted that the hospital has never had an OB patient, provider or employee test positive for COVID-19. Employees in that department were tested in April, with all results returned as negative.

There was also a confirmed case of a physical therapy worker at the Kula Hospital who tested positive for COVID-19. A total of 16 individuals who received care were tested and so far, no positive cases have been reported as a result.

The Maui positive count included at least one resident of the rural community of Hna in East Maui and at leasttworesidents of Molokai.

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One New COVID-19 Case on Maui Brings Hawaii Total to 652; 95.7% Recovered - Maui Now

Nearing 100000 COVID-19 Deaths, U.S. Is Still ‘Early In This Outbreak’ – NPR

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Memorial Day weekend at Robert Moses State Park on Fire Island, N.Y. As the pandemic continues, Harvard's Dr. Ashish Jha says, mask wearing, social distancing and robust strategies of testing and contact tracing will be even more important. Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

Memorial Day weekend at Robert Moses State Park on Fire Island, N.Y. As the pandemic continues, Harvard's Dr. Ashish Jha says, mask wearing, social distancing and robust strategies of testing and contact tracing will be even more important.

The bleak milestone the U.S. is about to hit 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 is far above the number of deaths seen from the pandemic in any other country.

So far, the impact of the coronavirus has been felt unevenly, striking certain cities and regions and particular segments of society much harder than others.

To get a sense of how that may change, and where in the course of the epidemic the U.S. is right now, NPR's Morning Edition host David Greene spoke Tuesday with Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and professor of health policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

As you look at this number looming now, what are you reflecting on?

Well, a couple of things. First of all, it is a solemn moment to reflect on the idea that about 100,000 Americans have died mostly just in the last two months. The speed with which this has happened is really devastating. Of course, we've had very little opportunity to mourn all those losses because most of us have been shut down. And I've been thinking about where we go into the future and fall and reminding myself and others that we're early in this outbreak. We're not anywhere near done.

The U.S. ... has had more deaths than any country in the world. Do you think that the country is absorbing the significance of these numbers?

I think for a majority of Americans, this doesn't quite feel real because the deaths have been concentrated in [a] few places. Obviously, New York has been hit very hard, and some other places like Seattle, Chicago some of the big cities. And so people who don't live in those areas may not be absorbing it.

But the nature of this pandemic is that it starts and kind of accelerates in big cities, but then it moves out into the suburbs and into the rural areas. So, by the time we're done with this, I think every American will have felt it much more up close and personal. That's what I worry about that it shouldn't have to take that for people to really understand how tragic this is and how calamitous in many ways this is.

Q: We're coming out of Memorial Day weekend, and we saw many regulations relaxed in many parts of the country. As you were watching that, what are you predicting in terms of what we could see by the end of summer?

If you look at all of the models out there and most models have been relatively accurate a few of them have been too optimistic. But then, if you sort of look at the models of models the ones that really sort of combine it all and put it together and make projections the projections are that we're probably going to see 70,000 to 100,000 deaths between now and the end of the summer.

While the pace will slow down, because we are doing some amount of social distancing and testing is ramping up we're going to, unfortunately, see a lot more sickness and, unfortunately, a lot more deaths in the upcoming months.

Q: There's been talk of a seasonal aspect to this. Whatever happens over the summer, do we face even more deaths as we head later in the year?

Yes. I'm hoping that the models of the summer of an additional 70,000 to 100,000 deaths are too pessimistic. And they may be, because we may get a seasonal benefit because of the summer: People are outside more.

But the flip side of the seasonal benefit of the summer is what will almost surely be a pretty tough fall and winter with a surge of cases a wave that might be bigger than the wave we just went through. And we've got to prepare for that, because we can't be caught flat-footed the way we were this time around.

Q: What can we do to prepare? We're seeing so many states relax restrictions right now. Is it a matter of potentially putting those restrictions back in place where they need to be? Or are there other things we could be doing?

There are two things that I would say. First of all, people can't be locked down for the rest of this pandemic. I understand that people need to get out, and being outside is a good thing. But we have to maintain a certain amount of social distancing. I think mask wearing is really important.

The only other tool we have in our toolbox is a really robust testing, tracing, isolation program. You know, if you think about how it is that South Korea and Germany have been able to do much, much better? They have had a really aggressive testing, tracing, isolation program. We know that works. It allows us to kind of have more of our lives back without the number of deaths that we've suffered. So I really think that still remains and should remain one of our priority areas.

Q: The federal government's new strategic testing plan calls on states to take a lot of the responsibility for testing. ... Do you see that as the best approach?

I think this is a real missed opportunity and very unfortunate in many ways, because while states have a critical role to play, testing capacity and testing supply chains are national and international.

We don't want 50 states competing. We want a federal strategy that helps states. And I'm worried that we're just not getting that from the federal government.

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Nearing 100000 COVID-19 Deaths, U.S. Is Still 'Early In This Outbreak' - NPR

How to Recover From Covid-19 at Home – The New York Times

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If youre sick and dont have supplies, see if a friend can pick them up for you, or if a grocery store or bodega will deliver. (Tip well!) Either way, avoid contact: Whether its a friend or a delivery person, have the bag left outside your door, and dont open the door until the delivery person is gone.

Over-the-counter drugs may not be enough. In particular, the coughing and nausea caused by Covid-19 can be severe enough to warrant prescription medication.

For my husband and me, benzonatate (for the cough) and promethazine (for the nausea) were lifesavers. Some colleagues were prescribed codeine-based cough medicine or Zofran. If you feel you might need them, ask your doctor about medications sooner rather than later. Dont wait until youre doubled over coughing or cant keep anything down.

If you dont have a primary care doctor, some urgent care clinics offer virtual appointments, and some pharmacies offer prescription delivery.

Dry air can exacerbate some symptoms such as coughing and chest tightness. If you have a humidifier, use it. If not, a hot shower works.

Several readers reported that they felt better when they lay on their stomach. A woman in Britain whose partner was sick for several weeks told me that a particular breathing exercise helped him:

You take a deep breath, hold it for 5 seconds and release. Do that 5 times, then on the 6th time on the release, cough hard. Do that cycle twice, then lie on your front and take slightly deeper breaths for 10 minutes. Try to do it a couple of times a day.

In some cases, your doctor may also prescribe an albuterol inhaler to reduce your cough and ease your breathing.

As soon as you get sick, start a detailed log. Every time you take your temperature do it several times a day, at consistent times log it. Every time you take a pill, log it. Every time you eat or drink, log it. If one symptom resolves or a new one develops, log it.

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How to Recover From Covid-19 at Home - The New York Times

Trump: US will terminate relationship with WHO amid Covid-19 pandemic – STAT

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President Trump said Friday the U.S. would halt its funding of the World Health Organization and pull out of the agency, accusing it of protecting China as the coronavirus pandemic took off. The move has alarmed health experts, who say the decision will undermine efforts to improve the health of people around the world.

In an address in the Rose Garden, Trump said the WHO had not made reforms that he said would have helped the global health agency stop the coronavirus from spreading around the world.

We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs, Trump said. The world needs answers from China on the virus.

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Its not immediately clear whether the president can fully withdraw U.S. funding for the WHO without an act of Congress, which typically controls all federal government spending. Democratic lawmakers have argued that doing so would be illegal, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatened last month that such a move would be swiftly challenged.

The United States has provided roughly 15% of the WHOs total funding over its current two-year budget period. A WHO spokesperson declined to comment Friday.

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Trumps announcement came the same day that the U.S. mission in Geneva met with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, about the countrys demands for WHO improvements. A source familiar with the meeting described it as constructive.

Some congressional Republicans have echoed Trumps attacks on the agency, but in a statement Friday, Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chair of the Senates health committee, said he disagreed with Trump.

Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it, said Alexander (R-Tenn.). Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need. And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States.

Lawrence Gostin, the faculty director at Georgetowns ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law, called Trumps decision a dangerous move.

Its making an earth-shattering decision in the middle of the greatest health crisis weve experienced literally out of pique and whim, without any deliberative process, Gostin said.

The WHO has repeatedly said it was committed to a review of its response, but after the pandemic had ebbed. Last month, Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also said the postmortem on the pandemic should wait until the emergency was over.

But as the Trump administrations response to pandemic has come under greater scrutiny, with testing problems and a lack of coordination in deploying necessary supplies, Trump has sought to cast further blame on China and the WHO for failing to snuff out the spread when the virus was centered in China. During his remarks, Trump alleged, without evidence, that China pressured WHO to mislead the world about the virus.

The world is now suffering as a result of the malfeasance of the Chinese government, Trump said. Chinas coverup of the Wuhan virus allowed the disease to spread all over the world, instigating a global pandemic that has cost more than 100,000 American lives, and over a million lives worldwide. (That last claim is not true; globally, there have been about 360,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.)

Trumps phrasing highlights the buildup of China-U.S. tensions amid the pandemic. After a Chinese government spokesman suggested, without evidence, that the U.S. Army first brought the novel coronavirus to Hubei province, Trump retaliated by using the terms Wuhan virus and Chinese virus words widely condemned as racist, and which coincided with a rash of racist incidents targeting Asian Americans.

Experts say that if the U.S. leaves the WHO, the influence of China will only grow.

Global health was our bipartisan moral leadership that had been preserved through this administration, said Amanda Glassman, executive vice president of the Center for Global Development. And right now that falls apart. Its really to me tragic that this one space that was really about our moral leadership and our convictions and soft power that were now going to let that go in the midst of a pandemic.

Glassman said there are thousands of U.S. employees at the WHO and its regional body for the Americas, and that the U.S. is home to 82 WHO collaborating centers.

When Trump earlier this month threatened to yank U.S. funding in a letter, Tedros would only say during a media briefing that the agency was reviewing it. But he and other officials stressed that the agency had a small budget about $2.3 billion every year relative to the impact the agency had and what it was expected to do.

Mike Ryan, head of the WHOs emergencies program, said the U.S. funding provided the largest proportion of that programs budget. In addition to the pandemic, the program also works to combat HIV, tuberculosis, polio, and other diseases.

So my concerns today are both for our program and working on how we improve our funding base for WHOs core budget, Ryan said. Replacing those life-saving funds for front-line health services to some of the most difficult places in the world well obviously have to work with other partners to ensure those funds can still flow. So this is going to have major implications for delivering essential health services to some of the most vulnerable people in the world and we trust that other donors will if necessary step in to fill that gap.

This story has been updated with reaction to the presidents announcement.

Lev Facher contributed reporting.

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Trump: US will terminate relationship with WHO amid Covid-19 pandemic - STAT

WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 – 29 May 2020 – World Health Organization

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President Alvarado,

Prime Minister Mottley,

Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,

Since the beginning of the pandemic, science has been at the heart of WHOs efforts to suppress transmission and save lives.

Science is moving with incredible speed. Almost every day there is more news about research into vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.

But will all people benefit from these tools? Or will they become another reason people are left behind? These are the two most important questions.

A month ago, WHO and partners launched the ACT Accelerator, to speed up the development, production and equitable distribution of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics for COVID-19.

Today we are joining 35 countries and numerous partners to launch the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, or C-TAP.

C-TAP was first proposed by His Excellency President Carlos Alvarado of Costa Rica, and Id like to thank His Excellency the President for his leadership and solidarity.

C-TAP is a sister initiative of the ACT Accelerator and offers concrete actions to achieve the objective of the ACT Accelerator, which is equitable access.

C-TAP has five priorities:

First, public disclosure of gene sequencing research;

Second, public disclosure of all clinical trial results;

Third, encouraging governments and research funders to include clauses in contracts with pharmaceutical companies about equitable distribution and publication of trial data;

Fourth, licensing treatments and vaccines to large and small producers;

And fifth, promoting open innovation models and technology transfer that increase local manufacturing and supply capacity.

Through C-TAP, we are inviting companies or governments that develop an effective therapeutic to contribute the patent to the Medicines Patent Pool, which would then sub-license the patent to generic manufacturers.

C-TAP is voluntary, and builds on the success of the Medicines Patent Pool in expanding access to treatments for HIV and hepatitis C.

WHO recognizes the important role that patents play in fuelling innovation.

But this is a time when people must take priority.

Tools to prevent, detect and treat COVID-19 are global public goods that must be accessible by all people.

Science is giving us solutions, but to make those solutions work for everyone, we need solidarity.

COVID-19 has highlighted the inequalities of our world. But its also offering us an opportunity to bridge those inequalities and build a fairer world a world in which health is not a privilege for the few, but a common good.

Now it gives me enormous pleasure to introduce His Excellency Carlos Alvarado, the President of Costa Rica.

Muchas gracias, Presidente Alvarado, mi hermano. Mucho gusto por su liderazgo.

Thank you. Muchas gracias.

Link:

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 29 May 2020 - World Health Organization

The Tower of Babel Project: how human beings must prepare for the approaching Singularity – Medium

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THE TOWER OF BABEL/PIETER BRUGEL THE ELDER

The Singularity will be able to solve every problem except one: evil.

These days we have no shortage of problems. We struggle with poverty and a lack of affordable housing. Depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and eating disorders are rampant, especially in teens. The world is getting hotter and the consequences may be worse than we thought. COVID-19 shows how vulnerable we are to disease after a century of successes against it. No one knows how it will end.

For all these problems, technology offers answers as long as policy makers are willing to embrace the solutions. Smart cities are the answer to housing and urban woes such as crime, traffic, and pollution. Affordable housing is ripe for tech disruption. Poverty can be fought with tech. Global warming and climate change only need new sources of energy, electric cars, smart homes and factories to become affordable and ubiquitous. Even disease may eventually kneel to human ingenuity in genetics and AI.

Despite modern woes, they are nothing compared to the struggles of the past with diseases like small pox and plague, wars of conquest and religion, brutal oppression of women and minorities, slavery, and backbreaking toil. Life is getting better and better for everyone. Even problems that technology supposedly causes like loneliness and isolation, technology can also help to solve. Moreover, it isnt clear that these are worse than they used to be anyway. In the past, if you didnt fit in, you were often ostracized. Now, there is a community for everyone, and the ways that we can connect with others will only grow and improve. Those who are more vulnerable to loneliness, the elderly, benefit the most from tech such as Virtual Reality.

What technology offers most is choice. If we dont want to live a suburban existence, for example, we can choose a communal one or, if we crave fresh air, we can live out in the country and telework.

The Singularity represents that moment in the future when that choice becomes almost limitless. Any technological solution you can dream up can be created and implemented almost instantly. With Artificial Intelligence as our partners, human beings can choose whatever lives they desire. The problem is that there will always be some who choose to do wrong and be snakes in the garden of paradise rather than enjoy its (permitted) fruits.

As psychologist and Auschwitz survivor Victor Frankl observed in his classic Holocaust autobiography, Mans Search for Meaning,

[T]here are two races of men in this world, but only these two the race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense, no group is of pure race and therefore one occasionally found a decent fellow among the camp guards.

Progress for the human species does not equal progress for the human soul, and the consequences of allowing limitless power fall into the hands of these indecent people could be catastrophic.

This project of constant building to the skies reminds me of the ancient Near East myth of the Tower of Babel, which Biblical authors folded into the Book of Genesis to stand as a testament to Gods power and a warning to human beings who seek to raise themselves up without His guidance or approval. Whatever Higher Power you subscribe to, you cannot deny that human power cannot be increased without limit without a matching elevation of human responsibility at the level of the individual as well as the collective. To do otherwise, is to invite a similar scattering of human potential as our egos grow beyond our ethics.

To give a little background, the Tower of Babel reads like a childrens story sandwiched in between the flood and the story of Abraham. While modern readers interpret it as explaining the origin of languages and nations, it has a far deeper meaning, one that would have been apparent to a reader in the Ancient Near East. There are essentially two groups involved. The people of Babylon (Babel is a transliteration of Babylon from Hebrew) and the heavenly host with God as the Prime Actor. In the story, the Babylonians, who represent all the people on the Earth, decide to build a big tower. The reason they give is that they all want to stay together. Why they need a tower to the heavens to do that is not explained, but there is a lot going on under the surface here. God comes in and sees that they are building a big tower and He says that there is no telling what they will do next. They are too powerful, so he confuses their languages, and they spread out over the Earth instead. The tower is left unfinished.

On the face of it, God seems to be acting like a Jerk. These people are minding their own business building this giant tower and God comes in and messes it up for them. But the issue at stake here is that the people are essentially repeating what happened in the Garden of Eden in that they are taking power for themselves without Gods permission and likewise disobeying his commandments (which was to spread over the Earth). In doing so, they are developing limitless power without having the humility (which is represented by obedience to God) to manage it. (Some Rabbinic interpretations even suggest the tower itself is a big F-you to God.)

In our era, our Tower of Babel is modern technology and institutions and the consequences of ultimate power: power to do evil. If we do not deal with this evil, we will be scattered as God scattered the people of Babylon.

Is evil something that we can solve? Probably not without changing human nature itself. Will technology offer such a cure? Perhaps it will be an anti-evil pill. But would an evil person take such a pill? If the future offers us choices, it must offer us freedoms as well. Freedom inherently contradicts forcing people to change their nature. Perhaps this was really the conundrum that faced the Almighty why not just make people good? But how without taking away who we are?

If we are to protect the Paradise that we seek to build, we must prepare to cast evil out of it. The future cannot be for everyone, but only for those decent people who are worthy of it. This is why even in the post-scarcity society of Star Trek, there are still prisons.

Technology is the Tower not the God. We build higher and higher but we come no closer to heaven. Most of us will be content with an Earthly paradise. Some will choose to explore the stars and others to find new ways of being, but, still others, like the Archangel Lucifer, will seek to destroy it for their own gain.

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The Tower of Babel Project: how human beings must prepare for the approaching Singularity - Medium

Artificial Intelligence, China, Russia, and the Global Order – Khabarhub

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Air University Press and Air University Library have relaunched the Fairchild Series, which is an academic series that publishes cutting-edge research.

The series is named after General Muir Stephen Fairchild, who served as the first leader of the Air University, located at the Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.

This timely volume discusses the impact of advances in artificial intelligence (AI) that will lead to panoptic surveillance and directly contribute to highly authoritarian forms of political control.

This edited volume aims to prepare Anglo-American security practitioners for the impact of AI-related technologies on a countrys domestic political system.

This book contains 27 chapters, which is divided into six sections with 24 expert contributors drawing their insights from mixed professional backgrounds.

Particularly, this book traces the differential impact of AI technology on competing domestic regime types.

Chapters in the book describe how China will seek to further increase its authoritarian control by utilizing AI, while making its citizens prosperous and shielding them from external knowledge influences.

The Chinese model of digital authoritarianism or digital social and political control is likely to emerge as a major and direct rival to free, open, and democratic society a model championed by the Anglo-American alliance.

The Russian model, offers a hybrid approach that relies on a variety of manipulative digital tools to destabilize challenger regimes while maintaining tight state control over critical resources and quashing political rivals.

Part 1 of the book with four framing chapters authored by the editorNicholas D. Wrightfocuses on the impact of AI technologies on domestic politics and its far-reaching impact on the evolving global order.

The remaining five sections of the book are filled with contributions from 23 authors, who are some of the worlds leading experts in the field of AI and Internet technologies.

Part two of the book, with five chapters, focuses on how the Chinese and Russian models of digital authoritarianism are shaping domestic political regimes with tools of surveillance, monitoring, big data-fueled AI led governance, facial recognition, and behavioral pattern recognition.

Collectively these technologies are leading to intensifying political control of citizens. The third section of the book is on the export and emulation of Chinese and Russian models of digital authoritarianism to other parts of the world.

Part four contains four chapters on how AI technologies influence Chinas domestic and foreign policy decision making.

Focus of the fifth section, with five chapters, is on the various military dimensions of AI and its application to the development of modern weapon systems such as hypersonic glide weapons and enhancement of Chinese command authority through artificial intelligence.

Probably the most provocative section in this book is the final part of the book that focuses on Artistic Perspectives and the Humanities.

This section draws on science fiction writings, movies, and art to present various telling scenarios of the future.

The set of five chapters offers a vivid and frightening rendering of AI driven technological futures such as precognition to prevent crime, drones to monitor public spaces and summarily execute offenders, a color-coded social credit ranking system to categorize people in a society by obedience to authority, and AI applications that goes beyond facial recognition to diagnosing depression and mood conditions in individuals.

Drawing linkages between AI technologies and terrifying dystopian futures, this set of chapters has issued a clarion call to policy makers to develop robust rules and regulations for democratic governance of the digital world without which corporate and authoritarian control will become the norm.

For the purposes of this book, AI is defined as a constellation of new technologies that combines big data, machine learning, and digital things (e.g., the Internet of Things).

Application of AI implies the analysis of data in which inferences from models are used to predict and anticipate possible future events (p.3).

Critically, what is important to understand is that AI programs do not simply analyze data in the way they were originally programmed, instead the AI programs respond intelligently to new data and adapt their outputs accordingly (p. 3).

Ultimately AI is understood as giving computers new behaviors and knowledge which would be thought intelligent in human beings (p. 3).

The authors argue that the greatest strength of AI capabilities are primarily perceptual, the ability to process images, speeches, and other patterns of behavior and choosing bounded actions to guide decision making.

Googles Deepmind AI is one such example, which draws data from Googles datacenters and accurately predicts when the data-load is going to increase or decrease and correctly adjusts the cooling systems for the datacenters (p.7).

This book raises legitimate concerns with regards to singularity that represents the fear that an exponentially accelerating technological progress will create an AI that exceeds human intelligence and escapes our control (p. 18).

AI systems will self-learn from data without any human input or management. The precise concern is that AI will become super-intelligent, which may then deliberately or inadvertently destroy humanity or usher changes that are outside the control of humans (p. 18).

The terror of singularity is well captured in the five excellent chapters in the concluding section of the book, which draw on sources from reality, fiction, and art to depict an Orwellian dystopia in which conscious human beings either fight back as depicted in the movie seriesMatrix or the Terminatoror they become mindless tools of these self-thinking and regenerating machines (p. 194).

Middle sections of book focusing on the Chinese model of digital authoritarianism, the hybrid Russian model of authoritarianism, and the American model of digital openness, but dependent on corporate control are temporary predictions of AI usage.

The Chinese, Russian, and American models assume that governments could, should, and will be able to control AI and maybe deploy AI toward social control and military applications.

Given the rate of progress, the singularity may occur at some point this century (p. 18).

The lead author, Wright, adds that although clearly momentous, given that nobody knows when, if or how a possible singularity will occur and limits clearly exist on what can sensibly be said or planned for now (p. 18).

The authors are hoping that humans would be able to master and control AI in the same way that we have been (so far) successful in controlling the use and spread of nuclear weapons, albeit imperfectly.

The key assertion here is that much like nuclear weapons, singularity issues related to AI will require managing within the international order as best we can, although our best will inevitably be grossly imperfect (p. 18).

Our solutions are likely to incomplete, inadequate, imperfect, and potentially counterproductive because singularity potentially represents a qualitatively new challenge for humanity that we need to think through and discuss internationally (p. 18). This is a serious and a major claim of the book that readers should take note!

At a more temporal level, the contributors to this important volume proffer three key recommendations: (1) the United States must pursue robust policies to keep ahead of the digital curve and it must respond by preventing the emergence of a military-industrial complex that is managed by an AI corporate oligopoly and a surveillance state; (2) the United States must build a new global order of norms and institutions required to persuade the world that the American model of free and open digital democracy offers an attractive and viable alternative to the Chinese and Russian models of digital authoritarianism; and (3) the United States should fight back against digital authoritarianism and hybridism so that it manages the risks associated with a multifaceted interstate AI competition.

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Artificial Intelligence, China, Russia, and the Global Order - Khabarhub

Buildings Consume Lots of EnergyHere’s How to Design Whole Communities That Give Back as Much as They Take – Singularity Hub

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Although the coronavirus pandemic has dominated recent headlines, climate change hasnt gone away. Many experts are calling for a green economic recovery that directs investments into low-carbon energy sources and technologies.

Buildings account for 40 percent of total energy consumption in the US, compared to 32 percent for industry and 28 percent for transportation. States and cities with ambitious climate action plans are working to reduce emissions from the building sector to zero. This means maximizing energy efficiency to reduce building energy use, and then supplying the remaining energy needs with electricity generated by carbon-free sources.

My colleagues and I study the best ways to rapidly reduce carbon emissions from the building sector. In recent years, construction designs have advanced dramatically. Net zero energy buildings, which produce the energy they need on site from renewable sources, increasingly are the default choice. But to speed the transition to zero carbon emissions, I believe the US must think bigger and focus on designing or redeveloping entire communities that are zero energy.

Tackling energy use in buildings at the district level provides economies of scale. Architects can deploy large heat pumps and other equipment to serve multiple buildings on a staggered schedule across the day. Districts that bring homes, places of work, restaurants, recreation centers, and other services together in walkable communities also significantly reduce the energy needed for transportation. In my view, this growing movement will play an increasingly important role in helping the US and the world address the climate crisis.

Heating and cooling are the biggest energy uses in buildings. District design strategies can address these loads more efficiently.

District heating has long been used in Europe, as well as on some US college and other campuses. These systems typically have a central plant that burns natural gas to heat water, which then is circulated to the various buildings.

To achieve zero carbon emissions, the latest strategy uses a design known as an ambient temperature loop that simultaneously and efficiently both heats and cools different buildings. This concept was first developed for the Whistler Olympic Village in British Columbia.

In a typical ambient loop system, a pump circulates water through an uninsulated pipe network buried below the frost line. At this depth, the soil temperature is near that of the yearly average air temperature for that location. As water moves through the pipe, it warms or cools toward this temperature.

Heat pumps at individual buildings or other points along the ambient loop add or extract heat from the loop. They can also move heat between deep geothermal wells and the circulating water.

The loop also circulates through a central plant that keeps it in an optimum temperature range for maximum heat pump performance. The plant can use cooling towers or wastewater to remove heat. It can add heat via renewable sources, such as solar thermal collectors, renewable fuel or heat pumps powered by renewable electricity.

One example of a potentially zero-energy district currently being developed, the National Western Center, is a multi-use campus currently under construction in Denver to house the annual National Western Stock Show and other public events focused on food and agriculture.

A six-foot-diameter pipe carrying the citys wastewater runs underground through the property before delivering the water to a treatment plant. The water temperature stays within a narrow range of 61 to 77 degrees F throughout the year.

The wastewater pipe and a heat exchanger transfer heat to and from an ambient loop circulating water throughout the district. The system provides heat in winter and absorbs heat in the summer via heat recovery chillers, which are heat pumps that can simultaneously provide heating and cooling. This strategy serves individual buildings at very high efficiency.

Electricity used to operate the heat pumps, lighting and other equipment will come from on-site photovoltaics and wind- and solar-generated electricity imported from off-site.

Another district that will minimize carbon emissions is the Whisper Valley Community, under construction in Austin, Texas. This 2,000-acre multi-use development includes 7,500 all-electric houses, 2 million square feet of commercial space, two schools, and a 600-acre park. Its design has already received a green building award.

Whisper Valley will run on an integrated energy system that includes an extensive ambient loop network heated and cooled by heat pumps and geothermal wells located at each house. Each homeowner has the option to include a 5-kilowatt rooftop solar photovoltaic array to operate the heat pump and energy-efficient appliances, including heat pump water heaters and inductive stovetops. According to the developer, Whisper Valleys economy of scale allows for a median sale price $50,000 below that of typical Austin houses.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and other project partners are developing an open source software development kit called URBANopt that models elements of zero energy districts, such as building efficiency/demand flexibility strategies, rooftop photovoltaic arrays, ambient loop district thermal systems. The software can be integrated into other computer models to aid in the design of zero energy communities. NREL engineers have been engaging with high-performance district projects across the country, such as the National Western Center, to help inform and guide the development of the URBANopt platform.

The projects Ive described are new construction. Its harder to achieve net zero energy in existing buildings or communities economically, but there are ways to do it. It makes sense to apply those efficiency measures that are the most cost-effective to retrofit, convert building heating and cooling systems to electricity and provide the electricity with solar photovoltaics.

Utilities are increasingly offering time-of-use rate schedules, which charge more for power use during high demand periods. Emerging home energy management systems will allow home owners to heat water, charge home batteries and electric vehicles and run other appliances at times when electricity prices are lowest. Whether were talking about new or existing buildings, I see sustainable zero energy communities powered by renewable energy as the wave of the future as we tackle the climate change crisis.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image Credit: Denys NevozhaionUnsplash

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Buildings Consume Lots of EnergyHere's How to Design Whole Communities That Give Back as Much as They Take - Singularity Hub

Parallel Lives the only book you’ll ever need to read about marriage – Telegraph.co.uk

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Novelist Sheila Heti on how Phyllis Roses classic study of five famous Victorian couples unravels the myth of matrimony

I mentioned to some friends last year that I was writing about Parallel Lives, Phyllis Roses 1983 study of five Victorian marriages. One, a man in his 30s who has been with his boyfriend for seven years, but is always falling in love and talks about his relationships constantly, almost fell down in my living room. Another, who claims that thoughts of her husband take up only 10 per cent of her brain, actually did a double-take: it was the only book about marriage she had ever wanted to read.

Parallel Lives had been hiding in the bookshelves of so many of my friends, a shared favourite, without any of us knowing it. These are some of the most exciting books: the ones you feel you have stumbled upon, fortuitously, and that seem so tailored to your interests that its impossible to imagine them having a general, wide readership. Yet Parallel Lives, for all its singularity, does.

One of the virtues of the book and I think one reason it appeals topeople of such different temperaments is its refusal to make sweeping statements about love or life. It remains faithfully close to the factual details of the marriages it depicts, and its mode of conclusion is not generalisation, but the epigram. A generalisation asks to be disagreed with. An epigram unfolds in all directions.

Rereading this book at the age of 42, a decade into a relationship that might well be called a marriage, I cannot perceive the book I first read when I was 23, engaged to a different man, who bought it for me. Back then, I was naively confident about our ability to make a happy marriage of equals, because that is what we wanted to do. I imagined he gave me Parallel Lives as if to say: pick which of these marriages you want, my dear. I am available for any of them. I read the book almost like a mail-order catalogue. But today it seems to be illustrating the opposite point: about the sad and comical fact of our natures, which defines the limits of our most intimate connections.

Rose began writing Parallel Lives when she was 35, a mother, two years divorced. She continued to work on it for six years, while a professor at Wesleyan University. Several years after it was published, she met a man while she was living in Paris researching a book about Josephine Baker; eventually they would marry. This is a heartening fact: though a feminist had attained near X-ray vision for how marriages can develop in all sorts of ways ways that cant be predicted at the start she saw enough value in this arrangement to try it for a second time.

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Parallel Lives the only book you'll ever need to read about marriage - Telegraph.co.uk

Lewontin’s Confession and Mamet’s Principle – Discovery Institute

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Jerry Coyne and his Darwinist/materialist/atheist brethren make public assertions that are nonsense on their face: they claim to be mindless meat machines, they deny the indisputable evidence for intelligent design in biology and for teleology in all of nature, they deny the obvious evidence for the supernatural in cosmological singularities such as black holes and the singularity at the origin of the Big Bang, and they deny the manifest corruption of modern science by materialism and arrogance and egotism. Materialists tout determinism and deny free will, despite the fact that determinism in physics has been quite decisively refuted and the fact that free will is well supported by neuroscience and that denial of free will negates the ability to make a truth claim of any sort (if a materialists opinion is forced by chemical reactions, theres no reason to think it corresponds to truth. Chemistry is not a propositional and can be neither true nor false). Atheists deny the existence of God because of evil in nature, without realizing that the recognition of evil presupposes an objective moral standard that can only be grounded in a Mind outside of man.

Darwinism/materialism/atheism (the three are nearly always found together) is beset with self-refuting non-sequiturs. This triad is not even a genuine ideological perspective as much as it is an incoherent mistake. Yet, ironically, many who tout it are quite intelligent people.

Playwright David Mamet noted a characteristic in politics that applies broadly to flawed belief systems. It struck me as a key to understanding the philosophical perspective of those who deny free will, design in nature, Gods existence, and the like. Mamet originally applied it to a particular political philosophy, but I apply Mamets principle to Darwinists et al:

in order for [Darwinists, atheists, materialists, etc.] to continue their illogical belief systems they have to pretend not to know a lot of things.

The pretense not to know things is at the root of Darwinist/atheist/materialist ideology. It was stated with astonishing candor by Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin, one of the past centurys leading Darwinists:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.

Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door

Lewontins confession is a remarkable invocation of Mamets principle: in order to maintain the Darwinist/materialist ideology, atheists have to pretend not to know a lot of things.

The fundamental reason that Darwinists have vented such fury at the intelligent design movement even to the point that a prominent scientific journal openly advocates government censorship of ID is that ID has forced Darwinists and other atheist and materialist ideologues to publicly explain themselves, and that has made their pretense that there is no design in nature so much harder to pull off.

Photo: David Mamet, by David Shankbone / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).

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Lewontin's Confession and Mamet's Principle - Discovery Institute

Director-general of World Health Organization to speak at Collision from Home – BetaKit

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Collision from Home has announced that Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), will speak at this years virtual conference. Tedros is an Ethiopian microbiologist and malaria researcher who has served in his role at the WHO since 2017.

We are relying on everyone in the field, from world leaders in medicine to the nurses on the frontline.

Ghebreyesus is expected to speak about the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of the WHO. Collision from Homes organizers intend to put a particular focus on healthcare for this years event, specifically on how the tech industry is accelerating solutions and addressing challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Were incredibly humbled to welcome [Adhanom], one of the most important people in the world right now, to Collision from Home, said Paddy Cosgrave, founder and CEO of Collision from Home. This global pandemic has created a warlike scenario where the health industry is in an arms race, except the arms are not weapons, they are medical advancements that will save lives, such as tracking systems for contact tracing, and super fast testing.

In addition to Ghebreyesus, speakers expected to focus on the pandemic response include Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association, Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis, and Leana Wen, visiting professor of health policy and management of George Washington University.

Startups that are expected to speak at Collision from Home, such as Austin, Texas-based Everlywell, are also playing a role in the pandemic recovery. Everlywell, which was also featured in Singularity Universitys virtual summit on COVID-19 in March, recently secured authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to launch self-administered, at-home COVID-19 testing kits.

RELATED: Collision to give 1,000 laid-off Toronto residents free access to virtual conference

We are desperate to return to any kind of normal and now more than ever, we are relying on everyone in the field, from world leaders in medicine to the nurses on the frontline, Cosgrave added. I believe the tech advancements well make over the next year and into 2021 will be incredible, and change the way healthcare is run forever.

Since the in-person portion of Collision was cancelled earlier this year due to the pandemic, the organizers have brought on speakers that address a wide array of issues pertaining to the COVID-19 crisis. NBA All-Star champion turned investor Shaquille ONeal, for example, will be speaking at the 2020 virtual tech conference about unemployment.

Startups, speakers, investors, partners, and attendees will be able to access networking and content experiences through the Collision from Home app. The conference is expected to return to Toronto as a physical event from June 21 to 24, 2021, at the Enercare Centre.

Image source ITU via Flickr.

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Director-general of World Health Organization to speak at Collision from Home - BetaKit

Mystery radio signal detected coming from the heart of our galaxy and may be sent from a black hole – The Sun

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THE heart of our Milky Way galaxy is blinking at us, according to scientists.

Mysterious signals from Sagittarius A, a huge black hole at the centre of our galaxy, were picked up by one of the world's most powerful telescopes.

2

In a new study, experts at Keio University in Japan outline how the strange, repeating signals may form.

"This emission could be related with some exotic phenomena occurring at the very vicinity of the supermassive black hole," team member Professor Tomoharu Okasaid.

Researchers studied readings of Sagitarius A (Sag A) taken in 2017 by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

They found a previously-undiscovered light signalcoming from the supermassive black hole, which is four million times as massive as our Sun.

2

The burst of energy likely originated from a region of swirling hot gas around Sag A known as its accretion disk.

Activity appears to stem from the innermost edge of the disk.

The edge is close to the black hole, which is spinning gas and debris around at close to the speed of light.

During this process, random "hot spots" appear that flash millimeter and submillimeter light - the signal detected by the scientists.

What is a black hole? The key facts

What is a black hole?

What is an event horizon?

What is a singularity?

How are black holes created?

It remains unclear what is causing the flashes, but scientists hope the answer could help them learn more about the activity of black holes.

Experts may struggle to find out, however, as photos of Sag A are next-to-impossible to capture because it absorbs all surrounding light.

"The faster the movement is, the more difficult it is to take a photo of the object," Professor Oka said.

The research was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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In other space news, Nasas first astronaut launch from US soil in almost a decadelifts off tomorrow.

Nasa recentlyunveiled the Tesla carthat will be ferrying astronauts to the launch.

And, incrediblephotos of eerie Martian landscapeshave been released online by scientists.

What do you think of the black hole find? Let us know in the comments!

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

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Mystery radio signal detected coming from the heart of our galaxy and may be sent from a black hole - The Sun

Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia: How are vacation rental managers in Oceania and Southeast Asia adapting to COVID-19? – VRM Intel

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Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia: How are vacation rental managers in Oceania and Southeast Asia adapting to COVID-19?

This week, Rental Scale-Up founder Thibault Masson is taking a deep dive into how COVID-19 is affecting holiday home rentals in Southeast Asia and Oceania, including Australia and New Zealand.

One of the few positives we are experiencing from COVID-19 is an expansion in online learning, and Massons event provides short-term rental managers across the globe an inside look into how Southeast Asia and Oceania markets are performing, what property managers are thinking, and new strategies they are implementing.

During this online conference, attendees will view new data reports and discuss changes in booking patterns, marketing initiatives, and operational changes.

Regardless of where you call home, this chance to take in a broader view of the global short-term rental industry is an opportunity not to be missed.

Here is a partial list of presenters:

Click here to register for Rental Scale-Ups Southeast Asia and Oceania COVID-19 Impact Online Event

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Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia: How are vacation rental managers in Oceania and Southeast Asia adapting to COVID-19? - VRM Intel

The impact of the coronavirus on the Research Report and Overview on Automated Cell Counters Market, 2019-2028 – News Distinct

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The latest report on the Automated Cell Counters market provides an out an out analysis of the various factors that are projected to define the course of the Automated Cell Counters market during the forecast period. The current trends that are expected to influence the future prospects of the Automated Cell Counters market are analyzed in the report. Further, a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the various segments of the Automated Cell Counters market is included in the report along with relevant tables, figures, and graphs. The report also encompasses valuable insights pertaining to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global Automated Cell Counters market.

The report reveals that the Automated Cell Counters market is expected to witness a CAGR growth of ~XX% over the forecast period (2019-2029) and reach a value of ~US$ XX towards the end of 2019. The regulatory framework, R&D activities, and technological advancements relevant to the Automated Cell Counters market are enclosed in the report.

Request Sample Report @https://www.mrrse.com/sample/19634?source=atm

The market is segregated into different segments to provide a granular analysis of the Automated Cell Counters market. The market is segmented on the basis of application, end-user, region, and more.

The market share, size, and forecasted CAGR growth of each Automated Cell Counters market segment and sub-segment are included in the report.

market segmentation.

Chapter 17 Oceania Automated Cell Counters Market Analysis 2014 2028 & Forecast, 2019 2029

In this chapter, the market in Australia and New Zealand are analyzed in depth, to obtain the growth prospects of the Oceania automated cell counters market.

Chapter 18 MEA Automated Cell Counters Market Analysis 2014 2028 & Forecast, 2019 2029

This chapter provides information about how the automated cell counters market will grow in the major countries in the MEA region, such as GCC Countries, South Africa, and the rest of MEA, during the period 2019 2029.

Chapter 19 Competition Landscape, Company Share, and Company Profiles

In this chapter, readers can find a comprehensive list of all the leading stakeholders in the automated cell counters market, along with detailed information about each company, which includes the company overview, revenue shares, strategic overview, and recent company developments. Some of the market players featured in the report are Danaher Corporation, ChemoMetec A/S, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Nexcelom Bioscience LLC., Oxford Optronix Ltd, ALIT Life Science Co., Ltd Luminex Corporation, and Merck KGaA, among others.

Chapter 20 Assumptions and Acronyms

This chapter includes a list of acronyms and assumptions that provide a base to the information and statistics included in the automated cell counters report.

Chapter 21 Research Methodology

This chapter helps readers understand the research methodology followed to obtain the various conclusions as well as important qualitative and quantitative information about the automated cell counters market.

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Important Doubts Related to the Automated Cell Counters Market Addressed in the Report:

Knowledgeable Insights Enclosed in the Report

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The impact of the coronavirus on the Research Report and Overview on Automated Cell Counters Market, 2019-2028 - News Distinct

Oceania Healthcares (NZSE:OCA) Earnings Are Growing But Is There More To The Story? – Simply Wall St

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It might be old fashioned, but we really like to invest in companies that make a profit, each and every year. That said, the current statutory profit is not always a good guide to a companys underlying profitability. Today well focus on whether this years statutory profits are a good guide to understanding Oceania Healthcare (NZSE:OCA).

Its good to see that over the last twelve months Oceania Healthcare made a profit of NZ$59.0m on revenue of NZ$190.7m. Happily, it has grown both its profit and revenue over the last three years, as you can see in the chart below.

See our latest analysis for Oceania Healthcare

Not all profits are equal, and we can learn more about the nature of a companys past profitability by diving deeper into the financial statements. This article will focus on the impact unusual items have had on Oceania Healthcares statutory earnings. That might leave you wondering what analysts are forecasting in terms of future profitability. Luckily, you can click here to see an interactive graph depicting future profitability, based on their estimates.

Importantly, our data indicates that Oceania Healthcares profit received a boost of NZ$56m in unusual items, over the last year. While its always nice to have higher profit, a large contribution from unusual items sometimes dampens our enthusiasm. We ran the numbers on most publicly listed companies worldwide, and its very common for unusual items to be once-off in nature. And, after all, thats exactly what the accounting terminology implies. We can see that Oceania Healthcares positive unusual items were quite significant relative to its profit in the year to November 2019. As a result, we can surmise that the unusual items are making its statutory profit significantly stronger than it would otherwise be.

As previously mentioned, Oceania Healthcares large boost from unusual items wont be there indefinitely, so its statutory earnings are probably a poor guide to its underlying profitability. For this reason, we think that Oceania Healthcares statutory profits may be a bad guide to its underlying earnings power, and might give investors an overly positive impression of the company. The good news is that, its earnings per share increased by 65% in the last year. Of course, weve only just scratched the surface when it comes to analysing its earnings; one could also consider margins, forecast growth, and return on investment, among other factors. Keep in mind, when it comes to analysing a stock its worth noting the risks involved. At Simply Wall St, we found 4 warning signs for Oceania Healthcare and we think they deserve your attention.

Today weve zoomed in on a single data point to better understand the nature of Oceania Healthcares profit. But there are plenty of other ways to inform your opinion of a company. For example, many people consider a high return on equity as an indication of favorable business economics, while others like to follow the money and search out stocks that insiders are buying. While it might take a little research on your behalf, you may find this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying to be useful.

Love or hate this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.

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Oceania Healthcares (NZSE:OCA) Earnings Are Growing But Is There More To The Story? - Simply Wall St

Former Wales coach Rob Howley reveals how grief led to his gambling problems – Yahoo Sports

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Former Wales coach Rob Howley has opened up about the grief over his sisters death that led to him being sent home from the World Cup after long-term gambling issues.

Howley spoke out as he nears the end of an immediate nine-month ban on any involvement in the sport, which was imposed by the Welsh Rugby Union after he admitted breaching betting regulations.

The 49-year-olds gambling issues blew up in his face at the worst possible time as a betting company got in touch with the WRU just as Wales were travelling to Japan for last years World Cup.

Howley found himself in the spotlight ahead of the World Cup (PA)

The assistant coach was sent home a week before Wales opening match in September last year after it emerged he had placed 363 bets on more than 1,000 rugby matches from November 2015, losing more than 4,000. On two occasions he bet on Wales players to score tries.

After a course of therapy, Howley believes the gambling stemmed from the death of his sister in 2011.

The former British and Irish Lions international told the Mail on Sunday that he had not paid his sister, Karen, his weekly visit in the days before her death and had agonised over his decision to find her a place to live away from their mother as she battled with depression and alcoholism following a divorce.

Howley said: I blamed myself for her death. If Id seen her on that Wednesday, would she still be alive?

There was a lot guilt, should haves, could haves. By putting her in that house, on her own, I created an environment for her to kill herself. Her alcoholism went from bad to worse My feeling was that I had driven my sister to her own grave.

Howley completely blocked out the ordeal as he threw himself into his work he had been on the Wales coaching staff since 2008.

Howley saluted Warren Gatland for his support (PA)

However, the feelings were reawakened in November 2015 when he sorted out his sisters estate and discovered a number of police and financial issues. He turned to betting.

He said: It was never about the money. Never. It wasnt addictive behaviour. It was about escaping. A means of forgetting about the bad things and the experience of my sister.

After the issue emerged while he was in Japan, Howley described the humiliating and embarrassing experience of telling senior players what he had done before leaving Japan and similar feelings of letting down his wife and two daughters.

Story continues

While he did not want to leave his house for almost three months, he described former Wales head coach Warren Gatlands support as unwavering and revealed a decision to see a clinical psychologist over a three-month period helped him understand why he had gambled and gave him closure over his sisters death.

Wasps owner Derek Richardson reached out to Howley (PA)

Howley, whose ban expires on June 16, now wants to return to rugby and revealed Wasps had reached out to him before Christmas about working with Dai Young.

That phone call from (Wasps owner) Derek Richardson gave me a huge boost, reassuring me that I have a future in the game, he said.

Given my experience of the last nine months some self-reflection and self-awareness Id like to think it will benefit me as a coach.

He added: I now feel at peace with myself and Im no longer battling my demons, although there is not a day that goes by without thinking about Karen.

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Former Wales coach Rob Howley reveals how grief led to his gambling problems - Yahoo Sports

What Investing and Gambling Have in Common, Part 2 – GuruFocus.com

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Introduction

In my previous discussion on the similarities between gambling and investing,I reviewed J. L. Kellys Bell Labs paper, A New Interpretation of Information Rate, specifically focusing on how his conclusions can be linked to very simple and effective investing concepts.

I will now explore some of the impacts that paper had on the scientific community and how the related know-how was used to profit both in probability-based games and in the stock market.

Ed Thorp

One of the most active researchers in this area was Edward O. Thorp, who has been a math professor, writer, hedge fund manager and blackjack researcher.

Thorp said he was introduced to Kelly' paper by Claude Shannon at M.I.T. in 1960.

At the time, Thorp was looking for the optimal way to play Blackjack and he had already created a method called "card counting" to address it, but after reading Kelly's work, he built onto those conclusions and integrated them into his theory. He then became famous for systematically beating the "house" by playing Blackjack at several casinos. The related theory is explained in his 1962 book, "Beat the Dealer."

Thorp also wrote a paper on the topic called The Kelly Criterion in Blackjack, Sports Betting and the Stock Market, which was published in 1997.

Let's see if the content of that paper can lead us to gain some more investing insights.

The optimal fraction

In the introduction, Thorp explains the relationship between gambling and investing:

"The central problem for gamblers is to find positive expectation bets. But the gambler also needs to know how to manage his money, i.e., how much to bet. In the stock market (more inclusively, the securities markets) the problem is similar but more complex. The gambler, who is now an 'investor,' looks for 'excess risk adjusted return.'

In the paragraph "Coin Tossing", Thorp carries out a mathematical function study, which is intended to graphically clarify the different possibilities a gambler has with regard to the size of the optimal fraction to bet (Kelly fraction).

As we can see from the graph, the Kelly fraction (f*) is the optimal value that maximizes the expected value of the capital growth rate, or G(f). In the first part of this series, it was established that, for symmetrical bets, this value is equal to the difference between the win and loss probabilities.

By looking at the graph, we can also extrapolate some additional important aspects:

In real life, both gamblers and investors using the Kelly formula are usually not comfortable with the optimal fraction and reduce it a bit. This makes sense, not because there's a better fraction value, but because in most cases (and especially in investing) we're not able to precisely calculate the probabilities of success and failure. So we want a probabilistic margin of safety: it's better to grow our capital slower than (unknowingly) drifting toward over-betting and losing money.

The Kelly criterion for asymmetrical bets

As anticipated in the previous installment, we'll now pass from the hypothesis of a perfectly symmetrical bet to an asymmetrical one.

Lets also stick with a binary outcomes scenario: this means that, as before, we only have two probabilities: one related to a favorable outcome (p) and a loss one (q = 1 p).

Here's how Thorp introduces the asymmetrical bet case:

"The Kelly criterion can easily be extended to uneven payoff games. Suppose Player A wins b units for every unit wager. Further, suppose that on each trial the win probability p > 0 and pb q > 0 so the game is advantageous to Player A."

The factor p*b q is nothing more than the probabilistic outcome of our investment. So that number must be positive to convince us to invest, as we intend to rule out those situations in which we don't have an edge. We must thus have p*b q = 0, or p*b > q.

This also means that, for this more general case, simply having a success probability greater than that of failure (p>q) is not enough to place a favorable bet as it is for the symmetrical bet case.

Now we have an additional variable, b, the win payoff (or simply, the odds), which contributes to the expected outcome.

Finally, here's what is commonly known as the Kelly formula:

f* = (p*b - q)/b

Where, p is the win probability, q is the loss probability and b is the win payoff (how much you win, if you win, in wager units).

Please observe that when the win payoff is b=1 (which means that if we win, we'll double our capital), the formula simply reduces itself to the one seen in the previous article.

In order to show how win-loss probabilities and different levels of payoffs combine together into the formula to generate the Kelly fraction optimal value, I created the following table:

As we can see, the formula gives out a positive number only for a subset of probabilities-payoffs couples. The negative numbers don't make sense even if they come from applying the formula. It depends on the fact that the expected outcome is also negative: this simply means that in those cases, we should not invest at all.

Another important observation is that win probability and payoff can compensate each other: e.g., in the case of a symmetrical bet (p=0.5), a payoff of 50% (b=0.5) is not enough to have a (probabilistic) positive outcome, but if we raise the payoff from 50% to 200% the Kelly formula suggests to invest 25% of our budget.

When both the win probability and the payoff are on the high side, the formula suggests to invest a substantial fraction of our budget.

On a side note (even if not strictly needed for our discussion), we could be interested in calculating the Kelly fraction for more than two outcomes, and consequently multiple probabilities (this is a generalization of our binary outcomes scenario). Unfortunately, there's no simple and linear formula that can be used in the case of more than two outcomes, but Thorp's paper can point investors in the right direction if they are curious about which approach to follow.

Investment insights

As we did in the first part of the series, let's now try to extract some investment lessons from the Kelly formula:

Conclusion

In a nutshell, in order to maximize the growth rate of our capital, we must find good companies selling for a price that allows for a good margin of safety.

I'm sure that this sounds now much more familiar than the cold formulas and numbers. The investment concepts that can be extrapolated from the Kelly formula reminded me of Joel Greenblatt (Trades, Portfolio)'s Magic Formula approach and its theoretical substrate.

In Greenblatts words:

"If you just stick to buying good companies (ones that have a high return on capital) and to buying those companies only at bargain prices (at prices that give you a high earnings yield), you can end up systematically buying many of the good companies that crazy Mr. Market has decided to literally give away."

My conclusion is that basic value investing principles make sense even if we look at them from different perspectives, because they are common-sense concepts.

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Nicola Guida

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What Investing and Gambling Have in Common, Part 2 - GuruFocus.com

States might turn to legalized gambling with budgets rocked by coronavirus – New York Post

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The coronavirus pandemic could lead to a quicker expansion of sports betting and internet gambling in the US as states deal with huge budget deficits and look for new tax revenue wherever they can find it.

Most major sports remain shut down due to the virus, but European soccer and Asian baseball have begun play, NASCAR is racing again and PGA Tour golf restarts in two weeks. Major US sports leagues including the NBA and NHL are making plans for resuming their seasons.

The virus will accelerate the expansion of sports betting and online casinos in the next 12 to 24 months, said Chris Krafcik, a managing director with Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, which tracks sports and internet betting legislation in the US. Both activities provide states, whose economies have been massively disrupted by the outbreak, the opportunity to capture new revenue immediately in the form of upfront license fees, and over time through taxes.

Sports betting is not a golden goose for states seeking new tax revenue. An Associated Press analysis last year found that taxes on sports betting would generate just a fraction of 1 percent of most states budgets if they met their estimates and many states fell far short of those projections.

But with many state budgets now resembling smoking craters in the ground as tax revenue disappears in a largely idled economy, even a small revenue boost is better than none.

So far, 18 US states plus the District of Columbia offer sports betting, and four offer internet gambling, which can include online casino games, slots and poker.

In addition, Virginia and Tennessee have approved sports betting but have yet to launch. North Carolina allows two tribal casinos to offer it, and is considering a bill to allow it statewide.

Washington state allows sports betting at tribal casinos once regulations are in place, and Oklahoma allowed two tribes to do so, pending approval from federal authorities.

Louisiana, Massachusetts and Ohio are realistic candidates to legalize sports betting this year, Krafcik said.

Louisiana is close to approving a November referendum on sports betting, and Ohios Legislature is moving forward this week with a bill that could authorize sports betting, including mobile betting, although a competing measure could limit it to in-person bets at casinos and race tracks.

On Thursday, legislators in California promoted sports betting as a way to help a state budget facing a $54 billion deficit. The nations largest state is considering a November referendum on the topic.

Krafcik said Illinois could approve internet gambling by the end of the year, at least in part to recoup tax revenue lost to the virus outbreak.

States are facing unprecedented financial challenges, said Matt King, CEO of FanDuel Group. We are firm believers that mobile sports betting and online gaming legislation will be the type of commonsense legislation that states will look to when legislatures return.

New York state Sen. Joseph Addabbo has been pushing his state to adopt mobile and online sports betting as a way to generate new revenue, including recapturing money from gamblers crossing the border into New Jersey to bet on sports. He said his state faces a budget deficit of up to $17 billion, largely because of the virus. Other estimates have placed the shortfall around $13 billion.

We should be preparing now creating regulations, lining up vendors, setting up servers, said Addabbo, a Democrat. Lets get it ready so that when we come back, we dont miss another Super Bowl.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, also a Democrat, maintains that approving mobile sports betting would require amending the states constitution.

While casinos in many states are moving to reopen, including Nevada next week, not all gamblers will be anxious to race back into crowded, enclosed buildings with the virus still spreading.

If social distancing safeguards remain in place, it is possible that some gamblers would prefer to play from home rather than going into a casino, said David Schwartz, a gambling historian with the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Yaniv Sherman, head of commercial development for the online gambling company 888 Holdings, said the virus is accelerating trends that were already in motion before the virus hit, including growing acceptance of sports and online betting.

The virus has highlighted the need for revenue diversification, he said. The future is around online growth, and its right now, not in 5 or 10 years. We hope to get additional states on board.

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States might turn to legalized gambling with budgets rocked by coronavirus - New York Post