Category Archives: Covid-19

MADISON (WKOW) -- Wisconsin reported one new death due to COVID-19 on Sunday, according to the latest numbers from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

Deaths for each day arereported by DHS HERE.

DHS also reported 72 people were newly hospitalized.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 241COVID-19 patientswere being treated in Wisconsin hospitals, up six from the day prior.

Of those, 64 are in the ICU, up two from the day before,according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association.

There have been 886 positive COVID-19 tests since yesterday in Wisconsin and 2,422 negative results.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL DHS DASHBOARD)

The Department of Health Servicesdashboardshows the seven-day average of positive tests.(CHART)

(App users, see the daily reports and charts HERE.)

Of all positive cases reported since the pandemic began, 566,646, or 97.6 percent, are considered recovered.

As of Tuesday, a total of 3,120,369 vaccines have been administered throughout Wisconsin.

So far, 33.4 percent of Wisconsinites have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, and 20.4 percent of the state has complete the vaccine series.

Vaccination numbers can change on a rolling basis as the state gets more data each day.

DHS has a county-level dashboard to assess the COVID-19 activity levelin counties and Healthcare Emergency Readiness Coalition regions that measure what DHS calls the burden in each county.View the dashboard HERE.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services updates the statistics each dayon its website around 2 p.m.

(Our entire coronavirus coverage is available here.)

The new strain of the coronavirus causes the disease COVID-19. Symptoms include cough, fever and shortness of breath. A full list of symptoms is available onthe Centers for Disease Control website.

In severe cases, pneumonia can develop. Those most at risk include the elderly, people with heart or lung disease as well as anyone at greater risk of infection.

For most, the virus is mild, presenting similarly to a common cold or the flu.

Anyone who thinks they may have the disease should call ahead to a hospital or clinic before going in for a diagnosis. Doing so gives the staff time to take the proper precautions so the virus does not spread.

Those needing emergency medical services should continue to use 911.

(County by county results are available here).

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Eight new deaths from COVID-19 in Wisconsin; 20.4% fully vaccinated - WKOW

FILE PHOTO: Gravediggers wearing protective suits carry a coffin of a 32-year-old man who died from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as spotlights illuminate the graves during night burials at Vila Formosa cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, March 30, 2021. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazils brutal surge in COVID-19 deaths will soon surpass the worst of a record January wave in the United States, climbing well beyond an average 3,000 fatalities per day, scientists predict, as contagious new variants overwhelm hospitals.

Brazils overall death toll trails only the U.S. outbreak, with nearly 333,000 killed, according to Health Ministry data, compared with more than 555,000 dead in the United States.

But with Brazils healthcare system at the breaking point, the country could also exceed total U.S. deaths, despite having two-thirds the population, two experts told Reuters.

Its a nuclear reactor that has set off a chain reaction and is out of control. Its a biological Fukushima, said Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian doctor and professor at Duke University, who is closely tracking the virus.

Right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro has pushed back against mask-wearing and lockdowns that public health experts consider necessary. The country dragged its feet last year as the world raced to secure vaccines, slowing the launch of a national immunization program.

With weak measures failing to combat contagion, Brazils COVID-19 cases and deaths are accumulating faster than ever. On the other hand, a widespread U.S. vaccination campaign is rapidly curtailing what has been the worlds deadliest outbreak.

Nicolelis and Christovam Barcellos, a researcher at Brazilian medical institute Fiocruz, are separately predicting that Brazil could surpass the United States in both overall deaths and the record for average deaths per day.

As soon as next week, Brazil may break the record U.S. seven-day average for deaths, forecasts the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. The U.S. average for daily deaths peaked at 3,285 in January.

The IHME forecast does not currently extend beyond July 1, when it projects Brazil could reach 563,000 deaths, compared with 609,000 U.S. casualties expected by then.

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Brazil's COVID-19 death surge set to pass the worst of record U.S. wave - Reuters

The World Health Organization released a report at the end of March that shares the results of a four-week trip by an international team of scientists searching for the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 illness.

The 120-page report details both genetic research and interviews with labs and early Covid-19 patients. The goal of the joint investigation between 17 scientists from the WHO and 17 from China was to identify the most likely ways that the virus was introduced to humans, Erin Garcia de Jess writes for Science News.

The report concludes, in the most likely scenario, the virus started in an animal that carries many kinds of coronaviruses, like a bat. That animal probably transmitted the virus to an intermediate host, like a mink, pangolin, civet or racoon dog, which then passed the virus to a human. The investigation found that SARS-CoV-2 was making humans sick many days before it appeared at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, Michaeleen Doucleff reports for NPR. But there, the crowded, indoor aisles provided an environment where the respiratory virus can easily spread.

This report is a very important beginning, but it is not the end, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. Finding the origin of a virus takes time and we owe it to the world to find the source so we can collectively take steps to reduce the risk of this happening again. No single research trip can provide all the answers.

Early in 2020, researchers in China collected about 1,000 samples from the Huanan Seafood Market from the surfaces of doors, stalls, toilets and trash bins, as well as from animals at the market, including mice, stray cats and 18 other species sold there. Most of the samples that contained SARS-CoV-2 came from stalls that sold seafood, livestock and poultry, Amy Maxmen reports for Nature News.

The WHO investigators also spoke with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to address concerns that the virus may have leaked from a lab. Some experts have pointed out that the evidence both for and against the lab leak theory is the thinnest section of the report, reports Amy McKeever for National Geographic. The report does not entirely rule out the possibility, but concludes that it is extremely unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab.

The lack of evidence may be due in part to the difficulty inherent to proving a negative. I dont think well ever be able to provide enough evidence to convince people who are convinced that it escaped from a lab that it didnt, says University of California, San Diego, molecular epidemiologist Joel Wertheim says to Science News. Even if you find a virus literally identical to SARS-CoV-2 [in animals] they could still argue that that virus had previously been found and isolated and brought into a lab and it escaped just the way it was.

Wertheim led research, published last month in the journal Science, that uses genetic data and computer models to suggest that the virus may have jumped from an animal to humans in mid-October to mid-November 2019.

One possibility is the virus jumped from an animal to a human at a farm that supplied animals at the Huanan Seafood Market and other markets, says University of Sydney virologist Eddie Holmes to Nature News. Chinese officials have said the market did not sell live mammals or illegal wildlife, although media reports have said otherwise.

A farmed animal would probably have been an intermediate between an initial host of the virus and humans. A strain of coronavirus called CoV-RaTG13 that is found in bats is the closest relative of SARS-CoV-2, but those bats are a thousand miles away from Wuhan, per National Geographic.

The WHO report concludes that it is likely to very likely that SARS-CoV-2 originated in an animal, like bats, and reached humans through an intermediate, like a farmed mammal.

The researchers tested 18 species of animals from the Huanan Seafood Market for signs of the coronavirus, and all came back negative. But the report outlines more than three dozen species of wild mammals that are bred on farms in China, per NPR.

The samples gathered for the report are a fraction of the animals that are farmed or captured or transported for this purpose in China, says Georgetown University Medical Center virologist Angela Rasmussen to National Geographic. I think we havent done anywhere near enough sampling.

The report recommends future studies focus on disease surveillance in captive animals and wild bats both in China and Southeast Asia. It also recommends closer epidemiological studies of the earliest Covid-19 cases.

A lot of good leads were suggested in this report, and we anticipate that many, if not all of them, will be followed through because we owe it to the world to understand what happened, why and how to prevent it from happening again, says the WHOs Peter Ben Embarek, co-leader of the investigation, to Nature News.

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WHO Releases Results of First Investigation Into the Origin of Covid-19 - Smithsonian Magazine

We're making this important information available without a subscription as a public service. But we depend on reader support to do this work. Please consider supporting independent journalism in Alaska, at just $1.99 for the first month of your subscription.

Although case counts and hospitalizations in Alaska remain below what they were during a peak in November and December, the state has been experiencing a slight increase in its average daily case rate over the last few weeks. Many regions in the state are still in the highest alert category based on their current per capita rate of infection.

Alaska in March became the first state in the country to open vaccine eligibility to anyone 16 and older who lives or works in the state. You can visit covidvax.alaska.gov or call 907-646-3322 to sign up for a vaccine appointment; new appointments are added regularly. The phone line is staffed 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekends.

By Tuesday, 259,419 people about 42% of Alaskans eligible for a shot had received at least their first dose, according to the states vaccine monitoring dashboard. At least 189,781 people about 32% of Alaskans 16 and older were considered fully vaccinated.

By Tuesday, there were 38 people with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 in hospitals throughout the state, far below a peak in late 2020 but a slight increase compared to recent weeks.

Of the 83 cases reported in Alaska residents on Tuesday, there were 24 in Anchorage plus two in Eagle River and one in Girdwood; four in Valdez; two in Kenai; one in Seward; one in Sterling; two in Fairbanks plus three in North Pole; three in Big Lake; one in Houston; five in Palmer; 20 in Wasilla; one in Douglas; and one in Juneau.

Among communities smaller than 1,000 people not named to protect privacy, there was one in the Copper River Census Area; one in the Mat-Su Borough; and 10 in the Bethel Census Area.

There were also two cases reported in nonresidents: one in Homer and one in Prudhoe Bay.

While people might get tested more than once, each case reported by the state health department represents only one person.

The states data doesnt specify whether people testing positive for COVID-19 have symptoms. More than half of the nations infections are transmitted from asymptomatic people, according to CDC estimates.

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Tracking COVID-19 in Alaska: 85 new infections and no deaths reported Tuesday - Anchorage Daily News

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) Active cases of COVID-19 are down in South Dakota, as no new deaths were announced by theState Department of Healthon Tuesday.

According to the latest update, 163 new total coronavirus cases were announced bringing the states total case count to 118,680, up from Monday (118,517).

There are 98 current hospitalizations as of Tuesday, compared to 88 on Monday. Total hospitalizations are at 7,068.

Active cases are now at 2,419, down from Monday (2,485).

No new deaths reported by the Department of Health. The death toll remains at 1,938.

Total recovered cases are now at 114,323, compared to Monday (114,094).

Total persons who tested negative is now at 329,968, from Monday (329,409).

There were 722 new persons tested in the data reported on Tuesday for a new persons-tested positivity rate of 22.5%.

The latest seven-day all test positivity rate reported by the DOH is 9.1%. The latest one-day PCR test positivity rate is 10.7%.

According to the DOH, 234,261 doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been administered with 9,844 doses of the Janssen vaccine and 209,765 of the Moderna vaccine given out to a total number of 276,846 persons.

There have been 82,665 persons who have completed two doses of Moderna and 94,351 who have received two doses of Pfizer, according to the DOH.

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COVID-19 in South Dakota: 163 total new cases; Death toll remains at 1,938; Active cases at 2,419 - KELOLAND.com

CURT NICKISCH: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. Im Curt Nickisch.

The creative economy may be having a bit of a moment. Im saying this partly from feeling, but look at job postings or TV ads, or just listen to CEOs talk nowadays. And you get the sense that more and more companies realize that creative workers are key to value creation. Now, content has always been king, right? But there have been some significant developments lately. New technologies, the explosion of the gig economy, digitization plus social pressures to give more credit to people behind the products. To say nothing of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is exerting new forces on workers and employers.

Our guest today believes that companies will fall behind unless they make themselves more attractive and rewarding for writers, designers, artists, producers, or just anybody who values creativity in the workplace.

And hes here to explain some of the latest development in this macro trend. Scott Belsky is the chief product officer at Adobe. He joined the company in 2012 when he sold his startup Behance to the firm. Scott, thanks for coming on the show.

SCOTT BELSKY: Its my pleasure.

CURT NICKISCH: 10 years ago, back around when you sold your company, the creative economy, creative class, that was a popular concept. What has been happening since then to take this kind of from buzzword status to a real material trend?

SCOTT BELSKY: Well, I think the most significant work changes that have benefited the creative worker, some of them are trends in terms of technology and media in general. And certainly some of them relate to the tools that creatives use themselves. So lets just talk quickly about both.

On the media distribution side, first of all, you have the rise of all of these new streaming services. You have this need for every small business, medium sized business and large business to constantly create content in real time, as opposed to the traditional lets do one or two campaigns a year and lets have a big agency do it for us. Now across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tik Tok, I mean, you have to be creating a high velocity of original content on a daily basis to engage with your community of customers.

And so with that is the need for 10X more creative content, right? That is developed in real time, that is optimized real time. And so that translates to a ton of opportunity for creatives. Of course, when Netflix is competing with Amazon and Apple and all the traditional movie studios to get original content that also benefits at the end of the day creators.

And the rise of platforms like Patreon and many others that allow creatives to get paid directly to create work. And then most recently the rise of CryptoArt and NFTs and the ability for digital artists to mint limited edition versions of their creations on the blockchain and sell them and monetize their talent. I mean, these are massive opportunities and seismic shifts in the space.

And then on the tool side, the tools are becoming more accessible. Theyre becoming cheaper. And hen also the tools themselves are collaborative. So instead of working isolated on an island, you can jump into a link and start to work with somebody else. You can have a collaborative experience. So both on the distribution as well as the creation side, this is an entirely different world for the creator.

CURT NICKISCH: And what about on the organizational level? We mentioned the buzzword of creative class and the creative economy. That does reflect of just a growing understanding and a growing awareness among organizations that part of what their job is and part of what the job of a manager is, is to unleash the potential that creative people have. And thats one reason weve seen a lot of companies move into places like San Francisco and London, because they want to be around where creative workers are. What have you seen on kind of the organizational management level?

SCOTT BELSKY: Well, its a great question because I think every company knows that design is now a competitive advantage. That you can actually compensate for higher prices that youre charging your customer. You can compensate for worse off technology frankly. And you can stay more competitive in the market by having a superior experience that youre delivering.

And a lot of enterprise products are competing based on design and interface and better experience and a lot of consumer products. And so with that realization, every manager is properly thinking, well, how do I make that were best in class on design? How do I make sure that we are creatively competitive? Part of that is how do you expose your employees to culture? How do you aggregate great talent, of course. But more importantly, internally, how do you set up those folks to have influence and to really change the company.

And thats where it gets hard, right? Because traditionally design is either outsourced or its a small organization within the company that reports up to many people who report up to many people. How do you give designers this elusive seat at the table. And that I think is one thing that some companies figure out and many companies dont.

And then I also think on a more execution level, how do you change the way a company markets and creates content? I love this a few years ago, the Super Bowl. The lights went out in the middle of the Super Bowl. And then within 30 seconds, the social media accounts for Oreo, the brand Oreo, came out with a little campaign called, you can still dunk in the dark. And that got shared widely, right?

And it was so clever. And it was such a representative moment for me of the future of creativity in brands and business, because some individual was empowered to think and act in real time on behalf of the brand creatively.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. What other examples of companies or strategies have you seen where the creators are getting a seat at the table and are being heard, rewarded, et cetera?

SCOTT BELSKY: Well, I think theres many different models for this. And so theres no one right answer. And there are many different companies that do this. I mean, obviously Apple is one of the very best examples of a company where design is at a different level of the power stack in the company. They really have a lot of veto power, designers are deeply respected, coveted, protected. And then you have other companies where the product leaders are designers. You have other companies where the designer is represented at the executive level of the company and can really go through and make sure that whats being shipped is what was intended from an experience perspective. That is an organizational change endeavor for most companies.

CURT NICKISCH: So amid these changes we now have the COVID-19 pandemic, which has changed how creative people work, how everyone works, how everyone works together. What are the biggest developments from the past year that youve been watching?

SCOTT BELSKY: On the creative side of things and also the digital transformation of every type of business, which a lot of people talk about, but like why, right? Why did this suddenly transform us? And I really go back to this idea that all these technologies were using today en mass have been around for years, right? Zoom has been around. Slack has been around. A lot of these tools have been around, but in every team there were the holdouts. There were always the people who still sent emails. There always the people who said, no. We still have to meet in person on this one. We still have to meet in person on that one.

And as a result, all of us were kind of brought down to the lowest common denominator of the weakest link of the team as it relates to digital transformation. And so in some weird way, we had never fully realized the gains from technology in our teams until the pandemic hit, when that suddenly forced all of us to make the leap including that last 10% of people who were the holdouts.

And in one fell swoop, within a matter of maybe weeks, we suddenly fully realized the gains from the productivity that weve actually been able to access over years. And that was really exciting to me because in some weird way, were all going to be off way more productive going forward because of that massive COVID forcing function.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. Has the pandemic shifted the way creative workers work?

SCOTT BELSKY: Well, I think in some ways empowered them to work the way theyve always wanted to work. A lot of creatives have been forced to come into the office for face time. They are kind of pulled away from an optimal situation where they can kind of work on their own terms to working on other peoples terms and-

CURT NICKISCH: And hours too probably, right?

SCOTT BELSKY: And hours as well. Absolutely. And now suddenly-

CURT NICKISCH: The night owls are freed.

SCOTT BELSKY: The night owls are free. Exactly. Youre not confining to a workforce cadence that isnt optimized for you anymore. Now that being said, there also are some real big detriments for creatives that Ive spoken to. The primary one being the source of inspiration. How do creatives get ideas? I mean, I always like to call creativity the worlds greatest recycling program because its people going out in the world seeing things, mistakes of the eye, other peoples creative work, traveling, culture, clashes of culture, subculture, all of this type of stuff. These are the inputs that then express themselves in the outputs, meaning the work.

And so a lot of us have been deprived from those inputs, right? Weve been confined to our four walls and what we see on a screen. Hopefully again, we rise out of this from the best of both worlds and embrace of the inputs once again and the rediscovered autonomy and optimal working conditions for better output.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. I also want to ask about geography here because a lot of companies have moved into cities and revitalize them, right? Because they want to be around this creative class of workers and also have people working together so that you have that collision of ideas and innovations coming out of that interaction from people from different disciplines and different backgrounds and different areas of expertise. And so I just wonder now that everybody can kind of work the way that they want to. Is that going to disrupt some of this positive congregation that was happening?

SCOTT BELSKY: My macro thesis here is that we are going to want to work together again. Were going to want to have physical experiences. However, as opposed to them being forced on us or circumstantial, theyre going to become more intentional. And so if a creative team gets together, its because they want to have an offsite and they want to have a deeper conversation and dialogue or debate over something, as opposed to Monday morning.

CURT NICKISCH: Got it and theyve cleared their meetings.

SCOTT BELSKY: Yeah.

CURT NICKISCH: And they dont have deliverables due that day. And their minds are really free for that.

SCOTT BELSKY: Right. Its like really jointly intentional and purposeful time. And I think that the outcome of those aggregations are going to be fantastic. I also think that the idea of cities or living geographically bound to an office or a job, is the question of was that because was it a power center or creative center.

Power centers are where were in a city, because its the city to be in when youre in that industry. And if you need to be known, if you need to be taken seriously, you have to be in that city. So, the power center era told us that San Francisco is where youre serious about tech. I remember many VC firms would say, we only invest in companies in San Francisco. Which now it sounds insane. But that was only a few years ago. If you want to be in real estate and finance, you got to be in New York.

If you want to be in Madison Avenue marketing, you got to be in New York. If you want to be in Hollywood, you got to be in LA. Thats the power center era. And thats over.

But now theres a question of creative centers. Like where do you want to be for your inputs, your stimulation, the people you want to collaborate with? In some ways, I think that creative centers, by the way, can be much smaller and more dispersed. So, I know a group of people that are aggregating like-minded talent in Omaha, Nebraska. I know groups of people that are moving to places in Utah and Montana, where theyre going with a handful of other creatives from different disciplines. And theyre saying, Hey, wait a second. We can own land. We can have the ultimate office space. We can have some great cross-pollination with people we respect.

CURT NICKISCH: Go trail running at lunch.

SCOTT BELSKY: Yeah, exactly. And we can still do our best work.

CURT NICKISCH: Its interesting because weve done interviews on this show about how companies can access talent clusters. But it raises the question, if creative workers can disperse and congregate in more places, like what do companies need to do now?

SCOTT BELSKY: Companies need to evolve in embracing talent on their own terms. And that includes where they live, how they work, what tools they use, et cetera. I mean, to me, the best companies over the years have kind of figured this out, but its more so true than ever before now, because the best talent knows that they dont have to conform anymore. They dont have to compromise and they can in fact, work on their own terms.

Think about it this way. Just a few years ago, if you were one of the best animators in the world, one of the best motion graphics artists, one of the best videographers, you would look for a stable career working for an agency or production company or whatever. Now youre realizing, well, I can actually work for anyone and everyone. I can command top dollar. I can have autonomy over my work.

I can pick my clients. Why would I ever have a career in one company? And I think you could argue the same thing has happened in the publishing world to some extent and where instead of working for penguin, youre independent and youre working with authors directly and youre creating content and you have people paying you. And youre making a great fee on a monthly basis from a large group of people that love your work. I mean, theres a lot of analogies here for whats happening across different creative spaces.

But what companies need to do is evolve their policies to be able to embrace these folks. So if you dont allow a remote working policy in your company, then you are not able to attract and retain the best creative talent that you need in order to stand out in your space. And so you have to rethink that.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah, it sounds like the growth of the gig economy and the creative economy are kind of at interplay here.

SCOTT BELSKY: Thats true. And by the way, theres also an economic side to this. Not only can you attract better talent by enabling them to work on their own terms and having a flexible workforce. Its also economically easier to hire some of this talent outside the city centers, where a lot of these companies are located. So theres a talent arbitrage situation to some degree here. You could maybe get better talent for specific functions for less by thinking more expansively about where you can hire people.

CURT NICKISCH: I want to talk a little bit about how the pandemic has affected creativity and productivity, right? Weve all experienced this. It seems like even if youre a creative worker, there was a crisis mode there for a time. Difficult working conditions as well for many people. And so sometimes it feels like its just hard to be creative at a time when things feel so serious. How we value creativity during the pandemic changed?

SCOTT BELSKY: In this regard, I actually think there was a more macro trend underway that maybe the pandemic just accelerated. Humans for decades have succeeded in the workplace based on their productivity. And so the deployment of tools like Excel and Word and all the other tools we use in the enterprise and the modern technology stack for companies was all designed to help people be more productive, so they could be successful in their jobs.

But now were entering an age where artificial intelligence and outsourcing tools and better project management tools, et cetera, have in some ways replaced a lot of the human sources of productivity. The machines are making us more productive now more than people making us more productive as companies.

And therefore, if you fast forward this, what is the role of the human in the enterprise? What is the role of the human in any business or organization? To me, its clearly to do the things that only humans can do, which is to be creative, to visualize data, as opposed to just presenting it, to tell a story, as opposed to just reporting an outcome. To compel people, to take action on things, to better merchandise publicly, to innovate and brainstorm and think about contrarian views, et cetera.

And so if thats what humans are going to be looked to in the future, if thats whats going to make human stand out in the future and be successful in their jobs, well, then we have a problem. We have to outfit these people to be creative. We have to either teach them how to use the current creative tools of the day or we have to build new tools that are more accessible to more people.

CURT NICKISCH: It sounds like you were saying that theres an argument here for a manager at a company thats not sort of in a creative industry, like film or art or multimedia. That that manager really needs to be caring about these things as well?

SCOTT BELSKY: Yeah. Its hard for me to think of an industry where this doesnt apply. The number one reason I would give is that at the end of the day, we are all individual human consumers, right? We have phones with a certain level of intuitive architecture of how we get things done in our personal lives. And we all have the expectation to be as efficient and have the delightful user experience in our professional lives. And that means that whether you are an auto repair shop, whether you are a company that builds some big enterprise-yy tool, whatever you are in, whatever your business is, your employees are going to want to have a better designed experience.

And when they get one, theyre going to better retain and theyre going to better perform, and your customers are also going to want to have a similar quality experience. And theyre going to be more loyal when they have a frictionless interaction with your brand.

CURT NICKISCH: I wonder what you would recommend to somebody whos a creative worker in an organization who feels like theyre not doing enough for that person. The future is accelerating as youve explained. Its not equally distributed in the sense that some companies are further along on this learning curve than others. If youre a creative worker in an organization and you feel like theyre just not doing enough for you or not really helping you unlock all the potential that you have. Like, what should you do?

SCOTT BELSKY: Thats a great question, because all too often, what an ambitious creative does in that situation is they leave.

CURT NICKISCH: Right. Which is an option.

SCOTT BELSKY: Which is an option. And so what can you do if you care about the company, you care about your customers, you feel passionate about the mission of the business, and you want to lead change. And perhaps youre in the middle of the management stack, but you know in your core that this has to happen.And theres two ideas there that Ive seen work. One is to build a union, not like a union in the traditional term. But unionize the creative organization in the company with a senior sponsor, and then start to advocate for the role and the rights so to speak of the creative in every team. I think centralizing a creative or design organization, as opposed to having all these people scattered about under managers who dont appreciate them or empower them is one way to make sure that creative has a seat at the table.

CURT NICKISCH: And of course the option to leave and go work for another company, which is always on the table, maybe is even more accessible now because so many places are hiring remotely or at least remote for now. I suppose you can use that recognition, right? That you are now more marketable because you can literally work for more companies without moving as a way to flex a little bit of that influence within your own company before you decide to leave.

SCOTT BELSKY: Yeah, its a market tendency, right? The more in demand great talent is the more selective therell be of the customers that they can work with or want to work with. And the more friendly the company has to be to its talent in order to keep them and hospitable of their ways of working. So theres a bit of a market tendency going on there. And for some functions its really helpful to have a design 100% immersed and focused on your product and in other functions its actually helpful to have creatives who have exposure to many different brands and companies and products. Because then theyre actually better at their jobs than if theyre only working for you and your one brand. So it really depends. But I agree. The degree of hospitality a company and brand is to its talent these days especially is critical.

CURT NICKISCH: Scott, thanks so much for talking about where creative workers and the Ah sorry. Let me just sum this up in a more HBRie way. Scott, thanks so much for talking about the landscape of creative workers and how its changing.

SCOTT BELSKY: Its my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

CURT NICKISCH: Thats Scott Belsky. Hes the chief product officer at Adobe. This episode was produced by Mary Dooe. We get technical help from Rob Eckhardt. Adam Buchholz is our audio product manager. Thanks for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. Im Curt Nickisch.

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How the Creative Economy is Changing with Covid-19 - Harvard Business Review

Here is what you need to do know before you schedule your appointment at CVS to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. As more people are becoming eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, people are wondering if they can sign up for unused dosages at their local CVS.

Many CVS locations will soon have the COVID-19 vaccine available for all people 16 and older in California. Here is what you need to know before you rush to your nearest CVS.

CVS offers those who want the vaccine the ability to schedule an appointment through its websiteand its phone app. They have not provided a phone number to call to make an appointment.

People are discouraged from showing up for drop-in appointments because CVS does not have a waitlist for unused doses.

According to its website, CVS is currently vaccinating those who are 50 and older and those older than 16 who have a medical condition that would increase the risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms. Health care workers, food and agriculture workers, educational workers are also some of the eligible groups for the treatment.

For more information regarding those who qualify for the vaccine at CVS, click here.

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Verify: Does CVS have a waitlist to get the COVID-19 vaccine? - ABC10.com KXTV

A girl carries cassava leaves on her back as she walks back home from the field in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo, October 8, 2019. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo

GENEVA (Reuters) - A record 27.3 million people in Democratic Republic of Congo, or about one-third of its population, are suffering from acute hunger, largely because of conflict and the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The figure makes Congo home to the most people needing urgent food assistance in the world, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a joint statement.

Besides conflict and the pandemic, the number also rose because the latest analysis covered more people than previous ones.

For the first time ever we were able to analyse the vast majority of the population, and this has helped us to come closer to the true picture of the staggering scale of food insecurity in the DRC, Peter Musoko, WFPs country representative, said.

This country should be able to feed its population and export a surplus. We cannot have children going to bed hungry and families skipping meals for an entire day, he said.

The worst-hit areas were in the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu and Tanganyika, as well as the central Kasai provinces, all of which have been affected by conflict.

People forced by fighting to flee their home have returned to find their crops destroyed. Some have been surviving by eating only taro, a root that grows wild, or cassava leaves boiled in water, the statement said.

Militia violence has persisted in Congo for decades, particularly in the eastern borderlands with Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, despite the official end to a civil war in 2003.

Of the 27.3 million going hungry, about 6.7 million people were in the emergency phase, which is the last one before famine, an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) found.

Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Aaron Ross and Barbara Lewis

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Conflict and COVID-19 drive hunger to record levels in Congo - Reuters

Community members do not need to be patients of CHAS Health to receive the vaccine at Spokane Community College. Here's what you need to know about the new clinic.

SPOKANE, Wash. A new COVID-19 vaccination clinic run by CHAS Health is opening at Spokane Community College on Wednesday, April 7.

The site will be located at SCC's Walter S. Johnson Sports Center (Building 5) and is scheduled to be in operations over the coming weeks and months to meet demand, CHAS Health said in a press release. CHAS previously served as the provider for the Spokane Arena mass vaccination clinic in partnership with the Washington State Department of Health. Safeway has since taken over as the provider at the site.

Community members do not need to be patients of CHAS Health to receive a vaccine but they must meet current eligibility requirements in Washington state. Everyone age 16 and older will be eligible to receive the vaccine in Washington on April 15.

An appointment is required to receive the vaccine walk-ins are not available. Those who are looking to schedule an appointment can do so online. Appointments for the clinic are available beginning Thursday, April 8.

CHAS is also moving its drive-thru COVID-19 testing from the Spokane Arena to SCC. Testing will open at SCC on Wednesday, April 14. Vaccination and testing will be offered Wednesday through Saturday through the spring.

People can drive to both the vaccination and testing location at the SCC campus using the entrance on East Nora Avenue from Mission Avenue. Bus access is available using STA Route 29 to SCC.

Based on previous experiences with both COVID-19 testing and vaccination, CHAS Health knew we would need a large space to successfully vaccinate community members, said Aaron Wilson, CEO of CHAS Health. The leadership of Spokane Community College reached out to us offering their facilities as a centralized location for vaccinations as well as testing that would be easy for community members to access. Their teams have been tremendous in supporting this effort with our internal CHAS Health team. We truly thank them for inviting us to campus and supporting this effort to provide COVID-19 vaccination and testing to the community."

Additional information about the vaccination and testing clinic, including a map on the location is available on CHAS Health's website.

More here:

COVID-19 vaccine appointments available at SCC starting Thursday: How to schedule one - KREM.com

FILE PHOTO: The Carnival Panorama cruise ship sits docked, empty of passengers, as the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Long Beach, California, U.S., April 16, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

(Reuters) - Carnival Corp, the worlds largest cruise operator, is currently not taking a position on mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for passengers before traveling, a company spokesman told Reuters on Tuesday.

The companys statement comes just a day after rival Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd said it would mandate travelers be vaccinated under a proposed plan to restart U.S. cruises in July.

The U.S. cruise industry is currently under a no-sail order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Last week, the agency updated its guidance for the resumption of passenger voyages, which included the need for COVID-19 vaccinations and more frequent reporting of coronavirus infections from cruise operators.

However, Carnival said on Monday the guideline was largely unworkable and stood in stark contrast to the approach taken in other travel and tourism sectors.

Norwegian and Royal Caribbean Group have both said they would restart cruises from the Caribbean later this year with vaccinated passengers.

We continue to closely monitor the evolving situation with vaccines globally, a Carnival spokesman said in an emailed statement.

Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.

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Carnival says not taking stance on mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for travelers - Reuters