argh! said:
Godspeed Argh! and Mrs Argh!
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Some Ask a Taboo Question: Is America Overreacting to Coronavirus?
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Godspeed Argh! and Mrs Argh!
1. [Sweden. Note its economy expanded a bit, compared to the huge drops of all other comparable countries. The US economy went down 4,.8% for the first quarter, and will be down much in the 2d quarter.]
"Sweden's economy expanded at an annual rate of 0.4% during the first three months of the year, official data published Friday showed, following the government's contrarian decision not to impose a full coronavirus lockdown.
The Nordic country reported stronger-than-anticipated GDP data for the first quarter, even as many other European countries recorded a severe economic contraction over the same period.
As of Friday, Sweden had reported more than 35,000 infections, with 4,266 deaths nationwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. It has the highest Covid-19 death rate per capita of any country across the globe, according to a rolling average over the last seven days." [This is misleading, as it just measures a week. Sweden has 431 deaths per million, behind Belgium, Spain, UK, Italy, France The US has 313 per million.]
Read in CNBC: https://apple.news/Ak8p7ssQ6T76GaFiozxKeDw
2. "Consumer Spending Fell a Record 13.6% in April
Personal income rose 10.5% on impact of federal-stimulus payments; signs emerge that purchases are slowly starting to pick up"
"The April drop in spending was the steepest for records tracing back to 1959. Weak April spending adds to the evidence that the U.S. economy is in for a long, slow recovery. The coronavirus pandemic and related lockdowns wiped out a decade of job gains within a month.
Personal income, which includes wages, interest and dividends, increased 10.5% in April, the Commerce Department reported Friday. The jump reflected a sharp rise in government payments through federal rescue programs, primarily one-time household stimulus payments of $1,200. Unemployment insurance payments also rose sharply in April, helping make up for some of the 8% decline in wages and salaries tied to job losses.
[The $1200 checks and unemployment will help, but these will fade and go away. Same with the temporary support helping businesses. See item 3 below.]
As states start to reopen businesses and Americans return to work, activity in some pockets of the economy appears to be perking up—or at least not deteriorating further—after hitting rock bottom in April. [This is good news and hopefully will continue.]
“Some of the data suggests a stabilization,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. financial economist at Oxford Economics. “It’s still overall a very tentative, slow recovery.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/consumer-spending-personal-income-coronavirus-april-2020-11590701150
3. "Millions relying on pandemic aid can see its end, and they’re scared
Emergency programs have cushioned the shutdown’s impact on workers and businesses and lifted the economy, but may not outlast the coronavirus crisis."
"For millions of Americans left out of work by the coronavirus pandemic, government assistance has been a lifeline preventing a plunge into poverty, hunger and financial ruin.
This summer, that lifeline could snap.
The $1,200 checks sent to most households are long gone, at least for those who needed them most, with little imminent prospect for a second round. The lending program that helped millions of small businesses keep workers on the payroll will wind down if Congress does not extend it. Eviction moratoriums that are keeping people in their homes are expiring in many cities.
And the $600 per week in extra unemployment benefits that have allowed tens of millions of laid-off workers to pay rent and buy groceries will expire at the end of July.
President Trump and other Republicans have played down the need for more spending, saying the solution is for states to reopen businesses and allow companies to bring people back to work. So despite pleas from economists across the political spectrum — including Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair — any federal action is likely to be limited.
The latest sign of the economic strain and the government’s role in easing it came Thursday when the Labor Department reported that millions more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week. More than 40 million have filed for benefits since the crisis began, and some 30 million are receiving them.
The multitrillion-dollar patchwork of federal and state programs hasn’t kept bills from piling up or prevented long lines at food banks. But it has mitigated the damage. Now the expiration of those programs represents a cliff they are hurtling toward, for individuals and for the economy.
“The CARES Act was massive, but it was a very short-term offset to what is likely to be a long-term problem,” said Aneta Markowska, chief financial economist for the investment bank Jefferies, referring to the legislative centerpiece of the federal rescue. “This economy is clearly going to need more support.”
Even the possibility that the programs will be allowed to expire could have economic consequences, Ms. Markowska said, as consumers and businesses gird for the loss of federal assistance.
Research routinely finds that unemployment insurance is one of the most effective parts of the safety net, both in cushioning the effects of job loss on families and in lifting the economy. In economists’ parlance, the program is “well targeted” — it goes to people who need the money and who will spend it. Various studies have found that in the last recession, the system helped prevent 1.4 million foreclosures, saved two million jobs and kept five million people out of poverty.
A single mother of two, Ms. Glasser applied for unemployment benefits the same day. She enrolled in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act and signed up for food stamps. Still, there was no way she could cover her costs.
“I did the quick math and realized that I could pay my mortgage and maybe get a few groceries and that was it,” she said."
Read in The New York Times: https://apple.news/AeyK1UyY4QxCRcA3mr5NQ1A no paywall
4. "Coronavirus live updates: Russia sees most deaths in a day; FDA to face delays on clinical trials
The coronavirus has infected more than 5.8 million people around the world as of Friday, killing at least 360,860 people."
"Russia reported 232 fatalities as a result of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, reflecting the country's highest one-day spike in Covid-19 deaths since the outbreak began.
It means the country's official coronavirus death toll has climbed to 4,374.
Only the U.S. and Brazil have recorded more cases of the coronavirus than Russia, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Read in CNBC: https://apple.news/Ak8p7ssQ6T76GaFiozxKeDw
5. "Some Nursing Homes Escaped Covid-19—Here's What They Did Right
As states start to reopen, senior care facilities must balance the needs of residents against the potential for more deadly Covid-19 outbreaks"
"In mid-March, as San Francisco mayor London Breed issued a citywide stay-at-home order, Peggy Cmiel started getting prepared. Cmiel is the director of clinical operations at the San Francisco Center for Jewish Living, or SFCJL, a 9-acre senior housing complex in the Excelsior neighborhood that includes long-term care facilities, short-term rehab housing, and a memory care wing. The campus houses over 300 elderly residents, members of one of the populations most vulnerable to the deadly and highly infectious coronavirus that has spread across the globe.
Cmiel’s staff stocked up on personal protective equipment and masks for workers and residents; screened everyone who walked in the door for symptoms; hired more staff to clean bathrooms and common areas; and started educating everyone on best practices for containing the virus, like washing hands, avoiding close contact, and keeping an eye out for symptoms like fevers or coughs. And while nursing homes account for nearly half of California’s coronavirus fatalities, at the SFCJL not a single resident has tested positive for the virus. “Getting an early start was really the most helpful thing we did,” says Cmiel. “The doorknobs in this facility have never been more clean before.”
Not every home was so lucky and so well prepared. Nursing homes across the US have been devastated by Covid-19. In many states including Colorado, Massachusetts, and Virginia, nursing home resident deaths account for 50 percent or more of coronavirus deaths. But the success of a handful of homes, like SFCJL, might offer their colleagues some clues about how to keep residents safe as the nation braces for a potential second wave of infections.
Geriatricians and nursing home operators understand why these spaces are so vulnerable. Long-term care facilities are, in many ways, perfect virus incubators. Residents, who are older, frail, and often have comorbidities like heart disease or diabetes, are more susceptible to severe Covid-19 infections. Many need help performing basic tasks like eating, dressing, or bathing—care that can’t be delivered through a video appointment, making it more likely they could get an infection from the aides who help them, or pass the virus along to their caretakers. Those aides may work at several different facilities, and unknowingly carry it from one home to another.
The layout of these facilities also furthers contact in various areas. Most residents share bedrooms, bathrooms, activity rooms, and dining rooms—and staffers share a break room. Those group spaces are designed partly to cut costs, and also to encourage socializing. But shared spaces have also helped spread the virus. Senior facilities do have protocols to handle outbreaks like the flu, but the pandemic arrived so quickly and the SARS-CoV-2 virus is so contagious that many facilities were caught unprepared. “There’s an extent to which this virus just had the upper hand,” says Anna Chodos, a geriatrician at the UCSF. Unlike hospitals, most nursing homes aren't ordinarily well stocked with gear like masks and gowns, which aren’t necessary when containing the flu.
“The way of life inside nursing homes is so disrupted,” says Kathleen Unroe, an assistant professor of geriatrics at the University of Indiana. “This is where people live. These are social places.”
Or at least they used to be. Many facilities currently are restricting movement as much as possible, keeping people in their rooms and out of shared spaces. Unroe consults for several nursing facilities, and says that at one of them, family members haven’t been allowed to visit for two months. "
So what helped the SFCJL fare better than many of its counterparts? It’s likely a combination of early action and luck. The facility was one of the first in California to start screening visitors before they entered the premises. They stocked up on protective equipment and were ready to hand out masks to every single resident and staff member. Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, another long-term care facility in San Francisco that quarantined early, has over 700 beds and has had similar success—reporting only 29 cases among residents and staff. “San Francisco acted really early, so I don’t think it’s by chance,” says Troy Williams, the chief quality officer at Zuckerberg SF General Hospital and Trauma Center, who has been in charge of Laguna Honda's response to the pandemic.
UCSF’s Chodos agrees that Laguna Honda’s early moves to lock down the facility and isolate infected residents were integral in abating the outbreak."
Read in WIRED: https://apple.news/AmERFskcJSwSa3URveNxQ-g
6. "As of Tuesday, 4.76 million homeowners were in forbearance plans, a rise of 7,000 from last week, CNBC's Diana Olick reports. Bigger jumps in the number of people receiving bailouts were reported earlier in the pandemic.
In the first week of May, 325,000 additional borrowers were granted bailouts, while there was an increase of 1.4 million in the first week of April, according to Black Knight.
Most borrowers are participating in the government's bailout program, meaning they can delay payments for up to a year.
Read in CNBC: https://apple.news/Ak8p7ssQ6T76GaFiozxKeDw
7. "Wearing a Face Mask at Home Could Reduce COVID-19 Transmission Risk by 80%"
[This is very interesting.]
"Wearing a face mask in the home could prevent the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 from spreading between family members, according to a study.
The practice worked best when the covering was worn before a person's symptoms started to show, the authors of the paper published in the journal BMJ Global Health found. The study did not detail the types of mask worn by participants.
In the latest study, led by Yu Wang, from the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, China, researchers say COVID-19 has mostly spread within families and those in close contact with the sick, accounting for 70 percent of cases in China.
To explore whether wearing a mask at home could prevent its transmission, researchers invited all 181 people in the Chinese capital of Beijing who had tested positive for the coronavirus as of February 21, 2020, to complete a questionnaire. They were asked about their hygiene habits and approach towards COVID-19, such as ventilating the home and cleaning. After various households were excluded or declined to participate, 335 people from 124 families, where at least one person had tested positive, were featured in the analysis.
The team found that almost a quarter of family members were infected within two weeks of the sick person falling ill, at 23 percent. But if the sick person and their family members wore a mask at home before the individual developed symptoms, this was 79 percent effective in reducing transmission.
However, there seemed to be no benefit from the sick person wearing the mask after their symptoms had shown. This may be because, as revealed in past studies, the viral load appears to be highest in the two days before and first day that symptoms appear, the team said.
"The results suggest that community face mask use is likely to be the most effective inside the household during severe epidemics," the scientists wrote.
In addition, using household disinfectants containing ethanol and chlorine were 77 percent effective in preventing the virus from spreading, they found. The risk of transmission in a household was 18 times higher if family members were in frequent daily close contact with the sick person."
Read in Newsweek: https://apple.news/AALKIo2jgRKqEtV1TpLG4-A
8. "The Battle Between The Masked And The Masked-Nots Unveils Political Rifts
Wearing a mask has become political as some state officials have faced backlash for mandating mask use during the coronavirus pandemic."
"It has become a political and cultural flashpoint, drawing a clear divide between the "masked" and the "masked-nots." The disdain runs between the consciously unmasked president of the United States and his deliberately mask-donning Democratic rival, all the way on down to those crossing paths — and often crossing each other — in the cereal aisle of the grocery store.
"It's selfishness. Complete selfishness," says 57-year-old Tia Nagaki, of the barefaced shoppers she has encountered. A resident of Denver, where masks have been mandatory since May 5, Nagaki concedes she tends to give the side-eye to people like that. But just as often, she says, the sneers come at her, as happened recently when a maskless guy came too close at the market.
Indeed, a recent Quinnipiac University poll shows overwhelming support among Democrats for mask wearing, but a little more than one-third of Republicans feel the same.
Lindsay Wiley, an American University Washington College of Law professor who specializes in public health law and ethics, tends to agree. Based on past experience ranging from HIV prevention to vaccines, she says, heavy-handed mandates can often backfire.
That may be especially true in this case, given how President Trump has been spurning masks and how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention flip-flopped on the matter, first imploring people not to wear masks before encouraging their use.
"It can actually cause people who are skeptical of wearing masks to double down," Wiley says, and "reinforce what they perceive to be a positive association with refusing to wear a mask ... that they love freedom, that they're smart and skeptical of public health recommendations," all while bolstering the view that wearing a mask is a sign of weakness.
Heavy-handed mask mandates only "pour gasoline on the problem," agrees attorney Jeff Childers, who has brought a legal challenge to a mask mandate in Alachua County, Fla., arguing it's unconstitutional."
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/A4-9UMMuNTfGem-a5QC1tgw
9. "10 weeks into New York area’s lockdown, who is still getting sick?
Nearly 50,000 people in the region have tested positive for the coronavirus in the last two weeks."
[The data doesn't exist, so this is mostly anecdotal, and thus is inconsistent.]
"The state health department also looked at the question of who is getting sick enough to go to the hospital. It surveyed over 100 hospitals across the state in early May and learned that four in five incoming patients were retired or unemployed, most had been sheltering at home, and nearly all had other underlying health conditions.
Information on those who are sick but not hospitalized has been harder to come by. The city and state are hiring thousands of the disease detectives known as contact tracers, but they have not yet begun work.
“The majority of people, it’s health care workers, it’s M.T.A. workers, it’s postal workers,” Dr. Sylvie De Souza, chief of the emergency department at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, said in an interview in mid-May. “As opposed to before, it seemed to be people out in the community, and of course a lot of the nursing home patients — but almost all of them have died.”
Javier H. Valdés, a co-director of Make the Road New York, an advocacy group for immigrants, said the virus patients his organization hears about lately are “getting sick because they’re still out there working — construction, delivery men. It’s mostly men.”
Michael Pappas, a family-medicine resident at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, said that some essential workers are bringing the virus home.
“I suspect you have patients whose family members may be deemed essential workers, but they are younger and healthier,” he wrote in an email. “So they go out, work, maybe are exposed or get the virus, but general asymptomatic (or even if symptomatic still have to work), then those same essential workers come home and expose an at-risk loved one living with them.”
“What we are seeing on telemedicine,” he said, “who is getting sick is people who are stuck at home, immigrants who are living 10 people in one apartment. They don’t want to go to a testing site or to an emergency room.”
The New York State Health Department’s survey of 113 hospitals, conducted from May 3 through May 5, found that nearly 60 percent of newly admitted virus patients were over 60 years old. Nearly 40 percent were over 70. More than 20 percent were transferred from nursing homes or assisted living facilities. Nearly 40 percent were retired.
During the first six weeks of the outbreak, among New York City cases in which race was recorded, Latino residents accounted for 28 percent of virus deaths, 30 percent of hospitalized virus patients and 32 percent of people who tested positive but were not hospitalized, according to city data. Just under 30 percent of New Yorkers are Latino.
For the period April 27 to May 13, those numbers were considerably higher: 37 percent of deaths, 37 percent of hospitalized patients, and 42 percent of people who tested positive but were not hospitalized."
Read in The New York Times: https://apple.news/Apry2fy_gQUO9oRN0VNLTUQ
no paywall
10. "Boston Marathon canceled for first time in its 124-year history
The race will instead be held virtually in September."
Read in CBS News: https://apple.news/AQUC6E8g-RxauZWFpjV_wYQ
11. "One of the World’s Great Sandwiches Is Making a Comeback
The tuna melt is getting a second look, thanks to grocery getters stocking up on canned fish."
Read in Bloomberg: https://apple.news/AdGw8s0jQQ4yIjYP6csSrRw
12. "Coronavirus care in hospitals will be different come fall -- here's how
With grim experience, "care is more rational, with less sense of desperation."
"If a second wave of the novel coronavirus emerges in the U.S. this fall, medical experts said patients arriving in American emergency rooms will likely have an entirely different experience than what urgently sick patients saw earlier this year -- the benefit of hard-learned lessons from the deadly disease.
“If there is a second wave in September, we will be protecting our patients and our staff in better ways, and will have the knowledge of the first wave to guide us in the best ways to treat patients,” said Dr. Bill Jaquis, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Richard M. Schwartzstein, who heads pulmonary and critical care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, predicts there will be less anecdotal medicine and more evidence-based care than the first time around.
One of the most challenging aspects of treating the outbreak was that it emerged quickly, before most hospitals could truly prepare.
Hospitals scrambled to scale up their supplies to meet the sudden and desperate need. At certain points nurses were asked to ration their use of critical gear – storing their one respirator mask per day in a brown paper bag.
Dr. Josh Sharfstein, former state public health official and assistant dean at Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News hospitals now have a better sense of their needs. To prepare for any surge, he said hospitals will be ordering large reserves of protective gear, and they will have designed plans to increase intensive care and ventilator capacity.
“The health care system was largely taken by surprise in the spring,” Sharfstein said. “It’s everyone’s shared responsibility to prevent a repeat in the fall.”
[This is an interesting article if you are interested in this subject.]
Read in ABC News: https://apple.news/AalTltR7PQqKO2HQrzed2Dg
12. "The Coronavirus Pandemic Shows the Folly of Medical-Licensing Laws
They artificially reduce the availability of physicians and the availability of care."
"Of the many lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most obvious is the need to reevaluate state-licensing laws that impede the free and rapid movement of health-care workers to places they are needed. Many governors suspended state-licensing requirements in early March so that doctors, nurses, and other health-care professionals licensed in other states could help with the public-health crisis in their own states. These governors should not resume the ways of the past when the crisis ends.
Individual state-licensing requirements for health-care professionals do not help patients or ensure quality. Rather, they serve as a mechanism to protect health-care provider interests."
Read in National Review: https://apple.news/AjXnwqqpfTB23yHjeIlIodg
13. "Coronavirus: South Korea closes schools again after biggest spike in weeks
Schools that had just re-opened days ago have now been forced shut again after a spike in cases."
[The outbreak seems to have been in the area/city, not in the schools.]
"More than 200 schools in South Korea have been forced to close just days after they re-opened, due to a new spike in virus cases.
Thousands of students had earlier on Wednesday returned to school as the country began easing virus restrictions.
But just a day later, 79 new cases were recorded, the highest daily figure in two months.
Most of these cases have been linked to a distribution centre outside Seoul.
The warehouse, in the city of Bucheon, is run by the country's biggest e-commerce firm Coupang, and officials have said the facility was not strictly complying with infection control measures. Health officials even discovered traces of Covid-19 on workers' shoes and clothes.
A total of 251 schools in Bucheon have now been forced to close. A report by the Korea Times, quoting the Ministry of Education, says a further 117 schools in the capital Seoul have also postponed their re-opening."
Read in BBC News: https://apple.news/Ab82uPSJzTd6InKfWM_pfTQ
14. "Monkeys steal coronavirus blood samples in India
A troop of monkeys in India attacked a medical official and snatched away blood samples of patients who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, authorities said on Friday."
[Even monkeys are getting into making vaccines and tests.]
"A troop of monkeys in India attacked a medical official and snatched away blood samples of patients who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, authorities said on Friday.
The attack occurred this week when a laboratory technician was walking in the campus of a state-run medical college in Meerut, 460 km (285 miles) north of Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
“Monkeys grabbed and fled with the blood samples of four COVID-19 patients who are undergoing treatment ... we had to take their blood samples again,” said Dr S. K. Garg, a top official at the college."
Read in Reuters: https://apple.news/AJtdOUXHcQI-s6PgHLx7AtA
15. "Coronavirus Testing Machines Are Latest Bottleneck In Troubled Supply Chain
Civilian labs and the Army say they've had trouble getting big machines that run hundreds of coronavirus tests at once. Public health experts say that's holding the U.S. back from ramping up testing."
"Coronavirus testing in the U.S. has run into a number of snags, from a lack of nasal swabs to not enough chemicals needed to run the tests.
Now there's a new bottleneck emerging: A shortage of the machines that process the tests and give results.
Civilian labs and the Pentagon say they've had trouble getting the sophisticated, automated machines that can run hundreds of diagnostic tests at once. Three machine manufacturers — Hologic Inc., Roche and Abbott Laboratories — have confirmed to NPR that demand is outstripping supply.
Public health experts say the machine shortages are upending a complicated supply chain just as the shortages of swabs, chemicals and other testing materials have begun to ease.
Experts warn the lack of machines will hold the U.S. back from ramping up diagnostic testing to better understand where the coronavirus is spreading and how to stop outbreaks."
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/Ar-XsmOJHQ8WMI38HLXBPDg
16. "Tell me what to do! Please!": Even experts struggle with coronavirus unknowns
Five months into the pandemic, scientific uncertainty remains and debates flare."
"In this pandemic, we’re swimming in statistics, trends, models, projections, infection rates, death tolls. Nosek has professional expertise in interpreting data, but even he is struggling to make sense of the numbers.
“What’s crazy is, we’re three months in, and we’re still not able to calibrate our risk management. It’s a mess,” said Nosek, who runs the Center for Open Science, which advocates for transparency in research. “Tell me what to do! Please!”
Scientists are still trying to understand the virus they call SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease covid-19. Basic questions are not fully answered: How deadly is this virus? How contagious? Are there different strains with different clinical outcomes? Why does SARS-CoV-2 create a devastating disease in some people while leaving others without symptoms or even knowledge that they were infected?
With stay-at-home orders expiring and businesses reopening, all the scientific data is being scrutinized anew. But the numbers are often ambiguous, with large margins of error. And because this is still an early phase of the pandemic, scientific findings have to be couched in tentative, provisional, sometimes squishy language that is festooned with caveats and admitted limitations.
One of the fundamental problems is that the virus is stealthy, with a time delay of about six days on average between infection and symptoms. A sick person may delay getting tested or going to the hospital.
The question of the true lethality of the virus remains the subject of controversy. When the CDC put out its guidance last week, it estimated that 0.2 to 1 percent of people who become infected and symptomatic will die. The agency offered a “current best estimate” of 0.4 percent. The agency also gave a best estimate that 35 percent of people infected never develop symptoms. Those numbers when put together would produce an “infection fatality rate” of 0.26, which is lower than many of the estimates produced by scientists and modelers to date.
If the severity of covid-19 has been significantly overestimated, and further research confirms this, critics of the national shutdown will cite this as evidence that the country overreacted to a virus that is not that much worse than seasonal influenza.
Although the report did not offer an infection fatality rate, lead author Neeraj Sood, a professor of health policy at USC, said it would probably be 0.13 percent for people outside nursing homes and 0.26 percent — identical to the CDC best estimate — when people in nursing homes were included."
Read in The Washington Post: https://apple.news/A6psh5gltQiygM7fgNIEA_Q
17. "White House Hid CDC’s Warning That Singing in Church Choirs Can Spread Coronavirus, Says Report
The White House and the CDC have strongly disagreed on the level of restrictions to place on houses of worship."
"The Trump administration took down warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website that singing in choirs can spread the novel coronavirus, The Washington Post reports. A debate has been raging for weeks between the White House and the CDC on the level of restrictions to place on houses of worship, but, last Friday, the administration released some guidance on the CDC website. It included recommendations that churches “consider suspending or at least decreasing use of choir/musical ensembles and congregant singing, chanting, or reciting during services or other programming, if appropriate within the faith tradition.” It added: “The act of singing may contribute to transmission of COVID-19, possibly through emission of aerosols.” However, by Saturday, any reference to choirs or congregant singing was reportedly removed. The new guidance also removed a reference to “shared cups” that shouldn’t be passed around. Two White House officials told the newspaper the first version wasn’t approved by the White House, so they asked the CDC to post a different cleared document a day later."
[This is Wa Post article with no paywall. It shows the tension between freedom of religion, as a first amendment right, as well as an element of politics.]
Read in The Daily Beast: https://apple.news/Ak6nC1F8KSUCbNETWibysQQ
18. "7 Warning Signs You're Not Being The Best Lockdown Partner
You could be getting on your quarantine partner's nerves without knowing it. Here's how to maintain your relationship in the age of social distancing."
"1. You’re passive-aggressive about your needs.
2. You’re not respecting work boundaries.
3. Your body language speaks volumes — and not in a good way.
4. You’re a slob.
5. You have a short fuse.
6. You’re working the same long hours.
7. You’re withdrawing from your family."
Read in HuffPost: https://apple.news/AEvM3uvbgSqe20M6TpLmqDQ
17. "Internal Documents Reveal Border Patrol Infections Doubled in a Month
Barely 2 percent of the border force has been tested, which one epidemiologist says is “pathetic.”
"The uptick comes on the heels of video that showed Border Patrol agents working without face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) when interacting with each other, as well as the public. Nearly 10 percent of the Border Patrol agents screened for COVID-19 to date have tested positive for the virus... That figure is up to 4 percentage points higher than the national average.
Haseltine also suspects the 10 percent positive rate among agents who have been tested could also be misleadingly low because it is not a representative sample and doesn’t include those without symptoms. In New York City, he points out, about 20 percent of the police force was out sick during April with thousands of cops testing positive."
Read in The Daily Beast: https://apple.news/AZORmR16LQuuZQ8efUI-Gnw
18. "Analysis: 100,000 Americans didn't have to die of Covid-19
The first tragedy of America's bleak coronavirus milestone is that 100,000 people didn't have to die. The second is that no one knows how many more will perish before the pandemic fades."
"The virus has been disproportionately infecting communities of color. Black Americans represent 13.4% of the American population, according to the US Census Bureau, but counties with higher black populations accounted for more than half of all Covid-19 cases and almost 60% of deaths as of mid-April, a study by epidemiologists and clinicians found. The virus has also exploited monetary divides, as infections at meat-packing plants show, while many white-collar workers work from home.
The victims also include the living — the more than 30 million Americans whose livelihoods disappeared in the most dramatic collapse in American economic history.
Covid-19's assault is a once-in-a-century event, and no set of detailed plans, war games and batch of epidemiological theories could have prepared the nation for every unknown challenge.
On February 25, Nancy Messonnier, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, infuriated the White House by warning that disruptions to daily life in the US could be "severe."
She told schools to start thinking about closures and businesses to prepare for telecommuting in a prediction that turned out to be an entirely accurate summation of America's destiny."
Read in CNN Politics: https://apple.news/AXHlVgxeWRLiieWAsh0rr8Q
19. "Half of New Coronavirus Cases in Washington Are People Under 40: Report
Public health officials attributed the age distribution shift to younger people engaging in behavior that increases the risk of transmission and infection."
"Half of the new coronavirus cases in Washington State are among people under the age of 40, a major shift in the state’s age distribution that public health officials have attributed to younger people engaging in risky behavior. Seattle epidemiologist Judith Malmgren, who authored the report, said that younger people “are the most likely to be socially active, they are the most likely to work in essential professions and have more contact with the public.” Malmgren also said it was a “popular misconception that children, teenagers and young people are not at risk.”
By early May, 39 percent of confirmed infections occurred in people aged 20 to 39, while those under the age of 19 accounted for 11 percent. Washington State Health Officer Dr. Kathy Lofy said the report indicated that older residents had been more diligent about adhering to social distancing practices and staying at home. She also credited the age distribution shift to the state’s efforts to control outbreaks in long-term care facilities."
Read in The Daily Beast: https://apple.news/AfdER6AnYQdqiuE-q7G5rfg
19. "WHO Warns Of A 'Second Peak' In Countries That Reopen Too Quickly
So far, there is no seasonal pattern to coronavirus outbreaks, the WHO's Dr. Margaret Harris says. Lockdowns may not be necessary, she says, but infections rise when restrictions are relaxed rapidly."
"The world's top health officials are warning that there could be a "second peak" of coronavirus infections during the current outbreak, separate from a second wave expected in the fall. As cases decline, officials worry that some countries are lifting restrictions too quickly — the U.S. among them.
What's key to understanding the different patterns emerging around the globe is recognizing that "this coronavirus is not the flu," said Dr. Margaret Harris, a member of the World Health Organization's coronavirus response team.
"A lot of people have put what I'd call a 'flu lens' on their expectations. They keep on thinking it's seasonal,"
"But if you look around the globe, we've got countries in the middle of their summer and autumn having large, large outbreaks. So we're not seeing a seasonal pattern. What we are seeing is indeed, when people ease too quickly, that they do then see a rise in infections. So we certainly don't say you have to be in lockdown, but we are saying ease carefully."
We're really seeing very, very large outbreaks in many parts of the world. In fact, last week, every day we recorded the largest number of new cases that we had seen. One of the issues is when people see their particular outbreak coming down, they go, "Well, that's done, done and dusted." But that is not the case."
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/AU8XiTFxcS0yD_srNbaO5tg
20. "Baghdad once again grinds to a halt as cases surge."
"On Friday, Baghdad was almost completely still. Traffic had been halted throughout the city and stay-at-home orders were enforced by neighborhood blockades. All travel between Iraqi provinces was stopped for a second time in response to the country’s mounting awareness of the spread of the coronavirus.
The growth in cases was hidden for months, both by the country’s low testing capacity and by the large numbers of the infected who remained asymptomatic. Many Iraqis also hid their illnesses, believing that the infection would bring shame on their families.
Since the middle of this month, the increases have become consistently greater and harder to ignore. Baghdad has become a hot spot, with 3,000 of the country’s 5,500 cases.
On Thursday, the order came to again shut Sadr City, the poorest and most crowded area of Baghdad, and the one with the most coronavirus infections, to traffic. Two hours later, the police a army stopped almost all movement in the rest of the city."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/world/coronavirus-update.html
21. "Scientists question the validity of an influential hydroxychloroquine study."
More than 100 scientists and clinicians have questioned the authenticity of a hospital database that was the basis for an influential paper published last week that suggested the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat people with Covid-19 did not help and may have increased the risk of abnormal heart rhythms and death.
In an open letter addressed to The Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton, and the paper’s authors, they asked the journal to provide details about the provenance of the data and called for the study to be independently validated by the World Health Organization or another institution. Use of the malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to prevent and treat Covid-19 has been a focus of intense public attention.
The experts who wrote the Lancet also criticized the study’s methodology and the authors’ refusal to disclose information on the hospitals that contributed their data, or even to name the countries where they were located."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/world/coronavirus-update.html
22. "The Covid Political Earthquake
Subsidies will soon end. Americans will then feel the economic pain—and revolt"
"The political press is preoccupied with the electoral implications of the virus crisis, and pundits insist the 2020 election will be about the Trump daily soap opera. But an emerging cultural and economic time bomb is about to explode. There has never been a wider gap between average Americans’ perception of their own economic situation and the reality of it. America could soon have its most combustible political environment in recent history.
Something that should alarm everyone: Neither the stock market nor the political preferences of those who have been hit hardest by this Covid-induced economic crisis have fundamentally changed since the crisis began. The American economy has shed more than 30 million jobs in the past eight weeks, and poll numbers haven’t moved an inch. According to Gallup, President Trump’s approval rating was 49% on Feb. 16, with 48% disapproving. Three months and the largest job loss in American history later, those numbers are exactly the same: 49% to 48%.
How is that possible? Is the political climate so partisan that the loss of your livelihood can’t change your political perspective? To some extent that could be true. But most of America is living in an illusion that masks the inevitable pain of this pandemic."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-covid-political-earthquake-11590706829?mod=mhp
23. "U.S. to Cancel Visas for Some Chinese Graduate Students
President Trump’s move would target scholars associated with Chinese universities with ties to the People’s Liberation Army"
"WASHINGTON—President Trump is expected to announce Friday that the U.S. will cancel the visas of some Chinese graduate students and researchers, according to administration officials and others familiar with the matter.
The move would target scholars associated with Chinese universities with ties to the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA. It wasn’t known how many people would be affected by the decision. The New York Times earlier reported the administration’s plans.
About 360,000 Chinese students are studying or working in the U.S., roughly a third of the total international student population. Of these, many are enrolled in graduate programs or working as researchers in the science and engineering fields.
Chinese students who graduate with STEM—or science, technology, engineering and math—degrees are permitted to work in the U.S. for up to three years under a program known as Optional Practical Training. Trump administration officials are also weighing suspending the program for the coming year, administration officials said.
A variety of U.S. agencies, including the Justice, State and Defense departments, and the National Institutes of Health, have raised alarms over what officials say are Beijing’s attempts to tap U.S. universities to boost China’s military and technological competitiveness.
U.S. officials accuse China of targeting academia, including by sending military researchers to American labs and using talent-recruitment programs to bring top scientists and entrepreneurs, as well as their intellectual property, to China.
Beijing has denied any systematic effort to steal U.S. scientific research, and Chinese state media have called U.S. allegations of intellectual-property theft a political tool."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-cancel-visas-for-some-chinese-graduate-students-11590744602
24. "Why RVs are the latest trend in travel
Full-time RVers and vanlifers relished in socially distant vacations before it was a trend. Now travelers may be joining them in droves."
"As states in the U.S. lift stay-at-home orders, many travelers are setting their sights on summer vacations. However, as they navigate the lingering risks of COVID-19, vacationers are seeking alternatives to plane travel and hotel stays. Some are finding one in RVing.
Recreational vehicle rental marketplace RVshare reported a 1000 percent rise in bookings from April to mid-May. Additionally, a new study from public opinion researchers Ipsos found that 20 percent of U.S. respondents are more interested in recreational vehicles for travel in the aftermath of the novel coronavirus.
Barbara Krumm, director of marketing and PR for Ocean Lakes Family Campground, says the campground hasn’t necessarily seen an increase in bookings yet — the property is set in the vacation haven of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and is usually booked solid. However, she’s seen an increase in interest in camping that she hasn’t witnessed since the months after 9/11.
Long considered the domain of retirees, RVing is growing popular now among younger families, who can pack all their members into one cozy vehicle. Lauren Grijalva, of The Wandrepreneurs.com, who’s a full-time RVer with her husband, Aaron, and two children, Casen, 9, and Calista, 7, advises flexibility, especially when traveling with children.
Many full-time RVers, whether they have families or not, maintain their full-time jobs by working remotely from the road, including Ibañes, Winkowski and the Bennetts. As more and more companies shift to remote work during and after the pandemic, the number of professionals who become digital nomads may increase, too.
As Marc Bennett observes, “With so many companies enabling their employees to work remotely, it’s easier than ever to travel in an RV. You can explore the country while you work, and even road school your kids.”
Read in Lonely Planet: https://apple.news/AhTcV_KDHSjeoM2Ll6R3vqA
25. "How Travel Will Change
What the future looks like—for now, at least—as the world begins to reopen."
[This is a good article, if you are interested.]
"Airports will have more security and screening
Hotels and home rentals will prioritize cleaning—but keep up the personal touches
We'll redefine local travel
Local travel is set to boom over the next year, but the definition of what that means will shift as well. Tourism boards, like those in Greece, Cyprus, and Israel, for example, are banding together to create travel bubbles through which their citizens can move, even as borders remain closed. In the States, cities like Philadelphia are discussing partnerships with neighbors like New York and Washington, D.C., in the hopes that they can cross-promote their destinations to a shared audience as travelers inch back out there.
We’ll be spreading out across bike lanes, buses, and public transportation
Restaurants and bars will operate with distance, for now"
Read in Condé Nast Traveler: https://apple.news/ASMFa0rLcTb6chGdGTcioWg
26. "Caribbean Islands Will Begin Reopening to Americans in June
The USVI, Antigua, and St. Lucia are among the islands hoping to kick off the summer travel season in the Caribbean."
"A gradual return to air travel
The U.S. Virgin Islands is poised to lead the region’s reopening, letting leisure visitors back into St. Thomas and St. Croix by way of American Airlines on June 1, though the only flights currently posted originate from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Travelers to the Caribbean will either be tested on arrival or have to present proof of a negative virus test taken 48 hours before boarding. St. Lucia and Antigua fall into the latter camp. However, testing availability could be an issue—in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s current recommendation still doesn’t include testing individuals without symptoms. Once there, visitors will be expected to wear masks and practice distancing in public places across the region.
Read in Condé Nast Traveler: https://apple.news/A14Bb8h9GQ8iC_RRn8xYRgA
27. "Don't count on a recovery in global air travel before 2024, S&P says
The gloomy outlook spells more trouble ahead for airlines, airports and the wider economy."
"Global air passenger numbers will drop as much as 55% this year, a far steeper slump than previously estimated, .... Any recovery will depend on factors including how governments ease travel restrictions, people’s willingness to fly again and the extent of economic damage from the outbreak, they said.
Some countries are gradually allowing flights to operate following lockdowns and restrictions on movement, but volumes remain low. Airports are struggling for business as demand for services such as dining and duty-free shopping essentially evaporated.
“Air travel will eventually return when current health and safety concerns have been meaningfully addressed by the industry and consumer confidence rebounds, supported by steady historical growth rates in air traffic of 4%-5% per year,” the analysts said. “A more widespread adoption of remote working and virtual meetings could have a lingering impact on business travel, which has been the more lucrative passenger segment for the airlines.”
Read in FORTUNE: https://apple.news/AjPsMPQi8TDCGaX6PDaqf7Q
"Sweden's economy expanded at an annual rate of 0.4% during the first three months of the year, official data published Friday showed, following the government's contrarian decision not to impose a full coronavirus lockdown.
The Nordic country reported stronger-than-anticipated GDP data for the first quarter, even as many other European countries recorded a severe economic contraction over the same period.
As of Friday, Sweden had reported more than 35,000 infections, with 4,266 deaths nationwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. It has the highest Covid-19 death rate per capita of any country across the globe, according to a rolling average over the last seven days." [This is misleading, as it just measures a week. Sweden has 431 deaths per million, behind Belgium, Spain, UK, Italy, France The US has 313 per million.]
Read in CNBC: https://apple.news/Ak8p7ssQ6T76GaFiozxKeDw
2. "Consumer Spending Fell a Record 13.6% in April
Personal income rose 10.5% on impact of federal-stimulus payments; signs emerge that purchases are slowly starting to pick up"
"The April drop in spending was the steepest for records tracing back to 1959. Weak April spending adds to the evidence that the U.S. economy is in for a long, slow recovery. The coronavirus pandemic and related lockdowns wiped out a decade of job gains within a month.
Personal income, which includes wages, interest and dividends, increased 10.5% in April, the Commerce Department reported Friday. The jump reflected a sharp rise in government payments through federal rescue programs, primarily one-time household stimulus payments of $1,200. Unemployment insurance payments also rose sharply in April, helping make up for some of the 8% decline in wages and salaries tied to job losses.
[The $1200 checks and unemployment will help, but these will fade and go away. Same with the temporary support helping businesses. See item 3 below.]
As states start to reopen businesses and Americans return to work, activity in some pockets of the economy appears to be perking up—or at least not deteriorating further—after hitting rock bottom in April. [This is good news and hopefully will continue.]
“Some of the data suggests a stabilization,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. financial economist at Oxford Economics. “It’s still overall a very tentative, slow recovery.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/consumer-spending-personal-income-coronavirus-april-2020-11590701150
3. "Millions relying on pandemic aid can see its end, and they’re scared
Emergency programs have cushioned the shutdown’s impact on workers and businesses and lifted the economy, but may not outlast the coronavirus crisis."
"For millions of Americans left out of work by the coronavirus pandemic, government assistance has been a lifeline preventing a plunge into poverty, hunger and financial ruin.
This summer, that lifeline could snap.
The $1,200 checks sent to most households are long gone, at least for those who needed them most, with little imminent prospect for a second round. The lending program that helped millions of small businesses keep workers on the payroll will wind down if Congress does not extend it. Eviction moratoriums that are keeping people in their homes are expiring in many cities.
And the $600 per week in extra unemployment benefits that have allowed tens of millions of laid-off workers to pay rent and buy groceries will expire at the end of July.
President Trump and other Republicans have played down the need for more spending, saying the solution is for states to reopen businesses and allow companies to bring people back to work. So despite pleas from economists across the political spectrum — including Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair — any federal action is likely to be limited.
The latest sign of the economic strain and the government’s role in easing it came Thursday when the Labor Department reported that millions more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week. More than 40 million have filed for benefits since the crisis began, and some 30 million are receiving them.
The multitrillion-dollar patchwork of federal and state programs hasn’t kept bills from piling up or prevented long lines at food banks. But it has mitigated the damage. Now the expiration of those programs represents a cliff they are hurtling toward, for individuals and for the economy.
“The CARES Act was massive, but it was a very short-term offset to what is likely to be a long-term problem,” said Aneta Markowska, chief financial economist for the investment bank Jefferies, referring to the legislative centerpiece of the federal rescue. “This economy is clearly going to need more support.”
Even the possibility that the programs will be allowed to expire could have economic consequences, Ms. Markowska said, as consumers and businesses gird for the loss of federal assistance.
Research routinely finds that unemployment insurance is one of the most effective parts of the safety net, both in cushioning the effects of job loss on families and in lifting the economy. In economists’ parlance, the program is “well targeted” — it goes to people who need the money and who will spend it. Various studies have found that in the last recession, the system helped prevent 1.4 million foreclosures, saved two million jobs and kept five million people out of poverty.
A single mother of two, Ms. Glasser applied for unemployment benefits the same day. She enrolled in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act and signed up for food stamps. Still, there was no way she could cover her costs.
“I did the quick math and realized that I could pay my mortgage and maybe get a few groceries and that was it,” she said."
Read in The New York Times: https://apple.news/AeyK1UyY4QxCRcA3mr5NQ1A no paywall
4. "Coronavirus live updates: Russia sees most deaths in a day; FDA to face delays on clinical trials
The coronavirus has infected more than 5.8 million people around the world as of Friday, killing at least 360,860 people."
"Russia reported 232 fatalities as a result of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, reflecting the country's highest one-day spike in Covid-19 deaths since the outbreak began.
It means the country's official coronavirus death toll has climbed to 4,374.
Only the U.S. and Brazil have recorded more cases of the coronavirus than Russia, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Read in CNBC: https://apple.news/Ak8p7ssQ6T76GaFiozxKeDw
5. "Some Nursing Homes Escaped Covid-19—Here's What They Did Right
As states start to reopen, senior care facilities must balance the needs of residents against the potential for more deadly Covid-19 outbreaks"
"In mid-March, as San Francisco mayor London Breed issued a citywide stay-at-home order, Peggy Cmiel started getting prepared. Cmiel is the director of clinical operations at the San Francisco Center for Jewish Living, or SFCJL, a 9-acre senior housing complex in the Excelsior neighborhood that includes long-term care facilities, short-term rehab housing, and a memory care wing. The campus houses over 300 elderly residents, members of one of the populations most vulnerable to the deadly and highly infectious coronavirus that has spread across the globe.
Cmiel’s staff stocked up on personal protective equipment and masks for workers and residents; screened everyone who walked in the door for symptoms; hired more staff to clean bathrooms and common areas; and started educating everyone on best practices for containing the virus, like washing hands, avoiding close contact, and keeping an eye out for symptoms like fevers or coughs. And while nursing homes account for nearly half of California’s coronavirus fatalities, at the SFCJL not a single resident has tested positive for the virus. “Getting an early start was really the most helpful thing we did,” says Cmiel. “The doorknobs in this facility have never been more clean before.”
Not every home was so lucky and so well prepared. Nursing homes across the US have been devastated by Covid-19. In many states including Colorado, Massachusetts, and Virginia, nursing home resident deaths account for 50 percent or more of coronavirus deaths. But the success of a handful of homes, like SFCJL, might offer their colleagues some clues about how to keep residents safe as the nation braces for a potential second wave of infections.
Geriatricians and nursing home operators understand why these spaces are so vulnerable. Long-term care facilities are, in many ways, perfect virus incubators. Residents, who are older, frail, and often have comorbidities like heart disease or diabetes, are more susceptible to severe Covid-19 infections. Many need help performing basic tasks like eating, dressing, or bathing—care that can’t be delivered through a video appointment, making it more likely they could get an infection from the aides who help them, or pass the virus along to their caretakers. Those aides may work at several different facilities, and unknowingly carry it from one home to another.
The layout of these facilities also furthers contact in various areas. Most residents share bedrooms, bathrooms, activity rooms, and dining rooms—and staffers share a break room. Those group spaces are designed partly to cut costs, and also to encourage socializing. But shared spaces have also helped spread the virus. Senior facilities do have protocols to handle outbreaks like the flu, but the pandemic arrived so quickly and the SARS-CoV-2 virus is so contagious that many facilities were caught unprepared. “There’s an extent to which this virus just had the upper hand,” says Anna Chodos, a geriatrician at the UCSF. Unlike hospitals, most nursing homes aren't ordinarily well stocked with gear like masks and gowns, which aren’t necessary when containing the flu.
“The way of life inside nursing homes is so disrupted,” says Kathleen Unroe, an assistant professor of geriatrics at the University of Indiana. “This is where people live. These are social places.”
Or at least they used to be. Many facilities currently are restricting movement as much as possible, keeping people in their rooms and out of shared spaces. Unroe consults for several nursing facilities, and says that at one of them, family members haven’t been allowed to visit for two months. "
So what helped the SFCJL fare better than many of its counterparts? It’s likely a combination of early action and luck. The facility was one of the first in California to start screening visitors before they entered the premises. They stocked up on protective equipment and were ready to hand out masks to every single resident and staff member. Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, another long-term care facility in San Francisco that quarantined early, has over 700 beds and has had similar success—reporting only 29 cases among residents and staff. “San Francisco acted really early, so I don’t think it’s by chance,” says Troy Williams, the chief quality officer at Zuckerberg SF General Hospital and Trauma Center, who has been in charge of Laguna Honda's response to the pandemic.
UCSF’s Chodos agrees that Laguna Honda’s early moves to lock down the facility and isolate infected residents were integral in abating the outbreak."
Read in WIRED: https://apple.news/AmERFskcJSwSa3URveNxQ-g
6. "As of Tuesday, 4.76 million homeowners were in forbearance plans, a rise of 7,000 from last week, CNBC's Diana Olick reports. Bigger jumps in the number of people receiving bailouts were reported earlier in the pandemic.
In the first week of May, 325,000 additional borrowers were granted bailouts, while there was an increase of 1.4 million in the first week of April, according to Black Knight.
Most borrowers are participating in the government's bailout program, meaning they can delay payments for up to a year.
Read in CNBC: https://apple.news/Ak8p7ssQ6T76GaFiozxKeDw
7. "Wearing a Face Mask at Home Could Reduce COVID-19 Transmission Risk by 80%"
[This is very interesting.]
"Wearing a face mask in the home could prevent the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 from spreading between family members, according to a study.
The practice worked best when the covering was worn before a person's symptoms started to show, the authors of the paper published in the journal BMJ Global Health found. The study did not detail the types of mask worn by participants.
In the latest study, led by Yu Wang, from the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, China, researchers say COVID-19 has mostly spread within families and those in close contact with the sick, accounting for 70 percent of cases in China.
To explore whether wearing a mask at home could prevent its transmission, researchers invited all 181 people in the Chinese capital of Beijing who had tested positive for the coronavirus as of February 21, 2020, to complete a questionnaire. They were asked about their hygiene habits and approach towards COVID-19, such as ventilating the home and cleaning. After various households were excluded or declined to participate, 335 people from 124 families, where at least one person had tested positive, were featured in the analysis.
The team found that almost a quarter of family members were infected within two weeks of the sick person falling ill, at 23 percent. But if the sick person and their family members wore a mask at home before the individual developed symptoms, this was 79 percent effective in reducing transmission.
However, there seemed to be no benefit from the sick person wearing the mask after their symptoms had shown. This may be because, as revealed in past studies, the viral load appears to be highest in the two days before and first day that symptoms appear, the team said.
"The results suggest that community face mask use is likely to be the most effective inside the household during severe epidemics," the scientists wrote.
In addition, using household disinfectants containing ethanol and chlorine were 77 percent effective in preventing the virus from spreading, they found. The risk of transmission in a household was 18 times higher if family members were in frequent daily close contact with the sick person."
Read in Newsweek: https://apple.news/AALKIo2jgRKqEtV1TpLG4-A
8. "The Battle Between The Masked And The Masked-Nots Unveils Political Rifts
Wearing a mask has become political as some state officials have faced backlash for mandating mask use during the coronavirus pandemic."
"It has become a political and cultural flashpoint, drawing a clear divide between the "masked" and the "masked-nots." The disdain runs between the consciously unmasked president of the United States and his deliberately mask-donning Democratic rival, all the way on down to those crossing paths — and often crossing each other — in the cereal aisle of the grocery store.
"It's selfishness. Complete selfishness," says 57-year-old Tia Nagaki, of the barefaced shoppers she has encountered. A resident of Denver, where masks have been mandatory since May 5, Nagaki concedes she tends to give the side-eye to people like that. But just as often, she says, the sneers come at her, as happened recently when a maskless guy came too close at the market.
Indeed, a recent Quinnipiac University poll shows overwhelming support among Democrats for mask wearing, but a little more than one-third of Republicans feel the same.
Lindsay Wiley, an American University Washington College of Law professor who specializes in public health law and ethics, tends to agree. Based on past experience ranging from HIV prevention to vaccines, she says, heavy-handed mandates can often backfire.
That may be especially true in this case, given how President Trump has been spurning masks and how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention flip-flopped on the matter, first imploring people not to wear masks before encouraging their use.
"It can actually cause people who are skeptical of wearing masks to double down," Wiley says, and "reinforce what they perceive to be a positive association with refusing to wear a mask ... that they love freedom, that they're smart and skeptical of public health recommendations," all while bolstering the view that wearing a mask is a sign of weakness.
Heavy-handed mask mandates only "pour gasoline on the problem," agrees attorney Jeff Childers, who has brought a legal challenge to a mask mandate in Alachua County, Fla., arguing it's unconstitutional."
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/A4-9UMMuNTfGem-a5QC1tgw
9. "10 weeks into New York area’s lockdown, who is still getting sick?
Nearly 50,000 people in the region have tested positive for the coronavirus in the last two weeks."
[The data doesn't exist, so this is mostly anecdotal, and thus is inconsistent.]
"The state health department also looked at the question of who is getting sick enough to go to the hospital. It surveyed over 100 hospitals across the state in early May and learned that four in five incoming patients were retired or unemployed, most had been sheltering at home, and nearly all had other underlying health conditions.
Information on those who are sick but not hospitalized has been harder to come by. The city and state are hiring thousands of the disease detectives known as contact tracers, but they have not yet begun work.
“The majority of people, it’s health care workers, it’s M.T.A. workers, it’s postal workers,” Dr. Sylvie De Souza, chief of the emergency department at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, said in an interview in mid-May. “As opposed to before, it seemed to be people out in the community, and of course a lot of the nursing home patients — but almost all of them have died.”
Javier H. Valdés, a co-director of Make the Road New York, an advocacy group for immigrants, said the virus patients his organization hears about lately are “getting sick because they’re still out there working — construction, delivery men. It’s mostly men.”
Michael Pappas, a family-medicine resident at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, said that some essential workers are bringing the virus home.
“I suspect you have patients whose family members may be deemed essential workers, but they are younger and healthier,” he wrote in an email. “So they go out, work, maybe are exposed or get the virus, but general asymptomatic (or even if symptomatic still have to work), then those same essential workers come home and expose an at-risk loved one living with them.”
“What we are seeing on telemedicine,” he said, “who is getting sick is people who are stuck at home, immigrants who are living 10 people in one apartment. They don’t want to go to a testing site or to an emergency room.”
The New York State Health Department’s survey of 113 hospitals, conducted from May 3 through May 5, found that nearly 60 percent of newly admitted virus patients were over 60 years old. Nearly 40 percent were over 70. More than 20 percent were transferred from nursing homes or assisted living facilities. Nearly 40 percent were retired.
During the first six weeks of the outbreak, among New York City cases in which race was recorded, Latino residents accounted for 28 percent of virus deaths, 30 percent of hospitalized virus patients and 32 percent of people who tested positive but were not hospitalized, according to city data. Just under 30 percent of New Yorkers are Latino.
For the period April 27 to May 13, those numbers were considerably higher: 37 percent of deaths, 37 percent of hospitalized patients, and 42 percent of people who tested positive but were not hospitalized."
Read in The New York Times: https://apple.news/Apry2fy_gQUO9oRN0VNLTUQ
no paywall
10. "Boston Marathon canceled for first time in its 124-year history
The race will instead be held virtually in September."
Read in CBS News: https://apple.news/AQUC6E8g-RxauZWFpjV_wYQ
11. "One of the World’s Great Sandwiches Is Making a Comeback
The tuna melt is getting a second look, thanks to grocery getters stocking up on canned fish."
Read in Bloomberg: https://apple.news/AdGw8s0jQQ4yIjYP6csSrRw
12. "Coronavirus care in hospitals will be different come fall -- here's how
With grim experience, "care is more rational, with less sense of desperation."
"If a second wave of the novel coronavirus emerges in the U.S. this fall, medical experts said patients arriving in American emergency rooms will likely have an entirely different experience than what urgently sick patients saw earlier this year -- the benefit of hard-learned lessons from the deadly disease.
“If there is a second wave in September, we will be protecting our patients and our staff in better ways, and will have the knowledge of the first wave to guide us in the best ways to treat patients,” said Dr. Bill Jaquis, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Richard M. Schwartzstein, who heads pulmonary and critical care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, predicts there will be less anecdotal medicine and more evidence-based care than the first time around.
One of the most challenging aspects of treating the outbreak was that it emerged quickly, before most hospitals could truly prepare.
Hospitals scrambled to scale up their supplies to meet the sudden and desperate need. At certain points nurses were asked to ration their use of critical gear – storing their one respirator mask per day in a brown paper bag.
Dr. Josh Sharfstein, former state public health official and assistant dean at Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News hospitals now have a better sense of their needs. To prepare for any surge, he said hospitals will be ordering large reserves of protective gear, and they will have designed plans to increase intensive care and ventilator capacity.
“The health care system was largely taken by surprise in the spring,” Sharfstein said. “It’s everyone’s shared responsibility to prevent a repeat in the fall.”
[This is an interesting article if you are interested in this subject.]
Read in ABC News: https://apple.news/AalTltR7PQqKO2HQrzed2Dg
12. "The Coronavirus Pandemic Shows the Folly of Medical-Licensing Laws
They artificially reduce the availability of physicians and the availability of care."
"Of the many lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most obvious is the need to reevaluate state-licensing laws that impede the free and rapid movement of health-care workers to places they are needed. Many governors suspended state-licensing requirements in early March so that doctors, nurses, and other health-care professionals licensed in other states could help with the public-health crisis in their own states. These governors should not resume the ways of the past when the crisis ends.
Individual state-licensing requirements for health-care professionals do not help patients or ensure quality. Rather, they serve as a mechanism to protect health-care provider interests."
Read in National Review: https://apple.news/AjXnwqqpfTB23yHjeIlIodg
13. "Coronavirus: South Korea closes schools again after biggest spike in weeks
Schools that had just re-opened days ago have now been forced shut again after a spike in cases."
[The outbreak seems to have been in the area/city, not in the schools.]
"More than 200 schools in South Korea have been forced to close just days after they re-opened, due to a new spike in virus cases.
Thousands of students had earlier on Wednesday returned to school as the country began easing virus restrictions.
But just a day later, 79 new cases were recorded, the highest daily figure in two months.
Most of these cases have been linked to a distribution centre outside Seoul.
The warehouse, in the city of Bucheon, is run by the country's biggest e-commerce firm Coupang, and officials have said the facility was not strictly complying with infection control measures. Health officials even discovered traces of Covid-19 on workers' shoes and clothes.
A total of 251 schools in Bucheon have now been forced to close. A report by the Korea Times, quoting the Ministry of Education, says a further 117 schools in the capital Seoul have also postponed their re-opening."
Read in BBC News: https://apple.news/Ab82uPSJzTd6InKfWM_pfTQ
14. "Monkeys steal coronavirus blood samples in India
A troop of monkeys in India attacked a medical official and snatched away blood samples of patients who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, authorities said on Friday."
[Even monkeys are getting into making vaccines and tests.]
"A troop of monkeys in India attacked a medical official and snatched away blood samples of patients who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, authorities said on Friday.
The attack occurred this week when a laboratory technician was walking in the campus of a state-run medical college in Meerut, 460 km (285 miles) north of Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
“Monkeys grabbed and fled with the blood samples of four COVID-19 patients who are undergoing treatment ... we had to take their blood samples again,” said Dr S. K. Garg, a top official at the college."
Read in Reuters: https://apple.news/AJtdOUXHcQI-s6PgHLx7AtA
15. "Coronavirus Testing Machines Are Latest Bottleneck In Troubled Supply Chain
Civilian labs and the Army say they've had trouble getting big machines that run hundreds of coronavirus tests at once. Public health experts say that's holding the U.S. back from ramping up testing."
"Coronavirus testing in the U.S. has run into a number of snags, from a lack of nasal swabs to not enough chemicals needed to run the tests.
Now there's a new bottleneck emerging: A shortage of the machines that process the tests and give results.
Civilian labs and the Pentagon say they've had trouble getting the sophisticated, automated machines that can run hundreds of diagnostic tests at once. Three machine manufacturers — Hologic Inc., Roche and Abbott Laboratories — have confirmed to NPR that demand is outstripping supply.
Public health experts say the machine shortages are upending a complicated supply chain just as the shortages of swabs, chemicals and other testing materials have begun to ease.
Experts warn the lack of machines will hold the U.S. back from ramping up diagnostic testing to better understand where the coronavirus is spreading and how to stop outbreaks."
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/Ar-XsmOJHQ8WMI38HLXBPDg
16. "Tell me what to do! Please!": Even experts struggle with coronavirus unknowns
Five months into the pandemic, scientific uncertainty remains and debates flare."
"In this pandemic, we’re swimming in statistics, trends, models, projections, infection rates, death tolls. Nosek has professional expertise in interpreting data, but even he is struggling to make sense of the numbers.
“What’s crazy is, we’re three months in, and we’re still not able to calibrate our risk management. It’s a mess,” said Nosek, who runs the Center for Open Science, which advocates for transparency in research. “Tell me what to do! Please!”
Scientists are still trying to understand the virus they call SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease covid-19. Basic questions are not fully answered: How deadly is this virus? How contagious? Are there different strains with different clinical outcomes? Why does SARS-CoV-2 create a devastating disease in some people while leaving others without symptoms or even knowledge that they were infected?
With stay-at-home orders expiring and businesses reopening, all the scientific data is being scrutinized anew. But the numbers are often ambiguous, with large margins of error. And because this is still an early phase of the pandemic, scientific findings have to be couched in tentative, provisional, sometimes squishy language that is festooned with caveats and admitted limitations.
One of the fundamental problems is that the virus is stealthy, with a time delay of about six days on average between infection and symptoms. A sick person may delay getting tested or going to the hospital.
The question of the true lethality of the virus remains the subject of controversy. When the CDC put out its guidance last week, it estimated that 0.2 to 1 percent of people who become infected and symptomatic will die. The agency offered a “current best estimate” of 0.4 percent. The agency also gave a best estimate that 35 percent of people infected never develop symptoms. Those numbers when put together would produce an “infection fatality rate” of 0.26, which is lower than many of the estimates produced by scientists and modelers to date.
If the severity of covid-19 has been significantly overestimated, and further research confirms this, critics of the national shutdown will cite this as evidence that the country overreacted to a virus that is not that much worse than seasonal influenza.
Although the report did not offer an infection fatality rate, lead author Neeraj Sood, a professor of health policy at USC, said it would probably be 0.13 percent for people outside nursing homes and 0.26 percent — identical to the CDC best estimate — when people in nursing homes were included."
Read in The Washington Post: https://apple.news/A6psh5gltQiygM7fgNIEA_Q
17. "White House Hid CDC’s Warning That Singing in Church Choirs Can Spread Coronavirus, Says Report
The White House and the CDC have strongly disagreed on the level of restrictions to place on houses of worship."
"The Trump administration took down warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website that singing in choirs can spread the novel coronavirus, The Washington Post reports. A debate has been raging for weeks between the White House and the CDC on the level of restrictions to place on houses of worship, but, last Friday, the administration released some guidance on the CDC website. It included recommendations that churches “consider suspending or at least decreasing use of choir/musical ensembles and congregant singing, chanting, or reciting during services or other programming, if appropriate within the faith tradition.” It added: “The act of singing may contribute to transmission of COVID-19, possibly through emission of aerosols.” However, by Saturday, any reference to choirs or congregant singing was reportedly removed. The new guidance also removed a reference to “shared cups” that shouldn’t be passed around. Two White House officials told the newspaper the first version wasn’t approved by the White House, so they asked the CDC to post a different cleared document a day later."
[This is Wa Post article with no paywall. It shows the tension between freedom of religion, as a first amendment right, as well as an element of politics.]
Read in The Daily Beast: https://apple.news/Ak6nC1F8KSUCbNETWibysQQ
18. "7 Warning Signs You're Not Being The Best Lockdown Partner
You could be getting on your quarantine partner's nerves without knowing it. Here's how to maintain your relationship in the age of social distancing."
"1. You’re passive-aggressive about your needs.
2. You’re not respecting work boundaries.
3. Your body language speaks volumes — and not in a good way.
4. You’re a slob.
5. You have a short fuse.
6. You’re working the same long hours.
7. You’re withdrawing from your family."
Read in HuffPost: https://apple.news/AEvM3uvbgSqe20M6TpLmqDQ
17. "Internal Documents Reveal Border Patrol Infections Doubled in a Month
Barely 2 percent of the border force has been tested, which one epidemiologist says is “pathetic.”
"The uptick comes on the heels of video that showed Border Patrol agents working without face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) when interacting with each other, as well as the public. Nearly 10 percent of the Border Patrol agents screened for COVID-19 to date have tested positive for the virus... That figure is up to 4 percentage points higher than the national average.
Haseltine also suspects the 10 percent positive rate among agents who have been tested could also be misleadingly low because it is not a representative sample and doesn’t include those without symptoms. In New York City, he points out, about 20 percent of the police force was out sick during April with thousands of cops testing positive."
Read in The Daily Beast: https://apple.news/AZORmR16LQuuZQ8efUI-Gnw
18. "Analysis: 100,000 Americans didn't have to die of Covid-19
The first tragedy of America's bleak coronavirus milestone is that 100,000 people didn't have to die. The second is that no one knows how many more will perish before the pandemic fades."
"The virus has been disproportionately infecting communities of color. Black Americans represent 13.4% of the American population, according to the US Census Bureau, but counties with higher black populations accounted for more than half of all Covid-19 cases and almost 60% of deaths as of mid-April, a study by epidemiologists and clinicians found. The virus has also exploited monetary divides, as infections at meat-packing plants show, while many white-collar workers work from home.
The victims also include the living — the more than 30 million Americans whose livelihoods disappeared in the most dramatic collapse in American economic history.
Covid-19's assault is a once-in-a-century event, and no set of detailed plans, war games and batch of epidemiological theories could have prepared the nation for every unknown challenge.
On February 25, Nancy Messonnier, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, infuriated the White House by warning that disruptions to daily life in the US could be "severe."
She told schools to start thinking about closures and businesses to prepare for telecommuting in a prediction that turned out to be an entirely accurate summation of America's destiny."
Read in CNN Politics: https://apple.news/AXHlVgxeWRLiieWAsh0rr8Q
19. "Half of New Coronavirus Cases in Washington Are People Under 40: Report
Public health officials attributed the age distribution shift to younger people engaging in behavior that increases the risk of transmission and infection."
"Half of the new coronavirus cases in Washington State are among people under the age of 40, a major shift in the state’s age distribution that public health officials have attributed to younger people engaging in risky behavior. Seattle epidemiologist Judith Malmgren, who authored the report, said that younger people “are the most likely to be socially active, they are the most likely to work in essential professions and have more contact with the public.” Malmgren also said it was a “popular misconception that children, teenagers and young people are not at risk.”
By early May, 39 percent of confirmed infections occurred in people aged 20 to 39, while those under the age of 19 accounted for 11 percent. Washington State Health Officer Dr. Kathy Lofy said the report indicated that older residents had been more diligent about adhering to social distancing practices and staying at home. She also credited the age distribution shift to the state’s efforts to control outbreaks in long-term care facilities."
Read in The Daily Beast: https://apple.news/AfdER6AnYQdqiuE-q7G5rfg
19. "WHO Warns Of A 'Second Peak' In Countries That Reopen Too Quickly
So far, there is no seasonal pattern to coronavirus outbreaks, the WHO's Dr. Margaret Harris says. Lockdowns may not be necessary, she says, but infections rise when restrictions are relaxed rapidly."
"The world's top health officials are warning that there could be a "second peak" of coronavirus infections during the current outbreak, separate from a second wave expected in the fall. As cases decline, officials worry that some countries are lifting restrictions too quickly — the U.S. among them.
What's key to understanding the different patterns emerging around the globe is recognizing that "this coronavirus is not the flu," said Dr. Margaret Harris, a member of the World Health Organization's coronavirus response team.
"A lot of people have put what I'd call a 'flu lens' on their expectations. They keep on thinking it's seasonal,"
"But if you look around the globe, we've got countries in the middle of their summer and autumn having large, large outbreaks. So we're not seeing a seasonal pattern. What we are seeing is indeed, when people ease too quickly, that they do then see a rise in infections. So we certainly don't say you have to be in lockdown, but we are saying ease carefully."
We're really seeing very, very large outbreaks in many parts of the world. In fact, last week, every day we recorded the largest number of new cases that we had seen. One of the issues is when people see their particular outbreak coming down, they go, "Well, that's done, done and dusted." But that is not the case."
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/AU8XiTFxcS0yD_srNbaO5tg
20. "Baghdad once again grinds to a halt as cases surge."
"On Friday, Baghdad was almost completely still. Traffic had been halted throughout the city and stay-at-home orders were enforced by neighborhood blockades. All travel between Iraqi provinces was stopped for a second time in response to the country’s mounting awareness of the spread of the coronavirus.
The growth in cases was hidden for months, both by the country’s low testing capacity and by the large numbers of the infected who remained asymptomatic. Many Iraqis also hid their illnesses, believing that the infection would bring shame on their families.
Since the middle of this month, the increases have become consistently greater and harder to ignore. Baghdad has become a hot spot, with 3,000 of the country’s 5,500 cases.
On Thursday, the order came to again shut Sadr City, the poorest and most crowded area of Baghdad, and the one with the most coronavirus infections, to traffic. Two hours later, the police a army stopped almost all movement in the rest of the city."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/world/coronavirus-update.html
21. "Scientists question the validity of an influential hydroxychloroquine study."
More than 100 scientists and clinicians have questioned the authenticity of a hospital database that was the basis for an influential paper published last week that suggested the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat people with Covid-19 did not help and may have increased the risk of abnormal heart rhythms and death.
In an open letter addressed to The Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton, and the paper’s authors, they asked the journal to provide details about the provenance of the data and called for the study to be independently validated by the World Health Organization or another institution. Use of the malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to prevent and treat Covid-19 has been a focus of intense public attention.
The experts who wrote the Lancet also criticized the study’s methodology and the authors’ refusal to disclose information on the hospitals that contributed their data, or even to name the countries where they were located."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/world/coronavirus-update.html
22. "The Covid Political Earthquake
Subsidies will soon end. Americans will then feel the economic pain—and revolt"
"The political press is preoccupied with the electoral implications of the virus crisis, and pundits insist the 2020 election will be about the Trump daily soap opera. But an emerging cultural and economic time bomb is about to explode. There has never been a wider gap between average Americans’ perception of their own economic situation and the reality of it. America could soon have its most combustible political environment in recent history.
Something that should alarm everyone: Neither the stock market nor the political preferences of those who have been hit hardest by this Covid-induced economic crisis have fundamentally changed since the crisis began. The American economy has shed more than 30 million jobs in the past eight weeks, and poll numbers haven’t moved an inch. According to Gallup, President Trump’s approval rating was 49% on Feb. 16, with 48% disapproving. Three months and the largest job loss in American history later, those numbers are exactly the same: 49% to 48%.
How is that possible? Is the political climate so partisan that the loss of your livelihood can’t change your political perspective? To some extent that could be true. But most of America is living in an illusion that masks the inevitable pain of this pandemic."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-covid-political-earthquake-11590706829?mod=mhp
23. "U.S. to Cancel Visas for Some Chinese Graduate Students
President Trump’s move would target scholars associated with Chinese universities with ties to the People’s Liberation Army"
"WASHINGTON—President Trump is expected to announce Friday that the U.S. will cancel the visas of some Chinese graduate students and researchers, according to administration officials and others familiar with the matter.
The move would target scholars associated with Chinese universities with ties to the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA. It wasn’t known how many people would be affected by the decision. The New York Times earlier reported the administration’s plans.
About 360,000 Chinese students are studying or working in the U.S., roughly a third of the total international student population. Of these, many are enrolled in graduate programs or working as researchers in the science and engineering fields.
Chinese students who graduate with STEM—or science, technology, engineering and math—degrees are permitted to work in the U.S. for up to three years under a program known as Optional Practical Training. Trump administration officials are also weighing suspending the program for the coming year, administration officials said.
A variety of U.S. agencies, including the Justice, State and Defense departments, and the National Institutes of Health, have raised alarms over what officials say are Beijing’s attempts to tap U.S. universities to boost China’s military and technological competitiveness.
U.S. officials accuse China of targeting academia, including by sending military researchers to American labs and using talent-recruitment programs to bring top scientists and entrepreneurs, as well as their intellectual property, to China.
Beijing has denied any systematic effort to steal U.S. scientific research, and Chinese state media have called U.S. allegations of intellectual-property theft a political tool."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-cancel-visas-for-some-chinese-graduate-students-11590744602
24. "Why RVs are the latest trend in travel
Full-time RVers and vanlifers relished in socially distant vacations before it was a trend. Now travelers may be joining them in droves."
"As states in the U.S. lift stay-at-home orders, many travelers are setting their sights on summer vacations. However, as they navigate the lingering risks of COVID-19, vacationers are seeking alternatives to plane travel and hotel stays. Some are finding one in RVing.
Recreational vehicle rental marketplace RVshare reported a 1000 percent rise in bookings from April to mid-May. Additionally, a new study from public opinion researchers Ipsos found that 20 percent of U.S. respondents are more interested in recreational vehicles for travel in the aftermath of the novel coronavirus.
Barbara Krumm, director of marketing and PR for Ocean Lakes Family Campground, says the campground hasn’t necessarily seen an increase in bookings yet — the property is set in the vacation haven of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and is usually booked solid. However, she’s seen an increase in interest in camping that she hasn’t witnessed since the months after 9/11.
Long considered the domain of retirees, RVing is growing popular now among younger families, who can pack all their members into one cozy vehicle. Lauren Grijalva, of The Wandrepreneurs.com, who’s a full-time RVer with her husband, Aaron, and two children, Casen, 9, and Calista, 7, advises flexibility, especially when traveling with children.
Many full-time RVers, whether they have families or not, maintain their full-time jobs by working remotely from the road, including Ibañes, Winkowski and the Bennetts. As more and more companies shift to remote work during and after the pandemic, the number of professionals who become digital nomads may increase, too.
As Marc Bennett observes, “With so many companies enabling their employees to work remotely, it’s easier than ever to travel in an RV. You can explore the country while you work, and even road school your kids.”
Read in Lonely Planet: https://apple.news/AhTcV_KDHSjeoM2Ll6R3vqA
25. "How Travel Will Change
What the future looks like—for now, at least—as the world begins to reopen."
[This is a good article, if you are interested.]
"Airports will have more security and screening
Hotels and home rentals will prioritize cleaning—but keep up the personal touches
We'll redefine local travel
Local travel is set to boom over the next year, but the definition of what that means will shift as well. Tourism boards, like those in Greece, Cyprus, and Israel, for example, are banding together to create travel bubbles through which their citizens can move, even as borders remain closed. In the States, cities like Philadelphia are discussing partnerships with neighbors like New York and Washington, D.C., in the hopes that they can cross-promote their destinations to a shared audience as travelers inch back out there.
We’ll be spreading out across bike lanes, buses, and public transportation
Restaurants and bars will operate with distance, for now"
Read in Condé Nast Traveler: https://apple.news/ASMFa0rLcTb6chGdGTcioWg
26. "Caribbean Islands Will Begin Reopening to Americans in June
The USVI, Antigua, and St. Lucia are among the islands hoping to kick off the summer travel season in the Caribbean."
"A gradual return to air travel
The U.S. Virgin Islands is poised to lead the region’s reopening, letting leisure visitors back into St. Thomas and St. Croix by way of American Airlines on June 1, though the only flights currently posted originate from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Travelers to the Caribbean will either be tested on arrival or have to present proof of a negative virus test taken 48 hours before boarding. St. Lucia and Antigua fall into the latter camp. However, testing availability could be an issue—in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s current recommendation still doesn’t include testing individuals without symptoms. Once there, visitors will be expected to wear masks and practice distancing in public places across the region.
Read in Condé Nast Traveler: https://apple.news/A14Bb8h9GQ8iC_RRn8xYRgA
27. "Don't count on a recovery in global air travel before 2024, S&P says
The gloomy outlook spells more trouble ahead for airlines, airports and the wider economy."
"Global air passenger numbers will drop as much as 55% this year, a far steeper slump than previously estimated, .... Any recovery will depend on factors including how governments ease travel restrictions, people’s willingness to fly again and the extent of economic damage from the outbreak, they said.
Some countries are gradually allowing flights to operate following lockdowns and restrictions on movement, but volumes remain low. Airports are struggling for business as demand for services such as dining and duty-free shopping essentially evaporated.
“Air travel will eventually return when current health and safety concerns have been meaningfully addressed by the industry and consumer confidence rebounds, supported by steady historical growth rates in air traffic of 4%-5% per year,” the analysts said. “A more widespread adoption of remote working and virtual meetings could have a lingering impact on business travel, which has been the more lucrative passenger segment for the airlines.”
Read in FORTUNE: https://apple.news/AjPsMPQi8TDCGaX6PDaqf7Q
Today's MT virus report:
8 news cases, 6 in Big Horn, and 1 each in Gallatin and Missoula. I believe this is Missoula county's first case since April 22. 8 is the highest day since April 15 (11). My guess is that the new Big Horn cases are coming from an outbreak on the res. Edit: was told that the new cases came from a state surveillance test and some of the people were asymptomatic. Both the Indian Health Service and Bullock were involved.
2 hospitalizations.
28 active cases.
1. "University of Montana president doubles down on in-person fall semester"
[I will post this in another thread, so discussion can occur there. This is good news, in my view. He won't take the "easy" route.]
"Asked about whether all students arriving on campus would be tested for COVID-19 and whether there was enough space to isolate infected people, Bodnar said all of those things were still being explored as the situation develops.
“We are working very closely with experts here on campus and in our community to make sure we’re taking appropriate steps to mitigate the spread of the virus, to understand and ensure we have the correct testing protocols to understand the prevalence and the spread, and also to make sure we’re able to conduct effective contact tracing and that we have sufficient isolation and quarantine capacity for students who do have COVID, because we will have cases,” Bodnar said.
Bodnar was reluctant to say that UM was trying to capitalize on Montana’s relatively low case numbers in its recruitment efforts, but he acknowledged that marketing efforts were focusing on the fact that UM would be “wide open” for fall semester, and that it would likely be more attractive for students from more urban and densely populated states like California and parts of Washington and Oregon.
Bodnar noted that out-of-state applications were up 33% over last year at this time."
"https://missoulian.com/news/local/university-of-montana-president-doubles-down-on-in-person-fall-semester/article_388d35ce-0ada-5e05-a3d4-1cff6ead24c7.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1
2. "Missoula County is developing a plan to test asymptomatic residents for COVID-19 as restrictions ease and tourism picks up."
[I will also post this article in another thread. I don't have confidence in this health officer. Way too conservative. Must not have a clue what business and economics are.]
"During an online press conference Thursday afternoon, Missoula City-County Health Officer Ellen Leahy said Missoula was one of about 20 high-tourism communities identified by the office of Gov. Steve Bullock.
Leahy said a conference call with the governor’s staff Thursday morning “was emphasizing how to add another layer of population-based surveillance testing on people who are asymptomatic.”
https://missoulian.com/news/local/missoula-prepares-broad-covid-19-testing-plan/article_c43763f5-8f24-5876-8c0f-4a1a392a29a0.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1
8 news cases, 6 in Big Horn, and 1 each in Gallatin and Missoula. I believe this is Missoula county's first case since April 22. 8 is the highest day since April 15 (11). My guess is that the new Big Horn cases are coming from an outbreak on the res. Edit: was told that the new cases came from a state surveillance test and some of the people were asymptomatic. Both the Indian Health Service and Bullock were involved.
2 hospitalizations.
28 active cases.
1. "University of Montana president doubles down on in-person fall semester"
[I will post this in another thread, so discussion can occur there. This is good news, in my view. He won't take the "easy" route.]
"Asked about whether all students arriving on campus would be tested for COVID-19 and whether there was enough space to isolate infected people, Bodnar said all of those things were still being explored as the situation develops.
“We are working very closely with experts here on campus and in our community to make sure we’re taking appropriate steps to mitigate the spread of the virus, to understand and ensure we have the correct testing protocols to understand the prevalence and the spread, and also to make sure we’re able to conduct effective contact tracing and that we have sufficient isolation and quarantine capacity for students who do have COVID, because we will have cases,” Bodnar said.
Bodnar was reluctant to say that UM was trying to capitalize on Montana’s relatively low case numbers in its recruitment efforts, but he acknowledged that marketing efforts were focusing on the fact that UM would be “wide open” for fall semester, and that it would likely be more attractive for students from more urban and densely populated states like California and parts of Washington and Oregon.
Bodnar noted that out-of-state applications were up 33% over last year at this time."
"https://missoulian.com/news/local/university-of-montana-president-doubles-down-on-in-person-fall-semester/article_388d35ce-0ada-5e05-a3d4-1cff6ead24c7.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1
2. "Missoula County is developing a plan to test asymptomatic residents for COVID-19 as restrictions ease and tourism picks up."
[I will also post this article in another thread. I don't have confidence in this health officer. Way too conservative. Must not have a clue what business and economics are.]
"During an online press conference Thursday afternoon, Missoula City-County Health Officer Ellen Leahy said Missoula was one of about 20 high-tourism communities identified by the office of Gov. Steve Bullock.
Leahy said a conference call with the governor’s staff Thursday morning “was emphasizing how to add another layer of population-based surveillance testing on people who are asymptomatic.”
https://missoulian.com/news/local/missoula-prepares-broad-covid-19-testing-plan/article_c43763f5-8f24-5876-8c0f-4a1a392a29a0.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1
Trump tweeted today that the US was terminating it’s relationship with the WHO. Anyone think this is a wise move and if yes can you give us a detailed explanation why after like 75 years we should terminate our relationship during a pandemic. IMO it’s Trump defecting his own incompetence and blaming his disastrous response on others and that he doesn’t understand how the science behind public healthcare in the world actually works.
Dutch, maybe you can explain why we should remain in a corrupt organization that is in bed with China. China, the country where the virus originated that is killing people to the point of world wide economic collapse and depression. China, the country with labs working on new viruses that may be more fatal than the current version.
Spanky2 said:
Good point. Trump is probably just putting pressure on WHO to change its leadership and clean up its act. Edit: I see Trump said he was ending the WHO relationship today.
Does anyone have full faith in what WHO says now, especially on this subject? I sure don't.
Why is Dutch so political on everything? Jeez, almost every country similar to the US agrees that China withheld info and was dishonest for way too long, and WHO participated in some of this. It's just a fact. It's not Trump covering up for anything. It's people like Dutch who are so biased that they can't give Trump credit for anything.
[Someone else weighing in on this subject.]
"Wuhan Seafood Market Was Not Origin of Coronavirus Pandemic Say Scientists"
"The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 may not have originated from a wet market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic, according to a study.
The Chinese scientists who published their findings in Nature are the latest to suggest the virus may have emerged elsewhere. They suggest it could have jumped from an animal to a human in late November 2019, and the busy seafood market may have helped it spread. Citing past research, the authors said a "significant" number of the first reported cases didn't have contact with the market.
To reach this conclusion, Fudan University virologist Xiaonan Zhang and colleagues looked at data on how COVID-19 affected 326 patients in Shanghai on China's east coast between January 20 and February 25, 2020. From the spit and inner nose swabs taken from these patients, they pinpointed 94 genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19) that were of a high enough quality to analyze, and compared them with others from a worldwide database. This enabled them to assemble what is essentially an evolutionary family tree of the virus. In what is known as phylogenetic analysis, scientists can use such information to do a range of things, including mapping where outbreaks started.
The team wrote: "Two major lineages of the virus derived from one common ancestor may have originated independently from Wuhan in December 2019 and contributed to the current pandemic." One of these spawned at the market, "where high density of stalls, vendors and customers might have facilitated human-to-human transmission," they wrote. Six cases in the first lineage had contact history with the market, but three cases in the second lineage diagnosed at the same period didn't. This is consistent with a study on the earliest cases in Wuhan before December 18, where five out of seven patients were not linked to the market, the researchers said.
In a paper published by Chinese researchers in The Lancet journal in January 2020 on the first 41 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, the earliest case fell ill on December 1, 2019. The person had no known link to the market, as was also the case for 13 others featured in the study.
Rossman said: "Other groups have identified two early lineages of the virus, but this is the first suggestion that this split occurred before the infection at the market.
"Together, this paper and the existing data offer a convincing view that SARS-CoV-2 did not first emerge at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan in December 2019, but earlier in November, in some as yet unidentified location in the general area of Wuhan."
Jones said the Nature study was limited due to the small number of samples the team analyzed. He said: "It remains possible the first events did occur in the market but sometime before the main cluster of cases were identified, by which time one (presumably) individual had left the market and begun transmission outside."
Read in Newsweek: https://apple.news/AatxTDQtQSXqaY8AL_2igyw
"Wuhan Seafood Market Was Not Origin of Coronavirus Pandemic Say Scientists"
"The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 may not have originated from a wet market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic, according to a study.
The Chinese scientists who published their findings in Nature are the latest to suggest the virus may have emerged elsewhere. They suggest it could have jumped from an animal to a human in late November 2019, and the busy seafood market may have helped it spread. Citing past research, the authors said a "significant" number of the first reported cases didn't have contact with the market.
To reach this conclusion, Fudan University virologist Xiaonan Zhang and colleagues looked at data on how COVID-19 affected 326 patients in Shanghai on China's east coast between January 20 and February 25, 2020. From the spit and inner nose swabs taken from these patients, they pinpointed 94 genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19) that were of a high enough quality to analyze, and compared them with others from a worldwide database. This enabled them to assemble what is essentially an evolutionary family tree of the virus. In what is known as phylogenetic analysis, scientists can use such information to do a range of things, including mapping where outbreaks started.
The team wrote: "Two major lineages of the virus derived from one common ancestor may have originated independently from Wuhan in December 2019 and contributed to the current pandemic." One of these spawned at the market, "where high density of stalls, vendors and customers might have facilitated human-to-human transmission," they wrote. Six cases in the first lineage had contact history with the market, but three cases in the second lineage diagnosed at the same period didn't. This is consistent with a study on the earliest cases in Wuhan before December 18, where five out of seven patients were not linked to the market, the researchers said.
In a paper published by Chinese researchers in The Lancet journal in January 2020 on the first 41 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, the earliest case fell ill on December 1, 2019. The person had no known link to the market, as was also the case for 13 others featured in the study.
Rossman said: "Other groups have identified two early lineages of the virus, but this is the first suggestion that this split occurred before the infection at the market.
"Together, this paper and the existing data offer a convincing view that SARS-CoV-2 did not first emerge at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan in December 2019, but earlier in November, in some as yet unidentified location in the general area of Wuhan."
Jones said the Nature study was limited due to the small number of samples the team analyzed. He said: "It remains possible the first events did occur in the market but sometime before the main cluster of cases were identified, by which time one (presumably) individual had left the market and begun transmission outside."
Read in Newsweek: https://apple.news/AatxTDQtQSXqaY8AL_2igyw
argh! said:
We bought 3 new fancy, big, softer coated, colorful kettle bells. Now have 6.
We bought a squat rack, along with bar and additional weights.
We have a pretty good weight set on the deck, and have for 25 or so years. I'm now lifting 5 days a week. The problem is that due to good cooks in family and good food, and lots of drink, my stomach is growing faster than my muscles.
There's a good weight/work out store south of the movie theater in the mall in Missoula. The owner said equipment has sold down very fast in recent months, and re-stocking inventory is slow and hard.
Testing in Big Horn county and other reservations.
"Big Horn County has announced 10 additional cases of COVID-19 after confirming four new cases of the virus Friday morning.
One person was tested because of symptoms, while nine others were tested as a result of contact with previously tested positive patients, according to a press release from Rhonda Johnson, public information officer with the county. The nine individuals were found as a result of contact tracing done by public health nurses.
With the four positive test results announced Friday morning and the additional 10 cases, the total number of newly confirmed cases in Big Horn County Friday is 14.
None of the 14 were tested at recent sentinel surveillance testing events in the county, Johnson said.
The 10 newly confirmed cases are as follows:
One boy and one girl younger than 10.
Three boys in their teens and one girl in her teens.
One woman in her 20s.
One woman in her 30s.
One man in his 40s.
One woman in her 60s.
The four new cases announced Friday morning are a girl in her teens, a woman in her 60s, a boy in his teens and a man in his 60s, according to Johnson in an earlier press release.
17 are quarantining and recovering at home, and one patient has been hospitalized, Johnson said.[/b
All 1,015 tests from a surveillance testing event on the Fort Belknap Reservation have come back negative. So have all the tests conducted in events on the Blackfeet reservation.
The Blackfeet tribe is continuing to hold testing events. This week the Crow, Chippewa Cree and Little Shell tribes all held testing events. The Northern Cheyenne and Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes are planning events for mid-June.
The governor’s testing proposal also focuses on nursing homes and assisted living centers. Testing supplies have been provided to 52 nursing homes, Bullock’s office said this week, and about half of those facilities have started testing. So far, results for eight facilities have come back with all negative results.
Statewide, 174 assisted living facilities have also agreed to participate in testing and supplies have been provided to 58.
Testing for people in congregate settings such as state corrections facilities is also underway. So far, 21 inmates and seven staff have been tested across state facilities, and a Department of Corrections website reports no positives. Additional results are expected next week."
https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/big-horn-county-adds-14-new-covid-19-cases-surveillance-testing-underway/article_188f9715-a3db-5673-ad85-d7317d16d9ab.html
"Big Horn County has announced 10 additional cases of COVID-19 after confirming four new cases of the virus Friday morning.
One person was tested because of symptoms, while nine others were tested as a result of contact with previously tested positive patients, according to a press release from Rhonda Johnson, public information officer with the county. The nine individuals were found as a result of contact tracing done by public health nurses.
With the four positive test results announced Friday morning and the additional 10 cases, the total number of newly confirmed cases in Big Horn County Friday is 14.
None of the 14 were tested at recent sentinel surveillance testing events in the county, Johnson said.
The 10 newly confirmed cases are as follows:
One boy and one girl younger than 10.
Three boys in their teens and one girl in her teens.
One woman in her 20s.
One woman in her 30s.
One man in his 40s.
One woman in her 60s.
The four new cases announced Friday morning are a girl in her teens, a woman in her 60s, a boy in his teens and a man in his 60s, according to Johnson in an earlier press release.
17 are quarantining and recovering at home, and one patient has been hospitalized, Johnson said.[/b
All 1,015 tests from a surveillance testing event on the Fort Belknap Reservation have come back negative. So have all the tests conducted in events on the Blackfeet reservation.
The Blackfeet tribe is continuing to hold testing events. This week the Crow, Chippewa Cree and Little Shell tribes all held testing events. The Northern Cheyenne and Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes are planning events for mid-June.
The governor’s testing proposal also focuses on nursing homes and assisted living centers. Testing supplies have been provided to 52 nursing homes, Bullock’s office said this week, and about half of those facilities have started testing. So far, results for eight facilities have come back with all negative results.
Statewide, 174 assisted living facilities have also agreed to participate in testing and supplies have been provided to 58.
Testing for people in congregate settings such as state corrections facilities is also underway. So far, 21 inmates and seven staff have been tested across state facilities, and a Department of Corrections website reports no positives. Additional results are expected next week."
https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/big-horn-county-adds-14-new-covid-19-cases-surveillance-testing-underway/article_188f9715-a3db-5673-ad85-d7317d16d9ab.html
PlayerRep said:
Pr what specifically did the WHO do that you and Trump are so upset about. Please be specific with details. I will give credit where it is due thanks. So what do you say there Pr lets just flesh out the alleged malfeasance of theWHO and we can leave Trump out of it for now. :thumb:
Tried to listen but was denied access. Lol. So there’s thatPlayerRep said:
wbtfg
Well-known member
This is kind of science-y, but some interesting info I haven’t seen previously. This is interesting as many younger people in their 20s 30s and 40s have seen an increase in strokes and brain hemorrhages.
Coronavirus May Be a Blood Vessel Disease, Which Explains Everything
https://elemental.medium.com/coronaviru ... 4032481ab2
Coronavirus May Be a Blood Vessel Disease, Which Explains Everything
https://elemental.medium.com/coronaviru ... 4032481ab2
Remember back to the Kaepernick deal and Trump started using it at his rally’s to rile up the base and now there is rioting? On top of covid-19 lockdown fatigue and the Ahmaud Arbery and George Ferguson lynchings caught on camera I’m fearing some major racial strife this summer. The covid numbers seem to indicate the the poorest Americans, Hispanics and blacks are getting hit the hardest and the billionaire class unaffected.
I don’t like Trumps public pronouncements on any of this. He’s acting like Bull Connor or George Wallace from the 60’s. Do any of the boomers on the board who were in college in the 60s have any observations on the similarities or not of the authoritarian responses? like to hear your perspective tempered by age and experiences. I was like only 3-4 yo when mlk and rfk were killed so my memories are limited. Bonus points for relating your experience if you were at um during that time. Will be interesting to see if college age Americans take to the protests like they did regarding Vietnam. Right on thanks fellas :thumb:
I don’t like Trumps public pronouncements on any of this. He’s acting like Bull Connor or George Wallace from the 60’s. Do any of the boomers on the board who were in college in the 60s have any observations on the similarities or not of the authoritarian responses? like to hear your perspective tempered by age and experiences. I was like only 3-4 yo when mlk and rfk were killed so my memories are limited. Bonus points for relating your experience if you were at um during that time. Will be interesting to see if college age Americans take to the protests like they did regarding Vietnam. Right on thanks fellas :thumb:
1. "Economic Fallout From Coronavirus Begins Across Developing World
Economic output in Brazil, Turkey and India is expected to fall this year, reversing historic run in growth"
"Brazil’s economy shrank during the first three months of this year. Turkey’s economy slowed, and India’s yearly output posted its slowest growth in 11 years.
Economic results released on Friday in all three countries highlight the struggles of many developing-world economies even before the coronavirus pandemic caused governments to order lockdowns in late March that have since cost hundreds of millions their jobs.
In India, the economy mustered 3.1% growth from January to March compared with the year-ago period. For its fiscal year ended March 31, the economy grew at its weakest rate in 11 years, 4.2%.
But growth in India and Turkey during the first months of this year shouldn’t be mistaken for resilience in the face of the pandemic, economists said. Since lockdown measures only came in the last week of March, the impact of the pandemic won’t turn up until the second quarter figures are released.
Economic output in all three countries is expected to decline this year, reversing a historic run in economic growth across much of the developing world. Both India and Brazil, the world’s fifth and ninth largest economies, will likely have their worst economic performance on record.
For the first time ever, all the world’s economies are going through a completely synchronized contraction, says Dilip Ratha, lead economist at the World Bank’s migration and remittances unit.
“The crisis propagated rapidly, coming from lockdowns all over the world, cities big and small, factories, agricultural farms. The extent of the crisis is unprecedented,” he said.
Other big emerging markets will get hit even worse. Mexico’s economic output during the first quarter declined 1.2% from the last three months of 2019, and 1.4% compared with the year-ago period, according to data released earlier this week. The full-year decline is expected to be a historic 9%, according to Mexican brokerage Citibanamex.
For a country like India, economic indicators are pointing to lasting damage to the economy. India’s unemployment has surged to more than 25% as a result of the shutdown of the economy, according to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a private data provider.
“They’re unleashing the economy while the pandemic is getting worse, so it looks like we’ll return to quarantines again later this year,” said André Perfeito, chief economist at the Necton brokerage in São Paulo. “Investment is going to collapse, and consumer spending will be bad again.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/economic-fallout-from-coronavirus-begins-across-developing-world-11590779991?mod=hp_lead_pos10
2. "Lockdowns vs. the Vulnerable
A strategy that ignores trade-offs and the dimension of time badly served coronavirus victims."
"It was obvious back when experts were anticipating the Wuhan virus’s arrival that protecting the elderly and medically vulnerable should be the highest priority. How this became let’s-shut-down-everything will be a puzzle for archaeologists of popular and political hysteria. We don’t give up driving because an 85-year-old might be crossing the street. We find better ways to help.
Polls in which subjects are asked to choose between the virus and somebody else’s job are of no guidance to politics and policy. At the same time, I’m aware that many healthy old people who assumed they had five or 10 or 15 years of life left now are understandably terrified.
The shutdowns appear to have provided no benefit to the 40% of coronavirus fatalities who were infected in nursing homes. At the same time, it should be sayable that most Americans have less to lose from the virus than they do from the shutdowns. Not all Americans are situated the same; they have different interests. We have a political system, fundamentally, for this reason.
The challenge of our civil liberties is real and can’t be wished away. On this rock is likely to founder any test-trace-isolate panacea, requiring involuntary quarantine. And yet if testing were widely and cheaply available we could, without coercion, take advantage of what we’ve been learning about superspreaders—the 10% who cause perhaps 80% of transmission. If Americans knew they had Covid rather than a common cold, most would voluntarily take steps not to spread it.
These experiments are in too early a stage for some of the absurd pronouncements being made. Take the U.S.-Sweden comparison. The U.S. shutdowns have been patchy: Lots of people and places already have been living under restrictions more Sweden-like than New York City-like. Now, with the majority of their publics still uninfected, countries everywhere are reopening—i.e., becoming Swedish. The only conclusion available now is that the Swedes were right: The lockdowns were not sustainable.
We have paid a huge price for our media being unable to frame the virus as a problem with a time dimension and one necessitating trade-offs. Now come the Ministry of Truth-style flip-flops from major press outlets, announcing in headlines that the virus might be here permanently and we might have to adopt cost-benefit learning to live with it.
All these places, to varying degrees, were caught unawares by an epidemic that had been bubbling for weeks before exploding on their local hospitals. To an alarming extent, their medical systems transmitted the virus to the most vulnerable.
A new and occasionally deadly pathogen can’t come into the world without having an impact on the mortality tables. We are not separate from nature. If U.S. Covid deaths reach 200,000 this year (up from today’s 100,000), that will represent a 7% increase in mortality concentrated mostly among the elderly and those in poor health. Under battlefield conditions, we are rapidly learning how to treat these people to give them their best chance of survival. Unless we ruin the economy on which all such material progress depends, the broad trend toward increased human well-being and longer life expectancy may well resume in 2021.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/lockdowns-vs-the-vulnerable-11590791538?mod=hp_opin_pos_3
3. "Its coronavirus caseload soaring, India is reopening anyway
Worried for its economy, India loosened tough restrictions and may lift them entirely this weekend. But infection numbers are climbing fast."
"Its coronavirus cases are skyrocketing, putting it among the world’s most worrisome pandemic zones in recent weeks. Nonetheless, India is reopening, lifting its lockdown at what experts fear may be the worst time.
Migrant workers are becoming infected at an alarmingly high rate, leading to fresh outbreaks in villages across northern India. Public hospitals in Mumbai are so overwhelmed that patients have taken to sleeping on cardboard in the hallways.
Doctors fear that the lockdown, which started over two months ago, has been eased too soon, after slowing the virus but failing to flatten the new-case curve as effectively as other nations have. If India does not find a way to curb the virus in high-risk states, epidemiologists project that its total caseload could approach a million within several weeks.
“From a public health point of view, I do think the lockdown has brought the disease under control,” he said. “But of course, as restrictions have lifted in the last week or 10 days, the number of cases has started to rise quickly.”
At first, India moved aggressively to contain the coronavirus. In late March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi implemented one of the most severe lockdowns anywhere, ordering all Indians to stay inside, halting transportation and closing most businesses.
But the lockdown was brutally hard on the poorest Indians and those who rely on day labor to survive. And the country’s economy, which had already been ailing, was sustaining deep wounds. Government officials began lifting some restrictions last month, hoping to ease the suffering, and the lockdown may end entirely as soon as Sunday, if Mr. Modi does not decide to extend it.
Infections are rising quickly now, however, with outbreaks in some states that had reported few cases. This month, India’s doubling rate for new infections averaged about 12 days, putting it on par with countries of high concern like Brazil.
That number compares poorly to those of other nations where stay-at-home orders were imposed. In the United States, the doubling rate improved from around 26 days at the start of May to about 50 days on Monday. Italy crossed the 100-day mark early this month.
But in India, a nation of 1.3 billion people, locking down has posed different challenges than in many Western societies. Its metro areas are among the world’s densest, with millions living in packed slums, sometimes sleeping eight to a room.
Almost half of India’s cases have been traced to just four cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Ahmedabad.
Testing has also been severely restricted, making it tough to gauge the scope of the outbreak. India has administered only two tests for every 1,000 people, one of the lowest ratios among the world’s worst-afflicted countries.
But he said the lockdown could not go on forever. Around 122 million Indians lost their jobs in April, according to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a leading business analytics company. Some industries have teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.
If the lockdown continues, Mr. Gupta said, “We will be devastated economically.”
At this point, Mr. Rizvi said, it appeared there was no turning back.
“Freedom comes at a price, and people seem to be ready to pay,” he said. “Even if more people die now, it would be difficult to send us back into isolation.”
Read in The New York Times: https://apple.news/AaXp9pf_OSpa-N1Pu1Hkv7Q
no paywall
4. "Justice Department Says Maine's 2-Week Quarantine Rule Discriminates Against Tourists
Many but not all out-of-state visitors were told to self-quarantine because of the coronavirus. The Justice Department says that is unconstitutional. Some other states have the same rule."
"The U.S. Department of Justice is siding with campground and restaurant owners in Maine who sued the state over a two-week self-quarantine policy for out-of-state visitors.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills imposed the restriction as part the state's response to the ongoing pandemic. Several other states have imposed similar measures.
In a brief filed on behalf of Bayley's Campground in Scarborough and other plaintiffs, attorneys with the Department of Justice, including the U.S. attorney for Maine, said the government is getting involved because of its "compelling interest in protecting the public and citizens' constitutional right to be free from unjustified discrimination on the basis of state residency."
In this case, the federal attorneys said Maine has likely exceeded the Constitution's limits by discriminating between Mainers and people from out of state, with respect to the ability to patronize campgrounds and recreational vehicle parks.
The government's statement noted that the order doesn't require all nonresidents to go into quarantine. "As far as public safety goes, it is unclear why out-of-state residents may enter Maine to engage in any 'legal, business, professional, environmental permitting and insurance services,' for example, but not to patronize a campground or RV park. ... If Maine wants to prevent the spread of COVID-19, one would think it would start by preventing outsiders from attending a boardroom meeting, not from pitching a tent."
On Friday, the judge rejected a motion for a preliminary injunction against the governor's orders."
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/AppYBcTBmTzuxn6XnYy9svw
5. "Supreme Court votes 5-4 to let California restrict attendance at religious services amid pandemic
With a deciding vote from Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court late Friday allowed Gov. Gavin Newsom to restrict attendance at religious services in California to 25% of the capacity of a house of worship because of the coronavirus."
"With a deciding vote from Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court late Friday allowed Gov. Gavin Newsom to restrict attendance at religious services in California to 25% of the capacity of a house of worship because of the coronavirus.
The justices voted 5-4 to reject a challenge by a Pentecostal church in Chula Vista (San Diego County) and its bishop, who claimed the state was discriminating against religious institutions by setting undue limits on attendance.
The standards, in effect for 21 days, discourage such activities as sharing prayer books and ritual items as well as personal contact and congregational singing, all of which can spread the coronavirus.
Roberts joined the court’s more liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, in denying an injunction sought by the South Bay United Pentecostal Church. Writing only for himself, the chief justice said detailed decisions on health-related issues should generally be left to “politically accountable” state officials unless they clearly violate a constitutional right such as religious freedom. [This is where I think Roberts was wrong. This health related issue bumped up against the Bill of Rights.]
Dissenting Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected Roberts’ comparison and said Newsom was restricting houses of worship more severely than businesses, in violation of religious freedom.
“Comparable secular businesses are not subject to a 25% occupancy cap, including factories, offices, supermarkets, restaurants, retail stores, pharmacies, shopping malls, pet grooming shops, bookstores, florists, hair salons, and cannabis dispensaries,” Kavanaugh said.
Noting that the church had agreed to require social distancing and hygiene measures if allowed to fully open its doors, Kavanaugh asked, “Why can someone safely walk down a grocery store aisle but not a pew?” Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined his dissent, while Justice Samuel Alito dissented for unstated reasons."
Read in San Francisco Chronicle: https://apple.news/ASSP5P1q-QRymmWk81JEPeA
6. "These destinations will basically pay you to visit during the pandemic
From covering flight costs to free attractions, some places are offering incentives to entice tourists to visit again."
"But a few countries and tourist-heavy destinations have laid out plans to entice travelers to visit, even as health officials still advise against it.
In Las Vegas, a hotel CEO and developer announced a giveaway of 1,000 free flights to the gambling capital as the city eyes reopening in early June. Derek Stevens, who owns two hotel-casinos, the D Las Vegas and the Golden Gate, wrote that the promotion was intended to help stimulate tourism and to remind travelers of the fun they could have in the city.
In the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, government leaders have pledged to cover all costs for any traveler who tests positive for the coronavirus while on vacation, according to the Associated Press. In a letter sent out to governments, airlines and tour operators, Cypriot officials said they would cover “lodging, food, drink and medication for covid-19 patients and their families” while on the island.
Tourism accounts for 13 percent of Cyprus’s economy, according to the AP, and with one of the lowest coronavirus ratios per capita in Europe, tourism ministers plan to restart international air travel on June 9.
As restrictions lift among many European countries, Cyprus will require visitors to complete a “COVID-19 Traveler Declaration” detailing their travel up to 14 days before. Visitors will also have to present a testing certificate before boarding an aircraft, wear masks while on the flight and be subject to random temperature checks throughout the stay.
[I don't think US people can get to Cyrus yet.]
Other economies that have been affected by the loss of tourism are taking measures to boost the depleted industry worldwide. In Japan, the country saw a 99.9 percent drop in visitors during April compared to last year, according to government data. Officials have developed a program to subsidize travel expenses that would inject $12.5 billion into the Japanese economy beginning in July.
The program, according to tourism leaders, would cover travel expenses while in the country in the form of discounts and vouchers to be used at local shops and restaurants in an effort to encourage tourist exploration. Travelers who make bookings through Japanese travel agencies or directly with hotels and traditional ryokan inns would be eligible for the subsidies.
Read in The Washington Post: https://apple.news/ATRhtYkovQUeXrBi0qztdlw no paywall
7. "Gone With the Wind: Pandemic Threatens to Reduce Movie Theaters to Rubble
Closed cinemas tend to be tough to repurpose because of their slanted floors and multiple rooms; ‘theaters are single-purpose buildings’"
"If your local movie theater succumbs to the coronavirus crisis, the coming attraction might be a bulldozer.
The theater industry was struggling before the pandemic with high fixed costs, mounting debt and stagnating attendance as in-home streaming options proliferated. But the lockdown has added to those pressures by halting incoming revenue for months and creating uncertainty over when, and if, customers will feel comfortable returning to cinemas.
The situation is seen leading to many theater closures, say analysts and industry veterans, creating the problem of what to do with the buildings once the curtain goes down for good. According to theater owners and real-estate experts, cinemas tend to be tough properties to move because the sloped floors and multiple rooms make them difficult to repurpose, especially in a commercial property market expected to get crowded with closed retailers, small businesses and offices.
“Movie theaters are single-purpose buildings,” said Paul Glantz, co-founder of theater chain Emagine Entertainment Inc., which operates more than 20 locations throughout the Midwest. Mr. Glantz said his company could face bankruptcy—which would mean the loss of all his theaters—if reduced-capacity restrictions last too long.
“Repurposing a movie theater building is generally going to provide you with nominal value,” he said.
State governments have begun allowing some theaters to reopen, but at a limited capacity so as to adhere to social-distancing guidelines. The nation’s top three theater chains— AMC Entertainment Holding Inc., Cineworld Group PLC’s Regal Entertainment Group and Cinemark Holdings Inc. —have been closed since March and are eyeing a late-June or early-July reopening, likely at reduced capacities. All three companies have furloughed employees, and analysts and executives say permanent closures are likely.
The number of theaters has fallen to about 5,500 last year from 7,200 in 1996.
Tom Quinn, chief executive of independent label Neon, agreed that the pandemic could lead to underperforming theaters closing up shop for good, but still felt confident in the long-term prospects for the industry. “Cinema doesn’t exist without theaters.”
[This business looks like a disaster. I see that the Polson cinema is expanding to a 6-plex now.]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gone-with-the-wind-pandemic-threatens-to-reduce-movie-theaters-to-rubble-11590843601?mod=mhp
8. "A Low-Carb Strategy for Fighting the Pandemic’s Toll
Federal dietary guidelines don’t reflect the evidence that eating fewer carbohydrates can help to reduce obesity, diabetes and heart disease."
"The coronavirus has added a brutal exclamation point to America’s pervasive ill health. Americans with obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related diseases are about three times more likely to suffer worsened outcomes from Covid-19, including death. Had we flattened the still-rising curves of these conditions, it’s quite possible that our fight against the virus would today look very different.
To combat this and future pandemics, we need to talk about not only the masks that go over our mouths but the food that goes into them.
Pills and surgery can treat the symptoms of such conditions, but diet-related problems require diet-related solutions. The good news is that changes in diet can start to reverse these conditions in a matter of weeks. In one controlled trial at the University of Indiana involving 262 adults with Type 2 diabetes, 56% were able to reverse their diagnosis by following a very low-carbohydrate diet, with support from a mobile app, in just 10 weeks. The results of this continuing study have been sustained for two years, with more than half the study population remaining free of a diabetes diagnosis.
Other studies have found that dietary changes can rapidly and substantially improve cardiovascular risk factors, including conditions like hypertension that are major risk factors for worsened Covid-19 outcomes. A 2011 study in the journal Obesity on 300 clinic patients eating a very low-carbohydrate diet saw blood pressure quickly drop and remain low for years. And a 2014 trial on 148 subjects, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found a low-carb diet to be “more effective for weight loss and cardiovascular risk factor reduction” than a low-fat control diet at the end of the 1-year experiment."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-low-carb-strategy-for-fighting-the-pandemics-toll-11590811260?mod=mhp
9. "Remote Work Could Spark Housing Boom in Suburbs, Smaller Cities
Online real-estate platforms are reporting increased buyer demand as remote-work culture spreads, but whether they will find sellers remains an open question"
"The rise of remote working could empower renters in places like New York City and San Francisco to finally buy homes—just not necessarily in those cities.
Transactions have plummeted globally as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Global real-estate tech strategist Mike DelPrete says short-lived transaction declines of as much as 90% have been observed in cities in China, South Korea and Italy at the height of the spread.
In the U.S., Redfin says the volume of newly listed homes declined by as much as 50% from a year earlier the week before Easter. All this has set up some gloomy forecasts for the balance of the year. In April, Fannie Mae projected home sales would fall by nearly 15% in 2020 nationwide, largely driven by rising unemployment.
Facebook has joined companies including Twitter and Square in saying it will begin allowing select employees to work remotely full time, expecting 50% of its workforce to be remote within five to 10 years. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said about 75% of his employees expressed some interest in moving to a different city if they could work remotely.
Myriad large corporations are considering permanent shifts in workers’ location. Columbus, Ohio-based insurance company Nationwide has announced a permanent transition to a hybrid work model for many employees. Even investment banks with big Midtown Manhattan offices such as Barclays have signaled long-term changes to location strategy.
Despite the allure of major cities for younger workers, it isn’t too surprising that some would want to branch out if given the chance. Younger generations have been buying homes at lower rates than their predecessors. While the overall homeownership rate in the U.S. last year was more than 64%, less than 37% of people under the age of 35 owned homes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That is down from highs of nearly 44% and an average of 39% for that age group over the past three decades. In places like the Bay Area, prices have soared to the point that even many in the upper echelon of earners are priced out.
Zillow’s chief economist, Svenja Gudell, says she doesn’t expect residents to cut the cord entirely from their cities, but that they may opt for an “extension cord” into the suburbs where they can get more space, more outdoor areas and, of course, a home office.
Counterintuitively, data show prices aren’t likely to ease much despite a recession. Zillow has predicted a drop of just 2% to 3% in home prices through the end of the year from prepandemic levels. As of April, Fannie Mae was predicting the median existing home price to rise 1% year over year. In this case, increased demand in small cities and suburban areas could offset potential price declines in urban areas."
'https://www.wsj.com/articles/remote-work-could-spark-housing-boom-in-suburbs-smaller-cities-11590843600?mod=mhp
10. "A Mile-Long Line for Free Food in Geneva, One of World’s Richest Cities
The Swiss city is best known for bankers, watchmakers and U.N. officials. But the virus has forced thousands from Geneva’s underclass to line up for hours for food aid."
"By early afternoon last Saturday, nearly 3,000 residents of Geneva, one of the world’s richest cities, had filtered through the stadium to receive a food parcel worth about $25. Some carried babies. Some were in wheelchairs. Some had waited for more than six hours.
In medical terms, Geneva has not been as gripped by the coronavirus crisis as other areas of Western Europe. In the city and its surrounding suburbs, fewer than 300 residents have died in a population of half a million.
But in economic terms the crisis has been ruinous for Geneva’s underclass — the undocumented and underpaid workers often forgotten about in a city better known for its bankers, watchmakers and U.N. officials.
Thousands of people working in the shadows of the Swiss economy lost their jobs overnight in March, as hotels, restaurants and families fired their undocumented cleaners and maids in response to a lockdown enforced by the central Swiss government.
Unable to draw on state support, most were then forced to rely on charity to survive. Ultimately, that demand led volunteers and city officials to set up a weekly food bank at the ice-hockey stadium near the river.
A group of seasoned activists first spotted Geneva’s need for the food aid. In late March, campaigners from Caravane De Solidarité, a group originally founded in response to the 2015 refugee crisis, began handing out food in the street.
But that led to the arrest of one of the group’s leaders, for flouting social distancing regulations.
After a public backlash, the city authorities stepped in, permitting several groups to distribute food from several disused schools. But as the lines outside the schools kept lengthening, it was clear a bigger venue was needed.
So in early May, city officials allowed the volunteers to base themselves at the Patinoire des Vernets, an ice rink just outside the city center.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/world/europe/geneva-coronavirus-reopening.html
Economic output in Brazil, Turkey and India is expected to fall this year, reversing historic run in growth"
"Brazil’s economy shrank during the first three months of this year. Turkey’s economy slowed, and India’s yearly output posted its slowest growth in 11 years.
Economic results released on Friday in all three countries highlight the struggles of many developing-world economies even before the coronavirus pandemic caused governments to order lockdowns in late March that have since cost hundreds of millions their jobs.
In India, the economy mustered 3.1% growth from January to March compared with the year-ago period. For its fiscal year ended March 31, the economy grew at its weakest rate in 11 years, 4.2%.
But growth in India and Turkey during the first months of this year shouldn’t be mistaken for resilience in the face of the pandemic, economists said. Since lockdown measures only came in the last week of March, the impact of the pandemic won’t turn up until the second quarter figures are released.
Economic output in all three countries is expected to decline this year, reversing a historic run in economic growth across much of the developing world. Both India and Brazil, the world’s fifth and ninth largest economies, will likely have their worst economic performance on record.
For the first time ever, all the world’s economies are going through a completely synchronized contraction, says Dilip Ratha, lead economist at the World Bank’s migration and remittances unit.
“The crisis propagated rapidly, coming from lockdowns all over the world, cities big and small, factories, agricultural farms. The extent of the crisis is unprecedented,” he said.
Other big emerging markets will get hit even worse. Mexico’s economic output during the first quarter declined 1.2% from the last three months of 2019, and 1.4% compared with the year-ago period, according to data released earlier this week. The full-year decline is expected to be a historic 9%, according to Mexican brokerage Citibanamex.
For a country like India, economic indicators are pointing to lasting damage to the economy. India’s unemployment has surged to more than 25% as a result of the shutdown of the economy, according to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a private data provider.
“They’re unleashing the economy while the pandemic is getting worse, so it looks like we’ll return to quarantines again later this year,” said André Perfeito, chief economist at the Necton brokerage in São Paulo. “Investment is going to collapse, and consumer spending will be bad again.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/economic-fallout-from-coronavirus-begins-across-developing-world-11590779991?mod=hp_lead_pos10
2. "Lockdowns vs. the Vulnerable
A strategy that ignores trade-offs and the dimension of time badly served coronavirus victims."
"It was obvious back when experts were anticipating the Wuhan virus’s arrival that protecting the elderly and medically vulnerable should be the highest priority. How this became let’s-shut-down-everything will be a puzzle for archaeologists of popular and political hysteria. We don’t give up driving because an 85-year-old might be crossing the street. We find better ways to help.
Polls in which subjects are asked to choose between the virus and somebody else’s job are of no guidance to politics and policy. At the same time, I’m aware that many healthy old people who assumed they had five or 10 or 15 years of life left now are understandably terrified.
The shutdowns appear to have provided no benefit to the 40% of coronavirus fatalities who were infected in nursing homes. At the same time, it should be sayable that most Americans have less to lose from the virus than they do from the shutdowns. Not all Americans are situated the same; they have different interests. We have a political system, fundamentally, for this reason.
The challenge of our civil liberties is real and can’t be wished away. On this rock is likely to founder any test-trace-isolate panacea, requiring involuntary quarantine. And yet if testing were widely and cheaply available we could, without coercion, take advantage of what we’ve been learning about superspreaders—the 10% who cause perhaps 80% of transmission. If Americans knew they had Covid rather than a common cold, most would voluntarily take steps not to spread it.
These experiments are in too early a stage for some of the absurd pronouncements being made. Take the U.S.-Sweden comparison. The U.S. shutdowns have been patchy: Lots of people and places already have been living under restrictions more Sweden-like than New York City-like. Now, with the majority of their publics still uninfected, countries everywhere are reopening—i.e., becoming Swedish. The only conclusion available now is that the Swedes were right: The lockdowns were not sustainable.
We have paid a huge price for our media being unable to frame the virus as a problem with a time dimension and one necessitating trade-offs. Now come the Ministry of Truth-style flip-flops from major press outlets, announcing in headlines that the virus might be here permanently and we might have to adopt cost-benefit learning to live with it.
All these places, to varying degrees, were caught unawares by an epidemic that had been bubbling for weeks before exploding on their local hospitals. To an alarming extent, their medical systems transmitted the virus to the most vulnerable.
A new and occasionally deadly pathogen can’t come into the world without having an impact on the mortality tables. We are not separate from nature. If U.S. Covid deaths reach 200,000 this year (up from today’s 100,000), that will represent a 7% increase in mortality concentrated mostly among the elderly and those in poor health. Under battlefield conditions, we are rapidly learning how to treat these people to give them their best chance of survival. Unless we ruin the economy on which all such material progress depends, the broad trend toward increased human well-being and longer life expectancy may well resume in 2021.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/lockdowns-vs-the-vulnerable-11590791538?mod=hp_opin_pos_3
3. "Its coronavirus caseload soaring, India is reopening anyway
Worried for its economy, India loosened tough restrictions and may lift them entirely this weekend. But infection numbers are climbing fast."
"Its coronavirus cases are skyrocketing, putting it among the world’s most worrisome pandemic zones in recent weeks. Nonetheless, India is reopening, lifting its lockdown at what experts fear may be the worst time.
Migrant workers are becoming infected at an alarmingly high rate, leading to fresh outbreaks in villages across northern India. Public hospitals in Mumbai are so overwhelmed that patients have taken to sleeping on cardboard in the hallways.
Doctors fear that the lockdown, which started over two months ago, has been eased too soon, after slowing the virus but failing to flatten the new-case curve as effectively as other nations have. If India does not find a way to curb the virus in high-risk states, epidemiologists project that its total caseload could approach a million within several weeks.
“From a public health point of view, I do think the lockdown has brought the disease under control,” he said. “But of course, as restrictions have lifted in the last week or 10 days, the number of cases has started to rise quickly.”
At first, India moved aggressively to contain the coronavirus. In late March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi implemented one of the most severe lockdowns anywhere, ordering all Indians to stay inside, halting transportation and closing most businesses.
But the lockdown was brutally hard on the poorest Indians and those who rely on day labor to survive. And the country’s economy, which had already been ailing, was sustaining deep wounds. Government officials began lifting some restrictions last month, hoping to ease the suffering, and the lockdown may end entirely as soon as Sunday, if Mr. Modi does not decide to extend it.
Infections are rising quickly now, however, with outbreaks in some states that had reported few cases. This month, India’s doubling rate for new infections averaged about 12 days, putting it on par with countries of high concern like Brazil.
That number compares poorly to those of other nations where stay-at-home orders were imposed. In the United States, the doubling rate improved from around 26 days at the start of May to about 50 days on Monday. Italy crossed the 100-day mark early this month.
But in India, a nation of 1.3 billion people, locking down has posed different challenges than in many Western societies. Its metro areas are among the world’s densest, with millions living in packed slums, sometimes sleeping eight to a room.
Almost half of India’s cases have been traced to just four cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Ahmedabad.
Testing has also been severely restricted, making it tough to gauge the scope of the outbreak. India has administered only two tests for every 1,000 people, one of the lowest ratios among the world’s worst-afflicted countries.
But he said the lockdown could not go on forever. Around 122 million Indians lost their jobs in April, according to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a leading business analytics company. Some industries have teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.
If the lockdown continues, Mr. Gupta said, “We will be devastated economically.”
At this point, Mr. Rizvi said, it appeared there was no turning back.
“Freedom comes at a price, and people seem to be ready to pay,” he said. “Even if more people die now, it would be difficult to send us back into isolation.”
Read in The New York Times: https://apple.news/AaXp9pf_OSpa-N1Pu1Hkv7Q
no paywall
4. "Justice Department Says Maine's 2-Week Quarantine Rule Discriminates Against Tourists
Many but not all out-of-state visitors were told to self-quarantine because of the coronavirus. The Justice Department says that is unconstitutional. Some other states have the same rule."
"The U.S. Department of Justice is siding with campground and restaurant owners in Maine who sued the state over a two-week self-quarantine policy for out-of-state visitors.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills imposed the restriction as part the state's response to the ongoing pandemic. Several other states have imposed similar measures.
In a brief filed on behalf of Bayley's Campground in Scarborough and other plaintiffs, attorneys with the Department of Justice, including the U.S. attorney for Maine, said the government is getting involved because of its "compelling interest in protecting the public and citizens' constitutional right to be free from unjustified discrimination on the basis of state residency."
In this case, the federal attorneys said Maine has likely exceeded the Constitution's limits by discriminating between Mainers and people from out of state, with respect to the ability to patronize campgrounds and recreational vehicle parks.
The government's statement noted that the order doesn't require all nonresidents to go into quarantine. "As far as public safety goes, it is unclear why out-of-state residents may enter Maine to engage in any 'legal, business, professional, environmental permitting and insurance services,' for example, but not to patronize a campground or RV park. ... If Maine wants to prevent the spread of COVID-19, one would think it would start by preventing outsiders from attending a boardroom meeting, not from pitching a tent."
On Friday, the judge rejected a motion for a preliminary injunction against the governor's orders."
Read in NPR: https://apple.news/AppYBcTBmTzuxn6XnYy9svw
5. "Supreme Court votes 5-4 to let California restrict attendance at religious services amid pandemic
With a deciding vote from Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court late Friday allowed Gov. Gavin Newsom to restrict attendance at religious services in California to 25% of the capacity of a house of worship because of the coronavirus."
"With a deciding vote from Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court late Friday allowed Gov. Gavin Newsom to restrict attendance at religious services in California to 25% of the capacity of a house of worship because of the coronavirus.
The justices voted 5-4 to reject a challenge by a Pentecostal church in Chula Vista (San Diego County) and its bishop, who claimed the state was discriminating against religious institutions by setting undue limits on attendance.
The standards, in effect for 21 days, discourage such activities as sharing prayer books and ritual items as well as personal contact and congregational singing, all of which can spread the coronavirus.
Roberts joined the court’s more liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, in denying an injunction sought by the South Bay United Pentecostal Church. Writing only for himself, the chief justice said detailed decisions on health-related issues should generally be left to “politically accountable” state officials unless they clearly violate a constitutional right such as religious freedom. [This is where I think Roberts was wrong. This health related issue bumped up against the Bill of Rights.]
Dissenting Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected Roberts’ comparison and said Newsom was restricting houses of worship more severely than businesses, in violation of religious freedom.
“Comparable secular businesses are not subject to a 25% occupancy cap, including factories, offices, supermarkets, restaurants, retail stores, pharmacies, shopping malls, pet grooming shops, bookstores, florists, hair salons, and cannabis dispensaries,” Kavanaugh said.
Noting that the church had agreed to require social distancing and hygiene measures if allowed to fully open its doors, Kavanaugh asked, “Why can someone safely walk down a grocery store aisle but not a pew?” Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined his dissent, while Justice Samuel Alito dissented for unstated reasons."
Read in San Francisco Chronicle: https://apple.news/ASSP5P1q-QRymmWk81JEPeA
6. "These destinations will basically pay you to visit during the pandemic
From covering flight costs to free attractions, some places are offering incentives to entice tourists to visit again."
"But a few countries and tourist-heavy destinations have laid out plans to entice travelers to visit, even as health officials still advise against it.
In Las Vegas, a hotel CEO and developer announced a giveaway of 1,000 free flights to the gambling capital as the city eyes reopening in early June. Derek Stevens, who owns two hotel-casinos, the D Las Vegas and the Golden Gate, wrote that the promotion was intended to help stimulate tourism and to remind travelers of the fun they could have in the city.
In the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, government leaders have pledged to cover all costs for any traveler who tests positive for the coronavirus while on vacation, according to the Associated Press. In a letter sent out to governments, airlines and tour operators, Cypriot officials said they would cover “lodging, food, drink and medication for covid-19 patients and their families” while on the island.
Tourism accounts for 13 percent of Cyprus’s economy, according to the AP, and with one of the lowest coronavirus ratios per capita in Europe, tourism ministers plan to restart international air travel on June 9.
As restrictions lift among many European countries, Cyprus will require visitors to complete a “COVID-19 Traveler Declaration” detailing their travel up to 14 days before. Visitors will also have to present a testing certificate before boarding an aircraft, wear masks while on the flight and be subject to random temperature checks throughout the stay.
[I don't think US people can get to Cyrus yet.]
Other economies that have been affected by the loss of tourism are taking measures to boost the depleted industry worldwide. In Japan, the country saw a 99.9 percent drop in visitors during April compared to last year, according to government data. Officials have developed a program to subsidize travel expenses that would inject $12.5 billion into the Japanese economy beginning in July.
The program, according to tourism leaders, would cover travel expenses while in the country in the form of discounts and vouchers to be used at local shops and restaurants in an effort to encourage tourist exploration. Travelers who make bookings through Japanese travel agencies or directly with hotels and traditional ryokan inns would be eligible for the subsidies.
Read in The Washington Post: https://apple.news/ATRhtYkovQUeXrBi0qztdlw no paywall
7. "Gone With the Wind: Pandemic Threatens to Reduce Movie Theaters to Rubble
Closed cinemas tend to be tough to repurpose because of their slanted floors and multiple rooms; ‘theaters are single-purpose buildings’"
"If your local movie theater succumbs to the coronavirus crisis, the coming attraction might be a bulldozer.
The theater industry was struggling before the pandemic with high fixed costs, mounting debt and stagnating attendance as in-home streaming options proliferated. But the lockdown has added to those pressures by halting incoming revenue for months and creating uncertainty over when, and if, customers will feel comfortable returning to cinemas.
The situation is seen leading to many theater closures, say analysts and industry veterans, creating the problem of what to do with the buildings once the curtain goes down for good. According to theater owners and real-estate experts, cinemas tend to be tough properties to move because the sloped floors and multiple rooms make them difficult to repurpose, especially in a commercial property market expected to get crowded with closed retailers, small businesses and offices.
“Movie theaters are single-purpose buildings,” said Paul Glantz, co-founder of theater chain Emagine Entertainment Inc., which operates more than 20 locations throughout the Midwest. Mr. Glantz said his company could face bankruptcy—which would mean the loss of all his theaters—if reduced-capacity restrictions last too long.
“Repurposing a movie theater building is generally going to provide you with nominal value,” he said.
State governments have begun allowing some theaters to reopen, but at a limited capacity so as to adhere to social-distancing guidelines. The nation’s top three theater chains— AMC Entertainment Holding Inc., Cineworld Group PLC’s Regal Entertainment Group and Cinemark Holdings Inc. —have been closed since March and are eyeing a late-June or early-July reopening, likely at reduced capacities. All three companies have furloughed employees, and analysts and executives say permanent closures are likely.
The number of theaters has fallen to about 5,500 last year from 7,200 in 1996.
Tom Quinn, chief executive of independent label Neon, agreed that the pandemic could lead to underperforming theaters closing up shop for good, but still felt confident in the long-term prospects for the industry. “Cinema doesn’t exist without theaters.”
[This business looks like a disaster. I see that the Polson cinema is expanding to a 6-plex now.]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gone-with-the-wind-pandemic-threatens-to-reduce-movie-theaters-to-rubble-11590843601?mod=mhp
8. "A Low-Carb Strategy for Fighting the Pandemic’s Toll
Federal dietary guidelines don’t reflect the evidence that eating fewer carbohydrates can help to reduce obesity, diabetes and heart disease."
"The coronavirus has added a brutal exclamation point to America’s pervasive ill health. Americans with obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related diseases are about three times more likely to suffer worsened outcomes from Covid-19, including death. Had we flattened the still-rising curves of these conditions, it’s quite possible that our fight against the virus would today look very different.
To combat this and future pandemics, we need to talk about not only the masks that go over our mouths but the food that goes into them.
Pills and surgery can treat the symptoms of such conditions, but diet-related problems require diet-related solutions. The good news is that changes in diet can start to reverse these conditions in a matter of weeks. In one controlled trial at the University of Indiana involving 262 adults with Type 2 diabetes, 56% were able to reverse their diagnosis by following a very low-carbohydrate diet, with support from a mobile app, in just 10 weeks. The results of this continuing study have been sustained for two years, with more than half the study population remaining free of a diabetes diagnosis.
Other studies have found that dietary changes can rapidly and substantially improve cardiovascular risk factors, including conditions like hypertension that are major risk factors for worsened Covid-19 outcomes. A 2011 study in the journal Obesity on 300 clinic patients eating a very low-carbohydrate diet saw blood pressure quickly drop and remain low for years. And a 2014 trial on 148 subjects, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found a low-carb diet to be “more effective for weight loss and cardiovascular risk factor reduction” than a low-fat control diet at the end of the 1-year experiment."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-low-carb-strategy-for-fighting-the-pandemics-toll-11590811260?mod=mhp
9. "Remote Work Could Spark Housing Boom in Suburbs, Smaller Cities
Online real-estate platforms are reporting increased buyer demand as remote-work culture spreads, but whether they will find sellers remains an open question"
"The rise of remote working could empower renters in places like New York City and San Francisco to finally buy homes—just not necessarily in those cities.
Transactions have plummeted globally as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Global real-estate tech strategist Mike DelPrete says short-lived transaction declines of as much as 90% have been observed in cities in China, South Korea and Italy at the height of the spread.
In the U.S., Redfin says the volume of newly listed homes declined by as much as 50% from a year earlier the week before Easter. All this has set up some gloomy forecasts for the balance of the year. In April, Fannie Mae projected home sales would fall by nearly 15% in 2020 nationwide, largely driven by rising unemployment.
Facebook has joined companies including Twitter and Square in saying it will begin allowing select employees to work remotely full time, expecting 50% of its workforce to be remote within five to 10 years. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said about 75% of his employees expressed some interest in moving to a different city if they could work remotely.
Myriad large corporations are considering permanent shifts in workers’ location. Columbus, Ohio-based insurance company Nationwide has announced a permanent transition to a hybrid work model for many employees. Even investment banks with big Midtown Manhattan offices such as Barclays have signaled long-term changes to location strategy.
Despite the allure of major cities for younger workers, it isn’t too surprising that some would want to branch out if given the chance. Younger generations have been buying homes at lower rates than their predecessors. While the overall homeownership rate in the U.S. last year was more than 64%, less than 37% of people under the age of 35 owned homes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That is down from highs of nearly 44% and an average of 39% for that age group over the past three decades. In places like the Bay Area, prices have soared to the point that even many in the upper echelon of earners are priced out.
Zillow’s chief economist, Svenja Gudell, says she doesn’t expect residents to cut the cord entirely from their cities, but that they may opt for an “extension cord” into the suburbs where they can get more space, more outdoor areas and, of course, a home office.
Counterintuitively, data show prices aren’t likely to ease much despite a recession. Zillow has predicted a drop of just 2% to 3% in home prices through the end of the year from prepandemic levels. As of April, Fannie Mae was predicting the median existing home price to rise 1% year over year. In this case, increased demand in small cities and suburban areas could offset potential price declines in urban areas."
'https://www.wsj.com/articles/remote-work-could-spark-housing-boom-in-suburbs-smaller-cities-11590843600?mod=mhp
10. "A Mile-Long Line for Free Food in Geneva, One of World’s Richest Cities
The Swiss city is best known for bankers, watchmakers and U.N. officials. But the virus has forced thousands from Geneva’s underclass to line up for hours for food aid."
"By early afternoon last Saturday, nearly 3,000 residents of Geneva, one of the world’s richest cities, had filtered through the stadium to receive a food parcel worth about $25. Some carried babies. Some were in wheelchairs. Some had waited for more than six hours.
In medical terms, Geneva has not been as gripped by the coronavirus crisis as other areas of Western Europe. In the city and its surrounding suburbs, fewer than 300 residents have died in a population of half a million.
But in economic terms the crisis has been ruinous for Geneva’s underclass — the undocumented and underpaid workers often forgotten about in a city better known for its bankers, watchmakers and U.N. officials.
Thousands of people working in the shadows of the Swiss economy lost their jobs overnight in March, as hotels, restaurants and families fired their undocumented cleaners and maids in response to a lockdown enforced by the central Swiss government.
Unable to draw on state support, most were then forced to rely on charity to survive. Ultimately, that demand led volunteers and city officials to set up a weekly food bank at the ice-hockey stadium near the river.
A group of seasoned activists first spotted Geneva’s need for the food aid. In late March, campaigners from Caravane De Solidarité, a group originally founded in response to the 2015 refugee crisis, began handing out food in the street.
But that led to the arrest of one of the group’s leaders, for flouting social distancing regulations.
After a public backlash, the city authorities stepped in, permitting several groups to distribute food from several disused schools. But as the lines outside the schools kept lengthening, it was clear a bigger venue was needed.
So in early May, city officials allowed the volunteers to base themselves at the Patinoire des Vernets, an ice rink just outside the city center.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/world/europe/geneva-coronavirus-reopening.html
