Elvis Presley’s Graceland says it will reopen Thursday after it shut down tours and exhibits due to the new coronavirus outbreak.The tourist attraction in Memphis, Tennessee, said Sunday that it has adjusted its tours, and restaurant and retail operations, since it closed in March. The Memphis tourist attraction is centered on the life and career of the late rock n’ roll icon. It annually attracts about 500,000 visitors, including international travelers.Graceland said in a news release that it is reducing tours of Presley’s former home-turned-museum to 25% capacity, requiring employees and encouraging visitors to wear face masks, and limiting restaurant capacities to 50%. Temperature checks for guests and employees will be implemented and hand sanitizing stations are being installed, Graceland said.”We are helping Memphis and Tennessee to get back to some sense of normality,” said Joel Weinshanker, managing partner of Graceland Holdings, in a statement.
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Month: May 2020
US Military’s Mystery Space Plane Rockets Back into Orbit
The U.S. military’s mystery space plane rocketed into orbit again Sunday, this time with an extra load of science experiments.It’s the sixth flight of an X-37B, a solar-powered plane that’s flown by remote control without a crew.Officials aren’t saying how long the spacecraft will remain in orbit this time or the purpose of the mission. But a senior vice president for X-37B developer Boeing, Jim Chilton, noted each mission has been progressively longer.The previous mission lasted a record two years, with a touchdown shrouded in darkness at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center last year.The winged spacecraft resembles NASA’s old shuttles, but is just one-quarter the size at 29 feet (9 meters) long. The one just launched features an extra compartment for experiments, including several for NASA and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, making it the biggest science load yet for an X-37B.The Air Force has two of these reusable space planes. Their home base is a former space shuttle hangar at Kennedy.“You could say that the X-37B stands on the shoulders of the space shuttle,” Chilton said. “From a common shape to a common home.” Since the first flight in 2010, the secretive space planes had logged a combined 2,865 days in orbit as of Sunday.“If you add up all the missions, just under eight years in orbit and 1 billion miles, so a lot of traveling by this machine,” Chilton said during the launch broadcast.Delayed a day by bad weather, this marked just the second rocket launch for the newly established Space Force. In March, it hoisted a national security satellite.United Launch Alliance, which provided the Atlas V rocket, declared success 1 1/2 hours after liftoff. It dedicated Sunday’s launch to the health care workers and others who are working on the front lines of the pandemic.The company said it followed health advice for the launch. Many of the flight controllers wore masks and were spread out.Precautions were less evident along area causeways, where spectators parked to watch the Atlas soar. Thick, low clouds spoiled the show. The Cape Canaveral Air Force Station has an exceptionally fast turnaround for its next launch.Before dawn Tuesday, SpaceX will attempt to launch another batch of its Starlink satellites for global internet service. It will be SpaceX’s last flight before its first astronaut launch, scheduled for May 27 from next-door Kennedy Space Center.
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Thailand Malls Reopen, with Temperatures Taken, Masks Worn
Thais streamed into shopping malls on Sunday, once again enjoying their air-conditioned oases as the country eased one of the restrictions imposed to fight the coronavirus.The government allowed malls to reopen after the number of new virus cases in Thailand dwindled to single digits for all but one day over more than two weeks. Malls had been closed since March.Student Baiplu Chaonuam expressed her relief at returning to a Bangkok mall. “I started to get used to staying home, but to be able to come back out and look around at things is an improvement from staying in,” she said.The mall experience, however, may not be as carefree as it was before the virus, with measures instituted to reduce the danger that the malls will become new infection hotspots.Thermal scanners check temperatures for signs of fever and each shopper must pass through a disinfectant mist at every entrance. Everyone must wear a mask and keep it on throughout their stay. No crowding on the escalators, as people must keep a two-step distance from those in front of them.More controversially, shoppers must use their smartphones to register electronically when entering and leaving a mall, and when entering and leaving individual stores. If someone later falls ill, this stored data will be used to trace and contact anyone who may have been in contact with them at the mall.Contact tracing apps have been adopted in many countries, raising concerns among privacy advocates. But the Thai government says the data will be used only for public health purposes.Lines formed outside luxury brand stores at Bangkok’s upmarket Siam Paragon mall on Sunday as staff enforced the new entry procedures. Window-shopping families strolled down concourses, occasionally pausing to wash their hands with gel from the many dispensers.“To be able to go out again could help people relax,” said one mall goer, Jariya Seriyothin. “But we still have to be careful when we come out and not let all these easing measures make us forget about everything.”The coronavirus crisis has hit the already-struggling Thai economy hard. Millions of people have been laid off, with little immediate prospect of a return to work for many of them. The reopening of the malls at least brings some relief to one part of the retail sector. The government will watch to see whether the infection rate remains low before deciding on the next phase of its plan to restore normality. It is treading carefully, announcing Saturday that it was extending to the end of June a ban on the arrival of international passenger flights.Earlier this month, the government reopened public parks, which had been closed as part of anti-virus measures.Thai health authorities announced three new virus cases on Sunday, bringing the total to 3,028, including 56 deaths.
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Phyllis George, Female Sportscasting Pioneer, Dies at 70
Phyllis George, the former Miss America who became a female sportscasting pioneer on CBS’s “The NFL Today,” has died. She was 70.A family spokesperson said George died Thursday at a Lexington hospital after a long fight with a blood disorder.Her children, Lincoln Tyler George Brown and CNN White House correspondent Pamela Ashley Brown, released a joint statement, saying:”For many, Mom was known by her incredible accomplishments as the pioneering female sportscaster, 50th Miss America and first lady. But this was all before we were born and never how we viewed Mom. To us, she was the most incredible mother we could ever ask for, and it is all of the defining qualities the public never saw, especially against the winds of adversity, that symbolize how extraordinary she is more than anything else. The beauty so many recognized on the outside was a mere fraction of her internal beauty, only to be outdone by an unwavering spirit that allowed her to persevere against all the odds.”Miss America in 1971, George got into television in 1974 at CBS on “Candid Camera” and joined Brent Musburger and Irv Cross in 1975 on “The NFL Today.” Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder later was added to the cast.”Phyllis George was special. Her smile lit up millions of homes for the NFL Today,” Musburger tweeted. “Phyllis didn’t receive nearly enough credit for opening the sports broadcasting door for the dozens of talented women who took her lead and soared.”George worked on “The NFL Today” until 1984 and also covered horse racing. She hosted the entertainment show “People” and later co-anchored the “CBS Morning News.”George was briefly married to Hollywood producer Robert Evans in the mid-1970s and to John Y. Brown Jr. from 1979-98. Brown owned Kentucky Fried Chicken and the NBA’s Boston Celtics and served as the governor of Kentucky.”Phyllis was a great asset to Kentucky,” Brown told the Louisville Courier-Journal. “We had a great partnership. I think we enjoyed every single day.”From Denton, Texas, George attended the University of North Texas for three years, then went to Texas Christian University after earning a scholarship as Miss Texas in 1970.”A true pioneer who approached her job with enthusiasm, empathy and humor,” ESPN broadcaster Hannah Storm tweeted. “She was herself-charming and funny .. helped her audiences connect with some of the great sports figures of the day.”
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US Prohibition at 100: The Failed Attempt to Ban Alcohol
The coronavirus pandemic lockdowns forced many bars and nightclubs across the United States to stand empty with their doors locked and chairs upside down on tables.One hundred years ago, taverns in the U.S. were also locked down and desolate when the Volstead Act, better known as Prohibition, in 1920 became the law of the land, making it a crime to manufacture, sell or transport alcohol.The drive to outlaw demon rum in the U.S. began in the 1850s. Churchwomen howled that whiskey was turning men into drunkards and barflies. Drink leads to violence and poverty and destroys families, they said. Temperance movements, anti-saloon leagues and ladies storming into taverns to destroy bottles of whiskey grew from being an annoyance for the bartender into a legitimate political movement.“Prohibition was largely driven by a feeling among certain portions of the population, although no evidence that it was ever nearly a majority, that alcohol was a bad thing and should be eradicated from American life,” said Daniel Okrent, The New York Times best-selling author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.Okrent said brewers and distillers campaigned hard to defeat anti-alcohol politicians, popularly known as “drys,” even to the point of rigging elections. But, he said, the two industries were actually bitter enemies. “The brewers say distillers are the ones who should be stopped distributing whiskey … beer, they said, was healthy. It was liquid bread. The distillers despised the brewers for making that separation. So, they really could not coordinate their activities together,” Okrent said.FILE – In this May 15, 1929, photo, authorities unload cases of whiskey crates labeled as green tomatoes from a refrigerator car in Washington, D.C.Drinking did drop in the United States in the first years of prohibition, but flouting the law soon became a way of life in the 1920s. Saloons known as speakeasies cropped up by the hundreds in large cities. Bathtubs were used for other purposes than to scrub off grime and became huge mixing bowls for home brews – sometimes using gasoline and wood alcohol with fatal results. Big overcoats and high boots suddenly became fashionable because they could easily conceal flasks, giving birth to the term “bootlegger.” People started walking with canes because the hollow ones could be filled with whiskey.Anyone caught taking a drink immediately claimed the liquid was for “medicinal purposes.” Many of the bootleggers who owned speakeasies and bought and sold whiskey were deeply involved in organized crime. Al Capone, Bugs Moran and Dutch Schultz became household names and legends, and extremely rich. The number of criminals involved in bootlegging outnumbered the federal agents who gamely tried to enforce the law.Okrent said it wasn’t long before Prohibition became a huge joke. “Anybody could get a drink any time of the day,” he said. “You could walk in at 10 in the morning get a drink. A 15-year-old could buy a drink. There was no regulatory environment. H.L. Mencken said to get a drink in Baltimore was very difficult unless you knew a judge or a cop.”FILE – This June 12, 1924, photo shows bottles of Scotch whiskey smuggled in hollowed-out loaves of bread; location unknown.And foreign visitors to the United States regarded Prohibition as absurd.“Winston Churchill — and you can imagine what he thought of Prohibition — came to the U.S. and toured the West in the mid- to late 1920s. He entered in Washington state, and the first person who gave him illegal liquor when he got into the U.S. was a Customs official. He traveled down the coast with his son, Randolph, and had no trouble finding alcohol,” Okrent said.He said the Great Depression is what eventually killed Prohibition. “The government was running on fumes, and people said, ‘One way we can get some revenue back is to bring back the tax on legal alcohol.’”When President Herbert Hoover was introduced at baseball’s 1931 World Series, the thirsty fans welcomed him with loud boos and chants of “We want beer.”Hoover was a dry. Franklin Roosevelt was a wet, and when he won the 1932 presidential election over Hoover, it was only a matter of time before Prohibition was finished. The 21st Amendment overturned the 18th, and drinking became legal again in the U.S. in December 1933.Today’s regulatory regime on alcohol sales and consumption is a hangover from Prohibition, including taxes, age limits, mandatory closing hours for bars and restrictions against opening a tavern near a church or school.Okrent said the irony is that it is harder to get a drink these days, when it is legal, than it was in the 1920s when it was not.
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Facebook Data Help Track COVID-19 Spread
Facebook likely knows a lot about you already. So would you fill out a survey on the social media site about how you are feeling today?What if that information could help researchers and officials navigate the current pandemic? If it meant local businesses, parks and beaches might reopen sooner rather than later, would that make a difference?That’s the idea behind several efforts to tap into people’s social media and internet use to find hot spots and forecast outbreaks of the virus well before hospitals are inundated.As society begins to open up after months-long closures, government officials are looking for leading indicators — data that may forecast that an outbreak is coming — to help them make key decisions about what to open and when.One indicator is through a symptom survey created by Carnegie Mellon University researchers. The survey appears at the top of a person’s Facebook newsfeed and asks whether he or she has experienced COVID-19 symptoms including fever, cough and shortness of breath.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyThe survey is live globally through a partnership with the University of Maryland and is very active in the U.S.“We’re getting something like 150,000 responses a day,” said Laura McGorman, a Facebook policy lead.Carnegie Mellon researchers update the data daily on the university’s COVIDcast website. Visitors to the site can look at specific counties by date and by data set.“The real-time estimates we’ve derived correlate with the best available data on COVID-19 activity,” Ryan Tibshirani, co-leader of Carnegie Mellon’s COVID-19 Response Team, said in a statement.The information “gives us confidence that we may soon be able to give health care officials forecasts” several weeks into the future, he said.Map of changesFacebook is also sharing user mobility data with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, helping researchers create a map of daily changes in population movement by state and county. People using Facebook’s mobile app with the location history turned on contribute to this data.Policymakers can use this information to understand how communities are responding to physical distancing measures and whether additional measures may be needed.Researchers caution that datasets are merely another layer of information pointing to possible trends in the disease’s spread. They’re not conclusive on their own.“No matter where you are in the world, hopefully some aspect of our data can be useful in a response,” said Facebook’s McGorman.
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NASA Builds COVID Ventilator
Scientists around the world are working to battle the coronavirus – an effort that extends to a space-travel lab that worked overtime to help sick earthlings. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has This Week in Space.
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How Contact Tracers Could Help Control COVID-19
One August day in 2017, a 31-year-old man with a cough boarded a crowded minibus in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo.The man was dead before he could reach his destination.That touched off the most lethal outbreak of pneumonic plague in decades. By the end of November, more than 2,400 people had been infected and 209 had died.Basketball teams from around the Indian Ocean region were in Madagascar at the time for a championship tournament. A coach from the Seychelles died and a South African player fell ill. The risk of an international outbreak loomed.To stamp it out, health officials needed to break the chains of transmission: find the people who had come into contact with each infected individual and prevent them from spreading the disease to anyone else.It’s known as contact tracing. It’s the same task that experts now say the United States must dramatically increase as COVID-19 lockdowns loosen. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.COVID-19 infections will inevitably increase in the coming weeks, they say, and a work force must be standing by to stop new patients from rekindling a widespread outbreak. Tiny Madagascar’s experience could provide the U.S. and other countries with valuable lessons and insights.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
FILE – Red Cross volunteers talk to villagers about the plague outbreak, 30 miles west of Antananarivo, Madagascar, Oct. 16, 2017.So when the volunteers were called upon to become pneumonic plague contact tracers, the community already knew them and listened to them. People were willing to share information about who was at risk.Pneumonic plague is 100% fatal within days if left untreated. The community health volunteers delivered antibiotics that would prevent infection.Occasionally, though, people would not take them.”Fear, I think, was one of the biggest factors,” Yanulis said. People “did not know how to deal with that news” that they might have been exposed to a lethal disease.Health volunteers would “go up the chain” to deal with refusals, he added. They’d call in the head of the local health center, the village watch committee, and even the mayor to “basically talk it through” and “ultimately convince the person that it’s not just for your good, it’s also for the good of the community.”Then the volunteer would go back every day during the one-week course of antibiotics to make sure the person took them.The contact tracers were part of a coordinated effort from local, state and national officials, plus international partners, including the World Health Organization.”In 2½ months, we had a real public health success,” Yanulis said. New cases dropped sharply in October. On December 4, the WHO declared the outbreak contained.The same volunteers are “at the ready” to deal with COVID-19, he added. “In some cases they are already being oriented and trained.”While they are unpaid in Madagascar, community health workers are on government payrolls in Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi and other countries in Africa and elsewhere, Yanulis said.A medical worker walks past people lined up at Gotham Health East New York, a COVID-19 testing center, April 23, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.People skillsIn the United States, states, cities and counties are preparing to hire thousands of people to do the same kind of labor intensive, high-touch work that helped Madagascar contain its outbreak.They don’t need much education, Yanulis said. “It’s really about being someone who is comfortable going into the community.”Before COVID-19, much of the contact tracing U.S. health departments did was for sexually transmitted infections, which carry more of a stigma than the coronavirus infection.The process is basically the same, said Tim Heymans, a disease intervention specialist with the Minnesota Department of Health. When he calls a contact, the first question he asks is whether the person can speak privately. “When you show them that you’re trying to protect their privacy, I think that builds trust.”When he delivers the news, “they may be shocked at first or are upset or defensive.” Some get angry and don’t cooperate, but, he said, “most of the time within moments, they’re giving signs that they’re glad that we called and are happy for the advice we’re giving them on where they can go to get help with this.”For the most difficult cases, Heymans said, “we try to appeal to the person’s sense of the greater good and protecting people around them.” ‘Complicated and messy’COVID-19 contacts need to isolate themselves for 14 days, which can be a lot to ask.A person might be taking care of elderly relatives and young children. Staying at home risks spreading the infection to vulnerable family members, said Adriane Casalotti, governmental and public affairs chief at the National Association of County and City Health Officials.But “if they leave,” she asked, “who’s going to help pick up the slack?”Health departments may need to support people in quarantine with housing, food, medicine and even financial help.”People’s lives are complicated and messy,” she said. “So the public health response ends up being complicated and messy.”A smartphone app built for the state of Utah displaying coronavirus test sites. The app tracks symptoms and shares location data for contact tracing.Job opportunitiesWith states looking to hire thousands of contact tracers quickly, Johns Hopkins University has developed a five-hour online training course covering the basics of the disease, contact tracing and how it works, and some of the privacy and ethical issues involved.It also covers how to build rapport, “because ultimately, this is a program about connecting with people and helping support them to stop the spread,” said course instructor Emily Gurley at Johns Hopkins.Entry-level contact tracing jobs pay in the mid-$30,000 range, according to NACCHO’s Casalotti. The organization said Congress needs to provide $7.6 billion for health departments to hire at least 100,000 of them, plus another 10,000 supervisors and 1,600 epidemiologists.With tens of millions of people out of work, there’s no shortage of applicants. Massachusetts had 40,000 applicants for 1,000 positions, according to USA Today.Being out of work is just part of the surge of interest, Casalotti said. “I think a lot of people are stuck at home and they’re watching this all happen outside their windows and they want to help.”When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Casalotti noted, health departments had not recovered from steep budget and staffing cuts made in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.Given the economic devastation the pandemic is causing to state and local budgets, she is worried that history will repeat itself.”We’re actually really concerned, if this is anything like the 2008 recession, that local departments on the front lines of this response … will end up being in worse financial shape after coronavirus than they were before,” she said.
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US Moves to Cut Off Huawei From Global Chip Suppliers
The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, in an action ramping up tensions with China.The U.S. Commerce Department said it was amending an export rule to “strategically target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain U.S. software and technology.”The reaction from China was swift with a report saying it was ready to put U.S. companies on an “unreliable entity list,” as part of countermeasures in response to the new limits on Huawei, FILE – A security personnel stands near the logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd (TSMC) during an investor conference in Taipei, July 16, 2014.The rule change is a blow to Huawei, the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker, as well as to Taiwan’s Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, a major producer of chips for Huawei’s HiSilicon unit as well as mobile phone rivals Apple and Qualcomm. TMSC announced late Thursday it would build a $12 billion chip factory in Arizona.TSMC said Friday it is “working with outside counsels to conduct legal analysis and ensure a comprehensive examination and interpretation of these rules. We expect to have the assessment concluded before the effective date,” the company said, adding the “semiconductor industry supply chain is extremely complex, and is served by a broad collection of international suppliers.”Huawei, which needs semiconductors for its widely used smartphones and telecoms equipment, is at the heart of a battle for global technological dominance between the United States and China.Huawei, which has warned that the Chinese government would retaliate if the rule went into effect, did not immediately comment on Friday. U.S. stock market futures turned negative on the Reuters report.”The Chinese government will not just stand by and watch Huawei be slaughtered on the chopping board,” Huawei Chairman Eric Xu told reporters on March 31.The United States is trying to convince allies to exclude Huawei gear from next generation 5G networks on grounds its equipment could be used by China for spying. Huawei has repeatedly denied the claim.Huawei has continued to use U.S. software and technology to design semiconductors, the Commerce Department said, despite being placed on a U.S. economic blacklist in May 2019.FILE – A chip by Huawei’s subsidiary HiSilicon is displayed in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China, March 21, 2019.Under the rule change, foreign companies that use U.S. chipmaking equipment will be required to obtain a U.S. license before supplying certain chips to Huawei, or an affiliate like HiSilicon. The rule targets chips designed or custom-made for Huawei.In order for Huawei to continue to receive some chipsets or use some semiconductor designs tied to certain U.S. software and technology, it would need to receive licenses from the Commerce Department.National security concernsCommerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business “there has been a very highly technical loophole through which Huawei has been in able, in effect, to use U.S. technology with foreign fab producers.” Ross called the rule change a “highly tailored thing to try to correct that loophole.”Ross said in a written statement Huawei had “stepped-up efforts to undermine these national security-based restrictions.”The Commerce Department said the rule will allow wafers already in production to be shipped to Huawei as long as the shipments are complete within 120 days from Friday. Chipsets would need to be in production by Friday or they would be ineligible under the rule.The United States placed Huawei and 114 affiliates on its economic blacklist citing national security concerns. That forced some U.S. and foreign companies to seek special licenses from the Commerce Department to sell to it, but China hawks in the U.S. government have been frustrated by the vast number of supply chains beyond their reach.Separately, the Commerce Department extended a temporary license that was set to expire Friday to allow U.S. companies, many of which operate wireless networks in rural America, to continue doing business with Huawei through Aug. 13. It warned it expected this would be the final extension.Reuters first reported the administration was considering changes to the Foreign Direct Product Rule, which subjects some foreign-made goods based on U.S. technology or software to U.S. regulations, in November.Most chip manufacturers rely on equipment produced by U.S. companies like KLA, Lam Research and Applied Materials, according to a report last year from China’s Everbright Securities.Other recent actionThe Trump administration has taken a series of steps aimed at Chinese telecom firms in recent weeks.The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last month began the process of shutting down the U.S. operations of three state-controlled Chinese telecommunications companies, citing national security risks. The FCC also in April approved Alphabet Inc. unit Google’s request to use part of an 8,000-mile undersea telecommunications cable between the United States and Taiwan, but not Hong Kong, after U.S. agencies raised national security concerns.This week, President Donald Trump extended for another year a May 2019 executive order barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by companies deemed to pose a national security risk, a move seen aimed at Huawei and peer ZTE Corp.
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Taiwanese Chip Company to Build $12 Billion Arizona Plant
A Taiwan-based company is planning a $12 billion semiconductor factory in the U.S. state of Arizona.Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of computer chips.The firm said Friday the factory will create as many as 1,600 jobs. Thousands more jobs are expected to be created along the supply lines to support production of the 5-nanometer chips.The factory will be able to produce 20,000 of the wafers each month. They’re used in an array of consumer electronics, including the iPhones and defense equipment.Construction of the facility is to begin next year, and the location in Arizona has not been determined.“This project,” the company said, “is of critical, strategic importance to a vibrant and competitive U.S. semiconductor ecosystem that enables leading U.S. companies to fabricate their cutting-edge semiconductor products within the United States.”The firm has another U.S. factory in Washington state.U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lauded the plan as showing the success of President Donald Trump’s programs.The company’s plan to set up the facility, he said, “is yet another indication that President Trump’s policy agenda has led to a renaissance in American manufacturing and made the United States the most attractive place in the world to invest.”Also praising the move was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said the facility will “increase U.S. economic independence, bolster our safety and competitiveness, and strengthen our leadership in high-tech manufacturing.”“This historic deal also strengthens our relationship with Taiwan, a vibrant democracy and force for good in the world,” he said.TSMC’s stock rose more than 1.5 percent Friday morning which outperformed the 0.8 percent gain in the main Taiwan stock market.
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The Scramble to Create COVID-19 Apps
It’s a race against time.As communities start to open, governments are rushing to put together smartphone apps that can be part of their arsenal to curtail the spread of COVID-19.But the apps — and the technologies they rely on — vary, and for many that has led to confusion about what to expect.“It’s overwhelming how many proposals are coming out,” Gennie Gebhart, associate director of research at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said. “There’s total alphabet soup of different acronyms, of different technologies. And it’s hard to understand exactly what is what. And I think that’s because it’s still early days.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyGennie Gebhart, associate director of research at the Electronic Frontier FoundationTracking your proximity to an exposureAt the moment, there’s not yet an app available in the United States that lets someone know if they’ve been exposed to someone testing positive for COVID-19. Around the world, Singapore, Australia and other nations have released apps that do this but with varying success.The main proposal for a consumer app comes from Apple and Google, which together create the operating systems for most smartphones in the world. They have joined forces to release software tools so that governments can make an app that will help with letting people know if they’ve been exposed to COVID-19.Their approach relies on Bluetooth, a short-range radio frequency inside a smartphone. Phones with the app will store the Bluetooth beams they receive from other phones and check daily a database of those who have reported testing positive. If there is a match – that someone has been too close for too long to a person with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 – the person learns about it and can contact a health professional to find out the next steps to take.Privacy advocates such as the ACLU and EFF support this approach, which keeps data decentralized and anonymized. Bluetooth doesn’t provide information to public health departments.GPS location data approachBut some states, such as North and South Dakota, as well as Utah, are looking to apps for a different purpose — to help with their contact tracing efforts. That’s when public health workers contact people who have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. These apps rely on GPS location data, which can reveal information about a person’s movements, as well as the Bluetooth proximity information.With the Dakotas app, Care 19, if a person consents, their location data is shared with local public health officials. More than 45,000 residents of Utah – about 2 percent of the state’s population – have signed up for its state app, Healthy Together, according to CNBC.To download or not?Gebhart, of EFF, said there are an array of questions people might want to consider before they download a COVID-19 app. How much data is collected? Are users allowed to turn it on and off, or uninstall it at will?“There needs to be trust for the system to work for people to want to adopt it and want to interact with it,” she said.In many ways, the apps proposed have been unproven and untested, Gebhart said. But as governments open society again, this public health technology experiment may play a role in whether residents can begin to safely venture out.
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Stopped Cold: ‘Frozen’ Musical on Broadway Not to Reopen
The big budget musical “Frozen” will not reopen when Broadway theaters restart, marking the first time an established show has been felled by the coronavirus pandemic.The Disney show opened in March 2018 and placed among the top five Broadway productions for both gross and attendance over both years it ran, often pulling in over $1 million, and even $2 million, a week.Until now, only shows that were waiting to officially open have announced postponements or cancellations. Disney still has “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” on Broadway and five productions of “Frozen” worldwide.Citing the “global pandemic,” Thomas Schumacher, president and producer of Disney Theatrical Productions, said Thursday that running three Disney shows on Broadway was “untenable.”Caissie Levy, who originated the role of Elsa on Broadway, tweeted that the news was a “heartbreak,” adding “We will always be a family. Sending love to all the devoted fans of our beautiful show.”Broadway theaters sit closed during the COVID-19 lockdown in New York, May 13, 2020.Actors’ Equity Association, which represents 51,000 actors and stage managers, reacted with dismay to the news and urged New York and national politicians to rescue the arts sector. Mary McColl, executive director, called it an “all hands-on-deck moment” for the governor, mayor and members of Congress.”The arts and entertainment sector drives the economy of New York, just like it does in cities and towns across the country. Decisions made in the days and weeks ahead will shape the future of the arts sector for years to come,” she said. “Public officials at all levels must think much more boldly about supporting the arts or our entire economy will be slower to recover.”Disney Theatrical gets no corporate subsidy from the Walt Disney Company and its stage shows must be financially self-sustaining. The “Frozen” musical is based on the Oscar-winning Disney movie franchise, with music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.Of the three Disney properties on Broadway, “Frozen” was technically the weakest at the box office but was financially still considered a success. The appearance of the film “Frozen 2” in late 2019 actually boosted the show’s fortunes, with sales spikes recorded in the months following the film’s release.Although an exact date for performances to resume on Broadway has yet to be determined, Broadway producers are now offering refunds and exchanges for tickets purchased for shows through Sept. 6.Broadway performances were suspended on March 12 after Governor Andrew Cuomo imposed a ban on gatherings of 500 or more people. There were 31 productions running, including eight new shows in previews and another eight shows in rehearsals preparing for the spring season.Some shows like an upcoming revival of Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite” starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, as well as a musical about Michael Jackson, have pushed their production to next year.Other shows scheduled to open this spring have abandoned their plans, including “Hangmen” and a revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
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NASA Builds COVID Ventilator – Delivery Vessel Says Goodbye to ISS
Scientists around the world are working to battle the coronavirus – an effort that extends to a space-travel lab that worked overtime to help sick earthlings. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has This Week in Space.
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Burundi Expels WHO Officials
Burundi has expelled four officials from the World Health Organization (WHO), declaring them persona non grata and ordering them to leave the country by Friday, a leaked memo from the country’s foreign ministry reveals. The decision comes days before the May 20 presidential elections and amid a global coronavirus pandemic.Bernard Ntahiraja, the foreign affairs assistant minister, did not provide an explanation for the expulsion. The WHO’s Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said that the organization “remain[s] very willing to…support their [Burundi’s] response to COVID-19.” John Nkengasong, the head of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement that he found the decision to hold elections in a time of the COVID-19 crisis irresponsible. “We have to collectively deny the virus any space to transmit,” he said.Opposition candidate Léonce Ngendakumana said the expulsion is “regrettable” and called upon the government to heed recommended health and safety precautions. “The country alone won’t be able to contain the pandemic,” Ngendakmana said. The expelled officials include WHO country head Walter Kazadi Mulombo, field epidemiologist Jean Pierre Mulunda Nkata, health sector coordinator Ruhana Mirindi Bisimwa, and Daniel Tarzy.Burundi has only 27 reported cases of COVID-19, but health officials suspect cases are on the rise due to the lack of testing and lockdown measures, the CDC said.Critics accuse the government of downplaying the virus in order to temper rising civil unrest, fearing a repeat of the violence that occurred after the 2015 election of current president Pierre Nkurunziza.In 2019, Burundi expelled United Nations officials who investigated the violence after the 2015 vote. The country also left the International Criminal Court after facing charges of state-sponsored crime.
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Australia Parliament Debunks 5G COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory
An Australian parliamentary report has debunked a conspiracy theory linking COVID-19 to 5G technology. Anti-lockdown protesters in Australia and beyond have claimed a connection between the new coronavirus and the rollout of the mobile communications standard.The COVID-19 pandemic has brought disparate groups of conspiracy theorists together. Some believe the disease was deliberately spread around the world to force vaccines on to the population as a form of control. Others assert that a Harvard University professor was arrested for creating and selling the coronavirus to China. Still others insist that 5G technology is the true cause of COVID-19. It was a view that was reportedly first promoted in a social media video in March and has been shared widely on the internet.However, linking the new coronavirus to radio waves simply is not true, according to a report by an Australian parliamentary communications committee. It found that 5G technology was safe. E-communications experts said linking COVID-19 to radio waves “has no basis in science” and is “biologically and physically impossible.” This is a view shared by the World Health Organization and other authorities. They have found that 5G radiation can’t penetrate skin or allow a virus to penetrate skin.In Australia, New South Wales state health officials have asserted that COVID-19 was not spread through mobile networks or wireless technology but through infected droplets from coughing or sneezing, or by contact with contaminated hands, surfaces or objects.Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, has also dismissed a link between 5G networks and the disease.“There is unfortunately a lot of very silly misinformation out there,” Murphy said. “There is absolutely no evidence about 5G doing anything in the coronavirus space. I have unfortunately received a lot of communication from these conspiracy theorists myself. It is complete nonsense. 5G has got nothing at all to do with coronavirus.”Academics say that fake news and misinformation seem to be spreading as fast and as far as the virus itself. Uncertainty and fear breed confusion, and, as one expert said, “conspiracy theories offer an emotionally satisfying narrative” if even they are not true.There have been small protests in Australia by groups angry at lockdown measures, and at the government’s coronavirus mobile phone tracing app. Demonstrators in Melbourne also sought to link an outbreak of the virus at a meat plant to a nearby telephone tower.Efforts are being made to sort the truth from the misinformation. YouTube has said it will do more to remove content linking 5G technology to COVID-19.
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US Immunologist Warns of ‘Darkest Winter’ If Virus Rebounds
America faces the “darkest winter in modern history” unless leaders act decisively to prevent a rebound of the coronavirus, says a government whistleblower who alleges he was ousted from his job after warning the Trump administration to prepare for the pandemic.
Immunologist Dr. Rick Bright makes his sobering prediction in testimony prepared for his appearance Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Aspects of his complaint about early administration handling of the crisis are expected to be backed up by testimony from an executive of a company that manufactures, respirator masks.
A federal watchdog agency has found “reasonable grounds” that Bright was removed from his post as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority after sounding the alarm at the Department of Health and Human Services. Bright alleged he became a target of criticism when he urged early efforts to invest in vaccine development and stock up on supplies.
“Our window of opportunity is closing,” Bright says in his prepared testimony posted on the House committee website. “If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities.”
Bright’s testimony follows this week’s warning by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, that a rushed lifting of store-closing and stay-at-home restrictions could “turn back the clock,” seeding more suffering and death and complicating efforts to get the economy rolling again.
President Donald Trump has dismissed Bright as “a disgruntled guy,” and some of the president’s political allies have urged that Fauci be fired, although that seems unlikely.
More than 83,000 people have died in the U.S., representing more than one-fourth of global deaths and the world’s highest toll. On the planet more than 4.3 million have been infected and about 295,000 have died.
Eager to restart the economy, Trump has been urging states to lift restrictions, and many governors are doing so gradually, though consumers remain leery of going back to restaurants, social events and sporting competitions.
In his prepared testimony, Bright said, “The undeniable fact is there will be a resurgence of (COVID-19) this fall, greatly compounding the challenges of seasonal influenza and putting an unprecedented strain on our health care system.”
“Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history,” Bright wrote.
Bright, who has a doctoral degree in immunology, outlined a path forward that would be based on science, even as researchers work to develop better treatments and an effective vaccine. The steps include:
— Establishing a national testing strategy. The White House has urged states to take the lead on testing, even as the federal government pushes to make more tests and better ones widely available. Trump says the U.S. has “prevailed” on testing through this strategy, but in Congress Democrats are demanding a federal framework to encompass the whole nation.
— Doubling down on educating the public about basic safety measures such as frequent hand-washing and wearing masks in public places as guidelines indicate. “Frankly, our leaders must lead by modeling the behavior,” said Bright, in a not-too-subtle reference to a president who conspicuously goes maskless.
— Ramping up production of essential equipment and supplies, from cotton swabs for testing to protective gear for health care workers and essential workers.
— Setting up a system to fairly distribute equipment and supplies that are scarce and highly sought. Eliminating state vs. state competition would increase efficiency and reduce costs, he wrote.
As part of his whistleblower complaint, Bright is seeking to be reinstated in his old job. HHS, his employer, says it strongly disagrees with his allegations and that it reassigned him to a high-profile position helping to lead the development of new coronavirus tests at the National Institutes of Health.
BARDA, the agency Bright worked at for 10 years, was created to help the government respond to bioterrorism, infectious diseases, and radiological attacks. It focuses on developing and procuring counter-measures such as vaccines and treatments. Prior to his reassignment Bright had received an “outstanding” performance review.
He says friction with HHS leaders escalated after he opposed widespread use of hydroxycholoroquine, a malaria drug that Trump touted without proof as a “game-changer” for treating COVID-19 patients. Subsequent studies have indicated the drug may do more harm than good. Bright was summarily removed in late April.
One aspect of Bright’s complaint is expected to get backing at Thursday’s hearing from an executive of a Texas company that manufactures N95 respirator masks. Michael Bowen, executive vice president of Prestige Ameritech, emailed with Bright repeatedly starting in late January. Bowen offered to crank up production lines that were sitting idle, while warning that the world supply of masks was being snapped up by other countries. Bright said in his complaint that it took five weeks to move the federal bureaucracy.
In written testimony to the committee, Bowen said Bright and other BARDA directors he’d worked with previously all wanted to address a chronic problem of not enough masks in the government stockpile, “but in my opinion didn’t have enough authority.”
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, America was told that restrictive “governmental ‘silos’ had been torn down … so that different federal agencies could work together for national security,” Bowen added. “But I didn’t see evidence of that.”
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EU: Possible Virus Drug Approval ‘Before The Summer’
The European Medicines Agency predicted that there could be licensed drugs to treat the new coronavirus in the next few months and that a vaccine might even be approved in early 2021, in a “best-case scenario.”
Dr. Marco Cavaleri, who heads the European regulator’s vaccines department, told a media briefing on Thursday that approving medicines to treat COVID-19 might be possible “before the summer,” citing ongoing clinical trials. Recent early results for the drug remdesivir suggested it could help patients recover from the coronavirus faster, although longer-term data is still needed to confirm any benefit.
Although it typically takes years to develop a vaccine, Cavaleri said that if some of the shots already being tested prove to be effective, they could be licensed as early as the beginning of next year.
Cavaleri cautioned, however, that many experimental vaccines never make it to the end and that there are often delays.
“But we can see the possibility that if everything goes as planned, vaccines could be approved a year from now,” he said. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyMore than 140 heads of states and health experts, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz issued an appeal Thursday calling on all countries to unite behind a “people’s vaccine” against COVID-19, to ensure any effective treatments and vaccines be available globally to anyone who needs them, for free.
At the moment, there are about a dozen vaccine candidates being tested in China, Britain, Germany and the U.S. The World Health Organization has estimated it could take about 12 to 18 months for an effective vaccine to be found.
While some experts have proposed dropping the requirement for large-scale advanced clinical trials altogether, Cavaleri said that wasn’t currently being considered.
“Our current thinking is all vaccines under development should undergo large phase 3 trials to establish what is the level of protection,” he said.
But he acknowledged that could change if the situation worsened.
“Things may evolve as the pandemic will evolve and we will see if we need to do something else,” Cavaleri said.
Some officials have warned that a vaccine might never be found; previous attempts to develop a vaccine against related coronaviruses like SARS and MERS have all failed. But Cavleri was optimistic an immunization against COVID-19 would eventually be discovered, as there are various technologies being tried globally.
“I think it’s a bit early to say, but we have good reason to be sufficiently optimistic that at the end of the day, some vaccines will make it,” he said.
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Australian Parliamentary Committee Debunks 5G COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory
An Australian parliamentary report has debunked a conspiracy theory linking COVID-19 to 5G technology. Anti-lockdown protesters in Australia and beyond have claimed a connection between the new coronavirus and the rollout of the mobile communications standard.The COVID-19 pandemic has brought disparate groups of conspiracy theorists together. Some believe the disease was deliberately spread around the world to force vaccines on to the population as a form of control. Others assert that a Harvard University professor was arrested for creating and selling the coronavirus to China. Still others insist that 5G technology is the true cause of COVID-19. It was a view that was reportedly first promoted in a social media video in March and has been shared widely on the internet.However, linking the new coronavirus to radio waves simply is not true, according to a report by an Australian parliamentary communications committee. It found that 5G technology was safe. E-communications experts said linking COVID-19 to radio waves “has no basis in science” and is “biologically and physically impossible.” This is a view shared by the World Health Organization and other authorities. They have found that 5G radiation can’t penetrate skin or allow a virus to penetrate skin.In Australia, New South Wales state health officials have asserted that COVID-19 was not spread through mobile networks or wireless technology but through infected droplets from coughing or sneezing, or by contact with contaminated hands, surfaces or objects.Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, has also dismissed a link between 5G networks and the disease.“There is unfortunately a lot of very silly misinformation out there,” Murphy said. “There is absolutely no evidence about 5G doing anything in the coronavirus space. I have unfortunately received a lot of communication from these conspiracy theorists myself. It is complete nonsense. 5G has got nothing at all to do with coronavirus.”Academics say that fake news and misinformation seem to be spreading as fast and as far as the virus itself. Uncertainty and fear breed confusion, and, as one expert said, “conspiracy theories offer an emotionally satisfying narrative” if even they are not true.There have been small protests in Australia by groups angry at lockdown measures, and at the government’s coronavirus mobile phone tracing app. Demonstrators in Melbourne also sought to link an outbreak of the virus at a meat plant to a nearby telephone tower.Efforts are being made to sort the truth from the misinformation. YouTube has said it will do more to remove content linking 5G technology to COVID-19.
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Study Ties ‘Obamacare’ to Fewer Cancer Deaths in Some States
Cancer deaths have dropped more in states that expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act than in states that did not, new research reveals. The report Wednesday is the first evidence tying cancer survival to the health care change, which began in 2014 after the law known as “Obamacare” took full effect, said one study leader, Dr. Anna Lee of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “For a policy to have this amount of impact in a short amount of years” is remarkable, because cancer often takes a long time to develop and prove fatal, she said. Lee discussed the results in an American Society of Clinical Oncology news conference as part of its annual meeting later this month. The law let states expand Medicaid eligibility and offer subsidies to help people buy health insurance. Twenty-seven states and Washington, D.C., did that, and 20 million Americans gained coverage that way. The other 23 states did not expand benefits. Researchers used national health statistics on cancer deaths to track trends before and after the law. They looked only at deaths in people younger than 65, who stood to benefit from the change because those older already were covered by Medicare. About 30% of U.S. cancer deaths are in people younger than 65. The cancer death rate fell throughout the United States from 1999 to 2017 in that age group, but more in states that expanded Medicaid — 29% versus 25% in states that did not. Researchers specifically compared death rates from 2011 to 2013, before the health care change, to 2015 to 2017, after it. In states that expanded coverage, the change meant 785 fewer cancer deaths in 2017. Another 589 deaths could have been prevented that year if all states had expanded Medicaid, researchers estimated. Having health insurance allows quicker treatment after diagnosis and access to more treatment options so patients can get the best care available, which can improve survival odds, Lee said. Insured people also may have more opportunities for screening to detect cancers at a stage when they’re most treatable. The new work builds on research from last year’s conference that suggested more patients, blacks in particular, were able to quickly start on treatment after a diagnosis of advanced cancer in states that expanded Medicaid, said Dr. Howard Burris. He is president of the oncology society and heads the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, a cancer center in Nashville, Tennessee. “There was so much excitement” when federal statistics showed a big drop in cancer deaths over the last decade, and the new study shows “it was an even better improvement in expansion states,” said Burris, who had no role in the study. The picture is murky for specific racial groups. States that expanded Medicaid generally had fewer blacks and more Hispanics than states that did not expand. Blacks have had worse cancer death rates than other groups, but that also has been improving at a greater rate than for whites. Expansion of Medicaid seemed to make no difference in cancer mortality rates for blacks but did seem to improve the situation for Hispanics. To date, 36 states and Washington, D.C., have expanded Medicaid and 14 have not.
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Former ‘Quiz Kid’ Joel Kupperman Dies of COVID-19
A retired university philosophy professor who was, at one time, one of the most famous children in the United States but was frustrated and torn by his fame, has died of the coronavirus.The family of Joel Kupperman said Wednesday he died last month at a nursing home in Brooklyn at 83. He had been suffering from dementia for several years. From age 6 to 16, Chicago-born Kupperman was a regular panelist on “The Quiz Kids,” a radio game show in which a team of extraordinarily bright youngsters answered complex questions sent in by listeners.The audience won a prize if they stumped the panel and the kids were awarded savings bonds if they answered the difficult questions.The kids were dressed in robes and mortar boards. Kupperman spoke with a lisp and smiled brightly when reciting obscure facts and complicated mathematical equations, endearing him to the audience.He and the rest of the kids became major radio personalities, hobnobbing with movie stars and politicians and appearing in films and on radio comedy shows. Kupperman was even invited to address the United Nations.But when the show moved to television, Kupperman was no longer a cute little boy but a gangly and somewhat annoying teenager who was overshadowed by the younger panelists.He left the show when he was 16, entered the University of Chicago and was the target of bullies. Feeling as if he had been exploited, he refused to ever talk about “The Quiz Kids” and warned his family against ever asking him about it.Kupperman later earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Cambridge in England and taught at the University of Connecticut for 50 years. He wrote several books.In one of the rare moments when he did talk about his past, Kupperman told The New York Times that “being a bright child among your peers was not the best way to grow up in America.”“There’s this weird notion that intelligence is a single thing, but people can be smart in some ways and stupid in others,” he once told his son.The New York Times reported that he is survived by his wife, Karen; son Michael; daughter Charlie; his sister, Harriet Moss, and a grandson.
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Colombia, Netherlands to Probe TikTok’s Management of Children’s Data
Colombia’s commerce regulator will be investigating whether Chinese-owned social media app TikTok complies with laws on the collection and treatment of children’s and adolescents’ personal data.The announcement Tuesday came four days after the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) said it would begin looking into how TikTok handles the data of its millions of young users.TikTok has achieved monumental success during the COVID-19 outbreak, with millions of people worldwide using the platform for entertainment and content creation during the crisis.Owned by Chinese company ByteDance, TikTok is estimated to have between 500 million and 1 billion users. The platform allows these users to create and share short videos using filters and effects provided by the app.The app has come under increasing scrutiny by governments across the globe.”The superintendency is seeking to establish if TikTok Pte Ltd. has demonstrably implemented the principle of responsibility in the treatment of data from Colombian citizens who use its services,” the Columbian Superintendency of Industry and Commerce said in a statement posted on its website.Minors, who are the app’s largest demographic, are afforded special protections under Colombia’s constitution, the statement said.The Dutch watchdog, DPA, has also expressed concerns about TikTok’s protection of its users’ private information. “For many users, this is an important way of staying in touch with friends and spending time together, particularly during the current coronavirus crisis,” the DPA said. “The rise of TikTok has led to growing concerns about privacy.”The DPA highlighted the vulnerability of minors online and is poised to investigate if the app clearly states how it uses data and whether “parental consent is required for TikTok to collect, store and use children’s personal data,” and “examine whether TikTok adequately protects the privacy of Dutch children,” it said in a statement.
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Robots Reduce Spread of Infection, but Are They Threat to Jobs?
Retailers are turning to robots to perform essential tasks that employees are no longer able to do because of social distancing regulations. The robots are cutting costs and helping to reduce the spread of infections. But as VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports, some fear the growing use of automation threatens jobs just as unemployment soars.
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