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"slug": "coronavirus-forces-huge-number-of-californians-off-road-as-tele-everything-becomes-new-climate-option",
"title": "Coronavirus Forces Huge Number of Californians Off Road, as Tele-Everything Becomes New Climate Option",
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"content": "\u003ch4>\u003cem>California’s stay-at-home order has provided a window into a world in which cars are off the road and California’s climate goals are more attainable. But how can the state retain some of these gains once the pandemic ends?\u003c/em>\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em; float: left; line-height: 0.733em; padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0; font-family: times, serif, georgia;\">L\u003c/span>ike many people, Hannah Gordon has been working from home, courtesy of the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Some things haven’t changed all that much. She can access the same project management software from her duplex, and she uses Google’s video conferencing service to attend meetings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But there is one big difference: the lack of a commute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Gordon, 28, doesn’t miss it at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Before the pandemic, she trekked every day from the East Bay to her office in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote citation='Kate Gordon, director Governor’s Office of Planning and Research']“I think a lot of people go immediately to: ‘Oh, if we just had only electric cars, and everything would be fine. But what we’ve found in looking at the models is that you actually really do have to reduce the amount that people have to travel…”[/pullquote]Taking public transit ate up about an hour-and-a-half each way, including either a drive to the Rockridge BART station, where she had to pay for parking, or a long walk home alone, in the dark. So she started driving to the city instead. Traffic can be grueling and unpredictable, and she left early to give herself time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“For however long we’re going to be doing this, it is one thing I am grateful for,” Gordon said, about working from home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Another positive development: Because she’s not driving, you can subtract the carbon emissions she would have been adding to the already catastrophic global total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>A Major Driving Decline\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California’s statewide stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus is providing Californians with a window into a world in which the majority of cars are off the road. Environmentally, it’s been a boon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the UC Davis Road Ecology Center \u003ca href=\"https://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/files/content/projects/COVID_CHIPs_Impacts_updated_430.pdf\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">found\u003c/span>\u003c/a> that after a statewide stay-at-home order in March and mid-April, the total vehicle miles traveled in the state declined by 75%, with a corresponding reduction in planet-warming gases and smog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the U.S., the researchers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/coronavirusliveupdates/news/11815709/reduced-travel-causing-big-drop-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-study-shows\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">found\u003c/span>\u003c/a> a 71% drop in car travel,\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>which they estimate could amount to a 4% decrease in total greenhouse gas emissions for the country this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Vehicle miles are considered by policymakers a key indicator of more than just how much people are driving, but also health and air quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“That’s a great benefit,” said Fraser Shilling, co-director of the Road Ecology Center, about the plummeting time on the road. “Now, if it all rebounds, if we keep driving the way we used to, we’ll have had one good year, and then it’ll go back to what it was before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963717\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1963717 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/2020CO2Peak_Monthly_en_title_lg-e1588809409138.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Climate Central\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">That would not solve anything. While emissions have dropped during the pandemic, they \u003ca href=\"https://medialibrary.climatecentral.org/resources/co2-and-the-climate-curve\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">still added\u003c/a> to the overall concentration of carbon in the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Shilling said the lessons to take out of the pandemic need to be applied to the climate crisis, including the reduction in driving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I think we’re going to learn a lot during this intervening period. How do we telecommute? How do we arrange our work at home? Our shopping trips? All of our travel in a different way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">He likened mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic to reducing the harm from climate change in that they are both a “survival goal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Global CO2 Drop\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The International Energy Agency \u003ca href=\"https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2020/global-energy-and-co2-emissions-in-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">forecasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a> a whopping 8% global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 compared to 2019, which would be an unprecedented drop since measurements have been taken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The rapid decline is “set to be almost twice as large as all previous declines since the end of World War II combined,” the agency wrote.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote citation='Fraser Shilling, co-director UC Davis Road Ecology Center ']‘That’s a great benefit. Now, if it all rebounds, if we keep driving the way we used to, we’ll have had one good year, and then it’ll go back to what it was before.’[/pullquote]The reduction in carbon emissions has put the world on an early track to meet a \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/news/cut-global-emissions-by-76-percent-every-year-for-next-decade-to-meet-15degc-paris-target-un-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">target\u003c/span>\u003c/a> outlined in the Paris climate agreement, which was designed to avoid a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1.5 C rise in global warming\u003c/a> and even more severe environmental consequences. In November, the United Nations said emissions had to drop at least 7.6% per year through 2030 if the world was to have a chance of meeting the goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The burning of fossil fuels for heat and energy is the \u003ca href=\"https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">main\u003c/span>\u003c/a> source of carbon dioxide, and the steep drop in demand for energy due to whole economies shutting down is the primary factor behind reduced emissions during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Less impactful on a global basis is the sharp decline in driving and flying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, however, the reduction in driving has a bigger impact because the state already requires its investor-owned utilities to use renewable energy, a mandate that led to a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/942b5a251fac413a84fc4eb93a67c46c/California-meets-greenhouse-gas-reduction-goal-years-early\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">reduction of its\u003c/span>\u003c/a> carbon emissions below the 1990 level two years ahead of schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California’s energy efficiency \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/building-energy-efficiency-standards/2019-building-energy-efficiency\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">standards\u003c/span>\u003c/a> are among the strongest in the country, and its landmark cap-and-trade program requires companies to pay for the right to emit greenhouse gases while lowering the overall limits on emissions over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>An Intractable Problem\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Reducing the amount of time Californians have to spend driving is the state’s climate white whale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">For three decades, California has tried and failed to significantly reduce transportation emissions with policies that require cleaner gasoline; promote public transit and dense urban development; restrict tailpipe pollution; and incentivize the use of electric vehicles. Transportation-related emissions still haven’t peaked, and they’re the leading source of greenhouse gases in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Mary Nichols, the state’s top air regulator, \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-california-insight-idUSKCN1PQ4MJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">admitted\u003c/span>\u003c/a> the state’s failure on transportation emissions to Reuters last year. “The strategies that we’ve used up until now just haven’t been effective,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The seemingly intractable problem of vehicle emissions stems in part from decades-old urban planning decisions that allowed Los Angeles and other communities to build sprawling suburbs of single-family homes, one reason that so many workers are now forced to grin-and-bear hourslong commutes.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the pandemic, the state was falling behind on meeting its 2030 target of reducing carbon emissions by 40% from 1990 levels, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1948712/your-suv-is-really-messing-with-the-states-climate-plans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">study\u003c/span>\u003c/a> by Beacon Economics commissioned by Next 10, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works on economic and environmental issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">A key problem: more Californians driving more miles in less fuel-efficient trucks and SUVs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The UC Davis Road Ecology Center report found that the shutdown order has, at least temporarily, put the state on track to reach this target.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tele-Everything\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">During this stay-at-home period, it’s not just workers in offices and other places of business who have been subtracted from streets and highways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Visits to medical offices are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1963133/telehealth-is-having-a-huge-moment-during-coronavirus-crisis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">way down\u003c/span>\u003c/a> as patients and doctors have been forced to make massive use of telehealth tools for diagnoses. Since schools are closed, no one is taking their car to drop off their kids, instead relying on whatever distance learning capability their districts are offering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Academic conferences have moved online, too, which some organizers\u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2020/04/covid-19-forces-conferences-online-scientists-discover-upsides-virtual-format?utm_campaign=news_daily_2020-04-28&et_rid=566128243&et_cid=3306149\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\"> say \u003c/span>\u003c/a>could become the new normal as virtual meetings present an opportunity to reach a wider audience while reducing the carbon footprint of an event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Kate Gordon, director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, says this mass, unintentional experiment in staying home has highlighted an argument climate advocates should pay attention to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a long time, we have been saying, we need to think about broadband and telework as opportunities to reduce vehicle miles traveled,” she said. “And that connection has not been as clear in the mind of a lot of climate policy people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Traditionally, Gordon says, it’s electrification that has been the solution of choice for decarbonizing the transportation sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I think a lot of people go immediately to: ‘Oh, if we just had only electric cars, and everything would be fine,’” she said. “But what we’ve found in looking at the models is that you actually really do have to reduce the amount that people have to travel around the state because it has all these other associated emissions impacts, as well as being high polluting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Across the country, internet usage surged when states began ordering people to stay at home. Network providers reported a rise in usage of 20-35% in the end of March and early April, according to the Federal Communications Commission.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>Much of the spike stems from increased demand in suburban, exurban and residential areas during daytime hours, likely from people who can log in and work from home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Gordon says California can support telecommuting by increasing broadband access and making nuts-and-bolts administrative changes that allow people to attend parole hearings, visit the DMV or perform other government functions online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">When the economy opens up again, she thinks, the state can sustain some of the emission reductions by investing in systems that promote telecommuting, teleconferencing, teletrips … basically, tele-everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“The more options people have to not do their long commutes, the better for air quality and the better for our overall emissions profile,” she said. “Universal fast internet access is part of what makes teleworking even possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Digital Divide\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">One roadblock to a tele-everything California is that it suffers from a vast digital divide, with high-speed internet access available in many of the state’s bustling urban centers, but not in remote areas in Northern California, the Central Valley and Inland Empire.\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1963721\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"372\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019.jpg 1275w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019-160x207.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019-800x1035.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019-768x994.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019-1020x1320.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 372px) 100vw, 372px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the pandemic, people who could telecommute tended to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/06/telecommuting-will-likely-continue-long-after-the-pandemic/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">white-collar workers with higher incomes\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, and that has held true during the pandemic, according to a Brookings Institute \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/06/telecommuting-will-likely-continue-long-after-the-pandemic/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Nowhere is that divide felt more acutely than in the schools. For example, Oakland has been offering online classes for weeks, but many students there still \u003ca href=\"https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/04/28/oakland-parents-teachers-call-on-mayor-district-to-guarantee-internet-access-for-all-students/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">lack access\u003c/span>\u003c/a> to the internet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Businesses Adapt\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">During the shutdown, businesses have found new ways to keep the economic train lurching forward, says Rufus Jeffris, senior vice president of communications for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayareacouncil.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Bay Area Council\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, an advocacy group that has long pushed for policies to reduce solo commuters on roads and freeways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Those who have fast internet setups have been able to adapt to working from home, leaning on an \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/950cccc45ddddb919b3eaa629a3e6688\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">ever-growing\u003c/span>\u003c/a> roster of video conferencing applications like Zoom, which has seen its stock price soar during the pandemic, from $68.72 a share on Jan. 2 to a peak\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>of $181.50 on April 24.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said although it will be “interesting to see whether this cements work-from-home practices more broadly,” he doesn’t think telecommuting can substitute for the office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Business and the economy are taking a big hit right now,” he said. “We have to figure out how to save lives, but also save livelihoods. Businesses want to follow the public health and science behind this, but business leaders are eager to get to work and start figuring out safe ways to reopen as soon as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Sunrun, a leading residential solar company, is one business that has been able to change its work protocols to stay operational.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Getting a solar unit onto a customer’s house usually\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>begins with an employee scouting a home to site solar panels. Now, it’s the customers who are snapping their own photos with smartphones, sending them in to the company in an effort to limit human contact, says Anne Hoskins, Sunrun’s chief policy officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of submitting permitting documents to planning departments in person, company representatives send them electronically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We even went a step further with some of the permitting offices and said, ‘We think you could do the inspection remotely. We can do it by camera and with you on the other side.’ And some offices agreed to that, as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Hoskins thinks this remote work could speed up the process and improve government permitting even after the stay-at-home orders are lifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>What Happens After State Order Lifted?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Which experiments in telecommuting will be maintained on a widespread basis after people eventually go back to some semblance of their pre-pandemic lives remains to be seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In the back of the mind of UC Davis’ Shilling is a “nascent irritation” that California is “going to reverse path and take us right back to the place we were before and not learn these lessons,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says his colleagues express this cynicism when he talks about the\u003cbr>\n“optimistic projection” that the state can use this moment to change driving behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They say: ‘Oh, no, we’re just going to go back to what we were doing before,’” Shilling said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But this is too fatalistic, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s kind of like running along the edge of a cliff,” he said. “Because that’s essentially what we’re doing as a species and as a society. And if you just have this idea, I’m going to fall off the cliff and die, then you may increase your chances of doing that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“But if you are more optimistic and say: ‘I’m not going to fall, I’m going to try really hard to not fall off the cliff, then maybe you’re more likely to succeed. To me, being optimistic is a better survival strategy.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\n\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "California’s stay-at-home order has provided a window into a world in which cars are off the road and the state's climate goals are more attainable. But how can the state retain some of these gains once the pandemic ends?",
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"title": "Coronavirus Forces Huge Number of Californians Off Road, as Tele-Everything Becomes New Climate Option | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ch4>\u003cem>California’s stay-at-home order has provided a window into a world in which cars are off the road and California’s climate goals are more attainable. But how can the state retain some of these gains once the pandemic ends?\u003c/em>\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em; float: left; line-height: 0.733em; padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0; font-family: times, serif, georgia;\">L\u003c/span>ike many people, Hannah Gordon has been working from home, courtesy of the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Some things haven’t changed all that much. She can access the same project management software from her duplex, and she uses Google’s video conferencing service to attend meetings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But there is one big difference: the lack of a commute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Gordon, 28, doesn’t miss it at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Before the pandemic, she trekked every day from the East Bay to her office in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "“I think a lot of people go immediately to: ‘Oh, if we just had only electric cars, and everything would be fine. But what we’ve found in looking at the models is that you actually really do have to reduce the amount that people have to travel…”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Taking public transit ate up about an hour-and-a-half each way, including either a drive to the Rockridge BART station, where she had to pay for parking, or a long walk home alone, in the dark. So she started driving to the city instead. Traffic can be grueling and unpredictable, and she left early to give herself time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“For however long we’re going to be doing this, it is one thing I am grateful for,” Gordon said, about working from home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Another positive development: Because she’s not driving, you can subtract the carbon emissions she would have been adding to the already catastrophic global total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>A Major Driving Decline\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California’s statewide stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus is providing Californians with a window into a world in which the majority of cars are off the road. Environmentally, it’s been a boon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the UC Davis Road Ecology Center \u003ca href=\"https://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/files/content/projects/COVID_CHIPs_Impacts_updated_430.pdf\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">found\u003c/span>\u003c/a> that after a statewide stay-at-home order in March and mid-April, the total vehicle miles traveled in the state declined by 75%, with a corresponding reduction in planet-warming gases and smog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the U.S., the researchers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/coronavirusliveupdates/news/11815709/reduced-travel-causing-big-drop-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-study-shows\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">found\u003c/span>\u003c/a> a 71% drop in car travel,\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>which they estimate could amount to a 4% decrease in total greenhouse gas emissions for the country this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Vehicle miles are considered by policymakers a key indicator of more than just how much people are driving, but also health and air quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“That’s a great benefit,” said Fraser Shilling, co-director of the Road Ecology Center, about the plummeting time on the road. “Now, if it all rebounds, if we keep driving the way we used to, we’ll have had one good year, and then it’ll go back to what it was before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963717\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1963717 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/2020CO2Peak_Monthly_en_title_lg-e1588809409138.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Climate Central\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">That would not solve anything. While emissions have dropped during the pandemic, they \u003ca href=\"https://medialibrary.climatecentral.org/resources/co2-and-the-climate-curve\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">still added\u003c/a> to the overall concentration of carbon in the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Shilling said the lessons to take out of the pandemic need to be applied to the climate crisis, including the reduction in driving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I think we’re going to learn a lot during this intervening period. How do we telecommute? How do we arrange our work at home? Our shopping trips? All of our travel in a different way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">He likened mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic to reducing the harm from climate change in that they are both a “survival goal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Global CO2 Drop\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The International Energy Agency \u003ca href=\"https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2020/global-energy-and-co2-emissions-in-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">forecasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a> a whopping 8% global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 compared to 2019, which would be an unprecedented drop since measurements have been taken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The rapid decline is “set to be almost twice as large as all previous declines since the end of World War II combined,” the agency wrote.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘That’s a great benefit. Now, if it all rebounds, if we keep driving the way we used to, we’ll have had one good year, and then it’ll go back to what it was before.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The reduction in carbon emissions has put the world on an early track to meet a \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/news/cut-global-emissions-by-76-percent-every-year-for-next-decade-to-meet-15degc-paris-target-un-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">target\u003c/span>\u003c/a> outlined in the Paris climate agreement, which was designed to avoid a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1.5 C rise in global warming\u003c/a> and even more severe environmental consequences. In November, the United Nations said emissions had to drop at least 7.6% per year through 2030 if the world was to have a chance of meeting the goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The burning of fossil fuels for heat and energy is the \u003ca href=\"https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">main\u003c/span>\u003c/a> source of carbon dioxide, and the steep drop in demand for energy due to whole economies shutting down is the primary factor behind reduced emissions during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Less impactful on a global basis is the sharp decline in driving and flying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, however, the reduction in driving has a bigger impact because the state already requires its investor-owned utilities to use renewable energy, a mandate that led to a \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/942b5a251fac413a84fc4eb93a67c46c/California-meets-greenhouse-gas-reduction-goal-years-early\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">reduction of its\u003c/span>\u003c/a> carbon emissions below the 1990 level two years ahead of schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California’s energy efficiency \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/building-energy-efficiency-standards/2019-building-energy-efficiency\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">standards\u003c/span>\u003c/a> are among the strongest in the country, and its landmark cap-and-trade program requires companies to pay for the right to emit greenhouse gases while lowering the overall limits on emissions over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>An Intractable Problem\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Reducing the amount of time Californians have to spend driving is the state’s climate white whale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">For three decades, California has tried and failed to significantly reduce transportation emissions with policies that require cleaner gasoline; promote public transit and dense urban development; restrict tailpipe pollution; and incentivize the use of electric vehicles. Transportation-related emissions still haven’t peaked, and they’re the leading source of greenhouse gases in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Mary Nichols, the state’s top air regulator, \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-california-insight-idUSKCN1PQ4MJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">admitted\u003c/span>\u003c/a> the state’s failure on transportation emissions to Reuters last year. “The strategies that we’ve used up until now just haven’t been effective,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The seemingly intractable problem of vehicle emissions stems in part from decades-old urban planning decisions that allowed Los Angeles and other communities to build sprawling suburbs of single-family homes, one reason that so many workers are now forced to grin-and-bear hourslong commutes.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the pandemic, the state was falling behind on meeting its 2030 target of reducing carbon emissions by 40% from 1990 levels, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1948712/your-suv-is-really-messing-with-the-states-climate-plans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">study\u003c/span>\u003c/a> by Beacon Economics commissioned by Next 10, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works on economic and environmental issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">A key problem: more Californians driving more miles in less fuel-efficient trucks and SUVs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The UC Davis Road Ecology Center report found that the shutdown order has, at least temporarily, put the state on track to reach this target.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tele-Everything\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">During this stay-at-home period, it’s not just workers in offices and other places of business who have been subtracted from streets and highways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Visits to medical offices are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1963133/telehealth-is-having-a-huge-moment-during-coronavirus-crisis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">way down\u003c/span>\u003c/a> as patients and doctors have been forced to make massive use of telehealth tools for diagnoses. Since schools are closed, no one is taking their car to drop off their kids, instead relying on whatever distance learning capability their districts are offering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Academic conferences have moved online, too, which some organizers\u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2020/04/covid-19-forces-conferences-online-scientists-discover-upsides-virtual-format?utm_campaign=news_daily_2020-04-28&et_rid=566128243&et_cid=3306149\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\"> say \u003c/span>\u003c/a>could become the new normal as virtual meetings present an opportunity to reach a wider audience while reducing the carbon footprint of an event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Kate Gordon, director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, says this mass, unintentional experiment in staying home has highlighted an argument climate advocates should pay attention to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a long time, we have been saying, we need to think about broadband and telework as opportunities to reduce vehicle miles traveled,” she said. “And that connection has not been as clear in the mind of a lot of climate policy people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Traditionally, Gordon says, it’s electrification that has been the solution of choice for decarbonizing the transportation sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I think a lot of people go immediately to: ‘Oh, if we just had only electric cars, and everything would be fine,’” she said. “But what we’ve found in looking at the models is that you actually really do have to reduce the amount that people have to travel around the state because it has all these other associated emissions impacts, as well as being high polluting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Across the country, internet usage surged when states began ordering people to stay at home. Network providers reported a rise in usage of 20-35% in the end of March and early April, according to the Federal Communications Commission.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>Much of the spike stems from increased demand in suburban, exurban and residential areas during daytime hours, likely from people who can log in and work from home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Gordon says California can support telecommuting by increasing broadband access and making nuts-and-bolts administrative changes that allow people to attend parole hearings, visit the DMV or perform other government functions online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">When the economy opens up again, she thinks, the state can sustain some of the emission reductions by investing in systems that promote telecommuting, teleconferencing, teletrips … basically, tele-everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“The more options people have to not do their long commutes, the better for air quality and the better for our overall emissions profile,” she said. “Universal fast internet access is part of what makes teleworking even possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Digital Divide\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">One roadblock to a tele-everything California is that it suffers from a vast digital divide, with high-speed internet access available in many of the state’s bustling urban centers, but not in remote areas in Northern California, the Central Valley and Inland Empire.\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1963721\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"372\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019.jpg 1275w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019-160x207.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019-800x1035.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019-768x994.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/CA_BB_Fixed_Downstream_Consumer_2019-1020x1320.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 372px) 100vw, 372px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the pandemic, people who could telecommute tended to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/06/telecommuting-will-likely-continue-long-after-the-pandemic/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">white-collar workers with higher incomes\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, and that has held true during the pandemic, according to a Brookings Institute \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/06/telecommuting-will-likely-continue-long-after-the-pandemic/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Nowhere is that divide felt more acutely than in the schools. For example, Oakland has been offering online classes for weeks, but many students there still \u003ca href=\"https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/04/28/oakland-parents-teachers-call-on-mayor-district-to-guarantee-internet-access-for-all-students/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">lack access\u003c/span>\u003c/a> to the internet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>Businesses Adapt\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">During the shutdown, businesses have found new ways to keep the economic train lurching forward, says Rufus Jeffris, senior vice president of communications for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayareacouncil.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Bay Area Council\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, an advocacy group that has long pushed for policies to reduce solo commuters on roads and freeways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Those who have fast internet setups have been able to adapt to working from home, leaning on an \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/950cccc45ddddb919b3eaa629a3e6688\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">ever-growing\u003c/span>\u003c/a> roster of video conferencing applications like Zoom, which has seen its stock price soar during the pandemic, from $68.72 a share on Jan. 2 to a peak\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>of $181.50 on April 24.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said although it will be “interesting to see whether this cements work-from-home practices more broadly,” he doesn’t think telecommuting can substitute for the office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Business and the economy are taking a big hit right now,” he said. “We have to figure out how to save lives, but also save livelihoods. Businesses want to follow the public health and science behind this, but business leaders are eager to get to work and start figuring out safe ways to reopen as soon as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Sunrun, a leading residential solar company, is one business that has been able to change its work protocols to stay operational.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Getting a solar unit onto a customer’s house usually\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>begins with an employee scouting a home to site solar panels. Now, it’s the customers who are snapping their own photos with smartphones, sending them in to the company in an effort to limit human contact, says Anne Hoskins, Sunrun’s chief policy officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of submitting permitting documents to planning departments in person, company representatives send them electronically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We even went a step further with some of the permitting offices and said, ‘We think you could do the inspection remotely. We can do it by camera and with you on the other side.’ And some offices agreed to that, as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Hoskins thinks this remote work could speed up the process and improve government permitting even after the stay-at-home orders are lifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>What Happens After State Order Lifted?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Which experiments in telecommuting will be maintained on a widespread basis after people eventually go back to some semblance of their pre-pandemic lives remains to be seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In the back of the mind of UC Davis’ Shilling is a “nascent irritation” that California is “going to reverse path and take us right back to the place we were before and not learn these lessons,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says his colleagues express this cynicism when he talks about the\u003cbr>\n“optimistic projection” that the state can use this moment to change driving behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They say: ‘Oh, no, we’re just going to go back to what we were doing before,’” Shilling said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But this is too fatalistic, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s kind of like running along the edge of a cliff,” he said. “Because that’s essentially what we’re doing as a species and as a society. And if you just have this idea, I’m going to fall off the cliff and die, then you may increase your chances of doing that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“But if you are more optimistic and say: ‘I’m not going to fall, I’m going to try really hard to not fall off the cliff, then maybe you’re more likely to succeed. To me, being optimistic is a better survival strategy.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\n\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California Wired $456.9 Million to a Fledgling Company to Pay for Masks. Within Hours the Deal Was Dead",
"headTitle": "California Wired $456.9 Million to a Fledgling Company to Pay for Masks. Within Hours the Deal Was Dead | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>On March 26, as the coronavirus pandemic was mounting and governors across America scrambled to secure medical supplies, the state of California wired almost a half-billion dollars to a company that had been in business for just three days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The recipient: Blue Flame Medical LLC, a Delaware-based company headed by two Republican operatives who jumped into the medical supply business on March 23. The pair — Mike Gula from Washington, D.C., and John Thomas of Southern California — had vowed, \u003ca href=\"https://blueflamemedical.health/about-us/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in their words\u003c/a>, to help “fight COVID-19 with the industry’s broadest product selection from hundreds of suppliers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within hours of the enormous wire transfer, the deal was dead and California was clawing its money back — $456.9 million, nearly half of what the Legislature had allocated for the state’s pandemic response. The payment to Blue Flame and cancellation of the deal six hours later were revealed in copies of checks, wire transfer receipts and emails obtained by CalMatters through a public records request.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear why California decided to make such a large purchase for 100 million face masks from a new and untested company. Days ago, Maryland canceled its own order with Blue Flame and asked the state attorney general to investigate the company for its failure so far to deliver the supplies. And California Democratic Rep. Katie Porter also has raised questions about the company’s credibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blue Flame’s attorney, Ethan Bearman of Los Angeles, said today he had no information about the California situation but criticized Maryland’s actions. He described it as “beyond comprehension” that Maryland is disputing the contract and said the company “fully intends” to honor it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Washington Post \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-department-investigates-blue-flame-medical-after-claims-it-failed-to-provide-masks-ventilators-to-maryland-california/2020/05/06/e30b5224-8fa1-11ea-9e23-6914ee410a5f_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reports\u003c/a> that the U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Blue Flame Medical. The Post’s anonymous sources said the inquiry is focused on the firm’s troubled contracts with California and Maryland, and that Blue Flame’s attorney declined comment on the federal probe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s broken deal provides a look at the chaotic marketplace of medical supply procurement and the dollars at stake in the crisis that has killed nearly 70,000 Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government left it up to states to purchase the masks, gloves and other gear that can protect workers from contracting COVID-19. That spike in demand — combined with a global shortage of supplies — created a cottage industry of new suppliers and brokers. Now the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-warns-of-advance-fee-and-bec-schemes-related-to-procurement-of-ppe-and-other-supplies-during-covid-19-pandemic\">FBI is warning states\u003c/a> about “rapidly emerging fraud trends” in the procurement of medical supplies governments are desperately seeking to combat the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Blue Flame purchase fizzled, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/04/california-coronavirus-mask-shortage-solution-deal-newsom/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reaching a deal to buy nearly $1 billion worth of face masks\u003c/a> from a Chinese company called BYD. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-29/coronavirus-masks-arrival-california-gavin-newsom-byd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">masks have begun to arrive\u003c/a> in California but Newsom has refused to release that contract or any details, arguing that doing so could imperil delivery of the supplies in the fragile and unpredictable marketplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a Wild, Wild West of PPE sales and offers,” said Thomas Tighe, president of Direct Relief, a nonprofit aid agency that sends supplies including personal protective equipment (PPE) to disaster sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The pricing and some of the conduct is scary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tighe doesn’t have any experience with Blue Flame Medical, the company at the center of California’s mysteriously canceled deal. But he said he’s seen the normally low-key business of masks and gloves become a hotbed of confusion and competition as new actors dive into the fray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A strong desire to protect our health workers does lend itself to being exploited for financial gain by folks who are out to make money,” Tighe said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blue Flame’s president has described the venture as an altruistic effort to help the United States deal with the pandemic by tapping into connections he and his business partner established through politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We realized that I actually had some very good relationships with quite a few PPE manufacturers, all over the world,” John Thomas said April 15 on \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/johns-back-and-obama-backs-biden/id1181070008?i=1000471570720\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">his “Thomas Guide” podcast\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we quickly put together an organization called Blue Flame. And we, I believe, are now one of the largest, if not the largest, supplier of COVID-19 supplies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thomas, a political strategist, and Gula, a political fundraiser, drew attention in Washington, D.C., as soon as they launched. “Republican fundraiser looks to cash in on coronavirus,” read the headline on a March 27 \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/27/republican-fundraiser-company-coronavirus-152184\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Politico article\u003c/a>, which said Gula was leaving politics to devote himself to the new business. Thomas \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/politics/coronavirus-money-lobbyists.html?searchResultPosition=5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told The New York Times\u003c/a> that their political connections helped them find suppliers and customers, but that they formed the company to help people, not to get rich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before launching Blue Flame, the pair worked together earlier this year on the campaign of Republican Don Sedgwick, who was seeking the Orange County congressional seat held by Porter. Sedgwick lost in the March primary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Porter is raising concerns about Blue Flame and asking the federal government to ensure that such companies are charging fair prices. Blue Flame’s founders have no experience providing medical supplies, and the company may amount to “a costly and burdensome middleman from which states and localities must now purchase supplies,” Porter wrote in an \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Letter-to-HHS-OIG-re_-Blue-Flame-4.8.20-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 8 letter\u003c/a> to the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Due to the life or death nature of the nationwide PPE shortage, we are concerned Blue Flame is indicative of a potentially growing trend,” Porter wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Porter declined an interview request from CalMatters. Blue Flame’s Thomas \u003ca href=\"https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/25/the-frenzy-to-get-protection-equipment-gives-rise-to-new-brokers-questions-and-possible-waste/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told the Orange County Register\u003c/a> that her letter is “absolutely absurd” and dismissed Porter’s criticism as a politically motivated attack against the advisers of her former campaign rival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On his podcast, Thomas said his company is trying to help states avoid fraud in their quest for medical supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of bad actors right now going on in this marketplace — fraudulent inventory, price gouging, all these horrendous things, which is the last thing you should be doing in a crisis,” Thomas said. “And it’s the exact opposite of what our company Blue Flame was started to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state of Maryland \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/maryland-cancels-big-coronavirus-mask-order-11588447348?emailToken=9fab9dfea748430705d40ddd8943ebd4cKDzxNLlYkfwxFvrQvdEU/edDCJOzh1xM1DjfD/Ex9RS3StnsVadmGTrxmnXbO4XD8VEnZ5g+iGiTxZmtdm3qyEr5n9ZOoDL0GhgIX2NuC4%3D&reflink=article_copyURL_share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">canceled its $12.5 million order\u003c/a> with Blue Flame on Saturday — and asked the state attorney general to investigate — because the company did not deliver the face masks and ventilators the state ordered on April 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately, despite numerous requests for information and order status, Blue Flame Medical has yet to deliver any items under this order, or provide any pertinent data as to a pending shipment,” Maryland’s director of procurement wrote in \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/maryland-s-april-30-letter-to-blue-flame/01b73123-90e7-4127-85b7-2c34eddd4b1e/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a letter\u003c/a> to the company obtained by the Washington Post.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maryland had ordered 1.5 million N95 masks and 110 ventilators, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/maryland-s-blue-flame-purchase-order/7307808b-a0c3-4ee0-8726-d966ba6ccdc7/?itid=lk_inline_manual_24\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">purchase order\u003c/a> The Washington Post posted, and paid Blue Flame nearly $6.3 million upfront.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s order was a lot bigger — and so was its upfront payment. The state ordered 100 million N95 masks from Blue Flame, and its $456.9 million payment amounted to a 75% deposit on the total bill, said Andre Rivera, a deputy director at the state Treasurer’s Office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emails show a frenzy of activity as state employees hammered out the details involved in wiring the funds to Blue Flame’s bank in Virginia. At 8:23 a.m. on March 26, a manager at the Treasurer’s Office emailed another bank involved in the transaction:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hi Ana, I released a large wire transfer to Chain Bridge Bank just now. Can you please check on it and ensure it is completed quickly?” Natalie Gonzalez wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She then informed her colleagues in state government that the money had been wired. An attorney in the Controller’s Office replied at 9:11 a.m.: “A big thank you to all involved in getting these payments out the door. It is very much appreciated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bank manager emailed Gonzalez at 1:20 p.m. and said the wire transfer was completed. At 2:03 p.m., an official at the Department of General Services announced that the deal was off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After a very eventful morning with the Blue Flame purchase, we are no longer moving forward with this vendor,” deputy director Andrew Sturmfels wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Please provide my team… with whatever info and paperwork we need to submit in order to walk back the warrants and null the wire transfer request.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a subsequent email Sturmfels wrote that the “wire transfer was processed on (the State Treasurer’s) end but not completed. Funds are with (State Treasurer’s Office).”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rivera confirmed in an interview with CalMatters that California’s state treasurer got the money back. “The wire was returned exactly the same day when it was canceled,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he referred questions about why California placed the order with Blue Flame and why the deal fell apart to the Department of General Services, which has not responded to multiple interview requests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/03/california-coronavirus-emergency-response-1-billion-dollar-bill/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">allotted $1.1 billion for the state’s pandemic response\u003c/a> when they passed a sweeping emergency measure in mid-March. Newsom’s administration has also dipped into a state disaster relief fund, and has said it expects the total cost of managing the crisis\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-10/california-coronavirus-efforts-7-billion-cost-gavin-newsom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> to reach $7 billion\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the state has cut many deals with private companies in response to the coronavirus, few of them — other than the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/04/california-coronavirus-face-masks-gavin-newsom-byd/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$1 billion contract with BYD\u003c/a> for face masks — come close to the sum it sent Blue Flame. Most arrangements are for under $20 million, according to a review of contracts the state released under a public records request. The state agreed to pay three companies between $2 million and $4 million each to refurbish or supply ventilators. It leased an arena in Sacramento for use as a temporary hospital at a cost of up to $3 million, and leased a hospital near San Francisco for $17.5 million. It’s paying a life sciences company up to $13.1 million to test Californians for COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Masks, though, will play a critical role in getting California back to some semblance of normalcy as businesses are gradually allowed to open after nearly two months of being closed by public health orders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The PPE side of this is so foundational in our ability to open up,” Newsom said Tuesday during a visit to a small business in Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re very pleased in this state to have had substantial success in the last week in procurement of tens of millions of new masks that are now coming in, almost on a weekly basis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the state has prioritized delivering them to health care workers, first responders and nursing homes, Newsom said, but will soon also distribute them to grocery, transit and retail workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As these product lines begin to open up and we have more of this product, we will start getting it out to the front line.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://calmatters.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CalMatters.org\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "California Wired $456.9 Million to a Fledgling Company to Pay for Masks. Within Hours the Deal Was Dead | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On March 26, as the coronavirus pandemic was mounting and governors across America scrambled to secure medical supplies, the state of California wired almost a half-billion dollars to a company that had been in business for just three days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The recipient: Blue Flame Medical LLC, a Delaware-based company headed by two Republican operatives who jumped into the medical supply business on March 23. The pair — Mike Gula from Washington, D.C., and John Thomas of Southern California — had vowed, \u003ca href=\"https://blueflamemedical.health/about-us/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in their words\u003c/a>, to help “fight COVID-19 with the industry’s broadest product selection from hundreds of suppliers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within hours of the enormous wire transfer, the deal was dead and California was clawing its money back — $456.9 million, nearly half of what the Legislature had allocated for the state’s pandemic response. The payment to Blue Flame and cancellation of the deal six hours later were revealed in copies of checks, wire transfer receipts and emails obtained by CalMatters through a public records request.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear why California decided to make such a large purchase for 100 million face masks from a new and untested company. Days ago, Maryland canceled its own order with Blue Flame and asked the state attorney general to investigate the company for its failure so far to deliver the supplies. And California Democratic Rep. Katie Porter also has raised questions about the company’s credibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blue Flame’s attorney, Ethan Bearman of Los Angeles, said today he had no information about the California situation but criticized Maryland’s actions. He described it as “beyond comprehension” that Maryland is disputing the contract and said the company “fully intends” to honor it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Washington Post \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-department-investigates-blue-flame-medical-after-claims-it-failed-to-provide-masks-ventilators-to-maryland-california/2020/05/06/e30b5224-8fa1-11ea-9e23-6914ee410a5f_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reports\u003c/a> that the U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Blue Flame Medical. The Post’s anonymous sources said the inquiry is focused on the firm’s troubled contracts with California and Maryland, and that Blue Flame’s attorney declined comment on the federal probe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s broken deal provides a look at the chaotic marketplace of medical supply procurement and the dollars at stake in the crisis that has killed nearly 70,000 Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government left it up to states to purchase the masks, gloves and other gear that can protect workers from contracting COVID-19. That spike in demand — combined with a global shortage of supplies — created a cottage industry of new suppliers and brokers. Now the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-warns-of-advance-fee-and-bec-schemes-related-to-procurement-of-ppe-and-other-supplies-during-covid-19-pandemic\">FBI is warning states\u003c/a> about “rapidly emerging fraud trends” in the procurement of medical supplies governments are desperately seeking to combat the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Blue Flame purchase fizzled, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/04/california-coronavirus-mask-shortage-solution-deal-newsom/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reaching a deal to buy nearly $1 billion worth of face masks\u003c/a> from a Chinese company called BYD. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-29/coronavirus-masks-arrival-california-gavin-newsom-byd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">masks have begun to arrive\u003c/a> in California but Newsom has refused to release that contract or any details, arguing that doing so could imperil delivery of the supplies in the fragile and unpredictable marketplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a Wild, Wild West of PPE sales and offers,” said Thomas Tighe, president of Direct Relief, a nonprofit aid agency that sends supplies including personal protective equipment (PPE) to disaster sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The pricing and some of the conduct is scary.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tighe doesn’t have any experience with Blue Flame Medical, the company at the center of California’s mysteriously canceled deal. But he said he’s seen the normally low-key business of masks and gloves become a hotbed of confusion and competition as new actors dive into the fray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A strong desire to protect our health workers does lend itself to being exploited for financial gain by folks who are out to make money,” Tighe said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blue Flame’s president has described the venture as an altruistic effort to help the United States deal with the pandemic by tapping into connections he and his business partner established through politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We realized that I actually had some very good relationships with quite a few PPE manufacturers, all over the world,” John Thomas said April 15 on \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/johns-back-and-obama-backs-biden/id1181070008?i=1000471570720\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">his “Thomas Guide” podcast\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we quickly put together an organization called Blue Flame. And we, I believe, are now one of the largest, if not the largest, supplier of COVID-19 supplies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thomas, a political strategist, and Gula, a political fundraiser, drew attention in Washington, D.C., as soon as they launched. “Republican fundraiser looks to cash in on coronavirus,” read the headline on a March 27 \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/27/republican-fundraiser-company-coronavirus-152184\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Politico article\u003c/a>, which said Gula was leaving politics to devote himself to the new business. Thomas \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/politics/coronavirus-money-lobbyists.html?searchResultPosition=5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told The New York Times\u003c/a> that their political connections helped them find suppliers and customers, but that they formed the company to help people, not to get rich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before launching Blue Flame, the pair worked together earlier this year on the campaign of Republican Don Sedgwick, who was seeking the Orange County congressional seat held by Porter. Sedgwick lost in the March primary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Porter is raising concerns about Blue Flame and asking the federal government to ensure that such companies are charging fair prices. Blue Flame’s founders have no experience providing medical supplies, and the company may amount to “a costly and burdensome middleman from which states and localities must now purchase supplies,” Porter wrote in an \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Letter-to-HHS-OIG-re_-Blue-Flame-4.8.20-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 8 letter\u003c/a> to the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Due to the life or death nature of the nationwide PPE shortage, we are concerned Blue Flame is indicative of a potentially growing trend,” Porter wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Porter declined an interview request from CalMatters. Blue Flame’s Thomas \u003ca href=\"https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/25/the-frenzy-to-get-protection-equipment-gives-rise-to-new-brokers-questions-and-possible-waste/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told the Orange County Register\u003c/a> that her letter is “absolutely absurd” and dismissed Porter’s criticism as a politically motivated attack against the advisers of her former campaign rival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On his podcast, Thomas said his company is trying to help states avoid fraud in their quest for medical supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of bad actors right now going on in this marketplace — fraudulent inventory, price gouging, all these horrendous things, which is the last thing you should be doing in a crisis,” Thomas said. “And it’s the exact opposite of what our company Blue Flame was started to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state of Maryland \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/maryland-cancels-big-coronavirus-mask-order-11588447348?emailToken=9fab9dfea748430705d40ddd8943ebd4cKDzxNLlYkfwxFvrQvdEU/edDCJOzh1xM1DjfD/Ex9RS3StnsVadmGTrxmnXbO4XD8VEnZ5g+iGiTxZmtdm3qyEr5n9ZOoDL0GhgIX2NuC4%3D&reflink=article_copyURL_share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">canceled its $12.5 million order\u003c/a> with Blue Flame on Saturday — and asked the state attorney general to investigate — because the company did not deliver the face masks and ventilators the state ordered on April 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately, despite numerous requests for information and order status, Blue Flame Medical has yet to deliver any items under this order, or provide any pertinent data as to a pending shipment,” Maryland’s director of procurement wrote in \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/maryland-s-april-30-letter-to-blue-flame/01b73123-90e7-4127-85b7-2c34eddd4b1e/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a letter\u003c/a> to the company obtained by the Washington Post.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maryland had ordered 1.5 million N95 masks and 110 ventilators, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/maryland-s-blue-flame-purchase-order/7307808b-a0c3-4ee0-8726-d966ba6ccdc7/?itid=lk_inline_manual_24\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">purchase order\u003c/a> The Washington Post posted, and paid Blue Flame nearly $6.3 million upfront.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s order was a lot bigger — and so was its upfront payment. The state ordered 100 million N95 masks from Blue Flame, and its $456.9 million payment amounted to a 75% deposit on the total bill, said Andre Rivera, a deputy director at the state Treasurer’s Office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emails show a frenzy of activity as state employees hammered out the details involved in wiring the funds to Blue Flame’s bank in Virginia. At 8:23 a.m. on March 26, a manager at the Treasurer’s Office emailed another bank involved in the transaction:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hi Ana, I released a large wire transfer to Chain Bridge Bank just now. Can you please check on it and ensure it is completed quickly?” Natalie Gonzalez wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She then informed her colleagues in state government that the money had been wired. An attorney in the Controller’s Office replied at 9:11 a.m.: “A big thank you to all involved in getting these payments out the door. It is very much appreciated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bank manager emailed Gonzalez at 1:20 p.m. and said the wire transfer was completed. At 2:03 p.m., an official at the Department of General Services announced that the deal was off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After a very eventful morning with the Blue Flame purchase, we are no longer moving forward with this vendor,” deputy director Andrew Sturmfels wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Please provide my team… with whatever info and paperwork we need to submit in order to walk back the warrants and null the wire transfer request.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a subsequent email Sturmfels wrote that the “wire transfer was processed on (the State Treasurer’s) end but not completed. Funds are with (State Treasurer’s Office).”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rivera confirmed in an interview with CalMatters that California’s state treasurer got the money back. “The wire was returned exactly the same day when it was canceled,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he referred questions about why California placed the order with Blue Flame and why the deal fell apart to the Department of General Services, which has not responded to multiple interview requests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/03/california-coronavirus-emergency-response-1-billion-dollar-bill/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">allotted $1.1 billion for the state’s pandemic response\u003c/a> when they passed a sweeping emergency measure in mid-March. Newsom’s administration has also dipped into a state disaster relief fund, and has said it expects the total cost of managing the crisis\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-10/california-coronavirus-efforts-7-billion-cost-gavin-newsom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> to reach $7 billion\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the state has cut many deals with private companies in response to the coronavirus, few of them — other than the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/04/california-coronavirus-face-masks-gavin-newsom-byd/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$1 billion contract with BYD\u003c/a> for face masks — come close to the sum it sent Blue Flame. Most arrangements are for under $20 million, according to a review of contracts the state released under a public records request. The state agreed to pay three companies between $2 million and $4 million each to refurbish or supply ventilators. It leased an arena in Sacramento for use as a temporary hospital at a cost of up to $3 million, and leased a hospital near San Francisco for $17.5 million. It’s paying a life sciences company up to $13.1 million to test Californians for COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Masks, though, will play a critical role in getting California back to some semblance of normalcy as businesses are gradually allowed to open after nearly two months of being closed by public health orders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The PPE side of this is so foundational in our ability to open up,” Newsom said Tuesday during a visit to a small business in Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re very pleased in this state to have had substantial success in the last week in procurement of tens of millions of new masks that are now coming in, almost on a weekly basis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the state has prioritized delivering them to health care workers, first responders and nursing homes, Newsom said, but will soon also distribute them to grocery, transit and retail workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As these product lines begin to open up and we have more of this product, we will start getting it out to the front line.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California Aims to Deliver Food to Seniors During Coronavirus Pandemic",
"headTitle": "California Aims to Deliver Food to Seniors During Coronavirus Pandemic | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>A state-led plan to deliver food to seniors sheltering from the pandemic is getting off the ground, but slowly, and not everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://covid19.ca.gov/restaurants-deliver-home-meals-for-seniors/\">announced Great Plates Delivered\u003c/a> with two goals: feed seniors who must stay at home to minimize the risk of coronavirus, and stoke business for restaurants starved of patrons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Click \u003ca href=\"https://covid19.ca.gov/restaurants-deliver-home-meals-for-seniors/\">here\u003c/a> for more about the Bay Area communities participating in the program.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This partnership will allow for the ability for restaurants to start rehiring people or keep people currently employed,” Newsom said, at an April 24 press briefing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program relies largely on money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay restaurants, and on counties and cities to recruit participants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Newsom’s announcement took some local officials by surprise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Literally within 10 minutes, our hotline started ringing pretty much off the hook,” said Lisa Mancini, director of San Mateo County’s Aging and Adult Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, she says the county welcomed the opportunity: “We know the need is out there,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her team is now working toward a goal of bringing about a thousand seniors three restaurant meals a day, and Mancini says restaurants eager for customers are signing up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So if there’s any way to get this to work, we want to put our full force behind it,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But rural and small counties have expressed skepticism of the program, its initially short timeline — FEMA originally said money had to be spent by May 10 — and the potential for red tape. Solano County Emergency Services Manager Don Ryan told supervisors at the county’s most recent \u003ca href=\"https://solano.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=8&clip_id=1829\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">meeting \u003c/a>Tuesday that Solano, like “lots of counties, almost 30 counties,” is opting out “because the restrictions are so complicated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ryan says he’s worried about the money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we do it wrong, we’re not reimbursed,” he said. “If we do it right, a lot of people are not even going to be eligible for it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Mateo County is one of just six counties, and a handful of cities, listed on the state’s website as participating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>How to Participate in Great Plates Delivered\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who’s Eligible for Great Plates?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://covid19.ca.gov/img/wp/great-plates-delivered-participants-faqs.pdf\">FAQ: \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Low-income seniors over 65 (seniors whose income is less than 6 times the federal poverty limit, or about $75,000)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Californians 60 to 64, who have health conditions that raise their risk for the virus, who have been exposed to the virus, or who have tested positive for COVID-19\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>For both of these categories, seniors must live alone or with one other person who also qualifies for the program; participants must confirm they can’t prepare meals on their own\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Seniors already receiving meals from a federally funded program like CalFRESH or Meals on Wheels are ineligible\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Even with these limitations, more than a million seniors statewide are likely to qualify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>In what cities and counties can seniors sign up for Great Plates Delivered?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>San Mateo County: call 1-800-675-8437\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>San Jose and other cities in Santa Clara County: call 408-350-3200– Option 1\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Contra Costa County: call 800-510-2020\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Seaside in Santa Cruz County: call 831-899-6809 or 831-899-6821 (Santa Cruz County has sought businesses to participate, but hasn’t announced a formal program)\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who’s paying for this?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The Federal Emergency Management Agency is picking up 75% of the cost.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The State of California pays for 75% of the remaining quarter of the tab.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Local communities pick up the remaining 6 cents on the dollar, but get to keep the sales tax from the transactions.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What do restaurants get for participating?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>$16 for breakfast\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>$17 for lunch\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>$27 for dinner\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>$5 for “incidental expenses.”\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A state-led plan to deliver food to seniors sheltering from the pandemic is getting off the ground, but slowly, and not everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://covid19.ca.gov/restaurants-deliver-home-meals-for-seniors/\">announced Great Plates Delivered\u003c/a> with two goals: feed seniors who must stay at home to minimize the risk of coronavirus, and stoke business for restaurants starved of patrons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Click \u003ca href=\"https://covid19.ca.gov/restaurants-deliver-home-meals-for-seniors/\">here\u003c/a> for more about the Bay Area communities participating in the program.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This partnership will allow for the ability for restaurants to start rehiring people or keep people currently employed,” Newsom said, at an April 24 press briefing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program relies largely on money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay restaurants, and on counties and cities to recruit participants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Newsom’s announcement took some local officials by surprise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Literally within 10 minutes, our hotline started ringing pretty much off the hook,” said Lisa Mancini, director of San Mateo County’s Aging and Adult Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, she says the county welcomed the opportunity: “We know the need is out there,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her team is now working toward a goal of bringing about a thousand seniors three restaurant meals a day, and Mancini says restaurants eager for customers are signing up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So if there’s any way to get this to work, we want to put our full force behind it,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But rural and small counties have expressed skepticism of the program, its initially short timeline — FEMA originally said money had to be spent by May 10 — and the potential for red tape. Solano County Emergency Services Manager Don Ryan told supervisors at the county’s most recent \u003ca href=\"https://solano.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=8&clip_id=1829\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">meeting \u003c/a>Tuesday that Solano, like “lots of counties, almost 30 counties,” is opting out “because the restrictions are so complicated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ryan says he’s worried about the money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we do it wrong, we’re not reimbursed,” he said. “If we do it right, a lot of people are not even going to be eligible for it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Mateo County is one of just six counties, and a handful of cities, listed on the state’s website as participating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>How to Participate in Great Plates Delivered\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who’s Eligible for Great Plates?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://covid19.ca.gov/img/wp/great-plates-delivered-participants-faqs.pdf\">FAQ: \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Low-income seniors over 65 (seniors whose income is less than 6 times the federal poverty limit, or about $75,000)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Californians 60 to 64, who have health conditions that raise their risk for the virus, who have been exposed to the virus, or who have tested positive for COVID-19\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>For both of these categories, seniors must live alone or with one other person who also qualifies for the program; participants must confirm they can’t prepare meals on their own\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Seniors already receiving meals from a federally funded program like CalFRESH or Meals on Wheels are ineligible\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Even with these limitations, more than a million seniors statewide are likely to qualify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>In what cities and counties can seniors sign up for Great Plates Delivered?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>San Mateo County: call 1-800-675-8437\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>San Jose and other cities in Santa Clara County: call 408-350-3200– Option 1\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Contra Costa County: call 800-510-2020\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Seaside in Santa Cruz County: call 831-899-6809 or 831-899-6821 (Santa Cruz County has sought businesses to participate, but hasn’t announced a formal program)\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who’s paying for this?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The Federal Emergency Management Agency is picking up 75% of the cost.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The State of California pays for 75% of the remaining quarter of the tab.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Local communities pick up the remaining 6 cents on the dollar, but get to keep the sales tax from the transactions.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What do restaurants get for participating?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>$16 for breakfast\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>$17 for lunch\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>$27 for dinner\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>$5 for “incidental expenses.”\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Can Blood Plasma From Recovered Patients Help Treat COVID-19? UCSF Is Testing It Out",
"headTitle": "Can Blood Plasma From Recovered Patients Help Treat COVID-19? UCSF Is Testing It Out | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Scientists hope antibodies from the blood of recently recovered patients can help fight off COVID-19 in others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the FDA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/investigational-new-drug-ind-or-device-exemption-ide-process-cber/recommendations-investigational-covid-19-convalescent-plasma\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">expanded access authorization\u003c/a>, doctors at UCSF have begun treating some of their sickest COVID-19 patients with blood plasma donated from people who have recovered from the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you know somebody recovered and was successful, they’re probably going to have the good antibodies in them, which we call neutralizing antibodies,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chin-Hong says the science behind plasma infusions has been around for decades and that doctors have been using \u003ca href=\"https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/expert-answers/convalescent-plasma/faq-20484383\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">convalescent plasma\u003c/a>, as it’s called, to treat disease since the time of polio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t really know if it works in COVID-19 just because it works in other infectious diseases, but there is a lot of plausibility,” Chin-Hong said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The five UCSF patients recently given plasma, Chin-Hong says, are on the whole “doing fine,” without any adverse effects. However, clinical trials will be needed to determine if convalescent plasma infusions can effectively treat COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UCSF plans to launch a controlled clinical study with hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the coming weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chin-Hong says if plasma proves effective at fighting off the virus, it could eventually be used as a preventive treatment to boost immunity in health care workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is also potentially easier to produce than other treatments, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is one of the things that I have the most excitement about. You don’t need a big drug company, you don’t need to spend billions. It’s something that your body makes naturally,” Chin-Hong said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Scientists hope antibodies from the blood of recently recovered patients can help fight off COVID-19 in others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the FDA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/investigational-new-drug-ind-or-device-exemption-ide-process-cber/recommendations-investigational-covid-19-convalescent-plasma\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">expanded access authorization\u003c/a>, doctors at UCSF have begun treating some of their sickest COVID-19 patients with blood plasma donated from people who have recovered from the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you know somebody recovered and was successful, they’re probably going to have the good antibodies in them, which we call neutralizing antibodies,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chin-Hong says the science behind plasma infusions has been around for decades and that doctors have been using \u003ca href=\"https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/expert-answers/convalescent-plasma/faq-20484383\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">convalescent plasma\u003c/a>, as it’s called, to treat disease since the time of polio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t really know if it works in COVID-19 just because it works in other infectious diseases, but there is a lot of plausibility,” Chin-Hong said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The five UCSF patients recently given plasma, Chin-Hong says, are on the whole “doing fine,” without any adverse effects. However, clinical trials will be needed to determine if convalescent plasma infusions can effectively treat COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UCSF plans to launch a controlled clinical study with hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the coming weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chin-Hong says if plasma proves effective at fighting off the virus, it could eventually be used as a preventive treatment to boost immunity in health care workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is also potentially easier to produce than other treatments, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is one of the things that I have the most excitement about. You don’t need a big drug company, you don’t need to spend billions. It’s something that your body makes naturally,” Chin-Hong said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Three Potential Futures for the Coronavirus and Us",
"headTitle": "Three Potential Futures for the Coronavirus and Us | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">A\u003c/span>\u003c/span>s epidemiologists attempt to scope out what \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/tag/coronavirus/\">COVID-19\u003c/a> has in store for the U.S. this summer and beyond, they see several potential futures, differing by how often and how severely the no-longer-new coronavirus continues to wallop humankind. But while these scenarios diverge on key details\u003cstrong> —\u003c/strong> how much transmission will decrease over the summer, for instance, and how many people have already been infected (and possibly acquired immunity) — they almost unanimously foresee a world that, even when the current outbreak temporarily abates, looks and feels nothing like the world of just three months ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is a world where, even in Western countries, wearing a face mask is no more unusual than carrying a cellphone. A world where even at small social gatherings a friend’s occasional cough feels threatening, where workplaces have the feel of hot zones, and where taking public transit is not as much environmentally correct as personally dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“October 2020,” said emerging diseases expert Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, “won’t look nothing like October 2019.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And neither will October 2021, according to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sites/default/files/public/downloads/cidrap-covid19-viewpoint-part1_0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">analysis\u003c/a> released on Thursday by epidemiologist Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota and his colleagues. They envision three possible futures, depicted as seascapes, their waves of different heights and widths approaching the unseen and unsuspecting beachcombers on a placid shore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one future, a monster wave hit in early 2020 (the current outbreak of millions of cases and a \u003ca href=\"https://covid19-projections.com/#view-projections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">projected\u003c/a> hundreds of thousands of deaths globally by August 1). It is followed by alternating mini-waves of much smaller outbreaks every few months with only a few (but never zero) cases in between.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the second scenario, the current monster wave is followed later this year by one twice as fierce and even longer-lasting, as the outbreak rebounds after a summer when a significant drop in the number of cases and deaths led officials and individuals to let down their guard, relax physical distancing more than was safe, and fail to heed (or even detect) the early warning signs that a new outbreak was gathering force. After this doubly disastrous second wave, the sea is almost calm, marred only by an occasional wave of cases that number barely one-fifth of what the fall and spring of 2020 saw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the third possible future, the current wave creates a new normal, with COVID-19 outbreaks of nearly equal size and, in most cases, duration through the end of 2022. At that point, the best-case scenario is that an effective vaccine has arrived; if not, then the world experiences COVID-19 until at least half of the population has been infected, with or without becoming ill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What all three scenarios agree on is this: There is virtually no chance COVID-19 will end when the world bids good riddance to a calamitous 2020. The reason is the same as why the disease has taken such a toll its first time through: No one had immunity to the new coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This pandemic is not going to settle down until there is sufficient population immunity,” slightly above 50%, epidemiologist Gabriel Leung of the University of Hong Kong told a New York Academy of Sciences briefing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the world “is far from that level of immunity,” said Osterholm (he estimates that no more than 5% of the world population is immune to the new coronavirus as a result of surviving their infection), “this virus is going to keep finding people. It’s going to keep spreading through the population.” And that, he said, “means we’re in for a long haul.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The uncertainty over what the long haul will look like — a staggering third scenario or a much less brutal first — reflects the host of unknowns surrounding an outbreak unparalleled in modern history. Scientists are still racing to understand everything from the basic biology of the virus (how much do warm temperatures and high humidity reduce transmission? how many people were infected, and if they have immunity, how long does it last?) to the impact of mitigation strategies (does closing K-12 schools help enough to justify the cost to children’s education?). The answers will affect which future comes to pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the greatest unknown involves human and social values. To put it bluntly, how many deaths can a particular country, city, or community tolerate? “Reducing infections to zero is not possible, and would come at too high a cost,” Leung said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Different countries will decide what “too high” means; Sweden, for instance, has imposed only modest physical distancing steps, such as banning large gatherings, but its schools, restaurants, stores, and workplaces have remained open. It has fewer cases per 1 million people than Spain, Italy, the U.S., France, the U.K., and other countries that adopted stricter measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When STAT last asked experts \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">what might happen\u003c/a> if the new coronavirus were not contained, three months ago, Wuhan, China \u003cstrong>— \u003c/strong>the origin of the pandemic \u003cstrong>—\u003c/strong> had been on lockdown only a week. The world had just passed 10,000 cases. The U.S. had \u003ca href=\"https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">one\u003c/a> (a man returning to Washington state after visiting family in Wuhan). Its first documented \u003ca href=\"https://globalbiodefense.com/headlines/first-case-of-possible-community-transmission-of-covid-19-reported-in-u-s/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">case\u003c/a> of community transmission was still three weeks away. Yet there was a consensus that the outbreak would not be contained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the experts told us, while the new coronavirus might settle down and simply cause colds like the other four human coronaviruses already in circulation, it was more likely to return year after year like seasonal flu, causing illnesses much more serious than sniffles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, more than 1 million U.S. cases and 64,000 deaths later, here are three possible futures that leading epidemiologists think the Northern Hemisphere could see. In each, the small wave in early 2020 represents China’s COVID-19 outbreak, which peaked in late January and February but was mostly gone by March (the dip). The next, much larger crest represents the pandemic outside of China, especially in Europe and the U.S. Each scenario runs through 2022, when there’s a reasonable chance a vaccine will have arrived and there will have been enough of it produced to inoculate hundreds of millions of people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963591\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963591\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SOURCE: MICHAEL OSTERHOLM/UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTAx \u003ccite>(HYACINTH EMPINADO/STAT)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scenario One: Small Waves as Far as the Eye Can See\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this future, the current peak in COVID-19 cases is followed over the next two years by crest and dip, crest and dip. The crests will be less than half the size of this spring’s outbreak, with some of the highest numbers coinciding with flu season next fall and troughs this summer and next. There will likely be regional variation due to factors including random outbreaks, the bad luck of having super-spreaders, and too little testing and contact tracing to extinguish new outbreaks before they explode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crest-and-dip possibility reflects an emerging consensus that this coronavirus has some seasonality but will not be eliminated by hot, humid weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The consensus among scientists is that climate is unlikely to substantially suppress COVID-19 on its own during the summer of 2020 because we will still have a population that is almost completely susceptible to the virus,” biologist Marta Shocket of the University of California, Los Angeles, told reporters. As a result, any seasonal reduction “won’t have as big of an effect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because of how the virus is transmitted. Heat and humidity can kill virus on surfaces, said Adalja, “but in the summer, there will still be plenty of people who can transmit it person-to-person,” by sneezing, coughing, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/15/simply-speaking-could-transmit-coronavirus-new-study-suggests/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">even speaking\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How many people? “It is our estimate that there is maybe a 20% reduction in transmissibility in the summer,” said epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who helped develop the scenarios. “If it’s similar to the other [four] human coronaviruses,” which cause common colds, “that’s not enough to stop it, just to slow it down,” he told JAMA Live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Osterholm’s summertime mini-wave shows more than a 20% reduction in cases, however, reflecting what experts predict will be one of the pandemic’s long-lasting legacies: Governors can open up bars and beaches all they want, but large indoor gatherings will still likely be off-limits, and many people will continue to practice voluntary social distancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even without mandates for social distancing, people will be doing it anyway,” Adalja said. “It’s been built into our lives.” As a result, he said, “spectator sports and rock concerts probably won’t be part of the equation. I suspect certain malls will close; they were already dying, so [people’s reluctance to be close to others] is likely to be their death knell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Measures that retailers, employers, and others are readying for when they re-open, from staggering work shifts to erecting partitions between cubicles to sending home any employee who runs even a slight fever, the new normal will lock in some of the physical distancing that has kept the worst forecasts for COVID-19’s first wave from coming true. For many, donning a face mask before meeting friends at a park or going to the gym will become as natural as pocketing their cellphone. At restaurants, patrons will likely have their temperatures taken before being seated and servers will wear a mask and gloves, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California predicted last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when local outbreaks occur anyway, those measures will become stricter, even if only through voluntary measures. Many workers, frightened by a local flare-up, will telecommute if they can. People will again shun public transit, even taxis and ride apps. They will postpone scheduled surgeries and doctor visits, especially as telemedicine takes hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can speak to a doctor on the phone instead of getting in your car, driving through traffic, and traveling to the surgery … well, who wouldn’t want that?,” said futurist Patricia Lustig, CEO of the consulting firm LASA Insight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then the outbreak will dissipate again, thanks to such measures. Many people will take that as a signal that it is safe to let down their guard. Social distancing will be less strict. The next wave will hit … over and over until so many people have been infected, or a vaccine succeeds, to produce herd immunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Said Osterholm, “I keep telling people, the outbreak will not end with this one wave.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963589\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963589\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SOURCE: MICHAEL OSTERHOLM/UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA \u003ccite>(YACINTH EMPINADO/STAT)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scenario Two: History Redux\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>March 1918 brought the first, moderate wave of the Spanish flu. Cases fell over that summer, but six months later, in the fall, the epidemic exploded. That was followed by smaller peaks in early 1919. And then the pandemic ended. The influenza pandemics of 1957 and 1958, and 2009’s swine flu, followed a similar pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this scenario, rather than reappearing throughout the year as the crests and troughs of the first scenario, COVID-19 would return with more ferocity in the late summer and fall and then dissipate, settling into a small but near-constant number of cases. “You would have what we call a case cliff,” Osterholm said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The precipitous, and lasting, fall-off would have two causes. First, so many people would be infected in the moderate first wave (now) and the gargantuan second wave (peaking around October) that the population might approach herd immunity. Second, the second wave, Osterholm said, “would absolutely take the health system down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Avoiding that was the whole point of efforts to \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/flattening-curve-coronavirus/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“flatten the curve”\u003c/a> in the U.S. beginning in March, and they largely succeeded. But even if hospitals and others use the summer lull to load up on personal protective equipment, ventilators, and other needs, and to otherwise prepare for a full-blown return of COVD-19 in the autumn and winter, it would likely not be enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we also had a bad flu season, it would be really difficult for hospitals to cope,” Hopkins’ Adalja said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An imminent or actual crash of the health care system, similar to what northern Italy experienced in March, would force national, state, and local officials to impose mitigation measures even stricter than those of the last six weeks, which — as happened in China from late January to early March — would mostly snuff out COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the new coronavirus would continue to circulate, like the four other human coronaviruses, there would still be low-level transmission. But cases would be so few they would hardly count as “outbreaks;” instead, COVID-19 would be with us at a fairly low level, perhaps thousands of cases at any one time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963590\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963590\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SOURCE: MICHAEL OSTERHOLM/UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA \u003ccite>(YACINTH EMPINADO/STAT)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scenario Three: The Worst Groundhog Day\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If everything breaks wrong, “we just keep having outbreaks in this city or that city and we keep trying to smother them,” Osterholm said, who calls this the “slow burn” scenario.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The waves keep coming because the size of the outbreaks that follow the current one are smaller than in the monster-wave second scenario. It therefore takes longer for population immunity to build up. Local outbreaks occur, worse in some places than others due to, among things, different capacity to conduct widespread, regular testing and contact-tracing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No past influenza pandemic has ever followed this pattern. There are two reasons COVID-19 might, however.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One is biological: Coronaviruses, as shown by the four endemic ones, are frighteningly adept at continuing to circulate and never disappearing (the SARS coronavirus in the early 2000s was an exception).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other is sociological: There are real questions about society’s capacity to withstand another economic shutdown, let alone repeated ones. In the future, those policies, at least in some cities and states, may well be less stringent, and therefore less effective at controlling outbreaks, than those imposed this spring. That’s why future outbreaks in this scenario keep coming, with durations and case loads comparable to the current one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Do the endless waves mean that social distancing will have to be reimposed over and over, forcing the repeated closures of businesses that just reopened and the laying off of employees whose jobs keep being eliminated? Although it’s hard to remember, the stay-at-home orders, business shutdowns, and other mitigation measures were all in service of flattening the curve: slowing the spread of COVID-19 enough to keep the number of patients needing hospitalization, intensive care, or a ventilator no greater than the health system’s capacity. Flattening the curve did not mean zero cases and deaths, or even a few thousand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If that remains the goal for future COVID-19 waves, then mitigation might not be as severe, as a growing number of epidemiologists recognize: Having seen how disastrously short of supplies and capacity they were, many hospitals will use the summer lull “to manage capacity better and make adjustments to be better able to absorb a surge of cases,” Adalja said. “Hopefully, it won’t be a calamity every time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ironically, that may increase somewhat people’s tolerance for high numbers of illnesses, especially if the arrival of effective treatments means the return of COVID-19 is less lethal than it was initially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Society must referee what Leung calls “a three-way tug of war” among a trio of competing needs: to keep cases and deaths low, to preserve jobs and economic activity, and to preserve people’s emotional well-being. “It’s a battle between what we need to do for public health and what we need to do for the economy and for social and emotional well-being,” he said. If the public health part of the tug-of-war weakens, then the waves will keep on coming through the end of 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And which scenario is most likely? Osterholm isn’t sure. “This virus is on its own time schedule,” he said. “But we will have some tough months ahead.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/01/three-potential-futures-for-covid-19/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">story\u003c/a> was originally published by STAT, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Epidemiologists foresee a future world that looks very different from the one that existed going into the pandemic. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">A\u003c/span>\u003c/span>s epidemiologists attempt to scope out what \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/tag/coronavirus/\">COVID-19\u003c/a> has in store for the U.S. this summer and beyond, they see several potential futures, differing by how often and how severely the no-longer-new coronavirus continues to wallop humankind. But while these scenarios diverge on key details\u003cstrong> —\u003c/strong> how much transmission will decrease over the summer, for instance, and how many people have already been infected (and possibly acquired immunity) — they almost unanimously foresee a world that, even when the current outbreak temporarily abates, looks and feels nothing like the world of just three months ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is a world where, even in Western countries, wearing a face mask is no more unusual than carrying a cellphone. A world where even at small social gatherings a friend’s occasional cough feels threatening, where workplaces have the feel of hot zones, and where taking public transit is not as much environmentally correct as personally dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“October 2020,” said emerging diseases expert Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, “won’t look nothing like October 2019.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And neither will October 2021, according to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sites/default/files/public/downloads/cidrap-covid19-viewpoint-part1_0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">analysis\u003c/a> released on Thursday by epidemiologist Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota and his colleagues. They envision three possible futures, depicted as seascapes, their waves of different heights and widths approaching the unseen and unsuspecting beachcombers on a placid shore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one future, a monster wave hit in early 2020 (the current outbreak of millions of cases and a \u003ca href=\"https://covid19-projections.com/#view-projections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">projected\u003c/a> hundreds of thousands of deaths globally by August 1). It is followed by alternating mini-waves of much smaller outbreaks every few months with only a few (but never zero) cases in between.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the second scenario, the current monster wave is followed later this year by one twice as fierce and even longer-lasting, as the outbreak rebounds after a summer when a significant drop in the number of cases and deaths led officials and individuals to let down their guard, relax physical distancing more than was safe, and fail to heed (or even detect) the early warning signs that a new outbreak was gathering force. After this doubly disastrous second wave, the sea is almost calm, marred only by an occasional wave of cases that number barely one-fifth of what the fall and spring of 2020 saw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the third possible future, the current wave creates a new normal, with COVID-19 outbreaks of nearly equal size and, in most cases, duration through the end of 2022. At that point, the best-case scenario is that an effective vaccine has arrived; if not, then the world experiences COVID-19 until at least half of the population has been infected, with or without becoming ill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What all three scenarios agree on is this: There is virtually no chance COVID-19 will end when the world bids good riddance to a calamitous 2020. The reason is the same as why the disease has taken such a toll its first time through: No one had immunity to the new coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This pandemic is not going to settle down until there is sufficient population immunity,” slightly above 50%, epidemiologist Gabriel Leung of the University of Hong Kong told a New York Academy of Sciences briefing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the world “is far from that level of immunity,” said Osterholm (he estimates that no more than 5% of the world population is immune to the new coronavirus as a result of surviving their infection), “this virus is going to keep finding people. It’s going to keep spreading through the population.” And that, he said, “means we’re in for a long haul.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The uncertainty over what the long haul will look like — a staggering third scenario or a much less brutal first — reflects the host of unknowns surrounding an outbreak unparalleled in modern history. Scientists are still racing to understand everything from the basic biology of the virus (how much do warm temperatures and high humidity reduce transmission? how many people were infected, and if they have immunity, how long does it last?) to the impact of mitigation strategies (does closing K-12 schools help enough to justify the cost to children’s education?). The answers will affect which future comes to pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the greatest unknown involves human and social values. To put it bluntly, how many deaths can a particular country, city, or community tolerate? “Reducing infections to zero is not possible, and would come at too high a cost,” Leung said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Different countries will decide what “too high” means; Sweden, for instance, has imposed only modest physical distancing steps, such as banning large gatherings, but its schools, restaurants, stores, and workplaces have remained open. It has fewer cases per 1 million people than Spain, Italy, the U.S., France, the U.K., and other countries that adopted stricter measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When STAT last asked experts \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">what might happen\u003c/a> if the new coronavirus were not contained, three months ago, Wuhan, China \u003cstrong>— \u003c/strong>the origin of the pandemic \u003cstrong>—\u003c/strong> had been on lockdown only a week. The world had just passed 10,000 cases. The U.S. had \u003ca href=\"https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">one\u003c/a> (a man returning to Washington state after visiting family in Wuhan). Its first documented \u003ca href=\"https://globalbiodefense.com/headlines/first-case-of-possible-community-transmission-of-covid-19-reported-in-u-s/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">case\u003c/a> of community transmission was still three weeks away. Yet there was a consensus that the outbreak would not be contained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the experts told us, while the new coronavirus might settle down and simply cause colds like the other four human coronaviruses already in circulation, it was more likely to return year after year like seasonal flu, causing illnesses much more serious than sniffles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, more than 1 million U.S. cases and 64,000 deaths later, here are three possible futures that leading epidemiologists think the Northern Hemisphere could see. In each, the small wave in early 2020 represents China’s COVID-19 outbreak, which peaked in late January and February but was mostly gone by March (the dip). The next, much larger crest represents the pandemic outside of China, especially in Europe and the U.S. Each scenario runs through 2022, when there’s a reasonable chance a vaccine will have arrived and there will have been enough of it produced to inoculate hundreds of millions of people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963591\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963591\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-1-New-1600x900-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SOURCE: MICHAEL OSTERHOLM/UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTAx \u003ccite>(HYACINTH EMPINADO/STAT)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scenario One: Small Waves as Far as the Eye Can See\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this future, the current peak in COVID-19 cases is followed over the next two years by crest and dip, crest and dip. The crests will be less than half the size of this spring’s outbreak, with some of the highest numbers coinciding with flu season next fall and troughs this summer and next. There will likely be regional variation due to factors including random outbreaks, the bad luck of having super-spreaders, and too little testing and contact tracing to extinguish new outbreaks before they explode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crest-and-dip possibility reflects an emerging consensus that this coronavirus has some seasonality but will not be eliminated by hot, humid weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The consensus among scientists is that climate is unlikely to substantially suppress COVID-19 on its own during the summer of 2020 because we will still have a population that is almost completely susceptible to the virus,” biologist Marta Shocket of the University of California, Los Angeles, told reporters. As a result, any seasonal reduction “won’t have as big of an effect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because of how the virus is transmitted. Heat and humidity can kill virus on surfaces, said Adalja, “but in the summer, there will still be plenty of people who can transmit it person-to-person,” by sneezing, coughing, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/15/simply-speaking-could-transmit-coronavirus-new-study-suggests/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">even speaking\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How many people? “It is our estimate that there is maybe a 20% reduction in transmissibility in the summer,” said epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who helped develop the scenarios. “If it’s similar to the other [four] human coronaviruses,” which cause common colds, “that’s not enough to stop it, just to slow it down,” he told JAMA Live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Osterholm’s summertime mini-wave shows more than a 20% reduction in cases, however, reflecting what experts predict will be one of the pandemic’s long-lasting legacies: Governors can open up bars and beaches all they want, but large indoor gatherings will still likely be off-limits, and many people will continue to practice voluntary social distancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even without mandates for social distancing, people will be doing it anyway,” Adalja said. “It’s been built into our lives.” As a result, he said, “spectator sports and rock concerts probably won’t be part of the equation. I suspect certain malls will close; they were already dying, so [people’s reluctance to be close to others] is likely to be their death knell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Measures that retailers, employers, and others are readying for when they re-open, from staggering work shifts to erecting partitions between cubicles to sending home any employee who runs even a slight fever, the new normal will lock in some of the physical distancing that has kept the worst forecasts for COVID-19’s first wave from coming true. For many, donning a face mask before meeting friends at a park or going to the gym will become as natural as pocketing their cellphone. At restaurants, patrons will likely have their temperatures taken before being seated and servers will wear a mask and gloves, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California predicted last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when local outbreaks occur anyway, those measures will become stricter, even if only through voluntary measures. Many workers, frightened by a local flare-up, will telecommute if they can. People will again shun public transit, even taxis and ride apps. They will postpone scheduled surgeries and doctor visits, especially as telemedicine takes hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can speak to a doctor on the phone instead of getting in your car, driving through traffic, and traveling to the surgery … well, who wouldn’t want that?,” said futurist Patricia Lustig, CEO of the consulting firm LASA Insight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then the outbreak will dissipate again, thanks to such measures. Many people will take that as a signal that it is safe to let down their guard. Social distancing will be less strict. The next wave will hit … over and over until so many people have been infected, or a vaccine succeeds, to produce herd immunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Said Osterholm, “I keep telling people, the outbreak will not end with this one wave.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963589\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963589\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-2-1600x900-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SOURCE: MICHAEL OSTERHOLM/UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA \u003ccite>(YACINTH EMPINADO/STAT)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scenario Two: History Redux\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>March 1918 brought the first, moderate wave of the Spanish flu. Cases fell over that summer, but six months later, in the fall, the epidemic exploded. That was followed by smaller peaks in early 1919. And then the pandemic ended. The influenza pandemics of 1957 and 1958, and 2009’s swine flu, followed a similar pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this scenario, rather than reappearing throughout the year as the crests and troughs of the first scenario, COVID-19 would return with more ferocity in the late summer and fall and then dissipate, settling into a small but near-constant number of cases. “You would have what we call a case cliff,” Osterholm said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The precipitous, and lasting, fall-off would have two causes. First, so many people would be infected in the moderate first wave (now) and the gargantuan second wave (peaking around October) that the population might approach herd immunity. Second, the second wave, Osterholm said, “would absolutely take the health system down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Avoiding that was the whole point of efforts to \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/flattening-curve-coronavirus/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“flatten the curve”\u003c/a> in the U.S. beginning in March, and they largely succeeded. But even if hospitals and others use the summer lull to load up on personal protective equipment, ventilators, and other needs, and to otherwise prepare for a full-blown return of COVD-19 in the autumn and winter, it would likely not be enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we also had a bad flu season, it would be really difficult for hospitals to cope,” Hopkins’ Adalja said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An imminent or actual crash of the health care system, similar to what northern Italy experienced in March, would force national, state, and local officials to impose mitigation measures even stricter than those of the last six weeks, which — as happened in China from late January to early March — would mostly snuff out COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the new coronavirus would continue to circulate, like the four other human coronaviruses, there would still be low-level transmission. But cases would be so few they would hardly count as “outbreaks;” instead, COVID-19 would be with us at a fairly low level, perhaps thousands of cases at any one time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963590\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963590\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/Scenario-3-New-1600x900-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SOURCE: MICHAEL OSTERHOLM/UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA \u003ccite>(YACINTH EMPINADO/STAT)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scenario Three: The Worst Groundhog Day\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If everything breaks wrong, “we just keep having outbreaks in this city or that city and we keep trying to smother them,” Osterholm said, who calls this the “slow burn” scenario.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The waves keep coming because the size of the outbreaks that follow the current one are smaller than in the monster-wave second scenario. It therefore takes longer for population immunity to build up. Local outbreaks occur, worse in some places than others due to, among things, different capacity to conduct widespread, regular testing and contact-tracing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No past influenza pandemic has ever followed this pattern. There are two reasons COVID-19 might, however.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One is biological: Coronaviruses, as shown by the four endemic ones, are frighteningly adept at continuing to circulate and never disappearing (the SARS coronavirus in the early 2000s was an exception).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other is sociological: There are real questions about society’s capacity to withstand another economic shutdown, let alone repeated ones. In the future, those policies, at least in some cities and states, may well be less stringent, and therefore less effective at controlling outbreaks, than those imposed this spring. That’s why future outbreaks in this scenario keep coming, with durations and case loads comparable to the current one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Do the endless waves mean that social distancing will have to be reimposed over and over, forcing the repeated closures of businesses that just reopened and the laying off of employees whose jobs keep being eliminated? Although it’s hard to remember, the stay-at-home orders, business shutdowns, and other mitigation measures were all in service of flattening the curve: slowing the spread of COVID-19 enough to keep the number of patients needing hospitalization, intensive care, or a ventilator no greater than the health system’s capacity. Flattening the curve did not mean zero cases and deaths, or even a few thousand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If that remains the goal for future COVID-19 waves, then mitigation might not be as severe, as a growing number of epidemiologists recognize: Having seen how disastrously short of supplies and capacity they were, many hospitals will use the summer lull “to manage capacity better and make adjustments to be better able to absorb a surge of cases,” Adalja said. “Hopefully, it won’t be a calamity every time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ironically, that may increase somewhat people’s tolerance for high numbers of illnesses, especially if the arrival of effective treatments means the return of COVID-19 is less lethal than it was initially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Society must referee what Leung calls “a three-way tug of war” among a trio of competing needs: to keep cases and deaths low, to preserve jobs and economic activity, and to preserve people’s emotional well-being. “It’s a battle between what we need to do for public health and what we need to do for the economy and for social and emotional well-being,” he said. If the public health part of the tug-of-war weakens, then the waves will keep on coming through the end of 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And which scenario is most likely? Osterholm isn’t sure. “This virus is on its own time schedule,” he said. “But we will have some tough months ahead.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/01/three-potential-futures-for-covid-19/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">story\u003c/a> was originally published by STAT, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dl_subscribe][aside postID='science_1963442,science_1962726,arts_13876619,science_1962524,news_11811205,arts_13877094,science_1962970' label='COVID-19 resources for Deep Look Fans']The coronavirus has had an enormous impact on our lives: how we work, communicate and congregate. At this point, we’re familiar with \u003ca href=\"https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses\">how to protect ourselves from the virus\u003c/a> – and the disease it causes, COVID-19 – \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/bam/child-development/how-to-wash-hands.htm\">by washing our hands thoroughly\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-on-covid-19-and-masks\">wearing masks\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/86kywRzPIpk?feature=shared\">social distancing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv id=\"dlresources\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>Most people who get the virus are \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/summary.html\">mildly sick and will recover at home\u003c/a>. For others, the virus can be severe, even fatal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One significant way the virus attacks is deep in our lungs. Here’s how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Viruses are simply genetic material wrapped in a layer of protein and fat. They exist in a gray zone between life and death: They’re active inside a living thing, powerless out in the open, yet rise again in another host.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Outside the cell, the virus is basically waiting to attach to another cell,” said \u003ca href=\"https://gladstone.org/people/melanie-ott\">Dr. Melanie Ott\u003c/a>, virologist at the \u003ca href=\"https://gladstone.org/\">Gladstone Institutes\u003c/a> in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963341\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963341\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_virus_label.gif\" alt=\"coronavirus\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Multiple virions of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which causes the COVID-19 disease. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The purpose of a virus is to persist,” Ott said. Viruses do this by infecting human cells and using them for the virus’ own purposes, basically making their host into a “little mini virus-producing machine,” Ott said. From there, new virus particles spread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ott said the coronavirus has found a particularly good home in humans because the virus can cause less severe symptoms in many people, sometimes even being spread by people who are unaware they are carrying it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963338\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963338\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_breeathing.gif\" alt=\"respiratory system\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) can infect an individual’s entire respiratory system. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED and Teodros Hailye/KQED )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s actually one step ahead of us, in the way that it spreads relatively undetected in some people,” she said. That allows this virus to “multiply and persist much longer than other deadly viruses.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An individual virus particle, called a virion, is invisible to the naked eye. It would take roughly 1,000 coronavirus particles to span the width of a human hair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The virus spreads on moisture droplets through the air or on surfaces, eventually finding its way inside our bodies – typically through the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention-H.pdf\">eyes, nose and mouth\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside the body, the coronavirus attacks the cells in the back of the infected person’s nose, replicating and spreading downward, and infecting healthy cells along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some viruses, like those that cause the common cold, infect upper airways, including the nose and throat. Others can cause viral pneumonia that usually infects smaller areas of just one lung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coronavirus packs a vicious double punch: It can infect the entire respiratory system, all the way down to millions of tiny air sacs in the lungs called alveoli.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963342\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963342\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_alveoli_2.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An example of alveoli, a cluster of tiny air sacs located in the lungs that help humans breathe. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There aren’t a lot of respiratory viruses that go both upper and lower, and this is one of them,” said \u003ca href=\"https://health.ucdavis.edu/team/internalmedicine/1563/michael-schivo---internal-medicine---pulmonary-and-critical-care-sacramento\">Dr. Michael Schivo\u003c/a>, a pulmonologist at \u003ca href=\"https://health.ucdavis.edu/welcome/index.html\">UC Davis Health\u003c/a>. “Number one, [the coronavirus] can make us sicker. And number two, it can cause low oxygen. Those are probably the two biggest problems with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alveoli make up 99% of the surface area of the lung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The airways are equal to a tennis racket laid on the doubles tennis court,” said \u003ca href=\"https://medicine.ucsf.edu/people/michael-matthay\">Dr. Michael Matthay\u003c/a>, a professor of medicine at \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucsf.edu/\">UCSF\u003c/a>. “The rest of the tennis court are the alveoli.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963344\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963344\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_macrophage_2.gif\" alt=\"macrophage\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A macrophage, an immune cell located inside of an alveolus, attacks a particle of the coronavirus. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The alveoli literally keep people alive by bringing oxygen into the bloodstream and excreting carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the coronavirus disrupts this process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the virus particles enter the alveoli, they continue to replicate, injuring the lungs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside the alveoli are immune cells called macrophages, which act as sentinels for the lungs. They’re “waiting to fight off the cigarette smoke, or pollution or anything else,” Matthay said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963343\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963343\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_neutrophils_2.gif\" alt=\"neutrophils\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Multiple neutrophils and a macrophage, immune cells located inside of an alveolus, attack the coronavirus inside of an alveolus. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These macrophages attack the virus, a battle that the immune system sometimes wins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re what we call the first responders,” Schivo said. “They recognize danger, and they try to get rid of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If our body needs more help, it recruits more immune cells, called neutrophils. Sometimes, however, during the battle, the immune system goes haywire. It throws relentless resources at this unrecognizable virus, and that can wreak more havoc than repair. This immune system overreaction is called a cytokine storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This two-pronged attack – from the virus and from our immune system’s explosive response – makes the coronavirus so deadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963340\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963340\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_unhealthy_alveolus.gif\" alt=\"unhealthy alveolus\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fluid enters an infected alveolus, the tiny air sac that helps humans breathe, from the capillary. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the worst-case scenario, the walls of the alveoli begin to break down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fluid rushes from the blood vessels into the alveoli, filling them up and blocking the exchange of gases. When this happens, we can’t excrete enough carbon dioxide, nor absorb enough oxygen. It becomes much more difficult to breathe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These lung injuries can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a condition when fluid fills many alveoli on both sides of the lungs. ARDS is what most people with COVID-19 die from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When someone develops ARDS and if it’s severe, their mortality is 40%,” Schivo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='For Educators: Discussion and Viewing Guide for this episode' link1='https://learn.kqed.org/discussions/68,Engage your students in an NGSS-aligned discussion about this video on KQED Learn.' hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/05/KL340students_illustration.png' ]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To ultimately beat this coronavirus, humanity will need a very effective antiviral medication or, better yet, immunity through a vaccine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the impact from this pandemic has been devastating, we can learn from it, scientists say, so we can stay a step ahead of the next one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963345\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963345\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_lung_damage_2.gif\" alt=\"lung damage\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The yellow clusters represent lung damage inflicted by the disease COVID-19. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There’s no reason to think we can’t generate a vaccine,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2705\">Luis P. Villarreal\u003c/a>, professor emeritus at the School of Biological Sciences at \u003ca href=\"https://uci.edu/\">UC Irvine\u003c/a>. “Then it will be controlled just like measles was and it can be eradicated if you choose to really implement it on a large scale. It would be difficult, but it could be eradicated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Reporting contributed by Gabriela Quirós, Deep Look coordinating producer, and Annie Roth, Deep Look intern.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The coronavirus has had an enormous impact on our lives: how we work, communicate and congregate. At this point, we’re familiar with \u003ca href=\"https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses\">how to protect ourselves from the virus\u003c/a> – and the disease it causes, COVID-19 – \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/bam/child-development/how-to-wash-hands.htm\">by washing our hands thoroughly\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-on-covid-19-and-masks\">wearing masks\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/86kywRzPIpk?feature=shared\">social distancing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv id=\"dlresources\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>Most people who get the virus are \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/summary.html\">mildly sick and will recover at home\u003c/a>. For others, the virus can be severe, even fatal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One significant way the virus attacks is deep in our lungs. Here’s how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Viruses are simply genetic material wrapped in a layer of protein and fat. They exist in a gray zone between life and death: They’re active inside a living thing, powerless out in the open, yet rise again in another host.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Outside the cell, the virus is basically waiting to attach to another cell,” said \u003ca href=\"https://gladstone.org/people/melanie-ott\">Dr. Melanie Ott\u003c/a>, virologist at the \u003ca href=\"https://gladstone.org/\">Gladstone Institutes\u003c/a> in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963341\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963341\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_virus_label.gif\" alt=\"coronavirus\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Multiple virions of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which causes the COVID-19 disease. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The purpose of a virus is to persist,” Ott said. Viruses do this by infecting human cells and using them for the virus’ own purposes, basically making their host into a “little mini virus-producing machine,” Ott said. From there, new virus particles spread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ott said the coronavirus has found a particularly good home in humans because the virus can cause less severe symptoms in many people, sometimes even being spread by people who are unaware they are carrying it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963338\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963338\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_breeathing.gif\" alt=\"respiratory system\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) can infect an individual’s entire respiratory system. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED and Teodros Hailye/KQED )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s actually one step ahead of us, in the way that it spreads relatively undetected in some people,” she said. That allows this virus to “multiply and persist much longer than other deadly viruses.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An individual virus particle, called a virion, is invisible to the naked eye. It would take roughly 1,000 coronavirus particles to span the width of a human hair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The virus spreads on moisture droplets through the air or on surfaces, eventually finding its way inside our bodies – typically through the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention-H.pdf\">eyes, nose and mouth\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside the body, the coronavirus attacks the cells in the back of the infected person’s nose, replicating and spreading downward, and infecting healthy cells along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some viruses, like those that cause the common cold, infect upper airways, including the nose and throat. Others can cause viral pneumonia that usually infects smaller areas of just one lung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coronavirus packs a vicious double punch: It can infect the entire respiratory system, all the way down to millions of tiny air sacs in the lungs called alveoli.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963342\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963342\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_alveoli_2.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An example of alveoli, a cluster of tiny air sacs located in the lungs that help humans breathe. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There aren’t a lot of respiratory viruses that go both upper and lower, and this is one of them,” said \u003ca href=\"https://health.ucdavis.edu/team/internalmedicine/1563/michael-schivo---internal-medicine---pulmonary-and-critical-care-sacramento\">Dr. Michael Schivo\u003c/a>, a pulmonologist at \u003ca href=\"https://health.ucdavis.edu/welcome/index.html\">UC Davis Health\u003c/a>. “Number one, [the coronavirus] can make us sicker. And number two, it can cause low oxygen. Those are probably the two biggest problems with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alveoli make up 99% of the surface area of the lung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The airways are equal to a tennis racket laid on the doubles tennis court,” said \u003ca href=\"https://medicine.ucsf.edu/people/michael-matthay\">Dr. Michael Matthay\u003c/a>, a professor of medicine at \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucsf.edu/\">UCSF\u003c/a>. “The rest of the tennis court are the alveoli.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963344\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963344\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_macrophage_2.gif\" alt=\"macrophage\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A macrophage, an immune cell located inside of an alveolus, attacks a particle of the coronavirus. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The alveoli literally keep people alive by bringing oxygen into the bloodstream and excreting carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the coronavirus disrupts this process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the virus particles enter the alveoli, they continue to replicate, injuring the lungs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside the alveoli are immune cells called macrophages, which act as sentinels for the lungs. They’re “waiting to fight off the cigarette smoke, or pollution or anything else,” Matthay said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963343\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963343\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_neutrophils_2.gif\" alt=\"neutrophils\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Multiple neutrophils and a macrophage, immune cells located inside of an alveolus, attack the coronavirus inside of an alveolus. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These macrophages attack the virus, a battle that the immune system sometimes wins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re what we call the first responders,” Schivo said. “They recognize danger, and they try to get rid of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If our body needs more help, it recruits more immune cells, called neutrophils. Sometimes, however, during the battle, the immune system goes haywire. It throws relentless resources at this unrecognizable virus, and that can wreak more havoc than repair. This immune system overreaction is called a cytokine storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This two-pronged attack – from the virus and from our immune system’s explosive response – makes the coronavirus so deadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963340\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963340\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_unhealthy_alveolus.gif\" alt=\"unhealthy alveolus\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fluid enters an infected alveolus, the tiny air sac that helps humans breathe, from the capillary. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the worst-case scenario, the walls of the alveoli begin to break down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fluid rushes from the blood vessels into the alveoli, filling them up and blocking the exchange of gases. When this happens, we can’t excrete enough carbon dioxide, nor absorb enough oxygen. It becomes much more difficult to breathe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These lung injuries can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a condition when fluid fills many alveoli on both sides of the lungs. ARDS is what most people with COVID-19 die from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When someone develops ARDS and if it’s severe, their mortality is 40%,” Schivo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To ultimately beat this coronavirus, humanity will need a very effective antiviral medication or, better yet, immunity through a vaccine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the impact from this pandemic has been devastating, we can learn from it, scientists say, so we can stay a step ahead of the next one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1963345\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 590px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1963345\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL711_lung_damage_2.gif\" alt=\"lung damage\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The yellow clusters represent lung damage inflicted by the disease COVID-19. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There’s no reason to think we can’t generate a vaccine,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2705\">Luis P. Villarreal\u003c/a>, professor emeritus at the School of Biological Sciences at \u003ca href=\"https://uci.edu/\">UC Irvine\u003c/a>. “Then it will be controlled just like measles was and it can be eradicated if you choose to really implement it on a large scale. It would be difficult, but it could be eradicated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Reporting contributed by Gabriela Quirós, Deep Look coordinating producer, and Annie Roth, Deep Look intern.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Free Testing for All Essential Workers in SF; Breed Threatens to Close Dolores Park, Reinstate Street-Sweeping Tickets",
"headTitle": "Free Testing for All Essential Workers in SF; Breed Threatens to Close Dolores Park, Reinstate Street-Sweeping Tickets | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXlr_23qyzg&feature=emb_logo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is in a mad dash to expand testing, as it begins to ease restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s revised stay at home \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/news/san-francisco-and-bay-area-extend-stay-home-order-through-end-may\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">order\u003c/span>\u003c/a>—announced on April 29—took effect Monday and will be in place through the last day of May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor London Breed said during \u003ca href=\"http://youtube.com/sfgtv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">a coronavirus briefing\u003c/span>\u003c/a> Monday that all healthcare workers, bus drivers, police officers, and other San Francisco workers deemed essential can now get a free coronavirus test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you are an essential worker and you exhibit symptoms or you don’t exhibit symptoms, you still are able to get tested,” she said. “And usually the results of those tests, we get back anywhere between 24 and 72 hours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Before, free tests were available to essential employees but only if they felt sick with symptoms of COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breed called the new step “significant” and “a game changer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“The ability to expand testing capacities is so important as we start to look at opening more businesses and reopening our city,” she said. “And having the ability to get people tested is so critical to that success.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Testing is available at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, the Castro-Mission Health Center, the Southeast Health Center in the Bayview neighborhood and the Maxine Hall Health Center in the Western Addition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is also administering tests at two \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/get-tested-covid-19-citytestsf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">city-run sites\u003c/a> located at 600 7th St. in the SOMA neighborhood, and at Pier 30-32 along the Embarcadero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Breed said workers who want to sign up for a test at one of the city \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/get-tested-covid-19-citytestsf\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">sites\u003c/span>\u003c/a> can call 311. She asked people not to show up without calling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>SF Considers Closing Dolores Park, Issuing Tickets for Street Sweeping\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Breed issued a couple of warnings to San Franciscans who are not complying with the city’s guidance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Last weekend, Breed said, many people were not maintaining physical distance at Dolores Park, the popular, beer-and-sun-soaked grassy knoll located in the Mission District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Dolores Park continues to be a real challenge because we know that on nice days, that is the place to be for so many folks,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said park officials will watch activity there in the next couple of days to assess whether people are following public health guidelines to keep six feet of distance unless they live under one roof, and to \u003ca href=\"https://sfgsa.org/sites/default/files/Document/OrderNo.C19-12RequiringFaceCovering.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wear face masks \u003c/a>appropriately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re all adults here,” Breed said, “and there is no reason that we should have to send in any of our law enforcement or anyone to tell people what they should be already doing.”\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the city sees that people’s behavior has not changed, Breed said, she will close the park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to be clear, this is the last thing I want to do,” she said. “We know that people need fresh air, they want to be out, but if we continue to see that behavior become problematic at Dolores Park, it will not longer be available. So I’m asking everyone to be cooperative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also told San Franciscans that, unless they are ill, they must move their cars for street cleaning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency stopped issuing street-sweeping citations last month after people were ordered to stay in their homes, but Breed said the city will be monitoring the situation this week to evaluate whether to change that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“There are a lot of able-bodied people who are able to get up and move your car,” Breed said. “And the problem that we’re having right now, a lot of folks are not doing that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Breed said the city could begin issuing citations again next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco to Start COVID-19 Testing at Laguna Honda Hospital\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breed also spoke about an effort to expand the testing of people who are living in nursing homes and other congregate settings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Last week, the city \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/coronavirusliveupdates/science/1963400/san-francisco-to-require-covid-19-tests-for-workers-and-residents-at-nursing-homes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">announced \u003c/span>\u003c/a>that it would require coronavirus tests for people living and working at nursing homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Breed said the city will begin testing all residents and staff at Laguna Honda Hospital this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It’s important that everyone ensures the safety of not just the workers who work at these skilled nursing facilities,” she said, “but the patients as well, who are amongst what we know are some of the most vulnerable when it comes to COVID-19.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/uXlr_23qyzg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/uXlr_23qyzg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco is in a mad dash to expand testing, as it begins to ease restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city’s revised stay at home \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/news/san-francisco-and-bay-area-extend-stay-home-order-through-end-may\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">order\u003c/span>\u003c/a>—announced on April 29—took effect Monday and will be in place through the last day of May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor London Breed said during \u003ca href=\"http://youtube.com/sfgtv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">a coronavirus briefing\u003c/span>\u003c/a> Monday that all healthcare workers, bus drivers, police officers, and other San Francisco workers deemed essential can now get a free coronavirus test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you are an essential worker and you exhibit symptoms or you don’t exhibit symptoms, you still are able to get tested,” she said. “And usually the results of those tests, we get back anywhere between 24 and 72 hours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Before, free tests were available to essential employees but only if they felt sick with symptoms of COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breed called the new step “significant” and “a game changer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“The ability to expand testing capacities is so important as we start to look at opening more businesses and reopening our city,” she said. “And having the ability to get people tested is so critical to that success.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Testing is available at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, the Castro-Mission Health Center, the Southeast Health Center in the Bayview neighborhood and the Maxine Hall Health Center in the Western Addition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco is also administering tests at two \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/get-tested-covid-19-citytestsf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">city-run sites\u003c/a> located at 600 7th St. in the SOMA neighborhood, and at Pier 30-32 along the Embarcadero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Breed said workers who want to sign up for a test at one of the city \u003ca href=\"https://sf.gov/get-tested-covid-19-citytestsf\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">sites\u003c/span>\u003c/a> can call 311. She asked people not to show up without calling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cstrong>SF Considers Closing Dolores Park, Issuing Tickets for Street Sweeping\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Breed issued a couple of warnings to San Franciscans who are not complying with the city’s guidance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Last weekend, Breed said, many people were not maintaining physical distance at Dolores Park, the popular, beer-and-sun-soaked grassy knoll located in the Mission District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Dolores Park continues to be a real challenge because we know that on nice days, that is the place to be for so many folks,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said park officials will watch activity there in the next couple of days to assess whether people are following public health guidelines to keep six feet of distance unless they live under one roof, and to \u003ca href=\"https://sfgsa.org/sites/default/files/Document/OrderNo.C19-12RequiringFaceCovering.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wear face masks \u003c/a>appropriately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re all adults here,” Breed said, “and there is no reason that we should have to send in any of our law enforcement or anyone to tell people what they should be already doing.”\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the city sees that people’s behavior has not changed, Breed said, she will close the park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to be clear, this is the last thing I want to do,” she said. “We know that people need fresh air, they want to be out, but if we continue to see that behavior become problematic at Dolores Park, it will not longer be available. So I’m asking everyone to be cooperative.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also told San Franciscans that, unless they are ill, they must move their cars for street cleaning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency stopped issuing street-sweeping citations last month after people were ordered to stay in their homes, but Breed said the city will be monitoring the situation this week to evaluate whether to change that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“There are a lot of able-bodied people who are able to get up and move your car,” Breed said. “And the problem that we’re having right now, a lot of folks are not doing that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Breed said the city could begin issuing citations again next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco to Start COVID-19 Testing at Laguna Honda Hospital\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breed also spoke about an effort to expand the testing of people who are living in nursing homes and other congregate settings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Last week, the city \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/coronavirusliveupdates/science/1963400/san-francisco-to-require-covid-19-tests-for-workers-and-residents-at-nursing-homes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">announced \u003c/span>\u003c/a>that it would require coronavirus tests for people living and working at nursing homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Breed said the city will begin testing all residents and staff at Laguna Honda Hospital this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It’s important that everyone ensures the safety of not just the workers who work at these skilled nursing facilities,” she said, “but the patients as well, who are amongst what we know are some of the most vulnerable when it comes to COVID-19.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>From the start of this pandemic, science news has unfolded at a dizzying pace and crushing volume. Scientific research, which usually creeps along in the background until publication day and then pops up to say something worthy, is suddenly making breathtaking international news every few days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='medium']‘What could happen here is that the public may begin to doubt the results. And the danger here is that the public may begin to doubt science.’[/pullquote]The speed of science research has gone into overdrive and the media horde is hungry for answers. Science is meant to be a slow process of asking questions, then submitting the answers to the kind of vigorous probing ordinary people devote considerable energy to avoiding. After \u003cem>that\u003c/em> is when the media report the answers—vetted! peer reviewed! confident!—usually with caveats attached: Areas where questions yet unasked are lingering to be sought after.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now, studies on COVID-19 therapies and possible therapies and could-be-someday-down-the-road-if-it-proves-out-in-mice-first-therapies make screaming headlines before the studies are vetted to assess their merits or limitations. As a result, the public has heard some contradictory and confusing results, and some claims that are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11814749/bakersfield-doctors-dubious-covid-19-test-conclusions-spread-like-wildfire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">flat-out wrong\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED’s Tara Siler spoke with science reporter Danielle Venton about this problem and how to understand the science being reported these days. \u003cem>(Edited for length and clarity.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why are people hearing so much science that’s not ready for prime-time?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Danielle Venton:\u003c/em> We’re at a time where there’s this brand new problem, a brand new virus. There are so many unanswered questions. There’s a huge need for research and a real desire to get it out quickly. Now, what is also true is that science can be a messy process and things aren’t always correct. Science has a way of correcting itself, but unfortunately, right now, that process is happening in public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What do you mean by messy process?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So many of the normal safeguards have been glossed over in this desire to get findings out quickly. Dr. Irving Steinberg is a professor of clinical pharmacy and pediatrics at USC. He’s been \u003ca href=\"https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/coronavirus-science-rush-to-publish-retractions/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">talking\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-research-done-too-fast-is-testing-publishing-safeguards-bad-science-is-getting-through-134653\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">writing\u003c/a> about this \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/30/australias-chief-scientist-warns-against-claims-of-breakthroughs-on-coronavirus-cures\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">issue\u003c/a> a lot, and he uses the analogy of working in a sausage factory where production suddenly had to be doubled because people were so hungry:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“You can imagine that there might be some problems that would arise in the back room where science is adjudicated—whether it’s in the lab or whether it’s in the editorial processes—where the sausage is made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What the public is seeing is some of the spilled sausage out of the casing. You’ve got this sort of spillage of raw sausage. You know it’s a food product, but you don’t know what to do with it at that point. It’s on the floor. It’s dirty. I can’t really put it on the grill. Maybe I can put it into a cast iron pan? We’ve left to the public too many things to figure out.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>What could happen here is that the public may begin to doubt the results. And the danger here is that the public may begin to doubt science. Right now, we are in need of good science and for the public to trust it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What are some of the big failures in this pandemic, the so-called sausage spillage?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early in March, some researchers raised concerns in a letter—not a reviewed study—that ibuprofen could worsen COVID-19 symptoms. It wasn’t based on experimental data, it was a theoretical concern based on how ibuprofen works in cells. Three days later, the French health minister tweeted a message saying to avoid ibuprofen. The World Health Organization did the same thing and then reversed itself a day later. More scientists weighed in, and now it’s thought that it’s fine to take ibuprofen. The original worries were based on an incomplete understanding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='medium' citation='Dr. Irving Steinberg, USC']‘We’re seeing knowledge that is being rushed to the public without being assessed. We’re seeing misapplied wisdom and we’re seeing no perspective.’[/pullquote]A famous example is hydroxychloroquine, which was touted in public as a possible treatment for COVID-19 in an early study. The study was poorly designed and later retracted, but we saw some politicians, notably the president, seize on this and just shoot from the hip.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Demand surged for the drug, so that some patients who need it for conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1960404/at-kaiser-trumps-pharmaceutical-advice-creates-chaos-for-lupus-patients\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">couldn’t fill their prescriptions\u003c/a>. But it can have toxic side effects—some people abusing it were \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/04/09/hydroxychloroquine-abuse-up-since-trump-first-mentioned-drug-us-poison-centers-say/#6ca40a943071\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">poisoned\u003c/a>. That’s \u003cem>not\u003c/em> how science is supposed to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steinberg summed these problems up by saying, “We’re seeing knowledge that is being rushed to the public without being assessed. We’re seeing misapplied wisdom and we’re seeing no perspective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is there basically a tradeoff between speed and accuracy? Is this inevitable during a pandemic?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moving more quickly always makes it harder to be careful. But we can improve this flow of information without entirely sacrificing speed. You can think of an expert chef, who can still chop quickly and safely at the same time. Training really helps. Experience helps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are layers of responsibility. It starts with scientists and researchers, then moves on to scientific journals that publish their work. It also includes policymakers who are trying to interpret results and issue advice to the public. And the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/162446/is-health-journalism-doing-more-harm-than-good\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">press is very important\u003c/a> in all this as well. Everyone has different incentives along the way. I would say in our field, competition to be first is a big challenge, but the public loses out when there are shortcuts along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bad science generally is corrected in the end, but I do worry about the loss of public trust. So more care, more training, learning from mistakes—these can all help avoid some of the missteps we’ve seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How can readers of science news be more careful? Are there some tips out there?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a couple of questions everyone can keep in the back of their mind when reading science news. Try to maintain some perspective and look for context. Here’s a series of questions to consider:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Is a finding preliminary?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Is it from a study or is it just a question scientists are posing?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If it’s a study, was it peer reviewed?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>What do neutral experts, people who are not involved in the research, say about it?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If someone is pushing a claim, do they stand to make any money from it?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Is this the first time you’re hearing about something? Or is there a body of work that supports it? Is the finding in cells, in animals or in humans? If it’s in humans, it’s a lot more relevant than if it’s in cells or even mice.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>And here’s a great \u003ca href=\"http://www.healthnewsreview.org/about-us/review-criteria/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tip sheet\u003c/a> on how to evaluate news reports on scientific studies, from the website Health News Review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The speed of science research has gone into overdrive and the media horde is hungry for answers. Science is meant to be a slow process of asking questions, then submitting the answers to the kind of vigorous probing ordinary people devote considerable energy to avoiding. After \u003cem>that\u003c/em> is when the media report the answers—vetted! peer reviewed! confident!—usually with caveats attached: Areas where questions yet unasked are lingering to be sought after.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now, studies on COVID-19 therapies and possible therapies and could-be-someday-down-the-road-if-it-proves-out-in-mice-first-therapies make screaming headlines before the studies are vetted to assess their merits or limitations. As a result, the public has heard some contradictory and confusing results, and some claims that are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11814749/bakersfield-doctors-dubious-covid-19-test-conclusions-spread-like-wildfire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">flat-out wrong\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED’s Tara Siler spoke with science reporter Danielle Venton about this problem and how to understand the science being reported these days. \u003cem>(Edited for length and clarity.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why are people hearing so much science that’s not ready for prime-time?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Danielle Venton:\u003c/em> We’re at a time where there’s this brand new problem, a brand new virus. There are so many unanswered questions. There’s a huge need for research and a real desire to get it out quickly. Now, what is also true is that science can be a messy process and things aren’t always correct. Science has a way of correcting itself, but unfortunately, right now, that process is happening in public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What do you mean by messy process?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So many of the normal safeguards have been glossed over in this desire to get findings out quickly. Dr. Irving Steinberg is a professor of clinical pharmacy and pediatrics at USC. He’s been \u003ca href=\"https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/coronavirus-science-rush-to-publish-retractions/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">talking\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-research-done-too-fast-is-testing-publishing-safeguards-bad-science-is-getting-through-134653\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">writing\u003c/a> about this \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/30/australias-chief-scientist-warns-against-claims-of-breakthroughs-on-coronavirus-cures\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">issue\u003c/a> a lot, and he uses the analogy of working in a sausage factory where production suddenly had to be doubled because people were so hungry:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“You can imagine that there might be some problems that would arise in the back room where science is adjudicated—whether it’s in the lab or whether it’s in the editorial processes—where the sausage is made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What the public is seeing is some of the spilled sausage out of the casing. You’ve got this sort of spillage of raw sausage. You know it’s a food product, but you don’t know what to do with it at that point. It’s on the floor. It’s dirty. I can’t really put it on the grill. Maybe I can put it into a cast iron pan? We’ve left to the public too many things to figure out.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>What could happen here is that the public may begin to doubt the results. And the danger here is that the public may begin to doubt science. Right now, we are in need of good science and for the public to trust it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What are some of the big failures in this pandemic, the so-called sausage spillage?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early in March, some researchers raised concerns in a letter—not a reviewed study—that ibuprofen could worsen COVID-19 symptoms. It wasn’t based on experimental data, it was a theoretical concern based on how ibuprofen works in cells. Three days later, the French health minister tweeted a message saying to avoid ibuprofen. The World Health Organization did the same thing and then reversed itself a day later. More scientists weighed in, and now it’s thought that it’s fine to take ibuprofen. The original worries were based on an incomplete understanding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A famous example is hydroxychloroquine, which was touted in public as a possible treatment for COVID-19 in an early study. The study was poorly designed and later retracted, but we saw some politicians, notably the president, seize on this and just shoot from the hip.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Demand surged for the drug, so that some patients who need it for conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1960404/at-kaiser-trumps-pharmaceutical-advice-creates-chaos-for-lupus-patients\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">couldn’t fill their prescriptions\u003c/a>. But it can have toxic side effects—some people abusing it were \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/04/09/hydroxychloroquine-abuse-up-since-trump-first-mentioned-drug-us-poison-centers-say/#6ca40a943071\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">poisoned\u003c/a>. That’s \u003cem>not\u003c/em> how science is supposed to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steinberg summed these problems up by saying, “We’re seeing knowledge that is being rushed to the public without being assessed. We’re seeing misapplied wisdom and we’re seeing no perspective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is there basically a tradeoff between speed and accuracy? Is this inevitable during a pandemic?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moving more quickly always makes it harder to be careful. But we can improve this flow of information without entirely sacrificing speed. You can think of an expert chef, who can still chop quickly and safely at the same time. Training really helps. Experience helps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are layers of responsibility. It starts with scientists and researchers, then moves on to scientific journals that publish their work. It also includes policymakers who are trying to interpret results and issue advice to the public. And the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/162446/is-health-journalism-doing-more-harm-than-good\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">press is very important\u003c/a> in all this as well. Everyone has different incentives along the way. I would say in our field, competition to be first is a big challenge, but the public loses out when there are shortcuts along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bad science generally is corrected in the end, but I do worry about the loss of public trust. So more care, more training, learning from mistakes—these can all help avoid some of the missteps we’ve seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How can readers of science news be more careful? Are there some tips out there?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a couple of questions everyone can keep in the back of their mind when reading science news. Try to maintain some perspective and look for context. Here’s a series of questions to consider:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Is a finding preliminary?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Is it from a study or is it just a question scientists are posing?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If it’s a study, was it peer reviewed?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>What do neutral experts, people who are not involved in the research, say about it?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>If someone is pushing a claim, do they stand to make any money from it?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Is this the first time you’re hearing about something? Or is there a body of work that supports it? Is the finding in cells, in animals or in humans? If it’s in humans, it’s a lot more relevant than if it’s in cells or even mice.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>And here’s a great \u003ca href=\"http://www.healthnewsreview.org/about-us/review-criteria/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tip sheet\u003c/a> on how to evaluate news reports on scientific studies, from the website Health News Review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "FDA Gives Emergency Authorization for Some COVID-19 Patients to Use Remdesivir",
"headTitle": "FDA Gives Emergency Authorization for Some COVID-19 Patients to Use Remdesivir | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The Food and Drug Administration has given emergency use authorization to the antiviral drug remdesivir to treat hospitalized patients with the coronavirus, the FDA \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-emergency-use-authorization-potential-covid-19-treatment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced\u003c/a> Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said remdesivir maker Gilead Sciences is donating 1.5 million vials of the drug and will work with the federal government to distribute it to patients in need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The news comes days after \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/29/848034963/antiviral-drug-remdesivir-shows-promise-for-treating-coronavirus-in-nih-study\">preliminary results from a study\u003c/a> of the drug showed it can help patients recover faster. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, hailed the findings earlier this week as “quite good news.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authorization means remdesivir can be distributed in the U.S. and given intravenously to treat COVID-19 patients – both adults and children – who are hospitalized with severe disease, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-emergency-use-authorization-potential-covid-19-treatment\">the FDA says\u003c/a>. The agency defines that category as “patients with low blood oxygen levels or needing oxygen therapy or more intensive breathing support such as a mechanical ventilator.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Discussing the findings about the drug’s ability to help COVID-19 patients, O’Day cautioned earlier Friday that remdesivir is used to treat advanced cases, in which people are already hospitalized. The recent positive findings, he said, are a starting point in the fight against the respiratory disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to continue to see how we can expand remdesivir to more patient populations,” O’Day said on \u003ca href=\"https://on.today.com/3dhvTOP\">NBC’s Today show\u003c/a>. “Clearly with other medicines and vaccines to come, this is part, I think — the beginning of our ability to make an impact on this devastating virus.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=FDA+Gives+Emergency+Authorization+For+Some+COVID-19+Patients+To+Use+Remdesivir+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Food and Drug Administration has given emergency use authorization to the antiviral drug remdesivir to treat hospitalized patients with the coronavirus, the FDA \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-emergency-use-authorization-potential-covid-19-treatment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced\u003c/a> Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said remdesivir maker Gilead Sciences is donating 1.5 million vials of the drug and will work with the federal government to distribute it to patients in need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The news comes days after \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/29/848034963/antiviral-drug-remdesivir-shows-promise-for-treating-coronavirus-in-nih-study\">preliminary results from a study\u003c/a> of the drug showed it can help patients recover faster. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, hailed the findings earlier this week as “quite good news.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authorization means remdesivir can be distributed in the U.S. and given intravenously to treat COVID-19 patients – both adults and children – who are hospitalized with severe disease, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-emergency-use-authorization-potential-covid-19-treatment\">the FDA says\u003c/a>. The agency defines that category as “patients with low blood oxygen levels or needing oxygen therapy or more intensive breathing support such as a mechanical ventilator.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Discussing the findings about the drug’s ability to help COVID-19 patients, O’Day cautioned earlier Friday that remdesivir is used to treat advanced cases, in which people are already hospitalized. The recent positive findings, he said, are a starting point in the fight against the respiratory disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to continue to see how we can expand remdesivir to more patient populations,” O’Day said on \u003ca href=\"https://on.today.com/3dhvTOP\">NBC’s Today show\u003c/a>. “Clearly with other medicines and vaccines to come, this is part, I think — the beginning of our ability to make an impact on this devastating virus.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=FDA+Gives+Emergency+Authorization+For+Some+COVID-19+Patients+To+Use+Remdesivir+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Amid Hundreds of Coronavirus Deaths in California Nursing Homes, It's Still Not Clear How State Is Monitoring",
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"content": "\u003cp>California is now monitoring nearly 200 nursing homes where coronavirus has spread among thousands of care workers and patients, Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/CAgovernor/status/1255209289905401856\">said\u003c/a> Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote citation='Davlyn Jones, 85, recovering from a stroke at nursing home in Santa Clara County']‘I don’t feel very monitored.’ [/pullquote]It’s still not clear what monitoring means or how exactly it’s helping slow the spread in long-term care facilities. Where assisted living and nursing homes report problems, like with shortages of protective gear or staff, county public health departments have varied responses and levels of resources to fill the gaps. The governor says testing is a priority, but it’s not required where outbreaks are reported, either by state or local order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/coronavirusliveupdates/science/1963256/over-40-of-californians-dead-from-covid-19-lived-or-worked-in-elder-care-facilities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Over 40%\u003c/a> of COVID-19 deaths have been people who lived or worked in elder care facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t feel very monitored,” says 85-year-old Davlyn Jones, who has been recovering from a stroke at the Mountain View Healthcare Center in Santa Clara County. Looking out her window and across a patio, she can see into the wing where nurses have told her that COVID-19 patients live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of April 28, the skilled nursing facility \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/SNFsCOVID_19.aspx\">reports\u003c/a> at least one case of coronavirus. Jones says her caregivers reported the presence of the virus there to her only after she asked about what she was seeing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Occasionally I’ll see the nurses and doctors coming out fully clothed in protective gear, not just face masks, but everything,” she says. “So it’s close.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones needs a walker; she has lost some control of movement in the left side of her body. But she’s also pretty buoyant; she says that she’s healthy, considering her age, and the risks inherent to a pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m scared to death. [But] other than that, yeah,” she laughs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#callout\">Let us know if you have a story or a question about life in nursing homes or assisted living facilities now…\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones, a longtime feminist and founder of hundreds of chapters of the National Organization of Women, is also assertive. She says that helped her push for her own COVID-19 test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After two months that included hospitalization for a stroke and time in skilled nursing, Jones is returning home today, to her two-bedroom residence in San Jose’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.lawfoundation.org/news/2019/6/26/landmark-agreementnbspreached-between-winchester-mobile-home-residents-and-pultenbsphomes\">Winchester Ranch Mobile Home Park\u003c/a>. In order to contract with in-home support services as she continues to recuperate, Jones says she needed to prove she had not been infected with the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Initially, she says, her doctor told her she wouldn’t get a test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain View Healthcare administrators didn’t respond to emailed and telephone questions about testing, though an operator who answered the phone Wednesday confirmed a COVID case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County health officials say they “have tested large numbers of patients and staff both on-site and via drive through testing, helping to contain any potential outbreaks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>No Testing Requirements\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No state rule or guidance requires testing for long-term care home residents or workers who appear well. In the absence of a statewide plan, local health authorities have wide leeway, resulting in divergent methods for how they counsel facilities about tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In part, testing availability appears to be driving those decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you test everyone in a facility and say there’s 500 people, first, you have to have those resources and then you have to decide, OK, I’ve tested them now (and) they don’t have symptoms. And then do I test them every week, every two weeks?” says Dr. Erica Pan, medical officer for Alameda County. “It just becomes like a very big operational logistical challenge with limited resources when we might have another facility that has 10 symptomatic people that we need to test.”\u003cem>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pan says the utility of testing is also a factor. “I only want to order a test that I know what I’m going to do with information,” she said. Since workers and residents will continue to interact in a high-risk environment, Pan says the test may mislead them into false confidence or fear about not having or having the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti has doubled the number of teams available to test in long-term care facilities and ordered nursing homes to test workers monthly going forward. The governor has also said that testing is a priority and there needs to be more: “A lot more, it’s not enough, that’s the honest truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones says she’s worried about the nurses and care workers at the facility too. Over the last month, she says, it appears that fewer staffers have to work harder now, caring for patients separately, COVID-19 positive or not. \u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain View Healthcare Center also did not respond to questions about staffing. In Santa Clara County, health officials say they’ve supplemented staffing at facilities with larger outbreaks, using county workers and workplace registry lists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Alameda County, medical officer Pan says “there have been some really difficult situations where the staffing was at very concerning levels” during an outbreak. As a result, health officials “have gotten creative” when responding to staffing requests, including by working with EMTs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Pan says it’s hard to meet all of the need. “The very unique situation about being in a pandemic is we can’t ask for mutual aid in the same way you can when you have a local disaster, because everyone is experiencing the same situation,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has created a database of potential volunteers to supplement pandemic health care needs, though it’s not clear how many volunteers have gone to assisted living or nursing homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More generally, monitoring, at the state and county level, is done remotely. In Santa Clara, the emergency operations center sends a survey every day to all congregate living and long-term care facilities in the county. The California Department of Public Health says it calls facilities daily, using its cadre of 600 health facility evaluation nurses who conduct inspections and surveys in nonpandemic times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones is happy she has tested negative for COVID-19. But she remains worried, both for her neighbors in the mobile home park, with whom she has agreed to take strict precautions to limit exposure, and for the care workers at the skilled nursing facility she is now leaving behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The nurses are nice,” she says. “And I worry about them getting the disease and dying. Too many people have died from this thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Help KQED Science report on the pandemic!\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>[hearken src=\"https://modules.wearehearken.com/kqed/embed/5489.js\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>—\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/mollydacious\">@Mollydacious\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>It’s still not clear what monitoring means or how exactly it’s helping slow the spread in long-term care facilities. Where assisted living and nursing homes report problems, like with shortages of protective gear or staff, county public health departments have varied responses and levels of resources to fill the gaps. The governor says testing is a priority, but it’s not required where outbreaks are reported, either by state or local order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/coronavirusliveupdates/science/1963256/over-40-of-californians-dead-from-covid-19-lived-or-worked-in-elder-care-facilities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Over 40%\u003c/a> of COVID-19 deaths have been people who lived or worked in elder care facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t feel very monitored,” says 85-year-old Davlyn Jones, who has been recovering from a stroke at the Mountain View Healthcare Center in Santa Clara County. Looking out her window and across a patio, she can see into the wing where nurses have told her that COVID-19 patients live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of April 28, the skilled nursing facility \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/SNFsCOVID_19.aspx\">reports\u003c/a> at least one case of coronavirus. Jones says her caregivers reported the presence of the virus there to her only after she asked about what she was seeing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Occasionally I’ll see the nurses and doctors coming out fully clothed in protective gear, not just face masks, but everything,” she says. “So it’s close.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones needs a walker; she has lost some control of movement in the left side of her body. But she’s also pretty buoyant; she says that she’s healthy, considering her age, and the risks inherent to a pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m scared to death. [But] other than that, yeah,” she laughs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#callout\">Let us know if you have a story or a question about life in nursing homes or assisted living facilities now…\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones, a longtime feminist and founder of hundreds of chapters of the National Organization of Women, is also assertive. She says that helped her push for her own COVID-19 test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After two months that included hospitalization for a stroke and time in skilled nursing, Jones is returning home today, to her two-bedroom residence in San Jose’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.lawfoundation.org/news/2019/6/26/landmark-agreementnbspreached-between-winchester-mobile-home-residents-and-pultenbsphomes\">Winchester Ranch Mobile Home Park\u003c/a>. In order to contract with in-home support services as she continues to recuperate, Jones says she needed to prove she had not been infected with the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Initially, she says, her doctor told her she wouldn’t get a test.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain View Healthcare administrators didn’t respond to emailed and telephone questions about testing, though an operator who answered the phone Wednesday confirmed a COVID case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County health officials say they “have tested large numbers of patients and staff both on-site and via drive through testing, helping to contain any potential outbreaks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>No Testing Requirements\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No state rule or guidance requires testing for long-term care home residents or workers who appear well. In the absence of a statewide plan, local health authorities have wide leeway, resulting in divergent methods for how they counsel facilities about tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In part, testing availability appears to be driving those decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you test everyone in a facility and say there’s 500 people, first, you have to have those resources and then you have to decide, OK, I’ve tested them now (and) they don’t have symptoms. And then do I test them every week, every two weeks?” says Dr. Erica Pan, medical officer for Alameda County. “It just becomes like a very big operational logistical challenge with limited resources when we might have another facility that has 10 symptomatic people that we need to test.”\u003cem>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pan says the utility of testing is also a factor. “I only want to order a test that I know what I’m going to do with information,” she said. Since workers and residents will continue to interact in a high-risk environment, Pan says the test may mislead them into false confidence or fear about not having or having the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti has doubled the number of teams available to test in long-term care facilities and ordered nursing homes to test workers monthly going forward. The governor has also said that testing is a priority and there needs to be more: “A lot more, it’s not enough, that’s the honest truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones says she’s worried about the nurses and care workers at the facility too. Over the last month, she says, it appears that fewer staffers have to work harder now, caring for patients separately, COVID-19 positive or not. \u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain View Healthcare Center also did not respond to questions about staffing. 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As a result, health officials “have gotten creative” when responding to staffing requests, including by working with EMTs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Pan says it’s hard to meet all of the need. “The very unique situation about being in a pandemic is we can’t ask for mutual aid in the same way you can when you have a local disaster, because everyone is experiencing the same situation,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has created a database of potential volunteers to supplement pandemic health care needs, though it’s not clear how many volunteers have gone to assisted living or nursing homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More generally, monitoring, at the state and county level, is done remotely. In Santa Clara, the emergency operations center sends a survey every day to all congregate living and long-term care facilities in the county. 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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated May 5\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An ingredient found in everyday cold medicine appears to promote infection from the coronavirus, according to a new lab \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2286-9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> looking at the impact of over-the-counter and prescription drugs on the coronavirus, led by virus experts at UCSF and the \u003ca href=\"https://gladstone.org/\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Gladstone Institutes\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers found that dextromethorphan — found in most over-the-counter cough syrups tablets and gel capsules — caused SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to grow more in a lab setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientists initially said people who have COVID-19 should be cautious about using cold medication that contains the drug until more studies are conducted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Obviously, if you have COVID-19, you’re coughing and you’re reaching on the shelf for the cough syrup,” said Nevan Krogan, director of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at UCSF and a senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes. “We’re throwing out a caveat here, at least in the laboratory setting — in the context of this drug, you actually see increased infection.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Krogan said he, himself, if he had COVID-19, would “think twice about using some of these cough syrups until more information was available to us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later, Krogan softened that advice in an interview with NBC’s\u003ca href=\"https://www.today.com/health/coronavirus-cough-medicine-does-dextromethorphan-help-virus-grow-t180535\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Today show\u003c/a>. “This is information we wanted to responsibly report but tempered with a strong caveat that these results were seen in the lab (and) more tests are needed, especially in humans, before any definite conclusions are drawn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alexander Borowsky, a medical doctor and a professor at UC Davis’ Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases, cautions about reading too much into the findings about dextromethorphan, which were conducted in a lab on animal cells and not as part of a clinical trial. Borowsky said it’s “possible” that within the constraints of the study, the drug “is contributing to a little more viral infectivity, but it’s impossible to know from these data whether that changes the ability of the virus to get into the cells or the ability of the virus to replicate copies of its number in a cell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sorting all that out, obviously, would be important,” he said. “But I just cannot imagine that this has a real impact on patients taking Robitussin.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Consumer Healthcare Products Association, an industry group representing makers of over-the-counter medications, said in a statement: “It’s important to point out that these preliminary study results demonstrating a pro-viral effect of dextromethorphan are not conclusive. The authors only examined three samples and note further study is required on dextromethorphan in the context of COVID-19.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Promising Drugs Found\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The UCSF study, which included 120 scientists from around the world, primarily examined the impact of 47 over-the-counter and prescription drugs on SARS-CoV-2. In the coming weeks, the scientists plan to examine another 28 drugs, or 75 total. Results of the study were published today in the journal \u003cem>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Nature\u003c/span>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team found several drugs already approved by the FDA and other drug compounds that could pave the way for improved treatment of COVID-19. You can read more about the study and which drugs showed promise in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/New-UCSF-study-finds-potential-drugs-for-treating-15235804.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new findings come on the heels of another promising \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1963229/government-study-shows-patients-responding-to-coronavirus-treatment-drugmaker-gilead-says\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">study\u003c/span>\u003c/a> by federal scientists into Gilead’s \u003cspan class=\"s3\">drug remdesivir, which found the median recovery time for patients sick with COVID-19 who took the antiviral medication was 4 days faster compared to those who received a placebo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of our drugs and compounds are many times more potent than remdesivir, at least in the laboratory setting,” Krogan said. “So we’re very excited not just to look at these drugs and compounds in isolation, but in combination with other drugs like remdesivir.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This post has been edited to add the statements by the industry group and outside researcher.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Krogan said he, himself, if he had COVID-19, would “think twice about using some of these cough syrups until more information was available to us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later, Krogan softened that advice in an interview with NBC’s\u003ca href=\"https://www.today.com/health/coronavirus-cough-medicine-does-dextromethorphan-help-virus-grow-t180535\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Today show\u003c/a>. “This is information we wanted to responsibly report but tempered with a strong caveat that these results were seen in the lab (and) more tests are needed, especially in humans, before any definite conclusions are drawn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alexander Borowsky, a medical doctor and a professor at UC Davis’ Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases, cautions about reading too much into the findings about dextromethorphan, which were conducted in a lab on animal cells and not as part of a clinical trial. Borowsky said it’s “possible” that within the constraints of the study, the drug “is contributing to a little more viral infectivity, but it’s impossible to know from these data whether that changes the ability of the virus to get into the cells or the ability of the virus to replicate copies of its number in a cell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sorting all that out, obviously, would be important,” he said. “But I just cannot imagine that this has a real impact on patients taking Robitussin.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Consumer Healthcare Products Association, an industry group representing makers of over-the-counter medications, said in a statement: “It’s important to point out that these preliminary study results demonstrating a pro-viral effect of dextromethorphan are not conclusive. The authors only examined three samples and note further study is required on dextromethorphan in the context of COVID-19.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Promising Drugs Found\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The UCSF study, which included 120 scientists from around the world, primarily examined the impact of 47 over-the-counter and prescription drugs on SARS-CoV-2. In the coming weeks, the scientists plan to examine another 28 drugs, or 75 total. Results of the study were published today in the journal \u003cem>\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Nature\u003c/span>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team found several drugs already approved by the FDA and other drug compounds that could pave the way for improved treatment of COVID-19. You can read more about the study and which drugs showed promise in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/New-UCSF-study-finds-potential-drugs-for-treating-15235804.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new findings come on the heels of another promising \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1963229/government-study-shows-patients-responding-to-coronavirus-treatment-drugmaker-gilead-says\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">study\u003c/span>\u003c/a> by federal scientists into Gilead’s \u003cspan class=\"s3\">drug remdesivir, which found the median recovery time for patients sick with COVID-19 who took the antiviral medication was 4 days faster compared to those who received a placebo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of our drugs and compounds are many times more potent than remdesivir, at least in the laboratory setting,” Krogan said. “So we’re very excited not just to look at these drugs and compounds in isolation, but in combination with other drugs like remdesivir.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This post has been edited to add the statements by the industry group and outside researcher.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The U.S. government has abruptly terminated funding for a years-long research project in China that many experts say is vital to preventing the next major coronavirus outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote citation=\"Robert Garry, microbiologist, Tulane University\"]‘Scientifically this doesn’t make sense. Scientists should be able to work with other scientists without politics.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project was run by a U.S. nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance. For more than a decade, the group has been sending teams to China to trap bats, collect samples of their blood, saliva and feces, and then check those samples for new coronaviruses that could spark the next global pandemic. The idea is to identify locations that need to be monitored, come up with strategies to prevent spillover of the virus into human populations and get a jump on creating vaccines and treatments. Already the project has identified hundreds of coronaviruses, including one very similar to the virus behind the current outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But since early this month, U.S. officials have been working to raise suspicions about a key collaborator on the project: the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located in the city where the outbreak began. U.S. intelligence officials are investigating whether the coronavirus escaped from the Wuhan Institute through some sort of contamination accident. As noted in an \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident\">NPR story published last week\u003c/a>, many scientists have discounted that theory as nearly impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonetheless, at an April 17 news conference, President Trump said he had given instructions to check if any U.S. funding was slated for the Wuhan Institute, and if so, he said, it would immediately be terminated. Days later, on April 25, the National Institutes of Health, or NIH — which was providing the grant for the project — notified EcoHealth Alliance that the money was being canceled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To learn more about the cutoff of funds and the possible impact on coronavirus research, NPR interviewed the president of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, as well as Robert Garry, a microbiologist at Tulane University who is playing a prominent role in COVID-19 research but who does not work with the nonprofit. (NPR reached out to both NIH and the White House for comment. The White House referred questions to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIH. A spokesman for the department did not respond to a request for comment and neither did officials at NIH.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are the answers we got to four key questions:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who approved funding for this project?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the April 17 White House news conference, a reporter mischaracterized key details about the project, stating that “the NIH, under the Obama administration, in 2015 gave that lab $3.7 million in a grant” and asking Trump, “Why would the U.S. give a grant like that to China?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump continued that erroneous depiction, answering, “I understand it was a number of years ago, right?” Then he added, “2015? Who was president then, I wonder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, while the first grant for the project was indeed given in 2015 (for $3.25 million over five years), the $3.7 million was approved last year as a five-year renewal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, only about 10% of the grant — about $76,000 per year — was slated for the Wuhan Institute. This was provided in recognition that the Wuhan lab was doing the bulk of the on-the-ground sample collection and analysis, says EcoHealth Alliance’s Daszak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can’t just turn up as an American and say, ‘I want to find out what viruses you’ve got,’ ” says Daszak. “You have to work with local collaboration and with the permission of the governments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daszak adds that NIH approved the five-year renewal unusually quickly. “When you submit those grants, they get reviewed independently by scientists, and they’re assigned a score,” says Daszak. “We received a really extremely high priority for funding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What results has the project yielded so far?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daszak says the China bat sampling project has already racked up quite a number \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/20/807742861/new-research-bats-harbor-hundreds-of-coronaviruses-and-spillovers-arent-rare\">of successes\u003c/a>. The team and its collaborators at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have collected about 15,000 samples from bats. From these they have already identified about 400 wholly new coronaviruses. About 50 of those fall into a category that caused the 2002 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and, now, the COVID-19 pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers were also able to demonstrate that at least some of the new bat coronaviruses they have found are capable of infecting a human cell in a petri dish. Then the team sampled the blood of people in China who live near various bat caves. They found evidence that for some time now, these bat coronaviruses have been spilling over into the human population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our work has shown that between 1 [million] and 7 million people a year are exposed in rural China and rural Southeast Asia to these viruses,” says Daszak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really gives us a forward look at what could be coming down the pike.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, once the current pandemic began, the Wuhan Institute researchers on the project were able to consult their library of bat coronaviruses. They found an extremely close match.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this work makes EcoHealth Alliance a “major player” in the field, says Garry, the microbiologist at Tulane. “These are notable papers that people will be citing going forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How did funding for the project unravel so quickly?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost as soon as the pandemic began, conspiracy theories started circulating, pointing to the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the culprit. In recent weeks, these have gained traction with the revelation that U.S. intelligence agencies are assessing the possibility of a lab accident, as well as with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/\">leak of State Department cables\u003c/a> obtained by \u003cem>The Washington Post\u003c/em> indicating that in 2018, officials had raised safety concerns about the Wuhan lab. Trump and other Republican figures have used these points in a broader narrative that they are advancing, blaming China for the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>EcoHealth Alliance’s Daszak says his first “inkling” of the impact that this would have on funding for the China research project came in an email from NIH shortly after Trump’s April 17 press conference. “They said, ‘Can you not send funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology?’ ” he recalls. “We wrote back straight away and said, ‘Of course we won’t [fund them]. Absolutely.’ And they said, ‘Thank you.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the next day, on Friday, April 25, he received another email from NIH informing him that the funding for the China bat coronavirus project had been eliminated because “at this time NIH does not believe the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was particularly mystifying, Daszak says, because just a day earlier, NIH had released \u003ca href=\"https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/niaid-strategic-plan-details-covid-19-research-priorities\">a strategic plan\u003c/a> detailing COVID-19 research priorities. “Our work is relevant to all four priority areas within that strategic plan,” says Daszak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really don’t understand the rationale behind this,” he says. “And we’ve reached out to NIH and have not received a response yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garry of Tulane says it is “highly unusual” for NIH to halt funding for a project this way. “Scientifically this doesn’t make sense. Scientists should be able to work with other scientists without politics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What happens to the research that the project was doing? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The China bat research project was funded entirely through the NIH grant, says Daszak. “So with the funding terminated, we won’t be able to do this work. The fieldwork will not carry on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That poses a threat to U.S. national security and public health, he says. “Once this pandemic is over, we know of hundreds of other coronaviruses that we’ve found evidence of in China that are waiting to emerge,” says Daszak. “We are now going to be unable to know about the risk of that, which puts us completely at risk of the next pandemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a minimum, EcoHealth — and the many international researchers to whom it provides information — will no longer have the ability to study the vast collection of new coronavirus samples it has already collected. “They’re in freezers in China. We had free and open access while we were doing this collaboration to get the genetic sequences of the virus from those samples. But without the funding, we won’t be able to get that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says that among the project’s objectives over the next four years “was to say, ‘In rural China, are there communities getting exposed to viruses like COVID-19? And what are the ways?’ We have anthropologists that try to understand which human behaviors are most likely to cause those viruses to emerge. We designed programs to help reduce those behaviors — things like the wildlife trade — and to try to persuade governments and communities to do things in a less risky way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, EcoHealth Alliance had planned to collect many more samples to expand its database of novel coronaviruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most importantly, the genetic sequences of the viruses we find in wildlife are given to labs here in the U.S. — who then work to incorporate them into vaccines and drug designs so that we can be better prepared if there’s an emergence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, he adds, at least one of the teams researching a treatment to help in the current pandemic — a group based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — \u003ca href=\"https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/uonc-ana040320.php\">has been testing a drug\u003c/a> called EIDD-2801 against not just COVID-19 but against several of the other bat coronaviruses that the EcoHealth Alliance project helped identify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, says Daszak, ideally drugs and vaccines for COVID-19 will be designed to work on a “broader spectrum” of similar viruses — because, he says, it’s only a matter of time before one of those sparks another outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all scientists think that’s achievable. But Tulane’s Garry agrees it’s a reasonable — if challenging — goal. “It’s entirely possible to come up with a universal anti-coronavirus vaccine,” he says. “That’s the hope. It’s aspirational. But to do that we would need to know what the diversity of the coronavirus species are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Why+The+U.S.+Government+Stopped+Funding+A+Research+Project+On+Bats+And+Coronaviruses&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project was run by a U.S. nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance. For more than a decade, the group has been sending teams to China to trap bats, collect samples of their blood, saliva and feces, and then check those samples for new coronaviruses that could spark the next global pandemic. The idea is to identify locations that need to be monitored, come up with strategies to prevent spillover of the virus into human populations and get a jump on creating vaccines and treatments. Already the project has identified hundreds of coronaviruses, including one very similar to the virus behind the current outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But since early this month, U.S. officials have been working to raise suspicions about a key collaborator on the project: the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located in the city where the outbreak began. U.S. intelligence officials are investigating whether the coronavirus escaped from the Wuhan Institute through some sort of contamination accident. As noted in an \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident\">NPR story published last week\u003c/a>, many scientists have discounted that theory as nearly impossible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonetheless, at an April 17 news conference, President Trump said he had given instructions to check if any U.S. funding was slated for the Wuhan Institute, and if so, he said, it would immediately be terminated. Days later, on April 25, the National Institutes of Health, or NIH — which was providing the grant for the project — notified EcoHealth Alliance that the money was being canceled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To learn more about the cutoff of funds and the possible impact on coronavirus research, NPR interviewed the president of EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak, as well as Robert Garry, a microbiologist at Tulane University who is playing a prominent role in COVID-19 research but who does not work with the nonprofit. (NPR reached out to both NIH and the White House for comment. The White House referred questions to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIH. A spokesman for the department did not respond to a request for comment and neither did officials at NIH.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are the answers we got to four key questions:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who approved funding for this project?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the April 17 White House news conference, a reporter mischaracterized key details about the project, stating that “the NIH, under the Obama administration, in 2015 gave that lab $3.7 million in a grant” and asking Trump, “Why would the U.S. give a grant like that to China?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump continued that erroneous depiction, answering, “I understand it was a number of years ago, right?” Then he added, “2015? Who was president then, I wonder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, while the first grant for the project was indeed given in 2015 (for $3.25 million over five years), the $3.7 million was approved last year as a five-year renewal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, only about 10% of the grant — about $76,000 per year — was slated for the Wuhan Institute. This was provided in recognition that the Wuhan lab was doing the bulk of the on-the-ground sample collection and analysis, says EcoHealth Alliance’s Daszak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can’t just turn up as an American and say, ‘I want to find out what viruses you’ve got,’ ” says Daszak. “You have to work with local collaboration and with the permission of the governments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daszak adds that NIH approved the five-year renewal unusually quickly. “When you submit those grants, they get reviewed independently by scientists, and they’re assigned a score,” says Daszak. “We received a really extremely high priority for funding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What results has the project yielded so far?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daszak says the China bat sampling project has already racked up quite a number \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/20/807742861/new-research-bats-harbor-hundreds-of-coronaviruses-and-spillovers-arent-rare\">of successes\u003c/a>. The team and its collaborators at the Wuhan Institute of Virology have collected about 15,000 samples from bats. From these they have already identified about 400 wholly new coronaviruses. About 50 of those fall into a category that caused the 2002 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and, now, the COVID-19 pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers were also able to demonstrate that at least some of the new bat coronaviruses they have found are capable of infecting a human cell in a petri dish. Then the team sampled the blood of people in China who live near various bat caves. They found evidence that for some time now, these bat coronaviruses have been spilling over into the human population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our work has shown that between 1 [million] and 7 million people a year are exposed in rural China and rural Southeast Asia to these viruses,” says Daszak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really gives us a forward look at what could be coming down the pike.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, once the current pandemic began, the Wuhan Institute researchers on the project were able to consult their library of bat coronaviruses. They found an extremely close match.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this work makes EcoHealth Alliance a “major player” in the field, says Garry, the microbiologist at Tulane. “These are notable papers that people will be citing going forward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How did funding for the project unravel so quickly?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost as soon as the pandemic began, conspiracy theories started circulating, pointing to the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the culprit. In recent weeks, these have gained traction with the revelation that U.S. intelligence agencies are assessing the possibility of a lab accident, as well as with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/\">leak of State Department cables\u003c/a> obtained by \u003cem>The Washington Post\u003c/em> indicating that in 2018, officials had raised safety concerns about the Wuhan lab. Trump and other Republican figures have used these points in a broader narrative that they are advancing, blaming China for the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>EcoHealth Alliance’s Daszak says his first “inkling” of the impact that this would have on funding for the China research project came in an email from NIH shortly after Trump’s April 17 press conference. “They said, ‘Can you not send funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology?’ ” he recalls. “We wrote back straight away and said, ‘Of course we won’t [fund them]. Absolutely.’ And they said, ‘Thank you.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the next day, on Friday, April 25, he received another email from NIH informing him that the funding for the China bat coronavirus project had been eliminated because “at this time NIH does not believe the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was particularly mystifying, Daszak says, because just a day earlier, NIH had released \u003ca href=\"https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/niaid-strategic-plan-details-covid-19-research-priorities\">a strategic plan\u003c/a> detailing COVID-19 research priorities. “Our work is relevant to all four priority areas within that strategic plan,” says Daszak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really don’t understand the rationale behind this,” he says. “And we’ve reached out to NIH and have not received a response yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garry of Tulane says it is “highly unusual” for NIH to halt funding for a project this way. “Scientifically this doesn’t make sense. Scientists should be able to work with other scientists without politics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What happens to the research that the project was doing? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The China bat research project was funded entirely through the NIH grant, says Daszak. “So with the funding terminated, we won’t be able to do this work. The fieldwork will not carry on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That poses a threat to U.S. national security and public health, he says. “Once this pandemic is over, we know of hundreds of other coronaviruses that we’ve found evidence of in China that are waiting to emerge,” says Daszak. “We are now going to be unable to know about the risk of that, which puts us completely at risk of the next pandemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a minimum, EcoHealth — and the many international researchers to whom it provides information — will no longer have the ability to study the vast collection of new coronavirus samples it has already collected. “They’re in freezers in China. We had free and open access while we were doing this collaboration to get the genetic sequences of the virus from those samples. But without the funding, we won’t be able to get that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says that among the project’s objectives over the next four years “was to say, ‘In rural China, are there communities getting exposed to viruses like COVID-19? And what are the ways?’ We have anthropologists that try to understand which human behaviors are most likely to cause those viruses to emerge. We designed programs to help reduce those behaviors — things like the wildlife trade — and to try to persuade governments and communities to do things in a less risky way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, EcoHealth Alliance had planned to collect many more samples to expand its database of novel coronaviruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most importantly, the genetic sequences of the viruses we find in wildlife are given to labs here in the U.S. — who then work to incorporate them into vaccines and drug designs so that we can be better prepared if there’s an emergence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, he adds, at least one of the teams researching a treatment to help in the current pandemic — a group based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — \u003ca href=\"https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/uonc-ana040320.php\">has been testing a drug\u003c/a> called EIDD-2801 against not just COVID-19 but against several of the other bat coronaviruses that the EcoHealth Alliance project helped identify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, says Daszak, ideally drugs and vaccines for COVID-19 will be designed to work on a “broader spectrum” of similar viruses — because, he says, it’s only a matter of time before one of those sparks another outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all scientists think that’s achievable. But Tulane’s Garry agrees it’s a reasonable — if challenging — goal. “It’s entirely possible to come up with a universal anti-coronavirus vaccine,” he says. “That’s the hope. It’s aspirational. But to do that we would need to know what the diversity of the coronavirus species are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Why+The+U.S.+Government+Stopped+Funding+A+Research+Project+On+Bats+And+Coronaviruses&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
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"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"perspectives": {
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"planet-money": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
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},
"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
"airtime": "SAT 4pm-5pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/reveal",
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"rss": "http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast"
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