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"title": "Some Physical Distancing May Be Necessary in the U.S. for Years, Researchers Say",
"headTitle": "Some Physical Distancing May Be Necessary in the U.S. for Years, Researchers Say | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>A modeling study on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/tag/coronavirus/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new coronavirus\u003c/a> warns that intermittent periods of social distancing may need to persist into 2022 in the United States to keep the surge of people severely sickened by COVID-19 from overwhelming the health care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research, \u003ca href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/04/13/science.abb5793\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published Tuesday\u003c/a> in the journal Science, looked at a range of scenarios for how the SARS-CoV-2 virus will spread over the next five years. Those scenarios included variables like whether people who are infected develop short-term immunity — less than a year — or longer-term protection. But, overall, the research concludes it is unlikely that life will return any time soon to the way it was before the virus’ emergence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers, from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, acknowledged the economic fallout from the response to the virus has been profound. And they stressed they were not advocating one course of action over another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our goal in modeling such policies is not to endorse them but to identify likely trajectories of the epidemic under alternative approaches,” they wrote. “We do not take a position on the advisability of these scenarios given the economic burden that sustained distancing may impose, but we note the potentially catastrophic burden on the healthcare system that is predicted if distancing is poorly effective and-or not sustained for long enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors suggest a number of factors will play a major role in the path the disease will take over the coming years — if transmission subsides in summer and resurges in winter, if there is some immunity induced by infection and how long it lasts, and whether people get any cross-protective immunity from having been infected with related human coronaviruses that cause common colds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In terms of the latter, they suggest if infection with the human coronaviruses, HKU1 and OC43, gives some protection again SARS-CoV-2, it could appear that transmission of the new virus was tapering off. But a return within a few years would be expected, perhaps by 2024, they suggested. The two human coronaviruses induce only short-term immunity — less than a year — in infected people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If SARS-CoV-2 triggers immunity of a similarly transient nature, annual wintertime waves of infection might be expected, they said. If the immunity lasts longer, the time between surges of cases might be a couple of years, or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if immunity is permanent, the pandemic might burn itself out by about 2025, they said. The researchers suggested, though, that that scenario is unlikely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The model predicts that a one-time social distancing effort of the type currently being employed in most parts of the country will not stop transmission of the virus. If treatments are developed that can prevent COVID-19 patients from progressing to severe disease or if a vaccine is developed, movement restrictions could be loosened without health care capacity being overwhelmed, the researchers said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Likewise, increasing the capacity for intensive care beds could also allow a community to loosen its restrictions, as long as it could cope with the severe cases the increased spread would generate. That could speed progress towards herd immunity — the point where enough people have some immunity that transmission should drop off, they said. Without these extra tools, though, transmission will resurge once controls are loosened, the authors warned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So I think distancing interventions of some sort are going to have to continue, hopefully lightened and in conjunction with other interventions,” said Marc Lipsitch, a leading infectious diseases epidemiologist and senior author of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Infectious diseases epidemiologist Caitlin Rivers said the modeling work will be useful for public health officials and disease experts trying to plan for the continued response to the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What this is saying is that SARS-CoV-2 will stay with us through 2022, that it’s not going to die down to nothing in the summer. So I think it’s helpful for thinking what interventions are sustainable and effective,” said Rivers, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “If we knew that we only had to make it through another two weeks, we might make different decisions than understanding that this is a threat that will be with us for many months,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While acknowledging that intermittent periods of distancing over several years “is obviously a very long time,’’ Lipsitch said loosened restrictions could come sooner if scientists discovered that a lot more people have been infected already and have some immunity. He and his co-authors stressed how critical it is to conduct long-term serology studies designed to map out human immune responses to the virus over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On the other hand, there are some indications coming out at the moment that not every case of COVID-19 infection … generates a robust immune response, which would mean that the build up of herd immunity is slower than its anticipated here,” he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study does not look at whether imposing social distancing only among certain high-risk groups — including older adults and those with serious underlying health problems — might keep the number of severe cases low enough that health systems would be able to handle them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another of the authors, Yonatan Grad, said tailoring restrictions to high-risk groups would be an important idea. But one would also need to factor in whether people who had been freed from social distancing restrictions would then interact with people in those restricted groups — something that might depend on the composition of individual households, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lipsitch acknowledged that delaying the development of herd immunity — effectively keeping large numbers of people susceptible to the virus by shielding them from infection — runs a risk of creating a larger wave of illness later, if controls are eased during a time when the virus transmits more easily, as it is expected to do during winter months. But delaying infections buys time, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Pushing bad things out into the future is something we want to do because we should know more about treatments, we may be closer to a vaccine,” he said. “So there is some benefit to delay, but it might be offset in the seasonal scenario where we push the peak into the high transmission time around the winter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/14/some-social-distancing-may-be-needed-into-2022-to-keep-coronavirus-in-check-new-study-says/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=e907cd26ff-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-e907cd26ff-151495997\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">story\u003c/a> was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/\">STAT\u003c/a>, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A modeling study on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/tag/coronavirus/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new coronavirus\u003c/a> warns that intermittent periods of social distancing may need to persist into 2022 in the United States to keep the surge of people severely sickened by COVID-19 from overwhelming the health care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research, \u003ca href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/04/13/science.abb5793\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published Tuesday\u003c/a> in the journal Science, looked at a range of scenarios for how the SARS-CoV-2 virus will spread over the next five years. Those scenarios included variables like whether people who are infected develop short-term immunity — less than a year — or longer-term protection. But, overall, the research concludes it is unlikely that life will return any time soon to the way it was before the virus’ emergence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers, from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, acknowledged the economic fallout from the response to the virus has been profound. And they stressed they were not advocating one course of action over another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our goal in modeling such policies is not to endorse them but to identify likely trajectories of the epidemic under alternative approaches,” they wrote. “We do not take a position on the advisability of these scenarios given the economic burden that sustained distancing may impose, but we note the potentially catastrophic burden on the healthcare system that is predicted if distancing is poorly effective and-or not sustained for long enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors suggest a number of factors will play a major role in the path the disease will take over the coming years — if transmission subsides in summer and resurges in winter, if there is some immunity induced by infection and how long it lasts, and whether people get any cross-protective immunity from having been infected with related human coronaviruses that cause common colds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In terms of the latter, they suggest if infection with the human coronaviruses, HKU1 and OC43, gives some protection again SARS-CoV-2, it could appear that transmission of the new virus was tapering off. But a return within a few years would be expected, perhaps by 2024, they suggested. The two human coronaviruses induce only short-term immunity — less than a year — in infected people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If SARS-CoV-2 triggers immunity of a similarly transient nature, annual wintertime waves of infection might be expected, they said. If the immunity lasts longer, the time between surges of cases might be a couple of years, or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if immunity is permanent, the pandemic might burn itself out by about 2025, they said. The researchers suggested, though, that that scenario is unlikely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The model predicts that a one-time social distancing effort of the type currently being employed in most parts of the country will not stop transmission of the virus. If treatments are developed that can prevent COVID-19 patients from progressing to severe disease or if a vaccine is developed, movement restrictions could be loosened without health care capacity being overwhelmed, the researchers said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Likewise, increasing the capacity for intensive care beds could also allow a community to loosen its restrictions, as long as it could cope with the severe cases the increased spread would generate. That could speed progress towards herd immunity — the point where enough people have some immunity that transmission should drop off, they said. Without these extra tools, though, transmission will resurge once controls are loosened, the authors warned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So I think distancing interventions of some sort are going to have to continue, hopefully lightened and in conjunction with other interventions,” said Marc Lipsitch, a leading infectious diseases epidemiologist and senior author of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Infectious diseases epidemiologist Caitlin Rivers said the modeling work will be useful for public health officials and disease experts trying to plan for the continued response to the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What this is saying is that SARS-CoV-2 will stay with us through 2022, that it’s not going to die down to nothing in the summer. So I think it’s helpful for thinking what interventions are sustainable and effective,” said Rivers, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “If we knew that we only had to make it through another two weeks, we might make different decisions than understanding that this is a threat that will be with us for many months,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While acknowledging that intermittent periods of distancing over several years “is obviously a very long time,’’ Lipsitch said loosened restrictions could come sooner if scientists discovered that a lot more people have been infected already and have some immunity. He and his co-authors stressed how critical it is to conduct long-term serology studies designed to map out human immune responses to the virus over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On the other hand, there are some indications coming out at the moment that not every case of COVID-19 infection … generates a robust immune response, which would mean that the build up of herd immunity is slower than its anticipated here,” he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study does not look at whether imposing social distancing only among certain high-risk groups — including older adults and those with serious underlying health problems — might keep the number of severe cases low enough that health systems would be able to handle them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another of the authors, Yonatan Grad, said tailoring restrictions to high-risk groups would be an important idea. But one would also need to factor in whether people who had been freed from social distancing restrictions would then interact with people in those restricted groups — something that might depend on the composition of individual households, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lipsitch acknowledged that delaying the development of herd immunity — effectively keeping large numbers of people susceptible to the virus by shielding them from infection — runs a risk of creating a larger wave of illness later, if controls are eased during a time when the virus transmits more easily, as it is expected to do during winter months. But delaying infections buys time, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Pushing bad things out into the future is something we want to do because we should know more about treatments, we may be closer to a vaccine,” he said. “So there is some benefit to delay, but it might be offset in the seasonal scenario where we push the peak into the high transmission time around the winter.”\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/2020/04/14/some-social-distancing-may-be-needed-into-2022-to-keep-coronavirus-in-check-new-study-says/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=e907cd26ff-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-e907cd26ff-151495997\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">story\u003c/a> was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/\">STAT\u003c/a>, 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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"title": "Looking to End of Shutdown, Hospitals Rush to Hire 'Army' of Coronavirus Trackers",
"headTitle": "Looking to End of Shutdown, Hospitals Rush to Hire ‘Army’ of Coronavirus Trackers | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">K\u003c/span>\u003c/span>.J. Seung is surprised to be hiring and training new workers in Boston.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His public health nonprofit, Partners in Health, specializes in helping the poorest people in developing nations — tracking down contacts of Ebola patients in Liberia and Sierra Leone; running child health and HIV clinics in Haiti; and operating tuberculosis control programs in Peru. But now it is advertising for 500 people to help do what’s known as contact tracing to try to control Covid-19 in Massachusetts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the first step in the next stage of fighting the pandemic. Boston-based Partners in Health has trained 12,000 community health workers in countries including Malawi, Mexico, and Rwanda and now it will help train a battalion of workers in Massachusetts to interview everyone diagnosed with Covid-19 and find other people who may have been infected by them. This old-fashioned, shoe-leather public health approach contained the SARS outbreak in 2003 and 2004, and public health experts agree it will be vital to eventual control of the new disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never thought we would be doing this kind of work here,” Seung, senior health and policy adviser for tuberculosis at Partners In Health, told STAT. “We never thought we would be in a once-in-100-year pandemic, either.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combined with more widespread testing, \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/02/coronavirus-spreads-too-fast-for-contact-tracing-digital-tools-could-help/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">contact tracing\u003c/a> is seen as an essential part of the strategy for keeping the coronavirus in check after the first wave recedes and the economy reopens. But the work is highly labor-intensive, and public health departments across the U.S. have been woefully underfunded for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is going to test the capacity of the existing public health system,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “I don’t know if we have enough staff in public health departments to do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hence the hiring spree kicking off in Massachusetts and a few other places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Partners in Health is working with state officials in Massachusetts, who say they will eventually \u003ca href=\"https://www.mass.gov/news/baker-polito-administration-announces-covid-19-community-tracing-collaborative-to-further\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">deploy nearly 1,000 people\u003c/a> to do contact tracing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco this weekend, three dozen volunteer nurses, medical students, and librarians started training at the University of California, San Francisco — the first of an expected 100 people who will supplement the city’s 10-person contact-tracing workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are providing the people to make phone calls, we are working on standard scripts, we are working on IT solutions, training, and we are fielding teams of contact tracers,” said George Rutherford, UCSF’s head of disease and global epidemiology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will be the only way to contain further spread of Covid-19 once the initial surge is past, and get into the suppression phase, argues Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We need an army of 300,000 people,” he told STAT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current CDC director, \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/04/an-interview-with-the-cdc-director-on-coronavirus-masks-and-an-agency-gone-quiet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Redfield\u003c/a>, said last week that a “substantial expansion of public health fieldworkers” will be needed to undertake aggressive contact tracing — “what I call ‘block and tackle.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/10/831200054/cdc-director-very-aggressive-contact-tracing-needed-for-u-s-to-return-to-normal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Speaking to NPR\u003c/a> on Thursday, he said it would be “premature” to say how CDC would expand contact tracing but that planning was “far along.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Frieden said he doubted the federal government would help much immediately. “Until the federal response is more coherent, each state is going to be on its own,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Normally, the CDC would be taking the lead, Plescia added. “Right now, they are pretty maxed out. It is the state and local governments who will have to train people and have a system that works.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $2 trillion stimulus package signed into law last month creates a $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund for states and local and tribal governments, plus gives $4.3 billion via the CDC to help in responding to the pandemic. The money is not earmarked for epidemiology but states could, in theory, use some of the money for hiring workers to do contact tracing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, has seen a steady drop in the number of staff in state and local health agencies trained to track down contacts of patients with sexually transmitted diseases, even as \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2016/10/19/sexually-transmitted-diseases-stds-rates/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">STD rates have soared\u003c/a>. These same workers would have been immediately available to work on coronavirus. Now states will have to hire a fresh corps. “We need to radically increase the numbers of these positions in order to help the country recover,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Twenty years ago, this workforce had a high of 5,000 or 6,000 people,” Harvey told STAT. “Today it is only 1,600. The reality is that we at least need a work force of 30,000 people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frieden puts the needed number at 10 times that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luckily, potential workers are right at hand, with so many jobs lost to Covid-19 over the past weeks. “There are a lot of people out there,” Frieden said. “There are college graduates, people working at social service agencies, social workers, child health workers, people doing Meals on Wheels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Technology can help, and numerous apps are being developed to speed up the process of tracking down contacts. But public health experts said such tools won’t eliminate the need for thousands of new workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Costs would be relatively low – maybe $720 million for 30,000 workers, said Harvey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>States are not even close to having enough workers, and most state health departments contacted by STAT said they had not begun to think that far ahead. Florida, a state with the one of the smallest epidemiology work forces, hired 100 people in one weekend last month, \u003ca href=\"https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/03/18/how-did-florida-hire-100-epidemiologists-in-a-weekend-heres-how/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to the Tampa Bay Times.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus, there are other barriers, Holtgrave noted. To diagnose cases, many more tests are needed. And any in-person contact will require personal protective equipment, also in short supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why Partners in Health plans to start workers out on the back end, interviewing patients who have already been diagnosed to find their contacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are not knocking on doors,” Seung said. “People are working in their homes and they are making phone calls.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One piece of good news – it’s not hard to find people who want to do the work. Seung says his office has received more than 5,000 applications for the 500 jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are really grasping to do something,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/26/containing-new-coronavirus-may-not-be-feasible-experts-say/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=b4213b1d3b-MR_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-b4213b1d3b-149648249\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">story\u003c/a> was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/\">STAT\u003c/a>, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"big-cap-wrap\">\u003cspan class=\"big-cap\">K\u003c/span>\u003c/span>.J. Seung is surprised to be hiring and training new workers in Boston.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His public health nonprofit, Partners in Health, specializes in helping the poorest people in developing nations — tracking down contacts of Ebola patients in Liberia and Sierra Leone; running child health and HIV clinics in Haiti; and operating tuberculosis control programs in Peru. But now it is advertising for 500 people to help do what’s known as contact tracing to try to control Covid-19 in Massachusetts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the first step in the next stage of fighting the pandemic. Boston-based Partners in Health has trained 12,000 community health workers in countries including Malawi, Mexico, and Rwanda and now it will help train a battalion of workers in Massachusetts to interview everyone diagnosed with Covid-19 and find other people who may have been infected by them. This old-fashioned, shoe-leather public health approach contained the SARS outbreak in 2003 and 2004, and public health experts agree it will be vital to eventual control of the new disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never thought we would be doing this kind of work here,” Seung, senior health and policy adviser for tuberculosis at Partners In Health, told STAT. “We never thought we would be in a once-in-100-year pandemic, either.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combined with more widespread testing, \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/02/coronavirus-spreads-too-fast-for-contact-tracing-digital-tools-could-help/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">contact tracing\u003c/a> is seen as an essential part of the strategy for keeping the coronavirus in check after the first wave recedes and the economy reopens. But the work is highly labor-intensive, and public health departments across the U.S. have been woefully underfunded for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is going to test the capacity of the existing public health system,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “I don’t know if we have enough staff in public health departments to do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hence the hiring spree kicking off in Massachusetts and a few other places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Partners in Health is working with state officials in Massachusetts, who say they will eventually \u003ca href=\"https://www.mass.gov/news/baker-polito-administration-announces-covid-19-community-tracing-collaborative-to-further\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">deploy nearly 1,000 people\u003c/a> to do contact tracing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco this weekend, three dozen volunteer nurses, medical students, and librarians started training at the University of California, San Francisco — the first of an expected 100 people who will supplement the city’s 10-person contact-tracing workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are providing the people to make phone calls, we are working on standard scripts, we are working on IT solutions, training, and we are fielding teams of contact tracers,” said George Rutherford, UCSF’s head of disease and global epidemiology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will be the only way to contain further spread of Covid-19 once the initial surge is past, and get into the suppression phase, argues Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We need an army of 300,000 people,” he told STAT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current CDC director, \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/04/an-interview-with-the-cdc-director-on-coronavirus-masks-and-an-agency-gone-quiet/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Redfield\u003c/a>, said last week that a “substantial expansion of public health fieldworkers” will be needed to undertake aggressive contact tracing — “what I call ‘block and tackle.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/10/831200054/cdc-director-very-aggressive-contact-tracing-needed-for-u-s-to-return-to-normal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Speaking to NPR\u003c/a> on Thursday, he said it would be “premature” to say how CDC would expand contact tracing but that planning was “far along.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Frieden said he doubted the federal government would help much immediately. “Until the federal response is more coherent, each state is going to be on its own,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Normally, the CDC would be taking the lead, Plescia added. “Right now, they are pretty maxed out. It is the state and local governments who will have to train people and have a system that works.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $2 trillion stimulus package signed into law last month creates a $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund for states and local and tribal governments, plus gives $4.3 billion via the CDC to help in responding to the pandemic. The money is not earmarked for epidemiology but states could, in theory, use some of the money for hiring workers to do contact tracing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, has seen a steady drop in the number of staff in state and local health agencies trained to track down contacts of patients with sexually transmitted diseases, even as \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2016/10/19/sexually-transmitted-diseases-stds-rates/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">STD rates have soared\u003c/a>. These same workers would have been immediately available to work on coronavirus. Now states will have to hire a fresh corps. “We need to radically increase the numbers of these positions in order to help the country recover,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Twenty years ago, this workforce had a high of 5,000 or 6,000 people,” Harvey told STAT. “Today it is only 1,600. The reality is that we at least need a work force of 30,000 people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frieden puts the needed number at 10 times that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luckily, potential workers are right at hand, with so many jobs lost to Covid-19 over the past weeks. “There are a lot of people out there,” Frieden said. “There are college graduates, people working at social service agencies, social workers, child health workers, people doing Meals on Wheels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Technology can help, and numerous apps are being developed to speed up the process of tracking down contacts. But public health experts said such tools won’t eliminate the need for thousands of new workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Costs would be relatively low – maybe $720 million for 30,000 workers, said Harvey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>States are not even close to having enough workers, and most state health departments contacted by STAT said they had not begun to think that far ahead. Florida, a state with the one of the smallest epidemiology work forces, hired 100 people in one weekend last month, \u003ca href=\"https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/03/18/how-did-florida-hire-100-epidemiologists-in-a-weekend-heres-how/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to the Tampa Bay Times.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus, there are other barriers, Holtgrave noted. To diagnose cases, many more tests are needed. And any in-person contact will require personal protective equipment, also in short supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why Partners in Health plans to start workers out on the back end, interviewing patients who have already been diagnosed to find their contacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are not knocking on doors,” Seung said. “People are working in their homes and they are making phone calls.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One piece of good news – it’s not hard to find people who want to do the work. Seung says his office has received more than 5,000 applications for the 500 jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are really grasping to do something,” he said.\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/2020/01/26/containing-new-coronavirus-may-not-be-feasible-experts-say/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=b4213b1d3b-MR_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-b4213b1d3b-149648249\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">story\u003c/a> was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/\">STAT\u003c/a>, 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>When infected with a virus or other pathogen, our immune system makes proteins called antibodies to fight off the infection. Now, scientists and health officials say newly authorized blood tests for \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-020-0553-6?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=5907ab71f9-briefing-dy-20200408&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-5907ab71f9-44182637\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">COVID-19 antibodies\u003c/a> may be key to tracking the spread of the virus and figuring out who could return to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[emailsignup newslettername='science' align='right']A growing number of academic and private labs in California have begun running serological, or blood, tests for COVID-19 antibodies, including Stanford University as well as USC in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike nasal swab tests that detect who currently has the virus, antibody tests can capture those who already had it but were asymptomatic or never tested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That will give a lot more information about penetrance in the community,” said Spenser Smith, lab director at \u003ca href=\"https://www.arcpointlabs.com/monterey-bay/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ARCpoint Labs\u003c/a> of Monterey. The small private lab began running the skin-prick test last week on frontline health workers and other first responders. Tests are available by appointment or referrals from health care providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You just have to poke on the finger, a couple of drops of blood and it kind of looks like a pregnancy test,” he said. “You’ll see a little line there denoting it was positive for those antibodies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith says the test looks for two distinct COVID-19 antibodies, one the body produces to fight the virus right away and another that could be important for lasting immunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re hopeful that once you’re exposed, you’ll be immune, at least for the season,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the science behind antibody tests is well-established, researchers are still trying to determine if COVID-19 antibodies prevent reinfection and for how long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FDA \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-serological-tests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recently authorized\u003c/a> the emergency use of COVID-19 serological testing in the U.S., but more data is needed to determine the reliability of some of the tests that are out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Charity Dean, assistant director of the California Department of Public Health and co-chair of the state’s testing task force, says once there’s more data, the state could begin using antibody tests to help determine who can stop sheltering at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the benefits of doing the serology test in California is if these tests do, in fact, reflect immunity by someone who has been previously infected, it will help give California data that can inform our strategy,” Dean said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our hope is that the test to detect the antibody will actually be detecting immunity and be able to be scaled up…so that people who have been infected can go back to providing the critical services that they provide without the risk of becoming reinfected.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith’s lab has focused on frontline workers who have a high risk of exposure. He says ARCpoint is running about 150 tests a day via drive-through, and that some people have tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies. The lab is sharing that data with the Monterey County Health Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/04/coronavirus-new-stanford-research-reveals-if-youve-been-exposed/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stanford University\u003c/a> recently launched multiple projects to study and deploy serology tests for COVID-19 antibodies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. James Zehnder, director of clinical pathology at Stanford, says the university validated an antibody test through a rigorous study in its clinical lab over the course of two weeks. This means they tested for antibodies in people with known coronavirus infections, as well as testing a control group who did not have the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university says first priority for antibody testing is given to health care workers, but testing is open to the entire Stanford community — including students, faculty and staff. Stanford can currently run about 500 tests per day, but plans to increase capacity soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Results from the lab test, which requires a blood draw, are ready within two to three days. Zehnder says while the wait is longer than point-of-care skin-prick tests, the results are potentially more accurate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s been a proliferation of these point-of-care tests, and I think one concern that we have is that they need to be compared to sort of gold standard testing in clinical laboratories,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zehnder says antibody tests will help researchers determine the rate of COVID-19 infections in the region, accounting for the potential number of asymptomatic cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s two goals, really,” he said. “To ensure the safety of the workforce, and also to get a better idea in the community what the status of this disease is and how people are responding to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since it can take two to three weeks for an infected person’s immune response to kick in and for antibodies to be detected, he says it can be done in tandem with nasal swab testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having both kinds of data allows you to have a more accurate picture of what’s going in an individual person at a moment in time,” Zehnder said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Serological testing may be key to developing vaccines and plasma treatments for the disease using antibody-rich blood. It could also help scientists determine if the population has lasting immunity. But Zehnder says we’re not there yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are research questions that everyone in the world wants to know the answer to. So we’re in the data collection phase now. And there’s researchers at Stanford and many institutions that are working together on this.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When infected with a virus or other pathogen, our immune system makes proteins called antibodies to fight off the infection. Now, scientists and health officials say newly authorized blood tests for \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-020-0553-6?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=5907ab71f9-briefing-dy-20200408&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-5907ab71f9-44182637\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">COVID-19 antibodies\u003c/a> may be key to tracking the spread of the virus and figuring out who could return to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A growing number of academic and private labs in California have begun running serological, or blood, tests for COVID-19 antibodies, including Stanford University as well as USC in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike nasal swab tests that detect who currently has the virus, antibody tests can capture those who already had it but were asymptomatic or never tested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That will give a lot more information about penetrance in the community,” said Spenser Smith, lab director at \u003ca href=\"https://www.arcpointlabs.com/monterey-bay/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ARCpoint Labs\u003c/a> of Monterey. The small private lab began running the skin-prick test last week on frontline health workers and other first responders. Tests are available by appointment or referrals from health care providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You just have to poke on the finger, a couple of drops of blood and it kind of looks like a pregnancy test,” he said. “You’ll see a little line there denoting it was positive for those antibodies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith says the test looks for two distinct COVID-19 antibodies, one the body produces to fight the virus right away and another that could be important for lasting immunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re hopeful that once you’re exposed, you’ll be immune, at least for the season,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the science behind antibody tests is well-established, researchers are still trying to determine if COVID-19 antibodies prevent reinfection and for how long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FDA \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-serological-tests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recently authorized\u003c/a> the emergency use of COVID-19 serological testing in the U.S., but more data is needed to determine the reliability of some of the tests that are out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Charity Dean, assistant director of the California Department of Public Health and co-chair of the state’s testing task force, says once there’s more data, the state could begin using antibody tests to help determine who can stop sheltering at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the benefits of doing the serology test in California is if these tests do, in fact, reflect immunity by someone who has been previously infected, it will help give California data that can inform our strategy,” Dean said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our hope is that the test to detect the antibody will actually be detecting immunity and be able to be scaled up…so that people who have been infected can go back to providing the critical services that they provide without the risk of becoming reinfected.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith’s lab has focused on frontline workers who have a high risk of exposure. He says ARCpoint is running about 150 tests a day via drive-through, and that some people have tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies. The lab is sharing that data with the Monterey County Health Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/04/coronavirus-new-stanford-research-reveals-if-youve-been-exposed/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stanford University\u003c/a> recently launched multiple projects to study and deploy serology tests for COVID-19 antibodies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. James Zehnder, director of clinical pathology at Stanford, says the university validated an antibody test through a rigorous study in its clinical lab over the course of two weeks. This means they tested for antibodies in people with known coronavirus infections, as well as testing a control group who did not have the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university says first priority for antibody testing is given to health care workers, but testing is open to the entire Stanford community — including students, faculty and staff. Stanford can currently run about 500 tests per day, but plans to increase capacity soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Results from the lab test, which requires a blood draw, are ready within two to three days. Zehnder says while the wait is longer than point-of-care skin-prick tests, the results are potentially more accurate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s been a proliferation of these point-of-care tests, and I think one concern that we have is that they need to be compared to sort of gold standard testing in clinical laboratories,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zehnder says antibody tests will help researchers determine the rate of COVID-19 infections in the region, accounting for the potential number of asymptomatic cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s two goals, really,” he said. “To ensure the safety of the workforce, and also to get a better idea in the community what the status of this disease is and how people are responding to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since it can take two to three weeks for an infected person’s immune response to kick in and for antibodies to be detected, he says it can be done in tandem with nasal swab testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having both kinds of data allows you to have a more accurate picture of what’s going in an individual person at a moment in time,” Zehnder said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Serological testing may be key to developing vaccines and plasma treatments for the disease using antibody-rich blood. It could also help scientists determine if the population has lasting immunity. But Zehnder says we’re not there yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are research questions that everyone in the world wants to know the answer to. So we’re in the data collection phase now. And there’s researchers at Stanford and many institutions that are working together on this.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Bay Area’s grueling commute has all but disappeared as millions of people stay home at the order of public health officials seeking to slow the spread of this coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As millions of cars sit parked on the street or collect dust in garages, and public transit agencies drastically reduce service, researchers with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District say there’s some indication that regional air pollution is way down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Traffic is the top contributor to air pollution in the Bay Area,” Kristine Roselius, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an email. “Reducing the number of cars and trucks on our roads can have a significant, positive effect on our air quality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the agency took early reports estimating bridge traffic was down by 70% and used them to calculate a corresponding reduction in pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district’s numbers show a potential 20% reduction in fine particulates and a 38% drop in nitrogen oxides. Carbon dioxide emissions, the leading driver of climate change, would be down 26%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Roselius said the estimate is likely “conservative” and traffic could have dipped by even more, though she cautions that researchers need to see more data before they can detect an actual trend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Port of Oakland \u003ca href=\"https://www.portofoakland.com/port-of-oakland-updates/\">says\u003c/a> shipping traffic was down 11% in March. That could also contribute to a reduction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, weather plays a major role in local air quality. A persistent low-pressure system hovering over Southern California has kept the air crisp and clear, according to Rick Canepa, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pressure system brought blustery, rainy conditions to the region in late March and early April, one reason for the puffy cloud formations the last few weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aclima, a San Francisco-based air quality mapping startup, says that Bay Area pollution levels have continuously declined since March 17, when many counties initiated stay-at-home orders, according to Meg Thurlow, the company’s vice president of Sensing Systems and Applied Science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We continue to see the same large-scale changes that we have been seeing in air pollution across a variety of pollutants, especially those associated with traffic and fossil fuel combustion,” said Thurlow. (Aclima is publishing the results in \u003ca href=\"https://blog.aclima.io/bay-area-pollutant-levels-drop-for-second-week-b51be2dc5677\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">posts like this.\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961748 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/RS42688_SF_Covid_March20-April4_high-1-sfi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/RS42688_SF_Covid_March20-April4_high-1-sfi.jpg 480w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/RS42688_SF_Covid_March20-April4_high-1-sfi-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is especially true in West Oakland, a neighborhood bounded by freeways and the port.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project and other advocacy groups have long noted punishing air pollution and high local asthma rates, which they say are caused by toxic diesel fumes from trucks driving in and out of the port.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aclima is tracking a reduction in the region’s carbon footprint using aggregated data from air regulators, as well as sensors, including some attached to low-emission cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2015, Aclima has mapped air quality in West Oakland and noted higher pollution levels compared to the broader Bay Area. Thurlow said that West Oakland’s carbon dioxide levels have dropped below the Bay Area regional average during the coronavirus crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the reduction in pollution provides “a really positive indicator to people that our actions are important with respect to air quality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But this is a brief reprieve when there’s a lifetime of pollution disparities that have existed throughout a lot of our communities.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Bay Area’s grueling commute has all but disappeared as millions of people stay home at the order of public health officials seeking to slow the spread of this coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As millions of cars sit parked on the street or collect dust in garages, and public transit agencies drastically reduce service, researchers with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District say there’s some indication that regional air pollution is way down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Traffic is the top contributor to air pollution in the Bay Area,” Kristine Roselius, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an email. “Reducing the number of cars and trucks on our roads can have a significant, positive effect on our air quality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the agency took early reports estimating bridge traffic was down by 70% and used them to calculate a corresponding reduction in pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district’s numbers show a potential 20% reduction in fine particulates and a 38% drop in nitrogen oxides. Carbon dioxide emissions, the leading driver of climate change, would be down 26%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Roselius said the estimate is likely “conservative” and traffic could have dipped by even more, though she cautions that researchers need to see more data before they can detect an actual trend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Port of Oakland \u003ca href=\"https://www.portofoakland.com/port-of-oakland-updates/\">says\u003c/a> shipping traffic was down 11% in March. That could also contribute to a reduction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, weather plays a major role in local air quality. A persistent low-pressure system hovering over Southern California has kept the air crisp and clear, according to Rick Canepa, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pressure system brought blustery, rainy conditions to the region in late March and early April, one reason for the puffy cloud formations the last few weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aclima, a San Francisco-based air quality mapping startup, says that Bay Area pollution levels have continuously declined since March 17, when many counties initiated stay-at-home orders, according to Meg Thurlow, the company’s vice president of Sensing Systems and Applied Science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We continue to see the same large-scale changes that we have been seeing in air pollution across a variety of pollutants, especially those associated with traffic and fossil fuel combustion,” said Thurlow. (Aclima is publishing the results in \u003ca href=\"https://blog.aclima.io/bay-area-pollutant-levels-drop-for-second-week-b51be2dc5677\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">posts like this.\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961748 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/RS42688_SF_Covid_March20-April4_high-1-sfi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/RS42688_SF_Covid_March20-April4_high-1-sfi.jpg 480w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/RS42688_SF_Covid_March20-April4_high-1-sfi-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is especially true in West Oakland, a neighborhood bounded by freeways and the port.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project and other advocacy groups have long noted punishing air pollution and high local asthma rates, which they say are caused by toxic diesel fumes from trucks driving in and out of the port.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aclima is tracking a reduction in the region’s carbon footprint using aggregated data from air regulators, as well as sensors, including some attached to low-emission cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2015, Aclima has mapped air quality in West Oakland and noted higher pollution levels compared to the broader Bay Area. Thurlow said that West Oakland’s carbon dioxide levels have dropped below the Bay Area regional average during the coronavirus crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the reduction in pollution provides “a really positive indicator to people that our actions are important with respect to air quality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But this is a brief reprieve when there’s a lifetime of pollution disparities that have existed throughout a lot of our communities.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Sheltering in place may be working, according to Santa Clara County, but even with strong social distancing to reduce the risk of coronavirus, it will be a long time before the pandemic ends. That’s the \u003ca href=\"https://covid-measures.github.io\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">conclusion\u003c/a> of a team led by Erin Mordecai, a Stanford biologist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s unlikely that shelter in place, unless we do it for a pretty long time, is actually going to allow us to end the epidemic,” Mordecai said. “But that doesn’t mean that shelter in place forever is the only option that we have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align='right' size='medium' citation='Dr. Jeffrey Smith, Santa Clara County']‘Sorry to say, I don’t expect that we’ll have any sports games until at least Thanksgiving, and we’ll be lucky to have them by Thanksgiving.’[/pullquote]Mordecai and other researchers created an interactive model of COVID-19 transmission that demonstrates how the broad social actions that states, counties, cities and people are choosing can slow the virus’ spread, even without vaccines or drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the extreme end, their model suggests that continuing to shelter in place for five months would stop the epidemic in Santa Clara County–though Mordecai makes no recommendations about that. The project also underlines the risk that lifting social distancing rules too quickly could permit coronavirus to bounce back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week in Santa Clara County, health officer Dr. Sara Cody told county supervisors that the first-in-the-nation shelter in place order issued there and in other counties is flattening the curve: keeping the spread of coronavirus slow enough that it’s not yet overtaxing the county’s medical resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Santa Clara County’s executive officer, Dr. Jeffrey Smith, also stressed that the region isn’t out of the woods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is not something that’s going to be easy to do,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One goal of Mordecai and her team is to help the public think long-term in the same way that researchers can and public officials are trying to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Extreme’ or ‘Moderate,’ Social Distancing Takes Time\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mordecai’s model looks at how quickly this coronavirus can spread through a population by calculating what’s called the “reproduction rate,” which describes the average number of people who will catch COVID-19 from one person who’s already infected. A reproduction rate of 12 means each infected person is likely to infect 12 others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might hear public health officials occasionally use the mathematical term for reproduction rate, R0, pronounced “r-naught.” That’s because they are focused on how to get R0 to a number below one–a necessary step for shrinking the reach of COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mordecai says they’re able to estimate what’s going on in Santa Clara because Bay Area residents complied with strong social distancing orders in the middle of March, creating several weeks of relevant case and hospitalization data. The new analysis finds that the R0 for Santa Clara County would be between 3 and 4 if shelter at home weren’t happening, meaning each new case of COVID-19 would be infecting three or four other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to get that rate below one within five months, Mordecai says, people would need to cut their social contacts by about three-quarters compared to before shelter at home began.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mordecai defines that as extreme social distancing–and she says that there’s some wiggle room in understanding how to do that. “Social contacts” doesn’t just mean social occasions, like dinner with friends, a movie date, or family game night: it also means how you enter public spaces and interact with people at grocery stores, on public transit, on the way to work, or even at the shop fixing your car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People also have different abilities to be physically distant from others; Mordecai, for example, says it’s easy for her to limit social contacts compared to before because school is cancelled. Home health aides might only be able to limit their exposures somewhat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This actually turned out to be one of the key pieces of information that we really don’t have right now: how much does something like a shelter in place order actually reduce people’s contact rates?” Mordecai says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Knowing that, she says is important for modeling how long and how effective the social distancing orders can be. Still, even cutting social contacts in half, which she characterizes as medium social distancing, would make a difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A ‘Light Switch’ Method With Many Switches\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health leaders at all levels are still figuring out how to talk about how and when to lift the social distancing orders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you say ‘back to normal,’ it will not be a light switch that you turn on and off,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-us-reopen-economy-anthony-fauci/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told CBS This Morning\u003c/a> last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It might be like several light switches, over a year or more. That’s what researchers from Imperial College suggested could slow the spread of COVID-19: combining sheltering in place with other interventions, like limiting the use of public space, and starting and stopping these practices over periods of time: essentially, switching them on and off. Mordecai says her team’s model supports this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, public health officials say their ability to choose longer-term interventions effectively depends, in part, on testing and aggressively tracing the spread of coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If that happens, “we could do a lot more tailored interventions and not have to have everybody stay home,” Mordecai says. That could include letting more businesses reopen, or asking only vulnerable people to shelter in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s still a ways off, according Santa Clara County public health officials. Cody told supervisors the county needs to see a “sustained reduction in cases” before transitioning to a different kind of social distancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s still too early to plan on going to 49er games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sorry to say, I don’t expect that we’ll have any sports games until at least Thanksgiving,” Smith said, “and we’ll be lucky to have them by Thanksgiving.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Sheltering in place may be working, according to Santa Clara County, but even with strong social distancing to reduce the risk of coronavirus, it will be a long time before the pandemic ends. That’s the \u003ca href=\"https://covid-measures.github.io\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">conclusion\u003c/a> of a team led by Erin Mordecai, a Stanford biologist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s unlikely that shelter in place, unless we do it for a pretty long time, is actually going to allow us to end the epidemic,” Mordecai said. “But that doesn’t mean that shelter in place forever is the only option that we have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Santa Clara County’s executive officer, Dr. Jeffrey Smith, also stressed that the region isn’t out of the woods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is not something that’s going to be easy to do,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One goal of Mordecai and her team is to help the public think long-term in the same way that researchers can and public officials are trying to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Extreme’ or ‘Moderate,’ Social Distancing Takes Time\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mordecai’s model looks at how quickly this coronavirus can spread through a population by calculating what’s called the “reproduction rate,” which describes the average number of people who will catch COVID-19 from one person who’s already infected. A reproduction rate of 12 means each infected person is likely to infect 12 others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might hear public health officials occasionally use the mathematical term for reproduction rate, R0, pronounced “r-naught.” That’s because they are focused on how to get R0 to a number below one–a necessary step for shrinking the reach of COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mordecai says they’re able to estimate what’s going on in Santa Clara because Bay Area residents complied with strong social distancing orders in the middle of March, creating several weeks of relevant case and hospitalization data. The new analysis finds that the R0 for Santa Clara County would be between 3 and 4 if shelter at home weren’t happening, meaning each new case of COVID-19 would be infecting three or four other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to get that rate below one within five months, Mordecai says, people would need to cut their social contacts by about three-quarters compared to before shelter at home began.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mordecai defines that as extreme social distancing–and she says that there’s some wiggle room in understanding how to do that. “Social contacts” doesn’t just mean social occasions, like dinner with friends, a movie date, or family game night: it also means how you enter public spaces and interact with people at grocery stores, on public transit, on the way to work, or even at the shop fixing your car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People also have different abilities to be physically distant from others; Mordecai, for example, says it’s easy for her to limit social contacts compared to before because school is cancelled. Home health aides might only be able to limit their exposures somewhat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This actually turned out to be one of the key pieces of information that we really don’t have right now: how much does something like a shelter in place order actually reduce people’s contact rates?” Mordecai says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Knowing that, she says is important for modeling how long and how effective the social distancing orders can be. Still, even cutting social contacts in half, which she characterizes as medium social distancing, would make a difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A ‘Light Switch’ Method With Many Switches\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health leaders at all levels are still figuring out how to talk about how and when to lift the social distancing orders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you say ‘back to normal,’ it will not be a light switch that you turn on and off,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-us-reopen-economy-anthony-fauci/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told CBS This Morning\u003c/a> last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It might be like several light switches, over a year or more. That’s what researchers from Imperial College suggested could slow the spread of COVID-19: combining sheltering in place with other interventions, like limiting the use of public space, and starting and stopping these practices over periods of time: essentially, switching them on and off. Mordecai says her team’s model supports this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, public health officials say their ability to choose longer-term interventions effectively depends, in part, on testing and aggressively tracing the spread of coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If that happens, “we could do a lot more tailored interventions and not have to have everybody stay home,” Mordecai says. That could include letting more businesses reopen, or asking only vulnerable people to shelter in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s still a ways off, according Santa Clara County public health officials. Cody told supervisors the county needs to see a “sustained reduction in cases” before transitioning to a different kind of social distancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s still too early to plan on going to 49er games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>At midnight one day last month, I got a call from a friend whose husband is in a memory care facility. Coronavirus was newly recognized across California, and in order to control infections, assisted living and nursing homes had begun to limit visitors.\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>She couldn’t sleep. Her husband had called her dozens of times that day. He didn’t remember that he’d already called; he wanted to go outside and nobody was there to take him. He was alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is beyond heartbreaking,” she said, her voice cracking, again and again. “What are we supposed to do?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While care facility operators \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1960340/as-coronavirus-spreads-long-term-care-homes-brace-for-surge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">try to figure out\u003c/a> how to protect their residents, patient advocates are warning that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1959285/coronavirus-isolates-californians-in-nursing-homes-long-term-care-facilities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">isolation takes a toll\u003c/a> on mental health. We know that as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1961129/bay-area-covid-19-outbreaks-worsen-spread-in-long-term-care-homes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">virus spreads in communal living\u003c/a> settings, those of you with family and friends in care facilities are wondering what’s safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’d like to hear from you. We’ll use your insight and questions and experience to shape our news coverage. We’ll do our best to help you find answers and we’ll share what we learn from you along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you work in a care facility, or live with someone who does, we want to hear your stories too; you can choose to ask questions and share stories without sharing your name. (You can also email me securely at mopete@tutanota.com.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are we supposed to do?” is a question we’re all asking ourselves. We believe telling stories about what’s happening in care homes right now can help us find the answers.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>At midnight one day last month, I got a call from a friend whose husband is in a memory care facility. Coronavirus was newly recognized across California, and in order to control infections, assisted living and nursing homes had begun to limit visitors.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Help KQED Science Report on the Pandemic\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She couldn’t sleep. Her husband had called her dozens of times that day. He didn’t remember that he’d already called; he wanted to go outside and nobody was there to take him. He was alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is beyond heartbreaking,” she said, her voice cracking, again and again. “What are we supposed to do?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While care facility operators \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1960340/as-coronavirus-spreads-long-term-care-homes-brace-for-surge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">try to figure out\u003c/a> how to protect their residents, patient advocates are warning that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1959285/coronavirus-isolates-californians-in-nursing-homes-long-term-care-facilities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">isolation takes a toll\u003c/a> on mental health. We know that as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1961129/bay-area-covid-19-outbreaks-worsen-spread-in-long-term-care-homes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">virus spreads in communal living\u003c/a> settings, those of you with family and friends in care facilities are wondering what’s safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"headTitle": "Watch Out for These Coronavirus-Related Scams | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Scammers looking to profit from those anxious for their stimulus check; inflated prices for desperately needed masks; fake coronavirus cures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]\u003cstrong>What You Should Be Watching Out For\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>* Stimulus scams: The IRS \u003ca href=\"https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-warning-about-coronavirus-related-scams-watch-out-for-schemes-tied-to-economic-impact-payments\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">warns\u003c/a> taxpayers, especially retirees, to be on the lookout for calls, email phishing attempts and other schemes tied to stimulus checks, which can lead to tax-related fraud and identity theft. Remember, the official term is “economic impact payment.” So, be cautious of people who use the term “stimulus,” ask you to verify bank or check information online, or suggest they can speed up the process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>* Bogus Phone calls: Officials with the FCC \u003ca href=\"https://www.fcc.gov/covid-scams\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a> scam text message campaigns and phone calls with people impersonating federal health workers and offering free home-testing kits, promoting cures and selling fake health insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*Utility customer scams: PG&E says its security division has tracked between 5-10 \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/customer-service/help/scams/scams.page?WT.mc_id=Vanity_scams\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">scam\u003c/a> attempts per day over the phone in recent weeks. A call may appear to customers as if it’s from PG&E, when it’s actually a disguised number from outside the company, a subterfuge called spoofing. The utility says scammers, using a copy of an actual PG&E automated call recording, are requesting immediate payment with a debit card on a past due bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> *\u003c/strong>Price gouging: The San Francisco district attorney’s office says it has received more than 50 calls or emails from people who report inflated prices for masks, disinfectant wipes and even products like chicken eggs and the vitamin C supplement EmergenC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>*\u003c/strong>Unproven Cleaning Products: The federal Environmental Protection Agency warns that companies are flooding the market with disinfectants and sanitizer falsely claiming to be effective against the novel coronavirus, The New York Times \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/climate/epa-fake-coronavirus-cleaners.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>. The agency threatened legal action against businesses that sell the unregistered products. (See here for an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1959894/what-works-to-kill-coronavirus-as-you-clean-your-home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EPA-approved list of coronavirus-killing disinfectants\u003c/a>.)[/pullquote]Officials say these are just some of the cons and illegal attempts at cashing in on the current devastating health emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve really seen a wide variety of scams,” said U.S. Attorney Nicola Hanna.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>“As hard as we all work for our money, these folks work equally hard to steal our money. They’re very inventive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hanna oversees the Justice Department’s district office in Los Angeles, which covers seven counties and 20 million people. The office recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/southland-man-arrested-federal-charges-alleging-fraudulent-investment-scheme-featuring\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">charged\u003c/span>\u003c/a> a man arrested by an undercover FBI agent for allegedly soliciting investors with a fake coronavirus cure, and another man from the U.K. for \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/uk-national-charged-shipping-mislabeled-and-unapproved-treatments-patients-suffering\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">allegedly importing\u003c/a> a fake COVID-19 treatment in mislabeled packages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s just the beginning. Hanna warns of solicited donations by fake charities and GoFundMe pages, as well as people selling coveted protective equipment like safety masks they don’t actually have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve seen phishing emails that purport to be from the Centers for Disease Control or the World Health Organization or other legitimate organizations,” Hanna said. “They’re not. And in fact, if you click on the link, it downloads malware onto your system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The IRS is warning people looking for their $1,200 government stimulus check not to give out personal information over email or the phone. And there is \u003cspan class=\"s1\">no proven vaccine or antiviral treatment for COVID-19, so anyone claiming to have a coronavirus cure is lying.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all of these are small-time consumer scams. As governments and hospitals across the nation desperately hunted for protective equipment, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West \u003ca href=\"https://www.seiu-uhw.org/press/union-locates-massive-supply-of-n95-masks/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">announced\u003c/span>\u003c/a> on March 26 that it had found a supplier with 39 million protective masks for its members. But the deal fell apart after officials couldn’t verify and inspect the masks. Kaiser, which had placed an order for millions of them, said it learned the supplier never had them at all, the Los Angeles Times \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-03/coronavirus-seiu-masks-supplies-investigation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Selling Bogus Coronavirus Treatments\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keith “The Real Iron Man” Middlebrook had described himself to his roughly 2.4 million Instagram followers as a “Genius Entrepreneur Icon,” and “Actor Writer Producer,” among other things, according to a federal affidavit prosecutors provided to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then around March 24, as the coronavirus pandemic ground life to a halt in California, the businessman, bodybuilder and actor who \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3033468/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">appeared\u003c/span>\u003c/a> briefly in “Iron Man 3,” “Moneyball” and other movies, crafted a new career: “Inventor: COVID19 Immunity & Coronavirus Cure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middlebrook’s social media feeds, usually featuring videos of him \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv3xhMtvPTw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">sculpting\u003c/span>\u003c/a> softball-sized biceps or promoting his self-help regime of “xccelerated success,” with praise for Donald Trump sprinkled in, gave way to a new pitch touting an injectable cure for COVID-19 and pills to prevent a person from acquiring it. According to the affidavit,\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>Middlebrook allegedly solicited investment in a company called Quantum Prevention CV Inc.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In text messages, prosecutors charge, Middlebrook claimed a patient from L.A who was sick with the virus “got up and walked out 51 hours after my injection,” boasting that investors could see returns of “$200M – $300M…conservative minimum,” on an investment of $1 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also claimed former basketball superstar Earvin “Magic” Johnson was an investor. (Johnson told investigators that wasn’t true.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials say Middlebrook was arrested by an undercover FBI agent posing as an investor, making him the first person charged by the federal government for a coronavirus-related crime. A judge set his arraignment for April 16. If convicted as charged, he could face up to 20 years in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s5\">Requests for comment to several of Middlebrook’s email addresses listed on his websites went unreturned.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">\u003cb>Importing a ‘Miracle Cure’\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">According to another federal affidavit, 59-year-old Frank Richard Ludlow of West Sussex, England, had been shipping a health concoction called a “Trinity Remedy” for three years to a distributor with addresses in Utah and California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, according to the charges, as health officials in California were recommending people stay home from work, Ludlow relabeled the product as “Trinity COVID-19 SARS Antipathogenic Treatment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">The contents of the purported coronavirus kits matched the earlier product — a \u003c/span>powdered “miracle cure” made of vitamin c, potassium thiocyanate, hydrogen peroxide and enzymes,\u003cspan class=\"s3\"> according to the affidavit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">“A consumer was supposed to add 18 ounces of water, say a prayer, drink half of the solution, take a probiotic along with bee pollen, and then ingest the remainder of the solution,” prosecutors wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s3\">The kits are still being examined. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FDA, which must approve any drug defined as a “cure,” “mitigation,” or even “treatment” imported into the U.S., according to federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/laws-enforced-fda/federal-food-drug-and-cosmetic-act-fdc-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">law\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, has not approved the product for any use, let alone to treat COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 18, customs officers seized about 60 of the kits passing through a mail facility in Los Angeles in mislabeled boxes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s6\">Ludlow was \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/news/city-of-london/news/2020/march/pipcu/man-charged-with-making-and-selling-fake-covid-19-treatment-kits/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">arrested\u003c/span>\u003c/a> in the U.K. for making and selling the kits and remains in custody there, authorities said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">On April 1, Hanna charged Ludlow with one count of importing a misbranded drug into the U.S. He faces up to three years in federal prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal attorneys urge the public to report coronavirus scammers by calling the National Center for Disaster Fraud hotline (1-866-720-5721) or to the NCDF e-mail address \u003ca href=\"mailto:disaster@leo.gov\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">disaster@leo.gov\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/SFDAOffice/status/1242631955675369472?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Associated Press contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cstrong>What You Should Be Watching Out For\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>* Stimulus scams: The IRS \u003ca href=\"https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-warning-about-coronavirus-related-scams-watch-out-for-schemes-tied-to-economic-impact-payments\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">warns\u003c/a> taxpayers, especially retirees, to be on the lookout for calls, email phishing attempts and other schemes tied to stimulus checks, which can lead to tax-related fraud and identity theft. Remember, the official term is “economic impact payment.” So, be cautious of people who use the term “stimulus,” ask you to verify bank or check information online, or suggest they can speed up the process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>* Bogus Phone calls: Officials with the FCC \u003ca href=\"https://www.fcc.gov/covid-scams\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a> scam text message campaigns and phone calls with people impersonating federal health workers and offering free home-testing kits, promoting cures and selling fake health insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*Utility customer scams: PG&E says its security division has tracked between 5-10 \u003ca href=\"https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/customer-service/help/scams/scams.page?WT.mc_id=Vanity_scams\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">scam\u003c/a> attempts per day over the phone in recent weeks. A call may appear to customers as if it’s from PG&E, when it’s actually a disguised number from outside the company, a subterfuge called spoofing. The utility says scammers, using a copy of an actual PG&E automated call recording, are requesting immediate payment with a debit card on a past due bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> *\u003c/strong>Price gouging: The San Francisco district attorney’s office says it has received more than 50 calls or emails from people who report inflated prices for masks, disinfectant wipes and even products like chicken eggs and the vitamin C supplement EmergenC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>*\u003c/strong>Unproven Cleaning Products: The federal Environmental Protection Agency warns that companies are flooding the market with disinfectants and sanitizer falsely claiming to be effective against the novel coronavirus, The New York Times \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/climate/epa-fake-coronavirus-cleaners.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>. The agency threatened legal action against businesses that sell the unregistered products. (See here for an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1959894/what-works-to-kill-coronavirus-as-you-clean-your-home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EPA-approved list of coronavirus-killing disinfectants\u003c/a>.)",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Officials say these are just some of the cons and illegal attempts at cashing in on the current devastating health emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve really seen a wide variety of scams,” said U.S. Attorney Nicola Hanna.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>“As hard as we all work for our money, these folks work equally hard to steal our money. They’re very inventive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hanna oversees the Justice Department’s district office in Los Angeles, which covers seven counties and 20 million people. The office recently \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/southland-man-arrested-federal-charges-alleging-fraudulent-investment-scheme-featuring\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">charged\u003c/span>\u003c/a> a man arrested by an undercover FBI agent for allegedly soliciting investors with a fake coronavirus cure, and another man from the U.K. for \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/uk-national-charged-shipping-mislabeled-and-unapproved-treatments-patients-suffering\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">allegedly importing\u003c/a> a fake COVID-19 treatment in mislabeled packages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s just the beginning. Hanna warns of solicited donations by fake charities and GoFundMe pages, as well as people selling coveted protective equipment like safety masks they don’t actually have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve seen phishing emails that purport to be from the Centers for Disease Control or the World Health Organization or other legitimate organizations,” Hanna said. “They’re not. And in fact, if you click on the link, it downloads malware onto your system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The IRS is warning people looking for their $1,200 government stimulus check not to give out personal information over email or the phone. And there is \u003cspan class=\"s1\">no proven vaccine or antiviral treatment for COVID-19, so anyone claiming to have a coronavirus cure is lying.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all of these are small-time consumer scams. As governments and hospitals across the nation desperately hunted for protective equipment, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West \u003ca href=\"https://www.seiu-uhw.org/press/union-locates-massive-supply-of-n95-masks/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">announced\u003c/span>\u003c/a> on March 26 that it had found a supplier with 39 million protective masks for its members. But the deal fell apart after officials couldn’t verify and inspect the masks. Kaiser, which had placed an order for millions of them, said it learned the supplier never had them at all, the Los Angeles Times \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-03/coronavirus-seiu-masks-supplies-investigation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Selling Bogus Coronavirus Treatments\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keith “The Real Iron Man” Middlebrook had described himself to his roughly 2.4 million Instagram followers as a “Genius Entrepreneur Icon,” and “Actor Writer Producer,” among other things, according to a federal affidavit prosecutors provided to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then around March 24, as the coronavirus pandemic ground life to a halt in California, the businessman, bodybuilder and actor who \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3033468/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">appeared\u003c/span>\u003c/a> briefly in “Iron Man 3,” “Moneyball” and other movies, crafted a new career: “Inventor: COVID19 Immunity & Coronavirus Cure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middlebrook’s social media feeds, usually featuring videos of him \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv3xhMtvPTw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">sculpting\u003c/span>\u003c/a> softball-sized biceps or promoting his self-help regime of “xccelerated success,” with praise for Donald Trump sprinkled in, gave way to a new pitch touting an injectable cure for COVID-19 and pills to prevent a person from acquiring it. According to the affidavit,\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>Middlebrook allegedly solicited investment in a company called Quantum Prevention CV Inc.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In text messages, prosecutors charge, Middlebrook claimed a patient from L.A who was sick with the virus “got up and walked out 51 hours after my injection,” boasting that investors could see returns of “$200M – $300M…conservative minimum,” on an investment of $1 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also claimed former basketball superstar Earvin “Magic” Johnson was an investor. (Johnson told investigators that wasn’t true.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials say Middlebrook was arrested by an undercover FBI agent posing as an investor, making him the first person charged by the federal government for a coronavirus-related crime. A judge set his arraignment for April 16. If convicted as charged, he could face up to 20 years in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s5\">Requests for comment to several of Middlebrook’s email addresses listed on his websites went unreturned.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">\u003cb>Importing a ‘Miracle Cure’\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">According to another federal affidavit, 59-year-old Frank Richard Ludlow of West Sussex, England, had been shipping a health concoction called a “Trinity Remedy” for three years to a distributor with addresses in Utah and California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, according to the charges, as health officials in California were recommending people stay home from work, Ludlow relabeled the product as “Trinity COVID-19 SARS Antipathogenic Treatment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">The contents of the purported coronavirus kits matched the earlier product — a \u003c/span>powdered “miracle cure” made of vitamin c, potassium thiocyanate, hydrogen peroxide and enzymes,\u003cspan class=\"s3\"> according to the affidavit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">“A consumer was supposed to add 18 ounces of water, say a prayer, drink half of the solution, take a probiotic along with bee pollen, and then ingest the remainder of the solution,” prosecutors wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s3\">The kits are still being examined. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FDA, which must approve any drug defined as a “cure,” “mitigation,” or even “treatment” imported into the U.S., according to federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/laws-enforced-fda/federal-food-drug-and-cosmetic-act-fdc-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">law\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, has not approved the product for any use, let alone to treat COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 18, customs officers seized about 60 of the kits passing through a mail facility in Los Angeles in mislabeled boxes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s6\">Ludlow was \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/news/city-of-london/news/2020/march/pipcu/man-charged-with-making-and-selling-fake-covid-19-treatment-kits/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">arrested\u003c/span>\u003c/a> in the U.K. for making and selling the kits and remains in custody there, authorities said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">On April 1, Hanna charged Ludlow with one count of importing a misbranded drug into the U.S. He faces up to three years in federal prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal attorneys urge the public to report coronavirus scammers by calling the National Center for Disaster Fraud hotline (1-866-720-5721) or to the NCDF e-mail address \u003ca href=\"mailto:disaster@leo.gov\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">disaster@leo.gov\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Associated Press contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "this-dangerous-mosquito-lays-her-armored-eggs-in-your-house",
"title": "This Dangerous Mosquito Lays Her Armored Eggs – in Your House",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]Here’s something easy you can do to fight disease this spring. While the efforts to end COVID-19 have upended daily life, it may only take a few simple steps to stop the carriers of other dangerous diseases — mosquitoes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the weather starts to warm up in April and May, mosquito control districts across California are urging people to go through their yards and eliminate breeding places for mosquitoes that can transmit dengue fever, a painful and sometimes deadly disease that has exploded worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Make sure you don’t have things that can hold water,” said Gary Goodman, manager of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fightthebite.net/\">Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District\u003c/a>. “Small children’s toys, small buckets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961006\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961006\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mosquito control districts across California are urging residents to get rid of breeding places in and around their homes for the \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquito, which can transmit dengue, Zika and Chikungunya. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> (AY-dees ee-GYP-tie) mosquito was first reported in California in 2013. It is \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/CDPH%20Document%20Library/AedesDistributionMap.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">now established in Southern California and the Central Valley\u003c/a>, with temperatures commonly in the 80 F to 82 F range that the mosquitoes need to reproduce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Bay Area isn’t warm enough,” said UC Davis entomologist Chris Barker, who studies the mosquito, “although there are parts of Santa Clara that get hotter and might be suitable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The white-striped mosquito worries public health officials because its bite can transmit the four viruses that cause dengue, a flu-like illness known as “breakbone fever” for the severe pain in the joints that patients often feel. If a person gets infected a second time with a different dengue virus, the disease can be deadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mosquito can also pass on the viruses that cause Zika, which can lead to birth defects, and Chikungunya, another painful joint disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961020\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_feeds.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961020\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_feeds.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes are found in Southern California and the Central Valley. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Though none of these diseases is being transmitted locally in California, every year travelers return to the state with infections they caught elsewhere. Last year \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/CDPH%20Document%20Library/TravelAssociatedCasesofDengueVirusinCA.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">263 California residents\u003c/a> came back home infected with dengue from other countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All it would take would be for a returning infected person to land in a neighborhood where the mosquito is abundant, during the warmest part of the summer, for \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes to bite them and spread the disease locally, Barker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“L.A. is the number one place where it could happen,” he said. “It’s warm, it has lots of people, it has \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> and people who travel back and forth to Asia and Central America who have meaningful connections there.” In other words, people who might hang out in their family’s backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961010\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961010\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This map shows in yellow the places where \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes are most likely to be found around the world. \u003ccite>(Map created by Chris Barker, UC Davis, with data from Moritz Kraemer and others.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Brought on by the spread of \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em>, dengue cases have increased dramatically worldwide in the past 20 years, with one study estimating that close to 100 million people end up sick each year, according to the World Health Organization. Dengue is common in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa. And local outbreaks have occurred in the past seven years in Hawaii, Florida and Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to California, the mosquitoes are likely to be found \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/zika/vector/range.html\">in a vast swath that goes from Texas to Virginia.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes don’t fly far – maybe a couple of city blocks. They lay their eggs in and around our homes and feed mainly on humans; they’re especially attracted to ankles and the lower body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961007\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961007\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes have white markings on their legs and body, and a white lyre shape on their backs. This one just finished biting into an ankle. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Their ancestor mosquito, which still exists today, lays eggs in tree holes in the rainforests of West Africa and feeds on mammals other than humans. Researchers believe that 4,000 to 6,000 years ago a drought emptied out the tree holes and pushed the mosquito into villages, where they started laying eggs in water containers and feeding on humans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They went from being a wild species in the tropical rainforest biting nonhumans to being what I call domesticated, living closely with humans,” said Jeffrey Powell, who has studied the mosquito’s genetics at Yale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humans move these mosquitoes around the world by unwittingly transporting their eggs, which are drought-tolerant and travel well. While other mosquitoes — such as the common house mosquito that transmits West Nile virus in California — lay clumps of eggs on the water’s surface that need to remain wet in order to survive, \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> females lay individual eggs above the water line that can stay viable for up to six months after drying out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961012\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_lays_eggs1.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961012\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_lays_eggs1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A female \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquito lays eggs on a glass surface at UC Davis. \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> lay their eggs above the water line, rather than directly on the water’s surface, as other mosquitoes do. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sitting above the water line, the eggs absorb a little bit of moisture that the larvae inside need to develop. At the same time, the eggs darken and their outside layer turns into a thick protective shell. After three days, the eggs can dry out safely and still remain viable. The next time the eggs come in contact with water — whether from a tropical rainfall or a sprinkler in California’s Central Valley — a wriggly whitish larva will hatch from each one and grow into a winged adult mosquito.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The eggs might look like a fine line of dirt. But they’re small and hard to spot, especially if the mosquito lays them in a dark container like a discarded tire. So experts recommend dumping the water out of containers once a week, to get rid of any larvae that might have hatched. It takes larvae 10 to 14 days to grow into adult mosquitoes, so emptying containers once a week prevents them from reaching that milestone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961004\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961004\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquito eggs look a lot like dirt on the outside of this clay pot. The mosquitoes lay eggs above the water line. This saucer holding excess water that seeped out of the pot created a perfect location for \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> to lay its eggs. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“No standing water,” Powell said. “Birdbaths, discarded tires, tin cans, anything, even a flowerpot. If you have a flowerpot and you have a tray underneath and you overwater and water collects in the tray underneath the flowerpot, that’s a good place for \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> to breed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the mosquitoes make their home inside and around people’s houses, they present a special challenge to mosquito control districts. Last summer, at the end of August, the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District found the first \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes reported in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961021\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_larvae_breathe.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961021\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_larvae_breathe.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Experts recommend emptying water from containers in and around the house once a week to eliminate any larvae that may have hatched from eggs. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After they collected mosquitoes in four traps in the city of Citrus Heights, technicians fanned out to try to find where they were breeding. The mosquitoes that transmit West Nile virus are found in rice fields and catch basins, while \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em>’s breeding places are harder to locate because they’re varied and smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of our technicians was going up to a door. They looked down and on the porch the resident had a watering can for their flowers,” said Goodman, the district’s manager. “They noticed in that watering can an adult mosquito that was flying. And that’s where we found one of the breeding sites for the \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October, the district traced another small outbreak of the mosquito to an ornamental plant known as a lucky bamboo — which isn’t really bamboo, and in this case, wasn’t lucky either. A resident of the Sacramento neighborhood of Pocket-Greenhaven had received the plant as a housewarming gift from someone who bought it in Ontario, in San Bernardino County, an area known to have the mosquitoes. When technicians took the plant back to the district’s lab, they discovered larvae floating in the water in the pot. The mosquito had laid eggs on the inside of the pot and on the gray rocks the plant was wedged in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No mosquitoes have been found in the neighborhood since the plant was removed. But the finding is an example of how the mosquitoes get around and breed in places where they go unnoticed. Goodman said it’s especially important to pay attention that the water from sprinklers isn’t collecting in places like drainage pipes. If you notice adult mosquitoes buzzing around, give your district a call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And one more thing. “Use a good repellent,” he said. “Because if you’re not bitten by a mosquito, then the risk of transmission of disease is eliminated.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "An easy thing to do to fight disease and mosquitoes this spring: Eliminate breeding places in and around your home.",
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"title": "This Dangerous Mosquito Lays Her Armored Eggs – in Your House | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Here’s something easy you can do to fight disease this spring. While the efforts to end COVID-19 have upended daily life, it may only take a few simple steps to stop the carriers of other dangerous diseases — mosquitoes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the weather starts to warm up in April and May, mosquito control districts across California are urging people to go through their yards and eliminate breeding places for mosquitoes that can transmit dengue fever, a painful and sometimes deadly disease that has exploded worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Make sure you don’t have things that can hold water,” said Gary Goodman, manager of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fightthebite.net/\">Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District\u003c/a>. “Small children’s toys, small buckets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961006\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961006\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_1_1920-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mosquito control districts across California are urging residents to get rid of breeding places in and around their homes for the \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquito, which can transmit dengue, Zika and Chikungunya. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> (AY-dees ee-GYP-tie) mosquito was first reported in California in 2013. It is \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/CDPH%20Document%20Library/AedesDistributionMap.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">now established in Southern California and the Central Valley\u003c/a>, with temperatures commonly in the 80 F to 82 F range that the mosquitoes need to reproduce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Bay Area isn’t warm enough,” said UC Davis entomologist Chris Barker, who studies the mosquito, “although there are parts of Santa Clara that get hotter and might be suitable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The white-striped mosquito worries public health officials because its bite can transmit the four viruses that cause dengue, a flu-like illness known as “breakbone fever” for the severe pain in the joints that patients often feel. If a person gets infected a second time with a different dengue virus, the disease can be deadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mosquito can also pass on the viruses that cause Zika, which can lead to birth defects, and Chikungunya, another painful joint disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961020\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_feeds.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961020\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_feeds.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes are found in Southern California and the Central Valley. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Though none of these diseases is being transmitted locally in California, every year travelers return to the state with infections they caught elsewhere. Last year \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/CDPH%20Document%20Library/TravelAssociatedCasesofDengueVirusinCA.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">263 California residents\u003c/a> came back home infected with dengue from other countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All it would take would be for a returning infected person to land in a neighborhood where the mosquito is abundant, during the warmest part of the summer, for \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes to bite them and spread the disease locally, Barker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“L.A. is the number one place where it could happen,” he said. “It’s warm, it has lots of people, it has \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> and people who travel back and forth to Asia and Central America who have meaningful connections there.” In other words, people who might hang out in their family’s backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961010\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961010\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_world_map_1920-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This map shows in yellow the places where \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes are most likely to be found around the world. \u003ccite>(Map created by Chris Barker, UC Davis, with data from Moritz Kraemer and others.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Brought on by the spread of \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em>, dengue cases have increased dramatically worldwide in the past 20 years, with one study estimating that close to 100 million people end up sick each year, according to the World Health Organization. Dengue is common in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa. And local outbreaks have occurred in the past seven years in Hawaii, Florida and Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to California, the mosquitoes are likely to be found \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/zika/vector/range.html\">in a vast swath that goes from Texas to Virginia.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes don’t fly far – maybe a couple of city blocks. They lay their eggs in and around our homes and feed mainly on humans; they’re especially attracted to ankles and the lower body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961007\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961007\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_bites_ankle_1_1920-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes have white markings on their legs and body, and a white lyre shape on their backs. This one just finished biting into an ankle. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Their ancestor mosquito, which still exists today, lays eggs in tree holes in the rainforests of West Africa and feeds on mammals other than humans. Researchers believe that 4,000 to 6,000 years ago a drought emptied out the tree holes and pushed the mosquito into villages, where they started laying eggs in water containers and feeding on humans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They went from being a wild species in the tropical rainforest biting nonhumans to being what I call domesticated, living closely with humans,” said Jeffrey Powell, who has studied the mosquito’s genetics at Yale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humans move these mosquitoes around the world by unwittingly transporting their eggs, which are drought-tolerant and travel well. While other mosquitoes — such as the common house mosquito that transmits West Nile virus in California — lay clumps of eggs on the water’s surface that need to remain wet in order to survive, \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> females lay individual eggs above the water line that can stay viable for up to six months after drying out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961012\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_lays_eggs1.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961012\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_lays_eggs1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A female \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquito lays eggs on a glass surface at UC Davis. \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> lay their eggs above the water line, rather than directly on the water’s surface, as other mosquitoes do. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sitting above the water line, the eggs absorb a little bit of moisture that the larvae inside need to develop. At the same time, the eggs darken and their outside layer turns into a thick protective shell. After three days, the eggs can dry out safely and still remain viable. The next time the eggs come in contact with water — whether from a tropical rainfall or a sprinkler in California’s Central Valley — a wriggly whitish larva will hatch from each one and grow into a winged adult mosquito.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The eggs might look like a fine line of dirt. But they’re small and hard to spot, especially if the mosquito lays them in a dark container like a discarded tire. So experts recommend dumping the water out of containers once a week, to get rid of any larvae that might have hatched. It takes larvae 10 to 14 days to grow into adult mosquitoes, so emptying containers once a week prevents them from reaching that milestone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961004\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961004\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_eggs_on_pot_1_1920-1020x574.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> mosquito eggs look a lot like dirt on the outside of this clay pot. The mosquitoes lay eggs above the water line. This saucer holding excess water that seeped out of the pot created a perfect location for \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> to lay its eggs. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“No standing water,” Powell said. “Birdbaths, discarded tires, tin cans, anything, even a flowerpot. If you have a flowerpot and you have a tray underneath and you overwater and water collects in the tray underneath the flowerpot, that’s a good place for \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em> to breed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the mosquitoes make their home inside and around people’s houses, they present a special challenge to mosquito control districts. Last summer, at the end of August, the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District found the first \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em> mosquitoes reported in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1961021\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_larvae_breathe.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1961021\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/04/DL706_Aedes_aegypti_mosquito_larvae_breathe.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Experts recommend emptying water from containers in and around the house once a week to eliminate any larvae that may have hatched from eggs. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After they collected mosquitoes in four traps in the city of Citrus Heights, technicians fanned out to try to find where they were breeding. The mosquitoes that transmit West Nile virus are found in rice fields and catch basins, while \u003cem>A. aegypti\u003c/em>’s breeding places are harder to locate because they’re varied and smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of our technicians was going up to a door. They looked down and on the porch the resident had a watering can for their flowers,” said Goodman, the district’s manager. “They noticed in that watering can an adult mosquito that was flying. And that’s where we found one of the breeding sites for the \u003cem>Aedes aegypti\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October, the district traced another small outbreak of the mosquito to an ornamental plant known as a lucky bamboo — which isn’t really bamboo, and in this case, wasn’t lucky either. A resident of the Sacramento neighborhood of Pocket-Greenhaven had received the plant as a housewarming gift from someone who bought it in Ontario, in San Bernardino County, an area known to have the mosquitoes. When technicians took the plant back to the district’s lab, they discovered larvae floating in the water in the pot. The mosquito had laid eggs on the inside of the pot and on the gray rocks the plant was wedged in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No mosquitoes have been found in the neighborhood since the plant was removed. But the finding is an example of how the mosquitoes get around and breed in places where they go unnoticed. Goodman said it’s especially important to pay attention that the water from sprinklers isn’t collecting in places like drainage pipes. If you notice adult mosquitoes buzzing around, give your district a call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And one more thing. “Use a good repellent,” he said. “Because if you’re not bitten by a mosquito, then the risk of transmission of disease is eliminated.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#callout\">Click here if you know someone in a nursing home or assisted facility…share your story!\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Contra Costa County, the Orinda Care Center now counts at least 51 cases* of coronavirus, including a death. Outbreaks have been reported in San Francisco and South Bay county senior care homes, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local health departments always advise these facilities about controlling infections; infectious disease like influenza is common. Now coronavirus is forcing them to adapt and challenging response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa Deputy Health Officer Dr. Louise McNitt says last year they followed 20 such flu outbreaks, with an ‘outbreak’ defined by the California Department of Public Health as one confirmed case with the identification of a second confirmed case within 72 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But counties don’t regulate assisted living and nursing homes where these outbreaks happen; that’s the work of the Department of Social Services and CDPH, respectively. Most care homes don’t have infection control specialists on staff, as hospitals do. As of last year, federal regulations \u003ca href=\"https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/Downloads/QSO19-10-NH.pdf\">require\u003c/a> infection control specialists at skilled nursing facilities. Not long after that regulation took effect, the Trump administration \u003ca href=\"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/07/18/2019-14946/medicare-and-medicaid-programs-requirements-for-long-term-care-facilities-regulatory-provisions-to\">began consideration of a modification to the rule\u003c/a> that would loosen that requirement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means the county’s best weapon for public health is often the phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Counties, \u003ca href=\"https://www.coronavirus.cchealth.org/healthcare-providers\">including\u003c/a> Contra Costa, provide guidance online. McNitt says she stays in more active touch remotely, calling to dispense practical local versions of the advice handed down by the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the past several weeks, the best advice she can offer, on topics like how to use space in facilities, screening staff and controlling exposure there, who needs masks, and why — all of it keeps changing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You give people a certain set of guidance, you kind of feel like, you know, like a tiny little sigh of relief, okay, we got that done, and then the very next day, it’s like, okay, now there’s new guidance, and now we have to kind of start all over again,” McNitt says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McNitt’s goal is to stay on top of the risks rippling out of these outbreaks, and out of existing stresses in the long-term care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staffers paid lower wages may try to keep working, even if they’re ill. McNitt worries about care home workers who move among several part-time jobs, and might carry the virus without knowing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Residents in more than one facility could be exposed because they often will work at one place during the week and another place on the weekends,” McNitt says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Care homes with outbreaks now need equipment from counties. Santa Clara County is providing protective gear to Canyon Springs Post-Acute in San Jose after an outbreak there. In Contra Costa, McNitt’s boss, Health Officer Dr. Chris Farnitano, says the health department has requested protective gear for Orinda Care Center from the county’s emergency operations center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve already delivered a large supply of that equipment and will continue to support the ongoing needs of this facility for…personal protective equipment,” he said, last Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear how long local stockpiles of gear can last. As health departments investigate more outbreaks in elder care homes, the safest guarantee specialists like Louise McNitt can offer is more phone calls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*\u003cem>This story has been updated to include a breakdown of the number of cases, so far, at Orinda Care, 51: this includes 27 patients, 22 staffers and 2 people who have been sent to hospital. In addition, this story has been updated to reflect the fact that infection control specialists are required at skilled nursing facilities.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"callout\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Help KQED Science report on the pandemic!\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[hearken src=\"https://modules.wearehearken.com/kqed/embed/5489.js\"]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#callout\">Click here if you know someone in a nursing home or assisted facility…share your story!\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Contra Costa County, the Orinda Care Center now counts at least 51 cases* of coronavirus, including a death. Outbreaks have been reported in San Francisco and South Bay county senior care homes, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local health departments always advise these facilities about controlling infections; infectious disease like influenza is common. Now coronavirus is forcing them to adapt and challenging response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contra Costa Deputy Health Officer Dr. Louise McNitt says last year they followed 20 such flu outbreaks, with an ‘outbreak’ defined by the California Department of Public Health as one confirmed case with the identification of a second confirmed case within 72 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But counties don’t regulate assisted living and nursing homes where these outbreaks happen; that’s the work of the Department of Social Services and CDPH, respectively. Most care homes don’t have infection control specialists on staff, as hospitals do. As of last year, federal regulations \u003ca href=\"https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/Downloads/QSO19-10-NH.pdf\">require\u003c/a> infection control specialists at skilled nursing facilities. Not long after that regulation took effect, the Trump administration \u003ca href=\"https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/07/18/2019-14946/medicare-and-medicaid-programs-requirements-for-long-term-care-facilities-regulatory-provisions-to\">began consideration of a modification to the rule\u003c/a> that would loosen that requirement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means the county’s best weapon for public health is often the phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Counties, \u003ca href=\"https://www.coronavirus.cchealth.org/healthcare-providers\">including\u003c/a> Contra Costa, provide guidance online. McNitt says she stays in more active touch remotely, calling to dispense practical local versions of the advice handed down by the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the past several weeks, the best advice she can offer, on topics like how to use space in facilities, screening staff and controlling exposure there, who needs masks, and why — all of it keeps changing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You give people a certain set of guidance, you kind of feel like, you know, like a tiny little sigh of relief, okay, we got that done, and then the very next day, it’s like, okay, now there’s new guidance, and now we have to kind of start all over again,” McNitt says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McNitt’s goal is to stay on top of the risks rippling out of these outbreaks, and out of existing stresses in the long-term care system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staffers paid lower wages may try to keep working, even if they’re ill. McNitt worries about care home workers who move among several part-time jobs, and might carry the virus without knowing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Residents in more than one facility could be exposed because they often will work at one place during the week and another place on the weekends,” McNitt says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Care homes with outbreaks now need equipment from counties. Santa Clara County is providing protective gear to Canyon Springs Post-Acute in San Jose after an outbreak there. In Contra Costa, McNitt’s boss, Health Officer Dr. Chris Farnitano, says the health department has requested protective gear for Orinda Care Center from the county’s emergency operations center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve already delivered a large supply of that equipment and will continue to support the ongoing needs of this facility for…personal protective equipment,” he said, last Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear how long local stockpiles of gear can last. As health departments investigate more outbreaks in elder care homes, the safest guarantee specialists like Louise McNitt can offer is more phone calls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*\u003cem>This story has been updated to include a breakdown of the number of cases, so far, at Orinda Care, 51: this includes 27 patients, 22 staffers and 2 people who have been sent to hospital. In addition, this story has been updated to reflect the fact that infection control specialists are required at skilled nursing facilities.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"callout\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Help KQED Science report on the pandemic!\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "'This Virus Is Horrible': A Son's Warning to Heed Public Health Authorities After Losing Dad to COVID-19",
"headTitle": "‘This Virus Is Horrible’: A Son’s Warning to Heed Public Health Authorities After Losing Dad to COVID-19 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>As March began, Kermit Holderman was picking up his daughter-in-law Kelley curbside at the airport after a girls’ weekend in Vail, hugging her and helping her put luggage into the car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My dad had a few things he loved to do. And one of those things was pick us up from the airport,” said Zack Holderman, Kermit’s son. “He’d be at the cell lot 30 minutes before the plane would land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the month ended, the Holdermans were saying goodbye to the 73-year-old grandfather, father and retired educator who had in recent years taken steps to be as healthy as he could be. He died after testing positive for COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state reports 276 Californians have died as a result of the global pandemic. On the day of that airport pickup, there were none. Over this month, families and the health system that cares for COVID-19 patients are just beginning to make sense of what is happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among them are the Holdermans, who hope Kermit’s story motivates people to stay alert to the virus’ threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People have called and said, I saw it on CNN. It wasn’t really real,” Zack Holderman says. “And then when I heard about your dad, it became real.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘The Vail Connection Has Just Been Scary’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kermit Holderman started to feel ill just a few days after that airport trip, right about the same time that the resort town Kelley visited confirmed its first cases of COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colorado health officials now believe Italian snowboarders brought the virus to Vail. The Holdermans believe Kelley brought it home to California. Of 12 women who traveled and stayed in condominiums together, 10 have now tested positive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Kermit got to the hospital, according to Zack, “they said, you know, this thing is going around. We’re gonna give you a test. You got some other symptoms that are similar.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He found out his father had COVID-19 at about 1:30 in the morning, the first Saturday in March, by text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dominoes Toppling Normal Life\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kermit Holderman taught English and coached sports over four decades at schools including Holy Cross Abbey in Canyon City, Colorado; Woodside Priory, in Portola Valley; and St. Francis High School, in Mountain View. He spent the final 20 years of his teaching career at Sacred Heart Preparatory in Atherton, where he would sometimes grill outside his classroom as a treat for his students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He taught Zack and his younger brother Dane. An A student generally, Zack says his dad rarely gave out Ds, but he only earned a B-plus from his dad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where his father was a poet, Zack says he’s a numbers guy; he works in mortgage lending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So to describe how he felt that first week in March, after his father was admitted to the hospital, Zack lists what happened: His wife had tested positive but was healthy; his mother was positive too, and had symptoms, but “not getting better or worse;” the kids were out of school; the family was in self-quarantine; “economy’s going to hell,” he said. “It was just a very tough period of time and every day seemed to get a little bit worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On his mind, too, was the emotional burden his wife Kelley felt, that her airport run and close contact with her father-in-law had passed a silent threat on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of these dominoes toppled normal life in just over a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want to say I was desperate,” Zack says. “I was starting to feel a little scared.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doctors said Holderman needed a ventilator, so they sedated him. They said it might be three days, maybe a week. But more time intubated raises a patient’s risk: of more infection, and of a more difficult recovery. And Holderman wasn’t getting better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kermit Holderman turned 73 in the hospital on March 27. Four days later, at the end of March, his wife, and Zack and Kelley, sat bedside layered in PPE — gloves, masks, and gowns — as he slipped away. Holderman’s younger son Dane, whose wife is a doctor in the Sacramento area, made the difficult decision to stay away with his young child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have cried more than I’ve ever cried my entire life in the past three weeks, which is not a bad thing,” Zack says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Just Some Guy From The Sticks of Oklahoma’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides his family, Kermit Holderman leaves behind thousands of students he educated and coached over a 44-year career. One remembers when he showed the movie Airplane in class, but blocked the screen for the naughty parts. Another says he checked on her daily, after a family member died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kevin Morris, a computer science coordinator and teacher at Sacred Heart, remembers bleacher time at high school sports events, betting Holderman with hot dogs rather than money on which referee would call the most fouls, or whether the final score would be odd or even.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve heard him say hundreds of times, ‘What do I know? I’m just some guy from the sticks of Oklahoma,’” Morris says. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After graduating from Oklahoma State, Holderman had joined the Peace Corps; Ethiopian food became a lifelong passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he taught my brother English, Holderman introduced him to \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/food/2018/oct/06/yotam-ottolenghi-eritrean-ethiopian-recipes-berbere-vegetables-teff-flatbread\">berbere\u003c/a>, a north African spice mix. Later, he went back and taught at our high school, and Holderman cooked \u003ca href=\"https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019079-doro-wat-ethiopian-style-spicy-chicken\">doro wat\u003c/a> with him; later still, he was leaving to go to grad school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Kermit came up to me in the hallway with an envelope,” Michael Peterson remembers. “And inside of it was a bunch of that dark red berbere powder. And he said, this is the last of the good stuff that I had imported. I put a recipe in there too. A handwritten recipe for his doro wat, which is a recipe I still use today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zack says the Holdermans would eat doro wat and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ethiopian-food-best-dishes-africa/index.html\">kitfo\u003c/a> at holidays. He doesn’t know who will cook the dishes now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He hopes the end of his father’s life can be of service, just as his father himself was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do what the people who know tell you,” Zack says. “This virus is horrible.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As March began, Kermit Holderman was picking up his daughter-in-law Kelley curbside at the airport after a girls’ weekend in Vail, hugging her and helping her put luggage into the car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My dad had a few things he loved to do. And one of those things was pick us up from the airport,” said Zack Holderman, Kermit’s son. “He’d be at the cell lot 30 minutes before the plane would land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the month ended, the Holdermans were saying goodbye to the 73-year-old grandfather, father and retired educator who had in recent years taken steps to be as healthy as he could be. He died after testing positive for COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state reports 276 Californians have died as a result of the global pandemic. On the day of that airport pickup, there were none. Over this month, families and the health system that cares for COVID-19 patients are just beginning to make sense of what is happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among them are the Holdermans, who hope Kermit’s story motivates people to stay alert to the virus’ threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People have called and said, I saw it on CNN. It wasn’t really real,” Zack Holderman says. “And then when I heard about your dad, it became real.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘The Vail Connection Has Just Been Scary’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kermit Holderman started to feel ill just a few days after that airport trip, right about the same time that the resort town Kelley visited confirmed its first cases of COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colorado health officials now believe Italian snowboarders brought the virus to Vail. The Holdermans believe Kelley brought it home to California. Of 12 women who traveled and stayed in condominiums together, 10 have now tested positive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Kermit got to the hospital, according to Zack, “they said, you know, this thing is going around. We’re gonna give you a test. You got some other symptoms that are similar.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He found out his father had COVID-19 at about 1:30 in the morning, the first Saturday in March, by text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dominoes Toppling Normal Life\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kermit Holderman taught English and coached sports over four decades at schools including Holy Cross Abbey in Canyon City, Colorado; Woodside Priory, in Portola Valley; and St. Francis High School, in Mountain View. He spent the final 20 years of his teaching career at Sacred Heart Preparatory in Atherton, where he would sometimes grill outside his classroom as a treat for his students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He taught Zack and his younger brother Dane. An A student generally, Zack says his dad rarely gave out Ds, but he only earned a B-plus from his dad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where his father was a poet, Zack says he’s a numbers guy; he works in mortgage lending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So to describe how he felt that first week in March, after his father was admitted to the hospital, Zack lists what happened: His wife had tested positive but was healthy; his mother was positive too, and had symptoms, but “not getting better or worse;” the kids were out of school; the family was in self-quarantine; “economy’s going to hell,” he said. “It was just a very tough period of time and every day seemed to get a little bit worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On his mind, too, was the emotional burden his wife Kelley felt, that her airport run and close contact with her father-in-law had passed a silent threat on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of these dominoes toppled normal life in just over a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want to say I was desperate,” Zack says. “I was starting to feel a little scared.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doctors said Holderman needed a ventilator, so they sedated him. They said it might be three days, maybe a week. But more time intubated raises a patient’s risk: of more infection, and of a more difficult recovery. And Holderman wasn’t getting better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kermit Holderman turned 73 in the hospital on March 27. Four days later, at the end of March, his wife, and Zack and Kelley, sat bedside layered in PPE — gloves, masks, and gowns — as he slipped away. Holderman’s younger son Dane, whose wife is a doctor in the Sacramento area, made the difficult decision to stay away with his young child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have cried more than I’ve ever cried my entire life in the past three weeks, which is not a bad thing,” Zack says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Just Some Guy From The Sticks of Oklahoma’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides his family, Kermit Holderman leaves behind thousands of students he educated and coached over a 44-year career. One remembers when he showed the movie Airplane in class, but blocked the screen for the naughty parts. Another says he checked on her daily, after a family member died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kevin Morris, a computer science coordinator and teacher at Sacred Heart, remembers bleacher time at high school sports events, betting Holderman with hot dogs rather than money on which referee would call the most fouls, or whether the final score would be odd or even.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve heard him say hundreds of times, ‘What do I know? I’m just some guy from the sticks of Oklahoma,’” Morris says. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After graduating from Oklahoma State, Holderman had joined the Peace Corps; Ethiopian food became a lifelong passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he taught my brother English, Holderman introduced him to \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/food/2018/oct/06/yotam-ottolenghi-eritrean-ethiopian-recipes-berbere-vegetables-teff-flatbread\">berbere\u003c/a>, a north African spice mix. Later, he went back and taught at our high school, and Holderman cooked \u003ca href=\"https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019079-doro-wat-ethiopian-style-spicy-chicken\">doro wat\u003c/a> with him; later still, he was leaving to go to grad school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Kermit came up to me in the hallway with an envelope,” Michael Peterson remembers. “And inside of it was a bunch of that dark red berbere powder. And he said, this is the last of the good stuff that I had imported. I put a recipe in there too. A handwritten recipe for his doro wat, which is a recipe I still use today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zack says the Holdermans would eat doro wat and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ethiopian-food-best-dishes-africa/index.html\">kitfo\u003c/a> at holidays. He doesn’t know who will cook the dishes now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He hopes the end of his father’s life can be of service, just as his father himself was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do what the people who know tell you,” Zack says. “This virus is horrible.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Fighting COVID-19 Is Like 'Whack-A-Mole,' Says Writer Who Warned Of A Pandemic",
"headTitle": "Fighting COVID-19 Is Like ‘Whack-A-Mole,’ Says Writer Who Warned Of A Pandemic | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Two years ago, science writer \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2016/08/18/490432969/eating-yogurt-is-not-enough-rebalancing-the-ecosystem-of-the-microbes-within-us\">Ed Yong\u003c/a> wrote\u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/when-the-next-plague-hits/561734/\"> an article\u003c/a> for \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em> in which he warned that a new global pandemic was inevitable — and that the world would be unprepared for it when it arrived. Now, with the outbreak of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/11/814474930/coronavirus-covid-19-is-now-officially-a-pandemic-who-says\">COVID-19\u003c/a>, much of what Yong warned about in his reporting has come true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yong says scientists are still working to understand how the novel coronavirus travels through air. His\u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-airborne-go-outside-masks/609235/\"> latest article\u003c/a> for \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em> concerns whether or not people beyond health care workers and other front-line personnel should be wearing some sort of mask to help prevent spread of the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yong notes that there are two ways in which respiratory viruses typically travel through air: as droplets of fluid and as evaporated specks of fluid called “aerosols.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yong describes aerosols as “far-drifting” and “long-lasting” viral specks. “There is some growing evidence that aerosol transmission — what people would traditionally describe as being ‘airborne’ — does apply, to some extent, to the new coronavirus,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He adds that it’s not yet clear whether live infectious viral particles remain in the air where infected people have been: “That’s the crucial thing to know,” he says. “And then really, crucially, are there enough of those viral particles to actually start an infection? We don’t know the answer to that yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yong says the experts he has consulted have not come to a consensus regarding whether or not the general population should wear some sort of mask, when in public places. “There is a lot of movement towards recommending widespread mask usage from different countries,” he says. “The CDC appears to be considering it. Health experts I’ve spoken to who were once dismissive about mask use are now edging towards recommending it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Yong adds that the short supply of N-95 respirator masks, and even professionally made surgical masks complicates matters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re currently in a situation where masks are already running out in hospital settings and for health care workers, who are the people who need them the most. So any masks — any protective equipment — should go to health care workers as a matter of priority. And only then should we think about whether the general population should be considering wearing masks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking ahead, Yong says that even if masks, frequent hand-washing and social isolation strategies are effective in slowing the virus’ spread, the end to the pandemic is still a long way off: “We are in for this long, protracted game of whack-a-mole with the virus where different places will stamp it out at different times. It will surge back. It will need to be controlled again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Interview Highlights\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On what we know about how the virus travels through the air and how we’re susceptible to inhaling it\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was one study that just shot virus-laden fluids into a rotating cylinder to create a cloud of aerosols. And they found that within that cloud, the virus remained stable for several hours, which suggests that it can at least survive in the air around us. Now, that’s a pretty artificial setup. That’s probably closer to a medically invasive procedure like intubation, rather than someone just breathing when they’re walking down the street or sitting in a room. So it’s hard to know what to make of that outside the health care setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are other studies that suggest that the coronavirus can be released into the air in less dramatic ways. For example, a new [\u003ca href=\"https://www.unmc.edu/news.cfm?match=25341\">study\u003c/a>] released by the University of Nebraska Medical Center looked for traces of the virus’ genetic material in the rooms of several patients who had COVID-19 — many of whom only had mild symptoms. So they found traces of that genetic material on lots of different surfaces, including hard to reach spots like ventilation grates and the floors beneath beds. That’s consistent with the idea that the virus is moving through the air over distances longer than a droplet might land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What we don’t know is whether there are actually live infectious viral particles in the air. The presence of genetic material doesn’t indicate that. It’s like finding a fingerprint in a crime scene. It means that the culprit was once there, but they might have long gone. So that’s the crucial thing to know. … And, [in each case], are there enough of those viral particles to actually start an infection? We don’t know the answer to that yet. And that’s a really crucial piece of the puzzle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On how thinking about masks for the general population might be changing\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Confusion is completely understandable, because even among the experts who I’ve spoken to — including people who’ve studied airborne transmission and its possibility — opinion is divided on the role of masks and how much protection they can provide. There’s just a mess of data on whether masks worn by the general population will provide protection against respiratory illnesses in general; whether masks prevent you, if you are infected, from infecting other people. I think that’s a little clearer, both from the evidence and just through common sense. And that might matter a lot for a disease like COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We know that the virus behind it can spread from one person to another before they show symptoms, and that is perhaps the strongest argument for widespread usage of masks. Even if you aren’t currently coughing or sneezing or breaking into a fever, you might not know that you have a virus, and wearing a mask might stop you from spreading that virus to someone else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On why touching your mask negates its protection \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the reasons why some people are still on the fence about recommending widespread mask usage is this idea that people who wear masks and aren’t used to them kind of futz around with them. They fidget with the masks, they touch their faces. There’s not a huge amount of data on this … but almost everyone I’ve spoken to who has experience of actually using the masks properly, whenever they’ve seen people use them in more casual ways, people almost always get it wrong. They pull the mask over their chin, wipe their faces. They touch the masks constantly. They’re always adjusting it. And that carries a risk, and maybe the risk is that you do lure yourself into a false sense of security, thinking you’re safe, but in a situation when you’re actually increasing the likelihood of infection.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On how American hubris and exceptionalism have contributed to the slow response \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[A virus] has no interest in people’s terror, only their cells. It just wants hosts to infect and doesn’t care whether you’re feeling brave or not. And I think that some aspects of America’s national character do seem to have made it harder for people to take the necessary measures to slow the spread of the pandemic. And not just this sense of resilience, of being brave in the face of fearful threats, but also the sense of individualism and exceptionalism. This idea that “I have the freedom to do what I want to do,” which stops people from just staying indoors and heeding advice about isolating yourselves when it’s necessary. And I think that the country’s famed exceptionalism — the idea that this is the greatest country in the world — that, I think, contributed to a delay in the nation’s response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>COVID-19 was \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/01/24/798661901/wuhan-coronavirus-101-what-we-do-and-dont-know-about-a-newly-identified-disease\">taking off in China\u003c/a> for at least a month before it first reached U.S. shores. And during that month, not much actually happened [in the U.S.]. A lot of preparedness measures could have been launched. The country could have sprung into action, ready for this, for the virus to eventually reach it. But if anything, America more or less sat idle. It was sluggish. And I do wonder if that propensity to think of itself as being truly exceptional, that slight hubris, left it more unprepared than it needed to be. And I think that even though many people had warned about this for a long time, the underwhelming nature of America’s response to this threat has really surprised even people who had been warning, who had been issuing alarms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is a thing called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ghsindex.org/\">Global Health Security Index,\u003c/a> which ranks different countries according to their levels of preparedness for pandemics, according to 140 different criteria, based on regulations from the World Health Organization. And out of all the countries that were assessed, the United States has the highest score — 83.5, a solid B. But if you look at how the country has actually reacted to the pandemic, I think we probably get something like an F. This nation that was meant to be the most prepared of all has really flubbed its response, and I think, to a degree, that has shocked even the most alarmed or pessimistic people who I’d spoken to before, in my earlier reporting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On what happened to the medical supply chain for masks and swabs \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The medical system runs on a just-in-time economy, much like the rest of the world, and products are made to order and they depend on these very long international supply chains, many of which have fractured in this pandemic. So, for example, Hubei Province, where the pandemic first took off in China, is also one of the world’s leading centers for manufacturing medical masks. So the fact that the pandemic hit that region first and hardest really exacerbated the shortage of medical supplies. There’s also now a shortage of the swabs that people used to collect viral samples as the very first step of testing. And one of the companies that leads the manufacture of those swabs is based in northern Italy, which is one of the centers of the pandemic in Europe. …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s really bad luck that both of those regions were particularly hit, but you could envisage the same problems for all sorts of other areas. I think this is what happens when you rely on a medical system that depends on these large international chains and that really don’t have a lot of capacity to flex and surge in the event of a crisis. And that’s especially bad now, because the pandemic has spread so quickly that the entire world is facing down the same problem at the same time and is after the same supplies at the same time — which really has stretched many of these supply chains to a breaking point. Everyone is after the same supplies and there aren’t enough of those supplies to go around. Everyone is competing with each other instead of cooperating, because the crisis has spread so quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On rolling out a COVID-19 vaccine \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first steps so far have actually been encouragingly quick. A vaccine candidate has already entered early safety trials after a record-breakingly short time from actually identifying and sequencing the genome of this new virus. But the journey from these first trials to actually having a product that you can shoot into people’s arms is very long and hard to shortcut. You need to know whether the vaccine is safe, whether it triggers an immune reaction. Then you need to know whether it’s actually effective at preventing infections. You need to know what dose to use, how many doses to use, whether it also works in elderly people who are more at risk. All of these steps take time, and if you don’t go through them, you might run the risk of creating a product that has really severe side effects or that is rolled out widely but just doesn’t work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the experts I’ve spoken to feel that it will probably take between 12 and 18 months to even develop a working vaccine, let alone then to create the manufacturing capacity to create enough doses and then to distribute those doses and to actually inject them into people. This is not going to be a fast process. And until that process is complete, COVID-19 is going to be a part of our lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the different methods being used to develop a vaccine for COVID-19\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most existing vaccines [against other viruses] use a dead or weakened virus or a fragment of that virus. So the idea is, you show that to the immune system, [and] the immune system can prepare defenses ahead of time. [One new vaccine candidate in development against the coronavirus] works in a slightly different way. It uses a piece of the virus’ genetic material, its RNA. You inject that up into a person in the hope that that person then can build their own fragments of the virus using the instructions in that genetic material and that those sorts of homegrown fragments can then train the immune system. These RNA vaccines are a new technology. They have the potential to be really important and to be much faster. But the caveat is that no such vaccines have ever been taken to the market before. So we’re breaking new ground and there aren’t facilities already available that can manufacture such vaccines in the quantities that are needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, other teams are using more traditional approaches. For example, there’s one group in France that is trying to repurpose the existing measles vaccine to instead target the new coronavirus. That might take a longer time at the front end. But on the plus side, if that actually works, then the world knows how to make measles vaccines in large quantities. So it’s unclear which of … these solutions will end up being quickest. But it’s certainly reassuring that a lot of different options are being tried — not just these two, but but many others. And we’ll just have to wait and see which gets to the finish line soonest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the idea that the spread of the coronavirus might slow down in the summer \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, traditionally, coronaviruses and a lot of other respiratory viruses, like flu, do go away in the summer, and there are many possible reasons for that. Certainly, humidity and heat makes it easier for the cells of our airways to clear out a virus, and some of the immune response to these respiratory viruses appear to be stronger under those climatic conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, is this new coronavirus going to behave in the same way? Possibly. Is that going to make a difference with the pandemic? I’m not sure. And the reason for that is that the virus is circulating through a global population that is completely immunologically naive to it. Our immune systems are not ready to deal with something like this. And so the virus has a large proportion of hosts among whom it can easily spread. To hope that the summer is going to downplay those dynamics far enough to contain the pandemic is, I think, wishful thinking. … We’re seeing transmission in places like Australia, which is just coming out of its summer, or Singapore, which is hot and humid in the tropics. And what that tells us is that it’s probably wishful thinking to hope for heat and humidity to be the things that contain this virus. They may help, but only if we can slow its spread in other ways, such as through social distancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On being prepared for COVID-19 to come back \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think that’s very likely. I think most experts would expect some kind of resurgence once current social distancing measures are released. That’s sort of in the nature of these viruses. It’s definitely likely because the pandemic is now so widespread that unless the entire world simultaneously brings the virus to heel, there are always going to be pockets where outbreaks are still ongoing, and that can seed [and] can reignite sparks of infection in places where outbreaks had already been extinguished. …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so we’re likely looking at multiple rounds of social distancing, multiple bouts of social upheaval. Now, it’s possible if we get our act together and if we do well in this first wave, that those subsequent bouts will be less dramatic and less uprooting than this current period of time has been, and that may well just be because of that uneven spread. So currently the virus is everywhere. It’s hitting everywhere … at more or less the same time. If different places can get it under control, there might be less potential for that sort of explosive worldwide spread. And then, over time, one would hope that surveillance measures would be better. We become better at testing for the virus and working out who’s immune to it, at building up the necessary supplies to protect health care workers. All of those measures might mean that we can get a little bit more sophisticated in where social distancing is being rolled out, in the nature of those measures. But I think it’s very clear that that is going to be a long game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On how the pandemic has hit society’s most vulnerable \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clearly, the economic implications of this are going to be profound. I think, as with many disasters, it’s going to hit people in different ways that are magnified by existing inequalities; people from low income groups, people from marginalized groups are going to feel the effects of this far more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pandemics often expose existing fault lines in societies, and they reveal whom a society cares about and whom it often ignores.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>The people who are still having to serve on the front lines of society while everyone else is sheltering indoors, people like grocery store workers, janitors, they are currently risking their lives because many of them don’t have a choice. The elderly who have often been marginalized in the fringes of society are now [being asked to] isolate themselves even more, deepening the loneliness that many of them have already felt. People with mental health disorders, people with anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder who have long been grappling with worries about infection and cleanliness, are now seeing some of their worst nightmares playing out around them and are struggling in a context where they don’t have access to their usual support networks or therapists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So a lot of societal dynamics which were already being overlooked and which were already fraying are going to fray even more. I think it’s important to be wary of [that unraveling]\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>and to look out for the people who are most going to need help. A pandemic causes a wave of physical suffering, but following that, there is also economic suffering, mental suffering, emotional suffering. We will need to be wary of all of those things when society rebuilds in the wake of this crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the potential of the pandemic to inspire positive change \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think that this is the time to be imagining what a better world might look like and to start actively working towards it. These periods of great social upheaval carry with them great risk and tragedy, but also great potential. So on a very simple level, after HIV spread throughout the world and the ’80s, it led to better awareness of sexual health that led to mainstreaming of condom use, of testing [for sexually transmitted infections]. And perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to a normalization of health behaviors that have been quite difficult to get people to take up, like regular hand-washing for 20 seconds — sometimes a rarity even in hospital settings, let alone in homes. And now all of us — well, many of us, hopefully — [are]\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>washing our hands on a regular basis every day. Hopefully that will become a normal part of our culture in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I also really hope that a lot of the ethic of cooperation that we’re starting to see, of people in communities looking out for each other, coming together at a moment of crisis, will continue through the rest of this long-haul pandemic and beyond. I think we’re going to need that if we’re going to be better-prepared for what’s to come. We need that sense of cooperation between neighbors in a community, between states, in a country and between countries —\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>an international community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Amy Salit and Seth Kelley produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Deborah Franklin adapted it for the Web.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 Fresh Air. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/\">Fresh Air\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Fighting+COVID-19+Is+Like+%27Whack-A-Mole%2C%27+Says+Writer+Who+Warned+Of+A+Pandemic&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "\u003cem>Atlantic \u003c/em>writer Ed Yong warned of a global pandemic two years ago\u003cem>.\u003c/em> He says scientists are still working to understand how COVID-19 travels through air — and whether more of us should be wearing masks.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Two years ago, science writer \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2016/08/18/490432969/eating-yogurt-is-not-enough-rebalancing-the-ecosystem-of-the-microbes-within-us\">Ed Yong\u003c/a> wrote\u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/when-the-next-plague-hits/561734/\"> an article\u003c/a> for \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em> in which he warned that a new global pandemic was inevitable — and that the world would be unprepared for it when it arrived. Now, with the outbreak of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/11/814474930/coronavirus-covid-19-is-now-officially-a-pandemic-who-says\">COVID-19\u003c/a>, much of what Yong warned about in his reporting has come true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yong says scientists are still working to understand how the novel coronavirus travels through air. His\u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-pandemic-airborne-go-outside-masks/609235/\"> latest article\u003c/a> for \u003cem>The Atlantic\u003c/em> concerns whether or not people beyond health care workers and other front-line personnel should be wearing some sort of mask to help prevent spread of the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yong notes that there are two ways in which respiratory viruses typically travel through air: as droplets of fluid and as evaporated specks of fluid called “aerosols.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yong describes aerosols as “far-drifting” and “long-lasting” viral specks. “There is some growing evidence that aerosol transmission — what people would traditionally describe as being ‘airborne’ — does apply, to some extent, to the new coronavirus,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He adds that it’s not yet clear whether live infectious viral particles remain in the air where infected people have been: “That’s the crucial thing to know,” he says. “And then really, crucially, are there enough of those viral particles to actually start an infection? We don’t know the answer to that yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yong says the experts he has consulted have not come to a consensus regarding whether or not the general population should wear some sort of mask, when in public places. “There is a lot of movement towards recommending widespread mask usage from different countries,” he says. “The CDC appears to be considering it. Health experts I’ve spoken to who were once dismissive about mask use are now edging towards recommending it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Yong adds that the short supply of N-95 respirator masks, and even professionally made surgical masks complicates matters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re currently in a situation where masks are already running out in hospital settings and for health care workers, who are the people who need them the most. So any masks — any protective equipment — should go to health care workers as a matter of priority. And only then should we think about whether the general population should be considering wearing masks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking ahead, Yong says that even if masks, frequent hand-washing and social isolation strategies are effective in slowing the virus’ spread, the end to the pandemic is still a long way off: “We are in for this long, protracted game of whack-a-mole with the virus where different places will stamp it out at different times. It will surge back. It will need to be controlled again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Interview Highlights\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On what we know about how the virus travels through the air and how we’re susceptible to inhaling it\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was one study that just shot virus-laden fluids into a rotating cylinder to create a cloud of aerosols. And they found that within that cloud, the virus remained stable for several hours, which suggests that it can at least survive in the air around us. Now, that’s a pretty artificial setup. That’s probably closer to a medically invasive procedure like intubation, rather than someone just breathing when they’re walking down the street or sitting in a room. So it’s hard to know what to make of that outside the health care setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are other studies that suggest that the coronavirus can be released into the air in less dramatic ways. For example, a new [\u003ca href=\"https://www.unmc.edu/news.cfm?match=25341\">study\u003c/a>] released by the University of Nebraska Medical Center looked for traces of the virus’ genetic material in the rooms of several patients who had COVID-19 — many of whom only had mild symptoms. So they found traces of that genetic material on lots of different surfaces, including hard to reach spots like ventilation grates and the floors beneath beds. That’s consistent with the idea that the virus is moving through the air over distances longer than a droplet might land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What we don’t know is whether there are actually live infectious viral particles in the air. The presence of genetic material doesn’t indicate that. It’s like finding a fingerprint in a crime scene. It means that the culprit was once there, but they might have long gone. So that’s the crucial thing to know. … And, [in each case], are there enough of those viral particles to actually start an infection? We don’t know the answer to that yet. And that’s a really crucial piece of the puzzle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On how thinking about masks for the general population might be changing\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Confusion is completely understandable, because even among the experts who I’ve spoken to — including people who’ve studied airborne transmission and its possibility — opinion is divided on the role of masks and how much protection they can provide. There’s just a mess of data on whether masks worn by the general population will provide protection against respiratory illnesses in general; whether masks prevent you, if you are infected, from infecting other people. I think that’s a little clearer, both from the evidence and just through common sense. And that might matter a lot for a disease like COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We know that the virus behind it can spread from one person to another before they show symptoms, and that is perhaps the strongest argument for widespread usage of masks. Even if you aren’t currently coughing or sneezing or breaking into a fever, you might not know that you have a virus, and wearing a mask might stop you from spreading that virus to someone else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On why touching your mask negates its protection \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the reasons why some people are still on the fence about recommending widespread mask usage is this idea that people who wear masks and aren’t used to them kind of futz around with them. They fidget with the masks, they touch their faces. There’s not a huge amount of data on this … but almost everyone I’ve spoken to who has experience of actually using the masks properly, whenever they’ve seen people use them in more casual ways, people almost always get it wrong. They pull the mask over their chin, wipe their faces. They touch the masks constantly. They’re always adjusting it. And that carries a risk, and maybe the risk is that you do lure yourself into a false sense of security, thinking you’re safe, but in a situation when you’re actually increasing the likelihood of infection.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On how American hubris and exceptionalism have contributed to the slow response \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[A virus] has no interest in people’s terror, only their cells. It just wants hosts to infect and doesn’t care whether you’re feeling brave or not. And I think that some aspects of America’s national character do seem to have made it harder for people to take the necessary measures to slow the spread of the pandemic. And not just this sense of resilience, of being brave in the face of fearful threats, but also the sense of individualism and exceptionalism. This idea that “I have the freedom to do what I want to do,” which stops people from just staying indoors and heeding advice about isolating yourselves when it’s necessary. And I think that the country’s famed exceptionalism — the idea that this is the greatest country in the world — that, I think, contributed to a delay in the nation’s response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>COVID-19 was \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/01/24/798661901/wuhan-coronavirus-101-what-we-do-and-dont-know-about-a-newly-identified-disease\">taking off in China\u003c/a> for at least a month before it first reached U.S. shores. And during that month, not much actually happened [in the U.S.]. A lot of preparedness measures could have been launched. The country could have sprung into action, ready for this, for the virus to eventually reach it. But if anything, America more or less sat idle. It was sluggish. And I do wonder if that propensity to think of itself as being truly exceptional, that slight hubris, left it more unprepared than it needed to be. And I think that even though many people had warned about this for a long time, the underwhelming nature of America’s response to this threat has really surprised even people who had been warning, who had been issuing alarms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is a thing called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ghsindex.org/\">Global Health Security Index,\u003c/a> which ranks different countries according to their levels of preparedness for pandemics, according to 140 different criteria, based on regulations from the World Health Organization. And out of all the countries that were assessed, the United States has the highest score — 83.5, a solid B. But if you look at how the country has actually reacted to the pandemic, I think we probably get something like an F. This nation that was meant to be the most prepared of all has really flubbed its response, and I think, to a degree, that has shocked even the most alarmed or pessimistic people who I’d spoken to before, in my earlier reporting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On what happened to the medical supply chain for masks and swabs \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The medical system runs on a just-in-time economy, much like the rest of the world, and products are made to order and they depend on these very long international supply chains, many of which have fractured in this pandemic. So, for example, Hubei Province, where the pandemic first took off in China, is also one of the world’s leading centers for manufacturing medical masks. So the fact that the pandemic hit that region first and hardest really exacerbated the shortage of medical supplies. There’s also now a shortage of the swabs that people used to collect viral samples as the very first step of testing. And one of the companies that leads the manufacture of those swabs is based in northern Italy, which is one of the centers of the pandemic in Europe. …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s really bad luck that both of those regions were particularly hit, but you could envisage the same problems for all sorts of other areas. I think this is what happens when you rely on a medical system that depends on these large international chains and that really don’t have a lot of capacity to flex and surge in the event of a crisis. And that’s especially bad now, because the pandemic has spread so quickly that the entire world is facing down the same problem at the same time and is after the same supplies at the same time — which really has stretched many of these supply chains to a breaking point. Everyone is after the same supplies and there aren’t enough of those supplies to go around. Everyone is competing with each other instead of cooperating, because the crisis has spread so quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On rolling out a COVID-19 vaccine \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first steps so far have actually been encouragingly quick. A vaccine candidate has already entered early safety trials after a record-breakingly short time from actually identifying and sequencing the genome of this new virus. But the journey from these first trials to actually having a product that you can shoot into people’s arms is very long and hard to shortcut. You need to know whether the vaccine is safe, whether it triggers an immune reaction. Then you need to know whether it’s actually effective at preventing infections. You need to know what dose to use, how many doses to use, whether it also works in elderly people who are more at risk. All of these steps take time, and if you don’t go through them, you might run the risk of creating a product that has really severe side effects or that is rolled out widely but just doesn’t work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the experts I’ve spoken to feel that it will probably take between 12 and 18 months to even develop a working vaccine, let alone then to create the manufacturing capacity to create enough doses and then to distribute those doses and to actually inject them into people. This is not going to be a fast process. And until that process is complete, COVID-19 is going to be a part of our lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the different methods being used to develop a vaccine for COVID-19\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most existing vaccines [against other viruses] use a dead or weakened virus or a fragment of that virus. So the idea is, you show that to the immune system, [and] the immune system can prepare defenses ahead of time. [One new vaccine candidate in development against the coronavirus] works in a slightly different way. It uses a piece of the virus’ genetic material, its RNA. You inject that up into a person in the hope that that person then can build their own fragments of the virus using the instructions in that genetic material and that those sorts of homegrown fragments can then train the immune system. These RNA vaccines are a new technology. They have the potential to be really important and to be much faster. But the caveat is that no such vaccines have ever been taken to the market before. So we’re breaking new ground and there aren’t facilities already available that can manufacture such vaccines in the quantities that are needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, other teams are using more traditional approaches. For example, there’s one group in France that is trying to repurpose the existing measles vaccine to instead target the new coronavirus. That might take a longer time at the front end. But on the plus side, if that actually works, then the world knows how to make measles vaccines in large quantities. So it’s unclear which of … these solutions will end up being quickest. But it’s certainly reassuring that a lot of different options are being tried — not just these two, but but many others. And we’ll just have to wait and see which gets to the finish line soonest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the idea that the spread of the coronavirus might slow down in the summer \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, traditionally, coronaviruses and a lot of other respiratory viruses, like flu, do go away in the summer, and there are many possible reasons for that. Certainly, humidity and heat makes it easier for the cells of our airways to clear out a virus, and some of the immune response to these respiratory viruses appear to be stronger under those climatic conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, is this new coronavirus going to behave in the same way? Possibly. Is that going to make a difference with the pandemic? I’m not sure. And the reason for that is that the virus is circulating through a global population that is completely immunologically naive to it. Our immune systems are not ready to deal with something like this. And so the virus has a large proportion of hosts among whom it can easily spread. To hope that the summer is going to downplay those dynamics far enough to contain the pandemic is, I think, wishful thinking. … We’re seeing transmission in places like Australia, which is just coming out of its summer, or Singapore, which is hot and humid in the tropics. And what that tells us is that it’s probably wishful thinking to hope for heat and humidity to be the things that contain this virus. They may help, but only if we can slow its spread in other ways, such as through social distancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On being prepared for COVID-19 to come back \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think that’s very likely. I think most experts would expect some kind of resurgence once current social distancing measures are released. That’s sort of in the nature of these viruses. It’s definitely likely because the pandemic is now so widespread that unless the entire world simultaneously brings the virus to heel, there are always going to be pockets where outbreaks are still ongoing, and that can seed [and] can reignite sparks of infection in places where outbreaks had already been extinguished. …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so we’re likely looking at multiple rounds of social distancing, multiple bouts of social upheaval. Now, it’s possible if we get our act together and if we do well in this first wave, that those subsequent bouts will be less dramatic and less uprooting than this current period of time has been, and that may well just be because of that uneven spread. So currently the virus is everywhere. It’s hitting everywhere … at more or less the same time. If different places can get it under control, there might be less potential for that sort of explosive worldwide spread. And then, over time, one would hope that surveillance measures would be better. We become better at testing for the virus and working out who’s immune to it, at building up the necessary supplies to protect health care workers. All of those measures might mean that we can get a little bit more sophisticated in where social distancing is being rolled out, in the nature of those measures. But I think it’s very clear that that is going to be a long game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On how the pandemic has hit society’s most vulnerable \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clearly, the economic implications of this are going to be profound. I think, as with many disasters, it’s going to hit people in different ways that are magnified by existing inequalities; people from low income groups, people from marginalized groups are going to feel the effects of this far more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pandemics often expose existing fault lines in societies, and they reveal whom a society cares about and whom it often ignores.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>The people who are still having to serve on the front lines of society while everyone else is sheltering indoors, people like grocery store workers, janitors, they are currently risking their lives because many of them don’t have a choice. The elderly who have often been marginalized in the fringes of society are now [being asked to] isolate themselves even more, deepening the loneliness that many of them have already felt. People with mental health disorders, people with anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder who have long been grappling with worries about infection and cleanliness, are now seeing some of their worst nightmares playing out around them and are struggling in a context where they don’t have access to their usual support networks or therapists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So a lot of societal dynamics which were already being overlooked and which were already fraying are going to fray even more. I think it’s important to be wary of [that unraveling]\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>and to look out for the people who are most going to need help. A pandemic causes a wave of physical suffering, but following that, there is also economic suffering, mental suffering, emotional suffering. We will need to be wary of all of those things when society rebuilds in the wake of this crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>On the potential of the pandemic to inspire positive change \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think that this is the time to be imagining what a better world might look like and to start actively working towards it. These periods of great social upheaval carry with them great risk and tragedy, but also great potential. So on a very simple level, after HIV spread throughout the world and the ’80s, it led to better awareness of sexual health that led to mainstreaming of condom use, of testing [for sexually transmitted infections]. And perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to a normalization of health behaviors that have been quite difficult to get people to take up, like regular hand-washing for 20 seconds — sometimes a rarity even in hospital settings, let alone in homes. And now all of us — well, many of us, hopefully — [are]\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>washing our hands on a regular basis every day. Hopefully that will become a normal part of our culture in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I also really hope that a lot of the ethic of cooperation that we’re starting to see, of people in communities looking out for each other, coming together at a moment of crisis, will continue through the rest of this long-haul pandemic and beyond. I think we’re going to need that if we’re going to be better-prepared for what’s to come. We need that sense of cooperation between neighbors in a community, between states, in a country and between countries —\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>an international community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Amy Salit and Seth Kelley produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Deborah Franklin adapted it for the Web.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 Fresh Air. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/\">Fresh Air\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Fighting+COVID-19+Is+Like+%27Whack-A-Mole%2C%27+Says+Writer+Who+Warned+Of+A+Pandemic&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Why Washing Your Hands Works So Well, and How To Do It Right",
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"content": "\u003cp>One of the reasons “wash your hands” became the mantra of the coronavirus epidemic, is that the virus has a knack for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1959462/durable-coronavirus-survives-for-days-on-some-surfaces-heres-how-to-protect-yourself\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sticking around on surfaces\u003c/a> and can be \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-transmission.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">transmitted\u003c/a> from an infected person before they have symptoms, or from someone who is infected but may not ever develop symptoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while your friends may be lamenting the lack of hand sanitizer, it’s not really hand sanitizer that’s going to do the best job–it’s washing your hands, scrubbing with soap and water, for 20 seconds. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/when-how-handwashing.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recommends\u003c/a> this not because it’s some arbitrary length of time, but because there’s actually science behind why it works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s going on during that 20 seconds, if you happen to have picked up any viral hitchhikers on your hands, is that soap is breaking down the novel coronavirus and others like it by removing the fatty membrane – or envelope – that surrounds it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One end of the soap molecule is attracted to that membrane, and the other is attracted to water. So when you wash your hands, the soap attaches to the fatty membrane and pulls on it, and the virus falls apart, making it inactive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">1/25 Part 1 – Why does soap work so well on the SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus and indeed most viruses? Because it is a self-assembled nanoparticle in which the weakest link is the lipid (fatty) bilayer. A two part thread about soap, viruses and supramolecular chemistry \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/OCwqPjO5Ht\">pic.twitter.com/OCwqPjO5Ht\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Palli Thordarson (@PalliThordarson) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/PalliThordarson/status/1236549305189597189?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 8, 2020\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">2/25 The soap dissolves the fat membrane and the virus falls apart like a house of cards and “dies”, or rather, we should say it becomes inactive as viruses aren’t really alive. Viruses can be active outside the body for hours, even days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Palli Thordarson (@PalliThordarson) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/PalliThordarson/status/1236549307525808128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 8, 2020\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The process is similar to the way soap attacks oils and grease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rubbing your soapy hands together also creates friction that removes germs from your skin and sends them down the drain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this takes time, which is why infectious disease experts say to wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/show-me-the-science-handwashing.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Studies\u003c/a> have shown that regular soap is generally just as effective as antibacterial soap, and doctors say warm or cold water both work just fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a quick guide to getting it right:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wet your hands with clean, running water (warm or cold), then turn off the tap and apply soap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lather your hands by rubbing them together with the soap. Be sure to get the back of your hands, between your fingers and under nails. Don’t forget your thumbs!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scrub for at least 20 seconds. You probably know that’s Happy Birthday (twice) or the ABCs all the way through. One of my favorites is the last song on The Beatles’ Abbey Road album, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh1hKt5kQ_4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“Her Majesty.”\u003c/a> It times out perfectly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rinse well under clean, running water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dry your hands with a clean towel – germs are transferred more easily to and from wet hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Good times to wash your hands are whenever you’ve been in a public place, or brought stuff into your home – like mail or groceries – and definitely after coughing or blowing your nose. You should also wash them before preparing or eating food and before and after caring for someone who is sick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And remember, don’t touch your face with unwashed hands!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get more guidelines and tips from the CDC \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>One of the reasons “wash your hands” became the mantra of the coronavirus epidemic, is that the virus has a knack for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1959462/durable-coronavirus-survives-for-days-on-some-surfaces-heres-how-to-protect-yourself\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sticking around on surfaces\u003c/a> and can be \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-transmission.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">transmitted\u003c/a> from an infected person before they have symptoms, or from someone who is infected but may not ever develop symptoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while your friends may be lamenting the lack of hand sanitizer, it’s not really hand sanitizer that’s going to do the best job–it’s washing your hands, scrubbing with soap and water, for 20 seconds. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/when-how-handwashing.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recommends\u003c/a> this not because it’s some arbitrary length of time, but because there’s actually science behind why it works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s going on during that 20 seconds, if you happen to have picked up any viral hitchhikers on your hands, is that soap is breaking down the novel coronavirus and others like it by removing the fatty membrane – or envelope – that surrounds it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One end of the soap molecule is attracted to that membrane, and the other is attracted to water. So when you wash your hands, the soap attaches to the fatty membrane and pulls on it, and the virus falls apart, making it inactive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">1/25 Part 1 – Why does soap work so well on the SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus and indeed most viruses? Because it is a self-assembled nanoparticle in which the weakest link is the lipid (fatty) bilayer. A two part thread about soap, viruses and supramolecular chemistry \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://t.co/OCwqPjO5Ht\">pic.twitter.com/OCwqPjO5Ht\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Palli Thordarson (@PalliThordarson) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/PalliThordarson/status/1236549305189597189?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 8, 2020\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">2/25 The soap dissolves the fat membrane and the virus falls apart like a house of cards and “dies”, or rather, we should say it becomes inactive as viruses aren’t really alive. Viruses can be active outside the body for hours, even days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>— Palli Thordarson (@PalliThordarson) \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/PalliThordarson/status/1236549307525808128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 8, 2020\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The process is similar to the way soap attacks oils and grease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rubbing your soapy hands together also creates friction that removes germs from your skin and sends them down the drain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this takes time, which is why infectious disease experts say to wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/show-me-the-science-handwashing.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Studies\u003c/a> have shown that regular soap is generally just as effective as antibacterial soap, and doctors say warm or cold water both work just fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a quick guide to getting it right:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wet your hands with clean, running water (warm or cold), then turn off the tap and apply soap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lather your hands by rubbing them together with the soap. Be sure to get the back of your hands, between your fingers and under nails. Don’t forget your thumbs!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scrub for at least 20 seconds. You probably know that’s Happy Birthday (twice) or the ABCs all the way through. One of my favorites is the last song on The Beatles’ Abbey Road album, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh1hKt5kQ_4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“Her Majesty.”\u003c/a> It times out perfectly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rinse well under clean, running water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dry your hands with a clean towel – germs are transferred more easily to and from wet hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Good times to wash your hands are whenever you’ve been in a public place, or brought stuff into your home – like mail or groceries – and definitely after coughing or blowing your nose. You should also wash them before preparing or eating food and before and after caring for someone who is sick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And remember, don’t touch your face with unwashed hands!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get more guidelines and tips from the CDC \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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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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"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.",
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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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"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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"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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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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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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"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"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"
},
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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.",
"airtime": "SUN 12am-1am, SAT 2pm-3pm",
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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",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/reveal300px.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/reveal",
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"rss": "http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast"
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 16
},
"link": "/podcasts/rightnowish",
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