Sunday, March 14, 2021

Sunday CoronaBuzz, March 14, 2021: 27 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Sunday CoronaBuzz, March 14, 2021: 27 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Please wear a mask (or even two). Wash your hands. Stay at home if you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – EDUCATION/ENTERTAINMENT

KCET: One Day at a Time … A Comprehensive COVID-19 Timeline. “This timeline puts into perspective the significance COVID-19 has had on us, the struggles we face to contend with a pandemic and perhaps illuminates what we want in a better future.”

UPDATES

New York Times: ‘I’d Much Rather Be in Florida’. “To call what is happening in Florida an actual boom is a stretch. Though the state was fully reopened by late September, its tourism-dependent economy remains hobbled. A $2.7 billion budget deficit will need an injection of federal stimulus money. Orange County, where Orlando is, saw the lowest tourist development tax collections for any January since 2002. Yet in a country just coming out of the morose grip of coronavirus lockdowns, Florida feels unmistakably hot. (And not just because of global warming.)”

The Guardian: ‘Covid is taking over’: Brazil plunges into deadliest chapter of its epidemic. “At the end of last year Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro – a Donald Trump-worshiping populist who has gleefully sabotaged Covid containment efforts – declared his country had reached ‘the tail end’ of what was already one of the world’s worst outbreaks. Bolsonaro was wrong. Three months later Latin America’s largest nation has lost almost 100,000 more lives – taking its total death toll to more than 275,000, second only to the US – and been plunged into the deadliest chapter of its 13-month epidemic.”

Reuters: India reports biggest daily jump in COVID-19 infections this year. “India reported the year’s biggest daily increase in COVID-19 cases on Sunday, with 25,320 new infections, a day ahead of a lockdown in the western state of Maharashtra, the epicentre of the renewed surge. The just was the biggest since Dec. 16, according to federal health data. India is the third-most affected country globally with 11.36 million cases, behind the United States and Brazil.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

US99: Pared-down funerals may become the norm after the pandemic, industry official concedes. “The pandemic has forced so many changes in the ways families grieve that some funeral homes are in financial straits, and the future of the industry could be changed forever, an official says. So many traditions associated with mourning the dead are gone, at least for now.”

BBC: Pregnancy in lockdown: The babies born into a pandemic. “Bristol-based portrait photographer Nina Raingold met five mothers who have experienced the challenges of giving birth during Covid restrictions in the UK.”

Vogue: How Do We Come to Terms with the Indelible Loss of the Last Year?. “Can this new obsession with one’s mortality be undone? Can one will oneself back to normal? How does my mother erase the last year of dead friends and the anxiety of imminent demise? Does she pretend she didn’t have to lock herself away for a year? Or will the scars of a year of death be unerasable?”

MISINFORMATION / DISINFORMATION

AP: Nurses fight conspiracy theories along with coronavirus. “Bogus claims about the virus, masks and vaccines have exploded since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic a year ago. Journalists, public health officials and tech companies have tried to push back against the falsehoods, but much of the job of correcting misinformation has fallen to the world’s front-line medical workers.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

ABC News: Hunt for vaccine slots often leads through scheduling maze. “The road to a COVID-19 shot often leads through a maze of scheduling systems: Some vaccine seekers spend days or weeks trying to book online appointments. Those who get a coveted slot can still be stymied by pages of forms or websites that slow to a crawl and crash.”

CBS: U.S. reaches COVID-19 vaccine milestone of 100 million shots. “The U.S. has now administered over 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine — 101.1 million, to be precise — according to figures posted Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That equates to more than 35 million Americans fully vaccinated — 10.5% of the total U.S. population. Nearly 66 million, or almost 20% of the total population, have gotten at least one dose. Nearly one-third of Americans age 65 and older are fully vaccinated.”

NBC Washington: Almost 40% of DC’s Shots Have Gone to Non-Residents. “The News4 I-Team has been tracking the data and found despite older and medically vulnerable residents being eligible for several weeks, 39.9% of the doses administered in the District have still gone to people who don’t live there. By comparison, only 2.5% of Virginia’s vaccine doses are listed as having gone to out-of-state residents. An additional 7% were missing residency information.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

UPROXX: Wells Fargo Said It Would Take Them A Couple Days Longer Than Most To Get The Stimulus Checks Out, And People Were Furious. “Last week, after two weeks of congressional back-and-forth, President Joe Biden was finally able to sign into law his first major piece of legislation since taking office: the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan. It was the most sweeping progressive piece of legislation since the FDR era, at a time of similar economic need. Not only did the bill get approved — with no thanks to Republicans — but the $1400 promised every eligible American would be released quickly, over the weekend…that is, unless your bank is Wells Fargo.”

WORLD / FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

BBC: Covid-19: Ireland suspends use of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. “The use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been suspended in the Republic of Ireland. The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) recommended the move following reports of serious blood clotting events in adults in Norway.”

STATE / LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Bradenton Herald: Federal complaint accuses DeSantis, Lakewood Ranch vaccination site of discrimination. “Last month, a three-day event was held by the state at the Premier Sports Complex that only gave appointments to residents who live in two of Manatee County’s wealthiest ZIP codes, in Lakewood Ranch. The chosen ZIP codes had been impacted less than other parts of the county, according to the state’s own COVID-19 data. According to the complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the site inappropriately gave a wealthy developer who contributes to the governor’s campaign limited access to the vaccine. Matthew Issman, a retired law enforcement officer, filed the complaint on Feb. 18.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

New York Times: Aruká Juma, Last Man of His Tribe, Is Dead. “Aruká Juma saw his Amazon tribe dwindle to just a handful of individuals during his lifetime. Numbering an estimated 15,000 in the 18th century, disease and successive massacres by rubber tappers, loggers and miners ravaged his people. An estimated 100 remained in 1943; a massacre in 1964 left only six, including him.”

Washington Post: Here are the people who love wearing masks. And not just because they want to avoid covid-19.. “A year into the pandemic, a lot has changed. And we’re reminded of that every time we go outside (if we go outside). Masks have joined the traditional don’t-leave-home-without-them trifecta of keys, wallets and phones — and they are here to stay. There are folks who hate them, who can’t breathe through them, or who think they’re a sign of political oppression. But for others, the widespread use of masks has made the past year one of liberation.”

Berkshire Eagle: After receiving second dose, Yo-Yo Ma transforms waiting period into performance at Pittsfield vax clinic. “Yo-Yo Ma took a seat along the wall of the observation area, masked and socially distanced away from the others. He went on to pass 15 minutes in observation playing cello for an applauding audience, in what [Richard] Hall called a ‘very special’ concert that capped the day’s vaccination event.”

NBC San Diego: Serving Seniors Looks Back On Difficult Year, 1.7 Million Meals Delivered. “Since the coronavirus pandemic forced Serving Seniors to shut down one of its core services to impoverished San Diego County seniors, the nonprofit has pivoted to a different model and served more than 1.7 million meals to 5,467 clients.”

K-12 EDUCATION

NPR: As Many Parents Fret Over Remote Learning, Some Find Their Kids Are Thriving. “Bobby has ADHD and sometimes gets seizures. (NPR isn’t using last names to protect students’ privacy.) This means that the 11-year-old often needs to take breaks from class, whether it is because of a seizure or just because he wants to walk around the room to get some of his energy out. Even though he already had some accommodations when school was in-person, online learning makes it easier for him to accommodate his own needs.”

HIGHER EDUCATION

AP: The Latest: All Duke University undergrads must quarantine. “Duke University issued a quarantine order for all of its undergraduates effective Saturday night due to a coronavirus outbreak caused by students who attended recruitment parties, the school said.”

HEALTH

CNBC: 82% of fathers say they could have used more emotional support during pandemic — 68% of mothers say the same: study. “Parents could use some extra support during the pandemic, both emotional and logistical. But fathers are significantly more likely to say they need emotional support throughout the pandemic than mothers, according to a new survey from the American Psychological Association.”

CNN: A year into the pandemic, it’s time to take stock of our mental health. “We’ve lost so much in this year of devastation, so many of the normal markers of life we typically take for granted. We’ve missed graduations, holidays, sports seasons, plays, weddings, funerals, hugging, spontaneity and just connecting face to face with friends and family. Many of us have lost people we love. Meanwhile, negativity and judgment run high, with most every issue being politicized, down to the wearing of masks. As a result, people feel disconnected and isolated. More of my clients report experiencing a higher sense of self-doubt than ever before. Many of us feel a degree of hopelessness and despair we could not have imagined a year ago.”

CNBC: Covid variant first found in the U.K. appears to be 64% more deadly than earlier strains, study finds. “The highly contagious coronavirus variant first identified in the U.K. is associated with a 64% higher risk of dying from Covid-19 than earlier strains, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal. Researchers at the University of Exeter and the University of Bristol analyzed data from more than 100,000 patients in the U.K. between Oct. 1 and Jan. 28. They compared death rates among people infected with B.1.1.7, the variant first found in the U.K., and those infected with other previously circulating strains.”

TECHNOLOGY

PubMed: Don’t put all social network sites in one basket: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and their relations with well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The present research examined the relationships between well-being-satisfaction with life, negative affect, positive affect-and using actively or passively various SNSs-Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok-during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, two mediators were tested: social support and upward social comparison.”

Wired: Social Media Reminds Us of the Year That Wasn’t. “For the past seven days, my timelines—and presumably timelines everywhere—have been filled with people’s remembrances of where they were when, say, they heard the NBA was shutting down, or that travel was becoming increasingly dangerous. There’s even a new Twitter feed devoted to this: @YearCovid, which is dedicated to ‘livetweeting the covid pandemic as it happened on this date in 2020.’ Following the account means getting semi-frequent reminders of what the news stories and social media reactions were on any given day in 2020. If you were starting to feel like there weren’t enough reminders of how much you life has changed, this feed will solve that.”

CNN: How a year of living almost exclusively online made the internet weird again. “After several years of concerning headlines about misinformation, election meddling, filter bubbles, online harassment and more, there are flickers of a more carefree — and weird — internet. At times it felt like a throwback to a more innocent web, when Dancing Baby filled our inboxes, Second Life took on a life of its own and Rickrolling was an ever-lingering threat. And all it took was a devastating pandemic that forced many in the United States and around the world to live their lives almost exclusively online for much of the past year.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

Colorado Sun: Colorado man accused of refusing to wear mask, then urinating on Denver-bound flight. “A Colorado man accused of disrupting an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Denver by refusing to wear a mask and then standing up and urinating in the cabin faces a federal charge of interfering with a flight crew and attendants that carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine.”

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March 15, 2021 at 01:35AM
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Frances Seward, Read Around the States, Speed Typing, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, March 14, 2021

Frances Seward, Read Around the States, Speed Typing, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, March 14, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Rochester: History project tells a more complete story of Frances Seward. “A team of University of Rochester historians says the life of Frances Adeline Seward (1805–1865) deserves a more nuanced and careful reading than her traditional portrayal as the reclusive wife of a 19th-century politician. Doctoral students Shellie Clark, Carrie Knight, and Lauren Davis are using the University’s extensive, firsthand collections of documents of the family of Frances and William Henry Seward, secretary of state to Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, to conduct that re-evaluation.”

Library of Congress: New! Read Around the States. “Today we are launching a project called Read Around the States. It features videos with U.S. members of Congress who have chosen a special book for young people that is connected to their states – either through the book’s setting or author, or perhaps simply because it is a favorite of the member.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 5 of the Best Speed-Typing Games on the Internet. “Whatever your approach to typing, it’s always interesting to find out just how fast you can type. There are several websites that not only let you test your typing speed but compare your results against other people around the world and have extra features as well to spice up the experience.”

Mashable: How to create a family calendar on Google. “If you’ve only been using it for yourself up to now, you might not know about the world of shared calendars, which you can use to corral appointments for your whole family (however you choose to define ‘family’) and make sure everyone sees events all handily in one place.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

University of Maine: First-ever online, bilingual portal to Franco American archives launches this spring. “Franco American Digital Archives/Portail franco-américain, formerly known as the Franco American Portal project, will offer access to various primary sources about the French-Canadian, Acadian and Québécois(e) diaspora communities of the Northeast. Available records will include letters and other correspondence, scrapbooks, family and business records, newspapers, photographs and other media depicting Franco-American history, culture and people.”

NiemanLab: How Yahoo News reached 1 million followers on TikTok in 1 year. “Picture Yahoo users and you probably envision a group that’s older and a bit less digitally savvy than those relying on, say, Google’s suite. (The research says you’re not wrong.) On TikTok, in contrast, 63% of users are younger than 30 — including 33% still in their teens. So you might be thinking: Yahoo News? On TikTok?”

New York Times: For Creators, Everything Is for Sale. “A rash of new start-ups are making it easier for digital creators to monetize every aspect of their life — down to what they eat, who they hang out with and who they respond to on TikTok. Tens of millions of people around the globe consider themselves creators, and the creator economy represents the ‘fastest-growing type of small business,’ according to a 2020 report by the venture capital firm SignalFire.” The people described in this article seem more like influencers than creators.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Legislation seeks to curb public’s access to governmental records. “Like clockwork, with a new legislative session comes a new slate of bills that look to tip the scales of government accountability away from transparency and toward secrecy. The 2021 Nevada Legislature is no different, with state and local agencies pushing for bills that would curtail the public’s access to governmental records and workings across the state.”

BNN Bloomberg: Convicted Google IPO Scammer Faces Fresh Fraud Charges. “A man who was previously convicted of fraudulently selling pre-initial public offering shares in Google Inc. is facing new charges that he conducted a similar scam while posing as representatives of a billionaire family office.”

Global Voices: Indigenous-led telecommunications organization wins historic legal battle in Mexico. “This decision allows TIC to offer affordable cell phone services to indigenous communities in the country. The court case also set a legal precedent for local communities to operate their own telecommunications services for free under social use concession licenses — drawing a line between commercial and community providers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNET: Tim Berners-Lee: One-third of youth still don’t have internet access as web turns 32. “As the web turns 32 on Friday, its creator is using his annual letter to draw attention to the way the digital divide affects young people worldwide. While you may assume that children now grow up as digital natives, web creator Tim Berners-Lee points to a 2020 report from the International Telecommunication Union, which notes that one-third of young people around the world don’t have access to the internet.”

The Next Web: Facebook AI boss Yann LeCun goes off in Twitter rant, blames talk radio for hate content. “Yann LeCun, Facebook’s world-renowned AI guru, had some problems with an article written about his company yesterday. So he did what any of us would do, he went on social media to air his grievances. Only, he didn’t take the fight to Facebook as you’d expect. Instead, over a period of hours, he engaged in a back-and-forth with numerous people on Twitter.” Good morning, Internet…

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March 14, 2021 at 08:12PM
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Saturday, March 13, 2021

Windows 10, Google Maps, Internet Memes, More: Saturday Evening ResearchBuzz, March 13, 2021

Windows 10, Google Maps, Internet Memes, More: Saturday Evening ResearchBuzz, March 13, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BetaNews: Microsoft reveals workaround for Windows 10 printing problems and blue screen issues. “This Patch Tuesday, Microsoft released cumulative updates for Windows 10 and there were numerous complaints about problems with printing after installing them. Users with various brands of printer found that printing failed as they experienced APC_INDEX_MISMATCH errors and blue screens. A few days ago, Microsoft confirmed that it was aware of the issue and was investigating; now the company has come up with a workaround.”

The Verge: Google Maps will soon let you draw on a map to fix it. “If you’ve ever been frustrated by a road simply not existing on Google Maps, the company’s now making it easier than ever to add it. Google will be updating its map editing experience to allow users to add missing roads and realign, rename or delete incorrect ones.” What could possibly go wrong? I know Google says it will vet all changes, but I thought it did that with the Google My Business listings, and we know how that goes.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechCrunch: Memes for sale. “The creator of the Nyan Cat, Chris Torres, has organized an informal collection of meme originators — the creators or original popularizers of meme images — into a two-week-long auction of their works. Under the hashtag #memeconomy the creators of memes like Bad Luck Brian, Coughing Cat, Kitty Cat Dance, Scumbag Steve, Twerky Pepe and some others are finally finding a way to monetize the creation of genuine cultural phenomena that have been used freely for decades.”

Mashable: What to expect when you’re expecting 8 billion internet users. “As I wrote in my previous story in this series, the world may add up to 3 billion more internet users in the next decade or so. The global population is growing fast, and demographers believe it will cross the 8 billion mark around 2023. Internet access is growing faster, and is on course to hit 8 billion users around 2033. Given our recent history, you’d be forgiven for feeling a bit queasy about what could happen when the echo chamber has grown to the size of the entire Earth.”

The American Legion: Paris Post 1’s history digitized. “Paris, the site of the first American Legion organizational caucus in March 1919, has never since been without a Legion presence – Paris Post 1 was founded that year. One of its public functions is the celebration of The American Legion’s birthday (March 15-17, the dates of the caucus). This year, that will take place at 11 a.m. Paris time March 20, at the site of the American Legion Caucus plaque in the 7th Arrondissement.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

News .com .au: ACCC examining whether choice screens for search engines on smartphones should be compulsory. “The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is asking for submissions from smartphone users and industry participants to inform a report it will hand to the federal government in September, which will examine the fairness of competition among search engines in handheld devices.”

Route Fifty: New Project Aims to Identify Local Government Assets at Risk of Cyberattack. “State and local governments are poised to get some extra help identifying critical technology systems that could be at risk of cyberattacks, as part of a new federal pilot program. The Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency will provide $1.2 million to fund the pilot, which will be overseen by the Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security at the University of Texas at San Antonio.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Register: How Facebook uses public videos to train, deploy machine-learning models and harvest those eyeballs . “Facebook this week revealed an internal project to create machine-learning models that can understand visual, audio, and written content from videos publicly uploaded to its social network. One of the models, known as Generalized Data Transformations (GDT), is now used on Instagram. Users viewing short video recordings, or Reels, can quickly find other Reels they might like to watch, thanks to an AI-powered recommender system that picks similar clips that might be interesting.”

CNN: How one employee’s exit shook Google and the AI industry. “[Timnit Gebru’s] ousting, and the fallout from it, reignites concerns about an issue with implications beyond Google: how tech companies attempt to police themselves. With very few laws regulating AI in the United States, companies and academic institutions often make their own rules about what is and isn’t okay when developing increasingly powerful software. Ethical AI teams, such as the one Gebru co-led at Google, can help with that accountability. But the crisis at Google shows the tensions that can arise when academic research is conducted within a company whose future depends on the same technology that’s under examination.” Good evening, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



March 14, 2021 at 05:46AM
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Saturday CoronaBuzz, March 13, 2021: 37 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Saturday CoronaBuzz, March 13, 2021: 37 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Please wear a mask (or even two). Wash your hands. Stay at home if you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – EDUCATION/ENTERTAINMENT

IrishCentral: Irish culture goes online this St. Patrick’s Day. “Missing the big St. Patrick’s Day parade on Fifth Avenue this year? You’re not alone. At this point, many of us can’t remember what a public event looks like, never mind what a freshly poured Guinness looks or tastes like. So to take your mind off the pandemic blues why not catch the over one Irish hundred artists who will be featured in Culture Ireland’s SEODA, an online global celebration of Irish culture that runs March 17-21, 2021.”

NEW RESOURCES – LEGAL / SECURITY / PRIVACY / FINANCIAL

WUSA: Waiting for the 3rd stimulus payment? Here’s how to check online. “Taxpayers who have provided bank information with the IRS will receive the direct-deposit payments, while others will get paper checks or debit cards mailed to them. Officials said that beginning on Monday, people can check the ‘Get My Payment’ tool on the IRS.gov website to track their own payments.”

NEW RESOURCES – STATE-SPECIFIC

CBS 2 Iowa: New Twitter account is helping more Iowans receive COVID-19 vaccine. “Brian Finley became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine on Monday. Noticing how difficult it was to find available appointments for him and his family, he used available data to create a list of open time slots. Finley then thought that the information gathered, could help other Iowans, so he took it to Twitter.”

USEFUL STUFF

Teen Vogue: COVID Anniversary Anxiety Is Real — Here’s How to Cope. “New COVID-19 cases are a fraction of what they were at the January peak, and good news about vaccine efficacy (if not always its accessibility) continues to rise. We’re beginning to consider what stitched-back-together versions of our lives can look like by year’s end — a line of thinking that brings up plenty of anxieties in its own right, but also unmistakably carries with it the promise of relief. This collective hope, arguably our first meaningful dose of it since the pandemic started, is something many of us are, on a rational level, reveling in. And yet, underneath that optimism, unease festers. Why the uptick in anxiety now?”

UPDATES

AP: After long pandemic year, a changed New York shows renewal. “It’s still quiet, borderline moribund, in some neighborhoods, especially tourist-dependent locales in midtown Manhattan and in the financial district, where companies have made a wholesale shift to remote work. For-lease signs and boarded-up storefronts scar commercial strips all over the five boroughs. But New York is no ‘ghost town,’ as former President Donald Trump called it in October.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

East Bay Times: COVID economy: Job losses jolt Bay Area, California in January. “Job losses continued to jolt the Bay Area and California during January, according to a new report Friday that also revealed that the coronavirus dealt a harsher economic blow to the region and state than first estimated. The Bay Area lost 4,800 jobs during January, with the South Bay and the San Francisco-San Mateo region suffering the biggest declines. The East Bay and Marin County were bright spots with sturdy job gains, according to the report from the state Employment Development Department. Overall, California lost 69,900 jobs.”

Boing Boing: Pandemic curbs Europe’s birthrate. “France’s national statistics institute was one of the first to publish figures for the number of children born in January — nine months after the country was stuck in its first Covid-19 lockdown — and the provisional data show a startling decline: there were 53,900 births in the month, 13 per cent down on the figure for January 2020.”

Poynter: Looking back at a year that changed everything. “Certainly, a year ago, we were generally aware of the potential of stormy clouds on the horizon. But many had no idea of what was truly ahead. Predictions that we would all return to normal by July or August 2020 were wildly optimistic and not even close to realistic. They now seem almost childish in their wishful thinking. Fast-forward to today and July or August 2021 might be a little too hopeful. And, of course, worst of all, we could not fathom that more than half a million people in the U.S. would die.”

MISINFORMATION / DISINFORMATION

Poynter: In your traditional mailbox: pizza coupons and COVID-19 disinformation. “German fact-checking organization Correctiv was tipped off to this tactic by a reader in October 2020. The team crowdsourced a collection of 186 distinct fliers from readers across Germany, which came from several networks of Telegram groups that spread anti-lockdown messaging and COVID-19 disinformation. From Nov. 16-26, Correctiv found 650 groups such groups spread out across Germany with a total membership of around 66,000 users.”

CNET: COVID relief bill: Debunking the misinformation about the plan. “President Joe Biden on Thursday signed his American Rescue Plan, which includes a third round of stimulus checks, an increase to the child tax credit and extended unemployment benefits. With a price tag of $1.9 trillion, it’s just shy of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that was passed last March when the coronavirus pandemic triggered shutdowns across the US. Polls show people overwhelmingly support Biden’s plan, but there’s already a wealth of misinformation on social media declaring that this bill is a ‘heist’ and won’t help Americans. Those claims are false. So let’s clear up the confusion and inaccurate information about the COVID relief bill.”

PolitiFact: No, Biden didn’t promote ‘mandatory’ COVID-19 vaccines in primetime address. “In a primetime address delivered hours after he signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill into law, Biden said his goal is to make small-group gatherings possible by July 4. He encouraged Americans to get vaccinated and follow public health guidelines to make that happen. But the president did not say he would mandate that everybody get the vaccine, despite what one conservative commentator said in a Facebook live video reacting to the address.”

Poynter: A year into the pandemic, MediaWise teen fact-checkers prepare to tackle COVID-19 misinformation on YouTube. “On Feb. 11, 2020, the MediaWise Teen Fact-Checking Network published its first fact-check about the coronavirus. The story, reported on by then-16-year-old Angie Li, detailed what we knew about the virus (at the time, very little), and gave tips on how not to fall for or share misinformation. Now a year into the pandemic, Li’s fact-check served as just a glimpse at the COVID-19 misinformation to come.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

WBFO: Local doctors become ‘vaccine ninjas,’ using social media to share appointment tips. “Dr. Jennifer Walsh is one of the eight female doctors known as the ‘vaccine ninjas’ who are using social media groups, posts, and videos to dish out the tips and tricks that have made it possible for about 4,000 people in the region to get their vaccine.”

University of Minnesota: Study adds more evidence of antibiotic overuse in COVID-19 patients. “The findings of the study, which is the largest study to date on antibiotic use in US COVID-19 patients, add to the growing body of research on antibiotic prescribing during the early months of the pandemic. Studies to date have estimated that anywhere from 55% to 98% of hospitalized COVID patients around the world were treated with antibiotics, while only a fraction had a bacterial co-infection that would require their use. This has led to widespread concern about unnecessary antibiotic use during the pandemic.”

INSTITUTIONS

The Verge: Artifacts from the first COVID-19 vaccination in the US are headed to the Smithsonian. “The glass vial used in the first US COVID-19 vaccination has been acquired by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The museum also acquired related items including the scrubs and vaccination card of Sandra Lindsay, director of critical care nursing at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center who, on December 14th, 2020, became the first person in the US to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

New York Times: Companies That Rode Pandemic Boom Get a Reality Check. “While the pandemic battered the economy, tech companies and consumer companies powered by digital technology stood out as islands of growth. But with coronavirus cases and deaths falling, more than two million Americans a day getting vaccinations and the overall economic outlook improving, investors are starting to turn elsewhere.”

Washington Post: Hundreds of covid cases reported at Tesla plant following Musk’s defiant reopening, county data shows. “Tesla’s Bay Area production plant recorded hundreds of covid-19 cases following CEO Elon Musk’s defiant reopening of the plant in May, according to county-level data obtained by a legal transparency website. The document, obtained by the website PlainSite following a court ruling this year, showed Tesla received around 10 reports of covid-19 in May when the plant reopened, and saw a steady rise in cases all the way up to 125 in December, as the disease caused by the novel coronavirus peaked around the country.”

Gulf News: The men who made billions during COVID-19. “The pandemic has been a boom time for America’s richest billionaires. The wealth of nine of the country’s top titans has increased by more than $360 billion in the past year. And they are all tech barons, underscoring the power of the industry in the US economy. Tesla’s Elon Musk more than quadrupled his fortune and jockeyed with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos for the title of world’s wealthiest person. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg topped $100 billion. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin gained a combined $65 billion.”

WORLD / FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

BBC: Covid-19 pandemic: Italy to shut shops and schools amid infection spike. “Shops, restaurants and schools will be closed across most of Italy on Monday, with PM Mario Draghi warning of a ‘new wave’ of the coronavirus outbreak. For three days over Easter, 3-5 April, there will be a total shutdown.”

Washington Post: ICE has no clear plan for vaccinating thousands of detained immigrants fighting deportation. “The coronavirus has been running rampant for months through Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s network of jails holding civil immigration detainees fighting deportation — but the agency has no vaccination program and, unlike the Bureau of Prisons, is relying on state and local health departments to procure vaccine doses. Nobody can say how many detainees have been vaccinated.”

BBC: Covid: Jordan’s health minister quits over hospital oxygen deaths. “Jordan’s health minister has resigned after six people died due to a lack of oxygen at a hospital ward treating Covid-19 patients, state media report. The deaths were reported early on Saturday at a new government facility in the town of Salt, about 14 miles (23km) west of the capital, Amman.”

STATE / LOCAL GOVERNMENT

KXAN: Texas loses at court, Austin’s mask mandate to stay in place for at least 2 weeks. “A Texas District Court judge refused to grant the State of Texas an emergency, temporary injunction on Friday, meaning the mask mandate from Austin and Travis County will stay in place for at least two more weeks.”

Route Fifty: Cities Direct Johnson & Johnson Vaccine to Homeless Populations. “City health departments across the country are planning to use the newly approved Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine to target homeless and other hard-to-reach populations—touting the easy logistics with the single-dose shot. But to avoid sewing confusion and distrust among the public, health experts caution that officials need to be transparent about the reasons why certain groups are getting a specific brand of the vaccine.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

Reuters: Former Trump coronavirus coordinator Birx takes job at Texas air purifier maker. “Dr. Deborah Birx, the former Trump White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator, is taking a private sector job, joining a Texas manufacturer that says its purifiers clean COVID-19 from the air within minutes and from surfaces within hours.”

WRAL: Jeffrey MacDonald, convicted of murdering family at Fort Bragg, says COVID risk means he should get out of prison. “Jeffrey MacDonald, the former Army captain who is serving three life sentences for the murders of his wife and two young children their home at Fort Bragg in 1970, is asking a federal judge free him due to his age and failing health.”

NBC News: Ex-presidents club (mostly) comes together to encourage vaccinations. “The exclusive club of former presidents — minus its most recently inducted member — is featured in two national ad campaigns released Thursday that are aimed at building confidence among Americans in the coronavirus vaccines, according to copies of the videos provided to NBC News.”

HEALTH

Ars Technica: COVID herd immunity may be unlikely—winter surges could “become the norm”. “Some experts speculate that the pandemic coronavirus will one day cause nothing more than a common cold, mostly in children, where it will be an indistinguishable drip in the steady stream of snotty kid germs. Such is the reality for four other coronaviruses that have long stalked school yards and commonly circulate among us every cold and flu season, to little noticeable effect. But that sanguine—if not slightly slimier—future is shaky. And the road to get there will almost certainly be rocky.”

Big Think: Cotton masks outperform synthetic fibers in humidity test. “A recent study, published in ACS Applied Nano Materials, investigated the durability of cloth and synthetic masks in environments meant to mimic the humidity generated by breathing. The researchers found that filtration efficiency (how well each material captures particles) increased by 33 percent with cotton fabrics.”

TECHNOLOGY

Mashable: From Amazon to Zoom: A year of tech in the pandemic, by the numbers. “It’s impossible to fully quantify how the pandemic has affected Americans’ relationship with tech, but we know we’ve downloaded tons of news apps, streamed obscene hours of Netflix, and attempted to de-stress with YouTube yoga. Here’s our attempt to break down a very difficult and unusual year by the numbers.”

New York Times: Our Virtual Pandemic Year. “Here are three things that I’ve learned in the past 12 months: Technology showed its utility by helping people and businesses manage through a crisis. Our increasingly digital lives have also created new problems that will be hard to fix. And the most important things have nothing to do with technology. Let’s talk about each of these.”

RESEARCH

PsyPost: Trait victimhood and mental rigidity linked to heightened fear of COVID-19 and greater adherence to safety measures. “According to new research, the fear and uncertainty characterizing the coronavirus pandemic may lead certain personalities to be more likely to follow safety guidelines. The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, found that the tendency to feel like a victim and an inclination toward mental rigidity were both associated with greater adherence to safety measures.”

PsyPost: New study uncovers several factors linked to unwillingness to vaccinate against COVID-19. “Nearly two in five U.S. adults expressed hesitation about getting a COVID-19 vaccine in newly publish scientific research. The study, published in the journal Vaccine, found that intention to vaccinate was highest for men, older people, individuals who identified as white, the affluent and college-educated, Democrats, and those with pre-existing medical conditions.”

OH THAT’S SO NICE

WWL: WATCH: Woman given prescription to ‘hug granddaughter’ after receiving COVID vaccine. “After getting her COVID-19 vaccine, one woman’s doctor wrote her a prescription for the best medicine in these bleak times: a hug. Jessica Shaw took to Twitter to post a photo of her mother’s prescription slip, which was given to her after getting her second vaccine, telling her to go hug her family.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

Route Fifty: Pandemic Drives Phone, Computer ‘Right-to-Repair’ Bills. “The legislation would loosen restrictions on manufacturers’ information and parts and allow small repair shops and handy device owners to do their own fixing. Manufacturers and distributors of brand-name products are opposed. They say unauthorized repairs are unsafe and compromise security by putting nonstandard components into machines which, they say, makes them more vulnerable to hacking. Supporters of the right-to-repair bills dispute those assertions.”

OPINION

Baltimore Sun: Poll: Black Marylanders embrace COVID-19 vaccine; rate discrepancies persist | COMMENTARY. “Vaccine hesitancy among Black Marylanders has plummeted. Sixty percent of Black residents say they will either get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as they can or indicate they’ve already received at least one dose, according to the most recent Goucher College Poll. That’s the same percentage who said they would not get such a vaccine just five months ago. The causes and public health implications of this dramatic shift are worth considering, as are some potential blind spots of the data.”

Washington Post: Opinion: Abandoning masks now is a terrible idea. The 1918 pandemic shows why.. “That pandemic came in waves that were much more distinct than what we have experienced. The first wave was extraordinarily mild. The French Army suffered 40,000 hospitalizations but only about 100 deaths. The British Grand Fleet had 10,313 sailors fall ill — but only four deaths. Troops called it ‘three-day fever.’ It was equally mild among civilians and was not nearly as transmissible as influenza normally is. Like SARS-CoV-2, the 1918 influenza virus jumped species from an animal to humans. As it infected more humans, it mutated. It became much more transmissible, sweeping across continents and oceans and penetrating everywhere. And as it became more transmissible, it caused a much, much more lethal second wave. It became the worst version of itself.”

New York Times: 17 Reasons to Let the Economic Optimism Begin. “Predictions are a hard business, of course, and much could go wrong that makes the decades ahead as bad as, or worse than, the recent past. But this optimism is not just about the details of the new pandemic relief legislation or the politics of the moment. Rather, it stems from a diagnosis of three problematic mega-trends, all related.”

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March 14, 2021 at 01:36AM
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Black Theatre, Connecticut Newspapers, Microsoft Edge, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, March 13, 2021

Black Theatre, Connecticut Newspapers, Microsoft Edge, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, March 13, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

American Theatre: Woolly Mammoth Launches RESET Digital Collection. “Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company has announced the launch of RESET, a free digital collection of resources and video performances. The collection will be available through March 31. In August 2020, curators Nicole M. Brewer, Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Jordan Ealey, Kristen Jackson, Leticia Ridley, and Nikkole Salter began identifying works that have deeply impacted them as Black women theatre artists, activists, and scholars. The collection will pay tribute to Black playwrights, poets, actors, and members of the National Black Theatre.”

Connecticut Digital Newspaper Project: Litchfield County Post and Litchfield Enquirer Now Online!. “The CT Digital Newspaper Project (CDNP) is excited to announce that two more historic Connecticut newspapers have been added to Chronicling America – the Litchfield County Post and the Litchfield Enquirer! We have digitized Litchfield County Post issues covering 1826-1829 as well as issues of the Litchfield Enquirer, the successor of the County Post. Currently Enquirer issues covering 1829-1866 are available, with additional issues through 1881 to follow later this summer.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Microsoft Edge accelerates to Chrome’s 4-week browser release cycle. “Microsoft Edge will follow Google’s lead in speeding up browser releases, issuing a new version every four weeks instead of every six weeks, the software maker said Friday.”

USEFUL STUFF

TechRadar: Google Lens: how to master Google’s super-useful AI camera app. “It’s been around since 2017, but rather than get quietly sidelined like so many other Google projects, Google Lens has slowly built up increasingly impressive powers – many of which aren’t that well known or understood.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNN: Google and Microsoft are in a public feud. “Google and Microsoft openly sparred on Friday as the latter prepared to testify at a Congressional hearing focusing on Big Tech’s impact on local news. Microsoft (MSFT) targeted Google’s dominance in advertising as it described in congressional testimony how the tech industry has contributed to the erosion of local journalism.”

Mashable: Adventure Lab is building the VR gig economy of the future for performers. “The brainchild of co-founders Maxwell Planck and Kimberly Adams, who share a common professional past at both Pixar and the now-defunct Oculus Story Studio, Adventure Lab is picking up where their previous experiments in VR had left off and applying lessons learned. Whereas their initial efforts in the space attempted to ‘steal’ from filmmaking and storytelling, as Planck puts it, the duo’s new company is pulling its inspiration from something a bit more intangible: the creation of shared memories.”

Washington Post: A push to save landmarks of the ‘Great Migration’ — and better understand today’s racial inequities. “As a child in the 1950s, Amelia Cooper lived in a multigenerational home in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood that often served as a settlement house for friends of her grandfather, the blues musician Muddy Waters. Many were musicians, arriving from the rural South as Waters had, and they needed a place from which to launch their new life….Cooper’s memory is a classic snapshot of the Great Migration, the period between 1916 and 1970 when Northern cities drew millions of Black Americans seeking greater economic opportunities and fleeing the racial violence and Jim Crow laws of Southern states. It was a seminal event, yet many of the sites that played so significantly into those years have fallen into disrepair or worse, the memories they held forgotten. But that is changing.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg Quint: Google Must Face Suit Over Snooping on ‘Incognito’ Browsing. “The consumers who filed the case as a class action alleged that even when even they turn off data collection in Chrome, other Google tools used by websites end up amassing their personal information. A federal judge on Friday denied the Alphabet Inc. unit’s initial request to throw out the case.”

Toronto Star: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg summoned to testify before parliamentary committee. “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been summoned to appear before a House of Commons standing committee within the next 30 days. The summons was contained in a motion adopted by the Canadian Heritage standing committee on Friday and states that Zuckerberg is legally required to attend for at least 90 minutes.”

KCLR: Database with details for nearly 450,000 across Ireland compromised by hackers. “The Irish Data Protection Commission says it’s received a breach notification from Fastway Couriers. The customer data impacted includes names, addresses, email accounts and phone numbers, but the company says nobody’s financial data was at risk. It’s understood that up to 450,000 people may be impacted.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Yale: Yale study shows limitations of applying artificial intelligence to registry databases. “Artificial intelligence will play a pivotal role in the future of health care, medical experts say, but so far, the industry has been unable to fully leverage this tool. A Yale study has illuminated the limitations of these analytics when applied to traditional medical databases — suggesting that the key to unlocking their value may be in the way datasets are prepared.”

University of Nebraska-Lincoln: New Online ‘Farm Stat’ Tool Allows Farmers and Agronomists to Easily Analyze Data from Their Own On-Farm Research. “A new tool, Farm Stat, is available on the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network (NOFRN) website. Farm Stat enables growers and agronomists to easily run statistical analysis of their own research studies…. Farm Stat is accessed online and allows producers or agronomists to specify how many treatments and replications their unique study had and then enter their yield data or other data to be statistically analyzed. The program will quickly produce a complete statistical analysis of variance that can be saved as a PDF.” Good morning, Internet…

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March 13, 2021 at 10:20PM
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Friday, March 12, 2021

University of Arkansas Photography, Indiana Basketball, Mission: Interplanetary, More: Friday Evening ResearchBuzz, March 12, 2021

University of Arkansas Photography, Indiana Basketball, Mission: Interplanetary, More: Friday Evening ResearchBuzz, March 12, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Arkansas: Libraries Digitize Largest Collection of University Photos to Date. “The University of Arkansas Picture Collection (MC 2467) contains around 5,500 photos and negatives depicting the U of A campus and scenes from around the state. Now, over 1,300 of these items have been digitized and made available to the public online at no cost. Images will continue to be added to the digital collection over the course of this multi-year project.”

WBIW: Indiana Historical Society offers multiple basketball resources to celebrate Indiana’s game. “The eyes of the basketball world are beginning to focus on Indiana as it hosts almost non-stop basketball for the next 28 days. To celebrate this historic month of basketball, the Indiana Historical Society has assembled multiple resources for fans.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Arizona State University: ASU Interplanetary Initiative launches new podcast partnership with Slate. “‘Mission: Interplanetary’ is a weekly podcast hosted by former NASA astronaut Cady Coleman and scientist and author Andrew Maynard. Each episode features the hosts engaging with experts about the big questions, challenges and mysteries humans face as we venture out to explore the solar system and beyond.”

CNET: TikTok rolls out new features to combat bullying, harassment. “TikTok wants to foster a community where its users treat each other with kindness and respect. With that goal in mind, the popular video-sharing app on Wednesday introduced new features intended to combat bullying and harassment on the platform.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mixdown: Twitch, TikTok + more: the five best social media platforms for musicians to use. “From social media to streaming servers to video games, there is an opportunity for all artists to engage with a new platform for their music. Read on below to find out more about five popular platforms which are allowing artists to chart, promote, perform and engage with their audience all through an online platform.” You won’t learn about any new platforms here but the examples provided are eye-opening.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Guardian: Australian archives agency is allowing ‘national treasures’ to deteriorate, internal review finds. “The funding-starved National Archives of Australia is allowing documents to deteriorate, potentially against its legal obligations, and is struggling to meet its mandate to preserve government records and make them public, a damning review has found.”

Washington Post: They’re worried their mom is becoming a conspiracy theorist. She thinks they’re the ones living in a fantasy world.. “In a country where disinformation was spreading like a disease, Celina Knippling resolved to administer facts to her mom like medicine­. She and her four siblings could do nothing about the lies that had spread outward from Washington since Election Day, or the violence it had provoked. But maybe they could do something to stop dangerous political fantasies and extremism from metastasizing within their family. Maybe they could do something about Claire.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Economic Times / Bloomberg: Google faces ‘very large’ EU Ad probe. “European Union Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Google faces a ‘very large investigation’ into its advertising business, adding a new front to a decade-long antitrust battle.”

Reuters: Facebook, Google fight bill that would help U.S. news industry. “Lobbyists for Facebook and Google threw their weight against new U.S. legislation that seeks to aid struggling news publishers by allowing them to negotiate collectively against the tech companies over revenue sharing and other deals.”

Philadelphia Inqurier: A Bucks County woman created ‘deepfake’ videos to harass rivals on her daughter’s cheerleading squad, DA says. “A Bucks County woman anonymously sent coaches on her teen daughter’s cheerleading squad fake photos and videos that depicted the girl’s rivals naked, drinking, or smoking, all in a bid to embarrass them and force them from the team, prosecutors say.” Good evening, Internet…

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March 13, 2021 at 07:21AM
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Friday CoronaBuzz, March 12, 2021: 29 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Friday CoronaBuzz, March 12, 2021: 29 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Please wear a mask (or even two). Wash your hands. Stay at home if you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – STATE-SPECIFIC

San Jose State University: SJSU Researchers Launch New COVID-19 Economic Dashboard for Silicon Valley. “The COVID-19 Economic Dashboard for Silicon Valley provides visual insight into key economic indicators for the San José Metro area, including employment trends, housing supply and demand, and business closures due to COVID-19 restrictions. With near real-time updates, the dashboard can track the current state of the local economy and trends that show the impact of the pandemic on the Silicon Valley community.”

WWLP: New online vaccine platform launches for Massachusetts residents Friday. “The state’s new online vaccine sign up platform launches Friday. Under the new system, eligible residents will fill out a form for an appointment. You’ll then wait for the state to notify you when it’s your turn to book an appointment.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

6SqFt: We Remember: New Yorkers share stories of loss, light, and love during the COVID pandemic. “This Sunday, the city will mark March 14–one year since NYC lost its first resident to the virus–with an official day of remembrance for the nearly 30,000 city residents who passed away. For our part, we decided to speak with our fellow New Yorkers and ask who or what they would like to remember on this somber anniversary. It might be someone they’ve lost, someone who did something heroic, or a larger group or event that played a role. And with these raw stories, we think we can describe this year, through all the feelings that can never be put into words.” Heartwarming and agonizing. I cried a lot.

BBC: ‘I went from Hollywood glamour to food donations’. “Event planners have large scale, glamorous receptions to organise, Beverly Hills waiters are serving hundreds of celebrities at various parties, and numerous publicists are walking their talent down the red carpet. But with the pandemic vastly changing awards ceremonies – which are now all virtual – and parties being cancelled, many jobs have been eliminated and people are out of work. Ahead of the Grammys being hold remotely on 14 March, and the Oscars likewise next month, we talk to Tinseltown workers who have had to find other ways to earn money.”

New York Times: We Were Born to Be Kissed in the Dark. “Let us recite an irreverent prayer for the club, the disco, the spot. For the battleground of our unleashing, the church of our weekly baptisms of the bitter week, the tent show revival of our rapture. Let us bow our heads and say “Remember when …” as if we are as old as Methuselah, as if we’ve seen all the world wars and we know the taste of tombstones. Remember when we danced?”

CNET: After coronavirus: Australia offers a strange glimpse of life post-pandemic. “A year since the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic, Australia provides a tiny glimpse of what the future might look like. The crisis isn’t over, and we haven’t even agreed on what “The End” really means scientifically or socially, but in Australia, the end feels as close as it ever has. In this pseudo-future place, we’ve found some semblance of normalcy. As much of the world still struggles to get outbreaks under control and grieves daily losses. It’s an incredibly strange feeling.”

BuzzFeed News: Tom Hanks, The NBA, And COVID’s Day Of Reckoning In The US: An Oral History. “So many forces of history years in the making converged on March 11 and were all subsumed by something few thought possible just weeks earlier. Suddenly there was no escape. The sentencing of Harvey Weinstein and the last moments of Bernie Sanders’ failing campaign against Joe Biden — huge milestones for the #MeToo movement and American politics — were abruptly overtaken. Even the experts at the World Health Organization would agree March 11 was a turning point — that was the date they officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. BuzzFeed News reporters interviewed 65 people in four countries to tell the story of that fateful day.”

MISINFORMATION / DISINFORMATION

The Guardian: Anatomy of a conspiracy theory: how misinformation travels on Facebook. “This is how a single post from an Australian politician spread to a global network of Facebook groups promoting anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown and coronavirus misinformation. It shows how the platform is uniquely suited to potentially spreading harmful content online.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

Washington Post: Amtrak to restore daily long-distance train service with federal relief funds. “Daily service will be restored to long-distance Amtrak trains starting in May, and hundreds of furloughed employees will be called to report back to work as early as next month, the passenger railroad announced Wednesday after Congress passed a pandemic relief package that includes $1.7 billion for the carrier.”

USA Today: CDC, Dollar General exploring partnership to speed up COVID-19 vaccine rollout. “U.S. health officials are exploring a partnership with Dollar General, one of the nation’s largest retailers, to accelerate the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the nation’s rural areas. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in talks with Dollar General, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday.”

WORLD / FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Roll Call: One-tenth of Congress had COVID-19, but cases halted soon after vaccinations. “Roughly 1 in 10 members of Congress contracted COVID-19 in the past year since the pandemic significantly changed daily life in the United States and on Capitol Hill. At least 71 lawmakers had COVID-19 at some point in 2020 or 2021, based on public statements they made about testing or being presumed positive for the virus or testing positive for antibodies, according to a GovTrack database.”

AP: Canada vaccine panel recommends 4 months between COVID doses. “A national panel of vaccine experts in Canada recommended Wednesday that provinces extend the interval between the two doses of a COVID-19 shot to four months to quickly inoculate more people amid a shortage of doses in Canada. A number of provinces said they would do just that.”

STATE / LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Miami Herald: Florida inmates haven’t gotten COVID-19 vaccines. DeSantis won’t provide timeline.. “Three months into Florida’s vaccination efforts, Gov. Ron DeSantis has yet to make vaccines available to state prisons, even as corrections officials have requested doses and identified thousands of elderly inmates who meet the state’s eligibility requirements.”

19th News: How Alaska managed to vaccinate residents at higher rates than any other state. “Whether distributed by boat, dog sled, snow machine or plane, vaccines have been given to more than half of all eligible Alaskans, according to Dr. Anne Zink, the state’s chief medical officer. The state has the highest per capita vaccination rate in the country. In a conversation with The 19th, Zink and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined Washington correspondent Amanda Becker to discuss how the largest geographical state — bigger than California, Texas and Montana combined — has managed to blaze the trail in vaccine distribution.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

Cosmopolitan: Rebekah Jones Tried to Warn Us About COVID-19. Now Her Freedom Is on the Line. “In a Cosmopolitan exclusive, the whistleblower speaks out about being raided at gunpoint, charged with a felony, and forced to flee hundreds of miles to protect her family. And no, she doesn’t see this ending well.”

New York Times: The Plan to Protect Indigenous Elders Living Under the Northern Lights. “In Canada, the first known Covid-19 case arrived on a January 2020 flight from Wuhan, China to Toronto. It was a wake-up call for the country, but especially for Northwest Territories Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Kami Kandola. Several passengers from that Wuhan flight were bound for Yellowknife — tourists eager to marvel at the Northern Lights.”

BuzzFeed News: “I Was The One Who Broke Broadway”: Meet The First Usher To Test Positive For COVID. “On March 11, 2020, the lights of Broadway in New York City were still shining bright. But as curtains rose in theaters around Times Square, one member of the Broadway community, an usher and aspiring actor named Peter McIntosh, was lying in a hospital bed, just hours after arriving with a positive diagnosis he’d received that day for COVID-19.”

K-12 EDUCATION

Chalkbeat: A ‘daunting, dark and difficult’ time: How a Brooklyn school moved forward after losing its leader to COVID. “For many students at the school, [Dez-Ann] Romain was the first educator they felt they could trust, and she deployed a mix of support and tough love. One former student said she counseled him after he broke down in tears over a failed Regents exit exam and let him walk at graduation anyway. (He eventually passed the exam.) Sometimes, she challenged basketball players to pushups if they were goofing around in the hallway instead of heading to class, Musole said. But just days after city officials shuttered school buildings citywide in March due to surging coronavirus infections, Brooklyn Democracy Academy suffered a devastating blow: Romain was dead.”

HEALTH

BBC: Covid: Are some states lifting restrictions too soon?. “A number of US states are lifting Covid restrictions, despite public health concerns about relaxing measures too soon. President Joe Biden has called moves to rapidly remove restrictions ‘a big mistake’. So are some states in a good position to be lifting restrictions?”

University of Minnesota: Health workers’ greatest COVID-19 risk is from community, new data show. “The greatest COVID-19 risk factors for healthcare personnel (HCP) aren’t patient contact or clinical duties but rather community exposure and prevalence, according to a JAMA Network Open study yesterday.”

AP: Global rise in childhood mental health issues amid pandemic. “Pediatric psychiatrists say they’re also seeing children with coronavirus-related phobias, tics and eating disorders, obsessing about infection, scrubbing their hands raw, covering their bodies with disinfectant gel and terrified of getting sick from food. Also increasingly common, doctors say, are children suffering panic attacks, heart palpitations and other symptoms of mental anguish, as well as chronic addictions to mobile devices and computer screens that have become their sitters, teachers and entertainers during lockdowns, curfews and school closures.”

TECHNOLOGY

Mashable: How to help slash your community’s digital divide in education. “Before COVID-19 hit, 30 percent of K-12 public school students lived in homes without internet connections or devices they could use for remote learning, according to an analysis of the most recent data, from 2018, from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics. But the pandemic has brought this issue into stark contrast, because some students have stable home internet and others don’t, says Katrina Stevens, who worked on best practices in digital learning in the Obama administration and is president of the Tech interactive, a family-friendly science and technology center.”

RESEARCH

Duke Today: How To Reduce Severity Of The Next Global Virus Outbreak. “As more people get the COVID-19 vaccine, light appears at the end of a long, bleak tunnel. But there’s far more work to do to stave off the next global virus outbreak – a future pandemic that experts say is likely if not assured. There are plenty of improvements possible, from closer relationships between public health officials and food producers to a more cohesive, global virus response network. Three Duke experts discussed these and other issues Thursday in a virtual briefing for media.”

Inverse: A Surprising Treatment For Covid-19 Could Be The Key To Stopping Variants. “Over 90 percent of France’s 88,933 deaths in the past year occurred in people ages 65 and older. And yet, at the psychiatric hospital filled with antidepressant-taking patients, many of whom were in that high-risk age group, only one died. A genuinely shocking contrast when you compare it with any other facilities with older adults. The antidepressants, evidence suggests, were helping these patients survive.”

OUTBREAKS

BBC: Covid: Does Tanzania have a hidden epidemic?. “Despite growing evidence to the contrary, Tanzania’s government continues to downplay the impact of coronavirus on the country. There is also speculation that President Magufuli is himself suffering from Covid and receiving hospital treatment, although that has not been confirmed.”

CNN: Brazil plunges into crisis as a second wave and deadly new variant overwhelm hospitals. “Brazil has broken its own record three times this month for number of deaths in a 24-hour period. On Wednesday, Brazil’s Health Ministry registered a devastating new high — 2,286 lives lost to the virus. In total, more than 270,000 people are known to have died due to Covid-19, making Brazil’s the second-highest national death toll after the United States.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

Department of Justice: Repeat Fraudster Sentenced for COVID-19 Loan Fraud Scheme. “A previously convicted felon was sentenced today to 51 months in prison for engaging in a COVID-19 related loan fraud scheme with losses of nearly $200,000…. According to court documents, Joseph Cherry, 40, of Norfolk, engaged in a scheme to obtain COVID-related loan benefits through the Small Business Administration (SBA) and affiliated lenders.”

Department of Justice: Four Additional Members of Los Angeles-Based Fraud Ring Indicted for Exploiting COVID-Relief Programs. “A federal grand jury in Los Angeles returned a superseding indictment, unsealed Thursday, charging four additional individuals for their alleged participation in a scheme to submit over 150 fraudulent loan applications seeking over $21.9 million in COVID-19 relief funds guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.”

OPINION

CBS News: Over a third of Republicans don’t want the COVID vaccine — and many of them aren’t budging. “The Biden administration, advocacy groups and states are making a push for minority and underprivileged communities who have often been overlooked and mistreated by the medical community to get the COVID-19 vaccine, a key element in the effort to immunize these groups. But there is no concerted effort to change the minds of one of the factions most resistant to getting the vaccine: the ‘definitely not’ Republicans.”

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March 13, 2021 at 04:38AM
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