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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>No more advantage for the home team: Refereeing without social pressure in European elite football during the COVID-19 pandemic. Draft version 3 30-03-2021</strong> -
<div>
Introduction. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, European elite football (soccer) leagues played the remaining season 2019/20 without or strongly limited attendance of supporters (i.e., “ghost games”). From a psychological perspective this situation poses a unique opportunity to investigate the crowd’s influence on referee decisions and the associated effect of “home advantage”. Methods. A total of 1286 matches - played in the top leagues of Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Austria and the Czech Republic - were analyzed for results, fouls, bookings and reasons for bookings and contrasted between respective matchdays of season 2018/19 (regular attendance) and season 2019/20 (ghost games). Results. There are two main findings. First, the overall home advantage effect in the respective elite leagues - identified in the respective matches of the regular 2018/19 season – vanished in the ghost games of the 2019/20 season. Consequently, home teams lost significantly more matches, whereas away teams won significantly more matches. Second, only home teams were booked significantly more often with yellow cards for committing fouls in ghost games. Most importantly, our analysis provides evidence that this effect was independent of the course of the games. In contrast, bookings for other reasons (criticism and unfair sportsmanship) changed similarly for both home and away teams in ghost games. Conclusion. We conclude that the lack of supporters in top European football during the COVID-19 pandemic led to decreased social pressure from the ranks on referees. This implication is consistent with previous research in smaller size and experiments in artificial settings. As a result of decreased social pressure, referees assessed the play of home teams more objectively, which further led to increased yellow cards awarded for fouls committed by the home teams. Since there were no significant changes in referee decisions against the away teams, we argue that our observations in ghost games reflect a reduction of unconscious favoritism of referees for the home teams. This key finding provides a firm empirical basis for the development of novel methods - such as virtual reality interventions - for training referees and thus minimizing the effects of decisions made under social pressure.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/jqus9/" target="_blank">No more advantage for the home team: Refereeing without social pressure in European elite football during the COVID-19 pandemic. Draft version 3 30-03-2021</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Factors Influencing Asia-Pacific Countries’ Success Level in Curbing COVID-19: A Review Using a Social–Ecological System (SES) Framework</strong> -
<div>
Little attention has been paid to the impacts of institutional–human–environment dimen- sions on the outcome of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) abatement. Through the diagnostic social–ecological system (SES) framework, this review paper aimed to investigate what and how the multifaceted social, physical, and governance factors affected the success level of seven selected Asia-Pacific countries (namely, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, and New Zealand) in combatting COVID-19. Drawing on statistical data from the Our World In Data web- site, we measured the COVID-19 severity or abatement success level of the countries on the basis of cumulative positive cases, average daily cases, and mortality rates for the period of 1 February 2020 to 30 June 2020. A qualitative content analysis using three codes, i.e., present (P), partially present (PP), and absent (A) for each SES attribute, as well as score calculation and rank ordering for govern- ment response effectiveness and the abatement success level across the countries, was undertaken. Not only did the standard coding process ensure data comparability but the data were deemed substantially reliable with Cohen’s kappa of 0.76. Among 13 attributes of the SES factors, high facility adequacy, comprehensive COVID-19 testing policies, strict lockdown measures, imposition of penalty, and the high trust level towards the government seemed to be significant in determining the COVID-19 severity in a country. The results show that Vietnam (ranked first) and New Zealand (ranked second), with a high presence of attributes/design principles contributing to high-level government stringency and health and containment indices, successfully controlled the virus, while Indonesia (ranked seventh) and Japan (ranked sixth), associated with the low presence of design principles, were deemed least successful. Two lessons can be drawn: (i) having high number of P for SES attributes does not always mean a panacea for the pandemic; however, it would be detrimental to a country if it lacked them severely, and (ii) some attributes (mostly from the governance factor) may carry higher weightage towards explaining the success level. This comparative study providing an overview of critical SES attributes in relation to COVID-19 offers novel policy insights, thus helping policymakers devise more strategic, coordinated measures, particularly for effective country preparedness and response in addressing the current and the future health crisis.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/b9f2w/" target="_blank">Factors Influencing Asia-Pacific Countries’ Success Level in Curbing COVID-19: A Review Using a Social–Ecological System (SES) Framework</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Big Five personality traits and COVID-19 precautionary behaviors among older adults in Europe</strong> -
<div>
Objectives: Taking precaution against COVID-19 is important among older adults who have a greater risk for severe illness if infected. We examined whether Big Five personality traits are associated with COVID-19 precautionary behaviors among older adults in Europe. Method: We used data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (N=34 629). Personality was self-reported in 2017 using the BFI-10 inventory. COVID-19 precautionary behaviors – wearing a mask, limiting in-person contacts, keeping distance to others, washing hands, and using disinfectant – were assessed in the summer of 2020 through self-reports. Associations between personality and precautionary behaviors were examined with multilevel random-intercept logistic regression models. The models were adjusted for age, gender, educational attainment, and country of residence. Results: Personality traits were differentially associated with precautionary behaviors, with higher openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism showing most consistent associations. The associations between personality and practicing precautionary behaviors were relatively weak (OR range from 1.03 to 1.19 per 1 SD difference in a trait) in comparison to the associations between sociodemographic factors and precautionary behaviors. Conclusions: Among older adults, taking COVID-19 precautionary behaviors was most consistently related to higher openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, suggesting that precautionary behaviors may be motivated by multiple psychological differences.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/rvbjf/" target="_blank">Big Five personality traits and COVID-19 precautionary behaviors among older adults in Europe</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>How does stress affect our life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic? Moderated mediation analysis of sense of coherence and fear of coronavirus</strong> -
<div>
COVID-19 is a significant threat to human life and health, which makes people experience fear, stress, anxiety and mood disorders, which have a negative impact on their psychological well-being. One of the resources that makes people manage stress better is a sense of coherence, which also has a positive impact on quality of life. The aim of the study was to determine the relationship between fear of COVID-19, stress, a sense of coherence, and life satisfaction during the coronavirus pandemic. 907 Polish people (522 women and 385 men) participated in this study. Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FOC-6), Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC-29) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) were used in the study. It was verified that the relationship between stress and life satisfaction was mediated by sense of coherence. The relationship between stress and sense of coherence was moderated by fear of COVID-19. The fear of COVID-19 acted as a buffer in the relationship between stress and a sense of coherence - it weakened the impact of stress on the sense of coherence. This study is the first to verify the proposed model of moderated mediation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analyses were performed on a very large sample. This manuscript draws attention to the important role of fear of COVID-19 and the sense of coherence in our functioning. The sense of coherence can, by effectively managing stress and reducing the level of anxiety, affect subjective well-being.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/3zjrx/" target="_blank">How does stress affect our life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic? Moderated mediation analysis of sense of coherence and fear of coronavirus</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>SARS-CoV-2, a threat to marine mammals? A study from Italian seawaters</strong> -
<div>
Zoonotically transmitted coronaviruses were responsible for three disease outbreaks since 2002, with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing the dramatic Coronavirus Disease-2019 (CoViD-19) pandemic, which affected public health, economy, and society on a global scale. The impacts of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic permeate into our environment and wildlife as well; in particular, concern has been raised about the viral occurrence and persistence in aquatic and marine ecosystems. The discharge of untreated wastewaters carrying infectious SARS-CoV-2 into natural water systems that are home of sea mammals may have dramatic consequences on vulnerable species. The efficient transmission of coronaviruses raise questions regarding the contributions of virus receptors interactions. The main receptor of SARS-CoV-2 is Angiotensin Converting Enzyme-2 (ACE-2), serving as a functional receptor for the viral spike (S) protein. This study was aimed, through the comparative analysis of the ACE-2 receptor with the human one, at assessing the susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 of the different species of marine mammals living in Italian waters. We also determined, by means of immunohistochemistry, ACE-2 receptor localization in the lung tissue from different cetacean species, in order to provide a preliminary characterization of ACE-2 expression in the marine mammals respiratory tract. Furthermore, in order to evaluate if and how wastewater management in Italy may lead to susceptible marine mammal populations being exposed to the virus, geo-mapping data of wastewater plants, associated to the identification of specific stretches of coast more exposed to extreme weather events, overlapped to marine mammal population data, were carried out. Results showed the SARS-CoV-2 exposure for marine mammals inhabiting Italian coastal waters. Thus, we highlight the potential hazard of reverse zoonotic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection, along with its impact on marine mammals regularly inhabiting the Mediterranean Sea, whilst also stressing the need of appropriate action to prevent further damage to specific vulnerable populations. Significance Statement Growing concern exists that SARS-CoV-2, as already ascertained for its SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV predecessors, originated from an animal reservoir, performing thereafter its spillover into mankind, that was possibly anticipated by viral passage into a secondary animal host. Within the dramatic SARS-CoV-2 pandemic context, hitherto characterized by over 110 million cases and almost 2,500,000 deaths on a global scale, several domestic and wild animal species have been reported as susceptible to natural and/or experimental SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this respect, while some marine mammal species are deemed as potentially susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection on the basis of the sequence homology of their ACE-2 viral receptor with the human one, this study addresses such a critical issue also in stranded sea mammal specimens.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.29.437540v1" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2, a threat to marine mammals? A study from Italian seawaters</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>COVID-19 dominant D614G mutation in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein desensitizes its temperature-dependent denaturation</strong> -
<div>
The D614G mutation in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 alters the fitness of the virus, making it the dominant form in the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we demonstrated by cryo-electron microscopy that the D614G mutation does not significantly perturb the structure of the spike protein, but multiple receptor binding domains are in an upward conformation poised for host receptor binding. The impact of the mutation lies in its ability to eliminate the unusual cold-induced unfolding characteristics, and to significantly increase the thermal stability under physiological pH. Our findings shed light on how the D614G mutation enhances the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 through a stabilizing mutation, and suggest an approach for better design of spike-protein based conjugates for vaccine development.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.28.437426v1" target="_blank">COVID-19 dominant D614G mutation in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein desensitizes its temperature-dependent denaturation</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Enrichment of SARS-CoV-2 entry factors and interacting intracellular genes in peripheral immune cells</strong> -
<div>
SARS-CoV-2 uses ACE2 and TMPRSS2 to gain entry into the cell. However, recent studies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 may use additional host factors that are required for the viral lifecycle. Here we used publicly available datasets, CoV associated genes and machine learning algorithms to explore the SARS-CoV-2 interaction landscape in different tissues. We find that in general a small fraction of cells expresses ACE2 in the different tissues including nasal, bronchi and lungs. We show that a small fraction of immune cells (including T-cells, macrophages, dendritic cells) found in tissues also express ACE2. We show that healthy circulating immune cells do not express ACE2 and TMPRSS2. However, a small fraction of circulating immune cells (including dendritic cells, monocytes, T-cells) in the PBMC of COVID-19 patients express ACE2 and TMPRSS2. Additionally, we found that a large spectrum of cells (in circulation and periphery) in both healthy and COVID-19 positive patients were significantly enriched for SARS-CoV-2 factors. Thus, we propose that further research is needed to explore if SARS-CoV-2 can directly infect peripheral immune cells to better understand the virus’ mechanism of action.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.29.437515v1" target="_blank">Enrichment of SARS-CoV-2 entry factors and interacting intracellular genes in peripheral immune cells</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>SARS-CoV-2 infection risk among unvaccinated is negatively associated with community-level vaccination rates</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Mass vaccination has the potential to curb the current COVID-19 pandemic by protecting vaccinees from the disease and possibly lowering the chance of transmission to unvaccinated individuals. The high effectiveness of the widely-administered BNT162b vaccine in preventing not only the disease but also infection suggests a potential for a population-level effect, critical for disease eradication. However, this putative effect is difficult to observe, especially in light of highly fluctuating spatio-temporal epidemic dynamics. Here, analyzing vaccination records and test results collected during a rapid vaccine rollout for a large population from 223 geographically defined communities, we find that the rates of vaccination in each community are highly correlated with a later decline in infections among a cohort of under 16 years old which are unvaccinated. These results provide observational evidence that vaccination not only protects individual vaccinees but also provides cross-protection to unvaccinated individuals in the community.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.26.21254394v1" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 infection risk among unvaccinated is negatively associated with community-level vaccination rates</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Attitudes toward COVID-19 illness and COVID-19 vaccination among pregnant women: a cross-sectional multicenter study during August-December 2020</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
ABSTRACT Objective: Evaluate pregnant women9s attitudes toward COVID-19 illness and vaccination and identify factors associated with vaccine acceptability. Study Design: Cross-sectional survey among pregnant women enrolled in a prospective COVID-19 cohort study in Salt Lake City, UT, Birmingham, AL, and New York, NY, August 9-December 10, 2020. Women were eligible if they were 18-50 years old and &lt;28 weeks of gestation. Upon enrollment, women completed surveys regarding concerns about COVID-19 illness and likelihood of getting COVID-19 vaccine if one were available during pregnancy. Vaccine acceptability was defined as a response of “very likely” or “somewhat likely” on a 4-point Likert scale. Factors associated with vaccine acceptability were assessed with multivariable logistic regression. Results: Of 939 pregnant women eligible for the main cohort study, 915 (97%) consented to participate. Among these 915 women, 39% self-identified as White, 23% Black, 33% Hispanic, and 4% Other. Sixty-two percent received an influenza vaccine last season. Seventy-two percent worried about getting sick with COVID-19. If they were to get sick, 92% worried about harm to their pregnancy and 80% about harm to themselves. Only 41% reported they would get a vaccine. Of women who were unlikely to get vaccinated, the most frequently cited concern was vaccine safety for their pregnancy (82%). Non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic women had lower odds of accepting a vaccine compared with non-Hispanic White women (adjusted odds ratios (aOR) 0.4, 95%CI 0.2-0.6 for both). Receipt of influenza vaccine during the previous season was associated with higher odds of vaccine acceptability (aOR 2.1, 95%CI 1.5-3.0). Conclusion: Although most pregnant women worried about COVID-19 illness, &lt;50% were willing to get vaccinated during pregnancy. Racial and ethnic disparities in plans to accept COVID-19 vaccine highlight the need to prioritize strategies to address perceived barriers among groups at high risk for COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.26.21254402v1" target="_blank">Attitudes toward COVID-19 illness and COVID-19 vaccination among pregnant women: a cross-sectional multicenter study during August-December 2020</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Using Google Health Trends to investigate COVID19 incidence in Africa</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Objectives: In the present manuscript we used Internet-derived data to assess whether Google Health Trends (GHT) search counts are able to track COVID-19 incidences in Africa. Methods: We collected COVID-19 case and death incidence for 54 African countries from February 2020 to January 2021. We used GHT to characterize COVID-19 incidence up to 24 January 2021, collecting the number of searches of four terms: coronavirus, coronavirus symptoms, COVID19, and pandemic. The terms were related to weekly COVID-19 case incidences for the study period via multiple linear regressions. We also collected 72 predictors assessing Internet accessibility, demographics, economics, etc., to explain the potential mechanisms linking the relationship between GHT searches and COVID-19. Results: Important increases for COVID-19 death incidence were observed for South Africa and Tunisia at the end of the study period. Our study demonstrated a lack of correlation between GHT and COVID-19 incidence for most African countries. The predictors analyzed were unhelpful in explaining the pattern of GHT statistics and their relationship to COVID-19, complicating interpretability of GHT. Conclusions: According to our results, GHT-based surveillance for an ongoing epidemic might be useful only in specific situations. Future studies might assess the algorithm in different epidemic contexts.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.26.21254369v1" target="_blank">Using Google Health Trends to investigate COVID19 incidence in Africa</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Symptoms and risk factors for hospitalization of COVID-19 presented in primary care</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background Early detection is essential to control COVID-19. Symptoms are often unspecific. Data collected merely from patients tested according to testing criteria might lead to missing a bulk of spreaders. Knowledge of symptom development during the disease helps to detect complications early. Few data have been collected in primary care so far. Aim To extend knowledge of early symptoms as a precondition of timely diagnosis, isolation and contact tracing. To gain understanding of associations between symptoms and complicated disease to help avoid hospitalization. Design and Settings This study was designed as a retrospective observational study in Austrian GP practices in the year 2020. Methods Patients above 18 years with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test were included. Data collection comprised basic demographic data, risk factors and the recording of symptoms at several points in time during the course of the infection. Further descriptive data analysis was carried out by using the statistical software program R. Results Symptoms clearly typical for COVID-19 are rare. Most symptoms are nonspecific, like malaise, fatigue or joint ache. We found symptoms indicating complicated disease, depending on the time of their occurrence. Anosmia we found to develop only after several days in many cases. At the end of the isolation period many patients still experience symptoms. Conclusion Low threshold contact in GP practices including testing can prevent overlooking early symptoms. Patients may benefit from early monitoring. We recommend a medical check-up at the end of the isolation period.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.26.21254331v1" target="_blank">Symptoms and risk factors for hospitalization of COVID-19 presented in primary care</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A lipid nanoparticle RBD-hFc mRNA vaccine protects hACE2 transgenic mice against lethal SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> -
<div>
The current global COVID-19 pandemic led to an unprecedented effort to develop effective vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. mRNA vaccines were developed very rapidly during the last year, and became the leading immunization platform against the virus, with highly promising phase-3 results and remarkable efficacy data. Since most animal models are not susceptible to SARS CoV-2 infection, pre-clinical studies are often limited to infection-prone animals such as hamsters and non-human primates. In these animal models, SARS-CoV-2 infection results in viral replication and a mild disease disease. Therefore, the protective efficacy of the vaccine in these animals is commonly evaluated by its ability to elicit immunologic responses, diminish viral replication and prevent weight loss. Our lab recently reported the design of a SARS-CoV-2 human Fc-conjugated receptor-binding domain (RBD-hFc) mRNA vaccine delivered via lipid nanoparticles (LNPs). These experiments demonstrated the development of a robust and specific immunologic response in RBD-hFc mRNA- vaccinated BALB/c mice. In the current study, we evaluated the protective effect of this RBD-hFc mRNA vaccine by employing the K18-hACE2 mouse model. We report that administration of RBD-hFc mRNA vaccine to K18-hACE2 mice led to a robust humoral response comprised of both binding and neutralizing antibodies. In accordance with the recorded immunologic immune response, 70% of vaccinated mice were protected against a lethal dose (3000 plaque forming units) of SARS-CoV-2, while all control animals succumbed to infection. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first non-replicating mRNA vaccine study reporting protection of K18-hACE2 against a lethal SARS-CoV-2 infection.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.29.436639v1" target="_blank">A lipid nanoparticle RBD-hFc mRNA vaccine protects hACE2 transgenic mice against lethal SARS-CoV-2 infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Competitive SNP-LAMP probes for rapid and robust single-nucleotide polymorphism detection</strong> -
<div>
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are the most common source of genetic variation between individuals and have implications in human disease, pathogen drug resistance, and agriculture. SNPs are typically detected using DNA sequencing, which requires advanced sample preparation and instrumentation, and thus cannot be deployed for on-site testing or in low-resource settings. In this work we have developed a simple and robust assay to rapidly detect SNPs in nucleic acid samples. Our approach combines LAMP-based target amplification with fluorescent probes to detect SNPs with high specificity in a one-pot reaction format. A competitive “sink” strand preferentially binds to off-target products and shifts the free energy landscape to favor specific activation by SNP products. We demonstrated the broad utility and reliability of our SNP-LAMP method by detecting three distinct SNPs across the human genome. We also designed an assay to rapidly detect highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants. This work demonstrates that competitive SNP-LAMP is a powerful and universal method that could be applied in point-of-care settings to detect any target SNP with high specificity and sensitivity.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.29.437576v1" target="_blank">Competitive SNP-LAMP probes for rapid and robust single-nucleotide polymorphism detection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Assessing the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on SARS-CoV-2 spread in Belgium by means of a compartmental, age-stratified, extended SEIQRD model and public mobility data</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
As a response to the rapidly rising number of SARS-CoV-2 infections, the Belgian governments imposed strict social contact restrictions on March 13th, 2020. After nearly two months, the curve was successfully flattened and social restrictions were gradually relaxed. Unfortunately, pharmaceutical interventions are not yet available so it is expected that preventing COVID-19 outbreaks will depend mostly on the successful implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions, hence the need for well-informed models. In this study, we built a deterministic, continuous-time, age-stratified-SEIRD model with detailed hospital dynamics. Because the hospitalization data for Belgium are not made publically available by the Belgian Scientific Institute of Public Health (Sciensano), we computed the hospitalization parameters based on data from 370 patients treated in two Ghent (Belgium) hospitals. The basic reproduction number was estimated as R0 = 2.83 in March 2020 and the model fits the hospitalization and ICU admission incidence under lockdown measures well. Despite the relaxation of social restrictions, hospitalizations have been steadily declining. We recomputed the basic reproduction number under lockdown release and found that it had to be as low as R0 = 0.73 to explain the endemic trend. We further found that although the basic reproduction number in the population older than 70 years was smaller than one, this group compromises nearly half of the expected hospitalizations. This indicates that the protection of the elderly may be the most efficient way to reduce strain on the public health care system in case of another SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.17.20156034v3" target="_blank">Assessing the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on SARS-CoV-2 spread in Belgium by means of a compartmental, age-stratified, extended SEIQRD model and public mobility data</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Preliminary report on SARS-CoV-2 Spike mutation T478K</strong> -
<div>
Several SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged, posing a renewed threat to COVID-19 containment and to vaccine and drug efficacy. In this study, we analyzed more than 820,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences deposited up to March 26, 2021 and identified a novel T478K mutation located on the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein. The mutation is structurally located in the region of interaction with human receptor ACE2 and was detected in 4,214 distinct cases. We show that T478K has appeared and risen in frequency since January 2021, predominantly in Mexico and North America, but we could also detect it in several European countries.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.28.437369v1" target="_blank">Preliminary report on SARS-CoV-2 Spike mutation T478K</a>
</div></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study to Evaluate the Viral Load Reduction of a Single Dose of Plitidepsin in Adult Patients With COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Plitidepsin;   Drug: Symptomatic Treatment<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   PharmaMar;   Apices Soluciones S.L.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Neuromodulation in COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Device: Transcranial direct-current stimulation;   Device: Sham Transcranial direct-current stimulation<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   D’Or Institute for Research and Education;   Rio de Janeiro State Research Supporting Foundation (FAPERJ);   Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico;   Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Immunogenicity and Safety of Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine (CHO Cells)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: a middle-dose recombinant COVID-19 vaccine (CHO Cell) (18-59 years) at the schedule of day 0, 28, 56;   Biological: a high-dose recombinant COVID-19 vaccine (CHO Cell) (18-59 years) at the schedule of day 0, 28, 56;   Biological: a middle-dose recombinant COVID-19 vaccine (CHO Cell) (60-85 years) at the schedule of day 0, 28, 56;   Biological: a high-dose recombinant COVID-19 vaccine (CHO Cell) (60-85 years) at the schedule of day 0, 28, 56;   Biological: a middle-dose placebo (18-59 years) at the schedule of day 0, 28, 56;   Biological: a high-dose placebo (18-59 years) at the schedule of day 0, 28, 56;   Biological: a middle-dose placebo (60-85 years) at the schedule of day 0, 28, 56;   Biological: a high-dose placebo (60-85 years) at the schedule of day 0, 28, 56<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Jiangsu Province Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;   Academy of Military Medical Sciences，Academy of Military Sciences，PLA ZHONGYIANKE Biotech Co, Ltd. LIAONINGMAOKANGYUAN Biotech Co, Ltd<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Clinical Decision Support System Based on Non-invasive Tele-monitoring of COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: Clinical decision support system based on non-invasive multimodal monitoring<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Increase-Tech;   Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valladolid;   University of Valladolid;   Sanidad de Castilla y León<br/><b>Active, not recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ANTIcoagulation in Severe COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Severe COVID-19 Pneumonia<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Tinzaparin, Low dose prophylactic anticoagulation;   Drug: Tinzaparin, High dose prophylactic anticoagulation;   Drug: Tinzaparin,Therapeutic anticoagulation<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study to Evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of OT-101+Artemisinin in Hospitalized COVID-19 Subjects</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: OT-101;   Drug: Artemisinin;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Oncotelic Inc.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation of ADG20 for the Treatment of Mild or Moderate COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: ADG20;   Drug: Normal saline<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Adagio Therapeutics, Inc.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Study to Test BI 767551 in People With Mild to Moderate Symptoms of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: BI 767551 intravenous;   Drug: BI 767551 inhaled;   Drug: Placebo intravenous;   Drug: Placebo inhaled<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Boehringer Ingelheim<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tele-rehabilitation Program After Hospitalization for COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pneumonia<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: TR;   Other: TSu<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA;   Istituto Auxologico Italiano<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pilot Trial of XFBD, a TCM, in Persons With COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Xuanfei Baidu Granules;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Darcy Spicer<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Tolerability of Emricasan in Symptomatic Outpatients Diagnosed With Mild-COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Emricasan;   Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Histogen<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacy of Reinforcing Standard Therapy in COVID-19 Patients With Repeated Transfusion of Convalescent Plasma</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Convalescent Plasma with antibody against SARS-CoV-2.;   Other: Standard treatment for COVID-19<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Hospital Son Llatzer;   Fundació d’investigació Sanitària de les Illes Balears<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerability, and Immunogenicity of a Lyophilized Formulation of BNT162b2 Against COVID-19 in Healthy Adults</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   SARS-CoV-2 Infection;   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: BNT162b2<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   BioNTech SE;   Pfizer<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SERUR: COVID-19 Serological Survey of Staff From the University Reims-Champagne Ardennes</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Diagnostic Test: Anti-SARS-CoV2 Serology<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Assessment of the Impact of Oral Intervention With Cetylpyridinium Chloride to Decrease SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in Patients With COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   SARS-CoV-2 Infection<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: ORAL INTERVENTION WITH CETYLPYRIDINIUM CHLORIDE;   Other: PLACEBO<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Rosa Tarrago;   Dentaid SL<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Fever: Could A Cardinal Sign of COVID-19 Infection Reduce Mortality?</strong> - With mortality rising from the COVID-19 pandemic, we may be overlooking a key aspect of the immunological response. Fever is a cardinal sign of this rampant infection; however, little attention has been paid towards how a fever may work in our favor in overcoming this disease. Three key aspects of patient care - fever, fluid, and food - can be harmonized to overcome COVID-19 infection. Both animal and human studies have demonstrated that fever suppression during viral infections, either through…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Precision therapeutic targets for COVID-19</strong> - Beginning in late 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged as a novel pathogen that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 111 million people worldwide and caused over 2.47 million deaths. Individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 show symptoms of fever, cough, dyspnea, and fatigue with severe cases that can develop into pneumonia, myocarditis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, hypercoagulability, and even multi-organ…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Protein-ligand Docking Simulations with AutoDock4 Focused on the Main Protease of SARS-CoV-2</strong> - CONCLUSION: The combination of structural data with computational approaches opened the possibility to accelerate the search for drugs to treat COVID-19. Several studies used AutoDock4 to search for inhibitors of Mpro. Most of them did not employ a validated docking protocol, which lends support to critics of their computational methodology. Furthermore, one of these studies reported the binding of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to Mpro. This study ignores the scientific evidence against the…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Isatis indigotica: a review of phytochemistry, pharmacological activities and clinical applications</strong> - OBJECTIVES: Isatis indigotica Fort. (I. indigotica) is an herbaceous plant belonging to Cruciferae family. Its leaf (IIL) and root (IIR) are commonly used in traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) with good clinical efficacies such as clearing away heat and detoxification, cooling blood and reducing swelling. This review aimed to provide a systematic summary on the phytochemistry, pharmacology and clinical applications of I. indigotica.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 neutralising antibody responses and duration of immunity: a longitudinal study</strong> - BACKGROUND: Studies have found different waning rates of neutralising antibodies compared with binding antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. The impact of neutralising antibody waning rate at the individual patient level on the longevity of immunity remains unknown. We aimed to investigate the peak levels and dynamics of neutralising antibody waning and IgG avidity maturation over time, and correlate this with clinical parameters, cytokines, and T-cell responses.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Towards the Prevention of Coronavirus Infection: What Role Can Polymers Play?</strong> - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome associated coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a global public health crisis with high rates of infection and mortality. Treatment and prevention approaches include vaccine development, the design of small molecule antiviral drugs and macromolecular neutralizing antibodies. Polymers have been designed for effective virus inhibition and as anti-viral drug delivery carriers.. This review summarizes recent progress and provides a perspective on polymer based…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Repurposing the Ebola and Marburg Virus Inhibitors Tilorone, Quinacrine, and Pyronaridine: In Vitro Activity against SARS-CoV-2 and Potential Mechanisms</strong> - Severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a newly identified virus that has resulted in over 2.5 million deaths globally and over 116 million cases globally in March, 2021. Small-molecule inhibitors that reverse disease severity have proven difficult to discover. One of the key approaches that has been widely applied in an effort to speed up the translation of drugs is drug repurposing. A few drugs have shown in vitro activity against Ebola viruses and demonstrated activity against…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Computationally approached inhibition potential of Tinospora cordifolia towards COVID-19 targets</strong> - The recent emergence of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has been a major threat to human society, as the challenge of finding suitable drug or vaccine is not met till date. With increasing morbidity and mortality, the need for novel drug candidates is under great demand. The investigations are progressing towards COVID-19 therapeutics. Among the various strategies employed, the use of repurposed drugs is competing along with novel drug inventions. Based on the therapeutic significance, the…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mast Cell and Eosinophil Activation Are Associated With COVID-19 and TLR-Mediated Viral Inflammation: Implications for an Anti-Siglec-8 Antibody</strong> - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection represents a global health crisis. Immune cell activation via pattern recognition receptors has been implicated as a driver of the hyperinflammatory response seen in COVID-19. However, our understanding of the specific immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 remains limited. Mast cells (MCs) and eosinophils are innate immune cells that play pathogenic roles in many inflammatory responses. Here we report MC-derived proteases and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>In silico studies on stilbenolignan analogues as SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitors</strong> - COVID-19, a new strain of coronavirus family, was identified at the end of 2019 in China. The COVID-19 virus spread rapidly all over the world. Scientists strive to find virus-specific antivirals for the treatment of COVID-19. The present study reports a molecular docking study of the stilbenolignans and SARS-CoV-2 main protease (SARS-CoV-2 Mpro) inhibitors. The detailed interactions between the stilbenolignan analogues and SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitors were determined as hydrophobic bonds,…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Antimalarial Quinacrine and Chloroquine Lose Their Activity by Decreasing Cationic Amphiphilic Structure with a Slight Decrease in pH</strong> - Quinacrine (QC) and chloroquine (CQ) have antimicrobial and antiviral activities as well as antimalarial activity, although the mechanisms remain unknown. QC increased the antimicrobial activity against yeast exponentially with a pH-dependent increase in the cationic amphiphilic drug (CAD) structure. CAD-QC localized in the yeast membranes and induced glucose starvation by noncompetitively inhibiting glucose uptake as antipsychotic chlorpromazine (CPZ) did. An exponential increase in…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cathepsin L plays a key role in SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans and humanized mice and is a promising target for new drug development</strong> - To discover new drugs to combat COVID-19, an understanding of the molecular basis of SARS-CoV-2 infection is urgently needed. Here, for the first time, we report the crucial role of cathepsin L (CTSL) in patients with COVID-19. The circulating level of CTSL was elevated after SARS-CoV-2 infection and was positively correlated with disease course and severity. Correspondingly, SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus infection increased CTSL expression in human cells in vitro and human ACE2 transgenic mice in…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Intracortical GABAergic dysfunction in patients with fatigue and dysexecutive syndrome after COVID-19</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: The present study documents for the first time reduced GABAergic inhibition in the M1 in patients who recovered from COVID-19 with neurological complications and manifested fatigue and dysexecutive syndrome.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Attenuation of 7-ketocholesterol- and 7β-hydroxycholesterol-induced oxiapoptophagy by nutrients, synthetic molecules and oils: potential for the prevention of age-related diseases</strong> - Age-related diseases for which there are no effective treatments include cardiovascular diseases; neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease; eye disorders such as cataract and age-related macular degeneration; and, more recently, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV-2). These diseases are associated with plasma and/or tissue increases in cholesterol derivatives mainly formed by auto-oxidation: 7-ketocholesterol, also known as 7-oxo-cholesterol, and 7β-hydroxycholesterol. The…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Glycyrrhizin prevents SARS-CoV-2 S1 and Orf3a induced high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) release and inhibits viral replication</strong> - Efforts to understand host factors critical for COVID-19 pathogenesis have identified high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) to be crucial for regulating susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19 disease severity is correlated with heightened inflammatory responses, and HMGB1 is an important extracellular mediator in inflammation processes.In this study, we evaluated the effect of HMGB1 inhibitor Glycyrrhizin on the cellular perturbations in lung cells expressing SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins. Pyroptosis in…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>5-(4-TERT-BUTOXY PHENYL)-3-(4N-OCTYLOXYPHENYL)-4,5-DIHYDROISOXAZOLE MOLECULE (C-I): A PROMISING DRUG FOR SARS-COV-2 (TARGET I) AND BLOOD CANCER (TARGET II)</strong> - The present invention relates to a method ofmolecular docking of crystalline compound (C-I) with SARS-COV 2 proteins and its repurposing with proteins of blood cancer, comprising the steps of ; employing an algorithmto carry molecular docking calculations of the crystalized compound (C-I); studying the compound computationally to understand the effect of binding groups with the atoms of the amino acids on at least four target proteins of SARS-COV 2; downloading the structure of the proteins; removing water molecules, co enzymes and inhibitors attached to the enzymes; drawing the structure using Chem Sketch software; converting the mol file into a PDB file; using crystalized compound (C-I) for comparative and drug repurposing with two other mutated proteins; docking compound into the groove of the proteins; saving format of docked molecules retrieved; and filtering and docking the best docked results. - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=IN320884617">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>USING CLINICAL ONTOLOGIES TO BUILD KNOWLEDGE BASED CLINICAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR NOVEL CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) WITH THE ADOPTION OF TELECONFERENCING FOR THE PRIMARY HEALTH CENTRES/SATELLITE CLINICS OF ROYAL OMAN POLICE IN SULTANATE OF OMAN</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU320796026">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Peptides and their use in diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU319943278">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A PROCESS FOR SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT OF COVID 19 POSITIVE PATIENTS</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU319942709">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>IN SILICO SCREENING OF ANTIMYCOBACTERIAL NATURAL COMPOUNDS WITH THE POTENTIAL TO DIRECTLY INHIBIT SARS COV 2</strong> - IN SILICO SCREENING OF ANTIMYCOBACTERIAL NATURAL COMPOUNDS WITH THE POTENTIAL TO DIRECTLY INHIBIT SARS COV 2Insilico screening of antimycobacterial natural compounds with the potential to directly inhibit SARS COV2 relates to the composition for treating SARS-COV-2 comprising the composition is about 0.1 – 99% and other pharmaceutically acceptable excipients. The composition also treats treating SARS, Ebola, Hepatitis-B and Hepatitis–C comprising the composition is about 0.1 – 99% and other pharmaceutically acceptable excipients. - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=IN320777840">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sars-CoV-2 vaccine antigens</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU318283136">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SARS-COV-2 BINDING PROTEINS</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU318004130">link</a></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bildschirmgerät mit verbesserter Wirkung bei der Befestigung von UV-Entkeimungslampen</strong> -
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Ein Bildschirmgerät mit verbesserter Wirkung bei der Befestigung von UV-Entkeimungslampen, umfassend: ein Bildschirmgerät, das einen Umfang hat; eine UV-Entkeimungslampe, die sich am Umfang des Bildschirmgeräts befindet; eine Stromquelle, die elektrisch mit der UV-Entkeimungslampe verbunden ist; eine Steuerschaltung, die elektrisch mit der UV-Entkeimungslampe verbunden ist; und eine Befestigungsvorrichtung, durch die die UV-Entkeimungslampe am Umfang des Bildschirmgeräts befestigbar ist, wobei die Befestigungsvorrichtung einen Sitzkörper, eine erste Klemmplatte und eine zweite Klemmplatte aufweist, wobei der Sitzkörper mit der UV-Entkeimungslampe versehen ist, wobei die erste Klemmplatte und die zweite Klemmplatte beabstandet am Sitzkörper gleitbar angeordnet sind, wodurch ein Klemmabstand zwischen der ersten Klemmplatte und der zweiten Klemmplatte besteht, wobei ein elastisches Element zwischen der zweiten Klemmplatte und dem Sitzkörper angeordnet ist, um die zweite Klemmplatte dazu zu zwingen, sich der ersten Klemmplatte zu nähern.</p></li>
</ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=DE320246402">link</a></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Schublade mit antiepidemischer Wirkung</strong> -
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Schublade mit antiepidemischer Wirkung, mit einem Schrank (1); mindestens einer Schublade (2), die in dem Schrank (1) angeordnet ist, wobei jede Schublade (2) einen Schubladenraum (25) aufweist; einer UV-Sterilisationsvorrichtung (3), die an der Schublade (2) angeordnet ist; einer Stromquelle (4), die elektrisch mit der UV-Sterilisationsvorrichtung (3) verbunden ist; einer Steuerschaltung (5), die elektrisch mit der Stromquelle (4) und der UV-Sterilisationsvorrichtung (3) verbunden ist; und einem Sensor (6), der elektrisch mit der Steuerschaltung (5) verbunden ist.</p></li>
</ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=DE320246401">link</a></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Gerät zur Unterstützung und Verstärkung natürlicher Lüftung</strong> -
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</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Lüftungssystem für einen mit öffnbaren Fenstern (16) ausgestatteten Gebäuderaum, gekennzeichnet dadurch, dass es ein Gehäuse (18) und einen Ventilator (20) aufweist, wobei durch das Gehäuse eine vom Ventilator erzeugte Luftströmung strömen kann, wobei das Gehäuse dafür eine Einströmöffnung (24) für Luft und eine Ausströmöffnung (22) für Luft enthält, wobei eine der beiden Öffnungen der Form eines Öffnungsspalts (26) zwischen einem Fensterflügel (12) und einem Blendrahmen (14) des Fensters (16) angepasst ist.</p></li>
</ul>
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<li><a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=DE319927546">link</a></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century</strong> - On a leaked conference call, leaders of dark-money groups and an aide to Mitch McConnell expressed frustration with the popularity of the legislation—even among Republican voters. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-koch-backed-effort-to-block-the-largest-election-reform-bill-in-half-a-century">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Biden and the Blame Game at the Border</strong> - The issues involved are nearly impossible to settle as long as policymakers regard decency as a political weakness rather than as a moral strength. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/05/biden-and-the-blame-game-at-the-border">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Politics of Stopping Pandemics</strong> - Even before the COVID-19 crisis, global instability had caused a worrying rise in epidemics. Medical science alone won’t be able to turn the tide. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/05/the-politics-of-stopping-pandemics">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mario González Still Wants to Know Why the Police Held Him After the Atlanta Shooting</strong> - González was on a date with his wife, Delaina Ashley Yaun, when she was killed. But, for hours, no one told him what had happened to her. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mario-gonzalez-still-wants-to-know-why-the-police-held-him-after-the-atlanta-shooting">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Movement to Exclude Trans Girls from Sports</strong> - The opposition is cast as one between cis-girl athletes on the one hand and a vast liberal conspiracy on the other. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-movement-to-exclude-trans-girls-from-sports">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>What Americans really think about billionaires during the pandemic</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Photos of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/O4ubUsuMyWlM_QPBMDOvdXbjfjI=/97x0:1697x1200/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69047456/headshots_1617069529743.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Here’s how Americans feel about Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. | Maja Hitij / Mike Cohen / Saul Loeb / Aurelien Meunier / Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A new poll from Vox and Data for Progress pulls back the curtain.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cgt9Qm">
The debate over the power of billionaires in America is driven by critics who see them as rapacious tax-cheats and by defenders who see them as embodiments of the American Dream.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nJNqJ6">
But what do regular people think?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gjC2cC">
A new, exclusive poll from <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/2/4/22266501/vox-data-for-progress-polling-biden-administration">Vox and Data for Progress</a> pulls back the curtain on how Americans feel about the exploding net worth of billionaires during the pandemic; their record-setting philanthropy as a way to address inequality; and whether they have too much political power in American elections. The poll was fielded In February and surveyed likely voters.
</p>
<aside id="i0YYop">
<div>
</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VmDir3">
The data suggest that gone are the days when the ultra-wealthy could count on widespread admiration as job-creators, titans of industry, and “thought leaders.” They now confront a skeptical public, shaped in part by a year of the coronavirus pandemic that has entrenched their power.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OS7Bhf">
At the same time, Americans reject many of the furthest-left critiques of billionaires and their influence in American life. You can <a href="https://www.filesforprogress.org/datasets/2021/3/dfp-recode-voters-attitudes-billionaires.pdf">read the full results here</a>, and here are some of the highlights.
</p>
<h3 id="7dmxBh">
How Americans feel about billionaires during the pandemic
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TAB9Pw">
The pandemic has exacerbated wealth inequality, and many Americans are resentful of the fact that while they struggled, the wealthy made significant gains.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cxvokrdIWb_itrpWd3PMZ0K0Inw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22406960/image__9_.png"/> <cite>Ethan Winter, Data for Progress</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wZYgQJ">
By a wide gap — 72 percent to 19 percent — voters polled say it was unfair that billionaires got wealthier during the pandemic. That conclusion is shared across all racial, partisan, socioeconomic, and other demographic groups.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Veh63O">
This unease is reflected in questions that speak to Americans’ more generalized opinions about the one-percent, which were generally shared across the political spectrum. Only 23 percent of those polled said they consider billionaires to be good role models for the country, and 65 percent said they don’t.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vSvNoa">
Similarly<strong>,</strong> only 36 percent said they had, in general, positive feelings about billionaires, as opposed to 49 percent who said they did not. Black Americans said they had much more positive feelings about billionaires than did members of other racial subgroups: 45 percent said they felt positively, with only 39 percent saying they felt negatively. Democrats were also more likely to be anti-billionaire than were Republicans.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GBZjcXecaicT7dabhcUc6NGNQns=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22406964/image__11_.png"/> <cite>Ethan Winter, Data for Progress</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ixypQQ">
And yet Americans are broadly dismissive of some progressive rhetoric about something being fundamentally wrong with a society that features billionaires. Some 82 percent they agree with the statement that people should be allowed to become billionaires — and similarly, 68 percent say they disagree that it’s immoral for a society to allow people to become billionaires.
</p>
<h3 id="C3kEPD">
How Americans feel about billionaire philanthropy
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0yMOdm">
Voters give billionaires positive marks when it comes to their philanthropy. Asked whether billionaires do a good job at giving away their money through philanthropy. 47 percent say they agree. Only 33 percent say they don’t.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ww6wo9gooJHoVMuRvaBfpwN70X8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22406961/image__10_.png"/> <cite>Ethan Winter, Data for Progress</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fJr6tU">
And yet, they do not think philanthropy is a sufficient solution to solving Americans’ inequality problems. When asked about which is a better solution to solve the country’s problems during the pandemic — to raise taxes or to seek more charity from the wealthy —52 percent choose the former and 38 percent say the latter.
</p>
<h3 id="FgWENg">
How Americans feel about Bill Gatses, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eI0Md3">
Four tech billionaires have become some of the world’s most influential people during the pandemic, at center stage in America like never before. Vox asked voters how they felt about these increasingly unavoidable figures.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/38J5SdduC2GjvcCPvPvgVGInF98=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22406888/image__8_.png"/> <cite>Ethan Winter, Data for Progress</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hoz1Ul">
Elon Musk is the most popular of the tech billionaires polled, with 50 percent saying they had a favorable opinion of the Tesla founder and currently the world’s second richest person. Musk is a bipartisan figure: 52 percent of Democrats have a favorable opinion (versus 22 percent unfavorable) and 48 percent of Republicans (versus 25 percent unfavorable.) Musk is especially popular with men: A staggering 66 percent of men view him favorably (versus 21 percent unfavorably).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HlTHcL">
Bill Gates, who has played a quasi-governmental role during the pandemic from his perch and his eponymous foundation, also is viewed very favorably in the throes of the crisis with 55 percent of respondents saying they felt that way, versus 35 percent who felt differently. Gates is especially popular with Democrats, who are fans of his by a 55-percentage point margin.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LR2fQ1">
Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, who are both lightning rods in their own ways, are less popular figures. Just about as many people view Bezos unfavorably as view him favorably. And Zuckerberg himself is under water by a significant margin; 54 percent say they have an unfavorable opinion, including 64 percent of Republicans.
</p>
<h3 id="VQe5nU">
How Americans feel about billionaires’ political power
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cTDbbY">
What unites Americans is a belief that billionaires have too much influence in the political system. Of those polled, 61 percent say they feel that these ultra-wealthy people had too much influence in the 2020 election (62 percent of Republicans agreed with this statement, as did 55 percent of Democrats).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jLx56J">
Whether Joe Biden himself was too close to this billionaire class, predictably, depends on your partisanship. Only 20 percent of Democats say that’s the case. But 72 percent of Republicans say so.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BzvQXA">
Nevertheless, despite being concerned about these billionaires’ power, American voters do not think they pose any sort of existential risk. Asked if billionaires are a threat to democracy, only 28 percent said they agreed, while 54 percent said they disagreed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CMIHyu">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AyGhBH">
</p></li>
<li><strong>Why we can’t stop talking about billionaires</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Protesters standing in a scrubby field and holding a cutout of Jeff Bezos’s face along with a sign saying “Jeff Bezos.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fSWdGDU9bkzfzPY95J_NJT2ifvo=/349x0:4692x3257/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69047452/GettyImages_1299433582.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
The pandemic created a new class of billionaire-dom, turning tech’s mega-billionaires into mega-mega-billionaires at a time when the rest of the economy was cratering. | Chesnot/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Tech billionaires emerged from a year of hardship as more than leaders of iconic companies. They are central — almost too central — characters in American life.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ai96y6">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FFStdf">
When MacKenzie Scott <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/12/15/22176710/mackenzie-scott-bezos-philanthropy-speed-four-billion">unveiled last year</a> that she had donated $6 billion to support 500 nonprofits across the country, overwhelming applause rushed in for a billionaire who probably donated more money directly to charities in a single year than any living person ever had before.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Oc1VGs">
But then something weird happened. She <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/mackenzie-scott/?sref=Wg6QzS2e">ended the year much, much richer</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZQmIX6">
It happened to Jeff Bezos, Scott’s ex-husband and Amazon’s CEO, too. Ditto for Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg. And the same went for <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/6/11/21287395/jack-dorsey-start-small-billionaire-philanthropy-coronavirus-twitter-square-kaepernick-rihanna">Twitter founder Jack Dorsey</a>, whose net worth more than doubled over the last year. All of these billionaire philanthropists ended the first 12 months of the Covid-19 pandemic wealthier than when it started, even though some of them are determined to relinquish their money and power to the masses — or to “keep at it until the safe is empty,” as <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/28/18641623/mackenzie-bezos-giving-pledge-philanthropy-jeff-bezos-divorce">Scott once put it</a>.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott walking in 2010." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/f7nN9we6T7ET2A2HNRUuksCZ7o4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22405821/GettyImages_1079533938.jpg"/> <cite>Matthew Staver/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
MacKenzie Scott and Jeff Bezos each got much wealthier during the pandemic.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bDhQeR">
Instead, they became more moneyed and more powerful. It’s a paradox that neatly encapsulates just how much billionaires won at a time when many Americans lost something.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W6lxIM">
“This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling,” <a href="https://mackenzie-scott.medium.com/384-ways-to-help-45d0b9ac6ad8">wrote Scott last year</a>, before tartly acknowledging the winners that philanthropists can resist acknowledging. “Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9ZFFZc">
At the outset of the pandemic a year ago, I wrote about <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/7/21203179/coronavirus-billionaires-philanthropy-bill-gates-larry-ellison-mark-zuckerberg-jack-dorsey">how Silicon Valley’s richest people were stepping up</a> to help in the face of an unprecedented crisis — and how relying on them was likely to expand and entrench their power and influence. A year later, that largely happened.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HUZInN">
The current crisis has cemented tech billionaires’ status as masters of the universe. They have grown their economic power — both their companies’ market caps and their own personal bank accounts. Many of them now exert greater gravitational pull in civic life through their philanthropic empires and political operations. And we are all more dependent on them and on the private sector more generally, in no small part because of a slow response from a public sector that created a leadership vacuum in the first place.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bbc3YW">
They have emerged from a year of hardship as more than leaders of iconic companies. They are central — almost too central— characters in American life, according to interviews with philanthropy professionals, critics, advisers to the mega-rich, and, yes, some billionaires.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Buv2Ot">
“If you asked someone, ‘Do you think Jeff Bezos is more powerful than the collective Congress?’ you’d probably have people debating that,” said Ro Khanna, a liberal member of Congress who represents much of Silicon Valley.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="QCTMEZ">
<q>“If you asked someone, ‘Do you think Jeff Bezos is more powerful than the collective Congress?’ you’d probably have people debating that”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f2LPfA">
That assessment is backed up in <a href="https://www.filesforprogress.org/datasets/2021/3/dfp-recode-voters-attitudes-billionaires.pdf">new exclusive polling from Vox and Data for Progress</a> that reveals an American public that <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/3/30/22357510/poll-billioniares-data-for-progress-vox-wealth-philanthropy-inequality">is uneasy about its billionaire class</a>. The survey finds that Americans have heated feelings about the ultra-rich, saying by a more than 40 percentage-point margin that billionaires aren’t good role models. Many Americans also say billionaires unfairly got richer during the crisis and should have to pay more in taxes, rather than leaving the country depending on their philanthropy. At the same time, though, many dismiss further-left critiques and say they believe billionaires generally do a good job at giving away their money; by a 50 percentage-point margin, Americans strongly reject the idea that a society that allows billionaires is inherently immoral.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5xIkYSW0POOrKROfxnJjgNzoUTU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22406675/image__6_.png"/> <cite>Ethan Winter, Data for Progress</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eMhkUw">
That’s because, as the survey results suggest, billionaires are also appreciated<em> </em>— and their power is not always nefarious. Yes, the wealthy got wealthier since the pandemic started, but in many ways because they provided services and products Americans desperately needed. Plus, the influence that billionaires gained through their philanthropic and political operations can easily be overstated and oversimplified, in part because Americans are now more attuned to their power in the first place.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jEq441">
But when someone gives away more money in a single year than any living person ever has before and somehow ends the year richer, it raises questions for everyone involved about the system that produces these winners.
</p>
<h3 id="7qIg1B">
How tech billionaires won the pandemic
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OVh9Fv">
If there was already a huge gap between the rich and the poor, this pandemic turned it into a chasm.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NCywWt">
The wealthy were able to hop on private jets, decamp to spacious vacation homes, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22214330/covid-19-vaccine-silicon-valley-concierge-medicine">consult high-end concierge doctors</a>. The poor <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/state-of-working-america-wages-in-2020/">lost 80 percent of the jobs</a> that disappeared, disproportionately labored on the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22332438/minimum-wage-unemployment-democrats">front lines</a>, and were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/income-emerges-as-a-major-predictor-of-coronavirus-infections-along-with-race/2020/06/22/9276f31e-b4a3-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html">more likely to die from the virus than wealthier Americans</a> — and racial minorities were hit even harder. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/covid-19-coronavirus-economy-recession-stock-market/2020/5/6/21248069/stock-market-economy-federal-reserve-jerome-powell">disconnect between the stock market and the economy</a> could not be more stark: The stock market had <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stock-market-good-year/">one of its best years since World War II</a> as America’s economy shed 10 million jobs and <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21582005/joe-biden-poverty-covid">dragged millions more into poverty</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L8ZUKB">
Billionaires and their already-big companies were winners of this yawning inequality. Scott and Bezos and Zuckerberg and Dorsey were not anomalies among the billionaire class. The 500 wealthiest people in the world saw their net worth increase by almost one-third in 2020, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-31/elon-musk-jeff-bezos-smash-records-as-world-s-richest-people-add-1-8-trillion">the greatest increase in the eight-year history</a> of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Mark Zuckerberg speaks virtually on camera during a congressional hearing." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6X8V0OryvAX0oFciDZ6Sn_FSk-Q=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22405887/GettyImages_1231928174.jpg"/> <cite>Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress earlier this year.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Jack Dorsey speaks virtually on camera during a congressional hearing." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/erG4ZzhmfrKXjrCWW19bua-O2aw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22405888/GettyImages_1231928250.jpg"/> <cite>Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Jack Dorsey testifying before Congress earlier this year.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p5WPtT">
That spike was driven disproportionately by the tech titans, the richest people in the world: The pandemic created a new class of billionaire-dom, turning tech’s mega-billionaires into mega-mega-billionaires at a time when the rest of the economy was cratering. At the outset of the pandemic, only one billionaire, Bezos, had more than $100 billion. Today, five do.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="bAegGH">
<q>At the outset of the pandemic, only one billionaire, Bezos, had more than $100 billion. Today, five do.</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HE6lY1">
“The scale of the upside that the wealthiest like the tech billionaires have experienced — in the face of what has happened to the rest of country — should force a fundamental rethink about the society we live in,” said Jenny Stefanotti, who has advised some of Silicon Valley’s ultra-wealthy on philanthropic work. “We can talk all day about why that is the case — because of what happened with the markets and blah blah blah — but I find something fundamentally problematic about that outcome.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1NKfI6">
Many Americans agree. Seventy-two percent of those polled said they found that the fact that the rich had gotten wealthier during the pandemic to be unfair, compared to only 19 percent who found it fair.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OF5o0P">
How did that happen? Tech founders got richer because their companies became more powerful and essential — and they were already dominant before the pandemic. While many non-tech companies surged over the last year, too, the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/06/investing/stocks-sp-500-tech/index.html">tech giants now account for almost one-quarter of the value of the S&amp;P 500</a>, a sign of just how big they have become relative to the rest of corporate America. Shutdowns around the world forced the economy to pivot to digital, and tech companies were positioned to reap the windfall.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Amazon workers demonstrating in front of the Jeff Bezos’s house, with a sign reading “Amazon hurts working people.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_jWq8JOveJgtytL91bHIgX7b7AM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22405897/GettyImages_1229912742.jpg"/> <cite>Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Jeff Bezos has become a target for critics of wealth inequality.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KLlCMQ">
Defenders of billionaires’ wealth gains have a fairly straightforward argument: Their innovations made Americans’ lives more convenient, cheaper, and safer. They <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/pushed-by-pandemic-amazon-goes-on-a-hiring-spree-without-equal.html">created jobs </a>or <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2020/04/03/moderna-ceo-stphane-bancel-becomes-a-billionaire-as-stock-jumps-on-coronavirus-vaccine-news/">vaccines</a>. And public market investors bid up their increasingly successful companies. To fault billionaires for maximizing shareholder value and for getting richer as a result, these defenders say, is to question the capitalist impulses that undergird America’s entire economy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0irk73">
“There are few things as dangerous to the average, everyday person trying to get by as misplaced rage about this issue,” said one person close with several tech billionaires. The anger should be at the government for not taxing them more, not the Jeff Bezoses of the world. “If Jeff Bezos was stealing money, he’d be arrested. The fact that he’s not stealing money means that probably government officials should be arrested.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="jfybFU">
<q>“If Jeff Bezos was stealing money, he’d be arrested. The fact that he’s not stealing money means that probably government officials should be arrested.”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A7Ag6T">
Critics, though, paint a different portrait of American success stories: Their companies made only <em>some</em> Americans’ lives more convenient, cheaper, and safer. They say companies like Amazon put workers at risk and took advantage of third-party sellers, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/10/21215953/amazon-fresh-walmart-grocery-delivery-coronavirus-retail-store-closures">made it even harder for mom-and-pop retail stores to survive</a>. To hear them tell it, these tech titans are throwbacks to the pillaging robber barons, and a sign that the economic system doesn’t work.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V7St09">
“There’s being in the right place at the right time and you get a certain premium for that. You and I open up a lemonade stand on a hot day in a park and we’re being entrepreneurial,” said Chuck Collins, a progressive critic of billionaires at the Institute for Policy Studies. But that’s not what he thinks the tech giants did. “If it’s a water shortage and you and I set up our table to sell water bottles at twice the price or whatever, then we’re benefiting from adverse conditions for others. And that’s kind of a profiteering scenario.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EPFuPa">
So the debate about billionaire tech CEOs in America in some ways boils down to a debate about trillion-dollar tech companies in America. What is a legitimate, hard-earned profit, and what is craven rent-seeking? How much scheming to box out a foe is to-be-expected corporate warfare, and how much is monopolization meriting an antitrust breakup? And amid a pandemic, do companies have any special obligations to society that they don’t have ordinarily, or is their primary calling still to maximize their bottom line?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VIcF5R">
Those are big questions that people naturally disagree on. What you can’t really debate is the reality that these companies are more powerful today than they were before Covid-19. We’ve all been forced to embrace and depend on Big Tech: Your mall may be closed, leaving you dependent on Amazon Prime. Your school may be closed, leaving you dependent on Google Classroom. Your borders may be closed, leaving you dependent on Facebook Messenger to communicate with family.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="One hundred cardboard cutouts of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are displayed outside the US Capitol in 2018." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/I4NoaSO6HiKeeqNyUcsG_synSSE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22405923/GettyImages_1091925298.jpg"/> <cite>Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Big Tech companies have become more dominant than they were before the pandemic.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oeQykb">
Is that good? Americans are evenly split in Vox’s poll on whether these tech companies have done more good than bad for them and their families over the course of the pandemic. But they should get used to it — the long-term power expansion of the industry seems unlikely to reverse any time soon.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kcD2lm">
One of the few things that could halt that is antitrust action, which has <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-are-the-u-s-antitrust-cases-facing-google-facebook-and-others-11608150564">accelerated alongside the tech giants’ pandemic gains</a>. These tech giants have become less optional than ever, but if antitrust advocates have their way, the pandemic would be a high-water mark for their power, rather than an upward inflection point on their path to dominance.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AjOAcE">
And for the billionaires themselves? One of the few things that could halt their fortunes are proposals for higher taxes, which have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/business/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax.html">multiplied during the pandemic, too</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JLzvxZ">
More net worth doesn’t always translate to more power. There are plenty of no-name billionaires who grew their bank accounts during the pandemic but are just as marginal to public life as they were before. And what often gets overlooked by critics of billionaire power is that tech founder-CEOs are not swimming in actual cash, but in stock that they can be reluctant to sell as long as they are in company leadership.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3u4Z7v">
And so tech billionaires’ power primarily comes from their hand on the wheel of America’s most powerful companies.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GypIWB">
“My students get all in a huff about how much money people have made during this time of the pandemic. It’s kind of irrelevant in some ways,” said Akhtar Badshah, who ran <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Mindset-Microsoft-Inspires-Employees/dp/1401603580">philanthropy efforts at Microsoft</a> for 15 years and now teaches at the University of Washington. “To me, it’s pointless. However, what is not pointless is that the gap within certain sectors of the [economy] have increased because of this. And what is the sector as a whole doing to reduce the inequity?”
</p>
<h3 id="NNSKO3">
A testing moment for billionaire philanthropy
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HRbAvd">
One of the ways that tech billionaires can<em> </em>convert their companies’ economic power into personal power is through philanthropy. And billionaire philanthropy faced its biggest testing moment to date at the outset of the pandemic. Would the billionaires save us?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xLI22Z">
It’s hard to tally exactly how much the ultra-wealthy did. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/2/10/22275101/billionaire-charity-jeff-bezos-chronicle-of-philanthropy-coronavirus">nonprofit industry is opaque by design</a>. Tech philanthropists in particular are drawn to vehicles that do not require disclosures of gifts, or they see for-profit vehicles — as opposed to nonprofit grants — as their most effective civic-minded work. Some <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/03/business/stock-market-today#philanthropic-donors-gave-more-than-20-billion-in-response-to-the-pandemic-last-year">early estimates of philanthropic donations</a> during the pandemic are almost certainly a massive undercount because they rely solely on public disclosures. Better data on 2020 will likely come in the middle of the year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fWtLrP">
In this vacuum, proponents and critics of big-money philanthropy gravitate toward their prior beliefs. Proponents point to the dedicated time and eye-popping sums some billionaires spent on responding to the crisis. The other side can’t get over how small even record-setting donations are in comparison to donors’ exploding net worths. And the responses of everyday Americans polled for Vox seem to acknowledge both sides have a point.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5FomDq">
By a spread of 14 percentage points, Americans say they think billionaires have done a good job at giving away their money during the pandemic. But at the same time, when asked if the better solution to inequality is more philanthropy or higher taxes, 52 percent chose taxes and only 38 percent favored charity.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OZjvQTv2DIT_uZPrqIyiQtGCE5Y=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22406673/image__5_.png"/> <cite>Ethan Winter, Data for Progress</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qNXgNt">
“There was a modest increase in giving, but the increase was not equal to the need that existed. And certainly in retrospect, I think the philanthropic sector could have been much more generous,” predicted John Arnold, a billionaire donor who is <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/7/25/8891899/john-arnold-billionaire-criticism-donor-advised-funds-silicon-valley-philanthropic-loophole">pushing Congress to impose new regulations</a> requiring philanthropies to give their assets away more quickly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G5XhgJ">
Ironically, billionaires’ perceived thriftiness in the past year means that the ultra-rich didn’t amass as much power as they might have had they brandished their generosity more visibly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KxB39B">
Charitable gifts from billionaires sometimes allow them to influence policies as if they were political leaders — even though these donors haven’t been elected. For instance, when <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/7/3/18629810/mark-zuckerberg-cory-booker-newark-schools">Zuckerberg donated $100 million to try to fix Newark schools</a> a decade ago, the Silicon Valley billionaire suddenly gained huge influence over education policy in New Jersey’s largest city.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G3S3GT">
Billionaires and their aides often bristle at the notion that their altruism can give them undue influence, especially when their gifts are addressing basic needs. What power did Craig Newmark gain when he <a href="https://cheddar.com/media/craigslist-founder-commits-25-million-to-combat-food-insecurity">donated $25 million last year to the nation’s food banks</a> to feed the hungry? We asked him.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Craigslist founder Craig Newmark attends the 2016 Time 100 Gala in New York City." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sAXzGIv0bg5KfvzOXpXZQ_r_tkQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22405954/GettyImages_524761596.jpg"/> <cite>Taylor Hill/FilmMagic</cite>
<figcaption>
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark donated millions to food banks across the country.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cH8kXO">
“How did I do that and what’s the secret there? I can show my ignorance and naivete there,” said Newmark. The Craigslist founder said he had not noticed any broader power grab by billionaires during the last year. “I haven’t seen it. Maybe I haven’t been looking.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ehtnQt">
It may be unsurprising that a billionaire philanthropist would say that. But the same dynamic has struck some billionaire critics, too. <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/7/21203179/coronavirus-billionaires-philanthropy-bill-gates-larry-ellison-mark-zuckerberg-jack-dorsey">Megan Tompkins-Stange entered the coronavirus pandemic concerned</a> that the rich would make major philanthropic gifts that “would be leveraged into reputation, capital, and more power in the political sphere.” A year later, she says, “I don’t think that happened.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xICMW0">
That’s in part, she said, because philanthropists disclosed smaller donations than she thought they might. But that’s also because many donors tended to focus on basic problems — like the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/2/21206205/jeff-bezos-100-million-charity-food-banks-feeding-america">$100 million that Bezos donated to a food bank</a>, Feeding America — rather than trying to place a stamp on US policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bkxbUO">
To her, that’s a nod to the moment (and the polling).
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="ySdez7">
<q>A year into the pandemic, the polling shows that the general public is not gushing with praise for billionaires</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gcLcSl">
“Billionaires don’t have the same reverence in the eyes of the public that they had five years ago and so I think that some of their purchase in the policy process is not necessarily as palpable as it was even four or five years ago,” said Tompkins-Stange, who studies the policy influence of the rich. “I think the critique about foundations being too involved in policy and the democratic process perhaps maybe counterintuitively has led to a reticence on their part to step in in the case of government failure.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mGQSHO">
A year into the pandemic, the polling shows that the general public is not gushing with praise for billionaires or their philanthropic accomplishments. Some billionaire philanthropists, like Microsoft founder Bill Gates, are popular (55 percent approve; 35 percent disapprove); others, like Zuckerberg, are not (31 percent approve; 54 percent disapprove).
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WoKWZMrRRnF3O6xUikQQTSqLh8Q=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22406672/image__4_.png"/> <cite>Ethan Winter, Data for Progress</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nEYlhU">
Even when philanthropists made gifts that were sorely needed during the pandemic — such as when Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/7/21502789/mark-zuckerberg-center-for-tech-and-civic-life-donations">donated a needed $450 million</a> to support American election administration — <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/9/1/21417022/mark-zuckerberg-elections-300-million-facebook-center-for-tech-and-civic-life">they couldn’t earn easy PR wins</a> and even found themselves <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=zuckerberg+money+center+tech+civic+life&amp;tbm=nws&amp;sxsrf=ALeKk02nquLJMYdJaC83y2c2hQQj4SSq4A:1617053241820&amp;ei=OUZiYOvGMfqV0PEPv5OqSA&amp;start=20&amp;sa=N&amp;ved=0ahUKEwirx77guNbvAhX6CjQIHb-JCgk4ChDw0wMImAE&amp;biw=1252&amp;bih=657&amp;dpr=1.1">dogged by right-wing backlash</a>. And so while billionaire critics also entered the pandemic with concerns that the wealthy would manage to burnish their public profiles with unwarranted praise, the power grab wasn’t as severe as some feared.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sxWvjm">
The massive exception is, of course, Gates. Since the earliest days of the pandemic, he has been one of the most omnipresent spokespeople for taking the health crisis seriously. The Microsoft founder-turned-public-health expert played an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/world/bill-gates-vaccine-coronavirus.html">almost governmental role throughout the pandemic</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="owlBuT">
Gates has corralled drug makers to develop drugs for poor countries; convinced monarchs and presidents around the world to fund the World Health Organization; and served as an informal adviser for Washington policymakers. Whether he is playing diplomat, fundraiser, or doctor, no private citizen has had more reach in the realm of public health over the last year than the world’s third-richest person.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CQIRMe">
Gates in some ways made the best argument possible for billionaire philanthropy, playing a leadership role when the federal government wouldn’t.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Bill and Melinda Gates on stage with Emmanuel Macron." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CUuonC5rrBETJgEL_N35_qEOO7g=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22405963/GettyImages_1040713262.jpg"/> <cite>Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Bill and Melinda Gates acted as quasi-diplomats during the pandemic.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TS1uAb">
Private philanthropists like Gates say they aren’t trying to grab power, and many of them share a concern that critics are sloppily stereotyping the rich.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LMO6jb">
Joe Lonsdale, who co-founded <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/16/21323458/palantir-ipo-hhs-protect-peter-thiel-cia-intelligence">the data company Palantir</a>, said private philanthropists like him are merely motivated by trying to do anything they can to help amid all-hands-on-deck crises. For him, that included starting a for-profit biopharmaceutical company, Resilience Bio, that manufactures gene therapies and mRNA.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CtYlx8">
“Yes, us starting that does ‘increase wealth inequality,’ but it’s not clear it would have been better for us all to go to the beach,” said Lonsdale. “Positive sum wealth creation is not something anybody should be ashamed about, although our culture works better when everybody takes their success and finds ways to contribute.”
</p>
<h3 id="U3CYuH">
Why tech billionaires may have less political power than we think
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DeRZmZ">
To hear some people tell it, all of this focus on charity misses the bigger picture of how billionaires truly shaped American society over the past year. Billionaires’ single most significant power flex, they say, has been funneling their millions into politics, specifically to help oust Trump.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pVsUKS">
Even if you believe that America’s billionaires should have been maniacally focused on combating the coronavirus, you might be inclined to agree that the best return on that mission was achieved not through feel-good philanthropy but by beating Trump, who bungled the federal response.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xBzdTg">
But at the dawn of the Biden administration, these tech titans may actually have less power than they typically might given their massive donations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FEazGF">
On the surface, Democratic mega-donors played an enormous role in the presidential campaign, financing hundreds of millions of dollars into super PACs that helped back Joe Biden’s campaign. Titans like <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/21451481/linkedin-reid-hoffman-billionaire-democratic-party-tension-silicon-valley">LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman</a> and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt executed <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/27/21271157/tech-billionaires-joe-biden-reid-hoffman-laurene-powell-jobs-dustin-moskovitz-eric-schmidt">sweeping, often secretive plans</a> to push new political technologies and raise big money for outside groups backing Biden.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5qDfNl">
But you could make a good argument that billionaires now have less political influence than they have in years past, despite the large checks. That’s because there’s so much other money in politics.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZZzl51">
This trend dates back to at least 2016, when GOP presidential contenders competed for the affection of billionaires who could donate to their super PACs. But then Donald Trump ran roughshod over his Republican opponents while being massively outspent — a formula he repeated in the general election against Hillary Clinton, who had her own stable of super PAC-donating Democratic billionaires.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZCGZny">
Four years later, the small-donor revolution that Trump and Bernie Sanders popularized was in full swing. Big donors spent more money on the 2020 election than ever before, but the amount of money that other Americans on the whole spent on the 2020 election skyrocketed to $14 billion, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/10/cost-of-2020-election-14billion-update/">twice as much as was spent in 2016.</a> And so while the top 100 donors of the 2020 cycle contributed $700 million more than did the biggest donors in 2016, the proportion of total money raised that came from them actually dropped compared to 2016, according to an analysis done for Vox by the Center for Responsive Politics. And the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/us/politics/bloomberg-campaign-900-million.html">billionaires who ran for president themselves</a> got clobbered.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GuNn2Z">
For all the exhortations about money in politics, it can seem like the heyday of billionaire influence in politics was five years ago, or even 10 years ago — not today.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="Bd8CeP">
<q>It can seem like the heyday of billionaire influence in politics was five years ago, or even 10 years ago — not today</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MaJYIE">
And yet, Americans still feel that billionaires had too much influence in the 2020 election: 61 percent of those polled said they thought so, including majorities of both Republicans and Democrats.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="title">
“Both of these things can be true at the same time — that billionaires are arguably less important and less powerful because of the ridiculous amounts of money flowing through the system,” said Anthony Nownes, the co-author of a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Entrepreneurial-Advocacy-American-Politics/dp/0190883006">new book about the rise of Silicon Valley political donors</a>. “But it can also be true that they’re still incredibly powerful and important players.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3pSKoO">
What further weakens billionaires’ political power is that it’s not clear that their donations will translate to significant influence in the Biden administration — at least publicly.
</p>
<aside id="yjmMyi">
<div>
</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jo3bZl">
Biden has sung sanguine notes in the past about <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/449271-biden-doesnt-want-to-demonize-wealth-rich-people-are-just-as-patriotic-as">billionaires not being “bad guys,”</a> but he does have to watch his left flank, which is led by voices who often cast billionaires as villains. He has promised to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. And so while a few tech billionaires like Hoffman and Schmidt certainly have access to the administration, Biden has to be ultra-mindful of how much he acknowledges those ties in public.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J7NPVx">
Whether you think Biden is too close with billionaires is a question in polling shaped strongly by your partisanship, according to Vox’s poll. But if you’re one of the majority of Americans who thinks that billionaires, in general, have too much influence in politics, there is ample reason to think it is waning.
</p>
<h3 id="QPiFuz">
So where does this leave America?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AW5GE3">
At the onset of the pandemic, you could squint and envision two possible readings of the country’s thermometer on its billionaires. You could see the mood getting hotter and antipathy toward the mega-rich growing as the pandemic revealed and exacerbated inequities in the economy. But you could also imagine the pandemic serving as a coolant, with billionaire philanthropists’ generosity front and center in America like never before.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lh2aUN">
Logically, it feels like the answer should be colder — that in a moment of solidarity we came to appreciate the rich. But the impression I gleaned from interviews was that our country is as riven by so-called class warfare as it’s ever been. Billionaires, perhaps because of a skittishness to act publicly, today don’t get as much “credit” for their philanthropy or political wins as they might have in the past. While they should be in a better place reputationally, the bipartisan public conversation is increasingly driven by a desire to tax them at higher rates, break up their companies, and more closely scrutinize their philanthropy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nCHhBq">
You need look no further than the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bezos-mansion-protesters-set-up-guillotine-demand-higher-wages-2020-8">guillotines that activists rolled out in front of Bezos’s mansion in August</a>. Or look at our polling: By a margin of 13 percentage points, Americans say they have generally negative feelings about billionaires; and by a spread of 42 percentage points, they say that America’s billionaires do not serve as good role models.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Lhok2Hj79YtYfTq7YUY3czufaP0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22406677/image__7_.png"/> <cite>Ethan Winter, Data for Progress</cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JKYWn2">
Lonsdale said critics are using the wealthy as scapegoats rather than tackling the root drivers of inequality by fixing America’s education and criminal justice systems, for instance.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hRi13N">
“It’s much easier for populists instead to demonize easy general targets, and to play on fear and envy versus doing the hard work of allowing innovation and building to make it easier for everyone to have the opportunity to thrive,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6dZ7NM">
It feels Pollyannaish to think that these populists will accept that argument when the pandemic is retired to history. Years from now, it may be tough to recall what any billionaire or their company did to mitigate the pandemic’s destruction on the margins. And there’s little evidence that this will somehow lead to a come-to-Jesus moment for billionaires that unleashes billions more in philanthropic capital over the next few decades.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Demonstrators march in front of Amazon’s headquarters in November 2020 holding a sign saying “Tax Bezos.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-4JLaq-a9Ar4Fdf5fSSg6jDMWfs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22406085/GettyImages_1229825564.jpg"/> <cite>David Ryder/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Demonstrators march in front of Amazon’s headquarters in November 2020.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8nQYRX">
Meanwhile, Americans’ dependence on these billionaires’ tech companies seems unlikely to reverse anytime soon. It’s not totally clear what America’s economy will resemble in the long aftermath of the pandemic, but is there any doubt that some of the digital-first trends that advantage tech giants like Amazon and Google will continue?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OFGbOz">
A more and more powerful tech industry, led by wealthier and wealthier founders. A group of philanthropists somehow giving away more than ever, but still not enough to appease critics. A political ecosystem that Americans of all ideologies still feel is controlled by the rich.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="DTULS9">
<q>If this all seems to you like a system waiting to combust, you’re not alone</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9j9iXn">
If this all seems to you like a system waiting to combust, you’re not alone.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ynk9wQ">
David Risher, a top lieutenant to Bezos during the early days of Amazon, worries about that too. He said he was quite bothered that the wealthy — including him and his wife — got even richer over the last year. And he’s simultaneously concerned about the demonization of the wealthy that has made America more tense.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H54Vfj">
“Wealth can do incredible things,” said Risher. But “it’s hard not to get very, very frustrated — or even angry — with this accumulation of wealth that’s happened so fast, and a tax policy that hasn’t kept up with it.”
</p></li>
<li><strong>Lil Nas X’s evil gay Satanic agenda, explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A still from the video for the Lil nas X song “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FDA7udjQCoaSHkV3_4ocbjK6MR8=/400x0:2555x1616/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69045723/Screen_Shot_2021_03_29_at_5.59.52_PM.0.png"/>
<figcaption>
He’s gonna ride til he can’t no more. | <a class="ql-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6swmTBVI83k" target="_blank">Lil Nas X</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Lil Nas X put human blood into 666 Nikes because being queer means embracing your villainy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RmWitJ">
Not content to merely spur controversy and debate within <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/8/30/20838444/lil-nas-x-country-music-association-awards-nominations-billy-ray-cyrus">the country music industry</a>, Lil Nas X has jump-started the 21st century’s first foray into <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/10/30/13413864/satanic-panic-ritual-abuse-history-explained">Satanic Panic</a> by selling blood-infused Nikes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8P8Sa6">
Welcome!
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TbdqxZ">
It all started with the March 26 release of his latest music video, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6swmTBVI83k">Montero (Call Me By Your Name)</a>,” in which he cavorts erotically with various iterations of Satan, is stoned by a crowd throwing buttplugs, transforms a spear that’s been homoerotically aimed at him (a la <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/stories/saint-sebastian-as-a-gay-icon">St. Sebastian</a>) into a stripper pole, and then slides all the way down the pole into Hell before giving Satan a lap dance as an excuse to seduce him, murder him, and steal the crown of Hell for himself in a win for bottoms everywhere.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hsf4o8">
Oh, and he does all of this while <a href="https://twitter.com/LilNasX/status/1375297562396139520">singing</a> with a mix of joy and wryness about gay sex, the frustration of living a closeted life, the pain of loving someone who’s still in the closet — <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/4/20849357/lil-nas-x-kevin-hart-the-shop-uninterrupted">Lil Nas himself is openly gay</a> — and the jealousy he feels toward straight people who get to live their lives without facing bigotry and oppression due to their sexuality. “You live in the dark, boy, I cannot pretend,” he sings. “I’m not fazed, only here to sin.” The song’s subtitle, “Call Me By Your Name,” also doubles as a refrain, in which he sings, “Call me by your name / tell me you love me in private” — another reference to the closet, as well as a reference to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/11/21/16552862/call-me-by-your-name-review-timothee-chalamet-armie-hammer">acclaimed 2017 film</a> about an illicit gay affair.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="abOqBH">
So you can see how the music video might be a little bit shocking — especially from the portion of the public that loves a good moral panic and believes queerness is a sin.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3rDYFj">
But Lil Nas X apparently wanted to ratchet up the potential for outrage just a bit further. So he partnered with a creative agency named MSCHF, a Brooklyn-based promoter with <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/24/14912316/zardulu-viral-videos-mythmaking-surrealism-pedro-lasch">serious Zardulu energy</a> that’s become known for a string of viral stunt promotions. In 2019, MSCHF released a viral pair of sneakers called “Jesus Shoes,” which claimed to contain a drop of holy water in every pair.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MrvtQV">
Together, Lil Nas X and MSCHF designed “Satan Shoes”: a limited edition of 666 pairs of custom Nike Airs in which the air bubble in the sole has been filled with a mixture of red ink and “one drop of human blood.” The shoes, which cost $1,018 per pair and went on sale at 11 am Monday, <a href="https://twitter.com/saint/status/1376572351299657731">reportedly</a> sold out in under a minute (or should we say … soul’d out?) — although Nike has <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2021/03/29/nike-sues-company-making-lil-nas-x-satan-shoes/">reportedly moved to sue MSCHF</a> and block sales of the shoes, citing infringement.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DNfFGo">
Outside of sneaker culture, you wouldn’t typically expect a limited number of shoes being sold at a very high price to set the world on fire. After all, how much trouble could a few hundred pairs of shoes possibly cause? Yet in the three days since they were announced, all Hell has broken loose. According to many outraged conservatives, in fact, these boots were made for Pied Pipering children directly into the fiery pit of eternal damnation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5yw9wZ">
The “Montero” music video, with its decadent queer eroticism, spurred an <a href="https://people.com/music/lil-nas-x-responds-to-backlash-over-montero-music-video/">initial homophobic backlash</a> as conservative viewers chided Lil Nas X for corrupting children. But if the video drew a wave of backlash, the video together with the Satan shoes drew a veritable tsunami.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wh9Yro">
The resultant controversy has spawned a series of endlessly entertaining moments — cascading dominos of devilish diversion, starting with the enjoyably campy video that began all of this hysteria:
</p>
<div id="kQHH0j">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tUrSpL">
And beyond the initial hilarity, the shoes have also prompted a broader discussion about bigotry, homophobia, the historical roots of Satanic Panic in the US, and whether all that much has really changed since Satanic Panic began in the 1980s.
</p>
<h3 id="gQ0osg">
A fight for the soles of the nation
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1VRNIT">
The world found out about the Satan shoes from this tweet on March 26, which immediately went viral:
</p>
<div id="fxDWyX">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
MSCHF x Lil Nas X “Satan Shoes” <br/><br/> Nike Air Max ’97<br/> Contains 60cc ink and 1 drop of human blood<br/> ️666 Pairs, individually numbered<br/> $1,018<br/> ️March 29th, 2021 <a href="https://t.co/XUMA9TKGSX">pic.twitter.com/XUMA9TKGSX</a>
</p>
— SAINT (<span class="citation" data-cites="saint">@saint</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/saint/status/1375532655551389696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2021</a>
</blockquote></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IelDrB">
The <a href="https://satan.shoes/">satan.shoes website</a> that promoter MSCHF built features a photo of one of the blood-infused shoes rotating against a backdrop of orgiastic demons styled as ’90s collage-style website wallpaper, along with quotes from <em>Paradise Lost</em> and the Bible:
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A screenshot of the MSCHF website featuring a black sneaker and satanic wallpaper." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fSrkJ7-UuMs6mv7ryq1sygYfxo0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22405322/Screen_Shot_2021_03_29_at_10.36.17_AM.png"/> <cite>MSCHF</cite>
<figcaption>
Get thee behind me.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7NnWKW">
The launch of the website led to this official description of the process by which the shoes — purchased by MSCHF and altered after the fact — were injected with the ink-and-blood mix, which MSCHF co-founder Daniel Greenberg provided to the New York Times, and which the New York Times, paper of record, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/28/style/nike-satan-shoes-lil-Nas-x.html">subsequently quoted</a>: “Uhhhhhh yeah hahah not medical professionals we did it ourselves lol.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SAIQ5J">
Nike, for its part, was quick to issue a statement to the Times emphasizing that the shoes were not sanctioned by Nike:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BwRQsQ">
“We do not have a relationship with Little Nas X or MSCHF. Nike did not design or release these shoes, and we do not endorse them.”
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yjxcpl">
In context, the terse dismissal carries the terrified tone of a jock shouting, “no homo” — an impression bolstered by Nike’s subsequent <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2021/03/29/nike-sues-company-making-lil-nas-x-satan-shoes/">reported lawsuit</a> against MSCHF.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="as4MuG">
For what it’s worth, the Church of Satan also <a href="https://twitter.com/ChurchofSatan/status/1376295439398408195">distanced itself from the stunt</a> — but not before the shoes prompted intense alarm among prominent Christians. Most visible was this tweet from South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who took time out from presiding over <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/south-dakota-kristi-noem-covid-1142068/">the worst Covid-19 response in the US</a> to cry that Christians are in “a fight for the soul of the nation,” implying literally that Lil Nas X’s shoes are a Satanic influence.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aHLgqV">
“Our kids are being told that this kind of product is, not only okay, it’s ‘exclusive.’” Noem wrote. “But do you know what’s more exclusive? Their God-given eternal soul.”
</p>
<div id="IIHGuf">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
Our kids are being told that this kind of product is, not only okay, it’s “exclusive.” But do you know what’s more exclusive? Their God-given eternal soul.<br/><br/>We are in a fight for the soul of our nation. We need to fight hard. And we need to fight smart. We have to win. <a href="https://t.co/m1k1YWFpuo">https://t.co/m1k1YWFpuo</a>
</p>
— Governor Kristi Noem (<span class="citation" data-cites="govkristinoem">@govkristinoem</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/govkristinoem/status/1376239196709478400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TM72FD">
Noem’s response garnered a wide range of reactions, most notably from Lil Nas himself, who <a href="https://twitter.com/LilNasX/status/1376245938226798594">subsequently boggled</a> that she was “a whole governor” who was “tweeting about some damn shoes” instead of doing her job.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UVzcp4">
But other conservatives also spoke out against the shoes, including popular Tennessee pastor Greg Locke, who called Lil Nas a “thug” and <a href="https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1376233608868986882">railed against</a> the shoes as “a bunch of demonism, devilism, and psychotic wickedness.” Black right-wing activist <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/10/10/21510839/trump-speech-after-coronavirus-hospitalization-blexit">Candace Owens</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1376253935737057291">called out</a> Lil Nas and his Black fans for “promoting Satan shoes to wear on our feet.” Rapper <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2017/12/joyner-lucas-viral-hit-im-not-racist-is-exhausting.html">Joyner Lucas</a> complained that Lil Nas was corrupting his legions of young fans — to which Lil Nas quickly clapped back, as he did for most of the louder grievances:
</p>
<div id="DIVyf8">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
i literally sing about lean &amp; adultery in old town road. u decided to let your child listen. blame yourself. <a href="https://t.co/gYmTi49BqB">https://t.co/gYmTi49BqB</a>
</p>
— nope (<span class="citation" data-cites="LilNasX">@LilNasX</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/LilNasX/status/1376382370283020290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ATJHmd">
(My personal favorite response born of all this social media chaos is <a href="https://twitter.com/TimRunsHisMouth/status/1376290996611379212">this incredible “hole for Satan” tweet</a>, made by a Christian comedian who seemed to think “hole for Satan” was a legitimately funny burn, which consequently makes it the funniest thing anyone has ever said.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8XoAWV">
But concern over the shoes has predominantly been met with ridicule on social media, and trends like <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=satanic%20panic">Satanic Panic</a> and #<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23satanshoes">SatanShoes</a> have made the rounds as a result. Lil Nas X seems to be exulting in the controversy. He was quick to double down by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESf8Un3g9zM">posting a faux apology on YouTube</a> that essentially functioned as a Rickroll for the music video’s aforementioned<strong> </strong>bump-and-grind moment with Satan:
</p>
<div id="6dzbyl">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
Lil Nas X Apologizes for Satan Shoe <a href="https://t.co/bQ1hbmHQqh">https://t.co/bQ1hbmHQqh</a> <a href="https://t.co/hM5vsLRSAk">pic.twitter.com/hM5vsLRSAk</a>
</p>
— nope (<span class="citation" data-cites="LilNasX">@LilNasX</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/LilNasX/status/1376231200314912768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JdL2aa">
He also continued courting attention and scorn in equal measure by promising to release a Christian-friendly version of the shoe, with a nod to the famously homophobic, if <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/5/29/18644354/chick-fil-a-anti-gay-donations-homophobia-dan-cathy">kinda reformed</a>, Christian-founded fast-food chain Chick-fil-A:
</p>
<div id="drCSLl">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
we have decided to drop these to even the score. damn y’all happy now? <a href="https://t.co/RGpCiiRbGb">pic.twitter.com/RGpCiiRbGb</a>
</p>
— nope (<span class="citation" data-cites="LilNasX">@LilNasX</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/LilNasX/status/1376322235972022272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8AwaN8">
The artist also made it clear how fully he anticipated all of the outrage — and how happy he is to ride the waves of it to even greater success:
</p>
<div id="sYhFdZ">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
i had 9 months to plan this rollout. y’all are not gonna win bro.
</p>
— nope (<span class="citation" data-cites="LilNasX">@LilNasX</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/LilNasX/status/1376568409295491081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mhXHGM">
But while he’s clearly been having fun with the responses, he’s also been consistent about bluntly explaining the importance of the song and how it fits into his role as one of the few out gay entertainers in the music industry.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0McB7s">
In fact, the whole topic has spawned ongoing conversations about everything from queer subtext in art to religious moral hypocrisy to (my personal favorite) the storied folkloric tradition of associating queerness with demon-fucking.
</p>
<h3 id="gphjFV">
Be gay, do crimes, enjoy hell
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8NBruR">
Lil Nas X, as much a performance artist as any other Hollywood star, has made it clear that he intended for “Montero” to spawn exactly this level of outrage in precisely the way that said outrage has unfolded. In essence, it’s the entire package of “Montero” — the video, the shoes, and the social media backlash — that he’s presenting as art. All of it taken together creates a commentary about modern-day witch hunts, modern-day Christianity in general, and modern-day queer identity.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wlJ9Hu">
The video for “Montero” uses mostly classical imagery from a traditional version of Christianity to showcase how intertwined the languages of religiosity and homoeroticism have always been. In case it’s not clear from the sequence where Lil Nas X throws buttplugs at himself in the shape of stones, all of the titillating erotic elements in the video are intended as metaphors. He also plays all the characters in the video, and so essentially winds up self-flagellating — another bit of erotic play, this time on the theme of <a href="http://primal-page.com/farber1.htm">eroticized guilt and self-hate</a> that also runs through Christian iconography.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4cCbbX">
The classical religious imagery in the video functions precisely the way religious imagery always has for many queer people — as a way of inserting queer subtext and overlaying figurative storytelling onto more socially acceptable Biblical narratives. Remember, queer people have historically been denied access to salvation through legitimized readings of the Bible and stories like the fall of Adam and Eve — not to mention the constant reminders from most Christian churches that being gay is a sin. In response, they’ve inserted subtextual interpretations into Biblical stories and readings of characters, and passed those subtextual readings down through the centuries.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6eG2X7">
The “Montero” video is in keeping with this tradition: It teems with traditionally homoerotic religious imagery, like the phallic spearing of <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/stories/saint-sebastian-as-a-gay-icon">St. Sebastian</a>, the <a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/stupid-sexy-satan-the-allure-of-the-ultimate-evil">erotically charged Miltonian depiction of Satan</a> as a ripped hot guy, and of course the bondage <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tentacle_erotica">implications</a> of tangling with a giant snake in the Garden of Eden. Lil Nas X showcases, calls out, and celebrates all of this long-established subtext, making it overtly sexual. In doing this, he not only creates an explicitly queer religious commentary, but he challenges Christianity to reckon with the hidden queer identities in its midst. And he does it all while he’s singing about loving a man who’s still trapped in the closet — a societal closet that Christianity helped create and still reinforces.
</p>
<div id="07Qz6N">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="und">
<a href="https://t.co/F8EE7pGVS8">pic.twitter.com/F8EE7pGVS8</a>
</p>
— nope (<span class="citation" data-cites="LilNasX">@LilNasX</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/LilNasX/status/1375297562396139520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mLpDv2">
Lil Nas X is deeply aware, as most queer people are, that the queer experience has always been defined by deviance, primarily because mainstream society has historically refused to legitimize any other kind of queer experience. Queerness has always been associated with the <a href="https://www.atmostfear-entertainment.com/culture/traditions/gothic-tradition-queer-monstrosity/">monstrous and diabolical</a>, with queer influences being framed as <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/6/11/18652876/queer-true-crime-lgbt-lgbtq-stonewall-polchin">corrupt and perverse</a> and queer people experiencing <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/5/8/5691650/lgbt-people-are-more-likely-than-straight-people-to-go-to-jail">higher rates of imprisonment</a> than straight people, all while being disallowed to marry, start families, and enjoy “normal” lives. Thus, queer people have learned to embrace and own their own social ostracism, turning deviance into <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/6/8/5786368/lgbt-gay-pride-month-2019">something to celebrate</a>.
</p>
<div id="UAQX5x">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
They made us to be monsters <br/>Then gasped<br/>As we grew fangs and wings.
</p>
— Thembo of Light #BLM✊ ✊ ✊ (<span class="citation" data-cites="DJxMatchax">@DJxMatchax</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/DJxMatchax/status/1376317372756152320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zkaNIc">
The essence of being queer, in other words, is to “<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/12/11/20991671/memes-decade-doge-baby-yoda">be gay, do crimes</a>,” and to <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21417212/what-are-the-gayest-disney-films-mulan-queer-subtext">celebrate monstrosity</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="EtVDwy">
Lil Nas anticipated the backlash to his stunt — and weaponized it to make a point about religious intolerance
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vS6Iyn">
These themes aren’t particularly deep — they’re a well-established part of queer theory, religious history, and media criticism. Most people probably wouldn’t even need to know much about them to understand the metaphors in “Montero.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hlz8Dc">
But there’s just one problem: Modern Christianity <a href="https://twitter.com/The_Law_Boy/status/1376333865099345920">isn’t exactly keen on figurative interpretations</a>, especially when it comes to demons and gay people.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1pk6L3">
Modern evangelical Christianity is largely influenced by the kind of epic Christian fantasy that emerged during the 1980s when <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21525488/witches-of-america-alex-mar">writers like Frank Peretti</a> turned the concept of “spiritual warfare” into, ironically, a kind of Dungeons-and-Dragons-like role play that saw good Christians quite literally fighting and defeating actual demons through prayer and spiritual badassery. Fueled by Satanic Panic, that version of Christianity <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22288379/rush-limbaugh-radio-show-impact">spread like wildfire</a> across the country during the rapid growth of evangelicalism throughout the 1980s and ’90s. And it never really went away — as Lil Nas X’s strategic baiting has made clear.
</p>
<div id="XLcJEg">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
Lil Nas X is really exposing how many Christians think of Satan not in spiritual terms as a force of temptation and punishment for earthly wrongdoing, but in Diablo II terms as a second god who has magic powers and will take over as main God if he gathers enough Worship Points
</p>
— Cliff Jerrison (<span class="citation" data-cites="pervocracy">@pervocracy</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/pervocracy/status/1376502538229415942?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g54g8b">
Simultaneously, Christians’ justification of the persecution of queer people has historically been based upon very literal interpretations (and frequent <a href="http://religiousinstitute.org/denom_statements/homosexuality-not-a-sin-not-a-sickness-part-ii-what-the-bible-does-and-does-not-say/">misinterpretations</a>) of Biblical passages. These include verses in which sodomy is discussed and other same-sex subjects are hinted at broadly; this is also the approach that’s been used over the centuries to <a href="https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/">justify slavery</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/witchcraft-economics-reformation-catholic-protestant-market-share">burning women alive for alleged witchcraft</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lrHvji">
So a queer Black entertainer, singing about gay sex and flirting with the occult all in one fell swoop? That’s basically a bingo card of challenges to Christian literalism — and many Christians, at least on social media, seem to be failing the test.
</p>
<div id="CIbBYK">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
satanic panic stuff is wild because you have one side being like “don’t you understand symbolism and art, even a little bit, even conceptually?” and the other side responding “no, absolutely not even a little”
</p>
— Law Boy, Esq. (<span class="citation" data-cites="The_Law_Boy">@The_Law_Boy</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/The_Law_Boy/status/1376333865099345920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wdOa68">
You might be asking: What’s the point of all this? Why would Lil Nas X bother to get people riled up and angry for no real reason?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Uh19g2">
But there’s actually an excellent reason. It’s virtually unheard of to see an openly gay entertainer sing about being in love and having positive gay sexual experiences, let alone one as famous as Lil Nas X — who didn’t come out until after he was already famous. He is clearly determined to make his own outing into a positive, inspiring act, and making music about his queer identity is part of that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UebaJG">
But the flip side of that positivity is the joyous subversion that’s such a huge part of queer creation: acknowledging and celebrating your deviance. Lil Nas X has cut straight to the core of the queer experience with “Montero” and its accompanying diabolical shoes, framing queer people as fabulously demonic. In presenting that side of queer identity, he’s owning his queer Black heritage and anticipating the response to his daring performativity.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HFlpKS">
He’s also arguably inviting Christians to kick back and not start a new moral crisis over something so relatively trivial. But the nature of the stunt is that he’s already anticipated this predictable moral panic and framed it in advance as the kind of response that proves his point about the need for queer people to reject hate and choose to love themselves.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5t1sRg">
“i spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the shit y’all preached would happen to me because i was gay,” Lil Nas X <a href="https://twitter.com/LilNasX/status/1375857638869585922">tweeted</a>. “so i hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vy8Y0s">
It’s possible there will be more controversies yet to come around “Montero,” Christianity-adjacent or otherwise; many people have <a href="https://twitter.com/ArthurityTam/status/1375661317693059072">pointed out</a> the video’s alleged plagiarism of the FKA Twigs video “Cellophane” (which also features a stripper pole to Hell), <a href="https://www.nme.com/en_asia/news/music/director-of-fka-twigs-cellophane-video-responds-to-similarities-in-lil-nas-xs-montero-video-2909988">including the director</a> of the latter. But the backlash to the music video — and to those 666 pairs of shoes with their 666 drops of human blood — reveals how skilled Lil Nas X is at owning a conversation and asserting his identity in an innovative way, all while making music that justifies the hype.
</p>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Skipper Manpreet Singh returns to lead India in Argentina</strong> - India will also play two practice matches against the home team on April 6 and 7, followed by two more on April 13 and 14 as part of their preparations for the Tokyo Olympics this July</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Indian Premier League | Puma becomes official kit partner of RCB</strong> - Puma will now have exclusive retailing rights to RCB’s take down and replica jerseys, adding pan-India merchandise reach for the franchise across retail and e-commerce channels</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>England garnered valuable experience in India, will stand them in good stead: head coach Silverwood</strong> - Silverwood also spoke about England’s much-debated rotation policy that has drawn a lot of criticism recently, reiterating that he wouldn’t change the approach</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Interested in captaining Australia again: Steve Smith</strong> - The 31-year-old served a one-year ban from playing and was disqualified from leading Australia for two years because of his role in the 2018 ball-tampering scandal.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lakers hang on for narrow win over Magic</strong> - Second win for defending champion sans James and Davis</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>President Ram Nath Kovind undergoes successful bypass surgery at AIIMS</strong> - Ram Nath Kovind visited the Army’s Research and Referral (R&amp;R) Hospital following chest discomfort.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>‘Pesaha’ appam is a must on Maundy Thursday in many Christian households in Kerala</strong> - ‘Pesaha’ appam, an unleavened bread made of rice flour, is cooked in many Christian households</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Six children burnt to death in Bihar’s Araria</strong> - At least six children were burnt to death when fire broke out in the house they were playing on Tuesday in Araria district of north-east Bihar. The d</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>When PR agencies run election campaigns</strong> - Political parties and candidates have outsourced their promotion to professional outfits</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>NIA seizes high-end car ‘registered’ in Sachin Vaze’s name</strong> - The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday seized a high-end car apparently registered in the name of arrested Mumbai Police officer Sachin V</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Covid: Italy introduces quarantine for EU travellers</strong> - People arriving in Italy from other European countries must now also quarantine for five days.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Abortion in Italy: ‘I found a grave with my name on it’</strong> - Women in Italy who had an abortion or miscarriage discovered the fetus had been given a religious burial, in a grave marked with the mother’s name, without their consent.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Irish pubs could become work hubs in post-pandemic plan</strong> - Remote workers will be enticed to live in the countryside through a new “quality of life” policy.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Covid-19: World leaders call for international pandemic treaty</strong> - Boris Johnson and more than 20 other leaders say another health crisis is a matter of “not if, but when”.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mafia fugitive caught after posting cooking show on YouTube</strong> - The Italian gangster had tried to hide his face but was identified by his distinctive tattoos.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>VW changing to Voltswagen—early April fool or corporate rebranding? [Updated]</strong> - VW posted then deleted a press release announcing the name change, according to CNBC. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1753067">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SpaceX working toward early Tuesday morning Starship launch [Updated]</strong> - This rocket rolled to the launch pad less than three weeks ago. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1752419">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Apple-funded Stanford study concludes Apple Watch can be used to measure frailty</strong> - Study contributes to Apple’s messaging about the Watch’s impact on health care. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1752900">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Smartphones are finally matching 2012’s Nokia 808 in camera sensor size</strong> - It’s got a rear screen, ceramic body, and a really big camera bump. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1752905">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Parler: We warned the FBI more than 50 times before the Capitol riot</strong> - Company claims it warned FBI about violent posts <em>before</em> everything hit the fan. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1752891">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Doctor: sorry sir but your body has run out of magnesium</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Me: 0mg
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/itsaveryshittyname"> /u/itsaveryshittyname </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/mgbww3/doctor_sorry_sir_but_your_body_has_run_out_of/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/mgbww3/doctor_sorry_sir_but_your_body_has_run_out_of/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A woman was at her hairdresser’s getting her hair styled for a trip to Rome with her husband. She mentioned the trip to the hairdresser, who responded:</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Rome? Why would anyone want to go there? It’s crowded and dirty. You’re crazy to go to Rome. So, how are you getting there?”<br/> “We’re taking Continental,” was the reply. “We got a great rate!” “Continental?” exclaimed the hairdresser. “That’s a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight attendants are ugly, and they’re always late. So, where are you staying in Rome?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“We’ll be at this exclusive little place over on Rome’s Tiber River called Teste.” “Don’t go any further. I know that place. Everybody thinks it’s going to be something special and exclusive, but it’s really a dump.” “We’re going to go to see the Vatican and maybe get to see the Pope.” “That’s rich,” laughed the hairdresser. “You and a million other people trying to see him. He’ll look the size of an ant. Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You’re going to need it.”<br/> A month later, the woman came in for a hairdo. The hairdresser asked her about her trip to Rome.<br/> “It was wonderful,” explained the woman, “not only were we on time in one of Continental’s brand new planes, but it was overbooked, and they bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful, and I had a handsome 28-year-old steward who waited on us hand and foot. And the hotel was great! They’d just finished a $5 million remodeling job, and now it’s a jewel, the finest hotel in the city. They, too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us the owner’s suite at no extra charge!”.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Well,” muttered the hairdresser, “that’s all well and good, but I know you didn’t get to see the Pope.” “Actually, we were quite lucky, because as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and explained that the Pope likes to meet some of the visitors, and if we’d be so kind as to step into his private room and wait, the Pope would personally greet us. Sure enough, five minutes later, the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke a few words to me.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Oh, really! What’d he say?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He said: “Who fucked up your hair?”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/RubyBlye"> /u/RubyBlye </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/mfx8qm/a_woman_was_at_her_hairdressers_getting_her_hair/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/mfx8qm/a_woman_was_at_her_hairdressers_getting_her_hair/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>Whats the difference between a Computer and an American ?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
An American does not have troubleshooting.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/manaspachauri"> /u/manaspachauri </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/mgb3cl/whats_the_difference_between_a_computer_and_an/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/mgb3cl/whats_the_difference_between_a_computer_and_an/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>There are two trees in the forest, a beech and a birch and one day, they notice a small tree has sprouted up in between them. The birch says, “Man, that really looks like a son of a beech!” The beech retorts, “No way! That’s gotta be a son of a birch!”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
So, they start arguing back and forth. “Son of a beech!” “Son of a birch!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Eventually, a woodpecker flies by and hears the two trees fighting and he asks the two trees what’s wrong and what are they are fighting about.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The trees explain to the woodpecker that they can’t tell if the small tree that sprouted between them is a son of a beech or if it’s a son of a birch.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The woodpecker decides he will settle their argument, once and for all, tells the tree he will be right back, then flies down to the small tree to check it out.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Meanwhile, the beech and birch continue to argue.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
After a while, the wood pecker returns to the two tree and says, “Guys, I’ve got some news for you. It’s not a son of a beech.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The beech tree sighs in relief.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The woodpecker continues, “And it’s not a son of birch, either!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
To which the birch replied, “Thank goodness! What is it, then?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The woodpecker blushes and answers, “Well, it’s the finest piece of ash that I’ve ever stuck my pecker into.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/honolulu_oahu_mod"> /u/honolulu_oahu_mod </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/mgd6ki/there_are_two_trees_in_the_forest_a_beech_and_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/mgd6ki/there_are_two_trees_in_the_forest_a_beech_and_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>Alright guys, the Suez Canal jokes are getting a bit old now.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
That ship has sailed.
</p>
</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/reeram"> /u/reeram </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/mfiskf/alright_guys_the_suez_canal_jokes_are_getting_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/mfiskf/alright_guys_the_suez_canal_jokes_are_getting_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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