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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>A bivalent ChAd nasal vaccine protects against SARS-CoV-2 BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.5 infection and disease in mice and hamsters</strong> -
<div>
We previously described a nasally delivered monovalent adenoviral-vectored SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S, targeting Wuhan-1 spike [S]; iNCOVACC) that is currently used in India as a primary or booster immunization. Here, we updated the mucosal vaccine for Omicron variants by creating ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-BA.5-S, which encodes for a pre-fusion and surface-stabilized S protein of the BA.5 strain, and then tested monovalent and bivalent vaccines for efficacy against circulating variants including BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.5. Whereas monovalent ChAd-vectored vaccines effectively induced systemic and mucosal antibody responses against matched strains, the bivalent ChAd-vectored vaccine elicited greater breadth. However, serum neutralizing antibody responses induced by both monovalent and bivalent vaccines were poor against the antigenically distant XBB.1.5 Omicron strain and did not protect in passive transfer experiments. Nonetheless, nasally delivered bivalent ChAd-vectored vaccines induced robust antibody and spike-specific memory T cell responses in the respiratory mucosa, and conferred protection against WA1/2020 D614G and Omicron variants BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.5 in the upper and lower respiratory tracts of both mice and hamsters. Our data suggest that a nasally delivered bivalent adenoviral-vectored vaccine induces protective mucosal and systemic immunity against historical and emerging SARS-CoV-2 strains without requiring high levels of serum neutralizing antibody.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.04.539332v1" target="_blank">A bivalent ChAd nasal vaccine protects against SARS-CoV-2 BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.5 infection and disease in mice and hamsters</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Integrated NMR and MS analysis of plasma metabolome reveals major changes in inflammatory markers, one-carbon, lipid, and amino acid metabolism in severe and fatal COVID-19 subjects</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Brazil has the second highest COVID-19 death rate while Rio de Janeiro is among the states with the highest rate in the country. Although effective vaccines have been developed, it is anticipated that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will transition into an endemic state. Under this scenario, it is worrisome that the underlying molecular mechanisms associated with the disease clinical evolution from mild to severe, as well as the mechanisms leading to long COVID are not yet fully understood. In this study, 1H Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy and Liquid Chromatography-Mass spectrometry-based metabolomics were used to identify potential pathways and metabolites involved in COVID-19 pathophysiology and disease outcome. Between April and July 2020, 35 plasma samples from patients with confirmed severe COVID-19 from two reference centers in Rio de Janeiro, and 12 samples from non-infected control subjects, were collected and included in this study. Of the 35 samples from COVID-19 patients, 18 were from survivors and 17 from non-survivors. We observed that patients with severe COVID-19 had their plasma metabolome significantly changed if compared to control subjects. We observed lower levels of glycerophosphocholine and other choline-related metabolites, serine, glycine, and betaine, indicating a dysregulation in methyl donors and one-carbon metabolism. Importantly, non-survivors had higher levels of creatine/creatinine, 4-hydroxyproline, gluconic acid and N-acetylserine compared to survivors and controls, reflecting uncontrolled inflammation, liver and kidney dysfunction, and insulin resistance in these patients. Lipoprotein dynamics and amino acid metabolism were also altered in severe COVID-19 subjects. Several changes were greater in women, thus patient9s sex should be considered in pandemic surveillance to achieve better disease stratification and improve outcomes. The incidence of severe outcome after hospital discharge is very high in Brazil, thus these metabolic alterations may be used to monitor patients9 organs and tissues and to understand the pathophysiology of long-post COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.19.23288802v1" target="_blank">Integrated NMR and MS analysis of plasma metabolome reveals major changes in inflammatory markers, one-carbon, lipid, and amino acid metabolism in severe and fatal COVID-19 subjects</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Enhancing drug repurposing on graphs by integrating drug molecular structure as feature</strong> -
<div>
Drug repurposing has become increasingly important, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This process involves identifying new therapeutic uses for existing drugs, which can significantly reduce the cost, risk, and time associated with developing new drugs, de novo development. A previous conducted study proved that Deep Learning can be used to streamline this process by identifying drug repurposing hypotheses. The study presented a model called REDIRECTION, which utilized the rich biomedical information available in graph form and combined it with Geometric Deep Learning to find new indications for existing drugs. The reported metrics for this model were 0.87 for AUROC and 0.83 for AUPRC. In this current study, the importance of node features in GNNs is explored. Specifically, the study used GNNs to embed two-dimensional drug molecular structures and obtain corresponding features. These features were incorporated into the drug repurposing graph, along with some other enhancements, resulting in an improved model called DMSR. Performance score for the reported metrics values raised by 0.0448 in AUROC and 0.0919 in AUPRC. Based on these findings, we believe that the method used for embedding drug molecular structures is interesting and captures valuable information about drugs. Its incorporation in the graph for drug repurposing can significantly benefit the process, leading to improved performance evaluation metrics.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.03.539227v1" target="_blank">Enhancing drug repurposing on graphs by integrating drug molecular structure as feature</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Researching COVID to enhance recovery (RECOVER) autopsy study protocol: Rationale, objectives, and design</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Importance: SARS-CoV-2 infection can result in ongoing, relapsing, or new symptoms or organ dysfunction after the acute phase of infection, termed Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC), or long COVID. The characteristics, prevalence, trajectory and mechanisms of PASC are poorly understood. The objectives of the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Tissue Pathology Study (RECOVER-Pathology) are to: (1) characterize prevalence and types of organ injury/disease and pathology occurring with PASC; (2) characterize the association of pathologic findings with clinical and other characteristics; (3) define the pathophysiology and mechanisms of PASC, and possible mediation via viral persistence; and (4) establish a post-mortem tissue biobank and post-mortem brain imaging biorepository. Methods: RECOVER-Pathology is a cross-sectional study of decedents dying at least 15 days following initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. Eligible decedents must meet WHO criteria for suspected, probable, or confirmed infection and must be aged 18 years or more at the time of death. Enrollment occurs at 7 sites in four U.S. states and Washington, DC. Comprehensive autopsies are conducted according to a standardized protocol within 24 hours of death; tissue samples are sent to the PASC Biorepository for later analyses. Data on clinical history are collected from the medical records and/or next of kin. The primary study outcomes include an array of pathologic features organized by organ system.  Casual inference methods will be employed to investigate associations between risk factors and pathologic outcomes. Discussion: RECOVER-Pathology is the largest autopsy study addressing PASC among US adults. Results of this study are intended to elucidate mechanisms of organ injury and disease and enhance our understanding of the pathophysiology of PASC.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.27.23289234v1" target="_blank">Researching COVID to enhance recovery (RECOVER) autopsy study protocol: Rationale, objectives, and design</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Antibody escape, the risk of serotype formation, and rapid immune waning: modeling the implications of SARS-CoV-2 immune evasion</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, widespread community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has ushered in a volatile era of viral immune evasion rather than the much-heralded stability of “endemicity” or “herd immunity.” At this point, an array of viral variants has rendered essentially all monoclonal antibody therapeutics obsolete and strongly undermined the impact of vaccinal immunity on SARS-CoV-2 transmission. In this work, we demonstrate that antigenic drift resulting in evasion of pre-existing immunity is highly evolutionarily favored and likely to cause waves of short-term transmission. In the long-term, invading variants that induce weak cross-immunity against pre-existing strains may co-circulate with those pre-existing strains. This would result in the formation of serotypes that increase disease burden, complicate SARS-CoV-2 control and raise the potential for increases in viral virulence. Less durable immunity does not drive positive selection as a trait, but such strains may transmit at high levels if they establish. Overall, our results draw attention to the importance of inter-strain cross-immunity as a driver of transmission trends and the importance of early immune evasion data to predict the trajectory of the pandemic.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.25.23285031v2" target="_blank">Antibody escape, the risk of serotype formation, and rapid immune waning: modeling the implications of SARS-CoV-2 immune evasion</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Composition of nasopharyngeal microbiota in individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection across three COVID-19 waves in India</strong> -
<div>
Multiple variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have been plaguing the world through successive waves of infection over the past three years. Studies by independent research groups across geographies have shown that the microbiome composition in COVID-19 patients (CP) differ from that of healthy individuals (CN). However, such observations were based on limited-sized sample-sets collected primarily from the early days of the pandemic. Here, we study the nasopharyngeal microbiota in COVID-19 patients, wherein the samples have been collected across the three COVID-19 waves witnessed in India, which were driven by different variants of concern. We also present the variations in microbiota of symptomatic vs asymptomatic COVID-19 patients. The nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from 589 subjects providing samples for diagnostics purposes at Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB), Hyderabad, India. CP showed a marked shift in the microbial diversity and composition compared to CN, in a wave-dependent manner. Rickettsiaceae was the only family that was noted to be consistently depleted in CP samples across the waves. The genera Staphylococcus, Anhydrobacter, Thermus, and Aerococcus were observed to be highly abundant in the symptomatic CP patients when compared to the asymptomatic group. In general, we observed a decrease in the burden of opportunistic pathogens in the host microbiota during the later waves of infection. To our knowledge, this is the first longitudinal study which was designed to understand the relation between the evolving nature of the virus and the changes in the human nasopharyngeal microbiota. Such studies not only pave way for better understanding of the disease pathophysiology but also help gather preliminary evidence on whether interventions to the host microbiota can help in better protection or faster recovery.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.02.522449v4" target="_blank">Composition of nasopharyngeal microbiota in individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection across three COVID-19 waves in India</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Design of mobile medical testing laboratories with the focus on COVID-19 testing procedures</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by corona virus in 2019 has forced all the health and public organi-zations, across the globe, to take different measures for identification, prevention, and control of the disease. Early and accurate detection of the corona virus in human body being one of the im-portant measures to prevent the disease spread in population and successful eradication. However, available and known methods and technologies and project management systems in this context have not been used to the extent necessary to adequately control infection events (Lehrach, 2020; Glitscher, 2021). Today different testing methods are being used to check the COVID-19 infection for isolation of in-fected from uninfected population. The accuracy, time between sample collection to results declara-tion, testing cost, etc. depend on the type of testing method. In addition to the use of accurate testing method, it becomes necessary to ensure that the test centers are mobile and accessible to a maximum extent, so that the testing intensity can be regulated depending on the rate of spread, potential sudden outbreaks, areas of concern, etc. In this context, a new high throughput genome -based testing pipeline for SARS-CoV-2 is proposed (Lehrach, 2022) which uses the combination of state-of-the art biotechnology and in-formatics. This proposed new method is claimed to deliver faster and cheaper test results at the population scale, without compromising the testing quality. This study is aimed to develop a project plan to design such a container-based COVID- 19 testing facility. Literature study shows a lack of frameworks to develop a design for mobile medical facility (Carl Heneghan et al. 2020; Bridges et al. 2014). On the other hand, at least in Germany, companies like centogene have deployed container-based mobile test stations. However, based on available experience, these are limited in terms of use and throughput of tests (Centogene 2020; Kyoug Ho Roh 2022). Thus, this study proposes a framework to design a mobile medical test facility, in addition to propos-ing a project plan to design a mobile container-based facility to implement the new COVID-19 test-ing method. The framework proposed is based on the combined adaptation of facility design meth-ods, namely - Systematic Layout Planning and project-based approach as per VDI 5200. The resulting outputs in the form of a project plan include - capacity plan, material flow plan and financial plan. It is clear from these plans that the industrialization of the new testing facility is feasi-ble in terms of testing throughput - approximately 450,000 tests per day (when the line is operated in all three shifts) - and cost per test being 3 Euros, spatial requirements as proposed in the draft layout, based on the inputs as published (Lehrach, 2022). The identified risks do not pose alarming threats to continue with the implementation, however contingency plans should be considered for every worst-case scenario.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/mhxez/" target="_blank">Design of mobile medical testing laboratories with the focus on COVID-19 testing procedures</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Effect of Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir (Paxlovid) on Hospitalization among Adults with COVID-19: an EHR-based Target Trial Emulation from N3C</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
This study leverages electronic health record data in the National COVID Cohort Collaborative9s (N3C) repository to investigate disparities in Paxlovid treatment and to emulate a target trial assessing its effectiveness in reducing COVID-19 hospitalization rates. From an eligible population of 632,822 COVID-19 patients seen at 33 clinical sites across the United States between December 23, 2021 and December 31, 2022, patients were matched across observed treatment groups, yielding an analytical sample of 410,642 patients patients. We estimate a 65% reduced odds of hospitalization among Paxlovid-treated patients within a 28-day follow-up period, and this effect did not vary by patient vaccination status. Notably, we observe disparities in Paxlovid treatment, with lower rates among Black and Hispanic or Latino patients, and within socially vulnerable communities. Ours is the largest study of Paxlovid9s real-world effectiveness to date, and our primary findings are consistent with previous randomized control trials and real-world studies.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.03.23289084v1" target="_blank">Effect of Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir (Paxlovid) on Hospitalization among Adults with COVID-19: an EHR-based Target Trial Emulation from N3C</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Spatial Variation in Excess Mortality Across Europe: A Cross-sectional Study of 561 Regions in 21 Countries</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Objective: To measure the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 at the subnational level by estimating excess mortality, defined as the increase in all-cause mortality relative to an expected baseline mortality level. Design: Statistical and demographic analyses of regional all-cause mortality data. Setting: The vital statistics systems of 21 European countries. Participants: The entire population of 561 spatial units in 21 European countries. Main Outcome Measures: Losses of life expectancy at ages 0 and 60 for males and females. Results: Evidence was found of a loss in life expectancy in 391 regions, while only three regions exhibit notable gains in life expectancy in 2020. For 12 regions, losses of life expectancy amounted to more than 2 years, and three regions showed losses greater than 3 years. Geographic clusters of high mortality were found in Northern Italia, Spain and Poland, while clusters of low mortality were found in Western France, Germany/Denmark and Norway/Sweden. Conclusions: Regional differences of loss of life expectancy are impressive, ranging from a loss of more than 4 years to a gain of 8 months. These findings provide a strong rationale for regional analysis, as national estimates hide significant regional disparities.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.04.23284990v2" target="_blank">Spatial Variation in Excess Mortality Across Europe: A Cross-sectional Study of 561 Regions in 21 Countries</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Diagnosing and remediating harmful data shifts for the responsible deployment of clinical AI models</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Harmful data shifts occur when the distribution of data used to train a clinical AI system differs significantly from the distribution of data encountered during deployment, leading to erroneous predictions and potential harm to patients. We evaluated the impact of data shifts on an early warning system for in-hospital mortality that uses electronic health record data from patients admitted to a general internal medicine service, across 7 large hospitals in Toronto, Canada. We found model performance to differ across subgroups of clinical diagnoses, sex and age. To explore the robustness of the model, we evaluated potentially harmful data shifts across demographics, hospital types, seasons, time of hospital admission, and whether the patient was admitted from an acute care institution or nursing home, without relying on model performance. Interestingly, many of these harmful data shifts were unidirectional. We found models trained on community hospitals experience harmful data shifts when evaluated on academic hospitals, whereas models trained on academic hospitals transfer well to the community hospitals. To improve model performance across hospital sites we employed transfer learning, a strategy that stores knowledge gained from learning one domain and applies it to a different but related domain. We found hospital type-specific models that leverage transfer learning, perform better than models that use all available hospitals. Furthermore, we monitored data shifts over time and identified model deterioration during the COVID-19 pandemic. Typically, machine learning models remain locked after deployment, however, this can lead to model deterioration due to harmful data shifts that occur over time. We used continual learning, the process of learning from a continual stream of data in a sequential manner, to mitigate data shifts over time and improve model performance. Overall, our study is a crucial step towards the deployment of clinical AI models, by providing strategies and workflows to ensure the safety and efficacy of these models in real-world settings.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.26.23286718v2" target="_blank">Diagnosing and remediating harmful data shifts for the responsible deployment of clinical AI models</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Characterising Long Covid: a living systematic review update with controlled studies</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The authors have withdrawn their manuscript owing to a reporting error that we have identified in the conduct of this updated systematic review. On 7th March 2022 we made changes to the original protocol published in F1000, to highlight the need to keep up with the evolving landscape of Covid-19 and Covid-19 research and focus on comparative, controlled studies. The revisions included also changes in data extraction and analysis that would be needed to do so. These changes were done in consultation with members of the Long COVID Support Group. However, we omitted to publicize these changes in an accessible, modified version of our protocol, and/or by updating our preregistered PROSPERO record (CRD42020211131) and F1000 publication, prior to commencing and completing these stages of the process. In this manuscript, which reports the revised analyses, we have consequently also omitted to explicitly describe these changes as important deviations from the published protocol. Additionally, following rapid, sustained, and continuous growth in the conduct and reporting of eligible primary studies, it has become clear that, with or without the changes described above, we do not have sufficient capacity or resources to transition our baseline systematic review to being regularly updated using a living systematic review approach. Therefore, the authors do not wish this work to be cited as reference for the project. If you have any questions, please contact the corresponding author.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.29.22279338v2" target="_blank">Characterising Long Covid: a living systematic review update with controlled studies</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>What happened to health labour markets during COVID-19? Insights from a survey of medical doctors in Brazil</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background. Limited evidence exists on impacts and adaptations of global health markets during COVID-19. We examined physicians perceptions of changing employment opportunities in Brazil, to gain an insight into labour markets in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) during the pandemic. Methods. We conducted secondary analysis of a dataset from a representative cross-sectional survey of 1,183 physicians in Sao Paulo and Maranhao states in Brazil. We estimated prevalence and 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) for proxy variables of demand and supply of doctors, and prices of medical services for facilities of practice in the two States, stratified by public, private, and dual practice physicians. Results. Most doctors reported increased job opportunities in the public sector (59.0%, 95% CI 56.1-61.9), particularly in Maranhao state (66.4%, 95% CI 62.3-70.3). For the private sector, increased opportunities were reported only in large private hospitals (51.4%, 95% CI 48.4-54.4), but not in smaller clinics. We recorded perceptions of slight increases in availability of doctors in Maranhao, particularly in the public sector (54.1%, 95 CI 45.7-62.3). Younger doctors recounted increased vacancies in the public sector (64%, 95 CI 58.1-68.1); older doctors only in walk-in clinics in Maranhao (47.5%, 95 CI 39.9-55.1). Those working directly with COVID-19 saw opportunities in public hospitals (65%, 95 CI 62.3-68.4), and in large private ones (55%, 95 CI 51.8-59.1) Conclusions. Our findings suggest that health labour markets in (LMICs) may not necessarily shrink during epidemics, and that impacts will depend on the balance of public and private services in national health systems.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.03.23289458v1" target="_blank">What happened to health labour markets during COVID-19? Insights from a survey of medical doctors in Brazil</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>UDCA May Promote COVID-19 Recovery: A Cohort Study with AI-Aided Analysis</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
To investigate the impact of ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) treatment on the clinical outcome of mild and moderate COVID-19 cases, a retrospective analysis was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of UDCA on patients diagnosed with COVID-19 during the peak of the Omicron outbreak in China. This study presents promising results, demonstrating that UDCA significantly reduced the time to Body Temperature Recovery after admission and a higher daily dose seems to be associated with a better outcome without observed safety concerns. We also introduced VirtualBody, a physiologically plausible artificial neural network model, to generate an accurate depiction of the drug concentration-time curve individually, which represented the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of UDCA in each patient. It exhibits exceptional performance in modeling the complex PK-PD profile of UDCA, characterized by its endogenous and enterohepatic cycling properties, and further validates the effectiveness of UDCA as a treatment option from the drug exposure-response perspective. Our work highlights the potential of UDCA as a novel treatment option for periodic outbreaks of COVID-19 and introduces a new paradigm for PK-PD analysis in retrospective studies to provide evidence for optimal dosing strategies.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.02.23289410v1" target="_blank">UDCA May Promote COVID-19 Recovery: A Cohort Study with AI-Aided Analysis</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Genomic screening of 16 UK native bat species through conservationist networks uncovers coronaviruses with zoonotic potential</strong> -
<div>
There has been limited characterisation of bat-borne coronaviruses in Europe. Here, we screened for coronaviruses in 48 faecal samples from 16 of the 17 bat species breeding in the UK, collected through a bat rehabilitation and conservationist network. We recovered nine (two novel) complete genomes across six bat species: four alphacoronaviruses, a MERS-related betacoronavirus, and four closely related sarbecoviruses. We demonstrate that at least one of these sarbecoviruses can bind and use the human ACE2 receptor for infecting human cells, albeit suboptimally. Additionally, the spike proteins of these sarbecoviruses possess an R-A-K-Q motif, which lies only one nucleotide mutation away from a furin cleavage site (FCS) that enhances infectivity in other coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2. However, mutating this motif to an FCS does not enable spike cleavage. Overall, while UK sarbecoviruses would require further molecular adaptations to infect humans, their zoonotic risk is unknown and warrants closer surveillance.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.17.524183v5" target="_blank">Genomic screening of 16 UK native bat species through conservationist networks uncovers coronaviruses with zoonotic potential</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Role of SARS-CoV-2 mutations in the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
RNA viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, evolve by mutation acquisition, or by hybridization between viral genomes. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic provided an exceptional opportunity to analyze the mutations that appeared over a three-year period. In this study, we analysed the type of mutations and their epidemic consequences on the thousands of genomes produced in our laboratory. These were obtained by next-generation sequencing from respiratory samples performed for genomic surveillance. The frequencies of mutations were calculated using Nextclade, Microsoft Excel, and an in-house Python script. In total, 61,397 genomes matching 483 Pangolin lineages were analyzed; 22,225 nucleotide mutations were identified, and of them 220 (1.0%) were each at the root of at least 836 genomes, a frequency threshold classifying mutations as hyperfertile. Two of these seeded the pandemic in Europe, namely a mutation in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase associated with an increased mutation rate (P323L) and one in the spike protein (D614G), which plays a particular role in virus fitness. Most of these 220 hyperfertile mutations occurred in areas not predicted to be associated with increased virulence. Their number was 8+/-6 (0-22) per 1,000 nucleotides on average per gene. They were 3.7 times more frequent in accessory than informational genes (14 versus 4; p= 0.0037). Particularly, they were 4.1 times more frequent in ORF8 than in the gene encoding RNA polymerase. Interestingly, stop codons were present in 97 positions, almost only in six accessory genes including ORF7a (25 per 100 codons) and ORF8 (21). Furthermore, 1,661 mutations (16.3%) were associated with a lower number of offspring (50-835) and classified as fertile. In conclusion, except for two initial mutations that could predict a change in the dynamics of the epidemic (mutation rate and change in the virus attachment site), most of the hyperfertile mutations did not predict the emergence of a new epidemic form. Significantly, some mutations were in non-coding areas and some consisted of stop codons, indicating that some genes (particularly ORF7a and ORF8) were rather non-virulence genes at a given stage of the epidemic, which is an unusual concept for viruses.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.01.538506v1" target="_blank">Role of SARS-CoV-2 mutations in the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<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>Long COVID-19 Syndrome Lifestyle Intervention Study</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Long COVID-19 Syndrome<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Dietary Supplement: Low carbohydrate diet intervention<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Southern California<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>Working Towards Empowered Community-driven Approaches to Increase Vaccination and Preventive Care Engagement</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: mHealth Outreach;   Other: Care Coordination<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   University of California, San Diego;   San Ysidro Health Center<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 Coping and Resilience Intervention for Adolescents</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 Pandemic<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Coping and Resilience Intervention for Adolescents;   Other: Printing materials of Coping and Resilience Intervention for Adolescents<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Taipei Medical University<br/><b>Enrolling by invitation</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>Effectiveness of Modified Diaphragmatic Training for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease Post Covid-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   GERD;   Post COVID-19 Condition;   Diaphragm Issues<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: modified diaphragmatic training;   Other: standard diaphragmatic training<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Indonesia University<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>The Safety, Tolerability and Pharmacokinetics Study of RAY1216 in Healthy Adult Participants</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019)<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: RAY1216 dose 1;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 2;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 3;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 4 &amp;ritonavir   Drug: RAY1216 dose 5;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 6;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 7;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 8;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 9;   Drug: RAY1216 dose 10<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Guangdong Raynovent Biotech Co., Ltd<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>COVID-19 Vaccination Detoxification</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19 Stress Syndrome;   COVID-19 Vaccine Adverse Reaction;   COVID-19-Associated Thromboembolism;   COVID-19 Post-Intensive Care Syndrome;   COVID-19-Associated Stroke;   COVID-19 Respiratory Infection<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Combination Product: Atorvastatin Calcium Tablets<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Yang I. Pachankis<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>A Study in Healthy Volunteers to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerability, Pharmacokinetics, and Drug-Drug Interaction Potential of Single and Multiple Doses of ALG-097558</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: ALG-097558;   Drug: Placebo;   Drug: Midazolam;   Drug: Itraconazole;   Drug: Carbamazepine;   Drug: ALG-097558 in solution formulation;   Drug: ALG-097558 in tablet formulation<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Aligos Therapeutics<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>Strategies and Treatments for Respiratory Infections &amp;Amp; Viral Emergencies (STRIVE): Immune Modulation Strategy Trial</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: abatacept infusion;   Drug: Placebo group<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University of Minnesota<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>Immunoadsorption Study Mainz in Adults With Post-COVID Syndrome</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post-COVID-19 Syndrome;   Post-COVID Syndrome;   Post COVID-19 Condition<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Device: Immunoadsorption;   Device: Sham-apheresis<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University Medical Center Mainz<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>Computerized Training of Attention and Working Memory in Post COVID-19 Patients With Cognitive Complaints</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   COVID-19;   Cognitive Impairment;   Cognition Disorder;   Memory Disorders;   Attention Deficit;   Memory Impairment;   Memory Loss;   Attention Impaired<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: RehaCom<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Erasmus Medical Center<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>Digital Mental Health Care for COVID-19 High-Risk Populations - Phase 2</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Stigma, Social;   Help-Seeking Behavior<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Adjusted Content Intervention;   Other: Non-Adjusted Intervention Video<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Inc.;   Columbia University<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>imPROving Quality of LIFe In the Long COVID Patient</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Post-COVID-19 Syndrome;   Long COVID;   Long Covid19;   COVID-19;   POTS - Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome;   Post COVID-19 Condition;   Post-COVID Syndrome;   Post COVID-19 Condition, Unspecified;   Postinfectious Inflammation;   Postinfectious Disorder<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir;   Drug: Placebo/ritonavir<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Karolinska Institutet;   Karolinska University Hospital;   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>A Study of mRNA-based Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Multi-component Vaccines in Healthy Adults</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   SARS-CoV-2;   Influenza<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Fluarix;   Biological: mRNA-1083.1;   Biological: mRNA-1083.2;   Biological: mRNA-1083.3;   Biological: mRNA-1010.4;   Biological: mRNA-1283.222;   Biological: mRNA-1273.222;   Biological: mRNA-1010;   Biological: Fluzone HD<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   ModernaTX, 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>Efficacy of an Smartphone App Intervention Based on Self-compassion for Mental Health Among University Students</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Mental Health Issue<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: mHealth Intervention Based on Self-Compassion;   Behavioral: Psychoeducation Intervention<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Federal University of Health Science of Porto Alegre;   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>Obesity, Insulin Resistance, and PASC: Persistent SARS-CoV-2</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   Long COVID;   Insulin Resistance;   Insulin Sensitivity<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Procedure: Adipose Tissue Biopsy;   Diagnostic Test: Steady State Plasma Glucose (SSPG) Test<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Stanford University<br/><b>Not yet 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>Orthogonal dual reporter-based gain-of-signal assay for probing SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease activity in living cells: inhibitor identification and mutation investigation</strong> - The main protease (3-chymotrypsin-like protease, 3CLpro) of SARS-CoV-2 has become a focus of anti-coronavirus research. Despite efforts, drug development targeting 3CLpro has been hampered by limitations in the currently available activity assays. Additionally, the emergence of 3CLpro mutations in circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants has raised concerns about potential resistance. Both emphasize the need for a more reliable, sensitive, and facile 3CLpro assay. Here, we report an orthogonal dual…</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>SARS-CoV-2 N Protein Triggers Acute Lung Injury via Modulating Macrophage Activation and Infiltration in in vitro and in vivo</strong> - CONCLUSION: SARS-CoV-2 and its N protein but not S protein induced acute lung injury and systemic inflammation, which was closely related to macrophage activation, infiltration and release cytokines.</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>Biogenic silver nanoparticles eradicate of <em>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</em> and Methicillin-resistant <em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> (MRSA) isolated from the sputum of COVID-19 patients</strong> - In recent investigations, secondary bacterial infections were found to be strongly related to mortality in COVID-19 patients. In addition, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria played an important role in the series of bacterial infections that accompany infection in COVID-19. The objective of the present study was to investigate the ability of biosynthesized silver nanoparticles from strawberries (Fragaria ananassa L.) leaf extract without a…</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 reactogenicity of heterologous prime-boost vaccination with inactivated COVID-19 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) vaccines, a quasi-experimental study</strong> - The global supply of COVID-19 vaccines has been limited, and concerns have arisen about vaccine supply chain disruptions in developing countries. Heterologous prime-boost vaccination, which involves using different vaccines for the first and second doses, has been proposed to enhance the immune response. We aimed to compare the immunogenicity and safety of a heterologous prime-boost vaccination using an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine and AZD1222 vaccine with that of a homologous vaccination using…</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>Proton Pump Inhibitors, Kidney Damage, and Mortality: An Updated Narrative Review</strong> - Since their approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1989, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) have become one of the most highly utilized drugs in the United States, assuming a position as one of the top 10 most prescribed medications in the country. The purpose of PPIs is to limit the amount of gastric acid secreted by the parietal cells via irreversible inhibition of the H+/K+-ATPase pump, therefore maintaining an elevated gastric acid pH of greater than 4 for 15-21 h. Even though PPIs…</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>New Ways to Protect the Host from SARS-CoV-2? Lung Microbiome Metabolites Inhibit STAT3 and Modulate the Immunological Network</strong> - COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 infection is a systemic disease that affects multiple organs, biological pathways, and cell types. A systems biology approach would benefit the study of COVID-19 in the pandemic as well as the endemic state. Notably, patients with COVID-19 have dysbiosis of lung microbiota whose functional relevance to the host is largely unknown. We carried out a systems biology investigation of the impact of lung microbiome-derived metabolites on host immune system during…</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 Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial To Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Nelfinavir in Patients with Mild COVID-19</strong> - Nelfinavir, an orally administered inhibitor of human immunodeficiency virus protease, inhibits the replication of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in vitro. We conducted a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of nelfinavir in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. We included unvaccinated asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic adult patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection within 3 days before enrollment. The patients were…</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><em>In silico</em> evaluation of some commercially available terpenoids as spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 - inhibitors using molecular dynamic approach</strong> - Coronavirus, an extremely contagious infections disease had a harmful effect on the world’s population. It is a family of enveloped, single-stranded, positive-strand RNA viruses of Nidovirales order belongs to coroviridae family. At present, worldwide several lakhs of deaths and several billions of infections have been reported. Hence, the focus of the present study was to assess the SARS-CoV-2 enzyme inhibitory potential of certain commercially available terpenoids using Lamarckian genetic…</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>Infection routes, invasion mechanisms, and drug inhibition pathways of human coronaviruses on the nervous system</strong> - So far, numerous studies have reported on how coronaviruses affect the human nervous system. However, these studies mainly focused on the impact of a single coronavirus on the nervous system, and failed to fully report the invasion mechanisms and the rules of symptoms of the seven human coronaviruses. This research can assist medical professionals in identifying the regularity of coronavirus invasion into the nervous system by examining the impacts of human coronaviruses on the nervous system….</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>High-breathable, antimicrobial and water-repellent face mask for breath monitoring</strong> - Face masks with multiple functionalities and exceptional durability have attracted increasing interests during the COVID-19 pandemic. How to integrate the antibacterial property, comfortability during long-time wearing, and breath monitoring capability together on a face mask is still challenging. Here we developed a kind of face mask that assembles the particles-free water-repellent fabric, antibacterial fabric, and hidden breath monitoring device together, resulting in the highly breathable,…</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>Non-neutralizing antibodies to SARS-Cov-2-related linear epitopes induce psychotic-like behavior in mice</strong> - OBJECTIVE: An increasing number of studies have reported that numerous patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and vaccinated individuals have developed central nervous system (CNS) symptoms, and that most of the antibodies in their sera have no virus-neutralizing ability. We tested the hypothesis that non-neutralizing anti-S1-111 IgG induced by the spike protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) could negatively affect the CNS.</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>Furin as a therapeutic target in cystic fibrosis airways disease</strong> - Clinical management of cystic fibrosis (CF) has been greatly improved by the development of small molecule modulators of the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). These drugs help to address some of the basic genetic defects of CFTR; however, no suitable CFTR modulators exist for 10% of people with CF (PWCF). An alternative, mutation-agnostic therapeutic approach is therefore still required. In CF airways, elevated levels of the proprotein convertase furin contribute to 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>Clomipramine inhibits dynamin GTPase activity by L-α-phosphatidyl-L-serine stimulation</strong> - Three dynamin isoforms play critical roles in clathrin-dependent endocytosis. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) enters host cells via clathrin-dependent endocytosis. We previously reported that 3-(3-chloro-10,11-dihydro-5H-dibenzo[b,f]azepin-5-yl)-N,N-dimethylpropan-1-amine (clomipramine) inhibits the GTPase activity of dynamin 1, which is in mainly neuron. Therefore, we investigated whether clomipramine inhibits the activity of other dynamin isoforms in this study. We…</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>An ACAT inhibitor suppresses SARS-CoV-2 replication and boosts antiviral T cell activity</strong> - The severity of disease following infection with SARS-CoV-2 is determined by viral replication kinetics and host immunity, with early T cell responses and/or suppression of viraemia driving a favourable outcome. Recent studies uncovered a role for cholesterol metabolism in the SARS-CoV-2 life cycle and in T cell function. Here we show that blockade of the enzyme Acyl-CoA:cholesterol acyltransferase (ACAT) with Avasimibe inhibits SARS-CoV-2 pseudoparticle infection and disrupts the association of…</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>Improved recovery of SARS-CoV-2 from wastewater through application of RNA and DNA stabilising agents</strong> - Wastewater Based Epidemiology (WBE) has become an integral part of the public health effort to track the levels of SARS-CoV-2 within communities. Detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater can be challenging due to relatively low levels of virus within the sample. The wastewater matrix is also comprised of commercial and domestically derived contaminants, as well as RNases, all of which can adversely affect RT-qPCR analysis. To improve SARS-CoV-2 detection within wastewater samples we investigated…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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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>Jonah Peretti Has Regrets About BuzzFeed News</strong> - The site’s founder and C.E.O. valued fun and experimentation on the Internet, but never found a way to make “free journalism purpose-built for social media” profitable. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/jonah-peretti-has-regrets-about-buzzfeed-news">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why Russian Élites Think Putin’s War Is Doomed to Fail</strong> - Rival factions are jockeying for power as the country navigates a crisis with no clear way out. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-russian-elites-think-putins-war-is-doomed-to-fail">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Limits of Joe Biden’s Calls for Press Freedom</strong> - After decades of exposing corruption in Guatemala, the journalist José Rubén Zamora has been jailed. Why can’t the U.S. help him? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-limits-of-joe-bidens-calls-for-press-freedom">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jordan Neely’s Death and a Critical Moment in the Homelessness Crisis</strong> - After the homeless young man was killed on the subway, there has been a rare flash of national attention on the issue. Can the outrage be harnessed for actual change? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/jordan-neelys-death-and-a-critical-moment-in-the-homelessness-crisis">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How a Cuban American Illustrator Sees This Country Today</strong> - Edel Rodriguez’s new exhibition, “Apocalypso,” reflects on democracy under threat in the nation that welcomed him in his childhood. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-a-cuban-american-illustrator-sees-this-country-today">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>You may never eat inside a fast food restaurant again</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Empty restaurant interior with bench seating waiting for customers." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Bcw7-uAsUdISanPkrN3LeuVhxKc=/0x0:3552x2664/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72251518/GettyImages_151920144.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A growing number of fast food chains are experimenting with seatless locations with only takeout or drive-thru options. | Getty Images/iStockphoto
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
As diners increasingly turn to delivery, the future of fast food may be one with no human interaction at all.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ymiDju">
There was a time when your local McDonald’s was the ideal spot for a 6-year-old’s birthday party. Its PlayPlaces had ball pits and slides where children could spend hours, post-Happy Meal.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Dv6pY9">
McDonald’s launched PlayPlaces in the 1970s in an effort to <a href="https://thetakeout.com/will-mcdonalds-playplace-go-away-for-good-1849397887">build brand loyalty in children</a> by emphasizing a family-friendly environment. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find one. That’s not just due to safety and health concerns (<a href="https://www.mashed.com/1213414/we-finally-know-why-mcdonalds-play-places-vanished/">ball pits are known to be bacterial cesspits</a>). People just aren’t hanging out at fast food joints the way they used to.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U5fRbS">
By the end of 2021, <a href="https://www.npd.com/news/press-releases/2021/dine-in-traffic-remains-a-headwind-for-u-s-restaurant-industry-recovery/">dine-in visits to fast food chains</a> had fallen to just 14 percent of restaurant traffic, compared to 28 percent pre-pandemic, according to the market research firm NPD Group. When it comes to burgers and fries, people are increasingly scarfing them down in their homes, at their offices, in their cars — anywhere, really, but in the restaurant.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q6hH9o">
Now, McDonald’s and other fast food and fast casual giants are betting on the “digital kitchen” — sleek, compact stores that harness automation and digitalization to have diners ordering through mobile apps or digital kiosks — to get diners in and out in record time. Meanwhile, chains are “demolishing” their dining rooms, or shrinking them, in order to meet the demand of drive-thru and digital ordering, Steven Baker, an architect at Harrison French and Associates who works on fast food restaurant design and development, wrote in an <a href="https://www.hfa-ae.com/blog/reinventing-qsrs">article</a> last year. For McDonald’s, Sweetgreen, and others, reducing seating means chains can open smaller stores, saving on expensive real estate, especially in urban areas.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Pr8chy">
The big transformation taking place inside restaurants also threatens to change how the industry looks at labor. In April, McDonald’s announced <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/4/3/23668444/mcdonalds-layoffs-corporate-economy">hundreds of layoffs</a> in its corporate offices as part of a larger strategy to open new locations while investing more into digital, delivery, and drive-thru. And for all fast food and fast casual restaurants, whether it’s third-party delivery apps, automated kiosks, or even <a href="https://www.qsrmagazine.com/outside-insights/why-drone-delivery-win-quick-service-restaurants">food delivery by drone</a>, the glittering promise of tech is the ability to offload to machines more and more of the tasks performed by people paid an hourly wage.
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Last year, 85 percent of fast food restaurant orders were to-go, according to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-are-gobbling-up-takeout-food-restaurants-bet-that-wont-change-11674882022">data from NPD</a>. Drive-thrus are busier than ever, with roughly <a href="https://www.revenuemanage.com/en/trends/april-2022/">three-quarters</a> of orders being placed at a drive-thru. Foodservice consulting firm Technomic found that <a href="https://www.ift.org/news-and-publications/food-technology-magazine/issues/2022/september/columns/consumers-market-trends-off-premises-dining">73 percent of all orders</a> at limited-service restaurants (places where you pay in advance and don’t typically have table service, including both fast food and fast casual restaurants) were either carryout or delivery in the first half of 2022.
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McDonald’s has responded to the shift by opening a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/23/mcdonalds-automated-workers-fort-worth-texas">new dining room-less</a> concept restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas, designed around digital orders and more efficient pickups.<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/sweetreen-to-pilot-digital-pickup-only-location/623293/">Sweetgreen</a> has also launched <a href="https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/operations/sweetgreen-takes-suburbs">a few</a> <a href="https://www.fastcasual.com/photos/why-sweetgreen-created-smaller-format-for-world-trade-center/">locations</a> <a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/news/sweetgreen-suburbs-drive-thru">without seating</a>, including its first <a href="https://www.qsrmagazine.com/fast-casual/sweetgreen-automation-opens-infinite-possibilities">digital-order-only, pick-up-only location</a> in DC in late 2022; it will open two fully automated restaurants in 2023. Chipotle, too, has been dabbling with <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/17/22840498/chipotle-digital-kitchen-app-delivery-only-ohio">smaller, digital kitchens</a> offering only pick-up or drive-thru, while Panera Bread, a sandwich-serving staple with booths and tables galore in the suburbs, is opening smaller stores with <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90806057/paneras-big-bet-on-urban-diners-smaller-restaurants">less seating in urban areas</a>, as well as to-go-only stores. Digital sales now account for half of its total system sales, according to the company, and a spokesperson told Vox in an email that the company is “redefining its dining experience to serve today’s guest in an increasingly off-premise world.”
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<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/03/business/burger-king-restaurant-redesign/index.html">Burger King</a>, <a href="https://thespoon.tech/kfc-is-the-latest-qsr-to-ditch-the-dining-room-in-favor-if-digital-drive-thru/">KFC</a>, <a href="https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/operations/wingstop-opens-cash-less-seat-less-restaurant">Wingstop</a>, the list goes on. At IHOP’s nascent <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/20/ihop-to-launch-flipd-by-ihop-after-rethinking-pilot-during-pandemic.html">Flip’d locations</a>, all the food is packaged to go, and there’s limited seating — the modern, urban evolution of a chain famous for being a drunken late-night refuge.
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Even Starbucks — the chain that has long billed itself as an inviting hangout, engineered to <a href="https://www.mashed.com/142329/the-untold-truth-of-starbucks/">always smell like freshly roasted coffee</a> — is leaning into takeout. Though its stores reduced seating at first <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-starbucks-chipotle-sites-cut-hours-limit-seating-over-omicron-11642255202">due to the coronavirus</a>, some locations are making <a href="https://hoodline.com/2023/03/castro-starbucks-removes-all-seating-in-latest-remodel/">that reduction permanent</a>. The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-are-gobbling-up-takeout-food-restaurants-bet-that-wont-change-11674882022">WSJ reported</a> that Starbucks plans to open 400 new takeout- or delivery-only stores in the next three years.
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All of this is happening not because the fast food industry is struggling and trying to cut its costs, but for the <a href="https://www.placer.ai/blog/2022-and-beyond-catching-up-with-mcdonalds-chipotle">exact opposite</a> reason. “It’s having a renaissance,” says Adam Chandler, author of a book about the fast food industry called <em>Drive-Thru Dreams</em>.
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McDonald’s is a particular standout; it reported sales growth of more than 10 percent in 2022, recording a profit of <a href="https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/our-stories/article/Q4-2022-results.html">$6.1 billion</a>, after increasing prices by about 10 percent in 2022, too. Cost no longer seems to deter customers. As one analyst remarked during the company’s <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4596374-mcdonalds-corporation-mcd-q1-2023-earnings-call-transcript">Q1 2023 earnings call</a>, fast food delivery is booming even though it’s more expensive, diluting the value proposition of a cheap meal. “Shockingly, in a lot of places, people are willing to pay double what they would pay to have a box of doughnuts and a large fries arrive to them 20 to 30 minutes later, slightly soggy,” Chandler says.
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“The convenience driver has become more and more important as the years have passed,” says Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research at the National Restaurant Association. “Even before the pandemic, about 61 percent of fast food sales were off-premise.” After reaching a high of almost 90 percent during lockdowns, they’re now still hovering around 75 percent, according to Riehle.
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If fast food restaurants become less of a place to eat and hang out and more of a pit stop — a transitory space to pick up or hand off food — it also offers chains the opportunity to dramatically cut one of the industry’s most vexing operating costs: paying human employees. “Another part of this whole thing is wrapped up in labor, and how they can maximize profits by automating a lot of this,” Chandler says.
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The industry has tried to fix the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/dining/restaurant-wages.html">current labor shortage by raising wages</a>, but the shortage has doggedly persisted, with a recent National Restaurant Association survey showing that six in 10 restaurant operators say they’re understaffed. The fact that the shortage persists shows that the pay increases aren’t quite the appetizing draw restaurants hoped they would be for workers, who may feel <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/7/6/20681186/fast-food-worker-burnout">burned out by the grueling</a>, often dangerous industry. The <a href="https://www.qsrmagazine.com/sponsored/how-restaurants-are-reducing-labor-cost-while-improving-customer-service">push for automation in restaurants</a> also comes as the industry is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/07/some-restaurant-workers-could-see-big-wage-growth-in-2023.html">fighting tooth and nail</a> to reverse a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-30/judge-puts-hold-on-california-fast-food-worker-law-ab-257">new California law</a> establishing a governmental body to raise the minimum wage for fast food workers.
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The future of fast food, as idealized by restaurants, involves robots taking orders, cooking them, and delivering them right to your car.
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“You’re seeing a lot of big growth in the chains, and they’re taking this moment to recalibrate and figure out their next strategies,” Chandler says.
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Restaurants’ no-dining-room experiments coincide with the beefing-up of drive-thrus, which became more popular post-pandemic and also face significant bottlenecks (see: <a href="https://la.eater.com/2020/5/12/21255064/drive-thru-fast-food-restaurants-los-angeles-lines-coronavirus-drone">long lines overflowing onto main roads</a>). Taco Bell’s new concept restaurant has four drive-thru lanes where food is delivered directly to the customer’s car <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/7/23158666/taco-bell-defy-digital-online-orders-drive-thru">via a vertical lift</a>. (There is no dining room.) The demand for drive-thru has been such a growth area for fast food that even <a href="https://www.eater.com/22991163/applebees-drive-thru-windows-fast-food-decline">full-service restaurants</a> are adding them.
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Consumers have a fairly short amount of patience for their fast food order to be ready. According to a 2020 <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/consumer-business/us-cb-the-restaurant-of-the-future-arrives-ahead-of-schedule.pdf">Deloitte report</a>, 75 percent of consumers say waiting up to 30 minutes for their food delivery is reasonable. For fast food, 42 percent of diners said they expected their orders in five minutes or less. Fast food chains are using a host of new tech to speed up orders and delivery times: <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/see-mcdonalds-subway-chipotle-other-202515000.html">Voice bots</a> to improve the accuracy and efficiency of drive-thru orders; apps and in-store kiosks so customers can place their orders without ever having to interact with a human. They’re even using <a href="https://www.pymnts.com/restaurant-technology/2023/mcdonalds-to-drive-pickup-adoption-with-wait-eliminating-geofencing-features/">location data</a> that lets employees know when a customer is nearing the store to pick up their food, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/25/soggy-french-fries-solution/">experimenting with containers and packaging</a> to ensure that food doesn’t get soggy during delivery.
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“If the pandemic did one thing, it was to teach the typical American restaurant patron how to use digital ordering,” Riehle says. “The critical importance of digital ordering cannot be overstated.”
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While fast food restaurants might want to fully automate, it’ll take some convincing and acclimation. Customers are a little wary of it — according to a survey by brand strategy firm Big Red Rooster, <a href="https://bigredrooster.com/automation-in-restaurants-the-return-on-experience-of-human-and-machine/">almost a third</a> say that they don’t want to see robots preparing their food. It’s a departure from how people viewed fast food when it first appeared on the scene in the early 20th century. In a time before a uniform health code, the mechanization and consistency of fast food was a comfort, says Chandler. The allure of White Castle — the first fast food chain in the US, having opened in 1921 — was that it “standardized the look of the restaurants” and showed people a “very clean, well-lit place to dine.”
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“It’s funny, because nowadays — in the last 15 or 20 years — the idea of having a place look exactly the same when you go in is kind of dystopian,” he says.
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But whatever discomfort diners may feel about a robot fry cook, automating the fast food experience to be an even faster, to-go experience is the big-dollar-sign future for the industry — running a fast food restaurant, especially if you’re just a franchisee, is a fairly small-margin business. While dining in has made a comeback since the lockdowns, it’s still not back at pre-pandemic levels. It’s unclear if it will ever fully recover — or if we’ve simply entered a new era of enjoying fast food outside of the restaurant. Just as car culture gave rise to the fast food experience we’ve known for the past half-century, the smartphone is now ushering it into its next iteration, for a more atomized world where commuters and road trippers don’t have to pause at all for their meals.
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Something stands to be lost with the shrinking of dining rooms and expansion of drive-thrus, says Chandler. The fast food joint often serves as a “third place,” a stand-in for the lack of other public spaces and institutions offering a neutral place to hang out. “When I was reporting [for my book], I would go to small towns in the Plains states,” he says, “and I would see the local Burger King is where a bunch of old timers meet every morning, have coffee and maybe a sandwich, and hang out.”
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“To see the playgrounds going away — to see the stores’ footprints reducing in size, where you see this enormous emphasis on smaller or fewer dining rooms and more drive-thru lanes, speaks to a movement away from those third places,” Chandler says.
</p></li>
<li><strong>The controversy over Aubrey Plaza’s ad for Big Dairy, explained</strong> -
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<img alt="An actress holding a glass of what looks like milk and sporting a milk mustache." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2tBxWtmHNFPfDLqrMrFFYkRqJdA=/435x0:1864x1072/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72251467/Screen_Shot_2023_05_04_at_12.09.36_PM.0.png"/>
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Aubrey Plaza in an <a class="ql-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4klWmwC2ds" target="_blank">advertisement</a> for a fake company called Wood Milk, on behalf of the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP). | <a class="ql-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4klWmwC2ds" target="_blank">Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP)</a>
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The milk wars are heating up.
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There’s a war in the dairy aisle, and the latest shot was fired by Aubrey Plaza of <em>White Lotus</em> and <em>Parks and Recreation </em>fame, in a commercial for a fake company called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4klWmwC2ds">Wood Milk</a>.
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Wood Milk sounds like something you might find in the Goop catalog, or on <em>Saturday Night Live</em>, but it doesn’t actually exist. Rather, Plaza — acting in the commercial as a co-founder of Wood Milk — is mocking plant-based milks, the non-dairy varieties made from oats, almonds, soybeans, or coconuts.
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Throughout the ad, Plaza hugs trees and dumps wood shavings on her head while espousing the supposed benefits of this “artisanal,” “old-fashioned,” “eco-friendly,” and “free-range” nectar of the forest. Wood Milk, like other non-cow milks, comes in various flavors: oak, cherry, maple, and mahogany.
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“If you can’t pick your favorite [flavor], that’s okay, because they all taste like wood,” Plaza says in her trademark deadpan style. The implication is that non-dairy milks taste like, well, wood.
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But the main point of the ad arrives at the end, when Plaza asks the camera in the same sarcastic style, “Is Wood Milk real? Absolutely not. Only real milk is real.” Black text on the screen reads “IS YOUR MILK REAL?” and the commercial ends with the iconic “got milk?<em>” </em>slogan. “Obviously, Wood Milk has zero nutritional value,” viewers are warned.
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Plaza was mocking plant-based milk on behalf of <a href="https://milkpep.org/">the Milk Processor Education Program</a>, or <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/got-milk-a-new-generation-embraces-the-iconic-question-301104254.html">MilkPEP</a>, the quasi-governmental dairy industry organization <a href="https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/research-promotion/fluid-milk">administered</a> by the United States Department of Agriculture that ran the “got milk?” campaigns of the 1990s and 2000s.
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While Plaza’s mock TV commercial is tongue-in-cheek, the dairy industry is serious about its <a href="https://www.drinkwoodmilk.com/pages/why-wood">message</a>: Only milk from cows is “real.”
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It’s an odd claim, given that people have been drinking milk from plants for <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zs722v4">centuries</a>. But plant-based dairy and meat products have also been subject to <a href="https://www.ncba.org/ncba-news/news-releases/news/details/26008/fake-meat-claims">industry attacks</a> charging that they’re overly processed (another odd claim, considering the dizzying complexity of modern-day meat and milk production).
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But the stakes of the milk wars go beyond mere aesthetics. While the Wood Milk commercial touts the “realness” of cow’s milk, it fails to mention the very real harms of dairy production: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/05/10/farm-pollution-deaths/">air</a> and <a href="https://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigation/polluted-by-politics/">water pollution</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22905381/meat-dairy-eggs-climate-change-emissions-rewilding">greenhouse gas emissions</a>, inhumane treatment of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_quX1acHGks">cows</a>, and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/wisconsin-dairy-farm-jefferson-rodriguez">dangerous conditions</a> for a <a href="http://publications.dyson.cornell.edu/outreach/extensionpdf/2016/Cornell-Dyson-eb1612.pdf">low-paid</a> and vulnerable workforce, <a href="https://www.nmpf.org/wp-content/uploads/immigration-survey-090915.pdf">half</a> of whom were immigrants in 2014, according to an industry survey. Shortly after the ad went live, Plaza was <a href="https://www.today.com/food/news/aubrey-plaza-wood-milk-backlash-rcna81400">condemned</a> for propagandizing for Big Dairy, and eventually turned off the comments section on her Instagram post about it.
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Here’s a fact that is 100 percent real: Shifting some of our meat and dairy production to plant-based is <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/meat-climate-change-paris-agreement-vegetarian-b1621033.html">critical</a> to meeting climate targets, and doing so would reduce air and water pollution and prevent animal suffering. But that shift is made all the harder when the incumbent industry has an enormous advertising budget and immense power in Washington.
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<h3 id="GTeddr">
The backlash against plant-based milk and meat, explained
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It’s safe to say that the millions of people who regularly drink plant-based milks don’t think it tastes like wood — otherwise the industry wouldn’t have grown fast enough to account for <a href="https://www.fooddive.com/news/plant-based-food-sales-hit-74b-in-2021/621160/">16 percent</a> of fluid milk sales. The product’s ascent into coffee shops and the dairy aisle has been swift enough to cause the conventional dairy sector to counterattack — US per capita dairy milk consumption fell by over <a href="https://www.vox.com/22456572/plant-based-vegan-cheese-motif-perfect-day">25 percent</a> from the mid-90s, when “got milk?” ads began to take over the airwaves, to 2018.
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The war of words over the authenticity of milk has escalated to the <a href="https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/press-releases/baldwin-risch-collins-welch-introduce-bipartisan-dairy-pride-act-to-combat-mislabeling-of-non-dairy-products">halls of Congress</a> and <a href="https://www.preparedfoods.com/articles/125023-alternative-milk-labeling-leads-to-legal-lashings">statehouses</a> in recent years — dairy groups have lobbied for legislation that bars plant-based milk companies from calling their products plant-based “milk,” “yogurt,” or “cheese.” The dairy industry, which spent <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/lobbying.php?ind=A04++">$7.2 million</a> on federal lobbying in 2022, <a href="https://www.nmpf.org/fda-guidance-on-plant-based-beverages-use-of-dairy-terms-is-a-first-step-nmpf-says-while-calling-for-complete-transparency-in-labeling/">argues</a> that calling plant-based milk “milk” violates the US Food and Drug Administration’s <a href="https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/standards-identity-food">“standards of identity,”</a> which stipulate ingredient formulations for certain products.
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For example, there are <a href="https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/cfrsearch.cfm?fr=150.160">strict definitions</a> that differentiate jelly, jam, and preserves, while <a href="https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/cfrsearch.cfm?fr=131.110">“milk”</a> is defined as “the lacteal secretion, practically free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows.”
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The dairy industry has a point, but many commonly eaten foods have names that aren’t a perfect description of their contents. There’s no butter in peanut butter, for instance, or ham in hamburgers. (The latter name <a href="https://www.rd.com/article/why-is-it-called-a-hamburger-if-theres-no-ham/">comes</a> from Hamburg, Germany, home to the particular cut of beef that eventually went into hamburgers.)
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Earlier this year, the FDA temporarily settled the matter when it issued <a href="https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/draft-guidance-industry-labeling-plant-based-milk-alternatives-and-voluntary-nutrient-statements">draft guidance</a> stating that plant-based companies can indeed call their products “milk,” but that the word must be preceded by what the milk is made of (e.g. oats). The National Milk Producers Federation called that part of the decision <a href="https://www.nmpf.org/fda-guidance-an-incomplete-win-for-dairy/">“unacceptable,”</a> but the group was happy that the FDA at least recommended that plant-milk companies make voluntary statements on their packaging about how the nutrition of their product compares to that of cow’s milk.
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The FDA hasn’t said when it may finalize its guidance, but wherever it lands, it probably won’t stop Big Dairy from provoking dairy-free companies with “real” versus “fake” messaging. That may appeal to our <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/01/19/plant-based-meat-failing/">preference for what we think is the real thing</a>, but it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. It’s a perfect example of the <a href="https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-naturalistic-fallacy/">naturalistic fallacy</a>, which asserts that whatever is “natural” is good and real, and whatever is “unnatural” is bad and artificial.
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The idea that one type of milk is real and the other isn’t is absurd on its face: Humans have produced and consumed milk from plants for <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zs722v4">centuries</a>, which makes sense when you consider that <a href="https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/lactose-intolerance/definition-facts#:~:text=While%20most%20infants%20can%20digest,world's%20population%20has%20lactose%20malabsorption.">over two-thirds</a> of people, <a href="https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/187249-overview">especially</a> those of Asian, African, and South American descent, have difficulty digesting lactose, a sugar found in the milk of mammals.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JofsEQ">
The argument that plant-based meat and dairy are bad because they are <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/10/7/20880318/meatless-meat-mainstream-backlash-impossible-burger">highly processed</a> is another fallacy that has gained traction in recent years. It’s disingenuous, and not because plant-based meat and dairy aren’t processed — they undergo a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NRIDzlM-cg">number</a> of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fGEggkj02g">processes</a> before they reach consumers — but so do <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZWYW7u11LI">animal-based foods</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tn65O5">
Let’s first look at how “real” dairy is made. Most milk comes from cows raised on <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/98901/err%20274_summary.pdf?v=418.4">large, industrialized farms</a> in which they’re <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/160448/meat-bestiality-artificial-insemination">artificially inseminated</a> and have their offspring removed from them <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5354428/#:~:text=Separating%20the%20calf%20from%20the,with%20milk%20or%20milk%20replacer).">shortly after birth</a>. They go on to produce milk for a few years in massive barns where a couple times a day they’re hooked up to milking machines for 10 minutes at a time. The whole system hardly resembles the rolling green hills sometimes featured on milk and cheese labels (<a href="https://countryfolks.com/dairy-cows-indoors-or-out/#:~:text=D.,to%20pasture%2C%E2%80%9D%20Smid%20said.">less than 20 percent</a> of US dairy cows have access to pasture).
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Vk3jW-HiTIXEKLoTxyCzPliiRnw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24632607/GettyImages_629562447.jpg"/> <cite>Andia/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A rotary milking parlor with 85 spaces in a dairy farm in California.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/J40oExZuwMj6VHsjGwaDEdXyPIM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24632620/GettyImages_1482357105.jpg"/> <cite>Mario Tama/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A sprawling dairy farm in California’s Central Valley.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rRBJcG">
The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XSoTEcD_vQ">cows’ milk</a> is chilled, and then transported by truck to a factory where it’s <a href="http://milkfacts.info/Milk%20Processing/Milk%20Processing%20Page.htm">tested</a> for antibiotic residues before it’s pasteurized — heated to kill harmful bacteria — and then rapidly cooled. It’s also filtered to remove sediment and separate out some of the cream, which goes into producing creamer and other fat-heavy dairy products. Next, fat content is <a href="https://www.crbgroup.com/insights/food-beverage/dairy-processing">adjusted</a> and, finally, the milk is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t-u_YV1r-I">homogenized</a>, which entails forcing hot milk through tiny holes to break down oil droplets so as to ensure a smooth consistency. Dairy companies may add sugar, vitamins and minerals, or preservatives and emulsifiers, depending on how the milk will be consumed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ho6LnE">
The cows, which have been bred to produce <a href="https://extension.umn.edu/dairy-news/dairy-industry-50-years">2.5 times</a> more milk than cows did 50 years ago, are killed at around <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal/article/review-overview-of-factors-affecting-productive-lifespan-of-dairy-cows/EF3D233CB84CE8AE36769A1966C67C34">three or four</a> years old once their production has waned — far short of their “natural” lifespan of around <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal/article/review-overview-of-factors-affecting-productive-lifespan-of-dairy-cows/EF3D233CB84CE8AE36769A1966C67C34">20 years</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EDA5W7">
The whole system is a far cry from the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-28/the-dairy-farm-of-your-imagination-is-disappearing#xj4y7vzkg">mental image</a> we may have of milk production, and the one the industry sometimes evokes on its <a href="https://www.opb.org/news/article/tillamook-mega-dairy-accused-of-misleading-marketing-campaigns/">packaging</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/22838160/animal-welfare-labels-meat-dairy-eggs-humane-humanewashing">advertising</a>: a farmer gently milking cows who were raised on pasture or in a big red barn.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O3eeoJ">
And while there are many ethical problems in dairy production, the highly processed nature of dairy milk isn’t one of them. In fact, it’s necessary. If you’re trying to produce enough milk to feed 330 million Americans at a low cost, you have to do it on a large scale with the aid of technology to make it more efficient and safe. (Raw, unpasteurized milk may be more “natural,” but the FDA says it can pose a <a href="https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/dangers-raw-milk-unpasteurized-milk-can-pose-serious-health-risk">“serious health risk.”</a>) The fact that dairy production entails a complex series of processes tells us little about how good or bad it is for us — or the environment and animals, for that matter.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YLyiXI">
The same goes for plant-based milk. Take <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NRIDzlM-cg">oat milk</a>, for example. Manufacturing methods vary, but generally it begins with taking <a href="https://www.oatly.com/en-us/stuff-we-sell/our-process">oats</a> that have been cleaned, peeled, and heat-treated and mixing them with water and enzymes that break down the oats’ starch. Oat bran, an insoluble fiber, is separated out. Plant oils are added for texture and gums are added as preservatives and thickeners. It’s filtered to remove solids, heat-treated to improve shelf life, and finally homogenized, just like cow’s milk. Producers may also add sugar, vitamins and minerals, and other additives.
</p>
<h3 id="xsbB5F">
Even better than the real thing?
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u6ry4v">
Despite the highly processed nature of both plant- and animal-based foods, and the benefits derived from some of that processing, consumers keep falling for the fake versus real framing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3RCoIR">
As Vox’s Kelsey Piper has <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/10/7/20880318/meatless-meat-mainstream-backlash-impossible-burger">written</a>, this new generation of plant-based alternatives — especially alternatives to meat — were often praised by food writers as sustainable game-changers when they were produced in smaller batches and cooked up by trendy chefs. But as they landed on fast-food menus and were, by necessity, mass-produced, they were marked as “ultra-processed” foods of which consumers should steer clear.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3nD6BR">
To be fair, the plant-based industry can fall prey to the naturalistic fallacy as well, decrying <a href="https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/whats-new/our-products-deliver-omgs-not-gmos">GMOs</a> and touting <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faDh0PZ76R0">plant-based burgers</a> that are “simple and clean” with “no synthetic ingredients, no artificial anything.” But the problem with processed foods isn’t that they’re processed, or how much they’re processed. It’s that sometimes the processing involves adding in a lot of addictive ingredients your doctor probably wants you to eat in moderation, like salt, sugar, and fat, which, of course, make those foods really difficult to eat in moderation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ba66I1">
The food writer Tamar Haspel of the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/all-processed-food-isnt-bad-we-took-a-nutritionist-shopping-to-find-reasonable-options/2019/09/06/5b6e2f56-c5d2-11e9-b5e4-54aa56d5b7ce_story.html">summed it up</a> this way: “Processing is a tool, and, like any tool, it can be used for good or for evil. If I have a hammer, I can use it to fix my neighbor’s roof. Or I can kill his dog. Likewise food processing.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fz4Ltz">
NOVA, a classification system that sorts foods into four categories of processing — unprocessed/minimally processed, processed culinary ingredients, processed, and ultra-processed — puts plant-based alternative products in the latter category, along with Twinkies and soft drinks. Mark Messina, the director of nutrition science and research at the Soy Nutrition Institute Global, <a href="https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2022/04/15/NOVA-system-unfairly-tars-plant-based-milks-burgers-from-soy-with-ultra-processed-brush-argues-academic">told Food Navigator</a> that while food processing can impact nutrition, such categorization is “simplistic and does not adequately evaluate the nutritional attributes of meat and dairy alternatives based on soy.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2mqhYb">
Instead of asking whether, or how much, a food is processed, we’d be better off simply looking at a food’s nutritional content. When it comes to plant-based milk, there’s a high degree of variability — soy milk is similar in fat, protein, and calcium to 2 percent cow’s milk, though other plant-based milks tend to have little protein. (It’s worth noting, though, that Americans already consume <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/well/eat/how-much-protein-do-we-need.html">far more protein</a> than the USDA recommends). Plant-based meat tends to have a similar amount of protein when compared to animal meat. As a plus, plant-based meats contain no cholesterol and typically less saturated fat, and are higher in fiber. But on the downside, they’re usually higher in sodium.<strong> </strong>
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8JBlGEX5X5DKPfpVgSaFwiwyUlM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24632685/GettyImages_1319118145.jpg"/> <cite>Scott Olson/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Plant-based milk for sale at a grocery store in Chicago, Illinois.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Dr4ImG">
Ultimately, I wonder how much this mud-slinging and ingredient interrogation really matters. Americans love to say they hate processed foods, but our behavior in the grocery store and at the drive-thru belies that notion. “Ultra-processed food” accounted for <a href="https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2021/october/ultra-processed-foods.html">57 percent</a> of our caloric intake in recent years (up from 53.5 percent in the early 2000s). Food corporations have created a culinary landscape in which added sugar, salt, and fat reign supreme; many plant-based meat and dairy companies are merely trying to fit into a world that Big Dairy and Big Meat have helped create. And given that every animal product replaced with a plant-based alternative reduces the toll of animal suffering and environmental degradation, that seems like a reasonable trade.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6DCoM3">
There’s room to criticize plant-based food producers for taking the route they have, but it’s a bit rich when it comes from the dairy industry, which partnered with Domino’s to create a pizza with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/us/07fat.html">40 percent more cheese</a> and with Taco Bell to create the creamer-based <a href="https://www.usdairy.com/media/press-releases/taco-bell-dairy-based-beverage-with-dairy-checkoff-support">Mountain Dew Baja Blast Colada Freeze</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9kgqdW">
It’s unclear how many of the punches against plant-based food have landed. After years of record growth, plant-based meat and dairy sales have <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/4/17/23682232/impossible-beyond-plant-based-meat-sales">slowed</a>, though it’s likely due to factors like cost, taste, and habit, rather than what celebrities are paid to think. But Big Dairy’s attempt to discredit plant-based milk could all be in vain, anyway; researchers say it has played only a small role in the <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/102447/err-300.pdf?v=6299.9">decline of cow’s milk</a>, which started decades before cow-free milk began to make a splash. The dairy industry’s real enemy, based on consumer trends, is <a href="https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2020/01/31/bottled-water-beats-plant-beverages-draining-milks-market-share/4625571002/">bottled water</a>, which indeed is minimally processed. And while it has no nutritional value, it also doesn’t include added sugar, fat, or salt.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3ApgNt">
Wood Water, anyone?
</p></li>
<li><strong>Your boss is obsessed with productivity without knowing what it means</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A cartoon drawing of a man wearing a business suit crouching and thinking inside of a transparent cube." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1rt0keQapHwI5CenFS3S2rnElRQ=/387x0:6574x4640/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72251441/GettyImages_97232619.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Management is not thinking outside the box. | Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
That’s poor ground to stand on when trying to revoke remote work.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0zEgSl">
Like pretty much every other company that could, HubSpot let its employees work from home when the pandemic hit. The difference was that, early on, the enterprise software company made a strong commitment to let workers continue working remotely if they wanted. And that’s what the majority of HubSpot workers did. Meanwhile, about a third are hybrid, and less than 10 percent are back to the office full time.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3JWaOP">
Now, HubSpot is trying to figure out the pros and cons of different working situations to make the most of each going forward. And, like many companies, it’s looking at a deceptively difficult metric to measure: productivity.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CTn4iB">
In looking at things like sales reps reaching their quotas and developers cranking out code, HubSpot found that productivity didn’t seem to vary by employee location. The only real difference they saw was that at-home workers felt more connected to HubSpot’s mission and customers than in-office employees, a counterintuitive finding that likely speaks to how satisfied they felt about their work situation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pmlWXt">
But a growing number of companies are still calling workers back to the office in the name of productivity.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZHotgC">
After promising that it would remain “fully flexible” last year, for example, the struggling ride-hailing company Lyft recently said it would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/business/lyft-return-to-office.html">start requiring employees to show up in person</a>. The company’s new CEO reasoned that things move faster face to face. But it’s not clear if that strategy actually works.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jyDzXv">
“Part of the reason you’re seeing so many people lobby for return to office is there’s this notion of, ‘That’s how I did it growing up,’” HubSpot chief people officer Katie Burke told Vox. “I certainly did that. I had a Palm Pilot growing up. I wore suits to work. I don’t think that everyone needs to do the things that I did in order to succeed in modern work.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y4pMLs">
The emphasis on productivity can seem disingenuous, given that many companies raked in <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-corporate-profits-jump-25-in-2021-as-economy-rebounds-from-pandemic-11648644379">record profits</a> as their workforces toiled in their living rooms. And even when companies try to measure productivity, they’re not necessarily measuring the right thing. In other words, your boss might be obsessed with productivity without really knowing what it means.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="yh2ItF">
<q>“I wore suits to work. I don’t think that everyone needs to do the things that I did in order to succeed in modern work.”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HoEcd6">
Some 71 percent of business leaders say they’re under immense pressure to squeeze more productivity out of their workers, according to a <a href="https://slack.com/state-of-work">new Slack survey</a> of 18,000 knowledge workers, including managers.<strong> </strong>But most are measuring what workers put in, rather than what they put out.<strong> </strong>In turn, workers say they’re spending a third of their time “<a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/9/22/23360887/remote-work-productivity-theater-back-to-office">performing</a>” work — that is, making an effort to look like they’re working rather than actually working. That includes focusing on supposed productivity signals, like speaking up in work threads regularly and responding to emails more quickly than necessary, even after hours.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TqHq1d">
Meanwhile, worker <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/356063/gallup-q12-employee-engagement-survey.aspx">engagement</a>, which is a measure of how well people understand their jobs and feel connected to them, has <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/468233/employee-engagement-needs-rebound-2023.aspx">gone down</a> since the early pandemic, according to a long-running Gallup study. And because worker engagement is highly correlated with productivity, that’s likely gone down, too. Workers are also reporting high rates of <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/10/20/23413380/burnout-remote-work-economy-quits-slack-future-forum">burnout</a>, all of which is bad for productivity.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="paconB">
So not only does nobody know how to measure productivity, we’re also not even sure it’s the most important way to predict success.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NtH3Ng">
It’s been three years since the start of the pandemic, which wrought unparalleled destruction but also enabled a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make work better. For the tens of millions of people who were able to work remotely, the situation allowed them to skip long commutes and expensive lunches and get more time with their families and a work environment on their own terms. With these changes came conversations about work-life balance and job satisfaction that their bosses, desperate to hold on to talent amid the Great Resignation, seemed to genuinely consider.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0K58j6">
Companies stand to gain a lot from giving workers more flexibility, too. It can encourage a better, more creative, and more highly functioning workforce. Remote work, specifically, enables employers to hire from a broader candidate pool and one that might be more diverse than the location of the office, which contributes to better business outcomes. It also makes many employees happy, and happy workers are more productive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oYAVcl">
Now we stand at a crossroad for employees and employers. The pandemic is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/11/1169191865/biden-ends-covid-national-emergency">no longer considered a public health emergency</a>. Economic uncertainty and a loosening hiring market have given management ammunition — if not good reason — to pull back on the kinds of flexibility they offered during the pandemic, including remote work.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YtQF6A">
But it doesn’t have to be that way. The chance to make work better both for employees and employers still stands. It starts with measuring the right thing.
</p>
<h3 id="Zidtoq">
The problem with “productivity”
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dN7NIM">
What productivity means can vary by job, industry, and even person. Does it mean making more widgets or better widgets? And what makes a good widget?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nRKQ4e">
There are many parts of people’s jobs, especially knowledge workers’ jobs, that aren’t straightforward. Knowledge workers aren’t necessarily making widgets themselves. They might be coming up with new ways of selling those widgets, or improving those widgets, or writing about those widgets, or coaching others on how to spot new widgets.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4MEFHM">
When researchers try to measure the relative productivity of remote work versus non-remote work, there are even more elements to consider. Those might include how often people are working from home, and whether there might be an extenuating circumstance, like different types of management styles or, say, a pandemic.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qocvUz">
It’s particularly challenging to measure productivity among knowledge workers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GSupao">
“The research on this really does seem to be a complete mess, not in the sense that it’s bad research but in the sense that you can find research that points at positive effects, be it productivity or happiness or job satisfaction, or you can find research finding the opposite,” said Christoph Riedl, an associate professor of information systems at Northeastern University’s business school.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9xmsJB">
The studies around remote work and productivity tend to look for more countable outcomes in jobs that are more straightforward, like the number of calls per hour in a call center. Even there, the data is mixed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s0dmXc">
A <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w18871">widely cited pre-pandemic study</a> by Stanford economics professor Nick Bloom and others found remote call center workers at a Chinese travel agency spent more time working and conducted more calls per minute than their in-office counterparts. These people also went into the office one day per week and received performance pay. A more recent <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TxnxFVFgGabyloq_6TAmQ3wRwP7Exmt8/view">study</a> by Emma Harrington and Natalia Emanuel of call center workers at a Fortune 500 retailer found that those who worked from home answered 12 percent fewer calls than those who worked in an office. But their pay wasn’t tied to performance.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ag5QyW">
In a <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1McMMhP94-rBgQEkihJO01P0MGxIj0WtM/view">different study</a>, Harrington and others found that software engineers located in different buildings on the same campus before the pandemic wrote more computer programs than those who were sitting close to colleagues. However, the engineers who worked in different buildings commented less on others’ code. In other words, they were more productive but that potentially meant that less experienced coders got less mentorship and may end up being less productive in the future.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oRufQx">
“It is relatively context-specific in the sense that it may really matter what the management practices of the firm are and what the incentive scheme is,” Harrington, who is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Iowa, told Vox.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bXrWdN">
One would think that a given company would have a better idea of its own productivity, but that isn’t necessarily the case. The Slack survey found that 60 percent of executives were tracking activity metrics — things like emails sent or hours worked — as the main way to measure productivity. The problem is that doing so incentivizes things like sending more emails or staying at your desk longer, not making better widgets.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="43vhZu">
“We see employers focus so much on measuring inputs instead of outputs,” Slack’s SVP of research and analytics, Christina Janzer, explained. Looking more at what employees achieve than how they’re achieving it, she added, requires a shift in mindset.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1JHG3m">
“We have this opportunity to think so much more holistically about what really unlocks productivity,” she said. “I think there’s an opportunity for us to step back and rethink productivity because many people are focused on the wrong things.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v56nKQ">
According to Slack, more than 80 percent of employees in the Slack survey said that feeling happy and engaged with their organization would improve their productivity.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hx4vzn">
HubSpot is closer to the goal than most. When measuring the rate at which salespeople were meeting their quotas, the company found no difference between at-home and in-office employees. They also found that software engineers spent the same amount of time on revising code, regardless of location. Importantly, HubSpot’s leaders are also asking employees how they feel about working there, which helps them address issues as they arise.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FwydSw">
When HubSpot workers in the office complained about not seeing enough colleagues there to get that in-office experience, the company responded by reducing the office footprint so that those who did come in were physically closer. The company also designated a day each week — as well as a few marquee events each year — when there are more planned activities and in-person events to facilitate connection and in-person collaboration for those who want it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tVFPsV">
Importantly, the software company is doing so not to cajole people back into the office, but to try to make those who do find the office beneficial happier when they’re there.
</p>
<h3 id="r3E1YV">
What companies need is better management
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NRrwGR">
The current focus on productivity might say more about managers and the pressure they’re under from their bosses than it does about workers, Northeastern’s Riedl said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CYyjBl">
“If you are the one who allows remote work, you need to justify why you’re doing that,” he said. “If everyone’s going to work from the office and you demand everyone works from the office, there’s just less justification needed.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gchduE">
In other words, it’s easier to revert to the status quo.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dSD6fk">
But in doing so we’re missing chances to make remote work better for the majority of knowledge workers who currently work from home some (46 percent) or all (20 percent) of the time, according to the <a href="https://wfhresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/WFHResearch_updates_April2023.pdf">latest data from WFH Research</a>. We are also ignoring other important aspects of work that actually make people happy and more productive.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YMgUPE">
We know that employee engagement is down for all types of workers, but that it’s lowest for people who have to show up in person. Gallup <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace-2022-report.aspx">estimated</a> that low employee engagement cost the global economy $7.8 trillion in lost productivity last year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rNG1FW">
For those who work in jobs where they could be remote but are being told to go to the office, their lack of autonomy is likely contributing to their lowered engagement, said Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist of workplace management and well-being and a co-author of <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/469790/culture-shock.aspx"><em>Culture Shock</em></a>, a book coming out this month about the changing workplace. The decline in engagement among remote and hybrid workers has to do with unclear expectations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KEynaq">
All those issues could be solved by better management, Harter said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1ic59L">
That includes assessing individuals on more than just how much email they’re sending, being clear about goals, and generally communicating openly and frequently with your employees.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fgCqFO">
“I think organizations could reach their highest levels of productivity ever if they have managers who are upskilled to have the right kinds of ongoing conversations with people so that they’re in touch with them on a regular basis,” Harter said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tjCqtk">
That’s not easy. Figuring out how to make people feel connected remotely is hard; so is adapting new ways of onboarding or mentoring employees. Managing people working in multiple environments is obviously more of a challenge than just looking over their shoulders in the same office. But it’s not impossible, and solving these issues could make work — and productivity — better for employers and employees, regardless of where they work.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="outkn0">
“When we had increases in remote work during the pandemic, there were a lot of people asking, ‘How do we know people are productive?’” Harter said. “And my question back was, ‘How did you know they were productive before the pandemic?’”
</p></li>
</ul>
<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>TT team’s preparatory camp in Bengaluru from Sunday</strong> -</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>Moon’s Blessing, Precious, Place Vendome, Rapidus and Snowpiercer shone</strong> -</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>World Test Championship | KL Rahul rules himself out of final, to undergo thigh surgery</strong> - The WTC final will be played at the Oval in London from June 7.</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>Cyrus Boracha on Indian wrestlers’ protest, IPL taking over sports and Ding Liren becoming the world chess champion</strong> - The columnist puts the spotlight on India’s star female wrestlers who have accused Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of serial sexual harassment</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>IPL 2023: DC vs RCB | Delhi, Bangalore look to end their batting woes as Kotla awaits Kohli’s homecoming</strong> - While RCB are better placed than Delhi in the standings, the Faf du Plessis-led side can’t afford any slip ups as the IPL reaches its business end.</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>‘Buy drenched paddy’</strong> - Farmers hold rally at Kamareddy</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>Explained | How effective has judicial intervention been in increasing security in district courts?</strong> -</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>Restrain AP from carrying out Veligonda project works, TS tells KRMB</strong> - In a communication, Telangana says the project is in violation of Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-I and AP Reorganisation Act provisions</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>Sharad Pawar takes back his decision to resign as NCP national president</strong> - “There was a great deal of uneasiness among partymen with my party workers and well-wishers urging me to reconsider. I cannot disrespect your feelings,” Mr. Pawar said</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>Singareni to scale up coal handling capacity by 25 mtpa by 2025-26</strong> - Capacity addition taken up in tune with higher production plans</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>Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner Group boss says he will pull troops out of Bakhmut</strong> - His statement came after he posted a video among dead fighters, asking Russia for more ammunition.</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>Suspect arrested after second mass shooting in Serbia</strong> - At least eight people are killed and several more injured in villages south of Belgrade.</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>Who was behind the Kremlin drone attack?</strong> - The BBC’s Russia editor Steve Rosenberg examines the theories about the Moscow explosion.</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>What it’s like inside Russia 14 months after Ukraine invasion</strong> - At first glance things may seem normal - until you look closer, says the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg.</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>Ukraine shoots down own drone over central Kyiv</strong> - The air force says the drone went out of control and was destroyed to avoid “undesirable circumstances”.</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>Rocket Report: China selling reusable engines; can SpaceX still raise money?</strong> - “We all know that China and Russia and others have been doing lots of flights.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1936669">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Synthetic gasoline promises neutral emissions—but the math doesn’t work</strong> - E-fuels sound like a panacea, but there’s not enough spare electricity to make them. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1931444">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>In a world first, RSV vaccine wins FDA approval for adults 60 and up</strong> - It’s an achievement decades in the making, and more vaccines are in the pipeline. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1936993">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>As Alexa flounders, Amazon hopes homegrown generative AI can find it revenue</strong> - With voice assistants on the brink of death, Amazon targets Alexa large language model. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1936871">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Luke’s Awakening fan art merges Star Wars with Zelda to delightful 8-bit effect</strong> - Game Boy Color pixel art mashes up Star Wars and Zelda into a faux game we wish was real. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1936707">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s the difference between a G spot and a golf ball?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A guy will actually search for a golf ball
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/welshblondebbw"> /u/welshblondebbw </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/138ib35/whats_the_difference_between_a_g_spot_and_a_golf/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/138ib35/whats_the_difference_between_a_g_spot_and_a_golf/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An eight year old girl went to the office with her Dad on a “Take your kid to work day”.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
As they were walking around the office the young girl was getting crankier and crankier, crying and sobbing. Her father asked what was wrong with her?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
As the concerned office staff gathered around she sobbed loudly “Daddy, where are all the clowns you said you worked with?”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Alpha-Studios"> /u/Alpha-Studios </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/137kni6/an_eight_year_old_girl_went_to_the_office_with/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/137kni6/an_eight_year_old_girl_went_to_the_office_with/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Each year I eagerly anticipate this day so I can share my favorite Dad Joke of all time:</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Most people don’t know that back in 1912, Hellmann’s mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York. The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise, and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great, that they declared a National Day of Mourning, which they still observe to this day.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as …
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
…
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
…
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
…
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
<em>Sinko de Mayo</em>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
​
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
[It’s May 5th in half the world by now; also you can get this a bit “early” and use it tomorrow on your kids, or in your classroom, or even your workplace. May the groans reverberate around the world!]
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/damienbarrett"> /u/damienbarrett </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/137yz5z/each_year_i_eagerly_anticipate_this_day_so_i_can/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/137yz5z/each_year_i_eagerly_anticipate_this_day_so_i_can/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What does a robot do after a one-night stand?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He nuts and bolts.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/welshblondebbw"> /u/welshblondebbw </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/137wrgj/what_does_a_robot_do_after_a_onenight_stand/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/137wrgj/what_does_a_robot_do_after_a_onenight_stand/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What do you call two old men drooling in their wheelchairs?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The 2028 election.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/puntmasterofthefells"> /u/puntmasterofthefells </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/138b96x/what_do_you_call_two_old_men_drooling_in_their/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/138b96x/what_do_you_call_two_old_men_drooling_in_their/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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