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<title>30 April, 2021</title>
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<title>Covid-19 Sentry</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
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<li><strong>Indomethacin in COVID-19, more than just NSAID</strong> -
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This article aims to direct some interest on the positive role that Indomethacin could play in COVID-19. We relied on available evidence from the present literature and results of few clinical trials. We first discussed briefly, the documented antiviral activity of Indomethacin on coronaviruses and other viruses then moved to talk about how it could control the exaggerated immune response frequently reported during SARS-CoV-2 infection through the modulation of the PPAR-γ & HIF-1α axis. At the end, we posted the results of some clinical trials that we consider promising. It is important to note that our article does not carry a specific recommendation for Indomethacin as a global treatment for COVID-19, but we do believe it deserves to be implemented in more clinical trials.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/africarxiv/9g7tv/" target="_blank">Indomethacin in COVID-19, more than just NSAID</a>
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<li><strong>Dispositional and situational attribution of COVID-19 risk: A content analysis of response typology (Version: 1)</strong> -
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In the current COVID-19 pandemic, there have been official health recommendations of social distancing, thorough handwashing, and self-isolation to prevent the spread of the virus. However, compliance with these recommendations has been mixed. We suggest that non-compliance may be justified by one’s (mis)perception of their own COVID-19 risk. In this paper, we explore the dispositional and situational attribution of self-reported COVID-19 risk, as per Heider’s Attribution Theory. We conducted a content and framework analysis of responses to an online survey, in which participants (N = 114) were asked to rate their likelihood of contracting the COVID-19 virus, before providing textual responses to explain their rating. Overall, we observed that generally, participants who rated their risk to be low made more dispositional attributions (i.e. attributing their risk to factors such as age and own personal hygiene) whereas higher risk participants made more situational attributions (i.e. attributing COVID-19 risk to government decision-making and other people’s cleanliness). A finalised framework of five response typologies including intrinsic, behavioural, balanced, contextual, and disengaged responses was systematically applied to the data. These results will be discussed in the context of attribution theory and risk perception, whilst providing future recommendations for research that tackles non-compliance of COVID-19 behaviours.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/czskd/" target="_blank">Dispositional and situational attribution of COVID-19 risk: A content analysis of response typology (Version: 1)</a>
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</div></li>
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<li><strong>Selecting relevant and changeable determinants and underlying beliefs of university students’ adherence to COVID-19-guidelines and translating the findings into a small intervention</strong> -
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Background: When reopening universities in times of COVID-19, students still have to adhere to COVID-19 behavioral guidelines. We explored what behavioral determinants (and underlying beliefs) related to the adherence to guidelines are both relevant and changeable, as input for future interventions. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted (Oct-Nov 2020), identifying behavioral determinants (and underlying beliefs) of university students’ adherence to COVID-19-guidelines, including keeping 1.5m distance, getting tested, and isolating (N = 255). Results: Attitude, perceived norm, self-efficacy, and several beliefs (e.g., risk perception beliefs ‘I am not afraid because I am young’; attitudinal beliefs, e.g., ‘I feel responsible for telling people to adhere to guidelines’; self-efficacy beliefs, e.g., ‘COVID-19-prevention guidelines are difficult to adhere to’) were strongly associated with intention to adhere to guidelines, and for those beliefs there was room for improvement, making them suitable as possible intervention targets. Conclusions: Students mostly adhere to COVID-19 guidelines, but there is room for improvement. Interventions need to enhance students’ adherence behavior by targeting the most relevant determinants as identified in this study. Based on these findings, a small intervention was introduced targeting the determinants of students’ adherence to guidelines.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/rs5yu/" target="_blank">Selecting relevant and changeable determinants and underlying beliefs of university students’ adherence to COVID-19-guidelines and translating the findings into a small intervention</a>
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<li><strong>U.S. Regional Disparities in Physical Distancing: Evaluating Racial and Socioeconomic Divides During the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
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Abstract Health varies by U.S. region of residence. Despite regional heterogeneity in the outbreak of COVID-19, regional differences in physical distancing behaviors over time are relatively unknown. This study examines regional variation in physical distancing trends during the COVID-19 pandemic and investigates variation by race and socioeconomic status (SES) within regions. Data from the 2015-2019 five-year American Community Survey were matched with anonymized location pings data from over 20 million mobile devices (SafeGraph, Inc.) at the Census block group level. We visually present trends in the stay-at-home proportion by Census region, race, and SES throughout 2020 and conduct regression analyses to statistically examine these patterns. From March to December, the stay-at-home proportion was highest in the Northeast (0.25 in March to 0.35 in December) and lowest in the South (0.24 to 0.30). Across all regions, the stay-at-home proportion was higher in block groups with a higher percentage of Blacks, as Blacks disproportionately live in urban areas where stay-at-home rates were higher (0.009 [CI: 0.008, 0.009]). In the South, West, and Midwest, higher-SES block groups stayed home at the lowest rates pre-pandemic; however, this trend reversed throughout March before converging in the months following. In the Northeast, lower-SES block groups stayed home at comparable rates to higher-SES block groups during the height of the pandemic but diverged in the months following. Differences in physical distancing behaviors exist across U.S. regions, with a pronounced Southern and rural disadvantage. Results can be used to guide reopening and COVID-19 mitigation plans.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/e6msz/" target="_blank">U.S. Regional Disparities in Physical Distancing: Evaluating Racial and Socioeconomic Divides During the COVID-19 Pandemic</a>
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<li><strong>Race-ethnicity and Perceptional Determinants of COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions: A Cross-sectional Study Among Health Workers and the General Population in the San Francisco Bay Area</strong> -
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Importance: Surveys in the US have found that Black and Latinx individuals have more reservations than their white counterparts about COVID-19 vaccination. However, little is known about the degree to which racial-ethnic differences in COVID-19 vaccination intentions are explained by differences in beliefs or perceptions about COVID-19 vaccines. Objective: To compare intention to receive COVID-19 vaccination by race-ethnicity, to identify perceptional factors that may mediate the association between race-ethnicity and intention to receive the vaccine, and to identify the demographic and perceptional factors most strongly predictive of intention to receive a vaccine. Design: Cross-sectional survey conducted from November, 2020 to January, 2021, nested within two longitudinal cohort studies of prevalence and incidence of SARS CoV-2 among the general population and healthcare workers. Setting: Six San Francisco Bay Area counties. Study Cohort: 3,161 participants in the Track COVID cohort (a population-based sample of adults) and 1,803 participants in the CHART Study cohort (a cohort of employees at three large medical centers). Results: Rates of high vaccine willingness were significantly lower among Black (45.3%), Latinx (62.5%), Asian (65%), multi-racial (67.2%), and other race (61.0%) respondents than among white respondents (77.6%). Black, Latinx, and Asian respondents were significantly more likely than white respondents to endorse reasons to not get vaccinated, especially lack of trust. Participants9 motivations and concerns about COVID-19 vaccination only partially explained racial-ethnic differences in vaccination willingness. Being a health worker in the CHART cohort and concern about a rushed government vaccine approval process were the two most important factors predicting vaccination intention. Conclusions and Relevance: Special efforts are required to reach historically marginalized racial-ethnic communities to support informed decision-making about COVID-19 vaccination. These campaigns must acknowledge the history of racism in biomedical research and health care delivery that has degraded the trustworthiness of health and medical science institutions among non-white population and may continue to undermine confidence in COVID-19 vaccines.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.26.21255893v1" target="_blank">Race-ethnicity and Perceptional Determinants of COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions: A Cross-sectional Study Among Health Workers and the General Population in the San Francisco Bay Area</a>
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<li><strong>Possible link between higher transmissibility of B.1.617 and B.1.1.7 variants of SARS-CoV-2 and increased structural stability of its spike protein and hACE2 affinity</strong> -
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The Severe Acute syndrome corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak in December 2019 has caused a global pandemic. The rapid mutation rate in the virus has caused alarming situations worldwide and is being attributed to the false negativity in RT-PCR tests, which also might lead to the inefficacy of the available drugs. It has also increased the chances of reinfection and immune escape. We have performed Molecular Dynamic simulations of three different Spike-ACE2 complexes, namely Wildtype (WT), B.1.1.7 variant (N501Y Spike mutant) and B.1.617 variant (L452R, E484Q Spike mutant) and compared their dynamics, binding energy and molecular interactions. Our result shows that mutation has caused the increase in the binding energy between the Spike and hACE2. In the case of B.1.617 variant, the mutations at L452R and E484Q increased the stability and intra-chain interactions in the Spike protein, which may change the interaction ability of human antibodies to this Spike variant. Further, we found that the B.1.1.7 variant had increased hydrogen interaction with LYS353 of hACE2 and more binding affinity in comparison to WT. The current study provides the biophysical basis for understanding the molecular mechanism and rationale behind the increase in the transmissivity and infectivity of the mutants compared to wild-type SARS-CoV-2.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.29.441933v1" target="_blank">Possible link between higher transmissibility of B.1.617 and B.1.1.7 variants of SARS-CoV-2 and increased structural stability of its spike protein and hACE2 affinity</a>
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<li><strong>Molecular interactions of the M and E integral membrane proteins of SARS-CoV-2</strong> -
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Specific lipid-protein interactions are key for cellular processes, and even more so for the replication of pathogens. The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed our lives and cause the death of nearly three million people worldwide, as of this writing. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes the disease and has been at the center of scientific research over the past year. Most of the research on the virus is focused on key players during its initial attack and entry into the cellular host; namely the S protein, its glycan shield, and its interactions with the ACE2 receptors of human cells. As cases continue to raise around the globe, and new mutants are identified, there is an urgent need to understand the mechanisms of this virus during different stages of its life cycle. Here, we consider two integral membrane proteins of SARS-CoV-2 known to be important for viral assembly and infectivity. We have used microsecond-long all-atom molecular dynamics to examine the lipid-protein and protein-protein interactions of the membrane (M) and envelope (E) structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2 in a complex membrane model. We contrast the two proposed protein complexes for each of these proteins, and quantify their effect on their local lipid environment. This ongoing work also aims to provide molecular-level understanding of the mechanisms of action of this virus to possibly aid in the design of novel treatments.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.29.442018v1" target="_blank">Molecular interactions of the M and E integral membrane proteins of SARS-CoV-2</a>
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<li><strong>Phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 lineage development across the first and second waves in Eastern Germany, 2020</strong> -
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SARS-CoV-2 lineages prevalent in the first and second waves in Eastern Germany were different, with many new variants, including four predominant lineages in the second wave, having been introduced into Eastern Germany between August to October 2020, indicating the major cause of the second wave was the introduction of new variants.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.29.441906v1" target="_blank">Phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 lineage development across the first and second waves in Eastern Germany, 2020</a>
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<li><strong>The natural stilbenoid (-)-hopeaphenol inhibits cellular entry of SARS-CoV-2 USA-WA1/2020, B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants</strong> -
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Antivirals are urgently needed to combat the global SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic, supplement existing vaccine efforts, and target emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. Small molecules that interfere with binding of the viral spike receptor binding domain (RBD) to the host ACE2 receptor may be effective inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 cell entry. Here we screened 512 pure compounds derived from natural products using a high-throughput RBD/ACE2 binding assay and identified (-)-hopeaphenol, a resveratrol tetramer, in addition to vatalbinoside A and vaticanol B, as potent and selective inhibitors of RBD/ACE2 binding and viral entry. For example, (-)-hopeaphenol disrupted RBD/ACE2 binding with a 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 0.11 uM in contrast to an IC50 of 28.3 uM against the unrelated host ligand/receptor binding pair PD-1/PD-L1 (selectivity index = 257.3). When assessed against the USA-WA1/2020 variant, (-)-hopeaphenol also inhibited entry of a VSVdeltaG-GFP reporter pseudovirus expressing SARS-CoV-2 spike into ACE2-expressing Vero-E6 cells and in vitro replication of infectious virus in cytopathic effect assays (IC50 = 10.2 uM) without cytotoxicity. Notably, (-)-hopeaphenol also inhibited two emerging variants of concern originating from the United Kingdom (B.1.1.7) and South Africa (B.1.351) in both cytopathic effect and spike-containing pseudovirus assays with similar (B.1.1.7) or improved (B.1.351) efficacies over the USA-WA1/2020 variant. These results identify (-)-hopeaphenol and related stilbenoid analogues as potent and selective inhibitors of viral entry across multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants including those with increased infectivity and/or reduced susceptibility to existing vaccines.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.29.442010v1" target="_blank">The natural stilbenoid (-)-hopeaphenol inhibits cellular entry of SARS-CoV-2 USA-WA1/2020, B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants</a>
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<li><strong>An enveloped virus-like particle vaccine expressing a stabilized prefusion form of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein elicits potent immunity after a single dose.</strong> -
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Development of efficacious single dose vaccines would substantially aid efforts to stop the uncontrolled spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluated enveloped virus-like particles (eVLPs) expressing various forms of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and several adjuvants in an effort to identify a COVID-19 vaccine candidate efficacious after a single dose. The eVLPs expressing a modified prefusion form of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein were selected as they induced the highest antibody binding titers and neutralizing activity after a single injection in mice. Formulation of SARS-CoV-2 S eVLPs with aluminum phosphate resulted in balanced induction of IgG2 and IgG1 isotypes and antibody binding and neutralization titers were undiminished for more than 3 months after a single immunization. A single dose of this candidate, VBI-2902a (prefusion S eVLPs formulated with aluminum phosphate), protected Syrian golden hamsters from challenge with SARS-CoV-2 and supports the on-going clinical evaluation of VBI-2902a as a potential single dose vaccine against COVID-19.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.28.441832v1" target="_blank">An enveloped virus-like particle vaccine expressing a stabilized prefusion form of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein elicits potent immunity after a single dose.</a>
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<li><strong>Protracted yet coordinated differentiation of long-lived SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T cells during COVID-19 convalescence</strong> -
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CD8+ T cells are important antiviral effectors that can potentiate long-lived immunity against COVID-19, but a detailed characterization of these cells has been hampered by technical challenges. We screened 21 well-characterized, longitudinally-sampled convalescent donors that recovered from mild COVID-19 against a collection of SARS-CoV-2 tetramers, and identified one participant with an immunodominant response against Nuc322-331, a peptide that is conserved in all the SARS-CoV-2 variants-of-concern reported to date. We conducted 38-parameter CyTOF phenotyping on tetramer-identified Nuc322-331-specific CD8+ T cells, and on CD4+ and CD8+ T cells recognizing the entire nucleocapsid and spike proteins from SARS-CoV-2, and took 32 serological measurements on longitudinal specimens from this participant. We discovered a coordination of the Nuc322-331-specific CD8+ T response with both the CD4+ T cell and antibody pillars of adaptive immunity. Nuc322-331-specific CD8+ T cells were predominantly central memory T cells, but continually evolved over a ~6-month period of convalescence. We observed a slow and progressive decrease in the activation state and polyfunctionality of the Nuc322-331-specific CD8+ T cells, accompanied by an increase in their lymph-node homing and homeostatic proliferation potential. These results suggest that following a typical case of mild COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T cells not only persist but continuously differentiate in a coordinated fashion well into convalescence, into a state characteristic of long-lived, self-renewing memory.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.28.441880v1" target="_blank">Protracted yet coordinated differentiation of long-lived SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T cells during COVID-19 convalescence</a>
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<li><strong>Allelic variation in Class I HLA determines pre-existing memory responses to SARS-CoV-2 that shape the CD8+ T cell repertoire upon viral exposure</strong> -
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Effective presentation of antigens by HLA class I molecules to CD8+ T cells is required for viral elimination and generation of long-term immunological memory. In this study, we applied a single-cell, multi-omic technology to generate the first unified ex vivo characterization of the CD8+ T cell response to SARS-CoV-2 across 4 major HLA class I alleles. We found that HLA genotype conditions key features of epitope specificity, TCR a/b sequence diversity, and the utilization of pre-existing SARS-CoV-2 reactive memory T cell pools. Single-cell transcriptomics revealed functionally diverse T cell phenotypes of SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells, associated with both disease stage and epitope specificity. Our results show that HLA variations influence pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and shape the immune repertoire upon subsequent viral exposure.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.29.441258v1" target="_blank">Allelic variation in Class I HLA determines pre-existing memory responses to SARS-CoV-2 that shape the CD8+ T cell repertoire upon viral exposure</a>
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<li><strong>Contrasting factors associated with COVID-19-related ICU admission and death outcomes in hospitalised patients by means of Shapley values</strong> -
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Identification of those at greatest risk of death due to the substantial threat of COVID-19 can benefit from novel approaches to epidemiology that leverage large datasets and complex machine-learning models, provide data-driven intelligence, and guide decisions such as intensive-care unit admission (ICUA). The objective of this study is two-fold, one substantive and one methodological: substantively to evaluate the association of demographic and health records with two related, yet different, outcomes of severe COVID-19 (viz., death and ICUA); methodologically to compare interpretations based on logistic regression and on gradient-boosted decision tree (GBDT) predictions interpreted by means of the Shapley impacts of covariates. Very different association of some factors, e.g., obesity and chronic respiratory diseases, with death and ICUA may guide review of practice. Shapley explanation of GBDTs identified varying effects of some factors among patients, thus emphasising the importance of individual patient assessment. The results of this study are also relevant for the evaluation of complex automated clinical decision systems, which should optimise prediction scores whilst remaining interpretable to clinicians and mitigating potential biases.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.03.20242941v2" target="_blank">Contrasting factors associated with COVID-19-related ICU admission and death outcomes in hospitalised patients by means of Shapley values</a>
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<li><strong>Pyridostigmine in adults with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection: the PISCO trial</strong> -
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Background: Hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 have an increased risk of developing severe systemic inflammatory response, pulmonary damage, and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), resulting in end-organ damage and death. Acetylcholine modulates the acute inflammatory response through a neuro-immune mechanism known as the inflammatory reflex. Pyridostigmine, an acetylcholine-esterase inhibitor, increases the half-life of endogenous ACh, chemically stimulating the inflammatory reflex. This trial aimed to evaluate whether pyridostigmine could decrease invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) and death in patients with severe COVID-19. Methods: We performed a parallel-group, multicenter, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial to evaluate if add-on pyridostigmine to standard treatment reduced the composite outcome of initiation of IMV and 28-day all-cause mortality among hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19. Results: 188 participants were randomly assigned to placebo (n=94) or pyridostigmine (n=94). The composite outcome occurred in 22 (23.4%) vs. 11 (11.7%) participants, respectively (hazard ratio 0.46, 95% confidence interval 0.22-0.96, p=0.03). Most of the adverse events were mild to moderate, with no serious adverse events related to pyridostigmine; discontinuation of the study drugs was similar in both groups. Conclusions: We provide evidence indicating that the addition of pyridostigmine to standard treatment resulted in a clinically significant reduction in the composite outcome (IMV/death) among patients hospitalized for severe COVID-19. (Funded by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, México; ClinicalTrials.gov number: NCT04343963).
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.28.21255834v1" target="_blank">Pyridostigmine in adults with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection: the PISCO trial</a>
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<li><strong>Iterative community-driven development of a SARS-CoV-2 tissue simulator</strong> -
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The 2019 novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is a pathogen of critical significance to international public health. Knowledge of the interplay between molecular-scale virus-receptor interactions, single-cell viral replication, intracellular-scale viral transport, and emergent tissue-scale viral propagation is limited. Moreover, little is known about immune system-virus-tissue interactions and how these can result in low-level (asymptomatic) infections in some cases and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in others, particularly with respect to presentation in different age groups or pre-existing inflammatory risk factors. Given the nonlinear interactions within and among each of these processes, multiscale simulation models can shed light on the emergent dynamics that lead to divergent outcomes, identify actionable “choke points” for pharmacologic interventions, screen potential therapies, and identify potential biomarkers that differentiate patient outcomes. Given the complexity of the problem and the acute need for an actionable model to guide therapy discovery and optimization, we introduce and iteratively refine a prototype of a multiscale model of SARS-CoV-2 dynamics in lung tissue. The first proto-type model was built and shared internationally as open source code and an online interactive model in under 12 hours, and community domain expertise is driving regular refinements. In a sustained community effort, this consortium is integrating data and expertise across virology, immunology, mathematical biology, quantitative systems physiology, cloud and high performance computing, and other domains to accelerate our response to this critical threat to international health. More broadly, this effort is creating a reusable, modular framework for studying viral replication and immune response in tissues, which can also potentially be adapted to related problems in immunology and immunotherapy.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.02.019075v4" target="_blank">Iterative community-driven development of a SARS-CoV-2 tissue simulator</a>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Oestrogen Treatment for COVID-19 Symptoms</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>: Drug: Transdermal estradiol gel<br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Hamad Medical Corporation; Laboratoires Besins International<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Virgin Coconut Oil as Adjunctive Therapy for Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>: Drug: Virgin Coconut Oil<br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of the Philippines; Philippine Coconut Authority; Philippine Council for Health Research & Development<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Impact of GSE and Xylitol (Xlear) on COVID-19 Symptoms and Time to PCR Negativisation in COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>: Drug: GSE and Xylitol<br/><b>Sponsor</b>: Larkin Community Hospital<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) for Prevention of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Covid19; COVID-19 Prevention<br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ); Other: Standard care; Other: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>: Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study to Evaluate a Single Dose of LTX-109 in Subjects With COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) Infection.</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: LTX-109 gel, 3%; Drug: Placebo gel<br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Pharma Holdings AS; Clinical Trial Consultants AB<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Detection of Covid-19 in Nasopharyngeal Swabs by Using Multi-Spectral Spectrophotometry</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>: Diagnostic Test: AP-23<br/><b>Sponsor</b>: Fable Biyoteknoloji San ve Tic A.S<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Immunogenicity of Demi-dose of Two Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines in Healthy Population</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>: Diagnostic Test: immunogenicity after first and second dose<br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Sciensano; Mensura EDPB; Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium; Erasme University Hospital<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Efficacy of Niclosamide in Patients With COVID-19 With Gastrointestinal Infection</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Niclosamide; Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>: AzurRx BioPharma, Inc.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Immunobridging and Immunization Schedules Study of COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell), Inactivated</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: 3-doses schedule 1 of COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell), Inactivated; Biological: 3-doses schedule 2 of COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell), Inactivated; Biological: 3-doses schedule 3 of COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell), Inactivated; Biological: 2 doses of vaccine<br/><b>Sponsors</b>: China National Biotec Group Company Limited; Beijing Institute of Biological Products Co Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Estradiol and Progesterone in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Placebo injection and placebo pill; Drug: Estradiol Cypionate 5 MG/ML; Drug: Progesterone 200 MG Oral Capsule<br/><b>Sponsor</b>: Tulane University<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
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<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 Close Contact Self-Testing Study</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: COVID-19 self-test; Behavioral: COVID-19 test referral<br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Pennsylvania; Public Health Management Corporation<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
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<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 Take-Up</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Covid19; Vaccination<br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Financial incentives; Behavioral: Convenient scheduling link; Behavioral: Race concordant; Behavioral: Gender concordant<br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Southern California; Contra Costa Health Services; J-PAL North America, State and Local Innovation Initiative; National Bureau of Economic Research Roybal Center; National Institute on Aging (NIA)<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lactoferrin in Covid-19 Hospitalized Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>: Dietary Supplement: Bovine lactoferrin; Dietary Supplement: Placebo administration<br/><b>Sponsor</b>: Paolo Manzoni<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Remdesivir Efficacy In Management Of COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Remdesivir; Drug: Standard of care_1; Drug: Standard of care_2<br/><b>Sponsor</b>: Ain Shams University<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Assessment of Efficacy of KAN-JANG® in Mild COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>: Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: Kan Jang capsules; Other: Placebo capsules<br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Swedish Herbal Institute AB; Tbilisi State Medical University; Phytomed AB<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
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<ul>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Assessing Public Willingness to Wear Face Masks during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Fresh Insights from the Theory of Planned Behavior</strong> - Face masks are considered an effective intervention in controlling the spread of airborne viruses, as evidenced by the 2009’s H1N1 swine flu and 2003’s severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreaks. However, research aiming to examine public willingness to wear (WTW) face masks in Pakistan are scarce. The current research aims to overcome this research void and contributes by expanding the theoretical mechanism of theory of planned behavior (TPB) to include three novel dimensions (risk…</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dysregulation of the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System (RAA) in Patients Infected with SARS-CoV-2-Possible Clinical Consequences</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 impairs the renin-angiotensin-aledosterone system via binding ACE2 enzyme. ACE2 plays a key role in the biosynthesis of angiotensin (1-7), catalyzing the conversion of angiotensin 2 into angiotensin (1-7) and the reaction of angiotensin synthesis (1-9), from which angiotensin is (1-7) produced under the influence of ACE (Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme). Angiotensin 2 is a potent vasoconstrictor and atherogenic molecule converted by ACE2 to reducing inflammation and vasodilating in…</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Next-Generation Probiotics and Their Metabolites in COVID-19</strong> - Since December 2019, a global pandemic has been observed, caused by the emergence of a new coronavirus, SARS CoV-2. The latter is responsible for the respiratory disease, COVID-19. The infection is also characterized by renal, hepatic, and gastrointestinal dysfunctions suggesting the spread of the virus to other organs. A dysregulated immune response was also reported. To date, there is no measure to treat or prevent SARS CoV-2 infection. Additionally, as gut microbiota composition is altered in…</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Plasmids Expressing shRNAs Specific to the Nucleocapsid Gene Inhibit the Replication of Porcine Deltacoronavirus In Vivo</strong> - Porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) is a novel enteric coronavirus and is becoming one of the major causative agents of diarrhea in pig herds in recent years. To date, there are no commercial vaccines or antiviral pharmaceutical agents available to control PDCoV infection. Therefore, developing a reliable strategy against PDCoV is urgently needed. In this study, to observe the antiviral activity of RNA interference (RNAi), four short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) specific to the nucleocapsid (N) gene of…</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Baicalein and Baicalin Inhibit SARS-CoV-2 RNA-Dependent-RNA Polymerase</strong> - Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a deadly emerging infectious disease caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Because SARS-CoV-2 is easily transmitted through the air and has a relatively long incubation time, COVID-19 has rapidly developed into a global pandemic. As there are no antiviral agents for the prevention and treatment of this severe pathogen except for remdesivir, development of antiviral therapies to treat infected individuals remains highly…</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Protective Role of a TMPRSS2 Variant on Severe COVID-19 Outcome in Young Males and Elderly Women</strong> - The protease encoded by the TMPRSS2 gene facilitates viral infections and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2. We analyzed the TMPRSS2 sequence and correlated the protein variants with the clinical features of a cohort of 1177 patients affected by COVID-19 in Italy. Nine relatively common variants (allele frequency > 0.01) and six missense variants which may affect the protease activity according to PolyPhen-2 in HumVar-trained mode were identified. Among them, p.V197M…</p></li>
|
||||||
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 Virus Entry by the Crude Polysaccharides of Seaweeds and Abalone Viscera In Vitro</strong> - Much attention is being devoted to the potential of marine sulfated polysaccharides as antiviral agents in preventing COVID-19. In this study, sulfated fucoidan and crude polysaccharides, extracted from six seaweed species (Undaria pinnatifida sporophyll, Laminaria japonica, Hizikia fusiforme, Sargassum horneri, Codium fragile, Porphyra tenera) and Haliotis discus hannai (abalone viscera), were screened for their inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV-2 virus entry. Most of them showed significant…</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cardiovascular Outcomes in the Acute Phase of COVID-19</strong> - The cumulative number of cases in the current global coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has exceeded 100 million, with the number of deaths caused by the infection having exceeded 2.5 million. Recent reports from most frontline researchers have revealed that SARS-CoV-2 can also cause fatal non-respiratory conditions, such as fatal cardiovascular events. One of the important mechanisms underlying the…</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pharmacological Modulators of Autophagy as a Potential Strategy for the Treatment of COVID-19</strong> - The family of coronaviruses (CoVs) uses the autophagy machinery of host cells to promote their growth and replication; thus, this process stands out as a potential target to combat COVID-19. Considering the different roles of autophagy during viral infection, including SARS-CoV-2 infection, in this review, we discuss several clinically used drugs that have effects at different stages of autophagy. Among them, we mention (1) lysosomotropic agents, which can prevent CoVs infection by alkalinizing…</p></li>
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<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: Direct and Indirect Mechanisms of Statins</strong> - The virus responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2): a new virus with high infectivity and moderate mortality. The major clinical manifestation of COVID-19 is interstitial pneumonia, which may progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). However, the disease causes a potent systemic hyperin-flammatory response, i.e., a cytokine storm or macrophage activation syndrome (MAS), which is associated with thrombotic…</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sinapic Acid Suppresses SARS CoV-2 Replication by Targeting Its Envelope Protein</strong> - SARS CoV-2 is still considered a global health issue, and its threat keeps growing with the emergence of newly evolved strains. Despite the success in developing some vaccines as a protective measure, finding cost-effective treatments is urgent. Accordingly, we screened a number of phenolic natural compounds for their in vitro anti-SARS CoV-2 activity. We found sinapic acid (SA) selectively inhibited the viral replication in vitro with an half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC(50)) value of…</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>L-Carnitine Tartrate Downregulates the ACE2 Receptor and Limits SARS-CoV-2 Infection</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been responsible for one of the worst pandemics in modern history. Several prevention and treatment strategies have been designed and evaluated in recent months either through the repurposing of existing treatments or the development of new drugs and vaccines. In this study, we show that L-carnitine tartrate supplementation in humans and rodents led to significant decreases of key host dependency factors, notably…</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Molecular Simulation-Based Investigation of Highly Potent Natural Products to Abrogate Formation of the nsp10-nsp16 Complex of SARS-CoV-2</strong> - The SARS-CoV-2 non-structural protein (nsp) nsp10-nsp16 complex is essential for the 2’-O-methylation of viral mRNA, a crucial step for evading the innate immune system, and it is an essential process in SARS-CoV-2 life cycle. Therefore, detecting molecules that can disrupt the nsp10-nsp16 interaction are prospective antiviral drugs. In this study, we screened the North African Natural Products database (NANPDB) for molecules that can interact with the nsp10 interface and disturb the nsp10-nsp16…</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bromodomain and Extraterminal Protein Inhibitor, Apabetalone (RVX-208), Reduces ACE2 Expression and Attenuates SARS-Cov-2 Infection In Vitro</strong> - Effective therapeutics are urgently needed to counter infection and improve outcomes for patients suffering from COVID-19 and to combat this pandemic. Manipulation of epigenetic machinery to influence viral infectivity of host cells is a relatively unexplored area. The bromodomain and extraterminal (BET) family of epigenetic readers have been reported to modulate SARS-CoV-2 infection. Herein, we demonstrate apabetalone, the most clinical advanced BET inhibitor, downregulates expression of cell…</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Effect of Proinflammatory Cytokines on the Proliferation, Migration and Secretory Activity of Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells (WJ-MSCs) under 5% O(2) and 21% O(2) Culture Conditions</strong> - Treatment with Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells (MSCs) in clinical trials is becoming one of the most-popular and fast-developing branches of modern regenerative medicine, as it is still in an experimental phase. The cross-section of diseases to which these cells are applied is very wide, ranging from degenerative diseases, through autoimmune processes and to acute inflammatory diseases, e.g., viral infections. Indeed, now that first clinical trials applying MSCs against COVID-19 have started,…</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
|
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<ul>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Compositions and methods for the treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) infection</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU321590214">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>5-(4-TERT-BUTOXY PHENYL)-3-(4N-OCTYLOXYPHENYL)-4,5-DIHYDROISOXAZOLE MOLECULE (C-I): A PROMISING DRUG FOR SARS-COV-2 (TARGET I) AND BLOOD CANCER (TARGET II)</strong> - The present invention relates to a method ofmolecular docking of crystalline compound (C-I) with SARS-COV 2 proteins and its repurposing with proteins of blood cancer, comprising the steps of ; employing an algorithmto carry molecular docking calculations of the crystalized compound (C-I); studying the compound computationally to understand the effect of binding groups with the atoms of the amino acids on at least four target proteins of SARS-COV 2; downloading the structure of the proteins; removing water molecules, co enzymes and inhibitors attached to the enzymes; drawing the structure using Chem Sketch software; converting the mol file into a PDB file; using crystalized compound (C-I) for comparative and drug repurposing with two other mutated proteins; docking compound into the groove of the proteins; saving format of docked molecules retrieved; and filtering and docking the best docked results. - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=IN320884617">link</a></p></li>
|
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|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>AQUEOUS ZINC OXIDE NANOSPRAY COMPOSITIONS</strong> - Disclosed herein is aqueous zinc oxide nano spray compositions comprising zinc oxide nanoparticles and a synthetic surfactant for controlling the spread of Covid-19 virus. - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=IN321836709">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bettverlängerungssystem</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Bettverlängerungssystem (1) für in Bauchlage beatmungspflichtige Patienten in Gestalt mit zumindest einer Platte (16), dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass die Platte (16) im Kopflagerungsbereich einen Luftwegezugangsdurchbruch (8) mit einem den Luftwegezugangsdurchbruch (8) umgebenden Auflagerbereich für ein durchbrochenes Kopfauflagepolster (14) aufweist, durch den von der Bettunterseite her und durch das Kopfauflagepolster (14) hindurch die Ver- und Entsorgungsschläuche für eine orotracheale Intubation oder eine nasotracheale Intubation ventral an das Gesicht des Patienten herangeführt werden können, und dass die Platte (16) im Bereich ihrer dem Kopfende eines Bettrosts (15) zugeordneten Stirnseite (6) ein Fixierelement (2) zur Befestigung der Platte (16) am Bettrost (15) nach Art eines einseitig frei über das Kopfende des Bettrosts hinausragenden Kragträgers aufweist.</p></li>
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</ul>
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<ul>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=DE322212040">link</a></p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>一种肝素类药物组合物、喷鼻剂及其制备方法及应用</strong> - 本发明公开了一种肝素类药物组合物、喷鼻剂及其制备方法及应用。该肝素类药物组合物包括肝素钠和阿比朵尔。本发明中的肝素类药物组合物首次采用肝素钠和阿比朵尔联合使用，普通肝素钠联合1μM/L以上的阿比朵尔病毒抑制效率显著高于单独普通肝素钠或单独阿比多尔组（p<0.05）。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN321712860">link</a></p></li>
|
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|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>USING CLINICAL ONTOLOGIES TO BUILD KNOWLEDGE BASED CLINICAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR NOVEL CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) WITH THE ADOPTION OF TELECONFERENCING FOR THE PRIMARY HEALTH CENTRES/SATELLITE CLINICS OF ROYAL OMAN POLICE IN SULTANATE OF OMAN</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU320796026">link</a></p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>抗SARS-COV-2中和抗体</strong> - 本公开提供了针对SARS‑COV‑2的新颖中和抗体和其抗原结合片段。还提供了包括其的药物组合物和试剂盒以及其用途。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN321712812">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Peptides and their use in diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU319943278">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Method and compositions for treating coronavirus infection</strong> - A method of treating viral infection, such as viral infection caused by a virus of the Coronaviridae family, is provided. A composition having at least oleandrin is used to treat viral infection. - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU319943054">link</a></p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Luftdesinfektionssäule</strong> -
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</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Luftreinigungssäule (1) mit einer Luftaufnahme (2) und einer Luftausgabe (3), wobei zwischen der Luftaufnahme (2) und der Luftausgabe (3) ein luftleitender Bereich (4) mit einem Gebläse (7) und einer UV-Lichtdesinfektionseinrichtung (5) angeordnet ist, dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass der luftleitende Bereich (4) photokathalysatorisch beschichtete Oberflächen (9) aufweist und/oder ein photokathalysatorisch beschichtetes Gitter (11) angeordnet ist, wobei photokathalysatorisch beschichtetes Gitter (11) und die photokathalysatorisch beschichtete Oberflächen (9) mit Titandioxid (TiO<sub>2</sub>) beschichtet sind, wobei die UV-Lichtdesinfektionseinrichtung (5) UV-A-LEDs (12), die UV-A-Strahlung im Wellenlängenbereich 380-315 nm ausstrahlt und UV-C-LEDs (8) die UV-Strahlung im Wellenlängenbereich UV-C 280-200 nm (8) ausstrahlen aufweist und wobei ein Akku (13) zur netzunabhängigen Stromversorgung angeordnet ist.</p></li>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cuba After the Castros</strong> - Sixty years after the Bay of Pigs, the Castro brothers are gone from the main stage, and Cuba is a threadbare place facing an uncertain future. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/cuba-after-the-castros">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bridging the Divide Between the Police and the Policed</strong> - In New York, the Mayor and police leadership have repeatedly voiced commitments to “create a bond” between cops and communities of color. The problem, according to high-level officials, is that the city chose the wrong people for the right job. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/bridging-the-divide-between-the-police-and-the-policed">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Secret Footage of the N.R.A. Chief’s Botched Elephant Hunt</strong> - Wayne LaPierre has cultivated his image as an exemplar of American gun culture, but video of his clumsy marksmanship—and details regarding his Rodeo Drive shopping trips—tells another story. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-secret-footage-of-nra-chief-wayne-lapierres-botched-elephant-hunt">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is There a Case for Legalizing Heroin?</strong> - The addiction researcher Carl Hart argues against the distinction between hard and soft drugs. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-populism/is-there-a-case-for-legalizing-heroin">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Biden’s Speech Offers an Alternative Vision for Democrats to Love</strong> - The President, channelling his inner Elizabeth Warren, pitches an American utopia after a dystopian plague year. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/bidens-speech-offers-an-alternate-reality-for-democrats-to-love-after-four-years-of-trumpian-fantasy">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<li><strong>One Good Thing: The perfect album for spring 2021</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="Late Night with Seth Meyers - Season 8" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/d6SMPFz7-VfPDdnoApjmiFMchJI=/276x0:2527x1688/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69211325/1231465608.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Julien Baker plays “Hardline,” from her new album Little Oblivions, on Late Night with Seth Meyers. | NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Julien Baker’s brilliant Little Oblivions is about feeling doomed and looking for an escape.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MIQyAN">
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There’s a moment, two minutes and 40 seconds into “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGe4lxNRG3E">Ringside</a>,” the seventh track on <a href="https://julienbaker.com/">Julien Baker’s</a> new album <a href="https://julienbaker.com/collections/music/products/julien-baker-little-oblivions-lp-cd"><em>Little Oblivions</em></a><em>, </em>that made me realize just how much I’ve missed seeing live music.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7PFBdN">
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“Ringside” details a relationship where one participant (whose perspective Baker sings from) has a dark and horrible self-destructive streak. It opens with the couplet “Beat myself until I’m bloody/ and I’ll give you a ringside seat,” an arresting image to start a song about how hard it can be to love someone when you’re in the depths of self-loathing and depression.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sm7BZa">
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As the song continues, it builds to its peak at 2:40. “Nobody deserves a second chance,” Baker sings, “but I keep getting them.” And underneath “them,” a wall of sound rises, including keyboards, percussion, and guitar. It’s a big, sweeping moment that will surely be astonishingly effective when Baker performs it in concert.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fBrKaR">
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It’s also so, so different from anything else Baker has recorded before. On her two previous albums — 2015’s <em>Sprained Ankle</em> and 2017’s <em>Turn Out the Lights</em> (one of the best albums of the 2010s) — Baker skewed toward the small and intimate. Her music explores intersections of queer identities, mental health issues, and faith, and her brooding, thoughtful lyrics often benefit from stripped-down production values that let her words do most of the talking.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hNkC5G">
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In the years since <em>Turn Out the Lights</em>, however, Baker has turned most of her attention to <a href="https://store.matadorrecords.com/boygenius">boygenius</a> (yes, all lower-case), the sad-girl supergroup she formed with Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers. The trio released a short album in 2018 and have remained key collaborators ever since. Baker and Dacus appeared on Bridgers’s “Graceland Too,” off her Grammy-nominated <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/9/1/21404841/phoebe-bridgers-punisher-review-chinese-satellite">2020 album <em>Punisher</em></a>; Bridgers and Dacus lend their talents to “Favor” on <em>Little Oblivions</em>.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wb3vqT">
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But boygenius seems to have inspired Baker, beyond simply giving her the chance to work with two other amazing musicians. Joining forces with Dacus and Bridgers — both of whom have also opened up their sounds on their most recent albums — has surely pushed Baker even further toward sonic experimentation, resulting in a bigger, richer sound than she’s ever tried before.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VM7pnl">
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<em>Little Oblivions</em> is proof positive that Baker’s expansion doesn’t cancel out what made her so good in the first place. The album pushes her production beyond stripped-down sound into new, exciting places, while maintaining the brutal lyrical honesty of her previous work. It’s the difference between someone quietly delivering the most devastating news you’ve ever heard and the endless wall of noise that springs up in your head when you hear that news.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PvnYSk">
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Baker’s songs tend to center on people who cannot escape cycles of self-recrimination and self-punishment. They often take the form of apologies to a loved one who stubbornly refuses to give up on the singer, despite evidence they should probably just abandon all hope of real change.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EkkZha">
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Or, as she puts it in “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWwLUr-h6eY">Relative Fiction</a>,” my favorite song off <em>Little Oblivions</em>:
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</p>
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<blockquote>
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‘Cause if I didn’t have a mean bone in my body<br/>I’d find some other way to cause you pain<br/>I won’t bother telling you I’m sorry<br/>For something that I’m gonna do again
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</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="48h16T">
|
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|
What’s remarkable about the album isn’t only Baker’s push toward a richer soundscape but also that she plays nearly every instrument featured on the album, with minimal backing from anybody else. Baker was performing some of these songs in concert before Covid-19 shut down the world (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPtZb6MNwBA">here she is playing “Ringside” in London</a> in 2019), but the fact <em>Little Oblivions</em> has arrived as the pandemic-necessitated quarantines finally seem to be ending feels significant to me somehow. After all, Baker taking on nearly every instrumental part on an entire album feels like the ultimate lockdown project, right? And the results were worth it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Btb4BR">
|
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|
But the loud intimacy of <em>Little Oblivions</em> strikes me as being as perfect for spring 2021 as the apocalyptic boa-constrictor hug of Bridgers’s <em>Punisher</em> was for summer 2020. So many of us have been stuck inside alone these many months, and some of us have been stuck inside with people we love but maybe occasionally need some space from. In that time, we’ve gotten to see new sides of them — and of ourselves — and those sides might not have been flattering.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V1KKRk">
|
||||||
|
Baker even nods toward this experience on “Ringside,” where the song’s ending neatly flips the second chances motif on its ear in a way that should feel too simplistic but instead feels devastating. “Nobody deserves a second chance,” she repeats, “but I keep giving them.” Being caught in a self-destructive spiral, after all, is a game two can play, especially when you’re codependent. And a whole year spent inside with the same person is nothing if not a breeding ground for codependency.
|
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|
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k10839">
|
||||||
|
Now, finally, it’s time to step outside into a world that is big and loud and wide and to try to find a new balance. Some of our bruises will heal; some we will carry with us the rest of our lives. But the only way to figure what’s next is to move forward — and maybe try something new at long last.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XZfuPg">
|
||||||
|
<a href="https://julienbaker.com/collections/music/products/julien-baker-little-oblivions-lp-cd">Little Oblivions</a> <em>is available on all major music platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp. You can also purchase it on CD or vinyl. For more recommendations from the world of culture, check out the </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/one-good-thing">One Good Thing</a><em> archives.</em>
|
||||||
|
</p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><strong>The Pandemic Playbook</strong> -
|
||||||
|
<figure>
|
||||||
|
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FCHMGZy8qRUilpgdd6B_W1XUYuA=/0x0:4483x3362/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69148415/grid_01.0.jpg"/>
|
||||||
|
<figcaption>
|
||||||
|
Senegal, Germany, South Korea, Vietnam (clockwise from top left). | Ricci Shryock,<strong> </strong>Jacobia Dahm, Jun Michael Park,<strong> </strong>Linh Pham for Vox
|
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|
</figcaption>
|
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|
</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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||||||
|
Vox explores the successes — and setbacks — in six nations as they fought Covid-19.
|
||||||
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2SXyD0">
|
||||||
|
Before last March, the United States was <a href="https://www.ghsindex.org/">considered</a> better prepared than any country in the world to contain an infectious disease outbreak.
|
||||||
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IVBqej">
|
||||||
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Then came <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19">the novel coronavirus</a>. The US response was slow, disorganized, and ineffective: The richest nation on Earth endured <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html">the most cases and deaths</a> anywhere in the world, and it fared poorly even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html#countries">when adjusting for population</a>.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zN32i9">
|
||||||
|
Chronic underinvestment in public health left the US <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21345590/covid-19-coronavirus-us-testing-contact-tracing-jobs">struggling to set up a system</a> to test for Covid-19, trace infected people’s contacts, and isolate those who were exposed. Government leaders <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21366624/trump-covid-coronavirus-pandemic-failure">resisted</a> accepting the seriousness of the threat and <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/21497221/donald-trump-covid-19-coronavirus-news-misinformation-study">failed</a> to effectively communicate with the public. Hospitals in major hot spots <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/15/21317776/covid-19-coronavirus-florida-arizona-texas-california-hospitals">scrambled</a> to keep beds available. There were some successes: The US helped produce <a href="https://www.vox.com/covid-19-coronavirus-treatment-prevention-cure-vaccines">vaccines</a> that should eventually help end the pandemic, and the federal government ultimately <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/3/10/22320350/stimulus-bill-covid-19-passes-house">outspent</a> other nations as it tried to stimulate the economy. But the public health response was a catastrophic failure.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="stgMab">
|
||||||
|
Around the world, other nations went further in their attempts to limit the pandemic’s damage. They applied lessons from their pasts and adjusted in the moment. Some of the differences in death and case rates are likely the result of luck or immutable characteristics like geography. Every approach came with trade-offs and caveats. But around the world, other governments successfully learned and adapted as they threw their resources at the problem of a deadly disease.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O6VqNv">
|
||||||
|
In the Pandemic Playbook series, Vox explores the successes — and setbacks — of pandemic strategies in six nations, talking to the leaders who conceived them, the workers who executed them, and the citizens they affected. Our reporting is supported by a grant from the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund.
|
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</p>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="ZBWvPx"/>
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<h3 id="9b4d4h">
|
||||||
|
<a href="https://www.vox.com/e/22144202">South Korea’s Covid-19 success story started with failure</a><strong> </strong>
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
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<div class="c-float-right">
|
||||||
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<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vKJy-gs7ABLFy58Iujsfy6xSo6A=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22444927/Jun_Michael_Park_Korea_Covid_19_012.jpg"/> <cite>Jun Michael Park</cite>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NmKjIU">
|
||||||
|
Scarred by its failures during the 2015 MERS outbreak, the South Korean government approved a package of public health reforms that proved crucial in the coronavirus outbreak. The program for testing, tracing, and isolating patients meant South Korea flattened the curve of its Covid-19 outbreak much quicker than most Western countries — but it also raised difficult questions about privacy.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jAtWrz">
|
||||||
|
<em>By Dylan Scott and Jun Michael Park</em>
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="GdxpSh"/>
|
||||||
|
<h3 id="Na64IO">
|
||||||
|
<a href="https://www.vox.com/22352348/germany-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic">Germany contained Covid-19. Politics brought it back.</a>
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
|
<div class="c-float-left">
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/qT10IxWDloqjTIb3vlMCSWkvXkA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22452768/202102_Germany_through_the_pandemic_Jacobia_Dahm_53.jpg"/> <cite>Jacobia Dahm for Vox</cite>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hqDCvt">
|
||||||
|
Germany went from a Covid-19 success story to a cautionary tale. Political leaders, starting with Chancellor Angela Merkel, developed a message to clearly communicate to the public the nature of the coronavirus threat and what would be necessary to contain it. Local health officials succeeded in conveying how masks and social distancing would slow the virus’s spread, and, by the summer of 2020, the outbreak in Germany looked well managed compared to other countries in Europe or the US. But as the pandemic persisted, German resolve faltered.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GaZdeK">
|
||||||
|
<em>By German Lopez</em>
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="yzxrht"/>
|
||||||
|
<h3 id="Inl2UR">
|
||||||
|
<a href="https://www.vox.com/22346085/covid-19-vietnam-response-travel-restrictions">Vietnam defied the experts and sealed its border to keep Covid-19 out. It worked.</a>
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
|
<div class="c-float-right">
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Dx7GtML_6crEXxhKvv_S6FChoHQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22444957/LinhPham_Vox_DSCF6794.jpg"/> <cite>Linh Pham for Vox</cite>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kiLyFj">
|
||||||
|
Vietnam didn’t hesitate when the dangers of the mysterious pneumonia in China were becoming clear: The country shut its borders. When cases did pop up inside the country, officials restricted internal travel too. Before the pandemic, the expert consensus was that travel restrictions were punitive and ineffective. But the minuscule number of coronavirus cases in Vietnam is one reason the conventional wisdom about pandemic border closures has turned upside down.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JM9Rjy">
|
||||||
|
<em>By Julia Belluz</em>
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="35Iv9S"/>
|
||||||
|
<h3 id="UBgqdN">
|
||||||
|
<a href="https://www.vox.com/22397833/dexamethasone-coronavirus-uk-recovery-trial">How the UK found the first effective Covid-19 treatment — and saved a million lives</a>
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
|
<div class="c-float-left">
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/g7ls3vrPNJSS-CgwJT3eGlbX8ro=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22444962/MartinLandray_PeterHorby_079.jpg"/> <cite>Alicia Canter for Vox</cite>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uHhWp7">
|
||||||
|
As the Covid-19 outbreak accelerated, two British researchers came together to create the UK’s Recovery Trial, a massive program enrolling thousands of patients across hundreds of hospitals across the country. They hunted for treatments that would improve outcomes for patients infected with the virus, hoping to save lives in the time before a vaccine was widely available — and succeeded.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vPo3hi">
|
||||||
|
<em>By Dylan Scott</em>
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="EvAze5"/>
|
||||||
|
<h3 id="hHMUYj">
|
||||||
|
<a href="https://www.vox.com/22397842/senegal-covid-19-pandemic-playbook">How Senegal stretched its health care system to stop Covid-19</a>
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
|
<div class="c-float-right">
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5snR1WfMyXulT-7PVMN0x6FUZ_I=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22452771/APRIL_2021_SENEGAL_COVID_RICCI_SHRYOCK_26.jpg"/> <cite>Ricci Shryock for Vox</cite>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oM81uC">
|
||||||
|
Senegal started the pandemic with fewer resources than wealthy countries. A wave of Covid-19 cases could quickly overwhelm doctors and hospitals. The country drew on its experience with Ebola — and its robust network of local go-betweens — to isolate patients and spread the word on public health. But especially because the wait for a vaccine will likely be longer in Senegal, keeping community buy-in was crucial and challenging.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nkBDNY">
|
||||||
|
<em>By Jen Kirby</em>
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="bX584y"/>
|
||||||
|
<h3 id="QALmDa">
|
||||||
|
<a href="https://www.vox.com/22348364/united-states-stimulus-covid-coronavirus">How the US won the economic recovery</a>
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
|
<div class="c-float-left">
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/qfJE2Ozfh_o3yPRz-NGjTPk5BA4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22452813/GettyImages_1306368138.jpg"/> <cite>Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images</cite>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uVVTKI">
|
||||||
|
Covid-19 was, for most countries, a dual crisis: the public health challenge posed by the pandemic itself, and the economic crisis brought on by the spreading pathogen and the measures undertaken to fight it. The US faltered badly on the former, botching its response to the spread of the virus and costing lives. But the way the country ultimately handled the economic crisis was another story.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zlD4j6">
|
||||||
|
<em>By Dylan Matthews</em>
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="iBLsIb"/>
|
||||||
|
<h3 id="B31zmw">
|
||||||
|
The Pandemic Playbook on the Vox Media Podcast Network
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
|
<div id="39iieG">
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<div id="myiXqH">
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="HHpTMk"/>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1aLpMa">
|
||||||
|
<strong>CREDITS</strong><br/><strong>Reporters:</strong> Dylan Scott, German Lopez, Julia Belluz, Jen Kirby, Dylan Matthews<br/><strong>Additional reporting by</strong> Jun Michael Park, Thuy Do, Giap Nguyen, Ousmane Balde <br/><strong>Photographers:</strong> Jun Michael Park, Jacobia Dahm, Ricci Shryock, Ina Makosi, Alicia Canter, Linh Pham<br/><strong>Editors:</strong> Libby Nelson, Elbert Ventura, Eliza Barclay, Jenn Williams<br/><strong>Visuals editor:</strong> Kainaz Amaria <br/><strong>Graphics:</strong> Christina Animashaun <br/><strong>Copy editors:</strong> Tanya Pai, Tim Williams, Elizabeth Crane<br/><strong>Engagement:</strong> Agnes Mazur, Kaylah Jackson<br/><strong>Communications: </strong>Jill Pike<br/><strong>Fact-checkers</strong>: Becca Laurie, Matt Giles
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0OPYHw">
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OpAqo6">
|
||||||
|
<em>This project was supported by the Commonwealth Fund, a national, private foundation based in New York City that supports independent research on health care issues and makes grants to improve health care practice and policy.</em>
|
||||||
|
</p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><strong>How the US won the economic recovery</strong> -
|
||||||
|
<figure>
|
||||||
|
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2xZVlLpnMGLq2siN_nCcBWTfhbI=/0x0:2667x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69210896/GettyImages_1306368138.0.jpeg"/>
|
||||||
|
<figcaption>
|
||||||
|
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), and others gather before a press conference on President Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill on March 10. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
|
||||||
|
</figcaption>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||||||
|
I looked for a country that got the economic response to Covid-19 right. I found the US.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HNpRSP">
|
||||||
|
<em>This story is one in our six-part series The Pandemic Playbook.</em><em><strong> </strong></em><a href="https://www.vox.com/22381700/pandemic-playbook"><em><strong>Explore all the stories here</strong></em></a><em><strong>.</strong></em>
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X0KmW4">
|
||||||
|
Jasmine Holloway knows it sounds odd. But March 2021, when she and the rest of America were enduring the 13th month of a brutal pandemic, may have been the best month of her life.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6MTO00">
|
||||||
|
When the pandemic hit, Holloway was working at a day care center, taking night classes at the University of the District of Columbia, and raising her three kids.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HhUEoJ">
|
||||||
|
Initially, the lockdown was a blessing: Suddenly her kids — ages 14, 5, and 3 — were at home where she could watch them more easily. Her 14-year-old, who had been arrested in a particularly rough period shortly before lockdown, found the time especially beneficial. “All the bad influences he was doing before, it stopped because the world stopped,” Jasmine recalls.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cKOCap">
|
||||||
|
But the juggling act eventually took its toll on Holloway. It got so stressful that a bald spot began to grow on the back of her head.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NF7VgP">
|
||||||
|
Then more terrible news: In mid-February, a few days before her birthday, she lost her job.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6gL6tR">
|
||||||
|
But instead of hitting rock bottom, something strange happened: Holloway started making <em>more</em> money. First, she was able to easily enroll in food stamps and <a href="https://dhs.dc.gov/service/tanf-district-families">DC’s cash assistance program</a>. Getting unemployment insurance took a bit more work, but once she signed up, she started getting weekly checks larger than the paychecks she was getting from the day care center, thanks to the $300-per-week unemployment bonus — that is, $300 on top of the typical amount — included in President Joe Biden’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/22310269/third-stimulus-update-2021-package">relief plans</a>.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SMY3kX-3rHCLddYVFthPbJ2l8NY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22479833/Dee_Dwyer_Vox_Jasmine_Holloway_2.jpg"/> <cite>Dee Dwyer for Vox</cite>
|
||||||
|
<figcaption>
|
||||||
|
Jasmine Holloway spends time at a community playground with her children.
|
||||||
|
</figcaption>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A3ptJp">
|
||||||
|
There was also a one-time check for $5,600 — $1,400 for her and each of her three kids —as part of the most recent round of stimulus. And another $850 a month, $300 each for her 3- and 5-year-old and $250 for her 14-year-old, is coming, thanks to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22319572/joe-biden-american-rescue-plan-war-on-poverty">fully refundable child tax credit Biden enacted</a>.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3LKfU0">
|
||||||
|
For Holloway, who spent some time in foster care growing up and currently lives in DC’s <a href="https://wamu.org/story/19/06/07/whats-in-a-name-residents-east-of-the-anacostia-river-say-everything/">Ward 8</a>, a historically disadvantaged area east of the Anacostia River, the pandemic wound up leading to a period of unprecedented prosperity. The pandemic relief “has enabled me to do things I’ve only dreamed about doing for my family,” she says. “I’m getting passports for my children so that when the world opens back up we can travel.” She wants to take them to a Nickelodeon resort in the Dominican Republic. At the very least, she wants them to experience flying on a plane. She’s socking away the weekly $300 bonus for a rainy day. The bald spot on her head has completely grown back.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iLzMR0">
|
||||||
|
“Before me being let go, I thought, ‘I need to find other ways to make money, to get to my goals fast,’” Holloway recalls. “Never did I think me being laid off would be what did it.”
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y661Yr">
|
||||||
|
Holloway is not alone. For millions of Americans, the pandemic has been a nightmare. But many have also found that the country’s safety net actually caught them.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r4kfrR">
|
||||||
|
In March 2020, Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed into law the CARES Act, which sent out no-strings-attached checks to the vast majority of Americans for the first time. The bill also dramatically increased the generosity of unemployment insurance, making many workers whole and, for some months, leaving most workers (including Holloway) with more money than they would have earned at their employer. It paused evictions and created a new near-universal child tax credit reaching the poorest families with children.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NvFi3H">
|
||||||
|
Then lawmakers did it again in December 2020, passing another bill that offered bonus unemployment benefits and one-time $600-per-person checks.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YMP4W9">
|
||||||
|
Under President Biden, the government passed yet another bill, with one-time $1,400-per-person checks, another bonus unemployment measure, and hundreds of billions in relief money for state and local governments.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N4ozgR">
|
||||||
|
The result? The <a href="http://povertymeasurement.org/covid-19-poverty-dashboard/">poverty rate in the US fell</a> in early 2020. The government did so much to assist its citizens that many people were left financially better off than before the pandemic.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UPGbF7">
|
||||||
|
As an American who supports large government intervention to help those in need, I’m used to envying other nations’ governments. I envy European universal health care systems, <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/11/socialist-child-care-in-europe-creche-ecole-maternelle-and-french-child-care-options.html">France’s crèches for child care</a>, and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-46891392">Finland’s success at reducing homelessness</a>.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oOZN2lwUdRUkYzEGhSiBq_oTDL8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22476838/GettyImages_1231651417.jpg"/> <cite>Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
|
||||||
|
<figcaption>
|
||||||
|
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris arrive at the Oval Office for a signing of the American Rescue Plan on March 11.
|
||||||
|
</figcaption>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9nvVJU">
|
||||||
|
When my editors asked me to write a story for our <a href="https://www.vox.com/22381700/pandemic-playbook">Pandemic Playbook series</a> on the country that I thought “got Covid-19 right” economically, I immediately looked abroad. I spent a few weeks researching and writing about Japan, which has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/business/japan-unemployment.html">kept unemployment low</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/08/japan-pm-yoshihide-suga-announces-708-billion-in-fresh-stimulus-.html">spent big</a> to fight the economic downturn.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xmpHP0">
|
||||||
|
But as I was working on my Japan article, the US adopted <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/3/6/22315536/stimulus-package-passes-checks-unemployment">Biden’s American Rescue Plan</a>, a $1.9 trillion behemoth of a bill. With that step coming after the two Trump relief bills, the US just about matched Japan’s spending to fight the downturn. And as I looked into the details, it became impossible to deny that the US spent the money better.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SmKuGw">
|
||||||
|
To be sure, it’s not as simple as that. Would I rather have been in Japan for the outbreak or in the US? In public health terms, the answer was obvious: Japan has kept the virus under control vastly better. But in economic terms, the answer was also obvious: The US was more generous.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pQrNXR">
|
||||||
|
The comparison seemed even more favorable as I looked to Europe, which botched the virus on a public health level in a manner similar to the US, and offered less extraordinary support to its citizens. Most European countries have stronger safety nets to start with, but they largely didn’t use the pandemic as an occasion to strengthen them. The US did.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FVRBeB">
|
||||||
|
No country handled the economic shock of Covid-19 perfectly. Every country, the US included, made mistakes, sometimes grave mistakes. But a detailed comparison suggests that the US had the strongest economic response to the pandemic, in terms of providing income to its citizens during lockdown and ensuring a strong, rapid recovery as the economy began to reopen.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J4Uy7Q">
|
||||||
|
“The US will come out of this economically better than any country that was similarly affected by the virus,” Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard and former chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, says.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
|
||||||
|
<div id="Sb2DKA">
|
||||||
|
<div>
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<h3 id="Ab6l5L">
|
||||||
|
The US passed some of the biggest Covid-19 relief packages in the world — and targeted those who needed the most help
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bd3O3J">
|
||||||
|
When it became clear in March 2020 that the coronavirus would necessitate lockdowns across the world, policymakers immediately saw the event as the biggest economic crisis since the 2008 recession, or perhaps even since the Great Depression.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3Pcxzx">
|
||||||
|
Because of the need for social-distancing procedures, businesses like restaurants, sports arenas, and movie theaters would need to be shuttered. But the hit was much broader. Orders of raw materials from metal to soybeans <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/9/21167391/coronavirus-economy-stimulus-recession">collapsed in March</a>. The worst week for new unemployment claims in American history, in fall 1982, saw 680,000 people claim benefits for the first time. The week ending March 21, 2020, saw <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210321052601/https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf">3.3 million</a>, more than four times the previous record. And the weekly tally stayed above 1 million for months.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gp7TK3">
|
||||||
|
This was an economic crisis of unprecedented speed and ferocity, one that brought <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/1/21201700/coronavirus-covid-19-unemployment-rate">predictions of enduring Great Depression-scale unemployment</a> for months or years to come.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0YdiNK">
|
||||||
|
In the US, at least, that prediction (made by, among other people, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/1/21201700/coronavirus-covid-19-unemployment-rate">me</a>) seems to have been wrong. The country is recovering quickly from the economic shock of the pandemic.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vQImSo">
|
||||||
|
And we did so despite botching our response to the crisis itself. Using aggressive social distancing, testing, and contact tracing to contain the virus — as nations like <a href="https://www.vox.com/22380161/south-korea-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic-contact-tracing-testing">South Korea</a> and Australia did early on — had huge economic benefits, and the US’s failure to contain its outbreak had enormous economic costs.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fdUwBb">
|
||||||
|
But many other large, rich countries also botched their response to the pandemic. If you compare the US to the five most populous countries in Europe, it <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_deaths_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~GBR~DEU~FRA~ESP~European+Union">fares roughly the same in terms of deaths from Covid-19</a>. <a href="https://www.vox.com/22352348/germany-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic">Germany</a> does better, but the UK, Italy, Spain, and France are right there in the muck with the US.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a2lanU">
|
||||||
|
If this past year is any indication, countries are not always going to be able to contain future pandemics. If and when that happens, they need to be able to manage the economic fallout.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gzgISO">
|
||||||
|
A blunt, but useful, way to see if they managed the fallout successfully is to measure how much countries spent on stimulus measures. Pinpointing this number is tricky, and reputable researchers have produced a number of different estimates.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0b7Cin">
|
||||||
|
Christina Romer, a former chief economist to President Obama now at UC Berkeley and an expert on downturns, put together her estimates in a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/BPEASP21_Romer_conf-draft_updated.pdf">recent paper presented at a conference hosted by the Brookings Institution</a>. She only looked at “early packages,” defined as stimulus passed before July 31, 2020. The US dominated the list, outstripping every peer country in the scale of its response, with only New Zealand really coming close.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G6g8vO">
|
||||||
|
Another estimate, this time drawing from International Monetary Fund data, comes from economists Ceyhun Elgin, Gokce Basbug, and Abdullah Yalaman. Their estimates include policies through March 2021, which takes into account the $1.9 trillion Biden package. Here, too, the US spending surpasses its European peers, though the authors estimate that Japan spent vastly more, around half of its 2020 GDP.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DFVovWHG4QtBbGlKipJXXY4ks0o=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22479794/covid_19_gdp_countries.jpg"/>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iN4XpN">
|
||||||
|
But the Japan figure is arguably misleading; Peterson Institute for International Economics researchers Madi Sarsenbayev and Takeshi Tashiro have argued that the Japanese government has recategorized ordinary spending as Covid-19 relief, and that an apples-to-apples comparison would show US spending of 27.09 percent of GDP as compared to 29 percent in Japan.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TqJidS">
|
||||||
|
Regardless of the numbers you use, the US is near the top when comparing countries for the scale of their stimulus responses. What makes the US response more unusual is its focus on spending to increase the incomes of its residents, as opposed to backstopping businesses.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cZGHvy">
|
||||||
|
This shows up in data on disposable income, a component of GDP that measures the money available to spend by individuals and households. Almost all rich countries measure this quarterly, enabling us to see what happened to individual incomes across countries during the crisis. In the US, government support enabled a surge in disposable income in the second quarter of 2020. In other large rich nations, like France and Germany, it fell sharply (though Canada’s rose a similar amount as the US).
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/71Jq14AFeT6AjfIAkZhjXXer71c=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22479536/disposable_income_per_country.jpg"/>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JJkCLt">
|
||||||
|
The US’s drawdown of stimulus in the third quarter caused the increase in disposable incomes to shrink, but it was still well ahead of its peer nations.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iD3StV">
|
||||||
|
So the US spent big, and individuals and households reaped a windfall. But simply spending big isn’t good on its own. It’s valuable if spending enables a country to catch up to its economic potential and return to its trajectory pre-Covid-19.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sULrNJ">
|
||||||
|
That’s precisely what the stimulus measures — particularly Biden’s March stimulus — did.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UJiV32">
|
||||||
|
Brookings Institution economists Wendy Edelberg and Louise Sheiner <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/01/28/the-macroeconomic-implications-of-bidens-1-9-trillion-fiscal-package/">estimated the likely trajectories of US GDP</a> with and without the $1.9 trillion injection. Without it, they estimated that the US would not return to pre-pandemic economic trends until after 2023 — akin to the long, slow recovery that followed the 2008 financial crisis. But with the Biden package, they project the US will be back on trend by the end of this year.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SNOcuj7HDtsMoblyTHvvEpY0yV0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22479542/projections_real_gdp.jpg"/>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3t0WDk">
|
||||||
|
The effects of the stimulus are, of course, debated. The sheer scale of the stimulus drew <a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/voices-skeptical-size-19-trillion-covid-relief-plan">substantial criticism from deficit hawks</a>, who worried about the long-term cost of adding $1.9 trillion to the national debt. As it stands, this does not appear to be a major problem; investors are <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFII30">buying up 30-year federal bonds at real interest rates near zero</a>, meaning the government can, in principle, delay paying the bill on the stimulus package for three decades without paying any interest.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f9d7J5">
|
||||||
|
But it’s striking that the most common critique from economists is not that the stimulus is inadequate for combating the downturn, but that it’s too much. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/03/29/summers-biden-economy-inflation/">Larry Summers</a>, the Harvard economist and treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, has warned that Biden could push spending so high that businesses start running out of the capacity to produce goods and services, sparking inflation.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5F7Zdx">
|
||||||
|
By contrast, few other countries seem to be aggressive enough to risk overheating. The downturns in America’s peer nations have tended to be deeper, and the recoveries slower. The <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2021/03/23/world-economic-outlook-april-2021">IMF estimates</a> that the US lost 3.5 percent of GDP in 2020. Compare that to an average of 6.6 percent across the eurozone, including 8.2 percent in France, 11.1 percent in Spain, and 9.9 percent in the UK. These countries did not just suffer more than the US, they suffered two to three times as much. Canada and Japan, at 5.4 and 4.8 percent GDP loss respectively, were not as bad as their European counterparts, but still worse than the US.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8zugo3">
|
||||||
|
Put it all together and the GDP picture in the US is much, much better than its peer nations.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<h3 id="QRhusJ">
|
||||||
|
“America is going to win this the way we won World War II”
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IN7MIr">
|
||||||
|
Furman, the former Obama economist, has some misgivings about specific aspects of the US fiscal response to the pandemic. He thinks the US could have done roughly as well while spending a bit less money. But that might just be part of the reason the US succeeded during this crisis.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mwNpv6">
|
||||||
|
“America is going to win this the way we won World War II,” he told me. “Everything was larger than it needs to be, duplicative, just throwing lots of stuff at [the wall]. … But you won the war.”
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oAxjLK">
|
||||||
|
Reasonable people can disagree on whether the fiscal programs to assist Americans during 2020 and 2021 were excessive or merely generous. What’s inarguable, though, is that they were massive, and enough of them worked to make the overall economic response incredibly strong.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GViXEc">
|
||||||
|
The most distinctive, and easiest to compare, part of America’s response was the stimulus checks. The US government has by this point sent out three rounds of “economic impact payments,” or stimulus checks. The March/April 2020 round was $1,200 per adult and $500 per child dependent; the December 2020 round was $600 per adult or child dependent; the March 2021 round was $1,400 per adult and child, including adult dependents with disabilities and college students.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
|
||||||
|
<aside id="tdQirJ">
|
||||||
|
<q>What makes the US response unusual is its focus on spending to increase the incomes of its residents, as opposed to backstopping businesses</q>
|
||||||
|
</aside>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a4PuWd">
|
||||||
|
For a family of four like Jasmine Holloway’s, those checks added up to $10,700 over the course of a year — a life-changing sum of money.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3tsuSe">
|
||||||
|
This was a remarkable aspect of the US response for two reasons. First, it had never happened before in American history. In 2001 and 2008, President George Bush sent stimulus checks to American households, but the policy <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/19/21185572/who-will-get-stimulus-checks-trump">deliberately excluded the poorest Americans</a>. Meanwhile, both the Trump and Biden checks were designed so that all Americans below an income cap could receive it.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H05qWA">
|
||||||
|
More strikingly, the checks were a distinctive policy internationally. The US, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/covid-exemplar-south-korea">South Korea</a>, and Japan were the only large countries to send checks to the vast majority of their citizens; <a href="https://www.bruegel.org/2020/03/downsides-to-hong-kongs-untargeted-cash-handout/">Hong Kong</a> and <a href="https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/coronavirus-covid-19-solidarity-budget-600-cash-payout-12635268">Singapore</a> did something similar, but peer nations like the UK, France, and Germany did not.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v0zKnh">
|
||||||
|
And the US sent much bigger checks than Japan or South Korea did. If Jasmine Holloway lived in Japan, her family would have received about $3,800, or about one-third of what she actually received in America; in South Korea, she would have received <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea/south-korea-to-pay-families-hundreds-of-dollars-to-ease-coronavirus-impact-idUSKBN21H07R">1 million Korean won</a> or <a href="https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-ppp.htm">$1,151</a>, far less. Even if you adjust for the fact that South Korea and Japan are poorer on a per-capita basis than the US, they sent out less.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wVeXzO">
|
||||||
|
America also distinguished itself by its incredibly generous approach to unemployment insurance. The UI system in the US is quite <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22394677/unemployment-insurance-ron-wyden">antiquated and rickety</a>, relying on state-level systems that barely coordinate with each other and were not at all ready for the surge in applications that came in spring 2020. Policymakers wanted to expand the generosity of the program in percentage terms — to replace, say, 80 or 100 percent of workers’ wages for the duration of the emergency — but the system’s poor infrastructure made that impossible.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B7xDmz">
|
||||||
|
Ron Wyden (OR), then the Senate Finance Committee’s ranking Democrat and a primary author of the unemployment provisions in the CARES Act, explained that the choice to just tack on $600 each week to every unemployment check was <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-the-pandemic-could-permanently-change-unemployment-benefits-175047571.html">an attempt to achieve “rough justice”</a> in lieu of the ability to pay a set percentage of incomes.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VEWG2C">
|
||||||
|
The result was a system that was not merely generous — it was a great deal more generous than any of our peer nations.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TXQ1HN">
|
||||||
|
University of Chicago economists Peter Ganong, Pascal Noel, and Joseph Vavra estimated in the summer of 2020 that the $600 bonus checks meant that overall, the<a href="https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/2020-62/"> typical out-of-work American saw 145 percent of their wages replaced</a>. That replacement rate fell when the $600 bonus expired at the end of July, but it surged when $300-per-week bonuses were revived, first temporarily in September and then on a more ongoing basis in December (and even more when the Biden stimulus added another <a href="https://twitter.com/p_ganong/status/1370010488780775424">$100-per-week for health premiums</a>).
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BjmMFIWJIHD7KkaJe-j9bnHqwnw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22479543/replacement_rate_2.jpg"/>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JI3V21">
|
||||||
|
Right now, with the $300 bonuses, the median replacement rate is <a href="https://twitter.com/p_ganong/status/1370010488780775424?s=20">close to 100 percent</a>, far higher than unemployment offers in any of America’s peer countries.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="16sxWY">
|
||||||
|
Most countries relied less on unemployment insurance than on “job retention schemes,” which have become incredibly popular internationally during the pandemic. Under such programs, companies can reduce hours for workers (sometimes to zero) and get a set percentage of their labor costs paid by the government, so workers are still taking home pay. Some countries with existing programs — Japan with Employment Assistance Subsidies, Germany with kurzarbeit, and France with activité partielle<em> —</em> made them more generous during the pandemic; other countries like the UK and Denmark created new ones.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MqXeun">
|
||||||
|
Researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group of largely developed nations, put together an October <a href="https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=135_135415-6bardplc5q&title=Job-retention-schemes-during-the-COVID-19-lockdown-and-beyond">report comparing these schemes</a> and, in particular, comparing their “replacement rates” — the share of pay that workers retain under the scheme, even if they’re working less or not at all. The replacement rates in the programs varied but were generally in the 60-90 percent range: 70 percent in France, upward of 87 percent in Germany, 75 percent for larger firms and 100 percent for smaller firms in Japan. Generally, the programs also had a cap on total government support per worker, so high-wage people would get less than the set replacement rate.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4JgKhd">
|
||||||
|
In other words, you would most likely get more money under the US unemployment system than under one of these job retention schemes. The US’s initial 145 percent replacement rate and its roughly 100 percent rate now blow countries like France out of the water. The US bonus UI approach has, for most of the pandemic to date, put more money in the pockets of its citizens than the European job retention schemes did.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nsiCYa">
|
||||||
|
You can see the effects of this in America’s poverty statistics. Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy researchers Zachary Parolin and Megan Curran have been <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5743308460b5e922a25a6dc7/t/604278f5209e047195f32808/1614969077778/Monthly-Poverty-Factsheet-Jan-2021-CPSP.pdf">tracking poverty during Covid-19 on a monthly basis</a>, and found that for much of the pandemic, poverty rates have been below their January 2020 level, largely due to stimulus relief.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hJaVe43G_r8eW_8FEXL66CohGMg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22479577/monthly_spm_poverty_rate.jpg"/>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="piSzcp">
|
||||||
|
Economists Bruce Meyer, Jeehoon Han, and James Sullivan have their own poverty tracker, which shows <a href="http://povertymeasurement.org/covid-19-poverty-dashboard/">poverty falling sharply</a> in the spring as stimulus checks and bonus UI payments went out. It ticked up again when UI payments expired, before falling again with another round of stimulus in December.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ISV1sB">
|
||||||
|
So America was not just more generous than its peer countries, it took the crisis as an opportunity to cut poverty.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<h3 id="WAMpbl">
|
||||||
|
A good economic response — but not perfect
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nmfUSd">
|
||||||
|
None of America’s successes in shoveling money to citizens during the pandemic should obscure its many failures.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wwhIFP">
|
||||||
|
The most important by far was its failure to control the virus. If the US had used aggressive social distancing rules, widespread testing, and contact tracing the way nations that successfully contained the virus like <a href="https://www.vox.com/22380161/south-korea-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic-contact-tracing-testing">South Korea</a> did, it would not only have lost 550,000 fewer lives, it would also be stronger economically.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0Uxv54">
|
||||||
|
A <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/covid-exemplar-south-korea">group of Korean researchers</a> explains that because South Korea crushed the virus early, it was “able to avoid some of the severe long-term restrictions, such as lockdowns and business closures, that have led to troubled economies in many high-income countries.” By October 2020, the South Korean economy was growing again. That matches what<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/31/21199874/coronavirus-spanish-flu-social-distancing"> analyses early in the pandemic were telling us</a>. Lockdowns and test-and-trace are costly in the short run, but if implemented aggressively, they do not have to last long. And if they contain the virus quickly, the economy wins on balance.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U0n5mK">
|
||||||
|
Beyond that failure, the US response was too haltingly paced. The federal unemployment bonus was $600 per week from March through July, then $0, then $300 per week for six weeks in the fall, then $0 again, then $300 per week starting in December, then another <a href="https://twitter.com/p_ganong/status/1370010488780775424?s=20">$100 per week</a> for help with health care premiums starting the following March. Those changes reflected gridlock in Congress, not the reality of the virus, and created harmful uncertainty for people pushed out of the workforce.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<div>
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/okUYZ_2QVrdOCvFRkn2Nv6UNKcU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22476881/GettyImages_1231635962.jpg"/> <cite>Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images</cite>
|
||||||
|
<figcaption>
|
||||||
|
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer celebrate the signing of the American Rescue Plan after the House passed the $1.9 trillion relief package on March 10.
|
||||||
|
</figcaption>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DS5RmC">
|
||||||
|
The loan programs for businesses included in the March 2020 stimulus package were a fairly mixed bag. The most famous, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/13/21320179/ppp-loans-sba-paycheck-protection-program-polling-kanye-west">Paycheck Protection Program</a>, was geared toward small businesses and offered forgivable loans for businesses that pledged to keep workers employed. In that way, it attempted to mirror European job retention schemes, albeit for a subset of workers.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a6Ae5v">
|
||||||
|
Did it work? It depends on who you ask. An early analysis by Harvard’s Opportunity Insights lab found the program “<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/6/17/21293353/coronavirus-covid-19-economy-recession-unemployment-raj-chetty">had no meaningful effect on unemployment”</a> through the middle of May. Ten economists found in a July MIT paper that the program <a href="https://economics.mit.edu/files/20094">increased employment by about 2.3 million workers</a> through the beginning of June — not that many, given the size of the US labor force.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="akxOaa">
|
||||||
|
But Columbia’s Glenn Hubbard and the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Strain found a<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Hubbard-Strain-et-al-conference-draft.pdf"> more significant positive effect</a> on small business employment. University of Maryland economist Michael Faulkender, then serving as assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy, and treasury economists Robert Jackman and Stephen Miran found a fairly massive effect: <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/226/Job-Preservation-Effects-Paycheck-Protection-Program-Loans.pdf">18.6 million jobs saved</a>.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uAnr3v">
|
||||||
|
Adam Ozimek, an economist who also co-owns a<a href="https://www.decadeslancaster.com/"> bar/arcade/bowling alley</a> in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which received a PPP loan, has <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/4/2/21204341/paycheck-protection-program-apply-small-business-loans-coronavirus">bemoaned how complicated the system</a> is but argues that it played a useful role. “The extent to which PPP worked should be judged not on short-term employee retention,” he told me. “It should be judged on whether it helped reduce the business failure rate. I believe it did, given the surprisingly low business failure rate we most likely saw this year.”
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nwQddD">
|
||||||
|
The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-untapped-billions-in-pandemic-aid-funds-are-in-limbo/2020/12/10/e49f68d0-3b10-11eb-aad9-8959227280c4_story.html">$454 billion lending program</a> the March 2020 stimulus set up for mid-sized and large businesses, by contrast, seems to have been largely superfluous. It was set up to be run by the Federal Reserve and to enable riskier loans to be made to firms at risk of collapse, but <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/454-billion-treasury-fund-goes-mostly-unused-11598529733">by August, more than half the money was still unused</a>. <a href="https://www.moodysanalytics.com/-/media/article/2020/weekly-market-outlook-ultra-low-bond-yields-buoy-corporate-borrowing.pdf">Corporate bond yields</a> fell to record lows, so most large companies were able to borrow to finance their operations quite cheaply. The program didn’t actually cost any money; it arguably wasn’t particularly needed, and the $454 billion it added to the sticker price of the CARES Act could have been better used.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<h3 id="gPMBNS">
|
||||||
|
How to prepare for the next downturn
|
||||||
|
</h3>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r3zjzD">
|
||||||
|
For all those failures, the US economic response to the crisis was overwhelmingly successful — and there’s no better evidence of that than the experience of people like Jasmine Holloway. The US didn’t do everything right during the pandemic. But it saved her and her family — and left her better off than pre-pandemic. And she’s hardly alone in that respect.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5u9Y8Y">
|
||||||
|
The question for the US is whether Americans want this to be a one-off success — or something more enduring.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<div class="c-wide-block">
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kTIqWASIbNS-dow-W4uYiqqPhMY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22479841/Dee_Dwyer_Vox_Jasmine_Holloway_7.jpg"/> <cite>Dee Dwyer for Vox</cite>
|
||||||
|
<figcaption>
|
||||||
|
The pandemic relief “has enabled me to do things I’ve only dreamed about doing for my family,” says Jasmine Holloway.
|
||||||
|
</figcaption>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cmd2OM">
|
||||||
|
There are a few ideas policymakers need to take seriously to cement the gains the country saw this past year. For one thing, America could stand to have a better unemployment system than the fractured, complicated one we currently have. People like Holloway found the system <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/13/21255894/unemployment-insurance-system-problems-florida-claims-pua-new-york">frustrating and time-consuming to access</a>, and its generosity fluctuated seemingly at random. Recent <a href="https://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/CRC_web_20190506.pdf">proposals</a> for <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-plan-to-reform-the-unemployment-insurance-system-in-the-united-states">reforming the UI system</a> seek to make it so that it’s more heavily federally financed, automatically lasts longer during recessions, and is more generous week-to-week during recessions. (<a href="https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-bennet-unveil-unemployment-insurance-overhaul">Wyden and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO)</a> have also proposed legislation around these lines.)
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J4KsEc">
|
||||||
|
The US could also experiment with a real job retention scheme, like the ones many other countries use. Those programs were markedly less generous than the US unemployment insurance system during the crisis, but their structure was arguably superior, as it let workers stay on their employer’s payroll.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ub9FB3">
|
||||||
|
The US has a system meant to work like this —<a href="https://www.nga.org/center/publications/short-term-compensation-programs-covid-19/"> 27 states and Washington, DC, offer “short-term compensation” or “work-sharing” programs</a> through the unemployment system — but it’s a mess. Shortly before Vox Media <a href="https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/vox-media-layoffs-6-percent-revenue-coronavirus-1234708210/">announced layoffs in the summer of 2020</a>, some of my union comrades and I devised a work-sharing plan to avert the lost jobs. But getting the plan to work was a bureaucratic nightmare, involving different applications in different states, and excluding employees outside of states that didn’t offer them. The company ended up not pursuing it. A well-designed version of work-sharing could be a huge help in the next recession. There are other ways to make the future pandemic response more robust.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<div>
|
||||||
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
||||||
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ykCHrjVoNjQbHEVzQtTdYAzFzs0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22476886/GettyImages_1231636334.jpg"/> <cite>Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
|
||||||
|
<figcaption>
|
||||||
|
The question for the US is whether Americans want this relief effort to be a one-off success — or something more enduring.
|
||||||
|
</figcaption>
|
||||||
|
</figure>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MQwxyQ">
|
||||||
|
Economist <a href="https://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/direct_stimulus_payments_to_individuals">Claudia Sahm</a> has proposed automatically triggering stimulus checks when the unemployment rate rises. <a href="https://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/increasing_federal_support_for_state_medicaid_and_chip_programs_in_response">Furman, Matthew Fiedler, and Wilson Powell III</a> have proposed having the federal government automatically increase Medicaid funding to states during downturns. Economists <a href="https://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/strengthening_snap_as_an_automatic_stabilizer">Hilary Hoynes and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach</a> have proposed the same for food stamps, and Georgetown’s <a href="https://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/improving_tanfs_countercyclicality_through_increased_basic_assistance_and_s">Indivar Dutta-Gupta</a> has a plan for a similar trigger in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash welfare program.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="chknSU">
|
||||||
|
Better still, America could choose to strengthen its safety net not simply in a time of extreme crisis, but on an ongoing basis. The Biden administration has proposed extending the <a href="https://www.vox.com/first-person/22336379/covid-biden-relief-package-child-benefit-non-working">expanded child tax credit</a>, which offers parents like Holloway $3,600 a year for each of their kids under age 6 and $3,000 for older kids <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/20/biden-family-recovery-plan-to-cost-more-than-1-trillion-extend-child-tax-credit.html">through 2025 at least</a> — and some in Congress want to <a href="https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?id=92C03C8E-3FEB-457A-934C-DA540DB5EE9C">make it permanent</a>. That way Holloway would have ongoing support for babysitting, her continuing education, and activities for her 14-year-old that fall on the right side of the law.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q4YjSZ">
|
||||||
|
Holloway says she is incredibly grateful for the support she’s gotten during the pandemic, but she expects and plans for it all to go away. “I know one day we’re going to wake up and all these things aren’t going to be here,” she told me. For some programs, that’s probably appropriate. Covid-19 was a unique crisis in need of unique remedies.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="r1of3M">
|
||||||
|
But what if some of the help wasn’t snatched away? What if families like Holloway’s could rely on some cash support from their government, not just this year, not just in a time of crisis, but every year, as a basic right of citizenship?
|
||||||
|
</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>Pacer Unadkat to donate 10% of his IPL salary to help COVID-19 patients</strong> - The 29-year-old from Gujarat, who was retained by Rajasthan this year after being bought for ₹ 3 crore in 2020 IPL auction, made the announcement on his social media account.</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>Penang claims Queen’s Guest Handicap</strong> - Penang (A. Imran Khan up) won the Queen’s Guest Handicap, the main event of the races held here on Friday. The winner is owned by Mr. K.R. Muthukarup</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>Indo-Canadian MMA fighter KB Bhullar on being part of UFC: ‘It’s a dream come true’</strong> - The 29-year-old Bhullar takes on Andreas Michailidis in UFC’s upcoming Fight Night</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>‘Shooter Dadi’ Chandro Tomar dies due to COVID-19</strong> - Tomar was already 60-plus when she picked up a gun for the first time but went on to win many national competitions, even inspiring a Bollywood movie on her life</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>American coach Marsch to succeed Nagelsmann at RB Leipzig</strong> - The 47-year-old Marsch, who was an assistant coach at Leipzig in 2018/19, will join from sister club RB Salzburg, where he won the Austrian league and Cup double last season.</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>18 die in Hassan on Friday</strong> - 667 people test positive for COVID-19</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 surge | BJP MP Rakesh Sinha seeks President’s rule in Delhi</strong> - AAP MLA Shoaib Iqbal had also on Friday demanded imposition of President’s rule in Delhi in view of the massive surge in COVID-19 cases.</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>Coronavirus | PM Modi tells Ministers to address local-level issues, gather feedback</strong> - The Council of Ministers met via video conferencing to discuss the second wave of COVID-19 , terming the current crisis “a once in a century crisis”, a government statement 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>Telangana constitutes high-power committee for allocation of Tocilizumab to government and private hospitals</strong> - The State Government has constituted a high-power committee for allocation of Tocilizumab drug to Covid-19 patients in government and private hospita</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>Coronavirus | No vaccination of 18-44 age group in Maharashtra from May 1 due to Centre: Congress</strong> - Mr. Sawant added that even Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has said the vaccination process for this age group will not start on May 1 in his state due to lack of vaccines.</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>Apple charged over ‘anti-competitive’ app policies</strong> - The tech giant faces a huge fine and may be forced to make changes to the App Store.</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>Bronze Age treasure found in Swedish forest by mapmaker</strong> - A man stumbled on ancient jewellery while surveying a forest for his orienteering club.</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>Eurozone suffers double-dip recession as pandemic impact continues</strong> - Activity in the bloc has been hit by a renewed surge in infections this year and Covid-related restrictions.</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>UK and Norway fail to reach fishing deal</strong> - Hundreds of crew members will be out of work after losing access to a £32m market, ministers are warned.</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>Polish scientists discover pregnant Egyptian mummy</strong> - Experts believe the woman was aged between 20 and 30 when she died with her unborn child.</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: Blue Origin protests Starship, China launches space station</strong> - “The ability to refuel in space is critical to meeting NASA’s goals.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1761451">link</a></p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Does nuclear secrecy make us more secure? New book offers counterargument</strong> - Historian Alex Wellerstein: “You could get rid of all the secrecy tomorrow and the world would not measurably become more dangerous.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1760295">link</a></p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Leaks: May 21 will be the launch day for the new iMac, iPad Pro, and Apple TV</strong> - A prominent leaker, a UK retailer, and Apple itself all let the date slip. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1761213">link</a></p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Uber, Lyft stocks plunge after Biden official says drivers are employees</strong> - Uber and Lyft argue treating drivers as employees would wreck their business. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1761333">link</a></p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Today’s best deals: Lots of video games, rechargeable batteries, and more</strong> - Dealmaster also has deals on Fitbit trackers and noise-canceling headphones. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1761161">link</a></p></li>
|
||||||
|
</ul>
|
||||||
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||||||
|
<ul>
|
||||||
|
<li><strong>My wife calls me a sex machine.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||||||
|
<div class="md">
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||||||
|
I mean her actual words are fucking tool but I know what shes trying to say.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/PurpleGodandViolet"> /u/PurpleGodandViolet </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/n1lfau/my_wife_calls_me_a_sex_machine/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/n1lfau/my_wife_calls_me_a_sex_machine/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><strong>Teacher: “If I gave you 2 cats and another 2 cats and another 2, how many would you have?”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||||||
|
<div class="md">
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||||||
|
Johnny: “Seven.” Teacher: “No, listen carefully… If I gave you two cats, and another two cats and another two, how many would you have?” Johnny: “Seven.” Teacher: “Let me put it to you differently. If I gave you two apples, and another two apples and another two, how many would you have?” Johnny: “Six.” Teacher: “Good. Now if I gave you two cats, and another two cats and another two, how many would you have?” Johnny: “Seven!” Teacher: “Johnny, where in the heck do you get seven from?!” Johnny: “Because I’ve already got a freaking cat!”
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Dark_Sunsh1ne"> /u/Dark_Sunsh1ne </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/n1e1ab/teacher_if_i_gave_you_2_cats_and_another_2_cats/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/n1e1ab/teacher_if_i_gave_you_2_cats_and_another_2_cats/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><strong>I phoned the wife earlier and asked if she wanted me to pick up Fish and Chips on the way home, but she just grunted at me.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||||||
|
<div class="md">
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||||||
|
I think she still regrets letting me name the twins.
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
</div>
|
||||||
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/GuvSingh"> /u/GuvSingh </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/n1pu1o/i_phoned_the_wife_earlier_and_asked_if_she_wanted/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/n1pu1o/i_phoned_the_wife_earlier_and_asked_if_she_wanted/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||||||
|
<li><strong>The Mandalorian fell on hard times and had to take a job in a body building and health food shop. Turns out he was unexpectedly great at it and smashed the commission targets. He’d just direct people to the protein powder section, and say…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||||||
|
<div class="md">
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||||||
|
…“This is the whey”
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
</p>
|
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(Sorry)
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Japsai"> /u/Japsai </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/n1nqoi/the_mandalorian_fell_on_hard_times_and_had_to/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/n1nqoi/the_mandalorian_fell_on_hard_times_and_had_to/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>Remember when plastic surgery was a taboo subject</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<div class="md">
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Now when you mention Botox, nobody raises an eyebrow.
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</p>
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</div>
|
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|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||||||
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/prankerjoker"> /u/prankerjoker </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/n1p4wb/remember_when_plastic_surgery_was_a_taboo_subject/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/n1p4wb/remember_when_plastic_surgery_was_a_taboo_subject/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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|
</ul>
|
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|
|
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|
|
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|
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Reference in New Issue