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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>The effect of circulating zinc, selenium, copper and vitamin K1 on COVID-19 outcomes: a Mendelian randomization study</strong> -
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<b>Background</b>: Previous results from observational, interventional studies and in vitro experiments suggest that certain micronutrients have anti-viral and immunomodulatory activities. In particular, it has been hypothesized that zinc, selenium, copper and vitamin K1 have strong potential for prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19. <b>Objectives</b>: We aimed to test whether genetically predicted Zn, Se, Cu or vitamin K1 levels have a causal effect on COVID-19 related outcomes: risk of infection, hospitalization and critical illness. <b>Methods</b>: We employed two- sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) analysis. Our genetic variants derived from European-ancestry GWAS reflected circulating levels of Zn, Cu, Se in red blood cells as well as Se and vitamin K1 in serum/plasma. For the COVID-19 outcome GWAS, we used infection, hospitalization or critical illness. Our inverse-variance weighted (IVW) MR analysis was complemented by sensitivity analyses: more liberal selection of variants at genome-wide subsignificant threshold, MR-Egger and weighted median/mode tests. <b>Results</b>: Circulating micronutrient levels show limited evidence of association with COVID-19 infection with odds ratio [OR] ranging from 0.97 (95% CI: 0.87-1.08, p-value=0.55) for zinc to 1.07 (95% CI: 1.00-1.14, p-value=0.06) - ie. no beneficial effect for copper, per 1 SD increase in exposure. Similarly minimal evidence was obtained for the hospitalization and critical illness outcomes with OR from 0.98 (95% CI: 0.87-1.09, p-value=0.66) for vitamin K1 to 1.07 (95% CI: 0.88-1.29, p-value=0.49) for copper, and from 0.93 (95% CI: 0.72-1.19, p-value=0.55) for vitamin K1 to 1.21 (95% CI: 0.79-1.86, p-value=0.39) for zinc, respectively. <b>Conclusions</b>: This study does not provide evidence that supplementation with zinc, selenium, copper or vitamin K1 can prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection, critical illness or hospitalization for COVID-19.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.18.21265128v1" target="_blank">The effect of circulating zinc, selenium, copper and vitamin K1 on COVID-19 outcomes: a Mendelian randomization study</a>
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<li><strong>Conflicts of interest and physicians’ attitudes towards hydroxychloroquine as a treatment against COVID-19: A replication and extension of Roussel &amp; Raoult (2020)</strong> -
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Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and its use as a treatment against COVID-19 have been at the center of heated debates. Some claim that the hostility of physicians towards HCQ was partly orchestrated by rival pharmaceutical companies seeking to promote their own treatment. In favor of this hypothesis, Roussel and Raoult (2020) have presented the results of a study in which they find a perfect positive correlation (ρ = 1.00) between French physicians9 attitudes towards HCQ and their conflict of interest with Gilead Sciences - the company that has promoted Remdesivir (REM) as a treatment against COVID-19. However, Roussel and Raoult9s study suffers from serious methodological shortcomings, among which is the fact that the statistical methods they employed might tend to artificially inflate correlations. In this study, we use a similar method and sample, but correct for their study s original shortcomings: we provide a detailed, pre-registered method for collecting and coding data, computer inter-rater agreement and use a wide array of appropriate statistical methods to achieve a more reliable estimate the association between conflicts of interest and physicians attitudes towards HCQ. We conclude that Roussel and Raoult s conclusion was misguided and that financial conflicts of interest were not the main predictors of the attitudes of physicians when compared to other factors, such as academic affiliation. Moreover, compared to other pharmaceutical companies, there was no specific link between attitudes towards HCQ and conflicts of interest with Gilead Sciences.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.18.21265135v1" target="_blank">Conflicts of interest and physicians’ attitudes towards hydroxychloroquine as a treatment against COVID-19: A replication and extension of Roussel &amp;amp; Raoult (2020)</a>
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<li><strong>Impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on longitudinal vaccine immune responses</strong> -
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Background Recent serological investigations imply waning immune responses following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, but prior infection may impact the breadth and duration of vaccine immune responses. Methods Using longitudinally collected blood samples from the COMMUNITY study, we determined binding (WHO BAU/ml) and neutralizing antibody titers against ten SARS-CoV-2 variants over seven months following BNT162b2 in healthcare workers with (n=111) and without (n=298) confirmed prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. A smaller group with (n=47) and without (n=61) confirmed prior SARS-CoV-2 infection receiving ChAdOx1 ncov-19 was followed for three months. Results Vaccination (BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 ncov-19) following SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted in higher wild-type BAU/ml geometric mean titers (GMTs) at all sampling time points when compared to SARS-CoV-2 naive vaccinees (all p&lt;0.001). GMTs were 1875 BAU/ml in convalescent and 981 BAU/ml in naive BNT162b2 vaccinees 6 weeks post vaccination. 29 weeks post vaccination, GMTs had decreased to 524 BAU/ml in convalescent and 148 BAU/ml in naive vaccinees. GMT differences between convalescents and naive following ChAdOx1 ncov-19 mirrored those after BNT162b2, but the titers were considerably lower. Finally, at all time points, neutralizing antibody titers against all ten tested SARS-CoV-2 variants were at least 2 respectively 3-fold higher in SARS-CoV-2 recovered as compared to naive vaccinees following BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 ncov-19, respectively (all p&lt;0.001). Conclusions These findings of substantially more robust serological responses to vaccine after natural infection imply that prior infection may be taken into consideration when planning booster doses and design of current and future SARS- CoV-2 vaccine programs.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.16.21264948v1" target="_blank">Impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on longitudinal vaccine immune responses</a>
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<li><strong>Preclinical Efficacy of IMM-BCP-01, a Highly Active Patient-Derived Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Cocktail</strong> -
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Using an unbiased interrogation of the anti-viral memory B cell repertoire of convalescent COVID-19 patients, we identified three human antibodies that when combined demonstrated both robust viral suppressive properties against all tested SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in vitro and profound anti-viral efficacy in vivo. In this report, we describe the pre-clinical characterization of an antibody cocktail, IMM-BCP-01, that consists of three unique, patient-derived recombinant antibodies directed at non-overlapping surfaces on the Spike protein, each with particularly effective antiviral activity. One antibody has a composite epitope blocking ACE2 binding, one antibody bridges two Spike proteins, and one antibody neutralizes virus by binding to a conserved epitope outside of ACE2 binding site. These antibodies, when administered after viral infection, potently decreased viral load in lungs of infected Syrian golden hamsters in a dose-dependent manner, elicited broad anti-viral neutralizing activity against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants, and induced a robust anti-viral effector function response, including phagocytosis, and activation of classical complement pathway. Our pre-clinical data demonstrate that the unique three antibody cocktail IMM-BCP-01 is a potent and dose-efficient approach to treat early viral infection and prevent SARS-CoV-2 in susceptible individuals.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.18.464900v1" target="_blank">Preclinical Efficacy of IMM-BCP-01, a Highly Active Patient-Derived Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Cocktail</a>
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<li><strong>Shared Genomic Architectures of Covid-19 and Antisocial Behavior: Implications During Pandemics</strong> -
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BACKGROUND. Norm violation, aggression, and antisocial behaviors (ASB) are harmful to society. In times of crisis, such as the current pandemic, individuals with higher antisocial tendencies may subvert efforts to ameliorate social problems. Complicating research on this topic, however, is the fact that variance in both ASB and health traits is partly heritable, suggesting the possibility of genetic correlations between them. METHODS. We characterized the shared polygenic architecture of ASB, Covid-19, and related traits, leveraging summary statistics from genome-wide association studies. RESULTS. After multiple-testing correction, ASB was genetically correlated with average income (rg=-0.54; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.65, -0.43); education years (rg=-0.48; CI: -0.59, -0.38; verbal reasoning (rg=-0.44; CI: -0.58, -0.30); healthspan (rg=-0.47; CI: -0.62, -0.31), lifespan (rg=-0.33 (CI: -0.46, -0.21); breastfed as baby (rg=-0.24; 95% CI: -0.38, -0.11); cheese intake (rg=-0.28 (CI: -0.38, -0.18); Covid-19 (rg=0.51, 95% CI: 0.12, 0.90; heavy, manual labor (rg=0.58; CI: 0.45, 0.70); noisy workplace (rg=0.63; CI: 0.48, 0.77); Townsend Deprivation Index (rg=0.70; CI: 0.56, 0.84); gastrointestinal diseases (rg=0.46; 95% CI: 0.23, 0.70); chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (rg=0.51; CI: 0.33, 0.68); genitourinary diseases (rg=0.38; CI: 0.22, 0.55); neuroticism (rg=0.29; CI: 0.20, 0.38); seen doctor for nerves, anxiety, tension, or depression (rg=0.42; CI: 0.31, 0.54); plays computer games (rg=0.15; CI: 0.06, 0.25); violent-crime victim (rg=0.36; CI: 0.16, 0.56); risk tolerance (rg=0.50; CI: 0.39, 0.65); saw sudden violent death (rg=0.42; CI: 0.20, 0.64). CONCLUSIONS. Our results suggest ASB shares genetic architecture with Covid-19 and related health outcomes. We discuss the public-health and bioethical implications of our results.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.18.21265145v1" target="_blank">Shared Genomic Architectures of Covid-19 and Antisocial Behavior: Implications During Pandemics</a>
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<li><strong>Elevated antibody titers in Abdala vaccinees evaluated by Elecsys® anti-SARS-CoV-2 S highly correlate with UMELISA SARS-CoV-2 ANTI RBD, ACE-2 binding inhibition and viral neutralization assays.</strong> -
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SARS-CoV-2, a recently emerged coronavirus, is causing high morbidity and mortality worldwide since December 2019, posing an enormous health, social and economic problem. Obtaining effective treatments that can diminish deaths and sequelae and vaccines to slow or prevent viral transmission, and reduce disease severity and/or death are of utmost importance. Abdala is a Cuban vaccine based on the recombinant RBD subunit of the spike protein expressed in Pichia pastoris yeast. It demonstrated high efficacy (92.28 %) in phase III clinical trials for reducing transmission, and more than 90% effectiveness in reducing disease severity and mortality. Antibody titers were evaluated in 42 Abdala vaccinees using the Elecsys® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S test. Fifteen days after immunization, sera from vaccinees showed high antibody titers (median of 1595 U/mL). The results obtained in this study also demonstrate correlation between the Cuban test UMELISA SARS-CoV-2 ANTI RBD used during the clinical trials and Elecsys® test results.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.18.21265169v1" target="_blank">Elevated antibody titers in Abdala vaccinees evaluated by Elecsys® anti-SARS-CoV-2 S highly correlate with UMELISA SARS-CoV-2 ANTI RBD, ACE-2 binding inhibition and viral neutralization assays.</a>
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<li><strong>COVID-19’s impact on visitation behavior to US national parks from communities of color - Evidence from mobile phone data</strong> -
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The widespread COVID-19 pandemic changed the fundamentals of people’s way of life. With the necessity of social distancing and lock downs across the United States, evidence shows more people engage in outdoor activities. With the utilization of location-based service data, we seek to explore how visitation patterns to national parks have changed from distinct communities of color amidst the COVID- 19 pandemic. Our results show that visitation rates to national parks located closer than 353km have increased amidst the pandemic, but the converse was demonstrated amongst parks located further than 353km. More importantly, COVID-19 has adversely impacted visitation figures amongst non-white and Native American communities, with visitation volumes worsening if these communities are situated further from national parks. Our results show disproportionate representations amongst national park visitors from these communities of color. African American communities display a particularly concerning trend whereby their visitation to national parks is significantly lower amongst communities closer to national parks.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/hmrpf/" target="_blank">COVID-19’s impact on visitation behavior to US national parks from communities of color - Evidence from mobile phone data</a>
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<li><strong>Too WEIRD, Too Fast? Preprints about COVID-19 in psychology</strong> -
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That behavioral sciences are overrepresented by some countries, in terms of samples and authors, is a well- documented finding. Considering the immediate policy implications, the present study aimed to scope whether this is true in the context of understanding the effects of the coronavirus as well. We assessed relevant preprints with “coronavirus” or “COVID-19” as keywords published on PsyArxiv between March-April, 2020, as well as between May- December, 2020 in terms of samples, participants, and authors. We found that some countries, such as the US, were overrepresented in both waves; papers based on authors from such countries, and employing samples from such countries were also more likely to be published in journals with higher impact factors, and were also more likely to be cited more. Implications, especially regarding a reductionist bifurcation of research as “WEIRD” or “non-WEIRD,” are discussed.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/jeh84/" target="_blank">Too WEIRD, Too Fast? Preprints about COVID-19 in psychology</a>
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<li><strong>Hymecromone: A Clinical Prescription Hyaluronan Inhibitor for Efficiently Blocking COVID-19 Progression</strong> -
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Summary Background We previously found that human identical sequences (HIS) of SARS-CoV-2 promote the clinical progression of COVID-19 by upregulating hyaluronan (HA). As one of the drugs for hyaluronan inhibition, hymecromone was chosen for evaluating its therapeutic effects on COVID-19. Methods ELISA was performed to detect the level of HA in COVID-19 patients. We first analyzed the correlation between the level of plasma HA and clinical parameters (lymphocytes, C-reactive protein, D-dimer, and fibrinogen). We then assessed the correlation between the plasma HA level and pulmonary lesions, which were quantified by using artificial intelligence based on chest CT scans, including ground-glass opacity (GGO) and consolidation. Furthermore, we assessed the effect of hyaluronan treatment on the formation of pulmonary lesions in mice and evaluated the role of hymecromone on hyaluronan production in cultured cells. Finally, 94 of the 144 confirmed COVID-19 patients received oral hymecromone in addition to standard care, whereas the others with only standard care were treated as control. Abnormal serological markers in two groups were selected to determine the efficacy of hymecromone. Findings Plasma HA was closely relevant to clinical parameters, including lymphocytes (n = 158; r = -0.50; P＜0.0001), CRP (n = 156; r = 0.55; P＜0.0001), D-dimer (n = 154; r = 0.38; P＜0.0001), and fibrinogen (n = 152; r = 0.37; P＜0.0001), as well as the mass (n = 120; r = 0.30; P = 0.0008) and volume (n = 120; r = 0.30; P = 0.0009) of GGO, the mass (n = 120; r = 0.34; P = 0.0002) and volume (n = 120; r = 0.35; P＜0.0001) of consolidation. Mice experiment further verified that hyaluronan could cause pulmonary lesions directly. Hymecromone remarkably reduced HA via downregulating HAS2/HAS3 expression. Accordingly, the number of lymphocytes recovered more quickly as the fold change of lymphocytes per day was higher in hymecromone-treated patients (n=8) than the control group (n=5) (P ＜0.01). Moreover, 89% patients with hymecromone treatment had pulmonary lesion absorption while only 42% patients in control group had pulmonary lesion absorption (P＜0.0001). Interpretation Hyaluronan is closely correlated with COVID-19 progression and can serve as a plasma biomarker. As a promising treatment for COVID-19, hymecromone deserves our further efforts to determine its effect in a larger cohort of COVID-19 patients. Funding National Key R&amp;D Program of China, Major Special Projects of Basic Research of Shanghai Science and Technology Commission, and Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Action Plan, Medical Innovation Research Special Project, Research of early identification and warning of acute respiratory infectious diseases.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.19.21263786v1" target="_blank">Hymecromone: A Clinical Prescription Hyaluronan Inhibitor for Efficiently Blocking COVID-19 Progression</a>
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<li><strong>Adapting cleft care protocols in low- and middle-income countries during and after COVID-19: a process-driven review with recommendations</strong> -
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Objective: A consortium of global cleft professionals, predominantly from low- and middle-income countries, identified adaptions to cleft care protocols during and after COVID as a priority learning area of need. Design: A multidisciplinary international working group met on a videoconferencing platform in a multi-staged process to make consensus recommendations for adaptions to cleft protocols within resource-constrained settings. Feedback was sought from a roundtable discussion forum and global organisations involved in comprehensive cleft care. Results: Foundational principles were agreed to enable recommendations to be globally relevant and two areas of focus within the specified topic were identified. First the safety aspects of cleft surgery protocols were scrutinised and COVID adaptions, specifically in the pre and peri-operative periods, were highlighted. Second, surgical operations and access to services were prioritized according to their relationship to functional outcomes and time-sensitivity. The operations assigned the highest priority were emergent interventions for breathing and nutritional requirements and primary palatoplasty. The cleft services assigned the highest priority were new-born assessments, paediatric support for children with syndromes, management of acute dental or auditory infections and speech pathology intervention. Conclusions: A collaborative, interdisciplinary and international working group delivered consensus recommendations to assist with the provision of cleft care in low- and middle-income countries. At a time of global cleft care delays due to COVID-19, a united approach amongst global cleft care providers will be advantageous to advocate for children born with cleft lip and palate in resource-constrained settings.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.14.21265004v1" target="_blank">Adapting cleft care protocols in low- and middle-income countries during and after COVID-19: a process-driven review with recommendations</a>
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<li><strong>Clinical utility of Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S assay in COVID-19 vaccination: An exploratory analysis of the mRNA-1273 phase 1 trial</strong> -
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Background The ability to quantify an immune response after vaccination against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is essential. This study assessed the clinical utility of the quantitative Roche Elecsys® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S assay (ACOV2S) using samples from the 2019-nCoV vaccine (mRNA-1273) phase 1 trial (NCT04283461). Methods Samples from 30 healthy participants, aged 18-55 years, who received two injections with mRNA-1273 at a dose of 25 μg (n=15) or 100 μg (n=15), were collected at Days 1 (first vaccination), 15, 29 (second vaccination), 43 and 57. ACOV2S results (shown in U/mL - equivalent to BAU/mL per the first WHO international standard) were compared with results from ELISAs specific to antibodies against the Spike protein (S-2P) and the receptor binding domain (RBD) as well as neutralization tests including nanoluciferase (nLUC80), live-virus (PRNT80), and a pseudovirus neutralizing antibody assay (PsVNA50). Results RBD-specific antibodies were already detectable by ACOV2S at the first time point of assessment (d15 after first vaccination), with seroconversion before in all but 2 participants (25 μg dose group); all had seroconverted by Day 29. Across all post-baseline visits, geometric mean concentration of antibody levels were 3.27-7.48-fold higher in the 100 μg compared with the 25 μg dose group. ACOV2S measurements were highly correlated with those from RBD ELISA (Pearson9s r=0.938; p&lt;0.0001) and S-2P ELISA (r=0.918; p&lt;0.0001). For both ELISAs, heterogeneous baseline results and smaller increases in antibody levels following the second vs first vaccination compared with ACOV2S were observed. ACOV2S showed absence of any baseline noise indicating high specificity detecting vaccine-induced antibody response. Moderate-strong correlations were observed between ACOV2S and neutralization tests (nLUC80 r=0.933; PsVNA50, r=0.771; PRNT80, r=0.672; all p≤0.0001). Conclusion The Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S assay (ACOV2S) can be regarded as a highly valuable method to assess and quantify the presence of RBD-directed antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 following vaccination, and may indicate the presence of neutralizing antibodies. As a fully automated and standardized method, ACOV2S could qualify as the method of choice for consistent quantification of vaccine-induced humoral response.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.04.21264521v4" target="_blank">Clinical utility of Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S assay in COVID-19 vaccination: An exploratory analysis of the mRNA-1273 phase 1 trial</a>
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<li><strong>Bringing Home Baby Euclid: Testing infants’ basic shape discrimination online</strong> -
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Online developmental psychology studies are still in their infancy, but their role is newly urgent in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the suspension of in-person research. Are online studies with infants a suitable stand-in for lab-based studies? Across two unmonitored online experiments using a change-detection looking-time paradigm with 96 7-month-old infants, we found that infants did not exhibit measurable sensitivities to the basic shape information that distinguishes between 2D geometric forms, as had been observed in previous lab experiments. Moreover, while infants were distracted in our online experiments, such distraction was nevertheless not a reliable predictor of their ability to detect shape information. Our findings suggest that the change-detection paradigm may not elicit infants’ shape discrimination abilities when stimuli are presented on small, personal computer screens: Stimuli may not be perceived as two discrete events with only one event displaying uniquely changing information that draws infants’ attention. Some developmental paradigms used with young infants, even those that seem well-suited to the constraints and goals of online data collection, may thus not yield results consistent with lab results that rely on highly controlled settings and specialized equipment, such as large screens. As developmental researchers continue to adapt lab-based methods to online contexts, testing those methods online is a necessary first step in creating robust tools and expanding the space of inquiry for developmental science conducted online.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/vgkws/" target="_blank">Bringing Home Baby Euclid: Testing infants’ basic shape discrimination online</a>
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<li><strong>The International Sexual Health And Reproductive Health Survey (I-SHARE-1): A Cross-Sectional Multi-Country Analysis of Adults from 30 Countries Prior to and During the Initial COVID-19 Wave</strong> -
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Background: To better understand sexual and reproductive health (SRH) during the initial COVID-19 wave, we organized a multi-country cross-sectional survey. Methods: Consortium research teams conducted online surveys in 30 countries. Primary outcomes included sexual behaviors, partner violence, and SRH service utilization, and we compared three months prior to and three months after policy measures to mitigate COVID-19. We used established indicators and analyses pre-specified in our protocol. We conducted meta-analyses for primary outcomes and graded the certainty of the evidence using Cochrane methods. Findings: Descriptive analyses included 22,724 individuals in 25 countries. Five additional countries with sample sizes &lt;200 were included in descriptive meta-analyses. Respondents were mean age 34 years; most identified as women (15160; 66.7%), cis-gender (19432; 86.6%) and heterosexual (16592; 77.9%). Among 4546 respondents with casual partners, condom use stayed steady for 3374 (74.4%); 640 (14.1%) reported a decline. Fewer respondents reported physical or sexual partner violence during COVID-19 measures (1063/15144, 7.0%) than before (1469/15887, 9.3%). COVID-19 measures impeded access to condoms (933/10790, 8.7%), contraceptives (610/8175, 7.5%), and HIV/STI testing (750/1965, 30.7%). Pooled estimates from meta-analysis indicate during COVID-19 measures, 32.3% (95% CI 23.9-42.1) of people needing HIV/STI testing had hindered access, 4.4% (95% CI 3.4-5.4) experienced partner violence, and 5.8% (95% CI 5.4-8.2) decreased casual partner condom use (moderate certainty of evidence for each outcome). Meta- analysis findings were robust in sensitivity analyses that examined country income level, sample size, and sampling strategy. Interpretation: The initial COVID-19 wave impacted SRH behaviors and access to services across diverse global settings.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.18.21263630v2" target="_blank">The International Sexual Health And Reproductive Health Survey (I-SHARE-1): A Cross-Sectional Multi-Country Analysis of Adults from 30 Countries Prior to and During the Initial COVID-19 Wave</a>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in temperate climates</strong> -
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While seasonal variation has a known influence on the transmission of several respiratory viral infections, its role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission remains unclear. As previous analyses have not accounted for the implementation of non- pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in the first year of the pandemic, they may yield biased estimates of seasonal effects. Building on two state-of-the-art observational models and datasets, we adapt a fully Bayesian method for estimating the association between seasonality and transmission in 143 temperate European regions. We find strong seasonal patterns, consistent with a reduction in the time-variable Rt of 42.1% (95% CI: 24.7% - 53.4%) from the peak of winter to the peak of summer. These results imply that the seasonality of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is comparable in magnitude to the most effective individual NPIs but less than the combined effect of multiple interventions.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.10.21258647v3" target="_blank">Seasonal variation in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in temperate climates</a>
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<li><strong>Lack of Trust, Insufficient knowledge and Risk denial; an in-depth Understanding of Health worker Barriers to uptake of the Covid-19 vaccine at Iganga Hospital Eastern Uganda, and Mengo Hospital Kampala Uganda</strong> -
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Covid 19 Vaccine hesitancy among health workers remains a major hindrance to the governments vaccine roll out plan among health workers and other target populations in Uganda. We conducted 12 focus group discussions and 20 in- depth interviews with health workers (vaccinated and un vaccinated) to understand barriers to vaccine acceptance in their own perspective and context in central and eastern Uganda. Reported barriers to vaccine acceptance included: gross lack of trust, fear of side effects, risk denial and insufficient information about the vaccine amidst negative publicity about the vaccine from the internet and social media platforms. Others were health system inhibition factors and religious beliefs against the vaccine. We recommend a health work context specific information, education and dissemination strategy to create awareness, information and more knowledge about the vaccine to health workers. We also recommend a sustained government media campaign to give more information about the vaccine and also dispel the negative publicity and misinformation about the vaccine. Dialogue with health workers at all levels of care, positive peer influence, use of religious and opinion leaders as well as government ensuring accessibly to various Covid 19 vaccines and putting vaccine posts outside hospital settings to limit exposure to Covid patients could also increase uptake of the vaccine among health workers.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.13.21264920v1" target="_blank">Lack of Trust, Insufficient knowledge and Risk denial; an in-depth Understanding of Health worker Barriers to uptake of the Covid-19 vaccine at Iganga Hospital Eastern Uganda, and Mengo Hospital Kampala Uganda</a>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Randomized Study to Evaluate Intranasal Dose of STI-2099 (COVI-DROPS™) in Outpatient Adults With Mild COVID-19 Infection</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: COVI-DROPS;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluating Safety, Tolerability, and Potential Efficacy of Intranasal AD17002 in Adults With Mild COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: AD17002;   Biological: Placebo (Formulation buffer)<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Advagene Biopharma Co. Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lymphatic Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine to Enhance Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccination Efficacy</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Lymphatic OMM;   Other: Light Touch<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Rowan University<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tocilizumab Versus Baricitinib in Patients With Severe COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Tocilizumab;   Drug: Baricitinib<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University Hospital of Patras<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacy and Safety of Ergoferon for COVID-19 Prevention During Vaccination Against SARS-CoV-2</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Immunization Against COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Ergoferon;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Materia Medica Holding<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Efficacy and Safety of Pyramax in Mild to Moderate COVID-19 Patients (Phase3)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Pyramax;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:  <br/>
Shin Poong Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacy of Home Inspiratory Muscle Training in Post-covid-19 Patients: a Randomized Clinical Trial</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: Inspiratory muscle training<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:  <br/>
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Impact of Nudges on Downloads of COVID-19 Exposure Notification Smartphone Apps: A Randomized Trial</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Behavioral: Self-Benefit/Social Norm;   Behavioral: Self- Benefit/No Social Norm;   Behavioral: Other Benefit/Social Norm;   Behavioral: Other Benefit/No Social Norm<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   University of Pennsylvania;   Pennsylvania Department of Health<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacy, Safety, and Immunogenicity Study of the Recombinant Two-component COVID-19 Vaccine (CHO Cell)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: Recombinant two-component COVID-19 vaccine (CHO cell);   Biological: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Jiangsu Rec-Biotechnology Co., Ltd.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cardiovascular Assessment in Patient Recovered From COVID-19 and Recovery of Autonomic Nervous System in Association With the Severity of the Disease</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Non invasive cardiovascular monitoring with CNAP device of arterial pressure, ECG and respiratory activity<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   IRCCS Policlinico S. Donato<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Efficacy of KOVIR (TD0068) in the Combination Regimen With Background Treatment in COVID-19 Patients (KOVIR)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Dietary Supplement: KOVIR (TD0068) oral capsule;   Dietary Supplement: Placebo oral capsule<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Sunstar Joint Stock Company;   Vietstar Biomedical Research<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Safety and Tolerability Study of BDB-001 in Mild, Moderate COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: BDB-001 injection<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:  <br/>
Staidson (Beijing) Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd;   Beijing Defengrui Biotechnology Co. Ltd<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Acetylsalicylic Acid in COVID-19 (ASA-SARS)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>:   SARS-CoV2 Infection;   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Low-dose acetylsalicylic acid;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Barcelona Institute for Global Health;   Hospital Universitario de Torrejón,Madrid;   Hospital Universitario Infanta Leonor;   Fundació Institut de Recerca de l’Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau;   Hospital del Mar;   Hopsital Central de Maputo, Mozambique<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pulmonary Function in Patients Recovering From COVID19 Infection : a Pilot Study</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Diagnostic Test: diaphragm ultrasonography<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   University Hospital, Limoges<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Safety and Immunogenicity Study of Booster Vaccination With Medium-dosage or High-dosage SARS-CoV-2 Inactivated Vaccine for Prevention of COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: High-dosage SARS-CoV-2 vaccine;   Biological: Medium-dosage SARS-CoV-2 vaccine<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sinovac Biotech Co., Ltd<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Transparent Air Filters with Active Thermal Sterilization</strong> - The worldwide proliferation of COVID-19 poses the urgent need for sterilizable and transparent air filters to inhibit virus transmission while retaining ease of communication. Here, we introduce copper nanowires to fabricate transparent and self-sterilizable air filters. Copper nanowire air filter (CNAF) allowed visible light penetration, thereby can exhibit facial expressions, helpful for better communication. CNAF effectively captured particulate matter (PM) by mechanical and electrostatic…</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>Engineering Extracellular Vesicles Enriched with Palmitoylated ACE2 as COVID-19 Therapy</strong> - Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a key receptor present on cell surfaces that directly interacts with the viral spike (S) protein of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). It is proposed that inhibiting this interaction can be promising in treating COVID-19. Here, the presence of ACE2 in extracellular vesicles (EVs) is reported and the EV-ACE2 levels are determined by protein palmitoylation. The Cys141 and Cys498 residues on ACE2 are S-palmitoylated by zinc…</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>Current treatment strategies for COVID-19 (Review)</strong> - The spread of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) emerged suddenly at the end of 2019 and the disease came to be known as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19). To date, there is no specific therapy established to treat COVID‑19. Identifying effective treatments is urgently required to treat patients and stop the transmission of SARS‑CoV‑2 in humans. For the present review, &gt;100 publications on therapeutic agents for COVID‑19, including in vitro and in vivo…</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>Niclosamide for Covid-19: bridging the gap</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: NCL has anti-inflammatory and immune regulatory effects by modulating the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, inhibition of NF-κB /NLRP3 inflammasome and mTOR signaling pathway. NCL has an anti-SARS-CoV-2 effect via interruption of viral life-cycle and/or induction of cytopathic effect. Prospective clinical studies and clinical trials are mandatory to confirm the potential role of NCL in patients with Covid-19 concerning the severity and clinical outcomes.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A review on protective roles and potential mechanisms of metformin in diabetic patients diagnosed with COVID-19</strong> - The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is currently the leading threat to public health and a huge challenge to the healthcare systems across the globe and caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Obesity, a state of chronic inflammation, and diabetes mellitus are risk factors for severe SARS-CoV-2. Metformin is one of the most commonly used antidiabetic medications that displayed immunomodulatory activity through AMP-activated protein kinase. Metformin has…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SARS-CoV-2 promotes RIPK1 activation to facilitate viral propagation</strong> - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is the ongoing global pandemic that poses substantial challenges to public health worldwide. A subset of COVID-19 patients experience systemic inflammatory response, known as cytokine storm, which may lead to death. Receptor-interacting serine/threonine-protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) is an important mediator of inflammation and cell death. Here, we examined the interaction of RIPK1-mediated…</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>Visible blue light inhibits infection and replication of SARS-CoV-2 at doses that are well-tolerated by human respiratory tissue</strong> - The delivery of safe, visible wavelengths of light can be an effective, pathogen-agnostic, countermeasure that would expand the current portfolio of SARS-CoV-2 intervention strategies beyond the conventional approaches of vaccine, antibody, and antiviral therapeutics. Employing custom biological light units, that incorporate optically engineered light-emitting diode (LED) arrays, we harnessed monochromatic wavelengths of light for uniform delivery across biological surfaces. We demonstrated that…</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>Preclinical characterization of an intravenous coronavirus 3CL protease inhibitor for the potential treatment of COVID19</strong> - COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has become a global pandemic. 3CL protease is a virally encoded protein that is essential across a broad spectrum of coronaviruses with no close human analogs. PF-00835231, a 3CL protease inhibitor, has exhibited potent in vitro antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 as a single agent. Here we report, the design and characterization of a phosphate prodrug PF-07304814 to enable the delivery and projected sustained systemic exposure in human of PF-00835231 to…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Proton-pump inhibitor use is not associated with severe COVID-19-related outcomes: a propensity score-weighted analysis of a national veteran cohort</strong> - No abstract</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The therapeutic promises of Lianhuaqingke in the mice model of coronavirus pneumonia (HCoV-229E and SARS-CoV-2)</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate that LHQK exerts therapeutic effects on pneumonia caused by HCoVs (HCoV-229E and SARS-CoV-2) in mice, and that the anti-HCoV effects might depend on its immunomodulatory capacities. All these results suggest that LHQK serves as a potential adjuvant for anti-HCoV therapies.</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>Resistance of SARS-CoV-2 Beta and Gamma variants to plasma collected from Canadian blood donors during the Spring of 2020</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary data can be used as a justification for limiting the use of first wave plasma products in upcoming clinical trials but cannot be used to speculate on general trends in the immunity of Canadian blood donors to SARS-CoV-2. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.</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>Electrophysiological and Proarrhythmic Effects of Hydroxychloroquine Challenge in Guinea-Pig Hearts</strong> - Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), clinically established in antimalarial and autoimmune therapy, recently raised cardiac arrhythmogenic concerns when used alone or with azithromycin (HCQ+AZM) in Covid-19. We report complementary, experimental, studies of its electrophysiological effects. In patch clamped HEK293 cells expressing human cardiac ion channels, HCQ inhibited I(Kr) and I(K1) at a therapeutic concentrations (IC(50)s: 10 ± 0.6 and 34 ± 5.0 μM). I(Na) and I(CaL) showed higher IC(50)s; I(to) and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Complement inhibition for the treatment of COVID-19 triggered thrombotic microangiopathy with cardiac failure: a case report</strong> - CONCLUSION: The aetiology of cardiogenic shock observed in this patient cannot simply be explained by his focal and chronic coronary findings. Although viral myocarditis was not formally excluded, both the clinical features of TMA and the rapid resolution of all clinical signs and symptoms after pharmacological complement inhibition suggest a SARS- CoV-2-driven microangiopathic origin of heart failure.</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>Search for RNA aptamers against non-structural protein of SARS-CoV-2: Design using molecular dynamics approach</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: The study identifies the potential aptamer candidate against less investigated but significant antiviral target i.e., NSP10/NSP16 interface complex.</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>Computational guided identification of potential leads from Acacia pennata (L.) Willd. as inhibitors for cellular entry and viral replication of SARS-CoV-2</strong> - CONCLUSION: The present study found isovitexin as the most promising phytocompound to potentially inhibit the cellular entry and viral replication of SARS-CoV-2. We also conclude that compounds having oxygen atom at position 18 (C-ring), -OH group at position 19 (A-ring), and 6-C-glucoside attached to the A-ring at position 3 on a C(6)-C(3)-C(6) flavonoid scaffold could offer the best alternative to develop new leads against SARS-CoV-2.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>휴대용 자화 육각수물 발생기</strong> - 본인의 발명은, 사람의 신체에서 육각수물 생성에는 한계가 있으며, 동맥혈관, 정맥혈관 내부 혈액은 수분이 약 90% 이며, 건강한 성인이면, 육각수 물은 약 62% 이며, COVID-19 환자, 사고의 부상, 17만개의 질병, 질환으로 조직세포가 손상되면 자기 신체수복을 위해서 육각수 물을 평소보다 많이 흡수 하면서 동반 산소부족 상태가 되며, 육각수물 보충 없이 산소 호흡기를 사용하면 심각한 후유증이 발병 할 수 있다.</li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">육각수물 부족 상태를 해결하기 위해서, 객관적인 과학적으로 네오디뮴(원자번호 = 60) 3.000 가우스의 자기장을 이용하여서 육각수 물을 62% ~ 80% 이상, 상시 유지 시켜주는 제조 방법이며, 휴대용으로 항시 착용 가능하다. 결론은 COVID-19, 질병, 질환의 근본적인 원인은, 육각수물 부족 상태가 되면 동반 산소 부족 상태가 되면서, 염증 -&gt; 통증 -&gt; 극심한 통증 -&gt; 석회화, 섬유화, 암 까지 발병 한다. - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=KR338655754">link</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>휴대용 자화 육각수물 발생기</strong> - 본인의 발명은, 사람의 신체에서 육각수 생성에는 한계가 있으며, 동맥혈관, 정맥혈관 내부 혈액은 수분이 90% 이며, 육각수물은 약 62% 이며, COVID-19, 사고 부상, 질병, 질환으로 조직세포가 손상되면 자기 신체수복을 위해서 육각수물을 평소보다 많이 흡수하면서 산소부족 상태가 되며, 육각수 보충 없이 산소호흡기를 사용하면 심각한 후유증이 발병 할 수 있다 육각수물 부족 상태를 해결하기 위해서, 객관적인 과학적으로 네오디뮴(원자번호 = 60) 3.000 가우스의 자기장을 이용하여서 육각수물을 62% ~ 80% 상시 유지 시켜주는 제조 방법이며, 휴대용으로 항시 착용 가능하다. 결론은 COVID-19, 질병, 질환의 근본적인 원인은, 육각수물 부족 상태가 되면 동반 산소 부족 상태가 되면서, 염증 -&gt; 통증 -&gt; 극심한 통증 -&gt; 석회화, 섬유화, 암 까지 발병 한다. - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=KR338650904">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>用于检测新冠病毒的配对抗体及其应用</strong> - 本发明涉及一种用于检测新冠病毒的配对抗体及其应用，其包括第一检测抗体和第二检测抗体；第一检测抗体具有如SEQ ID NO:1~3所示的轻链互补决定区，以及如SEQ ID NO:4~6所示的重链互补决定区，第二检测抗体具有如SEQ ID NO:7~9所示的轻链互补决定区，以及如SEQ ID NO:10~12所示的重链互补决定区。本发明筛选得到具有上述互补决定区序列的配对抗体，其识别N蛋白的不同表位，且由于两种抗体识别的是N蛋白非核酸结合区域，不会受核酸负电荷干扰，对核酸抗原表现出了兼容性，具有较好的稳定性，同时上述配对抗体具有较高的亲和力，病毒N蛋白检测灵敏度高。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN339127990">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>抗KL-6双特异性抗体及基因、重组载体、药物、试剂盒</strong> - 本发明公开了抗KL‑6双特异性抗体或其变体、或其功能性片段，所述抗KL‑6双特异性抗体或其变体、或其功能性片段包括抗PTS域和抗SEA域，所述抗PTS域的重链可变区的CDR1、CDR2和CDR3分别具有SEQ ID NO.1~3所示的氨基酸序列。本发明还提供了基因、重组载体、药物、试剂盒。本发明的抗KL‑6双特异性抗体或其变体、或其功能性片段用于与KL‑6蛋白特异性结合，基因、重组载体用于抗KL‑6双特异性抗体的制备，药物用于治疗KL‑6蛋白引起的相关疾病，试剂盒用于KL‑6蛋白的定量检测。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN338723529">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>基于决策树模型与逻辑回归模型组合的感染筛查方法</strong> - 本发明公开了一种基于决策树模型与逻辑回归模型组合的感染筛查方法，其检测操作方便，可提高感染筛查准确性，该方法基于生命体征监护仪实现，生命体征监护仪与远程数据服务平台通信连接，远程数据服务平台依据临床数据进行感染筛查，该方法包括：通过生命体征监护仪检测获取用户临床数据，将临床数据随机划分为训练集、测试集，将训练集均分为两份：训练集A、训练集B，基于训练集A构建决策树模型，同时，对训练集A进行特征选择，将关键特征向量作为已构建的决策树模型的输入，获取新构造特征向量，基于组合特征向量，构造逻辑回归模型，基于决策树模型和逻辑回归模型组合，对测试集进行预测分类，获取分类结果。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN339127711">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>病毒中和抗体与非中和抗体联合检测方法、检测卡及应用</strong> - 一种病毒中和抗体与非中和抗体联合检测方法、检测卡及其应用，通过病毒受体结合蛋白夹心法原理检测中和抗体，其为通过提前设置病毒受体结合蛋白和能阻断中和抗体与其结合的作为配体的蛋白所形成的复合物，将靶向受体蛋白的非中和抗体提前捕获，保证后续通过夹心法检测中和抗体的特异性。解决了现有技术中中和抗体检测灵敏度低、特异性差以及不能区分中和抗体与非中和抗体的问题，提供了一种简便、快速、灵敏度高、特异性高的病毒中和抗体与非中和抗体联合检测方法、检测卡及其应用。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN338613501">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>广谱抗冠状病毒和流感病毒及口腔致病菌复合IgY及其制剂</strong> - 本发明提供一种广谱抗冠状病毒IgY和广谱抗流感病毒IgY以及抗口腔致病菌IgY及其组合抗体和制剂。本发明提供制备广谱抗冠状病毒IgY和广谱抗流感病毒IgY以及抗口腔致病菌IgY及其组合抗体和制剂的方法。广谱抗冠状病毒IgY和广谱抗流感病毒IgY可结合保守的抗原表位，达到广谱中和效果，解决新冠病毒和流感病毒变异的问题。本发明将广谱抗新冠病毒IgY和广谱抗流感病毒IgY以及抗口腔致病菌IgY及其组合抗体制成系列制剂，包括牙膏和口含片以及潄口水和其它日用品、口鼻喷雾剂、消毒剂、洗手液、粉剂、片剂、糖果、滴鼻剂、滴眼剂、口服剂、胶囊剂，应用于防治新冠和流感以及口腔疾病的药物、消毒产品、保健品和医疗器械中。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN338613293">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>스몰 RNA 검출 방법</strong> - 본 발명은 스몰(small) RNA의 분석 및 검출 방법에 관한 것이다. 특히, 본 발명은 짧은 염기서열의 RNA까지 분석이 가능하면서도 높은 민감도 및 정확도로 정량적 검출까지 가능하여 감염증, 암 등 여러 질환의 진단 용도로도 널리 활용될 수 있다. - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=KR336674313">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SARS-CoV2潜在突变位点的筛选方法及其应用</strong> - 本发明涉及生物信息学和生物医药技术领域，尤其是SARS‑CoV2潜在突变位点的筛选方法，包括：1）下载得到SARS‑CoV2的基因序列，对下载的序列进行快速注释文件和序列比对，从全基因组序列中提取出所有编码基因的序列；2）计算出每个位点的突变频率，筛选出高频率的突变热点，再结合毒株的采样时间和地理分布信息，筛选出在种群中具有显著选择优势的突变位点；3）下载已有的编码基因对应蛋白质的三级结构信息；4）根据预测的B细胞和T细胞表位，筛选位于免疫表位上或其附近的突变位点，评估其对宿主免疫反应的可能影响，鉴定出SARS‑CoV‑2在流行传播中基因组上潜在的可能和病毒感染及宿主适应相关的关键变异位点。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN339127593">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>健康智能检测方法、装置、电子设备及可读存储介质</strong> - 本申请公开了一种健康智能检测方法、装置、电子设备及可读存储介质，其方法包括获取音频信号，并对所述音频信号进行预处理，得到检测信号；将所述检测信号转化为矩阵数字矩阵；将得到的矩阵数字矩阵作为检测样本，输入健康智能检测模型中，以获取检测结果；其中，所述健康智能检测模型是采用迁移学习和卷积神经网络对训练样本进行训练得到的。本申请由于卷积神经网络各组件或部分组件基于迁移学习进行了重新训练，显著提升了对人们健康检测的准确度；且本申请中的健康智能检测模型为分类模型，计算量小，可将其部署于人们的移动终端中，使用方便，极大程度上提升了用户的使用感受。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN337672106">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Colin Powell’s Fateful Moment</strong> - Though Powell created a doctrine of avoiding war unless absolutely necessary, he will be remembered for making the faulty case for invading Iraq. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/colin-powells-fateful-moment">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>America’s Workers Are Fighting Back: Can They Win?</strong> - For decades, the leverage has been on the side of management, but the pandemic has changed that. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/americas-workers-are-fighting-back-can-they-win">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Chicago High School Reopens, with Fears of Gun Violence</strong> - Students at Michele Clark High were relieved to return to classes, but shootings on the West Side mean that their problems are far from over. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/a-chicago-high-school-reopens">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Four Years Embedded with the N.Y.P.D.</strong> - In the late seventies, Jill Freedman set out to create a clear-eyed portrait of New York City police. What she made was something more complicated. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/four-years-embedded-with-the-nypd">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Colin Powell, the Humble American</strong> - He broke racial barriers under four Presidents and called America “the last best hope of earth,” but also admitted to failing his country in selling the Iraq War. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/postscript/colin-powell-the-humble-american">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>When can we start enjoying nightlife again?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Four people dancing in a club and waving glow sticks." src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/bxPafyw99oJiZyrjz0kyRi-eBwo=/266x0:4159x2920/1310x983/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70019723/1234170727.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A merry disco in Schleswig- Holstein, Germany, with a rapid Covid-19 test requirement for dancing without masks. | Markus Scholz/Picture Alliance via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Scientists don’t want you to be going out right now. But if you must …
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xwIRnT">
Over the course of the last 18 or so months, I watched as my friends, and flagrantly attractive people I follow on Instagram who aren’t my friends, started picking up hobbies. Some grew plants. Others began knitting. People were reading and hiking and baking and binge-watching, seemingly making the best of a bad situation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s20hcj">
As much as I wanted to enjoy these appropriate pandemic hobbies, I found myself wanting to pass the time only one way: dancing to the disco hit “Rasputin” in a crowd of people — preferably, but not limited to, gay men. This has been an elaborate yearning in my soul.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bsjjbt">
Previously, I wasn’t that deeply invested in going out. I don’t know how this desire started, or why, beyond the addictive hook, “Rasputin” is my song of choice. I can’t explain the logistics of this intense personal fantasy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZTMM6U">
But I think it goes back to the concept of never appreciating what you have until it’s gone. In 2020, nightclubs and bars were shut down abruptly to slow the spread of Covid-19. Had I known the speed at which it was going to happen, I might have gone out at least one more time.
</p></li>
</ul>
<aside id="Fkf7bk">
<div>
</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h311yB">
A year and a half later, I have the option. Nightlife — clubs and bars — has come back. New York City, where I live, has more than a few really great disco parties, provided you are fully vaccinated. Lawmakers and public health experts have loosened messaging and restrictions, even as warnings about the delta variant continue.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S6hau1">
But the question that lingers is, if nightlife was shut down so urgently at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, should we be going out at all while it continues? Is there really a responsible way to dance to “Rasputin” in a nightclub full of sweaty people?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zlxv6G">
The strict and simple answer from public health experts is no, not yet. But if people were strict and simple when it comes to following public health advice, the US would probably be having a different conversation regarding Covid-19.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xIhMsC">
​​The answer to these questions then involves understanding personal risk and recognizing our own responsibility to the communities we belong to. This past summer, in Provincetown, Massachusetts, public health experts <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm">reported an outbreak</a> that was connected to nightlife and affected many people who were already vaccinated. Very few of those vaccinated people appeared to get severely ill, but it was a real-life illustration of the risk that remains.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vh6gr1">
And on the flip side, some scientists say that outbreak displayed a real-life example of a community coming together and mitigating harm, not only with vaccinations but also by proactively protecting one another. In turn, it provided us a model that we could all use when we think about risk assessment.
</p>
<h3 id="8wUWJI">
What to think about if you’re going to go out
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZJwN9f">
In an epidemiologist’s ideal world, no one would be going out. All of the epidemiology professors I spoke to — including from UCLA, Columbia, NYU, and the University of Washington — said they would not personally partake in a night at a crowded indoor nightclub or bar right now.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hhTQQ0">
Nightlife venues are risky because they satisfy everything Covid-19 needs to thrive. They’re indoors and ventilation isn’t usually great. They’re crowded with people in close proximity to one another. Those people are usually yelling to be heard over the music — yelling propels droplets into the air, which is both gross when you think about it and unnerving when you consider that’s how SARS- CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is spread. Throw the virus into a place with all those combined factors and it could spread quickly and easily. That’s why the epidemiologists I spoke to wouldn’t be going out.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AVmMZq">
“Epidemiologists are often the buzzkills of the party,” <a href="https://publichealth.nyu.edu/faculty/danielle-c-ompad">Danielle Ompad</a>, an associate professor of epidemiology at NYU’s School of Global Public Health, told me. “But we are the buzzkill so you can continue having fun. We’re all about harm reduction and let’s have fun in a way where there aren’t consequences. “
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sOx63b">
Ompad said that on a spectrum of risk assessment, epidemiologists and public health officials skew toward the very careful end. She recently went to a homecoming celebration for her alma mater and said that even with capacity restrictions and vaccination requirements, she still kept her mask on and maintained distance from unmasked partiers.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/nIpf1kjgFEyb5s8t-c9eWRyIpSc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22929571/1235814177.jpg"/> <cite>Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images</cite></p>
<figcaption>
Australians drinking in a bar on October 11, after 106 days of Syndey’s lockdown. They are happy.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jZFhNU">
But a huge part of public health is understanding that humans are going to be human, the epidemiologists also noted. Some will make mistakes. Some won’t follow every rule. Some won’t listen to every piece of advice. On top of that is the year-and-a-half of shutdowns, restarts, and disruption to normal life — things that can affect decision-making, especially impulsive decisions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fN7fha">
Hence the emphasis on <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528824/">harm reduction</a>. Nightlife establishments are open, across the US, so epidemiologists understand that the human inclination is to go to them. They also understand that an idyllic world of regular and extensive testing, masking, and reduced capacity is pretty far from the world we have.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fzs1R6">
All that in mind, there are a few things epidemiologists say we should consider if we do partake in nightlife.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E3K1gK">
<a href="https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/people/our-faculty/bm2055">Barun Mathema</a>, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, explained that there are three general factors to think about with regard to risk: the level of community transmission and vaccination, what precautions a venue is taking to ensure safety, and personal vaccination status.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wy1NYc">
What you’re looking for is high vaccination and corresponding low Covid-19 positivity rates and cases per capita, within your community; venues that take precautions like reduced capacity, vaccination checks, and ventilation; and making sure you are fully vaccinated. Triangulating those three factors, Mathema explains, can help make something as fluid as risk easier to grasp.
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“Risk is a very difficult concept to understand, even as somebody who studies risk for a living,” Mathema told Vox. “If you are fully vaccinated, are healthy, have no underlying reasons to be put in a higher risk bracket, and your environment and community is in near or full vaccination compliance — you can say that’s a fairly low personal risk environment at that point.”
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The wrinkle in this risk calculus is, Mathema explains, that there are still a lot of variables. For example, even if everyone presents vaccination records at the door, the efficacy of vaccines generally wanes over time, meaning the people present may have slightly different levels of immune protection. There are also stories popping up about <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22268337/vaccine-card-social-media-cdc-fakes-scams">fake vaccine cards</a>. Breakthrough infections do occur and have occurred at <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-
pharmaceuticals/dutch-coronavirus-reproduction-rate-jumps-mostly-young-adults-infected-2021-07-13/">nightlife venues</a>. So while these guidelines can help you assess risk in going out, the risk present in nightlife — or really any activity — will never be at zero. The completely safe activity would be staying home alone.
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What makes Covid-19 precautions so complicated is that our personal decisions don’t just affect us. The coronavirus is contagious. It spreads via airborne droplets. If you get sick from visiting a nightlife venue, you could put the people around you — at the grocery store, at the cleaners, at a restaurant, etc. — at risk. Conversely, you could have a situation in which you contract Covid-19 without even being at a nightclub — you just happen to come into contact with someone who was.
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“That’s always been the problem with these types of respiratory-based diseases. It’s not just about your risk. You can’t just say, ‘I don’t care’ or ‘I’m young and healthy,’ because you may be unfairly and unknowingly putting other people at risk,” Mathema said.
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To fully grasp the personal risk of going out to bars or clubs during Covid-19 means not just thinking about if this kind of risky activity presents a danger to you, but also how it affects the people around you. It means thinking about the communities and social circles you belong to, and how to keep people within those spheres safe.
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If you’re going out, protect the people around you
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While partaking in nightlife and fun might be optional for many of us, there are a lot of people in the service and entertainment industry where it’s their livelihood. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/nysocialbee/?hl=en">Terence Edgerson</a>, a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/terence-edgerson-95901b14/">nightlife producer</a> based in New York City, saw the pandemic shut down the city that never sleeps and then watched it slowly reawaken in recent months.
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“I would say it’s been a roller coaster without any stops,” Edgerson told me. “Usually you have the option of getting on or off. But this was one where I didn’t have any options. It’s different when your work is your life and that it’s also your livelihood.”
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Edgerson credits his friends with helping him while nightlife was put on pause. Slowly, outdoor events — <a href="https://ny.eater.com/2020/12/30/22203053/nyc-coronavirus-timeline-
restaurants-bars-2020">New York City allowed outdoor dining</a> and drinking with social distance restrictions in June 2020 — were allowed to happen again. But it wasn’t until around June 2021 that Edgerson’s parties were happening full- time again, with proof of vaccination, for Pride. (<a href="https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-require-vaccinations-indoor-
dining-and-other-venues">New York City announced a vaccine mandate for indoor venues in August</a>, but many businesses, including Edgerson’s parties, were already implementing similar restrictions over the summer.)
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“All of our parties have been vaccine-only and we’ve gotten no pushback and no blowback from it,” Edgerson explained. The fragility of New York City nightlife in 2020 changed the way Edgerson and many in his cohort looked at vaccination mandates and safety measures. Instead of viewing them as hindrances, he sees them as ways to keep his friends safe and keep his livelihood intact. In epidemiology-speak, Edgerson was thinking about protecting his community.
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Any pushback against vaccination checks and safety precautions such as reduced capacity, Edgerson asserts, would be dwarfed by the backlash if a party was the epicenter of an outbreak. New York City nightlife, especially gay nightlife, is intensely interconnected. An outbreak at one party could hypothetically set off a chain reaction in which parties, clubs, and bars around the city could get shut down again.
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<q>“It’s our mental health escape. It’s so vital that we take care of it and take care of each other and ourselves.”</q>
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An outbreak did happen around the Fourth of July, about 200 miles north of New York City in Provincetown. P-town and its indoor venues, including nightclubs, bars, and live shows, saw an estimated influx of over 60,000 people over the holiday weekend, and with it saw a surge of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/05/provincetown-covid-outbreak/">more than 1,000</a> Covid-19 cases, according to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/05/provincetown-covid-outbreak/">Washington Post</a>. Many were alarmed that the coronavirus spread in a town with vaccination checks and in a county with a <a href="https://data.news-leader.com/covid-19-vaccine-tracker/massachusetts/barnstable-county/25001/">high vaccination rate</a>.
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That 1,000-case figure might seem like a startling number, especially for a town that had just a handful of cases prior to July 4. But it’s less than 2 percent of the estimated 60,000 people who visited over the weekend. Further, thanks to vaccinations, many of those cases were asymptomatic or mild. Only <a href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/08/03/provincetown-coronavirus-outbreak-positive-test-rate-drop">seven people were hospitalized</a>, and no one from that cluster died.
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Instead of being a nightmare scenario, some public health officials are looking at Provincetown’s outbreak as a community success. The vaccination rate and the vaccination checks at the venues are evidence that these pre-emptive precautions help keep people safe, they argue. But there’s also another element: the way in which people in P-town, gay men especially, were proactive about testing and public health measures. This, some experts say, can be traced to the way the gay male community responded to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9828348/ronald-reagan-hiv-aids">especially when the American government failed to act in its early stages</a>.
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“In P-town, I think that there was a community of gay men who understand the importance of contact tracing,” <a href="https://ph.ucla.edu/faculty/gorbach">Pamina Gorbach</a>, a professor of epidemiology at UCLA who has an expertise in HIV. Gorbach explained that in the absence of tools and structural support, the gay male community had to come together to protect one another.
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Those important lessons are being reflected and praised in this pandemic.
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“I think being public about infection, letting people know — that’s a great example of community care,” <a href="https://epi.washington.edu/faculty/balkus-jennifer/">Jennifer Balkus</a>, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, said. “Talking about testing openly is one of the key ways to help reduce stigma. And that is super important to promote testing and eventually isolating, and quarantining if they need to.”
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Balkus, Gorbach, and epidemiologists I spoke to said that masking at venues would be ideal, as would treating each outing like a possible exposure and following <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-
health/quarantine-isolation.html">CDC guidelines</a>. This means that if you go out on a weekend, you would then get tested three to five days after, wear a mask in public, and limit your exposure to people in the meantime.
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Epidemiologists also stressed the importance of regular testing and communicating the results, especially with the lack of robust contact tracing here in the US. That might be as simple as shooting a text to your friends or anyone who was out with you or calling the venue if you test positive. Or in the social media age, it’s posting to your followers.
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<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/95g813RwmlJs8CF66hVYX8hrQCE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22929578/1333798689.jpg"/> <cite>Ilker Eray/GocherImagery/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite>
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Here are some people dancing in Istanbul. Are they dancing to “Rasputin”? I’m not sure, but I hope so.
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Edgerson explained to me that in the wake of P-town, and in rare cases of breakthrough infections, he’s seen friends post about testing positive and telling people who they were with to go get tested. He said he gets tested often, and he urges his followers, friends, and fellow partiers to<a href="https://twitter.com/NYSocialBee/status/1446300669493792769?s=20"> get tested regularly </a>— before and after his parties.
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“If one of us gets sick, you know, many more can get sick — it affects us all,” Edgerson said. “And dancing, and queer dancing especially, is so vital to us. It’s our mental health escape. It’s so vital that we take care of it and take care of each other and ourselves.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kEOx9F">
The response to the Provincetown outbreak offers lessons about personal accountability to the people around us and perhaps a model for anyone who’s going out. Hopefully, there will be a day when we can, if the spirit moves us, dance to “Rasputin” in a sweaty nightclub without a worry in the world. For now, it’s helpful to know how to think about those worries, and how to act responsibly in the meantime.
</p>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>19 must-see movies from the fall film festivals</strong> -
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<img alt="A diptych with two faces." src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/1tQ1zQvmlTmodOTEbONtZ6JPQqg=/100x0:1700x1200/1310x983/cdn.vox-
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Tilda Swinton in <em>Memoria</em> and Benedict Cumberbatch in <em>The Power of the Dog.</em> | Neon / Netflix
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Don’t miss these under-the-radar gems.
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The fall film festival circuit is where the year’s buzziest and most awards-worthy films often premiere, in cities from Venice and Telluride to Toronto and New York. Then, after they show up at the big festivals, they often fan out to regional festivals across the country, ready for movie lovers all over the place to catch a sneak peek ahead of their official release dates.
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Some of 2021’s biggest titles — Wes Anderson’s <em>The French Dispatch</em>, Denis Villeneuve’s <em>Dune</em>, Kenneth Branagh’s <em>Belfast</em>, and a lot more that made headlines out of this year’s fall festival circuit — will be everywhere soon enough. But it’s also important to take a step back and note the smaller films that might not garner as much buzz, but pack a punch nonetheless.
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This year I attended both the Toronto and New York film festivals and saw a huge selection of terrific movies from around the world. Below, I’ve listed 19 of those movies — independent productions, art-house gems, dramas, and comedies — that have flown further under the radar but are worth looking out for nonetheless. The stories they tell, and the ways they tell them, show just how vibrant cinema is as the movies come back to life.
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<em>Benedetta</em>
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Paul Verhoeven draws on the true story of a 17th-century nun for <em>Benedetta</em>, adapted from Judith C. Brown’s book <em>Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy.</em> It’s the story of a torrid affair between the devout Sister Benedetta Carlini (Virginie Efira) and a new novice, Sister Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia), who escapes a dangerous and abusive home situation by joining the convent where Benedetta resides. But that’s a relatively small piece of the puzzle. <em>Benedetta </em>is far more interested in power both secular and ecclesiastical, and in the ways that miracles — both real and imagined — might be harnessed to serve, and gain, those powers. So while the film aims to shock (Verhoeven is the director who made <em>Robocop</em> and <em>Starship Troopers, </em>after all), it’s got something interesting to say, too.
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<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Benedetta</em> opens in theaters on December 3.
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<em>Benediction</em>
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<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Two men in
tuxedos smoke." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/H4S1D5m8vibwOTtO9Kw5NdoacqE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22869410/benediction.jpeg"/> <cite>Courtesy of TIFF</cite></figure></li>
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Jeremy Irvine as Ivor Novello and Jack Lowden as Siegfried Sassoon in <em>Benediction</em>.
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Terence Davies’s last film, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/13/15243556/quiet-
passion-review-emily-dickinson-passover-easter"><em>A Quiet Passion</em></a>, centered on the poet Emily Dickinson, painting her as a saint for uncertainty and depicting a bitter life; in <em>Benediction</em>, Davies turns to a different poet, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/siegfried-sassoon">Siegfried Sassoon</a> (a terrific Jack Lowden). <em>Benediction</em> — which means “blessing” — spends most of its time on Sassoon’s passionate but thwarted relationships with several different men, after which he eventually married a woman. The whole story is framed by Sassoon’s late-in-life conversion to Catholicism, amid his soured marriage and his son’s derision. There is no happy- go-lucky ending here, only the sense that an ineffable longing we have, to know and be known, is so precious and rare that most of us never find its fulfillment here on earth. But the film’s title lays bare its aims: To offer words of blessing over a man who never quite found the love he craved and, yet, kept looking.
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<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Benediction</em> is awaiting US distribution.
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<a href="https://www.vox.com/e/22490357"><em>Bergman Island</em></a>
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An early contender for one of my favorite films of 2021, <em>Bergman Island</em> is a layered and lovely film about the tension between making art and living real life, and how the two feed one another. Vicky Krieps stars as Chris, a filmmaker who travels with her partner Tony (Tim Roth), a more commercially successful filmmaker, to Fårö island for a creative retreat. Fårö is where the great director Ingmar Bergman lived and made his later work. As the pair spend time on the island, they start to be drawn apart; then, Chris’s new film starts to take shape, and we start to understand how life experience filters into her work. Written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve — and presumably based, in part, on her own experiences with former partner <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000801/">Olivier Assayas</a> — <em>Bergman Island</em> is like a diamond that you can turn over and over, seeing the light refract through each facet in new ways.
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<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Bergman Island</em> opened in theaters on October 15.
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<em>C’mon C’mon</em>
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Joaquin Phoenix stars in <em>C’mon C’mon, </em>the sensitive and huge- hearted new movie from Mike Mills (whose last film was <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/28/14088920/20th-
century-women-review-annette-bening-mike-mills"><em>20th Century Women</em></a>). Phoenix is Johnny, an artist interviewing young people around the US about the future: what they hope for, what they dream of, what they fear. But when his semi-estranged sister (Gaby Hoffman) suddenly has to attend to an emergency, he ends up caring for his precocious and eccentric 9-year-old nephew Jesse (Woody Norman), and both of them learn a lot from one another. The premise of <em>C’mon C’mon</em> could easily swing into way-too-precious territory, but Mills’s steady hand and feeling for story rhythms, along with Phoenix’s performance, keep the ship on course. The result is a warm and winsome meditation on the ties that bind us to one another.
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<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>C’mon C’mon </em>opens in theaters on November 19.
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<em>Drive My Car</em>
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Ryusuke Hamaguchi directed and co-wrote the screenplay for <em>Drive My Car</em>, which is based on a Haruki Murakami short story. The film centers on Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a theater director who returns home one day to find that his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima), a TV executive, has died. Then time jumps forward, and Kafuku is directing a production of Chekhov’s <em>Uncle Vanya</em>, with each actor performing in their own language. He decides to cast his wife’s lover, Takatsuki (Masaki Okada), in the main role. Through rehearsals and the relationships that develop during the project — including with Misaki (Toko Miura), the quiet young woman hired to drive him to and from the theater — Yūsuke starts to understand something that’s nearly ineffable about his past and his future. It’s a melancholy, meaningful film, occupied with friendships, old wounds, and the task of continuing to live.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QZKQsk">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Drive My Car</em> will open in the US on November 24.
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<em>Drunken Birds</em>
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Ivan Grbovic’s globe-trotting film centers on Willy (Jorge Antonio Guerrero), who used to work for a drug cartel in Mexico but ran afoul of his boss when he fell in love with the boss’s wife Marlena (Yoshira Escárrega). Willy fled to Canada; now he’s a migrant worker in rural Quebec. The family who owns the farm on which he’s working has their own set of family issues, and the gruff but kind employer grows less kind when he comes to believe one of his employees has hurt his teenage daughter. It’s a kind of domestic epic, a story of straining hope and being trapped, full of gorgeous vistas and heartbreak.
</p>
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<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Drunken Birds</em> is awaiting US distribution.
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<em>Flee</em>
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It’s rare to see animation as the main medium in a documentary, but <em>Flee </em>uses it to great effect. Director Jonas Poher Rasmussen interviews his friend, Amin, who endured years of horror after fleeing Afghanistan with his family in the 1990s following the Taliban takeover. Flashbacks to Amin’s experiences are mixed in with his current uncertainties surrounding his relationship with his partner, Kasper, who desperately wants to buy a house, get married, and settle down. The effect of his past is a strong one, showing how even after finding safety and relative stability, Amin’s previous experiences will never stop reaching their long fingers into his present. <em>Flee </em>is heartbreaking and moving, and hard to forget.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pjP0nS">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Flee</em> will open in theaters on December 3.
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<em>Listening to Kenny G</em>
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<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A backlit image of the
saxophone player’s curly hair." src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/zKK713Geww3I5F4oUPIpXRLwx4I=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22908565/kennyg.jpeg"/> <cite>HBO</cite>
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Kenny G in <em>Listening to Kenny G.</em>
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<em>Listening to Kenny G </em>is a documentary about the smooth-jazz sax crooner that sets out to ask a few barely answerable questions: Why do people love Kenny G? Why do people hate him? And what do their responses to him say about taste, preference, and art? In films like <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/4/16/18311449/hail-satan-penny-lane-interview-review-satanic-temple"><em>Hail Satan?</em></a><em> </em>(about the Satanic Temple)<em> </em>and <a href="https://pennylaneismyrealname.com/film/the-
pain-of-others-2018/"><em>The Pain of Others</em></a> (about women who believe they have <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/morgellons-disease/art-20044996">Morgellons disease</a>), director Penny Lane has consistently refused to walk the easy route. There are no pat answers in her movies, and <em>Listening to Kenny G</em> is no exception. The sax player himself is the film’s main interviewee, but he’s flanked by music critics who point out all his shortcomings. What right do they have to tell someone who walked down the aisle to a Kenny G song that they’re wrong? That’s the question <em>Listening to Kenny G</em> raises and doesn’t try to answer outright. Instead, it focuses on a vital secondary question: Is there a dividing line between “I like this” and “This is good”? And should we care?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0Wsa8f">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Listening to Kenny G</em> will premiere on HBO and start streaming on HBO Max on December 3.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0FuJXj">
</p>
<h3 id="foAsOP">
<em>The Lost Daughter</em>
</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><img alt="An image of two women, one who’s wearing a large hat." src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/aE9Jc8FdgmRw7tsC9E1j0fVm_CY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22908523/lostdaughter.jpeg"/> <cite>Yannis Drakoulidis / Netflix</cite></p>
<figcaption>
Olivia Colman and Dakota Johnson in <em>The Lost Daughter.</em>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3Qv1bo">
Maggie Gyllenhaal directed and wrote <em>The Last Daughter</em>, based on an Elena Ferrante novel, and it’s an extraordinary directorial debut. Olivia Colman plays Leda, a middle-aged professor of comparative literature who’s on a working holiday in Greece. There, she meets Nina (Dakota Johnson), a young mother who dearly loves her daughter but finds the demands of parenthood are driving her to distraction. As Nina and Leda spend time together, their story starts to twine with Leda’s past (in which she’s played by Jessie Buckley), a time when caring for her own young daughters pushed her to her limits. <em>The Last Daughter</em> is a marvelously complex story, expertly crafted, with the freedom, loneliness, and claustrophobia of the main characters aptly evoked by the cinematography. Its splendid performances and keen sense of ambiguity feel so true to life that you might feel your heart catch in your throat.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LCKv6v">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>The Lost Daughter</em> will open in limited theaters on December 17 and begin streaming on Netflix on December 31.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wSntUE">
</p>
<h3 id="F0TtHV">
<em>Memoria</em>
</h3>
<div id="lhOH97">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gsCBT4">
A surreal drama from the celebrated director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, <em>Memoria </em>stars Tilda Swinton as Jessica, a woman visiting her sister in Bogotá, Colombia. One night, she is awakened in the dark by the deafening sound of a bang. Yet nobody else seems to have heard it. What’s going on? It’s never totally clear, but solving a mystery isn’t the point of <em>Memoria</em>. Instead, it’s a slow, odd, hypnotic journey in which Jessica looks for answers, digs into life itself, and comes face to face with what it means to actually be a human inhabiting this planet. The film is strange and engrossing, and if you feel like you’ve slipped into another dimension watching it, then you’ve watched it well.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uGHRkO">
<strong>How to watch it:</strong> As distributed by Neon, <em>Memoria</em> will open on December 26 at New York City’s IFC Center, then travel throughout the United States, playing exclusively on one screen at one theater at a time. <a href="https://neonrated.com/films/memoria">Keep an eye on Neon’s website for details</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x0iuPO">
</p>
<h3 id="3GZxga">
<em>Passing</em>
</h3>
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bottom: 56.25%;">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YYlBbR">
Rebecca Hall wrote and directed this adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, which is about two childhood friends who encounter one another again in adulthood. Irene (Tessa Thompson), who goes by Reeny, lives with her doctor husband (André Holland) and their children in a stately Harlem house. Claire (Ruth Negga) is married to a racist businessman (Alexander Skarsgård), who has no idea that his wife is not white. The film feels almost dreamlike, evoking a world in which the lines that separate friendship from desire, love from hate, and white from Black are more permeable than you might expect — a world a lot like today’s.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VhqmXC">
<strong>How to watch it:</strong> <em>Passing</em> will open in limited theaters, then begin streaming on Netflix on November 10.
</p>
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</p>
<h3 id="eWCyqI">
<em>Petite Maman</em>
</h3>
<div id="Ep32T6">
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0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QOY5OZ">
<em>Portrait of a Lady on Fire</em> director <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/2/19/21137213/portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire-celine-sciamma-interview">Céline Sciamma</a> returns with<em> </em>a much smaller-scale but no less affecting film. Young Nelly (Joséphine Sanz), whose beloved grandmother has just passed away, is helping her parents (Nina Meurisse and Stéphane Varupenne) clean out the now-empty home where her mother grew up. Nelly is close to both of her parents, but is especially concerned about her mother. She longs to have one more day to spend with her grandmother. One day, in the woods, she meets a girl named Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), and the two forge a friendship that might be the fulfillment of her fears and wishes. <em>Petite Maman</em> is a pithy, gemlike film, clocking in at only 72 minutes and as pristine and poignant a reflection on the bonds that tie us to one another across time and generations as one can imagine.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NkRbrq">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Petite Maman</em> was acquired by Neon and is awaiting a US release date.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LsqG0y">
</p>
<h3 id="cLgh0V">
<em>Procession</em>
</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A boy in robes
stands lit from below, with a stained glass window behind him." src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/DnityWRin3tIHPllOGHHA2-hFlo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22908546/procession.jpeg"/> <cite>Netflix</cite>
<figcaption>
A scene from <em>Procession.</em>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HsZyfN">
Indelible, gutting, and hopeful, <em>Procession</em> is a documentary unlike anything you’ve seen before. The filmmakers, led by director Robert Greene, reached out to six men in the Kansas City, Missouri, area who were abused as boys by Catholic priests and clergy. Rather than proceeding as an exposé, <em>Procession</em> is a collaborative project in healing, as each of the six men creates and films traumatic memories in a drama therapy-informed quest to … well, what, exactly? That’s what they’re exploring: the meaning of healing, the ways we perform to cope and to crack ourselves open, and the possibilities, such as they are, for redemption. It’s a must-see.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZsMHhL">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Procession</em> will open in limited theaters on November 12 and start streaming on Netflix on November 19.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OmbUy5">
</p>
<h3 id="cajvUl">
<em>The Power of the Dog</em>
</h3>
<div id="zjVXK8">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom:
56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8inVsB">
Jane Campion’s first film since 2009’s <em>Bright Star</em> is <em>The Power of the Dog, </em>which is set, despite its New Zealand shooting location, in the American West. For most of its runtime, <em>The Power of the Dog</em> is confined to the big ranch that Phil and George (Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons) own and operate. George marries Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and brings her there, along with her waifish teenage son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Phil despises both of the ranch’s new residents. But people’s exteriors rarely match what they’re capable of inside. The film will keep you guessing as it morphs from a Western to a romance to something deliciously dark, a melodrama with an eerie bite and sweeping, craggy vistas.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kVk2i9">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>The Power of the Dog</em> will open in limited theaters on November 17 and start streaming on Netflix on December 1.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kxEKXk">
</p>
<h3 id="cSKo0l">
<em>The Souvenir Part II</em>
</h3>
<div id="NPoKgi">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B6pz1l">
<em>The Souvenir Part II</em> picks up right where 2019’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/5/15/18528575/souvenir-review-swinton-byrne-
hogg"><em>The Souvenir</em></a> left off. Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) is reeling from the overdose death of her boyfriend (Tom Burke), and she decides, somehow, to process what happened through her thesis film. Meanwhile, her mother (Tilda Swinton) tries to help her get through the grief. <em>The Souvenir Part II</em> (based on writer and director Joanna Hogg’s own memories) is kind of a movie about making <em>The Souvenir</em>. But it’s also about the sly and surprising ways that art can help us cope, understand, and heal from what life throws our way. The film is Hogg’s gentle tribute to her younger, sometimes more foolish self, and it’s very funny, too. (Be sure to watch <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/5/15/18528575/souvenir-review-swinton-byrne-hogg"><em>The Souvenir</em></a> before you see it; it’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime and available to digitally rent on other platforms.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fN3T9e">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>The Souvenir Part II</em> will open in theaters on October 29.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i48eTI">
</p>
<h3 id="uO9feA">
<em>The Velvet Underground</em>
</h3>
<div id="dGMhgR">
<div style="width: 100%; height:
0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6edS70">
Todd Haynes directs a highly satisfying documentary about the legendary Velvet Underground, the rock band that formed in New York City in 1964 and came to embody an important moment in the history of rock. (Plus, <em>they</em> rock.) Haynes is no conventional director, and while he takes a fairly standard approach to the story — beginning with Lou Reed’s childhood on Long Island and moving forward from there — he weaves together more of a tapestry than a clunky paint-by-numbers documentary. <em>The Velvet Underground</em> is as much about the culture of 1960s New York City, dominated by Andy Warhol’s in-crowd and the work they made at his Factory, as the band itself. That’s to the film’s benefit. Using the screen as a window and collaging together images and footage with audio from interviews, Haynes evokes a mood and an era; he reminds audiences that some success comes from talent and hard work, and some of it just comes from being in the right place at the right time.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UL2HlR">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>The Velvet Underground </em>will open in limited theaters and begin streaming on Apple TV+ on October 15.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HhrA5j">
</p>
<h3 id="Q0uQhY">
<em>The Worst Person in the World</em>
</h3>
<div id="KjRgd2">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0if7rJ">
One of this year’s breakout festival favorites is <em>The Worst Person in the World</em>, about four years in the life of 20-something Julie (Renate Reinsve). Like many young people, she realizes in university that she doesn’t want to be a neuroscientist; she wants to be an artist. So she blows up her life and starts over, winding up in a relationship with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie). That’s just the beginning. <em>The Worst Person in the World</em> tells Julie’s story in 12 chapters with a prologue and an epilogue — she is the main character in her own story, one that she’s writing as she’s living it. It’s a film about navigating life as a millennial, trying to figure out what love is like, what work is for, and whether you’re following your heart or whether you’re just, well, the worst person in the world.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="15Rq3g">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>The Worst Person in the World</em> was acquired by Neon and is awaiting a US release date.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JHZgH9">
</p>
<h3 id="0QTwHY">
<em>Unclenching the Fists</em>
</h3>
<div id="IvVIuA">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="firstHeading">
<em>Unclenching the Fists</em> is the story of Ada (Milana Aguzarova), a teenage girl from a small village in the outer reaches of Russia’s Caucasus region. She lives with her incredibly controlling father and her younger brother, who is so dependent on her that he calls her “mom.” Having suffered a horrifying accident in childhood, she needs surgery before she can leave home, but her father refuses to take her to get the necessary medical care, unwilling to let her out of his grasp. At the same time, she is also being pursued by a somewhat repulsive young man from the same village, but he’s the only boy who’s ever showed interest. When her older brother returns home from his job in a nearby city, the dynamic at home begins to shift. Ada is trapped, sometimes literally, by the men all around her, and <em>Unclenching the Fists</em> (which won director Kira Kovalenko a top prize at the Cannes film festival) is the tale of a young woman struggling to break free.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RnlNRB">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Unclenching the Fists</em> was acquired by Mubi and is awaiting a US release date.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OAK3gk">
</p>
<h3 id="3c5Uda">
<em>Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy</em>
</h3>
<div id="RkBD2u">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0; padding-
bottom: 56.25%;">
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PimbIK">
A haunting, funny, tightly written meditation on loneliness and connection, <em>Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy</em> is set up as a triptych. In the first story, one woman (Hyunri) tells her friend (Kotone Furukawa) about the man one of them recently met on a date; she doesn’t realize her friend is hiding a secret. In the second story, a young woman (Katsuki Mori) agrees to set a trap for her professor (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) at the behest of her boyfriend, but it doesn’t go as planned. And in the third story, a woman (Fusako Urabe) returns to her hometown for her high school reunion and meets with an old love, only to discover all is not as it seems. Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi crafts each one as a sensitive and surprising tale, and the result is a film that asks how luck and fantasy operate in the love we preserve and the love we throw away.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="weL5uG">
<strong>How to watch it: </strong><em>Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy</em> opened in the US on October 15.
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What’s the deal with fictional influencers?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/seKLMPUUp6CC9d6lJSs7D7sJVhs=/0x32:553x447/1310x983/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70015717/Screen_Shot_2021_10_19_at_11.07.40_AM.0.png"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
One tech company has created a slate of scripted influencers, each with their own storylines. But how is anyone supposed to tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="82GtmZ">
In June, the UK tabloid the Mirror <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/dating/i-work-dating-app-biggest-24332695">published a story</a> about a TikTok video that discussed “the four biggest dating app red flags,” according to a creator named <span class="citation" data-cites="sydneyplus">@sydneyplus</span>, who said she worked at a dating site. Said red flags include standing in front of a fancy car (likely not their own), describing oneself as an “entrepreneur,” or being weirdly obsessed with their mom. The article is a typical hastily written web post capitalizing on trending content in order to drive pageviews, and was later <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/06/19/ladies-take-note-red-flags-to-look-for-on-dating-app-profiles/">picked up by the New York Post</a>. The only problem was that <span class="citation" data-cites="sydneyplus">@sydneyplus</span> doesn’t work at a dating site, because <span class="citation" data-cites="sydneyplus">@sydneyplus</span> doesn’t really exist.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<div id="vFt7FJ">
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6uBrGv">
<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@sydneyplus">“Sydney,”</a> a broke, blonde 20-something who lives on her sister’s couch and works in customer service at a dating site, is the invention of a team of writers, one actress, and a technology/entertainment/media company called FourFront. Co-founded by a former screenwriter named Ilan Benjamin, the company has so far launched 22 “stories,” or character arcs, eight of them ongoing since the spring. Sydney’s “story,” for example, was that she found out that her sister’s fiancé was cheating, while <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@oxenfreeollie">Ollie</a>, a trans man, discovers that his father also transitioned.
</p></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wGlJ3n">
“We’re basically creating an MCU-style universe of characters on TikTok,” says Benjamin. “Some succeed, some fail — it’s the TV pilot season model where we only invest in those that get traction and audiences love.” The company <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/12/fourfront-nabs-funding-to-build-an-interconnected-network-of-
fictional-tiktok-stars/">says it’s</a> raised $1.5 million in seed funding so far.
</p>
<div id="KKooGf">
<blockquote cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@sydneyplus/video/6972336415443127557" class="tiktok-embed">
<section>
<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@sydneyplus" target="_blank" title="@sydneyplus"><span class="citation" data-cites="sydneyplus">@sydneyplus</span></a>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Public service announcement ‼️Any big ones missing? <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/foryou" target="_blank" title="foryou">#foryou</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/fyp%E3%82%B7" target="_blank" title="fypシ">#fypシ</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/dating" target="_blank" title="dating">#dating</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/datingapps" target="_blank" title="datingapps">#datingapps</a>
</p>
<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/Into-The-Thick-Of-It-6964101918863969030" target="_blank" title="♬ Into The Thick Of
It! - The Backyardigans">♬ Into The Thick Of It! - The Backyardigans</a>
</section>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wOuJRW">
Last week, Sydney, Ollie, and the rest of the characters — <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@thatsthetia">Tia</a>, who discovers her boyfriend is African royalty; <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@carmensandie?lang=en&amp;is_copy_url=1&amp;is_from_webapp=v1">Carmen</a>, a self-described sugar baby and bimbo; <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@veteran.chris">Chris</a>, a father and Army veteran; and<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@billyhundos?lang=en&amp;is_copy_url=1&amp;is_from_webapp=v1"> “Billy Hundos,”</a> a “finance fuckboy,” among others — convened IRL in Los Angeles, ostensibly to participate in a contest to win a billion dollars. This also acted as FourFront’s “big reveal,” in which the characters hosted a live Zoom event and showed that they all exist within a single universe. In total, the characters have a combined 1.9 million followers and 281 million views.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VTky9h">
Fictional influencers are not unique to the TikTok era. In June 2006, a soft-spoken 16-year- old named Bree began uploading video confessionals to YouTube under the username Lonelygirl15. Bree, however, was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/16/lonelygirl15-bree-video-blog-youtube">actually the invention</a> of screenwriters Miles Beckett and Mesh Flinders, along with their lawyer-producer friend Greg Goodfried. (Interestingly, Goodfried is now the president of D’Amelio Family Enterprises, the company representing TikTokers Charli and Dixie D’Amelio.) Within months, millions of people tuned in, many turning to message boards to speculate about what was going on behind the scenes, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/technology/13lonely.html">by September, sleuths</a> had found trademark applications and pictures of the actress Jessica Rose, who played Bree. Some fans said they were “heartbroken” by the discovery, but the videos went on to air for another two years. Asked whether something like Lonelygirl15 could exist today, Flinders told the Guardian, “On YouTube now we wouldn’t get away with this for 30 seconds. People would know she’s fake immediately.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cL3VNl">
But perhaps that’s less true for TikTok. While FourFront is adamant that most of its audience is aware that what they’re watching is the work of actors and writers, that’s nearly impossible to know for certain. “With everything that happened with QAnon and how alternate reality games have been weaponized, it’s important that we made our universe light and playful — no cult content, no dark content, and every one of our characters is openly fictional,” Benjamin says. Yet nearly all of the comments appear to engage with the characters just like they would with real TikTokers, giving advice and sharing reactions or their own experiences. Though FourFront has started using the hashtag #fictional on its videos and the word “fictional” in the characters’ bios, to expect that users who come across one of their videos on their For You page to put the clues together is asking quite a lot, considering most TikTokers use unrelated hashtags in their posts to gain more traction and choose intentionally weird bios to set themselves apart.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A4Yxwb">
As a commercial rather than purely artistic venture, FourFront <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90682632/this-company-is-revolutionizing-tv-through-tiktok">told Fast Company</a> that its long-term revenue plan is to license their AI character voices to other companies, and to make money with some kind of subscription model or by selling tickets to live events starring their characters. “Why can’t I hang out with Harry Potter?” he said. “That’s the question this whole company began with: Why can’t we allow people to get closer to their favorite characters?”
</p>
<div id="tSTspL">
<blockquote cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@thatsthetia/video/6977117370380864773" class="tiktok-embed">
<section>
<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@thatsthetia" target="_blank" title="@thatsthetia"><span class="citation" data-cites="thatsthetia">@thatsthetia</span></a>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
yeah so um…any tips on how to handle this?? <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/boyfriends" target="_blank" title="boyfriends">#boyfriends</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/blackqueen" target="_blank" title="blackqueen">#blackqueen</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/royal" target="_blank" title="royal">#royal</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/BombPopAwards" target="_blank" title="BombPopAwards">#BombPopAwards</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/helpme" target="_blank" title="helpme">#helpme</a>
</p>
<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-6977117220941990661" target="_blank" title="♬ original sound - Tia">♬ original sound - Tia</a>
</section>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1rX2lu">
The company also encourages its most invested followers to text their favorite characters on a separate messaging app and “unlock secrets,” using the AI language GPT-3 to respond. With an earlier character Paige, whose story concept was “all my friends blocked me!,” Benjamin says that when they told audiences at the beginning of the messaging session that it was a fictional story, 89 percent wanted to continue, and 42 percent “shared really intimate emotional data with the character.” (Benjamin says they do not plan to sell that data, but instead use it to improve their own storytelling.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z2SOlB">
Those characters, by the way, are conceptualized and written by Benjamin and a team of writers, mostly recent grads from USC’s screenwriting program. Ollie’s bio describes him as “made with love by (rainbow flag emoji) actors and creators,” while Chris’s says “made by veteran actors and creators.” Actors, who film and direct themselves and then send footage to an editor, also contribute to the storylines. Cameisha Cotton, who plays Tia, says the idea was pitched to her agent in February as a web series, and that she’d done augmented reality projects beforehand. “They’re incredibly collaborative,” she says. “It’s the coolest SAG project I’ve ever been able to be a part of.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u8eRHI">
FourFront is part of a larger wave of tech startups devoted to, as aspiring Zuckerbergs like to say, building the metaverse, which can loosely be defined as “the internet” but is more specifically the interconnected, augmented reality virtual space that real people share. It’s an undoubtedly intriguing concept for people with a stake in the future of technology and entertainment, which is to say, the entirety of culture. It’s also a bit of an ethical minefield: Isn’t the internet already full of enough real-seeming content that is a) not real and b) ultimately an effort to make money? Are the characters exploiting the sympathies of well-meaning or media illiterate audiences? Maybe!
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KxOVHU">
On the other hand, there’s something sort of darkly refreshing about an influencer “openly” being created by a room of professional writers whose job is to create the most likable and interesting social media users possible. Influencers already have to walk the delicate line between aspirational and inauthentic, to attract new followers without alienating existing fans, to use their voice for change while remaining “brand-safe.” The job has always been a performance; it’s just that now that performance can be convincingly replicated by a team of writers and a willing actor.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ceQnZC">
“We’re telling stories that are a little bit larger than life, and I think a lot of influencers on TikTok do the same thing,” Benjamin says. It’s true — determining whether viral TikTok videos are “real” or created in earnest rather than ironically is the platform’s favorite sport. Tons of TikTokers play a character, to dramatic or comedic or aesthetic effect, but far fewer actually create a detailed narrative arc. If people really want to know whether someone like Sydney, Tia, or “Billy Hundos” is real, it’s not immensely difficult to figure out. But they fooled at least two newspapers, and if one of their videos came across my For You page, they probably would have fooled me, too. It almost feels like benevolent trolling, a nicer version of, say, a <a href="https://kotaku.com/republican-political-consultant-under-fire-for-
trolling-1847874410">tweet designed to provoke outrage</a> but really only ends up driving engagement to that person’s page. You sort of feel foolish taking the bait, but the internet is full of bizarre characters. How is anyone supposed to tell the difference?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UFowWR">
<em>This column was first published in The Goods newsletter. </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/pages/newsletters"><em>Sign up here</em></a><em> so you don’t miss the next one, plus get newsletter exclusives.</em>
</p>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>T20 World Cup warm-up | Australia recover to post 152/5 against India</strong> - Virat Kohli rolled his arm over to be a potential sixth bowling option for the team</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>Queen O’War and Thunderclap impress</strong> - Queen O’War and Thunderclap impressed when the horses were exercised here on Wednesday (Oct. 20) morning.Sand track: 800m: Indian Crown (Ayyar) 52, 60</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>12-year-old girl designs Scotland’s T20 World Cup jersey</strong> - The team chose the design from over 200 entries from school children across the country, and Rebecca Downie’s was the winning entry</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>James Pattinson retires from international cricket, will continue to play domestic cricket</strong> - The fast bowler, who played 21 Tests and 15 ODIs for Australia, had a stop-start career due to injuries</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>Chennai to host its first national blind football championship for women</strong> - Tamil Nadu Blind Football Association is set to hold a national championship — the first for its women players</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>2 persons arrested for smearing govt hoarding written in Assamese with black ink</strong> - Cachar Superintendent of Police Ramandeep Kaur said that the two persons identified as Raju Deb and Samar Das were summoned to the police station for interrogation in connection with their involvement in allegedly defacing the hoarding of Jal Jeevan Mission on Sunday demanding the use of Bengali language in place of Assamese.</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>Water level in Idukki dam dipping following opening of three shutters of Cheruthoni dam</strong> - KSEB officials say the water level needed to be kept at a safe limit in view of IMD’s predictions of heavy rainfall</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>One kitchen in Kozhikode and two in Malappuram cater to multiple families</strong> - Common kitchens providing breakfast and curries for lunch are going full steam ahead at Ponnani and Balussery</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>39 lives lost in rain havoc, says CM</strong> - Assembly condoles deaths; Govt. assures all help to relatives of the deceased</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>Young cab driver killed in road accident in Kerala</strong> - Police suspect that he might have dozed off</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>Ex-German soldiers arrested over alleged terror plot in Yemen’s war</strong> - The former soldiers are accused of trying to form a mercenary force to fight in Yemen’s civil war.</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>Karim Benzema: French sex tape blackmail case trial starts</strong> - The Real Madrid footballer is accused of complicity in an attempt to blackmail Mathieu Valbuena.</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>COP26: Russia’s Vladimir Putin will not attend climate summit</strong> - No reason was given for the Russian leader’s decision not to attend the conference in Glasgow.</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>Austria driver sought after two migrants found dead on bus</strong> - Austrian police are searching for the driver of a minibus after dozens were found crammed inside.</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>Oleg Deripaska: FBI searches US homes linked to Russian oligarch</strong> - Agents are sweeping homes linked to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who is under US sanctions.</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>It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity that grounded Boeing’s Starliner</strong> - NASA negotiating with SpaceX for additional crew missions to space station. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1805902">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>X-ray analysis reveals hidden composition under iconic portrait of the Lavoisiers</strong> - Painting was likely altered to appease growing French anti-aristocratic sentiment. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1805565">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The new MacBook Pro seems to have an HDMI 2.0 port, not 2.1</strong> - 120 Hz 4K monitors aren’t the norm today, but they probably will be later. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1805810">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Shipping times for Apple’s $19 Polishing Cloth slip to late November</strong> - Delays may drive people to buy inferior third-party polishing products. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1805793">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The electric 2022 Volvo C40 Recharge puts style at a premium</strong> - Volvo hopes buyers will pay a little extra for this sleek electric crossover. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1805604">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Just a reminder to be careful when telling jokes that may be offensive…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A few days ago I was talking to some friends, and friends of those friends, at the bar.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I decided to break the ice with these new friends with a few jokes, most of them went down very well.<br/> Until I decided to tell a few more offensive jokes. I picked the worst possible one to start off with.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Here is the joke I told;
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
"What do you do if you see an epileptic having a fit in the bath?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Throw in your laundry in."
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
One of the friends instantly became enraged and took a swing at me. When I ask him what his problem was he replied that his little brother had been epileptic and had died in the bath many years ago.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Obviously I was mortified as I had not known this. I said “I am so sorry to hear that. Did he drown?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“No” replied the guy, “he choked on a sock.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DennySmith62"> /u/DennySmith62 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qbqcdz/just_a_reminder_to_be_careful_when_telling_jokes/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qbqcdz/just_a_reminder_to_be_careful_when_telling_jokes/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A software tester walks into a bar.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Runs into a bar.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Crawls into a bar.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Dances into a bar.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Flies into a bar.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Jumps into a bar.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
And orders:
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
a beer.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
2 beers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
0 beers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
99999999 beers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
a lizard in a beer glass.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
-1 beer.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“qwertyuiop” beers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Testing complete.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A real customer walks into the bar and asks where the bathroom is.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The bar goes up in flames.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Sakgeres"> /u/Sakgeres </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qbencu/a_software_tester_walks_into_a_bar/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qbencu/a_software_tester_walks_into_a_bar/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A poor cowboy needs a horse.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He buys the only horse he could afford, one that has its commands messed up.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“He’ll go when you say ‘whoa!’ and stop when you say ‘giddy up!’” instructs the seller.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The cowboy sets off riding the horse, feeling silly for saying ‘whoa’. As he rides further, he sees an upcoming cliff. He commands the horse to stop by saying ‘whoa’ but the horse only picks up speed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Panicking, the cowboy scream “WHOA!” but the horse only goes into a full gallop. Then the cowboy remembers and tries saying “giddy up!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The horse comes to a complete stop mere inches from the edge of the cliff.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The cowboy brushes the sweat from his forehead ans says “Whoa that was close.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The horse, possessing survival instincts, knew better than to run off a cliff and the cowboy did not face any repercussions for his poor choice of words.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/CrimsonAvenger_ZA"> /u/CrimsonAvenger_ZA </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qbx2dr/a_poor_cowboy_needs_a_horse/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qbx2dr/a_poor_cowboy_needs_a_horse/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>My small grandson got lost in the shopping mall….</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He approached a uniformed security guard and said, “I’ve lost my grandpa!”<br/> The guard asked, “What’s his name?”<br/> “Papa”<br/> The guard smiles then asked, “What’s he like?”<br/> The boy hesitated for a moment then replies,<br/> “Single malt Scotch whisky and women with big tits”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Waitsfornoone"> /u/Waitsfornoone </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qbrq5y/my_small_grandson_got_lost_in_the_shopping_mall/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qbrq5y/my_small_grandson_got_lost_in_the_shopping_mall/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>I just realized Titanic and the Sixth Sense are basically the same movie.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Icy dead People!
</p>
</div>
<!-- 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/qbfj37/i_just_realized_titanic_and_the_sixth_sense_are/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/qbfj37/i_just_realized_titanic_and_the_sixth_sense_are/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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