Modelling upper respiratory viral load dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 -
+
+
+The relationships between viral load, severity of illness, and transmissibility of virus, have been the subject of intense interest since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. They are fundamental to understanding pathogenesis and devising better therapeutic and prevention strategies. In this report we present within-host modelling to examine the viral load dynamics observed in the upper respiratory tract, drawing upon 2172 serial measurements from 605 subjects, collected from 17 different studies. We developed a mechanistic within-host model to describe viral load dynamics and host response, and also contrasted simpler mixed-effects regression analysis of peak viral load and its subsequent decline. The inclusion of age, sex, or disease severity of the subjects did not appreciably improve the fit of either the mechanistic model or the regression. In future work, this model will be used to connect viral load dynamics to underlying host traits, to better understand these complex interactions.
+
Moral Decision-Making during COVID-19: Moral judgments, moralisation, and everyday behaviour -
+
+The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose significant health, economic, and social challenges. Given that many of these challenges have moral relevance, the present studies investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic is influencing moral decision-making and whether moralisation of behaviours specific to the crisis predict adherence to government-recommended behaviours. Whilst we find no evidence that proto-utilitarian tendencies and utilitarian moral judgments have changed during the pandemic at two separate timepoints, individuals have moralised non-compliant behaviours associated with the pandemic such as failing to physically distance themselves from others. Importantly, our findings show that this moralisation predicts sustained individual compliance with government-recommended behaviours.
+
Analysis and visualization of epidemics on the timescale of burden: derivation and application of Epidemic Resistance Lines (ERLs) to COVID-19 outbreaks in the US -
+
+
+The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic produced thousands of well-quantified epidemics in counties, states, and countries around the world. Comparing the dynamics and outcomes of these nested epidemics could improve our understanding of the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and help managers with risk assessment across multiple geographic levels. However, cross-outbreak comparisons are challenging due to their variable dates of introduction of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, rates of transmission, case detection rates, and asynchronous and diverse management interventions. Here, we present a graphical method for comparing ongoing COVID-19 epidemics by using disease burden as a natural timescale for comparison. Trajectories of growth rates of cases over the timescale of lagged deaths per-capita produces coherent visual comparisons of epidemics that are otherwise incoherent and asynchronous in the timescale of calendar dates or incomparable using non-stationary measures of burden such as cases. Applied to US COVID-19 outbreaks at the county and state level, this approach reveals lockdowns reducing transmission at fewer deaths per-capita early in the epidemic, reopenings causing resurgent summer epidemics, and peaks that while separated in time and place actually occur at points of similar per-capita deaths. Our method uses early and minimally mitigated epidemics, like that in NYC in March-April 2020 and Sweden in later 2020, to define what we call “epidemic resistance lines” (ERLs) or hypothesized upper bounds of epidemic speed and burden. ERLs from less-mitigated epidemics allow benchmarking of resurgent summer epidemics in the US. In particular, the unmitigated NYC epidemic resistance line appears to bound the growth rates of 3,000 US counties and funnel growth rates across counties to their peaks where growth rates equal zero in the fall and winter of 2020. Corroboration of upper-bounds on epidemic trajectories allowed early predictions of mortality burden for unmitigated COVID-19 epidemics in these populations, predictions that were more accurate for counties in states without mask-wearing mandates. We discuss how this method could be used for future epidemics, including seasonal epidemics caused by influenza or ongoing epidemics caused by new SARS-CoV-2 variants.
+
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy January-March 2021 among 18-64 year old US adults by employment and occupation -
+
+
+Introduction: COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy increased among US adults April-December, 2020, and threatens efforts to end the pandemic. Among US adults 18-64 years, we report prevalence of and reasons for vaccine hesitancy, overall and by employment and occupation, during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Methods: The Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University conducted a COVID-19 survey administered by Facebook. In January, February and March 2021, 791,716, 710,529, and 732,308 Facebook users, respectively, reported age 18-64 years and answered a vaccine acceptance question. Weights matched the sample to the age, gender, and state profile of the US population. Percentages and risk ratios (RR) for vaccine hesitancy were estimated using a weighted Poisson regression; 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using robust standard errors. Results: Vaccine hesitancy decreased among adults 18-64 years from January (27.5% [95%CI, 27.3-27.6]) to March (22.1% [95%CI, 21.9-22.2]). Vaccine hesitancy varied widely by occupational category: 9.6%, (95%CI, 8.5-10.7) in life/physical/social sciences to 46.4% (95%CI, 45.1-47.7) in construction/extraction. Almost half (47.9%, 95%, 47.6-48.3) of hesitant participants indicated concern about side effects, and over a third did not believe they needed the vaccine, did not trust the government, were waiting to see if it was safe, and did not trust COVID-19 vaccines (versus 14.5% [95%CI, 14.3-14.8] who did not like vaccines in general). Conclusions: In this nationally representative survey of adults 18-64 years, vaccine hesitancy decreased to 22.1% by March, 2021. Still, hesitancy, which varies widely by occupation, remains a barrier to pandemic control. Reasons for hesitancy indicate messaging about safety and addressing trust are paramount.
+
An explicit formula for minimizing the infected peak in an SIR epidemic model when using a fixed number of complete lockdowns -
+
+
+A too-early start of NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions) such as social distancing may lead to high “second waves” of infections of COVID-19. This paper asks what should be the timing of a set of k complete-lockdowns of prespecified lengths (such as two weeks) so as to minimize the peak of the infective compartment. Perhaps surprisingly, it is possible to give an explicit and easily computable rule for when each lockdown should commence. Simulations are used to show that the rule remains fairly accurate even if lockdowns are not perfect.
+
Quantifying meaningful adoption of a SARS-CoV-2 exposure notification app on the campus of the University of Arizona -
+
+
+Objective. To measure meaningful, local exposure notification adoption without in-app analytics. Methods. We surveyed app usage via case investigation interviews at the University of Arizona, with a focus on the period from September 9 to November 28, 2020, after automating the issuance of secure codes to verify positive diagnoses within the test result delivery system. As independent validation, we compared the number of secure codes issued to the number of local cases. Results. Of cases interviewed by university case investigators, 46% (286/628) reported having the app, and 55% (157/286) of these app users shared their positive SARS-CoV-2 test result in the app prior to the case investigation interview, comprising 25% (157/628) of all interviewed cases. This is corroborated by a 33% (565/1,713) ratio of code issuance (inflated by some unclaimed codes) to cases. Combining the 25% probability that a primary case rapidly shares their diagnosis with a 46% probability that the secondary case can receive exposure notifications, an estimated 11% of transmission pairs exhibit meaningful app usage. We attribute these high rates, despite the lack of “push” notifications, to a successful marketing campaign that identified social influencers. Conclusions. Usage can be assessed in clusters, without in-app analytics. With marketing, high uptake in dense social networks like universities make exposure notification a useful complement to traditional contact tracing. Integrating verification code delivery into patient results portals was successful in making the exposure notification process rapid.
+
dPQL: a lossless distributed algorithm for generalized linear mixed model with application to privacy-preserving hospital profiling -
+
+
+Hospital profiling provides a quantitative comparison of health care providers for their quality of care regarding certain clinical outcomes. To implement hospital profiling, the generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) is usually used to fit clinical or administrative claims data, adjusting for the effects of covariates. For better generalizability, data across multiple hospitals, databases or networks are desired. However, due to the privacy regulation and the computation complexity of GLMM, a convenient distributed algorithm for hospital profiling is needed. In this paper, we develop a novel distributed Penalized Quasi Likelihood algorithm (dPQL) to fit GLMM, when only aggregated data, rather than the individual patient data are available across hospitals. The dPQL algorithm is based on a newly-developed distributed linear mixed model (DLMM) algorithm. This proposed dPQL algorithm is lossless, i.e. it obtains identical results as if the individual patient data are pooled from all hospitals. We demonstrate the usage of the dPQL algorithms by ranking 929 hospitals for COVID-19 mortality or referral to hospice in Asch, et al. 2020.
+
Clinical Validation of Automated and Rapid mariPOC SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Test -
+
+
+Novel SARS coronavirus causing COVID-19 was recognized in late 2019. Diagnostics was quickly ramped up worldwide based on the detection of viral RNA. Based on the scientific knowledge for pre-existing coronaviruses, it was expected that the RNA of this novel coronavirus will be detected from symptomatic and at significant rates also from asymptomatic individuals due to persistence of non-infectious RNA. To increase the efficacy of diagnostics, surveillance, screening and pandemic control, rapid methods, such as antigen tests, are needed for decentralized testing and to assess infectiousness. The objective was to validate the analytical and clinical performance, and usability of a novel automated mariPOC SARS-CoV-2 test, which is based on the detection of structural viral proteins using sophisticated optical laser technology. Clinical performance of the test was evaluated against qRT-PCR with nasopharyngeal swab specimens collected from patients suspected of acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. Sensitivity of the mariPOC test was 100.0% (13/13) directly from swab specimens and 84.4% (38/45) from swab specimens in undefined transport mediums. Specificity of the test was 100.0% (201/201). The test9s limit of detection was 2.7 TCID50/test and had no cross-reactions with the tested respiratory microbes. Our study shows that the mariPOC can detect infectious individuals already in 20 minutes with clinical sensitivity close to qRT-PCR. The test targets conserved epitopes of SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein, making it robust against strain variations. The new test is a promising and versatile tool for syndromic testing of symptomatic cases and for high capacity infection control screening.
+
Emerging genetic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) alters its B-cell epitopes -
+
+The RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) plays crucial role in virus life cycle by replicating the viral RNA genome. The SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus that rapidly spread worldwide and during this process acquired mutations. This study was carried out to identify mutations in RdRp as the SARS-CoV-2 spread in India. We compared the 668 RdRp sequences reported from India with the first reported RdRp sequence from Wuhan, China. Our data revealed that RdRp have acquired sixty mutations among Indian isolates. Our protein modelling study also revealed that several mutants including D833Y, A699S, Y149C and C464F can potentially alter stability and flexibility of RdRp. We also predicted the potential B cell epitopes contributed by RdRp and identified thirty-six linear continuous and twenty-five discontinuous epitopes. Among sixty RdRp mutants identified in this study, 40% of them localizes in the B cell epitopes region. Altogether, this study highlights the need to identify and characterize the variations in RdRp to understand the impact of these mutations on SARS-CoV-2.
+
SARS-CoV-2 cell-to-cell infection is resistant to neutralizing antibodies -
+
+The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has posed a global threat to human lives and economics. One of the best ways to determine protection against the infection is to quantify the neutralizing activity of serum antibodies. Multiple assays have been developed to validate SARS-CoV-2 neutralization; most of them utilized lentiviral or vesicular stomatitis virus-based particles pseudotyped with the spike (S) protein, making them safe and acceptable to work with in many labs. However, these systems are only capable of measuring infection with purified particles. This study has developed a pseudoviral assay with replication-dependent reporter vectors that can accurately quantify the level of infection directly from the virus producing cell to the permissive target cell. Comparative analysis of cell-free and cell-to-cell infection revealed that the neutralizing activity of convalescent sera was more than tenfold lower in cell cocultures than in the cell-free mode of infection. As the pseudoviral system could not properly model the mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, similar experiments were performed with replication-competent coronavirus, which detected nearly complete SARS-CoV-2 cell-to-cell infection resistance to neutralization by convalescent sera. Based on available studies, this is the first attempt to quantitatively measure SARS-CoV-2 cell-to-cell infection, for which the mechanisms are largely unknown. The findings suggest that this route of SARS-CoV-2 transmission could be of great importance for treatment and prevention of COVID-19.
+
Combination Respiratory Vaccine Containing Recombinant SARS-CoV-2 Spike and QuadrivalentSeasonal Influenza Hemagglutinin Nanoparticles with Matrix-M Adjuvant -
+
+The 2019 outbreak of a severe respiratory disease caused by an emerging coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has spread globally with high morbidity and mortality. Co-circulating seasonal influenza has greatly diminished recently, but expected to return with novel strains emerging, thus requiring annual strain adjustments. We have developed a recombinant hemagglutinin (HA) quadrivalent nanoparticle influenza vaccine (qNIV) produced using an established recombinant insect cell expression system to produce nanoparticles. Influenza qNIV adjuvanted with Matrix-M was well-tolerated and induced robust antibody and cellular responses, notably against both homologous and drifted A/H3N2 viruses in Phase 1, 2, and 3 trials. We also developed a full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike protein vaccine stable in the prefusion conformation (NVX-CoV2373) using the same platform technology. In phase 3 clinical trials, NVX-CoV2373 is highly immunogenic and protective against the prototype strain and B.1.1.7 variant. Here we describe the immunogenicity and efficacy of a combination quadrivalent seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccine (qNIV/CoV2373). In ferret and hamster models, qNIV/CoV2373 vaccine produces high titer influenza hemagglutination inhibiting (HAI) and neutralizing antibodies against influenza A and B strains. The combination vaccine also elicited antibodies that block SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binding to the human angiotensin converting enzyme-2 (hACE2) receptor. Significantly, hamsters immunized with qNIV/CoV2373 vaccine and challenged with SARS-CoV-2 were protected against weight loss and were free of replicating SARS-CoV-2 in the upper and lower respiratory tract with no evidence of viral pneumonia. This study supports evaluation of qNIV/CoV2373 combination vaccine as a preventive measure for seasonal influenza and CoVID-19.
+
Sequencing SARS-CoV-2 in a malaria research laboratory in Mali, West Africa: the road to sequencing the first SARS-CoV-2 genome in Mali -
+
+Next generation sequencing (NGS) has become a necessary tool for genomic epidemiology. Even though the utility of genomics in human health has been proved, the genomic surveillance has never been so important until the COVID 19 pandemic. This has been evidenced with the detection of new variants of SARS-CoV-2 in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil recently using genomic surveillance. Until recently, Malian scientists did not have access to any local NGS platform and samples had to be shipped abroad for sequencing. Here, we report on how we adapted a laboratory setup for Plasmodium research to generate the first complete SARS-CoV-2 genome locally. Total RNA underwent a library preparation using an Illumina TruSeq stranded RNA kit. A metagenomics sequencing was performed on an Illumina MiSeq platform following by bioinformatic analyses on a local server in Mali. We recovered a full genome of SARS-CoV-2 of 29 kb with an average depth coverage of 200x. We have demonstrated our capability of generating a high quality genome with limited resources and highlight the need to develop genomics capacity locally to solve health problems. We discuss challenges related to access to reagents during a pandemic period and propose some home-made solutions.
+
T-Ridership: a web tool for reprogramming public transportation fleet to minimize COVID-19 transmission -
+
+Introduction As the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues to spread rapidly throughout the world, steps are being taken to limit the impact on public health. In the realm of infectious diseases like COVID-19, social distancing is effective to avoid exposure to the virus and reduce its spread. However, current studies about public transit did not consider social distancing which plays a fundamental role in the current outbreak. Therefore, it is vital to study how to optimally manage public transit systems in order to minimize risks related to COVID-19. Methods In this study we present a novel web-based application, T-Ridership based on a hybrid optimized dynamic programming inspired by neural networks algorithm to optimize public transit for safety with respect to COVID-19. Two main steps are taken in the analysis through Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA): the first is detecting high-density stations by input data normalization, and then, using these results, the T-Ridership tool automatically determines optimal station order planning. Results We evaluated the performance of our web tool by comparing the results with real data extracted from MTA. The number of passengers in a route dropped significantly after normalization by T-Ridership. These results can be used in expanding on and improving policy in public transit, to better plan the scheduled time of trains in a way that prevents high-volume human contact, increasing social distance and reducing the possibility of disease transmission (available at: http://t-ridership.com).
+
Black seed (Nigella sativa), a COVID-19 medicinal intervention - a recommendation for the Americas -
+
+This special report presents the medicinal use of black seed (Nigella sativa) for coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). The authors analyze current COVID-19-specific black seed studies in the Middle East, South Asia, and the Far East. While black seed has benefits far beyond its antiviral and immunity-enhancing effects, the authors focus on the properties relating specifically to COVID-19. Since some of the countries discussed have fewer financial and human resources than the US, the successful ingestion or inhalation of black seed or black seed oil deserves worthy attention. This report is split into two sections, which explore (1) the Islamic, historical, botanical, and scientific significance of black seed; and (2) the chemical composition, nutritional values, and current use of black seed as a prophylactic and COVID-19 treatment. The authors intend to introduce black seed, a common ancient natural medicine that can be used to improve overall health and well-being, to key stakeholders in the Americas. Key stakeholders include researchers, policymakers, public health and preventive medicine clinicians and practitioners, and other persons concerned about a more equitable, economical, and accessible alternative, all-natural option for preventing and treating COVID-19. Black seed also serves as an introduction to Prophetic Medicine, a complementary practice used throughout the Muslim world alongside allopathic medicine. Implemented into one’s daily life, black seed has proven health implications surpassing the current COVID-19 pandemic.
+
Best Practices for E-Mentoring Student Researchers - Tutorials and Tools for Greater Efficiency and Effectiveness -
+
+E-mentoring can provide a rich virtual knowledge-building experience, connecting mentors and students around the world. The need for social distance during the COVID-19 pandemic made it the more plausible means of mentorship, opening to further exploration of its best practices for maximized efficiency and effectiveness (Mahayosnand et al, 2021, 4). This paper is written by a mentor and mentee pair, sharing experiences from both perspectives. The mentor, currently located in Gaza, Palestine, recruited and mentored 6 students in the United States during the 2021 spring semester. These e-mentoring relationships were conducted voluntarily. The mentor is an independent public health researcher interested in Islam and Health and Muslims’ health in relation to COVID-19. The mentee worked on average 9 hours and 6 minutes per week for a 3-credit field experience course. This paper offers an opportunity for the pair to reflect on their research e-mentoring experience, make necessary adjustments for the upcoming semester, and offer insights for future research mentor-mentee pairs. This field report is split into 4 sections: (1) the benefits of e-mentoring; (2) lessons learned; (3) effective e-mentoring tools and systems, such as the weekly meeting call notes system; e-mentoring internship syllabus agreement, mentee research orientation, and maximizing Google Workspace; and (4) tips from a mentee. While forced to this method of mentoring during the pandemic, e-mentoring offers an effective means to conduct academic research globally and should be further explored and promoted.
+
A Phase 3 Randomized, Double-Blind Placebo Controlled, Multi-regional Trial to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of GT0918 for the Treatment of Mild to Moderate COVID-19 Male Patients - Condition: COVID-19 Intervention: Drug: GT0918 tablets or placebo Sponsor: Suzhou Kintor Pharmaceutical Inc, Not yet recruiting
+
Study to Evaluate a Single Dose of LTX-109 in Subjects With COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) Infection. - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Drug: LTX-109 gel, 3%; Drug: Placebo gel Sponsors: Pharma Holdings AS; Clinical Trial Consultants AB Recruiting
+
A Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Recombinant SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine (CHO Cell) for COVID-19 - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Biological: low-dose Recombinant SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine (CHO cell); Biological: high-dose Recombinant SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine (CHO cell); Biological: placebo Sponsors: National Vaccine and Serum Institute, China; Lanzhou Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd; Beijing Zhong Sheng Heng Yi Pharmaceutical Technology Co., Ltd.; Zhengzhou University Not yet recruiting
+
Convalescent Plasma as Adjunct Therapy for COVID-19 - Condition: COVID-19 Intervention: Biological: Convalescent plasma treatment Sponsors: National Institute of Health Research and Development, Ministry of Health Republic of Indonesia; Indonesian Red Cross; Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology Recruiting
+
Safety, Tolerability and PK of Ensovibep (MP0420 - a New Candidate With Potential for Treatment of COVID-19) - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Drug: Ensovibep; Drug: Placebo Sponsor: Molecular Partners AG Recruiting
+
Effectiveness of Remedesvir in COVID-19 Patients Presenting at Mayo Hospital Lahore - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Drug: Remdesivir; Drug: Conventional Sponsor: King Edward Medical University Completed
+
Evaluation of ADG20 for the Prevention of COVID-19 - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Drug: ADG20; Drug: Placebo Sponsor: Adagio Therapeutics, Inc. Recruiting
+
Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) for Prevention of COVID-19 - Conditions: Covid19; COVID-19 Prevention Interventions: Drug: Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ); Other: Standard care; Other: Placebo Sponsor: Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research Recruiting
+
Study to Investigate the Clinical Benefits of Dietary Supplement Quercetin for Managing Early COVID-19 Symptoms at Home - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Drug: standard of care for COVID-19 as per the hospital guidelines; Dietary Supplement: Quercetin Phytosome (QP) Sponsor: King Edward Medical University Recruiting
+
Mind Body Intervention for COVID-19 Long Haul Syndrome - Condition: COVID-19 Long Haul Syndrome Intervention: Behavioral: Mind Body Syndrome Therapy for Long Covid Sponsor: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Not yet recruiting
+
Standardized Olive Leaf Capsules; as a Co-therapy in the Treatment of COVID-19 Patients - Condition: Covid19 Intervention: Dietary Supplement: Nusapure standardized olive leaves capsule, 750 mg (50% oleuropein) Sponsor: Shimaa M. Abdelgawad Not yet recruiting
+
Impact of GSE and Xylitol (Xlear) on COVID-19 Symptoms and Time to PCR Negativisation in COVID-19 Patients - Condition: Covid19 Intervention: Drug: GSE and Xylitol Sponsor: Larkin Community Hospital Recruiting
+
The Use of Amantadine in the Prevention of Progression and Treatment of COVID-19 Symptoms - Conditions: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2 Interventions: Drug: Amantadine Hydrochloride; Drug: Placebo Sponsor: Independent Public Clinical Hospital No. 4 in Lublin Recruiting
+
tDCS for Post COVID-19 Fatigue - Condition: Post Covid-19 Patients Intervention: Device: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Sponsor: Thorsten Rudroff Recruiting
+
Safety and Efficacy of Niclosamide in Patients With COVID-19 With Gastrointestinal Infection - Condition: Covid19 Interventions: Drug: Niclosamide; Drug: Placebo Sponsor: AzurRx BioPharma, Inc. Recruiting
+
+
From PubMed
+
+
Uncoupling of macrophage inflammation from self-renewal modulates host recovery from respiratory viral infection - Tissue macrophages self-renew during homeostasis and produce inflammatory mediators upon microbial infection. We examined the relationship between proliferative and inflammatory properties of tissue macrophages by defining the impact of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, a central regulator of self-renewal, in alveolar macrophages (AMs) . Activation of β-catenin by Wnt ligand inhibited AM proliferation and stemness, but promoted inflammatory activity. In a murine influenza viral pneumonia model,…
+
Mechanistic insights into the inhibitory activity of FDA approved ivermectin against SARS-CoV-2: old drug with new implications - The novel corona virus (Covid-19) has become a great challenge worldwide since 2019, as no drug has been reported yet. Different clinical trials are still under way. Among them is Ivermectin (IVM), an FDA approved drug which was recently reported as a successful candidate to reduce SARS-CoV-2 viral load by inhibiting Importin-α1 (IMP-α1) protein which subsequently affects nuclear transport of viral proteins but its basic binding mode and inhibitory mechanism is unknown. Therefore, we aimed to…
+
Investigation of potential inhibitor properties of ethanolic propolis extracts against ACE-II receptors for COVID-19 treatment by molecular docking study - The angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE)-related carboxypeptidase, ACE-II, is a type I integral membrane protein of 805 amino acids that contains 1 HEXXH-E zinc binding consensus sequence. ACE-II has been implicated in the regulation of heart function and also as a functional receptor for the coronavirus that causes the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In this study, the potential of some flavonoids presents in propolis to bind to ACE-II receptors was calculated with in silico. Binding…
+
SARS-COV-2 induced Diarrhea is inflammatory, Ca (2+) Dependent and involves activation of calcium activated Cl channels - Diarrhea occurs in 2-50% of cases of COVID-19 (∼8% is average across series). The diarrhea does not appear to account for the disease mortality and its contribution to the morbidity has not been defined, even though it is a component of Long Covid or post-infectious aspects of the disease. Even less is known about the pathophysiologic mechanism of the diarrhea. To begin to understand the pathophysiology of COVID-19 diarrhea, we exposed human enteroid monolayers obtained from five healthy…
+
The Great Deceiver: miR-2392’s Hidden Role in Driving SARS-CoV-2 Infection - MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs involved in post-transcriptional gene regulation that have a major impact on many diseases and provides an exciting avenue towards antiviral therapeutics. From patient transcriptomic data, we have discovered a circulating miRNA, miR-2392, that is directly involved with SARS-CoV-2 machinery during host infection. Specifically, we found that miR-2392 was key in driving downstream suppression of mitochondrial gene expression, increasing inflammation,…
+
The SARS-CoV-2 protein ORF3a inhibits fusion of autophagosomes with lysosomes - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. How SARS-CoV-2 regulates cellular responses to escape clearance by host cells is unknown. Autophagy is an intracellular lysosomal degradation pathway for the clearance of various cargoes, including viruses. Here, we systematically screened 28 viral proteins of SARS-CoV-2 and identified that ORF3a strongly inhibited autophagic flux by blocking the fusion of autophagosomes with…
+
Galectin-9, a Player in Cytokine Release Syndrome and a Surrogate Diagnostic Biomarker in SARS-CoV-2 Infection - The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 infection has enormously impacted our lives. Clinical evidence has implicated the emergence of cytokine release syndrome as the prominent cause of mortality in COVID-19 patients. In this study, we observed massive elevation of plasma Galectin-9 (Gal-9) in COVID-19 patients compared to healthy controls (HCs). By using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, we found that a baseline of 2,042 pg/ml plasma Gal-9 can differentiate SARS-CoV-2-infected from…
+
The Non-Specific Antiviral Activity of Polysulfates to Fight SARS-CoV-2, its Mutants and Viruses with Cationic Spikes - Polyanions are negatively charged macromolecules known for several decades as inhibitors of many viruses in vitro, notably AIDS virus. In the case of enveloped viruses, this activity was assigned to the formation of a polyelectrolyte complex between an anionic species, the polyanion, and the spike cationic proteins which are, for polymer chemists, comparable to cationic polyelectrolytes. Unfortunately, in vitro antiviral activity was not confirmed in vivo, possibly because polyanions were…
+
In Vitro Inhibitory Analysis of Rationally Designed siRNAs against MERS-CoV Replication in Huh7 Cells - MERS-CoV was identified for the first time in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2012 in a hospitalized patient. This virus subsequently spread to 27 countries with a total of 939 deaths and 2586 confirmed cases and now has become a serious concern globally. Camels are well known for the transmission of the virus to the human population. In this report, we have discussed the prediction, designing, and evaluation of potential siRNA targeting the ORF1ab gene for the inhibition of MERS-CoV replication. The…
+
Fast Detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA Directly from Respiratory Samples Using a Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) Test - The availability of simple SARS-CoV-2 detection methods is crucial to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examined whether a commercial LAMP assay can reliably detect SARS-CoV-2 genomes directly in respiratory samples without having to extract nucleic acids (NA) beforehand. Nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS, n = 220) were tested by real-time reverse transcription (RT)-PCR and with the LAMP assay. For RT-PCR, NA were investigated. For LAMP, NA from 26 NPS in viral transport medium (VTM) were…
+
Fears Related to COVID-19 among Rural Older People in Japan - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected people’s social lives by inhibiting their movement; this seriously impacts the lives of older people in particular. Rural older people may have been particularly affected because they live dispersedly and in isolation. This study explored rural older people’s perceptions of how COVID-19 has impacted their social lives. This qualitative study assessed participants who were 65 years and older and residing in rural Japanese communities. Five focus…
+
Remdesivir and Ledipasvir among the FDA-Approved Antiviral Drugs Have Potential to Inhibit SARS-CoV-2 Replication - The rapid spread of the virus, the surge in the number of deaths, and the unavailability of specific SARS-CoV-2 drugs thus far necessitate the identification of drugs with anti-COVID-19 activity. SARS-CoV-2 enters the host cell and assembles a multisubunit RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) complex of viral nonstructural proteins that plays a substantial role in the transcription and replication of the viral genome. Therefore, RdRp is among the most suitable targets in RNA viruses. Our aim was…
+
Antiviral Properties of the NSAID Drug Naproxen Targeting the Nucleoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus - There is an urgent need for specific antiviral treatments directed against SARS-CoV-2 to prevent the most severe forms of COVID-19. By drug repurposing, affordable therapeutics could be supplied worldwide in the present pandemic context. Targeting the nucleoprotein N of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus could be a strategy to impede viral replication and possibly other essential functions associated with viral N. The antiviral properties of naproxen, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that…
+
Structure and function of SARS-CoV-2 polymerase - Coronaviruses use an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) to replicate and express their genome. The RdRp associates with additional non-structural proteins (nsps) to form a replication-transcription complex (RTC) that carries out RNA synthesis, capping and proofreading. However, the structure of the RdRp long remained elusive, thus limiting our understanding of coronavirus genome expression and replication. Recently, the cryo-electron microscopy structure of SARS-CoV-1 RdRp was reported. Driven…
+
A human-airway-on-a-chip for the rapid identification of candidate antiviral therapeutics and prophylactics - The rapid repurposing of antivirals is particularly pressing during pandemics. However, rapid assays for assessing candidate drugs typically involve in vitro screens and cell lines that do not recapitulate human physiology at the tissue and organ levels. Here we show that a microfluidic bronchial-airway-on-a-chip lined by highly differentiated human bronchial-airway epithelium and pulmonary endothelium can model viral infection, strain-dependent virulence, cytokine production and the recruitment…
+
+
From Patent Search
+
+
A COMPREHENSIVE DISINFECTION SYSTEM DURING PANDEMIC FOR PERSONAL ITEMS AND PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT (PPE) TO SAFEGUARD PEOPLE - The current Covid-19 pandemic has led to an enormous demand for gadgets / objects for personal protection. To prevent the spread of virus, it is important to disinfect commonly touched objects. One of the ways suggested is to use a personal UV-C disinfecting box that is “efficient and effective in deactivating the COVID-19 virus. The present model has implemented the use of a UV transparent material (fused silica quartz glass tubes) as the medium of support for the objects to be disinfected to increase the effectiveness of disinfection without compromising the load bearing capacity. Aluminum foil, a UV reflecting material, was used as the inner lining of the box for effective utilization of the UVC light emitted by the UVC lamps. Care has been taken to prevent leakage of UVC radiation out of the system. COVID-19 virus can be inactivated in 5 minutes by UVC irradiation in this disinfection box - link
+
USE OF IMINOSUGAR COMPOUND IN PREPARATION OF ANTI-SARS-COV-2 VIRUS DRUG - - link
+
Compositions and methods for the treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) infection - - link
+
用于检测新型冠状病毒的试纸和试剂盒 - 本发明涉及生物技术和免疫检测技术领域，具体涉及一种用于检测新型冠状病毒的试纸和试剂盒。所述试纸或试剂盒含有抗体1和/或抗体2，所述抗体1的重、轻链可变区的氨基酸序列分别如SEQ ID NO:1‑2所示，所述抗体2的重、轻链可变区的氨基酸序列分别如SEQ ID NO:3‑4所示。本发明对于大批量的新型冠状病毒样本，包括新型冠状病毒突变（英国、南非）与非突变株的人血清、鼻咽拭子等样本的检测有普遍检测意义，避免突变株的漏检。 - link
+
METHOD FOR QUANTIFICATION OF PIRFENIDONE, A COVID-19 ANTI-FIBROTIC AGENT, BY SENSITIVE ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES - This invention relates to the development of specific methods for quantification of pirfenidone, an anti-fibrotic drug which is used to treat Covid-19 for curing lung infections. Ultra-Violet spectroscopy detection and quantification conducted using HPLC grade water as solvent. Linearity constructed for the concentration range of 3-15µL for UV spectroscopy, 2-10 µg/ml for HPLC using methanol as diluent and 5-25µg/ml using methanol as diluent for HPTLC. The chromatographic system comprised of HPLC system equipped with quaternary gradient pump and Shim-Pack GIST C18 (250X 4.6 mm, 5µm) column with PDA detector monitored at 310nm. HPTLC performed on silica gel 60 F254 plates using mobile phase in the ratio of toluene and methanol 8:2 v/v. Analytical method validation done according to ICH Q2 (R1) guidelines. System suitability, intraday precision and inter day precision calculations performed and reported which found to be within limits (%RSD<2%). Recovery studies performed and amount recovered is found between 98.20-102.20%. - link
+
5-(4-TERT-BUTOXY PHENYL)-3-(4N-OCTYLOXYPHENYL)-4,5-DIHYDROISOXAZOLE MOLECULE (C-I): A PROMISING DRUG FOR SARS-COV-2 (TARGET I) AND BLOOD CANCER (TARGET II) - The present invention relates to a method ofmolecular docking of crystalline compound (C-I) with SARS-COV 2 proteins and its repurposing with proteins of blood cancer, comprising the steps of ; employing an algorithmto carry molecular docking calculations of the crystalized compound (C-I); studying the compound computationally to understand the effect of binding groups with the atoms of the amino acids on at least four target proteins of SARS-COV 2; downloading the structure of the proteins; removing water molecules, co enzymes and inhibitors attached to the enzymes; drawing the structure using Chem Sketch software; converting the mol file into a PDB file; using crystalized compound (C-I) for comparative and drug repurposing with two other mutated proteins; docking compound into the groove of the proteins; saving format of docked molecules retrieved; and filtering and docking the best docked results. - link
+
新闻传播速度测评方法和系统 - 本发明实施例提供一种新闻传播速度测评方法和系统，核心是基于新闻媒体权重计算新闻事件主题的传播速度，再通过聚类分析确定传播速度测评体系，最后评定新闻事件主题的传播等级。其中方法包括：确定待测评的新闻事件主题，获取新闻事件主题的新闻数据；基于新闻数据中每一新闻文本的传播媒体信息，计算新闻事件主题的初始传播速度；基于初始传播速度，以及预先设定的传播速度测评体系，确定新闻事件主题的传播速度等级；其中，传播速度测评体系包括多个传播速度等级与初始传播速度之间的对应关系。本发明实施例提供的方法和系统，实现了基于大数据的新闻事件舆情监测，能够有效提高新闻事件舆情响应效率，有利于决策管理者及时做出舆情应对。 - link
+
AQUEOUS ZINC OXIDE NANOSPRAY COMPOSITIONS - Disclosed herein is aqueous zinc oxide nano spray compositions comprising zinc oxide nanoparticles and a synthetic surfactant for controlling the spread of Covid-19 virus. - link
+
Bettverlängerungssystem -
+
+
Bettverlängerungssystem (1) für in Bauchlage beatmungspflichtige Patienten in Gestalt mit zumindest einer Platte (16), dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass die Platte (16) im Kopflagerungsbereich einen Luftwegezugangsdurchbruch (8) mit einem den Luftwegezugangsdurchbruch (8) umgebenden Auflagerbereich für ein durchbrochenes Kopfauflagepolster (14) aufweist, durch den von der Bettunterseite her und durch das Kopfauflagepolster (14) hindurch die Ver- und Entsorgungsschläuche für eine orotracheale Intubation oder eine nasotracheale Intubation ventral an das Gesicht des Patienten herangeführt werden können, und dass die Platte (16) im Bereich ihrer dem Kopfende eines Bettrosts (15) zugeordneten Stirnseite (6) ein Fixierelement (2) zur Befestigung der Platte (16) am Bettrost (15) nach Art eines einseitig frei über das Kopfende des Bettrosts hinausragenden Kragträgers aufweist.
一种肝素类药物组合物、喷鼻剂及其制备方法及应用 - 本发明公开了一种肝素类药物组合物、喷鼻剂及其制备方法及应用。该肝素类药物组合物包括肝素钠和阿比朵尔。本发明中的肝素类药物组合物首次采用肝素钠和阿比朵尔联合使用，普通肝素钠联合1μM/L以上的阿比朵尔病毒抑制效率显著高于单独普通肝素钠或单独阿比多尔组（p<0.05）。 - link
+
+
+
+
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/archive-daily-dose/06 May, 2021.html b/archive-daily-dose/06 May, 2021.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f6c42bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/archive-daily-dose/06 May, 2021.html
@@ -0,0 +1,789 @@
+
+
+
+
+
+ 06 May, 2021
+
+Daily-Dose
+
+
Inside India’s COVID-19 Surge - At a hospital in New Delhi, supplies and space are running out, but the patients keep coming. - link
+
Biden’s Great Economic Rebalancing - The President is looking to correct a capitalist economy that has gone askew, and reclaim a lost vision of shared prosperity. - link
+
Facebook and the Normalization of Deviance - The trouble with waiting to address problems long after you know that they exist. - link
+
The Complicated Case of the Pennsylvania Cheerleader - The Supreme Court considers thorny questions about free speech, bullying, and whether schools can discipline students for their behavior online. - link
+
On the Border, Two Versions of One Immigration Reality - As migrants arrive in the Rio Grande Valley, residents debate the latest chapter of America’s decades-old conundrum. - link
+
+
From Vox
+
+
The census shows the US needs to increase immigration — by a lot -
+
+
+
+Candidates for US citizenship listen to the presiding field officer during a naturalization ceremony on March 8, 2021, in Newark, New Jersey. | Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images
+
+
+
+The 2020 census shows that America isn’t full — and that it needs immigrants.
+
+
+The results of the 2020 census are a warning sign that America is on a course for slow population growth.
+
+
+Economists broadly agree that population growth fuels economic growth in wealthy countries. But the recently released census figures show the US population grew by just 7.4 percent, or 331.5 million people, between 2010 and 2020 — the lowest rate since the 1930s. Projections suggest that, unless current trends change, those numbers could continue to diminish dramatically over the next two to three decades, with the population growing by just 78 million by 2060.
+
+
+Some parts of the US are already beginning to experience some of the downsides of population slowdown or decline: Shrinking tax bases in rural areas have made it harder for government budgets to support essential services, such as infrastructure and public schools. As population growth slows, the pressure for cuts will likely grow. Meanwhile, the existing population will continue to age; by 2030, the Census Bureau estimates that one in five US residents will be of retirement age.
+
+
+“Slow population growth, at least in the United States and a lot of other developed countries, will become a dire age dependency problem,” William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brooking Institution’s metropolitan policy program, said. “It puts a big strain on the rest of the population.”
+
+
+There are ways that policymakers can turn the situation around — the Biden administration has advocated for family-friendly policies that could make it easier for Americans to have more children. But that will not be enough to overcome a widening gap in the number of working-age adults that are able to support an aging population of baby boomers.
+
+
+That leaves immigration, which has historically insulated the US from population decline and represents a kind of tap that the US can turn on and off. Over the next decade, it is set to become the primary driver of population growth for the first time in US history. The question now is exactly how much more immigration might be needed to accelerate population growth — and whether US policymakers can actually overcome their political differences on the issue to make it an effective tool.
+
+
+“Immigration is one of the most feasible and rational ways to help respond to this challenge and we know that it will have a really significant impact,” Danilo Zak, a senior policy and advocacy associate for the National Immigration Forum, said.
+
+
+Immigration is the easiest way to increase population growth
+
+
+There are two main ways that the US could increase overall population growth: by encouraging people to have more children or by increasing immigration levels.
+
+
+On their own, pro-natalist policies have historically failed to increase birthrates in the kinds of numbers that would be required to stave off stagnant population growth. Internationally, research has shown that child allowances have led to slight, short-lived bumps in birthrates. From 2007 to 2010, Spain had a child allowance that led to a temporary 3 percent increase in birthrates, but that was mostly because more people decided to have children earlier, rather than have more of them. After the allowance was revoked, the birthrate decreased 6 percent.
+
+
+President Biden has proposed his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, which would cap child care payments for parents earning up to 1.5 times the median income in their state, guarantee 12 weeks of paid parental leave, and maintain a new enhanced child tax credit for another four years — the kind of policies that might make it easier for families to have children. But even so, the US isn’t likely to see the kind of baby boom of the 1950s and ’60s, when the population was overall very young and a high percentage of women were in their childbearing years.
+
+
+“Pro-family policies are important, but it’s proven pretty hard to get people to have more children when they don’t want to,” Zak said.
+
+
+Immigration is a much more reliable driver of population growth. The average age of newly arriving immigrants is 31, which is more than seven years younger than the median American, meaning that they could help replace an aging workforce. They are also more entrepreneurial, which encourages economic dynamism, and more likely to work in essential industries, such as health care, transportation, construction, agriculture, and food processing.
+
+
+Immigrants may also help stave off regional population declines. Immigrants are more likely to settle in areas where foreign-born populations already live, which are typically large metro areas that have lost population in recent years. Frey found in a 2019 report that, of the 91 large metro areas that gained population since the beginning of the decade, 15 would have actually lost population were it not for immigration, including New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia. In another 11 large metro areas, immigration accounted for more than half of their population growth.
+
+
+Refugees are also more likely to settle in less dense population centers where housing costs are lower, possibly reinvigorating the nearly 35 percent of rural counties in the US that have experienced significant population loss in recent decades.
+
+
+Raising immigration levels wouldn’t necessarily require a major reimagining of the US immigration system, though that might offer more flexibility to reevaluate immigration levels periodically — it could be accomplished by just increasing the caps on existing forms of visas and green cards.
+
+
+“Legal immigration is not something that’s been discussed very much,” Frey said. “I hope … these census numbers will force people to think about being more serious about that.”
+
+
+To really reap the benefits of increased immigration, though, the US would have to ensure that immigrants have the ability to integrate, which it has done successfully in the past. Immigrants in the US already have a higher employment rate and labor participation rate than native-born citizens, and immigrant children tend to perform at or above the educational level of comparable US-born children.
+
+
+In recent years, states and cities have adopted a patchwork of policies to promote immigrant integration, including programs designed to provide English classes, schooling, and professional training; resources to start businesses; and access to citizenship. But Biden has reestablished an Obama-era Task Force on New Americans to expand the role of the federal government in such initiatives.
+
+
+“We need to figure out how to give those young people the opportunities for success,” Frey said.
+
+
+Some researchers say America needs to raise immigration levels by more than a third
+
+
+It’s hard to estimate just how many more immigrants the US would need to accept annually in order to reverse its low population growth trend. In recent history, before President Donald Trump pursued policies curbing immigration and global travel largely came to a halt during the pandemic, the US typically admitted more than 1 million immigrants per year. But under that scenario, census projections indicate that the US would see less than half the population growth between 2020 and 2060 than it saw over the previous 40 years.
+
+
+Some have argued that the US should try to set its immigration levels equal to its historical per capita rate of immigration, or to the per capita immigration rates of comparable countries, such as Australia or Canada. Others have argued that the US shouldn’t set immigration levels at all and instead let the market decide how many people are needed to fulfill the needs of employers.
+
+
+But Zak said that all those methods seem somewhat arbitrary and unlikely to spur members of Congress to action. In his research with the National Immigration Forum’s president and CEO, Ali Noorani, he argues that the US should increase net immigration levels by at least 37 percent, or about 370,000 additional immigrants a year, to prevent a “demographic deficit” stemming from low population growth.
+
+
+That number of immigrants, they estimate, would maintain the current “Old Age Dependency Ratio” (OADR), which is the number of people ages 16 and 64 per person over age 65 — basically, the number of workers available to support one retired person. It’s generally considered to be a good indicator of the demographic health of a country.
+
+
+Today, the US’s ratio is 3.5, down from 5.4 in 2005 and 6.4 in 1965. By comparison, Japan has an OADR of 2.1, the lowest worldwide, and is scrambling to shore up the viability of basic services for its aging population, such as public pensions, health care, and long-term care systems.
+
+
+Even just maintaining the US’s current ratio may not be enough to avert the problems associated with an aging population. But it provides a preliminary benchmark for members of Congress, who, in an ideal world, would reevaluate immigration levels every few years. (The last time the US significantly increased legal immigration levels was with the Reagan-era Immigration Reform Act of 1986.)
+
+
+“When we talk about maintaining the current OADR, it’s a conservative judgment, hoping to at least stop the bleeding,” Zak said. “We look at it as an initial target, rather than a cap. We don’t want things to get significantly worse.”
+
+
+America needs all kinds of immigrants — not just workers
+
+
+America doesn’t necessarily need to be picky with regard to the kinds of immigrants it seeks to welcome.
+
+
+The US might need more workers to help fill growing labor shortages associated with demographic decline, as well as more immigrants who are sponsored by their family members to ensure that immigrant populations feel comfortable putting down roots in the US and having children. The children of immigrants will be a major driver of population growth in the long term.
+
+
+But immigrants in general, including refugees and asylum seekers, carry the benefit of boosting population in rural areas that are feeling the brunt of the effects of demographic decline.
+
+
+“When it comes to responding to demographic needs, that really needs to emphasize all different kinds of immigrants and the value they all bring to the country and to help us respond to the demographic challenges we face,” Zak said.
+
+
+But the US could also take a more targeted approach by addressing existing labor shortages in industries such as home health care, hospitality, transportation, and construction.
+
+
+The Labor Department has a list of occupations with shortages, making it easier for employers to bring immigrants to the US to fill those jobs, but it hasn’t been updated in many years. Currently, just physical therapists, nurses, and artists and scientists with “exceptional ability” qualify as shortage occupations.
+
+
+“We need to do an even better job of figuring out where our labor shortages are going to be in the coming years,” Zak said.
+
+
+The US can fill those shortages with a range of flexible visa programs. Lawmakers have already weighed creating a state-based visa that would allow states to select what kinds of immigrants they will accept based on their specific labor needs. Rep. John Curtis (R‐UT), with the blessing of Utah’s Republican then-Gov. Gary Herbert, introduced a related bill in 2019 under which each state would get an average of 10,000 visas a year and would be able to determine how long they last and how often they could be renewed.
+
+
+But the US could also look for policy solutions abroad: Wealthy countries such as Australia have adopted visas for immigrants who can fill national labor shortages, and Canada created its Provincial Nominee Program to encourage immigration to provinces that are experiencing labor shortages.
+
+
+These kinds of increases in new, legal immigration can be used in tandem with programs to legalize the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants already living in the US. Researchers from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania found that the provisions in Biden’s comprehensive immigration reform proposal granting legal status to undocumented immigrants would increase the size of the US population by more than 4 percent by 2050. That’s because it would decrease their likelihood of emigrating and increase their birthrates.
+
+
+“There’s no doubt that we should be pursuing all of these ideas to help us respond to what’s really one of the most pressing challenges the country will face over the next several decades,” Zak said.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Here’s just how much people have stopped talking about Trump on Facebook and Twitter -
+
+
+
+Former President Donald Trump speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2021. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images
+
+
+
+Trump used to be everywhere on social media. Now he’s nowhere.
+
+
+
+
+Donald Trump used to be everywhere on social media — but lately, it feels like he’s nowhere.
+
+
+Many have noted just how little people have been talking about Trump — from cable news to Google searches — since he lost the election and was kicked off Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube four months ago.
+
+
+New data Recode obtained from social media measurement firms Zignal Labs and CrowdTangle shows just how drastic the drop in conversation about Trump has been.
+
+
+Mentions of Trump went down by 34 percent on Twitter and 23 percent on Facebook the week after he was banned from both platforms following the Capitol riot on January 6. Since then, Trump mentions have continued to decline around 90 percent on both platforms from where they were the week of the riots. (That decline may be even greater than what the current data reflects on Twitter because it doesn’t include retweets and tweets from accounts that have since been deleted, like Trump’s.)
+
+
+Of course, it’s impossible to divorce the decline in the Trump conversation from the fact that he’s no longer president. It’s natural for people to talk less about a world leader once he or she is no longer in office. Even before the bans, mentions of Trump had started to drop after he lost the election. But Trump wasn’t an ordinary president, and he’d made it very clear he planned to continue being present in political discourse after his loss — as evidenced by his posts inciting Capitol rioters.
+
+
+Still, the steep decline of mentions in recent months shows just how the president who once set a national political agenda with his around-the-clock social media posts has been relegated to lesser relevance on the mainstream internet, and in conversation more broadly. Now that the Facebook oversight board has extended Trump’sFacebook ban six more months, that dampening will likely continue.
+
+
+What the data shows
+
+
+During his four years in office, Trump was one of the most active and influential figures on social media, often setting off global news cycles with a single 140-character tweet. And even after Trump lost the election, he was able to garner unparalleled social media attention as he perpetuated baseless conspiracy theories about the election results.
+
+Recode asked Zignal Labs and Facebook-owned CrowdTangle for data about Trump’s social media mentions to better understand his social media presence over time, and how his social media suspensions impacted that presence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+On Twitter, Trump garnered nearly 50 million mentions in the week beginning January 3, the week of the Capitol riots, according to data from Zignal, which searched for “Trump” as a keyword or hashtag. The following week, after Trump was banned, mentions dropped to around 30 million and have continued to decline precipitously. In the last month, that number has shrunk to around 3 million mentions per week — or roughly the level it was at in 2016, before Trump became president.
+
+
+“While Donald Trump is still a heavily discussed figure on Twitter, his suspension in January has had a significant impact on the volume of mentions of his name on the platform,” said Jennifer Granston, chief customer officer and head of insights at Zignal Labs. “In the nearly five months since the permanent suspension of his account, there have been 151 million mentions of his name on Twitter. For context, during just the week of the 2020 presidential election, his name accumulated 56 million mentions.”
+
+
+
+
+Screenshot of CrowdTangle data on Facebook interactions — “Likes,” reactions, comments, and shares — with posts including “Trump” over time.
+
+
+
+On Facebook, the week that included Election Day 2020 had the highest number of interactions, with 427 million “Likes,” reactions, comments, and shares on posts by Trump or including the word “Trump” on Facebook pages, public groups, and verified profiles. That spiked again to around 300 million the week of the Capitol riot but has since declined to levels below any seen in the past year — around 30 million a week. CrowdTangle’s data, as of publication, includes engagement with Trump’s account that has happened after he was banned from posting.
+
+
+Again, it’s not entirely surprising that a lame-duck president would start to fade from public discussion.
+
+
+But Trump was an exception. Even after his mentions and presence on social media had begun to decline post-election, he rallied his social media followers in a drastic rebound. In early January, Trump capitalized on the “#stopthesteal” social media campaign to attempt to overturn the results of the election and once again dominate discussion on Twitter.
+
+
+One of the reasons the conversation about Trump finally dropped off is because, at the same time they banned Trump, social media companies also cracked down on major far-right groups that bolstered discussion of Trump online, like “#stopthesteal,” QAnon, boogaloo, and Proud Boys. For example, about a week after banning Trump, Twitter suspended more than 70,000 QAnon accounts popular among Trump loyalists.
+
+
+With Trump off Twitter, that also meant people couldn’t retweet or reply to him — key ways he often became central to the public conversation on social media. When his account went away, there was less for people to react to — either positively or negatively.
+
+
+“While there are certainly many contributing factors, now that users no longer have the ability to engage with his account, mentions of Trump’s name have shown a steady decline,” said Zignal’s Granston.
+
+
+It’s impossible to say exactly how much social media companies’ bans on Trump — versus the natural course of events when a politician loses — were responsible for the drop in chatter about him. But it’s important to remember just how crucial social media was to Trump’s success in the first place. He was the Twitter president, and he used social media to build his campaign, push policy, and recruit supporters.
+
+
+It’s also important to note that Trump still has an audience on other platforms, like his new cable news networks of choice, One America News and Newsmax. And his supporters still have robust communities like Facebook groups and pages and MAGA-oriented Twitter accounts. Trump has also said he would build his own social media platform, but so far his efforts seem more like a blog than anything like Twitter or Facebook.
+
+
+But it’s clear that the ban had a serious effect on the volume of conversation about Trump on mainstream platforms, even if we can’t exactly measure how much.
+
+
+Why Trump’s social media ban matters
+
+
+The decision to ban Trump from social media was one of the most challenging and controversial ones that social media companies have made to date — and they avoided making this decision until after he’d been voted out of office.
+
+
+Twitter and Facebook made it clear over the past four years that they did not want to ban the president. In the past, even when Trump violated these companies’ rules on harmful speech, they resisted taking down his account or taking much action at all against his rule-breaking posts, saying that it was in the public interest to keep his posts up. During Trump’s term, companies created a “newsworthiness” exception solidifying this reasoning.
+
+
+In the runup to the election, companies did start to take modest action against certain content that contained misinformation about voting and Covid-19.
+
+
+Meanwhile, conservatives have long made unfounded accusations that they were censored by social media companies. In turn, social media companies have tried to prove they were neutral platforms.
+
+
+Everything changed when Trump lost the election and refused to concede — and egged on increasingly violent protests in the US Capitol. There was a clear, immediate, and physical threat to the stability of US democracy.
+
+
+Now, that danger is seemingly less immediate, and there’s a debate about whether Trump should be brought back, or if social media companies should have indefinitely banned him at all. Proponents of the ban argue that if Trump is brought back onto the platforms, he could stoke civil unrest. And they point to how much misinformation on social media has declined after companies banned Trump and his allies — by as much as 73 percent, according to a January analysis by Zignal and reported by the Washington Post.
+
+
+But opponents of the bans say that social media companies should not have the power to silence a former world leader, no matter how controversial his speech, and they worry about the precedent that sets for future bans.
+
+
+The impact of these bans is going to be further discussed in the months to come.
+
+
+On Wednesday, the company’s newly created oversight board, which has been called its “Supreme Court,” ruled that Facebook was correct to suspend Trump’s account in the short term but that the company needs to come up with clearer reasoning and a timeline around whether it wants to continue the ban.
+
+
+The oversight board’s decision underscored that the debate around how social media companies should handle Trump will continue without any clear answers for the foreseeable future. One thing we do know now is the numbers show these bans have a clear impact.
+
+
+
+
+
National Geographic faced up to its racist past. Did it actually get better? -
+
+
+
+Christina Animashaun/Vox
+
+
+
+Inside the reckoning at an American media institution.
+
+
+National Geographic was ahead of the curve.
+
+
+While it took last summer’s uprisings after the police killing of George Floyd for many media outlets to address bias in their reporting and newsroom culture, the magazine announced its own racial reckoning in 2018. That year it dedicated its April issue to the topic of race, and Susan Goldberg — the first woman to be the magazine’s editor-in-chief — publicly acknowledged the publication’s long history of racism in its coverage of people of color in the US and abroad.
+
+
+“Until the 1970s National Geographic all but ignored people of color who lived in the United States, rarely acknowledging them beyond laborers or domestic workers,” Goldberg wrote in an editor’s letter introducing the issue. “Meanwhile it pictured ‘natives’ elsewhere as exotics, famously and frequently unclothed, happy hunters, noble savages—every type of cliché.”
+
+
+Goldberg vowed that the magazine would face up to its past and do better, and the Race Issue was meant to be the beginning of a larger reexamination for the magazine. While the issue received its fair share of criticism, especially for a cover story that critics felt made simplistic assumptions about the idea of a post-racial future, it was a major statement by a publication that had long seemed to believe itself beyond reproach. The media industry was watching for what came next.
+
+
+
+National Geographic
+
+In National Geographic’s 2018 Race Issue, editor-in-chief Susan Goldberg vowed to “rise above” the magazine’s racist past.
+
+
+
+
+But change has been slow and difficult over the past three years, and many current and former staffers deem it inadequate. The magazine is still struggling to make good on its promise of a new approach to covering the world.
+
+
+It’s a high-profile example of the complicated path to significant and lasting change, and what happens when a public pronouncement isn’t matched by meaningful action. That’s a risk that a lot of companies, not just media outlets, run in the months and years following last summer’s public reckoning around racism and anti-Blackness — will they make good on their Instagram posts and supportive statements with tangible work once public attention is elsewhere?
+
+
+Vox spoke with nearly 20 current and former National Geographic staffers, ranging from administrative assistants to editorial leadership, who describedinstances in which employees tried to speak up about racial insensitivities in coverage, only to have their concerns brushed aside or ignored, even after the magazine had publicly pledged to do better.Multiple staffers of color alsodescribe a culture thatleft them feeling devalued and demeaned.
+
+
+It has largely been up tojunior staffers, many of them people of color, to push the magazine to deliver on the kinds of promises it made in the Race Issue, staffers say. They’ve had an impact, including producing a list of resources to improve diversity and representation in the story assignment process. Still, “it’s a lot of teaching all the time,” one staffer said. “Are they really listening?”
+
+
+All staffers who spoke to Vox did so on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution by a publication that retains social and economic power in the media industry.
+
+
+National Geographic did not respond to specific questions for this story. A spokesperson for the magazine said in a statement that “National Geographic is unequivocally committed to diversity, equity and inclusion and has undertaken a wide range of activities to put that commitment into practice,” pointing to initiatives announced in June 2020, including a new diversity and inclusion council, required unconscious bias training for employees, and a scholarship program for Black college students.
+
+
+Several current and former staffers also say the magazine’s culture has improved somewhat since the summer of 2020, when National Geographic, like many media outlets, announced plans to diversify its staffing amid nationwide protests against racism and police violence. They point to improvements like better tracking of contributor diversity and more events and programs geared toward representation and inclusion. But they say more work, structurally and substantially, remains to be done.
+
+
+Such accounts aren’t unique in a media landscape where many companies have vowed to be more inclusive and hired people of color, only to reportedly neglect their perspectives and career development. National Geographic was different in that it staked out its goal early and publicly: to reckon with its racist past and chart a different future. But in many ways, it serves as a case study for an industry that has struggled to meet the needs of its workers and its audience.
+
+
+Change takes a lot more than a single issue on race, more than a new residency program or event series — and certainly more than expecting junior staffers to educate their superiors on matters of race, observers inside and outside the publication believe. It takes a sustained commitment to action coming from the highest levels of senior leadership, and that’s a commitment some say they have yet to see.
+
+
+National Geographic, from 1888 to today
+
+
+National Geographic was built in the image of its founders.
+
+
+The magazine was the brainchild of the National Geographic Society, a nonprofit started by a group of elite white male professionals including geographers, explorers, teachers, lawyers, cartographers, military officers, and financiers with an interest in science and geography. The result was a marriage of science, entertainment, photography, and advertising that would become the iconic yellow-bordered magazine recognized for its picture-perfect “objective” window into the world. In the course of a few decades after its 1888 launch, subscriptions soared from 1,000 to 2 million, with a readership that was predominantly white upper-middle-class Americanprofessionals.
+
+
+Articles in these early days were largely focused on defining geography and explaining complex surveying methods, but the magazine’s bias toward whiteness as “civilized” was clear from the beginning and a reflection of the larger ethos of colonialism at the time. In the conclusion of an April 1889 article titled “Africa, Its Past and Future,” Gardiner G. Hubbard, the founder and first president of the National Geographic Society, wrote, “The Negro has never developed any high degree of [European] civilization; and even if he has made considerable progress … when that contact ceased he has deteriorated in barbarism.”
+
+
+ George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images
+
+The National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 by a group of elite white men including inventor Alexander Graham Bell (front row, far right, with beard and cigar) and explorer Robert Peary (front row, center, with mustache and cane).
+
+
+
+University of Virginia professor John Edwin Mason, the scholar Goldberg tapped to examine the archives for the magazine’s Race Issue, noted to Vox in 2018 that “the magazine was born at the height of so-called ‘scientific’ racism and imperialism,”a time when the US was rapidly developing as a leading global industrial power, expanding its empire through wars and acquiring new territories like Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. It was also birthing the American eugenics movement, which believed in the genetic superiority of Nordic, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon people. It was this culture of white supremacy, Mason said then, “that shaped the outlook of the magazine’s editors, writers, and photographers, who were always white and almost always men.”
+
+
+You don’t have to look further than the magazine’s mea culpa for evidence of this. As Goldberg pointed out in her editor’s letter, National Geographic’s December 1916 issue on Australia is one example of the magazine’s failures to “push its readers beyond the stereotypes ingrained in white American culture.”
+
+
+In an article titled “Lonely Australia: The Unique Continent,” the caption that appears below photographs of two Aboriginal natives reads, “South Australian Blackfellows: These savages rank lowest in intelligence of all human beings.” These “primitive ancestors” are only discussed for their hunting prowess, barely considered people but rather described as “the Australian native stock.”
+
+
+White colonizers, on the other hand, were depicted as adventurous, relatable, and generous. “The Australians’ ideal is a continent of whites without the ‘taint of color,’” geologist Herbert E. Gregory wrote. “They point to America as a horrible example of an unimaginable mixture of races.”
+
+
+
+National Geographic Archive
+
+National Geographic’s December 1916 issue is dedicated to “Lonely Australia.” In the magazine, geologist Herbert E. Gregory writes that Indigenous Aboriginal people “rank lowest in intelligence”; white colonists, meanwhile, are portrayed as nature-loving adventurers.
+
+
+
+
+National Geographic “saw the world through the same elite perspective as American policymakers and politicians based in Washington, DC,” Mason told Vox in his 2018 interview. “They were tied to that elite white male perspective. The magazine almost thought of itself as a branch of government. It believed very much in the colonial enterprise.”
+
+
+In spite of — or because of — that perspective, National Geographic became known as a measure of cultural sophistication during the 20th century. In their 1993 book Reading National Geographic, authors Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins wrote, “Generally speaking, National Geographic helped white, upwardly mobile Americans to locate themselves in a changing world.” The most powerful tool in their arsenal was the still photograph.
+
+
+“If you want to understand how race works at National Geographic, you have to see beyond the racial epithets,” Lutz recently told Vox. “You have to look at what the people are doing in their images and what it means when someone smiles versus frowns, when they are white versus brown, the range of messaging that comes through in an image and the choices that they are making.”
+
+
+Those choices, argued Lutz and Collins in their book, were almost always made with the comfort of a white audience in mind. The duo analyzed a large set of photographs published in the magazine from 1950 to 1986 to trace the effects of post-World War II decolonization and the Vietnam War. What they found was visual messaging that aligned itself with the white colonizer and all but ignored domestic racial and political conflicts of the 1960s and ’70s.
+
+
+Published photographs instead exoticized far-off lands inhabited by Black and brown people, who were often seen as technologically backward and trapped in ancient ritual, and were almost always photographed looking at the camera with a seemingly natural smile. Black women were depicted as the most primitive of their subjects, their nakedness in stark contrast to clothed white women purportedly exemplifying civilization.
+
+
+
+National Geographic Archive
+
+National Geographic’s photos often emphasized Native peoples’ nakedness in contrast to the “civilized” clothing of white Westerners. In the August 1982 issue, the caption accompanying a portrait of 12-year-old Fidelis Pukue (left) declares she “stands as proud as her fledgling nation.” The photo on the right shows a tourist posing with members of the Macá Indian tribe.
+
+
+
+
+Lutz recalls National Geographic’s outrage when her scholarship was published nearly 30 years ago; the magazine characterized her and Collins’s work as having no “merit or relevance,” she said. “I didn’t see any evidence of a reckoning after my work,” recalled Lutz. “They invited us in to watch the process and were offended when we reported what we saw.”
+
+
+Impervious to criticism, the brand expanded beyond its print publication and grew into a media juggernaut in the modern era, spinning up nearly 40 local-language editions and a TV channel, and sponsoring research projects around the world. The magazine has millions of subscribers, and the company says it does particularly well with men, readers with postgraduate degrees, and millennials with household incomes over $200,000. It also remains one of America’s 25 most trusted brands, according to the polling firm Morning Consult.
+
+
+In 2014, Susan Goldberg — who previously held senior editor positions at Bloomberg News, the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, and San Jose Mercury News — was tapped by the brand’s new CEO to take the helm as editor-in-chief of National Geographic Magazine. The following year, the magazine and TV properties were sold to 21st Century Fox in a deal creating a new joint venture called National Geographic Partners (and leading to significant layoffs). In December 2017, Disney purchased a majority of 21st Century Fox’s assets, including FX, The Simpsons, and National Geographic, to better compete with content powerhouses Netflix and Amazon.
+
+
+Amid the turmoil, Goldberg added editorial director of National Geographic Partners to her title. She is now in charge of the company’s digital journalism, magazines, podcasts, maps, newsletters, and Instagram, which boasts over 150 million followers.
+
+
+Goldberg’s ownership of the magazine’s racist and colonialist history, just a few years into the role, seemed remarkable. “I want a future editor of National Geographic to look back at our coverage with pride—not only about the stories we decided to tell and how we told them but about the diverse group of writers, editors, and photographers behind the work,” she wrote in the Race Issue.
+
+
+Her pledge to usher in a new era of diversity and inclusion, in both coverage and staffing, was received from the outside as a bold act of leadership. Now the question was whether the magazine, as a publication and as a workplace, could deliver.
+
+
+After a public promise of change, a difficult path forward
+
+
+Goldberg’s arrival did bring progress to National Geographic on some fronts, especially increasing the number of women represented in the publication. In a 2017 panel discussion at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, for example, she noted that under her leadership, the percentage of stories in the magazine written by men had dropped from about 75 percent to 57 percent. “We are going out and finding new people,” she said.
+
+
+That was no small feat at a time when many publications were just beginning to address longstanding gender imbalances — for example, a 2017 analysis by the group VIDA found that 60 percent of articles at the New Yorker that year, 64 percent of those in the Atlantic, and 77 percent of articles in the New York Review of Books were written by men.
+
+
+
+ Desiree Navarro/WireImage via Getty Images
+
+Susan Goldberg attends an event for the magazine’s “Gender Revolution” issue in 2017.
+
+
+
+
+National Geographic also drew praise for a January 2017 special issue on the “Gender Revolution,” which featured a cover photograph of 9-year-old Avery Jackson, the first openly transgender person to be on the cover of the magazine. “Given the challenges facing the LGBTQ community in the years ahead, the timing of this issue couldn’t feel more appropriate,” Curtis M. Wong wrote at HuffPost Queer Voices at the time, when Donald Trump was poised to assume the presidency and institute numerous anti-LGBTQ policies.
+
+
+The publication has also become more diverse at its highest level in recent years, with two women of color joining its executive team. Debra Adams Simmons, a veteran journalist and former editor at the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, became the magazine’s executive editor for culture in 2017, and has also taken a role in diversity initiatives. In January 2020, Indira Lakshmanan, a former executive editor at the Pulitzer Center, became the magazine’s senior executive editor, overseeing several subject areas including science and travel.
+
+
+And while the cover story of the 2018 Race Issue was criticized, many also praised the frankness with which the issue addressed the publication’s racist history. “The magazine’s admission is rare, and vindicates readers who, like me, have always had a visceral reaction to National Geographic’s covers and ethos,” Doreen St. Félix wrote in the New Yorker.
+
+
+“I didn’t detect any defensiveness in the editors when I spoke with them about this,” John Edwin Mason, the University of Virginia professor who worked on the Race Issue, told Vox in 2018. “Instead, I sensed a genuine willingness to address the magazine’s past and to improve the ways it depicts people of color.”
+
+
+However, current and former staffers say the publication’s coverage and culture have been slow to change, and that subsequent efforts by junior staffers to raise questions about coverage have been met with misunderstanding and resistance from the top.
+
+
+National Geographic Archive
+
+The November 2018 cover depicting the “Battle for the American West.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Just a few months after the Race Issue,for example,staffers were concerned about a cover image, this one illustrating a story about conflicts over protected lands in Utah. The photograph was a confounding choice for a magazine that had pledged to be better on matters of race: a white man seated on horseback, gazing across the expanse of a prairie as though ready to explore what lay beyond. The headline: “Battle for the American West.”
+
+
+Staffers felt the image of a lone white cowboy, sunlit against the backdrop of a Western landscape, reinforced some of the racist stereotypes — of white people as saviors and rightful stewards of the land — that the magazine had pledged to put behind it. Some pushed back on the choice. “Even the photographer didn’t want the cowboy on the cover,” a former editor told Vox.
+
+
+Critics of the white “cowboy” image were overruled by Goldberg, the editor said. When the cover went out to newsstands in November 2018, it was criticized for many of the same reasons staffers had been uncomfortable with it. “The image of the white cowboy reproduces and romanticizes the mythic iconography of settler colonialism and white supremacy,” Mason told Vox at the time. That was doubly disappointing coming so soon after the promises put forth in the Race Issue, a staffer told Vox this year; the reckoning around the Race Issue was a “really positive step,” the staffer said, “and then we just kind of made the ‘Battle for the American West’ thing in November.”
+
+
+Another internal controversy arose a few months later around an April 2019 story about suicide bombings in Sri Lanka. The story was written by Robert Draper, a longtime National Geographic contributor who is white and not from Sri Lanka. For several staffers, the choice of Draper raised larger questions about how the magazine covers countries outside the US: They saw it as a missed opportunity to highlight a voice from Sri Lanka at a time of crisis for the country when elevating such voices was especially important. Instead, the magazine was yet again choosing to have a white American writer cover another country, despite the publication’s history of outsiders publishing problematic narratives about other parts of the world — and its promise to leave that history behind.
+
+
+“We need to build up our cadre of writers abroad so that when these crises hit, we have more choices to consider,” one staffer said in a Slack channel that included both junior and senior staffers. Messages from the conversation, which took place before the story’s publication, were obtained by Vox. Staff members were also critical of an early version of the story’s headline: “Sri Lanka’s latest violence underscores the need to heal its divisions.”
+
+
+“I’m a bit concerned about saying what Sri Lanka ‘needs’ to do in a first-person essay by a writer who is not Sri Lankan,” a staffer said in the same Slack channel.
+
+
+After staffers brought up the issue,editors did make some changes to the headline, but the piece retained a distinct outsider’s perspective, saying, “Theirs is a country of sumptuous temples and uncluttered beaches, elephants and verdant tea plantations.”
+
+
+Goldberg defended the choice of Draper for the story. “I’m delighted that Robert Draper — one of our best writers and someone who has covered the conflict in Sri Lanka for both us and the NYT — was quickly able to turn this essay,” she wrote on Slackin response to staff criticism. “I certainly agree that having lots of correspondents all over the world would give us even more voices and perspectives,” she added. However, “one thing we never want to return to are the days when only women can write ‘women’s’ stories, only men can cover sports, only African Americans can cover the black community, and so forth.”
+
+
+
+
+
+Vox obtained an annotated screenshot of a private National Geographic Slack channel, in which staffers expressed their concerns regarding the magazine’s approach to a story about Sri Lanka. Participants’ names have been redacted.
+
+
+
+
+Yet in Draper, Goldberg was praising a writer whose past work on Sri Lanka sometimes echoed the condescending, voyeuristic tone the magazine was trying to put behind it. “It’s entirely possible to visit the country formerly known as Ceylon in a state of blissful ignorance, to ogle its elephants and leopards roaming about in the national parks, or to languish on the many beach resorts in coastal Galle and Batticaloa, and in that way sidestep altogether the scabs of history,” he wrote in a travel story for the New York Times in 2015.
+
+
+In the Race Issue, Goldberg specifically had pledged to move away from a colonialist past in which American journalists reported on countries around the world with an exoticizing perspective. In covering the violence in Sri Lanka, the magazine missed a clear opportunity to deliver on its promises by choosing a writer from Sri Lanka who could bring to the story an insider’s expertise and nuance.
+
+
+The controversy over the Draper story sparked a discussion on Slack about larger issues at the magazine. The lack of diversity among contributors “is a huge problem they need to fix,” one staffer said in a private Slack room, messages from which were also obtained by Vox. “If we don’t have the right person to do a story in a crunch on such a sensitive topic perhaps we should consider not doing one at all.”
+
+
+Though Simmons, now executive editor, is credited internally with recruiting new writers of color for the magazine, staffers say there has yet to be a larger systematic effort to diversify the contributor base. (National Geographic did not respond to Vox’s questions about diversity and representation among contributors.)
+
+
+“Indira [Lakshmanan] will, after the fact, count if we have any people of color on certain stories,” one staffer said. “But in terms of a structural solution, I don’t think there has been any change at all.”
+
+
+More broadly, “bringing in a woman of color in leadership is great but it doesn’t automatically translate that the publication will be more inclusive,” one former staffer of color said. Nor is it the sole responsibility of journalists of color, even in upper management, to ensure diversity within a historically white organization. Indeed, people of color across industries have described being hired into high-profile roles only to discover they had little actual power in a white-dominated workplace. For example, TV writer Sunil Nayar left his job as executive producer of the CBS show All Rise last year after finding that, as he put it to the New York Times, “I was only there because I’m the brown guy.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+National Geographic, for its part, is a rigid, hierarchical organization, with authority concentrated among a limited number of senior staffers. “It’s a really small group of people that decide what stories are told, and it happens without a lot of input,” one staffer said.
+
+
+That group includes a handful of senior editors and writers, and, at the top, Goldberg herself. “Susan has the power; she’s the ultimate decision-maker,” the staffer said. “I don’t think there is anyone that can come close to being her equal.” (Goldberg answers to the corporate leadership of National Geographic Partners, a joint venture between the nonprofit National Geographic Society and Disney.)
+
+
+That’s not unusual for the editor-in-chief of a media company, particularly a legacy media company. Those in this position often take a highly public role in which their professional identity is linked with the successes or failures of the publication — think Dean Baquet at the New York Times or Anna Wintour at Vogue. They typically have the final say over staffing decisions and, while they may not edit most stories themselves, often decide the overall direction of coverage and may request stories they want to see or veto those they don’t.
+
+
+At National Geographic, that looks like word trickling down from senior staff to junior staff about what Goldberg wants — like more coverage of, say, volcanoes, or the inauguration — or what she doesn’t. A lot of conversations end with, “Susan doesn’t like to see things like that,” one staffer said. “It’s a place where everyone is walking on eggshells, including editors.”
+
+
+Raising concerns — whether that means challenging stories that might be problematic or pushing for changes to hiring practices — at National Geographic can feel fraught, staffers said, with employees fearing that they could easily fall out of favor with Goldberg if they speak up. There’s a feeling that if “you get on her bad side, you’ll get fewer assignments and could get caught up in the next round of layoffs,” one former staffer said.
+
+
+Nor was it necessarily any easier to raise concerns with other members of the executive team. Simmons “didn’t always listen when we raised flags on sensitive issues,” a former editor said, and Simmons “at the end of the day still answers to Susan.”
+
+
+While many staffers were afraid of speaking up, some white male photographers seemed to enjoy carte blanche to behave as they wished, according to several former staffers. “Photographers are treated like gods,” one former staffer said. “They can have outbursts, can be rude to staff; if you are a white male photographer at National Geographic, you’d get away with it.”
+
+
+
+
+
+A reliance on white male contributors is evident in coverage: The journalists responsible for the magazine’s most prestigious assignments remain overwhelmingly white. According to a Vox analysis, since the April 2018 Race Issue, more than 75 percent of the magazine’s cover stories have been assigned to white male photographers. Several current and former staffers say they cannot recall a cover story ever having been assigned to a Black female photographer. (National Geographic did not respond to questions about the diversity of photographers for cover stories.)
+
+
+Multiple staffers and freelance contributors of color who have worked for the magazine described experiences that left them feeling tokenized, belittled, or discriminated against. One freelance photojournalist who was hired to work on the Race Issue said that while going through images with her editor, she mentioned understanding why she’d been hired — her work complemented the journalist’s story. The editor,who was also a person of color, had a different explanation: “We just needed a Black female photographer.”
+
+
+“I just kept quiet,” the photojournalist said, adding they thought, “I cannot wait to be done with this story so I can move on.”
+
+
+The incident came in the wake of what the photojournalist described as overbearing treatment by the same editor — who, she said, called, texted, and emailed her to check in so frequently while she was on assignment that it made it hard to do her job. It showed “a lack of trust,” she said. “I’m fully capable of doing this job; I’m fully capable of telling these stories.”
+
+
+The same freelancer later did one other assignment for the magazine, a project for the advertising side that was supposed to be about racial bias. Editors were concerned that the photographer including a formerly incarcerated man in the project would promote negative stereotypes about Black men, even though his incarceration was an important part of his life story. The freelancer pushed back — “I had to fight for that,” she said — and editors ultimately agreed. But the freelancer felt the episode showed the magazine’s lack of trust in her, a Black journalist, to tell a story about race and racism.
+
+
+“You want to control something so much, especially when it comes to race, and you’re talking to a Black woman, and you want to push back and tell me I’m wrong,” the freelancer said. “You don’t have the confidence in me that I know what I’m doing.”
+
+
+Goldberg also got directly involved in editing the freelancer’s introduction text for the project, which was to run alongside the photos, wanting to cut a line stating that “I document these issues through engaging the individual lived experiences of Black Americans.” Goldberg’s reason for the cut: “This describes photojournalism.”
+
+
+It felt dismissive, the freelancer said. “I know what photojournalism is.”
+
+
+It was decisions like these, however small they might seem, that made employees and contributors of color feel that their professional expertise and experiences weren’t valued. Such instances of devaluing can add up over time, leading to anxiety and depression and holding people back from doing their best work. The fact that Goldberg, the editorial director of the entire company, got involved at all made her feel “that they had no trust in a Black woman’s work telling stories of racial bias,” the freelancer added.
+
+
+After these experiences, she says she would never work with National Geographic again. “Working for them doesn’t serve a purpose in my life or my career,” she said.
+
+
+
+
+
+She was not alone in this feeling. A former staffer, who is Black, describes having her admiration for National Geographic dispelled by the reality of the institution.
+
+
+“I grew up watching all the National Geographic documentaries,” the staffer said, and she and her mother “would bond over watching their shows.”
+
+
+But when she started working at the magazine on a contract basis, she said, she repeatedly dealt with “demeaning and rude” treatment from her superior, an editor on the magazine’s executive team. In one 2020 email exchange, he chastised her after she asked follow-up questions about story scheduling. “I’m a little frustrated that you don’t have a better grasp on what needs to move,” he wrote, later adding, “These are basic things you need to be able to do.”
+
+
+In another exchange, he informed her he was rejecting her timesheet because she recorded overtime hours without seeking approval from him first. “I do find it hard to comprehend that you have worked more than 40 hours of billable work last week,” he wrote. The employee responded with a breakdown of tasks she completed, including, she said, a request from him that had to be done after hours since, according to emails reviewed by Vox, he asked her to do it minutes before 5 pm. However, he responded,“You chose to work overtime without getting prior approval.”
+
+
+The employee felt that the editor treated her differently from her predecessors, who were both white — her immediate predecessor, who trained her for the role, told her as much — and she wondered if she was being discriminated against because she is a Black woman. On the advice of the temp agency that handled her contract, she asked for a Zoom meeting with her editor last summer. When she brought up her concerns about his critical tone, she said, “he got upset” and “his face turned red.” After that, she said, his demeanor toward her changed — he abandoned all pleasantries and only spoke about work. In September, she was told her contract would not be renewed.
+
+
+Her experience working with the editor “was terrible,” the former employee said. “It was extremely stressful.”
+
+
+When she dropped off her computer after her last day of work in September, “I was like, man, I feel so free.”
+
+
+The last year has brought improvement, but also frustration
+
+
+Internal efforts to change the environment at National Geographic often seemed to come from relatively junior employees, current and former staffers said.
+
+
+For example, one group created a Slack channel called “Do Better,” in which they discussed coverage that they felt was problematic or concerning (including Draper’s story on Sri Lanka), and ways to improve. The group created a memo in 2018, which Vox has reviewed, calling on the magazine to work to recruit a more diverse staff and contributor base, and to set goals and track progress toward more inclusive storytelling.
+
+
+The memo offered numerous suggestions for how to improve representation both internally and in coverage, including a checklist to remind editors to consider diversity and representation when assigning stories, and a more inclusive process for hearing out concerns about stories. The group recommended that the magazine “revisit current editorial print and digital processes to ensure that when issues are flagged, they’re addressed. For example, can voices beyond the executive team be present when stories are pitched and finalized?” The work of the Do Better group led to some changes. For instance, the group produced a list of resources used by some staffers to increase diversity in assigning.
+
+
+Current and former staffers say they’ve seen more marked improvements after the racial justice uprisings last year. In June, National Geographic Partners released a four-point plan to improve diversity and inclusion at the company. The plan included a residency program for BIPOC journalists with the goal of placing them in full-time jobs at National Geographic or elsewhere in the media industry upon completion. In addition, some parts of the company have instituted new hiring goals for women and people of color, and the company has held several virtual events in which employees from marginalized communities discuss their experiences, such as a recent event addressing anti-Asian bias.
+
+
+The changes have been heartening to observers both inside and outside the publication. “As frustrating as progress can be, I think the ball is moving in the right direction,” one current staffer said.
+
+
+Some, however, say the onus remains on junior staff to bring up problems with coverage — and that they continue to come up. Draper, the white journalist who wrote the Sri Lanka story, recently pitched and received the green light to write a story about race in Washington, DC, a staffer said. That assignment also caused controversy internally, but the process of complaining about such stories can be taxing for lower-level editors, especially if they are journalists of color. (National Geographic did not respond to questions about this story.)
+
+
+“Why do you have to put yourself in that position?” one staffer asked.
+
+
+
+ Alex Wong/Getty Images
+
+National Geographic’s headquarters and museum in Washington, DC.
+
+
+
+
+All too many people in the media industry have found themselves in this position in recent years. With media organizations still often led by white editors, but with an increasing level of diversity among junior staff, many have found themselves pushing for change from the bottom up.
+
+
+At the food publication Bon Appétit, for example, junior staffers of color like Jesse Sparks (now an editor at Eater, a Vox Media publication) and Ryan Walker-Hartshorn began advocating for shifts like capitalizing the word Black in stories in 2018, according to “The Test Kitchen,” a series for the podcast Reply All. They put together a presentation for management, but Adam Rapoport, the editor-in-chief at the time, “got on his phone and started scrolling the entire time that Jesse was speaking,” Walker-Hartshorn told Reply All. “It was the most disrespectful thing I have ever seen or experienced.”
+
+
+It took a very public reckoning to force change at the top of Bon Appétit; Rapoport resigned in 2020 after writer Tammie Teclemariam found a 2013 photo of Rapoport in brownface. Nor are newer media organizations immune to the kinds of inequities staffers reported at Bon Appétit — the “Test Kitchen” series was canceled after former Gimlet Media staffers came forward to say that Reply All and its parent company Gimlet suffered from some of the same problems as Bon Appétit.
+
+
+Publications like the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times have also been forced to reckon with their practices after news reports and social media posts have revealed employees’ criticisms of company culture. The New York Times, in particular, has been the subject of scrutiny in recent months, with a science journalist resigning after using a racist slur and a podcast producer leaving the paper after reports that he behaved inappropriately toward women. The paper’s editorial page editor, James Bennet, resigned in June 2020 after a public protest, led by Black staffers, against an opinion article by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) advocating for the use of the military against racial justice protesters.
+
+
+At the Times, Bon Appétit, and elsewhere, public criticism ultimately led to the ouster of people in leadership. Some current and former staffers at National Geographic say the company won’t truly be better until reform happens at the highest levels. “We would need a lot of changes at the top,” one staffer said, adding that “I don’t know how you’d fix” the current leadership.
+
+
+The stories of those who say they’ve tried to push the company to be better reveal something else that’s all too common as organizations try — and often fail — to reckon with their racism: It can be punishing to be the person always advocating for things to be different.
+
+
+“By the time I left the company, I had lost so much weight that my pants did not fit me and my hair was falling out,” one former editor said. “The stress made me physically ill.”
+
+
+“My grandmother had National Geographic on the bookshelf,” another former editor said. She had long aspired to work there. But now, reflecting on her time inside the publication she said, “I almost feel like I was in a toxic relationship with the brand.”
+
+
+“You love it, you respect it, you want it to be better,” she explained. But “I look back and wonder if I perpetuated some harm.”
+
+
+Additional reporting and research by Emily Berch.
+
+
+
From The Hindu: Sports
+
+
Indian archers to miss Swiss World Cup - The Indian archers will now directly compete in the Stage-3 World Cup in Paris which will be the last Olympic qualification event for the Indian women’s recurve team.
+
Bombay HC scraps plea seeking IPL matches to be cancelled, postponed - The petitioner told the court that the IPL has only been suspended and not cancelled, and sought for the petition to be kept pending
+
Champions League | Chelsea beats Madrid to set up all-English final vs Man City - Goals from Chelsea’s Timo Werner and Mason Mount sealed a 2-0 victory that ousted Real Madrid 3-1 on aggregate.
+
IPL | Finding a new window is the toughest challenge - Options available are to organise the event before or after the T20 World Cup
+
At Kotla, bookies employed cleaner to do “pitch-siding” during one IPL game: BCCI ACU chief - A designated cleaner was using the time lag between actual match action and live TV coverage to help in ball-by ball betting
+
+
From The Hindu: National News
+
+
Confusion over vaccine shortages in Punjab - Serious supply constraints in COVID-19 vaccine doses have forced the Punjab government to limit vaccination for the 18-44 years age group to major urb
+
Supreme Court wants formula on oxygen issue ahead of third wave - It draws govt attention to reports that children may be affected in next wave
+
COVID-19 positive cases over 6,000; 52 deaths - Director of Public Health G. Srinivasa Rao in the official bulletin issued in the morning maintained that the fatality rate across Telangana is about 0.54% less than the national average of 1.1%.
+
Finance Ministry releases ₹9,871 crore as revenue deficit grant to 17 States - With this second installment, the total amount released during of the first two months of the current financial year has reached ₹19,742 crore.
+
Disability certificates to be issued online from June 1 - System would allow pan-India validity, Centre says
+
+
From BBC: Europe
+
+
Jersey officials hold talks with French fishermen over rights dispute - Two Royal Navy ships and two French boats are nearby, with the row over post-Brexit rights ongoing.
+
France murder: Calls for action on guns after woman’s street killing - Chahinez, 31, was shot and set alight by her husband, who had been convicted of domestic violence.
+
Safe Sweden faces up to wave of women’s killings - A spate of deaths reignites a debate about domestic violence in a country praised for gender equality.
+
German ‘dead fraudster’ exposed by pet poodle in Majorca - A suspected fraudster reportedly faked her own death - but forgot about online posts of her pet dog.
+
Mario Cerciello Rega: US students found guilty of killing Italian policeman - Officer Mario Cerciello Rega was stabbed to death after a drug deal gone wrong in central Rome.
+
+
From Ars Technica
+
+
World waits to see where a Chinese booster will come down - The 20-ton booster is big enough that some parts are likely to reach the ground. - link
+
Fix for critical Qualcomm chip flaw is making its way to Android devices - Higher-end devices made by Google, Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, and OnePlus are affected. - link
+
Severe vulnerabilities in Dell firmware update driver found and fixed - Dell firmware update driver 2.3 can be exploited to gain kernel-level privilege. - link
+
Twitter’s latest robo-nag will flag “harmful” language before you post - Follows Twitter’s effort to make you read the news before you share it. - link
+
SpaceX successfully lands a Starship test flight - Given that it’s meant to be the basis for a lunar lander, landing it is good. - link
+
+
From Jokes Subreddit
+
+
A sales guy rings the doorbell on a house, and the door is opened by a 12 year old, holding a glass of cognac and smoking a cigar -
+
+
+The sales guy is a bit stunned, but plows forward and asks, “Is your dad home?”
+
+A Nazi walks into a bar, looks around, and notices an older orthodox Jewish man seated at a nearby table. Barman, he says, “A round on me, for all your patrons, but not for the old Jewish geezer right there.”
+
+
+As everyone in the bar receives their drinks, he looks directly at the Jew with a nasty little smile. Surprisingly the Jew nods his head and sends a warm smile back. The Nazi is somewhat miffed, as this was not the reaction he expected. So he goes back to the bar
+
+
+“Barman, a second round for everyone but him, and this time take it all from the top shelf” Nazi looks again at the Jew, and notices that he is STILL smiling back, and even warmer than before
+
+
+“Is that Jew a complete fool or what?” he asks the barman Bartender responds: “Oh no my generous friend, that gentleman is my boss and the owner of the bar”
+
+Two kids in a trench coat walk into a bar trying to get served and the bartender doesnt notice and serves them a beer.
+
+
+The bartender then makes his way to the other end of the bar where two regulars are having a heated debate. One regular says “my dick is so big my wife calls it ‘knowledge’ cause knowledge is power” and the other responds “oh yeah, well my dick is so big my wife calls it ‘the machine’ cause it just won’t stop”
+
+
+And the bartender says “that’s nothing, that weird guy who just walked in keeps giving his dick sips of his beer and calls it ‘kevin’”
+
+
+/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22494358/Screen_Shot_2021_05_04_at_2.26.13_PM.png)
+
+/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22489169/download__6_.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22489049/GettyImages_530840054__1_.jpg)
George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images
+/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22491587/nat_geo_collage_01.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22489610/download__8_.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22489207/GettyImages_633626920.jpg)
Desiree Navarro/WireImage via Getty Images
+/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22491560/download__4_.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22491565/download__7_.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22491580/slack_screenshot_natgeo.jpg)
+/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22489485/GettyImages_893111666.jpg)
Alex Wong/Getty Images
+