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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>A year of COVID-19 GWAS results from the GRASP portal reveals potential SARS-CoV-2 modifiers</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Host genetic variants influence the susceptibility and severity of several infectious diseases, and the discovery of novel genetic associations with Covid-19 phenotypes could help developing new therapeutic strategies to reduce its burden. Between May 2020 and February 2021, we used Covid-19 data released periodically by UK Biobank and performed over 400 Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) of Covid-19 susceptibility (N=15,738 cases), hospitalization (N=1,916), severe outcomes (N=935) and death (N=828), stratified by ancestry and sex. In coherence with previous studies, we observed 2 independent signals at the chr3p21.31 locus (rs73062389-A, OR=1.22, P=7.64E-14 and rs13092887-A, OR=1.73, P=2.38E-8, in Europeans) modulating susceptibility and severity, respectively, and a signal influencing susceptibility at the ABO locus (rs9411378-A, OR=1.10, P =7.36E-10, in Europeans), which was more significant in men than in women (P=0.01). In addition, we detected 7 genome-wide significant signals in the last data release analyzed (on February 24th 2021), of which 4 were associated with susceptibility (SCRT2, LRMDA, chr15q24.2, MIR3681HG), 2 with hospitalization (ANKS1A, chr12p13.31) and 1 for severity (ADGRE1). Finally, we identified over 300 associations which increased in significance over time, and reached at least P&lt;10-5 in the last data release analyzed. We replicated 2 of these signals in an independent dataset: a variant downstream of CCL3 (rs2011959) associated with severity in men, and a variant located in an ATP5PO intron (rs12482569) associated with hospitalization. These results, freely available on the GRASP portal, provide new insights on the host genetic architecture of Covid-19 phenotypes.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.08.21258507v1" target="_blank">A year of COVID-19 GWAS results from the GRASP portal reveals potential SARS-CoV-2 modifiers</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Adaptive vaccination may be needed to extirpate COVID-19: Results from a runtime-alterable strain-drift and waning-immunity model</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
We developed an elaborated susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) individual-based model (IBM) with pathogen strain drift, waning and cross immunity, implemented as a novel Java Runtime-Alterable-Model Platform (J-RAMP). This platform allows parameter values, process formulations, and scriptable runtime drivers to be easily added at the start of simulation. It includes facility for integration into the R statistical and other data analysis platforms. We selected a set of parameter values and process descriptions relevant to the current COVID-19 pandemic. These include pathogen-specific shedding, environmental persistence, host transmission and mortality, within-host pathogen mutation and replication, adaptive social distancing, and time dependent vaccine rate and strain valency specifications. Our simulations illustrate that if waning immunity outpaces vaccination rates, then vaccination rollouts may fail to contain the most transmissible strains. Our study highlights the need for adaptive vaccination rollouts, which depend on reliable real-time monitoring and surveillance of strain proliferation and reinfection data needed to ensure that vaccines target emerging strains and constrain escape mutations. Together with such data, our platform has the potential to inform the design of vaccination programs that extirpate rather than exacerbate local outbreaks. Finally, our RAMP concept promotes the development of highly flexible models that can be easily shared among researchers and policymakers not only addressing healthcare crises, but other types of environmental crises as well.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.07.21258504v1" target="_blank">Adaptive vaccination may be needed to extirpate COVID-19: Results from a runtime-alterable strain-drift and waning-immunity model</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Complement activation induces excessive T cell cytotoxicity in severe COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Severe COVID-19 is linked to both dysfunctional immune response and unrestrained immunopathogenesis, and it remains unclear if T cells also contribute to disease pathology. Here, we combined single-cell transcriptomics and proteomics with mechanistic studies to assess pathogenic T cell functions and inducing signals. We identified highly activated, CD16<sup>+</sup> T cells with increased cytotoxic functions in severe COVID-19. CD16 expression enabled immune complex-mediated, T cell receptor-independent degranulation and cytotoxicity not found in other diseases. CD16<sup>+</sup> T cells from COVID-19 patients promoted microvascular endothelial cell injury and release of neutrophil and monocyte chemoattractants. CD16<sup>+</sup> T cell clones persisted beyond acute disease maintaining their cytotoxic phenotype. Age-dependent generation of C3a in severe COVID-19 induced activated CD16<sup>+</sup> cytotoxic T cells. The proportion of activated CD16<sup>+</sup> T cells and plasma levels of complement proteins upstream of C3a correlated with clinical outcome of COVID-19, supporting a pathological role of exacerbated cytotoxicity and complement activation in COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.08.21258481v1" target="_blank">Complement activation induces excessive T cell cytotoxicity in severe COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Vaccination reduces need for emergency care in breakthrough COVID-19 infections: A multicenter cohort study</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Importance: While recent literature has shown the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine in preventing infection, its impact on need for emergency care/hospitalization in breakthrough infections remain unclear, particularly in regions with a high rate of variant viral strains. Objective: We aimed to determine if vaccination reduces hospital visits and severe disease in breakthrough COVID-19 infections. Design: Multicenter observational cohort analysis Setting: Eight-hospital acute care regional health system in Michigan, USA Participants: Consecutive adult patients with COVID-19 requiring emergency care (EC)/hospitalization were eligible participants. Between December 15, 2020 and April 30, 2021, 11,834 EC encounters with COVID-19 infection were included. Exposures: COVID-19 vaccination Main Outcomes and Measures: Primary endpoint was rate of COVID-19 emergency care/hospitalization encounters comparing unvaccinated (UV), partially vaccinated (PV), and fully vaccinated (FV) cases. Secondary outcome was severe disease represented as a composite outcome (ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, or in-hospital death). Demographic and clinical variables were obtained from the electronic record. Vaccination data was obtained from the Michigan Care Improvement Registry and the Centers for Disease Control vaccine tracker. Results: 10,880 (91.9%) UV, 825 (7%) PV, and 129 (1.1%) FV were included. Average age was 53.0 +/- 18.2 and 52.8% were female. Accounting for the COVID-19 vaccination population groups in Michigan, the ED encounters/hospitalizations rate relevant to COVID-19 infection was 96% lower in FV versus UV (eB:0.04,95% CI 0.03 to 0.06, p &lt;0.001) in negative binomial regression. COVID-19 EC visits rate peaked at 22.61, 12.88, and 1.29 visits per 100000 for the UV, PV, and FV groups, respectively. In the propensity-score matching weights analysis, FV had a lower risk of composite disease compared to UV but statistically insignificant (HR 0.84 95% CI 0.52 to 1.38). Conclusions: The need for emergency care and/or hospitalization due to breakthrough COVID-19 is an exceedingly rare event in fully vaccinated patients. As vaccination has increased within our region, emergency visits amongst fully vaccinated individuals have remained low and occur much less frequently when compared to unvaccinated individuals. In cases of breakthrough COVID-19, if hospital-based treatment is required, elderly patients with significant comorbidities remain at high risk for severe outcomes regardless of vaccination status.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.09.21258617v1" target="_blank">Vaccination reduces need for emergency care in breakthrough COVID-19 infections: A multicenter cohort study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Book Review: Important Character Education in the Covid-19 Era</strong> -
<div>
Character education is a system that aims to shape character by developing the potential in each one to match character values. Character education is structured based on the values contained in Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. In the beginning, character education was considered not very important, but as the world developed, character education was finally highlighted. Character education is deemed vital because it shapes and develops potential, strengthens and improves, and filters out other things that do not follow the character values in everyday life and Pancasila. Character education can be a stronghold in various circumstances, even in emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic. However, in preventing the spread of Covid-19, many violations of health protocols resulted in unsuccessful character education, so strengthening character education was needed. Strengthening character education aims to improve the harmonization of taste, emotion, mind, and body so that character values are emphasized again. This book aims to provide solutions regarding strengthening character education, namely by gradually supporting character education to increase awareness of the importance of implementing health protocols and reducing the number of cases infected with Covid-19. The author provides a new perspective on how to strengthen character during the pandemic effectively. This review aims to inform the contents of the book “Important Character Education in the Covid-19 Era: Strengthening Character Education Prepares Peer Tutor Students in the Family and Ska Youth Organization” to readers so that lessons can be taken so that they can implement in life. This book is intended for all people to increase awareness of health protocols.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/t24jm/" target="_blank">Book Review: Important Character Education in the Covid-19 Era</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Book Review Stay Creative and Innovative during the Covid-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
The Covid-19 pandemic that we are facing today has changed all activities and life in every aspect. Starting from the economic sector and education are all affected. Our view towards Covid-19 is not far from being scary and scary. This causes our physical and psychological conditions to be disrupted so that it hampers all the activities we used to do before this pandemic emerged. Changes in our lifestyles make our mindsets change too, starting from the ideas that we usually spill to being hampered because of this situation. This must be avoided from the mindset of society that we must not be dissolved in the adversity that exists when facing this era. An optimistic mindset is needed to survive and keep thinking creatively and innovatively. Moreover, the millennial generation has a myriad of creative and innovative ideas to be able to advance the Indonesian state in the future while still applying the values ​​contained in Pancasila as a guide for our nation and state. This review is expected to be able to make the millennial generation apply creative and innovative attitudes.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/eyguq/" target="_blank">Book Review Stay Creative and Innovative during the Covid-19 Pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Book Review DATANGNYA PAGEBLUK: COVID-19, FLU BURUNG DAN WABAH KAPITALISME (Arrival of Pagebluk: Covid-19, Avian Flu and the Plague of Capitalism)</strong> -
<div>
The book was written to provide information about the plague that is now attacking the world. From a historical point of view author connects the afflictions of the past and the curses that strike the world today. From the Spanish flu, bird flu to Covid-19 can kill at least 40 million people until now is still growing. Through this historical approach, the information submitted can be used as the latest reference about Covid-19 or previous outbreaks, as an analysis so that they can survive in the pandemic. The book is intended for anyone who is really interested in the latest issue that is shaking the world. Because this book not only contains the Covid-19 outbreak, but also contains histories of previous outbreaks and is related to today’s situation. The author writes from the health or medical side, historically, anthropology to philosophy critically. So it is clear that the book will be very suitable for those who like to think critically, those who want to study the latest information about the outbreak, they are beginners of biotechnology research and everything that is related to the Covid-19 outbreak research and previously without an age benchmark this book will match those who are interested in this issue. The book, at least it provides new information regarding research on the Covid-19 virus. Especially the conditions in America before and during Covid-19, in fact, almost all chapters must describe the requirements and policies of the American government both in the Covid-19 pandemic or previous pandemics. The author provides many information and data from research by experts on outbreaks and pandemics that may still be unknown in developing countries. The author explains about the pandemics that have shocked the world until the pandemic that we are facing today. By reviewing, it is hoped that many people, especially the younger generation, will find out about the conditions we face today. By reviewing it, you can also describe the book’s contents a little to be more interested in this book. Because the content conveyed is in accordance with the current state of the world, this review can be used as the latest analysis and study about outbreaks and pandemics in several decades.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/hxn35/" target="_blank">Book Review DATANGNYA PAGEBLUK: COVID-19, FLU BURUNG DAN WABAH KAPITALISME (Arrival of Pagebluk: Covid-19, Avian Flu and the Plague of Capitalism)</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The Virus is Coming! The Ways the Canadian-Born and Foreign-Born Changed Weekly Activities During the Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
During epidemics, individuals change their weekly activities to increase their sense of personal security, health, efficacy and comfort. This study looks at changes in weekly activities reported by Canadians and foreign-born citizens during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. The data for the study is drawn from a combined survey of two cycles of the CPSS (Canadian Perspective Series) surveys 2 and 4 which were conducted between May 4 and July 26, 2020. The combined survey consisted of 8,818 adult respondents (7,280 Canadian-born and 1,538 Foreign-born respondents). Weekly activities were measured by 25 survey questions which collected information on habits such as washing hands, avoiding crowds, watching more T.V., internet use and exercising. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used as the main tool for the statistical analysis of the data. Statistical testing of mean differences revealed that Canadian and foreign-born groups differed from each other in 15 out of the 25 activity items tested. PCA identified six major domains of weekly activities. Immigrants displayed similar activity patterns compared to the Canadian-born concerning the Sanitary, Leisure, Planning and Hoarding domain of activities but were found somewhat dissimilar in terms of the Sheltering and Substance use activity domains. During the pandemic lockdown, immigrants “hunkered down” and were more proactive in adopting sheltering types of activities such as cancelling travel plans, exercising more indoors than outdoors, practicing meditation and making better food choices. In doing so, they also avoided substance use as pandemic coping activities such as higher consumption of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis compared to the Canadian-born.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/a2btf/" target="_blank">The Virus is Coming! The Ways the Canadian-Born and Foreign-Born Changed Weekly Activities During the Pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>MPI8 is Potent Against SARS-CoV-2 by Inhibiting Dually and Selectively the SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease and the Host Cathepsin L</strong> -
<div>
A number of inhibitors have been developed for the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (MPro) as potential COVID-19 medications but little is known about their selectivity. Using enzymatic assays, we characterized inhibition of TMPRSS2, furin, and cathepsins B/K/L by more than a dozen of previously developed MPro inhibitors including MPI1-9, GC376, 11a, 10-1, 10-2, and 10-3. MPI1-9, GC376 and 11a all contain an aldehyde for the formation of a reversible covalent hemiacetal adduct with the MPro active site cysteine and 10-1, 10-2 and 10-3 contain a labile ester to exchange with the MPro active site cysteine for the formation of a thioester. Our data revealed that all these inhibitors are inert toward TMPRSS2 and furin. Diaryl esters also showed low inhibition of cathepsins. However, all aldehyde inhibitors displayed high potency in inhibiting three cathepsins. Their determined IC50 values vary from 4.1 to 380 nM for cathepsin B, 0.079 to 2.3 nM for cathepsin L, and 0.35 to 180 nM for cathepsin K. All aldehyde inhibitors showed similar inhibition levels toward cathepsin L. A cellular analysis indicated high potency of MPI5 and MPI8 in inhibiting lysosomal activity, which is probably attributed to their inhibition of cathepsins. Among all aldehyde inhibitors, MPI8 shows the best selectivity toward cathepsin L. With respect to cathepsins B and K, the selective indices are 192 and 150, respectively. MPI8 is the most potent compound among all aldehyde inhibitors in cellular MPro inhibition potency and anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity in Vero E6 cells. Cathepsin L has been demonstrated to play a critical role in the SARS-CoV-2 cell entry. By selectively inhibiting both SARS-CoV-2 MPro and the host cathepsin L, MPI8 potentiates dual inhibition effects to synergize its overall antiviral potency and efficacy. Due to its high selectivity toward cathepsin L that reduces potential toxicity toward host cells and high cellular and antiviral potency, we urge serious consideration of MPI8 for preclinical and clinical investigations for treating COVID-19.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.10.447950v1" target="_blank">MPI8 is Potent Against SARS-CoV-2 by Inhibiting Dually and Selectively the SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease and the Host Cathepsin L</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Safety and Potency of COVIran Barekat Inactivated Vaccine Candidate for SARS-CoV-2: A Preclinical Study</strong> -
<div>
There is an urgent demand to manufacture an effective and safe vaccine to prevent SARS-CoV2 infection, which resulted in a global pandemic. In this study, we developed an inactivated whole-virus SARS-CoV-2 candidate vaccine named COVIran Barekat. Immunization at two different doses (3 microgram or 5 microgram per dose) elicited a high level of SARS-CoV-2 specific neutralizing antibodies in mice, rabbits, and non-human primates. The results show the safety profile in studied animals (include guinea pig, rabbit, mice, and monkeys). Rhesus macaques were immunized with the two-dose of 5 microgram and microgram of the COVIran Barekat vaccine and showed highly efficient protection against 104 TCID50 of SARS-CoV-2 intratracheal challenge compared with the control group. These results highlight the COVIran Barekat vaccine as a potential candidate to induce a strong and potent immune response which may be a promising and feasible vaccine to protect against SARS-CoV2 infection.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.10.447951v1" target="_blank">Safety and Potency of COVIran Barekat Inactivated Vaccine Candidate for SARS-CoV-2: A Preclinical Study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>A functionally distinct neutrophil landscape in severe COVID-19 reveals opportunities for adjunctive therapies</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a life-threatening syndrome of respiratory failure and diffuse alveolar damage that results from dysregulated local and systemic immune activation, causing pulmonary vascular, parenchymal and alveolar damage. SARS-CoV-2 infection has become the dominant cause of ARDS worldwide, and emerging evidence implicates neutrophils and their cytotoxic arsenal of effector functions as central drivers of immune-mediated lung injury in COVID-19 ARDS. However, a key outstanding question is whether COVID-19 drives a unique program of neutrophil activation or effector functions that contributes to the severe pathogenesis of this pandemic illness, and whether this unique neutrophil response can be targeted to attenuate disease. Using a combination of high-dimensional single cell analysis and ex vivo functional assays of neutrophils from patients with COVID-19 ARDS compared to non-COVID ARDS (caused by bacterial pneumonia), we identified a functionally distinct landscape of neutrophil activation in COVID-19 ARDS that was intrinsically programmed during SARS-CoV-2 infection. Furthermore, neutrophils in COVID-19 ARDS were functionally primed to produce high amounts of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). Surprisingly, this unique pathological program of neutrophil priming escaped conventional therapy with dexamethasone, thereby revealing a promising target for adjunctive immunotherapy in severe COVID-19.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.07.21258484v1" target="_blank">A functionally distinct neutrophil landscape in severe COVID-19 reveals opportunities for adjunctive therapies</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Inferring global-scale temporal latent topics from news reports to predict public health interventions for COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The COVID-19 global pandemic has highlighted the importance of non-pharmacological interventions (NPI) for controlling epidemics of emerging infectious diseases. Despite the importance of NPI, their implementation has been monitored in an ad hoc and uncoordinated manner, mainly through the manual efforts of volunteers. Given the absence of systematic NPI tracking, authorities and researchers are limited in their ability to quantify the effectiveness of NPI and guide decisions regarding their use during the progression of a global pandemic. To address this issue, we propose 3-stage machine learning framework called EpiTopics to facilitate the surveillance of NPI by mining the vast amount of unlabelled news reports about these interventions. Building on topic modeling, our method characterizes online government reports and media articles related to COVID-19 as a mixture of latent topics. Our key contribution is the use of transfer-learning to address the limited number of NPI-labelled documents and topic modelling to support interpretation of the results. At stage 1, we trained a modified version of the unsupervised dynamic embedded topic model (DETM) on 1.2 million international news reports related to COVID-19. At stage 2, we used the trained DETM to infer topic mixture from a small set of 2000 NPI-labelled WHO documents as the input features for predicting NPI labels on each document. At stage 3, we supply the inferred country-level temporal topics from the DETM to the pretrained document-level NPI classifier to predict country-level NPIs. We identified 25 interpretable topics, over 4 distinct and coherent COVID-related themes. These topics contributed to significant improvements in predicting the NPIs labelled in the WHO documents and in predicting country-level NPIs. Together, our work lay the machine learning methodological foundation for future research in global-scale surveillance of public health interventions. The EpiTopics code is available at GitHub: https://github.com/li-lab-mcgill/covid-npi.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.10.21257749v1" target="_blank">Inferring global-scale temporal latent topics from news reports to predict public health interventions for COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Evaluating the utility of high-resolution proximity metrics in predicting the spread of COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
High resolution mobility datasets have become increasingly available in the past few years and have enabled detailed models for infectious disease spread including those for COVID-19. However, there are open questions on how such a mobility data can be used effectively within epidemic models and for which tasks they are best suited. In this paper, we extract a number of graph-based proximity metrics from high resolution cellphone trace data from X-Mode and use it to study COVID-19 epidemic spread in 50 land grant university counties in the US. We present an approach to estimate the effect of mobility on cases by fitting an ODE based model and performing multivariate linear regression to explain the estimated time varying transmissibility. We find that, while mobility plays a significant role, the contribution is heterogeneous across the counties, as exemplified by a subsequent correlation analysis. We subsequently evaluate the metrics9 utility for case surge prediction defined as a supervised classification problem, and show that the learnt model can predict surges with 95% accuracy and 87% F1-score.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.07.21258492v1" target="_blank">Evaluating the utility of high-resolution proximity metrics in predicting the spread of COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>CAR T-cell treatment remains clinically challenging. Therapeutic strategies may be designed to cut off immunotherapy utilizing safety switches</strong> -
<div>
CAR T-cell therapy still has clinical research problems. Suicide genes, combinatorial target-antigen recognition, synthetic Notch receptors, on-switch CARs, inhibitory CARs and armored CARs may all be engineered to turn off immunotherapy using safety switches. Combining CAR T-cell therapy with immunomodulatory medications such as ibrutinib, lenalidomide, or checkpoint inhibitors may extend the duration of therapeutic response. The effect of checkpoint inhibitors on infection risk is complicated and depends on pathogen, cell and organ-specific variables. The natural history of asymptomatic or moderately symptomatic COVID-19 infection is unknown, and further study is needed to evaluate if CAR T. Therapy should be postponed in individuals in severe need of possibly curative therapy. Several strategies should be used to address these research issues. These include registry studies, well-designed studies to identify infection risk factors and homogeneous populations.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/s7x4y/" target="_blank">CAR T-cell treatment remains clinically challenging. Therapeutic strategies may be designed to cut off immunotherapy utilizing safety switches</a>
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<li><strong>The epidemic of COVID-19 prompted widespread use of mRNA vaccinations</strong> -
<div>
COVID-19 challenge resulted in huge expenditure in mRNA-lipid-based nanoparticles (LNPs) manufacturing. Hundreds of billions are produced for human use. This is a significant shift, inconceivable only a year ago. If an LNP platform can traverse thick mucus in patients with respiratory difficulties (such as cystic fibrosis) or target extrahepatic tissues in the future, multi-billion-dose procedures are in place to serve a significant number of patients with unusual genetic diseases (&gt;100,000 individuals). Due to LNPs’ versatility in delivering genome editing components, a successful strategy might be easily scaled up and employed to successfully eliminate a rare disease with a single treatment. COVID-19 led to widespread usage of mRNA vaccines. For years, academic and industrial scientists have worked intensely to produce these technologies. Although not enough time to analyze the long-term effects of mRNA vaccines, phase III clinical studies of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines showed around 95 percent efficacy and outstanding safety profiles. The COVID-19 outbreak laid the stage for scaling and overcoming distribution limits that would otherwise have taken decades. RNA treatments and nanomedicine as a field will never be the same again, and will take center stage. The Enlightenment Age of the RNA nanotherapeutics sector is coming to an end, and the area is ready for a full-scale industrial revolution.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/jqws5/" target="_blank">The epidemic of COVID-19 prompted widespread use of mRNA vaccinations</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study of Allogeneic Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Treatment of COVID-19 Acute Respiratory Distress</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: COVI-MSC;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study to Evaluate a Single Intranasal Dose of STI-2099 (COVI-DROPS™) in Outpatient Adults With COVID-19 (US)</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Biological: COVI-DROPS;   Drug: Placebo<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ivermectin Treatment Efficacy in Covid-19 High Risk Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Ivermectin 0.4mg/kg/day for 5 days<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Clinical Research Centre, Malaysia<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>To Evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of TQ Formula in Covid-19 Participants</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Drug: Black Seed Oil Cap/Tab<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Novatek Pharmaceuticals<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study of Allogeneic Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells to Treat Post COVID-19 “Long Haul” Pulmonary Compromise</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: COVI-MSC<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc.<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Intramuscular VIR-7831 (Sotrovimab) for Mild/Moderate COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Biological: VIR-7831<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Vir Biotechnology, Inc.;   GlaxoSmithKline<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Collecting Respiratory Sound Samples From Corona Patients to Extend the Diagnostic Capability of VOQX Electronic Stethoscope to Diagnose COVID-19 Patients</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   COVID-19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Diagnostic Test: Electronic stethoscope<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Sanolla<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Burden of COVID-19 Survivorship</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Exercise Training<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Mayo Clinic<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Community-based Post-exposure Prophylaxis for COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Other: Guduchi Ghanvati;   Other: Standard guidelines<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   NMP Medical Research Institute;   Aarogyam UK;   Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Rajasthan Ayurved University;   Samta Ayurveda Prakoshtha, India;   Padmanabhama Ayurveda Hospital and Research Centre<br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Impact of Steroids on Inflammatory Response in Covid-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Dexamethasone;   Drug: Methylprednisolone<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Assiut University<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Vitamin A Supplementation in Children With Moderate to Severe Covid-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Dietary Supplement: Vitamin A supplement<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Shiraz University of Medical Sciences<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Coughed Droplets From Patients With COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Device: PneumoniaCheck<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Emory University;   Georgia Tech Foundation<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Glutamine Supplementation and Short-term Mortality in Covid-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Dietary Supplement: Standard enteral nutrition;   Combination Product: Glutamine<br/><b>Sponsor</b>:   Assiut University<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Favipiravir +/- Nitazoxanide: Early Antivirals Combination Therapy in COVID-19</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Interventions</b>:   Drug: Favipiravir;   Drug: Nitazoxanide;   Other: Nitazoxanide Placebo<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Coordinación de Investigación en Salud, Mexico;   University College, London;   Centro de Investigacion y Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politecnico Nacional (CINVESTAV);   Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara;   Siegfried Rhein S.A. de C.V.;   Strides Pharma Science Limited;   Hakken Enterprise<br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Epidemiologic Intelligence Network (EpI-Net) to Promote COVID-19 Testing</strong> - <b>Condition</b>:   Covid19<br/><b>Intervention</b>:   Other: Epi-Net Intervention<br/><b>Sponsors</b>:   Ponce Medical School Foundation, Inc.;   Duke University;   Harvard School of Public Health<br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A potential antiviral activity of Esculentoside A against binding interactions of SARS-COV-2 spike protein and angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2)</strong> - The recent emergence of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has resulted in a devastating pandemic with global concern. However, to date, there are no regimens to prevent and treat SARS-CoV-2 virus. There is an urgent need to identify novel leads with anti-viral properties that impede viral pathogenesis in the host system. Esculentoside A (EsA), a saponin isolated from the root of Phytolacca esculenta, is known to exhibit diverse pharmacological properties, especially anti-inflammatory activity….</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacy and safety of Dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) inhibitors “Leflunomide” and “Teriflunomide” in Covid-19: A narrative review</strong> - Dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) is rate-limiting enzyme in biosynthesis of pyrimidone which catalyzes the oxidation of dihydro-orotate to orotate. Orotate is utilized in the biosynthesis of uridine-monophosphate. DHODH inhibitors have shown promise as antiviral agent against Cytomegalovirus, Ebola, Influenza, Epstein Barr and Picornavirus. Anti-SARS-CoV-2 action of DHODH inhibitors are also coming up. In this review, we have reviewed the safety and efficacy of approved DHODH inhibitors…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Therapeutic targets of natural products for the management of cardiovascular symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019</strong> - The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first occurred in China in December 2019 and subsequently spread all over the world with cardiovascular, renal, and pulmonary symptoms. Therefore, recognizing and treating the cardiovascular sign and symptoms that caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can be effective in reducing patient mortality. To control the COVID-19-related cardiovascular symptoms, natural products are considered one of the promising…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SARS-CoV-2 Nonstructural Protein 1 Inhibits the Interferon Response by Causing Depletion of Key Host Signaling Factors</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. While previous studies have shown that several SARS-CoV-2 proteins can antagonize the interferon (IFN) response, some of the mechanisms by which they do so are not well understood. In this study, we describe two novel mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 blocks the IFN pathway. Type I IFNs and IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) were poorly induced during SARS-CoV-2…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mechanism of Inhibition of the Reproduction of SARS-CoV-2 and Ebola Viruses by Remdesivir</strong> - Remdesivir is an antiviral drug initially designed against the Ebola virus. The results obtained with it both in biochemical studies in vitro and in cell line assays in vivo were very promising, but it proved to be ineffective in clinical trials. Remdesivir exhibited far better efficacy when repurposed against SARS-CoV-2. The chemistry that accounts for this difference is the subject of this study. Here, we examine the hypothesis that remdesivir monophosphate (RMP)-containing RNA functions as a…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Punicalagin and zinc (II) ions inhibit the activity of SARS-CoV-2 3CL-protease in vitro</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that these compounds could be used as potential antiviral drugs against COVID-19.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>In Silico Evaluation of Cyclophilin Inhibitors as Potential Treatment for SARS-CoV-2</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Despite CsA’s promising antiviral characteristics, the interactions between cyclophilins and coagulation factors emphasize risk stratification for COVID patients with thrombosis dispositions.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Therapeutic Potential of Galectin-3 in the Treatment of Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma Patients and Those Compromised With COVID-19</strong> - The novel coronavirus pneumonia COVID-19 is characterized by all age susceptibility, which imposes a dramatic threat to the human species all over the world. According to current available data, the cytokine storm appears to be the most life-threatening symptom of severe COVID-19 cases accompanied with lung fibrosis. Galectin-3 (Gal-3), a member of soluble β-galactoside-binding lectin families, has been implicated as a key regulator in various inflammation conditions in addition to its…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Simple rapid in vitro screening method for SARS-CoV-2 anti-virals that identifies potential cytomorbidity-associated false positives</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: We describe the methodology for a simple in vitro drug screening assay that identifies potential anti-viral drugs via their ability to inhibit SARS-CoV-2-induced CPE. The additional growth assay illustrated how several drugs display anti-viral activity at concentrations that induce cytomorbidity. For instance, hydroxychloroquine showed anti-viral activity at concentrations that slow cell growth, arguing that its purported in vitro anti-viral activity arises from non-specific…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>N-(4-Hydroxyphenyl) retinamide suppresses SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-mediated cell-cell fusion by a dihydroceramide delta4-desaturase 1-independent mechanism</strong> - The membrane fusion between the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and host cells is essential for the initial step of infection; therefore, the host cell membrane components, including sphingolipids, influence the viral infection. We assessed several inhibitors of the enzymes pertaining to sphingolipid metabolism, against SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (S)-mediated cell-cell fusion and viral infection. N-(4-hydroxyphenyl) retinamide (4-HPR), an inhibitor of dihydroceramide…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Investigating the active compounds and mechanism of HuaShi XuanFei formula for prevention and treatment of COVID-19 based on network pharmacology and molecular docking analysis</strong> - Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has exerted positive effects in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. HuaShi XuanFei Formula (HSXFF) was developed to treat patients with mild and general COVID-19 in Zhejiang Province, China. The present study seeks to explore its potentially active compounds and pharmacological mechanisms against COVID-19 based on network pharmacology, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. All components of HSXFF were harvested from the pharmacology database…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Convalescent plasma therapy in patients with moderate-to-severe COVID-19: A study from Indonesia for clinical research in low- and middle-income countries</strong> - BACKGROUND: We explored the outcome of convalescent plasma (CP) treatment in patients with moderate and severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and investigated variables for the design of further trials in Indonesia.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is there any role of intermittent fasting in the prevention and improving clinical outcomes of COVID-19?: intersection between inflammation, mTOR pathway, autophagy and calorie restriction</strong> - The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is provoking a global public health crisis. Even though the academic world is intensively pursuing new therapies, there is still no “game changer” in the management of COVID 19. The Mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) is an ancient signaling system that has been proposed as a molecular tool used by coronaviruses and other RNA and DNA viruses in order to replicate and persist in the host cell. In recent years, Intermittent Fasting (IF), a practice…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Screening of world approved drugs against highly dynamical spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 using CaverDock and machine learning</strong> - The new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes pathological pulmonary symptoms. Most efforts to develop vaccines and drugs against this virus target the spike glycoprotein, particularly its S1 subunit, which is recognised by angiotensin-converting enzyme 2. Here we use the in-house developed tool CaverDock to perform virtual screening against spike glycoprotein using a cryogenic electron microscopy structure (PDB-ID: 6VXX) and the representative structures of five…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Alkaloids as Potential Phytochemicals against SARS-CoV-2: Approaches to the Associated Pivotal Mechanisms</strong> - Since its inception, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has infected millions of people around the world. Therefore, it is necessary to find effective treatments against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), as it is the viral source of COVID-19. Alkaloids are one of the most widespread plant-derived natural compounds with prominent antiviral effects. Accordingly, these phytochemicals have been promising candidates towards discovering effective treatments…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>폐마스크 밀봉 회수기</strong> - 본 발명은 마스크 착용 후 버려지는 일회용 폐마스크를 비닐봉지에 넣은 후 밀봉하여 배출함으로써, 2차 감염을 예방하고 일반 생활폐기물과 선별 분리 배출하여 환경오염을 방지하는 데 그 목적이 있다. - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=KR325788342">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>COST EFFECTIVE PORTABLE OXYGEN CONCENTRATOR FOR COVID-19</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU324964715">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>METHOD OF IDENTIFYING SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME CORONA VIRUS 2 (SARS-COV-2) RIBONUCLEIC ACID (RNA)</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU323956811">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>IMPROVEMENTS RELATED TO PARTICLE, INCLUDING SARS-CoV-2, DETECTION AND METHODS THEREFOR</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU323295937">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>DEEP LEARNING BASED SYSTEM FOR DETECTION OF COVID-19 DISEASE OF PATIENT AT INFECTION RISK</strong> - The present invention relates to Deep learning based system for detection of covid-19 disease of patient at infection risk. The objective of the present invention is to solve the problems in the prior art related to technologies of detection of covid-19 disease using CT scan image processing. - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=IN324122821">link</a></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Wiederverwendbare Maske</strong> -
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
</p><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Wiederverwendbare Maske, mit einem Maskenkörper (100), einem Fixierband (300) zum Befestigen des Maskenkörpers (100) an einem menschlichen Gesicht, einer auswechselbaren Schicht (200), die zwischen dem menschlichen Gesicht und dem Maskenkörper (100) angeordnet ist, und einem Fixierteil (400) zum Fixieren der auswechselbaren Schicht auf dem Maskenkörper (100).</p></li>
</ul>
<img alt="embedded image" id="EMI-D00000"/>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=DE325736702">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A COMPREHENSIVE DISINFECTION SYSTEM DURING PANDEMIC FOR PERSONAL ITEMS AND PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT (PPE) TO SAFEGUARD PEOPLE</strong> - 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 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=IN322882412">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING SYSTEM FOR MENTAL HEALTH MONITORING OF PERSON DURING THE PANDEMIC OF COVID-19</strong> - - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=AU323295498">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>一种预判重症新冠肺炎（COVID-19）的标志物及其产品和用途</strong> - 本发明提供了一种预判重症疾病的标志物，所述的预判重症疾病的标志物为S100A12，序列为SEQ ID NO.1，所述的重症疾病为重症新冠肺炎、重症感染中的一种。S100A12基因作为标志物，在预判重症疾病时对全血中的S100A12基因的表达水平进行检测即可，无需对白细胞进行分离，简化检测流程。S100A12的表达水平可以指导感染类疾病包括新冠肺炎重症的预判，从而及早施治，降低病死率，具有很好的临床应用前景。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN325296031">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>一种新型冠状病毒COVID-19-S1蛋白的表达和纯化方法</strong> - 本发明属于生物技术领域，具体涉及一种新型冠状病毒COVID‑19‑S1蛋白的表达和纯化方法。本发明提供的方法，主要包括构建COVID‑19‑S1蛋白表达质粒、将COVID‑19‑S1蛋白表达质粒转化、培养表达COVID‑19‑S1蛋白、纯化COVID‑19‑S1蛋白等过程。本发明将能在293F细胞中高分泌表达蛋白的信号肽与Kozak区和编码人COVID‑19‑S1蛋白的基因进行重组，来提高目的蛋白的表达量和分泌量。采用本发明提供的方法，可以解决新型冠状病毒COVID‑19‑S1蛋白分泌量低、纯度低的问题，为免疫学快速诊断、制备单抗、开展解析蛋白结构研究等提供物质基础。 - <a href="https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=CN325375143">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Netanyahu’s Likely Departure Is Not Easing the Fears of Palestinians</strong> - Attacks by settlers in the West Bank have been on the rise for years—and a new Israeli government is no guarantee of change. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/netanyahus-likely-departure-is-not-easing-the-fears-of-palestinians">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is There Any Time Left for Maya Wiley?</strong> - The former City Hall lawyer, who has received the endorsement of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, considers herself the last progressive standing in New York’s mayoral race. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-local-correspondents/is-there-any-time-left-for-maya-wiley">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Importance of Teaching Dred Scott</strong> - By limiting discussion of the infamous Supreme Court decision, law-school professors risk minimizing the role of racism in American history. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-importance-of-teaching-dred-scott">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Other Side of the River, Revisited</strong> - Police in a Michigan resort town have reopened the case of a Black teen’s mysterious death. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-other-side-of-the-river-revisited">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The New Yorker Wins Six National Magazine Awards</strong> - The 2021 ceremony recognized the magazine’s coverage of the pandemic and the political upheaval of the past year. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-new-yorker-wins-six-national-magazine-awards">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Is there an uncontroversial way to teach America’s racist history?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Nt4-yrUKZlf_fjfxKO5Bmplz_2Q=/333x0:3000x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69438904/GettyImages_514678142_copy.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A second grade teacher and her students pledge allegiance to the flag circa 1970. | Bettmann Archive via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A historian on the unavoidable discomfort around anti-racist education.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0M3XrT">
If you follow politics at all, you’ve likely encountered phrases and terms such as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/05/29/critical-race-theory-bans-schools/">critical race theory</a>” or “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-race-and-ethnicity-science-coronavirus-pandemic-health-bdff6225b933e47997291cd6fe7e87a5">anti-racism</a>” recently.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="950a0p">
There’s a debate raging over the history and legacy of American racism and how to teach it in schools. The current iteration of this debate (and there have been many) stretches back to 2019, when the New York Times published <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html">the 1619 Project</a>, but it evolved into a kind of moral panic in the post-Trump universe, in part because it’s great fodder for <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/parents-critical-race-theory-schools-david-mcintosh">right-wing media</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rGSEJP">
The hysteria over critical race theory, or CRT, has now spilled beyond the confines of Twitter and Fox News. As I explored <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22311009/cancel-culture-republicans-wokeness-free-speech">back in March</a>, conservative state legislatures across the country are seeking to ban CRT from being taught in public schools.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ySHFim">
There are lots of angles into this story, and frankly, much of the discourse around it is counterproductive. The main issue is that it’s not clear what these concepts mean, as tends to happen when ideas (<a href="https://www.vox.com/features/2019/11/11/18273141/postmodernism-donald-trump-lyotard-baudrillard">à la postmodernism</a>) escape the confines of academia and enter the political and cultural discourse.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qO28QU">
Conservatives have appropriated critical race theory as a convenient catchall to describe basically any serious attempt to teach the history of race and racism. It’s now a prop in the never-ending culture war, where caricature and bad faith can muddy the waters. But the intensity of the debate speaks to a very real and difficult question: What’s the best and most productive way to teach the history of racism?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rrHpS3">
A few weeks ago, I read an essay <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/whats-missing-from-the-discourse-about-anti-racist-teaching/618947/">in the Atlantic</a> by Jarvis R. Givens, a professor of education at Harvard University and the author of <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780674983687"><em>Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching</em></a>. Givens studies the history of Black education in America, focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SkfUGN">
His essay is mostly about the blind spots in the public discourse around race and education. But in it, he raises a point that seems overlooked: The uproar over CRT isn’t about anti-racist education itself — Black educators in Black schools have practiced that for more than a century. Rather, it’s about the form anti-racism takes in classrooms with white students. Teaching this history to Black students comes with its own complications, but we’re having this discussion because white parents are protesting and entire news outlets are obsessed with it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nNjAum">
So, I reached out to Givens to talk about why this conversation is so hard, how he responds to some of the criticisms of CRT, why he thinks it’s crucial to not get stuck with a single narrative of Black suffering, and why an honest attempt to teach the history of race in America is going to create a lot of unavoidable discomfort.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o8yxZO">
A transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
</p>
<h4 id="FB65nV">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8LtDrM">
The term “anti-racism” has become so muddled that a lot of people probably have no idea what it means. How are you using it?
</p>
<h4 id="umlYBg">
Jarvis R. Givens
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tUXFSX">
It’s about teaching the history of racial inequality and the history of racism, to understand that it’s about more than individual acts of racism.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8KvORp">
The idea is that students — and educators — should have a deep awareness of how racist ideas and practices have been fundamental in shaping our modern world. Students need to be able to have these discussions honestly so that new generations of students aren’t just aware of this history, but can also acknowledge and comprehend how our actions can disrupt those historical patterns or reinforce them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vkOwuG">
But one thing I tried to do <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/whats-missing-from-the-discourse-about-anti-racist-teaching/618947/">in my piece</a> was remind people that anti-racist teaching isn’t new. We’ve been talking about it in public as though it’s this novel thing, and perhaps it’s because so much of this discussion is about how to teach white students, but for well over a century, Black teachers have been modeling an anti-racist disposition in their pedagogical practices. They recognized how the dreams of their students were at odds with the structural context in which they found themselves. And they had to offer their students ways of thinking about themselves that were life-affirming, despite a society that was physically organized in a way that explicitly told them they were subhuman.
</p>
<h4 id="7GYsAm">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vRfHvx">
I don’t want to pass over what you just said about teaching white students, because that does seem to be what this is really about, and you can see it in the debate over “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/24/21451220/critical-race-theory-diversity-training-trump">critical race theory</a>.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vYUkfn">
You gestured at the criticism I hear the most: that CRT (and, I guess by extension, “anti-racism” education) is built on an assumption that the study of racism has to be anchored to a commitment to undoing the power structure, which is seen as a product of white supremacy. To the extent that’s true, the complaint is that it’s not really an academic discipline or an approach to education — it’s a political ideology.
</p>
<h4 id="UzHB0Y">
Jarvis R. Givens
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0TgIxm">
I hear what you’re saying, and I’m not going to argue that there are no clear political commitments on the part of those scholars who gave us CRT. One thing I’d be interested to hear, however, is an alternative approach to teaching the history of America, or the history of anything, quite frankly, that doesn’t have an embedded set of political commitments.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HzPrUs">
Any approach to framing history is going to have some political commitments baked into the narrative. The choices we make about what to highlight or omit, all of that reflects certain values and biases. It’s just that we often take these for granted when it’s the “preferred” or “dominant” history.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vij6Wf">
In the end, I don’t see how you can completely remove politics from the work of education or the production of history. I don’t think it’s ever fully possible, and that’s something that isn’t usually acknowledged in these conversations.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="XEefqI">
<q>“Unfortunately, we haven’t had the courage to teach our history honestly”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<h4 id="w9ou2t">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PZ1jY2">
From your perspective, what’s missing from the current discourse around anti-racism education?
</p>
<h4 id="ntLtg0">
Jarvis R. Givens
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5kGPGu">
The best educational models can teach us to recognize injustices, and they can cultivate a commitment to resisting those things, but equally important — and this is something Black educators have done for a long time in their own communities — is modeling other ways of being in the world, other ways of being in relationship to the world.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eHKLdW">
If you’re striving to create more justice in the world, you can’t do that if you’re only focusing on the things you’re trying to negate. You can’t just be “anti” whatever. You have to have some life-affirming vision that you can hold on to, a vision that’s more meaningful and points us in the direction of a better world. You have to teach people not just to resist injustice but to transcend it. This is what the Black educational models I’ve studied have always done, and it’s lost in so much of the debate about anti-racism and CRT today.
</p>
<h4 id="RYlINu">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5bI3DP">
Why is it so important to move beyond the “anti”?
</p>
<h4 id="gPHZDj">
Jarvis R. Givens
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rAwxRn">
I think it’s important because I don’t want to be stuck with this narrative of Black people as frail and suffering and nothing else. If that’s the image that’s necessary to advance some agenda, we need to rethink some things. I’m not interested in painting this picture of Black folks as only living lives in suffering. If our strategy for seeking justice relies on this image of black folks as damaged and down and out, well, it just falls into a lot of old tropes that we have to be wary of.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Qbtv7i">
Absolutely, there’s injustice. This is a part of the story, part of our story, but Black life is much more expansive than that. It always has been. And so many of our efforts to demand justice have relied on painting an image of Black people as damaged and deficient, and I’m always interested in trying to resist that, and to expand the aperture for how we have these conversations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VNKpFU">
Our strategy can’t be just about proving injury. At the same time, the public has to stop denying that harm and violence has been and continues to be done. Both of these things are challenges before us.
</p>
<h4 id="H9vipQ">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iDucuW">
Take an enormous concept like “structural racism,” which is a catchall to describe how contemporary inequalities have their roots in history and institutions. On the one hand, that’s just obviously true. But at the same time — and I think you share this instinct — we don’t want to reduce people to historical props with no agency, and we don’t want to define any oppressed group by the actions of their oppressors.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5kJ2UZ">
So, how do you walk that line as an educator?
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gsQP-6R4VQyM0_92l-7eqnnjrBI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22645691/Givens_jkt_front.jpg"/> <cite>Harvard University Press</cite>
</figure>
</div>
<h4 id="GSMpWX">
Jarvis R. Givens
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WCbRNH">
Yeah, it’s about taking both structure and agency seriously.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iSvyAF">
This is one of the things I tried to get at <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780674983687">in my book</a>. I was interested in writing against the dominant narrative that we tend to have about Black life and education prior to <em>Brown v. Board. A</em>nd this is not to diminish the significance of <em>Brown v. Board of Education</em>, but I was interested in thinking outside of the single narrative we’ve inherited: that <em>Brown</em> was necessary because Black people only had schools that were falling apart, with outdated secondhand textbooks, [because] the self-image of Black children was damaged and Black folks had no power.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="55U10P">
All of this was baked into the Jim Crow school structure, this racially divided school structure. Proving this, and demonstrating the inherent inequality of Jim Crow, was necessary to achieve the <em>Brown</em> decision.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SnA95U">
But to take that as the total narrative of Black educational life is a mistake. Having studied the history, it’s hard for me to paint the story in such a broad stroke. This concern, for me, began with the story of Black teachers that were writing textbooks that challenged the distorted representation of Black life in the dominant curriculum. You have all of these organizations that were created to advocate on behalf of Black educators and students. You have people like Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis and Angela Davis, who are the products of these schools and the teaching within them. There was still more to that story than just the narrative of aggressive neglect, of Black schools being starved of resources.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JHGXjY">
This is all to say, we can hold both things in our minds. We can talk about the violent resistance against Black educational strivings and the intentional underdevelopment of African American schools, but we also have to rigorously account for the things Black folks were doing on a daily basis to make meaningful education possible despite the neglect. And I think that’s necessary if we are to appreciate the suffering and the beauty of Black people’s experience in education, if we are to account for their human striving across generations.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gYvNAh">
It’s liberating, as a student of history, to realize that so much of it is manufactured. This is essential not just for those of us who write history, but also those of us who are consumers of it. We have to know that the histories presented to us consist of narratives based on decisions people made to represent some aspect of the past. It’s all distortion in some way. It’s important to know that our narratives and origin stories about the past … well, we create them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TlWCQO">
One of the best things my high school US history teacher did for me was help me understand that no history is an exhaustive representation of anything. She made me aware of silences. When you allow students to have the agency of knowing that history is not always as authoritative as we tend to imagine, it actually invites them to establish a deeper intellectual relationship with the past. It allows us to think about why certain scholars might have chosen to represent certain aspects of the past in the ways that they did.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="pfCYI3">
<q>“I’m not interested in painting this picture of Black folks as only living lives in suffering”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<h4 id="lZeoqE">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2BGPon">
So much of your work focuses on anti-racist education during the Jim Crow era, but we live in a different world today — a flawed world but undoubtedly a better world. How should anti-racist teaching evolve to meet the realities of this moment?
</p>
<h4 id="FRlFXw">
Jarvis R. Givens
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ukb4Ku">
This is actually getting at another element that I think is important: A lot of the conversations around anti-racist teaching are directed at white teachers and white students, without actually being named as such. This is obviously very different than talking about how Black educators engaged Black students in the Jim Crow South, or even my own experience growing up in Compton, California, where I attended majority-Black schools with mostly Black teachers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XuaJIV">
I’m not going to offer any prescriptive elements about what it means to try and do this work. But I’ll go out on a limb and say this: A fundamental part of being a critical educator, an educator committed to justice and equality, means being committed to reckoning with the history of racial injustice and trying to teach students in a way that supports the development of a critical awareness of that past, which includes acknowledging how that past continues to structure the ways in which we’re in relationship with one another in the present. It means recognizing that many of the institutions we have inherited have very long roots in this history.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oFXT32">
There’s a moral imperative for all teachers who choose to face those realities of history and own it in the present. Being an anti-racist teacher in this moment means to honor the depth of human suffering reflected in that history by telling the truth about it. But then again, that’s what anti-racist teaching has always demanded of those educators who chose to teach in a manner that was disruptive to the racial inequality in our society. You can’t look away from it because it’s in every direction you turn.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HcgUyN">
I do recognize that learning the truth about our histories as different racial groups, and as a country, can be difficult. There’s going to be some level of discomfort, and we have to be real about that. Confronting the history of slavery and Jim Crow has always been difficult for Black people, those who lived through it and their progeny. We don’t experience our ancestors’ suffering in full, but the marks are still there.
</p>
<h4 id="7CIQ8Z">
Sean Illing
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tH94nV">
“Discomfort” is probably key here. And in that spirit of keeping it real, let’s just say it: There are a lot of white people in this country, especially white parents, who see all the scary headlines about CRT and <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/19/20812238/1619-project-slavery-conservatives">the 1619 Project</a>, and they don’t like it. They see “anti-racism” as “anti-white” and it’s … uncomfortable. I don’t know how to teach the truth about America’s past in such a politically fraught environment, but it’s something we’re going to have to figure it out in real time, and it’s going to be messy.
</p>
<h4 id="Pumi5H">
Jarvis R. Givens
</h4>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6ioe2u">
To be honest, I don’t really have an answer, because unfortunately, we haven’t had the courage to teach our history honestly. We just haven’t tried it. What we’ve always had instead is a lot of resistance to talking about our past beyond a surface level.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GB0kko">
But one thing I do know is that there are some people in this country who never had the luxury of not facing this stuff. And they’ve always encountered a lot of discomfort. It’s not comfortable for Black folks or Native American communities to think about the history of land dispossession or slavery or Jim Crow or lynchings, and how the legacy of these things persist today.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h5UwTC">
I guess what I’m saying is that certain folks never had the luxury of being comfortable. So now we’re at a place where we’re trying to figure out how to be more intentional in acknowledging our history and its consequences, and that means that discomfort is going to have to be shared in a way it hasn’t been up to this point.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="alKauV">
And if we’re going to talk about how to unify the country, the onus can’t just be on the people who are the descendants of enslaved Black people and displaced Native communities, whose forced labor and stolen land were the primary factors of production in building this country. This is something we all have to encounter, and it’s going to be discomforting for everyone.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Wall Street isn’t to blame for the chaotic housing market</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="The New York Stock Exchange building is photographed on April 20, 2020 in New York City." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6KXA3OS2kKsAmXxUwQTkhfiOLeQ=/0x0:2667x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69438841/GettyImages_1210464730_copy.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
The idea that institutional investors are largely to blame for the current housing market catastrophe obscures the real problem. | Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/VIEWpress via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The boogeyman isn’t who you want it to be.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bYVSnd">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vk238Z">
There has to be somebody to blame.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QRpHM3">
Housing prices have yanked the dream of homeownership out of the desperate, clutching hands of millions. Countless tenants don’t even have that dream, chafing under the increasing rent burdens they are forced to bear. And to top it all off, the rich just keep getting richer: The stock market is booming, homeowners have accumulated more than $1.5 trillion in equity since the Covid-19 recession began, and personal savings are up for most higher-income households.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wJkL2T">
Enter, stage right: Wall Street.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hkLfb4">
Some people are furious over reports that institutional investors (often private equity firms) are increasing the demand for homes and pushing prices upward. The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-you-sell-a-house-these-days-the-buyer-might-be-a-pension-fund-11617544801">wrote</a> earlier this year that “yield-chasing investors are snapping up single-family houses” and “competing with ordinary Americans.” Marketplace <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2021/04/13/institutional-investors-are-stiff-competition-homebuyers/">reported</a> the same, noting one buyer had been outbid six times by all-cash offers. Inman <a href="https://www.inman.com/2021/04/13/inventory-insanity-the-secret-economic-forces-fueling-the-housing-shortage/">writes</a> that consumers are “increasingly competing against institutional investors.” And the Real Deal goes <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516588&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Ftherealdeal.com%2Fnational%2F2021%2F04%2F13%2Finstitutional-investors-higher-material-costs-lead-to-rising-home-prices%2F&amp;referrer=vox.com&amp;sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F22524829%2Fwall-street-housing-market-blackrock-bubble" rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" target="_blank">further</a>, claiming that one of the “main reasons for the skyrocketing prices are actually a huge buying spree from institutional investors.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="57hYWI">
<a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402434266970140676">A recent Twitter thread</a> blaming BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, for buying “every single family house they can find … and outbidding normal home buyers” went viral, prompting even J.D. Vance, the <em>Hillbilly Elegy</em> author making a play for an Ohio US Senate seat, to accuse “The Left” of ignoring the situation because of BlackRock’s corporate diversity initiatives.
</p>
<div id="EsklAc">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
Blackrock is pursuing an investment strategy that will make it harder for young Americans to own homes. The Left will ignore this, because Blackrock has committed to “racial audits” and other diversity BS. <a href="https://t.co/lgtb3xSlO9">https://t.co/lgtb3xSlO9</a>
</p>
— J.D. Vance (<span class="citation" data-cites="JDVance1">@JDVance1</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance1/status/1402608156254117894?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2021</a>
</blockquote></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="07p9xK">
It’s important to understand that institutional investors play a small role in the American housing market. While there are <a href="https://www.greystar.com/">big firms</a> for apartments and other multi-family housing units, there traditionally hasn’t been the same level of investment in single-family homes.<strong> </strong>Yield-chasing investors have turned to the real estate market because it has become a very profitable place to put your money. And the main reason it has become so profitable is the preexisting housing shortage created by local governments and certain homeowners seeking to block new homes from being built, <a href="http://www.freddiemac.com/research/insight/20210507_housing_supply.page#:~:text=Future%20outlook%3A%20shortage%20to%20continue,to%203.8%20million%20in%202020.">leading to a nearly 4 million home shortage nationwide</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XKWwcH">
Investors go where the yield is. They<strong> </strong>are profit maximizers and face strong pressure to return large gains to shareholders. Want to stop them? Build more homes, ensure that they cannot have a large market share and engage in predatory behavior, and reduce the incentive for yield chasers to further commodify the market.
</p>
<div id="SGwUUe">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
Oh for sure, but the largest investor isn’t Blackrock. It’s American homeowners. And they already have exactly the same incentive. <a href="https://t.co/1VxpZyyKf9">https://t.co/1VxpZyyKf9</a>
</p>
— Jake Anbinder (<span class="citation" data-cites="JakeAnbinder">@JakeAnbinder</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/JakeAnbinder/status/1403056027491262475?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0AgqPg">
There are still reasons to be concerned. Institutional investors might flip homes and price out some would-be homebuyers, and they might be markedly worse landlords. And private equity has earned its bad name in many cases: <a href="https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WP_2019122.pdf">increasing the likelihood of layoffs </a>when these firms acquire companies, having <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/9/21003480/stop-surprise-medical-bills-legislation">shady connections to springing surprise medical bills</a> on people. And there are worries about what might happen if institutional investors are able to gain significant control of local housing markets — like raising rents above the market rate.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2diRDV">
However, the idea that institutional investors are somehow largely to blame for the current housing market catastrophe is wrong and obscures the real problem. Housing prices have been skyrocketing <a href="https://www.vox.com/22264268/covid-19-housing-insecurity-housing-prices-mortgage-rates-pandemic-zoning-supply-demand">due to historically low supply, low mortgage rates, and the largest generation in American history entering the market looking for starter homes</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="PchIFi">
The birth of the single-family-home institutional investor
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CqtoEj">
After the Great Recession, millions of foreclosed homes hit the market as the economy cratered. Investors stepped in to buy these properties as prices bottomed out and a new industry was born: the institutional single-family-home investor/landlord.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RYRt79">
In many ways, this was a much-needed source of demand for a sector of the economy in crisis. Investors were the only ones buying up these homes, and <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2015/files/2015084pap.pdf">according to research by the Federal Reserve</a>, their entry into the market “appears to have supported house prices in the areas where it is concentrated.” Meaning it may have helped stabilize certain housing markets, as very few people were in the position to buy homes as the financial crisis took hold.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K6PutY">
Institutional investors<strong> </strong>“grew up in 2010-2013 buying distressed properties that no one else would buy and in fact put a floor on the market, so they provided a very, very valuable service and they basically cleaned up the distressed market, a lot of which required repairs,” Laurie Goodman, vice president for housing finance policy at the Urban Institute, explained.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="en1PXX">
But as the dust settled, some people were outraged as they saw homes in their neighborhoods that once were owned by middle-income families flipped for a profit or turned permanently into single-family rentals.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ohihRO">
In a New York Times Magazine article last year, Francesca Mari <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/magazine/wall-street-landlords.html">documented</a> the egregious harms perpetrated by these landlords on struggling Americans. One man’s house was sold to a private equity firm, which forced their tenant to take on responsibilities usually reserved to the homeowner like “mold remediation, landscaping, [and] carbon-monoxide detectors.” Another woman’s rental home was infested with rats and cockroaches. Many more stories abound about countless fees and the threat of dealing with a giant entity with whom the renter inherently has a large asymmetry of power and information.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ISyHzT">
Mari attributes the problems with “this new breed of private-equity landlords” to their burning desire to return double-digit returns for their shareholders. It’s an incentive that’s led to patterns like exorbitant fees and onerous requirements in leases — and one that smaller investors and mom-and-pop landlords wouldn’t feel.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ADX4NZ">
However, that doesn’t mean that small landlords are necessarily better or less exploitative than large investors. A 2017 New York Times article <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/realestate/the-life-of-a-small-time-landlord.html">notes</a> that “some smaller landlords do not fully understand tenant laws, or simply flout them. Rent from a mom-and-pop landlord, and you might get a handshake lease, an informal arrangement that could give you flexibility, or leave you both in a tenuous position.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cuOxMS">
But pre-Covid-19 research shows that institutional investors were still very small players. Mari <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/magazine/wall-street-landlords.html">reported</a> that by 2016, private equity firms had acquired more than 200,000 homes — a fraction of the total number in America. A 2018 <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v8y2018i4p93-d171162.html">research paper</a> notes that these investors “account for less than 1 percent of all single-family housing units across the U.S.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v1CDZC">
But as prices have exploded over the past year, could it be that institutional investors have become a much larger player?
</p>
<h3 id="xRh3F3">
Institutional investors are still a very small share of the American housing market
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rjZG7A">
Many of the articles claiming that institutional investors are driving up single-family home prices and are competing with average homebuyers rely on research by John Burns Real Estate Consulting. One even claimed that<strong> </strong>investors are “a main cause” for the hot market, which is not what the John Burns research details. In fact, the report explicitly states that the US is “not in an investor-induced home price bubble today.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ykL1io">
The report found that the share of total home sales that come from investor purchases has actually declined over the past year. And even at its peak in 2013 (when regular sales had bottomed out due to the recession), it only reached 29 percent of total sales. Last year, the firm estimates that investors make up about 20 percent of housing sales.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9MaTiP">
Importantly, that number is not just the share of institutional investors but anyone who isn’t just buying a house for their own primary residence — that includes people buying second homes or vacation rentals, mom-and-pop landlords, and small investors flipping homes for profit. <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2021/04/13/institutional-investors-are-stiff-competition-homebuyers/">According to Marketplace</a>, it could also include so-called iBuyers, investors who “make instant cash offers on homes and sell them soon after.” And, yes, it could also include firms like BlackRock.<strong> </strong>John Burns<strong> </strong>looked at houses where the property tax records are going to a different address than the home itself, and Rick Palacios, director of research at the firm, explained that it’s not possible to tell from this data what component of these sales comes directly from institutional investors.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZKjOFs">
There’s a lot of existing research that indicates institutional investors are a very small share of the investor pool. Goodman cited research released earlier this year that found that institutional operators owned just 300,000 single-family units in 2019. For context, the researchers point out that there are roughly 15 million one-unit detached single-family rental homes. (There are <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1072414/number-of-detached-single-family-homes-north-america-timeline/">roughly 80 million detached single-family homes total in the US</a>.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CW8h03">
A 2015 <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2015/files/2015084pap.pdf">study</a> found that large investors made up just 1 to 2 percent of all single-family purchases from 2012 to 2014 while other investors made up 18 to 19 percent. They also found that institutional investors are more likely to purchase homes in neighborhoods “where fewer residents can qualify for a mortgage,” which decreases the likelihood that they are competing with regular homebuyers. <a href="https://www.corelogic.com/blog/2019/06/special-report-investor-home-buying.aspx">Research by CoreLogic</a> not only had similar findings, but wrote that they couldn’t conclude that investors were competing with regular homebuyers: “Possible investors are filling a void in markets where there is less owner-occupier demand.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qRRW41">
It’s possible that this trend has changed over the past couple of years, or that it could change in the coming years, as institutional investors look at the gangbusters housing market and decide to get more involved. But at least right now, these appear to be very small players.
</p>
<div>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vTi87nODzx0rm6fjf4uURvP4J9Y=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22647043/Screen_Shot_2021_06_09_at_4.07.25_AM.png"/> <cite>John Burns Real Estate Consulting, LLC</cite>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z9nHqi">
Redfin’s <a href="https://www.redfin.com/news/second-home-demand-doubles/">data</a> shows that buyer demand for second homes increased nearly 178 percent from April 2020 to April 2021. (April 2020 was the demand bottom, but as you can see from the graph below, second home demand has well-exceeded pre-recession demand.) It’s possible that a good number of these investor purchases come from second-home buyers.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/TbV1kbDM0ZKk5SXduYnCA1aKZaU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22647041/Screen_Shot_2021_06_09_at_3.57.11_AM.png"/> <cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://www.redfin.com/news/second-home-demand-doubles/" target="_blank">Redfin</a></cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QQkuPH">
However, looking closely at certain sub-markets, John Burns did find <em>very</em> elevated investor activity. In Naples, Florida, the group found investor sales have risen 57 percent year over year. In Fort Walton, Florida, these sales rose 65 percent; and in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Punta Gorda, Florida, there were increases of 50 percent and above in investor sales. Again, this does not necessarily mean institutional investors.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o0tbLn">
Marketplace’s lead anecdote in a story titled “Institutional investors are still competition for homebuyers” is about a first-time buyer who bid on six houses and was outbid by all-cash offers. But all cash doesn’t necessarily mean institutional investors. With mortgage rates at record lows,<a href="https://www.redfin.com/news/all-cash-home-purchases-smallest-share-since-2007/"> some people are using all-cash offers to win bidding wars</a>, which have exploded in frequency over the past year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s030wj">
“Cash purchases in Florida are mostly from people who are relocating here from other states to purchase a second home or a retirement property,” said Tampa Redfin agent Wendy Peterson in a <a href="https://www.redfin.com/news/all-cash-home-purchases-smallest-share-since-2007/">Redfin press release</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NiHe6m">
Goodman explains that, traditionally, institutional investors haven’t competed with regular people trying to buy homes because their best investment is to buy a home that needs significant repairs that would be “very hard for an owner occupant to do.” That works for large firms because they can achieve economies of scale by hiring in-house construction and repair workers or bidding down the price by offering stable work to contractors for multiple homes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UaB0lo">
“When an institutional investor needs [$20,000] or $30,000 in repairs, it would cost you or I [$40,000] to $50,000 to do the same repairs if we knew what needed to be done,” Goodman added. “Additionally, it’s really hard for a homeowner to finance those repairs. … That is where the real comparative advantage is, and those are really the homes that they do well and specialize in.” In general, these aren’t homes that homeowners are looking to buy; institutional investors are actually competing with other types of investors, like regular people who make a living flipping properties.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nEgL1t">
In a market this competitive, it’s certainly reasonable that investors may be competing with people willing to buy homes they would usually balk at due to repairs. But that simply prompts the question: Why is the housing market so competitive? (More on this later.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dXUJZ7">
There are reports of institutional investors sizing up, but even with these new acquisitions, they are still a very small part of the market. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-01/invesco-backs-mynd-to-spend-5-billion-on-single-family-rentals?sref=MabTy6na">According to Bloomberg</a>, Invesco Real Estate is backing Mynd Management to spend up to $5 billion in order to buy 20,000 single-family rental homes in the US in the next three years. Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-28/psp-teams-with-pretium-on-700-million-single-family-rental-bet">also reported</a> that another fund (one that manages Canadian pensions) is investing $700 million into single-family rentals. Business Insider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/investors-corporations-buy-houses-single-family-homes-redfin-2021-5">reported</a> on Redfin data showing investors spent a record $77 billion on home purchases in the last two quarters of 2020 — this amounted to just 55,000 total homes and 39,000 single-family homes. Additionally, this included other types of investors that are not buying these homes to rent but are buying them to fix up and sell.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FYQkrx">
The fundamentals of low supply of houses, low mortgage rates, and the entry of millions of millennials into the housing market armed with higher personal savings help explain most of why the housing market has careened out of control over the past year. <a href="https://www.rentalhomecouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SFR-Get-the-Facts.pdf">According to the National Rental Home Council</a>, a single-family home rental lobbying group, “single-family rental home companies accounted for less than 0.14 percent of homes purchased” and just 0.09 percent of<strong> </strong>net homes if you count the fact that many single-family rental investors sold homes as well.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZRzKnZmBX4ezTXzor1ApW-jsebk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22650117/Screen_Shot_2021_06_10_at_10.40.08_AM.png"/> <cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://www.rentalhomecouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SFR-Get-the-Facts.pdf" target="_blank">National Rental Home Council</a></cite>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gkjVlK">
But these fundamentals also are why institutional investors are likely to continue to enter these markets. They indicate that prices will continue to appreciate for the foreseeable future (if at a less drastic rate than the past year has delivered). That has spurred <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/built-to-rent-suburbs-are-poised-to-spread-across-the-u-s-11623075610">the existence of the “built to rent” market</a>. Instead of simply buying up existing homes, institutional investors are building them so that they can rent them out directly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rRjB9w">
Even though they aren’t to blame for the current housing market calamities, it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t happen in the future.
</p>
<h3 id="CcolLZ">
The good, the bad, and the uncertain about institutional investors
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="adAhdR">
The good: Institutional investors could provide a permanent floor to the US housing market, ensuring that there will always be some demand to hold up the critical industry from complete collapse.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nMPjHV">
“When the market slows down and there is a recession, housing is super cyclical and [institutional investors] will come in and be buyers throughout that,” Palacios told Vox. “They will, in our view, help support and help put a floor on home prices. If you’re a homeowner, you may in the next recession say, ‘I’m actually thankful for these groups. The entire economy suffers immensely when home prices bottom out. So if we now have institutional industry that will soften that blow, I think that is a good thing.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QjVtbS">
<a href="https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/institutional-investors-brought-higher-home-prices-and-lower-vacancies-housing-recovery">According to Lauren Lambie-Hanson</a>, a researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 28 percent of the house price recovery following the bottoming out during the Great Recession could be attributed to the role of institutional buyers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q0d4bq">
In some ways, <a href="https://twitter.com/LeftistConnor/status/1378798666203295744?s=20">it can be easier to regulate larger entities</a> — there are formal agreements and lawyers familiar with fair housing law and local tenant protections, and the government can audit hundreds of units en masse instead of trying to go small landlord by small landlord, which would be extremely inefficient.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MrpKGA">
Even if institutional investors are competing with homeowners for existing homes, that doesn’t mean they’re just taking a home off the market — it simply means they are converting it to a rental property. Since renters are on average less wealthy than mortgage-qualifying would-be homeowners, institutional investors might be creating more housing for lower-wealth Americans. Traditionally, there have been no single-family rentals in desirable neighborhoods, which has made it impossible for less well-off people to live in them. That could start to change.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GfocKb">
In the <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2015/files/2015084pap.pdf">aforementioned paper</a> by Amherst Holdings and the Fed, researchers found that while increases in institutional investor activity lead to higher house prices, they also lead to more rental units. They note it’s possible that institutional investors were just better at “picking neighborhoods that would have experienced larger price increases anyway.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5DL3b7">
<a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v8y2018i4p93-d171162.html">A 2018 research paper</a> that looked at the impact of single-family rental REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts, a.k.a. institutional investors) on Nashville, Tennessee,<strong> </strong>indicates that single-family rental investors tend to concentrate in “somewhat less diverse” communities where occupants had “higher levels of educational attainment…higher median household incomes, and lower poverty and unemployment rates.” That indicates that the housing stock that is being converted from owner-occupied to rental units is largely not coming from marginalized communities.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jA4Jol">
Lambie-Hanson has <a href="https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/institutional-investors-brought-higher-home-prices-and-lower-vacancies-housing-recovery">argued</a> that “there really isn’t any evidence in our research that institutional investors led to higher rents or greater eviction rates for our sample of counties tracked through the recovery.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CQ4qSQ">
The bad: Institutional investors’ incentive to profit and<strong> </strong>return as much as possible to shareholders is a reason to cut as many corners as possible. Stories like the one Mari outlines in her New York Times Magazine piece are chilling, and it’s clear that even if it might be easier to monitor larger entities, it’s not clear that anyone would actually do that. And in the absence of government watchdogs, tenants would face much larger asymmetries of power than they would with small landlords. An army of lawyers and bureaucracy, for instance, could make it more difficult for tenants who have complaints or are being serviced with unreasonable fees.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dY2ioq">
And if real estate prices continue to appreciate, that means the growing wealth will be concentrated in the hands of these corporations. If these homes were owner-occupied, they would be concentrated in the hands of homeowners. In a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/06/nation-is-facing-housing-crisis-private-equity-firms-just-see-dollar-signs/">Washington Post op-ed</a> last year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Carroll Fife, the director of a California-based housing nonprofit, argued that allowing another “private equity real estate grab… would again give Wall Street carte blanche to use a national crisis to enact a massive, generational transfer of wealth from vulnerable Americans to corporations.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oWM6ID">
There is also the concern that since these single-family rentals are concentrated in certain markets, institutional investors could gain market power and raise rents as they face diminishing competition from other landlords.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TIReOX">
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Conor Sen told me he worries that “if [institutional investors] are seeing this like Amazon in 2005, and years from now they want to be 100 times bigger, I don’t think that’s something a lot of Americans would want — for there to be very few entry-level single-family homes to buy and there are only opportunities to rent.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BuEbSe">
The unclear: How will this all affect the housing market, homeownership, and the need for housing abundance?
</p>
<aside id="yN66K4">
<div>
</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z3ACkQ">
A lot of this discussion is happening because people <a href="https://www.cp-dr.com/articles/the-phony-debate-over-wall-street-and-homeownership">don’t want to address the core reason the housing market is currently out of control</a>: the marked undersupply of housing, which has made real estate such a compelling investment. Combating potential oligopolies, asymmetries of power between landlords and tenants, high rents, and overly high home prices begins with ensuring housing abundance. And there’s good evidence that institutional investors are drawn to markets where housing supply has been restricted. CoreLogic’s <a href="https://www.corelogic.com/blog/2019/06/special-report-investor-home-buying.aspx">research</a> found that investors are attracted to markets where rents are high and that in tighter markets, there were “larger increases in investor activity.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JBDJcU">
Invitation Homes, the country’s largest provider of single-family rentals, <a href="https://aum13f.com/issuer/INVH">explicitly wrote</a> that it “invest[s] in markets that we expect will exhibit lower new supply, stronger job and household formation growth” and in places with “multiple demand drivers, such as proximity to major employment centers, desirable schools, and transportation corridors.” Essentially, it is looking to invest in job-rich areas where it expects local governments to continue blocking the supply of new housing even as more people try to move there.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0h56VX">
Some have <a href="https://www.planetizen.com/news/2020/08/110179-protecting-distressed-real-estate-private-equity">cited concerns</a> that this could lead to these investors lobbying against more housing in these communities. However, there’s a countervailing force here: the renters themselves who would want rents to decrease.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h1jv6G">
It’s possible that increasing shares of renters in these markets will actually reduce the number of people reflexively pushing back against more affordable housing. Sen makes this argument in <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/home-rental-market-is-the-secret-weapon-against-nimbys">Bloomberg</a>:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="24r8NC">
In a neighborhood full of single-family homeowners today, if a big apartment complex is proposed by a developer, nearby residents will probably show up to local government meetings concerned about the impact of the additional housing supply on their home values…But in a build-to-rent community, the proposition of additional high-density housing means potentially lower rents for existing tenants rather than a loss in home values.”
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AYfU7s">
That means there could be more affordable housing produced in neighborhoods where single-family rentals become a larger share of the market.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hnqSYs">
The role of institutional investors is still being studied, but the popularity of the narrative strikes at something dangerous: People want a convenient boogeyman and when they get it, they often ignore the structural problems that are harder to combat. Housing undersupply is the result of decades of locals opposing new home building. It’s not something that can be blamed on Wall Street greed and the nefarious tinkering of a private equity firm. And that’s a much harder truth to stomach.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UaTOq1">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tEDRT2">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nwNiQs">
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The pandemic tattoo craze is here</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A masked woman tattoos a man’s arm." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XfGehICskcFbNKL4CTPfgvK4nYw=/0x0:6933x5200/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69438807/GettyImages_1281406222.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Though many tattoo artists’ schedules are filling up, some are still crawling out of debt after months of closures. | Stevica Mrdja/EyeEm via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Tattoo studios are booked and busy after periods of monthslong closures.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K83tQ9">
Tiffany Garcia has tattooed thousands of people over her two-decade career, but she remains intrigued by the first-timers. Since the spring, more clients without any history of tattoos have arrived at Garcia’s studio in Torrance, California.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="t1t7p4">
It isn’t just young people. Some are middle-aged or divorced, or recently lost someone dear to them. “It felt like people were trying to find themselves or fulfill a purpose with tattoos,” Garcia told me. “I’ve had clients say they never thought to get one in their life.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dlkvlz">
Across the country, tattoo artists like Garcia say they are witnessing a boom in bookings, catalyzed by stretches of business inactivity during the pandemic. People have spent the past year declaring their <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/08/9948428/tattoo-during-covid-psychology-meaning">desire to get inked</a>, whether to memorialize the unprecedented circumstances they’ve lived through or to embrace a new vehicle for self-expression after months of social inhibition. The changes in workplace culture toward remote employment are also a boon: Fewer workers will have to contend with the corporate stigma against visible body art.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GkaKgM">
Garcia’s shop, which has six working tattooists (including her), is booked through July and into August. But the studio’s packed schedule doesn’t mean the artists and the shop are financially in the clear. “We are still digging our way out of the pandemic,” Garcia said. “A lot of artists are self-employed, independent contractors, or booth renters, and they couldn’t qualify for unemployment. I had an artist who lived upstairs from the shop lose his apartment, and I am paying back my debts.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="DDQ4ic">
<q>“We are still digging our way out of the pandemic”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fqneWG">
Many shop owners and artists had to take on loans to hang onto their businesses. Rent was still due, after all, even as Garcia’s business remained closed from March through October 2020. Her studio didn’t qualify for PPP aid; she said she applied many times as an independent contractor and uploaded the required documentation. “Every time I got an email requesting W-2 forms and another tax document that I don’t have, as I’m not an employer with employees,” Garcia said. “No matter how much I called or emailed, I never got answers and eventually received an email stating that my application has been canceled.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9ZI1BP">
Garcia eventually secured an SBA loan that has to be paid back with interest (a PPP loan is potentially <a href="https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-options/paycheck-protection-program/ppp-loan-forgiveness">forgivable</a>, while the SBA loan Garcia received isn’t). The enthusiasm from clients has been helpful, though, and with each passing day, Garcia’s anxiety about her debt eases.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wLGBaS">
This newfound security, however, comes after a yearslong cycle of openings and closures that devastated a maturing industry. Tattoo shops in the United States, where <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516588&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ipsos.com%2Fen-us%2Fnews-polls%2Fmore-americans-have-tattoos-today&amp;referrer=vox.com&amp;sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2Fthe-goods%2F22524779%2Fpost-pandemic-tattoos-busy" rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" target="_blank">30 percent of Americans have at least one tattoo</a>, generate around <a href="https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/tattoo-artists-industry/">$1 billion in revenue annually</a>. The art form is more mainstream than ever, especially among young people: Roughly 50 percent of US millennials have some form of body art.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wMELTC">
Today, there are more than 30,000 working artists and about 20,000 studios in the US. Yet, the body art industry does not have significant power, and there are few professional resources for struggling businesses and artists. For decades, the lack of clear state regulations surrounding body art have hurt the broader perception of the industry; representatives from the National Tattoo Association have actually spent years advocating for more regulation to benefit clients and tattoo businesses.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vB5jrZ">
“We have no lobbyist, no union, no formal trade representatives of any kind,” North Carolina artist Keron McHugh <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/18/tattoo-pandemic-artist-business/">told the Washington Post</a>, adding that tattooing is a “baby industry.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AjCUFY">
Tattoo studios in California have been under intermittent lockdown since March, with a few weeks of activity during summer 2020 before another period of monthslong closures. In August, barbershops, nail salons, and beauty parlors were given the green light to open, but tattoo parlors were left out, despite the state previously categorizing them all as “personal care services.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OpgA5W">
“What people might not realize is, as tattoo artists, we have to study topics like bloodborne pathogens,” Garcia said. “We learn how to avoid cross-contamination, and we learn about airborne and vector-borne diseases. We’ve always had face masks on hand even before the pandemic, since we work so closely with clients. We’ve been prepared for this.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h82gyw">
Garcia is part of a cohort of shop owners in Torrance, Long Beach, and Thousand Oaks who <a href="https://www.dailybreeze.com/2020/10/09/torrance-long-beach-tattoo-shop-owners-sue-state-to-reopen">filed a lawsuit against the state of California</a> in October seeking to reopen, arguing tattoo studios face stricter regulations and pose the same semblance of risk. (California <a href="https://ktla.com/news/california/california-to-allow-tattoo-massage-parlors-to-reopen-indoors-with-modifications/">allowed</a> tattoo shops and massage parlors to reopen toward the end of that month.) Tattoo artists have had to fend for themselves, Garcia said, as an industry with little to no formal lobbying power. Thus, it feels more like a community than an industry. Most artists seem to revel in the freedom and flexibility the profession allows. Still, tattooists and piercers have to contend with the <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/06/14/explosion-in-tattooing-piercing-tests-state-regulators">prevailing stigma</a> that their work is less sanitary than other personal care services. And when it came to a catastrophe such as the pandemic, their livelihoods felt neglected.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8e9rQd">
Now that business is back on track in the US, clients are pouring in, though at a different rate. Precautionary measures such as indoor capacity limits mean artists can no longer tattoo at the same pace they used to, juggling both appointments and walk-ins; still, social media, especially Instagram, has helped many artists gain visibility even during lockdown. Some were able to build a dedicated audience, schedule appointments months ahead of time, and share their body of work.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nr1amH">
“My experience is that people are still hungry and couldn’t wait to reschedule, even if it’s six to eight months down from their initial appointment,” said Chloé Besson, a Denver-based artist who opened her own studio during the pandemic. “The excitement gave me a little bit of confirmation that it made sense to move forward with opening my shop.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HuHJ7Y">
Besson felt there was momentum: People wanted to support other artists, small-business owners, and causes they cared about. Over the summer, she raffled off several tattoo designs and raised $14,000 in donations to Black Lives Matter and other Black community organizations. “It seemed like people wanted to step up and put money into something they cared about,” Besson said. This specific type of activism and fundraising feels new, born out of the political circumstances of the past year. Besson’s work and inclusive mission attract clients with a similar mindset — she isn’t sure if people are drawn to her work, her politics, or a mix of both. “I think people are responsive to artists who are honest about the state of their business and aren’t afraid to take a stance,” Besson said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tq5Z85">
Morgan Dodd, a 26-year-old talent manager in New York City, entered a handful of tattoo raffles in summer 2020, some from artists with whom she wasn’t too familiar. “I just started following a lot more artists, and it was fun to see their work,” she said. One of Dodd’s first pandemic tattoos was from a donation flash sheet; an artist would post premade designs on Instagram, and proceeds earned from those tattoos would be donated to a nonprofit.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mwZWhm">
“I originally had an appointment with an artist who was doing a donation flash, so I just thought, ‘Why not?’ and bought myself another design,” she said. Dodd entered the pandemic with seven tattoos, and she’s added 12 more to her collection since then. Most of her pieces are selected from a book of premade flash designs, since most of the artists she follows don’t offer custom pieces.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FRkSW0">
In May, Dodd spontaneously decided to get a tattoo of the character No Face from the movie<em> Spirited Away</em> at her first rooftop party of 2021. A tattoo artist had set up a booth with a portable printer and transfer paper, and was eager to draw the character. “It felt like such a special moment because all my friends and I were vaccinated, and I wanted to commemorate that,” Dodd said. Most clients, though, likely won’t have such an impromptu tattoo session as Dodd did. Besson’s books are currently closed, but she predicted she can fill up slots through the end of the year. And there are myriad reasons why tattoos are so relevant, whether or not they’re directly related to the pandemic.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CgFyO2">
“Tattoos are a way for me to decorate my body and reconnect with myself during this time,” Dodd said. “For me, it’s mostly about the story and the moment of when I got the tattoo and where I was at in my life.”
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tokyo Olympics | Sports Ministry not to send its delegation</strong> - Decision taken to accommodate maximum support staff, including coaches and physios, for the athletes competing in the Summer Games</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Into the open: struggles of the female athlete</strong> - Naomi Osaka has started a conversation about the mental load on young women athletes battling stressors on and off the field</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Gaikwad banks on core strength of adaptability to impress in maiden India outing</strong> - Gaikwad joins the illustrious list of Maharashtra cricketers like Chandu Borde and Kedar Jadhav, who have played for India</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Table tennis | Derailed Olympic preparation back on track after Manika agrees to attend national camp</strong> - Around 16 people will be part of the camp from June 20 to July 5, including 12 players and four support staff.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Euro 2020 | Italy and Turkey get ball rolling under COVID-19 cloud</strong> - 16,000 supporters will be present to watch Roberto Mancini’s Italy face Turkey in the first game in Group A</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>High Court initiates judicial probe into Malwani building collapse in Mumbai</strong> - Bombay High Court said that the incident proved that there existed absolute lawlessness in the municipal wards in Mumbai as well as its adjoining areas.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ICMR to start national sero surveys to assess COVID-19 spread, says Health ministry</strong> - The Centre underlined that breaking the chain of transmission ensures lesser strain on the health infrastructure and better quality of care.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Government fines ₹75 lakh on Sai Sudha hospital, books officials</strong> - The investigation into alleged medical negligence begins, medical records seized.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kerala-based beatboxer Ardhra Sajan is upbeat as she hosts up-and-coming artistes on her Instagram page</strong> - Ardhra, who blends mimicry with beatboxing and also does fluteboxing, gives opportunity for rising stars to perform on her Instagram page</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jagan urges Centre to start work on Petro Complex at Kakinada</strong> - The Andhra CM met with Central Ministers in New Delhi</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hungary LGBT: Content aimed at children to be banned</strong> - Critics say the legislation is similar to Russia’s ban on “gay propaganda” targeting minors.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Saman Abbas: Family on the run over teen’s disappearance in Italy</strong> - Saman Abbas, 18, has not been seen since fighting with her family over an arranged marriage.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>France to scale down West Africa military operations</strong> - French forces have been helping countries in the Sahel region to fight militants.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>French Open 2021: Barbora Krejcikova to meet Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in final</strong> - Czech Barbora Krejcikova shows incredible spirit to beat Maria Sakkari in a classic French Open semi-final and reach her first Grand Slam final.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Backlash against ‘frightening’ tests on whales</strong> - An international group of scientists has called on Norway to halt plans for acoustic experiments on minke whales.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Trace fossils, the most inconspicuous bite-sized window into ancient worlds</strong> - “One animal could have made thousands of traces during its lifetime, but only left one skeleton.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1767257">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rocket Report: Vandals spray-paint Buran; China to launch first crew in 4 years</strong> - “This idea has been around since the dawn of spaceflight.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1772183">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Android 12’s beautiful color-changing UI already lives up to the hype</strong> - Android 12’s “Material You” UI debuts in Beta 2, and we go hands-on. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1771930">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Some people can’t get FCC subsidy because “Street” isn’t the same as “St.”</strong> - ISPs’ data must exactly match FCC’s or application is rejected. A fix is on the way. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1772253">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Review: Our favorite trickster god is charismatic as ever in Loki premiere</strong> - Pilot episode did everything it needed to do, with soupçon of whimsical swagger. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1771834">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>A high school senior visits a psychic…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“I’ve applied to 10 different colleges,” the student said. “Which ones will accept me? Which one will I attend?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“That is hard to say,” said the psychic. “But you will spend an absurd sum of money.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“How do you know this?” the student asked.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The psychic replied,
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“It’s mostly intuition.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/The_Time_Consumer"> /u/The_Time_Consumer </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/nwyqpy/a_high_school_senior_visits_a_psychic/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/nwyqpy/a_high_school_senior_visits_a_psychic/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A man gets on a bus, and ends up sitting next to a very attractive nun.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Enamored with her, he asks if he can have sex with her. Naturally, she says no, and gets off the bus. The man goes to the bus driver and asks him if he knows of a way for him to have sex with the nun.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Well,” says the bus driver, “every night at 8 o’clock, she goes to the cemetery to pray. If you dress up as God, I’m sure you could convince her to have sex with you.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The man decides to try it, and dresses up in his best God costume. At eight, he sees the nun and appears before her.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Oh, God!” she exclaims. “Take me with you!” The man tells the nun that she must first have sex with him to prove her loyalty. The nun says yes, but tells him she prefers anal sex. Before you know it, they’re getting down to it, having nasty, grunty, loud sex. After it’s over, the man pulls off his God disguise.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Ha, ha! I’m the man from the bus!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Ha, ha!” says the nun, removing her costume. “I’m the bus driver!”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/-Tigger"> /u/-Tigger </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/nxckfv/a_man_gets_on_a_bus_and_ends_up_sitting_next_to_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/nxckfv/a_man_gets_on_a_bus_and_ends_up_sitting_next_to_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A pirate walked into a bar.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He had a wooden leg, an eye patch and a hook for a hand. The bartender was curious. “How did you get that wooden leg?” he asked.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The pirate took a swig of ale. “’Twas a terrible sea battle. I stood bravely, directly facing 12 cannons.All they managed to hit was my leg.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The bartender said “What about your hook?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The pirate took another long swig. “Arrrr, twas the day the British navy caught me. They tied me to the mast, I escaped by gnawing my own hand off.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The bartender was growing sceptical. “And how did you get that eyepatch?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The pirate took another swig. “Twas a mutiny. Me own crew left me marrooned on a desert island. But I had no fear. I lay down on the sand to wait to be rescued. As i looked up, a seagull flew over and pooped in me eye.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The bartender said “That’s ridiculous, no one loses an eye from bird muck.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The pirate finished his ale in one gulp, and grimaced. “Twas the first day with the hook.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ExtraSure"> /u/ExtraSure </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/nwlcyx/a_pirate_walked_into_a_bar/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/nwlcyx/a_pirate_walked_into_a_bar/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>Here is an actual sign posted in a golf club.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Back straight, knees bent.
</li>
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Feet shoulder width apart.
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Form a loose grip.
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Keep your head down!
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Stay out of the water.
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Try not to hit anyone.
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If you are taking too long, let others go ahead of you.
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Don’t stand directly in front of others.
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Quiet please while others are preparing.
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Don’t take extra strokes.
</li>
</ol>
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Well done. Now, flush the urinal and go outside and tee off.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/CockyRoho"> /u/CockyRoho </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/nx498h/here_is_an_actual_sign_posted_in_a_golf_club/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/nx498h/here_is_an_actual_sign_posted_in_a_golf_club/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>While in China, an American man is sexually promiscuous and does not use a condom the entire time he is there.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A week after arriving back home in the States, he wakes one morning to find his penis covered with bright green and purple spots. Horrified, he immediately goes to see a doctor.
</p>
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The doctor, never having seen anything like this before, orders some tests and tells the man to return in two days for the results. After two days, the doctor tells him, “I’ve got bad news for you, you have contracted Mongolian VD. It’s very rare and almost unheard of here in the US. We know very little about it.”
</p>
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The man perplexed asks, “Well, can’t you give me a shot or something to fix me up, Doc?”
</p>
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The doctor answers, “I’m sorry, there’s no known cure. We are going to have to amputate your penis.”
</p>
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The man screams in horror, “Absolutely not !! I want a second opinion… !!!”
</p>
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The doctor replies, “Well, it’s your choice. Go ahead, if you want, but surgery is your only option.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The next day, the man seeks out a Chinese doctor, figuring that he’ll know more about the disease. The Chinese doctor examines his penis and proclaims, “Ahh… yes, Mongolian VD. Very rare disease.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The guy says to the doctor, “Yeah, yeah, I already know that, but what can we do? My American doctor wants to cut off my penis!”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The Chinese doctor shakes his head and laughs, “Stupid Amelican docttah, always want operate, make more money that way. No need amputate!”
</p>
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“Oh, thank God!” the man exclaims.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Yes,” says the Chinese doctor. “Wait two weeks. Fall off by itself.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Genius_Mate"> /u/Genius_Mate </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/nxehwd/while_in_china_an_american_man_is_sexually/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/nxehwd/while_in_china_an_american_man_is_sexually/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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