The maladaptive vascular response in COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome and recovery -
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+Vascular injury is a menacing element of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) pathogenesis. To better understand the role of vascular injury in COVID-19 ARDS, we used lung autopsy immunohistochemistry and blood proteomics from COVID-19 subjects at distinct timepoints in disease pathogenesis, including a hospitalized cohort at risk of ARDS development (“at risk”, N=59), an intensive care unit cohort with ARDS (“ARDS”, N=31), and a cohort recovering from ARDS (“recovery”, N=12). COVID-19 ARDS lung autopsy tissue revealed an association between vascular injury and platelet-rich microthrombi. This link guided the derivation of a protein signature in the at risk cohort characterized by lower expression of vascular proteins in subjects who died, an early signal of vascular limitation termed the maladaptive vascular response. These findings were replicated in COVID-19 ARDS subjects, as well as when bacterial and influenza ARDS patients (N=29) were considered, hinting at a common final pathway of vascular injury that is more disease (ARDS) then cause (COVID-19) specific, and may be related to vascular cell death. Among recovery subjects, our vascular signature identified patients with good functional recovery one year later. This vascular injury signature could be used to identify ARDS patients most likely to benefit from vascular targeted therapies.
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Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in the pediatric population of the United States -
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+The evolution of SARS-CoV2 virus has led to the emergence of variants of concern (VOC). Children, particularly <12 years old not yet eligible for vaccines, continue to be important reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2 yet VOC prevalence data in this population is lacking. We report data from a genomic surveillance program that includes 9 U.S. children9s hospitals. Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genome from 2119 patients <19 years old between 03/20 to 04/21 identified 252 VOCs and 560 VOC signature mutations, most from 10/20 onwards. From 02/21 to 04/21, B.1.1.7 prevalence increased from 3.85% to 72.22% corresponding with the decline of B.1.429/B.1.427 from 51.82% to 16.67% at one institution. 71.74% of the VOC signature mutations detected were in children <12 years old, including 33 cases of B.1.1.7 and 119 of B.1.429/B.1.427. There continues to be a need for ongoing genomic surveillance, particularly among young children who will be the last groups to be vaccinated.
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+Rationale Pulmonary aspergillosis may complicate COVID-19 and contribute to excess mortality in intensive care unit (ICU) patients. The incidence is unclear because of discordant definitions across studies. Objective We sought to review the incidence, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis (CAPA), and compare research definitions. Methods We systematically reviewed the literature for ICU cohort studies and case series including ≥3 patients with CAPA. We calculated pooled incidence. Patients with sufficient clinical details were reclassified according to 4 standardized definitions (Verweij, White, Koehler, and Bassetti). Measurements Correlations between definitions were assessed with Spearmans rank test. Associations between antifungals and outcome were assessed with Fishers Exact test. Main Results 38 studies (35 cohort studies and 3 case series) were included. Among 3,297 COVID-19 patients in ICU cohort studies, 313 were diagnosed with CAPA (pooled incidence 9.5%). 197 patients had patient-level data allowing reclassification. Definitions had limited correlation with one another (ρ=0.330 to 0.621, p<0.001). 38.6% of patients reported to have CAPA did not fulfill any research definitions. Patients were diagnosed after a median of 9 days (interquartile range 5-14) in ICUs. Tracheobronchitis occured in 5.3% of patients examined with bronchoscopy. The mortality rate (50.0%) was high, irrespective of antifungal use (p=0.28); this remained true even when the analysis was restricted to patients meeting standardized definitions for CAPA. Conclusions The reported incidence of CAPA is exaggerated by use of non-standard definitions. Further research should focus on identifying patients likely to benefit from antifungals.
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Combining serological assays and official statistics to describe the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic: results from the EPICOVID19-RS study in Rio Grande do Sul (Southern Brazil) -
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+Background: The EPICOVID19-RS study conducted 10 population-based surveys in Rio Grande do Sul (Southern Brazil), starting early in the epidemic. The sensitivity of the rapid point-of-care test used in the first eight surveys has been shown to decrease over time after some phases of the study were concluded. The 9th survey used both the rapid test and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test, which has a higher and stable sensitivity. Methods: We provide a theoretical justification for a correction procedure of the rapid test estimates, assess its performance in a simulated dataset and apply it to empirical data from the EPICOVID19-RS study. COVID-19 deaths from official statistics were used as an indicator of the temporal distribution of the epidemic, under the assumption that fatality is constant over time. Both the indicator and results from the 9th survey were used to calibrate the temporal decay function of the rapid test9s sensitivity from a previous validation study, which was used to estimate the true sensitivity in each survey and adjust the rapid test estimates accordingly. Results: Simulations corroborated the procedure is valid. Corrected seroprevalence estimates were substantially larger than uncorrected estimates, which were substantially smaller than respective estimates from confirmed cases and therefore clearly underestimate the true infection prevalence. Conclusion: Correcting biased estimates requires a combination of data and modelling assumptions. This work illustrates the practical utility of analytical procedures, but also the critical need for good quality, populationally-representative data for tracking the progress of the epidemic and substantiate both projection models and policy making.
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Are we allowed to visit now? Concerns and issues surrounding vaccination and infection risks in UK care homes during COVID-19 -
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+Background: Vaccination uptake in the UK and increased care home testing are likely affecting care home visitation. With scant scientific evidence to date, the aim of this longitudinal qualitative study was to explore the impact of both (vaccination and testing) on the conduct and experiences of care home visits. Methods: Family carers of care home residents with dementia and care home staff from across the UK took part in baseline (October/November 2020) and follow-up interviews (March 2021). Public advisers were involved in all elements of the research. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Across 62 baseline and follow-up interviews with family carers (n=26; 11) and care home staff (n=16; 9), five core themes were developed: Delayed and inconsistent offers of face-to-face visits; Procedures and facilitation of visits; Frustration and anger among family carers; Variable uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine; Misinformation, education, and free choice. The variable uptake in staff, compared to family carers, was a key factor seemingly influencing visitation, with a lack of clear guidance leading care homes to implement infection control measures and visitation rights differently. Conclusions: We make five recommendations in this paper to enable improved care home visitation in the ongoing, and in future, pandemics. Visits need to be enabled and any changes to visiting rights must be used as a last resort, reviewed regularly in consultation with residents and carers and restored as soon as possible as a top priority, whilst more education needs to be provided surrounding vaccination for care home staff.
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Aerosol transport measurements and assessment of risk from infectious aerosols: a case study of two German cash-and-carry hardware/DIY stores -
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+We report experimental results on aerosol dispersion in two large German cash-and-carry hardware/DIY stores to better understand the factors contributing to disease transmission by infectious human aerosols in large indoor environments. We examined the transport of aerosols similar in size to human respiratory aerosols (0.3μm-10μm) in representative locations, such as high-traffic areas and restrooms. In restrooms, the observed decay of aerosol concentrations was consistent with well-mixed air exchange. In all other locations, fast decay times were measured, which were found to be independent of aerosol size (typically a few minutes). From this, we conclude that in the main retail areas, including at checkouts, rapid turbulent mixing and advection is the dominant feature in aerosol dynamics. With this, the upper bound of risk for airborne disease transmission to a susceptible is determined by direct exposure to the exhalation cloud of an infectious. For the example of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, we find when speaking without a face mask and aerosol sizes up to an exhalation (wet) diameter of 50μm, a distance of 1.5me to be unsafe. However, at the smallest distance between an infectious and a susceptible, while wearing typical surgical masks and for all sizes of exhaled aerosol, the upper bound of infection risk is only ∼ 5% and decreases further by a factor of 100 (∼ 0.05%) for typical FFP2 masks for a duration of 20 min. This upper bound is very conservative and we expect the actual risk for typical encounters to be much lower. The risks found here are comparable to what might be expected in calm outdoor weather.
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RT-qPCR detection of SARS-CoV-2 mutations S 69-70 del, S N501Y and N D3L associated with variants of concern in Canadian wastewater samples -
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+SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VoC) have been increasingly detected in clinical surveillance in Canada and internationally. These VoC are associated with higher transmissibility rates and in some cases, increased mortality. In this work we present a national wastewater survey of the distribution of three SARS-CoV-2 mutations found in the B.1.1.7, B.1.351, and P.1 VoC, namely the S-gene 69-70 deletion, N501Y mutation, and N-gene D3L. RT-qPCR allelic discrimination assays were sufficiently sensitive and specific for detection and relative quantitation of SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater to allow for rapid population-level screening and surveillance. We tested 261 samples collected from 5 Canadian cities (Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax) and 6 communities in the Northwest Territories from February 16th to March 28th, 2021. VoC were not detected in the Territorial communities, suggesting the absence of VoC SARS-CoV-2 cases in those communities. Percentage of variant remained low throughout the study period in the majority of the sites tested, however the Toronto sites showed a marked increase from ~25% to ~75% over the study period. The results of this study highlight the utility of population level molecular surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 VoC using wastewater. Wastewater monitoring for VoC can be a powerful tool in informing public health responses, including monitoring trends independent of clinical surveillance and providing early warning to communities.
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Lockdown babies- Birth and new parenting experiences during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa -
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+Background Perceived birth experiences of parents can have a lasting impact on children. We explored the birth and new parenting experiences of South African parents during the Covid-19 lockdown. Methods We conducted an online cross-sectional survey with consenting parents of babies born in South Africa during 2020. Factors associated with negative birth emotions and probable depression were estimated using logistic regression. Results Most of the 520 respondents were females (n= 496, 95%) who gave birth at private hospitals (n=426, 86%). Mothers reported having overall positive birth emotions (n= 399, 80%). Multivariable analysis showed that having the baby during lockdown (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 5.02; CI 1.28-19.66); being diagnosed with Covid-19 (aOR 3.17; CI 1.07-9.42); having negative new parenting emotions (aOR 6.07; CI 3.27-11.29); a preterm baby (aOR 3.02; CI 1.36-6.70) and lockdown related barring of preferred in hospital support (aOR 2.45; CI 1.35-4.43) were associated with mothers reporting predominately negative emotions about the birth. Having their chosen delivery method reduced the odds of negative birth emotions (aOR 0.4; CI 0.22-0.72). Multivariable analysis showed that having predominantly negative new parenting emotions (aOR 10.75; CI 5.41-21.37), breastfeeding struggles (aOR 2.16; CI 1.36-3.46); lockdown preventing health care access (aOR 2.06; CI 1.20-3.54) and creating financial strain (aOR 2.58; CI 1.08-6.18) were associated with probable minor depression Conclusions Lockdown exacerbated many birth and parenting challenges including mental health and health care access. However, overall experiences were positive and there was a strong sense of resilience amongst parents.
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Calamities, Common Interests, Shared Identity: What Shapes Altruism and Reciprocity? -
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+We conduct a large-scale survey experiment in nine European countries to study how priming a major crisis (COVID-19), common economic interests, and a shared identity influences altruism, reciprocity and trust of EU citizens. We find that priming the COVID-19 pandemic increases altruism and reciprocity towards compatriots, citizens of other EU countries, and non-EU citizens. Priming common European values also boosts altruism and reciprocity but only towards compatriots and fellow Europeans. Priming common economic interests has no tangible impact on behaviour. Trust in others is not affected by any treatment. Our results are consistent with the parochial altruism hypothesis, which asserts that because altruism arises out of inter-group conflict, humans show a tendency to favor members of their own groups.
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Risk perception and personal responsibility during COVID-19: An experimental study of the role of imperative vs reasoning-based communication for self-isolation attitudes -
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+Individual decision-making about social distancing, self-quarantine and self-isolation is crucial in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. In the rapidly evolving pandemic, little is known about how different government communication strategies may systematically affect people’s attitudes to staying home or going out, nor the extent to which people perceive and process the risk of different scenarios. In this study, we report results from a sample of 581 participants (residing in the United Kingdom), and we examine the degree to which participants’ attitudes regarding the permissibility of leaving one’s home are (1) sensitive to different levels of risk of viral transmission in specific scenarios, (2) sensitive to communication framings that are either imperative or that invite reasoning about scenarios, or (3) creating “loopholes” for themselves when scenarios are framed with reference to the participants themselves rather than in general terms. We find that participants’ attitudes to social distancing are sensitive to the level of risk of transmission, and that when scenarios are framed in imperative terms, rather than when their reasoning is encouraged, participants have more impermissive attitudes to going out in Minimal Risk scenarios, with a trend of decreased permissiveness more generally; for self-loopholes, more research is needed to determine if participants make exceptions for themselves. Thus, subject to the limitations of this study, during phases where it is important to promote self-isolation for all scenarios, including those perceived to be low risk, imperative communication may be best.
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Online Donation for Covid-19 as Connective Action in Indonesia and Vietnam -
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+This study discusses how the internet facilitated the online donation movement to help deal with the Covid-19 in Indonesia and Vietnam. The internet has critical roles in online donations by spreading information, connecting individuals, and making an online donation movement. We use the connective action concept to explain how the social movement is developed by connecting people through the loose organizational or no-organizational platform. We find that the internet and social media have an essential role in informing, connecting, and simultaneously being a means of online donation activities of individuals from various backgrounds. In this action, individuals are connected emotionally and encourage their empathy and solidarity across identities. In other words, the online connection encourages people to gather and donate as social action. However, in contrast to the connective action concept based on real (offline) action, the online donation for Covid-19 shows that individuals are connected and act online. Therefore, conceptually, the online donation case could enrich the connective action concept in the context of online connection and online action.
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Flexible Environments for Hybrid Collaboration: Redesigning Virtual Work Through the Four Orders of Design -
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+The COVID-19 pandemic made it visceral for many that virtual forms of collaboration—simultaneously liberating and frustrating—are here to stay. Workers’ frustrations demonstrate that challenges remain for work designs in increasingly “hybrid” collaboration, wherein some people work face-to-face with others who work remotely. Fortunately, Buchanan’s four orders of design present a framework for improving virtual forms of collaboration in conjunction with management and information systems scholarship. Here, we review the latest knowledge from these disciplines on virtual collaboration through the lens of the four orders of design. In doing so, we demonstrate that conceiving of work in terms of flexible collaborative environments could increase unity between work and workers by leveraging the capabilities of varying degrees of virtuality toward experiences that benefit all those who interact with work systems.
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Clinical, immunological and genomic characterization of asymptomatic and symptomatic cases with SARS-CoV-2 infection, India -
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+Background: The current global pandemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2 led to the investigation with clinical, biochemical, immunological and genomic information of the patients to understand the pathophysiology of this viral infection. Methods: Samples were collected from six asymptomatic and six symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 confirmed hospitalized patients in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Clinical details, biochemical parameters, treatment regime were collected from hospital, viral load was determined by RT-PCR, levels of cytokines and circulating antibodies in plasma were assessed by Bioplex and isotyping respectively. In addition, the whole genome sequencing of viral strains and mutational analysis were carried out. Findings Analysis of the biochemical parameters highlighted the increased levels of C-Reactive protein (CRP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), serum SGPT, serum SGOT and ferritin in symptomatic patients indicating that patients with higher levels of few biochemical parameters might experience severe pathophysiological complications after SARS-CoV-2 infection. This was also observed that symptomatic patients were mostly with one or more comorbidities, especially diabetes (66.6%). Surprisingly the virological estimation revealed that there was no significant difference in viral load of oropharyngeal (OP) samples between the two groups. This suggests that the viral load in OP sample does not correlate with disease severity and both asymptomatic and symptomatic patients are equally capable of transmitting the virus. Whereas, viral load was higher in plasma and serum samples of symptomatic patients suggesting that the development of clinical complications is mostly associated to high viral load in plasma and serum. This also demonstrated that the patients with high viral load in plasma and serum samples were found to develop sufficient amounts of antibodies (IgG, IgM and IgA). Interestingly, the levels of 7 cytokines (IL-6, IL-1@, IP-10, IL-8, IL-10, IFN-@2, IL-15) were found to be highly elevated in symptomatic patients, while three cytokines (soluble CD40L, GRO and MDC) were remarkably higher in asymptomatic patients. Therefore, this data suggest that cytokines and chemokines may serve as predictive indicator of SARS-CoV-2 infection and contribute to understand the pathogenesis of COVID-19. The whole genome sequence analysis revealed that the current isolates were clustered with 19B, 20A and 20B clades, however acquired 11 additional changes in Orf1ab, spike, Orf3a, Orf8 and nucleocapsid proteins. The data also confirmed that the D614G mutation in spike protein is mostly linked with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection as two patients with this mutation passes away. Interpretation This is the first comprehensive study of SARS CoV-2 patients from India. This will contribute to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 infection and advance in the implementation of effective disease control strategies.
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T-cell and antibody immunity after COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in healthy and immunocompromised subjects-An exploratory study. -
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+Background: In recent studies, up to half of immunocompromised (IC) subject populations fail to develop antibodies after COVID-19 vaccination. Purpose and Methods: Here, we explore whether T-cells which respond to the spike (S) antigenic sequence and its less conserved S1, and the conserved S2 component are present in serial samples before and after each dose of mRNA1273 or BNT162b2 vaccines in 20 healthy immunocompetent subjects. Single samples from 7 vaccinated IC subjects were also tested. Simultaneously, we measured IgG antibodies to the receptor binding domain (RBD) of S1, and anti-S IgG, and frequencies of monocytic CD14+HLA-DR- (M-MDSC) and polymorphonuclear CD14-CD15+CD11b+ (PMN-MDSC) myeloid-derived suppressor cells. Results: In healthy subjects, S1-, S2-, and S-reactive CD4 and CD8 T-cell frequencies showed a numeric but not statistically significant decrease after the first vaccine dose and were accompanied by increased MDSC frequencies (p<0.05). After the second dose, S2- and S-reactive CD4 and CD8 cells and MDSC approached pre-vaccination levels. In healthy subjects, a) S1-reactive CD8 frequencies were significantly higher after the second dose compared with pre-vaccination levels (p=0.015), b) anti-RBD and anti-S IgG were present in all after the second dose. Among seven IC subjects, anti-RBD and anti-S IgG were absent in 4 and 3 subjects, respectively. S1-reactive CD8 cells were identified in 2 of 4 anti-RBD negative subjects. S-reactive CD4 or CD8 cells were identified in all three anti-S negative subjects. Conclusions: In healthy immunocompetent subjects, mRNA vaccines induce antibodies to the spike antigenic sequences and augment CD8 cells reactive to the S1 spike sequence, which is more specific for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In this exploratory cohort of vaccinated immunocompromised subjects, S1-reactive CD8 cells can be detected in some who are negative for RBD antibody, and S-reactive T-cells are present in all who are negative for spike antibody.
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Persistent clotting protein pathology in Long COVID/ Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) is accompanied by increased levels of antiplasmin -
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+Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2)-induced infection, the cause of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is characterized by acute clinical pathologies, including various coagulopathies that may be accompanied by hypercoagulation and platelet hyperactivation. Recently, a new COVID-19 phenotype has been noted in patients after they have ostensibly recovered from acute COVID-19 symptoms. This new syndrome is commonly termed Long COVID/Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC). Here we refer to it as Long COVID/PASC. Lingering symptoms persist for as much as 6 months (or longer) after acute infection, where COVID-19 survivors complain of recurring fatigue or muscle weakness, being out of breath, sleep difficulties, and anxiety or depression. Given that blood clots can block microcapillaries and thereby inhibit oxygen exchange, we here investigate if the lingering symptoms that individuals with Long COVID/PASC manifest might be due to the presence of persistent circulating plasma clots that are resistant to fibrinolysis. We use techniques including proteomics and fluorescence microscopy to study plasma samples from healthy individuals, individuals with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM), with acute COVID-19, and those with Long COVID/PASC symptoms. We show that plasma samples from Long COVID/PASC still contain large anomalous (amyloid) deposits. We also show that these anomalous deposits in both acute COVID-19 and Long COVID/PASC plasma samples are resistant to fibrinolysis (compared to plasma from controls and T2DM), even after trypsinisation. After a second trypsinization, the persistent pellet deposits were solubilized. We detected various inflammatory molecules that are substantially increased in both the supernatant and trapped in the solubilized pellet deposits of acute COVID-19 and Long COVID/PASC, versus the equivalent volume of fully digested fluid of the control samples. Of particular interest was a substantial increase in α(2)-antiplasmin (α2AP), various fibrinogen chains, as well as Serum Amyloid A (SAA) that were trapped in the solubilized fibrinolytic-resistant pellet deposits. Clotting pathologies in both acute COVID-19 infection and in Long COVID/PASC might therefore benefit from following a regime of continued anticlotting therapy to support the fibrinolytic system function.
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Recombinant Hyperimmune Polyclonal Antibody (GIGA-2050) in COVID-19 Patients - Condition: COVID-19 Intervention: Drug: GIGA-2050 Sponsor: GigaGen, Inc. Not yet recruiting
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Using Text Messages to Improve COVID-19 Vaccination Uptake, an RCT. - Condition: Covid19 Intervention: Behavioral: Text message content Sponsors: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; Central London CCG; Imperial College Health Partners; Institute for Global Health Innovations; The Behavioural Insights Team Not yet recruiting
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Study to Evaluate the Effects of RO7496998 (AT-527) in Non-Hospitalized Adult and Adolescent Participants With Mild or Moderate COVID-19 - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Drug: RO7496998; Drug: Placebo Sponsors: Atea Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Hoffmann-La Roche Recruiting
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The Role of High Dose Co-trimoxazole in Severe Covid-19 Patients - Condition: COVID-19 Pneumonia Interventions: Drug: Co-trimoxazole; Drug: Placebo Sponsor: Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh Not yet recruiting
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A Study to Evaluate the Safety and Effect of STC3141 Continuous Infusion in Subjects With Severe Corona Virus Disease 2019（COVID-19）Pneumonia - Condition: Severe COVID-19 Pneumonia Intervention: Drug: STC3141 Sponsors: Grand Medical Pty Ltd.; Trium Clinical Consulting Not yet recruiting
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The Effect of Vitamin D Supplementation on COVID-19 Recovery - Condition: Covid19 Interventions: Drug: Vit-D 0.2 MG/ML Oral Solution [Calcidol]; Drug: Physiological Irrigating Solution Sponsors: University of Monastir; Loussaief Chawki; Nissaf Ben Alaya; Cyrine Ben Nasrallah; Manel Ben Belgacem; Hela Abroug; Imen Zemni; Manel Ben fredj; Wafa Dhouib Completed
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A Phase 2 Study of APX-115 in Hospitalized Patients With Confirmed Mild to Moderate COVID-19. - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Drug: APX-115; Drug: Placebo Sponsors: Aptabio Therapeutics, Inc.; Covance Not yet recruiting
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Prophylaxis for COVID-19: Ivermectin in Close Contacts of COVID-19 Cases (IVERNEX-TUC) - Condition: Covid19 Interventions: Drug: Ivermectin; Other: Placebo Sponsor: Ministry of Public Health, Argentina Recruiting
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Breathing Effort in Covid-19 Pneumonia: Effects of Positive Pressure, Inspired Oxygen Fraction and Decubitus - Condition: COVID-19 Pneumonia Intervention: Device: Esophageal catheter Sponsor: San Luigi Gonzaga Hospital Recruiting
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Mix and Match of the Second COVID-19 Vaccine Dose for Safety and Immunogenicity - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Biological: mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 vaccine; Biological: BNT162b2; Biological: ChAdOx1-S [recombinant]; Other: 0, 28 day schedule; Other: 0, 112 day schedule Sponsors: Canadian Immunization Research Network; Canadian Center for Vaccinology; BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute; Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba; CHU de Quebec-Universite Laval; Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; Northern Alberta Clinical Trials + Research Centre; Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion; University of Toronto; Massachusetts General Hospital Not yet recruiting
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Anti COVID 19 Intravenous Immunoglobulin (C-IVIG) Therapy for Severe COVID-19 Patients - Condition: Covid19 Intervention: Biological: Anti COVID 19 Intravenous Immunoglobulin (C-IVIG) Sponsors: Dow University of Health Sciences; Higher Education Commission (Pakistan) Recruiting
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ACTIV-6: COVID-19 Study of Repurposed Medications - Condition: Covid19 Intervention: Drug: Ivermectin Tablets Sponsors: Susanna Naggie, MD; National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS); Vanderbilt University Medical Center Not yet recruiting
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A Global Phase III Clinical Trial of Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine (Sf9 Cells) - Condition: COVID-19 Interventions: Biological: Recombinant COVID-19 vaccine (Sf9 cells); Other: Placebo control Sponsors: Jiangsu Province Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; WestVac Biopharma Co., Ltd.; West China Hospital Not yet recruiting
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Amantadine for COVID-19: A Randomized, Placebo Controlled, Double-blinded, Clinical Trial - Condition: Covid19 Interventions: Drug: Amantadine; Drug: Lactose monohydrate Sponsors: Copenhagen University Hospital, Hvidovre; University of Copenhagen Not yet recruiting
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3R Rehabilitation Management of COVID-19 Survivors - Condition: Covid19 Interventions: Other: Cardiopulmonary exercise (centre-based); Other: Cardiopulmonary exercise (online-based) Sponsors: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital, Hong Kong; Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hong Kong; Princess Margaret Hospital, Hong Kong; Tuen Mun Hospital Hong Kong Recruiting
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From PubMed
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SARS-CoV-2 suppresses mRNA expression of selenoproteins associated with ferroptosis, endoplasmic reticulum stress and DNA synthesis - Higher selenium status has been shown to improve the clinical outcome of infections caused by a range of evolutionally diverse viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. However, the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on host-cell selenoproteins remains elusive. The present study investigated the influence of SARS-CoV-2 on expression of selenoprotein mRNAs in Vero cells. SARS-CoV-2 triggered an inflammatory response as evidenced by increased IL-6 expression. Of the 25 selenoproteins, SARS-CoV-2 significantly suppressed…
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Possible inhibition of GM-CSF production by SARS-CoV-2 spike-based vaccines - A SARS-like coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a pandemic Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) that killed more than 3.3 million people worldwide. Like the SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 also employs a receptor-binding motif (RBM) of its spike protein to bind a host receptor, the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), to gain entry. Currently, several mRNA or adenoviral vaccines encoding for the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 are being used to boost antibodies capable of inhibiting spike-ACE2 interaction…
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Discovery of anti-infective adipostatins through bioactivity-guided isolation and heterologous expression of a type III polyketide synthase - Antibiotic resistance and emerging viral pandemics have posed an urgent need for new anti-infective drugs. By screening our microbial extract library against the main protease of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the notorious ESKAPE pathogens, an active fraction was identified and purified, leading to an initial isolation of adipostatins A (1) and B (2). In order to diversify the chemical structures of adipostatins toward enhanced biological activities, a type III…
Detection of SARS-CoV-2 genome and whole transcriptome sequencing in Frontal Cortex of COVID-19 patients - SARS-Cov-2 infection is frequently associated with Nervous System manifestations. However, it is not clear how SARS-CoV-2 can cause neurological dysfunctions and which molecular processes are affected in the brain. In this work, we examined the frontal cortex tissue of patients who died of COVID-19 for the presence of SARS-CoV-2, comparing qRT-PCR with ddPCR. We also investigated the transcriptomic profile of frontal cortex from COVID-19 patients and matched controls by RNA-seq analysis to…
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Single-dose BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine significantly boosts neutralizing antibody response in health care workers recovering from asymptomatic or mild natural SARS-CoV-2 infection - CONCLUSIONS: A single vaccination in people with mild or asymptomatic previous infection further boosts SARS-CoV-2 humoral immunity to levels higher than those obtained by complete two-vaccination in uninfected subjects.
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The ORF8 protein of SARS-CoV-2 mediates immune evasion through down-regulating MHC-iota - COVID-19, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has become a global pandemic and has claimed over 2 million lives worldwide. Although the genetic sequences of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 have high homology, the clinical and pathological characteristics of COVID-19 differ significantly from those of SARS. How and whether SARS-CoV-2 evades (cellular) immune surveillance requires further elucidation. In this study, we show that SARS-CoV-2 infection leads to major…
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Chemotherapy vs. Immunotherapy in combating nCOVID19: An update - The nCOVID-19 pandemic initiated its course of contagion from the city of Wuhan and now it has spread all over the globe. SARS-CoV-2 is the causative virus and the infection as well as its symptoms are distributed across the multi-organ perimeters. Interactions between the host and virus governs the induction of ‘cytokine storm’ resulting various immunopathological consequences leading to death. Till now it has caused tens of millions of casualties and yet no credible cure has emerged to vision….
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Intragastric and atomized administration of canagliflozin inhibit inflammatory cytokine storm in lipopolysaccharide-treated sepsis in mice: A potential COVID-19 treatment - To date, drugs to attenuate cytokine storm in severe cases of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) are not available. In this study, we investigated the effects of intragastric and atomized administration of canagliflozin (CAN) on cytokine storm in lung tissues of lipopolysaccharides (LPS)-induced mice. Results showed that intragastric administration of CAN significantly and widely inhibited the production of inflammatory cytokines in lung tissues of LPS-induced sepsis mice. Simultaneously,…
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The interaction of the bioflavonoids with five SARS-CoV-2 proteins targets: An in silico study - Flavonoids have been shown to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-proliferative, antibacterial and antiviral efficacy. Therefore, in this study, we choose 85 flavonoid compounds and screened them to determine their in-silico interaction with protein targets crucial for SARS-CoV-2 infection. The five important targets chosen were the main protease (Mpro), Spike receptor binding domain (Spike-RBD), RNA - dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp or Nsp12), non-structural protein 15 (Nsp15) of…
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The SARS-CoV-2 SSHHPS Recognized by the Papain-like Protease - Viral proteases are highly specific and recognize conserved cleavage site sequences of ∼6-8 amino acids. Short stretches of homologous host-pathogen sequences (SSHHPS) can be found spanning the viral protease cleavage sites. We hypothesized that these sequences corresponded to specific host protein targets since >40 host proteins have been shown to be cleaved by Group IV viral proteases and one Group VI viral protease. Using PHI-BLAST and the viral protease cleavage site sequences, we searched…
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Tocilizumab in COVID-19: a meta-analysis, trial sequential analysis, and meta-regression of randomized-controlled trials - CONCLUSIONS: For hospitalized COVID-19 patients, there is some evidence that tocilizumab use may be associated with a short-term mortality benefit, but further high-quality data are required. Its benefits may also lie in reducing the need for mechanical ventilation.
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In silico Studies on the Interaction Between Mpro and PLpro From SARS-CoV-2 and Ebselen, its Metabolites and Derivatives - The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 has mobilized scientific attention in search of a treatment. The cysteine-proteases, main protease (Mpro) and papain-like protease (PLpro) are important targets for antiviral drugs. In this work, we simulate the interactions between the Mpro and PLpro with Ebselen, its metabolites and derivatives with the aim of finding molecules that can potentially inhibit these enzymes. The docking data demonstrate that there are two main interactions between the…
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Anti-IgE monoclonal antibodies as potential treatment in COVID-19 - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with irreversible effects on vital organs, especially the respiratory and cardiac systems. While the immune system plays a key role in the survival of patients to viral infections, in COVID-19, there is a hyperinflammatory immune response evoked by all the immune cells, such as neutrophils, monocytes, and includes release of various cytokines, resulting in an exaggerated immune response, named cytokine storm. This severe, dysregulated immune…
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In silico Exploration of Interactions Between Potential COVID-19 Antiviral Treatments and the Pore of the hERG Potassium Channel-A Drug Antitarget - Background: In the absence of SARS-CoV-2 specific antiviral treatments, various repurposed pharmaceutical approaches are under investigation for the treatment of COVID-19. Antiviral drugs considered for this condition include atazanavir, remdesivir, lopinavir-ritonavir, and favipiravir. Whilst the combination of lopinavir and ritonavir has been previously linked to prolongation of the QT(c) interval on the ECG and risk of torsades de pointes arrhythmia, less is known in this regard about…
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From Patent Search
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METHOD OF IDENTIFYING SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME CORONA VIRUS 2 (SARS-COV-2) RIBONUCLEIC ACID (RNA) - - link
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IMPROVEMENTS RELATED TO PARTICLE, INCLUDING SARS-CoV-2, DETECTION AND METHODS THEREFOR - - link
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DEEP LEARNING BASED SYSTEM FOR DETECTION OF COVID-19 DISEASE OF PATIENT AT INFECTION RISK - 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. - link
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A COMPREHENSIVE DISINFECTION SYSTEM DURING PANDEMIC FOR PERSONAL ITEMS AND PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT (PPE) TO SAFEGUARD PEOPLE - The current Covid-19 pandemic has led to an enormous demand for gadgets / objects for personal protection. To prevent the spread of virus, it is important to disinfect commonly touched objects. One of the ways suggested is to use a personal UV-C disinfecting box that is “efficient and effective in deactivating the COVID-19 virus. The present model has implemented the use of a UV transparent material (fused silica quartz glass tubes) as the medium of support for the objects to be disinfected to increase the effectiveness of disinfection without compromising the load bearing capacity. Aluminum foil, a UV reflecting material, was used as the inner lining of the box for effective utilization of the UVC light emitted by the UVC lamps. Care has been taken to prevent leakage of UVC radiation out of the system. COVID-19 virus can be inactivated in 5 minutes by UVC irradiation in this disinfection box - link
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UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING SYSTEM FOR MENTAL HEALTH MONITORING OF PERSON DURING THE PANDEMIC OF COVID-19 - - link
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USE OF IMINOSUGAR COMPOUND IN PREPARATION OF ANTI-SARS-COV-2 VIRUS DRUG - - link
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一种高灵敏SARS-CoV-2中和抗体的检测方法、检测试剂盒 - 本发明公开了一种高灵敏SARS‑CoV‑2中和抗体的检测方法、检测试剂盒，属于生物医学检测技术领域，本发明试剂盒包括层析试纸、卡壳和样本稀释液，所述层析试纸包括底板、样品垫、结合垫、NC膜和吸水垫，所述NC膜上依次设置有捕获线、检测线和质控线，所述捕获线包被有ACE2蛋白，所述检测线包被有RBD蛋白，所述结合垫设置有RBD蛋白标记物；本发明采用阻断法加夹心法原理提高检测中和抗体的灵敏度，通过添加捕获线的方式，将靶向RBD的非中和抗体提前捕获，保证后续通过夹心法检测中和抗体的特异性。 - link
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逆转录酶突变体及其应用 - 本发明提供一种MMLV逆转录酶突变体，在野生型MMLV逆转录酶氨基酸序列（如SEQ ID No.1序列所示）中进行七个氨基酸位点的突变，氨基酸突变位点为：R205H；V288T；L304K；G525D；S526D；E531G；E574G。该突变体可以降低MMLV逆转录酶对Taq DNA聚合酶的抑制作用，大大提高了一步法RT‑qPCR的灵敏度。 - link
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Konstruktion einer elektrochemischen Atemmaske zum aktiven Schutz vor Coronavirus -
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Konstruktion einer elektrochemischen medizinischen Atemmaske (1) für den aktiven Schutz gegen Infektion mit Coronaviren dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass ein elektrochemischer Effekt durch eine allgemein positives Magnetfeld der Maske erzeugbar ist, das die positiv geladenen Coronavirus-Mikroorganismen von der Person vertreibt, indem eine aktive elektrochemische Atemmaske (1) aus einem zweischichtigen Material verwendet wird, umfassend eine äußeren Schicht (2) aus einer hochmolekularen Verbindung aus Bambus in Mischung mit Kupfer-, Silber- oder Goldmetallfasern und einer inneren Schicht (3) aus einem Vliesstoff auf Basis von Polypropylenfasern SMS oder SNS, wobei der Maskenkörper aus zwei in der Mitte der Gesichtssymmetrie genähten Elementen gebildet ist, um die Kontur der Gesichtskurven so weit wie möglich zu wiederholen, ausgestattet mit einem Atemfilter (9) mit einem Einsatz aus zwei Schichten ferromagnetischen Metallgewebes, wobei das Filter (9) hat eine herausnehmbare SMS- oder SNS-Vlieskartusche in einem Kunststoffrand (14) und eine Öse zur Fixierung im Filtergehäuse umfasst, wobei die Maske (1) jeweils einen Nasen- und Kinnbügel aus einem flexiblen Einschubstreifen zwischen den beiden Lagen des Maskengewebes aufweist, die eine Fixierung auf Basis von doppelseitig klebendem Silikonklebeband in den Maskenseitenkanten sowie Nacken- und Kopfbefestigungsschlaufen ermöglichen.
Compositions and methods for the treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) infection - - link
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+ 24 May, 2021
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+Daily-Dose
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How Violent Cops Stay in Law Enforcement - Derek Colling was fired from one police department after two fatal shootings and allegations of brutality. Less than a year later, he had a new badge. - link
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The Tensions Inside a Mixed Jewish-Arab City in Israel - Cities such as Lod are experiencing the worst bouts of internecine violence since the country’s founding. - link
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The G.O.P. Looks for New Ways to Ignore the Capitol Riot - As a House vote on a bipartisan commission to study the insurrection made clear, it’s Trumpists vs. the truth. - link
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The High Price of a New York City Cop - One of the city’s star officers has cost taxpayers more than two and a half million dollars in police-misconduct settlements. - link
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How Hacking Became a Professional Service in Russia - The outfit behind the Colonial Pipeline attack had a blog, a user-friendly interface, and a sliding fee scale for helping hackers cash in on stolen information. - link
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From Vox
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What happened to the $45 billion in rent relief? -
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+Activist groups and labor unions participate in a May Day march for worker and human rights in Los Angeles, California, on May 1. | David McNew/AFP/Getty Images
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+Rent relief was the solution to a possible wave of evictions. It ran headfirst into reality.
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+The logic was simple: Give people who were struggling during the pandemic the money to pay their rent, and landlords would have no reason to evict for nonpayment. That simplicity, and the remarkable unity from the landlord lobby and tenant advocates alike in calling for this type of relief, led Congress to allocate $25 billion in rental assistance in December. Less than three months later, in early March, they allocated another $21.55 billion for the same purpose.
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+But despite this unprecedented level of federal aid, people like Emilie Ashbes are still in crisis.
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+“I’m terrified. I’m so terrified to spend money,” the 31-year-old Floridian told me as she shopped at Walmart for household supplies. “I literally donated eggs to [make rent]. I’m selling off body parts.”
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+Ashbes, who says she works 11- or 12-hour shifts without a break at a Texas Roadhouse to afford her $1,300-a-month rent, didn’t even know she could apply for rent relief.
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+That disconnect between Ashbes’s situation and the federal relief that was supposed to help renters like her explains why people are soundingthe alarmabout a potential deluge of evictions if the federal moratorium is allowed to expire (or is struck down) in the next few weeks.
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+Getting money into the hands of renters has been exceedingly complicated — the National Low Income Housing Coalition has found over 340 different programs attempting to administer the federal aid. Some programs require onerous documentation; others don’t make it easy for landlords to apply and most put the onus on tenants to provide extensive proof of need. And Ashbes is far from unique; many advocates Vox spoke with said tenants often don’t even know the aid is available to them. All of this underscores the difficulty of aiding those at highest risk of eviction.
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+ Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
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+Community members protest evictions outside the Bronx housing court in New York on August 10, 2020.
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+The context of this difficulty is that the federal government has never before provided so much aid to renters. The unparalleled action taken by former President Donald Trump’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to enact an eviction moratorium, in addition to the extended unemployment benefits, the economic impact payments, and funding in the CARES Act for housing stability, has kept millions of families afloat. Now, the tens of billions in rent relief is an opportunity to keep millions of people in their homes, and an extraordinary challenge to states and localities, many of which have never administered this type of aid before.
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+But with the federal eviction moratorium expiring at the end of June, and severaljudges attempting to strike it down before then, states may have mere weeks to get money into the hands of renters before eviction processes start up again in earnest.
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+Not a single expert or advocate Vox spoke with believes the money will be allocated by then.
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+Billions in back rent is owed. States are struggling to distribute a fraction of that in rental assistance.
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+“The money came late,” Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told Vox. “The money came when tenants had already accrued nearly $50 billion in rent arrears. So now we’re playing a game of catch-up.”
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+Estimates about the amount of back rent owed across the country range from $8.4 billion to $52.6 billion, meaning that the $45 billion allocated should cover the vast majority of need, especially considering that renters have indirectly received other forms of aid from the federal government.
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+The vast majority of renters have figured out how to make rent payments. According to the National Multi-Family Housing Council’s rent payment tracker, “80.0 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by May 6.” The previous month’s data shows that by the end of the month, 95 percent of renters had made a full or partial rent payment.
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+Research by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Research Institute for Housing America found similarly heartening news: While 23.7 percent of renters have missed at least one payment over the past year, only 8.6 percent of renters have missed more than two payments.
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+But that doesn’t mean that over 90 percent of renters are doing fine. In order to make those payments, many renters have had to deplete their savings, max out their credit cards, or take on loans from family, friends, or payday lenders.
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+And it’s not clear when rental assistance will reach those people.
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+While the Treasury Department does not require someone to be behind on their rent to qualify for assistance (according to its fact sheet), programs may add their own requirements for eligibility. Some of those requirements might exclude renters like Matthew Turner, who went to extraordinary lengths to remain in that group who’ve missed only one or zero payments.
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+Turner, a renter living in North Carolina, told Vox that his application for relief was initially accepted by a program in Wake County, but he was eventually denied aid after he paid rent.
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+“We sold all of our belongings in our apartment to pay the rent,” Turner told Vox. Now, he says, he’s caught in an impossible place. If he doesn’t pay his rent, he’s at risk of receiving an eviction notice — a black mark on any renter’s history that can make it harder to get housing in the future— but without showing proof that he’s behind on his rent, he’s unable to get help to stay solvent.
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+“[My partner and I] have debated whether we should leave independently or if we should stay and be evicted and never be able to get another apartment for the next 10 years,” he told me. The eviction moratorium hasn’t stopped some landlords from filing evictions or, in some cases, even harassing tenants to leave. Turner doesn’t want it to get that far, but if he doesn’t get help, he tells me that they will find themselves homeless once again.
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+Turner’s story might seem to indicate that these programs are running low on funds, but all reports indicate that very little has actually made it into the pockets of at-risk renters. The Treasury Department is collecting data on how much states have allocated and to whom, but it has yet to be released. Tenant advocates I spoke with in California and Washington, DC, told me they didn’t personally know anyone who had actually received aid.
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+Georgia’s Department of Community Affairs told me that it has distributed more than $4 million in rental assistance funding to landlords and tenants; the state has received over $552 million for that purpose. Delaware’s State Housing Authority told me that it has distributed $40,000 in rental assistance — 0.02 percent of its allocated funds. Idaho’s Housing and Finance Association told me it has distributed $6.1 million of the $175 million it received from the federal government. Colorado’s dashboard shows $2.8 million has been approved from the $247 million it has received. Arizona’s dashboard shows $4.38 million has been disbursed out of the $289 million it has received.
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+More has reached tenants — those state numbers don’t include the spending done by programs at the county and city level — but itindicates the pace of these programs may not be fast enough to meet the urgent, coming crisis.
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+The New York Times recently reported that California has only paid out $1 million of its $355 million in apportioned funds, and Texas, which has received over $1 billion, had only paid 250 households after 45 days. Some states are not even accepting applications for emergency rental assistance, including South Carolina and New York.
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+“Of the programs that are open, altogether they account for about $18 billion of the $25 billion allocation. That’s the amount of money that’s available from programs that are open, accepting applications, reviewing applications, and writing checks,” Yentel explained.
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+Programs at the county and city level in these states have been operating, so it doesn’t mean all residents are completely without options, but it underscores how dire the situation is, just six weeks from when the moratorium expires.
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+Everyone agrees it’s an emergency. So what’s taking so long to get the money out?
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+Time, knowledge, and bureaucracy: These are the challenges facing rent relief programs racing to dole out funds.
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+States and localities have never before had to set up rent relief programs to distribute federal aid. To do so, programs needed to hire staff, set up websites, comply with any additional regulations or goals set by their state legislatures, and conduct outreach. Even with best efforts, most experts Vox spoke with were skeptical that it would have been possible for programs to move fast enough to get all the aid out the door before the end of June.
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+But that also reflects government’s lack of engagement with some of the most marginalized members in their communities.
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+“One of the things that this pandemic has made very clear is that there’s a lot that we don’t know about our housing market,” Vincent Reina, director of the Housing Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, told me. “The vast majority of cities don’t have full registries of every owner in their city. … It shows we often don’t know who owns properties and what’s going on with these properties or which tenants are experiencing financial hardship.”
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+If states had been collecting detailed information about where struggling tenants are and how much back rent was accumulating, it’s likely this process would have moved faster.
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+ Robert Bumsted/AP
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+Candida Uraga, a renter in New York City, says she has drained her savings trying to keep up with rent after being laid off from her job as a teaching assistant.
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+ Rich Pedroncelli/AP
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+Demonstrators in California call for lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom to pass rent forgiveness and stronger eviction protections on January 25.
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+But there are some success stories. A representative from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, for instance, told me that by May 10 the state had paid out $18.2 million and 9,000 applications had been approved. When I checked back nine days later, the representative told me they had approved more than 1,300 additional applications and sent a total of $25.9 million in payments. The state’s total allocation is $200 million, so they still have a way to go, but they credit their progress to the fact that they “offered a unified application that was optimized for mobile” as well as measuring how long it was taking to process applications and making it “as easy as possible for applicants and landlords or utility companies” to submit required documentation.
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+“It seems clear that the places that have really committed themselves to analyzing how things are going as they are going and making course corrections along the way have been most able to get dollars out the door,” Reina explained.
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+The second hurdle is knowledge. As Ashbes told me, even though she’d been trying to get help from the government over the past year (applying successfully for unemployment), she was unaware of the rent relief available to people like her.
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+When I told her about the opportunity to apply for rent relief, she sounded hopeless but said she would look into applying.
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+“I feel like there’s something I’m supposed to be doing, but I have no idea what it is,” she said. “Like, somehow it’s my fault but I don’t know what I can do. I’m willing to do anything, I am doing everything I can do. It’s breaking down my body, it’s breaking down my soul. I considered going back to dancing, like stripping, but I’m scared that my substance abuse problem will return.”
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+Ashbes isn’t the only one who doesn’t know that billions have been allocated for rent relief. Shakeara Mingo, an organizer with ONE DC and a member of the Cancel Rent coalition, told me there are tenants who don’t know to apply.
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+She’s even more concerned, though, about how difficult it is to apply even when tenants are made aware. Because programs can be audited to ensure they spent the money in the way the federal government intended, administrators are pressured to collect a lot of information and invest resources and time extensively verifying that people are actually in need before they give them money.
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+There are two parts to this problem. One is unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles, like Massachusetts originally requiring applicants to produce their physical birth certificates, and the other is necessary bureaucratic hurdles— there has to be some way for programs to determine who needs help and how much.
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+The interplay between getting money out fast and making sure that no one is gaming the system (or, more generously, that the money is getting to the people who need it the most) is not new. Nor is it easy to simply cast blame on the individual programs or the federal government — it is inherently difficult to aid indigent residents. But it’s hard not to draw comparisons to the simplicity of depositing stimulus payments into the accounts of tens of millions of Americans, which did not require residents to prove anything to access the funds quickly. People are quick to point out that there have never before been rent relief programs in most states, but that begs the question — why not?
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+The Treasury Department put out clarifications on May 7 to help make the process less onerous and clarify what types of documentation are needed, but, for example, in Florida, where Ashbes lives, the following documents are required for all members of an applying household:
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+Identification (driver’s license, birth certificate, or passport)
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+Current lease agreement or other proof of rental agreement
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+Documentation of annual income or monthly income
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+Proof of eligibility documents for SNAP, TANF, Medicaid, subsidized housing, or low-income housing if you qualify
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+Documentation of unemployment benefits or proof of reduction in household income or proof of increased costs due to Covid-19
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+Notice of past due rent, lease termination, or eviction, or condemnation order or failed inspection report from local government
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+Having these documents at hand is no simple feat, especially for people like Ashbes who have had to move during the last year or others who may not have formal documentation of their work or their rental agreement.
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+“It’s a really convoluted process,” said Shanti Singh, communications and legislative director for the California organization Tenants Together. “People who are most impacted by economic hardship during Covid-19, they often don’t have extensive documentation of hardships or job losses.”
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+The evidence that people are either unaware or discouraged due to an onerous application process shows in the application numbers. As of May 12, in Georgia, just 5,000 people had completed applications to the state program andDelaware had received 5,145 applications; by May 23,Arizona had received 2,889 applications. and Colorado had received 8,510.
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+“The intent of all of these reporting requirements is to make sure no one’s ‘gaming the system,’” Singh explained, “but the more requirements you put on these programs, [the more] people who really are in need fall through the cracks.”
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+Mike Flood, senior vice president at the Mortgage Bankers Association, strongly agreed with the need to reduce documentation requirements: “Let’s understand that it’s most important to get money into people’s hands. … Every time we put a restriction on the program, it makes a borrower or, quite frankly, a renter hesitant about taking hold of the program.”
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+What will happen if the money doesn’t get out in time?
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+Some advocates are pushing to extend the eviction moratorium until these programs can adequately assess who needs help and how to get it to them.
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+Even if the moratorium is extended again (and the numerous lawsuits against the order remain unsuccessful), the underlying debt will continue to accumulate, and at some point, landlords will reach their limit.
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+According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, “41 percent of all rental units are owned by individual investors” or “mom and pop landlords.” That means these landlords are unlikely to be able to weather months of nonpayment and still keep up with their own expenses.
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+Benny is a landlord in California who bought his first house last year before widespread Covid-19 shutdowns. To make his mortgage payments, he rented out a spare room to a tenant. After the moratorium began, he says, his tenant stopped paying.
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+“We needed an eviction moratorium,” Benny, whose last name is being withheld to protect his privacy, told me. “I definitely don’t think we should be allowing wide-scale evictions, but I also think the way that small landlords have been treated is unacceptable. … Candidly, I’m going to be forced to sell my house as soon as my tenant moves out. I’m never going to be a landlord ever again after this situation.”
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+ Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images
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+On March 1, the day that New York’s Covid-19 moratorium on rent expired, tenant rights activists held a demonstration outside the court building where eviction cases are starting up again.
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+Benny says he and his tenant have applied for rent relief, but he’s skeptical that it will help. He’s also frustrated that in order to accept rent relief, California is requiring landlords to waive 20 percent of what they’re entitled to in back rent: “To me, that’s kind of punitive for no real justification, other than just viewing landlords as some kind of bad entity.”
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+This isn’t just bad because these small landlords are struggling; it’s bad because small landlords disproportionately provide affordable housing.
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+Research from the Urban Institute shows that the average rent in small rental properties is less than “the median for single-family rentals, medium-size apartment buildings, and large apartment buildings.” And in 2018, “the median income for a two-to-four-unit landlord was $67,000.” Renters of these units are predominantly Black and Hispanic, and they have the lowest median household income when compared to renters of other types of properties.
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+“It’s critical that we get the dollars out as quickly as possible to stabilize [landlords],” Bob Pinnegar, president and CEO of the National Apartment Association, warned. “We had a housing affordability crisis going into Covid-19; if we come out of this with substantially less rental units out there, we’re going to have a situation that’s going to be far worse than what we had before.”
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+But in all likelihood, the eviction moratorium will come to an end soon — increasingly accessible vaccinations have made the justification for the order (that evictions and overcrowding in homes would lead to the spread of Covid-19) less compelling.
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+Jamie Woodwell, vice president of research and economics at the Mortgage Bankers Association, argues that even if there is a spike in evictions, it has to be contextualized in the remarkable decline in evictions over the past year: “It’s going to be really important to know what we’re comparing the new eviction levels to.”
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+However, even though the federal government’s policies are unprecedented, leaving millions of people vulnerable to evictions even as the money to keep them housed has already been allocated is a remarkable indictment of the government’s capacity to act.
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What will shopping look like? -
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+Will the mall ever look the way it used to? | iStockphoto/Getty Images
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+The pandemic has changed how Americans shop, from wider aisles to curbside pickup.
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+With two shots of Pfizer in her arm, Bri Blair recently did something she hadn’t risked since before the pandemic: She went to the mall.
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+She met up with her mom at a shopping center near her home in North Carolina to try on clothes at Belk and Earthbound Trading Company, eat chicken and rice in the food court, and generally reimmerse herself in society. And though there were some notable differences compared with the Before Times — masked shoppers, hand sanitizer stations, plastic bags covering the water fountains — she says she was surprised by how many other people were there.
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+After more than a year of quarantining and social distancing, being out in such a public space was a strange experience.
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+“I felt like I was hyperaware of everyone, for sure,” Blair says. Still, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing: She looked people in the eyes, took advantage of the dressing rooms, and appreciated the novelty of the store environment. “I was pretty immersed in the experience,” she added.
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+With nearly 40 percent of Americans fully vaccinated — a share that is ticking up by the day — and most states easing pandemic restrictions and planning full reopenings, shoppers are slowly emerging from behind their screens and returning to stores. And even as some retail workers are hesitant to come back to (or continue with) what has been an especially grueling job this year, companies are also working on a host of changes that may one day make their jobs obsolete.
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+US retail sales jumped 10.7 percent in March as a third round of stimulus checks padded consumers’ pockets, according to the US Department of Commerce. Apparel sales more than doubled over the same month last year, while sales at department stores rose 13 percent above their February levels. In April, sales were flat as the stimulus bump receded, though economists point to the sustained improvement over 2020’s dismal figures — and Americans’ increasing comfort with indoor activities — as reasons for hope.
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+“What we’ve seen in the latest data is that when provided with the ability and the possibility of spending in a safe way, consumers have the means and the desire to do so,” says Gregory Daco, chief US economist at Oxford Economics.
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+Already, the spending surge has contributed to rising prices in some categories, especially those where the demand for goods has most outstripped the supply of inputs, Daco says. Currently, inflation is hitting sectors such as tech and home building, which have been impacted by shortages in semiconductors and lumber alongside skyrocketing demand. As new parts of the economy reopen, though, Daco expects prices to adjust accordingly, with inflation shifting from goods to services such as flights, hotel rooms, and sporting events. (Though, as other experts have admitted, it’s impossible to say exactly what the economy will do in the pandemic’s aftermath.)
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+“Inflation at this stage of the recovery is almost unavoidable … but that does not mean that it’s uncontrollable,” he says, explaining it will take time for spending patterns to normalize and for supply to catch up to demand.
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+While foot traffic in stores hasn’t caught up to pre-pandemic highs, the country’s best malls are seeing improvement. Among a sample of 52 Class A malls, foot traffic in April was down just 18.7 percent from 2019 levels, analytics company Placer.ai told Vox in an interview. That was a marked gain even from March, when traffic was off by 23.7 percent.
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+With new cases of Covid-19 on the decline across most of the country and plans for weddings, concerts, and vacations on the horizon again, retailers anticipate a spending boom. After all, as ads for beer and shapewear now suggest, what better way to get “back to normal” than to buy new stuff?
+
+
+But just because vaccinated Americans can safely shop like they used to doesn’t mean all of them will. Some have moved to the suburbs and now frequent strip malls instead of street-level boutiques; others have changed jobs and routines. Some won’t be going back to the office every day, so they’re less likely to buy a new dress shirt or pop into the downtown shops after work. Many have also grown accustomed to the ease of curbside pickup and now expect their trips to the store to be as quick and convenient as checking out online.
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+Even though e-commerce accounts for only about 14 percent of consumer spending in the US today, according to the Census Bureau, it may still be an existential threat to tens of thousands of existing stores. A recent UBS report forecasts 80,000 retail store closures, representing 9 percent of the country’s total retail footprint, by 2026. The report suggests more stores will close as Americans do more of their shopping online — a trend UBS says has only been exacerbated by the pandemic.
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+Back in February, as many as one in four US consumers said they no longer enjoyed the in-person shopping experience and didn’t feel safe shopping in stores, according to a global IBM survey.
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+Karl Haller, a partner at IBM Global Business Services, expects these concerns to flag, though, so long as local public health outlooks continue to improve. “As people are getting vaccinated and as restrictions are getting relaxed, safety will probably slowly migrate down in terms of its active importance in the minds of consumers, unless or until there is an outbreak of some sort,” Haller says.
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+While conspicuous Lysoling, mandatory hand sanitizer stations, and UV disinfection robots roaming the aisles — which the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson called “hygiene theater” — may assuage some customers’ aversion to germs, they don’t necessarily make for an enjoyable shopping experience. Do you really want to be reminded of the looming threat of plague when you’re trying to buy face cream?
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+A more subtle shift that could outlast the pandemic is more spacious store layouts, says MJ Munsell, chief creative officer at architecture design and strategy firm MG2. In the past 20 or so years, fixture spacing has tightened to accommodate more and more merchandise, she says. And while the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 sets some requirements for retailers — aisles must be at least 3 feet wide, for example — social distancing has awakened many companies to the value of a little extra breathing room.
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+“[Retailers] are realizing that it is a customer amenity to provide more space, to not feel crowded, to not feel like you’re going to bump into someone else when you’re shopping deeper into a store,” Munsell says.
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+Grocery chains and garden centers now tout their “massive aisles” alongside their low prices and merchandise selections. Contactless checkout sections are also here to stay, with Walmart rolling out its self-checkout kiosks in 1,000 additional stores this year. The country’s largest retailer is even testing a new format that would eliminate cashier-staffed checkouts entirely.
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+Retailers that added or expanded their fulfillment options — among them curbside pickup; buy online, pick up in-store; and ship-from-store — during the pandemic are now finding that they have to more seamlessly integrate those processes into their store designs.
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+Grocery giant Publix, for instance, recently debuted a new store format that includes a permanent online order hub, pharmacy drive-through, and designated parking spots for grocery pickup. The head of store operations at Ulta Beauty, meanwhile, told Morning Brew that it is renegotiating some store leases to include parking spots for curbside pickup.
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+Convenience is just one feature that retailers are ramping up. Many are also recognizing that people need a good reason to shop in-store when the same products can be found quickly and easily online.
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+“There can no longer be what I would call a Field of Dreams mindset when thinking about stores. It is not a ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy,” says Haller.
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+At the arts-and-crafts chain Michaels, new concept stores will include “maker spaces” with free supplies, classes, and crafting tutorials. Dick’s Sporting Goods, meanwhile, opened its first House of Sport megastore in April, featuring an indoor rock-climbing wall, batting cage, golf driving bays, and outdoor track and field that will be converted into a skating rink during the winter.
+
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+Lindsay Binette, director of field marketing at WS Development, says foot traffic is almost back at pre-pandemic levels at most of the company’s properties, which include the Boston Seaport and Tampa Bay’s Hyde Park Village. The Instagram-friendly ear-piercing studio Studs opened this month at The Current, the Seaport’s pop-up village, while Tampa customers are flocking back to the custom candlemaking shop The Candle Pour.
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+“People are really looking for more of that sense of discovery that you can experience in-store that you can’t experience when you’re online,” says Binette.
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+While retailers were already making more efforts to tailor each of their stores to the unique tastes and demographics of local markets prior to the pandemic, that task became especially urgent in a year when people rarely ventured far from their homes.
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+Nike is betting on this strategy with its Nike Live stores, which leverage data about customers’ buying patterns and engagement to “provide the ultimate localized brick-and-mortar shopping experience.” To that end, shoppers visiting the Nike Live boutique in Tokyo will have an experience very different from those visiting the store in Atlanta.
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+“It’s no longer a rubber stamp from store to store. You’re starting to see a real different mix based on the patterns of purchase that are happening in a particular community, and that’s really going to help make brands more relevant,” says Lara Marrero, strategy director and retail practice leader at Gensler, a global design and architecture firm.
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+If all retailers could be more like Nike, perhaps the outlook for America’s malls and brick-and-mortar stores would be brighter, but as it is, most experts predict that the glut of mediocre retail is unlikely to survive for long. Last year, a record 12,200 stores closed in the US, according to an analysis by the commercial real estate firm CoStar Group. About a third of them were department stores, clothing chains, and other mall-based properties. Department stores have an especially challenging road ahead: Only 1,600 mall-based locations remain in the US — down about 40 percent since 2016 — and half of them are expected to be shuttered by the end of 2025, according to Green Street Advisors.
+
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+Matt Anthony has seen what happens when a department store closes up shop. The Akron, Ohio, resident saw the writing on the wall when Macy’s left his local mall in 2016, and again when Sears and J.C. Penney followed suit soon thereafter. Last year, with no anchor stores remaining, the mall entered foreclosure proceedings, and just recently the property was bought by a developer who plans to turn it into a business park.
+
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+Anthony had witnessed this kind of decline a decade prior at the mall across town, which lost Dillard’s, Target, and Macy’s before shuttering in 2008. The property sat mostly vacant for years, earning its place in the annals of dead malls thanks to photos of its snow-covered atrium, the skylights caved in from neglect. Today, though, the site of the former mall is once again bustling with activity: On November 1, 2020, Amazon opened a distribution center where it once stood.
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+Akron has one remaining (and, fortunately, far more successful) mall, and Anthony and his wife recently drove there on a Friday night to run errands and enjoy a social experience after so many months hunkered down at home.
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+“It felt really good to be out among people again,” he says. “Just being able to meander and wander, given the fact that we’ve just spent the past year or more not being able to be near other people, was to me really refreshing.”
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+Going to Summit Mall was like “walking back in time to 20 years ago,” he says. The parking lot was full, Macy’s was open for business, and people seemed to be happy to be there. While he expects it will be a luxury one day to be able to, say, walk into a camera shop to ask a question rather than firing up a chat window with a faceless customer service person online, his trip to the mall that night reminded him that there are certain aspects of the brick-and-mortar experience that can’t be replaced online.
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+“It kind of harkens back to what it once was,” he says. “I wish we would have appreciated it a little earlier in the process before we gave our life over to Jeff Bezos.”
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+
The death of Ronald Greene in Louisiana police custody, explained -
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+Sean Greene, brother of Ronald Greene, at a Washington, DC, march against police brutality in August 2020. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
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+New body cam footage dramatically differs from the original 2019 police report.
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+Last week, the Associated Press obtained police body camera footage of the arrest of Ronald Greene, a Black man who died in police custody in Louisiana after a car chase in 2019. The footage has revealed shocking brutality toward Greene, undermining the police’s account of what happened during the arrest, and indicates, experts say, a police cover-up of serious misconduct.
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+The incident, and the conflict between the official report and the video footage, also raise questions about the power and limitations of body cameras — a focal point of some criminal justice reform efforts — when it comes to ensuring that law enforcement is held accountable for misconduct.
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+Greene, a 49-year-old barber, died in police custody outside Monroe, Louisiana, in May 2019, following a police chase that began after Greene did not pull over for an unspecified traffic violation.
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+According to the AP, police initially told Greene’s family that he died on impact after crashing into a tree. Later, according to the same AP report, the state police “acknowledg[ed] only that Greene struggled with troopers and died on his way to the hospital.”
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+But the newly released footage, which lasts more than 46 minutes, reveals a prolonged struggle during which police repeatedly tased, punched, and choked Greene as they put him in handcuffs. The videos also show that he became unresponsive after a physical struggle which use-of-force experts say violates protocols for safely handling someone in handcuffs.
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+Greene died in police custody before arriving at a hospital, but the precise cause and timing of his death are unclear. Based on his condition upon arriving at the hospital, an emergency room doctor who saw Greene was skeptical of the troopers’ initial account that Greene had died during a car crash; an independent autopsy later commissioned by Greene’s family found severe injuries to his skull.
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+In May 2020,Greene’s family sued the police for wrongful death, and federal authorities opened a civil rights investigation into Greene’s death last fall. But Louisiana State Police declined to release the footage publicly for two years, saying that releasing it would undermine the investigative process into the incident.
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+However, after the AP released the body camera footage it had obtained last week, the state police released what it said was all the related video, just days later.
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+With the release of the graphic footage, public scrutiny of the incident has reignited, and experts have weighed in on what appears to be misconduct at several levels of law enforcement.
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+Alec Karakatsanis, executive director of the Washington-based nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, told Vox that the effort to obstruct the reality of Greene’s treatment by police likely included “at least low-level police officers, high-level police officials, state politicians, government lawyers, and state and federal prosecutors.”
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+Karakatsanis also likened the incident to the high-profile allegations of a cover-up in the death of Laquan McDonald, who was shot to death by Chicago police in 2014. In that case, too, the official police report differed markedly from later footage, but while the officer who shot McDonald was convicted in his murder, fellow officers who were charged with covering up evidence were not convicted.
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+The release of the footage in the Greene case has brought national public attention to another incident of police brutality in which official accounts differ from other evidence of the events. Coupled with increased public support for broad police reforms and a presidential administration sympathetic to the cause, it’s possible that more substantial steps may be taken to hold law enforcement accountable in this case.
+
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+At the same time, however, the manner in which the Greene footage was released — only after journalists forced the issue into the national spotlight, a full two years after the incident was obscured by false and inaccurate statements by the police — serves as a reminder that body cameras are far from a silver bullet as an accountability tool.
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+Greene’s death is shrouded in mystery, but it’s clear he was brutalized
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+The now-public footage, from body and dashboard cameras, doesn’t provide a clear picture of everything that happened to Greene the night that he died. Nor does a newly released autopsy report, also obtained by the AP and released Friday, which stated that Greene’s head injuries and the manner in which he was detained contributed to his death; the report also found cocaine and alcohol in his system.
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+The report does not give a manner of death, which the AP’s Jim Mustian described as “a highly unusual move that did not make it clear whether Greene’s death could be deemed a homicide, an accident or undetermined.”
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+What is clear is that, at multiple junctures, Louisiana State Police did not accurately describe what happened — and they did deploy excessive force in handling Greene.
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+After police tried to pull Greene over for a traffic violation, he sped away from them at high speeds. Troopers told Greene’s family he died when he hit a tree, but the footage shows Greene conscious, speaking, and moving after his car stopped; it is unclear based on reports and footage exactly how his car came to a stop. The New York Times reports that, according to Greene’s family’s lawyer, an accident reconstruction expert concluded that the marks on the car — mostly on the rear driver’s side — were inconsistent with a fatal collision.
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+Footage shows that troopers opened Greene’s car door and immediately tased him.
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+As at least two troopers try to pull Greene out of the car, Greene can be heard saying, “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’m scared. Officer, I’m scared, I’m your brother, I’m scared.”
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+Body cam footage shows officers tased, kicked and dragged Ronald Greene, a Black man who died on his way to the hospital after a high speed police pursuit.
Authorities reportedly told his family he’d been killed in an auto accident immediately after hitting a tree. pic.twitter.com/q4kP3Pxupv
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+The troopers struggle to arrest Greene, and, as they do so, they repeatedly tase and punch him in the face and in the back, and appear to place him in a chokehold, the footage shows. Greene can be heard apologizing and crying out in distress throughout the situation.
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+At one point after Greene is handcuffed with his hands behind his back, he is dragged by his ankles and left in a prone position for more than nine minutes. “I hope this guy ain’t got fucking AIDS,” one of the troopers can be heard saying as he cleans blood off of himself.
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+Footage may reveal misconduct and even a cover-up, experts say
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+Use-of-force experts say that being handcuffed in the prone position makes it difficult for someone to breathe, and police officers are told to prevent someone from staying in the position too long for that reason.
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+“There’s nothing in any manual anywhere in the United States that allows for dragging an individual face down by their ankles,” Charles Ramsey, the former commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department, said on CNN last week after observing the footage. “Clearly this is a case of excessive force, between the tasing, kicking, beating. Having him in a prone position for that length of time … that is still a position that’s very difficult to breathe. Part of your training tells you, as soon as you get him cuffed, roll him over or sit him up, in order for them to be able to breathe.”
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+One trooper can be heard discussing the arrest in a telephone exchange inside his patrol vehicle.
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+“And I beat the ever-living fuck out of him, choked him and everything else trying to get him under control, and we finally got him in handcuffs when a third man got there, and the son of a bitch was still fighting, and we was still wrestling with him trying to hold him down because he was spitting blood everywhere — and then all of a sudden he just went limp,” the trooper said.
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+Not all of the troopers at the scene had their cameras on during the arrest, and Greene is not always visible in the available camera footage. The microphones are also not always on throughout the videos. And at one point, an officer actively turned his camera off. As a result, there are significant gaps in the details surrounding Greene’s death.
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+The video footage eventually shows Greene covered in blood and appearing unresponsive as he’s loaded into an ambulance. It’s not clear when Greene died, but it happened before arriving at the hospital.
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+As the AP reports, the troopers provided what appears to be some combination of incomplete and false information to medical professionals who handled Greene after the arrest:
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+Union Parish Coroner Renee Smith told AP last year his death was ruled accidental and attributed to cardiac arrest. Smith, who was not in office when that determination was made, said her office’s file on Greene attributed his death to a car crash and made no mention of a struggle with State Police.
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+The AP last year also obtained a medical report showing an emergency room doctor noted Greene arrived dead at the hospital, bruised and bloodied with two stun-gun prongs in his back. That led the doctor to question troopers’ initial account that Greene had “died on impact” after crashing into a tree. “Does not add up,” the doctor wrote.
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+Later the police released a single-page crash report which said that “Greene was taken into custody after resisting arrest and a struggle with Troopers,” It did not mention any use of force by troopers.
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+Ramsey, the former police commissioner, said on CNN, “If the reports are accurate … it’s a cover-up, the statements being made are not consistent with what the video is showing.”
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+Troopers have so far faced few repercussions for their actions toward Greene
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+There were at least six troopers at the scene of the arrest, and there are seven defendants in the Greene family’s wrongful death lawsuit. But Louisiana State Police have been reluctant to make critical details public and the repercussions so far for those involved have been limited.
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+According to Louisiana State Police, the trooper who dragged Greene by his ankles, Kory York, was given a 50-hour suspension and returned to active duty, pending the outcome of state and federal investigations.
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+The officer who can be heard describing how he had beaten and choked Greene, Chris Hollingsworth, was notified last September that he was going to be fired as a result of an internal investigation into his handling of Greene’s arrest. Hollingsworth died in a car crash hours afterward.
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+And a third trooper, Dakota DeMoss, was arrested in February in an unrelated case on charges of using excessive force. According to the New York Times, DeMoss remains on leave pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings but has been “notified of the agency’s intention to terminate him.”
+
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+Meanwhile, the federal investigation of the incident and the Greene family lawsuit are ongoing. And local protests throughout last year — which took place against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter protests following the high-profile police killing of George Floyd — attempted to maintain attention on what local activists and Greene’s family alleged was a cover-up of police brutality. Now, with the widespread release of video footage, national scrutiny has been sparked.
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+Body cameras can capture abuse, but don’t ensure anything will be done about it
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+The handling of Greene’s death is a reminder that, as some progressive criminal justice reformers have pointed out, the mere existence ofbody cameras is no guarantor of justice for people who have been wronged by the police.
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+Body cameras for police officers have received bipartisan support at the state and federal level and are often seen as a common-sense reform measure to enhance accountability for law enforcement.
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+But the reality is that the documentation provided by body camera footage alone doesn’t necessarily improve behavior. As P.R. Lockhart wrote for Vox in 2019, “the research suggests that body cameras are only as successful as the departments they are implemented in.”
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+According to a study published in Criminology & Public Policy that year,inone of the largest reviews of academic research on body cameras to date, scholars at George Mason University found that, in many police departments, cameras have not had a consistent or significant effect on officer behavior or citizen opinion of the police.
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+And the existence of footage of police brutality or killings doesn’t alter the reality that law enforcement is structurally designed to protect police officers from prosecution for misconduct. For example, police killing investigations often move exceptionally slowly, which criminal justice reformers say gives officers more time to conspire and fabricate a story as they prepare to be asked about alleged misconduct. And the frequent absence of civilian investigators makes investigations likely to be stonewalled by the “blue wall of silence” that encourages officers to avoid incriminating colleagues.
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+As President Joe Biden approaches proposing criminal justice reform legislation, advocates for more sweeping changes to policing are likely to emphasize the need to move beyond quick fixes like body cameras and look into dismantling institutional arrangements such as qualified immunity that are intended to shield police officers from being punished for the misconduct those cameras reveal.
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From The Hindu: Sports
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Japan opens mass vaccination centres 2 months before Games - Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is determined to hold the Olympics in Tokyo after a one-year delay
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Juventus thrash Bologna to seal Champions League spot - Andrea Pirlo’s Juve side moved one point above Napoli into fourth place as Gennaro Gattuso’s team could only muster a 1-1 draw with mid-table Hellas Verona.
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Juventus and AC Milan qualify for Champions League, Napoli miss out - Atalanta have also booked a place in the Champions League
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Liverpool, Chelsea ensure top-four finish - Last-day blues return to haunt Leicester yet again as it loses to Tottenham
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Lyon Open | Tsitsipas wins with ease - It is his second title of the season in the claycourt swing
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From The Hindu: National News
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I will be in politics as long as I am alive: Kamal Haasan - The founder of the Makkal Needhi Maiam said those who have left the party would not be allowed to contaminate the well
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Awards for GPs combating COVID-19 - Urging the district officials to work towards making villages COVID-free, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister K.S. Eshwarappa on Monday said
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There is no safety for Dalits in State, alleges Nara Lokesh - He meets the family members of anaesthetist who died of cardiac arrest
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Farmers assemble at Hisar to protest police action during Khattar’s visit - Police effort to prevent them from entering the city proves futile.
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BCCI to donate 2000 10-litre oxygen concentrators to medical organisations battling COVID-19 - Over the next few months, the Board will distribute the concentrators across India
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From BBC: Europe
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Western powers voice outrage as Belarus accused of hijacking plane - The EU considers sanctions after Belarus forced a plane carrying a dissident journalist to land.
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Mottarone cable car crash: Italy investigates cause of accident - Operators of the cable car near Lake Maggiore said maintenance and checks were carried out regularly.
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Germany’s quiet Catholic rebellion on gay blessings and women preachers - German Catholics challenge the Vatican’s conservative teaching on gay blessings and female preachers.
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Covid: UK passes 60m jabs milestone after 762,000 in a day - Health chief urges people to get their second jab, as more than 760,000 doses are given in a day.
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Sniffer dogs may help Covid screening at UK airports - Trials suggest dogs could contribute to efforts to prevent the spread of Covid at mass gatherings.
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From Ars Technica
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After Virgin Galactic’s success on Saturday, how soon can it fly again? - “We will immediately begin processing the data.” - link
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Eternally five years away? No, batteries are improving under your nose - Under the hood, lithium-ion batteries have gotten better in the last decade. - link
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Review: Zombie heist thriller Army of the Dead is Zack Snyder at his best - Snyder reined in his worst impulses in this entertaining twist on a zombie apocalypse. - link
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Google’s I/O Adventure was almost as good as being there - Holding a trade show inside an online game is actually pretty fun. - link
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When is a Porsche 911 not a Porsche 911? When it’s a Ruf - The cars have starred in Gran Turismo and on the Nordschleife. - link
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From Jokes Subreddit
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A black guy in a library asked me where the colored printers were. -
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+I said, “Dude, it’s 2021, you can use any printer you want.”
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A teacher asked a student “If there are four birds sitting next to each other on a tree, and you shoot one, how many do you have left?” -
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+The student replies “None.” Curious, the teacher asks the student about his answer, and he explains that if you shoot one bird, it startles the other birds into flying away, so you’re left with none.
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+The teacher replies “Not what I was looking for, but I like your answer.”
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+The student then asks the teacher “Ok, let me ask you a question. There are three women all eating ice cream, one is biting her ice cream, one is licking her ice cream, and the other is sucking her ice cream. Which one of these women is married?”
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+The teacher thinks for a moment before replying “The one sucking her ice cream?”
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+The student shakes his head and replies “No, the one with the wedding ring, but I like your answer.”
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Rich Pedroncelli/AP
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