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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Environmental and genetic drivers of population differences in SARS-CoV-2 immune responses</strong> -
<div>
Humans display vast clinical variability upon SARS-CoV-2 infection, partly due to genetic and immunological factors. However, the magnitude of population differences in immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and the mechanisms underlying such variation remain unknown. Here we report single-cell RNA-sequencing data for peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 222 healthy donors of various ancestries stimulated with SARS-CoV-2 or influenza A virus. We show that SARS-CoV-2 induces a weaker, but more heterogeneous interferon-stimulated gene activity than influenza A virus, and a unique pro-inflammatory signature in myeloid cells. We observe marked population differences in transcriptional responses to viral exposure that reflect environmentally induced cellular heterogeneity, as illustrated by higher rates of cytomegalovirus infection, affecting lymphoid cells, in African-descent individuals. Expression quantitative trait loci and mediation analyses reveal a broad effect of cell proportions on population differences in immune responses, with genetic variants having a narrower but stronger effect on specific loci. Additionally, natural selection has increased immune response differentiation across populations, particularly for variants associated with SARS-CoV-2 responses in East Asians. We document the cellular and molecular mechanisms through which Neanderthal introgression has altered immune functions, such as its impact on the myeloid response in Europeans. Finally, colocalization analyses reveal an overlap between the genetic architecture of immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 severity. Collectively, these findings suggest that adaptive evolution targeting immunity has also contributed to current disparities in COVID-19 risk.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.22.517073v1" target="_blank">Environmental and genetic drivers of population differences in SARS-CoV-2 immune responses</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Modeling COVID-19 in different countries as sequences of SI waves</strong> -
<div>
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The COVID-19 pandemic has been a huge challenge worldwide for many institutions, researchers, national health organizations, and the pharmaceutical industry. As natural scientists and engineers, we attempted to contribute by calculating models and analyzing data to keep track of the pandemic. While a frequent goal is to predict the next pandemic wave by considering all influencing parameters, we examined methods to calculate a model course of the entire pandemic. This is done by reconstructing the course of infections into multiple model waves that sum up into a pandemic model that is close to the real course. The model wave parameters are varied by an algorithm, such as the Excel solver, to minimize the difference between the real and model courses. By reconstructing the course of infections using the commonly known SIR model, we found that the calculated model parameters were ambiguous and difficult to interpret. In contrast, we found that sequenced SI model waves provide an astonishing precise digital representation of the pandemic course. Until November 2022, we found between six and 16 waves (depending on the country) in each of the 14 countries investigated. The calculated parameters are easy to interpret and are comparable between different waves and countries. These wave parameters may be correlated with the virus types and measures in each country by other researchers. New waves are detectable early as they show a certain deviation from the actual model wave. After the maximum of the last real wave, the model indicates the further procedure for the pandemic course.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.22.22282631v1" target="_blank">Modeling COVID-19 in different countries as sequences of SI waves</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>One-day preoperative systemic treatment regimen outcompetes five-day regimen in potentially resectable esophageal squamous cancer</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Introduction The current standard-of-care treatment for locally advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is preoperative chemoradiotherapy.1 However, most ESCC patients in China are from economically underdeveloped areas 2. The shortage of medical resources exhaust the willingness of such patients to receive radiotherapy. Therefore, neoadjuvant chemotherapy alone is a preferred option in Eastern Asia. The one-day platinum plus paclitaxel (pla/pac) regimen is commonly used in China, while the five-day platinum plus 5-fluorouracil (5FU-based) regimen is preferred in other countries.3 Especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, how to deliver timely and effective treatment for cancer patients has become a huge challenge.4 Fortunately, The effectiveness of immunochemotherapy is encouraging. We compared the effectiveness among the one-day immunochemotherapy regimen, the one-day chemotherapy regimen and the five-day chemotherapy regimen in locally advanced ESCC patients treated with preoperative systemic treatment (POST). Methods We retrospectively analyzed locally advanced ESCC patients who had received POST from January 2012 to September 2021 at the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Guangdong Provincial Peoples9 Hospital. The clinical and follow-up data were collected and analyzed according to 3 regimens including 5FU-based regimen which contains docetaxel+platinum+5-FU and platinum+5-FU regimens (5FU-based group), pla/pac regimen and pla/pac plus PD-1 inhibitor regimen (pla/pac/ICI). Complete response and partial response were defined as the objective response rate (ORR) per RECIST1.1 5. Categorical and continuous variables were analyzed by Chi-square and One-way ANOVA respectively, and overall survival (OS) was assessed using Kaplan-Meier analysis. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS v26 (Inc, Chicago, Illinois) and R, and a P value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results A total of 395 POST-treated ESCC patients were enrolled, including 72 in the 5FU-based group, 168 in the pla/pac group, and 155 in the pla/pac/ICI group, and the mean follow-up time were 32.2, 44.2 and 14.3 months, respectively. There was no statistical difference in the baseline data among the three groups except POST cycles (Table). As shown in the Figure 1A, the pla/pac/ICI group had the greatest benefit, with an ORR of 63.2% (P &lt; 0.05) and a surgery conversion rate of 85.2% (P &lt; 0.05). Moreover, the ypT0 or ypTis rate in the pla/pac/ICI group was significantly higher than that in 5FU-based and pla/pac groups. Furthermore, pla/pac/ICI group acquired a better short-term OS than the other groups (one-year OS: pla/pac/ICI 93.6% vs. pla/pac 87.4% vs. 5FU-based 70.5%, Figure 1B). Discussion The COVID-19 pandemic has caused considerable consumption of medical resourse and cancer patients bear the brunt of delays in the interruption of medical care during the long treatment period4. Thus, it is urgent to deliver more effective and time-saving treatment. In this study, we demonstrated that the one-day pla/pac/IC group regimen has obvious clinical advantage over one-day pla/pac and five-day 5FU-based regimen in terms of radiological/pathological tumor response, as well as long-term overall survival. Taken both time cost and efficacy into consideration, the one-day pla/pac/IC regimen migth be a more favorable option in treating locally advanced ESCC. Despite exciting results, patients treated with immunotherapy shoulder great financial burden. Our results showed that there were no significant differences in the surgical conversion rate and response rate between one-day pla/pac and five-day 5FU-based group. Furthermore, the pla/pac group showed better survival benefits than 5FU-based group. The one-day pla/pac regimen might be an better alternative until affordable immunotherapy could benefit the whole population. Conclusion In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, one-day immunochemotherapy should be considered because it may yield higher response rates, bring better overall survival as well as significantly reduce the risk of treatment interruption. If immunotherapy is not available, the 1-day pla/pac regimen is also an effective and timely alternative.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.21.22282548v1" target="_blank">One-day preoperative systemic treatment regimen outcompetes five-day regimen in potentially resectable esophageal squamous cancer</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Susceptibility-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging Highlights Brain Alterations in COVID Recovered Patients.</strong> -
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The increasing number of reports of mild to severe psychological, behavioral, and cognitive sequelae in COVID-19 survivors motivates a need for a thorough assessment of the neurological effects of the disease. In this regard, we have conducted a neuroimaging study to understand the neurotropic behavior of the coronavirus. We hypothesize that the COVID-recovered subjects have developed alterations in the brain which can be measured through susceptibility differences in various regions of the brain when compared to healthy controls (HCs). Hence, we performed our investigations on susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) volumes. Fatigue, being of the most common symptoms of Long COVID, has also been studied in this work. SWI volumes of 46 COVID and 30 HCs were included in this study. The COVID patients were imaged within six months of their recovery. We performed an unpaired two-sample t-test over the pre-processed SWI volumes of both groups and multiple linear regression was performed to observe group differences and correlation of fatigue with SWI values. The group analysis showed that COVID recovered subjects had significantly higher susceptibility imaging values in regions of the frontal lobe and the brain stem. The clusters obtained in the frontal lobe primarily show differences in the white matter regions. The COVID group also demonstrated significantly higher fatigue levels than the HC group. The regression analysis on the COVID group yielded clusters in the anterior cingulate gyrus and midbrain, which exhibited negative correlations with fatigue scores. This study suggests an association of Long COVID with prolonged effects on the brain and also indicates the viability of the SWI modality for analysis of post-COVID symptoms.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.21.22282600v1" target="_blank">Susceptibility-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging Highlights Brain Alterations in COVID Recovered Patients.</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Cost of In-patient Management of Covid-19 Patients in a Tertiary Hospital in Kuwait</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Among the GCC countries affected by COVID-19 infections, Kuwait was impacted with 658,520 cases and 2,563 deaths as reported by WHO on September 30, 2022. However, the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the economy of Kuwait especially in health sector is unknown. Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the total cost of COVID-19 in-patient management in Kuwait. Method: Retrospective design was employed in this study. A total 485 Covid-19 patients admitted to a tertiary hospital assigned to manage Covid-19 cases was randomly selected for this study from 1st May to 31st September 2021. Data on sociodemographic, length of stay (LOS), discharge status and comorbidity were obtained from the patients9 medical records. Among others, data on cost in this study cover administration, utility, pharmacy, radiology, laboratory, nursing, and ICU costs. The unit cost per admission was imputed using a step-down costing method with three levels of cost centers. The unit cost was multiplied by the individual patient’s length of stay to obtain the cost of care per patient per admission. Findings: The mean cost of Covid-19 inpatient per episode of care was KD 2,216 (SD=2,018) equals to US$ 7,344 (SD=6,688) with the average length of stay of 9.4 (SD=8.5) days per admission. The total treatment costs of Covid-19 inpatient (n=485) were estimated to be KD 1,074,644 (US$ 3,561,585), in which the physician and nursing care cost were the largest share of costs (42.1%) with KD 452,154 (US$ 1,498,529). The second- and third-largest costs were intensive care (20.6%) of KD 221,439 (US$ 733,893) and laboratory costs (10.2%) of KD 109,264 (US$ 362,123). The average cost for severe Covid-19 patient was KD 4,626 (US$ 15,332), which is almost three times higher than the non-severe patients of KD 1,544 (US$ 5,117). Conclusion: The cost of managing Covid-19 cases is substantial. The cost information can assist hospital managers and policymakers in designing more efficient interventions, especially for the management of high-risk groups.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.21.22282601v1" target="_blank">Cost of In-patient Management of Covid-19 Patients in a Tertiary Hospital in Kuwait</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Inability to work following COVID-19 vaccination among healthcare workers - an important aspect for future booster vaccinations</strong> -
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Background COVID-19 vaccination is a key prevention strategy to reduce the spread and severity of SARS-CoV-2 infections, especially among highly exposed healthcare workers (HCWs). However, vaccine-related inability to work among HCWs could overstrain healthcare systems. Methods This study examined sick leave and intake of pro re nata (PRN) medication after the first, second and third COVID-19 vaccination in HCWs. Subgroup analyses were performed for different vaccines, gender, healthcare professions, and for HCWs aged at least 30 years. Data was collected by using an electronic questionnaire. Findings Among 1,704 HCWs enrolled, in total 595 (34·9%) HCWs were on sick leave following at least one COVID 19 vaccination, leading to a total number of 1,550 sick days. Both the absolute sick days and the rate of HCWs on sick leave significantly increased with each subsequent vaccination. Comparing BNT162b2mRNA and mRNA-1273 the difference in sick leave was not significant after the second dose, but mRNA-1273 induced a significantly longer and more frequent sick leave after the third. Interpretation A considerable number of HCWs have been on sick leave after COVID-19 vaccination, staff absences increase with each additional dose, depend on the vaccine, and vary between HCWs9 gender, and profession. In the light of further COVID-19 infection waves and booster vaccinations, there is a risk of additional staff shortages due to post-vaccination inability to work, which could acutely overload healthcare systems and jeopardise patient care. These findings will aid further vaccination campaigns to minimise the impact of staff absences on the healthcare system.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.21.22282594v1" target="_blank">Inability to work following COVID-19 vaccination among healthcare workers - an important aspect for future booster vaccinations</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Do Public Health Efforts Matter? Explaining Cross-Country Heterogeneity in Excess Death During the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
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The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a devastating toll around the world. Since January 2020, the World Health Organization estimates 14.9 million excess deaths have occurred globally. Despite this grim number quantifying the deadly impact, the underlying factors contributing to COVID-19 deaths at the population level remain unclear. Prior studies indicate that demographic factors like proportion of population older than 65 and population health explain the cross-country difference in COVID-19 deaths. However, there has not been a holistic analysis including variables describing government policies and COVID-19 vaccination rate. Furthermore, prior studies focus on COVID-19 death rather than excess death to assess the impact of the pandemic. Through a robust statistical modeling framework, we analyze 80 countries and show that actionable public health efforts beyond just the factors intrinsic to each country are necessary to explain the cross-country heterogeneity in excess death.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.21.22282563v1" target="_blank">Do Public Health Efforts Matter? Explaining Cross-Country Heterogeneity in Excess Death During the COVID-19 Pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Temporal Associations of Plasma Levels of the Secreted Phospholipase A2 Family and Mortality in Severe COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
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Previous research suggests that group IIA secreted phospholipase A<sub>2</sub> (sPLA<sub>2</sub>-IIA) plays a role in and predicts severe COVID-19 disease. The current study reanalyzed a longitudinal proteomic data set to determine the temporal (days 0, 3 and 7) relationship between the levels of several members of a family of sPLA<sub>2</sub> isoforms and the severity of COVID-19 in 214 ICU patients. The levels of six secreted PLA<sub>2</sub> isoforms, sPLA<sub>2</sub>-IIA, sPLA<sub>2</sub>-V, sPLA<sub>2</sub>-X, sPLA<sub>2</sub>-IB, sPLA<sub>2</sub>-IIC, and sPLA<sub>2</sub>-XVI, increased over the first 7 ICU days in those who succumbed to the disease. sPLA<sub>2</sub>-IIA outperformed top ranked cytokines and chemokines as predictors of patient outcome. A decision tree corroborated these results with day 0 to day 3 kinetic changes of sPLA<sub>2</sub>-IIA that separated the death and severe categories from the mild category and increases from day 3 to day 7 significantly enriched the lethal category. In contrast, there was a time-dependent decrease in sPLA<sub>2</sub>-IID and sPLA<sub>2</sub>-XIIB in patients with severe or lethal disease, and these two isoforms were at higher levels in mild patients. Taken together, proteomic analysis revealed temporal sPLA2 patterns that reflect the critical roles of sPLA<sub>2</sub> isoforms in severe COVID-19 disease.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.21.22282595v1" target="_blank">Temporal Associations of Plasma Levels of the Secreted Phospholipase A2 Family and Mortality in Severe COVID-19</a>
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<li><strong>Predictive efficacies of vaccine dose fractionation using neutralizing antibody levels</strong> -
<div>
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With the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants that eluded immunity from vaccines and prior infections, vaccine shortages and their effectiveness pose unprecedented challenges for governments to expand booster vaccination programs. Fractionation of vaccine doses might be an effective strategy to help society to face these challenges, which may have comparable efficacies in contrast with the standard doses. In this study, we analyzed the relationship between in-vitro neutralization levels and the observed efficacies against asymptomatic and symptomatic infection of ten types of COVID-19 vaccines using data from 13 studies from vaccination and convalescent cohorts. We further projected efficacies for fractional doses based on 51 studies included in our systematic review. By comparing with the convalescent level, vaccine efficacy increases from 8.8% (95% CI: 1.4%, 16.1%) to 71.8% (95% CI: 63.0%, 80.7%) against asymptomatic infection, and from 33.6% (95% CI: 23.6%, 43.6%) to 98.6% (95% CI: 97.6%, 99.7%) against symptomatic infection, respectively, along with the mean neutralization level from 0.1 to 10 folds of convalescent level. And mRNA vaccines provide the strongest protection, and decrease slowly for fractional dosing between 50% and 100% dosage. Our results are consistent with studies for immune protection from COVID-19 infection. Based on our study, we expect that fractional dose vaccination could provide a partial immunity for SARS-CoV-2 virus. Fractional doses of vaccines could be a viable vaccination strategy compared to full-dose vaccination and deserves further exploration.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.21.22282613v1" target="_blank">Predictive efficacies of vaccine dose fractionation using neutralizing antibody levels</a>
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<li><strong>Mortality associated with different influenza subtypes in France between 2015-2019</strong> -
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: High levels of excess mortality during periods of active influenza circulation in France were observed in the years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the factors that affect the rates of influenza associated mortality are influenza vaccination coverage levels in different population groups and practices for testing for influenza and related use of antiviral medications for various illness episodes (including pneumonia hospitalizations) during periods of active influenza circulation in the community. Methods: Data on sentinel ILI surveillance and sentinel virological surveillance in France were combined in a framework of a previously developed regression model to estimate the number of deaths associated with the circulation of the major influenza subtypes (A/H3N2, A/H1N1, B/Yamagata and B/Victoria) in France between 2015-2019. Results: Between week 3, 2015 and week 2, 2020, there were on average 15403 (95% CI (12591,18229)) annual influenza-associated deaths, of which 60.3% (49.9%,71.9%) were associated with influenza A/H3N2, and 29.5% (13.3%,45.5%) were associated with influenza B/Yamagata. During weeks when levels of ILI consultation in mainland France were above 50 per 100,000 persons, 7.9% (6.5%,9.4%) of all deaths in France were influenza-associated. Conclusions: High rates of influenza-associated mortality in France prior to the COVID-19 pandemic suggest that boosting influenza vaccination coverage in different population groups and testing for influenza in respiratory illness episodes (including pneumonia hospitalizations) during periods of active influenza (particularly influenza A/H3N2) circulation in combination with the use of antiviral medications is needed to mitigate the impact of influenza epidemics.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.21.22282612v1" target="_blank">Mortality associated with different influenza subtypes in France between 2015-2019</a>
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<li><strong>Survey Examination of Resilience, Psychological, and Relational Well-Being during COVID-19: A Developmental and Cross-Cultural Dataset</strong> -
<div>
The datasets include relevant psychological and demographic variables relating to people’s relationships, perceptions, and reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic. Participants were recruited from the United States (N = 396), China (N = 156), and Iran (N = 248). Participants were directed to an online survey that assessed their psychological well-being, affective states, factors related to life satisfaction, and their experiences with the Covid-19 pandemic. For the United States, participants were separated by developmental stage (e.g., young adults between 18 and 35 years old and older adults who were 55 years old or older). Participants from China and Iran were 18 years old or older. Participants from the United States also provided qualitative data in the form of a text-box response where they described their reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic. These data may be relevant for researchers who want to investigate cross-cultural or developmental differences in people’s psychological states, perceptions, and reactions in the beginning phases of the Covid-19 pandemic.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/k4jfa/" target="_blank">Survey Examination of Resilience, Psychological, and Relational Well-Being during COVID-19: A Developmental and Cross-Cultural Dataset</a>
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<li><strong>The Hazards of Daily Stressors: Comparing the Experiences of Sexual and Gender Minority Young Adults to Cisgender Heterosexual Young Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic</strong> -
<div>
Some individuals may be at greater risk for encountering stressors in daily life than others, especially those with minority identities. Initial evidence shows that the disparities between cisgender heterosexual (CH) individuals and sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals on stress-related experiences may be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined the daily stressors experienced by undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic (stressor exposure), the association between the experience of daily stress and same-day negative mood (stressor reactivity), and whether these varied between undergraduate students with SGM identities and their CH counterparts using a 14-day daily diary design. We did not find significant differences between SGM and CH groups on stressor exposure or stressor reactivity. One common feature of daily diary data is right censoring, which is when some individuals do not experience specific events during the study duration. We used multilevel survival analysis, which accounts for right censored data, to examine group differences in the risks of stressor exposure. We discuss the statistical issues involved when right-censored cases are not taken into consideration in studies of stressor exposure and propose multilevel survival analysis as one solution to move the field towards more accurately understanding whether and when SGM individuals are at greater risk for stressors.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/2d7bm/" target="_blank">The Hazards of Daily Stressors: Comparing the Experiences of Sexual and Gender Minority Young Adults to Cisgender Heterosexual Young Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic</a>
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<li><strong>In-depth characterization of the Syrian hamster as translational model for COVID-19 in humans</strong> -
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The recent emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has highlighted the importance of having proper tools and models to study the pathophysiology of emerging infectious diseases to test therapeutic protocols, assess changes in viral phenotype and evaluate the effect of viral evolution. This study provides a comprehensive characterization of the Syrian hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) as an animal model for SARS-CoV-2 infection, using different approaches (description of clinical signs, viral replication, receptor profiling and host immune response) and targeting four different organs (lungs, intestine, brain and PBMCs). Our data showed that both male and female hamsters are susceptible to the infection and develop a disease similar to the one observed in patients with COVID-19, including moderate to severe pulmonary lesions, inflammation and recruitment of the immune system in lungs and at systemic level. However, all animals recovered within 14 days without developing the severe pathology seen in humans, and none of them died. We found faint evidence for intestinal and neurological tropism associated with absence of lesions and a minimal host response in intestines and brains, highlighting another crucial difference with the multi-organ impairment of severe COVID-19. When comparing male and female hamsters, it was observed that males sustained higher viral shedding and replication in lungs, suffered from more severe symptoms and histopathological lesions and triggered higher pulmonary inflammation. Overall, these data confirm the Syrian hamster as being a suitable model for mild-moderate COVID-19 and reflect sex-related differences in the response against the virus observed in humans.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.22.517339v1" target="_blank">In-depth characterization of the Syrian hamster as translational model for COVID-19 in humans</a>
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<li><strong>Nirmatrelvir treatment blunts the development of antiviral adaptive immune responses in SARS-CoV-2 infected mice</strong> -
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Alongside vaccines, antiviral drugs are becoming an integral part of our response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Nirmatrelvir, an orally available inhibitor of the 3- chymotrypsin-like cysteine protease, has been shown to reduce the risk of progression to severe COVID-19. However, the impact of nirmatrelvir treatment on the development of SARS-CoV-2-specific adaptive immune responses is unknown. Here, by using a mouse model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, we show that nirmatrelvir administration early after infection blunts the development of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibody and T cell responses. Accordingly, upon secondary challenge, nirmatrelvir-treated mice recruited significantly fewer memory T and B cells to the infected lungs and to mediastinal lymph nodes, respectively. Together, the data highlight a potential negative impact of nirmatrelvir treatment with important implications for clinical management and might help explain the virological and/or symptomatic relapse after treatment completion reported in some individuals.
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🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.22.517465v1" target="_blank">Nirmatrelvir treatment blunts the development of antiviral adaptive immune responses in SARS-CoV-2 infected mice</a>
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<li><strong>Lineage frequency time series reveal elevated levels of genetic drift in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in England</strong> -
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Random genetic drift in the population-level dynamics of an infectious disease outbreak results from the randomness of inter-host transmission and the randomness of host recovery or death. The strength of genetic drift has been found to be high for SARS-CoV-2 due to superspreading, and this is expected to substantially impact the disease epidemiology and evolution. Noise that results from the measurement process, such as biases in data collection across time, geographical areas, etc., can potentially confound estimates of genetic drift as both processes contribute “noise” to the data. To address this challenge, we develop and validate a method to jointly infer genetic drift and measurement noise from time-series lineage frequency data. We apply this method to over 490,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences from England collected between March 2020 and December 2021 by the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium. We find that even after correcting for measurement noise, the strength of genetic drift is consistently, throughout time, higher than that expected from the observed number of COVID-19 positive individuals in England by 1 to 3 orders of magnitude. Corrections taking into account epidemiological dynamics (susceptible-infected-recovered or susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered models) do not explain the discrepancy. Moreover, the levels of genetic drift that we observe are higher than the estimated levels of superspreading found by modeling studies that incorporate data on actual contact statistics in England. We discuss how even in the absence of superspreading, high levels of genetic drift can be generated via community structure in the host contact network. Our results suggest that further investigations of heterogeneous host contact structure may be important for understanding the high levels of genetic drift observed for SARS-CoV-2 in England.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.21.517390v1" target="_blank">Lineage frequency time series reveal elevated levels of genetic drift in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in England</a>
</div></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A comparative in-vitro study on antimicrobial efficacy of on-market alcohol-based hand washing sanitizers towards combating microbes and its application in combating Covid-19 global outbreak</strong> - The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has created endless social, economic, and political fear in the global human population. Measures employed include frequent washing hands and using alcohol-based hand sanitisers and hand rubs as instant hand hygiene products. Due to the need to mitigate the pandermic, there is an increase in the local production of alcohol-based hand sanitisers, whose quality and efficacy against germs and the virus are questionable. Therefore, the current study…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The role of miRNAs in viral myocarditis, and its possible implication in induction of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines-induced myocarditis</strong> - BACKGROUND: Several reports of unheeded complications secondary to the current mass international rollout of SARS-COV-2 vaccines, one of which is myocarditis occurring with the FDA fully approved vaccine, Pfizer, and others.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Potential impacts of prolonged absence of influenza virus circulation on subsequent epidemics</strong> - BACKGROUND: During the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the circulation of seasonal influenza viruses was unprecedentedly low. This led to concerns that the lack of immune stimulation to influenza viruses combined with waning antibody titres could lead to increased susceptibility to influenza in subsequent seasons, resulting in larger and more severe epidemics.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Reactogenicity and immunogenicity of the intradermal administration of BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine in healthy adults who were primed with an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine</strong> - Because of the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), safe and effective vaccines are urgently required. The shortage of effective vaccines is a major challenge in many developing countries. We studied intradermal (ID) fractional dose BNT162b2 mRNA (Comirnaty®, Pfizer-BioNTech) as a booster dose in healthy adults who were previously immunized with an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. This is a retrospective cohort study that included healthy adults who were…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Statin Therapy in COVID-19: Inhibition of NETosis</strong> - No abstract</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Infliximab as a potential treatment for COVID-19</strong> - INTRODUCTION: : As the third year of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic approaches, COVID-19 continues to cause substantial morbidity and mortality due to waning vaccine efficacy and the emergence of new, highly contagious subvariants and better therapies are urgently needed.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Identification of phytochemicals in Qingfei Paidu decoction for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 by targeting the virus-host interactome</strong> - Qingfei Paidu decoction (QFPDD) has been clinically proven to be effective in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, the bioactive components and therapeutic mechanisms remain unclear. This study aimed to explore the effective components and underlying mechanisms of QFPDD in the treatment of COVID-19 by targeting the virus-host interactome and verifying the antiviral activities of its active components in vitro. Key active components and targets were identified by…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Antcin A, a phytosterol regulates SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-mediated metabolic alteration in THP-1 cells explored by the <sup>1</sup> H-NMR-based metabolomics approach</strong> - The mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-mediated perturbations of metabolic pathways and modulation of antcin A, a steroid-like compound isolated from Taiwanofungus camphoratus, are not studied. Here, we investigated the metabolic alteration by SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and the regulatory effect of antcin A on SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-induced metabolic changes in the Phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA)-induced human monocytes (THP-1) using proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹ H-NMR) and…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A potent and broad neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern by DARPins</strong> - We report the engineering and selection of two synthetic proteins-FSR16m and FSR22-for the possible treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. FSR16m and FSR22 are trimeric proteins composed of DARPin SR16m or SR22 fused with a T4 foldon. Despite selection by a spike protein from a now historical SARS-CoV-2 strain, FSR16m and FSR22 exhibit broad-spectrum neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 strains, inhibiting authentic B.1.351, B.1.617.2 and BA.1.1 viruses,…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Discovering new potential inhibitors to SARS-CoV-2 RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) using high throughput virtual screening and molecular dynamics simulations</strong> - RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), is an essential in the RNA replication within the life cycle of the severely acute respiratory coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing the deadly respiratory induced sickness COVID-19. Remdesivir is a prodrug that has seen some success in inhibiting this enzyme, however there is still the pressing need for effective alternatives. In this study, we present the discovery of four non-nucleoside small molecules that bind favorably to SARS-CoV-2 RdRp over the active…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>S-allylmercapto-N-acetylcysteine ameliorates pulmonary fibrosis in mice via Nrf2 pathway activation and NF-κB, TGF-β1/Smad2/3 pathway suppression</strong> - Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a chronic lung disease characterised by alveolar inflammatory injury, alveolar septal thickening, and eventually fibrosis. Patients with severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) may have left a certain degree of pulmonary fibrosis. PF is commonly caused by oxidative imbalance and inflammatory damage. S-allylmercapto-N-acetylcysteine (ASSNAC) exhibits anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory effects in other diseases. However, the pharmacodynamics of ASSNAC remain unclear…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SARS-CoV-2 Anti-Spike IgG Antibody and ACE2 Receptor Binding Inhibition Levels among Breakthrough Stage Veteran Patients</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines have been critical to curbing pandemic COVID-19; however, a major shortcoming has been the inability to assess levels of protection after vaccination. This study assessed serologic status of breakthrough infections in vaccinated patients at a Veterans Administration medical center from June through December 2021 during a SARS-CoV-2 delta variant wave. Breakthrough occurred mostly beyond 150 days after two-dose vaccination with a mean of 239 days. Anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Efficacy and safety of glycyrrhizic acid preparation treating comorbid liver injury in COVID-19: A systematic review</strong> - Background: No specific drug for COVID-19 has been found, and many studies have found that different degrees of liver injury often occurred after infection with COVID-19. Glycyrrhizic acid preparation (GAP) has been frequently used clinically, often combined with conventional treatments such as antiviral therapy, to improve the prognosis of COVID-19 and patients’ liver function. Aims: To critically review and analyze clinical evidence on the efficacy and safety of GAP in the treatment of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Molecular Docking and Dynamics Simulation of Several Flavonoids Predict Cyanidin as an Effective Drug Candidate against SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein</strong> - The in silico method has provided a versatile process of developing lead compounds from a large database in a short duration. Therefore, it is imperative to look for vaccinations and medications that can stop the havoc caused by SARS-CoV-2. The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 is required for the viral entry into the host cells, hence inhibiting the virus from fusing and infecting the host. This study determined the binding interactions of 36 flavonoids along with two FDA-approved drugs against the…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Masitinib analogues with the <em>N</em>-methylpiperazine group replaced - A new hope for the development of anti-COVID-19 drugs</strong> - Masitinib is an orally acceptable tyrosine kinase inhibitor that is currently investigated under clinical trials against cancer, asthma, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. A recent study confirmed the anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) activity of masitinib through inhibition of the main protease (M^(pro)) enzyme, an important pharmacological drug target to block the replication of the coronavirus. However, due to the adverse…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Will the New Special Counsel Bring Donald Trump to Justice?</strong> - The task for Merrick Garland—and now Jack Smith—is to ignore political considerations and resolve the investigations as speedily and equitably as possible. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/will-the-new-special-counsel-bring-donald-trump-to-justice">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>When Election Deniers Concede</strong> - In the midterms, voters rejected Stop the Steal candidates in critical swing states. Is the democracy crisis over? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/when-election-deniers-concede">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Indian Coal Mine That Razed a Village and Shrank a Forest</strong> - A company run by Asia’s richest man, Gautam Adani, is strip-mining tribal lands for fossil fuels. Forest-dwellers are fighting back. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-indian-coal-mine-that-razed-a-village-and-shrank-a-forest">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Are We Doomed to See a Biden-Trump Rematch in 2024?</strong> - One thing’s sure: the early betting is often wrong—ask President Rand Paul. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/are-we-doomed-to-see-a-biden-trump-rematch-in-2024">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Meaning of the Colorado Springs Attack</strong> - The essential precondition for mass violence is not guns or hate but a culture of terror, a common imaginary that includes the possibility of a mass shooting. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-meaning-of-the-colorado-springs-attack">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>FTX is over. Is crypto, too?</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A red line on a graph pointing down." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/b205QNr4fQTA9VQggc4umpudO4s=/33x0:2000x1475/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71665160/GettyImages_1338902668.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
FTX’s collapse turns crypto winter into the crypto ice age. | Anna Shalygina/Getty Images/iStockphoto
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Crypto is the cat with nine lives, but some wonder if FTX might be the last one.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fmkqsO">
It would be easy to write crypto’s obituary right now. The technological ecosystem <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23071245/bitcoin-price-crypto-ethereum-nfts-defi-stablecoin">has never quite managed to justify the logic of its existence</a> or reach the mass adoption its boosters have promised for years. The latest <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23158583/crypto-winter-crash-bitcoin-eth-bubble-peter-kafka">crypto winter</a> is turning into the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/16/23462260/ftx-bankruptcy-cryptocurrency-sam-bankman-fried">crypto ice age</a>, with <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-21/crypto-firm-genesis-warns-of-possible-bankruptcy-without-funding?sref=qYiz2hd0">company</a> after <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/blockfi-prepares-for-potential-bankruptcy-as-crypto-contagion-spreads-11668534824">company</a> appearing to be in trouble and, at the very least, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/21/grayscale-wont-share-proof-of-reserves-due-to-security-concerns.html">facing questions</a> about their stability.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iiqt5l">
Months of turmoil in the space have culminated in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23451761/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-bankrupt-binance-bitcoin-alameda">spectacular implosion of crypto exchange FTX</a> and the incredible downfall of its founder, <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23458837/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-sbf-downfall-explained">Sam Bankman-Fried</a>. His business operations have been revealed to be <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-17/here-are-the-craziest-parts-from-the-new-ftx-bankruptcy-filing?sref=qYiz2hd0">a disaster</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-cryptocurrency-effective-altruism-crypto-bahamas-philanthropy">Bankman-Fried as a deeply unserious person and potential fraudster</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fYHGFw">
According to a count from the website <a href="https://web3isgoinggreat.com/">Web3 is Going Just Great</a>, nearly $12 billion have been lost to intentional crypto grifts and scams. That count doesn’t include the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-11-09-2022/card/ftx-needs-8-billion-bankman-fried-tells-investors-2RSa5oqZyZZ5YrPLuZuL#:~:text=FTX%20chief%20Sam%20Bankman%2DFried,people%20familiar%20with%20the%20matter.">$8 billion</a> that appears to have been lost by Bankman-Fried, not to mention <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/11/how-the-fall-of-three-arrows-or-3ac-dragged-down-crypto-investors.html">other</a> <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/learn/the-fall-of-terra-a-timeline-of-the-meteoric-rise-and-crash-of-ust-and-luna/">recent</a> high-profile collapses. (Disclosure: This August, Bankman-Fried’s philanthropic family foundation, Building a Stronger Future, awarded Vox’s Future Perfect a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/1/7/21020439/support-future-perfect">grant</a> for a 2023 reporting project. That project is now on pause.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fPBbz5">
For those who have been paying attention to the sector, this sort of feels like waking up from a worldwide hypnosis. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23189016/metaverse-nick-clegg-mark-zuckerberg-meta-virtual-reality">metaverse thing</a>, which is basically Zoom meetings with legless cartoons, never made sense. Neither did this idea that images of pixelated punks and weird-looking monkeys were <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22313936/non-fungible-tokens-crypto-explained">worth millions of dollars as NFTs</a>. Thousands of crypto tokens and coins spun up out of thin air have been revealed to be nothing more than magic beans. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/17/how-the-fall-of-celsius-dragged-down-crypto-investors.html">Project</a> after <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/voyager-bankruptcy-three-arrows/">project</a> has fallen apart, often taking customers’ money with them, and then there’s the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23153469/bitcoin-crypto-scam-report-ftc">multitude of outright crypto scams</a>.
</p>
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<div id="zPFhaZ">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pk49ps">
Crypto isn’t just a financial space where the line goes up and the line goes down; it’s also a place where the line goes poof! and disappears.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9j7qW3">
“We’re back to the Dark Ages with regards to trusting crypto,” said Phillip Shoemaker, the executive director of Identity.com, an identity verification company that works in the Web3 space, and a tech industry veteran who was once the head of the Apple App Store. At the same time, this isn’t entirely new. “With crypto, we have these massive ups and these massive downs, and it’s a super volatile asset, and we know that.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CBR7I3">
This could — and in many people’s minds, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ac058ede-80cb-4aa6-8394-941443eec7e3">should</a> — be the death knell of the industry. Will it? Ehhh.
</p>
<div class="c-float-left">
<aside id="ah0ocb">
<q>“We’re back to the Dark Ages with regards to trusting crypto”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HNxSUI">
Crypto has undergone a series of boom-and-bust cycles and a number of high-profile collapses over the years. In 2014, Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based crypto exchange, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mt-gox.asp">went bankrupt</a> after losing hundreds of thousands of bitcoins. In 2017, US authorities <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/russian-national-and-bitcoin-exchange-charged-21-count-indictment-operating-alleged">shut down the exchange</a> BTC-E amid money laundering allegations. (Disclosure here: I had invested about $100 in Litecoin on the exchange a few years before and that money is absolutely gone.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YwcFEY">
In 2019, Canadian crypto exchange Quadriga went under. Canadian authorities later determined it was a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/osc-quadriga-gerald-cotten-1.5607990">Ponzi scheme</a> orchestrated by a founder who, before its downfall, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/11/the-strange-tale-of-quadriga-gerald-cotten">mysteriously died</a>. The arena is rife with <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-a-young-couple-failed-to-launder-billions-of-dollars-in-stolen-bitcoin">scams and schemes</a> and so-called <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/learn/what-is-a-rug-pull-how-to-protect-yourself-from-getting-rugged/">rug pulls</a> and <a href="https://time.com/nextadvisor/investing/cryptocurrency/protect-yourself-from-crypto-pump-and-dump/">pump-and-dumps</a>. There’s constant hand-waving from regulators and policymakers and critics that something<em> </em>has to be done about crypto, but <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/17/23463277/ftx-crypto-regulation-sam-bankman-fried-alameda-sec-gary-gensler">exactly what that something is remains hazy at best</a>. Until very recently, a lot of those lawmakers and policymakers were listening to Bankman-Fried.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c7OrV5">
Crypto may be the cat with nine lives; it’s just not clear which life it’s on right now.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WTiJ8c">
“There are many people who tell you, ‘Hey, the market crashes every few years.’ I think eventually that logic has to run its course, or that pattern,” said Jacob Silverman, a journalist currently working on a <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/easy-money-ben-mckenzie/1141910905">book</a> on crypto and fraud with crypto critic and actor Ben McKenzie. “Sam was supposed to be the safe bet.” The thing is, in crypto, there might be no such thing.
</p>
<h3 id="F2d8se">
FTX’s collapse is bad bad bad
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EzROuZ">
What happened with FTX and other major crypto collapses in recent months is bad for customers, for investors, and for the industry itself, full stop. Venture capitalists are likely to think twice before investing in the next crypto project that comes before them. Interest from retail investors in the space is <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2022/04/22/retail-interest-in-bitcoin-is-dwindling-google-data-suggests/">slowing</a> <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a3a234fa-8aab-4fdd-8681-dd0d2fac7617">down</a>. Some institutional investors previously skeptical of the space had opened up to it somewhat in recent years as prices climbed and it became clear there was money to be made. Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/12/12/another-billionaire-wall-street--legend-has-changed-his-tune-on-bitcoin/?sh=20cb981bb436">went from</a> warning bitcoin could be outlawed to thinking it might be a gold-like alternative. Now, institutions are likely to become hesitant about how involved they want to be.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EC3Tey">
“You don’t want to be the last person in, but there’s obviously a danger of going full throttle into it, so we’ve been going very slowly,” one senior vice president at a major hedge fund told me. He asked for anonymity to speak candidly about the situation. “We were actively uninterested five years ago, and now, we’re dabbling. Is this going to make institutional players more scared? It can’t make anybody more comfortable knowing that one of your major counterparties is clueless, for lack of a better word. That’s just terrifying.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aaU6Sh">
A trader at another prominent hedge fund said he hasn’t spoken with anyone in traditional finance who thinks crypto is going to “die die,” though he added that “obviously, expectations have been scaled back quite a bit.” He admitted that in recent months, he looked at Bankman-Fried and wondered how he and others were pulling off some of what was supposed to be this wild business success. “There’s been moments when I’ve been sitting here where I’m like, ‘Am I just actually a fucking idiot? I don’t get it, how are these dudes making so much money?’ And now I’m like, ‘No, no, actually, you understood exactly what was going on here.’”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jj7i0s">
What was going on here, to be clear, is that a lot of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-14/ftx-s-balance-sheet-was-bad?sref=qYiz2hd0">fake money was being made up and a lot of real money was being lost</a>. “It’s like if you had supermarket loyalty points, and you’re counting them as money, and you’re only solvent if you’re counting your own loyalty points that you made up as your assets,” said David Gerard, a <a href="https://davidgerard.co.uk/">prominent crypto blogger</a> and critic based in the UK. “Their liabilities were real, but their assets were imaginary.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pKgtIO">
FTX’s downfall has caused contagion across the crypto industry, with other <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/business/ftx-crypto-contagion-sbf.html">companies being caught in a crunch</a>. There have been rumblings of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-21/crypto-firm-genesis-warns-of-possible-bankruptcy-without-funding?sref=qYiz2hd0">more</a> <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-16/blockfi-said-to-plan-imminent-bankruptcy-filing-amid-ftx-fallout?sref=qYiz2hd0">bankruptcies</a> on the horizon, and US exchange Coinbase <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/11/22/crypto-exchange-coinbase-market-value">has seen a massive drop in its market value</a>.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="ZMfmvs">
<q>“It wasn’t a contained blowup, it’s very clearly spread”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c2C43z">
“It’s obviously a super, super dark cloud. And the other unfortunate thing is it’s not only impacted FTX, it’s metastasized to affect a lot of different funds and startups in this space that have had a pretty substantial role in building out this entire industry,” said Caitlin Cook, head of marketing and communications at Hxro Labs, a contributor to Hxro, a network building crypto derivatives infrastructure. “It wasn’t a contained blowup, it’s very clearly spread.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bsDikG">
Doug Colkitt, the founder of Crocodile Labs, which is developing a decentralized crypto exchange, said there are a lot of projects that had ties with FTX that are now just completely shutting down. “Up until last week, they had years of runway. That’s zero now,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UbuiDp">
And it’s not just a financial problem, it’s a morale problem. Many crypto believers and builders, the people dedicated to the cause and entwined in the HODL culture — holding on for dear life — will stick around. But not everyone.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Redf5">
“I’ve never talked to so many people in the space and who have been in the space full-time for years who have said, ‘I think I’m done, I think I can’t do it anymore,’” Colkitt said. “People lost significant amounts of money, they had their projects destroyed. Even if you didn’t, you have friends in the space who were just zeroed. It’s a very, very pessimistic mood right now.”
</p>
<h3 id="KbXggv">
Everybody hates Sam
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pd3Z43">
It should go without saying that Bankman-Fried has plenty of enemies at the moment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="agN39a">
He has undertaken major efforts to place himself and his companies at the center of the crypto narrative in recent years by hosting flashy conferences, partnering with big celebrities, hobnobbing with regulators, making splashy investments, and injecting large donations into political and philanthropic causes. He’s attracted a lot of media intrigue and coverage — the son of fancy lawyers who went to a fancy college, a disheveled wunderkind who seemingly figured this whole confusing system out.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nRA8rD">
Neeraj Agrawal, director of communications at Coin Center, a crypto-focused policy think tank, told me in a text message that he doesn’t feel there’s “much else to say” about Bankman-Fried. “It sucks that one guy can do so much damage,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CFrA6j">
Among those who have been working to legitimize crypto in terms of policy and regulation, there’s a sense of frustration that <a href="https://twitter.com/NeerajKA/status/1593011247666319361?s=20&amp;t=5dUPt-H2FvLHwUk9-PCsLQ">Bankman-Fried sucked all of the air out of the room</a> after a pretty rapid rise. “You can ‘communicate’ for a decade and then one guy comes along and undoes any good you’ve done,” <a href="https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1590501043825410049?s=20&amp;t=3XSbsJfy83i6LPUtQi_36w">said</a> Jerry Brito, the executive director of Coin Center, on Twitter. “Kinda demoralizing.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9uyp9w">
There was also a sense that Bankman-Fried was trying to push regulators and policymakers in directions that would have favored his company — something many in the industry, including the Binance founder who ultimately helped orchestrate FTX’s collapse, took issue with.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hYMdJG">
Some people in the industry say that this is proof that centralized exchanges like FTX won’t work. They say that decentralized finance, or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/18/technology/what-is-defi-cryptocurrency.html">DeFi</a>, which tries to replicate a lot of the financial system, but without intermediaries and depending largely on smart contracts, is the way. “In DeFi, you see every single loan,” said Tarun Chitra, founder and CEO of Gauntlet Networks, a financial modeling platform for blockchains. “You entered that contract and you getting wiped out means you took irresponsible risks. Whereas in this centralized finance space, they just let people keep taking irresponsible risks with customer money.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gImt4Y">
It is worth noting that many in the DeFi space <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/11/15/the-sbf-bill-whats-in-the-crypto-legislation-backed-by-ftx-founder/">worried the legislation Bankman-Fried was backing could kill DeFi altogether</a> in the US, giving centralized exchanges like FTX an enormous leg up.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N6UnFy">
The argument that DeFi is the answer to this is a little hard to swallow, at least for now. For one thing, DeFi is still a nascent space that is very difficult for regular users to navigate. It is often <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/12/17/defi-rug-pull-scams-pulled-in-28b-this-year-chainalysis/">subject to scams</a>, too. And regardless, most regular people looking at the crypto space aren’t really going to get the difference.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cc7K6D">
“From one perspective, especially building decentralized protocols that are competing or hoping to provide an alternative to centralized exchanges like FTX, we hope that some fraction of people would move over and at least realize the distinction there. But the reality is, for 90 percent plus, it tarnishes the entire space,” Colkitt said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iW61qt">
Bankman-Fried is not really doing himself any favors here by <a href="https://decrypt.co/114635/sam-bankman-fried-explains-his-cryptic-one-letter-tweets">putting out weird tweets</a>, giving <a href="https://twitter.com/TiffanyFong_/status/1593901973572567045?s=20&amp;t=0OPuE2ocztp4CtYCNuhBBA">terrible interviews to reporters</a>, and in a <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-cryptocurrency-effective-altruism-crypto-bahamas-philanthropy">DM exchange with Vox’s Kelsey Piper</a>, appearing oblivious to the weight of the situation and its consequences. A pullback of the curtain of the boy genius’s business operations and balance sheet <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-14/ftx-s-balance-sheet-was-bad?sref=qYiz2hd0">reveals a complete and total mess</a>.
</p>
<div class="c-float-left">
<aside id="6BXRlV">
<q>“I cannot believe they were that stupid” </q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wyg6uu">
“I always thought he was a clear-eyed trader who was in a business that I thought was a little shitty,” the hedge fund vice president said. “If even half of the reporting is to be believed and the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-17/here-are-the-craziest-parts-from-the-new-ftx-bankruptcy-filing?sref=qYiz2hd0">bankruptcy filing</a> is accurate, that’s a fucking shitshow. I cannot believe they were that stupid.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NQ0nVp">
Crypto people will say that Bankman-Fried was an outlier, and are now trying to distance themselves from him. But it’s not clear how much of an outlier he and FTX really were. Again, these kinds of implosions in crypto are not exactly uncommon. “[Crypto] is set up to produce people like Sam or elevate people like Sam,” Silverman said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="viWxoY">
If you take a step back, so is a lot of finance and startup culture, where some figures have been able to fake it until they make it and then, ultimately, are caught faking it. (See: Bernie Madoff and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22665179/silicon-valley-theranos-elizabeth-holmes-covid-tests">Elizabeth Holmes</a>.)
</p>
<h3 id="2PZsm5">
Maybe the question isn’t whether crypto will die but whether it should
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GkC8k5">
Basically no one I spoke to for this story on either side of the crypto debate said they think this is the end of the industry, though their reasons as to why were different.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iGzxed">
Hilary Allen, a law professor at the American University Washington College of Law and an expert in financial stability regulation — who is not a fan of crypto — said she just doesn’t see the efforts to get the government’s blessing on it stopping, given how much money, despite significant losses, is still on the line. “There are still people in the crypto industry lobbying for legislation that would allow crypto access to the government safety net to allow it to keep going,” she said. “The rhetoric from people who have large crypto positions is entirely cynical because crypto has no value if you have no one to sell it to. They have a vested interest in maintaining that rhetoric. There’s a lot of sunk cost here.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0lY7qE">
Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation and an advocate largely for bitcoin for humanitarian and cross-border reasons, believes that crypto remains “cyclical” and that a bull cycle will come back around. “It’s a massive setback for the crypto industry, and I hope people learn the right lessons,” he said. (One lesson here: Don’t leave your money on the crypto exchange, really, even if those crypto exchanges are easier to use and promise they are super-duper aboveboard.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="M5ubWm">
Jonathan Victor, ecosystem lead at Protocol Labs, an open-sourced research and development lab, said he sees this moment as a “reset” and an “end of a certain era of crypto with the headiness of people doing stuff.” But he sees it as an opportunity to keep trying and creating something useful in the space. “It definitely creates noise, and it affects, in the short term, the general perception around things, but ultimately the true weighing machine for all of this stuff is: Do we build valuable things?” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D1O2oJ">
It is probably true that this is just another crypto bust and that in X amount of years from now, we’ll see another boom. (<a href="https://fortune.com/newsletter/termsheet">Fortune’s Term Sheet reported</a> that some venture capital firms are already on the hunt for where to park their money in the arena next.) It will probably look different, because it always does, and likely have new players and technologies and acronyms that we’ll all have to learn about if we want to play along. And after that boom cycle, let’s face it, there will probably be another bust.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MQVTZc">
But maybe there’s a distinction here between what will happen and what should. Crypto’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23005493/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-climate-friendly">not great for the planet</a>, it’s wildly volatile and speculative, and it’s costing a lot of people a lot of money that results in very real pain. I’m not saying there are no upsides to it or dismissing the possibility that someday its potential will be realized. But you do have to wonder how much and how long any of this is worth it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kP0ALz">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23071245/bitcoin-price-crypto-ethereum-nfts-defi-stablecoin">Crypto remains largely a solution in search of problems</a>, and in the process of that search, it’s causing a lot of problems on its own.
</p></li>
<li><strong>Hakeem Jeffries’s ascent to Democratic leader, explained</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/S3mXJd9oejUJDU4SG2JerRAlubE=/0x0:3467x2600/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71665115/GettyImages_1244811681a.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Democratic Caucus chair Hakeem Jeffries arrives to hold a news conference at the US Capitol on November 15. | Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Jeffries is known for bringing different groups together, though he’s also clashed with some progressives along the way.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jXoI4c">
To get a sense of how Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) would approach the job of House minority leader, look no further than his work on the 2018 <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/18/18140973/state-of-the-union-trump-first-step-act-criminal-justice-reform">First Step Act</a>, his supporters say.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j5r4Lz">
Jeffries was a lead House sponsor of that bill, the most significant criminal justice reform to pass Congress in years. To get it done, he collaborated with a wide spectrum of Democrats, the Trump administration, and Republican co-sponsor Rep. Doug Collins. Jeffries’s willingness to work with all of these groups and weigh their input ensured the measure ultimately came to fruition, according to other House members.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K4DO6i">
“He was able to negotiate first within the party itself,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), a co-sponsor of the bill and a Jeffries ally, told Vox. “And then was able to work out a deal with the Republicans.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Se36Sh">
Whether Jeffries, 52, is able to establish that same consensus within a divided Democratic caucus will determine just how successful he is in this job.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="njLVxq">
The New York representative, a member of both the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and the Congressional Black Caucus, is poised to make history as the first Black party leader in the House. His ascent, supporters say, has been marked by the ability to bring together disparate groups, though he has clashed with some progressives in the past. In this new role, Jeffries will have to navigate the ideological differences in his own caucus while finding ways to counter Republican initiatives and messaging as part of the minority.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wvLA3c">
Jeffries, a corporate attorney prior to getting into politics, has said he’s up to the challenge, <a href="https://jeffries.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Jeffries-Letter-to-Colleagues.pdf">writing in a November letter</a> announcing his candidacy, “I promise to prioritize and value input from every corner of the Caucus. … It will be my mission to make sure that every single Member of the Caucus has an authentic seat at the legislative table.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5oQDA6">
His backers said they believe he’ll live up to this promise and that he’ll factor in more opinions than former leader Nancy Pelosi did. Keeping his caucus together, however, could require more outreach to those — including some progressives — he’s been dismissive of before.
</p>
<h3 id="GKIU4M">
Jeffries’s ascent to Democratic leader, briefly explained
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A6WqJ2">
In mid-November, Jeffries officially launched his bid for minority leader after serving in Democratic House leadership for the last six years.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tJgzuG">
This announcement was a long time coming. His years in Democratic leadership made him widely viewed as a favorite for the position. As of this week, Jeffries has already picked up endorsements from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/uss-hoyer-leave-leadership-backs-jeffries-top-house-democrat-punchbowl-news-2022-11-17/">senior members</a> and is set to run unopposed when elections take place on November 30 and December 1.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s2albw">
Jeffries’s run follows his reelection to Congress for a sixth term in a safe Democratic seat. As the representative from New York’s 8th Congressional District (which includes parts of Brooklyn and Queens), Jeffries has established a broad base of support rooted in his even-handed approach to leadership, policy, and messaging.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RMANzA">
“His approach to leadership is always the same: very even, patient, smart focus on the substance and discipline on message,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), a co-chair of the Problem Solver’s Caucus and Jeffries ally.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uWKHJw">
Since joining Congress, Jeffries has grown his ties in the House. In addition to being a member of several powerful caucuses, he sits on both the House Judiciary and Budget Committees, where he’s worked on criminal justice reforms and music licensing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0ZfHV0">
Jeffries has also strengthened these connections as Democratic Caucus chair and a past co-lead of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, a role that involved developing <a href="https://dpcc.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/dpcc-co-chairs-bustos-cicilline-and-jeffries-outline-for-the-people">the party’s “For the People” policy agenda</a>, which included provisions like lowering prescription drug costs and subsidies for child care. In 2020, Jeffries further raised his national profile while acting as an impeachment manager during former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="25t9B1">
Across these roles, House Democrats describe Jeffries as a deeply analytical leader who is focused on fact-based arguments, one who has brought a level approach to discussions that could otherwise be polarizing. “He was able to calm people down and make sure the temperature was lowered,” Meeks said of Jeffries’s work on the First Step Act.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="acd8tI">
Jeffries brings experience in state legislature and as a corporate attorney to the role as well. Before his election to Congress, Jeffries served in the New York Assembly beginning in 2007, where he focused on bills that combated gerrymandering and racially discriminatory policing practices, <a href="https://www.insider.com/hakeem-jeffries-pelosi-democratic-house-leader-history-progressive-racial-justice-2022-11">Business Insider reports</a>. And before that, he worked for seven years as a corporate attorney at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &amp; Garrison LLP, and spent two years as a litigation attorney for CBS and Viacom.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nt3UL1">
On several of the bills he’s worked on, his allies say Jeffries was known for soliciting input from a range of parties involved and managed to keep everyone on board.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GsCylM">
“We had this comprehensive strategy to engage everyone that wanted to listen,” said former Jeffries communications director Michael Hardaway of the process for developing the First Step Act, which reduced sentences for certain federal inmates. “He made an effort to sit down with the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Problem Solvers, and the progressives, and he just had listening sessions with tons of members.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gaXddW">
Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), who worked alongside Jeffries in leadership, said they took a similar approach when they crafted the “For the People” agenda, which Democrats unveiled ahead of the 2018 midterms. “I think virtually every single member of the Democratic caucus participated in either a meeting or listening session with Cheri [Bustos], Hakeem, and me,” he told Vox.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5k808e">
Jeffries’s willingness to have these open discussions have been central to his work with Democrats and across the aisle, per his allies. “He’s someone who’s not overly defined by ideology. He is so effective because he can speak to anyone regardless of where they are and listen to them,” said retiring Rep. Kathleen Rice, a longtime Jeffries supporter.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q2iYZk">
This open approach has led many Democratic members to believe that Jeffries — a new leader who represents significant generational change — could help decentralize how the party develops legislation and make it less top-down.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HepVpN">
“I expect that there’s going to be a lot more sharing of information, lots more in-caucus deliberation, lots more opportunities for members to participate in crafting the policy of our caucus and the strategy,” said Cicilline.
</p>
<h3 id="K0lUXO">
Jeffries will have to grow trust on the left
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ll9aaw">
While Jeffries identifies as a progressive and is a part of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, he has also made statements and taken steps that have harmed how some on the party’s left flank perceive him.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n4Cw5l">
“I do think there has been a more strained relationship between Jeffries and the progressive wing of the party, which means he’s got some work to do,” said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the progressive grassroots group Indivisible, citing “some of his investments in primaries, some of the statements he’s made about progressives in the past.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LEfAWm">
Jeffries notably partnered with Reps. Terri Sewell and Gottheimer to start the Team Blue political action committee, which was dedicated to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-house-incumbents-challengers/2021/07/13/5dad62a4-e327-11eb-8aa5-5662858b696e_story.html">defending incumbents in blue districts</a> and thwarting progressive challengers in primaries. Gottheimer has previously said that the group’s investments — several of which were successful — were intended to minimize intraparty fighting. The group worried divisive primaries could hurt candidates in the general election and ultimately harm Democratic efforts to protect their majority. Jeffries’s team has also said that protecting incumbents falls under the purview of someone who’s the head of the Democratic caucus.<strong> </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YlUaWw">
Additionally, Jeffries has previously made statements that seemed dismissive of more left-leaning members.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QiWjDi">
<strong>“</strong>The extreme left is obsessed with talking trash about mainstream Democrats on Twitter, when the majority of the electorate constitute mainstream Democrats at the polls,” he told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/us/politics/biden-democrats.html">the New York Times</a> in August 2021, a time in which several establishment candidates had just defeated progressives challengers. “There will never be a moment where I bend the knee to hard-left democratic socialism,” <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/08/hakeem-jeffries-nancy-pelosi-speaker-house/619695/">he told the Atlantic in a summer 2021 interview,</a> arguing that there are important differences between his version of progressivism and that of some more left-leaning Democrats.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qB78TR">
<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/18/ocasio-cortez-hakeem-jeffries-2020-primary-1067107">Some progressives</a> — particularly those who support politicians relying on grassroots support in fundraising — have had a problem with the fact that Jeffries has been a top recipient of donations from the financial industry, taking in <a href="https://prospect.org/politics/succession-hakeem-jeffries-nancy-pelosi/">more than $1 million between 2019 and 2020</a>. He’s not alone in doing so; <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?cycle=2022&amp;ind=F">according to OpenSecrets</a>, multiple House and Senate Democrats received significant contributions from the financial sector this past cycle. As <a href="https://prospect.org/politics/succession-hakeem-jeffries-nancy-pelosi/">Alexander Sammon writes in the American Prospect,</a> these donations as well as policies that seem to go easier on Wall Street have both garnered scrutiny:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="w7Mwa8">
While Democrats were reconsidering their coziness with Wall Street, Jeffries broke ranks to vote with the financial services world, including on a high-profile measure literally written by Citigroup lobbyists in 2013 that killed the Dodd-Frank “swaps push-out” rule, allowing banks to engage in risky trades backed by a potential taxpayer-funded bailout.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xZiGQF">
Activists would also like to see Jeffries, who has supported Medicare-for-all but not the Green New Deal, be bolder on climate policy. “In theory, Democratic Party leadership wanting to pass the baton to a younger leader sounds great,” said John Paul Mejia, a spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement, a progressive group focused on climate action. “But Representative Jeffries has not proven himself to be representative of our generation and has not proven himself to seriously address the crises that our generation faces.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zhuibY">
Levin said he was hopeful that Jeffries would approach leadership in a way that factored in the different ideological viewpoints in the caucus, as the lawmaker has promised to, and said he would be watching for the actions he took to do so. Examples Levin said would assuage his concerns included opening up lines of communication with progressives and organizers, as well as elevating progressives to key roles in the party.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y2VeAZ">
“With Schumer, with Pelosi, with the Biden White House, the effective coalition holders have done all those things. There are regular lines of communication: progressive, centrists, all have a seat at the table,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="em8C0p">
Thus far, some prominent progressive members, including Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman (NY) and Ilhan Omar (MN) have expressed their support for Jeffries, a signal of openness from the party’s left-leaning members. “What I would say about him is that he is open to engaging in a dialogue,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a member of the CPC.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jphdAl">
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/state-of-the-union-with-jake-tapper/episodes/bf255df5-d452-400d-ba3e-af5301318b98">In a recent CNN interview</a>, Jeffries appeared to emphasize a commitment to working with all Democrats as well.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aGW87j">
“I have great respect for Rep. [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez and every single member of the House Democratic Caucus,” he told Jake Tapper. “The majesty of the House Democratic Caucus is that we are so incredibly diverse, in terms of race and gender and religion and sexual orientation, region, life experience, and even ideology from the left to progressives, New Dems, Blue Dogs, moderate and centrist Democrats, all points in between.”
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<h3 id="qSoPDa">
Taking on Republicans is another big part of Jeffries’s job
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7lzNo2">
In addition to keeping the caucus together, a big part of Jeffries’s role will be navigating a Republican majority and leading the Democratic response.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="snSX80">
Jeffries indicated in his letter that he’d be open to working with Republicans when possible, while pushing back on them if that’s not tenable. “It is my hope that we can find common ground where possible with our Republican colleagues in order to deliver results for the American people,” Jeffries said in the letter, adding, “At the same time, the opposing party appears to have no plan to accomplish anything meaningful.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tgHazo">
Members believe Jeffries’s response to Trump’s impeachment and the January 6, 2021, attack have been indicative of a willingness to confront Republicans and extremism within the party when that approach is called for. Ahead of the formation of a January 6 select committee, Jeffries gave a fiery floor speech decrying far-right conservatives’ adherence to the “Big Lie.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="36du92">
“If the Republicans want to work together … he’d be looking to do that,” said Meeks. “But when the Republicans are playing games and going on that MAGA agenda and just trying to do investigations after investigations, for no real reason other than their politics, he’ll be able to get on the floor of the House, he’ll be able to talk to the press.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2QvnKs">
Some moderate Democrats have expressed optimism that there could still be places where the two parties could collaborate, with Gottheimer citing areas like immigration reform and energy policy. “We’re going to do all we can to move strong policy forward,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA), the chair of the moderate New Democratic Coalition.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3KC1qc">
Levin, however, was more circumspect. “Faced with that opposition, what you hope to have with a Democratic leader is someone who recognizes that threat, who is rallying the troops,” he said. “You’re looking for a fighter.”
</p></li>
<li><strong>Vaccinate the turkeys (and the chickens)</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="The dimly lit interior of a turkey barn. There are a few hundred white-feathered turkeys in sight, the closest group shown from the neck up." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/04pKQSnRaFCTB4DM_2JuoMQyK9Y=/239x0:3795x2667/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71662916/GettyImages_866325164.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Turkeys stand in a barn at a turkey farm in Illinois. | Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
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</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Bird flu is driving up turkey and egg prices — and killing millions of animals. Why won’t we vaccinate against it?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nAow7B">
If turkey’s at the center of your table this Thanksgiving, it’s going to be a more expensive meal than usual. Consumers are spending around <a href="https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/pywretailturkey.pdf">20 percent more</a> on the centerpiece bird than last Thanksgiving.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qEbg22">
Some of that can be blamed on inflation, as farmers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/dining/thanksgiving-turkeys-cost-inflation-supply-chain.html">grapple with</a> higher feed, fuel, and labor costs. But the price hikes are also connected to the nasty Eurasian H5N1 virus, a highly infectious avian influenza burning through poultry flocks around the globe.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BCmEk8">
So far this year, 8.1 million turkeys in the US have <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/data-map-commercial.html">died due to the bird flu</a> — about 3.7 percent of the <a href="https://www.eatturkey.org/turkeystats/">216.5 million</a> farmed each year — along with over 40 million chickens. But most don’t die from the virus itself. Rather, they’re culled, or proactively killed, in a brutal effort to prevent the virus from doing even more damage.
</p>
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The virus is excruciating for infected birds, with a mortality rate as high as <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/avian-in-birds.htm">100 percent</a> for chickens. But birds that aren’t infected yet must be culled per US regulations, and they may have it even worse than the sick: The two most common cull methods are suffocating birds with foam, and employing “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/04/14/killing-chickens-bird-flu-vsd/">ventilation shutdown</a>,” in which the birds are cooked alive by closing off vents so temperatures inside the barn rise and the birds slowly die by heatstroke. This particularly inhumane method was used as a <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/8qxwn4/ventilation-shutdown-the-gruesome-last-resort-for-bird-flu-infected-farms">last resort</a> in the 2015 US bird flu outbreak, but has become a much more commonly used <a href="https://awionline.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/HPAI-Depopulations-22-Fact-Sheet.pdf">method</a> in this year’s outbreak.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fPeR8y">
The carnage has caught the eye of Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who just <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/11/22/23471771/cory-booker-meat-farming-industrial-agriculture-accountability-act">introduced legislation</a> to ban the two methods.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="06FAMD">
While farmers have always had to contend with <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1208059110">animal disease</a>, in recent years avian influenza has grown into a serious crisis. During the 2015 outbreak, more than 50 million birds in the US — <a href="https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/emergency_management/downloads/hpai/2015-hpai-final-report.pdf">mostly egg-laying hens</a> — had to be culled, causing <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/bird-flu-2?loggedin=true&amp;rnd=1669074713655">$3.3 billion</a> in economic losses. Europe is experiencing its <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03322-2">worst bird flu outbreaks in history</a>, while this year’s US outbreak is on the cusp of killing even more animals than in 2015.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A few workers wearing biosecurity suits pull dead ducks from a barn." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PfTeXxmGvYgM-MYPpjwafMpOLDY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24219830/AP22027588495904.jpg"/> <cite>Bob Edme/AP</cite>
<figcaption>
Workers kill some 1,000 ducks at a poultry farm in southwestern France, in January 2022.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8dLen2">
Avian flu outbreaks are most common in the fall and spring, as wild birds — the natural reservoirs of the virus — migrate and shed it through fecal droppings, saliva, and nasal secretions. Those contaminants can in turn land on farm equipment, farmworker clothing, or in animal feed, and then spread like wildfire through factory farm operations that can house hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of animals. Outbreaks usually subside during the summer, when wild bird migrations cease — but not this year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EjxTvE">
“It’s constantly hitting,” said John El-Attrache, global director of science and innovation at the US vaccine developer Ceva Animal Health. <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/we-re-nervous-deadly-bird-flu-may-be-north-america-stay">Some experts worry</a> the highly pathogenic bird flu could now be with us year-round.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uEzq7A">
Researchers speculate the strain is mutating to spread more efficiently than previous versions. Bird flu has even become a conservation problem, as the new strain is infecting twice as many species as during the 2015 outbreak, including vulnerable species like <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9026882/nl-puffin-rescue-patrol-avian-flu/">puffins</a> and the endangered <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/record-avian-flu-outbreak-threatening-north-america-s-birds-virus-here-stay">bald eagle</a>, along with more <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03322-2">mammals</a> than usual.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6XVaE6">
Make no mistake, a major reason why bird flu is so destructive in the US is that factory farms — with so many chickens and turkeys in such close quarters — are the perfect playing field for the virus, which is why farmers are so quick to cull infected flocks. But that very fact raises a simple, but surprisingly controversial question: If avian flu is so deadly and so economically destructive, why on earth aren’t we vaccinating birds against the virus?
</p>
<h3 id="aFHGen">
Why we’re quicker to cull than vaccinate
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KmQqUh">
A sobering lesson from the Covid-19 pandemic is that even the best vaccine isn’t good enough on its own to stop a deadly disease — economic self-interest and lack of <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22440986/covax-challenges-covid-19-vaccines-global-inequity">international coordination</a> can squander good science. The same is true in the global push to stop the bird flu.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WUGAOd">
There are H5N1 vaccines on the global market — Kansas-based Ceva Animal Health’s vaccine is administered in-ovo (in the egg) or on the day chicks are born, and is <a href="https://www.poultryworld.net/health-nutrition/study-hatchery-vaccine-80-100-effective-against-h5n1/">80 to 100 percent effective</a> for almost five months. It’s licensed in the US, as are vaccines by Zoetis and Merck, but none are approved by the USDA for actual use because they would interfere with global trade. Bird flu vaccines are used primarily in countries where bird flu is endemic — meaning outbreaks occur regularly — and which have little to no international poultry trade, like <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28780119/">Indonesia</a>, <a href="https://www.mea.boehringer-ingelheim.com/press-release/boehringer-ingelheim-launches-volvacrbest-aind-egypt">Egypt</a>, and <a href="https://www.wattagnet.com/blogs/25-latin-america-poultry-at-a-glance/post/46203-vaccination-for-ah5n1-avian-flu-in-mexico-going-forward">Mexico</a>.
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For countries in which poultry exports make up a big share of the industry’s revenue — such as the US and many European countries — vaccines have largely been a nonstarter, even though they have the potential to severely limit the death toll of mass culling. Why? Blame the “DIVA” problem.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nxORCV">
DIVA is short for “differentiating infected from vaccinated animals” — the challenge of identifying whether a bird is actually infected with avian influenza, or just has avian influenza antibodies after vaccination. Countries fear that importing eggs or slaughtered meat from vaccinated birds in countries where the virus is circulating could inadvertently spread it within their own borders by introducing the virus to wild or domesticated animals through discarded raw meat. That means that big poultry exporters like the US — which sends <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/poultry-eggs/">18 percent</a> of its poultry abroad — don’t vaccinate, for fear they’ll miss out on a huge part of their revenue: international trade.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PdFGdy">
“It’s very simple — if one country is not exporting to somewhere, somebody else will take that slot,” said Carel du Marchie Sarvaas, executive director of HealthforAnimals, a trade group that represents animal vaccine developers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q19AIr">
And without international coordination and predictable vaccine use, it doesn’t make economic sense for vaccine makers to invest in developing vaccines that protect against the bird flu. “We’re not going to make [massive investments] unless we’ve got major markets on board,” said du Marchie Sarvaas. “And the only way you’re going to get major markets on board is if you get some sort of political deal. And that comes to the trade point and the export point.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y8LT4n">
In other words, the bird flu vaccine problem isn’t just a veterinary challenge. It’s also a geopolitical coordination challenge, a classic <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/">game theory problem</a> where no major poultry-producing country wants to be the first to vaccinate. As a result, everyone sticks with the kill ’em all approach. And vaccination isn’t cheap, so producers and governments have to weigh the cost of vaccination against the cost — and the <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/eu-farm-ministers-agree-to-bird-flu-vaccine-strategy/">PR hit</a> — of killing tens of millions of animals in grisly ways. The rapidly evolving nature of the virus also means existing vaccines will offer less protection against future strains.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZDkLpFv_xbFBoQt_iQ35Z_cBmJs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24219913/Ec180dkY.png"/> <cite>Courtesy of Direct Action Everywhere</cite>
<figcaption>
A truck transports hundreds of egg-laying hen carcasses after a mass cull at a Rembrandt Farms operation in Iowa.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YT9ktt">
“The amount of spending on [culling] is peanuts compared to the amount they make exporting poultry products,” said Jarra Jagne, a Cornell University veterinarian who helps poultry producers manage bird flu outbreaks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wyMKpj">
But despite the trade and vaccine development challenges, the conversation has been quickly shifting, especially in Europe.
</p>
<h3 id="Ha2zuG">
“We need to vaccinate”
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IwM7xI">
In May, agriculture ministers in the European Union <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/05/24/council-approves-conclusions-on-a-strategic-approach-for-the-development-of-vaccination-as-a-complementary-tool-for-the-prevention-and-control-of-highly-pathogenic-avian-influenza-hpai/">agreed</a> to develop a bird flu vaccination strategy to complement the bloc’s efforts to stamp out the disease, a major departure from the standard “eradication” approach. And there’s a race underway in <a href="https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/09/dutch-trials-begin-on-bird-flu-vaccination-in-first-year-round-outbreak/">the Netherlands</a> and <a href="https://www.poultryworld.net/health-nutrition/health/france-tests-avian-influenza-vaccine/">France</a> to update old vaccines to protect against the current strain decimating flocks. Several companies and researchers in the US are working on new vaccines as well.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gssjAn">
“We’ve heard over the past few years more and more rumblings of, ‘Okay, we need to vaccinate, we need to vaccinate,’” said El-Attrache.
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Nowhere were those rumblings louder than at a <a href="https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/vetr.2399">late October meeting</a> in Paris of bird flu researchers, government officials, and poultry companies, convened by the World Organization for Animal Health — the veterinary counterpart to the World Health Organization. “The goal of this meeting was vaccination,” El-Attrache told me. “That was never the goal of these meetings prior.” At the end of the Paris meeting, a majority of delegates informally voted to support preventive vaccination if trade barriers were resolved, according to the journal <a href="https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/vetr.2399"><em>Vet Record</em></a>.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A man in a white lab coat and blue gloves, with glasses and a mustache, is out of focus in the background, and holds a bottle of clear liquid with a label on it in the foreground." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JZuoKpLmyGsw8MDIEVDBPlYS3-U=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24219863/Talaat_Adel_lab20_3849__1_.jpg"/> <cite>Courtesy of Jeff Miller/University of Wisconsin-Madison</cite>
<figcaption>
Adel Talaat, a professor of microbiology at University of Wisconsin-Madison, is developing a bird flu vaccine he hopes can be used to slow the spread of future outbreaks.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2KftOq">
There is concern in scientific circles that since existing vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective in the long term, there could still be birds who don’t show clinical signs of H5N1 but are infected and could spread the virus to other birds, a phenomenon known as silent infection.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xXGiZR">
But Leslie Sims, an avian influenza expert who’s led vaccination programs in Asia, <a href="https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/vetr.2399">said</a> at the Paris meeting that research about the threat of silent infection could be “overinterpreted.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gfE8ZM">
“There’s no logical reason why we can’t design systems to allow us to make sure that in places where a vaccine is being used, it’s being used in a way which retains zero tolerance for infection,” Sims said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lQjkBs">
There’s some precedent for Sims’s claim. Ilaria Capua, a veterinarian and former Italian member of parliament, led Italy’s successful vaccination campaign against another type of bird flu, low-pathogenic H7 avian influenzas, in the early 2000s.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dTSXMH">
“My experience is that it can be done,” Capua said. “Italy never sent or spread any of its viruses to any of its neighboring countries [and trade partners], and in Europe we are one market.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9cZu5v">
In an email to Vox, Sims pointed to Hong Kong, the site of the first major <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1124290,00.html">H5N1 outbreak among humans</a> in 1997, as a model for how to achieve zero infections with vaccination and advanced disease surveillance. Although Hong Kong doesn’t export poultry — so it need not worry about trade — its multilevel surveillance system is highly effective, he said, and includes “checking all vaccinated flocks to make sure they have responded to vaccines, tests on birds prior to market, tests on dead birds in the wholesale market, and regular retail market surveillance for detection of avian influenza viruses.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Trm9AD">
“It really is a question of political trust and trust-building between the major manufacturers,” said du Marchie Sarvaas. There would need to be agreement and coordination on disease surveillance, regular technical and political discussions, and efforts to prevent using vaccination, or lack of vaccination, as a marketing ploy — by stoking fear over silent infection or anti-vaccine sentiment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O8H1dQ">
“The industry knows there’s no room for complacency; surveillance, biosecurity, and good flock management have proven to be effective in preventing AI [avian influenza] but sometimes only to a certain extent,” said Robin Horel, president of the International Poultry Council, in an email. “Therefore, vaccination could be a useful additional tool if and when used in a well-established regulatory framework.”
</p>
<h3 id="Nohsch">
New hope on vaccines
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LKulyP">
Experts told me that while the conversation around vaccinating poultry in the US is opening up, it’s still early days. Before vaccines are approved for market, the political and trade barriers would need to be solved, and vaccine development and manufacturing would need to be ramped up.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0eUhAU">
A vaccination campaign in the US probably wouldn’t result in the poultry industry vaccinating all of its <a href="https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/plva0421.pdf">9 billion birds</a>. Instead, it might focus on egg-laying hens and turkeys, as they’re more vulnerable to avian influenza than other birds. Chickens raised for meat, known as broilers, account for around 95 percent of poultry and are much less likely to contract the virus because they’re killed at just about 45 days old. Following this logic, the poultry industry could mitigate much of its bird flu risk by vaccinating just a few percent of its national flock.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1olRyG">
Capua added that it would also make sense to prioritize vaccinating chickens and turkeys raised near the migratory pathways where wild birds shed the disease.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fuHnJc">
There’s also the potential risk of human infection from bird flu, or even the start of a new flu pandemic. Earlier strains of the H5N1 avian flu virus killed <a href="https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/influenza/human-animal-interface-risk-assessments/2022_oct_tableh5n1.pdf?sfvrsn=d924ca20_1&amp;download=true">more than half of the 865 people</a> who contracted it between 2003 and 2022, according to the World Health Organization — though the strain that’s currently tearing through poultry flocks is reportedly much less transmissible and less severe for humans. There have been only a few reported cases in Western countries this year, none severe.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4K0fQU">
But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t evolve to efficiently transmit between humans, a nightmare scenario for avian influenza experts — and another reason to consider vaccinating birds despite trade fears. “We don’t know if an H5 virus will ever ignite a pandemic [in humans],” Capua said. “But if it does, it’s not going to be like Covid — it’s likely going to be worse, like much worse.”
</p>
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</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>North Chennai’s vision for 2030: A football team that will represent India at the World Cup</strong> - As the world celebrates FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, a quiet revolution is taking place at Vyasarpadi, where the baby league is kicking off</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Morning Digest | SC asks why minorities cannot be determined State-wise; Religious freedom in India under threat, says USCIRF, and more</strong> - Here’s a select list of stories to read before you start your day</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>FIFA World Cup 2022: Young Spain squad makes World Cup debut against Costa Rica</strong> - Spain’s revamped squad, led by back-to-back Golden Boy award winners Pedri and Gavi, will begin being put to the test on Wednesday against an experienced Costa Rica team</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ensure your name on voter list to avoid detention under garb of enforcing NRC: Mamata</strong> - CM Mamata Banerjee accused the Centre of “not releasing funds for 100-day work”</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>17-member team of Safai Karmachari Commission on a Singapore jaunt</strong> - Its aim is to study the working of the sanitation system there</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SC asks Centre to produce file related to appointment of Election Commissioner Arun Goel</strong> - Once he assumes his new role, Arun Goel would be in line to be the next CEC after incumbent Rajiv Kumar demits office in February 2025</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Here are the big stories from Tamil Nadu today</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Incessant rains affect construction works, layout development</strong> - Projects overshooting deadline with cascading impact on costs</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Fresh strikes reported in capital Kyiv</strong> - The city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said an infrastructure facility was hit, without giving details.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Zaporizhzhia strike kills newborn baby at Ukraine hospital</strong> - Missiles hit a maternity unit in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, killing a two-day-old baby.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine monastery raid as SBU targets Russian agents</strong> - Kyiv authorities say they want to stop Russia using the site for sabotage, intelligence or weapons.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Viktor Orban ‘Greater Hungary’ scarf angers Romania and Ukraine</strong> - Neighbours protest after Hungary’s nationalist PM wore a scarf showing his country much expanded.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Strong earthquake rocks western Turkey near Duzce</strong> - At least 50 people were injured in the magnitude 6.0 quake, which woke people in Istanbul and Ankara.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Meta researchers create AI that masters Diplomacy, tricking human players</strong> - Meta’s Cicero can negotiate or persuade with natural language—just like a human. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1899693">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Crypto and NFTs aren’t welcome in Grand Theft Auto Online</strong> - Rockstar follows similar recent ban by Mojang and <em>Minecraft</em>. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1899726">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Thinking about taking your computer to the repair shop? Be very afraid</strong> - Not surprisingly, female customers bear the brunt of the privacy violations. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1899664">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Review: Dell’s 32-inch UltraSharp monitor has a high-contrast IPS Black screen</strong> - Beefed-up image quality topped with a souped-up camera. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1881111">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Major tax-filing websites secretly share income data with Meta</strong> - Financial data was sent to Meta by TaxAct, H&amp;R Block, and TaxSlayer. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1899620">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>It’s great that Turkey is providing heavy armoured vehicles to Ukraine.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Everyone loves tanks giving turkey.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ES_FTrader"> /u/ES_FTrader </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z27sw4/its_great_that_turkey_is_providing_heavy_armoured/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z27sw4/its_great_that_turkey_is_providing_heavy_armoured/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A homeless man approached me as I was leaving a sandwich shop…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
… and he asked me if I had $5 to spare. I felt bad for him, and was just about to give him the money.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
But then I realized I was holding a $5 foot long I had just bought, so I held up both the cash and the sandwich and told him he could have whichever one he preferred.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He stared at the sandwich. Then his eyes shot over to the $5 bill. He looked at the sandwich again, then back at the cash. After a moment his eyes were darting back and forth between the two, and he threw up his hands in despair, let out a scream of anguish and then turned and ran away from me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
At first I was totally confused, but then it dawned on me: Beggars can’t be choosers.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/otusc"> /u/otusc </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z28dih/a_homeless_man_approached_me_as_i_was_leaving_a/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z28dih/a_homeless_man_approached_me_as_i_was_leaving_a/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>There was a man who worked for the Post Office whose job was to process all the mail with illegible addresses…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
One day, a letter came addressed in shaky handwriting to God with no actual address. He thought he should open it to see what it was about. The letter read:
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Dear God,
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I am an 83-year-old widow, living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension payment. Next Sunday is Christmas, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with, have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope. Can you please help me?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Sincerely, Edna”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The postal worker was touched. He showed the letter to all the other workers. Each one dug into his or her wallet and came up with a few dollars. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected $96, which they put into an envelope and sent to the woman.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The rest of the day, all the workers felt a warm glow thinking of Edna and the dinner she would be able to share with her friends. Christmas came and went. A few days later, another letter came from the same old lady to God.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened. It read:
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Dear God,
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of your gift of love, I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day and I told my friends about your wonderful gift. By the way, there was $4 missing. I think it might have been those bastards at the post office.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Sincerely, Edna”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Biriuk1337"> /u/Biriuk1337 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z2fu71/there_was_a_man_who_worked_for_the_post_office/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z2fu71/there_was_a_man_who_worked_for_the_post_office/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A man joins a very exclusive nudist colony</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
On his first day there, he takes off his clothes and starts to wander around. A gorgeous petite blonde walks by, and the man immediately gets an erection.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The woman notices his erection, comes over to him and says, ‘Did you call for me?’
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The man replies, ‘No, what do you mean?’
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
She says, ‘You must be new here. Let me explain. It’s a rule here that if you get an erection, it implies you called for me.’
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Smiling, she leads him to the side of the swimming pool, lies down on a towel, eagerly pulls him to her and happily lets him have his way with her.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The man continues to explore the colony’s facilities. He enters the sauna and, as he sits down, he farts…
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Within minutes, a huge, hairy man lumbers out of the steam-room toward him, ‘Did you call for me?’ says the hairy man.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
‘No, what do you mean?’ says the newcomer.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
‘You must be new,’ says the hairy man, ‘it’s a rule that if you fart, it implies that you called for me.’ The huge man easily spins him around, bends him over a bench and has his way with him.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The newcomer staggers back to the colony office, where he is greeted by the smiling, naked receptionist, ‘May I help you?’ she says.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The man yells, ‘Here’s my membership card. You can have the key back and you can keep the £500 membership fee.’
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
‘But, Sir,’ she replies, ‘you’ve only been here for a few hours. You haven’t had the chance to see all our facilities.’
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The man replies, <em>’</em>Listen lady, I’m 68 years old. I only get an erection once a month. I fart 35 times a day
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/confusedvagabond"> /u/confusedvagabond </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z1rzz7/a_man_joins_a_very_exclusive_nudist_colony/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z1rzz7/a_man_joins_a_very_exclusive_nudist_colony/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A Buddhist monk walks up to a hot dog vendor and says: “Make me one with everything.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
After a brief chuckle, the vendor makes the hot dog and gives it to the monk, saying “That will be $4 please”. After the monk hands over a $10 bill, he finds himself waiting uncomfortably while the vendor does nothing except stare back at him.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Awkwardly the monk asks “What about my change?” “Ah,” replies the hot dog vendor, “Change must come from within.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/EndersGame_Reviewer"> /u/EndersGame_Reviewer </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z1pcnm/a_buddhist_monk_walks_up_to_a_hot_dog_vendor_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z1pcnm/a_buddhist_monk_walks_up_to_a_hot_dog_vendor_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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