Giant U.S. banks still have to deliver a Brexit plan to get staff across the English Channel before a potential second wave of Covid-19 shuts Europe’s doors again https://t.co/auo9BHQw8r
India’s largest lender State Bank of India on Tuesday said it has sanctioned loans worth Rs 15,000 crore to 1.5 lakh MSME customers under the central government’s Guaranteed Emergency Credit Line Loan Product https://t.co/YzKn81Ghua
What's happening right now is kind of like cartoon physics. People are already off the cliff, but they aren't falling yet because they believe the ground is still under them. Many people with jobs, savings, or credit cards thought they'd be just fine.
They're about to look down.
— Scott Santens🧢🤠(@scottsantens) June 16, 2020
Yes. I filed because it has become clear we need change and I would love to be a voice for everyone.
— Aarika Samone Rhodes 🖤🧢 (@AarikaSamone) June 16, 2020
Heard from a state legislator that 40% of small businesses in his district will never come back. This is devastating and will transform our neighborhoods and communities unless dramatic actions are taken. Small businesses are the source of most jobs.
— Andrew Yang🧢🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) June 16, 2020
The world will feel the heat of #IndiaChinaFaceOff if escalated further. Not just India, China or the world do not want any serious tensions amid the Covid19 pandemic. What happened at #GalwanValley must be resolved by both Nations ASAP. The world is watching @ChinaDaily@XHNews
President Trump falsely claimed on Tuesday that scientists had developed an AIDS vaccine, adding that he believes such a breakthrough would help lead to a vaccine for COVID-19.
Wow don’t miss this new opinion piece from up-and-coming writer Coron A. Virus who is absolutely 100% not a coronavirus in some sunglasses and a trenchcoat. pic.twitter.com/QLKjTg0blV
To those who have sent me hate mail or false claims that I am paid by India, I will not back down. Northern India, all of Jammu & Kashmir, Pak-Occupied Kashmir & Aksai Chin are historically & by international law, Indian territory. Get over it & get out. https://t.co/EmrOdc3yTR
Both @realDonaldTrump & @TuckerCarlson have said we shouldn't tear down our history in regards to Confederate statues. Nazis are a significant part of German history, that doesn't mean they should put up statues of Hitler and Goebbels all over Germany.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Donald Trump is running the most corrupt administration in modern American history. https://t.co/6Uxn50HzH9
Trump: "These are the people, the best, the smartest ... And they've come up with the AIDS vaccine. They've come up with— or, the AIDS, and, as you know, there's various things and now various companies are involved, but the therapeutic for AIDS."
Containment is possible: International efforts show that imposing travel restrictions, requiring face masks, improving testing, and isolating the sick away from home can bring new cases down to zero. No indefinite lockdown. No second wave. pic.twitter.com/80NmabpVYZ
14 days ago 13 lakh school students completed school final exams in Kerala. Not a single student affected by Covid. It was meticulously planned: schools sanitised. Masks distributed to all. Thermal readings mandatory. Physical distancing ensured. Operation success.#covidkerala
— Natalie Montelongo (@natimontelongo) June 15, 2020
BREAKING: A common steroid drug has been shown to reduce deaths by a third in the sickest patients in the hospital with COVID-19, British scientists say, the first time a drug has been shown to have an effect on death rates of the virus. https://t.co/otNiuQHc3g
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 17, 2020
Coronavirus Vaccine | COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough: Oxford professor says entire British population could be vaccinated by Christmas | Health Tips and News https://t.co/LeHgjG23BT
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 17, 2020
CDC may reimplement strict coronavirus rules if cases go up 'dramatically' https://t.co/5X8BmYZISC
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 17, 2020
Beijing battles ‘explosive coronavirus outbreak’ as food market cases mountScientists struggle to track source of cluster linked to massive food wholesale centre
Mass testing and strict lockdowns imposed in some parts of the capital while other cities order isolation for travellers from Beijing ........ The capital has had 79 new local cases since last Thursday, all of which are linked to the Xinfadi wholesale market ......... Covering 112 hectares, the centre is the biggest of its kind in Asia and supplies food to northern provinces. ........ “Beijing is facing explosive and concentrated outbreaks even though the national epidemic has basically been blocked” .......... Access to the areas is strictly controlled and mass coronavirus testing is under way. ......... Baoding said it would remain in “wartime” mode, while Liaoning in the north and Xiamen in Fujian province in the southeast have ordered that all people returning from some parts of Beijing isolate for 14 days. Daqing in Heilongjiang province in the northeast has demanded 21 days of isolation for travellers from Beijing. ......... Salmon was feared initially to be the source after reports that the virus was detected on a chopping board used to cut fish at the market. .......... the virus found in Xinfadi did not appear to resemble the strain prevalent in Beijing two months ago, but was more like the one in Europe ....... 76,499 samples from people in the affected areas were tested on Sunday, with 59 positive. ......... More than 6,000 of the Xinfadi market’s workers – nearly 70 per cent – have been tested, with all results negative. .......... A spokesman for the centre reminded food handlers that they should always make sure their hands were clean and they frequently cleaned and disinfected surfaces in food premises. ........ anyone who has been to Beijing within the past 14 days will have to submit to a health check. Those who have visited high-risk areas, including the Xinfadi market, will have to spend 14 days in quarantine.
Beijing district on ‘wartime’ alert after fresh coronavirus outbreakCity’s biggest fruit and vegetable market shut down and nearby residential compounds put in lockdown amid seven new symptomatic cases in three days Dozens of others linked to the market tested positive but showed no signs of the disease, authorities say.......... ending the capital’s 55-day run without new local cases. .......... The market, the biggest in the city for fruit and vegetables, was shut down completely on Saturday morning. Its meat and seafood section had already been closed. ......... Salmon was also taken off the menu of restaurants in the city after the virus was detected on cutting boards used at Xinfadi to prepare imported salmon ....... Sporting events and tour group trips to Beijing have been suspended and a return to class for pupils in kindergarten and the first three years of primary school has been put on hold. ........... Chu said 11 residential compounds surrounding the Xinfadi market had been locked down and were under guard. Three nearby primary schools and six kindergartens had suspended classes. ......... He said the situation was similar to the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan where infections were first reported in a seafood market and later spread across the city. “If it can’t be put under control right now, the virus will affect many people in a short time because of the high density of population in cities”
China in brace position as Five Eyes form united frontBeijing can expect more concerted efforts against it from the US, Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, observers say Signs of joint action emerged two years ago with Canadian arrest of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou, at the request of the US ........ there was a growing understanding within the Five Eyes that taking on China alone or one at a time would not work. ........... In the last month, the US and Britain have denounced Beijing’s decision to enact national security legislation for Hong Kong, with Britain saying the alliance would “share the burden” if Hongkongers wanted to leave the city. .......... “The swiftness of the change in policy in the UK over 5G and agreement among Five Eyes nations to establish a D10 of democratic and like-minded countries to cooperate on 5G technology is another good example of how China’s aggressive diplomacy has quickly aligned Five Eyes nations’ strategic thinking about Chinese investments in critical infrastructure.” ....... there was now a “concerted and much more open effort among Five Eyes to focus on economic cooperation around countries with shared values and strategic thinking”. ...... And the cooperation did not stop at the five members. Citing India’s agreement to buy more barley from Australia, Blaxland said nations such as France and even Germany, Japan and India that were friendly with the alliance could work with Five Eyes to neutralise China’s moves.
Beijing fires warning shot as Britain reconsiders China tiesConcerns grow over role of Huawei and plans for Hong Kong national security law Chinese diplomats have not denied reports that it will retaliate if companies find their activities limited ........ Beijing would retaliate if Chinese business activities are limited. ........ Britain is also reviewing its plans to allow Chinese telecoms giant Huawei a role in the country’s 5G network over security concerns, and wants to form a D10 club of democratic partners (the G7 plus Australia, South Korea and India) to develop technology. ......... Britain’s series of actions suggest it is ready to inch closer towards Washington’s decoupling approach to China, rather than the EU’s more conciliatory stance. ........... China has already warned Britain of the consequences of any actions it takes. ............ Beijing viewed the Huawei matter as “a litmus test of whether Britain is a true and faithful partner” ....... Chinese companies might pull out of major infrastructure projects, including nuclear power plants and a high-speed rail line. ............. “We shouldn’t give way to threats like this. The moment a country starts threatening you, it’s a country that you therefore shouldn’t be doing business with.”
South China Sea: Beijing must learn to lead and share in disputed waters, experts sayChina says its island-building in the Spratlys and other areas will benefit the world, but its closest neighbours are not so sure While use of the so-called public services offered by Beijing has been limited, clashes between fishermen have been steadily rising, academic says ............ “There is only about one take-off and landing each week,” he said. “And the main users are military transport planes carrying supplies to the islands or people back and to from the mainland.”
China and US can still cooperate as competitors, Beijing’s former top trade negotiator saysLong Yongtu says the two economies are too intertwined to decouple and it’s more important than ever to work together Head of team that steered China’s WTO entry in 2001 says post-pandemic relationship can be based on search for common ground ......... “Although the relationship between China and the US has been positioned as competitive, competitors don’t have to confront or clash with each other. Just like in a market economy, although many companies are competitors, competition doesn’t lead to exclusion or prevent finding a common interest. .......... “Such interdependence will not disappear simply because some people clamour for ‘decoupling’.” China’s relations with the US were “far from satisfactory”, with communications at a “standstill” .......... The coronavirus, which causes the disease Covid-19, has infected more than 7.7 million people and killed more than 430,000 worldwide. .......... Trump last month said that “the United States wants an open and constructive relationship with China but achieving that relationship requires us to vigorously defend our national interests. The Chinese government has continually violated its promises to the US and many other nations.” .......... Trump ordered US regulators to explore ways to force Chinese companies to delist their shares from US exchanges if they do not comply with US accounting disclosure rules.
Coronavirus: China risks being left out of new global economic order, Beijing’s former trade chief warnsLong Yongtu, who led China’s negotiations to enter the World Trade Organisation, has warned Beijing to be alert to the risk of geopolitical isolation His voice adds to a chorus of warnings from former officials and advisers about China’s position in the post-coronavirus world ........ Long’s warning adds to a chorus of influential domestic voices who are increasingly concerned about the geopolitical isolation that could stem from fallout from the pandemic. .......... doubts are growing as to whether Washington and its allies will try to exclude Beijing from a new international economic order, a theory being labelled by some Chinese experts as “de-sinicisation”. .......... “China is also an important participant in globalisation, so when somebody begins to talk about ‘deglobalisation’, there are also voices about ‘de-sinicisation.’ ........ China’s 15-year talks that ended in accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001. ......... The epidemic has caused huge damage to globalisation ....... urging Chinese companies to increase the pace of their international expansion. ....... The global spread of Covid-19 has significantly disrupted global supply chains, exposing the reliance of other countries on China for vital products and provoking worries over a more rapid exodus of foreign companies, a trend which has been under way throughout the US-China trade war, which began in 2018. ............ “We have no other choice but to make the yuan stronger, make the yuan an international currency. ....... the pandemic was escalating the trend of US-China decoupling, both commercially and culturally. ........ “The disruptions to industrial chains and the drastic decline in international travel are only the most visible features” ........... China’s role in the post-pandemic global supply chain could be weakened. ........... called on China to further open up its domestic market to foreign investors and for Chinese companies pursue more mergers and acquisitions abroad, to better integrate China into the new industrial chains of multinational companies.
China’s tourism sector was already in a ‘death spiral’ – and now Beijing reports a new cluster of Covid-19 cases50 people in Beijing test positive over the weekend for the virus Most mainland Chinese people say they are worried about travelling and their finances, survey finds ......... “The tourism sector is crippled by the disease and I feel hopeless.” ........ An outbreak in Covid-19 cases in the Chinese capital of Beijing over the weekend is making some people even more skittish about climbing on a plane or a coach or a train. .......... Beijing shut down its biggest vegetable market on Saturday and declared “wartime management” in one district after spotting a new cluster of coronavirus cases in which more than 50 people tested positive. ....... “Using common sense, bosses would have to fire people to survive the market downturn.” ........ Beijing now essentially bans all foreign travellers from visiting the mainland. (Diplomats are exempt and people can apply for special exceptions.) .......... It is a do-or-die moment for travel businesses.” To many working in the industry, the news of the outbreak in Beijing was the final straw. ..... “It is time to consider other job options since nothing can stop the death spiral in the travel industry.”
Masks required and fewer parties (allegedly): What college will look like this fallStudents who move into Virginia Tech’s residence halls for the fall term are on notice: They must wear face masks indoors except in their own bedrooms or bathrooms or when eating a meal. They also must follow a regimen of “physical distancing” from people and other measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. ........ Some classes will be held in person, others online and still others in hybrid fashion. ......... Many universities are warning students to expect a new normal. Parties will be minimal or nonexistent, if schools have their way. Seating at sports events will be limited, if spectators are allowed at all. Many lectures will be online. Food service will be grab-and-go. Foot traffic will be routed one way through specific exits and entrances. Coronavirus testing will be widespread, with quarantines expected for those who test positive. In many places, face-to-face instruction will end by Thanksgiving. ......... The University of Colorado at Boulder is even revising its code of conduct to include a mandate that its 36,000 students follow coronavirus-related public health rules on and off campus. .......... will ask them for “a commitment to at least a semester of inconvenience” to protect faculty and staff. ......... the university will order a “10-foot minimum” distance between students and professors in classrooms, and it is buying more than a mile of plexiglass for barriers to separate students from faculty and staff. ......... Many faculty are skeptical that colleges can engineer a massive shift in behavior among students who would be returning to campus after months at home in semi-isolation, starved of social contact. ........... “The Case Against Reopening.” ....... the reopening push is directly related to pressures colleges face to collect revenue and fears that enrollment could plummet in an online-only environment. ............ officials are wary of being perceived as heavy-handed. ........ it is the kind of education we’re trying to deliver. It’s not about you. It is about the greater good.” ........... the university plans to have ultraclean bathrooms and will encourage students to stay outdoors as much as possible when they socialize. ............ “The residential experience in the fall is not a return to normal. It is not a return to what you knew. You’re going to have to recalibrate your thinking altogether.” ...... In the end, you can still talk to people. You can still see people. It’s a much better experience than an online semester.”
Commentary: COVID-19 will bring on the Great Reset the world needsTo achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, says Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab.......... COVID-19 lockdowns may be gradually easing, but anxiety about the world’s social and economic prospects is only intensifying. ....... To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. .......... Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism. ........ global government debt has already reached its highest level in peacetime. .......... Incremental measures and ad hoc fixes will not suffice to prevent this scenario. We must build entirely new foundations for our economic and social systems.............. The level of cooperation and ambition this implies is unprecedented. But it is not some impossible dream. ......... will require stronger and more effective governments, though this does not imply an ideological push for bigger ones. And it will demand private-sector engagement every step of the way. ........... Depending on the country, these may include changes to wealth taxes, the withdrawal of fossil-fuel subsidies, and new rules governing intellectual property, trade, and competition. ............ Rather than using these funds, as well as investments from private entities and pension funds, to fill cracks in the old system, we should use them to create a new one that is more resilient, equitable, and sustainable in the long run. .......... The third and final priority of a Great Reset agenda is to harness the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to support the public good, especially by addressing health and social challenges. ............. The COVID-19 crisis is affecting every facet of people’s lives in every corner of the world. But tragedy need not be its only legacy. On the contrary, the pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future.
‘The virus will be back’: Preparing for the second wave of Covid-19Where are the dangers, and how can a new wave be turned into a ripple, not a tsunami? .......... Epidemics of infectious diseases can be unpredictable but they often come in waves. History has left hard lessons showing that a virus can quickly return – and with deadlier force. ......... Just over a century ago, the three-wave Spanish flu pandemic that claimed at least 50 million lives, killed more people in the more virulent second wave in the autumn of 1918 than in the first that spring ........... The risk is particularly high given that a vaccine to eradicate Covid-19 is some time, possibly years, away and seroprevalence studies which measure past rates of infection show little “herd immunity”, leaving large swathes of populations still susceptible to the virus. ............ I don’t know what we’re going to learn about this virus over the next six months ............ a second wave is “not inevitable” ........... “This virus will almost definitely come back again. It is not a case of ‘if’ it is almost guaranteed that it will be a case of ‘when’” .......... the virus will be circulating in the world for the foreseeable future, possibly for between five and 10 years, and that the State has to become better at keeping coronavirus out and, if it is discovered again in the community, identifying it quickly and managing its suppression again. ............. “If we do a really good job, it might be a second ripple rather than a second wave and there might be a second and third and fourth ripple. We might deal with it better. If we do a really bad job, it will be a second tsunami and then we have learned nothing” .......... as restrictions lift, there is a full expectation that there will be a second wave ......... In Asia, large second waves were averted by such targeted, quick actions. Nationwide lockdowns being replaced by ones on regions or sectors and the partial reimposition of restrictions. ........... The infection of more than 100 people was linked to a single person attending three clubs over one weekend. ........... The risk of a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic coinciding with an outbreak of other infectious diseases, such as seasonal flu or measles, raises the potential for a “double wave”. ........... “The big challenge now with any surge is that we now have to run non-Covid work in parallel with Covid and our hospitals will really, really feel that strain. .......... there is now no situation that carries zero risk from Covid-19 and hospitals “need to find workarounds and doing the new normal” and to move beyond “this paralysed, rabbit-in-the-headlights of Covid” that is preventing the return of some regular healthcare. .......... stringent restrictions on visitors, social distancing, hand hygiene and the wearing of personal protective equipment.
Second Covid-19 wave ‘would wipe out economic recovery’Global economy expected to contract 6% this year before rebounding in 2021, says OECD ......... the economy will contract by 8.7 per cent this year with little or no sign of recovery in 2021 if a coronavirus outbreaks reoccurs. ........... the global economy would contract 6 per cent this year before bouncing back with 5.2 per cent growth in 2021, providing the coronavirus outbreak is kept under control. .......... the global economy will suffer the biggest peace-time downturn in a century before it emerges next year from the coronavirus-inflicted recession. ......... The US economy, the world’s biggest, is seen contracting 7.3 per cent this year before growing 4.1 per cent next year. In the event of a second outbreak, the US recession would reach 8.5 per cent this year and the economy would grow only 1.9 per cent in 2021 ............ Britain is expected to experience the worst downturn among the countries covered by the OECD ..... A second outbreak could trigger a slump of 14 per cent this year followed by a rebound of 5 per cent next year
Racial Repression Is Built Into the U.S. EconomyOne hundred fifty years after the Civil War, the color of money is still white. ......... In 1957, Becker published the first economic theory of racial discrimination, which until then had been the domain of sociologists and lawyers. He likened it to an employer’s taste, like the preference for a certain food or beverage, except with evil consequences. .............. a society that’s torn apart by race and remains damaged by the legacy of slavery, America’s original sin. ......... the U.S. was built on the backs of enslaved Africans—and that leading thinkers of the day defended slavery on economic grounds. If not slaves, who would harvest the cotton, rice, and tobacco? .......... the new field of “stratification economics,” which places race at its center. .......... how developing countries get stuck in a “middle-income trap.” .......... racial discrimination is a feature of the white-dominated economic system, not a bug, or a taste, or a statistical error. In other words, stratification economics treats racism as rational, albeit reprehensible. That places it more in the mainstream of economic thought, oddly enough, than explanations that lean on emotions or mistakes. ........... patenting by African Americans declined during historical periods of lynching and white race riots. ......... The Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery but not the maltreatment of blacks. ............ Black Americans are steered into costlier home and auto loans. ............ More than 60 years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision, black students continue to attend inferior public schools on average and are less likely to attend college. Black college graduates have less wealth on average than white high school dropouts, calling into question the idea that they can pull themselves up by the bootstraps through more schooling. .......... Far more than other wealthy nations, the U.S. solves its social problems with prisons ........... 2010, census takers recorded that 44% of black men from the poorest families in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles were incarcerated. ........... In 99% of counties, boys from black families will earn less as adults than boys from white families who come from the same neighborhoods and have the same parental incomes .......... The idea that racial discrimination is alive and well is hard to absorb for people in the majority ........... “corporations collected over 500 billion dollars in stimulus money while everyone else was left with a $1200 dollar check and having to decide if they pay for food or rent.” ................ When segregation became illegal, the zoning code took its place, restricting 70% of the city’s residential land to single-family housing, which was unaffordable to many black families. In Minnesota as a whole, the difference in the poverty rate between white and black residents is the nation’s third-widest ............. racism is embedded in the structure of society, made more harmful by the fact that it doesn’t require deliberate hostility to persist. ............. Even the triumphant launch of SpaceX’s manned spacecraft on May 30 to resupply the International Space Station was tinged with sadness. To those with long memories, it recalled the 1960s, another time when American cities burned while astronauts flew in space. Has the U.S. made no progress in more than half a century? ............. Trump is seizing on the riots to cast himself as a law-and-order president, threatening to deploy active-duty troops in cities. ......... What’s clear is the need for the power structures of economics and business to grapple with life as it’s lived, not as the textbooks specify.
How Densest Asia Slum Chased the Virus Has Lesson for OthersIndia’s Dharavi, the continent’s most crowded slum, has gone from coronavirus hotspot to potential success story, offering a model for developing nations struggling to contain the pandemic. ............ Authorities have knocked on 47,500 doors since April to measure temperatures and oxygen levels, screened almost 700,000 people in the slum cluster and set up fever clinics. Those showing symptoms were shifted to nearby schools and sports clubs converted into quarantine centers. Fresh daily infections are now down to a third compared with early May, more than half the sick are recovering, and the number of deaths plummeted this month in the tenement where as many as eighty residents share a toilet. .......... Dharavi’s dogged approach to “chase the virus” could be a template for emerging markets across the world, from the favelas of Brazil to shanty towns in South Africa. ....... “It was next to impossible to follow social distancing,” said Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner at Mumbai’s municipality, who is in charge of leading the fight in Dharavi. “The only option then was to chase the virus rather than wait for the cases to come. To work proactively, rather than reactively.” ........... “We were able to isolate people at early stages,” Dighavkar said. “Unlike in the rest of Mumbai, where most patients are reaching hospitals at a very late stage.” ........... A strict lockdown and accessible testing was part of Dharavi’s strategy. If someone was not feeling well and wanted to get tested, just get institutionally quarantined and on-site doctors will take care of it. .......... none of this would be possible without gaining the community’s trust. Home to nearly a million people where a family of seven may be living in a 100-square feet hutment, word travels fast in Dharavi and small gestures help. ......... Everyone in the isolation centers also received round-the-clock medical supervision free of cost ......... Once word got around, people would volunteer themselves to be quarantined as soon as symptoms appeared .......... authorities must test everyone with symptoms like fever or a cough ......... Once shelter-at-home restrictions are fully lifted in Mumbai and the bustling city goes back to work, there’s a risk of a second wave of infections.
Can a Vaccine for Covid-19 Be Developed in Record Time?In the history of medicine, rarely has a vaccine been developed in less than five years. ......... Antiviral drugs, too, have generally taken decades to develop; effective combinations of them take even longer. The first cases of AIDS were described in the early 1980s; it took more than a decade to develop and validate the highly effective triple drug cocktails that are now the mainstay of therapy. We are still continuing to develop new classes of medicines against H.I.V., and notably, there is no vaccine for that disease. And yet the oft-cited target for creating a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is 12 months, 18 at the outside. ........... the maddening complexity of the challenge and the extraordinary collaboration it has already inspired ......... successfully inventing and developing any new drug or vaccine is quantifiably among the hardest things that human beings try to do ............ the vast majority of efforts fail ........... each of the rare success stories usually occurs over many years, often a decade or two. ......... The hope is that it will be within a year, but that is not in any way guaranteed. That projection will be refined as time goes on — and a year assumes that everything goes smoothly from this point forward. That’s never been done before. And safety cannot be compromised. ................ The goal of a vaccine is to raise an immune response against a virus or a bacterium. Later, when a vaccinated person is exposed to the actual virus or bacterium, the immune system will then block or rapidly control the pathogen so that the person doesn’t get sick. ........... All coronaviruses have a so-called spike protein, which is what gives the virus its corona-like morphology, the “crownlike shape,” as can be visualized in an electron microscope. ............ This spike protein represents a particularly attractive candidate for a vaccine, because it is a protein that most prominently sticks outside of the surface of the virus, and so it’s the part of the virus that is most visible to the immune system. ................. the inactivated polio vaccine and the inactivated flu vaccine. .......... Gene-based vaccines, such as DNA vaccines and RNA vaccines, do not consist of the entire virus particle. Rather, these vaccines use just a small fraction — sometimes even just one gene — from the virus. .............. In Moderna’s case, it involves using RNA as the inoculum. ........ Currently there are no approved DNA vaccines or RNA vaccines. ............ With Covid-19, there’s currently a hamster model that looks like it works pretty well to mimic the disease and also some promising research with mice, ferrets and also nonhuman primates. ........... For H.I.V., for instance, there is no natural protective immunity, and that’s part of the reason that H.I.V. vaccines have been so hard to develop. ......... The full-length spike protein appeared to work the best. .............. both natural immunity and vaccine-induced immunity can exist in primates ......... DNA encoding the full-length spike protein has been stitched into the common-cold virus vector as a more efficient way of transporting the spike-protein DNA into cells. That’s the basis of the vaccine we are developing with J.& J. ............. The Oxford vaccine is based on a chimpanzee common-cold virus, and it also encodes the spike protein. ......... Several vaccines are also in clinical trials in China, including Sinovac’s inactivated-virus vaccine and another vaccine based on a human common-cold virus. ........... The process includes small-scale manufacturing; Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials; and then regulatory approval and large-scale manufacturing. For SARS-CoV-2, the goal is to compress these timelines considerably without compromising safety ............... we can’t abandon the rigor of the science. And we certainly can’t abandon the ethics of how we do studies either. But what we can do is, frankly, ask developers to take more risks themselves. Vaccine development can be costly and success uncertain. As compared to a drug that someone may take every day, the return on investment versus risk of failed development is pretty high for vaccines. Because vaccines are often viewed as a public good, protecting both people and communities, there can be considerable pressure on companies to restrict price on vaccines, so a company rarely has a “blockbuster” vaccine the way that a cancer treatment, ulcer drug or cholesterol-lowering drug can be. Also, there are liability issues because you are giving a vaccine to a healthy person to protect them from disease rather than treating an existing problem. ................. For Covid-19, developers are talking about performing as many steps in parallel as possible, as opposed to sequentially. For example, multiple vaccine manufacturers are willing to take enormous financial risks — planning for large-scale manufacturing up front, even before knowing whether the vaccine works or not. .............. There are questions about safety, efficacy, manufacturability and scalability that must be tackled. ........... we don’t just need a vaccine that works; we need one that can be reliably scaled up to manufacture in very large volumes ......... For certain pathogens, it has been considered ethical to perform human-challenge studies but typically only for pathogens for which there is a highly effective treatment. ........ The dilemma for Covid-19 is that there currently is no curative therapy. .............. challenge trials are too dangerous. Young people can get quite sick and die from Covid-19. ........... There’s been a whole history — extremely fraught — where minorities were used as experimental subjects without their understanding or consent. ............ working with the communities where these large-scale Phase 3 studies will be done. Some will be done in the U.S., but others will be done in other places around the world — lower-resourced places that may not have the kind of clinical-research infrastructure that we have here, whether it’s having enough trained researchers or the sophisticated health care services they need, like lab and diagnostic tools and basic things like refrigeration and cold storage. ................ There are two timelines that matter. One is the infrastructure and timeline needed to manufacture massive numbers of doses of the vaccine, and a separate, potentially different timeline to actually deploy the vaccine. ........... the manufacturing process for an RNA vaccine is entirely different than for an adenovirus vector-based vaccine. For rapid deployment of a vaccine after clinical efficacy is shown, large-scale manufacturing of multiple vaccine candidates has to begin before there is demonstration of vaccine efficacy. ............ Once a vaccine is approved, it is not going be available the next day for whoever wants it. ............ Manufacturing has to be done in a high-quality and consistent way. There are materials that are needed that can be in limited supply, like the vials and the stoppers that you need for packaging. And then there are chains for distribution, and sometimes vaccines have to be kept frozen at very low temperatures. So you have to have all of those important systems for manufacturing, packaging and delivery and distribution up and running and the supply chains flowing in order to actually get what might now be an approved vaccine actually into the bodies of the individuals who need it. ........... there’s going to be a huge nationalistic push for countries to try to get hold of as much vaccine as they can for use within their own borders, yet ultimately the safety of any country or community depends on addressing and protecting against this virus all over the world. ............. If we don’t have a safe and effective vaccine for one to two years, or even longer, we need to develop other treatments as a bridge to a vaccine — to allow society to have a path toward reopening and functioning, while we await a vaccine. .............. How can we move from where we are — isolate, quarantine, mask, distance — toward a therapy that will bridge us to the vaccine? ............. The world has gotten interested in the drug remdesivir, which inhibits the process of RNA replication ........ Until there’s a vaccine, I don’t think there’s going to be one magic bullet for treating this thing, and we’re certainly not going to find that magic-bullet drug treatment in a repurposed drug pulled off the shelf. ........... And there’s an apparent association of this novel coronavirus with a very serious hyperimmune syndrome in children, the so-called Kawasaki-like syndrome. ........... You can almost think of it as a temporary vaccine. Instead of waiting for a vaccine that will make the body make its own antibodies against the virus, we can make exactly those kinds of antibodies and inject them into people........... In virtually every infectious disease, the use of antibacterials or antivirals or even antibodies against a virus early in the course of disease is better. In terms of remdesivir, it’s possible that the drug is much more likely to be efficacious when used early than late, and in fact, the published trial from the N.I.H. has a hint of that. .................. Patients given early remdesivir recover and do not progress to the fulminant lung disease. ............... Yes, just because a compound inhibits the virus in a petri dish, doesn’t mean that it can immediately become an antiviral drug for human use. The compound might be toxic to humans. It might be degraded into an inactive substance by the body. Its dose might be so high that it’s impossible to administer. But I do think while we’re waiting for the antibodies and the vaccines, it seems reasonable to proceed with testing thousands of drugs against the virus — called “drug screening” — so that if something does come up, we might find a drug to combine with remdesivir or with antibodies, making an anti-viral cocktail. .................... I’ve never seen this before, either. Our C.D.C. permit to receive the virus, which is classified as a biosafety Level 3 agent, was approved in less than two days. We received at least two material-transfer agreements, which have to be signed by a number of institutional officials and sometimes lawyers, in a matter of hours. Both of those processes have taken much longer, sometimes weeks, in the past. This is just one sign of administrators and scientists collaborating with each other and acting extra efficiently to facilitate the science. .................. From a research perspective, I have never seen such collaborative spirit, such open sharing of materials, data, protocols, thoughts and ideas among academic groups, industry groups, government groups and the clinicians on the front lines. .............. we are all coming together, and things are happening at unprecedented rates because we realize that we have a common enemy
What If Working From Home Goes on … Forever?Miserable as it can often be, remote work is surprisingly productive — leading many employers to wonder if they’ll ever go back to the office. ........... a foot of carpet can hold up to a pound of dirt .......... Harcus was stuck sitting on the gray couch in his small San Francisco apartment, trying to figure out a new challenge: How do you sell a robot to people who can’t touch it? ............. After discovering that executives were easy to reach — “They’re bored,” he says, “because they’re used to being in the field, cleaning” — Harcus began making five or six sales calls a day over Zoom, the videoconferencing app. .......... studied webcam technique to get his lighting right. (“We call it the ‘witness-protection-program look’ that you’re trying to avoid, where you look superdark,” he says.) And he came up with new patter. Talk about the weather was out, while commiserating over at-home child care was in: “I have a lot of screenshots running of babies crawling on people I’ve met.” .............. It worked; clients kept signing contracts. The day before we spoke in early May, Harcus said, he closed deals with six hotels. ......... had been worried that employees would slack off if they weren’t in the office. Instead, they all began working so nervously, even neurotically, that productivity rose ............. The hours that employees previously spent commuting were now poured into sales or into training customers online. ............. how time-intensive sales used to be. “We spent all this time, we flew robots out — we flew out,” he says. Yet usually the face-to-face demo was astonishingly brief. “Hours! Hours and days of prep! Just for a 10-minute discussion.” ...................... what’s crazier: being forced to work from home, peering into a webcam all day? Or the way they used to work? ................. half of those who were employed before the pandemic were now working remotely. ......... (In 2018, a U.S. Census Bureau survey found that just 5.3 percent of Americans worked from home full time.) ........... The coronavirus crisis is forcing white-collar America to reconsider nearly every aspect of office life. Some practices now seem to be wastes of time, happily discarded; others seem to be unexpectedly crucial, and impossible to replicate online. For workers wondering right now if they’re ever going back to the office, the most honest answer is this: Even if they do, the office might never be the same. ................ even though they had lost the easy rapport of face-to-face office contact, productivity didn’t sink. It went up, when measured by several metrics — developer productivity, for example. “If you, six months ago, had said, ‘We’re going to give you a few weeks’ notice, and then you’re going to have your whole work force working from home,’ I would have said: ‘You’re insane. There’s no way it’s possible.’” ................ Many workers who live alone are experiencing enforced isolation as an emotional grind. Among those with young children, many are finding it exhausting to juggle child care, home schooling and their jobs. A senior communications specialist at TD Ameritrade, Ruby Gu, told me that she and her husband, a quality-assurance engineer, were taking turns hunkered down in their basement while the other looked after their 21-month-old and 4-year-old in the living room above (“two small children running around over my head right now”). ................ A marketing director and parent of two toddlers told me her new hours were “9 to 4,” by which she meant 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., the only quiet hours she could find to work. ......... It’s a messy moment, further blurring a line between home and office that has already been heavily eroded by phones and computers. Nearly every parent I spoke to had their fingers crossed that schools and day care would reopen in the fall — at which point remote work might become an option they could choose, as opposed to one they were forced to endure. .............. Research conducted before the pandemic found that remote work offers significant positive effects for both employee and employer. ............. Output often rises when people work remotely. ............ the boost in productivity derived from employees’ being able to work more efficiently, without interruptions from their colleagues. ........... People also worked more hours: There was no commute to make them late for their shifts, and even their tea breaks were briefer. ......... a powerful correlation between telecommuting and job satisfaction ......... People tend to prize the greater flexibility in setting their work hours, the additional time with family members, the reduced distractions. Even with the onslaught of online messages confronting teleworkers, “no one’s stopping by your cubicle standing over you saying, ‘Hey, I need this,’ or ‘I need your help right now’” ..................... for the U.S. Patent Office, “real estate savings were immense” — fully $38 million .......... talented employees who can’t afford or don’t want to relocate to exorbitantly expensive coastal cities ............... Many will hesitate at the idea of riding a crowded, unventilated elevator to an open office where people are crowded together. ............ companies are figuring out how to “virtualize” every part of work — every meeting, every employee check-in — so that it could potentially be done remotely. “It has accelerated three years of digital cultural adaptation to three months” ........... help people collaborate while scattered to the winds. But fully 95 percent of Slack’s 2,000-plus employees work in one of the company’s offices. After the pandemic hit, they were sent home, which is where they were when the latest all-hands meeting rolled around. ............ your kids are going to creep into the video, and that’s OK. ......... Staff members rated this all-hands event higher than any previous one. .......... Meetings, of course, have long been a lightning rod in corporate life. Many are crucial for coordination; others seem pointless. But as executives know, it can be hard to tell the difference. Because communication is generally essential to every company’s mission, most meetings that are proposed take place, and then are scheduled again and again until they build up on employee calendars like plaque. ............... employees pine for fewer meetings ....... surveyed 182 senior managers; 71 percent found too many of their meetings “unproductive and inefficient”, and nearly two-thirds thought they came “at the expense of deep thinking.” ............ Meetings became smaller and less frequent. ......... They were, everyone agreed, just as productive as ever, maybe more so. They had reduced the frequency of their formal meetings, yet the communication felt nonstop — a flurry of Slack messages and emails too. ........... the value of small talk, those seemingly casual interchanges that keep information flowing ............ You can feel removed from colleagues even while drowning in digital messages from them. ........... She added that she looked forward to the day when the lockdown was over and she could have a waiter place a meal in front of her and then take the dirty dishes away. “I feel like I’m cooking 250 meals a day.” ............. “Zoom fatigue.” ......... When we’re hanging out together, we’re constantly exchanging glances — but only brief ones. Long stares, research shows, seem quite threatening. ............. experimental subjects were asked to look at a video of a face that turned to stare directly at them. People found the gaze enjoyable, but only for about three seconds. After that, it became unsettling. ............. videoconferencing is characterized by remarkably poor design, because we’re expected to face the camera and stare ...... The polite thing also winds up being the creepy thing. ........ when you’re in a “Brady Bunch” meeting with a dozen people arrayed in a grid, they’re all staring straight at you. No halfway normal meeting of humans behaves like that. ......... It’s possible that we’re still in an awkward adolescent phase with video calling, that protocols for how to behave correctly haven’t yet emerged. (In the telephone’s early days, some users debated whether saying “Hello” at the outset of a call sounded friendly or barbaric.) ......... standing back from your camera can reduce creepiness. ............. having a bigger view helped them achieve synchrony and bond with their opposite number. These days, when Nguyen video-chats, he sits a few feet away from his keyboard, so his upper body is visible. He also speaks more emotively. “Ramp up the words that you’re saying,” he notes, “and then exaggerate the way you say it.” ............ (“We always say that people kind o f smell with their eyes.”) .......... office work is more than just straightforward productivity — briskly ticking off to-do items. It also consists of the chemistry and workplace culture that comes from employees’ interacting all day, in ways that are unexpected and often inefficient, like the stray conversations that take place while people are procrastinating or bumping into one another on the way to lunch. ................. “Strong ties” are people in your life you talk to frequently, even daily. “Weak ties” are the people with whom you rarely communicate, perhaps 15 minutes a week or less. ......... strong ties were becoming stronger. Ordinarily, 45 percent of the time someone spent communicating with colleagues — online or face to face — was with their five strongest ties. In the first weeks of lockdown, that figure exceeded 60 percent. That makes sense: “You’re stressed about work, and these are the people you know really well, so you’ll probably talk to them more,” Waber told me. That’s partly why productivity has stayed so high. .......... it’s those weak ties that create new ideas......... Waber predicts that companies will continue to hit their marks and be productive while remaining partly — or heavily — remote. The real damage will sneak up a year or two later, as the quality of new ideas becomes less bold, less electrifying. He also suspects that the overall cohesion of employees, how well they know one another, might suffer. “I think we’re going to see just this general degradation of the health of organizations” ......... Groups that connected solely online (the experiment used email rather than video) did not collaborate very well. But when they were allowed to meet for brief periods face to face, their rates of cooperation rose dramatically. ......... If employees are able to meet in person some of the time, it can help build the bonds that make remote collaboration richer. ........ staggered office hours: Employees generally work remotely, but individual teams or groups of colleagues show up a day or two each week to work together. ........ workers’ happiness grew in correlation with the number of hours they worked remotely — up to 15 hours a week, at which point, he told me, “it plateaued.” ........... spending two days a week remotely could let a worker gain all the benefits before a “sense of isolation,” or perhaps “some increased difficulty communicating,” begins to eat into the gains. ............. as newfangled as remote work may seem, it relies on a set of tools that are by now quite old: video calls, discussion boards, chat, shared online documents........ the audio.... is the most pleasant mode for casual back and forth .......... ....... Hanging out with the avatars was a curious sensation — somewhat like when I interact with other players inside an online video game like Animal Crossing........... “I could be present at this meeting, but I don’t have to stare at the screen the whole time. It’s very liberating” ........ as much as our offices can be inefficient, productivity-killing spreaders of infectious disease, a lot of people are desperate to get back to them
