Month: June 2020

Commercial insurers are scrutinizing building managers’ efforts to avoid outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease as they reopen movie theaters, gyms, schools and offices that had been closed for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, industry sources told Reuters. Legionnaires’ disease is a severe, sometimes lethal form of pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacteria that build up in pipes. Environmental insurers, which collect roughly $2 billion in annual premiums, would be on the hook for damages if there are outbreaks at buildings they cover. “Legionella could be the deadliest waterborne illness in the U.S. and another deadly consequence of COVID,” said Veronica Benzinger, environmental service group leader for insurance broker Aon plc, referring to the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. The pandemic shutdown of businesses and schools has led to an unprecedented amount of stagnant water in dormant buildings. It becomes a breeding ground for Legionella bacteria, which can be spread from toilets, sinks, showers and air-conditioning systems. Some insurers are intensifying Legionnaires’ precautions before adding new clients or renewing coverage, insurers and brokers said. For instance, they may ask customers to document how they maintain plumbing and cooling systems. Large commercial office buildings and manufacturing plants have professional maintenance staff who likely kept water flowing throughout the crisis. Smaller buildings that insurers cover are at higher risk, experts said. To avoid contamination, they must flush and sanitize pipes and disinfect cooling towers that use water to lower air temperature, they said. The bacteria and disease get their name from a deadly outbreak following a 1976 American Legion convention in a Philadelphia hotel. The bacteria were ultimately discovered in the cooling tower of the hotel’s air-conditioning system. Nearly 50,000 people were infected with Legionnaires’ disease between 2000 and 2015, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preparing buildingsAllianz SE has added Legionnaires’ prevention to broader discussions with large industrial clients about the coronavirus pandemic, said Scott Steinmetz, global head of risk consulting within MidCorp, part of an Allianz specialty insurance unit. Allianz has engineers helping customers prepare for reopening, he said. Allianz and AXA SA are also sending bulletins to clients about water system maintenance. Insurers might limit Legionnaire’s coverage amounts or impose higher deductibles if building systems are outdated, brokers said. Insurers were already worried about possible outbreaks, because of elevated lawsuits and claims. They are stepping up their scrutiny even more because of the coronavirus pandemic. In April, Illinois agreed to pay $6.4 million to families of patients who died of Legionnaires’ disease at a state-run veterans home. Other deaths have occurred in New York and Michigan.
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The U.N.’s World Food Program says its humanitarian air service could stop at the end of July without more funds to keep operating.
 
The service transports food, health supplies and other necessities to millions of poor, vulnerable people around the world. The thousands of aid workers flown to emergency hot spots provide people with urgent assistance they need but could not otherwise receive. 
 
The service is at risk because the World Food Program has received only 14 percent of the $965 million it needs to keep functioning. WFP spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said global aid operations will be severely compromised if the service shuts down. 
 
“Hospitals in developing countries would not receive desperately needed medical supplies,” she said. “Health centers serving pregnant women and undernourished children would not receive life-saving nutritional products for the prevention and treatment of malnutrition.” The WFP said if a substantial amount of money is not donated by the end of the first week of July, its global network of passengers and cargo services in support of the humanitarian community will stop at the end of July. 
 
“With the pandemic showing no signs of abating, it is crucial that the response does not stop now when it is needed most,” Byrs said. In recent months, WFP leaders say the air service has transported huge volumes of urgently needed medical supplies, including personal protective equipment, face masks and ventilators, as well as staff from scores of aid organizations. 
 
During that time, it says WFP-contracted air ambulances have carried out 16 medical evacuations. 
 
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European governments are working with the United States on plans to overhaul the World Health Organization, a top health official for a European country said, signaling that Europe shares some of the concerns that led Washington to say it would quit.The European health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity while discussing initiatives that are not public, said Britain, France, Germany and Italy were discussing WHO reforms with the United States at the technical level.The aim, the official said, was to ensure WHO’s independence, an apparent reference to allegations that the body was too close to China during its initial response to the coronavirus crisis early this year.”We are discussing ways to separate WHO’s emergency management mechanism from any single country influence,” said the official.Reforms would involve changing the WHO’s funding system to make it more long-term, the official said. The WHO now operates on a two-year budget, which “could hurt WHO’s independence” if it has to raise funds from donor countries in the middle of an emergency, the official said.U.S. President Donald Trump has accused the WHO of being too close to China and announced plans to quit and withdraw funding.European countries have occasionally called for reform of the WHO but have generally shielded the organization from the most intense criticism by Washington. In public the European position has usually been that any reform should come only after an evaluation of the response to the coronavirus crisis.Evaluation and reformBut minutes of a videoconference of EU health ministers last week suggested European countries were taking a stronger line and also seeking more European influence at the WHO in future.The German and French ministers told their colleagues “an evaluation and reform of the WHO was needed,” the minutes said.That was stronger wording than in a resolution last month which the EU drafted, and which was adopted by all 192 WHO member countries. That resolution called for an evaluation of the response to the coronavirus crisis, but it stopped short of calling for reforms.The German and French ministers also told their colleagues, “The EU and its MS (member states) should play a bigger role at the global level,” the minutes showed.A spokesperson for the German health ministry said Berlin sought stronger engagement with the WHO ahead of Germany taking over the EU presidency on July 1.A German government source told Reuters the aim of the intervention at the health ministers’ meeting was to encourage debate among EU member states about how to reform the WHO. Asked whether Germany was now pushing for quicker changes, instead of waiting until after the crisis, the official said: “Reforms of international organizations normally take years, not months.”A French health ministry spokesman also said the WHO would be on the agenda of Germany’s presidency of the EU, and Paris would work on it with Berlin. France backed WHO reform, but changes should follow the evaluation of the organization’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, he said.A British government spokesperson said Britain worked with organizations including the WHO “to encourage and support transparency, efficiency and good management.”The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the WHO did not respond to requests for comment.The WHO drew criticism for public praise of China’s efforts to combat the new coronavirus in the early days of the crisis, even as evidence emerged that Chinese officials had silenced whistleblowers.The EU and its governments funded around 11 percent of the WHO’s $5.6 billion budget in the 2018-19 period, and the United States provided more than 15 percent. China covered just 0.2 percent. 
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Twitter Inc added a ‘manipulated media’ label on a video posted on U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed on Thursday that showed a doctored news clip with a mis-spelled banner flashing “Terrified todler runs from racist baby.”The original video, which went viral on social media in 2019, showed a black toddler and a white toddler running towards each other and hugging. It was published with the headline “These two toddlers are showing us what real-life besties look like” on CNN’s website last year.The clip shared in Trump’s tweet first shows the part where one of those toddlers is seen running ahead of the other. At one point the banner reads: “Racist baby probably a Trump voter.”pic.twitter.com/vnRpk0zl5y— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020The tweeted video, with more than 7.7 million views and 125,000 retweets, then goes on to show the original video and concludes: “America is not the problem. Fake news is.””We may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context,” Twitter says in an explanation of its policies posted on its website.Twitter has been under fierce scrutiny from the Trump administration since it fact-checked Trump’s tweets about unsubstantiated claims of mail-in voting fraud. It also labeled a Trump tweet about protests in Minneapolis as “glorifying violence.”The president, who has battled Twitter and other tech companies over alleged censorship of conservative voices on social media platforms, said in late May he would propose legislation to potentially scrap or weaken the law shielding internet companies, in an extraordinary attempt to regulate outlets where he has been criticized.  
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A “sophisticated state-based cyber actor” has been attempting to hack a wide range of Australian organizations for months and had stepped up its efforts recently, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday.The attacks have targeted all levels of the government, political organizations, essential service providers and operators of other critical infrastructure, Morrison said in a news briefing in Canberra.”We know it is a sophisticated state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting,” he said.Morrison said there were not a lot of state actors that could launch this sort of attack, but Australia will not identify which country was responsible.Australia’s Defense Minister Linda Reynolds said advice showed no large-scale personal data breaches from the attack, as she urged businesses and organizations to ensure any web or email servers are fully updated with the latest software and the use of multifactor authentication.An Australian government source said Morrison’s public declaration was an attempt to raise the issue with those who could be targeted.Australia’s chief cyber intelligence agency said its investigations have so far found no evidence that the actor attempted to be “disruptive or destructive” once within the host’s network.Morrison said he spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday about the issue, while briefings to other allies have also been conducted.The revelation comes after Reuters reported Canberra had determined in March last year that China was responsible for a hacking attack on Australia’s parliament. Australia never publicly identified that source of the attack, and China denied it was responsible.A U.S. security ally, Australia strained ties with its largest trading partner, China, by pushing for an international inquiry into the source and spread of the new coronavirus that first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.  
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Researchers say they have determined a mystery fossil discovered in Antarctica in 2011 is a large egg, possibly laid by an ancient aquatic reptile.Science publication Inverse reports that since the fossil was discovered, researchers referred to it as the “thing,” because they could not classify it. They compared it to a deflated American football — oval in shape, about 28 centimeters long and 18 centimeters wide.In a study published Wednesday in the science journal Nature, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin used microscopic analysis to confirm that the fossil is indeed an ancient egg.An illustration of a marine reptile and its fossil egg, found in Antarctica, are seen in this handout obtained by Reuters on June 16, 2020. (University of Chile/Handout via Reuters)They analyzed the body size of 260 living reptiles, compared them with their egg sizes, and estimated that the animal that laid the mystery egg would have been roughly 7 meters long.They also determined the fossil egg was soft-shelled, unlike dinosaur eggs, and similar to turtle eggs — suggesting an aquatic species. The researchers found no trace of what was in the egg, but the fossil was found in a formation in Antarctica rock formation that also contained fossils from mosasaurs — huge ancient aquatic reptiles.If the fossil is determined to be a mosasaur egg, the new finding would be significant, as scientists previously did not believe the ancient creatures laid eggs.Since there are no living aquatic reptiles the size of a mosasaur, the egg seems to be in a class of its own.
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Top social media companies Google, Facebook and Twitter told U.S. lawmakers Thursday that foreign interference on their platforms has evolved significantly since the 2016 presidential election.The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence heard how these companies are adapting their approaches to combating disinformation as COVID-19, Black Lives Matter protests and the upcoming 2020 presidential election present opportunities for the exploitation of partisan political differences in the United States.FILE – Nick Pickles, public policy director for Twitter, speaks during a full committee hearing, in Washington, Sept. 18, 2019.To date, Twitter has not seen signs of foreign actors attempting to exploit U.S. racial divides or differences of opinion on the coronavirus, Nick Pickles, Twitter’s director of global public policy strategy and development, told lawmakers.”We haven’t found evidence of concerted platform manipulation by foreign actors in either of those areas,” Pickles said.Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said his company has yet to see “coordinated inauthentic behavior on the part of foreign governments, particularly targeting voting systems or how to vote in the United States.”But in his opening statement, Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said that while social media companies have made efforts since the 2016 election to address concerns about manipulation of their platforms by foreign entities, “I can’t say that I am confident that the 2020 election will be free of interference by malicious actors, foreign or domestic, who aspire to weaponize your platforms to divide Americans, pit us against one another and weaken our democracy.”Representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter told the panel they are seeing an evolution by many foreign actors, who are returning to methods last seen from the 1960s through the 1980s to disseminate misinformation and evade controls the companies put into place in response to concerns about Russian interference in the 2016 election. FILE – Facebook Head of Cybersecurity Policy Nathaniel Gleicher testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 22, 2019.”So far this year, we’ve taken down 18 coordinated networks seeking to manipulate public debate, including three networks originating from Russia, two from Iran and two based here in the United States,” Gleicher told lawmakers.A Pew Research survey found that 44% of Americans used social media platforms as a news source during the 2016 election. Lawmakers noted contentious discussions on social media do much of the work for malicious foreign actors.”I’m pretty convinced that when this republic dies, it doesn’t happen because the Russians broke into Ohio voting machines or they managed to buy ads on Facebook or Twitter. It happens because our politics become so toxic, so polarized, we don’t recognize each other anymore as Americans,” said Representative Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat. “All it takes is a match from Russia, from Iran or from North Korea, or from China to set off a conflagration.”The House Intelligence Committee is holding virtual hearings because of continuing concerns about the threat of COVID-19. Committee Republicans have chosen not to participate in these virtual hearings this week.The committee hearing marked the second time social media companies had briefed lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee about the security threat posed by bad actors on their platforms. In 2017, the committee released dozens of Russian-linked ads that circulated on Facebook ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
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The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief scientist said Thursday the agency hopes there will be about two billion doses of a vaccine against COVID-19 by the end of next year that would be reserved for “priority populations.”Speaking at a virtual news conference in Geneva, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan told reporters, “It’s a big ‘if’ because we don’t have any vaccine that’s proven.”She said she is encouraged by the number of possible vaccines currently being tested and hoped at least one or two would prove ready for use by next year.Swaminathan said that the WHO recommends immunizing people at risk first, including the elderly and those with underlying conditions like diabetes or respiratory disease, as well as key workers. But she said countries must come to a consensus on which populations would be prioritized.Numerous developed countries including Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany and the U.S. have already struck deals with pharmaceutical firms to secure vaccine supplies for their citizens.On Wednesday, EU Commission President Ursual von der Leyen announced a donor conference scheduled for June 28 designed to raise funds to ensure all people can get access to any vaccines or COVID-19 treatments that might become available.She said there is no place for “Me first” when it comes to fighting a global pandemic.The WHO and partners have called for drug makers to suspend their patent rights on any effective COVID-19 vaccine and for billions of dollars to buy vaccines for developing countries. 
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