Day: July 23, 2020

Three countries launched missions officially kicking off the summer space race to Mars.  A satellite snaps pictures of the sun in ways Earth-based cameras can’t.  And the comet NASA calls a “natural firework” streaks the skies again.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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Google’s former CEO is working with a former U.S. Defense Department official to create an online program that would train Americans to code for the government, as first reported by Former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, listens during a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 28, 2011.Like other service academies, students would not pay tuition or room and board, but would be required to serve in the government after completing their degree.Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is NSCAI’s chairman. The commission was established in 2018 to advise the DOD on the development of artificial intelligence for use in the military.Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, who served Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump in that position from 2014 to 2017, is vice chairman of NSCAI.“The United States government must fundamentally reimagine the way it recruits and builds a digital workforce,” a memo from NSCAI’s July meeting said. It noted that the academy’s creation would be one aspect of a wider plan to enhance technological efforts in the U.S. military.“The United States Digital Service Academy’s mission is to develop, educate, train and inspire digital technology leaders and innovators and imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, honor and service to the United States of America in order to prepare them to lead in service to our nation,” the memo states.It is unclear if DOD would consider the proposal or how long it would take to start a new program.According to a New York Times report analyzing Schmidt’s work since he left Google, “few” of his proposals to the Pentagon have been adopted. Since stepping down as Google’s CEO, Schmidt has taken board positions on two committees that advise the DOD on technology, specifically the use of artificial intelligence.At the request of then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Schmidt agreed to serve as the head of the Defense Innovation Board in 2016 — another civilian board that advises the secretary of defense.
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An unmanned spacecraft blasted off Thursday on a yearlong journey to Mars, beginning one of China’s most ambitious space missions to date.The Tianwen-1 lifted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch site on China’s southern Hainan Island aboard a Long March 5 rocket as hundreds of cheering fans gathered on beaches across the bay to witness the event.The Tianwen-1, which translates into “Heavenly Questions” or “Questions to Heaven,” is expected to reach the Red Planet by February.  Once it enters orbit, a landing probe will detach and land on the planet’s Utopia Planitia region, where it will release a small solar-powered rover that will explore the surface for at least three months.A successful landing would make China only the second nation to place a spacecraft on the Martian surface, with the United States having landed eight probes since 1976.  China would also be the first to achieve all three phases — orbiting, landing and deploying a rover — in the same mission.This is China’s first independent mission to Mars. A 2011 attempt failed when a Russian rocket carrying a Chinese orbiter malfunctioned after launch, and was unable to escape Earth orbit.The Tianwen-1 mission is the most ambitious undertaking of China’s rapidly evolving space program.  Only the U.S. and Russia have successfully launched their own astronauts into orbit and successfully achieved a “soft” landing of a spacecraft on the lunar surface.Last year, though, China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft became the first to make a soft landing on the far side of the moon.The Tianwen-1 is the third mission to Mars this year.  A Japanese rocket blasted off Monday carrying an orbiter developed and built by the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. space agency NASA is scheduled to launch a new Martian rover, dubbed Perseverance, July 30. 
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One of the great mysteries of the coronavirus is how quickly it rocketed around the world.  It first flared in central China and, within three months, was on every continent but Antarctica, shutting down daily life for millions. Behind the rapid spread was something that initially caught scientists off guard, baffled health authorities and undermined early containment efforts — the virus could be spread by seemingly healthy people.As workers return to offices, children prepare to return to schools and those desperate for normalcy again visit malls and restaurants, the emerging science points to a menacing reality: If people who appear healthy can transmit the illness, it may be impossible to contain.”It can be a killer and then 40 percent of people don’t even know they have it,” said Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute.Researchers have exposed the frightening likelihood of silent spread of the virus by asymptomatic and presymptomatic carriers. But how major a role seemingly healthy people play in swelling the ranks of those infected remains unanswered — and at the top of the scientific agenda.  The small but mighty coronavirus can unlock a human cell, set up shop and mass produce tens of thousands of copies of itself in a single day. Virus levels skyrocket before the first cough, if one ever arrives. And astonishing to scientists, an estimated 4 in 10 infected people don’t ever have symptoms.The slyness of the virus remains on the minds of many scientists as they watch societies reopen, wondering what happens if silent spreaders aren’t detected until it’s too late.Travelers with no coughs can slip past airport screens. Workers without fevers won’t be caught by temperature checks. People who don’t feel tired and achy will attend business meetings.And outbreaks could begin anew.The first hintsAs early as January, there were signs people could harbor the virus without showing symptoms. Still, many scientists remained unconvinced.  The concept of people unwittingly spreading disease has never been an easy one to grasp, from the polio epidemic of mid-century America to the spread of HIV decades later.  As COVID-19 emerged, health officials believed it would be like other coronaviruses and that people were most infectious when showing symptoms like cough and fever, with transmission rare otherwise.”We were thinking this thing is going to look like SARS: a long incubation period and no transmission during the incubation period,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, a disease modeler at the University of Texas at Austin.Behind the scenes, scientists like Meyers were sharing their alarming finding with health officials. By scouring the websites of Chinese health departments, Meyers and her team found more than 50 cases between Jan. 21 and Feb. 8 where the person who brought the virus home didn’t develop symptoms until after infecting a family member.  “When we looked at the data, we said, ‘Oh no, this can’t be true,'” Meyers said. “It was shocking.”Clues on a cruise shipRebecca Frasure, who contracted the virus while aboard the Diamond Princess cruise, sat in bed in Japan in late February, frustrated to be kept hospitalized even though she didn’t have any symptoms.  “I’m perfectly healthy except having this virus in my body,” Frasure said.  Without widespread and frequent testing, it’s impossible to know how many people without symptoms might carry it. The Diamond Princess, which idled in the Port of Yokohama while the virus exploded onboard, enticed researchers.A mathematical model built by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine aimed at estimating how many infected people without symptoms were being missed indicated that a startling three-quarters of infected people on the Princess were asymptomatic.In Washington state, similar clues emerged for Dr. Jeff Duchin as a team of investigators examined the Life Care nursing home — the site of the first major U.S. cluster of cases — and found health care workers were spreading the virus to other elder care facilities. They believed at least some were working while infected but before feeling symptoms.  In March, more than half the residents at another nursing home who tested positive didn’t have symptoms.All that underscored the need to shift gears and acknowledge the virus couldn’t be totally stopped.  “This disease is going to be extremely hard to control,” Duchin recalled thinking.Unanswered questionsThe nose and mouth are convenient entryways for the coronavirus. Once inside, the virus commandeers the cell’s machinery to copy itself, while fending off the body’s immune defenses. Virus levels skyrocket in the upper airway, all without symptoms early on. Many scientists believe that, during these days, people can spread virus just by talking, breathing or touching surfaces.  In the truly asymptomatic, the immune system wins the battle before they ever feel sick.  As it became clearer that healthy people could spread the virus, U.S. health authorities opted not to wait for scientific certainty. In early April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended people wear masks.Days later, Chinese researchers published a paper saying patients are most infectious two to three days before developing symptoms. Evidence continues to accumulate, and the CDC now estimates 40% of transmission is occurring before people feel sick.  Still, doubt remains among scientists, most notably among the World Health Organization, which has discounted the importance of asymptomatic infection, though it recently began to acknowledge that possibility and advised people to wear masks.  U.S. health officials blame China for delays in sharing information on silent spread. But Topol contends the U.S. could have mounted its own testing program with viral genome sequencing.  That’s no small matter: Gaining scientific clarity earlier would have saved lives.”We’ve been slow on everything in the United States,” Topol said. “And I have to say it’s shameful.”
 
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An unmanned spacecraft blasted off Thursday on a yearlong journey to Mars, beginning one of China’s most ambitious space missions to date.The Tianwen-1 lifted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch site on China’s southern Hainan Island aboard a Long March 5 rocket as hundreds of cheering fans gathered on beaches across the bay to witness the event.The Tianwen-1, which translates into “Heavenly Questions” or “Questions to Heaven,” is expected to reach the Red Planet by February.  Once it enters orbit, a landing probe will detach and land on the planet’s Utopia Planitia region, where it will release a small solar-powered rover that will explore the surface for at least three months.A successful landing would make China only the second nation to place a spacecraft on the Martian surface, with the United States having landed eight probes since 1976.  China would also be the first to achieve all three phases — orbiting, landing and deploying a rover — in the same mission.This is China’s first independent mission to Mars. A 2011 attempt failed when a Russian rocket carrying a Chinese orbiter malfunctioned after launch, and was unable to escape Earth orbit.The Tianwen-1 mission is the most ambitious undertaking of China’s rapidly evolving space program.  Only the U.S. and Russia have successfully launched their own astronauts into orbit and successfully achieved a “soft” landing of a spacecraft on the lunar surface.Last year, though, China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft became the first to make a soft landing on the far side of the moon.The Tianwen-1 is the third mission to Mars this year.  A Japanese rocket blasted off Monday carrying an orbiter developed and built by the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. space agency NASA is scheduled to launch a new Martian rover, dubbed Perseverance, July 30. 
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President Donald Trump has announced the U.S. government will provide an additional $5 billion in aid, equipment and training to the nation’s nursing homes, many of which are hot spots in the coronavirus pandemic.He said COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, poses “the greatest threat to our senior citizens,” and that “nearly half of the deaths have occurred among those living in nursing homes or long-term care facilities.”According to federal estimates, nursing home residents accounted for roughly 37,000 COVID-19-related deaths; overall, the U.S. has recorded nearly 143,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.“I want to send a message of support and hope to every senior citizen who has been dealing with the struggle of isolation in what should be the golden years of your life,” Trump said Wednesday at the White House during the coronavirus news briefing.“We will get to the other end of that tunnel very quickly, we hope. The light is starting to shine. We will get there very quickly.”Nursing homes received nearly $5 billion in pandemic relief funds approved by Congress earlier this year. The new package of $5 billion in aid would go toward increased testing of nursing home staff, distribution of a list of those facilities with increased numbers of COVID-19 cases, and additional training and support. Nursing homes in hot spots would get priority.Biden economic planTrump’s announcement comes a day after former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, released the third plank of his overall economic plan, which focused on child care and home health care, with a pledge to provide 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.Also Wednesday, while discussing reopening schools in the fall, Trump was asked by reporters if he was comfortable sending his own son and grandchildren to in-person schools.”Well, I am comfortable with that,” Trump said. “I would like to see the schools open 100 percent. And we’ll do it safely. We’ll do it carefully.” He said, ultimately, the decision would be up to state governors.Late Wednesday, Senate Republicans and the White House said they had reached a tentative agreement on the next coronavirus relief package, which would provide about $1 trillion in aid. Legislation is expected Thursday.Earlier in the day, the U.S. government announced it will pay $1.95 billion to American drug maker Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech SE for 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, if it proves to be safe and effective.The companies said Wednesday they had finalized a deal with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Defense Department to supply the agencies with a vaccine they are developing jointly, the latest in a number of comparable agreements with other vaccine companies.Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told Fox News Wednesday the U.S. could buy 500 million additional doses of the vaccine provided they are “safe and effective.”Operation Warp SpeedThe deal announced Wednesday is part of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, which is aimed at delivering 300 million doses of an approved vaccine by January.Pfizer and BioNTech said they hope to be ready to pursue some form of regulatory approval as early as October if current studies of the vaccine are successful, and that they currently expect to deliver up to 100 million doses by the end of the year.The deal was announced one day after more than 1,000 people in the U.S. died of COVID-19, the first time since early June the U.S. reached the single-day milestone, and Trump acknowledged the coronavirus crisis in the country “will … get worse before it gets better.”The U.S. continues to lead the world in COVID-19 fatalities with more than 142,300, far greater than the 81,487 deaths in second-ranked Brazil, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. The U.S. also remains the world leader in infections, with 3.5 million of the world’s 15 million coronavirus cases.Data released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, however, the actual number of coronavirus infections in some parts of the U.S. is anywhere between two and 13 times what has been officially reported.The CDC based its conclusions on blood samples collected from people who were given routine clinical tests across 10 geographic regions, including New York City, south Florida, Missouri and the western states of Utah and Washington. In Missouri, for example, the estimated number of actual infections was 13 times the number of confirmed cases, while in Utah, the actual number was at least twice as high.The authors of the study, which was also published on the website of JAMA Internal Medicine, said many infected people did not seek medical care or get tested because they likely had mild symptoms or none at all, and likely spread the virus among the population. At least 40 percent of people who are infected do not develop symptoms.The CDC researchers also found that only a small number of people in many parts of the United States were carrying the coronavirus antibodies as of late May, indicating that most of the population remains at risk of infection.U.S. labs are also struggling to keep up with the increased testing, with some labs taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, experts say.“There’s been this obsession with, ‘How many tests are we doing per day?’” Dr. Tom Frieden, former CDC director, said in an AP report. “The question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned.”
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Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are actually undercutting the pandemic response.With the U.S. tally of infections at 3.9 million Wednesday and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves, dealing with a crushing workload.Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that asymptomatic people could be spreading the virus if they don’t isolate while they wait.“There’s been this obsession with, ‘How many tests are we doing per day?’” said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned.”Frieden and other public health experts have called on states to publicly report testing turnaround times, calling it an essential metric to measure progress against the virus.The testing lags in the U.S. come as the number of people confirmed to be infected globally passed a staggering 15 million on Wednesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. leads the world in cases as well as deaths, which stand at more than 142,000 nationwide. New York, once by far the U.S. leader in infections, has been surpassed by California, though that is partly due to robust testing in a state with more than twice the population of New York.Guidelines issued by the CDC recommend that states lifting virus restrictions have testing turnaround time under four days. The agency recently issued new recommendations against retesting most COVID-19 patients to confirm they’ve recovered.“It’s clogging up the system,” Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant health secretary, told reporters last week.Zachrey Warner knows it all too well.The 30-year-old waiter from Columbus, Ohio, was sent home from work on July 5 with a high fever a few days after he began feeling ill. He went for a test five days later at the request of his employer.Almost two weeks and one missed pay period later, he finally got his answer on Wednesday: negative.Though Warner said most symptoms — including fever, diarrhea, chest tightness and body aches — stopped a few days after he was tested, he wasn’t allowed to return to work without the result. On Wednesday he got a call telling him he didn’t have COVID-19.It was “frustrating that I’ve missed so much work due to testing taking forever,” Warner said. “It is what it is … (but) I’m glad I’m negative and happy to be able to get back to work this week.”Beyond the economic hurt the testing lags can cause, they pose major health risks too.In Florida, as the state confirmed 9,785 new cases on Wednesday and the death toll rose to nearly 5,500, nursing homes have been under an order to test all employees every two weeks. But long delays for results have some questioning the point.Jay Solomon, CEO of Aviva in Sarasota, a senior community with a nursing home and assisted living facility, said results were taking up to 10 days to come back.“It’s almost like, what are we accomplishing in that time?” Solomon said. “If that person is not quarantined in that 7-10 days, are they spreading without realizing it?”Test results that come back after two or three days are nearly worthless, many health experts say, because by then the window for tracing the persons’ contacts to prevent additional infections has essentially closed.Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University said it’s reasonable to tell people awaiting test results to isolate for 24 hours, but the delays have been unacceptable.“Imagine, you tell a parent with young children to self-isolate for 10 days or more without knowing they actually have COVID? I mean, that’s ridiculous. That’s actually absurd,” Wen said.U.S. officials have recently called for ramping up screening to include seemingly healthy Americans who may be unknowingly spreading the disease in their communities. But Quest Diagnostics, one of the nation’s largest testing chains, said it can’t keep up with demand and most patients will face waits of a week or longer for results.Quest has urged health care providers to cut down on tests from low-priority individuals, such as those without symptoms or any contact with someone who has tested positive.As testing has expanded, so have mask orders and other measures aimed at keeping infections down. Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota and Oregon became the latest to announce statewide mandatory mask orders on Wednesday.The U.S. is testing over 700,000 people per day, up from less than 100,000 in March. Trump administration officials point out that roughly half of U.S. tests are performed on rapid systems that give results in about 15 minutes or in hospitals, which typically process tests in about 24 hours. But last month, that still left some 9 million tests going through laboratories, which have been plagued by limited chemicals, machines and kits to develop COVID-19 tests.There is no scientific consensus on the rate of testing needed to control the virus in the U.S., but experts have recommended for months that the U.S. test at least 1 million to 3 million people daily.Health experts assembled by the Rockefeller Foundation said last week that the U.S. should scale up to testing 30 million Americans per week by the fall, when school reopenings and flu season are expected to further exacerbate the virus’ spread. The group acknowledged that will not be possible with the current laboratory-based testing system.The National Institutes of Health has set up a “shark tank” competition to quickly identify promising rapid tests and has received more than 600 applications. The goal is to have new testing options in mass production by the fall.Until then, the backbone of U.S. testing remains at several hundred labs with high-capacity machines capable of processing thousands of samples per day. Many say they could be processing far more tests if not for global shortages of testing chemicals, pipettes and other materials.Dr. Bobbi Pritt of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, says the hospital’s machines are running at just 20% of capacity. Lab technicians run seven different COVID-19 testing formats, switching back and forth depending on the availability of supplies.At Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, lab workers lobby testing manufacturers on a weekly basis to provide more kits, chemicals and other materials.“There’s no planning ahead, we just do as many as we can and cross our fingers that we’ll get more,” said Dr. Colleen Kraft, who heads the hospital’s testing lab.
 
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