Month: September 2020

At a University of Maryland lab, people infected with the new coronavirus take turns sitting in a chair and putting their faces into the big end of a large cone. They recite the alphabet and sing or just sit quietly for a half hour. Sometimes they cough.The cone sucks up everything that comes out of their mouths and noses. It’s part of a device called “Gesundheit II” that is helping scientists study a big question: Just how does the virus that causes COVID-19 spread from one person to another?It clearly hitchhikes on small liquid particles sprayed out by an infected person. People expel particles while coughing, sneezing, singing, shouting, talking and even breathing. But the drops come in a wide range of sizes, and scientists are trying to pin down how risky the various kinds are.The answer affects what we should all be doing to avoid getting sick. That’s why headlines were made a few days ago when a U.S. health agency appeared to have shifted its position on the issue, but later said it had published new language in error.The recommendation to stay at least 6 feet (2 meters) apart — some authorities cite about half that distance — is based on the idea that larger particles fall to the ground before they can travel very far. They are like the droplets in a spritz of a window cleaner, and they can infect a person by landing on his nose, mouth or eyes, or maybe if they are inhaled.Smaller particlesBut some scientists are now focusing on tinier particles, the ones that spread more like cigarette smoke. Those are carried by wisps of air and even upward drafts caused by the warmth of our bodies. They can linger in the air for minutes to hours, spreading throughout a room and building up if ventilation is poor.The potential risk comes from inhaling them. Measles can spread this way, but the new coronavirus is far less contagious than that.For these particles, called aerosols, “6 feet is not a magic distance,” said Linsey Marr, a leading researcher who is studying them at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. But she says it’s still important to keep one’s distance from others, “the farther the better,” because aerosols are most concentrated near a source and pose a bigger risk at close range.Public health agencies have generally focused on the larger particles for coronavirus.That prompted more than 200 other scientists to publish a plea in July to pay attention to the potential risk from aerosols. The World Health Organization, which had long dismissed a danger from aerosols except in the case of certain medical procedures, later said that aerosol transmission of the coronavirus can’t be ruled out in cases of infection within crowded and poorly ventilated indoor spaces.FILE – A view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta.The issue drew attention recently when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted and then deleted statements on its website that highlighted the idea of aerosol spread. The agency said the posting was an error, and that the statements were just a draft of proposed changes to its recommendations.Dr. Jay Butler, CDC’s deputy director for infectious disease, told The Associated Press that the agency continues to believe larger and heavier droplets that come from coughing or sneezing are the primary means of transmission.Last month, Butler told a scientific meeting that current research suggests aerosol spreading of the coronavirus is possible, but it doesn’t seem to be the main way that people get infected. Further research may change that conclusion, he added, and he urged scientists to study how often aerosol spread of the coronavirus occurs, what situations make it more likely and what reasonable steps might prevent it.Marr said she thinks infection by aerosols is “happening a lot more than people initially were willing to think.”‘Superspreader’ eventsAs a key piece of evidence, Marr and others point to so-called “superspreader” events where one infected person evidently passed the virus to many others in a single setting.Butler said such events raise concern about aerosol spread but don’t prove it happens.There could be another way for tiny particles to spread. They may not necessarily come directly from somebody’s mouth or nose, said William Ristenpart of the University of California-Davis. His research found that if paper tissues are seeded with influenza virus and then crumpled, they give off particles that bear the virus. So people emptying a wastebasket with tissues discarded by somebody with COVID-19 should be sure to wear a mask, he said.Scientists who warn about aerosols say current recommendations still make sense.FILE – Public information messages are posted in Manchester, England, after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued new restrictions to slow the renewed spread of the coronavirus, Sept 22, 2020.Wearing a mask is still important, and make sure it fits snugly. Keep washing those hands diligently. And again, staying farther apart is better than being closer together. Avoid crowds, especially indoors.Their main addition to recommendations is ventilation to avoid a buildup of aerosol concentration. So, the researchers say, stay out of poorly ventilated rooms. Open windows and doors. One can also use air-purifying devices or virus-inactivating ultraviolet light.Best of all: Just do as much as you can outdoors, where dilution and the sun’s ultraviolet light work in your favor.”We know outdoors is the most spectacularly effective measure, by far,” said Jose-Luis Jimenez of the University of Colorado-Boulder. “Outdoors it is not impossible to get infected, but it is difficult.”FILE – In this July 15, 2020, photo, job seekers exercise social distancing as they wait to be called into the Heartland Workforce Solutions office in Omaha, Neb.The various precautions should be used in combination rather than just one at a time, researchers say. In a well-ventilated environment, “6 feet [of separation] is pretty good if everybody’s got a mask on” and nobody stays directly downwind of an infected person for very long, said Dr. Donald Milton of the University of Maryland School of Public Health, whose lab houses the Gesundheit II machine.Duration of exposure is important, so there’s probably not much risk from a short elevator ride while masked or being passed by a jogger on the sidewalk, experts say.Scientists have published online tools for calculating risk of airborne spread in various settings.At a recent meeting on aerosols, however, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, noted that preventive steps can be a challenge in the real world. Keeping apart from other people can be difficult in homes that house multiple generations. Some old buildings have windows that were “nailed shut years ago,” he said. And “we have far too many communities where they simply don’t have access to clean water to wash their hands.”It might seem strange that for all the scientific frenzy to study the new coronavirus, the details of how it spreads can still be in doubt nine months later. But history suggests patience.”We’ve been studying influenza for 102 years,” said Milton, referring to the 1918 flu epidemic. “We still don’t know how it’s transmitted and what the role of aerosols is.”
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SHANGHAI/WASHINGTON — The United States government has imposed restrictions on exports to China’s biggest silicon chip maker after concluding there is an “unacceptable risk” that equipment supplied to it could be used for military purposes.
 
Suppliers of certain equipment to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) will now have to apply for individual export licenses, according to a letter from the Commerce Department dated Friday and seen by Reuters.
 
SMIC becomes the second leading Chinese technology company to face U.S. trade curbs after telecoms giant Huawei Technologies, whose access to high-end chips has been curtailed by its addition to a so-called entity list.
 
The Pentagon said earlier this month that it was weighing blacklisting SMIC, which the U.S. authorities have identified as a threat due to an alleged “fusion” of civilian and military technologies.
 
Asked for comment, SMIC said it had not received any official notice of the restrictions and said it has no ties with the Chinese military.
 
“SMIC reiterates that it manufactures semiconductors and provides services solely for civilian and commercial end-users and end-uses,” SMIC said.
 
“The Company has no relationship with the Chinese military and does not manufacture for any military end-users or end-uses.”
 
The Commerce Department declined on Saturday to comment specifically on SMIC, but said its Bureau of Industry and security was “constantly monitoring and assessing any potential threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.”
 
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The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal judge in San Francisco on Friday to allow the government to bar Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google from offering WeChat for download in U.S. app stores pending an appeal.The filing asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler to put on hold her preliminary injunction issued Saturday. That injunction blocked the U.S. Commerce Department order that was set to take effect late September 20 and that would also bar other U.S. transactions with Tencent Holding’s WeChat, potentially making the app unusable in the United States.Beeler responded late Friday by setting a hearing for October 15 on the motion but said she could potentially hold it on “a tighter time period.”The Justice Department filing said Beeler’s order was in error and “permits the continued, unfettered use of WeChat, a mobile application that the Executive Branch has determined constitutes a threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”Tencent had put forward a “mitigation proposal” that sought to create a new U.S. version of the app, deploy specific security measures to protect the new apps source code, partner with a U.S. cloud provider for user data storage, and manage the new app through a U.S.-based entity, the filing said.However, its proposal still allowed Tencent to retain ownership of WeChat and did not address U.S. concerns over the company, it added.Tencent declined to comment.Lawyers for U.S. WeChat Users Alliance, the group behind the legal challenge to the WeChat ban, questioned the urgency of the government’s request, noting the time it took for the government to seek a stay.”The government’s decision to sit tight for five days shows that there is no emergency,” they wrote.In support of its argument, the Justice Department made public portions of a September 17 Commerce Department memo outlining the WeChat transactions to be banned.”The WeChat mobile application collects and transmits sensitive personal information on U.S. persons, which is accessible to Tencent and stored in data centers in China and Canada,” the memo said. Beeler said WeChat users who filed a lawsuit “have shown serious questions going to the merits of the First Amendment claim.”The Justice Department filing said, “The First Amendment does not bar regulation of WeChat simply because it has achieved the popularity and dependency sought by (China), precisely so it can surveil users, promote its propaganda, and otherwise place U.S. national security at risk.”WeChat has had an average of 19 million daily active users in the United States, analytics firms Apptopia said in early August. It is popular among Chinese students, Americans living in China and some Americans who have personal or business relationships in China.Beeler wrote “certainly the government’s over-arching national-security interest is significant. But on this record — while the government has established that China’s activities raise significant national security concerns — it has put in scant little evidence that its effective ban of WeChat for all U.S. users addresses those concerns.”WeChat is an all-in-one mobile app that combines services similar to Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Venmo. The app is an essential part of daily life for many in China and boasts more than 1 billion users.TikTok on Wednesday sought a similar preliminary injunction from a U.S. judge in Washington. A judge on Friday said he would hold a hearing Sunday morning about whether to halt the U.S. app store ban on new TikTok downloads set to take effect Sunday night.  
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The U.S. space agency NASA released the results of its first-ever agency-wide economic impact study Friday, indicating its work generated more than $64 billion for the U.S. economy last year. In a release on its official website, NASA said through all its activities during fiscal year 2019, the agency supported more than 312,000 jobs nationwide, and generated an estimated $7 billion in federal, state and local taxes throughout the country. NASA said it commissioned the study to better understand how the U.S. economy benefited from its work and paid back the investment by the federal government. FILE – NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine speaks at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., May 23, 2020.In the release, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the study provides numbers and data to illustrate how taxpayer investment of one-half of one percent of the total federal budget in America’s space program pays off, in both a stronger economy and through advances in science and technology. The study showed that every state in the country saw some benefit from NASA activities, with 43 states seeing an economic impact of $10 million or more, and eight showing an impact of $1 billion or more. The analysis also showed that NASA’s “Moon to Mars” program alone generated $14 billion in economic output, brought in $1.5 billion in tax revenue and supported more than 69,000 jobs. The study said the program is expected to double those figures next year. The program aims to return people to the moon by 2024, and use it as a base for operations to Mars and elsewhere. The economic impact study also showed NASA has generated more than 2,000 technologies since 1976. The study was conducted by the Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 
 
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Thousands of mostly young people gathered Friday in Berlin to demand more action on climate change, part of a global day of action for the environment.Defying gray skies, the participants, many on bicycles, brought placards and banners to a rally near the iconic Brandenburg Gate. Most wore face masks as a COVID-19 precaution. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.Germany is a focal point for the demonstrations in Europe because it holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union, which together with Britain accounts for 22 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans.The climate has made headlines around the world recently, from melting Arctic ice to record Siberian heat to wildfires in California and elsewhere.German climate activist Luisa Neubauer told the crowd, “We’re here because we know that climate justice is possible as long as we keep fighting for it. That’s why we’re here today.”Fridays for Future activists protest calling for a “Global Day of Climate Action” in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 25, 2020.The demonstration was one of 3,000 scheduled to be held around the world Friday, as part of the youth activist movement “Fridays for Future.” COVID-19 restrictions forced many of the activities online.In Stockholm, the person considered to be the founder of the movement, teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, was in her usual location, in front of the Swedish parliament. She told a reporter the main goal of the protests was to raise awareness and sway public opinion on the urgency of climate issues.She said, “We need to treat the climate crisis as a crisis. It’s just as simple as that. The climate crisis has never once been treated as a crisis, and unless we treat it as a crisis, we won’t be able to so-called ‘solve’ it.’ ”In 2018, at age 15, Thunberg began skipping school on Fridays and going to the parliament to hold demonstrations for legislation on climate change. Soon, she was joined by others, and the protests eventually went viral through social media.
 
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The governor of the eastern U.S. state of Virginia announced Friday that he and his wife have tested positive for COVID-19.
 
Governor Ralph Northam said they were notified Wednesday that a staff member who works in the living quarters of their official residence developed symptoms and subsequently tested positive, after which the couple had their own tests done.
 
He said his wife, Pamela, is experiencing mild symptoms, while he remains asymptomatic.
 
The couple is isolating for 10 days, during which the governor is continuing his work.
 
Crews are also cleaning the governor’s mansion, and the Northams are working with state health officials on contact-tracing efforts to make sure anyone they may have been in contact with is aware of their positive tests.
 
Northam said the best thing people can do is “take this seriously.” 
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A new survey indicates more than 80% of people living in Britain with COVID-19 symptoms or who have had contact with someone who has tested positive are ignoring self-isolation guidelines.
 
The survey, released Friday and conducted by Kings College London and the National Health Service (NHS), found that only 18.2% of people who reported having symptoms of COVID-19 in the previous seven days have stayed isolated since their symptoms developed, and only 11.9% requested a COVID-19 test.
 
The research also shows fewer than half those surveyed were able to identify the symptoms of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.
 
The research also found that only 10.9% of people told to self-isolate after close contact with a COVID-19 case had done so for 14 days as required.
 
In a statement, the survey’s senior author, Kings College researcher Dr. James Rubin, said the research indicated that while the public seems to have good intentions to adhere to the test, trace and isolate guidelines, financial constraints are the most common reason given for non-compliance, among other factors.
 
Britain this week introduced fines of up to $12,780 for breaking self-isolation rules, and it is offering nearly $640 in support payments to low-paid workers who lose income from quarantining.
 
The study shows other reasons for non-compliance ranged from not knowing government guidance to being unable to identify the symptoms.
 
Kings College says the data was collected through surveys conducted among 30,000 people living in Britain between March and August of this year.
 
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As winter brings shorter days and lower temperatures to the Northern Hemisphere, there is a chance we could see more COVID-19 cases.But experts say it is still too early to know exactly how seasons will affect the virus. They emphasize that human behaviors are still the most important driver of the pandemic.“The most important factor at the moment is … the control measures that we have in place. Things such as social distancing and mask-wearing — those are really key to lowering transmission of disease at this point,” said Rachel Baker, infectious disease researcher at Princeton University.COVID and climateMany diseases, such as the flu, are seasonal, with cases spiking when the weather is cool and dry.“It’s well known that many respiratory viruses have seasonality,” said Akiko Iwasaki, professor of immunology at Yale University. “And so, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s actually elevated transmission during the winter months from COVID.”There are three main reasons why scientists think the coronavirus could be affected by climate.“The virus doesn’t like certain seasons, or our bodies don’t like certain seasons. Or it’s just that we’re putting more of our bodies together in closed spaces,” said Ben Zaitchik, associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Johns Hopkins University.SARS-CoV-2, the official name of the virus that causes COVID-19, is spread by respiratory droplets produced when people breathe, talk, sneeze or cough. The virus survives better in cold, dry conditions typical of temperate winters. Low humidity also promotes evaporation of virus droplets into tiny aerosol particles that linger in the air, increasing the risk of airborne transmission in winter.Cold weather may further increase disease spread by driving us indoors.“The longer that household contacts are together, the more likely they are to transmit [the virus],” John Lynch, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Washington, said at a press conference. “When we think about the places where we’re seeing transmissions occur, it’s mostly homes. It’s mostly constrained workplaces where people don’t have the ability to separate from each other.”Winter weather can also hinder the body’s ability to fend off viral infections. A lack of sunshine may deplete vitamin D levels and weaken the immune system, and one study found a link between low vitamin D levels and COVID-19 cases.Cold, dry winter air also damages the cells in our airways that clear away virus particles. If your body can’t get rid of these virus particles, it might take fewer virus particles to make you sick, or the disease might be more severe, Iwasaki said.Iwasaki recommends that people use humidifiers to moisten the air of homes and offices. She also said that masks can help.In addition to reducing spread of the virus, “another thing [a mask] does is it warms the nose and moistens the respiratory tract. So, I think masks are a great idea for multiple reasons, just even to boost this moisture inside the respiratory tract to better fight off the infection,” Iwasaki said.How will winter affect COVID?There’s good reason to believe that COVID-19 is sensitive to the seasons, and some studies have linked cold, dry conditions with outbreaks of the disease. But researchers say that weather takes a back seat at the early stages of a pandemic because everyone is susceptible to the virus.“When you have a population with no immunity to the virus, it spreads really well, no matter the climate conditions. So it just kind of takes off,” said Princeton’s Baker.In a new study, Baker predicts that human behaviors such as mask-wearing and social distancing will be the most important factors in slowing disease spread during winter in New York and other cities, although she notes that the study has not yet undergone a formal review process.But in areas where disease cases are slightly declining, “it’s possible that climate could give you enough of a boost of transmission to cause a large outbreak,” Baker said. “So, we are a bit worried that when winter comes, if you’re in a place that gets really cold, dry winters, it might be enough to push transmission [up], and then you’d start to see a growth in cases.”COVID-19: A future seasonal disease?As more people develop immunity to the virus after overcoming an infection or through vaccination, researchers say that COVID-19 could become a seasonal disease, with numbers of cases oscillating between the seasons.“As more of the population has had the virus, more of the population develops immunity to the virus,” Baker said. “As that immunity increases, then you’ll start to see more effects of climate.”However, the future of the disease will be shaped by what this immunity looks like — a question that has not yet been answered. Researchers predict that the timing and number of COVID-19 cases will hinge on the effectiveness of potential vaccines and how long immunity lasts.Disease predictions were very different depending on whether “SARS-CoV-2 is a type of virus where you get it once and you’re done, you can never transmit it again, you can never get infected again,” compared with “if it’s a type of virus where you might have some amount of protective immunity, but you could potentially be reinfected again,” said Caroline Wagner, assistant professor of bioengineering at McGill University.Slowing the spreadExperts emphasize that the course of the pandemic is still largely in our hands.“What we know works is social distancing, wearing masks or face coverings, and practicing good hand hygiene. If we stick with those things, we’re going to have really good success with interrupting transmission,” said the University of Washington’s Lynch.Jeanne Marrazzo, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, agrees that we have the tools to deal with the potential of more cases in winter.“We know what to do. The question is, do we have the social, political and economic will? I think we have the medical will. We have the public health will. It’s just a question of, ‘Can we mobilize the community to continue to exercise the kinds of caution we need?’ ” said Marrazzo at a press conference.“As we face the coming months, I really, really hope we can pull together to recognize that we can change the trajectory if we work together,” she said. 
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