Day: November 4, 2020

A U.S. judge said Wednesday he was uncertain if he had a legal basis to bar the U.S. Commerce Department from imposing restrictions on video-sharing app TikTok after a Pennsylvania judge already had blocked the government’s plan Friday.Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd, the owner of TikTok, argues that the previous ruling could still be overturned on appeal.U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols for the District of Columbia said he was unsure if TikTok could demonstrate “irreparable harm” to win a new injunction against the government’s order that Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google app stores remove TikTok for download by new users.On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone stopped the Commerce Department from barring TikTok’s data hosting within the United States and other technical transactions that she said would effectively ban the use of the app in the country.The Trump administration contends TikTok poses national security concerns as the personal data of U.S. users could be obtained by China’s government. TikTok denies the allegations.The restrictions were set to take effect Nov. 12. A Justice Department lawyer told Nichols the government had not decided whether to appeal Beetlestone’s order.Beetlestone, whose ruling came in a lawsuit filed by three TikTok users, noted the app has more than 100 million U.S. TikTok users.On Sept. 27, Nichols issued a preliminary injunction against the government’s order. Beetlestone’s order also blocks the app store download ban.Talks have been ongoing to finalize a preliminary deal for Walmart and Oracle Corparation to take stakes in a new company to oversee U.S. operations. U.S. President Donald Trump has said the deal had his “blessing.” 
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Health officials in South Korea have approved a new test that’s designed to detect both COVID-19 and seasonal influenza from the same samples, which would help prevent disruption at hospitals as the pandemic stretches into the flu season.The country has struggled to stem the coronavirus, which some experts say could spread more broadly during cold weather when people spend more time indoors.The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on Wednesday reported 118 new cases of COVID-19, most of them in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area. The national caseload is now at 26,925, including 474 deaths.People have been increasingly venturing out in public after the government eased social distancing restrictions last month to support the weak economy. “Despite efforts by health authorities to trace contacts and suppress transmissions, such efforts have been outpaced by the speed of viral spread,” senior Health Ministry official Yoon Taeho said during a virus briefing.The new test, which targets genes that are specific to both COVID-19 and seasonal flu, is an evolved version of PCR tests that are used to detect COVID-19 from samples taken from noses or throats. Laboratories use machines to amplify genetic materials so that even tiny quantities of the virus can be detected.The illnesses are hard to tell apart by their symptoms, so having a diagnosis for both in three to six hours “would be convenient for patients and also reduce the burden of medical workers,” Yoon said. 
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Organizers of next year’s rescheduled Tokyo Olympics will have measures in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus. However, little is known about how the virus affects the long-term health of those who were already infected, including athletes. South African researchers are leading an international effort to try to find answers. South African Olympic hurdler Wenda Nel is grateful to be back on track for next year’s rescheduled Tokyo Olympics after recovering from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.  “It was about two to four weeks that I’ve took it very slowly with the training. Checked my heart rate every training session. Just monitor that. And from there I actually went into full program. And I feel stronger … fit … and actually fully recovered right now,” she said.  FILE – South Africa’s Wenda Nel runs the 400m hurdles during the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) Championships held in Durban, June 26, 2016.The International Olympic Committee tasked a prominent South African sports physician, Martin Schwellnus, to lead international scientists in compiling guidelines for doctors treating athletes recovering from acute respiratory infections, including the coronavirus. The University of Pretoria’s Sport, Exercise Medicine, and Lifestyle Institute (SEMLI), through the IOC Research Center in South Africa, initiated the international AWARE Research Study as part of this work. The project includes data from the COVID-19 Recovery Clinic for athletes. Schwellnus, who is a professor at the University of Pretoria and the director of SEMLI, says COVID-19 seems to affect various organ systems.  “In the returning to sport, it could result in medical complications,” he said. “And to date, we don’t really know what these are for COVID. And so, the focus of the project is to investigate what happens in an athlete when they had COVID and how does the body heal and respond.”  The project uses an online survey to gather data from any person training regularly for three hours a week who had acute respiratory infections, including COVID-19.  Those recovering from the ailment can join the COVID-19 Recovery Clinic for help returning to sports.    Medical doctor and amateur triathlete Marcel Jooste joined the clinic after he recovered from COVID-19, which he caught from a patient.  “I’m expected to follow a specific return-to-play protocol in terms of what I am allowed to do in terms of exercise,” he said. “That is, if I’ve passed all the testing. And then I’m required to give them feedback in terms of how I’m feeling following training.”  The research examines COVID-19’s impact on all organ systems.  According to preliminary findings, athletes who have had COVID-19 find low-intensity exercise to be harder and recovery time much longer than from other respiratory infections.  Evidence-based guidelines should help recovering athletes to better and more safely prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, says Kelly Muller, rehabilitation specialist at the University of Pretoria’s SEMLI.  “If an athlete does happen to contract COVID-19, it would be really important and really valuable for the coaches and medical professionals to have evidence-based advice to guide that athlete back to their performance in the shortest time possible,” she said.  For Wenda Nel and other Olympic athletes recovering from the infection, the research could help them come home from Tokyo as champions.  
 
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Organizers of next year’s rescheduled Tokyo Olympics will have measures in place to limit the spread of COVID-19. But little is known about how the virus affects the long-term health of those already infected, including athletes. South African researchers are leading an international effort looking for answers, as Marize de Klerk reports from Pretoria.
Camera: Franco Puglisi  Produced by: Jon Spier
 
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As voters across the United States lined up to cast their ballots in a hotly contested presidential race Tuesday, the nation posted one of its biggest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 infections in a single day.  Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Research Center shows a total of 91,530 total confirmed cases on Election Day, including 1,130 deaths. Additionally, there were more than 50,000 hospitalizations on Tuesday, according to separate data compiled by The COVID Tracking Project, an effort launched by The Atlantic magazine. Votes are counted at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Election Day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nov. 3, 2020.More than 20 states have announced more new COVID-19 cases in the past week than in any other seven-day period, with states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania — three states that play a major role in the presidential contest — setting single-day records on Tuesday.  The pandemic continues to affect the U.S. sporting world on all levels.  The athletic department at the University of Wisconsin announced Tuesday that its football team, one of the country’s top programs, is cancelling its scheduled game against Purdue University this Saturday due to an ongoing surge of coronavirus cases among the team’s players and coaching staff, including head coach Paul Chryst.  This is the second consecutive cancellation for the Badgers after calling off last Saturday’s contest against Nebraska.   The United States leads the world with more than 9.3 million of the world’s 47.4 million total COVID-19 infections, including 232,627 deaths.  Medical staff members move a patient from a plane during a transfer operation of people suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Vannes Airport, France, Nov. 2, 2020.France also reached another grim milestone Tuesday, as it recorded 854 new COVID-19 deaths, its highest increase since mid-April, according to Reuters news service.   India, second only to the United States in the number of total COVID-19 infections with more than 8.3 million , appears to have turned a corner in its battle against the pandemic.  The health authority recorded more than 46,000 new infections over the past 24 hours ending Wednesday, the tenth consecutive day the South Asian nation has posted fewer than 50,000 new cases. But New Delhi reported more than 6,700 new cases Tuesday, the highest single-day rise for the Indian capital city. FILE – A Queensland police officer moves a stop sign at a vehicle checkpoint on the Pacific Highway on the Queensland – New South Wales border, in Brisbane, Apr. 5, 2020.The situation is also improving in Australia, as Premier Gladys Berejiklian of New South Wales state announced Wednesday on Twitter that the border between New South Wales and the southern state of Victoria will reopen on November 23. On Monday, 23 November – the NSW/Victoria border will reopen. We need to keep moving forward as we live with COVID-19. I have confidence that everyone will continue to work hard to keep everyone safe.— Gladys Berejiklian (@GladysB) November 4, 2020The border has been shut down since July, when a second wave of COVID-19 cases swept across Victoria and its biggest city, Melbourne, which peaked at more than 700 new cases a day and 819 of the nation’s 907 total deaths. The surge led state authorities to impose a strict lockdown of the city and its 5 million residents that was finally lifted last week.     
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Hurricane Eta continues on a destructive path over the Central American nations of Nicaragua and Honduras hours after making landfall along the Nicaraguan coast. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Eta is moving inland over northeastern Nicaragua carrying maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers an hour.  Forecasters are warning of life-threatening storm surges, damaging winds and flash floods over portions of Central America.   Hurricane Eta made landfall Tuesday near the eastern Nicaraguan coastal town of Puerto Cabezas, carrying maximum sustained winds of 225 kilometers an hour, making it a Category 4 storm on the five-level scale that measures a storm’s potential destructiveness.  At least three people have been killed as a result of Eta. A 12-year-girl in Honduras was killed when her home was buried in a landslide, while two miners were killed in a mudslide in Nicaragua.A general view shows a flooded street as Hurricane Eta approaches, in Tela.Forecasters predict the storm will produce a storm surge that will raise water levels along the coastline from four to more than six meters – and rainfall throughout Central America of 25 to 51 centimeters, with isolated areas receiving more than 63 centimeters. They say flash flooding and landslides in elevated areas are likely. The storm is expected to move slowly through the region in the coming days. Forecasters are watching the potential for Eta to reemerge over the Gulf of Mexico late in the week, becoming a danger once again to areas farther north, though the Hurricane Center noted there is considerable uncertainty regarding its path. Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying the record for the busiest hurricane season ever observed in the North Atlantic Ocean Basin. In 2005, it took until the end of December to arrive at 28 named storms, putting this year nearly two months ahead. 
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The United States formally exited the Paris Agreement on Wednesday, fulfilling a years-long promise by President Donald Trump to withdraw the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter from the global pact to fight climate change. But the outcome of the tight U.S. election contest will determine for how long. Trump’s Democratic rival, Joe Biden, has promised to rejoin the agreement if elected.  “The U.S. withdrawal will leave a gap in our regime, and the global efforts to achieve the goals and ambitions of the Paris Agreement,” said Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).   The United States still remains a party to the UNFCCC. Espinosa said the body will be “ready to assist the U.S. in any effort in order to rejoin the Paris Agreement.”   Trump first announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the pact in June 2017, arguing it would undermine the U.S. economy. But he was unable to formally do so until now because of the requirements of the deal. The departure makes the United States the only country of 197 signatories to have withdrawn from the agreement, hashed out in 2015. Obama’s White House had pledged to cut U.S. emissions 26-28% by 2025 from 2005 levels under the deal. Biden is broadly expected to ramp up those goals if elected. He has promised to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 under a sweeping $2 trillion plan to transform the economy. The Rhodium Group said that in 2020, the United States will be at around 21% below 2005 levels. It added that under a second Trump administration, it expects U.S. emissions would increase by more than 30% through 2035 from 2019 levels.   Most scientists believe the world must cut emissions sharply and quickly in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming. China, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union have recently ramped up their carbon cutting targets. 
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The United States contributes much more to ocean plastic pollution than previously estimated, according to a In this April 23, 2019, aerial photo, plastic bottles and other garbage float in river Drina near Visegrad, eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina.In 2016, the U.S. recycled just 9% of its total plastic waste. About half of this was recycled domestically and half was shipped overseas. The researchers estimate that up to 1 million metric tons of U.S. plastic waste entered the environment from these exports in 2016.“For years, so much of the plastic we have put into the blue bin has been exported for recycling to countries that struggle to manage their own waste, let alone the vast amounts delivered from the United States,” said Kara Lavender Law, research professor of oceanography at Sea Education Association and lead A man scavenges along a river for household plastic waste to be sold for recycling in Jakarta on Sept. 23, 2020.To help tackle ocean plastic pollution, the U.S. Senate passed the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act earlier this year.“The Save Our Seas 2.0 is a key stepping stone in the right direction toward comprehensive solutions that address marine debris. But in its current form, however, it does not address the reduction step that is critically needed … for us to get a handle on this,” said Nick Mallos, senior director of Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas program and a co-author of the study, during a press conference. “Reducing plastic waste is critical to avoiding an unmanageable plastic future globally.”Although plastic pollution is a global problem, researchers say that individual actions can make a difference.“Doing everything you can to reduce your own plastic footprint, whether that’s using a reusable shopping bag or a reusable coffee mug, and then just sort of minimizing the single use plastics you use can be part of the solution,” said Ocean Conservancy’s Leonard.
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