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Its been drilled into us in recent weeks stay 6 feet away from people. Thats 6 feet between people in line or 6 feet away from others playing at the park.
The idea is that the droplets you release as you talk or cough will dissipate before hitting another person.
This is a good rule of thumb and we should live by it, but as with seemingly everything about this virus, it is not that easy. And knowing a bit about the nuance could help you stay safe, especially as some restrictions are eased during these summer months.
I first heard the 6-feet mantra on March 11. Thats when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert and the world found out that he had tested positive. Within a few hours, the state of Oklahoma tested me and 57 others of the traveling Jazz party for COVID-19.
Oklahoma state epidemiologist Laurence Burnsed then told us we were at significant risk of being infected if we had had sustained close contact with Gobert defined as being within 6 feet for 15 minutes or more. Utah state epidemiologist Angela Dunn told us the same thing the next day.
Those who had close contact were asked to self-quarantine for 14 days, but for those who hadnt, the quarantine was optional.
Naturally, I racked my brain. I was at a news conference with Gobert after the prior game. I was about 6 feet away, but was it more like five feet or seven? I spoke to Donovan Mitchell who also tested positive the morning before the game from about that same distance for seven minutes. And then I spoke briefly to him afterward. Did all of that add up to 15 minutes?
Out of an abundance of caution, I decided to self-quarantine. I never developed symptoms.
Im glad I made that decision. Because in the six weeks since, weve learned that transmission of the coronavirus happens in some weird ways, outside of the 6-feet and 15-minute window. As we begin to open businesses and the economy, there are factors people should be aware of as they make decisions about the new normal.
Take this restaurant study released this week. In January, a family traveled from Wuhan, China, to Guangzhou, and had lunch at a third-floor restaurant. One member of the family, labeled A1 in the figure below, had COVID-19 but had not yet experienced any symptoms. There were 91 people in the restaurant at the time, and 10 got the disease. The restaurant was the only known source of exposure for all 10. Heres the map of where they were sitting:
The two people to Patient Zeros left didnt get it, but the two people to her right did. People at tables B and C got the virus from further than 6 feet away, but not people at tables D, E, and F, even though some were closer. Its a little bit crazy, right?
The studys authors hypothesize that the air conditioner could explain the flow of small infected droplets suspended in midair, both in the direction of table B behind her (the direction of airflow) and table C in the opposite direction as the air circulated.
But that no other tables in the whole restaurant had any cases indicates that the small droplets probably didnt spread much throughout the dining room: They stayed pretty close to the air conditioners flow. Thats something to consider as restaurant rules are put together in Utah.
Heres another example: 293 Buddhists went to a worship event held in a temple in January in China. One bus had 67 people on it including one person who had been exposed to residents from Wuhan. She was the only one of all 293 people to be exposed, and was asymptomatic during the trip, though started to feel worse the evening after returning.
The bus ride was 50 minutes one-way, or 100 minutes round trip. All bus passengers stayed in their same seats for both legs of the trip, and the bus had its air conditioners on, but set to indoor-recirculation mode rather than getting air from outside. The air conditioning vents were below the windows, and only four of the windows were openable.
On this bus, 24 people caught the virus. Another bus making the same trip to the temple ended with zero cases. In addition, seven more people at the temple who didnt ride in either bus got the disease all of whom reported close contact with Patient Zero, labeled as IP below in Row 8. Heres where the sick people sat in the bus:
Again: very strange! First, they found no correlation between distance from Patient Zero and whether someone got the disease. Again, you may want to blame air conditioning, but in this case, only one person next to a window vent on the left side of the bus caught the virus the one sitting next to Patient Zero. Small droplets that hang in the air are the most likely explanation.
But if the coronavirus were always as contagious as it was on this bus or in that restaurant, wed all already have it right now. I mean, think of Gobert: of all of the players, coaches, staff, media and more who fly on the Jazzs team plane, or spend time with him in the locker room and on the bench, only one tested positive.
In fact, it even spreads within households way less frequently than youd expect. Three studies (one in the U.S., one in Korea, and one in Wuhan) have looked at how often people living in the same household get COVID-19 after one person tests positive. The three studies found rates between 7.5% and 15%. In other words, the majority of people with a sick family member in the house dont seem to get the disease.
Thats a known property of COVID-19: that there are some super spreaders and huge swaths of people who dont seem very contagious at all. In fact, 80% of coronavirus cases come from 10% of the spreaders, according to this study of the data.
Weve talked a lot about contagion rate in these articles the number of people each sick person infects on average. Right now, estimates for coronavirus base contagion rate are somewhere between 2.5 and 6. But, in truth, that average is reflective of the fact that for every one person who gives the disease to 20 people, there are 10 who give it to one person or nobody at all.
That doesnt seem to be unusual for coronaviruses in general, so we can use some of the research on SARS and MERS as we try to understand whats going on.
Unfortunately, we have no idea what makes a person more likely to be a super spreader or some event more likely to be a super-spreading event.
It could just be random luck: someone showing up at a crowded place exactly when theyre most contagious. For example, two studies on airline flights were done in the wake of SARS. One found 17% transmission on a four-hour flight, while the other found 3% transmission on a 14-hour flight.
There are breadcrumbs to track. For example, singing or raising your voice seems to be somewhat dangerous. The most famous example is the Washington State choir, where 60 singers showed up and 45 left with the virus. Amen-shouting churches, hymn-singing funerals, and drunkenly singing bars have all been the sites of super-spreader events, as this Vanity Fair article pointed out.
In fact, one 2019 study found that saying aah for 30 seconds releases more micron-scale particles than does 30 seconds of coughing. Do it loudly? More particles. But there have certainly been quiet gatherings where the virus has super-spread too, so its not a wholly explanatory theory.
The good news? Outside seems pretty safe if distance is maintained.
In one study of 7,324 cases in China, only once was the virus spread outside: A man returning from Wuhan had a conversation with a 27-year-old in Shangqiu, who had symptoms a week later. That spread seems likely to have been by larger droplets direct from person to person, rather than smaller ones suspended in midair it seems those break up quickly outside.
Speaking of outdoors, weather will impact the virus as well. One look at the issue tracked how transmission changed as the weather got warmer and cooler. The studys authors estimated that transmission will fall by 43% between March and June 2020 for countries in the Northern Hemisphere due to the warmer weather. Thats not enough to eliminate the virus during the summer, but it does seem the sun will give us a boost.
In sum, this kind of research should give decision-makers in both the public and private sector significant information on how to structure restrictions moving forward. With asymptomatic transmission being so widespread, being careful in all sorts of situations remains the name of the game.
And for individuals, maybe you should not get close to singers or loud talkers. When the restaurants start opening up, get an outside table if you can.
Andy Larsen is a Tribune sports reporter who covers the Utah Jazz. During this crisis, he has been assigned to dig into the numbers surrounding the coronavirus. You can reach Andy at alarsen@sltrib.com or on Twitter at @andyblarsen.
The USS Kidd is the second ship to be impacted by a major outbreak of the virus while at sea following the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.The Pentagon later confirmed that there has been an outbreak on the ship, with more than one sailor testing positive out of a crew of around 330. The ship is assigned to the recently enhanced counter narcotics mission in the Caribbean/Eastern Pacific aimed at countering illicit drug trafficking.
The first sailor that tested positive was medevac'd off the ship when he displayed symptoms, according to Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman, and tested positive at a medical treatment facility in San Antonio.
"The Sailor is stable and receiving care at a medical treatment facility in San Antonio, Texas," the Navy said in a statement Friday.
There have since been other sailors on the ship who have tested positive and the Navy statement added that "testing continues, and we expect additional cases."
"They are preparing to return to port, where they will undertake efforts to clean the ship. They will remove a portion of the crew from the ship. And work to get everybody back to health and get the ship back to sea," said Hoffman.
An eight member Navy medical team has flown out to the ship and is conducting contact tracing and isolating individuals who may have been exposed, according to Hoffman.
News of the outbreak aboard the USS Kidd comes as the number of cases aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt continues to increase.
The Navy said Thursday that 840 sailors from the ship have tested positive for coronavirus and 100% of the crew has been tested. Four sailors are being treated for coronavirus symptoms in US Naval Hospital Guam.
More than 4,000 members of the crew have been moved ashore to Guam.
The handing of the outbreak aboard the aircraft carrier which led to the firing of the ship's commanding officer, Capt. Brett Crozier and the resignation of the acting Navy Secretary, has been the subject of a Navy investigation, the results of which are due to be briefed to Defense Secretary Mark Esper later on Friday.
"Later today Secretary Esper will meet with the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gilday to discuss the results of the vice chief of naval operations Admiral Burke's investigation into the circumstances surrounding the covid outbreak on the Teddy Roosevelt," Hoffman said.
He added that Esper "is going into this with an open mind and he is generally inclined to support navy leadership and their decisions but he will go into it with an open mind."
On Wednesday a senior Navy official told CNN there were coronavirus cases on 26 US Navy warships, and another 14 have been hit by the virus but the crew members impacted have recovered.
Rose Sanders urges Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to expand Medicaid during a news conference on April 14 at the state Capitol in Montgomery, Ala. Kim Chandler/AP hide caption
Rose Sanders urges Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to expand Medicaid during a news conference on April 14 at the state Capitol in Montgomery, Ala.
Some Southern states, including Georgia and South Carolina, are among the first in the country to ease restrictions to try get back to business despite factors that make the South particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic.
And pressure is mounting on other Southern governors to get their economies back up and running. Outside the Alabama Capitol this week, a few dozen protesters drove by honking their horns, chanting "freedom" and demanding to get back to work
Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has issued a stay-at-home order through April 30. Paralegal Melissa Kirby from Athens, Ala., says she has had enough.
"If she was worried about safety, she could let the people who are actually in danger self-quarantine, wash their hands more," Kirby says. "But to force businesses to shut down, that's not her call."
From inside the Capitol, Ivey says that no one wants to open the economy more than she does, but that the state must first increase its testing capacity.
"Remember all of our decisions that I'm going to make are based on data, not desired date," Ivey says.
She is taking a more cautious approach than are neighboring states Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and Mississippi, where Republican governors have all moved to reopen at least parts of their economies.
"I think that we could be heading for a macabre game of whack-a-mole," says Thomas LaVeist, dean of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans. He worries that Louisiana an early hot spot for COVID-19 could see a resurgence in cases as surrounding states ease restrictions.
"Unless the states in the South can coordinate the way the states in the North, East, the West, and the upper Midwest are striving to do, we're going to have problems," he says.
LaVeist says longstanding policy decisions, and population characteristics in the South already put the region at risk in a health pandemic. He points to high poverty rates, large numbers of uninsured residents, lower minimum wages, and general health and well-being measures.
"The South is the epicenter for health inequities in this country," LaVeist says. "We call the South the stroke belt higher rates of all kind of chronic conditions."
Conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and kidney disease have all been identified as factors in COVID-19 deaths.
LaVeist says rural communities in the South are not really resourced to manage an outbreak given the number of rural hospitals that have closed or downsized in recent years.
"You add all of that together and you've got sort of this toxic mix of political decisions, policy decisions, resource limitations that just create an opportunity for a pandemic to really just rage in the South," LaVeist says.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Santis allowed beaches to reopen on April 17, but some officials around the state aren't following his lead. A banner plane flies a sign on April 19 urging Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber to open the beaches. Gelber has said the beaches there are unlikely to reopen before June. Wilfredo Lee/AP hide caption
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Santis allowed beaches to reopen on April 17, but some officials around the state aren't following his lead. A banner plane flies a sign on April 19 urging Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber to open the beaches. Gelber has said the beaches there are unlikely to reopen before June.
Another disturbing trend is the high proportion of coronavirus cases and deaths among African-Americans.
The early evidence of that is from Louisiana, where the death toll has now surpassed that of Hurricane Katrina. African-Americans make up 56% of reported COVID deaths, but just about one-third of the state's population. Other Southern states show similar disproportionate impacts on African-American residents.
In New Orleans, there are clusters of cases in predominantly black neighborhoods where people mostly work in the tourism industry.
"This virus has exposed the social and economic fragility of working families," says New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell.
She points to a "tyranny of policies" that leaves families without a living wage or access to health care.
"All of this is embedded in really what we're seeing across the board in the city of New Orleans," Cantrell says. "And really the state of Louisiana is on the front line as it relates to these matters"
Southern states are also subject to natural disasters. This month, there have been deadly tornadoes and flash floods; hurricane season starts June 1; and there's spring flooding on the Mississippi River.
In the river town of Greenville, Miss., Mayor Errick Simmons says they're still reeling from record floods last year with some residents still displaced.
"In a city that has a 38.6% poverty rate, this COVID-19 is exacerbating all of the issues that we're having," Simmons says. "The acute nature of the pandemic's economic downturn is felt more here than many other places."
Simmons says demand at food pantries and soup kitchens has nearly tripled in the Mississippi Delta.
Regionwide, eight of the 10 states with the biggest jumps in unemployment claims are in the South.
The pandemic is also renewing calls for expanding Medicaid coverage. Nine of the 14 states that did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are in the South. Of them, Texas has the highest number of uninsured residents.
Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, fears those numbers are on the rise based on calls to his office from constituents who have lost their jobs and their health insurance.
"So now, more than ever, we need to push to expand Medicaid," he says. "To provide a backstop to our health care coverage for many working people who desperately need it."
Allred, whose congressional district includes the Dallas area, is pushing legislation that would offer more federal money to states that expand Medicaid, in an effort to sway mostly Republican legislatures and governors to reconsider their repeated rejection of a key part of Obamacare.
Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., is behind the bill. He says expanding Medicaid would help protect everyone in these uncertain times.
"The thing that this pandemic has really brought home to people is that our health is dependent on our neighbors health more than we like to have thought about in the past," Jones says.
A test of that dependency is coming with some Southern states now on the brink of reopening.
Read: We were warned
Of course, experts on infectious disease knew a pandemic would soon strike. In 2018, my colleague Ed Yong wrote that a new infectious disease has emerged every year for the past 30 years. A few weeks ago, my colleague Uri Friedman explained how intelligence officials and other experts had been warning, since 2012, of a pandemic that could destroy Americans way of life. In 2015, Bill Gates, not exactly a little-known figure, described the threat of an infectious virus in a speech thats been watched millions of times on YouTube.
Nevertheless, outside the infectious-disease community, Americans and our leaders blithely hoped that the virus would somehow pass us over. Even though intelligence reports alerted the White House to the coronavirus threat as early as November, lockdowns in the U.S. did not begin until March. On January 22, the president said, We have it totally under control. Even after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of outbreaks in the U.S., on March 2, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio urged New Yorkers to get out on the town. On March 5, Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Fox News that the risk of coronavirus is low to the average American.
Even I, a health reporter, did not initially realize how quickly the virus would descend on the United States, how severe its toll would be, or what shape the fight against it would take. Theres knowing something will happen, and then theres understanding how, exactly, it will upend your life. On March 2, I spoke with Helen Chu, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington, and she told me that schools might soon shut their doors and sporting events might be canceled. I doubt it will come to that, I thought. After all, our leaders had assured us as much. Within days, schools were closed and the NBA had suspended its season.
Read: The upside of pessimism
That kind of naive optimism in the face of encroaching disaster is a pitfall of owning a human brain, several experts on the psychology of risk perception told me recently. People have trouble appraising exponentially growing problems, seeing exactly how they themselves might be affected, and understanding the best way to help when disaster arrives. Our brains arent designed to anticipate threats such as pandemics, which allows the tiny, brainless pathogens to get the upper hand as we fumble along. The only way to counteract these biases, experts say, is to prepare ahead of time. Which is, alas, something the United States also failed to do.
Perhaps for the good of entrepreneurs, American Idol hopefuls, and buyers of real estate on Miami Beach, humans are remarkably bad at imagining everything that could go wrong in a given situation. Were likely to have an excessively rosy outlook on life, says Hersh Shefrin, a behavioral-finance professor at Santa Clara University.
US President Donald Trump (C), flanked by US Vice President Mike Pence (2nd L), and other members of the coronavirus task force, speaks during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, at the White House on March 22, 2020, in Washington, DC.
Eric Baradat | AFP | Getty Images
WASHINGTON Trump White House appointees pressured government health officials to make an unproven malaria drug available to the public to treat the disease caused by the new coronavirus without a doctor's supervision, according to internal emails published by Vanity Fair on Friday.
The pressure tactics caused panic and pushback from scientists and doctors at several federal health agencies, who refused to suspend drug regulations in order to distribute the potentially dangerous treatment to the public outside of hospitals.
The report adds a new layer to the looming crisis facing the Trump administration over its efforts to promote and procure drugs containing chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Long used to treat malaria and select autoimmune diseases, chloroquine has not been proven effective to treat Covid-19.
On Friday, CNBC reported on the findings of a clinical trial of chloroquine that was halted amid safety concerns afterresearchers cited a "primary outcome" of death among patients who were given high doses of chloroquine.
But Trump's public comments touting the drug as a "game changer" have helped to trigger a worldwide shortage of the drugs, in spite of warnings from American and international scientific groups about potentially deadly side effects.
It is still too early to determine what, if any, efficacy chloroquine has in treating Covid-19. Yet since the start of the pandemic early this year, Trump administration officials have pressed health agencies to stockpile chloroquine drugs.
In the United States, chloroquine was initially given only to Covid-19 patients sick enough to require hospital admission, and only under the close supervision of doctors. But as nationwide cases soared past 100,000, health officials started looking for ways to distribute the drug to pharmacies for use at home, Vanity Fair's Katherine Eban reported.
If pharmacies were given their own stockpiles of chloroquine, doctors across the country could prescribe it for "off-label use" by people who had been infected by the coronavirus but who were neither hospitalized nor under constant supervision by a doctor.
On March 24, an internal panel of top government health experts warned the White House against making chloroquine available to the public outside of clinical trials, saying its safety was "not supported by data from reliable clinical trials or from non-human primates," according to Vanity Fair.
Despite the warning, two weeks later Trump boasted at a daily coronavirus press conference, "We have millions and millions of doses of it 29 million to be exact." He added: "We're just hearing really positive stories, and we're continuing to collect the data."
That night, Brett Giroir,the assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services, emailed top appointees at the Food and Drug Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency and stressed the need "to flood NY and NJ with treatment courses" of chloroquine.
"Hospitals have it. Sick out patients don't. And can't get. So go through distribution channels as we discussed. If we have 29 million perhaps send a few million ASAP? WH wants follow up in AM," wrote Giroir, according to Vanity Fair.
In addition to making the drug available to pharmacies, the administration planned to partner with Oracle, the tech giant founded by billionaire and prominent Trump donor Larry Ellison, to track what happened to the patients using chloroquine at home.
The plan triggered frantic pushback within federal health agencies against the idea of giving pharmacies enough chloroquine for doctors to prescribe it off-label for Covid-19, and against running what would have amounted to a loosely controlled, nationwide trial of the drug using patients who were not under constant care.
In response to Vanity Fair's reporting, an HHS spokesperson said the agency ultimately decided against the plan.Trump has not mentioned chloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 during his daily briefings for nearly a week.
A White House spokesman did not dispute the emails' accuracy, but said, "Any suggestion that President Trump has not relied on and consulted with his health experts and scientific advisors or that he has not routinely told Americans to check with their doctor is just false."
Collateral damage
The emails also shed light on explosive new allegations this week by Dr. Rick Bright, the former director of the government's premier vaccine research lab, that he was removed from his post because he would not approve the widespread distribution of chloroquine drugs to pharmacies for distribution to Covid-19 patients.
"Specifically, and contrary to misguided directives, I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the Administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit," said Bright,who until earlier this week was director of theBiomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
"I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public," Bright said in a statement Wednesday. "I insisted that these drugs be provided only to hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19 while under the supervision of a physician."
Bright requested an Inspector General's investigation into his demotion and has requested he be reinstated to his post.
There are no proven therapies to treat Covid-19, which has infected more than 2.7 million people worldwide and killed at least191,231 as of Friday morning, according to data complied by Johns Hopkins University.
Berkeley Lovelace contributed to this report.
UPDATE: This story has been updated to include a response from the White House.
Volunteers disinfect a mosque ahead of prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Friday. Muhammad Sajjad/AP hide caption
Volunteers disinfect a mosque ahead of prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Friday.
As the world's 1.8 billion Muslims begin observing the holy month of Ramadan, traditionally a time of dawn-to-dusk fasting, festivities and communal prayer, an unprecedented global pandemic is changing the celebration this year in equally unprecedented ways.
Mosques usually brimming with the faithful during Ramadan are closed, including in Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and Medina, the holiest cities in Islam. The kingdom has some 14,000 confirmed cases, with more than 120 deaths from COVID-19, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Ramadan, the month that Muslims believe God revealed the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad, officially begins at the first sighting of the waxing crescent after the new moon, leading to different countries declaring its start a day or two apart.
In Saudi Arabia, the start of the holy month began Friday. In Egypt, it began Thursday. And in Iran, Ramadan begins Saturday.
In a statement, Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud lamented the necessity to maintain social distancing to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus and the damper it would place on this year's celebrations.
In Willow Grove, Pa., Teresa Hadjali prepares to hang a banner for Ramadan outside the Islamic Cultural Center of Willow Grove, which will remain closed because of social distancing guidelines during the coronavirus outbreak. Matt Rourke/AP hide caption
In Willow Grove, Pa., Teresa Hadjali prepares to hang a banner for Ramadan outside the Islamic Cultural Center of Willow Grove, which will remain closed because of social distancing guidelines during the coronavirus outbreak.
"It pains me to welcome the glorious month of Ramadan under circumstances that forbid us of prayers in Mosques and of performing the Ramadan prayers," he said, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. "All this is due to the protective measures taken to save lives and human well-being in light of the global threat of COVID-19."
In Iran, the Muslim country hardest hit by the pandemic, more than 87,000 cases have been confirmed with nearly 5,500 deaths, although the figures are believed to be significantly understated.
For weeks, Iran downplayed the epidemic within its borders, even as the country's deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, was seen mopping his brow and in apparent distress on television shortly before being diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Officials in Iran have shown a reluctance to clamp down on Ramadan gatherings, even though the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had hinted earlier this month that such measures may be needed.
In Pakistan, with more than 11,000 cases confirmed, authorities have rescinded an order to limit mosque gatherings under pressure from Muslim clerics.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, asked by reporters why his government was lifting the restriction, said: "We knew that people will definitely go to the mosques even after the government stops them by force. We did not want to send police to the mosques to impose a ban on congregational prayers and for arrests."
In neighboring India, a predominantly Hindu country with an estimated 182 million Muslims, celebrations in cities such as Pune will be curtailed by the epidemic.
"Every year there is a congregation of people praying at the mosque, there is a special namaaz (taravik), for the whole month, where people pray together; but, because of the lockdown, people will have to pray in their houses with the family," Irshad Mulla was quoted as saying by The Hindustan Times.
"Earlier, we used to have all kinds of fruits, snacks, milk and dates which are important to break the fast, but this year the availability of these items may not be easy," he said.
In Indonesia, with the world's largest Muslim population, mainstream Islamic organizations have issued religious pronouncements asking Muslims not to hold mass prayers or to have communal dinners known as iftar to end daily fasts at sunset. In and around the capital, Jakarta, the government has kept people in lockdown during the outbreak, which has infected, by official count, nearly 7,800 nationwide and killed some 650.
An editorial in The Jakarta Post, an English-language daily, praised the restrictions, warning that the country is "not out of the pandemic woods yet."
Muslim men attend a Friday prayer despite concerns of the new coronavirus outbreak, at a mosque during the first day of the holy month of Ramadan in Lhokseumawe, in the religiously conservative province of Aceh, Indonesia, on Friday. Zik Maulana/AP hide caption
Muslim men attend a Friday prayer despite concerns of the new coronavirus outbreak, at a mosque during the first day of the holy month of Ramadan in Lhokseumawe, in the religiously conservative province of Aceh, Indonesia, on Friday.
"The government has made the right call to impose a partial lockdown on Greater Jakarta and ban residents from leaving the area to celebrate Idul Fitri [Eid al-Fitr] in their hometowns; yet, as of now, there is no indication the coronavirus outbreak has peaked in the country," it said.
But in Indonesia's conservative Aceh province, congregants ignored the warnings, attending Ramadan prayers anyway.
In the United Kingdom, which is home to more than 2.6 million Islamic faithful, the Muslim Council of Britain advised people to host and attend virtual iftars and to tune in to livestreams broadcast by their local mosques.
The lockdowns have also been difficult for Muslims in the United States, where many are opting for videoconferencing to replace in-person meals and prayers.
"Zoom is just not cutting it," Koloud Tarapolsi, a Seattle-based art teacher and blogger, told Religion News Service.
"The best part of iftars are the smells. Hugging and sharing that Ramadan joy, seeing all my family and the community," she said. "I'm going to miss that. We're having to readjust it all."
President Trump a new coronavirus economic aid package, largely targeted to support small businesses, in the Oval Office on Friday. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
President Trump a new coronavirus economic aid package, largely targeted to support small businesses, in the Oval Office on Friday.
Updated on Friday at 12:33 p.m. ET
President Trump has signed off on an additional $484 billion in coronavirus relief efforts, which Congress passed earlier in the week. Here's what's in the legislation:
The inclusion of funding for testing is a win for congressional Democrats, who had blocked an earlier version of the bill for not including funds for that or for hospitals and states. Republicans were, however, successful in delaying discussions of money for state and local governments, which Democrats had hoped to include.
Trump tweeted his support for the bill on Tuesday and said that he expects to begin discussions on state support during the next wave of relief funding. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., vowed on Friday that "there will not be another bill without state and local government" resources in it.
The additional cash infusion adds to an already-historic rescue package meant to cushion the blow of the economy-crushing pandemic. An earlier $2 trillion measure, known as the CARES Act, included cash payments for individuals, as well as funds for small businesses, corporations and public health.
Read the full text of the bill below:
(WXYZ) New research suggests that the coronavirus can be destroyed by sunlight. After the info was presented to President Trump, he suggested that ultraviolet or very powerful light could somehow be used on an infected person to kill the virus inside.
It appears that President Trumps comments came after a presentation by the Department of Homeland Security's science and technology division. Their research showed that the virus dies quickly in direct sunlight and that solar light can kill it on surfaces and also in the air. And this is positive news as we head into warmer weather.
But, we do have to be very careful when it comes to ultraviolet light. If were exposed to too much of it, it can lead to cancer. Plus, this research did not include how light would affect the virus inside peoples bodies, only how it affected the virus on surfaces and in the air.
It is possible that the summer heat could have an impact on the virus spread. Its possible that it might transmit less efficiently.
But as we all know, its extremely contagious and its continued to infect people in other countries with warmer weather.
Instead, I would recommend that we continue following the current prevention steps as these have made an impact on Michigans coronavirus case numbers.
We have to be very careful when speculating or speaking about any type of imaginable cure because some people are so scared about the coronavirus that sometimes they dont make the best decisions.
So let me be very clear, under no circumstances should anyone ever try to inject disinfectants into their body. And by disinfectants, I mean any kind of common household cleaners, like bleach or products containing isopropyl alcohol. Because to be frank, they can kill you. Even small amounts of it.
So concerning is this that the maker of Lysol released a statement, saying that under no circumstance should disinfectant products be administered into the human body.
So please dont inject it, dont drink it, dont spray it on your skin or attempt any other route to get it into your body. Use disinfectants only on surfaces, where they are very effective at killing germs. But please read and follow the directions on the products label first before using it.
Dr. Partha Nandi discusses some of the latest techniques being used to help protect and improve eyesight. Dr. Sandeep Randhawa discusses how to slow the degenerative process of the eyes as we age. Amada Gates speaks on how the Feng Sui of a home can strengthen eyesight. Dr. Gabriel Sosne informs on a new treatment for dry eyes. And Dr. Sally Hoey talks about how to protect the eyes at an early age. Tune in this Sunday, April 26th for How to Protect Our Eyes. Show airs at 1:30 am * please note this is technically Monday as it's after midnight. If youre not up this late, please set your DVR.
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Coronavirus has been detected on particles of air pollution by scientists investigating whether this could enable it to be carried over longer distances and increase the number of people infected.
The work is preliminary and it is not yet known if the virus remains viable on pollution particles and in sufficient quantity to cause disease.
The Italian scientists used standard techniques to collect outdoor air pollution samples at one urban and one industrial site in Bergamo province and identified a gene highly specific to Covid-19 in multiple samples. The detection was confirmed by blind testing at an independent laboratory.
Leonardo Setti at the University of Bologna in Italy, who led the work, said it was important to investigate if the virus could be carried more widely by air pollution.
I am a scientist and I am worried when I dont know, he said. If we know, we can find a solution. But if we dont know, we can only suffer the consequences.
Two other research groups have suggested air pollution particles could help coronavirus travel further in the air.
A statistical analysis by Settis team suggests higher levels of particle pollution could explain higher rates of infection in parts of northern Italy before a lockdown was imposed, an idea supported by another preliminary analysis. The region is one of the most polluted in Europe.
Neither of the studies by Settis team have been peer-reviewed and therefore have not been endorsed by independent scientists. But experts agree their proposal is plausible and requires investigation.
Previous studies have shown that air pollution particles do harbour microbes and that pollution is likely to have carried the viruses causing bird flu, measles and foot-and-mouth disease over considerable distances.
The potential role of air pollution particles is linked to the broader question of how the coronavirus is transmitted. Large virus-laden droplets from infected peoples coughs and sneezes fall to the ground within a metre or two. But much smaller droplets, less than 5 microns in diameter, can remain in the air for minutes to hours and travel further.
Experts are not sure whether these tiny airborne droplets can cause coronavirus infections, though they know the 2003 Sars coronavirus was spread in the air and that the new virus can remain viable for hours in tiny droplets.
But researchers say the importance of potential airborne transmission, and the possible boosting role of pollution particles, mean it must not be ruled out without evidence.
Epidemics of infectious diseases behave in different ways but the1918 influenza pandemicthat killed more than 50 million people is regarded as a key example of a pandemic that occurred in multiple waves, with the latter more severe than the first. It has been replicated albeit more mildly in subsequent flu pandemics.
How and why multiple-wave outbreaks occur, and how subsequent waves of infection can be prevented, has become a staple of epidemiological modelling studies and pandemic preparation, which have looked at everything from social behaviour and health policy to vaccination and the buildup of community immunity, also known as herd immunity.
Is there evidence of coronavirus coming back elsewhere?
This is being watched very carefully. Without a vaccine, and with no widespread immunity to the new disease, one alarm is being sounded by the experience of Singapore, which has seen a suddenresurgence in infectionsdespite being lauded for its early handling of the outbreak.
Although Singapore instituted a strong contact tracing system for its general population, the disease re-emerged incramped dormitory accommodationused by thousands of foreign workers with inadequate hygiene facilities and shared canteens.
Singapores experience, although very specific, has demonstrated the ability of the disease to come back strongly in places where people are in close proximity and its ability to exploit any weakness in public health regimes set up to counter it.
What are experts worried about?
Conventional wisdom among scientists suggests second waves of resistant infections occur after the capacity for treatment and isolation becomes exhausted. In this case the concern is that the social and political consensus supporting lockdowns is being overtaken by public frustration and the urgent need to reopen economies.
The threat declines when susceptibility of the population to the disease falls below a certain threshold or when widespread vaccination becomes available.
In general terms the ratio of susceptible and immune individuals in a population at the end of one wave determines the potential magnitude of a subsequent wave. The worry right now is that witha vaccine still months away, and the real rate of infection only being guessed at, populations worldwide remain highly vulnerable to both resurgence and subsequent waves.
Peter Beaumont
Prof Jonathan Reid at Bristol University in the UK is researching airborne transmission of coronavirus. It is perhaps not surprising that while suspended in air, the small droplets could combine with background urban particles and be carried around.
He said the virus had been detected in tiny droplets collected indoors in China.
Setti said tiny droplets between 0.1 and 1 micron may travel further when coalesced with pollution particles up to 10 microns than on their own. This is because the combined particle is larger and less dense than the droplet and can remain buoyed by the air for longer.
The pollution particle is like a micro-airplane and the passengers are the droplets, said Sett. Reid is more cautious: I think the very small change in the size of the [combined] particles is unlikely to play much of a role.
Prof Frank Kelly at Imperial College London said the idea of pollution particles carrying the virus further afield was an interesting one. It is possible, but I would like to see this work repeated by two or three groups.
Another expert, Prof John Sodeau at University College Cork, in the Republic of Ireland, said: The work seems plausible. But that is the bottom line at the moment, and plausible [particle] interactions are not always biologically viable and may have no effect in the atmosphere. He said the normal course of scientific research might take two or three years to confirm such findings.
Other research has indicated correlations between increased Covid-19 deaths and higher levels of air pollution before the pandemic. Long-term exposure to dirty air is known to damage lung health, which could make people more vulnerable to Covid-19.
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Spains football league had told its clubs on Friday it will delay testing of all its professional football players for Covid-19 because the resumption of training sessions is going to be delayed.
In a lettersentto the clubs, obtained and published by Spanish media, La Liga said it wont start testing players, coaches and medical staff for the virus until the Spanish government approves a protocol for that.
All league football, including for the giants Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, stopped when Spains state of emergency went into effect on March 14.
La Liga president Javier Tebas confirmed sending the letter to the clubs to CNN. In a video press conference on Friday night, he said: If we consider that well have the protocol in the coming days, maybe next week, well, from April 28 until May 11, 12, 13, or 14, to start the training again, thats a lot of days for the players to wait, after testing.
Prioritize frontline workers: La Ligas announcement came hours after the Spanish Footballers Association (AFE) said it sent two more letters to the government, again expressing the concern of first and second division team players about the Covid-19 tests and a resumption of training.
The association said the players think those decisions should be made by the government and it added the players consider there are other groups that need the tests more at this time, along with access to health care supplies.
Jordi Figueras, player for Racing Santander in the second division, told CNN the decision was the right one. His team issued a statement last Thursday stating their priority was to finish the tournament, but added that tests should first be available for frontline workers.
Without knowing when training would exactly resume, there is no point to get testedsoon," he said.
Some Spanish media reported that La Liga had hoped to start Covid-19 testing of players as early as next week, as a first step before a resumption of training.
Spains state of emergency is due to end on May 9, after almost two months. But government officials said re-opening the country will be a gradual process so as to avoid a second wave of infections.
