Category: Corona Virus

WASHINGTON (TND)

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday announced its COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force (CFETF) seized more than $1.4 billion worth of stolen COVID relief funds during the last three years.

In a news release, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said at least 3,500 defendants were charged with federal crimes, which toteld more than $2 billion. He also said more than 400 civil lawsuits were filed, which resulted in court judgements and settlements of over $100 million -- and at least $1.4 billion seized or forfeited.

The information was part of a 33-page report that highlighted the "widespread fraud."

At least $1.4B in stolen COVID relief funds seized, Department of Justice says

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco shared similar sentiments.

Michael C. Galdo, who serves as the director of the Task Force, said there are still ongoing investigations into hundreds of cases involving identity thieves, transnational fraud and money laundering networks, large-dollar individual fraudsters, and businesses that helped facilitate the crimes.

"CFETF member agencies have improved their data analytics capabilities and are using these new skills to investigate fraud more efficiently and effectively," Galdo said.

The Task Force was established in 2021 to fight and prevent pandemic-related fraud.

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At least $1.4B in stolen COVID relief funds seized, Department of Justice says - CNYcentral.com

L.L. Bean has just added a third shift at its factory in Brunswick, Maine, in an attempt to keep up with demand for its iconic boot.

Orders have quadrupled in the past few years as the boots have become more popular among a younger, more urban crowd.

The company says it saw the trend coming and tried to prepare, but orders outpaced projections. They expect to sell 450,000 pairs of boots in 2014.

People hoping to have the boots in time for Christmas are likely going to be disappointed. The bootsare back ordered through February and even March.

"I've been told it's a good problem to have but I"m disappointed that customers not getting what they want as quickly as they want," said Senior Manufacturing Manager Royce Haines.

Customers like, Mary Clifford, tried to order boots on line, but they were back ordered until January.

"I was very surprised this is what they are known for and at Christmas time you can't get them when you need them," said Clifford.

People who do have boots are trying to capitalize on the shortage and are selling them on Ebay at a much higher cost.

L.L. Bean says it has hired dozens of new boot makers, but it takes up to six months to train someone to make a boot.

The company has also spent a million dollars on new equipment to try and keep pace with demand.

Some customers are having luck at the retail stores. They have a separate inventory, and while sizes are limited, those stores have boots on the shelves.

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Alameda Health System using dogs to detect COVID - NBC Bay Area

There have been 3385 new cases of Covid-19 reported in the past week. Photo: 123RF

There have been 3385 new cases of Covid-19 reported in the past week, and 13 further deaths attributed to the virus.

Of the new cases, 2109 were reinfections.

There were 145 cases in hospital as of midnight Sunday, the Ministry of Health said.

Canterbury was the worst affected region, followed by Waitemat, Capital and Coast and Counties Manukau.

Last Monday, 3399 new cases and seven deaths attributed to the virus were reported for the previous week, with 168 cases in hospital.

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Covid-19 update: 3385 new cases, 13 further deaths - RNZ

UK health technology assessor theNational Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published final draft guidance recommending use of remdesivir for treating COVID-19 in eligible adults and children.

Marketed by US antivirals giant Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD) under the trade name Veklury, remdesivir was the first medicine for COVID-19 to receive full marketing authorization in 2022. However, as the pandemic receded, sales of the

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NICE backs Veklury for treatment of COVID-19 in high-risk patients - The Pharma Letter

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A new study looking at the replication stage of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 reveals important mechanisms in its replication that could be the foundation for new antiviral therapies.

The study, which set out to investigate how the SARS-CoV-2 virus replicates once it enters the cells, has made surprising discoveries that could be the foundation for future antiviral therapies. It also has important theoretical implications as the replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has, so far, received less attention from researchers.

"These findings show what an exquisite cell biologist the SARS-CoV-2 virus is, and shed new light onto how infection with SARS-CoV-2 can disrupt the function of essential intracellular compartments, otherwise known as organelles," says Dr. Jeremy Carlton, reader in molecular and cellular biology.

The viral life cycle can be broken down into two main stages: the first stage is where the virus enters the cell. The second stage is replication where the virus uses the molecular machinery of the cell it has infected to replicate itself by building its parts, assembling them into new viruses that can then exit to infect other cells.

The majority of research into SARS-CoV-2the causative agent of COVID-19has focused on the Spike protein that allows viral entry. This has led to a lack of understanding of how the virus replicates once it has entered the cell.

A new paper led by Dr. Jeremy Carlton in collaboration with Dr. David Bauer at the Francis Crick Institute, focuses on how the Envelope protein of SARS-CoV-2 controls late stages of viral replication.

Publishing in Science Advances, the authors marked the Envelope protein with fluorescent tags to track its movement within cells and used proteomics to identify key pathways that allow SARS-CoV-2 to take over the internal compartments of the infected cellknown as organellesfor its replication.

The authors identified a surprising aspect of its replication in its use of a compartment called the lysosome during viral release. Lysosomes are acidic, degradative organelles, but SARS-CoV-2 uses its Envelope protein as an ion-channel to neutralize their acidity and so enhance viral release.

As well as broadening our theoretical understanding of the viral life cycle, such insights on replication could eventually be applied to create new antiviral therapeutics that inhibit the channel activity of the Envelope protein. These could apply not only to SARS-CoV-2, but to the -coronavirus family and any other virus that replicates with the same mechanisms.

More information: Guy J. Pearson et al, ER-export and ARFRP1/AP-1dependent delivery of SARS-CoV-2 Envelope to lysosomes controls late stages of viral replication, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adl5012

Journal information: Science Advances

Original post:

Discovery of how COVID-19 virus replicates opens door to new antiviral therapies - Phys.org

What is Disease X?

Dont panic! Disease X doesnt exist yet but it might one day. Disease X is the label that the World Health Organization uses to refer to some currently unknown infectious condition that is capable of causing an epidemic or if it spreads across multiple countries a pandemic. The term, coined in 2017, can be used to mean a newly discovered pathogen or any known pathogen with newly acquired pandemic potential. By the latter definition, covid-19 was the first Disease X. But there could be another in the future.

The World Health Organization has been warning global leaders about the risks of future pandemics at the World Economic Forums annual meeting. Some people say this may create panic, says WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. No. Its better to anticipate something that may happen because it has happened in our history many times and prepare for it.

We dont know that is why it is called Disease X. The coronaviruses, a large group of viruses, were long seen as a prime contender for producing a new pandemic, even before the covid-19 outbreak. That is because the novel coronavirus wasnt the first dangerous pathogen from this group. In 2002, a different coronavirus started spreading in China. It caused a form of pneumonia called SARS that killed around 1 in 10 of those it infected, before it was stopped by strict infection control measures. Another, even deadlier coronavirus called MERS occasionally breaks out, causing a pneumonia that kills 1 in 3 of those infected. However, recent work suggests SARS and MERS would have a harder time triggering a fresh pandemic because almost everyone in the world now has antibodies to the virus that causes covid-19 and these seem to give partial protection against most other pathogens in the coronavirus family.

Plenty of diseases, some well known and others less familiar, could pose a global threat. Flu strains have caused global pandemics several times in the past, including one of the deadliest disease outbreaks ever, the Spanish flu of 1918. A virulent strain of bird flu is currently sweeping the world, and it occasionally spreads from birds to mammals, causing mass die-offs. Just this week, it was named as the culprit in the deaths of 17,000 baby elephant seals in Argentina last October. Then there are other contenders, such as Ebola, which causes severe bleeding, and the mosquito-borne Zika, which can cause babies to born with smaller heads if the infection occurs during pregnancy. The WHO updated its list of pathogens with the most pandemic potential in 2022.

There is some good news: the covid-19 pandemic may have made it easier to stop any future Disease X. Covid-19 spurred the development of novel vaccine designs, including ones that can be quickly repurposed to target new pathogens. It led, for instance, to the advent of vaccines based on mRNA. This formula contains a short piece of genetic material that makes the bodys immune cells produce the coronavirus spike protein but it could be updated to make cells churn out a different protein, simply by rewriting the mRNA sequence.

Countries need better early warning systems for new diseases, and health services need to become more resilient to unexpected surges in demand, says Tedros. When hospitals were stretched beyond their capacity [with covid], we lost many people because we could not manage them. There was not enough space, there was not enough oxygen. To prevent the same thing from happening when Disease X strikes, Tedros says health services must be able to expand their capacity on demand. Luckily, they can make those preparations without knowing exactly what Disease X will be. Disease X is a placeholder, he says. Whatever the disease is, you can prepare for it.

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What is Disease X and do we need to worry about it? - New Scientist

Investing

Published: April 6, 2024 2:07 pm

The Covid-19 Pandemic and subsequent global lockdowns impacted billions of people, and its repercussions are still being felt. Within the financial industry, the S&P 500 took a hit from 3,337.75 in February, 2020 to 2,304.92 by March 20: a thousand point crash in only 30 days.

Since that time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed to new heights, largely on the back of The Magnificent Seven, which are: Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Meta Platforms (Facebook) (NASDAQ: META), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), and Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA).

Nvidia has been one of the leaders of this post-pandemic surge, so lets take a look as to why Nvidia stock, which has gained over 13X since that time roughly four years ago, was able to accomplish so much.

Nvidias beginnings were filled with struggles. Within its first three years of operation, founder and CEO Jensen Huang had to fire half of his employees trying to get the RIVA 128 graphic accelerator for 3D graphics completed and out to market. Having burned through $20 million in Venture Capital funding down to being a month away from bankruptcy, Nvidia finally succeeded, and the RIVA 128s sales fueled Nvidias fortunes enough for it to go public in 1999.

Nvidia soon after released its first Graphics Processing Unit, the GeForce 256, which was crucial for accelerating 3D consumer hardware for video content, leading to landmark graphics hardware design contracts for Microsoft XBOX and Sony (NYSE: SONY) PlayStation 3s RSX graphics processor. By 2012, the companys GPUs would be crucial to powering the AlexNet neural network, which set the stage for commercialized Artificial Intelligence (AI).

As Nvidia continued to grow, it expanded its product line, including their RTX series GPUs in 2018, which pioneered real-time ray tracing, This graphic rendering method mimics the actual physical behavior of light, which creates the hyper-realism key to the success of virtual reality in video graphics for video gaming and AI.

High profile deals with Toyota (NYSE: TM), Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), and Alphabet (still Google in 2018) would follow.

Unlike thousands of other companies that were negatively impacted by the local government mandated lockdowns during the Covid-19 outbreak, Nvidia was not one of them.

AI would prove to be the winning horse in Nvidias race to the top. Nvidia continued to improve its GPU offerings and created new partnerships for expanding the applications for AI. In October 2020, Nvidia announced the plans to design the Cambridge-1 supercomputer. In collaboration with AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Kings College London, the Guys and St. Thomas NHS Foundation, and other organizations, the Nvidia Cambridge-1 is the UKs largest supercomputer, and was specifically created for British healthcare research since its launch in 2021.

Nvidia also announced plans to acquire UK chipmaker Arm from Softbank, for $32 billion, but would be forced to withdraw after the European Commission launched an antitrust investigation. Nevertheless, Nvidia apparently still owns a $147.3 million stake in Arm as of February 2024, according to Forbes.

According to The Harvard Business Review, AI adoption skyrocketed because of the pandemic lockdown. As the pandemic lockdowns ended, the use of AI continued to grow, with ChatGPT and other platforms rapidly gaining popularity. Nvidias H100 GPU has since become so in demand from all of the top tech hardware companies that Larry Ellison of Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) told The Wall Street Journal that he and Elon Musk both had dinner with Jensen Huang, and the two tech titans literally spent an hour of sushi and begging with Huang for more H100s.

Nvidias GPUs became ubiquitous with AI, and Jensen Huangs following would rapidly expand to arguably become as loyal and eager for his latest updates as those from the late Steve Jobs. The Taiwan-born tech entrepreneur who faced bankruptcy less than 30 years ago is now one of the top AI leaders on the planet.

Nvidia, which was roughly trading at$63 per share on March 23, 2020, has risen to$880.08.That is an amazing run of 1,560%.

In fact if you invested $10,000 during the Covid crash and held it to today, you would have $165,510.

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This Is How Much Nvidia Is Up Since the Corona Virus Market Crash - 24/7 Wall St.

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Abbey's Road: Remembering the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 lockdowns - The Newark Advocate

This month, both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) updated their COVID-19 guidance and removed the five-day isolation requirement for people who test positive for the virus.

Under the updated guidance, people who test positive for the coronavirus should stay home and away from other people until their overall symptoms are improving and they are fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication. After returning to normal activities, they should wear a well-fitting, high-quality mask for five days when they will be around other people indoors. This updated guidance brings a unified, comprehensive approach for managing COVID-19 and other common respiratory viral illnesses, such as the flu and RSV.

Thanks to COVID-19 vaccines and other precautions we took, said King County Executive Dow Constantine, we are now in a place where we can treat COVID-19 the way we treat other respiratory viral illnesses. As a result, King County is sunsetting the Temporary COVID-19 Personnel Policy, almost four years to the day of issuing the first iteration.

Our region was the first in the country to experience a COVID-19 outbreak. We acted quickly and based our decisions on science. We listened to the experts and followed their guidance, Executive Constantine said. And thanks to your collective efforts, we were able to limit the spread of the virus and save thousands of lives, while continuing to deliver vital services for the people of this region.

As part of their update, the CDC continues to recommend that everyone take steps to reduce their risk of getting these viruses and spreading them to others, including getting recommended vaccinations, wearing high-quality masks in crowded indoor settings, and improving indoor air quality. You can learn more about the updated guidance in Public Healths latest blog: Ask Public Health: What are the latest recommendations for staying at home when sick?

I want to thank Public Healths Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin, who is retiring July 1, for his 30 years of service. His expertise and leadership during the pandemic in conjunction with the efforts of the Countys public health professionals and partners helped us save countless lives, Executive Constantine stated. I also want to thank our front-line employees who ensured customers had access to essential in-person services throughout the pandemic, and all employees who quickly adjusted their work to advance our priorities for this region.

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Sunsetting the Temporary COVID-19 Personnel Policy - Employee News

Anglers arent the only ones catching something out in Wisconsin waters. University of Wisconsin researchers have detected almost 20 viruses in wild sport fish, including a distant relative of coronavirus thats usually associated with birds.

Researchers at UW-Madison say the discovery is part of a first-of-its-kindstudyin North America to survey healthy wild fish for viruses. They analyzed 103 blood samples from five fish species that included brown trout, lake sturgeon, northern pike, bluegill and walleye. The results were recently published in the journalPathogens.

The findings revealed 19 viruses that included 17 unknown to science before researchers discovered them, according to Tony Goldberg, an epidemiology professor at the universitys School of Veterinary Medicine. He said the findings underscore that fish get sick, too.

Walleye in our study have a coronavirus that is a distant relative of the coronaviruses we all now knowfrom the pandemic, Goldberg said.

Goldberg said its the first coronavirus associated with fish. He noted a poultry disease called infectious bronchitis is caused by a relative of the coronavirus found in walleye. The virus was found in 11 out of 15 walleyes sampled by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The studys findings also revealed viruses that are distant relatives of rubella and Hepatitis B.

Even so, he stressed theres no threat to human health or anglers.

These are fish viruses, and there are no known viruses of fish that can affect people because were just too far from fish evolutionarily, Goldberg said. People dont have to worry about eating fish because they might be infected with one of these viruses.

The work builds on previousresearchconducted by Goldberg on the fish virus viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS. The virus was introduced to fish in the Midwest during the early 2000s, which evolved into a strain that caused massive fish kills in Wisconsin. The DNR collected blood samples from fish across the state for that research, which were then analyzed for viruses in the latest study.

The findings could help the DNR and fishery managers who routinely test fish at hatcheries. Goldberg said it can be challenging to handle the discovery of a new virus in fish that are set to be released into state waterways.

Do you put the fish out there anyway, knowing that they have something? Do you hold them indefinitely for some researcher to come and figure out what the virus is? Do you kill them? Goldberg said. Its a common problem.

Among species tested, lake sturgeon had the highest rate of infection with nearly 97 percent of samples containing any virus. Around 71 percent of walleye had viruses, and brown trout had the lowest infection rate with around 6 percent of samples that contained viruses.

Goldberg said its tempting to think lake sturgeon a fish that firstappearedwhen dinosaurs walked the Earth have accumulated several viruses over time.As for brown trout, he noted such non-native species are known to gain a foothold and spread because they dont encounter many pathogens that can infect them. Even so, its unclear why certain species had higher or lower rates of infection.

The next step in their research is to sample a larger set of fish using tests designed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to detect the 17 new viruses.

Eric Leis, fish biologist with the agencys La Crosse Fish Health Center, said it developed a test thats essentially the same fast and inexpensivepolymerase chain reaction, or PCR, technique used to test for COVID-19.

We can use those (tests) to assess basically the intensity of the infection, as well as determine the overall prevalence in the state, Leis said.

The goal of the research is to collect baseline data to determine what effect, if any, the viruses may have on the health of fish. Leis said its important to know where viruses are found as part of recovery efforts for fish like lake sturgeon.

If theres a population that doesnt have any of these viruses, we would select from that population for restoration efforts, Leis said.

The detection of viruses among fish in certain areas may also be used to investigate the cause of any fish kills. However, some viruses that have been linked to fish kills have also been found in healthy fish throughout the state.

Even though theyre infected with a virus, it doesnt necessarily mean that it would cause disease either, Leis said. Theres some times where fish are simply carriers. Theyre not the actual hosts that develop disease.

Goldberg added its rare that viruses are the sole cause of fish kills.

Theres very strong evidence that stressful environments make fish unhealthy and make them susceptible to viruses, Goldberg said. I wouldnt be surprised if some of the viruses we found, or some we havent found yet, pop up in the future when things like climate change get worse or we have water quality declines for any reason.

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Fish get sick, too: Study finds relatives of coronavirus and other pathogens in fish - Kfiz