Category: Corona Virus

Throughout the week we are posting original stories night and day covering the impact of coronavirus by connecting the dots across the travel industry. Every weekend we will offer you a chance to read the most essential stories again in case you missed them earlier.

And don't forget to check in around the clock with our liveblog for the latest information concerning coronavirus and travel.

Will Las Vegas Resorts Survive a Year of No Conventions?: Can the show go on in Sin City while so many events and conventions cant? Sure if you have a few billion in the bank to tide your resorts over for a year.

Google Quietly Debuts Game-Changing Tours and Activities Advertising Product: While many travel companies are struggling to survive, Google has the resources to keep innovating and rolling out new products despite the travel advertising downturn. As with flights and hotels, Googles new tours and activities advertising business will have a far-reaching impact unless regulators step in.

Private Jet Operators Are Stealing Passengers from U.S. Airlines: Private jet operators did not do well in the Great Recession. When March hit, they figured they were stuck in another disaster. But things have turned out better than expected.

Google Cut Off an Online Travel Company and Sent In the Bill Collectors: With parent company Alphabet generating $79 billion in revenue in the first half of 2020, Google is relentlessly rolling out new travel products. Not to mention, it is dictating content-licensing and advertising terms to cash-strapped partners while a pandemic rages. Enough said.

Why Being Grounded for Months Was the Best Pandemic Outcome for This Airline: . airlines are flying all they can and selling cheap fares to fill planes. Copa was required by its government to do the opposite. It effectively stopped flying for months. It lost a lot of money in the second quarter, but perhaps not as much as you might think.

The Travel Industry Needs to Talk About Ventilation in Coronavirus Fight: An overwhelming consensus has emerged that Covid-19 doesnt spread as easily outdoors or in well-ventilated areas. So why doesnt the travel industry emphasize that more?Can Scotland Create a Regional Travel Tech Hub for a Post-Coronavirus World?: Countries lack a playbook in coping with the pandemics effect on tourism, but Scotland is one to watch when it comes to its new effort to boost its travel tech sector.

Japans Top Messaging App Has a Pandemic-Mindful Strategy for Domestic Tourism: Take a look at how Japans most popular messaging app has approached travel marketing during the pandemic. Its a glance at how superapps might define the future of travel in Asia.

The Rest of Europe Pulls Away From London in Modest Tourism Comeback: No place in Europe is having a great tourism season, but London is faring particularly bad. Luxury retailers are feeling the pinch.

Airports Push for New Contactless Tech and Automation as Budgets Shrink: The airport sector needs to invest in contactless tech and automation through the challenges. A recent product contest with vendors and a new accreditation program may help airports make progress.

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Las Vegas in Crisis and 9 Other Coronavirus Travel Stories This Week - Skift

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued guidance saying children over the age of 12 should wear masks, in line with recommended practice for adults in their country or area.

It admits little is known about how children transmit the virus but cites evidence that teenagers can infect others in the same way as adults.

Children aged five and under should not normally wear masks, the WHO said.

More than 800,000 people have now died with coronavirus worldwide.

At least 23 million cases of infection have been registered, according to Johns Hopkins University, with most of them recorded in the US, Brazil and India.

However the true number of people who have had the virus is believed to be far higher, due to insufficient testing and asymptomatic cases.

The numbers have been rising again in countries as diverse as South Korea, EU states and Lebanon.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said he hopes the pandemic will be over in two years but a top scientific adviser in the UK warned Covid-19 might never be eradicated, with people needing regular vaccinations.

The advice published on the WHO website covers three age groups:

For teachers, the WHO says: "In areas where there is widespread transmission, all adults under the age of 60 and who are in general good health should wear fabric masks when they cannot guarantee at least a one-metre distance from others.

"This is particularly important for adults working with children who may have close contact with children and one another."

Adults aged 60 or over, or those with underlying health conditions, should wear medical masks, it says.

The WHO guidance does not specify whether a child over the age of 12 should wear a mask in school, but it may yet become a feature of the classroom as the new academic year begins.

France recently made it mandatory for all children over 11, and a number of schools in the UK are taking it upon themselves to require students to wear them even though this is not official government guidance.

James Gillespie's High School in Edinburgh is one such school, making the decision to require students to "wear face coverings indoors whilst moving around between classes" after taking feedback from pupils, staff and parents. Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland has warned secondary school students may be required to wear face coverings in the "near future".

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Coronavirus pandemic: Children aged 12 and over should wear masks - WHO - BBC News

Michael Lauer, deputy director for extramural researchat the National Institutes of Health

By Meredith WadmanAug. 19, 2020 , 10:55 AM

Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.

The National Institutes of Health is requiring a small nonprofit research organization to take unusualand perhaps impossiblesteps to end a controversial suspension of an NIH grant related to bat coronavirus research in China. NIHs conditions for reinstating the funding to the EcoHealth Alliance are outrageous, former NIH Director Harold Varmus told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in an article published today that first reported the agencys demands.

The controversy began in April, after President Donald Trump complained about NIHs grant to the EcoHealth Alliance because it involved researchers at Chinas Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Conservative commentators, Trump, and Trump administration officials have asserted, without evidence, that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 escaped from WIV. Shortly after Trumps complaint, NIH abruptly canceled the grant, stating that its goal of studying bat coronavirus spillovers into humans did not align with agency priorities. NIHs move drew extensive criticism from the scientific community.

Last month, NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research Michael Lauer sent the EcoHealth Alliance a letter stating the agency was reinstating the grant, but also instantly suspending it again pending the completion of certain actions. (ScienceInsider has now independently reviewed a copy of the 8 July letter.)Among the conditions included:

NIH declined interview requests for Lauer and agency Director Francis Collins, saying in a statement: NIH does not discuss internal deliberations on specific grants.

The EcoHealth Alliance said in a statement that NIHs letter cynically reinstates and instantly suspends the EcoHealth Alliances funding, then attempts to impose impossible and irrelevant conditions that will effectively block us from continuing this critical work.

Varmus, one of 77 Nobel laureates who wrote to current NIH Director Francis Collins in May demanding that he review the grants initial cancellation, told WSJ that NIHs list of conditions for reinstating the funding is outrageous, especially when a grant has already been carefully evaluated by peer review and addresses one of the most important problems in the world right nowhow viruses from animals spill over to human beings.

Peter Daszak, the EcoHealth Alliances president, called out Collins in an interview with ScienceInsider today, saying: It undermines biomedical science to give in to politics. I think thats a failure. And I think that Dr. Collins fell at the first hurdle. When challenged by the White House to cancel this grant he just gave in.

Jeremy Berg, who directed NIHs National Institute ofGeneral Medical Sciences from 2003 to 2011, notes that Collins is a political appointee who serves at the presidents pleasure. (Berg was also editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals until 2019.) He says: The question for anybody in [such] a leadership position is: Is there a line that you are not willing to cross? And that you think it would be more appropriate to stand on principle and resign rather than to give in? In my view, that line has been crossed with this.

With reporting by Kai Kupferschmidt.

*Update, 19 August,5:10 p.m.: This story has been updated to include additional material from NIHs 8 Julyletter to the EcoHealth Alliance,a statement from NIH,and comments from Jeremy Berg and Peter Daszak.

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NIH imposes 'outrageous' conditions on resuming coronavirus grant targeted by Trump - Science Magazine

The coronavirus crept into Heartland Health Care Center, a nursing home in Moline, Ill., on the last day of July, when a member of the nursing staff tested positive.

It was an ominous sign: The virus can spread through a nursing home in a flash. Older people who are often sick and frail and need regular hands-on attention are uniquely susceptible. Staff members who care for residents are at high risk of infection and of unintentionally spreading the virus.

Although nursing home residents make up just 1.2 percent of the United States population, they account for about 40 percent of Covid-19 deaths.

But this time, the nursing home was not defenseless. Heartland was the first facility to participate in a large clinical trial of drug that might protect residents from the infection in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Drug companies and the federal government often avoid testing drugs in older people, even if they are the ones who need treatment most. The elderly may have a range of complicating conditions that make difficult to tell if the drug is working, and nursing home and extended care facilities are governed by a raft of complex regulations regarding privacy and access.

Experts say the new research, sponsored by Eli Lilly and the National Institutes of Health, is among the first large clinical trials to involve nursing home residents. And the scientists are delighted.

These patients are so underserved, said Dr. Rebecca Boxer, medical director of clinical trials at the Kaiser Permanentes Institute for Health Research in Colorado. They do not get access to innovative new drugs and trials.

The experimental drug is a monoclonal antibody, an artificially synthesized version of coronavirus antibodies produced by the body. In this case, the antibody was cloned from those found in the blood of a Seattle man, one of the first patients to survive Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

Monoclonal antibodies are one of the great hopes in the war on the coronavirus. They already serve as the basis for effective treatments for arthritis, cancer, lupus even Ebola. They are difficult to manufacture, however, and expensive.

Despite the obstacles, two companies, Regeneron and Eli Lilly, have forged ahead with clinical trials. The trial in nursing homes is pivotal to Eli Lillys effort to determine whether its version can stop the coronavirus.

Some people ask, If we have a vaccine, why do this? said Dr. Myron Cohen, a University of North Carolina researcher who proposed the trial. But a vaccine will take a month to produce antibodies, and some populations need a more emergent intervention.

But it is not easy to do a trial in nursing homes. Because the residents cannot be expected to travel to a clinic for an infusion and subsequent testing and monitoring, the clinical trial must to come to them.

Eli Lillys researchers are watching facilities in which a single case of Covid-19 appears after having no active cases for at least 14 days. Once the case is reported, a sort of medical SWAT team scrambles to the facility as quickly as possible.

A nursing supervisor at Heartland called Eli Lilly as soon as the home learned of the employees positive test. The team wasted no time getting to the facility.

The next day, medical personnel pulled up in two vehicles. One was a moving truck carrying infusion chairs, poles for intravenous infusions, bedside tables, and privacy screens. The other was an R.V. with an interior retrofitted as a mobile lab with infusion materials, a centrifuge, freezers and computers to transmit data.

The team quickly turned Heartlands large dining room which was not being used, because the pandemic had put a stop to communal dining into an infusion center. The day after the medical team arrived, the first residents and staff who agreed to participate received infusions.

Participants are randomly assigned to receive one of two infusions: a placebo, or the monoclonal antibody, designed to latch onto the virus and to block it from entering and infecting cells. At Heartland, 25 of the 80 residents who were approached eventually agreed to join the trial.

The drug should remain in participants bodies for at least a month, and possibly as long as three months, the researchers say. Participants and doctors do not know who is getting the antibody and who is not.

Its a little daunting from the patients standpoint, said Dr. Mark Gloth, chief medical officer at ProMedica Senior Care/HCR ManorCare, a nationwide chain of 222 nursing homes and long-term care facilities, including Heartland.

We have been restricting visitors for months. Some family members say, I cant even get in there and hold my loved ones hand. I want to be sure its OK with them.

Lee Rouland, 45, was in the nursing home recovering from a serious pressure sore when he was asked if he wanted to join the study. He readily agreed.

A paraplegic since falling from a fire escape when he was 22, Mr. Rouland was unable to leave his room because he cannot sit in his wheelchair. So the investigators came to him. The infusion took an hour.

For the next two hours, the team monitored Mr. Roulands vital signs: heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen levels. Because he cannot easily travel to a lab for subsequent tests, investigators plan to visit to his home once he leaves Heartland.

Hes worried, of course. If he got the drug, it might cause adverse reactions. But somebody has to go first, Mr. Rouland said.

The study is being undertaken at nursing homes and extended care facilities across the United States and will enroll 2,400 residents and staff. Eli Lilly hopes to enlist 500 facilities so far, about 125 have agreed to join the study and the company anticipates enrolling 40 to 80 participants at each site.

Updated August 17, 2020

There are obvious advantages to testing the drug in nursing homes. Residents are all in one place, making it easy to do contact tracing. And the rocket pace of a nursing home outbreak makes it easier to see if the coronavirus can be halted with this drug.

Monoclonal antibodies are difficult to make. The drug, if it works, is expected to be expensive an infusion of a monoclonal antibody can cost thousands of dollars. Eli Lilly has not announced what it will charge for the drug if it is approved for marketing.

There is no guarantee of success, and previous attempts to do studies in nursing homes have fallen short. Nursing home residents can be difficult participants: Many have dementia, or have difficulty seeing and hearing. Yet they or, in some cases, someone designated to make decisions for them, must provide informed consent.

Informed consent is very scripted and can be incredibly challenging, especially with an infused experimental drug, Dr. Boxer said. Potential participants have to read and understand a form that explains the risks and the adverse side effects that can occur.

Then, she said, participants usually have to repeat back in their own words what they are being asked to do. The people soliciting informed consent most often are not nursing home staff, since they have to be credentialed by an ethics board that approved the study.

Yet they need to understand the limitations of working with the very old and disabled, Dr. Boxer said.

Often, residents will want someone else to sign the consent form for them, but states have varying regulations governing who may be authorized. Some residents with dementia might agree one day but forget the next that they agreed to take part, and then reverse their decision.

Nursing homes are very protective of patient privacy. But research regulations allow investigators, in some circumstances, to review patients medical records to identify patients who might be eligible for a study.

There just isnt a culture in nursing homes that is attuned to doing research and clinical trials, said Dr. Mathew Wynia, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado.

When Dr. Cohen, who is working with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to run clinical trials of antibodies, thought of the nursing home trial, he began calling chief executives of nursing home chains.

At the end of the calls, I was really shaken up, he said. They explained the unbelievable suffering of clients and families.

Residents who were infected were dying alone, no visitors allowed, he learned. Staff members were falling ill. Nursing home executives were eager to participate in the study.

In Citrus Heights, Calif., a staff member at a nursing home tested positive earlier this month. The moving van and R.V. appeared the next day, and Katy Tenner, 37, a staff dietitian, was among those who volunteered for the study.

The infusion and monitoring took so long she had to get the treatment on her day off. Every day for the next 56 days, she has to have her vital signs checked. Every week she has to have a coronavirus test.

But she is excited about the study. So often, she said, she drives home from work, listening to news on the radio and bawling my eyes out, hearing about my fellow health care workers dying from this virus.

This could be a weapon to fight it and maybe outsmart it, she said.

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An Unprecedented Effort to Stop the Coronavirus in Nursing Homes - The New York Times

A fishing vessel that left Seattle in May returned with an unexpected catch: the first direct evidence in humans that antibodies to the coronavirus can thwart infection.

More than a hundred crew members aboard the American Dynasty were stricken by the infection over 18 days at sea. But three sailors who initially carried antibodies remained virus-free, according to a new report.

Although the study is small, it addresses one of the most important questions in the pandemic: whether the immune response to one bout with the virus protects against reinfection.

Knowing the answer to this question is critical for vaccine design and epidemiology, tweeted Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and one of the studys authors.

The study was posted online last week and has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Still, the finding set off optimistic chatter among scientists, who have been relying on monkey studies for evidence of antibodies potency.

I thought it was very exciting good enough news that I was telling my family about it, said Michal Tal, an immunologist at Stanford University who was not involved in the work.

Several research teams have reported that an encounter with the virus triggers a robust immune response in most people, including in those who may have been only mildly ill. And the vaccine candidates now in trials also seem to elicit strong neutralizing antibodies, the kind that can block the virus.

But the amount of those antibodies needed to prevent the virus from returning is unclear. Scientists measure neutralizing antibodies in titers, an indication of their concentration in the blood.

The three sailors who remained protected from the virus had widely varying titers; two had only moderate quantities, a finding the researchers said was reassuring.

People have been so worried about the titers, and the titers going down, Dr. Alexander Greninger, a virologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said.

The results indicate even moderate titers prevented reinfection in a situation in which exposure to the virus was high, he said: These are attainable titers, right? Hopefully, itll be helpful to see, and makes make me very optimistic about the vaccines.

The American Dynasty carried 113 men and nine women. All crew members had been tested for both virus and antibodies as part of a routine screening before setting sail. (The researchers did not have access to the results from two members.)

The trawler returned to shore after 18 days at sea when a crew member became ill enough to need hospitalization. The sailors were tested for the presence of virus and antibodies again and for up to 50 days after their return.

The three sailors confirmed to have neutralizing antibodies did not test positive for the virus during the course of the study; 103 of the remaining 117 became infected.

These numbers may be small, but theyre highly significant, Dr. Greninger said.

A lot of people, when they see this are like, Oh come on, it could be due to random chance, he said. In fact, the likelihood that the results are just chance is extremely low, he added.

Updated August 17, 2020

Other experts agreed. Just looking at the numbers, it becomes clear that its unlikely that all of these three people were protected by chance, said Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

Dr. Krammer and his colleagues are tracking antibody levels in people who have recovered from the coronavirus once to see at what point they might be vulnerable to reinfection. The team began with people in New York, but the virus is circulating at such low levels in the city now that Dr. Krammer and his colleagues have had to expand the study to other locations.

Data from vaccine trials also will identify the antibody titers required to disarm the virus. But in the meantime, this is the first evidence in humans, Dr. Krammer said. It made my weekend.

The study raised other questions. Based on the Abbott Architect assay, six of the 120 people tested before the boats departure had antibodies to the virus indicating prior exposure.

But when the researchers reanalyzed those samples using more sophisticated tests, only three of the six were confirmed to have antibodies, suggesting that three test results were false positives.

The Abbott test is advertised as returning fewer than one false positive for every 100 samples. Thats a little concerning that the Abbott may be a little less specific than we thought, Dr. Tal said.

The researchers also looked at antibodies in the blood, as most teams do. But those levels may not be the same as those in the nose or in saliva, the two major entry points for infection, Dr. Tal added.

Were looking in the wrong place, she said. If we want to look at protection from reinfection, we need to be looking in the nose.

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This Trawlers Haul: Evidence That Antibodies Block the Coronavirus - The New York Times

Schools and universities across the United States are split on whether to open for the fall semester, thanks to the ongoing pandemic.

Albion College, a small liberal arts school in Michigan, said in June it would allow its nearly 1,500 students to return to campus for the new academic year starting in August. Lectures would be limited in size and the semester would finish by Thanksgiving rather than December. The school said it would test both staff and students upon their arrival to campus and throughout the academic year.

But less than two weeks before students began arriving on campus, the school announced it would require them to download and install a contact-tracing app called Aura, which it says will help it tackle any coronavirus outbreak on campus.

Theres a catch. The app is designed to track students real-time locations around the clock, and there is no way to opt out.

The Aura app lets the school know when a student tests positive for COVID-19. It also comes with a contact-tracing feature that alerts students when they have come into close proximity with a person who tested positive for the virus. But the feature requires constant access to the students real-time location, which the college says is necessary to track the spread of any exposure.

The schools mandatory use of the app sparked privacy concerns and prompted parents to launch a petition to make using the app optional.

Worse, the app had at least two security vulnerabilities only discovered after the app was rolled out. One of the vulnerabilities allowed access to the apps back-end servers. The other allowed us to infer a students COVID-19 test results.

The vulnerabilities were fixed. But students are still expected to use the app or face suspension.

Exactly how Aura came to be and how Albion became its first major customer is a mystery.

Aura was developed by Nucleus Careers in the months after the pandemic began. Nucleus Careers is a Pennsylvania-based recruiting firm founded in 2020, with no apparent history or experience in building or developing healthcare apps besides a brief mention in a recent press release. The app was built in partnership with Genetworx, a Virginia-based lab providing coronavirus tests. (We asked Genetworx about the app and its involvement, but TechCrunch did not hear back from the company.)

The app helps students locate and schedule COVID-19 testing on campus. Once a student is tested for COVID-19, the results are fed into the app.

If the test comes back negative, the app displays a QR code which, when scanned, says the student is certified free of the virus. If the student tests positive or has yet to be tested, the students QR code will read denied.

Aura uses the students real-time location to determine if they have come into contact with another person with the virus. Most other contact-tracing apps use nearby Bluetooth signals, which experts say is more privacy-friendly.

Hundreds of academics have argued that collecting and storing location data is bad for privacy.

The Aura app generates a QR code based on the students COVID-19 test results. Scan the QR code to reveal the students test result status. (Image: TechCrunch)

In addition to having to install the app, students were told they are not allowed to leave campus for the duration of the semester without permission over fears that contact with the wider community might bring the virus back to campus.

If a student leaves campus without permission, the app will alert the school, and the students ID card will be locked and access to campus buildings will be revoked, according to an email to students, seen by TechCrunch.

Students are not allowed to turn off their location and can be suspended and removed from campus if they violate the policy, the email read.

Private universities in the U.S. like Albion can largely set and enforce their own rules and have been likened to shadow criminal justice systems without any of the protections or powers of a criminal court, where students can face discipline and expulsion for almost any reason with little to no recourse. Last year, TechCrunch reported on a student at Tufts University who was expelled for alleged grade hacking, despite exculpatory evidence in her favor.

Albion said in an online Q&A that the only time a students location data will be accessed is if they test positive or if they leave campus without following proper procedure. Butthe school has not said how it will ensure that student location data is not improperly accessed, or who has access.

I think its more creepy than anything and has caused me a lot of anxiety about going back, one student going into their senior year, who asked not to be named, told TechCrunch.

One Albion student was not convinced the app was safe or private.

The student, who asked to go by her Twitter handle @Q3w3e3, decompiles and analyzes apps on the side. I just like knowing what apps are doing, she told TechCrunch.

Buried in the apps source code, she found hardcoded secret keys for the apps backend servers, hosted on Amazon Web Services. She tweeted her findings with careful redactions to prevent misuse and reported the problems to Nucleus, but did not hear back.

A security researcher, who asked to go by her handle Gilda, was watching the tweets about Aura roll in. Gilda also dug into the app and found and tested the keys.

The keys were practically full access, Gilda told TechCrunch. She said the keys since changed gave her access to the apps databases and cloud storage in which she found patient data, including COVID-19 test results with names, addresses and dates of birth.

Nucleus pushed out an updated version of the app on the same day with the keys removed, but did not acknowledge the vulnerability.

TechCrunch also wanted to look under the hood to see how Aura works. We used a network analysis tool, Burp Suite, to understand the network data going in and out of the app. (Weve done this a few times before.) Using our spare iPhone, we registered an Aura account and logged in. The app normally pulls in recent COVID-19 tests. In our case, we didnt have any and so the scannable QR code, generated by the app, declared that I had been denied clearance to enter campus as to be expected.

But our network analysis tool showed that the QR code was not generated on the device but on a hidden part of Auras website. The web address that generated the QR code included the Aura users account number, which isnt visible from the app. If we increased or decreased the account number in the web address by a single digit, it generated a QR code for that users Aura account.

In other words, because we could see another users QR code, we could also see the students full name, their COVID-19 test result status and what date the student was certified or denied.

TechCrunch did not enumerate each QR code, but through limited testing found that the bug may have exposed about 15,000 QR codes.

We described the apps vulnerabilities to Will Strafach, a security researcher and chief executive at Guardian Firewall. Strafach said the app sounded like a rush job, and that the enumeration bug could be easily caught during a security review. The fact that they were unaware tells me they did not even bother to do this, he said. And, the keys left in the source code, said Strafach, suggested a just-ship-it attitude to a worrisome extreme.

An email sent by Albion president Matthew Johnson, dated August 18 and shared with TechCrunch, confirmed that the school has since launched a security review of the app.

We sent Nucleus several questions including about the vulnerabilities and if the app had gone through a security audit. Nucleus fixed the QR code vulnerability after TechCrunch detailed the bug. But a spokesperson for the company, Tony Defazio, did not provide comment. I advised the company of your inquiry, he said. The spokesperson did not return follow-up emails.

In response to the students findings, Albion said that the app was compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, which governs the privacy of health data and medical records. HIPAA also holds companies including universities accountable for security lapses involving health data. That can mean heavy fines or, in some cases, prosecution.

Albion spokesperson Chuck Carlson did not respond to our emails requesting comment.

At least two other schools, Bucknell University and Temple University, are reopening for the fall semester by requiring students to present two negative COVID-19 tests through Genetworx. The schools are not using the Aura app, but their own in-house student app to deliver the test results.

Albion students, meanwhile, are split on whether to comply, or refuse and face the consequences. @Q3w3e3 said she will not use the app. Im trying to work with the college to find an alternative way to be tested, she told TechCrunch.

Parents have also expressed their anger at the policy.

I absolutely hate it. I think its a violation of her privacy and civil liberties, said Elizabeth Burbank, a parent of an Albion student, who signed the petition against the schools tracking effort.

I do want to keep my daughter safe, of course, and help keep others safe as well. We are more than happy to do our part. I do not believe however, a GPS tracker is the way to go, she said. Wash our hands. Eat healthy. And keep researching treatments and vaccines. That should be our focus.

I do intend to do all I can to protect my daughters right to privacy and challenge her right to free movement in her community, she said.

Send tips securely over Signal and WhatsApp to +1 646-755-8849 or send an encrypted email to: zack.whittaker@protonmail.com

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Fearing coronavirus, a Michigan college is tracking its students with a flawed app - TechCrunch

Discipline for those who violate the rules is handled by each sorority, Ms. Weatherford said.

Where youre going to have problems with this will not be within the universitys care, Mayor Walt Maddox of Tuscaloosa said, nodding to new university policies that banned rites of Greek life like swaps and formals. But he acknowledged that safeguards could ebb behind closed doors or away from campus, and that outbreaks could emerge within the universitys Greek organizations.

Despite all the restrictions, both fraternities and sororities say they are reporting swelling numbers of applicants. Students are pining for the connections that college life is supposed to offer. And with many of the normal avenues of meeting people and making friends closed off, many students are turning to the Greek system. There are about 800,000 undergraduate members of fraternities and sororities.

So far our recruitment registration numbers have been phenomenal, record-breaking, Ms. Weatherford said.

But that enthusiasm can sometimes translate into behavior that non-Greek students say endangers others.

Robert Beyer, a senior at the University of Southern California, said he had observed good social distancing practices in neighborhoods around campus except fraternity row, where he said he routinely saw large groups of students standing close together.

Their attitudes are so selfish, Mr. Beyer said. They dont care about spreading it to other people. Ive heard people say, Its worth it to socialize and be with my friends even if it means getting Covid.

Some students and faculty said university administrators, not Greek-system students, were to blame for bringing students back to campus and not reining in bad behavior: I feel like the school should have more strictly enforced the parameters they set in the first place, said Kesan Ucheya, 17, a freshman at the University of North Carolina.

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Frats Are Being Frats: Greek Life Is Stoking the Virus on Some Campuses - The New York Times

Another 25 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine, health officials said Wednesday.

Wednesdays report brings the total coronavirus cases in Maine to 4,234. Of those, 3,799 have been confirmed positive, while 435 were classified as probable cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency revised Tuesdays cumulative total to 4,209, up from 4,196. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus, or coronavirus cases not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the states cumulative total.

No new deaths were reported Wednesday, leaving the statewide death toll at 127. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.

So far, 403 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, nine people are currently hospitalized, with two in critical care and one on a ventilator.

Meanwhile, 13 more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 3,662. That means there are 445 active and probable cases in the state, which is up from 432 on Monday.

Heres the latest on the coronavirus and its impact on Maine.

Portland Public Schools officials have pitched a comprehensive plan to return to classrooms on Sept. 14, after the Maine Department of Education and Center for Disease Control and Prevention cleared them to do so. But about 15 percent of district employees have asked for a waiver from returning to their school buildings, citing heightened risks from the coronavirus and childcare conflicts among their concerns. Schools officials have contracted with Falmouth-based KMA Human Resources Consulting, a private firm, to help determine which Portland teachers may work remotely and which ones should return to the classroom this fall. Nick Schroeder, BDN

Health care advocates in Maine are waiting to see if a deadlocked Congress will boost a federal Medicaid funding match provision as the state prepares across-the-board spending cuts due to the coronavirus pandemic. Caitlin Andrews, BDN

Building supply, online and automobile sales all rose by double digits in June, although other parts of Maines economy still are down significantly compared to last year, new tax data from Maine Revenue Services showed. Lori Valigra, BDN

The Maine Principals Association expects to make its recommendation regarding the high school fall sports season on Aug. 27. The recommendation to be presented to the MPAs Interscholastic Management Committee might include going forward with all fall sports cross country, field hockey, football, golf, soccer and volleyball. It also might recommend a partial slate of sports during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic or having no high school sports at all when students return to classes. Ernie Clark, BDN

On Tuesday, the day after state health officials confirmed a coronavirus outbreak of at least two dozen cases connected to an Aug. 7 wedding reception in Millinocket, some residents of the Katahdin region were shocked that their area had been hit by such a large virus outbreak while others believed it was simply a matter of time before the virus hit. Eesha Pendharkar, BDN

As of Wednesday evening, the coronavirus has sickened 5,516,639 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 172,667 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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August 19 evening update: The latest on the coronavirus and Maine - Bangor Daily News

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A Mainer has died as 20 new coronavirus cases are reported in Maine, health officials said Thursday.

Thursdays report brings the total coronavirus cases in Maine to 4,253. Of those, 3,812 have been confirmed positive, while 441 were classified as probable cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency revised Wednesdays cumulative total to 4,233 , down from 4,234. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus, or coronavirus cases not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the states cumulative total.

New cases were reported in Cumberland (3), Penobscot (2), York (7), Androscoggin (1), Aroostook (2), Oxford (1), Kennebec (3) and Somerset (1) counties state data show

The death toll now stands at 128. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.

So far, 405 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, seven people are currently hospitalized, with one in critical care and one on a ventilator.

Meanwhile, 17 more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 3,679. That means there are 446 active and probable cases in the state, which is up from 445 on Monday.

A majority of the cases 2,385 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Thursday, there have been 223,023 test results out of 229,055overall. Just under 2.3 percent of all tests have come back positive, Maine CDC data show.

The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 2,148 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 69 have been concentrated. It is one of four counties the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 582, 202 and 713 cases, respectively where community transmission has been confirmed, according to the Maine CDC.

There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and that at least 25 percent of those are not connected to either known cases or travel. That second condition has not yet been satisfied in other counties.

Other cases have been reported in Aroostook (35), Franklin (47), Hancock (42), Kennebec (175), Knox (28), Lincoln (35), Oxford (59), Piscataquis (7), Sagadahoc (58), Somerset (42), Waldo (64) and Washington (15) counties. The location of one case was unknown Thursday.

As of Thursday morning, the coronavirus has sickened 5,532,566 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 173,241 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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Another Mainer dies as 20 new coronavirus cases are reported - Bangor Daily News

Pooling accounts for about one-third of the samples that are processed at Poplar, Mr. Sweeney said, adding that percentage is going to get much higher.

But in many other regions, experts are having trouble clearing the hurdles to benefit from pooling in part because needs differ so vastly from institution to institution, and even from test to test.

Theres been a lot of concerns about all the challenges, said Dr. Bobbi Pritt, director of the clinical parasitology laboratory at Mayo Clinic, which processes tens of thousands of coronavirus tests each week, but has yet to roll out pooling.

Experts disagree, for instance, on the cutoff at which pooling stops being useful. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions coronavirus test, which is used by most public health laboratories in the United States, stipulates that pooling shouldnt be used when positivity rates exceed 10 percent. But at Mayo Clinic, wed have to start to question it once prevalence goes above 2 percent, definitely above 5 percent, Dr. Pritt said.

And prevalence isnt the only factor at play. The more individual samples grouped, the more efficient the process gets. But at some point, poolings perks hit an inflection point: A positive specimen can only get diluted so much before the coronavirus becomes undetectable. That means pooling will miss some people who harbor very low amounts of the virus.

Updated August 17, 2020

Are we going to cause harm if we miss them? I think thats still a difficult question to answer, Dr. Liesman said. These people may be less likely to pass the virus to others, and may be at lower risk of getting severely ill. But thats no guarantee. Some might simply be early on in their infection.

Pooling can also be onerous for lab technicians many of whom have been working grueling hours for months on end. Though simple in theory, batching samples is tedious and time-consuming, as researchers carefully transfer precise amounts of liquid from one tube to another hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times over.

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Why Pooled Testing for the Coronavirus Isn't Working - The New York Times