Category: Corona Virus

If you want to speed up the flow of outdoor air into a room, you could also take a box fan, place it in a window and blast it outward, Dr. Jimenez said. When any amount of air leaves, that same amount of air returns its a fixed volume. Therefore, the fan should help pull in the same amount of outdoor air.

If you have air-conditioning in your home, no one is saying that you need to give up on it entirely. When its sweltering out, air-conditioning can be essential not only to help you function but also to avoid heatstroke.

But if you are going to spend time in a cooled space with other people, it may be worth understanding a bit more about the cool air you are breathing. Basically, all air-conditioning falls into one of three categories.

The unit cools both indoor and outdoor air.

The unit cools and recirculates only indoor air.

The unit relies entirely on pulling in outdoor air. (These are uncommon outside hospitals and labs.)

Centralized-air systems, such as those common in office buildings, dorms and some large apartment buildings, often fall in category one. Dr. Jimenez and other building scientists involved in coronavirus prevention are currently advising owners of businesses and buildings with category one systems to adjust the ratio to pull in more outdoor air, an enterprise that can be costly. Take a casino in Las Vegas, which is kept cool enough to keep people gambling inside while its 120 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Cooling that hot outdoor air will be more expensive than recirculating the already cool inside air. But given that keeping customers healthy is also a priority, more are willing to revisit their approach, Dr. Jimenez said.

Few of us have the ability to adjust our air-conditioning in this way. Most window units sitting with their rears facing the outdoors, for example, fall into category two. Instead of pulling in outdoor air, they are dumping heat from the room outdoors, said William Bahnfleth, a professor of architectural engineering at Penn States Institutes of Energy and the Environment.

If you live alone, or with people youre sure arent infectious, those units are fine. But if you give in to throwing that birthday dinner for your parents, or if your teenager has been less than strict about staying home, its worth remembering that any virus thats present will be mixed in to the recirculating indoor air, Dr. Jimenez said.

And so, if you have to have people over, it may be preferable to revert to rule one: When in doubt, open the windows. Or better yet, go outside.

So what do you do if youre stuck with a unit that primarily recirculates indoor air and its unrealistic to open the window? This is where filters come in. The right filter is just as effective as pulling in outside air, said Dr. Edward A. Nardell, a professor at Harvard Medical School who has written about the role that air-conditioning plays in spreading airborne diseases.

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Your Hot-Weather Guide to Coronavirus, Air-Conditioning and Airflow - The New York Times

With the coronavirus spreading, farms try to keep workers like these in Greenfield, Calif. safe through physical distancing and other measures but advocates for laborers say protections are often not adequate. Brent Stirton/Getty Images hide caption

With the coronavirus spreading, farms try to keep workers like these in Greenfield, Calif. safe through physical distancing and other measures but advocates for laborers say protections are often not adequate.

It's a busy time for the tomato-producing farms in eastern Tennessee. Farms have staffed up with hundreds of workers, most of whom are Latino. Some live locally. Others are migrant workers who travel from farm to farm, chasing the summer growing seasons. Still others come from Mexico or Central America on temporary agricultural visas to work at certain farms.

But, this year, the season is taking place under a cloud of coronavirus worries that, for these agricultural workers, hit close to home.

"Almost every part of the process for picking tomatoes needs to be considered in light of COVID-19," says Ken Silver, an associate professor of environmental health at East Tennessee State University, who studies migrant worker health on Tennessee tomato farms.

After all, the workers live in close quarters, sleeping in bunk beds, and sharing bathrooms and kitchens. They ride crowded buses to fields and often work in groups. And even though farm employees are deemed essential workers, they often don't have health insurance or paid sick leave.

Farms have already reported outbreaks among hundreds of workers in states that include California, Washington, Florida and Michigan. And yet, the federal government has not established any enforceable rules either to protect farmworkers from the coronavirus or to instruct employers what to do when their workers get sick. While migrant worker advocacy groups say this allows farms to take advantage of their workers and increase their risk of exposure to the coronavirus, farms say they're doing what they can to protect workers with the limited resources they have, while also getting their crops harvested.

The situation certainly isn't clear-cut, says Alexis Guild, director of health policy and programs at the advocacy group, Farmworker Justice.

"I do think some employers are putting in necessary protections," Guild says. But she has heard of workers who, after testing positive for COVID-19, were still required to work or were sent back to their countries an economic threat that creates a strong incentive for workers not to report mild symptoms. "I think it's hard to generalize. It really varies employer by employer."

Leaving it up to the farms

In June, 10 temporary workers out of about 80 at the Jones & Church Farms in Unicoi County, Tenn., tested positive for the coronavirus. Another farm in that county had 38 workers test positive around the same time.

"This was the scariest thing that could happen," says Renea Jones Rogers, the farm's food safety director.

Nationally, there have been at least 3,600 cases of farmworkers testing positive for COVID-19, according to media reports gathered by the National Center for Farmworker Health.

Add to this that farm employers and workers alike acknowledge that even the most basic interventions to stop transmission social distancing and mask-wearing often aren't feasible, especially in the hot temperatures.

Farm laborers arrive for their shift in Greenfield, California, April 28, 2020. Traveling to the fields in crowded buses is one risk among others that workers often face daily. Brent Stirton/Getty Images hide caption

Saul, 52, is a temporary farmworker who has traveled from Mexico to Virginia every year since 1996 to harvest tobacco. In a WhatsApp message interview, he said masks are uncomfortable on the job because he is working outdoors, writing in Spanish, "En el trabajo es incmodo porque trabajamos al intemperie." (Kaiser Health News is not publishing Saul's last name so that he won't be identified by his employer.)

Saul said he does worry about the coronavirus, but because he lives at his job on the farm, he feels safe.

When he arrived in the U.S. in April, the farm provided him with information about the pandemic, masks and hand sanitizer, he said. Nobody takes his temperature, but he works in a crew of eight, lives with only three other workers and nobody on the farm has yet been diagnosed with COVID-19.

In Tennessee, the Jones & Church Farms put its own worker safety protocols in place at the beginning of the season. These included increasing sanitation, taking daily temperature readings and keeping workers in groups so they live and work with the same people.

After the 10 workers tested positive for COVID-19, the farm kept them all in the same housing unit and away from the other workers but those who were asymptomatic also kept working in the fields, though they were able to stay away from others on the job, says Jones Rogers.

In June, 10 of about 80 temporary workers at Jones & Church Farms in Unicoi County, Tenn., tested positive for COVID-19. Nationally, at least 3,600 positive cases have been reported among farmworkers. Victoria Knight/ KHN hide caption

While the Department of Labor has not offered enforceable federal safety standards for COVID-19, it did collaborate with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to publish a set of voluntary, agriculture-specific guidelines. Those were released in June, just days after Jones & Church became aware of the farm's outbreak.

Much of what had already been done at Jones & Church, though, tracked closely with those recommendations, which also suggested that workers be screened every day for COVID-19 symptoms and that those who become sick be given their own space to recover apart from others.

Other suggestions in the CDC and Labor Department directive, geared more toward indoor food-processing factories such as tomato-packing plants, included installing plastic shields if 6 feet of distance isn't possible between workers, putting in hand-washing stations and providing personal protective equipment or cloth face coverings.

Advocates say these guidelines are sound, in theory. Their glaring flaw is that they are voluntary.

"We don't believe that the health and safety of workers should be left to the good will of employers," says Mara Perales Sanchez, communications coordinator for Centro de Los Derechos del Migrante, an advocacy group with offices in both Mexico and the U.S.

A Department of Labor spokesperson offered a different take. "Employers are and will continue to be responsible for providing a workplace free of known health and safety hazards," the spokesperson says, adding that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's preexisting general-safety standards and CDC guidelines are used to determine workplace safety violations. OSHA is an agency within the Labor Department.

Farm industry groups are apprehensive of any increased federal regulation.

"I don't think OSHA would be able to have some sort of mandatory regulation that wouldn't disadvantage some farmers," says Allison Crittenden, director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Farms have already put many COVID-19 protections in place, she says, "and if these actions are taking place in a voluntary way, we don't see that we need to have a mandatory requirement."

Difficulties in accessing health care

Migrant farmworkers, despite occupying an essential link in the country's food supply chain, often aren't provided with workplace benefits like health insurance or paid sick leave.

Saul, the Virginia tobacco farmworker, says he didn't believe he has any health insurance. If he gets sick, he would need to tell his farm employer, who would then have to drive him to the doctor. The closest city to the farm is 15 miles away. Who is responsible for these costs the worker or the farm depends on individual circumstances.

Many farms employ mostly Latino workers, and CDC data illustrates that it's much more likely for Hispanic or Latino people to be infected, hospitalized or die from COVID complications than white people. Experts also warn that because the COVID pandemic is disproportionately affecting people of color, it could widen preexisting health disparities.

Fresh Harvest farm laborers harvest romaine lettuce on a machine with heavy plastic dividers that separate workers from each other in Greenfield, California, April 27, 2020. Brent Stirton/Getty Images hide caption

Also, seeking a doctor's care can feel risky for migrant farmworkers. Workers who are undocumented may worry about being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while workers who have green cards may be concerned about the Trump administration's "public charge rule." This controversial rule weighs immigrants' use of public programs, including health care, against their applications for citizenship. However, the federal government has said seeking treatment for COVID-19 wouldn't fall under the rule.

And while contact tracing is important to stop the spread of COVID-19 among farmworkers, many health departments don't have translators on staff who can speak Spanish or Indigenous Central American languages, nor has there been a systematic nationwide tracking of farmworker outbreaks thus far, as has been done with long-term care facilities outbreaks.

So "it's really hard to get a grasp on how many farmworkers specifically are testing positive," says Guild with Farmworker Justice.

That could be an issue for tracing outbreaks, especially as the harvesting season ramps up for certain crops and farms bolster their workforces.

At the end of July, almost 90 additional temporary workers arrived at Jones & Church Farms to help harvest tomatoes through October, says Jones Rogers. Though the 10 workers who had COVID-19 have recovered, she says she's scared that if more get the disease, there won't be enough housing to keep sick workers separate from others or enough healthy workers to harvest the crops.

"Tomatoes don't wait until everyone is feeling good to be harvested," says Jones Rogers.

Reporter Carmen Heredia Rodriguez and Katie Saviano provided Spanish translation assistance for this story.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Farm Workers Harvest Crops With Few Protections From The Coronavirus : Shots - Health News - NPR

Executive Order on Fighting the Spread of COVID-19 by Providing Assistance to Renters and Homeowners  Whitehouse.gov

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Executive Order on Fighting the Spread of COVID-19 by Providing Assistance to Renters and Homeowners - Whitehouse.gov

The report, published on Wednesday by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant and 1Vandaag, a current-affairs show, focused on a retirement home where in June almost an entire ward of patients was infected.

Despite wearing face masks continuously except for lunch breaks, 18 staff members were also infected. When a newly installed air-ventilation system was inspected, the health authorities found large quantities of the virus on the mesh covering air intake and extraction units and in its filters.

There is simply no other explanation possible, this is how everybody there got infected, all at the same time, through aerosols, said Maurice de Hond, a data specialist who has long criticized the Dutch health authorities for ignoring spread through aerosols. We need to realize this before autumn comes and more people will gather indoors.

It is unclear why the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment has kept its findings secret, but it did tacitly adjust the guidelines for ventilation, according to De Volkskrant. Three days after the report was released internally, the organization started publicly advising to avoid recirculation of air in spaces where several people are present, and refresh the air as often as possible.

Reporting was contributed by Maria Abi-Habib, Geneva Abdul, Hannah Beech, Emily Bobrow, Keith Bradsher, Luke Broadwater, Emma Bubola, Julia Calderone, Benedict Carey, Niraj Chokshi, Emily Cochrane, Patricia Cohen, Melissa Eddy, Thomas Erdbrink, Jacey Fortin, Sheera Frenkel, Maggie Haberman, Mike Ives, Cecilia Kang, Annie Karni, David Leonhardt, Patrick J. Lyons, Tiffany May, Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, Constant Mheut, Sarah Mervosh, Saw Nang, Richard C. Paddock, Eileen Sullivan, Jim Tankersley, Pranshu Verma, Neil Vigdor, Sui-Lee Wee, Katherine J. Wu, Ceylan Yeginsu, Elaine Yu and Karen Zraick.

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Hours of Talks on U.S. Coronavirus Relief End With No Deal - The New York Times

As California surpassed 10,000 coronavirus deaths this week, the head of the states Health and Human Services Agency, Dr. Mark Ghaly, said a breakdown in the main disease reporting system had undercounted as many as 300,000 test results.

Our data system failed, and that failure led to inaccurate case numbers, Dr. Ghaly said.

The malfunctions in the data system were compounded in recent days by huge backlogs in testing in some California counties results are taking more than two weeks to process muddying the overall picture of the viruss progression in the nations most populous state.

The breakdown dates to July 25, when a server failed, and the agency separately stopped receiving data from one of the largest labs in the state, Dr. Ghaly said. The missing data, which could amount to thousands of positive test results not previously recorded, would be added to the system within days, he said.

With well over 500,000 cases and 10,042 deaths, California has the third highest coronavirus death toll in the United States, behind New York, which has had more than 32,000 deaths, and New Jersey with over 15,000, according to a New York Times database. On a per capita basis, California ranks 29th in reported coronavirus deaths.

Despite the undercounting of cases, officials say they believe the overall encouraging trends reported by Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier in the week still hold. Mr. Newsom had reported a decline of more than 20 percent in the seven-day average of cases.

We believe that the trend has been stabilizing and coming down, Dr. Ghaly said, an assessment partly based on hospitalization rates, which are calculated using separate data systems.

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Covid-19 Live Updates: Global Tracker - The New York Times

Tony Potts, 69, a retiree from Ormond Beach, Fla., receives his first Moderna COVID-19 vaccine shot Tuesday as part of the company's phase three clinical trial. Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images hide caption

Tony Potts, 69, a retiree from Ormond Beach, Fla., receives his first Moderna COVID-19 vaccine shot Tuesday as part of the company's phase three clinical trial.

How much will vaccines against the coronavirus cost? Even though none has finished clinical testing, some clues about pricing are starting to emerge.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Moderna, one of the leading horses in the vaccine race, has already made deals at between $32 and $37 per dose of its experimental coronavirus vaccine in agreements with some foreign countries, rattling consumer advocates, who fear an unfair deal for U.S. taxpayers.

These Moderna prices reflected "smaller volume agreements," Moderna CEO Stphane Bancel said during a conference call Wednesday to discuss the company's second-quarter financial results. He added that the price would come down for larger volume agreements, hinting at a lower price for U.S. taxpayers.

Still, advocates are worried. Moderna has been developing its vaccine with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of help from the federal government.

In mid-April, the drugmaker won a $483 million award from BARDA, the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, toward research and development of its coronavirus vaccine. And that award could ultimately be worth almost $1 billion if the company meets all its goals under the contract, according to federal records.

Moderna has been working on its vaccine with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which anticipates spending an additional $410 million on the effort. This includes money for preclinical and early clinical research, but the bulk of it is going toward the crucial phase three clinical trial that began on July 27 and will include up to 30,000 people.

Given the upfront investment in the Moderna vaccine by the government, there are sharp questions about its eventual pricing. "It's a classic example of taxpayers paying twice for medicines," says Zain Rizvi, a law and policy researcher at Public Citizen focused on pharmaceuticals. "Now it wants to turn around and charge those very same taxpayers the highest public price for a potential COVID-19 [vaccine]. That's outrageous."

The federal government has been announcing procurement agreements over the past few months with pharmaceutical companies that are part of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's push to have a vaccine widely available by January. So far, the prices implied by publicly released deals work out to between $4 and $20 per dose.

Moderna's procurement contract with the United States hasn't been announced, but a company spokesperson told NPR in an email that it is "committed to responsible pricing."

Pfizer's agreement with the federal government is the most lucrative to date. The government agreed to buy 100 million doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, being developed with German biotech firm BioNTech, for $1.95 billion. That works out to about $20 per dose.

Since Pfizer's contract did not include research funding from the federal government, it's not under the same pressure as some of the other vaccine makers to keep prices low for U.S. taxpayers.

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are expected to require two doses to protect against the coronavirus.

On July 21, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., asked vaccine manufacturers at a House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing whether they would commit to selling their vaccines "at cost," meaning for no profit.

She turned to Moderna's president, Stephen Hoge, first. "We will not sell it at cost," he replied.

"You will what?" she asked.

"We will not sell it at cost," he repeated. "No, ma'am."

Merck also declined to make this pledge during the hearing. AstraZeneca said its existing deal with the U.S. didn't generate a profit, and Johnson & Johnson said it wouldn't make a profit "during the pandemic."

Moderna views pricing of its coronavirus vaccine in two stages: the pandemic period and the endemic period, CEO Bancel said Wednesday during the conference call.

"At Moderna, like many public health experts, we believe that SARS-CoV-2 virus is not going away, and that there will be a need to vaccinate people or give them a boost for many years to come," he told investors.

During the pandemic period, he said the vaccine would be priced "well below value," but afterward, it would be more in line "with other innovative commercial vaccines." That means prices could go up.

That two-tiered pricing outlook highlights the U.S. government's misstep in failing to add reasonable pricing clauses to its contracts with drugmakers, says Kathryn Ardizzone, a lawyer with Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit public interest group that works on intellectual property issues.

"The reality is that this is not just a free market arrangement," she says. "The U.S. government has put up a billion dollars towards the development of the vaccine, and in doing so, should have realized that it has significant leverage and [negotiated] contract terms that are favorable to the American public and worldwide."

Not everyone agrees. Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason University who specializes in intellectual property, says efforts to control vaccine and drug prices during the COVID-19 pandemic could have ripple effects in the biopharmaceutical industry, ultimately stifling innovation.

He says it's a slippery slope to say taxpayers are paying twice for pharmaceuticals because they also financed part of the research. "Because the government is involved in everything in our society, the principles we're establishing would justify the government to dictate prices on not just medicines but also on all products and services from automobiles to smartphones," he says.

It's not clear exactly how much of the bill taxpayers are footing for Moderna's vaccine. Under its contract with BARDA, Moderna is required to disclose regularly the proportion of its funding that comes from the federal government. Public Citizen and Knowledge Ecology International say it hasn't.

"It appears to be violating that contract and implicitly downplayed the critical role of federal scientists in its press releases," Public Citizen's Rizvi said. "This is shocking in some way, but it's also just another example of the erasure of publicly funded science that large pharmaceutical corporations often do."

Gary Disbrow, BARDA's acting director, replied to the groups Thursday night.

"The trust of the American people is vital in the all-of-America response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," Disbrow wrote, stressing his colleagues' commitment to transparency regarding vaccine development. "The contracting officer responsible for the Moderna contract has been in touch with the company and will ensure their compliance with their contractual requirements."

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Vaccine Prices For COVID-19 Begin To Emerge : Shots - Health News - NPR

CHICAGO The state reported 2,084 new cases of coronavirus during the past day, the most its had in months.

The last time Illinois saw more than 2,000 cases in a single day was May 24, when the state was just coming off its COVID-19 peak. But officials have warned for weeks now Illinois is seeing a resurgence; even Friday, Gov. JB Pritzker said this is a make or break moment for the state of Illinois.

The new cases mean Illinois has now seen a total of 190,508 confirmed cases of coronavirus.

Also during the past day, 21 more people died, including a man in his 30s in Cook County. There have been at least 7,613 deaths from coronavirus in Illinois.

The states positivity rate ticked up slightly to 4.1 percent.

As of Thursday night, 1,486 people were hospitalized with coronavirus in Illinois, including 333 people in the ICU and 125 people on ventilators.

Pritzker is increasing his push to get people to wear masks across Illinois in hopes it will prevent further spread of COVID-19. During a Friday press conference, he announced hes proposing rules that could see businesses fined up to $2,500 if they dont enforce mask wearing and gathering size rules.

Most people and businesses have complied with the states restrictions, which are meant to prevent the spread of coronavirus, Pritzker said. But he wants to crack down on businesses that arent following those rules.

While Illinois has made progress in its fight against coronavirus, the minority of people who refuse to act responsibly are putting others at risk, Pritzker said.

The most new cases are being seen among younger people and in central and southern Illinois, officials have said.

Block Club Chicagos coronavirus coverage is free for all readers. Block Club is an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom.

Subscribe to Block Club Chicago. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicagos neighborhoods.

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2084 Coronavirus Cases Reported In Illinois As Pritzker Warns This Is 'Make Or Break Moment' - Block Club Chicago

Some party organizers have tried to respond to public concern: Covid-19 measure been taken, said a message in the WhatsApp group about Fridays event. A station at the entry will be at your disposition with facial mask and hydro alcoholic gel, it added. These were not in evidence on arrival, and only a dozen or so attendees wore masks. For most, the coronavirus seemed far from their minds.

Dancers were packed tightly in front of a D.J. In the middle of the improvised dance floor, a tall man stood with his eyes closed, moving his arms like a birds wings, transported by the music. People chatted to each other for a moment, then hugged, instant friends. Occasionally a balloon drifted above the dance floor, filled with nitrous oxide, the partys drug of choice.

One attendee, a 25-year-old architect who asked not to be named in case he was thrown out of the WhatsApp group, said hed been going to illegal raves for a couple of years. Last year, it was smaller, he said. Everybody just wants to get out now, I suppose.

Pubs and restaurants in Britain had reopened, he added, but no one in authority was thinking about dance-music culture. He would have thought twice about going to an indoor or boat party, he said, but outdoor ones seemed fine.

As the night went on, more people arrived, even a man on crutches. Someone climbed a tree at one point, and the music stopped while a security guard ordered him down. That was the closest the event came to an incident until, around 4 a.m., three police officers turned up, shining flashlights across the crowd.

They left as quickly as they arrived, but their presence was enough to send some home.

About 20 minutes later, the police returned 20 officers this time and stood in the path to the clearing. One officer said theyd agreed with the D.J. that he could keep playing until 4:30 a.m.

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At Europes Illegal Parties, Coronavirus Is the Last Thing on Anyones Mind - The New York Times

Will a "sanitizing mist" really protect the Denver Broncos against the Covid-19 coronavirus? (Photo ... [+] by Justin Edmonds/Getty Images)

You may have mist it. But a video went viral on social media, showing Denver Broncos players walking through a sanitizing mist before going to practice. Here is the tweet from the Broncos complete with what appears to be a snort emoji:

Hopefully that emoji isnt snorting out the Covid-19 coronavirus.

Presumably the mist is supposed to protect against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) and is not just some kind of fragrance nectar mist to help everyone smell nice before practice. But how much protection will it really offer and whats the scientific evidence that it works and is safe?

Well, according to Lorenzo Reyes, reporting for USA TODAY, this mist was manufactured by the company SKN BioPharma. The companys website has a Science section that says, Our MicroSure products use fast-acting nano-particulate silica that prevents bacteria and virus particles from attaching to surfaces. It claims that their methods can create a chemically inert solution that can be applied harmlessly to almost any surface. The website says that the solution when sprayed on something can form a layer of crystalline structures- let's call them spikes- that penetrate the cell wall of biologically dangerous organisms, resulting in a process we call a mechanical kill.

OK, lets call them spikes then. Regardless, the website doesnt offer much verifiable scientific data to back these claims. The website offers a link to a document entitled Human Safety and The Nanotechnology Utilized by Microsure and Microbioshield Antimicrobial Solutions. However, the document appears to be written by the company. It mentions that their products were also tested by researchers at The University of Liverpool, but doesnt specify who exactly these researchers were or what their qualifications may be. For example, an English romantic novel researcher at the University of Liverpool would not be quite the same as an infectious disease researcher. A researcher with one year of experience would not the same as someone with ten years. After all, if someone had told you, a football player from Denver will be quarterbacking your team, you would want to know if that person were Broncos quarterback Drew Lock or just some person who happened to throw a toy football at a Denver-area Dave and Busters.

The website doesnt provide any documents specifically from the researchers either. There also arent any references to peer-reviewed scientific publications that include the results of any testing. It would also be helpful to see peer-reviewed scientific publications that describe how the technology was developed in the first place and scientific evidence of its mechanisms and safety.

Regarding the safety of the product, the document mentions that the following animal tests were performed, but does not specify the types of animals. This is kind of important because all animals arent the same. If your significant other told you, I brought an animal home with me, youd probably want to know if the animal were a gerbil or a rhinoceros. Plus, results from testing in other animals may not necessarily hold for humans.

The document offered very scant details about how exactly these animal safety studies were performed. For example, it says that there was no eye irritation and no skin irritation, but does not specify what and how many animals were used or who performed these experiments under what conditions. Also, how specifically was skin irritation measured? A gerbil isnt going to say, dude, my back itches.

Also how long might this layer of lets call them spikes stay on surfaces and still be able to do its mechanical kill thing? Can the layer survive the sunlight, the wind, and other outdoors conditions? How about sweat and dirt? So right now the scientific evidence behind the safety and effectiveness of this mist is dare we say mistifying. It would be helpful to see more verifiable scientific evidence thats been reviewed by reputable third parties. Im reaching out to the company to see if additional information is available and will update accordingly.

Even if this technology were to work and be safe, it isnt clear whether it would make that big a difference. After all, the lets call them spikes would only be on the players skin and not over their nostrils and mouths. They can still cough, sneeze, pant, talk, and breathe out the virus if they are infected. Such viruses can then get into other peoples nostrils and mouths since the lets call them spikes cant really block their entry.

Such a mist would not eliminate or even reduce the need for social distancing, face masks/coverings, and active cleaning of surfaces with disinfectants that appear on the Environmental Protection Agencys (EPAs) List N: Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Dont make the mist-ake of trusting a disnfectant thats not on List N.

Tom Brady (12) of the Buccaneers talks with Mike Evans (13) during the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Training ... [+] Camp on August 04, 2020 at the AdventHealth Training Center in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

It seems like social distancing could be a challenge in football. Defensive players cant quite coax a running back or quarterback to drop the the ground while staying at least six feet away. Saying excuse me, you with the ball, kindly lay down doesnt quite work. Remember Denzel Washington is about six feet tall. So, tackling a person at least one Denzel away would be tough, unless you had a really loud voice.

In general, if you are going to be able to maintain a Denzel distance from someone else, both of you need to remain in a social bubble. A social bubble is a group of people who have agreed to only mix with other and maintain behaviors that wont introduce the virus into the bubble. That means no close mixing with anyone outside the bubble, washing your hands frequently and thoroughly, and keeping everything disinfected. Choose your bubble mates carefully, because one misstep could pop the bubble and lead to an outbreak.

There are a lot of people out there making claims about products, suggesting that they can protect you against the SARS-CoV2. In all cases, check the science and the details. Is there real verifiable evidence that the product actually works and is safe to use. Who exactly did the testing and are they independent of the company? Where are the results and have they been published in peer-reviewed scientific publications? Without seeing this evidence, claims can remain quite foggy.

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Will Sanitizing Mists Really Protect Denver Broncos Against Covid-19 Coronavirus? - Forbes

Need to stay updated on coronavirus news in Texas? Our evening roundup will help you stay on top of the day's latest updates. Sign up here.

The only Texas prison that hasnt had any staff or inmates test positive for the new coronavirus is the same one where inmates make soap and package hand sanitizer for the states lockups. Prisoners arent allowed to use the latter.

How this one unit seemingly remains untouched by a virus that has ravaged the states prison system, however, has been credited not to its soap factory, but to the prisons location and the wardens strict enforcement of the Texas Department of Criminal Justices coronavirus policy. Meanwhile, those inside prisons with hundreds of infected inmates have long reported dangerous practices. In lawsuits and letters, they have described officers without face masks, forced intermingling between infected and healthy prisoners, and limits to soap and cleaning supplies.

Texas leads the nation in prison deaths connected to the coronavirus, with a higher death toll than the federal lockups or any other state prison system. At least 112 Texas prisoners and 16 people who worked in prison units have died with the virus.

The Roach Unit is one of Texas more than 100 state-run prisons and jails, housing about 1,300 incarcerated men in the rural town of Childress in the Texas Panhandle. But none of the more than 17,700 state inmates who have tested positive for the virus were housed at Roach, according to a prison spokesperson. Nor have any of the nearly 3,700 infected prison employees worked at the unit.

Weve been lucky so far that here in the community of Childress there hasnt been a big number of coronavirus cases, said Ricardo Gutierrez, a 36-year-old inmate at the Roach Unit, in response to questions sent by The Texas Tribune. I think that helps out a lot to not get the staff infected.

After inmate visitation was canceled statewide, and most prison system transfers and all intake from county jails were temporarily halted in March and April, epidemiologists said most new prison infections were likely coming in through prison employees who contracted the virus in their communities. Childress County, with a population of about 7,000, has had only 37 people test positive for the coronavirus, according to data from the state health department.

TDCJ spokesperson Jeremy Desel said being geographically isolated helps protect the unit from the virus, but he added there is still significant traffic there for distribution of materials they produce.

In a March promotional video, TDCJ highlighted the Roach Units soap and detergent factory as an essential tool to protect against the coronavirus, showing factory machines and some of the 84 inmates who work without pay to produce things like bar soap, laundry detergent, dish soap and bleach to distribute throughout the Texas prison system and sell. Soap? We have plenty! the video title boasted.

The top way to help stop COVID-19 is simple! Wash your hands!The Centers for Disease Control says to vigorously wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds often. Soap? We have plenty!Not just a stock pile, TDCJ produces soap that is made at the Roach Unit daily. #tdcj #washhands #RoachUnit

The next month, inmates in the factory also began repackaging hand sanitizer for prison employees to use, Desel said. TDCJ has steadfastly refused to allow inmates access to hand sanitizer, part of what prompted a federal lawsuit and four-week trial scrutinizing TDCJs handling of the pandemic. Prison attorneys have argued inmates could get drunk from the hand sanitizer or use it as an accelerant to set fires. Inmates attorneys have rejected those premises, saying such abuses are rare in lockups that allow it.

Aside from its location, though, Desel said Roach is doing the same things that all units are doing to stop COVID. But prisoners tell a different story.

Since March, inmates at numerous other prisons have told their loved ones and the Tribune that staff members have only partially enforced the policies put in place by prison officials to wear masks, regularly sanitize, and stay a safe distance apart in places like dorms, showers and hallways. Many inmates have reported that officers wore masks pulled down to their chins, prisoners were taken to the showers in large groups, and inmates who tested positive for the virus were sometimes housed with those who tested negative.

But at Roach, Gutierrez said the staff are not messing around. He said in a few instances where coronavirus was suspected, the sick inmate would be promptly removed and tested, and the men on the wing the inmate lived in would be quarantined for a few days until the tests came back negative, with nurses in protective gear regularly checking them for symptoms.

Theyre doing everything that the government has mandated: social distancing, the masks, sanitizing everything, he said. This warden has gone above and beyond to make sure that everything is being done right.

Gutierrez said he gets the typical weekly amount of soap five small bars stuffed into a toilet paper roll on Friday. But since the pandemic hit the state, he said Roach inmates also get more soap and a surface cleaner every Tuesday, and more is available at lunch in the dining hall. He said inmates also were still able to go to recreation and go to common rooms, but in much smaller groups.

Michele Deitch, a senior lecturer and prison conditions expert at the University of Texas' LBJ School of Public Affairs and law school, said Gutierrezs description could make the Roach Unit a powerful example of the ways in which following TDCJ policies can help prevent an outbreak. On Thursday, 20 TDCJ lockups each had more than 300 inmates who had tested positive for the virus, with active infections often reported in large clusters of hundreds of people at once. Three units housed more than 700 inmates who had tested positive.

The official protocols may be the same throughout the system, but ultimately there are huge differences in the degree to which particular facilities are following those protocols, she said. If they are taking the steps that they should be taking, they can reduce the spread of it within the facility if it does come in it doesnt have to become like a spread of wildfire.

The University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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The Roach Unit is the only Texas prison reporting zero coronavirus cases - The Texas Tribune