Category: Covid-19

When imagining cutting edge innovation, many Americans may picture scientists creating the COVID-19 vaccine or engineers at Tesla designing a first-of-its-kind electric truck. Many, however, would not imagine the drone delivery system in Rwanda that delivers blood and essential medical items to regions inaccessible by road, or Indian train cars converted into makeshift COVID-19 medical facilities. These frugal innovations are fundamentally different from most innovations developed in the U.S. as they aim to do more with less in resource-constrained contexts faced by many low- and middle-income countries.

The current pandemic has highlighted the necessity of applying similar innovations in the developed world. For example, the U.S. initially struggled to support communities in acquiring enough masks, personal protective equipment, and ventilators. A recent Nature Medicine article identifies frugal innovations used to address these challenges like 3D-printed ventilator multipliers that could provide urgent therapy for up to seven patients per ventilator machine, do-it-yourself cloth masks, and training community health workers for local contact tracing and COVID-19 testing.

These developments suggest a need for a reimagining of our approach to innovation. For example, drones are highly regulated and have restrictions to acquiring suitable flight permits. Furthermore, organizations like the Food and Drug Administration, although critical to population safety, can be slow in approving medications and medical devices. Even pro-competition antitrust laws that are important to ensuring competitive markets may prevent information sharing and collaboration between companies when rapid responses are needed.

These regulations are changing in the face of the pandemic. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has allowed for drone use in select response efforts. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is now allowing telehealth visits to be reimbursed during the duration of the pandemic. Even the Department of Health and Human Services has stated it will limit enforcement of strict patient privacy laws like HIPAA to ensure care access is not prevented.

Although these changes are not permanent, it is unlikely that the regulatory environment will return to pre-pandemic conditions, presenting opportunities to exploit. For instance, Simprints built a fingerprint-based tool to track the spread and treatment of neglected diseases. Without accurate information, it is hard to actively address communicable diseases. There are many marginalized populations in the U.S. who face similar challenges and only access the health system once they are already extremely sick.

These innovations extend beyond just the field of healthcare. In Kenyas education technology space, M-Shule provides education access to students through text messaging. Using an AI algorithm, the company personalizes education for even poor and remote students, better preparing them to be successful during national examinations. Such creative solutions that promote social distancing may be even more important in the COVID-19 era.

Since innovations like these are being tested in settings much harsher than that of the U.S., they may find success domestically as well. Even the most advanced U.S. industries sometimes rely on a less-is-more approach. NASA and Lockheed Martin found that simply leaving off the white paint from early iterations of the space shuttles external fuel tank saved nearly 600 pounds of weight. Similarly, in the aftermath of 9/11, the FAA recognized that reinforcing cockpit doors and adding a door locking protocol were effective security measures to prevent repeat tragedies. Innovation can be simple.

Despite the vague nature of frugal innovations, it is possible to recognize some common themes. First, innovators should aim to build adaptable and flexible technologies that can be used in scarce contexts. M-Pesa, for instance, is a mobile-money transfer system that opened access to financial services for a significant portion of Kenyas poor and rural populations. This tool has simplified banking services and reduced the need to visit a physical bank branch. Second, innovations dont have to be sophisticated to be useful. Basic cloth masks are often sufficient to reduce viral spread instead of producing additional medical grade PPE. Lastly, innovators should consider the repurposing of current tools for new contexts, such as the hundreds of U.S. distilleries that have shifted to making hand sanitizer during the pandemic.

The benefits of frugal innovations in developed countries can extend beyond the resource constraints of the pandemic. These innovations are often cheaper than current alternatives and increase accessibility to populations usually excluded from traditional service offerings. This reimagined innovation can further segment industry marketplaces and create new economic opportunities for companies to pursue, such as expanding telehealth access. Furthermore, these solutions allow for reform of current financially constraining protocols, such as using 3D-printed ventilator multipliers to make better use of the expensive equipment. Although COVID-19 has challenged us in many ways, this pandemic is an opportunity to reimagine innovation going forward to address the current and future problems facing our nation.

The rest is here:

Reimagining innovation to navigate COVID-19 - Brookings Institution

Patient groups on social media are fighting COVID-19 misinformation. Jub Rubjob/Getty Images hide caption

Patient groups on social media are fighting COVID-19 misinformation.

For decades, people struggling with illnesses of all kinds have sought help in online support groups, and during 2020, such groups have been in high demand for COVID-19 patients, who often must recover in isolation.

But the fear and uncertainty regarding the coronavirus have made online groups targets for the spread of false information. And to help fellow patients, some of these groups are making a mission of stamping out misinformation.

Shortly after Matthew Long-Middleton got sick on March 12, he joined a COVID-19 support group run by an organization called Body Politic on the messaging platform Slack.

"I had no idea where this road leads, and so I was looking for support and other theories and some places where people were going through a similar thing, including the uncertainty, and also the thing of like, we have to figure this out for ourselves," says Long-Middleton, 36, an avid cyclist who lives in Kansas City, Missouri. His illness started with chest discomfort, then muscle weakness, high fever, loss of appetite and digestive problems.

But with the support came misinformation. Group members reported taking massive amounts of vitamins including Vitamin D which can be harmful in excess or trying other home remedies not backed by science.

Experts warn that such false or unverified information spread on online support groups can not only mislead patients, but also potentially undermine trust in science and medicine in general.

"Even if we're not actively seeking information, we encounter these kinds of messages on social media, and because of this repeated exposure, there's more likelihood that it's going to seep into our thinking and perhaps even change the way that we view certain issues, even if there's no real merit or credibility," says Elizabeth Glowacki, a health communication researcher at Northeastern University.

In an effort to help fellow COVID-19 sufferers, some patients, like Vanessa Cruz, spend most of their days fact checking their online support groups.

"It's really become like a second family to me and being able to help everybody is a positive thing that comes out of all this negativity we're experiencing right now," Cruz says.

Cruz, a 43-year-old mother of two, moderates the Facebook COVID-19 support group "have it/had it" from her home in the Chicago suburbs. She's also a "long-hauler," and has been dealing with COVID-19 symptoms, including fatigue, fever and confusion since March.

The worldwide group has more than 30,000 members and has recently been buzzing with reports from India about treating COVID-19 with a common tapeworm medication (it's not FDA-approved and there's little evidence it works) as well as speculation about President Trump's recent diagnosis.

Other troubling posts include people pushing hydroxychloroquine, which has not been proven to be effective in treating COVID-19, and sharing the viral video "America's Frontline Doctors" which promotes other unproven treatments and spreads conspiracy theories.

Cruz says supporting fellow patients can be a tricky balance of getting the facts right, but also giving people who are scared the chance to be heard.

"It's like you really don't know what to question, what to ask for, how to reach for help," Cruz says. "Instead of doing that, they just, they write up their story, basically, and they share it with everybody."

To keep the group evidence-based, it has built up a 17-person fact checking team, which includes two nurses and a biologist, that reviews every post that goes up.

However, many online COVID-19 groups don't have the resources or strategy to address misinformation.

Mel Montano, a 32-year-old writing instructor who lives in New York and has also felt sick since March, says she left a large Facebook support group because she was frustrated by the conspiracy theories that filled its posts.

"All of these conflicting theories completely took away from the focal point of it," Montano explains. "It was a mess. It was [like] being on one of those conspiracy theory pages or channels, and it was just not for me."

Montano is now a moderator of the Body Politic group on Slack.

Facebook and Twitter have made changes in their approaches toward COVID-19 misinformation, including additional fact checking, removing posts that contain falsehoods and removing users or groups that spread them.

However, critics say more changes are needed.

Fadi Quran, campaign director of Avaaz, a human rights group that focuses on disinformation campaigns, says Facebook needs to revise the way it prioritizes content.

"Facebook's algorithm prefers misinformation, prefers the sensational stuff that's going to get clicks and likes and make people angry," Quran says. "And so the misinformation actors, because of Facebook, will always have the upper hand."

A study by Avaaz showed that misinformation and disinformation had been viewed on Facebook four times as often as information from official health groups, like the World Health Organization.

Facebook did not respond to inquiries for this story.

COVID-19 patient Matthew Long-Middleton thinks the problem goes deeper than getting the data right. He says a lot of bad information is spread because patients so badly want to find ways to feel better.

After nearly six months of symptoms, Long-Middleton says he's returned to better health in the past month, though he continues to check in on fellow support group members who are still struggling.

He never tried risky treatments discussed in the group himself, but he understands why someone might.

"You want to find hope, but you don't want the hope to lead you down a path that hurts you," he says.

This story came from a reporting partnership between NPR, Kaiser Health News and KCUR.

Continued here:

Misinformation And Conspiracy Theories Can Spread In COVID-19 Patient Groups : Shots - Health News - NPR

Government health workers hand out Ayurvedic medicine to people who are getting tested for COVID-19 in Gurugram, a city in northern India, in May.

By Priyanka PullaOct. 15, 2020 , 6:55 AM

Reporting for this story was supported by a journalism grant from the Thakur Family Foundation, which has not exercised any editorial control over the contents of this report.

The Indian health ministryhas begun to recommend traditional remediesto tackle the countrys COVID-19 outbreak, dismaying many Indian doctors and scientists. On 6 October, health minister Harsh Vardhan released recommendations for preventing COVID-19 and treating mild cases based on Ayurveda, Indias millenniaold system of herbal medicine, triggering sharp criticism from the Indian Medical Association (IMA), a group of more than one-quarter of a million modern medicine practitioners.

In a press release, IMAdemanded Vardhan produce evidenceof the treatments efficacy; if hes unable to do so, the associationwrote, Vardhan is inflicting a fraud on the nation and gullible patients by calling placebos as drugs.Recommending any drug without evidence for a deadly disease that has claimed more than 100,000 Indian lives is a dangerous trend, adds C. S. Pramesh, a thoracic surgeon and the director of Mumbais Tata Memorial Centre. The government has no shortage of studies to point to, but Pramesh and others dismiss them as unconvincing.

The Indian governments push for Ayurveda is in line with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Partys mission to revive traditional medicine. Since 2014, when the Hindu nationalist party was elected to power, it has upgraded a government department for alternative medicine to the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH), and more than tripled its annual budgetto almost $290 million.

Developed by the AYUSH ministry, the COVID-19 advisory includes treatments such as clarified butter applied inside the nostrils; a hot concoction of pepper, ginger, and other herbs; and a patented formulation called Ayush-64. The latter, a mixture of four herbs, was developed in the 1980s for malaria by the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS), now a body under the AYUSH ministry.

Although last weeks protocol only recommends the remedies for mild disease, it says moderately and severely ill patients can make an informed choice about using Ayurveda as well, and refers readers to another Ayurvedaguideline documentthat prescribes similar herbal interventions for people with severe manifestations of COVID-19 such as respiratory distress and pneumonia.During a recent press conference, the AYUSH ministrys secretary, Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, claimed the remedies were supported by dozens of in vitro, animal, and human studies, listedin a report onthe ministrys website.

But almost all the human studies are small and uncontrolled, critics say. These are con trials and faked studies, says Cyriac Abby Philips, a hepatologist at Keralas Ernakulam Medical Centre.

For example, in one of the studies the AYUSH ministry cites as support for Ayush-64,published in theJournal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine, the investigators gave the drug to 38 patients with flu symptoms.There was no control arm, and some of the patients on Ayush-64 also received paracetamol and other modern drugs, making it impossible to tease out the effects of each.

In another study, published in 1982, investigators gave 29 malaria patients Ayush-64, while 30 received modern antimalarials, including chloroquine. The investigators noted that whereas all the patients on modern drugs were cured, only 72% on Ayush-64 responded. Nothing about the study supports Ayush-64s efficacy in malaria, Philips says.

And in any case, clinical studies for malaria and other diseases cannot be extrapolated to COVID-19, says Gagandeep Kang, a microbiologist at Christian Medical College, Vellore, who helped develop and test Indias first rotavirus vaccine. All diseases are not the same, she says.

N. Srikanth, an Ayurvedic practitioner and a deputy director general at CCRAS, tellsScienceInsiderthat trials of Ayurvedic therapies for COVID-19 are underway.And on 9 October, an association of government Ayurvedic scientists said IMAs claim that Ayurvedic drugs were no better than placebos was rigorously condemnable. They pointed out that some modern medical practitioners continue to use drugs such as hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, even though there is little evidence for their efficacy. (Indias health ministryrecommended hydroxychloroquineboth as treatment and prevention for the pandemic coronavirus in March, based on a few small and inconclusive clinical trials, a decision it didnt roll back after subsequent larger studies failed to bear out their advice.)

Pramesh dismisses that argument as whataboutery. Any system of medicine, whether modern or alternative, must back up claims of efficacy with well-conducted trials, he says. And I have seen very little actual data that shows the medicines being recommended by the AYUSH ministry to be useful.

See the original post here:

'A fraud on the nation': critics blast Indian government's promotion of traditional medicine for COVID-19 - Science Magazine

News Release

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, today launched a study designed to determine whether certain approved therapies or investigational drugs in late-stage clinical development show promise against COVID-19 and merit advancement into larger clinical trials. The ACTIV-5 Big EffectTrial, which will enroll adult volunteers hospitalized with COVID-19 at as many as 40 U.S sites, is being conducted in collaboration with the NIHs public-private partnership Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Innovations and Vaccines (ACTIV) program.

The ACTIV-5/BET study aims to streamline the pathway to finding urgently needed COVID-19 treatments by repurposing either licensed or late-stage-development medicines and testing them in a way that identifies the most promising agents for larger clinical studies in the most expedient way possible, said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.

The Phase 2 adaptive, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial will compare different investigational therapies to a common control arm to determine which experimental treatments have relatively large effects. Approximately 100 hospitalized volunteers will be assigned to each study arm with each of the study sites testing no more than three investigational treatments at once.

The goal here is to identify as quickly as possible the experimental therapeutics that demonstrate the most clinical promise as COVID-19 treatments and move them into larger-scale testing, said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. This study design is both an efficient way of finding those promising treatments and eliminating those that are not.

The trial will test risankizumab, a monoclonal antibody developed by Boehringer Ingelheim (Ridgefield, Connecticut) and AbbVie (North Chicago, Illinois), in conjunction with the antiviral drug remdesivir, compared to a placebo plus remdesivir. The ACTIV-5/BET trial will also test the investigational monoclonal antibody lenzilumab, developed by Humanigen (Burlingame, California), with remdesivir, compared to placebo and remdesivir. Remdesivir has demonstrated clinical benefit for patients with severe COVID-19 requiring supplemental oxygen and is considered standard of care for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-made versions of proteins naturally produced by the immune system in response to invading viruses or other pathogens. Risankizumab was approved in the United States in 2019 for the treatment of severe plaque psoriasis. Lenzilumab is currently being tested separately in a phase 3 COVID-19 study and in a phase 1b/2 study as sequenced therapy with CAR-T treatments.

In the ACTIV-5/BET study, volunteers assigned to receive risankizumab will be administered a single intravenous dose on day one of the study. Study participants assigned to receive lenzilumab will be given a 600 mg intravenous infusion every eight hours for a total of three doses.

The primary purpose of the ACTIV-5/BET study is to evaluate the clinical efficacy of the different investigational therapeutics relative to the control arm in hospitalized adults based on the volunteers clinical status at day eight. The studys secondary point of evaluation is to evaluate the clinical efficacy of the different investigational therapeutics as assessed by the amount of time it takes for each volunteer to recover from COVID-19.

Study volunteers will be assessed daily by clinical staff while hospitalized. Once discharged, the volunteers will have study visits on days 15, 22 and 29 on an outpatient basis, with some of these visits potentially conducted by phone if there are infection control concerns or other restrictions. All volunteers will undergo a series of SARS-CoV-2 tests, including testing of serum and plasma samples and oropharyngeal swabs on day one of the study prior to receiving an investigational therapy and again on days three, five, eight and 11, while hospitalized. These tests will be performed again on days 15 and 29 whether the study volunteer remains hospitalized or returns for clinical follow up as an outpatient.

Study staff will be monitoring volunteers for adverse events, and an independent data safety monitoring board will oversee the trial and conduct periodic reviews throughout its duration.

For more information about the ACTIV-5/BET trial, please visit ClinicalTrials.gov using the identifier NCT04583969.

NIAID conducts and supports researchat NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwideto study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIHTurning Discovery Into Health

###

Read more here:

NIH study aims to identify promising COVID-19 treatments for larger clinical trials - National Institutes of Health

Last week The Exchange dug into recent data concerning the amount of venture capital raised by female founders. As a refresher, the numbers were not good.

In Q3 2020, PitchBook data reported that US-based female founders raised $434 million across 136 rounds. That dollar amount was off from $841 million in Q2 2020, for context. The numbers were a dramatic turnaround from where 2019 left the industry.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

The sharp decline in available capital is slowing the pace at which women are founding new companies in the COVID-19 era. There are other factors at play, new data from the Female Founders Alliance (FFA) indicates, but the funding drought is not helping.

Overall, the pace at which women are indicating that they intend to found a company, according to a group of women that the FFA is tracking longitudinally, is slipping.

FFA, a community of women founders and a startup accelerator working to achieve greater gender diversity in technology, built a sample of 150 women from tech hubs with high likelihood of having entrepreneurial aspirations, according to its dataset. It asked them about their entrepreneurial goals both before COVID-19 arrived, and again this September.

The changes in responses from before the pandemic and today are striking. Lets examine the data in light of what we learned last week concerning capital available for female founders and see what we can find out.

Original post:

How COVID-19 and the resulting recession are impacting female founders - TechCrunch

This years college football season is shaping up to be vastly different than any other in history. While games are being played, crowds are exceptionally limited or nonexistent. Furthermore, there are simply fewer gamesand there is no guarantee of a complete season for any school. The combination of these factors is costing universities tens of millions of dollars and upending the underlying business model of college sports. Universities across the country have already responded by ending many low-revenue sports. This has led to widespread lamentations about the decreased opportunities for intercollegiate athletes who play sports that cannot support themselves financially.

However, if we are serious about caring for intercollegiate athletes, we should begin by reconsidering the corrupt bargain at the heart of modern college sportsone that has been magnified by the pandemic. In a new National Bureau of Economic Research paper that we co-authored with Jordan Keener and Nicole Ozminkowski, we empirically investigate the economic business model of college sports. We find that the prevailing model rests on taking the money generated by athletes who are more likely to be Black and come from low-income neighborhoods and transferring it to sports played by athletes who are more likely to be white and from higher-income neighborhoods. The money is also transferred to coaches and used for the construction of lavish (and perhaps overly lavish) athletic facilities. With COVID-19 shutting off the money spigot, schools are being forced to publicly acknowledge that their athletic departments depend on regressively transferring money from athletes who grew up poor to those who grew up in richer households and to wealthy coaches.

This has led a variety of policy proposals ranging from paying players directly to allowing players to profit off their name and image, breaking a longtime requirement of amateurism in university athletics. Three states have passed legislation that would allow athletes to participate in a range of activities ranging from endorsements to autograph signings. In response to these widespread policy initiatives, the NCAA this week introduced a set of far more limited proposals that would allow college athletes to earn revenue from third parties. But it remains to be seen exactly how these policies would be implemented, and to what extent it would resolve issues of financial inequities for student athletes. Furthermore, these efforts fall short of the athletes bill of rights that was recently proposed by members of the U.S. Senate.

We begin by documenting that college sports operates under two distinct business models. These are documented in Figure 1, which shows the relationship between a schools athletic department revenue and the percentage of that revenue that comes from the university. In the upper-left corner is a set of Division 1 schools that largely resemble the idealistic images of amateur student-athletes competing for school pride. These schools earn relatively low revenues overall, and a large amount of their financial support comes from the university.

A second set of schoolsthose in the lower-right cornerhave exceptionally high revenues and nearly all of those funds are generated by athletic endeavors, activities such as ticket sales, television contracts, and merchandise sales. These schools are all members of the Power Five athletic conferences, a set of schools that have traditionally fielded high-quality athletic programs. From 2006 to 2016, athletic departments at these schools saw their revenue nearly double, rising from $3.5 billion to $6.7 billion.

This difference in business models suggests that optimal policy in this area should distinguish between these two distinct sets of schools when considering how athletes are compensated for their time and efforts. To that end, our subsequent analysis concentrates on the economics of the schools in these Power Five conferences. The athletic departments in these schools resemble commercial enterprises that are generating meaningful economic rents. However, the revenues are largely generated by a small set of athletes. We document that football and mens basketball generate six times more revenue than all other sports combined. These sports, however, enjoy only 1.3 times more spending than other sports at the same school.

This difference between revenues and expenditures demonstrates how the funds generated by football and mens basketball players fund all of the remaining intercollegiate sports at each school. We estimate that the money generated by football and mens basketball causes: increased spending on money-losing sports; higher salaries for coaches and administrators; and increased spending on athletic facilities. Today, the average school in a Power Five conference supports 20 sports, but only two sports consistently pay for themselves, and the revenue generated by these two sports supports the seemingly ever-increasing salaries for coaches and athletic department employees.

Consider the teams playing the greatest college football rivalry gamethe University of Michigan and Ohio State University. (Editors note: This fact is debatable. Authors note: No, it is not.) When these teams met in 2008, their coaching staffs earned $6 million and $5.7 million, respectively. Just 10 years later, these salaries grew to $15.5 million and $17.3 milliona roughly 300% increase. Even the strength and conditioning coaches for each team earned $600,000 and $735,000 a year, respectively. Conversely, the athletes on the field received no salaries for their efforts.

While we support opposite sides of this rivalry, we are united in agreement that this salary growth reflects a system that maximizes profits by limiting intercollegiate athletes compensation to no more than the cost of attending school. The schools share these excess profits with coaches, administrators, and money-losing sports.

Supporters of the current system offer several arguments in favor of the status quo. Some say it is the deal the athletes signed, without acknowledging that collusion among schools through the NCAA limits the options of young athletes. Others claim that supporting other sports, particularly those played by female athletes, has broader societal benefits. Some argue that college athletics is uniquely attractive to fans because of the disingenuous belief that the competitors are just like the other students. Finally, some argue the athletes are already paid because they receive athletic scholarships, as if paying someone any positive amount is sufficient.

These arguments overlook the fundamental injustice created by transferring revenue generated from two sports played disproportionately by Black athletes from poorer neighborhoods to sports where athletes are disproportionately white and from wealthier neighborhoods and to high-income coaches. To approximate the money at stake, we consider as a benchmark a hypothetical situation where athletes could collectively bargain to the same degree as their professional counterparts.

If players in football and mens basketball received a similar share of revenue as NFL and NBA playersroughly 50% of sports-related revenuethen each scholarship football player would earn $360,000 per year and each scholarship basketball player would earn $500,000 per year. If wages by position reflected the relative earnings by position observed in professional sports, the starting quarterbacks would earn $2.4 million per year on average. Even the lowest-paid football players would receive $140,000 per year.

Such a system would create winners and losers. We would expect slower growth in coaches salaries and facilities spending, for example. After all, intercollegiate athletes are currently paid in part with ludicrously lavish athletic facilities, containing features such as lazy rivers and laser tag. Additionally, it may be difficult to continue to abide by Title IX regulations, which require schools to provide equal opportunities for male and female athletes.

Title IX has had numerous positive effects and addressed many clear, historical, gender-based inequities in scholastic athletics. This is true at both the college and the secondary school level. However, optimal policy must consider that equity is a multifaceted concern that involves not just gender, but also important issues such as race and income. When viewed in this light, we believe our estimates demonstrate that, even after one considers the positive benefits for female athletes, the equity of Title IX when applied to an athletic department primarily supported by the efforts for poorer Black athletes is questionable at best. Any effort to reform the NCAA must consider a more nuanced regulatory approach that acknowledges the regressivity and racial injustice that is central to modern college sports.

However, allowing some intercollegiate athletes to share in the fruits of the labor does not stand in the way of continuing to provide meaningful athletic opportunities for athletes participating in sports that currently generate negative net incomes. To illustrate this point, consider that much of the growth in athletic department revenues since 2005 is driven by the increasingly valuable media rights for football and mens basketball. This includes both contracts with traditional networks like ESPN as well as the development of conference-owned channels, such as the Big Ten and SEC networks. This revenue growth is largely unrelated to the athletic success of other sports.

In Figure 2, we show a comparison between the average actual spending on womens sports (the solid line) and estimated spending if the costs of these sports had only grown with inflation (the dashed line) for each school in a Power Five conference. This inflation-adjusted spending is an estimate of the resources necessary for a school to both provide athletic opportunities for female athletes, as well as increase revenue sharing for the athletes necessary to continue providing athletic opportunities for womens sports at the 2006 quality level. For the average school, the difference in this spending amounts to approximately $76,000 per scholarship athlete in football or mens basketball. This thought experiment demonstrates that there is ample revenue to both continue offering non-revenue sports at some level while compensating those responsible for the large growth in funds available to athletic departments.

The pandemic has pulled back the curtain on the ugly business of college sports. Its leaders would like to pretend it remains an amateur endeavor, but they only want to apply those cherished principles of amateurism to the athletes risking their health to generate profits, and not the coaches and administrators who financially benefit from the current system. Addressing this question is even more important as we ask college football players to risk their health to generate the money necessary to perpetuate this fundamentally inequitable system.

Read the original here:

The COVID-19 pandemic is revealing the regressive business model of college sports - Brookings Institution

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said Friday that conference schools can face a cumulative penalty of $1 million as the league continues to enforce COVID-19 sideline protocols and hold head coaches accountable for wearing masks during games.

While Sankey acknowledged that some teams have done well in complying with sideline protocols during games, he compared the overall response to a report card marked "Needs improvement." Multiple SEC schools have already violated the mask-wearing rule and will lose money from their conference revenue distribution, sources told ESPN.

The first offense is $100,000, followed by $200,000, $300,000 and $400,000 for a fourth violation. Sankey said he has focused on "head coaching compliance," but declined to say which schools have already been fined and how much.

"My premise is, our head football coaches are leaders, the most visible people in their programs," he said. "They set the tone. They have that responsibility in this environment."

Sankey said his conversations about this have been with the athletic directors -- not the coaches -- because the campus athletic departments accepted the responsibility for enacting the protocols. Sankey said he is in his third week of "writing memos" to remind each athletic director of the importance of enforcing the protocols.

"First week was, 'After Week 1, there seems to be some misunderstanding, here's a memo of clarification,'" Sankey said. "'Make sure this is widely circulated and everyone understands their responsibility for wearing masks.' The second week was less friendly, with the clarification that accountability can include fines, removal from the sidelines or suspensions. We will impose financial assessments to athletics departments, withholding from conference revenues."

The SEC office has a handful of employees who comb through the broadcast videos each week to monitor the sideline protocols.

"When the coach is on camera, is the mask on? Yes or no? Pretty objective standard," said Sankey, who typically stays in his conference office on Saturdays to watch games, and has reported five negative tests to do that. "Is there any social distancing involved, which to a certain extent can mitigate not wearing a mask, but the mask-wearing expectation is clear.

"In circumstances where the majority of time the head coach is not wearing the mask," he said, "that's where accountability will be applied."

In addition to focusing on the sidelines during televised games, the SEC office has also been paying attention to camera angles showing fans -- some of which can be deceiving, Sankey said, because they often don't show the entire stadium.

Still, he conceded some images of fans in close groups have raised concerns.

"The second week we had some student sections that were just too close together, third week the same," Sankey said. "Each of those weeks we tried to figure out how to provide reminders, clarifications, and one of the questions is, 'Should we be more aggressive from the conference office?' Conference offices don't regulate fan attendance, typically. That's why we, right up front, said it's campus decision-making, local decision-making, state decision-making. Here are some expectations. The question is, what do we have to do to make sure each of our programs is fully engaged in managing those expectations properly? That question comes from the scenes on TV that raise concerns, and rightly so."

It has been a turbulent week for the SEC, as two games -- Vanderbilt vs. Missouri and LSU vs. Florida -- were postponed because of coronavirus outbreaks. Alabama coach Nick Saban and athletic director Greg Byrne announced Wednesday that they had tested positive for the coronavirus.

"There's a lot that goes on in this world right now, so I think I'm through the point of being surprised," he said when asked specifically about Saban. "I had a hurricane last week in the middle of a pandemic. This week I had two games that are postponed. So there's a lot of news that merits reaction, so the answer is no, other than it's 2020."

See the article here:

SEC schools that break COVID-19 protocols can be fined up to $1 million - ESPN

FRISCO, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) A Texan is working to find a possible cure for COVID-19 thats not so unusual. The fact that the researcher is 14-years-old and is now being recognized nationally, well thats a little different.

Anika Chebrolu, a student at Independence High School in Frisco, recently won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge and $25,000.

I developed this molecule that can bind to a certain protein on the SARS COVID-2 virus, Chebrolu explained. This protein by binding to it it will stop the function of the protein I started with a database of over 682 million compounds.

The 14-year-old was only in middle school when she entered the contest months ago and originally planned her project to involve the seasonal flu. She later changed it to COVID-19 and says she was driven by the scope of the pandemic and the people who were suffering.

We just always have this constant fear whos going to be affect by the coronavirus, Chebrolu said.

She describes herself as a typical teenager who plans to pursue a career as a medical researcher when she gets out of school.

My grandpa when I was younger he always used to push me toward science. He was actually a chemistry professor and he used to always tell me learn the periodic table of elements, she said. Over time I just grew to love it.

Right now, shes balancing her search for a COVID cure in between classical Indian dance training and practicing her skills as an artist.

I describe myself as a person who aspires to be a lot of things, Chebrolu said.

Read the original post:

14-Year-Old Frisco Girl Working To Find Possible COVID-19 Cure Wins National Award - CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

Videos containing COVID-19 vaccine misinformation will be removed from YouTube, the platform announced today. Content about a vaccine that contradicts information from health experts or the World Health Organization wont be permitted.

A COVID-19 vaccine may be imminent, therefore were ensuring we have the right policies in place to be able to remove misinformation related to a COVID-19 vaccine, Farshad Shadloo, a YouTube spokesman, said in an email. That could include false claims that vaccines implant microchips in peoples bodies, for example, or that they cause infertility. Both rumors are untrue.

The new guidelines are an expansion of YouTubes existing COVID-19 Medical Misinformation Policy, which doesnt allow videos that falsely suggest the coronavirus doesnt exist, that discourage mainstream medical care for the disease, or that say the virus is not contagious. The highly contagious virus does exist, and alternative, unproven remedies can be dangerous.

YouTube demonetized videos that promoted anti-vaccination information in 2019.

On Tuesday, Facebook announced its own crackdown on anti-vaccination content: its not allowing ads that discourage vaccination. We dont want these ads on our platform, the company said. Ads are as far as the policy goes, though, and organic posts from anti-vaccine groups will still be permitted.

The platforms policies come as clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines inch closer to completion. Public trust in those vaccines is low. President Donald Trump has made public statements pushing for a vaccine by Election Day, and many people in the US think that the development process is political, not scientific. Anti-vaccine groups are feeding off of that mistrust.

Read more:

YouTube will remove videos with COVID-19 vaccine misinformation - The Verge

News Tuesday that state officials are ramping up plans to massively expand COVID-19 testing opportunities across Minnesota served to reaffirm a point public health leaders have been making for weeks: The pandemic here is far from over.

The ramp-up includes new saliva testing sites opening in Moorhead and Winona this week and Brooklyn Park next week. The states already running a site in Duluth and is building out a lab in the St. Paul suburbs to process the waves of tests expected to follow.

Collectively, Minnesota will be able to process 60,000 tests per day, officials said, about twice what its managed on its best days to date.

The biggest thing we can do to ensure our kids have an opportunity to be in school, that our businesses and restaurants remain open, is to simply follow the science around masking, around social distancing, getting tested, Gov. Tim Walz told reporters Tuesday. To not do these things will guarantee that others get it.

Here are Minnesotas current COVID-19 statistics:

2,151 deaths

114,574 positive cases

2,355,124 tests, 1,600,861 people tested

5.5 percent seven-day positive test rate

The Minnesota Department of Healths report Tuesday showed the states COVID-19 numbers remain headed in the wrong direction. Active active caseloads remain at record highs.

Tuesdays data extended a weeklong trend of newly confirmed cases averaging more than 1,000 a day. The seven-day average of active, confirmed cases in the state remains at a record high.

Hospitalizations are also trending higher. The positive test rate trend remains above 5 percent, the threshold where officials become concerned.

Officials had anticipated seeing an October surge in cases expected from Labor Day weekend gatherings, sporting events and college student meetups at the start of fall semester. They also expected the wave would put more people in the hospital. That appears to be happening.

While the spike early in the pandemic was driven largely by illnesses tied to long-term care facilities and workplace sites such as meatpacking plants, officials say the current spread is diffused, making it even harder to trace and isolate cases.

Were seeing this widespread transmission in the community. Thats whats really concerning, Kris Ehresmann, the states infectious disease director, said Monday.

New cases are up dramatically over the past month in all age groups 30 and older. That includes a concerning rise in the number of new cases among Minnesotans ages 60 and older. Its not clear why.

People in their 20s still make up the age bracket with the states largest number of confirmed cases more than 26,000 since the pandemic began, including some 15,000 among people ages 20-24.

The numbers help explain why experts remain particularly concerned about young adults as spreaders of the virus.

While less likely to feel the worst effects of the disease and end up hospitalized, experts worry youth and young adults will spread it to grandparents and other vulnerable populations and that spread could hamper attempts to reopen campuses completely to in-person teaching.

The number of high school-age children confirmed with the disease has also grown, with more than 10,700 total cases among children ages 15 to 19 since the pandemic began.

Regionally, northern, southern and central Minnesota have driven much of the recent increase in new cases while Hennepin and Ramsey counties show some of the slowest case growth in the state.

Collectively, rural areas of Minnesota continue to report the most new COVID-19 cases. Northern Minnesota, once by far the region least affected by the disease, has seen its caseload grow dramatically in recent weeks relative to its population.

Central Minnesota cases are skyrocketing. Its not clear why.

Early on, many Minnesotans thought COVID-19 would be only a Twin Cities metro area problem, but now the biggest problems are happening outside the suburban and urban parts of the state.

The hottest of our hot spots are outside the metro area, Ehresmann said Friday. That includes Martin and Pipestone counties in southern Minnesota, where positive test rates are hitting 10 percent, about twice the statewide average.

Ehresmann implored Minnesotans again to wear masks in indoor public gathering spaces, socially distance and stay home if they dont feel well. People in greater Minnesota, she added, they have it within their control to make things better.

Minnesota health officials on Monday put out new guidance to ease visiting rules for nursing homes and other long-term care facilities in the state.

Visitors must now be allowed if the long-term care facility has not had a COVID-19 exposure in the last 14 days. Another requirement for opening nursing homes is if there's low to medium virus transmission in the county.

There are exceptions if there is a reasonable or clinical safety cause not to open, such as staffing issues.

The new rules go into effect Saturday. They are being introduced to align with new federal recommendations. Visitors still must schedule their time with the facilities, be screened for symptoms and wear masks.

Long-term care settings have long been a deep concern for the states public health authorities. Among the 2,144 whove died from COVID-19 related complications in Minnesota, about 71 percent had been living in long-term care or assisted living facilities; nearly all had underlying health problems.

Officials had placed severe visiting restrictions early on in the pandemic, hoping to stem the spread of the disease. Theyve also acknowledged the psychological toll that takes on residents and their families.

In Minnesota and across the country, COVID-19 has hit communities of color disproportionately hard in both cases and deaths.

Minnesotans of Hispanic descent are testing positive for COVID-19 at about five times the rate of white Minnesotans. They, along with Black Minnesotans, are also being hospitalized and moved to intensive care units at higher rates than the overall population.

Similar trends hold true for Minnesotas Indigenous and Asian residents.

The newest numbers, though, show newly confirmed cases accelerating among Latino people in Minnesota.

Distrust of the government, together with deeply rooted health and economic disparities, have hampered efforts to boost testing among communities of color, particularly for undocumented immigrants who fear their personal information may be used to deport them.

A third effort aimed at removing Gov. Tim Walz from office has been tossed out. The Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed the latest recall petition in an order signed Monday by Chief Justice Lorie Gildea.

The voters who brought the recall petition argued that Walz overstepped his power with a statewide mask use mandate designed to limit the spread of coronavirus. They said it conflicted with a state law barring people from concealing their identity in public unless it is tied to protection from weather, religious beliefs or medical treatment.

Gildeas order doesnt reach a conclusion about whether the mandate is legal or not. But the chief justice said either way the proposed petition does not allege facts that, if proven, would constitute malfeasance required under the recall law. The prior recall attempts were turned back in May and July.

Brian Bakst | MPR News

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities has moved into it's third stage of its plan for safely bringing students back to campus.

The school's four-stage Maroon and Gold Sunrise Plan limited the movement and interactions of students living in campus housing during their first weeks on campus.

During the first stage, students were in their residents halls almost exclusively. And during the first and second stage, there was a 9 p.m. curfew.

The campus is now moving into stage three, meaning students have full access to campus and the surrounding community. But they have a midnight curfew to be back in the dorms.

The third stage will last about two weeks. The fourth and final stage, is "COVID-19" normal, meaning there are no back home time constraints, though students must avoid large gatherings, maintain physical distancing and wear masks, as they've had to do at all other stages.

Peter Cox | MPR News

The state prison in Stillwater is on lockdown after 90 inmates tested positive for COVID-19.

Routine mass testing this week found 90 new COVID-19 infections at the prison, bringing its total number of cases to 115, the Department of Corrections says.

The department says the inmates with confirmed cases either have no symptoms or are mildly symptomatic. However, a 70-year-old man is receiving medical attention outside the prison.

The department says in a statement that all but two of the men who tested positive reside in the Cell Hall D and Atlantis living units.

Matt Sepic | MPR News

The Minnesota Department of Health and local officials are offering another round of free COVID-19 testing sites around the state this week.

Testing sites will be open Wednesday and Thursday in Aitkin, Alexandria, Anoka, Faribault, Luverne and St. Cloud.

Testing also will be available Thursday and Friday afternoons at New Hope Baptist Church in St. Paul.

For more details on times and testing locations and to sign up for an appointment go to the MDH website.

State health officials also announced that they're opening a second COVID-19 saliva testing site later this week, in Winona.

The state opened its first saliva testing site in Duluth late last month. The second site will open Wednesday at the Winona Mall.

Health Department officials say they are trying to be proactive as COVID-19 cases continue to surge around the state. They say that they're especially concerned about a growing spread of the coronavirus throughout greater Minnesota.

Saliva testing will be available to anyone who wants it or thinks they need it. So far more than 7,000 people have completed saliva testing at the first site in Duluth. State officials plan to open as many as eight more sites across the state in the coming weeks.

The Winona testing site will be open five days a week, from Wednesday through Sunday. Find more information here.

MPR News Staff

Close-knit St. Johns monks seek space to stay safe in pandemic: The monks share close quarters. They eat together three times a day and pray together four times a day. And many are still actively involved in teaching and ministry outside the abbey at the university or in local parishes. When COVID-19 arrived, their close-knit community and collective way of life meant their most vulnerable members would be at risk.

Walz says loosening restrictions about 'striking a balance' between data, follow-through: The gobernor said hes well aware that Minnesota is taking steps to relax precautions against spreading COVID-19, even as the pandemic widens in the state.

Minnesota to allow more visits to nursing homes, long-term care facilities: More people soon will be able to visit loved ones in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. The Minnesota Department of Health says the changes are set to go into effect on Saturday.

Data in these graphs are based on the Minnesota Department of Health's cumulative totals released at 11 a.m. daily. You can find more detailed statistics on COVID-19 at theHealth Department website.

You make MPR News possible. Individual donations are behind the clarity in coverage from our reporters across the state, stories that connect us, and conversations that provide perspectives. Help ensure MPR remains a resource that brings Minnesotans together.

Donate today. A gift of $17 makes a difference.

More here:

Latest on COVID-19 in Minnesota: Put to the test - Minnesota Public Radio News