Category: Covid-19

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- There are relatively small gray and purple cartridges attached to the wall of the laundry area in the Jacksonville Jaguars equipment room. If you arent looking for them, youd probably never notice them.

Even if you did look, youd have no idea that those cartridges contain another piece of the Jaguars ongoing battle against the coronavirus.

Each cartridge contains a bag of silver ions called SilvaClean, a small dose of which is dispensed during the laundrys rinse cycle, designed to bond with fabrics to kill pathogens such as MRSA, staph and -- the company that manufactures it says -- SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19.

SNF: McVay a football junkie | Shanahan keeps 49ers together Garrett, Big Ben are back in rematch Morris' message: 'Force your will' COVID flipped life upside down for Reed Jags using silver to battle COVID-19

It's really all about setting a new cleanliness standard, especially giving the situation that we are in, said Priya Balachandran, the chief operations officer of Applied Silver, the company behind SilvaClean. Everyone is paying close attention to hygiene and cleanliness like never before.

Our product, when you combine that with all of the other protocols, it gives people the validity to set the new standard for cleanliness.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, MRSA and staph have long been issues in athletic facilities, gyms, locker rooms and health clubs because people share equipment and have skin-to-skin contact. Staph, a bacteria found on skin, can cause serious skin infections, and if it gets into the blood, it can lead to sepsis or death, per the CDC.

Using ionic silver compounds to kill germs and pathogens such as MRSA and staph has already become widespread in the healthcare and hospitality industry, and it is beginning to work its way into the sports world. The Jaguars are one of six NFL teams using the SilvaClean system. San Francisco, Dallas and New Orleans are among the others. (Two other NFL teams did not give Applied Silver permission to release their names.) In addition, Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo and North Carolina State are among the colleges using the SilvaClean system.

The University of South Alabamas Laboratory of Infectious Diseases studied the product's effectiveness by treating virus samples with different concentrations of the product as well as a control solution, and LID director Dr. Jonathan Rayner said SilvaClean was found to have effectively inactivated more than 99.9% SARS-CoV-2 during the tested incubation period.

An additional benefit is that whatever it treats continuously kills the pathogens. The textiles and fabrics are not recontaminated once theyre used, and they provide ongoing protection, Balachandran said. An infection wont spread, for example, if one player touches another players T-shirt or gloves, even if the first player is sick, Balachandran said.

If someone were to touch a towel and they have germs on their skin, those germs can get on the towel, and now the SilvaClean-treated towel continuously kills it immediately, Balachandran said. You dont have to spray something on your textiles all the time. It is already there, it is gentle, it is safe for the skin, and no allergic reactions.

The Jaguars began using the system on Sept. 7, the Monday after roster cutdown. The Jaguars have a cartridge connected to each of their three 55-pound industrial washers, two 75-pound industrial washers and one high-efficiency household washer. Each cartridge contains a bag that has enough product for 200,000 pounds of laundry.

Jaguars equipment manager Jimmy Luck said he anticipates changing each bag once this season.

Theyre pretty much going from the time we get here until the time we leave, Luck said. Theres always somebody in the building making laundry. Being part of the equipment staff, were always washing somebodys stuff.

Luck learned of the SilvaClean system through his contacts with New Orleans Saints equipment manager John Baumgartner and Jim Lake, a former longtime NFL equipment manager with the Los Angeles Rams who is now the head of customer integration and success for Applied Silver. Luck also knows Daniel Fells, a strategic sports adviser for Applied Silver, from their time with the Atlanta Falcons.

I thought, If those guys are involved, let me look into this a little bit, Luck said.

One of the things Luck liked about the system is that its low-maintenance. Each unit is monitored remotely by the company using a cloud-based system, so other than clearing some space for the installation, Luck and his staff dont have to do anything.

Just walk in, make sure the lights green, and thats really about it, he said. So thats been something thats been really good for us. Its doing some things, and we dont have to do anything, which makes it nice.

Its another piece of the Jaguars battle to keep COVID-19 at bay, along with the additional sanitizing of the equipment and football facility. Per Scott Trulock, the Jaguars director of player health and performance and the teams infection control officer, three janitorial companies sanitize the facility daily and electrostatically spray Clorox 360 and cover more than 115,000 square feet. The measures seem to be working.

As of Monday, the Jaguars havent had a player placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list since running back Ryquell Armstead on Sept. 5.

Former NFL player Ian Williams used silver for several years before hooking up with Applied Silver as an ambassador. His career ended because of multiple bacterial infections after surgeries to fix a fractured left ankle, and he doesnt want anyone else to go through what he did. Williams broke his ankle in 2013 while playing defensive tackle for the San Francisco 49ers. He fought off one infection, but it returned again in 2016, and he had to have another surgery.

Things now are well, he said. ... I want people to understand that you have to pay attention to things that you cant see. You have to wash your hands, take care of your laundry and clean things now.

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Jaguars among NFL teams using silver to fight COVID-19 - Jacksonville Jaguars Blog- ESPN - ESPN

Dustin Johnson has withdrawn from the CJ Cup after testing positive for COVID-19 this week. Johnson has not played since the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, but came in as one of the favorites in Las Vegas to win what would be the 24th title in his PGA Tour career. Johnson had experienced symptoms of the virus, alerted PGA Tour officials and was administered a test. He is the biggest name in the sport to date to return a positive test since the sport's restart.

This is the second-straight week a top-20 player has been forced to withdraw because of COVID-19, however. Last week at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, it was Tony Finau. Professional golf had been sailing along pretty smoothly -- all things considered -- since a mini-outbreak at the end of June, but these are two pretty big blows to what were two great fields.

"Obviously, I am very disappointed," said Johnson in a statement. "I was really looking forward to competing this week, but will do everything I can to return as quickly as possible. I have already had a few calls with the Tour's medical team and appreciate all the support and guidance they have given me."

The second half of Johnson's 2020 has been some of the best golf of his career. In addition to wins at the Travelers Championship, The Northern Trust and Tour Championship, he has runner-up finishes at the PGA Championship and BMW Championship and a T6 at the U.S. Open nearly a month ago.

With Johnson, the bigger questions revolve around the Masters at Augusta National in four weeks. Hopefully, his recovery is swift and comprehensive, and the best player on the planet is ready to rock for the final major of 2020.

This will likely force other players to be even more cautious than they have been with a precious Masters start for many just over the horizon. Nobody wants to have to miss a major, especially one at Augusta National, because of COVID-19, and we're just one month removed from a top-40 player in Scottie Scheffler bowing out of the U.S. Open because of the virus.

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Dustin Johnson tests positive for COVID-19, world No. 1 player forced to withdraw from 2020 CJ Cup - CBS Sports

BALTIMORE (WJZ) Patient First is offering COVID-19 testing at its Bayview Location on Eastern Avenue in Baltimore.

The location is at 5100 Eastern Ave and is by appointment only.

The test is the RT-PCR molecular diagnostic test. The test sample is collected at Patient First and sent to a reference lab for testing.

COVID-19 Virus Testing is also available at the Patient First centers in Aberdeen, Annapolis, Bel Air, Catonsville, Lutherville, Odenton, Owings Mills, Perry Hall, Towson and White Marsh.

Testing appointments can be made on-line at https://www.patientfirst.com/covid-19/covid-19-testing

For the latest information on coronavirus go to the Maryland Health Departments website or call 211. You can find all of WJZs coverage on coronavirus in Maryland here.

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Patient First Now Providing COVID-19 Testing At Bayview Location In Baltimore - CBS Baltimore

New York, NY, October 14, 2020 The International Rescue Committee (IRC) highlights encouraging signs from certain crisis-affected states of slowing COVID transmission, with several African and Asian countries reporting lower daily case counts and lower test positivity rates. The African and Asian continents writ large are both seeing a decrease in new cases, with a slowing of COVID growth with countries such as Pakistan, reporting a test positivity rate of just 1.9% in the last week compared to 22% in June. The IRC remains concerned however about low levels of testing in some places, such as Mexico, northwest Syria, Yemen, and Ethiopia, which continue to obscure the full scale of the outbreak among some of the world's most vulnerable populations.

Stacey Mearns, Senior Technical Advisor of Emergency Health at the IRC says,

"A combination of factors has contributed to the slowing down of transmission of COVID in these countries. Timely government and humanitarian responses to the disease within local communities, including the IRC's, seem to have made a dent in the prevention of further transmission and management of existing cases. On the prevention front, we have provided handwashing stations, intensified provision of water and sanitation services and engaged communities such as Bangladesh where false rumors about disease prevention and symptoms were running rife. In addition, we have trained frontline health workers on COVID-19 protocols, established isolation units as well as equipped hospitals and laboratories with beds, diagnostic kits and other vital machinery. All of this humanitarian response, supported by major donors, may be paying off: we've seen significant slowing in countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, saving thousands of lives and livelihoods in the process. These measures work and with redoubled financial support from the international community, we can see these gains not only last but take hold in other countries. This virus does not respect borders-- beating it in fragile states means helping defeat it altogether."

IRC has noted serious declines in COVID cases and death rates in the following countries of operation:

"These gains are significant but fragile. In countries where we see relatively little testing, such as Afghanistan and Nigeria, we are still unable to fully understand the scale of the outbreak, respond or properly understand what has worked-- even if there are encouraging signs. Having seen some of the benefits of a timely and effective response to COVID-19, more investment from the international community is needed to ensure these gains advance. Transmission is slowing in many countries and we are hopeful that the same continues. We are also looking to continue these services by engaging communities on the importance of adhering to restrictions that can support COVID-19 prevention and the use of PPE. However, in countries like Libya and northeast and northwest Syria, there is still a long way to go before the situation is brought under control. The virus is spreading quickly and the situation is deteriorating rapidly. There is an urgent need to scale up the response to prevent further loss of life."

The IRC has launched a US $30 million appeal to help us mitigate the spread of coronavirus among the world's most vulnerable populations. We are working across three key areas: to mitigate and respond to the spread of coronavirus within vulnerable communities; protect IRC staff; and ensure the continuation of our life-saving programming as much as possible across more than 40 countries worldwide.

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As US and UK struggle to contain COVID-19, conflict-affected states show encouraging signs in slowing virus transmission - IRC - World - ReliefWeb

The mayor of a small town in Tennessee that hosts the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival died Monday of Covid-19, officials said. He was 79.

"Today we share in the sorrow of a great loss to our community," the mayor's office said in a news release on Monday. "Mayor Lonnie J. Norman was a dedicated servant to the people of Manchester for several years."

Manchester Mayor Lonnie Norman was hospitalized earlier this month before dying after a valiant fight against COVID-19, the city said in a Facebook post Monday.

His family confirmed his death on Monday, saying many will remember his commitment to public service.

"It is said that when your work speaks for itself let it," Norman's family said in a statement on Monday. "Mayor Lonnie Normans eight decades on this planet were filled with work that testifies to both his accomplishments and his values."

Before entering public office in 1984, Norman worked as a technician supervisor for 40 years at the Arnold Engineer Development Complex in Tennessee, his family said. He became Manchesters first Black mayor when he started serving in 1991.

In August, Norman was elected to his third term as mayor of Manchester, a town with a population of nearly 10,000 people in Coffee County, WPLN reported.

Among Norman's proudest accomplishments were funding a new recreation complex, a soccer field and supporting the city's beloved Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, his family said.

The music fest, which typically brings in more than 80,000 concertgoers annually, was initially postponed this year before ultimately being cancelled altogether due to the pandemic.

"The incredible, Mayor Lonnie Norman, of our hometown Manchester, TN has been hospitalized due to COVID-19," the festival wrote on Twitter on Saturday. "The Bonnaroo family sends him all the love and hopes for a quick and speedy recovery."

Vice Mayor Marilyn Howard has taken over mayoral duties in the interim, according to WPLN.

Coffee County reported its highest seven-day average of Covid-19 cases in the past week, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. The county has logged a total of 1,557 cases and 17 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Norman's family added: "COVID-19 is real and it took our beloved Lonnie Norman from us. To his fellow public officials, we say please remember your duty to keep the public safe."

"To our fellow citizens, we say please wear a mask, practice physical distancing, and protect public health and each other," they said. "We are all in this together."

Wilson Wong is a news associate at NBC News.

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Mayor of Tennessee city that hosts Bonnaroo dies of Covid-19 at 79 - NBC News

As a major international financial institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been at the center of the emergency economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the IMF was prevented from securing the adequate resources it requested to mount a full-blown response, the Fund deserves a decent grade for the response it has managed within the confines of its current balance sheet. But as the IMF prepares to remotely convene the worlds financial authorities for its annual meetings, that progress is under threat.

In the past, the IMF infamously treated each crisis with a one-size-fits-all approach that conditioned new financing on fiscal austeritymeasures that explicitly or implicitly directed countries to engage in contractionary fiscal policies that required major reductions to health and social expenditure.

In a study of 16 Western African countries from 1995 to 2014, social scientists at Cambridge University found that IMF programs curtailed the fiscal space for health spending in those countries by 0.24 percent. In a broader study of IMF programs in 137 developing countries between 1980 and 2014, scholars found IMF programs lowered health system access, increased neonatal mortality, and accentuated inequality.

This time, thus far, is different. In a paper published in the journal COVID ECONOMICS at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in London, Franco Maldonado Carlin and I created an IMF COVID-19 Recovery Index that measures and monitors the IMFs response to the COVID-19 crisis. The IMFs response to COVID-19 has proven to be far less conditioned on fiscal austerity and has prioritized health expenditure and social spending to attack the coronavirus and protect the vulnerable.

However, despite visionary speeches by senior management, the research shows the IMF is falling far short in encouraging countries to mount a green recovery. And now, new rhetoric from IMF officials suggests a return to austerity may be around the corner.

On April 9, 2020, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said, These are the times for which the IMF was createdwe are here to deploy the strength of the global community, so we can help shield the most vulnerable people and revitalize the economy and committed the IMF to a four-point all hands on deck approach to the crisis that would focus on supporting health systems, protecting vulnerable firms and people, containing financial panic, and mounting a recovery.

What is more, on over 10 occasions between April and July of 2020, Georgieva and senior staff made statements such as for our world to become more resilientwe must do everything in our power to promote a green recovery. IMF Deputy Managing Director Tao Zhang also emphasized that a green recovery should promote a just transition. He stated, That means assisting vulnerable households, workers, regions, and trade-exposed or fuel producing firms. And using carbon pricing revenues in broad tax reductions or public investments that boost growth and benefit all households. To back up these statements, the IMFs Fiscal Affairs Department developed and published a set of guidelines, called Special Series on COVID-19, to assist countries in their responses to the pandemic.

Three prominent guidance notes issued by the IMF centered on health expenditure, support for the vulnerable, and greening the recovery. To create our IMF COVID-19 Recovery Index, we coded the IMF programs to dateon a scale of 0 to 3, where a score of 0 means no attention and a score of 3 equals strong encouragement or conditionality on fighting the virus, protecting the vulnerable, and/or mounting a green recovery in accordance with the IMFs guidance notes.

First, we found that the IMF is not conditioning its emergency relief on draconian austerity measuresyet. As of this writing, the IMF has financed over 100 programs at upward of $88 billion. Aside from 13 of the programs, there are low to no strings attached to the liquidity provision. At least for now, the IMFs emergency programs grant the majority of countries the flexibility to get their own houses in order without onerous oversight and conditionality.

Second, the IMF deserves credit for endorsing increases in health spending and measures to protect vulnerable people and firms in the midst of the crisis. In our analysis, the IMF scores a 2.39 out of 3 for encouraging health spending and increasing the supply of medical devices in programs in Bolivia, Ghana, Gabon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Dominican Republic.

Even better, the IMF earns a score of 2.65 out of 3 for encouraging the protection of the vulnerable, as indicated by programs that recommend strengthening safety nets in Cameroon, increasing spending in Bolivia, wage support in Bangladesh, and highlighting a food supply program in the Bahamas.

That said, the overall composite score for the IMFs emergency response is relatively poor at just 1.82 out of 3, largely driven by the finding that the IMF scores poorly on a green recovery, at just 0.42 out of 3. To the IMFs credit, it did recommend mandatory hurricane insurance protection in its program for the Bahamas, and supported Bangladeshs request for climate change adaptation and mitigations measures, but the overwhelming majority of IMF programs lack a green recovery component, despite the rhetoric.

Rather than building on its success, the IMF may be backtracking. In a public event last week, IMF First Managing Director and former Trump administration official Geoffrey Okamoto said developing nations should keep those receipts, hinting that a return to austerity is coming.

As the coronavirus continues to sweep through emerging market and developing countries, governments need more fiscal space, not less. That fiscal space could come in the form of new IMF resources and debt relief, and member countries must be encouraged to use that fiscal space to mount stimulus packages that promote a healthy, green, and inclusive recovery.

The IMF has taken an important step forward; the world economy and its people cannot afford for it to go backward.

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Why the IMF needs to build on its COVID-19 record, not backtrack - Brookings Institution

Heres what you need to know:Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the countrys top epidemiologist, said the Trump campaign had used his name and words in a political ad without his permission.Credit...Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the U.S. governments top infectious disease expert, took issue Sunday with a decision by the Trump campaign to feature him in an advertisement without his consent and said it had misrepresented his comments.

I was totally surprised, Dr. Fauci said. The use of my name and my words by the G.O.P. campaign was done without my permission, and the actual words themselves were taken out of context, based on something that I said months ago regarding the entire effort of the task force.

CNN first reported Dr. Faucis displeasure with the campaign ad.

The spot seeks to use Mr. Trumps illness with Covid-19 and apparent recovery to improve the negative image many Americans have of his handling of the coronavirus.

I cant imagine that anybody could be doing more, the ad shows Dr. Fauci saying though in fact he was talking about the broader government effort.

Dr. Fauci, who said he had never publicly endorsed a political candidate in decades of public work, has long had an uneasy relationship with President Trump. Just a little over a week ago, he clashed with his boss over his position on mask-wearing.

In his debate with former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Trump claimed that Dr. Fauci had initially said masks are not good then he changed his mind. When Mr. Biden said wearing masks could save tens of thousands of lives, Mr. Trump contended that Dr. Fauci said the opposite.

In fact, in the early days of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci and other health experts discouraged the general public from rushing out to buy masks because they were worried about shortages for health workers. Their position changed when it became clear that asymptomatic transmission was spreading the virus.

Dr. Fauci may favor measured language, but his criticisms of the White House and, implicitly, the man in the Oval Office over the handling of the pandemic have not gone unnoticed including by hard-core Trump supporters who claim he is part of a deep state conspiracy to undermine the president.

On Friday, Dr. Fauci called the White House ceremony announcing Judge Amy Coney Barretts nomination to the Supreme Court a superspreader event.

It was in a situation where people were crowded together and not wearing masks, he said. The data speak for themselves.

Judge Barretts confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee begins on Monday. The proceedings will play out partially by video to allow senators who may be sick or worried about infection to participate remotely. No members of the public will be allowed in the hearing room, which will be sparsely populated with senators and spectators.

President Trump said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday that he was taking pretty routine medicine to treat his coronavirus infection, though some of his treatments were aggressive and experimental, and added that he was immune and now totally free of spreading the virus.

When he repeated the claim that he was immune and unable to spread the virus on Twitter, the platform added a label saying that the tweet violated Twitters rules about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

The president spoke about his treatments with Maria Bartiromo on Foxs Sunday Morning Futures, adding that he was prepared to resume campaign travel on Monday, when he has a rally planned in Florida.

The medications that I took were standard, pretty routine, Mr. Trump said. In fact, he received cutting-edge combination treatment: remdesivir, an antiviral medication; dexamethasone, a steroid only recently shown to reduce death rates in severe cases; and an experimental cocktail of monoclonal antibodies, designed to turn back the virus shortly after infection.

Mr. Trump insisted that he was now immune to the virus. It does give you immunity, the president said, although he acknowledged its unclear for how long.

Scientists do not yet fully understand how long immunity to the coronavirus may last following an infection, nor how strong it may be.

Mr. Trump pointed out that he was on a balcony for an event on Saturday at the White House attended by a few hundred people who gathered on the South Lawn, and therefore posed little threat of infecting others.

I think on the whole, it is probably a safe assumption he is no longer contagious, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said on the CBS program Face the Nation on Sunday, citing some of the data released about the presidents test results.

I think the question now is, has his health been restored? Dr. Gottlieb said. And we know that a lot of patients have lingering effects from Covid.

Mr. Trump tried to raise questions about whether his opponent in the upcoming presidential election, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., could be sick, claiming he had been coughing horribly yesterday.

The Biden campaign released results of the candidates coronavirus testing, which so far are negative. The White House has declined to do for the president, even in a doctors memo on Saturday declaring him no longer at risk of transmitting the virus.

There is not nearly enough of the experimental Covid-19 drug that President Trump called a cure after receiving it and promised to distribute for free to treat the many Americans who may need it, the chief executive of Regeneron, the drugs maker, said on Sunday.

Currently, there are enough doses of the drug to treat 50,000 patients, the company has said. There were more than 51,000 new infections reported in the United States on Saturday alone, according to a New York Times database.

We have to figure out ways to ration this, said Dr. Leonard S. Schleifer, the co-founder and chief executive of Regeneron, on CBSs Face the Nation.

He said that the company was still in discussions with the administration about who might be first to receive the monoclonal antibodies and when. The treatment has not been approved by the F.D.A., but the White House is pushing the agency to grant an emergency use authorization and speed the drug to market.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, also on the program, noted a resurgence of coronavirus outbreaks in the Midwest and Northeastern states, and faulted the Trump administration for failing to ramp up manufacturing of potential treatments last spring.

Monoclonal antibodies have long seemed promising, he added. It is too late for this year, Dr. Gottlieb said. We can take steps now to do it in 2021.

Mr. Trump touted the treatment as a cure for Covid-19 in a video last week, in which he extolled the benefits he felt after receiving it. But it is impossible to know whether or to what extent the drug may be responsible for his apparent recovery.

Both Mr. Trump and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, called Dr. Stephen Hahn, the F.D.A. commissioner, several days ago to urge that the agency approve the treatment quickly. Eli Lilly, which also makes an antibody treatment, has applied for emergency authorization as well.

Dr. Hahn told Mr. Trump that the agencys scientists must fully review the data before approval, according to an F.D.A. official.

The New York City authorities cracked down over the weekend on some of the citys coronavirus hot spots, issuing more than 60 summonses and tens of thousands of dollars in fines to people, businesses and houses of worship that did not follow newly imposed restrictions on gatherings or were found violating mask and social-distancing requirements.

Among those issued a summons by the New York City sheriff were a restaurant and at least five houses of worship in the citys red zones, where infection rates are the highest. Each of those locations was given a summons that could result in up to $15,000 in fines, said Sheriff Joseph Fucito.

In total, officials issued 62 tickets and more than $150,000 in fines during the first weekend the new restrictions were in effect, the city said on Sunday.

New York is wrestling with its most acute pandemic crisis since the virus first swept through the five boroughs in March. City and state officials say that large gatherings and lax social distancing have been causing a surge in new cases in pockets of Brooklyn and Queens, many of them in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods.

The spike prompted Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to issue new restrictions on large gatherings and nonessential businesses in some parts of the city. Some religious leaders expressed staunch opposition to the crackdown.

The moment has set an already anxious city on edge, particularly as doctors, experts and health officials express growing concern about a second wave of the virus this winter. It also foreshadows the challenges city officials may face as they try to quash emerging hot spots in small communities before the virus can spread into the rest of the city.

Obese Americans are more likely to become dangerously ill if they are infected with the new coronavirus. Now public health officials are warning that a much broader segment of the population also may be at risk: Even moderately excess weight may increase the odds of severe disease.

The warning, reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week, may have serious implications. The World Health Organization says excess weight is a problem around the world, affecting 1.9 billion people in 2016.

In the United States, about 40 percent of U.S. adults are obese, and another 32 percent are simply overweight rates that are among the worlds highest and mean that nearly three-quarters of Americans may be at increased risk of severe Covid-19 if infected.

Its important to make sure the public and individuals are aware of this potential risk, said Dr. Brook Belay, a medical officer at the C.D.C.

Other medical conditions for which there is limited or mixed evidence of increased Covid-19 severity include asthma, cerebrovascular disease and cystic fibrosis, the C.D.C. said. Medical conditions clearly shown to increase the risk of Covid-19 include cancer, chronic kidney disease, heart disease and sickle cell disease, among others.

Doctors observed early on in the pandemic that excess weight appeared to pose an extra risk to patients. But since obesity is often accompanied by other medical problems, it took some time for researchers to learn whether excess fat, in and of itself, was the culprit. Many studies now indicate that it may be, at least in some patients.

Adipose tissue the fat accumulated by the body is itself biologically active, causing metabolic changes and abnormalities. Adipose promotes a state of chronic low-grade inflammation in the body, even without an infection.

In addition, abdominal obesity which is more common in men may cause compression of the diaphragm, lungs and chest cavity, restricting breathing and making it more difficult to clear pneumonia and other respiratory infections

The coronavirus is roaring back across much of Europe, where countries are reporting daily infection numbers comparable to and sometimes far beyond those of the pandemics first peaks.

France, which has placed Paris and five other cities on maximum alert, reported 26,896 new infections on Saturday, a record daily high. The country reported 20,000 cases the day before, and as of Saturday had averaged 16,000 daily cases over the previous week.

Daily cases in France have risen 32 percent over the past two weeks, and daily deaths are up 14 percent, according to a New York Times database.

Britain, which recorded over 15,000 cases on Saturday, is expected to announce a new plan on Monday that would rank areas in tiers; places where the virus is spreading would require tighter restrictions.

The nation is at a tipping point, Jonathan Van-Tam, Britains deputy chief medical officer, said Sunday. This time is different, he said, as we are now going into the colder, darker winter months.

In Spain, the regions of Catalonia and Navarra ordered new restrictions on Sunday after the government used emergency powers on Friday to enforce a partial lockdown in the Madrid area despite protests from the regions leaders. The country reported over 12,000 new cases on Friday, and its seven-day average of daily deaths has risen 14 percent.

Even Germany, much praised for its testing and contact-tracing capabilities, reported a record 8,000 new infections on Saturday, by far its highest single-day number. But the countrys seven-day average of new daily cases remains far below its spring peak of almost 5,600.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that more restrictive measures would follow local ones, including a curfew of 11 p.m. on bars in some places, if infections did not slow in urban hot spots.

We will go back to partying, to having fun without corona restrictions, she said. But right now, other things are more important.

The Israeli military began treating civilian coronavirus patients for the first time on Sunday, deploying to an overstrained hospital in the port city of Haifa and opening two Covid-19 wards in a previously unused fortified underground facility.

The move is another expansion of the militarys contribution to the countrys fight against the virus. The civil defense force has been running coronavirus hotels where infected people can isolate themselves and providing food to hard-hit areas. In August, the force formed a task force, headed by a decorated major general, to expand testing and contact tracing, and to offer local logistical assistance.

Israel has been under a second national lockdown since mid-September, after its daily coronavirus infection and death rates soared to among the highest in the world. The infection rate has begun to decline in recent days, from a peak of 9,000 daily confirmed cases to under 4,000.

About 100 doctors, nurses and paramedics from the Israel Defense Forces medical corps are joining civilian staff to operate the two Covid-19 wards beneath the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa. Wearing ordinary hospital scrubs under their masks and gowns, officials said that they would be indistinguishable to patients from the civilian medical staff.

Rambams fortified facility was constructed in 2014. Located 16.5 meters, or about 54 feet, underground in a space that doubles as a parking lot, it was designed as an emergency hospital that could withstand chemical, biological and conventional attacks during wartime.

The new wards will initially have the capacity to treat a few dozen patients who are not in need of ventilation, according to Col. Dr. Noam Fink, the militarys deputy chief medical officer. The first two patients were admitted on Sunday.

Israeli hospitals have so far managed to cope with the coronavirus crisis, but Dr. Avi Weissman, the deputy manager of the Haifa hospital, said that the caseload had forced hospital staff to be pulled from other departments and that close to a third of the elective surgeries the hospital would ordinarily perform had been delayed.

Global Roundup

Nepal, a country of 30 million people sandwiched between India and China, is enmeshed in a public health crisis.

Coronavirus infections have surpassed 100,000, about a third of which are currently active. That is a modest caseload compared with neighboring India, which is second the world in total infections, but more than the 94,000 cases reported in Nepals other neighbor of more than a billion people, China, where the virus first emerged late last year.

Cases in Nepal are increasing sharply, with a record 5,008 new infections recorded on Saturday. The Health Ministry counts fewer than 400 patients in intensive care, but even that has left I.C.U.s overflowing. Frontline doctors have also been infected, raising fears that health institutions staffing will be hollowed out.

To avoid system collapse, the government has asked Covid-19 patients to stay in home isolation with the possibility of imprisonment if they venture outside and to go to hospitals only if their condition turns critical. Almost 16,000 infected patients are in home isolation, according to the Health Ministry, and more than 11,000 others are in institutional isolation or hospitals.

But by the time infected people become seriously ill, it may be too late. Dr. Rabindra Pandey, a public health expert, said that some patients had died in ambulances while searching for I.C.U. beds, others in home isolation, and still others while waiting for I.C.U. beds in isolation wards. More than 600 people have died in Nepal since the pandemic began, a relatively low death rate but one that is likely to rise since the explosion in cases was so recent.

We are already in critical condition in terms of controlling coronavirus, Dr. Pandey said. But darker days are yet to come.

On Sunday, health experts warned that if the virus continued to spread in the countryside it would be impossible for the health care system to handle the influx of cases. Most facilities are in Kathmandu, the capital, which is the center of the countrys outbreak.

The situation has raised alarm about two major approaching festivals. During Dashain, a 15-day Hindu and Buddhist festival that takes place later this month, Nepalis living abroad and the countrys urbanites normally travel to villages in the mountains and plains to see relatives. Similar celebrations take place during Tihar, a five-day Hindu festival that is akin to the Diwali festival of lights in India and that falls next month.

The Health Ministry has urged Nepalis not to go out for Dashain shopping and to keep their distance from older people, even if it means canceling holiday plans.

In other global developments:

The Solomon Islands has recorded its second coronavirus infection, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said Sunday. Both infected people are students who were on the same repatriation flight from the Philippines in late September; the first case was announced on Oct. 3. The two students are asymptomatic and in isolation. Mr. Sogavare said there would be no national lockdown but that all repatriation flights would be suspended.

Iran surpassed 500,000 cases on Sunday and recorded a record 251 deaths. Two of the countrys vice presidents, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht and Ali Akbar Salehi who is also Irans nuclear chief are the latest senior officials to test positive for the virus, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported.

Greece recorded a record 13 deaths on Sunday. New rules limiting the number of people allowed in restaurants, museums and archaeological sites go into effect on Monday in Athens and other parts of the country with high infection rates.

In South Korea, masks will be mandatory in public starting on Tuesday in an apparent effort to keep the coronavirus at bay as social distancing measures are eased. After a 30-day grace period, people over age 14 who fail to wear masks could be fined as much as 100,000 won, or $87. Social-distancing measures are down to their lowest level as of Monday as a second outbreak of infections appears to wane. Nightclubs, bars and karaoke parlors are allowed to reopen and spectators are allowed back into sports stadiums. South Korea reported 97 new cases on Monday, slightly higher than the increase most days last week.

New Zealand on Monday announced its first deal for a potential coronavirus vaccine, agreeing to buy 1.5 million doses from the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and the German biotechnology company BioNTech if their candidate succeeds. Officials did not say how much it cost to buy the vaccine, which could be available early next year. With each person expected to require two doses, there would be enough to inoculate 750,000 of New Zealands five million people. Megan Woods, the research minister, said that the government was in negotiations with other drug makers and that there would be more announcements next month.

Hanan Ashrawi, a high-ranking Palestine Liberation Organization official and negotiator, tested positive for Covid-19, her office announced on Sunday. Ms. Ashrawi, 74, tested positive days after Saeb Erekat, another veteran Palestinian negotiator, was confirmed to have contracted the virus.

India edged closer to overtaking the United States in total virus cases, passing the seven-million mark. And Brazil became the second country, also after the United States, to record more than 150,000 deaths.

A curfew in Berlin closed bars and restaurants at 11 p.m. on Saturday, curbing the German capitals renowned nightlife. Berlin was following in the footsteps of Frankfurt, where a curfew had already been imposed, but starting an hour earlier.

Lebanon will close bars and nightclubs indefinitely to help contain the virus, Reuters reported. The virus has killed more than 450 people in a country reeling from financial crisis and an explosion in the capital, Beirut, two months ago.

The president of French Polynesia tested positive for the virus two days after meeting in Paris with the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, according to the French newspaper Le Monde. The office of President Edouard Fritch said in a statement that he was tested after he returned to Tahiti and complained of fever and pain.

The White House continued to express optimism on Sunday that a stimulus package could be signed before Election Day, even as Senate Republicans panned the idea of passing another multitrillion-dollar relief bill and President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi traded blame for the impasse.

Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, suggested that skeptical Senate Republicans would follow President Trumps lead if Ms. Pelosi and Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, could reach a deal.

If an agreement can be reached, they will go along with it, Mr. Kudlow said on CNN.

Mr. Kudlows remarks, however, seemed to be starkly at odds with the sentiment expressed by many Senate Republicans, who dashed hopes that the White Houses $1.8 trillion offer would have sufficient support in their party in a conference call on Saturday.

In a letter to her Democratic colleagues on Sunday, Ms. Pelosi said Republicans were once again at odds over their own position, and she continued to hammer away at the White House for what she called a wholly insufficient proposal for greater testing, contact tracing and treatment.

Until these serious issues are resolved, we remain at an impasse, she wrote. However, I remain hopeful that the White House will join us to work toward a relief package that addresses the health and economic crisis facing Americas families and will do so soon.

But Mr. Trump, who abruptly halted talks last week before reversing his position to demand a large package, claimed on Sunday that Ms. Pelosi of California remained the sole impediment to the legislation.

Republicans want to do it were having a hard time with Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Trump said on Sunday, speaking on Fox News. Were ready to go. Were all ready to go. We cant get Nancy Pelosi to sign the documents.

It was unclear what documents he was referring to.

Republicans senators have expressed some support for smaller, targeted legislation to help stricken industries. And in a letter to Congress on Sunday, Mr. Mnuchin and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, called on lawmakers to approve a bill that would repurpose funds from the lapsed Paycheck Protection Program as negotiations continued. (Democrats have previously rejected passing piecemeal legislation instead of a broad, comprehensive package.)

This all-or-nothing approach is an unacceptable response to the American people, the two men wrote.

The president has been largely ignoring those concerns, saying on Friday that he wants a stimulus package that is larger than what Democrats or Republicans have proposed.

Asked on Sunday if Mr. Mnuchin would in fact be proposing a package that would cost more than $2 trillion, Mr. Kudlow paused and said, He may.

Despite the uncertain path to getting anything passed in the next three weeks, Mr. Kudlow insisted that the economic recovery was on track and that Democrats were to blame if nothing got done.

I think if we could get this thing settled on a Democrat side, we will get it settled on the Republican side, Mr. Kudlow said, adding that negotiations would continue.

As President Trump continued to trail by double digits in polls, several of his surrogates tried on Sunday to shift attention away from the details of his coronavirus infection and his administrations handling of the pandemic.

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Fauci Calls Out Trump Campaign Ad That Used Him Without Permission - The New York Times

Australian scientists have found that the virus that causes Covid-19 can survive for up to 28 days on surfaces such as the glass on mobile phones, stainless steel, vinyl and paper banknotes.

The national science agency, the CSIRO, said the research undertaken at the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP) in Geelong also found that Sars-CoV-2 survived longer at lower temperatures.

It said in a statement the virus survived longer on paper banknotes than on plastic banknotes and lasted longer on smooth surfaces rather than porous surfaces such as cotton.

However, the experiment was done in a dark area which negates the effects of UV light. Peter Collignon, a professor of infectious diseases at the Australian National University, said this is known to reduce the life of the virus on surfaces.

It is a factor, and thats why the outside is probably again safer than inside because UV light is there and the virus can be inactivated on playgrounds and things in the sunshine, he said.

There is also significant uncertainty about exactly how large surfaces play into the transmission of the virus.

[The study] shows you that virus can persist but if you ask me in the total scheme of things how important I think hands are compared to being close to people who are sick and getting it, I would say 90% of the problem and the transmission is related to being close to people who cough over you or sneeze over you or send you droplets. Probably around 10% of transmission is likely to be just hands and surfaces, Collignon said.

But I still think its a good idea to wash your hands before you touch your face.

The research, published in the Virology Journal, also found the virus lasted 10 days longer than influenza on some surfaces.

Dr Larry Marshall, the chief executive of the CSIRO, said establishing how long the virus survived on surfaces enabled scientists to more accurately predict and prevent its spread, and so protect the community from infection.

The deputy director of ACDP, Dr Debbie Eagles, said the results reinforced the need for good practices such as regular hand washing and cleaning surfaces.

At 20C, which is about room temperature, we found that the virus was extremely robust, surviving for 28 days on smooth surfaces such as glass found on mobile phone screens.

Similar experiments for Influenza A found it survived on surfaces for 17 days.

Further experiments were carried out at 30C and 40C, with survival times for the Sars-CoV-2 virus decreasing as the temperature increased.

While the precise role of surface transmission, the degree of surface contact and the amount of virus required for infection is yet to be determined, establishing how long this virus remains viable on surfaces is critical for developing risk-mitigation strategies in high-contact areas, Eagles said.

ACDP director, Professor Trevor Drew, said the research may help explain the apparent persistence and spread of Sars-CoV-2 in cool environments such as meat processing facilities and how that might be better addressed.

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Virus that causes Covid-19 can survive up to 28 days on surfaces, scientists find - The Guardian

She is a Covid-19 long hauler, along with her sister Audrey and mother Jamie.

One of her friends came home in March after spending two years in Wuhan, China. That may have been the source of the virus that would cut across the whole Richmond family and leave them with six months and counting of fatigue, pain and uncertainty in its wake.

Jamie Richmond has tallied $6,000 in medical bills for two girls who were healthy until March.

Both girls now have a host of problems, including postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, which causes a person's heart rate to shoot up upon standing and lead to dizziness or fainting.

"It's been horrific to go through this for so long," Richmond said.

1 in 10 US cases are children

More than 657,000 children and teens across the United States had tested positive for the virus as of October 1, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.

That figure is just over 10% of the more than 7 million US coronavirus cases so far, but it's likely underreported because it relied on state data that is inconsistently collected.

Researchers looking into the long-term effects of Covid-19 are taking notice about how long-haul symptoms are affecting children.

These researchers include a team at DePaul University in Chicago, who have launched two separate surveys, one for adults and the other for children, to help capture data on how patients are faring longer term after being diagnosed with Covid-19.

Long-haul children may be the most important cohort to research for a couple reasons, according to Leonard Jason, a professor of psychology at DePaul and director of the Center for Community Research, who leads that study.

"Kids are often more defenseless and don't have the age, maturity or resources to stick up for themselves," he said. "And kids are less complex in a lot of ways, so there are fewer extraneous factors."

He has spent much of his career studying post-viral symptoms across a range of diseases and trying to extract lessons from the aftermath of past epidemics.

"If you look at all the pandemics from the Spanish flu on down, a certain number of people never get better," he said. "At least 10% six months later seem to still be having symptoms. With Covid-19, I think the rates could be very much higher."

His team just completed a four-year study seeking to determine how many college students who contract mononucleosis ultimately develop chronic fatigue syndrome. He sees many of the same concerns with longer-term illnesses children with Covid-19 might develop.

"I fear that a lot of the people will fall through the cracks," he said.

Concerns about gaslighting

The Richmond family in Boise does feel it's falling through the cracks, despite the parents' income and ability to take their kids to specialists for issues that have popped up, including vision loss and Sjogren's syndrome.

"We are incredibly privileged," Jamie Richmond said. "We are White and upper middle class. We have the means to help our girls. A lot of people can't do that."

At one point, that meant taking Audrey on three visits to the emergency room during a 10-day period. A doctor suggested she may have antiphospholipid syndrome, a rare autoimmune condition. But answers to the havoc Covid-19 has wreaked are fleeting.

Due to shortages in testing early on, the Richmonds weren't able to get tested while the virus was in its active stage, despite acute symptoms such as diarrhea and Covid toes, and that's when they say the medical system started ignoring them.

Their negative test results now feel like a black mark hindering them from getting adequate care, as doctors grapple with longer-term symptoms unexpected at the outside of the pandemic.

"They'll say one thing to your face but they won't treat you by what they say," Veronica Richmond said. "It's like they're lying and saying 'Yes, you have Covid, but no, I won't do anything about it. It makes you feel powerless."

A Maryland family got sick and stayed sick

Powerlessness has plagued Amy Frentheway and her family these past few months.

The mother of three from Pikesville, Maryland, had high fevers, stomach pain and near constant diarrhea in late March before testing positive during an emergency room visit.

Her children Isaac, 15, Grant, 13, and Maggie, 11, all got the virus but seemed to have recovered in April. But by May, each of them again relapsed into low-grade fevers.

"I was left with bone-crushing fatigue," Frentheway said. "My kids have that same thing now too, with lots of brain fog. Some days they wake up and just go back to bed."

For instance, her daughter, Maggie, no longer has any zest for life. Though she made it to a weeklong summer camp with her Scout troop, she had to sit out from activities a couple of the days. The usually upbeat and joyful girl could not interact with the other girls the way her mother was used to seeing.

"As a mom, I feel powerless to help her. It's frustrating hearing that kids don't get sick, that it's not that bad for them," Frentheway said. "Really!? Just come to my house to see."

The family's six-month journey of fatigue has continued nearly unabated. And based on the stories they're hearing from other families through online support groups, they don't think most doctors are equipped to deal with the unusual and unrelenting symptoms children with long-haul Covid-19 are experiencing.

"There's no ending point that we know of," she said. "We feel like we have to just navigate this ourselves."

A hair stylist sees her children's hair falling out

Consuelo Porras has been contending with similar problems with Covid-19 since March, when she began noticing differences in her children.

Porras, who lives with her husband and three kids in Aurora, Colorado, felt like her children's circulatory systems were becoming visible through their skin.

"It's almost like we're becoming see-through," she said. "This is not respiratory. This is a blood vessel disease."

Her 2-year-old, Lianna, began to look like she had varicose veins in her cheeks. Her 6-year-old, Alexia, had veins swelling noticeably around her eyelids. And her 11-year-old, Xavier, had pronounced veins around his wrists. They all complained about muscle aches.

Alexia's hair began falling out, with one patch the size of a half dollar. Their pediatrician insisted her hair was normal, but Porras was disturbed by running her hands through her daughter's locks and being reminded of the coarse bristles atop a broomstick.

"I used to be a stylist. I know what is normal," she said. "I feel like her hair is dead."

She and her children also have neurological symptoms, causing brain fog and spasms in their sleep.

"'Mommy, I feel like there are ants all over me,'" Porras recalled her daughter saying. "'Why are they biting me?'"

Like others interviewed for this story, she complained of doctors telling her nothing was wrong with her or her kids, even though their lives felt upended in the months following coronavirus infection.

"Long haulers aren't getting recognition they need because there wasn't access to testing when we needed it," she said. "The heart of a mother will never steer you wrong."

An aspiring WNBA player is sidelined

For Joeyanna Hodnett, 13, the nightmare started with symptoms around March 22, shortly after she traveled with her family to a basketball tournament. She lives in a suburb just north of Boston.

Her mother was asymptomatic, and her father was sick for at least 20 days. Joeyanna was hit the hardest.

"She was knocked down so completely," her mother Casey Whiston said.

In Joeyanna's case, Covid-19's acute phase started with chest pain, muscle aches, headaches, burning skin sensations and an inability to move her arms and legs.

"She had a mini-recovery in June and then a complete meltdown," Whiston said.

Joeyanna started fainting and feeling lightheaded. That subsequent downturn required her to be hospitalized for three days and has opened up a Pandora's box of symptoms.

Since then, Whiston and her daughter have been to more than 30 appointments with specialists including a rheumatologist, neurologist, pulmonologist, cardiologists, infectious disease specialist and a nutritionist.

Joeyanna has received diagnoses that include dysautonomia, post-viral syndrome, pain amplification syndrome and gastroparesis. She takes 18 pills a day.

"Her central nervous system has just been trashed. It's like a tornado just went through," her mother said.

An avid athlete who competed on three different basketball teams, Joeyanna dreams of playing in the WNBA. She used to be able to run 7 miles.

"Now I can only walk for 10 minutes," she said. "I never took pills before. I was always pretty healthy."

Over six months after the initial infection, she is improving a bit, graduating from a liquid diet to rice, soup and applesauce. She is adapting to online classes this fall better than expected, but she has no timeline toward a cure.

"No one really knows what the next steps are or how the recovery looks," Whiston said. "We have the best hospital in the country working to find a way to help her, and so far there are no real answers."

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Kids struggle with Covid-19 and its months of aftermath - CNN

It started badly, with gag orders, cover-ups and ignored offers of help from overseas, but then the Chinese government seized the narrative. It reined in the burgeoning epidemic of Covid-19 at home, and started exporting its rapidly accumulating scientific knowledge of the disease to the rest of the world. Chinese science has often been marginalised and even mistrusted in the west. But will the pandemic change its standing in the world?

China has moved from student to teacher, says Kate Mason, an anthropologist at Brown University in Rhode Island and author of Infectious Change, an account of how the 2002-3 epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in China transformed the way the country managed public health. After Sars, she says, western experts went to China to help it put in place an evidence-based health system that was informed by international research. That system now exists, with its most visible symbol being the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing, and this time it has been Chinese experts giving instruction abroad. It has been a good year for China, Mason says.

But China has long held a goal to lead the world in science, and it was already well on its way to achieving it before the pandemic. Five years ago, it didnt appear in the top 10 countries for university rankings; this year, its joint sixth. It is second in the world for output of science and engineering publications, behind the European Union but ahead of the United States, and the impact of Chinese research as measured by the proportion of articles that are highly cited doubled between 2000 and 2016, growing much faster than that of the US and the EU, which increased by around 10% and 30% respectively over the same period.

This turbo-charged performance reflects a long-term policy of rebuilding Chinese research and education in the post-Mao Zedong era, says political scientist and China watcher Anna Ahlers of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin. Starting from the 1980s, the Chinese government began investing heavily in infrastructure, mass education and the training of a cadre of sophisticated researchers across all Stem disciplines. Then, 20 years ago, its focus shifted outward to achieving global prominence.

Among the initiatives that were devised in this new phase were programmes for recruiting talent from abroad, such as the Thousand Talents Plan, and, domestically, a system of incentives for scientists to publish. These bore fruit, as reflected in the rankings, but they also had negative consequences. The pressure to publish with large cash bonuses paid to scientists for papers appearing in top scientific journals resulted in an increase in academic fraud. Meanwhile, the Thousand Talents Plan has been criticised by the US, Canada and others as a vehicle for espionage and intellectual property theft criticisms that have been lent credence by cases such as that of Harvard nanotechnology expert Charles Lieber, who was arrested earlier this year for allegedly lying about his involvement in the programme.

These tensions reflect a deep ambivalence in the rest of the world with regard to Chinas emergence as a scientific superpower that the pandemic has only accentuated by highlighting that neither viruses nor science can be contained within national borders. On the one hand, there is clear recognition that far less would be understood about Covid-19 and the virus that causes it without Chinese research. On the other, there are well-founded concerns about engaging with an authoritarian, one-party regime with a proven disregard for human rights. Muddying an already complex picture are national interests, and a US-China trade war.

The Thousand Talents Plan distils these tensions. Many wealthy countries have lured talent from abroad in fact, it was the UKs Royal Society that coined the term brain drain to describe the exodus of British talent to the US and Canada in the 1950s and 60s. But questions have been raised about how China uses that talent, and the technology that comes with it.

The main concern is how the Chinese Communist party uses technology for the oppression of its people, says James Jin Kang, a cybersecurity expert at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia. He adds that anyone buying technology developed in China should worry about data privacy, and that the pandemic has made it easier for China to recruit scientists who are working from home and hence subjected to less institutional oversight than usual.

Chinas approach to ethics has drawn attention in a different way, now that there is a very real prospect of it being the first country to approve a vaccine against Covid-19, and perhaps also to develop effective treatments for the disease. Chinas very good at speed, says Mason. If the game is speed, theyre going to win. There seems little doubt that the party is pushing its scientists to hand it that propaganda coup, causing some to ask what shortcuts are being taken in the process.

Ethical rules do exist in Chinese academia, Ahlers says, though their enforcement is sometimes lax as illustrated by the case of He Jiankui, the scientist who in 2018 announced that he had edited the genes of human babies for the first time (he was punished later, though, with a prison sentence). There is also greater emphasis on the collective good than in western countries, so that testing an experimental Covid-19 vaccine on military personnel which might be considered unacceptable in Europe or the US is more acceptable there.

Yangyang Cheng, a physicist at Cornell University in New York and sometime critic of the Chinese regime, has written about how loyalty to the party overrides ethical considerations in China with troubling implications for research. But she points out that debates about what is ethical with respect to a vaccine have raged in the US, too, and that westerners need to ask themselves what they are really concerned about when they look east. Are they concerned because it is being done unethically, or because it is being done in China? she asks. I think these two things are often conflated.

Cheng has been struck by the sinophobia on display in the west since the beginning of this pandemic, starting with scrutiny of Chinese eating habits, and ridicule of members of the Chinese diaspora preparing for a pandemic long before their fellow citizens of non-Chinese origin who were more likely to regard Covid-19 as an exclusively Chinese problem. Theres not just a residual but a very active sinophobia in the west, agrees Christos Lynteris, a medical anthropologist at the University of St Andrews.

Thats unfortunate, he says, because it can prevent foreign observers from taking a clear-eyed view of how China is changing and what problems it faces itself. For Harry Yi-Jui Wu, a historian of medicine at the University of Hong Kong, these include the increasing ungovernability of the Chinese people including scientists. Before the 1980s, science was a state-sanctioned, collective enterprise. Afterwards, it became more individualistic and commercially oriented. Scientists took more pride in publishing in high-impact journals and in obtaining patents, Wu says. Though there was still political interference in the choice of research subjects, and over the publication process, the science itself the gathering and analysis of data was relatively free. These are paradoxes that are very common in authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, Lynteris says.

The regime has also made adjustments to its strategy, to keep its ultimate goal of global scientific leadership in sight. Earlier this year, for example, it banned bonuses for publications, encouraging researchers to focus on impact instead, and to publish more in Chinese journals. It has its own fears about foreign espionage. A draft data security law unveiled this year could limit the international sharing of data generated in China. Given the sway China already holds scientifically, as Sonia Qingyang Li of the MPIWG writes in a forthcoming paper, the impact of such changes will likely be felt globally.

The increasing ungovernability of Chinese scientists has also been revealed by this pandemic. As science journalist Debora Mackenzie notes in her book Covid-19, a lab in Shanghai that tried to raise the alarm over the new virus was shut down in early January. But Cheng says the censorship can be traced back to local, not central, authorities. The central government is not directing that censorship directly, she says. But it has created this environment of fear and tension in which local politicians are motivated to suppress any bad news.

The social credit system for monitoring trustworthiness, which has been under construction for five years, could be seen as an instrument of the self-discipline that the party has imposed since the hardline Xi Jinping came to power, to help it maintain control. Its not the only one. Wu is planning to leave Hong Kong soon, feeling that its no longer safe to investigate Chinese history critically there. Such a perception is hardly conducive to Chinas attempts to portray itself as an attractive place to do science, and Ahlers says that Thousand Talents has hit a ceiling in terms of recruiting foreign talent. Besides returning Chinese academics, that talent has mainly consisted of retired professors. China is missing out on the intermediate stratum of active, up-and-coming, mid-career scientists, she says.

How will these tensions be resolved? Within 20 years, Kang predicts, the party will be forced to loosen its grip and give Chinese people more freedom including more scientific freedom. Until then, he says, it will continue to behave aggressively, using technology to increase its power, unless western nations cooperate to prevent it.

The pandemic might provide an opportunity to establish the ground rules of a new relationship. Many Chinese people feel pride in the way their government has handled the crisis, especially when they compare it to the responses of governments in supposedly advanced nations. Many of my friends who are professors say we did well, we set an example why didnt the west want to learn? Is it pride? says economist Dabo Guan of Tsinghua University in Beijing and University College London. And prominent Chinese biomedical scientists have expressed dismay and irritation at persistent western hostility. They see this double standard in how we look at China and what we do ourselves, says Ahlers.

We should welcome Chinas growth in science, says Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel laureate and president of the Royal Society. For him, that means China should be free to recruit overseas, as western nations have for decades. But at the same time, he adds, we should stand up for what we consider our values, which I believe are universal values theyre not the preserve of the west. They are those values that ensure that science and, indeed, humanity flourish.

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Can we trust Chinese Covid-19 science? - The Guardian