Category: Covid-19

If youve been marking the pandemic by the pileup of cautious reopenings and rescheduled events, you might think that an end to this global disaster is in sight. Event planners for the Kentucky Derby and Bonnaroo already have new opening days on the books in September. The Olympics are scheduled to start in Tokyo on July 23rd, 2021. Theres just one problem: if anyone says that they know exactly when this pandemic will be over, they are lying.

No one can see the future. The virus is an unknown player, and the best minds on Earth cant do more than make educated guesses about what comes next and when. Hell, we didnt even notice the blood clot situation until just recently.

I know. A guess is not comforting when youre dreading another week of monotony in the same four walls. End dates are comforting. Reopenings are comforting. Contemplating a future that looks a lot like our cozy, crowded past is way more comforting than our isolated present. But lets not confuse comfort for truth.

When bowling alleys and tattoo parlors reopened in Georgia on Friday, the pandemic was not over. It wont be over when the stay-at-home order in Michigan (maybe) lifts on April 30th or if the stay-at-home order in the Bay Area actually ends on May 31st.

The dates politicians are throwing around are not finish lines. They arent guesses at an end date for this pandemic, either. Shelter-in-place orders are just time-outs. We have no sure-fire treatments for the virus, no vaccine, and a limited supply of health care workers. To keep as many people alive as possible, weve done the only thing we can do to slow the spread: weve hid from each other.

The viruss effects have not been, as some proposed, a great equalizer. The less you have, the harder youre hit. The federal government has mostly failed at leading a coherent response to the pandemic. Doctors are clashing with the FBI over PPE, then running into the ER with whatever they can scrounge up. Governors are hitting up their private-jet-owner friends to have masks flown in from China to equip their hospitals. Nurses at other facilities are resorting to wearing garbage bags in an unsuccessful bid to avoid contracting the virus on the job.

People who are already vulnerable are getting hit the hardest. Death rates have soared in black communities already slammed by other public health crises. On the Navajo Nation, experts worry that water shortages are contributing to the viruss continued spread. The virus has raged through cramped homeless shelters and through the communities that cant afford to distance themselves. Its become very clear to me what a socioeconomic disease this is, an ER doctor working in Elmhurst, Queens told The New Yorker. People hear that term essential workers. Short-order cooks, doormen, cleaners, deli workersthat is the patient population here. In some US prisons, the vast majority of inmates are testing positive for the virus, leaving incarcerated persons in fear for their lives. One inmate, Sterling Rivers, grimly observed that Our sentences have turned into death sentences in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Our failures around the coronavirus are systemic failures of public policy.

Those failures have left the health care system struggling to cope, plunged society into a well of uncertainty, and sent the economy cratering. Thanks to an inconsistent and often incoherent government response in the US, we now face an uncertain timeline for both economic and health recoveries. Twenty-six million people have filed unemployment claims.

And so some governors will call an end to stay-home orders in the hopes of resuscitating their economies. In Georgia, South Carolina, and parts of Tennessee, that time came on Friday. Other states, like California and New York, are taking a longer view, gradually easing some restrictions on movement while enforcing new requirements masks on, low temps, cant lose.

As cases decrease, restrictions will relax. But once we let our guard down, well likely see resurgences of cases, once again straining health resources leaving us with no choice but to close ourselves off again. Thats whats happening in parts of China now, where new outbreaks of the same disease have emerged. The open-and-shut economy will likely continue as cases ebb and flow.

There are paths to victory, but as Ezra Klein notes at Vox, these arent plans for returning to anything even approaching normal. Victory over the virus will involve a lot of things that we dont have yet. Scientific discoveries will help defeat the virus but science cant do it alone. Public policies will play a huge role, and even with firm health guidelines and speedy scientific developments, it will take longer than we want for us to truly eke out a win.

What does a win look like? It will take widespread tests of everyone who might be sick and careful quarantining of anyone who tests positive. It will take armies of contact tracers to trace down anyone who might have been exposed. These low-tech interventions are the best thing weve got while we give researchers the time they need to come up with other solutions.

Scientists will labor over vaccines and treatments, but the overwhelming majority of their trials will turn up nothing useful. Theyll also keep trying to understand the virus and our bodies complicated response to it, in the hopes of developing legitimate antibody tests. Eventually, we may discover something that destroys the virus without wrecking our bodies. But none of that is ready today.

The end is still likely to be a long way away, as journalist Ed Yong writes in The Atlantic: The pandemic is not a hurricane or a wildfire. It is not comparable to Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Such disasters are confined in time and space. The SARS-CoV-2 virus will linger through the year and across the world.

Consider this a rebuilding year. It might even turn into rebuilding years, depending on our progress. Our brightest prospects vaccines and treatments are still in the minors. Even antibody testing isnt ready to be called up to the big leagues, at least not yet.

This is a long game, and focusing on the victory celebrations like New York City Mayor Bill De Blasios plan to throw the biggest, best parade to honor health care workers wont get us to the end.

If we focus on what victory looks like instead of what it takes to get us there, were going to keep being disappointed. Well feel defeated every time a drug fails in testing. We cant let it get to us like that. The parades, the ballgames, the worship services that were looking forward to, those will be there once this is over. What weve got to ensure now is that when we get to reopening day whenever it is that our concert halls and stadiums and spiritual homes are filled with as many of our human siblings as we can possibly save.

It still sucks when the goalposts move from April 15th to April 30th, then to May 15th. It feels like were Charlie Brown and the end to this is a football that Lucy keeps pulling away. But when it comes to the virus itself, the clock isnt the statistic that matters. These are the ones that do: numbers of tests, numbers of new infections, and numbers of bodies in the morgues.

When the numbers of tests go up and confirmed cases and deaths go down, then our playbook will change. But it wont be the end of the fight not yet.

We play this through to the end there is no other option. Victory might look like a vaccine. It might look like a robust testing regime or a new treatment. It might look like us cobbling together a sense of normalcy and still watching for repeated outbreaks. Whatever form it takes, well fight our way there with masks, thermometers, and soap, buying some time along the way. Well adjust our playbook as the virus adapts. Well position ourselves farther apart. Well do it again, and again when the next waves of this virus come. We will be exhausted when we get there, but we will get there. But if we dont pace ourselves for the long haul, it will be that much harder to get through.

We wont be able to mark this finale in our calendars. All we can do is get through today, pushing our leaders to get the people on the front lines the resources and time they need to get us through this. We need politicians who will stop telling us the comforting things we want to hear and start acting to keep as many of us alive as possible.

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No one knows when the COVID-19 pandemic will end - News Info Park

In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a boon to cybercriminals: With unprecedented numbers of people working from home and anxious for news about the virus outbreak, its hard to imagine a more target-rich environment for phishers, scammers and malware purveyors. In addition, many crooks are finding the outbreak has helped them better market their cybercriminal wares and services. But its not all good news: The Coronavirus also has driven up costs and disrupted key supply lines for many cybercriminals. Heres a look at how theyre adjusting to these new realities.

One of the more common and perennial cybercriminal schemes is reshipping fraud, wherein crooks buy pricey consumer goods online using stolen credit card data and then enlist others to help them collect or resell the merchandise.

Most online retailers years ago stopped shipping to regions of the world most frequently associated with credit card fraud, including Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Russia. These restrictions have created a burgeoning underground market for reshipping scams, which rely on willing or unwitting residents in the United States and Europe derisively referred to as reshipping mules to receive and relay high-dollar stolen goods to crooks living in the embargoed areas.

A screen shot from a user account at Snowden, a long-running reshipping mule service.

But apparently a number of criminal reshipping services are reporting difficulties due to the increased wait time when calling FedEx or UPS (to divert carded goods that merchants end up shipping to the cardholders address instead of to the mules). In response, these operations are raising their prices and warning of longer shipping times, which in turn could hamper the activities of other actors who depend on those services.

Thats according to Intel 471, a cyber intelligence company that closely monitors hundreds of online crime forums. In a report published today, the company said since late March 2020 it has observed several crooks complaining about COVID-19 interfering with the daily activities of their various money mules(people hired to help launder the proceeds of cybercrime).

One Russian-speaking actor running a fraud network complained about their subordinates (money mules) in Italy, Spain and other countries being unable to withdraw funds, since they currently were afraid to leave their homes, Intel 471 observed. Also some actors have reported that banks customer-support lines are being overloaded, making it difficult for fraudsters to call them for social-engineering activities (such as changing account ownership, raising withdrawal limits, etc).

Still, every dark cloud has a silver lining: Intel 471 noted many cybercriminals appear optimistic that the impending global economic recession (and resultant unemployment) will make it easier to recruit low-level accomplices such as money mules.

Alex Holden, founder and CTO of Hold Security, agreed. He said while the Coronavirus has forced reshipping operators to make painful shifts in several parts of their business, the overall market for available mules has never looked brighter.

Reshipping is way up right now, but there are some complications, he said.

For example, reshipping scams have over the years become easier for both reshipping mule operators and the mules themselves. Many reshipping mules are understandably concerned about receiving stolen goods at their home and risking a visit from the local police. But increasingly, mules have been instructed to retrieve carded items from third-party locations.

The mules dont have to receive stolen goods directly at home anymore, Holden said. They can pick them up at Walgreens, Hotel lobbies, etc. There are a ton of reshipment tricks out there.

But many of those tricks got broken with the emergence of COVID-19 and social distancing norms. In response, more mule recruiters are asking their hires to do things like reselling goods shipped to their homes on platforms like eBay and Amazon.

Reshipping definitely has become more complicated, Holden said. Not every mule will run 10 times a day to the post office, and some will let the goods sit by the mailbox for days. But on the whole, mules are more compliant these days.

KrebsOnSecurity recently came to a similar conclusion: Last months story, Coronavirus Widens the Money Mule Pool, looked at one money mule operation that had ensnared dozens of mules with phony job offers in a very short period of time. Incidentally, the fake charity behind that scheme which promised to raise money for Coronavirus victims has since closed up shop and apparently re-branded itself as the Tessaris Foundation.

Charitable cybercriminal endeavors were the subject of a report released this weekby cyber intel firm Digital Shadows, which looked at various ways computer crooks are promoting themselves and their hacking services using COVID-19 themed discounts and giveaways.

Like many commercials on television these days, such offers obliquely or directly reference the economic hardships wrought by the virus outbreak as a way of connecting on an emotional level with potential customers.

The illusion of philanthropy recedes further when you consider the benefits to the threat actors giving away goods and services, the report notes. These donors receive a massive boost to their reputation on the forum. In the future, they may be perceived as individuals willing to contribute to forum life, and the giveaways help establish a track record of credibility.

Brians Club one of the undergrounds largest bazaars for selling stolen credit card data and one that has misappropriated this authors likeness and name in its advertising recently began offering pandemic support in the form of discounts for its most loyal customers.

It stands to reason that the virus outbreak might depress cybercriminal demand for dumps, or stolen account data that can be used to create physical counterfeit credit cards. After all, dumps are mainly used to buy high-priced items from electronics stores and other outlets that may not even be open now thanks to the widespread closures from the pandemic.

If that were the case, wed also expect to see dumps prices fall significantly across the cybercrime economy. But so far, those price changes simply havent materialized, says Gemini Advisory, a New York based company that monitors the sale of stolen credit card data across dozens of stores in the cybercrime underground.

Stas Alforov, Geminis director of research and development, said theres been no notable dramatic changes in pricing for both dumps and card data stolen from online merchants (a.k.a. CVVs) even though many cybercrime groups appear to be massively shifting their operations toward targeting online merchants and their customers.

Usually, the huge spikes upward or downward during a short period is reflectedby a large addition of cheap records that drive the median price change, Alforov said, referring to the small and temporary price deviations depicted in the graph above.

Intel 471 said it came to a similar conclusion.

You might have thought carding activity, to include support aspects such as checker services, would decrease due to both the global lockdown and threat actors being infected with COVID-19, the company said. Weve even seen some actors suggest as much across some shops, but the reality is there have been no observations of major changes.

Interestingly, the Coronavirus appears to have prompted discussion on a topic that seldom comes up in cybercrime communities i.e., the moral and ethical ramifications of their work. Specifically, there seems to be much talk these days about the potential karmic consequences of cashing in on the misery wrought by a global pandemic.

For example, Digital Shadows said some have started to question the morality of targeting healthcare providers, or collecting funds in the name of Coronavirus causes and then pocketing the money.

One post on the gated Russian-language cybercriminal forum Korovka laid bare the question of threat actors moral obligation, the company wrote. A user initiated a thread to canvass opinion on the feasibility of faking a charitable cause and collecting donations. They added that while they recognized that such a plan was cruel, they found themselves in an extremely difficult financial situation. Responses to the proposal were mixed, with one forum user calling the plan amoral, and another pointing out that cybercrime is inherently an immoral affair.

Tags: alex holden, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Gemini Advisory, Intel 471, money mules, reshipping mules, Snowden, Stas Alforov

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2020 at 2:20 pmand is filed under Ne'er-Do-Well News, Other, Web Fraud 2.0.You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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How Cybercriminals are Weathering COVID-19 - Krebs on Security

IDPH: Alden Terrace in McHenry up to 120 COVID-19 outbreak cases, four deaths  Northwest Herald

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IDPH: Alden Terrace in McHenry up to 120 COVID-19 outbreak cases, four deaths - Northwest Herald

My family thought I was crazy for believing I had COVID-19. Then they started getting sick, too.

The first confirmed case of the disease in the U.S. appeared in Washington State on January 21. But we are beginning to learn that many more people were infected even then, without suspecting it.

I can never know for certain, since I did not get the nasal swab for coronavirus until April, but all signs point to my being an early case of the illness that has caused our country to go into mass quarantine. I find safety in learning the facts and peace in believing we will find a vaccine at some point. But in the meantime, uncertainty and fear will dominate our national psychejust as they did for my familyuntil we start testing on a much bigger scale.

It all started when I flew to New York City from my home in Dallas in mid-January to care for my 21-year old daughter, who had become extremely ill with Dengue fever, acquired in the Caribbean earlier that month.

I had never seen an emergency room so crowded. The first time we visited, my daughter was one of four people being treated in a hallway for 10 hours. She was in the hospital for six days altogether.

On January 16, I woke up with chest tightness, chills, and a terrible cough. It felt like I was being choked. My symptoms were not debilitating, though, and I had energy to clean my daughters apartment and sit with her at the hospital.

At first, I attributed my physical symptoms to fear and anxiety for my child. I called my doctor in Dallas, who prescribed Tamiflu. My daughter got better and was released. I returned home with a cough, still laboring to get a full breath. Weeks later, I still had no energy.

Then, on February 22, my 16-year old son woke up in the middle of the night with a high fever. He tested negative for the flu but was sick for 15 days.

My husband was next. He had the same flu-like symptoms as my son, but for 20 days. Then my symptoms returnedand I got an eye infection, for good measurefor six days. After my daughter came home from college in New York in March, she got sick, too.

I began to worry. By this time, coronavirus was all over the news. Could I have gotten it in that New York ER? Could I have spread it to the rest of my family? It dawned on me that I had gone to see my niece in Longview on January 25. Three days later, she got an illness that lasted three weeks. Her flu test came back negative.

I now wish I could have been tested for coronavirus when I felt symptomatic through February, but no tests were available. Everyone assumed the virus had not spread beyond the West Coast. With contact tracing, I could have helped others. Though I was so exhausted in February, I barely left my house.

My family took an antibody test in April, after we all recovered. Two out of the five of us, including me, were positive for immunoglobulin antibodies, a sign of having been infected with coronavirus. The test cannot determine exactly when I got it. And some of us who got very sick tested negative. So much is still uncertain.

The only thing Im sure of is that my family caught this disease long before anyone knew what it was, just as our whole country did. We were lucky. We received good healthcare, and we are all fine now.

As a country, we are only going to get through the crisis the way my family did: with care, love, and a willingness to adapt in the face of uncertainty.

Carolyn Sullivan is a Plano resident and a certified mediator and life strategist with a BA in psychology and advanced studies in Domestic Dispute Resolution, as well as Dispute Resolution, from Southern Methodist University.She wrote this column for D Magazine.

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I Had One of the Earliest Cases of COVID-19 I Think - D Magazine

Story Highlights

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans divide evenly when asked whether they approve or disapprove of the way President Donald Trump is handling the coronavirus situation in the U.S., with 50% approving and 48% disapproving. Approval of his handling of the COVID-19 crisis is down 10 percentage points from last month, including a 10-point decline among independents and a 16-point decline among Democrats.

Changes in President Trump's Approval Rating for Handling the Coronavirus Situation

% Approve

Given the dominance of the coronavirus situation in Americans' minds, it is not surprising that the president's overall job approval rating nearly matches his approval rating on COVID-19.

Gallup's April 14-28 poll finds Trump's overall job approval at 49%, the same as in a March 13-22 poll but higher than his reading of 43% in an April 1-14 survey. To the extent that these variations are not a function of sampling error, they could be tied to Americans' changing outlook on the coronavirus situation in general and Americans' increasingly evaluating Trump on the COVID issue alone.

The poll was conducted as the number of new daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. declined from its peak on April 5. The large majority of interviews were completed before the backlash over Trump's remarks questioning whether injecting household disinfectant into people with the virus could be an effective treatment.

Most of the variation in Trump's recent job approval rating is among independents. In the current poll, 47% of independents approve of the job he is doing as president, the highest Gallup has measured for the group to date. Ninety-three percent of Republicans and 8% of Democrats approve of the job Trump is doing.

Generally speaking, Trump's recent job approval ratings have been higher than at any point in his presidency, largely because of modest rallies in support for him tied to his acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial and the coronavirus crisis.

During his 13th quarter in office, stretching from Jan. 20 through April 19, he averaged 47% job approval. That is four percentage points better than his previous high quarters -- 43% during his 10th (April 20-July 19, 2019) and 12th (Oct. 20, 2019-Jan 19, 2020) quarters in office.

Trump's average approval rating throughout his three-plus years in office remains at 40%.

Explore President Trump's approval ratings and compare them with those of past presidents in the Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center.

View complete question responses and trends (PDF download).

Learn more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series works.

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Americans Divided on Trump's Handling of COVID-19 Situation - Gallup

The government must prioritise health funding for the most deprived regions in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis, politicians and public health experts have demanded, after new data analysis revealed the devastating scale of the death toll in the poorest parts of England and Wales.

In findings one expert said highlighted the fact that Covid-19 is not a leveller as politicians have repeatedly claimed, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that those living in the poorest parts of England and Wales were dying at twice the rate of those in the richest areas.

With 55.1 deaths per 100,000 people in the most deprived places compared with 25.3 in the least deprived, the Kings Fund health thinktank demanded the government focus new resources to reverse health inequalities as the crisis eases.

The findings came as another 739 people died across the UK, bringing the total to 27,510. They echo last weeks report from the Guardian that members of ethnic minority groups were particularly badly affected by the virus, with those from BAME backgrounds overrepresented in the toll by 27%.

Responding to the analysis at the governments briefing on Friday, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, acknowledged the issue, saying: This is something we are worried about and looking at.

He added, however, that the findings should be seen in the context of disproportionate deaths among men, older people, minorities and other subgroups. Were looking at it in the context of all of the different ways that this disease seems to have a different impact, he said.

Critics said impact of austerity in the poorest communities was behind the new data. Steve Rotheram, the Labour mayor for the Liverpool city region argued that deprivation must be a factor in how spending is allocated to deal with costs incurred during the crisis.. Liverpool has one of the highest Covid-19 death rates outside London, with 303 deaths, amounting to 81.8 deaths per 100,000 people, and is the local authority to have suffered the biggest cuts to its budget since 2010.

The city regions councils are already warning of a 137m funding gap between the money they have spent dealing with coronavirus and the funds pledged to them by government, said Rotherham. He called for a change in the methodology of the Treasurys green book, which guides government spending, in order to prioritise the most deprived areas rather than the per capita approach it currently takes.

Deprivation should be factored into Treasury-book methodology across the board but specifically in relation to this. Local authorities were promised whatever it takes. The first allocation of fund was given on a needs basis but the second wasnt, he said.

Maggi Morris, a health consultant and former head of public health in Central Lancashire, said the economic policies of Conservative-led governments of the last decade had done nothing to actually help reduce health inequalities. In fact, they have exacerbated them, she said.

The government must reverse benefit changes, she said, particularly cuts to housing allowance and the bedroom tax, which had forced more people to live in cramped accommodation where disease spreads more easily.

The ONS data exposed the lie that Coronavirus attacks all equally, she said. It is not a leveller. More people who are at social economic disadvantage will not only get ill but get iller and will die in numbers greater than the privileged. This disease knows where to find the weakest links.

Along with the Kings Fund, she called for a national strategy to tackle health inequality. There has been no national strategy because it doesnt want to acknowledge that disparities exist, she said.

Londons poorest boroughs have the highest Covid-19 death rates in led by England and Wales, led by Newham, with 144.3 deaths per 100,000 population, followed by Brent with 141.5 and 127.4 in Hackney. Other local authorities including Hertsmere, Salford, Watford, Luton, Sandwell and Slough also had rates above 65 deaths per 100,000 people.

In Middlesbrough, where 89 people have died of Coronavirus which amounts to 79 deaths per 100,000 male life expectancy is just 75.3, compared with almost 84 in the wealthy London borough of Westminster.

Andy McDonald, the local Labour MP, said: The health profile of Middlesbrough is awful and we know what thats about. Its about poverty and inequality and you cant get away from that.

The ONS data is age-standardised, which means the age profile of people living in each area has been accounted for. But David Buck, the former deputy director for health inequalities at the department of health and now a policy advisor at the Kings Fund, said he suspected further data analysis would show that younger people were dying from Covid-19 in the poorest areas.

We know that the more deprived your situation the more likely you are to have co-morbidities such as diabetes. We know that those multiple, long term conditions are much more prevalent the poorer you are but also in a younger age group I havent looked at the data but that would be my bet, said Buck.

The World Health Organization is recommending that people take simple precautions to reduce exposure to and transmission of the coronavirus, for which there is no specific cure or vaccine.

The UN agencyadvisespeople to:

Many countries are now enforcing or recommending curfews or lockdowns. Check with your local authorities for up-to-date information about the situation in your area.

In the UK, NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms shouldstay at home for at least 7 days.

If you live with other people,they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home.

The government should reintroduce targets to reduce inequality, which were scrapped by the coalition government in 2012, said Buck: There were very specific health inequality targets, for life expectancy differences across the country and mortality differences. The Kings Fund thinks it is time we return to a national health inequality strategy.

And Dr Zubaida Haque, deputy director of the Runnymede Trust, said the figures show the government can no longer continue a one-size-fits-all approach and that ethnic minorities were overrepresented in the worst-paid and key-worker jobs.

The government needs to roll out more economic and social measures that also take into account BAME socioeconomic and housing circumstances, such as overcrowding. At the moment, the government has told older people to self isolate, but thats not a practical solution for older people living in overcrowded housing.

She added the focus on PPE must include all key workers, not just the NHS.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: We have commissioned urgent work from Public Health England to understand the different factors that may influence the way someone is affected by this virus. We will set out full details in due course.

Nick Stripe, ONS head of health analysis, said: General mortality rates are normally higher in more deprived areas. But so far Covid-19 appears to be taking them higher still.

Of the 20,283 Covid-19 registered deaths in England and Wales to 17 April, an overwhelming proportion were of people from the poorest areas.

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Calls for health funding to be prioritised as poor bear brunt of Covid-19 - The Guardian

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SweetwaterNOW is committed to bringing you the latest news and happenings during the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. With many headlines being published daily, weve created a Monday-Friday COVID-19 podcast on The Local307 Podcast Network along with this post which will be published every evening.

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Rock Springs Mayor Tim Kaumo sat down with SweetwaterNOW to answer a few questions about a letter he sent to Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon.

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COVID-19 Update May 1, 2020: "We Have Very Responsible Business Owners" - SweetwaterNOW.com

COVID-19 forced businesses to create doors where there were none.

From small startups to large corporations, no one has been spared the wrath of the coronavirus pandemic. The worldwide crisis has nearly shut down entire industries and forced companies of all sizes to adapt and evolve. The one silver lining could be that organizations are forced to expedite their use of technology to make employees and customers lives easier and better. One exercise you can do is to imagine if there was *no* retail location for your business; would it survive? Many companies have now had to ask themselves that question, and the answer is no.

While technology can greatly aid businesses of all kinds that are not prepared for an increasingly digital future, not all transformations right now depend entirely on technology. Many companies have responded with innovative pivots that push them into new markets. Instead of shutting down or taking a break, these large companies are making big transformations to stay alive and stay relevant.

Here are 10 big corporate transformations in the wake of COVID-19.

1.Commercial Airlines Offer Cargo Flights

With an unprecedented drop in commercial passengers, airlines have canceled up to 90% of their scheduled flights. But instead of flying people, large airlines like Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, United and American Airlines, among others, are instead switching to cargo-only flights. The airlines use the empty passenger cabins to transport much-needed items, including grocery items and healthcare provisions.

2.Grocery Stores Become Dark Fulfillment Centers

In an effort to better serve customers and protect employees, a number of grocery stores are banning customers from entering and instead transforming the stores into dark stores, or order fulfillment centers. Whole Foods converted stores in Los Angeles and New York, and Kroger and Giant Eagle have done the same with multiple locations. Dark stores allow grocers to fill pickup and delivery orders much more quickly than using fulfillment centers further from customers.

3.Hotels Offer Day Rates For WFH Employees

Hotels are nearly empty, and many employees working from home have run out of space (and patience). Creating a solution for two problems, Red Roof hotels started offering day rates for remote workers. For as low as $29 a day at some locations, remote workers can have private access to a hotel room turned office suite, complete with fast internet and a quiet atmosphere.

4.Restaurants Enter Grocery Market

Even simple trips to the grocery store are now more difficult than before. Restaurants have access to fresh produce and need a revenue stream. Many restaurant chains, including Panera, California Pizza Kitchen and Subway, have begun selling fresh groceries. Customers can order items like fresh vegetables, meat, eggs and even beer to pick up alongside their restaurant orders. The services guarantee customers can get the grocery items they need and provide a much-needed lifeline to restaurants.

5.Mattel Toys Honor Essential Workers

In the days of COVID-19, theres a new type of superhero: essential workers. Mattel recently unveiled a new line of Fisher-Price action figures that feature delivery drivers, grocery store workers and healthcare professionals. The pivot shows that Mattel understands who people are really supporting and honoring these days.

6.Patagonia Provisions Expands To Include More Shelf-Stable Items

Outdoor clothing retailer Patagonias line of self-stable food items is designed to fuel customers on their outdoor adventures. But the company recently expanded Patagonia Provisions to include an entire marketplace of food from other companiesall with long shelf lives. From coconut oil to coffee, the new marketplace hopes to provide long-lasting food and maintain the global food supply chain.

7.GM Self-Driving Cars Make Food Deliveries

Cruise, the autonomous car division of General Motors, recently brought its self-driving cars out of dormancy to make food deliveries around San Francisco for two local food banks. Under current regulations, self-driving cars are deemed non-essential and arent allowed to be on the roads. Helping the organizations frees up food bank workers to better serve clients and allows Cruise cars to be on the roads.

8.Retailers Pivot To Curbside Pickup

With customers barred from entering a large number of stores, brands have pivoted to offer curbside pickup for online and phone orders. Many retailers, including DSW, Dicks Sporting Goods, Michaels and Best Buy, have quickly pivoted to create pickup stations outside of stores that allow employees to deliver items without ever coming in contact with customers. Curbside pickup provides work for employees and ensures customers can get the items they need.

9.Stores Expand Digital Ordering

A number of stores and restaurants have partnered with tech companies to increase their mobile ordering capabilities. Papa Johns now offers Facebook Instant Ordering, which allows customers to place orders conveniently. Walgreens partnered with Postmates to deliver a wide variety of grocery items and personal care products. These partnerships allow brands to serve customers more quickly and efficiently.

10.Fitness Companies Move Workouts Online

Gyms and fitness companies have to get creative with their physical locations closed. Orange Theory, Planet Fitness and 24 Hour Fitness, are live-streaming exercise classes and releasing at-home workout plans. Fitness apparel company Under Armour is hosting a 30-day Healthy at Home fitness challenge to encourage customers to stay active. With everyone exercising at home, technology keeps the gyms connected to customers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how businesses everywhere operate. Undergoing a massive transformation and pivoting to a new direction could be the only way many companies stay alive.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker and the author of the bestselling bookThe Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her weekly newsletterhere.

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10 Examples Of How COVID-19 Forced Business Transformation - Forbes

Listeners could be forgiven for a sense of deja vu: Its going to go. Its going to leave. Its going to be gone, Donald Trump pronounced of coronavirus on Wednesday.

The words were eerily similar to the presidents prediction in late February that Its going to disappear a theme he harped on repeatedly as the caseload and fatalities rose. Since that forecast, a million Americans have fallen ill with coronavirus almost a third of the global total and more than 60,000 have died, in just a few weeks surpassing the US death toll in all the years of the Vietnam war. This week, it was reported that almost 70 people had died at a single veterans nursing home in Massachusetts. New York is struggling to bury its dead.

This is what the presidents son-in-law, Jared Kushner, describes as a great success story. This is the context in which the administration is letting its physical distancing guidelines lapse, instead advising much less stringent measures.

Mr Kushner suggests that by July the country could be really rocking again. But Americans will suffer from Mr Trumps keenness to get back to business, as if the pre-coronavirus state of affairs were still possible. Medical experts have already warned about the risks of another surge in cases. The question is whether states, cities, institutions and individuals can again mitigate the harm he is wreaking upon his country. Some may; others are leading his charge: in Georgia, such essential services as tattoo parlours and bowling alleys are once again plying their trade. Texas is allowing shops, cinemas, shopping malls and restaurants to reopen, albeit with restrictions on capacity. Without significant testing and tracing, it is evident where such decisions will lead.

The best that can be said for Mr Trumps election-driven wishful thinking is that it is less immediately dangerous than his recent public musings that people might have injections of disinfectant as a cure. Each week of the pandemic has brought new shame upon the president: he failed to equip his country and its health workers, to advocate physical distancing when it was desperately needed, or even to look like he was seriously concerned about the outbreak and its victims, preferring instead to boast about the ratings for his briefings.

While leaders around the world enjoyed a surge in support as the pandemic took hold the rally-around-the-flag effect Mr Trumps appalling performance has finally taken a toll on his popularity. He had counted on a strong economy to see him back into office in November. But with more than 30 million US workers filing unemployment claims in the last six weeks and economists suggesting that the real level of job losses could be far worse his confidence has been shaken.

This week it was reported that he had lashed out at his own campaign after polls showed him trailing Joe Biden in crucial states and with older voters. With the Democrat facing a sexual assault claim and running a virtual campaign while Mr Trump commands daily airtime, it is clear that the president is doing the damage himself. He is seeking to shift the blame for the pandemic to the World Health Organization (having ignored its repeated warnings) and to China. On Thursday he contradicted his own director of national intelligence by claiming that he had seen evidence that the virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory; Trump officials have reportedly leaned on the agencies to find evidence to back the theory.

This conduct too is unpleasantly familiar. His contempt for the truth; his determination to evade responsibility while holding the most powerful job in the world; his ignorance, his narcissism and the threat he poses to his country all have become still more painfully evident through this crisis, but were clear before. Yet he has so far defied the laws of political gravity. Americans have paid dearly for Mr Trumps complacency, recklessness, irrationality and incompetence. But are they at last ready to make him pay?

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The Guardian view on Trump and Covid-19: Americans suffer. Will he? - The Guardian

The artists were originally set to perform in Cape Town, South Africa, but have united for an online concert that will be streamed live starting at 4 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Audrey Azoulay, head of the UN cultural organization, UNESCO, pointed out that music is bringing people together and helping to keep hope alive during the global crisis.

It is the magic of jazz that we need now, at a time when we are all reminded of the cardinal importance of music and indeed, of all the arts in our lives, she said in a statement for the day.

Legendary American pianist Herbie Hancock, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Intercultural Dialogue, will host the all-star concert which will feature artists from across the globe.

He said International Jazz Day embodies values such as freedom of expression, peace and human dignity.

Keep these values alive as you play your music in your home or on your balcony, share your music through digital platforms, enjoy jazz recordings, or watch one of our past Jazz Day global concerts, he said in a video message.

This years commemoration of the international day also has a sombre tone as it serves as a tribute to saxophonist Manu Dibango, who died from COVID-19 on 24 March.

The Cameroon-born force behind the 1972 international hit Soul Makossa sampled, remixed and cited in songs such as Wanna Be Startin Somethin' by Michael Jackson had been a UNESCO Artist for Peace since 2004.

Said Ms. Azoulay: Manu Dibango believed deeply in the power of music to bring peoples and cultures together because, as he said in a UNESCO Courier article in March 1991, music is the most spontaneous, natural form of contact between one person and another.

At a time of physical distancing and other measures to halt further spread of the novel coronavirus, music is indeed uniting people, according to Mr. Hancock, the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

Jazz artists and the jazz community are resilient, he said. There is hope and solidarity in jazz music: something we all need right now.

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COVID-19 can't stop the music on International Jazz Day - UN News