NewsFuse: April 2020

The Australian government will meet on Friday to discuss how sport can restart as the number of new coronavirus cases dwindles and states begin to relax restrictions on social gatherings, two sources familiar with the details told Reuters.

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Most of U.S. House urges more diplomacy at U.N. to renew Iran arms embargo: sources

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Senate Democrat says Republican leader's plan to resume work puts lives in danger

A U.S. Senate Democrat on Wednesday accused Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of endangering the lives of Senate staff if he brings them back to work next week without effective safeguards against coronavirus infection in place. Senator Chris Van Hollen, whose state of Maryland contains several suburbs of Washington where federal workers live, said he had written to McConnell to demand details of how staff will be protected when the Senate returns to session on Monday. "I am ready to see senators resume work in the Capitol, but without effective safeguards in place, Mitch McConnell is endangering the lives of the staff who work there – including many of my constituents – and undermining regional efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus," Van Hollen said in a statement.

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One dead, five missing after Canadian helicopter goes missing during NATO exercise

Canadian prime Minister Jusin Trudeau has confirmed that one man has died and five others are missing after a Canadian military helicopter went missing during a NATO operation. Debris and the aircraft's black box have been found in the sea between Greece and Italy, a Greek military officer and public television said Thursday. Canada's armed forces said the helicopter had been involved in an accident after taking off from the Canadian frigate Fredericton on Wednesday. "Debris has been found in Italy's zone of control and intervention" in the Ionian Sea, the Greek military officer told AFP, specifying the wreckage belonged to the Canadian helicopter. Six crew were aboard the helicopter when it disappeared, the officer said on condition of anonymity. Greek public television reported that a body had been found amid the wreckage in international waters off the Greek island of Kefalonia. Greek public television ERT said Italian and NATO vessels were also taking part in the search while Turkey said one of its frigates was also involved. Canada said on Twitter that it contacted the family members of those who were on board the missing CH-148 Cyclone helicopter.

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Philippines rejects China's territorial label on island

The Philippines protested on Thursday China’s designation of a disputed South China Sea reef, which it has turned into a heavily fortified island base, as a Chinese “administrative center.” The Department of Foreign Affairs issued a statement objecting to what it called China’s “illegal designation” of Fiery Cross Reef as a regional administrative center in the hotly contested Spratly archipelago. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China last week of taking advantage of widespread distraction over the pandemic to advance its territorial claims.

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Cuban embassy in Washington struck by gunfire, suspect arrested

A man armed with a high-powered assault rifle fired multiple rounds at the Cuban embassy in Washington early Thursday, authorities said, damaging the building but without causing any injuries. Police arrested the suspect, identified as 42-year-old Alexander Alazo of Aubrey, Texas. "This morning at approximately 2:15 am, US Secret Service officers responded to the Embassy of Cuba following reports of shots fired," the Secret Service said in a statement.

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‘Women’s Groups’ Sat on Letter Urging Biden to Address Reade Allegation after Campaign Intervened

A coalition of national women's advocacy groups drafted a letter urging Joe Biden to address sexual-assault claims by former staffer Tara Reade, but decided against releasing the letter publicly after the Biden campaign learned of the efforts, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.Instead, the unspecified groups decided to work with Biden advisers to try to pressure the campaign to address the allegations before the end of April, which is designated Sexual Assault Awareness Month.“Vice President Biden has the opportunity, right now, to model how to take serious allegations seriously,” the letter read. “The weight of our expectations matches the magnitude of the office he seeks.”As of April 30, a campaign spokesman has denied the allegations but Biden himself has not spoken about them on the record. The campaign circulated talking points to surrogates advising them to say the alleged incident with Reade “did not happen,” BuzzFeed reported on Tuesday.“It’s difficult for survivors to see that a woman who has more corroborating sources than most survivors have in similar situations is being tossed aside and actively being weaponized by cynical political actors,” Shaunna Thomas, a founder of women's rights advocacy group UltraViolet, which is involved in discussions with the Biden campaign regarding Reade's allegations, told the Times.The Times itself edited a story on Reade's allegation after the campaign complained. Initially, the report included the sentence, “The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.” The paper subsequently deleted the second half of the sentence.“Even though a lot of us, including me, had looked at it before the story went into the paper, I think that the campaign thought that the phrasing was awkward and made it look like there were other instances in which he had been accused of sexual misconduct, and that’s not what the sentence was intended to say,” Times executive editor Dean Baquet said.As media attention has become more focused on Reade, calls have grown over the past week to release Biden's Senate archive, currently held at the University of Delaware, which may offer new details that shed light on the allegations. Seven members of the university's Board of Trustees, including its chairman, have donated to the Biden campaign and affiliated PAC's.

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Inmates at Parchman's Unit 29 describe life inside notorious cellblock

Four inmates at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman spoke to CBS News in recent days, expressing frustration as they wait to be relocated from the state's oldest prison.

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A NYC coronavirus patient died after inexperienced medical residents set her ventilator too high and it stopped her heart

The incident happened at Montefiore hospital in the Bronx in March, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

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Satellite images reveal Kim Jong-un may be at luxury family villa

New satellite images showing the recent movements of luxury boats by Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, have provided further indications that he may be ensconced in his seaside villa in Wonsan, on the country’s east coast. The location of the reclusive leader has been a mystery since his unprecedented no-show at April 15 events to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung. His absence, for the first time since he took power in 2011, unleashed a torrent of speculation about his health conditions, with unverified and conflicting reports claiming he was both recuperating from cardiovascular surgery and in “grave danger.” On Tuesday, commercial satellite imagery obtained by North Korea-monitoring website NK PRO showed boats often used by Kim had made movements in patterns that suggested he or his entourage may be in the Wonsan area. “Extensive analysis shows that similar leisure boat movements at an exclusive villa in Wonsan and a nearby island near the Kalma peninsula have aligned with Kim’s public appearances in the area in every one of a half-dozen instances since last summer, and many more dating back to 2013,” it said. The imagery adds to earlier satellite pictures studied by the Washington-based North Korea monitoring project 38 North, which appeared to show that a train similar to Kim’s was parked in the resort’s so-called “leadership station” reserved for the use of the Kim family a week ago.

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Pompeo criticizes S.Africa, Qatar for taking Cuban doctors

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday criticized South Africa and Qatar for accepting doctors from Cuba to battle the coronavirus, accusing the communist island of profiting from the pandemic. Cuba's globe-trotting doctors have long been a source of diplomatic soft power and pride for Havana, but Washington says the medical workers only benefit the government and has encouraged them to defect. "We've noticed how the regime in Havana has taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to continue its exploitation of Cuban medical workers," Pompeo told reporters.

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Most of U.S. House urges more diplomacy at U.N. to renew Iran arms embargo: sources

Nearly 90% of U.S. House of Representatives members have signed a letter urging the Trump administration to increase its diplomatic action at the United Nations to renew an arms embargo on Iran, congressional sources said on Thursday. In a rare show of bipartisanship, at least 382 of the 429 members of the Democratic-controlled House - Democrats and Republicans - have signed the letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to work with U.S. allies and partners to extend the embargo, as well as U.N. travel restrictions on Iranians involved with arms proliferation. "The U.N. arms embargo is set to expire in October, and we are concerned that the ban's expiration will lead to more states buying and selling weapons to and from Iran," said the letter, seen by Reuters and led by Representatives Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Mike McCaul, the committee's top Republican.

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80,000 cruise workers are still stuck aboard ships in US waters. Staff members say it's 'embarrassing' they're not allowed to disembark.

Up to 80,000 crew members are stuck on 120 cruise ships on US waters, and it's unclear when they'll touch land again.

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30 Easy Side Dishes For Lasagna

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FDA reportedly plans to authorize emergency use of largely untested drug to treat coronavirus

The Food and Drug Administration will authorize the emergency use of the antiviral remdesivir on COVID-19 patients as soon as Wednesday, a senior administration official told The New York Times. Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences revealed promising study results involving remdesivir on Wednesday, but the FDA's reported move would still sidestep the usual testing required to authorize a drug's usage.Gilead said Wednesday that its own trial, as well one overseen by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, met its goals. Of the study's 397 severe COVID-19 patients, at least 50 percent of patients treated with a 5-day dosage of remdesivir improved and more than half were discharged from the hospital within two weeks. The overall mortality rate of the study was 7 percent, and relatively few patients developed bad side effects. But the study wasn't evaluated against a control group, and it's unclear if those recoveries were natural or if remdesivir actually had something to do with them. Hard data from the study also hasn't been released yet.Anecdotal reports, including two published in The New England Journal of Medicine, provided more credibility for remdesivir in the coronavirus fight. But they also didn't compared the drug against a placebo. A study published in The Lancet concluded remdesivir was "safe and adequately tolerated" but "did not provide significant benefits over placebo."More stories from theweek.com Trump's 'mission accomplished' moment Gun-toting protesters' dramatic stand inside Michigan's statehouse, in 5 photos and videos The Justice Department is apparently working with conservative Christian groups to fight COVID-19 policies

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Satellite images of luxury boats further suggest North Korea's Kim at favoured villa: experts

Satellite imagery showing recent movements of luxury boats often used by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his entourage near Wonsan provide further indications he has been at the coastal resort, according to experts who monitor the reclusive regime. Speculation about Kim's health and location erupted after his unprecedented absence from April 15 celebrations to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. On Tuesday, North Korea-monitoring website NK PRO reported commercial satellite imagery showed boats often used by Kim had made movements in patterns that suggested he or his entourage may be in the Wonsan area.

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ER doctor who died by suicide was in 'untenable' situation, sister says - NBC News

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China Sets Date for Congress, Signaling Coronavirus Is Under Control - The New York Times

China Sets Date for Congress, Signaling Coronavirus Is Under Control The New York Times
China to hold annual parliament meeting after two-month delay in signal that coronavirus is under control CNN
China says it will convene its Congress in May after coronavirus postponed it Fox News
In a sign the virus is contained, China schedules big political meetings for late May The Washington Post
China to convene congress after coronavirus battle Los Angeles Times
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Big banks temporarily shut out of small business loan portal, Treasury and SBA announce - CNBC

Big banks temporarily shut out of small business loan portal, Treasury and SBA announce CNBC
Mnuchin Now Says All PPP Loan Recipients Will Face Audits pymnts.com
Many US restaurants ‘highly likely’ to return small business aid Financial Times
Congress was wrong to leave PPP disbursement up to banks American Banker
Paycheck Protection Program replenished, but still plenty of loopholes CBS News
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Save $300 on the Roomba i7+ vacuum robot at Best Buy - Engadget

Save $300 on the Roomba i7+ vacuum robot at Best Buy EngadgetView Full Coverage on Google News

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'Pokémon Go' Battle League Season 2 Announced: Complete Schedule and Changes - India Gone Viral

'Pokémon Go' Battle League Season 2 Announced: Complete Schedule and Changes India Gone Viral
Pokemon Go Battle League Season 2 Changes, Schedule, And New Rewards GameSpot
Pokémon Go Battle League Season 2 dates and times Dot Esports
GO Battle League Season 2 Guide Pokemon GO Hub
Go Battle League Season 2 Announced | Pokemon GO Wiki GamePress
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Kristin Cavallari was 'blindsided' by Jay Cutler's divorce filing - Daily Mail

Kristin Cavallari was 'blindsided' by Jay Cutler's divorce filing Daily Mail
Kristin Cavallari accused Jay Cutler of 'marital misconduct' — but what does that mean? Jimmys Post
Kristin Cavallari Files For Divorce From Jay Cutler | TMZ TMZ
Jay Cutler Joining NFL Broadcast Booth Seems Like a Longshot The Big Lead
Kristin Cavallari Makes Bombshell Claims About Jay Cutler Marriage E! NEWS
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[WATCH] Hollywood Review: Ryan Murphy's Tinseltown History Flounders - Deadline

[WATCH] Hollywood Review: Ryan Murphy's Tinseltown History Flounders Deadline
Hollywood review: This lavish period fantasy is a disaster BBC News
Netflix Review: Hollywood Is a Showbiz Fantasy with a Dark Side Vanity Fair
Hollywood Review: Ryan Murphy's Netflix Series Is Uplifting, Uneven Drama Collider.com
Ryan Murphy's 'Hollywood' Review: A Riotous, Reflective, and Risqué Revision Showbiz Cheat Sheet
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10-team MLB divisions? Here's how 2020 season played out in simulation of potential realignment - CBS Sports

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China opposes international COVID-19 probe that presumes its guilt: vice foreign minister

China "resolutely opposes" any international inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic that presumes its guilt, said Yue Yucheng, a vice-foreign minister, in comments published on Thursday.

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Australia links coronavirus outbreak in remote south to Carnival Corp cruise ship

A coronavirus outbreak in Australia's remote southern island state of Tasmania likely originated from the Ruby Princess cruise ship, a government report published on Thursday concluded, as the national death toll rose to 91.

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Peru's leader says to propose comprehensive pension reform

Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra on Wednesday rejected a bill approved by Congress earlier this month that would have let people withdraw up to 25% of their holdings in private pension funds and vowed to send a full pension reform plan to lawmakers.

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Irish government talks may drift into June: Fianna Fail leader

The leader of one of the parties negotiating to form a new Irish government raised the prospect on Wednesday of talks drifting well into June, extending a months-long deadlock that has been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic.

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US 'hasn't seen' North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently, Mike Pompeo

The US secretary of state's comments come after speculation the North Korean leader might be ill.

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New York City Mayor de Blasio singles out the city's Jewish community for flouting coronavirus rules and said cops will start arresting people gathered in large groups

Though some members of the Hasidic community have disregarded lockdown rules, New York's large Jewish population has followed coronavirus measures.

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The US is 'slightly' past its first peak, but expert says the pandemic is far from over

Dr. Tom Inglesby said some states are experiencing a decline in cases, while half of the country is still seeing a rise in daily numbers.

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Biden already working with team on transition planning

Former Vice President Joe Biden is already working with a team to plan for his transition in preparation for winning the White House in November, he told donors during a virtual fundraiser Monday night. Biden said he has been meeting with former Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman, his longtime top aide who was appointed to fill Biden’s Senate seat when he was elected vice president, to discuss his transition plans. Kaufman worked on Barack Obama's transition team in 2008, and helped author legislation formalizing the presidential transition process.

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'A drug can block this virus': Fauci hails Covid-19 treatment breakthrough

Positive data from the NIAID trial would be a landmark in the race to find a coronavirus treatment.

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Religious freedom watchdog pitches adding India to blacklist

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is urging that the State Department add India to its list of nations with uniquely poor records on protecting freedom to worship — while proposing to remove Sudan and Uzbekistan from that list. The bipartisan commission, created in 1998 by Congress to make policy recommendations about global religious freedom, proposed designating India as a “country of particular concern” in the annual report it released Tuesday. President Donald Trump declined to criticize the citizenship measure during his February visit to India, where his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi was punctuated by skirmishes between Hindus and Muslims.

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Inmate who gave birth on ventilator dies of Covid-19

The 30-year-old appears to be the the first US federal female prisoner to die from coronavirus.

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6 monkeys given an experimental coronavirus vaccine from Oxford did not catch COVID-19 after heavy exposure, raising hopes for a human vaccine

A team from the University of Oxford is leading the way in the search for an effective vaccine for the coronavirus. Human trials started last week.

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Costco to require face coverings for shoppers

Starting Monday, customers will be required to wear masks covering their nose and mouth at all times while inside the store.

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South Korea minister, U.S. sources, say Kim may be sheltering from virus

Fear of the coronavirus could have been keeping North Korean leader Kim Jong Un out of public sight, a South Korean minister and U.S. sources said on Tuesday, following intense speculation and concern as to his whereabouts and health. Under Kim's rule since 2011, North Korea has expanded its arsenal of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and with no obvious successor, any change in leadership in the secretive, authoritarian state would raise concerns about instability that could impact other North Asian countries and the United States. Speculation about Kim's health erupted after his unprecedented absence from April 15 celebrations to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung.

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New Model Shows How Deadly Lifting Georgia’s Lockdown May Be

Gov. Brian Kemp’s aggressive scheme to lift Georgia out of COVID-19 lockdown may cost many thousands of lives, according to models prepared by epidemiologists and computer scientists at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in partnership with The Daily Beast.The findings come as governors across the United States aim to restore economic activity following months of pandemic-related infections and over 50,000 deaths—a number widely understood to be an undercount. Meanwhile, over 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in recent weeks, a number that is itself a likely undercount of the economic toll.Georgia’s Kemp has perhaps been the boldest of any governor about moving on, issuing a pair of executive orders allowing fitness centers, tattoo and massage parlors, bowling alleys, and hair salons to reopen last Friday with some mitigation measures. Other businesses, like restaurants and theaters, began opening Monday. The state’s shelter-in-place decree, meanwhile, was slated to expire on Thursday.Those policies are placing Georgians at spectacular risk, the new models found. ‘Dying to Bowl’: Georgia Flirts With Disaster as Lockdown EasesAs of Friday, by official counts in Georgia, at least 871 people statewide had lost their lives to COVID-19. If Georgia had maintained its pre-Friday lockdown policy, the Harvard/MIT team’s simulation—which used data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and accounts for local demographics and health conditions based on Census and survey data—estimated the state would have logged a total of between 1,004 and 2,922 coronavirus fatalities by June 15. That fatality range, like all such ranges detailed in this article, includes deaths that had already been documented (in this case, 871).By contrast, under Kemp’s current plan to reopen, if approved businesses returned to just 50 percent of their pre-pandemic activity (or “contact”) levels, that range could reach 1,604 to 4,236 deaths. At 100 percent of pre-shutdown activity, the projected final body count could soar to a range between 4,279 and 9,748.Even if employee-on-employee contact returned to just one-quarter of what it was before the disease hit, and interactions among the general public—beginning April 30—reached 20 percent of the old norm, the researchers projected that deaths in the state could hit 3,563.“What we find, no matter what we assume, is that reopening on Monday was just too early,” said Jackson Killian, Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who worked on the models. “If you let people go out and have contact again now, you end up causing deaths that could have been avoided.”Based on the nature and speed of COVID-19’s spread through Georgia, Killian and his team estimated the virus may have arrived in the state as early as Feb. 1, or at least weeks before the first diagnosed cases—a possibility Kemp himself has acknowledged. To be clear, the models cannot prove or verify that the first infection happened on that date, but used it as an assumed start date based on the available information and the spread to date. The governor’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.For their part, the team behind the models framed their approach not as an argument for absolutes, but a testament to dire stakes. “The stay-at-home orders cannot go on indefinitely,” said Maimuna Majumder, faculty member at the Computational Health Informatics Program and Harvard Medical School who led the creation of the models in partnership with Milind Tambe, a professor of computer science and director of Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society. Instead, she emphasized the need for a “new normal [that] still allows people to go back to work” and that acknowledges “each of us can make a difference by physically distancing ourselves at, for example, grocery stores.”Turgay Ayer, an associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, recently released a state-by-state COVID-19 simulator with colleagues at Harvard and researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital that he said found results “in line” with the estimations from the Harvard- MIT group.Ayer’s simulator showed that—under minimal restrictions, with no other interventions—there could be up to 20,000 deaths by Aug. 30 in Georgia, but he noted that was a worst-case scenario he didn’t expect to see. That’s because he believes politicians like Kemp will reimplement some restrictions once a resurgence of infections appears.“Once we start to see a second spike in infections in late July and early August, the policymakers will put some of these social distancing measurements back in place,” said Ayer. But the numbers do show one thing very clearly, he said: “If you lift the restriction too soon, a second wave will come, and the damage will be substantial both medically and economically. We don’t want to throw away the sacrifices we have made for weeks now.”The Harvard and MIT modelers working with The Daily Beast also looked at two neighboring states that, like Georgia, were hesitant to implement shutdowns in the first place, and are now mulling their own reopening plans: Florida and Mississippi. The results were similarly alarming.To be sure, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves have been more cautious than Kemp. DeSantis has, so far, mostly kept his state’s social distancing measures in place, while allowing localities to reopen beaches. He has also convened a Re-Open Florida Task Force to present a program for resuscitating commerce in the Sunshine State. The shelter-in-place order in Florida, like that in its neighbor to the north, was scheduled to sunset at month’s end. As of Friday, 987 Florida residents had been identified by the state as having died from COVID-19. Should DeSantis back off plans to reopen businesses and renew his stay-at-home decree through June 15, the Harvard/MIT/Daily Beast model projected his state would witness a total number of deaths as small as 988 or as large as 3,014 due to the virus.But if DeSantis had implemented Kemp’s aggressive reopening policies in recent days, the loss of life might have escalated to a range of 1,273 to 4,106 fatalities in the lowest-contact scenario, or even as high as 15,523 deaths if businesses returned to their pre-COVID-19 levels. DeSantis’ office did not reply to repeated inquiries from The Daily Beast.Reeves, meanwhile, appears to be plotting a course between Kemp’s attempted renaissance and a more prolonged shutdown. The Mississippi governor inked a decree on April 24—by which point 201 of his constituents had been identified as having died of COVID-19-related causes—that will keep the state’s gyms, salons, and theaters mostly closed and continue to limit eateries to take-out and delivery. But it will enable other retail stores to reopen at 50 percent capacity and for elective surgeries to resume. This fiat superseded an earlier shelter-in-place order with a looser “safer at home” policy, which is scheduled to remain in effect through May 11. The group from Harvard and MIT did not have the opportunity to model that new agenda in their simulation.Still, the team determined that had Reeves left his old order in place he could have contained the death toll to a range between 213 and 640 by June 15. Were he instead to have followed Kemp’s lead, the range of deaths might have spiked to between 1,865 to 3,463, assuming Mississippi businesses and patrons returned to their pre-pandemic habits.“There is no higher priority for Governor Reeves than ensuring the health and well-being of all Mississippians,” said a spokeswoman for his office, Renae Eze, noting the virus’ present impact on the state has been substantially less severe than the worst projections. “Thanks to the strategy executed by the governor and our state health officials, our testing is robust, our numbers are low, and our curve is flattening.”Regardless of how credible claims of flattening curves may be when testing remains so scant, the analysis performed by the Harvard and MIT team showed these same governors could have saved many of their constituents had they ordered social distancing sooner. Had Kemp instated his shelter-in-place order on March 23 (when New York City instituted its policy) instead of the date he actually did—April 3—the analysis found his state could have seen as few as 148 COVID-19 deaths by April 24 and possibly no more than 427, far lower than the actual documented count of 871.Likewise, the simulation projected that had DeSantis locked down Florida on March 23 instead of April 3, the tally of fatalities in his state on Friday could have fallen to somewhere between 103 and 376, rather than the actual total of 987. If Reeves had acted on the earlier date, only 36 to 111 Mississippians might have died because of the virus as of April 24, instead of 201.Of course, the Harvard and MIT models—like all such models—has critics. Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of California Los Angeles who previously worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledged the analysis and similar simulations “can help policy-makers frame a response.” But he argued such projections “overinterpret the benefit of stay-at-home orders” and underestimate the impact of other factors that go into determining the infection’s reproduction number.“It’s very difficult to input the right assumptions to get a useful outcome,” added Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and an expert on U.S. readiness for pandemics. “The infectivity of the virus, people following these rules, containment—you don’t really know what you’re dealing with.”Southern Tourist Hotspot Terrified of Post-Lockdown ExplosionStill, Redlener said, it’s too soon to reopen states without enough tests and contact-tracing to keep track of a resurgence of infections. “It’s not responsible of governors to rush into a return to business as usual, even if it’s relatively slow,“ he said. “This is a serious risk. We’re playing with fire.”Tambe, who co-created the models with Majumder and their team, acknowledged they may not map precisely onto reality. Still, he questioned whether the other factors model detractors cited—more diligent hand-washing and mask-wearing—would improve broadly enough in the weeks ahead to have an impact comparable to government orders. And he asserted that the purpose of the simulations was less to provide flawless predictions than to inform elected leaders and health officials as they consider methods to revive sedated economies.“We’re not saying this is the answer,” he said, acknowledging that a permanent lockdown was impracticable. “It’s one in the arsenal of tools that policymakers may employ.”When presented with doubts about the benefits of projecting pandemic death, Ayer—the Georgia Tech modeler—responded by quoting British statistician George E. P. Box, who famously said: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” In an absence of sufficient data to look back on—a real problem for a pandemic experts are still learning about every day—no model will be perfect, Ayer said. But a careful and meticulous one is a much better alternative for policy-makers to “having no models and relying on gut feeling.”The idea, Ayer added, is to look at the dozens of models currently available and see where the similarities lie, what the trends are, and what is likely to happen over time, as opposed to focusing on specific numbers.“A lot of experts have said that lifting restrictions too soon would lead to a second wave, and that’s what a lot of the research has shown,” said Ayer. “All of the modelers are using the best available evidence out there, but our understanding of the disease is evolving over time.”Or as Majumder put it, “A model is only as good as the assumptions we put into it, and when we have a novel pandemic, our knowledge is changing every second.”The models provided for this story were created by Jackson A. Killian, a Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Marie Charpignon, a Ph.D. student at MIT's Institute for Data, Systems, and Society; Bryan Wilder, a Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Andrew Perrault, a Postdoctoral researcher at Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society; Milind Tambe, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Director of Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society; and Maimuna S. Majumder, faculty at the Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP) based out of Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Amid Pandemic, New Poll Shows Growing Support Mail-In Voting - NPR

Amid Pandemic, New Poll Shows Growing Support Mail-In Voting NPR
Ohio's vote-by-mail experiment could serve as model for general election CBS News
‘Republicans need to get serious’: 2020 vote-by-mail battle heats up POLITICO
A very interesting number on GOP support for vote-by-mail The Washington Post
1 key number to watch in the 2020 race CNN
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Coronavirus death toll 54% higher in England and Wales than daily stats showed CNN
Coronavirus: Care home deaths up as hospital cases fall BBC News
UK care homes death toll rises sharply amid warning 'peak not reached' Channel 4 News
UK on track for one of Europe's worst virus death tolls Reuters
Coronavirus: a third of deaths taking place in care homes - BBC News BBC News
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Apple Maps now shows COVID-19 testing sites across the US - Engadget

Apple Maps now shows COVID-19 testing sites across the US Engadget
Apple adds COVID-19 testing sites to Maps across the US, and shares more mobility data TechCrunch
Apple Maps now displays COVID-19 testing sites in your area AppleInsider
Apple Maps: How to find COVID-19 testing locations on iPhone, iPad, and Mac 9to5Mac
New mobile COVD-19 testing unit will head to Buffalo's East and West sidesIIII WKBW TV | Buffalo, NY
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Tom Brady did not violate NFL rules by visiting Bucs offensive coordinator: report - Fox News

Tom Brady did not violate NFL rules by visiting Bucs offensive coordinator: report Fox News
NFL says Tom Brady's house call to Bucs offensive coordinator didn't violate league rules ESPN
Will NFL's explanation that Tom Brady, Bucs didn't break league rules satisfy opposing teams? Yahoo Sports
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor reached out to Tom Brady with a pun-heavy welcome letter Creative Loafing Tampa
Colin Cowherd Selects His Biggest Winners and Losers of 2020 NFL Offseason Fox Sports Radio
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It's not unfair that Isiah & Pistons are getting heat, talks NFL Draft — Ryen Russillo | THE HERD - The Herd with Colin Cowherd

It's not unfair that Isiah & Pistons are getting heat, talks NFL Draft — Ryen Russillo | THE HERD The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Thomas ranks Jordan as fourth-best player he ever played against msnNOW
Stephen A. is still upset Isiah Thomas was left off the 1992 Dream Team | Get Up ESPN
Bill Laimbeer chooses different path, escalates feud with 'whining' Bulls New York Post
"The Last Dance" Chicago Tribune
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Nova Scotia gunman killed 9 of his 22 victims by setting fire to their houses, police say

Nine of the 22 victims killed in Canada's Nova Scotia province earlier this month in a weekend shooting rampage died in house fires set by the gunman, Canadian police told reporters on Tuesday.

from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/3f2dVBi

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