Leaked coronavirus plan to quarantine 16m sparks chaos in Italy

Thousands tried to flee south after decree to confine people until 3 April was revealed

Angela Giuffrida in Rome and Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo

Mon 9 Mar 2020
 

Italian carabinieri block a road in Casalpusterlengo, 

northern Italy. Photograph: Matteo Corner/EPA


Italy experienced its highest day-on-day rise in deaths from coronavirus on Sunday and was plunged into chaos after details of a plan to quarantine more than 16 million people were leaked to the press, sending thousands into panic as they tried to flee.

The whole of Lombardy, including the financial capital of Milan, and 14 provinces across the worst-affected northern regions, have been shut down until 3 April as Italy grapples to contain the spread of a virus as deaths rose from 233 to 366, a rise of more than 50% in 24 hours, with the total number of cases so far at 7,375.

Thousands crowded train stations or jumped into their cars after a draft decree banning people from leaving or entering the region was revealed by Corriere della Sera late on Saturday afternoon.

In Italy’s south dozens of police officers and medics wearing masks and hazmat suits waited in Salerno, Campania, for passengers who had boarded overnight trains from Lombardy as fears mount over the virus’s potential spread.

“What happened with the news leak has caused many people to try to escape, causing the opposite effect of what the decree is trying to achieve,” warned Roberto Burioni, a professor of microbiology and virology at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. “Unfortunately some of those who fled will be infected with the disease.”Q&A
How can I protect myself from the coronavirus outbreak?Show

The northern regions of Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto account for 85% of the cases and more than 90% of the deaths. Puglia in the south has had 26 cases, while the provinces of Basilicata and Calabria have had just three and four.
A medical officer on board a high-speed train

 in Salerno during checks on passengers 

from the red zone. 

Photograph: Ivan Romano/Getty Images

Michele Emiliano, the president of Puglia, signed an order on Sunday obliging all those arriving from the north in the coming hours to go into quarantine.

“Get off at the first train station, don’t take planes to Bari and Brindisi, go back by car, get off the bus at the next stop,” he wrote on Facebook, mostly addressing people from the region who live in the north. “Do not bring the Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia epidemic to your Puglia. You are carrying the virus into the lungs of your brothers and sisters, your grandparents, uncles, cousins and parents.”

Three inmates died after a riot at a prison in Modena broke out when detainees were informed that the emergency decree banned visits from relatives to reduce infections.

Under the decree police and armed forces will patrol Lombardy’s access points, such as train stations and motorway entrances and exits, as well as border areas of the 14 provinces under lockdown across Emilia-Romagna, the second-worst outbreak zone, Veneto and Piedmont.

People will only be able to leave the areas for emergency reasons and face fines and up to three months in jail for breaking the quarantine rules. There has been some local opposition to the measures, including from the head of Veneto, Luca Zaia, who described the inclusion of three provinces in his region, including Venice, as “scientifically disproportionate”.

Checkpoints at motorways, train stations and airports are expected to be introduced on Sunday evening but the impact on flights is unclear, with local judicial authorities to decide whether to suspend or not. Alitalia on Sunday said it would suspend all national and international flights from Milan’s Malpensa airport and operate only a reduced service for domestic flights from the city’s Linate airport.

Serie A football matches were played behind closed doors despite a call from the country’s sports minister to stop the championship.

Parma and Spal play their Serie A football 

match in the empty Tardini stadium. 

Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/AP


Some of those who remained in the quarantine area expressed support for the measures to contain Europe’s worst coronavirus outbreak. “Of course, I feel a little anxious and scared,” said Alessia Scoma, 30, a business consultant in Milan. “But I agree with this measure and I feel ashamed for those who left Lombardy and fled so irresponsibly. They risk infecting their loved ones and this is something that, in their shoes, I could never forgive myself.”

Outside the quarantine area there was concern for those now unable to leave. “My mother stayed in Bergamo,” said Francesca Nava, 45, a journalist in Rome. “She is 70 years old and has survived a serious illness. The idea of not being able to reach her, for weeks, or maybe months, the idea that something might happen to her, this feeling of total impotence, leaves me breathless.”

The decree was approved by all national political parties and approved by the council of ministers on Sunday afternoon.

“The fact that the epidemic is still increasing substantially obliges us to take these measures to limit the freedom of people, which of course are very extreme measures that I don’t think have ever been taken in any other democratic country,” Walter Ricciardi, an adviser to the Italian health ministry on the coronavirus outbreak and member of the World Health Organization, told the Guardian.

 Passengers get off the train arriving from

 Milan in Naples. Photograph: Cesare Abbate/EPA

“We have to be responsible and being responsible means taking measures in the interest of people, even if sometimes it is hard to understand.”

The leak of the decree and ensuing panic however sparked harsh criticism from officials. Ricciardi, who was among the team of scientists who signed it, said that he assumed it must have leaked when the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, sent the draft to the regions to get their consent. “It means that sometimes both people from the institutions and people from the press do not feel a sense of responsibility,” he said. “These kinds of procedures have to be taken very confidentially in order not to provoke panic among the people and inappropriate behaviours.”


Conte said the leak was “unacceptable”. “This news created uncertainty, insecurity and confusion, and we cannot tolerate this,” he said on Sunday.

Schools and universities were already closed across Italy, but the decree closes cinemas, museums, theatres, gyms, swimming pools and ski resorts in the new quarantine zones.

Bars and restaurants can only open between 6am and 6pm, while shops must guarantee that customers stand at least one metre apart. Weddings and funerals have also been banned. Public transport services within all territories under quarantine are expected to continue. 

A woman wears a mask as she walks in Milan. 

Photograph: Antonio Calanni/AP

Beppe Sala, the mayor of Milan, called for a “change of lifestyle” in the city. “We need to avoid contacts that are not strictly necessary,” he said in a video on Facebook. “Please, remain in your homes as much as you can.”

Coronavirus is wreaking havoc on Italy’s already fragile economy, especially as the northern regions produce the largest share of the country’s GDP. The government on Thursday approved a €7.5bn (£6.5bn) package of financial measures to help the economy withstand the impact.

“We are facing an emergency but locking down a quarter of the country will cause immeasurable damage to Italian families,” Sala said. “People risk losing their jobs. I expect the government to move quickly to make the funds available. Like it or not, Milan is the heart of this country.”

Burioni said sacrifices were needed to halt the spread. “The most important thing at this time is that each and every one of us stay home,” he added. “We’ve seen rigorous behaviour in China that has had a very good impact – we need to do the same.”

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Barclays boss Jes Staley's links to Jeffrey Epstein investigated
City watchdog and Bank of England examine bank CEO’s ties to disgraced US financier


Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent 

 

Jes Staley says he developed a relationship with

 Jeffrey Epstein in 2000 through his work at JP Morgan. 

Photograph: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP


The City watchdog and the Bank of England are investigating the Barclays chief executive, Jes Staley, over his links to the sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The inquiry was launched after emails between the two men were handed to the UK regulators by their counterparts in the US.

Barclays revealed the existence of the investigation in a statement to the stock exchange. It said the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), part of the Bank of England that oversees banks, had launched the investigation in December.

Barclays said it focused on Staley’s “characterisation to the company of his relationship with Mr Epstein and the subsequent description of that relationship in the company’s response to the FCA”.

The American banking boss, who joined Barclays in 2015, says he developed a relationship with Epstein in 2000 when he was hired to lead the private bank at JP Morgan which deals with wealthy customers. Epstein was already a JP Morgan client when Staley joined.

It is common for bankers to work closely with wealthy clients, whose accounts are lucrative for the business. But Staley stayed in touch with Epstein for seven years after the financier was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008. Staley visited Epstein in Florida while he was still serving his sentence and out on work release in 2009.

The relationship did not end after Staley left JP Morgan for hedge fund BlueMountain Capital in 2013. The Barclays boss said the relationship started to “taper off’” after he left the US bank, with contact becoming “much less frequent” before it ceased altogether two years later.

But the pair remained close enough that Staley’s final visit involved sailing his own yacht, the Bequia, to Epstein’s private Caribbean island in 2015.

Staley said his final contact with the financier was in “middle to late 2015”, shortly before he took over as Barclays’ chief executive in December. It is not clear why Staley decided to cut ties with the former banking client.

Staley volunteered to explain his ties to Epstein last summer, when the media cast a fresh spotlight on their relationship.

The chief executive shared his account with key executives and the Barclays chairman, Nigel Higgins, and told the board he had made no contact with the financier since joining the UK bank.

Epstein died in prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex-trafficking underage girls. A US medical examiner ruled he killed himself.

It is understood the email exchanges, first reported by the Financial Times, suggest the two men were closer than Staley had said.

As the investigation was revealed on Thursday, Staley said he regretted his ties with Epstein. “Obviously I thought I knew him well, and I didn’t. And for sure with hindsight of what we all know now, I deeply regret having had any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”

Barclays said it had conducted an internal review and had no concerns over the way its chief executive had characterised his dealings with the convicted sex offender.

A spokesman said the bank had been aware of the relationship with Epstein before Staley’s appointment in October 2015.

Barclays added that Staley had “confirmed to the board that he had no contact whatsoever with Mr Epstein at any time since taking up his role as Barclays Group CEO in December 2015”. Barclays has seen the email exchanges sent to the regulators.

The board said it “believes that Mr Staley has been sufficiently transparent with the company as regards the nature and extent of his relationship with Mr Epstein. Accordingly, Mr Staley retains the full confidence of the board, and is being unanimously recommended for re-election at the annual general meeting.”

News of the Epstein investigation comes less than two years after Staley was personally fined almost £650,000 for attempting to unmask a whistleblower at Barclays in 2016.

An FCA spokesman said: “The FCA and PRA confirm there is an investigation concerning Mr Staley. We are unable to comment any further.”Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

Staley said: “It’s been very well known that I had a professional relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. It goes back to the year 2000 when I was asked to run the JP Morgan private bank. And he … already was a client when I joined the private bank. The relationship was maintained during my time at JP Morgan, but as I left Morgan the relationship tapered off quite significantly. We occasionally stayed in contact, and that all ended in late 2015.”

Staley added that the investigation “is focused on my transparency and openness with the bank regarding my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I feel very comfortable, that, going all the way back to 2015, I have been very transparent.”


The news overshadowed the release of the bank’s annual earnings, which showed pre-tax profit rose 25% to £4.4bn. Excluding legal and conduct costs, profit rose 9% to £6.2bn.

Staley received a pay package worth £5.9m in 2019, up from £3.4m a year earlier. That figure was due to a long-term incentive plan worth £1.5m. His bonus also rose to £1.7m.

When asked whether any of Staley’s pay would be impacted by the regulatory investigation, a Barclays spokesman said: “There is always the option to make an adjustment in future if it’s called for.”

Barclays shares closed down nearly 2% at 176p .

20 amazing women in science and math

By Live Science Staff MARCH 8,2020

Some were hailed in their lifetime, others died unrecognized, but all were amazing.

Brenda Milner (born 1918)

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Sometimes called the "founder of neuropsychology," Brenda Milner has made groundbreaking discoveries about the human brain, memory and learning.

Milner is best known for her work with "Patient H.M.," a man who lost the ability to form new memories after undergoing brain surgery for epilepsy. Through repeated studies in the 1950s, Milner found that Patient H.M. could learn new tasks, even if he had no memory of doing it. This led to the discovery that there are multiple types of memory systems in the brain, according to the Canadian Association for Neuroscience. Milner's work played a major role in the scientific understanding of the functions of different areas of the brain, such as the role of the hippocampus and frontal lobes in memory and how the two brain hemispheres interact.

Her work continues to this day. At age 101, Milner is still a professor in the department of neurology and neurosurgery at McGill University in Montreal, according to the Montreal Gazette.

Mary Anning (1799-1847)

(Image credit: Getty)

The children's tongue twister "she sells seashells by the seashore" was allegedly inspired by real-life seaside paleontologist Mary Anning. She was born and raised near the cliffs of Lyme Regis in southwestern England; the rocky outcrops near her home were teeming with Jurassic fossils. 

She taught herself to recognize, excavate and prepare these relics when the field of paleontology was in its infancy — and closed to women. Anning provided London paleontologists with their first glimpse of an ichthyosaur, a large marine reptile that lived alongside dinosaurs, in fossils that she discovered when she was no more than 12 years old, the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) in Berkeley, California, reported. She also found the first fossil of a plesiosaur (another extinct marine reptile).

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852)

(Image credit: API/Gamma-Rapho/Getty)

Ada Lovelace was a 19th century self-taught mathematician and is thought of by some as the "world's first computer programmer."

Lovelace grew up fascinated by math and machinery. At age 17, she met English mathematician Charles Babbage at an event where he was demonstrating a prototype for a precursor to his "analytical engine," the world's first computer. Fascinated, Lovelace decided to learn everything she could about the machine. 

In 1837, Lovelace translated a paper written about the analytical engine from French. Alongside her translation, she published her own detailed notes about the machine. The notes, which were longer than the translation itself, included a formula she created for calculating Bernoulli numbers. Some say that this formula can be thought of as the first computer program ever written, according to a previous Live Science report.

Lovelace is now a major symbol for women in science and engineering. Her day is celebrated on the second Tuesday of every October.

Rachel Carson (1907-1964) 

(Image credit: Hank Walker/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty )

Rachel Carson was an American biologist, conservationist and science writer. She's best known for her book "Silent Spring" (Houghton Mifflin, 1962), which describes the harmful effects of pesticides on the environment. The book eventually led to the nationwide ban of DDT and other harmful pesticides, according to the National Women's History Museum. 

Carson studied at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and received her master's degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932. In 1936, Carson became the second woman hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (which later became the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), where she worked as an aquatic biologist, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Her research allowed her to visit many waterways around the Chesapeake Bay region, where she first began to document the effects of pesticides on fish and wildlife. 

Carson was a talented science writer, and the Fish and Wildlife Service eventually made her the editor in chief of all its publications. After the success of her first two books on marine life, "Under the Sea Wind" (Simon and Schuster, 1941) and "The Sea Around Us" (Oxford, 1951), Carson resigned from the Fish and Wildlife Service to focus more on writing. 

With the help of two other former employees from the Fish and Wildlife Service, Carson spent years studying the effects of pesticides on the environment across the United States and Europe. She summarized her findings in her fourth book, "Silent Spring," which spurred enormous controversy. The pesticide industry tried to discredit Carson, but the U.S. government ordered a complete review of its pesticide policy, and as a result, banned DDT. Carson has since been credited with inspiring Americans to consider the environment. 

Susan Solomon (born 1956) 

(Image credit: Denver Post/Getty)

Susan Solomon is an atmospheric chemist, author, and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who for decades worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). During her time at NOAA, she was the first to propose, with input from her colleagues, that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were responsible for the Antarctic hole in the ozone layer.

She led a team in 1986 and 1987 to McMurdo Sound on the southern continent, where the researchers gathered evidence that the chemicals, released by aerosols and other consumer products, interacted with ultraviolet light to remove ozone from the atmosphere.

This led to the U.N. Montreal Protocol, which became effective in 1989, banning CFCs worldwide. It's considered one of the most successful environmental projects in history, and the hole in the ozone layer has shrunk considerably since the protocol's adoption.

Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017)

(Image credit: Newscom)

Maryam Mirzakhani was a mathematician known for solving hard, abstract problems in the geometry of curved spaces. She was born in Tehran, Iran, and did her most important work as a professor at Stanford University, between 2009 and 2014.

Her work helped explain the nature of geodesics, straight lines across curved surfaces. It had practical applications for understanding the behavior of earthquakes and turned up answers to long-standing mysteries in the field.

In 2014 she became the first — and still only — woman to win the Fields Medal, the most prestigious prize in mathematics. Each year, the Fields Medal is awarded to a handful of mathematicians under the age of 40 at the International Mathematical Union's International Congress of Mathematicians.

Mirzakhani received her medal one year after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, in 2013. The cancer killed her on July 14, 2017, at age 40. Mirzakhani continues to influence her field, even after her death; in 2019, her colleague Alex Eskin won the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in mathematics for revolutionary work he did with Mirzakhani on the "magic wand theorem." Later that year, the Breakthrough Prize endowed a new award in Mirzakhani's honor, which would go to promising, young women mathematicians. 

SEE THE OTHER 14 HERE 

Melting ice in Antarctica reveals new uncharted island

Researchers are calling it Sif Island, after a Norse goddess of the Earth.

The rocky coast of Sif Island peeks out under a mound of Antarctic ice.
(Image: © Gui Bortolotto)

Pointing toward South America like an icy finger, the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth. The peninsula's two major glaciers — the Thwaites Glacier and the Pine Island Glacier — are retreating toward the mainland faster than new ice can form, chipping away at the continent's coasts a little more each year.

This week, all that melting ice left behind a surprise that could change maps of the region permanently: an uncharted island, long buried in ice but finally visible above sea level for the first time.

Researchers with the international Thwaites Glacier Offshore Research project discovered the island earlier this week while sailing off the coast of the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf. The small island is only about 1,150 feet long (350 meters) and mostly covered in ice, but rises from the sea with a layer of brown rock distinct from the surrounding glaciers and icebergs.

After making a brief landfall, the researchers confirmed that the island is made of volcanic granite, and even hosts a few resident seals. According to expedition member James Marschalek, a doctoral student at Imperial College London, there is no other rocky outcropping like this visible for more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) in any direction.

Related: Scientists in Antarctica are racing to figure out why this giant glacier is melting so fast

The researchers tentatively named the uncharted outcropping Sif Island, after a Norse goddess associated with Earth.

Exciting as the discovery is, the island's sudden appearance is almost certainly a direct effect of the widespread glacial melt that has become typical in Antarctica in the past decade, Sarah Slack, a member of the expedition and middle school science teacher in Brooklyn, New York, wrote in a blog post.

"At first, we thought maybe an iceberg had become lodged on the outcropping years ago and then melted enough to expose the underlying rock," Slack wrote on Feb. 26. "But now we think that the ice on the island was once part of the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, a massive field of floating ice that extends outward into the ocean from the edge of the glacier."

Looks like ice retreated from the new "Sif Island" near #ThwaitesGlacier, #Antarctica since the early 2010s, based on a quick look at @googleearth timelapse.@ThwaitesGlacier @GlacierThwaites @rdlarter https://t.co/mt1E0QBEkk pic.twitter.com/UQr1phpukL

February 24, 2020


Using satellite images from Google Earth, expedition member Peter Neff made a time-lapse model showing how the ice shelf's steady retreat since 2011 left Sif Island detached and alone in Pine Island Bay. From above, the dollop of ice looks like just another lonely iceberg. Now that its island status has been confirmed, further study of Sif could reveal how the region's rocky underbelly will continue responding to climate change.

It's likely that the island emerged due to a process called glacial rebound, Lindsay Prothro, a glacial geologist at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi who was not involved with the expedition, told Nature.com. When glacial ice melts, it relieves pressure on the underlying continent; in response, the continent may "rebound," or rise up higher than it previously was. It's unclear whether rebound hastens or slows the rate at which ice shelves break apart — hopefully, further study of Sif Island could provide some clues.

The team's expedition is due to end on March 25. After that, a full analysis of Sif Island rock samples can commence. 

Originally published on Live Science.

HOW TO WASH YOUR HANDS IN SPACE, EH

Why do we use soap?
By Kimberly Hickok - Reference Editor Live Science
Reference article: Facts about soap and the importance of washing your hands.

Wash your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds for maximum protection against germs.
(Image: © Hand washing via Shutterstock)

Did you wash your hands? Did you use soap? 

Children everywhere are grossly familiar with those questions, but it's for a good reason: Washing with soap is essential for preventing the spread of germs that make us sick.
Germs, or microbes, are everywhere. Literally, everywhere. In the air, soil, water and on every surface, including your body. Most microbes are harmless and some are important for human health, like the ones that live in our gut. But there are several germs that cause problems, and these are the ones we prefer not to have on or in our bodies. Our first line of defense against those harmful germs is soap.

What is soap?

Soap is a mixture of fat or oil, water, and an alkali, or basic salt.
The ancient Babylonians are credited with being the first people to make soap. Their recipe for animal fats, wood ash and water has been found carved into clay containers dating back to 2800 B.C., according to soaphistory.net. They likely used the concoction for washing wool and cotton so the materials could be woven into cloth and not so much for cleaning their bodies. 

The ancient Egyptians developed a similar recipe for soap, which they used for treating sores, skin diseases and personal washing. The Romans also made soap, but it wasn't until the later centuries of the Roman era that soap was used for personal hygiene; prior to that, soap was a physician's tool for treating diseases. 

The basic recipe for soap hasn't changed for thousands of years. It's still a combination of fat or oils with an alkali — basic ionic salt — and water. When those ingredients combine in the proper proportions, they go through a chemical process called saponification, which results in soap. Today, there are two techniques that people use to make soap: the cold process and the hot process. 

In the cold process, a room-temperature lye solution (sodium hydroxide in water) is mixed with animal or vegetable oil. As the ingredients react with one another, the mixture thickens and heats up. Before it gets too thick, the mixture is poured into a mold where it solidifies, and the saponification process is complete. The last step is to let the soap sit, or cure for a few weeks, which allows excess water in the mixture to evaporate. This makes a harder soap, according to the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetic Guild. 

The hot process is the more traditional and ancient way to make soap and requires an outside source of heat. The ingredients are heated as they're mixed, which increases the speed of the saponification process. The soap is in a liquid form when it's poured into molds and it's ready for use as soon as it's solidified. Hot-process soap can be cured in a way that's similar to the cold-process soap, but it's not usually needed, according to the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetic Guild.


How soap works

Soap doesn't kill germs on our hands, it removes them. 

Germs stick to the oils and grease on our hands (sounds yucky, but it's totally normal). Water alone won't remove much of the germs on our hands because water and oil don't like each other, so they won't mix. But soap likes both water and oil. That's because soap molecules are a type of surfactant, which means they have one end that's water loving, or hydrophilic, and one end that's oil loving, or hydrophobic.

When you wash your hands with soap, the soap molecules act as a mediator between the water and oil molecules, and bind with both of them at the same time. Then when you rinse everything off, the soap carries away the germs with the water.

For the most effective hand washing, you must use soap and you must be thorough. Work up a lather because the friction helps lift dirt and oils from your skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). How long you should scrub depends on how dirty your hands are, but most health authorities recommend at least 20 seconds, or as long as it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" twice. And don't forget to scrape underneath your fingernails. That area is prime real estate for germs.

Once you've washed, be sure to air-dry or towel-dry. There's no agreed-upon best practice for drying, but wet hands are more likely to spread germs than dry ones, the CDC says.

Is antibacterial soap even better? Nope.

Antibacterial soaps have added ingredients like triclosan or triclocarban, which are hydrophobic molecules that can penetrate bacterial cell membranes and kill the bacteria. Sounds impressive, but studies have shown that antibacterial soaps are no more effective than regular soaps at removing bacteria. 

In 2016, the FDA issued a rule that antibacterial soaps were no longer allowed to be marketed to the public.

"Consumers may think antibacterial washes are more effective at preventing the spread of germs, but we have no scientific evidence that they are any better than plain soap and water," Dr. Janet Woodcock, the director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), said in a statement. "In fact, some data suggests that antibacterial ingredients may do more harm than good over the long term."

What about hand sanitizer?

The CDC recommends cleaning hands with soap and water, but if that's not an option, then hand sanitizer is a good backup. Studies have found that hand sanitizers with alcohol concentrations of 60-95% are more effective at killing germs than nonalcohol or low-alcohol sanitizers.

Related: Hand sanitizer sold out? Here's how to make your own.
The alcohol kills some bacteria and viruses by breaking down their protective membranes, which basically makes them fall apart. But it doesn't work for all germs, such as norovirus, Clostridium difficile, which can cause life-threatening diarrhea, or Cryptosporidium, a parasite that causes a diarrheal disease called cryptosporidiosis, the CDC says. Hand sanitizers also likely don't remove harmful chemicals like pesticides or heavy metals, nor does hand sanitizer work well on super dirty or greasy hands.

Hand washing with soap is, by far, the most effective way to keep harmful germs at bay.
Additional resources:
Hand washing do's and don'ts, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Learn more about the importance of hand washing from the CDC.
Here's a video showing how to hand wash, from the World Health Organization.

Banks’ coronavirus plans won’t work, say experts
For trading floors, working from home creates myriad problems

 

Getty Images

By Paul Clarke March 9, 2020

Investment banks have rushed to implement plans to protect their workforce from the coronavirus outbreak. The bad news: they won’t work.

Financial News spoke to eight epidemic and medical experts who all agreed that banks’ disaster-recovery plans would not prevent a spread of Covid-19 in the financial sector.

“The short answer is almost undoubtedly no, they [banks] are not adequately prepared,” said Jonathan D Quick, adjunct professor of global health at Duke University and author of The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It, adding that financial services organisations have not briefed their employees well enough.

“It’s like the coach chalking a play on the board, letting the team look at it for a moment, ending the ‘preparation’ with a hearty ‘play ball’,” he said.


Last week, FN revealed the first case of coronavirus at a large financial institution in the UK as an HSBC employee tested positive for the respiratory illness. The bank evacuated 100 staff from its UK headquarters in Canary Wharf and contacted clients the senior research analyst had recently visited.

On the same day, 1,200 workers at S&P Global, the rating agency, were sent home after the affected HSBC analyst reportedly visited its London office. A Deloitte employee working in the City was also diagnosed with the virus last week.

Many banks in London have pulled the trigger on their disaster-recovery plans, which involve splitting their trading teams across multiple sites in a bid to reduce the risk of transmission. Unlike other parts of the business, where employees can easily work remotely, regulatory, compliance and technological restrictions mean banks have opted to keep trading floors open.

“Are we doing enough? Maybe not, but our business continuity guys have never been busier,” said one senior trader.

“These measures are reactive and not really adequate for the long term. In the short run they may prove minimally effective,” said Geary Sikich, author of Protecting Your Business in a Pandemic.

JPMorgan has split its trading floors in both the US and UK, moving some of its London-based staff to its disaster-recovery office in Basingstoke.

Citi has moved 10% of its Canary Wharf-based trading team to its back-up office in Lewisham. However, sources within the trading division told FN that up to half of some teams have been shifted. Citi’s ambition is to have a third of trading staff in its London headquarters, and the remaining employees between its recovery site and working from home. The teams will rotate across the locations.

Goldman Sachs moved around 200 employees to its recovery site in Croydon, south London as a test on 5 March, but has yet to shift traders permanently. Morgan Stanley has switched trading staff to its contingency office in Hounslow, near Heathrow Airport, but this is not a formal activation of its plan, according to a person familiar with the matter.

David Hesketh, a former Merrill Lynch trader and founder of TradingHub, a fintech firm that works with investment banks on market-abuse detection, said: “It’s not unprecedented for them to have people working in these disaster-recovery sites, because they need to test them regularly. However, having groups of people working on them because there’s a threat they’re trying to mitigate is something we haven’t seen since 9/11.”

However, Dr Simon Clarke, an expert in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said banks’ contingency plans were a “sub-optimal solution”. “Reducing the density of workers in one place reduces, but by no means eliminates, the chance of transmission,” he said. “Fewer people is less of a problem, but they still have to travel and commute to these locations. In an ideal world, they would stay close to the office to reduce their chances of exposing themselves outside of work.”

Medical experts admitted there was little more banks could do to prevent the virus spreading, beyond isolating their employees.

For trading floors, however, working from home creates myriad problems. Aside from equipping traders with their usual set-up of ultra-fast broadband and multiple computer screens, banks ban personal mobile phones on the trading floor and require all calls to be recorded – rules that are difficult to enforce from a home office.

The Financial Conduct Authority has remained steadfast in its requirements for traders to work remotely, which traders acknowledge are difficult to meet. In a 4 March statement, the regulator said banks need to “use recorded lines when trading and give staff access to the compliance support they need”.

“If firms are able to meet these standards and undertake these activities from back-up sites or with staff working from home, we have no objection to this,” it added.

Mike Hampson, chief executive of consultancy Bishopsgate Financial, said: “The current coronavirus outbreak is highlighting exactly why the FCA has been pushing for all institutions to demonstrate their operational resilience in the face of extreme and possibly unforeseen circumstances.”

Clarke added that financial services organisations are ultimately limited in what actions they can take to prevent the spread of the virus. “The fact is, there is only so far you can limit people’s movements to reduce risk. We don’t live in an authoritarian state.”

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FDA commissioner: CDC coronavirus tests have been used for 1,583 patients

March 8, 2020 By Jaimy Lee
 

Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Saturday that the government has shipped enough kits to test approximately 75,000 people for COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has sickened more than 400 people and killed 19 in the U.S.

COVID-19, which was first detected in December in Wuhan, China, has since spread to more than 90 countries and has led to infections in more than 107,000 people worldwide and at least 3,600 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering’s Centers for Systems Science and Engineering.

In remarks made on Saturday at a White House press briefing, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn acknowledged some of the problems with the test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“There were manufacturing problems with the CDC test,” Hahn said. “While those issues have been resolved, at the time, this created complications for expanding access for public health laboratories and other developers who might use the CDC test as the basis for development of their own test.”

The administration has been criticized for the botched rollout of the tests. There have been a number of problems with the tests, including an issue with the third component of the test kit, which required public health laboratories to send the test to the CDC in Atlanta for final confirmation, as well as questions about the availability of the test, particularly in states with growing clusters of infections like Washington state.

“I believe the CDC was caught flat-footed,” New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday. “I believe they’re slow in their response, and I believe they’re slowing down the state.”

Hahn said that the CDC kits have been used in the U.S. to test 1,583 patients, which is three times as many people who had been tested by Feb. 29, but still far below the number of people who have been tested in countries like South Korea, which has tested more than 180,000 people.

He also said that 1.1 million tests manufactured by Integrated DNA Technologies, a Skokie, Ill.,-based company that was acquired by Danaher Corp. DHR, -0.69% in 2018, had been shipped to nonpublic health labs on Friday. “IDT and other manufacturers believe they can scale up production so that by the end of next week, an additional 4 million tests could be shipped,” Hahn said.

Separately, a number of commercial diagnostics company have said they will develop COVID-19 tests, including Laboratory Corporation of America LH, -3.91% and Quest Diagnostics Inc. DGX, -3.16%, which both announced plans on Thursday to do so. LabCorp’s stock is up 6% year-to-date, while shares of Quest have gained 4%. The S&P 500 SPX, -1.70% is down 8% year-to-date.

The US government has completed fewer than 6,000 coronavirus tests as more states report new cases and deaths

Business Insider•March 7, 2020

Coronavirus test kits in Krasnodar, Russia, on February 4, 2020.

AP Photo

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tested fewer than 6,000 potential coronavirus cases so far.

The figure came from FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Saturday, who last week promised there would be 1 million test kits available by the end of the week.

The US was unable to meet that goal, though Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday the nation will produce some 1.2 million kits by next week.
The US has struggled with its coronavirus response, in part due to an issue with CDC-issued test kits that ended up requiring states to send the CDC all cases for testing.

Officials expect the number of tests completed to rise substantially over the next week.

The United States government has conducted 5,861 tests for the novel coronavirus as of Friday at 6 p.m., US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on Saturday at an off-camera press briefing, CNN reported.

The report comes amid a rise in US cases as the virus continues to spread across the country. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency in his state after announcing 21 new cases on Saturday, joining a handful of other states that have declared public emergencies as a result of people testing positive for COVID-19.

There have been at least 19 deaths in the US from the virus that has killed nearly 3,500 globally so far. Most fatalities have occurred in China.

As CNN reported, the number does not mean 5,861 people have been tested for the virus, as those who are tested for typically have two swabs taken and tested: one nose swab and one throat swab. The number also does not account for tests at private labs.

Saturday marked the first time the US government released official numbers on coronavirus tests.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducts coronavirus testing, has faced backlash over its handling of US cases. While other countries affected by outbreaks of the virus, which is believed to have originated in China at the end of last year, have tested millions of patients for potential coronavirus, the US has tested just thousands, according to a report from MIT Technology Review.

Part of the issue, the report said, is faulty COVID-19 testing kits issued to states by the CDC in early February. The kits were found to have "faulty negative controls," meaning the results of some test kits were inaccurate, and states had to continue sending test samples to the CDC for testing.

FDA policy prohibited states and private entities from developing their own test kits, meaning they only had access to the faulty FDA kits. The agency lifted that regulation on February 29, allowing states and commercial labs to create their own coronavirus testing kits.

As Business Insider previously reported, Vice President Mike Pence — the Trump-appointed head of the US coronavirus task force — admitted that the country was not able to meet up with the demand for the test kits.

The FDA commissioner had promised March 2 that the US would have 1 million test kits available by the end of the week, though Pence said the country failed to meet such a promise.

"We don't have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward," the vice president said Thursday, telling the BBC that the new goal would be met next week and had been increased to 1.2 million testing kits.

The CDC on March 4 broadened its criteria for testing, allowing more individuals exhibiting symptoms of the disease to be tested.

Read more:
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declares a state of emergency and confirms 76 cases of coronavirus in the state

The number of coronavirus cases outside China could jump tenfold every 19 days without 'strong intervention,' a study says