People spreading coronavirus anxiety on Twitter might actually be bots

by Ryan Ko, The Conversation

Credit: Shutterstock

Recently Facebook, Reddit, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube committed to removing coronavirus-related misinformation from their platforms.

COVID-19 is being described as the first major pandemic of the social media age. In troubling times, social media helps distribute vital knowledge to the masses. Unfortunately, this comes with myriad misinformation, much of which is spread through social media bots.

These fake accounts are common on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. They have one goal: to spread fear and fake news.

We witnessed this in the 2016 United States presidential elections, with arson rumors in the bushfire crisis, and we're seeing it again in relation to the coronavirus pandemic.

Busy busting bots

The exact scale of misinformation is difficult to measure. But its global presence can be felt through snapshots of Twitter bot involvement in COVID-19-related hashtag activity.

Bot Sentinel is a website that uses machine learning to identify potential Twitter bots, using a score and rating. According to the site, on March 26 bot accounts were responsible for 828 counts of #coronavirus, 544 counts of #COVID19 and 255 counts of #Coronavirus hashtags within 24 hours.

This figure shows the top Twitter hashtags tweeted by bots over 24 hours. Credit: Bot Sentinel

These hashtags respectively took the 1st, 3rd and 7th positions of all top-trolled Twitter hashtags.

It's important to note the actual number of coronavirus-related bot tweets are likely much higher, as Bot Sentinel only recognizes hashtag terms (such as #coronavirus), and wouldn't pick up on "coronavirus", "COVID19" or "Coronavirus".

How are bots created?

Bots are usually managed by automated programs called bot "campaigns", and these are controlled by human users. The actual process of creating such a campaign is relatively simple. There are several websites that teach people how to do this for "marketing" purposes. In the underground hacker economy on the dark web, such services are available for hire.


While it's difficult to attribute bots to the humans controlling them, the purpose of bot campaigns is obvious: create social disorder by spreading misinformation. This can increase public anxiety, frustration and anger against authorities in certain situations.

A 2019 report published by researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute revealed a worrying trend in organized "social media manipulation by governments and political parties". They reported: "Evidence of organized social media manipulation campaigns which have taken place in 70 countries, up from 48 countries in 2018 and 28 countries in 2017. In each country, there is at least one political party or government agency using social media to shape public attitudes domestically."

The official tweet from Queensland Health and the bots’ responses.

The modus operandi of bots

Typically, in the context of COVID-19 messages, bots would spread misinformation through two main techniques.

The first involves content creation, wherein bots start new posts with pictures that validate or mirror existing worldwide trends. Examples include pictures of shopping baskets filled with food, or hoarders emptying supermarket shelves. This generates anxiety and confirms what people are reading from other sources.

The second technique involves content augmentation. In this, bots latch onto official government feeds and news sites to sow discord. They retweet alarming tweets or add false comments and information in a bid to stoke fear and anger among users. It's common to see bots talking about a "frustrating event", or some social injustice faced by their "loved ones".

The example below shows a Twitter post from Queensland Health's official twitter page, followed by comments from accounts named "Sharon" and "Sara" which I have identified as bot accounts. Many real users reading Sara's post would undoubtedly feel a sense of injustice on behalf of her "mum".

While we can't be 100% certain these are bot accounts, many factors point to this very likely being the case. Our ability to accurately identify bots will get better as machine learning algorithms in programs such as Bot Sentinel improve.

Screenshots of the accounts of ‘Sharon’ and ‘Sara’.

How to spot a bot

To learn the characteristics of a bot, let's take a closer look Sharon's and Sara's accounts.

Both profiles lack human uniqueness, and display some telltale signs they may be bots:
they have no followers
they only recently joined Twitter
they have no last names, and have alphanumeric handles (such as Sara89629382)
they have only tweeted a few times
their posts have one theme: spreading alarmist comments
they mostly follow news sites, government authorities, or human users who are highly influential in a certain subject (in this case, virology and medicine).

My investigation into Sharon revealed the bot had attempted to exacerbate anger on a news article about the federal government's coronavirus response.

The language: "Health can't wait. Economic (sic) can" indicates a potentially non-native English speaker.

An account that seemed to belong to a real Twitter user began engaging with ‘Mel’.

Bot ‘Sharon’ tried to rile others up through her tweets.

Bot ‘Mel’ spread false information about a possible delay in COVID-19 results, and retweeted hateful messages.

An account that seemed to belong to a real Twitter user began engaging with ‘Mel’.

Bot ‘Sharon’ tried to rile others up through her tweets.





It seems Sharon was trying to stoke the flames of public anger by calling out "bad decisions".

Looking through Sharon's tweets, I discovered Sharon's friend "Mel", another bot with its own programmed agenda.

What was concerning was that a human user was engaging with Mel.

You can help tackle misinformation

Currently, it's simply too hard to attribute the true source of bot-driven misinformation campaigns. This can only be achieved with the full cooperation of social media companies.

The motives of a bot campaign can range from creating mischief to exercising geopolitical control. And some researchers still can't agree on what exactly constitutes a "bot".

But one thing is for sure: Australia needs to develop legislation and mechanisms to detect and stop these automated culprits. Organisations running legitimate social media campaigns should dedicate time to using a bot detection tool to weed out and report fake accounts.

And as a social media user in the age of the coronavirus, you can also help by reporting suspicious accounts. The last thing we need is malicious parties making an already worrying crisis worse.


Explore furtherQ&A with Kathleen Carley on the spread of coronavirus disinformation
Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Regaining control: The case for a short, sharp lockdown

by C Raina MacIntyre, Louisa Jorm, Richard Nunes-Vaz and Timothy Churches, The Conversation

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented and may have long lasting global effects.

Until a vaccine is available, we have four main measures at our disposal:

1. identifying every case rapidly with extensive testing, and isolating cases.
2. tracking and quarantine of contacts
3. travel restrictions
4. social distancing (including lockdown) to reduce contact (and therefore spread of infection) between people.
5. Unlike countries such as South Korea, Australia has taken a slow trickle approach of phased, targeted restrictions to reduce social contact along with continued restricted testing.

We are in a partial lockdown state now, but it has been gradual. Different restrictions have been added on a rolling basis over a few weeks now, with schools still open. This is more of a slow trickle approach than a short, sharp, instant lockdown.

So far, Australia has not contained the epidemic as well as it could have, with a recent lapse in border control with the Ruby Princess cruise ship.

A silent epidemic may be growing, driven by mild or asymptomatic infections of people who did not meet our testing criteria.

A short, sharp lockdown for two to three incubation periods

The travel bans have been the most successful and strongest element of our approach. A phased approach of gradually increasing social distancing whilst keeping schools open will have some effect, but likely not enough.

It will leave us dealing with COVID-19 for much longer, with a slow trickle of new infections that keep feeding the epidemic. What's needed is a short, sharp lockdown for two to three incubation periods (four to six weeks), combined with scaled up testing capacity and expanded testing criteria.

This strategy, similar to South Korea's approach, would reduce the size of the epidemic substantially, spare the health system and give us a more manageable baseline from which to best protect Australia until a vaccine is available.

Epidemic growth is exponential, leaving little time for decision making. On March 1 we had 25 cases and now, nearly at the end of March we have over 4,700 cases.

While some of these are travel-imported cases, there is likely an as-yet undetected silent epidemic. In other words, there could be widespread community transmission of infections which restrictive testing and test kit shortages are preventing us from detecting.

We are concerned about the possibility of Australia losing control of the epidemic. We may well exceed health system capacity, increase the number of cases, experience health and economic losses, and a longer time to societal recovery.

A sharp lockdown needn't last six to 12 months

While the curve has flattened since March 24, this is likely the impact of the travel bans implemented between March 5-10 on Iran, South Korea and Italy.

An explainer video by the Australian Academy of Science.

It is too early yet to see an impact of social distancing, and lapses like the Ruby Princess cruise ship incident, together with lack of testing for asymptomatic high-risk people, may allow transmission to continue in the community.

Modeling shows that the greatest impact will be gained by the most comprehensive and immediate social distancing measures (such as lockdown), combined with enhanced testing and quarantine.

The argument that such measures need to be long-term (six to 12 months) is incorrect. China has demonstrated the feasibility of a short lockdown followed by phased lifting of restrictions.

A short, sharp, complete lockdown of four to six weeks will improve Australia's control of the epidemic, reduce case numbers more rapidly and bring us to a more manageable baseline. From there, we can start to phase in lifting of restrictions safely. Economic recovery can begin.

The slow trickle approach, especially if schools remain open, may result in continued epidemic growth, potential failure of the health system, and a far longer road to recovery.

A more comprehensive lockdown buys time

A comprehensive lock-down also buys time to scale up required testing, capacity for rapid case identification and isolation, and for thorough tracking and quarantine of contacts.

Contact tracing could be aided by novel smart phone apps, deployed with great success in South Korea.

For lockdown to be successful in a short, sharp burst, it must be accompanied by scaled up testing. We must ensure every new case can be identified rapidly during the lockdown and in the follow-up phase, when restrictions are lifted.

We need greatly expanded testing including asymptomatic, high risk people (contacts, evacuees and people in enclosed outbreaks such as cruise ships, aged care facilities, prisons). And we must allow doctors to use their clinical judgement to order a test.

It's time to scale up our capacity to produce test kits domestically, procure them from overseas or actively ask for help from other countries that have achieved testing at scale.

Without such an improvement in the public health response capacity, the coronavirus epidemic will almost certainly bounce back when even the current lockdown restrictions are lifted.

We have examples of countries which have failed and succeeded. We should allow these examples to guide our response.

Provided by The Conversation 

Architecture: Four ideas from history that offer healthier design

by Hannah Le Roux, The Conversation

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The response to COVID-19 has taken a spatial turn. Borders have been strengthened, people are being asked to confine themselves to their homes. Public spaces—markets, stadiums, schools—have been closed. It has suddenly changed the image of homes and cities.

I've compiled a short list of some of the design features of architecture through history that provide useful insights into what COVID-19 has taught us to be mindful of.

1. Waterpoints

A necessary and immediate public health intervention to stop the transmission of COVID-19 is through washing of hands. New rituals for timing the action, like singing Happy Birthday twice, have been invented.

Most modern buildings do not have taps anywhere near the entrances, as bathrooms, considered primarily as private places for toilet functions, are located deep within them.

In contrast, historical places were deeply sensitive to the transmissive dangers of gathering. In Rome, the provision of fountains supplied water from afar to the growing city. Their restoration in the Baroque period allowed for the hydration of pilgrims, itself a public health support, and for everyday practices such as washing and laundry.

At a closer scale, the location of cleansing rooms to support Islamic practices of wuḍūʾ, the ritual cleansing before prayers, is a model for transformed practices.

2. Learn from brass

The newest coronavirus appears to attach well to modern materials like glass, some metal alloys and plastics. The shiny surfaces most associated with cleanliness are potentially the most risky.

In contrast, the roughness of organic surfaces such as fabrics, and possibly wood and raw ceramics, appears to break up the RNA chains.

But porous surfaces bring their own cleanliness challenges. We could learn from Alvar Aalto's use of brass as a material for handles, given the far faster degradation of viral material on copper than on its modern substitute, stainless steel.

3. Courtyards, porches and lobbies

The courtyard allows for households to interact with sunlight and open air without needing to step into the public realm. It is typical of many of the largest towns of the world prior to the 20th century.

The alleys called hutongs in Beijing in Beijing, the corte or courtyards of Venice, the lapa of Southern Africa and the patio of Latin vernaculars all have an intrinsic function of supporting quarantine if required. The courtyard is a place to store provisions, to hang out bedding to air or dry, to allow children to play and to hear each other's sounds of health or distress.

Later typologies developed through colonial encounters with the indoor-outdoor spaces of Asian and African vernaculars incorporated porches – roofed, open air additions to the shell of the house. Like courtyards, they offer opportunities to access fresh air and sunlight.

Within many older homes in colder climates, the lobby is an integral element in the transition from outside to indoors. Apart from the thermal value, it functions as a quarantine zone for items of clothing, umbrellas and bags. Leaving these wet or dirty items behind in the lobby limits the intrusion of potentially unhealthy materials and biological agents into the home. As architects designed ever more minimal social housing in the 20th century, and supported the rapid decrease in the size of commercial apartments in the 21st, the excess space of the lobby was an easy target to shrink or remove.

Returning to the logic of lobbies will allow for reinsertion of these valuable thresholds of health and safety.

4. Medicinal gardens

The knowledge of medicinal plants among indigenous people is deep, and the many scholars and practising botanists who have kept track of such knowledge have often created a spatial resource in the form of medicinal gardens.

These places are not just sources of knowledge for research and education, but also materially valuable as environments of vaporised antimicrobial oils. Hedges of plants around gardens can further filter out transmissive agents.

South African lists of the indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants include over a dozen commonly used indigenous ones used to alleviate flu symptoms, including umhlonyana or lengana (Artemesia afra), which is cultivated in backyards, and imphepho (Helichrysum species).

The prodigious aloes are also an easy supply of gels to rehydrate hands that are dried out by frequent washing.

But there are challenges

Why is this information important at a time of medical crisis?

COVID-19 has made it clear that unequal access to health facilities, along with cost containment, standardisation and the market-driven design of space, comes at an enormous price in human and financial terms. In reacting to the pandemic, architecture can reclaim its impact by conceding its loss of connection with public health, looking beyond Western thinking for its references.

How families and roommates can effectively self-quarantine, self-isolate

Provided by The Conversation 

UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA

Antiviral used to treat cat coronavirus could hold key to COVID-19

by Gillian Rutherford, University of Alberta

Biochemist Joanne Lemieux is working with U of A colleagues to find out whether a compound known to cure a deadly coronavirus-caused disease in cats might also work against COVID-19 in humans. Credit: University of Alberta

University of Alberta researchers are racing against the clock to test an antiviral drug that has been proven to cure a cat coronavirus and is hoped to have the same effect on people with COVID-19.

"Our lab has been working as fast as we can to get our results out," said biochemist Joanne Lemieux. "We have not taken weekends, the days of the week have blurred. We're all working non-stop to get results as fast as we can."

The project is one of 11 at the U of A to receive funding from the federal government's $52.6 million investment in COVID-19 research.

"There is a possibility that combination therapy can be used, so there are multiple lines of attack," Lemieux said.

Following the worldwide outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, chemist John Vederas, biochemist Michael James (now a professor emeritus) and other U of A scientists studied a mechanism that stopped the virus from replicating in the laboratory. The compounds, known as protease inhibitors, have since been further developed in the United States, tested and shown to also stop a fatal virus in cats.

Now Vederas, Lemieux and virologist Lorne Tyrrell are combining their labs' efforts to test the inhibitor against the new coronavirus that is causing the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

"I'm very excited about this research project," Lemieux said. "It's nice to think that we can make a difference."

How protease inhibitors work

It is estimated that five to 10 percent of all new drugs in development worldwide are protease inhibitors. They have been used successfully to target diseases including high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, HIV, Type 2 diabetes and even cancer.

COVID-19 is a ribonucleic acid (RNA) virus, as are many other infectious viruses such as Ebola, hepatitis C, West Nile and polio. Proteases are enzymes that allow the virus to replicate inside a human host.

"When the virus enters a cell, the RNA is translated into a polypeptide—a long single protein chain—and the protease chops that long chain into many different parts, which then cause the damage," explained Lemieux.

"If the protease does not work, the virus cannot replicate in the cell, so it's a pretty clear antiviral target," she said.

Vederas' lab in the Faculty of Science will produce the inhibitor drug, and Lemieux's lab will determine the crystal structure of the COVID-19 protease after it is blocked by the drug to observe how it works. Tyrrell will test its effect against the viral load in a cell culture at his lab, which is federally approved to work with deadly pathogens such as COVID-19.

Connection to a cat virus

There are several promising things about this protease inhibitor that make the U of A researchers hopeful it will be a fit for COVID-19.

Genome sequencing of the novel coronavirus indicates that its protease is nearly identical (96 percent) to the protease in the original SARS virus.

"Of the 306 amino acid residues in the chain that makes the 3CL protease of the "Wuhan' virus, only 12 are different and they are highly similar in properties," the researchers stated in their research proposal.

Another good sign is that a derivative of the same protease inhibitor was recently shown by American veterinary investigators to cure cats of feline infectious peritonitis, a coronavirus-caused condition that is almost always fatal to the animals.

"The key compound affected cures or significant remissions in all the cats," the researchers stated.

"It is very exciting that the drug was effective and tolerated in cats," said Lemieux, while cautioning that it still must be proven and tested in humans.

Translating discovery into life-saving products

Lemieux, who is director of the Membrane Protein Diseases Research Group within the U of A's Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, usually focuses her research on proteases associated with other diseases such as Parkinson's and urinary tract infections, but all work in her lab has shut down except for the COVID-19 project.

"When I teach my classes at the university I try to impart that fundamental research can really assist us in drug development," she said. "I try to get the students excited about protein structures and protein chemistry, and especially how proteases can be inhibited for drug development."

Tyrrell, who is the founding director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology, said another advantage for the U of A project is that the institute has a commercialization hub designed to take promising bench research to patients as soon as possible through licensing or partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. It is led by Michael Houghton, who identified the hepatitis C virus and has more than 70 patents in development.

Tyrrell said pharmaceutical companies can sometimes be reluctant to develop drugs against viruses that may be fleeting if they can be contained through public health measures, such as the SARS and MERS outbreaks. He said that may be different this time.

"With the crisis right now, it is critical that virologists translate some of the things we are discovering into products," said Tyrrell.

Lemieux said the U of A researchers hope to know within the next two months whether the protease inhibitor they are developing is effective against the COVID-19 virus.

"Obviously cats and humans are different," said Lemieux. "We're far away from developing something to treat people, but I would call these promising first steps towards development of a protease inhibitor drug to treat either this outbreak or future ones."

SEE
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/cat-infected-with-covid-19-from-owner.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/second-dog-tests-positive-for.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/dont-abandon-your-pets-heartbreaking.html

Research: Lockdowns need to last more than six weeks to contain COVID-19

by Imran Ghori, Matthew Simmons, University of California - Riverside

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

People around the world are wondering how long COVID-restrictions have to last in order to curtail the pandemic.

A research study on 36 countries and 50 U.S. states has found that aggressive intervention to contain COVID-19 must be maintained for at least 44 days. The study is co-authored by Professor Gerard Tellis of USC Marshall School of Business, Professor Ashish Sood of UC Riverside's A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management, and Nitish Sood, a student at Augusta University studying Cellular & Molecular Biology. The paper is published in the open sources journal SSRN and is titled, "How Long Must Social Distancing Last."

MARCH 27/2020 MODELING HOW NOT TO PRACTICE

PANDEMIC SOCIAL DISTANCING 

  HEALTH CARE WORKERS PROTEST ON THEIR NEED FOR PPE AND SAFE WORKING CONDITIONS PRACTICING SAFE DISTANCING ON THE PICKET LINE

The authors identify two simple, intuitive, and generalizable metrics of the spread of disease: daily growth rate and time to double cumulative cases. Daily growth rate is the percentage increase in cumulative cases. Time to double, or doubling time, is the number of days for cumulative cases to double at the current growth rate. Time to double in disease spread is the opposite of half-life in drug metabolism.

"Counts of total or new cases can be misleading and difficult to compare across countries," Professor Tellis said. "Growth rate and Time to double are critical metrics for an accurate understanding of how this disease is spreading."

Given these two metrics, the researchers defined three measurable benchmarks for analysts and public health managers to target:

• Moderation: when growth rate stays below 10% and doubling time stays above seven days.
• Control: when growth rate stays below 1% and doubling time stays above 70 days.
• Containment: when growth rate remains 0.1% and doubling time stays above 700 days.

"These simple, intuitive, and universal benchmarks give public health officials clear goals to target in managing this pandemic," Professor Sood said.

Preliminary results using this model to analyze the data suggest that once aggressive interventions are in place, large countries take almost three weeks to see moderation, one month to get control, and 45 days to achieve containment. With less aggressive intervention, it can take much longer. Important differences exist by size of country. Public health administrators should note larger countries take longer to see moderation.

The authors defined aggressive intervention as lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, mass testing and quarantines.

"Singapore and South Korea adopted the path of massive test and quarantine, which seems to be the only successful alternative to costly lockdowns and stay-at-home orders," Nitish Sood said.

Their research focuses on diffusion of innovations, new products, and new technologies. The same concepts and tools can be applied to analyze the spread of COVID-19 and the effects of measures to stop it.

"Even though huge differences exist among countries, it's striking to see so many similarities from aggressive intervention to moderation, control, and containment of the spread of the disease," Professor Sood said.

Professor Tellis added, "Besides size of country, borders, cultural greetings (bowing versus handshaking and kissing), temperature, humidity, and latitude may explain these differences."

The researchers say their analysis bolsters the case for adopting aggressive measures, whether it's the aggressive lockdowns of Italy or California, massive testing and quarantine of South Korea or Singapore, or a combination of both as seen in China. However, the U.S. may have a unique challenge because of its federal constitution.

Only half of the states have adopted aggressive intervention and that at varying times. Should these states achieve control or containment, they may be vulnerable to contagion from states that were late to do so, the researchers say.Lack of testing doesn't explain why Japan has so far escaped the worst of the coronavirus

More information: Gerard J. Tellis et al. How Long Should Social Distancing Last? Predicting Time to Moderation, Control, and Containment of COVID-19, SSRN Electronic Journal (2020). DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.356299

Data science can play a key role in combating coronavirus

by Leiden University

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

After China, Europe and America, chances of a major coronavirus outbreak in Africa are high. "Many victims will be in poor communities where health care and protection is scarce," says professor Mirjam van Reisen of Leiden University. According to her, data science can play a key role in regulating the virus, and Africa can benefit from available data.

Data alone is not enough

Africa can learn from the data of other countries to prevent a serious outbreak. "But data alone is not enough," Van Reisen explains. "The origin of data is just as important as data itself." Van Reisen is part of the Virus Outbreak Data Network (VODAN), a data network in which data can be found by computers and is available under national legislation. The network is global and covers all continents. VODAN follows the guidelines of the European Open Science Cloud, which requires all scientific data to be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR). This is applied in VODAN to medical digital data. The network can be used to investigate how the virus spreads and how it can be regulated.

Origin is extra relevant

"It is important that we can reuse the data, that we understand their origin, that we know their reliability and that we can situate them where they were collected," says Van Reisen. "We don't yet know how the virus behaves in different parts of the world, which makes the information about the origin of the data even more relevant. Understanding how the virus is spreading is crucial to combating Covid-19."

Discovering patterns

Africa is not yet connected to such a network. This is apparent from the data from the Ebola epidemic, for example. The data is very difficult to find and inaccessible. If the data is accessible, it is often not interoperable or reusable. VODAN ensures that medical data from Covid-19 are and remain FAIR. This improves machine learning and other approaches that include artificial intelligence to detect patterns in epidemic outbreaks.

Implement in VODAN

In order to fully implement Africa in VODAN, ZonMw has made a subsidy available. The Philips Foundation also supports the approach. FAIR data points for interoperable data are now being set up in China and Uganda. Van Reisen also set up the Training of Trainers (ToT) in collaboration with Kampala International University in Uganda. The training is intended for data scientists, computer scientists, people working on digitization in the medical sector, the Ministry of Health and other relevant institutions and companies, to train them in FAIR data storage. The training will be rolled out with data stewards from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

UN launches virus aid plan, says all of humanity at risk
NOT JUST AMERIKA OR KANADA

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The coronavirus pandemic is threatening the entire human race, the United Nations warned Wednesday as it launched a humanitarian response plan featuring an appeal for $2 billion to help the world's poorest and most vulnerable people.

"COVID-19 is threatening the whole of humanity—and the whole of humanity must fight back," Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in announcing the initiative.

"Global action and solidarity are crucial. Individual country responses are not going to be enough."

Just last week, as the novel coronavirus spread to more and more countries, killing thousands and infecting many more, Guterres warned that unless the world came together to curb the spread, millions of people could die.

The plan "aims to enable us to fight the virus in the world's poorest countries, and address the needs of the most vulnerable people, especially women and children, older people, and those with disabilities or chronic illness," said Guterres.

If fully funded, "it will save many lives and arm humanitarian agencies and NGOs with laboratory supplies for testing, and with medical equipment to treat the sick while protecting health care workers," he added.

The amount of money sought by the plan is small compared to the $2 trillion that the US Congress is poised to approve as a rescue effort for devastated American consumers, companies and hospitals as the world's largest economy grinds to a sudden halt.

Two scenarios

The UN plan is designed to last from April to December—suggesting the world body does not see the health crisis abating any time soon.

The exact total of $2.012 billion is supposed to flow in in response to appeals that various UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization and the World Food Programme, have already made.

Guterres said that in parallel, humanitarian aid provided yearly by member states to help 100 million people around the world must continue.

Otherwise, he said, the coronavirus pandemic could lead to rampant outbreaks of other diseases such as cholera and measles, as well as higher levels of malnutrition.

"This is the moment to step up for the vulnerable," Guterres said.

As spelled out in an 80-page booklet, the UN plan will be carried out by UN agencies that work directly with non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

It will be coordinated by the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Mark Lowcock of Britain.

The money will be used for a variety of purposes: to set up hand-washing facilities in refugee camps, launch public awareness campaigns and establish humanitarian air shuttles with Africa, Asia and Latin America, the UN says.

The exact needs of some countries are still being identified.The plan names 20 or so as deserving top priority for aid, including some enduring war or some degree of conflict, such as Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Yemen, Venezuela and Ukraine.

But countries such as Iran and North Korea are also analyzed in the booklet.

The plan foresees two general scenarios as to how the pandemic might evolve.

Under the first, the pandemic is brought under control relatively quickly as its rate of spread slows over the course of three or four months. This, it says, would allow for a relatively swift recovery in terms of public health and the economy.

But under the second model, the pandemic spreads quickly in countries that are poor or developing, mainly in Africa, Asia and parts of the Americas (LIKE GEORGIA, USA).

"This leads to longer periods of closed borders and limited freedom of movement, further contributing to a global slowdown that is already under way," said the UN.

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Limited release of prisoners may prevent COVID-19 break out

ON FOX LAST NIGHT RIGHT WHING-NUT TUCKER CARLSON USED THE TROPE THAT RELEASE OF NON VIOLENT MINIMUM SECURITY PRISONERS WAS ACTUALLY THE EQUIVALENT OF RELEASING RAPISTS ONTO THE STREETS. YEP HE SAID THAT.
HE MUST OF MISSED THE STORY ABOUT THE GUY IN THE UK WHO WAS AN EX FELON CHARGED WITH MURDER TRIED TO SAVE HIS LAWYER FRIED FROM A TERRORIST ATTACK, USING A FIRE EXTINGUISHER.

by Jane Faure-Brac, Australia National University

Credit: Michael Coghlan, flickr

Criminal law experts are recommending the limited release of elderly, young and minor offenders from Australian jails and detention centers to avoid a preventable COVID-19 outbreak.

Professor Lorana Bartels from The Australia National University and Professor Thalia Anthony from the University of Technology Sydney coordinated an open letter to state and territory governments calling for urgent reforms to protect the prison population from the global health pandemic. More than 340 legal experts signed the letter.

"Australian prisons and detention centers will become epicenters for the transmission of COVID-19, if governments don't act now," said Professor Bartels, Program Leader of the ANU Criminology Program.

"Among a range of recommendations, we're calling for the early release of vulnerable prisoners and detainees who are at high risk of harm from COVID-19."

This includes those with pre-existing health conditions, the elderly and very young, those detained for summary offenses such as unlawful driving, property crimes and those who are likely to be released in the next six months.

Professor Anthony said urgent measures, including the release of prisoners, have been taken in response to the COVID-19 emergency in the United States, the United Kingdom, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

"Australian governments must provide a coherent approach to protect prison populations here in Australia" she said.

"It is only a matter of time before COVID-19 breaks out in our prisons and youth detention centers. This will then have a substantial flow-on effect to the community."

Professor Bartels said justice reforms to protect the health of prisoners and the broader community were essential.

"Prisoners have an acute risk of experiencing the severe and critical consequences of COVID-19 due to pre-existing health issues, and the lack of testing and treatment in prisons," she said.

Professor Bartels said most people who enter prison are unsentenced and nearly a third are expected to serve less than 12 months.

"Tens of thousands of people are likely to be released into the community by the end of the year, making them potential carriers of Coronavirus back into communities," she said.

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How not to fall for coronavirus BS: Avoid the 7 deadly sins of thought

by Luke Zaphir, The Conversation

Credit: Shutterstock

With the COVID-19 pandemic causing a great deal of anxiety, we might come to think people are irrational, selfish or downright crazy. We see people showing up to public venues en masse or clearing supermarket shelves of toilet paper.

Experts are often ignored. We hear inconsistent information and arguments filled with fallacious reasoning being accepted by a seemingly large number people.

The answer for the kind of panicked flurry in reasoning may lie in a field of critical thinking called vice epistemology. This theory argues our thinking habits and intellectual character traits cause poor reasoning.

These thinking habits are developed over a lifetime.When these habits are poorly developed, we can end up with intellectual vices. The more we think viciously (as a vice), the harder it is for us to effectively inquire and seek truth.

Vice epistemology points to many thinking vices and sins that cause problems for inquiry. I have chosen seven that show up regularly in the literature:

1. Sin of gullibility

"I heard coronavirus particles can stay in the air for up to five days!"
Researchers found SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, remains infectious in airborne droplets for at least three hours.
But all sorts of claims are being touted by people and we're all guilty of having believed someone who isn't an expert or simply doesn't know what they're talking about. Gullibility as a thinking sin means that we lack the ability to determine the credibility of information.
Relevant expertise and experience are essential qualities when we're listening to someone's own argument. But with something like COVID-19, it's also important we look at the type of expertise someone has. A GP might be able to tell us how we get the infection—but they wouldn't count as an expert in infectious disease epidemiology (the way an infectious disease spreads across a population).


2. Sin of cynicism

"I'd better stock up on toilet paper before everyone else buys it."
In many ways, cynicism is the opposite of gullibility. It is being overly suspicious of others in their arguments and actions.
If you've suddenly become suspicious of your neighbours and what they might do when supermarket stocks are limited, that's a cynical way to think.
If we think the worst interpretation of arguments and events is correct, we can't inquire and problem-solve effectively.

3. Sin of pride

"I know what's best for my family!"
Pride is an intellectual sin (though it's more popular as a spiritual one). In this particular case, it is the habit of not admitting to ourselves or to others that we don't know the answer. Or perhaps that we don't understand the issue.
We obstruct a genuine search for truth if we are dogmatic in our self-belief.
It's effective reasoning to take what the evidence and experts say and then apply it specifically to our individual needs. But we have gone astray in our thinking if we contradict those who know more than us and are unwilling to admit our own limitations.

4. Sin of closed-mindedness

"I won't accept that."
Closed-mindedness means we're not willing to see things from different perspectives or accept new information. It's a serious intellectual vice as it directly interferes with our ability to adjust our beliefs according to new information.
Worse still, being close-minded to new ideas and information means it's even more challenging to learn and grow—we'd be closed minded to the idea that we're closed minded.

5. Sin of prejudice

"I've stopped buying Chinese food—just in case."
Prejudiced thinking is an intellectual vice we often start developing early in life. Children can be incredibly prejudiced in small ways—such as being unwilling to try new foods because they already somehow know they're gross.

As a character flaw, it means we often substitute preconceived notions for actual thinking.

6. Sin of negligence

"SARS was more deadly than COVID-19 and that wasn't that big a deal"
Creating a poor analogy like this one is not a substitute for thoughtful research and considered analysis.
Still, it is difficult to explore every single topic with thorough evaluation. There's so much information out there at the moment it can be a real chore to investigate every claim we hear.
But if we're not willing to check the facts, we're being negligent in our thinking.


7. Sin of wishful thinking

"This will all be over in a week or two and it'll be business as usual."
Our capacity to believe in ourselves, our hard work, our friends and culture can often blind us to hard truths.
It's perfectly fine to aim for a certain outcome but we need to recognise it doesn't matter how much we hope for it—our desire doesn't affect the likelihood of it happening.
A pandemic like COVID-19 shows our way of life is fragile and can change at any moment. Wishful thinking ignores the stark realities and can set us up for disappointment.



So what can we do about it?

There are some questions we can ask ourselves to help improve our intellectual character traits:
What would change my mind?

It's a red flag for sin of pride if nothing will change your mind.

What is the strongest argument the other side has?

We often hold each piece of the truth in our own perspective. It's worth keeping in mind that unless there's wanton cruelty involved, chances are differing arguments will have some good points.

What groups would gain or lose the most if we keep thinking this way?

Sometimes we fail to consider the practical outcomes of our thoughts for people who aren't like us. We've seen in the last few weeks that the people who have a lot to lose (such as casual workers) matter when it comes to the way we respond to the pandemic.

It's worth taking a moment to consider their perspectives.

How much do you actually know about an issue? Who is an expert?

The experts always have something to say. If they agree on it, it's a good indication we should believe them. If there isn't general consensus, we should be dubious of one-sided claims to truth.

And remember the person's actual expertise—it's too easy to mistake a political leader or famous person with an expert.

In challenging days like these, we may be able to help ensure a better outcome for everyone if we start by asking ourselves a few simple questions.
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As rich nations battle COVID-19, anxiety grows for low-income states

3D print of a spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19--in front of a 3D print of a SARS-CoV-2 virus particle. The spike protein (foreground) enables the virus to enter and infect human cells On the virus model, the virus surface (blue) is covered with spike proteins (red) that enable the virus to enter and infect human cells. Credit: NIH

As Europe and the United States struggle to contain the coronavirus pandemic, aid groups warn that without measures millions could die in low-income countries and war zones such as Syria and Yemen, where hygiene conditions are already dire.

The outbreak has infected some 580,000 people and killed over 26,000 around the world after emerging in China in December last year.

Across Africa, the official numbers are still relatively low with 83 deaths and over 3,200 confirmed cases on Friday, according to the African Union.

But aid groups are sounding the alarm on the potentially devastating consequences of a severe outbreak in low-income and conflict-ridden countries, where healthcare systems are in tatters and hygiene conditions poor.

"Refugees, families displaced from their homes, and those living in crisis will be hit the hardest by this outbreak," said the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in a statement.

Misty Buswell from the IRC said areas like the last rebel-held province in war-torn Syria, Idlib, which was already enduring a humanitarian crisis before the pandemic started, were particularly at risk.

"A lack of food, clean water and exposure to cold weather have already left hundreds of thousands of people in poor health, making them even more vulnerable," said Buswell, adding the devastation in Idlib could be "unimaginable".

'Not enough'

Around the world three billion people lack access to running water and soap, which are the most basic weapons of protection against the virus, UN experts warned.

"Frequently washing hands is the most effective way to protect against the coronavirus, but what will more than half the Yemeni people who don't have access to safe water do?" the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen tweeted Sunday.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued a stark warning last week: "If we let coronavirus spread like wildfire—especially in the most vulnerable regions of the world—it would kill millions of people."

The UN chief announced a humanitarian relief plan on Wednesday, featuring an appeal for $2 billion dollars to help the world's poorest and most vulnerable people.

"But we already know that it won't be enough," said Delphine Pinault, Uganda country director for the humanitarian organisation Care.

Cancel debt?

After G20 nations pledged $20 trillion for the global economy to counter forecasts of a deep recession, international aid agency Oxfam also said even this was insufficient.

"On the day that Imperial College London has warned that close to 40 million lives could be lost without urgent action, the world's richest governments are still only warming up to the scale of the task," said Chema Vera, Oxfam's interim executive director.

In a separate blog piece, Vera called on G20 nations to cancel debt of low-income countries. "If they pay the debt that they have today, they will be able only to minimally protect their people," he said.

The lack of healthcare infrastructure is another problem faced by poorer countries to deal with the pandemic.

France has 7,000 intensive care beds, compared to 100 or even a dozen in other less well-off nations. "In the most serious cases we won't be able to do anything," said Isabelle Defourny, head of operations at Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

'Race against time'

Imposing a lockdown and keeping infected people in quarantine will also be difficult in countries where a lack of social protection measures will force people to work.

It remains unclear whether the virus will develop in the same way across the globe. The climate and the coexistence with other viruses may affect COVID-19, said expert in infectious diseases for Action Against Hunger (ACF) Dieynaba N'Diaye.

Demographics in Africa—where 70 percent of the population is under the age of 30—may also modify the trajectory of the virus, as older generations are particularly vulnerable.

And several outbreaks of Ebola in western African nations have provided governments with previous experience of dealing with an epidemic.

But aid groups are now in a race against time.

"We can't stop the coronavirus pandemic, it's everywhere. But we can slow it down and buy time to prepare ourselves," said MSF's Defourny.

"The window of opportunity is a matter of weeks," added N'Diaye.