Saturday, August 01, 2020

BIG BROTHER ZUCKERBERG

Facebook quarterly profit rockets despite ad boycott, pandemic

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed the social network's quarterly results a day after his testimony by video, seen here, before a congressional antitrust panel

Facebook reported Thursday that its quarterly profit had nearly doubled and users grew despite a boycott by advertisers and the pandemic-induced economic turmoil.

The leading social network said it made a profit of $5.2 billion on $18.7 billion in revenue in the recently ended quarter, as the number of people using the platform monthly rose to 2.7 billion.

"This was a strong quarter for us, especially compared to what we expected at the start," chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said.

Shares in the Silicon Valley-based technology giant were up six percent in after-market trades following release of the earnings figures.

The number of people using the tech giant's overall "family" of apps including WhatsApp and Messenger each month topped three billion, according to Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg said he could not predict when Facebook employees would return their offices, in light of surge in coronavirus cases.

"It is incredibly disappointing because it seems like the US could have avoided this current surge in cases if our government had handled this better," Zuckerberg said.

Facebook expected as much as half of its employees to be working from home on a long-term basis in the next five to ten years.

Defending the story

Zuckerberg sought to highlight the importance of technology firms during the crisis, as he recounted his testimony at a Congressional antitrust hearing along with CEOs of Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet at a panel investigating market dominance.

"As I said yesterday the tech industry is an American success story," Zuckerberg said.

"Products, we build have changed the world for the better and improved people's lives."

Use of Facebook has surged as people staying close to home due to the pandemic turn to the platform to virtually connect with friends and loved ones.

"Imagine going through this pandemic two decades ago when the internet was nascent Facebook didn't even exist,"Zuckerberg said.

He remained adamant that Facebook does not want hate speech on the social network, despite criticism that the social network does not do enough to fight misinformation and vitriol.

Organizers of a Facebook ad boycott have vowed to continue their campaign, saying the social network's top executives have failed to offer meaningful action on curbing hateful content.

The boycott aimed at pressing Facebook to act on toxic and hateful content has the support of more than 900 companies and organizations.

Zuckerberg said he was "troubled" by calls for regulators to make it more difficult to target advertising, saying such a move would hurt businesses trying to connect with customers, especially during economic turmoil.

"This would reduce opportunities for small businesses so much that would probably be felt at a macroeconomic level," Zuckerberg said.

Facebook's Zuckerberg to meet activists, won't act on boycott

There aren't enough batteries to electrify all cars: Focus on trucks and buses instead

by Cameron Roberts, The Conversation

We need to change our transportation system, and we need to do it quickly.

Road transportation is a major consumer of fossil fuels, contributing 16 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, which warm up the Earth's atmosphere and cause changes to the climate. It also pollutes the air, threatening health and costing taxpayers billions of dollars annually.

At the same time, electric vehicles are getting cheaper, and vehicle range and the availability of charging stations are improving. This is exciting for many because it seems to suggest an easy and convenient answer to the problem of transportation emissions: if everyone swapped their fossil-fuelled vehicle for an electric equivalent, we could all keep driving, safe in the knowledge that we are no longer killing the planet by doing so—and all while enjoying a new car that is quiet, cheap to power and fun to drive.

Everybody wins, right? Unfortunately, it's unlikely to be that simple.

The battery supply crunch

Electric vehicles still produce air pollution and greenhouse gasses from their brakes, tires, the electricity that powers them and the factories that build them. Even if we can address (or ignore) these problems, there is a much larger stumbling block facing personal electric vehicles as a solution for climate change.

In 2019, the world produced about 160 gigawatt hours (GWh) of lithium-ion batteries. That's enough for a little more than three million standard-range Tesla Model 3s—and only if we use those batteries for cars, and don't build any smart-phones, laptops or grid storage facilities.

The battery production capacity currently under construction will allow the production of the equivalent of 40 million electric vehicles annually by 2028, according to one estimate.

That sounds like a lot until you see that the world produced nearly 100 million cars, vans, busses, and trucks in 2019 alone. There are around 1.4 billion motor vehicles in the world today—a number that will almost certainly continue to increase if we don't take major steps to shift transportation onto other modes.

Even at the projected 2028 level of battery production capacity, it would take us 35 years to replace this global vehicle fleet with electric models. That's not nearly fast enough to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

Maximizing climate impact

The unavoidable conclusion is that we will not be able to electrify all of our transportation in the timeframe necessary to deal with climate change. Some journeys will have to be decarbonized through other means, such as cycling, walking, public transit or telecommuting.

Lithium-ion batteries should therefore go primarily to vehicles intended for long distances or large cargo loads. Garbage trucks, busses, pickup trucks used by skilled tradespeople to get to job sites and the van that delivers your Amazon purchases are all prime candidates for electrification.

That Nissan Leaf you've been eyeing, unfortunately is not. You can probably travel on a bicycle or a city bus much more easily than a truckload of power tools, parcels or municipal waste can.

A win-win scenario

There are a lot of side benefits to focusing on commercial vehicles for electrification. Currently, these vehicles often burn diesel, which produces 100 times more particulate pollution than gasoline vehicles.

Diesel vehicles were responsible for approximately 83 percent of all deaths due to air pollution from road vehicles in 2015, according to the World Health Organization. Diesel freight vehicles also tend to be noisy—a problem that is almost entirely eliminated by going electric.

For us in Canada, perhaps the greatest benefit to a focus on electrifying the commercial vehicle fleet is that several companies here are already emerging as leaders in developing and building them. Lion Electric, in Saint-Jérôme, Que., makes electric busses, trucks and school busses. New Flyer, based in Winnipeg, has already sold electric transit busses to several major American cities.

And Green Jobs Oshawa has already developed a plan to convert the Oshawa General Motors facility to the produce electric vehicles for the Canadian public sector. Our car sector is struggling, but a focus on building commercial electric vehicles could bring jobs back to this area in a big way.

There's no way around it: We need fewer cars

As for the rest of us, the solution to zero-carbon mobility looks much more like a bike, a bus seat, a home office, a mobility scooter or a well-worn pair of shoes than a shiny new Tesla.

Some of these solutions can still take advantage of electric mobility without straining the global battery budget. With just over five percent of 2019's lithium-ion battery production, for example, there would be enough batteries to provide an Urban Machina electric scooter to every Canadian.

There is already talk of a federal government bail-out of the Canadian car industry, with stakeholders suggesting that this could be an opportunity to encourage the development of electric vehicle production in Canada.

If the government wants to do this in a way that has the greatest impact on the climate, it should look beyond supporting fancy personal vehicles, and turn its attention instead to the unglamorous workhorses that make our society function.

Clean energy grids and electric vehicles key to beating climate change and air pollution

Provided by The Conversation

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

Plug it in: Electric car charging station numbers are rising

by Tom Krisher

When the electric car revolution arrives, will there be enough places to plug in?

There are now 26,000 electric vehicle charging stations open to the public in the U.S., with more than 84,000 plugs.

But the country, and the world, will need thousands more if drivers are going to adopt vehicles powered by batteries alone. And because they're being asked to invest before that demand arrives, automakers and charging companies are struggling to raise the numbers.

Currently electric vehicles make up only about 1.3% of total new vehicle sales in the U.S., according to the Edmunds.com auto site. Electrics are much bigger in other countries, accounting for 2.6% of global new vehicle sales last year, the International Energy Agency says.

With more than 40 fully electric vehicles on the market in the U.S. or coming within the next three years, however, auto and charging company executives say the demand is on the way.

"The automakers, more and more of them, are committing to manufacture electric vehicles," said Mike Moran, spokesman for Electrify America, a network of charging stations being built with $2 billion in settlement money from Volkswagen's diesel emissions cheating scandal. "Last year automakers announced a combined $225 billion in investments in electrification."

On Friday, General Motors and charging company EVGo announced plans to add about 700 fast-charging stations, tripling the number on the EVGo network over the next five years. They wouldn't say how much they'll invest, but plan to add 2,700 fast-charging plugs.

They'll focus on 40 unspecified metropolitan areas, with emphasis on California, Texas, Florida and Illinois. And they'll build the stations near where people go to run errands, like grocery stores or pharmacies. Typically a fast-charger can refill a battery in 30-40 minutes, so the idea is for charging to be done while people are shopping.

"We've done extensive consumer research in understanding what's important to the customer," GM CEO Mary Barra said. "Clearly having a robust charging infrastructure is something that our customers have told us is important."

Detroit-based GM says it's moving away from the internal combustion engine to an all-electric future, and it plans to roll out 20 new electric vehicles globally by 2023. Crosstown rival Ford has an all-electric SUV coming with 300 miles (480 kilometers) of range, and it's planning a fully electric version of the F-150 pickup, the nation's top-selling vehicle.

Fast-charging stations have higher kilowatt capacities than home chargers, and they're important to quickly recharge batteries on newer electric vehicles that can travel 300 or more miles on a single charge. But the bulk of the nation's public charging network is much slower. The U.S. Department of Energy says there are 3,884 public fast-charging stations in the country now with 14,858 outlets.

As more electric vehicles are sold, more fast chargers will be needed, especially for people who live in apartment buildings who can't charge at home, said Cathy Zoi, EVGo's CEO.

The 2,700 new fast-charging outlets will start to become available early next year. GM and EVGo say they'll invest in the outlets, but many will be built with funding from utilities, governments and public-private partnerships.

More public charging stations will allow GM and other automakers to better compete with Tesla, which now leads the world in electric vehicle sales and has its own private network of fast-charging stations. Tesla has network of 1,971 charging stations with 17,467 outlets worldwide. A U.S. number wasn't available.

Electrify America now has over 450 charging stations in the U.S. with more than 2,000 fast-charging outlets, Moran said. It plans to have 800 stations and about 3,500 outlets by the end of next year.

Guidehouse analyst Sam Abuelsamid said the number of chargers is increasing rapidly and should be enough to meet demand as more electric vehicles are sold. A big problem now is that each network has its own payment system, so owners need multiple accounts to access all chargers, he said. But Ford, GM and others are working to aggregate all the networks into one account.

"As more and more vehicles come to market that support faster charging and have longer ranges, especially with aggregating, enabling roaming, that's where I think it will start to make a difference," he said.

European carmakers build out charging network for electrics

THE ROBOTS ARE COMING BOW WOW
Ford puts robotic dogs in driver's seat at manufacturing plant
by Peter Grad , Tech Xplore

Credit: Ford

A Ford plant in Michigan has gone to the dogs.

In this case, the four-legged beasts are robotic, and they promise to usher in a new era of computer-aided design and economic efficiencies for the auto manufacturer.

The two pooches—Fluffy and Spot—were manufactured by Boston Dynamics, which specializes in sophisticated robotic construction.

Their tasks will be to traverse the Van Dyke Transmission Plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and scan the layout to help engineers create more efficient layouts for periodic upgrading and retooling projects.

Each dog is equipped with five cameras capable of 360-degree scans. They can trot at speeds up to 3 mph and navigate stairs up to a 30-degree angle. Battery time is somewhat limited at just under two hours. But a more robust companion robot, Scouter, serves as a chauffeur for the digital pooches for lengthier jaunts throughout the plant. Scouter, which is larger and bulkier and cannot access many areas Fluffy and Spot can, allows the two to conserve battery power.

Based on early runs, the two new pets may well earn the greeting, "Good dogs!" Mark Goderis, digital engineering manager at Ford, explains how the dogs improved on what used to be a long and expensive scanning task:

"We used to use a tripod, and we would walk around the facility stopping at different locations, each time standing around for five minutes waiting for the laser to scan," Goderis said. "Scanning one plant could take two weeks. With Fluffy's help, we are able to do it in half the time."

Goderis said the manufacturing plant undergoes a number of changes and modifications over the years, many of which go undocumented.

"By having the robots scan our facility, we can see what it actually looks like now and build a new engineering model. That digital model is then used when we need to retool the plant for new products."

Scanning projects generally run around $300,000. Fluffy and Spot (Spot is the official name for the line of robots) are expected to help slash that figure significantly.

The robots can be operated from distances up to 164 feet away. Eventually, remote applications will be developed that will permit control from anywhere around the globe.

Jul 27, 2020

Four-legged robots

DEARBORN, MI. July 27, 2020 – Paula Wiebelhaus, Fluffy’s handler, navigates Fluffy, the dog-like robot through tough-to-reach areas within the plant. Ford is tapping four-legged robots at its Van Dyke Transmission Plant in early August to laser scan the plant, helping engineers update the original computer-aided design. These robots can be deployed into tough-to-reach areas within the plant to scan the area with laser scanners and high-definition cameras, collecting data used to retool plants, saving Ford engineers time and money. Ford is leasing two robots, nicknamed Fluffy and Spot, from Boston Dynamics – a company known for building sophisticated mobile robots.

More information: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2020/07/27/no-bones-about-it-ford-experiments-with-four-legged-robots.html …

The computerized canines are indeed a rare breed; they cost $75,000 apiece. Ford currently is leasing the pair.

Boston Dynamics has dispatched Spot's cousins to other spots around the world.

The Norwegian oil exploration and development company Aker BP ASA plans on utilizing Spot's stereo scanning capacity, obstacle avoidance systems and onboard sensors to track down gas leaks and transmit weather conditions from the sea. These operations can be conducted in locations unreachable by workers and for tasks too risky for humans.

On a farm in New Zealand, the robots are being used to monitor the growth of crops as well as to herd sheep.

At Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, a robotic dog has been retrofitted with iPads to allow doctors to remotely examine and communicate with COVID-19 patients.

"Originally, we were just talking to them without there having to be a health worker there. Now we're making vital measurements like respiration rate, body temperature," Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert said in a CNBC interview. "We're working on oxygenation and heart rate, all that can be done without contact, even with a robot."

And in Singapore, robots are being used to monitor social distancing practices in public parks. This relieves human personnel from risky exposure to infected individuals and to ornery citizens who flout local regulations. The dogs can broadcast messages and warnings to individuals reminding them to take proper precautions.

Unlike their live counterparts trained in crowd control by police, the digital dogs are not programmed to tackle or bite scofflaws.

Not yet, anyway.

Explore further Dog-like robots now on sale for $75,000, with conditions

BYE BYE BOMBARDIER UPDATED

All aboard: EU approves Alstom's purchase of Bombardier rail unit

Issued on: 31/07/2020 -

A commuter waits on a platform alongside old and new models of SNCF Bombardier suburban trains at the Gare Saint-Lazare railway station on February 15, 2018 in Paris, France. © Ludovic Marin, AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES

The European Commission gave French engineering giant Alstom the green light to buy Canadian train-maker Bombardier Transport on Friday, a year-and-a-half after blocking a mega-merger with Germany's Siemens.

Paris and Berlin were infuriated when Brussels blocked the former plan to build an all European giant but the Canadian tie-up should now go ahead -- with conditions.

Alstom will have to divest itself of some of its plants, but the new entity could still be of a scale to compete with the Chinese world-leader in the sector, CRRC.

"Going forward, a stronger combined Alstom and Bombardier entity will emerge," EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said.

"Thanks to the comprehensive remedies offered to solve the competition concerns ... the Commission has been able to speedily review and approve this transaction."

#BREAKING The European Commission said Friday that it had given conditional approval to French engineering giant Alstom buying Canadian train-maker Bombardier Transport pic.twitter.com/1NcaFwxbSH— AFP news agency (@AFP) July 31, 2020
Alstom's chief executive, Henri Poupart-Lafarge, had earlier in the day expressed confidence the decision would go his way this time.

"The dialogue with Brussels has been extremely fluid, extremely rapid since we announced the transaction with Bombardier in February, so five months later we have the decision," he stressed.

"I believe that a dialogue of trust has been established. Is this the consequence of the difficulties of the previous dossier or not? I don't know," he added, referring to the blocked Siemens tie-up.

In order to appease Vestager's anti-trust concerns, Alstom gave an undertaking to sell off some of its assets, including a French plant in Reichshoffen in Alsace which employs 780 people.

Before these concessions, the new group would have had a turnover of 15.5 billion euros per year and 76,000 employees.
'Fed and pampered'

Had the European Commission been worried that the project might have hurt competition, it could have launched a more detailed investigation, which would have lasted about four months.

Alstom had notified Brussels in mid-June of the planned acquisition of its competitor Bombardier Transport for six billion euros in a deal to be finalised in the first half of 2021.

Press release] @EU_Competition clears Alstom’s acquisition of Bombardier Transportation https://t.co/z1Zj2pbtHH pic.twitter.com/0phDLjeKNw— Alstom (@Alstom) July 31, 2020

The two groups have a virtual monopoly on rolling stock in France, where they work together regularly, as they do on the Paris Metro and RER suburban transport network.

The threat of Chinese competition had already been cited as a reason for Siemens' planned takeover of Alstom, which was blocked by the Commission in February 2019.

But Brussels feared an overly dominant position in Europe in rail signalling and high-speed trains.

The EU should not help to create "fed and pampered" industrial champions, but let competition drive innovation, Vestager had argued.

Alstom had fewer overlapping operations with Bombardier than with the German group, which helped win approval of the deal.

Bombardier's subsidiary Bombardier Transportation is based in Berlin and runs the largest railway plant in France, with 2,000 employees, in Crespin in the north of the country.

Alstom, meanwhile, operates many smaller sites and last year, before the coronavirus crisis, its order book peaked at 40.9 billion euros.

EU approves Alstom buying Bombardier Transport

by Clément Zampa

The Canadian tie-up should now go ahead—with conditions

The European Commission gave French engineering giant Alstom the green light to buy Canadian train-maker Bombardier Transport on Friday, a year-and-a-half after blocking a mega-merger with Germany's Siemens.

Paris and Berlin were infuriated when Brussels blocked the former plan to build an all European giant but the Canadian tie-up should now go ahead—with conditions.

Alstom will have to divest itself of some of its plants, but the new entity could still be of a scale to compete with the Chinese world-leader in the sector, CRRC.

"Going forward, a stronger combined Alstom and Bombardier entity will emerge," EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said.

"Thanks to the comprehensive remedies offered to solve the competition concerns ... the Commission has been able to speedily review and approve this transaction."

Alstom's chief executive, Henri Poupart-Lafarge, had earlier in the day expressed confidence the decision would go his way this time.

"The dialogue with Brussels has been extremely fluid, extremely rapid since we announced the transaction with Bombardier in February, so five months later we have the decision," he stressed.

"I believe that a dialogue of trust has been established. Is this the consequence of the difficulties of the previous dossier or not? I don't know," he added, referring to the blocked Siemens tie-up.

In order to appease Vestager's anti-trust concerns, Alstom gave an undertaking to sell off some of its assets, including a French plant in Reichshoffen in Alsace which employs 780 people.

Before these concessions, the new group would have had a turnover of 15.5 billion euros per year and 76,000 employees.

'Fed and pampered'

Had the European Commission been worried that the project might have had hurt competition, it could have launched a more detailed investigation, which would have lasted about four months.

Alstom had notified Brussels in mid-June of the planned acquisition of its competitor Bombardier Transport for six billion euros in a deal to be finalised in the first half of 2021.

The two groups have a virtual monopoly on rolling stock in France, where they work together regularly, as they do on the Paris Metro and RER suburban transport network.

The threat of Chinese competition had already been cited as a reason for Siemens' planned takeover of Alstom, which was blocked by the Commission in February 2019.

But Brussels feared an overly dominant position in Europe in rail signalling and high-speed trains.

The EU should not help to create "fed and pampered" industrial champions, but let competition drive innovation, Vestager had argued.

Alstom had fewer overlapping operations with Bombardier than with the German group, which helped win approval of the deal.

Bombardier's subsidiary Bombardier Transportation is based in Berlin and runs the largest railway plant in France, with 2,000 employees, in Crespin in the north of the country.

Alstom, meanwhile, operates many smaller sites and last year, before the coronavirus crisis, its order book peaked at 40.9 billion euros.

Alstom agrees to buy Bombardier's rail division

AIRLINE LAYOFFS
LATAM airline to lay off 2,700 crew
LATAM Airlines has filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 protection in the United States

AUGUST 1, 2020

Latin America's biggest airline, the Brazilian-Chilean group LATAM, said Friday it was laying off at least 2,700 crew to cope with the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the aviation industry.
LATAM said it had failed to reach a deal with the aviation workers' union on reducing pay, and would therefore lay off pilots and flight attendants to keep the struggling company afloat.

The layoffs amount to more than a third of the airline's total crew.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest public health crisis in history, and is dramatically affecting the entire world aviation industry," the company said in a statement.

It will offer a voluntary departure plan until Tuesday, then begin laying people off if necessary, it said.

It said crew pay at LATAM was above average for the region, and that "the current crisis has made it more essential than ever" to reduce its wage bill.

The airline filed for bankruptcy in the United States in May, after worldwide stay-at-home measures to contain the virus forced it to reduce its operations by 95 percent.

Explore further Latin America's largest airline LATAM files for bankruptcy in US

jULY 31, 2020

Spirit Airlines warns of layoffs, ExpressJet's fate in doubt

by David Koenig

Spirit Airlines has warned up to 30% of its employees that they will lose their jobs in October, and regional carrier ExpressJet's future is in doubt after losing a key contract as the virus pandemic continues to hammer the airline industry.

Spirit is the latest airline to deliver layoff warnings to employees, which are required by federal law 60 days before large-scale job cuts.

The budget airline based in Miramar, Florida, said it told unions that about 20% to 30% of its pilots, flight attendants and other groups will be furloughed in October. The airline did not give a number. It had 9,100 employees at the start of the year. Spirit said it hopes to restore the jobs eventually.

Earlier in July, United Airlines issued layoff warnings for 36,000 employees, and it warned pilots this week of possible additional job losses this year and next year. American Airlines notified 25,000 workers that they could be furloughed in October, when billions in federal money to help cover payroll costs expires.

Airlines are slashing costs, getting federal aid and borrowing on private credit markets to survive a downturn in U.S. air travel that hit 95% in April. Hopes for a recovery have dimmed in recent weeks with a resurgence of reported cases of COVID-19 in many states, which ended two months of growth in air travel.

The retrenchment now threatens another small U.S. airline. ExpressJet's survival was in doubt after United dropped its contract with ExpressJet and consolidated its United Express operations under affiliate CommutAir. United spokesman Charles Hobart said the change will take a "number of months."

ExpressJet spokesman Gary Cambre said the airline expects to continue normal operations through the rest of this year. "We will now explore all options for the future of our company in 2021," he said in an emailed statement.

The Regional Airline Association, of which ExpressJet is a member, said the Atlanta-based carrier's announcement "reflects the double-edged sword regional airlines encounter as they navigate the pandemic"—the virus is harming their companies and the major airlines they serve under contracts.

The trade group is lobbying for an extension of the federal aid to help airlines cover their payroll costs, which runs out in October.

"For ExpressJet, it may already be too late," the group said.

Earlier this year, Trans States and Compass airlines shut down after major airline partners reduced regional flights due to the pandemic. Alaska's Ravn Air also stopped flying.

United Airlines now planning for bigger pilot layoffs

Air Canada takes huge loss amid pandemic travel shutdown

Air Canada is calling on Ottawa to roll back blanket travel restrictions

Air Canada on Friday announced a loss of more than CAN$1.7 billion (US$1.27 billion) in the second quarter due to the "devastating effects" of the coronavirus pandemic.

With travel at a near standstill, the airline's revenue fell 89 percent in the April-June period, with most flights suspended due to containment measures and border closings imposed to stem the pandemic, Air Canada said in a statement.

The number of passengers fell 96 percent compared to a year ago, forcing Air Canada to cut 20,000 jobs, more than half its workforce, the company said.

"As with many other major airlines worldwide, Air Canada's second quarter results confirm the devastating and unprecedented effects of the COVID-19 pandemic," the airline's chief Calin Rovinescu said.

Revenue plummeted to $527 million, compared to over $4.7 billion in the same period in 2019, when the airline saw net income of $343 million.

In contrast with the shutdown of passenger service, cargo revenue rose 52 percent to $269 million, with the conversion of Boeing 777s and 787s to carry medical equipment to deal with the pandemic.

Citing a "impossible operating environment" after Canada imposed some of the world's "most severe" restrictions, Rovinescu called on Ottawa "to take prudent steps to replace current blanket travel restrictions and quarantines with targeted evidence-based measures that reflect current circumstances."

After taking some painful steps to respond to the unprecedented crisis, he said the airline is looking forward to the "equally unprecedented opportunity to rebuild a smaller but even more nimble airline, with a simplified and younger fleet and a lower cost structure coming out of the crisis."

Air Canada's Q1 loss surpasses Can $1 bn

Hearing deterioration reported by discharged COVID-19 patients

by University of Manchester

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A significant number of patients reported a deterioration in their hearing when questioned eight weeks after discharge from a hospital admission for COVID-19, according to University of Manchester audiologists, in a study supported by the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Center (BRC).

One hundred and twenty one of the adults admitted to Wythenshawe Hospital, part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, took part in the survey by telephone. When asked about changes to their hearing sixteen people (13.2%) reported their hearing was worse. Eight people reported deterioration in hearing and another eight reported tinnitus (hearing noises that are not caused by an outside source).

The results, published in a letter to the International Journal of Audiology, adds to a growing body of anecdotal evidence that the strain of coronavirus which causes COVID-19, SARS CoV-2, has long-term impacts on health, and possibly hearing.

Professor Kevin Munro, Professor of Audiology at The University of Manchester and NIHR Manchester BRC Hearing Health Theme Lead said: "We already know that viruses such as measles, mumps and meningitis can cause hearing loss and coronaviruses can damage the nerves that carry information to and from the brain. It is possible, in theory, that COVID-19 could cause problems with parts of the auditory system including the middle ear or cochlea. For example, auditory neuropathy, a hearing disorder where the cochlea is functioning but transmission along the auditory nerve to the brain is impaired could be a feature."

People with auditory neuropathy have difficulty hearing when there is background noise, such as in a pub.

A condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome is also linked to auditory neuropathy which is also known to have an association with SARS CoV-2.

However, the researchers say more research is needed to be able to identify why there is an association between the virus and hearing problems.

Their observation follows a rapid systematic review of coronavirus and the audio-vestibular system by Professor Munro's team in June.

The review identified reports of hearing loss and tinnitus, but there were only a small number of studies and the quality of evidence was low.

Professor Munro added: "While we are reasonably confident in the differentiation of pre-existing and recent changes in hearing and tinnitus, we urge caution. It is possible that factors other than COVID-19 may impact on pre-existing hearing loss and tinnitus. These might include stress and anxiety, including the use of face masks that make communication more difficult, medications used to treat COVID-19 that could damage the ear or other factors related to being critically ill. That is why we believe there is an urgent need for high-quality studies to investigate the acute and temporary effects of COVID-19 on hearing and the audiovestibular system. Timely evidence for decision-makers is urgently needed, so we need to be able to act quickly."

The letter, "Self-reported changes in hearing and tinnitus in post-hospitalization COVID-19 cases," is published in the International Journal of Audiology.

Explore further Coronavirus: why we're investigating the long-term impact on hearing

More information: Self-reported changes in hearing and tinnitus in post-hospitalization COVID-19 cases. International Journal of Audiology, (2020).

DOI: 10.1080/14992027.2020.1798519

Provided by University of Manchester
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Low-cost moist heat treatment of N95 masks eliminates SARS-CoV-2, bacteria

by Canadian Medical Association Journal

A new study shows that moist heat treatment of N95 masks eliminates severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and bacteria, which would allow reuse of these scarce resources. The study is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

The researchers found that moist heat treatment (60 min, 70°C, 50% relative humidity) did not damage the mask's structure or affect function.

"This low-cost reprocessing strategy can be applied 10 times without affecting the mask's filtration, breathing resistance, fit and comfort, and thus may help to alleviate the global shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic," says Dr. Gregory Borschel, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering and Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto, Ontario.

Researchers tested 4 common models of N95 masks at various temperatures and humidity levels to determine whether the virus could be detected on the treated masks. They also analyzed fiber samples for structural integrity and assessed function of the masks after treatment with heat.

"Thermal disinfection of N95 masks may provide a low-cost, effective method for regions with fewer resources to extend their supply of these critical resources, thereby protecting vulnerable front-line workers from job-related risk of infection," says Dr. Borschel.

Heating could be the best way to disinfect N95 masks for reuse

More information: Simeon C. Daeschler et al. Effect of moist heat reprocessing of N95 respirators on SARS-CoV-2 inactivation and respirator function, Canadian Medical Association Journal (2020). DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.201203

Journal information: Canadian Medical Association Journal

Provided by Canadian Medical Association Journal

KEEP SCHOOLS CLOSED

School closures linked to decreased COVID-19 incidence, death

(HealthDay)—School closures in the United States were temporally associated with decreased COVID-19 incidence and mortality, according to a study published online July 29 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Katherine A. Auger, M.D., from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and colleagues examined the association between school closure and its timing with COVID-19 incidence and mortality in a population-based observational study. States were examined based on state-level COVID-19 cumulative incidence per 100,000 residents at the time of closure of schools.

The researchers found that the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 ranged from 0 to 14.75 cases per 100,000 population in states at the time of school closure. There was an association for school closure with a significant decrease in the incidence of COVID-19 and mortality (adjusted relative changes per week, −62 and −58 percent, respectively). In states with a low cumulative incidence of COVID-19 at the time of school closure, these associations were largest. The relative change in incidence was −72 percent versus −49 percent for states with the lowest versus the highest incidence of COVID-19. Closing schools when the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 was in the lowest quartile was associated with 128.7 fewer cases and 1.5 fewer deaths per 100,000 population during 26 days and 16 days, respectively.

"It is unclear how COVID-19 spread would be affected if schools remained open while states enacted other policies to restrict movement," the authors write.

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Journal information: Journal of the American Medical Association

WAR CRIMES NATION; USA

On This Day: Cluster bomb ban goes into effect

On August 1, 2010, a worldwide ban on cluster bombs went into effect.

U.S. won't stop using cluster bombs by 2019 deadline

By UPI Staff

Airman David Rodriguez (R) prepares cluster bombs aboard the aircraft carrier USS Independence on February 12, 1998. On August 1, 2010, a worldwide ban on cluster bombs went into effect. File Photo by Felix Garza/U.S. Navy | License Photo

U.S. won't stop using cluster bombs by 2019 deadline

OR SELLING THEM

NOV. 30, 2017

French U.N. peacekeepers look for unexploded cluster bombs on the side of the road near the south Lebanese village of Blat on September 29, 2006. The Pentagon on Thursday said it's delaying its plan to stop using cluster bombs by the beginning of 2019. UPI File Photo | License Photo

Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The Pentagon announced Thursday it is postponing plans to end its use of cluster munitions in 2019.

In 2008, the George W. Bush administration had set a timeline in place that the United States would stop using unsafe cluster bombs -- ones that did not meet a standard of failing to detonate 1 percent of the time or less -- by Jan. 1, 2019.

The policy was in reaction to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international treaty signed by more than 100 countries to ban the use, sale or stockpile of the weapon. Cluster bombs face criticism because parts of the weapon can scatter and detonate at a later time, sometimes after years.

The United States didn't sign the treaty but instead instituted the 2019 deadline.

Pentagon spokesman Tom Crossen said the Trump administration determined it won't stop using cluster bombs that meet the failure rate threshold because there are no bombs on the market that meet that standard.

"The Department of Defense has determined that cluster munitions remain a vital military capability in the tougher warfighting environment ahead of us, while still a relatively safe one," he said in a statement.

The Hill reported that though the U.S. military rarely uses cluster munitions, it does sell them to other countries and they could be useful in larger ground wars.

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