Study: Climate change made Pacific Northwest heat wave 150 times more likely

Climate scientists have used models to confirm that burning fossil fuels made the extreme heat wave in parts of the US and Canada hotter and more likely.

    

The Canadian town of Lytton was all but destroyed in a wildfire in late June

When a heat wave began to scorch Canada and the US in late June — killing elderly people alone in their homes and fueling wildfires that wiped out an entire village — scientists said burning fossil fuels had changed the climate enough to make the temperature extremes worse.

One week later, they know by how much.

Global warming made the hottest day of the North American heat wave 150 times more likely and 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) hotter, according to a rapid attribution study released Thursday by an international team of 27 scientists from the World Weather Attribution initiative (WWA). Temperatures broke records in Oregon and Washington, in the US, and in British Columbia, in Canada. They reached a high of 49.6 C (121 F) that researchers say would have been "virtually impossible" without climate change.

The study, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, is the latest example of scientists using models to swiftly assess the role of greenhouse gas emissions in exacerbating extreme weather. Its findings dispel a myth prevalent in rich countries that climate change only hurts people far away from them or in the distant future.

"We are entering uncharted territory," said study co-author Sonia Seneviratne, from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. "Much higher temperature records will be reached if we don't manage to stop greenhouse gas emissions and halt global warming."

How did climate change affect the Pacific Northwest heat wave?

The temperatures — which authorities estimate have killed hundreds of people — were so much higher than historical records that researchers struggled to work out exactly how often such a heat wave could be expected. Their best guess is that such temperatures would occur once every thousand years in today's climate. And they found two theories for how it got so hot.

One explanation is that a combination of preexisting drought and unusual atmospheric conditions — a heat dome of warm air trapped in place by a bend in the jet stream — combined with climate change to drastically raise temperatures. "The statistical equivalent of really bad luck, albeit aggravated by climate change," the authors summarized.

An alternative, more troubling possibility is that the climate system may have already crossed a threshold where small amounts of warming push up temperatures up faster than previously observed. If true, it would mean such record-breaking heat waves have already become more likely to happen than climate models predict.

Heat waves are particularly dangerous for elderly people

"What we are seeing is unprecedented," said study co-author Friederike Otto, from the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. "This is such an exceptional event that we can't rule out the possibility that we're experiencing heat extremes today that we only expected to come at higher levels of global warming."

Previous heat records were "pulverized" by such large margins that "something else must be going on," said Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who was not involved in the study. "The study is valid and state of the art."

How does climate change affect heat waves?

Climate change has made heat waves hotter, longer and more common. By burning fossil fuels — which release gases that trap the sun's heat like a greenhouse — humans have warmed the planet by about 1.1 C above preindustrial levels. This raises the chance of record-breaking temperatures.

Lytton, a village in the Canadian province of British Columbia, broke the country's heat record on July 2 when temperatures shot almost 5 C above the previous record of 45 C.

The next day it was destroyed by a wildfire.

"We are a small, rural, Indigenous, low-income community and we are at the spearpoint of climate change," Gordon Murray, a resident who escaped Lytton, said in an interview Friday with public broadcaster CBC News. "But it's coming for everybody. We're the canary in the coal mine."

Wildfires in British Columbia, Canada, destroyed an entire village

How do heat waves affect health?

Heat waves, which have been among the deadliest disasters in the past few years, stress the human body. Hot weather exacerbates existing health conditions like heart, lung and kidney disease, as well as diabetes. It is particularly harmful to elderly people, young children, construction workers and homeless people.

The Pacific Northwest is used to a cool, often rainy climate, and fewer people have air conditioning than in southern states. In Oregon, authorities estimate that 107 people mostly aged 60 or older died from heat-related causes during the temperature spike.

Because temperatures in Oregon stayed high overnight, people couldn't cool down and recover, said Brandon Maughan, an emergency medicine doctor at Oregon Health and Science University in the state's largest city, Portland, which experienced searing heat over three days at the end of June that peaked at 46.7 C. "Many people assumed that they would suffer through it like they have in prior summers. And this is just fundamentally different."

Schools and COVID-19 test centers have closed while large spaces have been turned into cooling stations

In an average year, he said, Oregon hospitals treat many people for heat exhaustion — which they can manage at home while feeling unwell — but few people come in with symptoms of the more serious heat stroke. "We just saw more of it this year."

 A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change in May that found 1 in 3 deaths from heat during warm seasons since 1991 can be attributed to climate change. The North America heat wave shows that "current adaptation systems are not prepared for such very extreme events," said Ana Vicedo, group leader for climate change and health at the University of Bern in Switzerland, and co-author of the study.

In 2003, in Europe, a summer heat wave made twice as likely by global warming killed more than 70,000 people. In Paris alone, climate change increased the risk of dying from heat by 70%, leading to more than 500 deaths.

Doctors recommend checking on vulnerable neighbors and staying in the shade

How to stay cool during a heat wave

People can stay cool by finding public places with shade or air conditioning, drinking water, and keeping an eye on elderly and vulnerable neighbors.

This can be trickier in cities, where concrete buildings and asphalt roads absorb heat and raise temperatures even higher than in the surrounding countryside. Local governments can reduce the burden by designing cities with more trees, parks and waterways.

Though people can adapt to hotter temperatures, scientists stress that climate policy to stop emissions is what will decide the length, strength and frequency of heat waves.

In 2015, world leaders promised to limit global warming to well below 2 C above preindustrial levels. Their current policies will instead heat the planet by about 3 C, according to German-based research group Climate Action Tracker.

The WWA study found that global warming of 2 C would make heat waves like the one in North America so likely they would hit every five to 10 years.

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Alice Munro, master of the short story, at 90

The acclaimed Canadian author of "Dear Life" turns 90 on July 10. Alice Munro was the first to win the Nobel Prize as a pure short story writer.

    

Alice Munro

Dear Life was the title Munro gave to her 2012 collection of short stories — possibly her last. Some of the stories are inspired by the author's own life. If the other stories also explore the destinies of women, it never feels as if feminism were the main issue.

Alice Munro has published 14 original short-story collections and several short-story compilations. With this body of work, she became the first Canadian woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. She was too frail to travel to Stockholm to collect the award herself, but sent a touching speech by video instead.

Building on a simple story

Munro's stories combine linguistic and emotional density. They typically revolve around a series of recurring themes. They're about women in Canada, mothers and daughters, who grow up, fall in love, and experience the beautiful and tragic sides of life.

"What makes Munro's growth as an artist so crisply and breathtakingly visible […] is precisely the familiarity of her materials. Look what she can do with nothing but her own small story; the more she returns to it, the more she finds," wrote the US author Jonathan Franzen about her a decade before she won the Nobel Prize.

His impassionate piece in the New York Times listed reasons why he felt "her excellence so dismayingly exceeds her fame."

A whole life on a single page

"Munro writes about unfulfilled desires that are carried through one's life, and how people deal with them. It's the small details that make her so great," said Hans-Jürgen Balmes, formerly from the publisher S. Fischer, which distributes Munro's books in Germany.

"She masters the art of capturing the entire life of a human being on a single page," literary critic Sigrid Löffler told DW. "She fills her stories, which are often no longer than 20 to 30 pages, with more life than many 700-page works."

Her short stories are packed with emotion, the language highly polished. A Munro story often has an unexpected beginning, and the narrative develops chronologically forwards or backwards.

"Dear Life" might be Munro's last collection of short stories

Her books have long been best-sellers in Canada and the UK, and she became extremely popular in Germany after winning the Nobel Prize.

Adding value to the short story

Munro began writing relatively late. She first concentrated on raising her three children before she devoted herself to her writing by the end of the 1960s, around the age of 40.

The author long wrestled with the notion that short stories are generally considered preparation work for a novel, seen as a minor genre by literary critics. "How I tortured myself trying to write a novel! Until I one day realized that short stories was the most appropriate format for me," she once told Die Zeit in a rare interview.

As a specialist of the short story, even her book Lives of Girls and Women, told through one single character, was rather considered a short story cycle and not a novel.

She obtained the Man Booker International Prize in 2009 for her lifetime body of work, which includes The Love of a Good Woman (1998) and Runaway (2004). She has also been awarded several other prizes and honors as well, topped by the Nobel Prize in 2013.

Retirement plans — or not

On July 10, the Canadian author turns 90. Although she had announced her retirement plans the year she received her Nobel Prize, she admitted afterwards that ideas still keep coming for new stories.

She had also already hinted that she wanted to stop writing in 2006: "I don't think I can write any more. Two or three years from now, I will be too old, I will be too tired," she had told The Guardian.

Six years later came the critically acclaimed collection Dear Life. As a sign she might be serious about retirement this time, though, she added a coda to the last four stories: "I believe they are the first and last — and the closest — things I have to say about my own life."

 

German election officials exclude communists, anarchists from September vote

The country's federal election committee began meeting in Berlin on Thursday. Its job is to decide which smaller parties are allowed to stand in the race for the Bundestag this September.

Germany's federal election committee will decide later on Friday which minor parties can run in this September's national vote.

Officials began meeting in Berlin on Thursday to go through the applications from 87 political groups who want to stand in the race for seats in the country's parliament, the Bundestag.

The committee is made up of one chairman, eight politicians from Germany's main political parties and two top judges.

Those who already have at least five seats in the Bundestag are exempt from this process, which takes place before every major election.

Germans go to the polls on September 26 this year as Chancellor Angela Merkel prepares to step down.

Who is in? Who is out?

On Thursday, the committee ruled that a number of parties would be excluded from this year's vote.

They included the German Communist Party, known by its German acronym the DKP.

It would be the first time since it was founded in 1968 that it was not allowed to compete in the Bundestag election. 

In 2017, the DKP picked up a total of around 11,500 votes nationwide, not enough for a seat. The Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLDP) was more successful with almost 30,000 votes, but still fell miles short of the hurdle to enter parliament. German socialist votes tend to go towards the more moderate Left party (die Linke), which secured 9.2% of the 2017 vote.

Parties face several hurdles before they can appear on the ballot paper in September

German election officials said the DKP had failed to file key paperwork on time.

"Deadlines are deadlines," Federal Election Commissioner Georg Thiel, the committee's chair, was quoted as saying by the DPA news agency.

But their decisions can always be subjected to a legal review.

DKP chairman Patrik Köbele said on Thursday that he plans to appeal in court over the decision.

"We are convinced that this attempt to ban us [from the election] will fail," he said.

Anarchists fail to make the cut

Another fringe party that missed out was the the Anarchistic Pogo Party of Germany, or AAPD, which took part in the 1998 election with the promise to pay voters with free beer.

Running with a slogan "work is s***," election officials also rejected their application to stand because it had only been submitted electronically.

Parties also need a minimum number of supporters' signatures before they can run

But the South Schleswig Voters' Association, or SSW, had more luck.

The party represents the Danish-speaking minority in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany, close to the border with Denmark.

Once a party has been approved by the election committee, there is another hurdle to surmount to get on the ballot paper in September.

Parties now need a maximum of 500 supporter signatures for Germany's state electoral lists, and just 50 for district nominations.

jf/msh (AFP, dpa) 

E-scooters under fire: Can cities make them safer?

Facing cluttered sidewalks, reckless drivers and now the first known fatality in Europe, cities are threatening to kill the e-scooter. But fans of the e-mobility option say the criticism is misplaced.

    

E-scooters are most likely here stay despite safety concerns

They have a low body, long neck, two plate-sized wheels and an electric hum that sneaks up on you: Once the newest e-mobility darling, e-scooters have since become the cause of everything from cluttered sidewalks to a fatal incident in Paris. Critics say they're a public menace. But others disagree.

"It makes you feel like a kid again," 28-year-old Santosh Mani said of his experience coasting on the battery-powered scooters around the western German city of Bonn. It's the convenience of e-scooters that had Mani using the controversial mode of transportation eight to 10 times a month before the pandemic. "You can find them pretty much anywhere," he says. 

He's not exaggerating. In the US ー where the e-scooting trend first took off ー you can find e-scooter-sharing services in more than 100 cities. These provided close to 40 million trips in 2018, according to a transportation research study aptly named "To Scoot or Not to Scoot." Even New York City, after many years of resisting the swans with wheels, finally gave in to demand in November.

The transportation trend has since found its way onto every street of every major city in Europe, too.

Europe is catching up

Tier ー a micromobility company and Europe's biggest e-scooter provider ー was founded in 2018 in Berlin. With a valuation of $1 billion (€844 billion), today Tier has over 80,000 electric mobility offerings in 13 countries and 120 cities.

The pandemic hasn't slowed business down, either. On the contrary, momentum is building. "We are still seeing a very positive trend when it comes to investors," said Tier spokesperson Florian Anders. Investors want to help push the concept into bigger markets.

Tier is just one of a handful of e-scooter providers riding the investor wave ー Dott, Wind and Voi are others worth mentioning. But the throng of scooters flooding onto the streets and sidewalks of Paris, Berlin and, most recently, London have many feeling that these companies are moving faster than city regulators can keep up.  

Safety concerns

On June 19, a 31-year-old woman was killed in Paris when a couple riding an e-scooter knocked her to the ground, putting her in a coma. She died two days later. The incident has caused an uproar, and prompted the deputy mayor to summon all e-scooter executives to discuss safety concerns.

The French capital has even threatened to ban the electric rollers if the companies managing them don't implement stricter rules.

"For us, safety is top priority," Anders said in response to the incident in Paris. "We are making the hardware as safe as possible, adding signals. It's also about education, like preventing tandem riding or drunk driving. It is a big issue for us."

Germany's Transport Ministry has also considered whether this new mode of mobility is safe for city streets. So far, the ministry has shown a moderate approach, saying that "the regulation on very small electric vehicles is a balanced solution between the new introduction of new forms of mobility on the one hand and ensuring road safety on the other."

In an attempt to find that balance, Germany has implemented a minimum riding age of 14 and a maximum speed limit of 12 miles per hour (20 kilometers per hour), and requires the vehicles be used in bike lanes.

But gaps in implementation have people concerned.

"It makes you feel like you have not been properly instructed on something," Mani said about his first couple of experiences riding.

Cities are trying to find new ways to regulate the e-scooters clogging their sidewalks

An overreaction?

The car today takes up vast amounts of public space while claiming tens of thousands of lives every year. Some question the animosity toward an electric scooter that goes 12 miles per hour.  

"I do want to caution, as horrifying as it is that this woman was killed, thousands of people die getting hit by cars. And I 100% support people feeling safe on sidewalks, but e-scooters should not be seen as public enemy No. 1," said Rebecca Sanders, owner of Safe Streets Research and Consulting.

With micromobility seemingly here to stay, Sanders expects an evolution in policy. "I think we'll see cities fine e-scooter sharing companies if scooters are not in designated parking areas, or implement geofencing restricting scooters to certain areas," she said.

"It is about creating a transportation system that integrates this new form of mobility," Sanders added.

Selling sustainability

As companies such as Tier continue to wrestle with regulators and address safety concerns, their biggest selling point is sustainability. 

Tier wants to "create a more sustainable environment, teach mobility for good and transform cities with micromobility," Tier's Anders said.

"Is it more sustainable than biking or walking? No. Is it more sustainable than driving? Definitely," he argued.

Hundreds of e-scooters have been fished out of rivers in cities from Austin, Texas, to Hamburg, Germany

Are e-scooters really so sustainable? The fact that the lifespan of many models is only three years — or that many get tossed into the river by vandals long before that — takes some of the edge off the sustainability argument.

"If we do it well, I think that this form of mobility could become a sustainable part of urban transportation infrastructure. If we do it well," Sanders emphasized.  

As for someone like Mani, who hops on a scooter when he misses the bus or is heading to a get-together nearby, the concern isn't so much safety or sustainability — it's convenience.

"I don't like biking to a party because you show up all sweaty," the 28-year-old said. "With e-scooters, you don't have that problem."

Congress passed a $16 billion program to save entertainment venues rocked by the pandemic. It became a mismanaged fiasco, with thousands of businesses still waiting for relief.

whickey@businessinsider.com (Walt Hickey) 

The Paramount Theatre, which is operated by the non-profit Seattle Theatre Group arts organization, displays a sign on March 15, 2021 to mark the one-year anniversary of the date it closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ted S. Warren / AP Images

Congress passed a $16 billion bipartisan relief package for venues months ago.

The rollout has been a slow, bug-ridden disaster, and thousands of venues don't have their money.

"Each day these venues don't get their money they're going out of business," Rep. Roger Williams said.

Walter Kinzie, the owner of Austin-based concert promoter Encore Live, was loading in for a 28-band festival at SXSW in Austin in early March 2020 when the pandemic hit. Kinzie has a Texan unflappability and an aura of capability, the kind of guy who can fly halfway across the world with two employees and orchestrate a multi-night event juggling dozens of contractors.

His company, based out of the rustic Stockyards neighborhood of Ft. Worth, was among the first to shut down. In the months that followed, the live music, theater, and venue industry would have to buckle down, and starve out a pandemic that made the very fundamentals of their business unworkable.

"I lost 92.5% of my business in four days," Kinzie told Insider. "A business I built over a decade was gone in four days. I lost my house, I lost my cars, I lost my office building, I lost all of my investments and my savings account, just to keep my employees working. It cost me everything."

"But it will be worth it."

In December, Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed a bill allocating $16 billion in emergency relief grants to the venues and stages decimated by the pandemic. The bipartisan bill ensured that the money would be allocated by the Small Business Administration to venues that had lost a large amount of their business owing to the pandemic.

Seven months later, after what operators described as a fiasco of an implementation, only a fifth of that money has actually been awarded, and more than 10,000 applicants are still waiting for their money.

Eris in Brooklyn on June 25, 2021. Forced to close by the pandemic, many venues have begun to re-open. Walt Hickey / Insider

While other businesses like restaurants and office workers were able to adjust, by serving customers outside or having staff work from home, the live events industry was gutted nearly completely. The independent and fragmented nature of the live events business - where a single event can require the work of dozens of contractor companies, from ticketing to lighting to performers to catering to security and more - may make the industry a significant employer, but also made less able to seek out the aid it needed, compared to industries where just a few large corporations control a substantial amount of the business.

"I talk to friends who run arts organizations in other countries, and they're just horrified," said Angela Buccinni Butch, who owns The Muse, a venue where performers in acrobatic circus events train and perform.

"Every penny makes a difference in how these venues will emerge from this, because the fact is we cannot rely on our government."

Venues are going for broke

Ben Lillie, who owns Caveat, a New York venue for comedy and music that put on 60 shows a month pre-pandemic, was looking at the best month of business in March 2020. "I was talking to a bankruptcy lawyer six months ago just to see about our options if we did have to shut it down, but luckily we didn't."

At The Muse, Broadway shows would rehearse there before they hit the road, and if you've ever watched a television commercial with an acrobatic element, there's a pretty solid chance The Muse had a hand in it. Prior to the pandemic, the space was bustling.

"You'd always find people flying through the air," Butch said . "Now we're a warehouse that mostly sits empty all the time, because we're waiting on funding to come through."

Jonathan Corbett, who owns performing arts venue Eris in Brooklyn, went so far as to build a kitchen in his nightclub, just to be able to reopen when outdoor dining came back.

"I never expected to find myself as a restaurateur, and there I was," Corbett said.

© Joey Lax-Salinas

The federal government rolled out three programs to help out venues. The first was PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program, which offered forgivable loans that, for venues bound to be closed for over a year, functioned mostly as a helpful stopgap. Next were Economic Impact Disaster Loans, or EIDL. Those were larger, but they weren't forgivable, and for a typical venue were signed over to landlords or creditors pretty quickly.

That's where SVOG, or the Shuttered Venue Operator Grant program, was supposed to come in.

"This was a business that was devastated by COVID," said Rep. Roger Williams, the House GOP architect of the SVOG bill. "It was the first to shut down and the last to open. Thousands and thousands of jobs were affected."

The lack of capital for the venues is stymieing the recovery of the US's entire entertainment sector. Prior to the pandemic, The Muse had between 50 and 100 people on payroll each month.

"We've lost half our staff because we can't put offers on the table," Butch said. "It's prevented us from doing realistic negotiations with the landlords to resolve back rent. It's prevented a lot of things. We are aiming to re-open in September and we are just praying this funding comes through."

"The truth is, we have a bankruptcy meeting next week because if it doesn't come through, that is what we're looking at."

 Jonathan Corbett, outside his Brooklyn performing arts venue, Eris. Walt Hickey / Insider

The difficulties

Following the passage of the bill in December, operators expected a speedy response on par with the PPP program.

"I was hopeful it would follow the PPP and the EIDL timeline, which was probably two months," Corbett said. "I was expecting February, March. They didn't even have the application out until the end of April."

The venue operators, who had been desperate for the money in December, would have to wait months in order to even apply. By February, 1,500 small operators had flocked to a Facebook group Kinzie organized, sensing an issue.

On April 7, an Inspector General report sounded the alarm on the SVOG program: "Currently, the program office has one designated official and its staff are on temporary detail. At this time, SBA has not formalized a plan for staffing this office relative to the volume of applications expected."

"To put it simply, it has just been a complete mishandling of the program by SBA," said a congressional aide familiar with the program. "They were able to roll out PPP on a timeline, but were vastly underprepared for this even though they had the resources."

SVOG was turning into a disaster. "The restaurant revitalization fund was passed later and paid out earlier," Corbett said.

A red tape nightmare

The FAQ document the SBA produced in early January identifying how to apply was eight pages in length. After 10 revisions, by April the document was a sprawling 41 pages.

"They kept on changing these manuals and what they were going to ask for and how to present things," Butch said. "They made it clear if you made any mistakes on your application it would be dismissed right away."

When the portal to apply opened on April 8, the system was taken down within an hour due to fundamental problems in the construction of the application form. According to an aide familiar with the program, SBA didn't conduct appropriate stress tests for the portal.

Operators cited a document upload field as a key bug. When applicants attempted to upload a floor plan or other mandatory document, the system would crash and send the applicant to a Salesforce landing page. Later reports would identify contractor Salesforce as a source of the trouble, and the bug was related to an unregistered license. That, among other issues, delayed the portal launch two weeks, to April 24.

Neither the Small Business Administration nor the Office of Disaster assistance replied to a request for comment. A Salesforce spokesperson referred questions to the SBA.

A perfect storm

A marquee at the Hollywood Bowl concert venue bears a coronavirus-related message in Los Angeles on March 27, 2020. Chris Pizzello / AP Photo

The first thing that operators heard was silence, often for a month. When the SBA did reach out, it was often with problems with the applications.

"It required some IRS forms that had to be filled out in a pretty specific manner, in a manner that was inconsistent with the SBA's instructions," Corbett said. "There were people who were told they were dead. Not just a couple - that was a problem that was pretty broad. There were other people who were told they were on some kind of government do-not-pay list."

The complex nature of the live events business, where 20 different independent contractors can have skin in the game on a single live event, made it all the more difficult for the federal government to actually understand who should qualify.

"The industry had limited resources to begin with, inadequate folks to advise the federal government, and a change in administration, I think it created this perfect storm," Kinzie said.

The boiling point

When the first decisions went out on June 1, just 31 grants out of 13,619 were awarded. A week later, on June 9, that rose to a mere 90 grants out of the then-14,020 submitted, or 0.64% of grants.

"I don't think there was any urgency created with the Biden administration to get this money out, and that was a big problem," said Rep. Williams. "Like I was telling everybody at the SBA - this isn't political, it doesn't matter if I'm a Democrat or a Republican, this is a job creator, it's a law, we need to get it going."

The venue operators then began pushing the SBA publicly. Following scrutiny from the House and Senate architects of SVOG, which included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the administrator overseeing the program was swapped out, and Katie Frost, who had worked to implement the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, was placed in charge. Venue operators said the pace of decisions increased substantially thereafter.

"This legislation's got Roger Williams and Chuck Schumer on it for crying out loud, we ought to be doing better than this," Williams said. "We're going to keep fighting to get this money, because each day these venues don't get their money they're going out of business. Jobs are being lost. I want to get these people paid rather than infighting with the agency."

Thousands of venues are still waiting for the relief they applied for. Walt Hickey / Insider

The current status

Now, the money is starting to flow.

As of Tuesday, $3.2 billion of the $11.7 billion requested has been awarded. While just 28% of applicants have received their money, another 43% have had their application reach a decision.

But thousands of applicants are still in a state of limbo, unable to plan.

"Does it hamper the recovery? Absolutely," Corbett said. "I would love to put money into a lot of different things."

When Insider spoke to Kinzie, he was in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress, a conference for the digital communications industry that usually attracts more than 100,000 attendees. A few hours earlier, the band Bon Jovi exited the stage following a performance Kinzie had organized. It's his first live in-person event since March of 2020.

"Frick, it feels good," Kinzie said. "I'm kind of emotional thinking about it. It feels good to be working again."

Butch, who had been meeting with a bankruptcy attorney as recently as two weeks ago, got notified that The Muse had their grant application approved last Friday.

"We do not have a sense of when the funding will come through but have been awarded," she said in an email. "We know of many others who have had trouble receiving the money so we are waiting to make sure it hits the account before we cheer too much."

Read the original article on Business Insider

Giant pandas no longer endangered due to sustained conservation efforts, China says

Daniel Johnson 
POSTMEDIA

JUL 9,2021

After decades of conservation work, Chinese officials said that giant pandas are no longer endangered after their population in the wild climbed to 1,800.

© Provided by National Post CP-Web. Da Mao, an adult male panda bear, looks on at the Calgary Zoo during the opening of its giant panda habitat, Panda Passage, in Calgary, Alta., Monday, May 7, 2018.

Giant pandas will now be re-classified as vulnerable, Cui Shuhong, the director of the Department of Natural Ecological Protection of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said at a press conference on Wednesday, according to CNN .


“China has established a relatively complete nature reserves system,” Cui added. “Large areas of natural ecosystems have been systematically and completely protected, and wildlife habitats have been effectively improved.”

Conservation efforts in China have been ongoing for about five decades to increase the population of the giant pandas, which included creating sprawling reserves around several mountain ranges.

Chinese officials have been working since the 1970s on a high-profile campaign to boost the population of the bears. Officials created special nature reserves in bamboo-rich areas, providing access to food sources to offset habitat loss.

The conservation efforts were successful in spite of breeding challenges, as females are only able to become pregnant between 24-72 hours during the year.

Estimates from the 1980s determined the giant panda population in China to be around 1,114, more recently in 2014 the wild panda population was estimated to be 1,864 according to the WWF .

The species was initially taken off the endangered list by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2016; however Chinese experts disputed this decision, arguing it was misleading and would cause complacency in China the Guardian reported.

Conservation efforts in China are helping the giant panda population bounce back, but Cui said populations of other rare and endangered species are also recovering.

“The number of species such as Siberian tigers, Amur leopards, Asian elephants, and crested ibis has increased significantly,” Cui said.

In China, pandas are thought of as an umbrella species, meaning experts believe protection efforts also benefit other species and the larger ecosystem.

However, a joint China-United States study released last year suggests some of the panda-focused conservation efforts may have had a negative effect on some carnivore species that have seen their numbers drop in recent decades.

 SCIENCE NEWS THAT WILL MAKE IT IN THE PRESS

90-year-old woman infected with UK and South African COVID-19 variants at the same time

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Research News

 

Researchers in Belgium report on the case of a 90-year-old woman who was simultaneously infected with two different variants of concern (VOCs) of COVID-19, in a Case Report being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) held online this year.

On March 3 2021, the woman, whose medical history was unremarkable, was admitted to the OLV Hospital in the Belgian city of Aalst after a spate of falls. She tested positive for COVID-19 on the same day. She lived alone and received nursing care at home, and had not been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Initially, there were no signs of respiratory distress and the patient had good oxygen saturation. However, she developed rapidly worsening respiratory symptoms, and died five days later.

When the patient's respiratory sample was tested for VOCs with PCR, they discovered that she had been infected by two different strains of the virus--one which originated in the UK, known as B.1.1.7 (Alpha), and another that was first detected in South Africa (B.1.351; Beta).

The presence of both strains was confirmed by PCR on a second respiratory sample, by sequencing of the S-gene and by whole genome sequencing.

"This is one of the first documented cases of co-infection with two SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern", says lead author and molecular biologist Dr Anne Vankeerberghen from the OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium. "Both these variants were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the lady was co-infected with different viruses from two different people. Unfortunately, we don't know how she became infected."

On December 14, 2020, the UK authorities informed WHO that a variant (B.1.1.7; Alpha) had been detected in the south east of England (Kent). Within a few weeks, this variant took over from the viral strains circulating in this region, and has since spread to more than 50 countries, including Belgium. On December 18, 2020, the South African authorities reported that a variant (B.1.351; Beta) had been detected and was spreading rapidly throughout three provinces of South Africa, and has now been identified in at least 40 countries, including Belgium.

In January 2021, scientists in Brazil reported that two people had been simultaneously infected with two different strains of the coronavirus--the Brazilian variant known as B.1.1.28 (E484K) and a novel variant VUI-NP13L, which had previously been discovered in Rio Grande do Sul. But the study has yet to be published in a scientific journal [1]. Previous research has reported people infected with different influenza strains [2].

"Whether the co-infection of the two variants of concern played a role in the fast deterioration of the patient is difficult to say", says Vankeerberghen. "Up to now, there have been no other published cases. However, the global occurrence of this phenomenon is probably underestimated due to limited testing for variants of concern and the lack of a simple way to identify co-infections with whole genome sequencing."

She continues, "Since co-infections with variants of concern can only be detected by VOC-analysis of positive samples, we would encourage scientists to perform fast, easy and cheap VOC-analysis by PCR on a large proportion of their positive samples, rather than just whole genome sequencing on a small proportion. Independent of the technique used, being alert to co-infections remains crucial."

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SEE


90-year-old infected with 'two virus variants at once'

Issued on: 11/07/2021 - 00:48

Researchers said while co-infection with two strains is rare, it might be underestimated Christophe ARCHAMBAULT AFP/File


Paris (AFP)

A 90-year-old woman who died after falling ill with Covid-19 was infected with both the Alpha and Beta variants of the coronavirus at the same time, researchers in Belgium said Sunday, adding that the rare phenomenon may be underestimated.

The unvaccinated woman, who lived alone and received at-home nursing care, was admitted to the OLV Hospital in the Belgian city of Aalst after a spate of falls in March and tested positive for Covid-19 the same day.

While her oxygen levels were initially good, her condition deteriorated rapidly and she died five days later.

When medical staff tested for the presence of any variants of concern they found that she was carrying both the Alpha strain, which originated in Britain, and the Beta variant first detected in South Africa.

"Both these variants were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the lady was co-infected with different viruses from two different people," said molecular biologist Anne Vankeerberghen from the OLV Hospital who led the research.

"Unfortunately, we don't know how she became infected."

Vankeerberghen said it was difficult to say whether the co-infection played a role in the fast deterioration of the patient.

The research, which has not yet been submitted to a medical journal for publication, is being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases.

While Vankeerberghen said in a press release that there had been "no other published cases" of similar co-infections, she added that the "phenomenon is probably underestimated".

This is because of limited testing for variants of concern, she said, calling for an increase in the use of fast PCR testing to detect known variant mutations.

In January, scientists in Brazil reported that two people had been simultaneously infected with two different strains of the coronavirus, but the study has yet to be published in a scientific journal.

In comments reacting to the research, Lawrence Young, a virologist and Professor of Molecular Oncology at the University of Warwick, said it was not a surprise to find an individual infected with more than one strain.

"This study does highlight the need for more studies to determine whether infection with multiple variants of concern affects the clinical course of Covid-19 and whether this in any way compromises the efficacy of vaccination," he added.

© 2021 AFP

 

The incidence of COVID-19 in a Brazilian regional soccer league is one of the highest

Researchers analyzed almost 30,000 RT-PCR tests on swabs from 4,269 players in 2020: 11.7% turned out positive; the rate was the same as among front-line health workers

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

Research News

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS ANALYZED ALMOST 30,000 RT-PCR TESTS ON SWABS FROM 4,269 PLAYERS IN 2020: 11.7% TURNED OUT POSITIVE. THE RATE WAS THE SAME AS AMONG FRONT-LINE HEALTH WORKERS... view more 

CREDIT: BRUNO GUALANO

By Karina Toledo | Agência FAPESP* – A study conducted at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil shows that the incidence of infections by the novel coronavirus among professional soccer players in São Paulo state during the 2020 season was 11.7%, the same as among health workers in the front line of the response to the pandemic.

To arrive at this number, the researchers retrospectively analyzed almost 30,000 RT-PCR tests performed on swabs from 4,269 athletes during eight tournaments of the São Paulo State Soccer Federation (FPF), the league responsible for organizing official championships in the state – six for men (the São Paulo Cup, Under-23s, U-20s, and the three divisions of the São Paulo Championship) and two for women (the São Paulo Championship and U-17s). A total of 501 tests confirmed the presence of SARS-CoV-2. They also analyzed 2,231 tests on swabs from support staff (health workers, technical committees, directors, kitmen, etc.), and 161 (7%) were positive.

“It’s a much higher attack rate than has been seen in other countries. In Denmark, for example, only four out of 748 players tested positive [0.5%]. The Bundesliga [in Germany] found eight cases out of 1,702 players [0.6%]. Even in Qatar, where there’s a moderate risk of community transmission, the rate was far lower than ours: 24 out of 549 tested positive [4%]. Compared with the other reported rates, our players were infected between three and 24 times more,” Bruno Gualano, a professor at the University of São Paulo’s Medical School (FM-USP) and principal investigator for the study, told Agência FAPESP.

In an article published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the authors say the numbers are probably underestimated. The group had access to the database of the laboratory commissioned by FPF to test the athletes. However, players belonging to clubs that competed in national tournaments could choose to be tested by laboratories commissioned by the Brazilian Soccer Confederation (CBF), and these results were not included in the analysis.

In any event, the São Paulo data shows that the virus affected men and women equally among those tested. A comparison of the results for players and staff shows a high attack rate among players, but severe cases of COVID-19 were more frequent among staff, who are older on average and are not all in perfect health.

“This is a cause of concern,” Gualano said. “The few severe cases, one of which ended in death, were reported among members of staff. Although our data suggest players tend to manifest only mild symptoms or none at all, they can of course transmit the virus to others in the community. Most have a very active social life.”

Contact tracing has never been implemented in Brazil as a public health policy, he added, so it is not possible to measure the impact of the secondary infections caused by players in their households or social circles.

Risk factors

Owing to the social distancing measures implemented in the state of São Paulo in March 2020, soccer matches were temporarily suspended and resumed only on June 14. To minimize the risk of viral transmission, FPF’s Medical Committee created a protocol that calls for frequent testing of players and support staff, isolation of all infected individuals, contact tracing (within the sports community), and routine hygiene practices.

“Cases appeared whenever the protocol wasn’t followed,” said Moisés Cohen, who chairs the Medical Committee. “It’s a controlled environment where risks are monitored and minimized, including testing every two to three days. Players who leave [the isolation bubble] and return are tested every day. We also trace the contacts of individuals with positive test results and follow best practices in terms of protection, such as using PPE [personal protective equipment] and hand hygiene,” he said.

According to Gualano, the risk of viral transmission during matches has proved low, but other factors impair the efficacy of the protocol, which he considers technically adequate. “It would work well if applied in Denmark or Germany,” he said. “It depends significantly on the common sense of the players, who are required to go straight home from the training center and maintain social distancing and non-pharmacological measures when resting. Here in Brazil, however, a sizable proportion don’t follow the rules and aren’t penalized at all. In addition, players and staff travel to and from fixtures a good deal. The smaller clubs travel by bus, eat at restaurants, and are probably more exposed than elite players. Our social inequality is also true of soccer.”

The study shows that some clubs were far more affected than others. One club reported 36 positives, with 31 occurring in a single month. Seven clubs had more than 20 confirmed cases and 19 had ten or more. For Cohen, all outbreaks are due to non-compliance with the protocol.

Gualano expressed strong concern over the resume of São Paulo Championship fixtures after suspension of all matches in São Paulo state on March 11, in response to the sharp rise in hospitalizations and deaths and the emergence of more aggressive viral variants. The suspension was lifted on April 10; nonetheless, matches during this period were taking place at Volta Redonda, a nearby city in Rio de Janeiro state.

“Until the transmission of COVID-19 is mitigated, any sector that reopens represents a high risk of contagion,” Gualano said. “The only safe option would be to isolate the entire soccer sector inside a bubble, which is what the NBA [the National Basketball Association in the United States] did at a cost of USD 170 million. Either shut down or isolate.”

The study was conducted under the auspices of Sports-COVID-19, a coalition of researchers affiliated with FM-USP’s hospital complex (Hospital das Clínicas), the Albert Einstein Jewish-Brazilian Hospital (HIAE), the São Paulo Heart Hospital (HCor), the Niterói Hospital Complex, the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), the Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology, and the São Paulo Center for Research on High-Performance Sports (NAR-SP), with FPF’s support. The consortium aims to investigate the long-term consequences of COVID-19 for soccer players and other elite athletes.

Besides Gualano and Cohen, the article’s authors include two holders of PhD scholarships from FAPESP: Ana Jéssica Pinto and Ítalo Ribeiro Lemes.

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About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at http://www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at http://www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

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Dog food sold across Europe contains antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including 'superbugs' found in hospital patients

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Research News

 

New research being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), held online this year, reveals raw dog food to be a major source of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, making it an international public health risk.

With some of the multidrug-resistant bacteria in raw dog food identical to those found in hospital patients in several different European countries, the researchers say the trend for feeding dogs raw food may be fuelling the spread of antibiotic resistant-bacteria.

Drug-resistant infections kill an estimated 700,000 people a year globally and, with the figure projected to rise to 10 million by 2050 if no action is taken, the World Health Organisation (WHO) classes antibiotic resistance as one of the greatest public health threats facing humanity.

To find out if pet food is a potential source of spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Dr Ana R. Freitas, Dr Carla Novais, Dr Luísa Peixe and colleagues from UCIBIO, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto, Portugal analysed dog food from supermarkets and pet shops for Enterococci.

Enterococci are opportunistic bacteria. They live harmlessly in the guts of humans and animals but can cause severe infections if they spread to other parts of the body.

A total of 55 samples of dog food (22 wet, 8 dry, 4 semi-wet, 7 treats and 14 raw-frozen) from 25 brands available nationally and internationally were included in the study. The raw-frozen foods included duck, salmon, turkey, chicken, lamb, goose, beef and vegetables.

Thirty samples (54%) contained Enterococci. More than 40% of the Enterococci were resistant to the antibiotics erythromycin, tetracycline, quinupristin-dalfopristin, streptomycin, gentamicin, chloramphenicol, ampicillin or ciprofloxacin. There was also resistance to vancomycin and teicoplanin (2% each) and 23% of the enterococci were resistant to linezolid.

Linezolid is a last-resort antibiotic, used on severe infections when other drugs have failed, and is considered a critically important treatment by the WHO.

All of the raw dog food samples contained multidrug-resistant Enterococci, including bacteria resistant to linezolid. In contrast, only three of the non-raw samples contained multidrug- resistant bacteria.

Genetic sequencing revealed that some of the multi-drug resistant bacteria in the raw dog food were identical to bacteria isolated from hospital patients in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. Genetically identical bacteria have also been found in farm animals and wastewater in the UK.

In another experiment, the researchers transferred antibiotic resistance genes from the bacteria found in dog food to other, experimental, bacteria - suggesting this can also occur in nature.

The researchers conclude that dog food is a source of bacteria that are resistant to last-resort antibiotics and could potentially spread to humans. Dog food, they add, could be an overlooked driver of antibiotic resistance globally.

Dr Freitas adds: "The close contact of humans with dogs and the commercialisation of the studied brands in different countries poses an international public health risk.

"European authorities must raise awareness about the potential health risks when feeding raw diets to pets and the manufacture of dog food, including ingredient selection and hygiene practices, must be reviewed.

"Dog owners should always wash their hands with soap and water right after handling pet food and after picking up faeces."

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