UK
Coronavirus: Fewer than half of Britons believe government is handling outbreak well, new poll finds

Economic optimism hits lowest level since financial crisis as seven in 10 people think economy will get worse over next 12 months

Lizzy Buchan THE INDEPENDENTPolitical Correspondent @LizzyBuchan

Just under half of Britons believe the government is handling the coronavirus outbreak well as economic optimism fell to its lowest level since the financial crisis, a new poll has found.

As the country faces drastic measures to curb the spread of the virus, a survey by Ipsos MORI found 49 per cent said ministers were handling the crisis well, with 35 per cent regarding the government's efforts negatively.

Boris Johnson was regarded as acting well by 47 per cent of voters, compared to 38 per cent who thought he was handling the crisis badly.

The chief medical officer Chris Whitty inspired the most confidence on 52 per cent, with only 14 per cent critical of his efforts.

Two in five voters (39 per cent) said Matt Hancock has been handling the crisis well, while new chancellor Rishi Sunak won plaudits from 41 per cent of voters.

Coronavirus: Empty streets across the world
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The poll, which was conducted between 13-16 March, and before some of the latest emergency measures, found seven out of 10 people (69 per cent) think the economy will get worse over the next 12 months – up from 42 per cent in February.

Only 15 per cent think that the economy will improve. The last time pessimism was this low was in November 2008 when 75 per cent thought the economy would get worse.

Young people were more critical of the government’s handling of the outbreak than older people, as just 28 per cent of 18-34s thought the government was handling it well, compared with 70 per cent of over 65s.

Confidence was lower among Labour supporters (30 per cent), public sector workers (35 per cent), and Londoners (38 per cent).

But Budget measures to fight coronavirus have gone down well, with 65 per cent saying it will be helpful in tackling the outbreak. Eight out 10 people (81 per cent) strongly supported the £5bn emergency NHS fund announced by the chancellor.

Over the weekend, half of voters said the measures the Government had taken do not go far enough and more should be done while 42 per cent said the measures the Government had taken are about right.

The poll revealed broad support for cancelling sporting events such as the FA Cup (75 per cent), the rest of the season for Britain’s football leagues (73 per cent), and Wimbledon (71 per cent), while seven in ten (72 per cent) supported postponing the upcoming local elections.

Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos MORI, said: "Britons’ worries about the economic impact of the coronavirus are laid clear with pessimism about the economy at its worst in our trends since the 2008 crash, while women are particularly concerned.

"However at the time of asking around half the public felt the government was handling the crisis well, although half were wanting more to be done, and high levels of support for the Budget’s financial measures suggests that they are looking for the government to take further action to minimise economic damage and restore confidence."

Source note: Ipsos MORI interviewed a representative sample of 1,003 adults aged 18+ across Great Britain. Interviews were conducted by telephone 13 – 16 March.

Data are weighted to the profile of the population. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error.

Trump ban on research using foetal tissue from abortions blocking potential coronavirus treatments

A ban was imposed last year prohibiting government researchers from using tissue from abortions in their work

• Amy Goldstein
• 
  

A senior scientist at a government biomedical research laboratory has been thwarted in his efforts to conduct experiments on possible treatments for the new coronavirus because of the Trump administration’s restrictions on research with human fetal tissue.

The scientist, Kim Hasenkrug, an immunologist at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana, has been appealing for nearly a month to top NIH officials, arguing that the pandemic warrants an exemption to a ban imposed last year prohibiting government researchers from using tissue from abortions in their work.


According to several researchers familiar with the situation, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive internal dispute, such experiments could be particularly fruitful. Just months ago, before the new coronavirus began to infect people around the world, other U.S. scientists made two highly relevant discoveries. They found that specialized mice could be transplanted with human fetal tissue that develops into lungs- the part of the body the new coronavirus invades. These “humanized mice,” they also found, could then be infected with coronaviruses – to which ordinary mice are not susceptible – closely related to the one that causes the new disease, Covid-19.

Outside researchers said the scientists who created those mice have offered to give them to the Rocky Mountain Lab, which has access to the new virus that causes Covid-19, so the mice could be infected with the source of the pandemic and experiments could be run on potential treatments. Candidates include an existing drug known to boost patients’ immune systems in other circumstances, as well as blood serum from patients recovering from Covid-19.


“Kim Hasenkrug is one of the world experts in immune responses to persistent viral infection, including HIV and a whole bunch of other viruses,” said Irving Weissman, a leading stem cell researcher at Stanford University. In addition, the Montana NIH site has a biosafety lab equipped with high-level protections for experiments with dangerous microbes.


“It isn’t clear if this added layer of urgent investigations will find more effective” treatments for people infected in the pandemic than other approaches now being tried, Weissman said, “but it’s stupid not to try.”

No therapies or vaccines for the new coronavirus exist yet.

The inability of the Montana lab, part of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to pursue these experiments on the coronavirus is the latest example of disruptions to scientists’ work caused by the administration’s restrictions on research involving fetal tissue.

“When I hear the vice president saying [they’re] doing everything they can to find vaccines [and treatments], I know that is not true,” said one scientist familiar with the situation, referring to Vice President Mike Pence’s daily press briefings of the White House coronavirus task force. “Anything we do at this point could save hundreds of thousands of lives. If you wait, it’s too late.”

Caitlin Oakley, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes NIH, said, “No decision has been made” about Rocky Mountain’s request. She added that the administration’s “bold, decisive actions” to respond to the pandemic include “kick-starting the development of vaccines and therapeutics through every possible avenue.”

Hasenkrug has been forbidden by federal officials to talk publicly since the administration began to reconsider fetal tissue funding rules in the fall of 2018 at the prodding of social conservatives who oppose abortion and are part of Trump’s political base.

The fetal tissue is donated by women undergoing elective abortions, and critics say that it is unethical to use the material and that taxpayer money should not be used for research that relies on abortion.

“Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President [Donald] Trump’s administration,” HHS said in announcing its revised policy late last spring.

Under the policy Trump announced then, university researchers or other outside scientists face new restrictions on federal funding of such work. If an NIH grant proposal is approved through the normal scientific review process, it must then be evaluated by a new ethics advisory board that was announced months ago but does not yet exist. This winter, NIH officials officially invited nominations to the panel for the current year, but its members have not yet been determined, and no date has been set for it to convene.

The restrictions for government researchers such as Hasenkrug – known as NIH’s intramural scientists – are more severe. Those scientists have been banned from pursuing studies that involve fetal tissue. Hasenkrug was at the time of the ban collaborating on humanized mouse research aimed at a possible cure for HIV.

According to the scientists familiar with events, a researcher at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill last month offered to send to Rocky Mountain nearly three dozen mice implanted with the human lung tissue that he and colleagues had recently shown could be infected with coronaviruses. There are enough of them for experiments with three or four potential treatments, the scientists said.

The offer came six months after the UNC scientists published their findings in the journal Nature Biotechnology about having succeeded in implanting human fetal lung tissue into mice with their own immune systems removed. The mice then grew human lung structures and were able to be infected with coronaviruses and other viruses to which mice ordinarily are not susceptible.

A senior UNC scientist, who has been cautioned by the university not to speak publicly about the research, according to other scientists familiar with the situation, did not respond to requests for comment.

On Feb. 19, two individuals said, Hasenkrug wrote to a senior NIH official, asking for permission to use those mice and run experiments related to covid-19. He eventually was told that his request had been passed on to senior HHS officials.

Since then, he has written repeatedly to NIH, laying out in greater detail the experiments he wants to undertake and why several alternatives to the fetal tissue-implanted mice would not be as useful. In one appeal to NIH, Hasenkrug wrote that the mice he was offered are more than a year old and have a relatively short time remaining to live, so should be used quickly, according to Kerry Lavender, a Canadian researcher familiar with the correspondence.

Hasenkrug has not received an answer as to whether the administration will allow him to proceed, scientists familiar with his request said.

An individual familiar with where things stand, speaking on condition of anonymity about the internal dynamic, said the requests had been forwarded about two weeks ago to the White House’s Domestic Policy Council and that HHS and NIH were waiting for a decision there.

Late last week, Lavender, a former postdoctoral trainee at Rocky Mountain who helped develop a technique to implant mice with fetal tissue, heard from Hasenkrug, her mentor, asking whether she might undertake the coronavirus research that he was not allowed to do.
Lavender, an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan, said in an interview that she moved back to her native Canada less than two years ago because she wanted to continue pursuing fetal tissue studies and could see that the Trump administration was hostile to such research.

She said she is scrambling to try to carry out the experiments but is uncertain whether “we can pull it off . . . I’m a new investigator with only so much funding,” she said, adding that she does not have immediate access to the kind of biohazard containment facility needed to do the work safely.

“If we were able to do this within the NIH, we would be able to do this much more quickly,” Lavender said. “Because the NIH budget all comes through the government, they can easily collaborate and fund what they are doing . . . It’s much harder when we’re all separate entities to try to arrange the funding.”

According to one of the scientists, an experiment would take perhaps a week or 10 days to show whether a potential treatment was effective in the mice. Any promising therapy would then require testing in humans and approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Stanford’s Weissman said one potential therapy that should be tried is a drug, already FDA-approved, that he developed initially for cancers that he and Hasenkrug more recently have found to be effective in boosting immune response in mice. People with weakened immune systems are particularly vulnerable to severe illness from Covid-19 or death.

“Will it work? We don’t know that,” Weissman said. But he said, “this is a way to bring more minds and more hands” to the search for a treatment for the new pandemic.

The Washington Post

Virus, what virus?

 Tokyo Olympics organisers under scrutiny

#NOOLYMPICS2020      #NOTOKYOOLYMPICS2020

AFP / Kazuhiro NOGIPreparations are continuing in Tokyo 

to host the 2020 Olympics - but criticism is growing

Tokyo Olympic organisers are facing increased scrutiny over their unwillingness to either postpone or cancel the summer Games in response to the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world.

As a multitude of sporting events worldwide are scrubbed from the calendar, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been accused of shying away from what would be a huge decision on the staging of the four-yearly event.

The IOC's 600 employees in the Swiss city of Lausanne, based at home since Friday, continue to work on the planning of the July 24-August 9 Games.

IOC president Thomas Bach is one of the very few to still work from the headquarters.

"Only the president is present, along with some directors, in separate offices," a source told AFP.

Bach has held a series of meetings by video link with international federations, national Olympic committees and athletes' representatives, working on the repeated premise that the IOC is determined to work for the success of the Games in Tokyo.

"We were also very constructive in considering the path to Tokyo and everybody realised that we still have more than four months to go," Bach said after talks with 220 athletes' representatives on Wednesday.

"We aim to continue being very realistic in our analysis."

To help qualification for the Games, Bach has asked international federations to propose plans before the end of March on how to fill quotas, with just 57 percent of athletes having already qualified.

According to sources, not one of the 28 federations represented at the Olympics asked Bach if he envisaged a delay in the staging of the Games.

"We are very optimistic on the holding of the Tokyo Olympic Games on the scheduled dates," Nenad Lalovic, president of the international wrestling federation and influential member of the IOC executive committee, told AFP Thursday.

But World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe earlier admitted that the Games could be moved to later in the year because of the COVID-19 outbreak, which has caused 217,510 cases with 9,020 deaths across 157 countries and territories as of 1100 GMT Thursday.

"That is possible, anything is possible at the moment," Coe told BBC when asked whether the Games could be postponed to September or October.

"But I think the position that sport has certainly taken, and it was certainly the temperature of the room in the conversation I had the other day with the IOC and our other federations, is that nobody is saying we will be going to the Games come what may.

"But it isn't a decision that has to be made at this moment," said Coe, who headed up the organising committee of the 2012 London Games and is also a member of the Tokyo Olympics Games Coordination Commission.

- Risk to athletes -

There has been growing concern from athletes not only over the potential risk to their health, but also unfairness in pre-Games training given some countries are in lockdown with access to facilities blocked.

But the IOC has not budged on its stance, notably on Tuesday, when its executive board meeting coincided with the postponement of the European football championships, the Copa America, tennis' French Open and the Paris-Roubaix cycling race.

"With more than four months to go before the Games there is no need for any drastic decisions at this stage; and any speculation at this moment would be counter-productive," the IOC insisted Wednesday, drawing the ire of many top athletes by encouraging all sportspeople to continue to prepare for the Tokyo Games "as best they can".

One federation executive said the "Olympics overshadow everything in terms of organisation, budget and prestige".

"So you can understand that the IOC is giving itself some time to take a radical decision that also involves the future of world sport."

While many federation presidents have followed Bach and the IOC's official line, it is clear, however, that there are some doubters.

"I'm shocked," said another federation executive, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"If the IOC decides to postpone the Games, at least everybody could prepare themselves for the fall-out rather than carrying on without knowing where we're going."

Another official added: "If the IOC claims to care about the health of sportspeople, then it postpones the Games because by not taking any decision, it exposes athletes to a major risk."

ANOTHER HINDUTVA FAKIR

India political activist arrested for selling cow urine to combat virus

AFP / NOAH SEELAMMany in India, a Hindu-majority nation of 1.3 billion, consider cows sacred and believe drinking cow urine is a panacea for all manner of ailments

An activist with India's ruling party has been arrested after a volunteer fell ill from drinking cow urine at a party to combat the novel coronavirus, police said Wednesday, as interest grows in home remedies amid the pandemic.

Narayan Chatterjee, a Bharatiya Janata Party activist, was arrested by West Bengal state police late Tuesday for "organising the cow urine consumption event and compelling a civic volunteer to drink cow urine", Kolkata police chief Anuj Sharma told AFP.

"The civic volunteer fell sick on Tuesday and lodged a complaint with the police. The BJP activist was arrested on Tuesday night."

The president of BJP's West Bengal branch told AFP Chatterjee's arrest was "unfortunate".

"India is a democratic country. Everyone has the right to express his opinion," Dilip Ghosh said.

"It's unfortunate that Chatterjee was arrested for expressing his opinion organising the event. We don't know if the civic volunteer was forced to drink cow urine."

Many in the Hindu-majority nation of 1.3 billion consider cows sacred and believe drinking cow urine is a panacea for all manner of ailments, from arthritis and asthma to cancer and diabetes.

Last week, dozens of Hindu activists held a cow urine party in the capital New Delhi where they staged fire rituals and drank urine from earthen cups in order to fight the COVID-19.

Critics have rejected the urine claims as quackery.

A milk trader in the same state was arrested Tuesday for selling cow urine and dung and claiming they "would keep the novel coronavirus at bay", senior police officer from Hooghly district Humayan Kabir told AFP.

Kabir said the trader, Sheikh Masud, was selling cow urine at 500 Indian rupees ($6.69) a litre and cow dung at 400 rupees a kilogramme (2.2 pounds).

Masud, who hung a poster at his shop with the words "Drink cow urine to ward off coronavirus" told police he was inspired to sell the excrement after hearing about the Delhi party.

AFP has sought comment from the Ministry of Health on whether cow dung and cow urine are effective in curing COVID-19.

The World Health Organisation in India has also been contacted for comment over the urine and dung claims.

The government said Wednesday there have been 151 positive cases and three deaths from the virus in India, the world's second-most populous country with 1.3 billion people.

Most schools, entertainment facilities including cinemas, and even the iconic Taj Mahal have already been closed in India to try and stop the spread of the outbreak.

New coronavirus (NOVEL CORONAVIRUS) can survive on some surfaces for days: study
 

National Institutes of Health/AFP/File / Handout

A 3D print of a spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 in front of a 

3D print of a SARS-CoV-2 virus particle

The novel coronavirus can survive on some surfaces for days or in the air for several hours, according to a US-government funded study published Tuesday.

Scientists found that the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease had similar levels of viability outside the body to its predecessor that caused SARS.

This means that other factors like greater transmission between people with no symptoms might be why the current pandemic is far greater than the SARS outbreak of 2002-2003.

The new paper was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and carried out by scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), University of California, Los Angeles and Princeton.

The new coronavirus was detectable for up to four hours on copper and two to three days on plastic and stainless steel, and for up to 24 hours on cardboard.

The team used a nebulizer to simulate a person coughing or sneezing, and found that the virus became an aerosol -- meaning its particles became suspended in the air -- making it detectable for almost three hours.

The study was first posted on a medical pre-print website last week before it was peer-reviewed, and attracted much attention, including some criticism from scientists who said that it may have overstated the airborne threat.

The virus is predominantly transmitted by respiratory droplets and in this form it is viable for only a few seconds after a person coughs or sneezes.

Critics questioned whether a nebulizer accurately mimicked a human cough or sneeze.

That said, there is other evidence to suggest it can become an aerosol, albeit in rare circumstances.

- SARS comparison -

A Chinese paper that was posted last week and is awaiting peer-review found an aerosolized form of the new coronavirus was present in the bathrooms of patients in a Wuhan hospital, as the virus is shed in stools.

An aerosolized form of SARS was responsible for infecting hundreds of people in a Hong Kong apartment complex in 2003, when a sewage line leaked on to a ceiling fan creating a virus-laden plume.

The team behind the NEJM study performed similar tests on the SARS virus, finding the two viruses behave similarly.

But their similar viability fails to explain why the novel coronavirus pandemic has infected close to 200,000 people and caused almost 8,000 deaths, while the SARS epidemic infected about 8,000 and killed nearly 800.

"This indicates that differences in the epidemiologic characteristics of these viruses probably arise from other factors, including high viral loads in the upper respiratory tract and the potential for persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 to shed and transmit the virus while asymptomatic," wrote the researchers.

SARS-CoV-2 is the technical name for the new coronavirus.

The findings affirm guidance from public health professionals regarding social distancing, avoiding touching the face, covering your cough or sneeze and frequently disinfecting objects using cleaning sprays or wipes.

18 MAR 2020



SEE 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/new-coronavirus-can-survive-on-some.html

No layoffs, reduced rent: 'Italian cure' for pandemic

AFP / ANDREAS SOLARO

Shuttered market stalls in Rome's Monteverde Vecchio district on Wednesday

Companies are barred from laying off workers and rents have been reduced under Italy's economic survival plan for life at the European epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte hailed his 25-billion-euro ($28-billion) programme as the "Italian model" that the rest of Europe could adopt as it imposes its own painful lockdowns.

Italy's 2,978 official COVID-19 deaths account for more than half of those reported outside China.

AFP / ANDREAS SOLARO

The normally busy road between Rome and the Fiumicino international airport

Its nationwide containment measures are meant to see death rates that hit a global one-day record of 475 on Wednesday plateau and start to come down this month.

Other European nations are now taking on Italy's painful social distancing measures -- and Conte believes they will also adopt his remedy for families and businesses hurt by the fight against the invisible killer disease.

"When we talk about the Italian model, we are not only talking about health but also the economic response to the crisis," Conte said while unveiling his "Cura Italia" ("Italian Cure") plan at the start of the week.

Other European countries will probably never take on all 127 of the points that Conte -- a former law professor -- and his team of technocratic ministers drafted in the heat of Italy's gravest emergency since World War II.

But here are the broad outlines of what Conte thinks could be a pan-European response plan.

- Worker rights -

Companies are prohibited from laying off workers for the next two months without "justified objective reasons".

The self-employed and seasonal workers such as tour guides can expect a 600-euro ($680) payment for the month of March to help cushion the pain of lost business.

The government will also cover 100-euro bonuses for low-wage employees.

- Baby sitters -

Families are issued 600-euro vouchers to cover the expense of having to hire baby sitters to look after their children, who will be out of school at least until April 3.

The Italian government said Wednesday that its month-long shutdown of everything from kindergartens to private universities might run well into next month.

The self-employed who have to look after their kids will receive "parental leave" payments that cover half of their declared monthly incomes.

These payments can also be calculated on a daily basis.

- Rent and mortgage -

Conte has shut down all forms of business except for pharmacies and grocery stores for two weeks starting on March 12.

The government is compensating shop owners by offering them tax credits to cover 60 percent of their March rent payment.

The self-employed and freelancers with home mortgages can ask to have their payments suspended for up to 18 months if they can prove that their incomes fell by a third.

- Taxes -

A variety of taxes and social service payments are being suspended for sectors and professions deemed most affected by the crisis.

An existing list has been expanded to include everyone from truck drivers and hotel staff to cooks and clerks.

The government expects to start collecting the taxes again in May.

- Politics and prisons -

A variety of other measures affect issues ranging from prisons to politics and sport.

AFP/File / Miguel MEDINAInmates staged a rooftop protest at the San Vittore prison in Milan last week A watchdog group has urged the Italian government to release more than 10,000 prisoners from overcrowded jails as the country struggles to fight the spread of coronavirus

A planned national referendum to cut the number of parliament members has been postponed until the second half of the year.

The government is sending 20 million euros to repair the damage caused to prisons by rioters who were anxious about the new disease.

Italy's sport federations get four-month tax privileges and 130 million euros will go to support cinemas and the movie industry.

States suspending standardized tests as schools close
By JIM VERTUNOtoday



FILE - In this Wednesday, March 11, 2020, file photo, custodial staffer Hortensia Salinas uses an Electrostatic Clorox Sprayer to spray disinfectant in a classroom at Brownsville Early College High School in Brownsville, Texas. Closing schools to combat the spread of the coronavirus is having a sweeping impact on an annual rite of spring: the standardized tests that are dreaded by millions of students and teachers alike. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald via AP, File)


AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Closing schools to combat the spread of the coronavirus is having a sweeping impact on an annual rite of spring: the standardized tests that are dreaded by millions of students and teachers alike.

Several states have canceled standardized testing for this academic year as they face school closures that could last weeks or months. The tests were scheduled to begin in early April in many states.

While that’s easing the burden on students and teachers, it’s also creating problems. The federal government requires states to perform annual standardized assessments under the Every Student Succeeds Act. And education groups warn that moving classes online won’t deliver equitable learning across states, school districts and even within classrooms.

Several states have asked U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to waive those requirements. The department has said states can apply for a waiver on a case-by-case basis, but no blanket waiver has been announced.

In a recent advisory to schools, the department said it generally doesn’t grant broad waivers from the assessments that provide valuable information for parents, teachers and schools. But it said it would consider a targeted waiver for schools badly hit by the current “extraordinary circumstances.”

“It’s time for Betsy DeVos to do the right thing on behalf of our students and waive statewide assessments,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Tuesday. “When our kids get back to school, our number one priority must be ensuring they have the resources they need to get back on track.”

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday canceled the annual State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness tests for about 3.5 million students. More than half of the state’s 1,200 school districts, including the largest in Dallas and Houston and Austin, are facing prolonged school closures.

That was a relief for Lisa Ivy, a 16-year science teacher in Round Rock, Texas, whose fifth-grade daughter had been facing a STAAR test to determine if she would advance to middle school.

“I watch the anxiety created by these tests, as a teacher and a mom,” Ivy said. Her daughter knew what was at stake and was getting nervous that school closures would disrupt the final weeks of learning and review before the critical exam.

“Watching her get scared about it was crazy,” Ivy said. “I feel like schools didn’t want to cancel because we had STAAR test.”


In Washington state, where schools are closed statewide until at least April 24, Gov. Jay Inslee canceled standardized testing. In Ohio, where schools are scheduled to be closed for several weeks, Gov. Mike DeWine said: “If we can’t have testing this year, we will not have testing this year. The world will not come to an end.”

The Texas test is a high-stakes assessment that starts in third grade and can stop poor-performing students from advancing to the next grade level or even graduating high school. Test scores are also used to evaluate teachers.

While Abbott’s office said some districts may still want evaluations this year to collect learning data, the Texas State Teachers Association heralded the decision to say they’re not required.

“With this health crisis, educators, students, parents and their families need to be dedicated to keeping their families safe. That’s stressful enough without having to worry about a standardized test to advance or graduate,” TSTA spokesman Clay Robison said.

For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with preexisting health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

The vast majority of people recover from the virus. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild cases recover in about two weeks, while others could take three to six weeks to get well.

School districts are grappling with developing online learning for students. Education groups say that creates a problem for standardized testing as students may not have equal access to learning and lessons outside the classroom.

“It’s inherently inequitable,” said Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director for advocacy and governance for the American Association of School Administrators.

“No school district can guarantee students have access to online learning,” Ellerson Ng said. “Some live in homes where mom and dad can work from home and have the ability to get them through it. Others have parents who will have to go to work and make that the priority. It’s a burden parents shouldn’t have to feel or schools should be held accountable for.”

Maggie Brown, a 12-year-old sixth-grader in Austin, Texas, said she wasn’t worried about passing the STAAR this year but that she and her group of friends were glad it was canceled. She remembers the stress it put on students trying to advance out of elementary school.

“I got about 40 texts from my friends in the first hour after it was canceled. My phone was blowing up,” Brown said. “I’m glad we didn’t have to go from online learning to taking the STAAR. The class environment is important to getting ready for the test.”

Mississippi, Georgia and Texas are among more than a dozen states that use standardized test result in rating systems that grade schools and districts on an A-F scale.

In Mississippi, where schools Superintendent Carey Wright has called for eliminating standardized testing this year, that could mean teachers in high-performing schools won’t be eligible for bonuses of up to $2,000. It also could influence which school districts are eligible for state takeovers and where charter schools are allowed to open.

That’s similar to Georgia, where testing accounts not only for 20% of a student’s grade in eight high school courses. It also factors into how the state selects low-performing schools for special academic aid.

Georgia Superintendent Richard Woods has said only that he’s suspending testing, but his staff says school closures mean testing is unrealistic when the school year ends in May.

Matt Jones, Woods’ chief of staff, said calling off tests during the coronavirus outbreak shows there’s more to school than high achievement on tests.

“I think it proves that testing is not the sole focus,” Jones said. “We want to make sure these decisions are student-centered.”

___

Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta and David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

___

Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

AP PHOTO ESSAY: 

Virus revives demand for traditional French soap


AP PHOTOS: Virus revives demand for traditional French soap
By DANIEL COLE

MARSEILLE, France (AP) — Amid the rapid spread of the new coronavirus across Europe, the hallmark Marseille tradition of soap-making is enjoying a renaissance, as the French rediscover an essential local product.

Serge Bruna’s grandfather entered the then-booming business in the southern port city more than a century ago. His father followed suit, although the family enterprise was requisitioned during World War II, when soap was considered an essential commodity.

Today, Bruna sells soap from the same shopfront on Marseille’s Old Port — wearing a sanitary mask and skintight gloves.

“Even though we work in a factory full of virus-repellent soap, it is good to take precautions,” he said.

Bruna’s Savonnerie de la Licorne, which runs four soap shops on the Old Port, a museum and a small factory in the heart of Marseille, has seen its shop sales increase 30% and delivery orders quadruple since Italy declared a state of emergency over the coronavirus.

Julie Dinot wears a mask as she attends to customers at

 the Savonnerie de la Licorne shop on Marseille's Old Port

 in Marseille, southern France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

“We had fewer tourists or none at all in our stores,” he said. “On the other hand, (Marseilles residents) were much more frequent visitors and some even came to stockpile.”

The COVID-19 illness causes mild or moderate symptoms in most of those infected, but severe symptoms are more likely in the elderly or people with existing health problems. The vast majority of those infected recover.

As the public rushed to buy supplies to last during a looming quarantine, Bruna and his artisans continued making soap by hand, filling the port-view shops as well as boxes destined for export.

See more of AP's top images: Photography

With an abundance of local oils, soda, and salt, Marseille boasts a lengthy tradition of producing the natural soaps once prized throughout Europe. But only a handful of businesses are still active.

Since French shops were ordered closed this week as a public health precaution, the Savonnerie de la Licorne now only carries out deliveries, supplying pharmacies across France and handling individual orders made online.

“I’m not sure that making our soaps is more important than before, but I would say that people who have lost the habit of using Marseille soap have all of a sudden rediscovered its properties,” he said.


Workers wearing masks produce soap at the Licorne soap

 factory in Marseille, southern France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

A factory worker wears a mask as he attends to a customer 

at the Licorne soap factory in Marseille, southern France. 

Amid the rapid outbreak of the new coronavirus across Europe,

 the hallmark Marseille tradition of soap-making is enjoying

 a renaissance, as the French public rediscovers this

 essential local product. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Discarded bars of soap sit in a bucket at the Licorne soap

 factory in Marseille, southern France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Serge Bruna locks up the Marseille soap museum on the

 Old Port in Marseille, southern France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Uncut bars of soap are pictured at the Licorne soap factory 

in Marseille, southern France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

A factory worker wearing a mask produces soap at the

 Licorne soap factory in Marseille, southern France.

 (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Fourth generation soap maker Serge Bruna poses for a

 portrait in his family owned Licorne soap factory in Marseille, 

southern France. Amid the rapid outbreak of the new 

coronavirus across Europe, the hallmark (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Melanie Dinot, a retail worker at the Savonnerie de la Licorne

 poses for a portrait hours before nationwide confinement 

measures were in effect in Marseille, southern France. 

(AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

A drawer full of soap stamps, at the Licorne soap factory

 in Marseille, southern France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

A factory worker at the Licorne soap factory prepares boxes 

to be packed with soap an hour before nationwide confinement 

measures were set to go into effect in Marseille, southern France. 

(AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Fourth generation soap maker Serge Bruna washes his 

hands in his family owned Licorne soap factory in Marseille, 

southern France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Fourth generation soap maker, Serge Bruna empties

 the last delivery truck an hour before the nationwide 

confinement measures are set to go into effect in Marseille, 

southern France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Serge Bruna, right, and soap artisans cut bars of soap at

the Licorne soap factory in Marseille, southern France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Serge Bruna, center, and soap artisans cut bars of soap 

at the Licorne soap factory in Marseille, southern France.

 (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Freshly cut soap bars are packed away at the Licorne soap

 factory in Marseille, southern France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)


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The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


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Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Sick staff fueled outbreak in Seattle-area care centers

THE HORROR OF PRIVATIZED NURSING CARE IN AMERICA 

By CARLA K. JOHNSON and MIKE STOBBE

A member of a cleaning crew wheels a cart toward a vehicle at the Life Care Center, where at least 30 coronavirus deaths have been linked to the facility, Wednesday, March 18, 2020, in Kirkland, Wash. Staff members who worked while sick at multiple long-term care facilities contributed to the spread of COVID-19 among vulnerable elderly in the Seattle area, federal health officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

SEATTLE (AP) — Staff members who worked while sick at multiple long-term care facilities contributed to the spread of COVID-19 among vulnerable elderly in the Seattle area, federal health officials said Wednesday.

Thirty-five coronavirus deaths have been linked to Life Care Center in Kirkland. A report Wednesday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided the most detailed account to date of what drove the outbreak still raging in the Seattle area where authorities closed down restaurants, bars, health clubs, movie theaters and other gathering spots this week.

Sick workers may well have contributed, although investigators haven’t tied spread to “any particular staff member” and don’t know how the infection was introduced or spread, said Dr. Jeff Duchin, public health officer for Seattle and King County, during a phone briefing for reporters Wednesday.

“They need the money. They don’t have sick leave. They don’t recognize their symptoms. They deny their symptoms,” Duchin said. And in mid-February, awareness of the virus was low.

“Nobody was thinking about COVID-19 at this point,” Duchin said.

Public health authorities who surveyed long-term care facilities in the area found they didn’t have enough personal protective equipment or other items such as alcohol-based hand sanitizer.


They also said nursing homes in the area are vulnerable because staff members worked with symptoms, worked in more than one facility, and sometimes didn’t know about or follow recommendations about protecting their eyes or being careful while in close contact with ill patients.

Nursing home officials also were slow to think that symptoms might be caused by coronavirus, and faced problems from limited testing ability, according to the report.

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Life Care spokesman Tim Killian said Wednesday that full-time nurses qualify for two weeks of paid sick leave. He was not sure what benefits are available to other job categories or part-timers. Long into the outbreak, facility officials said they didn’t have enough tests for residents and that staff had gone untested.

Several family members and friends who visited Life Care before the outbreak told The Associated Press that they didn’t notice any unusual precautions, and none said they were asked about their health or if they had visited China or any other countries struck by the virus.

They said visitors came in as they always did, sometimes without signing in. Staffers had only recently begun wearing face masks. And organized events went on as planned, including a Feb. 26 Mardi Gras party, when residents and visitors packed into a common room, passed plates of sausage, rice and king cake, and sang as a band played “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

“We were all eating, drinking, singing and clapping to the music,” Pat McCauley, who was there visiting a friend, told the AP. “In hindsight, it was a real germ-fest.”

About 57% of the patients at the nursing home were hospitalized after getting infected, the CDC said. Of those, more than 1 in 4 died. No staff members died.

“The findings in this report suggest that once COVID-19 has been introduced into a long-term care facility, it has the potential to result in high attack rates among residents, staff members, and visitors,” the report says. “In the context of rapidly escalating COVID-19 outbreaks in much of the United States, it is critical that long-term care facilities implement active measures to prevent introduction of COVID-19.”

Infected staff members included those working in physical therapy, occupational therapy and nursing and nursing assistants.

Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak

Researchers who have studied nursing home workers say the jobs are low paying, with many earning minimum wage. Many employees don’t get paid when they are out sick, they said.

“It is very common for them to work two jobs in order to make ends meet especially if they have a family,” said Charlene Harrington, of the University of California, San Francisco.

Harrington said her research shows that large for-profit nursing home chains such as Life Care have the lowest staffing levels of any ownership group.

David Grabowski, of the Harvard Medical School, said nursing home employees often leave for retail and restaurant jobs.

“We’re going to see a lot of outbreaks like the one we saw in Kirkland,” he said. “It’s the front lines for containing the virus.”

As of Wednesday, 23 long-term care facilities in the area have confirmed cases among residents or employees, Duchin said. In all, Seattle’s King County has had 562 confirmed cases, an increase of 44 since Tuesday, and 56 confirmed deaths, up 10 since Tuesday, with half the newly reported deaths linked to the nursing home.

Infection control is lax at U.S. nursing homes and their sick, elderly residents are especially vulnerable to the new virus, Duchin said.

“This could happen anywhere,” he said. “I think you’ll see around the country these facilities hit very hard by COVID-19.”

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Stobbe reported from New York. AP writer Bernard Condon in New York contributed.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

EC COMICS

Staff 'worked while symptomatic' at US care home with 35 virus deaths

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP /Karen Ducey 

Seri Sedlacek (L) and her sister Susan Sedlacek visit their

 father, Chuck Sedlacek, a patient at the Life Care Center,

 on March 18, 2020 in Kirkland, Washington

The devastating coronavirus outbreak at a nursing home near Seattle where 35 have died was likely fueled by infected staff members continuing to come to work, a report found Wednesday.

The care home is responsible for over half the deaths in the northwestern state of Washington -- itself the US epicenter of the deadly pandemic.

After visiting homes in the region, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found "staff members who worked while symptomatic" and who "worked in more than one facility" likely contributed to the fatal outbreak.

A lack of personal protective equipment, safety training and delayed recognition of the novel coronavirus -- which was already prevalent in Asia -- also influenced the contagion, it found.

In mid-February, several residents were tested for influenza, but all came back negative.

The Life Care Center in Kirkland, with around 130 residents, treats those in need of acute care. Many patients had underlying conditions such as hypertension, heart and kidney disease, diabetes and obesity.

At least 35 deaths are confirmed to be associated with the Kirkland home, county officials said Wednesday.

Highlighting the danger posed to care homes, the report recommended "critical" action such as "identifying and excluding symptomatic staff," and "restricting visitation except in compassionate care situations."

A visiting ban is now in place at the home, with relatives of those still inside communicating with their family members via phone or even through the building’s glass windows.

Tim Killian, a spokesman for the home, earlier told the Washington Post: "I can't say everything was done perfectly, but I can say it was done within a range of normal operating procedure."

IN EXTRAORDINARY TIMES NORMAL OPERATING PROCEDURES NEED TO BE SUPERSEDED

Nursing Homes Are Starkly Vulnerable to Coronavirus

Matt Richtel, The New York Times•March 5, 2020

Health workers outside of the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., Wednesday, March 4, 2020. (Chona Kasinger/The New York Times)

Over the weekend, a nightmarish scenario unfolded in a Seattle suburb, with the announcement that the coronavirus had struck a nursing home. The outbreak, leaving seven dead and eight others ill through Wednesday morning, exposed the great vulnerability of the nation’s nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and the 2.5 million Americans who live in them.

These institutions have been under increasing scrutiny in recent years for a unique role they play in inflaming epidemics. Research shows these homes can be poorly staffed and plagued by lax infection-control practices, and that residents frequently cycle to and from hospitals, bringing germs back and forth.

Now, public health experts fear these facilities could become central to the rise and spread of the novel coronavirus. Statistics from China show that the infection caused by the virus, called COVID-19, kills nearly 15% of people over 80 years old who have it and 8% of people in their 70s — the very population that makes up more than half the population of these homes.

“We have to prepare for the inevitability that there are going to be facilities like the one in Washington where you’re going to have the virus and have it move rapidly through nursing homes and assisted living facilities,” said Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician and professor of medicine at Brown University, where he studies disaster preparedness.

Already, 380,000 people die annually from infections at these long-term care facilities, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, and 1 million people get serious infections in them.

Industry critics — who have become more vocal in recent years — say that many facilities are alarmingly unprepared for coronavirus and that the government’s guidance so far has been short on detail and urgency.

“Nursing homes are incubators of epidemics,” said Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York who heads the nonprofit Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.

“Every facility should be holding a boot camp to train health care workers,” she said. Otherwise, she added, “hospitals and nursing homes will become the most dangerous places to be.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the trillion-dollar federal agency that regulates the nation’s 15,700 nursing homes, issued updated guidance on Wednesday for these facilities. Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the nation’s coronavirus response efforts, said Tuesday that 8,200 CMS-funded inspectors of nursing facilities in the states will focus exclusively for the time being on infection control — a significant shift in how resources are used.

In an interview Tuesday, the CMS administrator, Seema Verma, said that the agency’s existing rules that govern infection control and prevention should provide a strong defense — if they are followed properly.

“There are very detailed instructions and guidelines around infection control,” Verma said. “They are already in place. Dealing with infectious disease is not new to the health care system. We’re just calling health care providers to action and to double down on infection control.”

The existing rules largely emulate a series of protocols used to deal with the seasonal flu, “the closest analogy,” said Dr. Lisa Winston, medical director for infection control and prevention at Zuckerberg General Hospital in San Francisco, an institution that has an on-site skilled nursing facility.

The flu protocol calls for isolation of sick patients, wearing of masks and gowns by staff and limiting visits by people who are sick.

But the analogy fails in key ways, Winston said — notably in that the flu has a vaccine and a prophylactic anti-viral treatment often given during outbreak; no such medicines exist here.

Large swaths of the population are immune to the flu, whether through vaccine or natural immunity, whereas this coronavirus is a novel germ that humans have not adapted to defend against. Visitors may be walking into nursing homes while incubating the germ.

In tweaking its existing guidance, the federal government is now telling nursing homes to bar visits by people who are sick and have traveled to affected countries, and offers procedures for determining when nursing homes and hospitals to transfer COVID-19 patients to one another.

Earlier in the week, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave guidance to these long-term facilities to post signs discouraging visitation by people with respiratory illness and give sick leave to employees so they don’t come to work ill.

Since the outbreak at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, nursing home chains and trade groups, along with mom-and-pop homes and assisted living operations, have been trying to get policies in place with uncertain information. At St. Anne Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, a 47-bed skilled nursing home in Seattle, signs went up in January discouraging visits from relatives or friends with symptoms of flu or colds, but the concern has gone into overdrive after the nearby Kirkland outbreak, said Marita Smith, the home’s administrator.

“My concern is people who are asymptomatic,” she said.

She said the staff knows the families of the residents and the plan is to be heightened in their scrutiny of visitors to make sure no one is sick. She also said that she plans not to take admissions from the hospitals from “the east side,” which is the location of Kirkland and of Evergreen Hospital, where the sickened nursing home patients were sent.

“I don’t want to be accused of discrimination but we wouldn’t want to admit anyone from Evergreen or Life Care until we know more,” she said.

“What keeps me awake at night,” she continued, are a handful of questions: how long is the incubation period of the virus; will traditional cleaning products work to sanitize against it; can you become ill more than once?

St. Anne Nursing is an independent nursing home, a veritable mom-and-pop shop. On the other end of the ownership spectrum is a huge company like Genesis HealthCare, a Pennsylvania corporation that has 400 assisted living, nursing home and senior living communities around the country. Asked about its planning for COVID-19, the company issued a brief statement saying that its team is meeting regularly to discuss the issue and is coordinating its efforts based on government guidance.

Bridget Parkhill and Carmen Gray, whose mother is a resident of Life Care Center of Kirkland, said they were complaining even before the outbreak about the kinds of conditions that can give rise to infection.

Gray said she frequently complained about low staffing, and Parkhill complained about poor hand-washing and other hygiene by the staff. Parkhill works as an infection prevention manager at a nearby hospital and described Life Care’s infection prevention as “horrible.”

But she said she’s learned in her 10 years working in the field that the situation is not isolated. “They’re all horrible,” she said. “They aren’t following protocol and they need to have twice as much staff as they have.”

Life Care Center of Kirkland is part of a chain of more than 200 nursing facilities called Life Care Centers of America, which is based in Tennessee. The company did not return a call for comment. On its website, the company posted a brief statement saying that the company is working with the CDC and the Washington State Department of Health and the situation is “evolving.”

The Life Care Center of Kirkland has been cited previously for infection control violations by the State of Washington, and the federal government.

The sisters have been left now with an additional concern: their mother, Susan Hailey, 76, has had a cough since early last week and now shortness of breath and diarrhea, but the nurse there has told them by phone (they are no longer allowed to visit) that their mother is not eligible for a COVID-19 test until she shows a fever.

“For God’s sake, why not rule it out,” Gray said Monday. “You could put a lot of people at ease. You could put the community at ease.”

The family has been told as of Wednesday morning that the home does plan to test their mother and that test kits are on site to test every resident.

CMS rates the nation’s 15,700 nursing homes and Life Care Center of Kirkland received an above average score for staffing — four stars out of five — and an average score of three stars for health risks based on recent health inspections. Verma, head of CMS, said she hoped by week’s end the agency would have investigators at Life Care in Kirkland.

“Were there lapses there?” she asked. “Was this an issue of them not following policies or was there something else?”

A challenge for the long-term care industry is its diffuse nature. Unlike with big hospital systems, the long-term care business has many small operations under independent ownership. Assisted living centers, in particular, are essentially unregulated.

At the same time, these facilities have been forced to handle more and more complicated medical cases. That is because hospitals, bowing to pressure from the insurance industry and in an effort to keep costs low, have pushed patients into nursing homes that once would have had longer hospital stays. Plus, these companies are dealing with an aging American population: Of the 1.4 million residents in these facilities in 2014, 585,000 were older than 85, and another 371,000 were between 75 and 85, according to statistics compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The Kirkland outbreak is “a potent wake up call for all of us in health care facilities that deeply care about a vulnerable population,” said Dr. Susan Huang, medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine, who has researched infection spread in skilled nursing homes.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

PLEASE BOGART THAT JOINT MY FRIEND

KEEP IT ALL TO YOURSELF
Cannabis lobby warns against smoking due to coronavirus

AFP/File / Frederic J. BROWNPeople smoke marijuana in West Hollywood, California in 2009

To avoid spreading the novel coronavirus, marijuana smokers should avoid sharing joints and should favor edible products, US cannabis industry figures said Wednesday.

"As long as cultures have consumed cannabis, the practice of sharing a joint amongst friends has been a common social practice," said Erik Altieri, executive director of NORML, a major US pro-cannabis lobby.

"But given what we know about COVID-19 and its transmission, it would be mindful during this time to halt this behavior," he said in a statement.

He also called on users to not share the various tools they might use to smoke marijuana -- including bongs, water pipes or vaping pens -- and to clean them with disinfectant gel.

"Further, because COVID-19 is a respiratory illness, some may wish to limit or avoid their exposure to combustive smoke -- as this can put undue stress and strain on the lungs," the statement said.

"The use of edibles or tinctures can eliminate smoke exposure entirely," Altieri said in the statement.

COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, has killed at least 116 people in the US, out of more than 7,700 cases.

According to NORML, about 25 million Americans have smoked marijuana in the last year.

The drug is legal at varying levels -- both for recreational and medicinal purposes -- in 47 of 50 states, though it is still classified as a highly restricted substance at the federal level, similarly to LSD, cocaine or heroin