#23SKIDOO

These 23 companies are working on coronavirus treatments or vaccines — here’s where things stand

Published: May 6, 2020 at 2:50 p.m. ET
By

Jaimy Lee
The list includes Gilead Sciences and Moderna along with smaller biotechs

A mix of legacy drugmakers and small startups have stepped forward with plans to develop vaccines or treatments that target the infection caused by the novel coronavirus.
COVID-19, which was first detected in December in Wuhan, China, late last year, has since sickened more than three million people worldwide and killed more a quarter of a million people.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued two emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 treatments, including one for hydroxychloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate in March to treat COVID-19 patients and one for Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir on May 1. No drugs or vaccines have received FDA approval.

In the U.S., many of the publicly traded companies that are initiating development have received funding from two organizations: the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health. Some companies have also received funding from Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global organization based in Oslo that has provided millions of dollars in funding to vaccine makers. Other companies are funding trials by themselves or through partnerships with other life sciences companies.

These are some of the companies developing treatments or vaccines in the U.S. for COVID-19. (An earlier version of the article included several adjuvant platform technologies that are used to aid the development process but have since been removed.)

Amgen and Adaptive Biotechnologies

Type: Antibody treatment

Stage: Preclinical

Background: The very early-stage collaboration between Amgen Inc. AMGN, -1.37% and Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. ADPT, +6.49% seeks to discover antibodies that can be used to prevent or treat COVID-19. Financial terms of the exclusive collaboration will be completed “in the coming weeks,” the companies said April 2. “There may well be more than one generation of antibody therapeutics entering the clinic,” Amgen R&D EVP David Reese told investors on an earnings call.

Also in the works: Amgen will test Otezla as a COVID-19 therapy treating respiratory distress in late-stage patients, with the company saying April 30 that it plans to put the oral psoriasis drug into trials “in the coming weeks.”


Year-to-date stock performance: Amgen’s stock is down 1.9%; Adaptive’s is up 10.3%.
Altimmune

Type: Vaccine

Stage: Preclinical

Name: AdCOVID

Background: Altimmune Inc. ALT, +0.64% said March 30 it is partnering with University of Alabama at Birmingham to develop a single-dose, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine. They said they plan to put the vaccine candidate into Phase 1 trials in the third quarter. The preclinical company is also developing vaccines for anthrax and the flu.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Altimmune have gone up 60.8%.
BioNTech and Pfizer

Type: mRNA vaccine

Stage: Phase 1/2

Name: BNT162 program

Background: Pfizer Inc. PFE, -3.06% announced March 17 it would help develop and distribute BioNTech SE’s BNTX, +3.22% COVID-19 vaccine candidate, though the deal excludes China. The 360 patients in the U.S. trial had started to receive the first doses of the four vaccine candidates included in the study as of May 5. Dosing in 200 participants in the German trial began April 23. As part of the deal, Pfizer will pay $185 million upfront, with additional possible future milestone payments of up to $563 million. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer, said during an April 28 earnings call that the companies expect the first round of trial data in May or June, with the vaccine candidate moving into “expanded trials that could allow emergency use or accelerated approval coming in the fall, possibly October.”

BioNTech is also testing the vaccine in collaboration with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd. in China.

Pfizer and BioNTech for several years have said they are working on mRNA-based influenza vaccines.

Year-to-date stock performances: Shares of BioNTech have soared 47.6%; Pfizer’s stock is down 1.7%.
CytoDyn

Type: Treatment

Stage: Phase 2 and Phase 2b/3 clinical trials

Name: leronlimab

Background: CytoDyn Inc. CYDY, -5.01%, a preclinical biotechnology company based in Vancouver, is testing its experimental drug leronlimab in two types of COVID-19 patients. The investigational therapy hasn’t been approved for any indications; for COVID-19, it is being proposed as a treatment for mild-to-moderate respiratory complications that occur in patients with the disease as well as severely and critically ill patients.

The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study will test the efficacy and safety of leronlimab in 75 patients. CytoDyn had been studying the experimental therapy as a treatment for people with HIV and a form of metastatic breast cancer.

Year-to-date stock performance: CytoDyn’s stock has soared 213.0%.
Gilead Sciences

Type: Treatment

Stage: Emergency use authorization

Name: remdesivir

Background: Gilead Sciences Inc. GILD, +0.18% is a longtime drugmaker best known for developing the first major cure for hepatitis-C in Sovaldi, a therapy that changed the standard of care for that disease but also kicked off the national debate about drug pricing. The company has experience developing and marketing HIV drugs, including Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), its preventive HIV medicine.

It received an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. on May 1 based on preliminary results from two clinical trials: one conducted by the NIAID, and one by Gilead. In the NIAID trial, COVID-19 patients taking the drug had a median recovery time of 11 days, compared with 15 days for those patients taking placebo. NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci has said the drug is now considered the standard of care; however, other experts have had mixed responses to the data. Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said he thinks the drug is effective based on the preliminary data that has been made public. “It’s just not that potent,” he said via email.

The drug was also used in two randomized, controlled clinical trials in China. Results from one trial, which was stopped early, found the drug didn’t produce “statistically significant clinical benefits,” according to findings published in The Lancet.

Gilead in late March had to halt individual compassionate use requests for remdesivir as outbreaks worsened in the U.S., having provided the investigational therapy to 1,000 patients. “The system cannot support and process the overwhelming number of applications we have seen with COVID-19,” Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said March 28.

The company told investors on May 1 it may spend up to $1 billion this year to develop and manufacture remdesivir, and it aims to have 500,000 treatment courses by October and 1 million by the end of 2020.

Gilead’s notable clinical trials:

1. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases trial has enrolled patients in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 trial evaluating 1,063 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 at 68 sites worldwide, including at three sites in Singapore and South Korea, according to the NIAID. However, the majority of the study locations are in the U.S. The study began Feb. 21 and is expected to conclude April 1, 2023. Preliminary results from this trial were used to inform the EUA.

2. A Gilead-sponsored randomized, open-label Phase 3 trial is testing remdesivir in 1,600 patients with moderate COVID-19. It previously said it would enroll 600 participants. The trial started enrolling patients in March, with results to come in May. The clinical trial listing states the study is taking place in 13 countries, including Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S.

3. A Gilead-sponsored randomized, open-label Phase 3 trial is evaluating remdesivir in 6,000 patients with severe COVID-19. The drugmaker previously said it planned to include 400 participants in the trial. The trial started enrolling patients in March, and early results based on 397 patients included in the initial phase of the study were used to inform the EUA. The clinical trial listing states the study is taking place in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S.

Results: The EUA followed two weeks of clinical trial data leaks that sent the company’s stock soaring or tumbling depending on the news. Stat News reported April 16 that University of Chicago Medicine researchers saw “rapid recoveries” in 125 COVID-19 patients remdesivir, though that data isn’t part of the full clinical trial data set. A week later, Stat and the Financial Times reported that a draft of the clinical trial results for remdesivir showed that the drug didn’t speed up improvement in patients in China or prevent them from dying. The summary was reportedly published by accident on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) website and then taken down.

What’s next: The drugmaker plans to donate 1.5 million vials, about 140,000 10-day courses of treatment, of the drug through June. It also said May 5 that it plans to contract with pharmaceutical manufacturers abroad to ensure access to remdesivir outside of the U.S. The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a group that assesses the cost-effectiveness of medicines, said Gilead would need to charge $10 for a course of treatment to recoup its costs, but could be priced as high as $4,500 per course of treatment to be considered effective.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Gilead are up 21.2%.
GlaxoSmithKline

Type: Vaccine, treatment

Name: AS03 adjuvant system for vaccines

Background: GlaxoSmithKline GSK, -1.62% is another leading vaccine maker, having brought to market vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV) and the seasonal flu, among others. It has announced a string of wide-reaching collaborations during the pandemic, most notably a deal with Sanofi to jointly develop a vaccine candidate. (Sanofi is also working with BARDA on a separate vaccine program.) As part of this agreement, Sanofi’s S-protein COVID-19 antigen will be paired with GlaxoSmithKline’s adjuvant technology; the companies expect to launch clinical trials in the second half of the year. Terms of the agreement are expected to be completed this month.

Also in the works: GSK said Feb. 3 that the CEPI-funded University of Queensland will have access to its vaccine adjuvant platform technology, which is believed to both strengthen the response of a vaccine and limit the amount of vaccine needed per dose. A separate deal with Clover Biopharmaceuticals Inc., a Chinese biotechnology company, which was announced in February, is also using its adjuvant technology in combination with its vaccine candidate, COVID-19 S-Trimer, in preclinical studies. Dr. Thomas Breuer, chief medical officer for GSK Vaccines, is leading work on vaccines and the adjuvant platform.

Separately, GSK and Vir Biotechnology Inc. announced a deal in early April, in which GSK made a $250 million equity investment in Vir as the two companies work together to develop two of Vir’s experimental therapies, VIR-7831 and VIR-7832, expected to go to Phase 2 clinical trials sometime in 2020.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of GSK have tumbled 11.3%.
Heat Biologics

Type: Vaccine

Stage: Preclinical

Background: Heat Biologics Inc. HTBX, -0.36% has previously announced that it is developing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. It disclosed March 17 in a financial filing that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate had been added to the World Health Organization’s “draft landscape” of 41 candidate vaccines. “We are finalizing completion of the vaccine and plan to commence preclinical testing this quarter,” Heat CEO Jeff Wolf said in an April 29 statement.

The company also recently joined the Alliance for Biosecurity, which may help it “secure government funding to support its rapid development, production, and distribution” of its COVID-19 vaccine, according to Maxim Group analysts.

Year-to-date stock performance: Heat’s stock has gained 14.8%.
Inovio Pharmaceuticals

Type: DNA-based vaccine

Timeline: Phase 1 clinical trial

Name: INO-4800

Background: Another CEPI grantee (with roughly $17 million in total awards), Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. INO, +2.19% is testing its vaccine candidate in a Phase 1 clinical trial at two sites in the U.S.: the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Pharmaceutical Research in Kansas City, Mo.

Inovio develops immunotherapies and vaccines but hasn’t yet had a product approved for treatment. For INO-4800, preclinical testing was performed between Jan. 23 and Feb. 29. The company began clinical trials in the U.S. with up to 40 participants in April, dosing the first patient on April 6. Inovio said it expects to have the first results from the trial in the fall and to have 1 million doses of the vaccine ready for additional clinical trials or emergency use by the end of the year.

Inovio on March 12 announced a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to test a delivery device for its vaccine candidate. In late March, Inovio said that Ology Bioservices Inc., a contract development and manufacturing organization, had received a $11.9 million contract from the Department of Defense to support future potential manufacturing of Inovio’s vaccine candidate for military personnel.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Inovio have soared 209.5%.
Johnson & Johnson

Type: Vaccine

Stage: Preclinical

Background: Johnson & Johnson JNJ, -0.33% announced Feb. 11 that it was working with BARDA to test its vaccine candidate, with each party providing $1 billion for research and development and the public-health organization funding the Phase 1 trials.

“We are also in discussions with other partners, that if we have a vaccine candidate with potential, we aim to make it accessible to China and other parts of the world,” Dr. Paul Stoffels, J&J’s chief scientific officer, said in a statement.

On March 13, J&J said it started preclinical testing on multiple candidates in collaboration with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and by March 30 it had identified a lead vaccine candidate. The company said it is scaling up its vaccine manufacturing capabilities in the U.S. and abroad as part of its commitment to bring “an affordable vaccine to the public on a not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use.”

The company aims to put its lead vaccine candidate in a Phase 1 clinical trial in September, the company said March 30, and it may have investigational doses of the vaccine available by early 2021 for emergency use.

Also in the works: J&J said in February that it had partnered with BARDA on a project that aims to screen existing antiviral medications, including experimental or approved therapies, that may be effective against COVID-19. Similar to GSK, J&J’s AdVac and PER. C6 technologies are used to improve the development process for a vaccine and were also used to develop J&J’s experimental Ebola vaccine.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of J&J are up 2.6%.
Moderna

Type: RNA-based vaccine

Stage: Phase 1

Name: mRNA-1273

Background: Moderna Inc. MRNA, +8.66% received funding from CEPI in January to develop an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19. On Feb. 24, it said it had shipped the first batch of mRNA-1273 to the NIAID for a Phase 1 clinical trial in the U.S.

Clinical trials: The first patient in the Phase 1 trial received a dose of the vaccine candidate on March 16. The study is expected to enroll 45 healthy adult patients, between the ages of 18 and 55 years old, in an open-label Phase I clinical trial to test mRNA-1273 as a vaccine for COVID-19. Participants will be followed for one year. The trial, which is expected to conclude June 1, 2021, will be conducted at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. CEPI funded the manufacturing of the investigational vaccine for the first phase of the trial, which is evaluating different doses for safety and immune response. A Phase 2 trial is expected to begin in the second quarter.

In mid-April, Moderna said it will receive up to $483 million in BARDA funding to support its vaccine development program. “We believe that we would be able to supply millions of doses a month in 2020 and with further investments, tens of millions a month in 2021, if the vaccine candidate is successful in the clinic,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said at the time.

Year-to-date stock performance: Moderna’s shares have gained 146.8%.
Novavax

Type: Vaccine

Stage: Phase 1 clinical trial

Name: NVX-CoV2373

Background: Novavax Inc. NVAX, +5.89%, a preclinical biotechnology company, announced Feb. 26 that it had several vaccine candidates in preclinical animal studies. By April 8, the company said it had identified a COVID-19 vaccine candidate, and it plans to initiate a Phase I clinical study in mid-May. The first phase of the placebo-controlled study will enroll 130 healthy adults; the first round of data from that study is expected in July.

In March the company said it had received $4 million from CEPI to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and that Emergent BioSolutions Inc. would support contract development and manufacturing for the experimental vaccine.

Year-to-date stock performance: Its stock has gained 334.4%.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

Type: Prevention and treatment

Stage: Preclinical

Name: REGN-COV2

Background: On Feb. 4, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. REGN, +1.14% announced it is working on developing monoclonal antibodies as treatments for COVID-19, and during a May 5 earnings call it disclosed the name of the treatment, REGN-COV2. The company’s VelocImmune platform uses genetically engineered mice with humanized immune systems in preclinical testing. “We are aiming to have hundreds of thousands of prophylactic doses ready for human testing by end of August,” a spokesperson said. Christos Kyratsous, vice president of infectious disease R&D and viral vector technology, is running the project.

Clinical trials are expected to begin in June.

Year-to-date stock performance: Regeneron’s shares are up 37.0%.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi

Type: Treatment

Stage: Phase 2/3 clinical trial

Name: Kevzara

Background: The FDA approved Kevzara, a treatment developed by Regeneron and Sanofi SNY, -1.92%, as a therapy for rheumatoid arthritis in 2017 as part of a recently concluded longstanding R&D partnership between the two companies.

Clinical trials: Regeneron and Sanofi said March 16 they had started a Phase 2/3 trial testing Kevzara as a treatment for patients who have been hospitalized with severe COVID-19 infections. This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial is expected to enroll up to 400 patients and will take place at 16 sites in the U.S. New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, the first site, has started enrolling patients, according to a company spokesperson.

The aim is to evaluate if the drug lessens patient fevers and their need for supplemental oxygen. The Phase 3 trial will evaluate if Kevzara prevents deaths and reduces need for mechanical ventilation, supplemental oxygen, or hospitalization. Early results from a small 21-person trial in China that haven't been peer-reviewed found that some patients who were taking a similar drug, Roche Holdings’ Actemra, reported reductions in fever, and 7% of them had a reduced need for supplemental oxygen within days of starting treatment.

Results: On March 30, the companies said the first patient in their global trial had been treated. However, in late April, the companies said they would limit the Phase 3 trial to only include patients defined as critical, which includes those requiring mechanical ventilation, high-flow oxygenation, or being cared for in an intensive care unit, given that sicker patients seemed to show some improvement while taking the drug. The next phase of the study will also only include a higher dose of the drug (400 milligrams) and the placebo, and not the lower dose of 200 milligrams used in the mid-stage trial.
Roche

Type: Treatment

Stage: Phase 3 clinical trial

Name: Actemra

Background: Roche Holdings AG’s ROG, -1.46% Actemra was first approved in 2010 as a rheumatoid arthritis drug. The Swiss drugmaker has initiated a Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating Actemra as a treatment for patients with COVID-19 who have been hospitalized with severe pneumonia. Roche began enrolling around 330 patients in early April, at 55 sites in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. The company plans to examine patient mortality and need for mechanical ventilation or an intensive care unit stay among other primary and secondary endpoints. On April 3, the first patients in the trial, which is in partnership with BARDA, were treated, a Roche spokesperson said by email. Results are expected in early summer, the company said April 22.

Also in the works: Roche has developed a diagnostic and an antibody test for COVID-19. Both have received EUAs from the FDA.

Year-to-date stock performance: Roche’s stock is down 1.3%.

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Sanofi

Type: Vaccines

Stage: Preclinical

Name: No name yet

Background: Starting Feb. 18, Sanofi is working with BARDA to test a preclinical vaccine candidate for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) for COVID-19 using its recombinant DNA platform. A spokesperson said Sanofi aims to put a vaccine into a Phase 1 clinical trial between March 2021 and August 2021. It announced a separate program with Translate Bio Inc. TBIO, -3.03% on March 27 to develop a mRNA vaccine.

The French drugmaker has a long history of producing vaccines in its Sanofi Pasteur business and acquired this candidate through its 2017 acquisition of Protein Sciences for $750 million. It previously worked with the organization on flu vaccines. Scientists in Meriden, Ct., are working on the vaccine; David Loew, Sanofi Pasteur’s EVP, is leading the project.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Sanofi are down 0.7%.
Takeda Pharmaceutical

Type: Treatment

Stage: Preclinical

Name: TAK-888

Background: Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. TAK, -1.62% 4502, +1.02% said March 4 that it plans to test hyperimmune globulins for people who are at high risk for infection.

As part of its research, which will be performed in Georgia, Takeda said it would need access to plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 or those who have received a vaccine if one is developed. Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, president of Takeda’s vaccine business, is the co-lead of the company’s COVID-19 response team. In April, Takeda and CSL Behring CSLLY, +1.81% said they formed an alliance to develop a plasma-derived treatment for COVID19. Biotest AG and Octapharma also joined the alliance.

Also in the works: Like J&J, Takeda plans to examine whether other therapies, both experimental or with regulatory approval, may have treatment potential.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Takeda are down 10.0%.
Vaxart

Type: Vaccine

Stage: Preclinical

Background: Vaxart Inc. VXRT, -1.16% was one of the first companies to announce plans to develop a vaccine when it did so Jan. 31. In March, the clinical-stage company announced that Emergent BioSolutions will help develop and manufacture its oral vaccine candidate.

“We believe an oral vaccine administered using a room temperature-stable tablet may offer enormous logistical advantages in the rollout of a large vaccination campaign,” Vaxart CEO Wouter Latour said in a March 18 news release.

The company plans to start a Phase 1 clinical trial in the U.S. in the second half of 2020, a company executive said. As of March 31, it has five vaccine candidates for preclinical testing.

Year-to-date stock performance: Vaxart’s stock is up 621.8%.
Vir Biotechnology

Type: Treatments

Stage: Preclinical

Name: VIR-2703 (also called ALN-COV), VIR-7831 and VIR-7832

Background: Vir Biotechnology Inc. VIR, +2.29% has two preclinical treatment candidates, VIR-7831 and VIR-7832, and on May 4 said it had identified a treatment candidate as part of a partnership with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. ALNY, -2.63%. The companies said they aim to file for an investigational new drug application by the end of 2020, before the proposed inhaled treatment or prevention therapy would enter trials.

Also in the works: In many ways, Vir has been one of the most prolific partners in the biotech field during the pandemic. The preclinical company is run by George Scangos, the former CEO of Biogen Inc. BIIB, +2.35%. Starting Feb. 25, it said it was collaborating with Shanghai-based WuXi Biologics to test monoclonal antibodies as a treatment for COVID-19. If the treatment is approved, WuXi will commercialize it in China, while Vir will have marketing rights for the rest of the world. It later announced a partnership with Biogen to help develop and manufacture its monoclonal antibodies as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Biogen will handle clinical manufacturing of Vir’s antibodies, the company said. Vir later announced a research agreement with Generation Bio as part of its COVID-19 antibody development program. Most recently, it announced the equity investment from GSK.

Year-to-date stock performance: Vir shares have jumped 138.2%.

'What are we doing this for?': Doctors are fed up with conspiracies ravaging ERs

Ben Collins, NBC News•May 6, 2020

ANOTHER TRUMP DEPLORABLE

At the end of another long shift treating coronavirus patients, Dr. Hadi Halazun opened his Facebook page to find a man insisting to him that "no one's dying" and that the coronavirus is "fake news" drummed up by the news media.

Hadi tried to engage and explain his firsthand experience with the virus. In reply, another user insinuated that he wasn't a real doctor, saying pictures from his profile showing him at concerts and music festivals proved it.

"I told them: 'I am a real doctor. There are 200 people in my hospital's ICU,'" said Halazun, a cardiologist in New York. "And they said, 'Give me your credentials.' I engaged with them, and they kicked me off their wall."

"I left work and I felt so deflated. I let it get to me."

Halazun, like many other health care professionals, is dealing with a bombardment of misinformation and harassment from conspiracy theorists, some of whom have moved beyond posting online to pressing doctors for proof of the severity of the pandemic.

And it's taking a toll. Halazun said dealing with conspiracy theorists is the "second most painful thing I've had to deal with, other than separation of families from their loved one."

Several other doctors shared similar experiences, saying that they regularly had to treat patients who had sought care too late because of conspiracy theories spread on social media and that social media companies have to do more to counteract the forces that spread lies for profit.

Image: Anti-stay-at-home protesters in Oregon (Terray Sylvester / Getty Images)

CALL 'EM WHAT THEY ARE: TRUMP DEPLORABLES

Dr. Duncan Maru, a physician and epidemiologist in Queens, New York, said he had heard from colleagues that a young patient had come into the emergency room last week with damage to his intestinal tract after having ingested bleach. The incident occurred just days after President Donald Trump suggested that "injection" of disinfectants should be researched as a potential coronavirus treatment.

"Folks delaying seeking care or, taking the most extreme case, somebody drinking bleach as a result of structural factors just underlines the fact that we have not protected the public from disinformation," Maru said.

The structural factors in this case include Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, which have struggled to contain the spread of misinformation, some of it coming from positions of authority.

Social networks have taken a variety of steps in recent weeks to thwart misinformation, such as providing dedicated portals for vetted information from public health officials and banning content related to conspiracy theories around 5G wireless technology.

Despite the efforts, the distribution networks built up in recent years by fringe media personalities and activists on tech platforms and through websites have proven resilient.

Whitney Phillips, a assistant professor of communications who studies the spread of disinformation at Syracuse University, said the coronavirus outbreak offers a look at how conspiracy thinking is now, in some ways, more organized.

"With conspiracy theories, the reason they're impervious to fact-checking is that they have become a way of being in the world for believers," Phillips said. "It isn't just one narrative that you can debunk. It is a holistic way of being in the world that has been reinforced by all the other bulls--- that these platforms have allowed people to consume for years."
'It scares me more than anything'

Organized harassment campaigns, lies and urban legends targeting doctors are a real-life symptom of what the World Health Organization dubbed the "infodemic" as the coronavirus started to spread throughout the world earlier this year.

Halazun has since stopped engaging with the trolls on Facebook, some of whom claimed that "the hospitals are empty" and that the virus was part of a plot to vaccinate or microchip U.S. citizens — just two of the many conspiracy theories that have swirled around the coronavirus.

But he was still left with big questions: How can people believe this stuff? And do they understand the algorithms and opportunistic extremists that led them to believe it?

"It scares me more than anything that there are people who are basically controlled — and in the same way they feel they're fighting against that control," he said. "They go to YouTube, where they're really being controlled, and they don't realize it. That's what's scary."

Maru also said he felt that tech platforms need to do more to deal with disinformation, but he acknowledged that there is no easy fix.

"I do think it's a monumental task to hold these companies to account, but in the COVID case, they truly have blood on their hands," Maru said.

Beyond emergency rooms and internet platforms, there are hints of how far some coronavirus misinformation has spread. Dr. Rajeev Fernando said that when he takes questions about the coronavirus on radio shows, one out of every two callers refers to 5G towers or conspiracy theories about labs in Wuhan, China.

On the phone, sometimes they'll listen to reality, said Fernando, an infectious diseases specialist at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital in New York.

"Some people have an agenda, and you can't help that," Fernando said. "But for other people, I say, 'Let me try to answer your questions and see why you think this way and why I think this is an appropriate answer.'"

Still, Fernando believes social media networks need watchdogs, including physicians, to identify disinformation before it once again becomes a public health crisis.

"We have to understand these [conspiracy theorists] are criminal organizations which really stop at nothing to get disinformation out," Fernando said.
Bill Gates and 5G

Well-organized, professional disinformation peddlers in the QAnon and anti-vaccination movements have gained new audiences during the coronavirus pandemic by coalescing around two primary boogeymen: Bill Gates and 5G towers.

Halazun heard it all firsthand. He didn't know where it all began or how to stop it.

"These anti-vaccination people were telling me I'm a sheep," Halazun said. "Dr. Fauci this, Bill Gates that. And I don't really care what you think about Bill Gates. It doesn't affect me. But it does affect me when they tell me what we're doing is not real and that the hospitals are really empty. It hurts."

In January, a well-known promoter of QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that Trump is secretly dismantling a pedophile-cannibal cabal that runs the U.S. government, pushed a conspiracy theory that Gates "patented" the coronavirus based on a mischaracterized public patent search.

The patent was created by a Gates-aligned research institute to research a vaccine, a common practice among researchers, and it covered a previous coronavirus, not the one that causes COVID-19.

Still, the tweet helped spark a focus on Gates that has permeated the various conspiracy theory networks that have developed on the internet in recent years.

The same QAnon promoter later promoted a diluted form of bleach called "Miracle Mineral Solution" as a possible way to kill the coronavirus.

Similarly, the anti-vaccination movement has pushed a false conspiracy theory that 5G towers are weakening immune systems throughout the world and that COVID-19 is a cover story for the colossal death tolls around the world.

After a prominent anti-vaccination figure posted a video on Instagram of a man alongside a destroyed 5G tower, several arson fires were set on towers across Europe and Canada.

Brian Keeley, a professor of philosophy at Pitzer College in California who studies why people believe in conspiracy theories, said some people in times of crisis look to far-fetched ideas with simple answers for complex problems.

Providing a straightforward, extinguishable enemy — whether it's a well-known celebrity like Gates or a mysterious concept like the illuminati — gives conspiracy theorists hope, agency and power in a time of chaos. In reality, those recognizable, often mortal figures are simply scapegoats for an act of God.

"People are looking for these kinds of explanations to control something in their lives," Keeley said.

Keeley, who's been researching conspiracy theories for over 20 years, said he has abandoned using Facebook because of the "depression that comes from looking at that."

"It's sort of an informational quarantine," he said. "You don't want to be exposing yourself to a different kind of virus."
Quitting Facebook

After researching why people believe in the conspiracy theories, Halazun has come to the same conclusion: Right now, it's not worth it for a doctor to spend any time on Facebook.

"We're limited in our emotional capacity. I'm not going to spend whatever I have left after a long day of work trying to convince a conspiracy theorist," Halazun said. "They're immune to any evidence. You're not going to change their mind."

As Halazun stepped outside after his Facebook experience, he heard the bang of pots and pans and whoops and hollers. It was 7 p.m., and New York City residents were participating in their nightly salute to health care workers on the front lines of fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

"I just started crying," Halazun said. "I thought, 'What do I believe here?' It almost made me question myself. Some people are out there who are sitting in their homes, going on these videos and then telling us it's fake while we're saving lives.

"I felt like 'What are we doing this for?'"

Can the Postal Service be saved?

Mike BebernesEditor,Yahoo News 360•May 7, 2020

The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.

How the coronavirus is impacting the U.S. Postal Service

What’s happening

The United States Postal Service has been in financial trouble for years. The added pressure brought on by the coronavirus pandemic has brought it to the brink of collapse.

Mail volume has dropped dramatically because of the outbreak, robbing the USPS of its most profitable revenue stream. The agency expects to run out of money by September and have a net operating loss of $54 billion in the near future. Without significant help, “the Postal Service could cease to exist,” the chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee said.

The USPS has been a fixture of American life since 1775. For most of its history, it operated as a typical government service. That changed in 1970, when it was turned into an independent agency that was expected to run like a business without financial support from taxpayers. That arrangement was largely successful until the mid-2000s, when a combination of new laws that restricted its income and the emergence of digital alternatives crippled its budget.

The Postal Service frequently ranks as Americans’ favorite federal agency, with approval ratings as high as 90 percent. But it has recently drawn the ire of President Trump, who incorrectly blames its financial troubles on low prices it charges Amazon for package delivery services. “The Postal Service is a joke,” Trump said last month.

Why there’s debate

Political divisions have also informed proposed solutions for rescuing the Postal Service. According to USPS leaders and many liberal lawmakers, the best solution is a massive infusion of cash. Democrats have pushed to include billions in additional funding for the agency in the trillion-dollar stimulus packages recently passed by Congress, but Trump reportedly threatened to veto any bill that included a bailout for the USPS.

Beyond funds to survive the current crisis, the USPS needs fundamental changes to free it from the circumstances that were tanking its finances long before the pandemic came along, some argue. The agency’s current structure — in which it has all of the revenue-generating responsibilities of a private business but still has its policies dictated by Congress — is seen as unsustainable by many. In 2006, a Republican-led Congress passed a law requiring the Postal Service to put away enough funds to cover retirement and pension costs for its employees for the next 75 years. Without that law, which some argue was part of a deliberate attempt to bankrupt the agency, the Postal Service would have actually made a profit in recent years, according to analysts.

Others have argued for either expanding the service’s mission to include new revenue-generating operations like banking, or cutting back expenses like ending Saturday delivery.

Some conservatives argue that the best path for the Postal Service is for it to no longer be part of the government at all, but instead become a private company free from congressional restraints.

What’s next

The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the current head of the USPS will be replaced by a top Republican donor in June, which could be a precursor to the service implementing some of the changes in package fees the president has demanded. Funding for the Postal Service may be a key point of contention during debate over the next congressional stimulus bill. Democrats are expected to push for $25 billion to keep the USPS afloat. But that provision may need enough Republican support to override a potential veto from Trump.
Perspectives

Congress needs to stand up to Trump to pass a USPS bailout

“Trump has now threatened to veto any stimulus package that includes funding to shore up the agency. Congress should call his bluff, and do what it takes to save the US Postal Service or make the president pay the political consequences of signing its death warrant.” — Editorial, Boston Globe

Restrictive laws that choke the Postal Service’s budget need to be revoked

“Congress has hamstrung the agency with an unsound plan to fund future retiree pensions. It also has prevented it from employing modern technologies or adding services that might compete with private companies. It should unleash the agency.” — Editorial, Los Angeles Times

Saturday delivery should be cut to save money

“The postal service should be free to choose to stop delivering paper mail six days a week — once all the stimulus checks are in the public’s hands. Again, demand for paper mail has plunged, and it is financially irresponsible to force mail carriers to haul mostly low-margin advertising mail more than five days per week.” — Kevin Kosar, Politico

The USPS should be privatized

“Policymakers should restructure the USPS with two goals in mind: creating a level playing field for all businesses in delivery markets and giving the USPS the flexibility it needs to cut costs and diversify its revenue sources. … To survive and even thrive in the changing economy, the U.S. Postal Service should be moved to the private sector.” — Chris Edwards, New York Daily News

Congress should start treating the USPS as a public good, not a business

“From the 1850s until the 1960s, Congress routinely covered whatever deficits the Postal Service incurred — no matter how large — and with little controversy, partisanship or debate. Why? Because the Postal Service was a public service, whose rationale was civic rather than commercial. … The Founders intended the Postal Service to be a pillar of the republic, binding together millions of Americans, urban and rural, for the common good.” — Richard R. John, Washington Post

Any bailout should be contingent on major reforms

“If the USPS wants to receive taxpayer aid during this crisis, it should make the institutional reforms that it has neglected for decades. Indeed, neglecting to solve these issues for so long has now made it all the more difficult for the institution to cope with the new extreme and difficult circumstances.” — Thomas Aiello, Washington Examiner

Bail out the USPS now, fix its long-term problems later

“President Trump is absolutely correct that the U.S. Postal Service needs restructuring and a viable business model. … But now is not the time to play hardball with an agency as central to what ‘makes America great.’” — Kimberly Wehle, The Hill

The USPS should be freed to explore new ways of making money

“The service should get more control over how much it charges for its services, how many people it employs and how easily it can innovate. Many post offices may have to be closed, but others could be reconfigured to also provide banking and licensing services if and when the world normalizes.” — Timothy L. O'Brien, Bloomberg

The USPS needs to be protected from GOP sabotage

“The truth is, the Postal Service has been under attack by conservatives for years. … The Trump administration is now playing a costly game of chicken to get what it sought long before the current crisis: drastic service and facilities cuts, more noncareer labor and outsourcing, and a rollback of employee rights and benefits. If it succeeds, we’ll all be the poorer for it.” — Philip F. Rubio, Atlantic

Coronavirus is coming for the red states too

In other words, the virus isn’t receding. It’s relocating.

Myth: Red America has been spared.
Reality: Coronavirus is coming for red America too. 

Andrew RomanoWest Coast Correspondent,Yahoo News•May 6, 2020

It’s no secret that blue states, with their big, dense cities and heavily trafficked transportation hubs, have borne the brunt of this pandemic. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation report released in late April, the number of infections and deaths per capita in states with Democratic governors were (respectively) more than double and triple the corresponding rates in states with Republican governors.

But the same report told a different story when it came to the direction the virus was heading. While blue-state cases had increased 63 percent from April 13 to April 27, red-state cases had increased 91 percent; while blue-state deaths had increased 104 percent, red-state deaths had increased 170 percent.

That gap has likely widened since late April. According to the New York Times, the only states where daily cases are clearly declining are on the post-peak Eastern Seaboard (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware), in the sparse Mountain West (Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota, Colorado) or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (Hawaii). With the exception of Arkansas, the rest of the country is either plateauing or climbing, and some of the sharpest upticks seem to be in places like Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Minnesota.


A site called Rt.live (which was developed by the co-founder of Instagram) confirms this development. By tracking Rt — the effective growth rate of the virus as expressed by the estimated number of people one infected person subsequently goes on to infect — Rt.live is able to gauge, roughly, how COVID-19 is spreading at the state level. Rt values over 1.0 mean we should expect more cases in that area; values under 1.0 mean we should expect fewer. (Rt is similar to the more-familiar R0, but the former measures real-time changes in the virus’s spread; R0 — or “R-naught” — is a fixed value inherent to a particular disease.)

The four states with the highest current Rt values are Nebraska (1.06), Minnesota (1.06), Wyoming (1.03) and Iowa (1.02). Wisconsin and Kansas are also at or above 1.0, and most other rural states show a possible range of Rt values that cross the 1.0 threshold.






The news from the heartland jibes with these numbers. Dakota County, Neb., had no known cases as recently as April 11. Now, driven by outbreaks at meat-processing plants, it has the third-most cases per capita in the country. Trousdale County, Tenn., another rural area, suddenly finds itself with the nation’s highest per capita infection rate by far. “A prison appears responsible for a huge spike in cases,” reports the New York Times. “In 10 days, this county of about 11,000 residents saw its known cases skyrocket to 1,344 from 27.”

Other hot-spot counties include Nobles, Minn. (home of the JBS pork plant); Cass, Ind. (a Tyson meatpacking plant); and Moore, Texas (a JBS Beef meatpacking plant), where the known infection rate of 19.91 per 1,000 residents far outpaces every other county in the state and is roughly 13 times higher than the rate in the Houston metro area.

Anyone tempted to dismiss these rural outbreaks as outliers confined to prisons and plants, where social distancing is all but impossible, should think again. That may be where they start. It isn’t necessarily where they end.

As the Texas Tribune recently reported, the “spread of the virus is not isolated to the meatpacking plant floors, reaching out into communities when workers wrap up their shifts and head home. Members of the community in Moore County, including church workers whose family members work at the plant, have also tested positive.” New outbreaks keep emerging in grocery stores, Walmarts, nursing homes and factories as well.

Instead, these new rural hot spots should probably be seen as harbingers of things to come — what happens when restrictions are relaxed and people resume assembling in the midst of a pandemic, long before the advent of a vaccine.
People walk through Central Park in Pella, Iowa, on Sunday. (Jack Kurtz/Zuma Wire)

Which is happening a lot faster in red states than blue states — even in red states, like Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Indiana and so on, where the daily infection and death rates are still going up.

This isn’t to say Nebraska, with its much smaller and more dispersed population, is the next New York. But the risks remain. Twenty percent of nonmetro residents are older than 65, compared to 15 percent in metro areas, and rural residents under 65 are more likely to have preexisting health conditions (26 percent) compared to their urban counterparts (20 percent).

Meanwhile, as states reopen, their capacity to contain flare-ups will depend on their ability to test, trace and isolate infections. But rural states are less prepared for that complex public health challenge, and isolated hospitals lack the capacity to meet a surge of patients needing ICUs.

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UK
77 cell phone towers have been set on fire so far due to a weird coronavirus 5G conspiracy theory

Business Insider•May 6, 2020

Damaged cabling and telecommunications equipment is pictured following a fire at a phone mast, attached to the chimney at the converted Fearnley Mill residential apartment block complex in Huddersfield, northern England, on April 17, 2020
OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images

A conspiracy theory that baselessly links 5G technology with the coronavirus has led to a series of arson attacks on cell phone towers in the UK.

The attacks started in early April, and 77 towers have now been attacked, an industry group told Business Insider.

Engineers have also been attacked, with one stabbed and hospitalized according to the CEO of UK telecoms firm BT.

A conspiracy theory that claims that 5G internet is behind the coronavirus outbreak has led to arson attacks on more than 70 cell phone towers in the UK.

The conspiracy theory began to gain traction in the UK in late March and early April, coinciding with the rising number of cases in the country and its nationwide lockdown. Conspiracies around phone signals have existed for years, however.

The scaremongering is thought to have led directly to arson attacks on mobile phone infrastructure.

On April 15, Mobile UK, an organization representing Britain's four mobile operators, told Business Insider that roughly 50 phone masts had been attacked across the country — the majority of which were not actually 5G-enabled.

Mobile UK told Business Insider on Wednesday that the number has now risen to 77, and that the rate of attacks was thankfully slowing. "Daily attacks are very low now but have not stopped entirely," a spokesman said.

The inside of an attacked phone mast. OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images

Anti-5G conspiracy theorists don't just appear to be attacking masts, however. Philip Jansen, CEO of British telecoms company BT, said that one engineer had been violently assaulted while out maintaining network infrastructure.

"We have 40 incidents where people have attacked, either physically or verbally, our staff. We've had engineers being driven at by people and swerve away at the last minute, and we've even had one Openreach engineer stabbed and put in hospital," Jansen said on a YouTube video on April 21.

The outbreak of attacks has been condemned by the heads of the four UK mobile operators. Mobile UK told BI in April: "Theories being spread about 5G are baseless and are not grounded in credible scientific theory.

"Mobile operators are dedicated to keeping the UK connected, and careless talk could cause untold damage. Continuing attacks on mobile infrastructure risks lives and at this challenging time the UK's critical sectors must be able to focus all their efforts fighting this pandemic."

Conspiracy theories around 5G have spread on social media, with Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter all taking action to try and curb the spread. One offshoot of the theory claims that 5G accelerates the spread of the virus by lowering the body's immune system and that the coronavirus is itself a fiction designed to cover up damage being done by 5G. Both these claims are false.

You can read a more in-depth examination of the theory here.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Brave new world: could pandemic lead to positive change?

Véronique DUPONT,AFP•May 7, 2020

The coronavirus crisis has shone a light on the plight of underpaid delivery drivers, teachers, nurses and other key workers who have been vital to the response (AFP Photo/DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS)

London (AFP) - Major social advances have often emerged from the depths of disaster: the Black Death brought an end to serfdom, and Britain's welfare state emerged from the ruins of World War II.

As the coronavirus outbreak took hold, many governments brought in policies previously dismissed as "utopian", such as backing wages or housing the homeless.

But as emergency measures are eased, and the world tries to get back a semblance of normality, there is debate about which, if any, could -- or should -- be kept.

In Britain, as elsewhere, the crisis has shone a light on the plight of underpaid delivery drivers, teachers, nurses and other key workers who have been vital to the response.

The government has stepped in to guarantee salaries of the five million self-employed because of fears that without statutory sick pay they would continue to work while ill.

Finance minister Rishi Sunak has already begun talking about scaling back the measures, which back 80 percent of someone's average monthly salary up to £2,500 ($3,100, 2,850 euros).

But David Napier, professor of medical anthropology at University College London, said withdrawal could prove problematic given the imbalances the virus has highlighted.

"The strong have been depending on the weak for their survival," he told AFP.

- 'Magic money' -

In the United States, 30 million people have already lost their jobs because of the pandemic's economic impact.

To keep the economy afloat, President Donald Trump's Republican administration has included direct cash payments of up to $3,000 per family in its stimulus package.

Oxford University historian Timothy Garton Ash noted that a concept like basic universal income was considered "radical, if not utopian" not so long ago.

But a recent study from his university indicated that 71 percent of Europeans now supported the idea.

Doctors and nurses on the frontline of tackling the global pandemic have campaigned for years to get pay rises and more resources.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron initially said there was no "magic money" for the sector but later promised more investment.

In Britain, the state-run National Health Service has been hit by a decade of cuts in funding and staffing following the 2008 financial crisis.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose Conservative party has been accused of wanting to privatise the free service, has become one of its staunchest defenders.

He was treated at an NHS hospital for COVID-19 and credits its doctors with saving his life.

But Mark Harrison, a professor of economic history at Warwick University, said even that has policy implications.

"The simple story of the PM who got saved by the NHS is very powerful, it will be hard for the Conservatives to try to go back on that type of commitment."

Elsewhere, the British government moved to house homeless people in empty hotels and hostels, because of the risk of them contracting the virus.

Ministers have said some 5,400 people or 90 percent of those who usually sleep on the streets and are known to local authorities have been housed.

The charity Crisis puts the total number of homeless at 170,000, and said many more were on the verge of being evicted from rented accommodation because of the outbreak.

But Jasmine Basran, from Crisis, called the government's response "incredible".

"It shows what is possible if there's political will," she said.

- Goodwill limit -

As the full impact of the crisis becomes known, there are calls for the government to guide industrial policy, similar to the Marshall Plan for reconstruction after World War II.

The director of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, has urged world leaders to prioritise green energy as they try to kick-start their economies.

Germany has made state aid conditional on firms pledging climate targets and France has said a seven-billion-euro bailout of Air France is dependent on a cut in short-haul flights and emissions.

But business leaders are resisting attempts to introduce initiatives to cut waste and the use of plastic.

For Warwick professor Harrison, the crisis "has the potential to change people's perceptions" for the better over the long term.

But Sankalp Chaturvedi, a professor of organisational behaviour and leadership at Imperial College Business School in London, said goodwill would only go so far.

"This generosity will come with higher taxes," he said, predicting that short-term help would lead to anxiety and frustration.

Jobless Americans can only hang on as pandemic rages

Chris Stein, AFP•May 7, 2020



The unemployment rate in the United States is set to skyrocket well into the double digits, a level not seen in decades (AFP Photo/Frederic J. BROWN)

Washington (AFP) - The coronavirus pandemic has hit the United States harder than any other country, sending unemployment skyrocketing and undoing the lives of countless Americans. Meet three of them:

- Finding her way -

Laya Hamilton was watching President Donald Trump speak on television from the bar where she worked in Atlanta one day in mid-March when he announced all restaurants should switch to serving food to-go. That's when she realized she'd be losing her job.

It was a setback for 23-year-old Hamilton, who had committed herself to bartending at a restaurant serving barbecue and comfort food a few months earlier after deciding she couldn't juggle working there alongside studying for a journalism degree. Plus, the money was good.

"The main thing about serving is you can make as much or even more than somebody that went to the office that day," she said.

Sure, that could mean nine hours on your feet without a break for base pay of just $2 an hour, but the tips regularly added up to hundreds of dollars a day.

It's her savings from those lucrative months earlier this year that Hamilton is now surviving on, since her unemployment claim has yet to be approved by the state.

In the meantime, she's thinking about a career, something at the intersection of public relations and politics.

And when the bar re-opens, she'll go back, even if social distancing protocols mean the customers won't be as plentiful as they were before.

"It's not that much contact at all," she said of the work. "I make their drink and give it to them."

- At all hours -

Sandra Mahesh has taken to waking up at strange times, picking up her phone and dialing the same number: the Maryland state unemployment office.

At 57, she'd just gotten back on her feet after moving to the suburbs of Washington, beginning a new job in February working the front desk of an upscale apartment building.

But then she got sick: fever, cough, dizziness. She feared it was the coronavirus but tested negative.

By the time she was well again, the virus was rife, and her doctor said it was best if she stayed home.

But after getting unemployment payments for a few weeks, the state cut her off, apparently believing she'd been hired again, sending Mahesh on a thus far fruitless quest to get them to fix the problem.

"I have been literally waking up all times of the night, of the day, trying to call or get online," Mahesh said.

Born in Guyana, Mahesh is a naturalized American citizen who said she's used to living frugally, skills she's put to use in recent weeks as she negotiated a deferment of her car loan, but she's still behind on her rent.

Most of her time is spent inside, on the phone with her daughters or looking online for jobs she can do remotely. When she does go outside, it's to walk around the parking lot of a closed shopping mall.

"That's how I'm surviving, but this kind of situation would make anybody go crazy," Mahesh said. "I don't see a good future with America right now."

- Career, interrupted -

In the rarified world of New York sommeliers, 35-year-old Evan White was good enough to be hired away from Babbo, a fine dining restaurant once owned by disgraced celebrity chef Mario Batali, for another eatery with an even better wine selection.

Then the coronavirus reached the city, both restaurants closed and White was put out of work.

"I think I will be able to get a job in the restaurant business once things do start to become more normal again. Will it be the exact some position as before? I can't say," White said.

He's been working in restaurants for 15 years, beginning as a server before discovering his love of wine, though after long days surrounded by the stuff he often finds himself craving anything but -- cider, beer, or something without alcohol.

White can't remember the last time he's had months of free time, but hasn't let his career slip; he's trying to take classes on wine certification by video conference, all while wondering if the pulsing restaurant scene New York is famous for will ever return.

White is receiving unemployment, and when he compares himself to some of his coworkers -- those making hourly salaries or supporting families or relatives in other countries -- he can only feel lucky.

"It puts worrying about selling wine in a totally different perspective, makes it seem so frivolous in a way," he said.

Over 500 Employees at Trump’s Las Vegas Hotel Have Been Laid Off Amid Coronavirus

Pilar Melendez,The Daily Beast•May 7, 2020

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Over 500 workers at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas have temporarily lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The resort, which is part-owned by the Trump Organization, broke the news to employees last month in a letter to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation.

“Based on the fluid and rapidly evolving nature of this situation, however, at this time we are unable to provide a specific date at which we will be able to recommence regular hotel operations and return affected employees to work,” Human Resources Director LaDawndre Stinson wrote in the letter posted to the agency’s website.

The April 3 letter added that because of the “sudden, dramatic, and unexpected nature of this unforeseen emergency” and the demands of Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak’s decision to shut down non-essential businesses amid the pandemic, the hotel would be “unable to provide employees with additional notice of these temporary layoffs.”

Cuomo Blasts Trump: Your Bailout Strategy Will Doom Us All

As first reported by The Washington Post, the president’s properties in New York, D.C., Miami, Chicago, Las Vegas, Vancouver, and Honolulu have all laid-off workers amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has gutted the hospitality industry.

To date, 1,500 employees at hotels owned by the Trump Organization have been laid off or furloughed.

“You can’t have many hundreds of employees standing around doing nothing,” Trump said at the White House on April 21, addressing job cuts. “There’s no customer. You’re not allowed to have a customer.”

During the same press conference—which took place two weeks after the Las Vegas employees learned they were out of a job—Trump expressed his support for Sisolak’s decision to lock down Sin City, despite its cold reception from other elected officials and the Las Vegas mayor, who called it “total insanity.”

“They closed a big hotel down in Nevada that I have in Las Vegas. It’s a very severe step he took. I’m OK with it," Trump said. “But you could call that one either way.”

Bethany Khan, the communications director for the Culinary Union in Las Vegas—which represents nearly all of the Trump employees who were laid off—told The Daily Beast on Thursday that 98 percent of their members are currently furloughed or laid off.

The Culinary Union is Nevada’s most powerful labor organization, representing about 60,000 hotel-casino workers.

In addition to Las Vegas, more than 200 employees were laid off at the president’s hotel in Vancouver, and over 75 percent of his Chicago hotel was placed on leave.

“In an effort to conserve energy, most common areas...are illuminated and heated at a minimum level,” the Chicago hotel told its investors in a letter, stating that the “heartbreaking decision” to lay off two-thirds of its staff also included suspending 401(k) contributions.

Trump Shakes Everyone’s Hands at Coronavirus Press Conference—Ignoring CDC Guidelines

According to the Post, the combined closed properties used to generate about $650,000 every day for the Trump Organization. The family business, which is now managed by the president’s two sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, racked up a property-tax bill in April of more than $1.8 million.

The group reportedly reached out to the Deutsche Bank in March to ask about delaying payments on at least some of its hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and other financial obligations.

According to The New York Times, a Florida-based company executive also emailed and called Palm Beach County officials to talk about whether they had planned to keep asking for payments on land the Trump Organization rents from the county for a 27-hole golf club.

“These days everybody is working together,” Eric Trump told the Times. “Tenants are working with landlords, landlords are working with banks. The whole world is working together as we fight through this pandemic.”

Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., which sits just blocks away from the White House, is also looking for a government break on its rent payments. On April 21, the Times also reported the hotel has asked to delay its monthly rent payments of about $268,000 a month in an effort to curtail their ongoing money troubles. The hotel is housed in the Old Post Office Building, a federally-owned property.

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.

Democrats demand details of Trump Organization requests for UK coronavirus aid

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington,The Guardian•May 7, 2020

 Photograph: Getty Images

Congressional investigators in Washington are demanding information about loans and other funds that the Trump Organization has requested from foreign governments, including Britain, in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

The demand for information follows a media report last month that said the Trump Organization was seeking UK and Irish bailout funds to cover wages of employees who had been furloughed from the company’s golf properties in Europe due to the pandemic.

In a letter to Eric Trump, the president’s son and vice president of the Trump Organization, Carolyn Maloney, the Democratic chairwoman of the House oversight and reform committee, suggested the decision to seek funding in the UK was problematic and potentially a violation of the US constitution, which calls for a president to have undivided loyalty to the US.

The US Congress has already passed legislation prohibiting US taxpayer funds from being used to benefit companies in which Donald Trump holds a stake.

“Apart from the grave emoluments clause problems your actions cause in the United States, officials in the United Kingdom have raised serious concerns about using their own taxpayer funds to bail out President Trump’s companies,” Maloney wrote.

She pointed to reported remarks by Martin Ford, a councillor in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where one of Trump’s two Scottish luxury properties is located, who said he did not believe UK taxpayers ought to be helping Trump given the president’s own personal wealth. “The huge tab for this will be borne throughout the whole population through higher taxes,” Ford told Bloomberg News.

In her request, Maloney called on Eric Trump to deliver by 21 May “all documents and communications relating to the Trump Organization’s application for any loans or other funds from any domestic or foreign government entity, including the British government”. The congresswoman is also seeking all documents and communications between the Trump Organization and any US federal employees and officials that relate to the novel coronavirus.

Bloomberg News reported in April that the Trump Organization was seeking the bailout money to help pay for bartenders, bagpipers, and other employees who have been furloughed. Trump, who still retains a personal stake in the company, owns three golf resorts in the UK and Ireland.

The demand for information by the powerful chairwoman of the House oversight committee, which has the power to subpoena documents and investigate “any matter”, does not automatically mean the documents will be delivered to Congress. The Trump administration has refused previous demands for information, in defiance of congressional authority.

In a previous statement to USA Today, Eric Trump said the British government’s job retention plan, which allows companies to seek government funds to pay for most of furloughed employees’ salaries, was intended to help the company retain and support its staff.

“The job retention plan created by the UK Government has nothing to do with the Trump Organization and does not benefit the business – it is solely about protecting people and their families who would otherwise be out of work,” he said.

Subway and bus drivers in New York City say the government did too little, too late to protect them from the coronavirus as thousands of their colleagues got sick and 98 died
Marisa Palmer, Graham Rapier and Amelia Kosciulek May 5, 2020,

A Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker cleaning a subway station during the coronavirus outbreak. Braulio Jatar / Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media via Getty Images


Thousands of transportation workers in New York City have fallen ill with the coronavirus, crippling bus and train service.

Business Insider spoke with five Metropolitan Transportation Authority workers who revealed the inside story about how the agency has handled the pandemic.
The workers, who are subway and bus operators, said that their fears weren't taken seriously and that help from leaders came too late.

The MTA responded that it had distributed more than 1 million masks and "continues to adapt" its response to the crisis.

As the coronavirus swept through the ranks of New York City's transportation workforce, employees began taking matters into their own hands.

And with nearly 100 dead and thousands more confirmed positive for COVID-19, subway operators, bus drivers, and other workers for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority say their leaders did too little, too late to prevent the losses.

"The transit workers have suffered the most casualties," Roberto Martinez, a bus operator, told Business Insider. "Why? Because we are in contact with more people on a daily basis."

Martinez and four other MTA workers told "Business Insider Today" that the local and state response to the worst health crisis in America's largest and most densely populated city had left them feeling expendable.

Workers started falling ill in mid-March, leading to service cuts. The MTA's first positive case came three days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the closures of all Broadway theaters and restrictions on gatherings of more than 500 people. Five days later, Cuomo announced "New York on Pause," effectively closing all but essential businesses like hospitals and grocery stores.

MTA workers made signs and cordoned off areas near their drivers' seats. MTA EmployeeIn the meantime, MTA workers, terrified of falling ill, stopped waiting around for personal protective equipment to arrive. They cordoned off areas around drivers' seats and brought their own disinfectant, masks, and gloves to work.

They were met with threats of official discipline.

"They said, well, if you decide that you want to wear personal protective equipment without a plan being in place per the governor of New York state, then you might be violating uniform policies, and you could be questioned or addressed about it and maybe disciplined for it," said Nasar Abdurrahman, a New York City bus driver of nine years who recovered from the disease.

The MTA told Business Insider in an email that no employee was ever disciplined for wearing a mask.

On March 27, the MTA said it would provide 75,000 masks for workers. And two weeks later, Cuomo ordered all New Yorkers to wear masks in public. Buses, meanwhile, became free to ride, and the areas near drivers were officially chained off.

But for many transit workers, it was too late. An internal list created by MTA employees said that about 10 transit workers had already died of COVID-19 by then.

While employees were given access to protective gear, supplies were limited, Martinez and others said.

"I got my bus, and they gave me a paper bag, and inside that bag has one mask, one pair of gloves, and a hand sanitizer," Martinez said. "Those three items are supposed to last five days."

Others said the agency quickly ran out.

"They dropped the ball," said Kimberly McLaurin, a train operator, adding: "When I came to work, there were no masks. I just happened to have my own. They ran out of gloves. They ran out of hand sanitizer."

All the while, a driver and train-crew shortage due to sick employees caused interruptions with the skeleton service already running. In some cases, it led to crowded buses and trains where social distancing simply wasn't possible.

In response to the workers' claims, an MTA representative gave the following statement to Business Insider:
"As the biggest transportation system in the United States and despite worldwide supply shortages, the MTA has led the nation with the scope and scale of its COVID-19 response, distributing more than one million masks and breaking away from CDC guidance to recommend that all employees and riders wear masks before the CDC reversed course and recommended the same.

"The MTA's aggressive efforts are designed to save lives as we continue to adapt to this dynamic and unprecedented pandemic."

Still, the deaths ticked up. By Friday, the number stood at 98, MTA Chairman Pat Foye said, as the agency prepared to take an unprecedented step: shutting down overnight service. The city that never sleeps will on Wednesday have four hours of overnight quiet — underground at least — from 1 to 5 a.m. to disinfect every bus and train.

"In the 116-year history of the subway system, going back to 1904, it has never closed as it will Wednesday morning at one o'clock," Foye said on MSNBC on Friday, according to a transcript provided by the agency. "We believe we've got an obligation to our employees, to our current riders, and to our future riders to take every step we can to assure public health and that our system has been disinfected."

He also announced that the agency's board had approved a $500,000 family benefit for deceased employees.

"There has been a tragic toll obviously in New York City and New York state and across the nation, but at the MTA, 98 of our colleagues have succumbed to the virus," he said. "That is a tragic loss of life. We grieve and mourn the loss of every one of our colleagues."

WAGNER NOT SMERSH
Wagner, shadowy Russian military group, 'fighting in Libya'

BBC•May 7, 2020

The forces of renegade general Khalifa Haftar have been trying to take the capital

Hundreds of mercenaries from Russia's shadowy Wagner Group are operating in Libya, a leaked UN report says.

They have been supporting renegade general Khalifa Haftar's battle against the Tripoli-based government, it says.

Since 2014, Libya has been split between areas controlled by the sides.

Wagner is believed to have been involved in conflicts in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere. The Russian government denies any state involvement in the militant group.


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What does the UN report say?

The report was compiled by independent monitors for the UN's Libya sanctions committee. It has not been made public yet but it has been seen by news agencies.

It is the first time the UN has confirmed reports of Wagner's involvement in Libya, putting the number of operatives at between 800 and 1,000.

The 57-page report says Wagner operatives have been in Libya since October 2018, "providing technical support for the repair of military vehicles and participating in combat operations".

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Its members have been acting as artillery and air observers, as well as "providing electronic countermeasures expertise and deploying as sniper teams".

The personnel were mainly Russian, but there were also nationals of Belarus, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine, the report said.

Early this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said any nationals in Libya did not represent Moscow, nor were they paid by the state.

The UN report also says that Syrian mercenaries are fighting alongside Gen Haftar.
What's the background to the Libyan conflict?

Libya has been wracked by war since the 2011 uprising which ousted long-time strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

There is an internationally recognised Government of National Accord based in the capital, Tripoli. It is supported by Qatar and Turkey. Pro-Turkish Syrians have been fighting for the GNA, which mainly controls areas in the nation's north-west.

Ranged against it is the Libyan National Army (LNA), loyal to Gen Haftar, which is based in eastern Libya but controls many other areas. It is backed by Egypt, Russia and the UAE.

Gen Haftar launched an offensive against the capital in April 2019 but has been unable to take it.

A truce brokered by Turkey and Russia in January has been repeatedly violated.
What is known about Wagner?

It was reported to have been founded by Dmitry Utkin, believed to be a former member of a special forces brigade of Russian military intelligence, the GRU. Media have reported Dmitry Utkin's call sign was Wagner, given to him due to his admiration of the Nazi regime, which appropriated the composer's work to support its vision of Germany.

Wagner made its presence felt first in Russia's military takeover of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March 2014 and in the pro-Russian insurgency which erupted in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions the following month.

How the group is run and funded is open to speculation. Some media sources suggest the GRU secretly oversees it.

Investigations by Western journalists have linked the wealthy Russian businessman nicknamed "Putin's chef" - Yevgeny Prigozhin - to the group. Mr Prigozhin, part of Mr Putin's elite circle, has denied it.

Analysts say that as the Russian government does not officially recognise the mercenaries' existence, it can deny or play down any Russian casualties while maintaining a military presence.

Wagner has been reported as operating in a number of nations hit by conflict.

A BBC Russian investigation in 2018 highlighted the deaths of Russian mercenaries fighting in Syria. As many as 2,500 members were serving there, with officers reportedly earning up to 300,000 roubles (£3,800; $5,300) a month.

Wagner activities have also been reported in Madagascar and the Central African Republic (CAR). Three Russian journalists investigating Wagner's involvement were shot dead in the CAR in 2018.
What's the latest in the Libyan conflict?

The UN mission in Libya on Wednesday urged the two warring sides to resume talks on a lasting truce. They have been suspended since February.

The UN has urged Gen Haftar and the GNA to resume talks

Gen Haftar, whose forces have had setbacks in recent weeks, on Wednesday called for a unilateral ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, but the GNA rejected it, saying it needed international safeguards.

The battle for the capital has left hundreds dead, with more than 200,000 people displaced.

A GNA minister has also accused Gen Haftar's forces, and Wagner in particular, of carrying out a chemical attack in the Salah al-Din area south of Tripoli.

Interior minister Fathi Bashaga said GNA forces were "exposed to nerve gas, paralysed and then sniped". There has been no independent confirmation.

There have also been reports of a rift between Wagner and Gen Haftar over unpaid fees.