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

whickey@businessinsider.com (Walt Hickey) 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But it will be worth it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Venues are going for broke

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

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

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

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

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

© Joey Lax-Salinas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The difficulties

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

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

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

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

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

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

A red tape nightmare

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

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

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

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

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

A perfect storm

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

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

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

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

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

The boiling point

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

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

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

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

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

The current status

Now, the money is starting to flow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the original article on Business Insider

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

Daniel Johnson 
POSTMEDIA

JUL 9,2021

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 SCIENCE NEWS THAT WILL MAKE IT IN THE PRESS

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

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Research News

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

###

SEE


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

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

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


Paris (AFP)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2021 AFP

 

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

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

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

Research News

 

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

CREDIT: BRUNO GUALANO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Risk factors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

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

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

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Research News

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Resistance to last-resort antibiotic may be passing between pet dogs and their owners

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Research News

 

The dangerous mcr-1 gene, which provides resistance to the last-resort antibiotic colistin, has been found in four healthy humans and two pet dogs. In two cases, both dog and owner were harbouring the gene, according to new research being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) held online this year.

Since first being reported in China in 2015, the mcr-1 gene has been found in various people and animals around the world. It confers resistance to colistin, an antibiotic of last resort used to treat infections from some bacteria resistant to all other antibiotics. The nightmare scenario that could emerge is mcr-1 combining with already drug-resistant bacteria to create a truly untreatable infection.

Dr Juliana Menezes and colleagues at the Centre of Interdisciplinary Research in Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Lisbon, Portugal are interested in whether household pets may be acting as a reservoir of the gene and so aiding its spread in the community.

To find out, the authors looked for resistance to colistin in bacteria in faecal samples from people and pets. Samples were taken from 126 healthy people living with 102 cats and dogs in 80 households in Lisbon between February 2018 and February 2020. All of the humans and 61 of the pets were healthy. A total of 23 pets had skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) and 18 had urinary tract infections (UTI).

Eight dogs out of the 102 pets (7.8%) and four humans out of 126 (3.2%) harboured bacteria with the mcr-1 gene. Three of the dogs were healthy, four had SSTIs and one had a UTI. None of the cats were carrying the gene.

Further analysis showed that the bacteria isolated from all 12 samples that were mcr-1 positive were resistant to multiple antibiotics.

In two households with dogs with SSTIs, the mcr-1 gene was found in both dog and owner. Genetic analysis of the samples suggested that in one of these two cases, the gene had been transmitted between pet and owner.

While transmission in both directions is possible, it is thought that in this case the gene passed from dog to human, says Dr Menezes.

The owners did not have infections and so did not need treatment. The sick dogs were successfully treated.

The researchers say their results show that the mcr-1 gene can be transmitted between dogs and their owners. This raises concerns that pets can act as reservoirs of the gene and so aid the spread of resistance to precious last-line antibiotics.

Dr Menezes adds: "Colistin is used when all other antibiotics have failed - it is a crucial treatment of last resort. If bacteria resistant to all drugs acquire this resistance gene, they would become untreatable, and that's a scenario we must avoid at all costs.

"We know that the overuse of antibiotics drives resistance and it is vital that they are used responsibly, not just in medicine but also in veterinary medicine and in farming."

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New 3D printable phase-changing composites can regulate temperatures inside buildings

Materials could be used to reduce excess energy usage

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: NEW PHASE-CHANGE MATERIAL COMPOSITES CAN REGULATE AMBIENT TEMPERATURES INSIDE BUILDINGS view more 

CREDIT: TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Changing climate patterns have left millions of people vulnerable to weather extremes. As temperature fluctuations become more commonplace around the world, conventional power-guzzling cooling and heating systems need a more innovative, energy-efficient alternative, and in turn, lessen the burden on already struggling power grids.

In a new study, researchers at Texas A&M University have created novel 3D printable phase-change material (PCM) composites that can regulate ambient temperatures inside buildings using a simpler and cost-effective manufacturing process. Furthermore, these composites can be added to building materials, like paint, or 3D printed as decorative home accents to seamlessly integrate into different indoor environments.

"The ability to integrate phase-change materials into building materials using a scalable method opens opportunities to produce more passive temperature regulation in both new builds and already existing structures," said Dr. Emily Pentzer, associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Chemistry.

This study was published in the June issue of the journal Matter.

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are the most commonly used methods to regulate temperatures in residential and commercial establishments. However, these systems guzzle a lot of energy. Furthermore, they use greenhouse materials, called refrigerants, for generating cool, dry air. These ongoing issues with HVAC systems have triggered research into alternative materials and technologies that require less energy to function and can regulate temperature commensurate to HVAC systems.

One of the materials that have gained a lot of interest for temperature regulation is phase-change materials. As the name suggests, these compounds change their physical state depending on the temperature in the environment. So, when phase-change materials store heat, they convert from solid to liquid upon absorbing heat and vice versa when they release heat. Thus, unlike HVAC systems that rely solely on external power to heat and cool, these materials are passive components, requiring no external electricity to regulate temperature.

The traditional approach to manufacturing PCM building materials requires forming a separate shell around each PCM particle, like a cup to hold water, then adding these newly encased PCMs to building materials. However, finding building materials compatible with both the PCM and its shell has been a challenge. In addition, this conventional method also decreases the number of PCM particles that can be incorporated into building materials.

"Imagine filling a pot with eggs and water," said Ciera Cipriani, NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. "If each egg has to be placed in an individual container to be hard-boiled, fewer eggs will fit in the pot. By removing the plastic containers, the veritable shell in our research, more eggs, or PCMs, can occupy a greater volume by packing closer together within the water/resin."

To overcome these challenges, past studies have shown that when using phase-changing paraffin wax mixed with liquid resin, the resin acts as both the shell and building material. This method locks the PCM particles inside their individual pockets, allowing them to safely undergo a phase change and manage thermal energy without leakage.

Similarly, Pentzer and her team first combined light-sensitive liquid resins with a phase-changing paraffin wax powder to create a new 3D printable ink composite, enhancing the production process for building materials containing PCMs and eliminating several steps, including encapsulation.

The resin/PCM mixture is soft, paste-like and malleable, making it ideal for 3D printing but not for building structures. Hence, by using a light-sensitive resin, they cured it with an ultraviolet light to solidify the 3D printable paste, making it suitable for real-world applications.

Additionally, they found that the phase-changing wax embedded within the resin was not affected by the ultraviolet light and made up 70% of the printed structure. This is a higher percentage when compared to most currently available materials being used in industry.

Next, they tested the thermoregulation of their phase-changing composites by 3D printing a small-scale house-shaped model and measuring the temperature inside the house when it was placed in an oven. Their analysis showed that the model's temperature differed by 40% compared to outside temperatures for both heating and cooling thermal cycles when compared to models made from traditional materials.

In the future, the researchers will experiment with different phase-change materials apart from paraffin wax so that these composites can operate at broader temperature ranges and manage more thermal energy during a given cycle.

"We're excited about the potential of our material to keep buildings comfortable while reducing energy consumption," said Dr. Peiran Wei, research scientist in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Soft Matter Facility. "We can combine multiple PCMs with different melting temperatures and precisely distribute them into various areas of a single printed object to function throughout all four seasons and across the globe."

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This study was funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Materials Research Career Award.

 

The 'hijab effect': Feminist backlash to Muslim immigrants in Germany

Research from political scientists Nicholas Sambanis, Danny Choi, and Mathias Poertner finds discrimination against Muslim women is eliminated when they show progressive gender attitudes

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Research News

 

Why do some Europeans discriminate against Muslim immigrants, and how can these instances of prejudice be reduced? Political scientist Nicholas Sambanis has spent the last few years looking into this question by conducting innovative studies at train stations across Germany involving willing participants, unknowing bystanders and, most recently, bags of lemons.

His newest study, co-authored with Donghyun Danny Choi at the University of Pittsburgh and Mathias Poertner at Texas A&M University, was published July 8 in the American Journal of Political Science and finds evidence of significant discrimination against Muslim women during everyday interactions with native Germans. That evidence comes from experimental interventions set up on train platforms across dozens of German cities and reveals that discrimination by German women is due to their beliefs that Muslims are regressive with respect to women's rights. In effect, their experiment finds a feminist opposition to Muslims, and shows that discrimination is eliminated when Muslim women signaled that they shared progressive gender attitudes, says Sambanis, who directs the Penn Identity and Conflict Lab (PIC Lab), which he founded when he came to Penn in 2016.

Many studies in psychology have shown bias and discrimination are rooted in a sense that ethnic, racial, or religious differences create distance between citizens, he says. "Faced with waves of immigration from culturally different populations, many Europeans are increasingly supporting policies of coercive assimilation that eliminate those sources of difference by suppressing ethnic or religious marker, for example, by banning the hijab in public places or forcing immigrants to attend language classes," Sambanis says. "Our research shows that bias and discrimination can be reduced via far less coercive measures--as long as immigration does not threaten core values that define the social identities of native populations."

"The Hijab Effect: Feminist Backlash to Muslim Immigrants" is the fourth study in a multiyear project on the topic of how to reduce prejudice against immigrants conducted by Sambanis and the team. The study's co-authors, Choi and Poertner, started working on this project as postdoctoral fellows at the PIC Lab.

The new paper builds on the first leg of the project which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2019 and which explored whether discrimination against immigrants is reduced when immigrants show that they share civic norms that are valued by native citizens. That study found evidence that shared norms reduce but do not eliminate discrimination. The new study explores the impact of norms and ideas that are important to particular subgroups of the native population, and finds stronger effects when such norms are shared by immigrants.

The findings have implications for how to think about reducing conflict between native and immigrant communities in an era of increased cross-border migration, Sambanis says.

He and his co-authors conducted the large-scale field experiment in 25 cities across Germany involving more than 3,700 unknowing bystanders.

"Germany was a good case study because it has received the largest number of asylum applications in Europe since 2015, a result of the refugee crisis created by wars in Syria and other countries in the Middle East and Central Asia," Sambanis says. "Germany has had a long history of immigration from Muslim countries since the early post-war period, and anti-immigrant sentiments have been high as a result of cultural differences. These differences are manipulated politically and become more salient."

The intervention went like this: A woman involved in the study approached a bench at a train station where bystanders waited and drew their attention by asking them if they knew if she could buy tickets on the train.

She then received a phone call and audibly conversed with the caller in German regarding her sister, who was considering whether to take a job or stay at home and take care of her husband and her kids. The scripted conversation revealed the woman's position on whether her sister has the right to work or a duty to stay at home to care for the family.

At the end of the phone call, a bag she was holding seemingly tears, making her drop a bunch of lemons, which scatter on the platform and she appeared to need help gathering them.

In the final step, team members who were not a part of the intervention observed and recorded whether each bystander who was within earshot of the phone call helped the women collect the lemons.

They experimentally varied the identity of the woman, who was sometimes a native German or an immigrant from the Middle East; and the immigrant sometimes wore a hijab to signal her Muslim identity and sometimes not.

They found that men were not very receptive to different messages regarding the woman's attitude toward gender equality, but German women were. Among German women, anti-Muslim discrimination was eliminated when the immigrant woman signaled that she held progressive views vis-à-vis women's rights. Men continued to discriminate in both the regressive and progressive conditions of the experiment.

It was a surprise that the experimental treatment did not seem to make a big difference in the behavior of men towards Muslim women.

"Women were very receptive to this message that we had about Muslims sharing progressive beliefs about women's rights, but men were indifferent to it," says Sambanis. "We expected that there would be a difference, and that the effect of the treatment would be larger among women, but we did not expect that it would be basically zero for men."

The experiment makes gender identity more salient and establishes a common identity between native German women--most of whom share progressive views on gender--and the immigrant women in the progressive condition. This is the basis of the reduction of discrimination, Sambanis says, and it does not require coercive measures like forcing Muslims to take off the hijab. "You can overcome discrimination in other ways, but it is important to signal that that the two groups share a common set of norms and ideas that define appropriate civic behaviors."

The results are surprising from the perspective of the prior literature, which assumed that it is very hard for people to overcome barriers created by race, religion, and ethnicity. At the same time, this experiment speaks to the limits of multiculturalism, says Sambanis. "Our work shows that differences in ethnic, racial, or linguistic traits can be overcome, but citizens will resist abandoning longstanding norms and ideas that define their identities in favor of a liberal accommodation of the values of others," he says.

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Nicholas Sambanis is a Presidential Distinguished Professor in the School of Arts & Sciences, chair of the Department of Political Science, and director of the Penn Identity and Conflict Lab at the University of Pennsylvania.

For media inquiries, please contact Kristen de Groot, krisde@upenn.edu, 215-756-5563

 

Study model explores impact of police action on population health

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Research News

 

IMAGE: CONCEPTUAL MODEL DEPICTING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLICING AND POPULATION HEALTH. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

A specific police action, an arrest or a shooting, has an immediate and direct effect on the individuals involved, but how far and wide do the reverberations of that action spread through the community? What are the health consequences for a specific, though not necessarily geographically defined, population?

The authors of a new UW-led study looking into these questions write that because law enforcement directly interacts with a large number of people, "policing may be a conspicuous yet not-well understood driver of population health."

Understanding how law enforcement impacts the mental, physical, social and structural health and wellbeing of a community is a complex challenge, involving many academic and research disciplines such as criminology, sociology, psychology, public health and research into social justice, the environment, economics and history.

"We needed a map for how to think about the complex issues at the intersection of policing and health," said lead author Maayan Simckes, a recent doctoral graduate from UW's Department of Epidemiology who worked on this study as part of her dissertation.

So, Simckes said, she set out to create a conceptual model depicting the complex relationship between policing and population health and assembled an interdisciplinary team of researchers to collaborate.

"This model shows how different types of encounters with policing can affect population health at multiple levels, through different pathways, and that factors like community characteristics and state and local policy can play a role," said Simckes, who currently works for the Washington State Department of Health.

The study, published in early June in the journal Social Science & Medicine, walks through the various factors that may help explain the health impacts of policing by synthesizing the published research across several disciplines.

"This study provides a useful tool to researchers studying policing and population health across many different disciplines. It has the potential to help guide research on the critical topic of policing and health for many years to come," said senior author Anjum Hajat, an associate professor in the UW Department of Epidemiology

For example, the study points out when considering individual-level effects that "after physical injury and death, mental health may be the issue most frequently discussed in the context of police-community interaction ... One U.S. study found that among men, anxiety symptoms were significantly associated with frequency of police stops and perception of the intrusiveness of the encounter."

Among the many other research examples explored in the new model, the researchers also examine the cyclic nature of policing and population health. They point out that police stops tend to cluster in disadvantaged communities and "saturating these communities with invasive tactics may lead to more concentrated crime." Consequently, it may be "impossible" to determine whether police practices caused a neighborhood to experience more crime or if those practices were in response to crime. However, the model's aim is to capture these complex "bidirectional" relationships.

"Our model underscores the importance of reforming policing practices and policies to ensure they effectively promote population wellbeing at all levels," said Simckes. "I hope this study ignites more dialogue and action around the roles and responsibilities of those in higher education and in clinical and public-health professions for advancing and promoting social justice and equity in our communities."

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Co-authors include Dale Willits, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, WSU; Michael McFarland, Department of Sociology, Florida State University; Cheryl McFarland, Central Jersey Family Health Consortium, New Jersey; Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, Department of Epidemiology and Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, UW.

Trust in science - but not trust in politicians or the media - significantly raises support across US racial groups for COVID-19 social distancing.

Article Title: The role of race and scientific trust on support for COVID-19 social distancing measures in the United States

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0254127

CAPTION

Measuring latent scientific trust in the mass public. A: Latent scientific trust as measured by factor analysis. B: Distribution of latent scientific trust by race.

CREDIT

Kazemian et al, 2021, PLOS ONE (CC-BY 4.0)

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