Epidemiologists aren't surprised that virus was spreading in the US in early February. But those early days offer lessons for how to catch the next wave.
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Tuesday, April 28, 2020
NBA G League Players May Form a Union
It’s a rarity that a professional minor league has a union for its players. This may change if the basketball players in the NBA G League vote to become a union, according to ESPN.
The ‘minor league’ system of the NBA is considering forming a union for the players with the support of The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA). There would need to be more than 50% of players signing on to obtain that goal.
The players were to begin voting over the weekend by electronic transmission.
NBA’s G-League players will begin voting Saturday on the creation of a union, sources tell ESPN. The NBPA’s assisting in the formation of a G-League-governed players association that would need more than 50 percent of players to sign an electronic authorization card for passage.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 24, 2020
Among agents and players, there’s been optimism that the vote will render the union’s formation – which would allow G-League players to collectively bargain with the NBA and G-League. Issues for G-League players in the past have included housing, salary and travel. https://t.co/tyslZ7tC2B
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 24, 2020
Adrian Wojnarowski, senior NBA Insider at ESPN stated, “Among agents and players, there’s been optimism that the vote will render the union’s formation—which would allow the union to collectively bargain issues with the NBA and G League. The NBPA sent G League players a video of veteran player Andre Ingram describing the kinds of issues that a union could assist in collective bargaining with the NBA. Issues for G League players in the past have included housing, salary, and travel.
“The union would be separate from the NBPA and serve independently with its own constitution, bylaws, and leadership structure.”
Back in February, the NBPA Board of Representatives voted to support the formation of the union for G League players. The NBPA had representatives at the 2018 and 2019 G League showcases, the NBPA had representatives who were there to discuss the idea of the formation of a union with a significant number of players from the developmental league.
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Hotel CEO Says Industry Is In For A Major Change With Fewer Amenities
The global outbreak of COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus, has brought the travel industry to a complete standstill. Many countries have closed off their borders to all noncitizens and any plans of leisure travel have been canceled for the foreseeable future. As a result, the industry has lost millions of dollars in revenue with many major companies left struggling to stay afloat in the process.
When the industry does reopen, you can expect to see a lot of changes in the way you travel through airports and hotels. Some experts are sayings the days of extra amenities such as minibars, room service, and turndown service may be over as we know it if hoteliers can’t cut costs in other ways to survive this public health crisis.
“We need to operate less expensively,” said Pebblebrook Hotel CEO Jon Bortz, who oversees 54 high-end hotels in key markets such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Florida, and New York, during a Bisnow webinar last week. “Now, there are going to be things that are going to cost more, but there are other things we have to do less expensively and more efficiently because this recovery is going to take a significant period of time.”
Since the pandemic hit, Bortz said he has had to temporarily close 46 of its hotels and furloughed about 7,500 workers. Most of the eight hotels that remain open are running in the low- to mid-single digit occupancy range. In some hotels in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, Bortz said he had to board up some of the ground-floor retail glass windows because of reports of looting in those cities.
“In all cases, we have skeleton crews running the hotels,” Bortz said, adding that there are only about five to 10 people working different shifts at each of the opened hotels. There are security guards at the closed hotels, he said.
Bortz went on to say that unless there is a medical breakthrough, he doesn’t expect the hotel industry to open until at least July 1. He does expect leisure to come back first but business travel will probably be slow. “It’s going to be a very, very slow and bumpy recovery,” Bortz said.
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‘Little Women: Atlanta’ star Ms. Minnie, 34, dead after hit and run
Little Women: Atlanta star Ashley “Ms. Minnie” Ross has died after succumbing to injuries following a hit and run accident, the 34-year-old reality star’s publicist confirmed to theGrio in a statement early Tuesday morning.
“It is with profound sadness that we confirm on behalf of the family of Ashley Ross aka ‘Ms Minnie’ of Little Women Atlanta has succumbed to injuries from a tragic hit and run car accident today at the age of 34,” read the statement posted to Minnie’s official Instagram page.
“The family respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time.”
READ MORE: Rapper Fred Tha Godson reportedly dies of coronavirus at 35
In an email to theGrio, Ross’s publicist Liz Dixson said the hit and run accident happened on Sunday in Atlanta. The driver reportedly fled the scene on foot. Ms. Minnie was pronounced dead on Monday night at approximately 10:30 p.m. at Grady Memorial Hospital.
READ MORE: Tyler Perry mourns the death of hairstylist Charles Gregory
Minnie rose to fame as a star on Lifetime’s Little Women: Atlanta, which followed an ensemble of little women and chronicled their lives in the city of Atlanta.
Minnie shared many intimate parts of her life on the popular show, including her relationship with rapper Pastor Troy. The cameras famously captured the moment she shared with him that she miscarried a child they had conceived together. She later revealed she was not actually pregnant.
Minnie also opened up about her estranged relationship with her father who left her and her mother when she was young. She allowed cameras to document a paternity test she had conducted in order to determine if the man in question was indeed her biological father.
Upon learning that he was her father, Minnie was brought to tears. “When I opened up the results and [saw] 99.9% my heart just stopped,” she said.
Her publicist wrote that she is survived by “her loving mother Tammy Jackson, Veronica Deloney (aunt), John Deloney (uncle), and beloved (grandmother) Rose Deloney.”
The post ‘Little Women: Atlanta’ star Ms. Minnie, 34, dead after hit and run appeared first on TheGrio.
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Monday, April 27, 2020
HBO drops trailer for Michaela Coel drama ‘I May Destroy You’
HBO just dropped the first trailer for I May Destroy You, the new drama series created by Michaela Coel.
Coel stars in the series alongside Weruche Opia, Paapa Essiedu, Aml Ameen, Adam James, Sarah Niles, and Ann Akin. Other cast members include Karan Gill, Samson Ajewole, Harriet Webb, Natalie Walter Ellie James, and Franc Ashman.
Coel plays Arabella Essiedu “a self-assured, care-free Londoner with a group of great friends, a holiday fling turned aspirational boyfriend in Italy and a burgeoning writing career.” When she becomes the victim of having been given a date-rape drug, her entire world and identity are thrown upside down.
Peep the official description:
A fearless, frank, and provocative half-hour series exploring the question of sexual consent and where, in the new landscape of dating and relationships, the distinction between liberation and exploitation lies.
Set in London, where gratification is only an app away, the story centers on Arabella (Coel), a carefree, self-assured Londoner with a group of great friends, a boyfriend in Italy, and a burgeoning writing career. But when her drink is spiked with a date-rape drug, she must question and rebuild every element of her life.
READ MORE: ‘Chewing Gum’ star Michaela Coel speaks out about sexual assault and preps new series about consent
Following triumph from a piece of writing that garnered internet acclaim, Arabella Essiuedu (Coel) – easily distracted, non-committal and carefree – finds herself feted as the ‘voice of her generation,’ with an agent, a book commission and a helluva lot of pressure.
After being sexually assaulted in a nightclub, her life changes irreversibly, and Arabella is forced to reassess everything: her career, her friends, even her family. As Arabella struggles to come to terms with what has happened, she begins a journey of self-discovery.”
READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: Michaela Coel on finding joy after sexual assault and new Netflix film ‘Been So Long’
I May Destroy You premieres on HBO in June. Watch the trailer below.
Have you subscribed to theGrio’s new podcast “Dear Culture”? Download our newest episodes now!
The post HBO drops trailer for Michaela Coel drama ‘I May Destroy You’ appeared first on TheGrio.
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Diddy Creates Initiative to Help Minority-Owned Small Businesses Impacted by COVID-19
Hip-hop media mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs announced the launch of Our Fair Share, a platform to help minority entrepreneurs and small businesses access much-needed funds brought on by the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“COVID-19 is devastating our communities and without access to stimulus funding we risk losing critical businesses that create jobs and help build opportunities and wealth in our communities,” said Combs in a written statement. “I created Our Fair Share to help entrepreneurs play on an even playing field and give them a chance to survive with the hope to thrive.”
Due to the initial round of the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP) dollars being disproportionately given to those with the right connection rather than the businesses with the greatest need, Our Fair Share was created. This initiative will help minority-owned companies learn about the PPP and help get them connected to approved Small Business Administration (SBA) lenders that can process applications for these potentially business-saving loans.
Combs also announced a partnership with the National Bankers Association, the trade group representing minority-owned financial institutions. The association will connect minority-owned banks and financial technology companies to the Our Fair Share platform and enable these banks to originate PPP loans from applicants that utilize the site.
“It is inspiring to see a cultural icon like Sean Combs partnering with minority banks and others to ensure economic opportunity for minorities in this program”, says Kenneth Kelly, chairman of the National Bankers Association. “Our leaders in economics, politics, and culture must unite because the COVID-19 healthcare and economic impacts on our communities are interrelated. We can help our communities weather this storm if we work together.”
The applications are connected to these approved PPP lenders: The Harbor Bank of Maryland, based in Baltimore; Liberty Bank and Trust, based in New Orleans; Carver State Bank, based in Savannah, Georgia; and Lendistry, an online small business lender based in Los Angeles.
Combs has also extended an invitation for major financial institutions to partner with Our Fair Share.
“Minority businesses have always struggled to access the capital they need to thrive. Now is the time to show commitment to the communities being hit the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. I look forward to working with the institutions that want to help,” said Combs.
For more information, visit www.ourfairshare.com.
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Black women sue golf course after cops were called for moving too slow
Two years ago, a group of five African American women golfing at a Pennsylvania golf course had the police called on them alleging that they were playing too slowly.
This year, two of the women involved in the incident Myneca Ojo and Karen Crosby, filed a racial and gender discrimination lawsuit against Brew Vino LLC which owns the Grandview Golf course as well as several employees involved.
READ MORE: How a Black man got sprung from jail thanks to golf
In their first game as members of the Grandview Golf course in York County, Pennsylvania. The women state that they were moving slowly because they hadn’t played in a while. However, they didn’t think they were holding up other players.
A man in a group behind them stated that the women were not impeding his play in any way. However, the co-owner of the club, Steve Chronister said that the women weren’t meeting time guidelines and called 911 twice.
York County police determined that the issue wasn’t a police matter, and the women left on their own.
The incident, which made national news in 2018, was one of many that year where African Americans suffered the indignity of having the police called on them for everyday activities. The phenomenon became known as #LivingWhileBlack.
An investigation of the incident found that the women had probable cause and that they were, “profiled, harassed, evicted, and subjected to different terms and conditions of service because of their protected classes.” That ruling gave them the right to sue for damages.
Two of the other women in the group, Sandra Harrison and Carolyn Dow, filed a similar lawsuit against the golf course. In their suit, they are seeking a declaratory judgment that would clearly state that they were discriminated against.
The final woman in the group, attorney Sandra Thompson, told CNN that she does intend to file a suit against the golf course.
The lawsuit seeks a jury trial as requests compensatory and punitive damages.
Chronister, now a defendant in the civil suit alleges that the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission has not “handled investigations properly.” The commission itself has denied any allegations of mishandling or bias.
The post Black women sue golf course after cops were called for moving too slow appeared first on TheGrio.
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Letter regarding decisions about summer programs
The following letter was sent to the MIT community April 24th by President Rafael L. Reif and Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart.
To the members of the MIT community,
Given the persistent threat of Covid-19, we write to share important decisions about summer programs for students, specifically travel programs and those research and internship opportunities that would usually occur on campus in June.
Students can find specific program decisions here.
Staff and faculty involved in these efforts can find more information here.
Ordinarily, we would announce changes in student programs only to the people who might be directly affected. But since everyone is craving clarity about the future, we want to be clear that these decisions are the latest steps in a coordinated process of thinking through how our community will navigate this Covid-shadowed era.
For MIT as for institutions across the country, the current intense uncertainty presents a tricky balance: How to keep everyone as safe as possible while providing excellent educational experiences for our students, sustaining the momentum of MIT research and preserving MIT’s financial stability for us all?
Through consultation with students, faculty, staff and postdocs, as well as with state and local leaders and public health officials, we are working hard to imagine and plan various scenarios for a safe, step-by-step transition from the current reality – where most of us are “staying at home” – to a gradual restoration of various aspects of campus life, including options for how best to approach the new academic year.
At this stage, we are eager to give you a sense of our working scenarios and create an opportunity for all of us to work through some big questions together. To that end, we are rapidly planning a participatory virtual community event and problem-solving process – stay tuned for more details.
To a large extent, the final plans we pursue for the months ahead will depend on the pace of scientific and government progress, from testing to contact tracing to effective therapeutics and a vaccine. We continue to take great hope from the fact that MIT researchers are among those who are pioneering advances in the fight against Covid-19, with projects that could help change the game not only for MIT but for the world.
While we don’t yet have more specifics about the rest of the summer, or about overall plans for a return to campus life, we have high hopes that your engagement in the interactive community event and problem solving will help us accelerate that process and arrive at a solution that is truly worthy of MIT.
Sincerely,
L. Rafael Reif
Cynthia Barnhart
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Michael Jordan dragged Dennis Rodman out of bed as Carmen Electra hid
The ESPN documentary The Last Dance continues to spill all the hot tea about Michael Jordan and his Bulls teammates, particularly during his last season with the team.
Last night, the second night of the series, Jordan stated that he once had to fly to Vegas to retrieve his teammate, the brash and outspoken Dennis Rodman, from the bed of his then-girlfriend, Carmen Electra. The former MTV video host and actress stated that it could be “hazardous” being Rodman’s girlfriend due to his off-court antics.
READ MORE: Michael Jordan walked out of drug-fueled Chicago Bulls party as a rookie
Jordan said the trip came after a meeting where he implored Bulls’ coach, Phil Jackson to urge Rodman not to travel. Jordan was convinced that the star rebounder would not return on time. And he was right. After four days, MJ himself went looking for Rodman to bring him back to Chicago.
Despite his off-court behavior, The Last Dance rightly explained the sheer talent and drive that Rodman had to be one of the best Power Forwards in the league. A seven-time rebounding champion, “The Worm,” was known for his toughness and ability to grab the ball back by any means necessary.
Prior to his time with the Bulls, Rodman won back-to-back championships with the Detroit Pistons-the team that drafted him in 1986. That team was known as the “Bad Boys,” who were also featured in last night’s series.
Rodman is a five-time NBA champion, two-time NBA all-star, and two-time NBA defensive player of the year. In The Last Dance, the eccentric star talked about his practice schedule where he would hit the gym as early as 3 am to work on his rebounding skills.
READ MORE: Dennis Rodman believes 10-20% of pro athletes are gay and should come out
Rodman later became known for his colorful hair, romantic relationships with Electra and Madonna, and for a brief time-his close friendship with North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un.
Dennis Rodman retired from basketball in 2006 after departing the NBA in 2000. On April 1, 2011, Rodman was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
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Trump mocked for saying journalists should return ‘Noble Prizes’
President Donald Trump posted then deleted a tweet on Sunday lashing out at the news media, again. In the tweet, he questioned whether reporters who won “Noble Prizes” for their work on the Russia investigation would return them.
The tweet was mocked on Twitter as the ‘Nobel Prize’ was not only misspelled and usually not given to journalists. It is likely that the president was thinking of the Pulitzer Prize.
READ MORE: Say what now? Republicans nominate Donald Trump for Nobel peace prize
He continued the rant in a three tweet thread further stating that he could give the “Nobel Committee,” a list of people whom he considers “real” reporters. He then asked with the committee would demand the prizes back.
The president is repeating his usual rant about reporters getting the Pulitzer Prize, except he is repeatedly calling it the “Noble” Prize. pic.twitter.com/Lt8XM2QJTr
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 26, 2020
Frequent Trump critic, George Conway-spouse of Trump Aide, Kellyanne Conway replied that the president is in “so over his head, you can’t see the surface.” Conway even went so far as to change his Twitter handle to “George Conway, Noble Committee Chair.”
Those reporters are indeed noble. You are ignoble. You are also ignorant. You refer to the wrong prize, and have misspelled it, to boot.
You’re so far in over your head you can’t even see the surface. https://t.co/1lkcL1tnoM
— George Conway, Noble Committee Chair (@gtconway3d) April 26, 2020
ABC News reporter, Will Steaken stated the blunder was one that Trump allies would criticize Democratic presidential hopeful, Joe Biden, for.
This is the kind of statement Trump allies would rip Biden to shreds for making https://t.co/UgwFoCoeeF
— Will Steakin (@wsteaks) April 26, 2020
Other political analysts point to this latest blunder, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as evidence that the president’s mental state is unraveling.
Noble prizes? First of all, it’s Nobel prizes. Second of all, I think he means Pulitzers; reporters don’t win Nobels. Third, at a time of a pandemic, why isn’t this string of tweets prima facie evidence of the necessity of the 25th amendment being invoked? https://t.co/1UTYgs1u2J
— Richard Stengel (@stengel) April 26, 2020
The Nobel Prize is awarded for literature, physics, chemistry, physiology, medicine, and the well-known peace prize. It is likely that the president was talking about the Pulitzer Prize which is awarded to journalists. In fact, he may have been directly referring to Maggie Haberman of the New York Times who won the Pulitzer for her writing about the Russia investigation. The last time that a Nobel Prize has gone to a journalist is in 2015 when Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich won the award in the literature category.
Strangely enough, Alexievich won the honor for her work documenting life under the rule of the Soviet Union.
Former president, Barack Obama, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people”.
Trump later tweeted that he was being sarcastic about the “Noble Prize,” defining the word noble: ‘having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals.’
Does anybody get the meaning of what a so-called Noble (not Nobel) Prize is, especially as it pertains to Reporters and Journalists? Noble is defined as, “having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals.” Does sarcasm ever work?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2020
READ MORE: MLK’s Nobel Peace Prize speech 50 years later: Is it still relevant?
It is the second time that the president implied that he was being “sarcastic” after being skewered in the media for comments. On Friday, he implied that people could ingest disinfectants to cure them of the coronavirus.
The United States is nearing one million cases of the deadly virus and over 55,000 people have died.
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African Venture Capital Director Launches Cryptocurrency Exchange
Yele Bademosi, a director at the venture capital arm of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is launching Bundle, one of six African startups the crypto exchange is now funding in Africa.
According to Forbes, the startup is being run by Africans in an effort to get residents of the continent to use cryptocurrency, not as an investment vehicle, but as a global means of exchange. The idea basically makes Bundle, a social payment app, similar to Venmo or Square’s Cash App.
Bundle lets users send, receive, and spend bitcoin and Nigerian naira, the country’s main currency. Bundle will also let users spend Binance coin, the exchange’s native cryptocurrency, which has been doled out to loyal and active traders using its crypto exchange. Eventually, Bundle users will be able to spend and save Binance U.S. dollars, stablecoins backed by U.S. dollars and regulated in the U.S.
“Regardless of your geography, you should have access to the best financial services. And unfortunately, your geography today defines the quality of financial services that you have,” Bademosi told Forbes. “The same way the internet created freedom of information, I think blockchains create freedom of quality of financial services.”
Bademosi, who grew up in Nigeria, bought his first bitcoin in late 2017 and became hooked on cryptocurrency as its price fluctuated wildly. That led him to Binance and in late 2018, Binance published a 10-point thesis on why it was dedicated to Africa and launched a subsidiary in Uganda.
Bademosi said one of the biggest reasons Binance got involved in Africa is due to its potential in cryptocurrency.
“For me, blockchains are as big as the internet,” says Bademosi. “And can you imagine Bill Gates or Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg coming to Africa less than one year after the company was started?”
Under Bademosi, Binance has invested in six African startups, one from South Africa, one from Kenya, one from Ghana, and three from Nigeria, all serving different aspects of the continent’s growing crypto economy. Lagos-based Yellow Card allows users to purchase bitcoin without a bank. Flutterwave is the same fiat-to-crypto bridge that lets Binance customers buy cryptocurrency with naira.
Bademosi isn’t the only one trying to give Africa a foothold in cryptocurrency. Musician and producer Akon is in the process of developing a cryptocurrency for Senegal and is working to provide electricity for 600 million Africans.
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Meet The Entrepreneur Creating Sunscreen For Black Women
Summer is on the horizon and that also means the return of harmful UV rays that can damage your skin. While many within the black community may believe the myth that darker skin tones cannot get skin cancer, studies say otherwise. Even though darker skin tones are less likely to contract the disease in comparison with those with fairer skin, your skin can become permanently damaged and you may not be able to see early signs of cancer until it’s too late.
According to the American Academy of Dermatology, people with darker skin tones often do not receive a diagnosis until the cancer is in its later stages. This tends to be because the symptoms are harder to recognize. There are also limited options for sunblock that works well with dark skin. One entrepreneur decided to take matters into her own hands and created a product that protects our melanin.
Shontay Lundy founded Black Girl Sunscreen after becoming frustrated with the limited options for women with her skin tone. “[I started this company] because I am a woman of the sun and couldn’t find a sunscreen that would rub evenly into my complexion without leaving the tell-tale white residue,” Lundy told BLACK ENTERPRISE.
In 2016, she launched the brand based out of Miami. She continued on to say that the mission for her brand is “to educate and empower women of color to protect and nurture their skin no matter what shade it comes in while making them feel good and look good while being protected in the sun.”
Since its launch, Lundy’s sunscreen can be found in local beauty supply stores and Target. She credits Ureeka, a platform that connects female and minority small business owners to peers, mentors, and coaches, for helping her start and expand her brand.
“Ureeka has helped me personally level-up, which in turn helps Black Girl Sunscreen level up. Most recently, I entered an investor-pitch competition and Ureeka helped me prepare for the conversations,” she explains. “Before consulting Ureeka, I honestly didn’t know how to put together an investor deck or answer the ‘hard’ questions an investor may have. Within a couple weeks’ time, I had an investor deck put together, and was prepared to sit at the table with individuals that were ready to give capital so my business could get to the next level.”
: @thisiskrisjoy
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Orleans Parish Had Highest Per-Capita COVID-19 Death Rate By Far Of U.S. Counties
Residents in Orleans Parish are dying of COVID-19 coronavirus at an alarming rate. It has the highest per-capita death rate of all U.S. counties, according to NOLA.com. The report states that one out of every 10,000 residents had succumbed to the virus.
That death toll is even higher that New York’s Richmond County – commonly known as Staten Island – which has the second-highest death rate. It is not a close second, however, as Staten Island only has half the amount of deaths as Orleans Parish.
Experts predicted New Orleans was on track to become the next coronavirus epicenter, reported Reuters. Since the city didn’t have its first official diagnosis until March 14, its numbers mark the highest growth of coronavirus cases. The fast rates of infection in Big Easy can hit the rest of the South hard.
Dr. Rebekah Gee leads Louisiana State University’s (LSU) health care services division and was the state’s former health secretary. She said Mardi Gras could be to blame for the alarming outbreak.
“Mardi Gras was the perfect storm, it provided the perfect conditions for the spread of this virus,” Gee told Reuters.
Other health experts share Gee’s theory, meaning they believe the coronavirus had already begun infecting people in the states sooner than initially thought.
Susanne Straif-Bourgeois is a professor at LSU Health Sciences School of Public Health and an expert on pandemics.
“I think we have a huge number of undiagnosed people,” Straif-Bourgeois told NOLA.com. “Our model shows it started around Mardi Gras and spread. And we only tested people sick enough to be hospitalized, which means most people were not diagnosed because they might have mild signs and symptoms or [could] be asymptomatic and be contributing to the transmission.”
Add to that the fact that many New Orleans residents experience higher rates of health challenges like obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. and they may be more likely to experience complications that lead to death from the virus.
Harvard University Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch said testing is still an issue, but noted counting deaths per capita may be a more effective way to determine the size of the pandemic.
Since health experts are still working to find the best way to measure whether a death was due to the coronavirus alone, Lipstick echoed Straif-Bourgeois’ assertion that there were still many undiagnosed cases, even among the fatalities. Due to Katrina, Lipstich said Louisiana may have more effective procedures concerning this.
“We should consider that maybe the testing of fatal cases has been more effective there (in Louisiana) than in other places,” Lipsitch said. “I think a lot of deaths [attributable to coronavirus] have been undetected.”
This article was written by Isheka N. Harrison for The Moguldom Nation.
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E-Commerce Entrepreneurship Grows as Unemployment Rises Amid COVID-19
The global spread of COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus, has caused a complete shift in our culture and how we do business. Under state governments, many major cities across the country have issued mandatory stay-at-home orders for residents and closed down all “non-essential” brick-and-mortar businesses. Because of the pandemic, over 25 million people have filed for unemployment while many small businesses have been forced to retreat to the internet to stay connected with their customers. The result has created a surge in the growth of online businesses that are thriving in the digital space.
While the viral outbreak has caused many businesses to close their doors, others are learning to adapt to the changing landscape and utilizing digital storefronts and their social media accounts to find new ways to earn revenue through the pandemic. According to reports from Adobe Analytics, the U.S. e-commerce industry has seen an overall 25% increase in sales just in the month of March. Other services like delivery apps, virtual workshops, and digital services have also experienced an increase as well due to the viral outbreak.
Reports also show that pickup orders are also on the rise with the number of purchases shoppers have bought online and picked up in-store increasing 62% year-over-year during February and March 2020.
While consumers have been shifting their purchasing more to online from stores over the past few years, the pandemic has accelerated this shift. Adobe Analytics did not provide comparable year-over-year online sales, but the data collected does show for the first quarter of 2019, online sales increased by 11.9% year-over-year, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
“U.S. consumers are turning to e-commerce more during the COVID-19 outbreak due to the fact that social distancing measures and shelter-in-place orders have made online shopping more convenient or, in some cases, the only way to get the goods they need,” Taylor Schreiner, director of Adobe Digital Insights said to Digital Commerce 360.
Schreiner explains that the elevated levels of online shopping in the U.S. will likely continue as long as shelter-in-place orders remain in effect.
“The big unknown is whether consumers who become used to more online shopping will stick with it, even when social distancing measures are removed.”
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Sunday, April 26, 2020
Engineers develop precision injection system for plants
While the human world is reeling from one pandemic, there are several ongoing epidemics that affect crops and put global food production at risk. Oranges, olives, and bananas are already under threat in many areas due to diseases that affect plants’ circulatory systems and that cannot be treated by applying pesticides.
A new method developed by engineers at MIT may offer a starting point for delivering life-saving treatments to plants ravaged by such diseases.
These diseases are difficult to detect early and to treat, given the lack of precision tools to access plant vasculature to treat pathogens and to sample biomarkers. The MIT team decided to take some of the principles involved in precision medicine for humans and adapt them to develop plant-specific biomaterials and drug-delivery devices.
The method uses an array of microneedles made of a silk-based biomaterial to deliver nutrients, drugs, or other molecules to specific parts of the plant. The findings are described in the journal Advanced Science, in a paper by MIT professors Benedetto Marelli and Jing-Ke-Weng, graduate student Yunteng Cao, postdoc Eugene Lim at MIT, and postdoc Menglong Xu at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.
The microneedles, which the researchers call phytoinjectors, can be made in a variety of sizes and shapes, and can deliver material specifically to a plant’s roots, stems, or leaves, or into its xylem (the vascular tissue involved in water transportation from roots to canopy) or phloem (the vascular tissue that circulates metabolites throughout the plant). In lab tests, the team used tomato and tobacco plants, but the system could be adapted to almost any crop, they say. The microneedles can not only deliver targeted payloads of molecules into the plant, but they can also be used to take samples from the plants for lab analysis.
The work started in response to a request from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for ideas on how to address the citrus greening crisis, which is threatening the collapse of a $9 billion industry, Marelli says. The disease is spread by an insect called the Asian citrus psyllid that carries a bacterium into the plant. There is as yet no cure for it, and millions of acres of U.S. orchards have already been devastated. In response, Marelli’s lab swung into gear to develop the novel microneedle technology, led by Cao as his thesis project.
The disease infects the phloem of the whole plant, including roots, which are very difficult to reach with any conventional treatment, Marelli explains. Most pesticides are simply sprayed or painted onto a plant’s leaves or stems, and little if any penetrates to the root system. Such treatments may appear to work for a short while, but then the bacteria bounce back and do their damage. What is needed is something that can target the phloem circulating through a plant’s tissues, which could carry an antibacterial compound down into the roots. That’s just what some version of the new microneedles could potentially accomplish, he says.
“We wanted to solve the technical problem of how you can have a precise access to the plant vasculature,” Cao adds. This would allow researchers to inject pesticides, for example, that would be transported between the root system and the leaves. Present approaches use “needles that are very large and very invasive, and that results in damaging the plant,” he says. To find a substitute, they built on previous work that had produced microneedles using silk-based material for injecting human vaccines.
“We found that adaptations of a material designed for drug delivery in humans to plants was not straightforward, due to differences not only in tissue vasculature, but also in fluid composition,” Lim says. The microneedles designed for human use were intended to biodegrade naturally in the body’s moisture, but plants have far less available water, so the material didn’t dissolve and was not useful for delivering the pesticide or other macromolecules into the phloem. The researchers had to design a new material, but they decided to stick with silk as its basis. That’s because of silk’s strength, its inertness in plants (preventing undesirable side effects), and the fact that it degrades into tiny particles that don’t risk clogging the plant’s internal vasculature systems.
They used biotechnology tools to increase silk’s hydrophilicity (making it attract water), while keeping the material strong enough to penetrate the plant’s epidermis and degradable enough to then get out of the way.
Sure enough, they tested the material on their lab tomato and tobacco plants, and were able to observe injected materials, in this case fluorescent molecules, moving all they way through the plant, from roots to leaves.
“We think this is a new tool that can be used by plant biologists and bioengineers to better understand transport phenomena in plants,” Cao says. In addition, it can be used “to deliver payloads into plants, and this can solve several problems. For example, you can think about delivering micronutrients, or you can think about delivering genes, to change the gene expression of the plant or to basically engineer a plant.”
“Now, the interests of the lab for the phytoinjectors have expanded beyond antibiotic delivery to genetic engineering and point-of-care diagnostics,” Lim adds.
For example, in their experiments with tobacco plants, they were able to inject an organism called Agrobacterium to alter the plant’s DNA – a typical bioengineering tool, but delivered in a new and precise way.
So far, this is a lab technique using precision equipment, so in its present form it would not be useful for agricultural-scale applications, but the hope is that it can be used, for example, to bioengineer disease-resistant varieties of important crop plants. The team has also done tests using a modified toy dart gun mounted to a small drone, which was able to fire microneedles into plants in the field. Ultimately, such a process might be automated using autonomous vehicles, Marelli says, for agricultural-scale use.
Meanwhile, the team continues to work on adapting the system to the varied needs and conditions of different kinds of plants and their tissues. “There’s a lot of variation among them, really,” Marelli says, so you need to think about having devices that are plant-specific. For the future, our research interests will go beyond antibiotic delivery to genetic engineering and point-of-care diagnostics based on metabolite sampling.”
The work was supported by the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, and the Keck Foundation.
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Toyota & CVS Are Creating Relief Initiatives To Help Vulnerable Communities Amid COVID-19
As the COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus, pandemic worsens, major corporations have been stepping up their efforts to offer relief programs to communities impacted by the public health crisis. Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) and CVS Health are the latest corporations spreading awareness and offering free services to marginalized communities hit hard by the virus.
Toyota has created a special Community Service Announcement (CSA) called #UsAgainstCOVID to bring awareness and spread credible information to black and Hispanic communities around the country which are among the hardest hit by the virus. The CSA, featuring a number of high-profile celebrities including Anthony Anderson, Cedric The Entertainer and Lupita Infante, aims to help these affected communities understand the risks, share steps on how to avoid contracting the virus, and direct them to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website for more information.
“With the aim of giving back to the American communities in which we operate, we partnered with high-profile celebrities to bring an important prevention message to communities of color that have been disproportionately impacted by this deadly virus,” said Chris Reynolds, chief administrative officer, Manufacturing and Corporate Resources for Toyota in a press statement. “We moved quickly to make this CSA and are hopeful it will make a meaningful impact in the communities hardest hit by the COVID pandemic. We’re all in this together and we must work together to regain the health of our country, no matter where we live.”
CVS Health announced the launch of its new COVID-19 drive-thru testing site in Dearborn, Michigan, as part of a partnership with federal and state officials. The site will provide state residents with COVID-19 testing and on-the-spot results at no cost, using the new Abbott ID NOW
COVID-19 test. CVS Health has opened similar large-scale rapid testing sites in Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, conducting more than 35,000 COVID-19 tests.
“We’re delivering on our commitment to helping increase the frequency and efficiency of testing,” said Troyen Brennan, MD, MPH, chief medical officer, and executive vice president, CVS Health in a statement. “Based on discussions we’re having with other states we expect our testing capacity will continue to increase, subject to availability of supplies.”
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Billionaires get $282 billion richer, 26 million Americans file jobless claims during pandemic
Coronavirus has hit Americans hard.
More than 50,000 have died of complications, more than 939,000 individuals have tested positive for Covid-19 and tens of millions are out of work.
However, according to Fast Company, billionaires are benefiting during the pandemic. Since the pandemic intensified in the United States last month, billionaires have seen their fortunes grow collectively by 10%, or an estimated $282 billion.
In that same timeframe, investors watched the stock market fall off a cliff and government officials counted more than 26 million Americans who filed for unemployment claims in the past five weeks.
READ MORE: 26 million have sought US unemployment benefits since virus hit
For instance, the two who have benefited most from the pandemic are Amazon and Zoom Video Communications. After witnessing his wealth drop to $105 billion in mid-March during the initial stock market crash, Amazon head Jeff Bezos‘ net worth has grown $25 billion this year. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, one of few not affected by the said crash, watched his net worth climb to $2.58 billion, Fast Money reported.
With many states given stay-at-home orders, Zoom has been the app of choice when it comes to online communication for meetings and video podcasts. Consumer demand on Amazon surely has spiked as countless retailers closed stores to help in the fight against the fast-spreading virus.
READ MORE: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez voted against new stimulus package: It was ‘too small’
A major contributing factor to the rise of billionaires’ earnings has been tax cuts in recent decades. According to a report by the progressive think tank Institute of Policy Studies, taxes on the highest earners in America have dropped 79 percent over the past 40 years.
Chuck Collins, the institute’s director of Program on Inequality and the Common Good, said much of the money billionaires could’ve paid in taxes may have helped contribute to the pandemic.
“We’re reading about benevolent billionaires sharing .0001% of their wealth with their fellow humans in this crisis, but in fact they’ve been rigging the tax rules to reduce their taxes for decades — money that could have been spent building a better public health infrastructure,” Collins told Fast Money.
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