Amidst COVID-19, new Shapiro+Raj survey shows news media and government have a big impact on our collective vigilance – PRNewswire

March 15, 2020 medical

CHICAGO, March 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --News, advice and trends around Covid-19 are shifting by the day. The media and government, not always the most trusted institutions, are trying to keep us informed and encouraging us to take responsible precautions. While their shortcomings have limited effects on daily life, a new survey shows the negative impact this trust gap can breed when challenges like these arise.

Shapiro+Raj surveyed 577 people, practically all of whom were aware of coronavirus. About 58% said they are concerned about its potential impact on them and their family, while 24% showed little to no concern. Roughly 51% said they have changed their lifestyle because of Covid-19, most in basic ways like being more hygienic (70% washing hands longer, using more hand sanitizer) and socially distancing themselves (55% staying home, avoiding crowded places).

In terms of the media's handling of Covid-19, about 39% think they are doing a very good job (media-positives) while 37% think they are doing a fair/poor job (media-negatives). Among people who term as media-positive, 63% have changed their lifestyle. But that figure drops to 38% among the media-negative. We also see far higher hygiene and social distancing rates in the media-positive group, who are also 400% more likely to feel an intense perceived risk compared to media-negatives.

The survey also found differences based on government performance ratings (federal, state and local). About 34% feel they're doing a good job while 30% say the opposite. Among government-positives, 57% made a lifestyle change compared to 51% of the government-negative folks. Also, 21% of government positive people feel at definite risk of exposure versus 12% of government negative folks. The good news is that both groups have similar incidence of taking both hygienic and social precautions.

"This like many other national challenges requires us to come together as a community," said Zain Raj, Chairman and CEO of Shapiro+Raj. "All institutions need to build trust, which is about deeds and not words, so we feel empowered to act as one and solve big problems as soon as possible."

About Shapiro+Raj

Shapiro+Raj is a research and strategy firm that uses social and behavioral sciences to solve the toughest business and marketing challenges. Our next-gen methods dig deep to unlock market-ready insights. Then our brand planners turn these into strategic marketplace actions that create brand evolution and innovation; customer experiences and loyalty; and new platforms for growth.

We have added future-first strategy and expansive analytic capabilities, powered by the latest technology stack and inspired by human behavior. This has created an integrated research, insights, and strategy consultancy with a mission to help our clients find new pathways to grow in this constantly changing landscape. Today we are recognized as one of the Top-25 Most Innovative Research Companies in the world.For more information, visit http://www.shapiroraj.com.

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Human Behavior

The invisible enemy: An unseen virus and sexual abuse The Manila Times – The Manila Times

March 15, 2020 medical

Think about it. It is amazing that one tiny, invisible smart virus, a product of evolutionary processes, still mutating and changing its profile, can avoid detection and spread itself far and wide with impunity. It is able to bring the human species to its knees, overpower nations, halt economies, crash the stock market, stop the flow of products and goods, paralyze communities, empty malls, groundairlines, close schools and cancel all sport gatherings.

It has the power to confine millions of people to their homes, rooms and apartments, and in cruise ships. Thousands are in hospitals, and many have died. Its power can motivate governments around the globe to take action and stop overnight the once free movements of people. Its almost more powerful than a nuclear war, and we cant even see it. We have to believe that this unseen enemy of the human race is out there, lurking and waiting to infect. It has killed a reported 5,000 people already worldwide (as of Saturday). Is its danger overestimated? I will get to that later.

No new complicated laws are needed to control the right and freedom of citizens to travel and enjoy complete freedom of movement. But this sacred freedom is now curtailed by instant decree. The coronavirus disease 2019, or Covid-19, is king. The innocent suspects of being carriers, without medical proof, are locked up and quarantined, and, in some countries, are fined large sums of money if they do not obey. So, now banning convicted pedophiles from traveling to poor countries should be easy to do. This is aproposed law I suggested and that was filed by Maureen OSullivan TD before the Irish Parliament.

Twoyears has passed, and yet it is still to be acted upon. But now,even without alaw, anyone with the new coronaviruscan be stopped from traveling.

It is something people everywhere are very sensitive to and acutely aware of this darkand dangerous threat to health that can cause death to the most vulnerable. It is Covid-19.

There is nothing much we can do other than be quarantined, avoid groups of people, wash our hands frequently and stand back 6 feet from people that might be infected to curtail its spread. It can change human behavior, drastically alter social contact, and bring about new attitudes and understanding among people. We face a common threat. Many are worried. It has struck and is striking fear and anxiety around the world; many are afraid of the single, tiny unseen enemy, more powerful than all the armies in the world.

Yet, there is a greater threat and actual evil that has infected the whole world and especially male sexual abusers. Until very recently, people did not care much about child and women abuse until the #MeToo and anti-child abuse movement began. Yet, it merely touches the tip of a great iceberg of abuse. It is the abuse of, violence against and oppression of women and children that were highlighted in this recent International Womens Day (March 8). This violence causes more lifelong pain, suffering, sickness and death than the Covid-19 will ever do. The new coronavirus will soon die out, but the lifelong suffering and pain endured by the silent, downtrodden victims of sexual violence will not.

In Mexico, a reported 10 women a day are killed, but hundreds more unreported murdersgo unnoticed. It has been reported by the Center for Womens Resources recently that at least one woman or child is abused every 10 minutes in the Philippines. The figures of reported cases are 6,315 women and 6,054 children. Only 6 percent of victims, however, report the abuse to the authorities. Rape and abuse are like the pandemic worldwide.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur and expert Maud de Boer-Buquicchio briefed the Special UN Human Rights Council last March 2, declaring that child sexual abuse and prostitution of children is in every part of the world. The sexual abuse of children over the internet are perhaps the very worst form of child sexual abuse, she said. Children continue to be sold and trafficked within their own countries and across borders for the purposes of sexual exploitation. She also said, [C]hildren are coerced into participation in pornographic performances online. Young girls and boys are lured with false promises and coerced into sex trade, domestic servitude, forced labor, begging and forced marriage. She reported that 28 percent of the child victims were younger than 10 years old.

Such violence and the government and public apathy, and lack of concern of society in general, are more destructive and hurtful to human lives than a dose of the coronavirus from which most people would recover with treatment and go on to lead normal lives. Victims of abuse do not.

There is no known medication yet that will cure a person of Covid-19, but everything is being tried and a vaccine is in the works. There is talk about the seasonal influenza killing more than the estimated 5,000 deaths from Covid-19 worldwide. In the United States alone, as many as 18,000 people have died from seasonal influenza since September last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the International Federations of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, as many as 290,000 to 650,000 die from seasonal influenza yearly worldwide. This is about .14 percent in contrast to Covid-19, which has a potentially higher fatality rate of approximately 0.2 percent.

We have to take everything in perspective and do all that can be done to contain the spread of Covid-19 and save lives. But so much more has to be done as the world slowly awakens to the horrific prevalence and frequency of the sexual abuse of women and children. The same energy and government action to control Covid-19 should also be spent to stop and contain child and woman abuse.

http://www.preda.org

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The invisible enemy: An unseen virus and sexual abuse The Manila Times - The Manila Times

Human Behavior

NYT: In times of global shock people help each other, while the elite panic – Boing Boing

March 15, 2020 medical

This lengthy New York Times piece by Jon Mooallem is subtitled, "The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 surprised everyone by showing that natural disasters can bring out more kindness than selfishness." The piece is worth reading just for the stunning photos of the devastation that occurred in Anchorage on the evening of March 27, 1964 when the state was struck by "the most powerful earthquake in American history, and the second most powerful ever measured in the world."

Mooallem's piece packs a powerful punch, too. In the aftermath of the earthquake, Alaskans were sharing and cooperative, and it turns out that unselfish behavior during a disaster is the rule rather than the exception:

In the 56 years since the Great Alaska Earthquake, an entire field of sociology, disaster studies, blossomed around the Disaster Research Center, with sociologists parachuting into scores of other communities after natural disasters around the world, and its stunning to look back and recognize how much of the resilience, levelheadedness, kindness and cooperation those sociologists saw in Anchorage turned out to be characteristic of disasters everywhere.

The one thing that interferes with the tendency towards altruism in a disaster is something scholars call "elite panic."

Many of our ugliest assumptions about human behavior have been refuted by their observations of how actual humans behave though we seem tragically slow to shed those old myths. (In some cases, disaster studies teaches us, those in power are so overcome with worry about mass panic and looting that they overreact and clamp down on a public that isnt actually panicked at all. Disaster scholars refer to this phenomenon as elite panic.)

When Yale research psyhcologist Irving Janis coined the term "groupthink" in 1972, he identified eight symptoms of the pathology: the "illusion of invulnerability"; a "belief in the inherent morality of the group"; "collective rationalization"; "out-group stereotypes"; "self-censorship"; the "illusion of unanimity"; "direct pressure on dissenters" and "self-appointed mindguards."

President Richard Nixon had the honor of welcoming Earthlings to the moon, but speechwriter William Safire had prepared an alternative for use in the event of a moon-landing disaster. A team at MIT deepfaked the dead president into this alternative timeline. In Event of Moon Disaster will premiere at IDFA DocLab on November 22, 2019 []

How much untreated sewage spilled from Tijuana to California as the result of a human body clogging a screen? The International Boundary Water Commission was quite specific: 14,497,873 gallons. The body was discovered by a cleanup crew at a pump station. An investigation is underway to identify the body and find out how it ended []

Creative writing can be a nerve-racking endeavor. Its just you, your thoughts and that very, very blank page or word doc. You might have an idea for the story you want to tell, but what form does that story take? A novel? A short story? An article? Maybe even a blog post? Writing your story []

If you shoot videos for your business or just for fun, its practically inevitable that youll eventually start wanting to up the production values. For most vlog style videos, its not like you need Star Wars-level special effects or anything. But even trying to change out your background digitally with a simple green-screen effect requires []

Ever since their debut in 2016, the audio world has been chasing Apples AirPods. Launched with all the cache of a major Apple product along with its obvious integration with iPhones and iPads and these earbuds were essentially the tech equivalent of a rich kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But the []

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NYT: In times of global shock people help each other, while the elite panic - Boing Boing

Human Behavior

‘Devs’: Every Question (and Theory) We Have for Alex Garland’s Sci-Fi Series – Collider.com

March 15, 2020 medical

Spoilers ahead through Episode 3

Devs, the new sci-fi series from up-and-coming paragon on the genre on the big and small screen Alex Garland, is poised to be the next big water-cooler drama in an era of post-water-cooler television. Episodes of the heady show are available to stream now thanks to the newly launched FX on Hulu streaming channel, but weve already got a ton of questions that we hope Devs will answer. Stay tuned to this post because well be updating it with answers, more questions, and a validity check on our theories along the way.

Devs follows the story of a young software engineer, Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno), who investigates the secretive development division of her employer which she believes is behind the murder of her boyfriend Sergei (Karl Glusman). Devs also stars Nick Offerman, Jin Ha, Zach Grenier, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny and Alison Pill. The new limited series, produced by FX Productions, will attempt to do all this in just eight episodes. But first

*Spoilers ahead*

Image via Miya Mizuno/FX

Our entry point into the world of Devs is Sergei, a gifted programmer who finds himself in way over his head as he gains access to the highly secure and secretive Devs program within the company he works for, Amaya. Sergeis exemplary work had to do with mapping the behavior of a simple nematode into a computer program, to the point that the A.I. was able to predict the creatures behavior to nearly 100% without any direct connections between the two to give feedback. The impressive feat was only hampered by the limitation of a 30-second predictive window, but that was good enough for Forest to invite Sergei into Devs.

However, that wasnt good enough for security chief, Kenton (Grenier). His xenophobic paranoia proved to be correct since Sergei turned out to be a Russian spy tasked with recording whatever was going on in the Devs program. And what exactly that was, well, we still dont know, but Sergeis watch and phone captured enough footage of the code streaming across the Devs monitors to not only entice the Russians but to sign Sergeis death warrant. Its not long at all before Sergei is suffocated to death on the companys campus by Kenton, with Forest and Katie (Pill) complicit in the murder. But why?

Image via Raymond Liu/FX

While waiting for Sergei to come home, Lily can be seen reading a copy of D.F. Jones 1966 sci-fi novel Colossus. And that should be a big, big clue for just whats going on beneath the surface here. The novel tells of the titular super-computer that is given oversight and control of the American nuclear missile armament. Colossus soon links up with a similar super-computer in the Soviet Union, but its using increasingly devious manipulations of human behavior to do so. In the end, Colossus and the super-computers rein supreme even as the humans attempt to subvert them in a multi-year plan, but it seems certain that the computers will out-last them. In the end, the computers final message suggests the futility of humankinds efforts from here on out: In time you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love. Is the point of the Devs program actually a cold war arms race of sorts between humans and super-advanced A.I.? The Devs facility itself resembles a super-sized version of a computer processing unit, so the visuals and the narrative clues certainly point towards this possibility.

My colleague Adam Chitwood has his own theory on this one; it is as follows:

Another possible theory is that the Devs program has discovered that life on Earth is actually a simulation. When Sergei first reads the code, he is tremendously upset. Like, try-to-rip-your-eyes-out-of-your-skull-and-vomit upset. After Forest has Sergei killed, theres a scene in which he and Katie are sitting outside Devs having a conversation. At first it seems like theyre just upset about having to kill Sergei, but the conversation is laced with something deeper. Even more troubling.

What are we supposed to do? Unravel a lifetime of moral experience? Unlearn what has always seemed true? Katie says to Forest. These things, they run deep. Its like whatever we know, the things we feel are still locked inside us. She goes on to draw a parallel to an atheist whose child gets hurt and starts praying, which we learn later relates to Forest having lost his daughter. But could she be talking about how theyre finding it difficult to unlearn this lifetime of moral experience now that they know nothing matters because theyre in a simulation? Did they really kill Sergei if Sergei didnt actually exist to begin with?

Image via Raymond Liu/FX

This thread continues when Forest is talking to Kenton about how he doesnt care about money or the environment anymore. Again, if he knows theyre in a simulation, that would explain why these things dont matter to him right now.

As this theory relates to the end of Episode 2, the backward projection project, are they trying to basically pull up a screengrab from an earlier experience from the simulation? We see them conjure a fuzzy image of Jesus of Nazareth being crucified. What if this isnt a painting or a time travel device? What if its literally like the highlights section on a video game? Adam Chitwood

But theres another possibility. At one point, before Sergeis demise, Forest asks him why he thinks his predictive program falls apart after 30 seconds. Sergei supposes that perhaps the calculations are just too great, that the numbers literally go insane after a certain point; Forest is on board with this theory. When Sergei suggests a separate hypothesis, that this might be a multi-verse problem in which the predicted behavior and the observed behavior actually line up perfectly, just not in this universe, Forest is more skeptical. However, this might be a misdirection. Garland talked about just what scientific concepts interested him in developing the Devs story:

In this case, it was about determinism, but it was specifically about quantum physics. It was about some elements and some implications of quantum physics, to do with interpretations of some strange things, like particles having super positions and one of those interpretations relating to many worlds. To me, those ideas are not dry scientific ideas. Theyre rather poetic, philosophical ideas. As soon as you can get that, then suddenly, the story feels naturally a part of it.

So the whole thing might just be about quantum states after all. Forest comes clean to a senator in the third episode, saying theyre using their quantum system to develop a prediction algorithm of sorts, predicting the weather and things like that. Clearly theres more going on than meets the eye here. And yet, the question remains

Image via FX

The problem with the people who run tech companies they become fanatics and end up thinking theyre messiahs. ~ Lily

Forest is the CEO of Amaya and the lead for the Devs program, but he often feels as if hes resigned to being led along his own invisible tram line rather than fighting against it. For all his quirky charm, he seems very human, vulnerably so. Hes got a visual style that shares much more in common with Pete, the homeless man who lives on Lily and Sergeis apartment steps, than any of his employees or colleagues. He drives an outdated, ecologically insulting car; he lives in a rather pedestrian home that belies just how much hes worth; and he holds onto his traumatic past despite his protests to the contrary. He seems constantly unsure of himself, of what to do next, of what to say, for fear of giving away too much or revealing that, perhaps, he doesnt really know whats going on himself.

Theres a scene between Forest and Katie, after the murder of Sergei, in which he tells her that shes not just smarter than he is, shes wiser, too. (It may be worth mentioning that Katie is often reflected in one of the gold columns in this scene while Forest is seen in the real world.) Later, security chief Kenton checks in on Forest and updates him on the cover-up of Sergeis murder. Kenton shows concern for his own health as he smokes a cigarette and says he should quit, while also showing concern for Forest and his mental state. Forest, however, seems cynically apathetic about both of these things, saying that they simply arent worthy of concern anymore. That lends some more credence to Adams theory. These interactions also paint Forest as an emotional, somewhat irrational, and irreducible man, while Katie and Kenton are, by comparison, rather cold, distant, and calculating, as if theyre trying to understand Forests motivations or control them. For what purpose? Forests own well-being or the success of the Devs program, whatever that may be?

In the backward projections, we get glimpses of Forests daughter Amaya blowing bubbles, the crucifixion of Jesus, the burning of Joan of Arc at the stake, a primitive person leaving a handprint on a cave wall, a shot of the pyramids under construction, a medieval army on the march, a sexual dalliance between Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller, and even Lilys latest act of rebellion against those who are watching her. But what does it all mean? And whats the purpose of it all?

Image via Raymond Liu/FX

Heres where we get a little more Westworld with the whole thing.

The somewhat bloody and quietly brutal fight between Kenton and his Russian counterpart Anton ends with the latters spine-crunching death. The scene itself also puts a wrinkle in our theory that perhaps Kenton is an artificial human in synthetic flesh, so to speak, since he appeared to be wounded and vulnerable in a very human sense. Perhaps, owing to Adams theory, Kenton is actually a security program who is responsible for the integrity of the system and will occasionally have to clash with either rogue programs or invading threats like Anton. Put more simply, perhaps Kenton is the systems anti-virus software.

Katie feels like something different entirely. Or at least she did, up until the third episode. If shes a program, shes a rather human one. Dont break the rules? Coming from her? asks Stewart, incredulously, after Katie catches them watching a very expensive version of nostalgia porn. But Katie is a no-nonsense, by-the-book exec, willing to accept and allow the murder of a spy if it means preserving the integrity of their project. The question remains, however: Is Katie a solid right-hand woman to Forest, just as Kenton is his right-hand man? Or is she actually in charge of more than were being led to believe?

Image via Raymond Liu/FX

Garlands feature debut Ex Machina explored a number of interesting sci-fi themes: Artificial intelligence and whether or not its detectably different from human intelligence at the highest levels, the possibilities and dangers of said A.I., and what a civilization of humans living alongside android A.I. might just look like. Its a showcase of Garlands interests and curiosity at its core; Devs is the evolution of that exploration.

The end of Ex Machina was open-ended: The advanced A.I. unit known as Ava manages to disguise herself convincingly as a human and merges into an unknown city. In our timeline, that was back in 2014, but neither Ex Machina nor Devs has a hard date for its storyline. Could Ava be not just the scaffolding that Amaya was based on but the literal entity behind the scenes of the whole thing?

Were thrown into Devs in the midst of Amayas cutting-edge research without much backstory on just how they got to be where they are. Weve already posited that Katie, Kenton, and the like might be more than meets the eye. Its entirely possible that Garlands Ava will be the Eve to this next generation of synthetic humans. It just remains to be seen whether or not Garland and FX want to go that route and tie the two titles into a shared universe. After three episodes, were not holding our breath for this one, but we are hoping for a brain-twisting reveal that the people we see and the world they live in is much more than it appears so far.

Well be updating this article as the season rolls on, but feel free to share your theories and questions below!

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'Devs': Every Question (and Theory) We Have for Alex Garland's Sci-Fi Series - Collider.com

Human Behavior

Rats May Be Genetically Adapted to New York Living – Smithsonian.com

March 15, 2020 medical

In 2015, a viral video emerged of a rat bouncing down the stairs of a New York City subway station, dragging an entire slice of pizza in its mouth. Pizza rat, as the critter was dubbed, was quickly trumpeted as an emblem of the city. It was determined, it loved pizza, and it was seemingly inured to the grimy depths of the citys transit system. No, there was no doubt about it: This rodent was a New Yorker.

Now, as Robin McKie reports for the Guardian, a new study suggests that the Big Apples rats have in fact undergone genetic changes that make them well-suited to life in the concrete jungleand susceptible to some of the same challenges that are facing humans.

The paper, which has not yet undergone peer review, was published recently on the preprint server bioRxiv. An estimated two million rats scurry about the city, so the researchers behind the study certainly had plenty of subjects to choose from. They just needed to catch the critterswhich they did by luring them into traps filled with bacon, peanut butter and oats.

In total, the team sequenced the genomes of 29 NYC brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) and compared them to DNA samples from brown rats in rural northeast China, which is believed to be the ancestral range of the species. In particular, explains Ewen Callaway of Nature, the scientists were looking for signs of selective sweeps, or the evolutionary process that sees beneficial mutations become prevalent in a given population.

The analysis revealed dozens of genes that showed signs of selective sweeps among the New York rodents, some associated with things like mobility, behavior and diet. These sweeps appeared to be recent mutations that occurred after a split from the ancestral population, which was followed by the rats migration from Asia to Europe and then to America.

While it is difficult, at this point, to draw definitive conclusions about how these genetic quirks have helped rats adapt to city life, the researchers put forth some interesting theories. Some genes, for instance, may be associated with resistance to rodenticide. Another gene that was a plausible target for selection, as the study authors put it, was CACNA1C, which has been linked to psychiatric disorders in humans. Perhaps stresses associated with local predators or other novel stimuli are tweaking the rats DNA, the researchers theorize. Still other genes highlighted by the researchers may impact locomotion in rodents.

This could reflect the fact that urban rats have to move through highly artificial environments that are very different from natural habitats, Arbel Harpak, a population geneticist at Columbia University and the studys lead author, tells the Guardian. So you could argue these gene changes might have evolved to help them move more easily through sewers and pipes.

Another interesting find lay in changes to genes associated with the metabolization of carbohydrates and sugars. Scavenging off the scraps of their human counterparts, urban-dwelling rats are eating increasingly large portions of processed sugars and fats. But like humans, the study authors note, it is possible that rats unhealthy diet makes them susceptible to health issues.

This paper is not the first study to suggest that NYC living has an impact on rats DNA. In 2017, a paper found genetic distinctions among rats in uptown and downtown Manhattan, likely because the rodents tend to stick within a limited home range. Now, the researchers behind the new report want to study rats from other cities, to see if their genomes evolved in similar ways to the NYC rodent population.

It certainly seems possible that rats have been profoundly impacted by life in close proximity to humansas much as humans might not want them around.

We know rats have changed in incredible ways in their behaviour and in their diet, Harpak tells the Guardian, just as human communities have changed.

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Rats May Be Genetically Adapted to New York Living - Smithsonian.com

Human Behavior

3 Ways The CDC Problem Was Evident Long Before 2020 – Science 2.0

March 15, 2020 medical

In 2015 I began to wonder when CDC, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had lost its way. Since I am neither Republican or Democrat, I had to wonder if the Obama administration was the problem, the same way Democrats insist Trump is the problem now.

But where does that end? Did the CDC that mishandled H1N1 in 2009 do so because of Obama? Was SARS 2003 botched because of Bush? Of course not, the issue is bureaucracy creep due to career government employees inside CDC itself, not temporary political appointees like Dr. Robert Redfield, who has become a political pincushion for Democrats despite three decades of HIV research. Meanwhile, Republicans are claiming liberal media is exaggerating coronavirus to hurt Trump this fall.

Credit: CDC

Which side is right? They both are, they just highlight which aspects of the problem helps advance their agenda.

Here are three ways the CDC showed us they were ill-equipped to handle pandemics long before coronavirus:

Food Safety

In January of 2017, CDC warned America that lettuce contained E. coli. Yes, that is important, the problem was that the lettuce they warned us about had been sold in November of 2016. Who kept lettuce in their refrigerator for two months? Just before Thanksgiving in 2018, they scared us again, this time about all Romaine lettuce, but it was based on results from October 8th. Long after the lettuce was eaten or thrown away.

Given such moribund government culture, is it any surprise that when concerns about the 2019 version of coronavirus emerged they sent out test kits with faulty reagents? Or that both CDC and FDA keep independent labs from being able to create these tests and roll them out?

Pre-diabetes

In early 2016 I criticized CDC for spending millions and millions of taxpayer dollars in an effort to convince 86 million Americans already reeling from gigantic increases in health insurance costs that they might have a condition that no one but America recognizes - prediabetes. Basically, CDC picked an arbitrary hemoglobin A1c blood sugar level and put a new name on it. What they ignored is that if their number was valid, not only would 86 million Americans suddenly have a disease, so would 500,000,000 Chinese people. The World Health Organisation refused to recognize CDC's arbitrary number, as did the International Diabetes Federation, because only 5 percent of people with the CDC's a1c number would ever become diabetic in their entire lifetimes. That's clinically irrelevant.

CDC insisted it would spur people to exercise more and eat less, but human behavior says that is not true. The people at risk of type 2 diabetes most often want medicine, not to change behavior. It was just a huge subsidy for drug companies, if we think of it generously, and an effort by CDC employees to grab more funding by "medicalizing" everything if we are more skeptical.

Vaping

In 2015, before Juul was even a brand known by most in the US, CDC began using surveys to claim their was a vaping epidemic in kids. The evidence did not show it, all surveys showed was that at some point a tiny percentage of teens had experimented with vaping pens at some point in the previous year. But CDC chose to frame it as though dose did not matter, any use was the same as an addiction, so they began sounding the alarm.

I noted back then that kids do experiment, and they do rebel, but smoking (the actual killer) was plummeting, including among kids, and nicotine has never killed anyone, so since there were no cases of kids going from vaping to smoking, this was creating perception of a problem that might lead to a real one. I worried that by stodgy government manufacturing a crisis, kids would find it cool and begin to do it to wind up old people. Sure enough, the curve in teen vaping, and revenue for Juul, went way up after that. What had been a smoking cessation, or at least harm reduction, tool for smokers and former smokers became a teen fad. CDC created a prophecy then self-fulfilled it.

Now they say only more CDC websites will fix it. I limited myself to 3 instances but if you are a legitimate pain patient who got lumped in with recreational junkies hooked on fentanyl and now have to be treated like a criminal to not suffer, you can also thank CDC for opioid hysteria.

How to really fix CDC

Some are arguing that CDC needs to be dismantled and rebuilt but that is not realistic. When they added "and Prevention" onto the end of CDC they had unlimited ways to gain more authority and they are not letting it go.

What will help is to have CDC stop being the middleman for everything. CDC does very little original work beyond collating statistics they get from states. But in order for states to send coronavirus data to CDC, CDC's process said states had to wait until CDC sent them tests CDC had re-validated. Why? Even worse, CDC sent tainted ones.

Tests are a simple calibration issue, not a new medical device, coronavirus was categorized before I was even born, so tests from 2019 are going to work. Why did independent labs that wanted to help have to be blocked by government bureaucracy? Government lets shoddy groups like HRI Labs make nonsense claims that they can "detect" glyphosate in breast milk but when it comes to something important, government gets in the way.

Create a protocol and get out of the way

New York State finally told FDA and CDC they were going to let local labs test whether bureaucrats in D.C. liked it or not, so FDA rushed to rubber stamp approval so they could stay highly paid middlemen. But when public health crises erupt, that is just obstructing health strategy. The last thing government wants people to realize is how unimportant middlemen become so it is smarter to create a protocol and any lab that matches it with data can do tests.

No more nonsense where CDC has to block each step of the process to maintain an illusion of importance.

If I want to know data on all 50 states regarding raw milk illnesses, it's fine for CDC to collate that at their leisure. But their slow pace is dinosaur-like in the 21st century. They can't even tell us lettuce is bad within 6 weeks of people vomiting. We are fortunate that COVID-19 is actually quite hard to get. But we are not going to be so fortunate the next time a pandemic hits.

So while the problem is evident and political will is there, it is time to make changes at FDA and CDC. There are scientists inside who want this to happen, they are just not allowed to say anything. Let's find them and put them on the committee.

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3 Ways The CDC Problem Was Evident Long Before 2020 - Science 2.0

Human Behavior

Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and other celebrities with the coronavirus: Here’s why they make pandemic feel ‘more real’ – Yahoo Entertainment

March 15, 2020 medical

Americans already knew the coronavirus was a huge issue with global implications, but the revelation Wednesday that beloved actor Tom Hanks and his actress wife, Rita Wilson, have tested positive for the pandemic particularly affected people who have watched their movies for decades.

As journalist Ann Curry put it on Twitter, OK, now we all have someone we love diagnosed with #coronavirus.

Human behavior expert Patrick Wanis explains that the news about Hanks and any other celebrity can truly affect us, because we feel like were close to them. We have a one-sided relationship with him, keeping up with his family and his milestones, just like we do with our friends.

Tom Hanks is a dearly loved and respected actor and celebrity, and based on who he is on an off camera, we feel very close to him, and we can generally relate to him, Wanis tells Yahoo Entertainment. Therefore, the news that he has Coronavirus makes the virus much more real to each of us, and shatters our perception that celebrities are completely devoid of or immune to the same pains that we all experience. The fact that a celebrity can also contract the virus drives home the reality that no one is truly protected or exempt from a virus that is now labeled as pandemic.

Thankfully, Hanks and Wilsons adult children reassured fans Thursday that their parents are doing well, under the circumstances, and they are expected to make a full recovery.

Another actor, Matthew Broderick, has a close connection to a coronavirus patient: his sister, Janet Broderick, on Thursday shared with the church congregation she leads that shes been diagnosed with the virus.

In the sports world, the NBA suspended its season after two star players on the Utah Jazz, Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, tested positive.

For the latest news on the evolving coronavirus outbreak,follow along here. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please reference theCDCandWHOsresource guides.

This online puzzle game may find a coronavirus treatment – Fast Company

March 14, 2020 medical

Coronavirus, which the World Health Organization has now officially labeled a pandemic, is taking a toll on communities around the world. Theres currently no cure for COVID-19, but scientists are working on drugs that could help slow its spread. Fortunately, citizens can get involved in the process.

Foldit is an online video game that challenges players to fold various proteins into shapes where they are stable. Generally, folding proteins allows scientists (and citizens) to design new proteins from scratch, but in the case of coronavirus, Foldit players are trying to design the drugs to combat it. Coronavirus has a spike protein that it uses to recognize human cells, says Brian Koepnick, a biochemist and researcher with the University of Washingtons Institute for Protein Design who has been using Foldit for protein research for six years. Foldit players are designing new protein drugs that can bind to the COVID spike and block this recognition, [which could] potentially stop the virus from infecting more cells in an individual who has already been exposed to the virus.

First released in 2008, Foldit grew out of an experimental research project developed by the University of Washingtons Center for Game Science along with the Department of Biochemistry. Foldits coronavirus puzzle is the games 1,808th ever. Playerswho can work alone or in teamsare using the games puzzle system to develop new protein structures that can be tested by biochemists in the lab for use in antiviral drugs.

In Foldit, you change the shape of a protein model to optimize your score. This score is actually a sophisticated calculation of the folds potential energy, says Koepnick, adding that professional researchers use an identical score function in their work. The coronavirus puzzles are set up such that high-scoring models have a better chance of actually binding to the target spike protein. Ultimately, high-scoring solutions are analyzed by researchers and considered for real-world use.

Since its inception, over half a million people have created accounts and played Foldit, and over 2,500 players have worked on the games coronavirus puzzles so far.

[Image: courtesy Fold.it]Seth Cooper, the games lead designer and an assistant professor at Northeasterns Khoury College of Computer Sciences, says Foldit was created because the design team figured that people could come up with better solutions than the computer could, and that itd be helpful for people to interact with the 3-D compositions of protein structures to truly understand how they function.

Though these online puzzles werent designed to necessarily address a steadily growing virus such as COVID-19, its become an efficient way to conduct research on the disease safely, at home. I think its really exciting to be able to potentially help out with something like this. . . . Its the kind of thing I think we would have hoped to be able to do [when we started out], Cooper says.

In the past, Foldit players have puzzled together successful synthetic and natural protein structuressuch as ones that helped solve the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus in 2011. Some of the players who are very good at Foldit dont have backgrounds in biochemistry, but the beauty of the games design is that it makes science accessible to laypeople, and it ultimately ends up teaching nonprofessionals a lot. (A handful of Foldit players were credited as authors in a paper Cooper and his colleagues published recently.)

According to Cooper, this solution-based crowdsourcing project is a way to put video games toward a good purpose. When people are playing games, theyre solving problems anyway, so its nice to apply that brainpower to solving problems in the real world.

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This online puzzle game may find a coronavirus treatment - Fast Company

Biochemistry

Automated biochemistry analyzer machine benefits patients and health staff – Kuensel, Buhutan’s National Newspaper

March 14, 2020 medical

Chimi Dema | Tsirang

Although used only a few weeks ago, the new automated biochemistry analyzer machine in Tsirang dzongkhag hospital is benefitting people.

Health officials say the new medical laboratory machine accommodates more samples and provide faster and accurate blood test results and benefits not only the patients but also technicians and other officials who conduct the test.

The hospitals laboratory officer, Tshewang Dorji, said when precise laboratory reports are produced, it helps patients to get timely medicine and better treatment. It also helps to reduce the turn around time for patients.

He also said the machine enhances service delivery as well as saves time. But a proper study needs to be conducted to understand its benefit better.

Tshewang Dorji explained that the semi-auto photometer, which the hospital used for the blood test in the past, could conduct only a few blood test compacts in a day, thus consuming more time. But with this new machine in place, the hospital collects more than 150 samples of blood in a day, accommodating about 50 at a time and taking around half an hour to produce the results.

Meanwhile, the health ministry provided the machine to nine other hospitals in the country.

The machines were installed on reagent rental system, where the ministry buys reagents from the machines company and the company bears machines cost as well as other maintenance charges.

Equipped with the facility to conduct 28 parameters of the blood test, the machine is expected to improve the diagnosis services and treatment services for patients.

Biochemistry

Johns Hopkins invites 1922 applicants to join Class of 2024 – The Hub at Johns Hopkins

March 14, 2020 medical

ByHub staff report

Johns Hopkins University invited 1,922 new students today to join the Class of 2024, which was selected from an applicant pool of 27,256. They'll join the 682 early decision students who were offered admission in December.

The Hopkins Class of 2024 comes from 49 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 41 other countries, including most prominently China, Canada, South Korea, and India.

The Class of 2024 have already demonstrated exceptional academic and personal excellence. Among those offered admission is the CEO of a nonprofit that has raised over $30,000 in scholarship funding to support and empower female aspiring scientists; the cofounder of a magazine for budding high school journalists; a scholar whose research focuses on the ideological strategies used by ISIS to recruit women, and whose findings were shared at a United Nations conference; and the inventor of QuitPuff, a simple test to assess early risk of oral and pre-oral cancer, which won a third grand prize biochemistry award at the International Science and Engineering Fair.

Students who applied regular decision can view admissions decisions online at mydecision.jhu.edu. Notifications were sent out at 3 p.m. today.

Admitted students have until May 1 to accept their spot in the class.

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Johns Hopkins invites 1922 applicants to join Class of 2024 - The Hub at Johns Hopkins