Human Behavior

The coronavirus in winter may be worse than scientists thought – Quartz

A year after the emergence of the disease that has killed 2 million people, humans keep underestimating the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

This winter, Covid-19 is turning out to be even more dangerous than epidemiologists and public health officials had fearedand not just because of the more contagious variants now circling the globe. As recently as October, Nature reported it was too soon to say whether COVID is seasonal like the flu. Evidence hinted that winter weather could increase transmission of the virus: In the lab, the virus persisted under cold, dry conditions and was inactivated by the ultraviolet rays in sunlight.

There was reason to hope that wasnt the case. Coronaviruses, which generally showless seasonal variation than the influenza virus, tend to have a weak response to changing temperatures. Outbreaks such as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2002 were not thought to be seasonal at all, although the outbreak ended too quickly for scientists to definitively test that idea.

Yet SARS-CoV-2 appears to be different. New research on the viruss response to colder temperatures reveals the world may face a bigger fight this winter than expected. People are thinking theyre looking at something like influenza, and its a lot worse, says Richard Carson, a professor in the economics department at the University of California San Diego, who published a preprint in November analyzing Covid-19 death rates as temperatures changed in the early months of the outbreak.A lot of things people were doing in the summer we thought were working was actually hotter temperatures giving the appearance these things were working.

A lot of things people were doing in the summer we thought were working was actually hotter temperatures giving the appearance these things were working.

Carson and his co-authors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Wake Forest University suggest that SARS-CoV-2s reaction to changing temperatures, known as its temperature response curve, may be even more pronounced than influenza, the ultimate seasonal virus.

They arrived atthis conclusion by excavating a unique data set: states death certificate records. Statistics on Covid-19 case counts and deaths in the US are notoriously noisy. Local and state governments do not report standardized data. Labs overwhelmed with tests may delay reporting positive cases long after administering tests. Deaths reported on any given day may have occurred weeks before. All these inaccurate counts stymie attempts to measure temperatures role in transmission rates.

But Carsons team, with experience applying econometric techniques to modeling and forecasting environmental impacts, found a solution in Massachusetts Covid-19 statistics reporting last year. Buried deep in the report was an alternative death count by the date on the death certificate, he said. Once we found it, took us two months to get that data from most of the big states. By pulling dates from death certificates, the team could match trends in Covid-19 deaths against maximum daily temperatures over a three-month period between Apr. 16 and Jul. 15.

According to theresearch(pdf) now undergoing peer review, the data show thevirulence of the virus increases below 31C (88F). Its sweet spot, says Carson, is around 4.4C (40F), but thats only its preferred condition. Temperatures between 5C and 10C (41F to 50F) favor transmission and infection.

The studys model revealed a strong correlation between changing temperatures and the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths from a baseline of 31C, the US mid-summer average. By the time the weather drops to a chilly 5C, the model shows deaths rising by 160% due only to the influence of cold weather, even after controlling for state shelter-in-place orders.

Covid-19 transmissions showed an even stronger effect. Four times more new Covid-19 positive cases are expected when temperatures drop to 5C, assuming no other interventions such as masks or social distancing. Only when temperatures drop a few degrees below freezing, the point when water droplets quickly freeze in the air, do Carson and his team project transmission to slow.

Its a real frightening paper, says Carson. We know the temperature response curve for influenza. This one is much steeper.

For most of the US, sitting in the northern hemisphere, a temperature response curve like this makes for a treacherous winter. Any delay in responding to elevated virus activity, the data imply, will lead to a rapid escalation in cases because of the feedback loop between cold temperature and the viruss exponential growth curve. The patterns of the outbreak in mid-December almost exactly match what the temperature response would predict, says Carson.

Adam Kaplin, a physician and public health researcher at theJohn Hopkins University School of Medicine, was not surprised. Its really hard to see it any other way, he said having reached a similar conclusion in his research recently submitted (pdf)to the journal PLOS ONE. Virus transmission is going to up because of the temperature. Thats clear.

Virus transmission is going to up because of the temperature. Thats clear.

Kaplin analyzed SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates and daily temperature records in 50 countries between January and April 2020, a period before most mask orders took effect, allowinghis international team of researchers to isolate the influence of temperature. They found for each degree temperatures fell between 30F and 100F, the rate of transmission rose 3.7%

If this strong and robust association is correct, the paper states, countries must spend their spring and summer months containing the virus to have any hope of containing winter outbreaks given the effects of decreasing temperatures. This is a race we should have been running a lot earlier, says Kaplin. We should have been way ahead of it. We blew this and many people died who didnt need to die.

Viruses kill millions of people each year, yet we know shockingly little about why their virulence fluctuates from season to season. The flus winter spread is commonly attributed to human behavior patternsstaying inside, where germs spread more easilybut that explanation has been questioned.I dont think youll find a uniform answer to this question, says Joe Eisenberg, chair and professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigans School of Public Health.This research was not prioritized in the past.

Carson was not able to tease out the relative influence of viral biology and human behavior on SARS-CoV-2s response to cold temperatures. His research could only eliminate humidity as a likely factor in transmissibility; temperature and UV light (which fluctuates in lockstep with temperature) were much better at explaining Covid-19 transmission patterns.

But Kaplin thinks the evidence points to a very strong candidate. Its the biology of the virus, he argues. Yes, people are going inside more but its playing much less of a role than biology. Nothing in the scientific literature, he notes, supports the idea that this seasonality is driven by human behavior. In the journal Medical Hypotheses, a 2016 paper could find no evidence that winter crowding drives seasonal viral transmission, noting that time spent indoors in the US changes less than 10% between summer and winter. Evidence in the tropics, where the flu circulates year-round, contradicts this hypothesis, too.

Reducing the transmission rate will mean redoubling mask and social distancing efforts. Now preventative measures must escalate merely to keep the epidemics rate of spread in check.

Its a grim treadmilland were already slipping off. The big policy notion is every week the temperature drops, you have to reduce the effective contact rate to keep the virus in check and prevent exponential growth, says Carson. People arent doing that, and thats why youre seeing those outbreaks.

The big policy notion is every week the temperature drops, you have to reduce the effective contact rate to keep the virus in check and prevent exponential growth.

The new variant adds a wild card to the mix. This new variant is more transmissible, but it may still have a strong seasonal signal, says Eisenberg. We just dont know.

So far, policymakers have waited too long to respond to Covid-19s winter surge. In the UK, cases began piling up again this fall after a brief summer respite. Hospitals warned of a crush with the arrival of colder weather. But national restrictions werent reimposed until Jan. 9, when the healthcare system was already in crisis battling the more contagious variant. Today, the UKs per capita death rate from Covid-19 is among the highest in the world and more than 40,000 Covid-19 patients are hospitalized, roughly double last years peak.

The US is in even worse shape. The country never got the pandemic under control. Although transmission slowed over the summer, the virus has come roaring back. The US now accounts for 20% of the worlds Covid-19 deathsdespite having less than 5% of its populationand is on track to reach 600,000 deaths in 2021. The only immediate solution is to establish herd immunity before next winter through a mass vaccination campaign that reaches more than 70% of the population. If the pandemic continues to spiral out of control, far more deaths will be unavoidable.

But we can prevent this winter from getting even worse, say Eisenberg. The public health measures were already taken need to ramp up if were going to keep SARS-CoV-2 in check. It intensifies our recommendations, he says, but doesnt change our recommendations.

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Human Behavior

3 Explosive IPO Stocks to Buy in 2021 – Motley Fool

2020 was a record year for initial public offerings (IPOs), with 480 companies going public on U.S. stock exchanges, and more stocks doubling in their first day of trading than ever before. 2021 is on track to be another huge year for IPOs, and some innovative companies making public market debuts could go on to deliver tremendous returns.

With that in mind, we asked three Motley Fool contributors to profile a recent or upcoming IPO stock that looks primed to be a big winner. Read on to see why they identified PubMatic (NASDAQ:PUBM), Instacart, and Coinbase as IPO stocks that are poised for explosive performance this year.

Image source: Getty Images.

Keith Noonan(PubMatic):Digital advertising is at the heart of the internet experience. Nearly every media site and social media platform that doesn't exclusively rely on subscriptions is built around advertising, and tech giants including Alphabet and Facebook have built massive tech empires on the foundation of strong digital ad units.

The digital advertising revolution is still at a relatively early stage, and PubMatic is a promising player that could wind up delivering huge returns for patient shareholders. The programmatic advertising specialist had its initial public offering on Dec. 8, and its share price has climbed roughly 25% since market close on the day of its debut. The stock still offers explosive upside.

Data analytics and artificial intelligence technologies are revamping the way advertising campaigns are targeted and deployed, giving companies the opportunity to track real-time data results and pivot targeting on a dime. Internet media and commerce revolves around grabbing and holding attention, and PubMatic provides a cloud software platform that makes it easy to connect ad buyers and publishers and track up-to-date info on whether campaigns are effective.

Big names including Forbes, Microsoft, and Unity Softwarealready rely on PubMatic's solutions, and the advertising specialist has big room for growth as it brings new customers on board its platform and delivers results that encourage increased spending per client. With a market capitalization of roughly $1.8 billion, PubMatic is still in small-cap territory and even smaller wins amid a backdrop of momentum for its industry niche could translate to big stock gains.

Jamal Carnette (Instacart): Talk about a delivery markup: Last year soon after taking a private round of funding at a $17.7 billion valuation, on-demand grocery delivery company Instacart shocked investors by announcing it had entered a deal with Goldman Sachs to go public early in 2021 at an estimated value of $30 billion. In the long run, the company will likely be worth significantly more than that figure.

Instacart benefited from the pandemic, as the service was able to take online grocery market share away from Walmart during the lockdown. However, it's folly to believe the bearish argument there will be mass exodus when we return to normal as this doesn't account for human behavior. Much like e-commerce, once users discover the convenience of online grocery delivery, they tend to continue or at least adopt a hybrid shopping model.

The online grocery market is quickly resembling the e-commerce market of 10 years ago and battle lines are being drawn now. Amazon is moving forcefully to build out distribution centers and Amazon Fresh stores that double as critical last-mile delivery centers. Target and Walmart spent big to beef up their e-commerce operations: Walmart acquired Jet for $3 billion in 2016 and Target acquired Shipt for $550 million in 2017.

If the remaining grocers are looking to compete against behemoths in this space quickly, cheaply, and at scale, there's no better solution than Instacart. Keep an eye on this IPO.

Joe Tenebruso (Coinbase): Bitcoin is once again making headlines after its price soared to new all-time highs above $40,000. If you'd like to profit from bitcoin's popularity -- without the risks of investing directly in cryptocurrency -- buying Coinbase's stock could be a great way to do so.

The leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchange is prepping for its stock market debut. Coinbase's initial public offering will reportedly take place as early as February, in what's widely expected to be one of the biggest IPOs of the year.

Coinbase is no doubt benefiting from the rising interest in bitcoin and other digital assets among investors. Trading volumes tend to increase along with prices, which, in turn, boost profits for exchanges.

With bitcoin becoming a more accepted investment among hedge funds and family offices now that respected investors -- such as Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller -- have added the cryptocurrency to their widely followed portfolios, trading volumes are likely to rise even further in the coming months. Coinbase's revenue and earnings could thus be poised to soar. All of this bodes well for Coinbase's upcoming IPO, which is likely to be well received by professional and individual investors alike.

Early valuation estimates for Coinbase vary widely. Crypto market analysis company Messari valued the exchange at $28 billion in December, while recent reports have Coinbase's market value reaching as high as $75 billion. Coinbase's final IPO price will be determined after more investors have had the opportunity to peruse its as-yet-undisclosed financials. But based on what we do know, if Coinbase's IPO settles at the lower end of that price range, its stock could be an attractive buy for long-term investors.

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Human Behavior

Revolutionizing the future of Human-Machine-Interaction – ARY NEWS

Do you remember the Minority Report? Imagine you arrive home and you enter your bedroom: Widgets fly around enabling the control of your IoT devices, feeding you with relevant information, and providing you with data-driven action proposals for the start of your weekend.

According to Incari HMI Development Platforms CEO Osman Dumbuya it wont take 2054 until most people control their devices in mid-air. His company created an HMI development platform that forces HMI design from the backrooms of highly specialized teams of engineers, developers, and technicians to the toolkit of every creative.

But what is this HMI and what kind of challenges does it impose?

Human-machine-interface refers to every kind of configuration that integrates the interaction between human behavior and technological devices. These arrangements have a long history going back to the pre-industrial age when the first machines were created and the requirement to command and control them arose. Following the enhancing performance of technological innovations, we could observe an increasing interdependency between them and their human counterparts. While the mechanical fabrications had initially been concocted to solve human problems, technological problems became human problems and called for enhanced usability to handle the continuously increasing complexity of the human-machine-entanglements.

With the uprise of the mass-market computer age, mankind rapidly advanced in creating new ways of human-machine interaction. Buttons and punch-cards turned into keyboards and were made accessible to the mainstream by Amiga and Spectrum. In 1984 it was the Macintosh from Apple that displayed its functionalities through a graphical user interface and came along with the mouse as the primary input device. Only one year later the first Nintendo Entertainment System arrived and opened new realities that interacted through a ramified system comprising your hands, the controller, the TV, and most likely your cohabitants. Nowadays touchscreens, voice-controlling technologies, and motion control have become everyday standards in mass-market human-machine interfaces. For the upcoming decades, one of the central goals of human-machine interface manufacturing will target the development of brain-computer interfaces that will be commanded through the sheer power of your mind.

The user interface of the future wont be just on screens. Paul Jankowski, Lead of Business Development from Incari platform states. Working in an environment that is rapidly revolutionizing human behavior calls for a different approach when thinking about development. That is why Incaris scope is not limited to the user interface design but focused on the greater effort of creating a unique and user-centred experience. Whether it is the latest haptics technology, voice and gesture control, AR/VR/SR, 3D audio, eye tracking or stereoscopic displays, companies like Incari collaborate with the biggest innovators of future HMI technologies to create a seamless interplay of upcoming innovations long before the respective hardware arrives. For this purpose, Incari provides the bricks to create connectivity, a set of integrated, predefined nodes that are ready-to-use plug-ins and are continuously reworked along with the evolution of the corresponding technologies.

Already known in the German Automotive industry for its modular architecture that streamlines the cross-department-collaboration during recent years Incari HMI Development has evolved as the platform to connect and conduct the orchestra of the multifarious instruments that create the unique symphony of your individual environment. Back in the days, CGI Studio GmbHs Incari started with HMI projects for Porsche and Volkswagen until they decided to create their one-stop solution for the entire HMI-production process. Ever since Incari has been adopted by more and more German car manufacturers for the future-proof technology it provides. Today HMI creation is simplified through their native 3D engine and the visual coding that allows designers to work on content in the same window as their colleague engineers who program the connectivity of different components. Incari is one of the platforms that provide the opportunity of a visual coding editor that enables the coding without writing a single line of code.

What will the future of HMI bring?

Rooted in the automotive industry, due to its special needs for innovative and secure connectivity solutions HMI platforms are spreading out to all areas of life. Years ago companies like Incari already blurred the disciplinary boundaries in the HMI development processes. Today they continue to smudge the boundaries between human and non-human-activity to simplify the operation of our devices as well as our lives. Tomorrow there will likely be an operating system, specifically designed to interconnect the multifariousness of immersive technologies, which will not only circulate through automotive, medical devices and engineering processes but is easy to use and affordable enough to become the futures every-day standard for basically everyone.

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Human Behavior

Work for success and work for satisfaction – Daily Excelsior

Prof. A.N. SadhuHuman life is a long journey. It involves a bodily effort to sustain oneself along the time path from birth to death. The evolution of human society necessitates an organized form of physical and mental activity to bring about sustainability and scientific advance for exploration and enhancement of quality of life that humans need to work, both, on mental and physical front is a natural requirement. The human activity may be categorized as work for success and work for satisfaction. People do work out of necessity. They also work for status progression as also for economic progression. Obviously, their focus is on work for success. Human nature and necessities of life demand that people should work to fit in the social system evolved over time. Normal human behavior would warrant that people work for success. This is necessitated by the requirement of sustaining self and family besides meeting other desirable and unavoidable expenditures in everyday life. The distinction between work for success and work for satisfaction may look philosophical and spiritual but, in real life, it is distinct on humanitarian principles. However, people born with silver spoon, do also work for physical fitness and robust health. They hardly realize either the necessity or the desirability of distinguishing between work for success and work for satisfaction. Their lack of this understanding on the one hand and the clout of a rich legacy on the other, makes them a social liability. They consume their capital at the cost of their future.The work for success is a normal human behavior. Career advancement and urge for recognition is a natural instinct. What is important is the means adopted for success. It is observed that if success alone is set as a goal for work people may adopt dubious ways to scale up the ladder of success and their work may be more pretentious than substantial. The poor content of their work is often camouflaged by sycophancy and it sells well in the mediocre officialdom. Substance takes the backseat against the salesmanship and showoff resulting into, many a times, people succeeding in selling barley for wheat. Unfortunately, the developing countries that emerged after the World War II have fallen in this trap. Success as a goal is a natural instinct but it should be pursued legitimately. The goal should be achievable within the means of hard and sincere work, honest handling of the assigned roles and skillful management for public good. Frequent scandals, that surfaced in the developing countries in the recent past have betrayed the public faith in the systems that have been evolved overtime. These tendencies could perhaps have been minimized if not eliminated had people set their goals not only for success but for satisfaction as well. Work for success is exclusive while as work for satisfaction is inclusive in character.The work ethos demands that one should work for satisfaction which automatically includes work for success as well. The exclusivity of work for success may tend to be devoid of ethics and result into corruption- both mental and material. Such a work is carried out in violation of basic principles of humanity; truth, honesty, commitment and sincerity in work. This restricts the evolution of healthy practices in the individual organizations as also in the overall systems of a nation. Success should be an honest pursuit which will lead a person highly satisfied at the end of the day. This success should not be stolen by cheating, it should come of its own as a reward for honest work. Work and morality should go together; that culminates in the work for satisfaction. Success through dubious means may be devoid of satisfaction and cause lot of regret in the long run.Work for satisfaction demands missionary zeal, sublime temperament and commitment to serve the society with higher ideals. Vivekananda has said that life is to be helpful to others and it is death not to be helpful to others. Work for satisfaction implies that it should not be only self-serving it should be serving the society as well. The work for satisfaction is self-realization at a higher pedestal. Attachment to cause and detachment from worldly temptations is a prerequisite of work for satisfaction. Look within to realize the essence of life. Dont assess yourself; let others do it. The work for satisfaction emanates from the environment one creates for oneself which in turn requires that people around you are happy because of your work and not that you alone are happy because of the work that you do. Work for satisfaction would also require that besides enhancing your competence, you also promote your social quality. Speak to enlighten, work to help and think to elevate yourself in comprehending the subtilities of social domain. One should not belong to the sole but to the whole. The work leading to ones success brings a smile on his face but the work leading to satisfaction brings a smile to the society. Men should remember; they belong to the society and do not live in isolation.If in an organization you are given a responsible position, the rest will look at you as a leader and leader is one who supervises, guides and transforms his team of workers into an asset. The leader does not command he only inspires. The motivation is a strong force to cultivate the spirit of teamwork. The satisfaction of work lives with the performer on everlasting basis when the success does not live beyond a point of time. Men in the lasting memory of the world have all worked for satisfaction and not for success alone. History is replete with stories of outstanding persons who worked throughout their life for satisfaction and success followed them and made them the men of all times such as Vivekananda and others.feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com

The Leading Daily of Jammu and Kashmir , India

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Human Behavior

UC Berkeley & Embee Mobile Research Reveals Insights into Personal Beliefs and Behaviors, and Economic Impact, During the COVID-19 Pandemic -…

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Embee Mobile, the company that builds and manages unique mobile-based insight communities, and the University of California Berkeley, announced a COVID-19 research brief titled "The Changing Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Individuals and Households in the U.S." reveals insights into two key areas - pandemic behaviors and attitudes, and the economic impact of the pandemic. The research challenges existing, singularly focused research by instead examining the interrelatedness of human behaviors, institutional actions, personal beliefs, and health outcomes.

"The preliminary data from our COVID-19 research suggests there's an axis of pain and an axis of non-compliance," said Raja Sengupta, a professor at UC Berkeley and director of its Smart Pandemic Management Group "People suffering economically suffer in other ways, as with a group of people who are being so disproportionately hurt as we speak that they are in desperate need of immediate and substantive relief. This data should be used to better target stimulus need beyond just income, taking the other economic indicators into consideration such as instability in housing, dependence on transit, and the absence of wealth."

Sengupta continues, "The data also suggests an axis of non-compliance in pandemic behavior, in which those who are non-compliant in one way, are non-compliant in many ways. This explains why pandemic management is more effective when done with community organizations that know their community. Perhaps a small group of people spread the disease by being vulnerable behaviorally, or by virtue of their work and housing. To hunt the virus, you have to understand the people in your community and our research will help communities do this."

No Masks, Attending Events, and Refusal to Get Vaccinated Are Related Behaviors Ten months into the pandemic and the issue of wearing masks is still a hot-button issue in various areas across the country. 52% of the panelists admitted to not always wearing masks as recommended by public health officials. The impact of simply not wearing a mask is compounded when we take the beliefs and behavior of this group into consideration. Not only are non-mask wearers traveling significantly more than mask-wearers, but this group of people is:

Conservatives More Likely to Take Health Risks During the Pandemic Overall, 21% of the panelists identify as conservative, while moderates make up 40% of the panel. Looking specifically at those who identify as conservative, we can see they are more likely to take risks with their health, and the health of others, during the pandemic due to their behavior and beliefs, as compared to other panelists. This group of people is:

Insights Into the 34% Who Push Back on COVID-19 Vaccination Prior to the pandemic one of our most divisive health issues was vaccination and its potential risks, and it has carried over into conversations about the various COVID-19 vaccines that are now being administered. The willingness to get vaccinated has decreased between the August and October surveys, as 30% initially reported they would definitely be getting vaccinated with this number later dropping to 20%. In total, more than one-third (34%) of panelists reported that they will not likely get a COVID-19 vaccine. This group of people is:

It's a Grim Outlook for Those Who Can't Endure the Pandemic's Economic Impact More than one out of every five panelists (22%) report that they could no longer endure the negative economic impact that the pandemic has had on their lives. Alarmingly, things will only get worse for this group with homelessness, depression, and the breakdown of household relationships coming into play. This group of people is:

More Households are Moving Residences and for Reasons of Economic Precarity While the news may report that many are moving out of large metropolitan areas to areas where they can have more space, the reality is that more households are moving for reasons of economic precarity. The national average for moving is 10% annually according to the U.S. Census Bureau, yet 12% of panelists said they have moved since the pandemic began in March 2020. This group of people is:

Transit Cuts Tied to Decreased Income, Decreased Elder Care for Vulnerable Households With more people working from home due to the pandemic and no longer commuting, cuts to public transportation have followed. Unfortunately, those who are affected by transit cuts - many of whom are seeking employment - become more vulnerable in a number of ways. Fifteen percent of panelists report they are impacted by transit cuts and this group of people is:

UC Berkeley and Embee Mobile expect to continue collecting and processing data to provide additional insights on pandemic management, behavior, and impacts as the pandemic continues.

The full report can be accessed here and here.

Research Approach UC Berkeley has found Embee Mobile's panel of individuals valuable. This is a panel that has been curated to cover multiple states and to represent diversity in demography, political belief, exposure to news sources, housing conditions, and employment status. UC Berkeley and Embee Mobile began piloting this method in August 2020 with a panel of 1,000 individuals. The data in this research was collected between August 2020 and October 2020. The most comprehensive forms of active and passive measurement were used. Passive data collection occurs via smartphone applications and includes browser searches, app use, and travel both before and during the pandemic. The passive data is complemented by an active survey platform with smartphone alerts to drive high engagement. A database of mandates by public agencies has also been created as it is necessary for the research.

About Embee Mobile Embee Mobile is a privately-held, San Francisco-based technology company that builds and manages fully opt-in and privacy-compliant mobile-based insight communities, enabling its clients some of the biggest consumer research companies and brands in the world to gain rapid, accurate insights into the behaviors and experiences of mobile device users worldwide. Embee Mobile's combination of ground-breaking measurement technologies and transparent, ethical panel methodologies provide deep, longitudinal insights otherwise unavailable through traditional panel methods. For more about Embee Mobile visit http://www.embeemobile.com.

About UC Berkeley The University of California Berkeley is a public research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the state's first land-grant university it's the oldest campus of the University of California system and a founding member of the Association of American Universities. UC Berkeley is comprised of 14 colleges and schools and offers over 350 various degree programs and enrolls some 31,000 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students. Berkeley is ranked among the world's top universities by major educational publications.

This press release was issued through 24-7PressRelease.com. For further information, visit http://www.24-7pressrelease.com.

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Human Behavior

Alan Tudyk on Kissing Heath Ledger and Why He Believes in Aliens – The Daily Beast

Harry Vanderspeigle, the hero of Syfys newest comedy, Resident Alien, is a totally normal guy. The local doctor for the tiny, sleepy town of Patience, Colorado, he likes to spend his time fishing and going for treks out on the nearby frozen slopes, and watching Law & Order re-runs.

Theres just one catch: Hes actually an alien on a mission to kill all of humanity. Hes fishing for the corpse of the actual Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle, which accidentally fell into the lake after Alien Harry murdered him to assume his likeness. He hikes mountains because he needs to find his spaceship, which crash-landed before he could drop his murderous payload. And the Law & Order re-runs are actually his study materials; after all, what better way to learn normal human behavior than by mimicking Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston?

Alan Tudyks delightfully idiosyncratic repertoire makes him one of the only actors on Earth one can imagine pulling off such a roleand, indeed, he makes a whole meal out of it across the seven episodes made available to critics before Syfy premieres the show on Jan. 27.

Its a fun challenge for him to be likable if hes here to kill us all, the actor said of his character during a recent interview with The Daily Beast. And the way hes likable is because even though hes so advanced, hes stupid when it comes to humans.

For those wondering: Yes, Tudyk does believe in aliens. On Resident Alien creator Chris Sheridans recommendation, he pored over Communion: A True Storythe 1987 book written by UFOlogist and horror author Whitley Strieber, who claims to have recovered memories of his own abductions after hypnosis. (In 1989, Philippe Mora adapted the book into a film starring Christopher Walken.) Tudyk is effusive in his recommendation: Oh my God! Read that book, he said. Its disturbing as hell.

But its not just books that have convinced Tudyk; hes heard some credible stories, as well.

For instance: a news report from his home state of Texas, where a man named Roy gave testimony about his run-in with a UFO. (I thought I was going to shoot it, and I thought, Why? Tudyk paraphrased in a perfect Texan drawl. No point in shooting it, so I didnt.)

I believe it, 1,000 percent, Tudyk said. I know people like Roy, and they dont lie about stuff like that. Theres no purpose to it.

Another real-life encounter Tudyk has heard about? Chris Sheridan also told him he saw a UFO on his own honeymoon. I mean, hes not as legitimate a witness as Roy, Tudyk quipped, but I believe him, too. Why not?

But unlike most aliens, who seem to visit Earth only fleetingly in these stories, Harry is stuck here on Earth. And despite his dedication to his studies at the Law & Order School of Human Behavior, he doesnt exactly fit in with his Colorado neighbors. His smile is unnerving, and his laugh is unhinged; despite being a doctor, he doesnt realize that tits is not the preferred term for breasts in a medical setting; and speaking of mammary glands, he likes to drink his milk straight from the cows teat.

The first few episodes of Resident Alien find Tudyk knee-deep in physical comedy, and as the series progresses, Harrys relationships with other humans provide some emotional texture to complement his many comedic faux pas. But even as Harry bonds with some of his fellow Patience residentsparticularly his colleague Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko) and her high school friend, local bartender Darcy (Alice Wetterlund)he never abandons his mission. Humanity must be destroyed.

Somehow, most of the people of Patience completely fall for Harrys acteven if they think hes kind of a weirdo. But there is one exception to that rule: a mischievous young boy named Max who can somehow see through Harrys disguise. Pint-sized actor Judah Prehn plays the precocious little squirt, whose feud with his extraterrestrial neighbor quickly becomes one of the shows most reliable punchlines.

Hes always a step ahead of me, the little shit! Tudyk said with a laugh. Its something that we carried off-set, poking at each other... Im always getting in trouble because I keep swearing around him.

Theres already a swear jar on set, which Tudyk has quickly filled over and over again. I thought Id learn fast; I did not learn fast, the actor said. And he learned how to make money.

When asked how one prepares to play an extra-terrestrial, Tudyk cited a couple influences. He noted that his past experience playing robots helped a bit; their tendency toward ergonomic movement, he reasoned, could also apply to aliens whose primary motivation is efficiency. But the real key to cracking Harry as a character came from another source entirely: clowns.

Tudyk took his first clowning class with Christopher Bayes during his Juilliard days in the 1990sand returned to the director for another clowning intensive in Los Angeles before he started shooting Resident Alien.

Im a huge proponent of clowns.

Im a huge proponent of clowns, the actor said. Now, a lot of people are down on the clowns. They think It, they think maybe that creepy clown in Venice Beach that wears dirty white makeup and makes very suggestive balloon animals... Thats not the clown Im talking about.

The clowns Tudyk is talking about are those from the European Lecoq school of clowning; the Bill Irwin and Charlie Chaplin types, and even Wall-E. That is one of the best clown stories, Tudyk said of the Pixar flick. That first portion of Wall-E is all clown.

As for how it helped him play an alien, Tudyk said, One principle of clowning is that clowns are what you would get if you never told a child no. That curious, rambunctious child that doesnt know where any of the lines are drawn... That is, in a lot of ways, how Harry operates.

Harry isnt the only oddball character Tudyk will play on Syfy in the coming weeks, either. On Feb. 6, Syfys animated series Devil May Care will also premierewith Tudyk at its center playing Satan.

The show, which takes its cues from classic Adult Swim animation, is built around the idea that everything that is useless on Earth ends up in hell. The Devil isnt so much a villain, Tudyk explained, but instead just a guy who wants to make the underworld a better destination. He doesnt want to do all that torture stuff anymore; he just wants it to be a fun place, Tudyk said. Its full of monsters and demonsand torture here and there, but people seem to enjoy the torture.

And as much as Tudyk has to look forward to this year, 2021 also marks a fascinating time to look back on one of his earliest hits, as A Knights Tale turns 20 in May.

In a distinctly pre-2010s recollection, Tudyk noted that the entire cast brought cameras with them throughout filming in the Czech Republic, and spent the duration of the shoot taking photos on set and in precarious pedi-cabs. He remembers one snapshot in particular: a selfie star Heath Ledger took during the scene in which Tudyks character, Wat, delivers a kiss from Jocelyn, Ledgers character Williams love interest.

When we rehearsed it, Heath took the camerahe had this little Leica cameraand as I kissed him, and [as] Im just pulling away to spit because Wat spits, Heath took the picture... Hes staring at the camera with this little, bitty, wry smile. Its a great picture he took of the two of us.

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Alan Tudyk on Kissing Heath Ledger and Why He Believes in Aliens - The Daily Beast

Human Behavior

Thoughts from former Board of Elections administrator | News, Sports, Jobs – Morning Journal News

To the editor:

As a retired elections administrator for the Columbiana County Board of Elections this is a communique that I thought I would never consider to write with reference to the non-stop nonsense of how fraud and ballot tampering occurred nationwide in the last election. The false narratives keep looping through the social media and in some public medias.

In this Great Experiment we as citizens must accept tht democracy is fragile, and all of us need to keep alert and working to protect, preserve and keep it functioning as tritely stated elections have consequences. Our Founding Fathers disagreed on aspects of the Constitution from the start as George Washington recognized that differences of opinion will always be present in America, but he had stated that public service should always be conducted with civility with regard to influencing facts of racial, economic, social, regional and political differences. The ugly truths brought us the Civil War.

The hanging chad punch card debacle in Florida in 2000 was the watershed to look at voting systems that would have a greater trustworthiness and reliability.

In the summer of 2005, I, John Payne was asked by Ohio Secretary of State (SOS) Ken Blackwell, along with one other director of elections to serve on a task panel in Columbus with SOS staff to examine and evaluate various voting systems to eventually replace the punch card voting system in Ohio.

I was honored by humbled to serve as this was a significant task placed upon me and the other director as we served on the front line of elections while looking into the future of what was going to happen in Oho to move all 88 counties into new options on voting systems. The task panel spent days in a secure room in the SOS Office Complex critiquing various touch screens and optical scan voting systems.

My personal recommendation was to go with the optical scan because it provided a paper ballot and paper trail that could be counted and verified in the unlikely events a scanner in a polling place would fail.

As a result, the secretary of state permitted each county the option to select the optical scan or the touch screen voting system. In my evaluation I recognized an uneasy feeling with the touch screen as votes were recorded on a cash register paper tape inside the machine, and in my opinion it would be cumbersome to physically unroll a tape for a recount. I may add that after some counties went with touch screen they still had to print ballots for absentees and precincts. There was no cost savings.

Upon my return from the task panel from Columbus, I recommended that Columbiana County contract with an optical scan voting system, which the board saw as the most appropriate option.

My concern: Some of the social media sectors are inveighing about the 2020 election that there was a systematic ballot tampering and voting software manipulation across the county. One would have to have a willing suspension of disbelief to believe the Democratic and Republican election officials in 3,143 counties and the District of Columbia would communicate sub rosa to coordinate to rig an election to favor any candidate or issue on a ballot.

Get real as that aint going to happen. My years of experience with election officials in other Ohio counties an in other states has been one of trust, professionalism, transparency, and being forthright in the dedication and honoring the oath that all of have taken to support the Constitution and the laws of our respective states. The odds that Ds and Rs would use concerted efforts to corrupt the programming of a voting system would be like me climbing up Pikes Peak and have an eagle flying overhead to open his talons to drop a salmon on my head.

Free and fair elections are the lifeblood of democracy. Computer programming for elections and ballot layout go through multiple checkpoints by both political parties in Ohio in compliance with rules and regulations of the state in preparation for each local, state and federal election. Audits and test runs are conducted before an election to verify for each precinct the completeness and accuracy of ballot layout for spelling, wording, grammar, and legal language before getting the final approval by the Ohio Secretary of State. Draft printed ballots are fully examined for proper precinct rotation by multiple people before setting the green light for printing. Ballots are safely secured in the board office. Absentee applications are recorded and safely stored. The board advertises for a public demonstration of the current ballot counting procedure before every election for public viewing.

It has been my observation and experience that voting is largely an emotional response on how the individual voter expresses an opinion, feeling and/or belief toward or against a candidate or issue. Political polarization is now very much in the open and rampant, but it has always been in the U.S. Since the Constitution was written over different perceptions on the elements inside the wording of the document. There are literally thousands of books and research papers written on human behavior and psychological framework, and belief system along with the day-to-day coping skills of life.

Psychologists report that people want to view and live in a world that is predictable rather than chaotic. That being said people have the tendency to perceive what is complex and/or wrong to shift into what satisfies their particular bias and control. Reactions to a perceived fear is a motivation for seeking control to fit to extinguish the fear they perceive.. The book Hillbilly Elegy is a classic account in human study. Some people refuse to see the truth and that is why there is a Flat Earth Society in the U.S. Today.

There are sectors of the social media touching nerves to dispute the results of the 2020 election nationwide. There are charges of fraud in voting, and I can state in my 14 years as an election official in Columbiana County there is not one case or issue with voter fraud. On Election Day, I always stated the county had the best detective agency working the poll as hundreds of poll workers, who did not let anything like fraud to occur as the collective group, knew about every voter who came to vote. Provisional ballot were issued if there was a doubt, but voters did get the opportunity to vote.

Social media has been a two-edged sword for truth and lies as falsehoods flow like an open hydrant at times. We will always be a country of differences, but it is imperative to be critical thinks to ferret out the lies. It has been shown that if a lie is told many times and not consistently debunked it has a way of being rationalized and accepted to reduce a fear. While there are proven cases where foreign entities have visited voter registration records, there is absolutely no way anyone can hack a voting system in Ohio because they are not on the internet. We need to establish institutional trustworthiness.

It was an honor to serve with the Columbiana County Board of Elections as I extend my appreciation to the past and present board members as well to Lois Gall, Jan Mollenkopf, Mary Appeldorn and Mary Alice Cupp.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge stated that, in politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

JOHN H. PAYNE,

Madison Township

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Human Behavior

Will the Pandemic Result in More Suicides? – The New York Times

Even before we entered this darkest of winters, when Covid-19 is relentlessly causing more and more sickness and death not to mention additional stress, isolation and economic pain there was evidence suggesting that significantly more people have thought about ending their lives during the pandemic than in recent years. In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the results of a nationwide survey conducted during the last week in June: More than 40 percent of those who responded reported symptoms of anxiety or depression or increased substance use, in addition to other struggles. And more than 10 percent said that they had seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days, compared with just over 4 percent who said the same thing in 2018 and who were referring to suicidal ideation over the previous 12 months. We want to know, who is most at risk from suicide in the pandemic, says Paul Nestadt, a psychiatrist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who was not involved in the survey. And yet, he adds, we wont know until its mostly over. Thats because it can take a year or two for the C.D.C. to collect and analyze national mortality data.

To try to get a sense of what might be happening now, Nestadt and colleagues looked at data from Maryland, a much smaller sample. The total number of suicide deaths from January to early July, 236, was actually lower than it was during the corresponding periods in the previous three years. When they looked at the data for Black and white suicide deaths separately, however, starkly different trends emerged. From March 5, when Maryland announced its first Covid cases and declared a statewide emergency, until May 7, when public spaces began to reopen, the number of suicide deaths among Black residents doubled compared with an average of the same period during the preceding three years; deaths among white residents fell by nearly half. Similar shifts have been observed in Connecticut and Chicago.

The data cant say whether the pandemic or any other factor caused those changes. But these results highlight how the experiences of vulnerable groups can be missed unless researchers look for them specifically. As Sean Joe, who is the director of the Race and Opportunity Lab at Washington University in St. Louis and who studies suicide among Black people in the United States, puts it, You cant assume the overall trend describes whats happening with all Americans.

Suicide may be the most difficult human behavior to study. Its relatively rare, meaning that mortality data can typically be broken down only into fairly broad categories like race and gender before the sample size possibly becomes too small to reveal clear patterns. Researchers can talk with people who have attempted suicide, but they may be categorically different from those who complete it. In the United States, women are more likely to attempt suicide, for instance, but men are more likely to die by it. Many more people contemplate suicide than act on those thoughts.

Novel ways of studying the behavior in experimental settings include giving participants the ability to choose suicide in virtual-reality simulations, which has been found safe. But to date, what we know about suicide comes primarily from in-depth psychiatric interviews with those close to the deceased and from national statistics. Such figures show that suicide rates over all have risen by about 30 percent in the United States during the past two decades. But an analysis of 50 years of research published in Psychological Bulletin in 2017 found that when it comes to warning signs that doctors or laypeople can use to determine whether someone is in imminent danger mood changes, say, or a history of self-harm any risk factor that we thought might be particularly useful is only marginally better than a coin flip, says Jessica Ribeiro, an author of the analysis and assistant professor of psychology at Florida State University. A similarly comprehensive 2020 analysis in the same journal by Ribeiro and her colleagues found that current interventions, including help lines, therapy, medicine and hospitalization, though they work for some, appear to reduce suicidal behavior by only about 9 percent across the board.

Looking at national data in more detail paints an even more complicated picture of those most at risk and thus how to reach them. Among white Americans, men age 45 and older are most likely to die by suicide. Because white Americans have the countrys highest suicide rate, the aggregate data implies its a problem that largely affects older people. But among Black Americans, those most likely to die by suicide are men between 25 and 34. And while the age group most at risk has remained roughly the same for white people in recent decades, Sean Joe says, it has been getting younger and younger for Black people. In 2018, a study in JAMA Pediatrics found that suicide rates increased for Black children between 5 and 11 in the periods from 1993 to 1997 and from 2008 to 2012. The rate decreased for their white counterparts. One of the myths thats challenging is that children do not die by suicide, Joe says. And they do.

Jan. 24, 2021, 5:31 p.m. ET

The biggest question, and the hardest to answer, is why. What factors cause some persons to kill themselves when far more in the same demographic and living in similar conditions do not? There are many subgroups whose members have an elevated risk of suicide, including the L.G.B.T.Q. community, Native Americans, military personnel and people experiencing a psychiatric illness. And the disproportionate burden of Covid may have created or illuminated others. In the C.D.C. survey, more than 30 percent of those who identified as unpaid caregivers for adults said they had seriously considered suicide in the past month, almost three times the overall average; so did more than one in four 18-to-24-year-olds and more than one in five essential workers. But these sorts of categories are only predictors, not causal mechanisms, Ribeiro says. We dont know that it works differently. The underlying causes of suicide are likely to be far more complex than statistical trends account for; rather, as with other complicated health problems, biology and environmental conditions make individuals in particular groups more vulnerable.

Studying the effect of Covid-19 on suicide rates could inform a longstanding scientific debate about the extent to which the behavior is driven by brain chemistry compared with external stressors. If Covid-19 increases suicidal behavior there was a rise in suicide among older adults in Hong Kong in 2003, the year of the SARS outbreak that might lend weight to the idea that socioeconomic pressures, like job loss or isolation, are key triggers. But as with any scientific debate, the answer is always both, Nestadt adds. This is a multifactorial behavior.

As confounding as that behavior remains, researchers do have strong evidence about some factors that could help protect those struggling during the pandemic. People shouldnt be afraid to ask if a friend or loved one has considered suicide; doing so wont plant the idea. Suicide is also surprisingly impulsive. A majority who decide to do it act within an hour, Nestadt says, and nearly a quarter act within five minutes. Not having access to a lethal weapon during that time greatly reduces the risk of death. In the United States, firearms are the most common means of suicide, and gun buying has surged over the past year. Getting rid of guns or making access to them harder would prevent more suicide deaths, as would more affordable and widely available mental health care.

Joe thinks we may not see the impact of the pandemic on suicide until vaccines have lessened the immediate dangers of the virus and Americans survey what theyve lost: traditions, celebrations, jobs, loved ones. All that complicated grief thats been occurring, thats what will hit America in the next year to 24 months, he says. And thats what we have to watch out for. That we dont have a behavioral health crisis following this Covid crisis and nobodys preparing for it.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.

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Will the Pandemic Result in More Suicides? - The New York Times

Human Behavior

Social Studies: Sons of the revolution, knee problems, and the baboon brain – The Boston Globe

Founding fathers

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention were likelier to vote for a strong national government if they had more sons and less likely to do so if they had more daughters, even controlling for the delegates age, whether he had been an officer in the Revolutionary War, the number of slaves he owned, and his financial situation. The effect of child gender on voting was as large as, or larger than, the effects of these other factors. The hypothesis is that fathers expected sons to have future roles in a strong national government.

Pope, J. & Schmidt, S., Father Founders: Did Child Gender Affect Voting at the Constitutional Convention? American Journal of Political Science (forthcoming).

Flexible treatment

Knee osteoarthritis patients who are Black report greater pain than non-Black patients. But doctors reading X-rays, using established standards for determining the severity of arthritis, dont pick up on most of the disparity. One consequence is that Black patients are less likely to receive the surgical treatment that might be applied to more serious problems and more likely to be prescribed opioids (which carry risk of addiction) in this context. To help address the diagnosis problem, a team of researchers trained an artificial-intelligence program to predict patients pain based on its own reading of the X-rays. The program did a much better job than the established (human) standards, though the researchers cant say exactly why, given the black-box nature of their program. The researchers suggest that established standards may be flawed because they were developed decades ago in white British populations. And indeed, the artificial-intelligence program got better as it was trained on X-rays from a more diverse set of patients.

Pierson, E. et al., An Algorithmic Approach to Reducing Unexplained Pain Disparities in Underserved Populations, Nature Medicine (January 2021).

Social intelligence

Brain scans revealed that captive baboons that had been allowed to live in larger social groups had larger brains. This suggests that bigger brains are needed to process more complex social situations and can adapt to do so even in a short period of time.

Meguerditchian, A. et al., Baboons (Papio Anubis) Living in Larger Social Groups Have Bigger Brains, Evolution and Human Behavior (January 2021).

Rise up

In a series of survey experiments, people thought inequality was more unjust, and they were more interested in countering it, when it was framed as disadvantage for the poor rather than advantage for the rich. In other words, helping the poor rise has broader support than bringing down the rich. This framing effect was largely the same regardless of the respondents class or ideology.

Dietze, P. & Craig, M., Framing Economic Inequality and Policy as Group Disadvantages (versus Group Advantages) Spurs Support for Action, Nature Human Behaviour (forthcoming).

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Social Studies: Sons of the revolution, knee problems, and the baboon brain - The Boston Globe

Human Behavior

‘We could have prevented this’: America surpasses 400000 Covid-19 deaths – The Daily Briefing

America's reported number of deaths linked to the novel coronavirus topped 400,000 on Tuesday. About 55,000 of those deaths occurred just this month, and public health experts anticipate the country will see a surge in newly reported coronavirus deaths in the coming weeks.

It took less than one year for the United States to reach more than 400,000 reported deaths linked to the novel coronavirus, and the country has reported the highest coronavirus-death total of any country in the world.

In February 2020, U.S. officials began reporting the first known deaths linked to the novel coronavirus in the countrywith the America's earliest known death linked to the virus occurring on Feb. 6, 2020, in Santa Clara County, Calif.. Nearly four months after the epidemic's first known death had occurred, U.S. officials by May 27 had reported the country's first 100,000 deaths linked to the virus. Four months later, U.S. officials had reported 200,000 deaths tied to the virus, and then about three months later, they had reported 300,000 deaths linked to the pathogen.

It took about five weeks for U.S. officials to report another 100,000 deaths tied to the virus, with American reaching more than 400,000 deaths on Tuesday. In recent weeks, the number of newly reported coronavirus deaths has accelerated, with officials reporting daily records of new deaths multiple times over the past few weeks, the New York Times reports. For instance, on Jan. 12, U.S. officials reported a record-high of more than 4,400 deaths linked to the virus in a single day.

Helen Branswell, STAT News' infectious disease reporter, in a tweet posted Wednesday noted that 55,000, or about 14%, of the United States' total number of deaths linked to the novel coronavirus so far occurred during just the first three weeks of this month.

According to data from the Times, U.S. officials reported about 2,770 new deaths linked to the novel coronavirus on Tuesday. As of Wednesday morning, officials had reported a total of about 401,823 U.S. deaths linked to the virus since the country's epidemic began, up from about 399,053 deaths reported as of Tuesday morning.

Public health experts anticipate the country's number of newly reported deaths tied to the virus will spike over the next few weeks as a result of surges in newly reported coronavirus cases the country saw because of Americans gathering with others over the recent holidays. According to the Times, experts estimate that the total number of U.S. deaths linked to the virus may reach 500,000 by February.

"This is just one step on an ominous path of fatalities," said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University.

The somber milestone of reporting more than 400,000 deaths tied to the novel coronavirus comes as America continues to report persistently high rates of new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.

According to the datacompiled by the Times, U.S. officials as of Wednesday morning had reported a total of about 24.3 million cases of the novel coronavirus since America's epidemic beganup from about 24.1 million cases reported as of Tuesday morning.

According to the Times, the United States' average daily number of newly reported coronavirus cases over the past week was 201,117which is down by 11% when compared with the average from two weeks ago.

As of Wednesday morning, data from the Times showed that the rates of newly reported coronavirus cases were "staying high" in Puerto Rico; the U.S. Virgin Islands; Washington, D.C.; and 25 states that have had a daily average of at least 15 newly reported cases per 100,000 people over the past week. Those states are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

The Times' data also showed that, as of Wednesday morning, the daily average of newly reported cases over the past seven days was "going down" in 24 states that had been seeing comparatively higher rates of coronavirus transmission. Those states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, and West Virginia.

Meanwhile, Guam has had a comparatively lower case rate, but that rate was "going up" as of Wednesday morning, according to theTimes. In Hawaii, the rate of newly reported coronavirus cases was "staying low" as of Wednesday morning, according to the Times' analysis.

U.S. hospitalizations for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, also have remained high. According to datafromThe Atlantic'sCOVID Tracking Project, there were 123,820 Americans with Covid-19 hospitalized for treatment on Tuesday, including 23,029 who were receiving care in an ICU and 7,688 who were on a ventilator.

America's numbers of reported coronavirus deaths, cases, and hospitalizations have remained high as the country has struggled to quickly roll out its two authorized Covid-19 vaccines. CDCdata shows that, as of Tuesday morning, the federal government had distributed about 31.2 million doses of the vaccines, and about 15.7 million Americans had received their first dose of the two-dose Covid-19 vaccines.

Despite the dismal state of America's coronavirus epidemic so far, public health experts say we can turn the tide and avoid more new cases and deaths by doubling down on evidence-backed public health measures to mitigate the virus's spread. And experts say it's especially important to do so now, in light of new, more-transmissible variants of the coronavirus that have emerged.

"[T]he 400,000th death is shameful," Cliff Daniels, chief strategy officer at Methodist Hospital of Southern California, said. "It's so incredibly, unimaginably sad that so many people have died that could have been avoided."

To change the tide, "[w]e need to follow the science," Daniels said.

Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of epidemiology at the University of California-San Francisco, said it's also key to consider how human behavior factors into the epidemic. "It's important to understand virology. It's important to understand epidemiology. But ultimately, what we've learned is that human behavior and psychology is a major force in this pandemic," she said.

For instance, Panagis Galiatsatos, an assistant professor of medicine and a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said, "My heart breaks, because we could have prevented this. A lot of what we saw during the holiday travel was the inability to reach our loved ones or family membersnot like a public service announcement, but one on one, talking to them (about the exposure risks). I really felt like we failed." Galiatsatos noted, for example, an older patient he cared for who was transported six hours to his hospital, because there were no hospital beds available any closer. When he told the patient's family that she died, they were shocked, he said.

"They said, 'But she was so healthy. She cooked us all Thanksgiving dinner and we had all the family over.' They were saying it with sincerity, but that's probably where she got it."

In addition to behavioral changes, Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said the United States must look to scale up Covid-19 vaccinations as quickly as possible. "Right now what is required is getting people vaccinated with vaccines we already have," he said. "The fact that's going super slow still is incredibly frustrating" (Mazzei, New York Times, 1/19; Geller/Har, Associated Press, 1/20; Canipe, Reuters, 1/19; Stone, Kaiser Health News, 1/19; Branswell tweet, 1/19; New York Times, 1/20; "The COVID Tracking Project," The Atlantic, accessed 1/20; CDCdata, updated 1/19).

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'We could have prevented this': America surpasses 400000 Covid-19 deaths - The Daily Briefing