Trendzz Ground: January 2020

Friday, 31 January 2020

Republicans Block Impeachment Witnesses, Clearing Path for Trump Acquittal

By BY MICHAEL D. SHEAR AND NICHOLAS FANDOS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/38TOpdN

Inside the Company That’s Hot Wiring Vaccine Research in the Race to Combat the Coronavirus

Three months. That’s as long as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, is willing to wait to get a vaccine candidate against the latest coronavirus that he can start testing in people.

Since the virus was identified for the first time in people who fell ill with pneumonia-like symptoms in Wuhan, China, last December, the World Health Organization has declared this coronavirus outbreak, named 2019n-CoV, a public health emergency of international concern. In just over a month, more 11,000 people have tested positive for the virus in 18 countries, and more than 250 have died.

When it comes to infectious diseases like this one, vaccines are the strongest weapons that health officials have. Getting vaccinated can protect people from getting infected in the first place, and if viruses or bacteria have nowhere to go, they have no way to spread from person to person.

The problem is, vaccines take time to develop. Traditional methods, while extremely effective in controlling highly contagious diseases like measles, require growing large amounts of virus or bacteria, which takes months. Those microbes then become the key element in a vaccine — the so-called antigen that alerts the human immune system that some foreign interlopers have invaded the body and need to be evicted.

However, researchers at Moderna Therapeutics, Cambridge, Mass., have developed a potential shortcut to this laborious process that could shorten the time it takes to develop vaccines against ongoing outbreaks like the current coronavirus. They’re turning the human body into a living lab for churning out the viral red flags that activate the immune system.

Vaccines essentially give the immune system a crash course in recognizing and rallying defenses against disease-causing microbes like bacteria or viruses. They do this by priming the immune cells with a taste of what they’re supposed to recognize — in some cases vaccines contain killed or compromised bacteria or viruses that aren’t able to cause disease, but still set off alarms to the immune cells that they are foreign and unwelcome intruders. Once the body sees these microbes, they can make antibodies that mark them for destruction, and these antibodies remain as sentries for recognizing future invasions by the same microscopic marauders.

Other vaccines educate the immune system by simply exposing immune cells not to the microbes themselves, but only the proteins that the viruses or bacteria make; enough of these foreign proteins can also prime immune cells to recognize them as unwelcome.

Researchers at Moderna hot wired this process by packing their vaccine with mRNA, the genetic material that comes from DNA and makes proteins. Moderna’s idea is to load its coronavirus vaccine with mRNA that codes for the right coronavirus proteins and then inject that into the body. Immune cells in the lymph can process that mRNA and start making the protein in just the right way for other immune cells to recognize and mark them for destruction. Dr. Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna, explains that “mRNA is really like a software molecule in biology.” “So our vaccine is like the software program to the body, which then goes and makes the [viral] proteins that can generate an immune response.”

Because this method doesn’t involve live or dead viruses, it can be scaled up quickly — a necessity as new diseases emerge and work their way quickly through unprotected populations.

And there are health benefits to this strategy as well. “One of the things that we are able to do with an mRNA vaccine is more closely mimic what it means to get a viral infection,” says Hoge. “The way the body processes the viral protein can and often is very different from the way it processes the same protein made in a stainless steel tank. So one of the theoretical advantages of putting mRNA in a vaccine is that the body then makes the viral protein in the exact same way the virus would have instructed the host to do.”

The first step in developing this vaccine, which is being funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, was deciding which proteins made by the 2019-nCoV virus should be included in the vaccine. Chinese scientists publicly posted the genomic sequence of the newly identified coronavirus on Jan. 10, so from that, researchers at the NIH settled on a genetic snippet that coded for proteins they believed were most likely to alert and trigger alarms for the human immune system. When they sent the team at Moderna their picks, scientists at the company began writing the genetic ‘software’ for their vaccine — in the form of the mRNA instructions that the human body’s cells would need to make the coronavirus protein. To be safe, the team picked a leading viral protein to seed a vaccine, and six backup proteins as well.

That process is ongoing, as the team works to continuously debug the software, ensuring that the final mRNA product is as biological stable and reliable as possible. Within a few weeks, when a satisfactory mRNA is made, it will become the key component of the vaccine that’s developed to test in people. Then, says Hoge, “we will be more deliberate and careful in all of the manufacturing steps to make sure we’re doing it in a high-quality way because at the end of the day, this is going to go into humans.”

If the vaccine is effective in generating strong immune reactions against this coronavirus, it could serve as a template for other vaccines against as-yet unknown coronaviruses that might emerge in coming decades. That’s because once the scientists know the genetic makeup of a virus, they can pick out the specific proteins it uses to make people sick, and create the mRNA coding for that protein to put into a vaccine. “Fundamentally and conceptually, it would not be a big deal to do that, says Fauci. “We would be ahead of the game.”

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Senate votes to approve final framework for Trump impeachment trial, scheduling final verdict vote for Wednesday of next week.

01/31/20 4:58 PM

Diplomat at Center of Trump Impeachment Retires From State Department

By BY LARA JAKES from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3b39uUL

The Impeachment Trial Nears a Finale

By Unknown Author from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/36KHylw

Despite Evidence, Republicans Rallied Behind Trump. This Was Their Reasoning.

By BY ZACH MONTAGUE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2S6ODaL

Senate adjourns until Monday morning.

By BY CATIE EDMONDSON from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2RO3jMV

A consequential vote is captured in pencil.

By BY ALICIA PARLAPIANO from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2S8BYnx

Biden says his focus is on defeating Trump at the ballot box.

By BY KATIE GLUECK from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2tgy6IH

Former Coast Guard Lieutenant Is Sentenced to 13 Years in Prison on Gun and Drug Charges

By BY MICHAEL LEVENSON from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2uaZAQp

Democrats unsuccessfully try to force four amendments.

By BY EMILY COCHRANE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2RJiGWO

Trump signed off on the plan for his trial’s close.

By BY NICHOLAS FANDOS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2UlkUxz

Requiem for a Dream

By BY ROGER COHEN from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2GKelfI

Roberts says it would be ‘inappropriate’ for him to act as a tie-breaker.

By BY CATIE EDMONDSON from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2UfphtG

Giuliani Sought Help for Client in Meeting With Ukrainian Official

By BY RONEN BERGMAN, ANTON TROIANOVSKI AND KENNETH P. VOGEL from NYT World https://ift.tt/3b0Qu9x

Watch Live: Senators Debate Impeachment Trial Amendments

By Unknown Author from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3aZYp78

: Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Netflix show carries ‘considerable risks to health,’ top health expert says

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Netflix show carries ‘considerable risks to health,’ top health expert says

A top British health chief slammed Gwyneth Paltrow’s new Netflix series on alternative wellness as potentially dangerous to viewers.

: Jeff Lewis apologizes for comments about Asian Americans amid coronavirus crisis

Jeff Lewis apologizes for comments about Asian Americans amid coronavirus crisis

Jeff Lewis is walking back comments he and his radio guests made on SiriusXM about Asian Americans in the midst of the global coronavirus outbreak.

Hillary Clinton Slams Bernie Sanders for Not Working to Unite Democrats in 2016

By BY SHANE GOLDMACHER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2RM2iF6

Plans for Alabama’s Deadly Prisons ‘Won’t Fix the Horrors’

By BY KATIE BENNER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3aZLFgP

Brexit Has Arrived. But Boris Johnson’s Reign Is Just Beginning.

By BY RICHARD SEYMOUR from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2RNUGC1

Senators say they’ve settled on a schedule that would end the trial on Wednesday.

By BY PATRICIA MAZZEI AND MAGGIE HABERMAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2UbLc5b

: Third season of 'The Masked Singer' premieres after Super Bowl LIV

Third season of 'The Masked Singer' premieres after Super Bowl LIV

The level of secrecy surrounding the hit FOX series is as intense as ever.

Thursday, 30 January 2020

: Super Bowl LIV: Jennifer Lopez, Shakira to pay 'heartfelt' tribute to Kobe Bryant during halftime show

Super Bowl LIV: Jennifer Lopez, Shakira to pay 'heartfelt' tribute to Kobe Bryant during halftime show

Jennifer Lopez and Shakira will pay tribute to NBA legend Kobe Bryant in Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show.

Trump Lawyer’s Impeachment Argument Stokes Fears of Unfettered Power

By BY CHARLIE SAVAGE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2OdsS86

Defense team continues to portray the president as a victim.

By BY SHARON LAFRANIERE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2S2hmNQ

Citing ‘Soul of Our Democracy,’ Pastor of Dr. King’s Church Enters Senate Race

By BY RICHARD FAUSSET from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2Odr1QG

Trump Travels to Iowa to Energize Supporters for Caucuses Next Week

By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2GBRnr0

These Brands Said No to Running Super Bowl Commercials

By BY TIFFANY HSU from NYT Business https://ift.tt/2tT2fyh

When Will We See Bolton’s Book?

By BY JAMEEL JAFFER AND RAMYA KRISHNAN from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/3aWu6hs

Republican senator laments starkly partisan nature of the trial.

By BY PATRICIA MAZZEI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/38TGtZS

New York Is Urged to Consider Surge Pricing for Taxis

By BY BRIAN M. ROSENTHAL from NYT New York https://ift.tt/2GzItup

More American Troops Sustain Brain Injuries From Iran Missile Strike in Iraq

By BY THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF from NYT World https://ift.tt/2t90lce

‘There Are Sensible Voices That Are Emerging,’ How Scientists Are Using Social Media to Counter Coronavirus Misinformation

As a new form of coronavirus continues to infect a growing number of people around the world, medical professionals, scientists and big tech giants are fighting the spread of another contagion — misinformation. Just like a virus, it can be difficult to contain and many working in medical and scientific fields are using the very tools used to spread misinformation to counter it.

Though so much misinformation is spread on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and hundreds of other scientists and medical professionals who are studying the 2019 Novel Coronavirus, have been utilizing social media to disseminate accurate information in real time, countering conspiracy theories and collaborating for research.

“Today, in this outbreak, we are sharing information almost to the second of its release,” says Crystal Watson, senior researcher and assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “That allows a lot more collective thinking and decision making.”

Watson says that social media had made it possible for scientific information to be shared much more quickly. “In prior outbreaks before social media, often we had to wait for a publication in a journal, for example, to learn about some of what was going on,” she says.

Many working in scientific and medical fields started to notice the spread of harmful misinformation at the beginning of the outbreak and experts started using their expertise to help counter it. “I think there’s some [misinformation] that is intentionally harmful, either disseminating information about a false cure, for example, or spreading information that stigmatizes specific groups of people,” Watson says. “So it’s really important that we get on top of that and provide correct information and push it out as best we can.”

Misinformation on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube range from racially driven scapegoating to supposed cures for the virus. One inaccurate Facebook post shared more than 500 times claimed that a vaccine exists for the new form coronavirus, which is false. In fact, there are no vaccines for any of the seven types of coronavirus that humans are susceptible to according to PolitiFact, quoting Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Other false claims have involved inaccurate information about how to protect from the virus, including claims that a Chinese respiratory expert found that saline solution kills the virus, and that people should rinse their mouths out with it.

“That’s the risk that we run here when we deal with misinformation,” says Tara Kirk Sell, senior scholar and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It’s not just ‘oh, who cares what people are saying?’ If it undermines trust, then that’s a big problem.”

Sell has studied misinformation that spread after the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. She says there are similarities in the misinformation spread during that outbreak and the outbreak of the new form of coronavirus known as 2019 Novel Coronavirus, which started in the city of Wuhan in central China. There are now 8,236 total confirmed cases as of Thursday evening, most of which are in China, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have confirmed five cases in the U.S. On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency of international concern.

“There’s always overlays of politics,” Sell tells TIME. “Even though you think of [outbreaks] as health events, they’re an opportunity for some people to create discord and to cause people to become fearful and also to criticize different government actions.”

A spokesperson for Facebook tells TIME in an emailed statement that the company has partnered with third-party fact-checkers around the world to add warning labels to posts that contain false information and promote articles that include fact checked information. The company is also sending notifications to those who have already shared false content.

“This situation is fast-evolving and we will continue our outreach to global and regional health organizations to provide support and assistance,” the spokesperson said.

Representatives for Twitter and Google did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment, but a spokesperson for Twitter told The Washington Post that users searching for coronavirus on its platform were met with information from the CDC. Similarly, Google, which owns YouTube, is promoting content that contains accurate and verified information, according to The Post.

“It’s challenging because this information is being churned out very, very quickly,” says Antonia Ho, an infectious diseases physician and clinical senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow. “No one is an expert right now… Obviously, this Novel Coronavirus is so new that with all this information coming out, it takes a lot to control, and certainly misinformation may not be noticed until later on just because it takes time to verify.”

Still, Ho tells TIME, social media — Twitter in particular — has been a significant tool for scientists who can counter misinformation with accuracies and research. The sharing of information and updates on Novel Coronavirus by members of the science and medical communities has grown organically, and many scientists, doctors and other experts have accumulated thousands of followers. For example, Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and expert on infectious diseases, tweets daily coronavirus updates and has a following of 44,000.

This sharing of information has also led to increased online interaction among those working on the virus. “There’s often months of delays when people do research… but now this is all coming out on Twitter, and in a way there is a self peer review,” Ho says.

“Scientists who work on this around the world are able to form collaborations and are having really interesting conversations. And there are sensible voices that are emerging. People that you would follow because you know that they’re the expert in so many things,” she adds.

Our new real-time map of #nCov2019 is now up:https://t.co/zpsjsD8hcB

features the amazingly detailed line list of cases produced partners at @healthmap @UniofOxford @Tsinghua_Uni @IHME_UW @BostonChildrens @Northeastern @harvardmed pic.twitter.com/GFkbGMDusu

— John Brownstein (@johnbrownstein) January 29, 2020

We've updated our transmissibility assessment for #nCoV2019! R_0 estimates (based off of publicly reported confirmed cases through 1/26/20 & subject to change) remain ~stable, now ranging from 2.0 to 3.1.

Pre-print will be updated soon: https://t.co/8AX2qNS4hN

See thread below. https://t.co/VUUCWxyF6l pic.twitter.com/WizruEphhi

— Dr. Maia Majumder (@maiamajumder) January 27, 2020

@JHIDDynamics folks have done some detailed analysis of case reports to get an estimate of the incubation period from public reports. Analysis at https://t.co/uyS6MdvY8x. Nice work: @salauer_biostat @khgrantz @qulu_zheng @hanmered @QifangB @ForrestKJones (1/3) pic.twitter.com/ZDV9zrNfgg

— Justin Lessler (@JustinLessler) January 29, 2020

WHO has also launched an initiative to counter misinformation known as the WHO Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN). The initiative shares accurate tailored information with targeted sectors impacted by the coronavirus, including healthcare, travel and tourism, business and food and agriculture.

“The spread of misinformation has been challenging but WHO is prepared for this. While the organization is known for fighting epidemics, it’s also fighting ‘infodemics,'” a WHO spokesperson said in an emailed statement to TIME. “[EPI-WIN] allows the organization to cut through the ‘noise’ by rapidly sending information through existing and trusted sources to the public. It’s like an injection of information.”

Sell says that tech companies have some responsibility to combat misinformation, but that alone is not enough to stop the spread of falsities.

“Being able to talk freely and post freely — those things are important,” Sell says. “An appropriate tech response to dealing with misinformation is critical, but I don’t think it’s sufficient… We would rather ourselves be able to determine what’s true or not true.”

Friday, 31 January 2020

Thursday, 30 January 2020

Wednesday, 29 January 2020