ALBANY, Ga. (AP) — At one point early in the pandemic, Albany, Georgia was outpacing all but three cities across United States for coronavirus infections per capita. Now, the south Georgia city is home to one of four state-supported mass vaccination sites.
Many people in Albany were touched by coronavirus early on, but the city has made major strides since March’s tragedies. Thousands of people will be able to receive vaccinations in Albany’s Dougherty County starting Monday, Feb. 22, when the state’s four sites will open.
Christopher Cohilas, Chairman of Dougherty County Board of Commissioners, said the pummeling Albany took early on actually prepared the city to be ahead in the next phases of the virus. In the early spring, while other areas were just starting to identify initial cases, Albany was full steam ahead with a full panel of containment and treatment efforts.
“We had to sharpen our sword a lot faster, and a lot sharper than a lot of other folks did. And so sometimes through adversity, you build really strong partnerships,” he said.
He thinks this is part of why Albany was chosen as one of the initial mass vaccination sites.
“One, we work harder than anyone else. Two, we’ve been through more than anyone else. Three, we’ve made a very conscientious effort to partner with the governor’s office and Georgia Emergency Management Agency,” Cohilas said.
VACCINATING GEORGIA
Albany’s mass vaccination site is located in a large gravel lot at the Albany Georgia Forestry Commission, 1150 West Oakridge Drive. On Friday, it was a flurry of activity as uniformed National Guard members, GEMA responders and medical staff prepared for Monday. Once the site opens, roughly 70 workers from various partner organizations will be at the site each day.
“It’s a really big deal for us here in Dougherty County,” Cohilas said.
The spot where the vaccination happens looks as if a toll plaza was placed inside a barn. Four lanes snake through a green warehouse and each one can fit four cars inside the building, meaning the site can vaccinate a maximum of 16 people at a time.
The state projects 1,100 vaccinations per site, per day, for a total of 22,000 vaccines per week. The whole process is 100% FEMA reimbursed, according to a fact sheet distributed during a media tour on Friday.
The other three sites are located in Bibb, Habersham and Fulton counties. The state is expected to open additional mass vaccination sites in the coming weeks and months, Gov. Brian Kemp said during a Thursday press conference.
The registration process for the mass vaccination sites is primarily handled through myvaccinegeorgia.com. The site is designed to be easy to use and mobile-friendly, an improvement from previous registration interfaces.
Eligible patients fill out a form online, then receive an email with instructions to schedule an appointment. Patients bring a QR code and a valid ID to the site, check in, get the vaccine, then move over to the observation lane for 15 minutes. There is no cost and insurance is not required. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, ASL interpreters will assist at the site.
Workers at the vaccination sites will use tablets to screen patients, record vaccinations and schedule appointments for second doses on the spot.
For patients who aren’t technologically savvy, there’s a phone number associated with each mass vaccination site where staff will guide patients through the registration process.
The Albany site is also trying to register as many patients as possible for their second dose before they leave their first appointment, said Lisa Rodriguez-Presley, GEMA/HS External Affairs Supervisor.
TACKLING VACCINE HESITANCY
Dr. Dianna Grant is the chief medical officer for Phoebe Putney Health System, headquartered in Albany. She was thrown into Albany’s pandemic on Oct. 26th, serving in her role for only 116 days so far. She remembers watching Albany’s early peak play out on the news while living in Chicago back in March. Now, she serves as a torch-bearer for organizing vaccine administration and addressing vaccine hesitancy.
Albany experienced the post-winter holiday surge in cases that much of America saw.
“And with the high number of transmissions that we faced, we did not totally reach to March or April (numbers). But we were so close. And we had done some predictive modeling around that and they were really afraid that maybe we would even surpass that of what we saw in March,” Grant said.
Now, in February, 56-59% percent of Phoebe’s Albany patients are COVID-19 positive. Roughly 40% come from Dougherty County and the rest are from neighboring counties, or have been transferred from farther away.
Though rates are falling from the January peak, the social determinant, rather than logistics, continues to be the main obstacle to widespread vaccination in southwest Georgia.
Despite the early prevalence of the virus in Albany, many residents view the vaccine with skepticism rather than hope. A majority of locals approached by a Ledger-Enquirer reporter were either unwilling to discuss COVID or said anonymously that they wouldn’t get the vaccine.
When doses first arrived at Phoebe Putney on Dec. 17, Grant thought employees would be lining up to roll up their sleeves to get the vaccine. She soon realized there was widespread distrust of the vaccine, especially among Black Albanians — and for good reason, she said.
“They feel that distrust, a historical distrust,” Grant said. “Because of the mere fact — and they will tell you — ‘now you come to my community, when you want to give me something, and you’re not here already. So why should I trust you, you don’t want to be here every day.’”
For Wendy Johnson, a lifelong Albany resident, she had seen too much death to pass on the vaccine. Santayana Harris, Johnson’s coworker at the Marine Corps Logistics Command, died from complications from a COVID-19 infection alone in her home in Albany.
“Very smart, very nice young lady. She was a song-singing bird,” Johnson said. “And it hit her really bad, it hit her mom and her dad too, but she lost her life. She was only 34.”
Grant, a Black doctor, decided to tackle vaccine hesitancy by posting photos of herself taking the vaccine with a smile — without “(growing) a third eye,” she said. Grant then initiated a campaign to have various local leaders do the same. About 18 doctors in the Phase 1A+ group showed up and rolled up their sleeves. It was a first step in building trust and respect among residents skeptical of the vaccine.
Grant knew, however, that the best way to reach Albany’s community of color was through its religious communities. She began speaking weekly about the vaccine at the local religious meetings. She welcomes any shade of hesitation or skepticism.
“We know the trust cycle with all of us is about listening. …So we entered communities. They send me out to different meetings,” Grant said. “And I don’t give any speeches. I don’t give slides anymore. I simply say I am here for you to ask me questions.”
LOOKING AHEAD
Albany has also identified access and transportation as obstacles to vaccine distribution in rural southwest Georgia.
When community health leaders realized that people who pay their phone bill by the minute would be unlikely to wait through a long hold time, Grant said they arranged a weekend pop-up vaccination at a community center. They chose a site located in a neighborhood with limited transportation so residents could walk — and many did. One elderly man walked there on a cane and had to sit down a while before he received the vaccine.
“The stories they told me was, ‘Thank you for being here. I’ve seen so many people who have passed,’” Grant said.
Johnson said she had some reservations about the vaccine because of reactions she’d had to the flu shot in the past. When she saw that her vaccinated family members didn’t have any side effects, she decided she would take her chances. She knows vaccination is a priority.
Though she and her fiance plan to get the vaccine, she knows that many in her community won’t. Moreover, Johnson expects the nation as a whole will be dealing with the coronavirus for years to come.
Grant expects to be giving out COVID-19 booster shots each year.
“You know, this may become an annual flu. I have to be honest, I don’t know,” Grant said “We saw this with H1N1 too.”
Officials and nonprofit groups are trying to get hard-to-count groups to participate in the census, and Arab Americans say the undercount is even more pronounced for them. (May 4)
AP Domestic
Funeral director Goulade Farrah is haunted by his clients, whose bereavement over loved ones lost to COVID-19 play over and over in his head.
The hospital told us he was fine, and the next thing we know he’s on a ventilator.
They said go home and let us know when her oxygen level is this number, but when we went back it was too late.
We are devastated, we could not even be with him when he died.
Roughly 90% of the deaths Farrah handles at Olive Tree, the mortuary he oversees in Stanton, California, about 26 miles south of Los Angeles, are now COVID-related. Many are Arab Americans.
Across the nation, Arab Americans and their advocates fear alarming rates of COVID-19 infection and deaths in their communities — but there is little data to back up these concerns because most are categorized as “white” by the federal government.
The nation’s 3.7 million Arab Americans are unable to self-identify as such on the census and other government forms. As a result, official health care data can be hard to come by, with experts and community leaders forced to rely on patchwork, often self-compiled data.
The issue has been exacerbated by COVID-19, raising worries for a community already facing numerous risk factors for the virus, including large numbers of immigrants and refugees, poverty, multigenerational households and high rates of hypertension, diabetes and heart disease.
“We are told we are white when in reality we are deprived of proper and accurate statistical data,” Hasibe Rashid, of New York City’s planning department, said during a web panel this week on the virus’ social and economic effects on the city’s Arab immigrant and refugee populations. “We are expected to conform to something we do not agree with, and worse yet, something society does not see us as. We do not live the life of white privilege.”
Without a racial or ethnic identifier, community coronavirus infection rates are “extremely unreported,” said Madiha Tariq, deputy director of the Community Health and Research Center run by ACCESS, a Dearborn, Michigan-based social service agency serving a largely Arab American population in several surrounding counties. “This has led to a false sense of security among community members who believe this is not a disease that impacts them.”
Hasan Shanawani, a pulmonologist in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and president of American Muslim Health Professionals, an Islamic-minded non-profit focused on public health, said Arab Americans’ unrecognized status consigns them and their health issues to obscurity.
“They all just check the ‘white’ box and get absorbed into the mainstream,” he said.
CLOSE
One of the largest Arab American advocacy groups in the U.S. offers drive-up coronavirus testing and much more during a community event in Michigan (June 12)
AP Domestic
A growing but unseen population
Raed Al-Naser, a critical care physician at Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, California, in east San Diego County, noticed a disproportionate number of Arab Americans coming through the site’s intensive care unit for COVID-related complications during the pandemic’s first waves early last year.
As president of the National Arab American Medical Association’s San Diego chapter, he checked with colleagues in other Arab American enclaves around the country, who confirmed they were seeing the same thing.
By summer, Al-Naser was penning editorials in local publications, hoping to bring attention to the issue. He combed through hospital records from March through December and determined that of those admitted to Sharp Grossmont with COVID-related conditions, 11% were Arab American – about twice the rate of admissions he typically saw for that population.
“Nobody was noticing the impact of this disease in the community,” he said. “When it comes to Arab Americans as an ethnic minority, they’re always visible when it’s bad news, but when it’s their health, they’re invisible.”
“COVID-19 made this reality more visible and undeniable,” Al-Naser added. “And the health disparities are going to go deeper and deeper if we don’t recognize that these communities are not being served.”
More than 500,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. Federal data shows that compared to non-Hispanic whites, Blacks are nearly twice as likely to die from the virus, while death rates among Hispanics and Native Americans veer closer to two and a half times in comparison. There is no official data on Arab Americans, who are bundled into the white category.
In New York City, where immigrant and refugee families often double up to afford the city’s expensive housing, a survey conducted by the city’s Arab-American Family Support Center found that overcrowding has worsened with the job losses of the pandemic, allowing the virus to run rampant.
“COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire because they are unable to isolate,” said Rawaa Nancy Albilal, the agency’s president and CEO. “And many of them live or work in jobs that put them at the highest risk possible.”
Front line workers are feeling it, too. At Olive Tree, which serves greater Southern California, Farrah’s voice quivered as he recalled an Arab American physician who came out of retirement in the early days of the pandemic, only to fall victim to the effects of the virus.
“It was terrible,” said Farrah, who handled the doctor’s arrangements. “He just wanted to help.”
Last month, the funeral director and community advocate oversaw the cases of two more Arab American emergency-room physicians who died of COVID, and unnerved doctors who knew the pair have called Farrah for help in setting up their wills.
“They got the best treatment,” Farrah said, “but nothing can stop this virus. It’s all COVID. It’s become the normal now.”
Arab Americans have high-risk factors for COVID-19
The nation’s Arab American population has at least doubled since 2000 with the arrival of mostly Muslim immigrants and refugees, the product of multiple wars and instability in the Middle East. Coming from embattled places such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine, they’ve joined larger populations of more established, mostly Christian Arab Americans with roots in Lebanon and Egypt, for instance, as well as Arab Chaldeans, an ethno-religious group from northern Iraq.
Southern California is home to as many as 300,000 Arab Americans, the nation’s largest concentration, but the population is highest by percentage in Michigan, primarily in Detroit and nearby areas such as Dearborn, where they comprise half of the city’s approximately 100,000 people. As of this week, Dearborn and nearby Dearborn Heights, where at least a quarter of the population is Arab American, accounted for one-fifth of Wayne County’s 64,000 COVID cases outside of Detroit.
For more recent arrivals, fledgling lives in the United States are often beset by poverty, lower education levels and jobs as taxi drivers or as workers at restaurants, markets or cleaning services that have subjected them to health care disparities.
“They’re essential workers,” said Al-Naser, of the National Arab American Medical Association. “They work in jobs where there’s no way they can do social distancing and have cultural factors that put them at high risk – big, multigenerational families living in the same home, and if someone gets sick there’s nowhere to go. That’s why we notice significant spread of the virus in these communities.”
At the same time, many Arab Americans have avoided being screened for the virus, either unaware of available services, or so worried about providing for their families that they don’t want to face a positive test result.
“The social and economic impact is costly to these communities,” Al-Naser said. “If people are sick, they can’t go to work, and if one person is supporting the family, it’s very stressful. That’s why a lot of people don’t even want to get tested. It exacerbates the whole problem.”
Many Arab Americans do not want to be classified as ‘white’
Organizations like the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and Arab American Institute have been fighting to change the census’ longstanding classification of Arab Americans as white since the 1980s. As 2020 approached, confidence grew that the federal bureau would finally add a so-called MENA option, for people of Middle Eastern or North African background, to its questionnaire.
Checking the “white” box creates a certain dissonance for Arab Americans, whose experience – especially after 9/11 – hasn’t always offered the accompanying privileges of being white.
“After 9/11, we were pulled off planes left and right,” said Shanawani, of the American Muslim Health Professionals. About a quarter of U.S. Muslims are Arab Americans, he said.
Shanawani said he, too, has been stopped at an airport, “not because of how I look, but because of my name.”
There’s more at stake than identity: Without a racial or ethnic identifier, Arab Americans also miss out on funding for cultural- and language-specific social and health services available to other marginalized groups – services that advocates say are crucial to address issues uniquely faced by the community.
“We don’t have access to funding that other communities have because we don’t know what the community numbers are,” said Samer Khalaf, national president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
What little community health data exists comes largely from local academic studies in Arab American-heavy areas like Dearborn, Southern California and New York City.
Being whitewashed from the picture hurts in other ways. Rima Meroueh, director of the Dearborn-based National Network for Arab American Communities, said that when Michigan officials recently assembled a commission to oversee state redistricting efforts, they based its makeup on census numbers – meaning Arab Americans, a significant part of the population – were not specifically considered for inclusion, lumped into the white category.
A 2015 Census Bureau study found that when offered the MENA option, people from Middle Eastern and North African regions who previously self-identified as white plunged from 85% to 20%.
But in 2018, Trump administration officials tabled the MENA option, saying more research was needed to decide whether the category should be considered an ethnicity rather than a race – meaning the community’s next chance to be federally recognized won’t come until 2030.
A push to educate and vaccinate Arab Americans
Advocates say the absence of reliable community data has deprived them of a major weapon as they fight to convince some Arab Americans they’re at risk of COVID-19.
“Not just at risk, but at higher risk,” said Meroueh, of the National Network for Arab American Communities. “Do we have a higher rate of underlying conditions like hypertension and diabetes? Yes, we know that, because we work in the community. But until we can collect that data, we’re left with only anecdotal evidence.”
The lack of data is crucial when it comes to countering skepticism, misinformation and pandemic fatigue, issues that also plague the general population, experts said.
But it looms larger given the Arab American community’s risk factors – including cultural and language barriers and, for many, a distrust of government authorities fed by experiences here and elsewhere. Some feel stung by a record of post-9/11 vilification and xenophobia, while others fall prey to rumors bandied in communication networks tied to their homelands or Arabic-language sources on social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp or YouTube.
“Arab Americans have been vilified by so much rhetoric that that group is not likely to trust information coming from a government entity,” Meroueh said. “It’s very difficult to access those populations. Trying to work against that tide is a really big task.”
San Diego visual artist Doris Bittar, who runs a home-based literacy program for Syrian refugees, recalled a family she’s worked with in nearby El Cajon, where as much as a quarter of the city’s 100,000 residents trace Middle Eastern roots.
Not long ago, members of the family prepared to carpool with Bittar and her husband to a community event, and “we had masks on, and they didn’t,” she said. “I felt awkward. Nobody was social distancing.”
The family assured her that they had talked with relatives in Damascus, Syria,who had gotten and survived the virus, even offering remedies.
“It was like, grind up some cloves and mix with honey and swallow it whole before you taste it,” Bittar recalled. Instead of carpooling, Bittar and her husbandasked the family to follow them in a separate car.
“And lo and behold,” she said, “Ten days later, they all had COVID.”
Advocates say some in the community also struggle to socially distance because of the largely social culture.
“Arab communities are very communal,” said Jeanine Erikat a community organizer at San Diego’s Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans. “You have gatherings with your cousins and neighbors and the community at large. It’s a usual thing. It’s how you stay connected.”
Such situations can be maddening for those who deal with people who have suffered the worst of the virus.
“It really upsets me that people are not taking it seriously in some sectors,” said Janet Slinkard, office manager for Orange County’s Olive Tree Mortuary, where funeral services are backlogged by at least a month. “We have been inundated. We have other funeral homes calling to ask if we can take their overflow.”
Advocates fear that the same factors fueling doubts about the virus are now driving skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines. And without clear data on Arab Americans, many fear officials won’t know whether Arab Americans are receiving the vaccine in proportionate numbers.
In Dearborn, Meroueh said that despite having two chemist siblings who work on virus vaccine research, she still had to accompany her Lebanese mom to a local clinic to ensure she went through with her first shot after a neighbor spouting sketchy information in her vastly Arab American neighborhood filled her with last-minute doubts.
And in San Diego County, public health professor Wael Al-Delaimy said a small, unpublished survey of Syrian refugees conducted by his students at the University of California, San Diego, found a troubling two-thirds of respondents unwilling to be vaccinated. Survey results published in December showed that barely 24% of Blacks and 34% of Latinos planned to get the vaccine, compared to 53% of whites.
Disturbed by the “wild conspiracy theories” he saw spreading on Arabic social media, Al-Delaimy created YouTube videos to urge people to get vaccinated.
“This problem is not going to go away,” said Al-Delaimy, noting the arrival of new viral strains and subsequent waves of spread as some Arab American community members continue to socialize without adequate protection. “And it’s getting worse.”
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Last Thursday, a two-minute video — broken into three parts for TikTok — surfaced showing a Zoom recording from a physiology class at Oxnard College that day taught by professor Michael Abram, who is identified in the video by name and by a student in his class.
CNN has reached out to Abram multiple times via email and phone but has not heard back.
When the posted video begins, it’s not clear whether the professor is aware the student, who later self identifies in the video as hard of hearing, needs assistance with her hearing. CNN is not naming the student because she declined to speak to us.
He asks the student, who says she can hear him a little bit, why she hasn’t been answering.
“You can hear me a little bit? Abram asks. “Why didn’t you answer all the times I spoke to you then?
The student attempts to respond, but Abram continues to talk over her.
“I’m hard of hearing,” she says in response to Abram.
“Why don’t we talk sometime? Why don’t you email me? We’ll set up a live Zoom and we’re going to have some real communication at some point in time,” he says. “Maybe you can have your counselor join us, OK? Do you hear me? OK, wonderful, do that,” he says.
After that interaction, another female student on the Zoom class says the student is hard of hearing and cannot respond right away.
“She’s not paying attention, she’s not trying,” Abram says.
The other student says, “It’s slower on her end because she needs to get it translated and then it goes to her hearing piece.”
Abram tells the student who is hard of hearing to “have your counselor speak with me because you’ve got too much distraction to even understand what is going on.”
“Yes, I do because my translator is next to me explaining me everything that you’re saying,” she replies.
Abram suggests the student’s translator teach her moving forward.
“Just have them teach you, the whole class, that makes sense to me,” he says. “I don’t know, I don’t understand it,” adding he saw the student who is hard of hearing “laughing” and “giggling” with someone else and is not paying attention. She replies that she’s in a good mood.
Abram continues to repeatedly ask her to have her “counselor” talk to him, to which she agrees, but says she feels like he is “attacking” her.
“I’m not attacking you, I’m not attacking you,” he says. “I’m just significantly disappointed in you. That’s all, that’s all it is. I’m not attacking you.”
The professor is now on administrative leave, the college said in a statement. “I am saddened and outraged beyond words that any of our students should either be or feel disrespected by any of our employees,” acting President Luiz Sanchez said in a statement posted to Twitter.
The video was meant for administrators to review
Sarah Rand, a student in Abram’s class, took the original video that was then posted on TikTok by someone she described as a family friend.
Rand told CNN she took the video with the intention of sending it to administrators to show the behavior and commentary she said she and other students have seen during Abram’s classes this semester.
When asked at a press briefing Monday whether any prior complaints were made against Abram, administrators said they couldn’t comment because that is part of the investigation.
Abram was hired as a full time tenured-track professor in fall 2004 as a biology teacher but he has taught anatomy and physiology classes at Oxnard College, according to Art Sandford, vice president of academic affairs and student learning.
On Friday, the Ventura County Community College District, of which Oxnard College is a part, issued a statement.
“The Ventura County Community College District is opposed to any language or behavior which is offensive or harmful to anyone based on gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age or disability,” board Chair Joshua Chancer said in the statement. “Comments in the video do not reflect the District’s values of integrity and honesty in action and word, respect and the constant pursuit of excellence.”
The National Association of the Deaf said deaf and hard-of-hearing students vary in what they need in class, including interpreters, captioning and devices to assist them.
“The use of interpreters or captioning usually results in additional time for the deaf or hard of hearing student to receive all the information and then be able to respond,” CEO Howard A. Rosenblum said in a statement. “Professors must therefore be patient and accommodate this additional time, instead of berating such students.”
Administrators say campuses can make learning accommodations
The investigation could take up to 90 days to complete, Greg Gillespie, chancellor of the Ventura County Community College District, said at press briefing Monday.
“The instructor is entitled to due process under the law so it’s his constitutional right as a permanent public employee and so he will be on a paid leave until the investigation is complete and we’re able to determine what the findings bring us,” said Laura Lizaola Barroso, vice chancellor of human resources at Ventura County Community College District.
CNN has reached out to the Oxnard College Academic Senate, which has a voice in student and faculty matters.
Administrators said they have told students the district has the ability to make accommodations for any type of learning assistance that is needed. They said it’s important for students to let faculty or the educational assistance center staff know their needs.
The home college for the student who is hard-of-hearing is Moorpark, another one of Ventura’s campuses, according to administrators at the briefing. It’s not uncommon for a student to take classes at other campuses, especially now, when the majority of classes have shifted online because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We know that the student was connected with the EAC (educational assistance center) folks at Moorpark College. However, we’re still looking into the status of the student with regards to whether or not accommodation had been requested for this Oxnard College class,” Gillespie said.
Administrators said they are in the process of meeting with and reaching out to the students involved.
Rand said at first she was worried that sharing the video with administrators may risk her graduation and her grades, but says without it, they wouldn’t know what’s happening with a faculty member.
“It’s our hope that we’ve created an environment where people are comfortable in coming forward so that these can be addressed, Gillespie said. “This incident is an example of where unacceptable behavior is seen occurring in a video and we’re going to investigate it and take that seriously.”
The administration said it also is proud of the other female student who spoke up on behalf of the student who is hard of hearing.
Rand said she never thought the video would be received on social media in the way that it has.
“No matter what this person did, I don’t think his reputation should be buried, like millions of people are hating him. That wasn’t my intention,” she said.
“I did this for other people to show that when you see something wrong, don’t just stay quiet, because this is abuse that’s happening that needs to stop,” said Rand. “Don’t be afraid. Speak up for the truth.”
Country music superstar Kenny Chesney is mourning the death of his friend who died on Monday in a helicopter crash.
The “You Had Me from Hello” singer took to social media to announce his friend Maria Rodriguez was one of the victims who died in the Virgin Islands.
“Today I have to say a very hard goodbye to my friend Maria Rodriguez in the Virgin Islands. Maria and others were killed today in a helicopter crash in St. Thomas. She was a dear friend to me and to our island community,” Chesney wrote on Instagram with a series of photos of the pals flying together in a helicopter.
Chesney said he’d been flying with Rodriguez for over 15 years.
KENNY CHESNEY HELPING BUILD ARTIFICIAL REEF IN FLORIDA TO PROTECT OCEAN’S ECOSYSTEMS
“We shared a lot of laughs and a lot of life together. She was always the first person I saw when I landed and the last person I said goodbye to when I would leave island. I’m sure going to miss that. It’s fair to say I won’t ever be able to go to the Virgin Islands again without feeling the loss of her. She was such a huge part of my island life,” his caption continued.
“So goodbye sweet friend. I’m sure glad our paths crossed on this side. See you on the other,” he concluded.
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Four died in the chopper crash on Monday, according to local outlet Virgin Islands Daily News.
Kenny Chesney recently opened up about his volunteer efforts to help build an artificial reef off of Florida’s coast. (Erika Goldring/WireImage)
The crash took place at the Preserve at Botany Bay. The outlet reports that efforts to recover a fifth victim was expected to take place.
Virgin Islands Fire Services Director Daryl George Sr. was quoted calling the area where the helicopter landed “bad terrain.”
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Witnesses on the island said they saw the helicopter go down at around 3:15 pm. Fire personnel are now working with V.I. Port Authority officials and the National Transportation Safety Board to determine the cause of the deadly crash.
Early last week, Twitter(TWTR) reportedly suspended hundreds of accounts at the government’s behest, including one handle with over 200,000 followers supporting the ongoing protests by farmers against new agricultural reforms and another belonging to one of the country’s most prominent magazines.
“In our continuing effort to make our services available to people everywhere, if we receive a properly scoped request from an authorized entity, it may be necessary to withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement at the time.
The company restored the accounts a few hours later after a public outcry, but is now reportedly under pressure from authorities to block them again. India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology sent a notice to Twitter threatening its employees with up to seven years in jail, according to a report from BuzzFeed News.
Twitter said it has acknowledged receipt of the notice and sought a “formal dialogue” with the Indian government.
“The safety of our employees is a top priority for us at Twitter,” a company spokesperson told CNN Business. “We continue to be engaged with the Government of India from a position of respect,” the spokesperson added.
The Indian government did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Who will blink first?
With more than 700 million internet users, India is a huge and important market for global tech companies, albeit an increasingly precarious one as the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to tighten its grip on the internet and social media.
The Modi government has previously clashed with platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp and has proposed regulations that would expand its ability to police content online. It also banned TikTok and dozens of other apps last year after diplomatic tensions with Chinaescalated, and ithas resorted to shutting down the internet altogether in several parts of the country to curb protests.
Now Twitter is the latest company to find itself in the government’s crosshairs. The platform has become a key conduit for the public — and increasingly international — debate between proponents and critics of the Indian government’s farm laws. The company had around 19 million users in India as of October last year, according to research firm Statista — more than any country except the United States and Japan.
“The shrinking space for civil society is being mirrored by censorship and anti-democratic regulatory moves to censor users from their rights to free speech,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director at advocacy group Equality Labs. “It is time for the world to understand how much is at risk right now and for American companies like Twitter and Facebook to act before it’s too late.”
Twitter, for now, appears to be standing its ground against the Indian government by keeping the accounts active.
“We review every report we receive from the government as expeditiously as possible, and take appropriate action regarding such reports while making sure we hold firm to our fundamental values and commitment to protecting the public conversation,” the company spokesperson said. “We strongly believe that the open and free exchange of information has a positive global impact, and that the tweets must continue to flow.”
But if the government chooses to make good on its threats or further escalate the situation, Twitter is left with few good options.
“There are two main risks: The first is to Twitter’s employees in India, who may be at risk if the company fails to comply with demands,” said Jillian York, Director of Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“The second risk is that Twitter continues to refuse and gets blocked in India. While this may be the right moral outcome, it’s obviously not the best outcome for the Indian people, many of whom rely on social media to get out key messages about what’s happening on the ground,” she added.
Threading the needle
While Twitter and the Indian government remain at an impasse with each other, both sides must also deal with external scrutiny.
Social media companies have long faced pressure to do more to combat misinformation and hate speech on their platforms. And those issues, hotly debated in the United States, often have further reaching and more sinister consequences in countries where the companies have a smaller business footprint but a far larger impact.
Twitter has been more proactive about policing its platform in recent months, taking down thousands of accounts linked to the conspiracy theory QAnon and banning one of its most prolific and controversial users — former US President Donald Trump. With that ban, Twitter showed a willingness to apply its policies to a world leader who violated them, albeit towards the end of his time in office. Its standoff in India also pits it against a powerful world leader in an important market.
“Jack has shown in the past that he can lead with his values,” said Soundararajan, referring to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
But India, with more than three times the population of the United States and a very different social and political context, presents one of the trickiest challenges to Twitter outside its home country. In another apparent setback, the company also confirmed this week that its public policy head for India, Mahima Kaul, will step down in April after more than five years. (Twitter does not break down user data for India, but third-party research suggests the country is one of its larger markets.)
“The fundamental problem is consistency … are they able to do the same kind of contextual analysis that they did around QAnon posts, hydroxychloroquine posts and Trump’s incitement?” said David Kaye, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine who previously served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. “India is a really great example of how hard that is.”
India, which bills itself as the world’s largest democracy, must also calibrate its response. Even as it battles with Twitter, the Modi government is fighting a perception battle with some of Twitter’s most prominent voices — the country’s foreign ministry recently released a statement slamming “sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others,” after tweets about the farmer protests by singer Rihanna and environmental activist Greta Thunberg went viral.
“I think there’s still a risk for Modi in particular of appearing to be unable to handle sort of fundamental democratic principles like the right to peaceful assembly, the right to protest, the right to criticize and so forth,” Kaye said. “I think it’ll be interesting to see if the Biden administration and other governments, who are friendly with India but are in the democratic camp, really encourage the government to take a different approach here.”
— CNN’s Manveena Suri and Esha Mitra contributed to this report.
The woman who made a huge mistake by substituting Gorilla Glue Spray Adhesive for her normal hair spray is at her wit’s end … so the glue brand’s coming to the rescue.
If you missed it … Tessica Brown made jaws drop on TikTok when she revealed her hair’s been rockhard for about a month since her glue spray snafu, and she tells TMZ she’s embarrassed, stressed, and starting to get scared.
@im_d_ollady/Tik Tok
Like Tessica says in her video … she can’t wash out the glue, she can’t even shave it and it’s getting tighter on her head … which is causing headaches.
She’s considering going to the ER, but Gorilla Glue might save her a trip. The company tells us the quickest possible remedy is rubbing alcohol.
GG says … “The less aggressive solvent for her hair/scalp would be rubbing alcohol to try and saturate her hair and then gently comb it out and shampoo.” Of course, it’s not that simple.
Gorilla says if Tessica’s hair’s been stuck for a month, it’s “likely fractured at the root, but we certainly hope for the best.”
Tessica too! She told us she’s gonna try the rubbing alcohol soon. Best wishes, girl!
Oh one more thing, as a PSA of sorts — DO NOT USE GORILLA GLUE ADHESIVE SPRAY ON YOUR HAIR. The company makes it clear that all of its products are considered permanent, and the packaging states it too. Tessica can testify it works.
The effect that the Moon has on humans has long been debated, but new research suggests that it definitely affects our sleep.
A new study published in Science Advances suggests that the phase of the Moon has a real, measurable effect on the amount of sleep we get, and when we feel tired.
Participants in the study wore sleep trackers and their habits were tracked for as long as two months.
It’s often been said that a full moon makes people act differently than they might on any other night during a different phase of the Moon. Ancient civilizations would often place great significance on Moon phases and some believed that certain things only happened during specific moon phases, like a full moon. Now, science is offering some serious backing to these theories.
In a new study published in Science Advances, researchers had volunteers from Argentina’s indigenous communities wear sleep trackers for up to two months in order to track their sleep habits. Roughly 100 people from the region participated in the study. The data was also compared to sleep data gathered from over 450 residents of Seattle, and the similarities were incredible.
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The study attempted to determine the differences in sleep patterns based on moonlight, and since the full moon and days leading up to it are the brightest nights, it makes sense that the indigenous people (some of whom had no or limited access to electricity) stayed up later on nights with a bright moon and slept almost an hour less than other nights of the month.
This finding, on its own, would be fairly interesting if only for the fact that it offers us a glimpse at how our pre-industrial ancestors may have behaved due to the different phases of the Moon. However, the study takes an even more stunning turn when the data from Seattle was included. As it turns out, city dwellers, despite having access to artificial light in so many forms, also exhibited different sleeping patterns based on the lunar phase.
“The fact that this modulation was present even in communities with full access to electric light suggests that these effects are mediated by something other than moonlight itself,” Leandro Casiraghi, lead author of the research, told CNN.
But how could the Moon be affecting people if light isn’t the only factor? That part remains unclear, but researchers have their theories. One such theory is that humans have internal clocks that regular more than just the 24-hour day and sleep/wake cycles. Many animals have instinctual responses to times of the year, even if seasonal changes don’t bring with them dramatic changes in the weather. It’s possible that humans have long had a similar adaptation, and that staying up late when the moon is bright is burned into our DNA. Of course, that’s just a theory.
Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games for the past decade, covering breaking news and trends in VR, wearables, smartphones, and future tech.
Most recently, Mike served as Tech Editor at The Daily Dot, and has been featured in USA Today, Time.com, and countless other web and print outlets. His love of
reporting is second only to his gaming addiction.
With demand for COVID-19 vaccines outpacing the world’s supplies, a frustrated public and policymakers want to know: How can we get more? A lot more. Right away.
The problem: “It’s not like adding more water to the soup,” said vaccine specialist Maria Elena Bottazzi of Baylor College of Medicine.
Makers of COVID-19 vaccines need everything to go right as they scale up production to hundreds of millions of doses — and any little hiccup could cause a delay. Some of their ingredients have never before been produced at the sheer volume needed.
And seemingly simple suggestions that other factories switch to brewing new kinds of vaccines can’t happen overnight. Just this week, French drugmaker Sanofi took the unusual step of announcing it would help bottle and package some vaccine produced by competitor Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. But those doses won’t start arriving until summer — and Sanofi has the space in a factory in Germany only because its own vaccine is delayed, bad news for the world’s overall supply.
“We think, well, OK, it’s like men’s shirts, right, I’ll just have another place to make it,” said Dr. Paul Offit of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a vaccine adviser to the U.S. government. “It’s just not that easy.”
DIFFERENT VACCINES, DIFFERENT RECIPES
The multiple types of COVID-19 vaccines being used in different countries all train the body to recognize the new coronavirus, mostly the spike protein that coats it. But they require different technologies, raw materials, equipment and expertise to do so.
The two vaccines authorized in the U.S so far, from Pfizer and Moderna, are made by putting a piece of genetic code called mRNA — the instructions for that spike protein — inside a little ball of fat.
Making small amounts of mRNA in a research lab is easy but “prior to this, nobody made a billion doses or 100 million or even a million doses of mRNA,” said Dr. Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania, who helped pioneer mRNA technology.
Scaling up doesn’t just mean multiplying ingredients to fit a bigger vat. Creating mRNA involves a chemical reaction between genetic building blocks and enzymes, and Weissman said the enzymes don’t work as efficiently in larger volumes.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine, already used in Britain and several other countries, and one expected soon from Johnson & Johnson, are made with a cold virus that sneaks the spike protein gene into the body. It’s a very different form of manufacturing: living cells in giant bioreactors grow that cold virus, which is extracted and purified.
“If the cells get old or tired or start changing, you might get less,” Weissman said. “There’s a lot more variability and a lot more things you have to check.”
An old-fashioned variety — “inactivated” vaccines like one made by China’s Sinovac — require even more steps and stiffer biosecurity because they’re made with killed coronavirus.
One thing all vaccines have in common: They must be made under strict rules that require specially inspected facilities and frequent testing of each step, a time-consuming necessity to be confident in the quality of each batch.
WHAT ABOUT THE SUPPLY CHAIN?
Production depends on enough raw materials. Pfizer and Moderna insist they have reliable suppliers.
Even so, a U.S. government spokesman said logistics experts are working directly with vaccine makers to anticipate and solve any bottlenecks that arise.
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel acknowledges that challenges remain.
With shifts running 24/7, if on any given day “there’s one raw material missing, we cannot start making products and that capacity will be lost forever because we cannot make it up,” he recently told investors.
Pfizer has temporarily slowed deliveries in Europe for several weeks, so it could upgrade its factory in Belgium to handle more production.
And sometimes the batches fall short. AstraZeneca told an outraged European Union that it, too, will deliver fewer doses than originally promised right away. The reason cited: Lower than expected “yields,” or output, at some European manufacturing sites.
More than in other industries, when brewing with biological ingredients, “there are things that can go wrong and will go wrong,” said Norman Baylor, a former Food and Drug Administration vaccine chief who called yield variability common.
HOW MUCH IS ON THE WAY?
That varies by country. Moderna and Pfizer each are on track to deliver 100 million doses to the U.S. by the end of March and another 100 million in the second quarter of the year. Looking even further ahead, President Joe Biden has announced plans to buy still more over the summer, reaching enough to eventually vaccinate 300 million Americans.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told a Bloomberg conference this week that his company will actually wind up providing 120 million doses by the end of March — not by speedier production but because health workers now are allowed to squeeze an extra dose out of every vial.
But getting six doses instead of five requires using specialized syringes, and there are questions about the global supply. A Health and Human Services spokesman said the U.S. is sending kits that include the special syringes with each Pfizer shipment.
Pfizer also said it’s factory upgrade in Belgium is short-term pain for longer-term gain, as the changes will help increase worldwide production to 2 billion doses this year instead of the originally anticipated 1.3 billion.
Moderna likewise recently announced it will be able to supply 600 million doses of vaccine in 2021, up from 500 million, and that it was expanding capacity in hopes of getting to 1 billion.
But possibly the easiest way to get more doses is if other vaccines in the pipeline are proven to work. U.S. data on whether Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose shot protects is expected soon, and another company, Novavax, also is in final-stage testing.
OTHER OPTIONS
For months, the chief vaccine companies lined up “contract manufacturers” in the U.S. and Europe to help them crank out doses and then undergo the final bottling steps. Moderna, for example, is working with Switzerland’s Lonza.
Beyond rich nations, the Serum Institute of India has a contract to manufacture a billion doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. It’s the world’s largest vaccine maker and is expected to be a key supplier for developing countries.
But some homegrown efforts to boost supplies appear hobbled. Two Brazilian research institutes plan to make millions of doses of the AstraZeneca and Sinovac vaccines but have been set back by unexplained delays in shipments of key ingredients from China.
And Bottazzi said the world simultaneously has to keep up production of vaccines against polio, measles, meningitis and other diseases that still threaten even in the midst of the pandemic.
Penn’s Weissman urged patience, saying that as each vaccine maker gets more experience, “I think every month they’re going to be making more vaccine than the prior month.”
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
