“I think we are going to get fooled,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said Thursday. “I think what’s going to happen is you’re going to see that as we enter the summer months, numbers are going to go down, people will think great, we’re good.”
He added: “And then, if we don’t get to what I think is going to be at least 80% population immunity from natural infection or immunization, when the winter comes, you’re going to see a surge again.”
Over the last seven days, the US has averaged 56,240 new cases per day — the lowest it has been since mid-October — and 1,437 deaths per day, which is the lowest the country has seen since November 19.
Yet many states have begun to relax measures, including mask mandates. And because of fewer masks and more people moving around with more transmissible variants, IHME increased its prediction of Covid-19 deaths by July 1 by an additional 22,000 people.
Overall, the IHME predicts nearly 600,000 Covid-19 deaths by July 1, up from the current number of around 530,000 recorded fatalities.
What the US does next could impact the trajectory of the pandemic, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said in an NBC Nightly News interview.
“I think March and April are just such important, critical times,” she said. “On the one hand, you have this hyper-transmissible virus that could result in another surge after spring break.
“On the other hand, we are scaling up vaccinations so very fast, and what we really want to do is just give those vaccines a fighting chance to overcome and not let this virus surge again.”
‘We have to be humble to with this virus’
For those who are vaccinated, CDC released new guidelines Monday, maintaining recommendations against travel for those who have been inoculated.
Some have questioned whether the guidelines are too strict.
“We have to be humble with this virus,” Walensky said in the interview with NBC Nightly News. “Every time we felt like we had it under control, we had an enormous surge.”
Once more people are vaccinated and case numbers come down, the CDC may revise its guidance, Walensky said.
A year after much of the country was shut down by the virus, more than 98 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States, according to CDC data published Thursday.
About 1 in 10 people in the US — about 33.9 million people — are fully vaccinated, and close to 1 in 5 people — more than 64 million — have received one dose.
In an address Thursday, President Joe Biden promised vaccine appointments would open to all US adults by May 1, and by July 4 the US could be celebrating its independence from the pandemic.
“If July 4th comes around and your family has been vaccinated and your neighbors down the street have been vaccinated, yeah you can absolutely get together for a barbecue,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN’s Don Lemon on Thursday.
“Getting shots in the arm is not just the ticket to vaccination, it’s the ticket to getting people back in offices, to getting movie theaters open, to getting ballparks filled, to getting people back in airplanes,” he said.
Turning attention to ‘long Covid’
But even if the spread of the virus is managed within the US in the coming months, the nation will still be contending with Covid-19 survivors who suffer the effects of the disease long after they were infected, said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
“We know that 525,000 of our fellow Americans have died, but we also know that tens of millions have been infected, didn’t die, thankfully, and recovered. But I want to know what the long-term effects are for those individuals,” Jha told CNN’s Erin Burnett.
“I worry that we are really just seeing the tip of the iceberg when we think about long Covid, that there’s going to be a lot of disability, a lot of suffering that is going to be with us for a long time,” Jha said. “I hope that that is not true. But that’s what I worry about, and I’d like to understand that better.”
One recent study found that 30% of those with Covid-19 continue to have symptoms up to nine months after initial infection, and the National Institutes of Health has launched a $1 billion research effort into studying the long-term health effects.
CNN’s Christopher Rios, Brandon Miller, Lauren Mascarenhas, Ryan Prior and Deidre McPhillips contributed to this report.
The new contract to officially be signed by Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott will keep him in Dallas for at least four years. It could hasten the exit of other key players.
Although some are speculating that running back Ezekiel Elliott or receiver Amari Cooper could be traded soon due to Dak’s deal, the more likely outcome will be at least one more season with Cooper and Elliott before either or both are traded or released.
Last year, Cooper signed a five-year, $100 million contract that is, as a practical matter, a two-year, $40 million deal. After 2021, the Cowboys can walk away with no guaranteed money remaining and only a $6 million cap charge.
Elliott’s contract will be tougher to navigate, since his 2022 base salary of $12.4 million becomes fully guaranteed later this month. The question becomes whether another team would pay Elliot $12.4 million in 2022.
Elliott could be traded this year, with his base salary of only $9.6 million. A pre-June 1 trade, however, would trigger a $14.9 million cap charge for the Cowboys. It also would saddle his new team with the guaranteed salary of $12.4 million in 2022. (It’s hard not to at least wonder whether former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer is thinking about trading for Elliott; however, the Jaguars have a much cheaper option on the roster in James Robinson.)
Given the structure of the Cooper and Elliott deals, Elliott is more likely to remain through 2022. Cooper, however, likely is entering his final year in Dallas — unless he agrees after the season to a major restructuring of the deal and reduction of his pay.
An influential current system in the Atlantic Ocean, which plays a vital role in redistributing heat throughout our planet’s climate system, is now moving more slowly than it has in at least 1,600 years. That’s the conclusion of a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience from some of the world’s leading experts in this field.
Scientists believe that part of this slowing is directly related to our warming climate, as melting ice alters the balance in northern waters. Its impact may be seen in storms, heat waves and sea-level rise. And it bolsters concerns that if humans are not able to limit warming, the system could eventually reach a tipping point, throwing global climate patterns into disarray.
The Gulf Stream along the U.S. East Coast is an integral part of this system, which is known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. It was made famous in the 2004 film “The Day After Tomorrow,” in which the ocean current abruptly stops, causing immense killer storms to spin up around the globe, like a super-charged tornado in Los Angeles and a wall of water smashing into New York City.
As is the case with many sci-fi movies, the plot is based on a real concept but the impacts are taken to a dramatic extreme. Fortunately, an abrupt halting of the current is not expected anytime soon — if ever. Even if the current were to eventually stop — and that is heavily debated — the result would not be instant larger-than-life storms, but over years and decades the impacts would certainly be devastating for our planet.
Recent research has shown that the circulation has slowed down by at least 15% since 1950. Scientists in the new study say the weakening of the current is “unprecedented in the past millennium.”
Because everything is connected, the slowdown is undoubtedly already having an impact on Earth systems, and by the end of the century it is estimated the circulation may slow by 34% to 45% if we continue to heat the planet. Scientists fear that kind of slowdown would put us dangerously close to tipping points.
Importance of the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt
Because the equator receives a lot more direct sunlight than the colder poles, heat builds up in the tropics. In an effort to reach balance, the Earth sends this heat northward from the tropics and sends cold south from the poles. This is what causes the wind to blow and storms to form.
The majority of that heat is redistributed by the atmosphere. But the rest is more slowly moved by the oceans in what is called the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt — a worldwide system of currents connecting the world’s oceans, moving in all different directions horizontally and vertically.
NOAA
Through years of scientific research it has become clear that the Atlantic portion of the conveyor belt — the AMOC — is the engine that drives its operation. It moves water at 100 times the flow of the Amazon river. Here’s how it works.
A narrow band of warm, salty water in the tropics near Florida, called the Gulf Stream, is carried northward near the surface into the North Atlantic. When it reaches the Greenland region, it cools sufficiently enough to become more dense and heavier than the surrounding waters, at which point it sinks. That cold water is then carried southward in deep water currents.
Through proxy records like ocean sediment cores, which allow scientists to reconstruct the distant past going back millions of years, scientists know that this current has the capacity to slow and stop, and when it does the climate in the Northern Hemisphere can change quickly.
One important mechanism through the ages, which acts as a lever of sorts controlling the speed of the AMOC, is the melting of glacial ice and resulting influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic. That’s because fresh water is less salty, and therefore less dense, than sea water, and it does not sink as readily. Too much fresh water means the conveyor belt loses the sinking part of its engine and thus loses its momentum.
That’s what scientists believe is happening now as ice in the Arctic, in places like Greenland, melts at an accelerating pace due to human-caused climate change.
Climate Central
Recently scientists have noticed a cold blob, also known as the North Atlantic warming hole, in a patch of the North Atlantic around southern Greenland — one of the only places that’s actually cooling on the planet.
The fact that climate models predicted this lends more evidence that it is indicative of excess Greenland ice melting, more rainfall and a consequent slowdown of heat transport northward from the tropics.
Almost all of the globe is warming except for a cold blob in the North Atlantic.
NASA
In order to ascertain just how unprecedented the recent slowing of the AMOC is, the research team compiled proxy data taken mainly from nature’s archives like ocean sediments and ice cores, reaching back over 1,000 years. This helped them reconstruct the flow history of the AMOC.
The team used a combination of three different types of data to obtain information about the history of the ocean currents: temperature patterns in the Atlantic Ocean, subsurface water mass properties, and deep-sea sediment grain sizes, dating back 1,600 years.
While each individual piece of proxy data is not a perfect representation of the AMOC evolution, the combination of them revealed a robust picture of the overturning circulation, says lead author of the paper, Dr. Levke Caesar, a climate physicist at Maynooth University in Ireland.
“The study results suggest that it has been relatively stable until the late 19th century,” explains Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
The first significant change in their records of ocean circulation happened in the mid 1800s, after a well-known regional cooling period called the Little Ice Age, which spanned from the 1400s to the 1800s. During this time, colder temperatures frequently froze rivers across Europe and destroyed crops.
“With the end of the Little Ice Age in about 1850, the ocean currents began to decline, with a second, more drastic decline following since the mid-20th century,” said Rahmstorf. That second decline in recent decades was likely due to global warming from the burning and emissions of fossil fuel pollution.
Nine of the 11 data-sets used in the study showed that the 20th century AMOC weakening is statistically significant, which provides evidence that the slowdown is unprecedented in the modern era.
Impact on storms, heat waves and sea-level rise
Caesar says this is already reverberating in the climate system on both sides of the Atlantic. “As the current slows down, more water can pile up at the U.S. East Coast, leading to an enhanced sea-level rise [in places like New York and Boston],” she explained.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in Europe, evidence shows there are impacts to weather patterns, such as the track of storms coming off the Atlantic as well as heat waves.
“Specifically, the European heat wave of summer 2015 has been linked to the record cold in the northern Atlantic in that year — this seemingly paradoxical effect occurs because a cold northern Atlantic promotes an air pressure pattern that funnels warm air from the south into Europe,” she said.
According to Caesar, these impacts will likely continue to get worse as the Earth continues to warm and the AMOC slows down even further, with more extreme weather events like a change of the winter storm track coming off the Atlantic and potentially more intense storms.
CBS News asked Caesar the million-dollar question: If or when the AMOC may reach a tipping point leading to a complete shutdown? She replied: “Well, the problem is that we don’t know yet at how many degrees of global warming to hit the tipping point of the AMOC. But the more it slows down the more likely it is that we do.”
Moreover, she explained, “Tipping does not mean that this happens instantaneously but rather that due to feedback mechanisms the continued slow down cannot be stopped once the tipping point has been crossed, even if we managed to reduce global temperatures again.”
Caesar believes if we stay below 2 degrees Celsius of global warming it seems unlikely that the AMOC would tip, but if we hit 3 or 4 degrees of warming the chances for the tipping rise. Staying below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a goal of the Paris Agreement, which the U.S. just rejoined.
If the tipping point is crossed and the AMOC halts, it is likely the Northern Hemisphere would cool due to a significant decrease in tropical heat being pushed northward. But beyond that, Caesar says that science does not yet know exactly what would happen. “That is part of the risk.”
But humans do have some agency in all this, and the decisions we make now in terms of how quickly we transition away from fossil fuels will determine the outcome.
“Whether or not we cross the tipping point by the end this century depends on the amount of warming, i.e. the amount of greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere,” explains Caesar.
An influential current system in the Atlantic Ocean, which plays a vital role in redistributing heat throughout our planet’s climate system, is now moving more slowly than it has in at least 1,600 years. That’s the conclusion of a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience from some of the world’s leading experts in this field.
Scientists believe that part of this slowing is directly related to our warming climate, as melting ice alters the balance in northern waters. Its impact may be seen in storms, heat waves and sea-level rise. And it bolsters concerns that if humans are not able to limit warming, the system could eventually reach a tipping point, throwing global climate patterns into disarray.
The Gulf Stream along the U.S. East Coast is an integral part of this system, which is known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. It was made famous in the 2004 film “The Day After Tomorrow,” in which the ocean current abruptly stops, causing immense killer storms to spin up around the globe, like a super-charged tornado in Los Angeles and a wall of water smashing into New York City.
As is the case with many sci-fi movies, the plot is based on a real concept but the impacts are taken to a dramatic extreme. Fortunately, an abrupt halting of the current is not expected anytime soon — if ever. Even if the current were to eventually stop — and that is heavily debated — the result would not be instant larger-than-life storms, but over years and decades the impacts would certainly be devastating for our planet.
Recent research has shown that the circulation has slowed down by at least 15% since 1950. Scientists in the new study say the weakening of the current is “unprecedented in the past millennium.”
Because everything is connected, the slowdown is undoubtedly already having an impact on Earth systems, and by the end of the century it is estimated the circulation may slow by 34% to 45% if we continue to heat the planet. Scientists fear that kind of slowdown would put us dangerously close to tipping points.
Importance of the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt
Because the equator receives a lot more direct sunlight than the colder poles, heat builds up in the tropics. In an effort to reach balance, the Earth sends this heat northward from the tropics and sends cold south from the poles. This is what causes the wind to blow and storms to form.
The majority of that heat is redistributed by the atmosphere. But the rest is more slowly moved by the oceans in what is called the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt — a worldwide system of currents connecting the world’s oceans, moving in all different directions horizontally and vertically.
NOAA
Through years of scientific research it has become clear that the Atlantic portion of the conveyor belt — the AMOC — is the engine that drives its operation. It moves water at 100 times the flow of the Amazon river. Here’s how it works.
A narrow band of warm, salty water in the tropics near Florida, called the Gulf Stream, is carried northward near the surface into the North Atlantic. When it reaches the Greenland region, it cools sufficiently enough to become more dense and heavier than the surrounding waters, at which point it sinks. That cold water is then carried southward in deep water currents.
Through proxy records like ocean sediment cores, which allow scientists to reconstruct the distant past going back millions of years, scientists know that this current has the capacity to slow and stop, and when it does the climate in the Northern Hemisphere can change quickly.
One important mechanism through the ages, which acts as a lever of sorts controlling the speed of the AMOC, is the melting of glacial ice and resulting influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic. That’s because fresh water is less salty, and therefore less dense, than sea water, and it does not sink as readily. Too much fresh water means the conveyor belt loses the sinking part of its engine and thus loses its momentum.
That’s what scientists believe is happening now as ice in the Arctic, in places like Greenland, melts at an accelerating pace due to human-caused climate change.
Climate Central
Recently scientists have noticed a cold blob, also known as the North Atlantic warming hole, in a patch of the North Atlantic around southern Greenland — one of the only places that’s actually cooling on the planet.
The fact that climate models predicted this lends more evidence that it is indicative of excess Greenland ice melting, more rainfall and a consequent slowdown of heat transport northward from the tropics.
Almost all of the globe is warming except for a cold blob in the North Atlantic.
NASA
In order to ascertain just how unprecedented the recent slowing of the AMOC is, the research team compiled proxy data taken mainly from nature’s archives like ocean sediments and ice cores, reaching back over 1,000 years. This helped them reconstruct the flow history of the AMOC.
The team used a combination of three different types of data to obtain information about the history of the ocean currents: temperature patterns in the Atlantic Ocean, subsurface water mass properties, and deep-sea sediment grain sizes, dating back 1,600 years.
While each individual piece of proxy data is not a perfect representation of the AMOC evolution, the combination of them revealed a robust picture of the overturning circulation, says lead author of the paper, Dr. Levke Caesar, a climate physicist at Maynooth University in Ireland.
“The study results suggest that it has been relatively stable until the late 19th century,” explains Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
The first significant change in their records of ocean circulation happened in the mid 1800s, after a well-known regional cooling period called the Little Ice Age, which spanned from the 1400s to the 1800s. During this time, colder temperatures frequently froze rivers across Europe and destroyed crops.
“With the end of the Little Ice Age in about 1850, the ocean currents began to decline, with a second, more drastic decline following since the mid-20th century,” said Rahmstorf. That second decline in recent decades was likely due to global warming from the burning and emissions of fossil fuel pollution.
Nine of the 11 data-sets used in the study showed that the 20th century AMOC weakening is statistically significant, which provides evidence that the slowdown is unprecedented in the modern era.
Impact on storms, heat waves and sea-level rise
Caesar says this is already reverberating in the climate system on both sides of the Atlantic. “As the current slows down, more water can pile up at the U.S. East Coast, leading to an enhanced sea level rise [in places like New York and Boston],” she explained.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in Europe, evidence shows there are impacts to weather patterns, such as the track of storms coming off the Atlantic as well as heat waves.
“Specifically, the European heat wave of summer 2015 has been linked to the record cold in the northern Atlantic in that year – this seemingly paradoxical effect occurs because a cold northern Atlantic promotes an air pressure pattern that funnels warm air from the south into Europe,” she said.
According to Caesar, these impacts will likely continue to get worse as the Earth continues to warm and the AMOC slows down even further, with more extreme weather events like a change of the winter storm track coming off the Atlantic and potentially more intense storms.
CBS News asked Caesar the million-dollar question: If or when the AMOC may reach a tipping point leading to a complete shutdown? She replied: “Well, the problem is that we don’t know yet at how many degrees of global warming to hit the tipping point of the AMOC. But the more it slows down the more likely it is that we do.”
Moreover, she explained, “Tipping does not mean that this happens instantaneously but rather that due to feedback mechanisms the continued slow down cannot be stopped once the tipping point has been crossed, even if we managed to reduce global temperatures again.”
Caesar believes if we stay below 2 degrees Celsius of global warming it seems unlikely that the AMOC would tip, but if we hit 3 or 4 degrees of warming the chances for the tipping rise. Staying below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a goal of the Paris Agreement, which the U.S. just rejoined.
If the tipping point is crossed and the AMOC halts, it is likely the Northern Hemisphere would cool due to a significant decrease in tropical heat being pushed northward. But beyond that, Caesar says that science does not yet know exactly what would happen. “That is part of the risk.”
But humans do have some agency in all this, and the decisions we make now in terms of how quickly we transition away from fossil fuels will determine the outcome.
“Whether or not we cross the tipping point by the end this century depends on the amount of warming, i.e. the amount of greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere,” explains Caesar.
Today marks the launch of Star. It’s a new section of Disney Plus for international audiences that will offer more mature R-rated films, TV shows from FX, and other shows and movies that Disney owns the rights to but don’t fit into Disney Plus’ family-friendly image.
Star is effectively Disney’s solution to the fact that Hulu doesn’t exist in international markets. It marks a way for the company to expand on the value proposition of Disney Plus to international customers with the most crucial currency any streaming service has to offer: a bigger library of content.
What that means is that international users are about to get a massive influx of movies and shows available on Disney Plus, through Star, that won’t be available for US customers — or rather, won’t be available to US customers through Disney Plus. Those shows and movies will instead continue to live on Hulu as part of the separate service instead.
Photo: Twentieth Century Fox
If you’re an international Disney Plus customer who lives in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada — the regions that will get access to Star starting today — that’s great news.
Conversely, if you’re a US customer, you may feel a bit cheated. The library that Disney is offering on Star includes TV shows like Family Guy, How I Met Your Mother, Lost, Firefly, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Buffy the Vampire Slayer,and Bones,along with movies like Deadpool 2, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Borat, and Braveheart — films and shows that Disney already owns the rights to but requires that customers pay up for an extra Hulu subscription to watch in the US.
This is because of a complex matrix of rights deals and revenue streams. While Star and Hulu will have a fair amount of overlap — including Hulu originals like Love, Victor — Hulu in the US still features a far bigger library, including shows and movies licensed from third-party studios such as MGM and Paramount.
Star, on the other hand, will only feature first-party content that Disney has the rights to from its own studios (which include ABC, Hulu, FX, Freeform, 20th Television, 20th Century Studios, and Touchstone Pictures). It seems that Disney’s balance sheet has arrived at the conclusion that subscribers are willing to pay for the separate Hulu and Disney Plus libraries in the US, but that the more limited Star lineup was enough to justify a standalone paid purchase for international customers.
Part of that distinction also comes down to the Angry God of ARPU (average revenue per user) — something that’s on Disney’s mind a lot as it looks to build out Disney Plus around the world. Looking at Disney’s 2020 earnings, the company’s direct-to-consumer streaming business was up 73 percent year over year, with revenue of $3.5 billion. But it actually made less money from each customer on average, with ARPU down to $4.03 per subscriber, largely due to the substantially lower cost of Disney Plus Hotstar in India and Indonesia.
(Star, incidentally, is not to be confused with Disney Plus Hotstar, which operates under the Disney Plus banner and features Disney’s original shows and films but is a vastly different service in terms of pricing and distribution than Disney Plus / Hulu in the US and Disney Plus / Star in other international markets.)
Turning Star into a cheaper international version of Hulu doesn’t help fix that ARPU problem. But using Hulu content to boost Disney Plus subscribers in the more lucrative (per customer) markets of Europe, Australia, and Canada does.
That’s especially true once you factor in the fact that Disney is also using the Star rollout to increase prices in those markets from €6.99 per month to €8.99, which marks a proportionally larger increase than the $1 price increase (from $6.99 to $7.99) planned for Disney Plus users in the US later this year.
And using that big pile of Star content to sweeten the pot is the perfect answer for Disney because it already owns the rights to all of it. Unlike Hulu, which costs Disney a ton in licensing costs and ad-revenue deals, adding Star to Disney Plus internationally doesn’t cost it a penny. It just better monetizes things the company already owns.
That’s even reflected in the branding itself: last year, CEO Bob Chapek announced that it would be using the Star brand internationally instead of Hulu, citing both the fact that Hulu has the association of aggregated content as well as its lack of brand awareness outside of the US.
In fact, the existence of Star could be a glimpse at a possible future for Disney’s streaming endeavors in the US, should Hulu end up being unsustainable as stakeholders continue to pry back their licensed shows and films for their own streaming services like Peacock, Paramount Plus, or HBO Max.
If Disney is planning to offer a single unified streaming service in the US, it’s still some ways off, though. For now, US customers will have to shell out for the Disney bundle (which includes Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus) if they want to stream FX shows andWandaVision.
But whether you live in the US with Hulu, or Canada with Star, there’s one main winner in all of this: Disney’s bottom line.
Here’s how mRNA viruses like COVID-19 mutate, and why certain viruses are harder to develop vaccines for.
USA TODAY
Even as cases continue to decline and more Americans receive their vaccines, the coronavirus isn’t likely to go away anytime soon, health officials say.
The nation’s top infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci dismissed the idea that COVID-19 would be eradicated in the next several years at a webinar hosted by think tank Chatham House in November.
“We need to plan that this is something we may need to maintain control over chronically. It may be something that becomes endemic, that we have to just be careful about,” he said.
So, what is an endemic disease and how wouldCOVID-19 become one? Experts say there are multiple endemic diseases in the United States that could foreshadow what the disease caused by the coronavirus may look like in the upcoming years.
What does endemic mean?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines endemic as the “constant presence and/or usual prevalence” of a disease within a population in a certain geographic area.
An endemic disease spreads at a baseline level every year without causing majordisruption to people’s lives, said Dr. Donald Burke, professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
“Things that are endemic are present for long periods of time without interruption, continuously circulating in the population,” like the common cold, he said.
A disease can be endemic in one country but can be considered an outbreak or an epidemic in another country, explained Dr. Pritish Tosh, an infectious diseases physician and researcher at the Mayo Clinic.
For example, malaria is considered endemic in some parts of the world where mosquitos carry the parasite. However, a high number of malaria cases in the United States would be considered an epidemic if it were not contained.
What’s the difference between an epidemic and an endemic?
An epidemic is a sudden increase of a disease above what is normally expected among the population in a certain area, according to the CDC.
Epidemics aren’t just caused by diseases that result from viruses or bacteria, the agency says. For example, diabetes and obesity exist in large enough proportions in the U.S. to be considered epidemics. Similarly, a sudden increase in addiction to opioids over the past several years is accurately called an“opioid epidemic.”
The part of the word “epi” means “to be upon,” Burke said, and “demic” comes from “demos,” which means “people.”
“Epidemic means something that comes out and is among the people,” he said. “Things that are epidemic are things that are unusual that are not there and then appear.”
Endemic means “something that’s within the people,” he added. Many epidemics have turned into endemics.
But an endemic disease does not necessarily mean that it will exist forever. Some endemic diseases have been eliminated in the U.S. after achieving herd immunity through vaccines and natural infection.
What are some endemic diseases?
The four common cold coronaviruses, which are considered cousins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are considered endemic in most parts of the world, including the U.S., Burke said.
“We don’t notice them,” he said. “They’re transmitted, they’re constant.”
Many childhood diseases also are endemic, he said. The measles, for example, used to be endemic in the U.S.
“In the old days … they were commonplace. Everybody got them,” Burke said. But childhood vaccines helped impede transmission, almost eliminating the measles from the U.S.
CLOSE
Recent numbers about COVID-19 cases are trending in a more positive direction. Experts put it into perspective.
USA TODAY
However, the measles is still considered endemic in some parts of the world, Tosh said. If the highly infectious virus was brought in from another country, it could cause an outbreak and possibly lead to an epidemic in the U.S.
For example, a series of outbreaks in 2019 led to more than 1,200 measles cases in the U.S. – the highest number of cases recorded in the country since 1992, according to the CDC. The agency attributed the outbreaks to travelers who got measles abroad and pockets of unvaccinated people.
Could COVID-19 become endemic?
It’s likely SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay, health experts say.
“It appears as though this virus is likely to remain endemic in populations at least for several years, possibly indefinitely,” Tosh said.
A January study found that the virus “could join the ranks of mild, cold-causing … human coronaviruses in the long run,” according to Emory University and Penn State University scientists.
The model, published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, compares SARS-CoV-2 to four common cold coronaviruses plus the SARS and MERS viruses, which surfaced in 2003 and 2012, respectively.
Researchers determined from the model that if the novel coronavirus continues to circulate in the general population and most people are exposed to it from childhood, it could be added to the list of common colds.
Listen to more details from reporter Adrianna Rodriguez in USA TODAY’s 5 Things podcast below on what epidemiologists say about endemics:
However, the future of the novel coronavirus hinges on many unknowns, experts say. New variants from the United Kingdom and South Africa, which studies have shown may be more transmissible, were discovered in the U.S. Health officials are more concerned about the South Africa variant, as emerging data shows existing COVID-19 vaccines seem to be less effective against it.
Tosh expects more variants to arise as growing immunity and vaccines forces the coronavirus to mutate.
“It will be difficult to project what this will look like five years from now,” he said. “But I think we can anticipate some kind of COVID endemicity over the next several years.”
Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.
Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.
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Here’s how mRNA viruses like COVID-19 mutate, and why certain viruses are harder to develop vaccines for.
USA TODAY
Even as cases continue to decline and more Americans receive their vaccines, the coronavirus isn’t likely to go away anytime soon, health officials say.
The nation’s top infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci dismissed the idea that COVID-19 would be eradicated in the next several years at a webinar hosted by think tank Chatham House in November.
“We need to plan that this is something we may need to maintain control over chronically. It may be something that becomes endemic, that we have to just be careful about,” he said.
So, what is an endemic disease and how wouldCOVID-19 become one? Experts say there are multiple endemic diseases in the United States that could foreshadow what the disease caused by the coronavirus may look like in the upcoming years.
What does endemic mean?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines endemic as the “constant presence and/or usual prevalence” of a disease within a population in a certain geographic area.
An endemic disease spreads at a baseline level every year without causing majordisruption to people’s lives, said Dr. Donald Burke, professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
“Things that are endemic are present for long periods of time without interruption, continuously circulating in the population,” like the common cold, he said.
A disease can be endemic in one country but can be considered an outbreak or an epidemic in another country, explained Dr. Pritish Tosh, an infectious diseases physician and researcher at the Mayo Clinic.
For example, malaria is considered endemic in some parts of the world where mosquitos carry the parasite. However, a high number of malaria cases in the United States would be considered an epidemic if it were not contained.
What’s the difference between an epidemic and an endemic?
An epidemic is a sudden increase of a disease above what is normally expected among the population in a certain area, according to the CDC.
Epidemics aren’t just caused by diseases that result from viruses or bacteria, the agency says. For example, diabetes and obesity exist in large enough proportions in the U.S. to be considered epidemics. Similarly, a sudden increase in addiction to opioids over the past several years is accurately called an“opioid epidemic.”
The part of the word “epi” means “to be upon,” Burke said, and “demic” comes from “demos,” which means “people.”
“Epidemic means something that comes out and is among the people,” he said. “Things that are epidemic are things that are unusual that are not there and then appear.”
Endemic means “something that’s within the people,” he added. Many epidemics have turned into endemics.
But an endemic disease does not necessarily mean that it will exist forever. Some endemic diseases have been eliminated in the U.S. after achieving herd immunity through vaccines and natural infection.
What are some endemic diseases?
The four common cold coronaviruses, which are considered cousins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are considered endemic in most parts of the world, including the U.S., Burke said.
“We don’t notice them,” he said. “They’re transmitted, they’re constant.”
Many childhood diseases also are endemic, he said. The measles, for example, used to be endemic in the U.S.
“In the old days … they were commonplace. Everybody got them,” Burke said. But childhood vaccines helped impede transmission, almost eliminating the measles from the U.S.
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Recent numbers about COVID-19 cases are trending in a more positive direction. Experts put it into perspective.
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However, the measles is still considered endemic in some parts of the world, Tosh said. If the highly infectious virus was brought in from another country, it could cause an outbreak and possibly lead to an epidemic in the U.S.
For example, a series of outbreaks in 2019 led to more than 1,200 measles cases in the U.S. – the highest number of cases recorded in the country since 1992, according to the CDC. The agency attributed the outbreaks to travelers who got measles abroad and pockets of unvaccinated people.
Could COVID-19 become endemic?
It’s likely SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay, health experts say.
“It appears as though this virus is likely to remain endemic in populations at least for several years, possibly indefinitely,” Tosh said.
A January study found that the virus “could join the ranks of mild, cold-causing … human coronaviruses in the long run,” according to Emory University and Penn State University scientists.
The model, published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, compares SARS-CoV-2 to four common cold coronaviruses plus the SARS and MERS viruses, which surfaced in 2003 and 2012, respectively.
Researchers determined from the model that if the novel coronavirus continues to circulate in the general population and most people are exposed to it from childhood, it could be added to the list of common colds.
Listen to more details from reporter Adrianna Rodriguez in USA TODAY’s 5 Things podcast below on what epidemiologists say about endemics:
However, the future of the novel coronavirus hinges on many unknowns, experts say. New variants from the United Kingdom and South Africa, which studies have shown may be more transmissible, were discovered in the U.S. Health officials are more concerned about the South Africa variant, as emerging data shows existing COVID-19 vaccines seem to be less effective against it.
Tosh expects more variants to arise as growing immunity and vaccines forces the coronavirus to mutate.
“It will be difficult to project what this will look like five years from now,” he said. “But I think we can anticipate some kind of COVID endemicity over the next several years.”
Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.
Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.
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Claudia Conway, 16, told American Idol judges social media has meant her ‘voice is being heard’ after she has been ‘suppressed’ for most of her life.
The 16-year-old daughter of former Donald Trump aide Kellyanne Conway and Lincoln Project cofounder George Conway is seen speaking out about her ‘hard’ upbringing during a new clip of her audition on the show.
Claudia will appear in the first episode of the series airing on Sunday 14 February on ABC.
Her appearance comes after the teen has shot to fame on TikTok over the last year, with over 1.7 million followers watching her blasting her parents’ politics and getting into fights with her mom.
Last month, police in New Jersey launched an investigation after Claudia accused her mom of posting a topless photo of her on Twitter before she later backtracked saying Conway wasn’t to blame.
Claudia Conway, 16, told American Idol judges social media has meant her ‘voice is being heard’ after she has been ‘suppressed’ for most of her life. Pictured Claudia at her audition
The 16-year-old daughter of former Donald Trump aide Kellyanne Conway and Lincoln Project cofounder George Conway speaks out about her ‘hard’ upbringing during a new clip of her audition on the show
The audition clip, shared by People, shows Claudia opening up to judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan about how social media – and singing – had helped her get her voice heard.
‘I’m Claudia Conway. I’m 16,’ she says at the start of the clip.
‘My mother is Kellyanne Conway. She worked for Donald Trump. And my dad is George Conway. He’s a lawyer he worked against Donald Trump.’
The judges are all seen looking at each other and smiling with Richie saying ‘wow.’
‘It’s a lot, but I agree to disagree with my mom and my dad,’ Claudia tells them.
The TikTok star explains how it was ‘hard’ growing up with her mom working for Trump and said her ‘feelings had been suppressed’ before she joined social media and started posting about her own views.
‘When your mom is working for the President of the United States, who you very much disagree with, it’s hard,’ she continues.
‘Most of my life, my feelings had been suppressed so then I got social media and I was like, ‘Well, yeah. Now my voice is being heard,” she says.
Claudia adds that she now ‘want[s] to get out of the controversy’ and focus on her singing.
Claudia will appear in the first episode of the series airing on Sunday 14 February on ABC. Claudia’s father George accompanied her to the audition
A commercial for the show released Monday also featured images of Kellyanne on a giant screen in the audition room (above)
‘The internet can be a very, very dark place,’ she says.
‘But when life is all going downhill, I have my music. Now, I kinda want to get out of the controversy, get out of the drama and let people know that I am a singer and this is what I want to do.’
The clip also features a home video promo video filmed before the audition.
In it, Claudia speaks to the camera while climbing out of a window.
‘So you probably know me as 15-year-old emancipation girl or that blonde woman from Fox News’ daughter. I’m a little more than that,’ she says.
Claudia’s father George is also seen in the footage standing outside the audition room door and encouraging her before she took to the stage.
‘You’re going to do great,’ he says giving her a hug as she replies: ‘Thank you dad.’
Claudia’s appearance on the show comes after the teen has shot to fame on TikTok over the last year, with over 1.7 million followers
Claudia has repeatedly hit out at her mom’s conservative views and support of Trump
Meanwhile, Kellyanne has previously said she supports her daughter’s music career and saying she is ‘proud’ of her for ‘sharing her beautiful voice’.
‘Claudia and her siblings are taught to be independent self-starters and free thinkers who dream big and aim high. She sets goals and works toward them. Of course, American Idol is next level!’ she told People.
‘We are proud of Claudia for entering the arena and sharing her beautiful voice and inspirational message about mental health with others.’
A commercial for the show released Monday also featured the 16-year-old showing her telling the judges she was ‘very nervous, but very excited.’
It showed Claudia introducing herself to the judges as well as images of Kellyanne on a giant screen in the audition room and the teen sitting next to George.
Host Ryan Seacrest is heard asking aloud in a voice-over if Claudia would receive a Golden Ticket to Hollywood.
Perry tells Claudia: ‘We want an American idol.’
It is not clear if Claudia got through the audition stage of the contest.
American Idol will premiere Sunday on ABC and include Claudia’s audition.
Claudia first announced she would appear on the show back in November in a video on her TikTok account.
In January, police in New Jersey launched an investigation into a topless photo of Claudia that was posted to the former Trump aide’s Twitter. Pictured police at the Conway home
Claudia had accused her mother of leaking the image on Twitter’s newly launched Fleets feature, which deletes posts after 24 hours. The teen later walked back her comments and apologized (above) insisting in videos on TikTok that Kellyanne ‘would never intentionally do that’ and said her account was probably ‘hacked’
‘Hey guys, I’m here at American Idol confessional,’ she says in the video.
‘I met Ryan Seacrest today and I have my audition soon, so stay tuned for that.’
Claudia has repeatedly hit out at her mother for her conservative views and for her support of Trump.
Kellyanne was a close adviser to Trump and his third campaign manager during the 2016 race for the White House, helping him beat Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, George is vocally anti-Trump as a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican group which sought to stop him getting re-elected.
Kellyanne left the White House in August after months of public feuds with Claudia shared which the teen chronicled on her TikTok.
In one video, Claudia threatened to seek legal emancipation saying her mother’s job had ‘ruined her life’.
In January, police in New Jersey launched an investigation into a topless photo of Claudia that was posted to the former Trump aide’s Twitter.
Claudia had accused her mother of leaking the image on Twitter’s newly launched Fleets feature, which deletes posts after 24 hours.
The teen later walked back her comments and apologized insisting in videos on TikTok that Kellyanne ‘would never intentionally do that’ and said her account was probably ‘hacked’.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan—After decades of work, polio had been wiped out almost everywhere in the world. All that was left were pockets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Medical experts hoped 2020 would be the last year that the main form of the virus, which can permanently paralyze or cause death, posed a threat.
The coronavirus pandemic put a halt to that progress.
In March, house-to-house vaccination teams working across Pakistan were forced to stop their work because of Covid-19. As a result, polio resurged, including a mutated form of the virus. It has now been detected in samples taken from sewers in 74% of Pakistan in late 2020, up from just 13% in early 2018.
“Now the virus isn’t just in select pockets. The risk is everywhere” in the country, said Rana Safdar, the doctor in charge of Pakistan’s polio campaign.
The decadeslong battle to eradicate polio around the world is one of the most ambitious and expensive public-health campaigns in history. The mass-vaccination drive and its progress toward arresting a malady that has disabled or killed millions of people point to the success possible in the efforts to inoculate people around the world against Covid-19.
Motorcycles are great, but for many of us—especially sport bike riders—the riding season is cut short by cold weather and slick roads. If you’ve spent the whole winter itching to get back out on track, then what you need is a MotoTrainer module which allows you to train your weight transfer and cornering in the heated comfort of your luxurious garage. Yeah, it’s not cheap, but how awesome would it be to go for a rip in near 100 percent safety while the temperature outside is still below the freeze point?
I’ve currently got four motorcycles in the garage, but my favorite riding roads are well above 6,000 feet above sea level and coated in snow and ice. It’ll be a couple of months yet before I can really feel comfortable getting any kind of lean through the corners. I’m sure I would feel a lot more comfortable practicing putting a knee down if it didn’t have to happen the first time at speed. Plus, it would be extra cool if I could get some riding experience in the depths of a dark and chilly winter.
Image: Moto Trainer
The newest product from Moto Trainer is a collaboration with Dorna Sports, the company which operates MotoGP, and it’s a proper two-wheel racing simulator trainer like those used by the pros. Not only does this system come pre-loaded with all of the tracks on the MotoGP circuit, but once you get done with your training, you can hook it up to your XBox or PC and use the massive contraption as a controller for the MotoGP video game. Dorna is looking to embrace eSports racing, and this is one step it has taken to make that happen.
This rig analyzes “the rider’s performance by monitoring the accelerator, front and rear brakes, gearbox and trajectories” and provides proper telemetry readouts to help you learn where you can improve. The Moto Trainer allows you to lean your bike over at angles up to 50 degrees, helping simulate weight transfer and grip through the corners.
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Whether you want to be the next Rossi or you just want to extend your riding season through the winter doldrums, this could be just the way to do it. Apparently there is an entry-level model running just around $6,000, but it doesn’t include any of the lean or fork feedback motors you need to make it feel really real. The top of the line MotoGP model will run you the full boat 18 grand.
The system is said to be adjustable for any motorcycle, so I think I’d like to load up an I-80 simulator and put a Honda Gold Wing on this bad boy to just let the miles click on by for a few days. I’ll even get shitty gas station food to make the ride feel more realistic. I’m nothing if not dedicated to authenticity, after all.
