Photo: Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Verizon (Getty Images)
In an effort to be helpful, Verizon accidentally stuck its foot in its mouth on Sunday, and then furiously backtracked.
In a tweet on Sunday, which was spotted by the Verge, Verizon Wireless CS told customers that if they were experiencing more battery drain than usual, they should turn on LTE. As the Verge explains, the implication in this tweet directs customers to turn off 5G in phones that have it. Considering Verizon’s big push into 5G, this seems a bit weird.
“Are you noticing that your battery life is draining faster than normal?” Verizon wrote in the tweet. “One way to help conserve battery life is to turn on LTE. Just go to Cellular > Cellular Data Options > Voice & Data and tap LTE.”
A user on Twitter pointed out this irony. Verizon replied to the user but didn’t really address its previous battery advice, choosing instead to talk about 5G speeds. The original tweet about preserving battery life by switching to LTE has since been deleted, although you can see the 5G reply below.
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Gizmodo reached out to Verizon to ask for clarification on whether it was really telling customers to turn off their 5G to preserve battery life. We’ll make sure to update this blog if we hear back.
As Mashable points out, 5G could very well be the cause of battery drain for some phones. Many new features and tech don’t work as envisioned at first, which is logical. Besides, 5G is a work in progress in the U.S. Addressing this in a roundabout way is kind of off-putting. Sure, if Verizon came out and flat out said 5G could be the cause of battery drain, some people might get cranky, which is also understandable given all the fanfare around 5G. But it would at least be the truth.
A quick search reveals that other companies have addressed this issue without creating a messy PR situation. Samsung, for instance, dedicated a support page to the issue of battery drains on 5G service. The manufacturer acknowledged that this problem was legitimate and explained that it was due to a limitation of current 5G networks, but that this would improve as 5G networks expand. Huawei also addressed the issue on a support page, stating that on a 5G network, more bandwidth is consumed online, and therefore more power may be consumed.
Despite its relentless promotion of 5G phones and the fact that it spent more than $45 billion bidding on a new faster spectrum, Verizon support now is advising people on Twitter to turn off their phones’ 5G access to preserve battery life.
In a Sunday morning tweet, Verizon support helpfully suggested that “one way to help conserve battery life is to turn on LTE” if users found their batteries were “draining faster than normal.” That step would, of course, turn off 5G in a phone that has it available. It’s also worth pointing out that you don’t actually “turn on LTE” when doing this step — LTE is always enabled as a fallback for the 5G network. But Verizon is obviously being cautious so as not to actually tell its customers to “turn off 5G”.
Twitter users naturally pointed out that switching to LTE-only would mean turning off 5G (which is available in some newer phones), but the helpful support person said it was important to troubleshoot “steps to find the root cause of any issues with speed,” adding that Verizon is “quickly launching more 5G areas, and making updates constantly to improve speeds.” Verizon’s nationwide 5G network uses a technology called DSS, which in many instances is actually slower than the LTE network it’s trying to replace.
Verizon announced its big 5G plans for 2021 last month, after formally launching its next-gen network in October 2020. One of its top priorities is expanding coverage of its ultra-fast mmWave coverage, which is currently restricted to parts of some cities in the US. It’s also heavily dependent on how close you are to a Verizon 5G site.
Both Verizon and AT&T spent big bucks in the FCC’s Auction 107, bidding on the C-band spectrum. Verizon spent $45.4 billion— twice as much as AT&T’s $23.4 billion. AT&T’s current nationwide 5G network also relies on DSS with speeds close to or lower than 4G LTE.
The new frequencies won’t become available until the end of the 2021 at the earliest, and will be available in limited locations first.
During BlizzCon Online this weekend, Blizzard announced (and released) a three-in-one retro selection comprised of The Lost Vikings, Rock N Roll Racing and Blackthorne.
Just days after the launch of the Blizzard Arcade Collection, Blizzard’s Adam Fletcher has issued a warning about streaming Rock N Roll Racing on platforms such as Twitch. The licensed soundtrack in this particular game is not cleared for streaming, meaning strikes will likely be dished out if it’s not switched off.
According to a story from Kotaku, Twitch went on a purge back in November last year and removed all licensed music and sound effects. It’s become so bad that yesterday’s Metallica concert during BlizzCon was replaced with generic audio.
So be sure to turn off Rock N Roll Racing’s music before you start streaming this collection online. The Blizzard Arcade Collection is available now from the Switch eShop for $19.99. Have you tried it out yet? Leave a comment down below.
Being mostly rural and far from the coasts didn’t protect North Dakota and South Dakota from Covid-19.
After a spring and a summer of flimsy or nonexistent public health measures, politicization of the pandemic and rampant misinformation, the states were tinderboxes.
Then came the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in August. The gathering of nearly half a million people in a small town in western South Dakota sent case numbers and deaths soaring in both states.
Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
By November, North Dakota had the highest coronavirus infection rate per capita in the world. In South Dakota, the death rate reached a global high.
Unlike states that had soaring case counts early in the pandemic, neither North Dakota nor South Dakota ever issued stay-at-home orders. Mask mandates, if they came, came late. Yet numbers in both states have come down significantly since the late fall peak, and the Dakotas have emerged as national leaders in vaccine distribution — both are closing in on 5 percent of their total populations’ being fully vaccinated, putting them in the top five in the country.
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But beneath the surface, experts fear that the success could be tenuous: Misinformation, a false sense of security and the politicization of infection prevention measures are setting the stage for a possible second surge.
The pandemic got personal
By Halloween, Covid-19 had been ripping through South Dakota for two months. But when Nick Brown, 29, drove through downtown Brookings — the state’s fourth-largest city, near the Minnesota border — he passed a string of bars that hosted maskless crowds. At one bar, a local rock band played for a packed house.
Brown, who was a doctoral student in mathematics at South Dakota State University at the time, said he was diligent about wearing masks and avoiding crowds, but he noted that the topic had become political and that not everyone followed public health recommendations.
People cheer as a band performs during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, S.D., on Aug. 7.Michael Ciaglo / Getty Images file
The situation was nearly identical in the state’s northern neighbor.
Dr. Paul Carson, director of the North Dakota State University Center for Immunization Research and Education, said that as he and his wife traveled across the state in the summer, masks were sparse and physical distancing was almost nonexistent, particularly the farther west they went. Adherence to public health measures was slightly better in eastern hubs, including Fargo, which had implemented mask guidance in the absence of a statewide order.
Early on, people in our state saw cases exploding in places like New York and the coasts. It seemed like it was a problem for large, urban metropolitan centers, not us.
“Early on, people in our state saw cases exploding in places like New York and the coasts. It seemed like it was a problem for large, urban metropolitan centers, not us,” he said.
That had changed by mid-November, when “it became unavoidable to not know someone who was in the hospital or who had died of Covid-19,” he said. “People felt it personally. It became clear that our hospitals were overrun.”
That undeniable evidence, Carson said, helped motivate people to make the changes that eventually turned the tide. “It became hard to say that the epidemic is being overblown, that it’s no worse than the flu, and this influenced people to change their behavior.” Mask-wearing and social distancing, he said, increased.
Finally, on Nov. 13, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum issued a statewide mask mandate and restricted capacity in bars and restaurants.
Protesters outside the North Dakota State Capitol in Bismarck criticize the state’s shutdown on April 20.Russell Hons / CSM via AP
Such an order never came in South Dakota, one of the few states to issue no restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
South Dakota Health Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon didn’t address the spike in cases in a statement to NBC News, but she said that “we’ve empowered [South Dakotans] to make the best decision for themselves, their family and their businesses, by providing them with timely and accurate health information as it becomes available,” and she highlighted the vaccination rollout in the state. The North Dakota Health Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Dr. Shankar Kurra, vice president of medical affairs at Monument Health Rapid City Hospital in South Dakota, said the personal impact of Covid-19 was the main force behind the rise in masking in the state.
“Folks started paying attention, though late, which did contribute to the decline,” he said, referring to the fall in cases.
The statewide mandates, Carson said, made a noticeable difference in how North Dakota’s case numbers fell compared to South Dakota’s.
“Cases fell more slowly in South Dakota than in North Dakota,” he said. What’s more, “although recorded cases of positive Covid-19 tests were roughly the same in both states, North Dakota was issuing about four times as many tests as South Dakota at the time and had a positivity rate that was about four times lower.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, North Dakota has tested 7 percent more of its population than South Dakota. Nineteen percent of tests are still positive in South Dakota, according to Johns Hopkins University, compared to less than 4 percent in North Dakota.
Brown said that in Brookings, people did eventually start wearing masks — and they continue to in some cases — but other risky behaviors didn’t stop. “The bar scene didn’t seem to slow down much from what I could tell on social media,” he said, adding that restaurants appeared to fill more takeout orders during the surge but that indoor dining continued.
A spike in natural immunity
Experts say another reason case numbers rose and fell sharply was that many people were infected around the same time.
Clusters of infections sprung up in groups that frequented the same places and perhaps took greater risks — for example, friends who went to bars together, Carson said. Infection rates fell as those groups recovered and were likely to have become immune and unable to spread the virus for several months.
Indeed, Carson and Kurra credit the hyperlocalized clusters of herd immunity as a key factor that helped curb the surge of cases in the Dakotas.
At least 1 in 9 South Dakotans and 1 in 7 North Dakotans have tested positive — twice as many cases per capita as in New York. Carson said the real number is likely to be double that.
The jury’s still out on how long natural immunity lasts; some studies have shown that it can fade after three months.
A patient is moved in the emergency department at Jamestown Regional Medical Center in Jamestown, N.D., on Nov. 22. In the course of a day, the ER staff had seen 29 patients, including five with Covid-19.Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images file
“We’re all coming to the end of that 90-day cycle now, so we are worried there will be a second spike,” said Tessa Johnson, president of the North Dakota Nurses Association, who works in a long-term care facility.
Regardless of how long natural antibodies remain effective against infection, both states haven’t had enough cases to reach statewide herd immunity. Johnson worried that case numbers will spike again because so many people had the virus at the same time.
If people stop taking precautions to stop the spread of the virus, risky behaviors will ultimately expose those who haven’t yet contracted the virus or been vaccinated.
“It’s still too soon to let go of the gas at this point. Even with the vaccine, we still need to live in the virtual world before we can safely go back to normalcy,” Johnson said.
Delegating responsibility
Meanwhile, in the absence of significant state government intervention, the handful of hospital systems that dominate health care in the Dakotas took charge. Their approach had certain benefits.
The three main health systems that operate in South Dakota — Monument Health, Avera Health and Sanford Health — were responsible for working with community organizations to promote prevention and address misinformation, as well as devising plans to administer tests and vaccinations.
“The state gave the awesome responsibility to Monument Health to be in charge of the western half of the state,” Kurra said. “That was a huge burden, but this centralized approach has made it so we can be speedy, agile and can easily coordinate with the other health systems.”
Monument Health has coordinated with local health clinics in the most rural parts of the state to get doses to them as quickly as possible.
“That kind of logistical success doesn’t come easy. It takes a lot of planning, but it’s easier when you have just one source,” he said.
Dr. Jeremy Cauwels, chief physician for Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, said the hospital system — which operates in both states — recognized and addressed vaccination challenges early on. That played a crucial role in successful vaccine distribution efforts in both states.
“Any time you have a vaccine that you have to treat differently, such as the cold storage, there are going to be extra challenges,” he said, referring to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which requires ultracold freezers. “But we saw those obstacles months beforehand and had nine freezers in distribution sites before the vaccinations hit.”
In North Dakota, Carson credits Molly Howell, the immunization program manager at the state Health Department, who started creating a vaccination plan back in August. Both states also coordinated with pharmacies early on, delegating to them the task of administering vaccinations in long-term care facilities.
A drive-thru testing site in the Event Center in Bismarck, N.D., on Oct. 26.Bing Guan / Reuters
“In small, rural states, everybody knows each other, and I think having that personal connection allows for a more expedited and less bureaucratic process,” said Carson, who participates in a weekly call among experts who are heavily involved in the state’s response.
In addition to hospital systems, the Indian Health Service has been coordinating vaccination efforts for the states’ large Native American populations, which have been hit disproportionately hard.
The agency has been careful to work closely with tribal communities to design distribution plans based on each local community, because tribal leaders and members are in the best position to understand their health care needs and priorities, an Indian Health Service representative said in a statement.
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The vaccination rate on reservations in the Great Plains Area (which also includes reservations in Nebraska and Iowa) is about 14,000 doses per 100,000 people — comparable to the rates elsewhere in the Dakotas.
The misinformation threat
Despite the high vaccination rates in both states, Johnson said uptake in North Dakota was “disappointing.”
Although every resident at the long-term care facility where she works has been vaccinated, she estimates that the vaccination rate among staff members is only 25 percent.
Carson worries that it is a trend across the state — one that he attributed to misinformation about the vaccines.
Kurra estimated that in South Dakota, vaccination uptake is at 60 percent; Cauwels estimated the rate to be slightly higher among health care workers. Experts don’t yet know how many people will need to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity, but if enough people decline vaccinations, the virus will have an opportunity to spread and mutate, which could make vaccines less effective against new variants that emerge.
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The North Dakota Health Department has taken to social media to address specific misinformation about the vaccines. In South Dakota, the task has largely been left to doctors like Kurra. Since the start of the pandemic, Kurra has hosted weekly Facebook Live events and conference calls, and he has regularly appeared on local news stations to address people’s questions about Covid-19. His focus is now on the vaccines.
“People hold on to misinformation, but health systems have the unique advantage of being a trusted source, and we have to leverage that,” Kurra said.
Right now, vaccination is the best way to prevent further outbreaks.
Carson said, “We’re watching the coasts contend with second spikes, and we can avoid another surge here by getting as many vaccinations out as we can.”
The overall decline in new coronavirus case numbers in the U.S. over the month of January has brought relief to some health officials. But new data now shows that there may be a new development on the horizon that could thrust the pandemic back into very dire territory. That’s because according to a new study, the highly contagious U.K. COVID strain is spreading across the U.S. at an alarming rate and could drastically alter conditions within the next month. Read on to see why experts are so concerned about the development, and for more on when some officials think we can go somewhat back to normal, check out Dr. Fauci Just Said We’ll Never Be Able to Do This Again.
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The first case of the U.K. COVID variant—officially known as B.1.1.7—was only first reported in the U.S. as recently as mid-December. But research released in a preprint on Feb. 7 that has not yet been peer-reviewed has found that the highly contagious strain is doubling every 10 days, confirming fears originally put forth by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that it could become the most common form of the virus within a matter of weeks.
“Nothing in this paper is surprising, but people need to see it,” Kristian Andersen, a co-author of the study and a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California told The New York Times. “We should probably prepare for this being the predominant lineage in most places in the United States by March.”
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Experts explain that a mutation known officially as N501Y is what has made the U.K. strain so transmissible, changing the exterior shape of the virus and enabling it to more easily infect healthy cells. “It makes it like even stickier Velcro,” Michael Worobey, PhD, a viral evolution researcher at the University of Arizona told CNN.
Now, experts warn that the heavy surges witnessed in other countries such as Portugal, Ireland, and Jordan were likely caused by the variant, and could likely create similar conditions stateside. “There could indeed be a very serious situation developing in a matter of months or weeks,” Nicholas Davies, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who was not involved in the study told The Times. “These may be early signals warranting urgent investigation by public health authorities.” And for more on what could potentially have a huge effect in the fight against COVID, check out Dr. Fauci Just Said This One Thing Could Turn the Pandemic Around.
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Some experts argue that focusing on vaccinating as much of the public as possible—especially those above the age of 65 who are at higher risk of severe COVID—has now taken on new importance. One expert compared the current drop in cases as similar to being lulled into a false sense of security by being in the calm “eye of the hurricane” just before worse conditions resume.
“I’ve been on Zoom calls for the last two weeks about how we’re going to manage this,” Peter Hotez, MD, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN during a Feb. 7 interview. “The big wall is about to hit us again and these are the new variants.”
“This could be really, very dire for our country as we head into the spring,” Hotez warned CNN. “Now, we’re in a race. We’re in a race to see how quickly we can vaccinate the American people.”
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While variant already has caused concern among health officials in its current state, researchers in Britain have also found samples of B.1.1.7 featuring yet another mutation that can also make current vaccines less effective against it. And while experts question whether or not these mutations will become common, some have pointed out that the development proves the novel coronavirus is a formidable and unpredictable foe that we can anticipate will keep us guessing.
“We should expect them to crop up here,” Andersen told The Times of future threatening mutations. “Whatever was true elsewhere is going to be true here as well, and we need to deal with it.” And for more on how the pandemic is affecting where you live, check out This Is How Bad the COVID Outbreak Is in Your State.
More than a month since the U.S. first began administering COVID-19 vaccines, many people who were not supposed to be first in line have received vaccinations. Anecdotal reports suggest some people have deliberately leveraged widespread vulnerabilities in the distribution process to acquire vaccine. Others were just in the right place at the right time.
“There’s dozens and dozens of these stories, and they really show that the rollout was a complete disaster in terms of selling fairness,” said Arthur Caplan, who heads the medical ethics division at the NYU School of Medicine. “It wasn’t that we didn’t have consensus (on who should go first). We didn’t pay attention to logistics, and that drove distribution, not rules.”
Analysis: What went wrong with COVID-19 vaccine distribution and how it has tarnished the ‘miracle’
The efforts of one particular couple may take the cake for most extravagant scheme to get vaccinated.
Last month, casino executive Rodney Baker and his wife, actress Ekaterina Baker, chartered a plane to a remote community in Canada where health workers were administering vaccine to vulnerable members of the White River First Nation. The two posed as local motel employees and received vaccinations, according to a member of the Yukon Legislative Assembly. They now face fines.
“Like so many, I’m shocked and angry, but not surprised,” Kluane Adamek, Yukon Regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said in a statement at the time. “These actions are a blatant display of disrespect and an exemplification of true privilege and entitlement; a selfish millionaire and his wife, stole doses of the vaccine from a vulnerable population, and put an entire community, nation and region at risk.”
Nearly 13 million people in the U.S. – about 5% of the U.S. population aged 16 years and older – received at least one dose of vaccine during the first month of vaccine rollout, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Monday.
The agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended initially prioritizing vaccinations for the estimated 24 million health care personnel and long-term care facility residents in the U.S. But states and local authorities implemented varying versions of that national guidance. Florida and Texas, for example, expanded their vaccination programs to all people 65 and older.
Among people who received a first dose, 63% were women, 55% were 50 and older, and 60% were non-Hispanic white, according to the CDC. Those numbers “likely” reflect the demographic characteristics of health care personnel and longterm care facility residents recommended to be vaccinated in the priority group, the CDC said.
But the agency is missing data on race and ethnicity for about half of vaccine recipients, and it’s unclear what proportion of the recipients were health care personnel versus longterm care facility residents, the CDC said. “Therefore, it was not possible to directly compare the observed demographic patterns among persons initiating vaccination to demographic characteristics of prioritized populations,” the agency said.
‘It’s not a pretty picture’: Why the lack of racial data around COVID vaccines is ‘massive barrier’ to better distribution
Here’s how people who weren’t in priority groups got vaccinations:
Stealing, bribing and VIP scheduling
Some people have set out to deliberately steal, bribe or manipulate their way to vaccine. Last month, Polk County, Florida’s “2020 Paramedic of the Year” was arrested and charged with stealing vaccines meant for first responders. The first responder confessed to intentionally stealing three doses vaccine and forging paperwork in attempt to cover his actions.
In Philadelphia, a 22-year-old student who got a contract from the city to run its vaccine distribution sign-up admitted that he took four doses home and administered them to friends. The city announced last week that it would no longer work with the startup.
Several concierge doctors — who offer personalized medical services and direct access for an annual fee — have reported clients or would-be clients offering bribes for vaccine.
Dr. Robert Huizenga, who runs a practice in Beverly Hills, told Variety that his practice had been offered more than $10,000 by people, including members of the entertainment industry, who wanted to get vaccinated.
Dr. Ed Goldberg, who runs a practice on the Upper East Side in Manhattan and charges $20,000 a year, told USA TODAY he’d received calls from people specifically wanting to join his practice if a vaccine is guaranteed. Goldberg said he makes it clear that’s a “no-can-do.”
Latest COVID-19 updates: US tops 450K deaths as CDC reports ‘downward trajectory’ in cases
Officials across the nation have also raised concerns about wealthy donors and board members affiliated with hospitals and care facilities securing vaccinations before their allotted timeslot.
In early January, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he had directed Florida’s inspector general to look into the reports that MorseLife Health System, a pricey elder care center in West Palm Beach, gave vaccine to donors and members of the Palm Beach Country Club. U.S. Sen. Rick Scott also called for a congressional investigation.
Some people connected with New York developers Bill and David Mack – who are donors to MorseLife and are on the board of directors for the country club – were allegedly able to go to the health clinic there to get their shots. Among those given the vaccine at MorseLife was Robert Fromer, the former managing partner of a New York City law firm whose family foundation has donated $45,000 to MorseLife since 2015, the Washington Post reported.
Washington state has seen similar issues. The Seattle Times reported that three medical systems in the region gave special vaccine access to big donors or foundation members.
Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington, which admitted the first known U.S. case of COVID-19 over a year ago, said it made a mistake in prioritizing influential people. The hospital had reached out to hospital volunteers, volunteer board members and donors to offer the vaccine to those that met the state’s eligibility criteria.
“In retrospect we understand that in our haste to vaccinate people quickly – including certain members of our hospital community – we created the impression that some people are able to use their access to unfairly get a vaccination appointment,” the hospital said in a statement.
On Monday, the Washington state Health Department said in a statement that “VIP scheduling, reserving doses for inequitable or exclusive access and similar practices are banned and will not be tolerated.”
Politicians claim priority
Some politicians and religious and community leaders have received vaccine ahead of priority groups in an apparent bid to promote the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines among skeptical Americans, including groups that have been historically wary of the scientific community. Surveys in recent weeks show close to 60% of respondents saying they’d get a vaccine, up from a low of 1 in 2 Americans polled in September.
But many politicians have faced criticism for using their positions of power to get vaccinated early. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Marco Rubio faced blowback from fellow lawmakers in December after they received their first shots and shared the news on social media.
“We are not more important than frontline workers, teachers etc. who are making sacrifices everyday,” Rep. Ilhan Omar wrote on Twitter Dec. 20. “People who need it most, should get it.”
In early January, six former governors of Kentucky and four former first ladies received vaccinations, including current Gov. Andy Beshear’s parents. “We urge all Kentuckians to roll up their sleeves, take the fight to COVID and do their part to move the commonwealth forward,” the group said in a statement at the time.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, 49, who said in December that he would wait his turn to receive a vaccination, was vaccinated last week at the recommendation of medical personnel, his office said.
“It looked like our politicians just pushed to the front of the line,” Caplan said.
Exploiting flaws in online book systems
Online booking tools have allowed some people – knowingly or unknowingly – to make appointments and receive shots by circulating web links or event codes intended for priority groups.
In Kansas City, Missouri, people who were not in priority groups were able to get a shot by clicking a scheduling link initially sent to priority patients vetted over the phone, Dr. Rex Archer, director of health at the Kansas City Health Department, told USA TODAY. The same thing happened last month in Montgomery County, Tennessee, according to local reports, and again last week at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle.
Gale Robinette, a spokesperson for Virginia Mason Medical Center, told USA TODAY a “technical glitch” in the organization’s online registration form “may have allowed” some individuals to be scheduled for vaccination before they were eligible. Now, recipients need a photo ID and proof of eligibility confirmation from the department of health.
“We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused,” Robinette said. “There is no indication any one intentionally ‘gamed’ the system in order to get the vaccine earlier than they should.”
In New Mexico, some people were able to secure shots by circulating a special code sent to healthcare workers that allowed them to book appointments online, according to local reports. State health officials disabled the code when they discovered the issue.
Now, “the system checks users against current eligibility criteria and prevents them from confirming an appointment if they don’t qualify,” Matt Bieber, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Health, told USA TODAY.
Willing to take the left-overs
Some people have snagged a vaccination by volunteering to receive a shot that would have otherwise been thrown out.
Many people wait for hours outside mass vaccination clinics in Los Angeles and San Diego, where health care teams give away thawed but unused vaccines from appointment no-shows at the end of the day.
Under California guidelines, as in many other states, health departments and providers can offer doses “promptly to people in lower priority groups” when doses are about to expire according to labeling instructions or doses that have been thawed and would otherwise go to waste.
Similar high-stakes scenarios have played out after power outages or unexpected freezer fails. Last week, Seattle hospitals rushed out COVID-19 vaccines to hundreds of people in the middle of the night after a freezer they were being stored in shut off. Two hospitals put out emergency calls on social media, and each administered more than 800 doses of vaccine late that night and into the morning.
The hospitals did not immediately respond to inquires about how many of the vaccinations went to priority patients.
Weeks earlier, just north of Seattle, the Tulalip Tribes in Washington State rushed out 700 vaccinations in a matter of hours after a windstorm knocked out power to much of the county, including the reservation’s freezer. Clinic staff vaccinated tribal elders, local teachers, Snohomish County first responders and others.
At the end of January, health care workers in Oregon driving back from a vaccination event got stuck in a snow storm with six doses that were about to expire. The staff, not wanting the vaccine to go to waste, trekked through the storm offering it to motorists stuck on the road, eventually finding six takers after 45 minutes.
Greater regulation?
Several public health experts said incidents of deliberate line-jumping are likely small-scale. But the anecdotes point to larger problems in the U.S. vaccine rollout, as well as underlying systemic issues.
“If anything, this fiasco with the vaccines and line jumping and bad actors and black markets should be the beacon that lets us know it’s time to look at our entire health system,” said Glenn Ellis, a visiting scholar at the National Bioethics Center at Tuskegee University and a bioethics fellow at Harvard Medical School.
“One way or another privilege, power and money is affording access — unscheduled and unnatural access to something. Line-jumping is just another form of that.”
‘An unbelievable chain of oppression’: America’s history of racism was a preexisting condition for COVID-19
Dr. William John Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the issues in the U.S. vaccine rollout boil down to two fundamental problems: the ambiguity of vaccination eligibility criteria, and the logistics of scheduling vaccination appointments.
“We’ve ended up in a situation where we have these very broad categories that can be interpreted very broadly,” Moss said, referencing categories such as “essential worker” and “co-morbidities.”
SoulCycle instructor and Instagram influencer Stacey Griffith, 52, for example, received a vaccination last month by characterizing herself as an “educator.” She later apologized for receiving the vaccine.
And while some people have taken advantage of flaws in online appointment booking systems, many people in priority groups are struggling to navigate them.
“Older adults are having a tremendous difficulty in scheduling vaccine appointments, as well as disadvantaged communities, particularly low-income, African American or Latino communities, because it requires internet access, having a computer available, being willing and able, perhaps, to spend hours online trying to get an appointment,” Moss said.
Moss said his parents, in their 90s in New Jersey, have not been able to get vaccinated. They signed up online, and they’re waiting to be called. But his wife and the young scientists in her laboratory have all been vaccinated.
“I don’t think it should be that way,” he said. “I would like to see stricter criteria on who’s getting the vaccine to make sure we’re getting it to those individuals who really need it first.”
Caplan argued that there should be penalties for people who get vaccinated before their allotted timeframe, as laid out by local guidance.
“If you want people to follow the rules, put in some penalties if you break them,” Caplan said. “People brag about how they got vaccinated on the internet, and nothing happens.”
At the same time, more stringent regulations could hamper efforts to reach vulnerable communities, said Kate Cole, a spokesperson for the public health department in King County, Washington.
“Our observation has been that the vast majority of people are following the rules and that a more stringent verification process could create more barriers for those most in need,” Cole said. “Due to the influences of structural racism and difficulties accessing technology, those most at risk typically have fewer resources to successfully navigate the healthcare system for vaccines.”
The issue of line-jumping could become more widespread as vaccine production continues to ramp up and doses begin to roll out to pharmacies in the coming weeks. CVS Health and Walgreens said they’re taking steps to make sure pharmacies schedule vaccinations in line with priority groups.
CVS Health said in a statement that it plans to offer vaccines in retail stores on an appointment-only basis, booked online, on the phone or through the app. Patients making an appointment will be screened via a questionnaire to confirm their eligibility to receive a vaccine in their state, the company said. Patients will be asked to attest that all information provided during appointment set up is truthful and accurate, and some states will require the collection of IDs to verify eligibility.
Similarly, Walgreens said patients arriving for vaccinations appointments must sign an affidavit confirming they meet their state’s eligibility requirement. Patients also need to show a valid government ID to confirm their identity at the time of their vaccination appointment.
“If people have opportunities to cut they line, they should think about it, if they’re not in a high-risk category,” Moss said. “They should be willing to wait their turn.”
Contributing: John Pacenti and Jane Musgrave, The Palm Beach Post
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SINGAPORE (Reuters) — A social media-driven buying spree lifted silver to an eight-year high on Monday but the rally cooled on doubts about the ability of retail traders who are normally focused on stocks to move prices in a bigger, more liquid commodities market.
Video game retailer GameStop, at the center of last week’s “Reddit rally,” slid 30.8% to $225, but other shares caught up in the frenzy that has battered short-sellers extended their advance, including BlackBerry.
Silver prices climbed to an eight-year peak of just over $30 an ounce before paring gains to trade up 6.3% at $28.70.
A lot of people who were anticipating a GameStop-like rally in silver “now realize there is not as much buying pressure pushing it up like some had thought,” said Michael Matousek, head trader at U.S. Global Investors.
It was not clear how long the Reddit-fueled rally in stocks shorted by hedge funds would last. It could mean more losses in the wider market this week if funds have to keep selling to meet redemptions or right their portfolios. Longer-term, they may have to shift strategies.
Share prices swung wildly last week when small-time traders, who organised in online forums and traded with fee-free brokers such as the Robinhood online brokerage, saddled several powerful hedge funds with losses on their short positions.
The effect of the struggle on the wider U.S. market abated on Monday, with stocks ending sharply higher after last week’s steep market sell-off. AMC was flat, having risen more than 500% this year. BlackBerry shares were higher in New York and Toronto trading.
The showdown has drawn scrutiny from financial regulators, lawmakers and the White House, concerned about possible market manipulation.
Robinhood Chief Executive Vlad Tenev is expected to testify before a U.S. House of Representatives committee on Feb. 18, Politico reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Robinhood raised another $2.4 billion from shareholders just days after existing investors pumped in $1 billion, it said in a blog post. The company, which faced anger last week for curbing the purchase of some stocks, raised trading limits on GameStop, AMC, Koss Corp and Express.
The firm is preparing for an initial public offering but it was not clear if it will push forward with those plans.
Cold water
Traders and analysts poured cold water on the chances of a prolonged rally in silver, saying unlike in GameStop, there is no excessive short positioning and that the options market is fairly well balanced.
Speculative financial investors were already positioned fairly bullishly, dealers said. Net long positions in COMEX Silver futures and options rose to about 44,320 lots as of Jan. 26, data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed.
“Unlike single stocks, the market for silver is much larger and more complex and therefore more difficult to manipulate,” said Raffi Boyadjian, senior investment analyst at XM, in a note.
Traders were growing concerned that the Reddit effect could extend to less liquid commodities markets. However, traders said exchange-traded funds that focus on commodities were more likely to be targets.
The iShares Silver Trust ETF, the largest silver-backed ETF, jumped 7.1% on Monday. Data showed its holdings rose by a record 37 million shares from Thursday to Friday alone, each representing an ounce of silver.
Mining behemoths BHP Group, Glencore and Anglo American were the top six gainers on the FTSE 100 in London. Miner Fresnillo rose 8.95%, and U.S. small-cap miners Hecla Mining and Coeur Mining surged 28.3% and 23.1%, respectively.
Natural gas rose about 10% on Monday, in part due to expectations for colder weather, though such moves are not out of the norm for that market.
Retail investors on the popular Reddit online forum WallStreetBets expressed concerns on Monday that bets on silver were undercutting their focus.
“By buying silver … you would be directly putting money into the pockets of the EXACT HEDGE FUNDS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF $GME,” wrote one user who urged investors to continue to buy GameStop. “It will put you on the sidelines from this righteous and glorious war we are in.”
Shorting shares of GameStop cost hedge funds a total $12.5 billion over January, data from financial analytics firm Ortex showed on Monday.
Photo: Reuters
Hurting short-sellers
The silver furor began on Thursday after posts on WallStreetBets urged investors to buy physical silver.
“Get out there and buy at least 4 ounces of silver as soon as you can,” one forum participant posted.
Retail traders poured a record A$40 million ($30.6 million) into Australian ETF Securities’ Physical Silver fund by the afternoon. A silver ETF in Japan surged 11%.
Global short interest in silver, or the cumulative value of bets it falls in price, is equivalent to about 900 million ounces, just short of annual global production.
Banks and brokers hold most of that but it is not clear whether they are net short on the metal or whether their bets offset very big physical holdings.
JPMorgan analysts said fundamentals did not justify a sustained decoupling of silver from gold. Gold prices rose less than 1% on Monday.
(Reporting by Tom Westbrook and Thyagaraju Adinarayan in London and Jeff Lewis in Toronto; Additional reporting by Gavin Maguire in Singapore, Luoyan Liu in Shanghai and Abhinav Ramnarayan, Sujata Rao and Karin Strohecker in London, Lewis Krauskopf, Devika Krishna Kumar and Marcelo Teixeira in New York; Writing by Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Jan Harvey and Matthew Lewis)
What if the most significant measure of your life’s labors has nothing to do with your lived experiences but merely your unintentional generation of a realistic digital clone of yourself, a specimen of ancient man for the amusement of people of the year 4500 long after you have departed this mortal coil? This is the least horrifying question raised by a recently-granted Microsoft patent for an individual-based chatbot.
First noticed by the Independent, The United States Patent and Trademark Office confirmed to Gizmodo via email that Microsoft is not yet permitted to make, use, or sell the technology, only to prevent others from doing so. The application for the patent was filed in 2017 but just approved last month.
Hypothetical Chatbot You (envisioned in detail here) would be trained on “social data,” which includes public posts, private messages, voice recordings, and video. It could take 2D or 3D form. It could be a “past or present entity”; a “friend, a relative, an acquaintance, [ah!] a celebrity, a fictional character, a historical figure,” and, ominously, “a random entity.” (The last one, we could guess, might be a talking version of the photorealistic machine-generated portrait library ThisPersonDoesNotExist.) The technology could allow you to record yourself at a “certain phase in life” to communicate with young you in the future.
I personally relish the fact that my chatbot would be useless thanks to my limited text vocabulary (“omg” “OMG” “OMG HAHAHAHA”), but the minds at Microsoft considered that. The chatbot can form opinions you don’t have and answer questions you’ve never been asked. Or, in Microsoft’s words, “one or more conversational data stores and/or APIs may be used to reply to user dialogue and / or questions for which the social data does not provide data.” Filler commentary might be guessed through crowdsourced data from people with aligned interests and opinions or demographic info like gender, education, marital status, and income level. It might imagine your take on an issue based on “crowd-based perceptions” of events. “Psychographic data” is on the list.
In summary, we’re looking at a Frankenstein’s monster of machine learning, reviving the dead through unchecked, highly-personal data harvesting.
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“That is chilling,” Jennifer Rothman, University of Pennsylvania law professor and author of The Right of Publicity: Privacy Reimagined for a Public World told Gizmodo via email. If it’s any reassurance, such a project sounds like legal agony. She predicted that such technology could attract disputes around the right to privacy, the right to publicity, defamation, the false light tort, trademark infringement, copyright infringement, and false endorsement “to name only a few,” she said. (Arnold Schwarzenegger has charted the territory with this head.)
She went on:
It could also violate the biometric privacy laws in states, such as Illinois, that have them. Presuming that the collection and use of the data is authorized and people affirmatively opt in to the creation of a chatbot in their own image, the technology still raises concerns if such chatbots are not clearly demarcated as impersonators. One can also imagine a host of abuses of the technology similar to those we see with the use of deepfake technology—likely not what Microsoft would plan but nevertheless that can be anticipated. Convincing but unauthorized chatbots could create issues of national security if a chatbot, for example, is purportedly speaking for the President. And one can imagine that unauthorized celebrity chatbots might proliferate in ways that could be sexually or commercially exploitative.
Rothman noted that while we have lifelike puppets (deepfakes, for example) this patent is the first she’s seen that combines such tech with data harvested through social media. There are some ways that Microsoft might mitigate concerns with varying degrees of realism and clear disclaimers. Embodiment as Clippy the paperclip, she said, might help.
It’s unclear what level of consent would be required to compile enough data for even the lumpiest digital waxwork, and Microsoft did not share potential user agreement guidelines. But additional likely laws governing data collection (the California Consumer Privacy Act, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation) might throw a wrench in chatbot creations. On the other hand, Clearview AI, which notoriously provides facial recognition software to law enforcement and private companies, is currently litigating its right to monetize its repository of billions of avatars scraped from public social media profiles without users’ consent.
Lori Andrews, an attorney who has helped inform guidelines for the use of biotechnologies, imagined an army of rogue evil twins. “If I were running for office, the chatbot could say something racist as if it were me and dash my prospects for election,” she said. “The chatbot could gain access to various financial accounts or reset my passwords (based on information conglomerated such as a pet’s name or mother’s maiden name which are often accessible from social media). A person could be misled or even harmed if their therapist took a two-week vacation, but a chatbot mimicking the therapist continued to provide and bill for services without the patient’s knowledge of the switch.”
Hopefully, this future never comes to pass, and Microsoft has offered some recognition that the technology is creepy. When asked for comment, a spokesperson directed Gizmodo to a tweet from Tim O’Brien, General Manager of AI Programs at Microsoft. “I’m looking into this – appln date (Apr. 2017) predates the AI ethics reviews we do today (I sit on the panel), and I’m not aware of any plan to build/ship (and yes, it’s disturbing).”
The Miami Dolphins’ offensive coordinator search has been, well, extensive. Miami got word near the end of the week immediately following their season-ending loss to the Buffalo Bills that veteran offensive coordinator Chan Gailey would be stepping down from his post, leaving the Dolphins in position to hire their third consecutive play caller in as many seasons in the Brian Flores era.
And, about a week ago, the Dolphins’ list of rumored candidates was reported. Included were:
Dolphins RB coach Eric Studesville Dolphins QB coach George Godsey Clemson OC Tony Elliott Chargers QB coach Pep Hamilton 49ers run game coordinator Mike McDaniel Steelers QB coach Matt Canada
But as last weekend unfolded, it seemed as though Miami’s shortlist of candidates was whittling away. First it was reported that Elliott desired to stay at Clemson. Then it was reported that Kyle Shanahan, amid departures from his staff in San Francisco, would promote McDaniel to serve as the 49ers’ offensive coordinator and that Matt Canada was in line to be promoted from the Steelers’ quarterbacks coach role to take the offensive coordinator role in Pittsburgh.
Presumably, there were three remaining candidates: Godsey and Studesville from within the Dolphins’ building and Hamilton. And we haven’t gotten any traction towards a resolution since. But the news from yesterday threw the whole situation for a loop. The Pittsburgh Steelers interviewed Hue Jackson for the position Canada was rumored and penciled in to take as the team’s offensive coordinator. So now Canada may be back on the table for the Dolphins after all.
Also reported to be in the running for Pittsburgh’s suddenly available vacancy? Pep Hamilton, who is reportedly interviewing in Pittsburgh today.
If Pittsburgh settles on Hamilton, the Dolphins will have no one to blame but themselves — they’ve been the only team reported to show significant interest for over a week but never made the hire, so one would assume Miami’s preference lies elsewhere, either with an internal candidate or perhaps with Canada after all.
We’d say that this vacancy will come to a resolution soon — but we thought that last week as well with the 2021 Senior Bowl looming for this coaching staff; so who knows when the hire is made. Before next season would be a safe bet.
