Tag: Experts

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Health

CDC eviction ban will quickly expire. Specialists warn of a Covid surge

CDC eviction ban will soon expire. Experts warn of a Covid surge

Protesters gather for a rally to support bills and laws to block evictions in Massachusetts for up to a year.

Boston Globe | Boston Globe | Getty Images

The country’s attempts to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control could be undermined by the impending expiration of the national eviction ban, experts warn.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s moratorium on most evictions across the country has been in place since September 2020, but is set to expire in a week.

According to a survey published this month by the Census Bureau, around one in five adult renters say they haven’t paid last month’s rent. Closer to 1 in 3 black tenants said the same thing.

According to a recent study, continuing the mass evictions could lead to an increase in cases and deaths in Covid.

More from Personal Finance:
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More than 2,000 organizations are calling on Biden to extend the eviction ban
What you should know about applying for a portion of the $ 45 billion rental allowance

That’s because many displaced people double up with family members or friends, or are forced to turn to overcrowded shelters.

During the pandemic, 43 states and Washington, DC temporarily banned evictions. Many of the moratoriums only lasted 10 weeks, while some states continue to ban the process.

The researchers found that continuing evictions in these states between March and September caused 433,700 cases of Covid-19 and 10,700 additional deaths in the U.S. before the CDC ban went into effect nationwide.

“If you look at an infectious disease like Covid-19, evictions can have implications not only for the health of displaced families, but the health of the wider community,” said Kathryn Leifheit, one of the study’s authors and a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Evicting tenants is a last resort, said Bob Pinnegar, president of the National Apartment Association. However, the last year has marginalized the landlords, he said.

“Over 50% of rental housing providers in the country are mom and pop owners who rely on their few housing units as their only source of income,” he said. “The reserves are running out and in many cases are exhausted.”

The CDC has sent the Bureau of Administration and Budget a proposal to review the rules, which experts say indicates that the health authority is taking steps to maintain protection.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the ban can be extended through July.

CDC spokesman Jason McDonald said a decision to extend the moratorium had not been made. And the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, housing advocates are watching the clock and saying the ban must be in place at least until the historic cash pot allocated by Congress for rent arrears is distributed.

“An expired moratorium only increases disease transmission and defeats the purpose of the $ 45 billion grant,” said Emily Benfer, eviction expert and visiting law professor at Wake Forest University.

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Health

U.S. well being consultants attempt to ease Covid vaccine fears as AstraZeneca’s shot faces overview in Europe

U.S. health experts try to ease Covid vaccine fears as AstraZeneca's shot faces review in Europe

A photo illustration of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in the Copes pharmacy in Streatham on February 4, 2021 in London, England.

Dan Kitwood | Getty Images

Medical experts in the US are trying to allay fears that Covid-19 vaccines may be unsafe after several European countries suspended AstraZeneca’s shot after reports of blood clots in some recipients.

On Tuesday, Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania became the youngest countries to join a growing list of nations to stop using the AstraZeneca Oxford shot because of blood clot problems. Germany, France, Italy and Spain said Monday they would also stop administering the shot.

The European Medicines Agency, which assesses drug safety for the EU, convened a meeting on Thursday to review the results. So far it has been claimed that the benefits of the shot in preventing hospitalizations and death still “outweigh the risk of side effects.” The World Health Organization agreed and on Wednesday urged countries to keep using AstraZeneca’s shots.

Without the results of the upcoming European Medicines Agency meeting, it’s hard to tell if the vaccines are causing the reported blood clots, US medical experts told CNBC, but the drug giant already has a PR mess on its hands. Some doctors in the US fear that European nations are reacting prematurely to political pressure and safety concerns, and extensive efforts will be required to restore confidence in the vaccine when it is approved online.

“This vaccine is now a problem,” said Dr. William Schaffner, epidemiologist and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told CNBC in a telephone interview.

“I think if the vaccine is cleared – not guilty – there will have to be a significant public relations effort in Europe and around the world to restore confidence in this vaccine,” he said.

No red flags in the US

While the AstraZeneca vaccine has not yet been approved for use in the U.S., White House Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anthony Fauci informed lawmakers on Wednesday that there will likely be enough safety and efficacy data to get dosing approval in April.

When asked if the suspension of AstraZeneca in European countries could create anxiety among Americans taking other vaccines, Fauci reiterated that the shots will undergo rigorous clinical trials and verified by an independent safety oversight body before they become widespread.

“The whole process is both transparent and independent and we are explaining this to people and taking the time to address their hesitation without being confrontational,” Fauci told lawmakers during a hearing with the House Committee on Energy and Trade.

This isn’t the first time Fauci has stressed the safety of the current vaccines amid AstraZeneca’s suspension. The infectious disease expert told MSNBC in an interview on Tuesday that scientists in the US are carefully examining the side effects of vaccine recipients, even after they have been authorized and used.

For example, medical experts were concerned about reports of severe allergic reactions – or anaphylaxis – in people vaccinated with Pfizer and Moderna’s shock. However, these cases seem rare, he said, even though the nation has distributed at least one shot to 73 million adult Americans – more than 28% of the population.

“So far there are no safety signals that turn out to be red flags and you need to monitor these things very carefully,” said Fauci of the vaccines currently in use in the US

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told Reuters in an interview published Monday that he was “fairly reassured” by statements from European regulators that the problems might arise randomly.

“I was a bit surprised that so many countries decided to stop vaccine administration, especially at a time when the disease is so incredibly threatening even in most of those countries,” Collins later told CNN on Wednesday and added that he has no access to the “primary data that may have led to an alert”.

More data needed

Unwanted medical problems like blood clots occur regardless of whether people are vaccinated or not. The problem scientists are now trying to determine is whether the vaccines were the culprit, Schaffner said.

“We knew in the beginning when we started vaccinating that since we are targeting older adults, medical events would only occur every day in this population, even without vaccines,” Schaffner told CNBC.

“It is possible that if you were vaccinated on Monday, certain medical events could occur on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,” he said. “The question is, did the vaccine speed up, fail, or cause these events?”

For its part, AstraZeneca said in a statement on Sunday that of the more than 17 million people in the EU and UK who have received a dose of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, fewer than 40 cases of blood clots have been reported to date Week.

The pharmaceutical company said that 15 events involving deep vein thrombosis and 22 events involving pulmonary embolism were reported among those vaccinated in the EU and the United Kingdom. These numbers suggest that adverse events occur less often than expected in the general population, not higher.

“I don’t think this is real, but I am very concerned because this is the vaccine we all count on worldwide,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine at Emory University’s medical school, told CNBC in a telephone interview, he added that the shot costs less than its competitors. However, Del Rio noted that without the data it is difficult to determine whether the suspensions are appropriate.

“This requires extensive damage control,” said del Rio.

Politics could be the problem

There are some concerns that the issue with AstraZeneca’s vaccine could be more political. A dangerous time also comes: some European nations are battling another wave of new Covid-19 infections, even when vaccines are used.

So far, the introduction of vaccines in the EU has been slow compared to other countries such as the US and UK

“It is a major concern that Europe just doesn’t have that many people vaccinated,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, former Covid advisor to President Joe Biden, told CNBC on Tuesday. “It’s another reason we need to be concerned about the Covid situation in other countries, not just the US.

The suspensions follow a public dispute between the EU and AstraZeneca in January when the drug company said it was forced to cut its initial dose supply for the block. Several European countries also initially declined to recommend the shot to residents over 65 as there was insufficient evidence that it was effective before that decision was reversed.

“It may be that … governments are trying to respond to people’s concerns about the vaccine, not necessarily the data,” said Emanuel, a bioethicist and oncologist who served as vice provost on global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania acts.

“Actions don’t necessarily follow data. They follow more emotional responses to things like this,” he said.

– CNBC’s Sam Meredith, Holly Ellyatt and Silvia Amaro contributed to this report.

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World News

Airbus-Boeing truce not an entire reset in US EU relations, specialists

Airbus-Boeing truce not a complete reset in US EU relations, experts

US President Joe Biden has reportedly agreed to lower the income level caps for the third round of stimulus payments.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON – The US and the European Union may have a truce, but some analysts have doubts whether the two sides can agree on other contentious issues like digital taxation and relations with China.

US President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Friday a suspension of tariffs imposed during the Trump presidency for subsidizing aircraft. The dispute first emerged in 2004, and the World Trade Organization ruled in 2019 and 2020 that the US and EU had provided Boeing and Airbus with illegal assistance, respectively.

Tariffs of $ 7.5 billion on EU products and $ 4 billion on US goods are now on hold for four months as both sides attempt to work out a deal that will provide a permanent solution to support the Aircraft sector.

European officials said the announcement was a “reset” in transatlantic relations after four fragile years under the Trump presidency, but some analysts are not convinced.

“The suspension of tariffs is a first step towards thawing trade relations between Europe and the United States and hopefully a sign that these tariffs will soon be abolished altogether,” Fredrik Erixon, trade expert at the ECIPE think tank, told CNBC on Monday .

“I’m less convinced that the suspension signals an entirely new direction in transatlantic trade, with new agreements in support of greater economic integration.”

Technology giants

A particularly controversial issue is the taxation of some of the world’s largest technology companies.

Last week’s news is good news, and it takes away a short-term risk to the economy that we have always faced over the past four years.

Carsten Brzeski

Economist at ING in Germany

The EU and US have been at odds over this matter for years, as well as security concerns related to 5G. But since Biden arrived at the White House, the EU has been confident that some of these disagreements can be overcome.

In fact, the US opened the door to a digital tax deal that the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development plans to close this summer.

But Biden hasn’t completely deviated from all of his predecessor’s guidelines. He implemented the Buy American First initiative to incentivize production in the country and boost the economy as a whole as the coronavirus pandemic affects the world’s largest economic power.

In the meantime, the EU has also stepped up discussions on strategic autonomy in order to reduce dependence on certain parts of the world.

“Both sides are increasing their economic protection against the global economy. In the US, for example, through new Buy America guidelines and in Europe through a general campaign to free themselves from technological dependence on the US. Both sides say they want to do this. ” Transatlantic into a new age, but to do that they would first have to solve controversial issues such as digital taxes and friction with new technologies, “said Erixon of ECIPE.

China and Russia

In addition, there are also some sensitivities in dealing with China and Russia.

The EU signed an investment deal with Beijing a few weeks before Biden’s inauguration, amid fears the 27-strong bloc could jeopardize its relationship with the new president. At the same time, some American lawmakers believe that the EU is not assertive enough on human rights issues in China.

The US is also opposed to building a gas pipeline from Russia to Europe and has sanctioned some of the companies involved in the project.

In a press release on Friday, however, von der Leyen said after a phone call with Biden: “We share a strategic outlook on Russia.”

Holger Schmieding, Europe’s chief economist in Berenberg, told CNBC on Monday that the next item on the transatlantic to-do list could be “attempts to defuse the conflict over the Nordstream 2 pipeline”.

Carsten Brzeski, economist at ING in Germany, also said that the tariff suspension “does not mean that everything will be okay, there are still many stumbling blocks ahead of us like Nordstream and how to deal with China.”

In the meantime, European exporters can take a cautious breath at a time when the region is facing a severe economic crisis.

“Last week’s news is good news and takes away a short-term risk to the economy that we have always faced for the past four years,” added Brzeski.

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Health

In Their Personal Phrases: Why Specialists Say Elementary Faculties Ought to Open

In Their Own Words: Why Experts Say Elementary Schools Should Open

Scientists and doctors studying infectious diseases in children broadly agreed in a recent New York Times survey of school openings that elementary school students should now be able to attend personal school. With security measures like covering and opening windows, the benefits outweigh the risks, said a majority of 175 respondents.

The following is a representative selection of her comments on key issues, including the risks to out-of-school children. the risks for teachers to be in school; whether vaccines are required before schools open; how to distance yourself in crowded classrooms; What type of ventilation is required? and whether their own children’s school districts got it right.

In addition to their daily work on Covid-19, most experts had school-age children themselves, half of whom attended personal school.

They also discussed whether the new variants could change even the best plans for the school opening. “There will be a lot of unknowns with novel variants,” said Pia MacDonald, an infectious disease epidemiologist at RTI International, a research group. “We need to plan for what they expect and develop strategies to deal with the school with these new threats.”

Most of the respondents work in academic research and around a quarter work as healthcare providers. We asked what their expertise taught them that they felt others should understand. Overall, the data suggest that with precautionary measures, especially masks, the risk of transmission in school is low for both children and adults.

About 85 percent of experts who lived in places where schools were open all day said their district made the right call. Only a third of those in places where schools were still closed said it was the right choice.

The group expressed great concern that other aspects of children’s health and wellbeing were neglected during the pandemic, which could have potentially serious long-term consequences.

The experts firmly believed that while vaccines are important, no population should be required to open schools while other precautions are taken to ensure the safety of teachers and students. (This, along with much of what the panel said, is in line with the federal government’s new recommendations for school opening. There are stricter standards for community transmission for middle and high school opening.) Many recommended teachers Prioritize vaccines, along with frontline staff.

Many experts agreed that ventilation of school buildings – along with masks and distancing – is important in order to minimize the spread of the virus. However, they stated that good airflow doesn’t require major renovations or expensive air filters. This could be achieved with open windows, box fans and outdoor courses.

Many school districts have split the classes in half and brought each half back part-time to minimize exposure to the virus. The experts said such strategies could be helpful in situations where keeping your distance was impossible and for contact tracing. But many pushed for other solutions instead.

Although most respondents said it wasn’t critical that classes be split in half, most preferred a standard of six feet between children in classrooms – which can be impossible to achieve with full classes. This is an example of how opening schools requires creativity and the weighing of risks: many said the 6-foot standard could be relaxed in situations with good ventilation, especially in younger children who are more likely to spread Covid-19 is lower.

The emergence of Covid-19 variants around the world has raised concerns that current knowledge about school safety may no longer apply. Overall, the experts in our survey said that the variants could affect the plans for the school opening. But few believed that they would certainly cause significant problems, also due to the current adoption of effective vaccines.

Categories
Health

Well being consultants are deeply involved

Health experts are deeply concerned

A passenger wearing a face mask shows an employee her passport and boarding pass at a security checkpoint at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota on September 1, 2020.

DANIEL MUNOZ | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON – Public health officials and civil liberties organizations are calling on policymakers to oppose calls for coronavirus vaccine passports at a time when many countries are considering adopting digital passports.

The US, UK and European Union are among other things considering introducing a digital passport that citizens can use to prove they have been vaccinated against Covid-19.

The certificate system can be used for travel abroad as well as for access to venues such as restaurants and bars.

It is believed that a digital passport could contribute to an economic recovery as countries prepare to ease public health measures in the coming weeks. The ailing aviation industry, which was particularly badly affected by the spread of the virus last year, is calling on governments, among other things, to introduce laws that support Covid vaccination certificates.

However, doctors and rights groups are deeply concerned.

Dr. Deepti Gurdasani, clinical epidemiologist at Queen Mary University in London, told CNBC over the phone that vaccination records could be inadvertently used to give “false assurances” to vacationers.

“I can see that they might be useful in the longer term, but I have some concerns that if I think the scientific evidence doesn’t support them at this point, I have some concerns that they will be considered. And there are many ethical concerns about me consider that to be legitimate, “Gurdasani said on Thursday.

Amid these scientific concerns, Gurdasani said it was clear that the protection offering for coronavirus vaccines was “far from complete” and “we know very little about the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing infections or even asymptomatic diseases different variants circulating in different countries. “

In addition, most countries do not have sufficient access to vaccines to immunize their populations, and Gurdasani warned that a certificate system similar to vaccination passports would “further” discriminate against these populations.

Vacation plans

President Joe Biden outlined a 200-page national strategy for a coronavirus pandemic on his first full day in office last month. The plan included guideline for several government agencies to evaluate “the feasibility” of linking Covid shots to international vaccination certificates and creating digital versions of them.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also ordered a vaccine passport review while the European Council will meet on Thursday to discuss the next steps in introducing and moving vaccines across the EU across the 27-nation bloc.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson meets 11th grade students during a visit to Accrington Academy on February 25, 2021 in Lancaster, England. (Photo by Anthony Devlin – WPA Pool / Getty Images)

Anthony Devlin | WPA pool | Getty Images News | Getty Images

With the International Air Travel Association, which represents around 290 airlines from all over the world, more and more airlines have registered for the so-called IATA Travel Pass. The initiative is designed to help passengers manage their travel plans and provide evidence to airlines and governments that they have been vaccinated or tested for Covid-19.

In a letter from EURACTIV, IATA reportedly called on the EU leaders’ meeting on Thursday to approve vaccination records and reach an agreement “on the critical role of secure digital solutions like the IATA passport”. IATA wasn’t immediately available for comment when it was contacted by CNBC on Thursday.

The World Health Organization is currently not interested in vaccination certificates. In a statement released Jan. 28, WHO officials said governments should “not introduce requirements for proof of vaccination or immunity for international travel as a condition of entry” at this time.

The United Nations Health Department added, “There are still critical unknowns about the effectiveness of vaccination in reducing transmission and the limited availability of vaccines.”

“What happens to everyone else?”

A report released last month by the Economist Intelligence Unit forecast that most of the adult populations in advanced economies would be vaccinated by the middle of next year. In contrast, this period extends to early 2023 for many middle-income countries and even until 2024 for some low-income countries.

It highlights the large gap between high and low income countries when it comes to access to vaccines.

“These so-called passports claim they will ensure that those who can prove they have coronavirus immunity can get back to normal life. Which begs the question – what happens to everyone else?” Liberty, the UK’s largest civil liberties organization, said in a press release earlier this month.

Airport workers unload a shipment of Covid-19 vaccines from Covax’s global Covid-19 vaccination program at Kotoka International Airport in Accra on February 24, 2021.

NIPAH DENNIS | AFP | Getty Images

“There are innumerable proposals for immunity passports around. Some suggest that their use would be limited to international travel – others are less specific. In the meantime, various technologies have been introduced, from QR codes to apps and physical cards,” he said the explanation continues.

“One thing that every proposal has overlooked is that it is impossible to have immunity passports that don’t lead to human rights abuses.”

Big Brother Watch, a UK-based rights and democracy group, also warned against the use of vaccination cards, citing implications for privacy and freedom of movement, among other things.

What happens next?

In a report published February 14 by the Science in Emergencies Tasking: Covid-19 (SET-C) group of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science, university professors outlined 12 questions that needed to be met To achieve this, provide a vaccination certificate.

This included: taking into account the differences between vaccines in terms of their effectiveness and changes in effectiveness against newly emerging Covid variants, international standardization, security of personal data, compliance with legal standards and compliance with ethical standards.

“Understanding what a vaccination card can be used for is a fundamental question – is it literally a passport to allow international travel, or could it be used domestically to give holders greater freedom?” Professor Melinda Mills, director of the Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science at Oxford University, said in the report.

“We need a wider discussion of various aspects of a vaccination record, from the science of immunity to privacy to technical challenges and the ethics and legality of its use,” said Mills.

Categories
Politics

Dominion and Smartmatic defamation circumstances are credible, specialists say

Dominion and Smartmatic defamation cases are credible, experts say

A voter is seen at a voting machine at the Metropolitan Library polling station on Election Day in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

Tom Williams | CQ Appeal, Inc. | Getty Images

Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic USA have a good chance of winning their multi-billion dollar defamation suits against a variety of conservative personalities and, in the case of Smartmatic, Fox News, but they have a lot to prove in court, experts say.

Each of the two electoral technology companies have sued several former President Donald Trump’s boosters, saying they worked to spread conspiracy theories about each company’s products to cast doubt on President Joe Biden’s election victory.

Dominion launched its first volley last month, suing Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, a conspiracy theorist and former Trump campaign advocate, in separate $ 1.3 billion lawsuits in federal court in Washington, DC. The company hit MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell on Monday with his latest lawsuit, demanding $ 1.3 billion in damages. Dominion CEO John Poulos warned on CNBC the next day that the Lindell suit “definitely won’t be the last”.

Smartmatic has so far filed a case in New York State Court. The company sued Fox News and its hosts Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, Giuliani and Powell. Smartmatic has demanded a minimum of $ 2.7 billion from the defendants in this case.

Dominion’s suits are in front of District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump agent. Smartmatic’s lawsuit is before Judge David Cohen, a Democrat who was elected in November.

While the sums fluctuate, attorneys who have worked on defamation cases in the past say the companies have performed pretty well so far.

“I think these are the cases where traditional libel claims, libel claims and the application of a fairly regulated law are being made in this country,” said David Schulz, a defamation scholar at Yale Law School. But Schulz added, “It’s not that these will be slam-dunk cases at all.”

Too early to tell

Experts said it was too early to tell how much money companies can actually make. Businesses can ask for any amount of money they want, but those numbers often change as judges and juries weigh the facts.

Robert Rabin, a professor at Stanford Law School, noted that the numbers requested were “awfully large” but added that at this point it is “really difficult to be very specific”.

To win a defamation case, a plaintiff usually has to prove that the defendant made a false statement of fact that caused harm to the defendant. If the plaintiff is a public figure, he must also demonstrate that the defendant acted with “actual malice” – which essentially means that the spokesman knew or should have known that what he was saying was not true .

Dominion and Smartmatic would have to lower the bar if they were considered private individuals. But Fox has claimed Smartmatic is a public figure, and legal experts said judges would likely agree.

Some of the false statements suing Dominion and Smartmatic include allegations by Giuliani and Powell on Fox News shows and elsewhere that Dominion is owned by Smartmatic and was created on the instructions of the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez to lock elections, including the 2020 competition between Trump and Biden. Lindell also falsely claimed that Dominion machines were used to steal millions of votes for Biden.

Schulz said the lawsuits were “one of the few options we currently have to contain misinformation.”

“If we can send people to jail for misrepresenting a company’s financial situation, but there is no way to spread lies in a presidential campaign to try to influence people’s voices, then we have a big problem “, he said.

Real malice

According to John Goldberg, professor of defamation at Harvard Law School, the lawsuits against Giuliani and Powell are likely simpler than those against Fox News and its hosts.

“I think there is pretty good evidence on Giuliani and Powell that would allow a jury to find the real malice of these defendants,” Goldberg said. “For example, Dominion noted in his complaint that Giuliani routinely talked about fraud in his public out-of-court statements, but every time he was on trial and under oath, so to speak, he said, ‘No, we’re not claiming fraud, yours To honor. “

“You have a shot against Fox News and the Fox personalities, but it’s a little harder,” Goldberg said.

In its lawsuit, Smartmatic alleges that Fox News and its hosts knew that Powell and Giuliani’s allegations about Smartmatic’s systems for casting votes on Biden were false. The company argues that comments from other Fox News journalists, such as Eric Shawn and Tucker Carlson, made it clear that Fox had no evidence to back up Powell and Giuliani’s claims.

For example, Carlson said in November that Powell “never sent us evidence, despite many polite requests. When we pressed further, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her.”

Smartmatic wrote that if Fox News or its hosts had evidence to back Powell’s claims, Carlson shouldn’t have said what he did.

While the defendants in the Dominion lawsuits have not yet provided their formal responses, Fox News and its hosts have already asked the judge in the Smartmatic case to drop the lawsuit. Paul Clement, Fox’s attorney and former attorney general under President George W. Bush, wrote in a motion that the news company was just doing its job, covering the claims of the then president and his supporters that were “objectively newsworthy”.

Clement wrote that the lawsuit is “at the heart of the news media’s First Amendment mission to educate on matters of public concern”.

While this argument may be influential among some jurors, Rabin noted that there is no such thing as an “absolute defense of newsworthiness”.

There is also no “defense of republication”.

“In other words, anyone who has published a defamatory statement without qualification is also subject to a defamation suit,” said Rabin.

Uphill struggle for billions

If Dominion and Smartmatic win their cases, it could still be an uphill battle for them to get the billions they believe are owed.

If the companies can prove that the defendant’s statements were defamatory, they are entitled to the amount of money that they can prove that they lost because of the claims – for example because of lost election contracts. You may also be entitled to punitive damages or money to prevent the accused from spreading lies in the future.

Every business has sought punitive damages in addition to damages or money to repay them for the damage suffered. In Dominion’s case, it has split that damage in half, claiming that approximately $ 651.7 million is owed for each type of damage. Smartmatic has not disclosed the amount of punitive damage it is seeking, but says it is owed $ 2.7 billion in damages.

While Dominion and Smartmatic can substantiate their claims for damages by showing that they lost their business because of the false information they complain about, punitive damages claims are far more discretionary and can affect factors such as a defendant’s wealth.

Schulz, the professor at Yale, said that it could be difficult for voting machine manufacturers to obtain punitive damages because of the need to show not only actual malice but also intent to harm the company. It is plausible that the statements were more aimed at offending Biden or the Democratic Party, Schulz said.

Some states also limit the amount of punishment or damages that can be awarded in a civil lawsuit, although neither New York nor the District of Columbia in which the previous cases were filed have such limits. The Supreme Court has ruled that punitive damages are usually less than ten times the amount of damages and that smaller ratios can be scrutinized.

Dominion boss Poulos admitted on Tuesday on CNBC that the $ 1.3 billion demanded by his company could change.

“It’s difficult to set a hard number, but the damage to our reputation alone has hit us devastating,” said Poulos.

Poulos also said his company followed the first change.

Initial adjustment rights

“There is no secret endgame that restricts a person’s right to freedom of expression. We believe in it and honestly we want to rely on freedom of expression to find out the truth,” Poulos told CNBC. “Our intention is to bring the facts to the table so that American voters can understand exactly what happened during their election and how false those allegations were and how utterly nonsense they were.”

Giuliani has said that asking for more than $ 1 billion is a scare tactic.

“The amount asked for is obviously intended to shock people with weak hearts,” Giuliani said in a statement. “It is yet another act of intimidation by the hateful left wing, the exercise of freedom of speech, and the ability of lawyers to vigorously defend, eradicate and censor their clients.”

Giuliani, Powell, and Lindell have all signaled that they’re glad the suits were brought against them.

“My message to Dominion is that you finally did it because it will now be back in the limelight,” Lindell told CNBC after he was sued.

Lindell also denied Dominion’s claims that he benefited financially from the statements he made about her.

Powell’s attorney, Conservative Provocateur L. Lin Wood, said, “Get ready to rumble, Dominion.”

“You made a mistake suing Sidney. You’re going to pay a heavy price,” Wood said, according to Forbes.

Clarification: This article has been updated to clarify that only Smartmatic, not Dominion, has sued Fox News.

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Categories
Politics

What Disaster-Communications Consultants Would Inform Ted Cruz

What Crisis-Communications Experts Would Tell Ted Cruz

Did he do what?

Senator Ted Cruz was never shortlisted for the Most Empathetic Politician Award. But his most recent exhibition terrified even the most jaded political hands.

With Cruz’s home state of Texas hit by a blizzard that caused widespread power outages and claimed dozens of lives nationwide, Cruz got on a plane last night and flew to Cancun, Mexico for a family vacation. Photos were shared on social media this morning, accompanied by a chorus of dismay and ridicule.

In the early afternoon, he released a statement that his children wanted to take a vacation, arguing that he could still work from abroad. “I wanted to be a good father, I flew with them last night and I’m flying back this afternoon,” he said, adding that he wanted to come home today.

Later, after getting back to the United States, Cruz said the trip was “obviously a mistake” and that he began “guessing” it as soon as he got on the plane to Mexico.

I’ve called some crisis communications professionals who have worked with other contested politicians to get the Cruz fiasco under control. They all sang a variation on the same theme: Wow.

“You can damage control pretty much anything, and I think he could do damage control for it,” said Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist who worked on Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign last year. Still, she added, “You have to wonder what the hell he was thinking to do this. The look couldn’t be much worse. “

Stu Loeser, longtime press secretary for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who often made discreet trips to Bermuda while in office, was also amazed at Cruz’s decision to fly the Coop in one of his state’s most vulnerable moments in recent years.

Recognition…Reuters

“The hardest part in politics and the hardest part in crisis communication is the same thing: being able to predict the future,” said Loeser. “But in this case people have been without electricity for days. You knew what was going to happen. “

Risa Heller, a crisis advisor who advised disgraced ex-Rep Anthony Weiner, said that even in a fast-paced 24-hour news cycle, it could be difficult to survive Cruz’s decision to go on vacation. “It will stay with him for a long time,” she said. “The people of Texas will not forget that a man they chose to look out for their interests took a vacation in their darkest time.”

She added, “Sometimes someone goes out of town and something crazy happens and they have to come back. You can say, “I understand.” But that’s not that. This storm happened and then it went. It sends a real message to its constituents. I think time will tell if he’ll be forgiven, but it’s pretty unforgivable. “

Republican strategist Joel Sawyer helped former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford weather the 2009 scandal over his secret vacation with a lover who was nearing the end of his political career. (He eventually ended his tenure as governor and later regained his old seat in the house.) Sawyer said that after Sanford left the governor’s mansion, he worked to restore his reputation by offering repentance.

Sawyer wasn’t so sure if Cruz was tempted to do the same. “Yes, he can do damage control, but it takes great humility on his part,” he said. “I’m not sure how much of that Ted Cruz can muster.”

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Medical specialists attempt to set up ‘lengthy Covid’ analysis for sufferers with lasting signs

Medical experts try to establish 'long Covid' diagnosis for patients with lasting symptoms

Critical care carers insert an endotracheal tube into a patient with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Florida on February 11, 2021.

Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

Some Covid-19 patients suffer from shortness of breath, fatigue, headaches and “brain fog” for months to almost a year after their first illness. Now global medical experts are working to better diagnose and treat what they tentatively refer to as “long covid”.

Earlier this week, the World Health Organization hosted a global meeting with “patients, clinicians and other stakeholders” to improve the agency’s understanding of the post-Covid medical condition, also known as Long Covid, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday.

The meeting was the first of many to come. The goal will ultimately be to produce an “agreed clinical description” of the disease so that doctors can diagnose and treat patients effectively, he said. Given the number of people infected with the virus worldwide – nearly 108 million people as of Friday – Tedros warned that many of these persistent symptoms are likely to appear.

“This disease affects patients with severe and mild Covid-19,” Tedros said during a press conference at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. “Part of the challenge is that long-term Covid patients can have a range of different symptoms that can be persistent or come and go.”

Limited dates

So far, there have been a limited number of studies that will determine what symptoms are most common and how long they might last. The main focus was on people with a serious or fatal illness, not people who have recovered but still report persistent side effects, sometimes referred to as “long distance riders”.

Most Covid patients are believed to recover only weeks after their initial diagnosis, but some have symptoms for six months or even almost a year, medical experts say.

One of the largest global studies on Long Covid, published in early January, found that many people who have persistent illness after infection cannot work full-time six months later. The study, published on MedRxiv and not peer reviewed, interviewed more than 3,700 people, ages 18 to 80, from 56 countries to identify symptoms.

The most common symptoms after six months were fatigue, post-exercise fatigue, and cognitive dysfunction, sometimes called brain fog.

Is that unique to Covid-19?

“We really don’t know what is causing these symptoms. That is a focus of research right now,” said Dr. Allison Navis, a professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, during a call to the Infectious Diseases Society of America on Friday.

“The question that arises is whether this is something that is unique to Covid itself – and it is the Covid virus that is causing these symptoms – or whether this could be part of a general post-viral syndrome,” Navis said, adding, that medical experts see similar long-term symptoms after other viral infections.

Another study, published in the medical journal The Lancet in early January, looked at 1,733 patients discharged from a hospital in Wuhan, China, between January and May last year. Of these patients, 76% reported at least one symptom six months after their first illness. The proportion was higher among women.

“We found that fatigue or muscle weakness, sleep disorders, and anxiety or depression were common even 6 months after symptoms appeared,” the researchers wrote in the study.

They found that symptoms reported months after the Covid-19 diagnosis was consistent with data previously found in follow-up studies of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a coronavirus.

Post-Covid clinics are going online

Some large medical centers are currently setting up post-Covid clinics to care for patients with persistent symptoms. Navis said her clinic on Mount Sinai, New York treated a “fairly even” distribution of men and women with persistent illness, and the average age of patients was 40 years.

Dr. Kathleen Bell, a professor at the University of Texas’ Southwestern Medical Center, said her hospital’s long-term Covid-19 clinic began last April when a wave of infections hit Italy and New York at the start of the pandemic.

Bell said on the Infectious Diseases Society of America conference call on Friday that a number of professionals are required to staff the clinics because symptoms are uneven, including experts who can treat muscle weakness, heart-related disorders, and cognitive problems in the insane and health Problems after their diagnosis.

“It forces all of us, in many ways, to come together and make sure we have open lines of communication to address all of these issues for patients,” said Bell.

Bell added that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a phone call in January with long Covid centers across the country to discuss their model for treating patients.

“I think the CDC is now trying to bring centers together and get some firmer guidelines on it, which is very exciting,” said Bell.

– CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report.

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175 Pediatric Illness Specialists: It’s Secure to Open Elementary Colleges Now

175 Pediatric Disease Experts: It’s Safe to Open Elementary Schools Now

Many of the usual school opening requirements – including vaccines for teachers or students and low rates of infection in the community – are not required to safely teach children in person, according to a consensus among pediatric infectious disease experts in a new survey.

Instead, the 175 experts – mostly pediatricians with a focus on public health – largely agreed that it is safe for schools to now be open to elementary school students for full-time and in-person tuition. This also applies in communities where Covid-19 infections are widespread, provided that basic safety measures are in place. Most important are universal masking, physical distancing, adequate ventilation and avoidance of activities in large groups.

The experts were interviewed by the New York Times last week. Most believe that the level of virus spread in a community is not a key indicator of whether schools should be open, although many districts still rely on this metric. Schools should only close if there are Covid-19 cases in the school itself, most said.

“There is no situation where schools can only be opened if they have evidence of transmission in the school,” said Dr. David Rosen, Assistant Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Washington University in St. Louis.

The risk of dropping out of school is far greater, said many experts. “The mental health crisis caused by school closings will be a worse pandemic than Covid,” said Dr. Uzma Hasan, Head of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at RWJBarnabas Health in New Jersey.

These responses are largely in line with current federal guidelines that make no mention of vaccines and reflect key scientific evidence that schools are not a primary source of child or adult spread. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to publish new recommendations on how to run schools safely on Friday, and the Biden administration has given priority to opening schools.

However, the expert consensus in the survey contradicts the position of certain policy makers, school administrators, parent groups and teacher unions. Some in these groups have indicated that they do not want to return to school buildings next fall if it is likely that teachers can be vaccinated, although not most of the students. Some districts have put up stiff resistance to the reopening, especially in large cities where teachers have threatened to strike if they are called back to school buildings.

Some experts agreed that open schools pose a risk, especially for the adults working there, saying that many parts of the country have not yet controlled the virus enough to be opened safely.

“If we wanted schools to reopen safely, we as a society would have had to work hard to keep transmission rates low and to invest resources in schools,” said Dr. Leana Wen, Emergency Doctor and Visiting Professor of Health Policy at George Washington University.

About half of the country’s students are still studying from home, and while the majority of districts have at least some face-to-face learning and are trying to reopen this spring, many students offer just a few hours a day or a few days a week .

The mismatch between the experts ‘preferred guidelines and school opening rules in many districts reflects political considerations and union demands, but it also changes scientists’ understanding of the virus. Many school policies were developed months ago before there was mounting evidence that Covid-19 did not spread easily in schools where basic safety precautions were in place. The guidelines could change again, they warned: Almost everyone raised concerns that new coronavirus variants could disrupt schools’ plans to be open in the spring or fall.

More than two-thirds of respondents said they had school-age children, and half had children in school at least temporarily. Overall, they were more likely to support opening their own schools. About 85 percent of those in communities where schools were open all day said their district made the right call, while only a third of those in places where schools were still closed made the right choice.

Updated

Apr. 11, 2021, 3:40 p.m. ET

“Closing the school in spring 2020 was the right decision: we didn’t know much about Covid at the time and didn’t know what role children could play in the transmission,” said Dr. Mitul Kapadia, director of pediatric physical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “We know now, and we know schools can open safely. Fear guides decisions even against the guidelines and recommendations of the medical and public health communities. “

The point of most agreement was to require masks for everyone. All respondents said it was important and many said it was a simple solution that made the need for other conditions for opening less important.

“What works in healthcare, masks, will work in schools,” said Dr. Danielle Zerr, professor and director of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Washington. “Children are good at wearing masks!”

Half of the panel said a full return to school with no precautions – no masks, full classrooms, and all restored activity – would require all adults and children in the community to have access to vaccinations. (Vaccines have not yet been tested in children and will most likely not be available until 2022.)

But not everyone agreed that younger children need to be vaccinated to return to pre-pandemic school life. A fifth said a full reopening could occur without precaution once adults in the community and students were vaccinated, and 12 percent said it could happen once vaccines are available to all adults in the community.

The experts also questioned another strategy used by many districts that are open or due to open this spring: part-time opening for small and permanent cohorts of students who take turns participating in class schedules to reduce class size and the To maximize the distance between people. Only a third said it was very important for schools to do this, although three quarters said students should be six feet apart for some or all of the time. Three quarters said schools should avoid crowds, such as in hallways or cafeterias.

With universal masking, “school transfers are close to zero and cohorts are not required,” said Dr. Jeanne Ann Noble, Emergency Medicine Physician and Director of Covid Response at the University of California at San Francisco.

Limiting school hours increased other risks, such as disrupting children’s social development, disrupting family routines, and increasing the likelihood of children being exposed to a larger group of people outside of school.

The experts expressed deep concern about other risks for staying home students, including depression, hunger, anxiety, isolation, and learning loss.

“Children’s learning and emotional and in some cases physical health are severely affected by early school leaving,” said Dr. Lisa Abuogi, a pediatric emergency physician at the University of Colorado, and gave her personal opinions. “I spend some of my clinical time in the emergency room and the psychological distress we see in school-related children is no longer current.”

Respondents came from membership lists of three groups: the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the Decision Sciences for Child Health Collaborative, and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ sub-specialty group in Epidemiology, Public Health, and Evidence. Some individual scientists also replied. Almost all of them were doctors, and more than a quarter of them had degrees in epidemiology or public health. Most worked in academia and about a quarter in clinical settings, and most said their daily work was closely related to the pandemic.

The survey asked experts about various strategies schools use to protect students and staff. The experts said many such measures would have some value, but identified two as the most important: wearing masks and distancing themselves.

Other widely used measures – such as frequent disinfection of buildings and surfaces, temperature controls, or the use of Plexiglas partitions – were seen as less important. A quarter said routine surveillance tests of students and staff are very important for opening schools.

“Masks are key,” said Dr. Noble. “Other interventions create a false sense of security.”

Many states have tied openings to community dissemination measures in the school, such as: B. the positivity rate of tests, the rate of new infections or the rate of hospital stays. But 80 percent of the experts said school districts shouldn’t base reopening decisions on infection data across the county. You should focus on virus cases in school.

Many districts have opened or are considering opening up to younger students before older ones. Research has shown that infection and spread in adolescent children become more similar to adults. The Biden administration has designed its reopening plans for children in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Just over half of pediatric infectious disease experts said fifth grade should be the cutoff when schools are partially open. Only 17 percent said the eighth grade should be. Despite the greater risk faced by high school students, many complained about the long-term effects of a year of extreme isolation on teenagers.

Although these experts specialized in children’s physical health, many concluded that the risks to mental health, social skills, and education outweighed the risks of the virus. The future prospects of the students, said Dr. Susan Lipton, director of pediatric infectious diseases at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, are “torpedoed without the best academics, interaction with inspiring teachers who become mentors, clubs, sports and other opportunities to shine.”

“This is a generation devastating,” she said.

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US Well being Specialists: Vaccines Will Improve by Spring

US Health Experts: Vaccines Will Increase by Spring

Although more and more contagious variants are spreading in the US, the leading health authorities expressed optimism on Sunday that both the supply of vaccines and the vaccination rate will steadily increase.

“The demand currently significantly exceeds the supply,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease doctor, on NBC’s Meet the Press program.

“I can tell you that things will get better from February through March through April because the number of vaccine doses available will increase significantly.”

The number of daily shots administered in the United States has increased recently. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 2.2 million doses were given on Saturday and 1.6 million on Friday. The average for the past seven days has been 1.4 million a day, which is close to President Biden’s new target of 1.5 million shots a day.

In addition, the supply of vaccines is growing – although still well below demand. Federal officials recently increased shipments to the states to 10.5 million cans per week as Moderna and Pfizer incrementally increase production. The two companies have signed deals to provide the US with a total of 400 million doses by the summer – enough to vaccinate 200 million people.

Pfizer recently announced that it would be dispensing its doses two months ahead of schedule by May, also because an extra dose is now counted in every vial it makes. And Moderna is considering a production change that would allow it to increase the number of doses in its vials from 10 to 15.

Officials also expect the Food and Drug Administration to approve a vaccine containing a dose of Johnson & Johnson later this month. Although this company will initially only supply the US with a few million cans, it is expected to increase production significantly by April. Other vaccines from Novavax and AstraZeneca could also be approved for use in the US this spring, further increasing supply.

Officials are trying to vaccinate as many people as possible to beat more contagious variants of the virus first identified in the UK and South Africa. The variant from Great Britain known as B.1.1.7 is spreading rapidly in the USA. According to a new study, their prevalence doubles roughly every 10 days. The CDC said it could become the dominant form of the virus in the United States by March.

While this variant is of concern because it is more transmissible than previous variants, vaccine developers are more concerned about a variant discovered in South Africa, known as B.1.351, as it appears to interfere with current vaccine effectiveness. Several manufacturers have said they are solving the problem by developing new versions of their vaccines that could serve as booster shots. The Food and Drug Administration has announced that it is working on a plan to allow these new versions of the vaccine to be approved.

AstraZeneca and Oxford University developers of the vaccine announced on Sunday that they are expected to have a modified version of their vaccine available in the fall.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner and member of the Pfizer board of directors, said on CBS’s Face the Nation program on Sunday that it was possible to develop a booster that “bakes in many different variations,” we see. “

“I think there is a reasonable chance that we can be one step ahead of this virus,” he said.