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Health

U.S. Permits Indoor Visits in Nursing Houses. Right here’s What to Know.

U.S. Allows Indoor Visits in Nursing Homes. Here’s What to Know.

WASHINGTON – The Biden government on Wednesday released revised guidelines for visits to nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic, which will allow guests to see residents whether they or the residents have been vaccinated.

The recommendations, published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with comments from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, represent the first revision of the federal government guidelines for nursing homes since September. And they arrived after more than three million doses of vaccine had been administered in nursing homes, the agency said.

Federal officials said in the new guidelines that even if residents and guests have been fully vaccinated, outdoor visits are still preferable because of a lower risk of transmission.

The guidelines were also the latest indication that the pandemic in the United States was subsiding and coronavirus cases continued to decline across the country, although the seven-day average remained above 58,000. The CDC released the long-awaited guide for Americans fully vaccinated on Monday, telling them it was safe to gather at home in small groups with no masks or social distancing.

Approximately 62.5 million people have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, including approximately 32.9 million people completely using the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine or the two-dose vaccine manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Series were vaccinated.

In a statement outlining the reasons for updating the recommendations, Dr. Lee A. Fleisher, the chief medical officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reported the millions of vaccines given to nursing home residents and staff and a decrease in coronavirus cases in nursing homes.

“CMS recognizes the mental, emotional and physical stress that continued isolation and separation from family has placed on nursing home residents and their families,” he said.

At the start of the pandemic, the coronavirus raced through tens of thousands of long-term care facilities in the United States, killing more than 150,000 residents and employees, and responsible for more than a third of all virus deaths since late spring. However, since the introduction of vaccines, new cases and deaths in nursing homes have fallen sharply and have outpaced national declines, according to an analysis of federal data from the New York Times.

On the eight pages of recommendations, which are not legally binding, limit values ​​were suggested that “responsible indoor visits” should be allowed at all times, unless a guest visits an unvaccinated resident in a county where the Covid-19 -Positivity rate is more than 10 percent and less than 70 percent of the residents of the nursing home have been fully vaccinated. The guidance also states that visits should be limited if residents have Covid-19 or are in quarantine.

So-called compassionate care visits – if the health of a resident has deteriorated significantly – should be allowed regardless of the vaccination status or the positivity rate of the district, according to the guidelines.

If a positive case is found in a nursing home, visits should be canceled and residents and staff tested, the guidelines say. Visits can resume in other parts of the facility if there are no positive tests there. However, if cases are discovered in other areas, nursing homes should suspend all visits.

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Politics

Right here’s How the Senate Pared Again Biden’s Stimulus Plan

Here’s How the Senate Pared Back Biden’s Stimulus Plan

WASHINGTON – The $ 1.9 trillion stimulus plan approved by the Senate on Saturday follows the lines of President Biden’s proposed comprehensive pandemic relief package, but the Senators made a number of notable changes that restricted the bill.

While the House passed a version of the bill that kept Mr Biden’s proposals largely intact, the Senate left out an increase in the minimum wage it had taken in and capped how much Americans will receive additional unemployment benefits in the coming months. In addition, eligibility for the next round of stimulus testing has been reduced compared to the House’s bill.

The changes made by the Senate are likely to remain as the version passed by the Chamber is expected to be submitted to the House for final approval on Tuesday. The bill would then go to Mr Biden for signature.

Here are some of the key differences between the two chambers’ bills.

The House bill would gradually raise the federal minimum wage, which is currently $ 7.25 an hour, to $ 15 an hour by 2025. The Senate’s bill does not provide for a wage increase.

The Senate MP said last month that the wage increase violates the strict rules that govern what can be included in bills passed through a special process known as budget balancing.

Democrats took advantage of the reconciliation process because it allowed the law to pass the Senate by a simple majority, protecting it from a filibuster – which requires 60 votes to break – thereby removing the need to win Republican support.

On Friday, an amendment to add the minimum wage increase fell far short of the 60 votes required for this and failed in a procedural vote with 42 to 58 votes. Seven Democrats and an Independent meeting with them joined all 50 Republicans in the opposition, signaling that the wage increase was not getting enough support to settle the Senate regardless of Parliament’s decision.

Both the House and Senate bills would allow Americans another round of direct payments, with payments of up to $ 1,400 going to hundreds of millions of people. However, the Senate bill puts stricter income limits for those eligible, excluding millions of people from receiving a payment.

Both bills would provide for $ 1,400 for individuals with incomes up to $ 75,000, single parents with incomes up to $ 112,500, and married couples with incomes up to $ 150,000. Gradually lower payments would go to those who earn more, decrease as income levels rise, and expire altogether for those who exceed a certain income ceiling.

While the House set the cap at $ 100,000 for individuals, $ 150,000 for single parents, and $ 200,000 for couples, the Senate lowered those thresholds to reassure moderates who wanted more targeted payment.

Biden’s stimulus plan

Updated

March 6, 2021, 1:58 p.m. ET

Instead, the Senate bill would set the cap at $ 80,000 for individuals, $ 120,000 for single parents, and $ 160,000 for couples, meaning those who earn more would not receive checks.

The last stimulus package, passed in December, partially restored a federal unemployment benefit that expired last summer, which offered $ 300 a week and extended through March 14 when the payment was increased, leaving it the same.

The House version would offer a more generous benefit of $ 400 per week through August 29th. The Senate measure would provide $ 300 per week through September 6.

The Senate bill would also exempt US $ 10,200 from federal income tax benefits for households earning less than US $ 150,000 in 2020.

Both the House and Senate have also tried to help workers who have lost their jobs maintain their employer-provided health insurance coverage, but the Senate bill is more generous. The house measure would cover 85 percent of the premiums through a program called COBRA through September, while the Senate measure would cover the full cost of those premiums.

The two calculations differ in a variety of other areas. The Senate added a provision exempting student loan forgiveness from income tax until 2025, a move under pressure from Mr Biden to cancel student loan debt through executive action.

Funding for a railroad project in Northern California’s Silicon Valley that was criticized by Republicans was included in the House bill but was removed from Senate measure after the MP decided against it.

Another traffic-related allocation in the House bill that was criticized by Republicans, $ 1.5 million for the Seaway International Bridge between New York State and Canada, was also removed from the Senate version.

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Health

The Coronavirus Is Plotting a Comeback. Right here’s Our Likelihood to Cease It for Good.

The Coronavirus Is Plotting a Comeback. Here’s Our Chance to Stop It for Good.

Across the United States, and the world, the coronavirus seems to be loosening its stranglehold. The deadly curve of cases, hospitalizations and deaths has yo-yoed before, but never has it plunged so steeply and so fast.

Is this it, then? Is this the beginning of the end? After a year of being pummeled by grim statistics and scolded for wanting human contact, many Americans feel a long-promised deliverance is at hand.

We will win against the virus and regain many aspects of our pre-pandemic lives, most scientists now believe. Of the 21 interviewed for this article, all were optimistic that the worst of the pandemic is past. This summer, they said, life may begin to seem normal again.

But — of course, there’s always a but — researchers are also worried that Americans, so close to the finish line, may once again underestimate the virus.

So far, the two vaccines authorized in the United States are spectacularly effective, and after a slow start, the vaccination rollout is picking up momentum. A third vaccine is likely to be authorized shortly, adding to the nation’s supply.

But it will be many weeks before vaccinations make a dent in the pandemic. And now the virus is shape-shifting faster than expected, evolving into variants that may partly sidestep the immune system.

The latest variant was discovered in New York City only this week, and another worrisome version is spreading at a rapid pace through California. Scientists say a contagious variant first discovered in Britain will become the dominant form of the virus in the United States by the end of March.

The road back to normalcy is potholed with unknowns: how well vaccines prevent further spread of the virus; whether emerging variants remain susceptible enough to the vaccines; and how quickly the world is immunized, so as to halt further evolution of the virus.

But the greatest ambiguity is human behavior. Can Americans desperate for normalcy keep wearing masks and distancing themselves from family and friends? How much longer can communities keep businesses, offices and schools closed?

Covid-19 deaths will most likely never rise quite as precipitously as in the past, and the worst may be behind us. But if Americans let down their guard too soon — many states are already lifting restrictions — and if the variants spread in the United States as they have elsewhere, another spike in cases may well arrive in the coming weeks.

Scientists call it the fourth wave. The new variants mean “we’re essentially facing a pandemic within a pandemic,” said Adam Kucharski, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The United States has now recorded 500,000 deaths amid the pandemic, a terrible milestone. As of Wednesday morning, at least 28.3 million people have been infected.

But the rate of new infections has tumbled by 35 percent over the past two weeks, according to a database maintained by The New York Times. Hospitalizations are down 31 percent, and deaths have fallen by 16 percent.

Yet the numbers are still at the horrific highs of November, scientists noted. At least 3,210 people died of Covid-19 on Wednesday alone. And there is no guarantee that these rates will continue to decrease.

“Very, very high case numbers are not a good thing, even if the trend is downward,” said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “Taking the first hint of a downward trend as a reason to reopen is how you get to even higher numbers.”

In late November, for example, Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island limited social gatherings and some commercial activities in the state. Eight days later, cases began to decline. The trend reversed eight days after the state’s pause lifted on Dec. 20.

The virus’s latest retreat in Rhode Island and most other states, experts said, results from a combination of factors: growing numbers of people with immunity to the virus, either from having been infected or from vaccination; changes in behavior in response to the surges of a few weeks ago; and a dash of seasonality — the effect of temperature and humidity on the survival of the virus.

Parts of the country that experienced huge surges in infection, like Montana and Iowa, may be closer to herd immunity than other regions. But patchwork immunity alone cannot explain the declines throughout much of the world.

The vaccines were first rolled out to residents of nursing homes and to the elderly, who are at highest risk of severe illness and death. That may explain some of the current decline in hospitalizations and deaths.

But young people drive the spread of the virus, and most of them have not yet been inoculated. And the bulk of the world’s vaccine supply has been bought up by wealthy nations, which have amassed one billion more doses than needed to immunize their populations.

Vaccination cannot explain why cases are dropping even in countries where not a single soul has been immunized, like Honduras, Kazakhstan or Libya. The biggest contributor to the sharp decline in infections is something more mundane, scientists say: behavioral change.

Leaders in the United States and elsewhere stepped up community restrictions after the holiday peaks. But individual choices have also been important, said Lindsay Wiley, an expert in public health law and ethics at American University in Washington.

“People voluntarily change their behavior as they see their local hospital get hit hard, as they hear about outbreaks in their area,” she said. “If that’s the reason that things are improving, then that’s something that can reverse pretty quickly, too.”

The downward curve of infections with the original coronavirus disguises an exponential rise in infections with B.1.1.7, the variant first identified in Britain, according to many researchers.

“We really are seeing two epidemic curves,” said Ashleigh Tuite, an infectious disease modeler at the University of Toronto.

The B.1.1.7 variant is thought to be more contagious and more deadly, and it is expected to become the predominant form of the virus in the United States by late March. The number of cases with the variant in the United States has risen from 76 in 12 states as of Jan. 13 to more than 1,800 in 45 states now. Actual infections may be much higher because of inadequate surveillance efforts in the United States.

Buoyed by the shrinking rates over all, however, governors are lifting restrictions across the United States and are under enormous pressure to reopen completely. Should that occur, B.1.1.7 and the other variants are likely to explode.

Updated 

Feb. 25, 2021, 9:03 p.m. ET

“Everybody is tired, and everybody wants things to open up again,” Dr. Tuite said. “Bending to political pressure right now, when things are really headed in the right direction, is going to end up costing us in the long term.”

Looking ahead to late March or April, the majority of scientists interviewed by The Times predicted a fourth wave of infections. But they stressed that it is not an inevitable surge, if government officials and individuals maintain precautions for a few more weeks.

A minority of experts were more sanguine, saying they expected powerful vaccines and an expanding rollout to stop the virus. And a few took the middle road.

“We’re at that crossroads, where it could go well or it could go badly,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The vaccines have proved to be more effective than anyone could have hoped, so far preventing serious illness and death in nearly all recipients. At present, about 1.4 million Americans are vaccinated each day. More than 45 million Americans have received at least one dose.

A team of researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle tried to calculate the number of vaccinations required per day to avoid a fourth wave. In a model completed before the variants surfaced, the scientists estimated that vaccinating just one million Americans a day would limit the magnitude of the fourth wave.

“But the new variants completely changed that,” said Dr. Joshua T. Schiffer, an infectious disease specialist who led the study. “It’s just very challenging scientifically — the ground is shifting very, very quickly.”

Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, described herself as “a little more optimistic” than many other researchers. “We would be silly to undersell the vaccines,” she said, noting that they are effective against the fast-spreading B.1.1.7 variant.

But Dr. Dean worried about the forms of the virus detected in South Africa and Brazil that seem less vulnerable to the vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna. (On Wednesday, Johnson & Johnson reported that its vaccine was relatively effective against the variant found in South Africa.)

About 50 infections with those two variants have been identified in the United States, but that could change. Because of the variants, scientists do not know how many people who were infected and had recovered are now vulnerable to reinfection.

South Africa and Brazil have reported reinfections with the new variants among people who had recovered from infections with the original version of the virus.

“That makes it a lot harder to say, ‘If we were to get to this level of vaccinations, we’d probably be OK,’” said Sarah Cobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago.

Yet the biggest unknown is human behavior, experts said. The sharp drop in cases now may lead to complacency about masks and distancing, and to a wholesale lifting of restrictions on indoor dining, sporting events and more. Or … not.

“The single biggest lesson I’ve learned during the pandemic is that epidemiological modeling struggles with prediction, because so much of it depends on human behavioral factors,” said Carl Bergstrom, a biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Taking into account the counterbalancing rises in both vaccinations and variants, along with the high likelihood that people will stop taking precautions, a fourth wave is highly likely this spring, the majority of experts told The Times.

Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, said he was confident that the number of cases will continue to decline, then plateau in about a month. After mid-March, the curve in new cases will swing upward again.

In early to mid-April, “we’re going to start seeing hospitalizations go up,” he said. “It’s just a question of how much.”

Now the good news.

Despite the uncertainties, the experts predict that the last surge will subside in the United States sometime in the early summer. If the Biden administration can keep its promise to immunize every American adult by the end of the summer, the variants should be no match for the vaccines.

Combine vaccination with natural immunity and the human tendency to head outdoors as weather warms, and “it may not be exactly herd immunity, but maybe it’s sufficient to prevent any large outbreaks,” said Youyang Gu, an independent data scientist, who created some of the most prescient models of the pandemic.

Infections will continue to drop. More important, hospitalizations and deaths will fall to negligible levels — enough, hopefully, to reopen the country.

“Sometimes people lose vision of the fact that vaccines prevent hospitalization and death, which is really actually what most people care about,” said Stefan Baral, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Even as the virus begins its swoon, people may still need to wear masks in public places and maintain social distance, because a significant percent of the population — including children — will not be immunized.

“Assuming that we keep a close eye on things in the summer and don’t go crazy, I think that we could look forward to a summer that is looking more normal, but hopefully in a way that is more carefully monitored than last summer,” said Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

Imagine: Groups of vaccinated people will be able to get together for barbecues and play dates, without fear of infecting one another. Beaches, parks and playgrounds will be full of mask-free people. Indoor dining will return, along with movie theaters, bowling alleys and shopping malls — although they may still require masks.

The virus will still be circulating, but the extent will depend in part on how well vaccines prevent not just illness and death, but also transmission. The data on whether vaccines stop the spread of the disease are encouraging, but immunization is unlikely to block transmission entirely.

“It’s not zero and it’s not 100 — exactly where that number is will be important,” said Shweta Bansal, an infectious disease modeler at Georgetown University. “It needs to be pretty darn high for us to be able to get away with vaccinating anything below 100 percent of the population, so that’s definitely something we’re watching.”

Over the long term — say, a year from now, when all the adults and children in the United States who want a vaccine have received them — will this virus finally be behind us?

Every expert interviewed by The Times said no. Even after the vast majority of the American population has been immunized, the virus will continue to pop up in clusters, taking advantage of pockets of vulnerability. Years from now, the coronavirus may be an annoyance, circulating at low levels, causing modest colds.

Many scientists said their greatest worry post-pandemic was that new variants may turn out to be significantly less susceptible to the vaccines. Billions of people worldwide will remain unprotected, and each infection gives the virus new opportunities to mutate.

“We won’t have useless vaccines. We might have slightly less good vaccines than we have at the moment,” said Andrew Read, an evolutionary microbiologist at Penn State University. “That’s not the end of the world, because we have really good vaccines right now.”

For now, every one of us can help by continuing to be careful for just a few more months, until the curve permanently flattens.

“Just hang in there a little bit longer,” Dr. Tuite said. “There’s a lot of optimism and hope, but I think we need to be prepared for the fact that the next several months are likely to continue to be difficult.”

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Health

Kids Are Consuming Hand Sanitizer. Right here’s The way to Preserve Them Protected.

Children Are Consuming Hand Sanitizer. Here’s How to Keep Them Safe.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers became a must have during the pandemic. But as sales rose and families stocked up, poison centers received more and more calls about small children they’d accidentally picked up.

Even now, roughly a year after the frenzy of stocking up on disinfectants began, hand sanitizer is still easy to get hold of in many households, and calls to the country’s poison control centers are at a faster pace than before the pandemic.

In the past year, there were more than 20,000 exposures to hand sanitizer in children under 6, an increase of 40 percent over 2019. This is based on data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers obtained from the New York Times.

Most of these exposures involved children up to 2 years of age who had ingested the disinfectant. In many cases, no symptoms were noted, which means the child may have just taken or licked a brief taste, which usually doesn’t have significant health effects, said Dr. Justin Arnold, the Medical Director of the Florida Poison Information Center Tampa. In other cases, vomiting, coughing and mouth irritation occurred in children.

While most cases are mild, by properly storing the disinfectant and monitoring young children while using it, parents can avoid the stress of calling poison control or taking an unnecessary trip to the emergency room.

The increase in exposures has continued over the past few months. In January, for example, almost 34 percent more exposure to hand sanitizer was reported in children under 6 than in the previous year.

Exposure to household cleaners such as liquid laundry detergent packs, bleach, all-purpose cleaners, drain cleaners, and oven cleaners also increased, increasing 10 percent in children under 6 years of age in the first few months of the pandemic. This comes from a report published in August by the American Association of Poison Control Centers.

But when it comes to hand sanitizer that we regularly reach for when we’re outside and all our hands frothed up, it’s easy to let go of your guard, experts said. Mainly because hand sanitizer does not come with a child-resistant closure.

“People don’t realize how toxic it is when ingested, what effects it has, and what to do to store it safely,” said William Eggleston, clinical toxicologist at the Upstate New York Poison Center in Syracuse, NY. and an assistant professor at Binghamton University School of Pharmacy.

It depends on how much is swallowed.

If children take enough alcohol-based hand sanitizer, they can get “dangerously drunk,” said Dr. Diane Calello, a pediatric toxicologist and executive and medical director of the New Jersey Poison Center.

Last spring, Dr. Calello co-authored a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the rise in calls to poison centers warning parents to keep hand sanitisers, detergents and disinfectants away from children. The report highlighted the case of a preschooler who became unresponsive in her home near a 64-ounce bottle of ethanol-based hand sanitizer. Her blood alcohol level was 0.27 percent, more than three times the legal limit above which an adult is not allowed to drive.

Updated

Apr. 25, 2021, 2:50 p.m. ET

Hand sanitizer is 60 to 95 percent alcohol, a much higher concentration than beer, wine, or most liquor. A child weighing 20 pounds who drank a tablespoon or two could get high, said Dr. Calello and “a little drunk” appear.

“If a dose goes higher, they can become very sleepy and have difficulty breathing, just like we see with severe alcohol intoxication in adults,” she added.

After drinking a small amount of alcohol, children are more likely than adults to experience dangerous blood sugar drops, which can make them sluggish from about six to ten hours after consumption, said Dr. Calello.

Ingesting disinfectants can also be irritating to the throat or stomach, especially if they’re formulated with isopropyl alcohol, an ingredient often found in alcohol, the experts say.

Keep all hand sanitizer out of the reach of children – and out of sight, even if you only have a small bottle tucked in a purse or backpack.

“It is important for parents to treat it like household drugs,” said Dr. Eggleston.

You may be wondering if your family should avoid hand sanitizer entirely. While hand washing is the most effective way to get rid of germs, the CDC nonetheless recommends using a hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus when soap and water are not readily available.

If you have children under 6 at home, supervise them while they use it, said Dr. Arnold.

“You don’t want the kid to pump their own and start trying,” he added.

There was a surge in calls to U.S. poison centers in July and August after the Food and Drug Administration warned about hand sanitizer, which may contain methanol, which can be toxic if ingested. Hand sanitisers should never contain methanol.

“You can die if you drink methanol – and people do,” said Dr. Calello.

However, the absorption of methanol into the skin is “quite low,” she added.

You can visit the FDA website for a list of disinfectants that should not be used (including several brands imported from Mexico that contain methanol). If you find you have any of these products at home, the FDA recommends placing the hand sanitizer bottle in a hazardous waste container, if available, and contacting your local waste disposal center for advice on the safest disposal. Do not flush, pour it down the drain, or mix it with other liquids.

If your child has swallowed hand sanitizer, don’t try to induce vomiting, the experts said. Call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 for quick instructions on best course of action.

If your child is passed out, behaves abnormally, has difficulty waking up, or has difficulty breathing, call 911.

“Fortunately, the milder cases are much more common,” said Dr. Calello. “More likely we’ll say, ‘Stay home, watch him, I’ll call you back in an hour or half an hour.’ In this way we keep a lot of people away from the hospital by giving them real-time telephone instructions. “

You should also call poison control if your child has hand sanitizer in their eyes. In the United States, there were about 900 reports of eye exposure in children under 6 years of age in 2020, up 54 percent from 2019. A recent JAMA Ophthalmology study in France, reviewing data from poison centers, found this hand to be related to the eye Disinfectant exposure in children increased seven-fold in 2020 compared to 2019, and the number of surgeries performed to Addressing the resulting chemical injuries required has increased.

“In an emergency, any clean liquid can be used to rinse the eye after chemical exposure,” wrote Dr. Kathryn Colby, an ophthalmologist at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, in a comment published in JAMA Ophthalmology last month. “Finally,” she added, “parents need to understand the importance of an eye exam when exposure occurs in children,” as early diagnosis and treatment is critical.

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Business

This is every thing it’s worthwhile to know

Here's everything you need to know

This transmission electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 – also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19. isolated from a patient in the US oozing from the surface of cells cultured in the laboratory.

Source: NIAID-RML

Even if the number of global Covid-19 infections declines worldwide, leading US health officials are warning of an impending wave of infections as new, more contagious, and potentially deadly variants of the virus emerge in the US

Scientists are not surprised by the emergence of the new variants and have repeated that the vaccines currently available should continue to work against them – albeit slightly less effective than against the original “wild” strain. However, US health officials and infectious disease experts fear that these highly contagious variants, particularly strain B.1.1.7 found in the UK, could reverse the current downward trend in infections in the US and delay the country’s recovery from the pandemic.

“I think we should assume that the next wave of case growth, as far as we have it, will happen with B.1.1.7 and I think everyone needs to be even more careful.” Andy Slavitt, Senior Advisor to the White House Covid-19, told MSNBC last week. “It’s nice to see the number of cases go down, but it could be misleading.”

Why viruses mutate

As the coronavirus spreads, it makes large numbers of copies of itself, and each version is a little different from the previous one, experts say. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, has had many ways to spread and replicate. The more people become infected, the more likely it is that problematic mutations will occur.

The three main “worrying variants” that US officials are on the verge of were first identified in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. The B.1.1.7 variant, first found in the UK, is rapidly reproducing in the US and is expected to become the dominant strain in the country by March, according to a study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January.

By mutating, the virus is simply trying to “get to the next host and get more out of itself,” said Dr. Adam Lauring, an infectious disease expert at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, in an interview with the JAMA network on Feb.4. Like other coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 tends to mutate more slowly than other viruses like the flu because it contains a “proofreading” enzyme that will fix some of the changes when it replicates.

In other cases, “escape mutations” allow the virus to adapt to “selective pressures”. This is the case when the virus encounters a population that already has some level of immunity to the virus – whether through prior infection, vaccination, or antibody treatment – which limits its viruses’ ability to spread, but does not to stop.

“You can imagine trying new solutions,” said Lauring. “Either that mutation will make you a better virus or a worse one, and then you have choice. Survival of the fittest because there is no better term.”

Research shows that more worrisome virus mutations could come from people with compromised immune systems as it takes their bodies longer to respond to and clear the virus, giving it more time to figure us out and mutate, said Dr. Dennis Burton, the Scripps Research Institute Chair of Immunology and Microbiology.

“If someone has the virus and clears it up in a couple of days, you have little chance of mutating,” Burton told CNBC in a phone interview. “But if someone has the virus, like an immunocompromised person, and they harbor the virus for weeks, then it will have a lot more chance of mutating.”

Why some are worse than others

Few variants become a public health problem, according to infectious disease experts. These variants are usually easier to spread, cause more serious illnesses in infected people, or elude some protection against vaccines and antibodies.

CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told JAMA on Wednesday that variant B.1.1.7 is considered to be about 50% more transmissible and early data suggests it could be up to 50% more virulent or deadly.

There is also evidence that people infected with previous strains of the virus could be re-infected with variant B.1.351 found in South Africa, Walensky wrote in a JAMA position with White House Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Dr. Henry Walke, the CDC’s Covid Incident Manager.

SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus, a large family of viruses called “because of the crown-like tips on their surfaces”, according to the CDC. Researchers monitor these spikes, or the S protein, for mutations as they can allow the virus to attach to cells more easily or increase the amount of virus a person gives off.

The S protein has what is known as a “receptor binding domain” that acts like “the hand of the tip” and captures what is known as the ACE2 receptor on human cells, said Dr. Daniel Griffin, Head of Infectious Diseases at ProHEALTH CNBC.

Changes to the S protein could be an issue as these spikes were aimed at neutralizing antibodies that fight Covid-19 and are generated through natural infection or vaccination, Griffin said. They could also affect the performance of monoclonal antibody therapies, which prevent people from developing serious diseases.

For example, variant B.1.1.7, identified for the first time in Great Britain, has several different mutations according to the CDC. One of the key mutations, N501Y, is an alteration in the spike protein that scientists believe helps the virus attach to cells more easily.

The same key N501Y mutation evolved separately in the B.1.351 variant identified in South Africa and the P.1 variant found in Brazil. Both strains have also developed another mutation in their spike proteins known as E484K.

The CDC warns that this mutation, now identified in some B.1.1.7 cases, may be resistant to antibody drug therapies, and early studies show that it may reduce the effectiveness of some vaccines.

“This is the one that really worries me,” Griffin told CNBC, referring to the E484K mutation.

What this means for vaccines

Although the vaccines against the variants have still been shown to be effective, there is concern that the B.1.351 strain may present some challenges.

Large clinical trials by Johnson & Johnson and Novavax reported that their vaccines had penetrated in late January Effectiveness in tests in South Africa. Novavax said its vaccine was only 49% effective among 49 Covid-19 cases in South Africa, and J&J said its vaccine was 57% effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19.

World Health Organization vaccination director Kate O’Brien said Thursday that these results don’t offer much certainty as the number of cases in the South African studies has been small.

“We are still in the early stages of interpreting the evidence and again the most important thing is to get more information about what is actually happening in relation to diseases,” O’Brien said at a news conference. “In general, we see that the vaccines retain their effectiveness against disease, albeit at a lower level in environments without the prevalent variants.”

Pfizer and Moderna

Clinical studies from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were conducted before the variants emerged. Scientists have therefore carried out laboratory tests to determine how well blood samples from people who have already been vaccinated react to virus variants with the key mutations constructed in the laboratory.

These studies, in which it was examined whether the sera in the blood neutralize the virus and prevent its replication, showed a reduction in performance when tested against variant B.1.351. This “indicates that currently used vaccines could be less effective in preventing infections because of this variant,” wrote Walensky, Fauci and Walke from their point of view.

However, your body’s ability to fight off the virus may depend on more than just neutralizing antibodies, including T and B cells, which can help fight the virus but are not measured in the early laboratory tests, Lauring told JAMA.

The good news is that Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines had a high rate of effectiveness even in previous studies – around 95%. So there’s a pillow out there that allows for a drop in performance while being considered effective by doctors, experts say. The gunshots were also shown to provide protection from people suffering from severe forms of illness that would result in hospitalization or death.

Both Pfizer and Moderna have already announced that they are working on a booster shot for their vaccines that will better withstand strain B.1.351.

Find the mutations

The B.1.1.7 variant was first identified in the United Kingdom in December, but is believed to have surfaced sometime in September. Many experts have recognized the UK’s ability to carry out large-scale genome sequencing for the discovery of the variant.

Genome sequencing is a laboratory technique that breaks down the virus’ genetic code and allows researchers to monitor how it changes over time and understand how those changes could affect it, according to the CDC.

According to the latest data from the CDC, there are now 1,661 documented Covid-19 cases in the USA with variant B.1.1.7, 22 cases with variant B.1.351 and five cases with variant P.1. Officials acknowledge that the US is sequencing a small fraction of the cases and the spread of the variants is likely to be far wider. However, the federal government has recently attempted to increase the number of samples sequenced per week to identify these variants and other mutations that may develop domestically.

The CDC has partnered with public health and trade laboratories to rapidly improve genome sequencing in the country. Walensky told JAMA on Wednesday that the US was sequencing only 250 samples a week in January, which has since grown “by the thousands”. She added, “We’re not where we need to be.”

Dr. Ilhem Messaoudi, director of the University of California at the Irvine Center for Virus Research, said the process could be time-consuming and labor-intensive, but emerging strains would be overlooked if laboratories didn’t sequence a certain percentage of all positive Covid-19 test results in order to to find the new mutations.

“Now we’re trying to catch up,” she said in a phone interview with CNBC. “We say, ‘Let’s go back and see if we have that.'”

Masks and social distancing

The fast-spreading variants renew the importance of suppressing the spread of the coronavirus through public health measures such as wearing masks, social distancing and practicing hand hygiene to prevent further mutations and giving countries time to deploy life-saving vaccines To provide.

Coronavirus variants aren’t just a problem for the United States, however. If the virus is spread in other parts of the world that are not vaccinated, it could lead to mutations that could threaten the widely used vaccines in other countries, the CDC chief warned on Wednesday.

After all, the whole world needs to build immunity to the virus or the variants will continue to be a problem, Burton told CNBC.

“Sooner or later, variants will be everywhere if they have a big advantage,” said Burton. “It’s a global problem; it’s not just a problem for one country.”

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Trevor Bauer’s $102 million take care of the Dodgers is exclusive — Here is why

Trevor Bauer's $102 million deal with the Dodgers is unique — Here's why

Trevor Bauer # 27 of the Cincinnati Reds celebrates after the final of the sixth innings during the first game of the Wild Card Series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday, September 30, 2020, at Truist Park in Atlanta, Georgia.

Adam Hagy | Major League Baseball | Getty Images

The Los Angeles Dodgers recently signed the 2020 National League Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer for one of the most unique contracts in Major League Baseball history.

Bauer agreed to a $ 102 million, three-year deal with the team on Thursday, making him one of the highest-paid players in theory in theory as the pact unfolds. There are opt-outs that trigger a peak salary, a deferral and a short-term model structure. Most importantly, it has flexibility, which a player of Bauer’s talent usually avoids.

“That’s what this player wanted,” said Jon Fetterolf, partner at litigation firm Zuckerman Spaeder, to CNBC on Thursday. Fetterolf is one of the two MLB co-agents who negotiated Bauer’s deal. The other is Rachel Luba from Luba Sports.

“We ended up on a three-year contract where he’ll make a lot more in the first few years than we’ve seen before,” he added, noting that Bauer will earn $ 85 million in the first two years of the contract could.

Again, it’s unique and that’s how it’s built.

Inside the deal

Bauer reportedly earns $ 38 million in his first year. If he goes out of business, that total will be $ 40 million as the Dodgers would pay him an additional $ 2 million on the way out.

The Dodgers can benefit from this. If Bauer leaves, they can defer $ 20 million of the salary for future payments – much like the Mets’ arrangement with Bobby Bonilla. There is also a $ 10 million signing bonus that will be paid out in the 2021 season.

This bonus helps as the money is only taxed at the player’s state residence, while MLB game checks are taxed based on the city the clubs play in during the year.

The second year of the contract is $ 47 million. It’s $ 32 million for the year, but if he signs out the Dodgers will pay him another $ 15 million.

These salaries make Bauer the highest paid player (per year) in the MLB for 2021 and 2022.

And if Bauer is still a dodger after two years, he’ll miss the $ 15 million buyout but make up for it with a $ 32 million payment for the last year of the deal. The sum: $ 102 million over three years.

“The structure gives him the opportunity to assess the situation from year to year,” said Fetterolf. “It’s a different kind of contract, and it also shows that he’s a different kind of person.”

Short term thinking

The 30-year-old farmer made his share of PR mistakes. But a player of his caliber usually takes the long-term path – money and security over several years.

For example, New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole signed a nine-year deal worth around $ 324 million in 2019. He was 28 years old at the time, but was bound by his contract until he was 37. Bauer and Cole were teammates at UCLA, and they were both selected above in the 2011 MLB draft.

Once drafted and at an MLB club, it takes players six years to become a free agent, and along the way they will earn the minimum wage under the collective agreement. Once the service time is reached, the players have the right to negotiate the salary with the team. If they do not agree, there is an arbitration tribunal to determine the compensation.

If the players in this window do not agree to long term deals, especially when they start pitchers, they will agree once they reach the free agency. Bauer emulated new teammate David Price, who had embarked on a path similar to his mega-deal.

Price continued his years of service with the Tampa Bay Rays, enduring pay arbitration along the way, and putting on a one-year contract with the Detroit Tigers for the 2015 season. At 30, he signed a seven-year $ 217 million deal with the Boston Red Sox.

Both Price and Bauer were four-year-old players in pay arbitration schemes that were traded by their clubs and signed one-year contracts before hitting mega-contracts. Price, now 35, was traded to the Dodgers last February and is set to raise $ 32 million for the 2021 season. He’ll be 37 once the post-2022 deal closes.

Fetterolf and Luba were hired to represent numerous players in the salary arbitration. Fetterolf explained why Bauer chose the short-term model instead of the long-term model.

“Theoretically, he would like to give himself the opportunity to control his life if you don’t leave for most of the years, most of the dollars,” said Fetterolf, using the example of short-term basketball contracts.

“He could have done the maximum,” said Fetterolf. “He didn’t do that. Why? Because he wants to make sure he’s in a situation he likes. I think that’s different. We see that in basketball. I think one of the reasons we do it in basketball see, these guys are able to make so much money off the field, far more than baseball players normally make, ”he continued. “But a lot of these guys want to make sure they are in a situation where they have a chance to win.”

Trevor Bauer # 27 of the Cincinnati Reds plays in the third inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park on August 7, 2020 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Dylan Buell | Getty Images

Filet Mignon at half price

However, not all teams can afford contracts with expensive annual salaries.

After winning the 2020 World Series, the first since 1988, the Dodgers use a championship window. Landing Bauer at this salary costs the team.

According to Spotrac, the Dodgers have a payroll of $ 234 million, well above the Yankees’ $ 189 million (second highest), and are expected to be the only team to pay a competitive luxury tax bill. Clubs will be taxed dollar for dollar if they exceed $ 210 million in 2021.

But the Dodgers are familiar with taxes after paying a record $ 43.7 million in 2015. The bet is that Bauer’s deal will help the team get their money’s worth with another title, and this time with fans in the stands to make up for lost revenue in 2020 due to Covid.

“It has to be a club that sees itself in a (championship) window and takes over the salary,” said Fetterolf. “And if it takes them to a World Series and he goes, so be it. And it eliminates a lot of teams in baseball.”

When asked if more players should consider the short-term game, if available, Fetterolf said the circumstances were different but pointed to flexibility as bait.

“A player like Trevor looks at it and says, ‘I’d rather see if I can maximize my annual earnings upfront while maintaining flexibility.” He said he only charges a 1.5% fee on contracts (more notable MLB agents can charge up to 5%) and an hourly rate during negotiations. The fee structure helped Bauer save brokerage fees.

“The player is different,” added Fetterolf. “He got the deal he wanted and a record deal at a cheaper price than anyone else. You get filet mignon and pay half the price. It’s not a bad deal.”

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Received vaccinated? Right here’s why chances are you’ll need to hold that to your self

Got vaccinated? Here’s why you may want to keep that to yourself

A nurse in the intensive care unit at Poudre Valley Hospital shows her vaccination card after receiving the first round of Covid-19 vaccines at UC Health Poudre Valley Hospital on December 14, 2020 in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Helen H. Richardson | The Denver Post | Getty Images

It’s tempting to tell the world the moment you get a covid shot. But there is reason to contain it.

If you first share a photo of your vaccination card on social media, you are a potential target of identity theft, according to the Better Business Bureau.

The personal information on the card, including your full name and birthday, not only leaves you vulnerable to scammers but also provides all the information they need to create and sell counterfeit cards online. (These cards are often given after vaccine recipients have their first dose.)

If you want to report on your vaccine, there are safer ways to do it, advised the Better Business Bureau.

Instead, share a photo of your vaccine sticker or change your privacy settings so only friends and family can see your posts.

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One year after Covid in America: a financial snapshot

Such visual displays are key to spreading a positive public health message about the Covid-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And they can go a long way in building confidence and encouraging others to vaccinate.

However, given the limited supply and hard-to-find dates, publishing about vaccinations, possibly in front of high-risk candidates, is also a murky moral dilemma – especially given the growing inequality in vaccine distributions.

Given the limited supply, “there is some inherent conflict there,” said Steven Thrasher, Professor and Daniel H. Renberg Chair of Social Justice at Northwestern University. “We have to deal with the introduction of this vaccine.”

Instead of figuring out how to get your own vaccine appointment, you are helping others without the same amount of time and resources, he said.

According to the CDC, more than 48.4 million doses of the vaccine have been distributed in the US to date. Of those who received a first dose, 55% were over 50 years old.

“There will always be someone in need who is more in need,” said Zoe McLaren, associate professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

“We want to encourage everyone to get vaccinated and to be proud to be vaccinated, but until we have enough doses for everyone, we want to make sure that those doses go to the people who are most at risk,” she said.

Until we have enough doses for everyone, we want to make sure those doses go to the people who are most at risk.

Zoe McLaren

Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County

If you’re not on a prioritized group, you can wait until you sign up or pick an appointment in two weeks instead of tomorrow, advised McLaren.

Instead of writing about the vaccination, write “I can’t wait to be vaccinated”.

“Post in a way that encourages people to get vaccinated but gives priority to risk groups,” she said – and “refocus our efforts on building a better system until vaccine supplies increase.”

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

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You Made Cash on GameStop. This is What You Must Know About Taxes.

You Made Money on GameStop. Here's What You Need to Know About Taxes.

For example, suppose a high-income investor bought 100 shares of GameStop on Jan. 4 when the shares were trading at $ 17.25 and paying $ 1,725. The trader then sold the shares on Jan. 27 when they hit $ 347.51 and grossed $ 34,751, making a profit of $ 33,026. The tax bill for someone in the upper income bracket would be an estimated $ 13,475.

And that’s just federal taxes. Many states and cities value their own capital gains taxes or treat capital gains as ordinary income that is taxed at higher rates.

Some GameStop traders have stated that they bought shares in 2019 and held them for more than a year. If so, they would be entitled to favorable long-term capital gains tax rates if they made a profit on the sale. The top rate would be 20 percent; Higher earners would also pay the additional 3.8 percent for a rate of 23.8 percent.

Individual traders can also suffer capital losses if they sell a stock for less than they paid for it. This can be used to offset capital gains and lower taxes, said Tony Molina, accountant and senior product specialist at Wealthfront, an online investment service.

Less experienced investors sometimes violate tax regulations with so-called “wash sales”. In this scenario, an investor with a large capital gain from the sale of a company’s stock is trying to generate a loss to offset the tax burden. The investor sells shares in another share at a loss – but then quickly buys the share back. That’s a no no.

“You can’t,” said Fr Evan Stephens, a tax partner of Sensiba San Filippo in San Jose, California. If you buy back the same or similar shares within 30 days, you will not be able to use the loss incurred to offset your profit.

On the radar is a proposal from President Biden to eliminate the cheap long-term capital gains rate for taxpayers earning more than $ 1 million and increase the top tax rate on ordinary income. There were even rumors that if the changes were approved, they could be made retrospectively as of early 2021. “Is that likely? No, ”said Tim Speiss, partner in EisnerAmper’s personal asset group. “Could it happen? We do not know it. “

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Right here’s a Solution to Be taught if Facial Recognition Programs Used Your Pictures

Here’s a Way to Learn if Facial Recognition Systems Used Your Photos

As tech companies developed facial recognition systems that quickly resume government surveillance and compromise privacy, they may have received help from an unexpected source: your face.

Corporations, universities, and government laboratories have used millions of images obtained from a variety of online sources to develop the technology. Now researchers have created an online tool called Exposing.AI that allows users to search many of these collections of images for their old photos.

The tool, which compares images from the Flickr online photo-sharing service, provides a glimpse into the vast amounts of data required to build a wide variety of AI technologies, from facial recognition to online chatbots.

“People need to realize that some of their most intimate moments have been armed,” said one of its creators, Liz O’Sullivan, technology director for the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a privacy and civil rights group. She helped create Exposing.AI with Adam Harvey, a researcher and artist in Berlin.

Artificial intelligence systems don’t magically get intelligent. They learn by locating patterns in human-generated data – photos, voice recordings, books, Wikipedia articles, and all sorts of other materials. Technology just keeps getting better, but it can learn human prejudices against women and minorities.

People may not know that they are contributing to AI education. For some, that’s a curiosity. For others, it’s hugely scary. And it can be against the law. A 2008 Illinois law, the Biometric Information Privacy Act, imposes financial penalties if the facial scans are used by residents without their consent.

In 2006, Brett Gaylor, a documentary filmmaker from Victoria, British Columbia, uploaded his honeymoon photos to Flickr, a service popular at the time. Almost 15 years later, using an early version of Mr. Harvey’s Exposing.AI, he discovered that hundreds of these photos had invaded multiple data sets that may have been used to train facial recognition systems around the world.

Flickr, bought and sold by many companies over the years and now owned by the photo sharing service SmugMug, allowed users to share their photos under what is known as a Creative Commons license. This license, common on websites, meant that others could use the photos with certain restrictions, although those restrictions may have been ignored. In 2014, Yahoo, which at the time owned Flickr, used many of these photos in a data set that should be helpful when working on Computer Vision.

Mr. Gaylor, 43, wondered how his photos could have jumped from place to place. He was then told that the photos may have contributed to surveillance systems in the US and other countries, and that one of those systems was used to track the Uighur population in China.

“My curiosity turned to horror,” he said.

How honeymoon photos helped build surveillance systems in China is, in some ways, a story of unintended or unexpected consequences.

Years ago, AI researchers at leading universities and technology companies began collecting digital photos from a variety of sources, including photo sharing services, social networks, dating sites like OkCupid, and even cameras installed on college quads. You shared these photos with other organizations.

That was just the norm for researchers. They all needed data to feed into their new AI systems, so they shared what they had. It was usually legal.

One example was MegaFace, a dataset created by professors at the University of Washington in 2015. They were created without the knowledge or consent of the people whose pictures they folded into the huge pool of photos. The professors put it on the Internet for others to download.

MegaFace has been downloaded more than 6,000 times by corporations and government agencies around the world, according to a request by the New York Times for public records. These included US defense contractor Northrop Grumman; In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the Central Intelligence Agency; ByteDance, the parent company of the Chinese social media app TikTok; and the Chinese surveillance company Megvii.

The researchers built MegaFace for use in an academic competition to advance the development of facial recognition systems. It was not intended for commercial use. But only a small percentage of those who downloaded MegaFace have publicly entered the competition.

“We are unable to discuss third-party projects,” said Victor Balta, a spokesman for the University of Washington. “MegaFace has been taken out of service and MegaFace data is no longer distributed.”

Some of those who downloaded the data used facial recognition systems. Megvii was blacklisted by the Ministry of Commerce last year after the Chinese government used its technology to monitor the country’s Uighur population.

The University of Washington took MegaFace offline in May and other organizations removed other records. However, copies of these files can be anywhere, and they are likely to provide new research.

Ms. O’Sullivan and Mr. Harvey spent years trying to develop a tool that would tell how all this data was used. It was more difficult than expected.

They wanted to accept someone’s photo and use facial recognition to instantly tell that person how often their face was in one of those records. However, they feared that such a tool would be poorly used – by stalkers or by corporations and nation states.

“The potential for harm seemed too great,” said Ms. O’Sullivan, who is also vice president of responsible AI at Arthur, a New York company that helps companies control the behavior of AI technologies.

In the end, they had to limit how users could search the tool and what results it produced. The tool as it works today is not as effective as they would like it to be. However, researchers feared they might not be able to uncover the breadth of the problem without making it worse.

Exposing.AI itself does not use face recognition. Photos are only located if you can already refer to them online, for example with an Internet address. Users can only search for photos that have been posted to Flickr, and they need a Flickr username, tag, or web address that can be used to identify those photos. (This provides the researchers with the right level of security and privacy protection.)

While this limits the utility of the tool, it is still an eye opener. Flickr images make up a significant portion of the facial recognition records that have been circulated across the internet, including MegaFace.

It’s not difficult to find photos that people have a personal relationship with. By simply searching old emails for Flickr links, The Times found photos that, according to Exposing.AI, were used in MegaFace and other facial recognition records.

Some belonged to Parisa Tabriz, a well-known security researcher at Google. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Gaylor is particularly concerned about what he discovered through the tool because he once believed that the free flow of information on the Internet was largely positive. He used Flickr because it gave others the right to use his photos under the Creative Commons license.

“I now live the consequences,” he said.

His hope – and the hope of Ms. O’Sullivan and Mr. Harvey – is that business and government will develop new standards, guidelines, and laws that will prevent the bulk collection of personal information. He’s making a documentary about the long, winding, and occasionally disruptive journey of his honeymoon photos to shed light on the problem.

Mr. Harvey firmly believes that something has to change. “We have to get rid of these as quickly as possible – before they cause more damage,” he said.

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As Senate Weighs Biden’s Commerce Choose, Right here’s What to Watch

As Senate Weighs Biden’s Commerce Pick, Here’s What to Watch

WASHINGTON – The commercial division has taken on a new role in recent years and has extensive powers over issues such as technology exports and climate change. On Tuesday, President Biden’s candidate to run the sprawling agency, Gina M. Raimondo, will appear before the Senate Trade Committee for a confirmation hearing. Ms. Raimondo, the current governor of Rhode Island, is a moderate Democrat and former venture capitalist.

Here are five things to consider when the hearing starts at 10 a.m.

Senators from both parties are likely to ask Ms. Raimondo how she intends to use the powers of the Department of Commerce to counter China’s growing domination of cutting edge and sensitive technologies, such as advanced telecommunications and artificial intelligence.

The Trump administration extensively used the Department’s agencies to crack down on Chinese tech firms, often turning to the entity list, which allows the United States to prevent companies from selling American products and technologies to certain foreign firms to sell without first obtaining a license. Dozens of companies have been added to the Department of Commerce’s list, including telecommunications giants like Huawei and ZTE, which many American lawmakers see as a threat to national security.

“You can be pretty sure members are calling for a hard line,” said William Reinsch, a trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who was a senior trade official during the Clinton administration.

The Department of Commerce was also tasked with setting out President Donald J. Trump’s US ban on Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat social media apps – actions that were later stopped by a court order – and investigating bans on other Chinese apps . Mr Biden said he viewed TikTok’s access to American data as “seriously worrying,” but it is unclear how the new administration will address these issues.

However, the Commerce Department has other roles that some tech experts claim have been underutilized in the Trump administration, such as the role it plays in setting global technology standards that private companies must operate under. China has taken an increasingly active role in global standards-setting bodies in recent years and helped ensure adoption of technologies made in China, Reinsch said, and senators could urge Ms. Raimondo on the matter.

Mr. Biden has highlighted Ms. Raimondo’s role in promoting small businesses as Governor of Rhode Island – both before and during the pandemic.

As trade secretary, she would appoint certain agencies that could help get companies into trouble and advance the Biden administration’s goals of building domestic industry and revitalizing American research and development.

These include economic development programs and manufacturing partnerships that the Department of Commerce offers to small and medium-sized businesses, as well as its core mission of promoting American exports.

The department could also play a bigger role in expanding high-speed internet access to rural and low-income communities. This is a particularly critical issue as the pandemic has forced a lot of commerce and online schooling. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency of the Department of Commerce, leads the government’s broadband access efforts.

Updated

Jan. 25, 2021, 9:55 p.m. ET

Ms. Raimondo could ask questions about the department’s planned role in enforcing trade rules. It has a responsibility to impose tariffs on foreign countries that are found to be wrongly subsidizing and valued their goods, making them cheaper to sell in the United States.

The Trump administration also began to view countries’ manipulation of their currency – which can further reduce the cost of a product abroad – as some kind of foreign subsidy, and introduced the first tariffs to counter this. This move is popular with trade unions and many Congressional Democrats, but it has roused foreign allies and it is unclear how aggressively the Biden administration will pursue policy.

Another likely question for Ms. Raimondo concerns the tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on foreign steel and aluminum, ostensibly to protect U.S. national security. Mr Biden, Ms. Raimondo and others have to decide whether to maintain or remove these tariffs, which are supported by metalworking unions but are deeply unpopular with foreign governments and other industries whose prices have risen as a result.

President Trump and his deputies at the Commerce Department cited controversial efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the state census conducted by the Census Bureau, which is then used to determine Congressional representation and federal funding.

These efforts, which would have given the Republicans more political power, failed after numerous legal challenges and delays in calculating the data. Democrats sharply criticized the effort, calling it unconstitutional.

Senate committee members can ask Ms. Raimondo to confirm how the Census Bureau will calculate its future population data and when the census will provide the latest figures.

Like some of Mr. Biden’s other nominees, Ms. Raimondo has seen some backlash from progressive Democrats who have criticized her close ties with venture capital and big technology companies. Prior to running for political office, Ms. Raimondo was a founding associate at Bain Capital-backed investment firm Village Ventures and co-founder of her own venture capital firm Point Judith Capital.

Some progressives have also condemned certain actions she has taken as governor of Rhode Island, including clashes with unions during a revision of state pension plans and extending liability coverage to nursing homes and healthcare facilities during the pandemic. However, Democrats who support Ms. Raimondo’s swift endorsement are unlikely, if at all, to push too hard on these issues.

Some Republicans have referred to an ethical complaint by the Republican Party of Rhode Island against Ms. Raimondo complaining that the state awarded a $ 1 billion contract to a gaming company called International Global Solutions Corporation without a tender process. A lobbyist for the group was also an official for the Democratic Governors Association, which Ms. Raimondo ran. However, that complaint was dismissed in 2020 and the Raimondo press office has labeled the problem a partisan attack.

Overall, Ms. Raimondo’s potential controversies appear tame compared to her predecessor, financier Wilbur Ross, who was embroiled in a scandal over his role in the department’s census and weather forecasting, and over myriad investment relationships with overseas companies .

Ms. Raimondo’s financial disclosure forms released earlier this month also appear undisputed, showing an annual salary of $ 150,245 from the state of Rhode Island, plus cash, investment accounts and other assets of $ 2.9-7.5 million, mainly Investment funds.