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A Key Software in Covid Monitoring: The Freedom of Info Act

A Key Tool in Covid Tracking: The Freedom of Information Act

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and provides a behind-the-scenes look at how our journalism comes together.

In the first few months of the pandemic, blocks of data in some U.S. communities suggested that the coronavirus infected and killed blacks and Latinos at much higher rates than whites. A team of New York Times reporters who followed outbreaks across the country believed that the collection of detailed national data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could confirm this trend. There was only one problem: the federal government failed to honor reporters’ email request for the data.

To overcome this hurdle, the Times journalists relied on a decade-old law known as the Freedom of Information Act, which gives the public access to records from almost every federal agency, as well as state open record laws. After reporters received the data, their July article provided a detailed picture of 640,000 infections discovered in nearly 1,000 US states. This was the most comprehensive look at coronavirus cases across the country to date. The report also confirmed that blacks and Latinos actually had the worst pandemic.

Over the past year, dozens of Times journalists denied case-related data have filed more than 400 FOIA or other open records requests with government agencies. Many of these inquiries have enabled reporters to track cases, deaths and uncover locations of Covid-19 outbreaks.

“Having good information, solid data, and a respectful view of the agencies to make sure they are transparent leads to better accountability and, hopefully, better policies,” said Mitch Smith, a correspondent for the National Desk covering the Midwest and one of them was the journalists covering the history of racial inequality.

For the most part, submitting a FOIA request is as easy as writing an email. A reporter can submit a form on the federal or equivalent state FOIA website listing the information they are looking for. FOIA officials will then approve or deny the application despite sometimes not making a decision for an extended period of time – weeks, months, sometimes years.

Updated

April 14, 2021, 5:50 a.m. ET

Journalists can appeal after a rejection or after a deadline for deciding or responding to a request. However, if the appeal fails or an agency fails to respond, journalists can get the information, as the Times did to get the CDC data on which its report on racial inequality is based. Sometimes governments try to put up roadblocks in the form of exorbitant fees for conducting a file search, or requiring a reporter to be in the state where the application is being made, or simply requiring a form to be hand-made is delivered to a post office. Again, in some of these cases, the courts may have recourse.

Danielle Ivory, an investigative reporter for The Times, started filing FOIA and Open Records inquiries shortly after joining the Covid tracking team a year ago. Early on, she and her colleagues filed in almost every state for lists of nursing homes with coronavirus cases and deaths. Ms. Ivory estimated that later, when they reported on coronavirus clusters in universities, they sent over 200 requests to at least 150 colleges for case data alone, which helped them track more than 400,000 Covid cases back to universities by 2020.

“A lot of these places didn’t want to divulge the information,” Ms. Ivory said. “Some places told us they thought it was private. We asked for aggregated information so we disagreed with that assessment and in many cases we were right because some of them ultimately gave it to us. “

When prisons and jails started reporting spikes in coronavirus outbreaks last year, open file requests proved helpful in tracking the spread of cases. Danya Issawi, a member of the team that worked on this project, said filing FOIAs in the sheriff’s offices and local health departments has become almost a daily routine, not just about the number of infections and deaths in these Establish facilities, but also for the population of prisons and information for testing.

“All of this data represents real human life and real human consequences in places where numbers are not easily shared,” said Ms. Issawi. “Every time we file a FOIA and get information back, it seems like you’re filling a small gap with someone who might have a loved one or friend.”

As vaccination efforts continue, FOIA inquiries and other open records requests can continue to play an important role in ensuring that governments are transparent. This year alone, journalists have submitted dozens of FOIA inquiries to The Times looking for distribution patterns or problem areas.

However, Ms. Ivory is always optimistic that it will become easier and easier to discover the value of this data as more and more people realize the value of this data. “To be honest, I’m really hopeful,” she said.

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Business

Covid Vaccines: New Diplomacy Software for India and China

Covid Vaccines: New Diplomacy Tool for India and China

NEW DELHI – India, the unmatched vaccine producer, is dispensing millions of doses to friendly and estranged neighbors. It seeks to counter China, which has made the gun distribution a central point of its external relations. And the United Arab Emirates, which are drawing on their oil wealth, are buying pounds on behalf of their allies.

The coronavirus vaccine – one of the most sought-after products in the world – has become a new currency for international diplomacy.

Countries with the means or the know-how use the shots to find favor or to thaw frosty relationships. India sent them to Nepal, a country that has increasingly come under Chinese influence. Sri Lanka, in the midst of a diplomatic tug-of-war between New Delhi and Beijing, gets doses of both.

The strategy carries risks. India and China, both of which make vaccines for the rest of the world, have large populations of their own to vaccinate. While there is little evidence of grumbling in either country, this could change if the public watch boxes are sold or donated overseas.

“Indians are dying. Indians are still getting the disease, ”said Manoj Joshi, a distinguished contributor to the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi think tank. “I could understand if our needs were being met and you were giving the stuff away. But I think there is a false moral superiority that you are trying to convey where you say we give our things away even before we use them ourselves. “

Donor countries are making their offerings at a time when the United States and other wealthy nations are taking up the world’s supplies. The poorer countries are desperately trying to get their own. An inequality recently warned by the World Health Organization has brought the world “to the brink of catastrophic moral failure.”

With their health systems tested like never before, many countries are eager to take up the offer – and donors could reap good political will as a reward.

“Instead of securing a country by sending troops, you can secure the country by saving lives, saving the economy and helping with vaccination,” said Dania Thafer, executive director of the Gulf International Forum, a Washington-based think tank.

China was one of the first countries to undertake a diplomatic vaccine boost, pledging to help developing countries last year even before the nation mass-produced a vaccine that was proven effective. Just this week it was announced that it would donate 300,000 doses of vaccine to Egypt.

However, some of China’s efforts in vaccine diplomacy have stemmed from late shipments, lack of disclosure of the effectiveness of its vaccines, and other issues. Chinese government officials have cited unexpectedly strong needs at home in isolated outbreaks, a move that could mitigate any domestic backlash.

Even as Chinese-made vaccines spread, India saw an opportunity to bolster its own image.

The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine factory, produces the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine at a daily rate of approximately 2.5 million doses. This pace has allowed India to distribute free cans to its neighbors. Too much fanfare, plane loads have arrived in Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, the Seychelles and Afghanistan.

“Act eastward. Quick action ”, said the Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar on Twitter the arrival of 1.5 million cans in Myanmar.

Updated

Apr. 11, 2021 at 7:21 ET

The Indian government has tried to collect promotional points for cans that have been shipped to places like Brazil and Morocco despite those countries buying theirs. The Serum Institute has also pledged 200 million doses for a global WHO pool called Covax, which would go to poorer nations, while China recently pledged 10 million.

Currently, the Indian government has room to donate overseas, even after months when cases have skyrocketed and the economy has faltered, and despite vaccinating only a tiny percent of its 1.3 billion people. One reason for the lack of setbacks: The Serum Institute is producing faster than the Indias vaccination program can currently handle, leaving extras for donations and exports.

And some Indians are in no rush to get vaccinated because they are skeptical of a native vaccine called Covaxin. The Indian government approved its use in an emergency without disclosing much data on it, causing some people to doubt its effectiveness. While the AstraZeneca-Oxford shock was less skeptical, those who are vaccinated have no choice as to which vaccine to receive.

For India, it has received a rejoinder to China for its soft-power vaccine initiative after years of making political gains for the Chinese in their own backyard – in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Nepal and elsewhere. Beijing offered deep pockets and quick answers when it came to large investments that India, with a complex bureaucracy and a slowing economy, was struggling to achieve.

“India’s neighborhood has become more crowded and competitive,” said Constantino Xavier, who studies India’s relations with its neighbors at the Center for Social and Economic Progress, a think tank in New Delhi. “The vaccine boost strengthens India’s credibility as a reliable crisis helper and solution provider for these neighboring countries.”

One of India’s largest donations went to Nepal, where India’s relationship was at an all-time low. The tiny land between India and China is of strategic importance to both.

For the past five years, the government of CP Sharma Oli, the prime minister, has started to snuggle up to China after border disputes and what some in Nepal criticize as a master-servant relationship with India. Mr. Oli gave Xi Jinping Thought workshops based on the strategies of the Chinese leader and signed contracts for several projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s Infrastructure and Development Boost.

But the prime minister lost power last year. When both Chinese and Indian delegations arrived in Kathmandu to direct Nepal’s domestic jockeying, the Nepalese leader appears to have cut the temperature with India.

After Mr Oli sent his foreign minister to New Delhi for talks, India donated a million cans. China’s Sinopharm has also applied for approval of its vaccine from Nepal, but drug authorities there have not given it approval.

“The vaccine came as an opportunity to normalize relations between Nepal and India,” said Tanka Karki, a former Nepalese envoy to China.

Still, the strategy of winning hearts and minds with vaccines is not always successful.

The United Arab Emirates, which is importing vaccines faster than any other country besides Israel, has started donating Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccines to countries where it has strategic or commercial interests, including 50,000 doses each to Seychelles, the island nation in the US, Indian Ocean and Egypt, one of its Arab allies.

In Egypt, some doctors have resisted using them because they did not trust the data that the UAE and the Chinese manufacturer of the vaccine had published on studies. The government of Malaysia, one of the Emirates’ largest trading partners, declined an offer of 500,000 doses, saying regulators would need to independently approve the Sinopharm vaccine. After regulatory approval, Malaysia instead bought vaccines from Pfizer in the US, the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, and a vaccine from another Chinese company, Sinovac.

Even accepted goodwill can be short-lived. Experience Sri Lanka, where India and China battle for influence.

Since Gotabaya Rajapaksa took office as president in 2019, New Delhi has struggled to get its government to commit to a contract that its predecessor signed to complete a terminal project in the port of Colombo, part of which will be developed by India should. While large Chinese projects continued, Mr Rajapaksa opened the Indian deal for review.

Indian Foreign Minister visited Jaishankar last month hoping to highlight the importance of the project. In the same month, 500,000 doses of vaccine arrived from India. Mr. Rajapaksa was at the airport to meet them. Sri Lanka has also placed an order for 18 million doses from the Serum Institute, the Ministry of Health in Colombo confirmed.

The Indian media saw both as a diplomatic victory, and it seems clear that Sri Lanka will largely depend on India for vaccines. On January 27th, Mr. Rajapaksa received another gift from China: a promise to donate 300,000 cans.

The duel donations are only part of a much larger diplomatic dance. Just a week later, Mr Rajapaksa’s cabinet decided that Sri Lanka would develop the Colombo terminal itself and force India out of the project.

Mujib Mashal reported from New Delhi and Vivian Yee from Cairo. Bhadra Sharma, Elsie Chen, Aanya Piyari, Salman Masood and Zia ur-Rehman contributed to the coverage.

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Health

A New Software in Treating Psychological Sickness: Constructing Design

A New Tool in Treating Mental Illness: Building Design

Residents of the Pigeon Pavilion in Mountain View, California wake up in private rooms with views of the forested Santa Cruz Mountains, have breakfast in airy communal spaces, and relax in landscaped courtyards throughout the day.

It may sound like a resort, but the Pigeon Pavilion is a $ 98 million mental health facility that opened in June as part of El Camino Hospital. The 56,000-square-foot building was designed by WRNS Studio and is part of a new wave of facilities that dwarfs outdated institutional models.

Mental hospitals have been a grim environment for decades, with patients being pushed into common rooms during the day and dormitories at night. However, new research into the health effects of our surroundings is driving the development of facilities that feel more homely, with inviting entrances, smaller units in larger buildings, and a variety of meeting rooms. Nature plays a major role: windows offer a view of the greenery, landscapes adorn walls and outdoor areas offer patients and staff access to fresh air and sunlight.

The new approach promoted as healing and therapeutic has resulted in environments that are more calming and supportive. And it feels especially timely, given the rise in mental health problems caused by the pandemic.

“We’ve been talking about it for a long time,” said Mardelle McCuskey Shepley, chair of the design and environmental analysis department at Cornell’s College of Human Ecology. “Only now is it gaining momentum.”

Even before the pandemic, the number of Americans affected by mental illness was at a new high. One in five adults had depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress, or another illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The rates were significantly higher in adolescents (approx. 50 percent) and young adults (approx. 30 percent).

Almost a year after the pandemic started, more people are suffering. Young adults and blacks and Latinos of all ages report increased levels of anxiety, depression and substance abuse, according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A recent Gallup poll found Americans felt their mental health was “worse than it has ever been in the past two decades.”

The demand for treatments has increased, and the construction of mental health facilities has surpassed the construction of other specialty hospitals. Last year, 40 percent of specialty hospitals under construction were psychiatric hospitals and behavioral health centers, according to the American Society for Health Care Engineering.

Architecture and interior design firms with expertise in healthcare buildings have reported an increase in activity. Architecture + design firm in Troy, NY typically has a major mental health facility or two in the pipeline. The total construction cost for these projects is approximately $ 250 million per year, said Francis Murdock Pitts, principal and founding partner. Over the past year, the company worked on 16 major mental health projects totaling approximately $ 1.9 billion.

His company and others who like it have medical planners on staff to help translate research into “evidence-based” designs. “This is not all about being warm and hazy,” said Pitts.

For example, exposure to nature has been shown to lower cortisol levels, a measure of stress. Adding medicinal gardens and other greenery can help calm agitated patients and give staff a place to decompress.

Research specifically related to mental health care also comes into play. Studies have shown that reducing the crowd by providing private rooms and multiple common areas can reduce stress and aggression from patients and staff. Noise reduction – for example, the unnecessary beeping of medical equipment – can also help. When patients are less stressed, they can make faster, more sustained progress during treatment, experts say.

Economy & Economy

Updated

Jan. 5, 2021, 11:06 p.m. ET

However, because mental health issues vary widely, there is no one-size-fits-all design solution. And safety – for both patients and staff – continues to come first.

Codes and guidelines refined over many years have sought to remove spatial features that patients have used to harm themselves and others. Window glazing is made from polycarbonate compounds to reduce breakage. The doors are hung on quick release hinges so that staff can enter a room if a patient is barricaded. Plumbing and other fixtures are designed to prevent the possibility of hanging or strangling.

Such security measures are vital, but “You don’t want them to get to where they look like a prison,” said Shary Adams, principal at HGA, a national design firm. While the built environment must be designed to ensure safety, there is also a measure to give patients some control over their surroundings. With manual thermostats, for example, patients can set the temperature in their rooms, and with dimmer switches they can modulate the light.

The location of the psychiatric facilities is also changing. Psychiatric facilities used to be hidden, now they are likely part of hospital grounds or otherwise conveniently located. They often combine inpatient rooms for those in need of 24/7 surveillance and areas for outpatient services so patients can move to less intensive care in the same building.

A state-of-the-art center for young people in Monterey, California illustrates the new approach. Montage Health, a non-profit provider, laid the foundation stone for the 55,600 square meter building in November.

Called Ohana, a Hawaiian word for an expanded family concept, the facility will provide young patients with psychiatric treatment, sometimes involving their parents and siblings. Early care is crucial with half of all lifelong mental illnesses showing up by age 15 and 75 percent by age 24, said Dr. Susan Swick, Ohana Senior Medical Officer.

She asked NBBJ architects to come up with a design that contained the wonder of a children’s museum or public library – “a place you walk makes you feel like you have the opportunity”.

The building will wrap itself around beautiful old oak trees on the hillside overlooking a green valley. It will house inpatient rooms, an outpatient treatment wing, several classrooms and a large number of rooms for group and individual therapies.

The grounds offer areas for yoga and informal gatherings. The paths are lined with cedar and pine, rosemary and lavender – plants whose scents activate “natural killer cells” that can boost immunity, said Richard Dallam, managing partner at NBBJ and head of health practice for the company.

“It’s not just pretty; it’s functional, ”he added.

With its swoops and turns, Ohana looks like a complicated building to construct, but it is constructed from cross-laminated timber in modules that can be assembled off-site, reducing costs and speeding up construction. Its price tag: $ 50 million, which is covered by a $ 106 million donation that also provides funding for clinical services.

Still, not every hospital system has an angel investor, and buildings with these new designs are more expensive to build – private rooms alone add to the cost.

Proponents say, however, that upfront spending can lead to savings later and improve employee retention, for example because employees are less prone to burnout and need to be replaced with new employees who need training.

“We try to use evidence-based design to help clients connect to other things on their balance sheet,” said Angela Mazzi, director at GBBN and president of the American College of Healthcare Architects, a certification organization. “If you invest in some of these things that aren’t directly part of the clinical field, you get different results and a different kind of payback.”