• Lawmakers Press Administration on Counterterrorism Efforts Amid COVID-19

    Senators Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) and James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), both members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, called on the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and Intelligence Community to answer questions about what these agencies are doing to address ongoing and emerging terrorist threats amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The senators note that there is evidence of both foreign and domestic potential terrorists trying to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Coronavirus: Digital Contact Tracing Doesn’t Have to Sacrifice Privacy

    To make it safer to reduce the lockdown measures, proposals are being considered to use data from people’s smartphones to track their movements and contacts with potentially infected patients. Other systems involve monitoring the data trails of all citizens to generate useful information that helps to prevent the spread of the disease. All these approaches involve allowing the government, and in some cases private companies, to build a database of where we go, the people we associate with and when. Such intrusive tracking is more typically associated with totalitarian regimes and easily can be misused. Despite the good intentions, then, these measures raise serious concerns that collecting and sharing such data might pose a threat to citizens’ right to privacy.

  • Lockdown Only Made Corona Crisis Worse, Claim Experts

    Three Hebrew University professors claim that Israel and other countries could have controlled COVID-19 without resorting to lockdowns. Their data-based study argues that the “medieval” approach of quarantining the population for a prolonged period takes a catastrophic economic and social toll.

  • Extremists and Conspiracy Theorists Urge Resistance to “Medical Martial Law”

    In the past month, anti-government extremists, conspiracy theorists and others chafing under coronavirus restrictions have led a rising chorus of angry opposition to public health measures promulgated by federal and state governments. This growing movement promotes opposition to and noncompliance with these measures, which they believe are driven by ulterior motives.

  • Preventing Violent Extremism during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic

    While the world’s attention appropriately focuses on the health and economic impacts of COVID-19, the threat of violent extremism remains, and has in some circumstances been exacerbated during the crisis. The moment demands new and renewed attention so that the gains made to date do not face setbacks. Eric Rosand, Khalid Koser, and Lilla Schumicky-Logan describe the six themes which their investigation shows as recurring.

  • Examining Australia’s COVIDSafe Tracing App

    The Australian government releases an App called COVIDSafe to help in tracing contacts of those infected with the coronavirus. As is the case with similar apps in other countries, COVIDSafe has raised privacy concerns, especially about the potential of abuse by government agencies and hacking by cybercriminals. The University of Sydney academics from the disciplines of cybersecurity, media, law and health comment on COVIDSafe, its pros and cons.

  • Conflict, Disasters Trigger Record Number of Internally Displaced

    A new report finds a record 50.8 million people globally are displaced within their own countries due to conflict, violence and natural disasters.  The report, published by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, part of the Norwegian Refugee Council, says an estimated 33.4 million people were newly displaced in 2019, the highest annual figure since 2012. 

  • Study: Many Asymptomatic COVID-19 Cases Undetected

    More than half of residents of a Seattle-area nursing home had no symptoms when they tested positive for COVID-19 and had probably already spread the disease, according to a new study. “Our data suggest that symptom-based strategies for identifying residents with SARS-CoV-2 are insufficient for preventing transmission in skilled nursing facilities,” the researchers wrote. “Once SARS-CoV-2 has been introduced, additional strategies should be implemented to prevent further transmission, including use of recommended personal protective equipment, when available, during all resident care activities regardless of symptoms.”

  • “Playing Russian Roulette”: Nursing Homes Told to Take the Infected

    The coronavirus has killed nearly 11,000 residents and staff members at nursing homes and long-term care facilities nationwide, according to a New York Times analysis. This is close to a quarter of the 56,495 deaths in the United States (as of Monday) from the pandemic. And yet, at the epicenter of the outbreak, New York issued a strict new rule last month: Nursing homes must readmit residents sent to hospitals with the coronavirus and accept new patients as long as they are deemed “medically stable.” California and New Jersey have also said that nursing homes should take in such patients. Homes are allowed to turn patients away if they claim they can’t care for them safely.

  • German start-up in global demand with anti-virus escalators

    Tanja Nickel and Katharina Obladen were still in high school when they patented an idea to disinfect escalator handrails using UV light. Michelle Fitzpatrick writes (AFP / Barron’s) that a decade later, their small German start-up UVIS can barely keep up with orders from around the world for their coronavirus-killing escalators and coatings for supermarket trolleys and elevator buttons. “Everybody wants it done yesterday,” Obladen, 28, told AFP at the company’s workshop in central Cologne. “The pandemic has made businesses realise they need to invest in hygiene precautions for staff and customers. It’s gone from nice-to-have to must-have.” As Germany begins to relax some lockdown restrictions, the start-up’s five-person team has been inundated with requests from shops, offices and cafes eager to reopen to a public newly aware of the health risks lurking in shared spaces.

  • Israeli Researchers Say They Can Make Disinfectant from Tap Eater

    Researchers electrify water to produce hypo chloric acid at defined level of acidity; patented method has not been published in science journal or subject to peer review. Shoshana Solomon writes in the Times of Israel that researchers at Bar-Ilan University have developed what they say is a new way to make strong and environmentally friendly disinfectants to kill bacteria and viruses by using just tap water. The disinfectant materials were recently tested by researchers in the virology labs of Prof. Ronit Sarid of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at the university and at the Poriya Hospital in the north of Israel, and were “proven effective” in neutralizing microbes, fungus and corona-type viruses, Aurbach said in a phone interview.

  • COVID-19 Is Another Wake Up Call for Food Security

    With lockdowns ordered to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, there are fears of food shortages caused by panic buying and supply chain disruptions. Paul Teng writes in SciDev.Net that recent announcements by some countries that they are initiating export restrictions of food products or reviewing export agreements have brought back memories of the 2007—2008 food crisis when there was an interruption to global food supply chains as several key countries limited exports of rice and wheat. This unleashed a series of events around the world, including food shortages, price spikes and civil disobedience in over 30 countries.

  • Life after Lockdown: New Zealand on the Verge of “Brilliant” Victory after Five Weeks of Restrictions

    For five weeks, Kiwis have endured some of the toughest lockdown conditions anywhere in the world. Jonathan Marshall writes in The Telegraph that the rules were conveyed loudly, clearly and frequently: no socializing with anyone outside your household; no beach swimming or boating; no holidays; no hiking; no children’s playgrounds; no weddings; no funerals; no haircuts, no restaurants - or even Uber Eats. “Educational” police roadblocks – and in around 500 cases prosecution – faced anyone failing to comply with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s “stay home and save lives” mantra. Now, the country appears to be on the verge of victory.

  • Failure to Count COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths Could Dramatically Skew U.S. Numbers

    With the clustering of people who are frail and have multiple other illnesses like heart disease, stroke, chronic lung disease and diabetes, the risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 is much higher in nursing homes. Yet, the United States does not know how many people are dying from COVID-19 in part because the government is only just now requiring nursing homes to start reporting numbers of presumed and confirmed cases and deaths to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thomas Perls writes that the missing cases could dramatically skew the national death count.

  • COVID-19 Treatments: Pandemic Urgency No Excuse for Ignoring Rigorous Clinical Research

    Leading biomedical ethicists are calling on the global research community to resist treating the urgency of the current COVID-19 outbreak as grounds for making exceptions to rigorous research standards in pursuit of treatments and vaccines. Crises are no excuse for lowering scientific standards, the authors of a paper, titled “Against Pandemic Research Exceptionalism,” argue.