Situation Report

New COVID-19 Variant Spreads To Dozens Of Countries

Sat, 2021-01-02 17:48 — mike kraft

New COVID-19 Variant Spreads To Dozens Of Countries The new strain, which likely originated in the U.K. in September, has spread to more than 30 countries across several continents. Meanwhile, the U.S. saw record COVID-19 deaths in December. NPR.org

The coronavirus variant that was first spotted last month in the U.K. has now spread to dozens of countries, likely passed on by infected people who traveled around the world and unknowingly brought the microscopic invaders with them.

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States Are Shutting Down Prisons as Guards are Crippled By Covid-19

Sat, 2021-01-02 17:34 — mike kraft

Battered by a wave of coronavirus infections and deaths, local jails and state prison systems around the United States have resorted to a drastic strategy to keep the virus at bay: Shutting down completely and transferring their inmates elsewhere.

From California to Missouri to Pennsylvania, state and local officials say that so many guards have fallen ill with the virus and are unable to work that abruptly closing some correctional facilities is the only way to maintain community security and prisoner safety.

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Researchers Make Progress Toward High-Performing Water Desalination Membranes

Sat, 2021-01-02 12:47 — mike kraft

http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/materials/high-performing-water-desalination-membranes-09209.html

Biological membranes can achieve remarkably high permeabilities while maintaining ideal selectivities by relying on homogeneous internal structures in the form of membrane proteins. In new research, a team of scientists led by Penn State University and the University of Texas at Austin applied such design strategies to desalination polyamide membranes.

Dr. Enrique Gomez, Dr. Manish Kumar and their colleagues from Iowa State University, Penn State University, the University of Texas at Austin, DuPont Water Solutions, and Dow Chemical Co. found that creating a uniform membrane density down to the nanoscale of billionths of a meter is crucial for maximizing the performance of reverse-osmosis, water-filtration membranes.

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Coronavirus: Israel leads in giving vaccnations, India hold national drill

Sat, 2021-01-02 12:39 — mike kraft

Coronavirus: Israel leads vaccine race with 12% given jab With more than 1m people inoculated, Israel has by far the highest vaccination rate in the world. BBC News

Israel has given vaccinations against coronavirus to more than one million people, the highest rate in the world, as global immunisation efforts step up.

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In Minority Communities, Doctors Are Changing Minds About Vaccination

Sat, 2021-01-02 12:02 — mike kraft

Like many Black and rural Americans, Denese Rankin, a 55-year-old retired bookkeeper and receptionist in Castleberry, Ala., did not want the Covid-19 vaccine.

Ms. Rankin worried about side effects — she had seen stories on social media about people developing Bell’s palsy, for example, after they were vaccinated. She thought the vaccines had come about too quickly to be safe. And she worried that the vaccinations might turn out to be another example in the government’s long history of medical experimentation on Black people.

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