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Health24.com | Coronavirus morning update: Cigarette sale ban goes to court, and BCG trial starts in SA
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SA
Cases update:
The latest number of confirmed cases is 7 220.
According to the latest update, 138 deaths have been recorded in the country.
So far, 257 541 tests have been conducted.
READ MORE | All the confirmed cases of coronavirus in SA
Latest news:
Government has not shown how the banning of the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products would be instrumental in reducing the spread of Covid-19, the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association has argued in court papers filed on Monday.
The Association served government with court papers, filed at the Pretoria High Court, to challenge a decision to retain the ban on the sale of cigarettes and tobacco product sales during Level 4 of the lockdown. FITA is also seeking the courts to have cigarettes and tobacco declared as essential goods.
FITA is a non-profit company formed by Southern African-based cigarette manufacturers with the aim of promoting a fair trading environment. According to its website it has seven members, including cigarette makers Carnilinx and Gold Leaf Tobacco.
The urgent application was filed against President Cyril Ramaphosa and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The Presidency has not yet indicated if the application will be opposed.
“There is in fact no basis to contend the prohibition of cigarette and tobacco products is related to combating the Covid-19 virus,” FITA chairperson Sinenhlanhla Mnguni said in the court papers. He further slammed government’s ban as being “irrational”.
READ MORE | If cigarette sales spread coronavirus, prove it – tobacco association
MPs are concerned about the high costs hotels are charging for being quarantine sites – more than R28 million so far.
The Portfolio Committee on Public Works and Infrastructure and the Select Committee on Transport, Public Service and Administration, and Public Works and Infrastructure, met with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure on Monday.
So far, 2 125 people have been quarantined for 14 days at 14 different hotels. The rates vary from R950 to R1 200 per day, depending on the hotel. The total cost is R 28 677 600.
Seven of the hotels are in Johannesburg, three in Cape Town, two in Tshwane and one each in eThekweni and Ekurhuleni.
READ MORE | MPs concerned about cost of quarantine hotels, currently the bill is over R28m
Cigarette trader Adriano Mazzotti says his involvement in an urgent court challenge to the government’s cigarette ban makes it “obvious” that claims he is involved in the illicit trade of tobacco are “blatantly untrue”.
“The allegation that I have some connection with Minister [Nkosazana] Dlamini-Zuma and may have had an influence on the decision made by government in relation to the ban of tobacco products during the lockdown for self-gain, is outrageous,” Mazzotti said in a statement released on Monday night.
“I have stated on record on numerous occasions that there is no relationship between myself and Minister Dlamini-Zuma and I did not fund her presidential campaign as has been maliciously alleged.”
According to author Jacques Pauw, Mazzotti admitted in a signed May 2014 affidavit that he and his company, Carnilinx, were complicit in fraud, money laundering, corruption, tax evasion and bribery.
Pauw also claimed Mazzotti had given Dlamini-Zuma a variety of electioneering paraphernalia.
But, in his statement, Mazzotti – a self-admitted benefactor of both the EFF and the ANC – says he has suffered ongoing “politically motivated” harassment as “I continue to be untruthfully linked to Minister Dlamini-Zuma”.
READ MORE | Adriano Mazzotti denies ‘outrageous’ claims he influenced NDZ, govt to ban tobacco sales
The SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) has blamed Monday’s glitches with regard to grant payments to the elderly and the disabled on being short-staffed during the processing stages.
The agency made accidental double payments in some areas and no payments in others, apparently due to glitches in its system as it tried to process payments earlier to avoid overcrowding, News24 reported.
Sassa spokesperson Kgomoco Diseko told News24 that the grant payment cycle was being processed at the same time as the Covid-19 relief grant top-up payment, which was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
As a result, staff members were under pressure to split payment files and to ensure the payments were ready in time.
Diseko said because preparations were under way during the lockdown period, a number of employees were not working and most offices not operating.
With some 1.5 million South Africans returning to work this week, businesses are required to comply with strict new health and safety regulations to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Businesses re-opening must put these measures in place before restarting work, minister of labour Thulas Nxesi said during a briefing at the weekend. Failure to do so could result in criminal prosecution.
He admitted, however, that while government is recruiting, there are currently only 170 inspectors in the field.
“It would be impossible to inspect every one of the 1.8 million businesses,” Nxesi admitted. “Therefore, inspectors rely upon the support of individual workers, unions and socially responsible employers in providing vital information – which in turn allows the inspectors to focus on hotspots and to make an example of particular offenders.”
During the first phase of lockdown, inspectors shut down (or partially closed) nine businesses a day for violations.
The new regulations demand that companies must ensure that employees who can work from home, stay at home. For those who have to be on the premises, contact between them and the public must be minimised.
Businesses must minimise the number of workers at the workplace at any given time through rotation, staggered working hours and shifts. Face-to-face meetings must also be restricted.
READ MORE | New Covid-19 rules: What your workplace needs to look like
Peri-peri chicken restaurant Nando’s will open certain branches for delivery from 4 May after all.
Fast food deliveries are permitted in South Africa under Alert Level 4. Consumers will, however, not be allowed to visit the fast-food outlets to collect their own takeaways, and food deliveries will only be permitted between 09:00 and 19:00 daily.
Nando’s initially said on Friday that it would not be opening, as it did not make commercial sense to reopen for deliveries only. It was the last of the major chains that had no plans to offer delivery.
The chain, however, seems to have had a change of heart since, and on Monday released a list of Nando’s that would be open after all.
READ MORE | These Nando’s outlets will now be open for delivery
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE REST OF THE WORLD
Cases update:
For the latest global data, follow this interactive map from Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.
Early on Tuesday morning, positive cases worldwide were more than 3.57 million, while deaths were now more than 250 000.
The United States had the most cases in the world – more than 1.17 million, as well as the most deaths – more than 68 500.
READ MORE | All the confirmed cases worldwide
Latest news:
World leaders on called Monday for cooperation in the quest for a coronavirus vaccine, as they pledged $8.1 billion at a fundraising telethon.
Covid-19 has killed nearly a quarter of a million people around the world – 140 000 of them in Europe – and Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission and the host of the videoconference, said a vaccine is the best chance of beating the disease.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hailed the fundraising as a powerful show of “global solidarity”.
Major European powers, along with Japan and Canada, made the biggest pledges from around 40 countries, but there was no official US representation, weakening the event and raising the prospect of an uncoordinated competition to develop and produce a vaccine.
READ MORE | WHO hails ‘global solidarity’ as world leaders raise $8bn for Covid-19 vaccine
Apple and Google said their upcoming contact-tracing tool will be restricted to one public health app per country to get as many people in each nation using the software as possible.
The companies also released app concepts and sample code to help app developers build programs using the iOS and Android contact-tracing tool. In a statement on Monday, the companies said they would still support countries that have “opted for a regional or state approach.”
The system, unveiled in April, adds technology to the iOS and Android smartphone operating systems that alerts users anonymously if they have come into contact with a person with Covid-19. The first phase will launch publicly in mid-May.
It requires public health apps to integrate with the system. In the future, the technology will be embedded more deeply into the Apple and Google operating systems to be less reliant on apps.
READ MORE | Apple, Google coronavirus tracing tool to be limited: one app per country
LATEST RESEARCH
Hundreds of South African health workers were given a century-old tuberculosis vaccine on Monday in a trial to see whether the venerable formula can protect against coronavirus.
Devised at France’s legendary Pasteur Institute 100 years ago, the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine is one of the world’s oldest and most trusted immunisations.
“We vaccinated the first participant this morning,” Duncan McDonald, head of business development and marketing at a clinical research organisation called TASK, told AFP.
Trials started at Tygerberg hospital in Cape Town, where BCG booster shots were administered to 250 health care workers, while another 250 received a dummy formula, or placebo.
READ MORE | South Africa starts coronavirus trial of TB vaccine
The main modes of transmission of the new coronavirus are well known: via human respiratory droplets (when symptomatic people cough or sneeze) and direct contact. However, there is still uncertainty about its potential of spreading via aerosol transmission.
To investigate the aerodynamic nature of the new coronavirus, a team of researchers at Wuhan University set up aerosol traps in and around two government-designated Covid-19 hospitals in February and March this year.
They found that while the virus’s RNA in aerosols had low detection levels in the hospitals’ isolation wards and ventilated patient rooms, there was a higher level in the patients’ toilet areas.
The results were published in the journal Nature.
READ MORE | Hospital toilets can be a hotspot for airborne coronavirus RNA, new study finds
Covid-19 might raise stroke risk in young and middle-aged adults, with virus-linked blood clots causing severe damage to their brains, doctors warn.
Word has already spread that the new coronavirus appears to increase clotting in some patients, experts say.
Now, a series of five cases at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City indicate that those clots might cause strokes in young patients, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The cases came during a two-week period from 23 March to 7 April. The patients ranged in age from 33 to 49, and all were Covid-19 positive when they came to the hospital for care, Mount Sinai researchers said.
READ MORE | Is Covid-19 now linked with strokes in young patients?
Supplies of personal protective equipment remain scarce across the United States, especially the N95 respirator masks that healthcare workers use to protect themselves from the new coronavirus.
To help extend the useful life of available equipment, researchers and hospitals are turning to a long-known, if little-used, means of disinfection – ultraviolet radiation.
“It’s generally well known that UV-C radiation kills microbes,” said Bob Karlicek Jr, director of the Center for Lighting Enabled Systems and Applications at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. “What’s not known is the specific quantities of UV-C radiation that is required to fully disinfect complex equipment like N95 masks, because you have to get the light to the inside of the mask.”
Karlicek led a team that created a UV-C system designed to disinfect N95 masks. It’s being tested at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
READ MORE | UV light won’t treat Covid-19 – but it might disinfect medical gear
HEALTH TIPS (as recommended by the NICD and WHO)
• Maintain physical distancing – stay at least one metre away from somebody who is coughing or sneezing
• Practise frequent hand-washing, especially after direct contact with ill people or their environment
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, as your hands touch many surfaces and could potentially transfer the virus
• Practise respiratory hygiene – cover your mouth with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Remember to dispose the tissue immediately after use.
READ MORE: Coronavirus 101
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COVID-19 has unmasked significant health disparities in the U.S.
The COVID-19 pandemic has unmasked longstanding racial and ethnic health-related disparities, according to a new article published today in the American Heart Association’s flagship journal Circulation.
The perspective essay, “At the Heart of the Matter: Unmasking and Addressing COVID-19’s Toll on Diverse Populations,” notes higher rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations, deaths or positive cases among blacks, Hispanic/LatinX and Native Americans are being reported at local and national levels. The essay discusses the alarming nature of the problem and is a follow-up to a webinar by the Association of Black Cardiologists entitled, “At the Heart of the Matter: Unmasking the Invisibility of COVID-19 in Diverse Populations.”
According to the article’s authors, the health disparities exposed by the current public health crisis did not materialize in a vacuum but are largely driven by socio-economic and environmental factors. The emerging differences in COVID-19 complications by race/ethnicity are disturbing and might be in part driven by a higher prevalence of one or more pre-existing chronic health conditions such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes and kidney disease at an earlier age among U.S. minorities, and as such, is not surprising, they said.
Among the potential solutions, the writers note:
- Health care entities must collect and present COVID-19 data according to socio-demographic characteristics.
- COVID-19 testing must be easily available in all communities, and contact tracing must be relentless.
- Housing availability should be expanded. Facilities such as hotels and dorms should be used to quarantine symptomatic individuals to avoid spread to family members and neighbors. Suspension of foreclosures and evictions should occur.
- Incentives to provide free or discounted food delivery to low-income neighborhoods and the elderly are necessary. Food banks will benefit from additional funding to reduce food insecurity.
- Due to the increased reliance on telemedicine and distance learning, policymakers should support broad access to computers and free internet for vulnerable communities.
- Employers should provide paid sick and quarantine leave to help reduce the risk of unwitting spread.
“Ultimately, lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic must be taken as an opportunity to address longstanding social and racial/ethnic disparities,” wrote Michelle A. Albert, M.D. M.P.H., president of the Association of Black Cardiologists, professor of medicine and director of the CeNter for the StUdy of AdveRsiTy and CardiovascUlaR DiseasE (NURTURE Center) at the University of California, San Francisco. “Our vulnerable interconnectedness highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic should ignite meaningful solution-focused collaborations among community leaders, scholars and policymakers to orchestrate sustainable change aimed at addressing pervasive health care disparities.”
Albert was recently awarded one of 12 fast-tracked research grants from the American Heart Association to study the effects of COVID-19 on the body’s cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems. Albert’s research will focus on how COVID-19 infection impacts the cardiovascular health of African American women.
The American Heart Association’s recently launched the COVID-19 CVD Registry, powered by the Association’s existing Get With The Guidelines program. The registry is designed to capture multiple key data points including race/ethnicity, biomarkers, pre-existing conditions, medications, in-hospital complications, and COVID-19 treatments and outcomes. The registry will yield meaningful insights into how COVID-19 impacts cardiovascular complications and outcomes in patients with COVID-19. To-date, 58 U.S. hospitals have joined the Association’s COVID-19 CVD Registry and are actively submitting data.
Co-authors, also on behalf of the Association of Black Cardiologists, are Norrisa Haynes, M.D., M.P.H., and Lisa Cooper, M.D., M.P.H.
Story Source:
Materials provided by American Heart Association. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Multiple flooding sources threaten Honolulu’s infrastructure
Today and as sea level continues to rise in the future, extreme high tide events cause Honolulu, Hawai’i’s primary urban center to experience flooding not just from water washing directly over the shoreline, but also from groundwater inundation as the water table is pushed toward the surface, and reverse flow through the municipal drainage system. In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Hawai’i at M?noa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, found in the next few decades, sea level rise will likely cause large and increasing percentages of land area to be impacted simultaneously by the three flood mechanisms.
Further, they found that groundwater inundation represents the most extensive flood source, while direct marine inundation represents the least extensive — only three percent of the predicted flooding.
“This is significant because many people think that sea level rise can be mitigated by seawalls,” said Shellie Habel, lead author of the study and coastal geologist and extension agent with the University of Hawai’i Sea Grant College Program and UH Coastal Geology Group. “But a seawall will not stop groundwater inundation. Our results highlight the need to readjust our thinking regarding the flooding that accompanies sea level rise. We want to be sure to implement flood management strategies that will be effective at mitigating flooding.”
This requires that all types of flooding be thoroughly assessed.
Identifying vulnerable locations, infrastructure
Habel and co-authors developed a method that identified the various flood types and their extent. Flood maps were produced by simulating flood locations and depths generated by each of the three mechanisms and by overlapping the simulations to identify areas vulnerable to combined flooding over the coming decades.
Colleagues at the UH Sea Level Center then developed a statistical model that considers predicted tide and projected magnitudes of local sea level rise to establish the frequency with which flooding is likely to occur in given locations.
With these flood simulations, the research team assessed critical infrastructure that is likely to fail and cause direct impacts, such as dangerous or impassable roadways, storm drainage inlets likely to fail or act as pathways for additional flooding, and non-functional or flooded cesspools.
The impacts were found to be widespread among Honolulu’s heavily densified primary urban center.
Planning for the future
“Because each type of flooding infiltrates through unique pathways, they will require unique engineering strategies to manage,” said Habel. “The design of flood management strategies required to mitigate these impacts necessitate site-specific consideration of each mechanism to avoid being ineffective.”
In partnership with the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, the University of Hawai’i, Hawai’i Sea Grant, and other stakeholders, the authors plan to develop a real-time coastal groundwater monitoring network. Data collected through the monitoring network will help improve the capabilities of the modeling such as the ability to incorporate the effects of extreme rainfall. The network would also provide information that could inform the development of short, mid and long-term flood management strategies.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Hawaii at Manoa. Original written by Marcie Grabowski. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Engineers demonstrate next-generation solar cells can take the heat, maintain efficiency
Perovskites with their crystal structures and promising electro-optical properties could be the active ingredient that makes the next generation of low-cost, efficient, lightweight and flexible solar cells.
A problem with the current generation of silicon solar cells is their relatively low efficiency at converting solar energy into electricity, said Vikram Dalal, an Iowa State University Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering, the Thomas M. Whitney Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and the director of Iowa State’s Microelectronics Research Center.
The best silicon solar cells in the laboratory are about 26% efficient while commercial cells are about 15%. That means bigger systems are necessary to produce a given amount of electricity, and bigger systems mean higher costs.
That has researchers looking for new ways to raise efficiency and decrease costs. One idea that could boost efficiency by as much as 50% is a tandem structure that stacks two kinds of cells on top of each other, each using different, complementary parts of the solar spectrum to produce power.
Perovskite promise, problems
Researchers have recently started looking at hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite materials as a good tandem partner for silicon cells. Perovskite calls have efficiency rates nearing 25%, have a complementary bandgap, can be very thin (just a millionth of meter), and can easily be deposited on silicon.
But Dalal said researchers have learned those hybrid perovskite solar cells break down when exposed to high temperatures.
That’s a problem when you try to put solar arrays where the sunshine is — hot, dry deserts in places such as the American southwest, Australia, the Middle East and India. Ambient temperatures in such places can hit the 120 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit and solar cell temperatures can hit 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Iowa State University engineers, in a project partially supported by the National Science Foundation, have found a way to take advantage of perovskite’s useful properties while stabilizing the cells at high temperatures. They describe their discovery in a paper recently published online by the scientific journal American Chemical Society Applied Energy Materials.
“These are promising results in pursuit of the commercialization of perovskite solar cell materials and a cleaner, greener future,” said Harshavardhan Gaonkar, the paper’s first author who recently earned his doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from Iowa State and is now working in Boise, Idaho, as an engineer for ON Semiconductor.
Tweaking the material
Dalal, the corresponding author of the paper, said there are two key developments in the new solar cell technology:
First, he said the engineers made some tweaks to the makeup of the perovskite material.
They did away with organic components in the material — particularly cations, materials with extra protons and a positive charge — and substituted inorganic materials such as cesium. That made the material stable at higher temperatures.
And second, they developed a fabrication technique that builds the perovskite material one thin layer — just a few billionths of a meter — at a time. This vapor deposition technique is consistent, leaves no contaminants, and is already used in other industries so it can be scaled up for commercial production.
The result of those changes?
“Our perovskite solar cells show no thermal degradation even at 200 degrees Celsius (390 degrees Fahrenheit) for over three days, temperatures far more than what the solar cell would have to endure in real-world environments,” Gaonkar said.
And then Dalal did a little comparing and contrasting: “That’s far better than the organic-inorganic perovskite cells, which would have decomposed totally at this temperature. So this is a major advance in the field.”
Raising performance
The paper reports the new inorganic perovskite solar cells have a photoconversion efficiency of 11.8%. That means there’s more work ahead for the engineers.
“We are now trying to optimize this cell — we want to make it more efficient at converting solar energy into electricity,” Dalal said. “We still have a lot of research to do, but we think we can get there by using new combinations of materials.”
The engineers, for example, replaced the iodine common in perovskite materials with bromine. That made the cells much less sensitive to moisture, solving another problem with standard hybrid perovskites. But, that substitution changed the cells’ properties, reducing efficiency and how well they work in tandem with silicon cells.
And so the tweaks and trials will continue.
As they move ahead, the engineers believe they’re on a proven path: “This study demonstrates a more robust thermal stability of inorganic perovskite materials and solar cells at higher temperatures and over extended periods of time than reported elsewhere,” they wrote in their paper. “(These are) promising results in pursuit of the commercialization of perovskite solar cell materials.”
Overdoing the New
By the time I had started my computer games business in 1994, I had already programmed a commercially published game as an independent contractor working for a local game studio. Actually it was a four-pack of Windows 3.1 games that were sold as a single unit. And I’d worked on a previous game project before that, so in about six months, I had iterated through five unique game projects.
Each time I started a new game, I had the opportunity to improve upon what I’d done before. I’d begin with the code base for an earlier game project, and then I’d make some improvements to the code to create a stronger foundation for the next project.
Additionally, since I didn’t have to reinvent what I’d already done, I could stretch myself by taking on a little more challenge each time. For the first game project I worked on for the local studio, they already had a working prototype running on a Mac, and my job was to port it to Windows. They scrapped that project after a few weeks (for commercial reasons I believe), but the work was basically to translate some pre-existing code from one platform to another. This was my first commercial project ever, so it was great that it was an easy way to get started.
For the first game in the four-pack, however, there was no prototype. I had to code the game from scratch based on a pretty thin design doc (like 1-2 pages). I was assigned a young artist to work with, and that was the extent of our development team. It was a simple shoot-em-up game, so our tiny team was sufficient. I also had enough time to add some extra embellishments of my own, and I believe my improvements made the game a little more fun to play.
With each succeeding game project, I tried to challenge myself a little bit more. The more games I wrote, the more I could lean on previous code I’d already written, often adapting it for similar mechanics in a different game. The more code I could reuse, the more capacity I had for extra embellishments.
For the fourth game in the four-pack, I asked if I could design the game myself, and the company agreed. I kept to the minimalist standards of the four-pack, and I pushed myself to squeeze more out of the little 2D game engine I’d been developing.
By starting with a porting project, in a few iterations I was eventually able to design and code a complete game. I also did the sound effects for it.
But if I’d started with the fifth game project, it would have been too much. And it would have been discouraging too. It was so much nicer to see rapid progress through a series of completed projects, so by the time I was beginning the fifth project, my confidence was sky high. It was just another 20% beyond what I’d done before, so I knew it was achievable.
When I started my computer games business, I wrote a new code base for my first game, and it took about six solid months to develop that game because I put way more into it. Looking back, I think I overextended myself. I tried to squeeze too many new ideas into one project. It would have been better if I’d started with less ambitious project and released and iterated more frequently, like I’d done while working as a contractor. Trying to go too big too soon really slowed me down.
In fact, I made an even bigger mistake by progressing way too quickly into a mega-project that I worked on for years and had to be canceled in the end. Meanwhile, my business was starved of cashflow during that time because I had little to sell, and there was no effort being put into marketing. Going back to smaller projects with more frequent releases – and paying a lot more attention to marketing – turned things around.
Today I’m much better at leveraging the power of incremental improvements. I have a well-developed system that I use for developing and launching new courses. Each time I run through that system, I improve it. I document it more clearly. I add some new ideas, but not too many each run-through. I maintain the parts that are working, and this gives me more capacity to add a little more each time without feeling overwhelmed.
A recurring mistake I’ve made in the past was trying to add too many new ideas to a project. New ideas are way harder to incorporate than re-using previously tested ideas. For me the worst part about trying new ideas is that it’s hard to estimate how long they’ll take. The more new ideas I add to a project, the greater the risk of blowing my intended schedule.
When I’ve tried to overdo the new by incorporating too many new and untested ideas into a project, the project normally doesn’t go well. But when I assemble a project from pieces that are familiar and then add some newness on top of that, my odds of success increase greatly. And I feel more confident too.
Conscious Growth Club is a good example. When I started putting together the initial pieces for this club in 2017, the overall package was new, but I assembled it from pieces rooted in past experience, so it wasn’t overwhelming. I stuck to the core ideas first, and then gradually year by year, we’re adding more to it.
I think of each year in CGC like a new project that builds upon the codebase of the previous year. We maintain what’s working and then explore adding something new – a new feature, a new course, some new experiments, etc. The key is not to try adding too many new ideas all at once, especially if they’re complex ideas.
Consider the CGC member discussion forums. I knew I could manage that because I’d done it before. I’d previously admin’d a sizable public forum for five years, and I had a lot of previous admin and online community experience from years prior. So while we were using new software for the CGC forums, online community management is old hat to me. I was very confident that I could manage that aspect successfully, and I had the necessary mental callouses to prepare me for the experience in a realistic way.
The courses were going to be new, and that part took the longest, but I’d previously had experience with writing (from blogging and a book), product design (from my game development experience), audio (from podcasting), speaking (from six years in Toastmasters), online publishing, and marketing and selling products online. So I had a whole bundle of experiences that gave me a solid codebase to build upon. There was still a lot of newness here, but it wasn’t as daunting as starting from scratch.
For the CGC coaching calls, I had previous one-on-one coaching experience, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to expand into group coaching calls. It’s basically a series of one-on-one coaching sessions back to back.
Wherever I need to chip away at some of the new areas, I leaned in with practice. My video practice was a bit weak, so I committed to doing a public 30-day challenge to record and publish a new YouTube video each day. I averaged about 30 minutes per day, so that was 15 hours of published video in a month. That gave me sufficient practice to get comfortable with it. I also bought Final Cut Pro and learned it use it for video editing till I grew very comfortable with it. I spent weeks transforming a room of my house into an audio and video recording studio as well. I’ve been using it for years now, but it took a long time to experiment with the lighting and setup till I liked the results.
It was just so crucial to assemble the different parts of CGC from the familiar and not try to squeeze in too many new ideas all at once. Figuring out the new parts always takes longer, but when you do figure them out, you can lock them into your codebase and reuse them efficiently.
Additionally I had to figure out how to launch and promote CGC. I started out very basic. And now each year that we launch, I can do things with a bit more complexity, including advertising. The familiar gets easier, and that frees up capacity to try some new things. I like to incorporate at least one new idea each launch, but if I try to add three or four new ideas, it could become overwhelming to get everything done in time.
Exploring what’s new can be fun and rewarding, but it’s also risky. I’ve paid the price numerous time for trying to be too ambitious with too many new ideas. Every new idea takes a lot of work to figure out, and it’s unpredictable how long it will take precisely because it’s new. A project that tries to incorporate too many new ideas is at great risk of scope creep. If scope creep becomes too much, a project could be at risk of cancellation, or it may begin to feel like a death march.
Think about where it’s important to innovate with a project and where it isn’t. If you want to innovate greatly with the content, it’s probably best to keep the format familiar. If you want to innovate greatly with the format, then you may not innovate as much with the content. If you want to innovate on both sides, look for ways to lean on a tried and tested codebase where possible, so excessive newness doesn’t overburden your project with too much risk.
Exploring the new can be fun and rewarding, but pay attention to the risks. If you’re constantly blowing your intended schedules and dropping projects before they finish, consider whether you’re trying to do too much too soon. Could you scale back to a more reasonable project that can better leverage your existing codebase of knowledge and skills, even if it’s less creative? It’s better to start with a modest success and build upon it with each new iteration than to overwhelm yourself from the start.
Health24.com | Nanotechnology might help fight deadly ‘cytokine storm’ of Covid-19
For many Covid-19 patients battling for their lives in the ICU, a runaway immune system response – known as a “cytokine storm” – is their primary foe.
Doctors have few tools to help tame this hyperinflammatory condition, but early research is suggesting that nanotechnology might safely deliver drugs to affected tissues, quieting the storm.
It’s so far only been tested in mice, but researchers in Brazil and France said the approach could be “a new tool in the fight against the complex and multi-factorial phenomenon of uncontrolled inflammation”. They reported their findings online in the journal Science Advances.
It’s not clear why some young, robust patients experience life-threatening illness from Covid-19, while others have either mild or no symptoms.
The way to successful treatment
But when severe illness does strike, it’s often in the form of an out-of-control immune system response.
Inflammatory processes harm cells at multiple sites throughout the body and, if unchecked, this can lead to organ failure and death, noted a team led by Dr Patrick Couvreur at the Institute Galien Paris-Sud, in France.
Key to the cytokine storm are connections “between inflammation and oxidative stress, both processes contributing to fuel one another, thereby establishing a vicious cycle”, Couvreur’s group explained.
Right now, there’s no therapy to interrupt this dangerous “crosstalk”, they said. For example, anti-inflammatory drugs such as corticosteroids have not worked, because of their negative effects on tissue repair.
But the new findings may point the way to a successful treatment.
In their work, Couvreur’s group focused on an extremely tiny “nanoparticle” formulation of adenosine, an anti-inflammatory compound already produced naturally by the body.
Nanotechnology approach
It’s a powerful anti-inflammatory compound – maybe too powerful. If simply injected into the body, adenosine can trigger serious side effects, the research team said.
But the new nanotechnology approach appears to get around that, they added.
Couvreur’s team created “multi-drug nanoparticles” by adding adenosine to squalene, a type of fat also found naturally in the body. Then they “encapsulated” both in the powerful antioxidant alpha-tocopherol, a type of vitamin E.
Using this nanotechnology approach, the researchers then delivered the compounds to the tissues of mice who were in hyperinflammatory states such as sepsis (blood infection) or an immunological state resembling the typical “cytokine storm” of Covid-19.
The result: A notable decrease in tissues of a key pro-inflammatory cytokine called tumour necrosis factor alpha, along with a concurrent rise in levels of an anti-inflammatory cytokine called interleukin-10, the researchers reported.
These changes were observed in important organs such as the lungs and kidneys just four hours after treatment, Couvreur’s group said.
Still ‘a relatively early stage’
The team added that the combo treatment – adenosine plus tocopherol – appeared more effective than the use of either drug alone.
Of course, this study was conducted in mice, and many therapies that appear promising in animals don’t pan out in humans. But Dr Matthew Heinz, an expert in the fight against infectious diseases, said the findings do “make sense”.
“I’m surprised this was something they were able to do so quickly,” said Heinz, an internist and hospitalist at Tucson Medical Center in Arizona. “It’s pretty encouraging to have evidence that something like this might help some of our more critically ill Covid-19 patients survive the hyperimmune response known as a cytokine storm.”
Heinz previously worked in the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola crisis, and was the former director of provider outreach in the Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs, at the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Reading over the new findings, he said that “because the research is Covid-related, it’s quite possible this could be moved into human trials a lot quicker than during normal times”.
Heinz added that “this is still a relatively early stage – we have a little ways to go here – but it’s good to see this kind of research already coming out with some very encouraging results on how to approach this tremendously heartbreaking situation that’s killing tens of thousands of people in the United States.”
READ | Some coronavirus deaths caused by extreme reaction from immune system
READ | Coronavirus: Breakthrough as researchers map out how the immune system fights the virus
READ | There may be a solution to the immune system ‘storm’ caused by Covid-19 in some patients
Image credit: Getty Images
Coronavirus: World must ‘pull together’ to find and fund vaccine
World leaders sign up to a fundraising drive, which aims to raise $8.3bn over the next month.
Health24.com | Coronavirus morning update: Western Cape now has more than 3 000 cases, as testing ramped up
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SA
Cases update:
The latest number of confirmed cases is 6 783.
According to the latest update, 131 deaths have been recorded in the country.
So far, 245 747 tests have been conducted, with 15 061 new tests – with testing ramped up considerably in the last while.
Nearly 12 000 of the new tests were conducted in public laboratories.
READ MORE | All the confirmed cases of coronavirus in SA
Latest news:
Several issues preventing foreign nationals, who are documented and are legally employed in South Africa, from receiving Covid-19 benefits are being addressed and some of these employees will be paid this week, according to the department of employment and labour.
During a briefing by the Minister of Employment and Labour Thulas Nxesi on Sunday on workplace readiness as the country moves from level five to level four of its Covid-19 response, it was announced that a further R2.4 billion in benefits from the Temporary Employer / Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) has been cleared for payment on Monday. A total of 29 000 employees are set to benefit, they include South Africans and foreign nationals, Deputy Minister Boitumelo Moloi said.
Moloi noted that there had been delays initially in the disbursements but there has since been progress. The bulk disbursements of Covid-19 TERS amounts to R5.3 billion and has reached 98 employers and 1.1 million workers.
When asked about whether foreign nationals, who are in the country legally and are legally employed, would be paid Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) similar to their South African counterparts, Nxesi noted that there had been issues with disbursements, either related to bank accounts or with South Africa Revenue Service (SARS), but which have since been sorted. But Nxesi stressed that illegal foreigners, who are not documented cannot be paid. “Those who are illegal, who are not documented, it is clear we cannot do something illegal ourselves.” He called for employers to comply with the law.
READ MORE | State to pay further R2.4bn in coronavirus benefits for 29 000 employees
The National Treasury expects job losses, tax losses and a contracting economy due to the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown to halt its spread.
The finance minister will only present an adjustment budget, which accounts for the impact of the pandemic and economic relief measures, in June or July, according to Treasury and tax officials who briefed lawmakers on the potential impact of the virus on Thursday.
South Africa’s economy could contract by as much as 16.1% this year, depending on how long it takes to contain the coronavirus pandemic and for the economy to recover to the end of 2020, Treasury estimates showed.
“We have to move quickly to get the economy back to normal, but also take into account that we have to contain the impact of the virus,” Dondo Mogajane, the National Treasury’s director-general, said.
READ MORE | Government assesses coronavirus damage to economy
An hour of shopping dedicated to pensioners will be moved this week to accommodate Sassa payouts, retailer Pick n Pay has announced.
The pensioners’ shopping hour – a dedicated time for elderly customers to have exclusive use of the store to shop for their groceries and essentials – will move from Wednesdays, and will now take place on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Stores will open an hour earlier – between 07:00 and 08:00 – exclusively for customers over the age of 65 years, and for pension and Sassa disabled grant beneficiaries, before opening to all customers at 08:00.
From Wednesday to Friday, all stores will open early at 07:00 to help accommodate Sassa social grants.
The weekly pensioners’ shopping hour will resume on Wednesdays from 13 May.
READ MORE | Pick n Pay extends shopping times for pensioners and Sassa grant beneficiaries
The first of three SAA flights to repatriate South Africans from the US has landed on home soil.
The flight, which landed on Sunday evening, was carrying 275 South African citizens, Department of International Relations and Cooperation spokesperson Clayson Monyela said.
The remaining two flights would arrive on 5 May and 9 May, carrying 275 passengers each. These follow several flights from Miami, the last of which arrived on Friday and was carrying 256 South Africans.
Once the last SAA flight lands on 9 May, all South Afircans who requested repatriation from the US would be home, Monyela said. All of them would undergo a 14-day quarantine period at a government-selected quarantine site, he added.
READ MORE | 275 South Africans repatriated from US, hundreds more to arrive this week
More than 2700 people were screened during roadblocks on the N14 in Ventersdorp, Brandvlei and the N1 North freeway, on Sunday.
The roadblock was held to monitor commuters returning to Gauteng. Law enforcement officers and health officials were joined at the roadblock by Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi.
Of those screened for Covid-19, five were taken in for testing, Lesufi’s office said.
Two people were arrested for the possession of alcohol, while nine motorists were fined for various traffic infringements.
READ MORE | Coronavirus: Hundreds screened for Covid-19 at Gauteng roadblocks
Three more police station buildings have been closed for a Covid-19 decontamination, this time in the Western Cape.
Provincial police spokesperson Brigadier Novela Potelwa said the Bredasdorp and Struisbaai police stations had started decontamination protocols on May 1.
“Struisbaai is now operating from the municipal building while Bredasdorp will utilise the Thusong Centre,” Potelwa said on Sunday.
“Members from the two stations who came in contact with the infected case/s will undergo the necessary screening and/or testing.”
READ MORE | Coronavirus: Three Western Cape police stations closed for Covid-19 decontamination
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE REST OF THE WORLD
Cases update:
For the latest global data, follow this interactive map from Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.
Late on Sunday night, positive cases worldwide were just short of 3.5 million, while deaths were almost 247 000.
The United States had the most cases in the world – more than 1.15 million, as well as the most deaths – more than 67 000.
READ MORE | All the confirmed cases worldwide
Latest news:
Russia reported a record number of new coronavirus cases for the fourth consecutive day Sunday, as the virus rapidly spreads in the country, which is fast becoming one of the global epicenters of Covid-19.
There were 10 633 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, some 1,000 more than were reported on Saturday, according to Worldometers data.
A total of 134 687 people are now confirmed to have had coronavirus in Russia, making it the seventh most-infected country on the planet, with significantly more infections than early hotspots for the virus, such as China and Iran. More than half of all cases in Russia have been reported in the capital, Moscow.
Of those 134 687 people, 1 280 have died.
When Dr. Anar Yukhayev’s patient told him she’d developed a fever after a recent trip to Italy, he ran out of the room and grabbed a mask for each of them.
By that point, the 31-year-old obstetrician-gynecologist had been face-to-face with her for 20 minutes.
It was the first week of March, when reports of the novel coronavirus were starting to emerge in the New York City area. Westchester county, north of the city, was already seeing a cluster of cases.
Yukhayev works at Katz Women’s Hospital at Long Island Jewish Medical Center on the border of Queens and Suffolk County in New York.
The following week, he started to feel off, with back and muscle aches. Then, he spiked a fever.
He got tested on March 13, two days after the World Health Organisation declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic. The state by that point had hundreds of confirmed cases. By the following week, he was so sick that his colleagues were thinking about putting him on a ventilator.
Yukhayev’s experience of getting severely ill is common in hospitals overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients. Patients between 30 and 59 made up roughly a third of hospital admissions evaluated by Northwell Health, the health system Yukhayev’s a part of, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The shock of finding otherwise healthy people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, in the hospital severely ill with Covid-19 has been a common refrain in Business Insider’s conversations with doctors on the front lines. Other viral outbreaks, especially the flu, tend to hit the youngest and oldest Americans the hardest.
A 104-year-old woman in New York is recovering from Covid-19, and her nursing home is calling it a “miracle.”
Ida Acconciamessa, who lives at the Sheepshead Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Brooklyn, tested positive for Covid-19 on April 4. She was given oxygen, was very weak, and wasn’t eating, according to CBS News. And now, nearly a month later, she’s talking, eating, and recovering from the virus.
Her daughter, Barbara Senese, said her mother isn’t a stranger to health hardships. She said Acconciamessa lived through the Spanish flu, has had two broken hips, survived stage 4 melanoma, and now, Covid-19.
“She always used to say, ‘I was born under a lucky star.’ That was her mantra in life. And you know what? To be able to get through this virus, those words often come to my mind,” Senese told CBS News.
HEALTH TIPS (as recommended by the NICD and WHO)
• Maintain physical distancing – stay at least one metre away from somebody who is coughing or sneezing
• Practise frequent hand-washing, especially after direct contact with ill people or their environment
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, as your hands touch many surfaces and could potentially transfer the virus
• Practise respiratory hygiene – cover your mouth with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Remember to dispose the tissue immediately after use.
READ MORE: Coronavirus 101
Image credit: Getty Images
