Wednesday, March 25th, 2020
Open by Easter?, Olympics 2021 & YouTube in SD
All the news you need in 10 min:
This episode is brought to you by www.NativeDeodorant.com (use code ‘newsworthy’)
Story Summaries
All the news stories mentioned in today's episode are listed with links below, so you can spend as much -- or as little -- time as you want perusing the latest happenings...
Fighting COVID-19
New York City is now considered a “high risk area” with more than 192 coronavirus deaths confirmed there. Now, the nation’s top doctors say New Yorkers who decide to leave Manhattan need to self-quarantine for 14 days. Vice President Mike Pence said 4,000 ventilators are en route to New York, along with respirator masks, surgical gowns and pairs of gloves. Meanwhile, the mayor of Los Angeles said his city could be six to 12 days away from seeing a similar number of cases as New York City. Researchers are still getting new information and making progress every day. One encouraging finding is that COVID-19 isn’t mutating quickly. That gives scientists a good chance of creating an effective vaccine with long-lasting immunity. As far as treatments go, the FDA approved emergency protocols allowing doctors everywhere to use plasma donated by COVID-19 survivors to help treat people who are critically ill with the virus.
Case Counts & Deaths: NY Times, AP, LA Times, Johns Hopkins
Virus Slow to Mutate: WaPo, New York Magazine
Treatment for Critical Patients: NBC News, AP
Trump: U.S. Open by Easter?
President Trump hopes the U.S. will be reopened for business by Easter. That’s less than three weeks away on April 12. However, Trump’s timeline contradicts warnings from most public health officials. Doctors on the president’s own coronavirus task force say he needs to be flexible. Infectious disease doctor Anthony Fauci said restaurants, schools and offices should expect to be closed for many more weeks. He also stressed the worst effects of the new coronavirus have not yet been felt in the U.S.
Read More: Politico, CNN, AP
Economic Relief
Early this morning, Senators announced they reached a bipartisan deal on the nearly $2 trillion stimulus package. This is the measure that will send $1,200 checks to most Americans. It also reportedly includes a loan program for small businesses to the tune of $367 billion. There’s another $500 billion for industries, cities and states. Also, $130 billion is being earmarked for hospitals. Once the bill gets a final vote of approval, it moves to the House. There, lawmakers need to figure out whether they’ll reconvene or look into another way to vote remotely.
Deal Reached: WaPo, AP, The Hill
Stocks Rally: WSJ, Axios,
Coronavirus Worldwide
The world’s biggest lockdown is now in effect. In India, all 1.3 billion people will have to follow strict restrictions for 21 days. Meanwhile, in Italy, the death toll rose by nearly 750 people in 24 hours. That breaks a series of declines in the daily death count; dashing hopes the country had already gotten through the worst of it. Over in China, there’s new hope. In the province where the COVID-19 pandemic began late last year, 60 million people finally got to leave the area. It’s the first time they’re out and about in two months.
China to Ease Lockdown: NYT, Al Jazeera
India Orders 3 Week Lockdown: Bloomberg, BBC
Italy Death Toll Rises: Reuters, CNN
Olympics Postponed
The Olympic games in Tokyo will officially not be happening in 2020. The International Olympic Committee and Japanese officials agreed that sticking with the original start date of July 24th wasn’t safe during the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, they said the summer games will happen after 2020, but no later than the summer of 2021.
Read More: Olympic.org, Washington Post
Traffic and Pollution Decline
With so many U.S. cities basically shut down, pollution is plummeting. Metro areas like Atlanta, Seattle and Los Angeles have cleaner air right now than normal. A similar trend is happening around the world. Still, once the crisis subsides, pollution is expected to return to normal levels.
Read More: NYT, CNBC
Social Distancing Tracking
We’re starting to get a look at who is following social distancing guidelines and who isn’t. A company that collects and analyzes phone GPS location data, called Unacast, just launched a “social distancing scoreboard.” It grades people’s behavior county-by-county, looking at where people have been changing their behaviors. It measures the reduction in total distance we travel based on smartphone data.
Read More: WaPo, Unacast Scoreboard
YouTube Lowers Video Quality
Starting now, the world’s most popular video site will lower the quality of its videos to help prevent Internet congestion while so many people stay home. YouTube will be defaulting all of its videos to SD worldwide. You’ll still have the option to watch in HD if you want, but you’ll have to increase that resolution manually. Remember, other streaming services, like Netflix and Amazon Prime, have also lowered video quality, but only in Europe so far.
Read More: Bloomberg, Wired, The Verge
Online Get-Togethers
Instagram is launching a new feature to help you watch videos with friends, while keeping your distance. It’s called “Co-watching.” Meanwhile, there's also a “Netflix Party” option that lets everyone jump on the same link to watch together from their own homes. It includes a chat function, so everyone can react in real time.
Instagram Co-Watching: The Verge, Mashable
Netflix Party: The Verge, Digital Trends
Work Wednesday- "Zoom-bombing"
A new phrase is becoming popular: “Zoom-bombing.” It’s kind of like photo-bombing, but on the video conferencing platform, Zoom. Internet trolls are doing it by jumping on public calls, then using the screen-sharing feature to share graphic content with everyone on the call. So, Zoom offered some guidance to prevent it from happening. Among the ideas:
-Avoid sharing your meeting link on social media
-Avoid using your personal meeting ID to host public events
-Use the “waiting room” feature to control people who come and go
-Restrict who has screen-sharing capabilities
-Lock meeting
-Make calls invitation-only
-Have calls password-protected
Read More: NYT, Zoom, ZDNet