vox--2020-02-15--Why prediction markets are bad at predicting who’ll be president

If you look at predictions from British gambling site Betfair , the Democratic primary has a new top-tier candidate : Mike Bloomberg .
His odds of winning the Democratic nomination shot up suddenly in the middle of this week , and on February 14 he briefly passed Bernie Sanders — who has won the popular vote in the two states that have voted so far and is leading in national polls — as the candidate likeliest to win the nomination and likeliest ( behind Trump ) to be our next president .
At the peak on Valentine ’ s Day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 34.5 percent chance of winning the nomination .
FiveThirtyEight ’ s sophisticated election model , on the other hand , rates Bloomberg ’ s odds of getting a plurality of delegates at 15 percent ( plus some chance he ’ s chosen at a brokered convention ) , behind Biden as well as Sanders .
Most experts aren ’ t rating him much higher than that .
The consensus is that he does have a shot , but he ’ s far from the easy frontrunner .
Do the prediction markets know something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who has been watching the prediction markets for the last year might have an alternative hypothesis : They ’ re just not very good .
Before Iowa , Betfair , and competitor PredictIt gave Pete Buttigieg only an 8 percent chance of winning the most state delegate equivalents ( which he did , pending a recanvass ) .
For much of last fall , PredictIt rated Andrew Yang and Hillary Clinton as tied for third in the nomination race ( neither stood a chance , and Clinton wasn ’ t even running ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ final assessments of candidates in elections that year were overall very good .
But there can be a lot of noise — and a lot of nonsense — along the way .
The thing is , prediction markets were supposed to be smarter than the pundits .
They were supposed to harness the wisdom of crowds and use financial incentives to be as accurate at predicting global events as the stock market is at predicting earnings for public companies .
If they work at that , we ’ ll have a powerful new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had an effective prediction market , we could use it to aggregate wisdom on questions like the revenue effects of tax changes , the mortality effects of new health care policies , or the best response to an emerging threat like coronavirus .
Stock markets are really good at quickly aggregating information , with prices rapidly reflecting new information and lots of highly paid people spending much of their time studying companies in order to take bets on which are overpriced and underpriced .
If prediction markets were similarly effective , we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about lots of things .
And if you thought it was wrong , you could just bet against it — moving the price and making money if you were right .
So it ’ s frustrating that the presidential prediction markets — the most visible , most-traded efforts at making prediction markets happen on a large scale — don ’ t seem so great at their jobs .
What went wrong ?
Existing prediction markets are too small in scale , hard to interact with , and hard to make money from , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ manipulation .
If we want to figure out whether the prediction market concept works , we should try it with prediction markets that are more like the stock market .
Until we do , prediction markets are potentially another channel for misinformation .
Are presidential prediction markets bad at their jobs ?
The presidential prediction market has been a little zany all primary season .
Most notably , it consistently overrated Andrew Yang , who had lots of tech-savvy , online followers who were exactly the sort of people to use prediction markets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ markets consistently rated him as having about a 10 percent chance of winning the nomination , even while polls and experts called it correctly : Yang was never going to win a delegate .
One market , PredictIt , also spent much of last fall inexplicably rating Hillary Clinton a plausible nominee with 11 percent odds of winning the nomination .
The markets also consistently underrated Pete Buttigieg , giving him only an 8 percent chance of winning the most state delegate equivalents in Iowa .
And now they ’ ve become obsessed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few days , with his odds on Betfair rocketing from 11 percent on February 6 to 34 percent on February 14 and then down somewhat , despite not much new information coming out that should have improved his prospects .
This is , frankly , a weird prediction .
Failing to compete in the early states has never worked for a candidate before .
Bloomberg has risen in the national polls , but he ’ s still behind Sanders ; aggregates of recent national polling found Sanders at 23 percent and Bloomberg at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ behind Sanders but also behind Joe Biden .
Contrast the Betfair odds model with the model from FiveThirtyEight , the data-driven pundits who ’ ve had an unusually strong track record over the past several election cycles .
The model makes it perfectly clear that Bloomberg has a real shot .
His chances have risen recently as his spending blitz drove a rise in the national polls .
But he is much less likely to win than Sanders , as you might expect given that Sanders is leading in national polls , leading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the popular vote in the states that have voted so far .
It remains to be seen who will be right , of course .
But the available evidence is more in line with the FiveThirtyEight model — where Bloomberg is a possibility but not the frontrunner — than the model the betting markets seem to prefer , where Bloomberg is much more likely to be the Democratic nominee .
It is hard to say for sure what is driving Bloomberg ’ s rise .
One possibility — and to be clear , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — is that someone with a lot of money is betting on him .
Prediction markets are driven by supply and demand .
If there ’ s an endless supply of people — or one very rich person — willing to bet on Bloomberg , that will drive up the price for Bloomberg bets .
That , in turn , will cause the market to report excellent odds he ’ ll win the election .
The hope is usually that the good predictions will increase good publicity and eventually be a self-fulfilling prophecy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Bloomberg is the frontrunner according to Betfair and start treating him as one .
That something like that could happen isn ’ t just speculation — in 2012 , it actually happened .
At the time , the leading presidential prediction market was a site called Intrade , and it consistently overrated Mitt Romney , who lost in a landslide .
Researchers looking into the prediction markets found evidence of one bettor who spent $ 4 million to $ 7 million artificially boosting Romney ’ s chances .
He was so determined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all Intrade trading on Romney — and he kept Romney ’ s prediction-market odds high right up through the election .
“ It is worth knowing that a highly visible market that drove many a media narrative could be manipulated at a cost less than that of a primetime television commercial , ” the study ’ s authors , David Rothschild of Microsoft Research in New York and Rajiv Sethi of Barnard College at Columbia University , wrote at the time .
People try to do this on the stock market , too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ markets are big and heavily traded .
It takes a ton of money — much more than $ 7 million — to meaningfully manipulate the price of a stock , and the manipulation often doesn ’ t last very long .
By comparison , prediction markets are small and not very lucrative .
High fees make it a waste of time to bet on some contracts , especially ones for unlikely outcomes .
Your money is sometimes tied up in the market until the contract is resolved , which can take years .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ US gambling laws , and PredictIt ( which is a university research project and thus has an exemption from normal gambling law ) is closed to non-Americans , and PredictIt sharply limits how much you can bet .
As a result , they ’ re dominated by hobbyists — which needn ’ t be a problem as election betting is a fairly boring unobjectionable hobby .
Usually , the hobbyists are enough — prediction markets actually do pretty well !
But since the markets are small , it doesn ’ t take all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ operation to manipulate them .
The fact prediction markets are unprofitable isn ’ t itself a big deal .
But the combination of unprofitable and manipulable means they can become a tool for disinformation — and that ’ s bad .
The fix : Prediction markets should be a little more like stock markets There are a lot of reasons I ’ d have a harder time manipulating the price of Google stock than manipulating the price of “ Buttigieg 2020 nominee ” contracts on Betfair .
Let ’ s go through them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money moves through the stock market that lots of people are paid to buy and sell stocks as a full-time job .
If I try to dump some money into changing Google ’ s stock price , some of those people will notice and try to figure out what ’ s up .
Some of them have access to billions of dollars themselves , so I will have a very hard time throwing enough money in to swamp them all .
Second , there are low fees associated with trading stocks .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stock with only some minor fees ( at least as a share of the size of the trade ) associated with doing so .
Fees on prediction markets , on the other hand , often make up a significant share of the profits you ’ d get from trading on them .
This makes repeatedly trading less worthwhile .
Third , most stock trading is public , so if I bought billions of dollars of Google stock , people could notice that I had personally bought billions of dollars of Google stock .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to figure out who , if anyone , is driving the dramatic increase in Bloomberg bets .
Finally , some forms of market manipulation in the stock market are heavily regulated .
Try to trigger a flash crash or release a misleading press release so that you can take advantage of price movements , and you ’ re pretty likely to be investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission .
While no regulatory environment is perfect , some amount of oversight can make the markets function better by making the people you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aren ’ t being duped .
Right now , the regulatory stance on election prediction markets is that they ’ re illegal gambling .
A move in this direction would require Congress or regulators to loosen up the rules — but they could still regulate the markets , just with an eye toward preventing scams rather than preventing all betting .
A step in any of these directions would make the prediction markets harder to manipulate as well as a better use of time and energy .
They would probably also be more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pursuing .
Correctly done prediction markets can improve policymaking , and bad ones can be an avenue for misinformation .
We ought to think about how to get it right .
Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter and we ’ ll send you a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling the world ’ s biggest challenges — and how to get better at doing good .
Future Perfect is funded in part by individual contributions , grants , and sponsorships .
Learn more here .

If you look at predictions from British gambling site Betfair, the Democratic primary has a new top-tier candidate: Mike Bloomberg. His odds of winning the Democratic nomination shot up suddenly in the middle of this week, and on February 14 he briefly passed Bernie Sanders — who has won the popular vote in the two states that have voted so far and is leading in national polls — as the candidate likeliest to win the nomination and likeliest (behind Trump) to be our next president. At the peak on Valentine’s Day, bettors on Betfair gave Bloomberg a 34.5 percent chance of winning the nomination.
FiveThirtyEight’s sophisticated election model, on the other hand, rates Bloomberg’s odds of getting a plurality of delegates at 15 percent (plus some chance he’s chosen at a brokered convention), behind Biden as well as Sanders. Most experts aren’t rating him much higher than that. The consensus is that he does have a shot, but he’s far from the easy frontrunner.
Do the prediction markets know something experts don’t?
Maybe.
But anyone who has been watching the prediction markets for the last year might have an alternative hypothesis: They’re just not very good. Before Iowa, Betfair, and competitor PredictIt gave Pete Buttigieg only an 8 percent chance of winning the most state delegate equivalents (which he did, pending a recanvass). For much of last fall, PredictIt rated Andrew Yang and Hillary Clinton as tied for third in the nomination race (neither stood a chance, and Clinton wasn’t even running). In 2016, Betfair’s final assessments of candidates in elections that year were overall very good. But there can be a lot of noise — and a lot of nonsense — along the way.
The thing is, prediction markets were supposed to be smarter than the pundits. They were supposed to harness the wisdom of crowds and use financial incentives to be as accurate at predicting global events as the stock market is at predicting earnings for public companies.
If they work at that, we’ll have a powerful new tool for making policy. If we had an effective prediction market, we could use it to aggregate wisdom on questions like the revenue effects of tax changes, the mortality effects of new health care policies, or the best response to an emerging threat like coronavirus.
Stock markets are really good at quickly aggregating information, with prices rapidly reflecting new information and lots of highly paid people spending much of their time studying companies in order to take bets on which are overpriced and underpriced. If prediction markets were similarly effective, we’d have a reliable source of information about lots of things. And if you thought it was wrong, you could just bet against it — moving the price and making money if you were right.
So it’s frustrating that the presidential prediction markets — the most visible, most-traded efforts at making prediction markets happen on a large scale — don’t seem so great at their jobs. What went wrong?
Existing prediction markets are too small in scale, hard to interact with, and hard to make money from, which renders them inaccurate and vulnerable to manipulation. If we want to figure out whether the prediction market concept works, we should try it with prediction markets that are more like the stock market. Until we do, prediction markets are potentially another channel for misinformation.
Are presidential prediction markets bad at their jobs?
The presidential prediction market has been a little zany all primary season. Most notably, it consistently overrated Andrew Yang, who had lots of tech-savvy, online followers who were exactly the sort of people to use prediction markets. That’s likely why the markets consistently rated him as having about a 10 percent chance of winning the nomination, even while polls and experts called it correctly: Yang was never going to win a delegate.
One market, PredictIt, also spent much of last fall inexplicably rating Hillary Clinton a plausible nominee with 11 percent odds of winning the nomination. The markets also consistently underrated Pete Buttigieg, giving him only an 8 percent chance of winning the most state delegate equivalents in Iowa.
And now they’ve become obsessed with Bloomberg over the space of a few days, with his odds on Betfair rocketing from 11 percent on February 6 to 34 percent on February 14 and then down somewhat, despite not much new information coming out that should have improved his prospects.
This is, frankly, a weird prediction. Failing to compete in the early states has never worked for a candidate before. Bloomberg has risen in the national polls, but he’s still behind Sanders; aggregates of recent national polling found Sanders at 23 percent and Bloomberg at 15 percent, putting him not only behind Sanders but also behind Joe Biden.
Contrast the Betfair odds model with the model from FiveThirtyEight, the data-driven pundits who’ve had an unusually strong track record over the past several election cycles.
The model makes it perfectly clear that Bloomberg has a real shot. His chances have risen recently as his spending blitz drove a rise in the national polls. But he is much less likely to win than Sanders, as you might expect given that Sanders is leading in national polls, leading in state polls, and has won the popular vote in the states that have voted so far.
(Do note that this is based on a FiveThirtyEight model estimating who will get a plurality of pledged delegates. Bloomberg could fail to have a plurality but win a brokered convention, making his overall odds higher than the 15 percent given here. But factoring this in certainly wouldn’t make him the frontrunner; experts think it’s unlikely the DNC will ignore the plurality choice at a brokered convention, and FiveThirtyEight gives Sanders a 36 percent chance of having an outright majority by the convention.)
It remains to be seen who will be right, of course. But the available evidence is more in line with the FiveThirtyEight model — where Bloomberg is a possibility but not the frontrunner — than the model the betting markets seem to prefer, where Bloomberg is much more likely to be the Democratic nominee.
Prediction markets are manipulable
It is hard to say for sure what is driving Bloomberg’s rise. One possibility — and to be clear, there’s no evidence for this — is that someone with a lot of money is betting on him.
Prediction markets are driven by supply and demand. If there’s an endless supply of people — or one very rich person — willing to bet on Bloomberg, that will drive up the price for Bloomberg bets. That, in turn, will cause the market to report excellent odds he’ll win the election. The hope is usually that the good predictions will increase good publicity and eventually be a self-fulfilling prophecy — that all of us will see that Bloomberg is the frontrunner according to Betfair and start treating him as one.
That something like that could happen isn’t just speculation — in 2012, it actually happened. At the time, the leading presidential prediction market was a site called Intrade, and it consistently overrated Mitt Romney, who lost in a landslide. Researchers looking into the prediction markets found evidence of one bettor who spent $4 million to $7 million artificially boosting Romney’s chances. He was so determined that he ended up being one-third of all Intrade trading on Romney — and he kept Romney’s prediction-market odds high right up through the election.
“It is worth knowing that a highly visible market that drove many a media narrative could be manipulated at a cost less than that of a primetime television commercial,” the study’s authors, David Rothschild of Microsoft Research in New York and Rajiv Sethi of Barnard College at Columbia University, wrote at the time.
People try to do this on the stock market, too. But they mostly fail because stock markets are big and heavily traded. It takes a ton of money — much more than $7 million — to meaningfully manipulate the price of a stock, and the manipulation often doesn’t last very long.
By comparison, prediction markets are small and not very lucrative. High fees make it a waste of time to bet on some contracts, especially ones for unlikely outcomes. Your money is sometimes tied up in the market until the contract is resolved, which can take years. Betfair is closed to Americans due to US gambling laws, and PredictIt (which is a university research project and thus has an exemption from normal gambling law) is closed to non-Americans, and PredictIt sharply limits how much you can bet.
As a result, they’re dominated by hobbyists — which needn’t be a problem as election betting is a fairly boring unobjectionable hobby. Usually, the hobbyists are enough — prediction markets actually do pretty well! But since the markets are small, it doesn’t take all that much money or a very sophisticated operation to manipulate them.
The fact prediction markets are unprofitable isn’t itself a big deal. But the combination of unprofitable and manipulable means they can become a tool for disinformation — and that’s bad.
The fix: Prediction markets should be a little more like stock markets
There are a lot of reasons I’d have a harder time manipulating the price of Google stock than manipulating the price of “Buttigieg 2020 nominee” contracts on Betfair. Let’s go through them in turn.
First, so much money moves through the stock market that lots of people are paid to buy and sell stocks as a full-time job. If I try to dump some money into changing Google’s stock price, some of those people will notice and try to figure out what’s up. Some of them have access to billions of dollars themselves, so I will have a very hard time throwing enough money in to swamp them all.
Second, there are low fees associated with trading stocks. I can buy and sell lots of Google stock with only some minor fees (at least as a share of the size of the trade) associated with doing so. Fees on prediction markets, on the other hand, often make up a significant share of the profits you’d get from trading on them. This makes repeatedly trading less worthwhile.
Third, most stock trading is public, so if I bought billions of dollars of Google stock, people could notice that I had personally bought billions of dollars of Google stock. Right now, it’s hard to figure out who, if anyone, is driving the dramatic increase in Bloomberg bets.
Finally, some forms of market manipulation in the stock market are heavily regulated. Try to trigger a flash crash or release a misleading press release so that you can take advantage of price movements, and you’re pretty likely to be investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. While no regulatory environment is perfect, some amount of oversight can make the markets function better by making the people you’re trading with more confident that they aren’t being duped.
Right now, the regulatory stance on election prediction markets is that they’re illegal gambling. A move in this direction would require Congress or regulators to loosen up the rules — but they could still regulate the markets, just with an eye toward preventing scams rather than preventing all betting.
A step in any of these directions would make the prediction markets harder to manipulate as well as a better use of time and energy. They would probably also be more accurate. This is a goal worth pursuing. Correctly done prediction markets can improve policymaking, and bad ones can be an avenue for misinformation. We ought to think about how to get it right.
Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter and we’ll send you a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling the world’s biggest challenges — and how to get better at doing good.
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vox--2020-02-15--It looks like Amazon throttled sales of a zine after its author publicly criticized Amazon

Welcome to Vox ’ s weekly book link roundup , a curated selection of the internet ’ s best writing on books and related subjects .
Here ’ s the best the web has to offer for the week of February 9 , 2020 .
• In the wake of the American Dirt controversy , the literary-political group Dignidad Literaria has launched a “ death quilt , ” a collection of death threats received by marginalized authors .
At the Guardian , Alison Flood talks to Myriam Gurba and Roxane Gay about why the death quilt matters : Gay , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every week , and pays for a security service to monitor and protect her , said that it was “ important to acknowledge the death threats people receive for daring to have opinions , for daring to be black or brown or queer or disabled or women or trans or any marginalised identity ” .
“ People need to realise what real censorship looks like .
They need to understand how unsafe it can be to challenge authority and the status quo , ” she said .
“ These are not things that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this level of harassment be dismissed as mere trolling .
You never know when one of those so-called trolls is going to take his rage from the internet into the physical world.
” • Meanwhile , at the AP , Hillel Italie talks with publishers about what needs to change to make the industry more diverse : According to a new study by the multicultural children ’ s publisher Lee & Low , the industry is around 75 % white , and mostly female .
No publisher who spoke to The Associated Press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same as those in a Lee & Low survey released four years earlier .
“ Even though there may be more awareness of diversity issues , the numbers on the industry side aren ’ t really changing , ″ says Lee & Low publisher Jason Low .
“ It ’ s still a very homogeneous industry , especially in some of the executive and gatekeeping roles.
” An illicit book that I had to read in secret as a kid Flowers in the Attic , by V.C .
Andrews .
I found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after sixth grade and thought , based on the cover , that it would be a fun mystery like the Sweet Valley High thriller editions .
It was not !
It was a huge bestseller back in the ’ 70s , but it ’ s a very oddly written saga about child imprisonment and incest — I think about halfway through I gave it to my parents and said , “ I don ’ t think I should be reading this , ” and tried to forget about it .
Years later my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shelf , and I had this incredible moment where I realized I hadn ’ t just hallucinated this terrifying book , that it was real , and we took turns reading it to each other at night before we went to sleep , and it was a very satisfying way to revisit something that had scared me so much as a child .
• At LitHub , Danny Caine notes that it sure looks like Amazon throttled sales of his zine after he criticized Amazon in the New York Times : Amazon ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shelves are much , much more consequential than The Raven ’ s , and much harder to parse .
Streitfeld ’ s article shows that Amazon ’ s transition from “ we ’ ll sell anything !
” to “ we ’ re getting rid of inappropriate books ” is vague and apparently capricious .
It has disturbing free speech implications .
With a company as big as Amazon , arguments like “ private companies can sell and not sell what they want ” don ’ t hold much weight .
If Amazon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of governments , it ’ s big enough to bend the trajectory of free speech .
I know I ’ m paying close attention .
• And here ’ s the article in which Caine criticized Amazon !
It ’ s by David Streitfeld , and ironically , looks at the shadowy and apparently capricious ways in which Amazon regulates what it sells : While few may lament the disappearance of these hate-filled books , the increasing number of banished titles has set off concern among some of the third-party booksellers who stock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Amazon , they said , seems to operate under vague or nonexistent rules .
“ Amazon reserves the right to determine whether content provides an acceptable experience , ” said one recent removal notice that the company sent to a bookseller .
Facebook , Twitter and YouTube have been roiled in recent years by controversies that pit freedom of speech against offensive content .
Amazon has largely escaped this debate .
But with millions of third-party merchants supplying much of what Amazon sells to tens of millions of customers , that ability to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its end .
• At the New York Times , Varian Johnson explains how a book taught him to love Black History Month : When Black History Month came around , well-meaning teachers and librarians would haul out books related to the “ celebration ” of black history .
Yet there was very little to celebrate in this pile .
Often old and dated , the books skewed heavily toward distilling information , facts and figures about slavery and the civil rights era .
They were concerned with the struggle — the burden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and often presented information in a way that was didactic and , well , boring .
• Also at the New York Times , MJ Franklin profiles Brandon Taylor and comes away with this frankly next-level advice for how to strategize your novel : He started with a series of lists : Reasons he had failed to write a novel ( too concerned with inventing everything , problems with setting and time frame ) .
Things he considered himself good at ( tone , dialogue ) .
Scenes he wanted in the book @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party ) .
He gave himself rules , setting a goal to write 10,000 words a day .
“ It began in this very mercenary place , ” he said , “ but it moved to a place of genuine artistic interest.
” • At the Public Domain Review , Jonathan Goldman tracks Dorothy Parker ’ s fateful career at Vanity Fair : Dorothy Parker lost her job as Vanity Fair theater critic on January 11 , 1920 , in the tea room of the Plaza Hotel .
Parker must have known there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ across from editor Frank Crowninshield .
She had been in hot water for months .
Her latest column had been a particularly biting one .
[ … ] It is in dispute which complaint held more weight , but either way , [ publisher Condé ] Nast passed the buck to Crowninshield , who met Parker at the Plaza and fired her from the job she had held for two years .
Parker promptly ordered the most expensive dessert on the menu and left .
• At Wired , Andrew Leonard profiles Vikram @ @ @ @ @ @ @ built a writing bot : His greater vision for Granthika is as a tool for building what he describes as “ a rule set ” for complex fictional or nonfictional universes .
Once built , that rule set can then be shared with others , opened up for exploration , adoption , and adaptation by multiple collaborators or fan fiction writers or gamers .
Granthika may not be for everyone .
There are likely plenty of novelists whose literary aspirations don ’ t involve elaborate world-building .
There ’ s no getting around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ designed to help write the kind of big , complex novels that Chandra specializes in .
Like many a startup entrepreneur before him , he is “ scratching his own itch.
” But the dream is still seductive : With Granthika watching from on high , guarding the internal coherence and integrity of any given universe , writers will be free to tackle the grandest challenges they can envision .
And here ’ s the week in books at Vox : • $ 2 million book deals about the Trump administration are anything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seduction , from Casanova to Tinder As always , you can keep up with all our books coverage by visiting vox.com/books .
Happy reading !

Welcome to Vox’s weekly book link roundup, a curated selection of the internet’s best writing on books and related subjects. Here’s the best the web has to offer for the week of February 9, 2020.
In the wake of the American Dirt controversy, the literary-political group Dignidad Literaria has launched a “death quilt,” a collection of death threats received by marginalized authors. At the Guardian, Alison Flood talks to Myriam Gurba and Roxane Gay about why the death quilt matters:
Gay, who explained that she receives death threats every week, and pays for a security service to monitor and protect her, said that it was “important to acknowledge the death threats people receive for daring to have opinions, for daring to be black or brown or queer or disabled or women or trans or any marginalised identity”. “People need to realise what real censorship looks like. They need to understand how unsafe it can be to challenge authority and the status quo,” she said. “These are not things that should be taken lightly, nor should this level of harassment be dismissed as mere trolling. You never know when one of those so-called trolls is going to take his rage from the internet into the physical world.”
Meanwhile, at the AP, Hillel Italie talks with publishers about what needs to change to make the industry more diverse:
According to a new study by the multicultural children’s publisher Lee & Low, the industry is around 75% white, and mostly female. No publisher who spoke to The Associated Press disputed those numbers, which were roughly the same as those in a Lee & Low survey released four years earlier. “Even though there may be more awareness of diversity issues, the numbers on the industry side aren’t really changing,″ says Lee & Low publisher Jason Low. “It’s still a very homogeneous industry, especially in some of the executive and gatekeeping roles.”
At EW, Daniel Mallory Lavery takes the pop culture questionnaire:
An illicit book that I had to read in secret as a kid Flowers in the Attic, by V.C. Andrews. I found it at a garage sale the summer after sixth grade and thought, based on the cover, that it would be a fun mystery like the Sweet Valley High thriller editions. It was not! It was a huge bestseller back in the ’70s, but it’s a very oddly written saga about child imprisonment and incest — I think about halfway through I gave it to my parents and said, “I don’t think I should be reading this,” and tried to forget about it. Years later my college girlfriend had a copy on her shelf, and I had this incredible moment where I realized I hadn’t just hallucinated this terrifying book, that it was real, and we took turns reading it to each other at night before we went to sleep, and it was a very satisfying way to revisit something that had scared me so much as a child.
At LitHub, Danny Caine notes that it sure looks like Amazon throttled sales of his zine after he criticized Amazon in the New York Times:
Amazon’s decisions about what goes on their shelves are much, much more consequential than The Raven’s, and much harder to parse. Streitfeld’s article shows that Amazon’s transition from “we’ll sell anything!” to “we’re getting rid of inappropriate books” is vague and apparently capricious. It has disturbing free speech implications. With a company as big as Amazon, arguments like “private companies can sell and not sell what they want” don’t hold much weight. If Amazon is big enough to bend the trajectory of governments, it’s big enough to bend the trajectory of free speech. I know I’m paying close attention.
And here’s the article in which Caine criticized Amazon! It’s by David Streitfeld, and ironically, looks at the shadowy and apparently capricious ways in which Amazon regulates what it sells:
While few may lament the disappearance of these hate-filled books, the increasing number of banished titles has set off concern among some of the third-party booksellers who stock Amazon’s vast virtual shelves. Amazon, they said, seems to operate under vague or nonexistent rules. “Amazon reserves the right to determine whether content provides an acceptable experience,” said one recent removal notice that the company sent to a bookseller. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been roiled in recent years by controversies that pit freedom of speech against offensive content. Amazon has largely escaped this debate. But with millions of third-party merchants supplying much of what Amazon sells to tens of millions of customers, that ability to maintain a low profile may be reaching its end.
At the New York Times, Varian Johnson explains how a book taught him to love Black History Month:
When Black History Month came around, well-meaning teachers and librarians would haul out books related to the “celebration” of black history. Yet there was very little to celebrate in this pile. Often old and dated, the books skewed heavily toward distilling information, facts and figures about slavery and the civil rights era. They were concerned with the struggle — the burden — of being black in America, and often presented information in a way that was didactic and, well, boring.
Also at the New York Times, MJ Franklin profiles Brandon Taylor and comes away with this frankly next-level advice for how to strategize your novel:
He started with a series of lists: Reasons he had failed to write a novel (too concerned with inventing everything, problems with setting and time frame). Things he considered himself good at (tone, dialogue). Scenes he wanted in the book (a tennis match, a dinner party). He gave himself rules, setting a goal to write 10,000 words a day. “It began in this very mercenary place,” he said, “but it moved to a place of genuine artistic interest.”
At the Public Domain Review, Jonathan Goldman tracks Dorothy Parker’s fateful career at Vanity Fair:
Dorothy Parker lost her job as Vanity Fair theater critic on January 11, 1920, in the tea room of the Plaza Hotel. Parker must have known there was trouble brewing as she sat down across from editor Frank Crowninshield. She had been in hot water for months. Her latest column had been a particularly biting one. […] It is in dispute which complaint held more weight, but either way, [publisher Condé] Nast passed the buck to Crowninshield, who met Parker at the Plaza and fired her from the job she had held for two years. Parker promptly ordered the most expensive dessert on the menu and left.
At Wired, Andrew Leonard profiles Vikram Chandra, the author and programmer who built a writing bot:
His greater vision for Granthika is as a tool for building what he describes as “a rule set” for complex fictional or nonfictional universes. Once built, that rule set can then be shared with others, opened up for exploration, adoption, and adaptation by multiple collaborators or fan fiction writers or gamers. Granthika may not be for everyone. There are likely plenty of novelists whose literary aspirations don’t involve elaborate world-building. There’s no getting around it: Chandra’s software is designed to help write the kind of big, complex novels that Chandra specializes in. Like many a startup entrepreneur before him, he is “scratching his own itch.” But the dream is still seductive: With Granthika watching from on high, guarding the internal coherence and integrity of any given universe, writers will be free to tackle the grandest challenges they can envision.
And here’s the week in books at Vox:
As always, you can keep up with all our books coverage by visiting vox.com/books. Happy reading!


vox--2020-02-15--The coronavirus cruise ship quarantine is a scary public health experiment

It ’ s a hypochondriac ’ s worst nightmare and a startling public health crisis : The largest coronavirus outbreak outside of mainland China is currently floating in Japanese waters , on a cruise ship owned by Princess Cruises .
The outbreak was first detected when an 80-year-old passenger tested positive for the virus on February 1 , a week after disembarking in Hong Kong .
By February 4 , the remaining 3,700 passengers and crew of the Diamond Princess — currently docked at the port city of Yokohama , Japan — were asked to stay on the ship under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number of passengers and crew aboard the Diamond Princess with the disease — known as Covid-19 — has surged to 218 .
While those who ’ ve tested positive are allowed to leave the ship for treatment , the rest have to remain there until at least February 19 with the exception of Americans on board .
On Saturday , the US Embassy in Tokyo announced a chartered flight would arrive to evacuate citizens by Sunday .
“ We recognize this has been a stressful experience and we remain dedicated to providing all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safely and expeditiously reunited with family and friends in the United States , ” the letter said , according to the New York Times .
They ’ re not the only ones who have been stuck aboard a cruise ship in Asia because of Covid-19 .
After being barred from docking in five countries , Holland America ’ s cruise ship MS Westerdam finally disembarked on February 14 in Sihanoukville , Cambodia .
The ship had no confirmed coronavirus cases .
The cruise ship drama is unfolding in the context of the worsening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there were more than 67,000 cases of the disease and 1,400 deaths , mostly in mainland China .
As a wave of coronavirus panic sweeps the cruise industry , more questions are being raised about whether quarantining people onboard is a safe , or even ethical , strategy to contain the virus .
Chief among them : Is it doing more harm than good ?
Let ’ s walk through what we know .
1 ) What does cruise ship quarantine mean ?
Since the 80-year-old passenger tested positive for the virus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into a mass public health experiment .
Passengers who have tested positive for the virus have disembarked and been admitted to hospitals in the Yokohama area , according to the World Health Organization .
The others have been held in quarantine onboard at the order of the Japanese Ministry of Health .
For over a week now , the passengers on the ship have been asked to stay in their rooms , wear masks , and only walk on the deck for a couple of minutes each day , keeping at least six @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They ’ re having meals delivered to their rooms , and have plenty of TV , movie , and newspaper options to keep them busy .
Officially , the objective of this quarantine is to prevent further spread of the virus onshore , particularly ahead of the Summer Olympics , which begin in Tokyo in July .
“ In this unprecedented situation , the Japanese Ministry of Health authorities are working with us collaboratively on additional enhancements and approving new procedures as we adapt our process to the unique challenges of this situation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Princess Cruises , in a statement .
On the other hand , “ The Japanese government is probably valuing stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus to their country more than the higher risk of harm to passengers from this mass cruise ship quarantine , ” said Steven Hoffman , director of the Global Strategy Lab and a professor of global health at York University .
The quarantine is supposed to end on February 19 , according to Princess Cruises , “ unless there are any other unforeseen developments.
” So it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will end then .
And that ’ s a source of worry , for reasons we ’ ll get to next .
2 ) Could the quarantine lead to more coronavirus infections ?
Doctors and health researchers are increasingly skeptical of this quarantine for exactly that reason .
“ They ’ ve basically trapped a bunch of people in a large container with [ the ] virus , ” said University of Toronto epidemiology professor David Fisman , over email .
“ So [ I ’ m ] assuming ‘ quarantine ’ is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reason , Michael Mina , another epidemiologist at Harvard University , called the quarantine unethical on Twitter : Their concern is driven by the details emerging from the ship , which paint an alarming portrait .
According to a must-read New York Times report , as of February 10 , Japanese officials had only tested 439 of the 3,700 passengers onboard for the coronavirus , citing shortages of testing supplies .
This means that at least a fraction of the remaining thousands onboard may have the virus and not know it .
Among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are 10 crew members .
“ And according to employees , the infected crew members identified on Sunday had been eating in the mess hall alongside their co-workers , ” the Times reports .
On Wednesday , a Japanese health official who was checking in on passengers on the ship also tested positive for the virus .
Given the risk of further spread among the crew , and to the passengers they ’ re trying to serve , the quarantine on the Diamond Princess increasingly seems to pose an “ unacceptable risk , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ How are the people on the ship doing ?
You can hear from them directly : Passengers and crew are sharing their experiences of the quarantine through tweets and videos .
And they ’ re reporting more fear and anxiety every day as more people are diagnosed : 4 ) How can the cruise company just lock these people up ?
It ’ s not the cruise company quarantining people ; it ’ s the Japanese government .
People on the ship “ are in Japanese waters , and this is being managed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” said Isaac Bogoch , a professor at the University of Toronto .
So the passengers onboard the ship , as visitors of Japan , are subject to Japan ’ s quarantine protocols , he added .
According to the cruise company , the passengers hail from all over the world : America , Australia , Canada , and Japan , among other countries .
Quarantines can be effective tools for containing the spread of disease — but only when you ’ re dealing with people who are already sick .
“ All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go on is based on quarantining people who are infected , ” said Mark Eccleston-Turner , a global health law researcher at Keele University in England .
When quarantines are done arbitrarily , with no scientific basis , he added , they ’ re “ not in line with human rights obligations.
” The cruise ship quarantine is not just a human rights or justice issue , though ; it ’ s a public health problem , too .
In this case , people who aren ’ t yet sick and who may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus are being held together in close proximity with people who may already have the disease .
Layer on top of that the fact that we don ’ t yet know exactly how this virus spreads ; all we know is that respiratory viruses like it — MERS and SARS — spread mainly through exposure to droplets , from coughing or sneezing .
But like SARS , there ’ s already some suggestion that the new coronavirus may be able to spread long distances through pipes in buildings , and potentially via feces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possible the virus could spread through the cruise ship ’ s ventilation systems , though in a letter to passengers and crew , the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it has no evidence of that yet .
6 ) What does this cruise ship situation reveal about the larger outbreak ?
Though the cruise ship situation is unfortunate , it could be helpful for understanding the new coronavirus .
“ It may shed light on the incubation period [ for this disease ] , transmission dynamics , the clinical spectrum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marion Koopmans , who studies emerging infectious diseases and heads the department of virology at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam , Netherlands , thinks we can learn a lot about how the disease spreads when we know exactly how the virus began spreading on the ship .
“ Cruise ships have these shows , several restaurants with joint dinners — so was there a close contact situation that involved a sick person with many people around him or her ?
” she wondered .
There ’ s also the question of how the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crew would have acquired the new coronavirus with or without being forced to stay on the ship .
“ Are these truly new infections acquired after quarantine , or would these people have already acquired [ the virus ] and it ’ s just the regular incubation period ?
” Bogoch asked .
Once we get answers to these questions , they might shed light on the larger outbreak .
7 ) Given the potential for outbreaks like this , should cruises be banned ?
There is indeed a surprisingly robust science of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ particular , from norovirus , the highly contagious bug spread by ingesting the stool or vomit of an infected person , often through food or touching a contaminated surface .
Koopmans said she wasn ’ t sure if that ’ s because of “ surveillance bias ” — we ’ re more likely to hear about what happens on a massive cruise ship than in a small hotel or restaurant — or because there ’ s something inherently risky about cruise ships .
She has studied norovirus outbreaks on cruises extensively and came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : The researchers looked at norovirus outbreaks over time and found that whenever a new , fast-spreading variant was emerging , it was often accompanied by a big wave of outbreaks on cruise ships .
In other words , what happened aboard was a signal that there was a larger outbreak on the ground .
“ For a virus that likes to spread in groups of people , cruise ships are notorious , ” Koopmans added .

It’s a hypochondriac’s worst nightmare and a startling public health crisis: The largest coronavirus outbreak outside of mainland China is currently floating in Japanese waters, on a cruise ship owned by Princess Cruises.
The outbreak was first detected when an 80-year-old passenger tested positive for the virus on February 1, a week after disembarking in Hong Kong. By February 4, the remaining 3,700 passengers and crew of the luxury Diamond Princess ship — currently docked at the port city of Yokohama, Japan — were asked to stay on the ship under quarantine orders.
Since then, the number of people aboard with the disease — known as Covid-19 — has surged to 542. While those who tested positive have been allowed to leave the ship for treatment, the rest have had to remain there until at least February 19, with the exception of American citizens.
On Saturday, the US Embassy in Tokyo announced a chartered flight would arrive to evacuate citizens and their families who opted to leave. By the time the group of 328 boarded the plane Sunday, 14 had tested positive for the virus, according to the State Department, but were deemed “fit to fly” since they weren’t showing symptoms.
“These individuals were moved in the most expeditious and safe manner to a specialized containment area on the evacuation aircraft to isolate them in accordance with standard protocols,” the State Department said in a statement. The new cases bring the total number of Americans on the cruise ship who became infected to 58 (of about 400 total).
But they were not the only ones caught in a Covid-19 cruise ship drama. After being barred from docking in five countries, another ship — Holland America’s MS Westerdam — finally disembarked on February 13 in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Two days later, the ship’s first coronavirus case was confirmed in an American who had already traveled to Malaysia — setting off a global search for other Westerdam passengers who may have been exposed to the virus.
The cruise ship health emergencies have unfolded in the context of a worsening outbreak: As of February 17, there were more than 73,000 cases of the disease and 1,800 deaths, mostly in mainland China.
As a wave of coronavirus panic sweeps the cruise industry, more questions are being raised about how governments and cruise ship operators handled these health scares. Chief among them: Is quarantining people onboard a safe, or even ethical, strategy to contain the virus? Did the measures taken by countries and cruise companies make the outbreak worse? Let’s walk through what we know.
1) What does cruise ship quarantine mean?
Since the 80-year-old passenger tested positive for the virus, the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan has transformed into a mass public health experiment. Passengers who have tested positive for the virus have disembarked and been admitted to hospitals in the Yokohama area, according to the World Health Organization. The others have been held in quarantine onboard at the order of the Japanese Ministry of Health.
For nearly two weeks now, the passengers on the ship have been asked to stay in their rooms, wear masks, and only walk on the deck for a couple of minutes each day, keeping at least six feet of distance from other passengers. They’re having meals delivered to their rooms, and have plenty of TV, movie, and newspaper options to keep them busy.
Officially, the objective of this quarantine is to prevent further spread of the virus onshore, particularly ahead of the Summer Olympics, which begin in Tokyo in July.
“In this unprecedented situation, the Japanese Ministry of Health authorities are working with us collaboratively on additional enhancements and approving new procedures as we adapt our process to the unique challenges of this situation,” said Jan Swartz, president of Princess Cruises, in a statement.
On the other hand, “The Japanese government is probably valuing stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus to their country more than the higher risk of harm to passengers from this mass cruise ship quarantine,” said Steven Hoffman, director of the Global Strategy Lab and a professor of global health at York University.
The quarantine is supposed to end on February 19, according to Princess Cruises, “unless there are any other unforeseen developments.” So it’s not yet clear whether it will end then. And that’s a source of worry, for reasons we’ll get to next.
2) Could the quarantine lead to more coronavirus infections?
Doctors and health researchers have been skeptical of this quarantine for exactly that reason. “They’ve basically trapped a bunch of people in a large container with [the] virus,” said University of Toronto epidemiology professor David Fisman, over email. “So [I’m] assuming ‘quarantine’ is generating active transmission.”
For the same reason, Michael Mina, another epidemiologist at Harvard University, called the quarantine unethical on Twitter:
The decision to keep the passengers & crew on the ship is no longer ethical and is wholly inappropriate. 10 crew are infected and crew cannot self quarantine, and room together. Clearly this has transmitted among them placing all at unacceptable risk. https://t.co/8GsI5ThDgg — Michael Mina (@michaelmina_lab) February 11, 2020
Their concern is driven by the mounting case toll and details emerging from the ship, which paint an alarming portrait. According to a must-read New York Times report, as of February 10, Japanese officials had only tested 439 of the 3,700 passengers onboard for the coronavirus, citing shortages of testing supplies. This meant that at least a fraction of the remaining thousands onboard may have the virus and not know it.
Among those who’ve tested positive recently are 10 crew members. “And according to employees, the infected crew members identified on Sunday had been eating in the mess hall alongside their co-workers,” the Times reports.
Last Wednesday, a Japanese health official who was checking in on passengers on the ship also tested positive for the virus — raising further questions about whether people on board are protected from the virus.
Given the risk of further spread among the crew, and to the passengers they’re trying to serve, the quarantine on the Diamond Princess increasingly seems to pose an “unacceptable risk, Mina said.
3) How are the people on the ship doing?
You can hear from them directly: Passengers and crew have been sharing their experiences of the quarantine through tweets and videos. And they’re reporting more fear and anxiety every day as more people are diagnosed:
Diabetic passenger David Abel says he was without food for 17 hours on quarantined Princess cruise ship after 10 passengers test positive for novel #coronavirus.https://t.co/ih7WAoIJ4h pic.twitter.com/N1Lh5E7zJr — euronews (@euronews) February 5, 2020
"At this moment, we are very scared."
The Indian crew members on the quarantined #DiamondPrincess cruise ship are asking Prime Minister @NarendraModi for help as they remain stranded in Yokohama, Japan #クルーズ船 #CoronavirusOutbreak #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/SFfGdwwvcD — QuickTake by Bloomberg (@QuickTake) February 11, 2020
"We feel like sitting ducks here."
Novelist, Gay Courter explains what life is like being quarantined onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, after some passengers tested positive for coronavirus.
Get the latest on #coronavirus here: https://t.co/tNKhlqpEMK pic.twitter.com/ZlvkQimwIF — Sky News (@SkyNews) February 9, 2020
Aun Na Tan and her family have been confined to their cabin on a quarantined cruise ship docked in Japan. Tan says families who booked separate rooms from their children are now unable to see each other https://t.co/yl50Vovw2p pic.twitter.com/KsPvwxHDMi — Reuters (@Reuters) February 10, 2020
4) How can the cruise company just lock these people up?
It’s not the cruise company quarantining people; it’s the Japanese government.
People on the ship “are in Japanese waters, and this is being managed by public health officials in Japan,” said Isaac Bogoch, a professor at the University of Toronto. So the passengers onboard the ship, as visitors of Japan, are subject to Japan’s quarantine protocols, he added. According to the cruise company, the passengers hail from all over the world: America, Australia, Canada, and Japan, among other countries.
5) Is this quarantine ethical?
Quarantines can be effective tools for containing the spread of disease — but only when you’re dealing with people who are already sick.
“All the evidence we’ve got to go on is based on quarantining people who are infected,” said Mark Eccleston-Turner, a global health law researcher at Keele University in England. When quarantines are done arbitrarily, with no scientific basis, he added, they’re “not in line with human rights obligations.”
The cruise ship quarantine is not just a human rights or justice issue, though; it’s a public health problem. In this case, people who aren’t yet sick and who may not have been exposed to the new coronavirus are being held together in close proximity with people who may already have the disease. Layer on top of that the fact that we don’t yet know exactly how this virus spreads; all we know is that respiratory viruses like it — MERS and SARS — spread mainly through exposure to droplets, from coughing or sneezing.
But like SARS, there’s already some suggestion that the new coronavirus may be able to spread long distances through pipes in buildings, and potentially via feces, too.
It’s also possible the virus could spread through the cruise ship’s ventilation systems, though in a letter to passengers and crew, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it has no evidence of that yet.
6) So is the cruise ship quarantine an epic failure?
As Fisman and Mina already said, quarantining people on a cruise ship seemed like a bad idea at best and unethical at worst. A Tokyo doctor who specializes in infectious diseases told the New York Times that the experiment was “an unprecedented failure.” We should learn from this lesson that a quarantine on a ship is impossible, and we should not repeat this in the future,” Eiji Kusumi said.
But others point out that the cruise ship company and the Japanese government were caught in a difficult position. “In a perfect world,” Bogoch said, “the passengers could have been let off the ship” then placed in a safe quarantine environment in Japan or sent back to their home countries for medical care there. “But the logistics of letting 3,700 people off a ship and finding appropriate accommodations, medical care, and basic needs — with no warning — would be challenging at best,” he added.
At the same time, the global community has had ample warning for years that a pandemic threat of this nature could arise at any time. So one can make the argument that governments, even cruise companies, should have been ready with an emergency plan in place.
7) What happened to the Americans who evacuated the ship in Japan, and the passengers who left the Westerdam ship in Cambodia?
On Sunday, 328 Americans got on two cargo planes headed for military bases in the US: the Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, or Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas. But after the passengers had already left the ship, the US government got the results of their recent coronavirus tests and learned that 14 tested positive for the virus.
The State Department decided to repatriate them anyway, simply separating them from other passengers on the planes in an area cordoned off using plastic sheets, according to the Times.
Separately, the Westerdam passengers were welcomed in Cambodia on February 13, and then dispersed around the world — returning home or onward with their travels. At the time, no one had tested positive for Covid-19. But two days later, the ship’s first coronavirus case was confirmed in an American passenger who had already traveled to Malaysia, raising questions about the ship’s and Cambodia’s thoroughness in testing passengers. Her case has set off an unprecedented global search for other Westerdam passengers who may have been exposed to the virus.
8) What do these cruise ship emergencies reveal about the larger outbreak?
The Japanese case shows us that quarantining people on a cruise ship to stop the spread of Covid-19 can backfire, while the Cambodia case suggests that letting people disembark and disperse around the world can create a public health nightmare. In both cases, there appears to have been sloppiness: Proper quarantine protocols weren’t followed, and passengers weren’t adequately tested before moving on with their travels.
While all parties involved could have done better, the situations also reveal just how challenging containing the spread of this highly contagious virus is going to be in a time of global travel.
On the bright side, the cruise ship debacles could actually contribute to science. “It may shed light on the incubation period [for this disease], transmission dynamics, the clinical spectrum of illness,” said Bogoch.
Marion Koopmans, who studies emerging infectious diseases and heads the department of virology at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, thinks we can learn a lot about how the disease spreads when we know exactly how the virus began spreading on the ship. “Cruise ships have these shows, several restaurants with joint dinners — so was there a close contact situation that involved a sick person with many people around him or her?” she wondered.
There’s also understanding precisely what impact the quarantine had on the larger outbreak: whether the passengers and crew would have acquired the new coronavirus with or without being forced to stay on the ship. “Are these truly new infections acquired after quarantine, or would these people have already acquired [the virus] and it’s just the regular incubation period?” Bogoch asked. Once we get answers to these questions, they might shed light on the larger outbreak.
9) Given the potential for outbreaks like this, should cruises be banned?
There is indeed a surprisingly robust science of disease spread on cruise ships — in particular, from norovirus, the highly contagious bug spread by ingesting the stool or vomit of an infected person, often through food or touching a contaminated surface.
Cruise ships and viruses: studied them for years with norovirus https://t.co/ppx4EsVG0J check out this paper: we found that cruise ship outbreaks were an early warning indicator of new pandemic norovirus variants https://t.co/hT6sMcoVFO — Marion Koopmans (@MarionKoopmans) February 6, 2020
Koopmans said she wasn’t sure if that’s because of “surveillance bias” — we’re more likely to hear about what happens on a massive cruise ship than in a small hotel or restaurant — or because there’s something inherently risky about cruise ships.
She has studied norovirus outbreaks on cruises extensively and came to a striking finding in one paper: The researchers looked at norovirus outbreaks over time and found that whenever a new, fast-spreading variant was emerging, it was often accompanied by a big wave of outbreaks on cruise ships. In other words, what happened aboard was a signal that there was a larger outbreak on the ground. “For a virus that likes to spread in groups of people, cruise ships are notorious,” Koopmans added.


vox--2020-02-17--Jeff Bezos just made one of the largest charitable gifts ever

Jeff Bezos , the world ’ s richest person , has made the second largest charitable gift in recent history .
The Amazon founder is giving $ 10 billion to a new initiative that will fund programs to combat the effects of climate change , he said in an Instagram post on Monday .
The Bezos Earth Fund comes after years of criticism that the billionaire was not doing enough charitable work with his extraordinary wealth , pressure that he has begun to cede to in recent years .
Details are scarce about how exactly this fund will be structured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it will fund .
But the size of the gift is worth taking note .
The only larger pledge of the 21st century was Warren Buffett ’ s promise to give the bulk of his net worth — that amounts to $ 43 billion — to the Gates Foundation in 2006 , according to records from The Chronicle of Philanthropy .
Bezos ’ gift amounts — again , Bezos is committing $ 10 billion — to about 7.5 percent of his current net worth .
“ Climate change is the biggest threat to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alongside others both to amplify known ways and explore new ways of fighitng the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share , ” Bezos said in his post .
“ This global initative will fund scientists , activists , NGOs — any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.
” Bezos has drawn significant fire for his lack of charitable giving , criticism that has gotten harsher as Amazon grew and Bezos eventually became the world ’ s single richest person .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ One fund , which amounts to a $ 2 billion commitment to early childhood education and to anti-homelessness initiatives .
The schools that Bezos is setting up with that pool of money have not yet begun operating .
But he has awarded about $ 200 million so far for homelessness work , through an unusual process that Recode reported on in detail last summer .
If past is prologue , the grants that Bezos makes to climate-change organizations could follow a similar model .
Bezos still has not signed The Giving Pledge , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s billionaires to donate most of their money in their lifetimes or in their wills .
His wife , Mackenzie Bezos , after finalizing the largest divorce settlement ever recorded at $ 35 billion , almost immediately decided on her own to sign it .
“ I have a lot of ideas about philanthropy — that I ’ m not ready to share or talk about , ” Bezos told Charlie Rose nine years ago when asked to add his name .
“ There are a lot of interesting unknowns .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problems before we understand the problem.
” But the Amazon founder has described his work in private space travel — through a company he funds called Blue Origin — as a pseudo-philanthropic mission , although it remains a for-profit company .
The $ 10 billion from Bezos will exclusively fund charitable work , with no private investments , according to a person familiar with the gift .
That Bezos has decided to try and make his mark on climate change is revealing .
Amazon , of course , has been heavily criticized for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Bezos ’ employees have tried to pressure the company into more serious action , including at a recent strike .
Bezos ’ personal contribution could be intended to send a message to those employees .
“ We applaud Jeff Bezos ’ philanthropy , but one hand can not give what the other is taking away , ” a group of activist employees , Amazon Employees for Climate Justice , said in a statement .
They indicated they were unsatisfied , listing off various remaining ties betwen Amazon and fossil fuels .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or will he continue to be complicit in the acceleration of the climate crisis , while supposedly trying to help ?
” All of this belated giving , ironically , comes at a time when billionaire philanthropy is a more of a minefield than ever .
Society is beginning to reckon with the fact that charitable gifts are a form of influence — and that maybe these billionaires shouldn ’ t have so much power in the first place .
After all , it will be Jeff Bezos deciding who to fund with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through the democratically elected United States government .

Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, has made the second largest charitable gift in recent history.
The Amazon founder is giving $10 billion to a new initiative that will fund programs to combat the effects of climate change, he said in an Instagram post on Monday. The Bezos Earth Fund comes after years of criticism that the billionaire was not doing enough charitable work with his extraordinary wealth, pressure that he has begun to cede to in recent years.
Details are scarce about how exactly this fund will be structured and the exact type of work that it will fund. But the size of the gift is worth taking note. The only larger pledge of the 21st century was Warren Buffett’s 2006 promise to give the bulk of his net worth — that amounts to $43 billion — to the Gates Foundation, according to records from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Bezos’s $10 billion gift amounts to about 7.5 percent of his current net worth.
“Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet. I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share,” Bezos said in his post. “This global initiative will fund scientists, activists, NGOs — any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.”
Bezos has drawn significant fire for his lack of charitable giving, criticism that has gotten harsher as Amazon grew and Bezos eventually became the world’s single richest person. In 2018, Bezos unveiled the Day One fund, which amounts to a $2 billion commitment to early childhood education and to anti-homelessness initiatives.
The schools that Bezos is setting up with that pool of money have not yet begun operating. But he has awarded about $200 million so far for homelessness work, through an unusual process that Recode reported on in detail last summer. If past is prologue, the grants that Bezos makes to climate change organizations could follow a similar model.
Bezos still has not signed The Giving Pledge, the promise by some of the world’s billionaires to donate most of their money in their lifetimes or in their wills. His wife, Mackenzie Bezos, after finalizing the largest divorce settlement ever recorded at $35 billion, almost immediately decided on her own to sign it.
“I have a lot of ideas about philanthropy — that I’m not ready to share or talk about,” Bezos told Charlie Rose nine years ago when asked to add his name. “There are a lot of interesting unknowns. And sometimes I think we try to solve problems before we understand the problem.”
But the Amazon founder has described his work in private space travel — through a company he funds called Blue Origin — as a pseudo-philanthropic mission, although it remains a for-profit company. The $10 billion from Bezos will exclusively fund charitable work, with no private investments, according to a person familiar with the gift.
That Bezos has decided to try and make his mark on climate change is revealing. Amazon has been heavily criticized for its own contributions to the climate crisis. Bezos’s employees have tried to pressure the company into more serious action, including at a recent strike. Bezos’s personal contribution could be intended to send a message to those employees.
“We applaud Jeff Bezos’ philanthropy, but one hand cannot give what the other is taking away,” a group of activist employees, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, said in a statement. They indicated they were unsatisfied, listing off various remaining ties between Amazon and fossil fuels. “Will Jeff Bezos show us true leadership or will he continue to be complicit in the acceleration of the climate crisis, while supposedly trying to help?”
All of this belated giving, ironically, comes at a time when billionaire philanthropy is more of a minefield than ever. Society is beginning to reckon with the fact that charitable gifts are a form of influence — and that maybe these billionaires shouldn’t have so much power in the first place. After all, it will be Jeff Bezos deciding who to fund with this $10 billion, not taxpayers through the democratically elected United States government.