vox--2020-12-04--How retailers track your every move in exchange for coupons and convenience

Once upon a time ( in February 2020 ) , you could walk into a store , casually browse its wares , and try things on , making sure they fit and felt right before you decided to buy them .
Maybe you joined a few friends for social interaction over coffee at the in-store cafe .
You could even buy things in relative anonymity using cash .
Online shopping eschews this experience in favor of data-driven convenience .
Physical stores were already losing ground before the pandemic drove customers away , and now they ’ ve had to accelerate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and contactless offerings before they ’ re put out of business for good .
Curbside pickups , mobile apps to order and pay for products , even virtual changing rooms have become routine and are likely to continue long after the pandemic ends .
That ’ s not necessarily a bad thing for customers .
Brick-and-mortar stores with expanded digital sides have a larger selection , provide personalized recommendations and deals , and give you the ease and safety of shopping without having to leave your living room .
But taking shopping out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feel , smell , or taste products before they buy them , or ask a real human salesperson for advice or information .
Some things can ’ t be reproduced inside a mobile app .
Another major and meaningful downside is the continued loss of your privacy .
Retailers love data , and their online arms can give them a lot of it about you and your shopping habits .
The more a retailer knows about its customers , the more likely it is it will be able to sell them its product @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internet existed , but the internet has given companies the ability to collect so much more information about their customers and how to advertise to them .
The changing retail landscape isn ’ t just about the end of flagging brick-and-mortar stores ; it ’ s also about the growth of data-driven retail .
Stores can collect and use customer data that inform every stage of the shopping process , and they ’ re getting better and better at it — which in turn means that customers are more likely to buy more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Anonymous shopping is fast becoming a thing of the past .
The future of the department store — assuming it has one — is here , and it wants to know everything about you .
Data collection that gives customers nothing in return is going out of style Retailers have many ways to acquire data about their customers , some of which is more obvious and mutually beneficial than others .
They might purchase “ insights ” from location data providers that track foot traffic into and out of their stores — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ stores .
Many of these location data companies acquire their data through trackers placed in the code of unrelated apps , with customers being none the wiser that they ’ re there at all .
Cellphone providers have also been caught selling customer location data to seemingly any company that ’ s willing to pay for it .
Retailers may also use data brokers to market products based on whatever demographics or interests those brokers have assigned to you from whatever data they ’ ve collected about you .
Oracle ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than 150 companies that help businesses target their ads to people based on categories such as income level , homeownership , political affiliation , and hobbies .
For instance , a retailer can send a list of customers to a data broker and have it matched with its “ new parents ” audience segment , allowing the company to send diaper ads or coupons to customers who are very likely to need them .
Several years ago , Nordstrom got in trouble with customers when it revealed people were being tracked via @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phones ’ wifi signals as they walked through the company ’ s stores .
These services can collect the unique and unchangeable ID numbers from devices , allowing them to build a profile of the device ’ s owner over time and repeat visits .
Device manufacturers now make this kind of tracking more difficult by obscuring permanent device IDs , and Nordstrom ended its wifi location tracking a few days after mass outcry from customers who didn ’ t like the idea of being surveilled while getting nothing in return .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with customers , ” Jason Goldberg , chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis , told Recode .
“ Usually , when retailers would get caught doing that , there were negative ramifications .
Today , retailers are less into installing things to exclusively track you and more into installing things that provide some amenity to you — and in the process , also give them more visibility to how you ’ re shopping.
” Customers are opting into data collection that gives them something back There ’ s a reason why seemingly every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to use it as much as possible , or encourages you to create an account and log in whenever you browse its website .
This way , they can collect a ton of user data , usually tied to personally identifiable information that customers provide when creating accounts — names , email addresses , home addresses , credit card information — which can be reliably connected to a specific customer and tracked over time .
Apps can even track users ’ movement through stores .
Tiny Bluetooth beacons , which transmit signals to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , can detect devices through store apps to get a sense of where a shopper goes and how much time they spend looking at certain products or in certain sections .
“ Because you ’ re using their app in proximity of beacons , they can correlate the data that ’ s coming over the wire pretty easily to you , ” Sean O ’ Brien , founder of Yale ’ s Privacy Lab and principal researcher at ExpressVPN ’ s Digital Security Lab , told Recode .
“ So some retailers don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on third parties as I ’ d say they used to maybe five years ago.
” In these cases , however , customers must opt in to the tracking process by downloading and using the apps .
To encourage customers to use apps as much as possible — and create personally identifiable accounts on those apps — retailers offer discounts and services the customer wouldn ’ t otherwise get .
Macy ’ s and Target , for example , both spell out in their privacy policies that their mobile apps may use Bluetooth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or receive real-time offers ” or “ find nearby products for you , get you real-time deals , [ and ] auto-sort your shopping list.
” These perks also encourage customers to return to the stores or buy more to take advantage of those deals .
“ You can build customer loyalty , ” O ’ Brien said .
“ These are other tangential effects that are really helpful for businesses as well.
” This data isn ’ t just useful for stores targeting products to individual customers .
It also gives them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aggregate are using and interacting with their stores , which can then be used to predict customer behavior or supply chain issues and plan or adjust accordingly .
This has especially come in handy during the pandemic .
“ Companies that made investments to build out a data lake of information that they know not just about their customers , but about different product SKUs linked to the supply chain , linked to inventory planning — all those sorts of investments then support the ability to be more agile and resilient at a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to quickly anticipate changing demand for certain products , changing customer traffic patterns and shopping patterns , ” Christian Beckner , senior director of retail technology and cybersecurity at the National Retail Federation , told Recode .
Some retailers even use their data and customer relationships to lure in advertisers , who are increasingly turning away from third-party sources — for example , web browser cookies or data brokers — and leaning into first-party data , which stores have collected directly from customers .
Retailers that provide this service tell advertisers they can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ services on who sees their ads and whether they ’ re purchasing those wares .
“ Walmart has an initiative with over 1,000 employees called Walmart Media Group , Kroger has one , and Target has one called Roundel , ” Goldberg said .
“ They all are trying to become advertising networks .
And one of their core advantages over other advertising networks is they have first-party data that includes your purchase behaviors .
So the financial benefit to them of collecting that information is now much higher because they can monetize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ How the future of retail will continue to leave the smaller players behind While many retailers were already pursuing initiatives to build out their e-commerce offerings to stay competitive with online-only retailers , the pandemic has created an even greater demand for those services .
Retailers that can ship products directly to customers ’ homes or offer curbside pickup of purchased goods have a distinct advantage over retailers that don ’ t .
And retailers that allow customers to browse and buy products in their stores with as little contact as possible do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ online , pick up in store or curbside , or being able to do in-store returns for e-commerce transactions — all those types of things that companies have been working on prior to Covid built the foundation for being able to operate in this environment where people are reluctant to go into stores , ” Beckner said .
Augmented reality applications that allow customers to virtually try a store ’ s offerings have gone from gimmicky to necessary , as most people are no longer able to shop in person .
Macy ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ customers what Macy ’ s furniture looks like in their own living rooms ; Ulta ’ s lets customers virtually try on makeup ; and Kohl ’ s turned to Snapchat to give younger customers a way to try on clothes from home .
But retail experts aren ’ t sure how successful these efforts will be , and privacy experts aren ’ t thrilled with the personal information they collect .
“ I think this is something that ’ s more of a nice-to-have , ” Beckner said .
“ I don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is a real competitive driver for retail businesses.
” And then there are the human-free or human-reduced stores that companies like Amazon and Walmart are experimenting with .
The stores use a variety of surveillance technologies to keep track of products and customers , who use their apps to purchase goods or get more information about them while also minimizing their contact with other people .
Customers can feel safer when they shop , and retailers get more data about them .
But it ’ s also leaving behind the retailers who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ innovate .
“ Nike , Walmart , Amazon are all flagship examples of retailers that have redesigned their stores to be kind of mobile-first physical stores , ” Goldberg said .
“ The downside there is like the smaller retailers that should also be doing that are just in too much financial jeopardy to invest in it right now .
So even though they might recognize that would be a smart long-term play , they ’ re more worried about making their rent.
” The biggest stores have to worry about rent , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Home Depot have thrived during the pandemic , offering customers easy access to some of the most in-demand products — from food and toilet paper to 12-foot-tall skeletons — traditional department stores have continued their downward slide .
J.C. Penney , Lord & Taylor , Neiman Marcus , and Century 21 all declared bankruptcy during the pandemic .
A month before Covid-19 was officially declared a pandemic , Macy ’ s announced it would close 125 stores and lay off thousands of employees as part of a three-year “ Polaris ” strategy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ healthy parts of our business , ” including loyalty programs , digital growth , and rethinking the size and features of its physical stores ( less mall , more small ) .
So , what will the department store look like when this pandemic is over and it ’ s safe to browse indoors again ?
You can meet your friends at the in-store cafe — group selfies encouraged !
But be sure to tag the store ’ s Instagram account , which features fresh looks you can buy directly through your social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pay for your coffees ahead of time via the mobile app , both to avoid annoying lines and to get 10 percent off as long as you ’ re a member of the loyalty program — which , by the way , tracks your purchases .
You can also browse the store ’ s limited but rotating selection .
There are new exclusive items every week — subscribe to the newsletter so you don ’ t miss the latest .
If a shirt you saw on the website isn ’ t in stock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can “ try ” it on using the virtual mirror and have it sent to your house with same-day shipping , which is free for loyalty club members .
And if it doesn ’ t fit , that ’ s no problem — you can fill out a return form in the app and drop it off using curbside return .
Everything cashless , everything easy , and everything monitored .
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network .
All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists .

Once upon a time (February 2020), you could walk into a store, casually browse its wares, and try things on, making sure they fit and felt right before you decided to buy them. Maybe you joined a few friends for social interaction over coffee at the in-store cafe. You could even buy things in relative anonymity using cash.
Online shopping eschews this experience in favor of data-driven convenience. Physical stores were already losing ground before the pandemic drove customers away, and now they’ve had to accelerate their efforts to build out their online and contactless offerings before they’re put out of business for good. Curbside pickups, mobile apps to order and pay for products, even virtual changing rooms have become routine and are likely to continue long after the pandemic ends.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing for customers. Brick-and-mortar stores with expanded digital sides have a larger selection, provide personalized recommendations and deals, and give you the ease and safety of shopping without having to leave your living room. But taking shopping out of shops means customers can’t feel, smell, or taste products before they buy them, or ask a real human salesperson for advice or information. Some things can’t be reproduced inside a mobile app.
What happened to department stores? The fates of the American middle class and American department stores have always been intertwined.
Another major and meaningful downside is the continued loss of your privacy. Retailers love data, and their online arms can give them a lot of it about you and your shopping habits. The more a retailer knows about its customers, the more likely it is it will be able to sell them its product. This was true long before the internet existed, but the internet has given companies the ability to collect so much more information about their customers and how to advertise to them.
The changing retail landscape isn’t just about the end of flagging brick-and-mortar stores; it’s also about the growth of data-driven retail. Stores can collect and use customer data that inform every stage of the shopping process, and they’re getting better and better at it — which in turn means that customers are more likely to buy more things and give stores even more data. Anonymous shopping is fast becoming a thing of the past. The future of the department store — assuming it has one — is here, and it wants to know everything about you.
Data collection that gives customers nothing in return is going out of style
Retailers have many ways to acquire data about their customers, some of which is more obvious and mutually beneficial than others. They might purchase “insights” from location data providers that track foot traffic into and out of their stores — or into and out of their competitors’ stores. Many of these location data companies acquire their data through trackers placed in the code of unrelated apps, with customers being none the wiser that they’re there at all. Cellphone providers have also been caught selling customer location data to seemingly any company that’s willing to pay for it.
Retailers may also use data brokers to market products based on whatever demographics or interests those brokers have assigned to you from whatever data they’ve collected about you. Oracle’s Data Directory, for example, includes more than 150 companies that help businesses target their ads to people based on categories such as income level, homeownership, political affiliation, and hobbies. For instance, a retailer can send a list of customers to a data broker and have it matched with its “new parents” audience segment, allowing the company to send diaper ads or coupons to customers who are very likely to need them.
Several years ago, Nordstrom got in trouble with customers when it revealed people were being tracked via strategically placed sensors that picked up their phones’ wifi signals as they walked through the company’s stores. These services can collect the unique and unchangeable ID numbers from devices, allowing them to build a profile of the device’s owner over time and repeat visits. Device manufacturers now make this kind of tracking more difficult by obscuring permanent device IDs, and Nordstrom ended its wifi location tracking a few days after mass outcry from customers who didn’t like the idea of being surveilled while getting nothing in return.
“That was not a very popular amenity with customers,” Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis, told Recode. “Usually, when retailers would get caught doing that, there were negative ramifications. Today, retailers are less into installing things to exclusively track you and more into installing things that provide some amenity to you — and in the process, also give them more visibility to how you’re shopping.”
Customers are opting into data collection that gives them something back
There’s a reason why seemingly every brand has an app and wants you to use it as much as possible, or encourages you to create an account and log in whenever you browse its website. This way, they can collect a ton of user data, usually tied to personally identifiable information that customers provide when creating accounts — names, email addresses, home addresses, credit card information — which can be reliably connected to a specific customer and tracked over time.
Apps can even track users’ movement through stores. Tiny Bluetooth beacons, which transmit signals to any Bluetooth-enabled device within a certain proximity, can detect devices through store apps to get a sense of where a shopper goes and how much time they spend looking at certain products or in certain sections.
“Because you’re using their app in proximity of beacons, they can correlate the data that’s coming over the wire pretty easily to you,” Sean O’Brien, founder of Yale’s Privacy Lab and principal researcher at ExpressVPN’s Digital Security Lab, told Recode. “So some retailers don’t have to rely as much on third parties as I’d say they used to maybe five years ago.”
In these cases, however, customers must opt in to the tracking process by downloading and using the apps. To encourage customers to use apps as much as possible — and create personally identifiable accounts on those apps — retailers offer discounts and services the customer wouldn’t otherwise get. Macy’s and Target, for example, both spell out in their privacy policies that their mobile apps may use Bluetooth to help customers “find nearby products or receive real-time offers” or “find nearby products for you, get you real-time deals, [and] auto-sort your shopping list.” These perks also encourage customers to return to the stores or buy more to take advantage of those deals.
“You can build customer loyalty,” O’Brien said. “These are other tangential effects that are really helpful for businesses as well.”
This data isn’t just useful for stores targeting products to individual customers. It also gives them lots of information about how customers in aggregate are using and interacting with their stores, which can then be used to predict customer behavior or supply chain issues and plan or adjust accordingly. This has especially come in handy during the pandemic.
“Companies that made investments to build out a data lake of information that they know not just about their customers, but about different product SKUs linked to the supply chain, linked to inventory planning — all those sorts of investments then support the ability to be more agile and resilient at a time like this, when you need to quickly anticipate changing demand for certain products, changing customer traffic patterns and shopping patterns,” Christian Beckner, senior director of retail technology and cybersecurity at the National Retail Federation, told Recode.
Some retailers even use their data and customer relationships to lure in advertisers, who are increasingly turning away from third-party sources — for example, web browser cookies or data brokers — and leaning into first-party data, which stores have collected directly from customers. Retailers that provide this service tell advertisers they can provide better feedback than traditional digital ad services on who sees their ads and whether they’re purchasing those wares.
“Walmart has an initiative with over 1,000 employees called Walmart Media Group, Kroger has one, and Target has one called Roundel,” Goldberg said. “They all are trying to become advertising networks. And one of their core advantages over other advertising networks is they have first-party data that includes your purchase behaviors. So the financial benefit to them of collecting that information is now much higher because they can monetize it by selling it to advertisers.”
How the future of retail will continue to leave the smaller players behind
While many retailers were already pursuing initiatives to build out their e-commerce offerings to stay competitive with online-only retailers, the pandemic has created an even greater demand for those services. Retailers that can ship products directly to customers’ homes or offer curbside pickup of purchased goods have a distinct advantage over retailers that don’t. And retailers that allow customers to browse and buy products in their stores with as little contact as possible do, too.
“Things like buy online, pick up in store or curbside, or being able to do in-store returns for e-commerce transactions — all those types of things that companies have been working on prior to Covid built the foundation for being able to operate in this environment where people are reluctant to go into stores,” Beckner said.
Augmented reality applications that allow customers to virtually try a store’s offerings have gone from gimmicky to necessary, as most people are no longer able to shop in person. Macy’s app uses augmented reality to show customers what Macy’s furniture looks like in their own living rooms; Ulta’s lets customers virtually try on makeup; and Kohl’s turned to Snapchat to give younger customers a way to try on clothes from home. But retail experts aren’t sure how successful these efforts will be, and privacy experts aren’t thrilled with the personal information they collect.
“I think this is something that’s more of a nice-to-have,” Beckner said. “I don’t think it’s something that is a real competitive driver for retail businesses.”
And then there are the human-free or human-reduced stores that companies like Amazon and Walmart are experimenting with. The stores use a variety of surveillance technologies to keep track of products and customers, who use their apps to purchase goods or get more information about them while also minimizing their contact with other people. Customers can feel safer when they shop, and retailers get more data about them. But it’s also leaving behind the retailers who don’t have the resources to innovate.
“Nike, Walmart, Amazon are all flagship examples of retailers that have redesigned their stores to be kind of mobile-first physical stores,” Goldberg said. “The downside there is like the smaller retailers that should also be doing that are just in too much financial jeopardy to invest in it right now. So even though they might recognize that would be a smart long-term play, they’re more worried about making their rent.”
The biggest stores have to worry about rent, too. While Walmart, Target, and Home Depot have thrived during the pandemic, offering customers easy access to some of the most in-demand products — from food and toilet paper to 12-foot-tall skeletons — traditional department stores have continued their downward slide. J.C. Penney, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, and Century 21 all declared bankruptcy during the pandemic. A month before Covid-19 was officially declared a pandemic, Macy’s announced it would close 125 stores and lay off thousands of employees as part of a three-year “Polaris” strategy to “focus our resources on the healthy parts of our business,” including loyalty programs, digital growth, and rethinking the size and features of its physical stores (less mall, more small).
So, what will the department store look like when this pandemic is over and it’s safe to browse indoors again?
You can meet your friends at the in-store cafe — group selfies encouraged! But be sure to tag the store’s Instagram account, which features fresh looks you can buy directly through your social media account. Also, order and pay for your coffees ahead of time via the mobile app, both to avoid annoying lines and to get 10 percent off as long as you’re a member of the loyalty program — which, by the way, tracks your purchases.
You can also browse the store’s limited but rotating selection. There are new exclusive items every week — subscribe to the newsletter so you don’t miss the latest. If a shirt you saw on the website isn’t in stock, that’s okay! You can “try” it on using the virtual mirror and have it sent to your house with same-day shipping, which is free for loyalty club members. And if it doesn’t fit, that’s no problem — you can fill out a return form in the app and drop it off using curbside return.
Everything cashless, everything easy, and everything monitored.
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network. All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists.


vox--2020-12-04--The EU’s biggest oil producer has taken a huge step: It’s ending oil production by 2050

Denmark has just taken a significant step to lead the world on addressing climate change .
The country announced that it will phase out all oil and gas exploration contracts in the North Sea by 2050 .
It ’ s the first major oil-producing country to take such a big step .
Following a December 3 vote , the Danish parliament has issued a near-total ban on companies receiving new licenses to hunt for and extract oil .
The agreement will also cancel an eighth round of licensing that was set to occur .
Licenses that were issued before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We ’ re the European Union ’ s biggest oil producer and this decision will therefore resonate around the world , ” Danish climate minister Dan Jorgensen said on Thursday .
The move to end oil and gas contracts by 2050 is not going to be cheap as it ’ s estimated to cost Denmark $ 2.1 billion , but the country appears ready to foot the bill .
“ It ’ s a tough decision , it ’ s an expensive decision , but it ’ s the right decision , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Denmark has been extracting oil and gas from the North Sea since 1972 .
Tax revenue from oil and gas production has greatly benefited its economy , helping to build the Danish welfare state that takes care of its citizens across their lifetimes .
But ending oil and gas extraction and exploration , experts say , is the only way Denmark can meet the European Union ’ s climate pledge .
In October , the European Union voted to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent from 1990s levels by 2030 .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bloc ’ s pledge to the 2016 Paris Agreement , signaling Europe ’ s serious commitment to ending the climate emergency .
Denmark ’ s plans put the country in line with regional targets .
“ It ’ s taking a measure that will probably ensure that Denmark can meet this goal within the EU of reducing emissions to the point where they can pursue carbon neutrality by 2050 , ” Wil Burns , professor and co-director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy at American University , told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way they could effectuate that.
” The vote also came due to increased pressure at home .
Copenhagen , the Danish capital city , announced plans in late 2019 to become the first carbon-neutral capital in the world , achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2025 .
And as Reuters reported in June , the Danish Council on Climate Change , an independent body that advises Denmark ’ s government , called for an end to oil and gas activities to salvage the credibility of Denmark as a leader in the fight against climate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ further exploration in the North Sea could send a strong signal in international climate politics and may even encourage other countries to follow suit , ” the council said at the time .
The international environmental activist organization Greenpeace expressed their support for the decision on Twitter , heralding the move as a “ landmark decision.
” Ending oil production by 2050 has been welcomed — and criticized The move was also hailed by EU government officials including Finnish Minister of the Environment and Climate Krista Mikkonen , who applauded the decision via @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leaders on climate change .
Some other environmental groups were also happy .
“ This is a huge victory for the climate movement , ” Helene Hagel of Greenpeace Denmark said in a statement .
She added that Denmark has “ a moral obligation to end the search for new oil to send a clear signal that the world can and must act to meet the Paris Agreement and mitigate the climate crisis.
” Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was far less impressed , though , tweeting that the decision means Denmark will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 30 years .
Denmark ’ s decision shows that Paris and regional and national commitments to reducing emissions are starting to have some real impact — and that ’ s good .
As the top oil producer in the European Union , Denmark ’ s move is significant , but other oil producing nations must take a similar pledge if there ’ s any hope of achieving the Paris Agreement ’ s target of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius .
“ You ’ re going to need a lot of other countries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to step up , ” Burns told me .
“ Norway and the UK both feel pressured to remain leaders on pursuing the climate agenda.
” While the UK and Norway are both major oil-producing countries and located outside the EU , the desire to lead on climate change could push the nations to make stronger commitments .
On December 3 , the UK announced ambitious plans to cut emissions by 68 percent compared to 1990 levels by 2030 .
A report also calls on UK oil and gas firms to phase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make the transition to renewable energy sources .
Peer pressure could also help further pave the way .
Neighboring Norway , Burns noted , is a much larger producer of fossil fuels , so a commitment to end oil and gas extraction would be a much more dramatic step for that country to take .
“ If the US , this year or next year , starts to return as a positive force on climate , that along with measures like this one from Denmark might put pressure on other countries to do @ @ @ @ @ @

Denmark has just taken a significant step to lead the world on addressing climate change. The country announced that it will phase out all oil and gas exploration contracts in the North Sea by 2050. It’s the first major oil-producing country to take such a big step.
Following a December 3 vote, the Danish Parliament has issued a near-total ban on companies receiving new licenses to hunt for and extract oil. The agreement will also cancel an eighth round of licensing that was set to occur. Licenses that were issued before the vote will be honored until 2050.
“We’re the European Union’s biggest oil producer and this decision will therefore resonate around the world,” Danish Minister of Climate and Energy and Public Utilities Dan Jorgensen said on Thursday.
The move to end oil and gas contracts by 2050 is not going to be cheap; it’s estimated to cost Denmark $2.1 billion, but the country appears ready to foot the bill. “It’s a tough decision, it’s an expensive decision, but it’s the right decision,” Jorgensen told the Washington Post.
Denmark has been extracting oil and gas from the North Sea since 1972. Tax revenue from oil and gas production has greatly benefited its economy, helping to build the Danish welfare state that takes care of its citizens across their lifetimes.
But ending oil and gas extraction and exploration, experts say, is the only way Denmark can meet the European Union’s climate pledge. In October, the European Union voted to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent from 1990s levels by 2030.
The decision, which passed overwhelmingly, increased the bloc’s pledge to the 2016 Paris Agreement, signaling Europe’s serious commitment to ending the climate emergency.
Denmark’s plans put the country in line with regional targets.
“It’s taking a measure that will probably ensure that Denmark can meet this goal within the EU of reducing emissions to the point where they can pursue carbon neutrality by 2050,” Wil Burns, professor and co-director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University, told me. “And this is the only way they could effectuate that.”
The vote also came due to increased pressure at home. Copenhagen, the Danish capital, announced plans in late 2019 to become the first carbon-neutral capital in the world, achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2025.
And as Reuters reported in June, the Danish Council on Climate Change, an independent body that advises Denmark’s government, called for an end to oil and gas activities to salvage the credibility of Denmark as a leader in the fight against climate change.
“A Danish halt for further exploration in the North Sea could send a strong signal in international climate politics and may even encourage other countries to follow suit,” the council said at the time.
The international environmental activist organization Greenpeace expressed support for the decision on Twitter, heralding the move as a “landmark decision.”
Historic WIN for climate & people power! In landmark decision, oil producer Denmark ends future licensing rounds for oil and gas exploration permits in the North Sea and sets existing production to expire no later than 2050. Now, more countries need to end oil! pic.twitter.com/NyUg4CtsCb — Greenpeace (@Greenpeace) December 4, 2020
Ending oil production by 2050 has been welcomed — and criticized
The move was also hailed by EU government officials including Finnish Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Krista Mikkonen, who applauded the decision via Twitter, saying that the world needs more leaders on climate change.
“This is a huge victory for the climate movement,” Helene Hagel of Greenpeace Denmark said in a statement. She added that Denmark has “a moral obligation to end the search for new oil to send a clear signal that the world can and must act to meet the Paris Agreement and mitigate the climate crisis.”
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was far less impressed, though, tweeting that the decision means Denmark will continue extracting oil and gas for another 30 years.
The real news here is that Denmark will apparently go on extracting fossil fuels for another 3 decades.
To us children, this is not the "good news" that some people seem to think.
We're in a climate emergency. Act accordingly.https://t.co/3ywKQNQXA0 — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) December 4, 2020
Denmark’s decision shows that the Paris Agreement and regional and national commitments to reducing emissions are starting to have some real impact — and that’s good.
As the top oil producer in the European Union, Denmark’s move is significant, but other oil-producing nations must take a similar pledge if there’s any hope of achieving the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
“You’re going to need a lot of other countries, especially major oil and gas producers, to step up,” Burns told me. “Norway and the UK both feel pressured to remain leaders on pursuing the climate agenda.”
While the UK and Norway are both major oil-producing countries and located outside the EU, the desire to lead on climate change could push the nations to make stronger commitments.
On December 3, the UK announced ambitious plans to cut emissions by 68 percent compared to 1990 levels by 2030. A report also calls on UK oil and gas firms to phase out production in the North Sea and make the transition to renewable energy sources. Peer pressure could also help further pave the way.
Neighboring Norway, Burns noted, is a much larger producer of fossil fuels, so a commitment to end oil and gas extraction would be a much more dramatic step for that country to take.
“If the US, this year or next year, starts to return as a positive force on climate, that along with measures like this one from Denmark might put pressure on other countries to do so,” Burns said.


vox--2020-12-04--The controversy behind a star Google AI researcher’s departure

Google ’ s workplace culture is yet again embroiled in controversy .
AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru — a well-respected pioneer in her field and one of the few Black women leaders in the industry — said earlier this week that Google fired her after blocking the publication of her research around bias in AI systems .
Days before Gebru ’ s departure , she sent a scathing internal memo to her colleagues detailing how higher-ups at Google tried to squash her research .
She also criticized her department for what she described as a continued lack of diversity among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internal email , which was published by Platformer , Gebru said the company was “ silencing in the most fundamental way possible ” and claimed that “ your life gets worse when you start advocating for underrepresented people ” at Google .
After Gebru ’ s departure , Google ’ s head of AI research Jeff Dean sent a note to Gebru ’ s department on Thursday morning saying that , after internal review , her research paper did not meet the company ’ s standards for publishing .
According to Gebru , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ critical note to her coworkers was “ inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager.
” A representative for Google declined to comment .
Gebru did not respond to a request for comment .
Gebru ’ s allegation of being pushed out of the powerful tech company under questionable circumstances is causing a stir in the tech and academic communities , with many prominent researchers , civil rights leaders , and Gebru ’ s Google AI colleagues speaking out publicly on Twitter in her defense .
A petition to support her has already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ employees and over 1,000 academics , nonprofit leaders , and industry peers .
Her departure is significant because it hits on broader tensions around racial diversity in Silicon Valley as well as whether or not academics have enough freedom to publish research , even if it ’ s controversial , while working at major companies that control the development of powerful technologies and have their own corporate interests to consider .
People are still trying to unravel exactly what led to Gebru ’ s departure from Google .
What we know is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ planning to present a research paper at a forthcoming academic conference about unintended consequences in natural language processing systems , which are the tools used in the field of computing to understand and automate the creation of written words and audio .
Gebru and her colleagues ’ research , according to the New York Times , “ pinpointed flaws in a new breed of language technology , including a system built by Google that underpins the company ’ s search engine.
” It also reportedly discussed the environmental consequences of large-scale computing systems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As part of Google ’ s process , Gebru submitted the paper to Google for internal review before it was published more broadly .
Google determined that the paper was not up to its standards because it “ ignored too much relevant research , ” according to the memo Dean sent on Thursday .
Dean also said in his memo that Google rejected Gebru ’ s paper for publication because she submitted it one day before its deadline for publication instead of the required two weeks .
Gebru asked for further discussion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to the Times .
If Google couldn ’ t address her concerns , Gebru said she would resign from the company .
Google told Gebru it couldn ’ t meet her conditions and the company was accepting her resignation immediately .
It ’ s a standard process for a company like Google to review the research of its employees before it ’ s published outside it .
But former colleagues and outside industry researchers defending Gebru questioned whether or not Google was arbitrarily enforcing its rules more strictly in this scenario .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ who has had books written about her , who is quoted and cited on a daily basis , would be let go because a paper wasn ’ t reviewed properly , ” said Rumman Chowdhury , a data scientist who is the former head of Responsible AI at Accenture Applied Intelligence and has now launched her own company called Parity .
Chowdhury has no affiliation with Google .
The conflict and Gebru ’ s firing/resignation reflect a growing tension between researchers studying the ethics of AI and the major tech companies that employ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ example of deep , ongoing issues dividing parts of Google ’ s workforce .
On Wednesday , the National Labor Relations Board ( NLRB ) issued a complaint that said Google had spied on its workers and likely violated labor laws when it fired two employee activists last year .
After several years of turmoil in Google ’ s workforce over issues ranging from Google ’ s controversial plans to work with the US military to sexual harassment of its employees , the past several months had been relatively quiet .
The company @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from antitrust legal scrutiny and Republican lawmakers ’ unproven accusations that Google ’ s products display an anti-conservative bias .
But Gebru ’ s case and the recent NLRB complaint show the company is still fighting internal battles .
“ What Timnit did was present some hard but important evaluations of how the company ’ s efforts are going with diversity and inclusion initiatives and how to course-correct on that , ” said Laurence Berland , a former Google engineer who was fired after organizing his colleagues around worker issues and one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NLRB .
“ It was passionate , but it wasn ’ t just non-constructive , ” he said .
In the relatively new and developing field of ethical AI , Gebru is not only a foundational researcher but a role model to many young academics .
She ’ s also a leader of key groups like Black in AI , which are fostering more diversity in the largely white , male-dominated field of AI in the US .
“ Timnit is a pioneer .
She is one of the founders of responsible and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Computer scientists and engineers enter the field because of her.
” In 2018 , Gebru and another researcher , Joy Buolamwini , published groundbreaking research showing facial recognition software identified darker-skinned people and women incorrectly at far higher rates than lighter-skinned people and men .
Her work has contributed to a broader reckoning in the tech industry about the unintended consequences of AI that is trained on data sets that can marginalize minorities and women , reinforcing existing societal inequalities .
Outside of Google , academics in the field of AI @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could scare other researchers from publishing important research that may step on the toes of their employers .
“ It ’ s not clear to researchers how they ’ re going to continue doing this work in the industry , ” said UC Berkeley computer science professor Moritz Hardt , who specializes in machine learning and has studied fairness in AI .
“ It ’ s a chilling moment , I would say .
”

Google’s workplace culture is yet again embroiled in controversy.
AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru — a well-respected pioneer in her field and one of the few Black women leaders in the industry — said on December 2 that Google fired her after blocking the publication of her research around bias in AI systems. Days before Gebru’s departure, she sent a scathing internal memo to her colleagues detailing how higher-ups at Google tried to quash her research. She also criticized her department for what she described as a continued lack of diversity among its staff.
In her widely read internal email, which was published by Platformer, Gebru said the company was “silencing in the most fundamental way possible” and claimed that “your life gets worse when you start advocating for underrepresented people” at Google.
After Gebru’s departure, Google’s head of AI research Jeff Dean sent a note to Gebru’s department on December 3 saying that, after internal review, her research paper did not meet the company’s standards for publishing. According to Gebru, the company also told her that her critical note to her coworkers was “inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager.”
On December 9, a week after Gebru tweeted that she was fired, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a company-wide email, published by Axios, acknowledging the controversy surrounding Gebru’s exit, saying that “it seeded doubts and led some in our community to question their place at Google.”
“We need to accept responsibility for the fact that a prominent Black, female leader with immense talent left Google unhappily,” Pichai added, writing that the company would investigate the circumstances behind Gebru’s departure.
Pichai did not apologize directly to Gebru in the memo or confirm that she had been fired, as Gebru claimed.
After Pichai’s note went out, Gebru tweeted that she saw “no plans for accountability” in his memo. “I see this as ‘I’m sorry for how it played out but I’m not sorry for what we did to her [Gebru] yet,” she wrote.
A representative for Google declined to comment. Gebru did not respond to a request for comment.
Gebru’s allegation of being pushed out of the powerful tech company under questionable circumstances is causing a stir in the tech and academic communities, with many prominent researchers, civil rights leaders, and Gebru’s Google AI colleagues speaking out publicly on Twitter in her defense. A petition to support her had by December 5 received signatures from more than 1,500 Google employees and over 2,000 academics, nonprofit leaders, and industry peers.
Her departure is significant because it hits on broader tensions around racial diversity in Silicon Valley as well as whether or not academics have enough freedom to publish research, even if it’s controversial, while working at major companies that control the development of powerful technologies and have their own corporate interests to consider.
Do you work at Google and want to talk? Please email Shirin Ghaffary at shirin.ghaffary@protonmail.com to reach her confidentially. Signal number available upon request.
What led to Gebru’s departure
People are still trying to unravel exactly what led to Gebru’s departure from Google.
What we know is that Gebru and several of her colleagues were planning to present a research paper at a forthcoming academic conference about unintended consequences in natural language processing systems, which are the tools used in the field of computing to understand and automate the creation of written words and audio. Gebru and her colleagues’ research, according to the New York Times, “pinpointed flaws in a new breed of language technology, including a system built by Google that underpins the company’s search engine.” It also reportedly discussed the environmental consequences of large-scale computing systems used to power natural language processing programs.
As part of Google’s process, Gebru submitted the paper to Google for internal review before it was published more broadly. Google determined that the paper was not up to its standards because it “ignored too much relevant research,” according to the memo Dean sent on Thursday.
Dean also said in his memo that Google rejected Gebru’s paper for publication because she submitted it one day before its deadline for publication instead of the required two weeks.
Gebru asked for further discussion with Google before retracting the paper, according to the Times. If Google couldn’t address her concerns, Gebru said she would resign from the company.
Google told Gebru it couldn’t meet her conditions and the company was accepting her resignation immediately.
It’s a standard process for a company like Google to review the research of its employees before it’s published outside it. But former colleagues and outside industry researchers defending Gebru questioned whether or not Google was arbitrarily enforcing its rules more strictly in this scenario.
“It just seems odd that someone who has had books written about her, who is quoted and cited on a daily basis, would be let go because a paper wasn’t reviewed properly,” said Rumman Chowdhury, a data scientist who is the former head of responsible AI at Accenture Applied Intelligence and has now launched her own company called Parity. Chowdhury has no affiliation with Google.
The conflict and Gebru’s departure reflect a growing tension between researchers studying the ethics of AI and the major tech companies that employ them.
It’s also another example of deep, ongoing issues dividing parts of Google’s workforce. On December 2, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint that said Google had spied on its workers and likely violated labor laws when it fired two employee activists last year.
After several years of turmoil in Google’s workforce over issues ranging from Google’s controversial plans to work with the US military to sexual harassment of its employees, the past several months had been relatively quiet. The company’s biggest public pressure came instead from antitrust legal scrutiny and Republican lawmakers’ unproven accusations that Google’s products display an anti-conservative bias. But Gebru’s case and the recent NLRB complaint show the company is still fighting internal battles.
“What Timnit did was present some hard but important evaluations of how the company’s efforts are going with diversity and inclusion initiatives and how to course-correct on that,” said Laurence Berland, a former Google engineer who was fired after organizing his colleagues around worker issues and is one of the employees contesting his dismissal with the NLRB. “It was passionate, but it wasn’t just non-constructive,” he said.
Why Gebru’s departure matters
In the relatively new and developing field of ethical AI, Gebru is not only a foundational researcher but a role model to many young academics. She’s also a leader of key groups like Black in AI, which are fostering more diversity in the largely white, male-dominated field of AI in the US.
While Google doesn’t break out its demographics specifically for its artificial intelligence research department, it does annually share its diversity numbers. Only 24.7 percent of its technical workforce are women, and just 2.4 percent are Black, according to its 2020 Diversity and Inclusion report.
“Timnit is a pioneer. She is one of the founders of responsible and ethical artificial intelligence,” said Chowdhury. “Computer scientists and engineers enter the field because of her.”
In 2018, Gebru and another researcher, Joy Buolamwini, published groundbreaking research showing facial recognition software identified darker-skinned people and women incorrectly at far higher rates than lighter-skinned people and men.
Her work has contributed to a broader reckoning in the tech industry about the unintended consequences of AI that is trained on data sets that can marginalize minorities and women, reinforcing existing societal inequalities.
Outside of Google, academics in the field of AI are concerned that Gebru’s firing could scare other researchers from publishing important research that may step on the toes of their employers.
“It’s not clear to researchers how they’re going to continue doing this work in the industry,” said UC Berkeley computer science professor Moritz Hardt, who specializes in machine learning and has studied fairness in AI. “It’s a chilling moment, I would say.”
Update, December 9, 3:30 pm PT: This article has been updated to include Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s memo to employees about Gebru’s departure.


vox--2020-12-04--Why every state should adopt a mask mandate, in 4 charts

Deborah Birx , the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force , toured North Dakota this fall , as the state was overwhelmed by one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in the country .
While she commended the state ’ s testing efforts , she was distraught by the noticeable lack of face masks in public spaces .
“ This is the least use of masks that we have seen in retail establishments of any place we have been , ” she said at an October 26 press conference .
North Dakota , which at the time didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mask-wearing rate in the country in October , according to survey data .
North Dakota is not the only state that lagged in a mask policy in the throes of a major outbreak , however : Eight of the top 10 states that saw the highest new cases per capita in October did not have a widespread mask mandate , as the chart below shows .
( Several of these Great Plains and Midwestern states were spared significant outbreaks of the virus until the fall . )
But the dramatic surge of Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has forced some states to change course .
On November 8 , Utah implemented a mask mandate , as new daily Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the state and across the country .
Several other states have implemented or tightened mandates since then , including Iowa and North Dakota .
Thirty-seven states now have mandates , according to the AARP .
And on December 4 , the CDC issued a new recommendation that people wear masks indoors at all times , unless they are at home .
Over the course of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a massive and uncontrolled mask experiment : Some jurisdictions implemented and enforced mask mandates ; others rejected them as public health guidance became politicized .
President Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned and even scorned the use of masks , and several Republican governors have followed his lead .
President-elect Joe Biden , meanwhile , has called for a national mask mandate and for Americans to wear masks for the “ first 100 days ” he is in office , as vaccines roll out .
But the different state-level approaches mean researchers can now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never would have received approval to conduct .
New research from Kansas and Tennessee suggests that not only do mask mandates prevent Covid-19 spread , they may also blunt the severity of illness and reduce the number of serious cases that require hospitalization .
Other findings support the argument more and more public health experts are making : that masks remain among our cheapest most effective tools to control the pandemic — if worn consistently .
“ If you ’ re not in the ICU , the only tools at our disposal that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health measures , like social distancing , hand-washing , and masks , ” says Vin Gupta , a critical care pulmonologist and affiliate assistant professor for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington .
“ We ’ re bearing the brunt of those things being implemented poorly.
” “ You ’ re less likely to get Covid-19 if you ’ re wearing a mask , ” says Donna Ginther , an economist and director of the Institute for Policy and Social Research at the University of Kansas .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ sick while wearing a mask , you ’ re less likely to get deathly ill. ” Let ’ s walk through some of the latest research on mask mandates and what it means as we head into one of the most perilous seasons in the pandemic so far .
New evidence from Kansas and Tennessee that mask mandates control the spread of Covid-19 One intriguing piece of evidence of the effect of mask mandates on controlling the spread of the virus comes from Kansas .
In July , Laura Kelly , the Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ requiring everyone in public places to wear a mask where 6 feet of social distancing couldn ’ t be maintained .
It prompted an immediate outcry from conservatives .
Because of a state law passed in June that allowed counties to supersede the governor ’ s emergency powers , 81 counties out of 105 opted out of the mask mandate altogether , and only 21 counties decided to enforce it .
Two researchers from the University of Kansas analyzed what happened next .
Ginther , the economist working on this analysis , found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , new cases stayed roughly steady .
But in the counties without mandates , even after controlling for how often people left their homes , they doubled .
“ We were stunned by the strength of the effect , ” she says .
The public health officer of Johnson , the state ’ s largest county , was so impressed he asked Ginther to share her work with the Board of County Commissioners , even though it ’ s not yet peer-reviewed or even written up into a paper .
She is currently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says it wasn ’ t until 12 weeks after the mandates took effect that the growth in cases began to slow .
But she thinks her results are likely conservative .
“ A 50 percent reduction in cases is likely to be a lower-bound on the true effect of wearing a mask , ” she says .
“ If you had 100 percent compliance , I would expect to see an even larger effect.
” Other researchers have made related findings .
A nonprofit group called Prevent Epidemics recently published a report showing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases declined in Alabama , Oklahoma , South Carolina , and Texas .
The CDC found that in Arizona , after a mask mandate was put in place , Covid-19 cases dropped 75 percent .
Conversely , cases spiked 151 percent when stay-at-home orders were lifted , demonstrating that behavior has a significant impact on viral transmission .
In addition to slowing the spread of the virus , new evidence from Tennessee shows that mask mandates could reduce the severity of the virus .
A paper by researchers at Vanderbilt found that at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Covid-19 patients came from counties with mask requirements , coronavirus hospitalization rates are the same as they were in July .
In hospitals where fewer than 25 percent of patients come from places with a mask mandate , hospitalizations are 200 percent higher .
What ’ s more , the researchers wrote , hospitals in areas with mask requirements and other mitigation strategies “ are in a much better position to serve the entire spectrum of community health needs , not just Covid-19 patients.
” Even if they aren ’ t always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an effective tool in encouraging behavior change .
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation ( IHME ) at the University of Washington found in August that mask use increased 8 percentage points after mask mandates , and increased 15 points if those mandates were enforced .
Only around 65 percent of Americans currently regularly wear masks , according to IHME .
But in Singapore , for instance , around 95 percent of people wear masks , and they have one of the world ’ s lowest coronavirus death rates .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing much better , ” says Ali Mokdad , the chief strategy officer of public health at the University of Washington .
Thirty-three states and Washington , DC , implemented statewide mask mandates between April and August .
During the same period , an increasing number of Americans began to wear masks regularly , according to a weekly survey started in mid-April by the data intelligence company Premise .
There is one caveat of all the analyses mentioned above : They simply observe behavior , which means that they can demonstrate associations — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are put in place — but not causation .
The gold standard to prove that would be a randomized controlled trial .
But that ’ s a hard study to design in a pandemic because of ethical concerns .
Even without randomized trials , Rebekah Gee , a public health policy expert and secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health , says the body of evidence “ confirms what public health experts have known since early on in this pandemic , which is that masks work.
” Masks could save 130,000 lives by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to wear them consistently In fact , a study published October 23 in Nature Medicine by IHME ’ s forecasting team modeled current public health interventions — projecting case numbers based on current behavior — and found that universal mask use could save as many as 130,000 lives by the end of February 2021 .
Mokdad says that ’ s why it ’ s essential to have clear , consistent recommendations to wear masks .
He adds , “ We never debate seatbelts .
Is it okay if only 80 percent of people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” But while he would prefer that 100 percent of people wear masks , Mokdad says at this point , any incremental increase in mask use “ for me is a celebration.
” Unfortunately , in many parts of the US , mask use is actually decreasing .
In Florida , for example , which grappled with a serious surge in cases this summer , Mokdad says 70 percent of people were wearing masks in August .
Now , only 65 percent are .
“ Wearing masks has been a response to fear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Mokdad says .
Vox analyzed the relationship between the frequency of wearing masks from the Premise survey data and the Covid-19 cases in states from April to October .
As the charts below show , in states with mandates where cases surged in the spring , more people now wear masks .
These states — where more people consistently wear masks — are now less likely to see another huge surge in cases .
Even though mask use has risen in many states , the nation as a whole is on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases , hospitalizations , and deaths all on the rise .
Mokdad says he ’ s very concerned about the holidays .
“ As we go be with our loved ones — our grandparents , our kids — do you want to go sit at a table and risk the people you care about most , or do you want to wear a mask ?
” IHME models predict that if some US states increased their mask use from now on , they could reduce the number of future Covid-19 deaths by about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this right are high — not just for the holidays , but for the rest of the pandemic , however long that might be .
Anthony Fauci , the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , recently echoed Biden ’ s call for a national mask mandate .
“ If you don ’ t want to shut down , at least do the fundamental , basic things , ” Fauci told the editor-in-chief of JAMA , “ the flagship of which is wearing a mask.
” Rather than thinking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ takes away a freedom , as anti-mask protestors have claimed , Leana Wen , a physician and the former Health Commissioner for the City of Baltimore , says , “ Mask-wearing allows you to do things.
” If everyone wears a mask , it will keep transmission low , allowing businesses and schools to stay open .
“ If you want a more normal life , we need to adjust our behavior , as opposed to locking ourselves away , ” Ginther says .
“ Masks rise to the top as an approach @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a more open economy but not get everyone sick.
” Lois Parshley is a freelance investigative journalist .
Follow her Covid-19 reporting on Twitter @ loisparshley .
Editor ’ s note , November 7 : Due to a data error , a previous version of the chart of increases in Covid-19 cases in October did not include Hawaii and miscategorized Louisiana as not having a mandate .
In fact , Louisiana implemented a mandate in August .
The chart has been updated to reflect these changes .

Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, toured North Dakota this fall, as the state was overwhelmed by one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in the country. While she commended the state’s testing efforts, she was distraught by the noticeable lack of face masks in public spaces. “This is the least use of masks that we have seen in retail establishments of any place we have been,” she said at an October 26 press conference.
North Dakota, which at the time didn’t require masks, had the lowest mask-wearing rate in the country in October, according to survey data.
North Dakota is not the only state that lagged in a mask policy in the throes of a major outbreak, however: Eight of the top 10 states that saw the highest new cases per capita in October did not have a widespread mask mandate, as the chart below shows. (Several of these Great Plains and Midwestern states were spared significant outbreaks of the virus until the fall.)
But the dramatic surge of Covid-19 across the country this fall and winter has forced some states to change course. On November 8, Utah implemented a mask mandate, as new daily Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the state and across the country. Several other states have implemented or tightened mandates since then, including Iowa and North Dakota. Thirty-seven states now have mandates, according to the AARP.
And on December 4, the CDC issued a new recommendation that people wear masks indoors at all times, unless they are at home.
Over the course of the pandemic, America has been engaged in a massive and uncontrolled mask experiment: Some jurisdictions implemented and enforced mask mandates; others rejected them as public health guidance became politicized. President Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned and even scorned the use of masks, and several Republican governors have followed his lead. President-elect Joe Biden, meanwhile, has called for a national mask mandate and for Americans to wear masks for the “first 100 days” he is in office, as vaccines roll out.
But the different state-level approaches mean researchers can now parse the results of a trial they never would have received approval to conduct. New research from Kansas and Tennessee suggests that not only do mask mandates prevent Covid-19 spread, they may also blunt the severity of illness and reduce the number of serious cases that require hospitalization. Other findings support the argument more and more public health experts are making: that masks remain among our cheapest most effective tools to control the pandemic — if worn consistently.
“If you’re not in the ICU, the only tools at our disposal that we know work are the tried-and-true public health measures, like social distancing, hand-washing, and masks,” says Vin Gupta, a critical care pulmonologist and affiliate assistant professor for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. “We’re bearing the brunt of those things being implemented poorly.”
“You’re less likely to get Covid-19 if you’re wearing a mask,” says Donna Ginther, an economist and director of the Institute for Policy and Social Research at the University of Kansas. And “even if you do get sick while wearing a mask, you’re less likely to get deathly ill.”
Let’s walk through some of the latest research on mask mandates and what it means as we head into one of the most perilous seasons in the pandemic so far.
New evidence from Kansas and Tennessee that mask mandates control the spread of Covid-19
One intriguing piece of evidence of the effect of mask mandates on controlling the spread of the virus comes from Kansas. In July, Laura Kelly, the Democratic governor of Kansas, issued a mandate requiring everyone in public places to wear a mask where 6 feet of social distancing couldn’t be maintained. It prompted an immediate outcry from conservatives. Because of a state law passed in June that allowed counties to supersede the governor’s emergency powers, 81 counties out of 105 opted out of the mask mandate altogether, and only 21 counties decided to enforce it.
Two researchers from the University of Kansas analyzed what happened next.
Ginther, the economist working on this analysis, found that in the counties that enforced mask-wearing, new cases stayed roughly steady. But in the counties without mandates, even after controlling for how often people left their homes, they doubled. “We were stunned by the strength of the effect,” she says.
The public health officer of Johnson, the state’s largest county, was so impressed he asked Ginther to share her work with the Board of County Commissioners, even though it’s not yet peer-reviewed or even written up into a paper. She is currently working on publishing the results.
Ginther says it wasn’t until 12 weeks after the mandates took effect that the growth in cases began to slow. But she thinks her results are likely conservative. “A 50 percent reduction in cases is likely to be a lower-bound on the true effect of wearing a mask,” she says. “If you had 100 percent compliance, I would expect to see an even larger effect.”
Other researchers have made related findings. A nonprofit group called Prevent Epidemics recently published a report showing that, following mask mandates, coronavirus cases declined in Alabama, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. The CDC found that in Arizona, after a mask mandate was put in place, Covid-19 cases dropped 75 percent. Conversely, cases spiked 151 percent when stay-at-home orders were lifted, demonstrating that behavior has a significant impact on viral transmission.
In addition to slowing the spread of the virus, new evidence from Tennessee shows that mask mandates could reduce the severity of the virus. A paper by researchers at Vanderbilt found that at Tennessee hospitals where at least 75 percent of Covid-19 patients came from counties with mask requirements, coronavirus hospitalization rates are the same as they were in July. In hospitals where fewer than 25 percent of patients come from places with a mask mandate, hospitalizations are 200 percent higher. What’s more, the researchers wrote, hospitals in areas with mask requirements and other mitigation strategies “are in a much better position to serve the entire spectrum of community health needs, not just Covid-19 patients.”
Mask mandates lead to more people wearing masks
Even if they aren’t always followed, mask mandates appear to be an effective tool in encouraging behavior change. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington found in August that mask use increased 8 percentage points after mask mandates, and increased 15 points if those mandates were enforced.
Only around 65 percent of Americans currently regularly wear masks, according to IHME. But in Singapore, for instance, around 95 percent of people wear masks, and they have one of the world’s lowest coronavirus death rates. “We know that countries that wear masks are doing much better,” says Ali Mokdad, the chief strategy officer of public health at the University of Washington.
Thirty-three states and Washington, DC, implemented statewide mask mandates between April and August. During the same period, an increasing number of Americans began to wear masks regularly, according to a weekly survey started in mid-April by the data intelligence company Premise.
There is one caveat of all the analyses mentioned above: They simply observe behavior, which means that they can demonstrate associations — like case counts falling after mask mandates are put in place — but not causation. The gold standard to prove that would be a randomized controlled trial. But that’s a hard study to design in a pandemic because of ethical concerns.
Even without randomized trials, Rebekah Gee, a public health policy expert and secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health, says the body of evidence “confirms what public health experts have known since early on in this pandemic, which is that masks work.”
Masks could save 130,000 lives by February, but more Americans would have to wear them consistently
In fact, a study published October 23 in Nature Medicine by IHME’s forecasting team modeled current public health interventions — projecting case numbers based on current behavior — and found that universal mask use could save as many as 130,000 lives by the end of February 2021.
Mokdad says that’s why it’s essential to have clear, consistent recommendations to wear masks. He adds, “We never debate seatbelts. Is it okay if only 80 percent of people wear them? We say everybody should.” But while he would prefer that 100 percent of people wear masks, Mokdad says at this point, any incremental increase in mask use “for me is a celebration.”
Unfortunately, in many parts of the US, mask use is actually decreasing. In Florida, for example, which grappled with a serious surge in cases this summer, Mokdad says 70 percent of people were wearing masks in August. Now, only 65 percent are. “Wearing masks has been a response to fear rather than a good, persistent behavior,” Mokdad says.
Vox analyzed the relationship between the frequency of wearing masks from the Premise survey data and the Covid-19 cases in states from April to October. As the charts below show, in states with mandates where cases surged in the spring, more people now wear masks. These states — where more people consistently wear masks — are now less likely to see another huge surge in cases.
Even though mask use has risen in many states, the nation as a whole is on a troubling trajectory, with new daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths all on the rise. Mokdad says he’s very concerned about the holidays. “As we go be with our loved ones — our grandparents, our kids — do you want to go sit at a table and risk the people you care about most, or do you want to wear a mask?” IHME models predict that if some US states increased their mask use from now on, they could reduce the number of future Covid-19 deaths by about 50 percent.
The stakes for getting this right are high — not just for the holidays, but for the rest of the pandemic, however long that might be.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently echoed Biden’s call for a national mask mandate. “If you don’t want to shut down, at least do the fundamental, basic things,” Fauci told the editor-in-chief of JAMA, “the flagship of which is wearing a mask.”
Rather than thinking about a mask mandate as something that takes away a freedom, as anti-mask protestors have claimed, Leana Wen, a physician and the former Health Commissioner for the City of Baltimore, says, “Mask-wearing allows you to do things.” If everyone wears a mask, it will keep transmission low, allowing businesses and schools to stay open.
“If you want a more normal life, we need to adjust our behavior, as opposed to locking ourselves away,” Ginther says. “Masks rise to the top as an approach we can take as a society to have a more open economy but not get everyone sick.”
Lois Parshley is a freelance investigative journalist. Follow her Covid-19 reporting on Twitter @loisparshley.
Editor’s note, November 7: Due to a data error, a previous version of the chart of increases in Covid-19 cases in October did not include Hawaii and miscategorized Louisiana as not having a mandate. In fact, Louisiana implemented a mandate in August. The chart has been updated to reflect these changes.


vox--2020-12-04--The exponential rise in Covid-19 hospitalizations, in one chart

Far more Americans are currently hospitalized with Covid-19 than at any other point in the pandemic , a grim indicator that the third big wave of cases in the US is the worst wave to date by a lot .
On December 2 , 100,226 people across the United States were in the hospital after testing positive for the novel coronavirus , according to data reported by the Covid Tracking Project .
That ’ s significantly higher than the last two peaks recorded on April 15 and July 23 , when the New York City and the Southeast and Southwest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US outbreak .
( As the Covid Tracking Project notes , the national and state hospital data have been erratic and incomplete , and reported totals may continue to shift . )
What ’ s clear from the data is that Covid-19 migrated across the country to new regions this fall .
In the spring , hospitalizations were overwhelmingly concentrated in the Northeast .
In the summer , more than half of hospitalized Covid-19 patients were in the South and West : states like Arizona , California , Florida , Georgia , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ battling an active outbreak , and many of them are severe .
“ There ’ s so many places , with so many people , that the numbers are just drastically higher , ” said Daniel McQuillen , an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts and a senior physician in the division of infectious diseases at Beth Israel Lahey Health , at a November Infectious Diseases Society of America briefing .
“ There are no more hot spots , ” said Murtaza Akhter , an emergency medicine physician with Valleywise Health Medical Center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a hot spot.
” As of December 3 , California had the highest number of hospitalizations of any state ( 9,702 ) , and Texas was in second place with 9,151 people in the hospital ; Midwestern states like Michigan , Illinois , and Ohio have also seen record spikes in cases in recent weeks and now have more than 4,000 people hospitalized each .
“ The hospitalization number is the best indicator of where we are , ” Eric Topol , a professor of molecular medicine and director of the Scripps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ summer .
That ’ s because it ’ s a better measurement of the severity of the pandemic than Covid-19 testing , which only finds a fraction of cases and includes more mild cases .
“ We ’ re going to go to new heights in the pandemic that we haven ’ t seen before .
Not that what we saw before wasn ’ t horrifying enough.
” Some states like Utah and North Dakota have lower total hospitalizations but also fewer hospitals and hospital beds — and they ’ re now reaching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to maximum capacity .
“ Here in Salt Lake City , we provide a lot of [ specialized infectious disease and ICU care ] to people in four states as far away as Montana , Arizona , and Wyoming ... and our hospitals and caregivers are extraordinarily stressed , ” Andrew Pavia , the chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine , said at the IDSA briefing .
“ Our ICUs are full , but that includes overflow ICUs that have been purpose-built , taking advantage of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan.
” This was , unfortunately , to be expected ( although it wasn ’ t inevitable ) .
As the weather has turned cooler and states failed to fully control their outbreaks , transmission picked up when people moved indoors .
Nearly all the states currently experiencing an increase in new cases and hospitalizations also did not experience major outbreaks in the spring or summer , so residents were less fearful and took less action to prevent the spread of the virus .
“ There was a political climate where there ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take harsh measures ” in places like Utah , Pavia said .
“ Many of these states did not have mask mandates until very recently , and some don ’ t even have them today and have very limited restrictions on mass gatherings.
” Deaths have nearly hit a new record high as well , reaching 2,733 on December 2 , reversing a steady decline that had begun in early May after the first wave and in August after the second wave .
Cumulatively , 13.9 million Americans have tested positive for Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 267,000 of them have died .
With hospitalizations surging and several states reporting thousands of new cases a day , CDC Director Robert Redfield said Wednesday Americans are in for “ the most difficult in the public health history of this nation.
” The new hospitalizations , and the untenable pressure they ’ re putting on the health care system , are also a reminder of how critical it is for states to implement and enforce measures like mandatory face masks , restrictions on bars and restaurants , and for the federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problems .
“ It should be an all-points bulletin to really bear down on this , because otherwise there ’ s no limit on where this might go , ” said Topol .
Hospitals are running out of staff and beds for Covid-19 patients The good news is that infectious disease experts think many hospitals are better prepared to handle surges in Covid-19 patients than they were in the spring .
For the most part , they have the equipment they need and they know how to deploy it .
They also have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patients .
Yet hospitals in hot spots across the country are maxing out their staff , equipment , and beds , with doctors and nurses warning that the worst-case scenario of hospital resources being overwhelmed have already arrived as their states have failed to get control of the coronavirus .
“ The surge of Covid-19 patients takes away from our ability to care for the sick patients that are already in Arkansas , ” said a nurse at a major health system in Little Rock , who asked to go unnamed fearing retaliation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so many nurses quarantined that we ’ re not able to staff our oncology unit appropriately , and our patients are being negatively affected .
Covid-19 is right now overburdening our health care system in Arkansas.
” Hospitals in several states are also straining to find enough specialists to treat very sick Covid-19 patients .
“ ICU beds don ’ t take care of people — you need staff , ” Pavia said .
“ And one of the things that many of the Western states have in common is a relative shortage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care of very sick people during a pandemic like this : ICU doctors , probably most importantly ICU nurses , and infectious disease physicians , respiratory therapists .
These folks have been working flat out for eight or nine months , and three months into the surge , they ’ re exhausted , they ’ re stressed.
” Staffing is a universal problem in hot spots .
Gov .
Gary Herbert of Utah said the state will have to bring in out-of-state nurses to help with the surge , and officials and health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Arizona , and Wisconsin are requesting them too In Texas , officials are setting up medical tents in El Paso and Lubbock in response to the rapid rise in hospitalized Covid-19 patients and a dwindling number of hospital beds .
“ El Paso , Texas , is almost completely out of ICU beds ; Lubbock , the same thing , ” said McQuillen .
“ We are the 11th-largest city in the state of Texas and we have two field hospitals on their way to town , ” Jarrett Atkinson , Lubbock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in November .
“ I can absolutely assure you that never in my career did I think we would be deploying field hospitals to Lubbock , Texas.
” According to McQuillen , both El Paso and Lubbock have been “ much less stringent with their populations [ mandating ] simple things like wearing masks , and socially distancing.
” He compared that to Massachusetts and other Northeast states where he says strict measures during the spring surge made a big difference in reversing the steep climb in cases and hospitalizations .
Yet too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and now are paying the price .
Daily deaths are creeping up again but are still far below the earlier peak While daily Covid-19 hospitalizations are surging , another key metric , daily deaths , reached 2,733 on December 2 , the highest it has been since April during the first surge , according to the Covid Tracking Project .
It ’ s an ominous sign that deaths will reach horrifying new levels in the coming weeks and months , given that cases and hospitalizations are now at new highs .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fewer people who are hospitalized will end up dying in this winter stage of the pandemic as compared to the spring .
As Vox ’ s Julia Belluz reported , there have been significant improvements in mortality in the US and Europe in the past several months , as doctors ’ understanding of Covid-19 and how to treat it has improved : That said , if hospitals in the hard-hit states run out of beds and staff to treat the incoming flow of patients , more people who could have been saved may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the spring , “ ICU patients just didn ’ t get the same attention , ” intensive care doctor Lakshman Swamy , who works with the Cambridge Health Alliance , told Belluz .
Murtaza Akhter , the Arizona doctor , worries that his emergency room will be completely overwhelmed around Christmas , about one month after Thanksgiving , when many people are expected to have been infected after ignoring or the public health guidance to avoid family gatherings .
He says he ’ s most worried about the “ borderline patients who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ER — they may now be more likely to go home because there are no hospital beds .
And of those people , a very distinct fraction will have a worse outcome.
” This is one big reason why overtaxed hospitals will lead to more deaths .
“ This Covid-19 surge really has a huge downstream effect everywhere , not just on Covid patients but everybody else because it ’ s not like car accidents magically stopped or heart attacks stopped , they ’ re still there .
The ones who do come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than many get worse outcomes .
”

Far more Americans are currently hospitalized with Covid-19 than at any other point in the pandemic, a grim indicator that the third big wave of cases in the US is the worst wave to date by a lot.
On December 2, 100,226 people across the United States were in the hospital after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, according to data reported by the Covid Tracking Project. That’s significantly higher than the last two peaks recorded on April 15 and July 23, when the New York City and the Southeast and Southwest, respectively, were epicenters of the US outbreak. (As the Covid Tracking Project notes, the national and state hospital data have been erratic and incomplete, and reported totals may continue to shift.)
What’s clear from the data is that Covid-19 migrated across the country to new regions this fall. In the spring, hospitalizations were overwhelmingly concentrated in the Northeast. In the summer, more than half of hospitalized Covid-19 patients were in the South and West: states like Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas.
Now, every state is battling an active outbreak, and many of them are severe. “There’s so many places, with so many people, that the numbers are just drastically higher,” said Daniel McQuillen, an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts and a senior physician in the division of infectious diseases at Beth Israel Lahey Health, at a November Infectious Diseases Society of America briefing.
“There are no more hot spots,” said Murtaza Akhter, an emergency medicine physician with Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. “Everywhere is a hot spot.”
As of December 3, California had the highest number of hospitalizations of any state (9,702), and Texas was in second place with 9,151 people in the hospital; Midwestern states like Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio have also seen record spikes in cases in recent weeks and now have more than 4,000 people hospitalized each.
“The hospitalization number is the best indicator of where we are,” Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, told Vox this summer. That’s because it’s a better measurement of the severity of the pandemic than Covid-19 testing, which only finds a fraction of cases and includes more mild cases. “We’re going to go to new heights in the pandemic that we haven’t seen before. Not that what we saw before wasn’t horrifying enough.”
Some states like Utah and North Dakota have lower total hospitalizations but also fewer hospitals and hospital beds — and they’re now reaching a woeful tipping point of hospitals stretched to maximum capacity.
“Here in Salt Lake City, we provide a lot of [specialized infectious disease and ICU care] to people in four states as far away as Montana, Arizona, and Wyoming ... and our hospitals and caregivers are extraordinarily stressed,” Andrew Pavia, the chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine, said at the IDSA briefing. “Our ICUs are full, but that includes overflow ICUs that have been purpose-built, taking advantage of the time we’ve had to plan.”
This was, unfortunately, to be expected (although it wasn’t inevitable). As the weather has turned cooler and states failed to fully control their outbreaks, transmission picked up when people moved indoors. Nearly all the states currently experiencing an increase in new cases and hospitalizations also did not experience major outbreaks in the spring or summer, so residents were less fearful and took less action to prevent the spread of the virus.
“There was a political climate where there’s distrust of government and reluctance to take harsh measures” in places like Utah, Pavia said. “Many of these states did not have mask mandates until very recently, and some don’t even have them today and have very limited restrictions on mass gatherings.”
Deaths have nearly hit a new record high as well, reaching 2,733 on December 2, reversing a steady decline that had begun in early May after the first wave and in August after the second wave.
Cumulatively, 13.9 million Americans have tested positive for Covid-19 since the pandemic began, and more than 267,000 of them have died. With hospitalizations surging and several states reporting thousands of new cases a day, CDC Director Robert Redfield said Wednesday Americans are in for “the most difficult in the public health history of this nation.”
The new hospitalizations, and the untenable pressure they’re putting on the health care system, are also a reminder of how critical it is for states to implement and enforce measures like mandatory face masks, restrictions on bars and restaurants, and for the federal government to fix testing and contact tracing problems. “It should be an all-points bulletin to really bear down on this, because otherwise there’s no limit on where this might go,” said Topol.
Hospitals are running out of staff and beds for Covid-19 patients
The good news is that infectious disease experts think many hospitals are better prepared to handle surges in Covid-19 patients than they were in the spring. For the most part, they have the equipment they need and they know how to deploy it. They also have more standardized protocol for treating the sickest patients.
Yet hospitals in hot spots across the country are maxing out their staff, equipment, and beds, with doctors and nurses warning that the worst-case scenario of hospital resources being overwhelmed have already arrived as their states have failed to get control of the coronavirus.
“The surge of Covid-19 patients takes away from our ability to care for the sick patients that are already in Arkansas,” said a nurse at a major health system in Little Rock, who asked to go unnamed fearing retaliation from her employer. “We have so many nurses quarantined that we’re not able to staff our oncology unit appropriately, and our patients are being negatively affected. Covid-19 is right now overburdening our health care system in Arkansas.”
Hospitals in several states are also straining to find enough specialists to treat very sick Covid-19 patients.
“ICU beds don’t take care of people — you need staff,” Pavia said. “And one of the things that many of the Western states have in common is a relative shortage of the people we need to take care of very sick people during a pandemic like this: ICU doctors, probably most importantly ICU nurses, and infectious disease physicians, respiratory therapists. These folks have been working flat out for eight or nine months, and three months into the surge, they’re exhausted, they’re stressed.”
Staffing is a universal problem in hot spots. Gov. Gary Herbert of Utah said the state will have to bring in out-of-state nurses to help with the surge, and officials and health care providers in South Dakota, Tennessee, Arizona, and Wisconsin are requesting them too
In Texas, officials are setting up medical tents in El Paso and Lubbock in response to the rapid rise in hospitalized Covid-19 patients and a dwindling number of hospital beds. “El Paso, Texas, is almost completely out of ICU beds; Lubbock, the same thing,” said McQuillen.
“We are the 11th-largest city in the state of Texas and we have two field hospitals on their way to town,” Jarrett Atkinson, Lubbock’s city manager, told KCBD in November. “I can absolutely assure you that never in my career did I think we would be deploying field hospitals to Lubbock, Texas.”
According to McQuillen, both El Paso and Lubbock have been “much less stringent with their populations [mandating] simple things like wearing masks, and socially distancing.” He compared that to Massachusetts and other Northeast states where he says strict measures during the spring surge made a big difference in reversing the steep climb in cases and hospitalizations. Yet too many states ignored that critical lesson, and now are paying the price.
Daily deaths are creeping up again but are still far below the earlier peak
While daily Covid-19 hospitalizations are surging, another key metric, daily deaths, reached 2,733 on December 2, the highest it has been since April during the first surge, according to the Covid Tracking Project. It’s an ominous sign that deaths will reach horrifying new levels in the coming weeks and months, given that cases and hospitalizations are now at new highs.
It’s possible, experts say, that fewer people who are hospitalized will end up dying in this winter stage of the pandemic as compared to the spring. As Vox’s Julia Belluz reported, there have been significant improvements in mortality in the US and Europe in the past several months, as doctors’ understanding of Covid-19 and how to treat it has improved:
Now, there’s strong evidence that common steroids like dexamethasone can reduce the risk of mortality in severely sick inpatients. Putting patients to rest on their stomachs instead of their backs (a practice known as proning) also seems to help. Though there’s still a lot of progress to be made, the treatment approach has become more standardized over time, said Jen Manne-Goehler, an infectious disease doctor at Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General hospitals. When she started treating Covid-19 patients in the spring, it felt like practice was changing every few days. Now it’s more streamlined — and that’s undoubtedly helping with survival, too.
That said, if hospitals in the hard-hit states run out of beds and staff to treat the incoming flow of patients, more people who could have been saved may die. When ICU staff were stretched in the spring, “ICU patients just didn’t get the same attention,” intensive care doctor Lakshman Swamy, who works with the Cambridge Health Alliance, told Belluz.
Murtaza Akhter, the Arizona doctor, worries that his emergency room will be completely overwhelmed around Christmas, about one month after Thanksgiving, when many people are expected to have been infected after ignoring or the public health guidance to avoid family gatherings. He says he’s most worried about the “borderline patients who may otherwise have been admitted to the ER — they may now be more likely to go home because there are no hospital beds. And of those people, a very distinct fraction will have a worse outcome.”
This is one big reason why overtaxed hospitals will lead to more deaths. “This Covid-19 surge really has a huge downstream effect everywhere, not just on Covid patients but everybody else because it’s not like car accidents magically stopped or heart attacks stopped, they’re still there. The ones who do come in and get discharged, more often than many get worse outcomes.”