vox--2020-05-20--Singapore’s Covid-19 case fatality rate is remarkably low. Why?

A friend of mine , another journalist , texts me every few days with the latest coronavirus case and death counts from Singapore .
On Monday : “ Singapore is now at 28k cases and 22 deaths.
” I checked the Johns Hopkins dashboard on Wednesday morning to confirm : 29,364 confirmed Covid-19 cases and still just 22 deaths .
All of us are amateur epidemiologists now , and my friend ’ s fascination with Singapore is all about the country ’ s remarkably low case fatality rate .
Based on those numbers , just 0.07 percent of people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from it .
Compare that to the United States , where more than 6 percent of confirmed Covid-19 cases have resulted in death .
To look at it a different way , this chart compares total Covid-19 deaths per million people in both countries : The US is trying to bend the curve .
Singapore doesn ’ t even have a curve to speak of .
What ’ s going on ?
For starters , to return to my friend ’ s obsession with case fatality rates , those are a very crude @ @ @ @ @ @ @ variations in testing , because the denominators in this equation are confirmed cases — i.e .
positive tests .
The US and Singapore are interesting examples that show this metric ’ s usefulness and its limitations .
The United States is almost certainly undercounting its Covid-19 cases because of under-testing .
The real infection fatality rate in the US — total deaths divided by the real number of infections , confirmed or not — is much lower than 6 percent .
But it ’ s also effectively impossible to know the actual death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of people infected by Covid-19 don ’ t show serious symptoms and therefore never get tested .
Conversely , Singapore ’ s case fatality rate may be so low because it is testing a lot of people with mild or no symptoms .
The country has escalated its testing because of Covid-19 outbreaks in the dormitories that house many of Singapore ’ s low-wage migrant workers .
You may recall that , by late March , the island seemed to have Covid-19 under control .
Leaning on the lessons from the SARS outbreak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rapid testing-and-tracing program , as well as restricting travel into Singapore and requiring self-quarantines .
But then cases started to rise again — almost entirely because of infections among migrant workers , who live together in tightly packed dormitories on the edge of the city .
As the second wave began to crest in Singapore in mid-April , about 90 percent of the new cases turned out to be foreign workers who were living in the dorms .
So Singapore implemented a new screening program with the goal of testing effectively every single @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is testing thousands of workers every day , whether or not they show any Covid-19 symptoms .
These people are generally young ; they ’ ve come to Singapore to work on construction projects or in manufacturing or in the health care sector .
And we know the Covid-19 fatality rates among younger people are much , much lower in general than among seniors .
So if you want to understand why the case fatality rate is so stubbornly low in Singapore , part of it is a matter of chance : The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a lower risk of dying .
But equally — if not more — important is the prevalence of testing and the country ’ s focus on testing these younger and sometimes asymptomatic people .
“ This programme likely detected cases that would otherwise not have presented to healthcare centres for diagnosis , ” Ooi Eng Eong , deputy director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Program at the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School , told me over email .
That inflates the total number of cases , the denominator used to calculate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s testing skews younger because of the emphasis on the migrant dorms , and the country appears to have mostly avoided Covid-19 outbreaks in its nursing homes where more vulnerable elderly people live .
“ While the screening programme led to more cases being reported than if case detection was limited to those that fit the COVID-19 case definition , it also expanded the denominator in the mortality rate calculation : the number of fatal cases divided by total number of cases , ” he said .
So now you might be asking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ migrant worker dormitories .
It seems to have been a bit random .
The New York Times reported that government officials thought somebody might have picked up the virus at a nearby shopping mall favored by migrant workers .
Or they may have been infected at a construction site linked to a small cluster of cases .
Or both .
Either way , once the coronavirus arrived at the dormitories , it flourished in close living quarters where as many as 20 people share a single room .
The poor health coverage for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who are eager to limit their financial liability — may also have delayed people from seeking out care , allowing the virus to fester before public health authorities were able to detect it .
This cascade of unpredictable events reminded me of a post that my colleague Brian Resnick put up Wednesday morning , on chaos theory and the inherent uncertainty of a pandemic : As Brian points out , the coronavirus pandemic is even more complicated than the double-pendulum model .
It makes the future very difficult to predict .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not impossible , to isolate one ingredient that explains why the death rate in the US is so much worse than it is in Singapore .
We still don ’ t have a very good idea of the real infection fatality rate , though the best estimates over around 1 percent or a little lower .
And the case fatality rates , as shown by the United States and Singapore , can vary widely depending on how the pandemic has played out in different places .
But that doesn ’ t mean we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does conform to certain expectations we already have for the disease .
Singapore can be thankful that its worst outbreaks have been in dorms full of young workers instead of nursing homes , as we ’ ve seen in the United States and Europe .
Some credit is also certainly due to the testing-and-tracing programs , the travel restrictions , and Singapore ’ s strong health care system ( disparities for migrant workers notwithstanding ) .
Some of these things could be applicable in America : The country could do better testing and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stronger health system .
The US does have a relatively young population compared to other countries and so more testing could potentially reveal a more widespread outbreak — and , paradoxically , a lower death rate — than the current data suggests .
But the coronavirus has already infiltrated nursing homes in the US .
It is little comfort to seniors and their families , nor to younger people who have gotten very sick or died , to know that the fatality rate may be closer to 1 percent ( or lower ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ younger people and found people who have been infected but have no symptoms or mild ones .
Bad luck and a poor initial response have already distinguished America ’ s outbreak from the one in Singapore .
Every country ’ s coronavirus experience is a reflection of factors both within its control and then chaos and random luck that nobody , not even Singapore , can control .
The same is true of every individual ’ s risk , a convoluted mess of their race , age , economic status , preexisting medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only beginning to understand .
I do plan to send this article to my friend .
I hope it provides some insights into his question .
But I don ’ t expect it to be entirely satisfactory either .
There is simply too much uncertainty for that .
This story appears in VoxCare , a newsletter from Vox on the latest twists and turns in America ’ s health care debate .
Sign up to get VoxCare in your inbox along with more health care stats and news .
Every day at Vox @ @ @ @ @ @ @ important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

A friend of mine, another journalist, texts me every few days with the latest coronavirus case and death counts from Singapore. On Monday: “Singapore is now at 28k cases and 22 deaths.” I checked the Johns Hopkins dashboard on Wednesday morning to confirm: 29,364 confirmed Covid-19 cases and still just 22 deaths.
All of us are amateur epidemiologists now, and my friend’s fascination with Singapore is all about the country’s remarkably low case fatality rate. Based on those numbers, just 0.07 percent of people in Singapore who contracted the coronavirus have died from it. Compare that to the United States, where more than 6 percent of confirmed Covid-19 cases have resulted in death.
To look at it a different way, this chart compares total Covid-19 deaths per million people in both countries:
The US is trying to bend the curve. Singapore doesn’t even have a curve to speak of. What’s going on?
For starters, to return to my friend’s obsession with case fatality rates, those are a very crude metric. They are extremely vulnerable to variations in testing, because the denominators in this equation are confirmed cases — i.e. positive tests. The US and Singapore are interesting examples that show this metric’s usefulness and its limitations.
The United States is almost certainly undercounting its Covid-19 cases because of under-testing. The real infection fatality rate in the US — total deaths divided by the real number of infections, confirmed or not — is much lower than 6 percent. But it’s also effectively impossible to know the actual death rate right now because a not-insignificant number of people infected by Covid-19 don’t show serious symptoms and therefore never get tested.
Conversely, Singapore’s case fatality rate may be so low because it is testing a lot of people with mild or no symptoms.
The country has escalated its testing because of Covid-19 outbreaks in the dormitories that house many of Singapore’s low-wage migrant workers. You may recall that, by late March, the island seemed to have Covid-19 under control. Leaning on the lessons from the SARS outbreak in 2003, the country implemented a rapid testing-and-tracing program, as well as restricting travel into Singapore and requiring self-quarantines.
But then cases started to rise again — almost entirely because of infections among migrant workers, who live together in tightly packed dormitories on the edge of the city. As the second wave began to crest in Singapore in mid-April, about 90 percent of the new cases turned out to be foreign workers who were living in the dorms.
So Singapore implemented a new screening program with the goal of testing effectively every single worker living in those facilities. It is testing thousands of workers every day, whether or not they show any Covid-19 symptoms.
These people are generally young; they’ve come to Singapore to work on construction projects or in manufacturing or in the health care sector. And we know the Covid-19 fatality rates among younger people are much, much lower in general than among seniors.
So if you want to understand why the case fatality rate is so stubbornly low in Singapore, part of it is a matter of chance: The groups of people who got sick were at a lower risk of dying. But equally — if not more — important is the prevalence of testing and the country’s focus on testing these younger and sometimes asymptomatic people.
“This programme likely detected cases that would otherwise not have presented to healthcare centres for diagnosis,” Ooi Eng Eong, deputy director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Program at the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School, told me over email.
That inflates the total number of cases, the denominator used to calculate the case fatality rate. Singapore’s testing skews younger because of the emphasis on the migrant dorms, and the country appears to have mostly avoided Covid-19 outbreaks in its nursing homes where more vulnerable elderly people live.
“While the screening programme led to more cases being reported than if case detection was limited to those that fit the COVID-19 case definition, it also expanded the denominator in the mortality rate calculation: the number of fatal cases divided by total number of cases,” he said.
So now you might be asking why there was an outbreak in these migrant worker dormitories. It seems to have been a bit random. The New York Times reported that government officials thought somebody might have picked up the virus at a nearby shopping mall favored by migrant workers. Or they may have been infected at a construction site linked to a small cluster of cases. Or both.
Either way, once the coronavirus arrived at the dormitories, it flourished in close living quarters where as many as 20 people share a single room. The poor health coverage for migrant workers — dependent on their employers, who are eager to limit their financial liability — may also have delayed people from seeking out care, allowing the virus to fester before public health authorities were able to detect it.
This cascade of unpredictable events reminded me of a post that my colleague Brian Resnick put up Wednesday morning, on chaos theory and the inherent uncertainty of a pandemic:
There’s a simple mechanical that is helping me understand the many possible futures we face with the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s the double pendulum, and as a physical object, it’s very simple: A pendulum (a string and a weight) is attached to the bottom of another. Its movement is explained by the laws of motion written by Isaac Newton hundreds of years ago. But slight changes in the initial condition of the pendulum — say it starts its swing from a little higher up, or if the weight of the pendulum balls is a little heavier, or one of the pendulum arms is a bit longer than the other — lead to wildly different outcomes that are very hard to predict.
As Brian points out, the coronavirus pandemic is even more complicated than the double-pendulum model. It makes the future very difficult to predict.
And so it’s difficult, if not impossible, to isolate one ingredient that explains why the death rate in the US is so much worse than it is in Singapore. We still don’t have a very good idea of the real infection fatality rate, though the best estimates over around 1 percent or a little lower. And the case fatality rates, as shown by the United States and Singapore, can vary widely depending on how the pandemic has played out in different places.
But that doesn’t mean we know nothing. And the Singapore example does conform to certain expectations we already have for the disease.
Singapore can be thankful that its worst outbreaks have been in dorms full of young workers instead of nursing homes, as we’ve seen in the United States and Europe. Some credit is also certainly due to the testing-and-tracing programs, the travel restrictions, and Singapore’s strong health care system (disparities for migrant workers notwithstanding).
Some of these things could be applicable in America: The country could do better testing and tracing, and it could build a stronger health system. The US does have a relatively young population compared to other countries and so more testing could potentially reveal a more widespread outbreak — and, paradoxically, a lower death rate — than the current data suggests.
But the coronavirus has already infiltrated nursing homes in the US. It is little comfort to seniors and their families, nor to younger people who have gotten very sick or died, to know that the fatality rate may be closer to 1 percent (or lower) than 6 percent if only we tested younger people and found people who have been infected but have no symptoms or mild ones. Bad luck and a poor initial response have already distinguished America’s outbreak from the one in Singapore.
Every country’s coronavirus experience is a reflection of factors both within its control and then chaos and random luck that nobody, not even Singapore, can control. The same is true of every individual’s risk, a convoluted mess of their race, age, economic status, preexisting medical conditions, and biology that science is only beginning to understand.
I do plan to send this article to my friend. I hope it provides some insights into his question. But I don’t expect it to be entirely satisfactory either. There is simply too much uncertainty for that.
This story appears in VoxCare, a newsletter from Vox on the latest twists and turns in America’s health care debate. Sign up to get VoxCare in your inbox along with more health care stats and news.


vox--2020-05-20--Anti-lockdown protests aren’t just an American thing. They’re a global phenomenon.

The anti-lockdown protests that have garnered so much attention in the United States in recent weeks may seem like a uniquely American phenomenon .
Wired ’ s Emma Grey Ellis called them an “ American mess , ” describing them as “ a modern permutation of an identity crisis with roots very deep in America ’ s individualist history.
” The protests have been compared to other American political movements , from Trump rallies to the rise of the Tea Party in 2009 , which took its own name from the 1773 Boston Tea Party , a seminal event in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Revolution and came to symbolize the fundamental American trait of rejection of tyranny and government overreach .
But while the anti-lockdown protests that have taken place in Michigan , Ohio , Kentucky , Minnesota , North Carolina , Utah , and elsewhere certainly have a distinctly American flavor , they are far from unique to America .
Similar protests have taken place almost everywhere you look around the world .
Just this month alone , thousands of people from Latin America to Europe have demonstrated against aggressive government policies intended to curb the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perfectly mirror the protests in the US , but there are some striking similarities .
Activists in Michigan displayed anti-Semitic signs and wore swastikas outside the state capitol during an anti-lockdown protest , while neo-Nazis joined similar demonstrations in some of Germany ’ s major cities .
President Donald Trump encourages Americans to push for the reopening of their state while his Brazilian counterpart , President Jair Bolsonaro , personally greets anti-lockdown protestors .
Demonstrators in the US have shown up to rallies with guns , while food shortages during the lockdown in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And as anti-vaxxers in the US use the crisis to push their agenda , like-minded folks in the UK are doing the same thing .
Experts tell me there is no direct connection among these rallies , other than the fact that the grievances over what lockdowns mean for freedom and quality of life are being felt beyond America ’ s shores .
The coronavirus and how governments respond to it , then , have created global fault lines between those who want government to provide a sense of normalcy and those who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risks .
And that means one troubling consequence : No matter how bad the crisis gets , there will surely be a vocal group pushing against any measures to quash it .
That almost assuredly will make any nation ’ s coronavirus recovery harder .
David Wong , a fellow with the Democracy , Conflict , and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington , DC , told me that the protests we ’ re seeing fall into two general categories .
The first focuses on how governments are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not there ’ s a lockdown and how long it ’ ll last .
In other words , they ’ re about freedom .
“ More countries are starting to get a grip on the health care response , ” Wong said , meaning the number of countries imposing lockdowns and angering parts of their populations keeps growing .
And with some of those countries seeing a drop in coronavirus cases because of those impositions , Wong said , “ It gets easier for protesters to say , ‘ Why do we need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ category revolves around the economic devastation caused by those lockdowns .
As a country ’ s economy tanks and its government has limited resources earmarked for coronavirus work , the amount of money for providing the most vulnerable populations with food or social welfare dwindles .
This sends hungry and disenfranchised citizens into the street to express their frustrations .
Some of these protests are continuations from 2019 , when the world saw more demonstrations than any other time in recent history .
Many of those rallies were about governments failing to provide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infringing on the rights of the citizenry .
Those issues echo in the coronavirus era , too , as lockdowns hit upon these exact themes .
Some who don ’ t want to go outside to demonstrate during the pandemic are still discussing these same matters on social media , and in one particular Russian case , a navigation app .
But now that the coronavirus has hit every aspect of human life , “ These protests have become supercharged , ” Wong said .
That becomes evident when you look at them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the streets of Germany ’ s main urban areas , including the capital , Berlin , to demonstrate against the country ’ s shutdown .
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has received high marks for her government ’ s response to the coronavirus , keeping the number of confirmed deaths relatively low despite a high number of infections .
Part of her success has been the social distancing measures she imposed , which will remain in force until June 5 .
Still , activists have come out to protest those measures every Saturday — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a more and more extreme audience .
On May 16 , German intelligence officials saw demonstrators wearing yellow stars — the symbol Jews were forced to wear to identify themselves under the Nazi regime — as well as anti-Semitic banners .
Germany ’ s federal police believes these extremist groups are taking advantage of the chaos to further their own agenda .
But what seems to animate most of the protestors is actually Germany ’ s success at handling the coronavirus .
Since the country is doing well , some don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going .
“ They told us this virus was so dangerous that we had to give up all our democratic freedoms , ” Sabine Martin , a mother of two who joined her third consecutive protest in Berlin , told the New York Times on Monday .
“ But we are no fools : Our hospitals are half empty.
” “ I ’ m not afraid of this virus , ” she continued .
“ I ’ m afraid of the recession.
” Small protests against the lockdown also sprang up around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ size , the rallies gained some notoriety over the number of vaccine opponents in attendance .
Signs held aloft in London ’ s Hyde Park were emblazoned with such slogans as “ anti-vax deserves a voice ” and “ freedom over fear.
” Perhaps the most famous demonstrator was Piers Corbyn , the brother of former Labour Party chief Jeremy Corbyn .
As police arrested him and 18 others , Piers claimed that “ vaccination is not necessary ” and espoused the conspiracy theory that the 5G towers the country is installing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who ’ s got illness from Covid , so they work together.
” Piers Corbyn isn ’ t alone in this view , as nearly 80 towers in the country have been attacked in misguided attempts to stop Covid-19 ’ s spread .
The situation isn ’ t much better in Latin America , where Bolsonaro — just like Trump — cheers on activists who believe the coronavirus is no big deal and who oppose the strict lockdown measures many state governors in Brazil have implemented .
“ Unemployment , hunger and misery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support the tyranny of total isolation , ” he recently tweeted .
This past Sunday , Bolsonaro joined anti-lockdown protestors outside his offices in Brasilia , the nation ’ s capital .
He ended up taking pictures with some of the demonstrators , and later that day did push-ups with men dressed in military attire .
His appearances at these rallies are meant to not only bolster his populist support but also continue his oft-repeated claim that concerns about the coronavirus are overwrought .
“ Above all [ people ] want freedom , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he recently said in an online video .
In nearby Chile , protestors don ’ t like the lockdowns either , but they ’ re primarily concerned about the lack of food available to them .
On Monday , one of the poorest neighborhoods in the capital , Santiago , saw activists throw rocks at police and burn piles of wood as hunger spiked .
“ The last weeks we have had a great demand from neighbors for food , ” Sadi Melo , mayor of the El Bosque neighborhood and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , told local radio station BioBio .
“ We are in a very complex situation of hunger and lack of work.
” In response , local officials said they distributed 2,000 aid packages , but noted it would not be enough to solve the problem .
That prompted Chilean President Sebastián Piñera to promise in a nationally televised addressed that his administration would get 2.5 million baskets of food to those who need it .
“ We will prioritize the most vulnerable families , ” he said .
Put together , the worldwide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
While they mainly tackle lockdowns , they ’ re also about people ’ s struggles with the policies , and they provide an opportunity for others to promote their own ideologies .
Such a diverse set of grievances will make it much more difficult for governments to satisfy everyone .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

The anti-lockdown protests that have garnered so much attention in the United States in recent weeks may seem like a uniquely American phenomenon. Wired’s Emma Grey Ellis called them an “American mess,” describing them as “a modern permutation of an identity crisis with roots very deep in America’s individualist history.”
The protests have been compared to other American political movements, from Trump rallies to the rise of the Tea Party in 2009, which took its own name from the 1773 Boston Tea Party, a seminal event in US history that helped spark the American Revolution and came to symbolize the fundamental American trait of rejection of tyranny and government overreach.
But while the anti-lockdown protests that have taken place in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, Utah, and elsewhere certainly have a distinctly American flavor, they are far from unique to America. Similar protests have taken place almost everywhere you look around the world.
Just this month alone, thousands of people from Latin America to Europe have demonstrated against aggressive government policies intended to curb the coronavirus outbreak. They don’t perfectly mirror the protests in the US, but there are some striking similarities.
Activists in Michigan displayed anti-Semitic signs and wore swastikas outside the state capitol during an anti-lockdown protest, while neo-Nazis joined similar demonstrations in some of Germany’s major cities. President Donald Trump encourages Americans to push for the reopening of their state while his Brazilian counterpart, President Jair Bolsonaro, personally greets anti-lockdown protestors.
Demonstrators in the US have shown up to rallies with guns, while food shortages during the lockdown in Chile have citizens clashing with police. And as anti-vaxxers in the US use the crisis to push their agenda, like-minded folks in the UK are doing the same thing.
Experts tell me there is no direct connection among these rallies, other than the fact that the grievances over what lockdowns mean for freedom and quality of life are being felt beyond America’s shores.
The coronavirus and how governments respond to it, then, have created global fault lines between those who want government to provide a sense of normalcy and those who want to mitigate Covid-19’s lethal risks. And that means one troubling consequence: No matter how bad the crisis gets, there will surely be a vocal group pushing against any measures to quash it.
That almost assuredly will make any nation’s coronavirus recovery harder.
“These protests have become supercharged”
David Wong, a protests expert in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, told me that the protests we’re seeing fall into two general categories.
The first focuses on how governments are implementing anti-coronavirus measures, namely whether or not there’s a lockdown and how long it’ll last. In other words, they’re about freedom.
“More countries are starting to get a grip on the health care response,” Wong said, meaning the number of countries imposing lockdowns and angering parts of their populations keeps growing. And with some of those countries seeing a drop in coronavirus cases because of those impositions, Wong said, “It gets easier for protesters to say, ‘Why do we need restrictions now?’”
A second category revolves around the economic devastation caused by those lockdowns. As a country’s economy tanks and its government has limited resources earmarked for coronavirus work, the amount of money for providing the most vulnerable populations with food or social welfare dwindles. This sends hungry and disenfranchised citizens into the street to express their frustrations.
Some of these protests are continuations from 2019, when the world saw more demonstrations than any other time in recent history. Many of those rallies were about governments failing to provide basic services for people, or authorities infringing on the rights of the citizenry.
Those issues echo in the coronavirus era, too, as lockdowns hit upon these exact themes. Some who don’t want to go outside to demonstrate during the pandemic are still discussing these same matters on social media, and in one particular Russian case, a navigation app.
But now that the coronavirus has hit every aspect of human life, “These protests have become supercharged,” Wong said.
That becomes evident when you look at them.
Coronavirus protests are a global phenomenon
Last weekend saw thousands take to the streets of Germany’s main urban areas, including the capital, Berlin, to demonstrate against the country’s shutdown.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has received high marks for her government’s response to the coronavirus, keeping the number of confirmed deaths relatively low despite a high number of infections. Part of her success has been the social distancing measures she imposed, which will remain in force until June 5. Still, activists have come out to protest those measures every Saturday — and each week, the demonstrations attract a more and more extreme audience.
On May 16, German intelligence officials saw demonstrators wearing yellow stars — the symbol Jews were forced to wear to identify themselves under the Nazi regime — as well as anti-Semitic banners. Germany’s federal police believes these extremist groups are taking advantage of the chaos to further their own agenda.
But what seems to animate most of the protestors is actually Germany’s success at handling the coronavirus. Since the country is doing well, some don’t see the need to keep the lockdown going.
“They told us this virus was so dangerous that we had to give up all our democratic freedoms,” Sabine Martin, a mother of two who joined her third consecutive protest in Berlin, told the New York Times on Monday. “But we are no fools: Our hospitals are half empty.”
“I’m not afraid of this virus,” she continued. “I’m afraid of the recession.”
Small protests against the lockdown also sprang up around the UK last weekend. But despite their size, the rallies gained some notoriety over the number of vaccine opponents in attendance. Signs held aloft in London’s Hyde Park were emblazoned with such slogans as “anti-vax deserves a voice” and “freedom over fear.”
Perhaps the most famous demonstrator was Piers Corbyn, the brother of former Labour Party chief Jeremy Corbyn. As police arrested him and 18 others, Piers claimed that “vaccination is not necessary” and espoused the conspiracy theory that the 5G towers the country is installing to speed up mobile services “enhances anyone who’s got illness from Covid, so they work together.”
Piers Corbyn isn’t alone in this view, as nearly 80 towers in the country have been attacked in misguided attempts to stop Covid-19’s spread.
The situation isn’t much better in Latin America, where Bolsonaro — just like Trump — cheers on activists who believe the coronavirus is no big deal and who oppose the strict lockdown measures many state governors in Brazil have implemented. “Unemployment, hunger and misery will be the future of those who support the tyranny of total isolation,” he recently tweeted.
This past Sunday, Bolsonaro joined anti-lockdown protestors outside his offices in Brasilia, the nation’s capital. He ended up taking pictures with some of the demonstrators, and later that day did push-ups with men dressed in military attire.
His appearances at these rallies are meant to not only bolster his populist support but also continue his oft-repeated claim that concerns about the coronavirus are overwrought.
“Above all [people] want freedom, they want democracy, they want respect,” he recently said in an online video.
In nearby Chile, protestors don’t like the lockdowns either, but they’re primarily concerned about the lack of food available to them. On Monday, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the capital, Santiago, saw activists throw rocks at police and burn piles of wood as hunger spiked.
“The last weeks we have had a great demand from neighbors for food,” Sadi Melo, mayor of the El Bosque neighborhood and a member of the opposition Socialist Party, told local radio station BioBio. “We are in a very complex situation of hunger and lack of work.”
In response, local officials said they distributed 2,000 aid packages, but noted it would not be enough to solve the problem. That prompted Chilean President Sebastián Piñera to promise in a nationally televised addressed that his administration would get 2.5 million baskets of food to those who need it.
“We will prioritize the most vulnerable families,” he said.
Put together, the worldwide protests aren’t a united effort. While they mainly tackle lockdowns, they’re also about people’s struggles with the policies, and they provide an opportunity for others to promote their own ideologies. Such a diverse set of grievances will make it much more difficult for governments to satisfy everyone.


vox--2020-05-20--Apple and Google roll out their new exposure notification tool. Interest seems limited.

The Apple-Google exposure notification tool , announced on April 10 , is one step closer to being launched .
The two companies released software that will help public health authorities build apps that incorporate their exposure notification tool .
Apple , specifically , rolled out a software update to iOS devices that some users could download immediately .
This big public unveiling raises a couple very important questions : Will any government agencies actually build those apps ?
And will anybody use them ?
These questions remain unanswered .
They also raise another , more essential question : How will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fight the pandemic ?
The companies sold the concept early on as part of a tech-based solution to a very hard problem .
But now , Apple and Google admit the tool is not meant to be a silver bullet .
Yet , there is progress .
Following the late April release of a beta version of the technology , Apple and Google announced on Wednesday that the application programming interface ( API ) for its exposure notification tool is now being released to public health authorities .
According to the companies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Alabama , North Dakota , and South Carolina — will base their digital contact tracing apps on the tool .
While Apple and Google consulted with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) to build the tool , there is no indication that any nationwide app is forthcoming .
“ Starting today , our Exposure Notifications technology is available to public health agencies on both iOS and Android , ” Apple and Google said .
“ Today , this technology is in the hands of public health agencies across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we will continue to support their efforts.
” One of the early adopters of the Apple-Google tool is North Dakota , a state that has already struggled with contact tracing technology of its own .
“ North Dakota is excited to be among the first states in the nation to utilize the exposure notification technology built by Apple and Google to help keep our citizens safe , ” Gov .
Doug Burgum said in a statement .
“ As we respond to this unprecedented public health emergency , we invite other states to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strengthen existing contact tracing efforts , which are critical to getting communities and economies back up and running.
” What remains to be seen is how many states will accept North Dakota ’ s invitation .
Several states have told Recode that they don ’ t plan to incorporate the Apple-Google tool into their apps or contact tracing plans .
That ’ s surprising , given the initial optimism when the exposure notification tool was first announced .
Apple and Google , the companies behind the tool as well as the operating systems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the world , teamed up in the early weeks of the pandemic to create the infrastructure on which a Bluetooth-based contact tracing system could be built .
This partnership was unprecedented , reminiscent of the well-worn trope where sworn enemies team up to fight the greater threat .
It meant that any app using the tool would have a significantly lower bar to widespread adoption , especially once Apple and Google integrated the new technology into the phones ’ operating systems themselves .
Additionally , many — though certainly not all — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the tool ’ s strict requirements .
Those included that users be kept anonymous ; no location data be used ; data stay on users ’ devices rather than go to a centralized database maintained by a government authority ; the system be opt-in only ; and that the tool ends when the pandemic threat is over .
Altogether , the proposition seemed like a win-win .
Surely public health authorities would be champing at the bit to use it .
But with the release of the API , which represents a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breed of iOS and Android public health apps , the reality seems different .
First of all , the implementation of the tool is not quite what was initially expected .
Two weeks after the initial announcement in early April , Apple and Google changed the name of its technology to downplay its role , calling it an “ exposure notification ” tool rather than a “ contact tracing ” tool .
This was meant to stress the tool ’ s role as an aid to contact tracing efforts rather than the contact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stressed that they have only created a tool , and it is up to public health authorities to develop , implement , and manage apps based on it as they see fit ( within Apple-Google ’ s strict guidelines , of course ) .
Some countries publicly clashed with Apple-Google over its privacy-preserving restrictions and developed their own apps when Apple-Google wouldn ’ t budge on things like allowing them to have a centralized database .
But apps that didn ’ t use the Apple-Google tool drew complaints that they were buggy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only apps that used the tool could run smoothly using minimal battery life in the background .
So other countries have decided it was worth agreeing to Apple and Google ’ s terms and conditions to have the best possible chance of producing a functional app .
But with no location data being tracked and no centralized database to store it , the apps they could build are severely limited in the amount of data they can collect .
And therefore , public health authorities can get limited benefits from the apps that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absence of a national effort led by the Trump administration , individual states are beginning to reopen and assemble a patchwork of contact tracing plans .
This raises the question of which states , if any , are willing to make use of the tool at all .
In an attempt to answer this question , Recode asked Apple and Google multiple times if any public health authorities had agreed to use it .
Aside from the mention of participation from Alabama , North Dakota , and South Carolina in press materials , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of more widespread adoption .
Recode also reached out to all 50 states as well as Washington , DC , and the Department of Health and Human Services to ask if they were planning to use the Apple-Google tool .
Of the 30 states that responded , none confirmed they were using it , and several said they weren ’ t .
But again , we now know there are at least three using the tool , though it ’ s unclear how far along they are in developing their apps .
North @ @ @ @ @ @ @ app , called CARE19 , and then spoke to the Washington Post about its struggles getting Apple and Google to let it use their tool in its existing app .
The CARE19 app uses location data , which the Apple-Google tool forbids , so North Dakota ended up building a second , separate app using the new exposure notification tool .
Alabama Department of Public Health ’ s Karen Landers told Recode on May 18 that the state “ has not decided ” whether to use the Apple-Google tool .
Two days later @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the University of Alabama System and the University of Alabama at Birmingham , it had a “ partnership ” with Apple and Google to “ harness technology to accelerate exposure notification to slow the spread of COVID-19.
” South Carolina , which did not respond to Recode ’ s request for comment , announced today that it was using the Apple-Google tool for its SC Safer Together app .
Other states indicated to Recode that they were focusing their limited resources on a tried and true contact tracing tool called human beings .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ who they ’ ve seen in an effort to trace the spread of the virus , and the states using human-based contact tracing will use with technology to organize and facilitate their efforts , rather than replace them .
A recent ProPublica report suggests that this may still be the best method , with health experts saying that something like the Apple-Google tool , which relays no data back to public health authorities and relies on widespread adoption to be effective , will be of limited use .
So , many states seem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and old-fashioned methods .
Maryland , for example , is using a platform called “ COVID Link ” to assist traditional contact tracing methods after a known exposure , as opposed to contact tracing apps that track all contact whether or not someone tests positive .
As Charles Gischlar of the Maryland Department of Health told Recode , the state “ continues to explore all options and technologies available , but there are currently no plans to use contact tracing apps.
” North Carolina is taking a similar tack .
Amy Adams Ellis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Human Services told Recode that the state is “ using a new software system to support contact tracing efforts.
” That system does not include the apps that use Bluetooth , GPS , or other location-based tools .
Several states are using a tool called Sara Alert .
Built by the nonprofit Mitre Corporation , Sara Alert is an open source project developed with the cooperation of several state public health authorities , which is similar in some ways to what Apple and Google are trying to do .
Arkansas , Idaho @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were using the Sara Alert system .
There are other privately built tools , too .
Hawaii told Recode it was using an app developed by HealthSpace , and Connecticut told Recode it was using a system from Microsoft ( dubbed “ ContaCT ” ) .
Meanwhile , Washington state is still not sure it wants an app at all .
“ Apps are not for everyone and while they may help in the process , we are going to start each contact investigation by calling each person , ” Barbara LaBoe , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Response team , told Recode .
“ We also are still working to get an understanding of the various privacy and security issues involved in those apps and tools , ” LaBoe added .
Finally , the state hit hardest by the pandemic , New York , told Recode , “ We are evaluating various technology applications that could assist in the initiative , but the key to effective contact tracing is direct outreach by individuals to work with a positive case to successfully identify their contacts.
” At the time of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only say that several states have expressed interest in the tool .
The companies would not give an exact number or offer more details about plans from public health authorities .
Some states indicated to Recode that they are taking a wait-and-see approach , so it ’ s possible that several may join Alabama , North Dakota , and South Carolina in the coming days .
It ’ s also possible that some states will change their minds and come around to the Apple-Google technology .
That ’ s what Germany did .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ using contact tracing apps , a handful of countries like Austria , Ireland , and Switzerland have committed to using the Apple-Google tool .
In the weeks to come , significant questions remain about how successful contact tracing and exposure notification technology will be .
This depends on how many people download and use the technology offered in their region , not to mention the integration of other efforts , like human-based contact tracing .
So while the Apple-Google tool hasn ’ t had the universal acceptance that might have been expected when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s not a total flop .
By all appearances , it looks like Apple-Google wanted to contribute to society and make their mark on fighting the spread of coronavirus , and that ’ s laudable .
But it ’ s now clear that the two companies also , characteristically , wanted to do it only on their terms , even if it meant reducing the efficacy of the apps based on their tool from a public health agency perspective .
And when two massive companies control nearly 100 percent of the smartphones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dictate whatever terms they want — even in a worldwide crisis .
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network .
All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

The Apple-Google exposure notification tool, announced on April 10, is one step closer to being launched. The two companies released software that will help public health authorities build apps that incorporate their exposure notification tool. Apple, specifically, rolled out a software update to iOS devices that some users could download immediately. This big public unveiling raises a couple very important questions: Will any government agencies actually build those apps? And will anybody use them?
These questions remain unanswered. They also raise another, more essential question: How will the new Apple-Google tool help the world fight the pandemic? The companies sold the concept early on as part of a tech-based solution to a very hard problem. But now, Apple and Google admit the tool is not meant to be a silver bullet.
Yet, there is progress. Following the late April release of a beta version of the technology, Apple and Google announced on Wednesday that the application programming interface (API) for its exposure notification tool is now being released to public health authorities. According to the companies, several countries and three US states — Alabama, North Dakota, and South Carolina — will base their digital contact tracing apps on the tool. While Apple and Google consulted with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to build the tool, there is no indication that any nationwide app is forthcoming.
“Starting today, our Exposure Notifications technology is available to public health agencies on both iOS and Android,” Apple and Google said. “Today, this technology is in the hands of public health agencies across the world who will take the lead and we will continue to support their efforts.”
One of the early adopters of the Apple-Google tool is North Dakota, a state that has already struggled with contact tracing technology of its own.
“North Dakota is excited to be among the first states in the nation to utilize the exposure notification technology built by Apple and Google to help keep our citizens safe,” Gov. Doug Burgum said in a statement. “As we respond to this unprecedented public health emergency, we invite other states to join us in leveraging smartphone technologies to strengthen existing contact tracing efforts, which are critical to getting communities and economies back up and running.”
What remains to be seen is how many states will accept North Dakota’s invitation. Several states have told Recode that they don’t plan to incorporate the Apple-Google tool into their apps or contact tracing plans.
That’s surprising, given the initial optimism when the exposure notification tool was first announced. Apple and Google, the companies behind the tool as well as the operating systems used by the vast majority of smartphones in the world, teamed up in the early weeks of the pandemic to create the infrastructure on which a Bluetooth-based contact tracing system could be built. This partnership was unprecedented, reminiscent of the well-worn trope where sworn enemies team up to fight the greater threat. It meant that any app using the tool would have a significantly lower bar to widespread adoption, especially once Apple and Google integrated the new technology into the phones’ operating systems themselves.
Additionally, many — though certainly not all — of privacy advocates’ concerns were addressed by the tool’s strict requirements. Those included that users be kept anonymous; no location data be used; data stay on users’ devices rather than go to a centralized database maintained by a government authority; the system be opt-in only; and that the tool ends when the pandemic threat is over. Altogether, the proposition seemed like a win-win. Surely public health authorities would be champing at the bit to use it.
But with the release of the API, which represents a milestone in the development of a new breed of iOS and Android public health apps, the reality seems different.
First of all, the implementation of the tool is not quite what was initially expected. Two weeks after the initial announcement in early April, Apple and Google changed the name of its technology to downplay its role, calling it an “exposure notification” tool rather than a “contact tracing” tool. This was meant to stress the tool’s role as an aid to contact tracing efforts rather than the contact tracing effort itself. Apple-Google have repeatedly stressed that they have only created a tool, and it is up to public health authorities to develop, implement, and manage apps based on it as they see fit (within Apple-Google’s strict guidelines, of course).
Some countries publicly clashed with Apple-Google over its privacy-preserving restrictions and developed their own apps when Apple-Google wouldn’t budge on things like allowing them to have a centralized database. But apps that didn’t use the Apple-Google tool drew complaints that they were buggy and didn’t work correctly, as only apps that used the tool could run smoothly using minimal battery life in the background.
So other countries have decided it was worth agreeing to Apple and Google’s terms and conditions to have the best possible chance of producing a functional app. But with no location data being tracked and no centralized database to store it, the apps they could build are severely limited in the amount of data they can collect. And therefore, public health authorities can get limited benefits from the apps that use the Apple-Google tool.
In the absence of a national effort led by the Trump administration, individual states are beginning to reopen and assemble a patchwork of contact tracing plans. This raises the question of which states, if any, are willing to make use of the tool at all.
In an attempt to answer this question, Recode asked Apple and Google multiple times if any public health authorities had agreed to use it. Aside from the mention of participation from Alabama, North Dakota, and South Carolina in press materials, the companies did not offer any details of more widespread adoption. Recode also reached out to all 50 states as well as Washington, DC, and the Department of Health and Human Services to ask if they were planning to use the Apple-Google tool. Of the 30 states that responded, none confirmed they were using it, and several said they weren’t.
But again, we now know there are at least three using the tool, though it’s unclear how far along they are in developing their apps.
North Dakota told Recode it already had an app, called CARE19, and then spoke to the Washington Post about its struggles getting Apple and Google to let it use their tool in its existing app. The CARE19 app uses location data, which the Apple-Google tool forbids, so North Dakota ended up building a second, separate app using the new exposure notification tool.
Alabama Department of Public Health’s Karen Landers told Recode on May 18 that the state “has not decided” whether to use the Apple-Google tool. Two days later, Alabama announced that, along with the University of Alabama System and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, it had a “partnership” with Apple and Google to “harness technology to accelerate exposure notification to slow the spread of COVID-19.”
South Carolina, which did not respond to Recode’s request for comment, announced today that it was using the Apple-Google tool for its SC Safer Together app.
Other states indicated to Recode that they were focusing their limited resources on a tried and true contact tracing tool called human beings. This involves health officials questioning people about who they’ve seen in an effort to trace the spread of the virus, and the states using human-based contact tracing will use with technology to organize and facilitate their efforts, rather than replace them. A recent ProPublica report suggests that this may still be the best method, with health experts saying that something like the Apple-Google tool, which relays no data back to public health authorities and relies on widespread adoption to be effective, will be of limited use.
So, many states seem to be using a mixture of new and old-fashioned methods. Maryland, for example, is using a platform called “COVID Link” to assist traditional contact tracing methods after a known exposure, as opposed to contact tracing apps that track all contact whether or not someone tests positive. As Charles Gischlar of the Maryland Department of Health told Recode, the state “continues to explore all options and technologies available, but there are currently no plans to use contact tracing apps.”
North Carolina is taking a similar tack. Amy Adams Ellis of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services told Recode that the state is “using a new software system to support contact tracing efforts.” That system does not include the apps that use Bluetooth, GPS, or other location-based tools.
Several states are using a tool called Sara Alert. Built by the nonprofit Mitre Corporation, Sara Alert is an open source project developed with the cooperation of several state public health authorities, which is similar in some ways to what Apple and Google are trying to do. Arkansas, Idaho, and Pennsylvania all told Recode they were using the Sara Alert system.
There are other privately built tools, too. Hawaii told Recode it was using an app developed by HealthSpace, and Connecticut told Recode it was using a system from Microsoft (dubbed “ContaCT”). Meanwhile, Washington state is still not sure it wants an app at all.
“Apps are not for everyone and while they may help in the process, we are going to start each contact investigation by calling each person,” Barbara LaBoe, spokesperson for Washington state’s COVID-19 Response team, told Recode. “We also are still working to get an understanding of the various privacy and security issues involved in those apps and tools,” LaBoe added.
Finally, the state hit hardest by the pandemic, New York, told Recode, “We are evaluating various technology applications that could assist in the initiative, but the key to effective contact tracing is direct outreach by individuals to work with a positive case to successfully identify their contacts.”
At the time of the API launch, Apple and Google would only say that several states have expressed interest in the tool. The companies would not give an exact number or offer more details about plans from public health authorities. Some states indicated to Recode that they are taking a wait-and-see approach, so it’s possible that several may join Alabama, North Dakota, and South Carolina in the coming days. It’s also possible that some states will change their minds and come around to the Apple-Google technology. That’s what Germany did. In fact, of the many countries using contact tracing apps, a handful of countries like Austria, Ireland, and Switzerland have committed to using the Apple-Google tool.
In the weeks to come, significant questions remain about how successful contact tracing and exposure notification technology will be. This depends on how many people download and use the technology offered in their region, not to mention the integration of other efforts, like human-based contact tracing. So while the Apple-Google tool hasn’t had the universal acceptance that might have been expected when the tool was first announced, it’s not a total flop.
By all appearances, it looks like Apple-Google wanted to contribute to society and make their mark on fighting the spread of coronavirus, and that’s laudable. But it’s now clear that the two companies also, characteristically, wanted to do it only on their terms, even if it meant reducing the efficacy of the apps based on their tool from a public health agency perspective. And when two massive companies control nearly 100 percent of the smartphones out there between them, they can dictate whatever terms they want — even in a worldwide crisis.
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network. All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists.


vox--2020-05-20--The fabled “Snyder Cut” of Justice League will officially premiere in 2021

Zack Snyder fans have been clamoring for the release of the director ’ s fabled , perhaps nonexistent cut of the much-maligned DC superhero team-up movie Justice League since the film ’ s original release in November 2017 .
Now , the unthinkable has happened : The mystical “ Snyder Cut ” is real .
On Wednesday , May 20 , Warner Bros. Pictures announced it would premiere Snyder ’ s director ’ s cut of Justice League in 2021 on the upcoming HBO Max streaming platform .
It will be titled Zack Snyder ’ s Justice League , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ date , has been given at this point .
“ I want to thank HBO Max and Warner Brothers for this brave gesture of supporting artists and allowing their true visions to be realized .
Also a special thank you to all of those involved in the SnyderCut movement for making this a reality , ” Snyder said in a statement .
It ’ s unclear what shape the so-called Snyder Cut is in , or more specifically , what kind of sound mixing and effects would need to be added following Snyder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ project just before the film ’ s original reshoots to deal with the death of his daughter .
( There are reports that dispute this and claim that Snyder was fired much earlier , however . )
Avengers director Joss Whedon was called in to handle the movie ’ s numerous reshoots .
Snyder ’ s departure from the production sparked a theory that somehow , the movie Snyder would have made if he ’ d been allowed to see it through would be better than the critical and box-office disappointment it turned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Justice League was quickly dubbed the “ Snyder Cut.
” It wasn ’ t until March 2019 , years after fans campaigned to ask for its release , that Snyder confirmed the existence of his director ’ s cut to a fan while attending a fundraiser for the ArtCenter College of Design ’ s Ahmanson Auditorium .
Yet his comments did not halt the back-and-forth about whether Snyder ’ s version of the film would ever see the light of day .
The question remained one of the biggest across fandom internet — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot and ex-Batman Ben Affleck both tweeted support for its release — amplifying the volume surrounding the cut .
Snyder himself also teased its release , posting alleged stills on his Vero social media account .
At the same time , Warner Bros. insiders had downplayed both its possible release and even existence .
HBO Max launches on May 27 .
The subscription service will encompass existing HBO content , as well as Warner properties like DC Universe films and TV shows , Seinfeld , and Rick and Morty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Studio Ghibli films .
But the most important part is that DC fans , who ’ ve waited this long for the Snyder Cut to be confirmed and see the light of day , finally have validation .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Zack Snyder fans have been clamoring for the release of the director’s fabled, perhaps nonexistent cut of the much-maligned DC superhero team-up movie Justice League since the film’s original release in November 2017. Now, the unthinkable has happened: The mystical “Snyder Cut” is real.
On Wednesday, May 20, Warner Bros. Pictures announced it would premiere Snyder’s director’s cut of Justice League in 2021 on the upcoming HBO Max streaming platform. It will be titled Zack Snyder’s Justice League, but no further information, including a release date, has been given at this point.
“I want to thank HBO Max and Warner Brothers for this brave gesture of supporting artists and allowing their true visions to be realized. Also a special thank you to all of those involved in the SnyderCut movement for making this a reality,” Snyder said in a statement.
It’s unclear what shape the so-called Snyder Cut is in, or more specifically, what kind of sound mixing and effects would need to be added following Snyder’s departure from the Justice League project just before the film’s original reshoots to deal with the death of his daughter. (There are reports that dispute this and claim that Snyder was fired much earlier, however.) Avengers director Joss Whedon was called in to handle the movie’s numerous reshoots.
Snyder’s departure from the production sparked a theory that somehow, the movie Snyder would have made if he’d been allowed to see it through would be better than the critical and box-office disappointment it turned out to be. That version of Justice League was quickly dubbed the “Snyder Cut.”
It wasn’t until March 2019, years after fans campaigned to ask for its release, that Snyder confirmed the existence of his director’s cut to a fan while attending a fundraiser for the ArtCenter College of Design’s Ahmanson Auditorium. Yet his comments did not halt the back-and-forth about whether Snyder’s version of the film would ever see the light of day. The question remained one of the biggest across fandom internet — until today.
It's done. It's up to them.
Tried cleaning up the audio a bit to make what he's saying more discernible@wbpictures #ReleaseTheSnyderCut pic.twitter.com/VUuxqWLK8d — Charlie (@SnyderCutJL) March 26, 2019
And last December, Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot and ex-Batman Ben Affleck both tweeted support for its release — amplifying the volume surrounding the cut. Snyder himself also teased its release, posting alleged stills on his Vero social media account. At the same time, Warner Bros. insiders had downplayed both its possible release and even existence.
HBO Max launches on May 27. The subscription service will encompass existing HBO content, as well as Warner properties like DC Universe films and TV shows, Seinfeld, and Rick and Morty. There will also be third-party fare like Studio Ghibli films. But the most important part is that DC fans, who’ve waited this long for the Snyder Cut to be confirmed and see the light of day, finally have validation.


vox--2020-05-20--What we know about the new Covid-19-linked illness in children

Doctors in at least 20 US states have seen kids who have fallen sick with a rare inflammatory illness similar to a condition known as Kawasaki disease .
Symptoms include fever and inflammation and can affect organs , including the heart .
The majority of the children have tested positive for Covid-19 or antibodies to the virus , and three have died .
New York City alone has reported 147 cases of the pediatric inflammatory syndrome so far , with about a third of cases occurring in children younger than 5 , and about half between the ages of 5 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have also popped up in other Covid-19 hot spots , including California , New Jersey , and Illinois .
The potentially deadly syndrome is also affecting a small number of children in other countries , including the UK , Spain , and now Italy .
A peer-reviewed study out of Italy , published May 13 in The Lancet , details the cases of 10 children who presented with this condition during the Covid-19 outbreak there .
Eight of the 10 children tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 in an antibody @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first clear evidence of a link between SARS-CoV-2 infection and this inflammatory condition , and we hope it will help doctors around the world as we try to get to grips with this unknown virus , ” said Lorenzo D ’ Antiga , lead author of the study from the Hospital Papa Giovanni XXIII in Bergamo , Italy , in a statement .
Lauren Henderson , an attending physician at Boston Children ’ s Hospital and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School , called it , “ a very important study.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ research — aims to decipher what about the new coronavirus might trigger this serious condition , how to treat it , and how it might help us understand the virus itself better .
Originally observed in Japan in the 1960s , Kawasaki disease is triggered by high levels of inflammation and can lead to trouble in the blood vessels and heart , among other places in the body , and occasionally prompt toxic shock syndrome and death .
Traditional symptoms can include a persistent high fever , skin rash , pinkeye , swollen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There is no test for the condition , so doctors rely on these signs and other laboratory measurements to determine if a child likely has it .
( It is primarily a pediatric condition , although adults can get it too . )
When Kawasaki disease is identified and addressed promptly , it is usually treatable .
Doctors typically administer antibody treatment and sometimes steroids and other medications , such as aspirin .
And , fortunately , Kawasaki disease is usually very rare , normally striking only about 21 children under the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US each year .
But now doctors are seeing a spike in cases of a similar illness — especially in areas with recent or ongoing Covid-19 outbreaks .
And early reports suggest these patients have more severe illnesses than the average case .
How the new cases seem to be different The authors of the new study in The Lancet are calling the illness the “ Kawasaki-like disease , ” acknowledging that they are very early in understanding it — and how it is related to Covid-19 .
Experts in the US are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in children ” ; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a working definition of the condition and recommendations to clinicians May 14 .
In the 10 patients in Italy , doctors found antibodies to the virus in eight of the children — three of whom also had a current infection .
The authors also noted they suspect that at least one of the other two might have had false negative antibody results due to testing issues .
As part of the analysis , the authors compared the recent pandemic cases with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the condition that they treated over the past five years .
Although the study was small , they found some key and worrisome patterns that distinguished the pandemic patients from others with Kawasaki disease in years past .
One key difference is “ the patients with [ this illness ] and Covid-19 were sicker and had different lab test abnormalities ” than those seen before the new coronavirus reached the area , Henderson told Vox .
“ This tells us that the children with Kawasaki disease features and Covid-19 might not be exactly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” For example , the researchers found that typically about 10 percent of their previous Kawasaki patients had heart issues ( as detected by abnormal echocardiograms ) , whereas 60 percent of the pandemic cases did .
The newer patients were also more likely to have a severe inflammatory response known as mitochondrial activation syndrome , which , as the authors of the paper note , “ is a form of cytokine storm.
” ( Cytokine storms are extreme immune reactions in the body , which have been fingered as culprits as much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19 patients . )
The doctors also found they needed to treat the recent patients with more medications to help them recover .
The children diagnosed during the outbreak also tended to be older ( a mean age of 7.5 years ) than kids they usually treated for the illness ( who had a mean age of 3 years ) .
In fact , Kawasaki disease is usually tracked for children younger than 5 .
But in this new group , the patients ranged in age from 5.5 to 16 years old .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ similarly for both conditions .
A new report , published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation , shows that patients with the new illness seem to be responding well to the traditional treatments for Kawasaki disease : antibody therapy , sometimes combined with steroids .
The researchers looked at the treatment history for 35 pediatric patients ( ages 2-16 ) admitted to the ICU with symptoms of the inflammatory conditions in France and Switzerland during the Covid-19 pandemic .
After being given the standard treatment , all of the children described in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ majority of patients recovered within a few days , ” the researchers noted in the paper .
How is this inflammatory disease linked to Covid-19 ?
Despite having studied Kawasaki disease for decades , researchers still don ’ t know exactly what triggers it .
Even before Covid-19 , a working hypothesis has been that a runaway immune response — possibly combined with a genetic predisposition — brought it on .
Previous research had even looked for evidence of other coronaviruses in Kawasaki patients , but overall the evidence was generally only weakly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ places with severe outbreaks of Covid-19 , however , are significant .
And even though the Italian study was small , the researchers noted that the rate of Kawasaki-like cases at their hospital in the outbreak center of Bergamo had jumped 30 times to their usual rate in the month they studied .
The timing is also interesting to researchers .
“ If you look at the curves , Covid-19 has plateaued , but there ’ s an exponential rise in this secondary type of shock syndrome , ” Jane Newburger , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , said in a release .
“ It is even possible that the antibodies that children are making to SARS-CoV-2 are creating an immune reaction in the body .
Nobody knows.
” According to Henderson , “ It will be very important for other studies to replicate these results at other centers .
It is even more important for doctors to enroll children in prospective studies to get the best information possible about this disease.
” Researchers are also interested in how this could clarify some outstanding questions about the virus itself — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the broader population .
For example , “ if this is an antibody-mediated phenomenon , there might be implications for vaccine studies , and this might also explain why some children become very ill with Covid-19 , while the majority are unaffected or asymptomatic , ” write Russell Viner , president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health , and Elizabeth Whittaker , secretary of the British Pediatric Allergy Immunity and Infection Group , in a related commentary in The Lancet .
So far , at least three children have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ illness in New York state .
All 10 children in the Italian study have since recovered enough to be released from the hospital , although they were still taking medicine at the time of publication .
And the researchers say they are scheduled to all have ECGs to check their heart function in the next couple of months .
Still , the researchers argue that the findings reveal a key potential consequence of Covid-19 infections in children .
“ The association between SARS-CoV-2 and Kawasaki-like disease should be taken into account when it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pediatric population , ” the Lancet authors write .
In a Senate committee hearing Tuesday , Dr. Anthony Fauci , director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , also remarked that there are many unknowns with Covid-19 , “ particularly when it comes to children ... We really have to be very careful because the more and more we learn , we ’ re seeing what this virus can do.
” As Henderson told Vox , “ As in any infection , it is important for parents to seek @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has high fevers , new rash , significant abdominal pain , persistent vomiting , persistent diarrhea , or any other concerning symptom.
” But she and other doctors underscore that despite the increased incidence of the pediatric syndrome , it is still quite rare , “ probably affecting no more than one in 1,000 children exposed to SARS-CoV-2 , ” the Lancet authors write .
Henderson added , “ most children with Covid-19 do very well and have mild symptoms.
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Doctors in at least 20 US states have seen kids who have fallen sick with a rare inflammatory illness similar to a condition known as Kawasaki disease. Symptoms include fever and inflammation and can affect organs, including the heart. The majority of the children have tested positive for Covid-19 or antibodies to the virus, and three have died.
More from CDC briefing on Kawasaki-like condition MIS-C: 1) Now in 20 states 2) Symptoms include stomach pain, vomiting, rash, fever 3) Respiratory symptoms rare 4) MIS-C requires immediate attention and likely hospitalization 5) No underlying conditions predispose kids to MIS-C. — Matt McCarthy (@DrMattMcCarthy) May 20, 2020
New York City alone has reported 147 cases of the pediatric inflammatory syndrome so far, with about a third of cases occurring in children younger than 5, and about half between the ages of 5 and 14.
Clusters of the illness have also popped up in other Covid-19 hot spots, including California, New Jersey, and Illinois. The potentially deadly syndrome is also affecting a small number of children in other countries, including the UK, Spain, and now Italy.
A peer-reviewed study out of Italy, published May 13 in The Lancet, details the cases of 10 children who presented with this condition during the Covid-19 outbreak there. Eight of the 10 children tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 in an antibody test.
“Our study provides the first clear evidence of a link between SARS-CoV-2 infection and this inflammatory condition, and we hope it will help doctors around the world as we try to get to grips with this unknown virus,” said Lorenzo D’Antiga, lead author of the study from the Hospital Papa Giovanni XXIII in Bergamo, Italy, in a statement.
Lauren Henderson, an attending physician at Boston Children’s Hospital and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, called it, “a very important study.”
This work — and other ongoing research — aims to decipher what about the new coronavirus might trigger this serious condition, how to treat it, and how it might help us understand the virus itself better.
What is Kawasaki disease?
Originally observed in Japan in the 1960s, Kawasaki disease is triggered by high levels of inflammation and can lead to trouble in the blood vessels and heart, among other places in the body, and occasionally prompt toxic shock syndrome and death.
Traditional symptoms can include a persistent high fever, skin rash, pinkeye, swollen hands and feet, and cracked lips. There is no test for the condition, so doctors rely on these signs and other laboratory measurements to determine if a child likely has it. (It is primarily a pediatric condition, although adults can get it too.)
When Kawasaki disease is identified and addressed promptly, it is usually treatable. Doctors typically administer antibody treatment and sometimes steroids and other medications, such as aspirin.
And, fortunately, Kawasaki disease is usually very rare, normally striking only about 21 children under the age of 5 per 100,000 in the US each year.
But now doctors are seeing a spike in cases of a similar illness — especially in areas with recent or ongoing Covid-19 outbreaks. And early reports suggest these patients have more severe illnesses than the average case.
How the new cases seem to be different
The authors of the new study in The Lancet are calling the illness the “Kawasaki-like disease,” acknowledging that they are very early in understanding it — and how it is related to Covid-19. Experts in the US are calling the condition “multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children”; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a working definition of the condition and recommendations to clinicians May 14.
In the 10 patients in Italy, doctors found antibodies to the virus in eight of the children — three of whom also had a current infection. The authors also noted they suspect that at least one of the other two might have had false negative antibody results due to testing issues.
As part of the analysis, the authors compared the recent pandemic cases with the records of the 19 patients with the condition that they treated over the past five years. Although the study was small, they found some key and worrisome patterns that distinguished the pandemic patients from others with Kawasaki disease in years past.
One key difference is “the patients with [this illness] and Covid-19 were sicker and had different lab test abnormalities” than those seen before the new coronavirus reached the area, Henderson told Vox. “This tells us that the children with Kawasaki disease features and Covid-19 might not be exactly like other more classical Kawasaki disease patients.”
For example, the researchers found that typically about 10 percent of their previous Kawasaki patients had heart issues (as detected by abnormal echocardiograms), whereas 60 percent of the pandemic cases did.
The newer patients were also more likely to have a severe inflammatory response known as mitochondrial activation syndrome, which, as the authors of the paper note, “is a form of cytokine storm.” (Cytokine storms are extreme immune reactions in the body, which have been fingered as culprits as much of the damage seen in critical adult Covid-19 patients.)
The doctors also found they needed to treat the recent patients with more medications to help them recover.
The children diagnosed during the outbreak also tended to be older (a mean age of 7.5 years) than kids they usually treated for the illness (who had a mean age of 3 years). In fact, Kawasaki disease is usually tracked for children younger than 5. But in this new group, the patients ranged in age from 5.5 to 16 years old.
Treatment, however, seems to work similarly for both conditions. A new report, published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, shows that patients with the new illness seem to be responding well to the traditional treatments for Kawasaki disease: antibody therapy, sometimes combined with steroids.
The researchers looked at the treatment history for 35 pediatric patients (ages 2-16) admitted to the ICU with symptoms of the inflammatory conditions in France and Switzerland during the Covid-19 pandemic. After being given the standard treatment, all of the children described in the report survived — and “the majority of patients recovered within a few days,” the researchers noted in the paper.
How is this inflammatory disease linked to Covid-19?
Despite having studied Kawasaki disease for decades, researchers still don’t know exactly what triggers it. Even before Covid-19, a working hypothesis has been that a runaway immune response — possibly combined with a genetic predisposition — brought it on. Previous research had even looked for evidence of other coronaviruses in Kawasaki patients, but overall the evidence was generally only weakly correlated.
The new patterns emerging in places with severe outbreaks of Covid-19, however, are significant. And even though the Italian study was small, the researchers noted that the rate of Kawasaki-like cases at their hospital in the outbreak center of Bergamo had jumped 30 times to their usual rate in the month they studied.
The timing is also interesting to researchers. “If you look at the curves, Covid-19 has plateaued, but there’s an exponential rise in this secondary type of shock syndrome,” Jane Newburger, a cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, said in a release. “It is even possible that the antibodies that children are making to SARS-CoV-2 are creating an immune reaction in the body. Nobody knows.”
According to Henderson, “It will be very important for other studies to replicate these results at other centers. It is even more important for doctors to enroll children in prospective studies to get the best information possible about this disease.”
Researchers are also interested in how this could clarify some outstanding questions about the virus itself — and how we might fight it in the broader population.
For example, “if this is an antibody-mediated phenomenon, there might be implications for vaccine studies, and this might also explain why some children become very ill with Covid-19, while the majority are unaffected or asymptomatic,” write Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, and Elizabeth Whittaker, secretary of the British Pediatric Allergy Immunity and Infection Group, in a related commentary in The Lancet.
So far, at least three children have been reported to have died from this inflammatory illness in New York state. All 10 children in the Italian study have since recovered enough to be released from the hospital, although they were still taking medicine at the time of publication. And the researchers say they are scheduled to all have ECGs to check their heart function in the next couple of months.
Still, the researchers argue that the findings reveal a key potential consequence of Covid-19 infections in children.
“The association between SARS-CoV-2 and Kawasaki-like disease should be taken into account when it comes to considering social reintegration policies for the pediatric population,” the Lancet authors write.
In a Senate committee hearing Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also remarked that there are many unknowns with Covid-19, “particularly when it comes to children ... We really have to be very careful because the more and more we learn, we’re seeing what this virus can do.”
As Henderson told Vox, “As in any infection, it is important for parents to seek care with their pediatrician if their child has high fevers, new rash, significant abdominal pain, persistent vomiting, persistent diarrhea, or any other concerning symptom.”
But she and other doctors underscore that despite the increased incidence of the pediatric syndrome, it is still quite rare, “probably affecting no more than one in 1,000 children exposed to SARS-CoV-2,” the Lancet authors write. Henderson added, “most children with Covid-19 do very well and have mild symptoms.”