vox--2020-06-20--How superspreading is fueling the pandemic — and how we can stop it

How superspreading is fueling the pandemic — and how we can stop it Share All sharing options for : How superspreading is fueling the pandemic — and how we can stop it On Saturday , thousands of people were gathering inside the BOK Center in Tulsa , Oklahoma , a city where Covid-19 cases have risen steeply since May 31 , at a rally for President Donald Trump ’ s reelection campaign .
There may not be room for physical distancing in the arena , which can hold 19,000 people .
Each person who registered has signed a waiver to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they get sick with Covid-19 .
The city ’ s top health department official has warned that a large indoor gathering like this in a pandemic is unsafe .
The organizers have promised to hand out masks , but people aren ’ t required to wear them .
They plan to screen people for fevers at the door , but that will likely miss asymptomatic people who are infected but not feeling sick .
Given that this coronavirus tends to spread when people are in close , indoor quarters for extended periods , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rally will turn into a massive “ superspreading event , ” where many attendees — and people they later come into contact with — will be infected .
( Holding a large event indoors is riskier than those , like recent protests , that are outdoors . )
On average , people with the coronavirus infect about two other people ; most pass the virus to just one other person , or to no one else at all .
But some people go on to infect many more — often before they even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chains begin with superspreading events , where one person ( usually in a crowded indoor space ) passes the virus to dozens of others .
Early contact tracing studies suggest these events have been a large driver of transmission around the world .
By some estimates , 10 percent of people have been causing 80 percent of new infections .
Some of the largest superspreading events have happened aboard ships , including Navy carriers and cruise ships .
But they are also happening on the ground in smaller settings , including at a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a 57-year-old pastor and his wife , who both felt fine , attended a series of church events over three days , and the pastor returned for an additional Bible study group a few days later .
Soon after , they each started developing symptoms and eventually tested positive for the coronavirus .
But it had already spread .
At least 33 of the other 92 event attendees later tested positive for Covid-19 , and three of them died .
These cases then spawned more than two dozen other illnesses — and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A recent preliminary Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report analyzed all of the 3,184 confirmed Covid-19 cases in Japan through the beginning of April .
The researchers found that 61 percent of cases could be definitively traced to clusters of spread outside the household , such as at restaurants , bars , event venues , and workplaces .
And this is likely an undercount due to limitations in contact tracing .
What causes these superspreading clusters , and why are they such a key driver of this pandemic ?
Is it something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Or is it more about the settings where these events take place ?
Or a combination ?
Thankfully , we are learning more about superspreading events , and this insight can help dramatically slow the spread of the coronavirus , and save lives — all while potentially allowing more people to return to less risky activities .
That is , if policymakers implement the guidance , and people follow it .
“ If you could reduce superspreading , you could have a massive impact on the pandemic , ” Elizabeth McGraw , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dynamics at The Pennsylvania State University , told Vox in an email .
Let ’ s walk through it .
Why is the coronavirus so good at superspreading ?
To understand what might kick off a superspreading event , let ’ s review some basics about how this virus , SARS-CoV-2 , spreads .
Researchers have found that it often spreads through microscopic droplets created when an infected person coughs or sneezes — or even speaks — and another person breathes them in .
These disease-containing droplets are a large part of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away from people and wearing a mask in public .
But scientists are finding that the virus likely also spreads through even tinier , longer-lasting particles from breathing or speaking ( or flushing a toilet ) called aerosols .
These are so small they can linger in the air after an infectious person has left — and may contain infectious virus particles for up to three hours .
And they may be a key element to superspreading events : An infected person could seed a poorly ventilated indoor space with virus without even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they end up infecting .
Superspreading also appears to be more likely with SARS-CoV-2 because people typically have the highest level of the virus in their system ( making them infectious ) right before they develop symptoms .
( This is very different from other severe coronaviruses like SARS and MERS , where people were most infectious seven to 10 days after they started feeling sick , when they were more likely to be in isolation or in medical care . )
So thousands of people with active Covid-19 infections continue to go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could be spreading the disease .
This has meant that , as some researchers noted in a preprint , “ most transmissions are front-loaded ” toward the beginning of the illness .
As another team of researchers who analyzed cases and contacts in Taiwan noted in JAMA , people actually had a much lower risk of spreading the virus after five days of symptoms .
This might be in part because sick people are less likely to go out , whether because they don ’ t want to spread their illness or because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to it .
But it also has to do with a person ’ s “ viral load ” — an amount that actually tends to go down as symptoms wear on .
A May study of samples collected from patients , published in Clinical Infectious Disease , suggests that people who had symptoms for more than eight days might not actually be very infectious .
“ I think the virus ’ s biggest weapon has been that it can be spread by asymptomatic or presymptomatic people ” All of this makes it so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spreading the virus — sometimes to very large groups of people — unwittingly .
“ I think the virus ’ s biggest weapon has been that it can be spread by asymptomatic or presymptomatic people , ” McGraw says .
“ This , in combination with insufficient testing of people in the community , has meant that it can move from one host to the next while we are unaware.
” This coronavirus ’ s uneven spread is calculated by its “ dispersion factor ” ( sometimes abbreviated as “ k ” ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bulk of transmissions .
An even dispersion rate would mean most people cause the same number of secondary infections .
We still don ’ t have an entirely firm k factor for Covid-19 , and a lot of the research is still in the prepublication phase and has not been peer-reviewed .
But preliminary estimates , such as one co-authored by Adam Kucharski , an infectious disease dynamics expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine , suggest that about 10 percent of infected people cause about 80 percent of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , non-peer-reviewed study from Israel put the local k factor at between 1 and 10 percent of infected people causing 80 percent of new infections .
And a preliminary analysis of superspreading events in Hong Kong put their estimates at around 20 percent of infections causing 80 percent of local transmission .
All of this shows how important superspreading events have been in the virus ’ s spread .
But it doesn ’ t fully explain why they are happening — or how to stop them .
Are certain people more likely to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a person ’ s likelihood of kicking off a superspreading event probably depends a little bit on biology and a lot on behavior .
Some individuals seem to develop higher amounts of the virus in their system , upping their odds of transmitting it to others .
And given that the amount of virus in the body tends to shift over the duration of infection — rising until around the onset of symptoms , then declining — the chance that someone is a likely superspreader changes over time .
Finding out whether some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take more time and research , McGraw says .
But what we have been learning is how individuals ’ behavior could increase the chance they spread the virus to many others — or not .
“ We do know that wearing masks , keeping up physical distancing , avoiding crowds , and isolating upon becoming sick or testing positive can prevent superspreading , ” she says .
The new CDC report out of Japan found 22 people who likely started clusters of cases .
( Half of them were 20 to 39 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the research team could figure out when transmission occurred , which is important because it showed that 41 percent of them didn ’ t have any symptoms when they spread the virus .
In fact , of the superspreaders , only one had a cough when they infected others .
This points to an important nuance in thinking about how some individuals might be sickening a disproportionate number of others .
“ We should not think about superspreaders as villains , ” McGraw says .
“ Any one of us could unknowingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what we know about how much it spreads when people are feeling just fine .
But that means we can probably also avoid becoming a superspreader .
How ?
By doing things we already know can limit the spread of the virus : “ Wear a mask .
Wash your hands .
Keep your distance , and respect the physical space of others , ” McGraw says .
As the pandemic has worn on and become increasingly politicized , many people in the US are now resisting continued precautions , leading to mask @ @ @ @ @ @ @ greater chances of new superspreading events .
The upcoming Trump campaign rally in Tulsa is just the latest and largest example .
As the top public health official there said in a press conference Wednesday , “ I know so many people are over Covid , but Covid is not over.
” And indeed , according to Covid Exit Strategy , Oklahoma ’ s new daily cases are up 125 percent over the past 14 days .
“ I see an increasing number of people not wearing masks in public as restrictions ease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find it disappointing .
I worry that our focus on personal freedoms in the US , rather than being more community-minded , is going to prolong the outbreak and lead to more deaths than necessary.
” Why superspreading is more common at concerts than in libraries Although we know that individuals ’ behavior plays a role in superspreading , what might be even more important for these events is where they happen .
Researchers have been tracking many superspreading events around the globe , and there seem to be recurring locations no matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those we have heard most about , like prisons , food processing plants , and elder care facilities , there have also been numerous large superspreading events at bars , churches , offices , gyms , and shopping centers .
These are also places , though , that are now reopening around the country and likely contributing to the upward swing of cases in many states .
As Kucharski notes , “ Identifying and reducing risky events and environments could make a substantial dent in transmission.
” Not reducing these events has the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For example , as South Korea started to reopen in early May , one infected person who attended five nightclubs caused at least 50 new infections .
And a preliminary study of infection clusters in Hong Kong found that the largest one documented so far , which resulted in 106 Covid-19 cases , was linked back to exposures from staff and musicians at a series of bars .
Seventy-three of the people in this cluster caught the virus at the bars ( including 39 who were customers ) , who then spread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A team of researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has been collecting data on these superspreading events in a public database .
The largest ones — including two that resulted in more than 1,000 cases each — happened aboard ships .
Hundreds of cases also have originated from single individuals in close contact with others in worker dormitories , food processing plants , prisons , and elder care facilities .
But next on the list are an outbreak tied to a single person at an indoor-outdoor shopping market in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; an indoor-outdoor religious service in India where one person likely sickened 130 others ; and an indoor-outdoor wedding in New Zealand where a single case sparked 98 more .
Only one of the 22 cluster location types the team analyzed in a preliminary study was an outdoor setting ( building sites in Singapore ; four clusters were linked to these sites , causing a total of 95 infections acquired directly from the sites ) .
These findings line up with other preliminary research that calculated closed environments to be almost 20 times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than open-air ones .
There has been concern that the massive protests across the US , which started in late May after the killing of George Floyd , would become superspreading events .
So far the data suggests that hasn ’ t been the case , with no large surge in cases in cities that had the largest demonstrations earlier in the month ( although public health officials will continue to track the numbers ) .
This lines up with what we know about the science .
“ Outdoor events like the protests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , given greater airflow , ” McGraw says .
“ It is also easier to spread out and maintain physical distancing.
” And photographs of the protests have shown that a large number of people have been wearing masks .
Still , no massive gathering is guaranteed to stay Covid-19-free .
“ There will still be increased risk of transmission given the large number of people present , ” she says .
It also appears that not all indoor venues and events are equally risky when it comes to starting a large cluster @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve learned from studying events , like the infamous March church choir practice in Skagit County , Washington , during which one person infected an estimated 52 of 61 people ( two of whom died ) , loud talking and singing “ can spread more virus than talking at a normal volume , ” McGraw says .
Indeed , the recent analysis out of Japan found that “ many Covid-19 clusters were associated with heavy breathing in close proximity , such as singing at karaoke parties , cheering at clubs , having conversations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Even looking more closely at cases from these locations can give us clues about what makes superspreading more likely .
A CDC report from South Korea detailed 112 new Covid-19 infections that came from aerobic dance classes ( like Zumba ) in one city .
Interestingly , an instructor who infected dance class participants also taught yoga and Pilates classes , but none of those participants got ill. “ We hypothesize that the lower intensity of pilates and yoga did not cause the same transmission effects as those more intense fitness dance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The moist , warm atmosphere in a sports facility coupled with turbulent air flow generated by intense physical exercise can cause more dense transmission of isolated droplets , ” thereby making the virus more likely to spread .
These hubs of contagion also are helping us learn what activities might be safer , like seeing small groups of people , from a distance , outdoors .
“ There ’ s increasing evidence that certain environments , like socially distanced picnics with a few other people , are far less risky than crowded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ indoors , ” says Kucharski , who is also the author of a forthcoming book called The Rules of Contagion .
What should we be doing to limit superspreading ?
Superspreading can be both a curse and a potential blessing in a disease outbreak .
It means that having everyone on full lockdown is not necessarily essential to keep the disease in check when it is not already circulating widely in a community — if ( and that ’ s an important “ if ” ) we can determine the highest risks for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s the blessing .
The curse , Kucharski says , is “ if risky situations are missed or undetected , it means transmission could persist.
” Not only that , but there is also the danger that , as the authors of the one early report note , “ If a superspreader is infected , the disease may spread to other superspreaders.
” This seems entirely possible , especially given that people surrounding an original superspreader were probably already engaging in behavior ( like attending a crowded public location ) that would make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too .
Superspreading events also can strain other systems in place , like contact tracing , to contain the virus , increasing the odds that further infections will continue to spiral in the community .
Just as a sudden spike in cases can surpass the capacity of health care systems , a big jump can also surpass local capacity to track and notify contacts of the infected to isolate and get tested .
But now that we have data from recent superspreading events , we could theoretically prevent future ones .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we can .
But it depends on government , businesses , and individuals to put these lessons into practice .
For example , in addition to physical distancing measures , limits on capacity , and requiring mask-wearing , governments and businesses could also take into account other details we are learning about superspreading events , like loud environments that encourage more droplet-filled speech .
For example , as Colorado shifts to allow bars to open and indoor events to take place this weekend , it could establish guidelines to limit noise levels ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loud music ) so that people don ’ t need to yell or talk loudly .
Some current efforts to prevent superspreading — like taking people ’ s temperature before they enter a building — can help , but are not failproof .
Even if a business , day care , or large-scale event checks everyone ’ s temperature before they enter , “ it won ’ t necessarily pick up everyone who is infectious , ” Kucharski says .
McGraw agrees , noting that it “ is really only going to catch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus .
For example , some infected individuals never develop a fever , or “ their fever rises and falls over a single day ” or changes through the illness , she says .
One company that has tested more than 30,000 people for Covid-19 recently reported that just 12 percent of people with positive tests had a fever of 100 degrees or higher .
And only 37 percent even had a cough .
One thing that will help reduce these events is more contact tracing and testing .
These tools would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nuances of superspreading and prevent more of it in the future .
If those 10 or 20 percent of people who would have sparked 80 percent of the new infections instead only passed the illness on to one or two other people , we could be in a much different place , and soon .
A first step is following the lead of infectious disease experts , who know well what potential superspreading situations to avoid .
McGraw says , “ Right now , I would not go to a gym , an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ events like rallies , concerts , nightclubs , etc.
” What would she feel comfortable doing ?
“ I might dine outside , if the tables were spaced apart , and I felt like the customers and restaurant staff were taking precautions.
” Just this past week , she went camping with her family , but she chose campgrounds following CDC guidelines .
“ For other places , like parks and beaches , my advice is to be prepared to leave if they get crowded and you can not safely distance , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kucharski cites the simple guidelines Japan has put out : avoid , when at all possible , the “ 3 Cs ” — closed environments , crowded places , and close-contact settings .
And it ’ s a reminder that large , entirely optional indoor events , like political campaign rallies ( for any candidate ) , seem exceptionally dangerous right now — not just for those who attend , but also for those they might come into contact with later .
Katherine Harmon Courage is a freelance science journalist and author of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Twitter at @ KHCourage .
Update : This story was updated with a discussion of the risks associated with outdoor protests .
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Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
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How superspreading is fueling the pandemic — and how we can stop it
Share All sharing options for: How superspreading is fueling the pandemic — and how we can stop it
We now know that, on average, most people with the novel coronavirus pass the virus to just one other person, or to no one else at all.
But some go on to infect many, many more, often before they even experience symptoms. Many of these transmission chains begin with “superspreading” events, where one person (usually in a crowded indoor space) passes the virus to dozens of others. Early contact tracing studies suggest these events have been a large driver of transmission around the world. By some estimates, 10 percent of people have been causing 80 percent of new infections.
This is one of the reasons experts worry about large indoor gatherings — more so than outdoor ones — causing large spikes in case numbers.
With Friday’s news that at least 12 people who work in the White House or have recently attended events there, including President Donald Trump, have tested positive for the coronavirus, there are questions about whether the maskless indoor receptions on September 26 to celebrate Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court kicked off a superspreading event.
The Amy Coney Barrett Rose Garden announcement was a superspreader event, despite being outdoors.
Single risk reduction measures are not enough. Multiple measures are needed:
Masks AND distancing AND avoid crowds AND hygiene AND avoid prolonged contact.https://t.co/gqO23wjsHk — Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) October 3, 2020
To date, some of the largest superspreading events have happened aboard ships, including Navy carriers and cruise ships. But they are also happening in smaller settings, including at a church in Arkansas.
In early March, a 57-year-old pastor and his wife, who both felt fine, attended a series of church events over three days, and the pastor returned for an additional Bible study group a few days later. Soon after, they each started developing symptoms and eventually tested positive for the coronavirus. But it had already spread. At least 33 of the other 92 event attendees later tested positive for Covid-19, and three of them died. These cases then spawned more than two dozen other illnesses — and another death — in the community.
One preliminary Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report analyzed all of the 3,184 confirmed Covid-19 cases in Japan through the beginning of April. The researchers found that 61 percent of cases could be definitively traced to clusters of spread outside the household, such as at restaurants, bars, event venues, and workplaces. And this is likely an undercount due to limitations in contact tracing.
Superspreading events can lead to potentially thousands of cases in the community, as an August 25 preprint that hasn’t yet been peer reviewed suggests. The authors sequenced the full viral genome in 772 Covid-19 cases in the Boston region, including 28 early cases that were linked to a late-February conference for the biotech company Biogen. By finding a specific genetic mutation in the conference infections, they could then trace the chain of transmission. This one variant was found in about one in three later cases in their Boston area study (and about 2.7 percent of all of the analyzed US cases), suggesting that the Biogen conference led to an estimated 20,000 Covid-19 cases in total.
What causes these superspreading clusters, and why are they such a key driver of this pandemic? Is it something about the people themselves who start them? Or is it more about the settings where these events take place? Or a combination?
Thankfully, we are learning more about superspreading events, and this insight can help dramatically slow the spread of the coronavirus and save lives — all while potentially allowing more people to return to less risky activities. That is, if policymakers implement the guidance, and people follow it. “If you could reduce superspreading, you could have a massive impact on the pandemic,” Elizabeth McGraw, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University, told Vox in an email. Let’s walk through it.
Why is the coronavirus so good at superspreading?
To understand what might kick off a superspreading event, let’s review some basics about how this virus, SARS-CoV-2, spreads. Researchers have found that it often spreads through microscopic droplets created when an infected person coughs or sneezes — or even speaks — and another person breathes them in. These disease-containing droplets are a large part of the reasoning behind staying at least 6 feet away from people and wearing a mask in public.
But scientists are finding that the virus likely also spreads through even tinier, longer-lasting aerosols particles from breathing or speaking (or flushing a toilet). These are so small they can linger in the air after an infectious person has left — and may contain infectious virus particles for up to three hours. And they may be a key element to superspreading events: An infected person could seed a poorly ventilated indoor space with virus without even getting physically close to all the people they end up infecting.
Superspreading also appears to be more likely with SARS-CoV-2 because people typically have the highest level of the virus in their system (making them infectious) right before they develop symptoms. (This is very different from other severe coronaviruses like SARS and MERS, where people were most infectious seven to 10 days after they started feeling sick, when they were more likely to be in isolation or in medical care.) So thousands of people with active Covid-19 infections continue to go about their lives not knowing that they could be spreading the disease.
This has meant that, as some researchers noted in a preprint, “most transmissions are front-loaded” toward the beginning of the illness. As another team of researchers who analyzed cases and contacts in Taiwan noted in JAMA, people actually had a much lower risk of spreading the virus after five days of symptoms. This might be in part because sick people are less likely to go out, whether because they don’t want to spread their illness or because they simply don’t feel up to it.
But it also has to do with a person’s “viral load” — an amount that actually tends to go down as symptoms wear on. A May study of samples collected from patients, published in Clinical Infectious Disease, suggests that people who had symptoms for more than eight days might not actually be very infectious.
“I think the virus’s biggest weapon has been that it can be spread by asymptomatic or presymptomatic people”
All of this makes it so much more likely for people to be spreading the virus — sometimes to very large groups of people — unwittingly.
“I think the virus’s biggest weapon has been that it can be spread by asymptomatic or presymptomatic people,” McGraw says. “This, in combination with insufficient testing of people in the community, has meant that it can move from one host to the next while we are unaware.”
This coronavirus’s uneven spread is calculated by its “dispersion factor” (sometimes abbreviated as “k”): what proportion of cases cause the bulk of transmissions. An even dispersion rate would mean most people cause the same number of secondary infections.
We still don’t have an entirely firm k factor for Covid-19, and a lot of the research is still in the prepublication phase and has not been peer-reviewed. But preliminary estimates, such as one co-authored by Adam Kucharski, an infectious disease dynamics expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, suggest that about 10 percent of infected people cause about 80 percent of the virus’s spread.
Another early, non-peer-reviewed study from Israel put the local k factor at between 1 and 10 percent of infected people causing 80 percent of new infections. And a preliminary analysis of superspreading events in Hong Kong put their estimates at around 20 percent of infections causing 80 percent of local transmission.
All of this shows how important superspreading events have been in the virus’s spread. But it doesn’t fully explain why they are happening — or how to stop them.
Are certain people more likely to be superspreaders?
Scientists are learning that a person’s likelihood of kicking off a superspreading event probably depends a little bit on biology and a lot on behavior.
Some individuals seem to develop higher amounts of the virus in their system, upping their odds of transmitting it to others.
And given that the amount of virus in the body tends to shift over the duration of infection — rising until around the onset of symptoms, then declining — the chance that someone is a likely superspreader changes over time.
Another preprint posted on August 7 developed a model to better understand how these dynamics might be playing out for SARS-CoV-2. The research suggests that people carrying this virus are potentially infectious for about two and a half days — and rise to a “moderate probability of transmission per contact” for “less than half a day,” the researchers write.
This means that it would likely take someone having contact with a large number of people during the window when they had fairly large amounts of the virus (more than 10 million RNA copies) to spark a superspreading event infecting more than 50 people (whereas someone with 100,000 viral RNA copies was unlikely to infect others).
This helps us understand how superspreading can happen by chance, on a population level. Finding out whether some people are predisposed to be superspreaders will take more time and research, McGraw says.
But what we have been learning is how individuals’ behavior could increase the chance they spread the virus to many others — or not. “We do know that wearing masks, keeping up physical distancing, avoiding crowds, and isolating upon becoming sick or testing positive can prevent superspreading,” she says.
The CDC report out of Japan found 22 people who likely started clusters of cases. (Half of them were 20 to 39 years old.) And for 16 people, the research team could figure out when transmission occurred, which is important because it showed that 41 percent of them didn’t have any symptoms when they spread the virus. In fact, of the superspreaders, only one had a cough when they infected others.
And as the authors of the August 7 preprint found, about 62 percent of superspreading transmissions happened when the spreader was presymptomatic.
This points to an important nuance in thinking about how some individuals might be sickening a disproportionate number of others. “We should not think about superspreaders as villains,” McGraw says. “Any one of us could unknowingly be a superspreader” — especially given what we know about how much it spreads when people are feeling just fine.
But that means we can probably also avoid becoming a superspreader by doing things we already know can limit the spread of the virus: “Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Keep your distance, and respect the physical space of others,” McGraw says.
As the pandemic has worn on and become increasingly politicized, however, many people in the US are now resisting continued precautions, leading to mask rebellions, large gatherings — and much greater chances of new superspreading events.
“I see an increasing number of people not wearing masks in public as restrictions ease,” McGraw says. “I find it disappointing. I worry that our focus on personal freedoms in the US, rather than being more community-minded, is going to prolong the outbreak and lead to more deaths than necessary.”
Why superspreading is more common at concerts than in libraries
Although we know that individuals’ behavior plays a role in superspreading, what might be even more important for these events is where they happen.
Researchers have been tracking many superspreading events around the globe, and there seem to be recurring locations no matter what the country. In addition to those we have heard most about, like prisons, food processing plants, and elder care facilities, there have also been numerous large superspreading events at bars, churches, offices, gyms, and shopping centers.
These are also places, though, that are now reopening around the country and likely contributing to the upward swing of cases in many states. As Kucharski wrote in an email to Vox, “Identifying and reducing risky events and environments could make a substantial dent in transmission.” Not reducing these events has the opposite effect on the number of cases.
For example, as South Korea started to reopen in early May, one infected person who attended five nightclubs caused at least 50 new infections.
And a preliminary study of infection clusters in Hong Kong found that the largest one documented so far, which resulted in 106 Covid-19 cases, was linked back to exposures from staff and musicians at a series of bars. Seventy-three of the people in this cluster caught the virus at the bars (including 39 who were customers), who then spread it to others in the community.
A team of researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has been collecting data on these superspreading events in a public database. The largest ones — including two that resulted in more than 1,000 cases each — happened aboard ships. Hundreds of cases also have originated from single individuals in close contact with others in worker dormitories, food processing plants, prisons, and elder care facilities.
But next on the list are an outbreak tied to a single person at an indoor-outdoor shopping market in Peru who likely infected 163 other people; an indoor-outdoor religious service in India where one person likely sickened 130 others; and an indoor-outdoor wedding in New Zealand where a single case sparked 98 more.
Only one of the 22 cluster location types the team analyzed in a preliminary study was an outdoor setting (building sites in Singapore; four clusters were linked to these sites, causing a total of 95 infections acquired directly from the sites).
These findings line up with other preliminary research that calculated closed environments to be almost 20 times more likely to spur additional coronavirus infections than open-air ones.
There was concern that the massive protests across the US, which started in late May after the killing of George Floyd, would become superspreading events. So far the data suggests that wasn’t the case, with no large surge in cases in cities that had the largest demonstrations.
This lines up with the science. “Outdoor events like the protests are inherently less risky than indoor events, given greater airflow,” McGraw says. “It is also easier to spread out and maintain physical distancing.” And photographs of the protests have shown that a large number of people have been wearing masks. Still, no massive gathering is guaranteed to stay Covid-19-free. “There will still be increased risk of transmission given the large number of people present,” she says.
It also appears that not all indoor venues and events are equally risky when it comes to starting a large cluster of new cases.
As we’ve learned from studying events, like the infamous March church choir practice in Skagit County, Washington, during which one person infected an estimated 52 of 61 people (two of whom died), loud talking and singing “can spread more virus than talking at a normal volume,” McGraw says.
Indeed, the recent analysis out of Japan found that “many Covid-19 clusters were associated with heavy breathing in close proximity, such as singing at karaoke parties, cheering at clubs, having conversations in bars, and exercising in gymnasiums.”
Even looking more closely at cases from these locations can give us clues about what makes superspreading more likely. A CDC report from South Korea detailed 112 Covid-19 infections that came from aerobic dance classes (like Zumba) in one city. Interestingly, an instructor who infected dance class participants also taught yoga and Pilates classes, but none of those participants got ill.
“We hypothesize that the lower intensity of pilates and yoga did not cause the same transmission effects as those more intense fitness dance classes,” the authors noted. “The moist, warm atmosphere in a sports facility coupled with turbulent air flow generated by intense physical exercise can cause more dense transmission of isolated droplets,” thereby making the virus more likely to spread.
These hubs of contagion also are helping us learn what activities might be safer, like seeing small groups of people, from a distance, outdoors.
“There’s increasing evidence that certain environments, like socially distanced picnics with a few other people, are far less risky than crowded, close-knit interactions, like large gatherings indoors,” says Kucharski, who is also the author of The Rules of Contagion.
What should we be doing to limit superspreading?
Superspreading can be both a curse and a potential blessing in a disease outbreak. It means that having everyone on full lockdown is not necessarily essential to keep the disease in check when it is not already circulating widely in a community — if (and that’s an important “if”) we can determine the highest risks for superspreading and prevent them. That’s the blessing. The curse, Kucharski says, is “if risky situations are missed or undetected, it means transmission could persist.”
Not only that, but there is also the danger that, as the authors of one early report note, “If a superspreader is infected, the disease may spread to other superspreaders.” This seems entirely possible, especially given that people surrounding an original superspreader were probably already engaging in behavior (like attending a crowded public location) that would make them more likely to be a superspreader, too.
Superspreading events also can strain other systems in place, like contact tracing, to contain the virus, increasing the odds that further infections will continue to spiral in the community. Just as a sudden spike in cases can surpass the capacity of health care systems, a big jump can also surpass local capacity to track and notify contacts of the infected to isolate and get tested.
But now that we have data from recent superspreading events, we could theoretically prevent future ones. For example, the preprint modeling superspreading dynamics suggests that just reducing exposure opportunities, such as events with 20 or more possible people, could get the virus’s spread under control.
The good news is that the science on this is growing. But it depends on government, businesses, and individuals to put these lessons into practice.
For example, in addition to physical distancing measures, limits on capacity, and requiring mask-wearing, governments and businesses could also take into account other details we are learning about superspreading events, like loud environments that encourage more droplet-filled speech.
One thing that will help reduce these events is more contact tracing, isolation, and testing. If those 10 or 20 percent of people who would have sparked 80 percent of the new infections instead only passed the illness on to one or two other people, we could be in a much different place, and soon.
A first step is following the lead of infectious disease experts, who know well what potential superspreading situations to avoid. McGraw says, “I might dine outside, if the tables were spaced apart, and I felt like the customers and restaurant staff were taking precautions.” Earlier this summer, she went camping with her family, but she chose campgrounds following CDC guidelines. “For other places, like parks and beaches, my advice is to be prepared to leave if they get crowded and you cannot safely distance,” she says.
For his part, Kucharski cites the simple guidelines Japan has put out: avoid, when at all possible, the “3 Cs” — closed environments, crowded places, and close-contact settings.
Katherine Harmon Courage is a freelance science journalist and author of Cultured and Octopus! Find her on Twitter at @KHCourage.
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vox--2020-06-20--Trump falsely suggests wearing a mask at his Tulsa rally could be harmful

President Donald Trump told Axios on Friday that he anticipated a “ wild evening ” at his Saturday campaign rally in Tulsa , Oklahoma , while recommending “ people do what they want ” when it comes to wearing a mask at the event — and even suggested it could be harmful to wear one .
Trump ’ s comments come as the city has seen a surge in Covid-19 cases in the past few weeks .
They also stand at odds with recommendations from public health officials in his own administration who recommend mask-wearing whenever social distancing isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts that indoor concerts and shows are natural superspreading events .
Trump ’ s rally Saturday — which will take place at an indoor arena that seats 19,000 people — will be the first one he ’ s held in months after taking a break from them due to the global pandemic .
But despite the coronavirus still raging across the US — and surging in the very city he ’ s going to campaign in — he repeatedly dismissed the threat of the virus and expert-recommended mitigation strategies during his interview with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back to business .
We have to get back to living our lives .
Can ’ t do this any longer , ” Trump said to Axios .
“ And I do believe it ’ s safe .
I do believe it ’ s very safe.
” The president also referred to the false claim that masks can harm wearers , while saying that people should wear them only if they wanted to .
” You know , there was a time when people thought it was worse wearing a mask , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make up their own decision.
” When told that Anthony Fauci , the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , recommended wearing masks in crowds , Trump was unconvinced that it applied to him .
“ Fauci ?
I ’ m OK with that .
If people want to wear masks I think that ’ s great .
I won ’ t be .
Not as a protest but I don ’ t feel that I ’ m in danger , ” he told Axios .
Tickets for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the president ’ s campaign and the arena from liability if attendees fall ill from coronavirus after attending the rally .
Trump ’ s campaign will be distributing masks and hand sanitizer to attendees , and giving them temperature checks at the arena .
Meanwhile , the president promised in a tweet on Friday that protesters would “ not be treated ” as they have been in liberal cities , and implying that they would be aggressively suppressed .
“ Oklahoma ’ s much tougher on law and order , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threatening protesters “ the least controversial of my tweets.
” Trump ’ s anticipation of a “ wild evening ” may also be a thinly veiled anticipation of clashes between his supporters and anti-Trump protesters .
The Hill reports that Tulsa reversed course on imposing a curfew in the city “ apparently at the president ’ s urging.
” Tulsa initially announced a curfew from 10 pm to 6 am for Friday and Saturday in the area surrounding the arena .
The Republican mayor , G.T .
Bynum , cited concerns about unrest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who have been involved in destructive and violent behavior in other states ” when imposing the curfew .
But less than 24 hours later , he rescinded that curfew after Trump reached out to him , and after he consulted with the US Secret Service .
Trump celebrated the announcement that the city dropped its curfew .
“ I just spoke to the highly respected Mayor of Tulsa , G.T .
Bynum , who informed me there will be no curfew tonight or tomorrow for our many supporters attending the # MAGA Rally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 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 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .

President Donald Trump told Axios on Friday that he anticipated a “wild evening” at his Saturday campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, while recommending “people do what they want” when it comes to wearing a mask at the event — and even suggested it could be harmful to wear one.
Trump’s comments come as the city has seen a surge in Covid-19 cases in the past few weeks. They also stand at odds with recommendations from public health officials in his own administration who recommend mask-wearing whenever social distancing isn’t possible, and with warnings from experts that indoor concerts and shows are natural superspreading events.
Trump’s rally Saturday — which will take place at an indoor arena that seats 19,000 people — will be the first one he’s held in months after taking a break from them due to the global pandemic. But despite the coronavirus still raging across the US — and surging in the very city he’s going to campaign in — he repeatedly dismissed the threat of the virus and expert-recommended mitigation strategies during his interview with Axios.
“We have to get back to business. We have to get back to living our lives. Can’t do this any longer,” Trump said to Axios. “And I do believe it’s safe. I do believe it’s very safe.”
The president also referred to the false claim that masks can harm wearers, while saying that people should wear them only if they wanted to. “You know, there was a time when people thought it was worse wearing a mask,” he said. “I let people make up their own decision.”
When told that Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recommended wearing masks in crowds, Trump was unconvinced that it applied to him. “Fauci? I’m OK with that. If people want to wear masks I think that’s great. I won’t be. Not as a protest but I don’t feel that I’m in danger,” he told Axios.
Tickets for the Tulsa rally included a form that released the president’s campaign and the arena from liability if attendees fall ill from the coronavirus after attending the rally. Trump’s campaign will be distributing masks and hand sanitizer to attendees, and giving them temperature checks at the arena.
Meanwhile, the president promised in a tweet on Friday that protesters would “not be treated” as they have been in liberal cities, and implying that they would be aggressively suppressed.
Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020
“Oklahoma’s much tougher on law and order,” he said to Axios, and dubbed the tweet threatening protesters “the least controversial of my tweets.”
Trump’s anticipation of a “wild evening” may also be a thinly veiled anticipation of clashes between his supporters and anti-Trump protesters.
The Hill reports that Tulsa reversed course on imposing a curfew in the city “apparently at the president’s urging.” Tulsa initially announced a curfew from 10 pm to 6 am for Friday and Saturday in the area surrounding the arena. The Republican mayor, G.T. Bynum, cited concerns about unrest caused by “individuals from organized groups who have been involved in destructive and violent behavior in other states” when imposing the curfew. But less than 24 hours later, he rescinded that curfew after Trump reached out to him, and after he consulted with the US Secret Service.
Trump celebrated the announcement that the city dropped its curfew. “I just spoke to the highly respected Mayor of Tulsa, G.T. Bynum, who informed me there will be no curfew tonight or tomorrow for our many supporters attending the #MAGA Rally,” Trump tweeted on Friday.
“Enjoy yourselves,” he added.


vox--2020-06-20--“A Juneteenth like no other”: Juneteenth celebrations take on a special meaning this year

Tens of thousands of Americans participated in protests , rallies , street parties , strikes , and Confederate statue-toppling across the nation in celebration of Juneteenth , the holiday commemorating the effective end of slavery in the US , fueled by momentum from the racial justice protest movement that ’ s emerged after the police killing of George Floyd in May .
The lively demonstrations come as many politicians and prominent businesses have taken steps to make the holiday a day off from work and school , and reflect an ongoing cultural realignment among progressives intended to acknowledge and support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — a portmanteau of “ June ” and “ nineteenth ” that marks the day when enslaved people in Texas finally learned they were free from slavery — is traditionally celebrated with cookouts , parades , church gatherings , and spirituals in the black community .
But this year the holiday took on a special , broader resonance in light of daily marches and demonstrations against police brutality and racism triggered by Floyd ’ s death , and appeared to inspire an extra large wave of protest energy and celebrations in cities across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ walked , ran and bicycled along a five-mile route that ended where Floyd was killed by a police officer who kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes , and Black Lives Matter protesters organized a reparations rally outside the state capitol .
According to the Chicago Tribune , Chicago observed a “ Juneteenth like no other ” as marches swept the streets and Chicagoans attended outdoor festivals celebrating the day .
Oakland ’ s local longshoremen ’ s union arranged a strike and shut down 29 ports across the West Coast , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ marched alongside a car caravan , people riding bicycles and motorcycles , and thousands of other demonstrators on foot .
In Philadelphia , where the mayor had just declared Juneteenth a city holiday , demonstrators marched through parts of the city in silence , and at one protest fashion models wore the creations of black designers .
Protests and celebrations took place across all five boroughs in New York .
In Harlem , people celebrated with African food , art , and music , and a male-led group chanted “ protect our queens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other women of color killed by police , according to the Guardian .
Rev .
Al Sharpton spoke at a rally packed with thousands in Tulsa ’ s historic Greenwood District on Friday , and sharply criticized Trump ’ s threats that protesters against his presidential campaign rally in the city the next day would be treated roughly .
“ It ’ s going to take more than a lot of threats and backfighting and a crooked criminal justice system to stop us , ” Sharpton said .
“ They put our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bar of soap , and we never stopped fighting .
They took our names to where we don ’ t know our names — we are named after those who owned our forefathers .
But even nameless , we never stopped fighting.
” Trump had originally scheduled his Tulsa rally on Juneteenth itself , but backed off in response to widespread criticism that it seemed to be a racist provocation , given that the city is the site of one of the bloodiest episodes of racist violence in American history .
Protesters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DC , and Raleigh , North Carolina .
In DC , demonstrators used chains to take down an 11-foot bronze statue of Confederate General Albert Pike — the only public , outdoor statue in the city that honored a Confederate general — and then set it on fire .
Juneteenth is quickly becoming a different kind of holiday Friday marked the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth , which also goes by a number of other monikers , including Emancipation Day , Jubilee Day , Juneteenth National Freedom Day , Juneteenth Independence Day , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Fabiola Cineas has explained , the holiday is a symbol both of victory and tragedy for black Americans who suffered under slavery : A portmanteau of “ June ” and “ nineteenth , ” Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when a group of enslaved people in Galveston , Texas , finally learned that they were free from the institution of slavery .
But , woefully , this was almost two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation ; the Civil War was still going on , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gen. Gordon Granger traveled to Texas and issued an order stating that all enslaved people were free , establishing a new relationship between “ former masters and slaves ” as “ employer and hired labor.
” As much as Juneteenth represents freedom , it also represents how emancipation was tragically delayed for enslaved people in the deepest reaches of the Confederacy .
Juneteenth has long been celebrated by millions of black Americans .
But given that Juneteenth is not an anniversary taught in many schools , is not recognized as a federal holiday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it seems to have been largely unknown among many Americans .
At least until now .
Recognition of Juneteenth appears to be changing amid a broader cultural shift intended to reckon more deeply with the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination in American life .
Many businesses like Nike , Google , the NFL ( and Vox Media ) are recognizing Juneteenth as a company holiday .
Senate Democrats introduced legislation on Friday calling for Juneteenth to be a national holiday ; Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is a cosponsor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ across the country have either declared it a holiday in their city or state or announced plans to do so .
As Cineas put it in her explainer on the holiday , previously Juneteenth seems to have been seen as something specifically for the black community .
Now it ’ s evolving into something else .
“ In 2020 , the meaning of Juneteenth is being seized more broadly by activists as an opportunity for the United States to come to terms with how slavery continues to affect the lives of all Americans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , of every race , to engage in.
” 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 reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .

Tens of thousands of Americans participated in protests, rallies, street parties, strikes, and Confederate statue-toppling across the nation in celebration of Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the effective end of slavery in the US, fueled by momentum from the racial justice protest movement that’s emerged after the police killing of George Floyd in May.
The lively demonstrations come as many politicians and prominent businesses have taken steps to make the holiday a day off from work and school, and reflect an ongoing cultural realignment among progressives intended to acknowledge and support the struggle for racial equality.
Juneteenth — a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth” that marks the day when enslaved people in Texas finally learned they were free from slavery — is traditionally celebrated with cookouts, parades, church gatherings, and spirituals in the black community.
But this year the holiday took on a special, broader resonance in light of daily marches and demonstrations against police brutality and racism triggered by Floyd’s death, and appeared to inspire an extra large wave of protest energy and celebrations in cities across the country.
In Minneapolis, people walked, ran and bicycled along a five-mile route that ended where Floyd was killed by a police officer who kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes, and Black Lives Matter protesters organized a reparations rally outside the state capitol.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago observed a “Juneteenth like no other” as marches swept the streets and Chicagoans attended outdoor festivals celebrating the day.
Images of #GeorgeFloyd leading the charge at Chicago’s Juneteenth march.
We’ll have a live report about celebrations nationwide on @CBSEveningNews with @NorahODonnell pic.twitter.com/XvM21FInKN — Adriana Diaz (@adrianasdiaz) June 19, 2020
Oakland’s local longshoremen’s union arranged a strike and shut down 29 ports across the West Coast, according to the Guardian. Union workers marched alongside a car caravan, people riding bicycles and motorcycles, and thousands of other demonstrators on foot.
The masses at the Port of Oakland begin to move out, marching toward Oakland City Hall as the Juneteenth rally continues. Live video: https://t.co/f4kI1BByVf pic.twitter.com/Ky3xUQ1JSG — NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) June 19, 2020
In Philadelphia, where the mayor had just declared Juneteenth a city holiday, demonstrators marched through parts of the city in silence, and at one protest fashion models wore the creations of black designers.
Protests and celebrations took place across all five boroughs in New York. In Harlem, people celebrated with African food, art, and music, and a male-led group chanted “protect our queens” to demand justice for Breonna Taylor and other women of color killed by police, according to the Guardian.
Rev. Al Sharpton spoke at a rally packed with thousands in Tulsa’s historic Greenwood District on Friday, and sharply criticized Trump’s threats that protesters against his presidential campaign rally in the city the next day would be treated roughly. “It’s going to take more than a lot of threats and backfighting and a crooked criminal justice system to stop us,” Sharpton said. “They put our forefathers on blocks and sold us like a bar of soap, and we never stopped fighting. They took our names to where we don’t know our names — we are named after those who owned our forefathers. But even nameless, we never stopped fighting.”
Trump had originally scheduled his Tulsa rally on Juneteenth itself, but backed off in response to widespread criticism that it seemed to be a racist provocation, given that the city is the site of one of the bloodiest episodes of racist violence in American history.
Protesters tore down Confederate statues in Washington, DC, and Raleigh, North Carolina. In DC, demonstrators used chains to take down an 11-foot bronze statue of Confederate General Albert Pike — the only public, outdoor statue in the city that honored a Confederate general — and then set it on fire.
And protesters just toppled the Albert Pike statue in DC pic.twitter.com/gEzJm0OYjd — Perry Stein (@PerryStein) June 20, 2020
Juneteenth is quickly becoming a different kind of holiday
Friday marked the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth, which also goes by a number of other monikers, including Emancipation Day, Jubilee Day, Juneteenth National Freedom Day, Juneteenth Independence Day, and Black Independence Day. As Vox’s Fabiola Cineas has explained, the holiday is a symbol both of victory and tragedy for black Americans who suffered under slavery:
A portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth,” Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when a group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally learned that they were free from the institution of slavery. But, woefully, this was almost two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation; the Civil War was still going on, and when it ended, Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger traveled to Texas and issued an order stating that all enslaved people were free, establishing a new relationship between “former masters and slaves” as “employer and hired labor.” As much as Juneteenth represents freedom, it also represents how emancipation was tragically delayed for enslaved people in the deepest reaches of the Confederacy.
Juneteenth has long been celebrated by millions of black Americans. But given that Juneteenth is not an anniversary taught in many schools, is not recognized as a federal holiday, and competes with other emancipation holidays, it seems to have been largely unknown among many Americans.
At least until now. Recognition of Juneteenth appears to be changing amid a broader cultural shift intended to reckon more deeply with the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination in American life.
Many businesses like Nike, Google, the NFL (and Vox Media) are recognizing Juneteenth as a company holiday. Senate Democrats introduced legislation on Friday calling for Juneteenth to be a national holiday; Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is a cosponsor of the bill. And mayors and governors across the country have either declared it a holiday in their city or state or announced plans to do so.
As Cineas put it in her explainer on the holiday, previously Juneteenth seems to have been seen as something specifically for the black community. Now it’s evolving into something else.
“In 2020, the meaning of Juneteenth is being seized more broadly by activists as an opportunity for the United States to come to terms with how slavery continues to affect the lives of all Americans today — it is something for everyone, of every race, to engage in.”


vox--2020-06-20--A national US power grid would make electricity cheaper and cleaner

Electricity is the fuel of the future .
And as more and more of American life is electrified — transportation and buildings are already on their way — the electricity grid will face greater demands and will need to evolve to meet them .
One branch of that evolution is smaller .
“ Microgrids ” are small grids that connect a college campus , a business , or even a single house , allowing it to act as a semi-independent island within the larger grid .
Microgrids are helping to support the growth of distributed energy , with power generation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the customer side of the power meter .
But the other branch , equally important , is bigger .
The US does not actually have a national grid .
Our grid is instead split into three regions — the western interconnection , the eastern interconnection , and , uh , Texas — that largely operate independently and exchange very little power .
Power nerds have known for years that this is barrier preventing all sorts of efficiencies .
Earlier this week , an effort launched to finally deal with it : the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to expand and upgrade the nation ’ s transmission network.
” It is a collaborative project by the American Council on Renewable Energy , Americans for a Clean Energy Grid , the Advanced Power Alliance , and the Clean Grid Alliance .
The initiative is a welcome development ; this idea of a national grid overdue for some well-funded support .
Rather than get into the policies and regulatory changes necessary to accomplish this goal — which are many , complex , and lamentably boring — I ’ m going to briefly cover @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s a good idea .
Here ’ s why the US should , at long last , build a national grid .
The areas of the US with the most renewable energy potential are not necessarily the ones that need the most energy .
A report from the Wind Energy Association found that the 15 states between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River — Montana , Wyoming , Colorado , New Mexico , North Dakota , South Dakota , Nebraska , Kansas , Oklahoma , Texas , Minnesota , Iowa , Missouri @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for 87 of the nation ’ s total wind energy potential and 56 percent of its utility-scale solar potential , but are only projected to account for 30 percent of the nation ’ s energy demand in 2050 .
This map , from a report by energy consultancy Scott Madden , shows the estimated 2030 balance of power supply and demand for each region of the country .
As you can see , some regions ( notably the Upper Midwest and Texas ) will be producing substantially more than they consume , while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Northeast ) will consume much more than they produce .
The way to balance this out — to make sure that every region is producing as much renewable energy as possible and that the energy is put to good use — is to connect these regions with high-voltage transmission lines .
The more each region can import and export electricity , the more it can balance its own fluctuations in supply and demand with its neighbors ’ and maximize the use of renewable energy .
One example : the proposed 780-mile Grain Belt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Kansas to Missouri and Illinois .
It is expected to carry around 4 gigawatts of low-cost renewable energy ( enough to power 1.6 million homes a year ) , unlock $ 7 billion worth of new renewable energy projects , and relieve congestion on both ends of the line .
Solar and wind energy are variable ; they come and go with the weather .
A grid with lots of wind and solar power needs ways of smoothing out the fluctuations and filling the gaps .
Energy storage , including batteries , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but not enough .
Transmission is a different story .
In 2016 , Chris Clack , Alexander McDonald , and colleagues modeled the US energy system out to 2030 at a high degree of resolution .
The results , published in Nature Climate Change , show that , using only existing technologies and without any additional energy storage , US power sector emissions can be reduced by up to 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 .
And this can be accomplished “ without an increase in the levelized cost of electricity.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reduction in carbon emissions is achieved by moving away from a regionally divided electricity sector to a national system enabled by high-voltage direct-current transmission.
” Clack et al .
also found that weaving the regionally divided power system into a single national system would save consumers around $ 47.2 billion a year through increased efficiency and cheaper renewable energy .
In 2018 , a team assembled by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory ( NREL ) published the Interconnections Seam Study , a close analysis of the costs and benefits of stitching together America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that for every $ 1 invested , ratepayers would see more than $ 2.50 in benefits .
( If you ’ re curious , I wrote a longer post on the Seam Study . )
4 .
It will make the grid more reliable There ’ s a lot of discussion about “ resilience ” in the power sector these days .
As the Scott Madden report shows , various regions of the country can , during severe weather events , face fuel shortages , transmission congestion , and even rolling blackouts .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ coming retirement of many coal , oil , and natural gas plants will exacerbate these vulnerabilities .
The best way to build resiliency against these events , which are increasing in frequency thanks to climate change , is to connect the regions of the country into a single national grid , so that regions facing difficulty can draw power from neighbors who aren ’ t .
This already works on a smaller scale .
During the prolonged cold temperatures of 2017 ’ s “ bomb cyclone , ” the ability of eastern regions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prices under control .
A Green New Deal-style investment into a national grid would create thousands of construction and maintenance jobs .
Given that every region ’ s needs and challenges are idiosyncratic , and the process of building lines is complex and egregiously slow ( averaging around 10 years ) , it ’ s impossible to estimate how many .
But transmission development jobs are high-quality union jobs , available in every part of the country .
So there you have it : if you want cleaner , more efficient , more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in three cheers for a US national grid !

Electricity is the fuel of the future. And as more and more of American life is electrified — transportation and buildings are already on their way — the electricity grid will face greater demands and will need to evolve to meet them.
One branch of that evolution is smaller. “Microgrids” are small grids that connect a college campus, a business, or even a house, allowing it to act as a semi-independent island within the larger grid. Microgrids help support the growth of distributed energy, with power generation, storage, and management taking place on the customer side of the power meter.
But the other branch, and equally important, is bigger. The US does not actually have a national grid. Our grid is instead split into three regions — the western interconnection, the eastern interconnection, and, uh, Texas — that largely operate independently and exchange very little power.
Power nerds have known for years that this is a barrier preventing all sorts of efficiencies. Earlier this week, an effort launched to finally address that: the Macro Grid Initiative, which “seeks to expand and upgrade the nation’s transmission network.” It is a collaborative project by the American Council on Renewable Energy, Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, the Advanced Power Alliance, and the Clean Grid Alliance.
The initiative is a welcome development; this idea of a national grid is overdue for some well-funded support.
Rather than get into the policies and regulatory changes necessary to accomplish this goal — which are many, complex, and lamentably boring — I’m going to briefly cover the top five reasons why it’s a good idea. Here’s why the US should, at long last, build a national grid.
1. It will unlock renewable energy potential
The areas of the US with the most renewable energy potential are not necessarily the ones that need the most energy. A report from the Wind Energy Association found that the 15 states between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River — Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana — account for 87 percent of the nation’s total wind energy potential and 56 percent of its utility-scale solar potential, but are only projected to account for 30 percent of the nation’s energy demand in 2050.
This map, from a report by energy consultancy ScottMadden, shows the estimated 2030 balance of power supply and demand for each region of the country. Some regions (notably the Upper Midwest and Texas) will be producing substantially more than they consume, while others (notably in the West and Northeast) will consume much more than they produce.
The way to balance this out — to make sure that every region is producing as much renewable energy as possible and that the energy is put to good use — is to connect these regions with high-voltage transmission lines. The more each region can import and export electricity, the more it can balance its own fluctuations in supply and demand with its neighbors’ and maximize the use of renewable energy.
One example: The proposed 780-mile Grain Belt Express would carry solar and wind power from Kansas to Missouri and Illinois. It is expected to carry around 4 gigawatts of low-cost renewable energy (enough to power 1.6 million homes a year), unlock $7 billion worth of new renewable energy projects, and relieve congestion on both ends of the line.
2. It will reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Solar and wind energy are variable; they come and go with the weather. A grid with lots of wind and solar power needs ways to smooth out the fluctuations and fill the gaps. Energy storage, including batteries, can provide some of that flexibility, but not enough.
Transmission is a different story. In 2016, Chris Clack, Alexander MacDonald, and colleagues modeled the US energy system out to 2030 at a high degree of resolution. The results, published in Nature Climate Change, show that, using only existing technologies and without any additional energy storage, US power sector emissions can be reduced by up to 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2030. And this can be accomplished “without an increase in the levelized cost of electricity.”
How is this possible? “This reduction in carbon emissions is achieved by moving away from a regionally divided electricity sector to a national system enabled by high-voltage direct-current transmission.”
3. It will save consumers money
Clack and his co-authors also found that weaving the regionally divided power system into a single national system would save consumers around $47.2 billion a year through increased efficiency and cheaper renewable energy.
In 2018, a team assembled by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) published the Interconnections Seam Study, a close analysis of the costs and benefits of stitching together America’s fragmented grid. It found that for every $1 invested, ratepayers would see more than $2.50 in benefits. (If you’re curious, I wrote a longer post on the Seam Study.)
4. It will make the grid more reliable
There’s a lot of discussion about “resilience” in the power sector these days. As the ScottMadden report shows, various regions of the country can, during severe weather events, face fuel shortages, transmission congestion, and even rolling blackouts. If nothing else is done, the coming retirement of many coal, oil, and natural gas plants will exacerbate these vulnerabilities.
The best way to build resiliency against these events, which are increasing in frequency due to climate change, is to connect the regions of the country into a single national grid, so that regions facing difficulty can draw power from neighbors who aren’t.
This already works on a smaller scale. During the prolonged cold temperatures of 2017’s “bomb cyclone,” the ability of eastern regions to exchange energy prevented blackouts and kept prices under control.
5. It would create jobs
A Green New Deal-style investment into a national grid would create thousands of construction and maintenance jobs. Given that every region’s needs and challenges are idiosyncratic, and the process of building lines is complex and egregiously slow (averaging around 10 years), it’s impossible to estimate how many. But transmission development jobs are high-quality union jobs, available in every part of the country.
So there you have it: if you want cleaner, more efficient, more reliable, cheaper electricity, join me in three cheers for a US national grid!


vox--2020-06-20--The need to read black literature that’s not just about black struggle

Welcome to Vox ’ s weekly book link roundup , a curated selection of the internet ’ s best writing on books and related subjects .
Here is the best online writing on books and related subjects for the week of June 14 , 2020 .
• June is Pride month !
At the New York Times , queer writers Jericho Brown , Carmen Maria Machado , and Thomas Page McBee reflect on Pride .
Here ’ s Brown : Why , after all of this , did I make love to the man ?
One reason I finally touched @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was an unexpected feeling of pride : If I was going to be known as a home-wrecking sissy , I was going to reap the few benefits that role offered .
I was young enough to feel owed a physical ecstasy equal to the rage he and his wife felt .
And that ’ s the other reason we made love .
I was only a few weeks away from turning 25 .
I was desperate to get the deed all the way done before my birthday .
I needed the act as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experimenting — an initiation into an identity that I had struggled to avoid .
• At Harper ’ s Bazaar , Frankie Reddin argues that readers need to engage with black literature beyond narratives of black struggle : We need to see the joy in Black literature at this time and beyond because what recent events have exposed - we are now in the fourth week of international protests against anti-Black racism and police violence - is that Black Lives Matter , not just Black deaths .
The Black experience can not be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If it is , it becomes detrimental to self-identity , mental health , and ultimately , progress and change .
It is also not the experience of every Black person in the world .
It ’ s relief , entertainment and escapism to explore other narratives , whether it be Afro-futurism , LGBTQ+ , or African , European , American , Latin American in its very origin .
For want of a better word – it ’ s fun .
• And at Tor , L.L .
McKinney delves into the institutional forces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the conversation : Why didn ’ t you hear about The Nightmare-Verse , or many other stories by Black authors ?
Because our books don ’ t center on Black pain .
In the industry , stories about police brutality , the struggle , poverty , etc .
have been dubbed “ issue ” books , and it ’ s a not-so-secret secret that if your book doesn ’ t fall into this category , it won ’ t get any real push or marketing .
These are the “ right ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all other Black books are treated as less important .
They ’ re denied the time and resources needed to make them successful .
They ’ re ignored by the industry , by librarians , by awards committees , by schools , and yes , even by certain readers .
Unless , of course , there ’ s a protest going on .
Then everyone wants those ally cookies , nom nom .
• I resigned my membership from the National Book Critics Circle last week .
At Vulture , Lila Shapiro reports @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once made headlines for writing a review in which he imagined raping the author of the book , has intermittently sat on the board since the mid- ’ 90s .
According to nearly a dozen current and former members , he has developed a reputation in the organization as a bully .
Muhammad , a board member for the past four years , told me , “ For as long as I ’ ve been on the board , Carlin has always exhibited intolerant , bullying behavior , accusing other board members of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authors , trying to impose his own narrow ideas of what literary narratives are , or what accounts for criticism.
” • Donald Trump ’ s niece is dropping a tell-all book about her family this summer .
At Vanity Fair , Joe Pompeo reports on how the deal came together : Someone who knows Mary Trump and has read the book similarly described it to me as follows : “ The punch of the book , the real symbolic thrust , is about how Donald is really an outgrowth of this complex @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , win-at-all-costs environment .
If there ’ s going to be a big takeaway , it ’ s about that emotional DNA of the family.
” The narrative , this person said , also touches on Mary ’ s deep bond with her father , Fred Trump Jr. , who died of an alcoholism-related heart attack in 1981 at the age of 42 .
• In the New Yorker , Paul Elie examines Flannery O ’ Connor ’ s racism and why it matters : That argument , however , runs counter to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s place in it .
It sets up a false equivalence between the “ segregationist by taste ” and those brutally oppressed by segregation .
And it draws a neat line between O ’ Connor ’ s fiction and her other writing where race is involved , even though the long effort to move her from the margins to the center has proceeded as if that line weren ’ t there .
Those remarks don ’ t belong to the past , or to the South , or to literary ephemera .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of work ; they help show us who she was .
• Staffers at Hachette UK , which is publishing J.K. Rowling ’ s forthcoming children ’ s book The Ickabog , are threatening a walkout over Rowling ’ s recent transphobic essay .
At the Bookseller , Katherine Cowdrey has the story : It is understood that between four and five employees , whose roles span the breadth of the full publishing team , communicated their reluctance to work on the project in a meeting held yesterday morning , and that these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by their managers .
Hachette UK has released a statement drawing a line when it is and isn ’ t valid to refuse to work on a book project .
• At the Strategist , Matthew Sedacca tells the story of the indie bookstore Three Lives & Company ’ s pivot to phone recommendations : Several weeks into New York ’ s statewide shutdown , Troy Chatterton , the manager of Greenwich Village ’ s Three Lives & Company bookstore , called Beth Whitman to collect her credit-card information .
They wound up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cooking projects , Whitman ’ s recently attempted victory garden , and , of course , books .
Chatterton recommended Whitman tack on Grow Fruit & Vegetables in Pots to her order — it was written by Aaron Bertelsen , the gardener at the Great Dixter , an East Sussex home dating to the 15th century that the pair had discussed during her visits to the shop .
Days later , a stack of books arrived at Whitman ’ s place along with a jar of Chatterton ’ s homemade marmalade .
• @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she translated a decade of internet writing into her first novel : I ultimately found my niche in the most derided , mocked , and secretly beloved realm of internet writing : the listicle .
But this too has influenced my fiction writing , or at least my first novel—for good or for ill .
Personally , I think it ’ s for good .
I love lists in literature ; I find them ecstatic .
I am not the first writer to say so , though I may be the first one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ listmaking .
I have made lists of literature , I have made lists of literary lists , I have made lists of reasons you should not be mad about literary lists of literature on the internet .
Lists are great .
And here ’ s the week in books at Vox : • Black authors are on all the bestseller lists right now .
But publishing doesn ’ t pay them enough .
• Vox Book Club , The Princess Bride , week 3 : The perfect summer read comes to an end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Welcome to Vox’s weekly book link roundup, a curated selection of the internet’s best writing on books and related subjects. Here is the best online writing on books and related subjects for the week of June 14, 2020.
June is Pride month! At the New York Times, queer writers Jericho Brown, Carmen Maria Machado, and Thomas Page McBee reflect on Pride. Here’s Brown:
Why, after all of this, did I make love to the man? One reason I finally touched him on the night of that parade was an unexpected feeling of pride: If I was going to be known as a home-wrecking sissy, I was going to reap the few benefits that role offered. I was young enough to feel owed a physical ecstasy equal to the rage he and his wife felt. And that’s the other reason we made love. I was only a few weeks away from turning 25. I was desperate to get the deed all the way done before my birthday. I needed the act as proof that I wasn’t only experimenting — an initiation into an identity that I had struggled to avoid.
At Harper’s Bazaar, Frankie Reddin argues that readers need to engage with black literature beyond narratives of black struggle:
We need to see the joy in Black literature at this time and beyond because what recent events have exposed - we are now in the fourth week of international protests against anti-Black racism and police violence - is that Black Lives Matter, not just Black deaths. The Black experience cannot be defined by one moment or incident. If it is, it becomes detrimental to self-identity, mental health, and ultimately, progress and change. It is also not the experience of every Black person in the world. It’s relief, entertainment and escapism to explore other narratives, whether it be Afro-futurism, LGBTQ+, or African, European, American, Latin American in its very origin. For want of a better word – it’s fun.
And at Tor, L.L. McKinney delves into the institutional forces that keep so many black stories out of the conversation:
Why didn’t you hear about The Nightmare-Verse, or many other stories by Black authors? Because our books don’t center on Black pain. In the industry, stories about police brutality, the struggle, poverty, etc. have been dubbed “issue” books, and it’s a not-so-secret secret that if your book doesn’t fall into this category, it won’t get any real push or marketing. These are the “right” Black books I referenced earlier. Nearly all other Black books are treated as less important. They’re denied the time and resources needed to make them successful. They’re ignored by the industry, by librarians, by awards committees, by schools, and yes, even by certain readers. Unless, of course, there’s a protest going on. Then everyone wants those ally cookies, nom nom.
I resigned my membership from the National Book Critics Circle last week. At Vulture, Lila Shapiro reports on what happened:
Romano, who once made headlines for writing a review in which he imagined raping the author of the book, has intermittently sat on the board since the mid-’90s. According to nearly a dozen current and former members, he has developed a reputation in the organization as a bully. Muhammad, a board member for the past four years, told me, “For as long as I’ve been on the board, Carlin has always exhibited intolerant, bullying behavior, accusing other board members of lacking a sense of ethics and denigrating authors, trying to impose his own narrow ideas of what literary narratives are, or what accounts for criticism.”
Donald Trump’s niece is dropping a tell-all book about her family this summer. At Vanity Fair, Joe Pompeo reports on how the deal came together:
Someone who knows Mary Trump and has read the book similarly described it to me as follows: “The punch of the book, the real symbolic thrust, is about how Donald is really an outgrowth of this complex empire that Fred Sr. built—a pretty dark, win-at-all-costs environment. If there’s going to be a big takeaway, it’s about that emotional DNA of the family.” The narrative, this person said, also touches on Mary’s deep bond with her father, Fred Trump Jr., who died of an alcoholism-related heart attack in 1981 at the age of 42.
In the New Yorker, Paul Elie examines Flannery O’Connor’s racism and why it matters:
That argument, however, runs counter to history and to O’Connor’s place in it. It sets up a false equivalence between the “segregationist by taste” and those brutally oppressed by segregation. And it draws a neat line between O’Connor’s fiction and her other writing where race is involved, even though the long effort to move her from the margins to the center has proceeded as if that line weren’t there. Those remarks don’t belong to the past, or to the South, or to literary ephemera. They belong to the author’s body of work; they help show us who she was.
Staffers at Hachette UK, which is publishing J.K. Rowling’s forthcoming children’s book The Ickabog, are threatening a walkout over Rowling’s recent transphobic essay. At the Bookseller, Katherine Cowdrey has the story:
It is understood that between four and five employees, whose roles span the breadth of the full publishing team, communicated their reluctance to work on the project in a meeting held yesterday morning, and that these staff are now being spoken to individually by their managers. Hachette UK has released a statement drawing a line when it is and isn’t valid to refuse to work on a book project.
At the Strategist, Matthew Sedacca tells the story of the indie bookstore Three Lives & Company’s pivot to phone recommendations:
Several weeks into New York’s statewide shutdown, Troy Chatterton, the manager of Greenwich Village’s Three Lives & Company bookstore, called Beth Whitman to collect her credit-card information. They wound up talking for half an hour — about cooking projects, Whitman’s recently attempted victory garden, and, of course, books. Chatterton recommended Whitman tack on Grow Fruit & Vegetables in Pots to her order — it was written by Aaron Bertelsen, the gardener at the Great Dixter, an East Sussex home dating to the 15th century that the pair had discussed during her visits to the shop. Days later, a stack of books arrived at Whitman’s place along with a jar of Chatterton’s homemade marmalade.
At LitHub, Emily Temple explains how she translated a decade of internet writing into her first novel:
I ultimately found my niche in the most derided, mocked, and secretly beloved realm of internet writing: the listicle. But this too has influenced my fiction writing, or at least my first novel—for good or for ill. Personally, I think it’s for good. I love lists in literature; I find them ecstatic. I am not the first writer to say so, though I may be the first one to have made a career out of listmaking. I have made lists of literature, I have made lists of literary lists, I have made lists of reasons you should not be mad about literary lists of literature on the internet. Lists are great.
And here’s the week in books at Vox: