BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Modernizing Medicine, a leading healthcare technology company, is hosting a new installment in its thought leadership webinar series. The session, World War C: Contact Tracing and the Hunt for a Vaccine, will take place virtually on Tuesday, July 14 at 7 PM EDT. Those interested can register here.
Modernizing Medicines Chief Medical and Strategy Officer and co-founder, Michael Sherling, MD, MBA, will speak with special guest, Jerome Kim, MD, director general of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), about the latest pandemic news. With so many unknown variables and uncertainty, Dr. Kim will help shed light on the COVID-19 vaccination development timeline as well as how contact tracing plays a significant role in helping to combat this global pandemic.
Dr. Kim is an international expert on the evaluation and development of vaccines. He is a recognized leader in HIV vaccine development and was named one of the 50 Most Influential People in Vaccines in 2014 by Vaccine Nation.
Dr. Kim stated that: The novel coronavirus has had unprecedented impact on our lives, economy and our expectations. Accelerating vaccine development is one of those necessary adjustments. While a vaccine typically takes 5-10 years to develop, its now all hands on deck to release a COVID-19 vaccine that prevents infection and/or disease as quickly, safely and fairly as possible.
During this virtual event, Dr. Kim will share his expertise on the fight against COVID-19, including:
Dr. Michael Sherling shared that: As physicians and healthcare professionals, we are all doing our best to treat patients in an uncertain world. I look forward to speaking with Dr. Kim and helping to provide a platform to share his invaluable knowledge with others in the healthcare community.
As we continue to navigate the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, its important to rely on the power of information. To register for this event, click here.
About Modernizing Medicine
Modernizing Medicine and its affiliated companies empower physicians with suites of mobile, specialty-specific solutions that transform how healthcare information is created, consumed and utilized to increase practice efficiency and improve patient outcomes. Built for value-based healthcare, Modernizing Medicines data-driven, touch- and cloud-based products and services are programmed by a team that includes practicing physicians to meet the unique needs of dermatology, gastroenterology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, otolaryngology, pain management, plastic surgery and urology practices, as well as ambulatory surgery centers. For more information, please visit www.modmed.com. Connect with Modernizing Medicine on our Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)
The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a nonprofit inter-governmental organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, IVI was the first international organization hosted by Korea. IVI has 35 signatory countries and the World Health Organization (WHO) on its treaty, including Korea, Sweden and India as state funders.
Our mandate is to make vaccines available and accessible for the worlds most vulnerable people. We focus on infectious diseases of global health importance such as cholera, typhoid, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, Group A Strep, Hepatitis A, HPV, TB, HIV, MERS, COVID-19, as well as antimicrobial resistance. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int
About Dr. Jerome Kim
Jerome Kim, MD, is the Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) and an international expert on the evaluation and development of vaccines. His depth and breadth of scientific experience spans basic research through advanced clinical development. Dr. Kim was Principal Deputy and Chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Virology and Pathogenesis at the U.S. Military HIV Research Program. He led the Armys Phase III HIV vaccine trial (RV144) which was the first demonstration that an HIV vaccine could protect against infection. He has authored over 250 publications and received the John Maher Award for Research Excellence from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in 2013.
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Rios Beaches Wont Fully Reopen Until Theres a COVID-19 Vaccine
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To prevent the outbreak from spinning out of control, US residents must focus on controlling crowds, wearing masks and doing a better job at physical distancing, Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Wall Street Journal in a podcast Wednesday.
Climbing cases, sparked in part by loosened restrictions, have motivated many states to pause or roll back plans to reopen economies after widespread shutdowns in the spring.
"We've got to just tighten things up, close the bars, indoor restaurants ... or make it so there's very good seating, make sure people wear masks, make sure they don't congregate in crowds, make sure they keep the distance," Fauci urged.
"If you do those simple public health measures, guarantee you're going to see that curve come down. It's happened, time and again in virtually every country that's done that."
Where states stand
Many states are feeling the effects of the coronavirus surge.
With 98 coronavirus-related deaths in one day, Texas set its record for highest single-day fatality increases Wednesday. The state also reported its second highest number of daily new cases at 9,979.
Louisiana made great strides in managing the virus in June, but the past three weeks has undone all of that with high levels of community spread, a death toll at 3,231 and increased hospitalization, Gov. Jon Bel Edwards said Wednesday.
With hospitalizations rising and the virus spreading, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced Wednesday that bars and restaurants will be limited to 25 patrons inside with bar seating prohibited and masks required.
Philadelphia is combating the virus by recommending that people avoid traveling to or from states with "high-incidences" of coronavirus and self-quarantine for 14 days if they do.
California cases are rising after early success
California, one of the first states to implement restrictions to stem the spread of the virus and among the slowest to lift them, is now wrestling with a worsening situation.
In Los Angeles, coronavirus infection rates are on the rise, and hospitalization rates have climbed to levels not seen since April, Health Director Barbara Ferrer announced in a news conference Wednesday.
The city is currently at a high level of risk and could get worse in the next week or two, said Mayor Eric Garcetti. If it does reach the next threat level, Los Angeles would likely return to a safer at home order, he said.
The cases are particularly growing among people between 18 and 40-years-old, Garcetti said. That age range made up 30% of the cases a few weeks ago, then 40% last week and is now at more than 50%, he said.
In Southern California, the intensive care unit at a Ventura County hospital reached its full capacity after receiving an influx of coronavirus patients, Dr. John Fankhauser, CEO at Ventura County Medical Center, said Wednesday, adding that the ICU at the facility is now full.
Back to school still in question
As cases and hospitalizations rise, an answer to the question of whether children will return to school in the fall becomes less clear.
The White House has also claimed the CDC's guidelines for reopening schools is too strict. But public health expert Dr. Ashish Jha told Pamela Brown Wednesday on "The Lead" that the guidelines are the minimum of what should be required.
"I think they should go further. Look, you can open up schools anywhere you want," Jha, the faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said.
There is still mystery surrounding how the virus affects children. At first experts thought children were not contracting the virus as frequently and were not impacted as severely.
But a study published in an American Academy of Pediatrics journal found that children did not show the same symptoms of coronavirus as adults and that coronavirus targeted tests miss cases in children.
Guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend only testing patients with fever, cough and shortness of breath, who traveled to high-risk countries and who came into close contact with someone with a confirmed case.
But the children who tested positive in the study were admitted to the hospital with seemingly unrelated symptoms, including bacterial infections, appendicitis and inflamed muscles. The researchers say it is unclear how large a role coronavirus played in their illness.
CNN's Jenn Selva, Pierre Meilhan, Kay Jones, Raja Razek, Sarah Moon, Lauren Mascarenhas and Shelby Lin Erdman contributed to this report.
For the foreseeable future, MinnPost will be providing daily updates on coronavirus in Minnesota, published following the press phone call with members of the Walz administration each afternoon.
Here are the latest updates from July 8:
Eight more Minnesotans have died of COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health said Wednesday, for a total of 1,485.
Of the people whose deaths were announced Wednesday, two were in their 90s, two were in their 80s, two were in their 60s, one was in their 40s and one was in their 30s. The person in their 30s who died had no known underlying health conditions, while the person in their 40s who died had at least one known underlying health condition. Five of the eight deaths announced Wednesday were among residents of long-term care facilities. Of the 1,485 COVID-19 deaths reported in Minnesota, 1,161 have been among residents of long-term care.
The current death toll only includes Minnesotans with lab-confirmed positive COVID-19 tests.
MDH also said Wednesday there have been 39,589 total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota. The number of confirmed cases is up 456 from Tuesdays count and is based on 7,636 new tests. The seven-day test positivity rate of 4.4 percent is up over 3.6 percent a week ago.You can find the moving day seven-day positive case average here.
Evan Frost/MPR/Pool
Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm
The median age of people testing positive continues to trend down, indicating younger people represent a larger proportion of people who test positive.
Since the start of the outbreak, 4,272 Minnesotans have been hospitalized. Hospitalizations remain steady, with 265 currently in the hospital, 122 in intensive care. You can find more information about Minnesotas current ICU usage and capacity here.
Of the 39,589 confirmed positive cases in Minnesota, 34,902 are believed to have recovered.
More information on cases can be found here.
Infectious Disease Director Kris Ehresmann said the MDH has heard some Minnesotans may be considering throwing or attending COVID parties, purported gatherings where people try to get infected with COVID to get it over with, in the hopes of having some immunity in the future (reminder: the jurys still out on how much immunity people develop).
This is a really really bad idea, Ehresmann said Wednesday. Not only is there a small but real risk of significant illness and complications in young people or anyone who develops COVID, but theres also a real risk that the virus will be passed on to other family members or even people in the community at higher risk.
For the record, rumors of COVID parties in other states, most recently from Alabama,have been shared by officials andturned out to be false.
In a review of similar stories, Wiredfound other alleged COVID parties were just rumors, some of which were later walked back by the officials who had repeated them. The press just cant stop pushing the narrative that people are trying to get themselves infected. At no point in this chain has anyone bothered to confirm the underlying claim. The whole thing is reminiscent of the supposed scourge, in the mid-2000s, of pharm parties, at which Americas wayward teens were said to put their parents prescription drugs into a bowl and then consume them at random. This did not really happen.
Ehresmann said Wednesday there had been no confirmed transmissions from COVID parties in Minnesota, and MinnPost asked for additional information on where MDHs information about such gatherings came from.
This was driven more by a preventive impulse just reiterating dont think about it because it is such a bad idea rather than weve had a specific case or credible report that weve confirmed, agency spokesperson Scott Smith wrote in an email.
An increase in COVID-19 cases nationally prompted MDH officials to warn Minnesotans the supply chain for lab materials needed for COVID-19 tests is tightening as demand for them increases and supplies shift to hot spots.
Due to an uptick in testing, people who are tested for COVID-19 may have to wait longer for test results, too.
National labs are reporting its taking four to six days to get results, Infectious Disease Director Kris Ehresmann said. That means it could be up to eight days between the time a person is tested and receives a result, including the time it takes to transport the sample and receive results from a provider.
MDHs coronavirus website: https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/index.html
Hotline, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.: 651-201-3920
Hospitals in several states are sounding the alarm as they reach maximum capacity. Bars were shut back down in Texas and parts of California, and Florida prohibited customers from drinking on-site.
But progress that was undone can be redone.
While nothing about this virus seems simple, perhaps the one thing that's remained the same throughout the pandemic is the advice from health officials and experts highlighting the simple ways that can make a world of a difference when it comes to controlling the spread of the virus.
Here's a refresher of the simple things that everyone can -- and should -- be doing as their part to reel in their pandemic.
Let's start with the basics
Keep your distance. Seriously, the more feet the better.
Wear a mask
Leading health experts have said something as simple as wearing a mask when you venture out into public spaces can help save lives. They've been proven to be the most effective way to reduce transmission of the virus and in fact, if people opted to wear masks, they could better the conditions of the pandemic in weeks, the nation's top doctor said this week.
"It's the most important thing in my opinion that we can do that will allow us to open and stay open," US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams told local news station FOX 5 in Washington, DC, Wednesday.
"Coronavirus can get bad really quickly, but I want people to understand that we can improve the coronavirus rates really quickly in the course of two to three weeks," Adams said. "There are studies that show that you can decrease the spread of coronavirus by 60%, 70% if you can get 80-plus percent of people wearing face coverings when they go out in public."
Atlanta became one of the latest cities to require face masks in public in response to a rise in cases.
"We will continue to take active measures to help slow the spread of COVID-19 infections in Atlanta," Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in a statement. "Public health experts overwhelmingly agree that wearing a face covering helps slow the spread of this sometimes deadly virus."
Don't go to bars just yet
As more state leaders reach the realization bars fuel the spread of the virus, one health expert says there is one simple choice going forward.
"I've been talking to governors about pauses. I've been talking about what they want to roll back. And when they understand the choices in stark terms -- schools this fall or bars now -- those are your choices ... I think more and more governors, even in places that aren't having large outbreaks, are realizing that maybe we can avoid bars in the summer and fall, if that gives us a better shot at getting schools open this fall," Dr. Ashish Jha, the Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said Wednesday.
So, if you want to do your part, maybe skip the beer with friends -- just for a few more months.
Actually, don't go anywhere you don't have to
While parts of the US see spikes in cases, it may be smart to keep the outings limited altogether -- or at least the ones that aren't essential.
This has been a similar message coming from more local and state leaders lately, echoing March and April warnings when many states were put on lockdown: stay home.
One local official in Houston, Texas, where hospitals are now overwhelmed with new coronavirus patients, said it's best to take measures now than wait for things to get worse.
"(I want to be) very clear with the community. Right now, folks need to stay home and I need the authority to enforce it ... We shouldn't be waiting for our health care workers to be overburdened, for ICUs to be full," Texas Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris County's Chief executive, told ABC earlier this month.
In Arizona, which has also seen a rise in cases, the governor has urged residents to stay home if they don't absolutely have to go out.
CNN's Pierre Meilhan, Andrea Kane, Rebecca Grandahl, Jamiel Lynch and Jacqueline Howard contributed to this report.
"One of the things that bothered me throughout this whole time was, I researched the 1918 pandemic, '57, '68, and there were some mitigation efforts done in May 1918, but never just a national-shutdown type deal. There was really no observed experience about what the negative impacts would be on that.
"So I was very concerned about things on that side as well and I think that's why I had a more nuanced and balanced approach than some of the other governors. Because you have some of these health officials saying, 'You've got to do this. This is science,' or whatever. But really, these were unchartered territories."
Which certainly doesn't look like winning.
It's not hard to see what happened here.
There are two political lessons to be learned in DeSantis' struggles.
1) Never declare victory until you know you've won.
2) If circumstances change, you need to change too.
What Florida looked like on May 20 -- when Lowry wrote the column -- and what it looks like today are radically different. DeSantis was quick to take the credit when it looked as though his hands-off approach was working.
He added: "We understood that the outbreak was not uniform throughout the state, and we had a tailored and measured approach that not only helped our numbers be way below what anybody predicted, but also did less damage to our state going forward."
But DeSantis has been resistant to either taking the blame for the current situation or putting in place measures that will slow the raging epidemic in the state.
To put it in Florida terms that DeSantis can understand: The Miami Hurricanes football team doesn't stop playing at halftime just because they are ahead by three touchdowns. Unfortunately for the governor, that's exactly what he did.
After months of closures, governments are eager to reopen schools and businesses to allow people to get on with their lives. But fresh clusters of infection have seen leaders forced to reimpose restrictions in some hotspots, even as rules are eased elsewhere in the same country.
There are hopes this approach could minimize the economic damage resulting from large-scale shutdowns. In Portugal, for example, 19 boroughs on the outskirts of Lisbon have shut down, while the capital's downtown area has continued its reopening, along with the rest of the country.
Workplace links
Alexander Kekul, a virology professor and Director of the Institute for Biosecurity Research in Germany, told CNN: "The only strategy we can have is a stamping-out strategy. It's the same thing we do usually when we have new clusters of infections of any novel disease."
He said such moves were the "new normal," but needed to be combined with other measures, such as wearing masks and maintaining social distancing, as well as efficient systems to track and trace outbreaks before case numbers enter the hundreds.
"We should get used to it," he added. "In many places of the world people are really used to rules, for instance: Mosquito nets. And you can argue that the mosquito net is terrible and will change your whole life -- and it's like everybody argues against masks -- but when you have at the other side a deadly disease, and no real good idea how to survive until the vaccine will come, one day or never, then I think it's the best chance we have."
Guetersloh's lockdown was lifted Monday when a court in the state of North Rhine-Westfalia ruled that the regulation was "no longer compatible with the principle of proportionality and the principle of equal treatment."
Residents reported facing prejudice from the rest of the country, with a T-shirt on sale reading, "Keep a distance, I am from Guetersloh," and CNN affiliate n-tv reporting that people with Guetersloh license plates were worried about driving outside the district for fear of discrimination.
In the Italian city of Mondragone, authorities sealed off a building that housed migrant seasonal workers as a "red zone" late last month after 49 people tested positive for Covid-19. The army was sent to monitor the hotspot and a group of workers living in the building broke the quarantine to protest.
The governor of the Campania region, Vincenzo De Luca, blamed foreign workers for the "contagion," in an interview published on his Twitter account: "As always, we worked to assure the serenity of our families. In the coming weeks I believe we will do a wide check on seasonal workers."
A spokesperson for the Italian Interior Minister told CNN that military controls were ending Tuesday night with only 10 positive cases remaining in the building, which they said local health authorities could easily monitor.
And in Serbia, police in the capital Belgrade on Tuesday fired tear gas at protesters demonstrating against the President Aleksandar Vucic after he announced a weekend-long curfew to try to combat a surge in cases.
On Tuesday, Serbia recorded its highest daily death toll from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, with Vucic calling the situation in Belgrade "alarming."
Lockdown towns
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that Leicester showed "the virus is out there still circling like a shark in the water," raising fears of further lockdowns in other UK areas with rising numbers of new cases. After UK pubs opened last weekend, three establishments announced they were shutting because customers had tested positive for the coronavirus.
Leicester couple Naeem and Aisha Brisco formed an organization called Project Hope with two friends, to deliver food and necessities to vulnerable people in the community.
Naeem Brisco, whose IT company is currently closed, told CNN more people seemed to be struggling financially this time around. "I have noticed that there's been more calls coming through," he said.
He said there were now more test centers, boards displaying distancing rules, leaflets delivered to people's homes in different languages, and police patrolling streets and stopping cars.
With the rest of the country able to visit relatives and return to pubs after England's lockdown was eased on July 4, "Leicester feels a bit left out," he said.
Brisco said support was coming from the grassroots. "I think mainly the locals are getting together and just trying to be there for their neighbors and family."
Campaign group Labour Behind the Label last week suggested conditions in Leicester's garment factories were increasing the risk of coronavirus transmission among low-paid and often migrant workers.
But Brisco stressed it was important not to stereotype areas. "I can see a lot of unity and we talk about ethnic minorities, I get that, but if we remember, we've got people of all backgrounds in Leicester. Certain words that we use can put people in a minority position."
He said people were "scared" but happy to do what needed to be done to contain the spread of the virus.
As for businesses: "How long they can sustain for, I don't know," he said.
Sharifah Sekalala, Associate Professor at Warwick Law School, told CNN it was "a real concern" that local lockdowns could mean "communities that are already deprived might then get deprived even further."
She said the onus should not be on people who work in factories, use public transport, live in crowded housing or face social deprivation to enforce social distancing.
"What you end up with is just really easily stigmatizing all of certain groups of people," she said. "This is really problematic, in terms of class but also in terms of ethnic groups that certain groups are going to be disproportionately more affected."
Sekalala said government should hold industries to account -- as when the French government took Amazon to court for not practicing social distancing -- and "think really carefully about what a social safety net looks like in times of a crisis."
This includes providing appropriate housing that is not as densely populated, making sure transport to workplaces is socially distanced, and ensuring people can sustain themselves in the long term -- not just receiving furlough payments before losing their job.
Sekalala said lockdowns should not be "punitive" towards a particular region. "We need to shift the narrative about this localized lockdown, because it seems to me that the people who are locking down make a personal sacrifice on behalf of the whole country," she said.
Second state of emergency
On Saturday, 3,000 residents of nine densely populated public housing estates were put under full lockdown and from Wednesday, residents in metropolitan Melbourne are no longer allowed to leave their homes, except for grocery shopping, caregiving, exercise or work.
Victoria's border with New South Wales will close for the first time since the pandemic began.
"We know we're on the cusp of something very, very bad if we don't get on top of this," Victoria's State Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters Tuesday, describing the surge in numbers as unsustainable.
"I think a sense of complacency has crept into us as we let our frustrations get the better of us," Andrews said.
Melbourne cafe owner Steffan Tissa told CNN that he switched to takeout service for around three months before reopening to dine-in customers recently. Now his cafe, West 48, is closing its doors again. Tissa said he understands it's a necessity, but it will be "difficult" for his business.
"When it first started, we had to let staff go," he said. "And then as the lockdown started to ease off, we brought new staff on.
"We've been quite encouraged by it and now to have to go back, we're in a state of limbo, you know, where will our new normal be just in terms of how trade goes?" he said. "Financially, it could be quite a challenge."
Large-scale second lockdowns
Israel has re-imposed strict limitations across the whole country, closing event halls, bars, gyms and pools after the country hit a record daily figure of 1,140 new infections.
It is facing a near 40-fold increase in daily cases from mid-May, when the nation appeared to have the virus under control.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting Monday that "we must take immediate steps that will prevent us from having to take even more extreme measures later."
But Kekul, the virology professor, believes that large-scale reopening and then locking down again is a mistake, and risks causing psychological or economic damage to those affected.
"We need a reliable picture of our future or the economy," he told CNN. "You cannot plan when you have the possibilities of lockdowns at any time. People will not do that several times, again and again.
"In the United States, or also in Brazil, we have the situation that the people are beginning to fight against lockdowns and I understand why they are doing that," he said.
"Instead of braking and accelerating, we needed a completely different concept... some kind of continuous response to the disease or to the outbreak.
"Whenever we loosen these lockdowns without having a replacement strategy you will get outbreaks again, because you have only very few people who are immune."
This could be the most complex and nuanced phase of the pandemic yet.
LINCOLN PARK A new, coronavirus-inspired concoction is spurring backlash at Alinea, one of the worlds most famous restaurants.
The canap resembles renderings of the coronavirus: a bluish-gray sphere pockmarked with red dots. It was created by the Alinea team and is served at AIR: Alinea in Residence, a rooftop pop-up in the West Loop thats been open while the original Lincoln Park location is closed due to the pandemic.
The snack is a coconut custard with Szechuan peppercorn and freeze-dried raspberries. It generated controversy after a photo of it was posted on Instagram this week.
Unbelievable, Dave Baker wrote when he shared the image on Instagram. @thealineagroupThis isnt ok this isnt cute. This is shameful. How unbelievably disrespectful to anyone whos life has been lost. I dont care how you spin it, this is unacceptable.
Bakers image appears to have been taken from a Saturday tweet from a man who described himself as a doctor and thanked the restaurant for the dish.
But several people commenting on Bakers post said it was insensitive and tone-deaf to use the coronavirus pandemic as artistic inspiration for food.
More than 2,600 people have died from the disease and more than 53,000 have been infected with the virus in Chicago.
Alinea Group co-owner Nick Kokonas repeatedly defended the dish in the comments on the Instagram post.
Art is often meant to provoke discomfort, conversation, and awareness. This is no different, Kokonas wrote. Everyone on here saying we are somehow oblivious need to think just a single level upwards.
That only provoked more terse exchanges between commenters and Kokonas, who said he and his team are extremely deferential to the coronavirus pandemic and were not trying to be flippant.
But this this is not disrespectful, he wrote. This is not pro Trump. This is not making light of the situation. This is manifesting and making visible what we all cannot see and reminding patrons, right as they arrive, that we are aware that this is still with us and will be for some time.
Commenters were not convinced.
I think Im mostly just blown away that given the everything thats happened in the last 7 months, people cannot check their ego long enough to say, You know what, youre right probably a bad look to make food in the shape of a coronavirus cell and instead vehemently defend their right to provoke instead of having an ounce of respect for the victims of this pandemic, one wrote.
There is a big difference between provocative art and just being blatantly insensitive, Baker wrote back to Kokonas. Slapping a COVID-19 dippin dot on a plate and calling it art doesnt make it less disrespectful, just as telling an offensive joke doesnt make it less offensive because it was a joke.
This dish is disrespectful to its victims, their families, your patrons and the entire restaurant industry that is crumbling around us.
The pop-up restaurant has taken precautions to prevent the spread of coronavirus: Customers have their temperature checked and are required to wear masks when coming in. Parties can only come in one at a time to ensure theres social distancing.
The controversial canap is offered to customers when they first walk in. Its comfort food, Kokonas told Block Club in emails, and its delicious.
Kokonas told Block Club the feedback has been fantastic at AIR.
Every day we get emails thanking our team for providing a unique, safe and pleasurable experience in these difficult times, Kokonas said. We are also proud that we have reemployed our team and provided a creative outlet to express what they do. We are working to extend the run into the fall if possible.
People have made up their minds on the dish and on the experience at AIR without actually experiencing it, Kokonas said.
I suppose Id want to show them some of the work weve found inspirational and yes, even challenging, that others have done through the visual arts, short movies and docs, music, and theater around the world and ask if those are equally offensive to them, Kokonas said. Why this bite and not that? The larger question that Ive heard for years is, Should a place like Alinea exist? because it is food + it is expensive.
What people dont often realize is that our clientele is not composed of the 1 percent; its composed of people who enjoy food, who are celebrating a special occasion, or who prefer this to, say, a Bears game which costs the same money. The difference, of course, is that we all need to eat we understand that. But Alinea is meant to be a fun and delicious celebration of life. AIR is, as well.
I recognize that the commenters think the opposite that we have no empathy. It is 100 percent the opposite.
And Kokonas said he cannot abide by comments on social media threatening him in response to the snack.
One person on Instagram told Kokonas they hope he accidentally trip[s] and fall[s] into a cardboard baler.
There are a dozen of those on there and I really cannot understand how anyone can accuse us of being offensive and then wish personal harm on us, our families and our hardworking team over a bite of food taken out of the context of its experience, Kokonas told Block Club.
Finally, the irony in this is that the person(s) who actually created the bite is/are not me . I just defended their right to do so and enabled the experience to happen. No one asked who made it . They might be surprised.
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In November, this year's presidential election could be unlike anything the country has seen in at least 20 years, when the results of the 2000 election hinged on paper ballots and hanging chads.
Republicans and Democrats are now preparing for a pitched legal battle over which votes will count and when they should be counted. States are struggling to retrofit their voting process to meet the needs of voters concerned about risking their lives to cast their ballot. And primary elections held so far this summer indicate that November could bring historic turnout, albeit via mail-in ballots -- and correspondingly, a lengthy wait for election results.
"When I take a look at many of the problems that have percolated up during the past month or two in primaries, we have four months to solve them," said Tom Ridge, the former homeland security secretary and Pennsylvania governor who now co-chairs VoteSafe, a bipartisan effort to encourage states to expand absentee voting this year.
But even if those problems are largely resolved, Ridge, a Republican, said that historic levels of absentee voting will mean that election night will not bring the closure Americans have become used to.
"We shouldn't be so focused on knowing that night. We might, it's certainly a possibility, but let's start talking about election week," Ridge said.
A campaign to undermine faith in elections
Adding to the extraordinary pressures being exerted on American elections is the President himself, who has in recent weeks escalated his attacks against mail-in voting, pointing to a slew of nefarious consequences if more Americans are allowed to cast their ballot by mail.
"The Democrats are also trying to rig the election by sending out tens of millions of mail-in ballots, using the China virus as the excuse for allowing people not to go to the polls," Trump said at a recent campaign event in Phoenix. "It's going to be fraud all over the place.
"This will be, in my opinion, the most corrupt election in the history of our country," he added.
"It's my greatest concern, my single greatest concern," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said last month. "This President is going it try to steal this election."
Biden has gone further, warning that Trump might refuse to leave office and suggesting that the military could play a role in forcing him to leave if he loses.
The Biden campaign is responding to a more than $20 million effort by the Republican National Committee to combat efforts to expand vote-by-mail with a legal army of their own. The campaign said it would organize 600 lawyers and 10,000 volunteers across the country for their voter protection efforts.
Meantime, the election processes, which differs in every jurisdiction in the country, appears unprepared to instill confidence in the system.
"The one thing we do know is that there is no historical anecdote that speaks to the massive fraud and massive abuse of the system that the President has complained about," said Ridge. "The one thing we do know is, as a country, we have four months to try to deal with some of these challenges. And the one thing we do know is the President of the United States could take the lead to provide safe and secure options for all of his fellow citizens, rather than running and filing lawsuits."
A slew of recent primary elections have vividly demonstrated the potential pitfalls Americans face in attempting to vote during this pandemic.
One of the most acute problems: staffing. In Wisconsin, Kentucky, Georgia and elsewhere, election officials have scrambled to find new, younger poll workers to man in-person precincts that previously had relied on older retirees who are now choosing to stay at home because they are at greater risk from the coronavirus.
In North Carolina, state party officials are already recruiting poll workers in a call-to-service.
Ohio election officials recently mused that people who are out of work or those working from home may provide an untapped source of Election Day labor. Election officials are particularly concerned about the prospect that poll workers might abandon their posts at the last minute giving them no time to find replacements.
That scenario played out in Georgia's recent primary on June 9, which prompted officials in that state to scramble to find new poll workers up until the last weekend before Election Day. In some cases, poll workers showed up at their assigned precinct on election morning only to be abruptly reassigned to another precinct.
And in nearly every primary held since the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the results have taken days or even weeks to finalize. Pennsylvania's primary, for example, was held on June 7 and, a month later, the results still have not been certified.
Some states do not allow ballots to be counted until polls close. And Democrats and Republicans are locked in legal battles in courts across the country over whether ballots should be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day or received by Election Day, an issue that could have a significant impact on whether hundreds of thousands of mail-in votes are counted.
Voters face life-or-death choices
Trump's rhetorical bomb throwing against mail-in voting contrasts sharply with the reality faced by voters like 36-year-old Maria Nelson, who was diagnosed with breast cancer 18 months ago and is still undergoing chemotherapy treatments every few weeks. Nelson lives with the fear that she might have to sacrifice her right to vote in order to remain alive for her two young children.
"I knew that I was in a health pool that was at risk," Nelson told CNN. "I wouldn't do anything that would risk my life even further. So that included voting in person for me."
Nelson requested an absentee ballot in Wisconsin ahead of that state's April 7 primary, and that's when her story became emblematic of the chaos that would unfold there and elsewhere in the country. Her ballot came -- but on April 8, too late for her to vote.
"This isn't an easy decision for people," Nelson said. "Requesting an absentee ballot or having fear of going to vote in person isn't the easy way out. It's not being lazy. It's truly this fear for your health.
"And when you're a young mother like I am, you just have to look at your children and really say this isn't a risk that I'm willing to take."
Wisconsin's election featured many more reports from voters like Nelson complaining their ballots were never received. And later postal service would reportedly discover boxes of missing ballots that had been delayed or not delivered.
One of those likely belonged to Melody McCurtis, a Wisconsin community organizer who requested an absentee ballot to avoid putting her mother, who lives in her home, and her children at risk.
"Nobody notified me that it wasn't coming," McCurtis said. "I'm just like, Where's my ballot? Where's my ballot? I tried to call my clerk, no answer. On April 6, I call, and again April 7, they said was nothing you can do or nothing we can do, you have to go to the polls and vote because it's not coming."
McCurtis' ballot never came.
She became one of the many Wisconsin voters who showed up at the polls in person on Election Day and faced massive lines that weren't socially distanced and became emblematic of a failed execution of an Election Day during a pandemic that is now a warning sign to other states contemplating election changes.
Both Nelson and McCurtis are now plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to force Wisconsin to change its election practices, alleging that the state's mismanagement of its the April 7 primary disenfranchised voters.
These problems also affect Black and Hispanic voters acutely. The study found that communities with high Black and Hispanic populations also saw lower voter turnout.
"We were definitely disenfranchised and we're definitely at risk for that happening again, because COVID-19 is not going away," said McCurtis, who is Black. "And we see that it's climbing every day. And I feel like a black, brown and poor communities are at risk of this happening again. And I feel like the powers that be are not taking this seriously enough. They're not valuing our lives at this point."
