SALT LAKE CITY (CBS Local) Researchers in Utah say they are developing a new way to detect COVID-19 with your smartphone.
What started as a device to help detect a Zika virus could become be programmed to identify COVID-19 instead, say researchers in Utah.
Our prototype is going to be on the order of the size of a quarter, and it would be communicating with a cellphone using the Bluetooth link, Massood Tabib-Azar, a University of Utah professor and the lead engineer on the project, told KSTU.
The device would be able to test for COVID-19 if someone were to breathe, cough, sneeze or blow on a sensor. The results would then be displayed on a cell phone within 60 seconds.
It could also test for the virus on surfaces by using a swab and placing it onto the sensor.
The sensor will be reusable because it would destroy the previous sample with a small electrical current.
Tabib-Azar says he wants to make it possible to send the results to health agencies, too.
Youd push the button and it can send to a central location, Centers for Disease Control or any other authority that youd select in your options, and then in real time can update the map, he said.
Tabib-Azar says he hopes to have a working prototype in two months. Clinical trials would take another month.
In principle, we can put these devices in everybodys hand, and once we produce them in large scale inexpensively, then its like any other thing that people want to have with them, he said.
The pandemic that has shuttered economies around the world has also battered education systems in developing and developed countries. Some 1.5 billion students close to 90% of all primary, secondary and tertiary learners in the world are no longer able to physically go to school. The impact has been dramatic and transformative as educators scramble to put in place workable short-term solutions for remote teaching and learning, particularly in emerging markets, where students and schools face additional challenges related to financing and available infrastructure.
While each level of education faces its unique challenges, it is the higher education segment that may end up, by necessity, triggering a learning revolution. Universities are distinctive in that their students are both old enough to handle the rigours of online work and technologically savvy enough to navigate new platforms. The real challenge lies for the institutions in which they have enrolled. Can traditional, campus-based universities adapt by choosing the right technologies and approaches for educating and engaging their students? The successes and failures that unfold should give us all a better grasp of what is possible.
Right now, video-conferencing apps like Zoom and Webex are throwing universities a lifeline. However, lecturers are still struggling to maintain the same depth of engagement with students they could have in a classroom setting. They need to find solutions and fast to avoid a dip in the quality of education they are providing. Online education platforms such as Coursera, an IFC client with a global presence, can play a useful role by tapping their expertise in online programme design, choice of tech platform, and digital marketing to develop the best content either with or for the traditional players.
With the online segment still comprising a small fraction of the $2.2 trillion global higher education market less than 2%, according to market intelligence firm HolonIQ the market is ripe for disruption. The appetite from students for online offerings will likely grow because of COVID-19. Even before the pandemic, many universities were seeing declines in enrolment for campus-based programmes and parallel increases in uptake of their online courses. With COVID-19, we are seeing how yesterdays disruptors can become todays lifeguards. While traditional institutions once viewed online education as a threat, it has come to their rescue.
The adoption of online solutions in recent months has been unprecedented. In the short term, educators are applying a first aid solution by switching entirely from in-person to remote instruction, a move that has been forced upon them by sudden mandatory campus closures. But they are quickly realizing that remote learning is just a baby step experiment in the long journey to offering online education that has been conceived as such, which includes effective student engagement tools and teacher training. Some of the partnerships sparked between universities, online education companies and tech providers may continue beyond the pandemic.
As painful and stressful a time as this is, it may fashion a long overdue and welcome rebirth of our education systems. The pandemic has been a great leveller in a way, giving all stakeholders (educators, learners, policy-makers and society at large) in developed and developing countries a better understanding of our current education systems vulnerabilities and shortcomings. It has underscored how indispensable it is for our populations to be digitally literate to function and progress in a world in which social distancing, greater digitalization of services and more digitally-centered communications may increasingly become the norm. More fundamentally, COVID-19 is causing us to challenge deep-rooted notions of when, where, and how we deliver education, of the role of colleges and universities, the importance of lifelong learning, and the distinction we draw between traditional and non-traditional learners.
This pandemic has also made people realize how dependent we are on so-called low-skilled workers to keep our lives going. During shutdowns, lockdowns, curfews, its these workers who are on the front lines, working multiple shifts to maintain delivery and take care of our basic needs. Over time, automation will continue to eat into these jobs. While there will always be services provided by low-skilled workers, most new jobs will require higher skills levels. Being able to reskill and upskill in this rapidly changing world is not only a necessity but an economic imperative.
COVID-19 has struck our education system like a lightning bolt and shaken it to its core. Just as the First Industrial Revolution forged todays system of education, we can expect a different kind of educational model to emerge from COVID-19.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
State officials are planning to substantially increase testing for COVID-19 in Hidalgo County beginning Tuesday, according to a county news release issued Tuesday.
There have been 394 cases of COVID-19 reported in Hidalgo County, with more than 6,000 individuals who have been tested thus far. Its unclear what the rate of testing will be, however.
Tuesdays announcement follows Gov. Greg Abbotts mandate that 100% of residents and staff from nursing homes in Texas will get tested for the virus across the state.
Several factors are converging in Hidalgo County that will result in a greater number of people locally having the opportunity to be tested, Cortez said in the release, which stated that testing efforts will greatly expand.
Cortez added, This will give us a more accurate picture of how effective our mitigation efforts have been and allow us to make more informed decisions about relaxing controls in the county.
Drive-thru testing will begin Wednesday at Hargill Elementary, located at 13394 Fourth St. in Hargill. Testing will continue on Thursday at Monte Alto ISD, at 25149 First St. in Monte Alto; and Dr. Javier Saenz Middle School, at 39200 Mile 7 Road in Mission.
Abbott has previously indicated that he wants 2% of the Texas population to be tested as part of his Open Texas efforts.
The Texas National Guard, the Texas Military Department and the Texas Department of Health and Human Services have begun negotiating with emergency management officials in Hidalgo County to set up as many as 18 new drive-through testing sites in unincorporated areas of the county.
The testing will be free, but people who wish to be tested must first consult with health officials and make an appointment 24 hours prior to the test date.
People will be screened for fever and/or chills, sore throat, cough (dry or productive), headaches, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, body aches, muscle or joint pain, nasal congestion, shortness of breath, and loss of taste and/or smell.
Visit www.txcovidtest.org or call (512) 883-2400 to initiate the testing process.
Story
Gov. Jay Inslee announced the extension of three proclamations today in response to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.
A May 11, 2020, letter from the Legislature extends proclamations 20-28 and 20-31 until May 31, 2020.
The statutory waivers and suspensions cited in 20-33.1 are extended until May 18, 2020.
Public and constituent inquiries | 360.902.4111Press inquiries | 360.902.4136
The Indiana State Department of Health reported Tuesday that566 additional residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19. The number includes the results reported tothe health department over multiple days.In Tuesdays information, it stated that the results were between March23 and May 11 from tests conducted from March 17 to May 11.
The total number of Indiana residents known to have COVID-19 is now 25,127.
Marshall Countys number increased to 36 positive COVID-19 cases, according to Tuesdays report. Pulaski County reported 34 positive cases and Starke County reported an increase to 23 positive cases. La Porte County reported 325 positive cases of COVID-19.
The numbers provided are a running total. Information on how many people have recovered from COVID-19 is not available in the report.
The 33 additional deaths reported occurred over the last fewdays which brought the total to 1,444 in the state. Probable deaths total 134. A probable death is reported based on a clinicaldiagnosis, but no positive test.
The Westville Correctional Facility reported 92 staff members and 175 offenders who have tested positive for COVID-19. Statistics provided on the Department of Correction website show that a majority of the patients have recovered.
Like Loading...
European countries will be advised to open borders to countries with similar coronavirus risk profiles under a plan to bolster the ailing tourist industry being discussed in Brussels.
On Wednesday the European commission will recommend a phased approach to reopening borders that means EU countries with similar overall risk profiles on the pandemic will open to tourists from each others countries, according to a leaked draft paper seen by the Guardian.
Restrictions on travel should first be lifted in areas with a comparable epidemiological situation and where sufficient capabilities are in place in terms of hospitals, testing, surveillance and contact tracing capacities, the paper said. The draft was first reported by the website Euractiv.
The EU executive has previously voiced unease about tourism corridors, whereby member states make bilateral deals to open to each others tourists, but now appears ready to accept such arrangements in practice.
The EU includes some of the countries worst hit by the pandemic notably Spain and Italy along with others such as Greece and the Czech Republic that have so far limited its impact.
Officials are scrambling to rescue Europes tourism industry, which accounts for 10% of EU economic output more in Italy, Spain, Croatia and Greece.
Austrias chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, announced last week that he intended to open the borders to visitors from safe countries, such as Germany and the Czech Republic, as part of efforts to protect the Alpine states tourism industry.
Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia will reopen their borders to each other from 15 May, creating a Baltic travel bubble.
We showed a good example by stating, very clearly, that only countries which successfully dealt with the situation can open themselves up, Lithuanias prime minister, Saulius Skvernelis, has said.
Greece, among nine countries that have notched up low infection rates so far - and have formed the Smart Covid-19 management group has proposed that tourism ministers also meet to discuss the idea of travel corridors among the alliance.
With around one million people almost a quarter of its workforce employed in the industry, Greece is keen to capitalise on its unexpectedly successful handling of the pandemic.
In proposals made ahead of the talks, Athens has suggested that travellers be tested for Covid-19 three days before departure. Given that testing people upon arrival at airports will be difficult, the idea of socalled PCR tests being conducted to determine a persons status, say 72 hours before travelling, has been discussed, one insider told the Guardian.
Greece hopes the sector can be rebooted by 15 June with the nation opening to foreign tourists by 1 July.
The countrys tourism minister, Harry Theoharis, confirmed on Tuesday that if progress was not made on Wednesday Athens would pursue measures that would allow air travel by striking bilateral agreements with other countries. Germany, Austria, Israel and Cyprus have already begun discussing travel corridors with Greece, along with Bulgaria and other Balkan states to its north.
Senior EU officials acknowledge they cannot stop governments from striking such bilateral or trilateral deals, but argue against selective treatment. If Austria opens to Germany, it would be expected to permit entry to all residents in Germany.
The commissions acceptance of national border controls contrasts with earlier unease. Member states cannot open borders for citizens from one EU country, but not from others. This is essential, the EU home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, told MEPs last week.
Separately, Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron have agreed to work on appropriate border measures. A UK government spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied a report by the Sun that the two leaders were planning a travel corridor aimed at allowing British tourists to visit France in the summer and vice versa. The spokesperson referred to Foreign Office advice against all non-essential travel worldwide.
The British government has exempted travellers from France from having to go into a 14-day quarantine that will apply to most international visitors.
A European commission spokesperson welcomed all arrangements that bring us back to normality but called on the British government to apply the same rules to other EU countries where the virus is under a similar level of control as France.
Quarantine restrictions on visitors are also determined by national governments, and the EU executive is taking a similar approach, calling for equal treatment for countries with a similar infection rate. We would also expect member states that follow certain measures in quarantine would apply the same rules towards other member states if they have similar epidemiological situations, the spokesperson said.
By the peak summer season, travellers across the EU will be able to check an interactive map drawn up by the European commissions science service that will provide information on the latest border controls and travel conditions, under the commission plans.
The EU executive will also urge member states to construct preparedness plans in case of a second wave of coronavirus. It suggest countries should only lift travel restrictions when virus containment measures, such as physical distancing, can be followed throughout a journey.
The World Health Organization (WHO) guidance on face masks has remained consistent during the coronavirus pandemic. It has stuck to the line that masks are for healthcare workers not the public.
Wearing a medical mask is one of the prevention measures that can limit the spread of certain respiratory viral diseases, including Covid-19. However, the use of a mask alone is insufficient to provide an adequate level of protection, and other measures should also be adopted, the WHO has stated.
Nevertheless, as some countries have eased lockdown conditions, they have been making it mandatory to wear face coverings outside, as a way of trying to inhibit spread of the virus. This is in the belief that the face covering will prevent people who cough and sneeze ejecting the virus any great distance.
There is no robust scientific evidence in the form of trials that ordinary masks block the virus from infecting people who wear them. There is also concerns the public will not understand how to use a mask properly, and may get infected if they come into contact with the virus when they take it off and then touch their faces.
Also underlying the WHOs concerns is the shortage of high-quality protective masks for frontline healthcare workers.
Nevertheless, masks do have a role when used by people who are already infected. It is accepted that they can block transmission to other people. Given that many people with Covid-19 do not show any symptoms for the first days after they are infected, masks clearly have a potential role to play if everyone wears them.
Sarah BoseleyHealth editor
Travel bans, grounded planes and closed borders caused by the pandemic response are proving disastrous for Europes tourism industry, which supports 27m jobs 12% of all employment in the union.
In an interview with the Guardian and other European newspapers, the European commissioner for the economy, Paolo Gentiloni, said Europes tourism industry would lose 40% of its income in 2020. It is obviously the hardest hit sector, he said, predicting a gradual recovery after Marchs total losses.
The commission will set out recommendations to promote hygiene in hotels and resorts on Wednesday. We will have a tourism season in summer, but with safety measures and limitations that [will make it] quite different from previous summer seasons, he said.
Gentiloni said countries faced different situations. His home country, one of the hardest hit by the virus, has already lost some of the biggest earning months of the year. In Italy, for example, the peak season was lost, because the richest part of tourism is frequently the tourists going for cultural trips to cities, and this is specially done from March to May, and then in September to October.
The United Nations World Tourism Organization predicted in March that global visitor numbers could fall by 20-30% in 2020, leading to losses of $450bn (362bn), but the impact on Europe is expected to be greater. Around half of all the worlds tourists visit Europe.
The commission has pledged to prioritise tourism in an EU recovery plan that is still being prepared.
Meanwhile, the commission has declined to back a call by more than a dozen EU member states calling for a relaxation of passenger rights rules that would allow cash-starved airlines to reimburse people with vouchers rather than money for cancelled flights.
The commission is expected to say customers should retain the right to a cash refund, but will propose common rules for vouchers to make them as attractive as possible.
A new strain of Coronavirus, COVID 19, is spreading around the world, causing deaths and major disruption to the global economy.
Responding to this crisis requires global cooperation among governments, international organizations and the business community, which is at the centre of the World Economic Forums mission as the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.
The Forum has created the COVID Action Platform, a global platform to convene the business community for collective action, protect peoples livelihoods and facilitate business continuity, and mobilize support for the COVID-19 response. The platform is created with the support of the World Health Organization and is open to all businesses and industry groups, as well as other stakeholders, aiming to integrate and inform joint action.
As an organization, the Forum has a track record of supporting efforts to contain epidemics. In 2017, at our Annual Meeting, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched bringing together experts from government, business, health, academia and civil society to accelerate the development of vaccines. CEPI is currently supporting the race to develop a vaccine against this strand of the coronavirus.
1. How COVID-19 is impacting the globe
2. Smallpox proves a vaccine alone cannot conquer COVID-19: WHO briefingOn the 40th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, World Health Organization (WHO) officials shared lessons learned from conquering that disease, including the importance of global cooperation.
That same solidarity...is needed now more than ever to defeat COVID-19," said Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a briefing in Geneva Friday.
Officials in South Korea raised concerns recently after recovered patients tested positive for coronavirus, Reuters reported. Research has found, however, that these cases are likely "false positives" caused by non-infectious bits of the virus still in these patients' lungs. According to the findings, those who appear to have relapsed are actually still in the recovery process.
Costa Rica has successfully suppressed cases in part thanks to a strategy that has relied on a swift response from the government and cooperation from the people. The country banned mass gatherings in early March and by mid-March had closed its borders and told most workers and students to operate remotely.
Weve had a very controlled transmission, the countrys health minister, Daniel Salas, told The Tico Times in April. Thats in large part to the actions taken at the appropriate moment, but also due to the very favourable response from a population that understands the challenge were facing.
This is how coronavirus has progressed in Costa Rica.
Image: Tico Times
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with our Terms of Use.
Written by
Linda Lacina, Digital Editor, World Economic Forum
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
The coronavirus has devastated economies around the world and disrupted life in ways that were unimaginable just a few months ago. The world will never be the same. But at some point, industries will start coming back online and people will start going out again.
We asked travel industry experts for their thoughts on what willrestore confidence for people to begin traveling once theCovid-19 pandemic finally recedes. In the latest installment of our series "The Next Normal," we look at where and how we'll actually travel once we're willing to hit the road again.
***
A road trip to a national park or other attraction in a neighboring state.
A week-long stay at a sanitized vacation rental property nearby.
How does that sound? Your next outing might be booked through a travel advisor and insured, too.
That's what a typical family vacation might look like in the U.S. once travel and tourism starts to pick up again post-pandemic, say industry experts. Just when that might happen is up in the air, yet it could be as soon as early fall or as late as next spring or beyond.
The hypothetical trip incorporates several trends coming to the travel business going forward. These include traveler preferences for domestic destinations reachable by car and stays at private rental properties instead of crowded hotels and resorts.
What seems sure is that any rebound in travel and tourism, brought to a screeching halt by the coronavirus pandemic, will start slowly and stay closer to home. A recent study from Longwoods International found that 82% of travelers polled had changed their travel plans for the next six months.
More from Personal Finance:Cooking more under quarantine? How to trim your grocery billsHere are the world's best attractions and worst tourist trapsHow Americans plan to spend their stimulus checks
"Tourism recovery typically begins locally," said Elizabeth Monahan, spokesperson for Tripadvisor.com. "Travelers tend to first venture out closer to home, and visit their local eateries, stay local for a weekend getaway or travel domestically before a robust demand for international travel returns."
Omer Rabin, managing director, Americas, for Guesty, agreed. Guesty is an Israeli-founded property management software that enables users with properties across Airbnb, Booking.com and other travel sites to automate and streamline operations. "There will be a lot of demand for domestic travel," he said. "I think that's clear to everybody in the industry right now.
"We see a much better recovery and occupancy for drive-to destinations," he added. "People say 'we don't know what's going to happen with flights, but we do know that we're going to be able to get in the car and drive for three hours and have our own place and stay there for two weeks.'"
In fact, the Longwoods survey found that of those that had changed their travel plans for this year, nearly a quarter, or 22%, had switched to driving from flying . Aviation industry group Airlines for America says U.S. airlines have idled 3,000 aircraft, or half the nation's fleet, due to the downturn, while the number of passengers passing through TSA checkpoints at airports is down 93% over last year.
"Our clients are a little hesitant to get on an airplane right now," said Jessica Griscavage, director of marketing at McCabe World Travel in McLean, Virginia. "We're already preparing for the drive market for the remainder of the year, and probably into 2021."
For its part, online travel insurance comparison site InsureMyTrip is finding that the continental U.S. is indeed the top draw for future client travel but it's also tracking some interest in domestic destinations like Hawaii, as well as the Bahamas and Caribbean destinations like Jamaica.
"When people get more comfortable, they'll continue to go farther and farther away from home, starting with domestic and then moving to international, long-term," said Cheryl Golden, director of e-commerce at the Warwick, Rhode Island-based firm. (To wit, Sandals Resorts reportedly will open most of its Sandals and Beaches properties across the Caribbean June 4, and those in the Bahamas July 1.)
There is a small degree of interest in flying from die-hard bargain seekers.
"We've heard from a number of travelers that the low airfares available along many routes are tempting," said Tripadvisor's Monahan, although she cautions those willing to book flights that "airlines continue to adjust their cancellation and change policies for travelers across the globe in response to Covid-19."
Until the virus is under control and efficient systems are in place to restore confidence in travel, it's simply too soon to tell when people can expect to start booking again.
Erika Richter
senior communications director, American Society of Travel Advisors
"Every day and every week, it just seems like things are changing and it's really dynamic," said Golden. "It's hard for us to say right now when we think people will be ready to travel but travel will come back."
Erika Richter, senior director of communications at the American Society of Travel Advisors, said a new normal is probably necessary before bookings will pick up again. "We're still in that wait-and-see mode, because until the virus is under control and efficient systems are in place to restore confidence in travel, it's simply too soon to tell when people can expect to start booking again."
And when they do, things will be different, thinks Anne Scully, a certified travel counselor and president of McCabe World Travel. "Travel's going to come back [but] we'd need a crystal ball to say when," she said. "It will be changed, I think, at least for the next 12 months."
In the meantime, Scully's colleague Griscavage said she seeing a "standstill" in the agency's bookings through the holiday season meaning little in new business but not many cancellations, either. "Those [trips] are still bought, they are not cancelled yet, though it's just too soon to tell," she said. "I'm personally not seeing a surge in [holiday] travel bookings just yet though I think that can change very quickly as states are starting to open up."
There's been good news at Guesty, however, said Rabin. In the last two weeks of April, more reservations than cancellations came in.
Noel Hendrickson/Getty Images
"The most interesting thing is that there are more future reservations for the holidays right now than we have seen in that point of time in April 2019 for the holiday season last year," said Rabin. "Which means there's a lot of optimism and people are planning ahead."
Reservations for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's stays are up 38%, 40% and 23%, respectively, compared to the same time in 2019, Guesty found. "This also means that a lot of people are unable to take summer vacations or don't feel comfortable making bookings and travel plans for June, July, August," said Rabin, so are planning for later in the year. New flexibility in vacation-rental cancellation policies is helping, too, he added.
"Travel has changed," said Scully at McCabe World Travel. "It changed after 9/11, and it changed after the economy blew up in 2008-09." Yet travel advisors then showed clients it was still possible to travel despite any economic or geopolitical changes, and perhaps "better than ever," she said.
Griscavage said she foresees a big surge in family and multi-generational travel once people are willing to book trips again. "They didn't get their spring breaks, they're unsure of their summer trips," she said. "Maybe you didn't get to go to Mom and Dad's 50th anniversary or Grandma's 80th birthday.
"All of these families haven't been able to be together," she added. "I think we're going to see a lot of family and multi-gen travel but in a different way, a safer way."
How so? Accommodations perceived as cleaner and more isolated will find greater favor. "The question on every traveler's mind will be 'what are resorts doing to make us feel safe?'" Griscavage said. "I think we're going to see a big increase [in bookings of] villas and private homes and less crowded experiences moving forward."
Scully suggested that traditional hotel properties may pivot to operate more like private villas, selling entire floors staffed "not so much with a butler but a handler who could go down to pool, for example, and make sure the lounge chairs are separated." Hotel rooms may also sit empty for several days and be completely disinfected before a new guest can check in.
"These are going be not only game-changers but maybe a healthier way for us moving forward," Scully mused. "You've probably seen ridiculous shows on TV where they ask 'Is that hotel bedspread really clean?' Well, I bet now that it's really going to be spotless."
Rabin agreed that sanitization will be "a very big thing." Many of Guesty's vacation home hosts are installing automatic locks that can be opened via cellphone app, are arranging for contactless food deliveries to guest units and space out rental periods, "sometimes for days," to ensure complete unit disinfecting, he said.
There's a definite move toward vacation homes over hotels, Rabin said. "People feel much more comfortable staying short-term rentals like vacation homes," he said. "Hotels have a lot of turnover of guests, a lot of volume, a lot of people at check-in and check-out and in the dining room."
The trend is even influencing how hosts market their rental units. "If you search today for apartments on Airbnb, you will see that a lot of the hosts will put in the name of the property 'Sanitized, highly clean, Covid-friendly' a lot of things like that to basically signal to their customers, 'We are a safe location.'"
It works: Those hosts are seeing more reservations, according to Guesty data. The firm is working to ensure all hosts can offer such contactless, cleaner stays to prospective guests, said Rabin.
InsureMyTrip, for its part, is seeing a 6% increase in vacation-unit rentals over 2019, along with a decrease in hotel bookings, said Golden. "It's a trend that's just starting to happen, but I do expect we'll start to see more of this as people look to travel closer to home for vacation."
If anyone booked without a travel advisor during this period, they learned they should have.
Anne Scully
president, McCabe World Travel
Other areas of travel and tourism from pricing and flexibility to insurance and booking methods are also evolving:
Flexibility: Once you've paid, you are now, in many cases, free to cancel flights, accommodations and other travel components almost up to the last minute. "All the vendors really need the revenue stream, and so they offer this kind of flexibility at the moment," said Rabin. "The biggest chance that they have to recoup a lot of the losses for a weak summer is in a strong winter," so they're doing what they can to encourage bookings.
Scully at McCabe World Travel would like to see another change when it comes to prepayment. "When we give a hotel, a tour operator or a cruise line money, those funds for that client should be held in a kind of escrow," she said. "They don't get to use it for marketing or for something else, so when something happens, they have to give clients back money that they paid in good faith."
Pricing: Costs for travel autumn-onward have not dropped much. "Most of the vendors really understand that their path to profitability and recovery in 2020 is trying to protect their prices into winter season," said Rabin. "And so we see that most of them, for very obvious reasons, want to actually sacrifice the flexibility and not sacrifice the margin."
Duration: Rabin said short-term accommodations rentals, once typically between 3.5 and 5 days, are trending longer in duration, with an average 8.5- to 9-day stay. The trend stared a few weeks back when urbanites were booking month-long escapes from city centers that pushed the length of the average stay up "but now we see it as something that's really a sustainable trend, for the last month or so."
Types of trip: Apart from close to home road trips, people seem willing to consider booking vacations that normally require a year or more of advanced planning, said ASTA's Richter. "While some travelers are booking for 2021, it really is going to depend on the traveler and where they're going," she said.
African safaris, for example, require a year or more in advance of booking, especially for popular times of the year. "Those are the types of planning discussions that travel advisors are having with some of their clients," she said. "You also have to think about all of the destination weddings and honeymoons that were put on hold and need to be readjusted, and then maybe readjusted again, and again."
Travel insurance: Travel insurance, once an afterthought shunned by travelers looking for a bargain, may seen an uptick. "Now more people than ever are aware of travel insurance and how it could possibly help them," said Golden at InsureMyTrip.com. "Every time we've had an event like this in the past, there's been an uptick in travel insurance that sticks."
Before 9/11, about 7% of people bought travel insurance; after a surge in post-attack sales, the figure reached around 15%, she said. "We expect there will be a similar rise after coronavirus," Golden said. "It's now spiked pretty dramatically." Twenty-five percent to 30% of travelers will buy travel insurance going forward, the firm estimates.
Advisor Scully has sold a lot of travel insurance of late, especially the comprehensive kind. "We upgraded our clients on insurance to 'cancel for any reason,'" she said, noting she also offers clients medical evacuation services. "Whenever we're taking a client's money and they say, 'I'm not going to insure this,' the first thing I'll say is 'Are you comfortable losing $25,000 should you not be able to travel?'"
Travel advisors: The rise of Internet booking engines and online travel agencies from the mid-90s hit the traditional travel agent industry hard. But the trouble many travelers have had getting self-booked plans refunded or rescheduled amid the pandemic may fuel a renaissance in the fortunes of agents, who've now rebranded themselves as "travel advisors."
"If anyone booked without a travel advisor during this period, they learned they should have," said Scully at McCabe World Travel. "Trying to even call the airlines because the phones were just so jam-packed could take 16 hours, could take two to three days."
It's not just consumers who are noticing. "Our partners, our hotel partners, our cruise partners, our airline partners, our partners on land, they all know moving ahead, how valuable that travel advisor will be to their future growth," said Scully.
"The role of the travel advisor has evolved so much and we are not merely transactional agents anymore," said Richter at ASTA, whose thousands of members represent 80% of all travel sold in the U.S. through the travel advisor distribution channel. "We believe strongly that the future will have a heavy emphasis on the travel advisor facilitating the future of travel."
She favorably compared the roles advisors can play in both travel and personal finance. "During this crisis, folks who are concerned about their 401(k), savings and investments, they're talking to their financial advisors, [who] are helping them reassess and make short-term and long-term adjustments to their financial portfolio," said Richter. "The same is true for savvy travelers.
"They are working with their travel advisor to adjust their short-term and long-term travel goals, and it's a relationship that is ongoing."
The race to find a vaccine against Covid-19 is well underway. It has to bewithout one, the Before Time is never coming back. More than a hundred candidates are cooking, most still preliminary. A handful are in early human studies, three in Phase II clinical trials designed to see if they actually confer immunity to the disease.
Here's all the WIRED coverage in one place, from how to keep your children entertained to how this outbreak is affecting the economy.
But nobody thinks finding a winner will be easy; vaccine development typically takes years. Thats time researchers and governments dont feel like they have. Globally, more than 4 million people have gotten sick, and 280,000 have died. People sheltering in place and the closure of businesses has cost 30 million jobs in the United States alone. As the famed virologist Peter Piot wrote in an account of his own experience after getting sick with Covid-19, the only real exit strategy from this crisis is a vaccine that can be rolled out worldwide.
Even if scientists do develop a safe, broadly effective vaccine, nobody knows how to give it to billions of people. Itll be scarce at first anddepending on how it works and how its madepotentially difficult to transport. They have to figure out how to deploy it now, so that a planets worth of people in desperate need will be able to get it.
One approach might be to initially give the vaccine only to members of specific groups. Of course, then someone will have to decide which groups get priority. That order will be hard to figure out. Even if the answer is whoever is most at risk of dying, the epidemiological data still isnt clear on which group meets that criterion. Older people are more likely to get severely ill and die, but researchers are still trying to work out the role that children play as carriers, for example. The more fine-grained that is, the more we can define the risk groups, both with respect to how much risk they have of getting infected and the risk of severe outcomes, says Andreas Handel, an infectious disease modeler at the University of Georgia.
And most at risk isnt necessarily the right answer. Maybe people at high risk of catching the disease but with a lower risk of bad outcomes should be first in line. That could mean prioritizing people with high-exposure jobs that involve a lot of public contact, or that could mean addressing the systemic problems that have led to poorer, African American, and Latinx people facing more illness and death from Covid-19. Thats not easy. It could be groups with underlying health conditions, or people who, because of the kind of work theyre doing, cant avoid contactlike health care workers, police officers, grocery store workers, Handel says.
Alternatively, maybe the vaccine should go to the groups for whom itd do the most good, immunologically speaking. The vaccine against seasonal influenza, for example, isnt as effective in older people. If a Covid-19 vaccine has the same limitation, thats a big problem.
It could also be a solution. Maybe the best bet is giving the vaccine to people who mount the biggest immune response to ityoung, healthy people, perhapsto start building a roundabout sort of herd immunity. It could be conceptually possible that its better to give it to age groups that dont need it as much, but indirectly protect the other age groups, Handel says. The question then is, should you focus on giving the vaccine to those who dont directly benefit the most because their risk is lower, but if theyre vaccinated, they cant get it and pass it on to their parents?
The coronavirus pandemic has set off an unprecedented global scramble for a vaccine.
There are more than 100 potential vaccine candidates, according to the World Health Organization, but only eight have entered the crucial clinical trials stage. Four are in the United States and Europe, with the rest in China.
I can never remember anything like this, Walter Orenstein, associate director of the vaccine center at Emory University in Atlanta, said of the number of vaccines being developed to tackle one disease. Hopefully, at least one and hopefully more than one will prove to be safe and effective.
None have yet gone through the full trials needed to show that they are safe and effective.
While a range of extraordinary measures imposing stay-at-home orders, testing millions of people, wearing masks and social distancing can help slow the spread of the virus, experts say the key to getting completely back to normal is having a safe and effective vaccine thats widely available.
Some researchers involved in the process say that in a best-case scenario, the first doses of a vaccine could be ready in September or October far faster than any vaccine has ever been developed. The process usually takes years.
President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump to visit Pennsylvania medical equipment distributor on Thursday Trump camp outraged over Jezebel article calling for Stephen Miller to get coronavirus McConnell: Obama 'should have kept his mouth shut' on Trump's coronavirus response MORE is projecting confidence on getting a vaccine quickly, saying it's a top priority.
"We think we're going to have a vaccine by the end of this year," he said at a Fox News town hall last week. "And we're pushing very hard."
The U.S. vaccine efforts are more likely to be made available to Americans first.
New technologies are helping speed the process along at a rate much faster than the traditional method of giving someone a weakened version of the virus. For example, new technology uses RNA or DNA to code for a part of the virus to trigger an immune response that offers protection. But that technology has never been used on a wide scale for an approved vaccine, adding to the uncertainty.
And given the logistical challenges of mass production, some companies are already preparing to ramp up manufacturing for millions of doses, even before knowing whether their potential vaccine is effective.
Heres a guide to the four U.S. and European vaccine efforts that have started clinical trials.
Oxford University-AstraZeneca
Some of the highest hopes, and the most ambitious timeline, come from researchers at Oxford University, who are now working alongside British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
"The aim is to have at least a million doses by about September, once you know the vaccine efficacy results and then move even faster from there," Oxford professor Adrian Hill told the BBC last month.
The potential vaccine began testing in healthy volunteers in a Phase I clinical trial late last month at five sites in England. Data from that trial could be available this month, and later-stage trials could start by the middle of the year, AstraZeneca said on April 30.
The potential vaccine has had success in preventing coronavirus in rhesus macaque monkeys during a test at a National Institutes of Health (NIH) lab in Montana, The New York Times reported last month. It works by using a weakened version of a different virus known as adenovirus, which causes infections in chimpanzees, to deliver genetic material of part of the coronavirus into the body. The body then would generate an immune response to the section of the coronavirus, providing protection.
Moderna-NIH
The Massachusetts biotech company Moderna Inc. is partnering with Anthony FauciAnthony FauciThe Hill's Coronavirus Report: Sen. Barrasso says it's too soon to consider more funding for states; White House faces new challenges American Hockey League cancels playoffs for first time in 84-year history The Hill's 12:30 Report: White House scrambles after Pence aide tests positive for Covid MOREs team at the NIHon another leading vaccine candidate.
Moderna announced Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the firm fast-track designation, a move designed to expedite the development of treatments for life-threatening diseases, such as COVID-19.
Last week, the company saidit would begin a Phase II study with 600 people shortly and plans to start a Phase III trial with thousands of people by early summer.
Stphane Bancel, the companys CEO, told CNBC that the process is progressing at an unexpectedly fast clip.
It has gone faster than my best-case scenario back in January, Bancel said. When we started this back on Jan. 11, partnering with the team of Dr. Tony Fauci, we were hoping to get in the clinic in the summer.
Instead, Phase I clinical trials started on March 16, and Phase II trials are about to begin.
He said his employees have been working long days, working seven days a week since January, and collaborating closely with the NIH and FDA.
Through a partnership with the Swiss biotech company Lonza, manufacturing of the vaccine could start as early as July, Bancel said, even before trials are complete.
Still, he acknowledged that vaccine candidates worldwide will all be supply constrained for quite some time, meaning we wont be able to make as many products as will be required to vaccinate everybody on the planet. He anticipates working with governments to decide how to allocate the first doses, for example to health care workers and first responders.
This potential vaccine works differently than the Oxford one. It uses messenger RNA (mRNA) to deliver the genetic code for part of the coronavirus, which then provokes a response from the bodys immune system, offering protection.
Pfizer-BioNTech
Pfizer and the German company BioNTech are also working together on a potential vaccine using mRNA.
They are testing four potential vaccines at once, using different formats of mRNA to see which one works best.
The companies last week announced they had begun a Phase I trial with up to 360 people at sites including New York University and the University of Maryland.
Mikael Dolsten, Pfizers chief scientific officer, told CNBC that the company expects to produce millions of doses by October, with plans for tens of millions later this year and hundreds of millions in 2021.
So its a very quick plan, Dolsten said.
Pfizer, a drug manufacturing powerhouse, said it has selected its facilities in Massachusetts, Michigan and Missouri, along with one in Belgium, to be the initial manufacturing centers for the vaccine.
Inovio
The biotech company Inovio is working on a potential vaccine that uses DNA rather than RNA to code part of the coronavirus and produce an immune response.
The company says its DNA vaccines can be produced faster and stored more easily, in addition to being safer than other types. This vaccine would require an added step of a hand-held device to deliver an electrical pulse that helps the vaccine enter human cells.
Inovio announced at the end of April that it had enrolled 40 people in its Phase I study at the University of Pennsylvania and a clinic in Kansas City. Interim results are expected by June and further stages of trials could start this summer, the company said.
If we are on track, this could be as early as by the end of this year or early next year, Inovio CEO J. Joseph Kim told The Hill when asked when the first doses of vaccine could be ready for the public.
He said it is quite a challenge to be able to scale up manufacturing a thousandfold to produce hundreds of millions of doses and that more funding from the federal government would help.
More funding and resources will help us scale up to a larger manufacturing scale, he said.
Kim acknowledged the skepticism about his company, namely that it has never had a product approved by the FDA.
But the company has shown promising results in other areas like the MERS virus and cervical cancer, Kim argued.
I think healthy skepticism is always fair, he said.
Ultimately, the results of the COVID-19 trials will have to show the coronavirus vaccine is effective.
I think proof should be in the pudding, he said.
Updated at 11:28 a.m.
