Glasgow's Summer Nights at the Bandstand festival has become the latest major music event to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Before the massive rush to remote learning, most teachers used digital resources as supplements rather than primary materials, a RAND study shows.

RIGHT now, Tori Amos says, the big thing is to resist despondency. “That is an illness,” she tells me near the end of our conversation. “That is cancerous. And it can spread through your whole being and you don’t even realise. You’re in a mental war and you don’t know how to get out of it, and you do have to have words with yourself.”

The 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic caused illness in all age groups, but children were disproportionately affected. Children with underlying neurologic disorders were at high risk of influenza-related complications, including death.

This study provides the first detailed description of underlying neurologic disorders among children who died of influenza A (H1N1)pdm09 virus infection. (Read the full article)

Although several studies have demonstrated increased morbidity and mortality with pH1N1 in children, others have found its clinical course to be similar to seasonal influenza. Moreover, most studies were conducted at single centers, thus raising concerns about generalizability of findings.

This analysis provides national-level active hospital-based surveillance data comparing pH1N1 with 5 previous years of seasonal influenza A and demonstrates differences in risk factors and clinical presentation but not in ICU admission or mortality. (Read the full article)

The requests put the nation's special education administrators in conflict with disability rights advocates who fear waivers will place millions of special education students at risk.

Government went to war against Covid-19 with very low supplies in citizen trust and financial reserves, says Solly Moeng.

Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences is staying connected to alumni during the COVID-19 pandemic by moving its monthly Alumni Society board meetings and other alumni activities online.

The Penn State Smeal College of Business Center for the Business of Sustainability recently hosted the first in a series of virtual fireside discussions titled “The Impact of Coronavirus on Sustainability and Social Impact,” to explore how recent momentum in sustainability efforts has been altered.

The Penn State Center for Structural Oncology is shifting some of its focus from fighting cancer to fighting COVID-19, with three projects.

Both in and out of the virtual classroom, Penn State Lehigh Valley departments are connecting with students during remote learning

Effective immediately and for the foreseeable future, the Entrepreneurship and Assistance Clinic is expanding its scope and service offerings to small Pennsylvania businesses, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The requests put the nation's special education administrators in conflict with disability rights advocates who fear waivers will place millions of special education students at risk.

While many Penn State students are facing uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Penn State offices continue diligently working so that students have the resources they need to succeed.

Students enrolled in a crisis management course are examining the pandemic and its lessons and developing recommendations that the government and even individuals can follow. It's the kind of real-world experience that students can expect to have at Penn State Abington.

A Penn State Abington faculty member is teaching students enrolled to integrate the content into their daily lives to help them manage the impact of the coronavirus.

As the world continues to face the ongoing impacts of the global coronavirus pandemic, Penn State President Eric Barron outlined Friday the University’s actions over the past five months to address the challenges, protect the health and safety of the University community, and prepare for the future.

Denver Newsroom, Apr 21, 2020 / 03:15 pm (CNA).- An Argentine archbishop has proposed 13 measures that would aim to allow churches to reopen churches during the coronavirus pandemic while reducing the risk of contagion.

The proposal is an effort to balance safety and the need for Catholics to receive the Eucharist, Archbishop Víctor Fernández of La Plata said this week.

In response to the pandemic, Argentina has been under lockdown since March 20. According to John Hopkins University, there are 3,031 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 145 deaths in the country.

Fernández said that although the Church is providing material sustenance to those hardest hit by the pandemic “when we think about sustaining the interior life of the faithful and encouraging its growth, we find ourselves in the serious difficulty of seeing them deprived of the Eucharist for a long time, and we can also foresee that this situation could last for several months.”

In a letter dated April 19 and addressed to the conference’s executive committee, the bishop said the Second Vatican Council teaches that “no Christian community is built up if it is not rooted and centered on the celebration of the Holy Eucharist,” and that Saint John Paul II emphasized that the Mass “rather than an obligation, should be felt as a requisite deeply inscribed in Christian existence.”

Fernández said the letter he sent puts together the suggestions of several bishops and that it is understandable “that many of the faithful are calling on us to find some way to make the Eucharist accessible again.”

“We tell them that they can experience other forms of prayer, and they do, but as Saint John Chrysostom has said “’You can also pray in your home, however, you cannot pray the same way you do in church where the brethren are gathered together.’”

Fernández noted that Pope Francis “teaches that God ‘in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter.’ It’s good that our faithful have learned that and so it’s not the same thing for them,” he said, adding that Catholics are eager “the food of the love that is the source of supernatural life.”

“It won’t be easy to prove that this situation is lasting too long, nor can we simply wait till the pandemic is completely over,” the prelate noted.

“We know that exposing yourself to infection is irresponsible especially because it involves exposing others to infection and indirectly could lead to a public health crisis that we don’t want to see in our country,” he said.

Aiming to send “a clear message to our People of God to show that we’re truly concerned and that we intend to take some steps that would allow us to resolve this situation as soon as possible,” without neglecting “the health concerns of the authorities” Fernández proposed a series of obligatory measures to celebrate the Eucharist publicly:
1) Keep a distance of two meters between people to the side, front and back. This will require removing or closing off half the pews in the church.
2) No more than two people per pew.
3) Once the pews are occupied in that manner, no more people are to be allowed to enter the church.
4) In the churches where there is usually a lot of people in attendance, the number of Masses should be increased so the faithful can spread themselves out over Saturday and Sunday at different times. Given the prevalence and closeness of churches this will not involve using transportation.
5) Mass should not be celebrated publicly at the most frequently visited shrines due to the difficulty of establishing appropriate controls.
6) There should be no line for communion, instead the Eucharistic ministers should go to the people positioned at the ends of the pews and place the Eucharist in the hand.
7) Every Eucharistic minister should wash his hands with soap before and after and apply alcohol gel.
8) The sign of peace and any physical contact should be omitted.
9) Mass should last no more than 40 minutes.
10) People should leave the church progressively, not all at once, and avoid greeting each other.
11) No intentions should be taken at Mass time, only those previously received by phone, mail or messages.
12) Those people who because of their age are prevented from attending may receive Communion at home.
13) The dispensation from the Sunday obligation should be temporarily maintained so that people who prefer to exercise extreme caution don’t feel obliged to attend.

The archbishop also pointed out in his letter that “if the economic impact has to be foreseen, it’s also appropriate to place a value on those things that provide consolation and strength to people during hard times.”

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Penn State Brandywine’s Sustainovation Team has partnered with Tyler Arboretum to host an online discussion club for podcasts, offering a creative solution for the local community to stay connected during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Susan Brantley, director of the Earth and Environmental System Institute, and Lee Kump, John Leone Dean in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, will lead a panel discussion on the future of energy education at 4 p.m. Monday, May 18, via Zoom.

Penn State Health St. Joseph has moved swiftly to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, converting portions of its hospital as COVID-19 clinics, applying tried-and-true methods and learning on the fly.

Reports of suspected child abuse have declined in Pennsylvania since the onset of social distancing guidelines. But experts in the Penn State Center for the Protection of Children say this does not correlate with an actual decline in abuse cases.

When Penn State Law in University Park transitioned its annual Careers in the Law event to a virtual one due to COVID-19 concerns, Assistant Dean of Career Services Magen Mihok offered the sponsoring firms a choice: to receive a full refund of their registration fee, or to consider a donation to Penn State Law’s Future Fund to support students impacted by COVID-19. The result was a true embodiment of the "We Are" spirit.

The Nittany Neighbors program created at Penn State New Kensington in response to the coronavirus pandemic is testament to the fact that, as campus director of student affairs Theresa Bonk said, "we are a family, and like any family, we take care of our own."

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact communities throughout Pennsylvania, Penn State staff members are fighting food insecurity by donating to food banks and organizations across the state.

Source: www.consumeraffairs.com - Friday, May 08, 2020
There are a couple of simple ways to stay ahead of the situation, and there's possible relief for those who can't By Gary Guthrie of ConsumerAffairs May 8, 2020 var myLink = "https://my.consumeraffairs.com/tax-relief/get-matched/"; var mySubTitle = "Get matched with an Accredited Tax Relief Partner"; window.onload = function changeLink(){var linkForm = document.getElementsByClassName("wzrd-wg__form")[0];var titleForm = document.getElementsByClassName("wzrd-wg__sbtl")[0];linkForm.setAttribute("action", myLink);if (mySubTitle != ""){titleForm.innerHTML = " " + mySubTitle + " ";}}; The hits keep on comin'! On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy lost 20.5 million jobs in April, with the unemployment rate at 14.7 percent. Thank you, COVID-19. All told, upwards of 22 million Americans have lost their jobs during the pandemic, forcing many to collect unemployment to make ends meet. For some, a bonus of $600 each week in coronavirus relief is being added on. All that is fine and dandy for now, but most of those check recipients are unaware that they're going to have to pay taxes on that money because the IRS views it as "taxable income." Note: the "economic impact payment" Americans received is NOT taxable. "Most people don't realize it. They're thinking in the moment. They don't have much savings, credit is not great and then come April 15, 2021, you have a big tax bill you're not expecting," Ken Lin, the

Source: www.thestar.com - Friday, May 08, 2020
The unemployment rate jumped 5.2 points in April to 13 per cent in the first full month of economic restrictions.

Lewis Macdonald MSP has been elected as a temporary Deputy Presiding Officer (DPO) of the Scottish Parliament. The election was held as part of the Parliament's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: www.youtube.com - Friday, May 08, 2020

Penn State researchers provide informed commentary on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the criminal justice system (CJS), focusing on its efforts to contain the spread of the virus through the three core components of the CJS — courts, corrections, and policing – as well as opportunities going forward. To read more, visit the "Insights from Experts" website — a partnership of Penn State's Social Science Research Institute and the Center for Health Care and Policy Research.

Vatican City, Mar 31, 2020 / 10:28 am (CNA).- Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo of Burkina Faso has tested positive for the coronavirus, his archdiocese announced Tuesday. He is the second cardinal known to have tested positive for the virus, which is now a global pandemic.

Ouédraogo, 75, has been admitted to a medical clinic in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou.  He is “in good condition and his close collaborators are reported to be self-isolating,” a spokesman for Burkina Faso’s bishops’ conference, Fr. Paul Dah, told ACI Africa on March 31.

The cardinal is president of the African continental bishops’ conference, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM). He was elected to the post in July 2019. He has been Archbishop of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso for ten years, and was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2014.

Ouédraogo is the second bishop from Burkina Faso known to have contracted COVID-19, as countries across Africa implement lockdowns and restrictions to slow the spread of the virus across the continent.

Another Burkina Faso bishop, Archbishop Emeritus Séraphin François Rouamba of Koupela, tested positive for COVID-19 after being admitted to Our Lady of Peace clinic for urgent treatment on March 19.

The 78-year-old archbishop has since been transferred to another hospital and is reportedly in stable condition, according to a March 25 statement from Bishop Laurent Birfuore Dabire of Dori, Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso has the largest documented coronavirus outbreak in West Africa, with 249 documented cases as of March 31, according to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

The coronavirus has spread throughout the African continent to 47 countries, according to the Africa Center for Disease Control. In North Africa, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco each have more than 500 documented cases, and the South African government has reported more than 1,300.

Three Nigerian states began two-week mandatory lockdown this week to combat the spread of the virus, including Lagos, Africa’s most populous city with more than 20 million people.

Zimbabwe and Mauritius have also implemented national shut-downs, and the bishops in South Sudan and Zimbabwe have suspended public Masses.

Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, tested positive for coronavirus on March 30.

Other bishops in Italy, France, China, and the United States have also tested positive for COVID-19, and Bishop Angelo Moreschi, 67, died in the Italian city of Brescia on March 25 after contracting the coronavirus.

 

 

Rome Newsroom, Apr 22, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- For Iraqi Christian and Yazidi communities still recovering from the destruction wreaked by the Islamic State, the coronavirus poses significant risks, NGOs have said in a joint statement. 

“The public health system in Sinjar and the wider Nineveh Governorate was decimated by ISIS during its brutal occupation and genocidal campaign in Iraq, beginning in 2014,” the letter stated.

“An impending humanitarian and security disaster looms large in Iraq. … There is a significant attendant threat to global security if ISIS uses this opportunity to regroup and return, but it does not have to be this way. Iraqi authorities and the United Nations must act now,” it continued.

Twenty-five NGOs working in northern Iraq issued a joint statement April 16 calling on the World Health Organization to undertake an assessment mission in the area, where testing has been limited, and urging Iraqi authorities to prevent the Islamic State from regrouping.

Signed by the Iraqi Christian Relief Council, Free Yezidi Foundation, Genocide Alert, and the Religious Freedom Institute, the statement described how the pandemic is exacerbating existing security, humanitarian, and health risks among displaced and rebuilding Iraqi minority communities. It highlighted, in particular, the global risk of a potential resurgence of the Islamic State.

Security threat

“COVID-19 and the precipitous drop in oil prices have caused the Iraqi economy to collapse, leaving a dangerous security vacuum for ISIS to exploit. Indeed, the resultant political turmoil and social strife recall the very conditions that earlier incarnations of ISIS and its supporters capitalized on during its initial surge almost a decade ago,” it stated.

“According to International Crisis Group, ISIS in its weekly newsletter Al-Naba called on its fighters to attack and weaken its enemies while they are distracted by the pandemic,” it added.

U.S. military officials have expressed concern that the Islamic State could use adverse conditions to its advantage in it recruitment efforts.

“COVID-19 has also hastened the departure of some coalition forces from Iraq, weakening counter-terrorism operations, while some ISIS detainees have recently escaped prison in Syria,” the letter stated.

On March 30, Islamic State fighters imprisoned in northwestern Syria revolted. The rioting prisoners took over one wing of the prison before Kurdish forces intervened.

“There is an urgent need for reform in the civilian security sector, in order to integrate regional militias into a unified Federal Police that upholds the rule of law and protects all citizens, regardless of religion or clan affiliation,” the letter said.

Health infrastructure needs

The economic strain has also hindered Iraqi minorities’ efforts to rebuild their communities, including medical infrastructure needs.

“Many Yazidis (Ezidis/Yezidis) want to return to Sinjar, but security, reconstruction and basic services are still lacking to allow a dignified return. There are currently only two hospitals and just one ventilator to assist the current population of around 160,000 people in the region,” the NGOs’ statement explained.

Iraq’s healthcare system, which has suffered for decades from the effects of sanctions and war, currently faces a critical shortage of doctors and medicine, according to a Reuters investigation. Hospitals in Iraq are already overcrowded and doctors overworked, while the healthcare situation is slightly better in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which has its own health ministry.

There have been at least 1,600 cases of COVID-19 documented in Iraq, which is under pressure to reopen its border with Iran, which has had more than 85,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

Humanitarian workers have also had trouble reaching those in need due to movement restrictions, and have raised concerns about the risk of an outbreak in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps.

Social distancing is very difficult in these high-density IDP camps in Iraq, where 1.8 million people remain displaced due to insecurity and reconstruction needs, according to the UN.

The 25 NGOs called for the government of Iraq and the United Nations to provide testing capacity in the IDP camps in Sinjar, Tel Afar and the Nineveh Plains.

“At present, it is impossible to apprehend the extent of the spread of the virus because no testing for the disease is taking place in the camps, while restrictions of movement impede the work of humanitarian actors who provide basic essentials such as food, water and medicine,” they stated.

Psychological risk for trauma survivors

Genocide survivors with trauma also face increased personal risk of psychological harm amid isolation imposed by coronavirus measures.

As in much of the world, authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan have ordered people to stay home, imposed a curfew, and have closed places of worship, schools, restaurants, and most businesses. 

“Another alarming corollary of the COVID-19 pandemic in Iraq is the psychological impact on at-risk communities, including Yazidis, Turkmen and Christians, such as Assyrians,” it said.

This is a particular concern for the Yazidi communities in which thousands of women were victims of sexual violence by the Islamic State.

“Prior to the outbreak, Médecins Sans Frontières reported on a debilitating mental health crisis among Yazidis in Iraq, including a rising number of suicides,” it stated.

Suicides in this community have already been reported since social distancing measures were put into place, the NGOs reported. They called on the World Health Organization to address this “acute mental health crisis.”

In their appeal to the WHO and Iraqi government, the NGOs insisted that the stakes were high: 

“COVID-19 is a pandemic the likes of which we have not seen before. Survivors of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes are now waiting for this silent death to pass through the camps and their homes, unable to fight back.”

The Weather Risk Management Club has continued meeting via Zoom during the remote learning period, carrying on their work examining the impacts of severe weather events on the economy.

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Flaminio Squazzoni, J. Gareth Polhill, Bruce Edmonds, Petra Ahrweiler, Patrycja Antosz, Geeske Scholz, Émile Chappin, Melania Borit, Harko Verhagen, Francesca Giardini and Nigel Gilbert: The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a dramatic loss of lives worldwide, challenging the sustainability of our health care systems, threatening economic meltdown, and putting pressure on the mental health of individuals (due to social distancing and lock-down measures). The pandemic is also posing severe challenges to the scientific community, with scholars under pressure to respond to policymakers’ demands for advice despite the absence of adequate, trusted data. Understanding the pandemic requires fine-grained data representing specific local conditions and the social reactions of individuals. While experts have built simulation models to estimate disease trajectories that may be enough to guide decision-makers to formulate policy measures to limit the epidemic, they do not cover the full behavioural and social complexity of societies under pandemic crisis. Modelling that has such a large potential impact upon people’s lives is a great responsibility. This paper calls on the scientific community to improve the transparency, access, and rigour of their models. It also calls on stakeholders to improve the rapidity with which data from trusted sources are released to the community (in a fully responsible manner). Responding to the pandemic is a stress test of our collaborative capacity and the social/economic value of research.

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In accordance with the Governor’s amended State of Emergency declaration, the Honorable Cerron Cade, Secretary of Labor for the State of Delaware has issued new guidelines to enhance the flexibility of Delaware’s unemployment insurance program to provide cash assistance to many Delaware workers whose employment has been impacted directly by coronavirus [COVID-19] and who would […]

In response to ongoing concerns about the Coronavirus pandemic, House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf and Senate President Pro Tempore David McBride announced Wednesday that the Delaware General Assembly is postponing legislative session until further notice.

Wilmington – Today, May 04, 2020, the Delaware Department of Labor is announcing the launch of a new unemployment insurance benefits system that will process claims for independent contractors, self-employed individuals, and others as detailed in the CARES Act. These individuals can file benefits claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance beginning the week of May 11, […]

NEW CASTLE (May 5, 2020) – On May 1, the Division of Social Services was approved by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to operate Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT), a new program authorized by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act that provides assistance to families with children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals. The […]

All Volkswagen facilities across the network along with the vehicles will be thoroughly sanitized on a regular basis for their safety.