Israeli Tourism Ministry Warns Against Discussing Sensitive Topics With UAE Citizens - NPR

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Israeli tourists deplane from a FlyDubai flight from Tel Aviv to Dubai, on Nov. 28. Malak Harb/AP hide caption

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Israeli tourists deplane from a FlyDubai flight from Tel Aviv to Dubai, on Nov. 28.

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Don't promote democracy, talk about the royal families or comment on treatment of foreign workers.

Israel is advising tourism professionals and businesspeople to avoid discussing those and other sensitive political topics with residents of the United Arab Emirates, as it protects its new peace deal with the Gulf Arab country and promotes new daily flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv, launched last week.

"United Arab Emirates: Do and Do Not," the tourism ministry's 29-page Hebrew-language advisory published Nov. 8, is the first public Israeli government comment on the issue of Emirati political freedoms, but it stops short of criticizing alleged abuses.

"The United Arab Emirates is not a democratic country and it is not acceptable to speak about democracies as a preferred model of government," the advisory says. It also recommends "not to speak to Emiratis about the royal families," "avoid speaking about local politics" and "avoid speaking about government or state policy towards foreign workers."

The ministry says the guidelines are not government policy but cultural sensitivity tips aimed primarily at Israeli tourism operators preparing to receive Emirati visitors, whenever Israel lifts its COVID-19 ban on incoming tourism. It aims for 100,000 Gulf visitors in the coming years, with many expected to visit Islam's third-holiest site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Although the two countries shared quiet ties for years, it's largely a new cultural encounter. Israeli passport-holders traveled in special delegations by invitation only, and Emiratis were not previously known to visit Israel.

The deputy mayor of Jerusalem has asked Israeli officials to update security protocols at the airport, where Arab and Muslim visitors regularly face stringent questioning, so anticipated Emirati visitors will receive a warmer welcome.

The tourism ministry is also offering some recommended "do's": Praise the UAE's accomplishments in the Middle East. Use the term "female empowerment" instead of "feminism." Set up business meetings with Emiratis at least three weeks in advance. Hotels seeking Emirati guests should consider setting up separate swimming areas for men and women.

The advisory also includes a code of conduct on dress and customs for Israelis traveling to the UAE for business. Airlines are introducing multiple daily nonstop flights.

The new route to Dubai is fueling a buzz for travel-hungry Israelis marooned at home during the pandemic and eager to visit a part of the region previously off-limits. The UAE is one of just a few destinations Israel allows residents to visit without quarantining upon return.

The author of the advisory, Yossi Mann, says Emiratis — governed by dynastic rulers with limited elections for an advisory council — are wary about dysfunctional political systems and failed democracy movements and prefer a system of tribal family affiliations. He worries that raising sensitive political topics could cast a shadow on the Israel-Emirates peace deal, signed in September, which he calls a breakthrough in Jewish-Muslim relations after years of hostility.

"They're still a traditional society. They're doing huge progress for them and they should do it step by step," says Mann, a senior lecturer in Mideast studies at Bar Ilan University, researcher at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center and a consultant to oil and gas companies in the region. "Because I believe there is a new era between Jews and Muslims, I think we should be sensitive to them. They are making a courageous step."

Israel is also worried its citizens could misbehave while vacationing in the UAE.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation did not respond to NPR's request for comment on the Israeli advisory.

The State Department's travel advisory for U.S. citizens in the UAE offers similar advice on behavior and dress, and warns travelers they could be arrested or deported for "making derogatory statements about the UAE, the royal families, the local governments or other people." But unlike Israel, the U.S. has also reported human rights concerns there.

The UAE has promoted religious tolerance and female politicians, and, this month, allowed unmarried couples to live together and relaxed alcohol bans. But it bans political parties and labor unions, arrests democracy advocates and government critics, criminalizes gay sex and has not effectively prevented abuse of foreign workers, who make up the majority of the population, according to the State Department.

Analysts and activists in both Israel and the Gulf criticized the Israeli approach.

"Gulf citizens are worldly and engage in the topics that the Israeli government is steering its tourists from," says Bader Al-Saif, a Kuwait-based fellow with the Carnegie Middle East Center. "It's how one engages in these topics that would matter."

"The message is: be silent. If you want to go to the UAE, and have a collaboration with them, don't talk about anything that would light a fuse," says Eitay Mack, a left-wing Israeli human rights lawyer.

If the oil-rich Gulf country begins to invest in Israeli universities and institutions, he warns it could quash Israeli criticism of Gulf policy, much as Chinese investments in Australian universities are alleged to have led to pro-China censorship.

"After the UAE ... bring all their money, it will be much harder to do this discussion. Now is the time to set the rules," Mack says.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking, a progressive Israeli think tank, says Israel is expected to lobby for Emirati interests in Washington as it has done with Egypt and Jordan, and already reportedly mediated the sale of Israeli spyware to Emirati officials to track dissidents.

"Israeli citizens should question this alliance with an authoritarian regime," Tsurkov says. "Most countries around world have normal relations with these regimes. But not all countries go and do lobbying work on behalf of those regimes. Not all countries sell spyware to hack into phones of activists."

In August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the UAE was an "advanced democracy" in an interview with an Emirati TV news channel. He posted it to Twitter, then deleted it shortly after.

Sami Sockol contributed to this story from Jerusalem.

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December 01, 2020 at 04:08AM
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Israeli Tourism Ministry Warns Against Discussing Sensitive Topics With UAE Citizens - NPR

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Melania Trump made herself into a symbol; her admirers filled it with meaning - The Washington Post

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The decorations, themed to “America the Beautiful,” mark the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, celebrate first responders and highlight the country’s wildlife. Trump goes it alone in this slow-motion video that eschews behind-the-scenes flashes of the many masked volunteers who climbed atop ladders and wielded glue guns. There are no references to socially distanced team work. She’s not guiding the public in an intimate virtual tour.

The video is a high-glamour narrative in which she is the star.

Four years ago, Trump promised something different. It seemed as though she would follow the lead of her most recent predecessors and aim to stride, as much as possible, in step with regular folks. There’s no way for a first lady to truly be relatable once she steps inside the White House bubble, but in the past the goal has always been to at least try. To give the illusion of a connection where only politicking exists.

And so, in the beginning — in 2017 — in the first video dedicated to the White House holiday decor, the first lady was depicted tying bright red bows onto wreaths, inspecting sugar cookies in the kitchen and adjusting ornaments while dressed casually in dark trousers and an oversize gray sweater. Chefs and assistants and other hard-working elves have notable cameos.

It was all of a piece with a September event that same year. Trump appeared in the White House Kitchen Garden with a group of local youngsters to underscore the importance of healthy eating and to let the public know that she intended to work with the National Park Service to maintain the symbolic vegetable plot that Michelle Obama had sowed. For the occasion, Trump wore black pants and an expensive Balmain red flannel shirt, which sparked the same sort of hand-wringing that Obama’s pricey Lanvin sneakers caused when she wore them to a food bank. Such was the nature of controversy back then.

The 2018 video unveiling no longer featured Trump in the kitchen, but she was examining the floor plans for her forest of red Christmas trees. She wasn’t so much as hanging ornaments as fingering those that had already been hung. By 2019, it was as though she was just passing through the public rooms on her way to an event to which the masses were not invited. Her ivory coat was draped over her shoulders. She paused to sprinkle a bit of faux snow onto a tree, and the camera zoomed in to capture her perfectly manicured fingernails.

As has long been the case, the holiday decorating is done by an army of professionals and volunteers, but the responsibility for making sure that the White House glows with seasonal warmth falls to the first lady, whether she likes it or not. An audio recording that captures Trump speaking privately to her former aide and friend Stephanie Winston Wolkoff makes it plain that worrying about Christmas decorations is most definitely something that the first lady does not appreciate. This may explain why, in the video, Trump seems to be playing the part of a mildly amused noblewoman.

This is where we are in this moment that begs for connection. Trump leaves us floating in vacuum.

Over four years, the first lady has come into her own. Her place is on a pedestal where so many others have stood, oftentimes uncomfortably, often trying to make room for others. And she seems perfectly content there.

Alone. Like an objet d’art.

Gaze upon her. Do so without guilt, because she has actively chosen this passive, inscrutable role. But do it with discomfort and uneasiness because of the enthusiasm with which her choice has been received by some. The first lady has positioned herself as this country’s version of Marianne — the embodiment of the French republic.

It’s an identity that so many other first ladies have publicly fought against. They struggled with the attention paid to their attire and to their appearance, even if they enjoyed fashion and the pleasures of dressing up. When the focus was inevitable, they used their clothing to tell a story — not about themselves, but about an industry, a place, a diplomatic urgency or America itself. Trump has not felt compelled to even put American designers first when selecting her public wardrobe. Some might argue that she was freed of that obligation when so many in the fashion industry denounced her before her husband had even taken the oath of office and glossy magazines begrudged her glowing cover stories. But does she not have an obligation, just as the president does, to be bigger than her biggest detractors?

During a trip to various countries in Africa, she lamented her wish that news media “focus on what I do, not what I wear.” This was after wearing a pith helmet in Kenya. But mostly what she has done is to look very nice — or curiously ill-tempered — in pictures.

That, however, appears to be enough for her supporters. They see in her someone to admire, regularly describing her as elegant and classy, not because of her words — which are few — or her deeds, but because of her appearance. Because of the way that she stands onstage and embodies a particular vision of womanhood in America. Gaze upon her: tall and thin and White.

If Obama, with her Ivy League degrees and supermom bona fides, fought against the caustic assumptions about Black women’s femininity, intelligence and humanity, Trump has been a beacon for many of those who held firm in their refusal to consider Obama’s dogged arguments.

Elegance is perceived in Trump’s physique, because this is a country that despite all of its verbiage about body positivity and inclusivity still measures all female bodies against the sort in which Trump moves through life. She is classy because she evokes an image of a place where others aspire to be, which is to say that they see in her a righteous inevitability. She isn’t breaking any rules; she’s offering reassurance that the rules still apply. She is comfortably alone on her pedestal.

Trump is not a change maker, which is her greatest allure. Policies can be diluted. Legislation can be overturned. A “first” can sometimes end up being “the only.” Trump has shaped herself into a symbol, and supporters have bestowed it with meaning. To her admirers, she is a symbol of the way things are supposed to be and how things are supposed to look.

And symbols, the longer we gaze upon them, can be stubbornly difficult to dislodge.

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December 01, 2020 at 06:50AM
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Melania Trump made herself into a symbol; her admirers filled it with meaning - The Washington Post

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Noah Hawley Isn’t Done with ‘Fargo’ - The New York Times

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When the third season of “Fargo” ended in 2017, the concept of “alternative facts” and “fake news” were clearing the way for what became the Trump presidency’s challenge to reality. The themes the creator Noah Hawley explored in that season seemed oddly prescient, all the way down to Russians and disinformation, but he shrugged it off: “You can never predict the zeitgeist,” he said at the time. “I just managed to land in it.”

Now he’s managed to land in it again. During a pandemic-induced, five-month interruption in filming, Hawley’s theme for Season 4 of “Fargo” — which ended Sunday evening — again collided with current events. This time, a story set in 1950 featured Chris Rock as the head of a Black crime family in Kansas City locked in a battle with Italians — and both groups being demonized by white police and politicians. There are still plenty of Hawley’s trademark Easter eggs — ample references to the show’s previous seasons and the canon of Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote and directed the 1996 film that inspired the series. It’s difficult not to draw parallels to this summer’s social upheaval, but Hawley doesn’t see these issues as anything new.

“This show emerged into a country that was having an active and urgent conversation about race,” said Hawley last week. “But it’s also a conversation that we have been having for hundreds of years in this country, about this country. So I’m not sure that if this show premiered in 1986, or 1995, or 2007, that it would have been much different.”

The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Spoilers await — and if you didn’t watch the closing credits in Sunday’s finale, make sure to do so.

How difficult was it to return after such a long break?

It presented some challenges. It’s helpful that we had nine hours that the cast could watch and everyone could understand, “oh, that’s the show that we were making” — which you don’t usually have. The crew and the cast, if you’re lucky, they might see the first hour while you’re filming. So in many ways, they were much more informed than they’ve ever been. I know that Jason Schwartzman never shaved that mustache because he was so dedicated.

After George Floyd was killed and protests started this summer, there were a lot of conversations in journalism and entertainment about representation: Who gets to tell whose story? As a white writer, were you at all concerned about how this season’s story would land in that climate?

Everyone has their own American story, their own American experience. My American experience starts on one side of my family with a grandmother who fled from Russia in 1895, as the Cossacks were coming. Everyone arrived here at a certain point, and in a different way. What I knew in exploring the immigration experience and the experience of Black Americans is that, to the degree that those are not my story, that I did want and need as many voices and as much understanding as possible to be able to tell those stories: in the writers’ room and among directors and actors and, you know, as much diversity as possible — an actual diversity of experience and opinion and perspective.

Those conversations were so intense that I wondered if you felt like the story carried more weight?

You used the word “conversation,” and that’s what I’m trying to have. And not everyone says the right thing in a conversation. But what was important to me, to the degree that this show has always been a show about America, was to continue to explore America from all points of view. On a very primal level, the reason that I write is to try to understand the world that I’m living in and to recreate the world in a fictional way, and then look at it and go, “Did I get this right?” That becomes the exploration — and the risk, because there’s a risk that you’re getting it wrong. But we can’t operate from a place of fear in terms of asking the hard questions.

I had a lot of conversations throughout the process with a lot of people that I really respected, who I knew would call me out if I was not being authentic. If it was Chris Rock, writers, directors, or the other actors, if there had been a moment that didn’t feel authentic or felt like it was romanticized, then we would have those conversations. We had an interesting conversation in the writers’ room about Ethelrida [E’myri Crutchfield]. Some of the writers wanted, because she’s a teenage girl, to have her struggle with some moral issues of her own; maybe her aunt offers her a drink, and she takes it because she’s a teenager. There was a fear expressed that I was making her too honorable a character because she was Black. I said, “No, I’m making her that honorable a character because she is the character this year that represents that pure goodness that Marge [Frances McDormand] represented in the movie, or Patrick Wilson represented in Season 2, or Carrie Coon in Season 3: decency.” The struggle that she is going through is a struggle against exterior forces, but she is very comfortable with who she is. She knows that the path that she’s on, one mistake can throw her off it. So we had those conversations and, as in any good writers’ room or any good process, it forces you to justify the choices that you make.

As I said, we can’t live in fear. Writers have to be willing to take those risks and put ourselves out there because the reward is too great. To be able to put yourself into somebody else’s shoes, and to create that empathy in yourself and in others — that is the definition of good writing, I think.

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“Everyone has their own American story, their own American experience,” said Noah Hawley, center, on the “Fargo” set.Credit...Elizabeth Morris/FX

This season is set in a time and place, postwar America, that was superficially quite optimistic: “We can do anything.” But many of the characters are traumatized, which seems to say that America is actually a vicious place.

I came upon this equation when I was writing Season 3, which is that irony without humor is just violence. Think about the stories of Kafka. But also think about the immigrant experience or the experience of Black people in America. We say it’s the land of the free and the home of the brave, and yet those freedoms are not available to everyone equally. What is that if not ironic? But there’s no humor to it. When you tell someone that they have to be an American to be accepted, but then when they become an American, you say they’re not a real American — it has the setup for a joke, but the joke is on you. It’s not funny.

That comedic setup to a tragic payoff feels very much to me like what many of Joel and Ethan’s movies have that is unique, and something that I felt very much would translate from that fundamentally Jewish point of view to the experience of people of color and immigrants in this country.

It was a pleasant surprise to see so many “Raising Arizona” references this season. As you’re writing, do you create Coen mile markers for yourself as templates?

It’s like the Talmud, right? You go to the big book of questions: “How has this problem been asked and answered before?” I knew that in setting up this epic season with 21 main characters trying to look at the history of crime in America, that there was a lot of information I was going to have to deliver to the audience very quickly. So I tried to think, how had Joel and Ethan done that? My mind went to “Raising Arizona”: The first 11 minutes of that movie is this amazing narrated montage that tells you everything you know about H.I. McDunnough [Nicolas Cage], and Nathan Arizona and their quintuplets, and it brings you all the way up to the ladder on the roof of the car as they’re driving off to go get them a baby. It’s a comic masterpiece unto itself.

So I settled on this history-report format from Ethelrida, which allowed me both to tell the history of crime in Kansas City and also her history, and introduce all the important characters and ideas in about 24 minutes. Once I had “Raising Arizona” in mind, I thought it would be fun if we did a jailbreak with two women instead of John Goodman and William Forsythe, and rather than being H.I.’s buddies from prison, it’s Ethelrida’s aunt and her paramour. That led me into a story that drove those characters through the rest of the season.

What about Mike Milligan [Bokeem Woodbine] made you want to close the season out with him?

He remains a kind of active conundrum, as this iconoclastic character that didn’t seem to belong anywhere. He’s clearly a Black man in America in 1979. But you don’t get the sense that he really fits into that culture. He clearly doesn’t really fit into the white culture he’s part of, or at least he’s not respected there. And he also has this larger perspective on things. He’s a very thoughtful and erudite speaker who played the game — he went out and did what his boss told him; he won the war and he came home and he wanted his reward, and his reward was a tiny office with an electric typewriter. We left him in limbo, and when I thought about what to do this year, he was still there in that limbo. His story wasn’t done.

I didn’t set out to tell the Mike Milligan origin story per se. It was an element of this larger story in the same way that Season 2 was the Molly Solverson [Allison Tolman] origin story. There was a young girl named Molly Solverson, and she was in a few scenes, but it was mostly the story of her father and her mother. It’s the same here. I think you can get from Satchel, whose story we’ve seen in Season 4, to the Mike Milligan that we see in Season 2, but it’s not the sum total of what the story was.

Jason Schwartzman kept his “Fargo” mustache during the show’s pandemic production shutdown.Credit...Elizabeth Morris/FX

Art Blakey’s “Moanin’” features prominently in the last two seasons, in two different formats. What about that album resonates with you?

Percussion has always been really attractive to me as a sonic element. When it came time in Season 1 to introduce Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers, I asked [the composer] Jeff Russo, I said: “I don’t want music, I just want a beat. That’s their signature.” And it continued from there. In Season 2, we had a drum line, we brought in a marching band to record; Season 3, there was a lot of New Orleans-style music that was very rhythmic. Jazz is such a rhythmic form of music, so in figuring out what to set this season’s opening 24-minute montage to — which in “Raising Arizona” is “Ode to Joy” for banjo and whistling — I went to “Caravan” as a piece of music that you can hear for 24 minutes and not be tired of it. We can reinvent in different ways, and some of it is just percussion.

With “Moanin’,” in the third season I used a song version in the first hour. This season, when we knew we were doing the jazz club and they asked me what piece of music I wanted to use, it occurred to me to use that same thing but to do it from an instrumental point of view. Again, it’s a kind of rhyme with the previous year, but there’s something about that music — it’s kind of the perfect piece.

Are you definitely done with “Fargo”?

No, I don’t think so. I’ve been saying I’m done for three years and I haven’t been, so it feels obnoxious to say it again. The show has always been about the American experience, and there’s still a lot to say about it. That said, I don’t have a timeline and I don’t even really have an idea. But I find myself compelled to come back to this style of storytelling: to tell a crime story, which is also a kind of character study and philosophical document exploration of our American experience. It’s not something I feel like I ever would have been allowed to do without the Coen Brothers’ model in the beginning, and now I can’t think of why I would do it in any other format. The tone of voice is also unique: It’s that Kafka setup to a tragic punchline, with a happy ending. That feels like a magic trick, if you can do it right.

Do you have much interaction with the Coens about the series, or feedback from them?

I do not. I have not spoken to them in a while. In the first two or three years I would make my way to New York and have a breakfast or a quick conversation from time to time. It’s never creative. It’s never about the show, other than they say, “You’re still making that thing?”

If they have something to volunteer, I’d love to hear it. But at the same time, their tacit neglect is — I still get a warm feeling from it. Because they’ve allowed me to do this. This grand experiment in storytelling that has been so fulfilling and enriching for me.

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November 30, 2020 at 08:00PM
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Noah Hawley Isn’t Done with ‘Fargo’ - The New York Times

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Ducks Open 2020-21 Season with Two Games in Omaha - GoDucks.com

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Story Links

• Game Notes: Missouri / Seton Hall

THE STARTING 5
No. 21 Oregon opens the 116th season of basketball with a pair of games in Omaha, Neb. The Ducks will face Missouri on Wednesday (6 p.m. PT, FS1) followed by Seton Hall on Friday (6 p.m. PT, FS1).
• 1 – The Dec. 2 start date is the latest Oregon has opened a season in 51 years. The Ducks began the 1969-70 campaign with a 97-84 loss to Wichita State on Dec. 2, 1969.
• 2 – Oregon will go 271 days in between games. The Ducks' final game of the 2019-20 season was an 80-67 win against Stanford on March 7. That's the longest time in between games since a 274-day break between the 1979-80 and 1980-81 seasons.
• 3 – Dana Altman is one of five active head coaches in NCAA Division I who have posted a winning record for the last 23 consecutive seasons. The other four, Mike Krzyzewski, Tom Izzo, Bill Self and Jim Boeheim, are in the Hall of Fame.
• 4 – With Payton Pritchard picked by Boston at No. 26 in last month's NBA Draft, Oregon became the only school nationally with first round picks in the 2020 NBA, NFL and WNBA drafts. The other UO 2020 first rounders are Justin Herbert (Los Angeles Chargers) in the NFL Draft and Sabrina Ionescu (New York Liberty), Satou Sabally (Dallas Wings) and Ruthy Hebard (Chicago Sky) in the WNBA Draft.
• 5 – Winning the Pac-12 2019 football title, the 2020 men's basketball crown and the 2020 women's basketball title, Oregon became the first school in conference history to win championships in football, men's basketball and women's basketball in the same academic year. Oregon joined Ohio State (2005-06, 2006-07, 2009-10) as just the second Power Five school to ever achieve that accomplishment.

RANKING REMARKS
Dating back to last season, Oregon has been ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 for 22 consecutive weeks. That's the second-longest streak in program history, and five weeks shy of the high water mark of 27 weeks set over the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons.

Oregon Consecutive Weeks Ranked in the AP Top 25
1.    27    2016-2017
2.    22    2020-2021
3.    21    2007-2008
4.    18    2002-2003
5.    11    2013-2014

OMAHA, SOMEWHERE IN MIDDLE AMERICA
Oregon last played in the CHI Health Center Omaha (known formerly as CenturyLink Center Omaha) in the 2015 NCAA Tournament. The Ducks defeated Oklahoma State 79-73 in a first round game, before falling to Wisconsin 72-65. The Badgers went on to the NCAA championship game, where they fell to Duke 68-63. In fact, all six of Oregon's NCAA Tournament losses have come to teams that have advanced to the Final Four, and three were national champions: Louisville (2013), North Carolina (2017) and Virginia (2019). 

ALTMAN AND OMAHA
Dana Altman arrived at UO prior to the 2010-11 season after spending 16 seasons at Creighton (1995-2010) where he became the school's all-time winningest coach with a record of 327-176 (.650). The two-time Missouri Valley Coach of the Year led the Blue Jays to 13 consecutive postseason appearances and a stretch of 11 straight seasons with 20-plus wins. Altman is the winningest coach in MVC history. Additionally, Nick Bahe, who will be on the FS1 broadcast for both games, played his junior and seasons for head coach Dana Altman at Creighton (2007-08).

DEFENDING CHAMPIONS
The University of Oregon is currently the defending Pac-12 champion in men's basketball (2019-20), women's basketball (2019-20), football (2019) and men's track and field (2019). The Ducks are also the current Pac-12 Tournament champions in both men's basketball (2019) and women's basketball (2020).

RARE TRIFECTA
Oregon became the first school in conference history to win championships in football, men's basketball and women's basketball in the same academic year when the Ducks claimed the 2019 football title and the 2019-20 men's and women's basketball crowns. Oregon joined Ohio State (2005-06, 2006-07, 2009-10) as just the second Power Five school to ever achieve that accomplishment.

PRESEASON HONORS FOR DUARTE, RICHARDSON
Will Richardson, who led the Pac-12 in three-point field goal percentage a year ago (.469), and Chris Duarte were named to the preseason all-Pac-12 first team. Duarte was an honorable mention selection for both the all-conference team and the all-defensive team a year ago. 

DUARTE ON THE RISE BEFORE INJURY
After reaching double figures just once in his first five games as a Duck, Chris Duarte scored in double figures in 18 of his last 23 contests of 2019-20. He missed the last three games with a broken finger. Duarte had two 30-point games last year (31 points Dec. 29 against Alabama State, 30 points Jan. 23 versus USC) and was twice named Pac-12 Player of the Week. He set the Matthew Knight Arena record eight steals in the win against USC.

RICHARDSON HAS STRONG CLOSE TO 2019-20 SEASON
Will Richardson scored in double figures in nine of the last 11 games of 2019-20. He averaged 14.2 points per game in that span and hit 54.5 percent from three-point range (18-of-33).

NBA DRAFT NOTES
In the 2020 NBA Draft, Payton Pritchard became the sixth Duck drafted in the last four years. Pritchard, the 2020 Bob Cousy National Point Guard of the Year, was chosen by the Boston Celtics with the 26th overall pick. It is the fourth consecutive year that Oregon has had at least one player drafted and is the second time in the last three drafts that the Ducks have produced a first rounder. Pritchard is the first UO player drafted by the Celtics since Jim Barnett was selected by Boston as the No. 8 overall pick in the 1966 NBA Draft. Pritchard will become just the third Duck to play for the Celtics, joining Barnett and Jim Loscutoff, who was a member of six World Championship teams with Boston from 1956-64. Both men are in the UO Athletic Hall of Fame. Celtic general manager Danny Ainge was born and raised in Eugene and was a multi-sport star at North Eugene High School. The Ducks are now one of just eight programs nationally that has produced six or more NBA Draft picks over the last four seasons. Oregon is joined in that elite echelon of college programs by Duke (14), Kentucky (13), Florida State (7), Villanova (7), Arizona (6), North Carolina (6) and UCLA (6).

NBA ROSTER NOTES AND THAT 2017 FINAL FOUR TEAM
Oregon has six alums on NBA rosters for the 2020-21 season. Chris Boucher won a World Championship with Toronto in 2018-19 and is in his third year with the Raptors (fourth in the NBA overall). Now a starter, Dillon Brooks is in his fourth season with Memphis. Troy Brown Jr. is entering his third year in Washington. Two 2019-20 rookies return for their second seasons, Louis King (Detroit) and Bol Bol (Denver). Bol actually made his NBA debut in the "bubble" this summer. Payton Pritchard joined the NBA ranks after being drafted by Boston in the first round of the 2020 NBA Draft. Pritchard will become the fifth member of the Ducks' 2017 Final Four Team to play in the NBA, joining Boucher, Brooks, Jordan Bell and Tyler Dorsey.

ALTMAN NOW 25TH IN NCAA DIVISION I COACHING WINS
Dana Altman now ranks 25th all-time in NCAA Division I coaching wins with 669. Among active coaches, Altman ranks ninth. Ahead of him on that list are Mike Krzyzewski (Duke), Jim Boeheim (Syracuse), Roy Williams (North Carolina), Bob Huggins (West Virginia), Cliff Ellis (Coastal Carolina), John Calipari (Kentucky), Rick Barnes (Tennessee) and Bill Self (Kansas). Krzyzewski, Boeheim, Williams, Calipari and Self are all members of the Basketball Hall of Fame.

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December 01, 2020 at 05:55AM
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Ducks Open 2020-21 Season with Two Games in Omaha - GoDucks.com

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With an eye for what’s next, longtime operator and VC Josh Elman gets pulled into Apple - TechCrunch

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Josh Elman is moving over to Apple, he announced on Twitter today, saying he will be focused on the company’s App Store and helping “customers discover the best apps for them.”

Asked for more details about his new role, Elman referred us to Apple, which confirmed his employment but declined to offer more, including about his new title. (This is typical operating procedure for the tech giant.)

Certainly, Elman has plenty of experience with fast-growing technologies and popular apps in particular. One of his first jobs out of Stanford was with RealNetworks, a bubble-era internet streaming company that went public in 1997, three years after it was founded. (It remains publicly traded, though its market cap is just $60 million these days.)

After RealNetworks, it was on to LinkedIn, which Elman joined in 2004 as a senior product manager when the company was just two years old. From there, Elman worked in product management at the custom apparel and accessories company Zazzle, then at Facebook, then Twitter.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the venture firm Greylock brought Elman into the fold in 2011 as a principal, and by 2013, he was a general partner, investing in social networking deals throughout, like Musical.ly (ByteDance acquired the company and turned it into TikTok); Nextdoor (which is reportedly eyeing ways to go public); Houseparty (acquired last year by Epic Games, which is now suing Apple); and Discord (which is sewing up a private funding deal at a valuation of roughly $7 billion).

Somewhat unexpectedly, in 2018, Elman left his full-time role with Greylock to join a company notably not in the firm’s portfolio — the stock-trading platform Robinhood. As interesting, though he took on the role of VP of product at the popular and fast-growing startup, he didn’t cut ties with Greylock entirely, taking on the title of venture partner and remaining on as a board member to his companies.

Asked about the move, Elman told TC at the time that he had “started talking with a few of my partners about how I want to spend the next decade of my professional life. What gets me the most energized is when I can dig in on product with a hyper-growth company.”

Ultimately, the Robinhood role didn’t last long, with Elman leaving last November after less than two years on the job. Now Elman — who said he’s stepping away from some of his Greylock-related board seats — has a new chance to do what he loves most, from one of the most powerful perches in the world, the App Store.

Now, to see what he does there. “I’m really excited to get to build ways to help over a billion customers and millions of developers connect,” he tweeted earlier, apparently sharing as much as he can publicly for now. Added Elman in the same thread: “I recently found my college resume. My career objective was ‘To create great technology that changes people’s lives’. Still at it :)”

The Link Lonk


December 01, 2020 at 04:22AM
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With an eye for what’s next, longtime operator and VC Josh Elman gets pulled into Apple - TechCrunch

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Congress returns with virus aid, federal funding unresolved - ABC News

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Congress is returning to Washington for one last attempt at deal-making this year

By ANDREW TAYLOR Associated Press

November 30, 2020, 11:20 AM

• 5 min read

WASHINGTON -- After months of shadowboxing amid a tense and toxic campaign, Capitol Hill's main players are returning for one final, perhaps futile, attempt at deal-making on a challenging menu of year-end business.

COVID-19 relief, a $1.4 trillion catchall spending package, and defense policy — and a final burst of judicial nominees — dominate a truncated two- or three-week session occurring as the coronavirus pandemic rockets out of control in President Donald Trump's final weeks in office.

The only absolute must-do business is preventing a government shutdown when a temporary spending bill expires on Dec. 11. The route preferred by top lawmakers like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is to agree upon and pass an omnibus spending bill for the government. But it may be difficult to overcome bitter divisions regarding a long-delayed COVID-19 relief package that's a top priority of business, state and local governments, educators and others.

Time is working against lawmakers as well, as is the Capitol's emerging status as a COVID-19 hotspot. The House has truncated its schedule, and Senate Republicans are joining Democrats in forgoing the in-person lunch meetings that usually anchor their workweeks. It'll take serious, good-faith conversations among top players to determine what's possible, but those haven't transpired yet.

Top items for December's lame-duck session:

———

KEEPING THE GOVERNMENT OPEN

At a bare minimum, lawmakers need to keep the government running by passing a stopgap spending bill known as a continuing resolution, which would punt $1.4 trillion worth of unfinished agency spending into next year.

That's a typical way to deal with a handoff to a new administration, but McConnell and Pelosi are two veterans of the Capitol's appropriations culture and are pressing hard for a catchall spending package. A battle over using budget sleight of hand to add a 2 percentage point, $12 billion increase to domestic programs to accommodate rapidly growing veterans health care spending is an issue, as are Trump's demands for U.S-Mexico border wall funding.

Getting Trump to sign the measure is another challenge. Two years ago he sparked a lengthy partial government shutdown over the border wall, but both sides would like to clear away the pile of unfinished legislation to give the Biden administration a fresh start. The changeover in administrations probably wouldn't affect an omnibus deal very much.

At issue are the 12 annual spending bills comprising the portion of the government's budget that passes through Congress each year on a bipartisan basis. Whatever approach passes, it’s likely to contain a batch of unfinished leftovers such as extending expiring health care policies and tax provisions and continuing the authorization for the government’s flood insurance program.

———

COVID-19 RELIEF

Democrats have battled with Republicans and the White House for months over a fresh installment of COVID-19 relief that all sides say they want. But a lack of good faith and an unwillingness to embark on compromises that might lead either side out of their political comfort zones have helped keep another rescue package on ice.

The aid remains out of reach despite a fragile economy and out-of-control increases in coronavirus cases, especially in Midwest GOP strongholds. McConnell is a potent force for a smaller — but still sizable — package and has supplanted Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as the most important Republican force in the negotiations.

Pelosi seems to have overplayed her hand as she held out for $2 trillion-plus right up until the election. The results of the election, which saw Democrats lose seats in the House, appear to have significantly undercut her position, but she is holding firm on another round of aid to state and local governments.

Before the election, Trump seemed to be focused on a provision that would send another round of $1,200 payments to most Americans. He hasn't shown a lot of interest in the topic since, apart from stray tweets. But the chief obstacles now appear to be Pelosi's demand for state and local government aid and McConnell's demand for a liability shield for businesses reopening during the pandemic.

At stake is funding for vaccines and testing, reopening schools, various economic “stimulus" ideas like another round of “paycheck protection” subsidies for businesses especially hard hit by the pandemic. Failure to pass a measure now would vault the topic to the top of Biden's legislative agenda next year.

———

DEFENSE POLICY

A spat over military bases named for Confederate officers is threatening the annual passage of a defense policy measure that has passed for 59 years in a row on a bipartisan basis. The measure is critical in the defense policy world, guiding Pentagon policy and cementing decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, military personnel policy and other military goals.

Both the House and Senate measures would require the Pentagon to rename bases such as Fort Benning and Fort Hood, but Trump opposes the idea and has threatened a veto over it. The battle erupted this summer amid widespread racial protests, and Trump used the debate to appeal to white Southern voters nostalgic about the Confederacy. It's a live issue in two Senate runoff elections in Georgia that will determine control of the chamber during the first two years of Biden’s tenure.

Democrats are insisting on changing the names and it's not obvious how it'll all end up.

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November 30, 2020 at 12:31PM
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Congress returns with virus aid, federal funding unresolved - ABC News

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Chicago police Superintendent David Brown in rare disagreement with oversight agency on two police discipline cases - Chicago Tribune

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In COPA’s first allegation that both officers violated the department’s use of force policy, Brown classified the allegation as “unfounded,” according to the police board. Brown did agree with COPA that the officers should have used their body cameras more properly. But instead of moving to fire them on that allegation, Brown felt they each deserved a reprimand, a light punishment that doesn’t result in any docked time, according to the board.

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November 30, 2020 at 06:00PM
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Chicago police Superintendent David Brown in rare disagreement with oversight agency on two police discipline cases - Chicago Tribune

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How to deal with grief -- and persevere -- mid-pandemic - CNN

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November 30, 2020 at 04:42PM
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How to deal with grief -- and persevere -- mid-pandemic - CNN

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A FedEx driver saw a boy play basketball with a rusty hoop. She went to a store and bought him a new one. - The Washington Post

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“He was always so joyful, and sometimes, I’d see his parents out there, playing a game with him,” said Robinson, 38. “His enthusiasm for basketball was like none I’d ever seen — the sheer joy on his face made me melt.”

Robinson is working long days during the beginning of the holiday delivery rush. But on her day off, Nov. 7, she made a decision: She was going to buy the boy a proper basketball hoop and a new ball.

“I used to play basketball on an old hoop like that, and I know it can be tricky to get the ball through a bent rim,” she said. “It’s hard to judge which angle to shoot from.”

She picked out the best Spalding hoop and basketball she could find at the Target store near her home in Springboro, Ohio. Robinson then spent six hours putting it together and borrowed a friend’s truck to deliver it to the boy’s home, about 25 miles from Cincinnati on the Indiana and Ohio border.

“When I got there, nobody was home, which was perfect,” she said. “I was excited that it would be a surprise.”

Robinson set the new hoop next to the old one, then wrote a note on a FedEx slip and stuck it on the porch.

“Just wanted you and your son to have the best hoop that’ll grow with him, and all his friends!” she wrote. “It’s wonderful that you guys shoot hoops with him.”

Robinson also left instructions explaining how to secure the base with sand to keep the hoop from toppling over. She drew a smiley face and signed it from Aubrey — “Just one of the FedEx drivers for the area.”

That night, when Coledo Wheeler, the boy’s mother, pulled in with her boyfriend, Dan Rooster, after a long day delivering takeout for Grub Hub, she read the note and burst into tears.

“When I saw the hoop, I was blown away,” she said. “I was so humbled that somebody would go out of their way to do such a random act of kindness. I had no idea who Aubrey was, but she made me believe in people again.”

Wheeler’s son, Elijah Maines, 11, was spending that weekend with his father, who lives about an hour away.

“We recently got divorced, and it’s been a hard year for Elijah, and his little brother, Zachary,” said Wheeler, 48. “Basketball means the world to him. There’s nothing he loves more — it’s the thing that makes him the most happy.”

During the pandemic, it has been hard to keep up with the bills, Wheeler said, and she’d been worrying about buying Christmas gifts for her sons, as well as for her two adult children and seven grandkids.

“I couldn’t wait for Elijah to see it when he came home Sunday night,” she said.

Her son’s reaction was the same as hers.

“It made me so happy that I cried,” Elijah said. “I was shocked when I saw it. I thought, ‘Wait, what? Wow.’ ”

Elijah’s old basketball hoop had belonged to the family’s former next-door neighbor, and he played every day he could, even with the bent rim.

“I wanted that kid to know what it’s like to watch a ball roll around the hoop a little bit before it drops in,” Robinson said. “I wanted him to have the best hoop I could find and experience that anticipation.”

Wheeler was so touched by Robinson’s kindness that she posted a thank-you note and some photos of Elijah with the new hoop on her Facebook page the next day.

“There are very much still good people in the world,” Wheeler wrote. “Thank you, Aubrey. You made his day. Can’t wait to see you come thru, I owe you a world of thanks.”

Right away, the story about the kindhearted delivery driver began making the rounds on social media. Robinson declined to be identified publicly until this interview with The Washington Post.

A few days after she’d set up the hoop, Robinson again stopped at the Wheeler home — this time to drop off 180 pounds of sand to stabilize the base.

“I didn’t want it tipping over on him,” said Robinson, who does not have children of her own.

Although nobody was home, “I know that kid was loving that hoop. I know he must have freaked out when he saw it. And that made me smile.”

Robinson had no idea that Wheeler’s Facebook post was being shared all over the Internet, she said.

“I avoid social media and I get all of my news from [Stephen] Colbert,” she said. “I didn’t want any attention for this — I was just inspired by a kid making the most of what he already had. And if I can inspire somebody else to do the same thing for another kid, that’s the biggest thank-you I could have.”

At least one more thank-you is coming from Elijah, who dreams of becoming a professional ballplayer someday.

“She made me feel really good,” Elijah said. “I’d like to see Aubrey come through again so I can give her a thank-you card. She’s awesome.”

Read more:

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November 30, 2020 at 06:00PM
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A FedEx driver saw a boy play basketball with a rusty hoop. She went to a store and bought him a new one. - The Washington Post

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Assassinated Iranian nuclear scientist shot with remote-controlled machine gun, news agency says - CNN

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November 30, 2020 at 12:19PM
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Assassinated Iranian nuclear scientist shot with remote-controlled machine gun, news agency says - CNN

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Party With Nearly 400 People Is Shut Down in Manhattan - The New York Times

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Sheriff’s deputies arrived at a building in Midtown Manhattan just before 3 a.m. on Saturday and found almost 400 people drinking and partying inside. Few were wearing face masks.

Deputies shut the party down and arrested four people. The episode reflected the way that, despite the onset of a second wave of the coronavirus, people are continuing to gather at large events in New York City in violation of public health safeguards.

Sheriff Joseph Fucito said Sunday that his office has responded to similar events around twice every weekend for the last several months.

The frequency has not changed, he said, despite increasingly dire warnings from city officials about gathering indoors during the Thanksgiving weekend and the winter holidays.

Officials are having difficulty changing people’s behavior as the city enters a precarious phase of the pandemic.

The seven-day average test positivity rate in New York City was 3.9 percent, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday, up from less than 2 percent at the beginning of the month. About 720 people were hospitalized in the last seven days, according to city data, while the average for the last four weeks was 555.

Coronavirus case counts are breaking records nationwide. Federal health officials on Sunday forecast another spike in infections after Thanksgiving that could lead to more deaths and more stress on hospitals. Cold weather in the months ahead will continue to force people indoors and increase the risk of transmission.

Sheriff Fucito declined to say how deputies found out about the party on Saturday. But they arrived at the building at 202 West 36th Street — about two blocks north of Pennsylvania Station — around 2:45 a.m. and found more than 393 people inside.

People had paid to attend the party and for alcohol service, but the organizers did not have a liquor license or permit to serve alcohol, Sheriff Fucito said. Photos shared by the sheriff’s office show a room lit by a black light and dozens of bottles of tequila, whiskey and vodka lining one counter.

Four people — the D.J. and three others who worked at the party — were charged with violating rules meant to protect against the spread of the coronavirus. Efforts to reach them on Sunday were unsuccessful.

Image

The organizers did not have a liquor license or permit to serve alcohol, according to Sheriff Joseph Fucito.Credit...New York City Sheriff's Office

The party was just the latest in a string of large events that the sheriff’s office has responded to.

On Halloween weekend, deputies broke up two parties where almost 1,000 people were dancing and drinking inside warehouses. In mid-November, deputies shut down an unlicensed fight club, known as “Rumble in the Bronx,” which drew 200 people. Many of those crowding inside were drinking, smoking hookah and not wearing masks, the authorities said.

Last weekend, deputies broke up a sex club party in Queens and an illegal party in Manhattan. And on Thanksgiving Day itself, deputies shut down an illegal bottle club in Queens with almost 80 people.

While the constant partying and violation of coronavirus rules seem at odds with the worsening situation in New York City, there are several explanations for why people would continue to embrace risky behavior, said Jay Van Bavel, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at New York University, who has written about how to align behavior with public health directives during the pandemic.

He said some people may increasingly be “suffering fatigue from lack of social interaction” and younger people who tend to frequent parties may believe they are not at risk for severe health consequences.

He said misinformation may also dilute public officials’ warnings and lead people to believe the risks are not severe. With the Trump administration underplaying the risk of the virus, warnings get muddied, he said.

Meanwhile, the relative lack of financial support for struggling small businesses could drive people to search for other ways to make money, including through parties and other events.

“It manifests in all these little problems,” he said. “They all kind of pop up, and it’s like that game where you’ve got to smash the groundhog that pops up — you smash one down and another one pops up.”

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November 30, 2020 at 05:33AM
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Party With Nearly 400 People Is Shut Down in Manhattan - The New York Times

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Biden Fractures Foot Playing With His Dog, Putting Him in a Boot - The New York Times

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President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. twisted his ankle playing with one of his dogs over the holiday weekend, an injury that his doctor said on Sunday resulted in hairline fractures in his foot that would most likely require him to wear a walking boot for several weeks.

Although initial X-rays showed no obvious fracture, a “follow-up CT scan confirmed hairline (small) fractures of President-elect Biden’s lateral and intermediate cuneiform bones, which are in the midfoot,” Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the director of executive medicine at GW Medical Faculty Associates, said in a statement distributed by Mr. Biden’s office.

Mr. Biden visited an orthopedic specialist in Newark, Del., on Sunday afternoon for just over two hours, leaving just before 6:30 p.m. and going to an imaging center for a short time for the additional CT. A Biden spokesman said the president-elect had scheduled the follow-up on Sunday to avoid disrupting his schedule on Monday. A van was maneuvered to block reporters and photographers from seeing Mr. Biden as he entered the doctor’s office.

Mr. Biden, 78, is already operating on a crunched transition time frame, after the head of the General Services Administration did not formally acknowledge the presidential election results for weeks after Election Day, temporarily depriving Mr. Biden of access to federal resources and preventing his advisers from beginning coordination with Trump administration officials.

President Trump, who has refused to concede to Mr. Biden, reposted on Twitter an NBC News video of Mr. Biden leaving the doctor’s office on Sunday, and added, “Get well soon!”

Mr. Biden slipped and injured himself Saturday while playing with Major, a German shepherd the Bidens had fostered that they then adopted in 2018. They have another German shepherd, Champ, and have announced plans to get a cat when they move into the White House next year, as well.

Mr. Trump had no pet during his four years in the White House.

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November 30, 2020 at 09:08AM
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Biden Fractures Foot Playing With His Dog, Putting Him in a Boot - The New York Times

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Packers control division race with 41-25 win over Bears - Packers.com

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Packers lead Bears 27-10 at halftime

The second quarter began with Rodgers rolling out and finding an open Lewis for the 5-yard touchdown, extending Green Bay's lead to 13-3. Lewis' touchdown, his fourth with the Packers, was his 400th career reception. He's just the seventh TE in NFL history with 400-plus catches and 200-plus games played.

On the Bears' next possession, quarterback Mitchell Trubisky heaved up a deep ball on first down from the Green Bay 38 that was intercepted by Darnell Savage in the Packers' end zone.

The Packers matriculated the ball down the field with a series of underneath passes, including a 7-yard completion to Adams on third-and-1. Green Bay faced a fourth-and-2 situation from the Chicago 28 but Head Coach Matt LaFleur chose to go for it.

With Adams starting in the backfield, Rodgers found tight end Robert Tonyan open for a 14-yard pass on the left side of the field. The 13-play, 80-yard drive culminated with a leaping 2-yard TD pass to Allen Lazard to put Green Bay up 20-3 with 4:34 left in the first half.

Chicago was facing a third-and-17 after a Charles Leno Jr. hold, setting up a Za'Darius Smith strip sack of Trubisky that Preston Smith recovered and returned for a 14-yard touchdown to extend the Packers' lead to 27-3.

The Bears responded with a 14-play, 87-yard scoring drive that ended with a 1-yard TD pass from Trubisky to Allen Robinson to cut the Packers' lead to 27-10 at halftime.

The Link Lonk


November 30, 2020 at 11:30AM
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Packers control division race with 41-25 win over Bears - Packers.com

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Should Isolation Periods Be Shorter for People With Covid-19? - The New York Times

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People with Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, are most infectious about two days before symptoms begin and for five days afterward, according to a new analysis of previous research.

A few patients who are extremely ill or have impaired immune systems may expel — or “shed” — the virus for as long as 20 days, other studies have suggested. Even in mild cases, some patients may shed live virus for about a week, the new analysis found.

The accumulating data presents a quandary: Should public health officials shorten the recommended isolation time if it means more infected people will cooperate? Or should officials opt for longer periods in order to prevent transmission in virtually all cases, even if doing so takes a harsher toll on the economy?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that infected people isolate for a minimum of 10 days from the beginning of their illness. The agency is considering shortening the recommended isolation period and may issue new guidelines as early as next week, according to two federal officials with knowledge of the discussions.

In September, France dropped its required period of isolation to seven days from 14 days, and Germany is considering shortening it to five days. (Isolation refers to people who are ill; quarantine refers to people who have been exposed to the virus and may become ill.)

Setting the isolation period at five days is likely to be much more palatable and may encourage more infected people to comply, said Dr. Muge Cevik, an infectious disease expert at the University of St Andrews in Scotland who led the new analysis, published in the journal The Lancet Microbe.

A recent survey in the United Kingdom showed that only one in five people were able to isolate for 10 days after developing symptoms. “Even if we do more testing, if we can’t ensure people self-isolate, I don’t think we’ll be able to control the spread,” Dr. Cevik said.

In the United States, many people don’t get tested for the infection until a day or two after they begin to feel ill. With the current delays, many receive results two or three days later, toward the end of the period during which they are infectious.

“Even if you were to get the P.C.R. test right on the very first day that you could, by the time you get the results back, 90 percent of your shedding has been completed,” said Dr. Michael Mina, a virologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “This meta-analysis shows just how short your transmission window is.”

Dr. Cevik and her colleagues set out to analyze the so-called kinetics of the coronavirus over the course of an infection, and to compare the pathogen to the closely related SARS and MERS viruses.

The researchers considered nearly 1,500 studies published from 2003 to June 2020 on the timing of infection in thousands of people, most of whom were sick enough to be hospitalized. The team drew data from 79 studies of the new coronavirus, 11 studies of MERS and eight studies of SARS.

People who never develop symptoms seem to carry about the same amount of the new coronavirus as symptomatic patients, Dr. Cevik and her colleagues found. But asymptomatic people seem to clear the virus more quickly from their bodies.

People with Covid-19 usually are most infectious a day or two before the onset of symptoms until about five days after, the analysis concluded. Yet patients may carry genetic fragments from the virus in their noses and throats for an average of 17 days, and, in some cases, for up to three months.

A few patients may carry infectious virus in their lungs — as opposed to the nose and throat — for as long as eight days after symptoms begin, noted Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University. For these patients, at least, isolation periods should probably be longer than five days, if only they could be identified.

“The trouble is, who has Covid pneumonia versus who doesn’t is not always fully apparent just based on physical exam,” she said. “They wouldn’t know it on their own.”

Older people tend to be infectious for longer than younger people, but no study in the analysis detected live virus beyond nine days of symptom onset. The results suggest that positive tests after that point find only genetic fragments, rather than whole live virus, Dr. Cevik said.

Because the infectious period seems to peak relatively quickly in the course of the illness, health care workers at community clinics may be at higher risk of becoming infected than those working in I.C.U. units, where patients tend to be in the later stages, Dr. Cevik added.

The analysis underscores data that has accumulated since March. In July, based on similar evidence, the C.D.C. truncated its recommendation for isolation to 10 days from 14 days.

But even at 10 days, the isolation period may be too long for many people, experts said. Patients may be financially unable to isolate for so long, or they may not feel sick enough to want to do so.

“If you could make that shorter for people, I think that would really help people comply with the public health guidelines,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist affiliated with the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, referring to the recommended isolation period.

But the new analysis is limited by the fact that only a few of the included studies looked at live virus, she added.

Some people who are older or very sick may be infectious for longer than a week. But if a shorter recommended period encourages more people to isolate, the benefit will more than offset any risk to the community from the small amount of virus that a few patients may still carry after five days, said Dr. Stefan Baral, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University.

The Coronavirus Outbreak ›

Words to Know About Testing

Confused by the terms about coronavirus testing? Let us help:

• • Antibody: A protein produced by the immune system that can recognize and attach precisely to specific kinds of viruses, bacteria, or other invaders.
  • Antibody test/serology test: A test that detects antibodies specific to the coronavirus. Antibodies begin to appear in the blood about a week after the coronavirus has infected the body. Because antibodies take so long to develop, an antibody test can’t reliably diagnose an ongoing infection. But it can identify people who have been exposed to the coronavirus in the past.
  • Antigen test: This test detects bits of coronavirus proteins called antigens. Antigen tests are fast, taking as little as five minutes, but are less accurate than tests that detect genetic material from the virus.
  • Coronavirus: Any virus that belongs to the Orthocoronavirinae family of viruses. The coronavirus that causes Covid-19 is known as SARS-CoV-2.
  • Covid-19: The disease caused by the new coronavirus. The name is short for coronavirus disease 2019.
  • Isolation and quarantine: Isolation is the separation of people who know they are sick with a contagious disease from those who are not sick. Quarantine refers to restricting the movement of people who have been exposed to a virus.
  • Nasopharyngeal swab: A long, flexible stick, tipped with a soft swab, that is inserted deep into the nose to get samples from the space where the nasal cavity meets the throat. Samples for coronavirus tests can also be collected with swabs that do not go as deep into the nose — sometimes called nasal swabs — or oral or throat swabs.
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR): Scientists use PCR to make millions of copies of genetic material in a sample. Tests that use PCR enable researchers to detect the coronavirus even when it is scarce.
  • Viral load: The amount of virus in a person’s body. In people infected by the coronavirus, the viral load may peak before they start to show symptoms, if symptoms appear at all.

But some doctors said that they were not convinced by the analysis that five days of isolation would prevent transmission from a majority of people.

“There’s a sweet spot there, I would imagine, but I haven’t figured out where that is,” said Dr. Taison Bell, a critical care and infectious disease physician at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Cevik and other experts suggest that people can isolate as soon as they experience even mild symptoms, such as a sore throat or head and body aches — without venturing out for a P.C.R. test right when they are most infectious.

But Dr. Bell said he was unsure how this would work in practice, because these early symptoms were similar to those from other viral infections, including the common cold.

Dr. Cevik said a P.C.R. test should be performed after isolation ended, to confirm the diagnosis. Alternately, it may make sense to take a rapid antigen test — which can detect high amounts of virus — while isolating, to confirm an active coronavirus infection.

Other experts also endorsed the use of at-home rapid tests. “I think that’s a lovely solution,” Dr. Ranney said. “If you have symptoms, and you have a reliable test that you can do at home, stay home, test at home and isolate for five days.”

Over all, the new analysis underscores how quickly the coronavirus blooms in the body and the speed with which both patients and doctors must respond to keep it contained, Dr. Baral said. Levels of the MERS virus peak at seven to 10 days from symptom onset, and those of the SARS virus peak at Days 10 to 14.

By contrast, the new coronavirus “moves quick,” Dr. Baral said. “It’s a very difficult virus to control, as compared to SARS.”

Home isolation is safe for most of those newly infected with the coronavirus, he added — essentially the model of care that doctors use for patients suspected of having influenza.

Some countries already have adopted policies to make it easier for people to isolate. Vietnam provides income support to people who need to take time off work. Until May, the Japanese government asked patients who were young and had mild symptoms to stay home for four days before seeking testing.

Japan’s guidelines now ask patients to consult by phone with their doctors and to seek testing only if they seem likely to be infected. Anyone who tests positive is admitted to a hospital or a hotel to isolate. In the United States, New York City and Vermont have made similar accommodations available to infected patients.

Even if the rest of the country doesn’t implement such policies, having patients isolate at home — while wearing a mask, keeping windows open, cleaning high-touch surfaces and staying far from other household members — is more feasible for five days than for 10, Dr. Baral said.

“I do think there’s an element of diminishing returns with those last four or five days,” he said. “An intense amount of isolation during that first five to seven days would avert a ton of infections — a ton.”

Makiko Inoue contributed reporting from Tokyo.

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November 30, 2020 at 02:21AM
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Should Isolation Periods Be Shorter for People With Covid-19? - The New York Times

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