What's happening in the United States ?
Huge Absentee Vote in Key States Favors Democrats So Far
In Wisconsin, about 146,000 people voted by mail in the 2016 general
election. This fall, about 647,000 people have already voted absentee,
many in Democratic strongholds.
In Madison, Wis., thousands of people have gone to parks to deliver their
ballots during Saturday voting festivals. In Milwaukee, Facebook feeds are
inundated with selfies of Democrats inserting ballots into drop boxes. And
along the shores of Lake Superior, voters in Wisconsin’s liberal northwest
corner still trust the Postal Service to deliver ballots. Of all the
mini-battlegrounds within Wisconsin — perhaps the most pivotal state in
November for both President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. — the mother
lode of absentee ballots is coming in Dane County, a Democratic stronghold
that includes Madison.
As of Friday, the number of submitted ballots there amounted to more than
36 percent of the county’s total 2016 election vote, a sign of significant
enthusiasm; that figure is 10 percentage points higher than in any other
county in the state.
Source :
NYTIMES
A Super-Spreading Presidency, Experimental Treatments, and More Coronavirus News
In the week since Donald Trump announced via Twitter that he and the First Lady had contracted Covid-19, epidemiologists and journalists have been trying to figure out how exactly the virus spread through the White House. While Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination has been identified as a possible super-spreader event, the reality is that there are many, many ways the president could have been infected. The White House’s strategy has focused on testing—though implementation was reportedly casual at best—rather than enforcing mask wearing or any other more reliable preventative measures. And, really, almost every decision Trump has made since January has enabled the spread of coronavirus rather than curtailed it.
To date, at least 34 White House staffers and other contacts have tested positive, but the president remains determined to flout public health guidelines.
He has returned to the Oval Office and may return to public events tomorrow, though experts say he may not have defeated Covid-19 yet. CDC involvement in contact tracing at the White House has been limited. Add the upcoming election into the mix and we’re looking at one of the most dangerous months our country has faced in a long time.
Source :
Wired
Americans are observing nature during the pandemic, helping scientists with research
When activity in the U.S. ground to a halt in early March due to the coronavirus pandemic, many people did more than just sit through endless Zoom calls in their sweatpants. They went outdoors and began to document their surroundings.
Citizen science websites in the U.S. have seen an uptick in data, such as the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird, which has had a 29 percent increase in reports so far this year, as compared with last. NestWatch, another Cornell Lab website that encourages people to track sightings of bird nests, saw a 41 percent increase year over year.
SciStarter, a website that connects citizen scientists with active research projects, recorded a 480 percent increase in contributions to projects in April 2020 over April 2019. By the end of the year, its founder, National Geographic explorer Darlene Cavalier, expects to have more than 100,000 registered users. And iNaturalist, a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic Society, expects to hit a record 50 million observations in coming weeks.
Source :
National Geographic
