Health, Fitness and Style

A new report by a group that typically monitors political violence abroad named Georgia as one of five high-risk states for far-right militia activity around the November election. With an average of 3,400 new cases pouring in each day just in the past week — the third highest per-person rate in the United States — Wisconsin contact tracers are now so overrun that some have begun to wonder whether the job is futile. Voters in New York City waited hours to cast ballots during the first time early voting has been allowed in the state in a presidential election. Recent mishaps involving mail-in ballots seemed to drive many voters to the polls. Massachusetts acknowledged it has not been able to determine the source of infection in about half of COVID-19 cases, an information gap that epidemiologists say could limit the ability to respond to outbreaks and control transmission of the disease. Louisiana Republican lawmakers sent the governor a petition to cancel all virus restrictions, from the mask mandate to rules requiring social distancing at bars and restaurants. But Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards showed no indication he would play along. Arizona reported nearly 1,400 new COVID-19 cases, the most in about a month. The past several weeks have seen relatively higher daily case reports as the virus spreads at its fastest rate in Arizona since June. The Trump campaign and Nevada Republicans asked a state judge to stop the count of Las Vegas-area mail-in ballots, alleging that “meaningful observation” of signature-checking is impossible in the state’s biggest and most Democratic-leaning county. more »

A newly developed light-sensing protein called the MCO1 opsin restores vision in blind mice when attached to retina bipolar cells using gene therapy. The National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, provided a Small Business Innovation Research grant to Nanoscope, LLC for development of MCO1. The company is planning a U.S. clinical trial for later this year. “The beauty of our strategy is its simplicity,” said Samarendra Mohanty, Ph.D., Nanoscope founder and corresponding author of a report on the mouse study that appears today in Nature Gene Therapy. “Bipolar cells are downstream from the photoreceptors, so when the MCO1 opsin gene is added to bipolar cells in a retina with nonfunctioning photoreceptors, light sensitivity is restored.” ... However, no one knows how the restored vision will compare to normal vision. more »

With work-from-home (still) in full swing, are you finding your quarantine quarters a little lacking? Do you dread logging into the morning meeting, coveting your colleagues’ digs while you slump at your desk seemingly made of Legos and leftover Ikea hardware? Yes, the ideal home office is the new status symbol, and Mia is here to help with Zoom-ready rooms straight from the galleries. Who wouldn’t want to brainstorm in the Studio of Gratifying Discourse? Or file those TPS reports from the sunny table in Pierre Bonnard’s Dining Room in the Country? more »

A COVID-19 vaccine or vaccines may become available in the United States in the next several months, at which point the process of actually delivering vaccines to most, if not all, of the population will begin. Although the U.S. has some experience with mass vaccine distribution, including during an outbreak, COVID-19 represents an unprecedented challenge that will require a scale not previously undertaken. Planning has already been underway, including the release of a federal distribution strategy and the federal government’s advance purchase of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine candidates. more »