U.S. and Chinese scientists trace viruses’ evolution
An international team of scientists, including a prominent researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has ana- lyzed all known coronavi- ruses in Chinese bats and used genetic analysis to trace the likely origin of the novel coro- navirus to horseshoe bats.
In its report, posted online Sunday, the team also points to the great variety of these viruses in southern and south- western China and urge closer monitoring of bat viruses in the area and greater efforts to change human behavior as ways of decreasing the chances of future pandemics.
The research was supported by a U.S. grant to EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit, that was recently canceled by the National Institutes of Health. The grant, for more than $3 million, was well on its way to renewal, and the sudden reversal prompted an outcry in the scientific community.
Thirty-one U.S. scientific societies signed a letter of protest May 20 to the NIH, and 77 Nobel laureates sent another letter to the NIH and Department of Health and Human Services seeking an investigation of the grant denial. The Nobelists said the cancellation appeared to be based on politics rather than a consideration of scientific merit.
The report on the research, which has been accepted by the journal Nature Communications, was posted on the BioRxiv, (pronounced bio-archive), where scientific research is often released before publication. The report gives a glimpse of work the grant had supported.
The researchers, mostly Chinese and American, conducted an exhaustive search for and analysis of coronaviruses in bats, with an eye to identifying hot spots for potential spillovers of these viruses into humans and resulting disease outbreaks.
The genetic evidence the virus originated in bats was already overwhelming. Horseshoe bats, in particular, were considered likely hosts because other spillover diseases, like the SARS outbreak in 2003, came from viruses originated in these bats, members of genus Rhinolophus.
A single father in New Jersey is taking unpaid leave from his job as a baker because he has no one to look after his son. A university employee in New York realizes she may never return to the office after her autistic daughter’s child care center closed for good. A new mother in Utah uses vacation time to take two hours off from work each day.
The coronavirus pandemic has created a staggering child care crisis that threatens to undermine the reopening of the U.S. economy. More than one-third of families report that someone has stayed home from work to mind their children because of the outbreak, according to a nationwide survey by the Urban Institute, an economic policy research group.
Public schools in most states are closed for the remainder of the academic year. Many camps will not open this summer. Thousands of day cares are also closed, many of them following the lead of school districts, while some remain open only for children of essential work- ers. And the informal network of relatives and friends that many parents rely on has disintegrated in a world of social distancing.
Dan Cappilla saw other no choice but to take unpaid leave from his job as an overnight baker at a ShopRite in Manahawkin, New Jersey.
Before the pandemic his parents took turns spending the night looking after his 7-year-old son, Gavin. But he fears exposing them to the virus, especially since they live with his 90-yearold grandmother.
His manager offered him daytime hours, but with schools closed that didn’t help. Cappilla needs to be home during the day to guide his son through remote lessons. Unable to pay next month’s rent, Cappilla is hold- ing out for summer, when schooling won’t be an issue and he hopes the virus will have ebbed enough for his parents to come back.
“My hands are tied,” Cappilla said. “I have no solid plan.”
T he u ncertainty will endure for months. School officials from New York to Chicago have said remote learning may continue into at least part of the next academic year.
The National Association for the Education of Young Children, an organization of early learning professionals, estimates that half the coun- try’s child care providers are closed. A study by NAEYC and the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, projected that 4.5 mil- lion child care slots risk disappearing without significant aid.
KinderCare, the largest private child care provider in the country with nearly 1,600 locations, said it lost 90% of its business when lockdown and social distanc- ing rules took hold.
The Portland, Oregon-based company initially closed all but 450 of its centers, which were left open to serve essential workers’ kids. It hopes to reopen most by June.
“We’ll be in this heightened, sensitive world at least until we get a vaccine,” CEO Tom Wyatt said. “We have to get used to that.”
Congressional Democrats are introducing legislation to provide $50 billion to help child care providers offset the costs of opening safely, including procuring protective equipment and possibly enrolling fewer children to meet health guidelines. Prospects for passage are unclear, but two Republican senators, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, have called for the next pandemic relief package to include $25 billion for the child care industry.
Congress already allocated $3.5 billion for the child care industry under a pandemic relief bill passed in March, but the aid has been slow to reach providers.