Coronavirus Disinfecting Services

Friday, 1 January 2021

Regular COVID-19 tests can't detect which strain you're infected with

(NewsNation Now) — First it was Colorado. Then California. And now Florida.

A new variant of COVID-19, named B117, was found in the United Kingdom last month and has made its way to the United States.

The latest case was discovered in Martin County, Florida. Health officials say a man in his 20s with no history of travel was infected.

Researchers believe it is more contagious and spreading faster than what has been discovered in the U.S.

“It is hard to put an exact number on it, but when you look at modeling studies people say it may be between twenty to fifty percent more contagious. But you have to take all of those numbers with a grain of salt because they are based on modeling,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, John Hopkins University.

Dr. Adalja says regular COVID-19 tests will not detect if a positive case is from the new variant of the virus; that takes additional testing.

He says scientists are sampling 3,500 of the regular tests per week and re-testing them for the variant to see how prevalent it is in different parts of the country.

“It almost certainly is in other places throughout the United States. These cases had no travel history which tells you there is a chain of transmission in the United States I suspect we will find new variant cases all over the country…I think for the general population there is nothing to panic about," said Adalja. "It does give you a reason to double your efforts to try and prevent yourself from getting exposed to this virus because this new variant does likely transmit more efficiently."

While the new variant is not more deadly from a disease perspective, Dr. Adalja says if more people are infected, more people will die.

The good news is scientists say the COVID-19 vaccines should be effective against the new variant.

They say the most important thing you can do is wear a mask, practice social distancing, and get vaccinated.

Another COVID-19 variant was discovered in South Africa that is different from the U.K. variant. Health officials there say it is responsible for a resurgence in cases and it is also believe to be more contagious.

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Family seeks additional charges against BART officer involved in Oscar Grant's death

OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) - The family of Oscar Grant held a press conference in Oakland calling on the Alameda County District Attorney to bring additional charges against an officer involved in the case.

On the 12th anniversary of the death of Oscar Grant, his family and supporters gathered outside the Fruitvale BART Station to call on the Alameda County District Attorney to bring felony murder charges against former BART police officer Anthony Pirone.

While former BART officer Johannes Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in grant's death, the family says it was Pirone who created that atmosphere that led to the killing.

"Tony Pirone with his 250 pounds on Oscar's neck. With his hand on Oscar's face so we are here as a family demanding that Nancy O'Malley charge Anthony Pirone for felony murder," Cephus Johnson, Oscar's uncle, said.

Back in October, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley re-opened the case promising to investigate the circumstances that led to grants death but so far no additional charges have been filed.

Grant's family is frustrated.

"He should have never been let off the hook when Oscar was killed 12 years ago today. He should have been charged at that time and yet another failure in our judicial system," Wanda Johnson, Oscar's mother, said.

KRON4 reached out to the district attorney's office on New Year's Day but we have so far not heard back.

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A record three million early votes cast in Georgia's U.S. Senate runoff races

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A record 3 million early votes have been cast in the two Georgia runoff elections that next week will decide which party controls the U.S. Senate, according to a final tally released on Friday.

The turnout figures, compiled by the University of Florida's U.S. Elections Project, indicate strong voter interest in Tuesday's elections that pit incumbent Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler against Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

If Republicans win one or both of those seats, they will retain a slim majority in the U.S. Senate, enabling them to block much of incoming Democratic President Joe Biden's agenda.

If Democrats win both seats, the chamber will be split 50-50, giving the tiebreaking vote to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Biden and Harris are due to take office on Jan. 20.

The 3,001,017 early votes amount to 38.8% of all registered voters in the state, according to the U.S. Elections Project. That puts turnout at a record high for a Georgia runoff, exceeding the 2.1 million ballots cast in a 2008 Senate contest.

The runoff elections are necessary because no candidate won more than 50% of the vote in the Nov. 3 election.

Early voting ended on Thursday. Georgia releases information about the number of people who voted but does not tally their votes until Election Day.

Perdue is quarantining in the race's final days after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lisa Shumaker)

© Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021

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Trump vetoes CA fishing bill over seafood trade deficit

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump vetoed a bill Friday that would have gradually ended the use of large-mesh drift gillnets deployed exclusively in federal waters off the coast of California, saying such legislation would increase reliance on imported seafood and worsen a multibillion-dollar seafood trade deficit.

Trump also said in his veto message to the Senate that the legislation sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., “will not achieve its purported conservation benefits.”

Feinstein issued a statement late Friday saying Trump's veto “has ensured that more whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other marine species will be needlessly killed, even as we have a proven alternative available.”

Trump vetoed the fishing bill as the Republican-controlled Senate followed the Democratic-led House and voted to overturn his earlier veto of the annual defense policy bill, enacting it into law despite Trump's objections.

The fishing bill's sponsors said large-mesh drift gillnets, which measure between 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) and 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) long and can extend 200 feet (60.9 meters) below the surface of the ocean, are left in the waters overnight to catch swordfish and thresher sharks. But they said at least 60 other marine species — including whales, dolphins and sea lions — can also become entangled in the nets, where they are injured or die.

It is illegal to use these nets in U.S. territorial waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and off the coasts of Washington state, Oregon, Alaska and Hawaii. They remain legal in federal waters off California's coast.

In 2018, California passed a four-year phaseout of large-mesh drift gillnets in state waters to protect marine life.

The bill Trump vetoed would have extended similar protections to federal waters off California's shoreline within five years and authorized the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to help the commercial fishing industry switch to more sustainable types of gear.

Trump said the West Coast drift gillnet fishery is subject to “robust legal and regulatory requirements” for environmental protection that equal or go beyond environmental protections applied to foreign fisheries.

He said Americans will import more swordfish and other species from foreign sources without this fishery.

Feinstein vowed to “reintroduce this bill on the first day of the new Congress” and said she will push for quick enactment once President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Jan. 20.

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Scammers turning to online schemes to steal your stimulus check

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Scammers are using a variety of online schemes to steal your stimulus check from you.

With tens of millions of dollars’ worth of direct deposits and stimulus checks slowly making their way into people's bank accounts and mailboxes, criminals are using this time to take advantage of people.

One scam involves a call supposedly from the IRS saying it needs help getting you the money. That is not true.

"The IRS will directly deposit it into your account or send you a check or debit card,” said North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein. “They will not call you and ask for your bank account information or your social security number. If someone does that they are a criminal and you should hang up.”

Another common scheme to steal your stimulus cash comes in the form of a text message.

The criminals will try and social engineer you by using a friendly pre-message like “Check this out”.

Then you’ll get a follow-up text asking you to click a link, don’t do it, because that link will lead you to a phony site that’s meant to capture your personal information like your social security number.

“Your social security number is the real key that a lot of people want to get into a variety of things,” said Tim Maniscalo of the Better Business Bureau.

To try and combat those stimulus scams the Federal Trade Commission has an online warning about the different kinds of stimulus scams out there.

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Chicago ends 2020 with 769 homicides as gun violence surges

CHICAGO (AP) — The number of homicides and shootings in Chicago spiked dramatically in 2020, ending with more bloodshed than in all but one year in more than two decades, statistics released by police on Friday revealed.

After three years of falling homicide totals, 2020 ended with 769 homicides — 274 more than the previous year and the most since the 784 homicides in 2016. The latest shooting victim figures told the same story, with the year ending with 4,033 shooting victims compared with 2,598 the year before.

And it never let up, as is illustrated by the fact that in December, there were 50 homicides — 19 more than occurred in December 2019.

None of these numbers come as a surprise, as the year unfolded with news reports about violence that often included the word “deadliest,” such as after Memorial Day weekend, the deadliest in five years. Then a few days later, May 31, ended with more homicides — 18 — than in any single day in memory.

Chicago was not alone. During that weekend in particular, which came after the death of George Floyd after being forcibly detained by Minneapolis police, cities across the United States witnessed spasms of violence.

The year ended in Detroit, Washington, D.C., New York, Milwaukee and other cities with more killings than the year before. The same held true in smaller cities, including Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Rockford, Illinois. Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, saw hundreds more homicides than either New York or Los Angeles.

Law enforcement officials and experts around the U.S. have pointed to social and economic upheaval caused by the COVID-19 virus, public sentiment toward police following Floyd’s death and a historic shortage of jobs and resources in poorer communities as contributing factors.

According to the Chicago Police Department, 79 officers were shot at in 2020, compared with 22 who were fired upon the year before. The number of officers who were struck by bullets doubled from five in 2019 to 10 in 2020.

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New Year's resolutions look different in 2021

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) - This is usually the time of year when people start their New Year's resolutions, and the most popular ones usually have to do with weight loss and getting in better shape.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, achieving those goals may be looking a little different this year.

Gym owner Bryant Sharifi joined KRON4 to discuss the current trends and gym memberships in the future of fitness studios.

Sharifi is the owner of Perform of Life Fitness Studio in San Francisco.

"One thing we realize is people need more mental health than ever and mental performance. So when it comes to habit changes, making weight loss goals, whatever it may be, they need more mental performance training," Sharifi said. "They need ways to get to their goals. They need strategies in goals set, they need ways to stay motivated, to stay committed so we are going to implement a lot more mental performance strategies along with the actually implementing wellness behaviors to make it more sustainable."

Listen to the full interview with Bryant Sharifi above.

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