Boing Boing: Draw a picture and this AI matches it to a movie image. “Hugging Face, a company that makes AI language-and-image-processing tools, just released this little web toy ‘Draw To Search’. You draw something and it attempts to recognize what you’ve drawn and match it to an image from a movie.”
Washington Post: New survey: Most U.S. churchgoers trust their clergy for covid vaccine guidance, but clergy aren’t really offering it. “Since the coronavirus pandemic began, clergy have been among prominent figures in the news and on social media discussing vaccines. Some have described them as ‘the mark of the beast’ or an infringement on religious liberty, while others have framed the shots as a moral and religious duty. But a new survey out Friday finds the majority of regular churchgoers have heard little if anything, positive or negative, from their clergy about vaccines.”
Associated Press: Women left behind: Gender gap emerges in Africa’s vaccines. “The health outreach workers who drove past Lama Mballow’s village with a megaphone handed out T-shirts emblazoned with the words: ‘I GOT MY COVID-19 VACCINE!’ By then, the women in Sare Gibel already had heard the rumors on social media: The vaccines could make your blood stop or cause you to miscarry. Women who took it wouldn’t get pregnant again.”
Washington Post: One of the world’s toughest coronavirus quarantine regimes is finally ending. “Since early in the pandemic, Australia has imposed some of the world’s strictest quarantine requirements, effectively walling itself off and stranding thousands of its citizens overseas in a bid to keep the coronavirus out. Now, after a surge in vaccinations, those walls are starting to tumble.”
Washington Post: 48 hours to live: An Oklahoma hospital’s rush to find an ICU bed for a covid patient. “Robin Pressley, transfer coordinator at Stillwater Medical Center, was working fast to try to find an ICU bed at a larger hospital for Johnnie Novotny, a 69-year-old retired gas plant operator who had developed a hematoma and needed more specialized care than doctors at this modest rural hospital could provide. Pressley knew that other hospitals in the region were already choked with covid patients due to a summer surge driven by the highly infectious delta variant and the state’s large numbers of unvaccinated residents, like Novotny. But she also knew that Novotny’s life depended on her success.”
UPI: Korn drummer Ray Luzier tests positive for COVID-19, will miss shows. “Korn drummer Ray Luzier has tested positive for COVID-19 and will not be participating in three upcoming concerts.”
Washington Post: ‘Emotionally, physically, mentally tired’: Nurses say morale has hit a pandemic low. “In interviews, nurses across the country describe plummeting morale during the latest pandemic surge, marked by utter exhaustion and growing workloads. Some thought the availability of coronavirus vaccines would alleviate the burden on hospitals. Instead, emergency rooms were swamped this summer and early fall, often filled with the young and unvaccinated. The crisis has exacerbated staffing problems that existed before the pandemic, leaving nurses shouldering increasing responsibilities as covid-19 patients fill their units. Some nurses are leaving hospital jobs for more lucrative travel nursing positions. Others are leaving the profession altogether.”
Health News Florida: Lawmakers eye education efforts to address the shortage of health care workers. “Florida health officials say the number of COVID cases is continuing to trend down, but the president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association tells legislators that staffing concerns remain.”
WFLA: Request denied: Sarasota business can’t require customers be vaccinated against COVID-19, judge says. “A Leon County circuit court judge denied a request from a Sarasota business to allow it to require customers be vaccinated, upholding a state law championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis banning ‘vaccine passports.’”
Mashable: Instagram will now let creators practice live videos . “Anyone who’s ever done an Instagram Live will know the prep behind it, making sure everything is just right: lighting, volume, Internet connection, the works. I do not count myself amongst these creators, but I can imagine it’s a stressful enough process for those that do. Instagram is changing this, though, and helping its dedicated Live creators out. A flock of new features are coming to the app, allowing a shift in how Live is used.”
Newswise: Obesity in four out of ten adults with COVID-19 in intensive care. “People with obesity were overrepresented among adults in Sweden receiving intensive care for COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic. Just over 39 percent had obesity, compared with some 16 percent in the population. The risks of prolonged hospitalization and death in intensive care units (ICUs) was also higher for patients with obesity, as a study from the University of Gothenburg shows.”
Newswise: Lockdown wellbeing: children who spent more time in nature fared best. “A study has found that children who increased their connection to nature during the first COVID-19 lockdown were likely to have lower levels of behavioural and emotional problems, compared to those whose connection to nature stayed the same or decreased – regardless of their socio-economic status. The study, by researchers at the University of Cambridge and the University of Sussex, also found that children from affluent families tended to have increased their connection to nature during the pandemic more than their less affluent peers.”
Boing Boing: Survey finds 22% of scientists who do media interviews about COVID get violent threats. “Nature surveyed 300 scientists who’ve done media interviews about COVID. The results had some surprisingly positive notes — 85% said ‘their experiences of engaging with the media were always or mostly positive, even if they were harassed afterwards’. But as you might expect, a significant chunk described some ghastly abuse. Fully 15% got death threats, and 22% “received threats of physical or sexual violence.”
CNN: White House says fully vaccinated foreign visitors can start entering US on November 8. “Fully vaccinated foreign visitors will be able to travel to the United States starting on November 8, the White House said Friday.”
TechCrunch: DocuSign phishing campaign targets low-ranking employees. “Phishing actors are following a new trend of targeting non-executive employees but who still have access to valuable areas within an organization. As reported by Avanan researchers, half of all phishing emails they analyzed in recent months impersonated non-executives, and 77% of them targeted employees on the same level.”
