Enlarge/ The Kalalau Valley between sheer cliffs in the Na Pali Coast State Park on the western shore of the island of Kauai in Hawaii, United States. This view is from the Pihea Trail in the Kokee State Park. (credit: Getty | Jon G. Fuller)
The Hawaiian island of Kauai may not have any spewing lava, but hikers along the magnificent Napali coast have brought their own volcanic action recently, violently hollowing their innards amid the gushing waterfalls and deeply carved valleys.
Between August and early September, at least 50 hikers fell ill with norovirus along the famed Kalalau Trail, which has been closed since September 4 for a deep cleaning. The rugged 11-mile trail runs along the northwest coast of the island, giving adventurers breathtaking views of stunning sea cliffs and Kauai's lush valleys. It's situated just north of Waimea Canyon State Park, also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific.
"It’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. I feel really fortunate to be able to be there, and appreciate and respect that land,” one hiker who fell ill in late August told The Washington Post. "My guts exploding all over that land was not what I wanted to do at all."
When New York’s Nassau County signed the first county-level mask ban into law in August, its deputy police commissioner, Kevin Smith, told local news that training was “being conducted [in] the department, which means across ranks.”
But that has not happened, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union. Through an information request reviewed by Mother Jones, NYCLU, a state affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, requested policies and training materials used to instruct the county’s police on enforcing the ban. In return, the group received a three-page legal bulletin on the “Mask Transparency Act,” and a six-slide presentation, including a title page, briefly going over the new law. The presentation reiterates the bulletin’s explanation of the law, as well as saying police officers still need to follow Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure—but there is little else.
“There’s none of the sort of type of training and guardrails you would expect to see in a police procedure or in a training module around how you interact with members of the public,” said Beth Haroules, a senior staff attorney at NYCLU.
The very brief materials also do not address people’s rights in protecting their health information from police, which also underscores why police officers cannot independently determine whether someone is wearing a mask for health reasons. “You’re not allowed to interrogate somebody about their private health information, or family member’s or loved one’s health information,” Haroules continued, “including whether or not you’re just Covid cautious,” something county law enforcement seems to have overlooked altogether.
The Nassau County Police Department did not respond to Mother Jones’ request for comment on the extent of its training.
The law allows Nassau County police four reasons to question people about their mask-wearing—among them, when they are gathered in a public space with other people who are wearing masks. Haroules notes that this seems to clearly target people at protests, especially recent waves of pro-Palestinian protests, some of whom may be wearing masks for health reasons—but the implications for who the ban could suddenly impact would be much wider.
“You could be waiting at a bus stop at Nassau County with a mask on, and then, suddenly, three or four more people show up,” Haroules said. “You’re all subject to arrest or interrogation as to whether or not you have a right to wear that mask.”
As Mother Jonespreviously reported, fear of being interrogated by police over masking has led Disability Rights New York to sue Nassau County in federal court on behalf of two disabled residents.
Since the mask ban law was enacted, two people have been charged with misdemeanors for violating it, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. In both cases, Haroules says, “there probably wasn’t probable cause to arrest either gentleman.”
Choosing to wear masks, as Haroules told Mother Jones she herself continues to do on public transportation, is an individual decision which mask bans threaten. Having other community members “enforcing the mask ban by threatening to call police,” Haroules says, “really suggests that there’s a societal problem.”
Enlarge/ A cow grazes in a field at a dairy farm on April 26, 2024, in Petaluma, California. (credit: Getty | Justin Sullivan)
The outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in US dairy cows has now spread to three herds in California, the largest milk-producing state in the country, with around 1.7 million dairy cows, federal and state health officials have confirmed.
Fourteen states and 197 herds have now been affected by the unprecedented outbreak in dairy cows, which was first confirmed by federal health officials on March 25.
In a statement, the secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Karen Ross, said the spread of the virus to California was not unexpected. "We have been preparing for this possibility since earlier this year when [Highly pathogenic avian influenza or HPAI] detections were confirmed at dairy farms in other states," Ross said. "Our extensive experience with HPAI in poultry has given us ample preparation and expertise to address this incident, with workers’ health and public health as our top priorities."
All but three US states have very high or high levels of Covid-19 in their sewage right now, according to the CDC. Due to a drop in efforts to count individual cases, that data is the most accurate way to paint a picture of the current extent of Covid cases—and it’s bad.
In addition to wearing respirators, getting the updated Covid vaccine (mRNA shots were approved last week, and the Novavax vaccine this week) is an important way to reduce one’s chance of getting the infectious disease. Even if a person contracts it, the shot will reduce their risk of death and developing Long Covid.
But for uninsured and underinsured Americans, the vaccine has just gotten significantly more costly. On August 22, the CDC sunsetted its Bridge Access Program, which provided free Covid vaccines to 1.5 million Americans over the past year. A CDC spokesperson told Mother Jones that the sunsetting was a consequence of the new 2024-2025 vaccines being approved—which meant the 2023-2024 vaccines could no longer be administered. But many people did not know that the program would only cover the vaccine approved last year—just that it would end in August, potentially after the new shots became available. The CDC’s page on the program, which was live until some point Friday, did not clarify any of this information.
“For every step that you add in the process of trying to get a vaccine, you’re going to lose people.”
A rhetorical staple of the Biden administration is that it’s ensured people have the tools to fight Covid—but that is not the case for peopleunable to afford the updated vaccine out-of-pocket, which typically costs around $200.
Elizabeth Jacobs, an epidemiologist and professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, has studied the reasons why people do not get Covid-19 boosters. One reason, Jacobs says, is the logistics and challenges of getting the vaccines.
“For every step that you add in the process of trying to get a vaccine, you’re going to lose people,” Jacobs said.
Even before the end of the Bridge Access Program, getting vaccines has not always been easy. One person who spoke to Mother Jones said that he had to explain how the Bridge Program worked to pharmacists before he could get vaccinated for free.
The CDC, however, did announce that it has allocated $62 million for state and local health departments to buy vaccines for uninsured and underinsured people. However, the current surge and delays in implementation means people may fall by the wayside.
“I do have faith that $62 million will be used well to provide vaccines,” says Emory University epidemiology professor Jodie Guest. “Unfortunately, we just don’t have the details for how that will be done yet.”
Guest also notes that the up-front cost of subsidized vaccines is less of a burden on the healthcare system than a spike in the number of people severely ill with Covid. It is hard to know just how many people are currently hospitalized with Covid complications, as hospitals have not been required to report cases to the federal government since May. But the requirement to report respiratory viruses in hospitals will resume on November 1.
Since early in the pandemic, research has highlighted the risks of severe illness that low-income people, who are more likely to have chronic health conditions, face with Covid. These risks remain, and while it’s important that people with Medicare and Medicaid will be able to get updated vaccines, so should low-income people without health insurance.
“Vaccines are only as good as how vaccinated our immediate communities are.”
Children whose guardians are uninsured and underinsured will still be able to get vaccinated for free through the Vaccines for Children program, initially established by Congress in 1993 to make sure more kids were being vaccinated against measles. Chrissie Juliano, the executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, says that the ending of the Bridge Access Program underscores the “need for a permanent Vaccines for Adults program.” The Biden administration has proposed funding a Vaccines for Adults program in its proposed budget for the next fiscal year, but Congress could still reject it. In the meantime, Guest also recommends that people search for coupons at pharmacies that could bring down out-of-pocket costs.
“Vaccines are only as good as how vaccinated our immediate communities are,” Juliano said. “Vaccines protect us when we individually get it, but we really depend on our neighbors, our family, our friends [and] our classmates to also be fully vaccinated.”
While Covid-19 vaccines can reduce transmission, they are not perfect yet, which highlights the importance of wearing N95 and KN95 masks during surges, especially in medical settings, while traveling, and in other crowded indoor settings.
Jacobs finds it frustrating that masking is no longer promoted by public health agencies as it has become further politicized. “It is an established fact that respirators or high-quality masks reduce your risk significantly of becoming infected,” Jacobs said.
Last week, Nassau County, on New York’s Long Island, became the first county in the US to ban the public wearing of masks—with very vague health exemptions—since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Nassau ban follows a similarly controversial statewide mask ban in North Carolina that took effect in June.
Several concerns have been raised about Nassau’s mask ban, including that police officers—not experts in public health or medicine—are tasked with determining whether an individual is wearing a mask for valid health reasons. But another is that the pandemic is not over, and wearing medical masks while grocery shopping or even at a protest is meant to limit exposure to the disease—and some residents expect a ban to lead to harassment by local anti-maskers.
The county’s move has prompted the first class-action lawsuit against a mask ban, filed Thursday in federal district court by Disability Rights New York against Nassau County and county executive Bruce Blakeman on behalf of two anonymous residents.
“This mask ban poses a direct threat to public health and discriminates against people with disabilities,” said Timothy A. Clune, the group’sexecutive director, in a press release.
One of the residents, who lives with cerebral palsy and asthma, said they were stopped and questioned by other residents after the ban was passed—even before it was enacted—and, according to the complaint, now “fears that they will be arrested…because there is no standard for the police to follow to decide if they meet the health exception.”
The other resident represented in the complaint, who masks due to various immune conditions, the complaint says, is now “terrified to go into public wearing a mask.”
Both complainants say that masking has enabled them to participate in public life as disabled people during the ongoing pandemic. Disability Rights NY argues in the suit that the ban as written is unconstitutional, and violates both the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, both key items of federal civil rights legislation, by denying disabled people access to their own communities.
“Local laws that abrogate or curtail rights conferred by federal law are…rendered invalid,” the complaint reads.
Given that Covid can itselfdisable people, Jason Cohen, a neurologist who lives in Nassau, has major concerns about how the mask ban will play out.
“I care for many patients who have brain fog from Covid and many more who are at higher risk of brain damage from Covid,” Cohen said. “Anything that discourages masking among those who want to mask is a travesty and public health disaster.”
Cohen also says that governments “should not force people to disclose their personal medical information to police in order to negotiate their way out of being accused of a crime.”
Some disabled people nevertheless have concerns about the suit itself. Ngozi, a Black disabled person who lives just over the county border in Queens, is concerned that it will end in “some type of negotiation with the state that results in keeping the law intact,” which would maintain the risk of racial profiling.
“I do not have faith in the state,” Ngozi said. “A lawsuit will not resolve the threat of mask bans anytime soon.”
Disability Rights New York is requesting a declaratory judgment that Nassau County’s mask ban violates federal law, as well as a restraining order. The complaint in its entirety can be read below.
Enlarge/ A 13-year-old celebrates getting the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 13, 2021. (credit: Getty | JOSEPH PREZIOSO )
With the impending arrival of the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccines approved yesterday, some Americans are now gaming out when to get their dose—right away while the summer wave is peaking, a bit later in the fall to maximize protection for the coming winter wave, or maybe a few weeks before a big family event at the end of the year? Of course, the group pondering such a question is just a small portion of the US.
In a press briefing Friday, federal health officials were quick to redirect focus when reporters raised questions about the timing of COVID-19 vaccination in the coming months and the possibility of updating the vaccines twice a year, instead of just once, to keep up with an evolving virus that has been producing both summer and winter waves.
A small town in Massachusetts is urging residents to stay indoors in the evenings after the spread of a dangerous mosquito-spread virus reached "critical risk level."
The virus causes Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), which kills between 30 and 50 percent of people who are stricken—who are often children under the age of 15 and the elderly. Around half who survive are left permanently disabled, and some die within a few years due to complications. There is no treatment for EEE. So far, one person in the town—an elderly resident of Oxford—has already become seriously ill with neuroinvasive EEE.
EEE virus is spread by mosquitoes in certain swampy areas of the country, particularly in Atlantic and Gulf Coast states and the Great Lakes region. Mosquitoes shuttle the virus between wild birds and animals, including horses and humans. In humans, the virus causes very few cases in the US each year—an average of 11, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But given the extreme risk of EEE, health officials take any spread seriously.
Enlarge/ A child with a "slapped cheek" rash. (credit: CDC)
A common seasonal respiratory virus that typically infects school-age children is causing an unusually large spike in cases across Europe and the US this summer. The surge in transmission is a significant danger to certain vulnerable populations, including pregnant people, according to a health alert released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday.
The virus is parvovirus B19, aka B19V, which spreads via respiratory droplets and typically causes a mild, two-phased illness in children. The first phase is marked by flu-like symptoms that can include fever, headache, malaise, muscle aches, cough, sore throat, and joint pain. In the second phase, a characteristic "slapped cheek" rash develops, which is also called Fifth Disease or Erythema Infectiosum. By age 20, about 50 percent of people have been infected and have antibodies that can help fight reinfection. And by age 40, the figure rises to 70 percent.
But, for those who have compromised immune systems, are pregnant, or have certain conditions, such as sickle-cell anemia, the virus can cause severe complications, such as severe anemia, myocarditis, hepatitis, or encephalitis. In pregnancy, the virus can infect the fetus and cause dangerous complications and miscarriage.
There are more than 400,000 people with Long Covid in Minnesota—the home state of Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz—according to the state’s health department. A post-viral illness with serious impacts to quality of life and ability to work, Long Covid is also a workers’ rights issue: not being able to rest during and after a Covid infection makes people more likely to develop it.
ME/CFS and POTS are not new conditions, but patients with both have long experienced their symptoms being dismissed by physicians. A 2016 study estimates that around one in four people with ME/CFS are largely confined to bed by their symptoms.
In May '23, MN became the first state in the US to pass dedicated funding for Long COVID & related conditions (ME & POTS), w/Gov. Walz instrumental in this legislation
Now, with Walz a prospective Vice President, Long Covid and related conditions may have a more highly placed advocate than ever before—with a demonstrated record of working to combat this post-infectious disease. Hanlon says a federal response “should include increased baseline funding to the NIH and federal health agencies to support the expedition of clinical interventions.”
“As Vice President, we hope and urge Gov. Walz to continue to prioritize this crisis that is impacting over 20 million Americans and only growing,” Hanlon told Mother Jones. “It will take our highest levels of leadership at the federal level to respond with the urgency that this crisis demands.”
Walz is not the only pro-labor politician pushing for more funding to address Long Covid: just last week, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill that would allocate $1 billion annually across a decade for Long Covid–related research.
Currently, the only way to completely avoid Long Covid is to not get Covid-19, which reinforces the importance of mask-wearing and adequate air filtration. But with more research funding, doctors may be able to develop a better understanding of how to manage Long Covid symptoms—which can include post-exertion malaise, heart palpitations and hives—more quickly. “Just as COVID-19 is not going away,” Walz wrote in his 2023 funding proposal, “Long COVID is not going away.”
A second Colorado poultry farm has reported a case of bird flu in a worker, marking the state's seventh human case this month amid the ongoing outbreak among dairy cows.
Colorado health officials said the seventh case is, for now, a presumptive positive. That means that the person has tested positive at the state level while confirmatory testing is being carried out at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The presumptive positive worker was at a poultry facility in the state's northeastern Weld County. In recent weeks, six workers at another poultry farm in Weld also tested positive for bird flu. In that facility, a commercial egg layer operation with about 1.8 million birds, workers were infected as they culled chickens known to be infected with the highly pathogenic avian influenza. Genetic testing of the virus in the birds and the workers indicated that they were infected with a strain of H5N1 closely related to the virus found spreading in dairy cattle and to dairy farm workers.
Given how many people the president sees and interacts with, it might be surprising that he hasn’t had Covid more often. The difference: this is the first major Covid wave where people around the president are no longer regularly testing. From his inauguration through March of this year, anyone visiting Biden at the White House had to test for Covid-19. Then the administration ended that practice—and Biden promptly got it again, a cautionary tale that drives home wider government failures to set public health ahead of getting “back to normal.”
Ten months earlier, in May 2023, the Biden administration ended the Covid-19 public health emergency, claiming that Covid “no longer meaningfully disrupts the way we live our lives.” That’s easier to say when everyone around you has to regularly test for the disease. Many people do not have ready access to Covid tests, and messaging from the US government that the pandemic is “over” doesn’t encourage people to get tested, nor to wear masks. Biden’s reluctance to mask publicly in recent months, even after ending regular tests for visitors, is the most visible—and important—example.
But Biden has the ability to dial back campaigning and isolate, working a limited schedule remotely. That privilege is not afforded to many other Americans, especially the blue-collar workers the administration claims to champion—who may not be able to pay their bills if they take time off. Ample rest reduces the risk of developing Long Covid; with workers being pressured to return to their jobs prior to five days—what the CDC previously recommended when someone is symptomatic—their risk of developing a long-term chronic illness increases, and the risk of losing their jobs with it.
Around 17 million adults in the US have Long Covid, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. For many, it’s a serious medical condition—the kind Biden has said could make him consider dropping out of the race. If he did, he would still have better treatment options than almost anyone else—another factor that might shape his risk tolerance.
There are many Americans who take Covid-19 seriously and encourage other people to do the same. Most do not have the same luxury of first-rate medical care, and anti-mask legislation like that in North Carolina can also lead them to be the target of harassment.
Later this year, Biden will get his updated Covid-19 booster. But again, many Americans will not be able to, as the program providing free Covid vaccines and boosters is sunsetting. Biden’s pandemic just isn’t the same as that of millions of working-class, low-income and disabled people. The weeks following his recovery, and the remainder of his term, are a chance to set a different example—both in his own pandemic safety choices and his administration’s.
Given how many people the president sees and interacts with, it might be surprising that he hasn’t had Covid more often. The difference: this is the first major Covid wave where people around the president are no longer regularly testing. From his inauguration through March of this year, anyone visiting Biden at the White House had to test for Covid-19. Then the administration ended that practice—and Biden promptly got it again, a cautionary tale that drives home wider government failures to set public health ahead of getting “back to normal.”
Ten months earlier, in May 2023, the Biden administration ended the Covid-19 public health emergency, claiming that Covid “no longer meaningfully disrupts the way we live our lives.” That’s easier to say when everyone around you has to regularly test for the disease. Many people do not have ready access to Covid tests, and messaging from the US government that the pandemic is “over” doesn’t encourage people to get tested, nor to wear masks. Biden’s reluctance to mask publicly in recent months, even after ending regular tests for visitors, is the most visible—and important—example.
But Biden has the ability to dial back campaigning and isolate, working a limited schedule remotely. That privilege is not afforded to many other Americans, especially the blue-collar workers the administration claims to champion—who may not be able to pay their bills if they take time off. Ample rest reduces the risk of developing Long Covid; with workers being pressured to return to their jobs prior to five days—what the CDC previously recommended when someone is symptomatic—their risk of developing a long-term chronic illness increases, and the risk of losing their jobs with it.
Around 17 million adults in the US have Long Covid, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. For many, it’s a serious medical condition—the kind Biden has said could make him consider dropping out of the race. If he did, he would still have better treatment options than almost anyone else—another factor that might shape his risk tolerance.
There are many Americans who take Covid-19 seriously and encourage other people to do the same. Most do not have the same luxury of first-rate medical care, and anti-mask legislation like that in North Carolina can also lead them to be the target of harassment.
Later this year, Biden will get his updated Covid-19 booster. But again, many Americans will not be able to, as the program providing free Covid vaccines and boosters is sunsetting. Biden’s pandemic just isn’t the same as that of millions of working-class, low-income and disabled people. The weeks following his recovery, and the remainder of his term, are a chance to set a different example—both in his own pandemic safety choices and his administration’s.
The US government will pay Moderna $176 million to develop an mRNA vaccine against a pandemic influenza—an award given as the highly pathogenic bird flu virus H5N1 continues to spread widely among US dairy cattle.
The funding flows through BARDA, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, as part of a new Rapid Response Partnership Vehicle (RRPV) Consortium. The program is intended to set up partnerships with industry to help the country better prepare for pandemic threats and develop medical countermeasures, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a press announcement Tuesday.
In its own announcement on Tuesday, Moderna noted that it began a Phase 1/2 trial of a pandemic influenza virus vaccine last year, which included versions targeting H5 and H7 varieties of bird flu viruses. The company said it expects to release the results of that trial this year and that those results will direct the design of a Phase 3 trial, anticipated to begin in 2025.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison squirted raw H5N1-containing milk from infected cows into the throats of anesthetized laboratory mice, finding that the virus caused systemic infections after the mice were observed swallowing the dose. The illnesses began quickly, with symptoms of lethargy and ruffled fur starting on day 1. On day 4, the animals were euthanized to prevent extended suffering. Subsequent analysis found that the mice had high levels of H5N1 bird flu virus in their respiratory tracts, as well their hearts, kidneys, spleens, livers, mammary glands, and brains.
"Collectively, our data indicate that HPAI [Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza] A(H5N1) virus in untreated milk can infect susceptible animals that consume it," the researchers concluded. The researchers also found that raw milk containing H5N1 can remain infectious for weeks when stored at refrigerator temperatures.
In the sprawling vertical cityscape of Neo-Tokyo 2202, where the sky was streaked with the trails of hovercraft and the buildings were adorned with holographic projections, a tale of ambition and redemption unfolded. This story revolves around Rin, a genius inventor known for her breakthroughs in holo-tech, but haunted by a past mistake that cost her everything.
Rin had once been a rising star in Neo-Tokyo's tech scene, her inventions promising to revolutionize how people interacted with the digital world. However, her most ambitious project, a neural interface called the Mindweave, had disastrous consequences. A flaw in its design led to a city-wide blackout, erasing countless data and leaving Rin's reputation in ruins.
Exiled from the tech community, Rin retreated to the forgotten districts of Neo-Tokyo, where the city's neon lights didn't reach, and the architecture was a patchwork of the old world and makeshift tech. Here, amidst the shadows, Rin dedicated herself to atoning for her past, using her skills to help those forgotten by the city's relentless march towards the future.
Her path to redemption took a dramatic turn when she stumbled upon a conspiracy that threatened not just Neo-Tokyo but the entire digital infrastructure upon which the world depended. An anonymous group, known only as The Veil, had developed a virus called Shadowfall, capable of infiltrating and controlling any system connected to the global network.
Realizing the extent of the threat, Rin decided to act. She began constructing a countermeasure to Shadowfall, a task that pushed her inventive skills to their limits. As she worked, she crossed paths with Haru, a former security operative disillusioned with the corporate dominance over Neo-Tokyo. Together, they formed an unlikely alliance, blending Rin's technical genius with Haru's knowledge of Neo-Tokyo's underbelly.
Their journey to stop The Veil led them through the city's contrasting worlds, from the opulent corporate towers bathed in artificial daylight to the vibrant street markets that thrived in the city's depths, alive with the pulse of traditional Japanese culture and rogue tech.
As Rin and Haru delved deeper into the conspiracy, they discovered that The Veil was not just a group of cyber-terrorists but part of a larger movement fighting against the corporatization of human life. Faced with the complexity of their enemy's motives, Rin was forced to confront her own beliefs about technology and its role in society.
The climax of their quest occurred atop the Data Spire, the heart of Neo-Tokyo's digital world, where they confronted The Veil. In a high-stakes battle of wits and technology, Rin unleashed her countermeasure. Instead of merely destroying Shadowfall, it fused with the virus, creating a new program that redistributed the city's digital resources, breaking the corporate stranglehold on data and giving the citizens of Neo-Tokyo unprecedented access to information.
In the aftermath, Rin emerged not just as an inventor redeemed but as a visionary who had reshaped the fabric of Neo-Tokyo. Her actions sparked a renaissance of innovation and freedom, blurring the lines between the digital and the physical, and between the past and the future.
"Neon Genesis: Rin's Revolution in Neo-Tokyo" became a legend, a story of overcoming failure, embracing complexity, and the power of technology to change the world for the better. Rin's journey inspired a new generation to dream bigger, pushing the boundaries of what was possible in the neon-soaked nights of Neo-Tokyo.
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