2B
Saturday, May 30, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
CAMPING AND OTHER OUTDOOR PURSUITS DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
Responsible recreation
■ Outdoor groups urging recreationists to be considerate to others this summer
By Dennis Anderson
Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
MINNEAPOLIS — To its
credit, a cadre of wildlife and
outdoor groups has banded
together to set guidelines, al-
beit modest ones, for campers,
anglers, hunters, hikers and
other outdoor recreationists
during the pandemic.
One of the group’s sug-
gestions is to adhere to best
practices for avoiding the
coronavirus. Follow state and
federal guidelines is another.
And still another: “Pack out
your trash as a courtesy to
others and to avoid the ap-
pearance of overuse.”
This effort — #responsi-
blerecreation — has been
signed onto by many of
the nation’s conservation
heavyweights, including
the National Wild Turkey
Federation and the Theo-
dore Roosevelt Conservation
Partnership.
On the umbrella group’s
website (responsible-recre-
ation.org), a handful of proc-
lamations by leaders of these
outfi ts urge outdoors types to
be considerate.
Becky Humphries, for
example, chief executive of
the National Wild Turkey
Federation, offers that “this
collaborative effort by the
outdoor community is a re-
minder that while this coun-
try has numerous opportuni-
ties for recreation on its lands
and waters, we need to do so
in a manner that is respectful
to the land and the rest of the
public who also wish to enjoy
these precious resources.”
Like others of the group’s
directives, including those by
Jeff Crane, president of the
Congressional Sportsmen’s
Foundation, Humphries’
admonition, by design, is
quintessentially milquetoast.
Meaning, by Webster’s
defi nition, “Very timid, unas-
sertive.”
So timid that her decree,
such as it is, recalls other
soft-sell generalities issued
to outdoor users over the
years, including “don’t litter”;
its hippie-like variant, “leave
no trace”; and the please,
pretty-please plea to boaters
to “clean, drain and dry” their
watercraft to avoid spreading
invasive species.
Also there’s this doozy from
the #responsiblerecreation
bunch: “Share your adven-
tures in a respectful way on
social outlets.”
Sewage study
could lead to
early warning
for COVID-19
outbreaks
By Emily Brindley
Hartford Courant
Dennis Anderson / Minneapolis Star Tribune-TNS
Vacationing and camping in the time of coronavirus: Consideration of other people,
their health and surroundings, should be a priority.
Ultimately, such coddling
isn’t intended to achieve a
positive measurable result.
The goal instead is to make
the issuer feel good about
going through the motions of
“taking a stand” for the en-
vironment, conservation, the
green new deal, solar power,
hybrid cars — whatever —
by suggesting ever so gently
that the message recipient,
the outdoors enthusiast — a
descriptor with universal
application — might want
to consider, you know, if they
have time, abiding by some
minimum standard of be-
havior while boating, hiking,
fi shing, biking or otherwise
being a tourist.
News fl ash:
• From Memorial Day
weekend on, Americans will
migrate outdoors in near-
record numbers.
Another:
• Amid the current pan-
demic, in which more, not
fewer, hospitalizations and
more, not fewer, deaths are
predicted in Minnesota in
coming months, it’s likely
only a minority of these va-
cationers will adhere to the
basics necessary to mitigate
further transmission of the
coronavirus.
I know because I’ve seen it.
Fishermen stroll into
fi sh-cleaning houses that are
already occupied. Boaters
crowd onto docks that are
already crowded with other
boaters. And hikers, bicyclists
and cabin owners stop for gas
and bathroom breaks while
heading to Brainerd, the
North Shore or other destina-
tions outstate ... with none
of them, or very few, wearing
masks.
Two points:
• Worldwide, coronavirus
infections grew by 1 million
in the past two weeks, and a
single-day record 33 deaths
was reported May 22 in
Minnesota. The virus is ex-
tremely contagious, especially
indoors. If you get it, you
might have no problem. Or
you might die.
• The risk that cops, con-
servation offi cers, paramed-
ics, ambulance drivers, doc-
tors and nurses will contract
COVID-19 and perhaps die,
increases when the people
they serve don’t make efforts
to minimize transmission of
the virus.
The paradox of this soon-to-
occur summertime scattering
of campers, boaters, anglers,
paddlers and other vacation-
ers into the hinterlands is
that people who live in these
rural areas, where the virus
is generally less prevalent
per capita, are nervous that
the SUV-driving urbanites
whose cash they otherwise
covet might tote with them,
in addition to little Jimmy,
Joanie and Fido the dog, the
coronavirus.
Yet — this is the paradoxi-
cal part — the farther one
drives from the Twin Cities,
the more cavalier people ap-
pear about the virus.
Gloves? Masks? Social
distancing? Too often, it’s not
happening.
Exceptions exist. One is
the Holiday station in Milaca,
along Highway 169. Not only
do shields at that location
separate customers from
cashiers, the cashiers wear
masks.
Additionally, posted on the
dividers, staring customers
in the face, are signs saying:
“I wear my mask to protect
you. You wear your mask to
protect me.”
Unfortunately for the
outfi t’s employees, of the
three times I visited the sta-
tion recently, only one other
customer besides me wore a
mask.
Read this far and still
haven’t caught the drift?
Here it is, sans coddling:
When vacationing this
summer, especially while
indoors in public places
— whether campground
bathrooms, grocery stores,
wayside rests or gas stations
— do the right thing.
Wash your hands. Keep
a bottle of sanitizer handy.
Practice social distancing.
And, as Dr. Deborah Birx,
kingpin of the White House
coronavirus task force, said
Friday: When near other
people, wear a mask.
By studying sewage at a New Haven, Connecti-
cut, wastewater treatment facility, a team of Yale
researchers has determined that genetic code em-
bedded in feces could be used as an early warning
sign of COVID-19 outbreaks.
The team, led by Jordan Peccia of the Yale School
of Engineering and Applied Science, tested daily
samples of sludge for bits of coronavirus code,
known as RNA. They then found that they could
use just their own data to recreate the curve of
COVID-19 cases in the New Haven area.
“Except we see it
seven days earlier,” Before you’re
Peccia said.
symptomatic and after
The study, which
you’re infected, you can
was posted online
certainly shed that virus
Friday but has not
yet been peer-re-
and be infectious. As soon
viewed, has impli-
as you start shedding it,
cations for Connect-
whether you feel it or not,
icut’s coronavirus
response. For the
we’re gonna see it in the
fi rst two months
wastewater.”
of the pandemic,
— Jordan Peccia, Yale School
the state struggled
of Engineering and Applied
to increase testing
capacity. Even now, Science
after a major test-
ing ramp-up, clinical testing focuses on those who
have symptoms.
That means patients often aren’t tested until
they begin showing symptoms, or may not be
tested at all if they remain asymptomatic. In the
meantime, they could be silently spreading the
virus.
But sewage keeps a record of all cases.
“Before you’re symptomatic and after you’re
infected, you can certainly shed that virus and be
infectious,” Peccia said. “As soon as you start shed-
ding it, whether you feel it or not, we’re gonna see
it in the wastewater.”
For their study, Peccia and his team collected
daily sewage samples from the East Shore Water
Pollution Abatement Facility in New Haven, from
mid-March until May 1. They tested each sample’s
concentration of coronavirus RNA and then com-
pared those daily concentrations to actual data on
COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the towns
served by the water treatment facility.
They found that the concentration of coronavirus
RNA increased and decreased several days before
corresponding fl uctuations in actual COVID-19
cases and hospitalizations, as reported by the local
hospital and the state.
According to the study, the sludge samples
predicted hospitalization fl uctuations three days
before they occurred, and testing data fl uctuations
seven days before they occurred.
“I think it’s pretty self-evident that if you can see
what’s going on earlier, that’s better,” Peccia said.
Sewage has been used as a public health indica-
tor long before COVID-19 came on the scene, Pec-
cia said.
See Study/Page 3B
Merck joins race to create coronavirus vaccine
Ebola vaccine is built.
Both experimental immuniza-
PHILADELPHIA — Merck, a
tions are completing testing in
global leader in vaccine develop-
animals, and should begin human
ment, is joining the frenzied rush
testing later this year, Merck said
to vanquish the coronavirus, an-
in news releases.
nouncing Tuesday that it is work-
Merck is also collaborating with
ing on two vaccine candidates and Miami-based Ridgeback Biothera-
a potential drug therapy.
peutics on an oral antiviral treat-
Merck, which has its headquar- ment that was invented at Emory
ters in New Jersey and has several University and has undergone
facilities in Pennsylvania, is back- initial human safety tests.
ing two vaccines that involve
“COVID-19 is an enormous sci-
genetically engineering an inacti- entifi c, medical, and global health
vated virus as a vehicle to deliver
challenge. Merck is collaborating
proteins that provoke an immune with organizations around the
response to the coronavirus.
globe to develop anti-infectives
Merck has acquired Vienna-
and vaccines that aim to alleviate
based Themis, which is using a
suffering caused by SARS-CoV-2
weakened strain of the measles
infection,” Roger M. Perlmutter,
virus as the delivery vehicle. Merck president of Merck Research Labo-
is also partnering with IAVI, a
ratories, said in a statement.
nonprofi t research organization,
Around the world, research is
on a coronavirus vaccine that uses hurtling forward on more than 150
VSV (vesicular stomatitis virus)
vaccines and 350 drugs intended to
as the delivery vehicle. VSV is the relieve the pandemic’s devastation.
same technology on which Merck’s
Merck had been conspicuously
By Marie McCullough
The Philadelphia Inquirer
absent from the list of developers,
including Pfi zer, GlaxoSmithKline,
Moderna, Inovio Pharmaceuticals,
and research centers such as Phil-
adelphia-based Wistar Institute
and Thomas Jefferson University.
But with more than 125 years at
the scientifi c forefront and break-
throughs such as the cervical
cancer vaccine Gardasil, Merck is a
noteworthy addition.
New vaccines traditionally
take a decade or more to come to
market, from invention to approval
to mass production. Nonetheless,
experts have said a coronavirus
vaccine using some of the latest
technologies might be available by
mid-2021.
Perlmutter sounded more cau-
tious in an interview with STAT
News. “I think the clinical develop-
ment is going to take longer than
people imagine,” he said. “And I
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
hate to sound what some people
This illustration provided by the Centers for Disease Control and
may regard as a sour note, but I
Prevention shows the 2019 novel coronavirus.
don’t want to overpromise.”