scholarly journals Rats and the COVID-19 pandemic: Early data on the global emergence of rats in response to social distancing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Parsons ◽  
Yasushi Kiyokawa ◽  
Jonathan L. Richardson ◽  
Rafal Stryjek ◽  
Kaylee A. Byers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
North America ◽  
Pest Control ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Food Service ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
New Locations ◽  
Public Health Authorities

AbstractFollowing widespread closures of food-related businesses due to efforts to curtail the spread of SARS-CoV-2, public health authorities reported increased sightings of rats in close vicinity of people. Because rats vector a number of pathogens transmissible to people, changes in their behavior has consequences for human health risks. To determine the extent of how stay-at-home measures influenced patterns of rat sightings we: 1) examined the number of rat-related public service requests before and during the period of lockdown in New York City (NYC) and Tokyo, Japan; 2) examined reports made in proximity to closed food service establishments in NYC; and 3) surveyed pest control companies in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Poland. During the month following lockdown, the overall number of reports decreased by 30% in NYC, while increasing 24% in Tokyo. However, new hotspots of 311 calls were observed in proximity of closed food service establishments in NYC; and there was a consistent positive association between kernel density estimates of food service establishments and location of 311 calls (r = 0.33 to 0.45). Similarly, more reports were observed in the restaurant-dense eastern side of Tokyo. Changes in clientele for pest control companies varied geographically, with 37% of pest-management companies surveyed in North America reporting 50-100% of their post-lockdown rat-related requests coming from new clients. In Warsaw, where there are no clusters of restaurants in densely-populated areas, there were no changes. In Tokyo, there were no changes in clients. We conclude that changes in public service calls are region-specific and localized, with increases in rat sightings more likely near restaurant-dense regions. Pest control companies surveyed in North America either lost much of their business or shifted clientele from old to new locations. We discuss possible mitigation measures including ramping up pest control during re-opening of food-related establishments and the need for citywide rodent surveillance and disease monitoring.

scholarly journals Household COVID-19 risk and in-person schooling

Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. eabh2939
Author(s):  
Justin Lessler ◽  
M. Kate Grabowski ◽  
Kyra H. Grantz ◽  
Elena Badillo-Goicoechea ◽  
C. Jessica E. Metcalf ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Office Work ◽  
School Based ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Extra Curricular Activities ◽  
Low Levels

In-person schooling has proved contentious and difficult to study throughout the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Data from a massive online survey in the United States indicates an increased risk of COVID-19-related outcomes among respondents living with a child attending school in-person. School-based mitigation measures are associated with significant reductions in risk, particularly daily symptoms screens, teacher masking, and closure of extra-curricular activities. A positive association between in-person schooling and COVID-19 outcomes persists at low levels of mitigation, but when seven or more mitigation measures are reported, a significant relationship is no longer observed. Among teachers, working outside the home was associated with an increase in COVID-19-related outcomes, but this association is similar to other occupations (e.g., healthcare, office work). While in-person schooling is associated with household COVID-19 risk, this risk can likely be controlled with properly implemented school-based mitigation measures.

scholarly journals Collections, Compilations, and Convolutes of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Fragments in North America before ca. 1900

Fragmentology ◽  
10.24446/dlll ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 73-139
Author(s):  
Scott Gwara
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
North America ◽  
The United States ◽  
New York University ◽  
Historical Society ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
Private Collections ◽  
Public Exhibition

Using evidence drawn from S. de Ricci and W. J. Wilson’s Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, American auction records, private library catalogues, public exhibition catalogues, and manuscript fragments surviving in American institutional libraries, this article documents nineteenth-century collections of medieval and Renaissance manuscript fragments in North America before ca. 1900. Surprisingly few fragments can be identified, and most of the private collections have disappeared. The manuscript constituents are found in multiple private libraries, two universities (New York University and Cornell University), and one Learned Society (Massachusetts Historical Society). The fragment collections reflect the collecting genres documented in England in the same period, including albums of discrete fragments, grangerized books, and individual miniatures or “cuttings” (sometimes framed). A distinction is drawn between undecorated text fragments and illuminated ones, explained by aesthetic and scholarly collecting motivations. An interest in text fragments, often from binding waste, can be documented from the 1880s.

scholarly journals "Hurricane" Sandy

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-192
Author(s):  
Cheryl L. Pollak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Small Business Administration ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
District Court ◽  
Flood Insurance ◽  
Recent Experience

On the evening of October 29, 2012, “Hurricane” Sandy made land- fall on the New York coastline, battering the land with strong winds, torrential rain, and record-breaking storm surges. Homes and commercial structures were destroyed; roads and tunnels were flooded; and more than 23,000 people sought refuge in temporary shelters, with many others facing weeks without power and electricity. At the time, Sandy was heralded as one of the costliest hurricanes in the his- tory of the United States; the second costliest hurricane only to Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005. Unfortunately, recent experience with Hurricanes Florence, Maria, Harvey, and Irma suggest that this pattern of devastating superstorms may become the new norm as climate change produces more extreme and unpredictable weather events. In Sandy’s aftermath, as individuals returned to their homes, or what remained of them, and communities began to rebuild, the true cost of the storm became apparent. A year after the storm, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) estimated that over $1.4 billion in assistance was provided to 182,000 survivors of the dis- aster; another $3.2 billion was provided to state and local governments for debris removal, infrastructure repair, and emergency protective measures. More than $2.4 billion was provided to individuals and businesses in the form of low-interest loans through the Small Business Administration (“SBA”), and millions more were spent on grants de- signed to implement mitigation measures in the future and to provide unemployment assistance to survivors. Before the storm, homeowners paid premiums for flood insurance provided through the National Flood Insurance Program (“NFIP”), and for homeowner’s insurance provided by dozens of private insurers. In the months following the storm, they began to file claims for assistance in rebuilding their homes. While many such claims were re- solved successfully, many homeowners were unhappy with the settlement amounts offered by their insurance carriers and felt compelled to file lawsuits in the surrounding state and federal courts. Many of those lawsuits were filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (“EDNY”). This case study describes the EDNY’s specifically crafted, unique approach to handling the mass litigation that ensued from Sandy’s devastation, documents some of the problems that the Court faced during that mass litigation, and describes some of the lessons learned from the Court’s experience.

The English diaspora in North America

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Bueltmann ◽  
Donald M. MacRaild
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
North America ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Community ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
The Us ◽  
Transnational Communication ◽  
The Uk

From the early eighteenth century, a vibrant English associational culture emerged that was, by many measures, ethnic in character. English ethnic organisations spread across North America from east to west, and from north to south, later becoming a truly global phenomenon when reaching Australasia in the later nineteenth century. This books charts the nature, extent and character of these developments. It explores the main activities of English ethnic societies, including their charitable work; collective mutual aid; their national celebration; their expressions of imperial and monarchical devotion; and the extent to which they evinced transnational communication with the homeland and with English immigrants in other territories. The English demonstrated and English people abroad demonstrated and experienced competitive and sometimes conflictual ethnic character, and so the discussion also uncovers aspects of enmity towards an Irish immigrant community, especially in the US, whose increasingly political sense of community brought them into bitter dispute with English immigrants whom they soon outnumbered. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the extent of English ethnic associational culture in North America was such that it resonated within England herself, resulting in the formation of a central organization designed to coordinate the promotion of English culture. This was the Royal Society of St George. Ultimately, the book documents that the English expressed their identity through processes of associating, mutualism and self-expression that were, by any measure, both ethnic and diasporic in character. The English Diaspora is based on a very large amount of untapped primary materials from archives in the United States, Canada, and the UK relating to specific locations such as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Toronto, Ottawa, and Kingston, and London. Thousands of newspaper articles have been trawled. Several long runs of English associational periodicals have been garnered and utilized. Comparative and transnational perspectives beyond the US and Canada are enabled by the discovery of manuscript materials and periodicals relating to the Royal Society of St George.

scholarly journals Sawadaea tulasnei Powdery Mildew of Norway Maple (Acer platanoides) in North America

Plant Disease ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 90 (6) ◽  
pp. 830-830
Author(s):  
J. Weiland ◽  
G. Stanosz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
North America ◽  
Powdery Mildew ◽  
Acer Saccharum ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rdna Its ◽  
Maple Leaves ◽  
Norway Maple ◽  
Genus 2

Norway maple leaves bearing powdery mildew were collected from one location in the fall of 2003 and four locations (as much as 1.5 km apart) in the fall of 2005 in Buffalo, NY. No powdery mildew was observed on leaves collected from sugar maples (Acer saccharum) that were present in the vicinity of affected Norway maples at two locations. Trees were located along streets and in yards. Diseased leaves were present throughout tree crowns but lower leaves were more commonly affected. White mycelium was present in irregular, discrete, scattered spots only on the upper surface of leaves and on both sides of wings of samaras. Typically, <10% of the upper leaf area bore visible mycelium. Cleistothecia were present singly or in groups on the mycelium. Morphology of cleistothecia on leaves collected each year, including simple and bifid appendages with uncinate to circinate apices, was sufficient to identify the pathogen to the genus Sawadaea (1). Other characteristics were not sufficiently distinct to make an identification of S. bicornis or S. tulasnei (1), each a European species found on Acer spp. However, a sample from 2003 was supplied by the authors for use in a study of phylogeny of the genus (2) that served as a first report of the species in the United States. Analysis of nuclear rDNA ITS sequence of this specimen (GenBank Accession No. AB193390) placed the sample in a clade with S. tulasnei specimens from Europe. In the same study, powdery mildew samples from Acer spp. in Ohio and Montreal, Canada also were placed in this clade. Thus, occurrence of S. tulasnei in North America is confirmed. S. bicornis was recently identified (based on morphology) on Norway maple in the western United States (3). Specimens from Buffalo, NY have been deposited in the U.S. National Fungus Collections (BPI 871210). References: (1) U. Braun. The Powdery Mildews (Erysiphales) of Europe. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena-Stuttgart-New York, 1995. (2) S. Hirose et al. Mycol. Res. 109:912, 2005. (3) C. Nischwitz and G. Newcombe. Plant Dis. 87:451, 2003.

scholarly journals Re-emergence of respiratory syncytial virus following the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: a modeling study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhe Zheng ◽  
Virginia E. Pitzer ◽  
Eugene D. Shapiro ◽  
Louis J. Bont ◽  
Daniel M. Weinberger
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Respiratory Syncytial Virus ◽  
Transmission Rate ◽  
Age Distribution ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Pediatric Intensive Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Hospital Capacity ◽  
Syncytial Virus

Importance: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of hospitalizations in young children. RSV largely disappeared in 2020 due to precautions taken because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Projecting the timing and intensity of the re-emergence of RSV and the age groups affected is crucial for planning for the administration of prophylactic antibodies and anticipating hospital capacity. Objective: To project the potential timing and intensity of re-emergent RSV epidemics in different age groups. Design, Setting, Participants: Mathematical models were used to reproduce the annual RSV epidemics before the COVID-19 pandemic in New York and California. These models were modified to project the trajectory of RSV epidemics in 2020-2025 under different scenarios with varying stringency of mitigation measures for SARS-CoV-2: 1) constant low RSV transmission rate from March 2020 to March 2021; 2) an immediate decrease in RSV transmission in March 2020 followed by a gradual increase in transmission until April 2021; 3) a decrease in non-household contacts from April to July 2020. Simulations also evaluated factors likely to impact the re-emergence of RSV epidemics, including introduction of virus from out-of-state sources and decreased transplacentally acquired immunity in infants. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome of this study was defined as the predicted number of RSV hospitalizations each month in the entire population. Secondary outcomes included the age distribution of hospitalizations among children <5 years of age, incidence of any RSV infection, and incidence of RSV lower respiratory tract infection (LRI). Results: In the 2021-2022 RSV season, we expect that the lifting of mitigation measures and build-up of susceptibility will lead to a larger-than-normal RSV outbreak. We predict an earlier-than-usual onset in the upcoming RSV season if there is substantial external introduction of RSV. Among children 1-4 years of age, the incidence of RSV infections could be twice that of a typical RSV season, with infants <6 months of age having the greatest seasonal increase in the incidence of both severe RSV LRIs and hospitalizations. Conclusions and Relevance: Pediatric departments, including pediatric intensive care units, should be alert to large RSV outbreaks. Enhanced surveillance is required for both prophylaxis administration and hospital capacity management.

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