Coronavirus
Technology Solutions
COVID Cases Soar in the U.S. and
Around the World
High Covid and Air Pollution in
New Delhi
Other Asian Countries are Coping with the Virus
in Different Ways New Hampshire Firms have Benefited from COVID Contracts Awarded Through the U.S. Defense Department
The US recorded over 120,000 new coronavirus
cases in a single day for the first time, with
20 states hitting record infections so far this
month.
As cases rise exponentially across
Europe, France and Spanish capital Madrid have
tightened restrictions, as England and parts of
Italy adjust to new lockdowns.
Asia, Malaysia and Japan also report spikes in
new infections, as China suspends visitors from
nine countries after a rise in imported Covid-19
cases.
Poland has witnessed its deadliest day since the coronavirus
pandemic began, with a further 445
deaths reported by its health
ministry on Friday.
The country also reported 27,086 new Covid-19 cases -
only 57 fewer than Thursday’s record-high. The
total number of confirmed infections in Poland
stands at 493,765 and the total
death toll at 7,287.
As infections rise across Europe this week, Poland's Prime Minister
Mateusz Morawiecki announced further
restrictions that will go into effect from
Saturday, including remote learning for younger
children, cultural institutions closing, stores
reducing capacity and hotels only opening for
business trips.
"A step beyond the measures that we are announcing today is only a
national quarantine, that is, a total lockdown,"
said Morawiecki.
Denmark, the world's largest producer of mink
furs, plans to cull all mink in the country to
contain a mutated form of novel coronavirus.
Prime Minister
Mette Frederiksen said Wednesday the decision
had been made with a "heavy heart," but it was
necessary based on the recommendation of health
authorities.
"The virus has
mutated in mink. The mutated virus has spread to
humans," Frederiksen said.
Statens Serum
Institut, the Danish authority based in
Copenhagen which deals with infectious diseases,
had found five cases of the virus in mink farms
and 12 examples in humans that showed reduced
sensitivity to antibodies, she said. Allowing
the virus to spread could potentially limit the
effectiveness of future vaccines.
There are between 15 million and 17 million mink in Denmark,
according to authorities. Outbreaks of
coronavirus at the country's mink farms have
persisted despite repeated efforts to cull
infected animals since June.
One million mink within
a five mile (8.4 kilometers) radius of suspected
or confirmed farm infection were destroyed in
October. Denmark's police, army and home guard
will be deployed to speed up the culling
process, Frederiksen said. Mink have also been
culled in the Netherlands and Spain after
infections were discovered there.
The Prime Minister said new restrictions will be introduced in
certain areas of Denmark to contain the spread
of the mutated virus, including Hjorring,
Frederikshavn, Bronderslev, Jammerbugt,
Vesthimmerland, Thisted and Laeso
municipalities.
"Unfortunately, the residents of those municipalities have to
prepare for further restrictions in the near
future," she said.
High Covid and Air Pollution in
New Delhi
New Delhi, the capital city with the worst air
quality worldwide, suffered its most toxic day
in a year on Thursday, recording the
concentration of
PM2.5 particles at 14 times over the
World Health Organization’s safe limit. A
raging coronavirus epidemic, with more than
400,000 confirmed cases in the city of 20
million, has heightened alarm over the health
hazard posed by the choking smog, with doctors
warning of a sharp increase in respiratory
illnesses.
“We are seeing all round the sky is covered with
smoke, and because of this the situation from
coronavirus is worsening,” Arvind Kejriwal,
Delhi’s chief minister, said in a recorded video
on Twitter.
Delhi’s air pollution typically worsens in
October and November due to farmers burning off
stubble and coal-fired power plants in
surrounding states, traffic fumes and windless
days.
Kejriwal has banned use and sale of firecrackers
in Delhi ahead of Diwali, the Hindu festival of
light, and ramped up critical health
infrastructure in state-run hospitals to control
a surge in coronavirus cases due to pollution
and the festive season, he said.
India’s coronavirus outbreak increased by more
than 50,000 cases Thursday amid a resurgence of
infections in the capital.
The Health Ministry also reported another 704
fatalities in the past 24 hours across the
country, raising India’s overall death toll to
124,315.
Nerves are frayed in New Delhi after it reported
a record 6,842 new cases in the past 24 hours.
It has more than 37,000 active cases.
China is suspending entry for
most foreign passport holders resident in
Britain in response to rising COVID-19 cases in
the United Kingdom. The suspension covers those
holding visas or residence permits issued prior
to Nov. 3, with exceptions for diplomatic,
service, courtesy or C visas, while foreign
nationals visiting China for emergency needs may
apply for special case visas. China has largely
contained the spread of coronavirus within the
country but continues to record imported cases,
including another 20 reported on Thursday. It
wasn’t immediately clear how many of those were
arrivals from Britain. China requires all those
arriving in China to undergo two weeks of
quarantine.
Comfort and Attractiveness are two reasons the
McIlvaine Company is predicting a huge market
for CATE masks. These emotional drivers are
impacted by the perceived eco-sustainability of
the product. Eco-sustainability is of higher
than average interest to people with allergies
and asthma.
Therefore they are likely to pay more for
masks which they believe to be better for the
environment. So the purchase of reusable rather
than disposable masks will be a preference. An
additional but minor attraction is the use of
recycled components. The environmental benefits of reusable masks are being extolled in the media. The Daily Orange an independent, nonprofit newspaper published in Syracuse, New York, provided a persuasive argument. Each month, it is estimated 129 billion disposable masks are used globally. This means an incomprehensible 1.5 trillion disposable masks will be used in the next year. Meanwhile, disposable masks aren’t really disposable, like their name implies. Instead, discarded masks are sent to landfills where they never biodegrade and contribute to environmental litter that, before the pandemic, was just beginning to be cleaned up. The United Nations estimates an increase in pollution from pandemic waste will cost $40 billion in damage to tourism and fisheries industries across the globe. Disposable masks serve the same purpose for the public as proper reusable masks but account for nearly all the pollution from masks. Outside the sterile environments of hospitals and food service, opting for a reusable mask over a disposable mask must be the solution. However, there is no large-scale incentive to encourage the public to do this. Reluctance to switch to reusable masks is rooted in the convenience of their single-use counterparts. Both protect others from the wearer. However, disposable masks are readily available whether someone has a reusable mask or not. At Syracuse University, a portion of the 3.4 million disposable masks the school acquired will be available for visitors. This means if a visitor forgets a mask, it would not matter: a disposable mask would be provided. This is a practice that is commonly found across the nation for the safety of people in public places. However, the widespread availability of disposable masks is too wasteful when the simple solution is to wear a reusable mask instead. In the public setting, a disposable mask puts an unnecessary burden on an already impacted environment. Christine Weber, public information and internal communications officer of the SU Campus Safety and Emergency Services department explained, “The University encourages individuals to properly dispose of damaged or discarded masks … in the trash.” This sentiment is exemplary of the fact a disposable mask cannot be recycled. Meanwhile, disposable masks are commonly made of materials such as polypropylene and polystyrene, two carbon-intensive materials that never biodegrade. Providing mask with recycled
components is a minor advantage. Face mask
straps are one component that can be supplied
with recycled nylon.
The purpose of the initiative is to clean the oceans and seas of
marine litter such as derelict fishnets
responsible for the needless death of marine
animals.
FAO and UNEP estimate that there are 640,000 tons of fishing nets in
the oceans. These fishing nets, often called
ghost nets, remain adrift for a substantial
amount of time (500 years) and are responsible
for the accidental capture of whales, turtles,
birds and other marine mammals. This problem
only continues to get worse each year.
Healthy Seas applies a two-way approach to achieve its mission.
First, recovering ghost fishing nets from our
seas and second, preventing that waste fishing
nets will end up in the marine ecosystem. These
prevention actions are implemented with the help
of fishermen communities and fish farms as well
as with educational programs and events that
raise awareness.
The fishing nets recovered in collection points from the sea bed by
volunteer divers are sent to Aquafil’s Slovenian
regeneration plant. Here, thanks to a unique
recycling process, the fishing nets of Healthy
Seas, together with other nylon waste material,
are regenerated to make first quality nylon yarn
called ECONYL®.
This 100% regenerated nylon yarn, coming from waste material, is
then used for garments and carpet flooring and
can be used for masks.
As well as being a solution on waste, ECONYL®
regenerated nylon is also better when it comes
to climate change. It reduces the global warming
impact of nylon by up to 90% compared with the
material from oil.
Northwestern University Researchers say they’ve
developed a chemically treated mask that could
sanitize respiratory droplets containing the
coronavirus that causes COVID-19. McIlvaine has
pointed out that large cough and sneeze droplets
initially captured in the mask evaporate and the
virus becomes air borne. There is a debate over
whether antimicrobials can inactive the virus in
these droplets during the time between capture
and evaporation.
The proof-of-concept design from researchers at
Northwestern University in Illinois uses
modified fabric treated with the antiviral
chemicals phosphoric acid and copper salt.
In a simulation, the scientists said their mask
sanitized up to 82 percent of escaped
respiratory droplets. If this can be
substantiated it would be impressive.
“These results suggest that the chemical
modulation of respiratory droplets, when used in
conjunction with face covering, could bring
significant additional benefits to mitigate the
spread of infectious respiratory diseases,
especially for those transmittable through
pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic carriers such as
COVID-19,” the researchers wrote in
the journal Matter.
Experts say the chemically treated masks could
potentially be effective, but they shouldn’t
distract from the basics of mask wearing.
“If such a mask is truly effective, affordable,
nontoxic, and more comfortable to wear than the
masks currently available, I could see it being
most helpful for people who do not wear masks on
the basis of breathability,” Dr. Anne Liu, an
infectious disease physician at Stanford Health
Care in California, told Healthline.
“However, I caution against getting too fancy
with standard practice if these novelties
distract from the basics, i.e., the workhorses
of infection prevention: standard masks, hand
hygiene, ventilation, and reasonable
distancing,” she added. “Widely available
surgical masks and multilayered cloth masks work
very well to prevent viral transmission.”
The new coronavirus is believed to spread
through close contact between people.
When a person with the virus coughs, talks,
sneezes, and breathes, they produce respiratory
droplets that others can then inhale, causing an
infection.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC)Trusted Source states that mask wearing is
a crucial tool in stopping the spread of
COVID-19.
The agency advises that everyone over the age of
2 years old wears a mask in public and when
around people who don’t live in their household.
The Northwestern University researchers say
their chemically treated masks are at
proof-of-concept stage and more research is
needed.
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease
expert at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee,
says if the chemically treated masks are proven
to be effective and can be made cheaply, he
would consider wearing one.
But he argues that regular surgical masks
currently available help stop the spread of the
virus without the need for enhancements.
“A regular surgical mask substantially reduces
the transmission of exhaled virus. It also
offers some protection against inhaled virus. It
works in both directions, but it’s principle
function is to prevent you, who might be
infected, from infecting others,” Schaffner told
Healthline.
“Wearing a mask is fundamental to the reduction
in transmission of the COVID virus,” he said.
“It is the single most important thing all of us
can do to inhibit the spread of the virus.”
“One can be totally without symptoms but
nevertheless infected and therefore contagious,
and that is the origin for the recommendation
that we all wear masks,” Schaffner said.
“It is the simplest thing all of us can do. It’s
cheap, it’s easy to do, and although it’s
inconvenient and unusual for us to do this, it
also turns out to be very effective,” he added. In some cases, it’s still
possible for respiratory droplets to escape
standard surgical masks. “We know from previous
experience with COVID and viruses closely
related to COVID, such as SARS1 and MERS, that
the standard surgical masks prevented the wearer
from getting infected in about two-thirds of the
cases, so this would suggest that in about
one-third of the cases, it did not protect,” Dr.
Dean Blumberg, head of pediatric infectious
disease at the University of California, Davis,
told Healthline. “The standard surgical mask
has gaps in the sides where the air can go in,”
he explained. “There’s a gap in the bottom and
there may be a gap at the top, and because of
those gaps, the wearer may not have a tight
seal.” The masks designed by the
Northwestern researchers sanitized 82 percent of
droplets in a simulation. Blumberg says this would be
an improvement on regular masks. “It would be a step up from
the 67 percent of protection that we currently
get with standard surgical masks. So that would
be an improvement, it would be a significant,
incremental improvement,” he said. All of the experts Healthline
spoke with emphasized that innovation and
advancements in the prevention of COVID-19 are
important, but so is ensuring people wear their
masks to begin with. “I think first of all, at
least in the U.S., I would just like everybody
to wear a mask,” Blumberg said. “That’s the lower-hanging
fruit, is getting people to wear masks and then
once they wear masks, then the next step is to
wear masks that will be more effective in
reducing transmission both to the person wearing
the mask and to the person who may be infected —
and for that we already know that the N95 masks
are highly effective without having this
antiviral activity on them,” he said.
The New Hampshire Business Review
reported on several COVID related contracts
awarded by the Defense Department.
Lydall’s Performance Material Division’s Air
Force contract to produce face mask material is
clearly Covid-related.
The $13.5 million sole-source contract it signed
with the Air Force in June was the PM division’s
first and only in recent times, but it was the
largest single private Covid-related contract
awarded to a New Hampshire company. The company
is putting the finishing touches on a
75,000-square-foot building that will eventually
house three new machines and the Filtration
Center of Excellence. It will be capable of
producing material for 1.7 billion N-95 masks —
half the amount needed nationwide — or more than
6 billion surgical masks, according to Ashish
Diwanji, president of the PM division. The first
machine was expected to arrive around Election
Day.
The contract couldn’t come at a better time for
the publicly traded company, which is
headquartered in Connecticut.
Lydall — whose fabrics and other materials are
used for insulation as well as filtration in
many industrial applications — lost $74 million
as of Sept. 30. In the second quarter, sales
were off by a third, though they flattened out
in the third quarter, partly due to the PM
contract, increasing sales by 11.4%, he said.
Even before the new machinery’s arrival, the
division was already “working 24/7,” churning
out material at an annual rate of 350 million
N-95 masks and about 400 million surgical masks,
said Diwanji. Word spread to the White House.
The contract to expand operations first came up
in May, and U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH,
jumped in to help. He was “constantly being
approached” by her staff with offers to help,
“and we were very grateful, since we haven’t
done this before,” said Diwanji.
Although the Air Force is paying Lydall to
expand, the material goes to Lydall’s customers,
with the federal government agreeing to buy a
certain number of the finished product, which it
will distribute as needed.
The Rochester facility — which had about 120
people working there before the pandemic — hired
and trained another 18.
Diwanji plans to add another dozen before the
next two machines are online in June 2021. Among
the hires will be scientists for the Filtration
Center of Excellence, to enable it to continue
to develop air quality filters to neutralize
viruses.
“Clearly as the demand for the current surge
falls off, we want to be ready for the shifting
needs in indoor quality,” he said.
Vapotherm, a publicly traded firm based in
Exeter, landed four contracts worth about $1.3
million. But it also received more purchase
orders for its respiratory systems that help
patients breathe but are not as intrusive as
ventilators. One, ordered by the Army in May,
went to Afghanistan.
Even without major federal contracts, “our
company has been completely transformed by Covid.
It has raised awareness of our technology and
the value it can bring,” said Anthony Ten Haggen,
vice president of legal affairs and compliance
at Vapotherm.
The company has rapidly expanded to meet that
challenge by increasing its workforce by about a
third to 440, 165 of them working in Exeter.
Medicus Health Care Solutions LLC of Windham, a
staffing agency for doctors and other advanced
practitioners, actually was awarded the largest
total of Covid contracts — 15.2 million — the
largest singular contact being a $12 million
deal with the Veteran Affairs for the VA medical
center in the Bronx, N.Y. It was awarded in
April at the height of the pandemic’s first
surge.
“It was a big, awesome opportunity to help with
the front lines,” said Courtney Gould, vice
president of government placement for Medicus,
which employs 200.
Evolve Technologies, a 17-person firm in Salem,
works with agencies around the country to supply
them with emergency equipment.
Its five Covid contracts, worth a total of
$391,000, were for such items as rapid
deployment shelters and isolation pods for
transferring patients so they won’t affect
others.
“Everything we are seeing right now has been
responding to Covid or preparing for it,” said
Olan Johnston, director of business development.
Old hands at contracting - unlike Lydall,
Claremont-based Red River Technology is an old
pro at government contracts, particularly
military ones. It is part of a $120 billion
federal contract portfolio, making the $4
million for some six Covid contracts seem small
in comparison. Red River has a healthcare
division and offers technological solutions for
“clinical workflow, facilities, EMR, medical
devices, security, regulatory issues,
compliance,” according to its website. The four
Covid contracts are to help meet technical needs
at the Department of Health and Human Services,
Social Security Administration, Veteran Affairs
and the Agency for International Development.
Red River regularly pays American Defense
International to lobby in Washington, but this
year added Steve Scoffs and paid him $100,000.
Scoffs lists Donald Trump and Koch Industries as
his clients (though it should be noted that Red
River’s chairman, Rick Bolduc, contributed to
one of Trump’s opponents, Florida Sen. Marco
Rubio, in the 2016 presidential primary). The
company did not return phone calls by NH
Business Review’s deadline.
Carrigg Commercial Builders of Manchester is
another experienced federal contractor, winning
at least $127 million in contracts — $21 million
in the last six months — almost all though
Veterans Affairs.
The $725,000 in Covid-related contracts — all
through the VA — include a $224,000 contract to
install an emergency generator, a $245,000
contract to replace a front door as well as
contracts for ambulance parking, a negative air
exhaust duct and an emergency ramp, all at
Massachusetts facilities.
Founder and owner Robert Carrigg was awarded the
Bronze Star in 2007 for his actions during the
Iraq War. He later went on to work for
Blackwater, a private military company that has
been a lightning rod for controversy, including
legal troubles surrounding the alleged massacre
of civilians in Fallujah.
In 2018, Carrigg was arrested and charged for
pulling on a woman’s hijab, according to a New
Hampshire Union Leader article. In June 2019, he
pleaded no contest to simple assault and was
sentenced to a 12-month suspended sentence,
which he completed in July 2020, according to
court records When asked whether Carrigg’s
arrest affects his standing to get federal
contracts, the VA replied that Carrigg was not
on any excluded party list, and that he was a
vendor in good standing.
Carrigg did not respond to a detailed voice
message by NH Business Review’s deadline.
FLIR Commercial Systems Inc. also has legal
issues but of another kind, though it is
unlikely that they have anything to do with the
Nashua facility that won an $807,000 thermometer
contract from the Army. The publicly traded
company, based in Oregon, produces and
distributes thermal imaging products. Last
quarter, revenues were $482 million and profits
were $61 million, up by a third.
In 2018, FLIR signed a consent decree with the
State Department for $30 million to resolve
allegations of unauthorized export of technical
data and defense services. It is also being
investigated for other penalties involving sale
of thermal projects to customers in China
without proper licensing, according to its
financial filings. In 2015, it agreed to pay a
$9.5 million fine to the Securities and Exchange
Commission for attempting to fly Mideast
officials on a “world tour” to coax them into
buying its products.
FLIR is well connected in Washington.
Its political action committee contributed
$118,000 to candidates from both parties, and it
has spent over $1 million on its own lobbyists
as well as $230,000 on six other lobbying firms.
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