The Head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci says the NBA's strategy of resuming play will be "quite successful." Fauci spoke about the league's plan in an interview with The Stadium.

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“I actually have looked at that plan and it is really quite creative,” Fauci said. “What they are really trying to do, and I think they might very well be quite successful with it, is to create a situation where it is as safe as it possibly could be for the players by creating this bubble — essentially testing everybody, make sure that you start with a baseline of everybody being negative and trying to make sure there is no influx into that cohort of individuals and do a tournament-type play.”

“They really wanted to make sure that the safety of the players, and the people associated with the players, was paramount,” Fauci said.

The NBA is planning to return on July 30, with 22 teams competing in Orlando Florida. Games will take place entirely in the Wide World of Sports Complex.

“For the people who are thirsting for basketball, who love basketball, the way I do, it’s something that I think is a sound plan,” Fauci said.

If you're an NBA fan, the last three months have been incredibly stressful. The league has yet to return to action although they plan on doing so as of July 30th. While there seem to be some players who are against the return, there are still plenty of stars who want to get back out on the court and compete for a championship. In order to do so, the players will need to be vigorously tested in order to prevent widespread cases of the Coronavirus.

For the last few weeks, teams have been told to hold off on testing but now, it seems like they have been given the green light to test as often as possible. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the league has told teams that they can test asymptomatic staff members and players which is huge news since many teams will be traveling to Florida later this month.

A patron at New York City Bagel & Coffee House in Astoria, Queens filmed another customer intentionally coughing on someone after being called out for not wearing a mask.

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"I was at New York City Bagel Coffee House on Broadway and 30th Street getting my bagel and noticed a patron (pictured below) who was coughing, not covering her mouth, and not wearing a mask," the woman who was coughed on wrote on Facebook. "I politely pointed this out to the woman working at the store and told her that the store should enforce masks to worn by patrons while inside the store."

"The unmasked patron overheard my complaint and became enraged yelling at me calling me names claiming she has covid antibodies and doesn’t need to wear a mask in public so I should mind my own F’ing business. She then proceeded to come towards me and repeatedly cough on me as seen in this video."

New York has been one of the hardest-hit areas for the COVID-19 outbreak; however, things are trending in a positive direction. The city recently entered phase-1 of its reopening process.

"I will NEVER be going back to New York City Bagel Coffee House Broadway and 30th Street because they still served this woman and none of the employees asked if I was okay," the woman ended her post. "Plus Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company has way better bagels and kinder staff."

Michael Flor, the longest-hospitalized COVID-19 patient, has survived the illness, but the cost of his life comes with an unfathomable price tag. Flor is facing hospital bills totaling 181 pages and $1.1 million in costs. 

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“I opened it and said ‘holy [bleep]!’ “ Flor, 70, told The Seattle Times.

He stayed in Swedish Medical Center in Issaquah for 62 days. “He was as sick as you can get, with basically every organ system shutting down,” Dr. Anne Lipke, a Swedish pulmonary and critical-care physician, says of Flor.

At one point during his stay, he told his wife “You gotta get me out of here, we can’t afford this.”

Luckily for Flor, he’s on Medicare and much of the bill will be covered. Congress has also granted $100 billion to help hospitals and insurance companies during the pandemic. Without these safety nets in place, Flor could be facing life-crippling debt.

“I feel guilty about surviving,” he said. “There’s a sense of ‘why me?’ Why did I deserve all this? Looking at the incredible cost of it all definitely adds to that survivor’s guilt.”

“It was a million bucks to save my life, and of course I’d say that’s money well-spent,” he said. “But I also know I might be the only one saying that.”

[Via]

The world is still in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Over the last few weeks, there have been promising signs that we’ll be released from quarantine and be able to return to somewhat normal conditions. However, summer 2020 appears to still be canceled. Every single major event that takes place in the summer has been nixed. Festivals, specifically, were forced to call off their annual festivities at the advice of health officials.

Coachella has been one of the biggest festivals in North America over the past few years. With major performers set to headline the festival, they were forced to push everything back until October. Of course, this was also optimistic seeing as how there’s still no telling when the current pandemic is over and when the second wave will hit.

That being said, Coachella has officially canceled their 2020 plans. Riverside County Public Health Officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser signed off on papers calling an October a public concern in regards to the second wave coming this fall.

“I am concerned as indications grow that COVID-19 could worsen in the fall,” Kaiser said. “In addition, events like Coachella and Stagecoach would fall under Governor Newsom’s Stage 4, which he has previously stated would require treatments or a vaccine to enter. Given the projected circumstances and potential, I would not be comfortable moving forward.”

No word on whether Coachella will return for next April or next fall yet. We’ll keep you updated.

CrossFit CEO and co-founder, Greg Glassman, officially resigned this week, after he was widely criticized for making some insensitive comments about George Floyd and the coronavirus pandemic. His decision came after he realized his words had "created a rift in the CrossFit community and unintentionally hurt many of its members."

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"Those who know me know that my sole issue is the chronic disease epidemic," Glassman said in a statement released on Tuesday (June 9th). "I know that CrossFit is the solution to this epidemic and that CrossFit HQ and its staff serve as the stewards of CrossFit affiliates worldwide. I cannot let my behavior stand in the way of HQ's or affiliates' missions."

On Saturday, after the company had already come under fire for their failure to voice their solidarity with the Black community amid the outbreak of protests against police brutality and systemic racism, Glassman made an odd joke on Twitter about George Floyd, whose murder by police served as the catalyst for said protests.

In response to a tweet from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation that read, "racism and discrimination are critical public health issues that demand an urgent response," Glassman wrote, "It's FLOYD-19." He appeared to be mocking this notion that racism is an epidemic much like coronavirus, all the while making light of Floyd's tragic death.

A lot has happened in the last thirty days. The world's focus has shifted from COVID-19 to the protests and riots breaking out across the United States. Large gatherings have been held in each state as the public speaks out against systemic and interpersonal racism. Many of our favorite artists, including Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West, have participated in marches for the Black Lives Matter movement and, although Juicy J supports the movement, he has an important message for anybody that may have forgotten about the global pandemic we're also living through.

"The coronavirus is not over," tweeted the Three 6 Mafia rapper. His message is important, especially considering there has been a recent rise in cases following Memorial Day Weekend.

People were both confused and in disbelief when Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO epidemiologist and technical lead on the pandemic, said that the transmission of COVID-19 among asymptomatic patients is “very rare.” Many wondered why the hell we’ve all been on lockdown for the past few months if that were the case.

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Earlier today, the World Health Organization officially backtracked on the comments, saying that estimates reveal that nearly half of all transmission might be because of those who don’t exhibit any symptoms.

“Some estimates of around 40 percent of transmission may be due to asymptomatic [cases], but those are from models. So I didn’t include that in my answer yesterday but wanted to make sure that I made that clear,” Dr. Van Kerkhove said before adding her initial comments were “a misunderstanding.”

“I wasn’t stating a policy of WHO or anything like that,” she continued. “We do know that some people who are asymptomatic, or some people who do not have symptoms, can transmit the virus on.”

Mike Ryan, head of emergency programs for the WHO, said there was no “intent of WHO to say there is a new or different policy,” adding, “There is still too much unknown about this virus and still too much unknown about its transmission dynamics.”

Ryan did add those infected are the most contagious when their symptoms are visibly bad. ““Now as we look at COVID-19, we have an infectious pathogen that is present in the upper airway for which the viral loads are peaking at the time you are just beginning to get sick,” Ryan said. 

The coronavirus pandemic is still going on but perhaps, it might not be as contagious as initially expected. The past two months have been filled with reminders to wash your hands for 30 seconds and wearing facemasks in public, even those who aren’t showing any symptoms. Asymptomatic patients were truly among the most concerning group among those who tested positive. 

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Per CNBC, the World Health Organization have found those infected with coronavirus but don’t show any symptoms aren’t the ones spreading the disease at a rapid pace. This clashes with studies from other researchers who thought the disease would be hard to contain because of asymptomatic patients. Though it’s not impossible that those without symptoms could transmit COVID-19, certain people, specifically young, healthy individuals, show little to no symptoms.

“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” the head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove said. Though she said this isn’t conclusive, it does look promising.

“We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,” she said. “They’re following asymptomatic cases. They’re following contacts. And they’re not finding secondary transmission onward. It’s very rare.”

The CDC previously established that asymptomatic patients were one of the biggest reasons for social distancing measures. That might change things moving forward but for the time being, Van Kerkhove said that they’re still monitoring the transmission among asymptomatic and presymptomatic people. 

Ever since the NBA shut down on March 11th, a lot has happened in the world. In terms of the Coronavirus, millions of people have been infected with it worldwide, and over 100,000 people in the United States have died from it. Meanwhile, over the past couple of weeks, protests have been going on all across the world following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police. 

Today, the Los Angeles Clippers released a powerful short film called "While We Were Away" which speaks on many of the events of the last three months. This film was narrated by Paul George and there are some very poignant lines that truly make you think and reflect on everything that is happening in the world right now.