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How British Scientists Found the More Infectious Coronavirus Variant

Benjamin Mueller

January 16, 2021 |

The New York Times |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United Kingdom, Cambridge

In March when fewer than 100 coronavirus infections had been found in the U.K, researchers in Cambridge decided to begin sequencing coronavirus samples as part of an "unparalleled surveillance system for Covid" that could identify and track possible mutations or the virus. This effort – which involves labs sending leftover material from testing swabs to the researcher's genomics lab where they are stored and analyzed – has culminated in hundreds of thousands of genome sequences and "sounded an alarm for the world" about the new fast-spreading variant.

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On its 20th birthday, Wikipedia might be the safest place online

Heather Kelly

January 15, 2021 |

The Washington Post |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Wikipedia’s large number of volunteer editors document history in real time, while making sure different viewpoints are considered and avoiding misinformation. While other social media sites are hesitant to label unreliable sources and misinformation, Wikipedia clearly labels controversial and unproven topics and deploys many tools to avoid false information. A single page per topic makes monitoring easier, pages can be locked from new edits, and people who frequently make false edits can be banned. While it doesn’t claim to be a reliable source, editors do follow policies meant to keep out anything untrue.

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How Californians are resorting to crowdsourcing to get their Covid-19 vaccine

Kelsey Piper

January 15, 2021 |

Vox |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, California

Residents of California are working together to crowdsource where COVID-19 vaccinations are being offered, and who they're being offered to. While the state has failed to implement a transparent dissemination strategy, 70 volunteers joined forces to create a spreadsheet that keeps track of what clinics are offering the shot and what parameters must be met to receive it. Users have reported that they were able to schedule an appointment because of this effort.

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How Open Source Experts Identified the US Capitol Rioters

Rowan Philp

January 15, 2021 |

Global Investigative Journalism Network |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Digital sleuths preserved a trove of evidence from the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by acting quickly to "scrape" and archive videos, images, and other data from social media. Investigative journalists from Bellingcat, the Toronto-based Citizen Lab, and Czech data archive Intelligence X were among those who responded before rioters, worried about criminal charges, began deleting posts. Crowdsourcing calls for assistance also produced a robust response from people anxious to aid law enforcement or debunk post-riot disinformation.

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One, two, tree: how AI helped find millions of trees in the Sahara

Amy Fleming

January 15, 2021 |

The Guardian |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Algeria

Tree mapping helps researchers understand deforestation and climate change, however the technologies used often miss trees that aren’t clustered. Researchers, in collaboration with NASA, used high-resolution satellite images, previously only available to commercial entities, to find a surprisingly large number of trees in the Sahara Desert. Using AI deep learning and one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers at the University of Illinois, they identified more than 1.8 billion trees, manually marking nearly 90,000 so the computer could “learn” which shapes and shadows indicated the presence of trees.

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Barbershops in Black communities provide information on COVID-19, vaccine

Becky Perlow Kenneth Moton

January 12, 2021 |

ABC News (American Broadcasting Company) |

Broadcast TV News |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Silver Spring, Maryland

In an effort to help get accurate information to the communities who are being disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, a program called Live Chair Health has started to train barbers "on chronic issues that disproportionately affect Black communities" and teach them "how to have conversations with their clients about the diseases." Aside from providing COVID-19 information, the initiative has helped patrons access primary care and address other medical issues such as high blood pressure.

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Three countries have pulled far ahead of the rest of the world in distributing Covid-19 vaccines

Annabelle Timsit

January 11, 2021 |

Quartz |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Israel

Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have each "vaccinated a higher proportion of their populations than the rest of the world" due to strategies that included early approval of the vaccine, centralized and digitized health care data management, and cross-sector information campaigns. Although it's yet to be seen how these efforts will fare when the vaccine is released to the general public, they have proven to be successful for distribution to vulnerable people and communities.

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The bold plan to save Africa's largest forest

Peter Yeung

January 07, 2021 |

BBC |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Under an innovative scheme in the Democratic Republic of Congo, indigenous communities are obtaining the legal right to own and manage the forests where they reside. This ownership has shown success in slowing deforestation of the Congo rainforest and creating new economic opportunities for residents in these villages. “Rather than just being an add-on, community forestry is now being considered as a mainstream model for forest management,” says a coordinator for the Rainforest Foundation UK.

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CHOP financial wellness program helps local families recoup $700K

Jessica Blatt Press

January 07, 2021 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Boston, Massachusetts

A pediatric care center in Philadelphia has partnered with a nonprofit that "helps people with tax prep and asset-building" as well as an organization that provides financial counselors to offer young patients free, on-site help with their taxes. The initiative is modeled after Boston Medical Center' StreetCred program which has "returned more than $5.3 million to more than 2,700 low-income families since 2016."

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Why West Virginia's Winning The Race To Get COVID-19 Vaccine Into Arms

Yuki Noguchi

January 07, 2021 |

NPR |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, West Virginia

West Virginia managed to deliver approximately 90% of the COVID-19 vaccine doses allocated to the state within a week by "charting its own path to vaccine distribution." Rather than rely on chain stores as part of the vaccination plan every other state has done, the West Virginia government partnered with local pharmacies who were already serving rural populations and long-term care facilities to piggyback off of those already-established relationships.

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