Techlife News

q&a: safety a big concern as workers return to their jobs

With more businesses across the country easing back to life, the new challenge will be how to keep workers safe during the pandemic. From temperature checks, contact tracing, social distancing and staggered schedules, a variety of new protocols are being implemented. The stakes are high since without a vaccine or treatment, an outbreak of the new coronavirus could be devastating for companies and workers alike, whether it’s in a meatpacking plant or an office. “Businesses face existential threats all the time. They are built to make decisions that will determine the life or death of the company,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of the staffing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “Choices that affect the life or death of their employees now need to be made for the first time. The stakes have…

survey shows effect of virus on food scarcity, rent payments

More than 10% of U.S. households in a survey last week said they could not get enough of the food they needed some of the time or often, and almost a quarter of respondents said they will have difficulty paying their rent or mortgage or will defer payments, according to survey results released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The Household Pulse Survey showed that around 40% of respondents said last week they had delayed seeking medical care as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and a little under half of the households surveyed last week had some loss of job-related income. Almost 100% of respondents with kids in school had education plans disrupted by school closures, transitions to online learning or having parents teach at home. Adults with kids in schools…

at&t to drop misleading ‘5g’ marketing for non-5g networks

AT&T says it will stop advertising its wireless network as “5G Evolution” after a division of the Better Business Bureau determined that its language was misleading. The network AT&T branded this way is not, in fact, 5G — a new technology for fast wireless data. While AT&T and other wireless carriers in the U.S. have now begun rolling true 5G wireless networks, AT&T in December 2018 began talking about a “5G Evolution” service that was already available in hundreds of markets, and placed a “5G E” icon on phones when they connected to the network. But it was not 5G. It was merely the existing 4G network with minor speed boosts, at least compared to the fastest type of 5G networks. Now, a division of the Better Business Bureau that regulates the…

astrazeneca secures orders for virus vaccine under testing

Drug maker AstraZeneca said Thursday it had secured its first agreements for 400 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine it is testing, bolstered by an investment from the U.S. vaccine agency. The Anglo-Swedish company reported it had received more than $1 billion from the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority for the development, production and delivery of the vaccine, starting this fall. The investment will accelerate the development and production of the vaccine, AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said. It had already joined forces with the British government and is in discussions with the Serum Institute of India and other potential partners to increase production and distribution. “We will do everything in our power to make this vaccine quickly and widely available,” Soriot said. Pharmaceutical companies including also Moderna and Sanofi are…

technology gap causes difficulties for rural alaska students

Some rural Alaska students participating in distance learning because of the coronavirus are experiencing difficulties caused by technology limitations. Not all students in the Lower Kuskokwim School District have access to the same technology. Some have full internet access and others try to keep in touch with teachers by telephone, KYUKAM reported Tuesday. Patrick Williams, a Bethel Regional High School media education specialist, said most students he works with have not had sufficient contact with their teachers. “When I was making more phone calls regularly, it would be an hour or two a day, just trying to reach out to the same students over, and over, and over, and over again,”Williams said. If a teachers are unavailable, finding answers can require internet connectivity that is not available for all students, he said. “You know I…

pomp and masks: graduations draw thousands despite pandemic

High schools nationwide have canceled or postponed traditional graduation ceremonies to avoid worsening the spread of the new coronavirus, but some plunged ahead with full-fledged springtime commencement exercises as usual, with tweaks to account for health concerns. Thousands of graduates, parents, siblings and grandparents were invited to a nearly 11,000-seat stadium on Wednesday and Thursday nights in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover, where two high schools — among the largest in Alabama — were organizing traditional commencement exercises despite COVID-19. Two schools in nearby cities held their ceremonies, with chairs for more than 540 graduates spread apart across a football field at Thompson High and a keynote address by the state school superintendent. Few wore protective face masks, and seniors hugged and gathered in tight groups for pictures. Dr. Michael Saag, who treats…