The post Marshall Ramsey: Distancing appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Uber Wants to Go All-Electric by 2030. It Won’t Be Easy
The coronavirus pandemic has been an all-around nightmare, but there are a few silver linings. One of these is a renewed focus on the environment. Emissions plummeted worldwide when countries went into lockdown in the spring, and cities have since been implementing new measures to keep pollution down and get people to be more active and environmentally conscious.
In keeping with the trend, ridesharing market leader Uber announced on Tuesday that it will transition to a 100 percent electric car fleet by 2030. Lyft, its main competitor, made a similar announcement in June. Are the ride-hailing companies’ commitments to greening linked to the pandemic? It’s unclear; they likely would have implemented this switch at some point in the near future anyway, and the pandemic may simply have accelerated it (as it did for other technologies and trends, like automation and remote work).
The pandemic hasn’t been kind to Uber; for starters, no one really went anywhere for months on end. When people did venture out of their homes—anxious and restless and clad in the same sweats they’d been wearing all week—they opted for transportation methods that minimized contact with other people and with potentially germ-covered surfaces; walking, biking, and driving one’s own car all saw a resurgence. Uber implemented safety protocols including requiring drivers and passengers to wear masks at all times, but their business has still taken a big hit. I mean, come on—where’s the last place you went other than your living room, kitchen, or the nearest park (which you can most likely walk to)?
The company is focused on a brighter future, though, and one not dependent on fossil fuels. It’s a good thing, because ridesharing actually causes more pollution than driving one’s own car. When you drive yourself somewhere, you get there, turn the car off, and go do whatever you’re there to do; in other words, the car is only running when you’re using it to get from point A to point B. But Ubers and Lyfts run pretty much constantly—they drop you off then circle around for a while until they can pick up another rider, or they sit idling waiting for a notification to come in. All that in-between time adds up; a study from February of this year found that ride-hailing trips cause up to 69 percent more climate pollution than the trips they displace.
That’s not only not great for the environment, but not great for the future of ridesharing companies. So here’s Uber’s fix: it plans to be a zero-emissions platform by 2040, have 100 percent of its US, Canadian, and European rides take place in electric cars by 2030, and reach net-zero emissions from its corporate operations by 2030.
These goals are well and good, but not without complications. For starters, it’s not Uber that owns its cars—its drivers do. That means anyone who wants to pick up some cash on the side driving for Uber—and those who drive as a full-time job—would have to buy their own electric cars. The cost of electric cars is predicted to drop below that of gas cars by 2022, and they’re cheaper to own and operate over a long term, but for now, they still require a significantly higher up-front cash outlay.
For a company that doesn’t have a shining record of treating its employees well (it has fought tooth and nail to keep from having to give drivers employee benefits rather than hiring them as independent contractors), it might be a lot to ask to have drivers cough up an extra few thousand dollars to help meet a goal they may not particularly care about. Anticipating this, Uber says it has earmarked $800 million to help its drivers transition to electric vehicles. In a deal with General Motors, Uber drivers can get employee pricing on new Chevy Bolts (on top of an $8,500 rebate offered to all buyers). Uber is also launching additional incentives for drivers to electrify, such as getting paid an extra dollar for each ride they give in an electric car (in Canada and the US only).
Even if these incentives are enough to convince drivers to go out and buy an electric car, though (and if it were me, it would take a lot more than what’s being offered to get me to trade in my trusty, beloved Saab I’ve had for years), the added challenges don’t end there. Drivers will have to find places to charge their vehicles, which is trickier than fueling up at a gas station, especially if you don’t live in a place where you can just run an extension cord from your house out to your car.
Given how ubiquitous Uber and other ride-sharing services have become, it’s funny to think they weren’t even around ten years ago. Remember stepping into the street and throwing an arm into the air to hail a cab? The idea of being able to summon a custom ride anytime, anywhere using a powerful but tiny handheld computer was nothing short of inconceivable back then.
Uber’s commitment to go all-electric by 2030 is a lofty goal. But also, 10 years is a long way away, and a lot could happen during that time. Maybe drivers will be more willing than we think to spend some extra money for a plug-in vehicle. Or maybe, ten years down the road, we’ll have an entirely new method of transportation that has nothing to do with Uber—one that, as of 2020, is perhaps… nothing short of inconceivable.
Image Credit: Uber
Weekend forecast for North Mississippi
Good Friday morning everyone! Temperatures are comfortable this morning in the low 70s. We will see mostly sunny skies, with a high near 93 today. Northeast wind around 5 mph. Tonight, partly cloudy skies, with a low around 73 for those high school football games!
SATURDAY: 50% chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly afternoon. Otherwise, a mix of sun and clouds, with a high near 91. Calm wind becoming east southeast around 5 mph.
SATURDAY NIGHT: 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy skies, with a low around 73.
SUNDAY: Showers and thunderstorms likely. Otherwise, mostly cloudy skies, with a high near 87. Calm wind becoming east northeast around 5 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 70%.
SUNDAY NIGHT: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 72.
Food Truck Locations Thursday September 10th
Jo’s Cafe is at Longtown Medical Plaza.
Local Mobile is closed for a private event.
Gypsy Roadside Mobile is closed today.
Taqueria Ferrus is on West Main between Computer Universe and Sully’s Pawn.
Magnolia Creamery is in the Old Navy parking lot
Vitalant First to Provide COVID-19 Antibody Positive Rates for 250,000 Blood Donors in Support of Pandemic Response Efforts
Recovered COVID-19 Individuals Encouraged to Register to Become Convalescent Plasma Donors
TUPELO, MS (Sept. 10, 2020) — To support pandemic response and preparedness efforts, today, Vitalant became the first U.S. blood services provider to release COVID-19 antibody-positive rates of more than 250,000 blood donors, June through July 2020, including those in the Northern Nevada area. Those with a positive diagnostic or antibody test result are encouraged to consider registering to become a convalescent plasma donor and potentially help patients fight the disease.
COVID-19 Antibody Testing (Reference map and chart)
On June 1, 2020, Vitalant was the first national blood services provider to begin testing all blood donations for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The testing helps to identify donors who could help COVID-19 patients by becoming future convalescent plasma donors.
More than 250,000 total donors were tested, with an overall positive antibody rate of 2.26% in July, up from 1.37% in June. Vitalant’s blood service area based out of Montvale, New Jersey had the highest prevalence in July with 7.65% while Rapid City, South Dakota had the lowest in July at 0.64%. In Tupelo and the surrounding region, positive antibody rates were 2.51% in July and 1.14% in June.
“We are pleased to share our data to assist ongoing response and preparedness efforts,” said Ralph Vassallo, M.D., chief medical and scientific officer at Vitalant. “We will continue antibody testing all blood donations for the foreseeable future to help identify convalescent plasma donors and meet the emergent need.”
Convalescent Plasma Donations
Plasma is the liquid, antibody-rich part of blood. Collected from recovered patients, this convalescent plasma has been used to treat the sick for more than 100 years and may give patients an immune system boost to fight disease. In April 2020, Vitalant began collecting and distributing convalescent plasma from those recovered from COVID-19.
“Although there are ongoing discussions regarding the Food and Drug Administration’s Emergency Use Authorization for convalescent plasma, we believe its risk-benefit profile is favorable, and plasma may be effective in hospitalized patients,” Vassallo continued. “Vitalant supports evidence-based decision-making and will continue to advocate for randomized trials to prove its efficacy and identify appropriate recipients. In the meantime, our focus remains on helping to save lives.”
“Convalescent plasma donations are being distributed at a rapid clip – and we need to collect for immediate needs, as well as to be prepared for a second wave of infections,” said Cliff Numark, chief of marketing and senior vice president of donor services. “Vitalant’s goal is to double donations in the coming weeks and months and that is why we ask those who have recovered to help current patients in need.”
–more–
Blood donors with a COVID-19 positive diagnostic or antibody test result can register to give convalescent plasma by visiting Vitalant.org/COVIDFree or calling 866-CV-PLSMA (866-287-5762). Donations can be made every 28 days or more frequently—up to every seven days—with Vitalant medical director approval.
Giving Blood is an Essential Activity
Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. Blood and platelet donations are needed throughout this pandemic to help trauma victims, cancer patients and others with serious medical conditions.
The U.S. Surgeon General and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) designated blood donation as an essential activity, encouraging healthy and eligible donors to continue to donate during the COVID-19 pandemic. From coast to coast, all Vitalant donation centers and blood drives continue to deploy strict precautionary measures to ensure the safety of donors, patients and staff, including:
- Taking donors’ temperatures upon check-in (staff self-monitor their temperatures)
- Requiring face masks or cloth-based face coverings (donors and staff)
- Disinfecting donor-touched and other high-touch areas often and after every donation
- Ensuring social distancing to keep donors and staff safe
About VitalantVitalant (“Vye-TAL-ent”) is the nation’s largest independent, nonprofit blood services provider exclusively focused on providing lifesaving blood and comprehensive transfusion medicine services for approximately 1,000 hospitals and their patients across 40 states. Every day, Vitalant needs to collect about 5,500 blood and platelet donations to help save lives. For more information and to schedule a donation appointment, visit vitalant.org or call 877-25-VITAL (877-258-4825). Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Another charged in former MDE director’s alleged kickback scheme
Errol Harmon is the fifth individual charged in connection to a conspiracy to defraud the Mississippi Department of Education through bid rigging, false quotes and fake purchase orders.
Mike Hurst, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi
Cerissa Neal, the former director of the Office of Educator Licensure at the state education department, is accused of conspiring with several others to circumvent the state’s contract procurement process and award contracts to individuals in exchange for kickbacks. U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst brought the charges against Neal and the others in February, but court records were sealed until August.
A request for comment from Hurst’s office was not immediately returned Wednesday.
The contracts first drew scrutiny from the state’s legislative watchdog committee, the state auditor’s office and media reports in 2017.
READ MORE: Former MDE director indicted in contract kickback conspiracy
Neal pleaded not guilty to 12 total counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery.
In the initial indictment, three other Tennessee-based individuals were named as Neal’s co-defendants. In a separate document filed Aug. 25, Harmon was accused of working with Neal, Joseph Kyles, David Hunt and Lambert Martin in the scheme.
Attempts to reach Harmon on Wednesday were not successful.
Neal is accused of splitting contract requests from one contract into smaller contracts to avoid the competitive bidding process. Then, using her position in the department, she would allegedly award the contract to her co-defendants’ businesses at an inflated price, then personally receive a check from the business that won the contract.
Joseph B. Kyles, whose company The Kyles Company was paid more than $650,000 in a three-year period, paid Harmon on numerous occasions in 2014 and 2015. Harmon would then pay Neal soon after, the indictment stated.
Harmon is being charged on one count of conspiracy, one count of bribery and a third count of crossing state lines and using the mail to distribute unlawful funds. His arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 24 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda Anderson.
The post Another charged in former MDE director’s alleged kickback scheme appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Here’s what the November ballot will look like in Mississippi
Mississippi’s Secretary of State’s office released the 2020 general election sample ballot on Wednesday.
See what voters will see on Election Day when they head to the polls Nov. 3, 2020. For more information on the candidates and initiatives on the ballot, visit our 2020 Voter Guide.
View our 2020 Voter Guide for more information on the 2020 Election.
The post Here’s what the November ballot will look like in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.
How many people at your college have COVID-19? In Mississippi, it’s hard to track
Since classes began for Mississippi’s eight public universities less than a month ago, there have been a total of at least 896 students, faculty and staff members who have contracted the coronavirus.
College campuses are expected to become the new COVID hotspots, with infections rising as students return to campus and share living spaces and common areas. All public colleges in Mississippi began class on Aug. 17, except the University of Mississippi, which started Aug. 24.
It is difficult to gauge the scale of infections at the state’s public colleges and universities because they are not required to disclose this information to the public and those that do all use different metrics. The Mississippi Department of Health recently started reporting K-12 cases by county, but there is no weekly report yet for the state’s higher education institutions.
All universities except for Alcorn are publishing case count numbers on their websites, though each school is doing it very differently.
For example, the University of Mississippi’s dashboard contains detailed case counts and other trends, but is missing the vital metric of disclosing how many tests have been performed. Without knowing that, it’s impossible to know the positivity rate, which tells how widespread infections are in an area.
The University of Southern Mississippi includes this metric but publicly updates its numbers weekly, not daily.
Delta State University’s dashboard only gives the cumulative total of infections since classes began, so it’s unknown what the day to day totals are.
Jackson State University has not updated its tracker since Aug. 19 and also does not include the total number of tests conducted; Mississippi Valley State University’s tracker also doesn’t include this information.
Mississippi State University’s dashboard does include the total number of tests conducted, but doesn’t say how many cases are still active
The Mississippi University for Women’s dashboard does not enumerate its daily totals and also doesn’t disclose how many people have been tested.
The post How many people at your college have COVID-19? In Mississippi, it’s hard to track appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Here’s where Cindy Hyde-Smith and Mike Espy stand on healthcare ahead of Senate race
Democrat Mike Espy is challenging Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in November. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
A week after the Nov. 3 general election, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on a lawsuit, supported by President Donald Trump, to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.
As COVID-19 continues to grip the nation, healthcare costs and accessibility remains one of the top issues for voters, and multiple polls show that most Mississippians consider the issue as their top policy concern.
Incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith hopes the nation’s highest court sides with the president. Former congressman and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, her Democratic opponent in the November election, hopes the court does not.
Espy, who lost to Hyde-Smith by about 7 percentage points in a 2018 special election, wants to expand the Affordable Care Act. He said repealing the ACA could place in jeopardy pre-existing condition coverage for 593,000 Mississippians. In addition, about 100,000 Mississippians have health insurance through the ACA Health Insurance Exchange that would presumably be shut down should the Supreme Court rule Obamacare unconstitutional.
Hyde-Smith, on the other hand, wants to replace the ACA.
“Sen. Hyde-Smith believes that common-sense, patient-centered reforms would better help Mississippi families afford health insurance without expanding government’s role in providing healthcare,” said Justin Brasell, a spokesperson for Hyde-Smith. “She believes that Obamacare should be repealed and replaced with healthcare that puts patients at the center of their own healthcare, not the government.”
Asked about what would happen to people with pre-existing conditions should the ACA be repealed, Brasell said, “President Trump has repeatedly stated that he will ensure that individuals with pre-existing conditions will continue to be covered regardless of the outcome of the litigation. Sen. Hyde-Smith agrees with the president that ensuring continued protection for these individuals is important, and so does Senate Republican leadership.
“That’s why the Senate’s most recent COVID-19 bill included language to ensure these protections are maintained,” Brasell continued. “It is unfortunate for so many reasons that Democrats have blocked consideration of that bill, but this is definitely one of the worst.”
READ MORE: Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith campaign touts healthcare vote — that her predecessor actually made
The proposals made by Senate Republicans to cover pre-existing conditions in absence of the ACA have been met with skepticism by many healthcare advocates. The nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, for instance, points out some Senate GOP plans have prevented the exclusion of pre-existing conditions coverage from insurance policies, but do not provide financial supplements to make the plans affordable.
In short, the insurance companies might be able to charge more for people based on their pre-existing condition and might even allow higher premiums for women than for men, according to the KFF analysis.
Espy has worked to make healthcare a central focus of his campaign. In recent years, he has revealed his own pre-existing condition, a throat virus resulting in his often raspy or hoarse voice and his need for regular shots to combat the condition.
He has spoken of nearly dying from an asthma condition as a youth because the hospital started by his grandfather in Yazoo County — the Afro-American Hospital, the state’s first hospital for Black Mississippians — had run out of oxygen canisters. Espy’s father drove to the then-white hospital in Yazoo City to get oxygen to provide treatment for his son.
“That was 60 years ago,” Espy said in a campaign statement. “Mississippi has made a lot of progress in the past 60 years, yet our healthcare system is still in crisis. Healthcare is not equal. We have failed our rural hospitals and our rural communities because we can’t guarantee affordable and accessible healthcare.
“That’s why my top priority in the Senate is to finally expand Medicaid in states like Mississippi, where health insurance and access to rural healthcare can make the difference between life and death.”
READ MORE: “By God, Mississippi is a battleground state”: Stacey Abrams handicaps 2020 Senate race
Mississippi is one of just 12 states nationally to not have expanded Medicaid under the ACA to provide coverage for primarily the working poor. The state’s leadership, governor and legislative leaders, have balked at the idea, saying the state cannot afford to provide the Medicaid coverage for 200,000 to 300,000 Mississippians.
Under the Medicaid expansion program, the federal government would pay 90% of the costs, and the state would be responsible for 10%.
Recent polling has indicated a majority of Mississippians now support Medicaid expansion.
A Hyde-Smith campaign spokesman said the decision of whether to expand Medicaid is for the governor and state Legislature to make — not a U.S. senator.
“In fact, the Supreme Court agrees. By a vote of 7-2 in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to mandate that all states expand Medicaid,” Brasell said. “The Supreme Court recognized that our Constitution is built on the concept of federalism and the balance of power between the states and the federal government.”
If elected, Espy said he will work with state leaders to try to build a coalition to expand Medicaid. He also said he will push on the federal level to try to convert all the costs for the Medicaid expansion to the federal government.
Of course, if the U.S. Supreme court does overturn the ACA, the Medicaid expansion program, now covering most of the United States, would also be halted.
Brasell said the ultimate goal of Democrats is actually to overturn the ACA.
“Democrats want to replace Obamacare with Medicare for All, making private insurance illegal and putting the government in charge of 100% of healthcare in this country,” he said. “This is the last thing Mississippians want or need. Perhaps you could ask Mike Espy where he stands on government-run healthcare.”
Espy, like Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, has touted expanding the ACA, not replacing it with so-called Medicaid for All.
“I am committed to building upon the Affordable Care Act in order to lower health care costs for all Mississippians,” Espy said on his website.
The post Here’s where Cindy Hyde-Smith and Mike Espy stand on healthcare ahead of Senate race appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Marshall Ramsey: Is Irony Contagious
The post Marshall Ramsey: Is Irony Contagious appeared first on Mississippi Today.