Science - USA (2020-06-05)

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PHOTO: ITER ORGANIZATION

China CDC head wants changes

PUBLIC HEALTH | The head of China’s

national public health agency last week

asked the government to give it more

decision-making power and reduce

“micromanagement” by health adminis-

trators to address shortcomings revealed

by the COVID-19 pandemic. Gao Fu (also

known as George Gao), director of the

Chinese Center for Disease Control and

Prevention, offered a pointed critique of

existing bureaucracies in an interview with

China Youth Daily, an official government

newspaper. During the crisis, the agency’s

experts could make recommendations but

were not included in key decisions about

the response, Gao said. Responsibility for

public health is splintered among govern-

ment agencies that don’t coordinate their

work, he added.

The other guy’s COVID-

OPINION RESEARCH | Americans think

they are less likely than peers to contract

COVID-19, even though many worry

about the danger it poses to the broader

population. In surveys in March and April,

psychologists at University College London

found that participants rated the pandemic

as a large danger to others (74 on a scale

of 100, on average, with 100 representing

“extreme danger”) but not to themselves

(2.8 on a five-point scale, with five represent-

ing “much less likely” to get sick). Despite

this apparent paradox, most respondents

followed government advice on social dis-

tancing and other precautions, according to

a preprint posted on the PsyArXiv server on

29 May. Those who were more worried about

others were more likely to follow public

health advice, the survey found, even though

“optimism bias” about one’s own prospects

often leads people to take undue risks.

Panel faults U.K. test statistics

EPIDEMIOLOGY | The head of a U.K. agency

that oversees government statistics this

week criticized Secretary of State for Health

and Social Care Matt Hancock for releas-

ing numbers on the volume of COVID-

testing that were inflated “at the expense of

understanding.” The figures mix completed

lab results with uncompleted tests in

which nose swabs were mailed for analysis,

wrote David Norgrove, chairman of the UK

Statistics Authority, in a 2 June letter to

Hancock. The practice yields an artificially

low rate of positive results, Norgrove said.

A

n apparently new Ebola outbreak has surfaced in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo (DRC), just as the country was close

to declaring the disease under control. On 1 June, the DRC’s

Ministry of Health said eight people in Mbandaka, a city in

Équateur province, had hemorrhagic fever and four had died.

Blood samples in three of the cases tested positive for the virus.

In 2018, the same region quelled an Ebola outbreak that lasted

3 months. No evidence suggests this new outbreak is linked to another,

ongoing one in the DRC’s North Kivu province, 1000 kilometers away,

that began just as the 2018 Équateur outbreak ended. North Kivu has

not recorded a new case for 3 weeks. Ebola virus regularly jumps from

animals to humans, and this is the DRC’s 11th recorded outbreak.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Congo tallies new Ebola cases

Iranian nuclear work scuttled

NONPROLIFERATION | Ratcheting up

its pressure campaign against Iran, the

United States announced last week it

will cancel waivers of economic and

legal sanctions that had allowed foreign

organizations to help Iran reconfig-

ure a nuclear reactor to eliminate a

proliferation risk. Originally designed

for research and to produce isotopes,

Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor could

accumulate enough plutonium in spent

fuel to produce one or two bombs a

year. Under the multinational nuclear

deal negotiated with Iran in 2015 by

former U.S. President Barack Obama’s

administration, Iran agreed to convert

the reactor to run on low-enriched ura-

nium fuel, which would produce only

traces of plutonium. Two years ago, the

United States announced it was with-

drawing from the deal. Last week, U.S.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited

“Iran’s continued nuclear escalation” as

the basis for ending the waivers, which

also covered reducing proliferation risk

at the Tehran Research Reactor. Iranian

officials say they will continue to recon-

figure Arak on their own.

ITER builders take key step

FUSION ENERGY | Construction crews

last week lifted into place the first major

piece of the $25 billion ITER project,

which will be the world’s largest fusion

reactor and may finally demonstrate

that melding together hydrogen nuclei

is a viable energy source. In last week’s

step, about 200 workers carefully lifted

the 1250-ton, 30-meter-wide steel base

of the reactor’s containment chamber

into the construction pit near Cadarache

in France. The COVID-19 pandemic has

slowed progress by delaying delivery

of some components; if key ones are

delayed past December 2021, it may

become difficult to complete construc-

tion by 2025 as planned, says ITER

Director-General Bernard Bigot.

U.S. limits Chinese visas

POLICY | Chinese graduate students

with ties to institutions in China that do

military research can no longer receive

a visa to study in the United States

under an executive order issued last

week by President Donald Trump. Those

already in the United States with such

ties could have their immigration status

reviewed. The new policy is part of an

effort by the Trump administration and

Republicans in Congress to block what

they see as China’s widespread theft of

U.S.-funded academic research. Higher

education officials worry such steps—

including another pending bill targeting

Chinese financial support of U.S.-based

researchers—will limit the pool of

foreign talent.

SCIENCEMAG.ORG/TAGS/CORONAVIRUS

Read additional Science coverage of the pandemic.

5 JUNE 2020 • VOL 368 ISSUE 6495 1037

Cranes lift the steel base of ITER’s containment

chamber, called a cryostat, into place.

Published by AAAS