NEWS YOU OUGHT TO KNOW
Dallas Library card holders can take internet home with new hotspot lending program
BY THE HUB ON FEBRUARY 20, 2020
The new DPL program will provide 900 mobile hotspots at the identified library locations to give residents the opportunity to access online resources for up to 30 days at home. More than 42 percent of Dallas residents do not have a fixed internet connection in their home, according to the 2016 American Communities Survey.
Beginning Feb. 20, hotspots can be placed on request just like a library book and it must be checked out at the designated location. Hotspots must be checked out in-person with no option to renew at one of the Dallas Public Library locations listed below.
Hotspots are available at the following branches:
Skyline Branch, Pleasant Grove, Branch Prairie Creek Branch, Dallas West Branch, Martin Luther King Branch, Highland Hills Branch, Arcadia Park Branch, Bachman Lake Branch, Paul Laurence Dunbar Lancaster-Kiest Branch, Polk Wisdom Branch
Dallas City Council approved the purchase of the hotspots during the budget adoption process in September.
How deadly is new coronavirus? It’s still too early to tell
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists can’t tell yet how deadly the new virus that’s spreading around the globe really is — and deepening the mystery, the fatality rate differs even within China.
As infections of the virus that causes COVID-19 surge in other countries, even a low fatality rate can add up to lots of victims, and understanding why one place fares better than another becomes critical to unravel.
People who travel generally are healthier and thus may be better able to recover, noted Johns Hopkins University outbreak specialist Lauren Sauer. And countries began screening returning travelers, spotting infections far earlier in places where the medical system wasn’t already strained.
That’s now changing, with clusters of cases in Japan, Italy and Iran, and the death toll outside of China growing.
A cousin of this new virus caused the far deadlier severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003, and about 10% of SARS patients died.
Flu is a different virus family, and some strains are deadlier than others. On average, the death rate from seasonal flu is about 0.1%, said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
That’s far lower than what has been calculated so far for COVID-19. But millions of people get the flu every year around the world, leading to an annual death toll in the hundreds of thousands.
WHO’S MOST AT RISK FROM COVID-19?
Older people, especially those with chronic illnesses such as heart or lung diseases, are more at risk.
Among younger people, deaths are rarer, Aylward said. But some young deaths have made headlines, such as the 34-year-old doctor in China who was reprimanded by communist authorities for sounding an early alarm about the virus only to later succumb to it.
Buttigieg sick, cancels several Florida events
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has cancelled four events in south Florida set for Wednesday because of illness.
Buttigieg campaign spokesman Chris Meagher says the former mayor is sick with a cold.
