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1. FDA approves rapid, inexpensive saliva test for novel coronavirus

Relevant for GS Prelims & Mains Paper III; Science & Technology

In what might turn out to be an important step in easy, inexpensive SARS-CoV-2 testing, a
new rapid diagnostic test for novel coronavirus infection that uses saliva samples was
granted an emergency use authorisation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
on August 15. It was submitted for authorisation by the FDA on July 14. The test uses a new
method of processing saliva samples for testing coronavirus infection.

SalivaDirect
The test, called SalivaDirect, has high sensitivity, according to a preprint posted on
medRxiv on August 4. According to the preprint, SalivaDirect test can detect when the
number of virus copies in the saliva sample is as low as six-12 copies per microlitre. In
contrast, testing nasopharyngeal swabs leads to false negative test results due to errors at
the time of sample collection. The sensitivity was about 93%.

Collecting and testing saliva samples three steps — collecting saliva without preservative
buffers, proteinase K treatment and heat inactivation, and dualplex RT-qPCR virus
detection.

Evaluating the test

The test was developed by a team led by Nathan Grubaugh and Anne Wyllie of Yale School
of Public Health in partnering with the National Basketball Association and National
Basketball Players Association. The research team validated the efficacy of SalivaDirect in
part by testing NBA players, coaches, and staff as they look to continue playing while
ensuring the health of players and staff.

Prior to testing on NBA players, coaches and staff, Yale tested it on 44 inpatients and 98
health care workers. They found that saliva samples taken from just inside the mouth
provided “greater detection sensitivity and consistency throughout the course of an
infection than the broadly recommended nasopharyngeal approach”, according to a Yale
release. The study also found less variability in results with the self-sample collection of
saliva.

Open source protocol

Moreover, Yale has provided the testing protocol as an “open source” protocol, thus
allowing laboratories in the U.S. to perform the tests. “Thus, SalivaDirect will be free to use
by diagnostic labs. NGOs may apply for a licence. While the licence will be free, If you
represent a for-profit organisation, we may issue a licence. The licence will be free, but we
will want to negotiate how much you charge for the tests. We made this to be inexpensive,
and we need those savings to be transferred to your customers.”

Advantages of saliva test

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Instead of relying on nasopharyngeal specimens, the new test uses saliva, which makes the
sample collection non-invasive. It also reduces the need for trained healthcare workers to
collect the samples and reduces the risk of virus spread to healthcare workers at the time
of sample collection. This is because collecting the sample from the nasopharyngeal region
requires a swab to be inserted into the back of the nostrils, which very often causes
irritation leading to sneezing and coughing, thus exposing healthcare workers from getting
exposed to the virus.

Collecting nasopharyngeal samples can be uncomfortable to people, discouraging them

from getting tested. The saliva test is likely to increase testing compliance.

The saliva sample can be collected in any sterile container. The diagnostic test also does not
require the use of preservatives at sample collection, does not require specialised reagents
or equipment for nucleic acid extraction.

Experts welcome test

Even in the eight months of the pandemic, U.S. and other countries have struggled to test
large number of people quickly and efficiently using a reliable test that is also inexpensive.
The FDA emergency use authorisation has therefore been welcomed by public health
experts.

Source: The Hindu

2. After Israel-UAE-US deal: gainers and losers, and key takeaways

Relevant for GS Prelims & Mains Paper II; IOBR

Israel and the United Arab Emirates, helped by the US, have arrived at an important peace
agreement that has the potential to change the geopolitics of West Asia and beyond.

What is the big deal?

The announcement by the White House on Thursday took the world by surprise,
Palestinians included. The deal: the UAE will establish diplomatic relations with Israel in
return for President Binyamin Netanyahu committing to give up a stated plan to annex the
West Bank, the main territory of a state that the Palestinians want. The UAE becomes the
third Arab nation to recognise Israel after Egypt (in 1979) and Jordan (1994).

In the coming week, according to the White House statement, delegations from the two
countries will meet to set in motion bilateral ties in investment, tourism, direct flights,
security, telecommunications, tech, energy, healthcare, culture, the environment, etc. On
priority, Israel and UAE will work together to find a treatment and a vaccine for Covid-19.

The agreement, hailed by President Donald Trump, Netanyahu, and Sheikh Mohammed Bin
Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE, as a
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breakthrough, has been cast as the coming together of two nations with strong economies
for the good of the region.

What about the Palestinians?

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, which seeks a two-state solution,
lashed out against the deal as a “betrayal” by the UAE. He has been disengaged from the
Trump administration for the last two years for its pro-Israel stand. “The Palestinian
leadership rejects and denounces the UAE, Israeli and US trilateral, surprising,
announcement,” a senior adviser to Abbas said. It was a “betrayal of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa and
the Palestinian cause,” he said.

The Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist militant group that de facto runs the Gaza strip, and
views the relationship with Israel as a fight to the finish, called it a “stabbing in the back of
our people” by the UAE.

For the Palestinians, the Israeli commitment that it will not pursue its plan to annex the
West Bank, is an empty concession – the deal does not address the Palestinian demand for
statehood. Netanyahu floated the annexation plan recently – it means Israel will claim
sovereignty of all land in the West Bank on which Jewish settlements have come up,
literally cutting up the dream of a Palestinian state.

It was not certain if Netanyahu would have gone ahead with it even without the UAE deal.
Now, by agreeing not to, he has enabled the UAE to talk it up to its Arab allies as a major
concession extracted from Israel, while Netanyahu himself can project it elsewhere abroad
as a big give on his part, without compromising on the core issues of the conflict.

An extreme pro-annexation section of the settler lobby in Israel is angry, but he has
mollified domestic audiences that this is a “temporary” hold on the plan.

How have the Arab states reacted?

Saudi Arabia has said nothing so far, although the ruling family’s Prince Turki al-Faisal had
strongly rejected the proposals for Israel-Palestine peace unveiled by the US in January this
year, which included a plan to hand over Jersualem to Israel and permit it to extend its
sovereignty to all Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

But Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) has been hailed as an ally by the Trump
administration. He has formed a solid friendship with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner,
the President’s pointman in the Middle East, tasked with finding a solution to the Israeli-
Arab conflict.

There is bound to be speculation that the UAE could not have taken its extraordinary
decision on Israel without the backing and support of the House of Saud. Over the years,
the Saudis have seen both the US and Israel as insurance against Shia Iran. But as the leader

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of the Arab world, and the custodian of Islam’s holiest shrines, it might have preferred
someone else to take the revolutionary first step on this.

The smaller Gulf states of Oman and Bahrain have quickly fallen in line behind UAE, and it
could be a matter of time before the others, including Saudi, do as well. That is the hope
Trump expressed on Thursday.

How does the region’s geopolitics change?

If the Arab states do fall in line, it would dramatically bring all Sunni nations in the region
in an anti-Iran alliance with Israel that they have secretly wished for all these years. Iran
and its proxies and allies – in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the
Houthis in Yemen – have been weakened and broken by war, the ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Hezbollah, which Israel has treated as enemy number 1 after Iran, faces a domestic
backlash in Lebanon after the explosion that has destroyed Beirut. Russia, a staunch ally of
Syria, has not yet reacted; neither has China.

The deal will send ripples through other parts of the world. In South Asia, it will put
Pakistan in a bind. Despite having toyed with the idea of establishing diplomatic ties with
Israel for nearly two decades, Pakistan could never take the plunge for fear of a domestic
backlash. The weak government of Imran Khan — who knows what it is to be accused of
being part of a Jewish conspiracy after his first marriage to London socialite Jemima
Goldsmith, the daughter of a Jewish millionaire — is already facing criticism at home for
not being able to take on India over its 2019 decisions in Kashmir. Imran is unlikely to be
seen as joining an Arab alliance that has effectively abandoned another “Islamic” cause dear
to Pakistan, that of Palestine.

But then, UAE is a good friend. Pakistan has already annoyed Saudi Arabia, another
“biradar country”, by showing its teeth at the OIC because it did not agree to hold a special
session on Kashmir. The kingdom responded by asking for immediate repayment of a $3 bn
loan given in 2018, and it has frozen a $3.2 bn line of credit for oil purchases. Even if
Pakistan does not join the Arab stampede towards Israel, it cannot rail against them for it.

In Kashmir too, where pro-independence lobbies have compared stone pelting agitations of
the last 10 years with the intifada, the isolation of Palestine is certain to mirror the
isolation of Kashmir today.

And how does Trump gain?

The deal has salvaged something resembling an achievement for Trump from the ruins of
his foreign policy. His attempts to create a lasting legacy in the Koreas bombed, while the
Afghanistan peace process is still struggling to get on its feet. US-China relations are on the
rocks. Traditional NATO allies in Europe have been sidelined. Even if the UAE-Israel
agreement does not bring Israel-Palestine peace, the new equations that it will give rise to,
including the isolation of Iran, are already being heralded in the US as an achievement.

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Joe Biden, who is hoping to win the presidential race against a post-Covid weakened
Trump, had no choice but to praise the deal as “a historic step”.

Source: The Indian Express

3. How the new relaxations allow H-1B, L-1 visa holders to resume work
in US

Relevant for GS Prelims & Mains Paper II; IOBR

The US State Department Wednesday allowed some exemptions to President Donald

Trump’s June 22 announcement where he’d indicated that the entry of foreign and non-
immigrant visa workers will be banned till the end of 2020. The new relaxations allow H-
1B and L-1 visa holders to go back to US for continued employment with the same
employer.

What does the new travel advisory say?

In its latest travel advisory, the State Department has said that it had decided to allow
certain categories of workers and non-immigrant visa holders in “national interest”. For
such categories of workers, who are not covered by the presidential proclamation of June
22, neither they nor their spouse or children will be barred from obtaining a visa to travel
to the US.

According to the new advisory, H-1B visa holders who are public or private healthcare
professionals or are engaged in medical research “in an area with a substantial public
health benefit” will be allowed to travel.

Further, H-1B visa holders whose services have been requested by any US government
agency such as those working the information technology and support services, will be
allowed to go back to the US. Non-government IT workers will be allowed to travel to the
US if they are travelling back to resume employment with the same organisation they were
before the June 22 proclamation. Technical specialists, senior managers, and other workers
whose “travel is necessary to facilitate the immediate and continued economic recovery of
the United States” will also be allowed to travel.

Why did the US change its stand on non-immigrant visas?

In his June 22 proclamation, US President Trump had said he was barring the entry of non-
immigrant visa workers as companies had been using the scheme to undercut the jobs
available to US workers since the foreign workers were ready to work for a lesser than
average salary given to the US worker.

However, global IT companies, industry bodies, and other global tech captains such as
Alphabet and Google Inc’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai, Tesla CEO Elon

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Musk, had then condemned the move and said that the H-1B visa regimes had a net positive
impact on the US economy.

“Immigration has contributed immensely to America’s economic success, making it a global

leader in tech, and also Google the company it is today. Disappointed by today’s
proclamation – we’ll continue to stand with immigrants and work to expand opportunity
for all,” Pichai had said then on micro-blogging website Twitter.

In its new advisory, the US state department said that some of the IT workers and other H-
1B as well as L-1 visa holders were being allowed to return as “forcing employers to
replace employees in this situation may cause financial hardship” to them.

Does it help Indian H-1B workers?

Barring the fresh H-1B visa holders who would have gotten their visas approved this year
after April and would have gone to the US some time in September, IT workers with old H-
1B visas issued earlier may get a chance to go back to the US.

This means that companies which require skilled Indian IT workers will be able to hire H-
1B workers from the talent pool of visa holders either already residing in the US or those
that have come back to India and are ready to go back.

In 2018-19 alone for example, tech giants Google, Facebook, and Apple hired more than
13,000 highly skilled IT employees with H-1B work visas, either directly or from existing H-
1B visa holders looking to change jobs and continue their stay in the US, according to the
data available from the US Department of Labour.

Apart from that, companies such as Wipro, TCS, and Infosys, which have big contracts from
US federal agencies, may also benefit as the new advisory allows workers who travel
request is “supported by a request from a US government agency or entity to meet critical
U.S. foreign policy objectives or to satisfy treaty or contractual obligations” in areas of IT
and tech support.

Source: The Indian Express

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