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Thanks again.
>Every year that Google does not settle adds at least another 200 million.
Thanks for the DD on this one.
I see that the case was filed in Dec 2009.
https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/candce-222877-netlist-v-google
In their prayer for relief, they are requesting legal cost + maximum penalties for infringement. However, keep in mind that this patent has got nothing to do with search or ad revenues or the software side of their cloud business (these are the primary revenue drivers)
The infringement is about cost savings on the datacenters that are using memory DIMMS covered by the patent.
i.e. subtract "cost of running google's datacenter in the current manner" from "cost of data center if a different, non-infringing server configuration was used".
Could you give more insights on how you arrive at this 200 million per year number? (i.e, either your own dd accounting for the infringed cost per year to be in this ballpark or an external source/document that you are using to come to this conclusion?)
1) How is generics selling Generic Vascepa for RI indication, after invalidating a MARINE (not RI) patent, does not make a complete mockery out of the legal / regulatory system?
Drug companies have been making a mockery out of this system for years by extending life of patents. unfortunately amarin is receiving the wrong end of the stick in this case.
Doctors will write a prescription for vascepa. Insurers and pharmacists, who don't have insights into the patient's triglyceride level will substitute this with generics. The patient walks away paying just a few dollars for generic vascepa. As an investor you lose and the patient wins - the sooner you wake up to this new reality, the better it is.
2)Completely different population, of 19 men?!
If they had included women, you would have complained about not having transgendered participants. If they were included too, we can always include these additional genders to whine about and cry foul:
https://dudeasks.com/how-many-genders-are-there-in-2020/
The issue is not whether it was open label or whether it was peer reviewed.
Amarin filed for 20+ patents with a study of 229 participants (4g,2g or placebo) and Mori (4g epa, dha or olive oil) did a study on 59 participants.
Mori's conclusion - EPA did not impact LDL but decreased HDL (JL pointed out that back then it was believed that decreased HDL adversely impacts cardiovascular risk).
Judge Du is claiming that someone with ordinary skill in the art can read mori's paper and come to the conclusion that EPA is beneficial as described in Amarin's patent.
Reality check: We (including myself) have confirmation bias. We are in the denial stage where we are refusing to admit that this could have happened to us.
But here is a silver lining in the denial. This has turned raf from a guy who was insensitive to the plight of hundreds of thousands of coronavirus patients to a champion of woman's rights. I have to thank Honorable judge Du for that.
3)BP buys us at a 50% discount ($10B)
Management's current plan:
1. Litigate for 2 more years
2. Dilute share count and give millions in share grants to execs and do periodic insider sales.
3. Diligently burn shareholder value.
BP will buy us in a firesale at a fraction of that price or will walk away as the generics take over and this management burns shareholder value.
$12 and $13 strike just closed out for $0.01 after taking a loss of $2.99 - nothing to see here.
I think some of us are being too harsh on the management by calling them inept and inefficient. There are two things they are very good at:
1) cash burn: 640 M at the end of mrq. 80-90m quarterly burn + recent doubling of sales force could mean their current cash in hand could be $550-600 million (or even lower). This means, in a worst case scenario, the price could be really close to $2.
2) Insider sales: If they don't do a fire sale on their EU rights, they will file appeal and grant themselves more shares to sell.
ZAKRZEWSKI JOSEPH S
Director
Sale at price 20.94 per share. Direct 6,282,870 Jan 02, 2020 300,000
ZAKRZEWSKI JOSEPH S
Director
Conversion of Exercise of derivative security at price 3.40 per share. Direct 1,020,000 Jan 02, 2020 300,000
ZAKRZEWSKI JOSEPH S
Director
Sale at price 25.83 per share. Direct 2,583,380 Dec 15, 2019
THERO JOHN F
Chief Executive Officer
Sale at price 15.99 per share. Direct 3,198,700 Mar 03, 2020 200,000
THERO JOHN F
Chief Executive Officer
Sale at price 22.65 per share. Direct 6,217,371 Nov 18, 2019 274,454
THERO JOHN F
Chief Executive Officer
Sale at price 17.05 - 17.88 per share. Direct 8,143,452 Nov 10, 2019
Because their prices are low, they don't need to have a salesforce.
Amarin has spent the best part of the last 12 months in spreading awareness about vascepa. Like JL has often said, this is a drug that will sell itself.
Many vascepa prescriptions will be substituted by cheaper generics at the pharmacy.
Look back at the historical drop in lovaza scripts upon the availability of generic lovaza.
>Brilliant Time 4 TEVA to Offer JT a Win/Win Deal...
Just to be clear. TEVA can today sell vascepa in the US as a generic.
They will anyways take market share from Amarin in the near future.
Why pay a premium for what you already own?
Bio,
Before we entertain this idea any further:
What if we had won and Judge Du had ruled in our favor. Would Amarin settle?
Thanks again @HDG.
Thanks @HDG.
What is your opinion on the following?:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=154680570
>4 be honest no sugarcoating. IP deemed obvious by Federal Judge giving FOREIGN generics access
You realize Amarin is a FOREIGN company too. The Federal judge deemed FOREIGN IP obvious and gave FOREIGN generics access - this can only backfire.
>10 close US and shutter 1000+ US jobs
They don't have to try hard to do this. That is where they are headed once the generics start selling.
Even if we withdraw marine indication, FDA will step in and grant generics a labeling to continue operating:
FDA already has the authority to step in to allow certain labeling changes for generic drugs when a branded drug is withdrawn, Gottlieb said.
https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/gottlieb-lays-out-fda-plans-to-speed-generic-reviews-spur-label-updates/526032/
>6 highlight all patients who have been helped so far
The same patients will still continue to get the same drug - only cheaper.
How does this help?
>I’m advocating do the opposite what everyone expects
I understand your angst and empathise with your pain (it really hurts to look at my portfolio now).
Doing something opposite without a valid reason can only hurt.
>An acquiring BP then gets a sour cherry
Let me get this straight. Give up US market, have no sales, become a victim.
Where does the acquiring BP fit in?
During the early days of generic lawsuit, I recollect someone else from the board talking about withdrawing marine indication.
Even if we withdraw marine indication, FDA will step in and grant generics a labeling to continue operating:
FDA already has the authority to step in to allow certain labeling changes for generic drugs when a branded drug is withdrawn, Gottlieb said.
https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/gottlieb-lays-out-fda-plans-to-speed-generic-reviews-spur-label-updates/526032/
>Change the name Vascepa to Reduceit for reduce-it indication
More marketing spend - but I like the long-term implications of this - might be a good path to pursue after an injunction is granted?
Usually FDA approves brand name changes when there is a possibility of prescribing errors.
https://www.pharmacytimes.com/news/5-notable-drug-name-changes
Since the prescription would contain the name of the drug, generic substitution can be prosecuted more aggressively - if AMRN's brand name is only indicated for reduce-it. Is this even possible?
@HDG what is your take on this?
>1. Thero and Kennedy are now extremely likely to be fired
They might be fired, but our stake in amarin is already reduced to ashes.
I hope they sell the EU rights first before we end up doing multiple reverse splits and visit penny stock land.
>2.has a good chance of being overturned by the appeals court or perhaps even the patent office...
We had a good chance going into this case - the appeals process is 2 years long and the odds are worse than what we had going into this case.
In the following case, AZN posted bond of 72 million ($1.2 billion of pulmicort sales) and lost 2 years later.
Given that we doubled the sales force and expenditure recently - we first need to see the impact of bond amount on the balance sheet and daily operations.
https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2013/us-appeals-court-temporary-injunction-pulmicort-respules-25052013.html
>3 FDA cannot accept any application until December 2022.
Are we sure about this? what is your source/rationale for coming to this conclusion?
>4. This is not the best drug for generics to compete with.
This is the absolute best drug - the margins are high. Do you think the companies that managed to pull a victory in this hard-to-win case did not do their diligence? JT is not running the generics - they know what they are doing.
>5.AMRN is in a position to create supply difficulties for generics.
We will find out soon enough. As I see it AMRN is in a position of creating extreme difficulty for AMRN. Generics are doing just fine.
>This ruling has no bearing on foreign countries.
I hope so. But this company has an exceptional record of crushing hopes.
>The short position is likely to cover here.
They either cover now or they cover at a lower price and make more money.
Kiwi,
Once a patent is ruled as invalid in the US, can the same approach be used to invalidate the patent in the EU?
i.e, How safe is the european market after this ruling?
GG,
poison pill is usually done to ward off hostile buyers.
Generic companies are better at producing drugs cost efficiently.
Why would they take over Amarin? They already have the rights to produce this drug.
When was the last time, a single drug company with a loss to generic filers was acquired?
While it hurts to see current stock price and the drop in my portfolio for tomorrow - hats off to you.
You were possibly one of the few, rare posters on this board with a view that we might not make it through the legal case.
In addition to cough and sneeze, micro droplets spread through conversation looks like a viable source.
Wear two masks, one on top of the other - use clear tape to secure the inner mask to your skin. You should be just fine. The key is to make sure that there are no leakages.
Since you have a box of 20, dedicate one mask towards testing and perfecting the process of wearing this right (so that you can educate yourself and your family members on how to do this right).
Experiment with taping in this test mask. Wear glasses on top of the mask (even sunglasses would do). If your glasses are misting up, then there is air leak - experiment with more tape to ensure air tight seal.
BTW, I have even seen people with Niosh certified N95 not wearing the mask right and their eye glasses being all misty with air leak. If you wear two of these masks and wear it with an air-tight seal, you are way better off.
These are masks that healthcare workers would never use. So we are not depriving them of an opportunity to shop for a mask in these times of mask shortage.
Dmiller,
I believe the masks in question are KN95 masks produced in china.
KN95 is the asian equivalent of niosh N95 standard and there is nothing wrong with it. I have personally used air tight kn95 masks and they work great.
This might have been an issue with this specific manufacturer.
I observed that while these masks do have 4-6 layers of filters as described - there are some manufacturers that don't adhere to the standard.
Some of these masks are loose fitting - as in they don't form an air tight seal.This is fine for layman (you can wear a transparent tape around the edges and get that tight fit + put one more mask on top and be done - these masks are super cheap anyways). For healthcare workers, this is unacceptable.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/netherlands-recalls-defective-masks-imported-china-200329141715106.html
This is a case of a few rotten apples (manufacturer with poor Quality control) tarnishing the credibility of everyone else.
The Chinese embassy in Madrid said on Twitter however that Shenzen Bioeasy Biotechnology, the kits' manufacturer, had not been officially licenced by the country's authorities to sell medical products.
https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/29/netherlands-recalls-hundreds-of-thousands-of-defective-chinese-face-masks
Coronavirus: Chinese scientist advises people in Europe, US to wear face masks in public
People who don’t cover their mouths are making a big mistake, says director general of Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3077413/coronavirus-chinese-scientist-advises-people-europe-us-wear-face
<quote>
Prestige Ameritech, based in North Richland Hills, Texas, said it received a total order of 100 million N95 respirators from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
<end quote>
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/3m-ramps-up-n95-respirator-production-amid-global-coronavirus-outbreak.html
Manufacturer You Lixin had never set foot in a mask factory before. But as the market soared and he saw the opportunity, it took him just 10 days from first deciding to enter the industry to delivering automated machines capable of producing masks.
According to China's official figures, China's daily mask production has passed 116 million now, with many meeting overseas demand.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/28/3m-ramps-up-n95-respirator-production-amid-global-coronavirus-outbreak.html
So we have a task force with hundreds of billions at their disposal. Still they cannot scale up our mask production.
While our private sector is capable of servicing 100 million n95 respirators to taiwan, hong kong and singapore, we are given official guidance not to wear masks.
Folks like GG have had the foresight to order these masks from here or from china just to protect themselves and others while doing their grocery trips.
Let us gang up on him and taunt him for being smart and sensible.
Excellent post.
By that logic, if all patients start wearing this, the doctors and healthcare workers don't need to wear it?
In this case, all the incoming patients are wearing the mask and won't pass it on.
Doctors should not wear it because they are not yet infected?
>People wear masks in Asia.
They didn't listen to W.H.O. They have this under control now.
>They aren't talking to the US, they are talking to the world.
Do you really believe India, Congo, Argentina and turkey have more N95 masks than us?
US was quoted as an example and if we had billions of mask in stockpile, CDC's recommendation would be different than W.H.O.
Jesse,
You are missing the forest for the trees and ignoring the key issue while trying to nitpick.
Social distancing, Washing hands, not rubbing your eyes and not picking the nose are basics that people have to stick to irrespective of mask guidance.
My point was in addition to the steps mentioned above, a hypothetical scenario in which people wore masks - lockdown/economic disruption would not have been necessary. Even if such a practice is adopted now, economic activity can resume within weeks while treatment/cure/vaccine options are being explored. So, for people to resume business as usual, masks are a necessity (until cure/vaccine is readily available).
South korea, singapore and taiwan are prime examples of why this is the case.
>The first is the enormity of numbers and the definition of severity..1200 deaths..
H1N1 outbreak during the first (till september 2009) wave had 477 deaths but still took 12800 deaths by april 2010. We are in the first wave and with lockdown, 1300 deaths + 2100 critical patients and counting. All this with lockdowns for 1/3rd of the population. If the lockdowns were not in place, you will see a different picture.
Thankfully, next week will show us the effectiveness of HCQ+Azythromycin on mortality (given that it is actively used in NY). I am expecting this to make a meaningful difference to slowing down the number of critical cases.
While there are skeptics like the one shown below, I am definitely hopeful.
His main nitpick is that patients in the HCQ arm are sicker and therefore further along in the disease progression. The outcome metric used was viral detection in nasal swabs (and not lung scans). Given that in covid-19 patients show log level reductions in viral payload in nasal swabs by day 10, he has a big issue with the efficacy claims.
IMO, this is a nitpick. If the discharged patients still had issues, they would have come back seeking treatment. So the ongoing studies will prove the efficacy and put these issues to rest for good (this is just my opinion).
Hypothetical scenario.
Assume all 300+ million people here have multiple n95 masks and wearing masks during pandemic outbreak is culturally accepted.
If everyone wore masks and maintained social distancing (without lockdown) from January of this year, do you think we will have 80,000 cases, 1200 deaths and 2000+ critical patients today? How would the virus have spread in this imaginary scenario?
Another hypothetical scenario:
Let us say you are in charge of making recommendations at the W.H.O.
You realize that most of the countries are ill-prepared and only have a fraction of the masks they need.
If you ask everyone to use an N95 mask, rich people will hoard this and doctors who save lives will die. Soon, the ones that cannot afford it will also die due to crumbling healthcare infrastructure.
I am sure you will pick health care workers over an average person like yourself (because they are in the frontlines saving others and their life is more valuable).
So, I don't see anything wrong with their recommendation.
If US were producing 100 million+ masks per day instead of procuring 500 million masks over 18 months, I am sure our recommendation would be different.
W.H.O assumes folks like GG and others who get it will still buy these masks. They also know that such people with loads of common sense are not too common.
Coronavirus is working on survival of the fittest.
Government with insurance plans and $36,000 hospital bill is working on survival of the richest.
W.H.O is actively working on survival of the smartest.
Hope this helps.
Excellent post gg. This is just plain common sense. Even now, by spending a few hundred million dollars, they can make the mask available for free (starting with hotspots and quickly bring this under control instead of spreading deliberate misinformation about masks to conceal their incompetence,)
>you do not need to wear a medical mask. When used alone, masks can give you a false feeling of protection
This recommendation assumes that people who follow it are incapable of wearing n95 masks correctly. Because they do not know how to wear the mask correctly, it might be loose and will give them a false sense of security.
It also assumes that people who follow this direction will touch the insides of the mask with their unclean/infected hands thereby turning the mask into an added source of infection.
However, healthcare workers and folks like gg (and almost anyone who is sensible enough to understand that these masks reduce virus exposure) are capable of wearing this mask right. So this not applicable to them.
Current consensus is that you cannot get reinfected - even though that could change if ongoing studies prove otherwise.
https://www.genengnews.com/news/covid-19-reinfection-not-a-concern-monkey-study-suggests/
The authors speculate that initial data about 14% reinfections could be a case where patients were discharged before fully verifying that they had recovered.
To be fair, I have praised Trump in my prior posts for cutting through the red tape and fast-tracking this drug for current treatment.
Since the week of March 17, I have been impressed with the sense of urgency shown by Trump's task force. We are all in this together and we need to do our civic duty to fight this virus.
It depends on when you do it - if you are doing it when you have only a handful of patients, it is very effective especially if you are aggressively advocating social distancing + mask distribution to go with it. This is where a seasoned pandemic response team comes in - that is their day job.
Also, once you are diagnosed, your treatment is subsidized and you get medical leave to isolate and distance yourself.
Singapore, Taiwan and a couple of others are proof that contact tracing works - but only when done early.
In the US, we wasted the month of february (other than the flight ban - which is a big positive). Imagine the plight of a family with multiple hospitalized members.Thanks to the stimulus they will get a check for $3000 and a hospital bill in excess of $30,000. To add insult to injury, the 4 senators that held up the bill today want to lower the unemployment benefits while we bail out casinos, cruise stocks and airlines that did multi billion dollars worth of buyback (socialism for the companies should be generous but socialism for middle class is bad).
Like I said earlier, contact tracing would have worked here in January or early Feb. Now, we are way past that stage.
India has more than a billion people and covid-19 is more widespread than you know. They haven't tested enough (don't have the resources) and they have realized the seriousness of the epidemic only recently.
Their prime minister is like Bernie sanders - he is making this drug available for cheap to the middle class and poor.
This drug sells for approx $1 for a course of 10 tablets in India. This ban would ensure that the price stays the same and poor people can buy this over the counter in any pharmacy in India.
If you think he is wrong, maybe we should tutor him on making this drug inaccessible to poor people and teach him how to send them bills for over $30,000? That should make you happy.
https://time.com/5806312/coronavirus-treatment-cost/
NOTE: Reg. Hungary, we have someone as insightful as HDGabor on this board. So he is the best person to answer that.
Like singapore, NYC is an international hub - but that is the where the similarity ends.
Singapore had a good pandemic response team that had learnt its lesson by watching previous epidemics like SARS in 2003 (32 deaths in singapore).
As soon as they heard about the outbreak in wuhan, singapore signficantly stepped up their screening process for covid patients.
They had 1000 centers for covid response (remember it is a very small place), where people could get government subsidized treatment with 5 days of paid medical leave for them to stay at home and avoid transmitting it to others.
Also, the prior experience with SARS taught citizens to wear mask and practice social distancing when news of such outbreaks are reported.
In January/feb timeframe, they did aggressive contact tracing and isolated suspected infections to contain the scope of the outbreak.
The pandemic response guidelines from singapore ministry of health is an excellent document to read - it has color coding to describe various stages of an outbreak (green being best and red being worst). They responded when the outbreak was green - so contact tracing, testing, quarantine + treatment is the best suggested course of action. (In US, we are in red when the pandemic task force started acting like adults around the week of march 17. The only suggested course is lockdown+social distancing to spread out the infections and blunt the curve as it blasts through the population).
To summarize, singapore had a small fire, they were prepared with a fire extinguisher in hand, used it early and contained the fire.
Contrast this with US where:
+ We acted early to close border with china - this is good.
+ Even though outbreak in china was bad in Jan and cases were diagnosed in 4 countries and a PCR test was being used in china, CDC decided that there was no need to scale up testing.
+ It is quite likely that asymptomatic covid patients were returning from Iran, Italy and china (hotbeds at that time - keep in mind, the first diagnosed case had recently returned from Iran).
+ Around Feb 25th Alex azar talked about $2.5 billion in aid to supply 300 million masks.That money should be enough to supply many free masks to the entire population of the US. Even health care workers don't have enough n95 masks - let alone common folks.
+ Intelligence committee compared this to the 1918 pandemic - the powers that be decided to sell shares while reassuring us that everything was fine.
+ Now, we are at a stage where the pandemic is going to blow through the population. With lockdown and social distancing, we are trying to space out the number of hospitalized patients so that the health care system is not stressed.
+ In case the hospitalized patients recover, we have a new surprise for them - a hospital bill in excess of $30,000
https://time.com/5806312/coronavirus-treatment-cost/
+ we will make the testing free, give you a $1000 check and if covid does not kill you, the hospital bill will.
To summarize, we noticed a fire. Sold stocks and poured fuel on the fire. After waiting for the fire to grow to monstrous proportions, we called the firefighters.
2.7 billion and climbing because he went long -esp on sbux and hilton.
Just to be clear.
John hopkins and worldometer track these numbers on a daily basis (so do I - offline). But my offline records are not something that I can quote.
Third party news outlets, routinely gather data from worldometer and john hopkins and they publish this on their website.
When you google for coronavirus case # on past dates, google will redirect you to cached version of their website on a given date. This is how search engines work. The Al Jazeera link I pointed you to was what was cached in google and is consistent with what was reported on that date.
Hope this helps.
>AlJazeera? Wow.
worldometer and john hopkins data for those dates were the same.
We shouldn't be letting facts get in the way of our bias. Keep up the good work.
> Death rate curve in New York is steeper than Italy
>- proof, please?
New york death rate - doubling every 2 days
Mar 22-> 114 deaths
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/italy-tightens-lockdown-coronavirus-deaths-mount-live-updates-200321233509033.html
Mar 24 -> 271 deaths
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
Italy's death rate - doubling every 3 days
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/21/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-by-country.html
>In 2015, Cuomo had an option to purchase 16,000 ventilators but he turned it down. Now its FEMA's fault that NY are unprepared?
Even if he had bought that 16,000 ventilators, he is still 14,000 short.
In this case, he is equally to be blamed. But you clearly know (but won't admit) where the other half of the blame rightfully belongs.
>- no one says we should, but we should also not fall for BS predictions.
What is the BS prediction you are talking about? The article you pointed to said that lockdown is not needed. This is all a hoax from the democrats.
So I asked you if Italy, Spain and other countries with crumbling health care infrastructure are faking deaths.
>Italy - they count every death with anyone with C19 as a C19 death, regardless if the death is due to an underlying condition.
Thanks for the insensitivity. We now have a valid excuse when patients and health care workers die of pneumonia. We will just bury our head in the sand and claim that they all had pre-existing conditions.
https://www.businessinsider.com/italian-doctor-dies-from-coronavirus-covid-19-after-warning-low-supplies-2020-3
For a second, let us assume that these models are inaccurate and people are panicking due to inaccurate model.
Do you have a logical explanation for why Italy and Spain are reporting so many deaths and their health care system is overwhelmed? I already know your answer - it is another conspiracy from the Democrat party to report that people are dying in Italy.
Conspiracy? seriously? - Thanks for letting us know that the whole world is conspiring and Italy is faking deaths.
+ 40% of the new cases reported in the world now belongs to US (partly because we are testing more).
+ Death rate curve in New York is steeper than Italy. Cuomo wants 30,000 ventilators by mid April and FEMA gave him 400 with 1000 more on the way.
https://www.newsweek.com/alex-azar-coronavirus-masks-30-million-have-need-30-million-fight-america-senate-committee-1489058
Alex azar said he was going to allocate $2.5Billion in Feb 25 to procure masks. It has been more than a month and still many health care workers don't have n95 masks. Was he panicking on fake news on Feb 25 when he acknowledged the need for hundreds of million masks?.
This is not the time to show complacency. This is the time to do your civic duty. Be responsible, be compassionate. Help your neighbhorhood in whatever way you can. Maintain social distancing.
<quote>
The RNA, the genetic material of the virus that causes COVID-19, “was identified on a variety of surfaces in cabins of both symptomatic and asymptomatic infected passengers up to 17 days after cabins were vacated on the Diamond Princess but before disinfection procedures had been conducted,”
<end quote>
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/23/cdc-coronavirus-survived-in-princess-cruise-cabins-up-to-17-days-after-passengers-left.html
This goes against prior research. Have they ruled out other possibilities?
Maybe there was maintenance/cleaning crew doing cleanup/routine maintenance in the last 17 days and maybe some of them are in the asymptomatic carrier stage now. If that is not the case, then the virus surviving for 17 days under real world conditions is both incredible and troubling. It means for real containment, people need to disinfect their homes more rigorously and the government needs to step up its own efforts to disinfect public spaces.