The Bulletin: It could happen again
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Risks of another Covid outbreak appear to be rising, Waikato DHB hack attack now biggest in NZ’s history, and OCR kept steady with future rises forecast.
We’ve all fallen off the wagon here, but it might be time to start taking preventative measures against Covid more seriously. A couple of pieces have highlighted how real the risk still is for New Zealand, with experts warning that winter could bring fresh outbreaks. Newsroom’s Marc Daalder has wrapped up a few recent international examples of elimination strategies collapsing, which have some similarities with New Zealand’s situation – except in some cases for the island borders. And as Stuff’s Bridie Witton reports, experts are warning that it could happen here too.
Date Time
Establishing Guidelines for Surgery After Skin Cancer
Physicians now have evidence-based recommendations for when skin cancer leaves a patient in need of reconstructive surgery. UConn Health’s chief of plastic surgery, Dr. Andrew Chen, led a national brain trust to come up with them.
Dr. Andrew Chen is chief of UConn Health’s Division of Plastic Surgery. (Photo by Ethan Giorgetti)
Some of the brightest minds in dermatology and surgery are in agreement on the first clinical practice guidelines for reconstructive procedures following skin cancer resection.
Dr. Andrew Chen, UConn Health’s chief of plastic surgery, is the lead author of the guidelines, published concurrently in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, a journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, Dermatologic Surgery, and the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
May 24, 2021 4:01 PM PDT
Instagram has long been a home for influencers, but it wasnât until a year ago that it started offering ways for them to earn money directly on the app. Now, Instagram is âexploringâ subscriptions and a marketplace for NFTs, said Instagram headÂ
Adam Mosseri in an interview. (You can read the full Q&A here.)
âThereâs different ways to facilitate a financial relationship between a fan and a creator,â Mosseri said Friday from his home in San Francisco. âBeing able to subscribe to some differentiated or unique or exclusive content actually feels more additive as a fan than seeing an ad.â
RNZ
Auckland has exited its three day lockdown, based on the advice of Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall says she has confidence contact tracing is finding any chains of transmission.
A good contact tracing system is an essential weapon in New Zealand’s arsenal for keeping Covid-19 from its shores. But is it up to scratch? Brittany Keogh reports. Calls from experts to improve the country’s contract tracing system, which could potentially eliminate the need for lockdowns and save the economy millions, are growing louder as questions are raised about the response to February’s Covid-19 cluster.
a16z bets millions on Maven, a platform for cohort-based courses
Maven, a startup that helps professionals teach cohort-based classes, has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The round places a16z general partner Andrew Chen on Maven’s board and is his latest lead check in a creator-focused company, similarly pouring millions into recent rounds for Clubhouse and Substack.
The investment comes seven months after Maven, then nameless, left stealth alongside a $4.3 million round led by First Round Capital, and three months after it raised a $750,000 equity crowdfunding round. While the company declined to disclose valuation, we do know that it’s a lot of fast cash earmarked toward fueling the same bet: that the future of cohort-based learning is the future of education.