SNAP EBT The Coronavirus continues to impact our communities in many ways. If you need assistance with food, there are opportunities to get the nutritious food your family needs to stay healthy.  If you have children and were receiving SNAP or MFIP as of March 18, 2020, you will receive an automatic ben-efit on your EBT card. If you weren’t receiving SNAP or MFIP but your child was receiving free or reduced lunch, you can apply for P-EBT to help buy food for your fam-ily: www.mn.p-ebt.org

FDL Transit reopening on limited basis Fond du Lac transit will have a soft opening June 22 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. FDL transit is committed to provide a safe and healthy environment for employees and customers. Masks will be required at all times for all drivers and riders. If you are ill you will not be permitted to ride. Fares for June and July are waived! Transit passes will be paid and issued at the FDL Tribal center in enterprise accounting at a future date. No cash will be accepted by drivers or dispatch. No more than 2 riders from different households will be allowed on the bus. If you have multiple riders from your household please let dispatch know when you call for ride. Our soft opening will be giving rides to work (priority), grocery stores, medical appointments, and FDLTCC only. Please call (218) 878-7500 for your ride 06/19 Thank you for your cooperation and patience during this time. FDL holidays we will be closed for are Independence Day July 3, Labor Day Sept. 07, Veteran’s Day Nov. 11, Thanksgiving Nov. 26, and Christmas day Dec. 25

FDL receives donation of diapers and wipes Fond du Lac Social Services has received a gracious do-nation of diapers and baby wipes from John Hopkins Cen-ter for American Indian Health Great Lakes Hub. Social Services will be donating these items to the community on the following dates (while supplies last): Monday, June 22 for clients working with Tagwii, Social Services, or Behavioral Health. Tuesday, June 23 for all other FDL community members (must be eligible for services at FDL Human Services) Call (218) 878-2145 to arrange for curbside pick-up at Min No Aya Win or Center for American Indian Resources (CAIR).

Daily UpdatesPage 1 | Nah gah chi wa nong • Di bah ji mowin nan | June 18 2020

By Zachary N. Dunaiski

The arrival of a vaccine remains off in the dis-tance, but progress is still

being made. WebMD reports that there are 160 potential vaccines for COVID-19 that are currently being studied and a chance that one is available by the end of this year remains possible. Five companies have been approved for Operation Warp Speed, the national program to accelerate the development, making, and distribution of CO-VID-19 vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics. Those companies, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer and BioNTech, and AstraZeneca/Oxford University, are major companies who have begun extensive work on a vac-cine and even have begun human trials in most cases. The federal government has already said it would fund and conduct the phase III trials, which is the last portion of trials designed for mass testing on large groups of people to de-termine if a vaccine is effective and safe. That action by the U.S. government has been approved for three companies: Moderna Inc., AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson, with the first two al-ready testing people and Johnson

& Johnson announcing they will begin testing in the second half of July. For those top three companies, they all have vaccines that vary just a bit from one another. Moderna’s vaccine, a messenger RNA or mRNA, does not require a virus in order to produce the vaccine. The mRNA carries instructions for making the spike protein, an important protein in COVID-19, to the immune cells and instructs them to make cop-ies of the spike protein, acting as if the cells have been infected. This allows immune cells to de-velop ways to give you immunity. Moderna hopes to enter phase III by next month, by giving two doses, given 28 days apart, of the vaccine to a much larger test group. In mid-May, the company an-nounced that all eight initial trial volunteers given two dif-ferent dose amounts reached or surpassed the level of antibodies capable of neutralizing the virus, WebMD announced on their website. The second group, where AstraZeneca has partnered with the University of Oxford, scien-tists have developed a COVID-19 vaccine made from a weakened version of a common cold virus, the adenovirus. This strain of

adenovirus has been genetically modified so that it will not repro-duce itself. This vaccine has been combined with the spike protein to allow the immune system to destroy COVID-19. Phases I and II of the clinical trial for this vaccine began in April, testing it on 1,000 healthy individuals and recruiting has already begun for phase II which will test up to 10,260 healthy adults and children. After reaching a license agree-ment with Oxford University and others, AstraZeneca agreed to supply more than 2 billion doses globally, anticipating delivery of 400 million doses before the end of 2020, WebMD wrote on their website. The final group approved by the federal government is John-son and Johnson, who expects to start testing the vaccine on humans in the second half of July. Their vaccine also uses a modified adenovirus, which they have combined with COVID-19. Their first round of testing will include 1,000 individuals and will be conducted in the U.S. and Belgium. Source: https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200610/covid-19-latest-updates

COVID-19 Vaccine: How soon will it be available?

Daily UpdatesJune 18 2020 | Nah gah chi wa nong • Di bah ji mowin nan | Page 2

By Zachary N. Dunaiski

A study from the New England Journal of Medi-

cine (NEJM) suggests that your blood type has an impact on how severely you are affected by COVID-19. The NEJM’s genetic analysis shows that peo-ple that are type O blood were less likely to have a severe case of COVID-19 while those with type A were more likely. This research conducted by NEJM confirms a report from China which sug-gested the same results regarding blood types. The scientists who con-ducted the study, mostly scientists from Europe, studied 2,000 patients with severe cases of COVID-19 and compared them to several thousand more who were healthy or had mild symptoms or no symptoms. This study is consid-ered small, with other such studies featuring much larger groups of people, but sharing simi-lar results with the study in China is interesting. In an interview with Medical Xpress Dr. Parameswar Hari, a

blood specialist at the Medical College of Wis-consin, suggested that this research could show why some people get se-verely ill with COVID-19 much more than others. People with Type O are better able to recog-nize certain proteins as foreign, and that may ex-tend to proteins on virus surfaces, Hari explained. While some scientists urge caution about this research, it was noted during the SARS out-break, the genetic cousin of SARS-COV-2 causing COVID-19, that people with type O were less likely to get a severe case of that disease. Research still shows that the groups at the highest risk of severe COVID-19 are older or male. Until a vac-cine is available, our best protection remains washing our hands, stay-ing socially distant, and wearing a mask. Sources: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJ-Moa2020283 and https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-ties-blood-covid-.html

COVID-19 Vaccine: How soon will it be available? What your blood type means in regards to COVID-19

In accordance with federal civil rights law and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) civil rights regulations and policies, the USDA, its Agencies, offices, and employees, and institutions partici-pating in or administering USDA programs are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA. Persons with disabilities who require alternative means of communication for program information (e.g. Braille, large print, audiotape, American Sign Language, etc.), should contact the Agency (State or local) where they applied for benefits. Individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing or have speech disabilities may contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339. Additionally, program information may be made available in languages other than English. To file a program complaint of discrimi-nation, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, (AD-3027) found online at: http://www.ascr.usda.gov/complaint_filing_cust.html, and at any USDA office, or write a letter addressed to USDA and provide in the letter all of the information requested in the form. To request a copy of the complaint form, call (866) 632-9992. Submit your completed form or letter to USDA by:

(1) mail: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 (2) fax: (202) 690-7442; or (3) email: program.intake@usda.gov

FREE Lunch for children 18 and under or individuals 19 and over with state-

defined mental or physical disabilities who participate in school programs.

Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays On-site prepared healthy and balanced lunches will be distributed at the

Ojibwe School Gym Doors from 11:00am - 12:30pm each day.

Ojibwe School Student lunches will continue to be delivered. Monday, Wed., & Thursday are delivery days for 7 days a week.

Direct questions to Nikki Harris 218 878 7271 or

Mace Fonoti 218 878 7246

Contact your local community center by 9am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for

Deliveries Cloquet CC 218-878-7510, Brookston CC 218-878-8033, Sawyer CC 218-878-8197

Monday and Wednesdays are two day lunches, Thursdays deliveries are three days lunches