Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: "Raising backyard chickens has been satisfying some foodies’ affection for the uber-local egg and lower-fat meat in urban areas, including metro Atlanta, for about a decade. Now the Centers for Disease Control is warning of a downside to the popular trend: salmonella outbreaks traced to some backyard owners kissing and cuddling their flocks. The CDC findings drew some media attention last month, and a PolitiFact reader who heard the health alert on NPR’s ""Morning Edition"" on July 16 asked us to dig deeper. We went directly to the source, the CDC, which is headquartered in Atlanta and has been investigating four recent Salmonella outbreaks that, as of July 29, had infected 218 people in 41 states. Five of them were in Georgia, 19 were in Alabama, 5 were in North Carolina, 11 were in South Carolina and 6 were in Tennessee. Fifty of the 218 people have required hospitalization for Salmonella, the major symptoms of which are usually diarrhea, fever and abdominal pain. No deaths have been reported, CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said. So how exactly do CDC officials know that some of these cases are due to backyard breeders kissing and cuddling live poultry? Dr. Megin Nichols, a veterinarian with the CDC, told PolitiFact the agency has been tracking upward trends in both the number of outbreaks and people infected in the past five years and has been working to trace their causes. ""We’ve been trying to interview these people to find out how they are getting sick,"" Nichols said. ""We are finding a certain proportion that are due to very close contact -- something that surprised us here at the CDC."" Salmonella is a germ that lives naturally in the intestine of chickens, ducks and many other animals. It doesn’t typically make the birds sick, but they can transmit the germs in their droppings and on their feet, feathers and beaks, even when they look clean and healthy, the CDC says. The germs also can get on their cages, coops, feed, water dishes, hay, plants and the area where they live and roam. In addition, the bacteria can rest on the hands, shoes and clothes of those who work around the birds or play with them. And Nichols told us that among the people who became ill between 2008 and 2014 due to baby poultry exposure, 49 percent, or 196 out of 400, reported snuggling and holding baby birds. Another 13 percent, or about 53, reported kissing baby birds, she said. Those people, many of whom were young children, became sick through fecal oral contact, Nichols said. Those same interviews also showed that about 46 percent of backyard breeders are keeping live poultry in their homes, she said. Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback findings have linked the most recent four outbreaks of human Salmonella infections to contact with chicks, ducklings, and other live poultry from multiple hatcheries. Interviews have been conducted with 140 of those who were recently ill and, 117, or 84 percent, reported contact with live poultry in the week before their illness began, according to the CDC website. Additional interviews to determine whether that contact included snuggling and kissing have yet to be conducted, Nichols said. An increasing number of people around the country are choosing to keep live poultry - mostly chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese as part of a greener, healthier lifestyle. Local governments, including several in metro Atlanta, have changed their zoning ordinances in recent years to accommodate the trend, and groups of backyard poultry buffs meet regularly in the region to talk chicken. Backyard owners have told reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the benefits include fresh eggs and meat, a built-in source of fertilizer for their gardens and ready-made bug-killers. Some say they give their chickens names, the freedom to roam the house and yard and cuddle and coddle them like family pets. The larger problem According to the CDC, salmonella, named for an American scientist who discovered the bacteria, is estimated to cause a million illnesses in the United States a year, with 19,000 hospitalizations and 380 deaths. Most people develop diarrhea and the other conditions within 12 to 72 hour after infection and recover without treatment in four to seven days. It has the potential to turn deadly if it spreads from the intestines to the bloodstream, and then to other body sites. Prompt treatment with antibiotics is critical, and the elderly, infants, and people with impaired immune systems are more likely to have a severe illness. In the largest recent outbreak, which occurred between March 2013 and July 2014, more than 600 people in 29 states and Puerto Rico were infected with seven outbreak strains. The outbreak was associated with one brand of chicken, which led to a company recall of more than 40,000 pounds of chicken products, according to the CDC. To prevent salmonella infections related to backyard farming, the CDC’s Nichols encourages several common-sense rules. These include thorough handwashing after contact with the chicken, keeping live poultry out of the home, and avoiding snuggling, close contact with the birds’ beaks or other close exposure that would allow ingestion of bacteria. She will be one of the experts featured in a webinar on the topic of practicing backyard bird biosecurity at 7p.m. Thursday. Our conclusion The CDC has issued a warning against kissing or snuggling backyard chickens. It follows four recent Salmonella outbreaks that, as of July 29, had infected 218 people in 41 states. Five of them were in Georgia. Interviews have been conducted with 140 of the ill and 117, or 84 percent, reported contact with live poultry in the week before their illness began, according to the CDC website. The CDC also has evidence from outbreaks between 2008 to 2014. In that period, they found that of the people who became infected with salmonella due to baby poultry exposure, 49 percent, or 196 out of 400 people, reported snuggling and holding baby birds. Another 13 percent, or about 53, reported kissing baby birds.. That’s cause to sound the alarm." Claim: Caution: Kissing and cuddling chickens can be hazardous to your health.

Output: CDC: Kissing and cuddling backyard chickens linked to salmonella infections


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: WellPoint, which released lower fourth-quarter results on Wednesday, said that based on age, insurance plan selection, income levels, gender and available pharmacy data, it believes it has set the right premium rates for these new customers. Insurance plans under President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law went on sale October 1 and into effect on January 1. Initial enrollment data nationwide has shown that the first wave of people who enrolled are older people who can be more expensive to insure because they often have more health problems than young people. Shares in WellPoint rose about 3 percent, or $2.75, to $87.05 in morning trading after the comments. Competitor Aetna Inc shares rose 39 cents to $69.32 while UnitedHealth Group Inc gained 33 cents to $72.03. “There was a concern that a lot of the firms that were involved in the exchanges would be underpriced for the demographic that would find the exchanges appealing, at least over the first year,” Morningstar analyst Vishnu Lekraj said. “What they said was that they priced everything appropriately given the data they have currently, in terms of medical cost utilization,” Lekraj said. WellPoint, one of the biggest players on the exchanges, said that it was still not certain about how enrollment, which is open until March 31, would finally end up, contributing to uncertainty about its 2014 earnings. The company forecast earnings of above $8 per share in 2014, representing a likely drop from the $8.52 it earned in 2013 before special items. Analysts on average were expecting 2014 earnings to fall to $8.39 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Chief Financial Officer Wayne DeVeydt said the 2014 outlook reflects about a $100 million negative effect of changes in government policy regarding the rollout of Obamacare. Late last year as political pressure mounted around technology problems on the exchanges and the higher premium rates on new plans, the Obama administration said that older individual plans could be renewed and it increased the number of people eligible for catastrophic coverage. DeVeydt said ACA insurer fees, which are not tax deductible for insurers, would cost earnings $1.10 per share and that it would spend about $30 million on first-year exchange costs. FOURTH-QUARTER PROFIT FALLS  WellPoint said fourth quarter profit fell as consumers increased their use of medical services ahead of the cancellation of some insurance plans at the end of 2013. The company also took a charge for the recently announced sale of its contact lens business, 1-800 Contacts, to private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners, which caused a sharp decline in net profit. WellPoint, which sells Empire and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, also said its costs went up as it prepared for the rollout of Obamacare, and an expected increase of 1 million new members this year. So far, about 3 million people have enrolled in exchange plans, according to the government. The Congressional Budget Office had forecast that about 7 million people would sign up for 2014 coverage. Sign-ups are lagging targets because of technology problems in the first two months after the launch of the national website HealthCare.gov that sells insurance plans in 36 states. The other 14 states run their own sites. WellPoint said it had received 500,000 applications for new individual health plans that went into effect January 1, most of them for exchange-based plans but some for plans it sells off the exchange. Income-based subsidies from the government are only available for exchange plans. It said most of these customers were new to WellPoint. WellPoint said net profit for the fourth quarter fell to $148.2 million, or 49 cents per share, from $464 million, or $1.51 per share a year earlier. Excluding costs for the sale of 1-800 Contacts and investment gains, earnings fell to 87 cents per share from $1.03 per share, which also included investment gains and acquisition costs. The quarterly earnings were in line with analyst expectations, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The company spent 87.8 percent of its premiums brought in on medical claims, up from 87.3 percent a year ago. It said that as old individual plans were being canceled ahead of the introduction of the new 2014 insurance, customers used more medical services. Spending on medical procedures, doctor visits and hospitalizations has been at a historical low for the past several years. This has helped insurers keep these medical cost ratios down while still complying with the Affordable Care Act, which requires them to spend at least 80 percent of plan premiums on care or refund customers the difference. WellPoint said it added 145,000 members during the quarter as it picked up small business customers and new enrollees in the California Medicaid program for the poor. It had 35.7 million members at the end of 2013. Claim: WellPoint says health exchange applicants hit expectations.

Output: U.S. health insurer WellPoint Inc said on Wednesday the applicants for the new Obamacare health plans are of the age and demographics it had expected, indicating that medical costs will not soar beyond the prices it charges.


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: "In a press conference on May 5 in which Gov. Greg Abbott updated his reopening plan to add businesses such as hair salons and gyms, he recommended that at-risk populations ""remain at home if at all possible"" and avoid in-person gatherings, such as a church service, funeral or wedding. ""We strongly encourage at-risk populations to try to watch or participate remotely, remembering this very important point, and that is almost 75 percent of the deaths from COVID-19 in the state of Texas are a result of people contracting COVID-19 who are age 65 and older,"" Abbott said. Texas was among the first states to start reopening businesses and lifting restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus, allowing retail stores and restaurants to open May 1 at 25 percent capacity. Abbott announced the latest set of reopenings Monday, expanding restaurant capacity to 50 percent and granting bars the ability to open at 25 percent capacity within the next couple weeks. This comes as the state continues to see its number of infections and deaths rise and clusters form mostly in rural parts of the state where meatpacking plants are located. Hospitalizations, however, have decreased since mid-April. With that in mind, we had to ask: Is Abbott right that almost 75% of coronavirus deaths in Texas are people older than 65? Looking at the numbers Abbott’s spokesman John Wittman said Abbott’s claim is based on figures from the Texas Department of Health Services, which publishes daily numbers on the state’s COVID-19 testing and cases. The data includes a breakdown of coronavirus deaths by age, race and gender, but only for those cases where the deaths have been investigated by the local and regional health departments. As of Wednesday, the majority, or 489, were still under investigation. ""The demographic data on cases and fatalities come from the case investigation forms submitted by local health departments and our regional offices,"" said DSHS spokesman Chris Van Deusen. The purpose of the investigation is to confirm that the person had COVID-19 but also to collect other details about them and the circumstances around their death, Van Deusen said. Wittman said the data showed that 75% of investigated deaths were people 65 and older when Abbott made this statement. ""It alternates almost daily, but it’s generally around that range,"" Wittman said. As of May 6, the day after the press conference, the death toll in Texas was 948. Fewer than half, or 433, had been investigated. Of those, about 71 percent were Texans 65 and older. It was still about 71 percent, or 345 out of 489 investigated cases, as of Wednesday. The age groups broke down like so: Ages 10 to 19 years old: 2 deaths, or 0.4% Ages 20-29: 10 deaths, or 2.04 % Ages 30-39: 9 deaths, or 1.8% Ages 40-49: 21 deaths, or 4.29% Ages 50-59: 54 deaths, or 11.04% Ages 60-64: 45 deaths, or 9.2% Ages 65-69: 59 deaths, or 12.06% Ages 70-74: 45 deaths, or 9.2% Ages 75-79: 45 deaths, or 9.2% Ages 80+: 196 deaths, or 40.08% Across the United States, about 79% of coronavirus deaths have been people 65 years and older, according to the National Center for Health Statistics data submitted between the beginning of February to the beginning of May. Like Texas’ statistics, the national numbers are also incomplete. The number of deaths represent only those entered between those dates and only include people with confirmed or presumed COVID-19. ""While 80% of deaths are electronically processed and coded by NCHS within minutes, most deaths from COVID-19 must be coded by a person, which takes an average of 7 days,"" the NCHS states on its website. The data is also always somewhat behind because of the lag time between when a death occurred and when a death certificate is completed, submitted to NCHS and processed for reporting purposes. The delay can last anywhere from one week to eight or more. Our ruling Abbott said almost ""75 percent of the deaths from COVID-19 in the state of Texas are a result of people contracting COVID-19 who are age 65 and older."" Of confirmed coronavirus deaths, close to 75% were people within the age group Abbott provided, but he failed to include the caveat that this statistic leaves out more than half of the total deaths that have not yet been investigated." Claim: “Almost 75 percent of the deaths from COVID-19 in the state of Texas are a result of people contracting COVID-19 who are age 65 and older.”


Output: Texas health officials publish daily coronavirus numbers, including some details about deaths by age, race and gender — but only for cases where the death has been investigated. When Abbott made this statement, the death toll in Texas was 948, but less than half of those deaths had been investigated. Of the deaths where age breakdowns are available, roughly 71% are people aged 65 or older. Age information is not available for the deaths still under investigation.