Epidemics: Bird Flu, TB, AIDs, Superbugs, Ebola, etc

[DougMacG]

https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2020/05/covid-19-and-partisan-state-control.html

There are 21 states with Republican governors and where both legislative houses are under Republican control [plus Nebraska, unicameral = 22]. Not one of those state’s deaths per million is over the national average.

Of the top-3 states, with the highest deaths per million, all 3 are under exclusive Democratic control.
-----------------------------
[Doug] Much of it has to do with density, mass transit, the Leftist, urban model compared with places more spread out, private property ownership, the more conservative model.

[Crafty_Dog]

Will a Face Mask Protect You?
Maybe a little, but washing your hands and social distancing are far more effective.
By Marc Siegel
May 18, 2020 7:02 pm ET
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A pedestrian wears a face mask in Denver, May 13.
PHOTO: DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Should you wear a face mask? Medical authorities have sent confusing messages. Both the U.S. surgeon general and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exhorted Americans not to wear masks in January and February, then reversed themselves in April. Mask wearing is now mandatory in many workplaces and public spaces, but how much good does it do? The science is inconclusive, but probably not much.

It’s generally understood that surgical and cloth masks—as distinct from N95 masks, designed to filter fine particles—offer little or no protection to the wearer. The purpose of the mandates is to protect others by ensuring the covering of the face of anyone who is infected. A study published in Nature Medicine in April looked at 246 people with acute upper respiratory illness and found that wearing a surgical mask did decrease spread of genetic material from respiratory viruses, including coronaviruses. The researchers concluded: “We also demonstrated the efficacy of surgical masks to reduce coronavirus detection and viral copies in large respiratory droplets and in aerosols. . . . This has important implications for control of COVID-19, suggesting that surgical face masks could be used by ill people to reduce onward transmission.”

Yet another April study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, revealed that the force of sick patients’ coughs propelled droplets through both surgical masks as well as cloth masks.

What about asymptomatic patients? The CDC based its revised mask recommendation on studies that found asymptomatic spread was far more common than had been thought. But there have been no studies on masks’ effectiveness in preventing it. Although the coronavirus is highly contagious, it is much less so than, say, measles, which can linger in the air for two hours after a cough. a sneeze or even speech. By contrast, the Covid-19 virus has not been proved to be aerosolized. Coronaviruses often enter the body through the eyes, and frequent hand and face washing and social distancing is much more effective than masks at preventing that.

Wearing a mask seems harmless, but it could provide a false sense of security, leading people to take fewer precautions. According to the World Health Organization, self-contamination and reuse and or improper disposal of masks can also hinder their effectiveness and turn them into vehicles of spread.

There have even been questions about the effectiveness of N95 masks at protecting medical personnel. They’re considered effective at blocking coronavirus particles only when they’re form fitted and tested to make sure there isn’t any leakage. When I worked on a coronavirus ward, I felt much safer because I also wore a plastic face shield, which blocks viral particles from even reaching the mask.

So wear a mask if you must. But vigilant hand-washing and social distancing will protect you much better.

Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health and a medical correspondent for Fox News.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eaq9JHKq8CI

[ccp]

was it not sean hannity who got the president all mixed up in this?

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/the-idiotic-fight-over-hydroxychloroquine/

[Crafty_Dog]

Actually it was a French guy on Tucker IIRC.

[ccp]

https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/amid-the-coronavirus-crisis-a-regimen-for-reentry

[DougMacG]

It doesn't mean Sweden was wrong but be careful about saying they had the best strategy.

[I wonder how this splits between what I would call 'Swedish people' and the more recent immigrants who may fly a different flag.]

Sweden becomes country with highest coronavirus death rate per capita
Sweden has 6.08 deaths per million inhabitants, higher than the UK, USA and Italy
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/20/sweden-becomes-country-highest-coronavirus-death-rate-per-capita/

[DougMacG]

What was OUR worthless media covering in 2015?  Not THIS.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151110115711.htm

New SARS-like virus can jump directly from bats to humans, no treatment available
Findings provide an opportunity to develop drugs and vaccines for coronaviruses before they emerges from animals to cause a human epidemic
Date:
November 10, 2015
Source:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Summary:
A new bat SARS-like virus has been discovered that can jump directly from its bat hosts to humans without mutation. However, researchers point out that if the SARS-like virus did jump, it is still unclear whether it could spread from human to human.
Share:
   
FULL STORY
Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered a new bat SARS-like virus that can jump directly from its bat hosts to humans without mutation. However, researchers point out that if the SARS-like virus did jump, it is still unclear whether it could spread from human to human.

The discovery, reported in the Nov. 9 issue of Nature Medicine, is notable not only because there is no treatment for this newly discovered virus, but also because it highlights an ongoing debate over the government's decision to suspend all gain of function experiments on a variety of select agents earlier this year. The move has put a substantial standstill on the development of vaccines or treatments for these pathogens should there be an outbreak.

"Studies have predicted the existence of nearly 5,000 coronaviruses in bat populations and some of these have the potential to emerge as human pathogens," said senior author Ralph Baric, a faculty member at the Gillings School of Global Public Health and expert in coronaviruses. "So this is not a situation of 'if 'there will be an outbreak of one of these coronaviruses but rather when and how prepared we'll be to address it."

SARS first jumped from animals to humans in 2002-2003 and caused a worldwide outbreak, resulting in 8,000 cases, including one case in Chapel Hill. With nearly 800 deaths during that outbreak, SARS-CoV presents much like flu symptoms but then can accelerate, compromise breathing and bring on a deadly form of pneumonia. The outbreak was controlled through public health interventions and the original virus was thought to have been extinct since 2004.

Baric and his team demonstrated that the newly-identified SARS-like virus, labeled SHC014-CoV and found in the Chinese horseshoe bats, can jump between bats and humans by showing that the virus can latch onto and use the same human and bat receptor for entry. The virus also replicates as well as SARS-CoV in primary human lung cells, the preferred target for infection.

"This virus is highly pathogenic and treatments developed against the original SARS virus in 2002 and the ZMapp drugs used to fight Ebola fail to neutralize and control this particular virus," said Baric. "So building resources, rather than limiting them, to both examine animal populations for new threats and develop therapeutics is key for limiting future outbreaks."

[Crafty_Dog]

Well, that sure was prescient!

================================

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-states-are-misreporting-covid-19-test-data-pennsylvania-georgia-texas/611935/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985.pdf

[DougMacG]

As Nate Silver pointed the other day, the seven-day rolling average for deaths is 1,362, down from 1,761 the week prior and a peak of 2,070 on April 21.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0520/lowry052220.php3

Scott Gottlieb of the American Enterprise Institute notes that the positivity rate, or percentage of people testing positive for the virus, has continued to fall throughout May.
----------------------
ICU Covid utilization seems to be dropping in most states; I can't find national figures.

More and more tests means more and more (known) cases, but we are past the peak, or at least the first peak.  The exponent of the viral spread has dropped below 1.

[ccp]

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-epidemic-waves/

most everyone is on the bobble head  nodding yes mode  that we are sure to have second or more waves.

SARS 1, a corona virus  just petered out
previous epidemics in past 100 yrs are flu viruses not corona

[ccp]

https://www.conservativereview.com/news/horowitz-cdc-confirms-remarkably-low-coronavirus-death-rate-media/

[DougMacG]

https://www.conservativereview.com/news/horowitz-cdc-confirms-remarkably-low-coronavirus-death-rate-media/

A small fraction of what they told us before and likely a small fraction of what the real rate is.  So stay home everyone.  Don't work.  Let the government support you while no one is paying in to the government.  What could go wrong?

[Crafty_Dog]

Have not watched this yet:

https://vimeo.com/421657568

[G M]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8351113/Wuhan-virus-lab-signed-Michel-Barnier-2004-despite-French-intelligence-warnings.html

[DougMacG]

MN Dept of Health, Questions not getting asked or answered:

What share of all deaths attributed to COVID-19 is accounted for by long-term care residents and others with serious medical conditions (as defined elsewhere by the CDC and the governor’s executive orders). The answer was 99.24 percent. It has since fallen to 98.46 percent.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/05/media-access-in-one-state-tom-hausers-complaint.php

[Crafty_Dog]

By Peter Loftus and Drew Hinshaw
May 27, 2020 7:10 am ET

Pharmaceutical companies are bracing for export bans on future coronavirus vaccines and spreading production across different continents, on early signs of a high-stakes geopolitical scramble to secure supplies for a scientific breakthrough that could confer enormous economic and political power.

The resulting picture is what public-health experts call “vaccine nationalism,” as the international pursuit for a desperately needed shot shifts into a contest of which world power can immunize its population first. A coronavirus vaccine would be a monumental prize for the first country able to manufacture it at scale, a civilizational triumph comparable to the moon landing. It would allow the winner to revive its economy months ahead of others and then select which allies get shipments next, centering the global recovery on its medical output.

Race to Vaccine
Where vaccines are being developed, bycountry in which lead institution is based.Number of vaccines in:
Source: World Health Organization
Note: As of May 22
Clinical evaluation
Preclinical evaluation
U.S.
China
Canada
Russia
U.K.
Japan
India
Germany
France
Italy
Belgium
Denmark
Australia
Israel
Netherlands
Brazil
Sweden
Thailand
Kazakhstan
Finland
Malaysia
Vietnam
Taiwan
Slovakia
Switzerland
Spain
0
10
20
30
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
How do you think the distribution of a possible coronavirus vaccine should be coordinated? Join the conversation below.

Governments in Europe and Asia have, at times, sent conflicting messages on how aggressively they will reserve any vaccine produced on their soil. But most of the leading pharmaceutical companies developing front-running candidates anticipate that when a vaccine does prove effective, countries will block exports, just as many did with surgical masks or experimental drugs. Rather than concentrate production that could be trapped inside borders, drugmakers such as Johnson & Johnson and Moderna Inc. are preparing factories on different continents to produce in parallel.

“Everybody’s protecting their own,” said Chief Executive John Chiminski of the New Jersey-based multinational pharmaceutical Catalent Inc. His company provides some of the world’s limited capacity for a vaccine production step called sterile vial filling, and is preparing factories in the U.S. and Italy to produce multiple potential vaccines. “All of a sudden, these are coveted assets.”

The World Health Organization has asked for any future vaccine to be swiftly exported first to hospital workers around the world, then to all people in need, everywhere. “There should not be a divide between the haves and the have-nots,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters last month. Some drugmakers say, left to them, they would prefer to see hospital workers immunized first.


Scientists at U.K. biotech Stabilitech are working on one of the more than 100 different vaccines in development.
PHOTO: BEN STANSALL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
“Unless we immunize essentially the whole world, none of us will be safe,” Merck & Co. Inc. Chief Executive Ken Frazier said in an interview. His company announced two new vaccines in development Tuesday.

But there is no precedent for such a swift and global immunization, and fundamental supplies run short, from medical glass to ultracold freezers. Several candidates use novel technology understood by only a small number of specialists.

European Union leaders, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have helped raise $8 billion to overcome those hurdles. Earlier this month, the European Commission hosted a global videoconference, in which 43 heads of state and government dialed in to work out the thorny details of how a vaccine might be manufactured and supplied to billions of people in poor countries.

Neither the U.S., India, nor Russia joined the event. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was slated to speak, until the schedule changed a few hours beforehand. The Chinese ambassador who replaced him offered few details in a short speech accusing Western nations of playing a “blame game” around the coronavirus pandemic.

“When a country gets a vaccine it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens,” said David Heymann, a distinguished fellow in London’s Chatham House Global Health program, and a former WHO assistant director-general. “Most countries are going to be politically obliged to make sure it goes to their own people if it’s being produced and manufactured in their country.”


Mass graves for coronavirus victims in Manaus, Brazil, on May 19.
PHOTO: ANDRE COELHO/GETTY IMAGES
More than 100 different vaccines are in development, with at least 10 currently being tested on humans. Five of those are in China, whose President Xi Jinping has said any vaccine his country designs will become a “global public good.” At the same time, Wang Hui, the party secretary of Sinopharm Group Co. Ltd., whose subsidiaries are producing three of China’s candidates, suggested to state-run China Central Television that the firm may give first rights to Chinese nationals, including medical staff and those working or studying abroad.

British and American funding for local drugmakers has come with similar stipulations. In India—one of the world’s largest vaccine makers—lobbyists with the local pharmaceutical industry expect the government to curb exports so that Indians can access any doses first, as authorities did with the experimental drug hydroxychloroquine.

On Monday, Maryland-based Novavax Inc. said it had begun clinical trials of its own vaccine, the newest such candidate to reach that stage. The company is hoping to manufacture it in multiple markets—on as many continents as possible, its chief executive, Staley Erck, said in an interview. If all goes well, the company could make up to 100 million doses by the end of the year.

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“The question is, where does the first 100 million doses go?” he said. The company is considering the possibility that President Trump will invoke the Defense Production Act to reserve doses produced in the U.S. for Americans, and is looking at how to increase manufacturing outside the U.S. “The potential problem is that borders close,” Mr. Erck said.

In the U.S., the federal government has provided more than $2 billion to finance vaccine manufacturing by four drugmakers, all of which remain months away, at best, from bringing a product to market: Johnson & Johnson, Moderna Inc., AstraZeneca PLC and Sanofi SA . Most of those have committed, either per the terms of their funding, or separately, to manufacturing within the U.S. Some, such as Johnson & Johnson, are also simultaneously pursuing production in Europe.

“We had to get in line first,” said Rick Bright, the former director of the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, testifying before congress last week, explaining why the U.S. prefunded companies that would manufacture their still-unproven vaccines within its borders. “That’s what we did.”

Barda is providing up to $483 million to Moderna to fund development and preparations for mass production of its vaccine. Moderna’s chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, said in an interview that the contract includes no specific requirement on supplies for the U.S.

But Moderna is using some of the Barda funding to establish manufacturing operations at a plant in New Hampshire operated by Lonza Ltd., a Swiss contract manufacturer that Moderna has joined with to expand vaccine production. The company will also separately produce a vaccine at a plant in Switzerland.

Mr. Bancel said he has heard from government leaders around the world who are “worried about allocation of the product.”

“There will be people who will be really upset if they don’t get the vaccine,” Mr. Bancel said. “We’ll have to thread that needle thoughtfully and carefully,”

Beyond the U.S., the British government has given at least $79 million toward a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. British citizens would be first in line to get access to that vaccine, with 30 million doses expected as soon as September.

Last week, the Trump administration said it would provide up to $1.2 billion in grants to AstraZeneca to manufacture some 300 million doses for the U.S.

“Every vaccine manufacturer will feel obligations to the country where it’s based,” said Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, an Oslo-based nonprofit group that finances coronavirus vaccine projects, including Novavax’s candidate, to help immunize health-care workers globally. It isn’t just the U.S. that might steer vaccine production to its own citizens, he said: “This is a global phenomenon.”

—Jared Hopkins contributed to this article.

MORE

[Crafty_Dog]

https://news.yahoo.com/monkeys-steal-coronavirus-blood-samples-113552022.html

[G M]

https://news.yahoo.com/monkeys-steal-coronavirus-blood-samples-113552022.html

Ah, how very 2020.

[G M]

https://news.yahoo.com/monkeys-steal-coronavirus-blood-samples-113552022.html

Ah, how very 2020.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/ebola-congo-2nd-outbreak-ebola-reported-congo-who-says-n1221226

Seriously? I am getting really tired of 2020.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-virus-idUSKBN2370OQ

[DougMacG]

https://apnews.com/b186c4825ef8fdb67ce62b537ac6073d

Died with equals died of, until now.

[ccp]

Now many authorities New England Journal and the Lancet itself are questioning the data from this study put out by "a small company based"
in chicago. (think no bama)

Journals are supposed to assess the validity of such studies BEFORE they publish them .  Not after it was publised so sick cuomo can , with his obnoxious face on the screen falsely "debunk " a drug effectiveness because Trump reommended it.

Just another example of the bullshit of so. many of these data "studies":

https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/02/top-medical-journals-raise-concerns-about-data-in-two-studies-related-to-covid-19

Now this does not mean hydroxychloroquine does work.  Only we still do not know.

[DougMacG]

Coronavirus appears to be declining in potency and people are contracting it less easily, US doctors reveal

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8390849/University-Pittsburgh-doctors-say-coronavirus-appears-declining-potency.html

[ccp]

".Coronavirus appears to be declining in potency and people are contracting it less easily, US doctors reveal"

FWIW from my vantage point the calls related to illness are a lot less
and many now are for people looking for the antibody test to see if they had in past

[G M]

".Coronavirus appears to be declining in potency and people are contracting it less easily, US doctors reveal"

FWIW from my vantage point the calls related to illness are a lot less
and many now are for people looking for the antibody test to see if they had in past

[Crafty_Dog]

https://nypost.com/2020/06/04/nyc-reports-no-new-coronavirus-deaths-for-first-time-since-mid-march/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=pasteboard_app

[Crafty_Dog]

Coronavirus Good News
Science and medical trial and error are keeping more patients alive.
By Editorial Board
June 5, 2020 7:24 pm ET
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Research associate Sachi Johnson works at Sorrento Therapeutics where efforts are underway to develop an antibody, STI-1499, to help in prevention of the coronavirus disease in San Diego, May 2.
PHOTO: BING GUAN/REUTERS
Good news: A new study finds that the novel coronavirus has become less lethal over the past few months. While there’s no evidence that mutations are making the virus less deadly, treatments have improved enormously as scientists have learned more.

Doctors have observed that the coronavirus case-fatality rate seems to have decreased considerably since the early days of the pandemic. But a pre-publication study from Italian universities and local public-health authorities comparing the case-fatality rates in two provinces (Ferrara and Pescara) during March and April is the first to show this might be true.

After adjusting for age and comorbidities, the study found the overall death rate declined by some 40% from March to April with huge reductions in those over age 80 (from 36.3% to 16.1%), and subjects with hypertension (23% to 12.1%), diabetes (30.3% to 8.4%), cardiovascular disease (31.5% to 12.1%), COPD (29.7% to 11.4%) and renal disease (32.3% to 11.5%).

The study’s findings need to be confirmed by more studies of fatality rates over time in other places. But the researchers note that the decline in death rates is unlikely to be due to less crowded hospitals since infection rates were low in the two provinces and never exceeded the intensive care unit capacity. Hospital utilization could confound results in other hot spots.

They say their study confirms anecdotes from expert physicians that “the early administration of more tailored medications, is considerably improving the clinical course of COVID-19.” Doctors are using a cocktail of targeted therapies including repurposed HIV antivirals, anticoagulants and monoclonal antibodies like tocilizumab that lower inflammatory cytokine attacks on organs.

A European Journal of Internal Medicine study last month found that two of 62 patients receiving tocilizumab died compared to 11 of 23 in a group with similar characteristics. Randomized clinical trials are needed to draw solid conclusions about the efficacy of drug treatments, but they usually take months. So doctors have been experimenting and learning on the fly.

We now know, for instance, that deaths among severely ill patients often result from an overreactive immune response known as “cytokine storms” as well as systemic blood clots. The Food and Drug Administration this week approved a new blood test by Roche that measures levels of the inflammatory-causing protein interleukin-6 and can help predict patients at risk for cytokine storms. Using drugs to break up blood clots and calm down the immune system earlier can prevent severe cases from turning deadly.

Doctors have also observed that some patients with fatally low oxygen levels aren’t gasping for air or losing consciousness and their symptoms resemble altitude sickness—dizziness, nausea and headaches—more than pneumonia or acute respiratory distress. As a result they are using less intensive ventilation such as nasal cannulas and sleep-apnea machines.

Mechanical ventilators can cause long-term brain and respiratory damage as well as secondary infections. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that a shockingly high 80% of those between ages 18 and 65 who were placed on ventilators in New York City died while just 2.4% were discharged alive during the study period. More targeted therapeutics can reduce the need for ventilators.

The FDA last month approved Gilead’s antiviral remdesivir for emergency use after a phase-one trial found that the drug reduced recovery times in hospitalized patients on average to 11 days compared to 15 days for those in a control group. Remdesivir stops the virus from replicating, so it may be even more beneficial if administered earlier in the illness.

The treatment learning curve has been as steep as the infection curve. But even if there’s a second Covid-19 wave, it is likely to be less deadly than the first.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/hundreds-of-virus-patients-test-positive-again-after-initial-recovery-in-china-leaked-internal-documents_3371534.html

[ccp]

feels so absurd now

what a joke

the LEFT has a better narrative to shove it down our throats

[DougMacG]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/08/satellite-images-packed-wuhan-hospitals-suggest-coronavirus/
Satellite images of packed Wuhan hospitals suggest coronavirus outbreak began earlier than thought
Harvard Medical School study comparing hospital car parks in 2019 to 2018 finds spike in October
------------------------
China lied, people died, and the world suffered the worst economic lockdown in history.

[Crafty_Dog]

The W.H.O. walks back an earlier assertion that asymptomatic transmission is ‘very rare.’
A top expert at the World Health Organization on Tuesday walked back her earlier assertion that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare.” 
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, who made the original comment at a W.H.O. briefing on Monday, said that it was based on just two or three studies and that it was a “misunderstanding” to say asymptomatic transmission was rare globally.

“I was just responding to a question; I wasn’t stating a policy of W.H.O. or anything like that,” she said.

Dr. Van Kerkhove said that estimates of transmission from people without symptoms come primarily from models, which may not provide an accurate representation. “That’s a big open question, and that remains an open question,” she said.

Scientists had sharply criticized the W.H.O. for creating confusion on the issue, given the far-ranging public policy implications. Governments around the world have recommended face masks and social-distancing measures because of the risk of asymptomatic transmission.

A range of scientists said Dr. Van Kerkhove’s comments did not reflect the current scientific research.

“All of the best evidence suggests that people without symptoms can and do readily spread SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19,” scientists at the Harvard Global Health Institute said in a statement on Tuesday. “Communicating preliminary data about key aspects of the coronavirus without much context can have tremendous negative impact on how the public and policymakers respond to the pandemic.”

A widely cited paper published in April suggested that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms.

Dr. Van Kerkhove and other W.H.O. experts reiterated the importance of physical distancing, personal hygiene, testing, tracing, quarantine and isolation to control the pandemic.

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Continue reading the main story
The debate over transmission erupted a day after the W.H.O. said that cases had reached a new single-day global high: 136,000 on Sunday, with three-quarters in just 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia. The virus has already sickened more than 7 million people worldwide and killed at least 405,400, according to a New York Times database. 
The Pan American Health Organization said on Tuesday that 3.3 million people in the Americas had been infected with the virus. Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, the agency’s director, said that many areas were experiencing exponential growth in infections and death.

In India, health experts are warning of a looming shortage of hospital beds and doctors to treat patients as the country grapples with a sharp surge of infections. India reported 10,000 new infections in the last 24 hours, for a total of at least 266,500, and has surpassed Spain to become one of the five countries with the highest caseloads.

Rajnish Sinha, the owner of an event management company in Delhi, struggled to find a hospital bed for his 75-year-old father-in-law, who tested positive for the virus on Tuesday. 
“This is just the beginning of the coming disaster,” Mr. Sinha said. “Only God can save us.”

[ccp]

He must not be a Democrat:
-----------------------------------------
Researcher involved in retracted Lancet study has faculty appointment terminated, as details in scandal emerge
By MATTHEW HERPER @matthewherper and KATE SHERIDAN @sheridan_kateJUNE 7, 2020Reprints
hydroxychloroquine pills & bottle

JOHN LOCHER/AP
The University of Utah has “mutually agreed” to terminate the faculty appointment of Amit Patel, who was among the authors of two retracted papers on Covid-19 and who appears to have played a key role in involving a little-known company that has ignited a firestorm of controversy.

“The terminated position was an unpaid adjunct appointment with the Department of Biomedical Engineering,” a university spokesperson told STAT. Patel had listed the affiliation on both papers, published in the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. The spokesperson  declined to comment on whether the decision was related to the retractions.

“The University of Utah does not comment on reasons surrounding termination of academic appointments,” the spokesperson said.

Late Sunday, after publication of this story, Patel tweeted he had “verbally terminated” his affiliation with the University of Utah a week ago, and that the relationship had ended formally this past Friday. “There is a much bigger story for which I still do not have the information,” he wrote.

Related: After retractions of two Covid-19 papers, scientists ask what went wrong
The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine both announced the retraction of papers on which Patel was a co-author within hours on Thursday. The paper in the Lancet, in particular, received widespread attention because it raised safety concerns about the drug hydroxychloroquine based on what was purported to be a huge amount of data collected from health records from hundreds of hospitals all around the world.

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Among other consequences of the paper, the World Health Organization paused enrollment of part of a clinical trial meant to test the drug.

The lead author was Mandeep Mehra, the medical director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Heart and Vascular Center and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation. Along with his co-authors, he had received the data from a small company known as Surgisphere, run by CEO Sapan Desai.

How did Mehra meet Desai, and become connected to Surgisphere? “Dr. Patel introduced them,” a spokesperson for the Brigham told STAT. The spokesperson said Mehra knew Patel “through academic and medical circles.”

In his tweets on Sunday, Patel said that he was related to Dr. Desai by marriage. “That’s old news,” he wrote. “Many people from the Brigham were at that wedding, and media knew about it.” The bigger story, he wrote, was that despite requests from other authors for data, he does not have information from Surgisphere, he wrote. On Friday, STAT had asked Mehra if Patel and Desai were brothers-in-law. “Dr. Mehra indicated that he learned of that relationship today,” Mehra’s spokesperson said.

After independent researchers raised questions about the papers, Surgisphere issued a statement defending its work. Both the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine reviewed the papers, and then issued expressions of concern. The retractions were issued after Surgisphere said it could not share its data with an independent institute Mehra had contacted to audit the data.

Related: Moderna released scant Covid-19 data to prevent a leak, CEO says
Mehra said through the spokesperson that Surgisphere claimed to possess certification for data acquisition, data warehousing, data analytics, and data reporting from the International Standards Organization.

“I did not do enough to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use,” Mehra said in a statement. “For that, and for all the disruptions — both directly and indirectly — I am truly sorry.”

Surgisphere has not issued a statement since the retractions were made. Desai did not immediately return an emailed request for comment.

rints

[Crafty_Dog]

The Second Wave Covid Scare
The numbers are better than the headlines, and reopening is necessary.
By The Editorial Board
June 11, 2020 7:47 pm ET

Stocks sold off Thursday amid investor worries that a “second wave” of coronavirus infections could cause countries and states that are reopening to lock down again. But headlines about a coronavirus resurgence in the U.S. are overblown so far, and the bigger threat is keeping the economy in a coma.

“We know as a fact that reopening other states we’re seeing significant problems,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday. “Twelve states that reopened are now seeing spikes. This is a very real possibility.” This is Mr. Cuomo’s excuse for keeping New York City in lockdown purgatory for 12 weeks as other states reopen and their economies rebound.

***
Democrats cite a spike in cases in Florida, Arizona and Texas as evidence of a virus resurgence. But more testing, especially in vulnerable communities, is naturally turning up more cases. Cases in Texas have increased by about a third in the last two weeks, but so have tests. About a quarter of the new cases are in counties with large prisons and meatpacking plants that were never forced to shut down.

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Tests have increased by about 37% in Florida in two weeks, but confirmed cases have risen 28%. Cases were rising at a faster clip during the last two weeks of April (47%) when much of the state remained locked down. Now restaurants, malls, barbershops and gyms are open if they follow social-distancing guidelines.

In Arizona, cases have increased by 73% in the last two weeks though tests have increased by just 53%. But a quarter of all cases in the state are on Indian reservations, which have especially high-risk populations. The rate of diabetes is twice as high among Native Americans as whites and the rate of obesity is 50% higher.

Liberals and the media demanded more testing before states could reopen, yet now are criticizing states because more testing has turned up more cases. Keep in mind that New York has reported about the same number of new cases in the last two weeks as Florida, though it ramped up testing earlier so the relative increase appears less significant.

A more important metric is hospitalizations. In Arizona the weekly rolling average for new Covid-19 hospitalizations has been flat for a month. Emergency-room visits for Covid-19 have spiked this week, but the number of ER beds in use hasn’t changed since late April. Hospitals in Arizona (and California) have reported an increase in cases from U.S. citizens and green-card holders returning from Mexico where hospitals are overwhelmed. But with 22% of ICU beds and 62% of ventilators available, Arizona hospitals should have capacity to manage an increase in patients as it reopens.

Texas has also recently reported an uptick in Covid-19 hospitalizations, mostly in the Houston and Austin areas. Current Covid-19 hospitalizations are up about 20% since the state began to reopen, but Gov. Greg Abbott says hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and much of the increase is tied to nursing homes. The number of currently hospitalized patients per capita is still about 80% higher in New York City than in Texas. Mr. Abbott started reopening six weeks ago while Mr. Cuomo began letting manufacturing and construction resume in the Big Apple this week.

Fatalities are a lagging epidemic indicator since most people who die have been in the hospital for two to three weeks. But deaths also aren’t surging. Texas has recorded 151 deaths this past week versus 221 in the last week of April. Florida has reported 239 deaths, 72 fewer than in the last week of April.

Deaths are probably declining in part from better and earlier treatment, but this means there’s less to fear from reopening. While Arizona has reported 114 deaths—43 more than in the last week of April—its deaths per capita are similar to the 325 that New York has reported in the past week.

Mr. Cuomo over the weekend boasted that New York “did the impossible” and “crushed” the coronavirus curve. New York has made enormous progress since the early days of the pandemic, which hit the state harder and earlier because of its population density, mass transit and international travel. We aren’t among the revisionists who say Mr. Cuomo should have locked down New York earlier.

But other states that didn’t impose strict lockdowns and have been gradually reopening have kept the epidemic under control and not paid as high an economic price. Some 7.3% of workers in Arizona and Florida and 11.4% in Texas were collecting unemployment benefits in late May compared to 18.7% in New York.

***
More infections are inevitable as states reopen, and there will be much trial and error. States need to be vigilant for outbreaks and protect high-risk areas and the vulnerable. But the costs of shutting down the economy are so great, in damage to lives and livelihoods, that there is no alternative to opening for the broader public good.

[ccp]

Thanks PP for your thoughts

here are some of mine:

I nominate your for Derek's defense attorney

that said he clearly killed the guy

that said he was reckless

no one can look at that video and hear people calling for the cop to let up hearing Floyd beg for his life call his mother at point of crossing over to unconsciousness and still with cop crushing his neck against pavement even while he was not moving breathing and the rest.

but of course the LEFT and BLM etc are all playing this up big time exaggerating the significance of these very rare events
totally ignoring purposely the problems of blacks and crime black on black crime
despite black privilege of which there is some evidence of etc etc
and like Ben Carson says (real racism is past)

for power grab
gin up the black vote
and combining. with socialists illegals america haters like the squad
to eradicate trump the republican party and conservatism
and open the flood gates in free this and that until we default and go bankrupt and the whole system falls apart

[DougMacG]

"that said he clearly killed the guy
that said he was reckless"

If so, that leaves us with a manslaughter conviction and 5 Not Guilty verdicts.

I would say the hold chosen clearly contributed to his cause of death.

So much we don't know and what appear to be contradicting autopsies and so many other factors give the defense much to work with within a (former?) standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/oxford-researchers-identify-first-drug-proven-to-reduce-covid-fatalities/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=20634376

[Crafty_Dog]

I prefer shields

https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-2020/shields-compared-to-masks.html?cmp=SNO-ICM-FB-COVID-HLTH&socialid=3432276850

[DougMacG]

I prefer shields

https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-2020/shields-compared-to-masks.html?cmp=SNO-ICM-FB-COVID-HLTH&socialid=3432276850

I don't like AARP but I do like this article and idea.  Looking at the photo I thought there is one more thing you can't buy anymore during coronavirus.  Then they show how to easily make one!

I wonder if that will work in 'mask required' locations.

[Crafty_Dog]

   
    Will the Coronavirus Forge a Brave New World?
Lockdowns and social distancing are unlikely to survive for long.
By: Alex Berezow

Of all the major geopolitical players on the planet, Mother Nature may be the toughest adversary. Nature has neither imperatives nor constraints to guide its behavior. Rather, it operates off general patterns that occur under various conditions. While the patterns provide broad strokes of expected behavior, it strikes mostly randomly. Even predictable phenomena, such as the Atlantic hurricane season, tell us nothing about the magnitude and target of, or potential for, economic damage. A catastrophic Category 5 hurricane that misses major population centers is quickly forgotten; a milder Category 3 hurricane that decimates New Orleans has long-lasting consequences.

Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by a novel coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2, was a predictable phenomenon.

Modern disease outbreaks allow scientists to detect patterns, even if they cannot precisely predict what, when, where and how an outbreak might occur. For decades, microbiologists and epidemiologists have warned about an influenza pandemic. These occur with some regularity; the previous four were in 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2009. But while public health officials were fixated on the flu, a deadly new virus was percolating in China. By the time the biomedical community fully grasped the severity of the disease, it was too late. It had already circled the globe.

But scientists are neither fortunetellers nor miracle workers. The seasonal flu infects up to 1 billion people every year, despite the fact that we all know it’s coming and a vaccine and antiviral exist. The scientific method is also inherently conservative – that is, it operates deliberately and is slow to adopt a new consensus. Typically, this serves the scientific enterprise well, as exciting new findings often end up being wrong after they undergo further scrutiny. Prematurely declaring the coronavirus to be a global threat if it turned out not to be one would have damaged the credibility of public health officials. It seems that, having failed to identify the threat in time, they subsequently over-compensated by endorsing harsh social distancing measures – which, ironically, ended up damaging their credibility anyway.

In an attempt to keep abreast of the ever-changing data on coronavirus infections, public health officials then began providing contradictory advice – which often changed by the week if not the day – and further exacerbated their credibility problem. In the U.K., a prominent scientist who endorsed the lockdown was caught breaking quarantine, cavorting with his lover; in the U.S., public health officials condemned anti-lockdown protests, only to then support anti-racism protests. Such contradictions are bad in and of themselves, but in these cases, they carried the extra burden of hypocrisy: Lockdown is for thee, but not for me. By this point, much of the public had concluded that biomedical professionals were no longer behaving like objective scientific advisers and instead were behaving like political actors.

Worse, by declaring that “the science” demands a strict lockdown – and that anyone who raises concerns about unintended side effects on the economy, mental health or social cohesion is a COVID-denying scourge on the public good – scientists eagerly prioritized severe coronavirus containment measures with little regard for collateral damage. The result was the suppression of debate and dissent as millions of people were put out of work. The damage all this has done to the credibility of the public health profession is incalculable.

Whither the Second Wave?

Knowledge of previous pandemics combined with infectious disease modeling allow scientists to make very credible predictions about the coming of a second wave. Though the coronavirus is biologically distinct from influenza, they share many epidemiological similarities, which in turn allows for comparisons in behavior. A study published by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy found that, in seven of eight previous influenza pandemics, the virus returned about six months later, and the second wave was often worse than the first. There are already reports that the coronavirus is making a comeback, from Beijing to California. Once again, we may not know the exact timing or scope of the second wave, but Mother Nature’s patterns tell us that we should be planning for one.

Assuming, then, that a second wave will hit sometime in the fall, what should we expect to happen? One large segment of the population will have grown weary of the lockdown and will be disinclined to adhere to further restrictions. Besides, in the wake of the economic damage caused by the first lockdown, many national and local economies will be hesitant to impose such strict measures again. Another large segment of the population – namely, the elderly and immunocompromised – will be fearful and may choose to voluntarily self-isolate.

Governments will be in the unenviable position of deciding if they must enforce a second lockdown and, if so, to what extent. These decisions will be complicated by the fact that governments will be facing political battles and economic questions that emerged from the first round of the pandemic. These battles may get extreme, most notably in the United States, which will hold elections in November. Regardless of what governments ultimately decide to do, economic activity and all that it entails – including the unemployment rate – will not fully return to pre-pandemic levels. A quick bounce-back or “V-shaped” recovery is the least likely scenario because the vast amount of economic damage in the past three months cannot be repaired in the same amount of time, especially if a substantial portion of the population remains partially inactive.

Will a Medical Solution Matter?

Those placing their hope in a medical solution in the short term will be disappointed. The antiviral drug remdesivir and the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone are legitimate medical advances, but they are hardly game-changers. For instance, the latter has generated some excitement because it decreases the death rate of patients on ventilators to 28 percent from 40 percent. That’s good news, but the death rate is still quite high. (To put these numbers into perspective, the overall infection fatality rate from the coronavirus is debated but thought to be roughly 0.28 percent, which is about three times worse than the rate for the seasonal flu.) The drug also cannot be taken prophylactically or given too early in the course of an infection because, as an immunosuppressant, it could just make a person more vulnerable. Though an apple a day might keep the doctor away, as of now, there is no pill that will keep the coronavirus away – and it’s likely there never will be.

The best prophylactic hope we have is a vaccine. These have the highest success rate of all drugs that enter clinical trials, so it is extremely likely that at least one vaccine (if not several) will earn regulatory approval. But there are two caveats. First, as is the case with antiviral or anti-inflammatory drugs, approval doesn’t mean that the vaccines will be particularly effective.

Second, approval standards have been relaxed, which may come at the expense of not just efficacy but safety. Also, regulatory bodies routinely give the nod to drugs that are only minimally effective if there is nothing better on the market, a possible outcome given the immense pressure on pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine as quickly as possible. And even if a drug is highly effective, it still takes time to develop, test and distribute it. The British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca says that it will start shipping its vaccine to the U.S. and U.K. by around September. It plans to have distributed 400 million doses by the end of the year and a total of 2 billion by early next year. As impressive and likely record-breaking as this accomplishment is, its timing does little to solve the economic dilemmas posed by the approaching second wave. Besides, the CEO says the vaccine will protect a person for only one year.

The Post-COVID World

Are those who claim, then, that life will never go back to normal after the coronavirus correct? Are we condemned to live in a Brave New World, governed by social distancing and disinfection protocols, in which perfect hygiene is the greatest good?

Surely not, for three reasons. Humans are social animals. Humans like to be entertained. And humans are inclined to choose the path of least resistance. These three facts will shape the post-COVID world far more than the virus will. Because we like to spend time with others, like to maximize fun and prefer to do whatever is easiest (such as eat out rather than cook at home, provided one can afford it), restaurants and sporting events will return to normal eventually. The only question is when.

What won’t return to normal are the things we don’t really like doing, such as commuting, going to the office or buying supplies at the supermarket. It’s much easier to work from home and to click a button on Amazon, so we should expect a decline in the value of commercial real estate as office space and traditional brick-and-mortar retail are no longer in high demand. But these trends were already occurring prior to the pandemic. The coronavirus simply accelerated them.

Global geopolitics will also be affected. The manufacture of certain products deemed essential to national security, like medicine and personal protective equipment, will be repatriated, at least in part. For the next pandemic, many countries will not want to be so heavily dependent on a single supplier like China. Politicians will have an extra incentive to endorse this policy as it involves repatriating some manufacturing and economic activity.

So yes, things will change. The ultimate long-term legacy of the coronavirus will be a more sanitized world of more self-reliant countries.   

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

https://www.theepochtimes.com/least-restrictive-states-have-lower-ccp-virus-death-rates-most-closed-states-have-highest_3399045.html?utm_source=CCPVirusNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-06-24

[Crafty_Dog]

Texas Pauses Reopening, as CDC Says Millions More May Have Had Coronavirus
The government estimates 20 million Americans were infected, significantly higher than official case counts, as Texas sees surge

Contact tracers at the Harris County Public Health contact-tracing facility in Houston Thursday.
PHOTO: DAVID J. PHILLIP/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Jennifer Calfas, Brianna Abbott and Andrew Restuccia
Updated June 25, 2020 10:19 pm ET

Texas paused reopening plans Thursday, as new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations increased in many U.S. states, and a government estimate showed more than 20 million Americans may have contracted the virus, far exceeding diagnosed infections.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that only about 1 in every 10 Covid-19 cases in the U.S. has been identified, Director Robert Redfield said during a briefing with reporters Thursday. He also noted that most Americans are still susceptible to the virus.

“This outbreak is not over. This pandemic is not over,” Dr. Redfield said. “Greater than 90% of the American public hasn’t experienced this virus yet.”

A number of states, including Arizona, Texas, South Carolina and Florida, saw confirmed cases rise by more than 30% over the past week, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.

On Thursday evening, the White House announced that Vice President Mike Pence will host a briefing Friday afternoon with members of the coronavirus task force at the Health and Human Services Department. It will be the first such briefing in nearly two months.

The rapid increase is prompting some governors to enact sweeping new measures, while others in states with diminishing case counts press on with reopening.

Coronavirus Update: Companies’ Reopening Plans, Delegates to Stay Home
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Coronavirus Update: Companies’ Reopening Plans, Delegates to Stay Home
Coronavirus Update: Companies’ Reopening Plans, Delegates to Stay Home
Companies from Disney to Apple are grappling with whether to reopen or close as coronavirus cases surge; the Democratic Party urges delegates to skip the summer convention; demand for a steroid has surged six-fold since the University of Oxford released positive study results. WSJ’s Jason Bellini has the latest on the pandemic. Photo: David Mcnew/AFP
California Gov. Gavin Newsom warned a potential influx of coronavirus-related hospitalizations could impact reopening plans. Coronavirus-related hospitalizations in the state increased by 32% in the last 14 days, with more than 4,200 people in hospitals, he said Thursday. As testing expands across the state, the rate of positive tests has increased to 5.6% in the last seven days, the Democratic governor said.

On Thursday he declared a budget emergency to allow the state to provide more funding and medical resources for more vulnerable populations in case of a potential surge in hospitalizations.

The proclamation allows legislature access to the state’s rainy day fund, as California faces a $54.3 billion budget deficit.

On the other side of the country, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday the total number of coronavirus-related hospitalizations stood at 996, the first time the tally has dropped below 1,000 since mid-March and another sign of progress against the disease.

Will the Economic Recovery Slow With New Coronavirus Cases?


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Mayor Bill de Blasio said New York City was on track to enter its third phase of reopening July 6.

Connecticut meanwhile became one of the first states to declare that public, K-12 schools would open for full-time, in-person instruction this fall.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order requiring hospitals in several counties to halt nonessential surgeries to increase hospital capacity for more coronavirus patients.

“The last thing we want to do as a state is go backwards and close down businesses,” Mr. Abbott said in a statement. “This temporary pause will help our state corral the spread until we can safely enter the next phase of opening our state for business.”

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Coronavirus-related hospitalizations in Texas grew to 4,389 Wednesday, another record-high in the state, according to data from the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. More than 10% of those tested for coronavirus Tuesday had a positive result, an increase from a low of 4.27% on May 26.

As coronavirus cases surge in parts of the country, the Trump administration is making the case that the U.S. isn’t experiencing a repeat of the outbreak’s darkest moments.

Senior administration officials are distributing data to lawmakers and governors meant to show that the increases are concentrated rather than widespread and that many of the new cases are being diagnosed in less vulnerable populations.

“We are looking at a very different environment right now in terms of these new cases than at the point in late March and early April,” a senior administration official told a group of reporters Wednesday.

But administration officials are increasingly concerned about the large number of Covid-19 cases among young people, many of whom may not know they have the disease and could spread it to more at-risk individuals.

Monitoring the U.S. Outbreak
Confirmed cases for each state, listed in order from most total cases to fewest
Daily confirmed cases per 100,000 residents
Trend
Overall
0
25
50
75
06/05
06/12
06/19
N.Y.
Calif.
N.J.
Ill.
Texas
Fla.
Mass.
Pa.
Ga.
Mich.
Md.
Ariz.
Va.
N.C.
La.
Ohio
Conn.
Ind.
Tenn.
Minn.
Ala.
Colo.
Wash.
S.C.
Iowa
Wis.
Miss.
Mo.
Utah
Neb.
Ark.
R.I.
Nev.
Ky.
Kan.
Okla.
N.M.
Del.
D.C.
Ore.
S.D.
N.H.
Idaho
N.D.
Maine
W.Va.
Wyo.
Vt.
Hawaii
Alaska
Mont.
▼
▲
▼
▲
▲
▲
▼
▲
▲
▲
▼
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▼
▼
▲
▼
▼
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▼
▲
▼
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▼
▲
▼
▼
▲
▼
▼
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
▲
390,415
197,589
170,196
139,434
134,464
114,018
107,837
88,141
71,100
69,006
65,777
63,281
59,946
57,472
53,415
47,651
45,994
43,655
38,034
33,763
33,206
31,463
30,367
29,022
27,296
26,227
24,516
19,616
19,374
18,346
18,062
16,640
14,859
14,617
13,101
11,948
11,192
10,980
10,159
7,568
6,479
5,638
4,738
3,393
3,070
2,663
1,326
1,191
851
813
805
Note: Trend indicates whether a state had an increase or decrease in total number of cases in the past seven days compared to previous seven days. Last updated June 25, at 8:37 p.m.
Sources: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering; the Lancet; Associated Press; U.S. Census
The CDC’s estimate that more than 20 million Americans may have had the coronavirus reflects the large number of individuals who either exhibit mild or no symptoms or previously couldn’t get tested. The estimates are based on national serological surveys that looked at samples collected via blood banks or for non-Covid-19-associated tests, Dr. Redfield of the CDC said. The sample collection, which determines the presence of antibodies indicating a person had the disease, is still ongoing.

Public-health experts have been eager to see results from large antibody testing surveys to better understand just how many people have been infected with the virus.

Earlier studies showed that prevalence varies based on location. Roughly 22.7% of people tested in New York City had positive results, whereas roughly 4.1% of people tested in Los Angeles County did so, say officials in those cities. In other parts of the country, the prevalence is likely less.

The estimated more than 20 million U.S. case counts suggest that the death rate from the virus is lower than previously understood. More than 122,000 people have died in the U.S. from Covid-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Mississippi reported single-day records for new confirmed coronavirus cases and related hospitalizations, with 1,092 new infections and 536 people with confirmed cases in hospitals Wednesday.

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In South Carolina, 16.9% of people tested for the new coronavirus Wednesday had positive results—up from 7% on May 28, according to the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control. Total coronavirus-related hospitalizations in Arizona hit another high, with 2,453 patients in the hospital Wednesday, according to the state’s Department of Health Services.

Florida reported more than 5,000 new coronavirus cases Thursday, as the percentage of those who tested positive for the virus continued to climb.

Overall, the U.S. accounts for more than 25% of the more than 9.45 million cases world-wide, according to data from Johns Hopkins. The World Health Organization says it expects total global cases to pass 10 million next week.

U.S. stocks were mixed Thursday as the rise in cases forced some businesses to re-examine their plans. Walt Disney Co. said it would indefinitely delay the reopening of its Disneyland Resort, previously scheduled for July 17.

Economists say a surge of new infections could impede the job market’s slow recovery. The number of workers seeking jobless benefits has eased from a peak in March of nearly 7 million, but remained at a historically high 1.5 million, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

India logged another record day Thursday, while South Korea reported 28 new cases clustered throughout Seoul. Iran passed 10,000 deaths from Covid-19 Thursday, as the daily death toll continued to climb after lockdown restrictions were eased.

Daily reported Covid-19 cases in the U.S.
March 1
March 1
June 25
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
cases
National emergency declared
March 13
34,203
April 23
Seven-day rolling average
Note: For all 50 states and D.C., U.S. territories and cruises. Last updated June 25, at 8:37 p.m.
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering
Daily reported Covid-19 deaths in the U.S.
March 1
March 1
June 25
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
deaths
National emergency declared
March 13
2,150
May 5
Seven-day rolling average
Note: For all 50 states and D.C., U.S. territories and cruises. Last updated June 25, at 8:37 p.m.
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

By Andrew Restuccia
Updated June 25, 2020 5:23 pm ET
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TEXT
WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is trying to temper fears about a surge in coronavirus cases in some parts of the country, making the case that the U.S. isn’t experiencing a repeat of the outbreak’s darkest moments.

Senior administration officials are distributing data to lawmakers and governors meant to show that the increases are concentrated rather than widespread across the country and that many of the new cases are being diagnosed in less vulnerable populations.


Companies from Disney to Apple are grappling with whether to reopen or close as coronavirus cases surge; the Democratic Party urges delegates to skip the summer convention; demand for a steroid has surged six-fold since the University of Oxford released positive study results. WSJ’s Jason Bellini has the latest on the pandemic. Photo: David Mcnew/AFP
“We are looking at a very different environment right now in terms of these new cases than at the point in late March and early April,” a senior administration official told a group of reporters on Wednesday.

Cases of the new coronavirus are accelerating. Thirty-three states, from Oklahoma to South Carolina and Washington, had a seven-day average of new cases on Tuesday that was higher than their average during the past two weeks, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. In response, state and local officials have warned the public to take extra precautions.

But administration officials have said they have no plans to call for broad shutdowns of states in light of the new figures, adding that they will defer to governors.

President Trump’s critics have accused the administration of trying to play down the threat of the pandemic


President Trump, at his rally June 20 in Tulsa, Okla.
PHOTO: LEAH MILLIS/REUTERS
The pandemic should be evaluated on a county-by-county basis instead of a state-by-state basis, the officials said, distributing a map showing that 3% of counties in the U.S. have seen new positive results over the last three days. Vice President Mike Pence cited the figure during a meeting Wednesday with Senate Republicans.

“There’s limited value in slapping a map up on the wall and saying, your whole state is red,” another official said. “People are living in parts of Texas and watching TV and saying, there’s nothing going on here.”

Some of the most at-risk counties have large populations. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top public official in a Texas county with roughly 4.7 million people, said on MSNBC Wednesday that the hospital system there could be overwhelmed “without severe action on the part of the community.”

“The projections show we would run out of all [hospital] beds in anywhere between the next 10 and 40 days,” she said.

MORE ON THE CORONAVIRUS IN AMERICA
As Coronavirus Cases Rise in Arizona, New Mask Rules Spark a Fight
Administration officials said they were focused on 12 states that have shown rising cases and rising percentages of positive cases, including Texas, Arizona and Florida. The administration has sent teams from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to Alabama, Mississippi and North Carolina, and officials said they subsequently have seen improvement in the case numbers there.

As Mr. Trump has shifted focus to other issues, members of the White House’s coronavirus task force have made fewer public appearances. Mr. Pence, White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx and others are expected to speak publicly more often about the resurgence in cases in the coming days and weeks, officials said. Dr. Birx will accompany Mr. Pence on a Sunday trip to Dallas.

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, urged Mr. Trump in a speech in Lancaster, Pa., to drop his effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, referring to Mr. Trump’s “twin legacies: his failure to protect the American people from the coronavirus, and his heartless crusade to take health care protections away from American families.”

Citing increases in coronavirus cases, Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump had failed to grasp the notion that “to fix the economy, we have to get control over the virus. He’s like a child who can’t believe this has happened to him, all his whining and self-pity.”

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh responded: “Joe Biden has no credibility on health care since he sold Obamacare under the lie of ‘If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.’ His support for a government-run ‘public option’ for health care, which drives people into government-controlled plans and kills rural hospitals, is an admission that Obamacare was fatally flawed.”

—Ken Thomas contributed to this article.

[Crafty_Dog]

third

Last week, we introduced our ongoing series, Your Lead, where we answer readers’ questions about how the pandemic is changing daily life in California.
Today we are tackling our first question: Why have face shields not yet caught on as an alternative to masks in California?

Lori Holt, a neuropsychologist in Encino, posed this question. Ms. Holt conducts in-office assessments on patients using plexiglass barriers, air purifiers and disinfectants to protect herself and her patients from Covid-19. However, her efforts to conduct an accurate assessment are often stymied by patients who come in wearing masks.
“One of the thorniest issues we had to overcome involved the use of face coverings,” she wrote in an email.

Ms. Holt evaluates patients using a battery of tests to gauge things like a patient’s memory, attention and language. Face masks can sometimes muffle speech, posing communication challenges and potentially affecting the patient’s comprehension of the tests.
“If the patient doesn’t fully understand even a word or two of a paragraph or a word list that I’m asking them to remember for a verbal memory test, the entire test is ‘spoiled’ and unusable,” she said.

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Ms. Holt has found that clear plastic face shields are a good alternative to masks for her patients, who are given their own face shields that they can take home afterward.
“It is much easier to test the patients when they wear the face shield,” she said. “Their speech is much more intelligible than when they wear a mask. Also, we can see the patient’s face and thus do not lose critical data with respect to facial expression that can help us understand the patient’s emotional state of mind.”

Ms. Holt wondered about the popularity of face shields because, she said, despite the shield casting a minor glare, it is so comfortable that she sometimes forgets to take it off at the end of the day.
John Anderson, who lives in Penn Valley, Calif., asked a similar question about face shields. Mr. Anderson is hearing-impaired and prefers that others use face shields so that he can read lips. During a recent health checkup, his doctor wore a mask and his wife wore a face shield. He read his wife’s lips as she interpreted the doctor’s words.

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Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all Californians to wear face coverings, like cloth masks, when out in public. The state’s Department of Public Health recommends wearing a plastic face shield with a cloth draped along the bottom only if the wearer has a medical condition that prevents them from wearing a cloth mask.
Face shields are also commonly used by front-line health workers, but more people are looking at face shields as an added layer of protection.

The Palo Alto Unified teachers’ union requested that the district supply teachers with face shields and other personal protective equipment when they return to school. And the state’s Department of Education recommends that everyone on school campuses wear masks or face shields with a drape across the bottom when schools reopen.
My colleague Knvul Sheikh wrote about the use of face shields, which can be easily wiped down and reused. Face shields also have the benefit of stopping people from touching their faces, and can be easier and more comfortable than masks.

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However, experts say face shields have limits to the amount of protection they can offer. They seem to be most effective in protecting against cough droplets for people in close range of one another. And droplets can seep in through the back and sides of a face shield, which is why draping a piece of cloth along the bottom is recommended. But their efficacy has not yet been widely studied. For now, face masks are the better option for most people.
Regardless, we may be seeing a lot more of them in the coming weeks.

The City of Long Beach issued a health order last month requiring servers in restaurants to wear both cloth masks and face shields when working. Los Angeles issued a similar order this month.

Because the face shields were cost prohibitive for some businesses, Long Beach began a free distribution program for face shields that it sourced from donations and from state and city resources. Last weekend, it distributed 4,800 masks in just a few hours.

Sandy Wedgeworth, the city’s public health emergency management director, estimates that the city still had around 25,000 face shields that it planned to give away to restaurants, bars and salons in future distribution events.
“We want them out there in the community. We want the folks that need them to have them,” she said. “They are no good to anyone sitting in boxes.”

[Crafty_Dog]

The Jews are at it again , , ,

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/israeli-designed-instant-coronavirus-breathalyser-could-be-rolled-out-globally/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/fauci-says-swine-flu-from-china-could-cause-another-pandemic_3407103.html?utm_source=CCPVirusNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-07-01

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/the-rabbit-outbreak?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_063020&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9d3fa3f92a40469e2d85c&cndid=50142053&hasha=52f016547a40edbdd6de69b8a7728bbf&hashb=e02b3c0e6e0f3888e0288d6e52a57eccde1bfd75&hashc=9aab918d394ee25f13d70b69b378385abe4212016409c8a7a709eca50e71c1bc&esrc=bounceX&utm_term=TNY_Daily

[Crafty_Dog]

third post

https://stream.org/why-you-shouldnt-panic-about-spikes-and-surges-in-new-coronavirus-cases/

[Crafty_Dog]

fourth post

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-lefts-coronavirus-narrative-is-a-myth/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=third