26251 replies to this topic

[Rob Randall]

^Did you have to look that up manually or do you have a "WHATABOUTISM" key on your computer?

 

CBC: There are 14 ongoing outbreaks in long-term and assisted care facilities. Two of the outbreaks involve acute care units. No new outbreaks were reported Monday.

 

 

It sounds as if the virus exists mainly in care homes and even then it's almost burned itself out.

[Victoria Watcher]

no it’s juat that you guys all spent 14 pages bickering over trumps use of hydroxyl while dozens of women actually died from cosmetic surgery.

it just seems your angst is misplaced in the grand scheme of unnecessary medical deaths.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 May 2020 - 02:51 PM.

[spanky123]

 

A key federal benefit for Canadians out of work, or seeing large drops in their earnings, in the COVID-19 pandemic has paid out over $40 billion in emergency aid.

 

Federal figures posted Monday show payments from Canada Emergency Response Benefit now total $40.33 billion to 8.21 million separate applicants, pushing the program further beyond its $35-billion budget.

 

The Feds predicted < 4.0M would claim the CERB so either they were way off in their forecasts or a huge amount of fraud. 

[m3m]

no it’s juat that you guys all spent 14 pages bickering over trumps use of hydroxyl while dozens of women actually died from cosmetic surgery.

it just seems your angst is misplaced in the grand scheme of unnecessary medical deaths.

 

When the president of the us suggests that millions of women should go out and get cosmetic surgery* then perhaps there would be similar outrage. 

 

* I feel like this is likely to occur early in late August.

[amor de cosmos]

what could go wrong here?

President Donald Trump’s staunchest fans are so bent on taking hydroxychloroquine they’re sharing recipes for making their own.

The president has been hyping the anti-malarial drug as a preventative and treatment for the coronavirus, and claimed this week he’s been taking it himself, and his right-wing allies have promoting it and also taking the drug themselves, reported The Daily Beast.

“Tell everyone you’re taking it,” tweeted Lionel Lebron, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and conservative social media personality who visited Trump at the White House in 2018. “Even if you’re not. Say you’re taking it via enema. A high colonic with a twist of lime.”

The Food and Drug Administration does not recommend hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 outside of hospitals or clinical trials, warning the drug can produce “abnormal heart rhythms” in some patients, and a Veterans Affairs study found the drug had no effect on the virus and may lead to death for some patients.

But other QAnon conspiracy theorists are so sure that Trump’s right about hydroxychloroquine they’re sharing recipes for the drug that consists of steeping various fruit rinds so followers can avoid “big pharmas fillers.”

https://www.rawstory...king-their-own/

who's politicising this?

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro neatly sums up how thoroughly politics has hijacked the debate over using malaria drugs against the new coronavirus: "Right-wingers take chloroquine."

The far-right leader made the remark Tuesday, a day before his government recommended widespread use of chloroquine and a less-toxic derivative, hydroxychloroquine, to treat COVID-19 even in mild cases, despite questions about their safety and effectiveness.

https://www.france24...g-against-virus

[Victoria Watcher]

Premier Doug Ford is pleading with people who live in Ontario's COVID-19 "hotspots" to get tested for the virus — but officials won't specify which neighbourhoods have been hardest hit.

 

Ford mentioned the province's coronavirus hotspots multiple times during his daily news conference Monday. He said the government is able to measure them by postal code, and that some areas are "lighting up like a Christmas tree."

 

"We want to encourage people in the hotspots … please get tested," Ford said.

 

But that data has not been made public. CBC News has requested a breakdown of cases by postal code, but Hayley Chazan, spokesperson for the provincial minister of health, would only say that Ontario's hardest-hit regions are in Toronto, Peel Region and Windsor-Essex County.

 

Ford elaborated slightly Monday afternoon, saying "parts" of those regions were most affected. He also mentioned parts of Brampton, north Etobicoke and Scarborough.

 

According to the latest data from the province, Toronto-area public health units account for 64.8 per cent of Ontario's cases.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...sting-1.5583679

 

 

 

let me guess.  it's not politically correct to specify the areas.

 

brampton - 74% visible minority.

scarborough - 76% visible minority

north etobicoke - 62% foreign born

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 May 2020 - 06:01 PM.

[tanker]

I sure hope Trump comes our in support of a covid vaccine so liberals go all anti vaxx. Btw you know Chris Cuomo took cloriquine manufactured by his wife's energy doctor right? You should see some of his wife's "doctor's" YouTube videos.

[Victoria Watcher]

Four more COVID-19 deaths, all at Langley care home

All four COVID-19 deaths over the past 48 hour were at Langley Lodge, which is experiencing a second outbreak. Deaths in B.C. now total 161, while 12 new cases were reported over the weekend, bringing the provincial total to 2,530. The recovery rate is 83 per cent.  Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry expects to provide new data next week on the reopening period. 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 May 2020 - 06:29 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Quebec and Ontario reported the vast majority of Canada's new coronavirus cases on Monday, as the number of confirmed and presumptive infections across the country rose to more than 85,000.

 

Quebec reported 573 new cases, while Ontario reported 404, which together make up roughly 96 per cent of Canada's 1,011 new infections over the past 24 hours.

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...onday-1.5583012

[Victoria Watcher]

Malls across the country are beginning to open their doors after weeks of government-mandated shutdowns, but both operators and retail tenants are stepping into uncharted territory amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

In the near-term, operators are focused on reopening their properties safely, but there's a larger concern that shoppers — who have embraced e-commerce and curbside pickup since the pandemic's outset — will be unimpressed upon returning to malls as many stores remain closed and new safety measures change the experience.

 

Tim Sanderson, head of Canadian retail at Jones Lang LaSalle, said he's worried about a repeat of U.S. retail giant Target's ill-fated attempt to penetrate the Canadian market, where supply chain issues resulted in empty shelves and annoyed customers who left and never came back.

 

"This is the experience that I fear, that we fear, could happen in the malls," he said. "Someone goes to a shopping centre, goes through all of the protocols involved, walks into the shopping centre, and the store she came for is not even open, but also, the experience is going to be underwhelming."

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...pping-1.5583666

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 May 2020 - 07:16 PM.

[Greg]

I sure hope Trump comes our in support of a covid vaccine so liberals go all anti vaxx. Btw you know Chris Cuomo took cloriquine manufactured by his wife's energy doctor right? You should see some of his wife's "doctor's" YouTube videos.

 

 I'm not even sure Trump can come out strongly in support of a vaccine, given his need to appeal to his base, and his own previous anti-vaccine history. 

[m3m]

I sure hope Trump comes our in support of a covid vaccine so liberals go all anti vaxx. Btw you know Chris Cuomo took cloriquine manufactured by his wife's energy doctor right? You should see some of his wife's "doctor's" YouTube videos.

Chris Cuomo actually took “quinine”.

Coincidentally, I actually loaded up on multiple doses of quinine myself this past weekend on the recommendation of my bartender. I did suffer some minor side effects the next day, but overall it made me feel pretty good! I’ll definitely do it again this weekend when the patio at Canoe opens up. I hope they have gin and tonics on their happy hour menu.

https://www.google.c...1202939839/amp/

[Mike K.]

I'm not even sure Trump can come out strongly in support of a vaccine, given his need to appeal to his base, and his own previous anti-vaccine history.

We can thank the Lancet for that!

[Mike K.]

no it’s juat that you guys all spent 14 pages bickering over trumps use of hydroxyl while dozens of women actually died from cosmetic surgery.

it just seems your angst is misplaced in the grand scheme of unnecessary medical deaths.

In that time tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands globally, died from complications stemming recommended dose drug use. There’s a good chance most of us have those same drugs in our cabinets.

And how many will die waiting for elective surgeries, or already have died but we haven’t yet caught up with the data?

[Lost password]

Trans Mountain pipeline: Protest ban is 'great time' to build, says minister

 

"People are not going to have tolerance and patience for protests that get in the way of people working," she said. "People need jobs, and those types of ideological protests that get in the way are not going to be tolerated by ordinary Canadians."

 

https://www.bbc.com/...p news stories]

[Mike K.]

Thankfully we don’t have this sort of control over our lives, like those living in Michigan have. Their Governor, Gretchen
Whitmer, is seeing her political future implode right before her eyes as protests escalate after she made comments in relation to WWII.

Columnist Kurt Schlichter wrote: “In World War II Michigan didn’t have a dizzy fascist as the governor.”

- https://www.dailywir...r-wwii-comments

 
Looks like the "dizzy fascist" of Michigan is making headlines again, this time for the special treatment her husband received to have his boat plunked into the water just in time for Memorial Day, while the rest of society was told to stay away from that boating area.
 

The owner of a Northern Michigan dock company says Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's husband wanted his boat placed in the water before the Memorial Day weekend as Whitmer urged residents not to rush to the region.
 
No longer visible to the public, Facebook posts from NorthShore Dock LLC and its owner, Tad Dowker, focused on what Dowker said was a request last week by Whitmer's husband, Marc Mallory. The posts have drawn the attention of Republican state lawmakers, who said the Democratic governor's family may not be following her guidance for the rest of the state. - https://www.detroitn...mer/5254889002/

 
The peasants must stay home, while the elite get to go boating.
 

"This morning, I was out working when the office called me, there was a gentleman on hold who wanted his boat in the water before the weekend," Dowker posted. "Being Memorial weekend and the fact that we started working three weeks late means there is no chance this is going to happen."
 
"Well our office personnel had explained this to the man and he replied, 'I am the husband to the governor, will this make a difference?'"

On May 18, Whitmer announced plans to lift restrictions on northern Lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula ahead of the Memorial Day weekend.
 
"If you don't live in these regions ... think long and hard before you take a trip into them," Whitmer said at the May 18 press conference.
 
"A small spike could put the hospital system in dire straits pretty quickly," she added later. "That's precisely why we're asking everyone to continue doing their part. Don't descend on Traverse City from all regions of the state."

 
Meanwhile a Senator who chimed in on the nonsense was later asked to remove his social media post because the claim the governor's husband received preferential treatment was just a rumour.
 

State Sen. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte, wrote his own Facebook post on Friday, criticizing Mallory's apparent request for the boat installation. The post was shared 500 times, Barrett said.
 
But the lawmaker said he eventually deleted it after the governor's office reached out to the staff of Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, asking for the post to be removed and contending the comments were false.
 
Barrett, who looked into the situation further, said he now believes the governor's office had made him an "unwilling" accessory in an attempted cover-up of the situation. The senator also mentioned that Whitmer had told other Michigan residents not to "descend" on Traverse City.
 
“Yet, what did her family try and do?" Barrett said.
 
"In the Army, we have a tradition that the leaders get in line for chow last behind everyone else in the unit," he continued. "Here is the leader of our state. … Her family is trying to cut people in line."

[amor de cosmos]

The technology proposed by Carmetry is based on artificial intelligence and geolocation, and it consists of the use of a model of three-dimensional variables to analyse, within a spatial and temporal range, the GPS trajectory of an individual who is COVID-19 positive. This algorithm Will make it possible, via a mobile device, to determin which people an infected individual came in contact with during the virus incubation period. At each point of the trajectory of the coronavirus-infected individual, the algorithm considers, in addition to the proximity between both individuals, the length of time of exposure to the virus to estimate the viral load of the infection within a radius, beginning with the initial trajectory and throughout the remaining GPS trajectories.

“The important thing is to crosscheck anonymous data from hundreds of thousands of people, then apply an intelligent algorithm that manages to help the country,” said Arturo Gil and David Úbeda, the founders of Carmetry. As such, this UMH Scientific Park start-up makes the intelligence of its clusters available to the public in order to warn people who have been in contact with infected individuals early on, regardless of whether they know each other or not, and also if their paths simply crossed while buying bread. The technology that makes it posible to track the contagion will be used during the specific period of the pandemic, and then erased, thus maintaining a commitment to data treatment confidentiality. Furthermore, Carmetry’s algorithm has dissociated all personal and medical data, for whose storage hosting such data is not even necessary.

https://www.alphagal...y/ItemId/193046
 

The announcements pleased politicians trying to offer hope to citizens desperate to leave lockdowns and investors eager for economic activity to return.

But many scientists feel a duty to damp the enthusiasm. They say a vaccine could take much longer because little is known about the disease and how bodies will react to attempts at immunization. In fact, some warn we may never create a vaccine for Covid-19.

Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist for the World Health Organization, believes an optimistic scenario is a vaccine produced in the “tens of millions” next year, which would be mainly distributed to healthcare workers, and far larger volumes in 2022. To inoculate the world and defeat Covid-19 could take four to five years, she says.

We have no “crystal ball” to tell the future, she told the Financial Times. “It depends how the virus behaves: whether it mutates, whether it becomes more or less virulent, more or less transmittable.”

Peter Hotez, a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who is developing a vaccine, says the US president sees vaccines as a “manufacturing problem,” like making enough ventilators or tests.

“Manufacturing is not the hurdle. It’s taking the time to collect enough efficacy and safety data,” he says. “The Operation Warp Speed language coming out of the White House and biotechs and pharma companies [saying] that they will have a vaccine by the fall—or in weeks or days—does so much damage.”

Vaccines are usually developed over many years and even decades. A 2013 paper from Dutch scientists says the average vaccine took 10.71 years and had only a 6 per cent success rate from start to finish. Each stage is an experiment: from the small phase one trials happening now to the large phase three trials needed for regulatory approval.

longish
https://arstechnica....ccine-research/
 

Researchers at the University of Exeter Medical School and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine analysed data from the UK Biobank, and found high risk of severe COVID-19 infection among European ancestry participants who carry two faulty copies of the APOE gene (termed e4e4). One in 36 people of European ancestry have two faulty copies of this gene, and this is known to increase risks of Alzheimer's disease up to 14-fold* and also increases risks of heart disease.

Now, the research team has found that carrying these gene mutations doubles the risks of COVID-19 - even in people who had not developed these diseases.

The team has previously found that people with dementia are three times more likely to get severe COVID-19, yet they are not one of the groups advertised to shield - or shelter in place - on health grounds. Part of the increased risk effect may have been exposure to the high prevalence of the virus in care homes. However, the new study, published in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, indicates that a genetic component may also be at play. The team found that people with the APOE e4e4 genotype were at double the risk of developing severe COVID-19, compared to those with the common e3e3 form of the APOE gene. The team used data from the UK Biobank study, which collects health and genetic data on 500,000 people.

https://www.eurekale...e-dgr052220.php

Peer-reviewed data shows remdesivir for COVID-19 improves time to recovery
https://www.eurekale...a-pds052220.php
 

Since April 1, a team of immunologists, medical scientists, and virologists, has been collecting blood samples from volunteers who have recovered from COVID-19. The majority of the samples they have studied showed poor to modest "neutralizing activity," indicating a weak antibody response. However, a closer look revealed everyone's immune system is capable of generating effective antibodies—just not necessarily enough of them. Even when neutralizing antibodies were not present in an individual's serum in large quantities, researchers could find some rare immune cells that make them.

"This suggests just about everybody can do this, which is very good news for vaccines," says Michel C. Nussenzweig, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology at Rockefeller. "It means if you were able to create a vaccine that elicits these particular antibodies, then the vaccine is likely to be effective and work for a lot of people."

Moreover, the researchers identified three distinct antibodies that were shown to be the most potent of the bunch in neutralizing the virus. They are working to develop them further into therapeutic and preventive drugs.

https://medicalxpres...ogy-reveal.html
 

Rheumatologists at the University of Alberta are flagging similarities between the deaths of some COVID-19 patients and those with rheumatic illnesses, and are testing proven rheumatic treatments to see whether they help against the pandemic virus.

A substantial proportion of COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care die of pneumonia due to a cytokine storm, where the body attacks itself rather than fighting off the illness, said Jan Willem Cohen Tervaert, director of rheumatology in the Department of Medicine.

In a new paper published in Autoimmunity Reviews, Cohen Tervaert and his colleagues note that such storms, whether in patients with COVID-19 or rheumatic diseases, are caused by dysfunctional "natural killer" (NK) immune cells.

They say that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, might attack NK cells directly by binding to angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2), a receptor on the cells that COVID-19 researchers believe attracts and opens the door to the virus.

https://medicalxpres...ths-severe.html
 

The World Health Organization said Monday it had "temporarily" suspended clinical trials of hydroxychloriquine as a potential treatment for COVID-19 being carried out across a range of countries as a precautionary measure.

The decision came after the publication last week of a study in the Lancet indicating that using the drug on COVID-19 patients could increase their likelihood of dying, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference.

https://english.alar...id-19-treatment
 

Using the system, Dr. Kamran Khan, a University of Toronto researcher and member of the Infectious Disease Division of St. Michael’s Hospital, and his team of 50 researchers were alerted to the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China on New Year’s Eve.

The computer program algorithm picked up a blog post that told of a 20-person pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan. It took only seconds for the program to analyze airline schedules and pick 20 places that were in the path of the virus. As it turned out, 12 of those places were the first to report the presence and outbreak of COVID-19.

Virus appearing in Bangkok sets off alarm

When the virus was detected in Bangkok, Thailand on Jan. 13, Khan said it set off alarm bells.

“If you see a case show up outside of Wuhan in another country, it’s telling you that the outbreak is much bigger than a couple dozen cases,” he told the Canadian Press. “That’s the moment we were quite concerned.”

The software combs through hundreds of thousands of news reports in 65 languages every day, seeking to uncover information on disease trouble spots. BlueDot’s speed is of the essence as the world has been slow to react to possible pandemics.

https://www.aa.com.t...-system/1853536

China conducts over 6.5 million COVID-19 tests in Wuhan
https://www.aa.com.t...n-wuhan/1853473

MOSCOW, May 26. /TASS/. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has officially invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to take part in a virtual summit devoted to research into a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, the British embassy in Moscow said on Telegram.

"On June 4, the British government will hold the Global Vaccine Summit 2020. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has officially invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to participate in the virtual summit," the embassy said.

The main task of the summit is to mobilize resources the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization will need to ensure universal availability of the vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

https://tass.com/world/1160547

And since the United States is a "highly litigious society," he added, these conflicts often end up in court.

A first wave of lawsuits has come from prisons and immigration centers, said Torston Kracht, a litigation partner with Hunton Andrews Kurth: prisoners have demanded to be paroled early, arguing that sanitary conditions in their facilities are poor and in some cases are aggravating detainees' existing health problems.

Some prisoners, including former Donald Trump campaign director Paul Manafort and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, have won early release.

Others have found themselves caught up in epic legal battles: the US government has just asked the Supreme Court to block the early release of 800 inmates from the Elkton Federal Correctional Institution in eastern Ohio.

*snip*

A second big category of lawsuits deals with efforts to seek compensation for financial losses.

Ticket buyers who saw events canceled have filed a class-action suit against the online reservation site Ticketmaster, while others are seeking compensation for lost hotel or airline reservations, or even for memberships in gyms that have been closed for months.

Since early May, demands from students seeking to recover tuition expenses and fees have surged. And business and shop owners, forced to remain closed, have sued various governmental entities to challenge confinement orders.

http://www.globaltim...t/1189320.shtml

Mulvaney: 'We've overreacted a little bit' to coronavirus
https://thehill.com/...-to-coronavirus

‘I don’t even listen to him anymore’: Older Florida voters revolt over Trump’s COVID-19 response
https://www.rawstory...id-19-response/

Britain’s finance minister, Rishi Sunak, has authorized a plan to save strategically important companies in exceptional circumstances, the Financial Times reported, citing details shared with the newspaper by the Treasury.

Under the plan called Project Birch, the government would rescue any companies whose failure would “disproportionately harm the economy,” the Financial Times said. A Treasury official declined to comment on the report.

While it’s not clear which companies the government deems strategically important, some of the nation’s biggest employers are reeling, the travel industry has collapsed and auto sales have all but folded. Last month, the Bank of England warned that the outlook for jobs was “horrendous.”

Among the bigger announcements detailing the corporate carnage, Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc is cutting 9,000 jobs, utility Ovo is axing 2,600 positions and Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. is trying to avert collapse. Jaguar Land Rover, the country’s largest automaker with some 38,000 employees, is in talks to borrow more than 1 billion pounds ($1.2 billion) through the emergency coronavirus lending program, people familiar with the matter said.

https://www.bloomber...nt-companies-ft

Edited by amor de cosmos, 26 May 2020 - 07:16 AM.

[Jason-L]

This is an interesting presentation of data for COVID-19 deaths.

 

https://public.flour...sation/2562261/

[Victoria Watcher]

No new COVID-19 deaths in B.C., 11 cases

The province has announced no new COVID-19 deaths in B.C. over a 24 hour period for the first time since the weekend of May 11 to 12, along with no new outbreaks at long-term care homes or in the community. There were 11 new cases, bringing the provincial total to 2,541, and a recovery rate of 83 per cent.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 May 2020 - 02:48 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

B.C. records no new COVID-19 deaths for the first time in weeks

https://www.vicnews....-time-in-weeks/

 

Despite the new cases, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced a glimmer of hope on Tuesday (May 26) as B.C. works to flatten the curve amid reopening: that there were no new deaths in the past 24 hours, marking the first day with no fatalities from the virus in several weeks.

 

 

“Today, we’re able to report no new deaths for the first time in quite a few weeks, and we want to be able to do this every day so no more families have to deal with the loss of somebody they love,” Henry said.

 

https://bc.ctvnews.c...id-19-1.4954965

 

For the first time in weeks, B.C. reports no new deaths from COVID-19

Another 11 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in British Columbia, but there have been no additional deaths from the virus.

 

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry noted that Tuesday's update represents the first time in weeks that no one has died from the novel coronavirus in B.C.

 

"I'm extremely pleased that today, for the first time in a while, we've had no new deaths," Henry said.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...ay-26-1.5584095

 

B.C. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Tuesday she was pleased to be able to announce no new deaths in B.C. "for the first time in quite a few weeks."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

is every single reporter in bc too lazy or inept to actually check and see when the last time we were death-free?  anyway i checked and it's been at least since april 2nd.  daily death data before that is not readily available.  so it might be even longer.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 May 2020 - 05:45 PM.