26251 replies to this topic

[RFS]

Why on earth would any one care about social distancing after the week of mass demonstrations and riots getting a total pass? Our own prime minister participated in a mass demonstration and we're still supposed to play along with social distancing? Not likely

[tanker]

Yep BLM put an end to Wuhan flu lockdown. I'll take it.

[jsan]

“We have learned that it's ok to ignore the stay at home orders, to protest against police, who would enforce the stay at home orders, as long as during our protest, we don't mention the stay at home orders.” June 2020

[Mike K.]

I was called by a survey team yesterday asking questions about the province's decisions related to COVID and the overall health of the economy. A lot of questions were asking whether I’d support the NDP in some regards or the Liberals in others.

[lanforod]

There is no way the Liberals would win an election today. No way.

[Rob Randall]

There is no way the Liberals would win an election today. No way.

 

The health officer's job in a non-political appointment but still, people are used to seeing her on TV alongside Dix and Horgan and after that New York Times hagiography it just reinforces the perception the province did everything right. 

 

Now the NDP caught some lucky breaks with this pandemic, and the Liberals are justified in calling for oversight into things like how billions of dollars in aid will be accounted for but the bottom line is the NDP are looking good for the foreseeable future if they don't do something stupid.

 

Like I said in the Trump thread, a tragedy like a pandemic is a political gift in a way: handle it responsibly and you are golden, politicize it and you'll eventually find yourself booted out of office.

[amor de cosmos]

Blood Test May Predict Clot Risk in Severe COVID-19
— Test used to look for hypocoagulability accurate for hypercoagulation events in study

Hypercoagulability on thromboelastography (TEG) was a good predictor of thrombotic events among COVID-19 patients entering the ICU, according to a single-center study.

The clinically significant thrombosis that developed in 13 of 21 PCR-test-positive patients (62%) seen at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center ICU from March 15 to April 9 was associated with hypercoagulable TEG parameters in all cases.

Maximum amplitude on that test was elevated in all 10 patients with two or more thrombotic complications compared with 45% of those with no more than one such event (nearly all arterial, central venous, or dialysis catheter or filter thromboses).

*snip*

TEG is typically used to test for lack of coagulation factors in cases of trauma or open heart surgery patients who are bleeding, Rosengart noted. His group started using it to figure out why patients were having central lines and dialysis lines clog up with clots when most of their normal blood tests weren't picking up a problem.

"There's been a lot of attention on ventilation management, pulmonary management, sepsis management, and increasingly the literature is showing that this subclinical hypercoagulation microthrombosis syndrome is a very under-considered, underrecognized element of mortality risk" in COVID-19, he said in an interview.

https://www.medpaget...e/covid19/86930
 

Amid the Trump administration’s calamitous response to the Covid-19 pandemic, media have been looking to other countries for inspiration in responsible leadership during a period of crisis. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has been one popular pick, having capably managed to limit the damage to only 1,504 infections and 22 deaths, as of June 5.

A widely shared article in the Conversation (4/5/20) described Ardern as putting on a “masterclass in crisis leadership.” The Washington Post (4/7/20) characterized her government’s response as a “triumph of science and leadership.” Elsewhere, she has been praised as “the most effective leader on the planet” (Atlantic, 4/19/20) who “should be teaching the rest of the world” (Guardian, 4/10/20). The Financial Times (4/19/20) unironically anointed her “Saint Jacinda.”

*snip*

There was far less praise for leaders in the Global South. Indeed, the only one mentioned by name was Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen, and this was primarily because she “sent millions of face masks to the United States and Europe”—although with 443 total cases and only seven deaths, Taiwan has had a far more enviable record on Covid-19 than most of the countries featured in the editorial. True Asian leadership, according to the Times editorial board, is helping white people, apparently.

*snip*

The problem with much of the reporting focusing on rich, developed countries where media have foreign correspondents is that it ignores often superior responses to the virus from much of the Global South, countries that have nothing like the resources of advanced Western states. Cuba has successfully bent its curve downwards, and has sent medical staff to dozens of countries around the world (FAIR.org, 4/14/20, 5/31/20), including to crisis-struck Italy, held up as a model of leadership.

The Indian state of Kerala, extremely poor by international standards, recorded its first coronavirus case a month before New Zealand. Yet an impressive feat of organization from local authorities has limited the outbreak to just 1,588 cases and 14 deaths.

Vietnam was hit by COVID-19 even earlier than Kerala, yet the entire country mobilized against the threat in a manner oft-compared to the struggle against the US military during the war. Whole towns were quarantined after a single confirmed case. Citizens have their temperature constantly checked in public buildings and transit hubs like bus stations. Food is provided to anyone self-isolating to make sure nobody needs to endanger themselves or others by leaving their homes. They have also created and mass-produced test kits, all costing less than $25 each, and giving results in 90 minutes, exporting them around the world. To date, Vietnam has still to record a single death.

But when commenting on Vietnam at all, media tend to brush off the country’s success as not down to leadership or the nationwide determination to stop the pandemic, but to its authoritarian government (e.g. NPR, 4/16/20; BBC, 5/15/20). Foreign Policy (5/12/20), for instance, published an article called “Vietnam’s Success Is Built on Repression,” which informed readers that Vietnamese authorities digitally track citizens. Wow—imagine living in a country where security services surveil your phone and social media! (For more on Vietnam, see FAIR.org, 5/15/20.)

Perhaps the only country that moved quicker than Vietnam was Mongolia, which shut down schools, universities and other public buildings and restricted border crossings in January, before any cases had even been found. Throughout February, the country was doing what we now wish we had done: stockpiling PPE, procuring test kits and cancelling public events. To date, it has still yet to record a single in-country transmission, the only cases detected coming internationally. Yet corporate media ignore these examples in favor of praising white Western leaders with palatable political backgrounds.

https://fair.org/hom...ip-on-covid-19/
 

When public oil and gas companies are doing relatively well, many are happy to adopt a pay-for-performance model to reward CEOs and executives. However, the tables are quickly turned when things go to the dogs. When these companies go bankrupt, the misery is shared by employees who lose their jobs; retirees see their benefits and pensions go up in smoke, while shareholders and bondholders get wiped out. In sharp contrast, it's very common for blue-chip executives who have run their companies to the ground to receive multi-million dollar golden sendoffs. Indeed, top executives of oil and gas companies going through Chapter 11 frequently receive very fat payouts in the form of cash bonuses, stock grants, and other benefits that often exceed payments during the good times.

It's not any different this time around.

At a time when hundreds of thousands of employees in the U.S. shale industry have lost their jobs, Bloomberg has reported that some 35 executives at Whiting Petroleum Inc.(NYSE:WLL), Chesapeake Energy Corp.(NYSE:CHK) and Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc.(OTCMKTS: DOFSQ) are set to receive nearly $50 million after their companies declared bankruptcy or are on the verge of doing so.

https://oilprice.com...o-Bankrupt.html
 

TOKYO -- The coronavirus pandemic has produced a worldwide explosion of research that has outpaced peer reviews, suggesting a new trend in public health science that favors speed over established channels.

In four months, about 10,000 research papers were produced on the novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, last year, according to global data compiled by Japan's National Institute of Science and Technology Policy. That compares with just 100 or so papers on SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, as of seven months after that outbreak began in 2002.

Much of the volume of COVID-19 research has come from China and the U.S., and has bypassed the typically monthslong process of scientific vetting known as peer review, instead going straight to online sites in the form of "preprints."

"The trend of preprint dissemination may be here to stay," regardless of the merits of the actual research, said Miho Funamori, an associate professor at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo.

China led in terms of the number of coronavirus-related preprints as of April 21, with 545, followed by the U.S. at 411, according to the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy data. Japan lagged in eighth place with 31, behind the U.K. and Italy. Countries' coronavirus research output shows a correlation with the number of domestic COVID-19 cases. Japan's relatively lighter outbreak has left it with less COVID-19 patient data -- a fact that has also slowed a clinical trial for potential treatment Avigan.

https://asia.nikkei....-more-than-SARS
 

Apparently eager to portray a country that’s definitively back on track not only economically, with a stunner of a nonfarm-payrolls report released early Friday, but also in public health terms, the White House on Friday effectively forced reporters to abandon the Trump administration’s own social-distancing guidance.

Chairs for correspondents, of late placed at a remove from one another in accordance with the widely recognized recommendation to stay 6 feet away from others to lower the risk of coronavirus contagion, were assembled in the Rose Garden in status quo ante fashion.

Why, asked the White House Correspondents Association, were reporters being asked to violate established best practices, with 1,000 Americans perishing daily from COVID-19 and states including Arizona, Arkansas, Texas and Tennessee continuing to see new peaks in cases? A succinct answer from the White House:

‘It looks better.’
— Judd Deere, deputy press secretary

https://www.marketwa...ther-2020-06-05

Brazil takes down COVID-19 data, hiding soaring death toll
https://www.reuters....l-idUSKBN23D0PW
https://www.aljazeer...7064204479.html

Johns Hopkins University website retrieves data on coronavirus in Brazil
https://tass.com/world/1165007
 

With crystalline canals in Venice, wildlife roaming undisturbed and clouds of haze lifting from above urban centers, environmental healing has been touted as a silver lining in the devastating coronavirus pandemic.

But as more and more people venture out after weeks or months of confinement, perhaps taking a trip to the ocean, they are faced with one of the pandemic’s environmental costs – face masks and gloves polluting beaches, rivers and oceans.

“We’ve seen how glove and face mask litter in the ocean has increased considerably. Please, dispose of these items properly if you want the oceans to stay clean,” said Carmen Soto Barrera, a professional fisher in Spain’s Canary Islands, in a social media plea in late May.

https://www.aa.com.t...to-seas/1868246

US Senator Rick Scott has said there is evidence to back claims that China is trying to frustrate COVID-19 vaccine development in the United States.
https://sputniknews....ccine-research/
https://www.reuters....t-idUSKBN23E0B5

don't listen to trump, obviously

Private sector employers slashed at least 2,760,000 jobs from April 12 to May 12, according to payroll giant ADP, on top of the 20 million job cuts in the previous monthly period, and even that doesn’t reflect the total economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The May ADP National Employment Report uses data only through the 12th of the month to reflect the same time period used by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in its monthly jobs survey, which will be reported Friday.

Small businesses lost 435,000 jobs from April 12 to May 12, including 253,000 at businesses with between one and 19 employees, and 182,000 at businesses with between 20 and 49 employees. Medium-size businesses with between 50 and 499 employees lost 722,000 jobs during that period. Large businesses cut a whopping 1,604,000 jobs, including 272,000 at companies with between 500 and 999 employees, and 1,332,000 at corporations with 1,000 employees or more.

The service-providing sector accounted for 1,967,000 of the job cuts, including 250,000 in professional and business services such as tax prep and accounting, along with 196,000 in financial activities such as banking. The goods-producing sector lost 794,000 jobs, mainly in the manufacturing industry, which cut 719,000 jobs. Franchises cut 254,100 jobs.

"The impact of the COVID-19 crisis continues to weigh on businesses of all sizes," said Ahu Yildirmaz, co-head of the ADP Research Institute, in a statement. "While the labor market is still reeling from the effects of the pandemic, job loss likely peaked in April, as many states have begun a phased reopening of businesses."

https://www.accounti...avirus-says-adp

more useless data from the US government

The US government agency responsible for publishing labour market statistics is struggling to pin down the actual unemployment rate in the world’s largest economy.

The problem is due to “misclassification” of workers in a key survey, struggles with data collection during the pandemic, and massive flows in and out of jobs.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a unit of the US labour department, released its latest report on the jobs market, showing unemployment dropping from 14.7 per cent in April to 13.3 per cent in May, an unexpected improvement.

But the data came with a caveat: the agency acknowledged that some furloughed employees had been labelled as working but absent, when they should have been classified as temporarily laid off. If not for that mistake, the unemployment rate would have been 3 percentage points higher.

The revelation was not new and in fact the problem has been getting smaller: in April, closer to the start of the pandemic, the BLS had said the “misclassification error” was in the order of 5 percentage points, which meant the unemployment rate might have neared 20 per cent.

https://www.ft.com/c...cf-1f5957720e88

Global production of crude steel – ingots, semi-finished products (billets, blooms, slabs), and liquid steel for castings – dropped 13% in April compared to April last year, to 137 million metric tonnes (Mt), according to the World Steel Association. While China’s production, at 85 Mt, was flat with a year ago, production by the rest of the world (without China) plunged 27% to 52.1 Mt.

India’s production, normally the second largest in the world, collapsed 64% in April. US production, in fourth place, plunged 32%. China’s crude steel producers – many of them state-owned – are doing in this pandemic what they did during the Global Financial Crisis: They catapulted their global dominance to the next level. In April, they produced 62% of the world’s crude steel:

etc
https://wolfstreet.c...-surge-in-2019/

Trump Destroys Factory’s Entire Daily Batch of Coronavirus Swabs By Refusing to Wear a Mask
https://www.mediaite...to-wear-a-mask/

Tehran (ISNA) - While the world fights to slow the spread of COVID-19, the worst pandemic experienced in a century, countries in South and Southwest Asia are simultaneously responding to plagues of pests which threaten to worsen hunger and the livelihoods of millions of people, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned.

Swarms of Desert Locust, over the last couple of months, have moved swiftly into west Asia attacking vegetation in parts of Iran and Pakistan, and are now threatening crops in India. These swarms are the worst experienced in more than a generation.

Fall armyworm, a maize-destroying pest that migrated to Asia from Africa in 2018, has also spread across the continent and has arrived in Australia.

Multiple challenges for an already challenged region

While the lockdowns of countries across the Asia-Pacific Region in response to COVID-19 have taken their toll on the economies, lives and livelihoods of millions of people, the convergence of these plant pests will only add to the suffering.

“We cannot and must not under-estimate the damage to lives and livelihoods that the convergence of these crises will have on food security and hunger in this part of the world, already home to most of its undernourished people,” said Jong-Jin Kim, FAO Deputy Regional Representative and Head of the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. “While we continue the battle to save lives and contain the spread of COVID-19, we must now fight a war that has multiple fronts and various enemies here in the Asia-Pacific region,” Kim added.

https://en.isna.ir/n...-fuel-hunger-in

Edited by amor de cosmos, 07 June 2020 - 08:30 AM.

[Mike K.]

The health officer's job in a non-political appointment but still, people are used to seeing her on TV alongside Dix and Horgan and after that New York Times hagiography it just reinforces the perception the province did everything right.

She is older, but yeesh...

[UDeMan]

so when will the NDP call an election?  They are sure to win a majority.  The BC Liberals do not have good leadership now, and the Green's are falling apart.

[Rob Randall]

They certainly wouldn't call one before 2021.

[amor de cosmos]

In a turbulent week across nation, U.S. billionaire wealth has surged past half a trillion dollars since the beginning of the pandemic unemployment.

The announcement on June 4th that 1.9 million more Americans have filed for unemployment in the last week brings total unemployment filings to over 42.6 million since March 18th, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This doesn’t include millions more workers who have applied for help as self-employed workers.

Over these same 11 weeks, between March 18th and June 4, the cumulative total wealth of U.S. billionaires has increased $565 billion, an increase of 19.15 percent.

https://ips-dc.org/b...e-unemployment/

this deserves some bolding

Emergency health measures implemented in six major countries have "significantly and substantially slowed" the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to research from a UC Berkeley team published today in the journal Nature. The findings come as leaders worldwide struggle to balance the enormous and highly visible economic costs of emergency health measures against their public health benefits, which are difficult to see.

In the first peer-reviewed analysis of local, regional and national policies, the researchers found that travel restrictions, business and school closures, shelter-in-place orders and other non-pharmaceutical interventions averted roughly 530 million COVID-19 infections across the six countries in the study period ending April 6. Of these infections, 62 million would likely have been "confirmed cases," given limited testing in each country.

Continuation of these policies after the study period has likely avoided many millions more infections, according to lead author Solomon Hsiang, director of Berkeley's Global Policy Laboratory and Chancellor's Professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy.

"The last several months have been extraordinarily difficult, but through our individual sacrifices, people everywhere have each contributed to one of humanity's greatest collective achievements," Hsiang said. "I don't think any human endeavor has ever saved so many lives in such a short period of time. There have been huge personal costs to staying home and canceling events, but the data show that each day made a profound difference. By using science and cooperating, we changed the course of history."

*snip*

During the period of study, the impact of policies the six countries is striking, both in statistical and human terms:

• China: policies averted roughly 37 million more confirmed cases, corresponding to 285 million total cases (including confirmed cases)
• South Korea: 11.5 million confirmed cases and 38 million total cases averted
• Italy: 2.1 million confirmed cases and 49 million total cases averted
• Iran: 5 million confirmed cases and 54 million total cases averted
• France: 1.4 million confirmed cases and 45 million total cases averted
• United States: 4.8 million confirmed cases and 60 million total cases averted

https://www.nature.c...1586-020-2404-8
https://medicalxpres...infections.html

separate study

Lockdowns prevented around 3.1 million deaths in 11 European countries, according to a new modelling study published Monday, as most nations tiptoe out of the strict measures to halt the spread of the new coronavirus.

Research by Imperial College London, whose scientists are advising the British government on the virus, found that restrictions such as stay-at-home orders had worked to bring the epidemic under control.

Using European Centre of Disease Control data on deaths in 11 nations in the period up to May 4, they compared the number of observed deaths in the countries against those predicted by their model if no restrictions had been imposed.

They estimated that approximately 3.1 million deaths had been averted by the policies.

Researchers also calculated that the interventions had caused the reproduction number—how many people someone with the virus infects—to drop by an average of 82 percent, to below 1.0.

"Our results show that major non-pharmaceutical interventions, and lockdown in particular, have had a large effect on reducing transmission," the authors said in the study, published in Nature Research.

https://medicalxpres...s-european.html
https://www.nature.c...1586-020-2405-7

Study: Nearly 16% of Illinois COVID-19 cases linked to spread from Chicago jail
https://medicalxpres...ed-chicago.html

Test confirms COVID-19 as trigger for rare Kawasaki-like syndrome in children
https://medicalxpres...e-syndrome.html

The R number for COVID-19—the number of people an infected individual passes the virus onto—has risen to above 1 in the North West of England and to 1 in the South West, according to the latest findings published by the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge. When R is greater than or equal to 1, it means transmission will be sustained.

*snip*

In the latest findings, published today, the researchers say:

• There are an estimated 17,000 new infections arising each day across England
• The number of deaths each day is likely to fall to between 100–250 by mid-June
• The R number is below 1 in all regions of England with the exception of the North West and the South West
• In the South West, although R is around 1, the numbers of new infections occurring in the region on a daily basis is relatively low
• There is some evidence that R has risen in all regions, probably due to increasing mobility and mixing between households and in public and workplace settings
• This increase in R will lead to a slowdown in the decrease in new infections and deaths
• The increases in the regional R numbers may result in the decline in the national death rate being arrested by mid-June

https://medicalxpres...north-west.html

The number of coronavirus cases in Saudi Arabia surpassed 100,000 on Sunday, the health ministry said, amid a new surge in infections just weeks ahead of the start of the hajj.

The total number of infections rose to 101,914 – the highest in the Gulf – while the death toll climbed to 712, the ministry added.

The kingdom has seen infections spike as it eases stringent lockdown measures, with the number of daily cases exceeding 3,000 for the second day in a row on Sunday.

On Friday, the kingdom announced a renewed lockdown in the city of Jeddah, gateway to the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, to counter the jump in cases.

The measures include a curfew running from 3 pm to 6 am, a suspension of prayers in mosques and a stay-at-home order for public and private sector workers in the Red Sea city whose airport serves pilgrims.

https://english.alar...ead-of-the-hajj

The Israeli government company Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) announced on Sunday that it has developed a model for predicting the medical condition of coronavirus patients.

The model is based on artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and machine learning technologies, and can provide better treatment for COVID-19 patients.

It was developed by researchers and engineers at IAI's innovation center in the Systems Missiles and Space Group.

http://www.ecns.cn/n...ax1201905.shtml

Cuba declares coronavirus pandemic ‘under control’
https://www.rawstory...-under-control/

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND -- New Zealand appears to have completely eradicated the coronavirus -- at least for now -- after health officials said Monday the last known infected person had recovered.

The announcement was greeted with joy around the country and means the nation of 5 million people will be among the first to welcome throngs of fans back into sports stadiums, embrace crowded concerts and remove seating restrictions from flights.

https://www.ctvnews....-says-1.4973862

Edited by amor de cosmos, 08 June 2020 - 01:58 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

No additional COVID-19 deaths in B.C. over weekend

 

The province has had 29 more coronavirus cases since Friday, but outbreaks are over at a care home in the Fraser Health region and the Superior and Specialty Poultry plants. With 2,659 total cases in B.C., the recovery rate is just under 87 per cent.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 08 June 2020 - 02:33 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Central Canada will open some barbers and restaurants this week.

it’s probably good for kids to have lived through this hell the past 3 months. gives them a pretty authentic idea what Canadians had to go through during the two world wars.




.


kidding. Greg.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 08 June 2020 - 03:29 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

and on this news Tim Hortons will build 1000 patios.

pivot!

https://dailyhive.co...patio-expansion

global warming couldn’t come at a better time for Canada. Sure Australia had a few fires. But we get the expanded patio season to beat back COVID economy. I’m going to go throw some shrimps on the barbie now.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 08 June 2020 - 03:57 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Esquimalt is ready to get back in the swing of things Tuesday, though residents should note the playground equipment is not being disinfected.

 

Municipal playgrounds open to the public June 9 after closing on March 20 due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19.

 

“Residents value our neighbourhood playgrounds and we are thrilled to make them available again,” Mayor Barbara Desjardins said in a statement. “We are hopeful that with our community following Dr. Henry’s guidelines during this Phase 2 process, we can look to resuming more of the activities we have missed during COVID-19.”

 

 

 

https://www.vicnews....id-19-closures/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 08 June 2020 - 04:11 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Central Canada will open some barbers and restaurants this week.

 

 

 

The reopening of Canada’s economy took another leap forward on Monday as the two biggest provinces, Ontario and Quebec, announced they’ll soon allow restaurants to serve dine-in customers again, albeit under different sets of rules.

 

However, the country’s two biggest cities, Toronto and Montreal, will still have to wait a little longer as health authorities try to get their COVID-19 case counts down.

 

https://nationalpost...-is-left-behind

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 08 June 2020 - 05:54 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

good news:

 

 

as well as good news from the motherland:

 

 

canada has plummeted down to #40 in the world for testing.  the usa has rocketed up to #30.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 08 June 2020 - 08:20 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

what a bloody farce.  our "experts" have no idea.

 

 

Coronavirus spread by people with no symptoms 'appears to be rare,' WHO official says

https://www.cnn.com/...o-bn/index.html

 

"We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. They're following asymptomatic cases, they're following contacts and they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It is very rare -- and much of that is not published in the literature," she said. "We are constantly looking at this data and we're trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question. It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward."

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 09 June 2020 - 03:59 AM.

[Mike K.]

But when it comes to hydroxy, the science is definitively settled.

[amor de cosmos]

holy moly lots of stuff today
 

As COVID-19 cases grow in East Africa, massive swarms of locusts are also growing—with a new wave of breeding insects poised to put nearly five million people in the area at risk of hunger and famine.

The locust outbreak began last year, likely driven in part by the fact that climate change is causing heavy rainfall and warmer temperatures that help the insects thrive. But it could soon become much worse. By the middle of June, according to a new report from the International Rescue Committee, a new round of hatching could result in swarms that are 8,000 times larger than swarms earlier this year.

“This is the most serious outbreak in the last 70 years,” says Barri Shorey, senior director of economic recovery for the International Rescue Committee. The insects quickly cause major damage: Even a small swarm that covers only a single square kilometer can consume as much food as around 35,000 people. They can quickly strip a field bare.

In an area where 20 million people are already food-insecure, if the swarms aren’t stopped, staple crops such as maize could be decimated. Somalia, which is expected to be the hardest hit, could see 50%-70% losses of some crops. The country’s farms and pastures were previously hit by drought in 2017 and 2019, followed by flooding. The new generation of locusts could also spread to countries such as Pakistan, which has already been dealing with billions of dollars in damage from a separate locust outbreak.

https://www.fastcomp...-on-east-africa

Bluetooth technology, the best ally to detect COVID-19 cases through smartphone contact tracing
https://www.eurekale...v-btt060820.php
 

A study on children suffering from severe inflammatory symptoms shows the condition is new and distinct from Kawasaki disease.

In April, researchers in the UK and several European countries with high numbers of COVID-19 cases recognised a new inflammatory syndrome in children that was similar to Kawasaki disease, a rare syndrome known to affect young children.

Now in a paper published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association researchers have identified the main symptoms and clinical markers of the new syndrome. This will help clinicians diagnose and treat the condition and researchers to understand it further and find new treatments.

The study, led by Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC) researchers, involved clinicians and academic partners in hospitals across England, including Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the Evelina London Children's Hospital, as well the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at the University of California San Diego.

The condition, which the researchers have named Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome Temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2 (PIMS-TS), was studied in 58 children admitted to eight hospitals in England.

The condition is believed to be extremely rare, but there are concerns about long-lasting coronary damage. Less than 200 cases have been reported in England with a range of symptoms and severity and most children have already recovered.

https://www.eurekale...l-ksl060820.php
 

A partnership that would bypass the drug industry to sell a potential vaccine against the new coronavirus has been formed by a laboratory at Imperial College London.

The move would mean the vaccine could be sold without profits or licensing fees in Britain and in low- and middle-income countries, The New York Times reported. To be successful, a vaccine against the new coronavirus would have to be available at the lowest possible price and according to need rather than profit.

The Imperial College London lab has technology that may enable it to create a vaccine that is cheaper and easier to produce than others, said project lead scientist Robin Shattock, The Times reported.

Clinical trials of the vaccine are scheduled to start this month. If it proves safe and effective, the vaccine could become available early next year.

https://medicalxpres...try-covid-.html
 

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.

*snip*

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.

*snip*

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.

https://www.statnews...scandal-emerge/

Almost 10,000 excess deaths in England and Wales not recorded as COVID-related
https://medicalxpres...id-related.html

Handheld UV Light For Killing COVID-19 Enabled With New Transparent Conductor
https://www.nextbigf...-conductor.html
 

Philadelphia, June 8, 2020--Cancer researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have harnessed tools used for the development of cancer immunotherapies and adapted them to identify regions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to target with a vaccine, employing the same approach used to elicit an immune response against cancer cells to stimulate an immune response against the virus. Using this strategy, the researchers believe a resulting vaccine would provide protection across the human population and drive a long-term immune response.

The strategy is described in Cell Reports Medicine.

"In many ways, cancer behaves like a virus, so our team decided to use the tools we developed to identify unique aspects of childhood cancers that can be targeted with immunotherapies and apply those same tools to identify the right protein sequences to target in SARS-CoV-2," said senior author John M. Maris, MD, a pediatric oncologist in CHOP's Cancer Center and the Giulio D'Angio Professor of Pediatric Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "By adapting the computational tools developed and now refined by lead author Mark Yarmarkovich, PhD in the Maris Lab, we can now prioritize viral targets based on their ability to stimulate a lasting immune response, predicted to be in the vast majority of the human population. We think our approach provides a roadmap for a vaccine that would be both safe and effective and could be produced at scale."

https://www.eurekale...p-sit060820.php

Coronavirus keeps spreading in Eurasian countries
Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and Armenia report spike in coronavirus cases
https://www.aa.com.t...untries/1870722

Bangladesh records highest daily COVID-19 deaths, cases
Top bureaucrat, doctor died from pandemic, while politicians, police also contracted virus, according to local reports
https://www.aa.com.t...s-cases/1870617

Iraq authorities continue to enforce virus lockdown
https://english.alar...-virus-lockdown
 

China's inactivated COVID-19 vaccine has shown potent protection against SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease, in animal experiments, according to a study published in the journal Cell.

Inactivated vaccines use the killed version of the germ that causes a disease.

Research on the vaccine candidate BBIBP-CorV was jointly conducted by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products under the China National Biotec Group, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences as well as other institutions.

Researchers reported the pilot-scale production of the vaccine candidate that induces high levels of neutralizing antibody concentrations in mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits and nonhuman primates including cynomolgus monkeys and rhesus macaques to provide protection against SARS-CoV-2.

http://www.ecns.cn/n...ax1202714.shtml

Beijing clears all domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases
http://www.ecns.cn/n...ax1202535.shtml

Globally COVID-19 situation is worsening: WHO chief
http://www.ecns.cn/n...ax1202281.shtml
 

More than 650,000 people were tested for COVID-19 in Mudanjiang in seven days, and 19 asymptomatic infected people were detected, Wang Wenli, mayor of Mudanjiang in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, announced at a press conference on Monday afternoon, according to China Central Television.

"From June 1 to June 7, nucleic acid tests were completed on 658,772 people in the urban area of Mudanjiang within seven days. 19 asymptomatic infected persons were found, with a positive detection rate of 0.288/10,000," Wang said at the press conference.

Among the 19 asymptomatic infected people, 56.6 percent were male and 43.33 percent were female. The age ranged from 5 years old to 70 years old, Liu Yancheng, an official with the Health Commission of Heilongjiang Province said at the press conference.

Five of them are decoration workers. According to the nucleic acid and serological test results, these five decoration workers gather in a fixed place almost every day. They have behavior such as drinking tea, smoking and having dinner together, with an epidemiological correlation and certain infectivity.

http://www.globaltim...t/1190972.shtml

Oil Crash Forces BP To Slash 10,000 Jobs
https://oilprice.com...10000-Jobs.html
 
Scientists single out six main groups of coronavirus strains
https://tass.com/science/1165841

Masks to be compulsory in Spain until virus 'permanently' defeated
https://medicalxpres...ermanently.html

I've read that one difference between european portuguese & brazilian portuguese is that in brazil people open their mouths more when speaking & are generally more expressive than in portugal. maybe that could also be a factor in the spread in brazil?

During the 2003 SARS outbreak, almost all of the suspected cases in the United States were people who had recently traveled to parts of the world where SARS was spreading, like China. In July of that year, Sakae Inouye, a researcher at Otsuma Women's University in Tokyo, brought up a puzzling fact: There had been more Japanese tourists in China than Americans, and yet Japan had somehow escaped SARS—with zero officially reported cases.

Inouye's guess as to why, which he wrote about in a letter to the medical journal The Lancet, was that SARS might be more easily transmitted in certain languages, namely Chinese and English, because of how much breathing in and out is needed to produce those language's common sounds.

In Chinese, "the consonants p, t, k, q, ch, and c, when placed in front of vowels, are pronounced with a strong breath,” he wrote. In English, p, t, and k are also pronounced by exhaling breath—but not in Japanese. He also noted that the “p” sound isn’t used as frequently in Japanese.

He suggested that a Chinese person would mostly speak English to an American traveler—“I believe American tourists would, hence, be exposed to the infectious droplets to a greater extent than would Japanese tourists.”

This idea—that disease transmission could change based on language—has been raised again during our current global pandemic with SARS-CoV-2.

https://www.vice.com...ing-coronavirus

Texas reports record number of coronavirus hospitalizations weeks after reopening
https://thehill.com/...ons-weeks-after
 

India is easing its national lockdown to ease the devastating economic blow dealt by the virus, but the disease is still raging across the world's second-most populous nation with around 270,000 reported infections—the fifth-highest caseload in the world.

It has reported almost 10,000 new infections in the past 24 hours with crowded megacities like Mumbai and Delhi the worst hit.

Manish Sisodia, Delhi's deputy chief minister, said after a crisis meeting that authorities expected infections to soar to 550,000 by the end of July, up from almost 30,000 at present.

"There will be 44,000 cases by June 15, 100,000 by June 30, 225,000 by July 15, and we'll need to prepare necessary infrastructure accordingly," Sisodia told reporters.

He said the city of around 20 million people, where hospitals are already stretched and anecdotal evidence suggests crematoriums are struggling, needed 80,000 hospital beds.

https://medicalxpres...irus-cases.html

Why the US is experiencing a coronavirus plateau
https://www.rawstory...avirus-plateau/
 

The Covid-19 pandemic has added to the deadly toll of the war in Yemen, crippling a health system already in shambles with little capacity to test those suspected of having the virus. The country has no more than 500 ventilators and 700 ICU beds nationwide. There is one oxygen cylinder per month for every 2.5 million people.

The situation is exacerbated in the Houthi-controlled north, where the rebels have suppressed information about the virus, severely punished those who speak out, enforced little mitigation measures, and promoted conspiracies and claims by the Houthi minister of health that their scientists are working on developing a cure for Covid-19 to present to the world.

Officially, the rebels say that only four cases of coronavirus have been detected in the regions they control but have resisted making the number of positive cases and deaths public.

"We don't publish the numbers to the society because such publicity has a heavy and terrifying toll on people's psychological health," said Youssef al-Hadhari, spokesman for the Houthi health ministry, in response to questions by The Associated Press.

*snip*

The lack of information about the true number of people infected by the coronavirus in Houthi-controlled areas has led to wild speculation about the nature of the disease and the rebel’s response to dealing with the infections and deaths has only added to the confusion.

One widely circulated rumour suggested Houthi rebels have instructed doctors to kill suspected Covid-19 patients with a "mercy injection".

The rumour, which was given credibility because of a supposedly confidential document allegedly signed by the health minister, gained so much traction that Houthi leaders took the unusual step of issuing an official denial, calling the rumour "lies aimed at spreading fear". The Houthis themselves have also spread rumours that the virus was spread by outsiders.

Some hospitals, like the Jibla hospital in the northern province of Ibb, one of the worst hit areas, have been called "injection hospitals" because of the high number of deaths happening there, residents and local activists said.

These rumours have caused widespread panic, and residents say they are less likely to notify health officials about suspected cases of Covid-19.

long
https://english.alar...-rumours-spread

US Officially Fell Into Recession in February Amid Coronavirus Pandemic, Economic Bureau Says
https://sputniknews....ic-bureau-says/