Two Georgia high school students were suspended for chronicling overcrowding and minimal mask-wearing in their school’s hallways during its first couple of days re-opening amid the Covid-19 pandemic
https://www.mediaite...ool-re-opening/Children, people aged over 70 develop highest levels of COVID-19 antibodies, study reveals
https://tass.com/society/1186823Coronavirus lockdown will have ‘negligible’ impact on the climate – new study
https://theconversat...ew-study-143503https://www.nature.c...1558-020-0883-0 Researchers at Uppsala University have described the presence, throughout the human body, of the enzyme ACE2. This is thought to be the key protein used by the SARS-CoV-2 virus for host cell entry and development of the disease COVID-19. In contrast to previous studies, the study shows that no or very little ACE2 protein is present in the normal respiratory system. The results are presented in Molecular Systems Biology.
The article presents a large-scale, systematic evaluation of angiotensin I converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) expression in more than 150 cell types, at both messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein levels, and reports that ACE2 is expressed only at very low levels, if at all, in respiratory epithelial cells.
“Considering the clinical manifestations of COVID-19, with acute respiratory distress syndrome and extensive damage to the lung parenchyma, the results highlight the need for further study of the biological mechanisms responsible for COVID-19 infection and disease progression,” says Dr Cecilia Lindskog, senior author of the paper and Head Director of the Human Protein Atlas tissue team at Uppsala University.
https://www.uu.se/en...&typ=pm&lang=enhttps://www.scienced...00805110111.htmAsymptomatic COVID-19 Patients May Shed Virus Even Longer
https://www.medpaget...e/covid19/87926 In a critical literature review, among the 20 most-read articles published in the Journal of Immunology in May 2020, Manjili suggests that COVID-19 should be treated as an acute inflammatory disease and that severity of infection is associated with the dysregulation of inflammatory immune responses and subsequent inability to develop protective immunity from the virus.
“Drugs that target the virus or suppress inflammatory immune responses have produced inconsistent results and might not be the best treatment for patients with COVID-19,” said Manjili, a member of the Cancer Cell Signaling research program at Massey and a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the VCU School of Medicine. “Instead, the use of drugs that modulate inflammation without compromising the adaptive immune response could be the most effective therapeutic strategy.”
The majority of people infected with COVID-19 show flu-like symptoms and survive the disease. However, individuals with susceptibility factors, including age (65 years and above), sex and underlying health complications such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes or asthma, are significantly more vulnerable to infection because their immune response is in disarray. Manjili said that men are more susceptible to infection than women because of an expression of sex-associated genes coded by the X chromosome that play a key role in the immune response.
“Although over 90 percent of infected individuals are asymptomatic or manifest noncritical symptoms and will recover from COVID-19, those individuals presenting with critical symptoms are in urgent need of treatment options,” Manjili said.
https://massey.vcu.e...matory-disease/https://www.scienced...00805124027.htmcongrats to russia & china! they have earned tremendous national prestige with these vaccine developments. they are surely leading the world out of this:
Russia will register the world's first vaccine against COVID-19 on 12 August, it has earlier been revealed by Russian Deputy Health Minister Oleg Gridnev.
Coronavirus particles in the anti-COVID-19 vaccine cannot harm the body, said Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya National Research Centre.
The scientist explained that the drug used inanimate particles created on the basis of adenovirus.
“The particles and objects that can reproduce their own kind are the ones that are considered alive. The particles in question cannot multiply,” Gintsburg elaborated.
Therefore, he continued, there are no concerns that the vaccine could potentially cause harm to a person's health.
According to him, COVID-19 particles can cause maximum discomfort, becausewhen a foreign antigen is injected, the immune system of the person being vaccinated receives a powerful boost. Some people naturally have a fever under these circumstances.
During clinical trials of the drug, the temperature of the volunteers rose to 37 degrees Celsius and sometimes to 38 degrees Celsius, but this "side-effect" can easily be overcome by taking paracetamol, the scientist added.
https://sputniknews....d-19-will-work/ China made another breakthrough in battling the coronavirus pandemic, with China National Biotec Group (CNBG) announcing Wednesday that an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine production workshop of its affiliated Beijing institute of biological products, the first and largest of its kind in the world, has passed national examination.
The facility was granted a production certificate and it is now available for use, CNBG, an affiliate of the state-run China National Pharmaceutical Group, said in a statement sent to the Global Times.
The Beijing institute took only two months to finish building the facility on April 15. Related government departments conducted a thorough biosecurity examination of the production workshop in July, and concluded the facility met national standards, and could go into operation for mass production of COVID-19 vaccines, read the statement.
After the Beijing manufacturing workshop and another production facility belonging to CNBG's Wuhan institute of biological products begin operations, CNBG will be capable of ensuring an annual capacity of 220 million doses of vaccines, according to its developer.
The 220 million doses are large to first immunize medical staff and personnel working at airports and border checkpoints, Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccine researcher, told the Global Times Wednesday.
"It is possible that China could have a COVID-19 vaccine as early as the end of October as some domestically made COVID-19 vaccines have entered phase three clinical trials and needs about a month to observe their effects on samples," Tao said.
http://www.ecns.cn/n...hw7469699.shtml More than a million people across Africa have now been confirmed to have had the new coronavirus, as health experts warn the peak of the pandemic has yet to hit the continent.
The sombre milestone, reported by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, came more than five months after Egypt reported the continent's first confirmed case of coronavirus on February 14.
More than 22,000 people have so far died across Africa from the COVID-19 disease, while over 690,000 have recovered.
Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) voiced alarm at the "acceleration" of the disease in Africa, which until recently had remained relatively unscathed by the pandemic compared with the rest of the world - even as many experts believe the actual number of coronavirus infections is likely much higher.
South Africa, which accounts for more than half of the continent's registered cases, is the worst-affected African nation and the fifth worst-hit globally. Egypt is in second place with 95,000 confirmed infections, followed by Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria, Morocco and Kenya.
"We haven't seen the peak in Africa yet," Mary Stephen, technical officer at the WHO's regional office for Africa, told Al Jazeera.
https://www.aljazeer...4094836695.html UN and local officials have confirmed COVID-19 cases in al-Hol camp for Islamic State (IS) families in northeast Syria. Humanitarian organizations warn that the notorious camp is susceptible to an outbreak of the coronavirus due to the poor conditions there.
Three health workers tested positive for COVID-19 on Aug. 3, UN spokesperson David Swanson told Al-Monitor.
These are the first known cases of the virus in the camp.
Al-Hol hosts more 65,000 people in a desert area of northeast Syria near the Iraqi border. The mostly women and children in the camp have varying degrees of affiliations with IS. Most of the population is from Iraq and Syria, but there are thousands of foreigners as well. The area is within the territory of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. The Kurdish-led statelet’s Syrian Democratic Forces, who are backed by the United States, hold thousands of IS fighters in detention centers as well as their families in al-Hol and other camps.
The workers who tested positive are Syrian nationals working for the Kurdish Red Crescent humanitarian organization, an autonomous administration official responsible for camps told Al-Monitor. They are now isolating at home and are in “good condition" after testing positive at a hospital in the city of Hasakah, the official said.
https://www.al-monit...oronavirus.htmlDaesh forces stepped up attacks in Iraq during the holy month of Ramadan while also managing to exploit COVID-19 restrictions that have impacted Iraqi security forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and US-led coalition forces, according to a new report issued from the US Department of Defense Inspector General's Office
https://sputniknews....q---ig-report-/ A total of 510.5 billion yuan (about 73.52 billion U.S. dollars) of China's special treasury bonds for COVID-19 control had been put to use by July 29, said the country's finance minister.
Proceeds from the bonds funded 24,199 projects, most of which related to infrastructure construction and COVID-19 control, Liu Kun, the minister of finance, told Xinhua in an interview.
By the end of July, China had completed the planned issuance of the 1-trillion-yuan special treasury bonds for COVID-19 control, Liu added.
So far, funds raised had been funneled to prefecture and county governments after the provincial-level governments retained part of the money based on regulations, Liu said, adding that the ministry has put in place a mechanism to monitor the distribution, allocation and use of funds.
http://www.ecns.cn/n...hw7469392.shtml The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a pro-business group that has been blamed for making the pandemic "worse" by opposing government efforts to fight the coronavirus, has been a leading opponent of federal unemployment benefits.
The group spent more than $15 million lobbying on "unemployment insurance" and other issues in the first quarter, according to lobbying disclosures, and another $12 million lobbying on "unemployment insurance and the COVID-19 pandemic," as well as "workplace liability," another McConnell pet issue, in the second quarter.
In May, the chamber "joined Republicans in arguing that the extra payments might deter people from returning to work," The Washington Post reported. This claim has been widely rejected by economists. The group was among several that lobbied lawmakers to reject the unemployment benefit in favor of an "alternative" like a "back-to-work" bonus, Bloomberg Law reported.
Last month, the Chamber of Commerce wrote to Congress demanding the unemployment benefit be "significantly revised," again echoing the discredited claim that it deters workers from returning to their jobs.
The chamber's board of directors' companies have received millions in aid under the CARES Act.
& others
https://www.salon.co...mployment-cuts/U.S. State Department lifts advisory on avoiding international travel
http://www.ecns.cn/n...hw7469526.shtmlU.S. Ohio governor tests positive for coronavirus ahead of Trump's visit
http://www.ecns.cn/n...hw7469512.shtml WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 300,000 Americans could be dead from COVID-19 by Dec. 1, University of Washington health experts forecast on Thursday, although they said 70,000 lives could be saved if people were scrupulous about wearing masks.
The latest predictions from the university's widely cited Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) comes as top White House infectious disease advisers warned that major U.S. cities could erupt as new coronavirus hot spots if officials there were not vigilant with counter-measures.
"We're seeing a rollercoaster in the United States. It appears that people are wearing masks and socially distancing more frequently as infections increase, then after a while as infections drop, people let their guard down," Dr Christopher Murray, director of the IHME, said in announcing the university's revised forecast.
https://www.usnews.c...f-trouble-ahead
Edited by amor de cosmos, 07 August 2020 - 07:41 AM.
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Of course I don't believe everything I read, but I'm not sure I will disbelieve something because I don't agree or want to hear it. I feel like you've made up your mind, like back in march and will not hear anything that would make your assumptions incorrect. I'm just throwing that out there, I haven't gone back to research you musings from back then, I just feel that you are not a mind changer. We continue to learn about this pandemic and certainly things are different and have changed. But it's not going away and will likely come back so hang on to your heels. We've been lucky here and maybe didn't need to even close down but there is an effort to keep the old folks safe. I really wish that the above statement was true but cognitive thought tells me this is a snap shot and still bad things are coming.
