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big dump today
An internal report detailing the deadliest COVID-19 outbreak in British Columbia has painted a grim picture of the failures of the Langley Lodge long-term care home and the institutions meant to support it.
The 30-page report, dated Aug. 11 and written by Langley Care Society CEO Debra Hauptman, was anonymously leaked to Glacier Media by someone claiming to be a manager at one of the province’s health authorities.
Glacier Media reached out to Hauptman, who described the document as a factual record not meant to be shared in the public realm.
“The intent is not to lay blame or point fingers or push responsibility on to other parties,” she told Glacier Media. “[It was] to help us approach the second wave should it come.”
Still, as the report notes, mistakes were made at many levels in two outbreaks that would lead to the deaths of 26 residents with COVID-19, the most in any care home in the province.
https://www.timescol...-b-c-1.24204376
TransLink, Metro Vancouver’s public transit authority, is seeking ideas from Canada’s engineering community for improving health, safety and public trust while welcoming customers back in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
With this year’s edition of TransLink’s annual Open Call for Innovation, the organization especially wants to hear about such ideas as:
- enhancing sanitization and ventilation throughout the public transit system.
- supporting physical distancing while efficiently managing passenger flow through facilities and vehicles.
- modifying physical spaces, hardware and amenities to reduce the risk of viral transmission.
https://www.canadian...-19/1003411409/
Mouth wash COVID-19 test coming for school-aged children in B.C.
https://www.timescol...-b-c-1.24205108
Dissatisfaction created fear
Pfuhl explains that if you experience that your country is not doing enough, then you have more fear, if you think your country is doing enough to fight the outbreak, then you are more relaxed about it and have less fear.
- We found that those who were dissatisfied with the country's Covid-19 response saw the risk of getting the virus as greater, were more concerned and expressed reduced faith in the possibility of controlling the outbreak, says professor at the Department of Psychology, Gerit Pfuhl. Together with colleague Martin Mækelæ, and international research colleagues, Dr. Phuhl now present the recent results of the study in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
- Dissatisfaction with the government's reactions to Covid-19 led to increased stress levels and psychological reactions, Pfuhl says about the results.
- Regardless of which country they lived in, those who were dissatisfied with the measures were more tense and perceived the risk of getting Covid-19 over the next two months as higher than those who were satisfied with how the country fought the outbreak, the researcher says.
These new research results provide important insights for decision-makers on how to take care of the well - being of their population during a global crisis.
https://www.eurekale...u-cit091820.php
Corona-induced CO2 Emission Reductions Are Not Yet Detectable in the Atmosphere
https://www.alphagal...y/ItemId/197434
Study shows SARS-CoV-2 jumped between people and mink, providing strong evidence of zoonotic transmission
https://www.eurekale...sss_1091720.php
Stroke patients with COVID-19 have increased inflammation, stroke severity and death
https://www.eurekale...a-spw091720.php
Researchers validate clinical feasibility for CRISPR-based COVID-19 testing at point of care
https://phys.org/new...sed-covid-.html
Keeping coronavirus vaccines at subzero temperatures during distribution will be hard, but likely key to ending pandemic
https://medicalxpres...tures-hard.html
Tyson the alpaca could hold the key to developing a process to block the coronavirus. FRANCE 24’s Catherine Norris-Trent and James André report from the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
Leading scientists in Stockholm are working on a pioneering treatment involving llamas and alpacas such as Tyson in the fight against Covid-19.
“Tyson has the antibodies against SARS-Covid-2 virus,” explains Dr Gerald McInerney, Associate Professor of Virology at the Karolinska Institute. “Camels, and alpacas and llamas and other animals from that family have special, small single-chain antibodies.Tiny antibodies they’ve proved can block Covid-19.”
https://www.rawstory...olving-alpacas/
Most homemade masks are doing a great job, even when we sneeze, study finds
https://medicalxpres...-great-job.html
Chinese researchers to test double doses of CanSino's COVID-19 vaccine candidate
https://www.channeln...l-dose-13123416
Early in the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a small study in China produced results that influenced subsequent research on the virus. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati used the same study parameters on a much larger patient population and reached completely different findings. The study was published in the journal Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases in mid-July.
The primary theory that emerged from the 12-patient study in China was that when the virus binds to the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), a protein on the surface of lung cells by which the virus is able to enter and infect the cell, it disrupts a vital hormonal system called the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System (RAAS).
"RAAS is the primary hormone system the body uses to regulate blood pressure and fluid volume status," says Brandon Henry, MD, with the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and co-author of the study. "It regulates your blood pressure, it regulates your fluids and it regulates your electrolytes."
Henry says much of the debate around COVID-19 research has been on the potential for danger from certain drugs, such as ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers, because of the disruption of RAAS, while other researchers are testing those same drugs as therapies in patients with COVID-19.
https://www.eurekale...c-uoc091720.php
Open sharing of innovations: A case from the industrial revolution
But if society needs to rapidly invent and deliver a vaccine – a global public good – with taxpayer money, why are U.S. federal agencies establishing OTAs that relinquish the government’s ability to share and deploy these inventions and production processes with the world?
We believe that as the U.S. federal government considers future funding to support vaccine manufacturing, policymakers and agency officials need to craft contracts with the suppliers that mandate open sharing of all vaccine production, quality control and distribution.
Schweik has studied open source software that comes with an associated copyright license that promotes free and broad sharing. This licensing dates back to the mid-1980s. The invention of the “General Public License,” sometimes referred to as a viral or reciprocal license, meant that should an improvement be made, the new software version automatically inherits the same license as its parent. We believe that in a time of a global pandemic, a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine should be licensed with General Public License-like properties.
It turns out, in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, in an effort to rapidly develop standardized small arms parts, the U.S. Army and the Springfield Massachusetts Armory gave contractors open access to designs of new manufacturing equipment with the explicit requirement that if they improved the machines or processes related to them, they had to share these innovations with the national armories and their rival contractors. If these organizations did not comply, they would likely be denied future contractual opportunities. In essence, the armory established a contracting policy similar to General Public License invented roughly 150 years later, which then led to rapid innovation.
https://theconversat...research-145898
Lack of COVID-19 resources risking millions in Somalia settlement camps
https://medicalxpres...ns-somalia.html
The metropolitan government in South Korea’s capital Seoul said on Friday it would seek 4.6 billion won (US$4 million) in damages against a church for causing the spread of the coronavirus by disrupting tracing and testing efforts.
A fresh wave of infections erupted at a church whose members attended a large protest in downtown Seoul in mid-August, becoming the country’s largest cluster in the greater capital area. The outbreak has driven triple-digit increases in daily COVID-19 cases for more than a month.
The Seoul city government said it will file a lawsuit against the Sarang Jeil Church and its leader, Rev. Jun Kwang-hoon, accusing them of disrupting coronavirus tests and providing inaccurate lists of its members which it said aggravated the latest epidemic.
“The city is seeking to hold the church and the pastor responsible for contributing to the nationwide re-spread of COVID-19 by refusing and hindering epidemiological surveys or aiding and abetting such acts, as well as submitting false materials,” it said in a statement.
https://globalnews.c...church-damages/
Indonesia: Virus patients to be kept in Jakarta hotels
Surging COVID-19 cases force gov't to use thousands of hotel rooms in capital for quarantine
https://www.aa.com.t...-hotels/1978060
Thailand reports 1st coronavirus death in over 3 months
https://www.aa.com.t...-months/1977938
The Chinese government has locked down a city in Yunnan province, after two travelers from Myanmar tested positive for the coronavirus. The city of Ruili, which sits on the border with Myanmar, has gone into “wartime mode” since the two imported cases were detected on September 3. Local authorities have since launched a campaign to test the city’s population of more than 200,000 people.
Ruan Chengfa, deputy secretary of Yunnan’s party committee, said that authorities were implementing a strict policy of “complete inspection, strict quarantine. No entry and no exit.” As of September 17, more than 360 testing sites has been set up in Ruili, the primary crossing point on Yunnan’s 2,200-kilometer shared border with Myanmar. Almost 1,200 health workers have been deployed to conduct testing.
While the virus appears to be under control in much of China, Myanmar has seen a recent spike in COVID-19 cases. On September 17, the country’s health ministry announced seven more coronavirus-related deaths and 258 infections, bringing the country’s total to 3,894 confirmed cases and 46 fatalities. The sudden spike in cases threatens to overwhelm Myanmar’s ramshackle health infrastructure, and has recently sparked calls to postpone the country’s upcoming elections.
With COVID-19 on the rise in Myanmar, it was always likely that the contagion would sooner or later make its appearance in southwest China. The remote, poorly-policed border between Myanmar and Yunnan has long been notorious as a surging conduit of illicit trades, from luxury hardwood, jade and endangered animal parts to Chinese-made precursor chemicals that fuel the methamphetamine labs of Myanmar’s Shan State. These goods are accompanied by tens of thousands of illegal migrant laborers, sex workers, day traders, and border-hopping Chinese tourists who go to gamble in the region’s host of border casinos.
https://thediplomat....ombat-covid-19/
Second UK lockdown? Hospital COVID-19 admissions doubling every 8 days
https://www.channeln...very-8-13123348
Van Morrison is set to release a clutch of new songs protesting the pandemic lockdown according to a Friday morning BBC News report. “In the lyrics, he claims scientists are ‘making up crooked facts’ to justify measures that ‘enslave’ the population,” the article reports.
Morrison’s anti-science position makes it clear that he is no longer on the same Caravan as medical and public health experts around the world. The songs come after what must have been a tough Summertime in England, though he is not afraid to wade Into the Mystic territory of protest songs.
It must have been a Wild Night when he came up with the idea for these songs, the concept of which likely probably Stoned Him at first. The 75-year-old Irish rocker is notorious for his irritable nature, but he has never been Satisfied with conventional wisdom, which suggests the Beautiful Vision behind these songs.
In the event, if the afore-written puns based on song titles were not enough award-nominated comedy for you, Twitter had a field day with this news. To wit:
https://www.mediaite...n-protest-song/
US current account deficit jumps 52.9per cent as COVID-19 disrupts trade
https://www.channeln...-trade-13124456
United States COVID-19 transmission driven by ages 20-49, research finds
https://medicalxpres...riven-ages.html
Idaho Pastor Paul Van Noy railed against mask mandates in a sermon and even prayed for God to thwart such a local measure, only to find himself infected with the coronavirus, and battling a “covid storm” in his lungs that has landed him in the intensive care unit.
https://www.mediaite...are-with-covid/
Trump Cared More About Fox News Being Mean to Him Than Saving American Lives According to Top Pence Aide
https://www.mediaite...top-pence-aide/
Seven dead, more than 150 infected after COVID-19 'superspreader' wedding in the US
https://www.channeln...ing-us-13123408
Kushner, seated at the head of the conference table, in a chair taller than all the others, was quick to strike a confrontational tone. “The federal government is not going to lead this response,” he announced. “It’s up to the states to figure out what they want to do.”
One attendee explained to Kushner that due to the finite supply of PPE, Americans were bidding against each other and driving prices up. To solve that, businesses eager to help were looking to the federal government for leadership and direction.
“Free markets will solve this,” Kushner said dismissively. “That is not the role of government.”
The same attendee explained that although he believed in open markets, he feared that the system was breaking. As evidence, he pointed to a CNN report about New York governor Andrew Cuomo and his desperate call for supplies.
“That’s the CNN bullshit,” Kushner snapped. “They lie.”
According to another attendee, Kushner then began to rail against the governor: “Cuomo didn’t pound the phones hard enough to get PPE for his state…. His people are going to suffer and that’s their problem.”
*snip*
“We had so much potential to commandeer against this,” said one person who attended the meeting. “We had a real system for contact tracing, the world’s best mobile engineers on standby. There was a real opportunity to have a coordinated response.”
That attendee said he remains “angry” over the federal government’s intransigence in stockpiling supplies and feels certain that people died because of it. “At the time I just thought of it as blind capitalism and extreme libertarian ideals gone wrong,” he said. “In hindsight it’s not crazy to think it was some purposeful belief that it was okay if Cuomo had a tough go of it because [New York] was a blue state.”
According to another attendee, it seemed “very clear” Kushner was less interested in finding a solution because, at the time, the virus was primarily ravaging cities in blue states: “We were flabbergasted. I basically had an out-of-body experience: Where am I, and what happened to America?”
https://www.vanityfa...e-covid-19-fate
https://www.rawstory...ody-experience/
Poorly Protected Postal Workers Are Catching COVID-19 by the Thousands. It’s One More Threat to Voting by Mail.
More than 50,000 workers have taken time off for virus-related reasons, slowing mail delivery. The Postal Service doesn’t test employees or check their temperatures, and its contact tracing is erratic.
https://www.propubli...-voting-by-mail
Ex-top coronavirus task force adviser of Vice President Mike Pence, Olivia Troye, has claimed that the US president was thankful for the coronavirus pandemic because he now doesn't have to shake hands with "disgusting" people.
https://sputniknews....gusting-people/
Trump’s Covid Adviser, Scott Atlas, Dismisses Congressional Testimony of CDC Director on Importance of Masks: ‘I Don’t Think Anyone Believes That’
https://www.mediaite...-believes-that/
A New NYC Covid Lab Aims To Process 20,000 Tests Daily
https://gothamist.co...000-tests-daily
NYC Restaurants Will Soon Be Able To Add 10% COVID-19 Surcharge
https://gothamist.co...id-19-surcharge
Edited by amor de cosmos, 18 September 2020 - 09:09 AM.
(I don't have one either, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn once)
