Liberals survive confidence vote as COVID-19 aid bill passes unanimously
Legislation replaces now-defunct $500-per-week Canada emergency response benefit
https://www.cbc.ca/n...-bill-1.5744222
Rate of positive tests for COVID-19 dropped below 2% last week; peaked above 7% in April
More than five per cent indicates 'concerning' community spread, says provincial health officer
https://www.cbc.ca/n...-rate-1.5744198
‘Bonnie’ and ‘Henry’ among latest litter of service dog puppies
B.C. Alberta Guide Dogs names two pups after provincial health officer
https://www.nanaimob...ce-dog-puppies/
Canada won’t return to pre-pandemic employment for another four years, conference board warns
Industries like restaurants, airlines, theatres face tumultuous environment for the foreseeable future
https://financialpos...nce-board-warns
Certain food products have seen huge price increases this year, according to Statistics Canada’s latest data, and they can be found in all aisles of the grocery store.
Here are the 12 food products with the largest price jumps, and the reasons behind some of those increases.
- Carrots (33 per cent)
- Onions (14 per cent)
- Canned tomatoes (13 per cent)
- Potatoes (12 per cent)
- Processed cheese (11 per cent)
- Oranges (9.6 per cent)
- Stewing beef (8.2 per cent)
- Macaroni (8 per cent)
- Apples (6.5 per cent)
- Canned soup (6.1 per cent)
- Bacon (5.7 per cent)
- Flour (5.6 per cent)
https://financialpos...hikes-this-year
VANCOUVER — The vast majority of B.C. nurses fear they will contract COVID-19 at work or bring it home with them, according to the results of a new survey that has found many of the front-line workers feeling depressed, anxious and emotionally drained.
The survey, conducted by the University of B.C. School of Nursing and funded by the B.C. Nurses’ Union, sampled the psychological health of nurses during the pandemic and found significantly deteriorated conditions as compared with the results of a similar study from late last year.
*snip*
The survey found 41 per cent of nurses are depressed, an increase of 10 per cent from the results from a year before. And nearly as many, 38 per cent, experienced anxiety — also up 10 per cent from the year before. A 10-per-cent spike represents an additional 5,000 nurses, given that the workforce is about 50,000 strong, Havaei said.
Emotional exhaustion has also crept up since last year, with 60 per cent of those surveyed reporting feeling it. That was up from 56 per cent in 2019.
About 86 per cent of nurses say they’re extremely concerned about bringing COVID-19 home, and 80 per cent think they’ll contract it on the job.
https://www.timescol...rvey-1.24212434
Their efforts have borne a leap forward in our understanding of how COVID-19 infections trigger deadly levels of lung inflammation. Their discovery of a pathway that sets the lungs ablaze with inflammation has launched a search for new therapeutics that could block this process before it can take off and turn fatal.
According to their new findings, published in Cell Stem Cell, the trouble starts soon after the air sacs in the lungs are infected with SARS-CoV-2, when the virus activates one of the body's biological pathways known as NFkB (the k is pronounced "kappa"). As that's happening, the virus also suppresses the lungs' ability to call in the help of the immune system to fight off the viral invaders.
When the signal for help finally goes out--several days after infection has taken hold--an army of immune cells swarms into lung tissue heavily laden with infected, dead, and dying cells and with unchecked levels of inflammation triggered by the early activation of NFkB. The incoming immune cells, by attempting to destroy every infected cell in their path, add more fuel to the fire. Every infected cell killed by the virus or by immune cells trying to thwart viral spread tips the scales of inflammation closer to sending the lungs and other organs into total failure.
https://www.eurekale...u-idc092920.php
Nearly half of care home workers in northern Italy may be suffering from post-traumatic stress or anxiety following the first wave of the pandemic, new research showed Wednesday
https://medicalxpres...ma-anxiety.html
There are several factors that influence a person's susceptibility to having a severe reaction, such as their age and the existence of other medical conditions. But one's genetics also plays a role, and, over the last few months, research by the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative has shown that genetic variants in one region on chromosome 3 impose a larger risk that their carriers will develop a severe form of the disease.
Now, a new study, published in Nature, has revealed that this genetic region is almost identical to that of a 50,000-year old Neanderthal from southern Europe. Further analysis has shown that, through interbreeding, the variants came over to the ancestors of modern humans about 60,000 years ago.
"It is striking that the genetic heritage from Neanderthals has such tragic consequences during the current pandemic," said Professor Svante Pääbo, who leads the Human Evolutionary Genomics Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST).
*snip*
Professor Zeberg explained that those who carry these Neanderthal variants have up to three times the risk of requiring mechanical ventilation. "Obviously, factors such as your age and other diseases you may have also affect how severely you are affected by the virus. But among genetic factors, this is the strongest one."
The researchers also found that there are major differences in how common these variants are in different parts of the world. In South Asia about 50% of the population carry them. However, in East Asia they're almost absent.
https://www.eurekale...s-tan093020.php
Adults started drinking more alcohol during the COVID-19 pandemic, but women not only drank more frequently, but also reported significant increases in heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems, a national survey found.
Overall frequency of alcohol consumption among adults ages 30-80 increased 14% versus 2019, with increases of 17% for women, reported Michael Pollard, PhD, of RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, which administers the survey, and colleagues.
Other demographic groups experiencing increases in frequency of alcohol consumption included non-Hispanic whites (up 19% vs 2019) and adults ages 30-59 (up 10%), the team wrote in a research letter in JAMA Network Open.
https://www.medpaget...e/covid19/88864
During COVID-19, artificial intelligence (AI) has been used to enhance diagnostic efforts, deliver medical supplies and even assess risk factors from blood tests. Now, artificial intelligence is being used to forecast future COVID-19 cases.
Texas A&M University researchers, led by Dr. Ali Mostafavi, have developed a powerful deep-learning computational model that uses artificial intelligence and existing big data related to population activities and mobility to help predict the future spread of COVID-19 cases at a county level.
The researchers published their results in IEEE Access.
The spread of pandemics is influenced by complex relationships related to features including mobility, population activities and sociodemographic characteristics. However, typical mathematical epidemiological models only account for a small subset of relevant features. In contrast, the deep-learning model developed by Mostafavi, associate professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and his UrbanResilience.AI lab, can explain the complex relationship between a larger number of features to forecast the range of increase in COVID-19 infections in future days.
"We immediately realized the potential for employing artificial intelligence to complement the existing mathematical epidemiological models," Mostafavi said. "We are living in the era of big data and leveraging these big data during crises is providing great opportunities for the development of models and data-driven tools to inform policies."
https://www.eurekale...u-hbd092920.php
Consequently, Germany has so far experienced only 114 deaths per million citizens, compared to over five times that many in the United States. With a similar death rate, the United States would have experienced nearly 38,000 COVID-19 deaths instead of an official count that now exceeds 205,000. The 167,000-person death differential can be attributed, quite reasonably and scientifically, to the Trump administration’s omissions and failures.
A closer-to-home comparison, culturally and geographically, would be to Canada, which has so far experienced 248 COVID-19 deaths per million persons. Applied to the United States, that ratio translates to about 82,000 deaths—and 123,000 Americans who would still be alive, but for administration incompetence.
And a comparison with Japan, which has experienced only 12.2 deaths per million people, according to the Johns Hopkins database many have been using, yields an astonishing result. If the administration had responded as effectively as the Japanese government, just over 4,000 Americans would have died from COVID-19. Almost all US citizens who have died would still be alive today.
This mortality difference can legitimately be called “American carnage.” Over 1,000 Americans per day were tragically and needlessly dying from COVID-19 this summer—versus three to seven per day in Canada and Germany, and less than one per day in Japan. “They are dying, that’s true,” Trump admitted in an August 3 Axios interview. “It is what it is.”
https://thebulletin....cessary-deaths/
N.Y. Docs Must Collect School Info When Testing for COVID
— Clinicians to face fines or professional discipline for not reporting
https://www.medpaget...lichealth/88873
Elon Musk Reveals He Won’t Take Coronavirus Vaccine, Criticizes 'Knucklehead' Bill Gates
https://sputniknews....ead-bill-gates/
A top Russian researcher behind the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine defended using the vaccine before testing was complete and said he plans to release clinical trial data early—so early, in fact, the data is unlikely to be interpretable.
Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya Institute that developed Sputnik V, laid out his thoughts on the vaccine and the pandemic in an interview with Reuters published Tuesday.
“People are dying just like during a war,” Gintsburg said as he sat in his wood-paneled office in Moscow, holding a crystal model of a coronavirus. “But this fast-tracked pace is not synonymous—as some media have suggested—with corners being cut. No way.”
https://arstechnica....9-vaccine-data/
Russian Research Centre Vector Receives Patents for COVID-19 Vaccine
https://sputniknews....vid-19-vaccine/
Not even a single COVID-19 case in N.Korea so far
Communist state with over 25M people conducted 3,373 tests -- all negative, says WHO official
https://www.aa.com.t...-so-far/1991052
Half of all COVID-19 fatalities reported in US, Brazil, India
https://en.mehrnews....US-Brazil-India
World Bank plans US$ 12bn to help poor countries with Covid-19 vaccine purchase and distribution
https://en.mercopres...nd-distribution
Royal Dutch Shell Plc will cut as many as 9,000 jobs as Covid-19 accelerates a companywide restructuring into low-carbon energy
https://www.aljazeer...ving-reductions
COVID-19 kills one of Seoul's oldest nightclubs
https://www.channeln...ub-mwg-13163264
The law bans Israelis from holding demonstrations more than one km (0.6 miles) from their homes, a measure the government said was aimed at curbing COVID-19 infections.
Critics of the new measure, which becomes part of Israel’s second national lockdown that went into effect on September 18, said it was really intended to block protests near Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem.
“What’s the next step? Banning the opposition leader from addressing parliament?” Yair Lapid, who heads the opposition in the legislature, tweeted about the vote.
Meir Cohen of main opposition party Yesh Atid-Telem condemned the new controls as a “slippery slope” while Yair Golan of the left-wing Meretz party warned the new law “won’t stop the demonstrations”.
“The anger growing in the streets will find its way out,” Golan said.
https://www.aljazeer...avirus-lockdown
Russia Will Supply 25 Million Doses of Sputnik V COVID-19 Vaccine to Egypt
https://sputniknews....ccine-to-egypt/
武汉三大火车站旅客发送量创新冠肺炎疫情防控以来新高
number of passengers sent from 3 wuhan rail stations is the highest in the 11 weeks since wuhan beat the pandemic
http://www.chinanews...0/9304468.shtml
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