Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

[JackRiddler]

I'm pathetic. My entire demeanor (aka good mood) has been sort of floating on this as accepted surprising good news. Heh. Heh.

Yesterday that was me too, until the obvious factor error clicked.

.

[undead]

re: the news today about antibodies not necessarily providing immunity...

More coronavirus patients testing positive again after recovery: report
By John Bowden - 04/09/20 09:02 AM EDT

Coronavirus patients in South Korea are now testing positive for the virus a second time, health officials are warning, following similar reports in other countries.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said in a statement announcing a formal investigation that dozens of patients have retested positive for the disease.

“While we are putting more weight on reactivation as the possible cause, we are conducting a comprehensive study on this,” KCDC Director-General Jeong Eun-kyeong said, according to Bloomberg. “There have been many cases when a patient during treatment will test negative one day and positive another.”

NPR reported late last month that similar cases were also discovered in Wuhan, China, where the virus is believed to have originated. Health officials there say that some people who tested positive weeks ago for the virus have tested positive again, including two doctors treating patients with the virus.

NPR reported that a false positive is possible if a test picks up residual virus from the initial infection.

Japan in February reported its first case of a person testing positive twice for the disease. Some health officials have warned that the virus could remain dormant in the body before reaching the lungs and causing havoc.

“Once you have the infection, it could remain dormant with minimal symptoms,” New York University microbiology and pathology professor Philip Tierno Jr. told Reuters. “And then you can get an exacerbation if it finds its way into the lungs.”

For similar reasons, one of the doctors who told NPR they experienced a second positive coronavirus test after a recovery questioned China's decision to not include asymptomatic carriers in its official case count. China is also not counting new cases found in people who previously had the virus in its official count, NPR noted.

"I have no idea why the authorities choose not to count [asymptomatic] cases in the official case count. I am baffled," the doctor reportedly said.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4 ... ery-report

I now nobody wants to accept this as a possibility, but it is looking more and more like...

[undead]

This particular facility has be highlighted in the national and international media since this article was published, and will no doubt continue to be the subject of scrutiny. Since there will inevitably be individual scapegoats for the structural failings of the entire system, the owner of this place seems to be the number 1 candidate so far. First of all, it will probably come as a surprise to most that such a huge "long term care" facility of 500+ beds can even exist. One article said it is the largest in New Jersey. A for-profit facility that maintains so many people in a state of being just barely alive, in a giant petri dish of disease, is a crime against humanity. These facilities already were petri dishes of disease before this outbreak, so it doesn't seem like the staff or residents stand a chance. It would be much better to evacuate the entire facility to a more decentralized situation, but that doesn't seem probable, and not even possible for everyone. I am sure some families who can afford that will try to do it.

It is hard to imagine why the place would just pile up bodies in a shed. Why not alert the authorities immediately and avoid losing face? It seems like the owner is (or was) a denier, believing that the pandemic is not a big deal, and that it would just go away. The place was probably already horribly understaffed, the staff are definitely underpaid, and to institute increased measures to deal with the pandemic would probably make the facility unprofitable, and force the owner to file for bankruptcy. Too bad we didn't nationalize the healthcare system voluntarily, because in this situation it seems like that is going to be forced.

In this article I guess the "reprisal" against family members blowing the whistle would be the owner or management letting their elderly loved one die, right? At this facility there were about 70 deaths in 2 weeks, but only about half of those were confirmed COVID cases. No autopsies are being done, so I guess we will never know if the others were unconfirmed COVID, or just systemic neglect because of understaffing.

Andover subacute families speak out

By Jennifer Jean Miller
Posted Apr 16, 2020 at 3:45 AM
Updated Apr 16, 2020 at 8:35 AM

Representatives from both the 24th legislative district and 5th congressional district said Wednesday they have been working to provide assistance to the Andover Subacute long-term care facilities, including obtaining personal protective equipment (PPE), assist with staffing and to help in any other areas requested.

Meanwhile, family members have stepped forward with additional stories about the treatment of their loved ones at the facilities.

Family members and staff have been perplexed with the reported numbers of those ill with the virus at the facility that the county has received from the state, versus what staff members, who spoke on the condition that they would not be identified, have witnessed. A medical staff member from Subacute II, said the numbers are much higher than the numbers they have seen shared publicly. The staff member questioned if numbers have not been fully reported to authorities, with the building’s infection control representative, who reports numbers to the state, now out ill.

That staff member said Wednesday that within Subacute II, 65 residents from the 543-bed facility, have died since March 31, according to internal census records.

According to the Sussex County Division of Health, on Wednesday, Andover Township has 103 positive COVID-19 cases and 22 fatalities due to the virus to date, but there are no details as to how many of those incidents are within the long-term care facilities.

The New Jersey Department of Health on Wednesday reported that since the pandemic hit, there have been nine deaths in the 159-bed Subacute I, with seven attributable to COVID-19. One Subacute 1 staff member has also died. In Subacute I, 12 residents have additionally tested positive as have nine staff members. In Subacute II, 26 deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 and one staff member has died. Additionally in Subacute II, the report said, 64 residents have tested positive for COVID-19, along with 32 staff members.

Sen. Steve Oroho, R-24th Dist., said he has been working with the office of Gov. Phil Murphy, State Police Superintendent and OEM Pat Callahan, Sussex County Sheriff Michael Strada and Andover Township Police Chief Eric Danielson to assist the Andover facilities. Strada delivered PPE and Danielson, as Andover Township Police Department’s Office of Emergency Management coordinator, helped orchestrate the removal of 13 bodies by hazmat crews from Subacute II on Monday. Additionally, Danielson said he helped to coordinate placement of a makeshift mortuary truck at the facility.

County health officials, Oroho said, have been working with all the offices and Newton Medical Center.

“It is a very sad and serious situation like many of the nursing homes throughout the state,” Oroho said. “They are doing all they can to get equipment and health care personnel, including volunteers, to many of these sites.”

U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th Dist. said upset families have called him and he received a call from the Andover facilities on April 11 asking for body bags. Gottheimer said he reached out to Subacute I and II’s owner Chaim Scheinbaum, of Alliance Healthcare in Lakewood, to see how he could assist.

He also led a bipartisan group within New Jersey’s Congressional delegation that wrote to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar to request that the U.S. Public Health Service deploy men and women to assist with critical staffing needs at longterm care facilities.

In a request for comment, the New Jersey Herald received an automated message from Scheinbaum that he would be out of the office with no access to email until Friday.

Family members step forward

Family members, some who spoke on the condition that they would not be identified as they feared reprisal from the facility’s management, said they have experienced a range of issues, including lack of information.

Cynthia Gunderman of Milford, complimented the staff on Wednesday, but complained of receiving little information from Subacute II before the death of her father-in-law, Roy Gunderman, on April 11. About two weeks before he died, Cynthia Gunderman said, the family received a call that he was moved to isolation, though he had no fever, to keep him separate from those exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19. However, the day before he died on April 10, they received a letter from the Director of Nursing Grace Lipinski, dated April 6, stating her father was COVID-19 positive, along with 20 other residents and six staff members. The next day, a Saturday, Gunderman said, the family called the facility and was told her father-in-law was moving out of quarantine the next day. However, two hours later they received a call that he was in respiratory distress, followed by the final call another two hours later that he had died.

Beth Gangi of New Smyrna, Fla., fears her uncle Lawrence Togno, who died in Subacute II on April 6, died alone and in respiratory distress. She said her father Dominick Togno, of Netcong, received the same form letter as Gunderman’s family regarding her uncle. Gangi, a paramedic and firefighter, said this was the only correspondence they received, which arrived on April 10, four days after her uncle died.

She said the facility called her father on April 2, at 2 a.m., to advise him that her uncle had been transported to the hospital with a temperature, then called later to say he was transported back to Subacute II. Her father tried to call several times and could reach no one, until April 6, when he got the call advising him that his brother had died. Gangi said she called the facility only to learn that there were no medical notations in her uncle’s chart made between April 2 and April 6. She did learn that when he was sent to the hospital, he had a cough, fever of 102.6 and had been placed on oxygen. She learned from the facility, she said, that when her uncle was found dead in his room, his body was already in a state of rigor mortis, the state a body enters after an individual has been dead for more than several hours. The representative she spoke to could not confirm if he had been given oxygen; and Gangi fears he was not.

“I am concerned my uncle had no oxygen, suffocated and died alone,” she said. “No one should have to die alone.”

https://www.njherald.com/news/20200416/ ... -speak-out

[JackRiddler]

re: the news today about antibodies not necessarily providing immunity...

More coronavirus patients testing positive again after recovery: report
By John Bowden - 04/09/20 09:02 AM EDT

Coronavirus patients in South Korea are now testing positive for the virus a second time, health officials are warning, following similar reports in other countries.

This is the news from 16 days ago, but yeah.

It sure circulates over and over, so many people have bought right into it.

It's not impossible, but wait for the punch line.

First, here's the latest from South Korea: The number of second positives is up to 209, but so far they don't think the virus is alive in these recovered people. They also don't think it's reinfection. The virus particles they get don't multiply in cultures.

South Korean patients with reactivated virus have ‘little or no infectivity’

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-e ... eactivated

The Johns Hopkins death count yesterday listed 10,702 cases for South Korea, which presumably are actual test positives since ROK is supposed to be famously on top of the testing thing.

Here's a more general warning from last week:

There is currently no evidence to support the belief that people who have recovered from coronavirus then have immunity, the World Health Organization has said. Senior WHO epidemiologists warned despite the hopes governments across the world have piled on antibody tests, there is no proof those who have been infected cannot be infected again.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0418/11322 ... -covid-19/

But read it carefully. It is also true there is no evidence that one does not acquire immunity through exposure to the virus.

The reason for that is that the WHO scientist is saying there is insufficient evidence on how the virus acts to make this conclusion, since it has not yet been subjected to longer-term study, for rather obvious reasons.

The framing in the headline ('No evidence' of immunity in recovered patients) is panic mongering.

There is "no evidence" because large-scale studies, of people with the particular antibodies who are being tracked for recurrences over a long term, obviously have not yet been done.

This does not support that this disease, out of all diseases, is THE biological freak to which one cannot acquire immunity. But it also does not allow one to rule that possibility out.

This statement could be made about any novel contagion.

[...]

"Right now, we have no evidence that the use of a serological test can show that an individual has immunity or is protected from reinfection." [Note: Because they have not yet checked with this individual regularly over the next three years to see if they are reinfected, or what happens when they are reinfected. Please ask again in four years, after we publish, and until then make sure to maintain all lockdown measures and keep wearing your masks and bandannas.]

She added: "These antibody tests will be able to measure that level of seroprevalence - that level of antibodies but that does not mean that somebody with antibodies means that they are immune."

Dr van Kerkhove said it was "a good thing" that so many tests are being developed.

But she cautioned: "We need to ensure that they are validated so that we know what they say they attempt to measure they are actually measuring."

[...]

That last sentence may as well have been written as boilerplate by a legal department seeking to avoid liability. And as such, it is true.

In the end, when there is actual case data that has been studied in depth over many months, some of the tests will prove to be better than others. Some of the antibodies will turn out to be more relevant to immunity than others. Etc., etc.

In the meantime, -- in the absence of data! -- a cautious scientist, trained to avoid speculative statements about the future, cannot rule out that the most incredibly unlikely thing has happened, and C19 is the apocalypse germ that will keep coming at all of you no matter how healthy you think you are until you are all terminated.

Also: headline writers know that is what you will click.

.

[Elvis]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1253826871940218882

Don't know how to post the actual tweet video but it's hilarious.

Thanks for that. Retweeted.

[undead]

COVID-19 positive Andover staff outraged at subacute administration

By Jennifer Jean Miller
Posted Apr 22, 2020 at 5:46 AM

ANDOVER TOWNSHIP — Another Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation employee, who is out ill after a diagnosis with COVID-19, has stepped forward to tell their story, which echoes previous stories of their colleagues.

The member of the medical staff from Subacute II is recovering and under self-quarantine, after having tested positive for both COVID-19 and parainfluenza. Their life at home has been turned upside down, with other family members having to temporarily leave; and after the employee fully recovers, they plan to hire a professional decontamination company to sanitize their residence, before reintegrating their family.

Speaking to the New Jersey Herald on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their job, this employee said personal protective equipment or PPE was placed under “lock and key” by administrators, including those they knew were donations delivered by the Sussex County Sheriff’s Office.

According to a representative of the New Jersey Department of Health, PPE and other supplies sent to Sussex County’s Office of Emergency Management were provided in two separate shipments, one the week of April 6 and the other April 13. For Subacute I, the state provided 12 cases of dry shampoo, 3,000 gloves, 18 gowns, 66 hand sanitizers, 240 N-95 masks and 600 surgical masks. For Subacute II, the state reported it sent 7,000 gloves, 12 cases of dry shampoo, 38 gowns, 66 hand sanitizers, 1,200 N-95 masks and 2,600 surgical masks.

Sussex County Deputy OEM Bob Haffner said the state’s deliveries of the PPE for the Subacute facilities were taken to the Subacute facilities by OEM, with the first dropped the week of April 13 and the second delivery dropped off on Monday. PPE distribution to staff and residents, since the end of the week of April 13, has now been handled by the Andover Township Police Department, both Haffner and Andover Township Mayor Michael Lensak said. In a previous interview with the New Jersey Herald, Lensak said after hearing PPE was not distributed to staff or residents during the previous deliveries, the police department intervened. Haffner, in a phone interview, said Sussex County OEM made a separate PPE delivery from the state, to the subacute facilities. The county made deliveries at the end of March and beginning of April to the Subacute facilities, Haffner said, when OEM dropped off donated PPE and PPE that the County of Sussex had purchased. With deliveries made prior to the week of April 13, Haffner said, the county was unaware of the difficulties staff said they endured with PPE distribution. Similar deliveries, Haffner said, have been made to other longterm care facilities within the county.

However, this employee and other employees in both buildings previously interviewed, have accused administrators of hoarding PPE and not distributing it properly to staff who needed it. One employee from Subacute I said members of the medical team were initially given no PPE and supplied their own as able. The Subacute I employees were instructed to use paper surgical masks for three days straight, they said, cleaning them with alcohol; and N-95 masks for a week straight, sprayed down with Lysol.

The latest employee to step forward also said staff was threatened with termination for not working in the COVID wing, received no information about ill residents and staff; and when they were provided with information, the numbers were downplayed by administration. Additionally, the employee said, staff was never trained how to swab residents suspected of having the virus, with the infection control nurse, equipped with the proper PPE, refusing to administer the COVID swab tests.

The employee also said Subacute II recreation employees were provided with hand sanitizer, while medical staff had no access, even with the facility on lockdown since early March with a flu outbreak. The employee said each nurse cares for an average of 57 residents per floor, calling it “humanly impossible to wash hands 57 times” during the multiple rounds and interactions made with each resident per shift.

“I am so angry at Andover Subacute, this didn’t have to happen,” the employee stated in a phone interview on Monday.

Fed up with the lack of PPE, the employee said a group of medical staffers from all three floors converged recently on Subacute II Administrator Cynthia Bradford’s office and demanded PPE. Bradford reportedly summoned the employee who handles supplies, who in turn, reportedly yelled at the staff.

Bradford did not respond to an email request for comment prior to deadline.

One of the facility’s owners, Chaim Scheinbaum of Alliance Healthcare, who stated in another interview he was unaware of PPE under lockdown, responded by email Monday that he has since forwarded questions to his attorney, Christopher Porrino of Lowenstein Sandler LLP. Porrino has not responded to emailed requests for comment sent to him on Monday.

A representative of United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 312, the union that represents nurses, CNAs, housekeepers and recreation employees within the facilities, did not respond prior to deadline about the latest allegations. However, Local 312 Business Agent Michael Russo had confirmed in a previous phone interview with the New Jersey Herald, he intervened for employees after they reported to him about the lack of PPE and termination threats.

Union President Robert LaSalle, in a recent letter to Gov. Phil Murphy, asked Murphy to direct State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli to investigate the allegations and for the state to “subsequently take over this facility immediately.”

“Our hardworking members should not have to tolerate a negligent work environment, as they put their own lives and the lives of their families at risk daily,” LaSalle said.

Local 312′s representative additionally did not respond if Murphy replied to the letter.

The COVID-19-positive employee said the Subacute staff has repeatedly been short-staffed, even prior to the COVID-19 issues; and are unable to effectively implement basic medical checks on the residents, including skin assessments and wound care.

“These residents are defenseless and so are the staff behind them,” the employee said.

Job applicant never warned

Additionally, a job seeker, who had a job interview scheduled, has reported they were never told by the Subacute facilities of the coronavirus outbreak before their scheduled in-person interview within Subacute I.

An applicant for a housekeeping position within one of the facilities, Cara McManus of Hamburg, said she was not warned about the outbreak, before she was scheduled for an onsite interview at Subacute I on April 16. After learning of the issues within the Subacute facilities in a New Jersey Herald article, McManus said she cancelled her interview.

“Nothing was ever mentioned to me,” McManus said. “How could I walk into a building and risk my life for $12 per hour?” she asked.

https://www.njherald.com/news/20200422/ ... nistration

[undead]

75% of the residents have developmental disabilities. That explains a lot. Elderly "individuals" as they are euphemistically called by the system usually do not have surviving parents and often have no surviving family at all. Many of these people warehoused in this facility are under the care of state appointed guardians, maybe a majority. "Elderly" is a lot younger for people with developmental disabilities because of lower life expectancy. Siblings often care a lot less than parents, in my experience working with this population. Abuse is common. More often siblings don't have the means to pay extra to put their "individual" sibling in a group home of 5 or 10 people. This place is a Medicaid funded human warehouse. Also, the state of New Jersey provides monthly basic income to all "individuals" diagnosed with developmental disabilities through the Department of Developmental Disabilities. So there is a private company utilizing all of these funds and basically embezzling profits while paying the staff 12 dollars an hour. Friends from Switzerland told me that in their country the same blue collar job starts at 40 dollars an hour.

"Individual" is a telling euphemism because the system obviously does not treat human beings that way.

Andover Subacute II staffers share about teamwork efforts

ANDOVER TOWNSHIP - Employees from the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation I and II facilities report the staff has bonded like family, as they work through the pandemic.

A member of Subacute II’s medical team, speaking to the New Jersey Herald during a phone interview Thursday on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their job, echoed the sentiments of colleagues who have previously shared their stories, criticizing administration and ownership during the pandemic. However, the employee offered another view of statements previously made by fellow colleagues.

“The administration and owner will never thank them, (their colleague),” the employee said. “They all came together as a family and stuck through this.”

Requests for comment on all topics by Subacute II Administrator Cynthia Bradford and to Chaim Scheinbaum of Alliance Healthcare, one of the facilities owners, have mostly gone unanswered. However, Scheinbaum did state on April 13 via email that the company was “providing all PPE based on CDC guidelines.” He also denied employees were threatened with termination if they did not work in the COVID wing.

The employee blamed the disease itself on the outbreak in the 543-bed facility, although they said they began preparing for it. Some of the spread was caused by the residents themselves, 75 percent of whom are special needs individuals, they said, who are not be aware to cover their coughs or sneezes.

According to New Jersey’s Department of Health on Thursday, at Subacute I, a 159-bed facility, there have been 33 confirmed cases and 10 deaths. At Subacute II, there have been 112 confirmed cases and 31 deaths. The employee said the most recent census for Subacute II notes approximately 83 residents have died since March 31, with the first on that day, though not all of those have been deemed COVID-19 deaths. The employee said those who died at the hospital, who had been residents, may not be accounted for in that number. According to Sussex County’s Division of Health on Thursday, 157 cases to date have been reported for Andover Township, with 60 deaths.

The employee sided with irate co-workers, many of whom became ill from the disease or have been out due to fear, stating they are faced with grief from the illness and deaths they have witnessed. The employee has also left work crying, they said and experienced chest pains from the stress, concerned about the post-traumatic stress many will experience. Of the approximate 200 medical and recreation staff on duty throughout three shifts each day, the employee said, about 130 to 150 are now back at work.

The employee is however, angry at those who have left in fear, as they have stayed on, feeling they were abandoned by co-workers as they faced the pandemic head-on. They asked “How dare they?” about those co-workers who are now returning to work, using supplies donated by the public.

The employee countered some things previously said about personal protective equipment or “PPE,” though they said they could not comment about PPE in Subacute II. However, they said PPE kept under “lock and key” was restricted to prevent employee hoarding, with some taking greater quantities, when it was finally in, during a nationwide shortage. A recreation employee, who was pointed out in a previous article for having a large bottle of hand sanitizer, the employee said, brought that hand sanitizer to work after they had purchased it on their own. Originally, the employee said, there were only cloth masks available and then N95s, with some employees opting to purchase their own. Now before each shift, the members of the medical team receives the appropriate PPE, that includes the N95 mask and disposable gown; and wears appropriate PPE in the COVID wings or rooms. The employee said employees wearing plastic ponchos that have been photographed by the media, have purchased those ponchos on their own; and do not work in the COVID wings.

The employee who confirmed hand sanitizer was in short supply, chided a previously interviewed Subacute II employee who complained, stating it is the law for employees to wash hands in between each resident, between glove changes and in other circumstances.

Those who have stayed on, the employee said, have worked together as a team in what they described as a “compromised situation,” with nurses, CNAs, recreation and other employees sanitizing, cleaning and doing other tasks to maintain the building as they have worked.

The deaths of their residents have been disheartening, the employee said, with the call for extra body bags also from funeral homes requesting bodies be double-bagged. Staff members, the employee insisted, did not let residents die alone; and have received death threats from irate callers, for having difficulties picking up the phone.

“We are grateful to all that has been sent to us by the community and businesses, please keep giving, we can’t thank you enough,” the employee said.

https://www.njherald.com/news/20200424/ ... rk-efforts

[Blue]

Thanks for that. Retweeted.

Great to see someone here still has a sense of humor. Sarah is da bomb.

[Blue]

Activity within this thread seems to be slowing down somewhat (Covid-19-fatigue?), so this might be a good time to place the following here for others to reflect upon in their less-occupied moments. Hopefully, the relevance of the piece to this thread will be obvious to all.

Suppression of Science Within Science
By Henry Bauer
December 17, 2009

I wasn't as surprised as many others were, when it was revealed that climate-change "researchers" had discussed in private e-mails how to keep important data from public view lest it shake public belief in the dogma that human activities are contributing significantly to global warming.

How absurd it is that you drop that crap into this thread. And it is quite sad if you really think you are educating people by posting this guy's axe to grind screed blanket statement about scientists.

The very first paragraph is some absolute garbage, from ooh revealing they were keeping some kind of info from the public (not) to actually using quotes on the word researchers when discussing actual climate scientists.

Science has suffered an unfortunate loss in a legal battle in Arizona, where the courts have ordered the public release of 13 years of email correspondence of two climate scientists who worked at the University of Arizona, Jonathan Overpeck and Malcolm Hughes. The plaintiff was a coal industry-funded group called Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal). The group is led by David Schnare, who has made a career of suing and harassing climate scientists by abusing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state open record laws to demand masses of scientists’ emails.

E&E’s victory was obtained via State of Arizona open records laws. These laws, which allow taxpayers to request copies of government records, have been misused by anti-science groups to target scientific research. In response to this abuse by both conservative and liberal groups that have economic, political, or ideological reasons for seeking to suppress particular types of scientific inquiry, most states where the issue has arisen have sought to make it clear by statute, regulation, or judicial decision that their public records or freedom of information laws do not destroy traditional areas of confidentiality that protect the scientific endeavor. Unfortunately, not all states have enacted such reforms.

The emails provide an opportunity for hostile groups to take phrases, including scientific jargon, out of context in order to mislead and confuse the public, and divert time, energy, and resources of the scientists involved away from science. A classic example of this occurred in 2009, with the public release of stolen climate scientists’ emails from the UK: the so-called “Climategate” incident. In an attempt to mislead the public regarding the existence and severity of the climate change problem, climate science deniers published misleading excerpts from the stolen materials to attack the integrity of the scientists who had published seminal studies demonstrating the high probability of human-caused climate change. Numerous investigations found no merit in the criticisms, and no evidence of any wrongdoing by the scientists whose emails had been exposed and distorted.

ETA: Look at your fuckin thermometer socal.

[undead]

In the end, when there is actual case data that has been studied in depth over many months, some of the tests will prove to be better than others. Some of the antibodies will turn out to be more relevant to immunity than others. Etc., etc.

In the meantime, -- in the absence of data! -- a cautious scientist, trained to avoid speculative statements about the future, cannot rule out that the most incredibly unlikely thing has happened, and C19 is the apocalypse germ that will keep coming at all of you no matter how healthy you think you are until you are all terminated.

Mr. Panos looks a lot like comic book guy

[Elvis]

it was revealed that climate-change "researchers" had discussed in private e-mails how to keep important data from public view lest it shake public belief in the dogma that human activities are contributing significantly to global warming.

This is complete bullshit, a lie concocted and spread by malevolent assholes working for the petroleum industry. You can choose to believe corporate bullshit, but be cautious about spreading this particular pile here. It's not welcome.


edit: What Blue said.

edit: Just to clarify, my oldest and best friend personally knows the scientists involved, and has worked hard to help protect them against the fucking evil assholes who try to ruin their lives. Genuine climate scientists are not conspiring to make you believe something that isn't true. I get a little pissed off when misinformed people accuse them.

[0_0]

Elvis, while you stating that it's bullshit is certainly all the proof i would ever need, even more so when your best friend personally knows the scientists involved, still for the doubting thomases out there (how dare they!!!! grrrrr!!!) could you elaborate what in this video is wrong and why?

[thrulookingglass]

1) It came from the Corbett Report

2) It belongs in the BULLSHIT thread.

[DrEvil]

3) It has Marc Morano in it.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

https://madamasr.com/en/2020/03/30/feat ... -tomorrow/

Excerpts:

Mike Davis on pandemics, super-capitalism and the struggles of tomorrow

The coronavirus pandemic is overwhelming to comprehend. There are now hundreds of thousands of confirmed cases. Tens of thousands have died. Nations are on lockdown as the disease continues to spread. The planet is in crisis.

How did this happen?

What are the underlying political, economic and environmental structures that paved the way for this global outbreak? Where do pandemics emerge from? Is our capitalist way of life biologically sustainable?

To shed light on some of these questions, we turned to American writer, historian and political activist Mike Davis, author of over 20 books, including City of Quartz, Planet of Slums, Ecology of Fear, and The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu. Davis is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the University of California, Riverside and is a recipient of a McArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction.

He responded in writing to a series of questions from Mada Masr about the coronavirus pandemic.

Mada Masr: How has the combination of capitalist agriculture and urbanization led to the emergence of pandemics? And why do these strains of influenza generally emerge in southeast Asia?

Mike Davis: Some viruses have natural breeding grounds, like cholera for instance. Almost all cholera outbreaks originate in the warm, fecal-rich waters of the Gulf of Bengal. Others have permanent homes in certain animal families: plague in rodents, influenza in wild birds, yellow fever in monkeys and coronaviruses in bats. Influenzas usually emerge in the south of China. It’s an inadvertent consequence of one of civilization’s greatest success stories. For several millennia, the farming system of southern China, which subsequently spread through southeast Asia, has been the most productive on earth, with domestic ducks and chickens raised side-by-side with pigs in rice fields that produce two harvests a year. Lots of protein with a double portion of carbs. But the flooded paddies attract migratory birds that often pass on new flu strains to ducks and chickens, who in turn infect pigs, an animal whose immune system closely resembles our own. The leap from swine to man is easy and sometimes catastrophic. Since pigs can acquire flu from both birds and humans, a double infection can lead to the “reassortment” of their gene segments and the creation of a hybrid virus with wild bird lethality that also has a key to enter human respiratory cells. The result is a pandemic, as in 1918-19.

...

MM: Why haven’t we seen a universal vaccine developed for influenza? Is it even possible?

MD: Mutations usually occur in the ‘heads’ of the two to three proteins on the virus’s surface that allow it to “dock” on a human cell and then enter. Those are the sites that annual vaccines target. But the “stalks” of these proteins are stable and don’t mutate. Virtually all researchers agree that the tools exist to fashion a broadband vaccine that incapacitates the invariant stalks thus conferring general immunity against all strains that might last for years. The research is out there, but Big Pharma won’t develop or manufacture such a vaccine because it is not profitable. (If given a radical design for a car that lasts for a lifetime, would GM manufacture it?)

Following the H5N1 avian flu outbreak in 2005, the Bush administration took baby steps to gear up production but lost interest after the outbreak subsided. Since then, a chorus of scientific voices has regularly demanded action but was ignored during the Obama years. But vaccine design has been revolutionized, and, with the surge of research to conquer COVID, a universal flu vaccine may follow. The only certainty is that it won’t come from Big Pharma.

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* Big Pharma, the monopoly of monopolies, epitomizes the contradiction between capitalism and world health. Extortionate prices and proprietary patents for medicines often first developed by university and other public researchers are only part of the problem. Big Pharma has also abdicated the development of the life-or-death antibiotics and antivirals that we so urgently need. It is more profitable for them to produce palliatives for male impotence than to bring on line a new generation of antibiotics to fight the wave of resistant bacterial strains that is killing hundreds of thousands of patients in hospitals across the world. Big Pharma claims protection from antitrust laws because it is the major engine of drug research, when, in fact, it spends more on advertising than R&D. The cutting-edge pharmaceuticals and vaccines that it markets are usually developed first in small, dynamic biotech companies, which in turn capitalize research from public universities. Big Pharma, in essence, is rentier capitalism, a fetter on the emerging revolution in biological design and vaccine production.