Deadly Wuhan Coronavirus

[nivek]

President Donald Trump doesn't think U.S. needs a national mask mandate in an interview with Fox, according to CNN. When asked if he would consider instituting a mandate, Trump responded: "No, I want people to have a certain freedom, and I don't believe in that, no." Trump also said he disagrees with the assessment by Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that "if all of us would put on a face-covering now for the next four weeks, six weeks, we could drive this epidemic to the ground” CNN reported.

"I don't agree with the statement that if everybody wears a mask everything disappears," Trump said. "Dr. Fauci said don't wear a mask, our Surgeon General, terrific guy, said don't wear a mask. Everybody was saying don't wear a mask. All of a sudden everybody's got to wear a mask, and as you know, masks cause problems too, with that being said, I'm a believer in masks. I think masks are good." During the start of the pandemic, public health officials asked people to not wear masks to save supplies for frontline workers, but now both Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, and US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, have repeatedly called upon Americans to wear masks in public.

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[nivek]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that five U.S. Navy teams will be deployed Sunday "to help combat the spread of Covid-19."

The teams will go to areas in South and Southwest Texas and will assist at various hospitals in the cities of Eagle Pass, Harlingen, Del Rio and Rio Grande City, according to a governor's office press release. "These teams consist of medical and support professionals which are being deployed to help meet medical needs in hospitals throughout the state," the press release says. “The support from our federal partners is crucial in our work to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our communities throughout Texas," said Governor Abbott. "I am grateful for this ongoing partnership with the Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy, and the State of Texas will continue to utilize every resource available to protect public health and keep Texans in every community safe."

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[nivek]

 

[nivek]

A COVID-19 symptom-tracking app reveals that there are six distinct types of infections, each distinguished by different symptoms.

A team of British scientists at King’s College in London found that the six types of infection also correlate to the severity of an infection and the likelihood of the patient needing hospitalization and breathing aid. This new finding could help doctors predict which patients are at risk and likely to need more hospital care. “If you can predict who these people are at Day Five, you have time to give them support and early interventions such as monitoring blood and oxygen and sugar levels, and ensuring they are properly hydrated,” Claire Steves, a doctor who co-led the study, told Reuters. The six types of infections are described as:

1. ‘Flu-like’ with no fever: Headache, loss of smell, muscle pains, cough, sore throat, chest pain, no fever.
   
   
2. ‘Flu-like’ with fever: Headache, loss of smell, cough, sore throat, hoarseness, fever, loss of appetite.
   
   
3. Gastrointestinal: Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, diarrhea, sore throat, chest pain, no cough.
   
   
4. Severe level one, fatigue: Headache, loss of smell, cough, fever, hoarseness, chest pain, fatigue.
   
   
5. Severe level two, confusion: Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, cough, fever, hoarseness, sore throat, chest pain, fatigue, confusion, muscle pain.
   
   
6. Severe level three, abdominal and respiratory: Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, cough, fever, hoarseness, sore throat, chest pain, fatigue, confusion, muscle pain, shortness of breath, diarrhea, abdominal pain.
   

Patients with symptoms that match those of levels 4, 5 and 6 are more likely to need hospital care.

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[nivek]

The article is a little disturbing to read but at the same time I think it's very factual and to the point, we are in deep shyte...

America is sleepwalking toward economic catastrophe

(Excerpt, much more in the above link)

You can’t pretend your way out of a pandemic

This is not the version of 2020 anyone wanted, including the White House and Congress. But this is the reality we are in: A pandemic has set off an economic calamity, and neither front is under control. The disease is still spreading, and much of the country is struggling to stay afloat.

The urgency of the situation feels almost undeniable, and yet in some quarters, it’s being denied. The president’s strategy seems to be hoping that if you ignore the pandemic, it will just go away, and whenever anyone asks about the economy, just point to the stock market, which has become completely disjointed from reality. Many Republican governors are opting to take the same route, as are many Republicans in Congress. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants companies to get liability protections if their workers get sick through 2024.

“There are things we can do now to stem the bleeding, but fundamentally, it’s exposed that our economy isn’t prepared for a shock of any kind, let alone the scale of economic crisis that we’re seeing now”

“It’s been wishful thinking all the way that Trump wanted to preside over a roaring economy spurred on by tax cuts and has simply refused to accept that we have a crisis that requires, at least for the time being, more government, not less,” Krugman said. “You can’t really have a roaring economy when people are afraid to go out.”

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[nivek]

I'm only posting this piece to show again the head in the sand thinking our pathetic president has towards this huge crisis America is knee deep in, I mean WTF?...

"It is what it is", really?...freaking sickening...

...

Trump implodes on 'Fox News Sunday'

(Excerpt)

On the coronavirus, for example, Trump again insisted the United States has done more testing and has a lower mortality rate than any other country - which Wallace showed is demonstrably not true. Trump also showed a stunning lack of knowledge about how bad things are and lack of concern for victims of the disease.

He baffled public health officials by claiming that many cases amount to nothing more than a bad case of the "sniffles," that will "heal in a day." He again insisted that the "Chinese virus" would someday "disappear." "I'll be right, eventually," he bragged, as if he were talking about the Astros winning another World Series "eventually" - showing no empathy for those who might die in the meantime. In fact, pressed by Wallace for his reaction to over 140,000 deaths from COVID-19 so far, the best Trump could offer was, "It is what it is."

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[AD1184]

Hundreds of anti-mask demonstrators protected by armed militia gather at the Ohio statehouse saying face coverings are 'propaganda' and clash with Black Lives Matter protesters

A large anti-mask protest clashed with a Black Lives Matter counter-protest outside the Ohio statehouse in Columbus on Saturday as Ohio coronavirus cases continue to rise.

Can't they just recommend that the mask ought to be lined with tinfoil to get these idiots onboard?

 

[nivek]

Today is a horrible day in the country with over 1,100 confirmed deaths and new infections peaking everyday, the local news said testing in North Carolina is 5 to 10 days behind and getting results because the labs are so overwhelmed with new tests...

 

[Standingstones]

What is so galling is that in our countries biggest crisis Trump has checked out. His excuses and ambivalence is damn near criminal. Is he so stupid not to see his re-election numbers are pathetically low? Had he taken some positive action instead of criticizing Dr. Fauci and others, he would probably cruise to victory in November.

 

[nivek]

Texas has over 200 deaths today and California hit a new high of over 12,000 new cases...

Horrible day, keeps getting worse...

 

[Thomas R. Morrison]

Texas has over 200 deaths today and California hit a new high of over 12,000 new cases...

Horrible day, keeps getting worse...


View attachment 10300

Jesus christ - my state Louisiana jumped from 1698 new confirmed cases on Tuesday to 2764 confirmed new cases on Wednesday - a 62.78% increase in a single day. Lately I've noticed that I see more drivers in their cars wearing face masks, than close groups of pedestrians wearing face masks while talking to each other.

Apparently we're already dealing with the worse, second phase of the pandemic - the period when people are exhibiting widespread "isolation fatigue" and pretending that we're not in the middle of a massive lethal pandemic even though we still are.

 

[nivek]

This woman either knows she's lying through her teeth or she is batshit crazy and needs to be locked away...

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Fact Checker
Analysis
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s claim that children are ‘stoppers’ of covid-19

“More and more studies show that kids are actually stoppers of the disease and they don’t get it and transmit it themselves, so we should be in a posture of — the default should be getting back to school kids in person, in the classroom.”

— Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, in an interview on “The Conservative Circus” (iHeart radio), July 16

Our eyes popped out when we first heard this comment by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, as she pressed the administration’s case for reopening schools in the fall with in-person classes.

Could children actually be “stoppers” of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus? That would be great news — if true. The interruption of school threatens to create a learning deficit — and many parents may find it difficult to return to work if children are not in classes.

Let’s examine DeVos’s evidence that children do not transmit the coronavirus, as it appears to be influencing administration policy. President Trump echoed her claim in a news briefing Wednesday evening. “They do say that [children] don’t transmit very easily, and a lot of people are saying they don’t transmit,” he said. “They don’t bring it home with them. They don’t catch it easily; they don’t bring it home easily.”

The Facts

An Education Department spokesperson supplied four reports from around the world:

• American Academy of Pediatrics: Evidence suggests that children don’t contract or spread the virus the way adults do, in contrast to how they spread influenza.

• New South Wales, Australia: Eighteen infected people who had contact with nearly 900 people resulted in only two additional infections, with “no evidence of children infecting teachers.”

• France: An infected 9-year-old in France came into contact with 172 people while attending three ski schools, and none of them — not even the child’s siblings — appeared to contract the virus.

• Saxony, Germany: A study (in German) found no evidence that schoolchildren play a role in spreading the virus, with a researcher quoted in a news report as saying that “children may even act as a brake on infection.”

“We’re mainly looking at the German study — one of the people who helped run it is the one who first said that kids can act as ‘brakes’ on virus transmission,” the Education Department spokesperson said.

Well, there’s a problem with that. The German study has not been peer-reviewed; it is still in preprint review by the Lancet, meaning it should not be used to guide clinical practice.

Moreover, the German researchers told The Fact Checker that the results do not apply to a country such as the United States, where infections have been soaring. Germany, by contrast, is among the countries that are considered to have handled the outbreak with skill and diligence, keeping infections per million people relatively low.

“Our results depict a situation with low infection rates after the initial transmission peak is under control,” Jakob Armann, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at University Children’s Hospital in Dresden and co-author of the study, said in an email. “If you have rising infection rates — as in the United States currently — putting people in close contact will obviously lead to transmission of respiratory viruses as SARS-CoV-2.”

The key, he said, is to get the situation under control, as most Europeans countries have. Then “there is a way to safely reopen schools and schoolchildren are not ‘hidden’ hotspots of transmission.”

Reinhard Berner, Armann’s colleague, made the “brake” comment, but Armann said his quote was “widely exaggerated through in the media.” (The phrase does not appear in the study.)

“The point he was trying to make is that these findings are in contrast to the earlier assumptions that children will spread the virus to a much higher degree than adults,” Armann said. “We are not trying to argue that children do not spread the virus at all, and you are absolutely right that in high-infection communities, children will get infected and will transmit to close contacts.”

It’s easy to find studies and news reports that contradict DeVos’s assertion:

• South Korea: A large study using contact tracing found that children ages 10 to 19 can spread the virus at least as much as adults do; children younger than 10 were half as likely to transmit the virus, but there was still a risk.

• Israel: At least 1,335 students and 691 staff members contracted the coronavirus after Israel reopened its entire school system without restrictions on May 17, believing it had beaten the virus. The spike in infections among the children spread to the general population, according to epidemiological surveys by Israel’s Health Ministry. As of mid-July, 125 schools and 258 kindergartens have been closed because of infections.

• New York: An asymptomatic child attending family in-home day care in DeWitt led to four families getting sick, including six children at the day care, one sibling, seven parents and two grandmothers.

In the United States, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 241,904 child coronavirus cases were reported as of July 16, with children representing 8 percent of all cases. There was a 46 percent increase in child cases from July 2 to July 16, although mortality remains low, with 24 states reporting no child deaths so far.

Although there have been relatively few deaths of children — fewer than 70, according to state reports — about 3.3 million adults ages 65 and older live in a household with school-age children, according to a July 16 analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s about 6 percent of all seniors in the United States, who have a greater chance of becoming severely ill from the virus if a child becomes infected.

Michael T. Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said that too often people have latched on to studies that later turn out to be flawed. “There have been so many studies, sometimes with strident conclusions, only to be blown out of the water later” when conditions change, he said. “The bottom-line message is that school-age kids will see transmissions. How much is unclear, but they definitely are not brakes.”

After we communicated the response from the German researchers, we received this statement from the Education Department: “The science remains on the side of reopening schools, even at the highest levels of the medical field. As the Secretary has said, we have to think about the impact on the whole child if schools continue to remain closed. In addition to a quality education, students need the peer-to-peer interaction, access to mental health care, and nutritious food that schools provide. As she has said previously, decisions on schools fully reopening will need to be made on case-by-case basis depending on the local health situation, and the goal should be fully reopening in the fall.”

The Pinocchio Test

As a Cabinet secretary, DeVos has a responsibility to provide accurate information to the public. It’s easy to pick and choose medical studies to assert a political point. But it’s irresponsible to mainly rely on a news account of a report that has not even been peer-reviewed yet — and that concerns a low-infection environment not yet applicable to the United States.

There is evidence that children may not get as sick as adults, and younger children especially may not transmit the virus as easily. From an educational perspective, certainly it would be better to provide in-class instruction than to continue remote learning. But to claim that children actually may stop the spread of the disease shows a stunning lack of due diligence.

DeVos earns Four Pinocchios.

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[nivek]

 

[AlienView]

But are we having fun yet ?

What started as a grade B science fiction dystopian horror movie is turning out to be a one time end of the World nightmare - And it is really happening !

Or, conspiracy theory 2 - It is a designer virus created to wipe out as many old people as possible, save money on healthcare costs for the old, and help reduce the World's population of what they call useless eaters.

And who is behind it? - The so called 'New World Order' {a hypothetical group of the rich and powerful that theoretically control the World}.

OR, if you believe 'aliens' are real, 'they' are again tampering with so called Evolution
- And its all for the benefit of Humanity in the long run.

At any rate the fun, if there is any bright side to this, is living through a truly significant
historical event - If you survive it !!!

 

[Standingstones]

View attachment 10303

DeVos has been making BS statements since she became a Cabinet secretary. She is both a liar and crazy.

 

[nivek]

Texas has over 200 deaths again today, I think we're on the verge of seeing the death count spiral out of control like new cases have been in some states...

 

[nivek]

Three European countries are considering new lockdown measures amid a resurgence in cases.

France has advised against travel to the region of Catalonia to prevent the spread of the virus. Meanwhile, Norway has announced it will be reimposing a 10-day quarantine for anyone arriving from Spain. Thursday had 971 new COVID-19 cases in Spain which is the highest daily toll since emergency measures were lifted in June, according to The Guardian. Community transmission is still present in northeastern areas of the country. Deputy head of Spain's centre for health emergencies said that the incidence of the virus has tripled in the last two weeks, jumping from 8.76 cases per 100,000 people to 27.39 per 100,000. As bars and restaurants are reopening, there is fear that the new surge in cases could be coming from those reopening.

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[nivek]

"Right now the virus is controlling us in many parts of the world,"

Dr. Maria VanKerkhove, one of World's Health Organization's leading experts on COVID-19, told Good Morning America Friday. VanKerkhove noted that the Americas are "in the thick of it" and intense transmission of the virus is underway. However, she noted that there are signs of hope. "This virus is controllable with the steps that are outlined with this whole comprehensive approach that we've been talking about since the beginning of this pandemic," she said. "Even countries that are really overwhelmed right now can turn this around," she said. "They can and they will turn this around." Watch the interview below.



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[nivek]

Infectious disease experts are warning against the reopening of schools in states like Texas and Florida where coronavirus cases are continuing to surge. “The simple answer is no,” Dr. Tina Tan, a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University said. “When you have such surges of disease in the community, you’re basically asking for trouble if you open schools because you’re bringing in individuals from all across the community that potentially may be exposed to it.” Tan said the rate of infection will be a determining factor in whether or not it is safe to reopen schools, CNBC reported. Schools should have a plan in place of how to handle students testing positive, and should have a plan to close again in the event of an outbreak, professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine Wendy Armstrong said. “Schools are a microcosm of their communities. They don’t operate in a vacuum,” Armstrong said. “And so in order for schools to open safely, communities’ spread must be controlled and must not be explosive.”

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[nivek]

Another horrible day, I'm noticing more states are reaching the 1000 a day count for new infections, the virus is definitely continuing to spread rapidly...