Amerika

Virus

• Coronavirus cases to be tracked by ethnicity

  Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said: “There does appear to be a disproportionate impact of the virus on BAME communities in the UK.”

  The Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre found that 34% of more than 4,800 critically-ill patients with Covid-19 identified as black, Asian or minority ethnic.

  This is despite only 14% of people in England and Wales being from ethnic minority backgrounds, according to the 2011 census.

• Covid-19: Number of hospitalised people in France declines for fourth consecutive day

  The new deaths — 364 in hospitals and 278 in nursing homes — brought the total toll in the country from the epidemic to 19,323, the French health ministry said in a statement.

  However in a continuation of a trend seen over the last days the number of coronavirus patients in hospital fell by 551 to 30,639. The numbers in intensive care meanwhile fell by 194 to 5,833.

• Scientists have strong evidence coronavirus originated naturally

  Any time scientists tinker with COVID-19 in the lab, that mutation either changes or completely disappears, Garry said, citing a new study published by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.

• Antibody study suggests coronavirus is far more widespread than previously thought

  The study from Stanford University, which was released Friday and has yet to be peer reviewed, tested samples from 3,330 people in Santa Clara county and found the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than official figures indicated.

• Covid 19 and the elephant in the room

  [I]n 2009 61% of patients admitted to hospital in California that died from H1N1 Influenza A were obese, which was 2.2 times more than the prevalence of obesity within the state population. Multivariate analysis suggested obesity was a novel risk factor for mortality from the virus. Furthermore, obese adults shed influenza A virus 42% longer than non-obese individuals suggesting an additional role in transmission. Data from the first 2204 patients admitted to 286 NHS ICU’s with COVID- 19 reveal that 72.7% of them were overweight or obese.

• COVID-19 Lethality Not Much Different Than Flu, Says New Study

  Using these data, the researchers calculated the infection fatality rate, that is, the percent of people infected with the disease who die: “A hundred deaths out of 48,000-81,000 infections corresponds to an infection fatality rate of 0.12-0.2%,” they report.* That’s about the same infection fatality rate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates for seasonal influenza.

• COVID-19: Exercise may protect against deadly complication

  A review by Zhen Yan, PhD, of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, showed that medical research findings “strongly support” the possibility that exercise can prevent or at least reduce the severity of ARDS, which affects between 3% and 17% of all patients with COVID-19. Based on available information, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 20% to 42% of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 will develop ARDS. The range for patients admitted to intensive care is estimated at 67% to 85%.

Panic

• Coronavirus: Britons advised to challenge neighbours over lockdown breaches rather than calling police

  “We therefore advise that in relation to one-off incidents, you initially speak to the people about your concerns, if you can do so safely and within the social-distancing measures,” it added.

  Maybe just have a strong culture instead. It works better than bureaucracies.

• The world’s energy order is changing — and China is set to reap the strategic benefits

  As The Economist wrote in 2018, in a special edition on “the new power superpowers,” the geopolitics of energy since World War II had largely been about the world’s thirst for oil.

  “No country has put itself in a better position to become the world’s renewable energy superpower than China,” it said.

  “In aggregate, it is now the world’s largest producer, exporter and installer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles, placing it at the forefront of the global energy transition.”

  Unless the subsidies fall, then the Chinese economy explodes. Is China kept alive entirely by Western tax dollars at this point?

• Protesters clog streets in Michigan over Whitmer coronavirus stay-home order

  “Quarantine is when you restrict movement of sick people. Tyranny is when you restrict the movement of healthy people,” Maddock told Fox News. “Every person has learned a harsh lesson about social distancing. We don’t need a nanny state to tell people how to be careful.”

  The Swedish model looks better every day. Protests are also occurring in Wisconsin, Texas, California, Maryland, and Ohio.

• California to give cash payments to immigrants hurt by virus

  But people living in the country illegally are not eligible for any of that money, and advocates have been pushing for states to fill in the gap. Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would spend $75 million of taxpayer money to create a Disaster Relief Fund for immigrants living in the country illegally.

• Number of Chinese buyers in Metro Vancouver’s housing market sees nosedive

  “With the closing of national and international borders as a response to the pandemic, real estate players within the Metro Vancouver market have noticed a marked decrease in the number of Chinese travellers and buyers, particularly around Chinese New Year — a hot time for foreign buyers,” reads the post.

  “The restrictions being imposed within China in response to the virus are having monumental impacts upon their economy, and many of these restrictions have already spread to other countries that are home to other heavy investors in Vancouver Real Estate.”

• The corona pandemic and growing poverty are causing migration to decline

  Migration researcher Jochen Oltmer of the University of Osnabrück has contradicted the thesis that growing poverty as a result of the Corona pandemic will increase migration, Oltmer told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”: “There is much to be said for the exact opposite effect. For one must always remember that migration across the borders of countries or even continents is expensive. And as economic conditions deteriorate due to the pandemic, migration tends to be more difficult”.

Tags: covid-19, linkpost, panicdemic