Amerika

Medical Developments

• Israeli COVID-19 treatment shows 100% survival rate

  Pluristem’s PLX cells are “allogeneic mesenchymal-like cells that have immunomodulatory properties,” meaning they induce the immune system’s natural regulatory T cells and M2 macrophages, the company explained in a previous release. The result could be the reversal of dangerous overactivation of the immune system. This would likely reduce the fatal symptoms of pneumonia and pneumonitis (general inflammation of lung tissue).

  Six critically ill coronavirus patients in Israel who are considered high-risk for mortality have been treated with Pluristem’s placenta-based cell-therapy product and survived, according to preliminary data provided by the Haifa-based company.

• One chart shows how long the coronavirus lives on surfaces like cardboard, plastic, wood, and steel

  The researchers behind the new study tested the virus’ life span in a 71-degree-Fahrenheit room at 65% relative humidity. After three hours, the virus had disappeared from printing and tissue paper. It took two days for it to leave wood and cloth fabric. After four days, it was no longer detectable on glass or paper money. It lasted the longest, seven days, on stainless steel and plastic.

  Strikingly, the authors wrote, the coronavirus was still present on the outward-facing side of a surgical mask on day seven of the investigation.

• Obesity is major COVID-19 risk factor, says French chief epidemiologist

  “This virus is terrible, it can hit young people, in particular obese young people. Those who are overweight really need to be careful,” Delfraissy told franceinfo radio.

  Delfraissy said 88% of those infected with the coronavirus suffered only severe flu-like symptoms.

• More coronavirus patients testing positive again after recovery: report

  “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.”

• Mysterious Heart Damage, Not Just Lung Troubles, Befalling COVID-19 Patients

  An initial study found cardiac damage in as many as 1 in 5 patients, leading to heart failure and death even among those who show no signs of respiratory distress.

• China seeks to contain ‘silent carriers’ of coronavirus

  China reported 56 new asymptomatic cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of such cases to 657 since data for such infections were published daily from April 1.

• Mayo Clinic CEO says convalescent plasma could be effective treatment for coronavirus

  The treatment has been around for more than 100 years and was used during the 1918 flu pandemic, Farrugia said. The FDA approved the treatment for coronavirus patients in March.

  Convalescent plasma involves collecting blood plasma from someone who has recovered from COVID-19, Farrugia said. It is then transfused into someone infected with the virus in the hopes that antibodies from the recovered individual can help the person who is sick.

  South Korea is pursuing the same treatment.

• Coronavirus vaccine could be ready by autumn, scientists suggest

  The Oxford trial, a collaboration between the University’s Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group clinical teams, has recruited more than 500 volunteers aged between 18 and 55 who will begin the tests this month following an “overwhelming” response.

Globalism liberal democratic market socialism still bungling the response

• Finland discovers masks bought from China not hospital-safe

  But by Wednesday, officials discovered that the face masks did not meet the required standards of protection against the coronavirus for use in medical environments.

• Britain joins growing chorus of countries furious with China’s faulty coronavirus equipment

  In a blog post on Monday, John Bell, the coordinator of coronavirus testing for Public Health England, said that none of England’s 17 million antibody kits — including the ones bought from China — have performed well.

  Last week, the Netherlands joined Spain, Turkey, Georgia and the Czech Republic in their concerns over masks and test kits. The claims of faulty test kits and other devices came as the number of COVID-19 cases continued to surge in the United States and Europe.

  Spain had to return 50,000 quick-testing kits to China after discovering they weren’t working properly. The Netherlands also rejected China-made coronavirus testing kits and protective gear, calling them substandard and questioning the quality of supplies Beijing is selling — at marked-up prices — to the world.

• COVID-19 may spread through breathing and talking — but we don’t know how much

  “There’s a possibility” that COVID-19 primarily spreads via fluid particles less than 0.0002 inches (5 microns) in diameter, known as aerosols, which can be emitted when people speak, said William Ristenpart, a professor of chemical engineering at University of California, Davis. “We just don’t know,” he said.

• Some doctors moving away from ventilators for virus patients

  Generally speaking, 40% to 50% of patients with severe respiratory distress die while on ventilators, experts say. But 80% or more of coronavirus patients placed on the machines in New York City have died, state and city officials say.

• Cats can catch coronavirus, study finds, prompting WHO investigation

  They also found cats can infect each other via respiratory droplets. Infected cats had virus in the mouth, nose and small intestine. Kittens exposed to the virus had massive lesions in their lungs, nose and throat.

• 21-day lockdown enough? Cambridge University study says: NO!

  The study has rather suggested either a straight 49-day lockdown or three lockdowns for 21 days, 28 days and 18 days – with relaxation of five days in between – that only can control coronavirus effectively.

• Have Australia and New Zealand stopped Covid-19 in its tracks?

  Without warning on Thursday 19 March, the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced “Australia is closing its borders to all-non citizens”, the ban effective from 9pm the next day.

  Travel spread this disease. New York found that its coronavirus came from Europe.

• Has Sweden Found the Right Solution to the Coronavirus?

  Lots of people are rushing to discredit Sweden’s approach, which relies more on calibrated precautions and isolating only the most vulnerable than on imposing a full lockdown. While gatherings of more than 50 people are prohibited and high schools and colleges are closed, Sweden has kept its borders open as well as its preschools, grade schools, bars, restaurants, parks, and shops.

  Try a ketogenic diet also.

Seal the borders and isolate the infected and this panicdemic is over.

Panicdemic destroys world economy

• IMF chief says pandemic will unleash worst recession since Great Depression

  “Just three months ago, we expected positive per capita income growth in over 160 of our member countries in 2020,” she said on Thursday in remarks prepared for delivery ahead of next week’s IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings.

  “Today, that number has been turned on its head: we now project that over 170 countries will experience negative per capita income growth this year.”

• Government and Businesses Turn Attention to Eventual Reopening of $22 Trillion U.S. Economy

  The federal government has yet to put in place the kind of nationwide testing, tracing and surveillance system that public health experts say is needed to prevent another surge in coronavirus cases when social distancing eases. That includes identifying people who are asymptomatic and can also spread the coronavirus, health experts said.

• Half billion more people face poverty due to virus – report

  The report, which is based on research at King’s College London and the Australian National University, warns that between 6% and 8% of the global population could be forced into poverty as governments shut down entire sectors of their economies to manage the spread of the virus. As an example of the repercussions of the lockdowns in many Western countries, the report notes that more than a million Bangladeshi garment workers — 80% of whom are women — have already been laid off or sent home without pay after orders were cancelled or suspended.

• How a pandemic struck a British PM and changed the world. No, not this one

  The long-term effects echoed even further: It spurred calls for universal health care and shaped the history of India, South Africa, the Soviet Union, Germany and beyond.

• EU could fail over outbreak, warns Italy’s Giuseppe Conte

  “Going back, I would do the same”, he said. “We have a completely different system to China. For us to severely limit constitutional freedoms was a critical decision that we had to consider very carefully. If I had suggested a lockdown or limits on constitutional rights at the start, when there were the first clusters, people would have taken me for a madman.”

• Chinese ministry declares dogs as pets and not for eating in landmark statement

  China temporarily restricted wildlife trading and consumption in February, in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak thought to have originated in ‘wet’ markets where live animals are sold alongside slaughtered meat.

• US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6 million and we’ve now lost 10% of workforce in three weeks

  That brings the total claims over the past three weeks to more than 16 million. If you compare those claims to the 151 million people on payrolls in the last monthly employment report, that means the U.S. has lost 10% of the workforce in three weeks.

  An army of baristas and checkers now demand Communist revolution.

• The Money’s Not Coming Home: $690 Billion Remittance Risk

  Waves of job losses among overseas workers and international border closures are sapping the $690 billion annual flow of global remittances at a time when many emerging economies need hard currency more than ever. Lebanon, Ukraine and the Philippines will be among the hardest hit, while Latin America could see an 18% drop in money being sent home compared with last year.

• The coronavirus crisis is devastating the news industry

  While newspapers – many owned by heavily indebted chain owners – have been hard hit, the broader media landscape has pits in it at every turn. Alternative weeklies and city magazines, dependent on ads from restaurants, museums and local attractions, were the first to hang out urgent appeals for reader donations; several have shuttered and others are contemplating it. Even local TV stations, the most resilient sector during the media’s troubled years, are hurting from the disappearance of two reliable advertisers, local car dealers and political candidates.

• Coronavirus conspiracies pushed by Russia, amplified by Chinese officials: experts

  The firm looked at whether so-called “bot hordes” controlled by authoritarian states are responsible for spreading pandemic conspiracy narratives through machine-controlled accounts. But they found it was actually well-known Chinese government officials — with limited but effective tweets — who successfully launched Russian-designed propaganda into western social media discussions.

Supply chain failure (and other systemic failures)

• Major Meat Processors Shutting Down Plants As Employees Get Sick With COVID-19

  Consumers are unlikely to see any shortages because of production disturbances. But the closures are devastating for some meat producers, which have remained open during the pandemic. Food suppliers are essential businesses.

• Doctors Can Place COVID-19 on Death Certificates Without Confirmed Test Results, Minnesota Senator Says

  Jensen said the guideline implies that it “would be appropriate to diagnosis on the death certificate COVID-19” if a deceased patient had contact with someone who had the virus but never actually tested positive themselves.

  “Now we’ve not done that. If someone has pneumonia and it’s in the middle of the flu epidemic, and I don’t have a test on influenza, I don’t diagnose influenza on the death certificate,” said Jensen.

• Nature magazine apologises for reports linking Covid-19 with China

  In an article published on Tuesday, the publication said that the World Health Organisation’s announcement on February 11 that the official name for the pneumonia-like virus would be Covid-19 had been an implicit reminder to “those who had erroneously been associating the virus with Wuhan and with China in their news coverage – including Nature”.

  Lies become truth. The virus came from Wuhan, which is in China. This somehow eludes democracy.

• Anthony Fauci sets stage for mandatory — lucrative! — vaccine

  Never, that is, Fauci suggested, until a vaccine is developed. And by logical extension, that’s to say — never, until a vaccine is developed that must then be included on the required list of shots for all children to attend school.

• Far-right groups may try to take advantage of pandemic, watchdogs warn

  Perry said she is currently seeing online activity that falls under three main categories: conspiracy theories, anti-immigrant and xenophobic attitudes and so-called accelerationist rhetoric. Accelerationism, as conceived by the far right, is the idea of hastening the collapse of society, which would lead to a race war from which a white ethno-state would emerge.

Tags: bat AIDS, chinese virus, COHIVID-19, coronavirus, covAIDS, covid-19, linkpost, panicdemic, wuhan flu