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Dr. Fauci warned us that the death count is probably much higher than we know.
Things like this, where Florida’s chief data scientist Rebekah Jones was sidelined because she refused to fudge the numbers to support re-opening, are why.
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Covid Patients Testing Positive After Recovery Aren’t Infectious - Bloomberg
Researchers are finding evidence that patients who test positive for the coronavirus after recovering aren’t capable of transmitting the infection, and could have the antibodies that prevent them from falling sick again.
Scientists from the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 285 Covid-19 survivors who had tested positive for the coronavirus after their illness had apparently resolved, as indicated by a previous negative test result. The so-called re-positive patients weren’t found to have spread any lingering infection, and virus samples collected from them couldn’t be grown in culture, indicating the patients were shedding non-infectious or dead virus particles.
The findings, reported late Monday, are a positive sign for regions looking to open up as more patients recover from the pandemic that has sickened at least 4.8 million people. The emerging evidence from South Korea suggests those who have recovered from Covid-19 present no risk of spreading the coronavirus when physical distancing measures are relaxed.
good news, let’s hope the science holds up!
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Such a terrible loss. For people who discount what we are losing by this pandemic affecting the old most heavily, we are losing our history and wisdom.
Annie Glenn, Widow Of Astronaut And U.S. Sen. John Glenn, Dies At 100 From Coronavirus Complications
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Despicable.
More than 40,000 National Guard members currently helping states test residents for the coronavirus and trace the spread of infections will face a “hard stop” on their deployments on June 24 — just one day shy of many members becoming eligible for key federal benefits, according to a senior FEMA official.
Something to watch:
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Axios PM
1 big thing: The Mnuchin/Powell show
One takeaway from today’s Senate coronavirus bailout hearing: The Treasury Department and Federal Reserve both think the worst could be yet to come for America’s economy.
Why it matters: Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated his belief that a full recovery may not come until there’s a vaccine, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said there’s the risk of “permanent damage” if states delay reopening.
- The pair gave the first of the required updates to Congress on the $500 billion fund set aside in the CARES Act, Axios’ Courtenay Brown reports.
In the virtual hearing, the Senate Banking Committee pressed Powell and Mnuchin on whether the economic programs were enough to support businesses or localities that are in need.
- Powell said the Fed would continue to adjust the terms, and possibly the eligibility, of its lending programs “as we learn more.” It’s already expanded eligibility for its medium-sized business and its state lending programs.
- Mnuchin also said the Treasury was “fully prepared to take losses” on the money it is extending to backstop the Fed’s lending programs. That’s a shift from comments last month, when he said the U.S. would recover the money.
The big picture: Many of the Fed’s coronavirus lending programs have yet to launch.
- Powell said he expected all of the programs to be up and running by the first week of June.
One fiery moment: Sen. Elizabeth Warren pushed Mnuchin on whether the businesses receiving relief from certain programs would be required to keep workers on their payrolls.
- “Different facilities have different requirements,” Mnuchin said. He also added that there is a provision in the Main Street Lending Program that “we expect people to use their best efforts to support jobs.”
Between the lines: Mnuchin was pressed on the eight-week period that businesses are required to spend Paycheck Protection Program funds. Small businesses want it extended, but that fix would need to come from Congressional legislation, not the Treasury Department.
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Seems obvious…why no masks people?
Wearing a mask can significantly reduce coronavirus transmission: Study
- The study was released Sunday by the department of microbiology at The University of Hong Kong.
- Local media reports stated it will be published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases medical journal, suggesting it is yet to be peer reviewed.
…
Experiments by a team in Hong Kong found that the coronavirus’ transmission rate via respiratory droplets or airborne particles dropped by as much as 75% when surgical masks were used.
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From Brian Stelter Reliable Newsletter
– Speaking of misinformation, the AFP has an excellent story on how Bill Gates has become the “bogeyman of virus conspiracy theories.” The story notes that this could “hamper efforts to curb the virus…” (AFP)
https://news.yahoo.com/bill-gates-bogeyman-virus-conspiracy-theorists-152254923.html
False claims targeting billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates are gaining traction online since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, with experts warning they could hamper efforts to curb the virus.
Doctored photos and fabricated news articles crafted by conspiracy theorists – shared thousands of times on social media platforms and messaging apps, in various languages – have gone as far as accusing the Microsoft founder of creating the outbreak.
Gates, who has pledged $250 million to efforts to fight the pandemic, is the latest in a string of online targets despite the World Health Organization’s efforts to fight what it called an “infodemic” – misinformation fanned by panic and confusion about the virus.
In recent months, 5G networks and Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros have also been blamed for creating COVID-19, which has killed more than 315,000 people around the world.
“Bill Gates has always been a target of specific conspiracy communities,” said Rory Smith, research manager at First Draft, a non-profit that provides research and training for journalists.
Gates – whose eponymous foundation has spent billions of dollars improving healthcare in developing countries over the past 20 years – has become “a kind of abstract boogeyman”, said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at New York’s Syracuse University, where she teaches digital ethics.
A video accusing Gates of wanting “to eliminate 15 percent of the population” through vaccination and electronic microchips has racked up nearly two million views on YouTube.
Similar allegations “exploded” between January and April, Smith told AFP.
- Exploiting the crisis -
Since the start of the crisis, AFP Fact Check has debunked dozens of anti-Gates rumours circulating on platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram in languages including English, French, Spanish, Polish and Czech.
A number of accusations, including posts claiming that the FBI arrested Gates for biological terrorism or that he supports a Western plot to poison Africans, share a common thread.
They accuse the tycoon of exploiting the crisis, whether it is to “control people” or make money from selling vaccines.
“These conspiracies are powerful enough to drive down institutional trust around health organisations, and as a result, possibly drive down vaccination rates, which is worrying,” Smith said.
Gates’ vocal criticism of US President Donald Trump and support for vaccine development made him “the perfect scapegoat for a crisis that emerges on the intersection of technology and (medical) science,” Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius, a social sciences researcher at Finland’s University of Helsinki, wrote in a university blog post.
It is not the first time Gates has found himself at the mercy of conspiracy theorists. When Zika virus broke out in 2015 in Brazil, he was one of several powerful Western figures blamed for the disease.
Other rumours claim that he is secretly a lizard, an old favourite among online trolls.
“He hasn’t become conspiracists’ favourite target, he has been (their favourite target) for a long time,” Sylvain Delouvee, a social psychology researcher at France’s University of Rennes, told AFP.
- Predicted the pandemic -
The recent explosion in false claims could be explained as a coping mechanism during the global crisis, Smith said.
“People are constantly looking for information to make sense out of this reality, and having these conspiracies offers a convenient way of having power over your situation,” he said.
The pandemic has also provided fertile breeding ground for attacks on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, particularly by anti-vaccine campaigners whose influential online presence was already brewing years before the virus emerged.
The charity’s humanitarian work in Africa, where misinformation about Gates is particularly present, and financial support of the World Health Organization – it is the agency’s second-largest donor – have fed rumours of dark secrets and ploys for power.
Several widely shared posts point to photographs of Gates attending a “coronavirus conference” in 2015. Conclusion? He predicted the pandemic.
In reality, he was meeting with a research institute that had filed for a patent to potentially be used for a vaccine against a different type of coronavirus that affects animals.
Like many scientists, Gates had already warned of an imminent pandemic in the years before the novel coronavirus outbreak.
- Conspiracies creeping into mainstream -
Gates has also come under attack from celebrities.
Conservative US television host Laura Ingraham claimed in an interview that Gates was developing “tracking mechanisms”. She was referring to a widely misinterpreted Reddit post by the billionaire about “digital certificates” to show who has recovered, been tested or – eventually – vaccinated.
Robert Kennedy Jr, the anti-Trump, anti-vaccine nephew of the former American president John F Kennedy, has accused the philanthropist of dictating global health policies.
Meanwhile, French “Chocolat” actress Juliette Binoche sparked controversy when she posted an Instagram post blasting Gates and calling for the rejection of “a microchip implant for all”.
Debunking misinformation is “not about saying that everyone is a good guy”, said Delouvee at France’s University of Rennes, pointing to privacy concerns around the race to build coronavirus tracking apps and governments’ use of medical data.
The Gates Foundation has come under fire in publications such as The Lancet medical journal, which accused it of a lack of transparency over its financial investments.
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Coronavirus US live: Trump calls America’s 1.52m cases ‘a badge of honor’, stirring outrage
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New census survey shows 47% of households have lost employment income during the pandemic
From CNN’s Annalyn Kurtz
The US Census Bureau released the first results from its new “pulse survey” today in response to the pandemic. In the April 23-May 5 period, 74,413 households responded.
Here are some of the key findings:
EMPLOYMENT
- Among the population of adults 18 and over 47% either lost employment income or another adult in their household had lost employment income since March 13.
- 39% of adults expected that they or someone in their household would lose employment income over the next four weeks.
FOOD INSECURITY
- About 10% of adults reported that they did not get enough of the food they needed some of the time or often. Another 32% reported getting enough food, but not the kinds of food they needed.
- On average, households spent $196 a week to buy food at supermarkets, grocery stores, online, and other places to be prepared and eaten at home.
MENTAL HEALTH
Adults who responded reported feeling anxious or nervous more than half the days last week or nearly every day 29.7% of the time .
They reported not being able to stop or control worrying more than half the days last week or nearly every day 22.8% of the time.
For measures related to depression, 18.6% of adults report feeling down more than half the days or nearly every day last week, and 21.4% reported having little interest or pleasure in doing things more than half the days or nearly every day last week.
OPTING TO DELAY MEDICAL CARE
38.7% of adults report that over the last four weeks, they delayed getting medical care because of the coronavirus pandemic.
HOUSING INSECURITY
Being unable to pay rent or mortgage on time was reported by 10.7% of adults , while another 3.2% reported they deferred payments.
When asked about the likelihood of being able to pay next month’s rent or mortgage on time, 21.3% reported only slight or no confidence in being able to pay next month’s rent or mortgage on time. Another 2.5% reported next month’s mortgage is or will be deferred.
HOMESCHOOLING
In households with children enrolled in public or private school (K-12), adults spent 13 hours on average on teaching activities during the last seven days.
Expectations for loss in income have been most extreme in Hawaii, New Jersey and Nevada.
Food scarcity has been at the highest levels in Mississippi, Illinois and Louisiana.
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PR blitz to control the message. Fauci not seen so as to control the message, that we are opening, vaccine or no vaccine.
Fauci did, however, offer comment to the Washington Post for a story that was published Wednesday after CNN had asked the White House and NIH about his absence.
Fauci’s absence comes as the newly implemented White House communications team has changed its public relations strategy for the pandemic.
President Trump, who previously held freewheeling news conferences, has stopped doing so on a daily basis following an effort among aides and allies who believed the briefings damaged him politically.
And in recent weeks, the White House has refocused its message on reopening the country amid the economic havoc wreaked by the virus.
While the President and White House have pushed for the reopening of the economy, some experts have cautioned it could be too soon.
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Social distancing a week earlier could have saved 36,000 American lives, study says
What if those sweeping measures imposed by March 15 — a federal warning against large gatherings, health screenings at airports, states of emergency declared by governors and mayors — had been announced a week earlier?
New research from Columbia University epidemiologists offered one possible answer on Wednesday. If the same kind of social distancing had been in place seven days earlier, their study found, the United States could have prevented 36,000 deaths through early May — about 40 percent of fatalities reported to date.
“If you don’t take steps to fight the growth rate aggressively, you get much worse consequences,” Jeffrey Shaman, an environmental health sciences professor who led the study, told The Washington Post.
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Dog- Whistle 
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CDC is revising the stats on how much more Covid-19 is transmissable via people that it is on paper, cardboard etc.
This is something to ponder…and I am now questioning it’s wisdom. You wonder if it is an update that is focused on trying to get the country back to work, and knowing people are nervous that working with paper, plastic etc that you could easily come in contact with it, aside from the mouth droplets.
The revised guidance now states, in headline-size type, “The virus spreads easily between people.” It also notes that the coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19, “is spreading very easily and sustainably between people.”
The CDC made another key change to its website, clarifying what sources are not major risks. Under the new heading “The virus does not spread easily in other ways,” the agency explains that touching contaminated objects or surfaces does not appear to be a significant mode of transmission. The same is true for exposure to infected animals.
CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said Thursday that the revisions were the product of an internal review and “usability testing.”
“Our transmission language has not changed,” Nordlund said. “Covid-19 spreads mainly through close contact from person to person.”
…Example after example have shown the microbe’s affinity for density. The virus has spread easily in nursing homes, prisons, cruise ships and meatpacking plants — places where many people are living or working in proximity. A recent CDC report described how a choir practice in Washington state in March became a super-spreader event when one sick person infected as many as 52 others.
“Direct contact with people has the highest likelihood of getting infected — being close to an infected person, rather than accepting a newspaper or a FedEx guy dropping off a box,” said virologist Vincent Munster, a researcher in the virus ecology section at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases facility in Hamilton, Mont.
Munster and his colleagues showed in laboratory experiments that the virus remained potentially viable on cardboard for up to 24 hours and on plastic and metal surfaces for up to three days. But the virus typically degrades within hours when outside a host.
The change to the CDC website, without formal announcement or explanation, concerns Angela L. Rasmussen, a virologist at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
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Update
Anthony S. Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said he’s hopeful that Americans will begin hearing directly from him and Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, on a more regular basis. Since Trump ended his daily briefings, the public hasn’t heard nearly as frequently from Fauci or Birx.
"I think you’re probably going to be seeing a little bit more of me & my colleagues,” Fauci told CNN. “They realize we need to get some of this information out … Hopefully you’ll be seeing more of us.”
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Trump’s father was heavy into eugenics, like Ford. The right loves to turn a blind eye to this, but at the same time they know exactly what he means and agree with it.
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Wilson Roosevelt Jerman, former White House butler who served through 11 presidencies, dies of COVID-19
For Spy Agencies, Briefing Trump Is a Test of Holding His Attention
President Trump’s intelligence briefings have gotten renewed attention since he blamed them for failing to sound the alarm early on about the coronavirus.
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This is grotesque…and as you say, goes unheeded by R’s, others who know their base base.
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