Thursday, April 16, 2020

What Could Work In India

Shutting the entire country down at once was an excellent decision grounded in science and economic realities, the least expensive decision, but an incomplete decision. Not shutting down was clearly not an option.

Testing is not an option in India. The large scale testing required to reopen the country simply is not on the table right now, or even in the near term.

The first priority has to be to feed people, now that they are in their homes. The entire development budget is frozen anyways. Redirect as much of that as necessary to feed people. Reward them for staying home by delivering food to their homes.

Three weeks are enough time for the infected to get symptomatic. Anyone with cold and cough is not necessarily infected but will have to be assumed so for now. They should be encouraged to self-identify and isolate themselves further inside their homes. If there is a third symptom -- fever -- that self-isolation should be more strictly enforced. But if the three symptoms are persistent and the fourth symptom -- shortness of breath -- also shows up, chances are the fifth and the sixth also will: loss of the sense of taste and major pain. That is guaranteed infection. The government must by then have erected tent hospitals in every village. Commandeer factories to manufacture tents at a rapid clip, not necessarily ventilators. The New York story has been 80% of those who end up on the ventilator never come back. They don't make it.

Inhaling steam and drinking hot water seems to work in many early-stage cases. At the cold and cough stages that should be encouraged through mass education campaigns.

Modi and Imran should hold an emergency video summit and call a complete ceasefire and truce and agree to recognize the LOC (Line Of Control) as the permanent border now and until further notice and take their armies away from the border and into their villages: to direct distribute food, to erect tent hospitals, to maintain law and order. These, as well as other first responders and health care workers, should be the first in line for testing. Should you end up infected while serving, you should be isolated immediately.

Lady police officers should be deployed to reach out to domestic abuse and domestic violence victims. Tent shelters should be erected for those in need.

Hopefully, by then India will have figured out a way to implement large scale testing to gradually reopen the economy. It is okay if that is a few months away. In the meantime, keep people in their homes and keep feeding them.

This is the least expensive option. Carried out well, when the economy reopens, there should be a V-shaped recovery. India might even see double digit growth rates in the rebound. Otherwise more people will die in this pandemic than if there were nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

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Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Coronavirus News (42)



The IRS just launched ‘Get My Payment’ portal for tracking your stimulus check status: https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/get-my-payment
WHY ROLLING CORONAVIRUS PATIENTS ONTO THEIR STOMACHS IS SAVING LIVES "WE'RE SAVING LIVES WITH THIS, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT."
IRS launches portal to get your stimulus check if you don’t file taxes: https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/non-filers-enter-payment-info-here

Here’s how healthcare workers avoid bringing coronavirus into their homes. (Wired)
Coronavirus is making people delay or avoid healthcare, which could lead to a surge of worsening health issues down the line. (Vice)
What we’re really talking about when we talk about ventilators. (ProPublica)
The pandemic has turned grocery shopping into an intense and frightening experience. (The Boston Globe)

STIMULUS CHECKS MAY BE DELAYED AS TRUMP REQUIRES U.S. TREASURY TO PRINT HIS NAME ON THEM
Trump's name will be added to stimulus checks
WHO says it regrets Trump's decision to halt funding, but remains focused on coronavirus response
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo orders all people to wear face coverings in public
Peaks for California hospitalizations, deaths could come this weekend, L.A. mayor says

Bill Gates: Entire country needs to shut down for 6-10 weeks to effectively fight coronavirus
If you’re a gig worker, freelancer or self-employed, here’s how you can get unemployment benefits
'The world needs WHO': Bill Gates slammed Trump for halting the $400 million in US funding for the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic
Bill Gates says Trump's decision to halt WHO funding is 'as dangerous as it sounds'
Why Isn’t Bill Gates Running the Coronavirus Task Force?
Is the Reason Coronavirus Seriously Sickens Some and Spares Others in Our Genes?

Coronavirus Is Changing How We Live, Work, and Use Tech—Permanently Even the most efficacious of nations seem to be simultaneously confused and exasperated, with delayed responses revealing incompetence and inefficiency the world over. ........ we’ve effectively hit a “fast-forward” button on many tech trends that were already in place. From remote work and virtual events to virus-monitoring big data, technologies that were perhaps only familiar to a fringe tech community are now entering center stage—and as tends to be the case with wartime responses, these changes are likely here to stay. ......... We’re currently in the epicenter of the biggest remote-work experiment in history, not to mention remote learning. Tools that let us digitally communicate and collaborate, like Slack, Zoom, and Dropbox, are enabling unprecedented remote work. .......... the explosive growth in video conferencing tool Zoom (the app was downloaded 343,000 times in one day alone), which grew from a $9 billion IPO less than one year ago to a peak in March of a whopping $44 billion market capitalization. .........

Virtual reality offers a compelling alternative to video calls, allowing people to feel like they are in the same space together—a clear win for the environment and a better use of time.

......... we’ll see a renewed emphasis on VR programs to help with everything from socialization to mental health support. ...........

Covid-19 highlights the potential demand for telemedicine, video conferencing, and virtual reality worlds, which will all require a 5G-scale internet upgrade.

......... Toronto-based health monitoring AI platform BlueDot beat both the WHO and the CDC to the punch, warning about the Covid-19 spread in early January, a whole nine days before the WHO released a statement. It then correctly predicted the path of transmission across several cities. ............ in China, where “privacy” is barely a word in the common vernacular, these tactics managed to almost zero out the virus’s exponential growth, so the West is beginning to listen up. ............ The French government had to warn citizens that cocaine could not protect them from the coronavirus. Hundreds of Iranians died from bootleg alcohol poisoning following online claims that it cured coronavirus, and the National Security Council had to debunk myths of a nationwide quarantine. Officials are blaming social media for all of the above. ............. A new consortium including IBM, Oracle, and the World Health Organization are collaborating on an open-data hub called MiPasa that will use blockchain technology to check the veracity of data concerning the coronavirus pandemic. .........

doctors can remotely monitor five different vital signs for 72-hour periods, and can auto-diagnose 19 different conditions with the help of AI and machine learning.

........ to support the acceleration of drug development, AI could manage initial drug discovery in two ways: 1) screening through millions of chemical compounds for potential drugs in simulation tests far faster than any human could; and 2) identifying targets that new drugs can latch onto to make people less sick or to slow the spread of disease. ............. to support the acceleration of drug development, AI could manage initial drug discovery in two ways: 1) screening through millions of chemical compounds for potential drugs in simulation tests far faster than any human could; and 2) identifying targets that new drugs can latch onto to make people less sick or to slow the spread of disease. .......... Forget “move fast and break things”; tech is now focused on

"move fast and make things.”

........... making protective face shields, patient gowns, oxygen masks, and even ventilators, all on-demand .......... The potential speed and scale of 3D printed components was illuminated in Italy when engineers developed a replacement valve for respiratory aids. They were able to produce 100 within a day at a cost of a 2 Euros each, far cheaper than the $10,000 the valves typically sell for. ......... a forced metamorphosis ...... the political, cultural, and ecological landscapes are in “a cascade of tipping points.”

Old vaccines being tested against the new coronavirus
Global battle erupts as Trump pulls WHO funding over coronavirus response Democratic lawmakers in Washington as well as international bodies like the European Union condemned the move. ........ “While we may agree that the WHO has shortcomings that must be corrected, your attack on the global health organization can easily be seen as a deliberate but transparent effort to deflect responsibility for your own failures onto others,” Maloney and Lynch wrote, adding that Trump’s “attempt to blame the WHO for trusting China reflects an astonishing level of hypocrisy given your own fawning and widely publicized praise of President Xi Jinping and his government for their handling of this crisis.” ....... it defies logic to withhold support from the WHO at this pivotal moment—at the height of a global pandemic—when promoting the health of nations around the world is essential to protecting our own population and rebuilding our own economy.” .......... Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., blasted the president’s move as “irresponsible, irrational and simply the wrong thing to do.” Also late Tuesday,

the American Medical Association weighed in, immediately calling on Trump to reconsider his decision. ...... "During the worst public health crisis in a century, halting funding to the World Health Organization is a dangerous step in the wrong direction

that will not make defeating COVID-19 easier," AMA President Patrice A. Harris said .......... The European Union early Wednesday said Trump had “no reason” to freeze funding to WHO, especially at this critical stage of the COVID-19 pandemic .......... EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the 27-nation bloc "deeply" regrets the suspension of funds and added that the U.N. health agency is now "needed more than ever" to combat the pandemic. .........

“only by joining forces can we overcome this crisis that knows no borders.”

.......... The United States is the WHO's largest single donor, and the State Department had previously planned to provide the agency $893 million in the current two-year funding period. Trump said the United States contributes roughly $400 to $500 million per year to WHO, while China offers only about $40 million. .......... “If you don’t want many more body bags you refrain from politicizing it — please quarantine politicizing COVID,” he told reporters, after Trump threatened to look at cutting funding to the organization. ........ Without unity we assure you even any country that may have a better system will be in more trouble .......... He went on to

urge a global response to the virus similar to the one that combated smallpox. "The United States and China should come together and fight this dangerous enemy, they should come together to fight it and the rest of G-20 should come together to fight it, and the rest of the world should come together and fight it," he said.

Trump’s Ego May Delay Your $1,200 Stimulus Check
CDC director says US should brace for second wave of coronavirus to hit next year
US faces an 'unprecedented' decline in oil production
Social distancing until 2022? It's possible without coronavirus vaccine, treatments, experts say
CDC, FEMA have drafted a national plan to reopen US, report says
CDC says more than 9,000 health care workers have contracted coronavirus
How Health Care Workers Avoid Bringing Covid-19 Home What do frontline workers do when they finish their shifts? Some have to isolate from their families to keep them safe.
WHY ROLLING CORONAVIRUS PATIENTS ONTO THEIR STOMACHS IS SAVING LIVES "WE'RE SAVING LIVES WITH THIS, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT."
Even People Without Coronavirus Are Getting Sicker Right Now The "collateral damage of COVID-19": People are delaying or avoiding healthcare from fear of the virus. It could lead to a surge of worsening health issues down the line.
OnePlus 8 Pro marks the improbable rise of the Chinese phone maker The upstart is succeeding where giants like Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon have failed.



Data show India’s coronavirus lockdown may not be working Besides causing massive supply-chain disruptions, the lockdown has internally displaced millions of people. ....... India entered the exponential phase, beginning March 4 or so, as captured by the straight line in the log of confirmed cases. Note that this exponential growth kicked in several weeks in advance of the lockdown ...........

The bigger problem is that a focus on the lockdown takes away from the crucial question of ramping up testing.

......... India has so far conducted over 200,000 tests as compared to a 100,000 per day in the US. ....... if we believe that infection rates are much higher than reported, it appears India missed a golden opportunity during the lockdown to build up its medical and public health capacity. .......... the lockdown, without an attendant public health response, has failed to live up to its billing



The Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back The latest U.S. data proves the world is in its steepest freefall ever—and the old economic and political playbooks don’t apply.......

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Defunding WHO: A Crime Against Humanity



The WHO needs to be boosted. If the US was giving it half a billion, it needs to add to that 20 billion. But instead, the clown in the White House has decided to defund it. Not cut some funding. But totally defund it. This is a fascist's wet dream on its way to becoming true. Let Donald Trump's name on every stimulus check be a warning sign. One can not think of a better punch to the gut just when the global economy is seeing a possibly unprecedented low with no light at the end of the tunnel.

You can not resurrect the economy, any economy, without successfully fighting the pandemic. America never was an island. It is not one today. Either all economies will rise again together, or the American economy will go deep down with it. Donald Trump is taking America to Mad Max days.



America is printing money by the fistful. And the only way America is being able to print money by the fistful is because the dollar is the de facto global currency. As the emerging markets make their strides to become developed economies, the demand for the dollar has been ascendant. And so America can print money and not risk hyperinflation. To him much is given much is asked.

This guy Donald Trump is insane. He wants a Depression. Because that is what will be best for his truest political ambitions. He has fascist tendencies. This guy wants Hunger Games in America and across the globe. Why did you not impeach him when you could? There is a madman in the White House. President Snow?

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Trump's name will be added to stimulus checks
WHO says it regrets Trump's decision to halt funding, but remains focused on coronavirus response
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo orders all people to wear face coverings in public
Peaks for California hospitalizations, deaths could come this weekend, L.A. mayor says

Bill Gates: Entire country needs to shut down for 6-10 weeks to effectively fight coronavirus
If you’re a gig worker, freelancer or self-employed, here’s how you can get unemployment benefits
'The world needs WHO': Bill Gates slammed Trump for halting the $400 million in US funding for the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic
Bill Gates says Trump's decision to halt WHO funding is 'as dangerous as it sounds'
Why Isn’t Bill Gates Running the Coronavirus Task Force?




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Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Coronavirus News (41)

MORE RECOVERED CORONAVIRUS PATIENTS ARE TESTING POSITIVE AGAIN THIS IS BAD NEWS. IS IT REALLY TIME YET TO START EASING RESTRICTIONS? ...... “We need a very cautious approach because any premature easing of social distancing could bring irreversible consequences, and have to ponder deeply about when and how we switch to the new system”
EXPERT: CORONAVIRUS FORCING RATS TO CANNIBALISM, INFANTICIDE “A restaurant all of a sudden closes now, which has happened by the thousands in not just New York City but coast to coast and around the world,” urban rodentologist Bobby Corrigan told NBC News, “and those rats that were living by that restaurant, some place nearby, and perhaps for decades having generations of rats that depended on that restaurant food, well, life is no longer working for them, and they only have a couple of choices.” ..... “They’re mammals just like you and I, and so when you’re really, really hungry, you’re not going to act the same — you’re going to act very bad, usually,” Corrigan told NBC News. “So these rats are fighting with one another, now the adults are killing the young in the nest and cannibalizing the pups.” ...... In the age of coronavirus, rats are getting unprecedented access to city streets
The Pope Just Endorsed Universal Basic Income Andrew Yang's response: "Wow." ...... many workers, including “street vendors, recyclers, carnies, small farmers, construction workers, dressmakers, the different kinds of caregivers” were being “excluded from the benefits of globalization,” while “the lockdowns are becoming unbearable.” ....... A Canadian basic income pilot involving 4,000 people saw early successes, finding that people kept working, and even got healthier over time. ....... Canada, for instance, unveiled a $2,000 per month Emergency Response Benefit in response to the coronavirus.
THIS SMART RING USES AI TO SPOT COVID-19 — BEFORE SYMPTOMS BEGIN IMAGINE IF HOSPITAL WORKERS COULD BE RELIEVED DAYS BEFORE THEY BECAME CONTAGIOUS. ...... One of the trickiest parts of tracking the COVID-19 pandemic is how good the coronavirus is as hiding out undetected in the human body. ........ In some cases, it can take as many as five days for people infected by the coronavirus to start showing symptoms. During that time, they could be further spreading the disease to new people, without realizing that they themselves are sick. ....... One team of scientists and doctors is trying to detect the disease earlier than ever before, by examining data recorded by a wearable smart ring that they say they can spot a budding COVID-19 case before noticeable symptoms begin. ....... a smart ring that constantly records temperature, sleep patterns, activity levels, and heart rate variability. ........ clear correlations between changes in temperature and the onset of COVID-19. ........ the privacy implications of constant biometric monitoring ....... because there are no known pharmaceuticals to treat COVID-19, public health experts are left exploring non-pharmaceutical interventions like surveillance and quarantines. .......

Until we have a vaccine, Rezai told Futurism, COVID-19 isn’t going to go away for good.





IMF says the world will ‘very likely’ experience worst recession since the 1930s
India's Modi extends nationwide coronavirus lockdown until May 3
What Do Countries With The Best Coronavirus Responses Have In Common? Women Leaders
Pelosi calls Trump coronavirus response 'almost sinful': report
Va. bishop who defied social distancing recommendation dies of coronavirus complications
Putin Warns That Russia's COVID-19 Pandemic Is Getting Worse










So the results came in, and I tested Positive.. will isolate myself.. had some symptoms before, but nothing major now.....

Posted by Alex Romanovich on Monday, April 13, 2020
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Monday, April 13, 2020

Michelle Obama For VP

I think she is the logical choice. A VP, by definition, must be able to take the top job in a heartbeat. Nothing prepares you for the top job like spending eight years in the White House. She is well prepared.

Joe Biden became Joe Biden in South Carolina. The African American voters across the South put him back in the race and gave him the nomination.

President: Joe Biden
Vice President: Michelle Obama
Attorney General: Kamala Devi Harris
Secretary Of Urban Affairs: Pete Buttigieg
Secretary Of Labor: Andrew Yang
UN Ambassador: Tulsi Gabbard



Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has Never Spoken to Joe Biden. Here’s What She Would Say. I want to respect his win, he won because of his coalition building, he won because of his service, he won for a lot of different reasons — but I don’t think he won because Americans don’t want “Medicare for all.” And in this moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if what we’re seeing with coronavirus didn’t further change people’s views in further support of a progressive agenda......... And I just don’t know if this message of “We’re going to go back to the way things were” is going to work for the people for who the way things were was really bad......... Beating Donald Trump is a matter of life or death for our communities. I think it’s a difference between making an argument for harm reduction, and making the argument for, there’s actually going to be progress made for us........ Because, for some people, this argument of returning to normalcy sounds like an argument of respectability politics and civility. And for other people, it sounds like, will my child be put in a cage? ....... I do not feel a choice in adhering to my principles and my integrity, and being accountable to the movement that brought me here. But also, I don’t want another term of Trump....... I don’t want this president throwing paper towels at my family again.

Ocasio-Cortez says Biden campaign has not reached out to her
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Coronavirus News (40)

Coronavirus latest: China tries to stop second wave as hard-hit Spain eases restrictions More than half of the planet’s population is staying home as part of efforts to stem the spread of the virus, which was first detected in China late last year and has now killed at least 112,500 people, overwhelming healthcare systems and crippling the world economy. ...... China reported the highest number of new coronavirus cases in nearly six weeks on Monday, as it tried to prevent a second wave of Covid-19 infections. .......

there are fears that a rise in imported cases could spark a second wave of Covid-19 - especially among Chinese citizens returning from abroad

....... Authorities counted 108 new coronavirus infections over the past day, including 98 cases among travellers returning from abroad ....... There are 70 coronavirus vaccines in development globally, with three candidates already being tested in human trials ........ North Korea claims the coronavirus has not made inroads into the country, with travel to and from China and Russia having been shut down since earlier this year. It has tested at least 700 people and has put more than 500 in quarantine, but has no confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, according to the World Health Organisation.

Coronavirus: what’s behind Vietnam’s containment success?
Over half of US retail space closed
CDC, Fauci see peak in US contagion



I’ve read the plans to reopen the economy. They’re scary. There is no plan to return to normal.
Trump: It's my decision when to reopen U.S. economy
Pelosi, Schumer double down on calls for 'interim' coronavirus relief bill
TRUMP SAYS U.S. ECONOMY AFTER COVID-19 WILL SOAR 'LIKE A ROCKET SHIP'
Trump retweets call to fire Fauci amid coronavirus criticism
Trump says he’ll decide on easing guidelines, not governors
Virus may dash Trump's plan for a 'big bang' economic opening

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Trump Spends Easter Asking Confidants: ‘What Do You Think of Fauci?’ The president called various friends and allies over the weekend to ask for their opinion

on the doctor he says he made a “star”

—and even retweeted a call for his firing.
Fauci confirms New York Times report Trump rebuffed social distancing advice Health adviser says on CNN ‘you could logically say if you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives’
Belgian-Dutch Study: Why in times of COVID-19 you should not walk/run/bike close behind each other.



Cuomo says he will meet with NJ, Conn. govs to help reopen 'as soon as possible'
Coronavirus: Boris Johnson says 'it could have gone either way'
China's border with Russia new front line in coronavirus fight The government has imposed restrictions similar to those in Wuhan city to prevent a second wave from imported cases.
Italy And Spain Ease Lockdown Restrictions As The U.S. Watches For Repercussions



Stop covid or save the economy? We can do both

shutting down the country is also the quickest way to get it started back up again

....... US GDP will drop as much as 30% to 50% by summer. ........ “an optimistic projection” for the cost of closing nonessential businesses until July was almost $10,000 per American household. ........ letting the virus spread unchecked could kill as many as 2.2 million Americans ....... his essential argument remained: that in the coronavirus pandemic, there is an agonizing trade-off between saving the economy and saving lives. .......

a false dichotomy

. The best way to limit the economic damage will be to save as many lives as possible. ...... the situation is unprecedented in living memory. ........ “It isn’t like anything we’ve seen in a hundred years.” In any past recession or depression, the economic solution has always been to stimulate demand for labor—to get workers back on the job. But in this case, we’re purposely shutting down economic activity and telling people to stay at home. “It’s not just the depth of the recession,” Autor says. “It’s qualitatively different.” ......... those least able to withstand the downturn will be hit hardest—low-wage service workers in restaurants and hotels, and the growing number of people in the gig economy ......... Each adult earning less than $75,000 will be given $1,200, and for the first time, gig workers and self-employed people will qualify for unemployment benefits. Hundreds of billions of dollars will also go to helping businesses stay afloat. ........ any region with a large service economy is vulnerable ...... many of these places never recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. ......... The people losing these low-wage service jobs were already experiencing skyrocketing mortality rates from what economists have begun calling “deaths of despair,” caused by alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide. The coming crash could make things much worse. ....... shutting down businesses is the only real choice, given that an unchecked pandemic would itself be hugely destructive to economic activity. If tens of millions of people become sick and millions die, the economy suffers, and not just because the workforce is being depleted. Widespread fear is bad for business: consumers won’t flock back to restaurants, book air travel, or spend on activities that might put them at risk of getting sick. ........ In a recent survey of leading economists by Chicago’s Booth School, 88% believed that “a comprehensive policy response” will need to involve tolerating “a very large contraction in economic activity” to get the outbreak under control.

Some 80% thought that “abandoning severe lockdowns” too early will lead to even greater economic damage.

......... even moderate social distancing will save 1.7 million lives between March 1 and October 1 ...... Avoiding those deaths translates into a benefit of around $8 trillion to the economy, or about one-third of the US GDP, ....... “Our choice is whether we intervene—and the economy will be really bad now and will be better in the future—versus doing nothing and the pandemic goes out of control and really destroys the economy.” ........ the 1918 pandemic reduced national manufacturing output in the US by 18%; but cities that implemented restrictions earlier and for longer had much better economic outcomes in the year after the outbreak. .......... Cleveland and Philadelphia. Cleveland acted aggressively, closing schools and banning gatherings early in the outbreak and keeping the restrictions in place for far longer. Philadelphia was slower to react and maintained restrictions for about half as long. Not only did far fewer people die in Cleveland (600 per 100,000, compared with 900 per 100,000 in Philadelphia), but its economy fared better and was much stronger in the year after the outbreak. By 1919 job growth was 5% there, while in Philadelphia it was around 2%. .........

“A pandemic is so destructive,” he says. “Ultimately any policy to mitigate it is going to be good for the economy.”

......

The cure, then, isn’t worse than the disease.

........ there’s a way to get America quickly back in business while preserving public safety. ..... repeatedly testing everyone without symptoms to identify who is infected. (People with symptoms should just be assumed to have covid-19 and treated accordingly.) All those who test positive should isolate themselves; those who test negative can return to work, traveling, and socializing, but they should be tested every two weeks or so. .......... some might resist it or resist isolating themselves if positive ...... Each of Roche’s best machines can handle 4,200 tests a day; build five thousand of those machines, and you can test 20 million people a day. ........ “We just need to bend some metal and make some machines.” If you can identify and isolate those infected with the virus, you can let the rest of the population go back to business. .......... 93% of the economists agreed that “a massive increase in testing” is required for “an economic restart.” ....... ramping up testing and then isolating those infected rather shutting in the entire population. .......

widespread testing of various sorts to know who is vulnerable and who isn’t before we risk going back to business.

......... Many hospitals and doctors complain they can’t get needed tests; and Roche’s CEO said at the end of March that it will be “weeks, if not months” before there is widespread coronavirus testing in the US. ....... He calls the $2 trillion legislation passed by Congress “palliative care” for the economy. If you took $100 billion and put it into testing, he says, we would “be far better off.” .......... The idea that one day you will be able to restart the economy without massive testing to see if the outbreak is under control is just “magical thinking.” ........ without testing .. we will in fact be left with the Trumpian choice: between salvaging the economy and risking countless deaths.

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Test and trace: How the U.S. could emerge from coronavirus lockdowns Epidemiologists believe that if properly employed, testing and tracing can allow the U.S. to open some businesses and relax social distancing requirements.
Nursing home deaths soar past 3,600 in alarming surge
Whistleblower nursing home worker, 59, dies from coronavirus after she accused Massachusetts facility where 10 residents have died from the virus of a cover-up and claimed they failed to test staff

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Sunday, April 12, 2020

Coronavirus News (39)

Fears Of ‘Wild West’ As Coronavirus Blood Tests Hit The Market
The coronavirus spreads at least 13 feet, travels on shoes: CDC
The coronavirus crisis: How Trump is failing successfully The US president is mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic and getting away with it.
U.S. Has Most Coronavirus Deaths In The World
Trump reportedly asked Dr. Anthony Fauci whether it was possible to allow the coronavirus to 'wash over' the US
Pope celebrates joy of Easter amid sorrow of virus, alone
Pope Francis says it might be 'time to consider a universal basic wage' in Easter letter

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Saturday, April 11, 2020

Coronavirus News (38)

US GOVERNMENT CONSIDERING COVID-19 “IMMUNITY CARDS” ANTIBODY TESTS ARE ALREADY ON THEIR WAY.
BILL GATES: THERE’S GONNA BE A PANDEMIC “EVERY 20 YEARS OR SO” LET'S DEAL WITH THIS ONE FIRST, THOUGH.
TOP DOCTOR: GETTING COVID-19 ONCE PROBABLY MEANS YOU’RE IMMUNE FAUCI PREDICTS PEOPLE WHO RECOVER WILL "HAVE ANTIBODIES THAT ARE GOING TO BE PROTECTIVE."
APPLE AND GOOGLE TO LAUNCH APP FOR TRACKING THE CORONAVIRUS THE APP WILL ALERT YOU IF YOU'VE BEEN AROUND ANYONE WHO TESTED POSITIVE.
Coronavirus: China is not safe while Covid-19 continues to spread around the world, experts say Nations ‘can’t be at peace as long as there is an outbreak in any country’, Chinese respiratory disease specialist Zhong Nanshan says .....‘I still don’t see any light for the global pandemic,’ says Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
Food goes to waste amid coronavirus crisis The Covid-19 pandemic is leading to "tsunami" of change in how people buy food.



"There is no doubt you're going to see cases" when distancing restrictions are relaxed, Fauci says
New York state has more coronavirus cases than any other country in the world.
Trump spends Easter weekend pondering the 'biggest decision' of his presidency
Not everyone is getting a $1,200 coronavirus stimulus check. Here's who will be left out.
More than 2,000 US coronavirus deaths reported in a day, likely a peak toll, expert says

India Is No Longer India "You realize,” a friend wrote to me from Kolkata earlier this year, “that, without the exalted secular ‘idea’ of India … the whole place falls apart.” ........ If some commentators described the CAA as “India’s first Nuremberg Law,” it was because the law did not stand alone. ....... It worked in tandem, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah menacingly implied—in remarks he has recently tried to walk back—with a slew of other new laws that cast the citizenship of many of India’s own people into doubt. Shah, who has referred to Muslim immigrants as “termites,” spoke of a process by which the government would survey India’s large agrarian population, a significant portion of which is undocumented, and designate the status of millions as “doubtful.” ........ The CAA would then kick into action, providing non-Muslims with relief and leaving Indian Muslims in a position where they could face disenfranchisement, statelessness, or internment. India’s Muslim population of almost 200 million, which had been provoked by Modi’s government for six years, finally erupted in protest. They were joined by many non-Muslims, who were appalled by so brazen an attack on the Indian ethos. ....... Without a country we are adrift, like people whose inability to love another is linked to an inability to love themselves. ....... it was to be a place that cherished the array of religions, languages, ethnicities, and cultures that had taken root over 50 centuries. ........ beneath the topsoil of this modern country, a mere seven decades old, lies an older reality, embodied in the word Bharat, which can evoke the idea of India as the holy land, specifically of the Hindus. India and Bharat—these two words for the same place represent a central tension within the nation, the most dangerous and urgent one of our time. Bharat is Sanskrit, and the name by which India knows herself in her own languages, free of the gaze of outsiders. India is Latin, and its etymology alone—the Sanskrit sindhu for “river,” turning into hind in Persian, and then into indos in Greek, meaning the Indus—reveals a long history of being under Western eyes. India is a land; Bharat is a people—the Hindus. India is historical; Bharat is mythical. India is an overarching and inclusionary idea; Bharat is atavistic, emotional, exclusionary. ......... Savarkar was, as Octavio Paz writes in In Light of India, “intellectually responsible for the assassination of Gandhi,” in 1948, at the hands of Nathuram Godse, now a hero of the Hindu right. ........ As much as people in India bridle against the binary distinction of India and Bharat, it recurs again and again in the country’s discourse—Bharat as a pure, timeless country, unassailable and authentic; India as the embodiment of modernity and all its ills and dislocations. When a medical student was raped and murdered in Delhi in 2012, the head of the RSS had this to say: “Such crimes hardly take place in Bharat, but they occur frequently in India … Where ‘Bharat’ becomes ‘India,’ with the influence of Western culture, these types of incidents happen.” ........... Growing up in 1980s India, in a Westernized enclave where, to quote Edward Said, the “main tenet” of my world “was that everything of consequence either had happened or would happen in the West,” I had no idea of this other wholeness called Bharat. That ignorance of Hindu ways and beliefs was not mine alone, but symptomatic of the English-speaking elite, which, in imitation of the British colonial classes, lived in isolation from the country around them. Mohandas Gandhi, at the 1916 opening of Banaras Hindu University, a project that was designed to bridge the distance between Hindu tradition and Western-style modernity, worried that India’s “educated men” were becoming “foreigners in their own land,” unable to speak to the “heart of the nation.” Working closely with Nehru, Gandhi had been a great explainer, continually translating what came from outside into Indian idiom and tradition...............

By the time I was an adult, the urban elites and the “heart of the nation” had lost the means to communicate. The elites lived in a state of gated comfort, oblivious to the hard realities of Indian life—poverty and unemployment, of course, but also urban ruin and environmental degradation. The schools their children went to set them at a great remove from India, on the levels of language, religion, and culture. Every feature of their life was designed, to quote Robert Byron on the English in India, to blunt their “natural interest in the country and sympathy with its people.” Their life was, culturally speaking, an adjunct to Western Europe and America; their values were a hybrid, in which India was served nominally while the West was reduced to a source of permissiveness and materialism.

......... Hindu nationalists trace a direct line between the foreign occupiers who destroyed the Hindu past—first Muslims, then the British—and India’s Westernized elite (and India’s Muslims), whom they see as heirs to foreign occupation, still enjoying the privileges of plunder. .........

As Modi and Donald Trump bear-hugged each other, Hindu-nationalist mobs roamed the streets of New Delhi a few miles away, murdering Muslims and attacking their businesses and places of worship. The two leaders did not acknowledge these events

..........

I was not Muslim, and not Pakistani, but, as the writer Saadat Hasan Manto once noted, I was Muslim enough to risk getting killed. It was game over for my sort of person in India.

........... I had seen what had happened to my father in Pakistan, where the shape of society is identical to that of India. He had died like a dog in the street for his high Western ideals. They mourned him in the drawing rooms of Lahore, and in the universities, think tanks, and newsrooms of the West. But in Pakistan, his killer was showered with rose petals; his killer’s funeral drew more than 100,000 mourners into the streets. ..........

the “somewheres” and the “anywheres,” the rooted and the rootless

......... exile turning into asylum



More than 2,200 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes, but federal government isn't tracking them The numbers are likely a significant undercount, given the limited access to testing and other constraints, state officials and public health experts say.
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Friday, April 10, 2020

Coronavirus News (37)

Lockdowns shouldn't be fully lifted until coronavirus vaccine found, new study warns
Fauci on US after coronavirus: No shaking hands ‘ever again’
Fauci Says U.S. Coronavirus Deaths May Be 'More Like 60,000'; Antibody Tests On Way
Obama calls out the lack of a 'robust system of testing' for coronavirus in the U.S.
Andrew Cuomo threatens to end CNN interview after brother Chris unveils a VERY unflattering family photo of the governor sporting a patterned blouse as a teen
Struggle to apply for unemployment continues across the country
TurboTax launched a free online portal to help people who don't file taxes get their stimulus check faster
People in India can see the Himalayas for the first time in 'decades,' as the lockdown eases air pollution
Obama suggests a 'robust system of testing and monitoring' is needed before US can ease current coronavirus measures
Coronavirus: Spain PM sees 'fire coming under control'
Yemen war: Coalition ceasefire to help combat coronavirus begins
The Fed just unleashed another $2.3 trillion to support the economy Economists expect the Fed to do even more as needed. It's almost as if the Fed has a blank check -- written in invisible ink -- and that there is unlimited overdraft protection.
A 50,000-year-old piece of string hints at Neanderthal intelligence, scientists say A tiny fragment adds to growing evidence that humanity's early cousins were smarter than previously thought.
New York's coronavirus outbreak came from Europe and other parts of the United States, research projects suggest
80% of NYC's coronavirus patients who are put on ventilators ultimately die, and some doctors are trying to stop using them
Prestigious scientific panel tells White House coronavirus won't go away with warmer weather
IRS: Coronavirus Tax Relief and Economic Impact Payments





Leading your company through a pandemic
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Human pressure on wildlife increases risk of diseases like Covid-19, study finds

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