Monday, June 08, 2020

Coronavirus News (142)

Amit Shah, Coronavirus pandemic, Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, Opposition role, Amit Shah on govt covid handling, India covid case surge, Indian express news

Amit Shah: On Corona, we may have fallen short (but) what did Oppn do? Apart from interviews, the Congress did nothing. ....... Modiji started Shramik trains on May 1. From all the camps, city buses and interstate buses were made to reach railway stations. State governments took on the expenditure. Railways gave them food and water. Whenever they exited railway stations, state governments took them inside quarantine centres, took them to their villages. Food and lodging was arranged, and they were given Rs 1,000-2,000… The states and the Centre have thought about this problem. And that is the reason 1.25 crore people have reached home safely .........  “Big countries have been destroyed in front of it (Covid-19).   

The leadership of Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, has been praised for helping the country’s 5m people manage a strict lockdown

New Zealand eliminates transmission of coronavirus Jacinda Ardern says country has no active cases and will focus on reopening economy .............  “Unlike the rest of the world, not only have we protected New Zealanders’ health, we now have a head-start on our economic recovery”.......... “Even the gloomiest of epidemiologists are confident we’ve gotten rid of the virus now.” .........  she “did a little dance” when first told that the virus had effectively been eradicated ..........  New Zealand has won praise for its aggressive approach to the health crisis. The government introduced a strict lockdown that closed most businesses and schools, sharply limited people’s movements and quarantined people arriving from overseas. The country also benefited from its remote location. ............  New Zealand and Australia are discussing opening a “travel bubble” between the two countries by September. ...........  “We don’t have this focus on individual rights that you have in the US. There is a willingness to give up something for the greater good” ..... “Both Australia and New Zealand have really good healthcare systems. They have safety nets — with some holes — that don’t really exist in the US.”  



 
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Coronavirus News (141)

Protesters pull down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston during a Black Lives Matter protest rally on College Green, Bristol, England, Sunday June 7, 2020.



How to reform American police, according to experts As protesters demonstrate against police violence, here are eight ideas for reforming law enforcement in the US. ..........  After the founding of the country, police enforced explicitly racist laws on slavery and segregation. In more recent decades, law enforcement has been at the forefront of enforcing policies in the war on crime and drugs that have culminated in massive racial disparities — in police stops, use of force, arrests, incarceration, the death penalty, and just about every other aspect of the criminal justice system. .........  “In most cities across the nation, 3 to 5 percent of city blocks account for 50 to 75 percent of all shootings and killings, with 1 percent of a city’s population responsible for 50 to 60 percent of all homicides.” 



U.S. Businesses Must Take Meaningful Action Against Racism In a week that focused on “reopening the economy,” everyone has become keenly aware that there is more than one pandemic affecting U.S. lives and local economies. As the American Psychological Association has declared, “we are living in a racism pandemic” too. .........   We now see and hear Black people who are suffering from the weight of dehumanizing injustice and the open wound of racism that has been festering for centuries. Black leaders like Robert Sellers, the University of Michigan’s vice provost for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, are openly sharing their feelings of exasperation. Blogs like Danielle Cadet’s caution readers that “Your black colleagues may look like they’re okay – chances are they’re not.” Another social media message that has gone viral really struck us: “There are black men and women in Zoom meetings maintaining ‘professionalism,’ biting their tongues, holding back tears and swallowing rage, while we endure attacks from a pandemic and police. Understand and be mindful.”   ........... how organizations respond to large-scale, diversity-related events that receive significant media attention can either help employees feel psychologically safe or contribute to racial identity threat and mistrust of institutions of authority ...........  many managers also think they lack the skills to have difficult conversations around differences. ............ “If you are neutral in the situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” ......  “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” ...........  when learning about police brutality against unarmed Black people, one reaction might be to search for evidence about what the victim did to deserve abuse, rather than demonstrating compassion and empathy. Another example is diminishing protesters by focusing on and judging those who engaged in looting instead of discussing the unjust act that drove people to the streets. ............ comments on systemic inequalities are not personal attacks. ......... Instead of presuming that all members of your in-group or out-group think and feel similarly and talking about what “everybody knows,” how “all of us feel,” and what “none of us would ever do,” leave room for dissenting points of view. When in doubt, ask employees about their individual experiences to honor their uniqueness. Think about how you can allow your employees to discuss what’s happening without putting them on the spot or asking them to speak for everyone in their identity group. ............  committing to lifelong learning about racism. Seek the facts about racist events, as well as the aggressions and microagressions that your minority coworkers have most likely faced inside and outside of your organization. ............  People are looking for leaders to affirm their right to safety and personhood and help them feel protected. When presidents, governors, mayors and sheriffs aren’t doing so, corporate, university, and non-profit leaders can. ........ Joan Gabel, president of the University of Minnesota, ending contracts with the Minneapolis Police Department after George Floyd’s death. Franklin Templeton Investments fired executive employee Amy Cooper after her interaction with Chris Cooper in Central Park. ................ Racism isn’t just Black people’s problem; it’s everyone’s problem because it erodes the fabric of society. 

"Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” ..........  The documentary explores the racism that Lee, who died at age 32 in 1973, endured in trying to land lead roles in the entertainment industry. NBC News' Nadra Nittle wrote that it "leaves no doubt that Lee’s talent and charisma should have earned him lead roles in Hollywood – or how the industry’s history of marginalizing people of color relegated him to playing sidekicks." ...........  The documentary "succeeds in going deeper where previous Lee profiles have trod only lightly: The context of his struggle against racism in America, and his emergence as a superstar in Hong Kong," wrote Michael Ordoña for the Los Angeles Times. "For Lee fans, that makes 'Be Water' a must-watch. For the curious, it’s a fair introduction to the man who became a legend."   

Study: Shutdowns prevented 60 milllion coronavirus cases in US shutdowns and other interventions prevented 60 million coronavirus infections in the United States and that the policies had “large health benefits.” ..........  shelter-in-place orders, business closings, travel restrictions and other responses prevented 530 million infections across the U.S., China, South Korea, Italy, Iran and France. ........   Because of limited testing, the study states that 62 million of those infections would have been confirmed cases in the six countries, but the real number would have been 530 million. For the U.S., those numbers are 4.8 million confirmed cases prevented, but 60 million actual cases prevented. ...........  there would be 465 times more confirmed cases in China without any interventions, and 14 times more confirmed cases in the United States. ......... “I don’t think any human endeavor has ever saved so many lives in such a short period of time”  


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Covid-19 As Netscape

Remembering... Netscape

Software had been around for decacdes. But it took a Netscape IPO to take software and IT to center stage. Covid-19 might be a similar singular event for biotech. Software will continue to be big, and biotech is nothing new, but now biotech will emerge as a parallel universe of exciting opportunities. Not only that, Covid-19 will have a 9/11 like geopolitical impact. This is a big event that will reverberate for decades, or until another big event of the same scale hits again. It might be yet another pandemic in less than 20 years.

Covid-19 | New Scientist
9/11 | Marietta College
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Coronavirus News (140)

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Sunday, June 07, 2020

Coronavirus News (139)


Is it time we learned to live with the coronavirus? WHO warned the virus may become endemic, and some scientists warn 'second wave' of infections inevitable...........   several countries have reported a resurgence in new infections as they gradually return to normalcy. Iran's president threatened to reimpose restrictions after doctors recorded the highest total of daily cases. Schools, museums and parks were closed in Seoul shortly after they reopened. The World Health Organization recently warned the virus may become endemic, similar to HIV. 
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Coronavirus News (138)

People protest the death of George Floyd outside of a burning fast food restaurant on May 29, 2020, in Minneapolis [AP/John Minchillo]

The racists' peace To praise the peacefulness of a protest is to assert the right of those resisted to determine the ethics of resistance. ........ Their peace, their regular order is a place where Black people are killed with impunity. ........ Peace is never peaceful in a colony. The peace of the slave master is not the peace of the enslaved. The slave master finds placid the view of the masses of enslaved people working for him under the whip of the overseer. The enslaved finds peace in a plantation on fire. .........   It is not peaceful in the prisons, in the slums, under parole, under-employed, or under arrest. ........  When their innocents die, they launch wars. Their protests to their innocents dying are wars on countries they say harbour terrorists and wars with countries they say look like they harbour terrorists. Their protests are with artillery, with 20-year wars, with the violent removal of regimes, the remaking of societies in their image, the Shock and Awe that is to serve as a message to the entire world that they will not be suffering this again. ............   Their protest is a full course meal. When they are finished with it, they give us the "peaceful protest", the bones and gristle and entrails of their protest, thrown out like chicken feed to the slave cabins. I am not that hungry. ............    To order that our protests must be peaceful is to demand that when we ask to be injured less, it is in a tone that is respectful and polite. To praise the peacefulness of a protest is to assert the right of those resisted to determine the ethics of resistance - their right to command and to direct it, their right to lay out how resistance must be conducted. ................    The right to command Black people - even in their resistance - is so absolute in white supremacist society that media personalities and police officers, in full confidence, take it upon themselves to determine when the protest against them is "marred" and to sort out the good resistance from the bad. ................  A revolution cannot be marred. An uprising cannot be marred. A peaceful protest always is. ..........   This is just as well as the "George Floyd protests" are not protests. It is an uprising that is beaten so badly by rubber bullets and kneeling cop photos that the pulp which remains can be mistaken for a solemn, toothless demonstration. But it is not. It is an uprising. An uprising about George Floyd but it is also about the unnamed. ................    Reducing the uprising to "anger over George Floyd's death" is like reducing the Arab Spring to "anger over Mohamed Bouazizi's death". In both Tunisia and Minnesota people angry at a killing marched into the streets, clashed with officers and faced down tear gas. The US press calls one the Tunisian revolution, it calls the other the "George Floyd protests". One has its "violence" spoken of as the predictable consequences of oppression; the other's "violence" is seen as marring a peaceful protest, or, proof of the protesters' criminality. ................   Soon officials will say "we have heard you, we will reform, but to do that, we have to return to regular order". Or, if more conservative, "Get back to work!" And we would return, bitterly, to the status quo knowing our time is up. ...    revolutions have no deadline ...........  The language of peaceful protest handcuffs the revolt. ...........   The goalpost of ending Negrophobic sport-killing will be moved so that it will seem that the goal was always to be heard. ...........    Their peace is a racist peace. Their feelings of rosy, universal love is our holding cell. ..........   At this moment racists are biding their time. They are hoping for a quick return to regular order. They are waiting for the return to the kind of peace where Black people are killed with impunity. At this moment, famous liberals are on the world stage attempting to strong-arm the narrative of an uprising from radical activists ............   The media, the police and liberal society are coalescing into a repression that aims to put down a radical uprising against the colony of anti-Black killing. They are diverting a march towards the end of colonialism into a march towards an opened dialogue. Something we have not asked for. We spoke with fire. ..............   In our peacetime every prison is an anachronism; every police officer is in the wrong era. Pro-police TV shows with their funny Black sidekicks, books and films that tell the story of Black suffering to tell the story of American redemption, settler flag-waving and all settler-colonial institutions are now as out of place as seeing a man walking down a street in Boston in full King George III attire.





 
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Coronavirus News (137)

 
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Coronavirus News (136)

‘Worse Than a War Zone’: Covid-19 Batters India’s Mumbai City

INDIA ‘Worse Than a War Zone’: Covid-19 Batters India’s Mumbai City The densely populated and prosperous metropolis is at the center of India’s worsening coronavirus outbreak
 
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Coronavirus News (135)

PM Narendra Modi visits Serum institute, hails clean city movement ...



Coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine latest update: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine production begins; US says 2 billion doses ‘ready to go’ Coronavirus (Covid-19) Vaccine Latest Update: AstraZeneca plans to roll out two billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine in September; human trials of Australian vaccine next month .................  With the search for a Covid-19 vaccine becoming nothing less than the holy grail for scientists, enormous attention and funding have been focused on developing and mass-producing an injection. The rapid spread of SARS-nCov-2 has led experts to declare that it would continue to spread if a vaccine cannot be found. ..........  British pharma giant AstraZeneca, which is developing a vaccine in partnership with Oxford University, said it was “on track” to roll out up to two billion doses in September. Meanwhile, US also said that it had already produced two million vaccine doses that are “ready to go” if they “check out for safety”. ...........  Addressing the summit, Prime Minister Modi said, “Our support to Gavi is not only financial. India’s huge demand brings down the global price of vaccines.” ........  British pharma giant AstraZeneca has started to mass-produce its experimental AZD1222 vaccine, being developed by Oxford University, and plans to roll out up to two billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine in September. ...........  “So far we’re still on track… we are starting to manufacture this vaccine right now, and we have to have it ready to be used by the time we have the results,” AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot told BBC radio. “Our present assumption is that we will have the data by the end of the summer, by August, so in September we should know whether we have an effective vaccine or not” .............  AstraZeneca announced this week it had struck agreements with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, and the Serum Institute of India to double production capacity of the vaccine to two billion doses. The partnership with the Indian institute — one of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturers — will help supply it to a large number of low- and middle-income countries ..............  Oxford University began initial trials of its Covid-19 vaccine with hundreds of volunteers in April, and is now expanding them to 10,000 participants. .............. The Cambridge-based firm has signed deals to produce 400 million doses for the US and 100 million for the UK if it is successful in human trials. 


 

 



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AZD1222: Do We Have A Vaccine Candidate?

The data from a trial with hundreds of humans is in, and it is encouraging. But the trial on 10,000 has not started yet. The data on that will be home in September. But instead of waiting until then the decision has been made to ramp up production now. If the data in September is not conducive -- not very likely -- it will be a few billion dollars in waste, but that is okay because Covid-19 has cost trillions already. 

This looks like a promising candidate. This will not have been a year and a half. This will have been six months, maybe nine. That is amazing.      


 

Coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine latest update: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine production begins; US says 2 billion doses ‘ready to go’ Coronavirus (Covid-19) Vaccine Latest Update: AstraZeneca plans to roll out two billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine in September; human trials of Australian vaccine next month .................  With the search for a Covid-19 vaccine becoming nothing less than the holy grail for scientists, enormous attention and funding have been focused on developing and mass-producing an injection. The rapid spread of SARS-nCov-2 has led experts to declare that it would continue to spread if a vaccine cannot be found. ..........  British pharma giant AstraZeneca, which is developing a vaccine in partnership with Oxford University, said it was “on track” to roll out up to two billion doses in September. Meanwhile, US also said that it had already produced two million vaccine doses that are “ready to go” if they “check out for safety”. ...........  Addressing the summit, Prime Minister Modi said, “Our support to Gavi is not only financial. India’s huge demand brings down the global price of vaccines.” ........  British pharma giant AstraZeneca has started to mass-produce its experimental AZD1222 vaccine, being developed by Oxford University, and plans to roll out up to two billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine in September. ...........  “So far we’re still on track… we are starting to manufacture this vaccine right now, and we have to have it ready to be used by the time we have the results,” AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot told BBC radio. “Our present assumption is that we will have the data by the end of the summer, by August, so in September we should know whether we have an effective vaccine or not” .............  AstraZeneca announced this week it had struck agreements with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, and the Serum Institute of India to double production capacity of the vaccine to two billion doses. The partnership with the Indian institute — one of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturers — will help supply it to a large number of low- and middle-income countries ..............  Oxford University began initial trials of its Covid-19 vaccine with hundreds of volunteers in April, and is now expanding them to 10,000 participants. .............. The Cambridge-based firm has signed deals to produce 400 million doses for the US and 100 million for the UK if it is successful in human trials. 


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Trump Builds A Wall .... Around The White House

Security Concerns Give the White House a Fortified New Look

Area near White House fenced off after protests | The Times of Israel

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