Thursday, May 14, 2020

Dr. Bright Goes To Washington





Ousted vaccine director files whistleblower complaint alleging coronavirus warnings were ignored
Rick Bright, ousted director of vaccine agency, warns that administration lacks 'centralized, coordinated plan'
How Rick Bright grabbed the spotlight and angered the Trump administration

The crisis could worsen significantly without fast federal action

, Rick Bright says. ...... the Trump administration had failed to prepare for the Covid-19 outbreak and actively misled Americans on its response. ......... He’s the first federal health official to publicly criticize the Trump administration so harshly, and in such detail, given his prominent position in the biomedical world. ....... Trump defenders were nowhere to be found in the House hearing room because they declined to send someone, giving Bright hours of air time and a news cycle’s worth of headlines. ......... “And I believe that the best scientific advice and guidance was not being conveyed to the American public” in the early days of the pandemic. .........

Trump has tried to portray Bright as a disgruntled outgoing employee.

......... Bright — who alleges that he was abruptly removed as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority in April because he opposed political pressures linked to malaria drugs — is the first official to actively undermine the president’s claims that the administration has done a “great job” handling the response. ....... “We did not forewarn people. We did not train people. We did not educate them on social distancing and wearing a mask as we should have in January and February.” ........ Bright also testified that he and his team faced pressure from political appointees after President Donald Trump in March began touting malaria drugs like hydroxychloroquine not proved to treat Covid-19, despite scant evidence and at the urging of his allies. ......

chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, the malaria medicines touted by the president as potential coronavirus treatments despite scant evidence that they worked.

....... The focus on the malaria drugs was “extremely distracting” for health officials, Bright responded. “It distracted from their efforts at developing other vaccines and drugs.” .......

"Our window of opportunity is closing,” he said. “If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities.”

...... “You and others were seeing over the horizon what was coming to our shores” ........ The Office of Special Counsel, which is investigating Bright's complaint, last week recommended that he be temporarily reinstated to his BARDA role until his complaint is resolved. The office said it found "reasonable grounds to believe" that the administration retaliated against Bright.

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Coronavirus News (98)

Urban India didn't care about migrant workers till 26 March, only cares now because it's lost their services: P Sainath One of the most telling human stories to result from the COVID-19 outbreak and the resulting nationwide lockdown is that of

stranded migrant workers

. ...........

We gave a nation of 1.3 billion human beings four hours to shut down their lives

. ......... the rationale in leaving was absolutely sound. They know — and every hour we are proving — how untrustworthy, inconsiderate and cruel their governments, factory owners and middle-class employers like us are. And we are proving that with laws to restrict their freedom of movement. ........ You sent the country into complete chaos with millions on the highway. We could have easily converted the marriage halls, schools and colleges and community centres that were shut down into shelter homes for migrants and homeless. We declared star hotels into quarantine centres for people returning from abroad. ........

you are finding out that it is only the poor people who are essential, apart from doctors.

........ Suddenly you are finding how inessential the elite are to this country. ......... I was born in Chennai. I did my higher education in Delhi, where I lived for four years. I then migrated to Mumbai, and I have been living here for 36 years. Each shift I made benefited me because I come from a particular class and caste. I have social capital and networks. ....... footloose migrant workers. ......... Migrations have taken place for more than a century. But they have exploded in the past 28 years. ...... We smashed agriculture, and millions of livelihoods collapsed. Every other livelihood in the countryside has been savaged as well. Handlooms and handicrafts together are the biggest employers in the country after agriculture. Boatmen, fishermen, toddy tappers, toy makers, weavers, dyers; one after the other, they are going under like ninepins. What option did they have? .............

we have long ago destroyed the options they had in villages, ensuring our army of cheap labour.

....... A lot of factories in the past century adopted the 8-hour day because their surveys showed them that productivity dropped off strongly in the extra-long hours because of fatigue and exhaustion. .........

The states are essentially acting as a contractor, dalal procuring bonded labour for the corporations.

Be sure this will affect the weakest sections — Dalits, Adivasis and women — the most........ Ninety-three percent of the workers in India have no rights that they are able to enforce anyway because they work in the informal sector. ......... You are dehumanising people and are saying that they are not entitled to the rights of ventilation, toilets and breaks. ........ What we are doing is a violation of very many international labour conventions that we are party to. ........ Till 26 March, we never knew about the migrant labourer. Suddenly, we see millions of them in the streets. And we feel the pinch because we have lost our services. We didn’t give a damn until March 26. We didn't think of them as human beings with equal rights. .......

When the poor become literate, the rich lose their palanquin bearers. Suddenly, we lost our palanquin bearers.

......... Millions of girls in schools across the country are entitled to free sanitary napkins — suddenly the schools are shut, no alternatives provided for. So millions are returning to unhygienic alternatives .......... a massive attack on inequality



A COVID Challenge for Nepal Army It is ironic that while we take pride in facilitating the evacuation of many foreigners wanting to return to their homes from Nepal, the government prohibits the return of tens of thousands, and potentially up to a million plus, Nepali migrant workers abroad who have lost their jobs, whose visas have expired and who are surviving in precarious conditions as unwanted aliens. .......... The government’s “wait and see” approach is both a violation of our citizens’ right to return home and a dereliction of duty by a democratically elected government. Faced with similar situation, most other countries—even poor, land-locked or sea-locked ones and many lacking good medical services—have devised ways to facilitate the return of their citizens abroad who wish to do so. One common approach has been to deploy their national security forces to assist. .......... helping build quarantine centers in various provinces and offering logistical support to civilian health services are very appropriate and welcome. But others, such as procurement of PPE and other materials from abroad bypassing normal procurement rules and channels, are disingenuous and inappropriate. ........... In an era of globalization, when many “problems without passport or visa” such as environmental pollution, infectious diseases and pandemics, free flow of information, trade and commerce through the Internet travel across borders, human security becomes the corner-stone of national security. ............ Nepal Army already has a Disaster Management Directorate with close to 2,500 personnel who are trained as primary responders. It also has a Disaster Management School in Kathmandu capable of training many more. NA’s Medical Corps comprises over 1,200 personnel including several hundred doctors, nurses and auxiliary medical personnel. At a time of crisis like the current one there is no reason not to deploy them fully on a war footing. .............

what is the point of having a large NA in this poor country in peace-time if not to fight the human insecurity of our citizens when a global pandemic has made millions of Nepalis vulnerable?

We certainly do not need a large reserve of armed personnel in barracks as Nepal has no need or plan to wage territorial wars against external enemies, and our self-defence against any determined military aggression by our huge and powerful neighbors can only be skillful diplomacy rather than our military prowess..........

Nepal’s civilian administration, with its cumbersome bureaucracy shackled by political patronage, is incapable of rapid action on a large scale.

...... I believe Nepal can and should aspire to become the world’s number one peace-keeping troop contributor, and develop the NA’s capacity on disaster management into a world-class institution capable of responding not just nationally but internationally as well. ........ Let us turn the curse of the COVID-19 crisis into a blessing in disguise as one more opportunity to transform Nepal Army into a world-class institution to strengthen our national and human security and contribute to global peace and security.

CDC guidelines shelved by Trump administration spell out far stricter road map to reopening
Rick Bright will warn Congress of 'darkest winter in modern history' without ramped up coronavirus response
Round 2 of stimulus checks? House plan would send $1,200 per person—including children
भारतले १२ वर्षदेखि नेपाली भूमिमा डोजर चलाउँदा कहाँ थिए हाम्रा गुप्तचर संयन्त्र?
‘No evidence’ that recovered COVID-19 patients cannot be reinfected, says WHO “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.” ...... “A world free of COVID-19 requires the most massive public health effort in global history,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, speaking from New York. .... “Data must be shared, production capacity prepared, resources mobilized, communities engaged, and politics set aside. I know we can do it. I know we can put people first”.

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Coronavirus News (97)



Republicans and Democrats barrel toward collision on voting by mail Voters want the option to vote absentee more easily. But Republicans in Congress oppose a mandate, and a fight looms over funding to facilitate it............ Americans want to be able to vote by mail in November — but Democratic proposals to require it appear to be going nowhere fast in Congress........ House Democrats have sought to drastically overhaul the American electoral system in light of the pandemic, arguing dramatic change is needed to allow Americans to vote safely..........

nearly three-in-five voters nationwide said they either strongly or somewhat support a federal law that would mandate that states “provide mail-in ballots to all voters for elections occurring during the coronavirus pandemic.”

....... House Democrats have proposed mandating that states send all voters a ballot in the case of emergencies — in their most recent coronavirus relief package, dubbed the HEROES Act, along with other sweeping changes to the elections. The bill would also require universal “no-excuse” absentee voting, online and same-day voter registration and expanded early voting, among other changes. ........ seven in 10 adults supported allowing any voter to vote by mail if they want to. ......... all forms of voting need to be available in November. Those include "expanded vote by mail, significant early voting opportunities, and then safe in-person voting opportunities on Election Day," he said. "We need all three of those things.” ....... House Democrats are seeking to allocate $3.6 billion in additional funding to election officials to help prepare their states for holding elections in the middle of the pandemic. The first CARES relief package included $400 million for that purpose. ........ Wisconsin’s conflict-ridden April 7 election saw a drastic increase in the proportion of mail ballots cast, from about a 12 percent absentee voting rate in the spring of 2016 elections to over 70 percent of ballots being cast by mail this year. The increase came with no policy changes from state officials, and only minor tweaks from the courts.

'This virus may never go away,' WHO says The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could become endemic like HIV ........

this would take a “massive effort” even if a vaccine was found — a prospect he described as a “massive moonshot”.

........ vaccines exist for other illnesses, such as measles, that have not been eliminated. ....... “very significant control” of the virus was required in order to lower the assessment of risk, which he said remained high at the “national, regional and global levels”. .........

extreme caution is needed to avoid new outbreaks

..... “We need to get into the mindset that it is going to take some time to come out of this pandemic”



WHO’s chief scientist offers bleak assessment of challenges ahead

It will be ‘four or five years’ before Covid-19 is under control

......... whether it mutates, what containment measures are put in place and whether an effective vaccine is developed ...... there was “no crystal ball” and the pandemic could “potentially get worse”. ........ A vaccine “seems for now the best way out”, but there were “lots of ifs and buts” about its efficacy and safety, as well as its production and equitable distribution ..... A vaccine could also stop working if the virus changed ......... control of the virus depended on the development of an effective vaccine, but said the “elimination” of the disease “is going to require much, much more”. ......... “We will have to find a way as societies to live with this” and change from lockdowns to more “granular, targeted types of interventions”. ......... Sweden had a much higher fatality rate than its neighbouring Nordic countries, which was “not looking good . . . I wouldn’t say right now it looks like open society approach has worked really well” ......... the pace at which countries were able to control the virus “depends a great deal on if we’re able to organise ourselves better than we have so far as societies”. ......... Inefficient bureaucracies and public sector procurement had hampered many countries’ ability to test for and trace the virus ........ There is “no option but to invest more in testing”.



First to close and last to open? California takes 'appropriately cautious' path in combating coronavirus
India's Modi promises $266 billion to protect economy from Covid-19 small businesses would be able to access almost $40 billion in loans without providing collateral until October 31. Foreign companies would also be prevented from tendering for contracts with a value of up to $26.5 million to protect local businesses ...... the fiscal and monetary stimulus package is equivalent to about 10% of the annual output of India's economy. ....... the virus, which has infected more than 74,000 Indians ....... India's economy was struggling before the outbreak.

Will Antibodies After COVID-19 Illness Prevent Reinfection? scientists don't know whether people who have been exposed to the coronavirus will be immune for life, as is usually the case for the measles, or if the disease will return again and again, like the common cold. ....... 'What is the full exit strategy to this and how long are we going to be contending with it?' " ........

antibodies are by no means a guarantee a person will be protected for life — or even for a year.

......... four coronaviruses that cause the common cold. "They're very common and so people seem to get them quite often," Shaman says. Ninety percent of people develop antibodies to those viruses, at least in passing, but "our evidence is those antibodies are not conferring protection." ........ "That's why people get colds over and over again," he says. "It doesn't really tickle the immune response that much." ....... one of the most severe coronaviruses, the one that causes SARS, and he's found that the degree of immunity depended on the severity of the disease. Sicker people remained immune for much longer, in some cases many years. ......... for some people the symptoms of COVID-19 are no worse than a cold, while for others they are severe ........ most people who recover from the coronavirus have developed antibodies that neutralize the coronavirus in a petri dish. ......... One goal is to identify people who produce especially strong, protective antibody responses. She says the antibody-producing cells from those people can potentially be turned into vaccines. .......... "Because you might be immune, you might have protected yourself against the virus," she says, "but it still might be in your body and you're giving it to others." ........

It would have huge public health implications if it turns out people can still spread the disease after they've recovered.



US job losses have reached Great Depression levels. Did it have to be that way?
The Economic Lockdown Catastrophe The worst jobs report in history shows why the economy must reopen. ........ When we wrote on March 19 about “Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown,” the reaction in elite media quarters was horror and denunciation. Well, after Friday’s horrific jobs report, how do you like the shutdown now? The people who said we have to sacrifice the economy to crush the virus have succeeded in the former even as the virus will be with us for many more months or longer.

Goldman Sachs says a second wave of coronavirus could make the Fed rethink negative interest rates Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday reiterated that the central bank is not considering negative interest rates. ...... A second wave of coronavirus that causes another “big setback” in the U.S. economy could prompt the Fed to consider a range of new policy options, including cutting interest rates into negative territory ......... But such a monetary policy wouldn’t be “very helpful” to the economy ........ the experience of some European countries and Japan which have struggled to grow their economies even after adopting negative rates for years. ...... The U.S. dollar has stayed strong in recent weeks as investors seek safer assets to park their money in after the coronavirus pandemic dampened economic prospects globally.

Wisconsin supreme court strikes down governor's stay-at-home order
CDC guidelines shelved by Trump administration spell out far stricter road map to reopening One major discrepancy between the White House and CDC guidelines surrounds nonessential travel. In the White House plan, nonessential travel can resume as early as Phase 2. The CDC, however, recommends that nonessential travel be avoided until Phase 3, and even then suggests it "may be considered" and advises caution....... The first phase suggests schools that are closed should remain so and employees who are able to telework should keep working from home. Large venues, including some restaurants, can operate under strict social distancing protocols. Gyms can open as long as they maintain social distancing guidelines, but bars should remain shuttered. Phases 2 and 3 gradually decrease the recommended restrictions. ........ Public health professionals have repeatedly stated that reopening the country too soon could lead to

a second wave

of coronavirus cases and result in more deaths. ....... more than 84,000 Americans had died from Covid-19 and more than 1.39 million cases had been reported in the United States

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A Second Wave Is Inevitable

That there will be a second wave (and a third wave later, and a fourth) is a foregone conclusion. Until there is a vaccine, we will keep having waves. The only question is, when will that second wave strike, how big will that be, will we be able to control it when it arrives, and how much economic damage can we expect?

Trump's recklessness means we might not have to wait until Fall for the second wave to strike. If the second wave strikes during summer, people are going to be really scared during the Fall and winter. And if they are, the economy will take a much bigger hit.

But the worst-case scenario is not that a second wave might strike earlier, the worst-case scenario is that the second wave is so big it is pretty much out of control. Flattening the curve is no longer an option. Now we are no longer projecting 200,000 dead, but upwards of a million, and that just in the US.

Negative interest rates are like when oil prices went negative. People would give you the oil for free and then pay you for keeping it. If the second wave is large enough, the Fed could give you money and instead of charging you low or no interest rates, it would pay you, and people would still not come out of their homes to go to work.

What Donald Trump is attempting is not Sweden. In Sweden, they are protecting the elderly. What Donald Trump is attempting is not even civil war. The last civil war had two clean-cut sides. He is not even attempting chaos. He is delivering confusion. Only this confusion comes in body bags, lots of them.

It is not a choice between lockdown and an economy. It is about smartly easing the lockdown with circuit breakers in place so as to not suffocate the economy too much. There is nothing smart and gradual about the Trump rulebook.

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Coronavirus News (96)

Why is the State of Kerala in India Successful in Containing COVID-19 Pandemic -- Visionary public health leadership...

Posted by Madhav Bhatta on Thursday, May 14, 2020


Has Trump Decided We Will Follow Sweden and Just Not Told Us? The president brings instability and confusion to a crisis. ............. Having a pandemic is really bad.

Having a pandemic and a civil war together is really, really bad.

......... Trump’s pronouncements are simultaneously convoluted, contradictory and dishonest ........ a pandemic that will likely kill only 1 percent of you, if you do get infected. ........ He just hasn’t told the country or his coronavirus task force or maybe even himself. .......... Trump has basically decided to dispatch Americans into this battle against this coronavirus without the equivalent of maps, armor, helmets, guns or any coordinated strategy to minimize their casualty count. He’s also dispatching them without national leadership, so it’s every platoon, or state, for itself, maximizing the chances of virus spread between people who want to go shopping and those who still want to shelter in place. ................ He’s also dispatching them without a national plan to protect the most vulnerable, particularly the elderly ....... he’s dispatching them without a plan of retreat if way too many vulnerable people are infected and harmed as we take to the malls of Omaha and beyond. ....... Other than all that, Trump is just like F.D.R. ...........

I fear that when these shortcomings become apparent, it could trigger a low-grade civil war.

............ A new Mason-Dixon line could emerge between states led by governors who want to equip their people with the maximum protective gear and safety guidelines and those governors who are keen to reopen their states for business as usual — gear and guidelines be damned. ........

more than two-thirds of Americans worry that their respective states are reopening too quickly

.......... a better president would never have allowed us to get to this edge of pandemic civil strife. ............. A real president would be framing the issues for the nation and then arguing for and guiding us on the least painful course. He’d start by explaining that we are up against a challenge no one in our generation has ever faced — the challenge of a pandemic in which Mother Nature is silently, invisibly, exponentially and mercilessly spreading a coronavirus among us. ............ Too closed, she’ll kill your jobs. Too open, she’ll kill your vulnerable. ......... If you listened to Trump last week you heard a president who was all over the place. One day he talked as though he wanted to follow Sweden in getting a lot of people back to work, even if many more would get infected. Another day, he boasted that we’re testing just like China — only more so. Another day he disputed the need for testing at all. ..........

Trump talks like China, envies Sweden, prepares for neither and insists that his strategy is superior to both.

.......... Our coronavirus infections will be exacerbated by Trump’s incompetence, while our hyper-political partisanship will be fed by his malevolence. After all, his whole political strategy is to divide us into red and blue, Republicans and Democrats, open-now advocates and go-slow advocates. That’s the only politics he practices. ......... Covid-19 is sapping our economic and physical health, while Trump is undermining our institutions and national unity.

We desperately need a vaccine — and a 2020 election outcome — that can give us herd immunity to this virus and this president.



4000 children may die in Nepal in next six months due to lockdown, UNICEF warns
Republicans and Democrats barrel toward collision on voting by mail Voters want the option to vote absentee more easily. But Republicans in Congress oppose a mandate, and a fight looms over funding to facilitate it.



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King George The Capitalist



The dudes who founded America wanted a state that was much less powerful so the individual may flourish. The promise was "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness," wrongly interpreted to mean unfettered consumerism, even if it makes you unhappy or even kills you. I am thinking Bhutan where they talk about Gross National Happiness, not GDP.

Today (or at least before the pandemic) the corporations in America are mightier than King George ever was. The corporations look down upon citizens like they were Lilliputians.

Trump does notice things. For example, he noticed the manufacturing base had disappeared and the working poor were poor alright, but they were no longer working. The Dems were in denial. But his was the Pied Piper solution. He was going to cash on the sentiment and drive the herd into all sorts of wrong directions. Trump has also noticed China is now a rival America never had before. China is not hiding that it wants to build an alternative Internet where the state not the corporation will reign supreme, and that new and improved Internet will be global.

America speaks for corporations. China speaks for the state. But no one is speaking for the individual. Corporations are as useful as fire. They are necessary but not when they go wild and burn things down. The state has to serve the individual. If it is the other way round, it is slavery. And data driven slavery might be the worst kind.

Strong corporations are fine. Strong states are fine. But both have to serve the individual. We need a new Internet where the individual reigns supreme.

Covid-19 has upended all past economic theory. It is not money and machines that make an economy. You still have all your cash. You still have the machines. But you don't have much of an economy when people stay home.

We need to build a new Internet where the individual reigns supreme. All data generated around an individual belongs to that individual. Companies may monetize them but the split will have to be something like 70-30 with 70 going to the individual. That will pay for the Universal Basic Income. States may avail some of the data, but they must respect guidelines on privacy and security, enshrined in a new bill of rights.

And ends up, respecting nature makes tremendous GDP sense. Humanity does not seem to have the option to destroy nature. Nature is not a tree you cut. Nature is a beehive that you don't push your fist into. We now know. Relentless encroachment of natural ecosystems does not seem to play well.

Humanity is on strike.

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Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Coronavirus News (95)

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