Friday, May 01, 2020

Coronavirus News (69)



Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart Workers Organize a Historic Mass Strike On May 1st, frontline workers at some of the biggest corporations in the country will lead a mass strike action, asking customers to boycott Amazon, Instacart, Whole Foods, and Target.
Government orders 100,000 new body bags as Trump minimizes death toll Federal coronavirus response documents obtained by NBC News suggest that the president's optimism about "Opening Up America" is at odds with dire warnings from inside his administration.
ILO: As job losses escalate, nearly half of global workforce at risk of losing livelihoods The latest ILO data on the labour market impact of the COVID-19 pandemic reveals the devastating effect on workers in the informal economy and on hundreds of millions of enterprises worldwide.
Coronavirus will bankrupt more people than it kills — and that's the real global emergency
Raghuram Rajan is the 21st-century Manmohan Singh that Congress needs The way Manmohan Singh pushed economic reforms in 1991, Raghuram Rajan is the crisis manager Indian economy needs today.
प्रचण्डलाई भेटेलगत्तै माधव नेपाललाई भेटिन् चिनियाँ राजदूत यान्छीले

Expert report predicts up to two more years of pandemic misery

The new coronavirus is likely to keep spreading for at least another 18 months to two years—until 60% to 70% of the population has been infected

, a team of longstanding pandemic experts predicted in a report released Thursday. ...... They recommended that the US prepare for a worst-case scenario that includes a second big wave of coronavirus infections in the fall and winter. Even in a best-case scenario, people will continue to die from the virus ........ "The idea that this is going to be done soon defies microbiology." ....... Osterholm has been writing about the risk of pandemics for 20 years and has advised several presidents. He wrote the report along with Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, who is also a top expert on pandemics; Dr. Kristine Moore, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist who is now medical director for CIDRAP; and historian John Barry, who wrote the 2004 book "The Great Influenza" about the 1918 flu pandemic. ......... "The length of the pandemic will likely be 18 to 24 months, as herd immunity gradually develops in the human population" .........

pandemic infections don't tend to die down in the summer, like seasonal flu does

........ "Because of a longer incubation period, more asymptomatic spread, and a higher R0, COVID-19 appears to spread more easily than flu" ..........

government officials should stop telling people the pandemic could be ending and instead prepare citizens for a long haul.

......... Scenario 1: The first wave of Covid-19 in spring 2020 is followed by a series of repetitive smaller waves that occur through the summer and then consistently over a one- to two-year period, gradually diminishing sometime in 2021 ........... Scenario 2: The first wave of Covid-19 is followed by a larger wave in the fall or winter and one or more smaller waves in 2021. "This pattern will require the reinstitution of mitigation measures in the fall in an attempt to drive down spread of infection and prevent healthcare systems from being overwhelmed," they wrote. "This pattern is similar to what was seen with the 1918-19 pandemic." ............... Scenario 3: A "slow burn" of ongoing transmission. "This third scenario likely would not require the reinstitution of mitigation measures, although cases and deaths will continue to occur." ...........

States and territories should plan for scenario 2, the worst-case scenario

......... they are surprised by the decisions many states are making to lift restrictions aimed at controlling the spread of the virus. .........

some states are choosing to lift restrictions when they have more new infections than they had when they decided to impose the restrictions. "It is hard to even understand the rationale"

.......... A vaccine could help, the report said, but not quickly. "The course of the pandemic also could be influenced by a vaccine; however, a vaccine will likely not be available until at least sometime in 2021"

U.S. drops to 45 in ranking of countries based on freedom of the press The report calls out Trump as a ‘media-bashing enthusiast’ ........
Experts predict ‘significant COVID-19 activity’ in US for up to 2 years
Abu Dhabi receives world's lowest tariff for mega solar farm project Abu Dhabi Power in talks with EDF, Jinko to install the solar farm that will be larger than 4,200 soccer pitches ........ that would supply power at what could be record-low prices. ....... the 2-gigawatt solar project, one of the world’s largest. ...... The UAE, like Saudi Arabia and other oil producers in the Gulf, is pushing harder into renewables to diversify its energy supply and reduce its reliance on crude. .........

a price of 1.35 cents per kilowatt-hou

....... The project will more than double Abu Dhabi’s solar generating capacity to 3.2 gigawatts.



Study: Masks Fail to Filter Virus in Coughing COVID-19 Patients — About that mask recommendation... A small study from South Korea cast doubt on the ability of surgical or cotton face masks to effectively prevent dissemination of COVID-19 coronavirus from the coughs of infected patients. ........ Median viral loads did not differ significantly when comparing coughing samples of COVID-19 patients without a mask, with a surgical mask, and with a cloth mask, suggesting these masks were ineffective at filtering SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 .......... Citing concern about asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread of COVID-19, the CDC recommended late Friday night that all Americans should wear cloth masks in public. ........... swabs from the outside of the mask were positive for SARS-CoV-2, while most swabs from the inside of the mask were negative ......... particles 0.04 to 0.2 μm "can penetrate surgical masks." For the coronavirus responsible for SARS, particles were estimated to be within that range at 0.08 to 0.14 μm .......... The finding reinforces the importance of hand hygiene after touching the outside of masks ....... the study didn't examine actual transmission of COVID-19 illness nor whether the masks "shorten the travel distance of droplets during coughing." ....... Whether face masks decrease transmission from asymptomatic individuals with COVID-19 or those who are not coughing needs further study



Trump supports Michigan protesters, says Gov. Whitmer should 'give a little'
नयाँ पार्टीलाई पुरानै चुनौती मधेसमा राजनीति गर्नु भनेकै आन्दोलन गर्नु, निर्वाचन जित्नु र सत्तामा जानुजस्तो बुझिन्छ । मधेसी राजनीतिमा सामाजिक रूपान्तरण आन्दोलनको एजेन्डा बन्नु त परै जाओस्, बहसको विषयसम्म बन्न सकेको छैन, जुन नयाँ पार्टीलाई एउटा चुनौती हो ।
स्वार्थै-स्वार्थको गठजोड, को-कति पानीमा ? दुई वर्षअघि पार्टी एकता गर्दा जेट विमान हाँकेको दाबी गर्ने नेताहरु गन्तव्यमा नपुग्दै ‘फोर्स ल्यान्डिङ’ गर्नुपर्ने वा दुर्घटनामा पर्ने अवस्थामा आइपुगेका छन् । उनीहरु सवार डुंगा पद, सत्ता, शक्ति र स्वार्थले प्वाल पारिरहेको छ ।
Tesla's Elon Musk Rants Again, Calls Lockdowns Forcible Imprisonment And 'Fascist'
Multiple armed men storm Michigan statehouse; unfazed Gov. Whitmer extends emergency through May 28



Trump administration draws up plans to punish China over coronavirus outbreak The Trump administration is formulating a long-term plan to punish China on multiple fronts for the coronavirus pandemic, injecting a rancorous new element into a critical relationship already on a steep downward slide. ........ The effort matches but goes far beyond

an election campaign strategy of blaming Beijing to distract from President Donald Trump's errors in predicting and handling the crisis, which has now killed more than 60,000 Americans.

......... various tools, including sanctions, canceling US debt obligations and drawing up new trade policies, to make clear to China, and to everyone else, where they feel the responsibility lies. ........ senior officials pushing to find out whether the virus escaped into the public from a laboratory in Wuhan, China ........ he told reporters at the White House that China does not want to see him get reelected because the US is "getting billions" from the country thanks to their trade deal. ........

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the weight of evidence suggests the virus was of natural origin.

........ fury that the virus destroyed an economy seen as Trump's passport to a second term. ......... an already fragmented geopolitical environment already shaken by their rivalry that has been thoroughly fragmented by the pandemic. ........ In response to building pressure, China has launched a propaganda effort to distract from its own culpability, including blaming US soldiers for importing the pathogen .......... In the extreme circumstances of the pandemic, China has the capacity to hit back at the United States making it "irresponsible" to drive too hard too early .......... With the US afflicted by shortages of personal protective equipment, medical devices, biologic drugs and Chinese-made pharmaceuticals, it is vulnerable to short-term disruption in established supply chains amid a pandemic that has infected more than a million Americans. ......... new Chinese export controls that have prevented US medical supplies from getting to the US. In private, US officials are irate, but in public Pompeo used delicate language. ......... Trump says that the process of ushering Beijing into the world economy in an effort to avoid a clash between the dominant power, the US, and China, the rising one — known as the Thucydides Trap — has been a disaster. ........... "This is the natural way to go. It's the only way to go. It is pretty much the main campaign theme" ........

Both Trump and Xi are the most aggressive, nationalistic leaders of their two nations in decades

......... "They have only one objective: to try to shirk responsibility for their own epidemic and prevention and control measures and divert public attention" ......

The heated rhetoric over the virus threatens to unleash a chain reaction of mistrust and tension that worsens tensions between the US and China exacerbated by Trump's trade war, territorial flashpoints including in the South China Sea and the global US campaign against the Huawei communications giant.

......... "But I think you would be hard pressed to find a political leader in Asia or Europe who does not believe

this anti-China push by the Trump administration is an entirely a political move. They are trying to deflect blame for the catastrophic incompetence of the administration."





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