Monday, October 12, 2020

Coronavirus News (269)

कोभिड- १९ को महामारीबीच एसिया बन्दैछ भूराजनीतिको ‘हटस्पट’ 

जसपा किन वैकल्पिक राजनीतिक शक्ति ? विश्वसमाजमा हाम्रो स्वतन्त्रता, समानता, आत्मासम्मानको रक्षा गर्न नेपाली पहिचान तथा नेपाल राज्य अपरिहार्य भइसकेको छ । नेपाल राज्यप्रति हाम्रो पनि दायित्व छ। तर, ‘नेपाली नागरिक राष्ट्रियता’ को पहिचान मात्रले हाम्रो स्वतन्त्रता, समानता र आत्मगौरव स्थापित भएन र हुँदैन । 


Anders Tegnell and the Swedish Covid experiment  The controversial epidemiologist believes lockdown is ‘using a hammer to kill a fly’. ..........  At the start of this year, Anders Tegnell was just a low-profile bureaucrat in a country of 10m people, heading a department that collects and analyses data on public health. Today, he has become one of the best known — and most controversial — figures of the global coronavirus crisis. ................  a rational approach as other countries have appeared to sacrifice science to emotion ...............  some on the American and British right have seized on Tegnell as a champion of freedoms they feel they have lost during lockdown. .............. The populist Sweden Democrats have called for him to resign after thousands of elderly in care homes died. That has given Sweden the fifth-highest death rate per capita in Europe, five times higher than neighbouring Denmark and about 10 times more than Norway and Finland...........  a bit resistant to quick fixes, to realise that this is not going to be easy, it is not going to be a short-term kind of thing ............. We see a disease that we’re going to have to handle for a long time into the future and we need to build up systems for doing that ...........   As coronavirus cases rise in pretty much all other European countries, leading to fears of a second wave including in the UK, they have been sinking all summer in Sweden. On a per capita basis, they are now 90 per cent below their peak in late June and under Norway’s and Denmark’s for the first time in five months. Tegnell had told me the first time we spoke in the spring that it would be in the autumn when it became more apparent how successful each country had been .............   Today, the architect of Sweden’s lighter-touch approach says the country will have “a low level of spread” with occasional local outbreaks. “What it will be in other countries, I think that is going to be more critical. They are likely to be more vulnerable to these kind of spikes. Those kind of things will most likely be bigger when you don’t have a level of immunity that can sort of put the brake on it” ...................    he argues immunity is at least in part responsible for the sharp recent drop in Swedish cases and questions how its neighbours will fare without it. “What is protecting Copenhagen today? We will see,” he adds  ...............  Unlike in pretty much every other country, it is not politicians who take the big decisions but Sweden’s public health agency, due to its constitution giving big powers to independent authorities. .............   The only other country not to lock down in Europe was authoritarian Belarus, I say. He erupts in a burst of nervous laughter: “That’s no comparison.” .............  his approach has been about having a strategy that can work for years if needs be, rather than the constant chopping and changing seen in the rest of Europe ................   I barely see a single person with a mask. ............ masks — which Sweden is one of the few countries not to recommend wearing in public ............... Tegnell, in a few short months, has become the most famous Swede, both at home and abroad. “It’s hype,” he says. “And it’s completely surreal.” ..................  he says his time just before that working on vaccination programmes in Laos for the World Health Organization was the most formative. “I really learned about the importance of broad thinking in public health. I think that’s also partly behind our strategy and also what the agency is doing. We are not just working with communicable diseases, we are working with public health as a whole”  ........  In June, Tegnell described the rush to lock down in the rest of Europe and the US as “it was as if the world had gone mad”. ....... Sweden, in the local vernacular, had “ice in its stomach” whereas other nations had acted emotionally ...........  Our conversation ends with Tegnell again swimming against the tide, and warning that a vaccine — if and when it comes — will not be the “silver bullet”.  





Covid World Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak  The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 37,560,500 people, according to official counts. As of Monday morning, at least 1,076,800 people have died, and the virus has been detected in nearly every country ........ After case numbers fell steadily in April and May, cases in the United States are growing again at about the same rapid pace as when infections were exploding in New York City in late March. But the hotspots are now mainly spread across the southern and western parts of the country. ..............   there are four factors that most likely play a role: how close you get to an infected person; how long you are near that person; whether that person expels viral droplets on or near you; and how much you touch your face afterwards. .......... Try to keep your hands away from your face unless you have just recently washed them


‘I Feel Like I Have Dementia’: Brain Fog Plagues Covid Survivors The condition is affecting thousands of patients, impeding their ability to work and function in daily life. ..........  After contracting the coronavirus in March, Michael Reagan lost all memory of his 12-day vacation in Paris, even though the trip was just a few weeks earlier. .............  Covid brain fog: troubling cognitive symptoms that can include memory loss, confusion, difficulty focusing, dizziness and grasping for everyday words. ............. “The impact on the work force that’s affected is going to be significant. .......... Scientists aren’t sure what causes brain fog, which varies widely and affects even people who became only mildly physically ill from Covid-19 and had no previous medical conditions. ...............  A French report in August on 120 patients who had been hospitalized found that 34 percent had memory loss and 27 percent had concentration problems months later. ..........  difficulty concentrating or focusing ............  the fourth most common symptom out of the 101 long-term and short-term physical, neurological and psychological conditions that survivors reported. Memory problems, dizziness or confusion were reported by a third or more respondents. .............    after overcoming a several-week bout with Covid-19 breathing problems and body aches. “I become almost catatonic. It feels as though I am under anesthesia.” .............. One morning, “everything in my brain was white static,” she said. “I was sitting on the edge of the bed, crying and feeling ‘something’s wrong, I should be asking for help,’ but I couldn’t remember who or what I should be asking. I forgot who I was and where I was.” ................  She resumed working in early August, but her mind wandered and reading emails was “like reading Greek” ......... In meetings, “I can’t find words,” said Mr. Reagan, who has now taken a leave. “I feel like I sound like an idiot.” ....... Inflammatory molecules, released in effective immune responses, “can also be sort of toxins, particularly to the brain” ...........  Mr. Sullivan navigates a spectrum of cognitive speed bumps. In the mildest state, which he calls “fluffy,” his head feels heavy. In the middling phase, “fuzzy,” he said, “I become angry when people talk to me because it hurts my brain to try and pay attention.” Most severe is “fog,” when “I cannot function” and “I sit and stare, unmotivated to move, my mind racing.” ............... Recently, she couldn’t even recall “toothbrush,” saying to a friend “‘You know, the thing that makes your teeth clean.’” .........  at the grocery store with his wife, he developed “full-blown fog,” gripped the cart and “wandered around the store like a zombie,” he said. 


Sunday, October 11, 2020

Coronavirus News (268)

For Boris Johnson, and Maybe Trump, Covid as Metaphor Is Hard to Shake The British prime minister’s personal battle with the disease has come to symbolize his government’s fumbling efforts to halt the pathogen.  ......... the prime minister ended up in an intensive-care unit after he, like the president, tried to work through the illness. ........... Six months after Mr. Johnson was released from the hospital, he has yet to shake off questions about the effects of the disease on his energy, focus and spirit. .......... Both also initially played down the threat of the virus — Mr. Johnson, most notoriously, when he bragged about shaking the hands of coronavirus patients while visiting them in the hospital. ............... Mr. Trump about the miracle-cure qualities of the drugs he was treated with, which he promised to distribute free to all Americans; and Mr. Johnson about the miracle workers who treated him — the doctors and nurses of the National Health Service, perhaps Britain’s most revered institution. ........... has seemed occasionally lethargic during debates in Parliament. 

Like Trump, I was on monoclonal antibody drugs. This is what they do to you Trump fundamentally misunderstands what monoclonal antibodies are, and what they do ......... We all want a vaccine and we all want a cure. We want to send our kids to school and hug our old friends and go to the movies and, most of all, for people to stop getting sick and dying. The way forward is through smart science and practical, equitable distribution, not empty promises of "miracles." The monoclonal antibody cocktail that saved my life currently has a six figure price tag. As Vox put it two years ago, "The average cost of cancer drugs today is four times the median household income." (Because I was in a clinical trial, the pharmaceutical company paid the costs related to my treatment.) Who's going to pick up the check when and if these types of therapies are available for COVID-19? .............. right now, there is no cure for COVID-19. There is only recovery, hope and a lot more research to be done.

‘Everyone is fighting’ – how Downing Street lost its grip on a divided nation As public trust falls, No 10 insists on dictating a national response to coronavirus; local leaders believe that they can do better ......... The many changes in rules and regulations have left people confused and choosing to rely on their own instincts as much as on what politicians tell them. ............ “I would say that trust in authority has completely gone” ........... National targets on testing have not been met. False expectations have been set. Rules have changed at dizzying speed. .......... Tory MPs are split. The media is split. Public opinion is split. And council and public health leaders in some of the biggest cities of the north and Midlands are in revolt. .............  “They say they are listening to us but they are not. What they seem to want to do is punish the north. The extra financial support announced by the chancellor is welcome but it is two-thirds of people’s wages, not 80% which it was before. This is not enough for people and the businesses which will have to close.” Another official involved in talks with the government over the weekend said: “It is toxic and everyone is fighting.” ...............  Labour has said it will abstain in a vote expected early next week on extending the 10pm curfew for pubs across England.  


China’s Insistence That Taiwan Isn’t a Country Starts Backfiring  “Hats off to friends from around the world this year, #India in particular, for celebrating #TaiwanNationalDay,” Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu wrote in a Twitter post on Saturday. ........... more and more Taiwanese don’t want any unification with China. ........  “showing weakness and making concessions will not bring peace.” ............ “We don’t have a need to declare ourselves an independent state,” Tsai told the BBC shortly after she was re-elected by a landslide in January. “We are an independent country already, and we call ourselves the Republic of China, Taiwan.” ............ For many Taiwanese, the Republic of China was akin to a foreign occupation when the Kuomintang party arrived after Japan’s surrender in World War II. A violent uprising against the KMT prompted officials to massacre Japanese-trained civil servants, lawyers and doctors who could’ve administered an independent Taiwanese state. 

Trump's COVID prognosis: 3 scenarios based on sparse facts from an opaque White House The president's health matters. But we can only speculate because his doctor has hidden behind confidentiality laws to withhold negative information. ............  many survivors of severe COVID-19 pneumonia (which the president had) have experienced setbacks, hospital readmissions and prolonged intensive care stays requiring months of rehabilitation. ............. Concerningly, Trump was reportedly hypoxemic (low oxygen saturations, less than 94%) for a period of time, had shortness of breath, and required supplemental oxygen. Those are all clear signals that the president might have experienced the most feared and harmful injury from COVID-19: pneumonia. To be clear, nearly all of the 213,000 Americans who have lost their lives to this virus died for this reason alone, often on ventilators ............. He is unique in receiving the Regeneron cocktail almost immediately after diagnosis in combination with Dexamethasone and Remdesivir. .............. Some initially improve, as in the case of the president, only to decline again 7-10 days after symptom onset, often with severe manifestations requiring ICU-level care. ........... the president continues to be symptomatic as evidenced by his coughing on the phone Thursday night with Fox’s Sean Hannity

How Trump’s ‘enthusiasm factor’ could lead to another surprise win on Election Day As Ryan’s boat joined at least 2,000 other watercraft for the Trump Law and Order Boat Parade, the same scene was playing out in dozens of harbors, rivers and lakes from the Jersey Shore to San Diego that Labor Day weekend. One week later, on Sept. 12, more than 16,000 cars, pickups, motorcycles and semis festooned with banners and bunting jammed Cincinnati’s I-275 beltway in a convoy that looped through three states, one of several Trump car caravans being organized on Facebook. Meanwhile, an unknown fan in Norwell, Mass., stenciled “Trump 2020” in bright yellow letters across the travel lanes of busy Route 3 (Highway crews quickly painted over the message.) ................  Public displays of exuberant affection for Trump have been building for months now, but they reached a fervent new pitch when the president came down with COVID-19. .........  “The consensus from all was that COVID-19 didn’t stand a chance against him.” ............... Enthusiasm for Trump among his voters “is historically high,” said Richard Baris, the director of Big Data Poll. “We saw that very early in the cycle, in his primary vote totals,” when the president drew unusually large voter turnout in uncontested races. ..............  Four years ago, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found a 13-point enthusiasm gap in Trump’s favor, a result echoed by other surveys ............. 75 percent of Trump voters said their vote is mostly motivated by support for him, as opposed to 43 percent of Biden voters. .........  An overnight shift in public opinion fueled Ronald Reagan’s shocking 10-point landslide in 1980, for example, despite election-eve polls that pegged the race as too close to call. 



Trump's $1.8 trillion stimulus proposal faces opposition from Pelosi and Senate GOP  Senate Republicans blasted the $1.8 trillion offer the White House made to Speaker Pelosi ....... a number of GOP concerns, like state and local funding, as well as the overall price tag. ....... While the sentiment was that talks with Pelosi should continue, it was clear that the White House plan had virtually no chance of passing the GOP-controlled Senate ......... The President said Friday that he'd like to see a bigger stimulus than what's currently being floated by either Democrats or his administration ......... Pelosi has repeatedly argued that the actual legislative language -- and where that language directs the funds -- has become the most critical aspect of any deal, pushing particularly for funding for states and localities that have significant budget shortfalls .............. Pelosi dismissed Trump's proposal as wanting "more money at his discretion to grant or withhold, rather than agreeing on language prescribing how we honor our workers, crush the virus and put money in the pockets of workers." The Democratic leader said "despite these unaddressed concerns" she remains "hopeful" that Friday's developments will inch them closer to a deal on a relief package.