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verycleverboy · 4 years

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Welcome to October 7th.

(cough cough)

Where we are today:

After spending the weekend at Walter Reed Medical Center for treatment of his COVID-19 infection, President Donald Trump returned to the White House yesterday afternoon, where he is expected to continue treatment under quarantine.

The slim hopes there were that Trump would calm down and take his current situation seriously--and yeah, I know, but some people are just born suckers--were exploded yesterday when Trump's first full day out of the hospital was highlighted by an almost incoherent tweet storm, followed by a declaration out of nowhere that long-stalled talks over a second stimulus package were dead until after the election, and everyone had been instructed to dedicate their undivided attention to the Supreme Court nomination. The response was instantaneous: one spur-of-the-moment tweet shaved 600 points off the stock market before closing.

He walked back the stance slightly later on, saying he'd be willing to sign off on just the personal stimulus checks, part of a piecemeal approach that Democrats have repeatedly said was a nonstarter. For those who were depending on extended unemployment relief or waiting for a federal lifeline for their small businesses (or even larger ones, in the case of the airlines), the message from Trump and his party, with 27 days until the election, is what it's been all summer: Help isn't on the way. You're on your own. Please suffer quietly while we play confirmation games in the Senate.

The above would appear to demonstrate that the President’s emotional state is even more unhinged than usual, and the speculation (not to mention a certain style of headline) has been zeroing in on the manic episodes that are a known side-effect of the steroid treatment Trump has been taking. The impression is that there’s still a lot that’s being kept from us, and the main thing the West Wing has been open about since the President’s diagnosis is that they have no intention of being open about anything related to the current state of affairs.

Physician to the President Dr. Sean Conley maintains that Trump’s recovery is continuing in a positive direction, but the memorandum begins with the one line that has been casting a long shadow over any hope of honesty:

“I release the following information with the permission of President Donald J. Trump.”

In 2015, Trump’s personal physician Dr. Harold Bornstein released a hyperbole-laden assessment of the then-candidate’s health status: “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." Like Conley’s status report, there we no real negatives. The main difference was that Borstein’s letter sounded a lot like a Trump-penned press release.

Borstein later revealed there was a reason that letter sounded so Trumpian. "He dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter."

Folks, this could be some hard-earned paranoia talking, since there’s no major reason to assume that a Borstein level of hijacking is happening with Conley, apart from his Walter Reed declaration that he was intentionally skewing towards optimism over the weekend while dodging (and sometimes backtracking on) a lot of key questions. But if some of us feel like we smell a rat in a sunshine-and-rainbows status report, it’s because that rat was caught in this particular corn crib once before.

HIPAA rules entitle every American citizen to a certain expectation of privacy when it comes to medical records. If you want to allow even another member of your family to be able to talk about your condition with your doctors, you have to sign off specific names. That means the onus of allowing transparency in the case of Donald J. Trump, a man whose health (for better or for worse) has international implications, falls on the full consent of Donald J. Trump himself. But since Borstein’s revelation came days after members of the Trump Organization seized his Trump-related medical records in what he characterized as a “raid” on his office, it’s safe to assume that’s not going to happen....not until it’s too late, anyway.

Meanwhile...

The Trump/Pence team continues to openly mock the medically-recommended safety measures that, had they been applied consistently, would've kept the President out of the hospital. Trump is still making the claim that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu, which by any metric is demonstrably false and highly dangerous, while Pence and his team made a last-minute attempt yesterday to flex on the previously agreed-to plexiglas guards in front of the podiums. His debate with Kamala Harris is scheduled for tonight.

Since Trump loves Citizen Kane, while not necessarily understanding that Kane isn't the hero of the movie, let's end this wall of words with a quote that he probably hasn't figured out yet either.

“You're the greatest fool I've ever known, Kane. If it was anybody else, I'd say what's going to happen to you would be a lesson to you. Only you're going to need more than one lesson. And you're going to get more than one lesson.”

Will Trump's next lesson come from the disease or the electorate? Either way, we're in for a long, dark October. Stay warm, everybody.

First Lady Melania Trump, who did not join her husband at Walter Reed, continues to rest at the White House during her recovery.

Other confirmed positives for COVID-19:

(This is not intended to be a complete list, and is based on news reports concerning those who are known to have been in contact with other infected individuals in connection with recent events. Status changes and additions since yesterday’s megapost will be listed in bold. Updated throughout the day as new information becomes available from the CNN, NBC News, and CBS News live update pages, supplemented by other sources.)

White House

Hope Hicks: Began showing symptoms on Wednesday, tested positive on Thursday morning. Was not in attendance at Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination event on September 26th.

Nicholas Luna, personal assistant to the President: Luna is a “body man”, whose duties require him to be in close proximity to the President at all times.

Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary: She was not aware of the Hicks diagnosis when she addressed the press on Thursday.

Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor to the President: Was already working remotely and self-isolating, announced positive test on Monday. His wife, Katie Miller, is Vice President Pence’s director of communications, had coronavirus several months ago.

Chad Gilmartin and Karoline Leavitt, members of Kayleigh McEnany’s staff.

Assistant White House press secretary Jalen Drummond: Another McEnany staffer who tested positive Monday morning

Unidentified staffer: Military personnel directly assigned to support the President in the Oval Office and residence, diagnosed over the weekend per CNN.

Three initially unidentified members of the White House press corps and an unidentified staffer who works with the media. Per the White House Correspondents’ Association president Zeke Miller: Individual #1 attended a Sunday briefing and tested positive on Friday after exhibiting symptoms on Thursday. Individual #2 (later confirmed to be Michael Shear of the New York Times) was part of the press pool which traveled to last Saturday’s Pennsylvania rally; also exhibited symptoms on Thursday and tested positive on Friday. Individual #3 was in the press pool for the Barrett Rose Garden event and also travelled with the press pool on Sunday. #3 exhibited symptoms on Wednesday and tested positive Friday afternoon. The press at the Barret event were confined in a crowded “penlike enclosure” behind the invited guests (per Washington Post).

Campaign personnel

Chris Christie: Attended the Barrett nomination event and was part of Trump debate prep. Christie, whose asthma puts him in a higher risk group, checked himself into Morristown Medical Center as a precautionary measure.

Kellyanne Conway: Attended the Barrett nomination event and was part of Trump debate prep. The initial news came in the form of a string of snarky Tiktok posts on Friday from her daughter Claudia, followed much later by a confirmation from Kellyanne herself.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel: Isolating at home since September 26th, tested last Wednesday.

Bill Stepien, current Trump 2020 campaign manager: In the White House on Monday, in Cleveland for Tuesday’s presidential debate, traveled with Trump and Hicks aboard Air Force One afterwards.

US Congress

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Per CNN: “Johnson was not at the Amy Coney Barrett ceremony because he was quarantining from a prior exposure, during which he twice tested negative for the virus, according to the spokesperson.” He was exposed “shortly after” returning to Washington.

Sen. Mike Lee, (R-UT): Attended the Barrett nomination event.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): Attended the Barrett nomination event.

Military

Admiral Charles Ray, Vice Commandant of the US Coast Guard: Recently attended several meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nearly all the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including chairman General Mark Milley, are in precautionary quarantine.

Gen. Gary L. Thomas, assistant commandant of the US Marine Corps

Others

University of Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, CSC: Attended the Barrett nomination event. Jenkins was told that he didn’t need to wear a mask to the event after he and other guests tested negative at the White House.

Thirteen employees at Murray’s restaurant in Minneapolis: Catered a party attended by President Trump on September 30th, although none of them were in close proximity to the President.

Confirmed negatives:

(Because of the nature of COVID-19, this list is subject to change.)

Mike and Karen Pence: The Pences have been testing daily since the announcement of the Trumps’ diagnosis.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner: Recently traveled with Hope Hicks

Barron Trump

Eric Trump: At debate.

Lara Trump: At debate.

Donald Trump Jr.: Flew on Air Force One to Cleveland debate, did not fly back.

Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff

Pat Cipollone, White House counsel

Dan Scavino, Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Director of Social Media

HHS Secretary Alex Azar

Attorney General Bill Barr

Defense Secretary Mark Esper

WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany

Justin Clark, deputy campaign manager

Rudy Giuliani: Was in Trump debate prep.

Jason Miller: Was in Trump debate prep.

Alice Marie Johnson: Flew on Air Force One to Cleveland debate.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett: Barrett and her husband had coronavirus earlier this year and recovered, per AP News.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (D-CA): Tested out of "an abundance of caution” because of Steve Mnuchin meeting earlier this week.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Few on Air Force One to Cleveland debate, did not fly back.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez: In front row for Tuesday’s debate.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO): Attended the Barrett nomination event, was seen there without a face covering.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Precautionary quarantine because of close contact with COVID-19-positive individuals.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE): Precautionary quarantine because of close contact with COVID-19-positive individuals.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK): Precautionary quarantine because of close contact with COVID-19-positive individuals.

All of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Status unknown as of Tuesday midday:

Kimberly Guilfoyle (at debate)

Alyssa Farah, White House Director of Strategic Communications

Robert O’Brien, national security adviser (tested positive for coronavirus in July)

Tiffany Trump (at debate)

Derek Lyons, Counselor to the President

Sen. Chuck Grassley, (R-IA), Senate pro tem: Declined to be tested, claiming physician’s advice as his reason; attended a meeting Thursday with Sen. Mike Lee.

30-50 donors who were in close contact with President Trump during an in-person event held at Trump’s Bedminster golf club on Thursday night. According to the official story, the event was held hours before President Trump’s positive test came back, but Hicks’s positive came back immediately before he left (although for a variety of reasons, the validity of that timeline is up in the air).

And because they’re stuck in this story, too:

Joe and Jill Biden: negative, committed to regular testing on all campaign event days.

Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff: negative

Previous megaposts, in case you’re a masochist: October 2 3 4 5 6

#Donald Trump #megapost #coronavirus #COVID-19

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corona-extra-newsletter · 4 years

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3/17/20 corona extra: cracking open cold covid facts

Announcements & Thank Yous

Thank you to everyone who’s messaged me or sent asks! Specific thanks go to:

@catrope for verifying Netherlands information

@ruffboijuliaburnsides and @fleurdeneuf for helping me collect county level data and for extra sources

@ineloquent-tumbling and Dr. Mehta for sharing an excellent source of data

@stebuklai for info about NJ

@halcyonhowl for the homeschooling resources

@stone-stars for info about FL

@planb-is-in-effect for sources about Canada

Georgia anon for information about Georgia State

Twitter users @molly0xFFF and @goblinartificer for their continued help with the Wordpress site

@marywhal for the cat videos

@epersonae for the Gritty tipoff

If you have reliable information from a good source that I don’t seem to have, please shoot me a message/ask/pigeon!

Places now included in the newsletter are: Australia, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Arkansas, and Wyoming. Please send an ask or a message if you would like a place included! Germany will be included in full tomorrow.

I have started a website for the newsletter! Find it at coronaextranewsletter.com. If you know me from fandom, please be chill about my meatspace identity. Please.

Sorry the newsletter is late today. There was some late breaking news and also a lot of stuff happened today! Tomorrow I will make more of an effort to be on time. :)

Just The Numbers

Case numbers

Total cases: 179,112 (+11,526)

Total deaths: 7,426 (+475)

Mortality rate: 4.15%

WHO is now breaking cases down by region, and I will follow their lead from here on out

Western Pacific: 91,779 cases (+289), 3,357 deaths (+23)

Europe: 64,189 cases (+8,507), 3,108 deaths (+428)

SE Asia: 508 cases (+124), 9 deaths (+2)

Eastern Mediterranean: 16,786 cases (+330), 873 deaths (+3)

Americans: 4,910 cases (+2,234), 68 deaths (+18)

Africa: 228 cases (+42), 4 deaths (+1)

159 countries/territories reporting cases, 8 new including:

Guam (3), Somalia (1), Bahamas (1), Aruba (2), US Virgin Islands (2), Benin (1), Liberia (1), and Tanzania (1)

Italy is reporting 27,980 cases (+3233) and 2,503 deaths (+349)

Iran is reporting 14,991 cases (+0) and 853 deaths (+0)

Germany is reporting 6012 cases (+1174) and 13 deaths (+1)

International/General News

Italy has had approximately the same number of cases three days in a row. This means that their strict lockdown/quarantine procedures are working! GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

China is endorsing the use of favipiravir as an experimental treatment for COVID-19. It has been used to treat influenza before and is showing some promise in COVID patients, by decreasing the duration of the illness and the severity of their lung disease. Watch this space for more!

Virology Corner

Today’s question comes from @greenfairyarmadillo and @heturnedleft. Both asked a variation of the same question: Do we know yet if people who recover from COVID-19 are immune to reinfection or not? Do we expect COVID-19 to be like measles, like flu, or somewhere in between?

We don’t know yet! We know that people have protective antibodies, but my guess based on what I know about other coronaviridae is that the protection will wane pretty quickly, which is more like the flu. But we’ll see! Watch this space for data from China, where we’ll see hard data first.

The other thing to consider is the way that coronaviruses can attenuate, or get less strong, as they spread through populations. So it may be mitigated in the future less by herd immunity and more by attenuation of the SARS-CoV-2 strain itself. But I’m not sure! If I could predict the future I’d be super popular right now. Like, super popular.

If you have questions, ask them and they’ll appear here in the next issue of Corona Extra!

Tomorrow’s topic: Why 6 feet of separation? How does that help? How is COVID-19 spread? Stay tuned!

Regional News (if you want somewhere added just let me know. Don’t be shy!! I highly recommend you just skip to your area if you don’t wanna be overwhelmed.)

Australia: last updated 3/17 at 6 am

375 cases, 5 deaths, 27 recoveries

189 cases acquired overseas (US, Iran, Italy, UK)

Community spread not confirmed

States affected include: ACT (2), New South Wales (170), Queensland (68), South Australia (29), Tasmania (7), Victoria (71), and Western Australia (28)

I have to question why y’all have states called just “South Australia” and “Western Australia”, where’s the panache??? Where’s the creativity?

COVID-19 information line: 1800 020 080

Canada: last updated 3/17 at 10:30 am

Total cases: 424 confirmed (+100), 16 presumed (-1), 5 deaths (+4), 5 recovered

Symptoms began for these cases between 1/15 and 3/15

13% of cases have required hospitalization (no change)

74% of cases are in travellers, and a further 6% in their close contacts

Affected provinces include: Alberta (74, +18), BC (103, +30), Manitoba (7, +0), New Brunswick (7, +1), Newfoundland and Labrador (1, +0), Nova Scotia (5, +0) Ontario (177, +5), PEI (1, +0), Québec (50, +9), and Saskatchewan (7, +1).

Totals here include confirmed and presumptive positives

8 cases in repatriated travellers (+4)

Restrictions/Closures:

No formal restrictions/closures at the federal level

Recommendation to cancel or postpone gatherings of >50 people

Recommendation to avoid non-essential travel, particularly cruise ships

All international travelers must self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival

Wash your damn hands

Federal information line: 1-833-784-4397

Alberta: last updated 3/17 at 1:40 pm

74 cases, 18 new, 0 deaths

Community spread confirmed in Calgary

Affected zones include: Calgary (52), Edmonton (18), Central (2), South (1), and North (1)

This is all of them I think

Restrictions/closures

K-12 schools and in-person post-secondary classes/training are closed

Licensed childcare facilities, out-of-school care programs, and preschools are closed indefinitely

State of Emergency declared 3/17

Sit-down restaurants are operating at lower capacity

All events over 50 people are prohibited

Rec centers, bingo halls, casinos, theaters, other entertainment/public spaces are closed

British Columbia: last updated 3/16 evening

Dedicated phone line: 1 888 COVID19

103 cases (+30), 5 recoveries, and 6 critical cases

4 deaths, 3 new

Affected public health units include: Fraser, Interior, Island, and Vancouver Coastal

Clusters of infection have been reported at Lynn Valley Care Centre, Hollyburn House Retirement Residence, and Lions Gate Hospital (admin staff).

An exposure occurred at the Pacific Dental Conference 2020 (Vancouver Convention Centre, 3/6 and 3/7)

All present on those dates are in self-isolation until 3/22

Poor teeth man :(

Restrictions/Closures

All hospitals have postponed elective surgeries and are on Outbreak Response Phase 2

Lions Gate Hospital is going to open a dedicated COVID 19 unit and is in Outbreak Response Phase 3 (emergency patients only)

Long term care facilities have restricted visitors to end of life only

Public gatherings & buildings with >50 people are prohibited

All casinos are closed

Manitoba: last updated 3/17 AM

HealthLinks Line: 204-788-8200 or 1-888-315-9257 (toll free)

8 cases, 1 new

Affected regions include: Interlake-Eastern (1) and Winnipeg (7)

Closures/Restrictions

Hospital and long term care visitors restricted to only exception circumstances (incl. end of life care)

Licensed child-care centers are closed effective 3/20

Casinos are closed effective 3/17

Health care workers and first responders who need child care due to school closures are advised to call 204-945-0776 or 1-888-213-4754

New Brunswick: last updated 3/17 4 PM

8 cases, 2 new, 0 deaths

Affected areas include Zone 3

I don’t live in NB so I have no idea what this is beyond one of at least three zones

Closures/Restrictions

Schools are closed starting 3/16 for two weeks

Newfoundland & Labrador: last updated 3/17

1 case, 0 new

Sorry that’s all the info I have ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nova Scotia: last updated 3/16 at 12:58 pm

7 cases, 2 new

Affected areas include: Halifax Regional Municipality (2)

Closures/Restrictions

Gatherings over 150 people are disallowed

Casinos are closed starting 3/16; VLTs are not allowed in bars

Childcare facilities are closed starting 3/17 through 4/3

Public schools are closed until 4/6

Long-term care facilities are closed to visitors until further notice

All incoming international travelers are required to isolate for 14 days upon arrival

Hospitals are limiting visitors but limitations vary by centre

Ontario: last updated 3/17 at 10:30 AM

Telehealth Ontario: 1-866-797-0000

177 cases, 69 new, 5 recovered, 1 death

Affected public health units include: Durham (1), Halton (1), Hamilton (9, +5), Middlesex London (2), Niagara (1), Ottawa (3), Peel (4), Sudbury (1), Toronto (11), Wellington Dufferin Guelph (1), York (6, +1)

Only cases from 3/16 on are counted under here based on how the site works

No hospitalizations since 3/16

Closings/Restrictions

All schools, restaurants, libraries, childcare facilities, theaters, public venues, and recreational spaces are closed

Events over 50 people (incl. parades and worship services) are prohibited until 3/31

P.E.I.: last updated 3/17 AM

1 case, in Queens County, connected to a cruise, no new cases

Closures/restrictions

Libraries and community events are closed/canceled

Child care facilities are closed for two weeks starting 3/17

Public schools are closed until April 6

General queries: call 1-800-958-6400

Business-related queries: call 1-866-222-1751

Québec: last updated 3/17 at 1 pm

74 cases, 24 new, no deaths

Affected regions include: Capitale Nationale (3, +1), Mauricie - Centre du Québec (3, +0), Estrie (9, +6), Montréal (22, +4), Chaudière-Appalaches (4, +0), Lanaudière (6, +3), Laurentides (7, +4), Montérégie (13, +3), and undetermined/outside Québec (7, +3).

State of health emergency as of 3/13

Closures/restrictions

Indoor gatherings of >250 people prohibited, many public buildings closed until further notice

Daycare/childcare facilities and all schools closed until 3/27

Elections scheduled for 3/15 have been rescheduled to after late April

Non-essential visits to hospitals and long-term care institutions are prohibited

Saskatchewan: last updated 3/16

8 cases (+2), no deaths

Restrictions/Closures

School K-12 is suspended indefinitely effective 3/20

Gatherings >250 people are prohibited, except for distributed places (malls, universities, etc)

Public gatherings >50 people with attendees who have traveled internationally in the last 14 days are canceled/prohibited

Hospital and long term care visitors are only allowed in end of life care

Dammit Saskatchewan, why are you making me download PDFs :(

Greece: last updated 3/17 at 6:45 pm local time

Note: I do not speak Greek, and I therefore am struggling to find official data from somewhere more granular than the WHO. I’m sourcing most of this from the WHO and from Ekathimerini, but if you know where I can find better/more up to date info, please let me know. Thank you!

387 total cases, 56 new, 14 recoveries

5 deaths (1 new)

Restrictions/Closures:

All arrivals to the country are required to isolate for 14 days

Beginning 3/19 at 6 am, the country is closed to non-Greek and EU nationals unless exceptional circumstances warrant

Parliament has suspended all committee meetings and restricted each party to one MP in attendance at a time

Businesses are closed starting Wednesday 3/18, with the exception of gas stations, pharmacies, and groceries

Supermarkets are restricting the number of patrons to allow 1 person per 10 square meters

Migrant camps on various islands are on total lockdown for 2 weeks

Religion is canceled until 3/30

Ireland: last updated 3/17

292 total cases, 69 new (nice), 2 deaths (0 new)

Community transmission is confirmed

The following regional breakdown is available of the new cases: 48 eastern, 5 north/west, 3 west, and 13 southern

Restrictions/Closures

All pubs & bars are closed until March 29. House parties are discouraged.

Schools, colleges, and childcare facilities are closed until March 29

Indoor gatherings of >100 people and outdoor gatherings >500 people are prohibited

State run cultural institutions are closed until further notice

The Netherlands: last updated 3/17 at 2 PM local time

1705 confirmed cases, 43 deaths

292 new cases, 19 new deaths

314 hospitalizations

Average age of decedents is 79, with a range from 63 to 94

The report of a decedent aged 59 years was in error, this is now corrected

Provinces affected include: Drenthe (17, +1), Flevoland (24, +2), Friesland (14, +1), Gelderland (173, +38), Groningen (10, +0), Limburg (197, +48), North Brabant (634, +80), North Holland (152, +36), Overijssel (45, +9), Utrecht (173, +33), South Holland (175, +39), and Zeeland (20, +3).

There are 70 non-residents/unknown location patients

Restrictions/Closures

Schools, restaurants/bars, sports and fitness clubs, sex clubs, saunas, and childcare facilities are closed until April 6

If it’s fun it’s probably closed unless it’s your house

New Zealand: last updated 3/17 in the morning

13 cases, 5 new

12 confirmed, 1 probable

2 in Wellington contracted in the USA (sorry guys :c)

1 in Dunedin contracted in Germany

2 family members of the case in Dunedin

No hospitalizations reported

Exposures are reported on the following flights and in the following locations:

AA83 on 3/14, Los Angeles to Auckland, seats 4A and 10H

NZ419 on 3/14, Auckland to Wellington, seats 1B and 1C

Logan Park HS in Dunedin, now closed for 48h while contact tracing and thorough cleaning occurs

If you are concerned about possible exposure please call Healthline (number below)

Testing capacity: 770/day, expected to be 1500/day by the end of the week

Anyone coming into the country from anywhere except a small list of other Pacific islands is directed to self-quarantine for 14 days. This started on 3/16 at 0100 and is expected to continue for at least the next few weeks.

New Zealanders currently overseas should register with SafeTravel (https://register.safetravel.govt.nz/login)

Healthline number: 0800 611 116

Norway: last updated 3/17 at 10 pm local time

I still don’t speak Norwegian so if I screwed up lemme know

1469 cases, 3 deaths (+0)

67 hospitalized (+14), 15 critical (+4)

139 new cases during the 24h of March 16

423 cases acquired in Norway, 757 acquired outside of Norway, the rest are undetermined. Community spread is confirmed.

Locations where people became infected include Austria (513, +0), Italy (148, +0), Switzerland (20, +2), UK (15, +1), Spain (18, +4), France (8, -2), USA (7), Iran (5), Germany (5), other countries with more than 3 cases (128), and other countries with less than 3 cases (18).

Breakdown of cases by area: Agder (67, -20), Innlandet (88, +0), Møre og Romsdal (20, +0), Nordland (11, +0), Oslo (329, +37), Rogaland (150, -14), Troms og Finnmark (24, +1), Trøndelag (61, -13), Vestfold og Telemark (59, -10), Vestland (141, +10), and Viken (358, -15)

I’m not sure if the numbers dropping means that those are people recovering or people being moved from place to place for intensive care/hospitalization. If you speak Norwegian and can clarify, please shoot me a message!

Restrictions/closures

The whole country is under shelter in place type restrictions for two weeks. Hang in there, y’all.

Switzerland: last updated 3/17 at 1:45 pm local time

2650 cases, 19 deaths (+5)

Restrictions/closures:

Whole country is on lockdown as of 3/16: no entry or exit until further notice (maximum of 6 months)

schools are closed until 4/19

all events are canceled

all personal service establishments are closed

United Kingdom in general: last updated 3/17 at 9 am

Boris is hopefully starting to realise how severe this thing is, fuck Boris and his stupid cronies for not acting earlier. I’m still furious about how this has been bungled in multiple countries.

Where’s that milkshake guy who got Nigel? He could probably hit Boris from 6 ft away to both do a public service and maintain social distancing.

Given the numbers, it might be too little too late. I personally would encourage everyone in the UK to shelter in place, but I have zero authority there.

1,950 total cases (+26.3%), 407 are new today

55 total deaths as of 3/16, deaths on 3/17 have not been announced

England: last updated 3/17 at 9 am

1,557 total cases, 361 new

Affected UTLAs with at least 10 cases are as follows: Barnet (24), Bexley (14), Birmingham (20), Brent (24), Bromley (23), Buckingham (23), Cambridge (12), Camden (20), Cornwall and Isles of Scilly (10), Cumbria (22), Devon (24), Ealing (21), Enfield (10), Essex (21), Gloucestershire (11), Greenwich (19), Hackney and City of London (22), Hammersmith and Fulham (23), Hampshire (69), Haringey (17), Harrow (15), Hertfordshire (36), Hillingdon (16), Hounslow (15), Islington (11), Kensington (49), Kent (18), Lambeth (43), Lancashire (15), Leeds (11), Lewisham (18), Liverpool (11), Manchester (14), Merton (13), Newham (17), Northamptonshire (12), Nottingham (12), Nottinghamshire (13), Oldham (10), Oxfordshire (25), Slough (12), Southwark (58), Staffordshire (10), Stockport (10), Surrey (30), Sutton (10), Tameside (10), Tower Hamlets (23), Trafford (12), Walsall (13), Wandsworth (21), West Sussex (10), Westminster (58), and Wolverhampton (18)

I had to download an Excel spreadsheet situation for this, hopefully it is being updated the way I think it is. Let me know if these numbers are totally off.

Also, I am alphabetizing starting today because the hardest-hit areas will change day to day. Tomorrow will have deltas and all that good stuff.

My dad is from Cheshire, I know a fair amount about the UK, I was still fucking SHOOK by the fact that Nottingham and Nottinghamshire are two separate places.

Also “Slough” is kind of a gross name for somewhere, are y’all ok?

Deaths are not being reported by the PHS but I will do my best to split these out in the next few editions using news reports etc. It will hopefully be included by the 3/18 edition but no promises? If you have a good source for deaths by county/area, please let me know.

Scotland: last updated 3/17 at 2 pm local time

195 cases, 24 new

2 deaths, 1 new

Affected health boards are as follows: Ayrshire and Arran (6, -1), Borders (7, +0), Dumfries and Galloway (1, +0), Fife (7, +0), Forth Valley (12, +2), Grampian (22, +10), Greater Glasgow and Clyde (49, +5), Highland (5, +3), Lanarkshire (21, +1), Lothian (30, +1), Shetland (15, +0), and Tayside (20, +3)

Maybe this is all of them? Time will tell.

If anyone knows whether negative numbers are patients dying, being moved, or recovering, please let me know.

Wales: last updated 3/17 at 4:30 pm

136 cases, 12 new

2 deaths, 1 new

Areas reporting deaths are: Swansea (1)

Affected areas include: Blaenau Gwent County (8, +1), Bridgend County (3, +2), Caerphilly County (15, +1), Carmarthenshire County (7, +0), Ceredigion County (1, +0), City & County of Swansea (22, -1), City of Cardiff (14, +1), Conwy County (1, +0), Flintshire County (1, +0), Isle of Anglesey (2, +0), Monmouthshire County (8, +0), Neath Port Talbot (11, +0), Newport City (24, +3), Pembrokeshire (2, +0), Powys County (7, +2), Rhondda Cynon Taf County (2, +0), Torfaen County (3, +1) Vale of Glamorgan County (1, +0), and Wrexham County (2, +0).

Note that some of these numbers have changed more than you might see from looking at yesterday’s report; this is because residential locations of patients are being confirmed. 0 cases remain unlocalized and 2 are residents outside of Wales.

Northern Ireland: last updated 3/17 at 2 pm

62 cases, 10 new

Health dept is not providing more detail than this at this time as far as I can tell

If you know more or know where I can find more info, please let me know!

US in general: updated 3/17 at 4 pm

4,226 total cases, 739 new

75 deaths, 8 new (1.75% mortality rate)

54 jurisdictions are reporting cases: 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, and US Virgin Islands

Shelter in place orders and curfews are coming into effect in lots of places

Alabama: updated 3/17 at 3:30 pm

39 cases, 11 new

0 deaths

Affected counties include: Baldwin (1, +0), Elmore (2, +1), Lee (3, +2), Jefferson (21, +4), Limestone (1, +0), Montgomery (2, +1), Shelby (4, +1), and Tuscaloosa (3, +0).

Newly affected counties include: Madison (1) and St. Clair (1)

State hotline: 1-888-264-2256

Arkansas: updated 3/17

22 cases, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Cleburne, Cleveland, Desha, Garland, Jefferson, Lincoln, Pulaski, and Saline

Exact numbers by county are not available from the state department of health

Y’all have a county called YELL, that’s the best county name I’ve seen yet

Graphic design is their passion

State hotline: 1-800-803-7847

Arizona: updated 3/17 at 11:36 AM

20 cases, 2 new, no deaths

Affected counties include: Graham (1, +0), Maricopa (9, +1), Pima (4, +0), and Pinal (5, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Navajo (1)

Community spread is confirmed in: Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal counties

Closures/Restrictions:

“Strong recommendation” that restaurants in areas of community spread close their dine-in services

Recommendation to cancel/postpone gatherings >10 people

Schools are closed through 3/27

State hotline (rolled into poison control): 844-542-8201

California: last updated 3/16 at 6 pm

The Governor has recommended the following:

Those with chronic health conditions and those over 65 should shelter in place.

Gatherings over 250 people should be canceled.

Drinking establishments should be closed but restaurants can operate at 50% capacity.

Hospitals and long term care facilities should prohibit visitors except for end of life situation

Total cases not including the ones at Miramar (discussed below): 472, with 11 total deaths

Deaths have occurred in the following counties: Los Angeles (1, +1), Placer (1, +0), Riverside (3, +3), Sacramento (2, +0), San Mateo (1, +0), Santa Clara (4, +2)

The following counties report recoveries: Humboldt (1), San Benito (2)

The following counties report numbers of hospitalizations: Los Angeles (2), San Diego (9, +1), Santa Clara (56, +4), Tulare (1, +0)

Affected counties include: Alameda (27, +9), Amador (1, +0), Calaveras (2, +0), Contra Costa (39, +5), Fresno (2, +0), Humboldt (1, +0), Imperial (2, +0), Los Angeles (144, +50), Madera (1, +0), Marin (9, +0), Nevada (1, +0), Orange (29, +12), Placer (8, +0), Riverside (15, +0), Sacramento (40, +7) San Benito (3, +0), San Bernardino (2, +1), San Diego (51, +18), San Francisco (43, +3), San Joaquin (13, +5), San Luis Obispo (3, +0), San Mateo (64, +23), Santa Barbara (2, +1), Santa Clara (155, +17), Santa Cruz (13, +4), Shasta (1, +0), Solano (8, -1), Sonoma (6, +1), Stanislaus (3, +0), Tulare (3, +1), Ventura (10, +5), and Yolo (4, +2)

Note regarding San Diego: The four federally quarantined people are not included in the county statistics. Cases of non-residents diagnosed in San Diego are included.

Unaffected counties include: Alpine, Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Glenn, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Lake, Lassen, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Modoc, Mono, Napa, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne, Yuba

Counties with confirmed community transmission include: Los Angeles, Marin, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Sonoma, and Yolo

Newly affected counties include: Monterey (2)

Closures/Restrictions by County

Alameda: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Alpine: County activities are canceled, schools closed, no non-essential services

Contra Costa: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Del Norte: Schools closed through 4/20

El Dorado: Schools closed through 3/20

Los Angeles: gatherings >50 people prohibited

Marin: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Mendocino: Modified schooling starting 3/17, gatherings >50 prohibited

Mono: Schools closed through 3/30, Alterra Mountain closed, libraries closed through 3/31

Monterey: Shelter in Place beginning 3/18 until 4/8

Napa: gatherings >50 people prohibited

Nevada: Schools are closed until 4/13, libraries closed until 4/12

Orange: Shelter in Place until 3/31

Riverside: Schools & daycares are closed, gatherings >10 people prohibited

Sacramento: Shelter in Place until further notice

San Benito: Shelter in Place until 4/7

San Bernardino: County operated attractions are closed

San Diego: gatherings >50 people prohibited, restaurants are carry-out and drive through only, all schools are closed, and entertainment establishments are closed

San Francisco: Shelter in Place until 4/7

San Luis Obispo: Alcohol sales on site are banned through 3/18

San Mateo: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Santa Barbara: Dining is takeout/drive through only

Santa Clara: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Santa Cruz: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Siskiyou: gatherings >50 prohibited, hospital/LTAC visitors prohibited

Stanislaus: Gatherings of >1000 people are prohibited indoor and outdoor from 3/16 to 3/31

Tuolumne: Schools are closed from 3/16 to 3/30

Ventura: All schools and public libraries are closed starting 3/16 until further notice

Yolo: Many schools are closed at the local level, non-essential gatherings canceled through 3/31

School closures listed here: https://www.yolocounty.org/health-human-services/adults/communicable-disease-investigation-and-control/novel-coronavirus-2019;

Counties with no closures/restrictions beyond those mandated by the state: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Fresno, Glenn, Humboldt, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Lake, Lassen, Madera, Merced, Modoc, Placer, Plumas, San Joaquin, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tulare, and Yuba

Drive through testing is available in Marin County

Colorado - last updated 3/16 at 4:00 pm

183 cases (+52)

2 deaths (+1)

20 hospitalizations

Counties reporting deaths include: El Paso (1) and Larimer (1)

Affected counties include: Adams (8, +2), Arapahoe (18, +3),Boulder (8, +5), Clear Creek (2, +1), Denver (38, +14), Douglas (10, +2), Eagle (34, +12), El Paso (6, +2), Gunnison (11, +3), Jefferson (17, +5), Larimer (1, +0), Mesa (1, +0), Pitkin (11, +9), Pueblo (1, +0), Summit (3, +2), and Weld (5, +0)

4 cases are designated “unknown”

Out of state visitors are now included in the tally of the county where they were diagnosed/are being treated

Confirmed community spread

Newly affected counties include: Garfield (2), Routt (2)

Drive through testing is available in: Denver and Lowry

Residents of Gunnison, Eagle, Summit, Pitkin are recommended to minimize social contact due to potential exposures

Anyone who visited the Colorado Springs Bridge center in late Feb-early Mar may have been exposed, call the DPH for more information

Closures/restrictions

Public places are closed, restaurants are takeout only until 4/16

Gambling is canceled

Schools are iffy, check your local district news

Colorado’s new website looks way nicer but takes 5ever to load

Dark colorado give me the forbidden numbers

Connecticut - last update 3/17 at 4:30 pm

68 cases, 27 new

The following counties are affected: Fairfield (48, +19), Hartford (7, +3), Litchfield (5, +1), New Haven (8, +4)

This continues to support my conjecture that Connecticut only has 4 counties

Restrictions/Closures

No gatherings >50 people until further notice

Nursing home visits restricted

Schools closed through 3/30

Restaurants are carryout/drive through only through 4/30

Fitness/recreation centers and movie theaters closed through 4/30

Gambling is canceled until the end of April

Delaware: last update 3/17 at 2:55 pm

16 cases (+8), 0 deaths

Affected counties include: New Castle (15, +7) and Sussex (1).

Update: you apparently have three counties

Restrictions/closures:

Events over >100 people are encouraged to cancel/reschedule

Schools closed through 3/27

District of Columbia: last update 3/17 at 7 pm

31 cases (+14), no deaths

There’s no counties in DC, you can’t trick me

Restrictions/Closures

Food service/drinking establishments are restricted to <250 people, <6 people/table, no standing or bar seating, and tables separated by 6 feet

Nightclubs etc are closed

Most government stuff is telework so if you want to report a Ponzi scheme you have to email them or call them

Florida - last updated 3/17 at 6:03 PM

216 (+61) cases and 7 deaths (+3)

Community transmission remains unconfirmed but highly likely

Affected counties include: Alachua (6, +4), Broward (55, +16), Charlotte (1, +0), Citrus (2, +1), Clay (4, +1), Collier (7, +1), Duval (10, +5), Escambia (1, +0), Hillsborough (9, +4), Lake (1, +0), Lee (7, +3), Manatee (7, +2), Miami-Dade (43, +20), Nassau (1, +0) Okaloosa (2, +1), Orange (6, +3), Osceola (7, +3), Palm Beach (13, +5), Pasco (2, +0), Pinellas (4, +0), Santa Rosa (1, +0), Sarasota (4, +1) Seminole (4, +0), St. Johns (3, +1) Volusia (9, +2)

Newly affected counties include: Brevard (1) and Polk (1)

State hotline/call center: 1 (866) 779-6121

Georgia: last updated 3/17 at 11:34 AM

146 cases (+25),1 death (+0)

Affected counties include: Bartow (10, +1), Charlton (1, +0), Cherokee (7, +0), Clayton (4, -1), Clarke (3, +0), Cobb (25, +3), Coweta (3, +1), Dekalb (15, +5), Dougherty (6, +0), Fayette (5, +0), Floyd (6, +2), Forsyth (1, +0), Fulton (33, +6), Gordon (2, +0), Gwinnett (7, +2), Hall (1, +0), Henry (2, +0), Lowndes (4, +1), Lee (2, +0), Newton (1, +0), Paulding (1, +0), Polk (1, +0), Troup (2, +1)

Newly affected counties include: Barrow (1), Columbia (1), Rockdale (1), and Richmond (1).

Closures/Restrictions

USG universities are closed through 3/29 and will be online after that for the semester

Athens-Clarke County has a curfew in place from 5pm to 9 am probably. There’s a lot of uncertainty as I have heard. I will try to clarify this in tomorrow's edition provided the government clarifies things.

Asks from Georgia Anon can provide more details

Illinois: last updated 3/17

160 confirmed cases (+55), 1 death (+1)

Confirmed community spread

Affected counties include Champaign (1), Clinton (2), Cook (107), Cumberland (1), DuPage (26), Kane (3), Lake (7), McHenry (2), Peoria (1), Sangamon (3), St. Clair (2), Whiteside (1), Will (2), Winnebago (1), and Woodford (1)

ILDPH started publishing numbers for each county, YAY.

Med students have been infected (not at my school, but still yikes)

Deaths are reported in the following counties: Cook (1)

Closings/Restrictions

Bars and restaurants are closed (except for carryout and drive through) until 3/30

All gatherings >50 people prohibited

Gyms/fitness centers/clubs/theaters are closed

DMV is closed! I personally hate the IL DMV so this isn’t like, sad news in particular…..

Community colleges and public schools are closed - like in other places I will attempt to include county-by-county news soon.

The IL governor dunked on Trump for a really long time during his press conference tonight and it was totally fucking awesome.

Indiana: last updated 3/17 at 10 AM

30 cases, 2 deaths

Affected counties include: Adams (1), Bartholomew (1), Boone (1), Floyd (1), Franklin (2), Hamilton (1), Hendricks (3), Howard (2), Johnson (3), Lake (2), La Porte (1), Marion (9), Noble (1), St. Joseph (1), and Wells (1)

Deaths are being reported in the following counties: Johnson (1) and Marion (1)

Indiana, good job on your website. Thanks for making this easy on me.

Iowa: last updated 3/17

29 cases (+7)

Affected counties include: Allamakee (2, +0), Carroll (1, +0), Dallas (3, +2), Harrison (1, +0), Johnson (18, +3), Polk (1, +0), and Pottawattamie (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Adair (1) and Black Hawk (1)

Community spread confirmed

Closures/restrictions

Schools closed for 4 weeks starting 3/16

Public places closed, restaurants carryout only until further notice

Kansas: last updated 3/17

16 confirmed cases (+5), 1 death

Affected counties include: Butler (1, +0), Franklin (1, +0), Johnson (10, +2), and Wyandotte (3, +2)

Newly affected counties include: Douglas (1)

Deaths are being reported in the following counties: Wyandotte (1)

Closures/Restrictions

Schools closed through 3/23

Gatherings >50 people prohibited

Public places must maintain a 6ft bubble

Phone line: 1-866-534-3463

Kentucky: last updated 3/17 at 4 pm local time

27 cases (+5), 1 death (+0)

Counties reporting deaths: Bourbon (1)

Counties reporting recoveries: Harrison (1)

Affected counties include: Bourbon (1, +0), Clark (1, +0), Fayette (6, +1), Harrison (6, +0), Jefferson (9, +3), Montgomery (1, +0), and Nelson (1, +0).

Newly affected counties include: Lyon (1)

Closures/Restrictions

Restaurants and bars closed to in-person service

State Capitol closed to nonessential personnel

Entertainment/nonessential services are closed

Schools are closed statewide

Phone line: (800) 722-5725 (rolled in with poison control)

Louisiana: last updated 5:30 pm 3/17

196 cases reported, 60 new

4 deaths, 1 new

Parishes affected: Ascension (1, +0), Bossier (1, +0), Caddo (4, +1), Jefferson (35, +14), Lafourche (2, +0), Orleans (136, +42), St. Bernard (2, +0), St. Charles (3, +0), St. John the Baptist (1, +0), St. Tammany (6, +0), and Terrebonne (3, +1)

New parishes affected: East Baton Rouge (1) and Washington (1)

Parishes reporting deaths: Orleans (4, +1)

Maryland: last updated 3/17 at 10 am

57 cases (+20), 0 deaths

Counties affected: Anne Arundel (3, +2), Baltimore (6, +2), Baltimore City (1, +0), Carroll (1, +0), Charles (1, +0), Harford (2, +0), Howard (3, +2), Montgomery (24, +9), Prince George’s (14, +4), Talbot (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Frederick (1)

Community spread confirmed

Exposure risk advisory for Lorien Elkridge

Closures/restrictions

Casinos, racetracks and other gambling situations are closed

Gatherings >250 people prohibited

All schools closed through 3/27

Senior centers closed until further notice

Elections postponed - vote by mail implemented for urgent elections

Massachusetts: last updated 3/17 at 4 pm

218 cases (+21)

Affected counties include: Barnstable (2, +1), Berkshire (14, +3), Bristol (5, +3), Essex (8, +0), Hampden (1, +0), Middlesex (89, +6), Norfolk (43, +7), Plymouth (5, +2) Suffolk (42, +6), and Worcester (8, +2)

1 case of undetermined location

21 hospitalizations (+7)

Michigan: last updated 3/17 at 2 pm

54 cases (+21), 25 hospitalizations, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Bay (1, +0), Charlevoix (1, +0), Ingham (2, +1), Kent (5, +0), Macomb (8, +2), Monroe (1, +0), Montcalm (1, +0), Oakland (16, +2), St. Clair (2, +0), Washtenaw (7, +0), and Wayne (17, +3)

Wayne County includes Detroit (8 cases, +2)

Newly affected counties include: Jackson (1), Leelanau (1), Otsego (1), and Ottawa (1)

Two employees of the corrections department have tested positive

Jackson County Probation Office and Detroit Detention Center have both been exposed, contact the health department if you have been exposed

Closures/Restrictions

Bars and restaurants are carryout/drive through only

Public spaces (casinos, theaters, etc) closed

Public offices open by appt only

Minnesota: last updated 3/17 at 12:00

60 cases (+6)

Affected counties include: Anoka (3-5), Benton (1-2), Blue Earth (1-2), Carver (1-2), Dakota (6-20), Hennepin (20+), Olmstead (3-5), Ramsey (6-20), Renville (1-2), Stearns (3-5), Waseca (1-2), Washington (1-2), and Wright (1-2)

Still working with just ranges due to everything popping off today. I apologise for the imprecise data.

Drive through testing available in Olivia

Missouri

13 cases, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Boone (1), Cass (2), Cole (1), Greene (4), Henry (1), Jackson (1), St. Louis City (1), St. Louis County (4)

Hotline: 877-435-8411

Montana: last updated 3/16 at 7:22 pm

8 cases (+2)

Affected counties not being reported at this time, and due to everything being all the time all the time I haven’t sorted out where the cases are. Please forgive me and watch this space, I’ll try to get to it asap.

Closures/Restrictions

Public schools closed until 3/30

Many counties have closed libraries

State of Emergency

Nebraska: last updated 3/17

Community transmission confirmed: many locations in Douglas County are potential places where transmission has occurred; if you live or have traveled to Douglas County (Omaha), please check the Douglas County COVID-19 monitoring site at: https://www.douglascountyhealth.com/latest-news.

There were also two exposures in Knox County on March 5, at basketball games at Lincoln Southwest HS and North Star HS.

21 cases (+2), no deaths

Affected counties include: Cass (1), Douglas (18, +3) and Knox (1)

Nebraska, please update your shit. (Or possibly I can’t find the updated shit)

Hotline (bling): (402) 552-6645

New Hampshire: last updated 3/17 at 9 AM

26 cases, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Carroll (1), Grafton (7), Hillsborough (4), and Rockingham (14)

Nashua (1) is included in Hillsborough county totals

Exposure reported at the Manchester DMV on 3/2, 3/3, 3/4, 3/5, and 3/10.

My desire to avoid the DMV at all costs continues to be vindicated

Your governor has a really good last name, btw

He announced a state of emergency

Sununununununu

New Jersey : last updated 3/16 at 2 pm

267 cases (+89), 2 deaths (+1)

Affected counties include: Bergen (84, +23), Burlington (5, +2), Camden (3, +0), Essex (32, +12), Hudson (24, +5), Hunterdon (4, +3), Mercer (6, +5), Middlesex (22, +5), Monmouth (22, +8), Morris (7, +2), Ocean (3, +0), Passaic (10, +2), Somerset (7, +2), and Union (15, +7)

17 cases are unassigned to a county

Closures/Restrictions:

No gatherings >50 people

Restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, and other public spaces are closed

Curfew in effect from 8 pm to 5 am, anyone out without a valid reason is committing a misdemeanor and is also a total dick, don’t expose people

New York: last updated 3/17 at 8 PM

1,374 cases (+424), 10 deaths

Affected counties include: Albany (23, +11), Allegany (2, +0), Broome (1, +0), Delaware (1, +0), Dutchess (16, +6), Erie (7, +1), Greene (2, +0), Herkimer (1, +0), Monroe (10, +0), Montgomery (1, +0), Nassau (131, +22), Onondaga (2, +1), Ontario (1, +0), Orange (15, +4), Putnam (2, +0), Rockland (22, +6), Saratoga (9, +4), Schenectady (5, +1), Suffolk (84, +21, Tioga (1, +0), Tompkins (2, +1), Ulster (8, +1), Westchester (380, +160)

NYC has 644 cases (+351) as of 3/17 at 2:30 pm

Areas/counties reporting deaths are: NYC (7), Rockland (1)

I can’t find the two others, if you have information leading to the whereabouts of these last two deaths in New York State please let me know. There is no reward other than my gratitude.

Newly affected counties include: Clinton (1), Rensselaer (1), Sullivan (1), and Wyoming (1)

Why do so many states name their counties after OTHER STATES

Drive through testing in New Rochelle, Long Island, Staten Island, and Rockland County

Closures/Restrictions

Bars, restaurants, entertainment venues closed

No gatherings >50 people

Public schools closed until 4/1

Village elections delayed until 4/28

New legal protections and stuff from the state came down today

Job protection and pay are guaranteed for those quarantined

Permanent comprehensive sick leave policy

If you are a retired doctor or nurse, New York needs you. Like, real bad. Contact the state or local health dept to see how you can help.

North Carolina: last updated 3/17 at 8:57 AM

40 cases (+7), 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Brunswick (1, +0), Cabarrus (1, +0), Chatham (1, +0), Craven (1, +0), Durham (1, +0), Forsyth (2, +0), Harnett (3, +1), Johnston (2, +0), Mecklenburg (7, +3), Onslow (1, +0), Wake (15, +1), Watauga (1, +0), Wayne (1, +0), and Wilson (1, +0).

Newly affected counties include: Iredell (1) and Sampson (1)

Advisory for an exposure at Raleigh convention center on March 8

Please call Wake County if you were there, they are tracking exposures

Closures/Restrictions

Schools are closed statewide until 3/30

Events >100 people canceled

Restaurants and bars are closed

Ohio: last updated 3/17 at 2 pm

67 confirmed cases (+17)

17 hospitalizations (+3)

Affected counties include: Belmont (2, +0), Butler (6, +0), Cuyahoga (31, +7), Franklin (4, +1), Geauga (1, +0), Lorain (4, +1), Lucas (1, +0), Medina (3, +1), Stark (3, +0), Summit (4, +2), Trumbull (2, +0), Tuscarawas (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Coshocton (2), Lake (1), and Mahoning (1)

Closures/Restrictions

Bars/restaurants are closed

Gatherings >50 people canceled

Oregon: last updated 3/17 at 9 AM

65 cases (+26), 1 death (+0)

Counties reporting deaths: Multnomah (1)

13 hospitalized at time of positive test

The following counties are affected: Clackamas (6, +5), Deschutes (6, +2), Douglas (1, +0), Jackson (2, +0), Klamath (1, +0), Linn (15, +5), Marion (4, +2), Multnomah (3, +2), Polk (1, +0), Umatilla (2, +0), Washington (21, +8), and Yamhill (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Benton (2)

Pennsylvania: last updated 3/17 at 5 pm

GRITTY HAS SPOKEN: https://twitter.com/GrittyNHL/status/1239962668208779266

96 total cases (+20)

Counties affected include: Allegheny (7, +2) Bucks (8, +3), Chester (4, +2), Cumberland (10, +5), Delaware (9, +2), Lehigh (1, +0), Luzerne (1, +0), Monroe (8, +0), Montgomery (32, +2), Northampton (1, +0), Philadelphia (10, +2), Pike (1, +0), Washington (2, +1), Wayne (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Beaver (1)

Closures/restrictions:

Restaurants and bars are closed in the following counties until 3/30: Allegheny, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery

Rhode Island: last updated 3/16

21 confirmed cases (+1), no deaths

Chanston High School West had an exposure; 1700 people are currently quarantined after this exposure

I will attempt to sort out county level data soon, since apparently y’all have counties

If anyone knows where to find more frequently updated information than that from RIDOH, please let me know. I apologise for this data being out of date.

South Carolina: last updated 3/17 at 4:35 pm

47 cases (+13), 1 death (+1)

Affected counties include: Anderson (2), Beaufort (4), Calhoun (1), Charleston (3), Fairfield (1), Greenville (2), Horry (4), Kershaw (22), Lancaster (2), Lexington (3), Richland (1), Spartanburg (1), and York (1)

Deaths are reported in the following counties: Lexington (1)

South Dakota: last updated 3/17

11 confirmed cases (+1), 1 death (+1)

Affected counties include: Beadle (1, +0), Bon Homme (1, +0), Charles Mix (1, +0), Davison (1, +0), McCook (1, +0), Minnehaha (5, +1), and Pennington (1, +0)

Closures/Restrictions:

Schools closed week of 3/16

Tennessee: last updated 3/17 at 2 pm

73 (+21) cases, no deaths

Affected counties include: Campbell (1, +0), Davidson (42, +17), Hamilton (1, +0), Jefferson (1, +0), Knox (2, +1), Rutherford (1, +0), Sevier (1, +0), Shelby (2, +0), Sullivan (1, +0), and Williamson (21, +3)

Texas: last updated 3/17 at 12 PM

64 (+7) total cases, 1 death (+1)

Highly likely that there has been community transmission, unconfirmed currently

Affected counties include: Bell (1, +0), Bexar (3, +0), Brazoria (2, +0), Collin (6, +0), Dallas (9, +1), El Paso (3, +2), Fort Bend (9, +0), Galveston (1, +0), Gregg (1, +0), Harris (10, +0), Hays (1, +0), Lavaca (1, +0), Matagorda (1, +0), Montgomery (3, +0), Smith (3, -1), Tarrant (3, +0), and Travis (3, +1)

Newly affected counties include: Denton (1) and Webb (1)

Hail Satan for the best ever death metal band out of denton

(this is what the kids call a Reference)

2 cases are pending county assignment

Utah: last updated 3/17 at 12:45 pm

51 cases (+22)

Affected health districts include: Davis County (4, +0), Salt Lake County (22, +4), Southwest Utah (1, +0), Summit County (15, +4), Tooele (1, +0), Utah County (1, +0), Wasatch County (2, +1), and Weber-Morgan (4, +2)

Newly affected districts include: Bear River (1)

I wonder what Bear River has in its rivers

Definitely not bears

Community spread confirmed in the following counties: Summit and Utah

Exposure at Wasatch High School identified

Schools, Mormonism, skiing, and restaurants are canceled until further notice

The zoo and a bunch of museums are canceled too :(

Vermont: last updated 3/17 at 1 PM

17 cases total (+5)

Affected counties include: Bennington (3), Chittenden (4), Orange (1), Springfield (1), Washington (1), and Windsor (3)

County by county data was not updated on 3/17

Hospitalizations are reported in the following counties: Bennington (3), Chittenden (1), Springfield (1), Washington (1), Windsor (1)

Closures/restrictions:

No gatherings >50 people or >50% capacity, whichever is lower

Schools are closed starting 3/18

Bars/restaurants are closed until 4/6

Virginia: last updated 3/17

67 cases (+16)

Affected counties/cities include: Alexandria City (2, +0), Arlington (13, +4), Chesterfield (4, +2), Fairfax (12, +2), Hanover (1, +0), Harrisonburg City (1, +0), James City (12, +2), Loudoun (5, +0), Prince Edward (1, +0), Prince William (4, +1), Spotsylvania (1, +0), Stafford (1, +0), Virginia Beach City (4, +0), and York (1, +0)

Newly affected areas include: Charlottesville City (1), Goochland (1), Henrico (2), Williamsburg City (1)

Are we being pranked by the Commonwealth naming something Goochland? Studies are inconclusive

Washington State: Last updated 3/17 at 3:15

1012 total cases (+108), 52 deaths (+4)

Current mortality rate: 5.1%

Deaths have occurred in the following counties: Clark (2, +2), Grant (1, +0), King (43, +0), and Snohomish (6, +2).

Affected counties include: Clark (4, +0), Columbia (1, +0), Grant (7, +4), Grays Harbor (1, +0), Island (14, +7), Jefferson (3, +0), King (569, +81), Kitsap (7, +0), Kittitas (3, +0), Lewis (1, +0), ,Lincoln (1, +0), Pierce (45, +7), Skagit (9, +2), Snohomish (254, +54), Spokane (4, +1), Thurston (5, +1), Whatcom (6, +3), and Yakima (5, +1).

70 cases are currently unassigned to a county

Newly affected counties include: Chelan (2) and Klickitat (1)

Closures/restrictions: widespread, will have county-by-county info soon.

Hotline: 1-800-525-0127

Wisconsin: last updated 3/17 at 2 PM

72 total cases (+25), 0 deaths

Recovery is being reported by the following counties: Dane (1)

This is updated every Friday, next update expected 3/20

Affected counties include: Dane (19, +9), Fond du Lac (11, +0), Milwaukee (24, +11), Outagamie (1, +0), Pierce (1, +0), Racine (1, +0), Sheboygan (3, +0), Waukesha (4, +1), Winnebago (3, +0), and Wood (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Kenosha (4)

Community spread is confirmed in the following counties: Dane, Kenosha, and Milwaukee

Closures/restrictions

Schools closed starting 3/18 for minimum of two weeks

No gatherings >10 people until further notice

Wyoming: last updated 3/17 AM

11 cases (+1)

Affected counties include: Fremont, Laramie, and Sheridan

Today’s Hot Tips

If you’re a parent, you’ve likely been charged with homeschooling your kids, no small feat not in the middle of a pandemic. A kind reader (@halcyonhowl) hooked me up with a collection of resources that I’m excited to share with you all!

Find it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rcV0cLYYj7TftfyTYU-3Z1bvI90tOqAz6yR7XenzYHA/edit?usp=sharing

I’m not a teacher by any means but I checked out some of these resources and they seem super super cool.

My personal favorite resource is SciShow, and they make a great podcast for curious adults called SciShow Tangents! Check it out here: www.youtube.com/scishow

Hand Washing Song of the Day

If you hate singing happy birthday while you wash your hands (I certainly do) try Bohemian Rhapsody!

Sing from the beginning through “as if nothing really matters” as dramatically as possible to follow CDC handwashing guidelines! Use soap and water for maximum efficacy. And then finish the song, you monster.

If you’re this talented, you can sing it on a rubber chicken. And then sanitize the chicken with bleach. And wash your hands again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDrdZM1iGrc

Good News, Everyone!

The Shedd Aquarium penguin adventures continue!

Check it out here: https://twitter.com/shedd_aquarium/status/1239661654629023747?s=21

People in Italy are singing from the balconies, whereas New Yorkers are yelling “GO THE FUCK HOME” to people who are out. Different ways of coping, I suppose…

Italy’s lockdown is working - transmission has slowed dramatically over the past few days!

Vaccine testing continues in the United States, where testing kits are finally becoming more widely available.

China has sent the United States a massive aid package with tests and personal protective equipment (PPE) since many hospitals in the States are completely out of materials.

Chill Cat Corner

This is a thread of cat cams for people in quarantine, it’s totally amazing and will provide you with so much fucking serotonin.

https://twitter.com/margiehousley/status/1239545102831366144?s=20

This makes me want to post pictures of my cats all the time though

About this newsletter

I’m Emily, I’m a 4th year med student w/ a degree in molecular biology. I started this because I’m an infectious disease and epidemiology nerd and also all my friends have questions & anxiety. Hi internet!

The archive/proper website is located at coronaextranewsletter.wordpress.com.

All this info is sourced from regional & national public health organizations, plus the WHO. It’s as up to date as humanly possible. I’ve been beaming information about this outbreak directly into my brain 24/7 but I still miss stuff. Please let me know if I miss something!

Most public health departments stop updating their information around 4-5 PM local time on weekdays. That means that the earliest this will come out is around 6 PM Pacific time on weekdays going forward. On weekends things update more sporadically and earlier, so who knows what I’ll do then, but I’ll do my best.

The excellent title is courtesy of @marywhal and the Wordpress site is courtesy of @molly0xFFF and @goblintinkerer, thank you all!

For More Information

JHU COVID-19 data center: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

List of peer-reviewed publications: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/publications.html

WHO FAQ: https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses

CDC cases in the US: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html, this also has links to each state’s health dept

#corona extra #coronavirus #covid19 #covid corner #sars-cov-2 #public health #quarantine

80 notes · View notes

didanawisgi · 3 years

Link

U.S. still hasn't ruled out lab accident origin for Covid because China hasn't been transparent. U.S. officials haven't shown any evidence pointing to a lab escape, and scientists call the scenario unlikely. The U.S. wants China to share information.

By Ken Dilanian, Carol E. Lee and Keir Simmons

“WASHINGTON — Despite a finding by the World Health Organization that the Covid-19 outbreak in China most likely first infected humans through an animal host, the United States is still not ruling out the possibility of a laboratory accident, as officials continue to sort through intelligence about the Chinese government’s initial handling of the outbreak, American and Western officials told NBC News.

A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told NBC News the agency is standing by a public statement it issued in April, which said that American intelligence agencies "will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."

U.S. officials have not made public any evidence pointing to a lab accident, and most scientists who have studied the matter said that such a scenario is unlikely. But Biden administration officials have faulted China in recent days for what they have termed a lack of transparency around the origins of the virus. And they have criticized how the WHO last week presented the initial findings of a visit to Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have emerged.

WHO investigators, after visiting three labs in Wuhan, said last week they found no signs that a lab accident could have caused the outbreak. One WHO researcher told reporters at a news conference the organization was halting any further inquiry into that theory.

But the director general of the WHO appeared to walk back that definitive statement a few days later, saying that "all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and study."

A Western intelligence official who has seen classified material told NBC News the U.S. has substantial intelligence that has not been made public about actions the Chinese government took — related to the Wuhan lab and other issues — that were designed to obscure the origins of Covid-19 and conceal its early impact. A former U.S. official who has also seen the intelligence agreed that it was significant, if inconclusive.

Both sources said the material, which they did not detail, did not add up to evidence that a lab accident occurred. But they said it raised enough circumstantial questions that analysts have been unable to rule out the lab scenario. U.S. intelligence officials declined to comment.

The intelligence, which includes documents, paints a picture of a Chinese government initially trying to hide the burgeoning pandemic from the outside world.

"There is no doubt that, especially when Covid-19 first hit but even today, China is falling far short of the mark when it comes to providing the information necessary to the international community," Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told NBC's Andrea Mitchell this month. "All of the — that lack of transparency, that lack of being forthcoming, is a profound problem and it's one that continues."

The lab theory

The so-called lab theory refers to a hypothesis that the Covid outbreak emerged in Wuhan as a result of an accidental release from one of the labs working with coronaviruses in that city — perhaps from an improper disposal of lab waste or an employee who got infected at work and then infected others.

U.S. intelligence agencies and scientists say they have ruled out that Covid-19 was human-made or intentionally released. The lab theory hypothesizes an accidental release of a virus found in nature by researchers and brought in for study.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Scientists say that scenario is unlikely on its face, because animal-to-human transmission of viruses are common, while lab accidents are relatively rare. The key scientists studying viruses in Wuhan say they were not studying the Covid-19 virus, which had not been previously documented in nature before the outbreak.

Intelligence officials counter that one key lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, removed from public view a database of 22,000 virus samples for security reasons, and has not allowed a detailed look at the lab's notes or other records.

They say it's suspicious that the virus outbreak arose in Wuhan, a hub of virus research in China, while the bats that commonly carry coronaviruses are typically found in caves a thousand miles from that city.

They note that scientists also have not found a host animal that could have transferred the virus to humans, after a year of looking.

WHO researchers acknowledged last week that the "wet" or live-animal market in Wuhan, which was originally thought to be a likely source of the outbreak, may not be the whole story, since early cases have been identified in people who had no connection to the market.

The WHO team included international and Chinese scientists. They say their summary report will be published within weeks.

One member of the team, Australian microbiologist and infectious diseases expert Dominic Dwyer, told NBC News that the scientists didn't get all the data they sought from the Chinese government, and that team members disagreed about various aspects of what they saw and heard.

"There were tense moments and disagreements and, you know, arguments about what things meant and so on, between both sides," Dwyer said. "And some of that is just because the data isn't strong enough to give a single, a great conclusion."

Dwyer says the team was given "aggregated data," as opposed to detailed, line-by-line case information, for the 174 known Covid cases from Wuhan in December.

Case information would enable researchers, he said, to "go along to a person who had this disease and say, OK, you know, how old are you? You know, what sort of work do you do? Who's in your family? What do you do for your hobbies? You know, do you go to the market? What sort of market do you go to, you know, what's your general health, like, all of those sorts of things to try and understand where a person had been, and where they could have been exposed to something."

Several members of the WHO team told NBC News they were provided with just 13 DNA sequences from the 174 cases. Of those, five had small genomic differences, suggesting a wider pool of virus, Dwyer said, though the sample was so small it was hard to draw conclusions.

"Actual infections is probably much higher than the 174," Dwyer said.

WHO investigators tasked Chinese researchers with surveying the wider community, he added.

According to Dwyer, the Chinese researchers said they examined the cases of 76,000 people presenting with fever or pneumonia from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2019, and found 92 people with Covid-like symptoms. Of these, they tested 67 people, Dwyer said, and found no Covid-19 antibodies.

Those tests were carried out in January 2021, more than a year after the potential exposure. Scientists don't yet know how long Covid-19 antibodies remain in the body after infection.

Pompeo and the lab theory

The Trump administration, and in particular, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, repeatedly said there was significant evidence in support of the lab theory.

On Jan. 15, five days before the end of the Trump administration, the State Department published a "fact sheet" making a series of allegations about the Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory.

Among them: "The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses. This raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli's public claim that there was 'zero infection' among the WIV's staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses."

The fact sheet added, "Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China's military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017."

One former official familiar with the intelligence on which Pompeo's statement is based said it was less than rock solid, and that some officials were surprised that the secretary aired it publicly. Pompeo did not respond to requests for comment made through his spokesman.

Dwyer told NBC News the WHO team inquired about the testing of researchers at the WIV lab and was told that there were standard tests of all staff in April 2019 and then again in 2020. They were told those tests were negative. But it's not clear when the 2020 tests were carried out, again raising questions about whether Coronavirus would be detected. The head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology Dr. Shi wrote on July 31, nine months after October 2019, that she "recently" tested all WIV employees and they were negative.

"I think the jury's still out," State Department spokesman Ned Price said last week about the origins of Covid-19. "Clearly the Chinese, at least heretofore, have not offered the requisite transparency that we need."”

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thechasefiles · 4 years

Text

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 18/2/2020

Good Morning #realdreamchasers ! Here is your daily news cap for Tuesday 18th February, 2020. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS), Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Daily Nation Newspaper (DN).

VAUXHALL IN, GRAYDON SEALY OUT –Students of Vauxhall Primary School will be back in the classroom today, but staff and students at Graydon Sealy Secondary School will be at home. Classes ground to a halt last Wednesday after parents and staff raised concerns about an infestation of rats, termites and cockroaches at the Christ Church primary school. Parents said their children were constantly ill and were out of classes for extended periods, while teachers complained of respiratory complications. After a walk-through by Parent-Teacher Association president Adrian Husbands, parents decided not to allow their children back in the classrooms until the issue was addressed by the Ministry of Education. Last Wednesday, Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw, Acting Chief Education Officer Joy Adamson and other ministry officials toured the compound for three hours and said classes would be closed for the rest of the week to allow for the start of refurbishment works, beginning with the female bathrooms, which would extend over the weekend. (DN)

MILLIONS DOWN DRAIN –The Barbados Water Authority (BWA) will be working around the clock to repair a 16-inch burst main at Searles/Woodbourne that apparently is the reason why customers in Christ Church and St Philip have been without water for the past three days. Described as one of the “worst burst mains”, engineers at the BWA unearthed the massive leak yesterday morning while carrying out an investigation of the entire system linked to the Hampton Pumping Station, to determine why the water levels had not returned to normal, following repairs to the pump last Thursday. Taking the media on a tour of the waterlogged area yesterday evening, Minister of Water Resources Wilfred Abrahams lamented that millions of gallons of water had already been lost before the leak was detected. As a result, he said management had taken a decision to shut off the water supply at 7:30 last night in order to give customers time to store water. However, he pointed out that it would take time to repair the main since the wooded area had to first be cleared of trees and bush, then the water which had created a large swamp had to be pumped off before work crews could access the main. “It is not going to be an easy fix,” the minister said as he warned that “to actually do the fix is going to cause significant disruption to service. It cannot be avoided”. (DN)

MORE WATER OUTAGES FOR CHRIST CHURCH & ST. PHILIP – Residents in Christ Church and parts of St Philip who were experiencing sporadic service will be without water for a few more days. Earlier today, a crew from the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) discovered a massive 16-inch burst main in the region of Woodbourne/Searles, Christ Church. The magnitude of the leak created a huge swampy area, from which workers at the BWA will first have to clear wood and debris and then pump off the excess water before repairs can be effected. As a result, the water will be turned off at 7 p.m. today. Minister of Water Resources Management Wilfred Abrahams says they had a crisis meeting with management and the engineers and decided to explore every option because they could not understand why the levels were not returning. “Millions of gallons of water is being lost out here, but to actually do the fix will cause significant disruption for customers,” he said. Work started immediately and they are getting assistance from several companies. The BWA will put contingency plans in place, including sending out water tankers, but residents in those areas are being urged to do what they can to deal with their own situation. Some parts of St Philip and Christ Church have been without water for the last three days. Last Thursday, after a disruption in electrical power, the BWA suffered pumping equipment failure at Hampton, and later that night, one pump was repaired and another replaced. There was also a 10-inch burst the following night at Pilgrim Road, Christ Church, and it was repaired that same day. (DN)

ISOLATION CENTRE POSES NO RISK TO PUBLIC – The Ministry of Health and Wellness has assured schools, businesses and residents in the vicinity of the Isolation Centre at Enmore, Collymore Rock, St Michael, that the area remains safe. Acting Chief Medical Officer, Dr Kenneth George, was responding today to concerns raised by some members of the public after the Centre was identified as the facility where anyone arriving in Barbados with symptoms related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) would be placed in isolation and treated. Dr George explained that in the construction of the facility, which has been in place since the public health threat posed by Ebola in 2014, special emphasis was placed on safety and security. “There is a double filtration system that involves HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filtration, as well as UV (ultraviolet) filtration. These systems combined make sure that all the air emanating from the facility is safe.” He shared that the Centre had also been recognised by the Pan American Health Organization as being representative of “best practice”, and posed no risk to the public. The Chief Medical Officer emphasised: “This type of facility was so designed to not only treat Ebola, but also to treat any new and emerging respiratory viruses, such as COVID-19. “In addition, there are bio-security features which relate to the movement of staff and patients into and out of the building,” he assured. He said that the Ministry was committed to providing the public with up-to-date information on this public health challenge and to putting all necessary measures in place to protect residents. (BGIS)

MET OFFICE MONITORING SAHARA DUST MOVING INTO REGION – People with respiratory ailments are being asked to take precautions this week. The Barbados Meteorological Services is monitoring the progress of a thick concentration of Saharan dust haze located in the central Atlantic. The Model data indicates that the plume of dust haze is forecast to affect Barbados as early as Wednesday morning, with an improvement expected around Friday. Impacts will vary due to the sensitivity of individuals and extent of exposure. People with respiratory ailments such as asthma and sinusitis could be affected. Symptoms include irritation of the eyes, nose and throat, sneezing, wheezing and coughing. Precautions should be taken to reducing exposure to this dust. (PR/SAT)

DEMOLITION STARTS ON FIRE STATION IN THE CITY –Demolition of the Barbados Fire Service complex on Probyn Street, The City is underway. Work men started around 8:30 a.m., excavated a wall and demolished a small building in the yard. An official estimated that the main building would be taken down around noon. To accommodate the work, traffic on Probyn Street has been reduced to a single lane, but all surroundings roads, including Fairchild Street are unaffected. The removal of the station is the first stage of government’s plan to develop Golden Square Freedom Park. The temporary market and the old National Insurance Scheme building are also scheduled to be demolished. (DN)

PROBYN STREET NOW ONE LANE DURING DEMOLITION – As part of the demolition of the old National Insurance Scheme (NIS) building and the Bridgetown Fire Station, the Ministry of Transport Works and Maintenance will be making some changes to traffic flow. Workers will be removing the traffic signal mast arm from the Probyn Street section of the Fairchild Street/Bridge Street junction today. The other traffic signals at this junction will remain in operation. Motorists are advised to observe the directions and signage of the contractors and workmen on site and road users should also note that Probyn Street will be reduced to one lane only. The old NIS building, Fire Service headquarters and temporary market located along the street are being demolished to make way for the Golden Square Freedom Park. (DN)

COPS ‘IN HIGH GEAR’ ON MURDER CASES –There is a great chance police will soon crack another murder case, says Acting Commissioner of Police Erwin Boyce. During a press conference at the police headquarters in Roebuck Street, Bridgetown, yesterday, he said three out of five murders for 2020 had been solved as far as bringing charges. He added this was a testament to investigators who were relentless in their efforts. “We have never taken off our gloves in the fight of crime and we will never take off our gloves in the fight of crime. The ones that have not been solved are actively being pursued. In some instances, there is light at the end of the tunnel for some. “Three were solved and the possibility exists that we might solve a fourth in a not too distant time,” Boyce said. In relation to the record 49 murders in 2019, the senior lawman said that 60 per cent of them had been solved, and once Barbadians continued to offer them support, police would be able to do their jobs. (DN)

PERFUME THEIF SEND FOR EVALUATION – The details of how a 57-year-old man made off with a $209.99 cologne belonging to a popular Broad Street store will be given in court in three weeks before his sentencing. But that is all based on what doctors at the Psychiatric Hospital have to say in a report requested by Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant, about Richard Carmichael Best, of no fixed place of abode. Best was sent to the Black Rock, St Michael institution after he appeared before the magistrate and pleaded guilty to stealing the item from Cave Shepherd on February 15. “I want to pay back in a week,” Best said before he was given a March 9 date to return before the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court. (BT)

DEPORTATION FOR WOMAN CAUGHT STEALING – Jamaican Marjorie AnnMarie Campbell is to be placed on the next available fight home. Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant today ordered that the 46-year-old babysitter who resided at Charles Rowe Bridge, St George be deported after she admitted to theft. Campbell, who had been in the country since February 2013 and was given a six-month stay but failed to regularise her status after it expired pleaded guilty to stealing a number of food items including, chicken, lamb, cheese, pigtails, salt fish and chocolate mix from Popular Discounts on February 15. They were valued at $129.40. She apologised for her actions in the No. 2 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court. Police prosecutor Victoria Taitt revealed that Campbell entered the store around 11 a.m. and was kept under observation by a security officer. She went through the aisles picking up the items as well as to the area of the meats. At one point she was seen putting some of the items in a green Popular Discounts reusable bag. The convicted woman then went to the cashier and paid for some items and when she tried to leave, a search was requested and the groceries that she had not paid for were found in the reusable bag and in another plastic bag. (BT)

ASSAULT CASE ADJOURNED UNTIL MAY – Teenager Keon Kenrico Waithe was granted bail today in connection with an offence against a female teen. The 17-year-old Waithe, of Bosvigo Gap, Eagle Hall, St Michael is accused of unlawfully and maliciously wounding Jammie-Ann McConney on February 15. He pleaded not guilty to the charge and was granted bail in the sum of $1,000. Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant has ordered him to stay away from McConney until the matter is adjudicated. The case comes up again in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on May 11. In the meantime, the accused must report to the Black Rock Police Station every Wednesday by noon with valid identification. (BT)

BULLETS FOUND IN SOCK – When police executed a search warrant at the home of a St Joseph man in 2015 they discovered five rounds of ammunition under his mattress. Today, Kevin Jamar Parris, of Bissex Housing Area, pleaded guilty to the almost five-year-old charge, which occurred on August 26. Crown Counsel Rudolph Burnett told Justice Christopher Birch in Supreme Court No. 5A that lawmen ventured to Parris’ home around 6:25 a.m. After speaking to him and handing over the necessary documents they executed the search. The court heard that in a bedroom under a mattress was a green plastic bag containing a white sock in which there was another green plastic bag. In there was a Styrofoam crate with the illegal ammunition. “I went to a party at St John about two weeks ago and find them up there,” Parris allegedly told police at the time. However, when he was arrested and taken to the police station he denied possession of the bullets. A pre-sentencing report has been ordered on the first time offender who is being represented by attorneys-at-law Amilcar Branche and Sherise King. Parris remains on bail until April 27 when he returns to the High Court. (BT)

NOT DOING ENOUGH – Businesses and charitable organisations are still not doing enough to assist with the reintegration of ex-criminals into society, according to Home Affairs Minister Edmund Hinkson. As he addressed Sunday’s Prison After Care Committee’s Church service at a Nazarene congregation at Westmorland, St. James, Hinkson noted a large number of former prisoners are trapped in a cycle in which they end up behind bars just four years after their release. Citing an InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB) study conducted last year, Hinkson disclosed that 61 percent of the approximately 760 prisoners at Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Dodds had already been in prison. The average time between their previous release and their current arrest, according to the study, is just 44 months and according to the Home Affairs Minister, the business community in particular has a massive role to play. “Coming out of Dodds, there’s a challenge with reintegration into our communities and their involvement in the socio-economic life of this country. The issue, as we said, is that a lot of employers don’t wish to give these people an opportunity and that therefore speaks directly to the issue of the police certificate of character and the Attorney General has stated this is an issue that we will have to take another look at,” Minister Hinkson acknowledged. But he stressed: “The problem is not one for the prisons or the Minister of Home Affairs or the Government. It is a problem for all of us in this society when these issues are our reality. The prison has done a fine job over the last five years for its programming for the reintegration and reformation of its prisoners including the expansion to those who are on remand.” Turning his attention to the aftercare committee, the Home Affairs Minister suggested the organisation’s role is critical in any attempt to strengthen the relationship between ex-convicts and the private sector. “We must look to strengthen the relationship between the private sector and the employers in this country, service organisations, community service organisations, the lions club of Barbados. We have to look to strengthen our links between these types of organisations and business organisations, as well as community service organisations in terms of giving everybody a stake in the rehabilitation and reform of those who have unfortunately come into conflict with the criminal justice system. Because we are all in this together,” Hinkson said. As part of government’s efforts to address the problem, the administration has extended its rehabilitation programmes to incarcerated persons who are on remand. He added that the recent appointment of five new judges and the hiring of judges to deal exclusively with criminal trials would assist in keeping innocent persons out of the system. Preventative measures he added could be found in Government push toward education reform along with initiatives like the youth advance scheme, the building blocks initiative, and the national training initiative. “Prisons can’t be looked at in a vacuum or in a unique situation. All of this is tied up in how we seek to programme and address our societal issues,” said Hinkson. (BT)

ST LUCIA ZOUKS SOLD TO INDIAN COMPANY – The St Lucia Zouks have been sold to a group of investors with extensive experience in high-profile cricket, says principals of the Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL). According to a media release issued today, K.P.H. Dream Cricket Private Limited is based in India and has “knowledgeable owners who have a track record of success on and off the field in major events. They will bring a huge amount of experience to the tournament and to the St Lucian team”. The Zouks have been part of the CPL since the league’s inception, making the playoffs during the 2016 season. They play their home games at the Daren Sammy International Cricket Ground, a stadium named after the man who has captained them for six of their seven seasons. Last year the Zouks team featured Sammy, Fawad Ahmed, Rahkeem Cornwall, Andre Fletcher, Colin de Grandhomme and Thisara Perera. Speaking about the purchase of the St Lucia Zouks, Mohit Burman of K.P.H. Dream Cricket Private Limited said: “We are excited at the opportunity to invest in one of the most exciting sporting tournaments in the world, and we have been impressed by the vibrancy of CPL over the last seven years. We visualise taking the franchise to the next level and showcasing St Lucia in the best possible light over the coming years.” Pete Russell, Chief Operating Officer of the Hero CPL, said: “We are hugely excited to welcome this ownership team to the CPL family and we are looking forward to seeing where they take the Zouks during the upcoming season and beyond. They bring with them a wealth of experience, which is fantastic news for both the CPL and St Lucia as a whole. During the 2019 tournament the CPL made a positive economic impact of US$13 670 260 in St Lucia and this new ownership group will be working hard to see this figure increase.” St Lucia’s Prime Minister Allen Chastenet welcomed the new owners amidst the hope “new energy and drive will inspire the team to excel”. He added: “Saint Lucians continue to root for the Zouks and we are encouraged by the confidence that Mr Mohit Burman and his team have placed in the players and Saint Lucia. The Government of Saint Lucia looks forward to working closely with the new owners to create a team we can all be proud of.” (DN)

AMAZON SAYS IT WILL START COLLECTING 17.5% VAT – After several false starts, the Mia-Mottley administration appears to have made a major breakthrough in a controversial bid to collect Value Added Tax (VAT) on online purchases from some major retailers. The “Amazon” tax as it has become known, is to be implemented next month according to multinational e-commerce giant, Amazon. The company on Monday informed customers that effective March 1, 2020, “Amazon World Service (AWS) would begin to charge Value Added Tax at a rate of 17.5% to Barbadian customers. The Seattle-based company detailed its intention in an email correspondence titled “Important Announcement” in which it noted that the new measures are consistent with tax legislation which came into effect on December 1, 2019. The company said that a tax compliant invoice would be issued to Barbadian customers from April 1 this year. The email was reportedly sent to all customers whose records indicate that their Billing Address or Contact Address is in Barbados. It explained to customers that the website calculates taxes based on the customer location, which is determined by Amazon’s Account Location hierarchy. To ensure compliance, Amazon has urged Barbadian residents whose accounts are not listed in Barbados, to update their details by visiting the Billing Address and Contact Address page of the AWS Billing Console. “Tax invoices will appear in the Bills page of the AWS Billing Console along with your anniversary and subscription summary invoices starting on April 1, 2020,” the email further explained. “If you receive your anniversary or subscription invoices via email today, you will also receive tax invoices via email starting on April 1, 2020,” it added. Barbados TODAY’s efforts to reach Minister in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs Ryan Straughn for a comment on the developments were unsuccessful. The measure known as the “Amazon tax”, announced during Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s June 2018 budget was initially to begin in October of that year but was shifted two months later to December 1 and then to December 15th. The following year, legislation was introduced to allow the Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) to outsource tax-collecting powers to an online third-party and the measure was to be introduced by July 1. This also was unsuccessful. When first introduced, numerous businessmen including former Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) President, Eddy Abed praised the move for placing local retailers and wholesalers on a level playing field with their overseas counterparts. Smaller businesses, however, complained that the measures could cripple their chances of survival by significantly increasing their costs. Nevertheless, changes were made to the Value Added Tax Act last December adding further scrutiny to the VAT collection process. Shortly after, current BCCI president Trisha Tannis expressed concern about compliance from popular international online companies like Amazon, Wal-Mart, Alibaba. Amazon’s expression of an intent to comply therefore suggests a major breakthrough in the Government’s efforts to implement the tax. It is still unclear if other international retailers will follow suit. (BT)

There are 318 days left in the year Shalom! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps #bajannewscaps #newsinanutshell

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kathleenseiber · 3 years

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Role models in a time of pandemic

This article first appeared in Cosmos Magazine on 4 June 2020, and it has just been announced as a finalist for the Finkel Foundation Eureka Prize for Long-Form Science Journalism. Congratulations on your nomination, Dyani!

The first videoconference – like the many that followed – was late at night. From his home in suburban Melbourne, James McCaw joined fellow disease trackers from around the world in mid-January to discuss some of the early data emerging from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the epicentre of what became the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The news wasn’t good. The new virus was leaving dozens sick; a handful had already died. More worrying still, epidemiologists at Imperial College London estimated the transport and industrial hub in central China harboured many more cases of infection than had been reported. “It was clearly spreading,” says McCaw, who uses mathematical models to trace how diseases do just that, “but we didn’t really know what the consequences of it would be.”

Since January it has been McCaw’s job, along with his long-time collaborator Jodie McVernon and a small army of colleagues, to build mathematical projections of how an outbreak might play out in Australia, and relay that information to government officials.

While other scientists are in the midst of a Herculean effort to discover what they can aboutSARS-CoV-2 (see page 28), the virus responsible for COVID-19, the work of disease modellers like McCaw and McVernon – both based at the University of Melbourne’s Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity – has been playing an outsized role in upending life as we knew it pre-pandemic.

In Australia, as elsewhere, governments are making decisions not because they are written into a pandemic playbook, but because mathematical models – written on the fly, as the disaster unfolds – light the way.

Governments are making decisions as the disaster unfolds because mathematical models light the way.

“There is not a single pandemic plan globally that talks about lockdown as a control measure,” McVernon announced during a press conference in early April. And yet, living in some form of lockdown is exactly where vast swathes of the world’s populace found itself.

Decisions to lock the borders to foreigners, cancel sporting events and concerts, shutter schools and tell people to stay in their homes have been taken, in large part, because of the mathematical models that McCaw, McVernon and their colleagues have built. They determine when restrictions begin, and when they end. So, how did this one line of evidence become so influential?

Credit: Star Tribune via Getty Images

The foundations of modern epidemic modelling were laid in the early 20th century. In 1897, the British army surgeon Ronald Ross demonstrated that the malaria parasite is transmitted by mosquitoes, not through contaminated water as others had assumed. After retiring from the army – and winning the Nobel Prize for his discovery in 1902 – Ross spent much of the first decade of the new century travelling around Africa and the Mediterranean drumming up support for a fight against the mosquito. Not everyone bought the idea that reducing mosquito numbers could eradicate malaria, but maths, he decided, could provide the evidence.

Others before him had attempted to describe how diseases spread using mathematical principles, but Ross pushed to establish mathematical epidemiology – what he called “a priori pathometry” – as a new field of study. “All epidemiology, concerned as it is with the variation of disease from time to time or from place to place, must be considered mathematically, however many variables are implicated, if it is to be considered scientifically at all,” he said.

In the 1920s, two Scots took things further. Anderson McKendrick – an ex-army physician who had accompanied Ross on a malaria-fighting mission to Sierra Leone two decades earlier – teamed up with William Kermack, a young biochemist who had been blinded in a lab accident.

The duo devised a model that looks deceptively simple, yet forms the basis for transmission models to this day. It places people in a population into one of three buckets, marked S, I and R. Individuals are either susceptible to an infection (S), are infected (I), or have recovered or “removed” (died) (R) .

For a new virus, like SARS-CoV-2, the whole population is presumed to be susceptible at the start of the outbreak. If infection spreads unhindered, the number of susceptible people falls over time, while those who have recovered – and are presumed to be immune to reinfection and unable to pass the infection on – grow in number.

Meanwhile, the number of people infected etches out the now-familiar bell-shaped curve of sickness: a gentle incline followed by a deathly uptick, a levelling as the epidemic reaches its peak and a final downward slope as the outbreak runs out of susceptible people to infect.

Credit: Hector Retamal

The shape of the bell – whether it resembles an upturned champagne flute or a broader, less precipitous, upturned soup dish – depends on how rapidly the disease is spreading. This boils down to the basic reproduction number (R0): how many people, on average, a single sick person infects. Kermack and McKendrick noticed that the curve could only keep rising as long as that number is greater than one. The turning point at the apex of the bell marks the point where the reproduction number dips below one – each person infects fewer than one other and the outbreak starts to fizzle.

To prove they were on the right track, Kermack and McKendrick overlaid their theoretical curve onto data from a real-world epidemic: an outbreak of plague that struck the Indian city of Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1905 and 1906. The deaths recorded each week lined up with their bell.

“The mathematics of it is not complicated,” says Raina MacIntyre, head of the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute at the University of NSW. “What’s complicated is the parameters and the assumptions that go into the model.”

The simplest SIR models assume everyone in the population has an equal risk of being infected and is equally infectious once sick. That’s not true of influenza: young children long on sniffles and short on personal boundaries are the primary spreaders of the flu. And it doesn’t appear to be true of SARS-CoV-2 either: children appear less likely than adults to catch or pass on the virus.

Models today are more sophisticated. They divide the population into smaller tubs – based on age and health status, say – that try to account for different people’s risk of being infected and their differing propensity to infect others. The stages of disease are also more finely compartmentalised to reflect how likely the infection is to jump from one person to the next at different stages, from the point of exposure through to full recovery or death.

In 2003, The World Health Organisation issued a resolution urging its member states to plan for the next flu pandemic: up vaccination rates, strengthen surveillance to spot outbreaks early, and stockpile antivirals and other essential medicines. The 2008 Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza helped us navigate the 2009 swine flu pandemic, which killed 191 people across the nation.

McCaw and McVernon have been working with the Australian government to prepare for the next influenza pandemic for the past decade and a half. It was COVID-19 that arrived, but the planning wasn’t in vain. “Flu and the coronaviruses differ in fundamentally important ways biologically,” says McCaw, but “the way that we break down the problem, unpick it, think through the possible response options, is very similar… That’s incredibly valuable.”

Through January, as the COVID-19 situation worsened, McCaw and his team used mathematical modelling to see whether the Australian healthcare system was up to the task that lay ahead. What was the likely shape of the epidemic curve in Australia if left unchecked, or if hit with disease-stopping interventions? Some of the assumptions they used were harvested from crucial – yet still uncertain – pieces of information coming out of China. Using data from the early days of an epidemic is fraught. Early reports can miss mild and asymptomatic cases, and details of when each person first detects a sore throat or sniffly nose can be unreliable.

Credit: Fabrice Coffrini

Nevertheless, it looked like the outbreak was doubling every 6.4 days, and case records suggested an incubation period (how long it takes for symptoms to show up after infection) of just over five days, with people able to transmit the virus for two days before they showed symptoms. These values, in turn, pointed to an R0 of around 2.5, though estimates at the time ranged from as low as 1.5 to more than five depending on which cases were used for the calculation.

A final assumption – based, again, on case reports – approximated how many people who got sick would end up in hospital. Few children, but up to one in five people over the age of 80, would end up in the intensive care unit (ICU). “By early February, we had produced some very early plausible scenarios, which had terrifying numbers in them,” says McCaw.

If allowed to spread uncontrolled, COVID-19 would infect 90% of the population. The healthcare system would be overwhelmed for weeks, and for every three people receiving the intensive care treatment they required, 17 others would go without. Quarantining the sick and keeping the seemingly well apart could stem transmission, reducing the onslaught.

The federal and state governments took note of this and of subsequent models McVernon, McCaw and their team produced. On 1 February restrictions began, first on international travellers from China and then, in March, on travellers from elsewhere. On 24 March, returning Australians were required to self-isolate for two weeks and banned from travelling overseas. Police were given the authority to fine people not at home except for the most essential activities. Behind the scenes, hospitals diverted resources to their intensive care facilities to “plan for the worst and hope for the best”, says McCaw.

An alternative to dividing populations into smaller and smaller buckets is to create simulated worlds filled with virtual people. These are known as individual-based or agent-based models. Rudimentary agent-based models developed in the 1970s and ’80s created communities of roughly 1000 people.

Over the decades, advances in supercomputers and programming innovations that enabled computations to be run in parallel gave epidemiologists the grunt they needed to make much larger versions. But it wasn’t epidemiologists who first made the discovery.

Hospitals diverted resources to their intensive care facilities to plan for the worst and hope for the best.

In the early 2000s, Tim Germann, a materials scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, was looking at how individual molecules in metals jostle about and alter the properties of each other as they interact. He and his colleagues assigned individual atoms within a simulated hunk of aluminium attributes such as mass, electrical charge and polarity, then simulated how the atoms smash together during a car crash. The model could handle 19 billion individual particles – a virtual Newton’s cradle on steroids.

Germann knew the capacity to compute interactions on such a large scale could be adapted to solve other problems, so he asked around for suggestions. “Some folks had suggested looking at how fish or birds flock and cluster,” he says. Others had ideas for modelling sensor networks. But when someone suggested disease modelling, the idea “struck a nerve”. In his own work, Germann had sent shockwaves through a set of atoms. “Sending a disease through the population wasn’t too far of a leap.”

Credit: Barcroft Media

Humans, though, don’t behave as atoms do. They don’t just jostle about with their immediate neighbours; they purposefully move, sometimes across vast distances. Fortuitously for Germann, Ira Longini, an epidemiologist who had worked on community-scale agent-based models since the 1970s, had a planned visit to New Mexico in the summer of 2005. “That really helped us have a better disease model, because otherwise it would have looked like something that physicists had come up with,” says Germann.

With two other collaborators, Germann, who is still at Los Alamos, and Longini, now at the University of Florida in Gainsville, took agent-based disease modelling from a few thousand to hundreds of millions. In 2006, they modelled how pandemic influenza could sweep through the entire US population – then 281 million people – and how mitigation strategies could make the bell curve more soup bowl than champagne flute and better manage such an outbreak.

Agent based models take time to build. Mikhail Prokopenko at the University of Sydney spent more than three years building a virtual world based on Australian data. He and his team started constructing their model to make predictions about the spread of seasonal influenza. Taking data from the 2006, 2011 and 2016 censuses and studies of social networks, the model incorporates information about the age and sex of every person in the nation, the size of households and workplaces, travel patterns and social interactions. The granular details try to get at who interacts with whom, and how often – information that’s important for seeing how real-life infectious diseases spread.

Credit: Behrouz Mehri

On top of that, says Prokopenko, is layered the epidemiological information taken from previous studies of flu: What’s the rate of transmission from a child to an adult? From an adult to a child? What if the pair share a household? Or if they live in the same neighbourhood? “You have all possible combinations of who transmits to whom, in what social layering,” he says.

When the virtual world was completed in 2019, they could seed it with a virus, infect simulated people and watch to see how many others were infected: how far and wide it spread. But Prokopenko’s team didn’t immediately send COVID-19 into their virtual world, because too little was known to estimate transmission rates. Too many unrefined assumptions, he says, would have been a case of “garbage in, garbage out”. But by early March, he says, “we thought, we have some semblance of truth”.

Their model illustrated that social distancing was key to suppressing the spread of coronavirus in Australia. It also showed that buy-in was crucial. If 90% of the population abided by social distancing restrictions, daily new infections would fall close to zero by July, with total cases capped at 8000–10,000. If only 70% complied, the model predicted the measures would be next to useless and the virus would continue to spread.

The model also revealed some potential missteps. If social distancing measures had been introduced three days earlier (on 21 March instead of 24 March), the model predicted, the peak would have been half as high and cases would have fallen to near zero three weeks earlier. Every day of delay at the start of the epidemic cost a week at the tail end.

By mid-March, McCaw, McVernon and colleagues weren’t just generating models, they were comparing models generated by colleagues here and overseas and assessing a deluge of mostly unvetted scientific papers to update assumptions about how the virus behaves. These papers are almost all “preprints” – not yet peer-reviewed – but in a pandemic, time is critical.

More than 2200 coronavirus papers appeared on the top two preprint sites between the start of the year and the end of April. Only a handful have been withdrawn; many have ended up peer-reviewed and published in the stable of traditional scientific publications.

Credit: Sanket Wankhade

Still, it means that the newest information is not the final word. Results can vary widely, tightening as more work is done. Models live and die by the quality of the assumptions that get built into them, taken from that evolving body of knowledge. “If you use the wrong kind of data or the wrong assumptions, you end up with wrong outputs from your model,” says MacIntyre.

It’s not always clear when assumptions are incorrect, even when real-world data is available to see how a model performed in retrospect. An over-egged ratio of symptomatic people could be offset by an underegged transmission rate. “There are so many variables,” in agent-based modelling, says Prokopenko, “that two mistakes will cancel each other out.”

“We’re trying to make as few assumptions as possible, and make models as lifelike as we possibly can,” says George Milne from the University of Western Australia, who has also used an agent-based model to predict which interventions will control the COVID-19 outbreak in Australia.

But no model is perfect. That’s why, in modelling, more is more. “Different people may use different modelling approaches, they may make [different] assumptions,” says Milne, “but if outcomes are pretty much the same – the relative benefit of this intervention versus another one – that says you’re on the right track. That’s really critical.”

On 16 April, McCaw and McVernon released data that showed the value of R had dipped belowone in all states and territories. The number of newly infected people each day was trending down, as was the overall number infected.

Exactly when every pandemic restriction will end is still unknown, says McCaw. But models and data sharing from around the world will continue to play a role in managing restrictions out (or back in) in the months to come. “You can definitely… start lifting restrictions in a phased way,” says MacIntyre, “and you can inform that by using modelling.”

One problem to solve is that, at present, there’s no clear understanding of which measures worked best. Once COVID-19’s speed of spread and ability to kill became apparent, state and national governments threw every measure at it: quarantines, school closures, bans on gatherings large and small. Unpicking which of those things had the greatest effect on slowing the virus and which made no difference may take months or even years to work through.

“You can definitely start lifting restrictions in a phased way and inform that with modelling.”

Ultimately, says McCaw, the only way to learn which measures work – and which allow transmission to flare up anew – is to gather data from the real world as those restrictions are eased. “Science is empirical,” he says. “We still then need to relax the measure – whatever the measure might be – or implement a different measure, and then try to measure what its impact was. The model can never answer that question.”

As communities around the world continue to navigate the peaks and troughs of the initial epidemic curve, the spectre of COVID-19 remaining part of life in the “new normal” looms. “It’s almost implausible

to imagine this virus going extinct globally, which means that it will be here to stay,” says McCaw.

As weeks of rigid restrictions turn into months of milder control measures, McCaw and epidemiologists around the world could be settling in to a new normal of their own: running models as new data emerges to track and anticipate a seasonal surge in COVID-19 cases, trying to head off the next big outbreak.

For more stories like this, subscribe today and get access to our quarterly magazine in print or digital, plus access to all back issues of Cosmos magazine.

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stone-man-warrior · 3 years

Text

March 9, 2021: 2:14 pm:

==============================================

I was attacked again at my home last night at about 10:00 pm.

There were at least two nitrous gas wielding terror soldiers, one was near my front walk way as I opened the front door to see if I could walk, my leg symptoms are bad, I need to walk to get some blood flow, but I am unable to even take a walk in my own front yard to find some relief that way. I am completely confined in my home by the terror army that surrounds me.

That terror soldier was disguised with some kind of plastic things that made a lot of noise when the terror bastard’s nitrous tank ignited and then launched over the house to somewhere on Russell Road a little south of my house.

There was at least one more terror soldier who was either in a car on Jackpine and left at the time the other one ignited, or, that one may have also ignited and launched away. There were no car headlights, but the sound of a car and some very small lights sort of movement was seen and heard through the trees from my driveway area then went north towards Chartrands at 376 Jackpine as I viewed from close to my own house.

I tried to walk to the mailbox, but the leg pain is too great, I only went as far as where the Monroe Offensive Surveillance Travel Trailer is at near my driveway. I saw some changes in the way things are arranged there outside, a ladder that has been there is gone, some rope lights that have been arranged around the steps to the trailer are on the ground now, still illuminated, but the rope light is on the dirt now, and a tarp that was covering the that Monroe trailer roof is gone or is not visible. All of those small details mean something to someone. That rope light, the ladder and where it is, the tarp and a thousand other things are there for communicating to others who use that trailer as a staging area to attack me at my house. The white tarp is there for making confusion about another travel trailer, one that is at the Chapman terror cell at 3701 Russell Road, where a travel trailer is completely covered with a white tarp. and has been also used as a surveillance trailer for planning attacks to kill me when I go outdoors.

Chapman 3701 Russell is my neighbor to the west, and is a Josephine County Courts terror cell.

I have to go to the court next week.

If I don’t go, they will send a bunch of fake sheriffs to bust through my door and arrest me for failing to appear at a fake stalking hearing.

The laws are real, the sheriff and police are fake. The courthouse is real, the judges are fake.

The terror army uses the legal system for capturing, killing and replacing US citizens when conditions suit the terror army to do so.

The terror soldiers are people who trained as actors, trained with Screen Actor Guild Acting methods. They took over the courts, the state police, the county sheriff, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and even the US national guard bases.

The terror army took over everything there is to take over the past twenty years.

no one has answered the calls for help.

The terror army took over the 911 Emergency dispatch system, so, when I write to FBI.Tips.Gov, or to WhiteHouse.gov asking for help, those people simply contact the same terrorists that took over the 911 Emergency Phone Dispatch, State Police, FBI, and Sheriff, and they ask the terror army to go look into the reports of terrorism where I suggested and made a lot detailed documentation that all of the law enforcement and public safety offices are hijacked by terrorists.

Please send help.

Stop contacting local Oregon authorities, there are none left alive, the real police, FBI, Judges, Sheriff’s, national guard, and all of the public safety personnel were all killed and replaced with imposters long ago.

When you call 911 Emergency Dispatch Phone Service in Oregon. you are calling a terror cell. 911 Emergency is a terror cell that serves other terror cells, they do not serve US Citizens, they do not serve USA in any way. They only pretend to be helpful, that is the nature of the deceptive ways that the SAG/Canadian/Britain terror army is based on. They fool you first, to kill you later.

Please send help.

============================================

6:11 pm:p

I tried to walk to the mailbox but my leg is hurting so bad I can only get as far as where that Monroe Offensive Surveillance Travel Trailer is parked near my driveway. I could see the someone has been going underneath one of the other houses on my property where there is a big porch, I put a little makeshift fencing there to try to discourage the bastards from trespassing and going under my house, but they just move things out of the way and do what they want anyway no matter what I do. There is a story told that I am a homeless person who lives under that deck, the story is told by terror soldiers who claim they own my property, and that I am the one doing the trespassing. All of such bullshit stories are supported by the imposter police and terror occupied county courts.

I also saw that my American Flag had been knocked onto the ground, a flag that is on the door of another house on my property. That little American Flag is a common target of the terror army to make a statement by taking it down and putting it on the ground. That used to happen every day for about a year but not lately, until I noticed that American Flag has been knocked to the ground twice this past week or so. I put the flag back on the door, and I put the makeshift fending deterrent back where it goes and returned to my home in great pain in my leg, it hurts real bad from repeated exposure to the poisons that the Monroe terror cell has been releasing into the air, and into my home over the past five years or so ... now I cannot make it to the mailbox, have to walk back home.

I heard the sounds of at least two motorcycles, sounded like off-road four-stroke motorcycles from nearby Dietrick’s at 601 and Taylor’s at 600 Jackpine, it sounded as if the two motorcycled had cut through the Taylor’s yard and through the church from there, and onto Russell Road.

I need help and am concerned that I won’t survive through next week without some help. I called someone I used to know, and was surprised when someone answered the phone ... no one ever answers when I call that number, so I stopped calling long ago. The person answered sounded like the person I wanted to talk to, but there was a lot of noise interference on the call, and the words spoken by the person who answered sounded the same as any of the other times I have tried to get some help, a recording is what it sounds like, the person I used to know always just tells me he is making dinner, then I ask for help, then the phone call goes silent, no sounds after I ask for some help.

So that call lasted about two minutes, went silent, and I hung up the phone.

About one minute later a incoming call to my phone from “Restricted” number came, I answered wishing it was from that person I used to know ... there was no one there when I answered the call, just more silence.

So I hung up after explaining that there is no one there, I can‘t hear anyone on the call. I can’t call that number back, the caller ID says it’s “Restricted” and those calls are always from imposter State Police when it says “Restricted” on the caller ID.

There is no way for me to get any help. The phones are hijacked, the internet does not seem to work for reaching anyone. I never get any email or any response to anything I write here on Tumblr. Anyone who may have sent me a note here on Tumblr needs to know that I have almost never had any email here, or on my other email accounts from anyone interested in learning more about what I explain here. In ten years or so I have only received two emails about terrorism and both of those were from people claiming to be news media reporters.

The future is looking very short for me.

The future of USA is also looking very temporary.

Twitter is still active ... Twitter is where the terror commands are coded into the news stories. I can see that the four-stroke motorcycles I heard were commanded with White House Press Secretary Psaki and a story about “The Quad in the Indo-Pacific”. The same coded story is coming from the US State Department today also.

Truth about those “Quad” coded stories includes that Sarah Palin is missing since 3-3-2021 and Nancy Wilson was with her at the time Palin went missing. Both of them had come to assist in my murder that day.

Please send help.

Preserve USA. Send US Military to Oregon.

Bring your own hospital.

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rebaenrose · 3 years

Text

Tim has COVID-19

This was my husband’s first post about finding out he had covid. He posts on Facebook but said I can share here.

I Have COVID-19If all intentions prove fruitful, I plan to document this journey, even if in tiny snapshots. And we certainly hope the journey is as short and as sweet as possible.The idea being that we have all lived this nightmare for well over a year, yet for some of us it is still this strange thing that "other" people get. It is even somewhat common in human nature to hear tales and say to oneself "well, they must have been careless."

Another reason to document this is that, while most of us try to keep up on the news, the stories of symptoms, statistics, probabilities and mortality rates are mind-boggling and confusing. Perhaps a story from a friend can help bring it home.There is no doubt that, especially with this disease, every story is different. Thankfully, thus far my story is insignificant. If it stays that way, so much the better. If not, perhaps it can serve as a cautionary tale to the reader.In some ways it started last Sunday (Feb 21).

On that day Erol hosted a Zoom call with fellow NYU Acting school grads. I graduated in 1982 and have not seen these people in all that time. 38 years. NYU was the most significant series of events in my life, other than getting married. And because my acting career is non-existent in comparison to my fellow alumni, it was a very emotional meeting for me.In fact, I think I was still emotionally impacted by the meeting on Monday afternoon, when I started feeling weaker than usual and the aches in my body a bit more severe. Also, concentration was poor, which for me is the most alarming of all. I have been burning my candle at both ends now for many months on end.

As a computer contractor, work is feast or famine and, for some crazy reason, during COVID it has been a feast… and I’ve been taking advantage of it.Naturally, however, in this time of COVID, when you feel more than usually fatigued or sore, there is cause for concern. And the brain fog is really worrisome.

Tuesday I worked from home and by mid-day the aches were accompanied by chills, major fatigue and some minor coughing, continued brain fog. By Tuesday night we determined that I had temperatures in the high 98s, low 99s. I guess you call that a mild temperature. Tuesday night the fever broke. I slept in, which for me means 7AM. I felt much better and even the brain fog seemed to lift. In this disorienting world of COVID, I think general confusion and anxiety can often be confused with brain fog. Who’s to say?Because I’d been sick, I worked the rest of the week from home.

Rebecca and I discussed regularly the possibility that it had been COVID. Because Rebecca has fibromyalgia, it was super important that we find out as soon as possible. We scheduled a test for 7AM on Wednesday.Still felt fine most of the day Wednesday. Periodic coughing. No chest tightness, no fever, no shortness of breath, taste and smell just fine. Rebecca was pretty much fine as well, except for the usual aches and pains of fibromyalgia.

I will take a pause here to mention that I am not the CrossFit guy from FaceBook 3 years ago. In our first year in Utah, I did bicycle to and from work every day and take the stairs up and down 6 flights several times a day. I also had access to the Capitol gym, which I used a few times a week. But no other regular exercise routine. In our 2nd year, I no longer have access to the stairs or gym and I had two bicycle accidents. With the onset of the winter, I began taking the car in. I look forward to returning to the bicycle, but for now my life is pretty sedentary.

But unfortunately there is more. At the outbreak of the pandemic, I was an ex-smoker. For some inexplicable, stupid, non-thinking reason I picked up smoking again. That’s right, smart computer programmer Tim picked up smoking at a time when full lung capacity and function are more crucial than at any other time in recent history. I have no excuse.We did not get results back until Thursday.

Positive for me and Negative for Rebecca. WTF!!!???We immediately scheduled another test. In fact, we opted for the “gold standard” swab (which would take a few days), as well as the rapid result test. Within an hour we learned, once again, that I was positive and Rebecca Negative. By mid-day Friday I got my gold standard test back, confirming for the 3rd time that I was positive. Friday we began quarantine in earnest. A call from a friendly county official confirmed that for any day in which we are closer than 6 feet for more than 15 minutes CUMULATIVE, we have to set the quarantine back another 10-14 days.

Of course, we presume that by now Rebecca must be infected. But who knows? Maybe not. We tried to begin living as separately as possible. I took the living room, but there is no door. And of course we share the bathroom and kitchen regularly. A seemingly impossible situation.Meanwhile, neither of our health conditions changed, though Rebecca had a headache for a few days running.We are very lucky in that we have a rental unit in the basement. And especially lucky that our current renter was vacating on Monday, so one of us could move down there.

And super extraordinarily lucky that our tenant decided to move out 2 days early!!!!So yesterday, Sunday, I have moved to the basement and we are truly separate now. And that is sad, but I guess necessary.Sunday night I began having some congestion again and some sneezing. Today, Monday, I woke up feeling better. I’d call it an extremely mild cold at this point.So, how did this happen? Rebecca and I have been “good” since nearly the beginning of the pandemic. Or at least when most people starting getting on board with social distancing and masking. Granted, in the beginning the masks were home-made and flimsy.

Rebecca and I have had disagreements about the degree to which to adhere to safety precautions. Basically, any new guideline that came out, Rebecca was on it: infrared cleaners, double-masking, N-95, whatever came along. My philosophy was looser, which may account for my infection. I also had more exposure: I went to work 3-4 times per week. I have an office all to myself and I keep the door closed. While in the office, I don’t wear a mask. But WHENEVER I leave the office, I wear a mask. Admittedly not often two masks. I do have a supply of masks at work that I change every few days.

Did I ever “forget” and venture into the halls without a mask? Yes. Not often. Probably 5-8 times over the course of the entire year, and not at all in the past 2 weeks that I can remember. Did we go out into public? Yes, visits to Home Depot, Costco, our local grocery store (and a few other specialty stores), WalMart (which we always found to be the scariest and we would get the hell out of there as fast as possible) and the local 7-11. Always wearing masks and always staying 6 feet from people if at all possible.Was I ever in a social situation where I took my mask off, maybe to eat and maybe to converse a bit.

Again, yes, a few times over the course of the past year. Did we ever go to restaurants? In the beginning, we took a few more risks and that has tapered off to not going at all. I’d say that during the pandemic we may have been in 4-9 restaurants. I can think of Dee’s (a local diner), the Other Place (not sure if we actually dined there), a bar in Sundance, Utah. One particular restaurant visit was on February 4th, 20 days before my symptoms appeared. I was given a free dinner at Ruth Chris’ Steak house in exchange for listening to a retirement spiel. I wore my mask, kept my distance, was seated alone at my own table several feet from others, and the entire event involved only about 10-12 people. But of course all you need is one. Deliveries? Yes, plenty. Drive-throughs? Probably more than we should: we may have picked up food in a drive-through between 15-30 times over the pandemic.Did I ever get closer than 6 feet to people in stores? Yes of course, it’s hard to avoid.

One disagreement Rebecca and I had was in regards to the outdoors. I was of the opinion that if you’re further than 6 feet from people out in the open, it’s perfectly okay to have your mask off. If you see someone coming, slip it on. While she sort of agreed with that in spirit, she still wore her mask all the time and also noted that I did not ALWAYS “slip it on” when we passed people. This is true – I took the risk that passing someone briefly in the open air was probably low risk, especially if I hold my breath before I pass them and don’t inhale again for several feet afterwards.A final note regarding symptoms: several weeks ago, a few of my toes started getting sore. Swollen and itchy. Rebecca suspected athlete’s foot, so we got some medication. However, the medication did not really seem to help much. After Googling “COVID toes”, I see that my toes probably fit into that category. This is not an official diagnosis, nor does it make much sense, unless I’ve had COVID for a very long time (several weeks).

If I’ve had it that long and Rebecca is still negative, she is truly WONDER WOMAN! Rebecca is getting another test today, Monday. Today, Monday, I now have a very slight cold, I’m still having a bit of trouble focusing, and the two toes are still slightly swollen, although it has subsided somewhat. I should also mention that they feel a bit numb. They no longer itch, but feel numb. Perhaps that is the result of the hydrocortisone I applied.

But how am I FEELING? IE, not my symptoms, but my emotions? I would say that generally I am more worried that afraid. And I generally put those worries in the back of my mind and focus on all the things I need to do. Emotions are powerful parts of our existence, but I am one of those people for whom emotions are generally in the background and often unrecognizable at first. I think it took me nearly 4 years to finally start grieving my father’s death. When a volcano threatened our house on the Big Island, I was genuinely excited about keeping up on the news – again, I did not really feel grief over that event for nearly a year. In some ways I guess my psychological makeup is a good thing – I mean, don’t the gurus of philosophy teach us to try and live in the present and not the past or future? I have the knowledge that I have COVID and I have the knowledge of how to care for myself in the meantime (including not smoking!!!!), but for now I have few symptoms. It would do me very little good to live in fear; might even be detrimental. Of course, emotions are not spigots that we can willfully turn on or off. It just happens to be that I am that kind of person. I would venture to guess that if this were to develop into full-fledged COVID, however, I will be terrified. I had asthma as a child and I do know what it’s like to not be able to breathe. It is terrifying.And now you are up to date.We will keep FaceBook posted.

#TimandRebeccaShow #covid

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maidperu56-blog · 3 years

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the Very Best Cryotherapy In London.

alternative called Lipo Freeze 2 U At court House facilities

Content

Why Skin labels Occur.

how Does Cryotherapy work?

impressive Experience At Vivō center.

What Is Femiwand Vaginal therapy?

Why pick Levura Over other Hify Skin tightening Options?

Electric Cryotherapy Vs Nitrogen Cryotherapy.

Bigger ones will lower in size yet may dry out and also take on a scab. When healed the scab will certainly go away or decrease in size as well as may require an additional treatment. These are common skin growths which can grow on most locations of your body as well as are typically found on individuals aged 30 and also older.

Why hifu caversham .

Can you fix a prolapse without surgery?

You might be able to relieve some symptoms on your own without surgery. You can do exercises at home that make your pelvic muscles stronger. If you choose, your doctor can fit you with a device called a pessary. A pessary can help you cope with pelvic organ prolapse.

Cellulite involves an adjustment in the structure located on the surface of the fat under the skin, in extremely particular areas of the body. Adipocytes are housed inside little "chambers" confined by elastic connective tissue. In the visibility of cellulite, there is a rise in both the variety of fat cells and water retention.

how Does Cryotherapy job?

How do you loosen tight pelvic muscles?

Hip Stretch 1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and place one foot on the opposite knee. 2. Lift the bottom leg and take hold of it around the thigh with your hands. 3. Draw your bottom leg in towards your chest to stretch your outer hip muscles. 4. Hold for 30 seconds while practicing your abdominal breathing from earlier. More items•

RF power is able to permeate deep into the skin causing cells tightening up, heating of fat cells and also boosted blood circulation for body contouring, fat and also cellulite reduction treatments. A training course of expert massage therapies can have extremely favorable short term impacts on cellulite.

She suggests requesting for a massage where the specialist utilizes essential oils that are clinically verified to promote blood circulation, such as germanium or juniper. " A health club will certainly have access to the highest quality important oils that penetrate deeper right into the skin," she adds. After the wrap, a contouring body gel is applied to any kind of problem areas. Steed chestnut, cedarwood and kelp, recognized for aiding in maintaining a healthy metabolic rate-- and a healthy and balanced weight, tighten, strong and also strengthen the skin to decrease any cellulite, while enhancing blood flow.

Throughout the Summertime, a sun protection aspect 50 should be applied a minimum of 30 prior to sunlight exposure and reapplied every 4 hrs. Repetitive short freezing cycles of 3 to 6 seconds at 2 week intervals are suggested if you have a darker skin type. For really dark skinned individuals, you may not want to have cryosurgery, as it will eliminate the melanocytes around the cured area, making the skin in that area lighter. Both hyperpigmentation as well as hypopigmentation may take place temporarily after cryotherapy. A Skin Tag is a little flap of cells that hangs off the skin by a linking stalk. Blemishes are extremely contagious and happen when an infection is available in call with the skin as well as causes infection. Verrucae take on the look of verrucas but are flatter since they often tend to be located on the feet, where the dermis is thicker.

https://finchampstead.lipofreeze2u.co.uk/ ='text-align:center'>

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Originally proteins and also lipids, as well as the metabolic process of the cell is modified. As the temperature level drops below 0 ° C, initially the water outside the cell begins to crystallise, creating the cell to dehydrate. At temperature levels listed below − 20 ° C, the water inside the cell starts to crystallise, and also at − 40 ° C intracellular ice formation is particular.

What are the stages of prolapse?

The four categories of uterine prolapse are: Stage I – the uterus is in the upper half of the vagina Stage II – the uterus has descended nearly to the opening of the vagina Stage III – the uterus protrudes out of the vagina Stage IV – the uterus is completely out of the vagina.

Why not treat them to a gift voucher to use at Jasmines for this treatment. As a standard, a 5 second treatment would certainly be required for each pigmented area/age area (ie 5 tiny areas for ₤ 50) whereas a sebhorroeic mole would certainly require a 25 second treatment. Your suitability for the treatment will also be analyzed and truthful guidance will certainly be offered where it is expertly believed that you may not be a candidate for that therapy or possibly where an alternative treatment might be much better suited. We provide examinations to permit you the possibility to meet our certified professionals to discuss your location of problem and the therapy you are considering. You will certainly be suggested just how the treatment functions, the cost and also what you can expect during the therapy as well as article therapy. Any type of possible dangers entailed will certainly likewise be explained to ensure that you can make an enlightened decision regarding whether the therapy is right for you.

impressive Experience At Vivō facility.

This causes compression of the blood and also lymph circulation, which gives rise to an ineffective water drainage of water and contaminants in the body. " A detox massage will certainly deal with targeted locations to enhance your circulation, which will certainly boost the appearance of any kind of cellulite, as well as minimizing swelling in the upper leg and also leg area," claims Ostronska.

They appear most often in females, particularly with weight gain and in senior individuals. Inflammation can take place if the skin tag frequency scrubs against clothing or precious jewelry. A second treatment might be required if the wart/verruca is very large or has been present for a couple of years to see to it no viral cells stay.

What Is Femiwand Vaginal therapy?

Appointment charge needs to be made at factor of reserving visit and also is redeemable versus any skin blemish therapy you book.

You'll have a magnetic resonance imaging scan, which produces detailed images of the prostate and shows the area of the cancer.

An excellent HIFU prospect has mild to moderate skin laxity where the skin starts to really feel and look much less firm.

We urge clients to organize a complimentary examination with us first to go over the therapy for this condition.

If you're fighting drooping cheeks, crow's feet, wrinkles, famous lines from nose to mouth, under-eye bags, a heavy eyebrow or sagging dewlaps, then this therapy is a suitable fit.

" Thank you so much for my million dollar facial today. It was my first ever experience of a beauty treatment, I appreciated it a lot and also very relaxing I will be back soon, thanks quite."

Melanoma can spread by any one of several ways including neighborhood, lymphatic and also blood. Furthermore, Melanoma will certainly change to a a lot more hostile kind if component of the lesion is left unnoticed. Basil cell carcinoma is typically spread by regional expansion as well as you might need a lot more substantial surgery if reoccurrence is suspected. Although it is best to try to leave the cured area uncovered, a plaster or basic dressing might be applied if it is in an area which might result in rubbing and stress. It is very important not to choose at the crust as this may lead to scarring. Removing skin tags does not trigger even more to grow with the CryoPen.

Anyone that is otherwise healthy can easily undergo a CryoPen treatment. • Moderate stinging following the treatment - Right away after the procedure, you will likely experience moderate to medium stinging that might last for numerous mins to an hour.

Why does my girlfriend not get turned on anymore?

Hormonal changes such as thyroid dysfunction, low testosterone or menopause can also contribute to decreased drive and arousal. Psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, stress, concern with body image or a history of abuse can contribute to decreased arousal.

The damaged capillary inside a cherry angioma provide a reddish look. They are frequently seen on the skin around the cheeks, nose, eyes and eyelids, forehead as well as breast yet they can occur anywhere on the body. Age/sun spots are triggered by an excess manufacturing of melanin due to skin aging and sun direct exposure or other forms of ultraviolet light exposure, such as tanning beds. They are probably to establish on the locations of your skin that obtain one of the most sun exposure, including the face, back of hands, upper body, shoulders and forearms.

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Whats' app or Call us if you are not able to discover an appointment day or time that fits you. Free assessment with our therapist to discuss your treatment strategy. There may be a little recurring painful for a couple of mins after therapy and, occasionally, a sore could develop as well as persist for a few hrs. With interest-free financing available, you can spread the cost of your treatment to suit you.

Why select Levura Over other Hify Skin firm Options?

Can you fix a prolapse with pelvic floor exercises?

Pelvic floor exercises can improve the symptoms in mild and moderate cases (first- to third-degree prolapse) and sometimes also prevent the organs from slipping down further. The beneficial effects may already be noticeable after a few weeks.

There may be some prickling with the first cold, yet many patients get an anaesthetic impact from the extreme freezing temperatures. Some people have some light pain for the very first day after the treatment. Here is a slide show of one of the most common kinds of warts as seen from a profile. The effects of applying low temperature to the skin progressively raises as the temperature level drops.

How long does a pelvic floor repair last?

Healing takes around 3 months, so during this time you should avoid any task that can put pressure on the repair i.e. lifting, straining, vigorous exercise, coughing and constipation. You should plan to take 6 weeks off work, but this all depends on the type of role you have.

Your therapist will certainly talk about the dangers connected with Cryotherapy with you before your treatment. New growths in cryosurgery with the CryoPen brings control over temperature levels as well as penetration depth. The CryoPen supplies pin- point accuracy as well as a regular freeze temperature.CryoPen is a straight cryosurgical device, utilising pressurised liquid nitrous dioxide.It can bring the spot to a temperature as reduced as -89 ° C. ... I'm delighted with the results of my recent LVL (" lash quantity lift") treatment.

For the elimination of any type of pigmented areas, only one treatment is generally needed making use of the CryoPen ™. Moderate stinging following the procedure-- Quickly after the treatment, you will likely experience moderate to medium stinging that might last for numerous minutes to an hour. Again, don't be also stressed concerning the stinging as it goes away normally. Swelling as well as inflammation is a regular and also instant action and normally works out after 2 to 3 days. A practical on/off button permits treatment to be controlled and lowers gas use. When pierced the stress will certainly continue to be without loss for several weeks. Right Here at Calder Vets we pride ourselves available the absolute best treatment choices for our patients.

I likewise think the prices are extremely affordable and also have suggested Skin Perfection to my sis, who has begun the very same treatment. There are no limitations on activity other than to secure the location from damages or abrasion. By popular need, we have actually developed a webinar where Tanya Cooper the Professional Supervisor at the prominent Manor Farm Day spa & Clinic take a look at a few of the inovations in fat elimination technology. Our team believe everybody should have access to this details so we have made it completely free. Watch it today & find out all about fat decrease & fat elimination modern technology. • Moderate painful complying with the procedure-- Right away after the treatment, you will likely experience moderate to tool stinging that might last for several mins to an hour. For somewhat bigger locations we can separate the treatment right into a number of visits getting rid of the location over numerous sessions.

Lilly added quantity and also dimension to my stick directly, long blonde lashes. I feel so rather and also awake now without makeup, as well as with mascara, the additional drama is intense in the most effective method. So pleased I discovered a means to improve my lashe without those high-maintenance and also damaging expansions. I've been coming right here for over a month now for blue LED light treatment and also can not suggest enough! The treatment itself has actually done marvels for my acne, the personnel are wonderful and also the area is fantastic.

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/nation-and-world-news-briefs-national-4/

Nation and world news briefs | National

Private jet loaded with weapons and cash stopped from leaving for Venezuela

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Learjet loaded with weapons and cash was stopped from leaving the U.S. for Venezuela over the weekend.

Seized at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport were 18 assault/bolt actions rifles with optics, six shotguns, 58 semi-automatic pistols and $20,312 in cash and $2,618.53 in endorsed checks, a news release said. Air and Marine Operations in Fort Lauderdale seized the plane and a vehicle.

Two Venezuelan nationals were arrested but not identified by Homeland Security Investigations.

According to Broward Sheriff’s Office booking records, the pilots are Gregoni Jenson Mendez, 40, and Luis Alberto Patino, 36. Both were charged with illegally possessing firearms, and they are in the custody of U.S. Marshals.

Several agencies, including Customs and Border Protection, were already investigating the plane, the release said.

Notre Dame moves classes online for 2 weeks after COVID-19 cases more than double in a day

The University of Notre Dame is shifting its classes online for a two-week period in response to a spike of COVID-19 cases on campus since classes started a week ago.

The Rev. John Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president, announced the change in a livestreamed video for students Tuesday afternoon. It came after cases on campus jumped from 58 to 147 in just one day.

“We have decided to take steps short of sending students home, at least for the time being, while protecting the health and safety of the campus community,” Jenkins said. “For at least the next two weeks, we will move undergraduate classes to remote instruction, close public spaces on campus and restrict residences halls to residents only.”

Jenkins said the school, located in South Bend, Indiana, was prepared to send students home altogether but decided to try enacting a stricter trial period after consulting with the county’s public health department, which endorsed the move.

Notre Dame spokesman Paul Browne said students are expected to remain in their residences and take classes virtually for the time being.

“Traveling to various points across the country and back again is not helpful,” he said.

While classes are remote, students living off campus should stay there, limit interactions to roommates only and refrain from visiting campus, according to Jenkins. Gatherings larger than 10 people will also be prohibited.

“The objective of these temporary restrictions is to tame the spread of the virus so we can get back to in-person instruction,” Jenkins said. “If these steps are not successful, we will have to send students home, as we did last spring.”

Tuesday’s one-day increase marked the largest surge in cases since students returned to campus Aug. 3. At that point, only 33 of about 12,000 students had tested positive when they were assessed prior to arriving.

But after the first weeks on campus, the challenges became clearer. On Sunday, Notre Dame announced it was enhancing its testing procedures and planned to carry out surveillance testing of the general student population, in addition to athletes. The school also said it would improve the process for students with symptoms or known exposures to get tested on campus.

In that message, Notre Dame officials said the majority of cases — at that time, it was about 50 cases — appeared to stem from two off-campus events held Aug. 6 and Aug. 9.

Hornets suspend radio announcer who tweeted ‘mistyped’ racial slur

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Charlotte Hornets have indefinitely suspended radio play-by-play announcer John Focke after a tweet he sent Monday included the N-word.

“The Charlotte Hornets are aware of the recent social media post by radio broadcaster John Focke. As an organization, we do not condone this type of language,” the Hornets’ statement said via Twitter.

“John has been suspended indefinitely as we investigate the matter more closely.”

Focke, who just completed his first season with the Hornets, was tweeting about the Utah Jazz-Denver Nuggets playoff game Monday afternoon. The tweet included the N-word instead of “Nuggets.”

“Shot making in this Jazz-(N-word) game is awesome! Murray and Mitchell going back and forth what a game!” the tweet read.

Focke apologized on his Twitter account around 10 p.m. Monday night.

“Earlier today I made a horrific error while attempting to tweet about the Denver-Utah game,” Focke’s tweet read. “I don’t know how I mistyped, I had (and have) no intention of ever using that word.

“I take full responsibility for my actions. I have been sick to my stomach about it ever since. I’m truly sorry that this happened and I apologize to those I offended.”

Focke responded to a text from The Charlotte Observer on Monday night, saying he would not have additional comments for now.

—The Charlotte Observer

‘God help us all’ if Democrats win Senate, SC’s Graham says as his race gets tighter

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s Republican U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott urged voters during a South Carolina Chamber of Commerce forum Tuesday to get involved to make sure Democrats don’t gain control of the U.S. Senate and White House after November.

Graham, who faces his own contentious battle for his Senate seat against challenger Jaime Harrison, said on the videoconference call that he was “scared” of the causes championed by House Democrats, calling the politicians on the other side of the aisle “radical.”

“It’s very important that President (Donald) Trump get reelected,” Graham said. “But it’s more important that we keep the Senate.”

In order to gain control of the Senate, Democrats would need to hold their current seats and win four more. Democrats also could aim to win three seats and the White House, leaving a Democratic vice president to break the tied votes.

“If we lose that majority, God help us all,” said Graham.

On the call Tuesday, Graham also criticized the Green New Deal, an environmental and economic plan championed by several Democrats and rebuked by Republicans. Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden also supports parts of the program, which aim at tackling climate change and promoting jobs in the clean energy sector.

Graham said the plan would “destroy the economy in the name of helping the environment.”

Scott, meanwhile, warned that if Democrats gain control of the Senate they could try to get rid of the filibuster, a method of blocking or delaying a bill. Several Democrats have advocated getting rid of the filibuster, including former President Barack Obama.

Without the filibuster, Scott said it would be easier for the controlling party to pass legislation and the type of legislation passed would change dramatically as the Senate changes hands.

“The ability for a bipartisan coalition to transform this country will be gone,” Scott said. “What we really want is certainty and predictability. Good policy is helpful, certainty is necessary.”

Graham reiterated Tuesday that Republicans need to be reelected to the Senate to keep that control. But recent polling suggests Graham’s own standing might be changing.

—The State (Columbia, S.C.)

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

#briefs #nation #world #World

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rawdiscussions-blog · 4 years

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Tracking Down the Origin of the Wuhan Coronavirus

I watch CNN, i watch fox, i watch CBS and in this case there's a lot of things not being said about covid 19 origin. This is just the essential nature of Chinese communism Chinese communism is evil. Every person at arms is directly attributable to the Chinese Communist Party. I began looking into the origin that now widely known corona virus in early February. That's timing amid the Hong Kong protests the Taiwan elections the us-china trade. My name is Joshua Philip. I'm an investigative reporter at The Epoch Times in New York writing about the Chinese Communist Party's programs of espionage and unconventional warfare for well over a decade. Videos and messages from Chinese citizens leaking through the censorship suggested the situation was much worse than what the regime was reporting. As my research progressed initial answers turned into more questions. I soon realized there was much more to the story than we were being told. Today the corona virus is impacting over a hundred countries around the world, billions of lives worthless and from what is said by the Chinese Communist Party this allegedly started spontaneously in the seafood market in Wuhan China.

PART I

The Story of The Wuhan Seafood Market Wuhan is the capital of Hubei Province. The largest city in central China. Wonton seafood market is located in Zhang Han district of Wuhan City. It is a large comprehensive market that includes pork and a variety of frozen seafood flavored spices as well as some game meats. The first thing that received public attention about the epidemic was an internal notice from the Wuhan Health Commission. There has been a continuous occurrence of pneumonia cases of unknown cause. The notice issued on December 30 2019 clearly required all medical units to report similar cases of unknown pneumonia. The notice started spreading online and on December 31st 2019 the Wuhan Health Commission issued a public notice for the first time saying that some medical institutions found a link between the pneumonia cases and the one on seafood market. However, the notice pointed out that there was no evidence of obvious human to human transmission and no infection among medical personnel. On January 1st 2020 the Hunan seafood market posted a notice of closure. This was followed by a thorough cleanup of the market which as an investigative reporter seemed rushed. Wonhee a well-known Hong Kong expert echoed my concern that the move was like destroying the crime scene. Since then Wuhan officials have repeatedly said that most cases of pneumonia in Wuhan have a history of exposure to the Hunan seafood market. On January 26 the Institute of biology of China CDC announced that 33 of the 585 environmental samples from the WHO and on seafood market were found to contain the novel coronavirus nucleic acid and the virus was successfully isolated from the positive culture samples suggesting that the virus originated from wild animals sold at the market. At this point who a non-seafood market being the source of the epidemic became an official conclusion. A few days later however a report from the journal science published online challenged that story. The report cited a paper in The Lancet one of the world's top medical journals and questioned whether Wu Hans novel coronavirus pneumonia did not have originated at the market. The paper titled clinical features of patients infected a 20-19 novel coronavirus a new Han China was published in The Lancet on January 24. The first author of the paper is pong shaolin deputy director of Jin linton hospital. The first designated hospital for treatment of unknown pneumonia in Wuhan. Why would this come as a challenge the official narrative? Dr. SEAN LIN I think these journal articles very importantly reveal a lot of important information toed on police paper talk about the first patient onset was edgy on December 1st. These patients not related to one I see from market and also no epidemiology or association was formed between the first patient and subsequent patient and then also on this paper I talked about on December 10th there were three more Unser cases. Two of which were not related to one and civil market wholesale. Major discoveries there a total of 41 patients were counted in his paper and for ting up them proved to be unrelated to the seafood market. Accounting for more than one third no one sells bet at a civil market - and official from CDC's the dimension they find any pets in a thief market tip. JUDY A MIKOVITS PhD Certainly, The Lancet paper showing that supposed patient zero was nowhere near the market, secondly that there are no bats in the seafood market or anywhere close. The idea of the spread so fast through a population just the way it was said through the seafood market is highly unlikely and improbable. Numbers On January 29th and Lancet Rhee published an analysis of 99 confirmed cases at Jinyoung thanh Hospital of which 50 had no history of exposure to the seafood market. According to the New England Journal of the 425 cases confirmed 45 cases onset before January 1st had no history of exposure to the seafood market. Notably the authors of the two lands at papers in the new in Journal of Medicine our doctors and medical experts in mainland China. Annual Lucy an epidemiologist at the University of Georgetown said in response to the Lancet paper that if the data were accurate. The first case would have been infected by the virus already in November 2019 because of the incubation period between infection and symptoms. This would mean the virus is quietly spreading between people in some parts of Wuhan before the cluster of cases with a history of exposure. The who and on seafood market began on December 15. The first expert group from the National Health Commission arrived in Wuhan as early as December 31st 2019. The expert panel established a set of diagnostic criteria after investigating Ginny and Thanh Hospital of Wuhan that stipulated a history of contact with Hunan seafood market. The person having a fever and displaying the whole genome sequence all three standards have to be met to confirm case. The standard was used until a second group of experts including John Nanchang arrived in Wuhan and January 18th and made a revision why did the panel impose a history of seafood market exposure as a criterion of diagnosis knowing that at least a third of the cases were unrelated with the seafood market. Today's clearly known about 14 patients not related to one achieve market at all that clearly means another source of outbreak I think somehow this could be of malfeasance or somewhat intentionally cavil of some important source of infection. It can go a long way to covering up the actual source by imposing a false place and you're not looking at the actual victims then you're only allowed to find your keys under the light post. GORDON CHANG The numbers that we're getting from China about new infections and deaths are highly suspicious we know that Beijing for six weeks in December and January suppressed information of the epidemic and then when they officially acknowledged it on January 20. They then started a campaign of suppression of information we know that because the central leading group that was announced on January 26 has a nine-person roster and it's very heavy with propaganda officials. Indeed, the vice-chairman of the group is the Communist party's propaganda czar. It appears that the party's main goal here is suppression of information controlling the narrative that's more important to them than actually ending the epidemic. GEN ROBERT SPALDING I was in China when SARS happened and we were evacuated and it's the same it was exact same thing there's no transparency. They tried as long as they could to cover it up until finally it was just like with the krona by which they could no longer cover it up and then they proceeded to act, I mean I think from my perception back then their response to is exactly the same.

PART II

The Mysterious Gene Sequence On January 10 China disclosed the full genome sequence of the Wuhan novel coronavirus and many of the world's top biologists began analyzing it. As early as January 7th an academic jungle Jen from the National Institute of communicable disease control intervention along with the School of Public Health of food on University submitted a joint paper to nature. The paper was published on February 3rd and pointed out that the Wuhan corona virus is closely related to cov zc 4 5 and co v ZX c 2 1 2 viruses sampled from bats in jus Shan but a People's Liberation Army. The Wuhan corona virus has an 80 9.1%. Nucleotide similarity to the cov zc4 five virus and even exhibits 100% amino acid similarity than the NSP 7 e proteins. Shortly after the paper was published other scientists used blast. A program developed by the National Institute of Health and the National Center for Biotechnology information to compare the viral sequence based on the data submitted by Chinese authorities On January 12th. The results matched with John's findings. Another scientist Lu Rajan from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and their team also published a paper in The Lancet on January 30. The paper stated that the Wuhan virus has an 88% similarity to two bat derived SARS like coronaviruses collected in jus sham Jade young Province of China. The earliest discovery this bat derived viruses by an expert from the Research Institute for medicine of Nanjing Command. A paper published in 2018 States at scientists from this Institute detected many SARS like corona viruses and bats from Juche and city also known as bat like corona virus josh and virus. In short scientists found the Wuhan coronavirus the current pandemic is highly similar to a bat SARS like coronavirus previously discovered by the Nanjing military Research Institute showing 100% amino acid similarity in NS p7 and envelope protein the e protein. What does this high similarity reveal? How to see proteins 100% identical and virus jump species and so they're suggesting maybe the virus could be generated with reverse-engineer process. JUDY A MIKOVITS PhD I certainly believe that the 100% amino acid some similarity says it can't possibly it be a natural mutation. On January 21st researchers from the Institute Pasdar Shanghai Chinese Academy of Sciences published a paper in science China Life Sciences that mentioned an important phenomenon. The sequence of a key part of s protein of Wuhan virus has high homology with the SARS virus. What are s proteins and the well-known coronavirus picture their little mushrooms attached to the surface of the virus. These s proteins also known as spine proteins or spike proteins are the most important tool for the corona virus to invade human cells. If we compare the receptor a ce2 on the cell surface of human bodies to a lock. This s protein is the key which can unlock this lock on the cell surface and then invade into the cell to propagate and destroy it. Dr. SEAN LIN That means virus now can infect human cell much easier and that's probably also one our important reason the contributing to my album failure when people have a severe disease. They can spread out in the human body much faster. Well the S proteins that the high similarity of the S proteins from SARS one to now SARS - that's your spike protein, that's the lock and key, that's going to be what drives it right through human cells and so we know that's the pathogenic spike protein that for the original SARS so now you're allowing that access to human tissues because the spike proteins of the natural evolutionary strains don't infect human cells at all so that research has been going on at Wuhan and published since 2007 and clearly if that spike protein from SARS weren't on the kovat the new Koba 19 or SARS - it wouldn't be able to in enter human cells so again this is again evidence that it couldn't go through the Luhan seafood market. Research into the virus genome sequence revealed many essential data points. According to a February 28 report in the South China Morning Post the shanghai p3 laboratory which first shared the Wuhan coronavirus genome with the world was ordered to close by authorities. Impeding further research on the virus professor jeongyeon Zhen and his team who published the genome sequence on January 11 worked at this laboratory. According to a February 26 report on choice Shin Dong young Jen's team isolated and completed the genome sequence of the previously unknown virus on January 5th. On the same day the Shanghai Public Health clinical center reported the discovery to the National Health Commission and recommended prevention measures no response was received as of January 11th and it was then that the team decided to publicize the virus genome sequence on viral aaja co.org becoming the first team to do so in the world which I seen also reported that a hoob a Health Committee already notified genome sequencing organizations on January 1st. Regarding the cessation of analysis of Wuhan virus samples, existing virus samples must be destroyed. Information on the samples related to papers and related data are all prohibited from release. On January 3rd China's National Health Commission distributed notification letter 2020 number 3 in which a similar directed was presented. Afterwards the ones active Chinese scientific community suddenly fell into an eerie silence. What was the Chinese Communist Party trying to hide? Lisa Rinna's the Chinese government is censoring this information. They do not allow the symbols to be sequence or do not allow the sequence to be published or submitted to the gene bank. GORDON CHANG Its response to this virus is extremely troubling. It ignored it for six weeks. It allowed it to spread around China it tried to get other countries to not protect themselves. This is dangerous irresponsible behavior and it's endangered not only the Chinese people but people around the world. GEN ROBERT SPALDING There is no other way of looking at it they are responsible for the continuation of this corona virus and every time it comes back because it will come back because it's going to be with us now permanently. It will come back and every person that it killed, every person that harms is directly attributable to the Chinese Communist Party.

PART III

The discoveries of Dr. Shi Zhengli Through investigating the genome sequence, I found it's significant that the s protein of the Wuhan coronavirus was critical in its cross-species ability to infect humans. While I was searching for related studies online one Chinese viral gist in particular got my attention, she spent many years researching bats and coronaviruses. She was the first to locate the key to how coronaviruses can overcome cross species barriers in order to directly infect human bodies and she was the first to discover that the SARS virus was the result of a restructuring of multiple SARS like corona viruses found in bats. Her name is Shi Cheng Li and she may be an important link to the origin of the virus. Wikipedia describes Shi Cheng Li as a quote Chinese virologist and researcher the Wuhan Institute of biology which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Further investigations show that she Cheng Li has been a figure of controversy since the Wuhan virus outbreak. This is due to paper she published in 2015 discussing her own research into synthetic viruses. Choi Jin a media company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party interviewed. She gently in an attempt to refute these rumors. Dr. SEAN LIN Doctor generally she is one of the top experts in China starting about Coronel virus in Wuhan HTT virology share so many publications from collecting identify bed current water from bat caves. Her lab had these capacities and very sophisticated capacity to generate mutations to make it best feed in human expression as well. Delving further into related information. I discovered that she jangly published not one but four papers in total each of which contains important information. Since the SARS outbreak in 2003. She gently has been conducting research on coronaviruses from 2010 onward. The focus of she and her team was redirected to identifying the capacity for corona virus transmission across species. Specifically putting the spotlight on the s protein of the corona viruses in other words her team's research in the Wuhan lab has been looking into the part that can make corona viruses transmittable to humans. In June 2010 a team including shi jangly published a paper. It describes research to understand the susceptibility of angiotensin-converting enzyme to AC ET proteins of different bat species to the S protein of the SARS virus. In the experiments they also modified key amino acid condoms to mutate the bats AC e2 to examine compatibility with the SARS s protein. This paper demonstrated their awareness of the special relationship between the S protein and the AC e to receptor. It also signified that she had unearthed the passageway for corona viruses into human bodies. In October 2013 she and her team published a paper in the authoritative science journal Nature. They claimed a breakthrough in corona virus research. What was their breakthrough! They successfully isolated three viruses from bats. One of which had an S protein that integrated with human AC ET receptors. This effectively demonstrated the human infection of SARS like viruses to humans without the need of an intermediary host. Then in November 2015 she and her team at the Wuhan lab once again published a paper this time in the British journal Nature Medicine they discussed the creation of a synthetic virus a self-replicating time Eric virus. This virus had the SARS virus as the framework with the key s protein replaced by the one, they had found in a bat coronavirus she mentioned in her 2013 paper. This new virus demonstrated a powerful ability for cross-species infection. The mice infected with the synthetic virus revealed severe lung damage with no cure. This symbolized that she's successful splicing of the SARS virus was a key to open the door to the cross-species transmission what is startling is that these successful experiments on mice were only the tip of the iceberg. They planned to further experiment on primates. Although she generally did not indicate any conclusion from this research. Her move to research on primates suggests. This was to more closely simulate the infection of humans with this new synthetic virus. This wasn't done without controversy however. She's experiments quickly triggered widespread debates from the academic community. Simon Wayne Hobson of the Pasteur Institute in France expressed deep concerns. He told nature if the new virus escaped nobody could predict the trajectory. Propagation could happen anyway. JUDY A MIKOVIT His statement is exactly what's happening that the virus is everywhere additional studies very strongly support the idea that this new corona virus came from a recombination event. However, this did not terminate cheese research. On November 14 2018 she gently spoke at the School of Life Sciences and biotechnology at Shanghai Jiaotong University. The topic was bat coronavirus and it's cross-species infection. Reports of this event have since been deleted from the University website. I discovered two more significant pieces of information. Regarding the dangers of the research conducted by shi-gen Lee's team. First on October 16 2014 the Obama administration wary of the potential threats to public health from the gain-of-function goof research into SARS MERS or influenza announced through the National Institute of Health that it was suspending funding into similar research. The funding paws included shi jing lee's research project. Genetic engineering of SARS like corona virus and bats. A collaborative effort with dr. Ralph barek a VY Rolla gist at the University of North Carolina. Second after the Wuhan outbreak, Indian researchers compared the s protein sequence between 2019 and cov and SARS. They discovered that 2019 n cov had four new sequences inserted. All of which can be found in HIV sequences through a search on genbank. She gently discredited those observations. Although she never denied the existence of the four inserted sequences. However, scientists probing genbank found that there were only three viruses containing all sequences. The first is the HIV virus itself the second is a bat coronavirus discovered by she and the third is this new rule han coronavirus. We've done this kind of work for now 40 years for me. There's the sequence analysis and comparison of the virus of the SARS to Covid 19 apparently has genes that come from other human and other species including some envelope that gp41 from HIV. What is the H ivs gp41 the answer I found the line describes gp41 as a protein of HIV that acts as the key to infecting human bodies? Resulting in the functional failure of the immune system. If the discovery by Judy and her colleagues are established. It would mean the infectious part of the Wuhan virus the s protein. Incorporated the sequence of the HIV key protein. This made me think of the immunodeficiency symptoms and people infected. GEN ROBERT SPALDING They were doing a research on a human transmittable corona virus that was actually published in a paper so this is research that they actually published. They were working on developing a corona virus for the human host which you know leads he's a question why would you be created in the corona virus that can infect humans. What will be the purpose of that research? Is it for a weapon? Is it so that you can then create a vaccine? That you are the sole recipient of the profits from. The Chinese have full access to our databases. They have full access to all that research that comes out. They have full access to all our reading of verses to train their scientists and they have full access to our scientists like was you know with the recent indictment of the head of the chemistry department at Harvard. I mean this is a thousand talents program tens of thousands of the most of the world's brightest people in all of these different areas that are going to China to help them with their programs and all of these programs as you know have a dual use capability. GORDON CHANG Beijing's attacks on the United States which have occurred for weeks and weeks really worry what it shows is that China is desperate and the United States needs to defend itself because China is propagating this narrative that we spread the corona virus to China so the United States needs to just come out with the facts about how China took coronavirus samples from Canada and the United States’. They sent them to Wuhan we don't know exactly what went on in that lab there at the Wuhan Institute of virology but it's time for the United States to defend itself.

PART IV

The Secret of The Wuhan P4 Laboratory January 23rd 2020, the Wuhan virus exploded while Wuhan announced the lockdown to the city Shi Jing Lee and her team released a paper stating the Wuhan corona virus was a probable that origin. This was published in nature on February 3rd. The paper indicated that the Wuhan virus utilized the same key as SARS to gain entry into the human body. She also announced the 2019 n cov genome sequencer was 96.2% consistent with a bat coronavirus originating in Hunan China called our ATG 13 signaling a natural source the Wuhan virus. However, she Gentiles natural origin assertion is doubtful. The outbreak occurred in Wuhan. The same location as the p4 laboratory where she was based and which housed highly similar viruses. Common sense would leave the government to first inspect the p4 laboratory for any leakage incident and potential safety concerns. Instead they shifted public attention from the p4 laboratory to the South China Sea through wholesale market that sold no bats and designated it as the origin of the disease. At the same time authorities sealed off all virus samples prevented international experts from joining the investigation and used national television to slander doctors such as Li Ren Liang who disclosed the outbreak for spreading rumors. If the Wuhan virus indeed emerged naturally. Why would the CCP need to censor relevant news or block investigations. Could the Wuhan p4 laboratory have it secrets? Virus samples and genome sequences may be the exact ingredients we'll need to find our answers. GORDON CHANG When I first heard of the corona virus I was deeply concerned. Almost every disease that starts in China begins in Guangdong province the province that surrounds Hong Kong in the South but Wuhan is in the central portion of the country and so this was extremely unusual. It's not a conspiracy theory to think that the corona virus came from the Wuhan lab. We don't know at this point and until we know the theory about the lab origin is certainly something that we should consider. I noticed that after the outbreak the Wuhan Institute of biology kept strangely quiet. Under normal circumstances as the nation's highest level of AI Rolla G Research Institute. It should be the first one to actively respond when the entire country is working around the clock attempting to control the disease like. This one that so closely fits the type of viruses its scientists were researching. In contrast the Institute had a highly visible demonstration on CCTV other efforts to detect and prevent the outbreak of virus vien pigs of Guangdong in 2018. It should be noted that the Wuhan Institute displayed a series of abnormal events since the start of 2020. January 2nd an email from the director-general of the Institute to all internal staff was circulated. The subject was notice regarding the strict prohibition of disclosure of any information related to the Wuhan unknown the moment. National Health Commission clearly mandates that all detection empirical data results and conclusions related to this outbreak cannot be published on self-media or social media nor disclosed to any media including state media or collaborative organizations including any technical services companies. January 21st a new drug Ramba severe provided for free by the United States to China for Wuhan coronavirus treatment was preemptively patented by the Institute. February 3rd dr. Wu Xiaohua blew the whistle using his real name that Shi Jing Lee's haphazard laboratory management may have led the Wuhan virus to leak from the lab. February 4th chairman of doii shubo blew the whistle using his real name that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was suspected of manufacturing and leaking the Wuhan virus. February 7th top biochemical weapon expert of the People's Liberation Army Chen Wei officially assumed control over Wuhan Institute of biology z-- p for laboratory. February 14 Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for the inclusion of biosecurity into China's national security framework and to accelerate the introduction of a biosecurity Law. February 15th the Institute refuted widely spread rumors on Chinese social media that a female graduate kwangyeon Ling was patient zero and had perished. However, huang's photo CV and thesis were all removed from the Institute's official website leaving only her name. February 17 Institute researcher Chen chuan Xiao Liu the whistle using her real name that director-general of the Institute Wang Yong Yi was suspected of leaking the virus. JUDY A MIKOVITS I graduated from the University of Virginia in 1980. My first job was to go to the National Cancer Institute which was housed at Fort Detrick Maryland the same place that houses the you Sam red US Army Research Institute on infectious disease the biosafety level 4 facility equivalent of the Wuhan facility and so at these facilities it's where investigators who I went in there myself you can see the breakdowns and safety and it's everywhere. That's why I have no doubt the Chinese biosafety level 4 it was just as lacking in safety in rigor you can argue that they don't care. Faceted of leaking the virus military biochemical weapons expert assumes control biosecurity law. Now when these sensitive keywords are connected together. It tells me that the p4 laboratory is not an ordinary academic research institute. I decided to start from the beginning of the Wuhan p4 lab. On January 23rd the day Wuhan was locked down, French website challenges F are published an article that revealed many details of the collaboration between France and China to establish the p4 laboratory in Wuhan. In 2003 after the SARS outbreak in China the Chinese Academy of Sciences requested assistance from the French government to build a fire ology Research Center of the highest level. With the support of then French Prime Minister Raffa in the two countries signed a contract to jointly construct the p4 laboratory under a wave of contention. According to the contract French architect RVT and Leon was responsible for the engineering of the laboratory. However Chinese authorities switched the work to a local Wuhan architect IP ER based on research conducted by the General Directorate of external security. IPPR had close ties to subsidies of the Chinese military. Some of which were already targets of concern by the American CIA within the 12 subsidiary departments. There was even a specific military management office. The French delayed repeatedly given security concerns. It wasn't until 2017 before the Wuhan p4 laboratory is operational and French security continued to suspect that the Chinese regime was conducting biochemical weapons experiments. Who is the real boss of the p4 laboratory? The Wuhan p4 laboratory was a subsidiary of the Wuhan Institute of biology which is managed by China Academy of Sciences. The director of the laboratory was Yuan Zhinming, who was also the head of Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan chapter, design and funding for construction where the responsibilities of the X vice presidents of the Academy. Jiang Mianheng from 1999 to 2011 and Chen Jew from 2000 to 2007. Yuan Zhinming was the eldest son of X CCP leader Johnson. After Jiang Zemin ascended to power after the Tiananmen Square massacre his son entered the Academy and led the Institute of high technologies research and develop. Yuan Zhinming created the shanghai institute of life sciences and together with china academy of sciences shanghai colleges and universities, shanghai hospitals, military hospitals and research institutions form a profit group of life sciences organizations. They controlled China's major life sciences research projects and allocation of massive funding. Jiang Zhengheng son of ji young nian hang is the controlling shareholder of Wu Shi Aptech. Which in turn is controlling for soon pharmaceutical. China's agent for REM disappear. Effectively young ji Chang is the kingdom behind the specific medicine for the outbreak. Meanwhile chen zhu is the current president of the Red Cross Society of China. Which had faced numerous scandals since the outbreak. In 1999 while Jiang Zemin was in power the People's Liberation Army published a book unrestricted warfare. In which strategies for a weaker nation to combat a stronger nation are discussed in the context of modern warfare. One of the authors Xiao Liang wrote after the first Taiwan Strait crisis we realized that if the Chinese and American military fought head-on. We are at a disadvantage therefore we need a new strategy to help our military tilt the balance of power. This new strategy is called unrestricted or a variety of means beyond all limits without any restrictions. It could be military related including guerrilla warfare, terrorism biochemical warfare or it could be non-military related, such as drug trafficking poisoning environmental destruction and computer virus dissemination. Israeli expert in biological warfare and former intelligence officer Danny shoham published a paper in 2015 in India's Journal of Defense studies. He pointed out that China will not miss skip or abandon any highly advanced technology. Especially military related technology. The article noted that China had 12 facilities related to the Ministry of National Defense and 30 subsidiary facilities of the PLA participating in the research, development, manufacturing, testing or storage of biological weapons. Federation of American scientists indicated similar concerns in an evaluation report. The organization believed that the CCP possessed advanced chemical warfare projects. Including research development manufacturing and weaponizing capabilities. The CCP is usually known to have a proactive biological warfare portfolio including state funded and sponsored research activities. GEN ROBERT SPALDING I believe they happen. I believe they're developing and I think they want to be the most advanced nation on earth when it comes to biological weapons. The same as I believe that they do forced organ harvesting. The way I say the same as I believe that they have concentration camps for we Gers. The way I believe that they have systematically killed millions of Falun Gong. It is the same thing this regime you can count on it. ANTHONY SHAFER So Wuhan is an area I think is critical by the fact that there's a lot of concern about what China's ambitions are during long term global domination how'd you say it that their military doctrine has indicated that they intend to be the dominant political and military force to Pacific Rim. I've talked to senior members of the Trump administration who've had conversations with the senior Chinese generals and that's what they basically say it's in their doctrine too so we have to examine this new clue that's so this is one piece of the you know Wuhan biological warfare is that does this mean something to these other things were already seeing because the Chinese have already kind of stated this is their objective so I think we have to analyze it through that lens what does this mean to the larger political narrative of what China wants to do to dominate the region and potentially the world. We don't have to speculate about being at war last May the Communist Party through people's daily carried a peace which said that there was a quote-unquote people's war against the United States. They've declared war on us we have to respond. There is a war China's told us there's one.

PART V

Facing the Pandemic At present the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic has spread to about 190 countries with no signs of slowing down. The united states announced a state of national emergency. Europe became the new center of the outbreak. The world's largest art museum the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower closed to the public. Tragic scenes previously only found in Hollywood films are now playing out live on the world stage and given how closely it seemed to align with the Chinese regime’s narratives. I can't help but question the role the w-h-o had in this catastrophic then demo. GEN ROBERT SPALDING Well I think all you have to do is look at the photo of tigress and she shaking hands. She standing their tea juice going up to there and it really is indicative of how China controls many of these international institutions. You can see that the w-h-o is essentially following Chinese Communist Party's guidelines you can see that the UN Human Rights Council is similarly falling what China does. GORDON CHANG From the very beginning of the corona virus outbreak. The Communist Party has done its best to prevent the CDC and others from studying the origin of this disease. We don't know what's there but the fact that the Communist Party is covering this up. It should trouble us deeply. JAMES GRUNDVIG Then you see the World Health Organization take over YouTube and what's amazing is now at the bottom of every YouTube video even from Chris Martenson with his with his daily updates. He's just reading facts. Now it's the World Health Organization is a forced link to go to the site so for any person doesn't know but who the World Health is a J go there to get the propaganda. Not the facts, not the truth, they get the propaganda. Get the talking points from the World Health Organization and that is also very it's a shame that American corporations especially social media like Google like Facebook and Twitter. They're trying to sense or banner shadow ban or manipulate algorithms so no so forth to prevent an actual honest conversation. The best way this is going to be answered all this we want the truth. JUDY A MIKOVITS The biggest issue I’ve learned over my 40-year career it's not really fighting the viruses and learning how to treat the viruses. It's fighting a system that is determined to cover up and persecute anyone who reveals the truth behind. Today the World Bank many of the international institutions have essentially adopted a posture whereby if the Chinese Communist Party tells them to do what they're going to do it. I'm not surprised at all by what the WH so says I'm not surprised at all by ICAO which basically has been blocking people from that tweet about Taiwan. I mean the whole system and this is why by the way the national security strategy it came out in December 2017 says what it says which is we need to protect our societies not just the United States but all democracies. We need to rebuild them. Not invest Chinese Communist Party regime and the Belton road and they should have been made in China 2025 and we need to inspire people again to believe in democracy. Every country has diseases but in China they become national emergencies and global emergencies. Because the real disease here is communism. A sprawling and aggressive disinformation campaign at least globally by the Chinese Communist Party. The propaganda push which has escalated in recent weeks. Aims primarily to deflect the blame over the Chinese regime's botched handling of the Wuhan coronavirus. To sow discord internationally and to portray the image that the regime has contained the outbreak. During the investigative interview process well-known scientists who once suggested a laboratory origin of the virus declined to be interviewed one after another. Some avoided the topic of virus origin completely. Some had already composed scientific arguments but abruptly retracted the haters. I felt as if a giant net of censorship was cast by the CCP over virologists around the world. Silence at this time could have consequences for the health and lives of billions of people. ANTHONY SHAFER I watched CNN I watched Fox I watched CBS and I try to make my own assessment and a lot of the time you could figure out what's really going on by what they're not saying and in this case there's a lot of things not being said. Bottom line they want to make money from China. They fear the Chinese repercussions if they air this stuff it just gives you an indication of how powerful the Chinese Communist Party is. Chinese Communist Party suppressing speech in the West. Because these companies make money from China and they're afraid through the 91 week the Chinese comes as parties going to punish them if they essentially publish this stuff or allow it to be aired. There is no other movement. I think we have to recognize your audience who haven't seen it. I highly recommend your noble because the same basic governance model that screwed up Chernobyl. I would argue is now in charge of the response of the coronavirus. So, whatever you saw go wrong in Chernobyl you could still see that potential here. I'm not saying it's going to be that bad. I'm just saying that the party the central party is the thing which they want to protect their power and people and nation issues are secondary to the continuation of power. Communist Party is malign and it is grossly irresponsible. It is pressured governments to keep their borders open and it had to know that that would result in the fast bread of coronavirus to other countries. This is the worst sort of behavior and the world's got to understand that there will not be peace there will not be good order and stability in the world as long as the communist party rules China. The Wall Street Journal writes a piece is China's a sick man of Asia. It needs to be corrected. It's not Chinese a sick man of Asia. It is a communist Chinese party. That's a sick man of Asia. The communist party has policies that people abhor and it's not just its reaction to the coronavirus we see this the suppression of Rights also with the holding perhaps a million people maybe even three million people in concentration camps. So, this is just the essential nature of Chinese communism. Chinese communism is evil. While China pretends to be a responsible member of the international community. In reality they are doing much to undermine the rule of law and human rights. We at the epoch times refer to the Wuhan coronavirus or Covid 19 as a ccp virus. Because a Chinese Communist Party's cover-up in Miss handling allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic. On March 24th Texas lawyer Larry claimed and filed a complaint in Texas federal court seeking at least 20 trillion dollars from the Chinese government. Clay man said in a statement quote the Chinese people are a good people but their government is not and it must be made to pay dearly. On April 4th the British think-tank Henry Jackson Society advocated for compensation of 351 billion pounds from the CCP to the UK and that the government should pursue it through international courts the same report called for a total compensation of 3.2 trillion pounds to the g7 for the damages caused by the cover-up of the outbreak. On the same day the All India Bar Association filed a complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Seeking an unspecified amount as reparations from China over the global spread of the coronavirus. Evidently the CCP violated the international health regulations. The United States and the international community must regain their senses and take action. Reveal the truth two investigations. Initiate sanctions against the CCP and seek massive restitution for the worldwide public health emergency resulting in tremendous health and economic loss. As the people of Taiwan and Hong Kong are insisting only by trying to stay away from the CCP's invasion. Can we protect ourselves in this global disaster? Let's start protecting ourselves. Let's start rebuilding our country. Let's start investing in our people. Let's start inspiring people to love democracy and transparency and open markets. Not what the Chinese have which is essentially if you read document number nine counter to every single one of those things. So, I mean it gives us a real opportunity to kind of real value eight the kind of world we want to live in and fight for the right side of that world. I want them to see the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party because when they do, they're going to wake up and when that happens democracies will begin to flourish again and when that happens. Perhaps just perhaps the people of China will have a chance. Conclusion This virus must have a message for all of us as people of this earth. We need to take a break from our busy schedules and seriously consider the repercussions of our ever-expanding scientific research and development. If we go too far do our desires and inhibitions go against the laws of nature and pull us further from the direction given by heaven. Maybe when this virus lifts, we can again find our traditional values. Rediscover kindness and virtue family. I believe that viruses can't survive where hearts have compassion. Read the full article

#ANTHONYSHAFER #covid19origin #GENROBERTSPALDING #JAMESGRUNDVIG #OriginoftheWuhanCoronavirus #WuhanSeafoodMarket

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WEBSITE- www.TRICLARA.com 1. What are cold sores/fever blisters? Cold sores – also referred to as fever blisters are characterized by small blisters that usually form on and around the lips in another word “orofacially”. Blisters usually swell and most often are filled with fluid and can be oozy. The inflamed blisters are also known as “papules”. Eventually the blisters may dry to form a soft or crusted scab which eventually falls off. . 2. Are cold sores/fever blisters caused by a virus? Yes, they are caused by the Herpes Simplex Virus-1 (HSV-1). 3. How do I get a cold sore? Cold sores can be contracted through contact with anyone or anything that has been exposed to a blister or sore. For example, if Person A has a cold sore and drank out of a water bottle and then Person B drinks out of the same water bottle, Person B may contract a cold sore from Person A. Similarly, you can infect yourself if you kiss or are intimate with someone who has cold sores. It is important to remember that cold sores can still be infectious post the blister stage during the virus shedding period. After the first exposure and upon contracting the virus, the virus remains dormant in the trigeminal nerve, at which point an outbreak may occur due to a trigger. See number 7 for possible triggers. 4. Once a cold sore is treated, why does it come back from time to time? The HSV-1 virus is a dormant and opportunistic virus. Thus, it is one of the few viruses that flare up when the body's immune system is compromised or when an individual is stressed or has been exposed to certain triggers which can reactivate the virus. 5. Can I get rid of the HSV-1 virus once and for all, meaning kill the virus so it never comes back? Unfortunately, NO! Once you have the virus, you have it forever. But there are ways you can limit the number of cold sore outbreaks you get. In order to do this successfully, you need to understand what your triggers are. Since the triggers for cold sores vary from person to person it is important to know all your possible triggers. See number 7 for more information. 6. Since I cannot eradicate the HSV-1 altogether how can I stop or prevent it from recurring? Avoid physical and or intimate contact with an individual who has an outbreak. Always practice good hygiene regardless of whether you are in a public place or not. Pay attention to your stress levels, keep your immune system in tune. Ensure that you get plenty of rest as needed. Be sure to protect your lips from too much sun or cold or wind or other known triggers. 7. What are the possible triggers for cold sores/fever blister? Common triggers are other infections such as colds or flu, as well as stress, sunlight, wind exposure and deterioration or compromise of the immune system. 8. What are the first signs or symptoms of cold sores? Symptoms, like triggers, vary from one individual to the next. However, symptoms may include: an itchy and or tingling sensation, pain and discomfort, soreness, tenderness and possible hardening of the lip, followed by the appearance of a papule or a cluster of blisters. 9. How can I get relief from some or all of the symptoms of cold sores and help shorten the duration of cold sores? There are several OTC medications on the market designed to provide relief from cold sores/fever blisters and some even claim to shorten the duration of the cold sores outbreak.

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The TriClara Story

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TriClara's team is just another example of entrepreneurs in the USA starting with experimenting in the garage and meticulously advancing to laboratory development and then to a commercialized product produced in the USA under strict cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Practice) per FDA regulations.

TriClara® isn't a typical cold sores formulation company looking to make a quick buck off your infectious outbreak. TriClara's team are real people who experience the discomfort and embarrassment of HSV-1, just like you.

TriClara's team were tired of waiting 10-15 days for cold sores to clear up and wanted to create a faster, more aesthetically pleasing solution. Just like you they disliked white cream, Band-Aids and blisters. They would avoid cameras, events and snuggling up to their significant others. Having an outbreak felt more like an insurmountable barrier between them and their life, rather than a common, short-lived annoyance.

Team TriClara asked themselves the question; How can we design a simple, safe, yet effective topical formulation for relief of cold sores/fever blisters and while at it, could it possibly shorten the duration of cold sore outbreak?

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TriClara® is a topical cold sores formulation that treats and clears cold sores faster. When applied optimally as directed, that is 8 times every two hours daily, cold sores clear up in 1-3 days (rather than 10-15 days!). A great number of individuals experience no outbreak at all. These are usually experienced individuals who understand the symptoms of cold sores and know their triggers.

TriClara® is a clear formulation. No one wants visible cream on top of cold sores, so TriClara® goes on clear and stays transparent all day.

TriClara® begins working hard immediately. At the first feeling of a tingle or symptom of cold sores, TriClara® begins to alleviate the symptoms and starts clearing cold sores. Working through all stages of cold sores, TriClara® beats the competition by relieving symptoms and restoring a healthy lip.

Ingredients of TriClara

TriClara® is the only formulation with the LEAST number of ingredients.

Benzalkonium Chloride (BAK) is listed in the OTC monograph and serves as a topical antiseptic agent which helps prevent secondary infections which could worsen an outbreak.

TRICLARA HAT TRICK!!

1. GLYCERIN- Used as a viscosity adjusting agent, humectant, oral care agent, enhances the general appearance of skin, protects and nourishes the skin and serves as an emollient. 2. VITAMIN C- Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) serves as an antioxidant, stabilizer, buffering & skin conditioning agent. 3. N-ACETYL CYSTEINE- Used cosmetically to enhance skin appearance and for skin conditioning properties.

Thus, each ingredient in TriClara plays a role in delivering success.

Some of the added overall benefits of TriClara vs leading cold sore anti-viral formulation

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DISCLAIMER: Most OTC drugs are not reviewed and approved by FDA; however, they may be marketed if they comply with applicable regulations and policies. FDA has not evaluated whether this product complies.

#cold #coldsore #coldsoreremedy #cold sore treatment

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a-themockingbirdsings · 7 years

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Search Category >> Lab Notes

Search Author >> Morse, Barbara

Search Keyword >> Lisa

Dr. Barbara Morse - Lab Notes - 16 November 2016

Avengers Tower Day 10

We retreated inside the walls on 7 November 2016. I think it’s valuable for us to keep track of time. I took some time on a personal matter away from the tower, things are difficult out there. The time on the road allowed me to observe the infected in a context where they were not attacking. Now that I am back at the tower, things are settled enough for me to begin work studying the virus itself. This is difficult, not only because the study of viruses was not a field I consider myself an expert in, but because my first subjects were once people who stood alongside us.

This morning there was a breach, somehow one of the infected got through the doors, and three of our number were infected. Two were bitten, and from what I was able to find, it appears that the closer to what might be a fatal wound a person is, the quicker they will turn. L. Simonson (Lisa) was only scratched, and I determined that we should take samples of her blood and from the wound and quarantine her until we were sure of her status. Unfortunately, the scratch was enough. Lisa was our only medical doctor, we will now be left with myself and K. Rao to do the best we can with our own medical knowledge.

We estimate that it took nine hours from point of infection for Lisa to exhibit physical and neurological symptoms. With certainty that the quarantine area is secure, T. Stark and I have determined that we should keep Lisa inside, what we might learn from her far outweighs the risk of having her. She will be the first to receive the cure when we find it.

Dr. Barbara Morse - Lab Notes - 23 November 2016

Avengers Tower Day 17

Preliminary study of deceased subjects has revealed that the infection results in massive frontal lobe deterioration. This may be caused by the fever we detected in Lisa during the early stages of the infection taking hold. It may also be caused by the virus itself attacking the brain. I will require more time to analyse the tissue to know for certain.

Findings based on observation of Lisa’s behaviour:

While the infection is most commonly spread through bites, Lisa was infected by a scratch. Analysis of the swab taken from the wound has confirmed my hypothesis that there was infected blood on the hand that scratched her. This method of infection may explain why Lisa has been frequently observed scratching her own skin, so that she can spread the infection through scratches. As deceased subjects 1 and 2 were killed shortly after displaying aggression, it is unclear if this behaviour is common. More research is needed.

Inside the quarantine cell, there is a container of water that Lisa has shown no interest in. She has gone at least seven days without consuming any water. Food items introduced into the cell, but Lisa has not responded to their presence. I am beginning to hypothesise that she will only be interested in a moving target.

In spite of not consuming any liquids in the past week, Lisa appears to be producing large quantities of saliva, which appears as a frothing mouth. Given that the infection is so readily transmitted through bites, salivary excretions are likely the primary carrier of the virus. I have yet to surmise a way to collect saliva from Lisa for the purpose of testing it for viral organisms.

Lisa frequently circles the quarantine cell, she appears to be looking for some way to escape. It is uncertain if this displays a higher level of intelligence than other infected, as I would need to observe other confined infected to know this for certain. It has been determined that some of the infected are more intelligent than others. If Lisa is more intelligent, the relative intelligence of the infected may be based on their intelligence before infection.

Given some of these symptoms, I have decided to investigate the similarities between this virus and rabies. The hydrophobia and frothing of the mouth are both symptoms of rabies, so it’s an avenue worth investigating. However, if this theory proves correct, it will not bring us closer to a cure for those already showing symptoms, as there is no known cure for rabies after the infection has begun to present with symptoms. It does offer some hope for immunisation, and post-exposure prophylaxis.

Dr. Barbara Morse - Lab Notes - 26 November 2016

Avengers Tower Day 20

A mouse was introduced into the quarantine cell today. As previously considered, Lisa has displayed a preference for a live meal. She has since been investigating the airlock system through which the mouse was delivered, she appears to be determining whether this is a way out. While there is no way out of quarantine from inside the cell, I am growing increasingly concerned about whether we are taking an unnecessary risk.

Dr. Barbara Morse - Lab Notes - 2 December 2016

Avengers Tower Day 27

Lisa has become more lethargic, is this starvation? We are unsure at this time. Outside the tower, other infected do not appear to be behaving the same way, leaning against walls, failing to respond to stimulus. This does not appear to be a symptom of the infection worsening.

Dr. Barbara Morse - Lab Notes - 3 December 2016

Avengers Tower Day 28

Lisa escaped quarantine. Late last night she collapsed, and ceased movement. After six hours, she still showed no sign of movement. I blame myself for leaving D. Turner alone in the lab, but I could not have expected him to open the quarantine door. We can now only assume that he was overcome with curiosity.

Laboratory footage shows us D. Turner approaching the quarantine cell. He hesitates, then opens the door. Lisa immediately leapt to her feet and launched herself at D. Turner, she spent one minute feeding on his flesh before she escaped into the building and was decapitated by L. Kinney. Two tower residents (aside from D. Turner) were infected by Lisa before L. Kinney was able to intervene, and both victims were subsequently killed to prevent further infection. D. Turner died of his injuries before he could show signs of infection. David Turner was a great asset to our research and will be missed as a colleague and a friend.

All responsible parties have agreed that further testing on live subjects would be irresponsible.

#lab notes

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operagheist-blog · 7 years

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PHYSIOLOGICAL CATEGORIES HERE. part 2 of the huge meta, i split this up for everyone’s sanity.

PSYCHOLOGICAL CATEGORIES

LEARNING & MEMORY

learning is defined as the process in which changes in behavior arise as a result of experience interacting with the environment. memory is defined as the record of a person’s past experiences gained through learning. this is literally from my class powerpoint, it’s pretty straightforward.

ERIK’S MANNERISMS IN RELATIVITY TO CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

what is classical conditioning? i’m sure you guys have heard of pavlov’s dog. classical conditioning involves teaching an organism that one stimulus serves as the predictor for a specific upcoming event. as far as i can recall, there was some sort of experiment by clark hull in terms of classical conditioning where he used his students as subjects & conditioned them to expect pain ( i think he slapped them ) if they were presented with the paired stimulus. i’m not sure if that’s a true story, though. something that IS real is the baby albert experiment, where the subject, a baby named albert, was conditioned to fear things that were white & fluffy. he was presented with a white rat & then the experimenters caused a loud noise that scared the shit out of him. honestly, that was a really awful experiment & it screwed albert up for the rest of his life. ‘ knight, what the fuck does this even have to do with erik ’ ok so let’s look at his initial reaction to physical contact, ignore motn & ponr for a minute ok. if he’s not the one initiating the contact, don’t fucking touch him, because after the whole ‘ devil’s child ’ experience, he’s likely associating touch with pain, where he expects someone to hurt him if they reach out without him first showing that it’s ok ( see. angel of music ). christine did not fucking help this problem after the unmasking part one. erik also reacts by trying to get rid of something he perceives as a predictive stimulus to which he expects pain, see. the swordfight, immobilising raoul in the final lair scene, the torture chamber scene in the 04 movie etc. i’m also certain there are other external stimuli that cause the same reaction & the issue is that they’re fucking hardwired into his brain because he’s been hurt all his life. associations learned through classical conditioning CAN FADE OVER TIME if the stimulus is presented without the expected response. drug abuse can also be linked to classical conditioning, especially in the issue of relapses that can occur post-rehab.

ERIK’S MANNERISMS IN RELATIVITY TO OPERANT CONDITIONING

what is operant conditioning & how does it differ from classical conditioning? operant conditioning involves an organism learning about the relationship between a stimulus, a response, & an outcome. unlike classical conditioning, the determining factor in whether or not the outcome occurs is based on whether or not the organism makes a response to a stimulus. the whole point of this section is that erik sure as heck learned what responses would lead to certain outcomes; this could explain the reclusiveness from other people ( if they don’t see him, they can’t hurt him ), the distant interactions if he’s interacting with anyone in poto canon that isn’t christine, mme giry, or the daroga ( if they don’t know him, they can’t use anything against him ), & the mask ( if they can’t see the deformities, they can’t shun him... as much as they could otherwise ). the third point is really more of a learned response to lessen the aversive outcomes, although it can’t necessarily prevent them.

ERIK’S MANNERISMS IN RELATIVITY TO GENERALISATION OR DISCRIMINATION OF SENSORY STIMULI

ok, generalisation is basically the brain grouping similar stimuli together & assuming an equivalent outcome to one stimulus to the other, even if that’s not the case ( allergies are a really good example, i have an aunt who is allergic to walnuts, but not other types of nuts, another example of food generalisation happens in children, a child who doesn’t like broccoli may assume they won’t like cauliflower either, due to its similar appearance. in the olden days, people avoided i think some sort of berries or whatnot that are widely eaten today because they looked like the poisonous belladonna ). discrimination is the ability to perceive differences between stimuli ( a kid who hates broccoli recognises that cauliflower is different & understands that it might not be so bad ). tldr, important things erik generalises: a sudden approach from another person means i’m going to be hurt, because attempts at contact mean i’ll be hurt. people who are highly intelligent & knowledgeable in many subjects are less likely to discriminate against me, because people who understand medicine deal with similar things, people with medical knowledge must also be well educated in other areas. important things that erik can discriminate against: types of music, that’s pretty obvious — give him music by a known composer & he’ll sure as heck be able to identify it from another similar work by someone else. not all leading sopranos go downhill after five seasons, age is a factor, some singers are better than others, but the level of specific skills may not always be better in the singer deemed overall superior to the other ( carlotta can definitely project more than christine, but since erik trained christine, she’s better at carrying a tune, so on so forth ). not all of mme giry’s girls have the proper poise, some aren’t meant for certain steps or lifts, some have better endurance. honestly this discrimination is fine tuned for the arts, be it visual, performance, literature, & also extends to architectural knowledge.

PERSONALITY PSYCHOPATHOLOGY + ERIK’S BEHAVIOR FT. PLAUSIBLE DIAGNOSES, ALSO OPIOID ABUSE

here is a link to the DSM V.

for elaboration, see DIAGNOSTIC NOTES. applicable traits will be followed by ✔︎ O

obsessive-compulsive personality disorder — diagnostic criteria.

defined as a pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, & mental & interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, & efficiency, beginning by early adulthood & present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by FOUR OR MORE of the following: 1. is preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost. 2. shows perfectionism that interferes with task completion ( e.g., is unable to complete a project because his or her own overly strict standards are not met ). 3. is excessively devoted to work & productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships ( not accounted for by obvious economic necessity ) ✔︎. 4. is overconscientious, scrupulous, & inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values ( not accounted for by cultural or religious identification ) ✔︎. 5. is unable to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value. 6. is reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others unless they submit to exactly his or her way of doing things. ✔︎ 7. adopts a miserly spending style toward both self & others; money is viewed as something to be hoarded for future catastrophes. 8. shows rigidity & stubbornness. ✔︎

posttraumatic stress disorder — diagnostic criteria.

posttraumatic stress disorder note: the following criteria apply to adults, adolescents, & children older than 6 years [ for this, i will simply exclude the children under 6 years parts, or other irrelevant to time period notes ]. A. exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in ONE OR MORE of the following ways: 1. directly experiencing the traumatic event(s).✔︎ 2. witnessing, in person, the event(s) as it occurred to others. 3. learning that the traumatic event(s) occurred to a close family member or close friend. in cases of actual or threatened death of a family member or friend, the event(s) must have been violent or accidental. 4. experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of the traumatic event(s). [ ... ] B. presence of ONE OR MORE of the following intrusion symptoms associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning after the traumatic event(s) occurred: 1. recurrent, involuntary, & intrusive distressing memories of the traumatic event(s) ✔︎ 2. recurrent distressing dreams in which the content &/or affect of the dream are related to the traumatic event(s). ✔︎ [ ... ] 3. dissociative reactions ( e.g., flashbacks ) in which the individual feels or acts as if the traumatic event(s) were recurring ( such reactions may occur on a continuum, with the most extreme expression being a complete loss of awareness of present surroundings* ) ✔︎. 4. intense or prolonged psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event(s). 5. marked physiological reactions to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event(s). ✔︎ C. persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidenced by ONE OR BOTH of the following: 1. avoidance of or efforts to avoid distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s) ✔︎. 2. avoidance of or efforts to avoid external reminders ( people, places, conversations, activities, objects, situations ) that arouse distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s) ✔︎ D. negative alterations in cognitions & mood associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning or worsening after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidenced by TWO OR MORE of the following: 1. inability to remember an important aspect of the traumatic event(s) ( typically due to dissociative amnesia & not to other factors such as head injury, alcohol, or drugs ). 2. persistent & exaggerated negative beliefs or expectations about oneself, others, or the world ✔︎. 3. persistent, distorted cognitions about the cause or consequences of the traumatic event(s) that lead the individual to blame himself/herself or others ✔︎. 4. persistent negative emotional state ( e.g., fear, horror, anger, guilt, or shame ) ✔︎ 5. markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities. 6. feelings of detachment or estrangement from others. 7. Persistent inability to experience positive emotions ( e.g., inability to experience happiness, satisfaction, or loving feelings ). E. marked alterations in arousal and reactivity associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning or worsening after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidenced by TWO OR MORE of the following: 1. irritable behavior & angry outbursts ( with little or no provocation ) typically expressed as verbal or physical aggression toward people or objects ✔︎. 2. reckless or self-destructive behavior ✔︎. 3. hypervigilance ✔︎. 4. exaggerated startle response. 5. problems with concentration. 6. sleep disturbance ( e.g., difficulty falling or staying asleep or restless sleep ) ✔︎. F. duration of the disturbance ( criteria B, C, D, & E ) is more than 1 month. ✔︎ G. the disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning ✔︎. H. the disturbance is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance ( e.g., medication, alcohol ) or another medical condition ✔︎. specify whether: with dissociative symptoms: the individual’s symptoms meet the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder, & in addition, in response to the stressor, the individual experiences persistent or recurrent symptoms of EITHER of the following: 1. depersonalization: persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from, & as if one were an outside observer of, one’s mental processes or body ( e.g., feeling as though one were in a dream; feeling a sense of unreality of self or body or of time moving slowly ) ✔︎. 2. dereaiization: persistent or recurrent experiences of unreality of surroundings ( e.g., the world around the individual is experienced as unreal, dreamlike, distant, or distorted ). note: to use this subtype, the dissociative symptoms must not be attributable to the physiological effects of a substance ( e.g., blackouts, behavior during alcohol intoxication) or another medical condition ( e.g., complex partial seizures ). specify if: with delayed expression: if the full diagnostic criteria are not met until at least 6 months after the event ( although the onset and expression of some symptoms may be immediate ).

opioid use disorder — diagnostic criteria

A. a problematic pattern of opioid use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by AT LEAST TWO of the following, occurring within a 12-month period: 1. opioids are often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended. ✔︎ 2. there is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control opioid use. 3. a great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain the opioid, use the opioid, or recover from its effects ✔︎. 4. craving, or a strong desire or urge to use opioids ✔︎. 5. recurrent opioid use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home. 6. continued opioid use despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of opioids. 7. important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of opioid use. 8. recurrent opioid use in situations in which it is physically hazardous ✔︎. 9. continued opioid use despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by the substance ✔︎. 10. tolerance, as defined by EITHER of the following: a. a need for markedly increased amounts of opioids to achieve intoxication or desired effect ✔︎. b. a markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of an opioid ✔︎. note: this criterion is not considered to be met for those taking opioids solely under appropriate medical supervision. 11. withdrawal*, as manifested by EITHER of the following: a. the characteristic opioid withdrawal syndrome — [ presence of EITHER of the following; 1. cessation of ( or reduction in ) opioid use that has been heavy & prolonged ( i.e., several weeks or longer ) ✔︎. 2. administration of an opioid antagonist after a period of opioid use. B. THREE OR MORE of the following developing within minutes to several days after criterion a : 1. dysphoric mood ✔︎. 2. nausea ✔︎ or vomiting. 3. muscle aches ✔︎. 4. lacrimation or rhinorrhea. 5. pupillary dilation, piloerection, or sweating. 6. diarrhea. 7. yawning. 8. fever ✔︎. 9. insomnia ✔︎. C. The signs or symptoms in criterion B cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning ✔︎. D. the signs or symptoms are not attributable to another medical condition and are not better explained by another mental disorder, including intoxication or withdrawal from another substance ✔︎ ] b. opioids ( or a closely related substance ) are taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms ✔︎. note: this criterion is not considered to be met for those individuals taking opioids solely under appropriate medical supervision.

DIAGNOSTIC NOTES. i could have put more things here, but this is really getting long. with all of that, erik’s a mess ngl.

crappy college psych major attempt at diagnostic conclusion? OCD, PTSD with dissociative symptoms & a severe case of opioid addiction.

there were going to be more sections here, but i actually covered everything that i needed to ( as far as i know ). some specifics for the opiate withdrawal; these obviously pertain to when he’s not using opiates, whether it’s because he doesn’t have them, or due to a desire to alleviate concern in others ( especially any loved ones he gains ).

i am so so sorry for how long this is. if you got thru this, bravo & i love you for doing so.

#𝄞 、⁞ angels still have lain with mortals & brought forth titans & monsters of old. ❨isms.❩#abuse //#drug addiction //#mental illness //#i cant believe i even finished this part that was a lo t of read in g thru the dsm v.....

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ladystylestores · 4 years

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A more measured Trump doesn’t mean accurate

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump in recent days suddenly acknowledged the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic and edged away from some of his most audacious falsehoods about it. That’s not to say he gave the public an honest accounting.

Trump minimized the potential risk to children and those around them as he advocated reopening schools. He again marveled at the number of COVID-19 tests being performed in the U.S. even as the overwhelmed testing system crucially fails to deliver sufficient access and timely results.

And he cited a low U.S. death rate from COVID-19 compared with other countries, when the global statistics appear to contradict him.

All this while Trump canceled Republican National Convention events in Jacksonville, Florida, bowing to the reality that many Republicans were reluctant to go a state where the virus has been out of control.

Meantime his press secretary peddled false internet rumors that the “cancel culture” led to the cancellation of a cartoon about puppies.

A review of some statements from the past week:

TESTS

TRUMP, on the U.S. approaching 50 million tests: “This allows us to isolate those who are infected, even those without symptoms. So we know exactly where it’s going and when it’s going to be there.” — briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: This is by no means true.

In many if not most parts of the country, people who manage to get a test can wait for many days for the results because labs are overwhelmed. In the meantime, those people could be and in some cases surely are spreading infection. And many people who want a test but report no symptoms can’t get one.

Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results because of the crushing workload from the surge of new cases.

“There’s been this obsession with, ‘How many tests are we doing per day?’” said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The question is, how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned?”

Story continues

___

KIDS and COVID-19

TRUMP on young people and the virus: “Now, they don’t catch it easily; they don’t bring it home easily. And if they do catch it, they get better fast. We’re looking at that fact.” — briefing Wednesday.

THE FACTS: That isn’t a fact. He doesn’t have the science to reach this broad conclusion.

His coronavirus task force coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, and other public health officials have said repeatedly that while children appear to get less sick from the virus than adults, the threat to young people and their ability to spread the virus are not understood because not enough research has been done on kids and COVID-19.

Birx underscored the point Friday on NBC’s “Today” show. Whether children under 10 spread the virus the same as older children “is still an open question” she said.

“We know that children under 18 are less sick, but there are some that suffer terrible consequences if they have underlying conditions,” she added. “Children under 10 do get infected. It’s just unclear how rapidly they spread the virus.”

Trump has been pushing for schools to reopen and at one point threatened to withhold federal money if they don’t.

While his assurances about children were unsupported, they were a step back from his earlier rhetoric that portrayed kids as practically immune to infection. “It’s very unique how the children aren’t affected,” he said in early May. “Incredible.”

___

U.S. DEATHS

TRUMP on the U.S. and other countries in the pandemic: “We’ve done much better than most. And with the fatality rate at a lower rate than most, it’s something that we can talk about, but we’re working, again, with them because we’re helping a lot of countries that people don’t even know about.” — briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: No, the U.S. does not shine in comparison with other countries. The U.S. has experienced far more recorded infections and deaths from COVID-19 than any other country, including those with larger populations, and it lags a number of other nations in testing and containment.

Trump seems to have edged away from claiming that the U.S. mortality rate is the world’s best, after being confronted on that point in his Fox News interview a week ago with Chris Wallace. His more modest boasts since, though, also are not correct.

Understanding deaths as a percentage of the population or as a percentage of known infections is problematic because countries track and report COVID-19 deaths and cases differently. No one can reliably rank countries in this regard.

The statistics that do exist fail to support his assertion.

In an analysis of the 20 countries currently most affected by the pandemic, the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center finds the U.S. with the fourth worst rate of deaths per 100,000 people — only Britain, Peru and Chile are seeing more reported deaths as a proportion of their populations.

On another measure, looking at what percentage of reported cases lead to death, the U.S. is in the middle of that pack, with a case-fatality ratio of 3.6%

Looking at deaths among all countries, not just the ones most suffering at this stage of the pandemic, the U.S. fares somewhat better but still not among the best. Its recorded 44 deaths per 100,000 compares favorably with Britain (68.6 per 100,000) as well as Spain (60.8), Italy (58) and Sweden (55.7), for example, but poorly with Canada (24), Brazil (40), Mexico (33) and dozens more countries.

Disparities in reporting are only one reason not to take these numbers conclusively. Many factors are in play in shaping a death toll besides how well a country responded to the pandemic, such as the overall health or youth of national populations.

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‘CANCEL CULTURE’

KAYLEIGH McENANY, White House press secretary, on Trump: “He’s also appalled by cancel culture, and cancel culture specifically as it pertains to cops. We saw a few weeks ago, ‘Paw Patrol,’ a cartoon show about cops was canceled.” — briefing Friday.

THE FACTS: No, ‘Paw Patrol’ was not canceled. Fake rumors online said it was. And it’s not about cops. It’s a cartoon about puppies. The lead puppy is a cop. There’s a firefighter puppy, too.

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MASKS

McENANY, when asked about Trump’s change in tone this past week in urging people to wear masks: “There has been no change. …The president has been consistent on this.” — news briefing Friday.

THE FACTS: Trump’s messaging has been inconsistent, to say the least.

Trump from the beginning has made clear that wearing masks is voluntary and shunned wearing one in public. He frequently ridiculed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for wearing a mask in public.

In May, when a reporter declined to pull down his mask to ask a question at a news briefing so Trump could hear better, the president mocked by saying, “OK, because you want to be politically correct.”

And Trump told The Wall Street Journal last month that some people may wear them as a political statement against him.

“People touch them,” he said. “And they grab them and I see it all the time. They come in, they take the mask. Now they’re holding it now in their fingers. And they drop it on the desk and then they touch their eye and they touch their nose. No, I think a mask is a — it’s a double-edged sword.”

This past week, as his poll ratings on the handling of the coronavirus have fallen, Trump on Monday tweeted a photo of himself wearing a mask and called it an act of patriotism.

That evening, he was seen maskless at the Trump International Hotel in apparent defiance of D.C. coronavirus regulations, according to video footage of the event.

“We’re asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask,” Trump said Tuesday at his first appearance at a coronavirus briefing since April. “Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact.”

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TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS

TRUMP: “You know, one day, we had a virus come in, and I closed the borders, did a lot of things that were very good. … And nobody wanted to do it. I wanted to do it. We closed the border to China. We put on the ban. We didn’t want people coming in from heavily infected China.” — briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: He didn’t ban travel from China. He restricted it. Dozens of countries took similar steps to control travel from hot spots before or around the same time the U.S. did.

The U.S. restrictions that took effect Feb. 2 continued to allow travel to the U.S. from China’s Hong Kong and Macao territories over the past five months. The Associated Press reported that more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in those territories entered the U.S. in the first three months after the travel restrictions were imposed.

Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect. U.S. officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure.

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VETERANS

TRUMP: “On the VA, we got Veterans Choice. Nobody thought that would be possible. That’s been many decades. They’ve been trying to get Veterans Choice. It’s called ‘Choice,’ where they can go get a doctor if they have to wait on line for two weeks or five weeks or two days.” — briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: It’s false that he achieved Veterans Choice when other presidents couldn’t. President Barack Obama achieved it. Trump expanded it. It has not eliminated delays for care, including for those with waits of “two weeks” or “two days.”

The program allows veterans to see a private doctor for primary or mental health care at public expense if their VA wait is 20 days (28 for specialty care) or their drive to a VA facility is 30 minutes or more. After the coronavirus outbreak, the VA took the step of restricting veterans’ access to private doctors, citing the added risks of infection and limited capacity at private hospitals.

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REALITY CHECK

TRUMP on the pandemic: “It will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better.” — briefing Tuesday.

THE FACTS: A rare departure from his bullish accounts of progress against the virus and, by all indications, true.

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Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz in Chicago contributed to this report.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures.

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Find AP Fact Checks at https://ift.tt/3bZ0akS

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