Economy
The False Hope of Antibody Tests (tmn)
A pair of controversial surveys in the Bay Area and Los Angeles County found antibodies in 2.5 to 4 percent of the population—and even those numbers may be overestimates due to methodological flaws. In New York City, the country’s COVID-19 epicenter, 24.7 percent of people tested positive for antibodies. (The statewide number is 14.9 percent.) These rates do translate to many times more cases than officially documented, to be clear, but they are still a far cry from the 70 percent scientists believe is necessary to reach herd immunity and stop disease transmission. And if only a small fraction of the population can return to work without fear of getting the coronavirus, a return to something resembling normal is still a long way off.
Why summer likely won’t save us from the coronavirus (tmn)
High levels of heat, UV light, and humidity can help prevent more widespread infections of the flu or colds in the summer, along with medical treatments and vaccines (when available). But the Covid-19 coronavirus is still new to humans, so we don’t have as much immune protection built up against it — so the virus seems able to overcome summer-like weather and still cause big outbreaks.
As Governors Urge Businesses To Reopen, Workers May Be Pushed Off Unemployment (tmn)
The predicament is one in which millions of people receiving state unemployment benefits along with federal dollars from the CARES Act — in and outside of the restaurant industry — will soon find themselves, as more states follow Georgia’s lead in restarting some sectors of the economy.
Meanwhile, others living in states where lawmakers choose to heed warnings from top health officials that it’s too soon to reopen will remain eligible for financial relief.
The Corporate Right Is Giving Us Two Choices: Go Back to Work, or Starve (michael_m)
The longer-term danger they face is that we’ll make the government work for us in the short term — and then we will realize we could make it work for us all the time by removing the threat of starvation from their arsenal. This would totally change the balance of power in society. This is their deepest fear, one that’s consumed them since World War II, the first time in history that everyday people gained consciousness that it was possible for them to use the government to create a world that puts them first, not their bosses.
The Secret Group of Scientists and Billionaires Pushing a Manhattan Project for Covid-19 (tmn)
The eclectic group is led by a 33-year-old physician-turned-venture capitalist, Tom Cahill, who lives far from the public eye in a one-bedroom rental near Boston’s Fenway Park. He owns just one suit, but he has enough lofty connections to influence government decisions in the war against Covid-19.
“The remarkable ability for these cells to mitigate inflammatory processes holds great promise for COVID-19 patients as well as for people with many other illnesses,” said Guenther Koehne, MD, PhD, deputy director and chief of blood & marrow transplant at Miami Cancer Institute, part of Baptist Health. “These patients have improved their lung status much more quickly than patients treated with other experimental therapies,” added Dr. Koehne, who is also professor and chairperson of the Department of Translational Medicine at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine (HWCOM) at Florida International University (FIU). Specialists at HWCOM spearheaded this collaborative effort between academia, Baptist Health and RESTEM.
An analysis of SARS-CoV-2 viral load by patient age (michael_m)
Of note, whereas younger age groups have lower detection rates, this does not imply an age-based estimate of infection prevalence because of mostly symptoms-directed testing.
See, all older patients in a familial cluster had elevated fibrinogen levels. In tandem, markers of fibrin formation were significantly elevated in HAPE and Fibrin generation in that condition is deliberated as an epiphenomenon of edema formation rather than coagulation activation. Altogether, these specific pulmonary clinical manifestations exhibit identical features between both COVID-19 and HAPE.
Austerity, Not COVID-19,
Strains National Healthcare Systems (Dustin M.)In the face of the economic crisis, Spain reduced national health and social services funding by nearly 14% and in late 2012 excluded unregistered migrants from all but emergency, prenatal, and pediatric healthcare; by 2013 residents of Spain faced longer wait times for care. Within a few years, workers in the Spanish public health sector perceived that austerity measures, including reduced staffing levels in healthcare facilities, negatively affected the quality of care they were able to provide, and worsened outcomes for their patients.
War on Cash Kicking Into Overdrive (thc0655)
The USA Patriot Act that passed after 9/11 is a good example. Some counterterrorist measures were needed, of course. But the Treasury had a long-standing wish list involving reporting cash transactions and limiting citizens’ ability to get cash.
They plugged that wish list into the Patriot Act and we’ve been living with the results ever since, even though 9/11 is long in the past.
More on Facebook’s fake coronavirus “Fact Check” (thc0655)
According to Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute and an expert on China, Facebook has yet to offer an apology for the unwarranted “fake news” label the social media giant had pinned to his February 22 op-ed, “Don’t buy China’s story: The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab. ”
This Historic Oil Price Crash Will Create A New Era For Energy (Michael S.)
A report this week from the World Economic Forum highlights this unique opportunity, positing that “the crisis offers an opportunity to consider a new energy order to enable the energy transition in a sustainable way.” Critics of fossil fuels and Big Oil have been overpowered and drowned out by the momentum of the machine and the unshakable inertia of business-as-usual. Maybe an apocalyptic global pandemic is what it takes to truly divest from fossil fuels and redirect the sector.
The world is on lockdown. So where are all the carbon emissions coming from? (tmn)
Transportation makes up a little over 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. (In the United States, it makes up around 28 percent.) That’s a significant chunk, but it also means that even if all travel were completely carbon-free (imagine a renewable-powered, electrified train system, combined with personal EVs and battery-powered airplanes), there’d still be another 80 percent of fossil fuel emissions billowing into the skies.
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