Category: COVID
UK may go full tilt over COVID?
Councils can demolish contaminated buildings under powers to stop second coronavirus wave
Care homes, factories, offices and even private homes could be bulldozed as last resort if virus starts to run out of control
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“Tens of millions of vaccines” will be “put into American arms” by end of year, official says
You have to scroll down on the link to find this article, as they add more to the page.
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-13-20-intl/index.html
“Tens of millions of vaccines” will be “put into American arms” by end of year, official says
From CNN’s Wes Bruer
A senior Trump administration official said Monday that they are “very confident that by year end we will have tens of millions of vaccines put into American arms.”
Under Operation Warp Speed, vaccine manufacturing will begin by the end of summer, the senior official said during a telephone briefing. “In many cases it’s already underway,” the official said. “We’re acquiring the equipment, we’re setting up the space, we’re acquiring, in some cases, the raw materials to do it. We have project teams that are assigned to go out to each manufacturing site.”
The senior administration official added that Operation Warp Speed is not waiting on the results from the portion of the trial that determines whether the vaccine works: “We will be manufacturing hundreds of millions of doses long before phase three clinical trials are complete,” the official said.
The goal of Operation Warp Speed is to deliver “300 million doses of a safe, effective vaccine for COVID-19 by January 2021,” according to a fact sheet on the US Department of Health and Human Services website.
The FDA now includes 75 ‘toxic’ hand sanitizers on its list of products to avoid | Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/health/fda-75-toxic-hand-sanitizers-list
In the age of routine hand sanitizer use to protect against the novel coronavirus, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is urging consumers to be wary of at least 75 such products because they may contain a toxic chemical.
In a Friday announcement, the federal agency included additional hand sanitizers to its list of those that contain methanol, “a substance that can be toxic when absorbed through the skin or ingested and can be life-threatening when ingested.” Methanol is also sometimes referred to as wood alcohol, per the FDA.
HERE’S THE CORRECT WAY TO USE HAND SANITIZER, ACCORDING TO THE CDC
“The agency is aware of adults and children ingesting hand sanitizer products contaminated with methanol that has led to recent adverse events including blindness, hospitalizations and death,” the announcement states.
Some of the products on the FDA’s list have been recalled, while others are recommended for recall as they may also contain methanol. The products all appear to have been produced in Mexico, per the list.
Methanol can be toxic when absorbed through the skin or ingested, the FDA said. (iStock)
“Methanol is not an acceptable active ingredient for hand sanitizers and must not be used due to its toxic effects,” the FDA warns. “Consumers who have been exposed to hand sanitizer containing methanol and are experiencing symptoms should seek immediate treatment for potential reversal of toxic effects of methanol poisoning.”
Signs of methanol poisoning include nausea, vomiting, headache, blurred vision, and can result in permanent blindness, seizures, coma, permanent damage to the nervous system or death.
TEXAS WOMAN, 24, HOSPITALIZED WITH COVID-19 FOR 79 DAYS: I SHOULD HAVE WORN A MASK
“Although all persons using these products on their hands are at risk, young children who accidentally ingest these products and adolescents and adults who drink these products as an alcohol (ethanol) substitute, are most at risk for methanol poisoning,” the FDA said.
The news comes after the FDA first warned of toxic hand sanitizers in June, with the list at the time including nine products. At least 46 additional products were added earlier this month before more hand sanitizers joined the list on Friday.
You can find the FDA’s list of hand sanitizers to avoid here.
Arkansas National Guard transporting COVID-19 patients to isolation facility – Home Extractions .
Arkansas National Guard transporting COVID-19 patients to isolation facility
ARKANSAS — Members of the Arkansas National Guard have been called to active duty by order of the governor.
Governor Asa Hutchinson ordered 14 medics from the Army National Guard to transport positive COVID-19 patients from locations around the state to an isolation facility near the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, a release stated.
This facility provides an isolation location for Arkansans unable to isolate at home due to family considerations, according to a release.
The Guard medics will work in 12-hour shifts around the clock to transport positive COVID-19 patients, as needed.
Mass-Tracking COVI-PASS Immunity Passports Slated to Roll Out in 15 Countries
COVID-19: Is it right to talk about a second wave? | World Economic Forum
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/coronavirus-covid19-second-wave-infections/
An expert explains: Why it’s wrong to talk about a second wave of COVID-19
- As lockdown eases, there is growing level concern about a potential ‘second wave’ of infections.
- Jeremy Rossman, an expert in virology at the University of Kent, explains that, unlike influenza, there’s no evidence of a seasonality effect with COVID-19.
- We’re not yet between waves as the virus is still being transmitted – but our actions can help us keep it at bay.
Lockdown is easing. People are returning to work and shops are lifting their shutters. But we don’t have a vaccine and we’re a long way from achieving herd immunity – so this new-found freedom is tainted with fear: fear of a second wave of infections.
Indeed, people are already talking about a “second wave” hitting China and Iran. But the concept of a second wave is flawed and creates dangerous misconceptions about the pandemic.
The idea of a second wave stems from the flawed comparison with the seasonality of the flu virus.
Early in the pandemic, many experts discussed the similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and influenza virus. They are both viruses that cause respiratory infections – mostly mild. Influenza is also the cause of most recent previous pandemics. From these similarities, it was tempting to assume that COVID-19 would behave similarly to a flu pandemic. Yet these are very different viruses with very different behaviour.
COVID-19 has a far greater fatality rate compared with the flu, along with a much higher rate of hospitalisations and severe infection. Also, influenza is a seasonal virus. Every year we see cases of the flu begin in early autumn, increase over the winter and then wind down as we approach summer. This repeats yearly, and so if a new strain of flu emerges we would probably have a first wave of infections during winter-spring, then the virus would come back in a second wave in autumn-winter the following year.
The most severe pandemic ever recorded was the so-called Spanish flu pandemic. During this pandemic, the virus infected the northern hemisphere during the spring of 1918, died down some during the summer of 1918 and then came back in greater force in the autumn of 1918. It is tempting to speculate that COVID-19 will decline or disappear during the summer, only to reappear as the weather gets colder. But we don’t know if COVID-19 is a seasonal virus.
Emergency hospital during the 1918 flu epidemic, Camp Funston, Kansas.
Image: Otis Historical Archives/Wikimedia Commons
The flu has lower transmission in the summer because the combination of higher humidity, increased UV light and people spending less time inside, close to each other. Some of these factors might also affect COVID-19, but we really don’t know to what extent.
Even if seasonal factors affect COVID-19 transmission, the spread of a new virus through a population that has no immunity will overwhelm any influence of seasonal factors. The 2009 swine flu pandemic virus and the 1918 pandemic virus were new viruses that people had no immunity to. As a result, the virus did not go away in the summer, though transmission was somewhat reduced. So we cannot expect that COVID-19 will behave as a seasonal virus and diminish over the summer only to return with a second wave in the autumn.
The first wave hasn’t ended
Aside from seasonality, there is another reason the idea of a second wave is flawed. The concept of a second wave implies that it is something inevitable, something intrinsic to how the virus behaves. It goes away for a bit, then comes back with a vengeance. But this idea fails to take into account the importance of ongoing preventative actions and portrays us as helpless and at the whim of this pathogen.
We are not between waves. We have new cases in the UK every day. We are in an ebb and flow of COVID-19 transmission that is continually affected by our precautionary actions.
Letting up on precautions will lead to an increase in cases. This is the new normal and what to expect until we have an effective vaccine with significant population uptake. Until then we have to depend on our actions to keep cases low – both now and in autumn.
Cross-sectional model of a coronavirus.
Image: scientificanimations.com/Wikimedia Commons
The concept of a second wave portrays the pandemic as a force of nature that is beyond our control. But we have evidence from many countries that a strong public health system (consisting of widespread testing, contact tracing, isolation and health support) combined with public participation in safe behaviour (wearing face coverings, keeping physical distance, hand washing) is highly effective at minimising COVID-19 transmission.
We are not at the mercy of the virus, now or in the future. This is hopeful news, but it puts the burden of responsibility on all of us. We must keep fighting, but in doing so we should not fear an inevitable second wave.
“Climate Change is the Vaccine for Covid 19”??
Climate Change is the vaccine for COVID
Operation Warp Speed a COVID Vaccine
https://www.biospace.com/article/operation-warp-speed-highlights-14-covid-19-vaccines/
Trump Administration’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’ Zeroes in on 14 Possible COVID-19 Vaccines
President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed has a goal of making 100 million doses of a vaccine against COVID-19 available by November, 200 million by December and 300 million by January 2021. Operation Warp Speed has reduced a possible 93 vaccine programs to 14 top candidates, which they expect will be further narrowed to six or eight.
The Hill reports that the six or eight selected will go into clinical trials, where “health experts are looking to weed out faulty candidates and come out with three or four vaccines that clear final testing to be used by early 2021.”
“Can I say with 100% certainty? No,” said one of the officials. “There is a reasonable probability that one or more of these vaccines will be successful.”
President Trump had indicated he will be overseeing the program himself. However, at the agency level, Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, and Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense, are taking the lead.
Although a senior administration official is expected to be announced this week, Trump on Thursday, April 30, stated, “You know who is in charge of it? Honestly? I am.”
There are approximately 90 vaccine projects ongoing around the world. Currently the leaders appear to be the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute, now backed by AstraZeneca, and U.S.-based Moderna, backed by the U.S. National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
The Oxford group is launching a clinical trial in more than 6,000 people this month, with early data expected before June. Moderna is currently running its Phase I trial, which began dosing on March 16, with a second dosing started on March 23, with expansion into other sites at the end of the month, including in 60 adults over the age of 56, some in Seattle and Atlanta and Bethesda, Maryland.
The 14 chosen programs have not yet been identified.
Although both Moderna and Oxford have suggested they could get a vaccine available by September 2020, that’s a wildly optimistic timeline relying on everything going right. Although it seems likely Operation Warp Speed is including the Moderna trial, given the support by NIAID, there is no indication it is involved at any level with the Oxford group, which had indicated no agreements yet with U.S.-based biopharma organizations.
As The Washington Post wrote, the last time the U.S. government tried to dramatically accelerate a vaccine program, in 1976 for swine flu, it was “a fiasco.” Insurers and manufacturers were concerned about liability, causing Congress to pass a law waiving liability. One drug company manufactured two million doses with the wrong strain, and as the testing continued, more scientific problems emerged, including early studies showing it was not effective in children.
Eventually the vaccine was associated with cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, then by 94 reports of paralysis, which resulted in the entire program being shut down. Guillain-Barre syndrome is an autoimmune disorder affecting the nerves.
Luckily, the swine flu did not spread as expected. “Had it done so,” Max J. Skidmore wrote in his book, “Presidents, Pandemics, and Politics,” “the swine flu vaccination program would immediately have been reinstituted.”
The risk-benefit analysis, he suggests, with a relatively small number of Guillain-Barre syndrome cases compared to the risk from the flu, would have changed the calculus.
Operation Warp Speed is projected to cost billions of dollars with the Trump Administration seemingly signing a blank check, with funds coming from pre-existing government funds. Reportedly, no congressional approval is needed.
CBS News noted, “The officials didn’t guarantee that any vaccine that comes out of the program would be free to all Americans though they suggested that could be part of the return on the government’s investment as part of the public-private partnership.”
Officials also speculated that once a vaccine was available, it would go first to nursing home facilities, first responders and other individuals who interact often with the public.
Oregon Department of Health to Remove Children from Home if Parent Infected with COVID . . .
NEWSOPINIONPOLITICSSOCIAL-ISSUES
Oregon Department of Health to Remove Children From Home if Parent Infected With Coronavirus
By
JEFF MAPLES
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POST TO HOT TOPS OREGON DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH TO REMOVE CHILDREN FROM HOME IF PARENT INFECTED WITH COVID . . .MAY
ALERT –
Oregon Department of Health to Remove Children from Home is Parent Infected with COVID
At the behest of the World Health Organization (WHO) executive director Michael Ryan, Oregon is slated to remove children from homes and place them in “substitute care” if parents are deemed “unable to support them.”
All countries are run by corporate governments that will go door-to-door looking for people infected with coronavirus and if found, “Now we need to go and look in families to find those people who may be sick, and remove them and isolate them.”
Oregon seems to be complying with these orders:
State and local “child welfare” departments have a history of mishandling child welfare cases and over-indulge in their power to forcibly separate children from their parents — and this will be no different. According to a document released and authorized by Lacey Andresen, the Deputy Director of Oregon’s Child Welfare & Practice Program, effective April 22, “a child will enter substitute care because their caregiver is infected with COVID-19.”
What constitutes “unable to support them” isn’t exactly spelled out, but if history repeats itself, this is nothing more than a power grab to remove children from their parents and place them in foster care systems overseen by the state — and once children are handed over to the state, it is an uphill battle to get them back.