BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[China]

Trump CDC head, now adviser to Maryland Gov. Hogan, shares unproven belief that COVID escaped from lab in China; lawmakers condemn statements

 

Dr. Robert Redfield, who led the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under former President Donald Trump and currently serves as an unpaid adviser to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, said he believes the coronavirus “most likely” escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China — a claim that has been circulated widely but remains unproven.

 

Redfield’s comments, disclosed Friday in an interview with CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, prompted one of the Maryland legislature’s presiding officers and Asian-American political leaders to call on Hogan to break his ties with Redfield if the former CDC head does not retract his comments or apologize.

 

“Dr. Redfield’s comments were inappropriate, unacceptable and beyond unfortunate,” Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat, said Friday afternoon, hours after Redfield’s statements went public. “To think that somebody that is advising the governor would traffic in inappropriate assumptions based not on facts, but on gut or instinct, or whatever it may have been — it’s unacceptable.’ "

 

In the interview, which dates to February, Redfield, a virologist, said he believed human work in a laboratory facilitated the evolution of the virus to the version that caused the pandemic.

 

“I’m allowed to have opinions now,” Redfield said in the interview. “Other people don’t believe that ― that’s fine. Science will eventually figure it out.”

 

Last month, the World Health Organization said they would end their investigation into the “lab leak” theory, citing a lack of evidence supporting the claim. The agency and other researchers believe the virus developed naturally, and transferred from animals to humans.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[visionary]

 

 

 

[China]

New data shows COVID-19 pandemic now 'completely out of control' in Ontario, key scientific adviser says

 

A new briefing note from a panel of science experts advising the Ontario government on COVID-19 shows a province at a tipping point.

 

Variants that are more deadly are circulating widely, new daily infections have reached the same number at the height of the second wave, and the number of people hospitalized is now more than 20 per cent higher than at the start of the last provincewide lockdown, states an analysis from Ontario's COVID-19 science advisory table published on Monday night.

 

"Right now in Ontario, the pandemic is completely out of control," Dr. Peter Juni, the table's scientific director and a professor of medicine and epidemiology with the University of Toronto, said in an interview prior to the briefing note's publication.

 

That stark assessment follows weeks of warnings from medical professionals in Ontario over rising case counts and fast-spreading variants. It comes the same day B.C. announced it will be implementing a three-week "circuit breaker"-style lockdown, with sweeping new restrictions on indoor dining in restaurants, group fitness and worship services.

The table's latest analysis, first reported by CBC News on Friday, shows new variants of concern now account for 67 per cent of all SARS-CoV-2 infections in Ontario.

 

Click on the link for the full article 

 

[visionary]

 

[The Evil Genius]

Looks at page # (666 for me)...don't let MTG see this. 😁

Edited March 31, 2021 by The Evil Genius

[visionary]

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

[visionary]

 

[dfitzo53]

These maps where they try to build the U.S. out of square blocks always amuse me.

[visionary]

Ehhhh....

Edited April 1, 2021 by visionary

[mammajamma]

4 hours ago, visionary said:

 

Wtf is going on in michigan? And NJ never really got out of the last wave. Crazy

[spjunkies]

 

[Die Hard]

Ontario announcing today 3rd full lockdown for next 28 days starting Friday at midnight.

[China]

The fourth wave is here

 

Coronavirus infections are on the rise yet again, all across the U.S.

 

The big picture: America may be at the beginning of a fourth wave in the pandemic. It will almost certainly be far less deadly than the previous three, but this persistent failure to contain the virus has real consequences, and will only make it harder to put COVID-19 behind us.

 

By the numbers: On average, roughly 63,000 Americans per day were diagnosed with coronavirus infections over the past week. That’s a 17% increase from the week before, and echoes the rising caseloads of the pandemic’s second wave last summer.

 

Average daily caseloads increased over the past week in 25 states. The biggest spikes were in Michigan and New York.

Even as vaccinations continue to climb, new cases only declined in five states, mainly in the Southeast.

What we’re watching: Because so many seniors have been vaccinated — 73% have gotten at least one dose — this fourth wave is likely to be a lot less deadly than the previous ones.

 

Many states have also prioritized vaccinating people with underlying health conditions, which will also help constrain the increase in severe illness and death.

Yes, but: More coronavirus is always a bad outcome, and this fourth wave is a foreseeable, preventable failure that risks dragging out the pandemic and leaving more people at risk in the process.

 

Millions of younger Americans with high-risk medical conditions haven’t yet been vaccinated, and therefore are still susceptible to serious illness and death as the virus spreads more aggressively.

Hospitalizations are still rising — they’re just not likely to increase as dramatically as they have before.

Greater spread also fosters the growth of new variants.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[visionary]

 

[Barry.Randolphe]

I have a hard time faulting Larry for trying to get much needed tests at the time when the POTUS was being a total dickhole....the fallout after is where I have the issue. Just admit you made a mistake trying to do the right thing when the federal government was failing us.

[China]

Colorectal cancer deaths predicted to triple by 2030 due to drop in colonoscopy screenings amid COVID pandemic

 

Because of the pandemic, people have put off colonoscopy screenings. Researchers predict the colorectal cancer death rate will triple by 2030. Now one local hospital is stepping up its efforts to reach those in the hardest hit communities.

 

During lockdown, 62-year-old Rosemary Hernandez of Perris stayed away from COVID-19 and stayed away from colon cancer screening. Her daughter, Nadine Quiroz, said she was scared of the outcome and scared of the procedure.

 

"This time. We told her she had to do it. We made her do it," Quiroz said.

 

After her mom's colonoscopy, Quiroz said doctors at Riverside University Health System gave them the news.

 

"They called us within about three days and told us that one of the polyps had cancer," she said.

 

"If she hadn't gotten through our system when she did, if she had waited two months or three months, she didn't even have symptoms, she would have advanced cancer," said Dr. Steve Serrao, the chief of Gastroenterology at RUHS.

 

Serrao said shortly after the pandemic, "we noticed an exponential drop of about 90% of screening colonoscopies."

 

The hardest hit patients are those in communities of color.

 

"This population has had a harder time accessing health care," he said. "So we have come to realize that we have to make some adjustments."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

A QAnon-Curious Mom Helped Lead Michigan Back to COVID Hell

 

A junior wrestler at Lakewood High School in western Michigan had been asked to comply with a state-mandated quarantine after close contact with another student who tested positive for COVID-19. McElvany, an anti-lockdown activist in the state, seized on his case as her latest cause célèbre even as the coronavirus pandemic in Michigan reaches new heights.

 

“GUYS!!!! One of our wrestlers that we donated to yesterday already got a hearing!! Right now!! At 11:30! Here’s the link to watch Jimmy fight for this kid!!” McElvany wrote on Facebook Wednesday, namechecking local defense lawyer James Thomas. “PRAY for a VICTORY!!... Please Lord stand with Jimmy and help him touch the heart of this judge... for the sake of this child and many more like him. In Jesus name AMEN!!”

 

The quarantine mandate would have forced the teenager to forfeit his shot at a state championship. But from the chambers in her rural central Michigan courtroom, Barry County Judge Vicky Alspaugh cited the weight of the public health implications at play before ultimately ruling in favor of allowing the student to wrestle as long as he tested negative for COVID-19 prior to the Friday match.

 

The teen was just one of a number of student-athletes who sought to duck quarantines in order to participate in high-school competitions despite an alarming resurgence of the virus in Michigan over the last month. But far more important than the ambitions of any teenager, experts say, is an unhinged right-wing pressure campaign against safety restrictions. On one hand are the state’s hardline Republican leaders and their cadre of anti-lockdown activists like McElvany, a QAnon-curious mom and activist leading the charge for school sports that experts say is feeding the new outbreak.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Bacon]

What a difference a year makes. 

 

[China]

On 4/1/2021 at 8:17 PM, China said:

The fourth wave is here

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

A 4th COVID-19 Surge May Be Starting. How Bad Could It Get?

 

After more than two months of steep declines, coronavirus infections are on the rise again nationally — along with COVID-19 hospitalizations in many states.

 

In the past seven days, the U.S. reported slightly more than 65,000 new cases per day on average, a jump of 20% from two weeks earlier. Many states have seen even more dramatic growth, as high as 125% in Michigan, according to an NPR analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.

 

And hospitalizations have risen for seven consecutive days in more than a dozen states, mostly in the Midwest and Northeast, according to the University of Minnesota's COVID-19 Hospitalization Tracking Project.

 

These signs all point to the growing threat of another significant surge in COVID-19 cases, experts say.

 

But there's cautious optimism that it's not likely to be as devastating as the previous wave, which saw 200,000 or more confirmed cases a day on average for most of December and early January, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University.

 

"Thanks to the rapid rollout of vaccines, I don't think we'll have a surge that is anything like what we've seen before," says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "Still, any additional deaths at this point are tragedies, given that we have on hand vaccines that could have prevented them."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[LD0506]

[China]

‘A Great Excuse to Do Nothing’: The People Who Don’t Want to Return to Normalcy

 

William absolutely loved getting COVID. His symptoms weren’t severe: lethargy and the loss of taste and smell. “My girlfriend somehow tested negative. She packed a bag and went to her parents’ house for like three weeks and it was amazing,” he said. “I had a great excuse to do nothing … It was the best. I feel guilty saying it. I just really love solitude. I ate Thanksgiving by myself. I binge-watched Boardwalk Empire on HBO. I got to set up the apartment the way I wanted. It was amazing. When I think about it, like you know how when you think back to a summer between grades when you were a kid or a vacation? Like, I want to catch it again on some level.”

 

It’s not like William is particularly proud of how much he’s loved his pandemic life. (He asked me to refer to him only by his middle name due to the sensitive nature of his job working with people who have substance-use disorder.) “I have COVID-love shame,” he said. “I don’t tell anybody about this … A lot of my dread is purely, for lack of a better word, selfish.” Pandemic life has been easy for him: He is in the business of conducting interventions, which are trickier on Zoom than they are in person — the interventionee can “just get up and leave the room” — but nevertheless, work has been mostly great. He got a promotion after the pandemic started. He’s in “the best shape of [his] life” because he’s been using “the extra time” lockdown has given him to ride his bike, box, and swim. “I’ve had explicit permission to just stay home and I have got my own self-sustaining ecosystem here … work, food, exercise, recreation,” he said. “I just feel so much more control of my experiences. I’m just dreading traffic, ‘meet me at the coffee shop at three,’ ‘I’m ten minutes late,’ baby showers, [gender] reveals. Like, I don’t want to do any of that ****ing ****.”

 

The pandemic year has been hard for many, with all the sickness, death, layoffs, confinement, and isolation. But for a socially anxious and solitude-loving crew, it has been a sort of strange blessing. William is certainly not the only person who is worried about returning to a world of everyday in-person communication. According to a recent study by the American Psychological Association, many adults “feel uneasy about adjusting to in-person interactions once the pandemic ends.” (57 percent of Black adults, 51 percent of Asian adults, 50 percent of Hispanic adults, and 47 percent of white adults said they somewhat/strongly agree with that sentiment.)

 

Click on the link for the full article

[visionary]

 

 

[Llevron]

That diabetes death count though