What explains the non-respiratory symptoms seen in some COVID-19 patients? Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:34: Saved and Shared Stories
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Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:34:05 -0400
Credit: C&EN/ShutterstockWhile COVID-19 is predominantly a lung (4) infection, symptoms have been reported throughout the body, including the central nervous system (1), eyes (2), nose and mouth (3), heart (5), liver (6), and gut (7).
While COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, is generally a respiratory infection with coughing and shortness of breath as key features of the illness, some people have reported other symptoms, including loss of smell, heart trouble, and diarrhea.
These less common symptoms, especially cardiac ones, have caused hospitals to adapt their intake protocols to spot possible COVID-19 patients, says Salim Virani, a cardiologist at Baylor College of Medicine. “Almost all hospitals that I’ve talked to, everybody has a protocol whereby they are testing these patients for COVID-19 as well,” Virani says about people who arrive at the emergency department with heart concerns.
Scientists say that these non-lung symptoms might also be good indicators of SARS-CoV-2. Once inside a person’s body, the novel coronavirus attaches to a protein on human cells called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). This enzyme, which is normally involved in blood pressure regulation, sits on the surface of different types of cells, including those in the brain, blood vessels, heart, intestines, and kidneys.
It’s plausible that the novel coronavirus causes these other symptoms by directly infecting some of these cells. But this infection also can cause a massive immune response, leading to the overproduction of small immune molecules called cytokines. This cytokine storm triggers inflammation and organ damage. It’s been observed in the lungs of the sickest COVID-19 patients, but it likely happens in other organs as well.
“If you have a severe infection, and there is a systemic response related to that, inflammation can be protective early on,” Virani says. “But then that response itself, when it’s a systemic inflammation all over the body, can become detrimental.”
Here is a look at some of the body parts where the novel coronavirus might cause other symptoms in people, and what scientists think is behind these symptoms. Because researchers are still learning about SARS-CoV-2, a lot of what they hypothesize is based on previous characterizations of the virus’s cousins, the virus that caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak from 2002 to 2004, and the coronavirus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
Some COVID-19 patients have shown up at the hospital confused, or with what doctors call an altered mental status. For example, a flight attendant in her fifties from Detroit developed something called acute hemorrhagic necrotizing encephalopathy. This brain condition is characterized by inflammation and tissue damage and is often linked to viral infections. Brent Griffith, a neuroradiologist at Henry Ford Hospital, led the team of health care workers who described the woman’s condition, which they attribute to cytokine storm and a breakdown of the blood-brain barrier. Using magnetic resonance imaging, they showed damage to her brain, and noted that while they were unable to test for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in fluid from her central nervous system, the presence of virus isn’t always necessary for acute hemorrhagic necrotizing encephalopathy (Radiol. 2020, DOI: 10.1148/radiol.2020201187).
Another research team, led by Yan-Chao Li of Jilin University, thinks that based on what we know about where in the body the virus behind the SARS outbreak attacks, SARS-CoV-2 might be able to infect the central nervous system. Li and the team also propose that when the coronavirus infects the brain, it may damage the nerves that regulate breathing, and that this might be one of the reasons why some people end up in respiratory failure (J. Med. Virol. 2020, DOI: 10.1002/jmv.25728).
There have been some reports of eye inflammation, or conjunctivitis, associated with COVID-19, but these symptoms have been rare. Still, some researchers have wondered whether the virus could get into the body through the eyes. In small studies in China, researchers have detected the virus’s RNA in people’s tears (JAMA Ophthalmol. 2020, DOI: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2020.1291).
Eye cells do express the ACE2 receptor, but these scientists still think eye-related infection or tear-related spread of the virus would be quite rare. Led by Chuan-bin Sun of the Zhejiang University School of Medicine, this team suggests that tears would wash away the virus, and that immune mechanisms in the eyes, led by antibodies and a molecule called lactoferrin, would prevent widespread infection (J. Med. Virol. 2020, DOI: 10.1002/jmv.25859). The American Academy of Ophthalmology has also weighed in on the issue, saying that, “infectious virus has not yet been cultured from the conjunctiva of any COVID-19 patient.”
Danielle Reed of the Monell Chemical Senses Center says that viral infections often affect our sense of smell, and thus taste, because the infection blocks airways, preventing odorants from interacting with smell receptors. However, in the case of COVID-19, she says, researchers haven’t ruled out direct infection of smell-sensing cells, or some other mechanism affecting the nerves that conduct smell signals to the brain.
So, Monell, as part of the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Researchers, is gathering data from people who have tested positive for COVID-19, and who are experiencing loss of smell and taste.
While olfactory neurons do not express ACE2, cells that surround those neurons, and provide structural support, do. The virus could infect and kill these sustentacular cells, weakening the scaffolding that holds olfactory neurons up, and perhaps affecting the neurons’ function. “We envision that they’re taking up the virus,” Reed says. “But, how it’s causing problems with people’s ability to smell is not understood.”
There is precedence for these sensory symptoms, Reed points out. People with SARS also reported a loss of smell.
Some people with COVID-19 have had heart attacks, but Baylor’s Virani says that early reports of patients in Seattle and New York indicate that arrhythmia, an irregular heart beat, is the most common cardiovascular symptom. Doctors have also observed inflammation of heart tissue, or myocarditis.
Heart muscle cells express ACE2, Virani says, and it is possible that SARS-CoV-2 is infecting the heart, but he can’t rule out cytokine storm and what’s happening in the lungs as the culprits behind these cardiac symptoms. “The severity of the heart muscle involvement, in most cases, but not in every case, is actually directly related to the severity of the lung involvement,” he says, adding that in some patients, as their lung disease progresses, markers for cardiac damage also increase. Doctors are treating some of the people with these cardiac symptoms with drugs that block some of the perpetrators of cytokine storm, including interleukin-6.
In one study of 99 people infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, 43 had elevated levels of the liver enzymes alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, and lactic dehydrogenase (Lancet 2020, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30211-7). High levels of these enzymes are a sign of liver damage. In another study of nearly 1,100 people who tested positive for the novel coronavirus, between 28% and 40% had elevated liver enzymes, and the more critically ill they were, the more likely they were to have higher levels (N. Eng. J. Med. 2020, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2002032 .
Jie Li, who is an infectious disease scientist at Shandong University, and Jian-Gao Fan of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, wrote in a recent paper that there aren’t many cells in the liver that express ACE2, so it’s not clear if the virus is causing the damage directly itself (J. Clin. Transl. Hepatol. 2020, DOI: 10.14218/JCTH.2020.00019). They point out that cytokine storm might affect the liver, as could sepsis, which is a large scale bacterial infection that seems to trail coronavirus infection in some people.
Some people who have had SARS or MERS also experienced liver damage, but it’s still too early to say what’s happening with SARS-CoV-2 and the liver.
As the COVID-2 outbreak spread through Hubei province in China, a team of researchers, led by Lei Tu of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, surveyed about 200 people with COVID-19 to see if they experienced gastrointestinal symptoms and found that 19% reported some combination of diarrhea, vomiting, or abdominal pain. That data makes gastrointestinal distress perhaps the most common non-respiratory symptom of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Their analysis also indicated that some patients went to the hospital complaining about these gastrointestinal issues and no respiratory symptoms, suggesting that some people with COVID-19 could have been missed by doctors. In fact, six of the people they studied never had any respiratory symptoms.
Tu and colleagues found viral RNA in about half of the stool samples they tested in their study. The team speculates that the inflammatory response to infection could explain intestinal symptoms, as the lungs and gut are linked via the body’s mucosal system in what researchers call the gut-lung axis. But scientists also think it’s possible that the novel coronavirus infects intestinal cells carrying the ACE2 receptor. One study of human tissue from COVID-19 patients found evidence of novel coronavirus proteins inside gastrointestinal cells that express ACE2, suggesting that the virus can infect the human gut. That team concluded that these data suggest gastrointestinal symptoms should not be overlooked in the absence of respiratory illness (J. Gastro. 2020, DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2020.02.055).
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Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:31:32 -0400
'Accelerate the Endgame': Obama's Role in Wrapping Up the PrimaryOver the past year, Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama practiced a political distancing of sorts, with Obama maintaining a posture of public neutrality in the Democratic primaries, offering counsel to any candidate who called (most did), and Biden saying he wanted to win on his own.But with calibrated stealth, Obama has been considerably more engaged in the campaign's denouement than has been previously revealed, even before he endorsed Biden on Tuesday.For months, Obama had kept in close contact with senior party officials, in hopes of preventing a repeat of the protracted and nasty 2016 primary race.Then, in the weeks after it became clear that Biden was the party's near-certain nominee, Obama -- telling a friend he needed to "accelerate the endgame" -- had at least four long conversations with his former vice president's remaining rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders. Obama's efforts to ease the senator out of the race played a significant role in Sanders' decision to end his bid and endorse Biden, according to people close to the Vermont independent.By that time, Biden and Obama had already begun hashing out the thorny questions of how, when and where to deploy a former president thrust into an unfamiliar role as his sidekick's sidekick.How to proceed is a negotiation between friends but a delicate one. The terms of the reunion, however welcome, are complicated by an intermingling of political and personal issues, according to interviews with a dozen people close to both men who spoke mostly on the condition of anonymity.Biden's team knew better than to ask Obama for his overt support during the primary campaign. But they felt he might have done more to spare them a few tribulations, and were incensed that some former Obama advisers, especially David Axelrod, repeatedly questioned Biden's viability. When Naomi Biden, the candidate's granddaughter, took to Twitter in February to describe the former Obama aide as "a jerk with a microphone," cheering could be heard at the campaign's headquarters in Philadelphia, according to a person who was present. (Axelrod has said he considers himself an impartial observer.)Party officials were more direct, prodding Obama to be more active behind the scenes, especially after Biden had begun his comeback by winning the South Carolina primary. But the former president, often communicating through Eric Schultz, a political aide who has also served as a bridge to the Biden campaign, insisted that his best use would be as a passive peacemaker."He kept his powder dry, and that gave him credibility, which made all the difference," said Tom Perez, the Democratic National Committee chairman, who served as labor secretary under Obama.Now, with the primary campaign over, Biden and his aides are eager to deploy the former president as quickly as possible, especially on fundraising, as they race to compete with President Donald Trump's small-donor juggernaut."Biden has obviously achieved something huge here on his own, but the president is a surrogate unlike anyone else anyone can bring to bear -- I mean, who has Trump got?" said Joel Benenson, Obama's longtime pollster and a top adviser to Hillary Clinton in 2016. "Getting to the point where he can get Obama involved, you know, that's a big deal."Obama is open to whatever the campaign suggests, according to several people familiar with his thinking. But he continues to counsel caution, the better to preserve his political capital and to avoid the perception that he is somehow coming in to rescue Biden.A more immediate matter is the logistical challenge of taking on a sitting president during a pandemic and an economic collapse. And Obama, like Trump, is less adept at recording direct-to-camera pitches than at delivering rousing speeches before live crowds, a scenario that social-distancing restrictions have made impossible for the foreseeable future.The Obama endorsement came in a sober but impassioned 12-minute endorsement video released Tuesday morning. "I'm so proud to endorse Joe Biden for president of the United States," Obama said, his face shot in close-up. "I believe Joe has all the qualities we need in a president right now."Obama offered a preview of how he plans to pitch Biden, less as a traditional stand-alone candidate than as the standard-bearer for a larger Democratic coalition bound by decency and competence. And after drawing Sanders into that fold, calling him "an American original, a man who has devoted his life to giving voice to working people's hopes," he concluded the video with: "Join us. Join Joe."The camps are still working out the details of engaging Obama in fundraising. But David Plouffe, who remains Obama's most trusted political adviser, has offered to pitch in, and plans to participate in several virtual Biden fundraisers that could be a dry run for Obama's participation, according to people briefed on the plans.Biden's emergence as the Democrats' presumptive nominee relatively early in the political calendar is unwelcome news to Trump, his bluster notwithstanding, several of the president's advisers said. Last Thursday, after trying to goad an anti-Biden revolt among Sanders supporters, the president suggested dark motives for Obama's hesitancy in endorsing Biden."You know what? I'll tell you, it does amaze me that President Obama hasn't supported Sleepy Joe," Trump said at a White House coronavirus briefing, in between questions about his administration's response to the crisis. "It just hasn't happened. When is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? Why isn't he? He knows something that you don't know, that I think I know, but you don't know. So it'll be interesting."That claim was Trumpian misdirection. Obama timed his video to follow Sanders' endorsement Monday.But the Biden-Obama relationship, which deepened from a congenial partnership into a real friendship in 2015, when the president consoled Biden during his son Beau's illness and death, is not without complications.Biden is grateful for Obama's friendship but increasingly proud of his historic comeback. When news reports surfaced that Obama had called to congratulate Biden on his victory in South Carolina, the candidate made it clear to his staff that while his connection to Obama played a role in delivering African American voters, Obama "had not lifted a finger" on his behalf, according to a senior Democrat with knowledge of his remarks.Well, maybe a pinkie. Last year, Obama consulted with Biden's team on campaign strategy, and he bucked up Biden after his loss in the Iowa caucuses. In a private dinner last fall with members of the liberal Democracy Alliance, Obama offered thinly veiled criticism of Sanders' "revolutionary" policies and opined that voters wanted change, not to "tear down the system."Obama is relieved that the Democratic contest is over early, but he had other plans for 2020 -- hoping to finish, publish and promote his White House memoirs before the campaign kicked into high gear.He had intended to engage publicly only after the convention (now scheduled for August, at the earliest), in line with his fall barnstorming campaign on behalf of Clinton in 2016 and congressional candidates in 2018. He resisted calls by some Democratic officials earlier this year to intervene on Biden's behalf in the wake of Sanders' victory in the Nevada caucuses, arguing that he did not want to "thumb the scale" for his friend.Nonetheless, he was becoming more agitated by the state of the race as Sanders surged, and Biden slumped. By late February, he was telling people in his orbit that he thought Biden's campaign had an alarming lack of "infrastructure" and shared his doubts about Biden's belief that he could win the nomination after losing Iowa and New Hampshire.Democratic officials say Obama had no direct role in the campaign shake-up that happened soon after. But people with knowledge of the situation say he made it clear that he supported Biden's decision to name a new campaign manager, Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, a former Obama campaign field organizing specialist, and to move another Obama veteran, former White House communications director Anita Dunn, into a more powerful role.Obama did not directly encourage Sanders' rivals to endorse Biden before the decisive Super Tuesday primaries. But he did tell Pete Buttigieg, a moderate, that he would never have more leverage than on the day that he was quitting the race -- and the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor soon joined the avalanche of former candidates backing Biden.Sanders, who in 2016 accused the Democratic establishment of conspiring to support Clinton, took note of all these moves, but he has made no such charges against Obama.In fact, one of his campaign advisers, speaking on the condition of anonymity in the wake of last month's string of Sanders defeats, said the senator was grateful for Obama's neutrality throughout the campaign. And Sanders, who has denied reports that he contemplated a primary challenge to Obama in 2012, had made a point of reaching out to the former president several times in recent months to update him on the progress of his campaign.Before those conversations, the two men had a polite but frosty relationship, and some of their private exchanges over the years devolved into policy debates, former aides said. But Obama saw Sanders' overture as an opening to assume the peacemaker's role he believed himself best suited to play.Since leaving office, Obama has ruminated about what he could have done differently, both as president and as a campaign surrogate for Clinton, to stop Trump's ascent, and concluded that he needed to do more to repair the damage from party infighting."His true north is winning back the White House, period," said Valerie Jarrett, a close friend and adviser to the former president, in a phone interview last month. Obama, she added, would "have backed any nominee, any of them, with the same conviction."Sanders is much closer personally to Biden despite their political differences, but Obama, unlike Biden, remains a trusted figure to many Sanders supporters, so much so that his campaign released an ad that featured a patchwork of clips with Obama lavishing praise on Sanders.In the end, Sanders concluded that negotiating a detente through the former president would ease the blow of his withdrawal on his base. Whether Obama's involvement will ultimately draw Sanders voters to support Biden's candidacy remains an open question, and some supporters, including Sanders' own campaign press secretary, say they won't.In late March, Obama reached out to Sanders. The two men would talk at least three more times, with the former president reassuring Sanders that he had already accomplished much of what he had set out to do, moving the party -- and Biden -- substantially to the left, according to two people with knowledge of their interactions.But, the people said, he mostly listened to Sanders, who was in a reflective mood, speaking candidly about his post-campaign plans and feelings about the race, the kind of conversation the two men had never had before.Sanders, for his part, is intent on protecting his open line of communication with the former president. When asked for a readout during an interview on MSNBC shortly after dropping out last week, he replied, "They're private conversations," waving a don't-even-ask-me-about-it hand at the camera.The interviewer, Chris Hayes, plowed ahead: "Well, can I ask about your conversations with Vice President Biden?""Oh, yes," Sanders answered, with a laugh.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:21:13 -0400
New saliva-based coronavirus test unveiled with 'simplified' process finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavir… via @YahooFinance
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| Intelligence officials weigh possibility coronavirus escaped from a Chinese lab | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:17:58 -0400
WASHINGTON — Although the the U.S. intelligence community early on dismissed the notion that the coronavirus is a synthesized bioweapon, it is still weighing the possibility that the pandemic might have been touched off by an accident at a research facility rather than by an infection from a live-animal market, according to nine current and former intelligence and national security officials familiar with ongoing investigations.
After extensive research, scientists in the U.S. and elsewhere have determined that the new strain of the coronavirus discovered in China in December is, as Chinese officials have maintained, of natural origin, but they are taking seriously that its route to human infection may have started in a lab in Wuhan. “It’s definitely a real possibility being bandied about at the high levels of the administration,” said one of the sources, who has knowledge of China and national security. “We are actively and vigorously tracking down every piece of information we get on this topic and we are writing frequently to update policymakers,” an intelligence official told Yahoo News. The intelligence community “has not come down on any one theory.” While Chinese officials were quick to link the origin of the disease to infected animals at the Wuhan Seafood Market, which was formally closed on Jan. 1, scientists have not traced the initial exposure back to any specific animals. Therefore, an alternative possibility remains — that a natural virus sample being studied at a research laboratory in Wuhan infected a researcher who spread it in the community, or it escaped via hazardous waste or a lab animal. There are reasons to be wary of that theory. It may serve as a propaganda tool for politicians who want to fan tensions with China, and many scientists still argue that a natural outbreak is the most likely possibility, dismissing any alternative theory. But finding the source of the outbreak could also be vital in understanding how it spread and how to prevent the next potential pandemic. In December, Chinese health officials began to publicly worry that the mysterious cluster of pneumonia patients in Hubei province might be a sign of something ominous. On Dec. 31, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission formally notified the World Health Organization’s country office in China about the worrying trend. Since those initial reports, more than a million people around the world have tested positive for the new, highly infectious strain of coronavirus and its resulting disease, COVID-19. More than 100,000 have died. According to multiple news outlets, the intelligence community was gathering information on the outbreak as early as November. By the new year, the White House was being briefed on the potential that the virus would spread globally. Chinese officials were hiding some of the details, intelligence officials said, but they feared things could get much worse. President Trump, however, waited until March to recommend nationwide extreme social distancing measures to slow the outbreak. While the severity of the potential pandemic wasn’t understood back in November and early December, sources tell Yahoo News there has been intense internal interest in the source of the outbreak. While the intelligence community is not discounting a range of potential transmission vectors, including contact between humans and animals, officials are seriously pursuing the possibility that a natural sample of the virus escaped a laboratory. “It’s absolutely being looked at very closely at the highest levels,” said one intelligence source with knowledge of the investigations. The British government is reportedly considering the same possibility. One reason for the suspicion is the lack of information coming from China. Beijing’s quick denials of involvement, and the decision to immediately identify the Wuhan Seafood Market as the source, raised eyebrows among some U.S. intelligence officials. “I find it very funny that China very quickly blamed the market,” said one recently retired intelligence official. The Chinese government did not respond to multiple requests for comment made through its foreign ministry and its embassy in the U.S. In fact, some of the very first cases of COVID-19 were not linked to the market, and there are a number of important research institutions in Wuhan where infectious diseases are studied. Those include the Wuhan National Biosafety Lab, the first publicly acknowledged lab with the highest biosafety standards; the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, home to one of the world’s top research groups on bat coronaviruses, where scientists have studied thousands of samples. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, which collaborates with researchers and institutions around the world, including the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is a key site for the Global Virome Project, a global initiative focused on preventing the next pandemic by researching DNA and RNA of viruses in animals that could potentially infect humans. While that group does not typically work with intact virus samples, according to David Relman, a microbiologist at Stanford University, “it is possible” that the researchers could have collected a virus sample from a bat and been researching it within the lab. The new virus’s genome most closely resembles a bat coronavirus discovered in July 2013 in Yunnan province in China, information made public by the Wuhan Institute of Virology only on Jan. 23 of this year. The progenitor of the current virus, says Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, could be either the 2013 bat sample or another bat coronavirus that is closely related and hasn’t been discovered or disclosed as of today. Not all scientists agree with this possibility. Writing in Nature, a team of five scientists argued that the new virus, SARS-Cov-2, emerged too recently to have been identified, isolated from other virus samples, cultured and then accidentally released from a lab. Because there is so much variety in types of coronavirus in bats and other species, virus specimens are “massively under-sampled,” wrote the authors, making it less likely Chinese researchers discovered this specific strain. “We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible,” they concluded. However, even Chinese researchers initially pointed to the possibility of a lab accident in a study published in February on ResearchGate. “The killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan,” wrote researchers — although they also raised the possibility of natural transmission. “Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories,” continued Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao of Guangxhou’s South China University of Technology. Botao Xiao later withdrew the paper, telling the Wall Street Journal he did not have evidence for his theories. Two Chinese universities recently posted online notices placing restrictions on publishing academic research on the origins of the coronavirus, though those have since been removed from the internet. Public videos and articles have revealed poor safety standards on the part of some Wuhan researchers, including being exposed to bat urine and failing to wear proper protective equipment. Additionally, there have been incidents of SARS samples escaping from Chinese labs in the past. Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former National Security Council official who worked on China issues in the Trump administration, told Yahoo News he believes a lab accident is a “definite possibility.” “They have had prior accidental releases of the SARS virus. Also it seems the bats were not local to Wuhan. I do not know if the US government is looking into this,” he wrote in an email. But if the Wuhan National Biosafety Lab scientists were dabbling in potentially dangerous research, “Beijing would not want to call attention to [it],” he concluded. Zheng-Li Shi, who leads the group studying bat coronavirus samples at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, published a paper in 2016 in the Journal of Virology detailing experiments on two bat coronaviruses with features needed for human infections. According to the paper, the scientists maintained biosafety level two standards while conducting the research, which is in line with the international standards for coronavirus samples except for SARS and MERS. There are four different biosafety levels. Level four is reserved for the most dangerous and infectious diseases, such as Ebola. Under biosafety level two, samples are considered “moderate-risk,” according to the CDC, leading to minimal requirements for hand-washing sinks, automatically locking doors and methods to decontaminate waste. Those standards may have been inadequate for coronavirus samples, experts argue. “Virus collection, culture, isolation, or animal infection at BSL-2,” given the infectiousness of the coronavirus, “would pose a high risk of accidental infection of a lab worker, and from the lab worker, the public,” wrote Ebright in an email to Yahoo News. Ebright is one of many scientists who have pushed the global community to improve its handling of dangerous pathogens, a problem not just for China but for labs worldwide. USA Today in 2015 conducted a wide-ranging investigation of accidents, safety violations and potential disasters in U.S. labs, and found problems ranging from infected lab mice escaping to failures with protective gear. Relman, who has advised the government on emerging infectious diseases, told Yahoo News that whether the virus escaped from a lab or not — something he personally views as less likely — he hopes the pandemic will spur higher lab safety standards worldwide. “Standards are not clear enough, not uniformly practiced, and are not keeping up with advances in biological technologies — which, in theory, allow many more people to experiment with these viruses,” he wrote. The possibility that the pandemic originated in a lab was first discussed publicly in mid-February as China hawks and Trump allies began to push the bioweapon angle. The New York Times reported that the main proponent of the lab accident theory is President Trump’s deputy national security adviser, Matthew Pottinger, a former Wall Street Journal reporter in China with a reputation for hawkish views on Beijing. Pottinger, through an NSC spokesperson, declined to comment. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas publicly promoted a range of theories, including that the virus could have been a “deliberate release” or an “engineered bioweapon” that was accidentally leaked. However, Cotton, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, also noted that the culprit could have been “good science, bad safety” or a mistake made in the course of honest research on “diagnostic testing or vaccines.” Current and former intelligence officials familiar with internal briefings declined to provide details but noted the lab accident theory being promoted by Cotton may not be so crazy. “Tom Cotton is presenting some useful stuff there,” said one recently retired intelligence official when asked about the theory. Another former intelligence official in touch with current officials told Yahoo News that Trump began calling the virus the “Wuhan virus” after intelligence briefings he received on its origin. Critics said this term, which is not used by the scientific community, was bolstering xenophobic attacks on Asian-Americans and Asians worldwide at a time when international cooperation is required to investigate the outbreak. The possibility that the virus leaked during a lab accident “is being seriously considered” within the U.S. government, according to another recently retired senior national security official, who pointed to the State Department’s 2019 compliance report on arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament. The report notes that Chinese officials have failed to reassure inspectors they are obeying the Biological Weapons Convention, including by not providing information about research on “numerous toxins with potential dual-use application.” The State Department did not respond to requests for comment on whether compliance concerns extend to potential lab accidents of dangerous virus samples. But in late March, Yahoo News reported that the FBI detected samples of the SARS virus and flu in Chinese scientists’ luggage, presenting a “biosecurity risk” for both deliberate acts of terrorism and potential accidents during research. According to the Washington Post, U.S. State Department employees visited the Wuhan virology lab in 2018 and sent a cable back home listing safety concerns about the lab’s bat coronavirus studies. Similar concerns were presented about the Wuhan National Biosafety Lab in 2017, though writers at the prestigious scientific journal Nature have since appended a notice arguing that their reporting on past safety concerns should not be used as evidence that a lab accident led to the 2020 pandemic. Sources declined to discuss any evidence, if it exists, that points to a potential lab accident, but the intelligence community is not ruling it out. “Absent a credible whistleblower or verified primary communication intercept, it will not be possible to prove the origins with certainty,” said Relman, the Stanford microbiologist. “However, with more relevant data, the likelihood of a natural virus versus accidental origin can be strengthened or diminished.” One former senior CIA official said that if the virus did originate from a Chinese research institution, the U.S. intelligence community will eventually be able to prove it. “There will be disaffected Chinese sources,” the former official said. “Disasters are good for us,” the former CIA official continued. “The crappier the regime, the better it is to recruit sources there.” Hunter Walker contributed reporting to this story. _____ Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDC’s and WHO’s resource guides. Read more: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: Intelligence officials weigh possibility coronavirus escaped from a Chinese lab news.yahoo.com/intelligence-o… | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:17:40 -0400
Intelligence officials weigh possibility coronavirus escaped from a Chinese lab news.yahoo.com/intelligence-o…
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| Fauci once dismissed concerns about 'silent carriers' of coronavirus. Not anymore. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:07:48 -0400
At Sunday’s White House briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, suggested that hundreds of thousands — or even millions — of “silent carriers” may be unwittingly spreading the coronavirus across the United States because they don’t realize they’re infected.
The idea that at least some coronavirus carriers don’t feel sick isn’t new. But the scale of Fauci’s estimate was. “It’s somewhere between 25 and 50 percent” of the total, Fauci said. But “right now,” he went on, “we’re just guessing.” Fifty percent is a staggering — and scary — number. To put it in perspective, an asymptomatic rate that high would theoretically double the confirmed U.S. case count to more than 700,000 infections (even though the actual number of infections is likely much larger, given all the issues with testing). But is Fauci’s new estimate supported by science? And if so, what does it mean for the United States’ efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus and ultimately bring it under control? The news might not be as bad as it looks. The first thing to note is that Fauci himself expressed a high degree of uncertainty about his own numbers. “I don’t have any scientific data to say that,” he admitted Sunday. “You know when we’ll get the scientific data? When we get those antibody tests out there and we really know what the penetrance is. Then we can answer the questions in a scientifically sound way.” Fauci was right to be cautious. As he noted, it’s impossible to say how many carriers never showed symptoms until you’ve tested a bunch of people who never showed symptoms — something that will only happen after the worst of the pandemic is over and scientists start trying to determine, en masse, who does and doesn’t have immunity. (More on that later.) But Fauci has reason to suspect the asymptomatic rate could be as high as 50 percent. Researchers initially assumed the coronavirus would spread much like its notorious sibling, the virus that caused SARS — that is, only from people who were clearly sick with fever and cough. “Even if there’s a rare asymptomatic person that might transmit, an epidemic is not driven by asymptomatic carriers,” Fauci himself said on Jan. 28. Yet as the deadly pathogen shut down one country after another, evidence began to surface that sick people weren’t the only ones spreading it. Some of the new data came from Wuhan, China, where the pandemic originated. Some of it came from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, where more than 700 captive passengers and crew members tested positive. Some of it came from Iceland, where nearly 5 percent of the total population — sick or not — has been screened for the virus. All of it pointed to the same conclusion: Silent carriers are real, and they are most likely infecting others. Estimates of the asymptomatic rate have been ticking upward for months. That’s one reason why U.S. authorities recently reversed their earlier guidance and started advising all Americans to wear masks in public. For instance, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention claimed in early February that only about 1.2 percent of the reported cases in mainland China were asymptomatic — “relatively rare,” as a WHO-China joint report put it, and not “a major driver of transmission.” Yet in late March, the South China Morning Post reported that more than 43,000 people in China “with no immediate symptoms,” or about a third of the country’s total case count, had tested positive for the virus by the end of February. They had not been included in the government’s official tally. “Immediate symptoms” is an important distinction. There is a difference between being asymptomatic (meaning you never get sick) and presymptomatic (meaning you haven’t gotten sick yet). The latter looks like the former, until it doesn’t. Yet it’s possible to tell them apart. Once the Diamond Princess docked in Japan on Feb. 3, researchers tested all of the passengers and reviewed those who tested positive for the virus on multiple occasions over a two-week period. They found that 18 percent of the infected passengers remained symptom-free throughout. Researchers then estimated that within the general population — which is younger and healthier overall than the Diamond Princess passengers, and therefore less likely to develop symptoms — that might translate to a 40-percent asymptomatic rate. “The substantial asymptomatic proportion for COVID-19 is quite alarming,” one of those epidemiologists, Dr. Gerardo Chowell of Georgia State University, told the New York Times. Most recent estimates have been in this range. A report based on a group of two dozen people in China said 29 percent; another based on screenings of 565 Japanese citizens evacuated from Wuhan said 30 percent. Last week Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told NPR that “one of the [pieces of] information that we have pretty much confirmed now is that a significant number of individuals that are infected actually remain asymptomatic. That may be as many as 25 percent.” New CDC data shows that among confirmed cases, the percentage of children who show symptoms is 20 points lower than the percentage of adults who show symptoms — suggesting that minors could be a major source of covert spread. The highest rate so far came from a biopharma company called deCODE, which has tested 9,000 nonsymptomatic, nonquarantined residents of Iceland on behalf of the country’s chief epidemiologist. Although fewer than 1 percent of the tests came back positive, the company’s founder told CNN that around 50 percent of those who tested positive said they didn’t feel sick. That may be the source of Fauci’s high-end estimate; on Sunday, he didn’t cite any particular studies, and gesturing to the other experts onstage, he noted that “even among us, good friends that we are, we differ.” Either way, asymptomatic transmission presents a significant near-term challenge. Several studies have also shown that people infected with the coronavirus are most contagious one to three days before they begin to show symptoms, and researchers in China recently discovered that one asymptomatic carrier had just as much virus in his system as his symptomatic peers — meaning that he was probably just as contagious. The result is that Americans who feel perfectly fine must now choose to believe they’re protecting others by wearing masks in public, and authorities in areas where almost no one has tested positive must now decide to get ahead of the curve by issuing shelter-in-place orders that may look at first like overkill. According to the New York Times, a new study by disease modelers at the University of Texas at Austin suggests that “even counties with just a single reported case have more than 50 percent likelihood that a sustained, undetected outbreak — an epidemic — is already taking place.” Once there are five cases in a county, that probability rises to 85 percent. In the long term, however, a huge, hidden population of asymptomatic cases may actually prove to be helpful. For one thing, it would mean that the coronavirus isn’t as deadly as initially feared, which could ease anxieties and inform public-health approaches going forward. It would also mean societies and economies could return to normal sooner than anticipated — assuming that universal antibody tests show that hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of people who never felt sick are now immune. The first such U.S. test was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on April 2. “Making sure we are testing asymptomatic individuals to understand more about this virus is critical,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday. “It’s all part of figuring out whether people have immunity … in order to get [them] back into the workforce, or at least back in society.” So as frightening as Fauci’s 50-percent estimate sounds today, Americans may ultimately be grateful if his “guess” turns out to be correct. Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDC’s and WHO’s resource guides. Read more: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: RT @YahooNews: Dr. Anthony Fauci once dismissed concerns about 'silent carriers' of coronavirus, but not anymore. Here's what changed. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:31:46 -0400
Dr. Anthony Fauci once dismissed concerns about 'silent carriers' of coronavirus, but not anymore. Here's what changed.
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 mikenov on Wednesday, April 15th, 2020 11:31am24040 likes, 8018 retweets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: RT @MiddleEastMnt: Saudi Arabia carried out 800 executions under King Salman middleeastmonitor.com/20200415-saudi… pic.twitter.com/FuQ3Xsw5Ps | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:30:50 -0400
Saudi Arabia carried out 800 executions under King Salman middleeastmonitor.com/20200415-saudi… pic.twitter.com/FuQ3Xsw5Ps
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mikenov on Wednesday, April 15th, 2020 11:30am4 likes, 6 retweets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: RT @MilHistNow: RIGHT NOW in 1865, Abraham Lincoln dies from gunshot wounds he sustained nine hours earlier at Ford's Theater. "There lies… | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:30:10 -0400
RIGHT NOW in 1865, Abraham Lincoln dies from gunshot wounds he sustained nine hours earlier at Ford's Theater. "There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen," remarked War Secretary Edwin Stanton. "Now he belongs to the ages." pic.twitter.com/2sCwY1NopT
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mikenov on Wednesday, April 15th, 2020 11:30am67 likes, 39 retweets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: RT @CNNPolitics: Fact check: President Trump denies saying another thing he said and makes more false claims at coronavirus briefing https:… | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:29:29 -0400
Fact check: President Trump denies saying another thing he said and makes more false claims at coronavirus briefing cnn.it/34BABnc pic.twitter.com/fVvUXO8DFV
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mikenov on Wednesday, April 15th, 2020 11:29am126 likes, 61 retweets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: RT @tribelaw: As we watch the disgraceful daily display put on by this inept, narcissistic president, I find myself thinking: America must… | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:29:15 -0400
As we watch the disgraceful daily display put on by this inept, narcissistic president, I find myself thinking: America must rid itself of this awful guy. Every Democratic campaign ad this fall needs to convey this truth: Vote Trump out of office: Your life depends on it.
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mikenov on Wednesday, April 15th, 2020 11:29am1873 likes, 513 retweets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: RT @washingtonpost: Live updates: As U.S. death toll soars, Trump accuses WHO of coronavirus cover-up and suspends funding https://t.co/KTQ… | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:28:56 -0400
Live updates: As U.S. death toll soars, Trump accuses WHO of coronavirus cover-up and suspends funding wapo.st/2Vwj1Nb
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mikenov on Wednesday, April 15th, 2020 11:28am75 likes, 38 retweets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: RT @AmbJohnBolton: Withholding US funding from @WHO is the correct response to its coronavirus failures and Chinese influence. It should b… | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:28:39 -0400
Withholding US funding from @WHO is the correct response to its coronavirus failures and Chinese influence. It should be a warning flare to the entire UN system that the US will not settle for poor performance #COVID19
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mikenov on Wednesday, April 15th, 2020 11:28am842 likes, 237 retweets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Officials Told ‘Bodies Being Piled Up In Nursing Homes’ As Desperate Families Face Silence – CBS New York | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:19:41 -0400
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Some say family members living in New York nursing homes are like prisoners being held in captivity. They can’t reach them, as the number of coronavirus deaths statewide are spiking, and some wonder what the state and city are doing to help, reports CBS2’s Lisa Rozner. A truck acts as a temporary morgue outside New Jewish Nursing Home on West 106th Street in Manhattan. The lawyer for the King David Rehab Center in Gravesend says it has made similar arrangements for bodies after COVID-19 patients were transferred there last month. “The percentage of loss of life is getting higher in nursing homes compared to the hospitals,” said Gov. Andrew Cuomo. CORONAVIRUS PANDEMICStatewide there have been nearly 2,500 deaths in nursing home and adult care facilities.An employee who doesn’t want to be identified at the Crown Heights Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation gave CBS2 a video from last week showing nurses begging for COVID tests after seeing 22 deaths in seven days. MORE: Coronavirus Update: National Guard Deployed As COVID-19 Hits Over Half Of All NJ Nursing Homes, Causing Death Toll To Spike Representatives for The Chateau at Brooklyn Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in Sheepshead Bay dispute allegations that dead patients were being left in their beds. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams says he has received multiple calls with similar concerns. He and Public Advocate Jumaanee Williams are asking the state to mandate homes enable video communication with residents, provide personal protection equipment to staff and allow random inspections. The inspections are needed “to see how these patients are being treated,” said Adams. “We’ve gotten calls about bodies being piled up in nursing homes,” said Williams. “We don’t have the luxury of time in responding to this. The mayor and the governor have thousand to tens of thousands of folks.” CORONAVIRUS: NY Health Dept. | NY Call 1-(888)-364-3065 | NYC Health Dept. | NYC Call 311, Text COVID to 692692 | NJ COVID-19 Info Hub | NJ Call 1-(800)-222-1222 or 211, Text NJCOVID to 898211 | CT Health Dept. | CT Call 211 | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Another “Jane Doe” who wants to remain anonymous says her mom is at a facility in Flatbush. “The doctors are not calling, family members don’t know if their loved one or family members are still alive,” she said. Stephen Hanse heads the organization that reps nursing homes and long-term care facilities. “By law their family and loved ones have to be informed,” he said. “We’re looking for first and foremost assistance to bring in workers.” The governor’s office did not directly answer CBS2’s questions about whether that help would be provided. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: Coronavirus Deaths: Officials Told 'Bodies Being Piled Up In Nursing Homes' As Desperate Families Face Silence cbsloc.al/2XzVrlq#.Xpbte… | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:18:22 -0400
Coronavirus Deaths: Officials Told 'Bodies Being Piled Up In Nursing Homes' As Desperate Families Face Silence cbsloc.al/2XzVrlq#.Xpbte…
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| mikenov on Twitter: RT @washingtonpost: Islamic State cell plotted attacks on U.S. bases in Germany, prosecutors say wapo.st/3betNyg | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:07:19 -0400
Islamic State cell plotted attacks on U.S. bases in Germany, prosecutors say wapo.st/3betNyg
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mikenov on Wednesday, April 15th, 2020 11:07am71 likes, 26 retweets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: #MayorDeBlasio #GovernorCuomo #NYC #NY #FIRE #STUPID #BRAINLESS #HHC #BUREAUCRATS FOR #INABILITY TO #ORGANIZE #PROPER #CARE & #SAFEGUARDS FOR #STAFF! IT IS THEIR #FAULT! #FIRETHEM #NOW! Up to 20% of #Coronavirus cases are the #he | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:02:31 -0400
#MayorDeBlasio #GovernorCuomo #NYC #NY
#FIRE #STUPID #BRAINLESS #HHC #BUREAUCRATS FOR #INABILITY TO #ORGANIZE #PROPER #CARE & #SAFEGUARDS FOR #STAFF! IT IS THEIR #FAULT! #FIRETHEM #NOW! Up to 20% of #Coronavirus cases are the #healthcare #workers. Abolish the #INCOMPETENT HHC! pic.twitter.com/MI7eEPzMKJ  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: Staff sickouts skyrocket at NYC hospitals amid coronavirus outbreak Wednesday April 15th, 2020 at 6:16 AM coronavirusalerts.org/?p=75 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 06:47:21 -0400
Staff sickouts skyrocket at NYC hospitals amid coronavirus outbreak Wednesday April 15th, 2020 at 6:16 AM coronavirusalerts.org/?p=75
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| mikenov on Twitter: Staff sickouts skyrocket at NYC's hospitals amid coronavirus outbreak nypost.com/2020/04/14/sta… via @nypmetro | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 06:46:36 -0400
Staff sickouts skyrocket at NYC's hospitals amid coronavirus outbreak nypost.com/2020/04/14/sta… via @nypmetro
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| mikenov on Twitter: #CIA #FBI #ODNI #USMilitary #USIntelligenceCommunity #US #Senate #House #Trump #CoronavirusPandemic #Elections2020 #NewAbwehr #STUPID! #BRAINLESS! #HHC: #Staff #sickouts #skyrocket at #NYC #hospitals amid #coronavirusoutbreak Wednes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 06:44:11 -0400
#CIA #FBI #ODNI #USMilitary #USIntelligenceCommunity
#US #Senate #House #Trump #CoronavirusPandemic #Elections2020 #NewAbwehr #STUPID! #BRAINLESS! #HHC: #Staff #sickouts #skyrocket at #NYC #hospitals amid #coronavirusoutbreak Wednesday April 15th, 2020 tweetsandnews.blogspot.com/2020/04/staff-… pic.twitter.com/lrjGpUVgPK  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Staff sickouts skyrocket at NYC hospitals amid coronavirus outbreak Wednesday April 15th, 2020 at 6:16 AM | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 06:35:03 -0400
April 14, 2020 | 6:02pm
A nurse wears protective gear outside Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
The number of health care workers calling in sick at the city’s public hospitals has skyrocketed amid the coronavirus pandemic — with the absentee rate doubling compared to before the killer virus slammed the city.
The situation is so dire that top officials with Health + Hospitals are cracking the whip — demanding a doctor’s note to document illness for a sick day.
An April 10 memo sent out by top H + H brass to employees at the network of 11 hospitals and clinics suggested that workers at some facilities might be taking advantage of the epidemic because there are “very high rates of call outs and absences that do not appear to be consistent with patterns of CO
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| Staff sickouts skyrocket at NYC hospitals amid coronavirus outbreak | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 06:16:29 -0400
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April 14, 2020 | 6:02pm
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The number of health care workers calling in sick at the city’s public hospitals has skyrocketed amid the coronavirus pandemic — with the absentee rate doubling compared to before the killer virus slammed the city.
The situation is so dire that top officials with Health + Hospitals are cracking the whip — demanding a doctor’s note to document illness for a sick day. An April 10 memo sent out by top H + H brass to employees at the network of 11 hospitals and clinics suggested that workers at some facilities might be taking advantage of the epidemic because there are “very high rates of call outs and absences that do not appear to be consistent with patterns of COVID infection.” “Because all of you are critically needed in our facilities, we have to address this issue so that some of our staff is not bearing an extra burden for those who are staying home without approved leave,” the note sent by Health + Hospital’s chief medical officer, Dr. Machelle Allen, and the head of human resources, Yvette Villanueva said. The memo, first obtained by The City, added, “As a response to this staffing emergency, we will be implementing new processes to ensure that those who are out and using sick or COVID leave are entitled to use that leave.” Health + Hospitals staff requesting sick leave now must provide a doctor’s note or other proof that they tested positive for COVID-19 test or are displaying symptoms from the virus or another other illness within five days to get sick pay. Both H + H CEO Dr. Mitchell Katz and Mayor Bill de Blasio said maintaining adequate staffing has been a major concern because a workforce stretched thin by high sickouts and toiling under hazardous conditions as they try to save very sick coronavirus patients. Nurses at many hospitals have complained of a shortage of personal protective equipment such as masks and gowns, exposing them to COVID-19 from patients and others. Some have died from the coronavirus. Katz said “a lot of people, large numbers of people are calling in sick — double the usual rate. … We’re definitely seeing a large number of people missing in action.” Katz, in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association Monday, said that many hospitals workers are sick from COVID exposure but others are out because they’re scared about getting infected and spreading COVID to other family members. He said it’s a big morale booster when sick nurses and doctors recover from COVID-19 and return to the front. see alsoHe repeatedly called the medical workers “heroes” and said he’s even trying to find a way to give them bonuses during tough fiscal times triggered by the pandemic. De Blasio, during a Tuesday press briefing, said Health + Hospitals is hiring, adding, “We need those key health care workers right now.” Unlike other departments such as the NYPD, Health + Hospitals has not provided specific stats on its absenteeism rate. The mayor promised Tuesday the data will be released soon. Asked about the sick out memo, Health + Hospitals issued a statement Tuesday that said, “We are in unprecedented circumstances and our frontline heroes are going above and beyond to keep New Yorkers safe. “We are doing everything we can to adjust to a rapidly evolving situation, and in the process reduce undue burden on employees and ensure that our facilities are staffed appropriately. Understandably these are frightening times, and we are all pulling together so that we can save more New Yorkers.” More Stories
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| mikenov on Twitter: Staff sickouts skyrocket at NYC's hospitals amid coronavirus outbreak nypost.com/2020/04/14/sta… via @nypmetro | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wed, 15 Apr 2020 06:16:16 -0400
Staff sickouts skyrocket at NYC's hospitals amid coronavirus outbreak nypost.com/2020/04/14/sta… via @nypmetro
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| Tue, 14 Apr 2020 21:08:30 -0400 Russian President Vladimir Putin said "everything is under control" early in the coronavirus pandemic. As the number of Russian victims increases, his ... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Tue, 14 Apr 2020 21:07:52 -0400 Mixed picture in Europe, coronavirus vaccine at least 12 months off: WHO. "The overall world outbreak, 90 percent of cases are coming from Europe and ... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Tue, 14 Apr 2020 21:06:04 -0400 NORTH CENTRAL WEST VIRGINIA (WDTV) -- Thousands out of work and local food sources are closed as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates one ... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Tue, 14 Apr 2020 21:04:47 -0400 ... scientists who are still learning about the coronavirus that causes the illness. ... We haven't done a very simple test in epidemiology, which is to try to ... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Tue, 14 Apr 2020 21:04:32 -0400 Is corona a biological weapon. Coronavirus: Mystery of the Wuhan Institute near virus ... Jan 29, 2020 · Just 30 kilometres ... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: Covid 19 Coronavirus: Medical journal editor says early reports of flu-like virus were 'dangerously false', via @nzherald nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/articl… | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tue, 14 Apr 2020 21:01:40 -0400
Covid 19 Coronavirus: Medical journal editor says early reports of flu-like virus were 'dangerously false', via @nzherald nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/articl…
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| Covid 19 Coronavirus: Medical journal editor says early reports of flu-like virus were 'dangerously false' | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 14 Apr 2020 21:00:29 -0400
When a new flu-like virus first emerged out of Wuhan, two "dangerously false" assumptions started to spread about who was affected by COVID-19, one expert claims.
The editor of a prestigious British medical journal has slammed the "dangerously false" information that initially circulated about coronavirus, warning it is a more serious disease than previously thought. The Lancet editor Richard Horton has been an outspoken critic of the UK government's failure to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic despite warnings in late January about the new disease emerging from Wuhan. He has previously referred to this failure, inadequate testing and lack of supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) as a "national scandal". Now, in an article published in the Lancet he said early comments the disease was flu-like and only affected older people were misconceptions. "As deaths accumulate, the early message that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 causes mostly a mild illness has been shown to be dangerously false," he wrote. "One in five patients develop complications and are at grave risk. A further misunderstanding concerns age. "An impression was given that only older people are at risk of serious illness. But the average age of non-survivors is under 70 years. Two-thirds of those admitted to hospital in China were younger than 60 years." In Australia, three people in their thirties were reported to be on ventilators in intensive care wards last week, with Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly calling it a "wake up call" for younger people. NSW Health statistics show the 20-39 year old age group has the highest number of cases, with slightly more women than men contracting the virus. China has been widely criticised for failing to warn the world early enough that the mysterious new disease was being transmitted between humans in Wuhan. That secrecy, combined with world leaders being slow to prepare, has led to an unprecedented pandemic that has infected more than 2 million people and killed more than 119,000 worldwide. There are more than 6300 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Australia, with 2870 in New South Wales, 1291 in Victoria, 998 in Queensland, 433 in South Australia, 527 in Western Australia, 150 in Tasmania, 103 in the Australian Capital Territory and 28 in the Northern Territory. The death toll now stands at 62, after a sixth person died in Tasmania earlier today. Horton said the public health crisis has seen patient numbers in intensive care doubling every two days and doctors left feeling overwhelmed and bewildered. "Deaths are so frequent that hospitals have created emergency mortuary space, often in car parks, moving bodies at night to avoid media scrutiny," he wrote. "Intensive care teams are doing truly remarkable work. But it is a huge physical and mental struggle." "The focus of the political debate about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has so far been almost exclusively about the public health dimensions of this pandemic. But at the bedside there is another story, one that has so far been largely hidden — a story of terrible suffering, distress, and utter bewilderment." The UK remains in the eye of the storm, with more than 11,329 deaths and intensive care units under pressure. Medical bosses believe cases will peak next week and the country is expected to remain in lockdown for another three weeks. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has tested negative for the disease after being discharged from intensive care and is now in recovery at his country retreat, Chequers. On Tuesday, new figures revealed the number of virus deaths in Britain could be 15 per cent higher than previously believed according to data on deaths outside of hospital. The Office for National Statitstics said 6235 people in England and Wales had died by April 3 with mentions of COVID-19 on their death certificates. "When looking at data for England, this is 15 per cent higher than the NHS (National Health Service) numbers as they include all mentions of COVID-19 on the death certificate, including suspected COVID-19, as well as deaths in the community," ONS statistician Nick Stripe said. div id="nzh-datavis-root__card" class="nzh-datavis"> In London, more than 46 per cent of deaths in week 14 of the year involved COVID-19, according to initial figures. The UK government has received major criticism for failing to conduct widespread testing for coronavirus and pursuing a strategy of "herd immunity". Doctors and nurses on the frontline in NHS hospitals have also warned a lack of PPE has put lives at risk. Horton previously wrote the NHS has been "wholly unprepared for this pandemic" and it was "impossible to understand why". He said chief medical officers had a duty to put the country on high-alert following warnings published in late January, however a lack of action has led to "chaos and panic" in which staff and patients would "die unnecessarily." "It is, indeed, as one health worker wrote last week, "a national scandal". The gravity of that scandal has yet to be understood." The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned new cases might be easing in parts of Europe but the outbreak has not peaked yet. "The overall world outbreak, 90 per cent of cases are coming from Europe and the United States of America. So we are certainly not seeing the peak yet," WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said. "Yes, we've had a good couple of weeks but that does not a virus beat. That's why we have many more in front of us before we could even possibly contemplate the easing of restrictions," he told Sky News on Tuesday. He added: "There has got to be a reward for all of this great effort going in, and there will be, but we've got to make sure it is done at the right time." "We don't want to end up like New York or like London or like in Spain or in Italy or any of these places," he said. "And the decisions and actions we've taken together as a country and the discipline and patience shown by Australians has meant that we've been able to avoid those horror scenarios which, you know, Australia is not immune to.
Last updated: Tue 14th April at 8:52 pm
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| Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:57:58 -0400 When a new flu-like virus first emerged out of Wuhan, two "dangerously false" assumptions ... This is a biological weapon developed by the USA. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: #CIA #FBI #ODNI #USMilitary #USIntelligenceCommunity #US #Senate #House #Trump #CoronavirusPandemic #Elections2020 #NewAbwehr #Putin #UN #OperationCoronaVirus #Update: "#HealthCareWorkers are 10%-20% of #USCoronavirusCases" tweetsa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:51:07 -0400
#CIA #FBI #ODNI #USMilitary #USIntelligenceCommunity
#US #Senate #House #Trump #CoronavirusPandemic #Elections2020 #NewAbwehr #Putin #UN #OperationCoronaVirus #Update: "#HealthCareWorkers are 10%-20% of #USCoronavirusCases" tweetsandnews.blogspot.com/2020/04/757-pm… pic.twitter.com/8wGINWiMFk  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: #CIA #FBI #ODNI #USMilitary #USIntelligenceCommunity #US #Senate #House #Trump #CoronavirusPandemic #Elections2020 #NewAbwehr #Putin #UN #CoronavirusPandemicInvestigations #CoronavirusGermany #OperationCoronaVirus #Update: "#HealthCa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:48:43 -0400
#CIA #FBI #ODNI #USMilitary #USIntelligenceCommunity
#US #Senate #House #Trump #CoronavirusPandemic #Elections2020 #NewAbwehr #Putin #UN #CoronavirusPandemicInvestigations #CoronavirusGermany #OperationCoronaVirus #Update: "#HealthCareWorkers are 10%-20% of #USCoronavirusCases" pic.twitter.com/46GfjFFrZX  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7:57 PM 4/14/2020 - Operation CoronaVirus Update: "Health care workers are 10%-20% of US coronavirus cases" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:43:43 -0400
 Health care workers are 10%-20% of US coronavirus cases https://tweetsandnews.blogspot.com/2020/04/657-pm-4142020-health-care-workers-are.html ______________________________________________________ Operation CoronaVirus Update: "Health care workers are 10%-20% of US coronavirus cases" It looks like the Coronavirus was introduced in the US not in January of 2020, but earlier, possibly much earlier: in the fall of 2019 or prior to that, around the summer of 2019. It is difficult to determine this exactly, of course. Now we started to see the tip of the iceberg. This figure: 10-20% health care workers of all cases, probably indicates, that the virus was circulating for some time, and the un-diagnosed infectious people were infecting the health care workers, who in turn were unknowingly infecting the new cohorts of their patients, who saw them for the other reasons. It also looks like there are at least two, maybe three or more distinct clinical entities of this illness: 1) Acute, with severe cardio-pulmonary symptoms, often lethal, in the otherwise non-compromised patients, in which the coexisting or superimposed Chemical agents', the various types of the "Novichoks" effects, are possible; 2) The subacute, 3) The moderately and mildly symptomatic, and 4) The asymptomatic clinical types. All of them might be the different illnesses with various causes and their combinations. We do not have enough of the clinical experiences and enough of the observations of these phenomena to classify them definitely at this point. I would not rely on the Chinese medical conceptualizations of their clinical observations too much. All these phenomena have to be approached anew, with the open mind and the unbiased vision. Of course, the most concerning are the acute types of the conditions, for which I considered the possible simultaneous use of the Chemical agents or weapons, under the guise of infection or simultaneously, in some forms or fashions. At least some of these cases might be the targeted killings and the Mafia jobs. This whole affair smells strongly of the Mafia and some of the mysterious powerful Intelligence groups involvement. The recent simultaneous losses in the NYPD, of two detectives from Queens, are somewhat puzzling and alarming. I think, with all the humble awareness of our universal and omnipresent human propensity towards ignorance reserved, that the FBI, with all their limitations and possible reluctance, should investigate this whole affair as the criminal matter of the extraordinary proportions. In fact, we might be dealing with the well organized, well thought out and coordinated attempt on the part of the TOC - Transnational Organized Crime to take over the Civilized World and to bend it to their will. The prison releases, which are practiced out of the utter humanitarian necessity, may be the part of their tactics and design. In a way, if it is so, it can be viewed as the assault on the Justice system in the U.S.. I hypothesized earlier, that there is the entity that is above the Mob hierarchically and organizationally, and I called it the New Abwehr. For the German Military Intelligence, throughout their complex and tortuous history, the close and intimate ties with the Organised Crime were often the matters of survival, time tested traditions, and the sheer necessity. The very peculiar place of Germany in this global Pandemic lends further support to this hypothetical construct and concept: it looks like Germany was very well prepared and she was well aware of what is coming. See my previous posts for more details. As unprecedentedly and shockingly sad as it is, we have to find enough strength and wisdom to investigate this occurrence very, very thoroughly, professionally, and with the highest of qualities. Michael Novakhov 7:57 PM 4/14/2020 __________________________________________
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