From Camel's Urine to Trump's Favorite Drug: New Claims and Update on Coronavirus

Society and Science Blog, Kodoom.com Editorial:
The following are interesting updates and claims, some shocking, related to coronavirus:

• In Iran, an Islamic medicine practitioner and director of Imam Sadegh Medicine, was arrested after publishing a video advising followers, quoting a Shia Imam, to drink "fresh camel urine" as treatment for respiratory illnesses and coronavirus:

• In the U.S., A major disinfectant manufacturer has warned people they may get seriously sick or die if they follow Trump's suggestion that injecting disinfectants may treat coronavirus! Separately, Dr. Rick Bright, director of the office involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine claims he was removed from his position because he resisted efforts by Donald Trump to spend billions of dollars on a drug which is now proven as toxic as coronavirus treatment. On Tuesday, a panel of experts convened by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recommended against doctors using a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (strongly pushed by President Trump for weeks), for the treatment of COVID-19 patients because of potential toxicities. As for using the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine alone, the panel said there was "insufficient clinical data to recommend either for or against." It reached the same conclusion about the drug remdesivir. Despite the scientific conclusion, Sean Hannity, a close media ally/adviser to President Trump slammed the studies as not rigorous.

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is aware of a small number of pets, including dogs and cats, reported to be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 after close contact with people with COVID-19. The CDC has received two reports of cats becoming mildly sick with COVID-19 in the United States. Officials continue to recommend pet owners take several precautions and treat pets as they would other human family members (subject to social distancing from other humans and pets).

• In the U.S., controversy over grants and loans continue. Many small businesses have found it difficult or impossible to get one of the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, while larger and politically connected US corporations have received millions ahead of others. For example, according to NPR and documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Continental Materials Corp. a company owned by Trump's Ambassador to Belgium, Ronald Gidwitza (from a prominent Chicago family with close ties to the Trump administration), was able to get a $5.5 million loan under the program. Separately, several large politically-connected corporations such as Ruth’s Chris, Potbelly, and Shake Shack have received millions in stimulus money meant for small businesses. Ruth’s Chris Steak House had more than $441 million in revenue in 2019 and yet able to secure $20 million in forgivable loans, while appearing to furlough much of its workforce! The so-called PPP loans were aimed at helping companies with up to 500 employees cover payroll and overhead costs, but lawmakers expanded eligibility to companies with up to 500 workers per SINGLE location! According to VOX, small business owners such as Sara Core of Millennium Family Entertainment Center in Yuba City, California hasn’t been able to get the comparatively paltry $58,000 she’s asking for to cover payroll and other operational expenses: "Our business is completely shut down right now. I am in a position where I don’t even know if we’ll make it."

• The $2.5 trillion US government has borrowed on behalf of Americans to stimulate the economy translates to a share of $10,000 in support per poor or middle class American (Some 250 million, excluding millionaires and billionaires). Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin, whose wife has been criticized in the past for her snobbery and lavish style, was criticized this week for claiming that the $1200 and $500 stimulus checks Americans will receive (Adult and children, respectively) with delay (caused by addition of President Trump's name on checks) should last them for 10 Weeks!

• A rash of coronavirus outbreaks at dozens of meat packing plants across the U.S. is far more extensive than previously thought, according to an exclusive review of cases by USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. And it could get worse. More than 150 of America’s largest meat processing plants operate in counties where the rate of coronavirus infection is already among the nation’s highest. These facilities represent more than 1 in 3 of the nation’s biggest beef, pork and poultry processing plants. But experts say there's little risk of a dwindling protein supply because, given the choice between worker safety and keeping meat on grocery shelves, the nation’s slaughterhouses will choose to produce food. By the time it closed its doors on April 12, Smithfield’s Sioux Falls plant had more than 200 confirmed cases of COVID-19. In the days since then, the case count has swelled to nearly 900, including workers and those they’ve interacted with, making it the biggest single cluster of COVID-19 infections in the nation. The meat packing industry was already notorious for poor working conditions even before the coronavirus pandemic. Meat and poultry employees have among the highest illness rates of all manufacturing employees and are less likely to report injuries and illness than any other type of worker, federal watchdog reports have found.

• A random coronavirus antibody test sampling conducted by Stanford University scientists in Santa Clara County, California, concluded that the actual infection rate is 50-85 times officially reported numbers (as correctly reported in an article posted on March 19 on this website). A new New York antibody study estimates that 13.9% of residents have had the coronavirus. Although tis points out to a mortality rates of less than 1% (compared to seasonal flu at 0.1%), accounting for the ongoing delay in mortality and people who have died in their homes (and not reported in official stats), the actual mortality may be closer to 1.5%-2%, some 15-20 times seasonal flu strains.

• An image widely circulated in social media (shown above), shows the brighter side of coronavirus. Reports indicate air quality is dramatically better in nine major world cities after coronavirus confinement.

• Food banks in the U.S. are now worried they can't feed millions of unemployed Americans. While thousands of Americans are lining up in food banks to grab free food, billionaires are snatching up deals for their needs too. Sir Richard Branson, who is worth an estimated £4.7 billion, is trying to secure a £500 million loan from the UK government to support his Virgin Atlantic airline. In the US, executives of the airline industry are getting $25 billion from the government in grants and loans to inject to the airlines which spent 96% of their spare cash in the past decade on buying back their own shares! According to a blog by Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian "It is not just the airline industry that is getting injections of cash, of course. Lots of bloated institutions are raking in taxpayer funds – even if they don’t need it. Harvard, for example, is getting nearly $9m in aid from the US government, despite having a $40.9bn endowment fund. Meanwhile, Americans who earn under $75,000 are getting a one-off stimulus cheque of up to $1,200, plus $500 for each child." Other billionaires are hunting for non-governmental deals. Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates have just purchased a massive oceanfront home near San Diego for $43 million. The new house only has six bedrooms, much smaller than Gates' main mansion in Medina, Washington (hosting a 25-car garage and 24 bathrooms!). Bill Gates has advocated for pandemic preparedness for years and famously gave a TED talk in 2015 that warned of the potentially staggering death toll a worldwide pandemic could create. This is behind bizarre new conspiracy theories that claim Gates is responsible for the coronavirus pandemic and have rapidly spread from fringe conspiracy theorists online to conservative pundits.

• The virus seems to be still spreading at high rates in countries such as Belgium, United States, France, Sweden, Canada, UK, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Mexico, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and The Netherlands. In Iran, hospitalizations are under control but the number of seriously ill patients is on the rise.

• According to a report in Forbes, Countries with the best Coronavirus responses have one thing in common: They are run by women leaders

• ACLU has outlined general principles that should guide the consideration of any proposal for technology-assisted contact-tracing, or TACT, of COVID-19. The acknowledge the pandemic is a deadly crisis, but also an opportunity for would-be authoritarians and powerful corporations to expand their power: "One way they may try to do so is through the use of technology and data to address the pandemic.In the last few weeks we have seen many proposals for technology-assisted “contact tracing.” Contact tracing is a longstanding public health technique that works by identifying everyone whom a sick person may have exposed, and helping them identify their risks and take appropriate action. But traditional contacttracing techniques —carriedout through in-person interviews —are labor-intensive, and often slow compared to a fast-moving pathogen like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.The proposed systems would instead rely on location or proximity detection by mobile phones to selectively deliver alerts about potential exposures. While some of these systems may offer public health benefits, they may also cause significant risks to privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. If such systems are to work, they must be widely adopted. But that won’t happen if they do not enjoy strong trust within the population." As a group of public health experts wrote in a Johns Hopkins report recently, "To increase the chances that [contact tracing] efforts will be effective, trusted, and legal, use of technology in the contact tracing space should be conceived of and planned with extensive safeguards to protect private information from the beginning.” Without such safeguards, the authors explain, “individuals may be unwilling to participate."

• Although not directly forecasting coronavirus, The 1972 "The Limits to Growth" (LTG) study, a computer simulation of "exponential economic and population growth with a finite supply of resources" had predicted global population as well as food and services per capita would peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline due to overexploitation of natural resources by constantly expanding consumerism, physical growth and human material needs.

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