Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized

Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized

CNN reports: New studies in several countries and a large coronavirus outbreak in Massachusetts bring into question reassuring assertions by US officials about the way the novel virus spreads. These officials have emphasized that the virus is spread mainly by people who are already showing symptoms, such as fever, cough or difficulty breathing. If that’s true, it’s good news, since people who are obviously ill can be identified and isolated, making it easier to control an outbreak. But it appears…

Read More Read More

Gathering in groups right now is selfish and puts the lives of others at risk

Gathering in groups right now is selfish and puts the lives of others at risk

Charlie Warzel writes: The coronavirus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, are spreading across the United States faster than we can track or test. This week the confirmed caseload jumped from 309 to at least 2,170 cases in 49 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. A testing shortage has experts fearing the true number is likely thousands of cases higher. Public life in America has methodically ground to a halt. This week companies instituted mandatory…

Read More Read More

Trump is breaking every rule in the CDC’s 450-page playbook for talking to the public during a health crisis

Trump is breaking every rule in the CDC’s 450-page playbook for talking to the public during a health crisis

The Washington Post reports: Amid an outbreak where vaccines, drug treatments and even sufficient testing don’t yet exist, communication that is delivered early, accurately and credibly is the strongest medicine in the government’s arsenal. But the Trump administration’s zigzagging, defensive, inconsistent messages about the novel coronavirus continued Friday, breaking almost every rule in the book and eroding the most powerful weapon officials possess: Public trust. After disastrous communications during the 2001 anthrax attacks — when white powder in envelopes sparked…

Read More Read More

A giant hole in Pelosi’s coronavirus bill

A giant hole in Pelosi’s coronavirus bill

An editorial in the New York Times says: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday night celebrated the coronavirus legislation that passed early Saturday as providing paid sick leave to American workers affected by the pandemic. She neglected to mention the fine print. In fact, the bill guarantees sick leave only to about 20 percent of workers. Big employers like McDonald’s and Amazon are not required to provide any paid sick leave, while companies with fewer than 50 employees can seek…

Read More Read More

As Europe shuts down, Britain gambles on ‘herd immunity’

As Europe shuts down, Britain gambles on ‘herd immunity’

The New York Times reports: Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain once said his political hero was the mayor in the film “Jaws,” praising him for defying mass hysteria to keep the beaches open after a constituent is eaten by a shark. As the coronavirus now stampedes across Britain and much of the world, Mr. Johnson is heeding the same principle, spurning the mass closures that have become commonplace across Europe and gambling his political future on a more restrained…

Read More Read More

Coronavirus cancels campaign rallies in blow to Trump and Sanders. Biden, not so much

Coronavirus cancels campaign rallies in blow to Trump and Sanders. Biden, not so much

Steve Rabinowitz writes: You know it’s bad when President Donald Trump is canceling campaign rallies. The massive gatherings of loyal devotees are events he feeds off and are central to his re-election strategy: Whip up the base to make sure they vote and get as much free media attention as possible while doing it. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., takes a similar approach to rallying the masses, even turning his large crowds into rock concerts to jack up the energy and…

Read More Read More

Could the 2020 election be postponed? Only with great difficulty

Could the 2020 election be postponed? Only with great difficulty

Alexander Burns writes: The date of the general election is set by federal law and has been fixed since 1845. It would take a change in federal law to move that date. That would mean legislation enacted by Congress, signed by the president and subject to challenge in the courts. To call that unlikely would be an understatement. And even if all of that happened, there would not be much flexibility in choosing an alternate election date: The Constitution mandates…

Read More Read More

Singapore wins praise for its COVID-19 strategy, but the U.S. does not

Singapore wins praise for its COVID-19 strategy, but the U.S. does not

NPR reports: Hong Kong and Singapore were hit early with the coronavirus. But each now has fewer than 200 cases, while France, Germany and Spain, which were hit late, all have more than 10 times that number. Three weeks ago, Italy had only three cases. Now it has more than 10,000. These dramatic differences show that how governments respond to this virus matters, says Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s head of emergencies. “Hope is not a strategy,” says Ryan,…

Read More Read More

I ran the White House pandemic office that Trump closed

I ran the White House pandemic office that Trump closed

Beth Cameron writes: When President Trump took office in 2017, the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense survived the transition intact. Its mission was the same as when I was asked to lead the office, established after the Ebola epidemic of 2014: to do everything possible within the vast powers and resources of the U.S. government to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic. One year…

Read More Read More

Italy’s coronavirus nightmare offers a chilling preview of what’s coming

Italy’s coronavirus nightmare offers a chilling preview of what’s coming

Bloomberg reports: In Rome, the first signs of change came from overhead. Shortly before cocktail hour on Monday, the thrum-thrum-thrum of a helicopter could be heard above the winding lanes of the 2,000-year-old historic center. The police were keeping an eye on the Trastevere neighborhood, where smoke billowed from the windows of a jail as inmates rioted, protesting cramped conditions that put them at risk of coronavirus infection. About the same time, the stock market was opening in New York,…

Read More Read More

Coronavirus lockdown: In Italy, we live in silence and die in silence

Coronavirus lockdown: In Italy, we live in silence and die in silence

Monica Maggioni writes: Before the virus came, I was living in my usual, hectic way, going back and forth from Milan to Rome for work. As such, I turned a blind eye to the worrying news coming from China. Even the onset of contagion in the Codogno area near Milan was, to me, just another news story. So when the virus came close, I was surprised to discover that hard choices had to be made — and fast. The first:…

Read More Read More

An Italian financial crisis is certain – the big question is how contagious it is

An Italian financial crisis is certain – the big question is how contagious it is

Larry Elliott writes: The Italian government’s decision to suspend mortgage payments for its quarantined citizens is a drastic step in the battle to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus, but commensurate with the predicament the country finds itself in. Italy is the eurozone’s weak link. Even before the current lockdown it was facing a fourth recession in little more than a decade and there has been only minimal growth in living standards in two decades. Its manufacturing sector is dominated…

Read More Read More

Coronavirus: Can herd immunity really protect us?

Coronavirus: Can herd immunity really protect us?

By Jeremy Rossman, University of Kent The UK government recently enacted its second phase of response to the COVID-19 pandemic: “delay”. According to ITV journalist Robert Peston, the government’s strategy to minimise the impact of COVID-19 “is to allow the virus to pass through the entire population so that we acquire herd immunity, but at a much delayed speed so that those who suffer the most acute symptoms are able to receive the medical support they need, and such that…

Read More Read More

The oil shock of 2020 appears to be here – and the pain could be wide and deep

The oil shock of 2020 appears to be here – and the pain could be wide and deep

Suffering from sanctions, Russia is trying produce more and gain market share. Yegor Aleyev via Getty Images By Scott L. Montgomery, University of Washington The world is again undergoing an oil shock. Prices, already on a downward trend, have collapsed 30% in less than a week, bringing the total fall to nearly 50% since highs in early January. Consumers, of course, can expect gasoline prices to go down, but the story is far more complicated than that. Having researched energy…

Read More Read More

Giraffes are in far greater danger than people might think

Giraffes are in far greater danger than people might think

Ed Yong writes: Until recently, giraffes have suffered from surprising scientific neglect. Few researchers have studied them in the wild, so even basic aspects of their lives remain mysterious. Perhaps that’s because giraffes live in what researchers suspect are protean societies lacking the cohesiveness of elephant herds or lion prides. Whatever the reason, one of the world’s most conspicuous creatures has somehow been overlooked. The same goes for its impending extinction. And without fanfare, many other major animal groups—insects, birds,…

Read More Read More

America shuts down

America shuts down

Politico reports: Financial markets are careening. Public tours of the very symbols of American political power — the White House, Capitol Hill and Supreme Court — are being put on hold while some congressional offices are shuttering altogether. Campaign rallies are being canceled. Professional sports leagues have suspended play. And Broadway is shutting down. Each day, more and more employees are working remotely at companies large and small. Even the White House is considering mass teleworking. Schools are being closed…

Read More Read More