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Coronavirus sufferers symptom-free for five days on average, study finds

Coronavirus sufferers symptom-free for five days on average, study finds

The Guardian reports: People infected with coronavirus are symptom-free for an average of five days, according to a study that reinforces the need for strict quarantine measures. The analysis found that 5.1 days was the median length of time before people started showing signs of illness, although there was a wide range of incubation periods, with a tiny minority of people taking up to two weeks. Justin Lessler, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and senior author…

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Facebook and Twitter fail to thwart a surge of coronavirus misinformation

Facebook and Twitter fail to thwart a surge of coronavirus misinformation

The New York Times reports: As the coronavirus has spread across the world, so too has misinformation about it, despite an aggressive effort by social media companies to prevent its dissemination. Facebook, Google and Twitter said they were removing misinformation about the coronavirus as fast as they could find it, and were working with the World Health Organization and other government organizations to ensure that people got accurate information. But a search by The New York Times found dozens of…

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China’s excessive coronavirus public monitoring could be here to stay

China’s excessive coronavirus public monitoring could be here to stay

The Guardian reports: Over the last two months, Chinese citizens have had to adjust to a new level of government intrusion. Getting into one’s apartment compound or workplace requires scanning a QR code, writing down one’s name and ID number, temperature and recent travel history. Telecom operators track people’s movements while social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo have hotlines for people to report others who may be sick. Some cities are offering people rewards for informing on sick neighbours….

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There is no homunculus in our brain who guides us

There is no homunculus in our brain who guides us

M.R. O’Connor writes: In the early 1980s, the psychologist Harry Heft put a 16 mm camera in the back of a sports car and made a movie. It consisted of a continuous shot of a residential neighborhood in Granville, Ohio, where Heft was a professor at Denison University. It didn’t have a plot or actors, but it did have a simple narrative: The car started moving at 5 miles per hour and made nine turns from one street to another…

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At nursing home 13 residents died, 70 employees got sick, as others waited for virus test; Trump’s mismanagement helped fuel coronavirus crisis

At nursing home 13 residents died, 70 employees got sick, as others waited for virus test; Trump’s mismanagement helped fuel coronavirus crisis

The New York Times reports: A week after a deadly coronavirus outbreak was reported inside a nursing home in the Seattle suburbs, officials from the long term care center said on Saturday that 70 staff members were out sick with symptoms resembling coronavirus and six residents were also ill. A federal strike team of nurses and doctors arrived Saturday to support the staff at the long-term nursing home, Life Care Center of Kirkland, Wash., where officials have announced the deaths…

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U.S. airport screeners, health workers plagued by fear and anger as coronavirus spreads

U.S. airport screeners, health workers plagued by fear and anger as coronavirus spreads

Reuters reports: As coronavirus cases exploded across the world, federal medical workers tasked with screening incoming passengers at U.S. airports grew alarmed: Many were working without the most effective masks to protect them from getting sick themselves. Screeners with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked their supervisors this week to change official protocols and require stronger masks, according to an internal document reviewed by Reuters. On Friday evening, they learned their worst fears were realized: Two screeners,…

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Trump’s immigration policies may put people at risk of coronavirus

Trump’s immigration policies may put people at risk of coronavirus

The Guardian reports: Since 2017, Donald Trump has pushed a hardline immigration agenda that has sown confusion, fear and distrust among immigrant communities. Now, as the world deals with a public health emergency in the shape of the coronavirus outbreak, experts worry his immigration policies may put everyone at risk. There is a widespread fear that the president’s policies have sown such fear of deportation and wariness of any contact with US authorities among immigrants – who also have greater…

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‘As diagnostic testing ramps up, it will become clear that this is everywhere’

‘As diagnostic testing ramps up, it will become clear that this is everywhere’

Nature reports: Rohit Shankar left the virology laboratory at 2 a.m. on Wednesday, and was back at the lab bench by 7 a.m. the same day. “It’s okay,” he says, “I had a doughnut and a coffee.” Shankar, a medical scientist, and his colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle are poised to exponentially drive up the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 around the city, in western Washington state. That’s because this week, they began…

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Virus testing blitz appears to keep Korea death rate low; plan to quarantine 16 million sparks chaos in Italy

Virus testing blitz appears to keep Korea death rate low; plan to quarantine 16 million sparks chaos in Italy

Bloomberg reports: Highly contagious and manifesting in some with little or no symptoms, the coronavirus has the world struggling to keep up. But when it comes to containing the epidemic, one country may be cracking the code — by doubling down on testing. South Korea is experiencing the largest virus epidemic outside of China, where the pneumonia-causing pathogen first took root late last year. But unlike China, which locked down a province of more than 60 million people to try…

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Rainbow Coalition comes full circle as Jesse Jackson endorses Bernie Sanders

Rainbow Coalition comes full circle as Jesse Jackson endorses Bernie Sanders

Ryan Grim writes: Michigan holds a special place in the memory of Jesse Jackson and the supporters of his insurgent 1988 presidential campaign. It was Jackson’s Nevada, the moment that the party establishment realized this campaign it had long written off might just seize the nomination. At a rally in Michigan on Sunday, Jackson will endorse Sanders ahead of a do-or-die primary for the Vermont senator. The Michigan contest in 1988 fell on March 27. After more than three dozen…

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The world is experiencing a new form of autocracy

The world is experiencing a new form of autocracy

Tim Horley, Anne Meng, and Mila Versteeg write: In March 2018, Donald Trump, addressing a crowd of donors at his Florida estate, told what sounded like a joke. He was talking about the recent amendment of China’s constitution to remove presidential term limits, allowing Xi Jinping to serve in that office indefinitely. About Xi, Trump said: “He’s now president for life, president for life. And he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe…

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How the Trump administration squandered time instead of confronting the coronavirus crisis

How the Trump administration squandered time instead of confronting the coronavirus crisis

The Washington Post reports: This portrait of the precious weeks that President Trump and his administration frittered away in trying to deal with the coronavirus is the result of interviews with 16 current and former administration officials, state health officials and outside experts, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to share candid assessments. Public health experts and officials faced a deluge of challenges, almost from the beginning. First there were the problems with the initial coronavirus test…

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‘I didn’t know people died from the flu,’ said Trump, apparently ignorant of his own family history

‘I didn’t know people died from the flu,’ said Trump, apparently ignorant of his own family history

The Washington Post reports: In Atlanta on Friday, President Trump talked about the number of people infected with the novel coronavirus in other countries vs. the United States. He also compared coronavirus disease with influenza. “Over the last long period of time, you have an average of 36,000 people dying” a year, the president said, gesturing toward National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony S. Fauci, who nodded confirmation. Trump continued: “I never heard those numbers. I would’ve…

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Erik Prince recruits ex-spies to infiltrate groups that oppose Trump regime

Erik Prince recruits ex-spies to infiltrate groups that oppose Trump regime

The New York Times reports: Erik Prince, the security contractor with close ties to the Trump administration, has in recent years helped recruit former American and British spies for secretive intelligence-gathering operations that included infiltrating Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda, according to interviews and documents. One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office…

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