Thread: Covid 19 C&P

Joe Bidens Pandemic plan.

Joe Biden’s pandemic plan: Restore Obamacare, mandatory masks, paid sick leave and free COVID-19 tests - MarketWatch

Redfield warns this winter may be ‘the most difficult time in the public health history’ of the U.S.



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C.D.C. Director Warns of High Winter Death Toll

Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urged Americans to practice precautions, especially wearing masks.


We are at a very critical time right now about being able to maintain the resilience of our health care system. In the spring, we were dealing with New York, Detroit, you know, New Orleans, Los Angeles. We could shift health care capacity from one part of the country to another. We saw similar when we had the Southern wave. We could shift health care capacity from the heartlands and from the northern Plains. Right now, we unfortunately have a pandemic. It’s really throughout the nation.

The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times — I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation, largely because of the stress that’s going to put on our health care system.

We’re in that range potentially now starting to see 1,500 to 2,000 to 2,500 deaths a day from this virus. So yeah, the mortality concerns are real. And I do think, unfortunately, before we see February we could be close to 450,000 Americans have died from this virus.

But you know that’s not a fait accompli. If the American public really embraces social distancing, wearing masks, not letting your guard down in family gatherings, limiting crowds, maintaining ventilation, doing events outdoors rather than indoors, making sure you’re vigilant in hand hygiene; and that, coupled with some strategies that we’re pushing states to do to begin to diagnose through surveillance, the asymptomatic infections will begin to help us.
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C.D.C. Director Warns of High Winter Death T

Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urged Americans to practice precautions, especially wearing masks.CreditCredit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesThe director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Wednesday that the nation is facing a devastating winter, predicting that total deaths from Covid-19 could reach “close to 450,000” by February unless a large percentage of Americans follow precautions like mask-wearing.

“The reality is, December and January and February are going to be rough times,” said Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the C.D.C., in an address to the Chamber of Commerce Foundation. “I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”
The C.D.C. has been posting aggregate forecast models of the potential for a mounting death toll as the pace of the coronavirus outbreaks in various states has accelerated.
“We’re in that range potentially now, starting to see 1,500 to 2,000 to 2,500 deaths a day from this virus,” Dr. Redfield said. “The mortality concerns are real, and I do think, unfortunately, before we see February, we could be close to 450,000 Americans” dead from the virus.

Dr. Redfield added that the death toll could be lessened if the public would embrace mitigation strategies, most importantly wearing masks.
“It’s not a fait accompli,” he said. “We’re not defenseless. The truth is that mitigation works. But it’s not going to work if half of us do what we need to do. Probably not even if three-quarters do.”
The death toll in the United States is also approaching another set of dire milestones: The country has reported nearly 275,000 total deaths, and came closer on Tuesday to the single-day death record of 2,752, set in April.
Dr. Redfield’s talk occurred on the same day that C.D.C. officials reiterated warnings against holiday travel. The agency also outlined two ways to shorten the recommended quarantine times for people who may have been exposed to the virus, especially those who may choose to travel anyway.

Dr. Redfield pointed to a recent C.D.C. report that found that sample counties with mask mandates had a six percent decrease in new cases, while those without mandates saw a 100 percent increase in new cases.
He also indirectly criticized President Trump and Scott Atlas, the president’s most recently departed coronavirus adviser. Both mocked mask-wearing and often questioned the usefulness of mask protection against the virus. The C.D.C. was blocked from its plan to require masks on all public transportation, and Dr. Redfield was publicly skewered by the president after saying, at a congressional hearing, that masks might be as protective as a vaccine.

On Wednesday, Dr. Redfield alluded to the confusion caused by such mixed public pronouncements.
“When you really want to get everybody on board, you’ve got to have clear, unified, reinforced messaging,” Dr. Redfield said on Wednesday. “The fact that we were still arguing in the summer about whether masks work,’’ he said, “was a problem.”
“The time for debating whether or not masks work or not is over. We clearly have scientific evidence,” he said, pointing specifically to a C.D.C. study in Kansas that showed areas with mask mandates saw a decline in virus transmission, while those without a mandate saw a 100 percent increase.

The C.D.C. director also expressed frustration at states and local jurisdictions that have not adopted mask mandates. They are especially important, he said, to protect people over 40 from those under 40; younger patients may not display such Covid-19 symptoms as fever and coughing, even when they are infectious.
Dr. Redfield also recommended that more schools reopen, and said that the C.D.C. would issue guidelines later this week on routine Covid screening for teachers.
“I was very disappointed in New York when they closed schools,” he said, adding that he had not seen evidence of clusters of infections from open schools. He said most teachers’ infections can be traced to a spouse or community exposure.

WHO gives a warning, the vaccine may not be the end of COVID.

WHO warns vaccine not the only answer to end pandemic (thenewdaily.com.au)

An interview with Atul Gawande , [ part of Biden's COVID-19 advisory board] on coronavirus vaccines and the prospects of ending the Pandemic.



Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Gawande has been sharp in his criticism of the Trump Administration and, like Anthony Fauci and other prominent figures in public health, insistent on clear, basic measures to reduce levels of disease. After the election in November, President-elect Biden formed a covid-19 advisory board and included Gawande among its members. Earlier this week, I spoke with Gawande for The New Yorker Radio Hour. In the interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Gawande says that President Trump’s relative silence on the issue after the election might be a blessing (considering the alternative). He suggests that the development of vaccines promises great things down the line, a return to relative normalcy some months from now. But, before that happens, he says, we may not only see terrible rates of illness and death—we will also experience an almost inevitably contentious rollout of the vaccine. Questions of who gets the vaccine and when will test a deeply divided society. As Gawande put it, “The bus drivers never came before the bankers before.”




Atul Gawande on Coronavirus Vaccines and Prospects for Ending the Pandemic | The New Yorker

Who discovered the first vaccine? It may come as no surprise.

And yet the idea to intentionally infect a patient with a lethal virus to help them did first occur to someone—and it was perhaps the greatest idea in the history of medicine.
It was not Jenner’s idea, nor was it Dimsdale’s. But it may have been a single person’s. Remarkably, variolation may not have been independently discovered. Instead, the earliest documentation suggests it began in China—probably in the southwestern provinces of either Anhui or Jiangxi—before spreading across the globe in a cascading series of introductions

Chinese merchants introduced variolation to India and brought knowledge of the practice to Africa, where it became widespread. In 1721 an enslaved African man named Onesimus–who may have been born in West Africa though exactly where is unknown–was variolated as a child before slave traders brought him to Boston. Once in New England, Onesimus taught his enslaver Cotton Mather the practice, and Mather successfully convinced doctors in the Americas of its efficacy.




Who Discovered the First Vaccine? | WIRED

The States of NSW and Victoria lose their AAA credit rating.

Debts plunge NSW, Victoria into AAA downgrade - but economy will soar (msn.com)

Just when we were feeling all warm and fuzzy, there's this;

Hundreds sick, one dead after unexplained illness breaks out in India (thenewdaily.com.au)

And now, for some shocking news. Coronavirus has killed more Americans in a single day than 9-11. How on Earth can the Americans reconcile with that.


Coronavirus kills more people in the US in one day than on September 11 (msn.com)