In the public imagination, the arrival of a coronavirus vaccine looms large: It’s the neat Hollywood ending to the grim and agonizing uncertainty of everyday life in a pandemic.

But public health experts are discussing among themselves a new worry: that hopes for a vaccine may be soaring too high. The confident depiction by politicians and companies that a vaccine is imminent and inevitable may give people unrealistic beliefs about how soon the world can return to normal and could lead to resistance to simple strategies that can tamp down transmission and save lives in the short term.

-------

As the plotline advances, so do expectations: If people can just muddle through a few more months, the vaccine will land, the pandemic will end and everyone can throw their masks away. But best-case scenarios have not materialized throughout the pandemic, and experts – who believe wholeheartedly in the power of vaccines – foresee a long path ahead.

“It seems, to me, unlikely that a vaccine is an off-switch or a reset button where we will go back to pre-pandemic times,” said Yonatan Grad, an assistant professor of infectious diseases and immunology at the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
--------------

The declaration that a vaccine has been shown safe and effective will be a beginning, not the end. Deploying the vaccine to people in the United States and around the world will test and strain distribution networks, the supply chain, public trust and global cooperation. It will take months or, more likely, years to reach enough people to make the world safe.

For those who do get a vaccine as soon as shots become available, protection won’t be immediate – it takes weeks for the immune system to call up full platoons of disease-fighting antibodies. And many vaccine technologies will require a second shot weeks after the first to raise immune defenses.

Immunity could be short-lived or partial, requiring repeated boosters that strain the vaccine supply or require people to keep social distancing and wearing masks even after they’ve received their shots. And if a vaccine works less well for some groups of people, if swaths of the population are reluctant to get a vaccine or if there isn’t enough to go around, some people will still get sick even after scientists declare victory on a vaccine – which could help foster a false impression that it does not work.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/coronavirus-vaccine-will-not-change-world-right-away/

A confrontation with a neighbor, identified as Matt Steadman, a Zillah police officer, was captured on video and posted to Fabian’s Facebook page on July 26. Steadman was off-duty at the time, but he is seen carrying a gun on his hip in the video.

“I understand it’s his Second Amendment right to have a gun, but the fact that he was so mad, he ran to his closet or wherever he keeps his gun, grabbed it, put it on his hip, marched straight outside to yell at us about chalk, he yelled at the police officer, was cursing while there were about 15 kids was, how I feel, overboard,” Fabian said. “Some of them were super scared about what happened.”

Steadman walks up to Fabian, gets in close and calls Fabian a “f--- punk,” the video shows. After confronting Fabian, Steadman approaches a Selah police car and shares a brief exchange with the officer inside.

https://twitter.com/ito33323/status/1289195653730414593

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CDSnBd-DyHj/?utm_source=ig_embed

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Concord-man-erases-Black-Lives-Matter-chalk-video-15455033.php

In a now viral video posted to social media, Concord resident Manette Sharick confronts a man who she says had been repeatedly erasing the word "Black" from the chalk "Black Lives Matter" message written in front of her house.

"I was upset because it wasn't the first time that it happened. I caught him when he did it for the fourth time," Sharick told ABC7. She says she finally spotted the man, who identifies himself as "Jim" in the video, pouring bottles of water on the chalk using video surveillance.


In the over eight-minute-long video, she asks Jim to leave as he stops on his bicycle to once again pour water on the sidewalk chalk.

"...don’t deface the sidewalks of my neighborhood,” he says in the video.

“I’m gonna continue to write in front of my f—ing house," replies Sharick, telling him to mind his business.

New survey shows that 82% of parents are more worried about sending kids back to school than ever before. A quarter say they absolutely will not allow their children in a classroom.

NEW YORK — As autumn nears and the coronavirus outbreak wears on, the next school year is becoming more uncertain for many parents. A new survey finds four in five parents are thinking about homeschooling their school-age children this fall. Of those parents, nearly half say they’re seriously considering keeping their kids home in 2020 and 2021.

The poll, commissioned by Crispy Green and conducted by OnePoll, spoke with 2,000 parents to see how families are adjusting to the “new normal” created by COVID-19. Researchers reveal, if given the choice to open or close all schools this fall, one in four parents would not allow children back into the classroom.

Health is the biggest concern for most parents
The vast majority of respondents say the risk of infection is the biggest driving force in considering homeschooling. Among the parents thinking about a virtual education, 81 percent point to increasing health concerns. Eighty-two percent admit they’re more scared to send their kids into a school than ever before.

Parents also worry that once children are back in class, hygiene issues will quickly put schools at risk. About 60 percent of respondents don’t believe their children will properly wash their hands in school. Nearly half the respondents say they’re trying to teach their kids about proper hygiene during the pandemic.

https://www.studyfinds.org/scared-for-school-parents-homeschooling-kids-covid-19/

Researchers say a majority of parents are also taking this time in isolation to talk to their children more about safety and the importance of social distancing.

'Pathetic!': Trump Blasts COVID Adviser Birx
President accuses her of caving to pressure, issuing gloomy coronavirus outlook

President Trump isn't shy about expressing displeasure with Dr. Anthony Fauci, and on Monday he slammed fellow COVID adviser Dr. Deborah Birx for the first time, reports Axios.

Trump's criticism came after Birx issued a dire coronavirus outlook for the US, saying the disease was in a "new phase" and was now more widespread than it was in March or April.

The president accused Birx of caving to pressure from Nancy Pelosi, who'd earlier criticized Birx for going along with the president too much and painting too rosy of a picture.

"So Crazy Nancy Pelosi said horrible things about Dr. Deborah Birx, going after her because she was too positive on the very good job we are doing on combatting the China Virus, including Vaccines & Therapeutics," Trump wrote. "In order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!"

https://www.newser.com/story/294457/pathetic-trump-blasts-covid-adviser-birx.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_top

She Got Sandwiched Between Whales, Is Recovering
Woman in Australia is injured while swimming with humpbacks




Swimming with seals is a thing. Swimming with whales? It's a far riskier prospect, as an Australian woman just found out. The 29-year-old suffered serious injuries—internal bleeding and fractured ribs—after getting sandwiched between two humpback whales off the coast of western Australia, reports 7News.

She was swimming with a tour group at the popular Ningaloo Reef when the "crush" occurred, say police. Chartered swimming with humpbacks is currently in the midst of a five-year trial period in that area of Australia, and this is the first injury among an estimated 10,000 swimmers, notes the BBC.

Police and wildlife officials are investigating what went wrong given that rules stipulate swimmers stay at least 15 yards from the whales. Humpbacks, plentiful in the region, can grow more than 50 feet long, though they are generally considered safe to swim near, per the BBC. The injured woman is hospitalized in serious but stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery. (In the US, members of a family were injured when their boat collided with a humpback.)

https://www.newser.com/story/294441/she-got-sandwiched-between-whales-is-recovering.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_world_img_b

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/clock-is-ticking-on-trump-comeback-as-early-voting-nears/ar-BB17trFk?li=BBnb7Kz

President Donald Trump is privately reassuring Republicans anxious about his deficits to Democrat Joe Biden, noting there are three months until Election Day and reminding them of the late-breaking events that propelled his 2016 comeback.


But four years later, the dynamics are very different.

Aides are increasingly worried that the 2020 campaign may already be defined as a referendum on Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and will feature a historic shift to remote and early vote options. The president’s campaign is scrambling for a reset, pausing advertisements while struggling to find both a cohesive message and a way to safely put the president on the road in front of voters.

Trump added to the tumult by publicly wondering if the election should be delayed while making the unfounded claim that the tilt toward mail-in balloting would lead to widespread voter fraud. That suggestion drew a rare rebuke from Republicans, many of whom quietly warned the White House that it could be interpreted as an admission that the president was losing and could hurt their chances of retaining the Senate.

And they warned that time is running out: The first state to hold early voting, the vital battleground of North Carolina, begins the process Sept. 4.

“He’s losing and the trajectory of the race is moving away from him,” said Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser on Republican John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and an opponent of Trump's reelection. “People vote at a moment in time: Even if there is something of a political recovery for the president in October, that is irrelevant for those who already voted.”

--------------------------

The purchase was made with an eye on the new electoral calendar. The old adage that most of America doesn’t start paying attention to a campaign until Labor Day has been tossed aside in a year in which the novel coronavirus has killed more than 150,000 people in the U.S. and rewritten the rules of American society.

The new ad campaign will be a national buy but also target states that are among the earliest to vote. Trump campaign officials said the focus in August will be on states where more than half of the ballots will be cast before Election Day.

“The digital countdown clock on the wall may say 90-some days, but we all know the calendar is condensed with early voting,” said campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh.




“A lot of people are going to start voting before Sept. 29. The idea that they would not have seen one presidential debate by then, to me, seems ridiculous,” said former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump ally. “I think we should either move the dates up or add additional debates.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/clock-is-ticking-on-trump-comeback-as-early-voting-nears/ar-BB17trFk?li=BBnb7Kz

‘Hating Joe Biden doesn’t juice up their base’: Key swing state slips away from Trump
Trump has trailed in every public poll in Pennsylvania since June.

PHILADELPHIA — Senior citizens and suburban voters are sinking President Donald Trump’s campaign across the country.

But here in Pennsylvania — home to one of the largest populations of residents age 65 or older and where suburbanites comprise more than half of the electorate — their defection to Joe Biden is hurting Trump even more acutely.

It’s a very big problem in a swing state that’s central to his Rust Belt path to victory. Four years ago, Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate since 1988 to carry Pennsylvania, in part by winning older and suburban voters, as well as blue-collar white workers in ancestrally Democratic areas. Now, with less than 100 days till Election Day, surveys show those voters are eyeing something different yet again.

Joe Biden has an overall early lead in the state of 6 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics’ polling average, and has led Trump in all 12 public polls released since the beginning of June.


-------------

To drive down Biden’s support among suburban and older voters, Trump’s campaign has spent at least $4.5 million on misleading campaign ads across Pennsylvania that claim police will be defunded by a Biden administration. Biden has said repeatedly he opposes the idea.

Rep. Dwight Evans, a Philadelphia Democrat who represents a majority-Black district, said he worries about the spots, as well as Trump’s attempts to stoke fear about recent civil unrest and crime in the largest city in the state.

“When he talks about these beautiful suburbs and then says Democratic cities are not run right, he’s throwing codes out the window. He’s just blatant,” he said. “I will not deny that does concern me.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/02/swing-states-slip-from-trump-390164

https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/08/parents-who-teach-at-the-university-of-alabamas-nursing-school-were-practically-encouraged-to-quit/

Suzanne Prevost, the Dean of University of Alabama’s Capstone College of Nursing, sent out an email on Thursday that elicited shockwaves through the university’s faculty. In the email, which went out tonursing school’s faculty, Dean Prevost explained that she is “acutely aware” of the challenges of getting back to work right now and that those challenges are “especially pertinent for those of you,” she wrote in bold, “with school aged children.” She then implored her staff to let her know in advance if they would not be able to work in the fall so that the college will “have time to hire a new faculty member to replace you.”

“We wish that we had unlimited abilities to flex schedules and ‘make it work’ for everyone,” she wrote, “but this is just not the case.”


Dean Prevost wrote that she “wish[es] this thing would ‘just go away”’ and ended on the somber acknowledgement that”our wishes are not our reality.” (The word “wish” appeared four times in the email, suggesting that the resources Dean Prevost had at her disposal were tantamount to a pile of pennies aimed into an available fountain.)

----

Following the backlash to the email, which was reposted on Twitter and Facebook by United Campus Workers Alabama, Dean Prevost issued a statement on Friday clarifying that she “did not mean to suggest that any of you should resign from your faculty positions or that you will be terminated if you are unable to return to work.” The statement also linked to the paid family leave available to staff.

Aside from the confused messaging, why were only faculty members of the nursing school recipients of such a missive? Could it have something to do with their gender? According to the last census, nursing is a profession dominated by women—90% of the faculty at the University of Alabama’s College of Nursing use she/her pronouns on their website, reflecting the national trend.

I have to wonder whether the same email would have ever gone out to faculty at the College of Engineering.

https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/08/parents-who-teach-at-the-university-of-alabamas-nursing-school-were-practically-encouraged-to-quit/


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeRhJZVXgAAYhR3?format=jpg&name=small

https://twitter.com/BillyCorben/status/1289961836264095744

https://twitter.com/BillyCorben/status/1289979415879798784