July 31, 2020

Thousands of Americans consider move to virus-free New Zealand

Americans visit Immigration NZ website every 30 seconds
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12351693

More than 250,000 Americans have investigated whether they qualify to move to New Zealand since the coronavirus pandemic took hold this year.

A Kiwi demographics expert says the spike in interest from United States citizens reflects a failure of the American political and public health system, and disillusionment with the leadership of United States President Donald Trump.

"Middle class, professional America is saying, 'Well, where do we go for our own safety and the safety of our families?'" The pandemic has so far infected nearly 4.5 million Americans and claimed 151,000 US lives.
New Zealand now has just 23 active case, all in managed isolation, and has recorded 22 deaths.


Related: forbes.com: Travel Website Rates the United States the second worst place in the world to raise a family. (Mexico was dead last.)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2020/07/29/best-worst-countries-raise-family/#7df728117bec

July 29, 2020

Covid Vaccine: The supply chain to save the world is unprepared

Trump always talks about having a vaccine in the hopper by the end of the year. I believe he thinks that this lie will be his ticket to re-election. I'm no epidemiologist/scientist, but even I know such a brag is a boatload of horse hockey. We will be wearing face masks for the foreseeable future -- I'd say at least two years. In the U.S. the virus is digging its heels in and will be marching northward from the hot zone states. Americans simply do not have the cohesive force of will to slow it down. No one's going to stop us from partying and going and doing what we want ever -- except SARS-CoV-2: the boss of us for some time to come.

The other stuff I think: Congress will have to cough up more cash to keep Americans off the streets; children won't finish the school year (community spread = school buses, mass transit). There's other stuff I think but won't say; I don't want to be a total Debbie Downer. You -- all of us -- have got to take care of ourselves to the best of our ability. If you've survived Covid-19, God bless you. If you've lost loved ones to it, I will keep you in my heart and prayers. If you've never been infected, do everything you can not to be. Don't allow yourself to be overwhelmed by fear. Fear and stress mugs the immune system that you'll need to be strong against Covid-19.

Full article at link:

Bloomberg.com: The Supply Chain to Save the World is Unprepared for a Vaccine
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-25/the-supply-chain-to-save-the-world-is-unprepared-for-a-vaccine

Making a vaccine quickly is hard enough but distributing one worldwide offers a host of other variables, and conflicting forces may work against the effort: The infrastructure powering the global economy is scaling down for a protracted downturn just as pharmaceutical companies need to scale up for the biggest and most consequential product launch in modern history.

“We’re not prepared,” Neel Jones Shah, global head of air carrier relationships at San Francisco-based freight forwarder Flexport, said during a webinar this week with other logistics executives.

“Let’s all be honest here, vaccine supply chains are exponentially more complex than PPE supply chain,” he said, referring to personal protective equipment like surgical masks and gloves. “You can’t ruin PPE by leaving it on the tarmac for a couple of days. You will destroy vaccines.”

July 29, 2020

U.S. Failures are holding back search for Coronavirus Drugs

Full article at link.

The Guardian: U.S. Failures are holding back search for coronavirus drugs
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/26/us-failures-are-holding-back-search-for-coronavirus-drugs

The global effort to produce useful anti-Covid medicines is being hampered by the US because researchers are testing drugs in “an arbitrary, willy-nilly way”, the expert leading the UK’s programme has warned.

Britain’s Recovery Trial programme, which has involved 12,000 patients at several hundred British hospitals, has already pinpointed one promising new drug to tackle the disease and also highlighted two others – previously thought to be potential life-savers – as being useless.

But the failure of the US medical system to match this output has meant that other promising treatments that could have been cleared for widespread use have still to be evaluated. In particular, convalescent plasma (blood plasma that is taken from Covid-19 patients and which contains antibodies that could protect others against the disease) has still to be properly tested on a large-scale randomised trial.

“Tens of thousands of people have already been given convalescent plasma in the US but these treatments were not randomised,” said Professor Martin Landray, one of the founders of the Recovery programme. “They just give individuals convalescent plasma in the hope it will work. Vast quantities have been given and they still have no idea whether it helps or harms or has no impact,” added Landray, an expert in the setting up of large-scale drug trials.

July 17, 2020

Paul Fusco, photographer on RFK's Funeral Train, passes away

Mr. Fusco passed away on July 15, 2020. It was Fusco who took the poignant photographs of mourners who waited for Robert F. Kennedy's funeral train to pass on its journey from New York City to Washington, D.C. (Arlington Cemetery).

The Guardian: Gallery of Pictures from Robert F. Kennedy's Funeral Train
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/jul/17/robert-f-kennedy-funeral-train-by-paul-fusco-in-pictures

CBS This Morning: RFK's Final Journey

In a period of just five years -- from 1963 to 1968 -- President John F. Kennedy, his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were all assassinated. At the news of President Kennedy's assassination, my grade school was dismissed. My sister and I held hands and ran all the way home. For the first and last time ever, we witnessed people -- men and women -- openly sobbing in the street.

Abraham, Martin and John song (by Dion)

July 13, 2020

Coronavirus Warning from Italy: The Effects of Covid-19 could be worse than first thought

Italian doctors are warning that COVID-19 is not just a respiratory disease but a killer affecting the whole body. The long-term effects of COVID-19, even on people who suffered a mild infection, could be far worse than was originally anticipated, according to researchers and doctors in northern Italy.

Psychosis, insomnia, kidney disease, spinal infections, strokes, chronic tiredness and mobility issues are being identified in former coronavirus patients in Lombardy, the worst-affected region in the country.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-warning-from-italy-effects-of-covid-19-could-be-worse-than-first-thought-12027348