COVID-19 Up

2021-02-24 18:54:56 Woman Charged With Assault for Allegedly Breathing on Cop After Saying She Had COVID-19

@COVID19Up: A North Carolina woman was charged with assault after she allegedly blew into a sheriff deputy’s face and said she had COVID-19.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said the incident happened Sunday evening as Jasmine Louise McClain, 27, was being booked into jail.

“While being processed into the jail, McClain is accused of blowing into the face of the processing officer twice after admitting she had tested positive for COVID-19 eight days earlier,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release. “She was charged with assault on a government official.”

The sheriff’s office didn’t say whether McClain has actually tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
SOURCE | TIP

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2021-02-24 18:24:56 Pulse Oximeters, Used to Fight COVID-19, May Be Inaccurate on People of Color: FDA

@COVID19Up: Pulse oximeters, medical devices used in battling COVID-19, may not work effectively on people of color, according to health officials.

The small devices clamp onto a patient's finger and measure oxygen levels in blood. During the pandemic, they've been used by people at home and in hospitals to monitor COVID-19 patients as the virus attacks the lungs, often leading to a drop in oxygen levels.

"The devices may be less accurate in people with dark skin pigmentation," The U.S. FDA said in a statement on Friday.

Black patients are nearly three times as likely to have dangerously low blood oxygen levels go undetected by pulse oximetry compared with white patients, the FDA said, citing December research.
SOURCE | TIP

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2021-02-24 17:54:56 Debate Heats Up Over Vaccinating More People With Just One Dose

@COVID19Up: Debate is intensifying over the idea of accelerating the U.S. vaccination campaign by giving people just one dose instead of two for the time being.

The White House is pushing back on the one-dose strategy, saying it’s unproven and risks eroding public acceptance of the vaccines. Further, opponents argue, it could create a breeding ground for new variants or lower the effectiveness of vaccines against different strains.

Still, supporters feel their hand is strengthened by the publication of an Israeli study last week in The Lancet medical journal that found the Pfizer vaccine was 85% effective 15-28 days after the first dose.
SOURCE | TIP

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2021-02-24 17:24:56 Opinion: Fauci Is Not Your God

@COVID19Up: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief pandemic adviser to President Joe Biden, is a bureaucrat. He’s not our parent, or our personal physician, or a shaman, or our life coach.

“We know that, when you do it properly, you bring down those cases. We have done it. We have done it in New York,” Fauci explained on PBS NewsHour back in July 2020. He would keep celebrating Cuomo’s model for the next six months.

New York has a higher coronavirus fatality rate than any country in the Western world. It is a place low in civil liberties and high in death toll. A Faucian centralized plan would have entailed strict lockdowns of the economy and the implementation of policies that compelled nursing homes in states such as Florida, with a high number of vulnerable elderly, to accept thousands of infected people. As it stands now, Florida’s fatality rate is nearly half of that in New Jersey or in Fauci’s exemplar, New York.

The lowest fatality rates in the country are in places such as Vermont and Utah and in Hawaii and Alaska. Why would they want to adopt New York’s approach? Perhaps island states or states with sparse populations and their social habits are better off fighting coronavirus without the federal government’s intervention.

Why should we trust Fauci with a national plan? Back in March, Fauci famously told Americans, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.” (Fauci now says we should wear two masks.)

In the early days of the pandemic, Fauci kept citing the estimate of 60–70% vaccination for reaching herd immunity. Later, he began saying “70, 75%.” Then he went to “75, 80, 85%.” He later admitted he was lying, because “polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine.”

I’m sorry the Constitution is inhibiting Fauci’s work, but he is a public-health official. His job is to relay information to the public, not to threaten doom, or coax or trick us into doing things.
SOURCE | TIP

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2021-02-24 16:54:57 "The Devil is Already Here": California's Coronavirus Strain Looks Increasingly Dangerous

@COVID19Up: A coronavirus variant that probably emerged in May and surged to become the dominant strain in California not only spreads more readily than its predecessors but also evades antibodies generated by COVID-19 vaccines or prior infection and is associated with severe illness and death, researchers said.

In a study that helps explain the state’s dramatic holiday surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths—and portends further trouble ahead—scientists at UC San Francisco said the cluster of mutations that characterizes the homegrown strain should mark it as a “variant of concern” on par with those from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.

“The devil is already here,” said Chiu, who led a team of geneticists, epidemiologists, statisticians and other scientists in a wide-ranging analysis of the new variant, which they call B.1.427/B.1.429. “I wish it were different. But the science is the science.”
SOURCE | TIP

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2021-02-24 16:28:04 COVID-19 Vaccine Success Won’t Eliminate Virus Risk, U.K. Concludes

@COVID19Up: By the middle of this year, all adults in Britain are due to be offered a COVID-19 vaccine in what is on course to be the fastest inoculation rollout in a major Western country. But disease modelers advising the U.K. government recently made a sobering projection: 56,000 more COVID-19 deaths by the summer of next year, even if the country tiptoes out of lockdown and the vaccines work.

The study points to the uncomfortable prospect that even with an effective vaccine, the virus will continue to take a toll on society and that some restrictions may have to be periodically reintroduced to control the coronavirus’s spread.

The conclusion: Businesses and governments around the world need to prepare to live with COVID-19, accepting that the virus won’t disappear but equally that lockdowns cannot go on forever once hospitalizations are brought down to manageable levels.

“We cannot escape the fact that lifting lockdown will result in more cases, more hospitalizations and sadly more deaths,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament on Monday. “There is therefore no credible route to a zero-COVID Britain or indeed a zero-COVID world.”
SOURCE | TIP

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2021-02-24 15:54:56 Denmark to Take "Calculated Risk" by Easing COVID-19 Curbs in March

@COVID19Up: Denmark plans to allow shops and some schools to reopen in March in a much awaited move that could however send hospital coronavirus admissions soaring in coming months.

Denmark, which has one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, has seen general infection numbers drop after it introduced lockdown measures in December in a bid to curb a more contagious coronavirus variant.

In what the prime minister has called a “calculated risk," the government will allow stores under 5,000 square metres to reopen, while outdoor leisure activities can resume with an upper limit of 25 people.

Schools in parts of the country will also be allowed to reopen, but will require students to test themselves twice a week.
SOURCE | TIP

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2021-02-24 15:26:07 India Warns of Worsening COVID-19 Situation, Vaccinations to Expand

@COVID19Up: India announced an expansion of its vaccination programme on Wednesday but warned that breaches of coronavirus protocols could worsen an infection surge in many states.

Nearly a month after the health minister declared that COVID-19 had been contained, states such as Maharashtra in the west and Kerala in the south have reported a surge in cases, as reluctance grows over mask-wearing and social distancing.

“Any laxity in implementing stringent measures to curb the spread, especially in view of new strains of virus ... could compound the situation,” the ministry said in a statement singling out nine states and a federal territory.

India has confirmed the long-time presence of two mutant variants—N440K and E484Q—in addition to those first detected in Brazil, Britain and South Africa.
SOURCE | TIP

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2021-02-23 00:39:23 FDA Recommends Shorter Trials for Updated COVID-19 Vaccines

@COVID19Up: Vaccine developers will not have to conduct lengthy clinical trials to evaluate the effectiveness of shots tailored to fight new coronavirus variants, according to new guidance from the FDA.

According to the guidance released Monday, developers will not need large randomized control trials comparing it to a placebo.

The new guidance recommendations would speed up the review process for booster shots or new vaccines, a welcome development as experts worry about how coronavirus mutations could impact vaccines.
SOURCE | TIP

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2021-02-22 23:08:52 WHO Agrees Compensation Fund for Serious COVAX Vaccine Side Effects

@COVID19Up: The WHO has agreed a no-fault compensation plan for claims of serious side effects in people in 92 poorer countries due to get COVID-19 vaccines via the COVAX sharing scheme, resolving a big concern among recipient governments.

The programme, which the WHO said was the first and only vaccine injury compensation mechanism operating on an international scale, will offer eligible people “a fast, fair, robust and transparent process," the WHO said in a statement.

“By providing a no-fault lump-sum compensation in full and final settlement of any claims, the COVAX programme aims to significantly reduce the need for recourse to the law courts, a potentially lengthy and costly process."

The WHO-agreed plan, which has been under discussion for several months, is designed to cover serious side effects linked to any COVAX-distributed vaccines until June 30, 2022, to COVAX’s Advance Market Commitment-eligible economies—a group of 92 poorer states which includes most African and Southeast Asian countries.
SOURCE | TIP

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