Saturday, March 21, 2020

Most-Watched Virus YouTube Explains The Many Rickety Systems That Have Let Us Down

Posted by Peter Quennell


This excellent interview (from Seattle) mentioning Italy is averaging 3 million views a day.

The expert is Michael Osterholm, Director of The Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy at the University of Minnesota.

He has been warning for decades that the capacity to manage a global pandemic just isn’t there.

The UN System above all else should be the go-to place for global capacity-building. But with neo-isolationism, it is too frequently a political football, and it is severely underfunded and understaffed.

Neo-isolationism is a dead-end street, and for now we are paying the price.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/21/20 at 04:20 PM in

Comments

Italy is rated the 2nd most healthy country in the world, after Spain, with the 3rd most efficient health-care system.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-24/spain-tops-italy-as-world-s-healthiest-nation-while-u-s-slips

Because people live to be so old, and infection risks increase with age, that has become a Catch-22.

Here’s a NY Times report on the virus in Italy that went up a few minutes ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-center-lessons.html

The tragedy of Italy now stands as a warning to its European neighbors and the United States, where the virus is coming with equal velocity. If Italy’s experience shows anything, it is that measures to isolate affected areas and limit the movement of the broader population need to be taken early, put in place with absolute clarity, then strictly enforced.

Despite now having some of the toughest measures in the world, Italian authorities fumbled many of those steps early in the contagion — when it most mattered as they sought to preserve basic civil liberties as well as the economy.

Italy’s piecemeal attempts to cut it off — isolating towns first, then regions, then shutting down the country in an intentionally porous lockdown — always lagged behind the virus’s lethal trajectory.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/21/20 at 04:40 PM | #

Men are said to be dying at twice the rate of women and there is a big mystery why.

One cause might be smoking. In China, for example, in rural areas women smoke very much less than men.

In Italy 10 million adults are estimated to smoke every day, with women smoking rather less than men.

In India and Africa the smoking rates are low, in part because folks didnt have the income to spare. Right now, not much sign of the virus there.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/21/20 at 05:01 PM | #

On possible chloroquine potential now being argued about.

First, some foolish claims about it that are messing up the logic of the entire supply chain are corrected by the Associated Press here.

https://apnews.com/1428c4f6bbc336f446bdb89af51bdad1

Second, this comment under another YouTube explains how it MIGHT allow a fired-up immune system talked-about in the previous thread to do its work. 

Hydroxychloroquine is acting somewhat as an immune modulator in this case. By altering the shape of the angiotensin 2 receptors, no virus is allowed to enter the cells.

The virus cannot hide inside of cells reproducing itself. With no cells to enter, the virus is vulnerable and actively destroyed by the immune system. These drugs are indirectly destroying the virus, by allowing the immune system to do its job.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/21/20 at 05:12 PM | #

Lead federal scientist Dr Fauci is respected and trusted by maybe 100% of Americans.

Thank goodness there’s one good scientific brain at the top to counter the politically slanted misinformation. 

Dr Fauci is Italian-American, of course. His father’s parents came from eastern Sicily.

Here’s a career profile: “How Dr. Anthony Fauci Became The Leading Public Health Expert During The Coronavirus Crisis”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-sy2IMCX9w&feature=emb_logo

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/21/20 at 10:02 PM | #

I concur with The Machine about weird dystopian world, the surreal times we’re passing through due to corona virus. Our local mall is shuttered, all the big stores closed (Dillard’s, Belk’s, Ann Taylor Loft). Our local library has closed, all restaurants have quit serving in dining rooms (bummer). They do offer drive-through food or take out or delivery. Bible studies are cancelled, Sunday church services are “gone” (online only). Hotels in Florida Panhandle where I know some people, are losing huge revenues as Spring Break crowds are leaving. Beaches are closed!

Average Americans living paycheck to paycheck have nowhere to send children to school. Schools are locked. AFter school care is gone. The headlines are of one death after another, it’s truly like a fearful Netflix apocalypse movie with silent streets and the private battle against fear and worry in what should be beautiful spring weather when the U.S. economy was booming.

Yall stay well. As the brave ones say, “Keep calm and carry on.” I’m learning a lot about medical stuff on this website, and steaming broccoli, wolfing down Vitamin C, cooking spaghetti. My art studios have closed. They offer paint to go kits you pick up curbside and take home to paint alone.

CVS is offering their help with testing. Walmart is opening their giant parking lots for tents of medics to do tests. Men are working on vaccines. Guys are inventing respirators made from off the shelf parts (Cambridge brains, I think?) Something will turn the tide perhaps sooner than we think.

Keep calm and carry on.

Posted by Hopeful on 03/22/20 at 07:24 PM | #

Hi Hopeful

Yes, we all long to get back. We often don’t know how much we value some things until they are suddenly not there.

One light at the end of the tunnel?  Maybe that all those businesses and services and reasons to meet (that you make ME miss!) could find demand for them going through the roof.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/23/20 at 11:35 AM | #

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Smileys



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