“daily press griefings”
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So apparently even air pollution is now catching the coronavirus:
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DAMN, this virus is sooo good at being bad, I can almost admire it!
Short answer, apparently, is “yes.” 
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I am having real trouble reconciling my decades of dislike of Bill Gates, first for Microsoft and then for his incessant interference in education policy, with my gratitude for his public stands on the coronavirus and his commitment of serious Foundation resources to its control.
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To avoid crowds of visitors, Japanese parks prune all the beautiful flowers of spring.
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what has been most glaringly obvious about these protests isn’t the far-right theatrics. It’s that almost everyone marching to end stay-at-home orders is white. And if they do return to “regular life” and refuse to distance themselves, their overt disregard will impact the population most vulnerable to the virus — black people.
It’s easy to dismiss the anti-lockdown protests as business per usual in the land of right-wing Trumpism. But there is a much larger issue at play that existed long before President Donald Trump took office, and that he has learned to artfully exploit. It’s why it’s not surprising that in some areas, protesters waved Confederate flags or held signs that read, “Give me liberty or give me Covid-19.” The protests are symptomatic of the profound presence of whiteness and white supremacy in America.
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The Federal University of Roraima (UFRR) promotes the “Let’s all take care of everyone” campaign to combat covid-19. The University together with the Insikiran Institute released a series of videos in indigenous languages, created to take information to native communities about symptoms and ways to prevent the plague.
The videos are narrated in six native languages: Ye’kwana, Wapichana, Macuxi, Yanomami, Taurepang and Pemon.
According to Professor Geraldo Ticianeli, Dean of UFRR, the initiative of the videos is fundamental for Roraima, which is the state with the highest proportional percentage of indigenous people in Brazil. "We cannot refrain from taking information about the pandemic to as many communities as possible. Information and knowledge are the main weapons for the prevention of this disease and UFRR has a social obligation to inform everyone, especially the most vulnerable populations. , like the indigenous ", says Ticianeli.
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Just for perspective, since here (VA) I keep hearing “keep this in perspective, 0.1% of population infected, etc” early this week, the COVID-19 death toll will exceed, over the course of a few weeks (and keep that in mind!) the total death toll of the Viet Nam war over what, 14 years? And they keep trying to minimize this. I remember the Viet Nam war (yeah, I’m that old) and it was a very fucking big deal! Perspective schmerspective stupid assholes.
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Even Maggie Haberman couldn’t let that slide, and that was back when the death toll had merely exceeded September 11th.
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Well, we’re Americans, you see. In America. We do pretty much everything better than anyone else does.
/s
It’s that kind of calcified, “exceptionalist” mindset that blocks a lot of USians from seeing what a third-rate hellscape their country has become. And from seeing how its massive rate and numbers of pandemic deaths are yet more glaring evidence of that.
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Some good news:
High-flow nasal cannulas, or HFNCs, are non-invasive nasal prongs that sit below the nostrils and blow large volumes of warm, humidified oxygen into the nose and lungs.
A team from UChicago Medicine’s emergency room took dozens of COVID-19 patients who were in respiratory distress and gave them HFNCs instead of putting them on ventilators. The patients all fared extremely well, and only one of them required intubation after 10 days.
“The success we’ve had has been truly remarkable,” said Michael O’Connor, MD, UChicago Medicine’s Director of Critical Care Medicine.
The HFNCs are often combined with prone positioning, a technique where patients lay on their stomachs to aid breathing. Together, they’ve helped UChicago Medicine doctors avoid dozens of intubations and have decreased the chances of bad outcomes for COVID-19 patients, said Thomas Spiegel, MD, Medical Director of UChicago Medicine’s Emergency Department.
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Roughly equivalent to using CPAP. Great to see creative solutions to minimizing invasive procedures.
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ETA: He has a painful history of being pitched against other virologists, of being misquoted, of being quoted out of context and, of course, being attacked by some media. I’m glad he gave this interview.
That said, I am listening to the interview podcast where he has about 30 minutes, nearly uninterrupted, to explain current research and tries to answer questions brought to him by the podcast team, many of which from the audience. This short interview only is a glimpse. I urge everyone not to jump to conclusions based on that.
Even 30 minutes of pop sci (now every other day on workdays, instead of daily on workdays) in whole, i.e. all episodes , cannot transport enough information for really being “well informed”, or even to completely understand his various balancing of arguments. But I am ever so grateful for the time he spends on that.
I think otherwise I would be in more of a state as I am already.
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