This is an archived newsroll page on A Socialist In Canada, consisting of headlines and weblinks, with occasional news summary and brief analysis, for the indicated month(s) and year. See the current, ‘World news’ website page here. To find past stories on this and other news pages on this website, use the ‘find’ (word search) function on your web browser. Headlines in red denote items published on the main news page of A Socialist In Canada, mostly authored by Roger Annis.
World news headlines on A Socialist In Canada, May 2020
As protests and violence spill over, Trump huddles in White House and shrinks back, New York Times, May 31, 2020 Read the article here in pdf format: Trump huddles in White House
Related:
* Minneapolis has become a war zone, Washington Post, May 31, 2020 …After nearly a week of unrest in response to the death of George Floyd, city and state officials were optimistic Sunday after a night passed without the dangerous fires, looting and violence that have cut a wide swath of devastation through the heart of this Midwestern city. But it came with a new reality: Thousands of National Guard troops and state and city police officers moving to aggressively — and sometimes violently — regain control of the streets, and a lockdown that has residents under curfew and has closed the major highways at night…
* Amid protests, African Americans feel a private grief, Washington Post, May 31, 2020 …Eddie Glaude Jr., chair of the African American studies department at Princeton University, said “Covid is devastating our communities. People are wound so tight because it seems like the country doesn’t care.” …“This is not 1968. This is worse. There’s a global pandemic killing people,” he said. “I’m angry all the time. All the time. And it’s an anger that has a tinge of sadness to it; it’s a blue-soaked anger.” …“And then, on top of that all, the police won’t stop killing us,” he said. “They won’t stop.” …Glaude said the frustrations felt by black people extend far beyond the partisan and cultural wars that have defined the Trump administration. “We blame it on Trump when in fact this is the culmination of 40 years of a particular ideology that has produced unimaginable wealth inequity and deepening racial divides and despair. The only thing Trump has done is broken the implicit rule of manners around how one pursues these policy initiatives. He doesn’t have a dog whistle, he has a fog horn.” …
* Trump’s May days: A month of distractions and grievances as nation marks bleak coronavirus milestone, Washington Post, May 31, 2020
Governors call in National Guard as unrest over George Floyd’s death spreads across U.S., The Associated Press, May 30, 2020 Protesters set police cars ablaze, smashed businesses’ windows and skirmished with baton-wielding officers in streets from Atlanta to Los Angeles, as anger over George Floyd’s death spread across the country. Authorities were bracing for more violence on May 30, with some calling in the National Guard to beef up overwhelmed forces…
Related:
* Protesters converge on White House for second straight day as Trump welcomes police use of force, Associated Press, May 30, 2020
* Thousands protest in New York City, reaching all five boroughs and Trump Tower, New York Times, May 31, 2020 For a third straight day, demonstrations over George Floyd’s death blocked traffic, set fire to police vehicles and scuffled with officers across the city.
* 1,400 arrested across U.S. as angry George Floyd protesters defy curfews, Press TV, May 31, 2020
* Police and National Guard soldiers in U.S. cities respond to protests over police violence with more violence, Common Dreams, May 31, 2020
* Far-right extremists are hoping to turn the George Floyd protests into a new civil war, VICE.com, May 29, 2020
* Eyewitness account from Minneapolis, posted to Facebook May 30, 2020 Read the account here in pdf format: Situation in Minneapolis, May 30, 2020
U.S. cities fear protests may fuel new wave of Covid-19 outbreaks, Associated Press, May 30, 2020 The massive protests sweeping across U.S. cities following the police killing of a black man in Minnesota have sent shudders through the health community and elevated fears that the huge crowds will lead to a new surge in cases of the coronavirus…
As fear settles over Minneapolis, protests and violent clashes spread across the U.S., Washington Post, May 30, 2020
More analysis:
* Two crises convulse a nation: A pandemic and police violence, The New York Times, May 31, 2020
* ‘Beautiful sights’ of protests extend from Hong Kong to the streets of the U.S., editorial in Global Times, May 30, 2020
* Iran foreign ministry says instead of using ‘vicious dogs’ against civil protesters, U.S. gov’t should ‘listen to its people’, Press TV, May 31, 2020
An illusion of protection: The pandemic, the ‘criminal’ response by the British gov’t, and public distrust of the media, by David Cromwell, editor, Media Lens, May 18, 2020 …University of Edinburgh researchers have estimated that at least 2,000 lives would have been saved in Scotland – a staggering 80 per cent of the total – if the government had introduced the lockdown two weeks earlier, on March 9 rather than March 23. Rowland Kao, professor of epidemiology and lead author of the study, said there had ‘definitely’ been enough information about the coming pandemic in mid-February…
Related:
* Letter from London: The price of Boris Johnson and Britain’s Covid-19 debacle, by Alexander Mercouris, Consortium News, May 29, 2020
* ‘A national scandal’: A timeline of the UK government’s response to the coronavirus crisis, by Ian Sinclair and Rupert Read, published on Medium.com, April 28, 2020
Venezuela in the 2020 pandemic, by Maria Paez Victor, CounterPunch, May 29, 2020 …As of May 27, there have been 1,245 coronavirus cases (44 cases per million inhabitants) in Venezuela and only 11 deaths. Venezuela has the lowest percentage of confirmed coronavirus deaths per population in Latin America (0.4%) and the highest ratio of testing, 31,561 tests per million people–more than any other country in the region. How have these positive statistics come about when for years the mainstream media and the governments in the U.S. and Canada along with their allies have been heralding the imminent collapse of the country?…
Covid life and the asset economy, by Lisa Adkins and Martijn Konings, published on the blog of Goldsmiths Press, May 27, 2020 (Lisa Adkins is Professor of Sociology and Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney. Martijn Konings is Professor of Political Economy and Social Theory in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney.) …While the very wealthy live off income flows from assets and stay luxuriously safe, and non-asset holders (renters and the homeless) are unprotected and cast adrift even if they are receiving a wage or forms of income support, an increasingly anxious home-owning or mortgaged home-owning middle class sit in relative safety. COVID lives, are in other words, being actively refracted through the logics of the asset economy… This analysis of COVID life–especially of how institutions are doubling down on their support of asset owners, asset ownership and asset-based capital gains in the context of economic shut-down–will doubtless disappoint those who see in this moment an opening or portal to something new…
Amidst global pandemic with nearly 363,000 dead worldwide, Trump regime terminates formal ties of U.S. gov’t to World Health Organization, Common Dreams, May 29, 2020
After days of protest, police officer Derek Chauvin charged with 3rd degree murder for killing George Floyd, Common Dreams, May 29, 2020 [Recent news headlines on this story further below.]
A growing wave of bankruptcies threatens U.S. recovery, by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, published on their website Wall St. On Parade, May 28, 2020
Researchers ponder why covid-19 appears deadlier in the U.S. and Europe than in Asia, Washington Post, May 28, 2020 …Even allowing for different testing policies and counting methods, and questions over full disclosure of cases, stark differences in mortality across the world have caught the attention of researchers trying to crack the coronavirus code. Parts of Asia reacted quickly to the threat and largely started social distancing earlier on. But researchers are also examining other factors, including differences in genetics and immune system responses, separate virus strains and regional contrasts in obesity levels and general health…
[The accompanying chart shows a startling fact: the countries in the world with the highest Covid-19 death rates, by far, are all members of the NATO military alliance.]
What’s NATO up to these days? Provoking Russia, draining healthcare budgets and protecting its own from Covid-19, by T.J. Coles, published in CounterPunch, May 29, 2020
The pandemic’s second stage has arrived in the parts of the world dominated by imperialism, and it’s getting ugly. Analysis by Fareed Zakaria, columnist, Washington Post, May 28, 2020 …In much of the developed world, the coronavirus curve is slowly flattening, but in the developing world, the second phase of the crisis has begun. Ten of the top 12 countries with the largest number of new confirmed infections are now from the ranks of emerging economies, led by Brazil, Russia, India, Peru and Chile… The developing world was spared the disease in the early months because it was less connected, by travel and trade, to the initial hot spots of China and Europe. In the past few weeks, however, the coronavirus has moved slowly but steadily across South Asia and Latin America…
Economic disaster looms in Puerto Rico amid fears of coronavirus, Washington Post, May 28, 2020 …”The Puerto Rico government made a tough choice to save lives, but it came at a cost. They used a cannon to kill mosquitoes, taking a blanket approach that shut off the motors of the economy given their lack of capacity to carry out a more precise public health strategy,” said Deepak Lamba-Nieves of the Center for a New Economy think tank. “Now it’s an economic problem on top of a public health one that will primarily hurt the most vulnerable… [As of May 29, the U.S. colony of Puerto Rico, population 3.2 million, has recorded 3,267 Covid-19 cases and 132 deaths. Its case rate is 1,077 per million population, lower than all but four U.S. states (Montana, Hawaii, Alaska and Oregon); the highest rates are New York state (19,344) and New Jersey (17,931).]
Minneapolis police station torched after police killing of George Floyd while handcuffed, Associated Press, May 28, 2020 …Meanwhile, in Louisville, Kentucky, police confirmed that at least seven people had been shot on the night of May 28 as protesters demanded justice for Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was fatally shot by police in her home in March. Police said they were not the ones who did the shootings…
[From the New York Times, May 28, 2020: African-Americans in Minneapolis earn one-third as much as white residents. They graduate from high school at much lower rates, are much likelier to be unemployed and tend to live in households with significantly less wealth than their white counterparts. One university professor calls it the “Minnesota paradox” — a pleasant place belied by gaping racial inequalities. Those disparities, the result of generations of discriminatory government policies, are now helping to fuel an uprising in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police…].
Related: Trump threatens to order the shooting of protesters in Minneapolis, writing on Twitter ‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts’, Vox.com, May 28, 2020 Trump threatened on Twitter to send the National Guard into the city, though they were already present in the streets. Twitter has flagged his tweet for ‘glorifying violence’.
Trump regime and Centers for Disease Control remove safety warnings about choirs from their guidelines for holding church services. Report in Washington Post, May 28, 2020 …On May 21, the administration released pandemic guidance for faith communities after weeks of debate flared between the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those guidelines posted on the CDC website included recommendations that religious communities “consider suspending or at least decreasing use of choir/musical ensembles and congregant singing, chanting, or reciting during services or other programming, if appropriate within the faith tradition.” It added: “The act of singing may contribute to transmission of Covid-19, possibly through emission of aerosols.” Two days later, that version was replaced by updated guidance that no longer includes any reference to choirs or congregant singing and the risk for spreading virus… On May 21, Trump threatened to override any state governor restricting the holding of church services due to Covid-19 concerns…
Trump’s executive order threatening to shut down social media outlets unfriendly to him is legally unenforceable, experts say, Vox.com, May 28, 2020
Related:
* Trump regime escalates Twitter feud by cross-posting blocked message, The Verge, May 29, 2020
* Trump signs executive order to punish social media companies for how they decide content, drawing criticism and doubts of legality, Washington Post, May 28, 2020 President Trump signed an executive order on May 28 that could open the door for the U.S. government to assume oversight of political speech on the Internet, a broadside against Silicon Valley that a wide array of critics derided as a threat to free speech. The new directive seeks to change a federal law that has spared tech companies from being sued or held liable for most posts, photos and videos shared by users on their sites…
The world is still far from herd immunity for coronavirus, report in New York Times, May 28, 2020
Related:
* U.S. media failed to fact check Sweden’s herd immunity hoax, by Neil deMause, FAIR.org, May 27, 2020
* Coronavirus may never go away, even with a vaccine, report in Washington Post, May 27, 2020
For a numbers-obsessed Trump, there’s one he has tried to ignore: 100,000 dead from Covid-19, Washington Post, May 27, 2020
Related:
* Trump’s mockery of wearing masks divides Republicans, Washington Post, May 27, 2020
* Trump’s ‘horrifying lies’ about Lori Klausutis may cross a legal line, by Peter Schuck, in New York Times, May 28, 2020 The president’s innuendo against CNBC’s Joe Scarborough about the death of his then-congressional staffer in 2001 could lead to a costly court judgment against Trump. (Peter Schuck is an emeritus professor of law at Yale University.)
Across Colombia, red flags of despair fly as harsh Covid lockdown is extended for a third time, by Nash Landesman, The Grayzone, May 27, 2020 [In Colombia, population 50 million, there have been 24,104 Covid-19 cases and 800 deaths. In Venezuela, population 29 million, there have been 1,245 cases and 11 deaths. Yet it is the government of Venezuela that is labelled by Western regimes and media as authoritarian and warranting violent overthrow, while the murderous, governing regime in Colombia is hailed as a welcome ally.]
Public outrage and moves to punish abuse of emergency 911 calls following New York investment banker’s call to police targetting Christian Cooper, Washington Post, May 27, 2020
Related: I’m a public defender in Manhattan. The Central Park video of a woman using 911 to set police upon a Black man is all too familiar, commentary by Eliza Orlins, Washington Post, May 26, 2020
Editor of ‘Jacobin’ magazine argues in the pages of the New York Times in favour of voting for Joseph Biden as president, op-ed commentary by Bhaskar Sunkara, in New YOrk Times, May 28, 2020
World Health Organization warns of second pandemic peak and cautions against scaling back restrictions too soon as crowds in U.S. hold parties and occupy open spaces, Washington Post, May 26, 2020
India braces as the gov’t lifts lockdown measures and new cases are fourth highest in the world, Washington Post, May 26, 2020
With zero pandemic deaths, Vietnam sets the standard for COVID-19 fight, by Eric Reguly, Europe correspondent, The Globe and Mail, May 26, 2020 …A new academic report on Vietnam’s response to the pandemic written by Professor Guy Thwaites and about 20 doctors and scientists in the Vietnam concludes that the early lockdown plus the extensive testing, contact tracing and mandatory quarantines for people who had come into contact with anyone who had tested positive were behind Vietnam’s success in preventing COVID-19 deaths. Tracing and quarantine measures were “especially effective given [that] nearly half of those infected did not develop symptoms.” Guy Thwaites is a professor of infectious diseases and the director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam…
Related:
* Vietnam criticized by Asia Times and Forign Policy mag for its first-round victory over COVID-19, by Mark Ashwill, published in CounterPunch, May 27, 2020 (Mark Ashwill publishes the website blog ‘An International Educator in Viet Nam‘.)
* Vietnam stuns world with not a single COVID-19 death to date, the Asahi Shimbun, (Japan), May 27, 2020
World Health Organization says the Americas are the new COVID-19 epicenter as deaths surge in Latin America, Reuters, May 26, 2020
[Western corporate and state media–particularly in the U.S., Canada and Europe–have for years campaigned for the violent overthrow of the government of Venezuela. They have tailored and censored their news of the country accordingly. Thus, it is no surprise to encounter silence and censorship from this same media of the huge successes of Venezuela and several of its key Latin American allies in combatting the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Here is a listing of Covid-19 cases per million population in selected Latin American countries: Chile 4,082, Peru 3,941, Brazil 1,857, Bolivia 612, Mexico 579, Colombia 453, Argentina 293, Cuba 173, Nicaragua 115, Venezuela 43. Venezuela’s successes come even as hundreds of thousands of economic migrants have been expelled, or otherwise returned home, from other Latin American countries with much higher infection rates than Venezuela.] Related: Cuba has sent 2,000 doctors and nurses overseas to fight Covid-19, by Ed Augustin, The Nation, May 22, 2020 The Trump administration describes Cuba’s medical response teams as “slaves”; we asked team members for their take. These new teams join the 28,000 Cuban health professionals who were already working in 59 countries prior to Covid-19.
Iran’s fuel tankers for Venezuela are sending shudders through Washington, by Vijay Prashad, Pressenza International Media Service, May 27, 2020
Related: First of five Iranian fuel tankers reaches Venezuela, defying U.S. threats, Venezuela Analysis, May 24, 2020 Five Iranian tankers arrived or en route to Venezuela are estimated to carry enough gasoline to supply Venezuela for 50 days.
We cannot keep ignoring the possibility of airborne transmission of Covid-19. Here’s how to address it, commentary by Joseph Allen, Washington Post, May 26, 2020 (Joseph Allen is assistant professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard U’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-author of the 2020 book ‘Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity’. )
Related: Airplanes do not make you sick. Really, by Joseph Allen, Washington Post, May 18, 2020
Health officials in Chinese city of Wuhan test 6.5 million residents for coronavirus in days, New York Times, May 25, 2020
Mexico City records show 8,000 more deaths in year to date figures, casting doubt over official Covid-19 toll of 5,666 as of May 20 for country as a whole, Al Jazeera, May 26, 2020
The U.S. meatpacking industry is trying to get back to normal, but workers are still getting sick and shortages may get worse, Washington Post, May 25, 2020 [Despite company efforts to improve safety conditions in its plants, cases of Covid-19 among employees at Tyson Foods, the largest meatpacker in the U.S., have exploded from less than 1,600 one month ago to more than 7,000 today, according to a Washington Post analysis of news reports and public records. On April 28, the Trump regime in Washington issued an executive order deeming meat plants as ‘essential’ and encouraging them to reopen.].
Related: Worker shortage concerns loom in immigrant-heavy meatpacking, Associated Press, May 26, 2020 …Immigrants make up nearly 40 per cent of the meatpacking industry’s roughly 470,000 workers, with higher concentrations in states like South Dakota, where they are 58 per cent of workers, and Nebraska, where they’re 66 per cent, according to the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute…
How to avoid a second wave of infections in the U.S., op-ed by John Barry, professor and author, in Washington Post, May 25, 2020
Related:
* As U.S. tries to exhale, coronavirus still carrying infection, death into nursing homes, data show, ABC News, May 26, 2020
* Family of Lori Kaye Klausutis in Florida grieves as Trump spreads debunked conspiracy theory of her 2001 death to attack MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, Washington Post, May 24, 2020
NATO rejects Russia’s offer to mutually freeze military drills amid Covid-19 pandemic, RT, May 26, 2020
U.S. threatens nuclear arms race ‘into oblivion’ as it kills ‘Open Skies’ mutual surveillance treaty with Russia and mulls bomb tests, interview with Daryl Kimball, Director of the Arms Control Association, braodcast on ‘Pushback’ (The Grayzone), with host Aaron Maté, May 25, 2020 (23-minute interview)
Deaths at private nursing home on Scotland’s Isle of Skye are among the 14,000 deaths of care home residents in Britain. Report in New York Times, May 25, 2020 …Owned by a private equity firm, ‘Home Farm’ on the Isle of Skye has become a grim monument of the push to maximize profits at Britain’s largest nursing home chains and the government’s failure to protect its most vulnerable citizens… Nursing homes were once public institutions in Britain but were privatized during the era of Margaret Thatcher. Today, for-profit nursing homes control 86 percent of the British market, more than in the American market…
Venezuela celebrates arrival of the first of five tankers delivering gasoline, New York Times, May 25, 2020 [Western media outlets including the New York Times agitate in favour of the violent overthrow of the government of Venezuela. This article in the Times describes Venezuela and Iran as “two pariah states run by authoritarian leaders subject to punishing sanctions by the United States government”.]
Covid-19 is cutting a deadly path through rural areas in U.S. as they become the new front lines of the pandemic, Washington Post, May 24, 2020 …As the death toll in the U.S. nears 100,000, the disease caused by the virus has made a fundamental shift in who it touches and where it reaches in America, according to a Washington Post analysis of case data and interviews with public health professionals in several states. The pandemic that first struck in major metropolises is now increasingly finding its front line in the country’s rural areas…
Related U.S. news:
* On the front lines of the pandemic, grocery workers are in the dark about risks, Washington Post, May 24, 2020 …Despite the pandemic, grocery stores generally are not required to publicly disclose coronavirus cases involving employees or report them to local health departments… Amid the pandemic, the country’s nearly 40,000 grocery stores have been classified by officials as essential businesses that must remain open, putting the stores at the front lines of the crisis…
* On Memorial Day weekend dedicated to war dead, Trump tweets sexist insults, promotes baseless claims and plays golf, Washington Post, May 24, 2020
* Trump promotes posts from racist and sexist Twitter feed, New York Times, May 24, 2020 On a somber Memorial Day weekend, the president did not mention the mounting coronavirus toll and instead retweeted personal attacks on his political rivals.
One final viral infusion: Trump’s move to block travel from Europe triggered chaos and a surge of passengers from the outbreak’s center, Washington Post, May 23, 2020 …Epidemiologists contend the U.S. outbreak was driven overwhelmingly by viral strains from Europe rather than China. More than 1.8 million travelers entered the United States from Europe in February alone as that continent became the center of the pandemic. Infections reached critical mass in New York and other cities well before the White House took action, according to studies mapping the virus’s spread. The crush of travelers triggered by Trump’s announcement only added to that viral load… Trump has repeatedly touted his decision in January to restrict travel from China as evidence that he acted decisively to contain the coronavirus, often claiming that doing so saved more than a million lives. But it was his administration’s response to the threat from Europe that proved more consequential to the majority of the more than 94,000 people who have died and the 1.6 million now infected in the United States. The lapses surrounding the spread from Europe stand alongside other breakdowns — in developing diagnostic tests, securing protective gear and imposing social distancing guidelines — as reasons the United States became so overwhelmed…
Related: Lockdown delay led to UK Covid-19 death toll soaring to worst in Europe, details report in Sunday Times, RT, May 24, 2020
Wuhan lab rejects Trump regime accusations, says the bat strains it was studying were not Covid-19, report by RTE state news service (Ireland), May 24, 2020 …The director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wang Yanyi, told Chinese state broadcaster CGTN that claims made by U.S. President Donald Trump and others that the virus could have leaked from the facility were “pure fabrication”…
Related:
* China’s ‘bat woman’ researcher has hunted down viruses from SARS to the new coronavirus, by Jane Qui, Scientific American, print issue of June 2020 Wuhan-based virologist Shi Zhengli has identified dozens of deadly SARS-like viruses in bat caves, and she warns there are more out there (Note by Scientific American editor: This article was originally published online on March 11. It has been updated for inclusion in the June 2020 issue of Scientific American and addresses rumors that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from Shi Zhengli’s lab in China.)
* Fact-checking Trump’s accusatory letter of May 18 blasting the World Health Organization, by Glenn Kessler, fact checker, Washington Post, May 23, 2020
Sweden ‘wrong’ not to shut down, says former state epidemiologist, The Guardian, May 23, 2020 The predecessor of Sweden’s state epidemiologist has broken her silence on the country’s controversial coronavirus strategy, saying she now believes the authorities should have put in place tougher restrictions in the early stages of the pandemic to bring the virus under control. Annika Linde, who oversaw Sweden’s response to swine flu and Sars as state epidemiologist from 2005 to 2013, had until now expressed support for her country’s approach under her successor, Anders Tegnell…
Related: Sweden’s former health chief says the country’s coronavirus strategy ‘hasn’t been the smartest’ and it should’ve spent at least a month locked down, Business Insider, May 24, 2020
[Daily, new Covid-19 cases in Sweden have ranged between 250 and 750 for the past two months, including 379 on May 23. Daily deaths have risen sharply since an anomalous one-day dip on May 17, reaching 67 on May 23. Total deaths are 3,992; Sweden’s per capita death rate is among the highest in Europe and higher than the U.S.]
In the developing world, the coronavirus is killing far more young people, Washington Post, May 23, 2020 …As the coronavirus escalates its assault on the developing world, the victim profile is beginning to change. The young are dying of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at rates unseen in wealthier countries — a development that further illustrates the unpredictable nature of the disease as it pushes into new cultural and geographic landscapes… In Brazil, 15 percent of deaths have been people under 50 — a rate more than 10 times greater than in Italy or Spain. In Mexico, the trend is even more stark: Nearly one-fourth of the dead have been between 25 and 49. In India, officials reported this month that nearly half of the dead were younger than 60…
Brazil’s lethal coronavirus cocktail, Sydney Morning Herald, May 23, 2020 …Brazil clocked 996 deaths on May 22, 1188 on May 21 and 911 on May 20 (Worldometer). The total number of infections is 330,890, soon to bypass Russia’s numbers and place Brazil as second to the United States on the pandemic ladder. Testing is still in early stages, suggesting the true number may be higher still…
Study estimates 24 U.S. states still have uncontrolled coronavirus spread, Washington Post, May 22, 2020 The coronavirus may still be spreading at epidemic rates in 24 U.S. states, particularly in the South and Midwest, according to new research that highlights the risk of a second wave of infections in places that reopen too quickly or without sufficient precautions…
Two coasts, one virus. How New York suffered nearly ten times the number of deaths as California, by Joe Sexton and Joaquin Sapien, published by Pro-Publica, May 16, 2020 California’s governor and San Francisco’s mayor worked together to act early in confronting the COVID threat. For Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio, it was a different story, and 27,000 New Yorkers have died so far.
Related: Order by New York Governnor Andrew Cuomo that sent estimated 4,300 Covid-19 patients to nursing homes denounced as ‘single dumbest decision anyone could make’, Common Dreams, May 22, 2020
We have to test and trace more to end lockdowns safely, by André Picard, health reporter, Globe and Mail, May 22, 2020 …There are more than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 reported daily in Canada – virtually all of them in Quebec and Ontario. Where are the new cases occurring? We know about the big clusters, such as meat-packing plants, but that’s not enough. If we don’t have that basic information, how can we reopen the economy smartly and safely?…
Related:
* As coronavirus lockdowns lift, how far can we return to normal without triggering a second wave?, by Ivan Semeniuk, science reporter, Globe and Mail, May 22, 2020 A new analysis conducted for The Globe and Mail offers some insights into what Canadians can expect in an uncertain situation – and of the challenges facing policy makers.
[As provinces in Canada move to lessen Covid-19 safety measures, there is unprecedented media reporting on Canada’s woefully inadequate capacity for testing and tracing to limit the spread of new infections. Why this attention, after some four months of inattention by media and foot-dragging by governments? The answer is simple: money. Corporate Canada is realizing that the economic cost of new waves of Covid-19 infections is likely higher than the cost of proceeding slowly and carefully with ‘reopenings’. Canada’s federal and provincial governments are lucky that most Canadians have a poor understanding of the crucial role of testing and contact tracing to limit the spread of Covid-19. This means that, coincidentally Canadians do not understand the criminal neglect with which their governments have treated the Covid-19 threat ever since it emerged in late 2019. Thus, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can with a straight face tell a press conference on May 22 (more that four months after the Covid-19 threat emerged), “Taking strong, collaborative action to expand testing and contact tracing is important for both Canadians and businesses to have confidence that we’re on the right foot.” Trudeau was announcing that his government will assist provinces in expanding testing capacity and practices. (Under Canada’s quasi-public health care system, provincial governments implement the delivery of health care, under the guidelines of the federal Canada Health Act and with Ottawa providing significant funding.)]
Nearly every U.S. state had historic levels of unemployment last month, new data shows, Washington Post, May 22, 2020
China in the post-pandemic 2020s, by Michael Roberts, published on his website, May 22, 2020 [This important analysis of the Chinese economy comes with a rote, simplistic critique of democracy in China, including repeating the false accusations by Western media and governments of “grotesque herding of the Muslim Uighurs [all of them?] in Xinjiang Province into ‘reeducation camps’.”]
Trump administration to withdraw from Open Skies treaty in a further erosion of arms control pacts with Russia, Washington Post, May 21, 2020 (and read: report in Associated Press, May 21, 2020)
How the United States government failed to prepare for the global pandemic, by Vijay Prashad, People’s Dispatch, May 20, 2020
Related:
* Lockdown delays in U.S. cost at least 36,000 lives, data show, New York Times, May 20, 2020 If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak, according to new estimates from Columbia University disease modelers. And if the country had begun locking down cities and limiting social contact on March 1, two weeks earlier than most people started staying home, the vast majority of the nation’s deaths — about 83 percent — would have been avoided, the researchers estimated… The results show that as states reopen, outbreaks can easily get out of control unless officials closely monitor infections and immediately clamp down on new flare-ups…
* Trump skips a mask in public during tour of Ford auto plant in Michigan, disregarding company rule and state law, Washington Post, May 21, 2020
Anti-abortion groups paid ‘Jane Roe’ to disavow Roe v. Wade, new documentary film reveals, Vanity Fair, May 20, 2020
All 50 states are now reopening. But at what cost?, New York Times, May 20, 2020 Governors face intensifying pressure to reopen their economies, but experts warn it could mean thousands of new deaths.
Related U.S. news:
* Trump’s promise of ‘warp speed’ vaccine research fuels anti-vaccine movement in fertile corners of the internet, Washington Post, May 20, 2020
* These labs rushed in March to create coronavirus testing capacity but there were few takers, New York Times, May 20, 2020
* The striking racial divide in how Covid-19 has hit nursing homes, New York Times, May 20, 2020
* For U.S. spy agencies, briefing Trump is a test of holding his attention, New York Times, May 20, 2020
* Dangerous flooding from record rains hits Michigan as its Covid-19 death toll passes 5,000 and Trump attacks the state’s voting procedures, Toronto Star, May 20, 2020
* Michigan governor says state will seek legal recourse over failed dam whose license was reovked in 2018, Washington Post, May 20, 2020
Sweden tops Europe COVID-19 deaths per capita over last seven days, Reuters, May 19, 2020 (and read: report in The Mirror (UK), May 19, 2020)
Related: Just 7.3 per cent of Stockholm had Covid-19 antibodies by end-April, study shows, The Guardian, May 21, 2020 A study in Sweden raises concerns that the country’s light-touch approach to the coronavirus may not be building up broad immunity as claimed…
After new coronavirus outbreaks in country’s northeast, China imposes Wuhan-style lockdown, New York Times, May 21, 2020
Venezuela prepares navy escort to protect five Iranian gasoline tankers from U.S. threats, Common Dreams, May 21, 2020
Limit growth, liberate degrowth, by Anitra Nelsom and Vincent Liegey, published in Open Democracy , May 18, 2020 (Anitra Nelson is an activist-scholar affiliated with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne. Vincent Liegey is an engineer, interdisciplinary researcher and spokesperson for the degrowth movement in France. They are co-authors of Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide, Pluto Press, Aug 2020.)
Another bank bailout under cover of a virus, by Ellen Brown, CounterPunch, May 20, 2020
Related: The deepening health care affordability and coverage crisis in America, by Jack Rasmus, published on his website, May 17, 2020
Shameful treatment of the elderly is further proof Sweden got its Covid-19 strategy all wrong, by Marcello Ferrada de Noli, published in RT.com, May 20, 2020 (Marcello Ferrada de Noli is professor emeritus of public health sciences in Sweden and a former research fellow at Harvard Medical School.)
Related: Sweden’s flawed coronavirus battle plan hits the poor & elderly, resulting in worst death count among Nordic countries, by Marcello Ferrada de Noli, RT.com, Apr 10, 2020
[Daily new cases of Covid-19 in Sweden have trended around 400 for nearly two months; there were 49 deaths on May 19. Sweden’s death rate per million population is 380, nearly 50 per cent higher than the U.S. Rates in the highest European countries are Belgium (790), Spain (594), Italy (532), Britain (521) and France (429).]
Reporting of vaccine trials are examples of ‘publication by press release’, op-ed by William Haseltine, in Washington Post, May 19, 2020 (William Haseltine is a former Harvard Medical School professor and founder of the university’s cancer and HIV/AIDS research departments. He serves as chair and president of the think tank ACCESS Health International.)
Related: Vaccine experts say Moderna didn’t produce data critical to assessing Covid-19 vaccine, StatNews, May 19, 2020 Heavy hearts soared on May 18 with news that Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate — the frontrunner in the American market — seemed to be generating an immune response in Phase 1 trial subjects. The company’s stock valuation also surged, hitting $29 billion, an astonishing feat for a company that currently sells zero products. But was there good reason for so much enthusiasm? Several vaccine experts asked by STAT concluded that, based on the information made available by the Cambridge, Mass.-based company, there’s really no way to know how impressive — or not — the vaccine may be. While Moderna blitzed the media, it revealed very little information — and most of what it did disclose were words, not data…
Most elderly Covid-19 patients on ventilators do not survive, New York hospitals report, Washington Post, May 19, 2020 …No critically ill patients under the age of 30 died at the two New York hospitals and only a small number of them had to be put on ventilators. More than 80 percent of people over 80 who went on a ventilator did not survive…
Strongest cyclone in over a decade slams into India, Bangladesh, Reuters, May 20, 2020 (and read: report in Deutsche Welle, May 20, 2020)
New attacks by Trump regime against World Health Organization, this time threatening permanent freeze on funding, Al Jazeera, May 19, 2020
Related:
* Canada’s Globe and Mail daily voices Trump regime’s attacks and threats against WHO. Page-one report in Globe and Mail, by its ‘senior international correspondent’ May 19, 2020 [The Globe and Mail report graciously makes no reference to the disastrous response of the Trump regime in Washington to the SARS-Co-V-2 pandemic. The regime’s attacks against the WHO along with its dangling of an ‘Operation Warp Speed’ project promising a vaccine by year’s end are desperate measures being taken as the United States slides further into a grim, Covid-19 crisis.].
* Trump reveals he is taking hydroxychloroquine to protect against coronavirus, dismissing safety concerns, Washington Post, May 18, 2020 …Clinical trials, academic research and scientific analysis indicate that the danger of the drug is a significantly increased risk of death for certain patients, particularly those with heart problems… Trump’s decision to take the drug is the latest example of him following his impulses rather than the advice of doctors and public health experts during the pandemic. He has eschewed the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to wear a face covering when social distancing is not possible. He also has questioned the benefits of widespread testing, which public health officials have called the key to mitigating the outbreak and allowing for the safe reopening of the economy. But Trump’s support of hydroxychloroquine has perhaps been the area where he has most clearly rejected the advice of the health profession…
* What to know about the anti-malarial drug Trump says he is using, New York Times, May 19, 2020
Texas, North Carolina and Arizona see rising cases as they reopen, The Hill, May 19, 2020
Related:
* For Louisiana, Covid-19 pandemic is a ‘two black swans’ event battering the economy, Washington Post, May 18, 2020
* Economic storm brews over Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador facing financial default as oil and fishing industries battered, Globe and Mail, May 18, 2020
Canadian province of Ontario is taking small steps to ‘reopen’; its imperfect wall against COVID-19 is about to be severely tested, by Richard Warnica, National Post, May 18, 2020 This look at how one of Canada’s worst-hit provinces lost control of the coronavirus, and its plans to reopen, forms part of our ‘Lessons from a Pandemic’ series …Experts are concerned about a lack of detailed benchmarks for the reopening, about continued weaknesses in the testing and contact tracing systems, and about an apparent absence of plans for supported isolation. They’re worried that as Ontario opens up, new outbreaks will appear and spread faster than they should, forcing everything to shut down again. “What I worry about with Ontario is that we’ll get blindsided. Because I’ve still yet to see any actual plan,” said Dr. David Fisman, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health…
China’s president pledges $2B over two years to World Health Organization to combat Covid-19, report by Xinhua, May 18, 2020 (and read: report by Associated Press, May 18, 2020)
Related: WHO chief agrees to independent review of coronavirus response; warns majority of world still susceptible to virus, CNBC, May 18, 2020 [World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has told the annual gathering of the 194-country agency that WHO welcomes calls for an “impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” that takes into account the “entirety of the response by all actors” responding to the pandemic.]
Turkey continues to oust Kurdish mayors, replace with trustees, by Amberin Zaman, Al-Monitor, May 15, 2020
Iranian tankers appear to be en route to Venezuela, Al-Monitor, May 18, 2020 The United States has called for shipments between the two sanctioned countries to stop.
Related: Venezuela sees Covid-19 surge as returning migrants surpass 40,000 in recent weeks, by Paul Dobson, Venezuela Analysis, May 18, 2020 Authorities say that 75 percent of recent cases of Covid-19 in the country have been imported.
In next phase of pandemic, Trump appears poised to let others take the lead, Washington Post, May 17, 2020 …Amid a once-in-a-century deadly pandemic, Trump has inserted his ego squarely into the U.S. response while simultaneously minimizing his own role — deferring critical decisions to others, undermining his credibility with confusion and misinformation, and shirking responsibility in what some see as a shrinking of the American presidency…
Related:
* Why it will be a long time before we get a coronavirus vaccine, New Scientist (weekly UK magazine), Apr 29, 2020 Trials of experimental coronavirus vaccines are already under way, but it’s still likely to be years before one is ready. Vaccination may not even be possible. (Read the article here in pdf format: Prospects for a coronavirus vaccine)
* White House tensions with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spill into public view as top Trump adviser criticizes agency response, Washington Post, May 17, 2020
Covid-19 outbreak in Nigeria is just one of Africa’s alarming hot spots, New York Times, May 17, 2020
Related: Africa’s biggest economy faces a double blow from oil crisis and surging pandemic, Globe and Mail, May 14, 2020 (read the article here in pdf format: Covid-19 hits Nigeria hard)
Criminal probe and litigation in Austria as gov’t and tourism authorities are accused of denying Covid-19 presence at outset of pandemic, Washington Post, May 17, 2020
Brazil health minister resigns after a month on the job as COVID-19 deaths surge, Reuters, May 15, 2020
Related:
* Brazil coronavirus death toll rises sharply, Deutsche Welle, May 18, 2020
* Inside the record year of police killings in Brazil’s Rio Di Janeiro, New York Times, May 17, 2020 A New York Times analysis has found that Rio’s police officers shoot without restraint, protected by their bosses and by politicians, certain that illegal killings will not be held against them.
Profitability, investment and the pandemic, by Michael Roberts (Marxist economist in Britain), published on his website, May 17, 2020
Related: The debt dilemma, by Michael Roberts, published on his website, May 10, 2020
Health inequity during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cry for ethical global leadership, open letter by David Chiriboga, Juan Garay, Paulo Buss, Rocío Sáenz Madrigal and Laetitia Charmaine Rispel, published in The Lancet, May 15, 2020 (read the open letter here in pdf format: Health inequity during the COVID-19 pandemic) …On April 21, 2020, we submitted an open letter to the UN calling for ethical global leadership to mitigate the unfair additional health and socioeconomic burden of this pandemic on disadvantaged populations…
‘Reopening’: A chronicle of needless deaths foretold, by Gregg Gonsalves, The Nation, May 14, 2020 Brace yourselves for a long, slow burn. We will not get our epidemic under control in the U.S. (Gregg Gonsalves is co-director of the Global Health Justice Partnership and assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health)
Related U.S. news:
* Where New Yorkers with the means moved to escape the coronavirus pandemic, New York Times, May 16, 2020
* ‘I wish I could do something for you,’ my doctor said after I contracted Covid-19, by Mara Gay, New York Times, May 16, 2020 (Mara Gay is a member of the editorial board of the New York Times) …I am one of the lucky ones. I never needed a ventilator. I survived. But 27 days later, I still have lingering pneumonia. I use two inhalers, twice a day. I can’t walk more than a few blocks without stopping… One thing I learned is how startlingly little care or advice is available to the millions of Americans managing symptoms at home… Why are more people dying of this disease in the United States than in anywhere else in the world? Because we live in a broken country, with a broken health care system…
* Billionaires are playing savior now. But they broke the U.S. economy to begin with, commentary by Tara Isabella Burton, in Washington Post, May 16, 2020
Polio was almost eradicated. Then came the coronavirus and a threat from President Trump against the World Health Organization, Washington Post, May 15, 2020
Grading the coronavirus control in each U.S. state, by Jim Naureckas, Fairness and Accuraucy In Reporting, May 16, 2020 …To demonstrate what seems to me a more useful approach to sorting states’ coronavirus records, I’ve made charts of each state (and selected territories) and graded them according to where they are between a peak of infection and bringing new cases down to zero, and whether the direction of the number of daily new cases is up, down or more or less plateaued…
New Zealand edges back to normal after quashing coronavirus in 49 days, Washington Post, May 16, 2020
‘Real change’ is on the policy agenda of the Democratic Party, says the Joe Biden campaign as it draws Bernie Sanders supporters into the party apparatus. Report in New York Times, May 17, 2020
Previously reported: Joseph Biden and Bernie Sanders and supporters join to form six policy ‘tasks forces’ for the Democratic Party presidential campaign, Politico, May 13, 2020 Working groups have been formed to advise the Biden campaign on six key policy areas: climate change, criminal justice reform, economy, education, health care, and immigration.
Trump touts goal of hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses by January 2021, but scientists doubt it, Washington Post, May 15, 2020
Related:
* New coronavirus cases slow in U.S. but the big picture remains tenuous, New York Times, May 16, 2020 (see accompanying map ‘Where the number of cases is rising and falling’)
* Growing friction between White House and Centers for Disease Control hobbles pandemic response, Washington Post, May 15, 2020 …Instead of assuming its traditional lead role in a public health crisis, the 73-year-old agency has become just one of many voices providing often contradictory instructions to a confused and imperiled public…
* Trump’s top health officials seen but not heard as coronavirus focus shifts to ‘reopening’, The Guardian, May 16, 2020
* Anti-malarial drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus ‘game changer’ is increasingly linked to deaths, Washington Post, May 15, 2020
Germany’s messy, hesitant approach to COVID-19 should serve as no inspiration, by Doug Saunders, Europe correspondent, Globe and Mail, May 15, 2020 (read the article here in pdf format: Germany’s messy approach to Covid-19) [As of May 16, Germany has recorded 176,450 Covid-19 cases, eighth highest in the world; the death rate is one third that of the U.S. and one fifth that of neighbouring France.].
Related: How France lost the weapons to fight a pandemic, New York Times, May 17, 2020 …Even now, France has no guarantees that it can secure enough supplies in the coming weeks to protect against a potential second wave of the virus…
Migrant workers in locked-down India face an impossible choice between waiting for work to resume and returning to the relative comfort of home, Washington Post, May 15, 2020
Related: ‘Reopening’ in U.S. prompts new agitation over workers’ virus exposure, New York Times, May 15, 2020
Haiti, spared a major coronavirus outbreak so far, now a ‘tinderbox’ set to ‘explode’, Washington Post, May 15, 2020
Related:
* In Haiti, deportations by ICE from the U.S. are spreading COVID-19, by Greg Dunkel, Haiti Liberté, May 13, 2020
* After exporting Covid-19 to Haiti, the U.S. is now returning death-squad leader “Toto” Constant, by Jake Johnston, Center for Economic Policy Research, May 5, 2020
The non-paranoid person’s guide to viruses escaping from labs, by Rowan Jacobsen, Mother Jones, May 14, 2020 Trump’s China-blaming and conspiracy theories have undermined the real debate about the facilities that handle the world’s deadliest pathogens.
How bombs made in America have been killing civilians in Yemen, New York Times, May 15, 2020
Related: Open letter condemns Canada’s decision to resume arms sales to Saudi Arabia, by Project Ploughshares, Amnesty International, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, Oxfam, issued on May 14, 2020
Ousted vaccine official Rick Bright testifies before Congress that U.S. still lacks master plan amid pandemic, Washington Post, May 14, 2020 …The United States faces the “darkest winter in modern history” if it does not develop a more coordinated national response, Bright testified, saying “Our window of opportunity is closing”… Bright was followed by Mike Bowen, co-owner of Prestige Ameritech, the last full-line medical mask manufacturer in the U.S. He took his place at the witness table and recounted how he had offered to the Department of Health and Human Services to ramp up production of N95 masks in January, but his plan was cast aside…
Related: Federal whistleblower Rick Bright tells Congress how Trump officials bungled coronavirus preparations, by Sharon Lerner, The Intercept, May 14, 2020
Centers for Disease Control offers scant guidelines for U.S. states that are ‘reopening’ their economies, Washington Post, May 14, 2020 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a scant six pages of recommendations on May 14 to guide schools, businesses, day-care facilities and others into the next phase of the coronavirus pandemic. The six checklists — which also address restaurants, mass transit and camps — come days, and in some cases weeks, after many states have begun to lift restrictions on their own. The advice is less detailed than draft recommendations the agency sent to the White House for review last month. The country is still awaiting that detailed technical guidance, which the White House has held up and not shared publicly…
Related:
* To re-open safely, we need a ‘health force’ of disease detectives, by published on Portside, May 12, 2020 …An April 27 letter released by former U.S. public health officials…estimated 180,000 contact tracers are needed to re-open the economy. Tom Frieden, who directed the CDC from 2009 to 2017, extrapolated from experiences in Asia to estimate that up to 300,000 such workers may be needed across the country. At present local health departments and the CDC have only about 2,200 professional “disease detectives,” although other health staff often assist during a contagious outbreak…
* COVID-19 testing shortfall in Canada spurs quest for radical approaches as provinces look to reopen, by Ivan Semeniuk, science reporter, Globe and Mail, May 14, 2020
The U.S. Federal Reserve hasn’t spent a dime yet for Main Street, but $735 billion has gone for Wall Street, by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, published on Wall St. On Parade, May 13, 2020
Hunger could be more deadly than coronavirus in poorer countries, Washington Post, May 14, 2020 …For now, Covid-19 seems to be largely a disease of the rich, developed world. Seventy four per cent of the 4.4 million cases reported worldwide are in North America and Europe, along with an overwhelming 85 per cent of the deaths. But it is in developing countries, where the vast majority of the world’s population lives, that the most damaging long-term repercussions could be felt, economists and United Nations officials warn…
Sweden stayed ‘open’, a deadly month of April shows the risks, New York Times, May 15, 2020 [New cases of Covid-19 in Sweden on May 14 were 673; since April 1, most days have seen 500 new cases or higher. Daily deaths on May 14 were 69, down from 147 one day earlier.
Wisconsin high court tosses out governor’s stay-home order, Associated Press, May 13, 2020 …Nearly seven of ten Wisconsin residents back Governor Tony Evers’ original ‘safer at home’ order, based on a Marquette University Law School poll released on May 12, though that support was down from 86% in March… [The state of Wisconsin has suffered nearly 11,000 Covid-19 cases and 420 deaths.] Related:
* After Wisconsin court ruling, crowds descend on bars. ‘We’re the Wild West now,’ says governor whose restrictions the court threw out, Washington Post, May 14, 2020 On Wednesday night in the heart of downtown Platteville, Wis., just hours after the Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out the state’s stay-at-home order, ‘Nick’s On 2nd’ bar was packed wall to wall, standing room only… With Governor Evers’s statewide orders kaput, local health authorities scrambled to issue or extend city or countywide stay-at-home orders, creating a hodgepodge of rules and regulations all across the state that are bound to cause confusion, not to mention some traffic across county lines. It’s a situation unlike any in the United States as the pandemic rages on…
* Republican Party county officials in Pennsylvania are defying governor’s Covid-19 safety restrictions, New York Times, May 13, 2020 …Donald Trump seemed to address Governor Wolf on May 11 when he wrote on Twitter, “The great people of Pennsylvania want their freedom now, and they are fully aware of what that entails. The Democrats are moving slowly, all over the USA, for political purposes.”… A survey released this week by The Washington Post/Ipsos showed that 72 per cent of Pennsylvania adults approved of how the governor has handled the coronavirus outbreak, including 51 per cent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Only 45 per cent of all adults in the state supported Mr. Trump’s handling of the outbreak…
* Officials in Alameda County, California bow to Elon Musk’s defiance of Covid-19 measures in opening his Tesla assembly factory, ABC News, May 13, 2020
* The U.S. is retreating to a new strategy on covid-19; instead of containment, it’s harm reduction, by op-ed by Leanna Wen, Washington Post, May 13, 2020 (Leana Wen is an emergency physician and visiting professor at George Washington University. She served previously as Baltimore’s health commissioner.)
* Effects of ‘restarting’ economic activity in U.S. states are unclear for now, Associated Press, May 13, 2020 …The outbreak’s trajectory varies wildly across the U.S.. There are steep increases in cases in some places, decreases in others and infection rates that can shift dramatically from neighbourhood to neighbourhood…
How Wuhan plans to test all 11 million of its people for coronavirus, New York Times, May 14, 2020
The U.S. military is hell-bent on trying to overpower China, by Vijay Prashad (Independent Media Institute), published in People’s Dispatch, May 12, 2020
Over 300 lawmakers from around the world urge the IMF and World Bank to cancel poor countries’ debt, Reuters, May 13, 2020 The initiative is led by former U.S. presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ilham Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota.
At U.S. Senate hearing on May 12, public health officials paint a bleak picture of the pandemic, New York Times, May 12, 2020 …Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told senators that if states reopen their economies too soon, “there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control”…
Related:
* In testimony to Senate, top health officials in U.S. warn of the perils of reopening, Washington Post, May 12, 2020
* Trump backs Elon Musk’s defiance of coronavirus guidelines in reopening California assembly factory, Washington Post, May 12, 2020 Tesla’s Elon Musk is in a showdown with California officials over the reopening of a major factory here, one of the most prominent examples of a powerful business defying health orders that require all but essential activities to cease. Musk continued to ramp up production Tuesday at the company’s Fremont facilities. Workers’ cars filled up the company’s parking lot, with no signs of any enforcement actions by Alameda County officials who sent a letter Monday telling the company to cease production…
* As coronavirus roils the nation, Trump accuses scores of perceived opponents of criminal acts, Washington Post, May 12, 2020 …While most of Trump’s accusations are not grounded in truth, they are regularly adopted by a conservative media ecosystem that has formed a symbiotic relationship with the president, says Nicole Hemmer, a scholar at Columbia University and author of Messengers of the Right, a book about right-wing media… By elevating counter-allegations against Trump’s perceived opponents, the president’s allies have “the effect of making his alleged criminality seem less unusual or less important,” Hemmer said…
* Trump’s racism will bring his party down with him, commentary by Joe Scarborough, Washington Post, May 12, 2020
The four men responsible for America’s Covid-19 test disaster, by Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, May 10, 2020 (print edition of June 2020)
Covid-19 infection rates are climbing at Nebraska meatpacking plants; state officials have stopped reporting the numbers, Washington Post, May 12, 2020 For weeks, people in rural communities in Nebraska charted the rise of coronavirus cases at the state’s several meatpacking plants. First, there were handfuls, and then, many more. As of the first week of May, public health officials reported 96 at the Tyson plant in Madison, 237 at the JBS plant in Grand Island and 123 arising from the Smithfield plant in Crete. There were other cases around the state, too, and the counts were climbing. At least three were reportedly dead…
* Second Cargill employee at High River, Alberta processing plant dies from Covid-19, Globe and Mail, May 12, 2020 …There are now three confirmed cases of COVID-19 among workers at Cargill’s ‘Dunlop’ facility in Guelph, Ont. Further, Cargill said on May 10 it is halting operations at its meat-processing and packaging facility in Chambly, Quebec after 64 unionized workers tested positive for the disease… [Nearly half the 2,000 workers at the Cargill plant in High River tested positive for Covid-19 in late April, but the company re-opened the plant on May 11. The UFCW union was powerless to stop it. The union is fighting for a stop-work order and has filed an unfair labour-practice complaint with the Alberta labour board.]
Bankruptcy courts in U.S. are ill-prepared for the tsunami of people going broke from coronavirus shutdown, report in The Conversation, May 13, 2020
Brazilian cities move toward lockdowns as COVID-19 crisis intensifies and president says job losses are more damaging than the virus, Associated Press, May 12, 2020 …Miguel Lago, executive director of Brazil’s non-profit Institute for Health Policy Studies, warns the country is struggling to avoid a “total disaster”. He says mandatory lockdowns across much of the country would help. “It is late in terms of avoiding hospital collapse, but certainly it isn’t too late to avoid a bigger catastrophe.” Brazil had more than 177,000 confirmed cases as of May 12. The actual figure is believed to be much higher because of limited testing. Many intensive care hospital units are full and cemeteries are increasingly overwhelmed with bodies… Amid Bolsonaro’s rejection of coronavirus danger, most of the country’s 27 governors have criticized his stances but none have imposed mandatory statewide lockdown measures recommended by experts. Instead, the governors have either applied selective lockdowns in cities or deferred to mayors to make those decisions…
Related: As Brazil’s challenges multiply, Bolsonaro’s fans call for a military takeover, Washington Post, May 12, 2020
How does contact tracing work, exactly?, Shape.com, May 12, 2020
Bombshell: Crowdstrike admits ‘no evidence’ Russia stole emails from DNC server in 2016, report by Aaron Maté, The Grayzone, May 11, 2020
Related: Angela Merkel condemns Russia for ‘hybrid warfare’ after Der Spiegel publishes report saying ‘Russian forces’ carried out hacking of her communications in 2015, Deutsche Welle, May 13, 2020 …Merkel said she did not have concrete information on what might have been taken or for what purpose, but said she had the impression that material had been swiped “relatively haphazardly, based on what they could get”…
As countries ‘reopen’, World Health Organization warns about insufficient testing and tracing of SARS-CoV-2 virus, Associated Press, May 11, 2020 A top world health official warned on May 11 that countries are essentially driving blind in reopening their economies without setting up strong contact tracing to beat back flare-ups of the coronavirus…
Related: Fauci to warn U.S. Senate of ‘needless suffering and death’ if country reopens too quickly, CNN, May 12, 2020
Industrial-prison gulag in the U.S. is thriving during pandemic lockdown. Report in Associated Press, May 8, 2020
Hundreds of millions in India left without a safety net as the country confronts a once-in-a-century pandemic, Washington Post, May 10, 2020
Even discovery of a Covid-19 vaccine won’t be enough to end the pandemic, Washington Post, May 11, 2020
Related: The National Research Council of Canada and CanSino Biologics Inc. announce collaboration to advance vaccine against COVID-19, press release by the National Research Council of Canada, May 12, 2020 [If successful, this Canada-China cooperation to resesarch and develop a vaccine to combat the SARS-CoV-2 virus will be a serious impediment to the anti-China propaganda campaign being waged by right-wing ideologues, including members of Parliament and political police officials, and published and aired in Canada’s leading news outlets.]
Trump walks out of daily press briefing after responding to Asian-American reporter’s question about Covid-19 testing with ‘ask China’, Common Dreams, May 12, 2020
Related: Two female reporters refused to let Trump bully them into silence, so he ran away, The Intercept, May 11, 2020
Once again, Congress will let Wall Street pillage Main Street, by Leonard C. Goodman, Chicago Reader, May 5, 2020 …By unrecorded voice vote, Congress passed the CARES Act on March 27, rushing $1.77 trillion in taxpayer money out the door to help their friends on Wall Street. This bailout also saved the stock market and preserved the wealth of the 10 percent of Americans who own 85 percent of the stocks and bonds. To add insult to injury, the Federal Reserve is providing trillions more in free money to fortify the banks so they can continue to collect 21 percent interest on your credit cards and buy up your distressed assets…
Previously reported:
* Congress sets up taxpayers to eat $454 billion of Wall Street’s losses. Where is the outrage?, by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, published in Wall St. On Parade, May 7, 2020
* Spending trillions on ‘defense’ left America unprepared for real disasters, by Kate Yoder, Grist Magazine, May 6, 2020
The Malaysian Job: How Wall Street enabled a global financial scandal, by Andrew Cockburn, Harper’s Magazine, print issue of May 2020 …Everyone in the room recognized the allusion by Goldman Sachs CEO and chairman David Solomon to ‘Malaysia’. It was shorthand for a gigantic fraud—possibly the largest in financial history—in which, beginning in 2009, billions of dollars were diverted from a Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund called 1Malaysia Development Berhad into covert campaign-finance accounts, U.S. political campaigns, Hollywood movies and the pockets of innumerable other recipients. The “few” people that Solomon referred to were those Goldman executives whose active participation in the scam’s bribery and money laundering had since become undeniable… The scheme laid bare the dark underbelly of globalization. A racket concocted in far-off Malaysia came to involve people and institutions all across the world, owing to a system of elite networks seemingly fine-tuned for criminal enterprise. “Using prestigious, brand-name gatekeepers is often the key to pulling off complex financial crimes,” says Dennis Kelleher, CEO of the financial watchdog group Better Markets…
Unite Union still protecting workers’ rights in New Zealand’s fast food industry, by Mike Treen, published in The Daily Blog, May 12, 2020 (Mike Treen is national director of Unite Union in New Zealand.) McDonald’s in New Zealand has signed a new three-year collective agreement with Unite Union after union members voted 97% in favour… The new agreement provides for guaranteed hours for all staff but even more importantly it has an enforceable mechanism to improve hours over time if a worker wants that to happen… One disappointment in this year’s agreement was that the margin above the minimum wage for the start rate was trimmed from 30 cents an hour to 10 cents an hour. But this has to be seen in the context of a significant increase in the minimum wage, which Unite was in the forefront of achieving. In the early 2000s, the adult minimum wage was $9 per hour, around 40% of the average wage; for workers under 21, it was only $7.20. Since that time, the minimum wage has increased to $18.90 an hour for everyone. In the new agreement, it is $19.00 an hour for McDonald’s workers…
As deaths mount, Trump tries to convince Americans it’s safe to inch back to normal, Washington Post, May 9, 2020 …The Trump administration is effectively bowing to a devastating proposition: that a steady, daily accumulation of lonely deaths is the grim cost of reopening the nation… The administration is struggling to expand the scale of testing to what experts say is necessary to reopen businesses safely, and officials have not announced any national plan for contact tracing… But Trump’s outward projections of assurance and hope mask the more sober acknowledgments of some outside advisers and experts who worry the number of deaths will either stabilize around 2,000 per day or continue to climb over the next month. “The question is, will people become anesthetized to it? Are they willing to accept that?” said one adviser to the White House coronavirus task force… One internal government model, based on data from the CDC and other agencies, projects the daily death count will rise to 3,000 by June 1… Many experts also believe coronavirus deaths are actually being undercounted, with mortality data showing that U.S. deaths soared in the early weeks of pandemic, far beyond the number attributed to covid-19… White House officials declined to provide any specifics as to what the long-term strategy is, what the different plans will look like, and who is leading the various efforts. The task force had already begun to curtail briefings, following a disastrous performance last month when Trump suggested the idea of injecting disinfectants, such as bleach, to treat the virus…
Related U.S. news:
* Where Americans are still staying at home the most, Washington Post, May 6, 2020
* The pandemic exposed a painful truth: America doesn’t care about old people, op-ed by Nina Kohn, Washington Post, May 8, 2020 (Nina A. Kohn is the David M. Levy professor of law at Syracuse University and a visiting professor at Yale Law School.)
* Revealed: major anti-lockdown group’s links to America’s far right, The Guardian, May 8, 2020
We may well be able to eliminate coronavirus, but we’ll probably never eradicate it. Here’s the difference, by Adrian Esterman (University of South Australia), published in The Conversation, May 7, 2020
‘We are living through the first economic crisis of the Anthropocene’, essay by Adam Tooze, published in The Guardian, May 7, 2020 …We cannot say we were not warned. Since the famous ‘Limits to Growth’ report by the Club of Rome thinktank in 1972, experts have been highlighting the natural forces that could interrupt the triumphant path of economic growth. In the wake of the oil shocks of the 1970s, resource depletion was a big concern. In the 1980s the climate crisis took over. But at the same moment, the shock of HIV/Aids sparked awareness of a different type of blowback from nature: the threat of “emerging infectious diseases” and specifically those generated by zoonotic mutation. It has been argued again and again that this is no coincidence–it is the result of humanity’s relentless incorporation of animal life into our food chain…
Also by Adam Tooze: Coronavirus has shattered the myth that ‘the economy’ must come first, op-ed by Adam Tooze, in The Guardian, Mar 20, 2020
Pigs, pork, and power in America, book review by Martin Epsom, published on Climate and Capitalism, May 8, 2020 Reviewing: Capitalist Pigs: Pigs, Pork and Power in America, by J.L. Andrson, West Virginia University Press, 2019
Italy has long been Europe’s wild card. The coronavirus has upped the risk, Washington Post, May 9, 2020
UK Guardian newspaper compares Trump’s murderous U.S. exceptionalism to the policies of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, by Lucas Koerner and Ricardo Vaz, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, May 7, 2020
U.S. is embarked on a grim, ‘unethical’ social experiment as Covid-19 prevention measures are ended or relaxed, by Edward Keenan, Washington bureau chief, Toronto Star, May 9, 2020
Related:
* Trump plays down coronavirus testing as U.S. falls far short of level scientists say is needed, Washington Post, May 8, 2020 …On May 7, Harvard University researchers published new estimates showing that the United States needs to be conducting at least 900,000 tests daily by May 15 — roughly triple the current rate — to have a better grasp of the outbreak. Fewer than a dozen states are currently testing enough to get ahead of the virus that has claimed the lives of more than 76,000 Americans with nearly 1.3 million cases reported…
* Trump White House flouts coronavirus safety protocols, Washington Post, May 8, 2020
* As Ohio ‘reopens’, state gov’t urges employers to report workers who stay home due to Covid-19 concerns, Common Dreams, May 9, 2020 Workers who refuse to report to work in light of the pandemic can be reported via a government website and have their unemployment benefits taken away. The pandemic has so far killed more than 1,300 Ohio residents.
* The world is taking pity on the U.S. for its coronavirus response, commentary by Timothy Egan, New York Times, May 8, 2020 The Trump regime in Washington said this past week the U.S. is ‘leading the world’ in combatting Covid-19. With just five per cent of the world’s population, the United States has nearly 33 per cent of the sick. With more than 75,000 deaths, it’s at the front of the pack as well. The average death rate globally is 34 people per million residents, but in the U.S. it’s nearly six times higher at 232 per million.
Trump downplays the gravity of coronavirus data as he pushes to restart the economy, Washington Post, May 7, 2020
Related:
* Fears of a ‘second wave’ of coronavirus infections hang over relaxed measures being carried out in U.S., Associated Press, May 7, 2020 …The Associated Press has determined that 17 states have not meet a key benchmark set by the White House for loosening up–a 14-day, downward trajectory in new cases or positive test rates. And yet many of those have begun to reopen or are about to do so…
* America prepares for a brutal coronavirus slow burn, by Mathew Knott, Sydney Morning Herald, May 8, 2020
WHO warns against rushing to ease coronavirus protection measures, Reuters, May 6, 2020
Related:
* Most U.S. states that are reopening fail to meet White House guidelines on protection measures, New York Times, May 7, 2020
* Abject abdication: Mr. Trump’s unwillingness to lead on the coronavirus is costing the nationa dearly, editorial, Washington Post, May 7, 2020
UN raises its Covid-19 fund appeal for poor countries to $6.7 billion, adding nine countries to its list of 37 fragile countries, CNBC, May 7, 2020
Why it’s wrong (and racist) to blame ‘wet markets’ in China for Covid-19, by Joshua Cho, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, May 7, 2020
Travel from New York City in early March seeded the waves of coronavirus outbreaks in the U.S., New York Times, May 6, 2020 The coronavirus outbreak in New York City became the primary source of infections around the United States, researchers have found …The central role of New York’s outbreak shows that decisions made by New York state and federal officials — including waiting to impose distancing measures and to limit international flights — helped shape the trajectory of the outbreak and allowed it to grow in the rest of the country. During crucial weeks in March, New York’s political leaders waited to take aggressive action, even after identifying hundreds of cases, giving the virus a head start. And by mid-March, when President Trump restricted travel from Europe, the restrictions were essentially pointless, the data suggest, as the disease was already spreading widely within the country…
Don’t be fooled by the flattening curve in the U.S., report in New York Times, May 6, 2020 The number of new Covid-19 cases in the U.S. has flattened, but remove the three cities hit the hardest–New York, Detroit and New Orleans–and the number of new cases continues to rise …A situation update document by the Centers for Disease Control and leaked to the New York Times projected more than 3,000 people could die each day by the end of May. Another historically conservative model, favored by the Trump administration, just doubled its projected death toll, too…
Related:
* Americans deeply wary of reopening while White House weighs scrapping Covid-19 task force, Washington Post, May 5, 2020 …Experts around the country are now revising their forecasts about the spread of the virus, and several models in the past three days suggest that resuming normal activity would spur a significant increase in the number of cases and deaths… On May 4, a modeling group at Columbia University released research showing that even a small increase in the contact rate among individuals will lead to a rebound in transmission and an increase in cases, hospitalizations and deaths… Among several scenarios, the median results produced by the Columbia group show the number of cases could rise to 63,330 a day, and the daily deaths to 2,443. A draft government report this week projected cases could surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 daily deaths. Officials quickly distanced themselves from the report, saying it was incomplete…
* As states reopen, here’s how you protect yourself from the coming surge, commentary by Leana Wen, Washington Post, May 5, 2020 (Leana S. Wen is an emergency physician, visiting professor at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health and former health commissioner of Baltimore.) …It will be tempting to see reopening as a return to our way of life before the coronavirus, but it will be anything but. As a society, we have made the decision to reopen before the science says we are ready. We are knowingly going back to where we were in mid-March, before the first exponential surge in infections and deaths…
* What it’s like to have Covid-19: Interviews with 11 people who have contracted Covid-19, New York Times, May 5, 2020
‘Planet of the Humans’ spears the sacred beliefs of liberal environmentalists, film review by Pete Dolack, published on his website Systemic Disorder, May 6, 2020 [This new review by writer Pete Dolack of the documentary film ‘Planet of the Humans’ reports the open letter initiated by filmmaker Josh Fox calling for the film’s makers to “retract” the film. That’s not a call for a “ban”, as some reports are interpreting. But it is unclear what ‘retract’ means. Is it a demand that the makers of the film admit the film contains serious factual and scientific errors? Or is it that they ‘withdraw’ the film from circulation? The signators of the open letter, who include Naomi Klein, are not neophytes, so one can safely assume that the vague term ‘retract’ was deliberately chosen. As A Socialist In Canada has previously reported, the liberal environmentalists who are attacking the film, including those who signed the open letter demanding a ‘retraction’, say not a word about the central message of the film, which is that capitalist industry cannot continue to pillage the planet’s natural resources without causing ever-more damage to the planet’s ecology and threatening human civilization itself.].
Related: What the film ‘Planet of the Humans’ gets right and what the environmentalists condemning the film get wrong, by Paul Fenn, founder of Local Power website, Apr 28, 2020
Trump’s covid-19 inaction has killed many Americans. Here’s a counter that shows just how many, op-ed by Eugene Jarecki, in Washington Post, May 6, 2020 (Eugene Jarecki is a filmmaker and author of the 2008 book The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in Peril.) …Conservatively, according to epidemiologists, had the Trump administration simply implemented mitigation guidelines by March 9, approximately 60 per cent of American covid-19 deaths could have been avoided…
Related:
* The huge cost of waiting to contain the pandemic, by Britta L. Jewell and Nicholas P. Jewell (epidemiologists), commentary in New York Times, Apr 14, 2020
* The Trump Death Clock
U.S. companies cut thousands of workers while continuing to reward shareholders during pandemic, Washington Post, May 5, 2020
Anti-vaccination ideologues seize on coronavirus to push resistance to inoculation. Report in Washington Post, May 5, 2020 …As the pandemic kills nearly 2,000 people every day in the United States, Andrew Wakefield told a three-day teleconference last week the coronavirus is “no worse” than seasonal influenza. His medical license was revoked in Britain after he published a study, since identified as fraudulent, that linked autism with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine…
Inside the slaughterhouse at Cargill Foods in High River, Alberta, special report by CBC News, May 6, 2020 [North America’s largest single coronavirus outbreak started at this Alberta meat-packing plant on April 6. Neither the public nor UFCW union officials were told of the initial outbreaks and community infections from the plant spread to the town of High River and a local First Nation. Nearly half the workforce of 2,000 has since fallen ill. Following a temporary closure, Cargill ordered workers to return to work on May 4. The UFCW union opposed the re-opening move but proved itself to be powerless in stopping it. It has instead appealed to courts to do its work for it in halting the reopening. The Alberta government has consistently backed Cargill’s practices and public relations efforts.].
Related: Ottawa offers $77 million to fund safety protections in meatpacking and other industries that companies themselves won’t provide, report by Canadian Press, May 5, 2020
Trump cheers on governors even as they ignore White House coronavirus guidelines in race to reopen, Washington Post, May 5, 2020
Related:
* World leaders meet in virtual conference to pledge funds for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine research, U.S.boycotts the event, Washington Post, May 4, 2020
* The moment when Trump’s schtick finally failed, column in Washington Post, May 4, 2020
Trump’s Covid-19 meatpacking order returns us to days of Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’, NBC News, May 4, 2020 You would have to go back over a century — to 1906 — when a dour investigative journalist named Upton Sinclair published The Jungle to find the last time the American public has been as freaked out by what goes on in slaughterhouses as they are right now. Sinclair’s vivid exposé of the foul conditions then rampant in Chicago’s meatpacking industry was so shocking that it led to the passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, one of the first laws to protect Americans from harmful food…
Lockdown is a blunt tool. We have a sharper one available in the form of contact tracing combined with testing, commentary by Dr. Tom Frieden and Dr. Kelly Henning, New York Times, May 5, 2020 (Dr. Frieden is a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Henning is director of public health at Bloomberg Philanthropies.)
World Health Organization says it has seen zero ‘data or specific evidence’ to support White House claim that Covid-19 came from Wuhan lab, Common Dreams, May 5, 2020
Related:
* U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells television interview there is ‘significant’ evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus emerged from Chinese lab, then contradicts himself. Report by Reuters, May 3, 2020
* Pompeo’s anti-China bluff strategy reveals all-or-nothing mentality to fool U.S. voters, editorial, Global Times (China), May 3, 2020 …The Trump administration continues to engage in unprecedented propaganda warfare while trying to impede global efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. The most urgent tasks for international communities are to prevent the virus from spreading and to save lives while restarting the world economy. Ironically, Washington has put forth the weakest efforts in accomplishing the aforementioned tasks..
* Intelligence community statement on origins of COVID-19, press release by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Apr 30, 2020 (two paragraphs) …The Intelligence Community concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified…
* How a Trump media dump mainstreamed Chinese lab coronavirus conspiracy theory, by Max Blumenthal and Ajit Singh, published in The Grayzone, Apr 20, 2020 …The theory that Covid-19 virus escaped from a biological research lab in Wuhan, China was revived on April 14 in a dubiously sourced Washington Post column by Josh Rogin. A neoconservative pundit whose bio lists past work at the Japanese embassy, Rogin has spent years agitating for regime change against the countries comprising the Bush administration’s ‘axis of evil’…
Defeat of a dirty military incursion into Venezuela on a Sunday morning, by Vijay Prashad, Paola Estrada, Ana Maldonado and Zoe PC, published in CounterPunch, May 5, 2020
Related:
* Venzuelan armed forces intercept and break up maritime incursion by paramilitaries out of Colombia, Venezuela Analysis, May 3, 2020 and read report in Washington Post, May 3, 2020
* Ex-Green Beret led failed coup attempt in 2019 against Venezuela gov’t, Associated Press, May 1, 2020
Trump stages Fox News interview at Lincoln Memorial to press his message that it’s safe to ‘reopen’ the U.S. economy, but states are divided, Washington Post, May 3, 2020
Related U.S. news:
* As Washington stumbled, governors stepped to the forefront in confronting pandemic, Washington Post, May 3, 2020
Wastewater surveillance for coronavirus aids public health planning, Washington Post, May 1, 2020
Covid-19 threatens ‘exceptionally dire’ secondary impacts on global poverty, hunger and diease, by Nick Turse, published in The Intercept, May 3, 2020 ‘I want to stress that we are not only facing a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe.– David Beasley, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program.
Related: The agony of the poor in Spain amidst the coronavirus emergency, report in The Guardian, May 4, 2020
Excess U.S. deaths hit estimated 37,100 in March and first two weeks of April, far more than previously known, Washington Post, May 2, 2020 …The pandemic’s true toll to date in the U.S. is likely substantially higher than official tallies. “It’s hard to say how much higher, but our best guess might be it’s in the range of one and a half times higher,” says Dan Weinberger, a Yale professor of epidemiology who led the analysis commissioned by the Washington Post…
Related: Trump regime tries to cast high U.S. death toll from Covid-19 as an achievement, The Intercept, May 2, 2020 [The mortality rates of Covid-19 in the densely populated U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Delaware rival the highest rate in Europe–Belgium at 67 deaths per 100,000 population. Unlike the U.S., Belgium includes in its count a large number of deaths in nursing homes that are suspected of being virus-related but have not been confirmed by testing.]
Coronavirus patients in South Korea said to be reinfected had instead returned false positives, The Independent, May 1, 2020
Five myths about vaccines, by Michael Kinch, Washington Post, May 1, 2020 (Michael S. Kinch is an associate vice chancellor at Washington University in St Louis and leads the Centers for Research Innovation in Biotechnology and Drug Discovery. He is also the author of Between Hope and Fear, a history of vaccines.)
Public transit workers in London fear coronavirus; 37 have died, including 28 bus drivers, New York Times, May 2, 2020 [The daily death toll from Covid-19 continues to rage in Britain. On May 2, 621 new deaths were recorded. Total deaths in Britain are 28,131, approaching the number of deaths in Italy, which has the second-largest number in the world.]
The coronavirus becomes a battle cry for right-wing extremists in the U.S., New York Times, May 3, 2020 [In a supremely ironic twist, the writer of this NYT article was until recently the newspaper’s Moscow bureau chief. He won a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2017 for a series on ‘Russia’s covert projection of power’ [sic]. As Moscow bureau chief, he was a key figure in the ongoing prettying up of the extreme-right in Ukraine by the New York Times. Ukraine is the European country with the most embedded extreme right in government, police and armed forces. But you would never know that by reading Western media, including its left-wing or ‘alternative’ variants.]
What coronavirus ‘herd immunity really means, commentary by Carl T. Bergstrom and Natalie Dean, New York Times, May 1, 2020 (Dr. Carl T. Bergstrom is a professor of biology at the University of Washington. Dr. Natalie Dean is an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida.) Try to reach ‘herd immunity’ without a vaccine and millions will die.
No leadership and no plan for reliable and expanded Covid-19 testing in the U.S., The Guardian, May 2, 2020
Related U.S. news:
* Protests spread in the U.S. against Covid-19 safety restrictions, fueled by economic woes and Internet subcultures, Washington Post, May 1, 2020
* Trump voices support for angry, far-right protests against Covid-19 safety measures as more states lift coronavirus lockdowns, Washington Post, May 1, 2020 …Michigan is not close to meeting [official] White House recommendations that states see a 14-day decline in coronavirus cases before beginning to relax lockdowns…
* Politics and class collide in Michigan over the COVID-19 crisis, Globe and Mail, May 1, 2020 [Michigan has the third-highest fatality rate from Covid-19 among U.S. states. Detroit is the hardest-hit, majority-Black city in the U.S.]
* In educated and affluent Massachusetts, coronavirus cases surge, the decline has yet to come, Washington Post, May 1, 2020 [Massachusetts has the third highest case numbers in the U.S. (app. 64,000) and the fourth highest death toll.]
* White House lives in a ‘dream world’ of testing-backed safety that does not exist anywhere else in the country, Washington Post, May 1, 2020 …Governors and municipal leaders have scrambled for basic supplies; hospitals and elderly care facilities, dealing with the most vulnerable, have cried out for more testing; and workers at grocery stores and manufacturing plants are risking their health to keep open critical businesses… As of the end of April, a total of 6.2 million tests have been conducted in the United States, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Public health experts have said that millions of tests per day could be necessary to safely begin to restart broad sectors of society, with wide-scale testing to identify and contain local outbreaks. Though Trump said this week that his administration would help boost testing to 5 million per day, Brett Giroir, the administration’s assistant secretary of health, has said that number is virtually impossible and has pledged to increase the number to 8 million per month. The highest single-day total has been just over 314,000…
* Coronavirus, the subways and the homeless in New York City, New York Times, May 2, 2020
Jacobin Magazine jumps out of the line of fire as U.S. escalates its new cold war drive against China. [An interview published in Jacobin Magazine on April 29 is headlined, ‘Socialists should side with workers, not the Chinese or American ruling class’. An introduction to the interview reads: “The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a dangerous escalation in tensions between China and the United States. But our allegiance shouldn’t be with either country’s ruling class — it should be with both countries’ workers.” In the time of Covid-19, a fierce political and military drive is mounting against China by virtually all of the world’s imperialist countries, led by the U.S. They are using the bogus claim that reckless conduct by the Chinese government and medical officials, or even deliberate policy, brought Covid-19 to the world. The right-wing socialists who dismiss the imperialist threat and fail to challenge the lies being used to justify it are dangerous demagogues. Many have already shown themselves to be demagogues over events in Russia and Ukraine in 2014, making the same ‘plague on both your houses’ argument. This Jacobin interview dismisses China’s Covid-19 medical aid to so many countries in the world as motivated by self interest. The interview repeats the provocative claim by the Trump regime and its allies that ‘bungling’ by medical officials in China “allowed the coronavirus to travel throughout China and the world”. Several essays by writer Vijay Prashad (here) have effectively refuted the lie of Chinese ‘bungling’ or ‘cover up’. The Jacobin interviewer is Ashley Smith, a former leader of the collapsed International Socialist Organization in the U.S. and a longtime ideologue of the theory that China’s 1949 revolution was not the world-changing event that it was but was, rather, a ‘mere’ nationalist revolt that ultimately came to nothing. The introduction to the interview picks up the same ‘neither Washington nor those it attacks’ themes of Ashley Smith’s earlier writings on Russia. These writings voiced indifference to imperialism’s threats and pressures against the Russian government and people and against the people of Ukraine.] Related: Global backlash builds against China over coronavirus, published by the New York Times on May 2, 2020. [This NYT article writes, “Across the globe, a backlash is building against China for its initial mishandling of the crisis that helped loose the coronavirus on the world…” And so what was the ‘mishandling’ alleged by the Times writer and editor? Silence. Nothing is said. The Times writer does acknowledge: “Mr. Trump has pressed American intelligence agencies to find the source of the virus, suggesting it might have emerged accidentally from a Wuhan weapons lab. But most [sic] intelligence agencies remain skeptical…”]
Excitement over ‘remdesivir’ drug as USDA approves its use, but there is no silver bullet for curing coronavirus, by Andre Picard, health columnist, Globe and Mail, May 1, 2020 …The U.S. government-sponsored study into remdesiver has not been peer-reviewed or published. It consisted of 1,063 patients in hospital with COVID-19 who were randomly assigned either to receive remdesivir, which is an antiviral drug, or a placebo. Those treated with the drug recovered (were discharged from hospital) after 11 days on average, compared with 15 days for the placebo group. Eight per cent of patients in the remdesivir group died, compared with 11 per cent in the placebo group. In other words, yet another drug U.S. President Donald Trump has touted as a “game-changer” is meh…
Related: Canadian experts don’t see remdesivir as a breakthrough COVID-19 killer, National Post, May 1, 2020
Hundreds of migrants arrested in Malaysia as part of government crackdown in name of Covid-19 pandemic, South China Morning Post, May 1, 2020 Of Malaysia’s population of 31.5 million, some 5.5 million are migrants. They don’t have the right to work.
Related: An inside look at the dismal and now very dangerous living conditions of migrant workers in Singapore as the country’s Covid-19 cases soar, by Sallie Yea (La Trobe University, Australia), The Conversation, April 30, 2020 In the past month, the number of Covid-19 cases in Singapore has multiplied 18 times to reach 17,000+.
