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OK - this could be bad news. Preliminary evidence indicates Corona Virus on air pollution particles

Today from weather.com;

In response to:

Researchers Find Coronavirus on Pollution Particles

By Ron Brackett 5 hours ago

At a Glance

Preliminary results find evidence of the novel coronavirus on air pollution over Bergamo, Italy.

Bergamo is one of Italy's most polluted provinces. Scientists agree more study is needed.

Italian researchers say they have found evidence of the novel coronavirus on tiny particles of air pollution.

The work is preliminary, and it appears on a site that preprints studies before they have been peer reviewed.

Air samples were collected at two sites in Bergamo province in northern Italy's Lombardy region, the area of the country hit hardest by the pandemic. Testing found a gene highly specific to COVID-19 in multiple samples from the province, one of the most polluted in Italy.

An independent laboratory confirmed the gene detection by blind testing, The Guardian reported.

Separate research groups have suggested pollution particles may carry the coronavirus particles farther.

The work was led by Leonardo Setti, an industrial chemist at the University of Bologna. He said it's important now to investigate whether the coronavirus can be carried more widely by air pollution.

“I am a scientist and I am worried when I don’t know,” he told The Guardian. “If we know, we can find a solution. But if we don’t know, we can only suffer the consequences.”

Jonathan Reid, a Bristol University professor researching airborne transmission of coronavirus, told The Guardian, “It is perhaps not surprising that while suspended in air, the small droplets could combine with background urban particles and be carried around.”

Earlier studies have found that people exposed to higher levels of air pollution were more likely to die from COVID-19.

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Apr 2020
in Health
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A Serious Idea for You to Ponder

If the sign in the middle of a grassy area,

says "Keep Off The Grass"........

How did it get there ?

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Apr 2020
in Comedy
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Virus vaccines update

From The Mercury News;

In response to:

Coronavirus: In a race against time, vaccine testing expands

In the battle to prevent COVID-19 infection, a vaccine will be our safest armor.

As casualties climb, pharmaceutical companies and young volunteers are racing to design, build and test a defense that can protect us. Unless a vaccine is developed soon, people susceptible to the virus will continue to be at risk.

Human testing has begun of six potential vaccines in an effort to prove that they’re safe and can produce an immune response. Over 70 more are being reviewed for safety and effectiveness in preparation for human testing. In promising news, this week Chinese researchers reported that one candidate has already proven its usefulness in animals, protecting monkeys from infection.

Meanwhile, more than 3,200 young volunteers from 52 nations have enlisted to speed up research, registering with the group 1DaySooner.org to be vaccinated and then deliberately exposed to the virus in the final phase of testing, so scientists can more quickly learn if this armor works.

“If it accelerates vaccine development by a month, that prevents hundreds of thousands of infections, saving lives,” said Carson Poltorack, 23, a Stanford graduate soon to pursue dual MD/PhD degrees at the University of Pennsylvania. Young and healthy, he signed up to volunteer because “I would much rather be the one shot at — I have a far lower chance of dying or having a serious outcome than other groups.”

Despite these efforts, the battle will be neither simple nor fast. Determining a vaccine’s safety and effectiveness takes time, said experts.

The process will take a year to a year and a half, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in early March. Other experts think it will take even longer.

Until a vaccine is developed, it’s likely that there will be a new wave of infections when stay-at-home orders are eased. People at high risk of developing COVID-19 — including those over 65 or with underlying medical conditions — will again be vulnerable to infection by the potentially deadly disease.

Vaccines are important because the human body responds to infection too slowly to protect itself.

When a person is exposed, their immune system launches a defense. It responds by generating antibodies that specifically recognize proteins from the virus, called SARS-CoV-2. These antibodies trigger white blood cells that eliminate the virus.

But by the time these immune cells are ready, the virus has already taken over host cells. It’s too late.

A person is protected from future infection only after recovery. So-called “memory cells” prompt a faster immune response the next time SARS-CoV-2 invades their body.

Vaccines work by triggering production of these antibodies and memory cells — without forcing a person to suffer through the illness.

One approach, used by the Massachusetts biotech company Moderna, introduces a spike-shaped protein found on the surface of SARS-CoV-2, which could put our immune systems on alert without actually giving us the disease. A second round of tests is being conducted at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, suggesting there were no adverse effects so far.

Another approach, used by China-based Sinovac Biotech and others, uses an inactivated form of the virus, which could prime our immune systems without the consequences of COVID-19. Seven days after monkeys vaccinated by Sinovac were exposed to the virus, it could not be detected in their bodies, according to a report published April 19 on the preprint server bioRxiv. But only eight monkeys were tested, and they don’t develop the most severe symptoms the virus causes in humans.

(continued in my first comment below)

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Apr 2020
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Batman & Robin

No, this isn't about a comic book

It's also not about a TV show.

It also has little to do with any Wuhan virus source.

The truth is, that some people refer to me as Batman.
No, not because I wear a black cape.
It has a lot more to do with, that I have batted leadoff on lots of baseball & softball teams.
I often have the highest batting average on my teams.
Thus, some people call me batman. OK, enough on the reason for that part of the blog title.

In reality this blog has more to do with Robin.
And it's not because a previous girlfriend's name is Robin, even though that's true.

It has to do with a current house 'guest'.
On my front door porch light a robin has built a nest.
She very tolerant of me going in & out of the house.
When I open the front door, she flies to a nearbry small tree and gives me a "chirp chirp".
It's not an aggressive nor angry expression. It's more like a "hello".
She's never flown at me, or made any angry, nor aggressive moves.
It's like she understands, that we share this property.

There was one across the street at my neighbor's house last year, that used to attack the couple who live there and their dog. Since they knocked that nest down, mine might even be the same bird.

Whenever I go in or out of the house, I talk low and gentle to her.
i.e. "Hello moma bird. How are you today ?"
When I do, she stops chirping and tilts her head, as if she is listening and trying to understand what I'm saying. If I walk to my car in the driveway, she will often follow and then fly into a tree near the car and chirp.

If I come back home later, she is often in the nest and we look eye to eye to each other, sometimes for a minute or so, perhaps 2 feet from each other and she doesn't fly at all until I open the front door. That happened again moments ago.

I went out today to check out the tulips & hyacinths I planted (they are doing great) and to inspect the veggies I planted. Spinach, radishes and leaf lettuce were all up last week. Today I noticed that scallions are now coming up.

For the first time, I also saw papa robin today. He flew into a tall tree and just watched me go into the house. Looking in the direction of the nest, while she was in the short tree more nearby me,
No chirping from him. I'm guessing if I made a move towards the nest, I might have been attacked by him.
The enforcer robin. I wouldn't be right to attack Batman.

(Not my photo)

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Apr 2020
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As the stomach turns..... the "so-called" president unravels

Today from The Guardian;

In response to:

Trump is unravelling – even his supporters can't ignore it now

The president is leaning heavily on sarcasm to excuse a range of blunders, but US conservatives are unimpressed

I don’t know what kind of disinfectant Donald Trump has been injecting, but the man does not appear to be well. The president’s lethal medical musing has turned him into (even more of) a global laughing stock and the widespread ridicule has clearly bruised his fragile ego. While Trump has never been a paradigm of calmness or competence, he has become increasingly irate and erratic in recent days. Now even his diehard supporters seem to be cooling towards him. Is the “very stable genius” starting to unravel ?

Let’s start with the president’s weekend tweetstorm, which, even by Trumpian standards, was spectacularly unhinged. On Sunday, Trump lashed out at what he called a “phony story” in the New York Times that claimed he spends his days eating junk food and watching TV. “I will often be in the Oval Office late into the night & read & see [in the Times] that I am angrily eating a hamberger & Diet Coke in my bedroom,” he tweeted. “People with me are always stunned.” He then deleted the tweet and replaced it with one in which hamburger was spelled correctly. (This was clearly a challenge for him: he has previously misspelled hamburgers “hamberders”.)

It turned out that the hambergers were just an appetiser. A rant about the “Noble” prize, which Trump seems to have confused with the Pulitzer prize, followed. This was subsequently deleted and replaced with a tweet stating it had all been an exercise in sarcasm. He is a master of sarcasm, as we all know.

While none of Trump’s aides seem able to shut down his Twitter account, they are trying to tone down his daily press briefings. Trump didn’t hold a briefing over the weekend as he normally does, while Monday’s event was cancelled and then reinstated. “We like to keep reporters on their toes,” the White House director of strategic communications, Alyssa Farah, tweeted with a winking emoji. She then deleted the tweet – presumably to keep reporters on their toes. Monday’s briefing was notable for the briefness of Trump’s remarks; instead of treating it like a political rally, he ceded the floor to a number of CEOs.

Trump enjoyed a bump in his ratings last month when he stopped downplaying coronavirus and announced a 15-day plan to slow the virus’s spread. During his brief experiment with coherence, 55% of Americans said they approved of the way he was handling the crisis and CNN’s chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, told viewers Trump “is being the kind of leader that people need”.

The tide now seems to have turned. Recent polls show that most Americans are unimpressed with Trump’s handling of the crisis. This includes conservatives: [a Siena College poll released on Monday found that 56% of Republican voters in New York say they trust Andrew Cuomo, the state’s Democratic governor, to decide how to reopen the state over Trump. Even Fox News seems to have cooled towards Trumpism; the network has just cut ties with Diamond & Silk, a pair of rightwing social-media stars who have been two of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders, after they promoted conspiracy theories and disinformation.

(continued in my first comment below)

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Apr 2020
in Opinionated
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OK, I know this is bad

But, I can't help it.

Every time some 'woman' emails me with 'her' Whatsapp number,
it reminds me of;

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Apr 2020
in Dating & Relationships
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$ 100 Million donated to US food banks by Jeff Bezos

From Marketwatch;

In response to:

Jeff Bezos donates $100 million to U.S. food banks

By Khristopher J. Brooks

April 2, 2020 / 6:26 PM / MoneyWatch

Jeff Bezos donates $100 million to U.S. food banks

By Khristopher J. Brooks

April 2, 2020 / 6:26 PM / MoneyWatch

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is donating $100 million to food banks across the U.S. so they can feed needy Americans as the novel coronavirus cripples the economy.

"Even in ordinary times, food insecurity in American households is an important problem, and unfortunately COVID-19 is amplifying that stress significantly," Bezos said on Instagram Thursday. "Millions of Americans are turning to food banks during this time."

The donation will go to Feeding America, a Chicago-based network of more than 200 food banks that feed 46 million people. Forbes ranked Feeding America the second-largest U.S. charity by revenue. The nonprofit generated $2.9 billion in revenue in 2019, most of which went toward sending food to pantries, according to a 2019 financial report.

Jeff Bezos donates $100 million to U.S. food banks

By Khristopher J. Brooks

April 2, 2020 / 6:26 PM / MoneyWatch

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is donating $100 million to food banks across the U.S. so they can feed needy Americans as the novel coronavirus cripples the economy.

"Even in ordinary times, food insecurity in American households is an important problem, and unfortunately COVID-19 is amplifying that stress significantly," Bezos said on Instagram Thursday. "Millions of Americans are turning to food banks during this time."

The donation will go to Feeding America, a Chicago-based network of more than 200 food banks that feed 46 million people. Forbes ranked Feeding America the second-largest U.S. charity by revenue. The nonprofit generated $2.9 billion in revenue in 2019, most of which went toward sending food to pantries, according to a 2019 financial report.

"Feeding America will quickly distribute the funds to their national network of food banks and food pantries, getting food to those countless families who need it," Bezos said.

Jeff Bezos donates $100 million to U.S. food banks

By Khristopher J. Brooks

April 2, 2020 / 6:26 PM / MoneyWatch

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is donating $100 million to food banks across the U.S. so they can feed needy Americans as the novel coronavirus cripples the economy.

"Even in ordinary times, food insecurity in American households is an important problem, and unfortunately COVID-19 is amplifying that stress significantly," Bezos said on Instagram Thursday. "Millions of Americans are turning to food banks during this time."

The donation will go to Feeding America, a Chicago-based network of more than 200 food banks that feed 46 million people. Forbes ranked Feeding America the second-largest U.S. charity by revenue. The nonprofit generated $2.9 billion in revenue in 2019, most of which went toward sending food to pantries, according to a 2019 financial report.
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"Feeding America will quickly distribute the funds to their national network of food banks and food pantries, getting food to those countless families who need it," Bezos said.

Feeding America CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot said Bezos's donation is the largest single gift in the organization's history.

"We are deeply grateful for Jeff Bezos's generous $100 million contribution to Feeding America's COVID-19 Response Fund," she said in a statement. "Countless lives will be changed because of his generosity."

(continued below)

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Apr 2020
in Society
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I dedicate this one to Track. Thanks for all the funny stuff you've posted.

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Apr 2020
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New report out of Harvard indicates that social distancing may be necessary until 2022 if no vaccine

Today from CNN;

In response to:

(CNN)This may be the new normal for quite a while.

The US may have to endure social distancing measures -- such as stay-at-home orders and school closures -- until 2022, researchers projected on Tuesday. That is, unless, a vaccine becomes quickly available.
That's according to researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who published their findings in the journal Science on Tuesday. Those findings directly contradict research being touted by the White House that suggests the pandemic may stop this summer.

The team at the Harvard School of Public Health used what's known about Covid-19 and other coronaviruses to create possible scenarios of the current pandemic.

"Intermittent distancing may be required into 2022 unless critical care capacity is increased substantially or a treatment or vaccine becomes available," they wrote in their report. "Even in the event of apparent elimination, SARS-CoV-2 surveillance should be maintained since a resurgence in contagion could be possible as late as 2024."

The Harvard team's projections also indicate that the virus would come roaring back fairly quickly once restrictions were lifted.
"If intermittent distancing is the approach that's chosen, it may be necessary to do it for several years, which is obviously a very long time," Dr. Marc Lipsitch, an author on the study and an epidemiology professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, told reporters.
Another important factor: Whether people become immune to the new coronavirus after they have been infected. That's not yet known.

Potential challenges include finding a reliable test to determine who has antibodies for the coronavirus, establishing the level of immunity conferred by previous infection and how long it lasts, and the capacity of overstretched health systems to carry out reliable, widespread antibody tests in the general population.
There's also the difficult social questions around immunity certificates, which have been floated as a possibility in the UK. Would they create a kind of two-tier society, where those who have them can return to a more normal life, while others remain locked down?
The study researchers say they are aware that such prolonged distancing, even if intermittent, would likely have "profoundly negative economic, social, and educational consequences."

They hope their research will help identify likely trajectories of the epidemic under alternative approaches, identify complementary ways to fight it, and to spur further thinking about ways to get the pandemic under control.
Though coronavirus cases in the US have been soaring, social distancing appears to be effective.
Social distancing is "one of the most powerful weapons" against COVID-19, said Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"If we can just maximize that social distancing, we can limit this virus's ability," he said earlier this month.

States across the country have issued stay-at-home orders, allowing only for essential errands or tasks.
Penalties for breaking the order vary by state. In Maine, the penalty for breaking the order can be up to six months in jail and up to a $1,000 fine.
In Florida, a pastor was arrested last month for continuing to hold large services and is charged with unlawful assembly and violation of public health emergency rules, both second-degree misdemeanors.
This week, states on the East and West coasts announced they are forming their own regional pacts to work together on how to reopen after the stay-at-home orders.

New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island and Massachusetts each plan to name a public health and economic official to a regional working group.
West Coast states of California, Washington and Oregon also announced they are joining forces in a plan to begin incremental release of stay-at-home orders.

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Apr 2020
in Science
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New Member Alert

What a dating site !

I know some of you guys are going to welcome a new CS member who has.....flopped out on the scene recently.
Indeed, a couple of her profile pictures are real standouts. I wanted to keep you a breast of the situation.

According to her profile she is "looking for a man", and somehow she's "already seen your profile" and "thinks you're pretty'.

Put your hands together......or wherever you want to place them

and give Jasmin a big hug or motorboat.

https://www.connectingsingles.com/user/jasmin84

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Mar 2020
in Dating & Relationships
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USS Roosevelt now with 416 cases of Covid-19 & more testing underway

Yesterday from CBS News;

In response to:

USS Theodore Roosevelt now has 416 coronavirus cases in wake of captain's firing

By Audrey McNamara

April 9, 2020 / 3:55 PM / CBS News

USS Theodore Roosevelt now has 416 coronavirus cases in wake of captain's firing

By Audrey McNamara

April 9, 2020 / 3:55 PM / CBS News

The U.S. Navy confirmed Thursday that 416 crew members onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier docked in Guam, have now tested positive for the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases jumped by 130 people in one day with more than 1,000 tests still pending.

On Wednesday, the Navy released a statement that said 93% of the crew had been tested for COVID-19 (changed to 92% today), the disease caused by the coronavirus, resulting in 2,588 negative and 286 positive results. Over 2,000 sailors on the ship were subsequently moved to a base on the island, which is a U.S. territory.

"As testing continues, the ship will keep enough Sailors on board to sustain essential services and sanitize the ship in port. There have been zero hospitalizations," the Navy said Wednesday. The next day, one sailor was transferred to a hospital and put under intensive care, according to the Navy.

Pentagon officials warned Thursday that the ship's outbreak will not be an isolated incident for the Navy, The Associated Press reports. "It's not a good idea to think that the Teddy Roosevelt is a one-of-a-kind issue," said General John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We have too many ships at sea. ... To think that it will never happen again is not a good way to plan."

The USS Roosevelt still has 1,164 pending coronavirus tests, according to Hyten.

USS Theodore Roosevelt now has 416 coronavirus cases in wake of captain's firing

By Audrey McNamara

April 9, 2020 / 3:55 PM / CBS News

The U.S. Navy confirmed Thursday that 416 crew members onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier docked in Guam, have now tested positive for the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases jumped by 130 people in one day with more than 1,000 tests still pending.

On Wednesday, the Navy released a statement that said 93% of the crew had been tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, resulting in 2,588 negative and 286 positive results. Over 2,000 sailors on the ship were subsequently moved to a base on the island, which is a U.S. territory.

"As testing continues, the ship will keep enough Sailors on board to sustain essential services and sanitize the ship in port. There have been zero hospitalizations," the Navy said Wednesday. The next day, one sailor was transferred to a hospital and put under intensive care, according to the Navy.
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Pentagon officials warned Thursday that the ship's outbreak will not be an isolated incident for the Navy, The Associated Press reports. "It's not a good idea to think that the Teddy Roosevelt is a one-of-a-kind issue," said General John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We have too many ships at sea. ... To think that it will never happen again is not a good way to plan."

The USS Roosevelt still has 1,164 pending coronavirus tests, according to Hyten.

At the same briefing, Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist told reporters the Defense Department understands that the coronavirus could be a long-term problem in the military, and said that some ships may have to quarantine before they deploy.

"We're going to need to change and adapt because even over the coming months, the virus isn't going to go away," Norquist said.

(continued in my first comment below)

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Apr 2020
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Small Trial indicates that hydroxyquinone is ineffective against Covid-19

From US edition of The Conversation (French science publication) ;

In response to:

A small trial finds that hydroxychloroquine is not effective for treating coronavirus

April 3, 2020 8.40am EDT Updated April 3, 2020 10.10am EDT

On Saturday the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of two antimalarial drugs, hydroxychloroquine and a related medication, chloroquine, for emergency use to treat COVID-19. The drugs were touted by President Trump as a “game changer” for COVID-19.

However, a study just published in a French medical journal provides new evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not appear to help the immune system clear the coronavirus from the body. The study comes on the heels of two others - one in France and one in China - that reported some benefits in the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for COVID-19 patients who didn’t have severe symptoms of the virus.

I am a medicinal chemist who has specialized in discovery and development of antiviral drugs for the past 30 years, and I have been actively working on coronaviruses for the past seven. I am among a number of researchers who are concerned that this drug has been given too much of a high priority before there is enough evidence to show it is indeed effective.

There are already other clinical studies that showed it is not effective against COVID-19 as well as several other viruses. And, more importantly, it can have dangerous side effects, as well as giving people false hope. The latter has led to widespread shortages of hydroxychloroquine for patients who need it to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, the indications for which it was originally approved.

The idea that the combination of hydroxychloroquine with an antibiotic drug, azithromycin, was effective against COVID-19 gained more attention after a study published on March 17. This study described a trial of 80 patients carried out by Philippe Gautret in Marseille, France. Although some of their results appeared to be encouraging, it should also be noted that most of their patients only had mild symptoms. Furthermore, 85% of the patients didn’t even have a fever – one of the major telltale symptoms of the virus, thus suggesting that these patients likely would have naturally cleared the virus without any intervention.

In another study, posted on medRxiv, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, Chinese scientists from Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, in Wuhan, China, gave hydroxychloroquine to patients with only mild infections who were free of medical issues, similar to the Gautret study. The results showed that the 31 patients who received the drug showed a lessening of their symptoms 24 hours earlier than patients in the control group. In addition, pneumonia symptoms improved in 25 of the 31 patients versus 17 of 31 in the control group. As noted in several of the comments associated with the manuscript, there are issues related to the translation of the paper, thus clouding interpretations of some of the results. The paper also appears to focus more on pneumonia than COVID-19. However, these issues may be cleared up or addressed once the paper finishes the peer-review process.

But two other studies have conflicting results.

A second French group, led by Jean-Michel Molina, has now tested the hydroxychloroquine-azithromycin combination treatment in 11 patients at the Hôpital Saint-Louis in Paris, France, and their results were strikingly different.

Like the Marseille study, the Molina trial was also a small pilot study. Molina and colleagues used the same dosing regimen as Gautret. In contrast, however, to the Gautret study, eight of the 11 patients had underlying health conditions, and 10 of 11 had fevers and were quite ill at the time the dosing began.

(continued below)

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Apr 2020
in Science
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This is a list of JimNastics's Blogs. Click here for JimNastics's Blog List

JimNastics Blog (1,965)

OK - this could be bad news. Preliminary evidence indicates Corona Virus on air pollution particles

A Serious Idea for You to Ponder

Virus vaccines update

Batman & Robin

As the stomach turns..... the "so-called" president unravels

OK, I know this is bad

$ 100 Million donated to US food banks by Jeff Bezos

I dedicate this one to Track. Thanks for all the funny stuff you've posted.

New report out of Harvard indicates that social distancing may be necessary until 2022 if no vaccine

New Member Alert

USS Roosevelt now with 416 cases of Covid-19 & more testing underway

Small Trial indicates that hydroxyquinone is ineffective against Covid-19

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