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WHO walks back comments on asymptomatic coronavirus spread, says much is still unknown

The WHO
© Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images
The World Health Organization walked back comments made Monday when one of its top scientists said transmission of the coronavirus by people who never developed symptoms is "very rare," which drew skepticism from physicians and others across social media.

That admission sent shock waves throughout the world, much of which has been locked down for months for fear of spreading the virus by people who show no signs of illness.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO's emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said Tuesday that asymptomatic spread is a "really complex question" and much is still unknown. "We don't actually have that answer yet," she said.

"I was responding to a question at the press conference. I wasn't stating a policy of WHO or anything like that. I was just trying to articulate what we know," she said on a live Q&A streamed across multiple social media platforms. "And in that, I used the phrase 'very rare,' and I think that that's misunderstanding to state that asymptomatic transmission globally is very rare. I was referring to a small subset of studies."

Comment: Guess she didn't get the memo! See also:


Wall Street

Corporate donations tracker: Here are the companies giving millions to anti-racism efforts

Some of America's biggest companies are responding to public pressure to donate to anti-racism campaigns and publicly stand by the black community following the death of George Floyd in police custody.

Tim Cook
© Getty ImagesApple CEO Tim Cook said the company is donating an undisclosed amount to the Equal Justice Initiative
  • Home Depot has contributed $1 million to the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
  • Gaming companies have joined donation efforts to anti-racism organizations: EA has pledged $1 million to groups including the Equal Justice Initiative and the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund; Square Enix has donated $250,000 and is matching employee donations to Black Lives Matter; Ubisoft has contributed $100,000 to the NAACP and BLM.
  • Minnetonka-based United Health Group is donating $5 million to the YMCA Equity Innovation Center of Excellence and another $5 million, as well as 25,000 hours of employee volunteer time, to help rebuild businesses in Twin Cities neighbourhoods affected by riots.
  • Facebook pledged $10 million to organizations campaigning for racial justice, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Monday.
  • Apple CEO Tim Cook announced unknown donations would be made by the company to organizations including the Equal Justice Initiative, "a non-profit committed to challenging racial injustice."
  • Chipmaker Intel is donating $1 million to community efforts fighting racial injustice including Black Lives Matter and the Centre for Policing Equity, CEO Bob Swan told employees.
  • Beauty company Glossier has committed $500,000 to Black Lives Matter and another $500,000 to support black-owned, CEO Emily Weiss announced on Sunday.
  • Other beauty companies have made smaller donations to anti-racism efforts, including DECIEM, which pledged $100,000 to the NAACP and BLM, SheaMoisture which pledged a further $100,000 to activists fighting for social change, and Sunday Riley, which is donating $50,000 to the NAACP. e.l.f. Beauty is donating $25,000 to Color of Change.
  • Fitness company Peloton is donating $500,000 to the NAACP's legal defense fund, CEO John Foley said.
  • Levi's is donating $100,000 to the ACLU and a further $100,000 to the mass incarceration campaign group Live Free USA, the company announced on Monday.
  • Clothing retailer Banana Republic has donated $250,000 to the NAACP and EmbraceRace.

Comment: See also:


Sheriff

Speaking of priviledge: LAPD slam city council over private security details amid budget cut

LAPD squad car
While LA City Council President Nury Martinez was filing a motion last week seeking to cut $150 million from the LAPD budget, she had an LAPD unit standing watch outside her home providing her family with a private security detail since April.

The round-the-clock protection unit, often staffed by two officers, infuriated some members of the police force when Martinez introduced the motion, which reads in part:

"We need a vision for our city that says 'there is going to be justice.' American society is founded on a racial hierarchy, one that is born out of slavery, followed by Jim Crow segregation and corporate abuse of labor. As such, police departments are asked to enforce a system of laws that are designed to reinforce and maintain economic and racial inequality."

Comment: What all these people advocating for the defunding, or even abolition, of the police force is that this will overwhelmingly affect the poorer sections of society. Those who can afford private security, or are deemed important enough to get police protection through tax payer dollars from the police, obviously don't care if the police are removed. For everyone else, this scenario is a nightmare.

See also:


Eye 1

Suddenly, public health officials say social justice matters more than social distance

black lives protest
Raymond Ahner/The Photo Access/Cover Images via AP
For months, public health experts have urged Americans to take every precaution to stop the spread of Covid-19 โ€” stay at home, steer clear of friends and extended family, and absolutely avoid large gatherings.

Now some of those experts are broadcasting a new message: It's time to get out of the house and join the mass protests against racism.

"We should always evaluate the risks and benefits of efforts to control the virus," Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, tweeted on Tuesday. "In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus."

"The injustice that's evident to everyone right now needs to be addressed," Abraar Karan, a Brigham and Women's Hospital physician who's exhorted coronavirus experts to amplify the protests' anti-racist message, told me. "While I have voiced concerns that protests risk creating more outbreaks, the status quo wasn't going to stop #covid19 either," he wrote on Twitter this week.

It's a message echoed by media outlets and some of the most prominent public health experts in America, like former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden, who loudly warned against efforts to rush reopening but is now supportive of mass protests. Their claim: If we don't address racial inequality, it'll be that much harder to fight Covid-19. There's also evidence that the virus doesn't spread easily outdoors, especially if people wear masks.

Attention

Antifa domestic terrorists take over 6 square block section in Seattle - set up security watch - call for armed volunteers

free capitol hill zone seattle
Free Capitol Hill zone in Seattle, Washington.

This is your future with no police.

Democrats want to defund the police. But don't worry Antifa will defend you โ€” for a price.

Comment: This is not going to end well. How can it end with anything other than a standoff between the revolutionary LARPers and the Feds?

See also:


Brick Wall

No, Sweden has not changed its mind about lockdown

anders tegnell
Our fanatically pro-lockdown media keep spreading fake news about Sweden.

Sweden's chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, has admitted to making some mistakes over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. His acknowledgement that Sweden's death toll was 'too high' has been seized on by our fervently pro-lockdown media as a sign that Sweden's more relaxed strategy has failed.

'Sweden's controversial decision not to impose a strict lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic led to too many deaths', reports the BBC. 'Swedish expert admits country should have had tighter coronavirus controls', says the Financial Times - a newspaper recently criticised for its botched and misleading graphs of Covid deaths. Tegnell's words were framed in a similar way by reports from Sky News, the Telegraph, and many others.

Comment: See also:


Ambulance

Driver plows through BLM protesters in Indianapolis, then makes a run for it

Driver hits BLM protesters
© RT
Stomach-wrenching video has captured a woman driving her minivan through a group of protesters in Indianapolis on the city's 11th straight day of anti-racism and police brutality protests in the wake of George Floyd's death.

The group of about 50 protesters was in the downtown Monument Circle area when a municipal truck arrived to take down barricades but was blocked by the protesters for a time. The minivan driver went to drive around the truck, struck several protesters and accelerated away from the scene, as captured in eyewitness video from the incident.


Fire

Best of the Web: 'People are just f***ing lawless right now' - Chicago's aldermen plead with mayor to protect their communities from bands of armed looters

riots Chicago May 2020
© (Hugo Balta / WTTW News)A chaotic scene in Chicago on Saturday, May 30, 2020.
As unrest swept the city Sunday, aldermen pleaded with Mayor Lori Lightfoot to help them protect their communities from roving bands of criminals clashing with police and looting businesses.

WTTW News obtained a recording of an online conference call held by the mayor's office to brief all 50 aldermen on the city's response to the unrest touched off by the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.

While one alderman wept, others grew angry with the mayor, demanding to know what her strategy was to stop the violence that began in earnest late Saturday.

The call provides a snapshot into the city's response as of midday on Sunday to the most widespread and damaging unrest since the uprising after the murder of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the police riots after the Democratic National Convention in 1968.

The recording begins with Ald. Michelle Harris (8th Ward) wondering how she could convince businesses like Walmart and CVS to rebuild on the South Side after the destruction.

"It's like, what are we going to have left in our community?" Harris asks her colleagues before answering herself. "Nothing."

Comment:


Bad Guys

BLM UK crowdfunds ยฃ700,000, but do donors know the real ambitions of these radical activists?

BLM protest london
© Getty Images/In Pictures/Barry Lewis7th June 2020 in London, England, United Kingdom
The British group doesn't just want to eradicate racism - it includes the end of imperialism, capitalism and the police in its list of revolutionary aims. But it doesn't offer any clue as to what it would replace them with.

As the crowdfunding target of ยฃ700,000 for the UK offshoot of Black Lives Matter (aka UKBLM) was reached today, after just six days, you have to wonder: do those generous folk who've donated their hard-earned cash actually know where their money is going?

Because UKBLM is an all-flavours-of-liberal-grievance sorta outfit. A hotch-potch of causes hiding behind a big helping of anti-racism. And sure, what reasonable person would disagree with efforts to have equality be the norm across all communities? But UKBLM goes further in the struggle it imagines itself facing. A lot further.

Comment: See also:


Ambulance

Best of the Web: As woke world protests 'systemic racism' in the USA, Black-on-Black murders break 60-year-old record in Chicago

"We've never seen anything like it, at all," said Max Kapustin, the senior research director at the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
murders chicago
© Chicago Sun-Times
A hardworking father killed just before 1 a.m.

A West Side high school student murdered two hours later.

A man killed amid South Side looting at a cellphone store at 12:30 p.m.

A college freshman who hoped to become a correctional officer, gunned down at 4:25 p.m. after getting into an argument in Englewood.

While Chicago was roiled by another day of protests and looting in the wake of George Floyd's murder, 18 people were killed Sunday, May 31, making it the single most violent day in Chicago in six decades, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab. The lab's data doesn't go back further than 1961.

Comment: And that was after the deadliest ever Memorial Weekend in Chicago, just the weekend before this record deadly weekend.

It's as if the riots/woke outrage empowered Blacks to kill more Blacks?

In any event, mayhem is spreading/intensifying from Democrat-controlled plantations/cities.