Society's ChildS


Corona

First group of volunteers assembled as Russia prepares for human testing of Covid-19 vaccine, UK pledges £200 million to WHO and charities


RT
Sun, 12 Apr 2020 23:25 UTC
vaccine
© Sputnik / Nikolai Khizhniak
The initial human volunteers have been selected to test a Russian vaccine against the deadly new coronavirus in trials set to begin in late June. The project's chief developer is leading by example by taking his place among them.

Work on the biological preparation began in February at the Vector Institute, Russia's leading virology and biotechnology research center. It's based in Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia. Earlier in April, researchers announced that the vaccine had successfully passed trials on mice and ferrets, with preparations for human testing in full swing.

The first stage will see 60 people participating, Rinat Maksyutov, Vector Institute's general director, told Rossiya-1. Numerous people from Novosibirsk and other Russian regions have offered their services as volunteers.

The list of test subjects has already been put together, and some members of the team now working on the vaccine, including lead developer Ilnaz Imatdinov, are among the volunteers, Maksyutov revealed. The scientists stepped forward because "they are confident in the effectiveness and safety" of the agent they are preparing, he said.

The start of human trials doesn't mean that Russia will get its Covid-19 vaccine instantly, as testing is a "very precise thing," especially when it comes to humans, Sergey Netesov, former Vector deputy general director and head of its lab for 30 years, told RT.

Comment: While traffic is a breeze right now in Moscow because of the lockdown, several videos have emerged of ambulance traffic jams in the city - containing "suspected" cases of Covid-19, or pneumonia:
Officials from the medical crisis center in charge of Russia's battle against the coronavirus told RT that the queues of ambulances appeared outside some hospitals due to "the current epidemiological situation, which saw the flow of patients increasing in recent days."

Such a thing would've been "unacceptable" if the medical facilities were working under normal circumstances, but the medics said they are under increased pressure at the moment. They apologized to patients for the inconvenience, but added that the complications with admitting people to hospitals "weren't of a systematic nature."
In an apparent snub to Trump, the UK has pledged $248 million to the WHO and charities. Couldn't that money be better spent locally? On a positive note, patients at two UK hospitals will start receiving hydroxychloroquine treatment (which the rest of the world is already using). Then there's this, which shows how absurd the emergency policies have become:

Meanwhile, Italy saw its lowest daily death toll in three weeks. Things are turning around there.

But Netanyahu has suspended all flights from the US, just a day after Trump threatened to sanction countries denying acceptance of their citizens' return from the US. German officials have had to apologize after French people were "insulted and spat on" in a border town, and told to "go back" to their "corona-ridden country". Ahh, primitive tribalism at its best!

Turkey's interior minister resigned after a bungled curfew announcement for the weekend caused chaos. Erdogan rejected the resignation.

See also:

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Fire

Coronavirus chaos: Riot in Brussels after teen dies during police chase - 1.5 million people go 1 day without food in UK - Doctor taken hostage in Kashmir


Sott.net
Sun, 12 Apr 2020 00:00 UTC
Unsurprisingly, chaos is beginning to spread as a result of the global lockdown.

Our first report comes from Brussels, Belgium, where a teenager died in a motorcycle accident because the police were pursuing him for 'violating the lockdown':

Brussels Riots April 12 2020
45 detained in Brussels riots during lockdown

The mayor of a Brussels neighborhood has called for calm and promised a full probe after a teen died while fleeing police enforcing the city's coronavirus lockdown. The accident sparked riots leading to dozens of arrests.

Anderlecht, a neighborhood of Brussels, descended into chaos on Saturday following the death of a 19-year-old. The teen, who was riding a scooter, reportedly collided with a police van on Friday while trying to evade officers patrolling the streets for potential violators of the Belgian capital's coronavirus lockdown.


Comment: See also:

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Corona

Best of the Web: COVID-19 lockdown = Auto-genocide? Food shortages likely as US farmers dump MOUNTAINS and LAKES of food

David Yaffe-Bellany & Michael Corkery
New York Times
Sun, 12 Apr 2020 20:34 UTC

Comment: We are so screwed, it's not even funny.


onions food dumped covid-19
© Joseph Haeberle for The New York TimesA field of onions in Idaho waiting to be buried.
In Wisconsin and Ohio, farmers are dumping thousands of gallons of fresh milk into lagoons and manure pits. An Idaho farmer has dug huge ditches to bury 1 million pounds of onions. And in South Florida, a region that supplies much of the Eastern half of the United States with produce, tractors are crisscrossing bean and cabbage fields, plowing perfectly ripe vegetables back into the soil.

After weeks of concern about shortages in grocery stores and mad scrambles to find the last box of pasta or toilet paper roll, many of the nation's largest farms are struggling with another ghastly effect of the pandemic. They are being forced to destroy tens of millions of pounds of fresh food that they can no longer sell.

The closing of restaurants, hotels and schools has left some farmers with no buyers for more than half their crops. And even as retailers see spikes in food sales to Americans who are now eating nearly every meal at home, the increases are not enough to absorb all of the perishable food that was planted weeks ago and intended for schools and businesses.

The amount of waste is staggering. The nation's largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America, estimates that farmers are dumping as many as 3.7 million gallons of milk each day. A single chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs every week.

Comment: It's even too expensive to be charitable.

Anyone remember all that liberal bourgeois posturing in the media about 'food waste' and what 'people' ought to do to not be so wasteful and thus 'save the planet'?

Do you realize what those same 'intellectuals' have done? They've broken key supply chains in the real economy. Unless there is a sudden end to this corona-spell - like, NOW - there is no 'coming back from this'. Civilization is hosed.

So how about a slow-clap round of applause for the global managers and reality-creators who thought it would be a good idea to capitalize on a virus that is no more fatal than the flu to 'reset the world' to their liking.

Good job guys; you bet the whole farm, and you lost.

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Attention

US meat shortage warning from world's biggest pork processor, shuts down 1 plant indefinitely

Tom Polansek
Reuters
Sun, 12 Apr 2020 18:20 UTC
Smithfield
© REUTERS/Tom Polansek/File PhotoFILE PHOTO: A truck arrives at Smithfield Foods' pork plant in Smithfield, Virginia, U.S. October 17, 2019. Picture taken October 17, 2019.
Smithfield Foods, the world's biggest pork processor, said on Sunday it will shut a U.S. plant indefinitely due to a rash of coronavirus cases among employees and warned the country was moving "perilously close to the edge" in supplies for grocers.


Comment: They've shut a plant down indefinitely because employees had the coronavirus? Are they not expecting to need for the plant at a later point?


Slaughterhouse shutdowns are disrupting the U.S. food supply chain, crimping availability of meat at retail stores and leaving farmers without outlets for their livestock.

Smithfield extended the closure of its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant after initially saying it would idle temporarily for cleaning. The facility is one of the nation's largest pork processing facilities, representing 4% to 5% of U.S. pork production, according to the company.

Comment: There have been numerous stories of late hinting that food shortages could be just around the corner, and not just in the US: Get busy canning/curing meat, if you can.

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Dominoes

#MeToo was good while it lasted: From outing abusers to political bickering, the movement has run its course

Micah Curtis
RT
Sun, 12 Apr 2020 19:28 UTC
me too
© Reuters / Issei Kato
With Harvey Weinstein being convicted of sexual assault and a rift in the #MeToo movement beginning, its future is in question. Has #MeToo run its course with partisan politics bringing it down?

For over two years, the Me Too Movement has been a topic of discussion in one way or another. Ever since the accusations towards Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein came to light, it was in the public discourse any time an accusation of sexual misconduct came up.

There was widespread speculation of how the entertainment industry would need to change going forward, and it seemed there were new accusations about public figures coming out every single week. It wasn't purely women who had allegedly been victims either, with Terry Crews and James Van Der Beek openly talking about past experiences with sexual misconduct against them.
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NPC

Here come the Twitter police: British officers publicly shame 'Covidiots' and ENCOURAGE pile-ons, but is it a fair cop?

Neil Clark
RT
Fri, 10 Apr 2020 19:22 UTC
london cop
© REUTERS/Hannah McKay
British police are using social media to shame members of the public who 'break the rules' amid the coronavirus lockdown, but is encouraging pile-ons really what law enforcers should be doing?

It seemed like a good idea at the time: taking a drive with three friends on a lovely sunny afternoon in order to walk the dog. But it ended in a written-off car, social shaming, and probably a big financial loss - partly thanks to the way the police reacted.

The four friends were in a Vauxhall Corsa driving along a country road in Berkshire, England, when a large insect flew in through the car window. The 'doodlebug' cockchafer beetle flapping around inside the vehicle caused the driver to panic like Lance-Corporal Jones from 'Dad's Army' and lose control.

The police came out, and they weren't very happy. Posting photos on Twitter, TVP Roads Policing said "They were driving TEN miles from home to walk their dog. Clearly an avoidable journey. Stay at home!"
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Stormtrooper

The speed at which the British media became McCarthyite authoritarians has been almost as fast as the spread of Covid-19

Norman Lewis
RT
Sat, 11 Apr 2020 19:00 UTC
london virus
© Reuters / John Sibley
While many pontificate about what Covid-19 might mean for the future - of work, travel etc - little attention has been paid to the future of British media, which has become the cheerleader and bullhorn of state authoritarianism.

Britain has long prided itself on being the bulwark of democracy, and at the core of this claim has been its free press. The right to speak truth to power, to challenge government and the establishment and hold them to account; the defence of democratic rights like free expression and speech, free association and assembly; these things have always been upheld as an example to the world to be cherished as indispensable to a free society and defended at all costs.

But since the start of the coronavirus crisis, the British media has turned 'Chinese'. This has nothing to do British journalists' or editors' fondness for Chinese cuisine. It is the remarkable speed at which they have embraced the authoritarian non-democratic practices they like to attribute to the Chinese Communist Party.
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Attention

Immigration lawyers sue to keep millions of foreign workers in US

Neil Munro
Breitbart
Mon, 06 Apr 2020 00:00 UTC
immigration, foreign worker visas
© AP/ Charles Krupa
Corporate immigration lawyers are asking a federal judge to take control of the immigration system from President Donald Trump and then suspend routine visa deadlines for at least two million foreign workers until after the coronavirus epidemic has passed.

The judge should "assume jurisdiction over this matter" and order the Department of Homeland Security to extend the visas for the foreign workers, says the April 3 lawsuit by the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The stakes are very high. Under federal rules, whenever U.S. and Indian companies fire visa workers — such as H-1Bs — in the coronavirus crash, the visa workers must go home. If enforced, this rule will free many blue-collar and white-collar jobs for Americans made unemployed by China's Wuhan virus.

Indian companies are lobbying federal agencies to keep their fired workers in the United States, and the Indian press is printing increasingly dramatic headlines. For example, a subheadline in MoneyControl.com declared that "Close to 20-30 percent of Indian H-1B and H4 visa holders in the U.S. may be forced to return home in the next 5-7 months."

Comment: With the economy in free fall, and more millions of US citizens unemployed, businesses importing foreign workers will have a tough time justifying the continuation of the H-1B visas.

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Red Pill

Best of the Web: Sweden enacted the world's sanest 'pandemic' response policy and it's paying off

John Fund
National Review
Sun, 12 Apr 2020 16:12 UTC

Comment: Sweden took the red pill. Whodathunkit?!


busy street stockholm coronavirus
© TT News Agency/Fredrik Sandberg via ReutersA street with less pedestrian traffic than usual as a result of the coronavirus outbreak in Stockholm, Sweden, April 1, 2020.
Unlike other countries, it has so far avoided both isolation and economic ruin.

If the COVID-19 pandemic tails off in a few weeks, months before the alarmists claim it will, they will probably pivot immediately and pat themselves on the back for the brilliant social-distancing controls that they imposed on the world. They will claim that their heroic recommendations averted total calamity. Unfortunately, they will be wrong; and Sweden, which has done almost no mandated social distancing, will probably prove them wrong.

Lots of people are rushing to discredit Sweden's approach, which relies more on calibrated precautions and isolating only the most vulnerable than on imposing a full lockdown. While gatherings of more than 50 people are prohibited and high schools and colleges are closed, Sweden has kept its borders open as well as its preschools, grade schools, bars, restaurants, parks, and shops.

President Trump has no use for Sweden's nuanced approach. Last Wednesday, he smeared it in a spectacular fashion by saying he'd heard that Sweden "gave it a shot, and they saw things that were really frightening, and they went immediately to shutting down the country." He and the public-health experts who told him this were wrong on both counts and would do better to question their approach. Johan Giesecke, Sweden's former chief epidemiologist and now adviser to the Swedish Health Agency, says that other nations "have taken political, unconsidered actions" that are not justified by the facts.
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Cross

Easter Sunday: Kentucky cops to record churchgoers' license plates for quarantining, Sen. Rand Paul furious

Adam Schrader
New York Post
Fri, 10 Apr 2020 09:53 UTC
Beshear
© KATVKentucky Governor Andy Beshear
Kentucky State Police will record the license plates of residents who attend church on Easter — and report them to local health departments for quarantine, Gov. Andy Beshear said Friday.

Beshear, dropping the bombshell announcement halfway through a press conference late Friday, said that those who
"make the decision to be exposed to the deadly coronavirus are not fair to those that you would spread it to. We're having to take a new action, and I hoped that we wouldn't, and it's that any individual that's going to participate in a mass gathering of any type that we know about this weekend we're going to record license plates and provide it to local health departments. Local health departments are going to come to your door with an order for you to be quarantined for 14 days."
The Democratic governor said the move comes as the Bluegrass State recorded 242 new cases, its largest increase of confirmed cases in a single day. Kentucky has had 11 new deaths bringing the total count to 90.

Comment: And that ain't all: Judge saves Easter!
A federal judge in Kentucky has slapped a restraining order on the mayor of Louisville and his ban on a drive-in Easter church service.

"The Mayor's decision is stunning," district court Judge Justin Walker — nominated just days ago to a seat on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals by President Trump — wrote in a ruling Saturday. "And it is, 'beyond all reason,' unconstitutional."

drivein church
© Andy Lyons/Getty Images
On Fire Christian Church had been holding outdoor Sunday services drive-in style — with all congregants confined to their cars, each vehicle parked six feet apart — to comply with state-ordered coronavirus social-distancing guidelines.

But Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, a Democrat, outlawed the services, including the one planned for Easter Sunday, spurring the church to sue.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, also a Democrat, upped the ante Friday with a bombshell announcement that police will track the license plates of those who attend services on Christianity's holiest day — and turn them over to local health departments for quarantine. Walker's order could open the door to First Amendment challenges to Beshear's threat.

The authorities "ought not to view the limits of this injunction as a green light to violate the religious liberty"of attendees," he warned.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cheered the decision Saturday. "Grateful for this strong, eloquent ruling defending Kentuckians' religious liberty," McConnell tweeted.

"Of course church parking lots cannot be singled out with unfair standards that differ from other establishments" — noting that the state has not banned such things as drive-thru restaurants.


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