#and caused the HIGHEST DEATH AND INFECTION CASES IN A FIRST WORLD COUNTRY

[i-can-sabotage-me-bi-myself]

Pennsylvania, I am super disappointed in you and disgusted by you. If this moldy peach wins that's it. I'm fucking leaving. My life is already a dumpster fire but I'd rather drown myself in a tub than live through another 4 years with that rapist as president

[reasonsforhope]

"Measles used to be an extremely common disease. Just sixty years ago, over 90% of children would have been infected by it, and of those who developed symptoms, around a quarter would be hospitalized.1

The United States alone had around three to four million cases annually, leading to tens of thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths each year.2

However, in 1963, John Enders developed the first effective measles vaccine. Vaccination efforts ramped up rapidly in richer countries, and in the 1970s and 1980s, they were scaled up worldwide.

In just the last fifty years, it’s estimated that measles vaccinations have prevented over ninety million deaths worldwide. Two to three million people would die from measles every year without them.3 This means these vaccines are likely the most life-saving ones currently in use, as you can see in the chart.4 ...

...Measles deaths continued to be common in poorer countries until vaccines became widely available. In the chart below, you can see that hundreds of thousands of people died from measles annually in Africa and South-East Asia between the 1980s and 2000s.

Measles vaccination saves millions of lives each year

The global rollout of measles vaccines has been one of history’s most successful public health efforts. Each year, they save millions of lives.

This is especially true in low-income countries where children face the highest risk of dying from measles because of poorer overall health, nutrition, and living standards.10 ...

In the 1980s, coverage was very low in many parts of the world, especially in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Eastern Mediterranean. In some countries, like Yemen, only 2% of children received vaccines; in Spain, only 8%.

But since then, vaccination rates have increased rapidly.

One reason is the scale-up of the Expanded Programme on Immunization by the World Health Assembly from the 1970s, which aimed to vaccinate children against the deadliest infectious diseases, including measles. Vaccination efforts reached more than 90 million children — or 60% of all infants — by the early 2000s.

But millions of children were still left behind, particularly in poorer countries. In response, the Gavi Vaccine Alliance was established in 2000 to close these gaps and ensure that life-saving vaccines reached the most vulnerable children.

Now, over a hundred million infants receive vaccinations for measles, which is over 80% of them.

These efforts have transformed global health, dramatically reducing child mortality.

This next chart shows estimates of the cumulative number of lives saved by measles vaccinations over time.13

Fifty years since the start of measles vaccination programs, we can see that their impact has been substantial: researchers estimate that 94 million lives have been saved from measles vaccines. That means, on average, nearly two million measles deaths prevented every year.13

The impact has been greatest in Africa, with 29 million lives saved, and Southeast Asia, with 20 million lives saved. These are regions where measles was a leading cause of death in children until recently.

This means measles vaccines rank as the most life-saving childhood vaccines currently in use.4"

-via Out World In Data, May 18, 2025

[biomedres]

Tuberculosis: A Brief Review

Tuberculosis: A Brief Review in Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research

Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infectious disease, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, considered the most deadly infectious disease in adults, being among the top 10 causes of death in the world [1]. In 2019, it is estimated 10 million people were infected and 1.2 million died from the disease worldwide [2]. However, in the first half of 2020, there was a 25-30% decrease in the number of reported TB cases, when compared to the same period in 2019. This was one of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to a decrease in detection cases, the concentration of financial resources and data collection, with delay in the goals and measures to be taken [3]. TB is related to poverty, poor sanitary conditions and poor structure and effectiveness of health control programs and services in underdeveloped countries, reflecting their inequality [4,5]. In America, Brazil is one of the most affected countries by TB, being among the 30 countries with the highest burden of disease and HIVTB co-infection [6]. In 2018, 72,788 new cases and 4,490 deaths were recorded in Brazil, with an incidence coefficient of 34.8 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and a mortality coefficient of 2.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants [5,7]. In 2019, the number of new cases reached 96,000, which 11.4% were related to HIV-TB co-infection. 6,700 deaths were recorded, with a mortality rate of 3.17 per 100,000 inhabitants [2]. M. tuberculosis affects mainly young male adults. The main form of transmission occurs through the airways, in contact with aerosols produced by the speech, sneeze or cough of contaminated people [5].

For more articles in Journals on Biomedical Sciences Click here bjstr

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[omkarpatel]

Shigella Vaccines: Protecting Against a Common Cause of Diarrheal Disease

Shigella bacteria are a leading cause of diarrhea worldwide, especially in developing countries where poor sanitation and lack of access to clean water are issues. These bacteria spread easily in conditions of overcrowding and poor hygiene. While Shigella infections are generally self-limiting in healthy adults, they can be severe or even life-threatening in young children, the elderly, and those with weak immune systems. With the potential impact Shigella has on public health, researchers have been working to develop effective vaccines against this pathogen. In this article, we discuss the current state of Shigella vaccine research and development. The Burden of Shigellosis Shigellosis, the disease caused by Shigella bacteria, leads to around 164 million cases and 600,000 deaths globally each year according to estimates from the World Health Organization. The highest burden is in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa where there are an estimated 120 million cases annually. Young children are especially susceptible, with most deaths occurring in those under 5 years old. In developed nations, outbreaks often occur in settings like childcare facilities or schools and camps where person-to-person transmission can spread rapidly. With symptoms like diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps, Shigellosis can be uncomfortable but is usually self-limiting. However, in some cases it leads to severe dehydration, especially in young children, which may require intravenous rehydration therapy. The emergence of antibiotic-resistant Shigella strains is also a growing public health concern. Candidate Vaccines in Development Given the disease burden and limitations of treatment, researchers have been working to develop effective vaccines against Shigella for several decades. Some of the leading vaccine candidates currently in development include: - Conjugate Vaccines: Similar to existing vaccines for diseases like pneumococcal pneumonia and meningitis, conjugate vaccines against Shigella combine the bacteria's O-antigen polysaccharides with a carrier protein to help stimulate stronger immune responses. Phase 3 clinical trials of a tetravalent (protects against four serotypes) Shigella conjugate vaccine showed it was well-tolerated and provided significant protection in young children in Bangladesh. - Live Attenuated Vaccines: By weakening or attenuating live Shigella bacteria, researchers have created vaccine candidates that mimic natural infection to produce balanced immunity. Both oral and intranasal live attenuated vaccines against Shigella sonnei have been tested in clinical trials with promising results on safety and immunogenicity. Further studies are still needed. Regulatory Approval and Global Access The first Shigella vaccine, Shigevac, was approved in Russia in 2000 based on a trivalent live attenuated candidate. Beyond this, no Shigella vaccines have gained broader regulatory approval yet. The most advanced candidates, the conjugate vaccines, still need to demonstrate longer term efficacy and effectiveness in Phase 3-4 studies conducted in disease-endemic areas. Integrated Control Strategies While vaccination holds promise, other interventions will still be important given factors like cost and the need for multiple doses to achieve strong protection. Promoting handwashing, access to clean water and sanitation, food safety, and better case management can all help control Shigella transmission. Vaccination may prove to be a complementary strategy particularly for high-risk groups like young children. Mathematical modeling studies suggest conjugate vaccination could have an important public health benefit, especially when combined with water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) improvements.

Conclusion and Future Outlook After decades of research, the first generation of Shigella vaccines are nearing regulatory approval and introduction. Conjugate vaccines in particular show promise based on clinical trial data. Global health experts anticipate these new tools could be an important addition to improving child health in developing countries. Still, wider use will require demonstration of long-term efficacy, value for money analyses, and strategies for integrating vaccination optimally with other control measures.

[priyanshisingh]

Americas And Europe Chagas Disease Drugs Market Share and Demand Analysis with Size, Growth Drivers and Forecast to 2030

The latest market report published by Credence Research, Inc. “Global Americas And Europe Chagas Disease Drugs Market: Growth, Future Prospects, and Competitive Analysis, 2016 – 2028. The Americas and Europe Chagas disease drugs market has witnessed steady growth in recent years and is expected to continue growing at a CAGR of 6.80% between 2023 and 2030. The market was valued at USD 315.9 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 500.666 billion in 2030.

Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is an inflammatory disease caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. It is characterized by inflammation of tissues, primarily affecting the heart and intestinal tract. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 8 million people worldwide are infected with Chagas disease, with a prevalence predominantly in Latin America. Recognizing the severity of this neglected tropical disease, researchers and healthcare professionals have been tirelessly working towards finding effective treatments.

Americas and Europe Chagas Disease Drugs Market Drivers refer to the factors that are propelling the growth of the market for drugs targeting Chagas disease in these regions. Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, is a neglected tropical disease predominantly found in Latin America but with increasing cases reported in Europe as well. One of the key drivers fueling this market is the rising prevalence of Chagas disease across both continents. The continuous influx of immigrants from endemic areas has contributed to its spread within Europe, while several countries in Latin America struggle with limited access to healthcare facilities and poor sanitation conditions.

Understanding Chagas Disease and Its Global Impact

Chagas disease poses a significant public health challenge in Latin America, causing more than 10,000 deaths each year. The highest prevalence of affected populations is observed in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia, and Colombia. The WHO and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have classified Chagas disease as a neglected tropical disease, necessitating focused efforts and attention to combat its spread and impact.

Benznidazole and Nifurtimox - The Promising Treatments

While no vaccine is currently available for Chagas disease, effective treatments do exist. Among the parasitic drugs used in its treatment, Benznidazole and Nifurtimox have demonstrated considerable efficacy. Administered at an early stage, these drugs have the potential to completely cure the disease. Both Benznidazole and Nifurtimox are listed in the World Health Organization's (WHO) essential medicines for children, emphasizing their significance in the battle against this ailment.

Recent years have seen Benznidazole emerge as a major revenue generator in the Chagas disease drugs market. This drug is considered the first-line treatment option due to its proven safety and efficacy. In the United States, Benznidazole holds the distinction of being the first approved drug for the treatment of Chagas disease. The FDA granted accelerated approval and orphan drug designation to Benznidazole in August 2021, further affirming its critical role in combating this disease.

Browse 250 pages report Americas And Europe Chagas Disease Drugs Market By Drug Type (Benznidazole, Nifurtimox, Other) By Treatment type (Antiparasitic Treatment, Symptomatic Treatment) -Growth, Future Prospects & Competitive Analysis, 2016 – 2030)- https://www.credenceresearch.com/report/americas-and-europe-chagas-disease-drugs-market

The Americas and Europe Chagas Disease Drugs Market

The Chagas disease drugs market in the Americas and Europe is segmented into North America (United States and Canada), Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Rest of Latin America), and Europe (Spain, France, United Kingdom, and Rest of Europe). Due to increasing healthcare awareness and a growing number of migrants from endemic regions, the United States is projected to exhibit the fastest market growth during the forecast period. The CDC estimates that approximately 300,000 individuals are infected with Chagas disease in the United States, emphasizing the need for effective treatments.

Embracing a Brighter Future

Chagas disease continues to present a pressing global health challenge, particularly in Latin America. However, with the availability of potent drugs like Benznidazole and Nifurtimox, there is newfound hope for affected individuals. Ongoing efforts from researchers, healthcare professionals, and regulatory bodies are essential to overcome obstacles and ensure the accessibility and efficacy of these life-saving medications.

Why to Buy This Report-

The report provides a qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of the global Americas And Europe Chagas Disease Drugs Market by segments, current trends, drivers, restraints, opportunities, challenges, and market dynamics with the historical period from 2016-2020, the base year- 2021, and the projection period 2022-2028.

The report includes information on the competitive landscape, such as how the market's top competitors operate at the global, regional, and country levels.

Major nations in each region with their import/export statistics

The global Americas And Europe Chagas Disease Drugs Market report also includes the analysis of the market at a global, regional, and country-level along with key market trends, major players analysis, market growth strategies, and key application areas.

Browse Full Report: https://www.credenceresearch.com/report/americas-and-europe-chagas-disease-drugs-market

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Related Report: https://www.credenceresearch.com/report/membrane-separation-technologies-market

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About Us -

Credence Research is a viable intelligence and market research platform that provides quantitative B2B research to more than 10,000 clients worldwide and is built on the Give principle. The company is a market research and consulting firm serving governments, non-legislative associations, non-profit organizations, and various organizations worldwide. We help our clients improve their execution in a lasting way and understand their most imperative objectives. For nearly a century, we’ve built a company well-prepared for this task.

Contact Us:

Office No 3 Second Floor, Abhilasha Bhawan, Pinto Park, Gwalior [M.P] 474005 India

[heymrsamerica]

Monkeypox, an illness caused by the Monkeypox virus (MPXV) is spreading around the world. Typically restricted to sub-Saharan Africa, 99% of current cases are occurring in countries that normally do not report MPXV.

MPXV is in the poxvirus family, along with smallpox, cowpox, Vaccinia virus, & others. MPXV is transmitted through close & direct contact with infected animals (non-human mammals), person-to-person via skin contact (and close respiratory droplet), or through contaminated objects.

There are now over 31,000 cases of Monkeypox reported globally, with over 9,400 cases reported in the US. Historically, case demographics of MPXV are 60% men, 40% women. The current outbreak has 99% of cases outside of sub-Saharan African occurring amongst men, particularly men who have sex with men. This does not mean it is a sexually transmitted infection as it can spread by ANY direct contact with infected individuals, but that includes intimate contact.

Monkeypox has a long incubation period, ranging from 5 days to 17 days. Early symptoms are flu-like in nature – once symptoms appear, an individual is contagious. After early symptoms, the characteristic pox rash (blister-like lesions) will appear and progress in 4 phases. Illness typically lasts from 2-4 weeks. During the entire time a person has symptoms they are considered contagious.

There are 2 vaccines available: JYNNEOS & ACAM2000. JYNNEOS is now available for individuals in the US at high risk of MPXV, including those younger than 18. While typically administered subcutaneously, FDA authorized intradermal injection, expanding the current vaccine supply 5-fold. ACAM2000 contains a related virus: Vaccinia virus. It is administered using pin pricks via a bifurcated needle: if you’ve ever seen a smallpox vaccination, this is the same method. It is not available for individuals with immunocompromising conditions.

We can all take measures to prevent infection with MPXV: limit direct contact with potentially infected individuals, good hand hygiene, and practice safe sex. If you are high-risk, contact your local health department for vaccine information. Soon, supply should be expanded for more widespread vaccination.

Sources:

https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0010141

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.27931

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22371-monkeypox

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6710a5.htm#F1_down

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.13.22276353v1

https://www.science.org/content/article/why-the-monkeypox-outbreak-is-mostly-affecting-men-who-have-sex-with-men

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/african-monkeypox-cases-not-concentrated-among-gay-men-experts-say-2022-08-04/

https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/a-z/monkeypox-rash

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/clinicians/clinical-recognition.html

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/prevention/protect-yourself.html

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/transmission.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/04/cdc-estimates-1point7-million-gay-and-bisexual-men-face-highest-risk-from-monkeypox-.html

https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/monkeypox

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/clinicians/smallpox-vaccine.html

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/considerations-for-monkeypox-vaccination.html

https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/acam2000-smallpox-vaccine-questions-and-answers

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/28/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administrations-monkeypox-outbreak-response/

https://www.fda.gov/media/75800/download

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/interim-considerations/overview.html

https://aspr.hhs.gov/SNS/Pages/JYNNEOS-Distribution.aspx

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/response/2022/world-map.html

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/08/non-endemic-countries-record-first-monkeypox-deaths

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7132e3.htm

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2207323

https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/key-facts-about-monkeypox-vaccine

Via Unbiased Science Podcast on Facebook

[nico-drives-badly]

History 101: Devil Hunter's Edition

Yet another unnecessarily long worldbuilding post copied and pasted directly from my notes app. Enjoy!

Early History

Devil Hunters have existed for as long as human civilization itself, with the earliest examples of “demon warrior” soldiers dating back to the ancient city-states of Mesopotamia. Because of the sheer abundance of open Hell Gates in the millennia prior to Sparda's awakening, humans relied heavily on the protection of demon warriors — an early, militaresque form of devil hunter — to defend their homes and crops. As a result, these early fighters were highly revered in early societies and were ranked among the highest classes in political caste systems, second only to feudal lords and the royal courts. During this era, military soldiers were often recruited to fight demons just as often as they were to fight other humans, which is why the terms for “soldier/warrior” and “demon/enemy” were often interchangeable in ancient languages.

The Roman Empire had the most advanced and organized demon warrior system in the world, with Roman gladiators being regularly dispatched throughout the Mediterranean to defend the lands they had conquered. Although the military might of their demon warriors struck fear into the hearts of millions, it was what ultimately led to their downfall; after Sparda's awakening 2000 years ago, the need for devil hunters decreased drastically as the number of open Hell Gates around the world began to dwindle, causing the caste system in the Roman Empire to buckle. Some historians even argue that it was Sparda himself who jump-started the fall of the Roman Empire, with some comparing the fables surrounding Mundus to the evil emperor Nero.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, devil hunters continued to thrive, albeit at a much smaller scale. Some feudal lords began to hire individual devil hunters to protect their property, and devil hunters in turn began to advertise their services in exchange for money; this form of devil hunting became known as the competitive model. Other land owners began to defend themselves in the event of a demon attack, and they began to defend other people's property in exchange for mutual protection, rather than for profit; this form of devil hunting became known as the centralized model. Over the next two millennia, countries would widely adopt one or both of these models on a national scale, which would eventually evolve into the modern iterations we have today.

In countries with a modern competitive model, thousands of devil hunting businesses across the nation compete with one another for profit. Monopolization, backroom deals, and political lobbying are all major issues under this model. In countries with a modern centralized model, devil hunters are grouped into different “departments” that collectively serve each district, similar to a police or fire department, and are subsidized by taxpayers. Disorganization, poor leadership, and abuse of power are all major issues under this model. Both models are infamous for their corruption and their historically unequal protection of marginalized populations.

Devil Hunting in Nascita

Nascita was the first country in the world to adopt a fluid model for devil hunting — a modern approach that allows each city or district to choose which model to adopt, creating a “fluid” mosaic of both models throughout the country. Although the major issues surrounding both systems still exist under the fluid model, it allows cities to change and adapt their devil hunting model to fit their individual needs, and several countries have since adopted Nascita's fluid model as a result.

During national emergency events, such as the sudden emergence of Hell Breaches following the Qliphoth incident in Life Rewritten, the Prime Minister will coordinate devil hunting efforts in each district via civil defense radio. Although this method is effective for short-term emergencies, Hell Breaches will likely become a long-term issue in Nascita due to the Qliphoth having severely weakened the human-hell barrier in the country; this means that, although Prime Minister Hartman's emergency communication efforts are working well for now, he will eventually have to create a more permanent method for reporting Hell Breaches in the near future.

Districts in Nascita include:

Red Grave City District (Southern Nascita)

Capulet District (Southwest Nascita)

Tumult City District (Southeast Nascita)

Sapere City District (Central Nascita)

Montague District (Northern Nascita)

Impetus City District (Northwest Nascita)

Rural District (Northeast Nascita)

Island Districts (Fortuna + Mallet Island)

Devil May Cry

Devil May Cry is a special case in that, because of Dante's alleged relation to Sparda, people from all across the country will personally request his services by name. In contrast to other for-profit devil hunting businesses, which typically only work within their district, Devil May Cry has completed at least one mission in every district of Nascita; in fact, word of DMC has spread so far that it remains the only devil hunting business in Nascitian history to complete a mission outside of the country (Dumary Island in South America).

Despite this, however, Dante has recently decided to only take missions in the Red Grave City District, leaving the rest for Nero and the mobile branch.

Humans and Orbs

Because of their close interactions (and even closer near-death experiences) with demons throughout history, humans have naturally adapted to not only optimize their civil defense against demons, but to utilize any and all resources they can obtain from demon carcasses. Demon orbs are a prime example of this. Thousands of years before the dawn of modern medicine, humans were using demon orbs as herbal remedies for a variety of health conditions, and even modern studies have shown that certain chemicals found in demon orbs are analogous to the active ingredients in various over-the-counter drugs.

Here is a breakdown of each orb and their use to humans:

Red Orbs

As you can see, most orbs have medicinal properties in humans, which in turn makes them highly valuable. Red orbs, on the other hand, have no health benefit whatsoever — in fact, for centuries, they were considered completely worthless! The event of a demon exploding into red orbs upon its death was once nothing more than an annoying inconvenience, like a miner digging for gold only to find nothing but useless rock. But it was in this worthlessness that red orbs eventually found a new purpose among the devil hunting community, particularly weaponsmiths.

You see, weaponsmiths often reserved their best weapons for only the most experienced and worthy of customers; after all, you don't want some young punk breaking the finest sword you've ever forged! But it wasn't always easy to tell the newbie devil hunters from the experienced ones, especially when dealing with travelers from outside of the village. Because of this, weaponsmiths began to require proof of a devil hunter's skill before selling their wares to them, and because demon bodies instantly dissolved into red orbs at the moment of death, the most readily available evidence of a devil hunter's skill was — you guessed it — how many red orbs they had in their possession. The more red orbs a devil hunter had, the more experienced they were, and the more likely they would receive good-quality weapons from the weaponsmiths.

Eventually, this practice evolved into the red orb currency we know of today, where basic mortal weapons cost the least amount of red orbs while advanced magical weapons cost the most. Red orbs still have no real value in the “real world”, but for devil hunters, it has effectively become their tool for bartering.

Green Orbs

Green orbs are used as a natural alternative to pain relievers. It's active ingredients are acetaminophen and menthol. Green orbs can be applied directly to the skin to help reduce inflammation, similarly to an ice pack (menthol), or it can be crushed and consumed orally to relieve muscle soreness and reduce fever, similar to Tylenol (acetaminophen).

Green orbs should NOT be used on an open wound. A common misconception in the DMCverse is that it can be used as a substitute for Neosporin, but that simply isn't the case. Rubbing a Green Orb on an open wound will only irritate the skin and increase the risk of infection.

White Orbs

White orbs can be used as a natural stimulant, akin to green tea extract. “White orb extract” and “white orb powder” are particularly popular finds in the nutrition aisle of grocery stores, as well as a popular ingredient in convenience store energy shots. Recent studies have even shown that white orbs, when used in small dosages, are less likely to damage your heart compared to regular caffeine, making it a healthier alternative to traditional energy products.

But don't get too excited; more research still needs to be done before white orbs can safely replace caffeine in all of our favorite energy drinks. There's still a lot of concern among scientists about potential drug interactions with prescription stimulants and with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame.

Blue Orbs

Blue orbs are different in that they provide no immediate health benefit upon consumption. This, for the longest time, led for blue orbs to be disregarded as useless outside of the devil hunting community, just like with red orbs. However, in recent decades, scientists have found that blue orbs contain essential vitamins and minerals that can be taken as part of a daily regimen to promote long-term health. It's not uncommon, therefore, to see multivitamins and children's gummies touting “made with all-natural blue orbs” on their labels.

Despite having a plethora of essential vitamins and minerals, however, there is no concrete evidence that taking blue orbs as a supplement every day actually increases longevity. But given how many health benefits *do* come from proper vitamin intake, you can understand why this orb is so popular among pharmaceuticals.

Purple Orbs

While similar in color to blue orbs, purple orbs have an entirely different chemical makeup; rather than vitamins and minerals, purple orbs are packed with hormones, particularly testosterone and estrogen. While testosterone and estrogen are considered the “male hormone” and “female hormone” in humans, both hormones are readily found in demons regardless of gender, and when isolated in a lab, these natural hormones can be manufactured into drugs used for everything from hormone replacement therapy to safer alternatives to anabolic steroids.

Talk to your doctor before taking PURPLE ORBS. Do not drive or operate machinery until you know how PURPLE ORBS affects you. And please, don't be like that guy on TikTok who just straight-up swallowed a purple orb and had to get his stomach pumped afterward. Yes, that is a thing that actually happened in the DMCverse. Capcom told me everything about it.

Yellow/Gold Orbs

Yellow orbs — or gold orbs, depending on what region you are from — contain ammonium carbonate, an ingredient commonly found in smelling salts. When a yellow orb is cracked open, this chemical is released, forcing an unconscious person awake. Yellow orbs were commonly used throughout the Victorian era to treat fainting spells in women, and are popular among athletes in modern times for their ability to increase alertness.

While yellow orbs can be the difference between life or death for a hybrid demon, the effects of yellow orbs on humans are much less profound. While it can help increase alertness and prevent fainting, it does not truly “revive” a human being, and it is completely ineffective at treating serious injuries such as concussions.

The Origin of Style Rankings

The history of style rankings is a rocky one, for sure. No one knows exactly when the sacred tradition of taunting your enemies and showing off your skills through cinematic flair became prevalent, nor when the grading system for judging a devil hunter's style was established; no one even knows who coined the term “style rank”, exactly. All we do know is that the concept of style has been an integral part of devil hunting for at least the past 200 years, with the earliest mentions of the word “style” dating back to the late 18th century.

Historians believe that style ranking began as a friendly competition between fellow devil hunters, who would show off their best skills on the battlefield and then determine whose skills were the greatest. These competitions were particularly popular among veteran devil hunters, leading some historians to argue that this seemingly fun activity was actually used as a coping mechanism for PTSD, similarly to how the characters in M*A*S*H used humor to distract themselves from the horrors of war.

Over time, the popularity of these informal contests began to steadily increase, and various rules and scoring mechanics were developed by style advocates. Although no historian can agree on who invented the grading system for style rank, they all know who helped popularize it: Isabella Montoya Velasquez, better known as The Nightmare of El Diablo. Isabella's fiery presence on the field, coupled with her historical achievement as the first woman of color to become a devil hunting chief in Nascita, made her a popular favorite in style challenges, and people from all over the country would come to Tumult City just to compete against her.

In an effort to make things fair, Isabella incorporated the then-niche grading system to judge each devil hunter's style level, with D being the lowest rank and A being the highest. For undisclosed reasons, Isabella also added an additional rank to the scale — the S rank. In the event that someone outperformed another competitor who achieved S rank, Isabella would tack on another S and give them an SS rank. And if someone managed to outperform Isabella herself (something which was nearly impossible to do in her prime, might I add), Isabella would add yet another S and give them the highly-coveted SSS rank.

When asked one day how she came up with the letter “S” for the highest rankings, Isabella responded that it was originally supposed to stand for “Sparda”, but once she started adding additional S's to the rank, this meaning was no longer relevant, so it “could mean anything, at this point. [cackling laughter]” This is why the words associated with each letter rank change from game to game; they don't really stand for anything, so devil hunters in turn can make them stand for whatever they want.

[underthewingsofthblackeagle]

             Germany counted a staggering 50,196 new COVID-19 infections on Thursday, its highest count since the pandemic began. It is the first time the country has been battling a major wave despite a majority of its population being doubly vaccinated. About 67% of people in Germany are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. But experts have warned from the beginning of the rollout that the number is not high enough to keep the virus under control. According to the Robert Koch Institute, the incidence of hospitalizations for unvaccinated COVID-19 patients between 18 and 59 is currently about four times higher than for vaccinated ones. For patients over 60, it’s about six times higher. While the jabs significantly lower the risk of serious illness and death, they don’t fully protect against infection. With soaring case numbers, the risk of getting COVID-19 also rises for vaccinated people. The vaccinated who could face a higher risk, she says, are the older ones with weaker immune systems, especially if some time has passed since their second shot. The country is now administering booster shots to people who were fully immunized more than six months ago. Compared to early 2021, Germany has lax distancing measures in place during this fourth wave. About a year ago, the government introduced rules that would eventually develop into a hard lockdown: All nonessential businesses were closed and a nighttime curfew was imposed temporarily. There were varying restrictions about how many households could meet. In combination with the vaccine rollout, these measures caused Germany’s incidence to drop in the spring. Nowadays, people in Germany face less rigid rules: They have to wear medical, so-called FFP-2 masks on public transport and in stores, and most venues will only let them in if they are vaccinated, have recovered from COVID-19 or were tested. This year delta, a more contagious mutation of the coronavirus, has become the predominant variant in Germany and much of the world. It is more than twice as contagious as previous variants, according to the CDC. It might also cause unvaccinated people to experience worse symptoms.

             Though still in the midst of complex coalition negotiations, the three parties that will probably make up Germany's next government have begun framing new rules to curb the coronavirus pandemic. They have been forced into action as Germany saw its highest 7-day incidence rate since the pandemic began. The chief German medical authority, the Robert Koch Institute, also recorded over 15,000 new cases on Sunday alone, a 60% rise on last Sunday. More than 250 million worldwide have been infected with the coronavirus, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. The milestone comes as countries in eastern Europe are seeing record outbreaks, while many countries ease trade and travel restrictions. So far, more than 5 million people have died due to COVID-19. Europe is the most affected region in the world, registering more than 76 million COVID-19 infections. This is followed by Asia, with over 56 million cases, followed by the US and Canada with more than 48 million cases, and lastly, Latin America and the Caribbean with more than 46 million cases. Over the past seven days, nearly 449,000 new daily infections have been registered on average. Germany, for the second day in a row, reported record coronavirus incidence rates on Tuesday. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported the incidence rate — the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants over the previous seven days — at 213.7. This is higher than Monday's figure of 201.1, which was the first time the rate passed 200 since the pandemic began. Germany reported 21,832 new cases and 169 new deaths, according to data from RKI.

             COVID-19 booster shots have been introduced in many countries. Scientists say the third dose is necessary to top up immune protection in vulnerable groups. But as people in wealthy countries begin lining up for COVID vaccine booster shots, the rest of the world is still waiting for the first dose. The WHO says rich countries with large supplies of coronavirus vaccines should refrain from offering booster shots through the end of the year and make the doses available for poorer countries.

             Spain has one of the highest COVID vaccination rates in the world. Nearly 80 percent of people there are fully vaccinated. And they've done this without mandates, health passes or government orders. Here's how Spain got to the top of the vaccination ladder and what others might learn from it.

             Austria is threatening to impose the toughest restrictions in Europe on those unvaccinated against COVID-19. It says they could be put into lockdown if the nation's intensive care units come under too much strain. Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg warned of a 'pandemic of the unprotected' as infection numbers in Austria rise. Around 62 percent of eligible people have been fully vaccinated - but the campaign has stalled. After a crisis meeting, the chancellor said he hopes the plan will send a message to those still refusing to take the jab. Countries across eastern Europe are already dealing with overcrowded hospitals because of vaccine skepticism. New infections and deaths in Ukraine are the highest they've been since the beginning of the pandemic. The government has introduced new restrictions on public life in response. People suffering from Covid's Delta variant have practically filled a hospital west of Kyiv. Doctors expect even more cases, and they know why.   Only 15 percent of Ukrainians are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus - one of Europe's lowest rates. After experiencing the disease, some people say they should have acted differently.   As new cases and deaths from the disease reach new heights in Ukraine, more people are getting their coronavirus shots. But not all have come voluntarily. Ukraine now requires many state employees including teachers to be vacccinated against the virus. And to ride public transport, people now have to be either be vaccinated or tested before traveling. But again, resentment against the measures is widespread. To get around the restrictions, many Ukrainians have been buying fake vaccination documents. Yet another problem for a country already struggling with the pandemic.

[robertreich]

Dying to Work

Most of Europe and all fifty states of the US are in various stages of “reopening.” But why, exactly?

The pandemic is still with us. After the first tentative steps to ease the lockdown in Germany -- the most successful large European country to halt the spread of the virus thanks to massive testing -- the disease has shown signs of spreading faster.

At least Germany is opening slowly and waiting until almost no new cases are occurring there, as is the rest of the EU.  

By contrast, the United States – with the highest death rate and most haphazard response to Covid-19 of any advanced nation – is opening chaotically, each state on its own. Some states are lifting restrictions overnight, although relatively few tests for the virus have been conducted. 

Researchers expect the reopenings to cause thousands of additional deaths.

Two weeks after Texas Governor Greg Abbott began reopening the state’s economy, Texas experienced the single-highest rise in casessince the beginning of the pandemic. Since Nebraska reopened May 4, Covid-19 cases in Colfax County alone have surged 1,390 percent

Experts warn that Dallas, Houston, Southeast Florida’s Gold Coast, the entire state of Alabama and several other places in the South that have rapidly reopened their economies are in danger of a second wave of coronavirus infections over the next four weeks.

Last week, Ford Motor reopened its large North American assembly plants. The following day Ford closed and then reopened its Chicago Assembly plant twice in less than 24 hours after two workers tested positive for Covid-19. On Then Ford temporarily shut its Dearborn, Michigan Truck plant after an employee tested positive, then promptly resumed operations.

So why “reopen” so abruptly, when Covid-19 continues to claim lives?

The main reason given is to get the economy moving again. But this begs the question of why an economy exists in the first place, other than to promote the wellbeing of people within it.

Both Ford plants are vital to its profitability, and Ford’s profitability is important to jobs in the Midwest. But surely the wellbeing of Ford workers, their families, the people of Chicago and Dearborn and others in the Midwest are more important.  

A related argument is that workers are clamoring to return to their jobs. “People want to get back to work,” Trump has asserted repeatedly since March. Fox News host Sean Hannity claims people are “dying to get back to work,” seemingly unaware of the irony of his words.

Polls suggest otherwise. Americans whose jobs require them to leave home express trepidation about doing so; 60 percent fear exposing their families to COVID-19.

Many Americans must return to work because they need the money, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Rich economies can support their people for years if necessary. During World War II, America shut down most of its economy for nearly four years.

The obstacle right now is a lack of political will to provide such support, at least until enough testing and tracing provide reasonable evidence the pandemic is contained.

Although nearly half of all U.S. households report that they’ve lost employment income since mid-March, the extra jobless benefits enacted by Congress are only now starting to trickle out. Both Trump and Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell refuse to extend them beyond July 31, when they’re scheduled to end.

Meanwhile, states are denying benefits to anyone whose company has called them back.

Finally, Trump and his enablers argue that reopening is a matter of “freedom.” He has called on citizens to “liberate” their states from public-health restrictions, and Fox News personalities have decried what they call denials of “basic freedoms.”

Armed protesters have stormed the Michigan state capitol demanding the “freedom” to work. At the Kentucky statehouse, protesters shouted “We want to work!” and “We’re free citizens!”

But the supposed “freedom” to work is a cruel joke when people are forced to choose between putting food on the table or risking their lives. It’s the same perverse ideology that put workers in harm’s way in the dawn of the industrial age, when robber barons demanded that workers be “free” to work in dangerous factories twelve hours a day.

In truth, there is no good reason to reopen when the pandemic is still raging -- not getting the economy moving again, or workers clamoring to return to work, or the cost of extended income support, or because workers should be “free” to endanger themselves.

Let’s be clear. The pressure to reopen the economy is coming from businesses that want to return to profitability, and from Trump, who wants to run for reelection in an economy that appears to be recovering.

Neither is reason enough.  

[fatehbaz]

Uranium mining, environmental racism, and resource extraction on Native land during pandemic: The Navajo people were promised and also legally entitled to receive $600 million to help protect themselves against covid, but it took 6 whole weeks for the US government to issue the aid, which only happened after the Navajo sued the government. During those 6 weeks waiting for help, Navajo Nation became the site of the highest per capita infection rates outside of the NYC-Philadelphia urban corridor. In another major Native and relatively rural region held hostage by resource extraction companies, right in the midst of pandemic and quarantines, Lakota living in the Pine Ridge region (site of what might be the “poorest” counties in the US), are grappling not just with the beginning of the construction of the major Keystone XL pipeline, but also with renewed US federal government support of a Canadian mining company’s project meant to open a uranium mine in the Black Hills.

And right before local quarantines and lockdowns began across the US, Dine land and the Navajo were in headlines because of a recent increase in attention given to the lasting legacy of poisoning and environmental racism from the infamous uranium mining on Dine land and the Colorado Plateau in the mid-20th century. (Much of the uranium mining was taking place at the same time that Dine matriarchs led the fights against coal mines at Black Mesa and other sites.) Here’s a statement from The Guardian, from 8 May 2020: ‘The Native American tribe [Navajo] now has the highest per-capita Covid-19 infection rate after only New York and New Jersey, and the spread is not slowing. “We are doing our very best to flatten the curve with the very limited resources we have on the Navajo nation,” president Jonathan Nez told the Guardian. “The first citizens of this country were once again pushed aside by the most powerful government in the world … but now that we’re in the headlines, US citizens are finally realising the deplorable conditions our people live in. We’re fed up. This has got to end.”:

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A statement from AP/CBS, from 8 October 2019: ‘Dr. Loretta Christensen - the chief medical officer on the Navajo Nation for Indian Health Service, a partner in the research - said 781 women were screened during an initial phase of the study that ended last year.Among them, 26% had concentrations of uranium that exceeded levels found in the highest 5% of the U.S. population, and newborns with equally high concentrations continued to be exposed to uranium during their first year, she said. [...] From the end of World War II to the mid-1980s, millions of tons of uranium ore were extracted from the Navajo Nation, leaving gray streaks across the desert landscape as well as a legacy of disease and death.’

Some recent headlines about uranium and the Navajo.

Then, this happened.

This graphic was published 14 April 2020.

That corner of northwestern New Mexico:

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Lakota resistance against uranium and Keystone XL, early 2019. [From: Delilah Friedler, Grist, 10 May 2020.]

 ‘[A]10,600-acre uranium mine proposed to be built in the Black Hills. The Dewey-Burdock mine would suck up as much as 8,500 gallons of groundwater per minute from the Inyan Kara aquifer to extract as much as 10 million pounds of ore in total. [...] For years, it seemed like the Lakota could drag out the case long  enough to make Powertech’s prospects no longer worth the fight. The price of domestic uranium was on a steady decline: The federal government already had vast stockpiles, and nuclear energy producers could import it more cheaply from places like Australia and Canada. By the end of 2018, all but five U.S. uranium mines had been shut down or suspended. Yet today, Powertech is just one of several companies applying to open new mines [...]. In July 2019, after lobbying from uranium producers, [...]  Tr*mp convened a Nuclear Fuel Working Group to devise policies that could throw a lifeline to the struggling industry. Released in April, the group’s report won applause from Powertech’s parent company by recommending renewed federal investment in uranium. Though many experts say the U.S. already has more of the mineral than it can use, Trump’s proposed 2021 budget would allocate $150 million to stock a new reserve with domestically mined uranium. The share prices of U.S. mining companies jumped after the report’s release, while factors related to COVID-19 caused the global price of uranium to surge throughout March and April.’

Here’s just a taste of the effects of uranium in the Four Corners region. [From: Harvey Wasserman. Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America's Experience with Atomic Radiation.]

‘Church Rock, New Mexico, would seem an improbable spot for a nuclear disaster.  A dusty cluster of industrial machinery set in the arid mesas of the great Southwest, its most distinguishing feature might be considered a large pond of murky liquid, unusual in such dry terrain. Church Rock also hosts a series of underground uranium mine shafts [...]. A Wall of Radioactive Water: In the early morning hours of July 16, 1979–fourteen weeks after the accident at Three Mile Island–all of that changed.  The dam at Church Rock burst sending eleven hundred tons of radioactive mill wastes and ninety million gallons of contaminated liquid pouring toward Arizona. [...] No one was killed in the actual flood.  But along the way it left residues of radioactive uranium, thorium, radium, and polonium, as well as traces of metals such as cadmium, aluminum, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, sodium, vanadium, zinc, iron, lead and high concentrations of sulfates. [...]

Except for the bomb tests, Church Rock was probably the biggest single release of radioactive poisons on American soil.  Ironically it occurred thirty-four years to the day after the first atomic test explosion at Trinity, New Mexico, not far away. The source of the catastrophe was uranium mill wastes.’

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Voyles calls the socioecological project of converting lively and productive Indigenous lands into undesirable and dead places “wastelanding.” [From: Nathaniel Otjen. “Indigenous radical resurgence and multispecies landscapes: Leslie Marmon Silko’s The Turqoise Ledge.”]

There’s a reason why book titles like this exist:

[thatload900]

2020 Flu Deaths

2020 Flu Deaths Worldwide

Videos For 2020 Flu Deaths

First Death Of 2019-2020 Flu Season Confirmed In LA County

2020 Flu Deaths Worldwide

2020 Flu Deaths In Washington State

VACCINE DEATH WAVE: UK government posts bid for AI. VACCINES KILL: Study finds positive correlation between COVID-19 deaths, flu vaccination rates in. Mar 30, 2021 Pediatric Deaths - Pediatric deaths are the number of deaths of people under the age of 18. In 2019/20, there were 195 pediatric deaths. There has been one pediatric death during the 2020/21 season so far. Flu Season Resource Guide.

Despite rumours, Russia hasn’t had an outbreak of coronavirus-related diseases

Concerned public think that the cases of COVID-19 in Russia are allegedly hidden behind coronavirus-related diseases and complications, first of all, pneumonia. If so, the death toll from this disease was to have skyrocketed in the first quarter. However, as Realnoe Vremya’s analytic staff found out, the rumours seem to have no foundation. Official mortality data earlier this year even decreased compared to 2019 — as of February 2020 (more recent summarised data isn’t available yet). And though the pneumonia mortality rate in Russia is comparable with the COVID-19 rate in Iran — it also reduced compared to last year.

uelledNo mortality upsurge earlier this year

The Ministry of Health Care issued temporary methodical recommendations on 12 April, according to which amid the growing coronavirus incidence any flu case should be considered as suspected of COVID-19 depending on the epidemiological background. Microsoft 365 ipad. This fuelled the rumours that the cases of death from the coronavirus are hidden behind similar diseases — pneumonia, acute respiratory infection or flu.

In this context, Realnoe Vremya’s analytic staff decided to study the latest currently available mortality statistics — particularly to find out what happened to the acute respiratory infection and pneumonia death toll. Such data is now available until February 2020 — and despite some rumours, some of them suggest that there wasn’t registered a mortality upsurge in Russia either in general or because of acute respiratory infection or respiratory diseases.

Over the first two months in 2020, 307,000 people died in Russia — this is 5% less than a year ago. Cardiovascular diseases (almost half, 145,000 cases), tumours (48,000 cases), external causes of death (21,300 cases), diseases of the nervous system and digestive organs (about 17,000 cases each) are the main causes. Multiple remote desktop windows 10. There are 5-10% fewer deaths in the first three cases compared to last year’s analogous period, in case of the nervous system and digestion — 10% and 2% more.

As for specific diseases that caused death, coronary heart disease with 75,400 deaths is first. Malignant tumours (47,000) are second, cerebrovascular diseases with 44,000 cases come next. There are 5-11% deaths less.

Twice fewer people died from acute respiratory infection and flu than from COVID-19

Descargar vlc para macos catalina. There were relatively few deaths from the flu and acute respiratory infection in January and February — just 95. Most importantly, this number significantly decreased over the year — 197 people died from these diseases during the first two months in 2019. So we can assume here that if there were patients with non-diagnosed coronavirus among the dead people, this didn’t lead to a higher mortality rate — January and February were average.

It is noteworthy that the acute respiratory infection death toll in general is comparable with the number of coronavirus deaths in Russia or, more precisely, the difference isn’t big. 148 people died from the coronavirus in Russia as of 13 April (approximately a month since the death of the first patient in the country).

At the moment this indicator isn’t very high (though the number during the month is already 1,5 times higher than the number over two months in the case of the flu and acute respiratory infection). To understand it, now fewer people have died from the coronavirus in Russia than in January and February from accidental drowning (202 people), poisoning and alcohol intake (314 people).

Pneumonia deaths in Russia like coronavirus deaths in Iran

6ff5ce 365. Apart from the flu and acute respiratory infection, there is another disease that can be disguised as COVID-19, especially if the coronavirus isn’t diagnosed — it is pneumonia. However, there wasn’t registered any growth in January-February compared to last year too. 4,125 people died from pneumonia in Russia during the first two months in 2020. It is 15% less than during the analogous period last year.

We should remind you that the first death from the coronavirus in Russia was registered only on 19 March — so there is no coronavirus case among these 4,100 deaths (at least according to those diagnosed). Nevertheless, it is interesting that the death toll even from usual pneumonia in Russia is comparable with, for instance, with the coronavirus mortality rate in Iran. The first death was registered there on 21 February, during almost two months the indicator rose to almost 4,500 people. We also should note that more people died from pneumonia in Russia in January-February than from coronavirus in his “homeland,” in China, over three months since the first death: 3,341 people died from COVID-19 in China as of 13 April, while the first death was registered on 9 January.

The COVID-19 death toll nowadays in some countries is comparable with the pneumonia mortality rate in Russia in January-February. For instance, it is Belgium (3,900 deaths since first death on 11 March), Germany (3,000 deaths since 9 March), the Netherlands (2,700 deaths since 6 March). However, it is important to understand here that generally speaking such indicators accumulated in these countries not during two months but over a month since the first coronavirus death. This is why it is more correct to compare this indicator with the pneumonia death toll a month. In Russia, 1,929 people died from pneumonia in February 2020. It is more than from the coronavirus in less than a month since March 17 in Turkey (1,198 people), Brazil (1,230 people from the same date), Switzerland (1,115 people from March 5). So, with the proper level of containment of the epidemic, regular pneumonia in Russia claims more lives than the coronavirus in these countries.

2020 Flu Deaths Worldwide

10k deaths from respiratory diseases in two months

Videos For 2020 Flu Deaths

This comparison, of course, should not cause vain hopes or carelessness. In the leading countries in terms of mortality, the figures are much higher (and the population in most of them is lower, so the per capita mortality rate is, of course, ahead of the Russian rate of pneumonia). Besides, the key difference that makes the coronavirus “no more dangerous than regular pneumonia” is the transmission rate. The mortality rate from COVID-19 is not a stable result, consisting of many days with approximately the same number of deaths, they tend to increase significantly, despite all the efforts being made to contain the epidemic — as a result, they lead to very significant peaks. For example, on the highest for Italy peak day by death toll — March 27 — the figure was 919 people, in France on April 7 the death toll a day reached 1,417 people, and in the United States on April 10 — 2,035 people died from coronavirus. That is, on April 10, more people died from coronavirus in the United States than in Russia from pneumonia over the entire February.

However, we would like to note that if we count not only deaths from pneumonia but also from other respiratory diseases (this includes, for example, the flu, acute respiratory infections and other respiratory diseases), the death rate for the first two months of 2020 in Russia is 10,300. This figure is less than a year ago by 11%. However, in general, this death toll is comparable, for example, with the coronavirus death toll in the UK (10,600 deaths from COVID-19 since March 5) and France (14,400 people).

The situation with the dynamics of mortality from respiratory diseases is quite heterogeneous. While the national figure has decreased by 11%, there are cases of quite significant growth in some regions. For example, Ryazan Oblast with an increase in the pneumonia death toll by 46% (from 106 a year ago to 155 in January-February this year), the figure has jumped by 35% in Mari El (from 74 to 100 deaths), by 29% — in Kalmykia, by 25% — in Ulyanovsk Oblast and Kaluga Oblast, by 23% — in Moscow Oblast (while in Moscow itself it has fallen by 16%). There is also growth in Tatarstan — by 16%. At the same time, in some regions, the mortality rate from respiratory diseases has decreased significantly: in Sevastopol — by 61%, in Magadan Oblast — by 48%, in Kurgan Oblast and the Komi Republic — by 43%.

By Maksim Matveyev, Realnoe Vremya’s analytic staff

What was claimed

First Death Of 2019-2020 Flu Season Confirmed In LA County

The flu killed 64,000 people in 2018.

Our verdict

Incorrect. 64,000 people died in January 2018 in England and Wales of all causes. Public Health England estimates that across the 2017/18 flu season there were around 22,000 deaths associated with flu in England.

A block of text making comparisons between the number of deaths from flu and the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic has been shared on Facebook.

The text claims that “a real pandemic would be self-evident” with “bodies piling up on the street”. It adds: “The flu killed 64,000 people in this country in 2018, and you didn't bat an eye.”

This figure for flu deaths is far too high, and Covid-19 meets the definition of a “real pandemic”.

What counts as a pandemic?

The outbreak of Covid-19 across the world certainly meets definitions of pandemics that we’ve come across.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says flu pandemics specifically are characterised by human-to-human spread of the virus in at least two countries within the same WHO region and “community level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different WHO region.”

More generally it says a pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease, and that aspect of novelty is also shared by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with respect to flu pandemics.

The Oxford Dictionary of Epidemiology says a pandemic is “An epidemic occurring worldwide or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries, and usually affecting a large number of people.”

Figures from Johns Hopkins University suggest that over 43 million people worldwide have contracted Covid-19, with over one million deaths.

While Covid-19 is not the deadliest disease the world has ever seen, in part the death toll has been kept down due to worldwide restrictions on behaviour that could cause the virus to spread more quickly.

And while the UK has not seen incidents of “bodies piling up on the street”, if that is the Facebook user’s criteria for defining a pandemic, it has arguablybeenmet elsewhere in the world.

How many people die of flu?

As for the claim that the flu killed 64,000 people in the UK (where the post’s author says they are based) in 2018, this is incorrect.

The only reference we’ve found to a UK figure like that in connection with the 2018 flu outbreak, is that in January 2018 around 64,000 people died in England and Wales, at the time the highest monthly total since 2006.

But this figure was for England and Wales and covered deaths from all causes, not just flu.

2020 Flu Deaths Worldwide

Public Health England estimated that over the 2017/18 flu season, there were around 22,000 deaths associated with flu in England. This was one of the highest flu death tolls in recent years, but is still significantly lower than the current death toll from Covid.

It’s possible that the post might be mistaking the number of deaths in the UK for a figure from another country. In the USA, the CDC estimates that 61,000 people may have died in the 2017/18 flu season, which again was the highest number in recent years. The CDC estimates so far that there have been 211,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the USA.

2020 Flu Deaths In Washington State

This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the flu did not kill 64,000 people in 2018.

[southeastasianists]

Only last week Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s maritime minister and close confidant of the country’s president, touted herbal mangosteen juice as a coronavirus remedy.

His suggestion was the latest in a string of unorthodox treatments put forward by the president’s cabinet over the past six months, ranging from prayer to rice wrapped in banana-leaf to eucalyptus necklaces.

The remedies reflect the unscientific approach to battling the coronavirus in the world’s fourth-most populous country, where the rate of testing is among the world’s lowest, contact tracing is minimal, and authorities have resisted lockdowns even as infections spiked.

Indonesia has officially reported 6,346 deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, the highest overall toll in Southeast Asia. Including people who died with acute COVID-19 symptoms but were not tested, the death toll is three times higher.

Indonesia shows no signs of containing the virus. It now has the fastest infection spread in East Asia, with 17% of people tested turning out positive, rising close to 25% outside the capital, Jakarta. Figures above 5% mean an outbreak is not under control, according to the World Health Organization.

“This virus has already spread all over Indonesia. What we are doing is basically herd immunity,” said Prijo Sidipratomo, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the National Veterans Development University in Jakarta. “So, we should just dig many, many graves.” Herd immunity describes a scenario where a large proportion of the population contracts the virus and then widespread immunity stops the disease from spreading.

Government spokesman Wiku Adisasmito did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters. He said the number of infections was ��a warning for Indonesia to continuously improve its handling effort,” and that positive cases per capita in Indonesia were lower than most countries. President Joko Widodo’s office did not respond to questions sent by Reuters.

To be sure, Indonesia’s confirmed 144,945 infections out of a population of 270 million are much less than the millions reported in the United States, Brazil and India, and below the neighboring Philippines, which has less than half Indonesia’s population. But the true scale of Indonesia’s outbreak may still be hidden: India and the Philippines are testing four times more per capita, while the United States is testing 30 times more.

Statistics from Our World in Data, a nonprofit research project based at the University of Oxford, show Indonesia ranked 83rd out of 86 countries surveyed for overall tests per capita.

“Our concern is that we have not reached the peak yet, that the peak may come around October and may not finish this year,” said Iwan Ariawan, an epidemiologist from the University of Indonesia. “Right now we can’t say it is under control.”

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from National Geographic:

Twenty years ago, crises like the Doe fire and Hurricane Laura could have been described as “natural disasters.” Thanks to climate change, this is no longer the case. Right around the time of Newsom’s press conference, the mercury in Death Valley hit 130°F, the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth. A hotter, drier California is much more likely to burst into flames. The Gulf too is heating up, with dangerous consequences. Hurricanes draw their energy from the warmth of the surface waters and so are becoming stronger and more apt to intensify. I’ve been reporting on climate change for almost two decades, and I’ve come to think that we need a new term to describe these events. Perhaps we should call them “man-made natural disasters.”

People now play such a dominant role on the planet, it’s said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. By cutting down forests and digging mines and building cities, we’ve transformed half of the ice-free land on Earth. (Indirectly, we’ve altered half of what remains.) With our fertilizer plants, we fix more nitrogen than all terrestrial ecosystems combined; with our plows and bulldozers, we move around more earth than all the world’s rivers and streams. In terms of biomass, the numbers are staggering. People now outweigh wild mammals by a ratio of more than 8 to 1. Add in our domesticated animals (mostly cows and pigs), and the ratio’s almost 23 to 1. In the Anthropocene, all sorts of catastrophes straddle the line between man and nature. Many earthquakes, for example, are now triggered by human activity, in particular fracking. An unusually strong human-induced quake that shook Pawnee, Oklahoma, a few years ago was felt all the way to Des Moines, Iowa.

And then there’s COVID-19.

The virus that causes COVID seems to have originated in horseshoe bats. It appears to have made the leap to people near the city of Wuhan, China, either directly or through an intermediate species that has yet to be identified. Pathogens have, presumably, been jumping between animals and humans for as long as both have been around. But for most of human history, such “spillover events” were limited in their impact. Infected populations didn’t move very far or very fast. With jet travel, a virus can now make it halfway around the world between evening newscasts. Within a month of the first confirmed cases in central China, COVID had reached at least 26 other countries. Soon it was just about everywhere, even such remote places as the Falkland Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula.

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Changed by pandemic, many workers won’t return to old jobs (AP) There’s a wild card in the push to return to post-pandemic life: Many workers don’t want to go back to the jobs they once had. Layoffs and lockdowns, combined with enhanced unemployment benefits and stimulus checks, gave many Americans the time and the financial cushion to rethink their careers. Their former employers are hiring again — and some, like Uber and McDonald’s, are offering higher pay—but workers remain hesitant. Employers and business groups argue that the $300-per-week federal unemployment supplement gives recipients less incentive to look for work. But Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist who researches low- and middle-income workers with the Economic Policy Institute, said health concerns and child care responsibilities seem to be the main reasons holding workers back. In April, she said, at least 25% of U.S. schools weren’t offering in-person learning, forcing many parents to stay home. And health concerns could gain new urgency for some workers now that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said fully vaccinated people can stop wearing masks in most settings. Some workers say the pandemic helped them prioritize their mental and physical health. And in a tight labor market, some workers are also finding that if they hold out, they might get a better job than the one they left.

Unhealthy Dose of Litigation (CNN) It’s not personal, it’s just business. Tell that to tens of thousands of individuals sued by hospitals for ‘medical debt’ they have no way of ever paying. Community Health Systems, Inc. (CHS) is one of America’s largest hospital chains. A CNN investigation found that since March 2020, company-owned hospitals filed at least 19,000 lawsuits against their patients over allegedly unpaid medical bills, even as other hospitals around the country have curtailed similar lawsuits during the pandemic. CHS’s 84 hospitals are concentrated in the South, but stretch across 16 states from Alaska to Key West, Florida. The hospitals have sued patients for as little as $201 and as much as $162,000. Most defendants didn’t hire a lawyer or fight the lawsuits, and judges often rendered a default judgment in the hospital’s favor. Attorney’s fees and interest are often tacked on. Once a court rules against a defendant, a hospital can proceed to put a lien on the defendant’s house or garnish part of their wages. Many garnishments were against people working for low-wage employers like Walmart. A researcher who has studied hospital lawsuits said that it’s typical for hospitals that sue patients to only make a tiny fraction of their revenue from those lawsuits. “It’s not keeping the lights on for the hospitals—they don’t need to be doing this,” she said. “But for the patients... They’re choosing between medical care and food.”

Argentina Halts Beef Exports for 30 Days to Contain Prices (Bloomberg) Argentina’s government is limiting exports of beef, a staple in the country, in the latest unorthodox move to try to contain runaway inflation that’s approaching 50% annually. President Alberto Fernandez told a key beef export association that they won’t be allowed to sell the product abroad for 30 days, according to a Production Ministry statement released late Monday. “The president expressed his concern over the sustained growth in domestic beef prices over the last few months,” according to the statement. The country’s beef exports in 2020 amounted to roughly $3 billion, but the government may be more focused on the political cost of falling domestic consumption.

Spain Turns to Corruption Rehab for Officials Who Can’t Stop Stealing (NYT) Carlos Alburquerque isn’t your typical rehab candidate. He’s a 75-year-old grandfather living in Córdoba, a city in southern Spain. He was a town notary before he retired in 2015. He hasn’t touched drugs or alcohol in years. But his isn’t your typical rehab program: It’s an 11-month boot camp to reform corrupt Spanish officials and “reinsert” them into mainstream society. “Repairing the damage is what is left for me in this life,” said Mr. Alburquerque, who is serving a four-year prison sentence for stealing around 400,000 euros, nearly a half a million dollars, in his work drawing up contracts and deeds. That such a program exists in Spain may say much about the country’s belief in second chances as it does about how corruption has captured the public imagination here. Flip open a newspaper or turn on the radio: You will hear of schemes, scandals and skulduggery which almost always lead back to the public purse. According to Ángel Luis Ortiz, a former judge who now runs Spain’s prisons, the boom-bust cycles of Spain’s economy had led it to a long history of fraudsters and betrayals of public trust, he said. But at least, corruption rates in Spain were no worse than in other European nations, Mr. Ortiz said, just 5 percent of all crimes.

Russia’s northernmost base projects its power across Arctic (AP) During the Cold War, Russia’s Nagurskoye airbase was little more than a runway, a weather station and a communications outpost in the Franz Josef Land archipelago. It was a remote and desolate home mostly for polar bears, where temperatures plunge in winter to minus-42 Celsius (43 degrees below zero Fahrenheit) and the snow only disappears from August to mid-September. Now, Russia’s northernmost military base is bristling with missiles and radar and its extended runway can handle all types of aircraft, including nuclear-capable strategic bombers, projecting Moscow’s power and influence across the Arctic amid intensifying international competition for the region’s vast resources. Russia has sought to assert its influence over wide areas of the Arctic in competition with the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway as shrinking polar ice from the warming planet offers new opportunities for resources and shipping routes. China also has shown an increasing interest in the region, believed to hold up to one-fourth of the Earth’s undiscovered oil and gas.

Cyclone kills 19 in India, heavy rains lash parts of Gujarat state (Reuters) A cyclone on India’s west coast has killed at least 19 people and damaged infrastructure and agriculture, while heavy rains continued to lash some regions even as weather officials said on Tuesday that the storm’s intensity had weakened. The cyclone Tauktae, which made landfall in the western state of Gujarat late on Monday, has hit power supply in 2,400 villages in the state as a thousand electricity pylons were damaged, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said in a media address. Nearly 160 roads have been destroyed, 40,000 trees uprooted and several houses damaged, Rupani added.

India reports record day of virus deaths as cases level off (AP) India’s total virus cases since the pandemic began swept past 25 million on Tuesday as the country registered more than 260,000 new cases and a record 4,329 fatalities in the past 24 hours. The numbers continue a trend of falling cases after infections dipped below 300,000 for the first time in weeks on Monday. Active cases in the country also decreased by more than 165,000 on Tuesday—the biggest dip in weeks. But deaths have continued to rise and hospitals are still swamped by patients. Infections in India have surged since February in a disastrous turn blamed on more contagious variants as well as government decisions to allow massive crowds to gather for religious festivals and political rallies.

In Gaza, grief and destruction (Washington Post) In a conflict already marked by harrowing scenes of tragedy, one image stood out. Rescuers in Gaza City on Sunday pulled out Suzy Eshkuntana, a 6-year-old, from the rubble of a building that had once been her home, but which was flattened by Israeli airstrikes. She was covered in dust but alive. Her mother and all four of her siblings were dead. It’s not clear why the Eshkuntanas’ home was brought crashing down. Israeli authorities told reporters that they had targeted a network of tunnels used by Hamas militants that may have run beneath the area where the family lived. “The collapse of the tunnel system,” Reuters reported, “caused the houses above to collapse and led to unintended civilian casualties, the military said.” In Israel’s telling, there are many more “unintended” casualties in Gaza. According to local Health Ministry officials, the death toll in Gaza climbed to 212 people, including 61 children and 36 women, as fighting entered its second week. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, home to some 2.1 million people, the majority of whom are classified as refugees by the United Nations. That’s a legacy of the displacements that followed Israel’s creation in 1948 and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Children make up about half of Gaza’s population. The territory has been under Israeli blockade since 2007, after Hamas took power following a rift within the Palestinian Authority. “Living conditions in Gaza are bleak: 95 percent of the population does not have access to clean water, according to [the United Nations], and electricity shortages periodically bring life to a halt,” my colleagues reported. “The territory has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, World Bank statistics show, and the United Nations estimates that roughly 80 percent of the population relies on international aid to survive and access basic services.”

The New Arab Street: Online, Global and Growing (NYT) The video traveled at 4G speed, leapfrogging across international borders, social media platforms and social justice movements: a young Palestinian woman in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, shouting in furious English at a Jewish man, “You are stealing my house!” “If I don’t steal it, someone else will steal it,” he retorts. Within days—as Israel bombed the coastal territory of Gaza, Palestinian militants there launched rockets at Israel, and Arab and Jewish mobs faced off in Israeli cities—the video had rocketed from young Palestinians’ social media feeds into the Arab diaspora, then lit up the internet, kindling outrage around the world. It used to be that when Palestinians were under fire, protests would follow in the streets of Arab cities. That potential for combustion forced Middle Eastern and Western leaders to keep a wary eye on the temperature of what was called the “Arab street.” This time, a week into an Israeli bombing campaign that has killed 212 Palestinians in Gaza, the reaction from Arab capitals has been muted and protests small and scattered. Instead, solidarity with the Palestinians has shifted online and gone global, a virtual Arab street that has the potential to have a wider impact than the ones in Middle Eastern cities. The online protesters have linked arms with popular movements for minority rights such as Black Lives Matter, seeking to reclaim the narrative from the mainstream media and picking up support in Western countries that have reflexively supported Israel.

Ransomware hits AXA units in Asia, Irish healthcare (AP) The Thai affiliate of Paris-based insurance company AXA said Tuesday it is investigating a ransomware attack by Russian-speaking cybercriminals that has affected operations in Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Meanwhile, a cyberattack on a public health provider in New Zealand took down information systems across five hospitals, forcing staff to cancel some elective surgeries and creating all sorts of other problems. It was unclear if the event was linked to a cyberattack that has nearly paralyzed Ireland’s national healthcare IT systems. The Irish government’s decision not to pay the criminals means hospitals won’t have access to patient records—and must resort mostly to handwritten notes—until painstaking efforts are complete to restore thousands of computer servers from backups.

The Places Ranked Best for Expats in 2021 (Bloomberg) Taiwan, Mexico and Costa Rica have been ranked as the top spots to live and work abroad in 2021, based on their cost of living, ease of settling in and overall quality of life. The U.S. was ranked only 34th out of 59 places, largely because of how expats viewed quality of life in America, according to a new survey published Tuesday. Taiwan topped the charts for the third year in a row in the survey of 12,420 expats conducted by InterNations, a Munich-based expat network with about 4 million members. The top 10: Taiwan, Mexico, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Portugal, New Zealand, Australia, Ecuador, Canada, Vietnam.

[feelingbluepolitics]

By Robert Reich

Highest recommendation.

"Most of Europe and all 50 US states are in various stages of 'reopening'. But why, exactly?

"The pandemic is still with us. After the first tentative steps to ease the lockdown in Germany – the most successful large European country in halting the spread of the virus, thanks to massive testing – the disease has shown signs of spreading faster.

"At least Germany is opening slowly and carefully, as is the rest of the EU.

"By contrast, the US – with the highest number of deaths and most haphazard response to Covid-19 of any advanced nation – is opening chaotically, each state on its own. Some are lifting restrictions overnight.

"Researchers expect the reopenings to cause thousands of additional deaths.

..."Two weeks after Texas’ governor, Greg Abbott, began reopening, the state experienced the single-highest rise in cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Since Nebraska reopened on 4 May, Covid-19 cases in Colfax county alone surged 1,390%.

"Experts warn that Dallas, Houston, Florida’s Gold Coast, the entire state of Alabama and several other places in the south that have rapidly reopened their economies are in danger of a second wave of coronavirus infections over the next four weeks.

..."[W]hy 'reopen' so abruptly, when Covid-19 continues to claim lives?

"The main reason given is to get the economy moving again. But this begs the question of why an economy exists in the first place, other than to promote the wellbeing of people within it.

..."Fox News host Sean Hannity claims people are 'dying to get back to work', seemingly unaware of the irony of his words.

"Polls suggest otherwise. Americans whose jobs require them to leave home express trepidation about doing so: 60% fear exposing their families to Covid-19.

..."Many Americans must return to work because they need the money, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Rich economies can support their people for years if necessary. During the second world war, America shut down most of its economy for nearly four years.

"The obstacle right now is a lack of political will to provide such support, at least until testing and tracing provide reasonable assurance the pandemic is contained.

..."Although nearly half of all US households report lost employment income since mid-March, extra jobless benefits enacted by Congress are only starting to trickle out now. [t]rump and the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, refuse to extend them beyond 31 July.

"Meanwhile, states are denying benefits to anyone whose company has called them back.

"Finally, [t]rump and his enablers argue that reopening is a matter of 'freedom'. He has called on citizens to 'liberate' their states from public-health restrictions. Fox News personalities have decried what they call denials of 'basic freedoms.'

"But the supposed 'freedom' to work is a cruel joke when people are forced to choose between putting food on the table or risking their lives.

..."In truth, there is no good reason to reopen when the pandemic is still raging: not getting the economy moving again, or workers clamoring to return to work, or the cost of extended income support, or because workers should be 'free' to endanger themselves.

"Let’s be clear. The pressure to reopen the economy is coming from businesses that want to return to profitability, and from [t]rump, who wants to run for re-election in an economy that appears to be recovering.

"Neither is reason enough."

[sleepysera]

Apr. 29 Headlines

WORLD NEWS

Colombia: Protesters take to the streets to oppose tax reform (BBC)

"The proposed reform would lower the threshold at which salaries are taxed, affecting anyone with a monthly income of $656 or more. The proposal has caused outrage among many Colombians who say they are already struggling to feed their families during the pandemic. The protest was organised by the country's biggest trade unions but was also joined by many middle-class Colombians and members of indigenous groups."

India: State elections in West Bengal go ahead as deaths hit record high (BBC)

"Long queues were seen outside polling booths, raising concerns about further spread of the virus amidst a deadly second wave. Experts fear West Bengal could be the next epicentre. Cases rose by 17,000 on Wednesday - a state record."

Turkey: Prepares for its first full lockdown (BBC)

"This time last year, Turkey was seen as a success story for its early combative action and was even praised by the WHO. One year on, it is among the countries worst affected by Covid, with the highest infection rate in Europe."

US NEWS

Ahmaud Arbery: Federal indictment for accused killers (CNN)

"The McMichaels and Bryan are in jail without bond and awaiting a trial date on state murder charges. All three were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Georgia and charged with hate crimes and the attempted kidnapping of Arbery, according to a news release from the Justice Department."

Breonna Taylor: Officer involved in botched raid retires (CNN)

"No officers involved in the raid were charged directly regarding the death of Taylor. One of the officers at the scene, Brett Hankison, will stand trial in 2022 on charges of wanton endangerment for allegedly firing into an adjacent occupied apartment, according to the state attorney general. Hankison pleaded not guilty to the charges."

Gretchen Whitmer: 3 men face weapon of mass destruction charge in addition to kidnapping plot of Michigan Gov. (CNN)

"The new indictment alleges that on September 13, Fox ordered $4,000 worth of explosives from an FBI agent posing as a co-conspirator. That same day, according to the indictment, Croft and Harris successfully detonated an IED containing shrapnel near human silhouette targets "to assess its effectiveness as an anti-personnel weapon.""