(2020-03-24). Death By Tweetstorm: a Win-Win for Trump. counterpunch.org For lack of respirators, patients with severe respiratory distress from COVID-19 will die as the epidemic unfolds. A drug to treat the disease is urgently needed. But the US press subjected news about hydroxychloroquine, a potential treatment, to an excess of caution in response to a Trump tweetstorm. Journalists and health care professionals alike were whipsawed by the president's irresponsible ballyhooing of the drug amid deprecatory assertions of "anecdotal" evidence by Anthony Fauci at the CDC.
(2020-03-24). Irish politician urges legal action over 'thugs' taking part in 'Corona Challenge'. thecanary.co A Fianna Fail TD (MP) has called for legal action to be taken against people joking about having coronavirus while deliberately coughing into others' faces. | Kildare North TD James Lawless said "thugs" are taking videos of themselves coughing into people's faces and posting them online as part of the so-called Corona Challenge. | The party's spokesperson on science, technology, research and development said it is a serious offence to cause another person to believe they have become infected with a disease. | t.co/ir4PQiglo4 | — James Lawless (@lawlessj) (2020-03-24). Kashmir reports two additional COVID-19 cases. yenisafak.com The Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday reported two more confirmed cases of the coronavirus, taking the tally to six.The confirmation came as the government spokesman Rohit Kansal said on Twitter two more positive cases from the region's main city Srinagar were reported.One of the patients had a travel history to Saudi Arabia while other had returned from India's capital New Delhi after participating in a religious gathering attended by people from Indonesia and Malaysia as well.Shahid Choudhary, deputy commissioner in the city, appealed to the people in the region especially travelers having travel…
(2020-03-24). FinMin says many virus-hit firms, sectors can delay taxes in Turkey. yenisafak.com Turkey on Tuesday announced a host of sectors and classes eligible for deferred tax payments in light of the coronavirus outbreak.A total of 1.9 million taxpayers will benefit from these deferments, Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak said on Twitter.Eligible professionals include the self-employed, farmers, tailors, grocers, lawyers, financial advisers, architects, engineers, doctors, and dentists.Sectors that can delay their tax payments include retail and shopping centers, the iron, steel and metal industry, the automotive sector, logistics and transportation, textiles, entertainment, mining, construc…
(2020-03-24). Millions in India under coronavirus lockdown. yenisafak.com More than half of India's 1.3 billion population is under complete lockdown, as the coronavirus or COVID-19 cases on Tuesday surged to 511 with 10 deaths.As many as 75 districts including national capital Delhi and commercial hub Mumbai are under lockdown till March 31.The government had to enforce curfew in many places as people did not observe voluntary isolation.In a statement issued late on Monday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lamented that people were not taking the lockdown seriously. Taking to Twitter, he asked people to save their lives and of their family members by remaining indoors."He [prime m…
(2020-03-24). 'We need joint action, not fake news': Moscow slams HRW chief for touting story on Russia's rich grabbing life-saving ventilators. rt.com 
Russia's top diplomat in the US has demanded the Human Rights Watch chief stops spreading misinformation about Russia's readiness to fight Covid-19, after he touted an article claiming it's letting the wealthy buy up ventilators. | www.facebook.com/RusEmbUSA/posts/1265573460319708?__tn__=K-R | Anatoly Antonov, Russia's envoy in Washington, has penned a scathing rebuke to the group's executive director, Kenneth Roth, who tweeted that the Kremlin was "doing nothing to stop wealthy Russians from buying up ventilators," all that while "leaving ordinary Russians with a likely shortage of this life-saving eq…
(2020-03-23). Images of Cuban Doctors Helping Italy Go Viral, Burst Media Narrative. mintpressnews.com 
Videos of Cuban doctors volunteering to travel halfway across the world to put themselves in mortal danger for the good of people they have never met stirred the heartstrings of even the most cynical observer.
(2020-03-23). Reading the autocue has never looked so hard: Joe Biden emerges from 6 DAYS in hiding with stumbling video stream. rt.com 
Joe Biden has reemerged from an almost week-long disappearance to post a video on Twitter addressing the Trump administration's handling of the Covid-19 crisis, but his return has been greeted with mockery and concern. | Biden sounded tired and slow as he spoke while standing in front of what appeared to be a green screen with a set of bookshelves digitally imposed behind him. | He criticized US President Donald Trump and Senate leader Mitch McConnell for "trying to put a corporate bailout ahead of millions of families" and urged "aggressive measures" to help small US businesses, workers and communities suffer…
(2020-03-23). Are 5G / Biometric Systems Being Covertly Installed During the Lockdown, Where You Live? globalresearch.ca In recent days a couple videos have begun circulating on social media with evidence of apparent installations of 5G and/or biometric systems while children are home due to the COVID-19 lockdown. | We now have the opportunity to confirm (or debunk) …
(2020-03-23). Joe Biden: Survival of the Unfittest. counterpunch.org Since becoming his party's frontrunner and presumed nominee, Joe Biden has been hard at work, providing more fodder for future Trump campaign attack ads against himself. No need for 'deep fakes' when your opponent willingly offers up his Blooper reels for the benefit of your own re-election campaign. There was something more viral than COVID-19 going around last week – recent footage of the former VP losing his marbles on Livestream and then wandering offscreen to retrieve them – or was he sleepwalking into traffic after hearing about his own car crash performance as it happened? Let's just say his latest attempt…
(2020-03-23). It Is Not Too Early to Ask: Can the US Pull Off a November Election Amid Coronavirus? commondreams.org "While it's important to dispel myths around the ability of the president to simply cancel elections," writes Hollar, "it's just as important to warn of the very real dangers to the 2020 election." (Photo: Pinterest) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/vote_1_0.jpeg …
(2020-03-22). Rand Paul becomes first US senator to test POSITIVE for coronavirus. rt.com 
Senator Rand Paul has tested positive for coronavirus and is in quarantine, the Kentucky Republican is the first member of the upper chamber of Congress to contract the virus. | The politician revealed the news on his official Twitter account, announcing that he is "feeling fine" and has not displayed any symptoms of the Covid-19 illness. The Twitter statement said that he was tested "out of an abundance of caution due to his extensive travel and events". | Senator Rand Paul has tested positive for COVID-19. He is feeling fine and is in quarantine. He is asymptomatic and was tested out of an abundance of cauti…
(2020-03-22). Nude Madonna calls coronavirus the 'great equalizer' in bizarre video, inspires instant mockery. rt.com 
A video of a naked Madonna emotionally saying the coronavirus has "made us all equal" while in a bathtub has people both confused and mocking the 'Like a Prayer' singer. | "It's the great equalizer and what's terrible about it is what's great about it," Madonna said about the coronavirus in the video, which was posted to her Twitter account on Sunday. | "What's terrible about it is that it's made us all equal in many ways and what's wonderful about it is that it's made us all equal in many ways," the singer went on to say from a bathtub adorned with flower petals. In her caption for the video, she called the q…
(2020-03-22). Pakistan PM once again asks Trump to lift Iran sanctions. iranian.com Prime Minister of Pakistan who believes that US sanctions against Iran are cruel and unfair has once again called upon Donald Trump to lift economic sanctions from the Islamic Republic. Imran Khan in a tweet on Sunday said the people of Iran are facing untold suffering as sanctions are crippling Iran's efforts to fight COVID19. …
(2020-03-19). Viral Reactions: The Smugness of Celebrity Self-Isolation. dissidentvoice.org The rush to elevate self-isolation to Olympian heights as a way to combat the spread of COVID-19 has gotten to the celebrities. Sports figures are proudly tweeting and taking pictures from hotel rooms (Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton being a case in point). Comics are doing their shows from home. Thespians are extolling the merits …
(2020-03-18). Big Tech Firms are Using Automation to Censor News About the Coronavirus. mintpressnews.com Social media is awash with people angry that their posts have been removed for no legitimate reason. MintPress was no exception, with a story about Cuba's response to the coronavirus flagged and blocked.
(2020-03-17). Meet 17-Year-Old Avi Schiffmann Who Runs Coronavirus Tracking Website Used by 40+ Million Globally. democracynow.org 
A teenager's website tracking coronavirus has become one of the most vital resources for people seeking accurate and updated numbers on the pandemic. The URL is nCoV2019.live. We speak with 17-year-old Avi Schiffmann, a high school junior from Mercer Island outside Seattle, who started the site in late December, when coronavirus had not yet been detected outside of China. Now the site has been visited by tens of millions, from every country on Earth. It tracks deaths, numbers of cases locally and globally, and provides an interactive map, information on the disease, and a Twitter feed. The resource updates every…
(2020-03-09). [Comment] How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic? thelancet.com Governments will not be able to minimise both deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the economic impact of viral spread. Keeping mortality as low as possible will be the highest priority for individuals; hence governments must put in place measures to ameliorate the inevitable economic downturn. In our view, COVID-19 has developed into a pandemic, with small chains of transmission in many countries and large chains resulting in extensive spread in a few countries, such as Italy, Iran, South Korea, and Japan.
(2020-02-20). [Comment] The burden of viral respiratory infections in young children in low-resource settings. thelancet.com Acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI), encompassing bacterial and viral pneumonias, acute viral bronchiolitis, and bacterial and viral bronchitis, remain the leading cause of global child mortality.1 The thrust of global prevention and treatment efforts has been directed against bacterial causes of ALRI, and deaths from bacterial pneumonia have decreased substantially since 1990 because of improved access to health care and life-saving antibiotics, as well as increased use of vaccines targeted at bacterial respiratory pathogens.
(2020-02-17). [Editorial] Challenges of coronavirus disease 2019. thelancet.com Yet again, the world is experiencing a global viral epidemic of zoonotic origin. As of Feb 12, 45‚Äà204 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 1116 deaths had been reported in 25 countries. The majority of cases and, at the time of writing, all but one death have been in China, despite efforts in the country to halt transmission through shutting down transport, quarantining entire cities, and enforcing the use of face masks. International flights have been cancelled and affected cruise ships quarantined.
(2020-02-06). [Spotlight] Coronavirus epidemic: preparing for extracorporeal organ support in intensive care. thelancet.com Zoonotic viral infections are more frequently crossing species to infect human populations. In 2003, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus was transmitted to humans from exotic animals in wet markets in China, and in 2015, the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) virus was transmitted from camels in Saudi Arabia. In both cases, and with the 2019 coronavirus outbreak in China, the original host of the virus is likely to be bats.
(2020-02-05). [Correspondence] Nicotine patches with e-cigarettes for smoking cessation: Twitter discussion from a respirology journal club. thelancet.com On Dec 12, 2019, our Twitter-based University of Toronto Respirology and Sleep Journal Club1 discussed Walker and colleagues' pragmatic, randomised, parallel-arm trial designed to look at the effectiveness of combining nicotine patches with an e-cigarette (with and without nicotine) on 6-month smoking abstinence.2 Our discussions highlighted the challenges of studying populations of smokers in general, given the habitual nature of the exposure, challenges related to follow-up, and a need for reliable and valid objective measures of smoking abstinence (appendix).