Freedom on the Net 2020: The Pandemic’s Digital Shadow – “The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating a dramatic decline in global internet freedom. For the 10th consecutive year, users have experienced an overall deterioration in their rights, and the phenomenon is contributing to a broader crisis for democracy worldwide. In the COVID-19 era, connectivity is not… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Medicine
The Coronavirus Unveiled
The New York Times: “In February, as the new coronavirus swept across China and shut down entire cities, a scientist named Sai Li set out to paint its portrait. At the time, the best pictures anyone had managed to take were low-resolution images, in which the virus looked like a barely discernible smudge. Dr. Li,… Continue Reading
WHO chief slams herd immunity response to coronavirus pandemic as ‘unethical’
Evening Standard via MSN: “Deliberately allowing Covid-19 to spread in the hope of achieving so-called herd immunity is “unethical”, an expert has warned. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the concept, which occurs when a large portion of a population becomes immune to a disease, “means allowing unnecessary infections, suffering and death”. It came as… Continue Reading
The proportion of Americans dying from coronavirus infections is the highest in the developed world
Bloomberg: “…according to a study of global mortality rates that shows the U.S. pandemic response left citizens exposed to the lethal disease. Early in the outbreak, the U.S. mortality rate from Covid-19 was lower than in many other hard-hit countries, including the U.K., Spain and the Netherlands, according to the report Monday in the Journal… Continue Reading
Coronavirus Hit the U.S. Long Before We Knew
WSJ – The COVID Storm – Coronavirus Hit the U.S. Long Before We Knew Months before travel bans and lockdowns, Americans were transmitting the virus across the country. “The Wall Street Journal interviewed disease detectives and reviewed hundreds of pages of new research to piece together how the coronavirus infiltrated the wealthiest nation on earth.… Continue Reading
Even Mild Covid-19 Infections Can Make People Sick for Months
Bloomberg via MSN: “Covid-19 patients who experience even the mildest illness risk suffering symptoms for months, researchers in France found. Two-thirds of patients who had a mild-to-moderate case of Covid-19 reported symptoms 60 days after falling ill, when more than a third still felt sick or in a worse condition than when their coronavirus infection… Continue Reading
Genetic tracing could show how coronavirus spread through White House
Washington Post – “There’s a way for the White House to prove exactly how the outbreak traveled among its ranks: through gene-based contact tracing. But it doesn’t appear interested in doing so — even as the circle of President Trump’s associates infected with the virus expands by the hour. The Trump administration could, if it… Continue Reading
10% of World’s People May Have Been Infected With Virus
AP – “The head of emergencies at the World Health Organization said Monday the agency’s “best estimates” indicate roughly 1 in 10 people worldwide may have been infected by the coronavirus — more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases — and warned of a difficult period ahead. Dr. Michael Ryan, speaking to a… Continue Reading
Being highly educated doesn’t mean you’re immune from falling for false information
BBC Future – Why smart people believe coronavirus myths – “..It is a sad truth that any health crisis will spawn its own pandemic of misinformation. In the 80s, 90s, and 2000s we saw the spread of dangerous lies about Aids – from the belief that the HIV virus was created by a government laboratory… Continue Reading
How to Protect Yourself from the Aerosol Spread of Covid-19
Kottke.org: “A group of scientists who believe that WHO and the CDC are being too slow in acknowledging the role of aerosol transmission in spreading Covid-19 have written up a Google Doc of advice for the public: FAQs on Protecting Yourself from COVID-19 Aerosol Transmission. The goal of these FAQs is to provide information to… Continue Reading
Recording International COVID-19 Government Responses
Cheng, Cindy, Joan Barceló, Allison Hartnett, Robert Kubinec, and Luca Messerschmidt. 2020. COVID-19 Government Response Event Dataset (CoronaNet v1.0). Nature Human Behaviour (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0909-7. “The CoronaNet Research Project compiles a database on government responses to the corona virus. Our main focus is to collect as much information as we can about the various fine-grained actions… Continue Reading
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 3, 2020
Via LLRX – Privacy and security issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish… Continue Reading
