Category: Corona Virus

Felix Marquardt, a former global schmoozer and current author of The New Nomads, explains why attempting to solve the worlds problems up a Magic Mountain in Switzerland over the course of a few short days, is a quick fix that does more harm than good.

A few weeks ago, the World Economic Forum (WEF) pulled the plug on its gathering in Singapore in August. The reasons invoked by the organisers for this third cancellation (plans for an alternative, exceptional meeting in Lucerne in May were also scrapped earlier this year) centred around health concerns and logistics.

The truth is more complex and the malaise runs deeper. The pandemic has exposed the contradictions of the WEF as a project and its terminal lack of legitimacy and credibility in the post-Covid era.

My inkling as an addict in recovery, is that the organisers are unable to come to terms with this because, just like others in the throes of active addiction, they are in denial.

I used to be a senior adviser to a number of global leaders and a Davos cheerleader. I also used to do a lot of drugs. I had my last drink and drug seven years ago.

At the height of my substance abuse, I thought I couldnt possibly be an alcoholic or an addict. Addicts were people shooting up on park benches or sucking on glass pipes in crack houses. I was flying around the world in business class, living in five star palaces, working for heads of state (including dictators), people running for office (including aspiring dictators) and CEOs of some of the worlds largest multinationals.

A few years into recovery, I came to a different realisation: I had flourished in Davos and in other global circles of power not in spite of my being an addict, but in no small part because I was one. The high which proximity with power, fame and wealth fuelled in me wasnt that different from the high I felt when I did drugs.

So what do my experiences say about others in the WEF circus?

The pandemic has sparked a global existential crisis in many of us, including pillars of the Davos establishment. It has been about recognising, belatedly, that weve been calling normal is a form of civilisational suicide.

Many of us are coming to terms with the fact that we dont know how to decorrelate greenhouse gas emissions from economic growth and that the phrase green growth is, for now and the foreseeable future, an oxymoron. In a world where about 50 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the 10 per cent wealthiest humans those of us who earned not millions but $38,000 or more in 2015 the climate crisis is fundamentally an inequality crisis.

Yet from its inception, the WEF has hence been engaged in an exercise of contortion to not have a meaningful conversation on growth. It has since then been paid hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars (governed by Swiss law, the finances of the WEF are frighteningly opaque) by entities whose shareholders are eager to avoid it.

If we have indeed become addicted to carbon, growth and extraction, the techno-utopian verbiage which has become the lingua franca of Davos has become a liability.

The author Lewis Hyde once wrote that the spread of alcoholism happens when a culture is dying. A healthy, functioning culture turns its children into grown-ups. Addicts in contrast are defined by Jungs characterisation of the puer aeternus.

That prism of addiction helps explain our cultures childish solutionism. Like addicts in recovery who get a daily reprieve but are never cured, what we are dealing with are predicaments not problems. Problems, like the equations schoolchildren are asked to solve, have solutions. In contrast, you can respond to predicaments in a more or less constructive and healthy way but they cannot be solved. You have to live with them.

The current, dominant, feelgood approach mirrors that of an addict, in recovery but secretly hoping that they will one day be able to manage their substance use. The Davos crowd seek quick fixes, takeaways, action points and deliverables, rather than dwelling on the thoroughly uncomfortable reality of our condition, for fear of going into depression or becoming paralysed by inertia. The sooner that is ditched, the better. The highest form of hope, the French author George Bernanos once wrote, is despair overcome. But to overcome it, you first need to go through the despair. You need to hit rock bottom.

I am convinced the WEF was founded with the best of intentions. The time has come to move on.

An encouraging number of business and political leaders worldwide are busy trying to figure out how to convince their respective audiences that their corporation, their institution, their political party or their government have understood that going back to normal is not an option. Its far from clear for many of them how they will prove that they have gotten the proverbial memo. But there is a very simple way to show that they havent. And that would be to go back to Davos.

In a world in which the most accurate predictor of the carbon footprint of an individual, household, company or country is how much money they spend, we have become a civilisation led by affluent smooth talkers. What we deserve is to be led by wise elders (and who possibly have made a vow of poverty), a kind of Jedi council of people chosen for their willingness to self-sacrifice, for their commitment to be of service to others and above all, for walking their talk.

Some will argue that such a council is bound to appear illegitimate, that you need to have skin in the game to be credible and audible. Yet we would be much better led and served by rotating committees of old-timers and trusted servants than by the present mix of plutocracy and kakistocracy of people-pleasers willing to say anything and to go to any length to stay in power.

Theres also the sense that Davos and other gatherings represent a quick fix. They last only a few days, producing an Inch Deep, Mile Wide approach with outcomes the equivalent of an Ayahuasca initiation consumed by non-indigenous folks without adequate preparation and follow-up: incredibly powerful, but with no lasting effect. Anyone who has felt the high and the renewed hope from taking part in a great conference and then wondered a week later where that feeling has gone knows what Im talking about.

What we require today is a Mile Deep, Inch Wide approach. Instead of meeting once a year in huge numbers at the top of the Magic Mountain, let us take part in ongoing, regular virtual processes in relatively small numbers over years, punctuated here and there with in-person gatherings down in the plains. Let us bring together people from all around the world and society with widely different Weltanschauungs but with a genuine commitment to the slow, painstaking process of getting well.

Read more:

Davos is dead, and the coronavirus killed it - Financial Times

Minnesota recorded another hopeful milestone in its pandemic battle Tuesday when just 95 new cases of coronavirus were reported the lowest in one day since April 2020.

For more than 400 straight days, Minnesota had reported 100 or more COVID-19 cases per day. For a stretch of more than 160 days last fall and winter, daily new cases were in the thousands.

The record low doesnt include holidays, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and Memorial Day, when the state Department of Health did not report new data.

The rate of COVID-19 deaths has also slowed. Minnesotas seven-day rolling average for deaths is about six per day.

There was one additional fatality reported Tuesday, a Hennepin County resident in their 90s.

Minnesota has recorded 603,966 cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began. There have been 7,518 deaths, including 4,457 in long-term care.

The state has screened more than 10 million samples from 4.4 million residents since March 2020. The cumulative test-positivity rate is about 6 percent and the current average of positive tests is about 1.2 percent.

Of those whove tested positive, 595,183, or 98.5 percent, have recovered enough they no longer need to be isolated.

About 88 percent of Minnesotas COVID-19 fatalities have been seniors, but deaths have begun to trend younger after close to 90 percent of seniors have been vaccinated.

Hospitalizations have also fallen to their lowest levels in more than a year. There were 147 patients hospitalized, including 49 in critical condition.

Hospitalizations have also continued to trend younger.

Health officials say thats due, in part, to more contagious variants of the coronavirus being responsible for most new cases. Some emerging strains of COVID-19 are also suspected to cause more severe disease.

Vaccines have proven very effective against both the original strain of coronavirus and the new variants. Health officials say more than 99.9 percent of new COVID-19 cases are in people who are not vaccinated.

Minnesota has administered 5.5 million doses of vaccine and nearly 3 million residents have gotten at least one dose. Almost 66 percent of the population 16 and older have gotten their first shot.

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Coronavirus Tuesday update: New MN cases fall below 100 for first time in more than a year - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

Memorials hang from the front gate of Greenwood Cemetery in New York City during an event organized by Naming the Lost Memorials to remember and celebrate those who died during the COVID-19 pandemic. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption

Memorials hang from the front gate of Greenwood Cemetery in New York City during an event organized by Naming the Lost Memorials to remember and celebrate those who died during the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 15 months since the first confirmed death due to COVID-19 in the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic has claimed more than 600,000 lives across the country.

But that trend has slowed from thousands to hundreds per day in recent weeks, thanks largely to the ready availability of vaccines.

Over the winter, the nation was adding about 100,000 deaths each month. But as more and more people were vaccinated particularly older Americans the death rate fell precipitously. There are now about 375 deaths per day on average down from more than 3,000 per day in January.

Worldwide, the U.S. still is reporting the greatest total deaths, followed by Brazil, India and Mexico. The total global death toll stands at 3.8 million.

The U.S. death toll, according to Johns Hopkins University, stood at 600,012 on Tuesday afternoon.

Even so, the cumulative number of deaths in the country clearly shows the recent positive impact of vaccines: Barely a month passed between 400,000 and a half-million deaths, but it has taken nearly four times as long to reach the 600,000 mark. At the same time, the trend in the number of new infections, which has closely mirrored deaths, reached a peak in January of more than 300,000 in a single day. Now the U.S. is hovering around an average of fewer than 15,000 confirmed infections, according to Johns Hopkins.

The positive trends have led many states to lift their coronavirus restrictions with some dropping mask mandates altogether for vaccinated individuals and eliminating other social distancing requirements.

At the same time, however, many Americans have shown a reluctance to get vaccinated, with just over half of U.S. adults fully immunized. In parts of the Midwest and South, in particular, vaccine rates per 100,000 people still remain relatively low compared with the Northeast and parts of the West Coast, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The divide has been particularly marked between rural and urban areas of the country.

Tuesday's figures follow a study this week showing that a new vaccine, one made by Novavax, is 100% effective against the original strain of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and 93% effective against other variants.

The next step is for the company to seek regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which has issued emergency authorizations for three other vaccines ones made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

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COVID Deaths Top 600,000 In The US : Coronavirus Updates - NPR

The Indian authorities launched an investigation after an internal government report concluded that some private agencies responsible for coronavirus testing on pilgrims at a sprawling Hindu festival forged at least 100,000 results.

The festival, Kumbh Mela, which ran throughout April, is widely believed to be responsible for a coronavirus surge in many parts of India, as the pilgrims returning from the festival tested positive days after returning to their villages.

The festival drew millions of faithful to the town of Haridwar on the banks of the river Ganges in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

We have constituted a four-members committee that will submit its report in two weeks, Dr. Arjun Singh Sengar, a Haridwar health officer who was in charge of testing for Kumbh Mela, said in an interview. Initial investigations are pointing toward lapses and fake results.

Dr. Sengar said that out of 251,000 tests in his district, only 2,273 were positive.

But health experts questioned those numbers, saying the state government underreported positive cases. That suggested it was safe to take part in the pilgrimage, despite evidence that the largely unmasked crowds provided an ideal environment for the virus to spread.

According to a sprawling government report on the lab that conducted rapid antigen tests during the festival, at least 100,000 test results out of 400,000 were fake.

Despite warnings by public health experts and doctors, the regional government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modis party advertised the festival in newspapers, inviting pilgrims from across the country.

Before the event, Uttarakhands top elected official, Tirath Singh Rawat, mingled with huge crowds of pilgrims, without a mask. When questioned during one of his three visits to the holy site, Mr. Rawat said, Faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus.

He tested positive for the coronavirus two days after his last visit to the Ganges.

Officials in Uttarakhand began investigating the test results after a man in the neighboring state of Punjab received a negative test from the health department in Uttarakhand, even though he had not visited the state. He filed a complaint with the Indian Council of Medical Research, a top government body.

Officials alerted the state government, which is now leading the investigation and has stopped payments to dozens of private laboratories and agencies involved in testing.

Testing scams have been a persistent problem in India.

Some, according to a report by the state, have simply filled log books with fake names and addresses, then charged the state government for the service.

In Haridwar, the report found that some sample collectors listed for the festival had never even visited the town.

The authorities said they found phone numbers used multiple times to register pilgrims who were tested, and private agencies carrying out the tests wrote fictional addresses for people who were supposedly tested on their arrival for a dip in the holy waters.

When officials called the numbers in the logs, they found they were false.

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Fake Coronavirus Tests May Have Helped Fuel India Outbreaks - The New York Times

(CBS DETROIT) The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported there are two new coronavirus outbreaks in Michigan schools.

This week, there were no cases reported in Wayne, Washtenaw or Macomb counties, but one school in Oakland County reported cases.

Van Hoosen Middle School in Rochester Hills reported two cases among students this week.

In Detroit, the city of Detroit Health Department reported three cases at Breithaupt Career and Technical Center among students.

School-related outbreak reporting is updated on Mondays by 3 p.m. For more information visit here.

2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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2 New Coronavirus Outbreaks Reported In Michigan Schools This Week - CBS Detroit

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Emirates Airline Reveals Extent Of Coronavirus Damage To Its Business - Forbes

A standard device in detective stories is a map on which certain buildings are circled. Their locations are thought to be revealing, though often they just create a false trail. When four of the first cases of a strange, pneumonia-like illness seen in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019, were found to have a connection to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, it seemed a key to solving the mystery of the illnesss origin. Live animals were reportedly on sale there, offering a route for pathogens to jump from wild species to humans. But then other cases, some of them earlier, were identified, with no known connection to the market. In due course, more sites were circled on the pandemic map. One was the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which contains a Biosafety Level 4 lab. The institutes work included experiments on the bat coronaviruses that are among the closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.

The market and the institute have at times served as shorthand for two broad sets of possible answers about the origin of the virus: that it was zoonotic, meaning that it travelled directly from animals, or that it was transmitted by an accidental lab leak, from a place such as the Wuhan Institute. On May 26th, President Joe Biden, in a statement, described U.S. intelligence agencies as being uncertain about which scenario is more likely, with a majority of them believing that firm evidence for either is lacking. Biden asked them to redouble their efforts and come back with a better answer in ninety days.

The debate has become, to an unfortunate degree, loud, contentious, and infused with politics. Former President Donald Trump has insinuated that the Chinese government intentionally spread the virus as part of a plan to have it take hold in this country and destroy our economy. Republican members of Congress have turned a recently disclosed e-mail mentioning a possible lab source, which Anthony Fauci received in February, 2020, into yet another argument for firing him, apparently because he didnt instantly condemn Beijing. Earlier this month, Fauci told the Financial Times that he still thinks its most likely that the coronavirus jumped species, but that we need to keep on investigating until a possibility is proven.

The Chinese government has not helped by failing, at almost every stage, to respond transparently to questions or to share information. Beijings decision, earlier this year, to seriously constrain the work of an investigation sponsored by the World Health Organization meant that the resulting report, which perfunctorily dismissed the lab-leak theory, was not seen as credible. (The director-general of the W.H.O. pointedly told member states, All hypotheses remain on the table.) There is some concern that exploring the theory will further incite xenophobiawith China being blamed for every consequence of a pandemic that the United States also failed to control. Yet Chinese citizens have consistently pushed back against censorship, often at personal risk. According to official figures, COVID-19 has killed almost four million people; a study by The Economist concludes that the true number may be close to thirteen million. Partisanship, in whatever form, cant be the guide here.

From the beginning, it made sense that SARS-CoV-2 would have a zoonotic origin, because that is how other novel pathogens, such as the viruses causing Ebola, SARS, and MERS, have emerged. The genome of SARS-CoV-2 implies that it is descended from a coronavirus that infected a horseshoe bat, but when it was identified in Wuhan it had already adapted very well to infect humans. This may suggest that it spent time either in another animalSARS and MERS are believed to have moved from bats to civets and camels, respectively, before reaching humansor in people elsewhere. An intermediate population hasnt been identified, but there are a lot of places to look: even if Huanan Seafood is not the source, there are more than a dozen markets selling live animals in the city. Wuhan is a metropolis of eleven million inhabitants, and it is crisscrossed by travellers, with an international airport and an expansive subway system. Its worth noting that the natural zoonotic path for novel pathogens often relies on some distinctly unnatural disruption, such as climate change, poaching, or urban sprawl, to spur encounters between species.

Meanwhile, lab leak has come to describe at least two related theories. The first starts with the observation that the Wuhan Institute has worked with bat coronaviruses; its researchers have collected samples from sites hundreds of miles away, including a disused mine where, in 2012, six workers fell ill with sars-like symptoms. All that activity involved a great deal of interaction between researchers, locals, and many bats, and in that context its conceivable that a novel virus could emerge, or be transmitted, or be collected and then accidentally mishandled. This might be better called the lab nexus theory, because it envisions the lab as a crossroads for people and viruses. According to information from a U.S. intelligence report published by the Wall Street Journal, three workers at the institute became sick in November, 2019, with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and seasonal illnesses, and sought hospital care. Fauci has said that hed like to see their medical records.

The scientific work itselfsome of which benefitted from National Institutes of Health fundingforms the basis for what might be called the lab-experiment leak theory. The Wuhan Institute is one of a number of labs around the world, including in Europe and the United States, that have engaged in gain of function studies. This means that viruses are in some way engineered, in many cases to make them more infectious or more virulent. The ideaand there is disagreement about whether it is a good oneis that doing so will better prepare scientists to fight future viruses. But, in the short run, additional novel pathogens are in close proximity to humans; the provocative question is whether SARS-CoV-2 was one of them. Scientists who have examined its genome are divided about whether it shows signs of engineering, specifically in an area known as the furin cleavage site, and about whether such signs would even be discernible. A leading scientist at the Wuhan Institute, Shi Zhengli, known as the Bat Woman, has said that she is confident that the virus was not one worked on in her lab.

There are wilder theories, too, involving intimations of biowarfare plots. But, although the lab-leak scenario figures in many conspiracy theories, it is not itself a conspiracy theory; the consensus is that it is unproved, but plausible. That possibility alone should prompt serious reflection on the practices in virological labs. Yet what is striking is that none of the theories are reassuring. Each implicates something about how we, collectively, live on the planet. And each suggests that many things need to change.

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The Battle Over the Coronavirus Lab-Leak Theory - The New Yorker

Health officials on Sunday reported 50 more coronavirus cases across the state.

The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 852. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats down from 889 on Saturday.

No new deaths were reported, leaving the statewide death toll at 845.

Its the 10th straight day when Maine saw new coronavirus cases slip below the triple digits, a level of transmission that seemed unthinkable this past winter when infections surged well over 800 a day at times. It comes as Gov. Janet Mills on Friday declared that the civil state of emergency Maine has lived under since April 2020 will finally be allowed to expire June 30.

Sundays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 68,590, according to the Maine CDC. Thats up from 68,540 on Saturday.

Of those, 50,160 have been confirmed positive, while 18,430 were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.

The new case rate statewide Sunday was 0.37 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 512.48.

Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 51.9, down from 55.9 a day ago, down from 70.7 a week ago and down from 266.1 a month ago. That average peaked on Jan. 14 at 625.3.

The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old make up the majority of deaths. More cases and deaths have been recorded in women than men.

For a complete breakdown of the age and sex demographics of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, use the interactive graphic below.

So far, 2,048 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Thirty-nine of those are currently hospitalized with 23 in critical care and 12 on a ventilator. Currently, 88 out of 372 critical care beds and 240 out of 319 ventilators are available. Meanwhile, 452 alternative ventilators are available.

The total statewide hospitalization rate on Sunday was 15.30 patients per 10,000 residents.

Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (8,360), Aroostook (1,885), Cumberland (17,198), Franklin (1,367), Hancock (1,370), Kennebec (6,562), Knox (1,143), Lincoln (1,076), Oxford (3,624), Penobscot (6,285), Piscataquis (574), Sagadahoc (1,472), Somerset (2,260), Waldo (1,046), Washington (930) and York (13,435) counties. Information about an additional three cases was not immediately available.

For a complete breakdown of the county by county data, use the interactive graphic below.

As of Saturday, 731,802 Mainers have received a first dose of the vaccine, while 746,673 have received a final dose.

As of Sunday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 33,457,794 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 599,672 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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Another 50 coronavirus cases are reported across the state - Bangor Daily News

Dr Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University, said she is concerned that the natural immunity of those who have been exposed to coronavirus may soon wane. And shes worried that states with low vaccination rates could become hot spots.

Just because were lucky in June doesnt mean well continue to be lucky come the late fall and winter, said Wen, the former health commissioner for the city of Baltimore. We could well have variants here that are more transmissible, more virulent and those who do not have immunity or have waning immunity could be susceptible once again.

In Mississippi, about 835,000 people have been fully vaccinated, or 28% of the population, compared to the national average of 43%. But despite the lagging vaccination rate, the states rolling average of daily new cases over the past two weeks has decreased by about 18%, according to Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Albert Ko, who chairs Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale, said there is no accurate data to show what percentage of the population in high burden states such as Alabama or Texas have been exposed to the virus, but he said estimates have put it as high as 50%.

I think it doesnt deny the importance of vaccination, particularly because the levels of antibodies that you get that are induced by natural infection are lower than that of what we have for our best vaccine, Ko said.

Ko said it is important that even those exposed to the disease get vaccinated because natural immunity does not last as long as vaccine immunity and the levels of antibodies are lower.

Wen said research strongly suggests that vaccinations provide a benefit to those who already have some antibodies due to infection.

I think it is a fallacy that many people have that recovery means they no longer need to be vaccinated, she said.

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Coronavirus live: UK cases up by 2,000 for second week in a row; G7 calls for expert-led study on origins of Covid - The Guardian

The Illinois Department of Public Health has now linked more than 9,200 cases of coronavirus to five different variants of the virus, including nearly 6,200 cases of a strain that originated in the United Kingdom.

According to the latest data from IDPH, a total of 9,211 cases of the virus are now linked to variant strains of the illness.

By far the most prevalent of those strains is the Alpha strain. Formerly known as B.1.1.7, the strain has infected at least 6,187 residents in Illinois, according to officials.

The Alpha strain of the virus is thought to be more contagious than the original strain of the COVID virus, and is thought to potentially cause greater risk of hospitalization and death, according to the CDC.

Illinois is also seeing an uptick in cases connected to the Gamma strain of the virus. That strain, formerly known as P.1, has caused 2,405 cases of coronavirus in Illinois, and was originally discovered in Japan and Brazil, according to the CDC.

The Gamma strain is thought to be resistant to specific antibody treatments, according to the CDC, and has been largely responsible for an outbreak of the virus in Brazil.

Illinois officials also reported 517 cases of coronavirus linked to the Epsilon variant, which was first discovered in California. Another 102 cases of the virus are linked to the Beta variant, formerly known as B.1.351. That variant was originally observed in South Africa.

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Health Officials in Illinois Say More Than 9,200 COVID Cases Linked to Variant Strains - NBC Chicago