A radical nature-based agenda would help society overcome the psychological effects of coronavirus12/10/2020
Image by Ria Sopala from Pixabay
After a lengthy absence, I re-publish this interesting article which sort of mirrors
what I posted about in April: FOREST BATHING - WALD GEGEN CORONA-VIREN A radical nature-based agenda would help society overcome the psychological effects of coronavirusMatthew Adams, University of BrightonMore of us than ever are stuck indoors, whether we are working at home, self-isolating, or socially distancing from other households. Long periods of isolation are already impacting many people’s mental health and will continue to do so. On the other hand, people have reported discovering outdoor spaces on their doorstep as they are forced to stay local. Many say they have felt happier for doing so. This reinforces the surge of research exploring the psychological benefits of connecting to nature that has developed in recent years. The idea is also growing that encouraging time in and engagement with nature has enormous potential in terms of mental health and wellbeing. There are more and more programmes explicitly aimed at helping people with experiences of distress by providing structured contact with nature. These are variously referred to as nature-based interventions, ecotherapy or green care. A growing evidence base suggests they are effective in alleviating distress and fostering recovery and resilience – for people but also, at least potentially, for nature too. I think programmes like this need to be rolled out en masse, with a few vital provisos. Natural connectionsMy work often involves evaluating nature-based interventions from a psychological perspective. I have repeatedly witnessed the benefits of time spent in nature for those involved. One organisation I work with, called Grow, takes small groups of six to eight people – often strangers at first – into nature. Participants all suffer, or have suffered, from debilitating forms of psychological distress and are recruited on that basis. Like many such services, Grow operates with funding from sources like the National Lottery, larger charities and local council grants to run a number of programmes a year. Clients are not yet referred through or commissioned by the health service. Your doctor might be more likely today to suggest you get outside more in a move towards green prescriptions. But institutionalised health provision is still catching up with the evidence of the benefits of structured, supported and sustained contact with nature. At Grow, trained professionals run a series of activities to help participants connect to nature on daily trips, once a week, for eight weeks. Activities include mindfulness, silent walks, foraging, sharing food, identifying flora and fauna, building fires, arts and crafts using natural objects, and reflective diaries, alongside more traditional active conservation activity like planting, clearing and coppicing. Colleagues and I have collected surveys, diaries and interview data about the project over a number of years. Our findings reveal how transformative the experience has been for participants. (I was so impressed I later became a trustee of the charitable organisation involved.) We found plenty of evidence of the psychological benefits of nature connection, but also, vitally, something else – a deepening of social connectedness. For people struggling emotionally, socially or psychologically, just being in nature seems to rekindle their ability to relate to and engage with others. Feeling present and “held” by the natural environment can nurture new and positive forms of social contact, which in turn enhances experiences of nature. So for me, while there are always important caveats (such as the need for on-hand trained professional support), the benefits of a range of nature-based projects are unequivocal. They can be used as therapeutic interventions for people struggling to cope. They also work preventatively, by helping to maintain a sense of wellbeing, happiness, awe and belonging. A human rightThe impact of coronavirus-induced isolation on mental health is already mirrored in rising psychiatric diagnoses. And so the need for these kinds of interventions has never been greater. It is not enough to just encourage people outdoors. For many, access to nature is practically difficult. For others, it is an alien concept. There are projects like Grow across the world and they are chronically underfunded. We need more of them. We need our governments to be funding projects like this as a matter of urgency, rolling them out on a national scale. Doctors, nurses and other primary care professionals should be able to refer people to local green care services as part of a wider shift towards “social prescribing”. This is not only a psychological issue. Access to nature is not equal. The richest 20% of areas in England offer access to five times the amount of green space as the most deprived 10%. If nature is so fundamental to our wellbeing, it should be understood as a right rather than a luxury. This is why diverse organisations such as walkers’ rights group the Ramblers and the mental health charity MIND are increasingly calling for legally binding targets that guarantee people’s access to nature. This should be part of a radical shake up of health and care policy. Mutual healingWe also cannot ignore the fact that nature is in retreat, decimated as ecological devastation is wrought across the globe. In this context, contact with nature might seem futile, contradictory even. There is arguably something perverse about asking nature to make us well at the same time as we are destroying it. But the movement is evolving rapidly. One of the most promising developments I’ve seen is the growth of “reciprocal restoration” projects – interventions explicitly designed to combine restoring people with restoring natural environments. The potential for more collective forms of green care, such as the mass mobilisation of volunteers, is well worth exploring. Evidence also suggests that the more access to nature we have, the more we come to care for and want to defend the natural world. There are already signs that we are at last more willing to face up to the realities of ecological crisis – if the shift in nature documentaries, the rise of Extinction Rebellion and the growing youth climate movement are anything to go by. So perhaps it’s possible that an ambitious push for nature-based interventions might further encourage a groundswell of action that is truly restorative – of both humans and nature. Matthew Adams, Principal Lecturer in Psychology, University of Brighton This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
MORE NEWS TO CONSIDER: Coronavirus: WHO backflips on virus stance by condemning lockdowns Lockdowns have been used to control the coronavirus around the world. Now a WHO official has questioned the success of them.
The World Health Organisation has backflipped on its original COVID-19 stance after calling for world leaders to stop locking down their countries and economies.
Dr. David Nabarro from the WHO appealed to world leaders yesterday, telling them to stop “using lockdowns as your primary control method” of the coronavirus. He also claimed that the only thing lockdowns achieved was poverty – with no mention of the potential lives saved. “Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer,” he said. ...........................READ MORE Demons of the deep state: how evangelicals and conspiracy theories combine in Trump's AmericaS Jonathon O'Donnell, University College DublinAre demons active forces in American life and politics? That is what a large number of evangelicals in the US believe and are increasingly vocal about. Since the 1980s, growing numbers of evangelicals have given the fight against demons a key role in their spirituality and their politics. Known as “spiritual warfare”, this views demons as central actors in world politics and everyday life. While often seen as fringe, belief in spiritual warfare is common across denominational lines, including among evangelicals close to Donald Trump such as Robert Jeffress and the president’s spiritual advisor, Paula White. A key idea in spiritual warfare is that demons don’t only attack people, as in depictions of demonic possession, but also take control of places and institutions, such as journalism, academia, and both municipal and federal bureaucracies. By doing so, demons are framed as advancing social projects that spiritual warriors see as opposing God’s plans. These include advances in reproductive and LGBTQ rights and tolerance for non-Christian religions (especially Islam). In a recent article published in the journal Religion, I explore how these ideas about demons combine with the wider Christian nationalism shown to be prevalent among Trump’s support base. Through a survey of conservative evangelical literature, articles, and television and radio broadcasts released between 2016 and 2018, I analyse how their authors used discourses of spiritual warfare to navigate the changing political reality, and Trump’s victory and presidency in particular. Read more: The belief that demons have sex with humans runs deep in Christian and Jewish traditions The evangelicals whose works I analyse vary in their attitudes to Trump, from ardent advocates to reluctant supporters. Yet even the reluctant supporters interpret his presidency in terms of spiritual warfare, framing Trump’s victory as a divine intervention against a demonic status quo. Trump’s alleged battle against the “deep state” here adopts cosmic meaning, as not only the US government but undocumented immigrants and Black and LGBTQ people are cast as agents of demonic forces. Divine interventionThe deep state has become a watchword of the Trump era, a term used by his supporters to depict Trump as an outsider fighting a corrupted political system. The deep state is central to the conspiracy movement QAnon, which depicts Trump as at war with a “deep state cabal” of devil-worshipping cannibal paedophiles. QAnon has many overlaps with spiritual warfare and its practitioners. It uses similar ideas of religious revival and donning the “armour of God” against unseen foes. Not all spiritual warriors engage with QAnon. But even for those that don’t, the deep state has come to represent broader ideas of demonic control, as demons are imagined as a “deeper state” working behind the scenes. Demons become the source of economic and environmental regulations and of social welfare programmes. The deregulatory ambitions that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon called Trump’s “deconstruction of the administrative state” become imagined as a project of national exorcism. For many spiritual warriors this project began on election night 2016. Trump’s improbable victory stoked narratives of divine intervention. Comparing the red electoral map of Republican victory to “the blood of Jesus” washing away America’s sins, one evangelical framed the election as overthrowing “Jezebel”, a demonic spirit often depicted as behind reproductive and LGBTQ rights. Banning abortion is central to conservative evangelical politics. Spiritual warriors often go further, framing support for abortion and same-sex marriage as both causing and caused by demonic control. They portray evil spirits and sinful humans as creating reinforcing systems of beliefs, behaviours and policy agendas. The deep state has become a key representation of these systems. This spiritual war against the deep state can be understood as part of post-truth politics. While sometimes seen as a politics which delegitimises truth itself, post-truth can also be understood as a destabilisation of mainstream narratives about society. One that allows new narratives to be pushed. In spiritual warfare, this new narrative is one where God is retaking control of the US from demonic forces. One where God’s truth is being reasserted over competing truths, which are reframed as demonic lies. Spiritual warfare here becomes a struggle over competing narratives about what America is, or should be. Dismantling the deep state is part of this struggle. But it is not the only one. The demons at workSpiritual warfare has also come to frame evangelical reactions to ongoing protests. Demonic opposition to Trump has been positioned by spiritual warriors as being behind events from the 2017 Women’s March to the 2020 protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd. Stances on immigrants and refugees are also included. In one book, turned into a part-biopic, part-propaganda film called The Trump Prophecy by the conservative evangelical Liberty University, victory over demons is paralleled with the mass expulsion of undocumented migrants. Others have framed the central American migrant caravans as carriers of diabolic “witchcraft”. Conspiratorial claims that both the protests and migrant caravans were funded by the investor/philanthropist George Soros or the deep state close the circle. They cast demonised groups – such as “nasty” women, Black protesters, refugees and undocumented migrants – not just as agents of corrupt deep state forces but avatars of the demonic deeper state behind them. Spiritual warriors are often keen to separate the demons they battle from the people they claim to be saving from them. But today such deliverance from evil has been shown to never just be about the spiritual salvation of individuals, if it ever was. It has profound and lasting material consequences for both those individuals and the nation. By imagining demons behind social welfare, economic and environmental regulations, or legal protections for marginalised groups, spiritual warriors frame the dismantling of these systems as ridding the US of demons. More than this, they frame the people and groups they see as benefiting from those systems as agents of evil incarnate. Only after such people are removed can there be a national rebirth. S Jonathon O'Donnell, Postdoctoral Fellow in American Studies, University College Dublin This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Ein deutschsprachiger Bericht von St.Corona
Apologies to my English readers - most material presented is in German
Auch Monate nach dem Lockdown hat sich eines nicht geändert: Wer eine andere Meinung hat und die Maßnahmen kritisiert, wird totgeschwiegen. Prof. Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi gilt als renommierter Wissenschaftler und Kritiker der Behörden im Umgang mit dem neuartigen Virus. Mit seinem Buch „Corona Fehlalarm?“ hat er einen Bestseller geschrieben, der besonders von den klassischen Medien, ebenso wie seine Meinung, bis heute ignoriert wird. In einer Zeit, die von dem fragwürdigen Wettstreit um einen Impfstoff dominiert wird, zieht der Wissenschaftler eine Zwischenbilanz. Vier Monate nach ihrem ersten Interview: Ferdinand Wegscheider im Gespräch mit Prof.Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi.
Prof.Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi spricht im obigen Interview unter Anderem auch über Impfstoffe, besonders über den "Oxford" Impfstoff. Um was es hier genau geht erklärt der Biologe Clemens Arvay in seinem neuesten Video.
Biologe Clemens Arvay fordert das Aus des „Oxford-Impfstoffs“ und belegt die erheblichen Gefahren der laufenden Verkürzungen bei Impfstoff-Zulassungsverfahren gegen COVID-19, auf die er bereits im März 2020 hingewiesen hat. (Video-Coverfoto: Tatevosian Yana, Quelle: Shutterstock)
FUSSNOTEN
[1] Clemens Arvays Artikel in der Schweizerischen Ärztezeitung
[2] In Phase III des „Oxford-Impfstoffs“ trat eine schwere Komplikation auf (transverse Myelits) [3] Frühere Videos von Clemens Arvay: (a) Bill Gates und Covid-19: RNA-Impfstoffe als globale Bedrohung (b) Genetische Impfstoffe gegen COVID-19: Hoffnung oder Risiko? (c) Gefahr Corona-Impfstoff: Verheimlichte Nebenwirkungen bei Favoriten [4] Die Antikörper waren bei Primaten beim "Oxford-Impfstoff" nicht ausreichend funktionsfähig: (a) Doubts over Oxford vaccine as it fails to stop coronavirus in animal trials (b) ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine prevents SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in rhesus macaques [5] Genetiker William Haseltine über mangelnde Wirksamkeit des „Oxford-Impfstoffs“ [6] Bill Gates stellt im April 2020 die Teleskopierung der Zulassungsverfahren vor [7] Die Gates-Stiftung ist Investor des Jenner-Institutes in Oxford, wo das Unternehmen Vaccitech gegründet wurde, welches das Patent auf die „Oxford“-Impfstoff Plattform besitzt. Außerdem tritt die Gates-Stiftung als Investor der Oxford Vaccine Group auf, die an der Entwicklung des Impfstoffs beteiligt ist: (a) Funders & Partners (b) Oxford Vaccine Group [8] Vorläufige Auswertung der teleskopierten klinisches Phase I-II durch die überwiegend mit Interessenkonflikten behafteten Studienautoren des "Oxford-Impfstoffs" zeigt signifikante Häufung von Nebenwirkungen: Safety and immunogenicity of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2: a preliminary report of a phase 1/2, single-blind, randomised controlled trial [9] Deutschland hat 80 Millionen des "Oxford-Impfstoffs" gekauft [10] Österreich hat 8 Millionen des "Oxford-Impfstoffs" gekauft [11] EU-Länder (Großbritannien nicht mitgerechnet) haben 400 Millionen Dosen des "Oxford-Vakzins" eingekauft [12] Genetiker William Haseltine warnt vor den Gefahren der teleskopierten Zulassungsverfahren [13] Lobbyverband der pharmazeutischen Industrie, Vaccines Europe, räumt erhöhtes Risiko durch verkürzte Zulassungsverfahren ein und fordert daher Haftungsübernahme durch die Staaten: Covid-19 vaccine makers lobby EU for legal protection [14] vorläufige klinische Auswertung zweier mRNA-Impfstoffe, die neben dem Oxford-Impfstoff ebenfalls als Favoriten gehandhabt werden (jedoch von Deutschland und Österreich nicht eingekauft wurden): (a) An mRNA Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 — Preliminary Report. (b) Phase 1/2 study of COVID-19 RNA vaccine BNT162b1 in adults [15] 140 nationale Wissenschaftsakademien kritisieren Verkürzung der Zulassungsverfahren ein verwandter Artikel über den Oxford-Impfstoff (Englisch) A related article about the Oxford Vaccine News that a 'vaccine' might be available in Australia as early as the start of 2021 caused a wave of excitement this week. But don't go booking your overseas travel just yet. The development of the Oxford University coronavirus vaccine – which offers Australia's best hope of returning to a level of normality – began long before anyone had heard of COVID-19. It started with Disease X. In 2017, a coalition of governments, universities, research institutions and philanthropic organisations formed the view that a major global pandemic was a matter of when, not if, and they wanted to be prepared. .......READ MORE IN FINANCIAL TIMES
Cartoon von © David Rowe (link to his twitter account) - image and Financial Times article excerpt published under Fair Use
In diesem Zusammenhang ebenfalls interessant:
Unklarer Trend bei Corona-Fallzahlen
von Dirk Jacobs
Zurzeit ist keine zweite Welle erkennbar - das zeigt auch die Reproduktionsrate r, die beim 7-Tageswert unter 1 liegt, was darauf hindeutet, dass die Fallzahlen leicht sinken. 27.08.2020 Video verfügbar bis 27.08.2021
Image by Ria Sopala from Pixabay
It has been a while since I reported last. The fall numbers are rising everywhere, and some are beginning to panic. The second wave is coming ...... but should we be worried? Two months ago Drosten speculated the virus is mutating and weakening (related article in German). I believe I already passed another article on, but to recap, here it is again: Will mutations soon make COVID-19 less harmful?
Apparently so, if one follows the numbers. More and more people are getting tested, are positive, but have no symptoms or only very mild symptoms. The death rates are flat, hospitalisations are down as well. Below, I republish an article from THE CONVERSATION. My previous post also talks about not to panic: CORONAVIRUS REINFECTION – WHAT IT ACTUALLY MEANS, AND WHY YOU SHOULDN’T PANIC Coronavirus: why aren’t death rates rising with case numbers?Danny Dorling, University of OxfordIt is a conundrum. For much of the past two months, many people have been convinced that mortality associated with COVID-19 would rise as the number of people testing positive with the disease increased. But this has not happened so far. Why? A look at government data from England and Wales can provide some clues. By late summer 2020, the UK government had finally managed to produce a consistent definition of precisely what constitutes a positive case of coronavirus. It is defined as a person with at least one lab-confirmed positive COVID-19 test result (individuals who tested positive more than once are only counted once, on the date of their first positive test). The first graph below shows cases by the day on which they were initially reported – represented by the blue line. Cases peaked at 5,451 on April 5, reached a low of 101 on June 10 and very recently have appeared to be rapidly rising again. The most recent rise in cases, to more than 2,600 a day, is particularly unsettling. The red line shows deaths per day, which have been very low for many weeks now and also still falling in number. It’s important to remember that the number of cases has not been rising because the number of people carrying the disease has been increasing, but instead because more tests are being carried out, and especially in areas where the rate at which people have the disease is found to be higher. The main reasons why we know that the number of deaths has not been rising is that the actual number of cases in the population has not been rising when measured per million people tested. We know this because the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is running a properly constructed surveillance programme which estimated that by August 25 only one person in every 2,000 in England had the disease, and each week only one person in every 27,000 was catching the disease (this proportion having been essentially stable for several months). The proportion in Wales was even lower at one in 2,200. The ONS is currently increasing the sample size of its surveillance programme to 400,000 people in England with 150,000 being tested each fortnight in October. A question of demographicsIt is likely that among the steadily rising number of people who have tested positive for the disease since June, an increasing proportion are young and a declining proportion are older, so that having the disease is dramatically less lethal for each person with it. In March and April (before the June minimum was reached) younger adults aged 18-34 had the highest prevalence in antibody testing so we should not be surprised that outside of the most rigorous lockdown, cases are higher among the young. Your chances of dying with COVID-19 depend primarily on age. Those chances are greatly reduced if you are younger – as the table below shows. According to this data, by the end of August, someone aged 20-24 had a one in 100,000 chance of having died with a mention of COVID-19 on their death certificate; that risk doubles to one in 50,000 for people aged 30-34 and is more than one in 1,000 for men by age 65 and for women by age 75. Another way of describing what the table reveals is that a grandmother in her early 90s is 120 times more likely to have died of the disease than her daughter aged 52 who, herself, is 259 times more likely to die than her 14-year-old daughter. Currently, mortality rates for all ages are very near zero as deaths per day are so low. Cases increasing in the young and decreasing among the elderly is how the number of deaths can continue to fall even if cases found by the ONS surveillance study remain the same or even rise slightly, as long as fewer older people have the disease as compared to more younger people over time. There is growing concern of younger people passing the disease to older people, but if a young person has had the disease, and is then very unlikely to have it in future, their chance of passing it on to an older person in future is much diminished. This is another reason for not hitting the panic button when case numbers rise. Reaching a true mortality rateEventually, mortality rates from COVID-19 will fall as the proportion of people who have had it rises. The final graph below tries to illustrate just how far away from that point we are, but how we have clearly been moving towards it over the course of the past two months. The graph shows the ratio of deaths to every 1,000 cases recorded each day. This is a crude measure, as mortality lags behind positive cases, but it is still a useful guide. We can see that the number of people dying of COVID-19 falls from 217 for every 1,000 testing positive across all of England and Wales on June 24 (when so few people were being tested), to four by the end of August and just two per 1,000 by September 4. The fall is so fast and so great that a log scale is required to encompass it in one graph. The fall cannot continue at this rate for much longer, and where the ratio eventually settles will be below the theoretical upper limit for the actual final overall mortality rate from this disease; a rate which we do not yet know. Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The above is from the UK. From my own perspective in Austria, I see similar, the numbers tell the story on the site of the Austrian Ministry of Health.
Benefiz Ausstellung bei De Es Schwertberger
Eröffnung FREITAG, 18. SEPTEMBER 2020 Um 19 Uhr bis 22 Uhr
Die Galerie ist am Samstag 19. SEPTEMBER 2020 von 13 Uhr bis 19 Uhr offen.
Studio SINNREICH
Webgasse 41, 1060 Wien
Liebe KunstliebhaberInnen,
liebe FreundInnen von De Es, wie viele von euch/Ihnen vielleicht schon wissen, ist De Es seit einigen Monaten auf Pflege angewiesen und aus diesem Anlass haben ein paar FreundInnen von ihm eine Benefiz-Ausstellung organisiert. Bitte leitet die Einladung an alle weiter, die hier helfen könnten und zu sehr fairen Preisen eines seiner Werke erstehen wollen. Vielen Dank im Namen seiner FreundInnen und Familie. Anni Fuchs Geschäftsleitung Ernst Fuchs Museum BetriebsgmbH Hüttelbergstraße 26 1140 Wien Tel. +43 699 10135425 www.ernstfuchsmuseum.at E-Mail: af@ernstfuchs.at
Am Freitag, 18.9. 2020 um 19 Uhr ist die Eröffnung im Studio SINNREICH.
Die Ausstellung wird von Michael Fuchs eröffnet. Das Studio SINNREICH ist am nächsten Tag, Samstag, 19.9.2020 von 13 bis 19 Uhr ebenfalls geöffnet.
UPDATE, SONNTAG 20.9.2020
Die Ausstellung war erfolgreich danke für zahlreiches Erscheinen THIS BLOG HAS BEEN RETAINED FOR ARCHIVAL PURPOSES ONLY for additional information please contact: https://dees.at/ Coronavirus reinfection – what it actually means, and why you shouldn't panicZania Stamataki, University of BirminghamScientists in Hong Kong have reported the first confirmed case of reinfection with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, reportedly backed up by genetic sequences of the two episodes of the 33-year-old man’s infections in March and in August 2020. Naturally people are worried what this could mean for our chances of resolving the pandemic. Here’s why they shouldn’t worry. Nearly nine months after the first infection with the novel coronavirus, we have very poor evidence for reinfection. However, virologists understand that reinfection with coronaviruses is common, and immunologists are working hard to determine how long the hallmarks of protective immunity will last in recovered patients. The rare reports of reinfection so far were not accompanied by virus sequencing data so they could not be confirmed, but they are quite expected and there is no cause for alarm. Inhospitable hostsOur bodies do not become impervious to viruses when we recover from infection, instead, in many cases, they become inhospitable hosts. Consider that beyond recovery, our bodies often still offer the same cell types – such as cells of the respiratory tract – that viruses latch onto and gain entry for a cosy haven to uncoat and begin producing more viruses. These target cells are not altered in any substantial way to prevent future infections months after the virus has been cleared by the immune response. If antibodies and memory cells (B and T cells) are left behind from a recent infection, however, the new expansion of the virus is rather short lived and the infection is subdued before the host suffers too much – or even notices at all. This appears to be the case with the Hong Kong patient, who did not present any symptoms of the second infection, which was discovered following routine testing at the airport. Would he ever know that he had been reinfected had he not travelled? Probably not. A more interesting question is, was he contagious during his asymptomatic second infection? There is mounting evidence that asymptomatic and presymptomatic people are contagious and this is why the sensible official advice is to wear face coverings to avoid infecting other people and to keep our distance to avoid getting infected. Coronaviruses from previous colds have endowed some of us with memory T cells that can also mobilise against the novel coronavirus, and this could explain why some people are spared severe disease. Three potential outcomesSo how should we receive the news on reinfection of recovered individuals? There are three possible outcomes of reinfection with a similar virus: worse symptoms that lead to more severe disease, the same symptoms as the first infection, and improvement of symptoms leading to milder or no disease. The first outcome is known as disease enhancement and is noted in patients infected with similar strains of viruses such as dengue. There is no evidence for this for the novel coronavirus, despite over 23 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide. The second outcome, where the patient suffers the same disease twice, indicates that there is no sufficient immunological memory left behind to protect from reinfection. This could happen if the first infection did not require antibodies or T cells to be resolved, perhaps because other rapidly deployed immune defences were enough to control it. The final outcome is milder infection thanks to a healthy immune system that generated antibodies and memory B and T cell responses that persisted long enough to be of value during the second exposure. Given the diversity of antibody and T cell responses reported in different COVID-19 patients, we anticipate that immune protection – if efficient – may vary in different people. Of course, this has implications for the potency and duration of herd immunity, the idea that when we reach a large number of recovered patients immune to reinfection, this will protect the most vulnerable. Therefore vaccination is critical to induce and sustain protective immune responses in the long term. Vaccination can elicit more potent and longer-lasting immune responses compared with natural infection, and these can be sustained by booster vaccinations when necessary. This is why scientists were not surprised to hear of evidence of reinfection. The lack of symptoms experienced by the Hong Kong patient is very good news. Zania Stamataki, Senior Lecturer in Viral Immunology, University of Birmingham This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Photo by Retha Ferguson from Pexels
UPDATE
Just now found on YouTube, Prof. Streek Interview. This is in German, hopefully many of my readers understand German.
Was Prof. Streek sagt habe ich schon seit einiger Zeit angenommen, in meinen Worten:
"Bald wird jeder jemand kennen der trotz Corona zwar positiv getestet, aber pumperlgsund ist" Ich bewundere wie er trotz Provokation von Maischberger trotzdem gefasst und sachlich antwortet.
Image by Jeyaratnam Caniceus from Pixabay
Does your homemade mask work?Simon Kolstoe, University of PortsmouthIf a surgeon arrived at the operating theatre wearing a mask they had made that morning from a tea towel, they would probably be sacked. This is because the equipment used for important tasks, such as surgery, must be tested and certified to ensure compliance with specific standards. But anyone can design and make a face covering to meet new public health requirements for using public transport or going to the shops. Indeed, arguments about the quality and standard of face coverings underlie recent controversies and explain why many people think they are not effective for protecting against COVID-19. Even the language distinguishes between face masks (which are normally considered as being built to a certain standard) and face coverings that can be almost anything else. Perhaps the main problem is that, while we know that well-designed face masks have been used effectively for many years as personal protective equipment (PPE), during the COVID-19 outbreak shortages of PPE have made it impractical for the entire population to wear regulated masks and be trained to use them effectively. As a result, the argument has moved away from wearing face masks for personal protection and towards wearing “face coverings” for public protection. The idea is that despite unregulated face coverings being highly variable, they do, on average, reduce the spread of virus perhaps in a similar way as covering your mouth when you cough. But given the wide variety of unregulated face coverings that people are now wearing, how do we know which is most effective? The first thing is to understand what we mean by effective. Given that coronavirus particles are about 0.08 micrometres and the weaves within a typical cloth face covering have gaps about 1,000 times bigger (between 1 and 0.1 millimetres), “effectiveness” does not mean reliably trapping the virus. Instead, much like covering our mouths when we cough, the aim of wearing cloth coverings is to reduce the distance that your breath spreads away from your body. The idea is that if you do have COVID-19, depositing any virus you may breathe out on either yourself or nearby (within one metre) is much better than blowing it all over other people or surfaces. So an effective face covering is not meant to stop the wearer from catching the virus. Although from a personal perspective we might want to protect ourselves, to do so we should be wearing specially designed PPE such as FFP2 (also known as N95) masks. But, as mentioned, by doing so we risk creating mask shortages and potentially putting healthcare workers at risk. Instead, if you want to avoid catching the virus yourself, the most effective things to do are avoid crowded places by ideally staying at home, don’t touch your face, and wash your hands often. Two simple testsIf effectiveness for face coverings means preventing our breath travelling too far away from our bodies, how would we go about comparing different designs or materials? Perhaps the easiest way, as demonstrated by several increasingly shared pictures or videos on social media, is to find someone who “vapes” and film them breathing out the vapour while wearing a face covering. One glance at such a picture dispels any suggestion that these face coverings stop your breath escaping. Instead, these pictures show that your breath is directed over the top of your head, down onto your chest, and behind you. The breath is also turbulent, meaning that although it does spread out, it doesn’t go far. In comparison, if you look at a picture of someone not wearing a face covering, you will see that the exhalation goes mostly forward and down, but a significantly further distance than with the face covering. Such a test is probably ideal for examining different designs and fits. Do coverings that loop around the ears work better than scarves? How far under your chin does a covering need to go? What is the best nose fitting? How do face shields compare to face masks? These are all questions that could be answered using this method. But, in conducting this experiment, we should appreciate that “vaping” particles are about 0.1 to 3 micrometres – significantly bigger than the virus. While it is probably fair to assume that the smaller virus particles will travel in roughly the same directions as the vaping particles, there is also the chance that they may still go straight forward through the face covering. To get an idea of how much this might happen, a simple test involving trying to blow out a candle directly in front of the wearer could be tried. Initially, the distance coupled with the strength of exhalation could be investigated, but then face coverings made from different materials and critically with different numbers of layers could be tried. The design of face covering that made it hardest to divert the candle flame will probably provide the best barrier for projecting the virus forward and through the face covering. Without any more sophisticated equipment, it would be difficult to conduct any further simple experiments at home. However, combining the above two tests would provide wearers with a good idea about which of their face coverings would work the best if the aim was to avoid breathing potential infection over other people. Simon Kolstoe, Senior Lecturer in Evidence Based Healthcare and University Ethics Advisor, University of Portsmouth This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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How we found coronavirus in a catWillie Weir, University of GlasgowSince the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, the potential role of animals in catching and spreading the disease has been closely examined by scientists. This is because the virus that causes COVID-19 belongs to the family of coronaviruses that cause disease in a variety of mammals. The evidence suggests that this virus arose in bats and my colleagues at the University of Glasgow have recently determined that the sub-type of coronavirus to which the virus belongs has been circulating in the bat population since the 1940s. So it makes sense for researchers to ponder whether the virus can be transmitted to companion animals, whether these animals can show symptoms of infection, and whether they may play any role in the epidemiology of the disease. Cats are the UK’s most popular pet – a 2019 survey revealed there are almost 11 million felines in households across the country. Public concern about felines was initially raised when tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo in New York were found to be infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19. There have also been sporadic reports of cats from COVID-19 households in Hong Kong, Belgium, France, Spain and the US which have tested positive for the virus. So, could our domestic cat population be somehow involved in this pandemic here in the UK? We decided to find out. Searching for coronavirus in UK catsIn early May, my colleagues and I were given ethical approval to retrospectively test cats for SARS-CoV-2 and work soon began screening routine respiratory samples taken from cats throughout the UK. We also launched an appeal to veterinary surgeons asking for samples from suspect cases. After screening hundreds of samples, this collaborative effort eventually resulted in the detection of a cat with SARS-CoV-2 in the south of England, which had been sampled in mid-May. Further samples submitted to our veterinary colleagues at the Animal and Plant Health Agency revealed that this cat had developed an antibody response to the virus, demonstrating that it had indeed experienced a genuine infection and confirming it was not a simple case of sample contamination. Circumstances indicate that the cat contracted the virus from its owners, who had previously tested positive for COVID-19. At this point, the World Organisation for Animal Health was notified by the UK Chief Veterinary Officer and the press was alerted. We are currently preparing a paper on our findings for publication. Should I be worried about my cat?So, what does this case tell us? Our research coincided with the UK COVID-19 outbreak, focusing on cats experiencing respiratory symptoms. Our finding of a single infected individual among the hundreds screened tells us that infection in cats is relatively uncommon. This is reinforced by the fact that the other cat in the household never became infected, either by the owners or the infected cat. Although the cat had been experiencing mild symptoms, including runny eyes and a snotty nose, these signs were consistent with feline herpesvirus infection, for which this cat also tested positive. There is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was making this cat ill and thankfully, the cat and its owners have all made a full recovery. It is important to appreciate that while, to date, about 18 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, only a handful of infected cats have been detected around the world. All available evidence suggests, therefore, that cats are not involved in spreading COVID-19. However, the importance of this type of animal surveillance work is clear, considering that a million mink have recently been culled in the Netherlands and Spain as they have been implicated in disease spread. Our suspicion in the case of cats is that feline infections simply represent a “spill over” from the human epidemic, and we are currently analysing the genome sequence of the virus from the case we found to investigate this hypothesis. Our results and those from other studies, such as work in the US showing experimentally infected cats were only transiently infected, can provide reassurance to the pet-owning public. It’s very unlikely your cat has coronavirus, and if it does, it probably won’t be involved in spreading it any further. Willie Weir, Professor of Veterinary Infectious Disease, University of Glasgow This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Facebook Conversation Today A friend posted this: Can anyone tell me why shipping of small parcel/packages to Australia has been discontinued by all our shipping services? Only express mail ( the expensive version) is an option now. Before small packages for 16 Euro up to 1 Kilo were possible. But as of yesterday it's almost 40 Euro for anything up to 1 kilo. It doesn't matter if DHL or UPS or the german post office, apparently there is no other option! My comment on her post: Not just Australia, not just parcels, but the entire postal service to EVERYWHERE outside the EU, including letters is again out of order! Even if you pay premium for EMS, the running time and tracking is also screwed up. Absolutely nothing goes through. In June I had to resort to tricks to get my Canadian tax forms in on time, which can only be mailed. The trick was to send them as PDF to a Canadian friend, and he printed it out there and mailed it for me. I got parcels for my family in Canada sitting since April waiting for a "open window" to send. From Austria, you can't even send a simple letter or postcard! I imagine it is the same from Germany. Most of my POD business is located in the US, which means NOTHING can be ordered. On a Canadian friends wall I read that even delivery of goods within Canada is near impossible. His Ikea order cannot be delivered until late September, so he writes: "....... Only other option for me is to travel 159 km (318 km total) to pick it up myself at the store...." Addendum: I have additional Information to add, since I posted this earlier today. You will find it as UPDATE at the end of this blog. If interested, the Facebook post that started all this is posted public, and there are by now some interesting treads on it - CHECK IT OUT HERE: https://www.facebook.com/yvettepopette/posts/10221188454008198 To put this into context with the overall problems with shipping: Covid-19 Forcing Shipping Industry into Crisis CPC Consultants posted about this May 7, 2020 As the virus continues to spread, it remains immensely difficult to forecast the medium to long-term implications, yet the short-term consequences are clear: demand and freight rates are dropping and continue to drop as the uncertainty of Covid-19 is impossible to forecast. Demand is slowing from consumers that have resulted in reduced shipping requirements with all modes within the transportation industry. Simple, supply and demand drive the industry requirements. The Covid-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc on global shipping, which could initiate another crisis in what has been a struggling industry. To prevent the spread of the virus, a number of ports and shipping companies have implemented preventive measures leading to cancellation and delays which is causing severe disruptions within the industry. No surprise as most industries have implemented policy to protect the employees and customers. Photo by Kai Pilger from Pexels About mail service this had been posted February 13, 2020 in Transportation News, and it is still a topic up to this day: Coronavirus Is Wreaking Havoc on Global Mail Delivery Some critical documents, such as bills of lading and letters of indemnity, aren’t getting to mainland China, and ship owners are unwilling to release cargoes to their buyers without them, according to three traders in the physical copper market, who asked not to be named discussing commercial issues. It’s another example of the challenge posed by the coronavirus in physical commodity markets and shows the problem of relying on hand-delivered paper documents in a complex, global supply chain. Are there limitations in international postal services? International postal services are currently available to a very limited extent only. For some destinations, we are currently unable to accept letter mail items or parcels. There is a link to the current exclusions about letter and parcel services which is constantly updated. I had downloaded these lists regularly, since they change frequently. There seem to be some short windows of opportunity for a few days, but then they close again. The bottom line is that services from Austria outside the EU are basically restricted to expensive EMS. Right now at this date of writing, the situation with the postal service seems to be worse than what it was back in April, at the height of the pandemic. How is the situation in Canada? Delivery Service Alerts While currently I cannot send mail from Austria to Canada, it appears that the reverse is not tue - checking the link above, I find the following (quote from the text on the Canada Post site): Date posted: July 10, 2020 International Destinations (excluding U.S.A.) Postal services have been suspended to many international destinations at the request of the receiving Postal Operator or due to the lack of available transportation. The tables below indicate the following: Service available: Canada Post is still accepting letters and parcels for these destinations. ** Indicates only partial service availability. See PDF list for details. Suspended service: Canada Post no longer accepts any letters or parcels for these destinations. For destinations where service is still available, expect significant and unpredictable delays of 7 to 14 days or more. Consumers and business shippers should consider the additional delivery time when making commitments to recipients. Delays are the result of both limited air transportation and changes in the way Postal Operators deliver. Like Canada Post, many international Postal Operators have introduced changes to eliminate customer interactions at the door and support social & physical distancing. These changes may delay delivery and signature will not be available on some items. **Our goal is to continue providing timely and reliable service. But in light of the current challenges, we have suspended the Money-back Guarantee for XpresspostTM-International and PriorityTM Worldwide service until further notice. To see the full list of destinations in PDF, click here. Scrolling down I find that service to Austria is available! So this seems to be a one-way street! Conducting research, I found this informative site: Postal Monitor The postal world can experience disruptions that prevent mail from traveling on some international routes. On this page you can find mail suspensions that we are aware of. You need to check this out, there is a long list with menus for each country. SAME DAY UPDATE REGARDING THE POST SERVICE IN AUSTRIA : At the top of this blog I mentioned mail to Canada, and my trick to send PDF to a friend there who then mailed it for me within Canada. It was a last-ditch attempt to get my tax papers in on time. This did happen in June, but unsuccessful mail per EMS happened already in May. To this day, the "official" tracking is stuck at "Handing over to Postpartner". Inquiring with Austria Post on their Facebook page I got an answer that I could not get through their official channels, even after several emails. My EMS mail was eventually delivered after a more than 3 weeks delay. Apparently the Postpartner was DHL, and the person who handled my Facebook query found the DHL tracking that somehow does not show on the Austria Post website. On May 20th I posted a blog on the Hive Blockchain about this ordeal (at that time, the issue was not yet resolved) - it was posted to the HIVE AUSTRIA group in German: The HIVE blog is in German, I also linked to a conversation with Austria Post on their Facebook page, which is also in German - CHECK IT OUT HERE - Date May 19th, the day before my blog. Additional stuff to think about, because in these situations it is more than just ironic: the slogan for a ad for the Austrian Post was unveiled 10 years ago: "Wenn's wirklich wichtig ist, dann lieber mit der Post" English: "If it's really important, then better by post". This is good for a laugh when you read the comments on this article by the Standard. COVID-19 excuses for poor service today? It has always been poor service according to comments posted a decade ago! But the problems then pale in comparison with the problems today. I like to mention something here about myself: when it comes to Logistics, I am not a layman. This was my first job qualification and diploma I earned from the Handelskammer in Vienna. I have a good understanding of the industry, as well as related experience working for the railway in Canada. Video by Gustavo Fring from Pexels
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