Bill Gates: When Coronavirus Vaccine Becomes Available, Digital Certificates Will Show Who Has Received It
March 19th, 2020Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.
Via: Reddit: I’m Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. AMA about COVID-19:
FBI: 300% Spike in Gun Buy Checks, Huge Backlogs, Shutdown Threatened
March 18th, 2020Via: Washington Examiner:
Fears of a crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in an historic spike in gun purchase background checks, leading to long delays in approval, according to the FBI and gun industry experts.
What’s more, there is a potential that offices in charge of conducting the background checks could shut down, effectively stopping sales.
The FBI office in charge of the National Instant Background Criminal Background Check System said in a statement:
“As the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Section works through the impact of the COVID-19 operationally, we are working to maintain our services. We are aware that states may be considering options to protect the health and safety of their employees, which may include a reduction in office availability or even closure to some offices.”
GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
March 18th, 2020Mmm hmm.
GM’s other WWII mobilization: Hitler’s Carmaker: The Inside Story of How General Motors Helped Mobilize the Third Reich
Via: Bloomberg:
General Motors Co.’s Mary Barra offered to manufacture hospital ventilators in auto factories shuttered by the coronavirus outbreak, an effort that would echo Detroit’s contribution to Allied powers during World War II.
Hong Kong Is Putting Electronic Wristbands on Arriving Passengers to Enforce Coronavirus Quarantine
March 18th, 2020Via: CNBC:
Hong Kong is using electronic wristbands as part of its effort to enforce quarantines and reduce the spread of the new coronavirus.
The measure comes as the government announced that starting at midnight on March 19, it is putting all arriving passengers under a two-week quarantine and medical surveillance. The city’s leader Carrie Lam said that of 57 new cases Hong Kong recorded in the past two weeks, 50 were travelers from overseas.
The wristbands are connected to a smartphone app and will be used to make sure people actually stay at home.
Trump Invokes Wartime Authority of Defense Production Act
March 18th, 2020Via: USA Today:
President Trump on Tuesday invoked the Defense Production Act, a wartime authority that allows him to direct industry to produce critical equipment, to confront the spiraling crisis over coronavirus pandemic.
The act was established in 1950 during the Korean War following war powers legislation used during World War II to direct private industry to produce weapons, vehicles and other materiel for war. At that time, automakers in Detroit, for instance, shifted production from automobiles to tanks.
The act gives the president a broad set of authorities to influence private companies for national defense, according to the Congressional Research Service. In 2009, Congress amended the act to include domestic preparedness and national emergency response efforts.
“The Defense Production Act permits the president to push national security items to the front of the line, rather than following items that were previously ordered,” said Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant and military expert at the Lexington Institute. “It exists to speed up urgently needed items.”
Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said the authority is needed now for fast production of ventilators and other medical equipment needed to treat patients critically ill with the disease.
Logistical and Technical Exploration Into the Origins of the Wuhan Strain of Coronavirus (COVID-19)
March 18th, 2020Via: Harvard to the Big House:
This report is the product of a collaboration between a retired professional scientist with dozens of peer-reviewed publications and 30 years of experience in genomic sequencing and analysis, who worked at the Theoretical Biology Division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and later helped design several ubiquitous bioinformatic software tools, as well as a former NSA counterterrorism analyst. It considers whether the Wuhan Strain of coronavirus (COVID-19) is the result of naturally emergent mutations against the possibility that it may be a bio-engineered strain – directly altered by genetic manipulation, subject to artificially-guided evolutionary selection, or both – most likely released into the public by accident since China’s rate of occupational accidents is about ten-times higher than America’s, and some twenty-times more than Europe’s, the only other regions with high-level virology labs.
Raising the odds of an accidental release, researchers from China’s only BSL-4 lab in Wuhan were reported to have particularly sloppy field research methods, being both bled and peed on by local bats that host coronaviruses remarkably similar to the Wuhan Strain COVID-19. And they’ve also been reported to smuggle used research animals out of their labs, selling them for cash on the street. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in mid February the Chinese Ministry of Science sent out a directive to all its labs emphasizing the important of carefully handling bio-infectious agents and alluding to slack oversight and past lapses.
Mistakes may have been precipitated by the need to quickly finish research that was being rushed for John Hopkins’ Event 201 which was held this past October and meant to gameplan the containment of a global pandemic. Research may also have been hurried due to deadlines before the impending Chinese New Year – the timing of these events point to increased human error, not a globalist conspiracy. Beijing has had four known accidental leaks of the SARS virus in recent years, so there is absolutely no reason to assume that this strain of coronavirus from Wuhan didn’t accidentally leak out as well. This is unlikely to be a plot twist in one of the novels Tom Clancy wrote after he started mailing it in.
Simply and horribly, this is likely to become another Chernobyl or Fukushima – a catastrophic illustration of mankind’s hubris and intransigence clashing with Nature, as fate again reaps a once unimaginably tragic toll.
Research Credit: DF
SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Launches 60 More Starlink Satellites
March 18th, 2020Via: CBS:
Three days after a dramatic launch abort, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket suffered a premature engine shutdown during the climb to space Wednesday but was still able to place another batch of 60 Starlink internet satellites into the planned orbit. The first stage, however, was unable to pull off what would have been its fifth landing, instead chalking up SpaceX’s second unsuccessful recovery in the past three flights.
Hydroxychloroquine Effective in Inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Vitro
March 18th, 2020Via: Nature:
Other than its direct antiviral activity, HCQ is a safe and successful anti-inflammatory agent that has been used extensively in autoimmune diseases and can significantly decrease the production of cytokines and, in particular, pro-inflammatory factors. Therefore, in COVID-19 patients, HCQ may also contribute to attenuating the inflammatory response. In conclusion, our results show that HCQ can efficiently inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. In combination with its anti-inflammatory function, we predict that the drug has a good potential to combat the disease. This possibility awaits confirmation by clinical trials.
All Nevada Casinos Ordered To Shut Down For 30 Days
March 18th, 2020Via: New York Post:
For the first time in nearly six decades, Las Vegas casinos will go dark — shutting down for at least 30 days in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak announced a statewide order late Tuesday mandating all “non-essential” businesses such as bars, movies theaters and gyms to close their doors for one month starting at noon Wednesday.
Cypress, California: Line to Get Into Costco
March 18th, 2020Via: Orange County Register:
Research Credit: Jb
