World Food Programme Warns at Least 30 Million People Could Die of Starvation During Pandemic
April 24th, 2020Via: The Globe and Mail:
The head of the World Food Programme, who recently recovered from COVID-19, says at least 30 million people could die of starvation if the UN agency doesn’t receive critical funding needed to feed the world’s most vulnerable during the global pandemic.
David Beasley, executive director of WFP, says the organization relies on the financial support of governments to feed nearly 100 million people around the world, including 30 million who rely on life-saving food. As the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to hurt the world economy, Mr. Beasley says he is concerned governments will cut funding for WFP – a decision that could have grave consequences.
“If we lost our funding … a minimum 30 million would die. Over a three-month period, that would be 300,000 people dying per day,” Mr. Beasley said.
“That’s why leaders have got to balance out the COVID response with keeping the economy going because otherwise a lot more people will die from starvation and economic deterioration than from COVID itself.”
Will Covid-19 Speed Up the Use of Robots to Replace Human Workers?
April 24th, 2020Via: BBC:
For better or worse the robots are going to replace many humans in their jobs, analysts say, and the coronavirus outbreak is speeding up the process.
“People usually say they want a human element to their interactions but Covid-19 has changed that,” says Martin Ford, a futurist who has written about the ways robots will be integrated into the economy in the coming decades.
“[Covid-19] is going to change consumer preference and really open up new opportunities for automation.”
Research Credit: PW
565 Americans Have Lost Their Jobs For Every Death With COVID-19 In The U.S.
April 23rd, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
And as we noted previously, what is most disturbing is that in the last five weeks, far more Americans have filed for unemployment than jobs gained during the last decade since the end of the Great Recession… (22.13 million gained in a decade, 26.46 million lost in 5 weeks)
Related: “Largest And Most Expensive Experiment In Human History”
Bankruptcy Looms Over U.S. Energy Industry, from Oil Fields to Pipelines
April 22nd, 2020Just print more trillions.
Via: Reuters:
U.S. shale producers, refiners and pipeline companies are scrambling for cash and face likely restructuring as they struggle under heavy debt loads and a dual supply/demand shock in the worst crisis the oil industry has faced.
Flaw in iPhone, iPads May Have Allowed Hackers to Steal Data for Years
April 22nd, 2020Via: Reuters:
Apple Inc is planning to fix a flaw that a security firm said may have left more than half a billion iPhones vulnerable to hackers.
The bug, which also exists on iPads, was discovered by ZecOps, a San Francisco-based mobile security forensics company, while it was investigating a sophisticated cyberattack against a client that took place in late 2019. Zuk Avraham, ZecOps’ chief executive, said he found evidence the vulnerability was exploited in at least six cybersecurity break-ins.
An Apple spokesman acknowledged that a vulnerability exists in Apple’s software for email on iPhones and iPads, known as the Mail app, and that the company had developed a fix, which will be rolled out in a forthcoming update on millions of devices it has sold globally.
Apple declined to comment on Avraham’s research, which was published on Wednesday, that suggests the flaw could be triggered from afar and that it had already been exploited by hackers against high-profile users.
Small Business Rescue Earned Banks $10 Billion In Fees
April 22nd, 2020Via: NPR:
Banks handling the government’s $349 billion loan program for small businesses made more than $10 billion in fees — even as tens of thousands of small businesses were shut out of the program, according to an analysis of financial records by NPR.
The banks took in the fees while processing loans that required less vetting than regular bank loans and had little risk for the banks, the records show. Taxpayers provided the money for the loans, which were guaranteed by the Small Business Administration.
According to a Department of Treasury fact sheet, all federally insured banks and credit unions could process the loans, which ranged in amount from tens of thousands to $10 million. The banks acted essentially as middlemen, sending clients’ loan applications to the SBA, which approved them.
For every transaction made, banks took in 1% to 5% in fees, depending on the amount of the loan, according to government figures. Loans worth less than $350,000 brought in 5% in fees while loans worth anywhere from $2 million to $10 million brought in 1% in fees.
CDC’s Failed Coronavirus Tests Were Tainted with Coronavirus
April 22nd, 2020Via: Ars Technica:
As the new coronavirus took root across America, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent states tainted test kits in early February that were themselves seeded with the virus, federal officials have confirmed.
The contamination made the tests uninterpretable, and—because testing is crucial for containment efforts—it lost the country invaluable time to get ahead of the advancing pandemic.
The CDC had been vague about what went wrong with the tests, initially only saying that “a problem in the manufacturing of one of the reagents” had led to the failure. Subsequent reporting suggested that the problem was with a negative control—that is, a part of the test meant to be free of any trace of the coronavirus as a critical reference for confirming that the test was working properly overall.
Now, according to investigation results reported by The New York Times, federal officials confirm that sloppy laboratory practices at two of three CDC labs involved in the tests’ creation led to contamination of the tests and their uninterpretable results.
Trump Instructs U.S. Navy to Destroy Iranian Gunboats ‘If They Harass Our Ships at Sea’
April 22nd, 2020Via: Reuters:
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he had instructed the U.S. Navy to fire on any Iranian ships that harass it at sea, a week after 11 vessels from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) came dangerously close to U.S. ships in the Gulf.
The Characteristics of an Initiation Ritual
April 22nd, 2020Via: Truthstream Media:
Dr. John Ioannidis: Perspectives on the Pandemic [Update]
April 21st, 2020Update: Miasma of Confusion Around Multiple Antibody Studies
Nobody knows WTF is happening.
Via: Science Magazine:
Surveying large swaths of the public for antibodies to the new coronavirus promises to show how widespread undiagnosed infections are, how deadly the virus really is, and whether enough of the population has become immune for social distancing measures to be eased. But the first batch of results has generated more controversy than clarity.
The survey results, from Germany, the Netherlands, and several locations in the United States, find that anywhere from 2% to 30% of certain populations have already been infected with the virus. The numbers imply that confirmed COVID-19 cases are an even smaller fraction of the true number of people infected than many had estimated and that the vast majority of infections are mild. But many scientists question the accuracy of the antibody tests and complain that several of the research groups announced their findings in the press rather than in preprints or published papers, where their data could be scrutinized. Critics are also wary because some of the researchers are on record advocating for an early end to lockdowns and other control measures, and claim the new prevalence figures support that call.
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Update: USC Study, Similar Conclusion to Stanford
Via: USC:
USC and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on Monday released preliminary results from a collaborative scientific study that suggests infections from the new coronavirus are far more widespread — and the fatality rate much lower — in L.A. County than previously thought.
The results are from the first round of an ongoing study by USC researchers and county health officials. They will be conducting antibody testing over time on a series of representative samples of adults to determine the scope and spread of the pandemic across the county.
Based on the results of the first round of testing, the research team estimates that approximately 4.1% of the county’s adult population has an antibody to the virus. Adjusting this estimate for the statistical margin of error implies about 2.8% to 5.6% of the county’s adult population has an antibody to the virus — which translates to approximately 221,000 to 442,000 adults in the county who have been infected. That estimate is 28 to 55 times higher than the 7,994 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported to the county at the time of the study in early April. The number of COVID-related deaths in the county has now surpassed 600.
“We haven’t known the true extent of COVID-19 infections in our community because we have only tested people with symptoms, and the availability of tests has been limited,” said lead investigator Neeraj Sood, professor of public policy at the USC Price School for Public Policy and senior fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. “The estimates also suggest that we might have to recalibrate disease prediction models and rethink public health strategies.”
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Update: Stanford Study Debunked
More: Concerns with that Stanford study of coronavirus prevalence
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Via: Journeyman Pictures:
