#businesses in Covid-19

[odinsblog]

That last tweet sums it up perfectly: “They realize COVID isn’t over. But while they may not take precautions to protect your health, they will to protect their money.”

Pretending that COVID is over is one of the worst things our government has done to us, but COVID isn’t over. It’s not even close to being over. If it were, insurance companies and big businesses wouldn’t be going through such extreme measures to protect themselves against coronavirus-related lawsuits. And you just know if a case went all the way up, this illegitimate, morally bankrupt & corrupt Supreme Court would rule in favor of big business having no responsibility to protect their customers.

In our ass backwards society, antivaxxers and anti-maskers practically can’t be barred from going everywhere they want, and businesses probably won’t be held liable for conditions that expose people to dangerous diseases (and the antivaxxers who love spreading diseases).

Anyway, I got all my scheduled vaccines and I still mask up in public. 😷

[onbearfeet]

On the San Diego trolley after a long day at Comic-Con. I am still in half a cosplay, visibly sunburned, and wearing an N95. Rando guy next to me is blasting music from his phone speaker.

Rando: Hey, ma'am. Covid is over.

Me: *considers the long and shitty road that has led this man to be the kind of shithead who tells a strange woman, minding her own business on public transit, what she should do with her face but ALSO calls her ma'am while doing so*

Me: *dead-eyed stare* Yeah, but tuberculosis isn't.

Rando, visibly skeptical: You got tuberculosis?

Me: Maybe. *coughs* And maybe I don't wanna give it to you, huh?

*train pulls into station*

*rando exits in a hurry*

*I get off too because it's my fucking stop*

*rando spots me turning south on the platform*

*rando turns north*

I dunno what he did after that, but the north end of that platform is a dead end, so lol.

[kindred-spirit-93]

What is YOUR favorite disaster in history? Mines pompii ^^

OMG THANK U FOR ASKING. THE BLACK DEATH IS MY JAM!!

was thinking about the history (heh) of my hyperfixations, obsessions, and phases a while back (like in school everyone had an egyptology phase, or an archeology and dinosaurs one, all of the above etc) and mine was the bubonic plague lol

back in ye olden days i went to afternoon arabic schools when i was younger (they were typically held in highschools after hours) and the class i was in had a bunch of books on the shelves, one of which was a history book, and while flipping through i was instantly intrigued.

fair warning the pictures can be quite graphic, but to baby me i was never more morbidly (and medically) curious about the how when and why of it all.

i desperately wanted to know everything, but alas i never really got the chance. i never found the book again, was too young to look it up on the interwebs and it never came up in school. and so that was the end of that

till a few years ago i caught a glimpse of a book in my grandfathers office library, somehow very surprised hed have a book on the black death (he was a microbiologist lol) and asked to borrow it.

unfortunately it sat on my shelf and the years passed without so much a glance from me in its direction. just last week i randomly remembered and decided to dig it up. placed it next to my bedside.

the pages are now amber and carry the faint and quaint scent old books so often do. really looking forward to reading it at long last :')

--

my favourites i have on my phone lol (credits to rightful owners!!)

kindred core [│87

[necromatador]

So my entire household (except me so far) has COVID and I can't meaningfully quarantine, so I have to stay home from work for several days. I would highly appreciate a bit of help to make up for the financial hit so here's some ways if you'd like to toss some support my way!

Donate to me or buy from my shop on Ko-fi! (everything will be shipped after the house is clear of the 'rona!)

Support my latest pin Kickstarter! (we're funded and hit the first stretch goal!)

Buy from me on Itch!

Buy from me on Threadless! (this benefits me the least of the options)

[elftwink]

just saw a tweet that was like "imagine if 9/11 happened 2 mos earlier and 7/11 had the worst PR crisis ever" like that wasn't basically what happened to corona beer in 2020

[unpopularly-opinionated]

It is asinine how many tiktok videos I’ve seen from locals throwing out any and every excuse under the sun to push the blame for why Portland is in the state it’s in away from the protests or the homeless.

I actually just saw someone’s video where she made all these snarky remarks about “oh no, what will we do if mom and pop stores like Walmart go out of business” AS IF SHE WAS EVEN MAKING A POINT because I KNOW she’s referring to the fact that a couple weeks ago it was on the news about how Walmart was leaving “the city” due to rampant theft, as she’s walking in the heart of Portland. You know where these Walmart stores were? On like the furthest edges of what you could reasonably call Portland. Frankly, they were nowhere near actual Portland, but because Portland encompasses a lot more than just the central city, it’s still considered Portland. She may as well be trying to connect a store closure in Sherwood with Portland for all that’s worth. Actual mom and pop businesses are still shutting down all the time, but here she is pretending like it’s only the big bad businesses that were impacted.

Then she had the gall to say “Let me ask you this, what do you think’s made all the people work from home, the pandemic or the protests?” relating it to the fact that all of the businesses were closed…except this is a blatant false equivalence. The question you should be asking isn’t “what made everyone work from home”, it’s “what made all the businesses close down”, and the answer was quite literally both. She acts like businesses weren’t shutting down in droves immediately prior to the pandemic due to all the riots.

Prior to the pandemic, protests were rampant in the city, and it’s quite frankly a disservice to protest to even be calling them protests. They were riots, and they were terrorizing the city, destroying property left and right, and driving everyone out of the city. Even without the aid of the government fucking over every small business in the country, these riots nearly did in every small business here. The few that survived were graciously rewarded with government overreach that forced most of the survivors to shutter their businesses or massively pivot their entire business strategies (if even possible). Not to mention, the riots only exacerbated the homeless issue because dozens of those rioters decided to have a little camping trip in the middle of the city for weeks on end, which only further trashed the city, drove people away, and encouraged the homeless encampments that Portland is quite literally still battling on a daily basis.

And the saddest thing is that even though the riots and pandemic have since stopped (for now), this isn’t a problem that we simply spring back from. Businesses that are closed are closed for good. Jobs lost are lost forever. The echos of these problems are still being seen on a regular basis as more and more people are struggling to keep afloat. Don’t get me wrong, the astronomical rent prices are also a pretty big fucking reason for why people are fleeing Portland in droves. But to sit here and pretend like the riots and the homeless aren’t equally—if not more damaging to the overall livability of the city is just downright disingenuous and deceitful. Fuck out of here with your false equivalency bullshit. Nobody who is complaining about Portland is doing so for the sake of Walmart, or Starbucks, or REI, or whatever big ass corporation you feel the need to divert people’s attentions to. Fuck off with your bitching about union busting when you’re talking about why the city is in the state it’s in.

[memenewsdotcom]

Zoom employees back to office

[frankbelloriley]

[megachirottera]

Chi era responsabile della risposta fallita alla pandemia?

Qualsiasi forma di medicina che cerchi di modificare il processo di malattia sarà intrinsecamente pericolosa e, sebbene la medicina moderna sia inutilmente pericolosa, un certo numero di morti è inevitabile indipendentemente dal sistema medico utilizzato. Source: 2022, Jun 24; A Midwestern Doctor on The Forgotten Side of Medicine (more…) “”

[jcmarchi]

Is this the new playbook for curing rare childhood diseases?

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/is-this-the-new-playbook-for-curing-rare-childhood-diseases/

Is this the new playbook for curing rare childhood diseases?

“There is no treatment available for your son. We can’t do anything to help him.”

When Fernando Goldsztein MBA ’03 heard those words, something inside him snapped.

“I refused to accept what the doctors were saying. I transformed my fear into my greatest strength and started fighting.”

Goldsztein’s 12-year-old son Frederico was diagnosed with relapsing medulloblastoma, a life-threatening pediatric brain tumor. Goldsztein’s life — and career plan — changed in an instant. He had to learn to become a different kind of leader altogether.

While Goldsztein never set out to become a founder, the MIT Sloan School of Management taught him the importance of networking, building friendships, and making career connections with peers and faculty from all walks of life. He began using those skills in a new way — boldly reaching out to the top medulloblastoma doctors and scientists at hospitals around the world to ask for help.

“I knew that I had to do something to save Frederico, but also the other estimated 15,000 children diagnosed with the disease around the world each year,” he says.

In 2021, Goldsztein launched The Medulloblastoma Initiative (MBI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding a cure using a remarkable new model for funding rare disease research.

In just 18 months, the organization — which is still in startup mode — has raised $11 million in private funding and brought together 14 of the world’s most prestigious labs and hospitals from across North America, Europe, and Brazil.

Two promising trials will launch in the coming months, and three additional trials are in the pipeline and currently awaiting U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.

All of this in an industry that is notorious for bureaucratic red tape, and where the timeline from an initial lab discovery to a patient receiving a first treatment averages seven to 15 years.

While government research grants typically allocate just 4 cents on the dollar toward pediatric cancer research — pennies doled out across multiple labs pursuing uncoordinated efforts — MBI is laser-focused on pushing 100 percent of their funding toward a singular goal, without any overhead or administrative costs.

“There is no time to lose,” Goldsztein says. “We are making science move faster than it ever has before.”

The MBI blueprint for funding cures for rare diseases is replicable, and likely to disrupt the standard way health care research is funded and carried out by radically shortening the timeline.

From despair to strength

After his initial diagnosis at age 9, Frederico went through a nine-hour brain surgery and came to the United States to receive standard treatment. Goldsztein looked on helplessly as his son received radiation and then nine grueling rounds of chemotherapy.

First pioneered in the 1980s, this standard treatment protocol cures 70 percent of children. Still, it leaves most of them with lifelong side effects like cognitive problems, endocrine issues that stunt growth, and secondary tumors. Frederico was on the wrong side of that statistic. Just three years later, his tumor relapsed.

Goldsztein grimaces as he recalls the prognosis he and his wife heard from the doctors.

“It was unbelievable to me that there had been almost no discoveries in 40 years,” he says.

Ultimately, he found hope and partnership in Roger Packer, the director of the Brain Tumor Institute and the Gilbert Family Neurofibromatosis Institute of Children’s National Hospital. He is also the very doctor who created the standard treatment years before.

Packer explains that finding effective therapies for medulloblastoma was complex for 30 years because it is an umbrella term for 13 types of tumors. Frederico suffers from the most common one, Group 4.

Part of the reason the treatment has not changed is that, until recently, medicine has not advanced enough to detect differences between the different tumor types. Packer explains, “Now with molecular genetic testing and methylation, which is a way to essentially sort tumors, that has changed.”

The problem for Frederico was that very few researchers were working on Group 4, the sub-type of medulloblastoma that is the most common tumor, yet also the one that scientists know the least about.

Goldsztein challenged Packer: “If I can get you the funding, what can your lab do to advance medulloblastoma research quickly?”

An open-source consortium model

Packer advised that they work together to “try something different,” instead of just throwing money at research without any guideposts.

“We set up a consortium of leading institutions around the world doing medulloblastoma research, asked them to change their lab approach to focus on the Group 4 tumor, and assigned each lab a question to answer. We charged them with coming up with therapy — not in seven to 10 years, which is the normal transition from discovery to developing a drug and getting it to a patient, but within a two-year timeline,” he says.

Initially, seven labs signed on. Today, the Cure Group 4 Consortium is made up of 14 partners and reads like a who’s who of medulloblastoma heavy hitters: Children’s National Hospital, SickKids, Hopp Children’s Cancer Center, and Texas Children’s Hospital.

Labs can only join the consortium if they agree to follow some unusual rules. As Goldsztein explains, “To be accepted into this group and receive funding, there are no silos, and there is no duplicated work. Everyone has a piece of the puzzle, and we work together to move fast. That is the magic of our model.”

Inspired by MIT’s open-source methods, researchers must share data freely with one another to accelerate the group’s overall progress. This kind of partnership across labs and borders is unprecedented in a highly competitive sector.

Mariano Gargiulo MBA ’03 met Goldsztein on the first day of their MIT Sloan Fellows MBA program orientation and has been his dear friend ever since. An early-stage donor to MBI and a Houston-based executive in the energy sector, Gargiulo sat down with Goldsztein as he first conceptualized MBI’s operating model.

“Usually, startup business models plot out the next 10-15 years; Fernando’s timeline was only two years, and his benchmarks were in three-month increments.” It was audaciously optimistic, says Gargiulo, but so was the founder.

“When I saw it, I did not doubt that he would achieve his goals. I’m seeing Fernando hit those first targets now and it’s amazing to watch,” Gargiulo says.

Children’s National Hospital endorsed MBI in 2023 and invited Goldsztein to sit on its foundation’s board, adding credibility to the initiative and his ability to fundraise more ambitiously.

According to Packer, in the next few months, the first two MBI protocols will reach patients for the first time: an immunotherapy protocol, which “leverages the body’s immune response to target cancer cells more effectively and safely than traditional therapies,” and a medulloblastoma vaccine, which “adapts similar methodologies used in Covid-19 vaccine development. This approach aims to provide a versatile and mobile treatment that could be distributed globally.”

A matter of when

When Goldsztein is not with his own family in Brazil, fundraising, or managing MBI, he is on Zoom with a network of more than 70 other families with children with relapsed medulloblastoma. “I’m not a doctor and I don’t give out medical advice, but with these trials, we are giving each other hope,” he explains.

Hope and purpose are commodities that Goldsztein has in spades. “I don’t understand the idea of doing business and accumulating assets, but not helping others,” he says. He shared that message with an auditorium of his fellow alumni at his 2023 MIT Sloan Reunion.

Frederico, who defied all odds and lived with the threat of recurrence, recently graduated high school. He is interested in international relations and passionate about photography. “This is about finding a cure for Frederico and for all kids,” Goldsztein says.

When asked how the world would be impacted if MBI found a cure for medulloblastoma, Goldsztein shakes his head.

“We are going to find the cure. It’s not if, it’s a matter of when.”

His next goal is to scale MBI and have it serve as a resource for groups that want to replicate its playbook to solve other childhood diseases.

“I’m never going to stop,” he says.

[chhaploos]

Chhaploos: Revolutionizing Customized Printing in Chandigarh

[ehssafetynewsamerica-blog]

US Department of Labor terminates COVID-19 healthcare rulemaking

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced that its Occupational Safety and Health Administration has terminated its COVID-19 healthcare rulemaking. On June 21, 2021, OSHA issued an Emergency Temporary Standard to protect workers from COVID-19 in healthcare settings, which also served as a proposed rule on which OSHA requested comments. The agency received public input on this…

[farmerstrend]

From Shark Meat to Fish Cookies: Success Story on how Frank Thoya Revolutionized Nutrition in Kilifi County

Things looked bad for Frank Thoya when the event planner lost his income and became a shark meat seller. But that led to an ‘aha’ moment that has since become a win-win for him and his community. Frank Thoya, founder of Samaki Biscuits (left) and Ngumbao Kazungu, pastry chef (right), preparing ingredients for making fish cookies. Photo: Velma Pamela, bird story agency A delicious smell of baking…

[hypelens]

Party City Announces Closure After 40 Years of Celebrations

In a significant development for the retail industry, Party City, the popular party supply chain, has announced that it will be shutting down its operations after four decades of serving customers. The news has sent shockwaves through the community and raised questions about the future of retail in a changing economic landscape.

The Closure Announcement

According to a report by CNN, Party City CEO has confirmed that the company will be closing its stores following a prolonged period of financial challenges. Despite having been a go-to destination for party supplies and decorations, the chain has struggled to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which severely affected foot traffic and sales. The announcement comes as part of a broader restructuring effort aimed at addressing ongoing profitability issues.

read more in google news

The closure will affect hundreds of locations nationwide, leading to the loss of jobs for many employees who have dedicated years to the company. As reported by Yahoo Finance, the decision to shut down was not taken lightly, and the company aims to assist its employees during the transition, offering severance packages and support for those impacted.

Financial Struggles and Market Challenges

Party City’s decline can be attributed to several factors, as highlighted by Fox Business. The rise of e-commerce and changing consumer preferences have significantly shifted how people purchase party supplies. Many customers have turned to online retailers for convenience, leading to decreased sales for brick-and-mortar stores. Additionally, the company faced increased competition from discount retailers and supermarkets that began offering similar products at lower prices.

The combination of these market pressures and the ongoing challenges stemming from the pandemic ultimately culminated in the decision to cease operations. Party City has been a fixture in the retail landscape, known for its wide array of party supplies, costumes, and festive decorations, making the closure a poignant moment for many loyal customers.

read more in google news

Community Impact and Reflections

The news of Party City’s closure has elicited a range of reactions from the community. For many, the store has been a staple for celebrations, from birthdays to holidays, and its absence will be felt deeply. Local residents and party planners alike have expressed their sadness over the loss of a store that has contributed to countless celebrations over the years.

As the retail sector continues to evolve, Party City’s closure serves as a reminder of the challenges that traditional retailers face in an increasingly digital world. The company’s journey reflects broader trends in consumer behavior and highlights the critical need for businesses to adapt to changing market dynamics.

Conclusion

As Party City prepares to close its doors, the retail industry watches closely, pondering what this means for the future of brick-and-mortar stores. The decision marks the end of an era for a brand that has been synonymous with celebration and joy for millions. While the company seeks to navigate this transition, the memories of countless parties and events will remain a testament to the impact Party City has had over the last 40 years.