#south carolina coronavirus cases

[dnickels]

tbh one of the first things i tell young people getting into political campaigning is to make sure you don't block the "other" side, because inevitably you end up in a leftwing tankie echo chamber type thing, overestimate your numbers horrendously, make a bunch of mis-steps based on the assumption you've got it in the bag, and end up getting annihilated at the ballot box. i see your bernie primary trauma and raise you a bbc exit poll showing corbyn had been completely wiped out in an almost historically bad loss 😔😔😔

Sure-- I would argue that issues with the Sanders campaign had more to do with the fact that he (and by extension his top staffers) weren't ready to go to war with the Democratic Party rather than any 'tankie' overconfidence. Sanders still won't, I think he genuinely believes himself to be responsible for Trump on some level (ridiculous and stupid, get a grip Bernard) and it explains his devotion to taking the party line even when its morally reprehensible and will never win him anything from Schumer et al. The Corbyn situation was different in meaningful ways but at least one issue was that he wasn't willing to actually crush his enemies within the party, or even think of them as enemies at all, and the Labour institution was willing to sabotage him even at the expense of the country.

There were obviously many many more issues at work in both cases but the point I'm making here is that massive liberal institutions are much more powerful than left insurgencies and their capacity to Do Politics-- raise funds, disseminate messages, craft media narratives-- at the national level dwarfs even an incredible volunteer operation like Sanders in 2020. Sanders dominated in states where he had a strong ground presence, ie, where people actually had a chance to hear about Bernie Sanders, and then fell in places like South Carolina where he didn't invest in a similar campaign presence. Once the narrative could coalesce around an alternative it was over-- it might not have been but the intrusion of the novel coronavirus and the Dems' willingness to kill their own voters was the end of the Sanders campaign.

My point being: at no point do alleged Stalinists factor in here at all. There's so much brow beating about how a handful of communist subversives are going to spoil everything by voting for Howie Hawkins and its nonsense. It's nonsense! The electoral college still exists!! A random electrician in Manitowoc, Wisconsin is 10,000 times more likely to play a key role in the fate of the country than I am and he is not on tumblr. Anyone with real concerns should be out canvassing in Dearborn or Scranton, not shadowboxing the ghost of the Comintern.

[vmvijay]

Corona In America: America Is Done With Coronravirus Buy Covid 19 Is Not Done With America Why - अमेरिका भले ही कोरोना को भूलने की कोशिश कर रहा हो पर वायरस उसे नहीं भूल रहा है

Corona In America: America Is Done With Coronravirus Buy Covid 19 Is Not Done With America Why – अमेरिका भले ही कोरोना को भूलने की कोशिश कर रहा हो पर वायरस उसे नहीं भूल रहा है

[ad_1]

पढ़ें अमर उजाला ई-पेपर Free में कहीं भी, कभी भी।

70 वर्षों से करोड़ों पाठकों की पसंद

ख़बर सुनें

ख़बर सुनें

अमेरिका के राष्ट्रपति डोनाल्ड ट्रंप के चमत्कारिक पूर्वानुमान को एक महीना हो चुका है, जब अप्रैल में डोनाल्ड ट्रंप ने कहा था कि जैसे ही गर्मी पड़नी शुरू हो जाएगी, कोरोना के मामले चमत्कारिक तरीके से कम हो जाएंगे। लेकिन ऐसा बिल्कुल नहीं हुआ है और ना ट्रंप का वो दावा सही…

[newsaryavart]

अमेरिका में कई जगह सामान्य हुआ जीवन, क्या कोरोना का अमेरिका से संबंध खत्म?

अमेरिका में कई जगह सामान्य हुआ जीवन, क्या कोरोना का अमेरिका से संबंध खत्म?

[ad_1]

पढ़ें अमर उजाला ई-पेपर Free में कहीं भी, कभी भी।

70 वर्षों से करोड़ों पाठकों की पसंद

ख़बर सुनें

ख़बर सुनें

अमेरिका के राष्ट्रपति डोनाल्ड ट्रंप के चमत्कारिक पूर्वानुमान को एक महीना हो चुका है, जब अप्रैल में डोनाल्ड ट्रंप ने कहा था कि जैसे ही गर्मी पड़नी शुरू हो जाएगी, कोरोना के मामले चमत्कारिक तरीके से कम हो जाएंगे। लेकिन ऐसा बिल्कुल नहीं हुआ है और ना ट्रंप का वो दावा सही…

[weelectronicstudentreviewstuff]

Apple to Reclose Dozens of Retail Stores in US as Covid-19 Cases Spike

Apple to Reclose Dozens of Retail Stores in US as Covid-19 Cases Spike

Image for Representation (Image: Reuters)

Apple has already reclosed 47 stores in recent weeks in the United States as Covid-19 cases continue to rise rapidly.

IANS

Last Updated: July 2, 2020, 11:36 AM IST

Apple which has reclosed 47 own-branded retail stores in the US would shut 30 additional stores by Thursday, the media reported. “Due to current COVID-19 conditions in…

[amitbchoudhury]

Gov. McMaster extends state of emergency as South Carolina coronavirus cases continue to spike

Gov. McMaster extends state of emergency as South Carolina coronavirus cases continue to spike

[ad_1]

Gov. McMaster extends state of emergency as South Carolina coronavirus cases continue to spike

Health official more concerned about COVID-19 in state ‘than ever before’

Updated: 6:09 PM EDT Jun 10, 2020

Hide Transcript Show Transcript

FOR HOW YOU ARE GOING TO ACT, AND THE OPPORTUNITIES YOU GIVE US, AND WE PRAY IN…

[athelind]

It looks like COVID-19 cases are trending downward or even declining in places with active protests (and continued closures), and increasing in states with less protesting (and more "open for business").

The key summary:

In major cities including New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington, DC, and Chicago, where numerous protests have taken place in recent weeks, numbers of new coronavirus cases are actually declining, despite widespread testing. Coronavirus cases are also trending downward in Minnesota, the state where Floyd was killed, and where the protests started.

Meanwhile, across many southern states where protests were not as prevalent — Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Oklahoma — coronavirus infection rates and hospitalizations are trending towards new all-time highs.

I've been somewhat concerned that the right would try to blame an upswing in cases on the protests, but it looks like the actual data is hard to spin -- especially since it's being reported in Business Insider, hardly a lefty revolutionary rag.

[feminist-space]

Tw for psychosis

Article is from the New York Times

.

.

.

"Almost immediately, Dr. Hisam Goueli could tell that the patient who came to his psychiatric hospital on Long Island this summer was unusual.

The patient, a 42-year-old physical therapist and mother of four young children, had never had psychiatric symptoms or any family history of mental illness. Yet there she was, sitting at a table in a beige-walled room at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, New York, sobbing and saying that she kept seeing her children, ages 2 to 10, being gruesomely murdered and that she herself had crafted plans to kill them.

“It was like she was experiencing a movie, like ‘Kill Bill,’” said Goueli, a psychiatrist.

The patient described one of her children being run over by a truck and another decapitated. “It’s a horrifying thing that here’s this well-accomplished woman and she’s like ‘I love my kids, and I don’t know why I feel this way that I want to decapitate them,’” he said.

The only notable thing about her medical history was that the woman, who declined to be interviewed but allowed Goueli to describe her case, had become infected with the coronavirus in the spring. She had experienced only mild physical symptoms from the virus, but, months later, she heard a voice that first told her to kill herself and then told her to kill her children.

At South Oaks, which has an inpatient psychiatric treatment program for COVID-19 patients, Goueli was unsure whether the coronavirus was connected to the woman’s psychological symptoms. “Maybe this is COVID-related, maybe it’s not,” he recalled thinking.

“But then,” he said, “we saw a second case, a third case and a fourth case, and we’re like, ‘There’s something happening.’”

Indeed, doctors are reporting similar cases across the country and around the world. A small number of COVID patients who had never experienced mental health problems are developing severe psychotic symptoms weeks after contracting the coronavirus.

In interviews and scientific articles, doctors described:

A 36-year-old nursing home employee in North Carolina who became so paranoid that she believed her three children would be kidnapped and, to save them, tried to pass them through a fast-food restaurant’s drive-thru window.

A 30-year-old construction worker in New York City who became so delusional that he imagined his cousin was going to murder him, and, to protect himself, he tried to strangle his cousin in bed.

A 55-year-old woman in Britain had hallucinations of monkeys and a lion and became convinced a family member had been replaced by an impostor.

Beyond individual reports, a British study of neurological or psychiatric complications in 153 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 found that 10 people had “new-onset psychosis.” Another study identified 10 such patients in one hospital in Spain. And in COVID-related social media groups, medical professionals discuss seeing patients with similar symptoms in the Midwest, Great Plains and elsewhere.

“My guess is any place that is seeing COVID is probably seeing this,” said Dr. Colin Smith at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, who helped treat the North Carolina woman. He and other doctors said their patients were too fragile to be asked whether they wanted to be interviewed for this article, but some, including the North Carolina woman, agreed to have their cases described in scientific papers.

Medical experts say they expect that such extreme psychiatric dysfunction will affect only a small proportion of patients. But the cases are considered examples of another way the COVID-19 disease process can affect mental health and brain function.

Although the coronavirus was initially thought primarily to cause respiratory distress, there is now ample evidence of many other symptoms, including neurological, cognitive and psychological effects, that could emerge even in patients who didn’t develop serious lung, heart or circulatory problems. Such symptoms can be just as debilitating to a person’s ability to function and work, and it’s often unclear how long they will last or how to treat them.

Experts increasingly believe brain-related effects may be linked to the body’s immune system response to the coronavirus and possibly to vascular problems or surges of inflammation caused by the disease process.

“Some of the neurotoxins that are reactions to immune activation can go to the brain, through the blood-brain barrier, and can induce this damage,” said Dr. Vilma Gabbay, a co-director of the Psychiatry Research Institute at Montefiore Einstein in the Bronx, New York.

Brain scans, spinal fluid analyses and other tests didn’t find any brain infection, said Gabbay, whose hospital has treated two patients with post-COVID psychosis: a 49-year-old man who heard voices and believed he was the devil and a 34-year-old woman who began carrying a knife, disrobing in front of strangers and putting hand sanitizer in her food.

Physically, most of these patients didn’t get very sick from COVID-19, reports indicate. The patients that Goueli treated experienced no respiratory problems, but they did have subtle neurological symptoms like hand tingling, vertigo, headaches or diminished smell. Then, two weeks to several months later, he said, they “develop this profound psychosis, which is really dangerous and scary to all of the people around them.”

Also striking is that most patients have been in their 30s, 40s and 50s. “It’s very rare for you to develop this type of psychosis in this age range,” Goueli said, since such symptoms more typically accompany schizophrenia in young people or dementia in older patients. And some patients — like the physical therapist who took herself to the hospital — understood something was wrong, while usually “people with psychosis don’t have an insight that they’ve lost touch with reality.”

Some post-COVID patients who developed psychosis needed weeks of hospitalization in which doctors tried different medications before finding one that helped.

Dr. Robert Yolken, a neurovirology expert at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said that although people might recover physically from COVID-19, in some cases their immune systems might be unable to shut down or might remain engaged because of “delayed clearance of a small amount of virus.”

Persistent immune activation is also a leading explanation for brain fog and memory problems bedeviling many COVID survivors, and Emily Severance, a schizophrenia expert at Johns Hopkins, said post-COVID cognitive and psychiatric effects might result from “something similar happening in the brain.”

It may hinge on which brain region the immune response affects, Yolken said, adding, “some people have neurological symptoms, some people psychiatric and many people have a combination.”

Experts don’t know whether genetic makeup or perhaps an undetected predisposition for psychiatric illness put some people at greater risk. Dr. Brian Kincaid, medical director of psychiatric emergency department services at Duke, said the North Carolina woman once had a skin reaction to another virus, which might suggest her immune system responds zealously to viral infections.

Sporadic cases of post-infectious psychosis and mania have occurred with other viruses, including the 1918 flu and the coronaviruses severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome.

Sporadic cases of post-infectious psychosis and mania have occurred with other viruses, including the 1918 flu and the coronaviruses severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome.

“We think that it’s not unique to COVID,” said Dr. Jonathan Alpert, chairman of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who co-wrote the report on the Montefiore patients. He said studying these cases might help to increase doctors’ understanding of psychosis.

The symptoms have ranged widely, some surprisingly severe for a first psychotic episode, experts said. Goueli said a 46-year-old pharmacy technician, whose family brought her in after she became fearful that evil spirits had invaded her home, “cried literally for four days” in the hospital.

He said the 30-year-old construction worker, brought to the hospital by the police, became “extremely violent,” dismantling a hospital radiator and using its parts and his shoes to try to break out of a window. He also swung a chair at hospital staff.

How long the psychosis lasted and patients’ response to treatment has varied. The woman in Britain — whose symptoms included paranoia about the color red and terror that nurses were devils who would harm her and a family member — took about 40 days to recover, according to a case report.

The 49-year-old man treated at Montefiore was discharged after several weeks’ hospitalization, but “he was still struggling two months out” and required readmission, Gabbay said.

The North Carolina woman, who was convinced that cellphones were tracking her and that her partner would steal her pandemic stimulus money, didn’t improve with the first medication, said Dr. Jonathan Komisar at Duke, who said doctors initially thought her symptoms reflected bipolar disorder. “When we began to realize that maybe this isn’t going to resolve immediately,” he said, she was given an antipsychotic, risperidone and discharged in a week.

The physical therapist who planned to murder her children had more difficulty. “Every day, she was getting worse,” Goueli said. “We tried probably eight different medicines,” including antidepressants, antipsychotics and lithium. “She was so ill that we were considering electroconvulsive therapy for her because nothing was working.”

About two weeks into her hospitalization, she couldn’t remember what her 2-year-old looked like. Calls with family were heartbreaking because “‘You could hear one in the background saying ‘When is Mom coming home?’” Goueli said. “That brought her a lot of shame because she was like, ‘I can’t be around my kids and here they are loving me.’”

Ultimately, risperidone proved effective and after four weeks, she returned home to her family, “95% perfect,” he said.

“We don’t know what the natural course of this is,” Goueli said. “Does this eventually go away? Do people get better? How long does that normally take? And are you then more prone to have other psychiatric issues as a result? There are just so many unanswered questions.”"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/health/covid-psychosis-mental.html

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

As the Delta variant spreads across America, with all 50 states reporting an increase in COVID-19 cases, the Tennessee Department of Health succumbed to Republican state lawmakers to infect as many young people as possible. Tennessee announced it was halting all of its adolescent vaccine outreach even as the rate of coronavirus infections in the state has tripled in the past three weeks. Not just for COVID-19, mind you, but for polio, hepatitis, rubella and all vaccines.

[...]

In addition to stopping all COVID-19 vaccine events at schools, Tennessee will stop sending postcards and notices reminding teenagers to receive their second shot. The state’s top immunization leader, Dr. Michelle Fiscus, was fired after she sent a memo reiterating state policy that some teenagers can be vaccinated without parental consent. She received death threats and was sent a muzzle.

[...]

Tennessee was also one of the battleground states where conservative activists promoted the manufactured anti-sharia threat, which created the template being used now to promote anti-CRT measures across the country. For years, these right-wing forces tried to stop the expansion of a Murfreesboro mosque to test their goal of “proving” that Islam somehow isn’t a religion, and as such deny Muslims protections and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. In 2014, the Supreme Court declined to hear the right-wing activists’ case, thereby ending the fiasco. But that didn’t stop Tennessee from joining five other red states in passing copycat “anti-Islamic and anti-terrorism measures” written and promoted by the same hateful organizations.

In order to save the kids, Tennessee is usually at the forefront of extremist anti-abortion bills. Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers introduced one that would give fathers the legal right to stop a woman they’d impregnated from ending that pregnancy. Along with 19 other states, Tennessee is supporting South Carolina’s anti-abortion law that forbids doctors from performing abortions if they can detect a heartbeat in a fetus, which can happen before a women even knows that she’s pregnant. Buoyed by a 6-3 right-wing Supreme Court, more abortion restrictions have been enacted this year than any other year, with Republican state legislatures passing at least 90 restrictive laws in 2021 alone.

Of course, that pro-life sentiment doesn’t extend to gun control, despite the prevalence of mass shootings terrorizing our schools across the country. As of July 1, Tennessee is officially one of 19 states that allows permitless gun carry. What better way of saving children than allowing most adults to carry and conceal a handgun without so much as a permit? This was a top legislative agenda for Gov. Lee during a crippling pandemic and recession. In the past 10 years, Tennessee’s rate of gun deaths has increased 28 percent. The state’s rates of homicides, firearm deaths, drug overdose deaths, and infant mortality rates are higher than the national average, so naturally Lee and Tennessee Republicans signed a Medicaid block grant this year and have tried and failed to repeal Obamacare.

Who needs vaccines and health care when Tennesseans can shoot away coronavirus and heart disease with a Glock 9?

The road to stupid is currently being led by Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, one of the shining intellectuals of the right wing. She keeps stunning us with gems, whether it’s her climate-change denialism, her belief that universal daycare is Soviet propaganda, her ongoing feud with Taylor Swift, her failed Twitter polls, or her vigorous and spirited defense of “Neanderthal thinking.” If only she cared about protecting her constituents as much as she did about defending the honor of our extinct ancestors, then maybe Tennessee would have more than 38 percent of its population vaccinated.

But Blackburn, who is vaccinated, is just another proud soldier in the Trumpian death cult, along with the likes of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He responded to rising COVID cases in his state by selling “Don’t Fauci my Florida” gear. More than 99 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. last month were among unvaccinated people, but that didn’t stop the crowd at the recent CPAC conference in Dallas from cheering the news about low vaccination rates. A Newsmax host recently made a case for genocidal Social Darwinism when he said that vaccines are “against nature” and some diseases should wipe people out. He didn’t mention if his family and loved ones were to be included in that sacrifice.

[fantasticartisandetective]

Omicron side effects you can experience the ill effects of to be sure after COVID-19 immunization

In case you're vaccinated against the coronavirus, the chance of severe catching severe COVID complaint is bleak, but that doesn't mean you have beaten the contagion. Omicron, which shows vulnerable fugitive parcels, can infect you indeed if you have taken both the dabs. Then we talk about the symptoms of Omicron that people suffer from indeed after vaccination Omicron Varient Symptoms Reuters reported that the symptoms of the omicron variety were “ veritably minor” and could be handled at home. Scholars at a university with a milder form of the complaint were first described with these diseases. WHO reports that omicron, like other Coronavirus variants, can beget serious illness or death, especially in vulnerable individuals. The symptoms of COVID-19 include fever or chills, coughing, briefness of breath, frazzle, muscle or body pangs, headache, sore throat, loss of taste or smell, a watery nose, and uncomfortable breathing. Omicron Variant Beget Experimenters in South Africa believe that Omicron is to condemn for a recent shaft in COVID-19 infections in Gauteng, the country’s most vibrant fiefdom. A prestigious soccer club in Portugal was planted to have 13 cases of omicron on Monday. One of the men who were positive lately returned from a holiday to South Africa. Two individuals who had quite recently gone from Nigeria were determined to have omicron after they tried positive in Ontario, as indicated by Canada's Health Minister. Omicron Varient Preventives President Joe Biden emphasized at a Monday news conference that omicron is “ a cause for concern, not fear."As of Monday autumn, no cases of omicron have been reported in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Omicron, on the other hand, is believed to have spread quietly formerly. According to Julie Swann, an epidemic modelling and health systems expert at North Carolina State University, covering the United States is still a long way from what it should be. Presumably, in the United States, the experimenter says, “ but we haven’t sequenced enough samples or tested enough people.” Omicron Variant Treatment It’s unknown whether omicron infections beget more severe conditions than other types. Despite this, primary exploration indicates that hospitalization rates are adding in South Africa. The contagion may also be suitable to overcome former infection impunity or COVID-19 vaccination to beget a advanced infection. Medical experts advise people to exercise caution until further information is available. This understanding ought to be treated in a serious way," Swann said. Regardless of whether this one ends up being a catastrophe, there will be another. March 10, 2022, 1154 pm

[weheartchrisevans]

BOSTON — So you're Tim Scott, the Republican senator from South Carolina who opposes Roe v. Wade and wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and you get a call from Chris Evans, a Hollywood star and lifelong Democrat who has been blasting President Trump for years. He wants to meet. And film it. And share it on his online platform. Can anybody say "Borat?" “I was very skeptical,” admits Scott. “You can think of the worst-case scenario.”But then Scott heard from other senators. They vouched for Evans, most famous for playing Captain America in a series of films that have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide. The actor also got on the phone with Scott’s staff to make a personal appeal.

It worked. Sometime in 2018, Scott met on camera with Evans in the nation’s capital, and their discussion, which ranged from prison reform to student loans, is one of more than 200 interviews with elected officials published on “A Starting Point,” an online platform the actor helped launch in July. Not long after, Evans appeared on Scott’s Instagram Live. They have plans to do more together.

“While he is a liberal, he was looking to have a real dialogue on important issues,” says Scott. “For me, it’s about wanting to have a conversation with an audience that may not be accustomed to hearing from conservatives and Republicans.”

Evans, actor-director Mark Kassen and entrepreneur Joe Kiani launched “A Starting Point” as a response to what they see as a deeply polarized political climate. They wanted to offer a place for information about issues without a partisan spin. To do that, they knew they needed both parties to participate.

Evans, 39, sat on the patio outside his Boston-area home on a recent afternoon talking about the platform. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans and spent some of the interview chasing around his brown rescue dog. Nearly 100 million people didn’t vote in the 2016 general election, Evans says. That’s more than 40 percent of those who were eligible.He believes the root of this disinterest is the nastiness on both sides of the aisle. Many potential voters simply turn off the news, never mind talking about actual policy.“A Starting Point” is meant to offer a digital home for people to hear from elected officials without having the conversation framed by Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow.

“The idea is . . . ‘Listen, you’re in office. I can’t deny the impact you have,’ ” says Evans. “ ‘You can vote on things that affect my life.’ Let this be a landscape of competing ideas, and I’ll sit down with you and I’ll talk with you.”

Or, as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has appeared on the site, puts it, “Sometimes, boring is okay. You’re being presented two sides. Everything doesn’t have to be sensational. Sometimes, it can just be good facts.” Evans wasn’t always active in politics. At Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, he focused on theater, not student government. And he moved away from home his senior year, working at a casting agency in New York as he pushed for acting gigs. His uncle, Michael E. Capuano, served as a congressman in Massachusetts for 20 years, but other than volunteering on some of his campaign, Evans wasn’t particularly political.

In recent years, he’s read political philosopher Hannah Arendt and feminist Rebecca Solnit’s “The Mother of All Questions” — ex-girlfriend Jenny Slate gave him the latter — and been increasingly upset by Trump’s policies and behavior. He’s come to believe that he can state his own views without creating a conflict with “A Starting Point.” When he and Scott spoke on Instagram, the president wasn’t mentioned. In contrast, recently Evans and other members of the Avengers cast took part in a virtual fundraiser with Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala D. Harris.

“I don’t want to all of a sudden become a blank slate,” says Evans. “But my biggest issue right now is just getting people to vote. If I start saying, ‘vote Biden; f Trump,’ my base will like that. But they were already voting for Biden.”

(In September, Evans accidentally posted an image of presumably his penis online and, after deleting it, tweeted: “Now the I have your attention . . . Vote Nov. 3rd!!!”)

Evans began to contemplate the idea that became “A Starting Point” in 2017. He heard something reported on the news — he can’t remember exactly what — and decided to search out information on the Internet. Instead of finding concrete answers, Evans fell down the rabbit hole of opinions and conflicting claims. He began talking about this with Kassen, a friend since he directed Evans in 2011’s “Puncture.” What if they got the information directly from elected officials and presented it without a spin? Kassen, in turn, introduced Evans to Kiani, who had made his fortune through a medical technology company he founded and, of the three, was the most politically involved.

Kiani has donated to dozens of Democratic candidates across the country and earlier this year contributed $750,000 to Unite the Country, a super PAC meant to support Joe Biden. But he appreciated the idea of focusing on something larger than a single race or party initiative. He, Kassen and Evans would fund “A Starting Point,” which has about 18 people on staff.

“There’s no longer ABC, NBC and CBS,” Kiani says. “There’s Fox News and MSNBC. What that means is that we are no longer being censored. We’re self-censoring ourselves. And people go to their own echo chamber and they don’t get any wiser. If you allow both parties to speak, for the same amount of time, without goading them to go on into hyperbole, when people look at both sides’ point of view of both topics, we think most of the time they’ll come to a reasonable conclusion.”

“What people do too often is they get in their silos and they only watch and listen and read what they agree with,” says John Kasich, the former Ohio governor and onetime Republican presidential candidate. “If you go to Chris’s website, you can’t bury yourself in your silo. You get to see the other point of view.” As much as some like to blame Trump for all the conflicts in Washington, Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) says he’s watched the tone shifting for decades. He appreciated sitting down with Evans and making regular submissions to “Daily Points,” a place on the platform for commentary no longer than two minutes. During the Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Coons recorded a comment on Judge Amy Coney Barrett and the Affordable Care Act.“ ‘A Starting Point’ needs to be a sustained resource,” Coons says. “Chris often talks about it being ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ for adults.”

It’s not by chance that Evans has personally conducted all of the 200-plus interviews on “A Starting Point” during trips to D.C. Celebrities often try to mobilize the public, whether it’s Eva Longoria, Tracee Ellis Ross and Julia Louis-Dreyfus hosting the Democratic National Convention or Jon Voight recording video clips to praise Trump. But in this case, Evans is using his status in a different way, to entice even the most hesitant Republican to sit down for an even-toned chat. And he’s willing to pose with anyone, even if it means explaining himself on “The Daily Show” after Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas posted a selfie with Evans. (Two attempts to interview Trump brought no response.) Murkowski remembers when Evans came to Capitol Hill for the first time in 2018. She admits she didn’t actually know who he was — she hadn’t yet seen any Marvel movies. She was in the minority.“We meet interesting and important people but, man, when Captain America was in the Senate, it was all the buzz,” she says. “And people were like, ‘Did you get your picture taken?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I sat down and did the interview.’ ‘You did an interview? How did you get an interview with him?’ ”What impressed Murkowski wasn’t his star power. It was the way Evans conducted the interview.“It was relaxing,” she says. “You didn’t feel like you were in front of a reporter who was just waiting for you to say something you would get caught on later. It was a dialogue . . . and we need more dialogue and less gotcha.”

“Starting Points” offers two-minute answers by elected officials in eight topic areas, including education, the environment and the economy. This is where the interviews Evans conducted can be found. “Daily Points” has featured a steady flow of Republicans and Democrats. A third area, “Counterpoints,” hosts short debates between officials on particular subjects. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, debated mail-in voting with Dusty Johnson, the Republican congressman from South Dakota.

“Most Americans can’t name more than five members of the United States House,” says Johnson. “ ‘A Starting Point’ allows thoughtful members to talk to a broader audience than we would normally have.”

The platform’s social media team pushes out potentially newsworthy clips, whether it’s Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) discussing his meeting with Barrett just before he tested positive for the coronavirus, or Angus King, the independent senator from Maine, criticizing Trump for his comments on a potential peaceful transfer of power after November’s election. Kassen notes that the King clip was viewed more than 175,000 times on “A Starting Point’s” Twitter account, compared with the 10,000 who caught in on CNN’s social media platform.

“Because it’s short-form media, we’re engineered to be social,” says Kassen. “As a result, when something catches hold, it’s passed around our audience pretty well.”

The key is to use modern tools to push out content that’s tonally different from what you might find on modern cable news. Or on social media. Which is what Evans hopes leads to more engagement. He’s particularly proud that more than 10,000 people have registered to vote through “A Starting Point” since it went online.

“If the downstream impact or the byproduct of this site is some sort of unity between the parties, great,” says Evans. “But if nobody’s still voting, it doesn’t work. We need people involved.”

[wilwheaton]

In South Carolina, which posted its largest single-day case increase yet on Friday, officials warned that some young people had become seriously ill from the virus and that those without serious symptoms could still infect family members and friends. “The increases that we’re seeing serve as a warning that young adults and youth are not immune to Covid-19,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. “They also tell us that younger South Carolinians are not taking social distancing seriously.” The clusters may be especially worrying to colleges and universities that plan to bring students back to campus in the fall, when both the coronavirus and the flu virus are expected to be circulating simultaneously. While some — like Cal State, the nation’s largest four-year public university system — have already told students classes will be almost exclusively online, others are betting that careful planning, broad testing and social limits can keep students and faculty members safe and healthy. Critical to their planning is the idea that young people will strictly adhere to social distancing and other mitigations, an assumption that one expert on the psychology of the young has called “delusional.”

Coronavirus Updates: Latest News and Analysis - The New York Times

Nobody could have predicted that a demographic with underdeveloped risk assessment and an overblown sense of their own invincibility would get bored with restrictions designed to save lives and put themselves and their peers at risk.

It’s all such a giant shock. Nobody could have predicted this. *eye rolling emoji*

[route22ny]

His big thank you: COVID-19 survivor writes notes to all 116 who treated him at Manhattan hosp

There’s deep and abiding gratitude. And there’s COVID-19 survivor Jeff Gerson, who took his thanks to another level.

Gerson arrived March 18 at NYU Langone Tisch Hospital in Manhattan with a 103-degree fever, an uncontrollable cough and a bad prognosis. The coronavirus casualty went on a ventilator the next day, waking up a month later with no memory of his miraculous recovery or the dozens of frontline workers who saved his life.

That was soon to change.

When the 44-year-old patient returned home May 2, he felt a gnawing need to thank them all — a total of 116 doctors, nurses, therapists and other anonymous medical heroes of the pandemic. The finance professional turned into an online detective, using a hospital app and his own insurance records to track down dozens of his benefactors across the next five months.

And then, as Thanksgiving neared, he sent them all a note of deep appreciation.

“If you are receiving this letter, it is because I have become aware that you had a part in saving my life,” wrote the grateful Upper East Side resident. “It is only after much effort on my part to find your names that I realize just how many of you there were.”

Gerson, now six months out of the hospital and healthy, recalled the flood of emotions accompanying his recovery from a virus that has claimed more than 260,000 American lives.

“I was crying every morning, literally,” said Gerson. “I had questions. Why did I survive? I certainly had thoughts about what I needed to do in my life now, to make this worthwhile.”

He thought of the climactic scene in the film “Saving Private Ryan,” where the dying Tom Hanks character urged Matt Damon’s character to “earn this” — to carry on for those lost trying to save him.

“I was just really thankful, and lucky, and grateful,” he recalled. “I wanted to say thank you. I just wanted to thank everybody.”

His first thought was a party, but a peek outside his hospital room window provided a glimpse of how the world had changed since his hospitalization. Looking west on 33rd St. from First Ave., he could count on one hand the number of parked cars all the way across Manhattan to Penn Station.

“I had no idea what the rest of the world was going through,” he explained. “I was just so thankful these people were doing their job and taking the risks they had taken. And my inability to thank them for such special and heroic treatment was really leaving a void in my recovery process.”

It took a while, but Gerson compiled his list and composed the heartfelt three-page message of thanks that was sent out Nov. 10.

NYU Langone Dr. Luis Angel (pictured above, left) recalled the insanity engulfing the hospital back when Gerson arrived: 170 coronavirus patients, all on ventilators. Over the course of the next three months, about 40% of the hospital’s ventilated COVID-19 victims did not survive, he recalled.

Angel was surprised and thrilled by the unexpected thank you note from one who did.

“I’ll tell you, it’s incredible,” said Angel. “To find every name and give a thank you to everybody — we don’t live for that. But when we get it, we absolutely enjoy and appreciate that.”

Angel stresses he was just a cog in a bigger machine of Gerson’s saviors: “This is a credit to everyone. Everyone did the best for him.”

The dozens of workers whose efforts spared his life included visiting nurses from coast to coast, volunteers who came to the city from California, Georgia, Kentucky and South Carolina.

In the end, Gerson failed to reach just one of his rescuers: Dr. Sydney Mehl, who treated him only to die weeks later from the deadly virus. Gerson recalled searching the internet for Mehl’s contact information only to find his obituary.

“I have since reached out to his wife, and found her through Facebook,” said Gerson. “He was dedicated right to the end. That’s the kind of doctor he was.” With Thanksgiving arriving, Gerson’s life is back to normal. He takes daily bike rides through Central Park, and spends time with his 6-year-old son.

“It’s surreal,” he said. “I won’t say it feels like it happened to somebody else. But I’m not feeling any ill effects, I have not slowed down at all.”

He believes the letter of thanks was sent at a good time, shortly after the six-month anniversary of his release from the hospital and as the number of positive cases starts to climb.

“It does feel like the timing of the letter just came together,” he said. “People are forgetting what’s going on out there on the front lines.”

Gerson ended his missive with a request for his heroes to contact him, to celebrate their heroic efforts and to keep up the life-saving work.

“Continue doing what you do,” he concluded. “Continue being the heroes you are and know you will forever have my gratitude.”

This article by Larry McShane appeared in today’s New York Daily News; photos by Barry Williams.

Happy Thanksgiving.

[weelectronicstudentreviewstuff]

Apple Decides to Yet Again Shut Some Retail Stores in US as Covid-19 Cases Surge

Apple Decides to Yet Again Shut Some Retail Stores in US as Covid-19 Cases Surge

Apple Inc said on Friday it is temporarily shutting some stores again in Florida, Arizona, South Carolina, and North Carolina in the United States, as novel coronavirus cases continue to rise in the country. Shares of the company, which said the closure would affect 11 stores in these states, were down 0.5%.

Apple had planned to reopen about 100 U.S. stores, mostly with curbside pickup but some…

[amitbchoudhury]

DHEC: Coronavirus cases in SC top 10,000; 10 more deaths reported

DHEC: Coronavirus cases in SC top 10,000; 10 more deaths reported

[ad_1]

COVID-19 cases in SC rise above 10,000 as DHEC reports 10 more deaths

Updated: 4:13 PM EDT May 24, 2020

South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control officials reported 209 new cases of COVID-19, and 10 additional deaths Sunday.A total of 10,096 cases of the novel coronavirus have been reported in South Carolina.435…

[chiangraitimesomicron]

Omicron side effects you can experience the ill effects of to be sure after COVID-19 immunization

In case you're vaccinated against the coronavirus, the chance of severe catching severe COVID complaint is bleak, but that doesn't mean you have beaten the contagion. Omicron, which shows vulnerable fugitive parcels, can infect you indeed if you have taken both the dabs. Then we talk about the symptoms of Omicron that people suffer from indeed after vaccination Omicron Varient Symptoms Reuters reported that the symptoms of the omicron variety were “ veritably minor” and could be handled at home. Scholars at a university with a milder form of the complaint were first described with these diseases. WHO reports that omicron, like other Coronavirus variants, can beget serious illness or death, especially in vulnerable individuals. The symptoms of COVID-19 include fever or chills, coughing, briefness of breath, frazzle, muscle or body pangs, headache, sore throat, loss of taste or smell, a watery nose, and uncomfortable breathing. Omicron Variant Beget Experimenters in South Africa believe that Omicron is to condemn for a recent shaft in COVID-19 infections in Gauteng, the country’s most vibrant fiefdom. A prestigious soccer club in Portugal was planted to have 13 cases of omicron on Monday. One of the men who were positive lately returned from a holiday to South Africa. Two individuals who had quite recently gone from Nigeria were determined to have omicron after they tried positive in Ontario, as indicated by Canada's Health Minister. Omicron Varient Preventives President Joe Biden emphasized at a Monday news conference that omicron is “ a cause for concern, not fear."As of Monday autumn, no cases of omicron have been reported in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Omicron, on the other hand, is believed to have spread quietly formerly. According to Julie Swann, an epidemic modelling and health systems expert at North Carolina State University, covering the United States is still a long way from what it should be. Presumably, in the United States, the experimenter says, “ but we haven’t sequenced enough samples or tested enough people.” Omicron Variant Treatment It’s unknown whether omicron infections beget more severe conditions than other types. Despite this, primary exploration indicates that hospitalization rates are adding in South Africa. The contagion may also be suitable to overcome former infection impunity or COVID-19 vaccination to beget a advanced infection. Medical experts advise people to exercise caution until further information is available. This understanding ought to be treated in a serious way," Swann said. Regardless of whether this one ends up being a catastrophe, there will be another. March 10, 2022, 1154 pm

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 4, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Today seemed to mark a popular backlash against Republican lawmakers who have been downplaying the coronavirus pandemic. The Delta variant of the deadly virus is ripping through unvaccinated populations in the U.S. with an average of 85,000 new cases a day, numbers that rival those of February, before we had accessible vaccines. One in three cases in the nation comes from either Florida or Texas.

Lawmakers in South Carolina, Iowa, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, and Utah have prohibited schools from requiring masks, and South Carolina, Iowa, Florida, Montana, Arizona, South Dakota, Texas, and Tennessee prohibit local governments from doing so.

Yesterday, President Joe Biden called out governors, especially Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, for banning mask mandates and refusing to require the vaccine. At a press conference, Biden said “to these governors, ‘Please, help.’ But if you aren’t going to help, at least get out of the way of the people who are trying to do the right thing. Use your power to save lives.”

Today DeSantis responded: “I am standing in your way.” After sitting on Biden’s criticism for almost a day, DeSantis could find as a response only an attack on Biden for allegedly ignoring the “border crisis.” DeSantis blamed Florida’s devastating virus numbers on immigrants coming over the nation’s border with Mexico into Texas.

The recent attention to the methods of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who rose to power by stoking anti-immigrant hatred and who continues to whip up a frenzy over immigration despite the fact that refugees coming into Hungary have dropped to unremarkable levels, shows the Republican fallback on immigrant caravans to distract from their own scandals in a new light.

In fact, our southern border remains closed because of public health directives put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Unaccompanied minors are admitted so that they do not become victims of gangs or sex traffickers, and their numbers likely hit an all-time high of about 19,000 in July. Those children are processed and then transferred to facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services, which then finds suitable foster situations for them while they await immigration hearings.

Interestingly in terms of the timing of DeSantis’s outburst, today the Mexican government sued a number of U.S.-based gun manufacturers for lax controls that permit illegal weapons to flow over the border. A 2016 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office showed that about 70% of the weapons seized in Mexico came from the United States.

Back in the U.S., the president has mandated vaccines in the federal government and has asked private employers to require vaccines. Google, Walmart, Disney World, and Microsoft, among many others, including hospitals and more than 400 private universities, are requiring masks or vaccines. So is Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, who today issued a mask requirement for schools and a vaccine mandate for workers in state prisons and other facilities.

By Labor Day, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to give final approval to coronavirus vaccines, reassuring people reluctant to get the vaccine that it is safe.

Increasingly, people dying of Covid-19 or their survivors are publicly begging their friends and neighbors to get the vaccine. In addition to videos and facebook posts, a six-minute television segment on CBS This Morning featured Republican Representative Julia Letlow of Louisiana, who lost her husband to the disease in December. She is using her story to try to change people’s minds about refusing the vaccine.

Implied in these calls to ignore the disinformation out there about the vaccine is criticism of those Republican leaders who have pushed that disinformation.

Rising case numbers put lawmakers who have downplayed the virus in a tight spot. A new poll today from St. Pete Polls shows that DeSantis’s popularity has fallen behind that of a Democratic rival, Charlie Crist, in the 2022 governor’s race. Forty-nine percent of Floridians disapprove of DeSantis’s job performance, while only 44% approve. He is in positive numbers only with voters older than 70. In contrast to the older folks, most voters disapprove of his opposition to masks in schools.

Other Republican governors have expressed regret that they were so quick to outlaw masks. Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson today said he wished he hadn’t signed into law a measure banning state and local mask mandates. He has called the legislature into special session to change the law, claiming that he signed the previous measure because “I knew it would be overridden by the legislature if I didn't sign it.”

The new spike in infections has meant an uptick in vaccinations, with numbers matching those of early July. On Tuesday, Jeff Zients, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, reported that Louisiana has seen a 302% increase in the average number of newly vaccinated per day; Mississippi, 250%; Alabama, 215%; and Arkansas, 206%. On Tuesday, almost a month late, the nation met the goal President Joe Biden had set for July 4 of having at least one vaccine shot in 70% of eligible Americans. About 49% of all eligible Americans have been fully vaccinated.

Today, two parents of school-aged children in Arkansas sued the state over its law banning the use of masks in schools. They are seeking immediate “protection from an irrational act of legislative madness that threatens K-12 public school children with irreparable harm.” “Without immediate intervention by the Arkansas judiciary,” the lawsuit says, “the restrictions imposed on state and local officials by Act 1002 will result in many more Arkansas children becoming very sick, and some of them will inevitably die.”

—-

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/08/02/press-briefing-by-white-house-covid-19-response-team-and-public-health-officials-47/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/02/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/04/florida-governor-ron-desantis-tells-biden-he-standing-your-way/5489876001/

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/13/17823488/hungary-democracy-authoritarianism-trump

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s080221-southern-northen-land-borders-order-extended.html

https://apnews.com/article/health-immigration-coronavirus-pandemic-a361bb903e71011432012d11ac33f9fc

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2021/07/29/covid-mandates-trigger-a-new-clash-between-florida-officials-and-desantis-13891

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2021/08/02/florida-covid-hospitalizations-shatter-record-as-desantis-downplays-threat-1389356

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/mexico-guns-us-lawsuit/2021/08/04/181fdbaa-f52d-11eb-a636-18cac59a98dc_story.html

https://apnews.com/article/health-immigration-coronavirus-pandemic-a361bb903e71011432012d11ac33f9fc

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/03/us/politics/pfizer-vaccine-approval.html

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/04/1024939859/arkansas-governor-reverse-law-let-schools-require-masks

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/566301-letlow-describes-final-moments-with-husband-urges-people-to-get-vaccine

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-pritzker-school-masks-20210804-gdo7vctdgre4laxtk7kyfyfjfm-story.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/08/03/arkansas-parents-sue-state-over-ban-on-school-mask-mandates---could-other-states-be-next/amp/

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/445635-poll-ron-desantis-approval-rating-sags-as-covid-19-rages/

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON