Category Archives: Germ Warfare

What about this are we missing?

Does anyone in his right mind think were going to unleash our children upon each other in two-hour contests of germ warfare? Were going to let high school and college students slam into each other in a toxic cocktail of sweat, blood and spit and pretend its safe?

Stop it. Its not happening. Were better than this.

In Missouri, where parents and youth coaches have thrown their kids back onto playing fields, health officials now say a rise in coronavirus cases among youth aged 10 to 19 is the primary source of COVID-19 spreading into the community.

Colleges from Chapel Hill to Clemson to Alabama and yes, LSU, are reporting shocking numbers of positive cases among football players. And at fraternities across the South and in college bars across the country, outbreaks are being reported every day.

All this before the students even return to campus.

We seem frozen by an inability to do the right thing.

Its time the adults started acting like adults.

The NFL seems hell-bent on its players playing the role of guinea pigs if not lemmings, willing to die if not kill, to play football. We know what thats about, and it has nothing to do with the health and welfare of the workers.

The rest is here:

Ed Hardin: Get ready to face that football isn't happening this fall - Roanoke Times

NO Time To Die marks the 25th James Bond film in the franchise.

We have put together the comprehensive chronological list of Bond movies so you know what order to binge-watch them in. Why not? You only live twice.

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Dr. No is the first-ever Bond movie, based on the Ian Fleming book of the same name.

It introduces Sean Connery in the iconic role.

James Bondis sent toJamaicato investigate the disappearance of a fellow British agent. He finds the underground base ofDr No, who is plotting to disrupt an American space launch with a radio beam weapon.

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Seeking revenge againstJames Bondfor defeating their agentDr. No,international criminal organisationSPECTREassigns Irish assassin Donald "Red" Grant to kill him.

The sequel had a much larger budget than Dr No, which can be seen in its array of exotic filming locations.

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Goldfinger is arguably the most iconic Bond theme song, sung by the legend Shirley Bassey.

After destroying adrug laboratoryinLatin America,James Bond travels toMiami for a vacation. He receives instructions from Mto observe bullion dealerAuric Goldfinger and his manservant Oddball.

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James must save the world from the one-eyed evil mastermind Emilio Largo.

The terrorist group SPECTRE hijacks two warheads from a NATO plane and threatens widespread nuclear destruction to extort 100 million pounds.

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James Bond is sent to investigate the hijacked NASA spacecraft, Jupiter 16.

The Americans think that the Russians are involved in the hijacking, but the British believe that the Japanese are somehow behind it.

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Bond, now played by George Lazenby, and Tracy Di Vicenzo team up to take down SPECTRE in the Swiss Alps.

Blofeld is putting together a germ warfare plot that could kill millions.

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Sean Connery reprised his role as James Bond after refusing to star in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

James Bond infiltrates a Las Vegas diamond-smuggling ring in a bid to foil a plot to target Washington with a laser in space.

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Roger Moore takes on the role as agent 007 for Live and Let Die.

Bond investigates the murders of three fellow agents.

James has a bounty put on him and has to fight off many trained assassins as he closes in on powerful Kananga, who is making his fortune selling heroine.

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Bond searches for a stolen invention that can turn the sun's heat into a destructive weapon.

He crosses paths with hitman Francisco Scaramanga whose weapon of choice is (you guessed it) a golden gun.

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Bond unites with sexy Russian agent Anya Amasova to defeat shipping magnate Karl Stromberg and his right-hand man Jaws, who are threatening to destroy New York City with nuclear weapons.

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The eleventh Bond instalment takes the agent to Venice, Rio De Janeiro and outer space.

When Bond investigates the hijacking of an American space shuttle, he soon comes up against Hugo Drax, an industrialist who plots to destroy all human lif on earth.

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James Bond is sent to recover a strategic communications device before it finds its way into the hands of the Russians. Roger Moore on set with Carole Bouquet

The secret device that controls Britain's Polaris submarines goes missing after the spy ship carrying it sinks.

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James Bond is assigned to solve the murder of agent 009, killed in East Germany clutching a fake Faberg egg.

The trail leads to India, where an enigmatic woman operates a smuggling ring under the cover of a travelling circus.

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After recovering a microchip from the body of a deceased colleague in Russia, James Bond discovers that the technology has the potential to kill.

Investigating further, Bond is led to Max Zorin, the head of Zorin Industries and his bodyguard May Day.

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Timothy Dalton takes on the iconic role in The Living Daylights

James Bond helps KGB officer Georgi Koskov defect from Russia.

During his debriefing, Koskov reveals that a policy of assassinating defectors has been instated. As Bond explores this threat, a counterplot surfaces, involving a shady American arms dealer.

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James Bond disobeys his orders and goes on a mission of revenge when his best friend's wife is killed by a drug baron.

A CIA pilot flies him to Sanchez's South American headquarters where disguised as a hitman, Bond is hired by the villainous drug dealer.

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GoldenEye is Pierce Brosnan's first Bond movie.

James Bond must defeat a former ally-turned-enemy Alec Trevelyan AKA Agent 006 when a powerful satellite system falls into his hands.

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Media mogul Elliot Carver wants his news empire to reach every country on the globe, but the Chinese government will not allow him to broadcast there.

Carver doesn't take no for an answer and plans to use his media empire to fuel flames of war between the Western world and China.

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Bond must race to defuse an international power struggle with the world's oil supply hanging in the balance, with the help of nuclear weapons expert Dr. Christmas Jones.

He must battle Renard, who has a bullet lodged in his brain rendering him unable to feel pain.

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James Bond is captured by North Korean agents. Once he's finally released, he is convinced that someone in his own agency betrayed him. Bond travels to Cuba, hot on the heels of Zao, the agent who put Bond behind bars.

Meanwhile, he uncovers a scheme concocted by Zao and British millionaire Graves, involving a highly destructive laser.

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James Bond heads to Madagascar, where he uncovers a link to Le Chiffre, a man who finances terrorist organizations.

Learning that Le Chiffre plans to raise money in a high-stakes poker game, MI6 sends Bond to play against him.

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Following the death of Vesper Lynd, James Bond makes his next mission personal. The hunt for those who blackmailed his lover leads him to ruthless businessman Dominic Greene, a key player in the organization which coerced Vesper.

Bond learns that Greene is plotting to gain total control of a vital natural resource.

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Undercover agents around the world are exposed, and MI6 is attacked, forcing M to relocate the agency. With MI6 now compromised inside and out, M can only trust Bond, whose previous mission had gone horribly wrong.

Bond follows a trail to Silva, a man from M's past who wants to settle an old score.

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James Bond travels to Mexico City and Rome. After infiltrating a secret meeting, 007 uncovers the existence of the sinister organisation SPECTRE.

As Bond ventures toward the heart of SPECTRE, he discovers a chilling connection between himself and his enemy.

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No Time To Die comes out later this year.

The plot summary reads: "Recruited to rescue a kidnapped scientist, globe-trotting spy James Bond finds himself hot on the trail of a mysterious villain, who's armed with a dangerous new technology."

Continued here:

James Bond movies in order of release from Dr. No to No Time To Die - The Sun

Image: Shutterstock

It's time to forget the world as we knew it. What Covid-19has offered us is the opportunity to think long term. It will be a pity to let the crisis go waste.

It is evident that Covid-19 will transform the world in tectonic ways, just likeWorld War 2 brought in major cultural and economic transformation like new technologies and business models, including accelerated entry of women into the industrial complex as labour. Unfortunately, we are on shaky ground, because a large part of decision making is based on past examples and comparatives; past precedents will not guide our trajectory in the technology and knowledge-driven society of today. I am confident we will find viable new decision making models.

I shall focus on healthcare and pharma as together, they are one of the largest employers in the organised sector and will play a vital role in the post Covid-19 world. Like most countries, the pandemic has exposed serious lacunae and at the same time great opportunities for India.

1. Reimagining Healthcare Policy: In India, you cannot win an election by talking about health. Hence, our healthcare policies are non-existent or at best, archaic. But, as Bill Gates says, it is time we plan and practice our capability and preparedness with regular germ warfare games (just like military war games) with proper command structure. In the future, the greatest threat to the country or humanity will less likely come from war or nuclear bombs, but from germs. There have been three near-pandemics (Sars, Mers, Ebola) and one pandemic (Covid-19) within just 20 years. Hence,

a. We must change the archaic MCI rules to bring medical education standards to the 21st century, and allow private hospitals to give training like elsewhere in the world. This will bring down the cost of medical education drastically and increase manpower without any additional spend by the government. Our ratio of 0.7 doctors per 1,000 population is among the lowest in the world; and is primarily because of outdated rules restricting medical education and extremely high cost of private medical education.

b. As per WHO, India stands at 184 out of 190 countries in terms of healthcare spending as a percent of GDP, with a measly 1.15 percent of GDP spent bygovernment on healthcare; another 2.4 percent of the healthcare spending tab is taken up by the private sector or out of pocket expense. This pushes millions to bankruptcy from healthcare-related debts. On an urgent basis, thegovernment healthcare spending must increase substantially with the largest provision in the healthcare budget reserved for prevention and public health including building infrastructure.

c. Technology has changed the definition of teaching, including the number of teachers required. This should substantially improve quality, reach and as I have mentioned earlier, the cost of healthcare education.

d. We have to improve the ease of doing business and allow medical innovation to become mainstream. India is 63rd on the ease of doing business rankings among 190 countries, despite the fact that we are the home of IITs, IT and jugaad.

e. Of the total spending on healthcare, only seven percent is spent on preventive healthcare, while more than 80 percent is spent on treatment and cure as of FY17 (National Health Accounts). This has to change.

2. Building Capacity: This will be in the areas of infrastructure and manpower both.

While we always knew we were not equipped to handle a pandemic, Covid-19 has laid our failings threadbare.

The government cannot pass on the role to the private sector and has to spend more on health. Only 1/3rd of hospital beds are located in rural areas to serve 69 percent population, while 75 percent beds are in the private sector mostly in urban or semi urban areas. About 65 percent of all health expenditure in India (approx. 2.5 percent of GDP) is borne privately by households, despite the fact that they cannot afford private healthcare. In the post-Covid world, we need a robust public health system with private healthcare providers playing a secondary role. The government has to build more public hospitals and focus more on health management, rather than disease management.

Not only do we have a serious shortage of doctors but equally the shortage of other paramedical and technical staff like nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technicians, etc., to manage various functions of the hospital. We need to create training programmes for them, which will also help solve the unemployment crisis.

The good thing is that in India, every family wants to make their child a doctor. We should turn this sentiment into a massive opportunity and open up medical education to fill the massive need of doctors.

3. Boosting Manufacturing:There is a palpable boycott-China sentiment the world over, which India can turn to its advantage, to become the healthcare manufacturing hub to the world. Unfortunately, even today, much of the key equipment for the Covid-19 crisistesting kits, personal protective equipment, ventilators, masksall come from China. We have only 25,000 ventilators in the country, whereas the requirement is ten times that. This could be a huge fillip to good quality Indian manufacturing.

India is totally dependent on China for 70 percent import of APIs; even as common a medicine like paracetamol is 100 percent imported from China. This is in contrast to the fact that pharma has been a silent winner for India.

We are the worlds largest supplier of generic drugs and control around 18 percent of the global market. India accounts for about 10 percent of worlds pharmaceutical production by volume but only 1.5 percent by value. This can change in a post-Covid-19 world. In fact, Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian organisation, estimates that treatment of AIDS using generic Indian drugs is two to three times cheaper as compared to treatment using branded drugs.

Without health for all there is no progress.

One good thing that has come out of this horrible pandemic and all this suffering, is that finally, everyone is realising the importance of healthcare and application of technology like tele-health, telemedicine, remote connectivity and communication.

The old adage health is wealth stares at us in the face as we have to ramp up on the four pillarsnutrition, immunisation, prevention and adequate public healthcare facilities to build a post-CovidIndia.

The writeris Cardiovascular Thoracic Surgeon, Vice Chairman & Managing Director at Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai

Click here to see Forbes India's comprehensive coverage on the Covid-19 situation and its impact on life, business and the economy

More:

Recovering From COVID-19- The Long Road Ahead - Forbes India

After a fruitless hour of research, I cannot tell you whether the Haudenosaunee operated any sort of kitchen operation where the trail met the creek in the present-day Village of Williamsville. Most of the time since European settlers showed up, though, this stretch has rarely lacked places dedicated to feeding and watering locals and passers-by alike.

Pondering two centuries of good cheer and grub helped ground me after a head-spinning week of trying to imagine how restaurants are supposed to survive at half speed while training their staff as germ warfare combatants.

One bite of Ross Warhols ramp kimchi cheesesteak ($14) at BriteSmith Brewery (5611 Main St., 650-4080) knocked all that right out of my noggin for now. Restaurant types are reassuringly good at figuring things out.

Like how to griddle a pillowy split-top roll in butter lobster-roll style, and fill it with an original composition: sweet sesame-scented bulgogi-ish braised beef short rib chopped with American cheese, crowned with fermented pickle heavy with ramps and wild forest onions. The collision of melty richness and tang made me glad to be alive.

BriteSmith Brewing's ramp kimchi cheesesteak. (Andrew Galarneau/Buffalo News)

Choices of BriteSmiths wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizzas ($13-$19) run from margherita to three-meat, with a lobster number ($18) over garlic cream, fontina and chives. Sunday brunch features craggy apple fritters ($6) and chicken with cheddar-chive waffles ($18) and chile-honey butter.

Across the street, Eagle House (5578 Main St., 632-7669) is on the other end of the spectrum. As the area's oldest restaurant approaches 200 years in service, its comfort food-centered menu has never seemed more of the moment.

The rare Welsh rarebit ($11, $14 with bacon) makes its home here. A thick sauce built on beer and extra-sharp Canadian cheddar, further honed with mustard and Tabasco, hits like a hug spooned out onto toast.

Banana pepper chicken ($18 with salad and side) led the entrees. Ordered on aromatic rice pilaf, a chicken breast had been stuffed with spinach, Gorgonzola and more cheeses, crumbed and fried to golden. Served on a mildly rousing pepper cream, with caponata-like tomato compote, its mix-and-match pleasures were diverting.

Simpler satisfactions were in store just a few blocks away at another historic watering hole, Glen Park Tavern (5507 Main St., 626-9333).

Whether from general squeamishness or simple inattention, rare roast beef has of late been an endangered species among beef-on-weck specimens Ive collected.So when the woman who took my order and credit card information asked how I wanted my meat done on the beef on weck ($14.95 large), you could call it a rare thrill.

Eagle House's stuffed pepper chicken. (Andrew Galarneau/Buffalo News)

Enjoy yourself. When I keep getting reminded Im mortal, this is the sort of beef on weck Im going for: one for the ages. That means a thick mattress of hand-cut tenderness to put me in the pink, a roll stout enough to cope, and fresh enough to notice. On the side, horseradish to get your sinuses activated, and rarest of all, au jus that tasted like beef drippings rather than the usual cheap bouillon, drab as dishwater.

The beef can be ordered as a hot open-faced sandwich with gravy ($13.95), just like Glen Parks other stalwart, roasted turkey. A sandwich piled high with better-than-fair fowl, plus lettuce, tomato, onion and cranberry sauce, would please any fans of the form.

A mile east, at Lloyd Taco Factory (5933 Main St., 863-9781) the leading homegrown practitioner of un-Mexican tacos and master of the sub-$10 meal, has made the contactless restaurant transaction frictionless as well. A simple and effective online ordering system leads to a heads-up text, which leads to bags handed out a delivery window.

Lloyd Taco Factory's carne asada camino bowl. (Andrew Galarneau/Buffalo News)

Unless you have a real thing for picking up your food, Id suggest the camino bowls, which are deconstructed burritos minus the flour tortilla shell, proteins bedded on your choice of shredded cabbage, rice and black beans.

Crack-ed potatoes ($4.99) are a must, crispy-jacketed spuds duded up in ssamjang sauce and fried garlic, vegan if you hold the mayonnaise. Vegans have a legitimate contender in the Skinny Thai ($8.99), fried tofu with kicky peanut sauce, radishes and more. Grilled citrus-and-chile-marinated steak stars in the carne asada ($9.49) under fresh-cut pico de gallo.

The Big Lloyd ($8.99) has all the flavors of a Big Mac, down to the sesame seeds, except better, because its built on locally raised grass-fed beef. Then theres my guilty go-to, Dirty South ($8.99): fried chicken, waffle crisps, maple syrup and bacon aioli. Thats right, mayonnaise made with bacon fat instead of oil.

Lloyd Taco Factory's Dirty South burrito bowl. (Andrew Galarneau/Buffalo News)

So when it comes to recovering from our current unpleasantness, I would look to the restaurant people for hope. For hundreds of years, theyve found a way to keep feeding people, and they will again, taking lessons from old and new.

You know what they say: It takes a village.

Originally posted here:

In Williamsville, old favorites and new keep tradition alive - Buffalo News

Published 12:00am EDT, Friday, May 22, 2020

It has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, COVID-19 is not man-made or genetically modified..

The major research labs in the U.S. all agree (and our allies worldwide) as does the U.S. national Director of Intelligence who released a statement on April 30.

They can tell because human engineered viruses all have common obvious components not present in this virus.

It is also highly unlikely that it was a science experiment gone wrong as the new coronavirus is way different genetically than the SARS virus that originated in bats and was being studied in the Wuhan lab.

No one knows what the animal host source of the new virus is yet, but so far its not bats. Im no scientist so I listen to the experts on this.

So why President Trump would say, the day after this announcement was made by his Director of Intelligence that he has reason to believe it is man made?!

It is mind boggling that our president would make inaccurate statements during a major worldwide pandemic and scare and confuse the people at a time when they are looking for and need calm and reassurance.

The only reason Im bringing this up is because a lot of people Ive spoken to, mainly the presidents supporters, still think its man-made because of President Trumps statements.

So everyone lets remain calm, we are not under a germ warfare attack!

Yes, China probably tried to cover it up and yes, China is moving into world domination.

But lets not get fooled into starting WWIII over false information.

Matt Yordon

Norwalk

Read more from the original source:

Letter: The coronavirus was not created by humans - Thehour.com

The Rev Jesse Jackson was born in the racially segregated south when Franklin Roosevelt occupied the White House and war raged in Europe. He was an eyewitness to the assassination of Martin Luther King, campaigned against the Vietnam war and twice ran for US president.

But, now an elder statesman of 78, he has never seen anything like the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 1 million Americans and killed more in April alone than died in Vietnam over 15 years. The worlds most powerful and wealthy country also bears by far its biggest death toll: almost 90,000. It is enough to shake faith in American exceptionalism.

Our military cannot defeat this germ, Jackson says by phone from Chicago, one of the hardest-hit cities. Having the biggest banks, having the biggest military has no meaning in this kind of germ warfare. The frontline is not soldiers; the frontline is doctors and nurses. The planes are grounded, the bombs are irrelevant. It turns out that pride precedes a fall. Sometimes people have to learn that we dont control everything.

Despite lockdown and Parkinsons disease, Jackson is still working with gusto at the Rainbow Push Coalition, a progressive organisation he founded in 1996. It has convened thousands of black doctors and lawyers and released a manifesto suggesting that high-risk groups, including African Americans, be prioritised for coronavirus testing.

Jackson has twice written to Donald Trump urging testing for the 2.2 million people currently in prison. At a time when most Americans are looking inward, he has also called for massive intervention in Africa, a particularly vulnerable continent that is close to his heart.

Were working virtually, making conference calls, using this time to organise people, he says. Weve talked to about 2,000 ministers around the nation over the past 10 days, trying to convince their congregations to honour the protocols and stay in the house.

For a brief while it became voguish to indulge a comforting myth that the coronavirus was the great equaliser, touching the bus driver and Prince of Wales alike. But while infections do not discriminate, humans do. Despite making up only 13% of the US population, African Americans represent 30% of the deaths from the coronavirus.

A Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Committee report last month concluded that people of colour have less access to quality healthcare, are more likely to have a pre-existing health condition and suffer greater exposure to air pollution that puts them at higher risk of asthma. They also make up a disproportionate share of frontline workers, are less likely to be able to work from home and more likely to rely on public transport, and are hit hardest by poverty as layoffs continue to rise.

We know that people should honour the [social distancing] protocols, but some find it more difficult because of congested conditions or their transportation, says Jackson. A lot are untested and uninsured. If youre uninsured, you can go to the hospitals only to be told you cant get service, so you end up resorting to your own home remedies, or you end up in the hospital too late.

That points to disparity in income and education and healthcare. It shows the black condition in America. The legacy of slavery and Jim Crow is very clear.

Like Trumps regressive presidency, the virus is a shock to the system that forces a confrontation with class, race and structural inequality. What had been ambient noise for the privileged is suddenly vividly clear and difficult to ignore.

After 400 years of slavery, segregation and discrimination, why would anybody be shocked that African Americans are dying disproportionately from the coronavirus? Jackson asked in a statement published on 7 April, arguing that all past US presidents have failed to end the virus of white superiority and fix the multifaceted issues confronting African Americans.

He adds, by phone: America has decided the place of blacks in this society, which is beneath that of European immigrants. People say America is 244 years old, but Africans have been here 157 years before the constitution. We shouldnt say America was founded in 1776 it started with slavery in 1619; so were still invisible to that extent.

We still make less, live under stresses and dont live as long. Were still looked upon as the other based upon skin colour, as some kind of irreparable sin in the society. People try to adjust to it but, when a pandemic sets in, the data comes out.

Were about 60% of prisoners in this country. People are sick behind those walls. You can have 200 inmates sick with Covid-19 and the workers go home and they spread it. So the prisons become the epicentre of the untreated and untested and undetected.

Itching to revive their economies, several southern states led by mostly white male governors are already reopening bowling alleys, cinemas, hairdressers, restaurants and other outlets against federal guidelines. A group of activists, mostly black women, warned in a petition that reopening now is irresponsible and a death sentence for many of us.

White privilege will offer no immunity in an interconnected society, says Jackson. If blacks are the drivers and unprotected, the driven are hurt. If the cooks and waiters are unprotected, those they cook for are all unprotected. So were more integrated than we realise on a daily basis.

So we really must have healthcare for all as one of the by-products of this pandemic. Anybody whos left out is a threat to those who are left in. When people as affluent as Prince Charles and Boris Johnson and athletes are affected, it means that the gated community did not protect you from the pandemic. If the poor are not protected, the rich are in jeopardy, because you cannot separate by community the poor from the rich, the white from the black.

Roosevelt was tested by the Great Depression and second world war and rose to the challenge. George W Bush faced the 9/11 terrorist attacks; Barack Obama the financial crisis. Trump had his shot at greatness with the coronavirus pandemic and few, outside his most ardent supporters, would dispute he threw it away.

The first president elected with no previous political or military experience squandered a precious six weeks, instead golfing, holding rallies and prophesying that the virus would disappear like a miracle in warm weather rather than following the pandemic emergency plan bequeathed by Obama and building a rigorous nationwide testing programme.

Is Trump responsible for tens of thousands of deaths? He had an opportunity to move early on it and did not move early on it. The infrastructure that [George W] Bush and Barack had put together on pandemics was ignored. He dismantled the infrastructure and did not pay adequate attention to the threat.

As the threat changed, we didnt have ventilators and respirators. All our preparation was for a financial fight or a military fight. He should have declared a national testing mechanism. There should have been a national lockdown to break the back of it. The attention should have been early; it was not.

Trump has sought absolution at press briefings that sometimes run for more than two hours with a mix of self-congratulation, bloated exaggerations, broadsides at reporters and bad science. He recently ad libbed a jaw-dropping proposal to study the merits of injecting disinfectant into coronavirus patients. It has left his opponent in Novembers election, the former vice president Joe Biden, struggling to get a share of the limelight.

Trump is using the daily press briefing as a platform to promote his politics while Biden is facing lockdown in his basement. But theres a real chance the more he talks, the weaker he gets.

Jackson whose activism began as a student trying to desegregate the public library in his birthplace of Greenville, South Carolina ran against Biden in the 1988 Democratic primary. Bidens campaign fell apart after he quoted without attribution the then British Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, and was accused of plagiarism. Jackson, bidding to become the USs first black president, gathered 7m votes and finished first or second in 46 out of 54 primary contests. But he lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis, who went down to George HW Bush.

Does it hurt that he will never be president? No, it doesnt, he says firmly, because I was a trailblazer, I was a pathfinder. I had to deal with doubt and cynicism and fears about a black person running. There were black scholars writing papers about why I was wasting my time. Even blacks said a black couldnt win.

Some of his foreign policy positions at the time, he points out, became widely adopted: a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa (he met Margaret Thatcher to plead for Britain to drop its support for the apartheid regime). In 2000 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USs highest civilian honour.

When Obama won in 2008, he praised Jackson for making his run possible. As Obama delivered his election night victory speech at Grant Park in Chicago before a crowd of 240,000, Jacksons tear-stained face was among the most indelible images. It was a big moment in history, he recalls. I cried because I thought about those who made it possible who were not there People who paid a real price: Ralph Abernathy, Dr King, Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, those who fought like hell [at the Democratic national convention] in Atlantic City in 64, those in the movement in the south.

Some felt that Obama should have pushed faster and further on racial justice in his two terms. But Jackson ranks him among the USs top presidents. First, given Americas history in terms of race, he inspired indescribable pride. No 2, his family and their decency and dignity were a big deal.

He points to the Paris climate accords, Iran nuclear deal, rapprochement with Cuba and rescue of the economy as signal achievements. He stabilised the ship when the ship was sinking and got it back above the water. And no scandal. Trump creates a desire for Barack all over again. When he travelled around the world, he was the best face Americas ever had.

In March, Jackson endorsed Bernie Sanders, returning a compliment from 1988 when Sanders backed his campaign. His ideas made the most sense to me, he explains. But after a promising start Sanders fell away, partly because of his failure to connect with older African American voters, where Biden dominated.

His campaign was [about] class without appreciating the caste dimension of poverty, Jackson explains by way of post-mortem. There are 55 black members of Congress and he didnt have one. Maybe one or two black mayors, but he didnt cultivate an African American constituency.

Biden, meanwhile, benefited from his kinship with Obama as well as Trumps repeated attacks that kept his profile up and his name on the front pages. The opposition had no infrastructure for the black vote. In many ways, he inherited votes he didnt campaign for.

In recent weeks, Biden has been endorsed by Sanders, Obama, Hillary Clinton, House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the civil rights hero John Lewis in a show of party unity. Will Jackson support him enthusiastically? Yeah, as an alternative to the present administration, but weve not had a meeting with the black constituency on what our demands are.

The ground is shifting under Trump and Bidens feet. Sanders argues that the pandemic, which has put more than 30 million Americans out of work, shows the failure of the US healthcare system. As an opportunity to reimagine the social contract, the present moment is being compared with Roosevelts New Deal or the post second-world-war consensus in Britain.

Biden won the delegates but Sanders won the issues, Jackson reflects. Sanders agenda will dominate the [Democratic national] convention. One of the by-products of this pandemic is going to be the need for healthcare for all. We cant afford not to have healthcare for all because if you see the gap between the 1% and 99%, the 1% cant hide from who it is thats caring for the masses. The real soldiers are not the investment bankers. Its the doctors and nurses. There is a new appreciation of the common people, doctors and janitors and truck drivers, what they call essential workers.

In many ways, he says, as African Americans, were at the the bottom of the foundation. The foundation is where it starts from. So when the foundations in trouble, the whole buildings in trouble.

Read the original here:

Jesse Jackson: 'The gated community does not protect you from the pandemic' - The Guardian

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The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dr. Xun Zhou reader in modern history at the University of Essex, expert on health intervention and delivery in China, and author of The Peoples Health: Health Intervention and Delivery in Maos China, 1949-1983 (forthcoming) discusses the origins of COVID-19 and the future of Chinas health systems.

Explain the decision-making and authorization process behind health intervention and delivery in China.

After the SARS outbreak in 2003 exposed grave deficiencies in the Chinese health system and the increasing public complaints in China over unaffordability and low quality medical care, the Chinese authorities acknowledged that an efficient health system is pivotal to Chinas overall social and economic development, the countrys stability, and the CCPs political legitimacy as well as Chinas image on the world stage. In 2009, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC) and the State Council mandated major health reforms. The goal of this Healthy China Strategy is to establish an equitable and effective health system so that China would achieve Health for All by 2020. This entails strengthening healthcare delivery, health security, and provision of essential medicines.

At the top, the State Council set up a State Council Health System Reform Office to coordinate the relevant ministries to develop specific reform policies. The Office is also responsible for evaluating the reform work performed by different ministries as well as by provincial authorities. While this annual evaluation would have a direct impact on the allocation of the state health subsidy as well as promotion of individuals, neither the Office nor the relevant ministries such as the Ministry of Health responsible for formulating national policies have any real power over the implementation of the reform strategy.

To this day the health intervention, delivery, and financing systems remain fragmented. On the ground, each provincial authority is responsible for allocating resources to implement national-level health policies, which may be at odds with local interests. They often treat national policies as merely guidelines, and are not obliged to implement them, whether due to lack of funding, resources, or local interests. On the other hand, with their eyes fixed on more state subsidies and the next opportunity for promotion, local authorities and officials are always more interested in showing their superior in Beijing how well any specific locality is doing in terms of health, rather than being seen as a problem. Even at the national level, health resources in China are managed by different sectors. Coordination between them has always been problematic. In crisis situations, such as during the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the COVID-19 outbreak early this year, such fragmentation severely impeded crisis management.

Identify the factors behind growing international pressure to investigate Chinas handling of COVID-19 domestically and with the World Health Organization (WHO).

The COVID-19 crisis that first took hold in Wuhan in central China exposed the Chinese authorities consistent lack of transparency in acknowledging any disease outbreaks threatening public health. Local and national authorities unwillingness to report the onset of the outbreak as well as their failure to acknowledge the resulting tragedy in Wuhan turned it into as much a man-made catastrophe as a biological one. More importantly Chinas reluctance to share uncensored information with international communities has led some of its Western critics to condemn Beijing. In the United States, capitalizing on the growing public distrust of China that was fanned prior to the outbreak, several leading Republicans have waged a major anti-China campaign aimed at diverting voters attention away from the Trump administrations local mismanagement of the pandemic.

In the U.S. war on COVID-19, China is portrayed as the Patient Zero that has contaminated the rest of the globe, and hence is responsible for costing nearly 30 million American jobs as well as the federal government trillions of dollars in emergency spending. China is blamed for the deepening economic recession not only in the United States but globally. Around the world, as a variety of interests intersected to replicate the horror of the pandemic in different contexts, China has become the ultimate scapegoat. Australian Prime Minster Scott Morrison, for instance, has accused China of having caused the huge loss of lives across the world as well as the global economic shutdown.

The WHO now serves as a political and diplomatic arena in the current health/diplomatic war between the U.S. and China. This is not new, however. From its onset, as pointed out by one of its founding fathers, Dr. Sze Szeming, the WHO has really had more to do with politics than medicine and health. As my book illustrates, throughout the Cold War, the United States, China, and the USSR regularly used the World Health Assembly (WHA) as a political and diplomatic arena to battle each other. China, for example, after rejoining of the WHO in 1973, began to use the WHA meetings to promote its new Third World policy and to combat the First World superpowers such as the USSR and the United States.

Explain the correlation between the CCPs legitimacy and ability to control the COVID-19 narrative on domestic and global health policy as well as geopolitics.

Throughout Chinese history, epidemic, war, and natural disasters, including famine, had been seen as signs indicating the loss of the Mandate of Heaven that inexorably led to the downfall of many dynasties. In the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) politics and health have always been inextricably linked. After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seized power in 1949, locally endemic diseases such as schistosomiasis were seen as threats to peoples livelihood, social stability, and national security. Public health campaigns aimed at eradicating such diseases linked allopathic medicine and public health work with the ongoing legitimization of the new order. Fighting the disease came to stand for fighting for socialism. As such the CCP leadership made eradicating diseases and improving the health of the entire population a central pillar of its policies. As the promise to improve the peoples health has been a central tool utilized by the CCP in establishing political legitimacy, its failure to deliver such promise could also cost the party its legitimacy. Hence, the CCPs campaign to control COVID-19 is simultaneously political. At the same time, as public health work in the PRC has served as one of the central means of impacting and influencing the masses, the CCP has also turned the political campaign to combat COVID-19 into a moral crusade involving the entire Chinese nation. This way, the CCP has managed, with some success, to rally support from a large section of the population.

Nationalism is on the rise in China. In the meantime, with the spread of disease globally as well as the xenophobic anti-Chinese discourse in some Western countries, the official propaganda in China is turning COVID-19 into an external menace. This has allowed the CCP to further gain support from Chinese populations both within China and overseas in an alleged united effort or common goal to fight the disease. Such nationalistic rhetoric is also diverting peoples attention away from the earlier tragedy in Wuhan.

Get first-read access to major articles yet to be released, as well as links to thought-provoking commentaries and in-depth articles from our Asia-Pacific correspondents.

Globally, capitalizing on the growing crisis in the United States and Europe, the official media in China has been trumpeting Chinas purported success in controlling the disease. China has also sent medical missions to countries such as Italy. Sending medical missions abroad had been a strategy the PRC used during the Cold War to promote a new international order: a peoples revolutionary movement against colonialism, imperialism, and hegemonism. In the 1970s, the PRCs increasing medical humanitarian activities, and the bonds of friendship created through such undertakings, helped the PRC win its battle against the Republic of China (Taiwan) for the permanent Chinese seat at the UNs Security Council and membership in the General Assembly. This time, the PRCs medical humanitarian efforts have once again won praise from the WHO as well as those who wish to criticize the Trump administration or their own governments failures in tackling the crisis. On the other hand, its also ironic that while health and humanitarianism played pivotal roles in the political and diplomatic negotiations within the White House that eventually led to the opening to China in the early 1970s, currently both the White House and Beijing are using health as a weapon to engage in a new Cold War.

Assess the CCPs strategy to counter global calls for China to be held accountable.

With mounting pressure from some Western countries threatening to bring China to international courts, China has become the global pariah for failing to alert the world about the outbreak. Faced with such a challenge, the CCP, assisted by its official media and the scientific community in China, has been working hard to try turn the tide by propagating itself as a global hero for its successful containment. At the same time, Beijing has launched a major propaganda campaign, backed up by purported scientific evidence, blaming the U.S. military for bringing the disease to Wuhan in the first place. Such strategy is nothing new, however. It resonates with the CCPs campaign against the alleged American germ warfare during the Korean War in the 1950s. On the other hand, China has launched a diplomatic as well as propaganda campaign to attack Western imperialists by evoking the memory of the Hundred Year National Humiliation. In it, the COVID-19 is the new opium plague that the West, in particularly the United States, is using to hobble Chinas rise. But this time, China is determined to not be defeated.

Similar to what happened in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, the CCP leadership took to the decision that China would remain open to the outside world, and perhaps open wider than before. While last time, Deng Xiaoping sought the help of his old friend President George H. W. Bush of the United States to get China out of the crisis of international isolation, this time President Xi Jinping of China telephoned President Putin of Russia to agree on building stronger ties. Stating that the attempt by some to smear China on the question of the origin of the virus is unacceptable, Putin assured Xi that Russia is ready to continue to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with China in fighting COVID-19 and in other areas.

The day after Xi and Putins communication, on April 17 at the CCCPC Politburo meeting, it was announced that China would facilitate the smooth flow of international logistics, strictly control the quality of epidemic prevention and control supplies for export and jointly advance high-quality development under the Belt and Road Initiative. On the same day, the Wuhan authority published a revised mortality and morbidity figure that increased the citys total COVID-19 death toll by 50 percent. That took the national total in China to more than 4,600. The official statement states that this revision was a result of efforts by authorities to ensure that information on the citys COVID-19 epidemic is open, transparent and the data [is] accurate. At the exact moment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman attacked the United States accusations of a cover-up by China as false: Well never allow any concealment, he said. Clearly China has crafted this new statistical campaign to deter external criticism. At the same time, by ceremoniously increasing the mortality figure, authorities hope to win back peoples trust, hence to ensure the stability of the country.

With U.S. and European policymakers questioning Chinas credibility on health policy and data transparency, why does cooperation between Chinese and Western scientists and health experts remain crucial to containing COVID-19?

In the past 40 years, the West had made much effort to integrate China into the neoliberal world order. This Western enthusiasm to draw China in had been matched by Chinas willingness to participate in it. Chinas ascendance to the worlds second biggest economy, however, has had unintended and catastrophic consequences. Rapid modernization accompanied by unrestricted deforestation and unprecedented scale urbanization have threatened the capacity and resilience of the countrys ecosystems. The ever-increasing human efforts to exploit land, from agricultural expansion and intensification including the animal husbandry industry to produce high protein food for human consumption due to the rise in living standards to the construction of roads, railways, mining, and other large scale modernization projects such as the Three Gorges Dam drove much wildlife into populated areas due to the loss of habitats and led to closer integration between livestock and wildlife. This has increased human exposure to new pathogens threatened public health.

South of the Yangtze River, including the regions around Wuhan, as well as Chinas southwest have become the golden triangle, the ideal environment for the emergence and transmission of a number of infectious diseases (EID), from SARS to the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and COVID-19. All are zoonotic in origin. Yet China is not alone in this nor is China the sole culprit for the pandemic the world is now experiencing. Throughout history, the link between modernity, globalization, and epidemics is obvious. The expansion of global trade and travel have set us free but also left us exposed, ever more vulnerable. Geographical distance, the barrier that used to separate us but also slowed the transmission of infectious diseases, has been mitigated with our improved transportation network.

Today, in China as in much of the world, to catch an airplane is likened to catching a bus. The improved and increased aviation has also accelerated the spread of diseases and the rapidity of occurrence of a pandemic such as the COVID-19. The connectedness of everything in this universe, not only in geographic proximity, also meant science can no longer just rely on isolating particular causes and their effects. There is more than ever before a greater urgency and need for a better understanding of the drivers and causes of the emergence and spread of infectious diseases as well as for closer collaboration between international agencies and national governments together with scientists and health experts across the world and disciplines to strengthen animal and public health surveillance, response, prevention, and preparedness systems at the national, regional, and international levels.

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Investigating China: COVID-19 and the CCP The Diplomat - The Diplomat

COVID-19 impact will also be included and considered for forecast.

Global Bioterrorism Market research report provides detail information about Market Introduction, Market Summary, Global market Revenue (Revenue USD), Market Drivers, Market Restraints, Market Opportunities, Competitive Analysis, Regional and Country Level.

Bioterrorism Market Size Covers Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, CAGR, Trends, Forecast And Business Opportunity.

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Latest research report on Bioterrorism Market delivers a comprehensive study on current market trends. The outcome also includes revenue forecasts, statistics, market valuations which illustrates its growth trends and competitive landscape as well as the key players in the business.

Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the intentional release or dissemination of biological agents. These agents are bacteria, viruses, fungi, or toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form, in much the same way in biological warfare.

Bioterrorism refers to form of terrorism that involves intentional dissemination or release of biological agents. The agents can be viruses, bacteria or toxins and can also be referred to as germ warfare. Biological agents are mainly found in nature but sometimes they can be modified by the terrorist as to make agents more toxic. Biological agents are used by the terrorists to attain their social or political goals and are used for killing or injuring people, plants and animals. Biological weapons are dangerous as some of these agents are transmitted from one person to another and infection might take hours or days to become noticeable.

Bioterrorism is an invaluable tool as biological agents are relatively inexpensive and can cause widespread fear beyond the actual damage they can cause. They are mainly used by the terrorists to create mass panic and disruption of state or economy. The global market for bioterrorism is segmented on the type of different biological agents currently being used and their mode of delivery. Agents such as anthrax, tularemia, small pox, bubonic plague, botulinum toxin and viral hemorrhagic fevers pose a high threat to national security.

This report focuses on the global Bioterrorism status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Bioterrorism development in United States, Europe and China.

The key players covered in this study Altimmune Bavarian Nordic DynPort Vaccine Company (DVC) Emergent BioSolutions Acambis Achaogen Cleveland BioLabs Elusys Therapeutics

Market segment by Type, the product can be split into Anthrax Smallpox Botulism Radiation/Nuclear defense Others

Market segment by Application, split into Military Government

Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers United States Europe China Japan Southeast Asia India Central & South America

The study objectives of this report are: To analyze global Bioterrorism status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. To present the Bioterrorism development in United States, Europe and China. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies. To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.

In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Bioterrorism are as follows: History Year: 2014-2018 Base Year: 2018 Estimated Year: 2019 Forecast Year 2019 to 2025

For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2018 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.

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Table of Content:

Market Overview: The report begins with this section where product overview and highlights of product and application segments of the Global Bioterrorism Market are provided. Highlights of the segmentation study include price, revenue, sales, sales growth rate, and market share by product.

Competition by Company: Here, the competition in the Worldwide Global Bioterrorism Market is analyzed, By price, revenue, sales, and market share by company, market rate, competitive situations Landscape, and latest trends, merger, expansion, acquisition, and market shares of top companies.

Company Profiles and Sales Data: As the name suggests, this section gives the sales data of key players of the Global Bioterrorism Market as well as some useful information on their business. It talks about the gross margin, price, revenue, products, and their specifications, type, applications, competitors, manufacturing base, and the main business of key players operating in the Global Bioterrorism Market.

Market Status and Outlook by Region: In this section, the report discusses about gross margin, sales, revenue, production, market share, CAGR, and market size by region. Here, the Global Bioterrorism Market is deeply analyzed on the basis of regions and countries such as North America, Europe, China, India, Japan, and the MEA.

Application or End User: This section of the research study shows how different end-user/application segments contribute to the Global Bioterrorism Market.

Market Forecast: Here, the report offers a complete forecast of the Global Bioterrorism Market by product, application, and region. It also offers global sales and revenue forecast for all years of the forecast period.

Research Findings and Conclusion: This is one of the last sections of the report where the findings of the analysts and the conclusion of the research study are provided.

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Covid 19 Pandemic | Bioterrorism Market 2020 Competitive Landscape and Growth Opportunity, Industry Status and Forecast to 2025 - Cole of Duty

Dr. Wilmer Leon

By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

(TriceEdneyWire.com) Time catches up with kingdoms and crushes them, gets its teeth into doctrines and rends them; time reveals the foundations on which any kingdom rests, and eats at those foundations, and it destroys doctrines by proving them to be untrue. James Baldwin Down At The Cross, 1963

The foundation of America and its greatness was built upon some interesting principles or precepts; manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, White mans burden and American internationalism to name a few. They have become the foundation and rationalization for a belief system. The basic tenet of that belief system is that the development and expansion of American empire was inevitable if not divine. Former President Reagan called America, the shining city upon a hill. Undergirding this is the cooptation of Christianity and the sickness known as white supremacy.

As children, Americans are indoctrinated into the mythology of America. We pledge allegiance to one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Baldwin dispelled that myth the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. Jack Jackie Roosevelt Robinson told us long before Kap took a knee, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world.

Former Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) told us that The United States is safer and more prosperous in a more democratic world and should take the lead in advancing this cause. The problem with his logic is that you can neither foster nor promote democracy by causing innocent people to suffer through sanctioning their countries or through the barrel of a gun.

America cant bring democracy to Venezuela by supporting coups to overthrow democratically elected presidents, Chavez and Maduro. America cannot bring democracy to Boliva, Brazil and Honduras by supporting undemocratic right-wing governments that repress, threaten and jail their socialist opponents. This is not democracy, this is hypocrisy.

America cannot advance democracy around the world when it weaponizes the cause of the current

global pandemic, COVID-19. How can a country that weaponizes a global pandemic be seen as a shining city upon a hill? It is immoral if not criminal for the U.S. to increase sanctions through its maximum pressure campaigns against Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and Palestine. Americas maximum pressure is negatively impacting the flow of food, PPE, medicine and other supplies into these countries, making it exponentially more difficult for their governments to fight the pandemic.

As U.S. allies in Latin America are struggling to fight the novel coronavirus with limited financial and human resources, the U.S. is pressuring them to expel Cuban doctors. At the request of Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has removed more than 8,000 Cuban doctors and other health professionals from Brazil. Ecuadoran President Lenn Moreno has sent 400 doctors back to Cuba. Bolivia has sent 700 doctors back to Cuba after the US forced the resignation of socialist President Evo Morales in November. The health agreement between Cuba and El Salvador has also been cancelled at Trumps request. Even though the US did not introduce the COVID-19 contagion into these countries, weaponizing it for political purposes to bring about regime change is the same as germ warfare and should be considered a crime against humanity.

America claims to be sanctioning these countries and others in the name of freedom, democracy and the American way. The families being destroyed by COVID-19 because the U.S. is applying its maximum pressure campaign on their governments for their liberty must, as Dr. King said, see Americans as strange liberators.

The science to date tells us that this pandemic was detected in China in late 2019. Chinese health authorities warned the WHO of the pandemic on January 7, 2020. It hit Europe before the CDC confirmed the first case in the US on January 20, 2020. The Trump administration ignored the warnings. Trump largely disbanded the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit in the NSC in May 2018. This made it more difficult for the US to mount a coherent response. Trump cant get out of his own way to solve this problem and Republicans in Congress are afraid to challenge him. Party allegiance trumps loyalty to the American people. All Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) can focus on is approving the next wave of conservative judges. Meanwhile, COVID-19 is exposing that the political system is broken.

Americans have been told that its health care system is the best in the world. People come from all over the world to avail themselves of its wonders and cures. Thats only true, if one can afford them. COVID-19 has exposed the fact that most Americans, even with health insurance, will be saddled with serious medical bills. According toBusiness Insider,the total average charge per COVID-19 patient requiring an inpatient stay (6 days) is $73,300 and the total average estimated allowed amount per commercially insured patient is $38,221.

There are 27 million Americans without insurance.Yet, democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he would veto a Medicare For All bill if it crossed his desk as president. COVID-19 is exposing that our political process is broken.

The CDC cannot produce a trustworthy COVID-19 testing kit, so the US government cannot test enough Americans to clearly understand the size of the problem. South Korea has identified 29 Korean manufacturers and exporters specializing in COVID-19 diagnostic devices and developed a robust testing regime. Cases in South Korea are dropping. The US cannot manufacture sufficient quantities of PPE since American companies have off-shored their manufacturing to China and Trump will not command the private sector to manufacture PPE through the Defense Production Act. The US government no longer keeps an ample supply of PPE on hand since Americans have bought into the bad idea of less government and the private sector does not want to compete with a well-stocked government in times like this. COVID-19 is exposing that this manufacturing system is broken.

Tyson Foods executives have said that the closure of food-processing plants due to COVID-19 is breaking the supply chain. American farmers are plowing under crops. Dairy farmers are dumping thousands of gallons of milk and millions of animals will be depopulated because of the closure of meat processing facilities while jobless claims increase by 4.4 million, 26 million Americans have lost their jobs to COVID-19 and food banks are going empty. And you call this exceptional?

The U.S. can launch the $13 Billion USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier with a $400K toilet problem but cant get meat, milk and eggs to market in the midst of starving Americans, a crashing economy and a pandemic. COVID-19 has pulled the covers off of the entire charade called American exceptionalism.

Baldwin told us, time catches up with kingdoms and empires and crushes them. You better check your clocks and watches. God sent Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, COVID-19 this time.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast talk radio program Inside the Issues on SiriusXM Satellite radio channel 126. Go to http://www.wilmerleon.com or email:[emailprotected]www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leons Prescription at Facebook.com

2020 InfoWave Communications, LLC

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COVID-19 and America The Fire This Time - charlestonchronicle.net

News of how COVID-19 has struck the Navajo Nation has begun to penetrate national coverage of the pandemic. The first cases were believed to have spread at a church rally. Now, the coronavirus has overtaken the Nation, causing nearly 2500 cases and over 70 deaths, and continuing to wreak havoc in a region where running water and electricity are luxuries.

But the Navajo are not alone, of course.

Native American communities, often invisible or oversimplified in terms of their health inequities, are the most at risk in the U.S. for severe disease and higher death rates from COVID-19. The factors are complex: A history of higher infection rates from respiratory illness; a higher prevalence of underlying conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease; crowded living conditions that make physical distancing impossible; and for the 2.2 million Native Americans living on rural reservations, access to hospitals which are under resourced is limited. These hospitals serve populations of 15-20,000 in geographies that span the size of Delaware.

The meaning of the novel virus is different for Native Americans. Within their recent history since the arrival of the first European conquistadors, they have experienced waves of decimation from novel viruses, some systematically used by the colonists as germ warfare to wipe out their peoples.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when federal treaties were signed with the Native American peoples in exchange for enormous tracts of lands, Native Americans were promised federally supported free health care and education in perpetuity. In 1955, this responsibility was transferred from the Department of Interior to the newly minted Indian Health Service (IHS). Yet, never did our federal government adequately fund this new health care organization, a breach of trust and respect for the original North Americans.

One only needs to consider that the IHS average per capita spending per user today is $3,333 compared to $12,744 for Medicare and $9,404 for veterans medical spending. The IHS and Tribes have received significant federal funding to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the challenge now is to be able to spend it on what is needed, given the global shortages in supply of health care equipment and personnel.

After a decade of work on infectious diseases with southwestern tribal communities, in 1991 we signed an MOU with Indian Health Service to leverage our joint resources to promote tribal health and health autonomy. During COVID-19, we have seen IHS staff doctors, nurses and community health workers put themselves and their families at personal risk, lacking personal protective equipment (PPE) and other critical needs much like many parts of the world.

In the communities where we have worked, we see the tribal sovereignty of Native peoples affords them a unique capacity to mount their own containment and mitigation strategies. In some places, tribal leaders issued strict ordinances to community members to shelter in place, even before the first cases were confirmed or local states made such declarations, and established unified command systems with IHS partners.

What is happening in Navajo Nation with a rapid surge in COVID-19 cases and a considerable amount of household transmission is what can be expected to happen in other communities heavily impacted by poverty. And the community mitigation strategies that the Navajo developed will have relevance in other settings. For example, in the hardest hit areas on Navajo Nation, local command posts have been established and staffed with strike teams that can deliver essential items food, medication, wood for heating and cooking, hay for livestock so that COVID-19 affected households dont have to send people into the community for these items.

Further, due to the scarcity of available PPE, there has been swift mobilization for local citizens to sew urgently needed masks and gowns. Imagine, once we get to the other side of this public health emergency, these industries may remain and provide new sources of economic development for tribal communities.

The frugal innovations that will come from Indian Country during this pandemic will afford essential lessons for the world and it wont be the first time. Three of the eight vaccines that all U.S. children receive in the first year of life were proven effective with Native American communities. Pedialyte, the standard of care for children to prevent deaths from dehydration during bouts of infectious vomiting or diarrhea, was based on proof of concept with the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

Yet, without additional and sustained resources for Native American health now and in perpetuity, as promised by our federal government, the First Peoples of this continent will continue to suffer the greatest health inequities in the U.S. COVID-19 will be no exception. What Tribal communities achieve in the absence of adequate resources will represent one of the most valiant battles in our countrys war against COVID-19. Together we are stronger.

Allison Barlow, Ph.D, is the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health and senior scientist of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.Laura Hammitt, M.D., is the director of Infectious Disease Programs at the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health and associate professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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What we can learn from the First Peoples of the United States in the era of COVID-19 | TheHill - The Hill