[Editorial] COVID-19 will not leave behind refugees and migrants
The Lancet | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
Never has the "leave no one behind" pledge felt more urgent. As nations around the world implement measures to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2, including lockdowns and restrictions on individuals' movements, they must heed their global commitments. When member states adopted the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, they promised to ensure no one will be left behind. Chief among the world's most vulnerable people are refugees and migrants. The COVID-19 crisis puts these groups at enormous risk.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30758-3/fulltext?rss=yes
[Comment] The COVID-19 pandemic in the USA: what might we expect?
Gerardo Chowell, Kenji Mizumoto | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
As of March 19, 2020, 191‚Äà127 cases of, including 7807 deaths attributed to, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been reported worldwide.1 The incidence of reported cases in China has dramatically reduced to tens per day as a result of strict social distancing measures; however, the pandemic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is now generating sustained transmission in many countries including the USA. In The Lancet, Isaac Ghinai, Tristan D McPherson, and colleagues2 report details of the first known human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the USA, which was…
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30743-1/fulltext?rss=yes
[Comment] Offline: COVID-19–what countries must do now
Richard Horton | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
How should countries plan for the approaching health crisis caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)? In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, himself struck down with infection, has written to every household warning that, "we know things will get worse before they get better". The UK Government is right to prepare the public for the coming human catastrophe. All governments have a responsibility to do the same. But this advice does not go far enough. Here are five critical actions that need to be considered immediately.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30787-X/fulltext?rss=yes
[World Report] 2020 Canada Gairdner Award winners announced
Talha Burki | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
On March 31, the Gairdner Foundation announced the winners of its annual prizes in biomedical science and global health. Talha Burki spoke with the laureates.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30789-3/fulltext?rss=yes
[Correspondence] Education and research are essential for lasting peace in Yemen
Fathiah Zakham, Olli Vapalahti, Hilal A Lashual | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
Yemen, known to many as the land of Sheba, and Manhattan of the desert, is now referred to only as one of the poorest countries on Earth. The name Yemen has become synonymous with cholera, famine, death, instability, and war. The war continues to erase the lives, history, and the future of Yemenis, and meaningful aid and peace have yet to reach Yemen.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30162-8/fulltext?rss=yes
[Editorial] Redefining vulnerability in the era of COVID-19
The Lancet | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
What does it mean to be vulnerable? Vulnerable groups of people are those that are disproportionally exposed to risk, but who is included in these groups can change dynamically. A person not considered vulnerable at the outset of a pandemic can become vulnerable depending on the policy response. The risks of sudden loss of income or access to social support have consequences that are difficult to estimate and constitute a challenge in identifying all those who might become vulnerable. Certainly, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerable groups are not only elderly people, those with ill health and comorbidities, or…
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30757-1/fulltext?rss=yes
[World Report] Developing antibody tests for SARS-CoV-2
Anna Petherick | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
Laboratories and diagnostic companies are racing to produce antibody tests, a key part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Anna Petherick reports.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30788-1/fulltext?rss=yes
[Comment] A planetary health perspective on COVID-19: a call for papers
Alastair Brown, Richard Horton | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
It is natural during the unfolding coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to focus on emergency response planning, including containment, treatment procedures, and vaccine development, and nobody would doubt the need for these measures. However, an emergency can also open a window of opportunity for reflection and learning. We live in increasingly global, interdependent, and environmentally constrained societies and the COVID-19 pandemic exemplifies these aspects of our world. We would therefore be wise to take a broad integrated perspective on this disease, the impacts of which are already spilling over in…
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30742-X/fulltext?rss=yes
[Obituary] Philip Leder
Geoff Watts | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
Molecular geneticist and genetic code breaker. He was born in Washington, DC, USA, on Nov 19, 1934, and died from complications of Parkinson's disease in Chestnut Hill, MA, USA, on Feb 2, 2020, aged 85 years.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30685-1/fulltext?rss=yes
[Correspondence] Mass drug administration: time to consider drug pollution?
Gorka Orive, Unax Lertxundi | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
Mass drug administration is the strategy recommended by WHO to control or eliminate many neglected tropical diseases that cause devastating consequences worldwide. This strategic approach, which has produced unquestionable benefits, consists of treating every person, infected or not, living in a defined geographical area at approximately the same time.1 In 2017, more than 1 ∑7 billion treatments (mainly albendazole, mebendazole, ivermectin, azithromycin, and praziquantel) were delivered to 1 ∑04 billion individuals.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30053-2/fulltext?rss=yes
[Department of Error] Department of Error
thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
Biswal S, Borja-Tabora C, Martinez Vargas L, et al. Efficacy of a tetravalent dengue vaccine in healthy children aged 4–16 years: a randomised, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial. Lancet 2020; published online March 17. dox.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30414-1–The appendix of this Article has been corrected as of April 2, 2020.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30682-6/fulltext?rss=yes
[Correspondence] Chagas disease: still a neglected emergency?
Renato D Lopes, Claudio Gimpelewicz, John J V McMurray | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
10 years after highlighting the health consequences for millions of people infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, a 2019 report from the Pan American Health Organization concluded that there has been little progress in the prevention and treatment of Chagas disease, a problem that now extends beyond Latin America.1…
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30171-9/fulltext?rss=yes
[Correspondence] Authoritarianism and the threat of infectious diseases
Juan M Pericà s | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
Punitive social policy, encompassing the dismantling of the welfare state with the expansion of the penal state and its associated institutions, as nicely stated by Elias Nosrati and Michael Marmot in their Perspective,1 might indeed be considered an upstream social determinant of health. Nosrati and Marmot's analysis relates to the findings described by Navarro and colleagues,2 linking political ideology with policies aimed at reducing social inequalities such as welfare state and labour market policies.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32595-4/fulltext?rss=yes
[Editorial] Open versus endovascular repair of aortic aneurysms
The Lancet | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
When the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) released draft guidelines on the diagnosis and management of abdominal aortic aneurysms in May, 2018, it caused outcry. By recommending that endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) of unruptured aneurysms should not be offered–even in patients for whom open surgical repair was contraindicated–critics said that many patients would be denied life-saving treatment and that the guidelines were unworkable.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30759-5/fulltext?rss=yes
[Department of Error] Department of Error
thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
Mease PJ, Rahman P, Gottlieb AB, et al. Guselkumab in biologic-naive patients with active psoriatic arthritis (DISCOVER-2): a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial. Lancet 2020; 395: 1126–36–In this Article, the following sentence from the Participants section has been corrected as follows: "Patients were permitted, but not required, to continue stable use of selected standard treatments, including NSAIDs or other analgesics up to the regional marketed dose approved; oral corticosteroids (‚â§10 mg/day of prednisone or equivalent dose); or non-biologic DMARDs (limi…
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30741-8/fulltext?rss=yes
[Perspectives] Face transplants as surgical acts and psychosocial processes
Fay Bound Alberti | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
In 2017 the face of Katie Stubblefield made headlines. Not the face she was born with or the face that emerged after 22 reconstructive surgeries. This was another face altogether: a transplant that Stubblefield would receive from Adrea Schneider. There have been 46 recorded face transplants in history. Katie's was the 40th–only the third to have taken place at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, which also undertook the first face transplant in the USA, on Connie Culp, in 2008. According to the Cleveland Clinic, it took 11 surgeons and staff from 15 specialties more than 31 hours to transplant Stubblefield's new…
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30684-X/fulltext?rss=yes
[Correspondence] Obsolete medical law in Japan harms doctors' health
Genichi Sugihara, Nori Takei | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
Japan has achieved one of the most successful health-care systems in the world.1 Under the nation's insurance scheme, Japanese citizens have taken for granted that anyone can choose any health-care facility and receive the most advanced medical care across the nation. However, little attention has been paid to the fact that such a health system is supported by dedicated and self-sacrificing medical professionals. Such overloaded expectation is especially high in rural areas where the number of doctors remains low.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30176-8/fulltext?rss=yes
[Perspectives] Man up
Tom Shakespeare | thelancet.com | 2020-04-04
Masculinities: Liberation through Photography explores half a century of photographic representations of men–their bodies, their identities, and their social roles. Contemporary politics is full of powerful men–Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan–behaving in stereotypically dominant ways. You could be forgiven for thinking that the more things change, the more things remain the same. But #MeToo is here to say it can't go on like this, in the wake of the conviction of Harvey Weinstein.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30683-8/fulltext?rss=yes
The Covid-19 Crisis Is Exposing Trump's Criminality
Sasha Abramsky | thenation.com | 2020-04-03
The Covid-19 Crisis Is Exposing Trump's Criminality…
thenation.com/article/politics/coronavirus-trump-immigration-environment/
Angola 3 Newsletter: DECARCERATE!!!!
ICFA | indybay.org | 2020-04-03
We dedicate this newsletter to the men, women and children in detention centers, jails and prisons, where they are unable to social distance or sanitize–leaving them to anxiously wait for the virus to take hold in their facilities. Please encourage your local governments to take action before the virus hits.
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/04/02/18832077.php
COVID-19: from conflict to pandemic, migrants in Bosnia face a new challenge
news.un.org | 2020-04-03
Migrants and refugees hosted at UN-run reception centres in Bosnia-Herzegovina, are learning to cope with the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2020/04/1060982
More refugees attempt Channel crossing as covid-19 reaches Calais camps
The Canary | thecanary.co | 2020-04-03
At least 52 refugees, including five children, risked their lives to cross the Channel on 2 April.They were intercepted by Border Force travelling across the Dover straits in four inflatable boats, the Home Office confirmed late on Thursday.It comes as two cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in the Calais refugee community and another in a refugee camp in Dunkirk.Border Force officers bring to shore men thought to be migrants in Dover (Gareth Fuller/PA)Despite pictures taken in Dover appearing to show Border Force officials not wearing protective gear, the Home Office reiterated that all operational staff have…
thecanary.co/discovery/news-discovery/2020/04/03/more-refugees-attempt-channel-crossing-as-covid-19-reaches-calais-camps/
Germany marked an increase in violent attacks on refugees in 2019
wsws.org | 2020-04-03
The Left Party has been instrumental, along with the country's other political parties, in creating a hostile climate and the corresponding explosion of violence against refugees and immigrants.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/03/germ-a03.html
Julian Assange still held on remand as coronavirus spreads through UK prisons
wsws.org | 2020-04-03
The WikiLeaks founder, held in Belmarsh prison and facing extradition to the US for exposing war crimes, has a chronic lung condition and has had his health destroyed by a decade of mistreatment by the British state…
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/03/assa-a03.html
These migrant workers did not suddenly fall from the sky
Vijay Prashad | mronline.org | 2020-04-03
Madness engulfs the planet. Hundreds of millions of people are in lockdown in their homes, millions of people who work in essential jobs–or who cannot afford to stay home without state assistance–continue to go to work, thousands of people lie in intensive-care beds taken care of by tens of thousands of medical professionals and caregivers …
mronline.org/2020/04/03/these-migrant-workers-did-not-suddenly-fall-from-the-sky/
These Migrant Workers Did Not Suddenly Fall From the Sky
Vijay Prashad | zcomm.org | 2020-04-03
They have not benefited from their work, but they have certainly enriched the few who are now hiding with their wealth behind their curtains, afraid of the reality that made them rich…
zcomm.org/znetarticle/these-migrant-workers-did-not-suddenly-fall-from-the-sky/
Amazon executives conspired to smear fired worker who led protest over Covid-19 safety conditions
rt.com | 2020-04-03
Amazon's top lawyer crafted a strategy to scapegoat the man who organized a protest at a New York warehouse, calling the African-American ex-employee 'not smart, or articulate.' President Obama's ex-spokesman helped carry it out. | Chris Smalls was fired on Monday, after he led up to 50 of his colleagues at a Staten Island warehouse to walk out in protest over what they described as unsafe working conditions at the mammoth facility, including the lack of protective gear for the workers. A number of political and media figures, including Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), condemned…
rt.com/usa/484843-amazon-smears-protest-leader/
Mounting protests in Canada's construction industry over lack of safety measures to counter COVID-19
wsws.org | 2020-04-03
A petition launched by a construction worker in Ontario calling for the shutdown of the entire industry quickly secured over 50,000 signatures.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/03/cons-a03.html
"He's Got Eight Numbers, Just Like Everybody Else"
Kathy Kelly | dissidentvoice.org | 2020-04-03
On April 4, 2020, my friend Steve Kelly will begin a third year of imprisonment in Georgia's Glynn County jail. He turned 70 while in prison, and while he has served multiple prison sentences for protesting nuclear weapons, spending two years in a county jail is unusual even for him. Yet he adamantly urges supporters …
dissidentvoice.org/2020/04/hes-got-eight-numbers-just-like-everybody-else/
Pandemic and Bernie Sanders: "Still Ahead of His Time"
RootsAction | zcomm.org | 2020-04-03
Progressive Advocates Release Video Illustrating Senator Bernie Sanders' Career-Long Support for a System Able to Solve Healthcare Crises…
zcomm.org/znetarticle/pandemic-and-bernie-sanders-still-ahead-of-his-time/
Why is the World Socialist Web Site banned from the subreddit r/coronavirus?
wsws.org | 2020-04-03
The subreddit r/coronavirus has banned content from the World Socialist Web Site from being shared among its 1.8 million reader-members. We are demanding that the moderators explain why this decision has been made and immediately reverse this act of political censorship.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/03/redd-a03.html
Brazil Supreme Court asks to suspend Bolsonaro for 180 days
Eds. | mronline.org | 2020-04-03
Marco Aurélio Mello, a Minister of Brazil's Supreme Court, sent the Attorney General's Office a request to suspend President Jair Bolsonaro from his post for 180 days for committing various actions that have put the country at risk in the face of the covid-19 health emergency, according to a Telesur report.
mronline.org/2020/04/03/brazil-supreme-court-asks-to-suspend-bolsonaro-for-180-days/
Coronavirus and Georgia's Kemp: How the GOP Stupidocracy will Kill us All
Juan Cole | zcomm.org | 2020-04-03
I don't think Kemp is stupid in the sense of lacking intelligence. I think he is stupid in the sense of letting things get in the way of his intelligence– whether they be ridiculous ideological commitments or slavish obedience to campaign donors or fear of angering Donald Trump…
zcomm.org/znetarticle/coronavirus-and-georgias-kemp-how-the-gop-stupidocracy-will-kill-us-all/
Silver Linings Amidst the Capitalist Coronavirus Crisis
Paul Street | counterpunch.org | 2020-04-03
The COVID-19 crisis is confronting U.S.-Americans with yet more undeniable evidence of the complete craziness and cruelty of American capitalism and class rule more broadly. The demented viciousness of the possessing class's parasitic profits regime and many elite professionals' privileged status are being exposed in graphic ways. It is absurd that the nation's economic system…
counterpunch.org/2020/04/03/silver-linings-amidst-the-capitalist-coronavirus-crisis/
Tunisia Leads the Way: New Report Exposes Israel's False Democracy
Ramzy Baroud | counterpunch.org | 2020-04-03
Tunisia is the Middle East's greatest success story, according to the findings of the V-Dem Annual Democracy Report 2019. One of the world's most regarded annual reports on democracy and good governance, the V-Dem Report is produced by the V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. While Tunisians can be…
counterpunch.org/2020/04/03/tunisia-leads-the-way-new-report-exposes-israels-false-democracy/
'Stop coming to Beijing,' China advises foreign diplomats
rt.com | 2020-04-03
China's Foreign Ministry is advising foreign diplomats to stop coming to Beijing. Spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters during a daily briefing that the ministry was aware of confirmed coronavirus cases among foreign diplomats in China, Reuters reported. | Beijing has indefinitely banned foreigners from entering the country to curb cases involving travelers from overseas. However, China has chartered planes to repatriate its nationals in countries with severe outbreaks. | The National Health Commission on Friday reported 31 new cases, compared with 35 a day earlier and down dramatically from the height of th…
rt.com/newsline/484855-stop-china-foreign-diplomats/
An interview with four Chinese physicians at the epicenter of the pandemic in Wuhan
wsws.org | 2020-04-03
Four doctors who went through the worst of the COVID-19 epidemic in China recently spoke with the WSWS about their experiences and the lessons for the wider world.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/03/wuha-a03.html
Why a Race is Not a Virus and a Virus is Not a Race
J.P. Linstroth | counterpunch.org | 2020-04-03
It is dangerous rhetoric indeed when President Donald J. Trump calls the Coronavirus (COVID-19), the "Chinese Virus". Even if the intent was political and meant to communicate to Beijing that the United States military was not responsible for the spread of the disease within China, contrary to a conspiracy theory there. By the president naming…
counterpunch.org/2020/04/03/why-a-race-is-not-a-virus-and-a-virus-is-not-a-race/
The Military Knew Years Ago That a Coronavirus Was Coming
Ken Klippenstein | zcomm.org | 2020-04-03
The Pentagon warned the White House about a shortage of ventilators, face masks, and hospital beds in 2017–but the Trump administration did nothing…
zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-military-knew-years-ago-that-a-coronavirus-was-coming/
We Need a Coronavirus Truce
John Feffer | counterpunch.org | 2020-04-03
During World War I, soldiers all along the Western front held a series of informal truces in December 1914 to commemorate Christmas. It was early in the war, and opposition had not yet hardened into implacable enmity. The military command, caught by surprise, could not impose complete battlefield discipline. An estimated 100,000 British and German…
counterpunch.org/2020/04/03/we-need-a-coronavirus-truce/
Slumlord Capitalism v. Global Pandemic
John Whitlow | counterpunch.org | 2020-04-03
The poet Langston Hughes once wrote, "I wish the rent was heaven sent." With 10 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Hughes' words resonate now more than ever. As we hurtle toward a public health and economic catastrophe, we must reckon with the sobering fact that our federal government is helmed by landlords, real estate developers, and financiers whose fortunes have been made
The Apartheid Wars: Non-Accountability and Freedom for Perpetrators
Kenneth Good | counterpunch.org | 2020-04-03
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a vital means to save the country from unending civil war. These had raged with increasing intensity since 1960, and in 1994 the forces of oppression were militarily intact. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu, soon to be chair of the Commission observed in 1995, "Nuremberg trials" were not for…
counterpunch.org/2020/04/03/the-apartheid-wars-non-accountability-and-freedom-for-perpetrators/
The Control of Nature
Evaggelos Vallianatos | counterpunch.org | 2020-04-03
I started the day (Sunday, March 29, 2020) in relatively good spirits. The Sun was bathing nature in light and pleasant warmth. Spring and flowers were everywhere. My wife and I were walking in our beautiful neighborhood in Claremont, California. Poisoning the Wind But, suddenly, a man holding a sprayer was furiously drenching his front…
counterpunch.org/2020/04/03/the-control-of-nature/
Louisiana ranks fourth in the US for coronavirus deaths
wsws.org | 2020-04-03
Governor John Bel Edwards used his daily press conference Thursday to announce an extension of stay-at-home orders through the end of April.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/03/loui-a03.html
Nationwide lockdown could cost Indian economy over $4 BILLION A DAY
rt.com | 2020-04-03
The 21-day complete shutdown across India which was triggered by the rapid spread of the coronavirus outbreak will result in a gross domestic product (GDP) loss of almost $98 billion, according to Acuite Ratings & Research. | "While the countrywide shutdown is scheduled to be lifted from April 15, 2020, the risks of prolonged disruption in economic activities exist depending on the intensity of the outbreak," the credit rating agency said, adding that the ongoing disruption will have significant economic consequences across the world as well as in India. | Acuite Ratings has warned there is a risk of a contrac…
rt.com/business/484857-nationwide-lockdown-indian-economy/
As Delta smelt nears extinction, CDFW issues incidental take permit for endangered fish
Dan Bacher | indybay.org | 2020-04-03
The incidental take permit was issued as the Delta smelt, once the most abundant species on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, continues its steep slide towards extinction. For the second year in a row, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in its annual fall midwater trawl survey in 2019 found zero Delta smelt during the months of September, October, November and December.
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/04/01/18832051.php
Honduran doctor warns of "collapsed health care system" as coronavirus toll grows
wsws.org | 2020-04-03
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/03/hodr-a03.html
Navy fires captain who warned of COVID-19 spread on aircraft carrier
wsws.org | 2020-04-03
The move is a clear statement that saving lives in the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be allowed to interfere with the war aims of US imperialism.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/03/navy-a03.html
The Tories are probably hoping we're too distracted to notice the investigation into EU election spending
The Canary | thecanary.co | 2020-04-03
The Conservative Party is probably hoping that we're all too distracted by the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic to notice the party is under investigation over their campaign spending during the European Parliament elections.The Electoral Commission said five parties are being examined after submitting spending reports which were missing information that would give voters a "complete picture of their campaign spending".It added that parties are required by law to provide complete lists of all campaign payments and supporting invoices or receipts for payments of more than £200.It confirmed two investigations…
thecanary.co/uk/news/2020/04/03/the-tories-are-probably-hoping-were-too-distracted-to-notice-the-investigation-into-eu-election-spending/
Livestream: Democracy and COVID-19: What Happens Next?
The Commonwealth Club | indybay.org | 2020-04-03
Online via livestream…
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/04/02/18832076.php