Thursday,  Apr 30th, 2020

A fast radio burst is detected from the Magnetar SGR 1935+2154, the first ever detected inside the Milky Way, and the first to be linked to a known source. (Astronomer’s Telegram)

(52768) 1998 OR2, a 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) wide near-Earth asteroid, makes a close approach of 0.042 AU (6.3 million km; 16 LD) to Earth. It will not approach closer than this until 2079. (SKY News)

American movie theater chain AMC Theatres states it will no longer host movies produced by Universal Studios, in response to The Wall Street Journal reporting that NBCUniversal plans to release its movies simultaneously in cinemas and streaming moving forward. (Reuters)

Protests erupt in major cities across Lebanon for the second day over the country’s continuing economic problems. Banks and vehicles are set on fire, and clashes between the protestors and the army in Tripoli leave around 40 soldiers wounded. (Reuters)

FDA reportedly to authorize emergency use of coronavirus treatment drug  The Food and Drug Administration will reportedly authorize the emergency use of the antiviral remdesivir on COVID-19 patients as soon as Wednesday. Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences revealed promising study results involving remdesivir on Wednesday, but the FDA’s reported move would still sidestep the usual testing required to authorize a drug’s usage. Gilead said its trial, as well one overseen by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, met its goals. The Gilead study found at least 50 percent of patients treated with remdesivir improved. The overall mortality rate of the study was 7 percent, and few patients developed bad side effects. The study wasn’t evaluated against a control group, and it’s unclear if those recoveries were natural. A separate study concluded remdesivir was “safe and adequately tolerated” but “did not provide significant benefits over placebo.” Source: The New York Times

U.S. economy contracts 4.8 percent in 1st quarter  The Commerce Department said Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 4.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, the largest decline since the Great Recession. This first quarterly drop in six years, which comes after businesses around the country closed their doors and consumer and business spending fell during the crisis, is expected to be followed by a far worse contraction during the second quarter of the year, with experts foreseeing a decline of more than 30 percent. Data from the Labor Department recently showed that more than 26 million Americans have filed initial unemployment claims over five weeks, wiping out all of the job gains since the Great Recession. Source: The Washington Post

Mass workplace, rent strikes planned for May 1  This Friday, employees from major U.S. corporations are staging a mass strike, and asking customers to join in by boycotting their employers. As the coronavirus pandemic rolls on, employees have chosen May 1, International Workers’ Day, to walk out of their jobs at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, Walmart, Target, and Shipt, demanding they be provided with paid leave, protective gear, and hazard pay. Other strikes planned for May 1 include student protests and rent strikes. “May Day is the day you don’t go to work or buy things or pay rent,” Vanessa Bain, a lead organizer of the Instacart walkout, told Vice. “To consumers, we’re saying: ‘Don’t buy from these companies on May 1. Don’t empower them with your dollars.'” Source: Vice News

Michigan governor introduces a GI Bill for frontline workers  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Wednesday unveiled what she’s calling “Futures for Frontliners.” It’ll provide a tuition-free college education or technical certification to essential workers who stayed on during the COVID-19 pandemic, much like what the GI Bill does for military members, veterans, and their dependents. Workers “staffing our hospitals and nursing homes, stocking the shelves at grocery stores, providing child care to critical infrastructure workers, manufacturing PPE, protecting public safety, picking up trash or delivering supplies” are among those who’d be eligible for the program, Whitmer said. Whitmer didn’t announce when it’ll take effect or how workers will apply. Federal grant money will be used to cover the program’s costs, she said. Whitmer also indicated support for hazard pay of an additional $13 an hour. Source: Detroit Free Press

The End

Wednesday,  Apr 29th, 2020

A pug in Chapel Hill, North Carolina becomes the first dog in the United States to test positive for COVID-19. Three of the humans it lives with have also tested positive for the disease. (WRAL-TV) 

Trump orders meat plants remain open, despite COVID-19 outbreaks President Trump on Tuesday night used the Defense Production Act to order meat processing facilities stay open amid the coronavirus pandemic. Several have shut down in recent weeks due to employee illness, with some plants reporting that hundreds of workers have been infected with COVID-19. Trump’s executive order classifies meat plants as “critical infrastructure,” and says the closures “threaten the continued functioning of the national meat and poultry supply chain” during the pandemic. Trump signed the order after John Tyson, chairman of the board of Tyson Foods, placed a newspaper ad over the weekend stating that “the food supply chain is breaking.” The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union says at least 20 meat plant employees have died of the coronavirus. Source: The New York Times

COVID-19 has now killed more Americans than the Vietnam War A grim milestone was reached on Tuesday evening, as the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States surpassed the number of Americans who were killed in the Vietnam War. A tally kept by Johns Hopkins University shows the U.S. COVID-19 death toll is now at 58,365, with more than one million confirmed cases. The first known U.S. death from COVID-19 occurred on Feb. 6 in San Jose, California. Over the course of nearly two decades, 58,220 Americans died while fighting in the Vietnam War. The deadliest year for the United States in Vietnam was 1968, when 16,899 troops were killed. The most deaths that year occurred on Jan. 31, with 246 Americans killed during the Tet Offensive. Source: NPR

U.S. passes 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases There have now been more than one million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported Tuesday. Worldwide, there have been more than three million confirmed cases of coronavirus. More than 58,300 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in the United States, and more than 213,000 deaths have been reported globally. A model from the University of Washington that’s been used by the White House estimated there will be more than 74,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the United States by the beginning of August, up from the projection of 67,000 last week. The Wall Street Journal notes the U.S. reached one million confirmed cases less than three weeks after reaching 500,000 cases. Source: CBS News

Oscars changes rule requiring films be released in theaters The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has adjusted its rule requiring that films receive at least a limited theatrical release in Los Angeles in order to qualify for the Oscars. After a meeting of the board of governors, the Academy said on Tuesday that for the 2021 Oscars, movies that “had a previously planned theatrical release but are initially made available” on streaming or on demand can now qualify for the awards as long as they meet other eligibility requirements and are made available on the Academy’s streaming site within 60 days of release. The Academy said this is a “temporary exception” that will no longer apply beginning “on a date to be determined” after movie theaters reopen.  Source:  The Hollywood Reporter

 

Tuesday,  Apr 28th, 2020

Offshore drilling contractor Diamond Offshore Drilling files for bankruptcy due to the oil price collapse, following the reduction in oil demand during the global coronavirus pandemic. (The Wall Street Journal)

Delta Air Lines announces it is suspending flights to several small-hub airports after losing $534 million in the first quarter of this year due to aviation restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. (MLive.com)

A prison riot at the Lurigancho jail over demands for better sanitary measures and COVID-19 medical care in San Juan de Lurigancho, Peru, leaves nine inmates dead, according to the National Penitentiary Institute. (Reuters)

 

 

Day 42 of a lockdown that started March 17th in Boston.

Globally the number of confirmed cases of the virus will pass the three-million mark today. There are a steady 80,000 new cases a day. This is down from a peak of about 85,000 new cases per day last week. This is most likely due to the lockdowns in western countries and the disease moving into parts of the world where testing resources are unavailable or too expensive like Africa, India, and South America.

There have been 208,000 recorded deaths from COVID-19. The virus is killing people at a rate of 5,500 people per day. This is down from a peak a weak ago at about 7,000 per day.

In the United States there are about 25,000 new cases every day for a cumulative total of 970,000. Deaths have been fluctuating for two weeks around 2,000 per day. 56,000 people have died in the United States from COVID-19.

Overall in the United States 3 people out of 1000 have been confirmed infected with less than 2% of the population tested so far.

Massachusetts continues to have the fourth highest infection rate for a state in the country. 7.7 people out of 1000 are infected. 4 out of 10,000 have died.

In New York City 18.3 people out of 1000 has been confirmed infected and 2 out of 1000 has died from the virus. Yet there have been ostensibly random antibody tests that suggest up to 20% of the population of the city has been infected. There is some caution and skepticism about the methodology and accuracy of that testing, however, it is consistent with limited random antibody testing done in other parts of the country.

If it is accurate, it suggests that 90 percent of cases are never tested and show few if any symptoms or never seek medical care.

This leads to further speculation that the death rate for the virus is much lower than originally thought but still greater than a regular seasonal flu.

This article has a lot of seemingly good news:
Cuomo Announces Phased Plan to Reopen New York; Deaths Drop

 

Sunday, Apr 26th, 2020

SNL back again with virtual episode NBC’s Saturday Night Live returned for its second virtual, produced-from-home episode during the coronavirus pandemic Saturday evening. Academy Award winning actor Brad Pitt kicked things off, appearing as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during the episode’s cold open. Pitt’s exasperated Fauci warned people not to consume disinfectants in light of recent comments by President Trump, and admitted he was likely getting fired because Trump said he wasn’t. Eventually, Pitt broke the fourth wall, removed his wig, and thanked Fauci for his leadership during the pandemic. Source: Saturday Night Live

Global coronavirus deaths surpass 200,000 The global death toll from the COVID-19 coronavirus surpassed 200,000 on Saturday, with the total number of infections now beyond 2.9 million. In the United States, there are now more than 900,000 cases and 50,000 deaths. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said Saturday night that she expects the rate of those hospitalized and dying from the disease in the United States will fall “dramatically” by the end of May, though she also said that won’t necessarily mean the number of cases will simultaneously dwindle, since increased testing could pick up many asymptomatic or mild cases. Source:  The Washington Post

 

White House considering replacing Azar White House officials are discussing a plan to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, though they’re reluctant to complete any major shakeups within the Trump administration during the coronavirus pandemic, Politico and The Wall Street Journal report. Still, criticism of Azar’s role has reportedly mounted in recent weeks, especially after Director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority Rick Bright was moved to a National Institutes of Health position, a transfer which Bright described as a form of retaliation. President Trump had reportedly expressed frustration with Azar even before the pandemic and ultimately replaced him as the coronavirus task force leader with Vice President Mike Pence. Source: Politico

Trump says coronavirus briefings ‘not worth the time and effort’ President Trump tweeted Saturday evening that holding White House press briefings to address the coronavirus pandemic were no longer “worth the time and effort” because the media asks “nothing but hostile questions” and then “refuses to report the truth.” The tweet comes after Friday’s briefing, which was the shortest since Trump began holding them in March. There was no briefing Saturday, and Sunday’s White House schedule did not list any public events for the president. The decision to scale back the briefings is likely related to backlash to Trump’s comments on Thursday, when he pondered whether doctors should look into injecting harmful disinfectants into COVID-19 patients. Source:  The Guardian

King Salman issues an order to partially lift the curfew in all regions of the country except for Mecca where a 24-hour curfew continues as the authorities report 16,299 infections and 136 deaths nationwide. (Al Jazeera)

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-24/wuhan-china-coronavirus-fentanyl-global-drug-trade