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Post by Admin on Mar 17, 2020 15:26:15 GMT
MAR 16, 2020NEWS Fear Can Spread From Person to Person Faster Than the Coronavirus – but There Are Ways to Slow It Down www.truthdig.com/articles/fear-can-spread-from-person-to-person-faster-than-the-coronavirus-but-there-are-ways-to-slow-it-down/"As cases of COVID-19 proliferate, there’s a pandemic of fear unfolding alongside the pandemic of the coronavirus. Media announce mass cancellations of public events “over coronavirus fears.” TV stations show images of “coronavirus panic shopping.” Magazines discuss attacks against Asians sparked by “racist coronavirus fears.” Due to the global reach and instantaneous nature of modern media, fear contagion spreads faster than the dangerous yet invisible virus. Watching or hearing someone else who’s scared causes you to be frightened, too, without necessarily even knowing what caused the other person’s fear. As a psychiatrist and researcher studying the brain mechanisms of social regulation of emotions, I frequently see in clinical and experimental settings how powerful fear contagion can be."
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Post by Admin on Mar 17, 2020 18:32:46 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 17, 2020 18:55:10 GMT
“And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.
"And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
"And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed."
~Kitty O'Meara
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Post by Admin on Mar 17, 2020 20:30:07 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 17, 2020 21:09:52 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2020 0:51:17 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2020 1:04:56 GMT
What coronavirus revealed about national mindsets across the world — and how Cuba came out on top A British cruise ship in distress this week turned to the US government for help and was refused www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-cruise-cuba-trump-us-covid-19-a9407846.html"In a sign of true global solidarity, Cuba today allowed MS Braemer, a British cruise ship, to dock on its shores despite having at least five confirmed coronavirus cases on board and another 52 passengers displaying symptoms. The ship, with over 600 mainly British passengers, had no Cuban nationals on board but had requested help from both Cuba and the US. Cuba acted without self-interest. The ship had been anchored in the Caribbean over the last five days as it frantically searched for a place to dock. Diplomats from the British Foreign Office had urged US officials to allow the ship to dock on American soil but were met with obstacles. Cuban officials instead accepted the request, stating that there must be “a shared effort to confront and stop the spread of the pandemic”. After all, these are still humans suffering, regardless of the passport they hold. Cuba itself has only had five confirmed cases of Covid-19, and the ship docking could threaten to increase that number exponentially."
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Post by snowstorm on Mar 18, 2020 1:07:26 GMT
Yes, they were making more than a major mistake, talk about U Turn. I hope they are up to the challenge, I really do.
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2020 1:08:45 GMT
I hope they are up to the challenge, I really do. The country voted for Brexit & the Tories.
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Post by snowstorm on Mar 18, 2020 1:12:42 GMT
Yeah, you can't pin that one on me, my friend! Nor you I know. Rishi Sunak sounds quite sensible in the press interviews, that's what I have noticed, but the first strategy was crazy and wrong.
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2020 1:30:13 GMT
Covid-19 hastens the deepening structural crisis of the capitalist system A statement from the COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/covid-19-hastens-deepening-structural-crisis-capitalist-system"THE Communist Party of Ireland expresses its solidarity with all those affected, and who will be affected, by this growing health crisis and to the health staff and emergency services on the front line. The health services throughout the country, from Belfast to Cork, are wholly inadequate, having experienced more than a decade of harsh cuts, bed closures, lack of investment, staff shortages and the priority of private corporate medicine over a decent, well funded public health service. The covid-19 health crisis exposes once again the immediate need for one all-Ireland public health service. The virus is not subject to partition and knows no borders."
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2020 16:30:55 GMT
Remdesivir"Remdesivir (development code GS-5734) is a novel antiviral drug in the class of nucleotide analogs. It was developed by Gilead Sciences and as a treatment for Ebola virus disease and Marburg virus infections,[1] though it has subsequently also been found to show antiviral activity against other single stranded RNA viruses such as respiratory syncytial virus, Junin virus, Lassa fever virus, Nipah virus, Hendra virus, and the coronaviruses (including MERS and SARS viruses).[2][3] It is being studied for SARS-CoV-2 and Nipah and Hendra virus infections.[4][5][6] Based on success against other coronavirus infections, Gilead provided remdesivir to physicians who treated an American patient in Snohomish County, Washington in 2020, infected with SARS-CoV-2[7] and is providing the compound to China to conduct a pair of trials in infected individuals with and without severe symptoms.[8]" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remdesivir
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2020 16:45:59 GMT
Eloquent and salient observations on the Coronavirus pandemic-induced social crisis by Australian musicologist, dramaturg, linguist extraordinaire, and orchestral manager, Antony Ernst:
“Too big to fail.
So here we are, either in isolation, or in preparation for isolation, or, in some cases, compulsively buying toilet paper for when the – respiratory - virus hits. All over the world, normality has been suspended. Governments are trying to deal with a phenomenon which is threatening the foundations of society.
What strikes me is that when the chips are down, it’s interesting that governments are suddenly realising that their precious economies are made up of things called people, who act together in a thing called society. It’s not the economy which is going to see us through this crisis. The economy is already cactus – it is not designed to deal with truly abnormal circumstances. It is society. Indeed, it is culture. What’s stopping the Italians going batshit crazy? It’s singing songs from balconies. What’s making isolation bearable? It’s books, films, TV, music, games, podcasts, livestreams – hell, phone conversations and skype calls. In a word, culture. Remember this, everyone. When you can’t participate in the economy any more, what you need in order to survive is culture.
All of a sudden, it is becoming clear that keeping people housed, fed, healthy, sane, informed, stimulated, able to function and able to be people together is the actual basic purpose of government. It’s not about looking after businesses, because without the people to make them work, either as employees or customers, they cease to have any meaning. Unlike what everyone claimed in the GFC, they’re not too big to fail. What’s too big to fail is society – that thing which neoliberal orthodoxy would have us believe doesn’t exist except as fodder for the economy. Profits for companies suddenly seem a little less crucial when the people who earn them the profits – our society – are themselves existentially threatened. In Spain, suddenly the private health sector has been requisitioned. In Italy, the national airline has been renationalised. In several countries, utility bills have been suspended, internet is free, and medical access has been expanded. All over the world, sick leave and unemployment relief is being instituted because, although it was always needed, now it is apparent to even the most conservative economists that if people have no money, economies fail. And do you know what? We’re doing it because it’s necessary, and it’s more important than corporate profits.
It took a pandemic to make it clear, but now it’s clear, let’s remember it. Giving billionaires tax breaks doesn’t work. Giving poor people an income to live on does. Understand that it is society which needs to be looked after, not banks, not mining companies, not tax-dodging multinationals. They have their own boards, and they are liability limited companies - because it is their job to risk failure. Society is too big to fail, and so it has a government instead, to do those things for all of us which we as a society need for the benefit of all of us, but can’t each of us achieve individually.
My plea is that, once this is all over, we should all remember this. Remember that governments are there to ensure the wellbeing of their people. All of them. That, when the chips are down, is their actual one and only job. And to do that, government needs to have the tools to do it. It needs to have the healthcare, the social security, the education, the research institutions, the infrastructure, the broadcasters, the information systems, and yes, the cultural establishments to make life possible and worthwhile. All of the things which particularly Anglo-Saxon governments, particularly in Murdoch-press-dominated countries, have been systematically undermining for years. And, underneath it all, in order to have a functioning, resilient, durable society, we need a functioning, resilient, durable environment.
Society is too big to fail. That means its foundations in the natural world must at all costs be preserved and restored. This is just a teaser of what the future will be like if we don’t get our collective act together now: we should actually pause for a moment here and note that, as far as pandemics go, coronavirus is a non-event. It doesn’t rate: and yet, look at what it has done to us. Can you imagine what sort of state we’d be in if it were Ebola or, heaven forbid, the Black Death - a plague where, by the time you’re symptomatic, you’re to all intents and purposes beyond treatment, and have infected everyone around you?
Let’s take this opportunity to learn, to understand what is really important, and to make sure that the lessons of this time are not forgotten, but become the basis for a new enlightenment which holds the world, its people and their culture at the heart of its values and its priorities.”
Amen.
Please share but also attribute to its author, Antony Ernst.
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2020 18:43:46 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2020 19:18:11 GMT
News > Latin America Cuba's Interferon Alpha 2B, Successful in Treating COVID-19 www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cubas-Interferon-Alpha-2B-Successful-in-Treating-COVID-19-20200317-0015.htmlFor 40 years, Cuba has been using a molecule named Interferon Alpha 2B , which has successfully been used to combat the new Coonavirus in China and elsewhere. "The world has an opportunity to understand that health is not a commercial asset but a basic right," Cuban doctor Luis Herrera, the creator of the Interferon Alfa 2-B medication, one of the most successful medications in the fight against COVID-19 told teleSUR Tuesday."
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