Monday, May 11, 2020

WINNIPEG
Protesters ignore social distancing, call for end to restrictions

By: Malak Abas Posted: 05/9/2020


Approximately 100 people attend an anti-lockdown rally at the Manitoba Legislature. A group called Winnipeg Aware is calling for the COVID-19 restrictions be lifted in the province, claiming the restrictions are more harmful to human health than the novel coronavirus.


Protests calling for an end to COVID-19 restrictions made their way to Winnipeg Saturday.

Just over 100 people congregated at the Manitoba Legislative building for "A Rally For Freedom and Human Rights" hosted by a group calling itself Winnipeg Aware. The group is demanding lockdowns be lifted, saying there is no scientific basis for social distancing and "counterproductive to the development of the natural immune system," the group said in a press release.


Winnipeg Aware spokesperson Gerry Bohemier called for an end to COVID-19 vaccine development to the crowd, some of whom carried signage with slogans including "W.H.O. = China," "Stop the doctator" and "Go see hospitals are empty, practice fake news distancing."

"They want us to believe that they’re going to be waiting 18-20 months, or maybe even fast-tracking, a miracle vaccine," Bohemier said to a chorus of boos.
Event organizer Gerry Bohemier (centre), speaks to the protesters. (Daniel Crump / Winnipeg Free Press)

Bohemier, who has publicly criticized vaccines in the past, suggested the virus would "leave" by May, because "the sun starts to shine very high in the sky, and we start to expose our skin to a process that makes vitamin D."

"We don’t believe that a vaccine is necessary," he said. "Herd immunity is gotten by people who are healthy going out, being exposed to the virus, and then not getting sick and then being immune to that virus. And guess what? The season comes, we get sick, it goes away real quickly, two, three, months, and it’s gone."

Herd immunity involves exposing large groups to a virus gradually in hopes that people will develop a natural immunity. The practice is often utilized with the help of a vaccine – if enough people are vaccinated, the amount of unvaccinated people will be low enough that the virus will be unable to spread.

Canada's Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam has cautioned people not to rely on herd immunity as the country reopens its doors, noting there is still not enough evidence to make an informed decision as to whether people who develop the virus and recover will become immune to being re-infected.

A spokesperson for Premier Brian Pallister said the province would "continue to act on the advice of health care experts and Manitoba’s chief public health officer in the fight against COVID-19." 


An unidentified person holds signs criticizing the World Health Organization. (Daniel Crump / Winnipeg Free Press)

A spokesperson for NDP leader Wab Kinew said the party had "decided not to comment on this story."

One provincial leader had a more direct message to protesters.

"If you want to protect yourself and your neighbours from possibly catching or passing on an illness that will result in a horrible, unnecessary death – wash your hands, keep your distance, and wear a mask," Liberal Party leader Dougald Lamont said in a statement to the Free Press.

"If you want people to die because you are a selfish, paranoid, and misinformed attention-seeker – wear a tinfoil hat. There are enough real problems in the world. There is no need to make up new ones."

A protester who asked not to be named said ending the lockdown was a human rights issue.
An unidentified man throws a nazi salute, mocking the protesters, during the rally. (Daniel Crump / Winnipeg Free Press)

"I feel as though our rights are being infringed upon, and (I came) for my children and their future," she said.

She referred to having had to shut down her business and lay off more than 50 employees, something she believed shouldn’t have been necessary.

"The original model that they were using, (it) made sense to take precautions. But we quickly realized that model was incorrect, yet our government did not make changes to that. It continued to put people into social distancing, forced businesses to close, when we can clearly see that it wasn’t necessary."

Another protester, who carried a sign reading "COVID = Flu" and also asked not to be named, said he was here because of the effects he feared the lockdown would have on people with mental illnesses, who he said he worked with, should it continue.

"The isolation is hurting them, it’s really hurting them, and it’s gone beyond the point of being a good thing, it’s now become a really aggressive, harmful thing," he said.
Children play in front of protesters holding signs during the rally. (Daniel Crump / Winnipeg Free Press)

He said while at the beginning the lockdown was warranted, the province now had a responsibility to begin the re-opening process.

Manitoba began phase one of its re-opening strategy last week, which included the re-opening of many retail businesses, dental clinics, hair salons and patios.

Despite this, public gatherings of more than ten people are still restricted. The City of Winnipeg has utilized Community Service Ambassadors to educate people on proper social distancing. If people do not disperse, bylaw officers can ticket people for fines up to $1,000 and up to six months imprisonment.
Protesters were able to congregate for over an hour without intervention. When asked why there had been no bylaw officers or community service ambassadors present asking protestors to disperse, Winnipeg Police Service public information officer Jay Murray said the police "was aware of the event and monitored it accordingly."

He then referred to other instances of protesters gathering in groups during the pandemic and said the WPS recognizes the right to peaceful assembly.

"The Winnipeg Police Service places an emphasis on ensuring all peaceful assemblies remain peaceful, and as such, that often dictates our response," he said.

On Thursday, Dr. Brent Roussin said while he recognized people’s right to protest, he cautioned against congregating in large groups.

Malak Abas is a reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press.





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Media coverage has blown anti-lockdown protests out of proportion

Recent anti-Trump rallies have been bigger than the anti-lockdown protests. Guess which ones got more media attention?
By Erica Chenoweth, Lara Putnam, Tommy Leung, Jeremy Pressman, and Nathan Perkins  
People take part in a protest for “Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine” at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing on April 15.
 Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images
In the last few weeks, protests against state lockdowns and social distancing measures have seized national headlines. The wall-to-wall coverage might give the impression that what we’re seeing is a powerful grassroots movement in the making.
But research we just conducted on protest attendance and media coverage shows something different: this massive media coverage has in fact been out of proportion.
A comprehensive look at the social distancing protests reveals that they have been small in terms of both the number of participants and locations. As one official in the administration of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) tweeted about a protest in Annapolis on April 20, “There were more media inquiries about this than there were participants.”
Our count confirms this impression. As of May 3, we counted 245 protests throughout April and early May against social distancing and related restrictions. In contrast, notable recent uprisings numbered in the hundreds of protests throughout the country in a single day, including Lights for Liberty against the detention of immigrants on July 12, 2019 (699), the climate strikes of September 20, 2019 (1184), pro-impeachment rallies on December 17, 2019 (599), and the fourth Women’s March on January 18 of this year (267).
The social distancing protests have also drawn modest crowds, with between 35,000 and 47,000 total attendees reported across all events combined through May 3. In comparison, a single protest against the governor in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico brought out upward of 250,000 on July 21, 2019. Hundreds of thousands turned out for PRIDE marches in June 2019 and the September 2019 climate strike. The Lights for Liberty protests exceeded 100,000 and December’s pro-impeachment rallies exceeded 75,000.
These numbers are backed up by recent polling that shows widespread national support for lockdowns to prevent the continued spread of coronavirus.
Yet anti-Trump protests with far more attendees in a single day than all of April and early May’s #ReOpen events (as they have been called) passed with far less attention in the national press.
These charts compare protest attendance against news coverage for eight cities with anti-social distancing protests based on 3,341 news sources across the country between January 21, 2017 and May 3, 2020. Attendee counts are presented on a log scale to allow for easier visual comparisons of small and large events.
 Erica Chenoweth, Tommy Leung, Nathan Perkins, Jeremy Pressman, and Lara Putnam
Some coverage of the #ReOpen protests emphasized their Midwestern locales such as Michigan and Wisconsin. It makes sense for reporters to be on alert for evidence of political winds shifting in crucial battleground states.
But earlier, larger, and more numerous left-wing protests in the Midwest often failed to draw extensive coverage. If every protest was seen as a potential harbinger for 2020, we would have expected the hundreds of Families Belong Together rallies (against Trump’s family separation policies), Lights for Liberty protests, and post-Parkland marches in support of gun reform to top the headlines too.

The media’s interest in the anti-lockdown protests, explained

Why might the anti-social distancing protests have become a top story?
One reason is fairly straightforward: the president of the United States has encouraged them and Fox News, the country’s most watched cable news network, has amplified them. Both have significant power to commandeer the national conversation, much greater than that of civil society actors who organized many of the other protests we mentioned. And it’s in President Donald Trump’s interest to keep the attention on such protests — such a storyline would likely be better for the president’s standing than a continued focus on the death toll or the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) in our hospitals.
Another possible reason for the widespread coverage is that some of the rhetoric and accoutrements — Confederate and Nazi flags, weapons, and militaristic attire — are reminiscent of the (much larger) Tea Party protests of 2009, which remade the Republican Party. Analysts may assume that since the packaging looks like the Tea Party, it will have a similar impact and therefore merits extensive coverage — even if this seems decidedly nowhere close to the scale of the Tea Party uprising.
Some protests featured these symbols so prominently that they sparked coverage that questioned whether gun rights or white supremacy might be the central drivers behind these protests. The Huffington Post drew parallels to the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, an alarming antecedent.
In addition, by mid-April, the Covid-19 story had been the top story in the US news for weeks, with overwhelming public approval of stay-at-home orders. Perhaps the media was looking for a new angle to change up the storyline. The demonstrations, with controversial symbols and, in some cases, heavily armed participants, provided the perfect imagery for a different spin.
Meanwhile, many people who have participated in anti-Trump actions in the past are now observing public health guidance and are therefore engaging in physically distant or online actions that have attracted less press coverage. Immigration activists have demanded that ICE release its detainees; prison reform advocates have called for mass releases; renters have demanded eviction moratoriums; and voters have staged die-ins against disenfranchisement. Over the course of April there were at least 240 protests nationwide whose message was that leaders are not doing enough in response to the pandemic, with another 155 protests in early May as nurses protested PPE shortages.
Some counter-protesters also interrupted the anti-lockdown rallies. Indeed, the extensive coverage in Denver, Colorado, may have been related to the emergence of an iconic counter-protest — nurses clad in scrubs and masks, arms folded, blocking protesters’ cars. But for the most part, these counter-protests have been muffled by the very fact of social distancing — precisely the thing the pro-Trump protesters reject, allowing them to create an unrivaled spectacle in front of cameras.
The bottom line is that the anti-social distancing protests really have been modest, especially when compared with previous protests. That’s not to say they can’t grow bigger. More of the Trump base could still turn out for these protests — especially if the media that has given them so much attention amplifies their message, influence, and appeal to a nation in lockdown.
Erica Chenoweth is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard University.
Tommy Leung is a software engineer and co-founder of countlove.org, a website that documents local news coverage of US protest activity.
Nathan Perkins is a software engineer in natural-language processing and co-founder of countlove.org.
Jeremy Pressman is an associate professor at the University of Connecticut and author of the forthcoming book, The Sword Is Not Enough.
Lara Putnam is UCIS Research Professor and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh.

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Sunday, May 10, 2020

AUSTRALIA 

‘Chaos’: A reporter’s view from inside the conspiracy theorists’ protest

17 HOURS AGO
ROSS AND JOHN


  • BELOW: 3AW and Nine News reporter Lana Murphy spent the afternoon reporting from the frontline of the protest. Scroll down to hear her tell Ross and John what she saw.
Three people have been charged and dozens can expect fines in the mail after hundreds of conspiracy theorists gathering at the steps of Victoria’s parliament yesterday
The protesters gathered under the guise of lifting restrictions but broke out in chants spruiking a range of radical fringe theories, including anti-vaxxers and the idea that coronavirus was a 1970s invention, and that “it’s all in Old Testament”.
The protest was a clear breach of health orders, prompting police to step in.
Many protesters refused to disperse, and it’s alleged several protesters then turned violent against police.
Ten people were arrested and a police officer was taken to hospital with rib injuries.
Three of those arrested have been charged with assaulting a police officer.
Police intend to use footage from the protest to identify and fine potentially dozens of more.
3AW and Nine News reporter Lana Murphy spent the afternoon reporting from the frontline of the protest.
Click PLAY to hear her tell Ross and John what she saw

FULL STATEMENT FROM VICTORIA POLICE

While Victoria Police respects the public’s right to protest, the health and safety of every Victorian needs to be our number one priority at this time.
Victoria Police made it very clear that if a planned protest was to proceed today, it would be in direct contravention of the Chief Health Officer’s current directives.
At the protest on Spring Street today, police arrested 10 people, including two organisers of the event. OC spray was deployed during an arrest of one individual.
The majority of those arrested were for failing to comply with the Chief Health Officer’s directions. Three of the offenders will also be charged with assaulting a police officer, and another offender will be charged with discharging a missile after allegedly throwing a bottle at police.
All offenders were released pending summons.
As a result of the protest activity, a police officer who was in attendance has been taken to hospital for what is believed to be a rib injury.
When attending the protest today, the priority for police was to quickly arrest those individuals who were acting unlawfully and inciting others to breach the Chief Health Officer’s directions.
Once police made arrests, the crowd started to disperse.
Police are continuing to investigate the events of today in order to identify other people who were in attendance. Once individuals are identified, we will be issuing them with fines and will consider any other enforcement options.
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OSU study shows grange a 'natural partner' for expanding health outreach

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

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IMAGE: THE WILLAKENZIE GRANGE HALL BUILDING IN EUGENE, ORE. view more 
CREDIT: COURTESY LILLY ANDERSON, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- In the ongoing struggle to address health care disparities in rural communities across the U.S., a recent Oregon State University study found that the perfect partner may be hiding in plain sight.
The grange, founded in 1867 and officially titled the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, is a community-based organization that is likely familiar to anyone who's spent time in a small town or attended a county fair. In addition to political advocacy on behalf of farmers, the grange's missions around community and family also align closely with the goals of public health.
OSU's study, recently published in the Journal of Community Health, reviewed scientific literature that mentioned the grange, in both medical and agricultural publications. Researchers also pored over the grange's own materials to assess the organization's key messages for the past two decades.
A significant portion of those publications dealt with the study's domains of health and health care, social cohesion and community context, economic stability -- including food instability -- and the neighborhood and the built environment.
"It's this overlooked source that's been there this whole time. They've been in the community for more than a hundred years," said Veronica Irvin, assistant professor in OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences and one of the authors of the paper. "They have community support, they have physical space, they have similar missions to public health -- it's this natural partner that we've just not met up with."
Compared with big cities, rural communities have less access to health care services. The populations are generally older than urban populations; the towns have fewer walking paths and other places dedicated to physical activity; and despite being centered around farms, many rural areas are termed "food deserts" because of limited availability of healthy foods.
Those issues are all relevant to grange members, said Susan Noah, master of the Oregon State Grange and co-author of the paper.
"Everyone is becoming more and more conscious of what it means to be a healthy society, especially as it relates to food and agriculture," she said.
While individual granges have different areas of focus, they all have physical buildings equipped with kitchens and classroom space, which has allowed them to partner on several health initiatives, including blood drives, mental health awareness classes and Alzheimer's caretaker education programs. In Philomath, the Marys River Grange has hosted a low-cost medical clinic for farm workers.
Now, researchers and grange leaders hope the new findings will spur greater collaboration with health care providers, including as communities start to reopen from COVID-19 shutdowns.
As with most fraternal organizations, the grange's membership is aging. But it's working to adapt and bring in new people, Noah said. There's no longer a requirement that members be actively involved in agriculture, and many granges are now focusing on sustainable practices, growing your own food and eating local. Some are offering yoga and jazzercise classes.
Noah sees the grange playing an important role in helping communities recover from the social isolation caused by COVID-19, as well as potentially becoming a source of trusted, evidence-backed information for members with questions about the virus.
Lead author Lilly Anderson, a 2019 OSU master's in public health graduate, says more coordination between the grange and public health organizations could help avoid unnecessary duplication of effort and allow them to work in tandem more often.
"This very well-established and trusted community resource is in a position to be an excellent partner for public health in rural areas where we desperately need it," she said. "I think if we combined resources and gave them some much needed publicity for their good work, we could really increase our outreach in these areas."
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Ancient DNA paints genetic portrait of Andes civilizations

UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE



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IMAGE: IMAGE OF MACHU PICCHU FROM PIXABAY view more 
CREDIT: FROM PIXABAY

An international team of researchers including the University of Adelaide, has completed the first large-scale study of DNA belonging to ancient humans of the central Andes in South America and found early genetic differences between groups of nearby regions, and surprising genetic continuity over thousands of years.
In the study, published in the journal Cell, researchers analysed the DNA of 89 ancient humans who lived in the central Andes between 500 and 9,000 years ago, and compared it with the genetic diversity of present day occupants, to shed light on the genetic changes over time.
The ancient remains included 65 newly reported humans never before studied.
Associate Professor Bastien Llamas from the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, who was part of the research team, says there are many unanswered questions about the population history of the central Andes and in particular the large-scale societies that lived there including Inca, Tiwanaku, Moche and Wari.
"We know from archeological research that the central Andes region is extremely rich in cultural heritage, however up until now the genomic makeup of the region before arrival of Europeans has never been studied," he said.
"While archaeological records play a role in connecting cultures, studying ancient DNA can provide a finer grain picture.
"For example, archaeological information may tell us about two or three cultures in the region, and eventually who was there first, but ancient DNA can inform about actual biological connections underlying expansion of cultural practices, languages or technologies."
In the study, researchers found that genetic differences between the people of the central Andean Highlands and Coastal regions were in place as early as 9,000 years ago; with a north-south substructure of the Highlands developing by 5,800 before present (BP). These differences are still apparent in people living in those areas today.
After 5,800 BP there was evidence of genetic mingling, indicating movement of the Highlands people between north and south, central and coastal regions. However, the migrations appear to slow down by 2,000 BP, with minimal changes to the genetic structure of the central Andean region between 2,000 and 500 BP.
"This was quite surprising given this period saw the rise and fall of many large-scale Andean cultures such as Moche, Wari and Nasca, and suggests that these empires implemented a cultural domination without moving armies," Associate Professor Llamas said.
There were two exceptions to the slowing of migration, and these were within the Tiwanaku and Inca populations, whose administrative centres were largely cosmopolitan - people of diverse ancestries living side-by-side.
"It was interesting to uncover signs of long-range mobility during the Inca period. Archaeology shows Incans occupied thousands of kilometres from Ecuador through to northern Chile - which is why when Europeans arrived they discovered a massive Inkan empire, but we found close genetic relationships between individuals at the extreme edges of the empire," Associate Professor Llamas said.
Scientists across eight countries and multiple institutions were involved in the study including Harvard University, the Max Planck Institute, and the University of California at Santa Cruz. The key members of the team were from Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and Peru where the ancient remains originated.
"Ancient DNA is fascinating because it literally connects past and present people, but it is only by engaging early on and continually with local communities and governments, and with scholars who work closely with these communities, that we can perform research that respects people's cultural heritage and provide results that are truly meaningful," said Associate Professor Llamas.
Associate Professor Llamas, who has been studying ancient DNA within South America for more than 10 years, says that the study has expanded previous research, which provided an overall picture of the whole continent and how people arrived in migration waves.
"We hope this more detailed genetic picture of populations of the central Andean Highlands will allow archeologists to ask new questions about the history of the region and will lead to further cultural learnings and strengthen collaboration with local communities," he said.
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Canadian study finds temperature, latitude not associated with COVID-19 spread

School closures, physical distancing and public health measures have effect
CANADIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL 

Temperature and latitude do not appear to be associated with the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to a study of many countries published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.200920, but school closures and other public health measures are having a positive effect.
"Our study provides important new evidence, using global data from the COVID-19 epidemic, that these public health interventions have reduced epidemic growth," says Dr. Peter Jüni, Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, and St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Ontario.
The Canadian study looked at 144 geopolitical areas -- states and provinces in Australia, the United States and Canada as well as various countries around the world -- and a total of more than 375 600 confirmed COVID-19 cases. China, Italy, Iran and South Korea were excluded because the virus was either waning in the case of China or in full disease outbreak at the time of the analysis in others. To estimate epidemic growth, researchers compared the number of cases on March 27 with cases on March 20, 2020, and determined the influence of latitude, temperature, humidity, school closures, restrictions of mass gatherings and social distancing measured during the exposure period of March 7 to 13.
They found little or no association between latitude or temperature with epidemic growth of COVID-19 and a weak association between humidity and reduced transmission. The results -- that hotter weather had no effect on the pandemic's progression -- surprised the authors.
"We had conducted a preliminary study that suggested both latitude and temperature could play a role," says Dr. Jüni. "But when we repeated the study under much more rigorous conditions, we got the opposite result."
The researchers did find that public health measures, including school closures, social distancing and restrictions of large gatherings, have been effective.
"Our results are of immediate relevance as many countries, and some Canadian provinces and territories, are considering easing or removing some of these public health interventions," says Dr. Jüni.
"Summer is not going to make this go away," says Prof. Dionne Gesink, a coauthor and epidemiologist at Dalla Lana School of Public Health. "It's important people know that. On the other hand, the more public health interventions an area had in place, the bigger the impact on slowing the epidemic growth. These public health interventions are really important because they're the only thing working right now to slow the epidemic."
The authors note several study limitations, such as differences in testing practices, the inability to estimate actual rates of COVID-19 and compliance with social distancing.
When deciding how to lift restrictions, governments and public health authorities should carefully weigh the impact of these measures against potential economic and mental health harms and benefits.
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