Antibiotic-resistant bacteria may lurk in U.S. water, soil

Colonies of the bacteria Burkholderia pseudomallei, which causes melioidosis, are pictured after four days' incubation on Ashdown's agar. Photo by Gavin Koh/Wikimedia

A potentially deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria could be hiding in the dirt and water of the southernmost U.S. states, warns a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The bacterial infection, called melioidosis, caused the lungs of a 63-year-old Texan to shut down in late 2018, forcing doctors to put him on a ventilator to save his life, the researchers said.

U.S. citizens who've caught melioidosis in the past typically picked it up in a foreign country, but this man had not recently traveled abroad, said Johanna Salzer, a veterinary medical officer with the CDC's Bacterial Special Pathogens Branch.

What's more, the bacteria that caused the man's melioidosis was genetically similar to two prior U.S. cases, one in Texas in 2004 and one in Arizona in 1999.

"We feel like this is evidence that it could be in the environment" in the United States, Salzer said. "We just need to find it."

Melioidosis is caused by the bacteria Burkholderia pseudomallei. Humans pick up the bacteria by inhaling dust or tiny droplets of water, or by dirt or water getting into an open wound, Salzer said.

There are an estimated 160,000 cases of melioidosis every year around the world, and 89,000 deaths, "which is really high for a disease a lot of people don't know about," Salzer said. It most commonly kills through blood poisoning or respiratory failure.

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The fatality rate is estimated to exceed 70 percent if a person sick with melioidosis is left untreated, Salzer said.

There's no vaccine for the bacteria, and it is naturally resistant to many commonly used antibiotics. These include penicillin, ampicillin, cephalosporins, gentamicin, tobramycin and streptomycin, the researchers said.

Patients often require at least two weeks of IV drugs followed by several months of oral antibiotics to wipe out the infection.

The man, from Atascosa County, Texas, went to the hospital in November 2018. He'd had fever, chest pain and shortness of breath for three days, according to the report in the June issue of the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Doctors diagnosed him with pneumonia, and a blood test revealed a B. pseudomallei infection. He subsequently developed a large ulcer on his chest.

Four days after admission to the hospital, the man stopped breathing and was put on a ventilator. He was transferred to another hospital, which switched him to an antibiotic that was more effective against the bacteria.

The patient left the hospital after three weeks, but remained on daily antibiotics for another three months, according to the report. The disease also injured his kidney, which required dialysis three times a week.

These bacteria are most commonly found in the tropical climates of Southeast Asia, South and Central America, and northern Australia. It also has been detected in two U.S. territories, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Salzer said.

Previously, B. pseudomallei "has never been found in the environment in the continental United States," Salzer said.

Unfortunately, the handful of cases cited by the researchers seem to indicate that the bacteria might have made a home for itself in the southern United States.


"There is global modeling that the bacteria could survive, and survive well, in Texas and areas of Florida," Salzer said.

The CDC plans to partner with academic institutions to search for the bacteria in the continental United States, in much the same way that it was uncovered in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Salzer said.

Melioidosis can be tough to diagnose, Salzer said.

"It's been called the Great Mimicker or the Imitator Disease," Salzer said. "If you're not looking for it, it doesn't have really clear and reliable symptoms in all people."

Symptoms also can take months or years to develop, making it even more difficult for doctors to puzzle out their patient's illness, the report added.

The CDC experts urge doctors to test for the presence of the bacteria in patients in the southwestern United States who:
Have symptoms that seem to indicate pneumonia, blood infection, skin lesions or internal organ abscesses.
Have chronic diseases that put them at increased risk for dangerous infections, especially diabetes or kidney disease.

Don't improve after treatment with commonly used antibiotics.

More than 60 percent of melioidosis patients have diabetes, including the man in Texas, Salzer said.

Dr. Robert Glatter is an emergency medicine physician with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "Lack of an international travel history should not rule out a diagnosis of melioidosis. People who also travel to the southwest U.S. are consequently at increased risk," he said.

"Increased health care provider awareness and education regarding the geographical distribution of this disease along with risk factors and pitfalls for managing melioidosis can help reduce mortality," Glatter added.


More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about melioidosis.

The retired inventor of N95 masks is back at work, mostly for free, to fight covid-19


Peter Tsai, the inventor of the filter material used in N95 masks, at his home in Knoxville, Tenn. During the pandemic, the materials scientist came out of retirement to help with respiratory mask shortages. (Kathy Tsai)

By Sydney Page

July 7, 2020 at Peter Tsai retired two years ago, but the materials scientist says he’s never been busier.

When the novel coronavirus began gripping the globe in March, Tsai was summoned from his short-lived retirement. He was in urgent demand because he is the inventor who, in 1995, patented the filtration material used in disposable N95 respirators.

The coveted masks are in short supply and are desperately needed by health-care workers and others who require protection from the highly contagious coronavirus.

Tsai started receiving a ceaseless torrent of calls and queries from national labs, companies and health-care workers in need of help.

“Everyone was asking me about the respirators,” said Tsai, 68, who is originally from Taiwan and now lives in Knoxville, Tenn.

Mainly, people wanted to know how to scale up production in the wake of a mass shortage and how to sterilize the masks for reuse.
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N95 masks have become a critical commodity as the pandemic has fueled a global scarcity of the virus-blocking equipment. Unlike other forms of personal protective equipment, including homemade masks and cloth covers, N95 masks actually filter out contaminants, making them the most protective masks on the market.

Tsai immediately hit the drawing board. He set up a makeshift laboratory in his home, where he lives with his wife and daughter, and began experimenting with different methods to decontaminate the masks.

“I started working almost 20 hours a day,” he said, adding he’s doing it mostly on a volunteer basis. “But I didn’t mind.”



Although Tsai retired in 2018, he is determined to enhance and scale his patented filtration system used in N95 masks. (Kathy Tsai)

He tried everything he could think of to cheaply sterilize the masks without losing filtration efficacy: He boiled them, steamed them, baked them in the oven and even left them out in the sunlight for extended periods of time. Then he ran tests.
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After trying multiple approaches in his home, he published an emergency medical report, which proposed a variety of methods for cleaning and reusing N95 masks without compromising the electrostatic charge required for the filtration system to function.

His central finding was that N95 masks can be heated at 158 degrees Fahrenheit for 60 minutes using a dry heat method without diminishing the filtration technology, and his hypothesis was validated by the National Institutes of Health.

After the first report was published in April, he continued to experiment, eagerly sharing his findings with the scientific community and anyone who asked.

He’s spread the word about the optimal material to use for homemade masks. His suggestion: nonwoven fabrics, such as car shop towels.

On Facebook, she denounced a Starbucks worker who asked her to wear a mask. It backfired.

Among the many companies and research groups that reached out to Tsai was N95DECON — a collaborative group of volunteer scientists, engineers and clinicians from around the country focused on N95 decontamination and reuse. They sought Tsai’s unique expertise.
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Oak Ridge National Lab, a Tennessee-based laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Energy Department, got in touch, too. The team at Oak Ridge was searching for ways to scale production of N95 masks.

“Dr. Tsai was immediately willing to collaborate with us on our lab-wide covid-19 effort,” said Merlin Theodore, the director of the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility at the lab. Soon after the team reached out to Tsai, “he showed up at the lab ready to get to work,” she said.

The goal was to convert the lab’s carbon-fiber-processing facility into a filtration-cloth facility to produce the filter technology needed for N95 masks. The conversion process proved complicated, but with Tsai’s help, “we quickly got the system up and running,” said Lonnie Love, a lead scientist at Oak Ridge.

“He came in and described exactly what was needed to build his charging system and scale it,” he said. “Tsai has been really critical for us to solve this problem fast.”
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Theodore agreed. “Dr. Tsai shaved off several months to a year of time for us,” she said, confirming that Oak Ridge Lab reached its target in only a few weeks.

Tensions around wearing masks have been mounting since early April, when the CDC began recommending face coverings to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. (Video: Monica Akhtar/Photo: Sarah Hashemi/The Washington Post)

The facility is now able to produce material for 9,000 masks an hour, and Oak Ridge is working closely with industry partners to teach them how to make Tsai’s filtration material for widespread distribution.

“What we’re doing is creating the recipe to make the product, then sharing the recipe but not the product,” Love said.

While Oak Ridge does provide the filter material to other labs to study, it does not sell the product directly for widespread distribution. Rather, the team teaches industry partners how to scale production.

For instance, Cummins, a corporation that manufactures engines and filtration products, started exploring how to use its fuel-filtration technology to support health-care facilities. The company wanted to pivot from manufacturing air, fuel and lube filtration products mostly for car parts to supply the filter media used in respirators instead.
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Using Tsai’s method, Oak Ridge Lab provided Cummins with guidance on how to execute the filter production. Now, Cummins is producing enough filtration media to make roughly 1 million respirator masks a day.

“Dr. Peter Tsai is indeed a very esteemed researcher in the field of nonwovens,” said Chis Holm, the director of filter media technology & IP at Cummins Filtration. Tsai’s guidance, he said, has been essential to the corporation’s coronavirus efforts.

“If I can have this opportunity to help the community, then it will be a good memory for the rest of my life,” Tsai said. “I’m happy to do it.”

Tsai came to the United States in 1981 to pursue his doctoral degree in a variety of subjects at Kansas State University, where he completed more than 500 credits, despite needing only 90 to graduate. His thirsty intellect drove him to take courses in subjects ranging from chemical engineering to physics and math.
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His breakthrough on the mask came when he was leading a research team at the University of Tennessee in 1992. The team’s goal was to develop an electrostatic charging technology — coincidentally called corona charging — to filter out unwanted particles. His invention eventually became the foundation of the N95 respiratory mask.

Over the course of his career in textile manufacturing, engineering and teaching at the University of Tennessee, Tsai has earned 12 U.S. patents in filtration technology, including his latest hydrostatic charging method, which makes respiratory masks twice as efficient as his initial invention.

Beyond lending his expertise to others, Tsai’s colleagues say he’s a pleasure to work with.

“I’m taking this opportunity to soak up all the knowledge I can get,” Oak Ridge’s Theodore said. “And he’s not hesitant to share it, which is what I adore most about him.”
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According to Theodore, Tsai never fails to answer her calls, no matter the hour. “We have conversations late at night and practically any time, she said. “He always makes himself available.”

Theodore said Tsai repeatedly rejected payment for his work, but Oak Ridge policy requires compensation.

“That’s what struck me the most about him,” Theodore said. “He didn’t care about the money. He just wanted to help as many people as he could.”


“He’s very humble and unassuming despite being a pioneer in this area of filtration,” Love said. “Just when he’s ready to relax, all hell breaks loose, and he’s become critical.”

Tsai, however, said that it’s the health-care workers who are “the real heroes” and that he’s just doing his job.

Although Tsai technically retired in 2018, “he never stopped working and thinking of ways to improve his technology,” said Maha Krishnamurthy, the vice president of the University of Tennessee Research Foundation.
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“He couldn’t actually quit,” she said. “It’s a quality of all great researchers — you can never shut your brain off.”

Bolsonaro: ‘I drank hydroxychloroquine and I’m feeling great’

Published July 7, 2020 By Sarah Toce, The New Civil Rights Movement


Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has reportedly contracted COVID-19 and says he’s taking hydroxychloroquine as a means to recovery. The 65-year-old confirmed the diagnosis to journalists on Tuesday as he arrived to his presidential palace.

After asking reporters to step aside, Bolsonaro removed his face mask. “See, I am fine. See you next week, God willing.”

WATCH: #Bolsonaro, after testing positive for #coronavirus, steps back and takes off mask while speaking to reporters: "Just look at my face, I'm fine"
ic.twitter.com/NfRValSt61
— AS-Source News (@ASB_Breaking) July 7, 2020

Bolsonaro said he was suffering muscle aches, fatigue and a fever but otherwise felt “normal.” This is a man who, prior to his diagnosis, repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as “just a little flu” and said the media coverage of the pandemic was “hysteria.” He also said, “Life continues. But if the economy doesn’t work it will bring new forms of death and suicide.”

The Los Angeles Times reported that more than 65,000 Brazilians have died from COVID-19 — the second-highest death toll in the world after the United States. An additional 1.6 million people have tested positive for the virus in Brazil. Low levels of testing mean deaths and infections are likely much higher.

With his positive COVID-19 result, Bolsonaro now joins U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez. The latter two world leaders were hospitalized during treatment.


– Coletiva no Palácio do Alvorada – 07 JULHO de 2020. https://t.co/FCKPt1yh5l
— Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) July 7, 2020

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, who repeatedly played down the risks of Covid-19, has tested positive

He took the test, his fourth, on Monday after developing symptoms, including a high temperaturehttps://t.co/mq63Ta66v4 pic.twitter.com/LxL9VHct8d
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 7, 2020

#Bolsonaro: Covid-19 is just a little flu
Covid-19: pic.twitter.com/RNQct9GSZ7
— kj3ll0l (@Kj3ll0l) July 7, 2020




Can #Trump please visit #Bolsonaro – without a mask…
— #BlackLivesMatter Schaltjahr (@chiquitaflanke) July 7, 2020

#Bolsonaro (finally) acknowledged grave risk posed by a virus he'd dismissed as just a "little flu." "We know the fatality of the virus for those of a certain age, like me, above 65, and for those with comorbidities, diseases, other issues." ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I'M THINKING?
— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) July 7, 2020

#Bolsonaro tests positive for a virus he doesn't believe in. I really, really, really shouldn't but…. pic.twitter.com/ADuKkf6Csq
— TRJFF (@TRJFF) July 7, 2020


Karma strikes again. I would never wish this virus on my worst enemy but karma doesn't care. #Bolsonaro pic.twitter.com/ZqgQo6Gc2r
— Dwayne Walton (@23dwayne) July 7, 2020

Trump’s fans had a choice: They could reject his toxic nonsense or completely lose it. They chose B

Published July 7, 2020 By Bob Cesca, Salon- Commentary

Normally, I wouldn’t be at all concerned about a professional tabloid weirdo like Kanye West running for president. Today, however, I’m actually quite concerned, and not because I think Kanye is likely to win or even fumble his way onto enough ballots to make a dent. He won’t. For now.

The problem with Kanye or other political hobbyists running for president is that it further erodes the already threadbare integrity of our presidential politics, making it increasingly acceptable for other famous-for-being-famous nincompoops to run, and perhaps win. The last four years have illustrated how profoundly dangerous that can be.

These days, the ground is especially fertile for dilettantes and tourists to run for national office. Even on the Democratic side, sparingly. There are myriad reasons for it, but chief among them is that we appear to be experiencing an American nervous breakdown — a societal form of psychological imbalance that’s abundantly evident and worsening by the day.
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It became blindingly noticeable in 2016, but during the course of this year in particular, our national freakout has worsened to a point where sound judgment has been dangerously inhibited, while reality and reason have become increasingly rare commodities, largely abandoned by at least 40 percent of us. America is engaged in a transcontinental meltdown and it’s not getting better.

If you need evidence, take a look around you.

Alleged grownups are routinely scolding anyone wearing a mask, either because the mask wearers are, they say, succumbing to fear or because the mask wearers are merely doing it to express their disapproval of Donald Trump, whose existence as president, by the way, is more responsible than anything else for the breakdown. Trump has exploited the bully pulpit to undermine our national sense of right and wrong, of reality and fiction, to the point where his most loyal disciples — again, chronological adults — don’t have any idea what’s real and what’s fake.

To wit: there was a video flying around Twitter over the weekend in which a Florida lawyer dressed up like the Grim Reaper was accosted by a possibly-intoxicated beachgoer who insisted that the coronavirus outbreak is a plot by China, via the Bidens, to screw Donald Trump. Another video showed a woman destroying a display rack of N-95 masks at a department store because something-something-QAnon. Likewise, a couple was captured on video painting over the yellow “Black Lives Matter” slogan on the street in the sleepy suburban town of Martinez, California, while blurting pro-Trump non sequiturs at astonished onlookers. It seems like there are new videos like these every hour on the hour, each one showing privileged white Americans in full catastrophic meltdown.

Sizable crowds of Trump supporters, along with party-going assemblies of younger people, are gathering together without masks and without social distancing in defiance of the virus, apparently believing the pandemic can be intimidated by patriotic American resolve, not unlike our national reaction to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Hundreds if not thousands of these dinguses, along with the friends and family members they may subsequently infect, will end up burdening our already overburdened health care system because they were too selfish and irresponsible to do the right thing — to exercise some self-control, at least enough to make the reasonable choices required to end the pandemic. Instead, they’re worsening it for everyone.

More than 130,000 Americans are dead on Donald Trump’s watch. That’s 32,500 times the death toll at Benghazi, or 44 times the 9/11 attacks. The United States now has the worst rate of new coronavirus infections in the world, also on Trump’s watch and indeed directly attributable to the president’s twisted, malicious, selfish insistence upon prematurely reopening the economy. Russia, meanwhile, reportedly paid bounties to Taliban fighters for killing American soldiers and Trump has yet to condemn his paymaster Putin, much less call for retaliatory sanctions. These are only the most recent tentpole news stories, not even taking into consideration hundreds of other examples of rank villainy, as well as the 20,000 lies this president has told since Inauguration Day. Yet somehow, amid all this, Trump is miraculously polling in the low 40s.

Why? The American nervous breakdown.

Presidents have always set the tone for the rest of the country. Donald Trump’s continued insistence on reinforcing his racist, exclusionary, vindictive, obnoxious, necrotic and ultimately self-defeating brand is driving the nation toward a cultural and societal breaking point, and the gravitational pull of this decline seems to be strengthening by the day. Around 30 years ago, Trump stopped trying to build things and instead chose to build the only thing he’s “good” at building: the Trump brand. From the early 1990s onward, he’s been all about the things that compose his public persona, and he’ll never deviate from that, even if he kills thousands of Americans while destroying the economy in the process.

Inside his warped one-track mind, the Trump brand will always take priority over everything else, and ever since March, that brand has been in direct conflict with the reality of the pandemic.

At some point earlier in the year, Trump was faced with a critical choice, as he saw it: either to make decisions that benefit the nation, or to prioritize his own brand with an eye on re-election. He could tell the truth about the seriousness of the virus and the difficult, sometimes painful things we’d have to do to flatten the curve, or he could continue to ignore all that while, like the mayor in “Jaws,” downplaying the threat because it doesn’t mesh with his always winning, always great, always tremendous brand.

Consequently, Trump chose to vilify responsible actions like staying home, mask-wearing and social distancing — characterizing those things as us-versus-them propositions, politicizing the crisis, and sending the message to his 40-percenters that this was all about the Democrats trying to destroy Trump. In a June interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump actually said that mask-wearing was meant to “signal disapproval of him.” No, it’s actually about not getting the virus or spreading it to other people, but facts are irrelevant when confronted by the Trump brand, which mandates that all actions by Americans land in one of two categories: pro-Trump or anti-Trump. There’s no such thing as a “nothing to do with Trump” category. Not to him.

Trump’s nihilistic approach to the worst crisis of our time, which now includes pretending the virus doesn’t exist other than as a vehicle to demonize his enemies, is short-circuiting the wiring inside the heads of his Red Hat fanboys, who are now witnessing their own people succumbing to the virus and trying to somehow square this brutal reality with the “everything’s fine!” attitude coming from their addled messiah. No wonder they’re losing their shpadoinkle — again, facts and Trump-fiction are colliding in their heads and they’re powerless to recalibrate their bullshit detectors. The results, as we’ve all observed, have been explosive.

As long as the president relentlessly ejaculates screechy all-caps grievances into the atmosphere, his weirdly impressionable fans will continue to be inspired to do the same. As long as he markets in obvious lies and ludicrous conspiracy theories, his fans will continue to buy as fact every word emerging from a place of (undeserved and unearned) authority. As long as he sets an example of racism and misogyny, his fans will continue to reject the values of tolerance and empathy. Indeed, the Trump brand has gone viral and infected 40 percent of us, who won’t easily return to the land of reality and responsibility any time soon. This is entirely by design. Trump understands the power of the Oval Office. Trump thrives on chaos and manufactures it. He both expects and requires that his followers adopt his corrosive behavior, not unlike sports fans wearing the colors of their favorite team. And they’ve become so intensely loyal to the brand that they’re losing what’s left of their minds to protect and defend it.

As for the rest of us, we all feel like we’re leaning too far back in our chairs, almost falling over but not quite — that queasy feeling of impending doom, compacted between intense stress over our personal health and our personal finances, not knowing whether outside interference with the election combined with Trump’s attempts to cheat will give us four more years of this national madness. The frenetic uncertainty we’re enduring shouldn’t be exacerbated by the existence of an unstable tyrant in the White House, but it is.

Trump’s destabilizing and omnipresent existence, and especially the power this Mad King possesses, is the prime catalyst for this national nervous breakdown. There’s one last remaining treatment: We must find the collective strength to electorally humiliate Trump and his brand out of existence. He must be resoundingly toppled in November. The alternative is unthinkable, but it could involve an eventual President Kanye West or President Joe Exotic at some point in our lifetimes — a possibility as inconceivable today as “President Donald Trump” was five or 10 years ago.

Trump supporters’ COVID trutherism is built on the same template conservatives have used to deny science for decades

July 7, 2020 By Amanda Marcotte, Salon- Commentary


The worldwide conspiracy is vast — so vast that most of the world’s scientists, journalists and political leaders are in on it. Somehow, in all this time, not a single one of the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of conspirators has grown a conscience and decided to blow the whistle on the conspiracy. Their goal? To ruin everything that right-wing America holds dear: the nuclear family, NFL football, needlessly enormous vehicles, the specials menu at Hooters.

To accomplish this dastardly goal, the conspiracy will fabricate a worldwide threat. They will falsify the data and use the power of institutions like governments and universities and scientific journals to perpetuate this hoax, tricking billions of people into believing this threat is real and needs a drastic response. The only people in the world who see through the hoax are right-wing Americans, of course, who know what lengths the “socialist left” will go to in order to destroy Mom and apple pie.

Coronavirus denialism has, in the period of a few short months, become one of the most serious political problems in our nation. It’s a major obstacle to both containing the virus and reviving the economy, which can’t happen until the virus is contained.

Coronavirus denialism isn’t just flourishing on social media, but emanating from both right-wing media and from Republican leaders, most notably Donald Trump. Over the weekend, the president declared that “99 percent” of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless,” a claim that isn’t just false but part of a larger pattern of Trump’s statements suggesting that the threat of the virus is being faked in order to harm him politically.

In other words, it’s a conspiracy theory, one that dates at least back to February, when Trump claimed that fears of the coronavirus were a “new hoax” designed by Democrats to ruin him.

The rapid spread of this conspiracy theory is puzzling, especially as it requires many leaps of faith, including the belief that literally millions of professionals who don’t know each other — scientists, journalists, government employees, health care providers and so on — are working to perpetuate this hoax.


There’s a simple reason why right-wing America was so quick to rally around a conspiracy theory that’s so utterly preposterous. They spent years training themselves by indulging in climate-change denialism.

It’s not a stretch to say that climate-change denialism and coronavirus denialism are basically the same conspiracy theory. In fact, it often seems like coronavirus denialists have simply copied and pasted their talking points about climate change and adjusted the wording a bit to be about virus spread instead of carbon emissions.

But the basic parameters are the same: a worldwide conspiracy, threats that are invented or exaggerated for supposed political gain, a sinister hidden agenda — whether that’s bringing down capitalism or ending Trump’s presidency.

The content of coronavirus denialism can be somewhat diverse. This article from the New York Times chronicling the struggles of nurses to convince family and friends that the coronavirus is a real threat gives a good overview of the range of different flavors. Some folks insist the virus isn’t real at all. Some accept that it’s real but believe the danger of death or serious injury is being wildly exaggerated. Some deny that it’s as communicable as public health officials believe. Some claim that deaths from other causes are being falsely attributed to the virus.

We see the same kind of diversity in the world of climate-change denialism. At first, conservatives flat-out denied that climate change or “global warming” was even happening. But as evidence for changing temperatures grew, the flavors of denialism did too, with some denialists claiming it was just a natural fluctuation not attributable to humans, others saying that the effects wouldn’t be so bad, and still others saying it was too late to do anything about it so we should just give up.

What holds all these flavors of denialism together is the conspiracy theory undergirding them: The people raising the alarm about this problem are in cahoots with each other, and have ulterior motives.

Climate-change denialists have long held that progressives, and the scientists and world leaders who supposedly share their radical agenda, aren’t really concerned about species loss or rising sea levels or the devastating effects on poor people or any of that. Instead, they argue, these concerns are being faked to create a justification for an all-out assault on capitalism and “freedom.”

Similarly, coronavirus denialists argue that health care workers and scientists warning about the coronavirus are insincere, but instead are part of a larger — again, worldwide! — movement to take down Trump by making him look bad.

The rhetoric between the two forms of denialism is almost comically similar.

In September, Fox News host Laura Ingraham declared that teenage climate-change activists were part of a sinister plot to seize control of “our economy, our way of life, our way of transport, how many children you want to have.”

In May, she made the same arguments about recommendations to wear face masks to slow the coronavirus spread, claiming it was about “control over large populations” that is “achieved through fear and intimidation and suppression of free thought.”

In case the link wasn’t obvious, Ingraham made it herself, saying, “They’ll say this whole mask thing is settled science, just like they do with climate change.”

It’s not possible that both things are just settled science, of course. It’s all just a massive conspiracy!

It’s the same story with Fox News superstar Tucker Carlson, who argued last September that climate strikes are “not about the environment” but are a left-wing scam meant to create “an emergency big enough to justify grabbing more power.”

Carlson copy-pasted those same arguments to deny the dangers of the coronavirus months later, claiming that the scientific evidence that it’s dangerous and communicable is overblown, and being exaggerated by people who are hungry for “power” and want to see Americans following “orders.”

Both climate change and coronavirus denialism are given a boost by the tribalist politics of right-wing America. For decades now, one of the ways for conservatives to indicate their skepticism of climate change and fealty to the right was to buy giant, gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks, making quite clear to anyone looking that they don’t care one fig about your fears of carbon emission.

The same logic is driving the anti-mask phenomenon, where some of the most fiercely loyal Trump supporters make a big show out of refusing wear a mask, because they don’t care one fig about your fear of catching a potentially deadly virus.

It was clever of Trump and his media followers to encourage his supporters not to wear masks. That kind of showy public defiance has helped normalize coronavirus denialism, and exerted pressure on other conservatives to follow suit to show their tribal loyalties. It serves the same function as mocking people for driving fuel-efficient vehicles did, using peer pressure to get people on board with a right-wing conspiracy theory.

Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with climate-change conspiracy theories, once they take hold, it’s very hard to pry people free from their delusional beliefs. If you confront them with the evidence that the threat is real, they simply move to claiming it’s overblown. George Soros will probably be blamed. Or they’ll come up with excuses for why they personally won’t be affected and so shouldn’t care. Or they’ll just shift to casting aspersions on the motives of people who do care, whether that’s Greta Thunberg or Dr. Anthony Fauci, accusing them of being tools or power-hungry schemers. They’ll embrace any view, really, except admitting that the problem we’re all facing is real and that yes, we have to do something about it.

Earth's Magnetic Field Could Be Changing Much Faster Than We Ever Realised

(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)
NATURE

DAVID NIELD
8 JULY 2020

The Earth's magnetic field flips, every few hundred thousand years or so on average, which means magnetic north becomes magnetic south and vice versa (the planet doesn't actually turn upside down). New research suggests this change of direction can happen up to 10 times faster than previously thought.

That's big news for scientists studying how the magnetic field shifts affect life on Earth, how our planet has evolved over time, and how we might be better able to predict the next reversal in the coming years.

Past palaeomagnetic studies have shown that the magnetic field could change direction at up to 1 degree a year, but the latest study suggests that movements of up to 10 degrees annually are possible.

That's based on detailed computer simulations of the outer core made of nickel and iron some 2,800 kilometres (1,740 miles) below Earth's surface, which controls our magnetic field.

"We have very incomplete knowledge of our magnetic field prior to 400 years ago," says geophysicist Chris Davies from the University of Leeds in the UK.

"Since these rapid changes represent some of the more extreme behaviour of the liquid core, they could give important information about the behaviour of Earth's deep interior."

Davies and his colleague Catherine Constable from the University of California San Diego combined their computer modelling with a recently published timeline of Earth's magnetic field over the past 100,000 years, and found a close match between the other study and their own predictions.

Changes in our planet's magnetic field leave traces in sediment, lava flows, and even human-made objects, though some educated guesswork is still required when it comes to working out how it's shifting and over what period of time.

Quicker changes in direction seem to coincide with a local weakening of the magnetic field, the new research found. One shift in particular was highlighted: a movement of 2.5 degrees per year 39,000 years ago, right after the most recent Laschamp excursion flip, when the Earth's magnetic field was weakened around the west coast of Central America.

"Understanding whether computer simulations of the magnetic field accurately reflect the physical behaviour of the geomagnetic field as inferred from geological records can be very challenging," says Constable.

"But in this case we have been able to show excellent agreement in both the rates of change and general location of the most extreme events across a range of computer simulations."

Earth's magnetic field not only helps us get from A to B with a compass (or a smartphone), it also keeps us protected from the weathering effects of space and solar radiation. You might not realise it, but the magnetic poles are always wandering about.

Knowing more about how these shifts and flips are happening – and at what speed – is going to be vital for everything from reconfiguring satellites to dealing with the changes in radiation exposure that might result from a reversal of the field.

We're learning all the time though: about how frequent these reversals are, and now, how fast they are too. The researchers hope that further simulations might give us clues about where best to look in terms of making field recordings on the state of the magnetic field over time.

"Further study of the evolving dynamics in these simulations offers a useful strategy for documenting how such rapid changes occur and whether they are also found during times of stable magnetic polarity like what we are experiencing today," says Constable.

The research has been published in Nature Communications.

US formally starts withdrawal from WHO

TRUMP EMBRACES JOHN BIRCH ANTI UN / NWO CONSPIRACY

THE STUPIDITY OF THIS MOVE IS BEST UNDERSTOOD AS BEING COUNTER 

TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THE USA THAT FUNDED AND CREATED WHO 


(John Moore/Getty Images)



Ignoring Outrage, Trump Officially Pulls US Out of WHO During Virus Crisis
SHAUN TANDON, AFP
8 JULY 2020


President Donald Trump on Tuesday formally started the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, making good on threats to deprive the UN body of its top funding source over its response to the coronavirus.

Public health advocates and Trump's political opponents voiced outrage at the departure from the Geneva-based body, which leads the global fight on maladies from polio to measles to mental health - as well as COVID-19, at a time when cases have again been rising around the world.

After threatening to suspend the US$400 million in annual US contributions and then announcing a withdrawal, the Trump administration has formally sent a notice to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a State Department spokesperson said.

The withdrawal of the key WHO founding member is effective in one year - July 6, 2021. Joe Biden, Trump's presumptive Democratic opponent in November elections, vowed he would immediately end the pullout if he won the White House.

"Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health. On my first day as President, I will rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage," Biden wrote on Twitter.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus responded to the news with a one-word tweet - "Together!" - as he linked to a discussion by US health experts on how leaving the global body could impede efforts to prevent future pandemics.

In line with conditions set when the WHO was set up in 1948, the United States can leave within one year but must meet its remaining assessed financial obligations, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

'Total control'

In late May, Trump said that China exerted "total control" over the WHO and accused the UN body led by Tedros, an Ethiopian doctor and diplomat, of failing to implement reforms.

Blaming China for the coronavirus, Trump, a frequent critic of the UN, said the United States would redirect funding "to other worldwide and deserving, urgent, global public health needs."

Democratic lawmakers have accused Trump of seeking to deflect criticism from his handling of the pandemic in the United States, which has suffered by far the highest death toll of any nation despite the president's stated hope that the virus will disappear.

"To call Trump's response to COVID chaotic and incoherent doesn't do it justice," said Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

"This won't protect American lives or interests - it leaves Americans sick and America alone," he said.

Representative Ami Bera, himself a physician, said that the United States and World Health Organization had worked "hand in hand" to eradicate smallpox and nearly defeat polio.

"Our cases are increasing," Bera said of COVID-19. "If the WHO is to blame: why has the US been left behind while many countries from South Korea to New Zealand to Vietnam to Germany return to normal?"


Even some of Trump's Republican allies had voiced hope that he was exerting pressure rather than making a final decision to abandon the World Health Organization.

The investigative news outlet ProPublica reported last month that most of Trump's aides were blindsided by the WHO withdrawal announcement, which he made during an appearance about China.

The Trump administration has said that the WHO ignored early signs of human-to-human transmission in China, including warnings from Taiwan - which, due to Beijing's pressure, is not part of the UN body.

While many public health advocates share some criticism of the WHO, they question what other options the world body had other than to work with China, where COVID-19 was first detected late last year in the city of Wuhan.

The anti-poverty campaign ONE said the United States should work to reform, not abandon, the WHO.

"Withdrawing from the World Health Organization amidst an unprecedented global pandemic is an astounding action that puts the safety of all Americans the world at risk," it said.

© Agence France-Presse

The United States has formally started its withdrawal from the World Health Organization,
 whose logo is seen here at its Geneva headquarters Fabrice COFFRINI AFP/File

Washington (AFP) 

Issued on: 07/07/2020 - 

President Donald Trump has formally started the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, making good on threats over the UN body's response to the coronavirus, officials said Tuesday.

The United States is the largest financial contributor to the WHO -- which leads the fight on global maladies from polio to measles to mental health -- but it has increasingly been in Trump's crosshairs as the coronavirus takes a heavy toll.

After threatening to suspend the $400 million in annual US contributions and then announcing a withdrawal, Trump has formally informed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that he has started the US pullout, a State Department spokesperson said.

The withdrawal is effective in one year -- July 6, 2021 -- and Joe Biden, Trump's presumptive Democratic opponent, is virtually certain to stop it and stay in the WHO if he defeats Trump in the November election.

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for Guterres, confirmed that the United States gave its notice.

Under conditions set when the United States entered the World Health Organization in 1948, Washington has to give a one-year notice to pull out -- and meet its remaining assessed financial obligations, Dujarric said.

"To call Trump's response to COVID chaotic and incoherent doesn't do it justice," said Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, who said that Congress was notified.

"This won't protect American lives or interests -- it leaves Americans sick & America alone," he said.

Trump has accused the World Health Organization of bias toward China, saying it ignored early signs of human-to-human transmission of the deadly virus.

While many public health advocates share some criticism of the WHO, they question what other powers the world body had other than to work with China, where COVID-19 was first detected late last year.

Critics say Trump is seeking to deflect criticism from his own handling of the pandemic in the United States, which has suffered by far the highest death toll of any nation.

© 2020 AFP

Algae Blooms 'Without Historical Precedent' Are Turning US Lakes Green, Study Warns

PHINEAS RUECKERT, AFP
8 JULY 2020

Global warming is turning clear mountain lakes green in the western United States because of an increase in algae blooms "without historical precedent", researchers reported on Tuesday.

The concentration of algae in two remote mountain lakes more than doubled in the past 70 years, researchers at Colorado State University found.

Their results, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, highlight the potentially harmful effects of climate change on pristine and remote ecosystems.

"Even in relatively remote lakes located in protected areas... the fingerprint of human perturbation of Earth System is evident," lead researcher Isabella Oleksy of Colorado State University told AFP.

 

(AFP Photo/Isabelle Oleksy)

"Rapid warming of high elevation environments has resulted in the rapid acceleration and dominance of green algae, which until recently were found in low abundance in these lakes."

The team of scientists led by Oleksy examined algae concentrations in lakes in a mountain range about 100 kilometres (65 miles) from Denver, using a tool called a gravity corer to collect sediment cores without damaging the lakebed.

Drawing on measurements going back to the 1950s, they found "dramatic changes" in algal abundance in the form of green algal blooms called chlorophytes, which thrive in warmer temperatures.

The high level of algae "came as an ecological surprise", Oleksy said.

 

(AFP Photo/Isabelle Oleksy)

She noted that the amounts of algae documented in the study would more typically be found in highly polluted areas, such as those prone to agricultural run-off, and not in unsullied mountain environments.

"While we documented these changes in two lakes in Colorado, it is likely that this is not an isolated phenomenon," she said.


The results are not a smoking gun, the researchers acknowledged, but point to climate change as driving the excess accumulation of nutrients - such as phosphorus and nitrogen - that cause algal blooms.

In lakes and oceans, algae blooms sicken wildlife if ingested and destabilise aquatic environments by blocking out sunlight, the United States Environmental Protection Agency says on its website.

Fresh water and marine algae blooms have a huge negative economic impact, affecting fisheries, tourism and human health.

© Agence France-Presse

CORONAVIR-USA

US Cases Skyrocket in New COVID-19 Surge, But Deaths Seem Flat. Here's Why

ARIA BENDIX, BUSINESS INSIDER
6 JULY 2020

Those keeping an eye on the US's coronavirus case and death curves will notice a seemingly hopeful trend: New daily cases are skyrocketing, but daily deaths have so far remained relatively flat during this second surge.

Indeed, projections from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) suggest that this new peak is not expected to be as deadly as the one in April.

That's primarily because increased testing means more mild cases are being confirmed, and young people represent a larger share of coronavirus cases than they did at the start of the outbreak. (We know now that COVID-19 is far less fatal in younger people.)

In Florida, the median age of coronavirus cases has dropped to 35, compared 65 in March. Cases among people under 40 are also rising in Arizona, California, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas.

But even if higher case counts don't bring a proportional surge in deaths, there is still reason for alarm. The IHME model projects that the US will see nearly 50,000 new coronavirus deaths from July to October 1. That's close to the number of US combat deaths recorded during World War I.

Put another way, the model expects the US to see 500 or more people die of COVID-19 every day for the next three months, on average. The projection accounts for seasonality, the amount of testing being done, and how often people are interacting with others outside their household.


Currently, more than 128,000 people have been killed by COVID-19 in the US, so the additional projected deaths represent a nearly 40 percent increase. These deaths are expected to arrive as other countries' daily cases and deaths continue to drop precipitously.

And if that wasn't concerning enough, there's still a strong possibility that coronavirus deaths will rise in the near future.

"No one wants to say too early that deaths are not rising. That would really be a mistake," Howard Koh, a professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, told Business Insider.

"If somebody is infected and then has the risk of getting sick and being hospitalized and dying – that whole trajectory takes a number of weeks, at least, maybe up to a month or more."
Hospitalizations are on the rise, too

Over the last week, the US has recorded its highest numbers of coronavirus cases to date: around 47,000 daily cases, on average. Thursday marked the peak of the outbreak so far, with more than 55,000 cases. New cases are now rising in the majority of states.

Nationwide deaths, meanwhile, have declined considerably since their peak in April. Over the last week, the US has seen around 560 daily deaths, on average, compared to more than 2,7000 deaths on April 21, the deadliest day of the outbreak.

President Donald Trump has attributed the nation's rising cases to an increase in testing. The US is now testing 59 out of every 100,000 people – a lower rate per-capita than Russia, Iceland, and Australia, but a higher rate per capita than France and the UK.

But the nationwide percentage of COVID-19 tests coming back positive is rising – a sign that increased testing isn't the primary reason for the growth in new cases. Instead, experts suggest that the surge reflects increased transmission, since people have started interacting more without sufficient distancing or mask-wearing.

"We're all speculating that after Memorial Day, it was really the younger people who perhaps reengaged with society too soon and without the proper precautions," Koh said.

Epidemiologists usually predict a two- to three-week lag between when new cases and new deaths are reported. Based on that estimate, the US should already see an uptick in coronavirus deaths. But Koh said a surge is still possible in the coming weeks.

"In places where cases are rising, hospitalizations are increasing, too," Koh said. "We will inevitably see deaths coming in such situations, unfortunately."

Indeed, the daily death total has started to rise in Arizona and Texas. On Tuesday, Robert Redfield, director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said hospitalizations were rising in 12 states as well.

"We're starting to see that uptick in deaths coming now," Dr. Theo Vos, who works on the IHME model, told Business Insider.
'All the trends are going the wrong way'

The IHME model accounts for two scenarios: Either social-distancing mandates continue to be lifted and mask use stays the same, or countries pull the emergency break by reinstating mandates if deaths climb too high.

Either way, nationwide deaths are projected to stay relatively flat – but at a number far too high for comfort.

"If you look at other countries, they are down on the other side of the curve. Their cases have dropped dramatically. Their deaths have dropped dramatically," Koh said. "We're nowhere near that right now. All the trends are going the wrong way."

The US is currently seeing around 39 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people. Of the 20 countries currently most affected by COVID-19, only the UK has a higher death rate per capita right now: around 66 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people. If US deaths continue at the current rate, however, the nation could climb to the top of that ranking.

The IHME predicts that total US deaths could top 175,000 by October. And that doesn't include deaths through the entire fall season, which many experts think will be the worst phase of the outbreak.

"Our model strongly suggests that there's quite a seasonable component to this disease," Vos said. "Come the fall, we expect the pressure on transmission to go up."
Deaths could surge in the fall, but masks can help

Experts worry that a surge of coronavirus cases on top of regular flu outbreaks this fall could place additional strain on hospital capacity, leading to many more deaths that could have been prevented.

"I see too many patients die too early of preventable causes and that's an absolute tragedy," Koh said. "What we can accomplish in the long run depends so much on whether we can maximise the power of prevention based on the tools we have: face masks, social distancing, and hygiene."

The IHME model predicts that about one-third of transmission – or 24,000 deaths – could be prevented if 95 percent of the US population wears masks in public from July to October.

"It is such a cheap and relatively easy option with quite a potential to make a substantial dent in this epidemic," Vos said.

Koh said a national face mask policy is perhaps the most critical step to preventing future coronavirus deaths. At least 21 states have instituted a statewide mask mandate so far.

Texas became the most recent addition to that list on Friday, when Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order requiring masks in counties with 20 or more active COVID-19 cases. Failure to comply with the mandate could result in a fine of up to US$250.

But the specifics of mask requirements differ state to state, and some cities and counties have implemented their own policies.

"We have 50 states going in 50 different directions," Koh said. "This all leads to tremendous confusion among the public about what's the public-health standard."

Under a universal mask mandate, US coronavirus deaths could drop to less than 100 per day by September, according to the IHME model. Koh said it's important for individuals to realise that these aren't just numbers – they're real people's lives.

"When prevention works, absolutely nothing happens. All you have is the miracle of a perfectly normal, healthy day," he said. "Maybe because I'm a physician I've seen that gift forfeited so many times. We need to convey the fragility of our good health right now."

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

THE EVICTIONS BEGIN 

Dozens of Palestinians injured as Israeli soldiers, settlers storm West Bank towns

The New Arab Staff
Dozens of Palestinians injured as Israeli soldiers, settlers storm West Bank towns
Israeli soldiers stormed West Bank towns [Getty]

Date of publication: 4 July, 2020

Dozens of Palestinians have been injured as Israeli soldiers and settlers stormed towns in the West Bank, local reports confirmed.

Dozens of Palestinians were injured on Saturday in clashes with Israeli troops in various areas of the West Bank, as Israeli settlers stormed the town of Sila near Jenin in the north of the occupied Palestinian territory.

Palestinian official news agency WAFA said that Israeli forces had raided the village of Zabouba, west of Jenin, injuring dozens of Palestinians who protested the raid with tear gas.

A 17-year-old teenager from the village was also arrested.

Israeli soldiers also stormed the town of Qafin near Tulkarm, also using tear gas and injuring Palestinians. The troops broke into the house of a Palestinian detainee, Sheikh Majdi Ajouli, and destroyed some of his belongings, according to local Palestinian websites.

Read more: Formal annexation won’t change anything on the ground

The 58-year-old has been sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel but was released as part of a prisoner swap in 2014 but re-arrested a year later.

Israeli settlers also entered the town of Sila under the protection of the Israeli army and performed religious rituals.

The town is close to the site of the former settlement of Homesh, which was dismantled by Israel in 2005 as part of a “disengagement plan” which also saw Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

Other Israeli settlers on Saturday set fire to olive trees in the town of Hawara south of the West Bank city of Nablus, according to Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian Authority official who monitors settler activity in the northern West Bank.

On Friday, 23 Palestinians were injured in clashes with the Israeli army in Abu Dis near Jerusalem. Palestinian medics said that one Palestinian was shot with live bullets while six had been shot with rubber bullets.

Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces have increased recently as Israel prepares to annex one-third of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley area and major settlement blocs, according to a plan approved by US President Donald Trump and overwhelmingly rejected by Palestinians.

European Union countries have voiced opposition to the annexation plan, saying it would be a violation of international law. The annexation plan, which was originally scheduled for July, has been delayed by the Israeli government, which has given confusing signals about when it will actually be implemented.