The Merits of Medicare for All Have Been Proven by This Pandemic

  by SONALI KOLHATKAR

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

A pandemic is not the time to be having discussions about how to design a national health care system. The fact that the United States, which has 4 percent of the world’s population, leads the world with 25 percent of all coronavirus infections, indicates at a glance that something about our nation’s health care is irredeemably broken. In just a few months, more than 40 million Americans became unemployed in a country where a majority are expected to obtain health care through employer-provided insurance. Even the New York Times has pointed out that, “Nothing illuminates the problems with an employer-based health care system quite like massive unemployment in the middle of a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease outbreak.”

The Times has hardly been a champion of the nationalized health care system that progressive activists have demanded for years. The unimaginably large (and growing) death toll from COVID-19 should not be, as the paper’s editorial board member Jeneen Interlandi says, “an opportunity to look at health care reform with fresh eyes—and to maybe, finally, rebuild the nation’s health care system in a way that works for all Americans.” We, as a nation, should have figured this out a long time ago.

As Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, pointed out at a recent Senate hearing, left unchecked the coronavirus could spread to 100,000 people per day. Republican Senator Rand Paul was not happy with this grim assessment, instead demanding that the scientist instead offer up “more optimism” to the American people about the disease. But that is precisely how opponents of a single-payer health care system have painted our deeply flawed employer-based system for many years—with a veneer of positivity that was never matched by reality.

As FiveThirtyEight points out in examining pre-pandemic surveys of health care, “Americans tend to have a much rosier view of the health care they personally receive than the health care system in general or the cost of health care.” This should come as no surprise given the massive amount of propaganda that health insurers have paid for to convince people that the current system is good enough. However, no amount of optimism is going to help us survive the current COVID-19 crisis. There is no rosy way to view tens of thousands of dead Americans—especially in contrast with other nations that have managed to control the outbreak. In the words of one New Zealand health expert, “It really does feel like the U.S. has given up.”

In Arizona, one of the new hotspots of the disease, health care providers have taken to rationing health care—in a manner reminiscent of many developing nations or socialist regimes that the United States has criticized in the past. One report explained that Arizona’s rationing plan, “would see patients rated on a scoring system to determine who should be prioritized based on the severity of their condition.” In Houston, Texas, which is considered another COVID-19 epicenter, pediatricians are now taking on adult patients as hospital beds fill up to capacity.

There is little to no information about how the nation’s uninsured are expected to pay for COVID-19 treatments if they are hospitalized. Contrast that with a nation like the UK where there’s no question about any other entity besides the National Health Service (NHS) picking up the tab for any and all patients. During the current crisis, the UK government has even recruited all private hospitals to bolster the NHS’s capacity, forcing them to place lives over profits. Imagine the United States ever taking such a step to prioritize the health care of Americans!

The Wall Street Journal, aghast that a free-market system of the type that it has relentlessly promoted has not worked in the realm of health care, declared in an op-ed, “Rationing Care Is a Surrender to Death.” But op-ed writer Allen C. Guelzo, a fellow of the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation, had no answers beyond standard capitalism pablum saying vaguely that we need to, “Improvise, innovate, imagine.”

It’s not just our health care in the form of treatments and hospitalizations that is showing itself to be wholly inadequate in the face of a pandemic. The pharmaceutical industry, which has also preyed upon Americans for far too long, is charging outrageous prices for drugs that taxpayers paid to help them develop. Amidst the worst medical crisis in modern history, the drug manufacturer Gilead has set the price for remdesivir—a drug that has shown modest success in COVID-19 treatment—at a whopping $3,120 per patient. Infuriatingly, that same company, which made good use of U.S. tax dollars in its research and development, is licensing the drug to generic manufacturers outside the U.S. to produce remdesivir at a substantially lower cost to non-American patients.

The shocking extent of the coronavirus crisis in the United States is explained in large part by a libertarian economic approach. It is the same sort of approach that successive administrations have taken in addressing our health care needs and can be boiled down to the adage, “survival of the fittest.” Rather than imposing rules and regulations to protect Americans through a nationalized health care system and an aggressive cost-control mechanism for lifesaving drugs, Americans have been left at the mercy of their employers, health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and private hospitals. Similarly, instead of taking a strong federal approach to controlling the spread of the coronavirus as other nations have successfully done, the Trump administration has washed its hands of any responsibility for the virus’ spread. An absence of strong federal guidelines on how people need to protect themselves has resulted in a culture war of comical proportions where Fox News-fed Republicans claim that rules requiring protective face masks are akin to “practicing the devil’s laws.”

Such hyperbolic language is reminiscent of the hysteria over so-called “death panels” in the early years of the Obama administration. That phrase was used to cast the most modest of government regulations of our health care system as a scenario where dispassionate committees of technocrats would decide who gets to live or die. Never mind that such a description was a more apt one for our existing system of care where corporate executives decide which treatments to pay for and which to forego.

Just as progressives were right more than a decade ago that a single-payer or Medicare for All system was best poised to meet our health care needs, that same rallying cry for such a universal and free health care plan remains more relevant and appropriate than ever. Even the New York Times agrees, admitting perhaps a bit reluctantly that, “A single-payer system in which one entity (usually the federal government) covers every citizen regardless of age or employment status, could work.” But is it too late?

Had the nation gone down a different path in 2008 or anytime in the decade following it, we would have been better poised to take on the current crisis. There is little comfort to be had in being right on the issue of health care under our current grim circumstances.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

More articles by:SONALI KOLHATKAR

Sonali Kolhatkar is a columnist for Truthdig. She also is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV (Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku) and Pacifica stations KPFK, KPFA, and affiliates. 

Sanders, Khanna Say SCOTUS Ruling on Contraceptives Just One More Reason to Demand Medicare for All

"This wouldn't even be an issue if healthcare wasn't tied to employment."

  

by

Julia Conley, staff writer

Medicare for All advocates on Wednesday noted that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to allow employers to refuse to cover contraceptives presented a clear argument in favor of a universal healthcare system under which employment would not be tied to healthcare. (Photo: NNU/flickr/cc)

Healthcare advocates Wednesday charged that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on birth control access is just the latest evidence that the federal government must expand Medicare coverage to all Americans, eliminating the for-profit system in which employment is tied to people's ability to obtain medical care.

Shortly after the 7-2 ruling in Trump vs. Pennsylvania declared the Trump administration was correct to exempt employers from having to cover birth control for employees on religious or moral grounds, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pointed out how such rulings make clear that under the current for-profit healthcare system, medical decisions will never simply be between a patient and doctor.

"Patients' ability to get contraception shouldn't be up to employers. It should be a decision between patients and their doctors," tweeted Sanders, whose Medicare for All Act of 2019 has 14 co-sponsors in the Senate. "Healthcare—including birth control—is a right, not an employee benefit."

Sanders' outrage over the ruling echoed that of national reproductive rights groups such as NARAL and Planned Parenthood, but those organizations did not suggest fundamentally reforming the healthcare system by covering everyone in the U.S. under the existing Medicare system and taking women's healthcare decisions out of the hands of their employers.

"We must fight Trump's rollback of these rights by passing Medicare for All," said Sanders.

Patients’ ability to get contraception shouldn’t be up to employers. It should be a decision between patients and their doctors.

Health care—including birth control—is a right, not an employee benefit.

We must fight Trump’s rollback of these rights by passing Medicare for All. https://t.co/xYIthLjUTU

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 8, 2020

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote later in the day that "this wouldn't even be an issue if healthcare wasn't tied to employment."

Employers shouldn't be able to use their religion to deny birth control coverage under the ACA.

This wouldn't even be an issue if health care wasn't tied to employment.

With Medicare for All, contraceptives would be free regardless of where you work.https://t.co/vUKlRoxsqk

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) July 8, 2020

The ruling was the latest example for Medicare for All advocates to point to as they decry the dangerous risks inherent in the current for-profit health insurance system.

The Economic Policy Institute estimated in May that since the coronavirus pandemic began in the U.S., 16.2 million Americans have lost the health coverage they had access to through their employers, as the unemployment crisis caused by the public health emergency has left more than 32 million without work. EPI and others have recommended since the pandemic began that Medicare and Medicaid be expanded to cope with the economic effects. 

Progressive congressional candidates Christopher Hale, who is running in Tennessee, and Beth Doglio, who is running in Washington, also wrote on social media that women's access to birth control should not be up to one's employer.

If you're understandably upset with the Supreme Court ruling that employers with religious objections can be exempt from the ACA's birth control mandate, you should support Medicare-for-all.

Both Planned Parenthood and the Catholic Church support it. https://t.co/07QUot7rMT

— Christopher J. Hale (@chrisjollyhale) July 8, 2020

Birth control is essential healthcare and we need to expand access, not restrict it. This is another prime example of why we need Medicare for All — the healthcare services you receive should not be left up to your employer! https://t.co/wpVJKLeNbf

— Beth Doglio (@BethDoglio) July 8, 2020

In 2014, after the Supreme Court first ruled that employers can refuse to cover contraceptives in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, Hale wrote at Time magazine that the decision revealed "that Obamacare—for all the good it's done in increasing access to quality and affordable healthcare—is a messy law." 

"It asks employees to be at the whim of its employers' objectives and mission for what healthcare benefits they receive," Hale wrote. "This isn't sustainable. A person's access to quality healthcare shouldn't depend on who their boss is."

Medicare for All would represent "freedom" to Americans, wrote Justice Democrats co-founder and radio host Kyle Kulinski, while the for-profit employment-based system is "tyranny."

Single-payer medicare for all = freedom. Our current private, for-profit employer based health insurance racket = tyranny. Your boss can get in between you and your doctor because *they* believe in religious fundamentalism. Pathetic. https://t.co/uyY4tZaE2E

— Secular Talk (@KyleKulinski) July 8, 2020

"Do you know what would be great? If employers and insurance companies weren't involved in birth control or healthcare at all," tweeted Holly Stallcup, executive director of Rise, a faith-based women's organization in Texas. "If all medically related decisions really were between doctor and patient. Medicare for All would be happy to help."

Killing Koalas: the Promise of Extinction Down Under

by BINOY KAMPMARK

The British conservationist Gerald Durrell once remarked that the koala was “the most boring of animals”. Its brain size, proportionally the smallest of any mammal, evolved to cope with its slow metabolism. But the spectacle of these singed, toasted animals was a terrifyingly cruel one to behold. As good stretches of Australia burned over the last bushfire season, the sheer scale and intensity of this otherwise regular occurrence suggested something beyond remedy. Fires bring with them bold destruction and vigorous promise. What is taken can be renewed.

That matter of renewal has been brought into question. Environmental degradation, anthropogenic meddling and all around beastliness to country, has made Australia a titan of destructiveness. In terms of mammals, its rate of extinction is grimly impressive, making it the leader in an inglorious pack. As John Woinarski noted in 2018, “Over the last two hundred years at least 34 Australian mammal species and 29 birds have become extinct.”

A New South Wales Parliamentary committee has brought more bad tidings to further blot the copybook. Published on June 30, 2020, Koala populations and the habitat in New South Wales suggests that the animal, in the absence of government intervention, is doomed to extinction by 2050. The culprits of depredation have not changed, and the report reads like a doomsday call.

The list of findings would make bruising reading to even the most stone-hearted property developer. The casualties for this particular marsupial during the course of the recent bushfires is said to be 5,000. A warning is issued that the current estimated number of 36,000 koalas in New South Wales following the 2019-2020 bushfires “is outdated and unreliable”. Continuous logging of NSW native forests “has had cumulative impacts on koalas over many years because it has reduced the maturity, size and availability of preferred feed and roost trees.” Climate change had also compounded “the severity and impact of other threats, such as drought and bushfires, on koala populations.” Firmer interventions by the state government were needed to address population declines.

Existing policies on koala protection were also found to be deficient. The NSW Koala Strategy fell “short of the NSW Chief Scientist’s recommendation of a whole-of-government koala strategy with the objective of stabilising and then increasing koala numbers.” It did not “prioritise and resource the urgent need to protect koala habitat across all tenures.” A question mark remained on the issue of translocation as a viable strategy of coping with species preservation.

The committee makes 42 recommendations, some of them eminently sensible. But sensibility requires action; and action demands will. Such will, it was noted by committee members, does not seem present at the government level. Cate Faehrmann, the committee chair and member of the Greens, was exasperated in her foreword, claiming frustration at hearing “from government witnesses that the policies and laws in place to protect koalas and their habitat are adequate.”

Saving such a species can only commence in earnest at the council, local government level. One recommendation insists on giving the reins to community groups by means of additional funding and support “so that they can plant trees and regenerate bushland along koala and wildlife corridors and explore mechanisms to protect these corridors in-perpetuity.” More funding is suggested for local councils to develop conservation programs and “conducting mapping […] for comprehensive koala plans of management.”

Other recommendations will irk industry, including the recommendation that the NSW government visit the destructive impacts of logging “in all public native (non-plantation) forests in the context of enabling koala habitat to be identified and protected”. The logging and deforestation lobbies will be particularly worried about recommendation 41, which suggests the creation of the Great Koala National Park, an idea first put forth by the National Parks Association of NSW in 2015. That association can hardly be accused of lacking money sense: establishing such a park, they suggest, “could become a globally significant tourist attraction.” (This would hardly help in arresting pervasive environmental fragmentation.) 175,000 hectares of public state forests would be added to the existing protected complement, creating a total of 315,000 hectares reserve.

This is of little comfort to such opponents of the scheme as the Australian Workers’ Union of NSW, an organisation not exactly known for its green tendencies. The committee report duly notes the union’s view that the park would result in a “catastrophic destruction of regional economies and jobs”. Assistant Secretary Paul Noack even went so far as to dismiss the effectiveness of such a venture. Forget parks, he suggested; focus on creating “koala protection areas”.

Noack need not be too bothered. Inquiries of this sort always risk succumbing to reductive strategies and severe trimming. Then comes the matter of vacuous symbolism. The koala draws the attention of the camera and the publicity minded bureaucrat, only to vanish from the policy discussion. As the Australia Koala Foundation’s chief executive Deborah Tabart has remarked, “the koala has many powerful enemies”.

In September 2011, an Australian Senate inquiry named The Koala – saving our national icon covered similar ground the NSW parliamentary report does. Good habitat mapping and the identification of “a standardised set of methodologies in estimating koala populations” were recommended; a national koala monitoring and evaluation program was suggested. But the report lacks bite and desperation. Committee members, for instance, remarked on “the complexity of this multifaceted issue”, often political code for inertia. Koala populations might have been in sharp decline in the Mulga Lands of Queensland, but were healthy on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

Such tentative observations did little to discourage the devastating land clearing that continues its remorseless march in Queensland and NSW. Regional forest arrangements made over the last two decades have also been found to be woefully inadequate in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and Victoria.

Prior to the conflagrations over the course of 2019 and 2020, the Australian Koala Foundation was already spreading the gloomy word that the koala population in Australia stood at 80,000, making them “functionally extinct”. A species considered as such is gazing over the precipice, essentially irrelevant or ineffectual in their ecosystem, incapable of reproducing or simply inbreeding. As Christine Hosking remarked in The Conversation in May 2019, “It’s hard to say exactly how many koalas are still remaining in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, but they are highly vulnerable to threats including deforestation, disease and the effects of climate change.”

In November 2019, Natasha Daly penned a corrective in the National Geographic, amassing a range of qualifying opinions. There had been “erroneous declarations that the animals have lost most of their habit and are ‘functionally extinct’ making the rounds in headlines and on social media, illustrating just how quickly misinformation can spread in times of crisis.” Chris Johnson, professor of wildlife conservation at the University of Tasmania, wished to dampen such apocalyptic calls. “Koala populations will continue to decline because of lots of interacting reasons, but we’re not at the point where one event can take them out.” Diana Fisher of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland suggested that the species was “threatened in some parts of its range and not in others.”

Such views, in the aftermath of the latest round of lethal bushfires, must come across as a bit hair-splitting. The vulnerability of the species has reached apocalyptic levels and human complacency, along with the usual crippling disregard shown through a lack of enforceable protections, might well prove to be the enemy of this animal.

More articles by:BINOY KAMPMARK

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

#CIVILIZATION 

Naturally perforated shells one of the earliest adornments in the Middle Paleolithic

Simulations and microscopic analysis confirm that ancient shells were hung on strings and painted with ochre

Summary:Ancient humans deliberately collected perforated shells in order to string them together as beads, according to a new study

Date:July 8, 2020

Source:PLOS

Ancient humans deliberately collected perforated shells in order to string them together as beads, according to a study published July 8, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Daniella Bar-Yosef Mayer (Tel Aviv University, Israel), Iris Groman-Yaroslavski (University of Haifa, Israel), and colleagues.

Shells are one of the oldest ways humans have adorned and expressed themselves, with examples of deliberately-collected shell assemblages at human sites dating as far back as 160,000 years ago found across North Africa, South Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Shells from one Mediterranean Paleolithic site, Qafzeh Cave (dated to 120,000 years ago) are all naturally perforated (in contrast to the unperforated shells found at a nearby older site, Misliya Cave), suggesting that these shells were deliberately collected and strung together as beads.

To investigate the possibility of deliberate suspension to create strings of shell beads, Bar-Yosef Mayer and Groman-Yaroslavski collected the same species of perforated clamshells (Glycymeris) and simulated the potential use and wear present on the original shells: first systematically abrading the shells against different materials like leather, sand, and stone to produce a catalogue of wear patterns, then hanging the shells on strings made from wild flax to to identify wear patterns specific to string suspension. They then compared these wear patterns to those of the original Qafzeh Cave shells.

Microscopic analysis of the five best-preserved Qafzeh Cave shells revealed traces consistent with those created in the simulated shells via contact with a string, as well as traces of shell-to-shell contact (indicating the shells hung closely together). Four of the five original shells also revealed traces of an ochre coloring treatment.

Though it's not possible to determine the precise symbolic meaning of the shell bead strand from Qafzeh Cave, the fact that bivalve shells are a frequent hallmark across Paleolithic sites gives a sense of their importance. Additionally, the presence of a string seems to suggest that not only was shell collection important -- the ability to display the shells to others also likely held significance. As one of the earliest instances of perforated objects hung on strings, the Qafzeh Cave shells also bring us closer to understanding the origins of string-making technology probably between 160-120,000 years ago.

Bar-Yosef Mayer adds: "Modern humans collected unperforated cockle shells for symbolic purposes at 160,000 years ago or earlier, and around 120,000 they started collecting perforated shells and wearing them on a string. We conclude that strings, which had many more applications, were invented within this time frame."
th.

Journal Reference:
Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer, Iris Groman-Yaroslavski, Ofer Bar-Yosef, Israel Hershkovitz, Astrid Kampen-Hasday, Bernard Vandermeersch, Yossi Zaidner, Mina Weinstein-Evron. On holes and strings: Earliest displays of human adornment in the Middle Palaeolithic. PLOS ONE, 2020; 15 (7): e0234924 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234924

PLOS. "Naturally perforated shells one of the earliest adornments in the Middle Paleolithic: Simulations and microscopic analysis confirm that ancient shells were hung on strings and painted with ochre." 

ScienceDaily.

 ScienceDaily, 8 July 2020. 

The best (and worst) materials for masks

People making homemade masks might want to reach for a vacuum cleaner filter

Summary:It's intuitive and scientifically shown that wearing a face covering can help reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. But not all masks are created equal, according to new research.

Date:July 8, 2020

Source:University of Arizona

It's intuitive and scientifically shown that wearing a face covering can help reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. But not all masks are created equal, according to new University of Arizona-led research.

Amanda Wilson, an environmental health sciences doctoral candidate in the Department of Community, Environment and Policy in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, is lead author on a recent study published in the Journal of Hospital Infection that assessed the ability of a variety of nontraditional mask materials to protect a person from infection after 30 seconds and after 20 minutes of exposure in a highly contaminated environment.

When the researchers compared wearing masks to wearing no protection during 20-minute and 30-second exposures to the virus, they found that infection risks were reduced by 24-94% or by 44-99% depending on the mask and exposure duration. Risk reduction decreased as exposure duration increased, they found.

"N99 masks, which are even more efficient at filtering airborne particles than N95 masks, are obviously one of the best options for blocking the virus, as they can reduce average risk by 94-99% for 20-minute and 30-second exposures, but they can be hard to come by, and there are ethical considerations such as leaving those available for medical professionals," Wilson said.

The next best options, according to the research, are N95 and surgical masks and, perhaps surprisingly, vacuum cleaner filters, which can be inserted into filter pockets in cloth masks. The vacuum filters reduced infection risk by 83% for a 30-second exposure and 58% for a 20-minute exposure. Of the other nontraditional materials evaluated by the researchers, tea towels, cotton-blend fabrics and antimicrobial pillowcases were the next best for protection.

Scarves, which reduced infection risk by 44% after 30 seconds and 24% after 20 minutes, and similarly effective cotton t-shirts are only slightly better than wearing no mask at all, they found.

"We knew that masks work, but we wanted to know how well and compare different materials' effects on health outcomes," said Wilson, who specializes in quantitative microbial risk assessment.

Wilson and her team collected data from various studies of mask efficacy and created a computer model to simulate infection risk, taking various factors into consideration.

"One big component of risk is how long you're exposed. We compared risk of infection at both 30 seconds and 20 minutes in a highly contaminated environment," she said.

Other conditions that impact risk of infection are the number of people around you and their distance from you, she said.

The size of virus-transporting droplets from sneezes, coughs or even speech is also a very important factor. Larger, heavier droplets carrying the virus drop out of the air faster than smaller, lighter ones. That's one reason distance helps reduce exposure.

"Aerosol size can also be affected by humidity," Wilson said. "If the air is drier, then aerosols become smaller faster. If humidity is higher, then aerosols will stay larger for a longer period of time, dropping out faster. That might sound good at first, but then those aerosols fall on surfaces, and that object becomes another potential exposure route."

The study also showed that the more time a person spends in an environment where the virus is present, the less effective a mask becomes.

"That doesn't mean take your mask off after 20 minutes," Wilson said, "but it does mean that a mask can't reduce your risk to zero. Don't go to a bar for four hours and think you're risk free because you're wearing a mask. Stay home as much as possible, wash your hands often, wear a mask when you're out and don't touch your face."

Masks protect the wearer and others in a number of different ways. Wilson said there are two "intuitive ways" that masks filter larger aerosols: mechanical interception and inertial impaction.

"The denser the fibers of a material, the better it is at filtering. That's why higher thread counts lead to higher efficacy. There's just more to block the virus," she said. "But some masks (such as those made from silk) also have electrostatic properties, which can attract smaller particles and keep them from passing through the mask as well."

The model developed by Wilson and her colleagues included parameters such as inhalation rate -- the volume of air inhaled over time -- and virus concentration in the air.

"We took a lot of research data, put it into a mathematical model and related those data points to each other," Wilson said. "For example, if we know people's inhalation rates vary by this much and know this much virus is in the air and these materials offer this much efficiency in terms of filtration, what does that mean for infection risk? We provide a range, in part, because everyone is different, such as in how much air we breathe over time."

Wilson also said it's important for a mask to have a good seal that pinches at nose, and she noted that people shouldn't wear a mask beneath the nose or tuck it under the chin when not in use.

"Proper use of masks is so important," Wilson said. "Also, we were focusing on masks protecting the wearer, but they're most important to protect others around you if you're infected. If you put less virus out into the air, you're creating a less contaminated environment around you. As our model shows, the amount of infectious virus you're exposed to has a big impact on your infection risk and the potential for others' masks to protect them as well."

COVID-19 brain complications found across the globe

Cases of brain complications linked to COVID-19 are occurring across the globe, a new review has shown. The research found that strokes, delirium and other neurological complications are reported from most countries where there have been large outbreaks of the disease.

NOT A SLIGHT COLD OR JUST A FLU

Date:July 8, 2020

Science News from research organizations

Source:University of Liverpool

Cases of brain complications linked to COVID-19 are occurring across the globe, a new review by University of Liverpool researchers has shown.

Published in The Lancet Neurology, the study found that strokes, delirium and other neurological complications are reported from most countries where there have been large outbreaks of the disease.

COVID-19 has been associated mostly with problems like difficulty breathing, fever and cough. However, as the pandemic has continued, it has become increasingly clear that other problems can occur in patients. These include confusion, stroke, inflammation of the brain, spinal cord, and other kinds of nerve disease.

A recent Liverpool-led study of COVID-19 patients hospitalised in the UK found a range of neurological and psychiatric complications that may be linked to the disease.

To get a sense of the wider picture, the researchers brought together and analysed findings from COVID-19 studies across the globe that reported on neurological complications. The review, which included studies from China, Italy and the USA among others, found almost 1000 patients with COVID-19-associated brain, spinal cord and nerve disease.

Research Fellow, Dr Suzannah Lant, who was working on the project, said: "Whilst these complications are relatively uncommon, the huge numbers of COVID-19 cases globally mean the overall number of patients with neurological problems is likely to be quite large."

One of the complications found to be linked to COVID-19 is encephalitis, which is inflammation and swelling of the brain.

Dr Ava Easton, CEO of the Encephalitis Society, and co-author on the paper said: "It is really important that doctors around the world recognise that COVID-19 can cause encephalitis and other brain problems, which often have potentially devastating, life-changing consequences for patients."

Professor Tom Solomon, senior author on the paper and Director of the Global COVID-Neuro Network, added: "Although such patients are being seen everywhere the virus occurs, many of the reports are lacking in detail. We are currently pooling data from individual patients all around the world, so that we can get a more complete picture. Doctors who would like to contribute patients to this analysis can contact us via the Global COVID-Neuro Network website."

For more information about the Global COVID-Neuro Network please visit https://braininfectionsglobal.tghn.org/covid-neuro-network/
make a difference: sponsored opportunity

Journal Reference:
Mark A Ellul, Laura Benjamin, Bhagteshwar Singh, Suzannah Lant, Benedict Daniel Michael, Ava Easton, Rachel Kneen, Sylviane Defres, Jim Sejvar, Tom Solomon. Neurological associations of COVID-19. The Lancet Neurology, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/S1474-4422(20)30221-0

Can Anti-Trump Republican Groups Bring About a Biden Landslide?

They may be giving enough conservatives permission to vote their conscience.

by Nancy LeTourneau July 8, 2020 POLITICAL ANIMAL

Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons Carly Fiorina


According to Jonathan Martin, Republican leaders who don’t support Trump’s reelection have chosen one of three different paths.

State publicly that they won’t vote for him and plan to vote for Biden (Colin Powell and Carly Fiorina).

State publicly that they won’t vote for him, but won’t vote for Biden (Mitt Romney and John Bolton).


Stay silent (George W. Bush, Paul Ryan, and John Boehner).
There’s one thing that all of those Republicans except Romney have in common: none of them currently hold elective office. What is even more interesting is what Martin heard about those who do.

“I’ve had five conversations with senators who tell me they are really struggling with supporting Trump,” said [Democratic Senator Chris] Coons, who declined to give names.

Indeed, one Republican senator, who is publicly supporting the president, said in an interview that he might prefer a Biden victory if the G.O.P. managed to preserve its Senate majority. This lawmaker, like a number of Republicans, is uneasy with Mr. Trump’s behavior and weary from the near-weekly barrage of questions from reporters about the latest presidential eruption.

As former Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, a moderate Democrat who was friends with a number of her former Republican colleagues, put it: “It’s easier to count the ones who are definitely voting for Trump.”

That demonstrates the kind of political cowardice that has plagued Republicans ever since Trump was elected. But in talking to GOP campaign consultants, Tim Miller explains the dilemma faced by those up for reelection in 2020, like Senator John Cornyn of Texas.


[R]ather than addressing this by creating some strategic separation from Trump to solidify the historically conservative Dallas and Houston suburbs where Trump is bleeding out, Cornyn has become a Mr. Trump fan girl, echoing his virus denial and defending the attack on nonviolent protestors in Lafayette Square.

Why? According to one: “You have 25% of the state is rural and Trump gets like Saddam Hussein level numbers here. 87% in 25% of the state… Cornyn gets 69. And so Cornyn can’t find a place to break from because he could really put that in jeopardy.”

And thus the polarizing nature of Trump makes it impossible for Cornyn to make a move that helps him in the swingy suburbs without risking the floor falling out from under him in West Texas.

That is why I find the number of Republican groups forming to defeat Trump extremely significant. The ranks include the Lincoln Project, Right Side PAC, 43 Alumni for Biden, and Republican Voters Against Trump. The proliferation of these groups strikes me as unprecedented in modern political history, so it deserves our attention. Here is something Republican strategist John Weaver said about the goal of the Lincoln Project.

“Republicans are hierarchical,” Weaver said. “So what’s not getting a lot of attention right now is the structure we are building — the permission ramp for Republicans so that they will have some comfort that they are not alone in doing the right thing.”

The fact that Republicans are hierarchical is an astute observation. But that’s not the only reason why building a permission ramp is important. As Andrew Levison wrote, conservatives have actually built a three-level ideological cocoon that these kinds of efforts could puncture. The first level is a national media structure headlined by Fox News. Behind that are local news sources such as Sinclair TV stations and talk radio. A permission ramp is more likely to affect the third level, which Levison describes as the most significant.

Finally, and most importantly, it is the network of personal relationships between neighbors and friends that works to validate and confirm the broader messages. Casual conversations with friends, Facebook messages and e-mails from relatives, and jokes passed among co-workers all reinforce the sense that Democrats are the “other” and lead people who once supported Democrats to mute their views, creating what sociologists call a “spiral of silence.” The result makes support for the Republican Party seem not just dominant but unanimous.

This last, most intimate level of influence is the most important because it validates and provides the “proof” that what the conservative national and local media are saying is actually right. In this environment, political life ceases to be a debate or dialog between candidates or parties. Instead people come to accept that you would have to be completely out of your mind to ever vote for a Democrat.

As an example of how to puncture that “spiral of silence,” this is the kind of video from Republican Voters Against Trump that might break through to some white evangelical Christians—even in Texas.

Notice how Tommy says that he reluctantly voted for Trump in 2016 because the “at least he’s not Hillary Clinton” rallying cry was strong in his part of the country. That is a perfect example of how the “spiral of silence” works. Now Tommy is part of building a permission structure to give others an option that he didn’t take advantage of four years ago.

It is a fact that there are some Trump supporters who will hang on until the bitter end. But the reason a possible landslide for Biden is even being discussed is that there are Republicans out there who are beginning to see that “dark path” that Tommy says Trump’s reelection would take us down. The seeds of doubt are being planted.

Nancy LeTourneau

Nancy LeTourneau is a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly. Follow her on Twitter @Smartypants60.

DON'T CALL BIDEN PROGRESSIVE

The left gets rolled on legalizing pot — and legal protections for cops

A "unity" task force on criminal justice reform created by Biden's campaign rejects policies pushed by Sanders supporters.

ONLY WHEN THE LEFT OF THE PARTY AND THOSE NOT APPROVED BY THE DNC GET ENOUGH CANDIDATES ELECTED WILL THEY BE ABLE TO TAKE THE PARTY AWAY FROM THE REACTIONARIES, CAREERISTS AND OPPORTUNISTS AS AOC AND OTHERS HAVE SHOWN REMEMBER 1968 THE RIOTS WERE AT THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OVER THE VIETNAM WAR, JOHNSON AND HUBERT HUMPHREY THE LATTER WHO WAS THE DNC FAVORITE

Progressives celebrated Wednesday after pushing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden left on climate change, immigration and economic policy. But they struggled to persuade Biden’s team on criminal justice policy beyond what he has already embraced. | AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
By HOLLY OTTERBEIN and LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ

07/08/2020

Joe Biden’s “unity” task forces were created to bring the progressive wing of the Democratic Party into the fold after the sting of Bernie Sanders’ defeat.

But on key policies involving the biggest issue of the day — criminal justice — the left flank got rolled.

Amid nationwide protests against police brutality, the criminal justice panel formed by Biden and Sanders got into heated debates in recent weeks over qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that shields police from being sued for misconduct. Progressives pushed to end it, but Biden appointees agreed only to sign onto a commitment to rein in the rule.

Another flashpoint over marijuana ended similarly: Sanders’ team argued in private meetings that they should legalize cannabis, but that idea was rejected. One task force member described the disagreements over qualified immunity and pot as “huge battles,” and multiple people involved said the criminal justice panel presented some of the biggest challenges for compromise.

“The vice president needs to figure out how he can step up and also catch up, frankly, to where the American people are headed in terms of wanting to have a real significant shift in how we think about things like policing and criminalization of marijuana and other drugs,” said Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice campaigns for the civil rights organization Color of Change. “He still seems to embrace kind of a law-and-order lite." Roberts, who was not on the task force, added that Biden is fortunate that he's running against President Donald Trump, whom he called a "white supremacist and vocal opponent of the Black Lives Matter movement."

On several other task forces created by Biden and Sanders, progressives celebrated Wednesday that they won concessions, nudging allies and aides to the presumptive Democratic nominee to the left on climate change, immigration and economic policy. But they struggled to persuade Biden’s team on criminal justice policy beyond what he has already embraced.

The challenges suggest that Biden’s beliefs on policies such as marijuana are strongly held. He supports decriminalization and medical pot, but his aides have said he needs to see more evidence that weed doesn’t endanger people’s health before he backs legalization. Progressives also believe it demonstrates that the Biden campaign is wary of alienating police unions, which oppose changes to qualified immunity, and the larger labor movement of which they are a part.

At the same time, the task force's criminal justice recommendations suggest that Biden supporters are confident that the Sanders wing will back him in the end despite his refusal to budge, given the alternative.

Liberals are all the more frustrated by their inability to make more gains on criminal justice in the task forces because voters have been moving leftward on the issue. Polls show two-thirds of Americans support legalizing marijuana, and majorities among all racial and ethnic groups say they back the Black Lives Matter movement.

“There will never be a safer time to be bold on these issues and push for change, and Joe Biden is missing the mark,” said a Sanders ally who requested anonymity to speak frankly. “I think people are going to rightly feel as if we didn’t meet the moment. I think a lot of people are going to feel let down. Every progressive, when they read the sentence ‘rein in qualified immunity,’ are going to find it laughable.”


Analilia Mejia, Sanders’ political director who oversaw the task forces, said their overall recommendations are a victory for progressives, and represent an even larger achievement than the left-wing proposals adopted in the Democratic Party’s platform in 2016.

Liberals were especially glad to see the panels embrace transitioning to zero-emission new buildings by 2030, moving to clean electricity in 15 years, and creating “jobs programs like those effectively used during the New Deal.”

“You have the Biden campaign very publicly accepting a list of very progressive recommendations from quote-unquote both sides of the party and kind of making a tacit agreement that, if victorious, he's going to work to achieve these things,” said Mejia. “Irrespective of not being able to transform Joe Biden into Bernie Sanders, I honestly believe that this would be the framework for a progressive policy agenda across six vital issues. So I do think it’s a win.”

On criminal justice, Sanders appointees pointed to some wins, such as the task force’s goals of financing a "civilian corps of unarmed first responders," removing a "budget rider blocking [Washington] D.C. from taxing and regulating legal marijuana," and holding back money from states that use cash bail. Biden has also previously come out in favor of progressive criminal justice policies such as ending cash bail, expunging prior marijuana use convictions and banning chokeholds by police.

"Police spend so much of their time on nonviolent 'order maintenance' situations and health crises — circumstances that definitely do not call for someone with a gun," said Chiraag Bains, co-chair of the criminal justice task force, who was selected by Sanders. "A 24/7 nonpolice responder corps aimed at supporting people, not arresting them, could have saved the lives of Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd and so many others."

“They really pushed them,” added Sara Nelson, the Flight Attendants Association union leader who was chosen by Sanders to co-chair the economic task force. “Using the federal purse strings to push state and local governments to end cash bail is extraordinary.”

Still, she added, “It was always recognized that [the criminal justice panel] was going to be one of the toughest groups to make improvements.”

Stacey Walker, a Sanders appointee on the criminal justice task force, said, “Obviously, we did not get everything we wanted, but this work represents an encouraging start to the important conversations around much-needed reforms.”

Republicans said the panels' advice show that Biden is a tool of the far left. Steve Guest, rapid response director for the Republican National Committee, said the recommendations "crib straight from Bernie Sanders’ radical agenda," including Sanders' primary proposal of establishing a group of first responders without guns.

The unity task forces focused on six areas — health care, the economy, criminal justice, climate change, education and immigration — and submitted policy recommendations to Biden and the Democratic National Committee. For each panel, Biden tapped five members and Sanders three, who met each week via Zoom and on calls. Their input is not binding.

Some Biden members on the criminal justice task force personally support legalizing marijuana, and even debated putting the policy in their recommendations to the former vice president and the Democratic National Committee, two people familiar with the deliberations said.

Likewise, Vanita Gupta, a former acting assistant attorney general chosen by Biden to serve on the criminal justice task force, supports ending qualified immunity. Gupta said on a POLITICO panel in June that the Democratic and Republican presidential platforms should adopt the House Democrats' police reform bill that eliminates the rule.

Pressed on the decision not to recommend ending the practice in the task force, Gupta said that six weeks ago “very few people were even talking about qualified immunity and recognizing the ways in which it's been a major impediment to accountability.”

“This isn't a framework that just seeks to reinstate the status quo that existed at the end of the Obama administration,” Gupta said in an interview Wednesday. “There is an effort to really recognize the importance of moving even beyond what was accomplished given what we know now and where the American public is on so many of these issues.”

She also cited the expansion of the Justice Department’s jurisdiction to prosecute police misconduct as a key step.

Last month, Biden announced that he supports reforming qualified immunity, but a spokesperson declined to provide more details on what that means. Multiple task force members said the proposal's language leaves flexibility for advocates to push Biden in the future to end the practice, though some progressives worry it is too vague.

“It's hard to really put your finger on what exactly they mean,” said a Sanders ally familiar with the task force, referring to the recommendation to rein in qualified immunity.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/07/lesser-of-two-evils-dept.html