Leaked Vancouver School Board document recommends against use of masks, gloves, and gowns in dealing with kids with complex needs


by Charlie Smith on April 26th, 2020 STRAIGHT.COM


2 of 3
Even though surgical masks can be obtained at a relatively low price, Vancouver school board staff are being told they're not necessary when dealing with kids with complex needs.AMAZON

In normal times, K-12 educators face challenges in dealing with children with complex needs and behavioural problems.

But that can be magnified during a pandemic when the consequences can be deadly.


This is particularly so for teachers and aides with compromised immune systems, including cancer survivors and those with heart disease or diabetes.


DOWNLOADS
Additional School and Childcare Safety Protocols for Working with Children with Complex Needs (COVID-19)

Yet despite these health concerns, a 21-page Vancouver school board document recommends against the use of personal protective equipment—including masks, gloves, and gowns—for staff in the educational sector. (See the PDF link at the left of this article if you're reading this article on a desktop computer.)

The document, which was leaked to the Georgia Straight, purports that there is "no benefit from wearing masks in public settings or in schools".

Elsewhere, it states that physical distancing "is not an expectation in a childcare or K-12 educational setting".

In contrast, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.

"The cloth face coverings recommended are not surgical masks or N-95 respirators," the CDC emphasizes on its website. "Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers instructions on its website for how to create a cloth mask.U.S. CDC

Spitting risk deemed low for asymptomatic kids

Additional School and Childcare Safety Protocols for Working with Children with Complex Needs (COVID-19) also states that masks are not recommended for children unless advised by a health-care provider.

"In young children in particular, masks can be irritating and may lead to increased touching of the face and eyes," it says.

Under "Spitting Recommendations", the document acknowledges that this behaviour is "challenging".

Then it adds: "if the student is asymptomatic and healthy, the risk of transmission is low, especially if the behaviour is paired with handwashing and cleaning."

In fact, asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 has been deemed a serious problem by researchers. It was even described as the "Achilles' heel" of current control strategies in a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine.

That's due to the high-level of shedding of the virus in the upper respiratory tract, even in presymptomatic patients.

Yet the VSB document states that no additional personal protective equipment is required by those working in the educational sector "unless identified on a case by case basis by the health authority".

The document also says that face masks are not required for rendering first aid if there are no flulike symptoms.


If a student begins to show flulike symptoms, certified first aid attendants should remain two meters away and "discreetly" move the person to a private isolation room and alert the principal or supervisor.

The Vancouver School Board's document makes no accommodation for staff who may have compromised immune systems due to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, or other conditions.

Vancouver Coastal Health reviewed document

Additional School and Childcare Safety Protocols for Working with Children with Complex Needs (COVID-19) was originally developed by the Langley school district in cooperation with others, including Fraser Health Authority.

The document states that Vancouver Coastal Health has reviewed this adapted version for use in its jurisdiction, which includes Vancouver, Richmond, the North Shore, Sunshine Coast, and Sea to Sky corridor.

It also claims that COVID-19 has "a very low infection rate in children", estimated at one to five percent worldwide.

But this statement does not acknowledge that many countries, provinces, and states have not been testing representative samples of the populations, preferring to focus diagnostic efforts on health-care workers and those deemed to be at higher risk.

In addition, the document states that there's "no conclusive evidence that children who are asymptomatic pose a risk to other children or to adults".

It correctly notes that children infected with the novel coronavirus have milder symptoms, if any. And a very low number of them become critically ill.

According to WorkSafe B.C., employees have "the right to refuse work if they believe it presents an undue hazard".

"In those circumstances, employers need to consider the refusal on a case-by-case basis, depending on the situation," WorkSafe B.C. states on its website. "For more information, see Occupational Health and Safety Guideline G3.12."

Richmond students manufacture personal protective equipment at J.N. Burnett secondary school


by Carlito Pablo on April 29th, 2020 STRAIGHT.COM

Grade 12 student Christopher Lam makes face shields and ear savers with 3D printers.

A change of plans was not going to keep Christopher Lam away from the fight against COVID-19.

Lam, a Grade 12 student at J. N. Burnett Secondary School in Richmond, is a volunteer with St. John Ambulance, a first-aid and safety charity.


He was expecting to be deployed with one of its teams to the Vancouver Convention Centre. That’s where the provincial government has set up a temporary health facility to serve patients not sick with the virus, in case hospitals are overrun with COVID-19 cases.

But that situation didn’t appear to be happening, so Lam decided to focus his efforts elsewhere.

The high-school student then began making face shields with a 3-D printer at home.

“I wanted to do something to help the community, to help those on the frontlines,” Lam tells the Straight in a phone interview.

Lam began in March, and before long he was able to produce hundreds of face shields, which he gave to hospitals and care homes.

Sean Uy, another Grade 12 student at J. N. Burnett, also started to make face shields at home. Lam says that he later inquired whether the school’s 3-D printers could be put into action as well.

School principal Wennie Walker supported the initiative and got in touch with the Richmond school district to get more printers for the cause.

Lam, Uy, and a third student, Adriano Carvalheiro-Nunes, are actively involved in this school-based project, with support from technology teacher Wes Bevan and other school staff.

Adriano Carvalheiro-Nune, Chris Lam, Sean Uy, and J.N. Burnett principal Wennie Walker have been supported by the Richmond school district.

The students are producing face shields and ear savers, a mask accessory that reduces skin irritation. According to Lam, they want health workers in care homes to get the devices.

“They’re a major part of what we’re supporting, because they don’t get as much provincial support as hospitals,” Lam says.

On Tuesday (April 28), Lam had made more than 100 ear savers that day.

Lam also says they need more materials to keep going. Specifically, these are PETG sheets and filament, and clear polycarbonate sheets. (PETG is polyethylene terephthalate glycol plastic, a durable material used for 3-D printing.)

No one knows for sure where the world is headed with the COVID-19 pandemic, but that is not about to stop Lam.

“For me, I’m already a licensed paramedic, so if all education goes down, I will just end up joining either the ambulance service or a private service to help with the situation,” Lam says.

After beating COVID-19, Vancouver physician Joseph Finkler explains how pandemic transformed emergency medicine

by Charlie Smith on April 28th, 2020 STRAIGHT.COM

2 of 2

• Dr. Joseph Finkler's daughter Laura, a palliative care nurse at St. Paul's Hospital, was unable to do work in the community for 14 days after her dad contracted COVID-19 because she also had to be isolated.

One of the tragedies of the novel coronavirus pandemic has been the impact on front-line workers’ health. Many have contracted COVID-19 and some have died.

Dr. Joseph Finkler considers himself one of the lucky ones—the St. Paul’s Hospital emergency room physician is back at work after recovering from the disease and coming out of quarantine just over a week ago.

He concedes that it sort of snuck upon him.

“I didn’t recognize the symptoms because I had been working a whole bunch of night shifts,” Finkler told the Straight by phone. “I felt really crummy and tired.”

The 62-year-old doctor said he had a persistent cough for months. But on March 26, he decided to stop working and get tested after feeling a fever, chills, and night sweats.

After being diagnosed, he worried for a “fleeting moment” that he might develop lower interstitial pneumonia.

That, he feared, could bring on a “cytokine storm”, in which immune-system cells attack other cells in the body, perhaps forcing him to go on a ventilator.

According to the New Scientist, these cytokine storms are common complications of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases.

Fortunately, he avoided that fate but it still troubled him that he couldn’t help patients during his period self-isolation. He even had to remain at a distance from his partner and two daughters, who all amazingly avoided infection even though they live in the same house.

One of those daughters, Laura, is a palliative care nurse at St. Paul’s Hospital. She was restricted from going into the community because she was also required to remain isolated.

“My radioactivity not only resulted in their lifestyles being restricted for 14 days, but also they were stigmatized by their connection with me,” Finkler noted.

He acknowledged that upon his return to work, some colleagues were not keen to be too close to him.

“I understand it,” he said. “There’s a disconnect between what we know in science and what we might feel.”

Finkler explained that because of the pandemic, it’s become far more complicated dealing with patients in the emergency ward.

In early March, he said, staff were wearing gloves and sometimes wearing a surgical mask if they were swabbing patients.

By the time he was diagnosed later that month, doctors and nurses were not only using surgical and N95 masks, but also wearing protective eye shields and disposable gowns over layers of clothing.

“It’s like walking in molasses, or underwater,” he said. “It’s so crazy because it’s so restrictive. It really slows down the process.”

Dr. Joseph Finkler says that treating patients has become more complicated during the pandemic because of all the protective gear that health workers must wear.

At the same time, Finkler acknowledged that all this protective gear is necessary to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to patients and colleagues, even if it has slowed the delivery of health care somewhat.

Patients often have to be separated when they arrive in the emergency room. Those who may be showing symptoms of respiratory problems or anyone who is critically ill is transferred to an area called "COVID", which has 12 beds where they can remain isolated.

This keeps them away from other patients who might be suffering from acute mental-health issues or other problems unrelated to the novel coronavirus.

Finkler said that there's a perception among some that if you contract COVID-19, it's a death sentence. In fact, the death rate is only a little over one percent in Canada if all the fatalities are divided by the number of positive test results.

"But if we include a whole bunch of asymptomatic people [who have the virus] we haven't tested, it's actually way lower," he added. 

Finkler applauded the way that everyone in the health-care system has “locked arms and come up with creative solutions” to the crisis.

“Our planners did a ton of work—our department heads, operations managers, program managers, vice presidents of medicine, administrators, CEOs—they moved mountains to prepare us,” Finkler said. “Even though we’ve not had to deal with the tsunami [of cases], I think that was incredible.”

For anyone concerned about visiting a doctor's office because of the pandemic, there's always the option of contacting a telehealth provider, which can put people in contact with physicians and other health-care professionals.

He Worked As A Janitor At The University Where He Was Studying. He Died From The Coronavirus Just 20 Credits Shy Of Graduating.

“He was a good person who wanted to leave a mark on the world,” said his fiancé. “And he has done just that.”

Kadia GobaBuzzFeed News Reporter April 28, 2020, 

Wayne State University Darrin Adams

Darrin Adams made a living cleaning the halls of Wayne State University in Detroit. As a custodian there for six years, he helped keep the school tidy.

But he was also there to make a new life for himself.

The 54-year-old had spent several stints in prison on theft and drug offenses, according to his fiancé, Raejean Woolfork.

But Adams was determined to turn his life around.

After a couple of years working at the school, he enrolled himself in 2016. He chose to major in sociology, pursuing a bachelor of arts degree.

Eager to learn, he sat in the front rows of his classrooms, dressed in the college's sports swag. He asked nuanced questions and spoke poignantly about issues of race. He had a 3.64 GPA. The university said he was “an all-star student.”

For Adams, this new beginning was sacred. “He made a pact with God that if he got out this time, he would make changes and wouldn’t go back [to prison],” Woolfork told BuzzFeed News.

Adams, though, was not able to finish his dream.

His story of redemption ended on April 3 when he died after nearly a month of having COVID-19 symptoms, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. He was just 20 credits shy of graduating.

Instead, on Friday, Wayne State University officials announced Adams would be posthumously awarded his bachelor’s degree.

“Adams’ commitment to his education and community will be remembered and missed,” officials said.


Tim Boscarino / Michigan State Historic Preservation Office / Creative Commons / Via Flickr: mishpo Wayne State University
Adams first began to experience symptoms on March 13. Three days later, he and his fiancé, with whom he shared a home, came down with fevers — his at 102 and hers at 101. The couple sought help.

They made two separate trips to urgent care. “We had a hard time because nobody would let us in because we had fevers,” said Woolfork, who also tested positive for COVID-19 and is currently awaiting results after quarantining for nearly a month.

After landing at the Ascension Providence Hospital emergency room, each of them tested negative for the flu. They were given antibiotics and instructed to quarantine, according to Woolfork.

“It was crippling," she said. “Our bodies were aching. We were sweating. We had fevers. We couldn’t eat, and the Z-Paks weren’t doing it. So I said, ‘We got to go back and find out what’s going on.’ That’s when I started getting worried. I’d never felt like this before.”

Two days later, the couple returned to the hospital.

During this trip, Adams was diagnosed with double pneumonia and sent home with a prescription for an inhaler and other medications. The comments on his discharge papers noted “worsening conditions,” according to documents BuzzFeed News reviewed. Woolfork said Adams had a history of bronchitis and asthma.

“I just watched him just decline,” said Woolfork. “I mean, I was sick too, but not as sick as he was — because he was having problems breathing.”

She said her fiancé struggled to find a comfortable resting position because of his respiratory complications. He finally resigned himself to sleeping on the living room sofa, where he’d lay until March 23 at 5:30 a.m., when emergency services knocked on the door, responding to his call.

“They didn’t even come inside, because they said they couldn’t get contaminated or whatever,” Woolfork said.

So Adams walked outside of his one-family house and down two steps from his porch; he was put onto a stretcher and admitted to Sinai-Grace Hospital.

“That was the last time I saw him,” said Woolfork.

The same day, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer directed all nonessential businesses to close and signed a statewide stay-at-home order, which went into effect on March 24 at midnight.

Adams died some 10 days later.

Friends and family members characterized Adams as a hard worker, a jokester, and someone who loved to dance. “He always repped the men in the dance battles,” his cousin Darryl Franklin told BuzzFeed News. “He was the life of the party.”

“When he came into the room, he was like a ball of energy,” Woolfork said of her fiancé, who was affectionately called Redd by friends and family.

Adams was also a member of the AmeriCorps Urban Safety Program, working to increase public safety throughout his city. As part of the initiative, he helped board up more than 200 abandoned homes, many of which line routes that children in Detroit walk each day to get to school.

Adams is survived by his own two children — a daughter, Layla, 17, and son, Darrin, 33 — as well as his fiancé and four siblings.

“He was a good person who wanted to leave a mark on the world,” said Woolfork. “And he has done just that.”

“What The Fuck?” Elon Musk Calls Coronavirus Shelter-In-Place Orders “Fascist.”

In an earnings call, the Tesla CEO called public health orders in the Bay Area an "outrage."

Ryan Mac BuzzFeed News Reporter  April 29, 2020, at 9:02 p.m. ET



Hannibal Hanschke / Reuters

After an 18-hour span on Twitter, in which he blocked at least one prominent doctor, exchanged tweets with a far-right influencer, and demanded that the US be set “FREE,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk did what he does best. He doubled down.

On a call with analysts and investors following the company’s quarterly earnings announcement, Musk bashed government officials and the Bay Area counties’ shelter-in-place orders, overshadowing what was otherwise a positive quarter for the electric car maker.

“The extension of the shelter in place or frankly I would call it ‘forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all their constitutional rights’ — that’s my opinion — and breaking people’s freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why people came to America or built this country,” Musk said in response to a question from an analyst about the company’s liquidity. ”What the fuck? Excuse me. Outrage. It’s an outrage.”

Since calling the coronavirus panic “dumb” in early March, Musk has repeatedly downplayed the impact of a pandemic that has killed 57,505 people in the US alone. He’s said the fatality rate from the disease is “greatly overstated,” pushed potential treatments that hadn’t been properly vetted, and predicted that the United States would have zero new cases by the end of April. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 23,901 new US cases on Wednesday.



Ryan Mac 🙃@RMac18

Musk’s prediction on March 19 vs. reality06:48 AM - 29 Apr 2020
Reply Retweet Favorite
Musk’s comments on Tesla's public earnings call were his most belligerent denouncement of the government’s response to the outbreak, and came after his company’s factory in Fremont, California, had spent more than a month out of commission because of officials’ shelter-in-place order. That order, which was extended by Alameda and other Bay Area counties to the end of May, infuriated Tesla’s CEO.

"But to say they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist,” he said. “This is not democratic. This is not freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom."

Despite what Musk said, Alameda County’s shelter-in-place order does not require that people remain in their homes around the clock, and does include provisions allowing them to go out to exercise or shop for goods. The county also allows businesses that have been deemed “essential” — including grocery stores, pharmacies, and banks — to continue operating. Despite an initial period of confusion, Tesla was not given that distinction.

“We are a bit worried about not being able to resume production in the Bay Area,” Musk said. “And that should be identified as a serious risk. We only have two car factories right now: one in Shanghai and one in the Bay Area, and the Bay Area produces the vast majority of our cars.”

Further adding to the chaos of the call, Tesla’s phone line was cut off minutes after Musk delivered his tirade, leaving a bewildered operator wondering where the Tesla CEO and his executives had gone. They later returned to the call to finish answering select questions.


The Tesla CEO’s earnings call rant came after he spent part of Tuesday night tweeting that the government should “give people their freedom back” and “FREE AMERICA NOW.”

Tesla reported earnings of $1.24 a share on revenue of $6 billion during the first quarter of 2020, a period in which analysts anticipated a loss. The carmaker’s shares were up nearly 9% in after-hours trading.

Below are excerpts from Elon Musk from Tesla's Wednesday earnings call:

In response to an analyst's question about Tesla's financial position and liquidity at the end of April:

We are a bit worried about not being able to resume production in the Bay Area. And that should be identified as a serious risk. We only have two car factories right now: One in Shanghai and one in the Bay Area, and the Bay Area produces the vast majority of our cars. All of S and X and most of the 3 and all of the Y.

The extension of the shelter in place or frankly I would call it "forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all their constitutional rights" — that’s my opinion — and breaking people’s freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why people came to America or built this country. What the fuck? Excuse me. Outrage. It’s an outrage. It will cause great harm, not just to Tesla, but to many companies. And while Tesla will weather the storm, there are many small companies that will not. And all of people’s — everything they’ve worked for their whole lives has been destroyed in real time. And we’re going to have many and have many suppliers that are on super hard times, especially the small ones, and it’s causing a lot of strife to a lot of people. Yeah.

In response to an analyst's question about Musk's message to lawmakers coming out of the health crisis and whether or not there was an opportunity for the country to grow:

I think it’s high time we invested in infrastructure in this country. We have a lot of crumbling highways and bridges and frankly, when I visit China, I see their infrastructure as being much better than ours. It’s great. Europe has better infrastructure. It’s really quite sad the US infrastructure, especially roads and highways with where it is today. And airports in a lot of cases are an embarrassment. It’s not just a question of money, it’s a question of will. Sometimes we spend a lot of money on these things, but what do we gain for it? We really need to figure out where is the transportation of the future and not the transportation of the past. You know, if this was 1920, do you want to be investing in steam engines or internal combustion engines? Obviously not steam engines.

This is a time to think about the future and also to ask is it right to infringe upon people’s rights as what is happening right now. I think people are going to be very angry about this and are very angry. If somebody wants to stay in their house, that’s great. They should be allowed to stay in their house and they should not be compelled to leave. But to say they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist. This is not democratic. This is not freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom.

Rudy Giuliani, The Right-Wing Media, And Conspiracy Theorists Are Using American Grants To Chinese Labs To Undermine Anthony Fauci. Here's What They Are Missing.

The National Institutes of Health has given millions of dollars to scientists studying coronaviruses. That funding didn't cause the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jane Lytvynenko BuzzFeed News Reporter  April 29, 2020

Facebook

Right-wing media and conspiracy theorists have seized on a series of grants awarded over the course of six years to study coronaviruses to undermine Dr. Anthony Fauci, the immunologist who’s been at the helm of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. The narrative moved to the spotlight at the White House when, during a press conference on April 17, a reporter with Newsmax asked President Donald Trump about the grants, totaling $3.7 million since 2014.

The Daily Mail, a British tabloid known for publishing unreliable stories, first reported the $3.7 million figure on April 11. The paper wrote a story on the funding, parts of which went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Although the article stated that there’s no evidence the novel coronavirus leaked from the lab, it implied a correlation between the grants and the pandemic: "The revelation that the Wuhan Institute was experimenting on bats from the area already known to be the source of COVID-19 — and doing so with American money — has sparked further fears that the lab, and not the market, is the original outbreak source."

Those questions have had real effects. Politico reported on April 27 that the National Institutes of Health would be revoking grants given to New York–based nonprofit organization EcoHealth Alliance in 2019, including funds for 2020 that the nonprofit now has to return.

But in reality, the grants appear to have nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, they were awarded after a different kind of coronavirus — SARS — spread across the world in 2003. The NIH also didn’t give the funds directly to the Wuhan Institute, instead awarding them to EcoHealth Alliance, which invests in health research globally. The money helped support research that led to 20 research papers on coronaviruses published over the six years, according to the NIH. It’s not clear whether Fauci was personally involved in the grants in any way.

Aside from the Wuhan Institute, those funds also went to research facilities in Shanghai, Beijing, and Singapore. The grants were meant to “support research that aims to understand what factors allow coronaviruses, including close relatives to SARS, to evolve and jump into the human population and cause disease (called a spillover event),” an NIH spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.

“Most emerging human viruses come from wildlife, and these represent a significant threat to public health and biosecurity in the US and globally, as demonstrated by the SARS epidemic of 2002–03, and the current COVID-19 pandemic,” the spokesperson said. “The project includes studying viral diversity in animal (bats) reservoirs, surveying people that live in high-risk communities for evidence of bat-coronavirus infection, and conducting laboratory experiments to analyze and predict which newly discovered viruses pose the greatest threat to human health.”

The grant also wasn’t the first awarded to EcoHealth Alliance. The NIH has been funding infectious disease research projects through the nonprofit since 2005.

But the Daily Mail failed to note that context, as did the Newsmax reporter, who on April 17 asked Trump: "There was also another report [saying] that the NIH under the Obama administration in 2015 gave that lab $3.7 million in a grant. Why would the US give a grant like that to China?”

Newsmax reporter Emerald Robinson did not return a request for comment.

For Joan Donovan, the director of the Technology and Social Change Project at Harvard's Shorenstein Center, the attacks and conspiracies are part of a larger narrative undermining Fauci and his work. “If you don’t trust the scientist, you don’t trust the science,” Donovan said.

And the right-wing media and conspiratorial YouTube channels have used the grants to stoke that distrust.

On April 26, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani called for an investigation of the grant on a New York morning radio show. Falsely and without evidence, the former mayor of New York implied the virus was created as a biological weapon, blaming Fauci and the administration of President Barack Obama.

“China for the last 10 to 12 years has been carrying on these experiments, including in this Wuhan laboratory, with animals, and actually making this virus more dangerous,” Giuliani said on the show. “You could say that’s for scientific purposes, or you could say that’s for the purpose of weaponizing them.”

“'Paid for the Damn Virus That’s Killing Us': Giuliani Rips Fauci Over Grants to Wuhan Laboratory,” said a Washington Examiner headline on April 26, gathering over 150,000 Facebook likes, shares, and comments.

“Anthony Fauci Should Explain '$3.7 Million to the Wuhan Laboratory'” read a headline in the Washington Times on April 27, which received over 165,000 Facebook likes, shares, and comments.

Rep. Matt Gaetz and Newsweek may have also perpetuated the falsely shaded narrative, but the most popular piece of content about the grants came from the Next News Network, a YouTube channel known for circulating baseless claims, including a fabricated story about President Bill Clinton sexually assaulting a teenager. Hosted by commentator and conspiracy theorist Gary Franchi, the channel has over a million subscribers and surpassed a billion views in December, according to Forbes.

On April 19, the Next News Network posted a video about the grants, which has received over 2.3 million views. In it, osteopath Rashid Buttar drew a direct line between the grant, Fauci, and the pandemic. According to YouTube, the video did not violate the social media company's policies.

“Is Fauci directly responsible for this pandemic?” Franchi asked Buttar in the clip.

“I’m going to say this: I’ve seen some petitions going around." Buttar responded. “I think he’s a criminal. He’s going against the law. He’s going against the government.”

Franchi told BuzzFeed News he was asking Buttar "to clarify his belief that Dr. Fauci’s work with coronaviruses has led to the pandemic.”

He added: “The video as a whole revolves around President Trump responding to a reporter that he is investigating the widely reported 3.7 million dollars sent to the Wuhan Lab in 2015 by the NIH to continue coronavirus research after a moratorium was placed on such research in the United States and Dr. Fauci’s involvement with the funding of that research.”

In addition to spreading conspiracy theories about the pandemic, Buttar has a history of action taken against him by medical authorities. In 2010, the North Carolina medical board reprimanded him for, among other complaints, three cancer patients who sought treatment from him and paid for treatment that had “no known value for the treatment of cancer.”

“Buttar has spent years selling skin drops at $150 a bottle as a treatment for diseases ranging from autism to cancer,” WCNC reported at the time.

In 2013, the FDA sent Buttar a warning letter for promoting and distributing unapproved medical products on his websites and YouTube videos.

Buttar did not respond to a request for comment on his statements about Dr. Fauci.

"The medical board and FDA have a responsibility to make sure doctors don't push too close to the edge," he said in an emailed statement to BuzzFeed News. "The regulatory bodies serve an important function and are needed to safeguard the public."

‘An Ivanka idea’: Internet slams ‘White House’ for selling $100 commemorative COVID-19 coins




April 29, 2020 By Matthew Chapman


On Wednesday, The Daily Beast reported that the White House is now selling $100 commemorative COVID-19 coins, emblazoned with phrases such as “World vs The Unseen Enemy” and “Everyday HEROES Suited Up.”

The proceeds will reportedly be donated to hospitals. Nonetheless, the sales pitch did not impress commenters on social media, who slammed the White House for its crassness.

Time to fleece the rubes on unemployment
— Jim reilly (@daddyjimyanks) April 29, 2020

If true… sounds like an Ivanka idea for sure.

— Robin (@Robin7850) April 29, 2020

“Everyday heroes suited up“, in garbage bags cause of no PPE. @realDonaldTrump
— merrie (@merrieinNYC) April 29, 2020


Trump doesn’t know any heroes but he is well acquainted with liars and degenerates
— oflairkjs (@oflairkjs) April 29, 2020


That is sick!!! Can this administration stoop any lower! What a bunch of losers!!!
— Steelers78/90fan (@Steelers7890fan) April 29, 2020


Suzanne, it was designed by graduates of Trump University.
— [linket] (@Linket2) April 29, 2020

New information comes to light on Trump’s business dealings with the Bank of China: Politico

 April 29, 2020 By Alex Henderson, AlterNet



On Friday, April 24, Politico published an article that discussed President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization’s business dealings in Mainland China. Politico journalists Marc Caputo, Meridith McGraw and Anita Kumar originally reported that Trump owed the Bank of China tens of millions of dollars, but Politico later updated the article to include new information. And another Politico article, published on April 27, offers some clarification on the subject.

The original headline for the April 24 piece read, “Trump Owes Tens of Millions to the Bank of China — and the Loan Is Due Soon.” But that headline has since been changed to “Trump Owed Tens of Millions to Bank of China.” Politico changed the headline from present tense to past tense, and the April 27 piece explained why.


“The article cited a nearly $1 billion refinancing deal from several banks, including the Bank of China, struck in 2012 with a New York City real estate venture in which the Trump Organization has a substantial minority interest,” Politico explained on April 27. “We reported that President Trump, through the Trump Organization, owes the Chinese state-owned bank tens of millions of dollars on a loan that comes due in 2022.”

Politico’s April 27 article went on to say, “This assertion, which was referenced in the headline as well as the story, was based on public documents related to the deal as well as property records. We sought comment from the Vornado Realty Trust, the primary investor, which didn’t respond to our request before publication. The White House and the Trump Organization declined to comment on the record after being told what we intended to report.”

But on Friday night, April 24, Politico received a statement from a Bank of China USA representative, who said the bank had sold off or securitized its debt shortly after the 2012 deal discussed in the April 24 article.

According to Politico, “A spokeswoman said the bank has no current financial interest in any Trump Organization properties. We updated the body of the article to take account of the bank’s statement.”

However, the April 24 article — even after the update — still had a sub-headline reading, “The President’s Financial Dealings With the State-Owned Bank Complicate His Attacks on Biden.” Trump has been vehemently critical of former Vice President Joe Biden’s dealings with Mainland China. But Politico’s article, even after the update and new headline, points to the fact that Trump himself has had business dealings with that country — and that attacking Biden over China is hypocrisy

Introduction: Response to the Plague in Early Modern Italy: What the Primary Sources, Printed and Painted, Reveal
 Franco Mormando 
https://www.francomormando.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Mormando-Response-to-Plague.pdf

“Will you believe such things, oh posterity, when we ourselves who see them can scarcely believe them and would consider them dreams except that we perceive them awake and with our eyes open and that after viewing a city full of funerals we return to our homes only to find them empty of our loved ones?” Francesco Petrarca, Rerum familiarum libri, VIII:7, Letter to His “Socrates” on the Black Death 

Plague and Art: The Subject of this Exhibition

The Role of Art in Times of Disaster
Unlike the chroniclers (medical or otherwise) of the period, early modern painters did not
primarily seek to document the gruesome effects of the contagion, its horror and destruction.

This was deemed alien to the nature and purposes of what we now call “fine art.” Rather, during these times of social crisis, the role of plague-related art – whether commissioned by confraternities, communes, or private citizens – was, above all, to be an instrument of healing and encouragement, a mirror and a channel of society’s search for solace and cure from the heavens, that is, from God and the saints. While inevitably reflecting society’s anxieties and sufferings in the face of the unconquerable scourge, art served to remind the viewer of the necessity, availability, and efficacy of the various “celestial cures” at their disposal, thus offering comfort and hope in times of despair. Furthermore, specifically ex-voto works of plague art (e.g., cats. 7, 29, 36) rendered another form of comfort and hope inasmuch as they represented for the faithful effective oblational offerings to God or the saints. Let us note that even those works commissioned by civic authorities are explicitly religious in nature, the products of a society utterly defined by Roman Catholicism.

Drawing from a wide reading of the abundant primary sources, this essay will look at
early modern Italian beliefs surrounding the nature and cause of the plague and examine the varied, pro-active measures recommended by civil, medical, and ecclesiastical authorities in the face of the plague or threat thereof. In contemporary parlance, these measures were called “rimedi” (remedies) and we find them repeatedly described in the most widely disseminated, influential primary sources in print. Plague rimedi fall into two categories: “temporal” or “human” remedies (rimedi temporali, umani), that is, medical-social-political measures taken to contain the epidemic, and “spiritual remedies” (rimedi spirituali), those enunciated and mandated by the Church. 

Among the latter were special prayer, to Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other heavenly intercessors and protectors against plague; confession and public penitential processions; fasting; almsgiving and other acts of charity (the traditional “corporal works of mercy”); and prayerful meditation upon the inevitability and omnipresence of death and the vanity of this world as well as reward and punishments in the next life. All of these rimedi spirituali, in turn, we find depicted or alluded to in many of the plague-related images produced Hope and Healing in the period for, again, such was the role of art in time of plague, to remind viewers of these efficacious ecclesiastical rimedi at their disposal.

Scholarship on the plague has been largely epidemiological or sociological in nature,
focused primarily on temporal remedies, that is, public health measures (quarantine, sanitation, hospitals, law enforcement, etc.) and political-economic consequences of the pandemics.

This in spite of the fact that there was virtual unanimous agreement among early modern
Italians that the only really effective remedies were spiritual. These spiritual remedies have
received far less attention in modern scholarship than they receive in the primary sources,
printed and painted. This essay – and indeed this catalogue and the exhibition – strives to
correct the balance by focusing on the rimedi spirituali considered central in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.

The Apocalypse of Abraham "The Apocalypse of Abraham belongs to a body of Abraham literature flourishing about the time of Christ. "The Book is essentially Jewish," wrote George H. Box, with "features . . . which suggest Essene origin." From the Essenes it passed, he suggested, "to Ebionite circles . . . and thence, in some form, found its way into Gnostic circles," though "Gnostic elements in our Book are not very pronounced." --Dr. Hugh Nibley (Abraham in Egypt)

TRANSLATION #1 Translator unknown

TRANSLATION #2 Translator unknown

http://www.pseudepigrapha.com/pseudepigrapha/Apocalypse_of_Abraham.html

Chapter 29
1. And I said, "Eternal, Mighty One! How long a time is an hour of the age?"	54. And I said, "0 Eternal One! How long are the hours of the age?" And He said, "Twelve hours have I ordained for this present age of ungodliness to rule among the nations and within your seed, and until the end of the times it shall be even as you saw. And now reckon and understand and look again into the picture.
2. And he said, "I decreed to keep twelve periods of the impious age among the heathens and among your seed, and what you have seen will be until the end of
3.(4.) time. Count (it) up, and you will understand. Look down at the picture."
And I looked and saw a man going out from the left, the heathen side. From the side of the heathen went outmen and women and children, a great crowd, and they	55. And I looked and saw a Man going out from the left side of the nations and there went out men and women and children, from the side of nations, many hosts, and worshipped Him. And while I still looked, there came many from the right side, and some of these insulted Him, and some of them even struck Him, but others however worshipped Him. And as I watched, I saw Azazel approach Him and he kissed Him on the face and then stood behind Him.
5. worshipped him. And while I was still looking, those on the right side came out,
6. and some insulted this man, and some struck him and others worshiped him. And I saw that as they worshiped him Azazel ran and worshiped and, kissing his face,
7. he turned and stood behind him.
And I said, "Eternal, Mighty One! Who is this	56. And I said, "0 Eternal One! Who is the Man insulted and beaten, who is worshipped by the nations and kissed by Azazel?" And He answered and said, "Hear Abraham! The Man you saw insulted and beaten and yet worshipped by many, He is the 'Relief' granted by the nations to the people who proceed from you, in the last days, in the twelfth hour of the age of ungodliness. But in the twelfth hour of my final age will I set up this Man from your generation, whom you saw issue from among my people, and all who follow will become like this Man, and such as are called by me will join the others, even those who will to change within themselves. And as for those who emerge from the left side of the picture, the meaning is this - there shall be many from the nations who shall set their hopes upon Him, but as for those whom you saw from your seed on the right of the picture who insulted Him and struck Him, many shall be offended in Him, but some shall worship Him. And He shall test those of your seed who have worshipped Him in the twelfth hour at the end, with a view to shortening the age of ungodliness.
8. man insulted and beaten by the heathen, with Azazel worshiped?" And he answered and said, "Hear, Abraham, the man whom you say insulted and beaten and again worshiped is the liberation from the heathen for the people who will
9. be (born) from you. In the last days, in this twelfth period of the age of my fulfillment, I will set up this man from your tribe, the one
10. whom you have seen from my people. All will imitate him,,,(you) consider
11. him as one called by me...(they) are changed in their counsels. And those you saw coming out from the left side of the picture and worshipping him, this
12. (means that) many of the heathen will trust in him. And those of your seed you saw on the right side, some insulting him, some beating him, and others worshiping
13. him, many of them shall be offended because of him. It is he who will test those of your seed who have worshiped him in the fulfillment of the twelfth hour, in the
14. curtailing of the age of impiety.
Before the age of justice starts to grow, my judgment will come upon the heathen who have acted wickedly through the people	57. Before the age of the righteous begins to grow, my judgment shall come upon the lawless peoples through the-people of your seed who have been separated unto me. And in those -days I will bring upon all creatures of the earth ten plagues, through misfortune and disease and the sighing of their grief. And this shall be brought upon the generations of men on account of the provocation and the corruption of mankind, whereby they provoke me. And then shall righteous men of your seed survive in the number which is kept secret by me, and will hasten the coming of the glory of My Name to that place prepared beforehand for them, which you saw devastated in the picture. And they shall live and be established by sacrifices of righteousness in the age of the righteous, and they shall rejoice in me continually, and receive those who return to me in repentance, for great shall be the inner torment of those who have despitefully used them in this world, as they observe the honour placed upon my own in the day of glory.
15. of your seed who have been set apart for me. In those days I will bring upon all earthly creation ten plagues through evil and disease and the groaning of the
16. bitterness of their souls. Such will I bring upon the generations of those who are on it, out of anger and corruption of their creations with which they provoke me.
17. And then from your seed will be left the righteous men in their number, protected by me, who strive in the glory of my name toward the place prepared beforehand
18. for them which you saw deserted in the picture. And they will live, being affirmed
19. by the sacrifices and the gifts of justice and truth in the age of justice. And they will rejoice forever in me, and they will destroy those who have destroyed them, they will rebuke those who have rebuked them through their mockery, and they
20. will spit in their faces. Those rebuked by me when they are to see me rejoicing
21. with my people for those who rejoice and receive and truly return to me."
See, Abraham, what you have seen, hear what you have heard, know what you have known,. Go to your inheritance! And behold I an with you forever."	58. See, Abraham, what you have seen and hear what you have heard, and take knowledge of all that you have come to know. Go to your heritage, and behold, I am with you unto the age."
Chapter 30
1. And while he was still speaking, I found myself on the earth, and I said, "Eternal, Mighty One, I am no longer in the glory in which I was above, and all	59. But while He was still speaking to me, I found myself once again upon the earth, and I said, "0 Eternal One! I am no longer in the glory which is on high, and there is one matter which my soul longed to know and understand which has not been revealed to me.
2. that my soul desired to understand in my heart I do not understand."
And he said to me, "I will explain to you the things you desired in your heart, for you have sought to know the ten plagues which I prepared against the heathen, and I	60. And He said to me, "What your heart desired I will tell you, because you have sought to see the ten plagues which I have prepared for the godless nations, and which have been pre-determined at the passing over of the twelfth hour of the age of the earth. Hear therefore what I divulge, and so shall it come to pass. The first is the distressing pain of sickness; the second, conflagration of many cities; the third, the destruction and pestilence of animals; the fourth, hunger of the whole world and its people; the fifth, by destruction among its rulers, by earthquake and the sword; the sixth, the multiplication of hail and snow; the seventh, wild bests will be their grave; the eighth, hunger and pestilence will alternate with destruction; the ninth, punishment by the sword and flight in distress; the tenth, thunder and voices and destructive earthquake.
3. prepared them beforehand in the passing of the twelve hours on earth. Hear what
4. I tell you, it will be thus. The first: sorrow from much need. The second: fiery
5. conflagrations for the cities. The third: destruction by pestilence among the cattle.
6. The fourth: famine of the world, of their generation. The fifth: among the rulers, destruction by earthquake and the sword. The sixth: increase of hail and snow.
7. The seventh: wild beasts will be their grave. The eighth: pestilence and hunger
8. will change their destruction. The ninth: execution by the sword and flight in distress. The tenth: thunder, voices, and destroying earthquakes.
Chapter 31
1. "And then I will sound the trumpet out of the air, and I will send my chosen one, having in him one measure of all my power, and he will summon my people,	61. And then I will sound the trumpet out of the air, and will send my Elect One, having in Him all my power in one measure, and He shall summon my despised people from all nations, and I will send fire upon those who have insulted them and who have ruled over them in this age. And I will give those who have covered me with mockery to the scorn of the coming age, and I have prepared them to be food for the fires of Hades, and perpetual flight through the air in the underworld, for they shall see the righteousness of the Creator, and those whom He now honours, and they shall he ashamed, for I had hoped that they would come to me in repentance, rather than loving strange gods, but they forsook the Mighty Lord, and went the way that they willed to go.
2. humiliated by the heathen. And I will burn with fire those who mocked them and ruled over them in this age and I will deliver those who have covered me with
3. mockery over to the scorn of the coming age. Because I have prepared them (to be) food for the fire of Hades, and (to be) ceaseless soaring in the air of the underworld (regions) of the uttermost depths, (to be) the contents of a wormy
4. belly. For the makers will see in them justice, (the makers) who have chosen my desire and manifestly kept my commandments, and they will rejoice with merrymaking over the downfall of the men who remain and who followed after the
5. idols and after their murders. For they shall putrefy in the belly of the crafty
6. worm Azazel, and be burned by the fire of Azazel’s tongue. For I waited so they
7. might come to me, and they did not deign to. And they glorified an alien (god).
8. And they joined one to whom they had not been allotted, and they abandoned the Lord who gave them strength.

The Apocalypse of Abraham.  Translation by Alexander Kulik.  

The translation is based on new readings developed in Alexander Kulik, Retroverting Slavonic Pseudepigrapha (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004 and Leiden: Brill, 2005). Reviews: Andrei Orlov, Review of Biblical Literature 5 (2005); Jaime Vazquez Allegue, Review of Biblical Literature 5 (2005); Basil Lourié, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 15.3 (2006); Darrell Hannah, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28.5 (2006).

      Words added in order to clarify a literal translation are put in square brackets. Although the translation is not accompanied by an apparatus, the elements of the text which do not occur in the version of the Codex Sylvester are enclosed in triangular brackets; this is justified by the significant divergence of this oldest manuscript from other versions. Semitic proper names are presented in their reconstructed original forms: this holds for common biblical names, such as Abraham, Terah, or Michael, as well as for the names which are unique to this document, such as Mar-Umath(a) (CS Marumafa and Marumat, Gk Marumatha or Marumat), Bar-Eshath(a) (CS and Middle Gk Varisat), or rare Azazel (CS and Middle Gk Azazil) and Ya(h)oel (CS and Middle Gk Iaoil). We follow the chapter division established by Bonwetsch and the verse division of the Rubinkiewicz (OTP), with exceptions conditioned by new syntactic divisions.

ii.i.iii. Journey to Horeb (12)

12:1 And we went, the two of us alone together, forty days and nights. 
12:2 And I ate no bread and drank no water, because [my] food was to see the angel who was with me, and his speech with me was my drink. 
12:3 And we came to the glorious God’s mountains—Horeb. 
12:4 And I said to the angel, “Singer of the Eternal One, behold, I have no sacrifice with me, nor do I know a place for an altar on the mountain, so how shall I make the sacrifice?”
 12:5 And he said, “Look behind you.” 
12:6 And I looked behind me. And behold, all the prescribed sacrifices were following us: the calf, the she-goat, the ram, the turtledove, and the pigeon. 
12:7 And the angel said to me, “Abraham!” And I said, “Here am I!” 
12:8 And he said to me, “Slaughter and cut all this, putting together the two halves, one against the other. But do not cut the birds. 
12:9 And give them [halves] to the two men whom I shall show you standing beside you, since they are the altar on the mountain, to offer sacrifice to the Eternal One. 
12:10 The turtledove and the pigeon you will give me, and I shall ascend in order to show to you [the inhabited world] on the wings of two birds, in heaven and on the earth: the sea, and the abysses, and the depths, and the garden of Eden, and its rivers and the fullness of the inhabited world and round about it you will see everything.”

ii.i.iv. Azazel (13–14)

13:1 And I did everything according to the angel’s command. And I gave to the angels who had come to us the divided parts of the animals. And the angel took the two birds. 
13:2 And I waited for [the time of] the evening offering. 
13:3 And an impure bird flew down on the carcasses, and I drove it away. 
13:4 And the impure bird spoke to me and said, “What are you doing, Abraham, on the holy heights, where no one eats or drinks, nor is there upon them food of men. But these will all be consumed by fire and they will burn you up.
 13:5 Leave the man who is with you and flee! Since if you ascend to the height, they will destroy you.” 
13:6 And it came to pass when I saw the bird speaking I said to the angel, “What is this, my lord?” And he said, “This is iniquity, this is Azazel!” 
13:7 And he said to him,  “Reproach is on you, Azazel! Since Abraham’s portion is in heaven, and yours is on earth, 
13:8 Since you have chosen it and desired it to be the dwelling place of your impurity. Therefore the Eternal Lord, the Mighty One, has made you a dweller on earth. 
13:9 And because of you [there is] the wholly-evil spirit of the lie, and because of you [there are] wrath and trials on the generations of impious men. 
13:10 Since the Eternal Mighty God did not send the righteous, in their bodies, to be in your hand, in order to affirm through them the righteous life and the destruction of impiety. 13:11 Hear, adviser! Be shamed by me, since you have been appointed to tempt not to all the righteous! 
13:12 Depart from this man! 
13:13 You cannot deceive him, because he is the enemy of you and of those who follow you and who love what you desire. 
13:14 For behold, the garment which in heaven was formerly yours has been set aside for him, and the corruption which was on him has gone over to you.” 

14:1 And the angel said to me, “Abraham!” And I said, “Here am I, your servant.” 
14:2 And he said, “Know by this that the Eternal One whom you have loved has chosen you. 14:3 Be bold and have power, as I order you, over him who reviles justice, 
14:4 or else I shall not be able to revile him who scattered about the earth the secrets of heaven and who conspired against the Mighty One. 
14:5 Say to him,  ‘May you be the fire brand of the furnace of the earth! Go, Azazel, into the untrodden parts of the earth. 
14:6 Since your inheritance are those who are with you, with men born with the stars and clouds. And their portion is you, and they come into being through your being.
 14:7 And justice is your enmity. Therefore through your own destruction vanish from before me!’” 
14:8 And I said the words as the angel had taught me. 
14:9 And he said, “Abraham!” And I said, “Here am I, your servant!” 
14:10 And the angel said to me, “Answer him not!” 
14:11 And he spoke to me a second time. 
14:12 And the angel said, “Now, whatever he says to you, answer him not, lest his will affect you. 
14:13 Since God gave him the gravity and the will against those who answer him. Answer him not.”
 14:14 And I did what the angel had commanded me. And whatever he said to me about the descent, I answered him not.