It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, August 01, 2020
BYE BYE BOMBARDIER UPDATED
All aboard: EU approves Alstom's purchase of Bombardier rail unit Issued on: 31/07/2020 -
The European Commission gave French engineering giant Alstom the green light to buy Canadian train-maker Bombardier Transport on Friday, a year-and-a-half after blocking a mega-merger with Germany's Siemens. Paris and Berlin were infuriated when Brussels blocked the former plan to build an all European giant but the Canadian tie-up should now go ahead -- with conditions.
Alstom will have to divest itself of some of its plants, but the new entity could still be of a scale to compete with the Chinese world-leader in the sector, CRRC.
"Going forward, a stronger combined Alstom and Bombardier entity will emerge," EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said.
"Thanks to the comprehensive remedies offered to solve the competition concerns ... the Commission has been able to speedily review and approve this transaction." #BREAKING The European Commission said Friday that it had given conditional approval to French engineering giant Alstom buying Canadian train-maker Bombardier Transport pic.twitter.com/1NcaFwxbSH— AFP news agency (@AFP) July 31, 2020 Alstom's chief executive, Henri Poupart-Lafarge, had earlier in the day expressed confidence the decision would go his way this time.
"The dialogue with Brussels has been extremely fluid, extremely rapid since we announced the transaction with Bombardier in February, so five months later we have the decision," he stressed.
"I believe that a dialogue of trust has been established. Is this the consequence of the difficulties of the previous dossier or not? I don't know," he added, referring to the blocked Siemens tie-up. In order to appease Vestager's anti-trust concerns, Alstom gave an undertaking to sell off some of its assets, including a French plant in Reichshoffen in Alsace which employs 780 people.
Before these concessions, the new group would have had a turnover of 15.5 billion euros per year and 76,000 employees. 'Fed and pampered'
Had the European Commission been worried that the project might have hurt competition, it could have launched a more detailed investigation, which would have lasted about four months.
Alstom had notified Brussels in mid-June of the planned acquisition of its competitor Bombardier Transport for six billion euros in a deal to be finalised in the first half of 2021.
The two groups have a virtual monopoly on rolling stock in France, where they work together regularly, as they do on the Paris Metro and RER suburban transport network.
The threat of Chinese competition had already been cited as a reason for Siemens' planned takeover of Alstom, which was blocked by the Commission in February 2019.
But Brussels feared an overly dominant position in Europe in rail signalling and high-speed trains.
The EU should not help to create "fed and pampered" industrial champions, but let competition drive innovation, Vestager had argued.
Alstom had fewer overlapping operations with Bombardier than with the German group, which helped win approval of the deal.
Bombardier's subsidiary Bombardier Transportation is based in Berlin and runs the largest railway plant in France, with 2,000 employees, in Crespin in the north of the country.
Alstom, meanwhile, operates many smaller sites and last year, before the coronavirus crisis, its order book peaked at 40.9 billion euros.
EU approves Alstom buying Bombardier Transport
by Clément Zampa
The Canadian tie-up should now go ahead—with conditions
The European Commission gave French engineering giant Alstom the green light to buy Canadian train-maker Bombardier Transport on Friday, a year-and-a-half after blocking a mega-merger with Germany's Siemens.
Paris and Berlin were infuriated when Brussels blocked the former plan to build an all European giant but the Canadian tie-up should now go ahead—with conditions.
Alstom will have to divest itself of some of its plants, but the new entity could still be of a scale to compete with the Chinese world-leader in the sector, CRRC.
"Going forward, a stronger combined Alstom and Bombardier entity will emerge," EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said.
"Thanks to the comprehensive remedies offered to solve the competition concerns ... the Commission has been able to speedily review and approve this transaction."
Alstom's chief executive, Henri Poupart-Lafarge, had earlier in the day expressed confidence the decision would go his way this time.
"The dialogue with Brussels has been extremely fluid, extremely rapid since we announced the transaction with Bombardier in February, so five months later we have the decision," he stressed.
"I believe that a dialogue of trust has been established. Is this the consequence of the difficulties of the previous dossier or not? I don't know," he added, referring to the blocked Siemens tie-up.
In order to appease Vestager's anti-trust concerns, Alstom gave an undertaking to sell off some of its assets, including a French plant in Reichshoffen in Alsace which employs 780 people.
Before these concessions, the new group would have had a turnover of 15.5 billion euros per year and 76,000 employees.
'Fed and pampered'
Had the European Commission been worried that the project might have had hurt competition, it could have launched a more detailed investigation, which would have lasted about four months.
Alstom had notified Brussels in mid-June of the planned acquisition of its competitor Bombardier Transport for six billion euros in a deal to be finalised in the first half of 2021.
The two groups have a virtual monopoly on rolling stock in France, where they work together regularly, as they do on the Paris Metro and RER suburban transport network.
The threat of Chinese competition had already been cited as a reason for Siemens' planned takeover of Alstom, which was blocked by the Commission in February 2019.
But Brussels feared an overly dominant position in Europe in rail signalling and high-speed trains.
The EU should not help to create "fed and pampered" industrial champions, but let competition drive innovation, Vestager had argued.
Alstom had fewer overlapping operations with Bombardier than with the German group, which helped win approval of the deal.
Bombardier's subsidiary Bombardier Transportation is based in Berlin and runs the largest railway plant in France, with 2,000 employees, in Crespin in the north of the country.
Alstom, meanwhile, operates many smaller sites and last year, before the coronavirus crisis, its order book peaked at 40.9 billion euros.
AIRLINE LAYOFFS LATAM airline to lay off 2,700 crew AUGUST 1, 2020
Latin America's biggest airline, the Brazilian-Chilean group LATAM, said Friday it was laying off at least 2,700 crew to cope with the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the aviation industry. LATAM said it had failed to reach a deal with the aviation workers' union on reducing pay, and would therefore lay off pilots and flight attendants to keep the struggling company afloat.
The layoffs amount to more than a third of the airline's total crew.
"The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest public health crisis in history, and is dramatically affecting the entire world aviation industry," the company said in a statement.
It will offer a voluntary departure plan until Tuesday, then begin laying people off if necessary, it said.
It said crew pay at LATAM was above average for the region, and that "the current crisis has made it more essential than ever" to reduce its wage bill.
The airline filed for bankruptcy in the United States in May, after worldwide stay-at-home measures to contain the virus forced it to reduce its operations by 95 percent.
Spirit Airlines warns of layoffs, ExpressJet's fate in doubt
by David Koenig
Spirit Airlines has warned up to 30% of its employees that they will lose their jobs in October, and regional carrier ExpressJet's future is in doubt after losing a key contract as the virus pandemic continues to hammer the airline industry.
Spirit is the latest airline to deliver layoff warnings to employees, which are required by federal law 60 days before large-scale job cuts.
The budget airline based in Miramar, Florida, said it told unions that about 20% to 30% of its pilots, flight attendants and other groups will be furloughed in October. The airline did not give a number. It had 9,100 employees at the start of the year. Spirit said it hopes to restore the jobs eventually.
Earlier in July, United Airlines issued layoff warnings for 36,000 employees, and it warned pilots this week of possible additional job losses this year and next year. American Airlines notified 25,000 workers that they could be furloughed in October, when billions in federal money to help cover payroll costs expires.
Airlines are slashing costs, getting federal aid and borrowing on private credit markets to survive a downturn in U.S. air travel that hit 95% in April. Hopes for a recovery have dimmed in recent weeks with a resurgence of reported cases of COVID-19 in many states, which ended two months of growth in air travel.
The retrenchment now threatens another small U.S. airline. ExpressJet's survival was in doubt after United dropped its contract with ExpressJet and consolidated its United Express operations under affiliate CommutAir. United spokesman Charles Hobart said the change will take a "number of months."
ExpressJet spokesman Gary Cambre said the airline expects to continue normal operations through the rest of this year. "We will now explore all options for the future of our company in 2021," he said in an emailed statement.
The Regional Airline Association, of which ExpressJet is a member, said the Atlanta-based carrier's announcement "reflects the double-edged sword regional airlines encounter as they navigate the pandemic"—the virus is harming their companies and the major airlines they serve under contracts.
The trade group is lobbying for an extension of the federal aid to help airlines cover their payroll costs, which runs out in October.
"For ExpressJet, it may already be too late," the group said.
Earlier this year, Trans States and Compass airlines shut down after major airline partners reduced regional flights due to the pandemic. Alaska's Ravn Air also stopped flying.
Air Canada takes huge loss amid pandemic travel shutdown
Air Canada is calling on Ottawa to roll back blanket travel restrictions
Air Canada on Friday announced a loss of more than CAN$1.7 billion (US$1.27 billion) in the second quarter due to the "devastating effects" of the coronavirus pandemic.
With travel at a near standstill, the airline'srevenuefell 89 percent in the April-June period, with most flights suspended due to containment measures and border closings imposed to stem thepandemic, Air Canada said in a statement.
The number of passengers fell 96 percent compared to a year ago, forcing Air Canada to cut 20,000 jobs, more than half its workforce, the company said.
"As with many other major airlines worldwide, Air Canada's second quarter results confirm the devastating and unprecedented effects of the COVID-19 pandemic," the airline's chief Calin Rovinescu said.
Revenue plummeted to $527 million, compared to over $4.7 billion in the same period in 2019, when the airline saw net income of $343 million.
In contrast with the shutdown of passenger service, cargo revenue rose 52 percent to $269 million, with the conversion of Boeing 777s and 787s to carry medical equipment to deal with the pandemic.
Citing a "impossible operating environment" after Canada imposed some of the world's "most severe" restrictions, Rovinescu called on Ottawa "to take prudent steps to replace current blanket travel restrictions and quarantines with targeted evidence-based measures that reflect current circumstances."
After taking some painful steps to respond to the unprecedented crisis, he said the airline is looking forward to the "equally unprecedented opportunity to rebuild a smaller but even more nimble airline, with a simplified and younger fleet and a lower cost structure coming out of the crisis."
A significant number of patients reported a deterioration in their hearing when questioned eight weeks after discharge from a hospital admission for COVID-19, according to University of Manchester audiologists, in a study supported by the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Center (BRC).
One hundred and twenty one of the adults admitted to Wythenshawe Hospital, part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, took part in the survey by telephone. When asked about changes to their hearing sixteen people (13.2%) reported their hearing was worse. Eight people reported deterioration in hearing and another eight reported tinnitus (hearing noises that are not caused by an outside source).
The results, published in a letter to the International Journal of Audiology, adds to a growing body of anecdotal evidence that the strain of coronavirus which causes COVID-19, SARS CoV-2, has long-term impacts on health, and possibly hearing.
Professor Kevin Munro, Professor of Audiology at The University of Manchester and NIHR Manchester BRC Hearing Health Theme Lead said: "We already know that viruses such as measles, mumps and meningitis can cause hearing loss and coronaviruses can damage the nerves that carry information to and from the brain. It is possible, in theory, that COVID-19 could cause problems with parts of the auditory system including the middle ear or cochlea. For example, auditory neuropathy, a hearing disorder where the cochlea is functioning but transmission along the auditory nerve to the brain is impaired could be a feature."
People with auditory neuropathy have difficulty hearing when there is background noise, such as in a pub.
A condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome is also linked to auditory neuropathy which is also known to have an association with SARS CoV-2.
However, the researchers say more research is needed to be able to identify why there is an association between the virus and hearing problems.
Their observation follows a rapid systematic review of coronavirus and the audio-vestibular system by Professor Munro's team in June.
The review identified reports of hearing loss and tinnitus, but there were only a small number of studies and the quality of evidence was low.
Professor Munro added: "While we are reasonably confident in the differentiation of pre-existing and recent changes in hearing and tinnitus, we urge caution. It is possible that factors other than COVID-19 may impact on pre-existing hearing loss and tinnitus. These might include stress and anxiety, including the use of face masks that make communication more difficult, medications used to treat COVID-19 that could damage the ear or other factors related to being critically ill. That is why we believe there is an urgent need for high-quality studies to investigate the acute and temporary effects of COVID-19 on hearing and the audiovestibular system. Timely evidence for decision-makers is urgently needed, so we need to be able to act quickly."
The letter, "Self-reported changes in hearing and tinnitus in post-hospitalization COVID-19 cases," is published in the International Journal of Audiology.
A new study shows that moist heat treatment of N95 masks eliminates severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and bacteria, which would allow reuse of these scarce resources. The study is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
The researchers found that moist heat treatment (60 min, 70°C, 50% relative humidity) did not damage the mask's structure or affect function.
"This low-cost reprocessing strategy can be applied 10 times without affecting the mask's filtration, breathing resistance, fit and comfort, and thus may help to alleviate the global shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic," says Dr. Gregory Borschel, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering and Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto, Ontario.
Researchers tested 4 common models of N95 masks at various temperatures and humidity levels to determine whether the virus could be detected on the treated masks. They also analyzed fiber samples for structural integrity and assessed function of the masks after treatment with heat.
"Thermal disinfection of N95 masks may provide a low-cost, effective method for regions with fewer resources to extend their supply of these critical resources, thereby protecting vulnerable front-line workers from job-related risk of infection," says Dr. Borschel.
More information: Simeon C. Daeschler et al. Effect of moist heat reprocessing of N95 respirators on SARS-CoV-2 inactivation and respirator function, Canadian Medical Association Journal (2020). DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.201203
School closures linked to decreased COVID-19 incidence, death
(HealthDay)—School closures in the United States were temporally associated with decreased COVID-19 incidence and mortality, according to a study published online July 29 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Katherine A. Auger, M.D., from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and colleagues examined the association between school closure and its timing with COVID-19 incidence and mortality in a population-based observational study. States were examined based on state-level COVID-19 cumulative incidence per 100,000 residents at the time of closure of schools.
The researchers found that the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 ranged from 0 to 14.75 cases per 100,000 population in states at the time of school closure. There was an association for school closure with a significant decrease in the incidence of COVID-19 and mortality (adjusted relative changes per week, −62 and −58 percent, respectively). In states with a low cumulative incidence of COVID-19 at the time of school closure, these associations were largest. The relative change in incidence was −72 percent versus −49 percent for states with the lowest versus the highest incidence of COVID-19. Closing schools when the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 was in the lowest quartile was associated with 128.7 fewer cases and 1.5 fewer deaths per 100,000 population during 26 days and 16 days, respectively.
"It is unclear how COVID-19 spread would be affected if schools remained open while states enacted other policies to restrict movement," the authors write.
On August 1, 2010, a worldwide ban on cluster bombs went into effect.
U.S. won't stop using cluster bombs by 2019 deadline
By UPI Staff
Airman David Rodriguez (R) prepares cluster bombs aboard the aircraft carrier USS Independence on February 12, 1998. On August 1, 2010, a worldwide ban on cluster bombs went into effect. File Photo by Felix Garza/U.S. Navy | License Photo
U.S. won't stop using cluster bombs by 2019 deadline
OR SELLING THEM
NOV. 30, 2017 French U.N. peacekeepers look for unexploded cluster bombs on the side of the road near the south Lebanese village of Blat on September 29, 2006. The Pentagon on Thursday said it's delaying its plan to stop using cluster bombs by the beginning of 2019. UPI File Photo | License Photo
Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The Pentagon announced Thursday it is postponing plans to end its use of cluster munitions in 2019.
In 2008, the George W. Bush administration had set a timeline in place that the United States would stop using unsafe cluster bombs -- ones that did not meet a standard of failing to detonate 1 percent of the time or less -- by Jan. 1, 2019.
The policy was in reaction to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international treaty signed by more than 100 countries to ban the use, sale or stockpile of the weapon. Cluster bombs face criticism because parts of the weapon can scatter and detonate at a later time, sometimes after years.
The United States didn't sign the treaty but instead instituted the 2019 deadline.
Pentagon spokesman Tom Crossen said the Trump administration determined it won't stop using cluster bombs that meet the failure rate threshold because there are no bombs on the market that meet that standard.
"The Department of Defense has determined that cluster munitions remain a vital military capability in the tougher warfighting environment ahead of us, while still a relatively safe one," he said in a statement.
The Hill reported that though the U.S. military rarely uses cluster munitions, it does sell them to other countries and they could be useful in larger ground wars.
Trump abruptly ends briefing after being pressed over retweeting misinformation
By Kevin Liptak, CNN Updated 8:02 PM ET, Tue July 28, 2020
Trump walks out of briefing after CNN question
(CNN)Even amid an attempt by President Donald Trump's aides to shift his focus back to coronavirus, he continues to hear from a wide range of associates -- including the CEO of a far-right television network -- who are undermining the administration's health experts and questioning their approach to the pandemic, people familiar with the conversations say.
Trump resumed his daily news briefings on Tuesday afternoon, where he again touted advancements on vaccines and treatments for the virus. After largely ignoring the pandemic for weeks and denying its severity, the White House revived the briefings last week to demonstrate presidential leadership.
But the approach has hit early stumbling blocks.
When Trump was pressed by CNN's Kaitlan Collins about his words of support for a doctor who downplayed masks and suggested alien DNA was used in medical treatments, he cut the briefing short and stormed out.
It was a sign that despite the efforts of his aides to recalibrate his approach, his own desire to improve his standing and the pandemic raging throughout the country, Trump is still trapped in some of the self-destructive tendencies that have brought him low.
While the President and Dr. Anthony Fauci are speaking again after going more than a month without meeting, Trump continues to hear from outside allies and even some inside the administration who have offered him competing advice and sometimes bad information, worrying some of his advisers who had once hoped to turn a page in the coronavirus response.
Trump also continues to hear steady criticism of Fauci, who has resumed making television appearances after weeks off the national airwaves -- earning him more irritation from the President, according to the people familiar.
Trump declared his relationship with Fauci is "very good" on Tuesday, but wondered why the doctor's approval rating is so high when his is so low. "He's got this high approval rating. So why don't I have a high approval rating with respect -- and the administration -- with respect to the virus?" the President asked. "We should have it very high." "It can only be my personality, that's all," he concluded. The competing voices spilled into public view when Trump retweeted a message late Monday critical of Fauci that claimed the infectious disease expert had "misled the American public on many issues." Fauci appeared hours later on ABC to say he would continue doing his job, despite the President's attacks. A series of events earlier on Monday illustrated the dueling stream of voices influencing Trump as the outbreak continues to rage across the nation. Midday, Fauci and others gathered in the Oval Office to update Trump on the 30,000-person Phase 3 trial launched by Moderna. Trump later told reporters it was a "great meeting" and participants walked away believing the President was sincere in his efforts to convey more leadership on the outbreak. "We had a lot of our wonderful doctors and researchers with me," Trump said. "I think the meeting went really well." While the meeting focused almost exclusively on the vaccine trial, and not on Trump's response to the virus more broadly, it seemed to participants like the President was engaged -- unlike some previous meetings that became derailed with unrelated topics and complaints. But as the day progressed, Trump heard from several others who reinforced a different message than the one being offered by the administration's health experts. His hawkish trade adviser Peter Navarro -- who recently published an op-ed in USA Today trashing Fauci without running it past the White House but was never formally reprimanded -- traveled alongside Trump to North Carolina, where the President broke with health experts by calling on governors to reopen. "I really do believe a lot of the governors should be opening up states that they're not opening," Trump said, countering the advice being offered by Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx for states to rethink how they are lifting restrictions. The same day, Trump spoke with Robert Herring, the chief executive of far-right OANN, about an unproven anti-malarial that Trump has long touted and even took himself, despite a lack of clear evidence on its efficacy in preventing or treating Covid. "Yesterday, I had a chance to talk to President Trump about hydroxychloroquine," Herring later wrote on Twitter. "I gave him a list of doctors we have interviewed. I know he wants to help & put people back to work. Hope he talks to real doctors & not Dr. 'Farci.' " Trump has cited OANN as a new favorite television channel after becoming frustrated with Fox News' willingness to interview Democrats. The channel, which is not distributed widely, often peddles wild conspiracies and false information. By Monday evening, Trump had taken the hydroxychloroquine message public, retweeting a series of videos that were later removed by Twitter for containing false and misleading information about mask-wearing and the unproven drug. Trump defended the video and the doctor it featured on Tuesday: "There was a woman who was spectacular in her statements about it and she's had tremendous success with it. And they took her voice off," he said. But he seemed to back off when pressed about the statements made in the video itself, including that "you don't need masks" and the doctor's past statements about alien DNA used in medical treatments. "I thought her voice was an important voice, but I know nothing about her," Trump said before abruptly departing the briefing room. Fauci said on ABC he agrees with the Food and Drug Administration that "the overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease." The mild rebuke from Fauci caused some Trump advisers to shake their heads, fearing another round of headlines pitting Trump against the well-respected disease expert. Last week, Trump said Fauci was a "nice guy" in an interview before his interviewer, Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports, said the doctor was "on my ax list because every time he talks and says the country should stay inside, my stocks tank." "Well, he'd like to see it closed up for a couple of years, but that's OK because I'm President, so I say, 'Well, I appreciate your opinion. Now give me another opinion, somebody please,' " Trump responded. Meanwhile, Navarro has sustained his attacks on Fauci, saying he doesn't regret his unsanctioned op-ed and dinging the doctor for his wild first pitch last week at Nationals Park. Asked by reporters at the White House on Tuesday about the continued attacks on Fauci, Navarro stormed away.
This story and headline have been updated with further news developments.
Brazil's Bolsonaro says he has 'mold' in his lungs as his wife tests positive for Covid-19
By Rodrigo Pedroso and Amy Woodyatt, CNN Fri July 31, 2020
Bolsonaro traveling despite complaining of 'mold' in his lungs
Sao Paulo, Brazil (CNN)Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday he felt weak and might have "mold in the lung" having spent weeks in isolation after catching Covid-19. In his first Facebook live video since recovering from Covid-19, Bolsonaro said: "I've just taken a blood exam. I was a bit weak yesterday. They have also found a bit of an infection. I'm taking antibiotics now. It must have been those 20 days inside the house, we catch other things. I've caught mold, mold in my lungs. It must be that."
The President spent nearly 20 days in semi-isolation, after testing positive for the virus on July 7 and on subsequent occasions. On July 25, he announced via Twitter that he had tested negative.
His wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, has also tested positive for Covid-19, according to a statement from the President's press office.
Brazil's first lady Michelle Bolsonaro tested positive for Covid-19, according to an official statement released Thursday.
The first lady, who was last seen in public on Wednesday afternoon when she attended an official event in Brasilia with her husband, "is in good health and will follow all established protocols," the statement said.
"The first lady is being accompanied by the medical team of the Presidency of the Republic," the statement adds.
In his Thursday address, the President also thanked God and hydroxychloroquine for his health.I'm healed from Covid. I have antibodies, no problems. In my particular case, I first thank God, and secondly, the medication prescribed by the presidential doctor: hydroxychloroquine," Bolsonaro said.
"The following day, I was already OK. If it was a coincidence or not, I don't know. But it works," the president added.
Brazil is second only to the United States in numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths. But Bolsonaro has downplayed the virus for months, and often appears in public and at rallies without a face mask, even hugging supporters.
The President made an appearance on horseback Thursday during a visit to Piaui State, where he was greeted by supporters, some of whom were not wearing masks. In a video posted to Bolsonaro's official Facebook page, the President is seen on a horse, given to him as he arrived at Sao Raimundo Notato airport. Bolsonaro initially wore a mask, but removed it while celebrating with supporters.
The visit was intended to improve Bolsonaro´s political relations with regional authorities, and to inaugurate a water system in Campo Alegre de Lourdes, a small town in the northeast state of Bahia, a region known for severe droughts.
Rodrigo Pedroso reported from Sao Paulo, Amy Woodyatt wrote in London.
JULY 31, 2020 Bacterial, fungal coinfection uncommon in COVID-19 patients
(HealthDay)—Bacterial and fungal infections are uncommon in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, but coinfection is associated with high mortality and antibiotic use is widespread, according to a study published in the July issue of Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
Priya Nori, M.D., from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, and colleagues conducted a retrospective observational study of COVID-19 patients admitted between March 1, 2020, and April 18, 2020, to characterize the microbiology of bacterial and fungal coinfections during the pandemic surge.
The researchers identified bacterial or fungal coinfections in 152 of 4,267 COVID-19 patients (3.6 percent); mortality was 57 percent, while 16 percent of patients were discharged and 28 percent were still admitted at the time of analysis. Seventy-four percent of patients received mechanical ventilation. Overall, 91 (60 percent), 82 (54 percent), and 21 (14 percent) patients had positive respiratory cultures, positive blood cultures, and both positive blood and respiratory cultures, respectively. Nine percent of patients (13 patient) had polymicrobial cultures. Seventy-nine percent of patients had antibiotic exposure in the 30 days before positive microbiology. Ninety-eight percent of the study patients received antibiotics at any point during COVID-19 hospitalization; 107 patients (70 percent) received more than three antibiotic classes. Of 5,853 COVID-19 patients admitted between March 1 and May 31, 2020, 71 percent received at least one antibiotic dose.
"The pandemic has highlighted the need for close collaboration between stewardship and infection prevention programs to monitor for nosocomial infections, excess antibiotic use and multidrug resistance," the authors write.
A maze in the Wilson lab at MIT. A rodent must infer that this is a different context than, say, a maze that used different shape cues or one that had an additional arm. A new study suggests they weigh probabilities in doing so. Credit: Peter Goldberg
Among the many things rodents have taught neuroscientists is that in a region called the hippocampus, the brain creates a new map for every unique spatial context—for instance, a different room or maze. But scientists have so far struggled to learn how animals decides when a context is novel enough to merit creating, or at least revising, these mental maps. In a study in eLife, MIT and Harvard researchers propose a new understanding: The process of "remapping" can be mathematically modeled as a feat of probabilistic reasoning by the rodents.
The approach offers scientists a new way to interpret many experiments that depend on measuring remapping to investigate learning and memory. Remapping is integral to that pursuit, because animals (and people) associate learning closely with context, and hippocampal maps indicate which context an animal believes itself to be in.
"People have previously asked 'What changes in the environment cause the hippocampus to create a new map?' but there haven't been any clear answers," said lead author Honi Sanders. "It depends on all sorts of factors, which means that how the animals define context has been shrouded in mystery."
Sanders is a postdoc in the lab of co-author Matthew Wilson, Sherman Fairchild Professor in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the departments of Biology and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He is also a member of the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines. The pair collaborated with Samuel Gershman, a professor of psychology at Harvard on the study.
Fundamentally a problem with remapping that has frequently led labs to report conflicting, confusing, or surprising results, is that scientists cannot simply assure their rats that they have moved from experimental Context A to Context B, or that they are still in Context A, even if some ambient condition, like temperature or odor, has inadvertently changed. It is up to the rat to explore and infer that conditions like the maze shape, or smell, or lighting, or the position of obstacles, and rewards, or the task they must perform, have or have not changed enough to trigger a full or partial remapping.
So rather than trying to understand remapping measurements based on what the experimental design is supposed to induce, Sanders, Wilson and Gershman argue that scientists should predict remapping by mathematically accounting for the rat's reasoning using Bayesian statistics, which quantify the process of starting with an uncertain assumption and then updating it as new information emerges.
"You never experience exactly the same situation twice. The second time is always slightly different," Sanders said. "You need to answer the question: 'Is this difference just the result of normal variation in this context or is this difference actually a different context?' The first time you experience the difference you can't be sure, but after you've experienced the context many times and get a sense of what variation is normal and what variation is not, you can pick up immediately when something is out of line."
The trio call their approach "hidden state inference" because to the animal, the possible change of context is a hidden state that must be inferred.
In the study the authors describe several cases in which hidden state inference can help explain the remapping, or the lack of it, observed in prior studies.
For instance, in many studies it's been difficult to predict how changing some of cues that a rodent navigates by in a maze (e.g. a light or a buzzer) will influence whether it makes a completely new map or partially remaps the current one and by how much. Mostly the data has showed there isn't an obvious "one-to-one" relationship of cue change and remapping. But the new model predicts how as more cues change, a rodent can transition from becoming uncertain about whether an environment is novel (and therefore partially remapping) to becoming sure enough of that to fully remap.
In another, the model offers a new prediction to resolve a remapping ambiguity that has arisen when scientists have incrementally "morphed" the shape of rodent enclosures. Multiple labs, for instance, found different results when they familiarized rats with square and round environments and then tried to measure how and whether they remap when placed in intermediate shapes, such as an octagon. Some labs saw complete remapping while others observed only partial remapping. The new model predicts how that could be true: rats exposed to the intermediate environment after longer training would be more likely to fully remap than those exposed to the intermediate shape earlier in training, because with more experience they would be more sure of their original environments and therefore more certain that the intermediate one was a real change.
The math of the model even includes a variable that can account for differences between individual animals. Sanders is looking at whether rethinking old results in this way could allow researchers to understand why different rodents respond so variably to similar experiments.
Ultimately, Sanders said, he hopes the study will help fellow remapping researchers adopt a new way of thinking about surprising results—by considering the challenge their experiments pose to their subjects.
"Animals are not given direct access to context identities, but have to infer them," he said. "Probabilistic approaches capture the way that uncertainty plays a role when inference occurs. If we correctly characterize the problem the animal is facing, we can make sense of differing results in different situations because the differences should stem from a common cause: the way that hidden state inference works."
"This article isn't so much a scientific paper as a representation of what a moron thinks a scientific paper is."
"You haven't seen the stupidest published SARS-CoV-2 take yet [until you read this]. I PROMISE you."
The reception given to a recently published report claiming 5G transmissions could trigger human cells to create coronavirus has been less than stellar.
A team of researchers published a paper in PubMed, a free biomedical database, that suggested 5G millimeter waves "are similar to shapes of hexagonal and pentagonal bases of their DNA source" that "produce holes in liquids with the nucleus." Their conclusion: "These bases could join to each other and form virus-like structures such as coronavirus."
Despite the impressive-sounding credentials of the group—members of the Guglielmo Marconi University, Central Michigan University and First Moscow State Medical University—the paper drew swift condemnation for its wild conclusions and failure to support any of its research. Elisabeth Bik, a former Stanford science consultant who specializes in science ethics, said that despite the paper's claims, there is nothing in the report that proves them. "It is absolute nonsense," she said.
Bik said the group is known for publishing fantastic and unsupported hypotheses. She cited previous questionable research by the group proposing wild theses such as that the chemical structure of DNA differs between males and females (it doesn't) and that "infecting a pregnant woman with male or female influenza viruses" can determine the gender of a fetus. She termed their latest effort "a wacko hypothesis." An incensed Bik said, "I invite everyone to rip this piece apart, and to urge NCBI [PubMed's parent company] to ban this journal to the far end of predatory territory." Joel Hruska of ExtremeTech says the researchers "blatantly misrepresented the actual bands that mmWave 5G deployments use" and ridiculed the notion asserted by the authors that any radio wave could help a virus colonize the human body. He noted that one of the article's authors recently published a highly questionable paper claiming COVID-19 could be treated with a psoriasis medication based on results from a single asymptomatic patient.
"None of these authors has the standing or authority to speak to the causes of COVID-19, and the fact that this paper has appeared in the PubMed database or been linked by the NIH is evidence of serious methodological flaws in the approval process," Hruska said. "This isn't science. It's what people who don't actually practice the scientific method appear to think it looks like."
After an outpouring of criticism over the article, PubMed removed the controversial report from its database.
The release of such a sham report is troubling, especially now. It serves to fuel a growing movement among "low-information" citizens, a term increasingly used to describe people who cannot distinguish between legitimate news sources and utterly preposterous conspiracy sites populating the fringes of the internet. Such sites cast doubts on legitimate research and established facts, and spread malicious distortions of news events, science and health and create needless fear and doubt.
Furthermore, by littering the global consciousness with yet more phony science, it makes it more challenging for the public to distinguish between propaganda and genuine research highlighting potentially risky developments in an era witnessing rapid growth of low-frequency electromagnetic wave transmission.
5G will usher in a revolution in telecommunications. It promises lightning-fast internet connection speeds—up to 50 times current rates—far broader coverage, lower power consumption and greater integration among smart devices.
But the fact remains that there are no studies confirming the massive network required to set up 5G infrastructure will not affect health. There are currently 200,000 cellular towers supporting 4G LTE communications; 5G may well require millions of towers.
Most current safety regulations governing EMF exposure are based on research from the 1980s. But more than 500 studies since then, according to Scientific American, point to at least possible harmful effects of radiation. None is conclusive, but none completely exonerates RF waves, either.
As Leeka Kheifets, an epidemiology professor at UCLA, told the Los Angeles Times about EMF, "I don't think it's clear that there are health risks, but it's also not clear that there are no health risks."
The International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2011 declared radio frequency radiation a possible human carcinogen. Scientific American last fall called for a moratorium on 5G deployment and funding for more thorough research. And a group of 250 scientists recently urged the United Nations and World Health Organization to issue tougher guidelines on EMF to protect consumers' health.
We have sadly learned that the institutions responsible for products once deemed safe but later found to be harmful are not usually the ones to raise the first alarms. Cigarettes, food dyes, preservatives, pharmaceuticals, fracking operations, pesticides—it was only through diligent scientific probing and publicity by public interest groups that risks posed by products once deemed safe were ultimately exposed and the products or activity banned, modified or restricted.
The reckless publication of an absurd study serves to remind that wild claims of danger must be treated with reasoned skepticism, but so must unsupported assurances of benefits and safety by those who stand to profit from new, untested technologies.
