Melting ice in Antarctica reveals new uncharted island

Researchers are calling it Sif Island, after a Norse goddess of the Earth.

The rocky coast of Sif Island peeks out under a mound of Antarctic ice.
(Image: © Gui Bortolotto)

Pointing toward South America like an icy finger, the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth. The peninsula's two major glaciers — the Thwaites Glacier and the Pine Island Glacier — are retreating toward the mainland faster than new ice can form, chipping away at the continent's coasts a little more each year.

This week, all that melting ice left behind a surprise that could change maps of the region permanently: an uncharted island, long buried in ice but finally visible above sea level for the first time.

Researchers with the international Thwaites Glacier Offshore Research project discovered the island earlier this week while sailing off the coast of the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf. The small island is only about 1,150 feet long (350 meters) and mostly covered in ice, but rises from the sea with a layer of brown rock distinct from the surrounding glaciers and icebergs.

After making a brief landfall, the researchers confirmed that the island is made of volcanic granite, and even hosts a few resident seals. According to expedition member James Marschalek, a doctoral student at Imperial College London, there is no other rocky outcropping like this visible for more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) in any direction.

Related: Scientists in Antarctica are racing to figure out why this giant glacier is melting so fast

The researchers tentatively named the uncharted outcropping Sif Island, after a Norse goddess associated with Earth.

Exciting as the discovery is, the island's sudden appearance is almost certainly a direct effect of the widespread glacial melt that has become typical in Antarctica in the past decade, Sarah Slack, a member of the expedition and middle school science teacher in Brooklyn, New York, wrote in a blog post.

"At first, we thought maybe an iceberg had become lodged on the outcropping years ago and then melted enough to expose the underlying rock," Slack wrote on Feb. 26. "But now we think that the ice on the island was once part of the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf, a massive field of floating ice that extends outward into the ocean from the edge of the glacier."

Looks like ice retreated from the new "Sif Island" near #ThwaitesGlacier, #Antarctica since the early 2010s, based on a quick look at @googleearth timelapse.@ThwaitesGlacier @GlacierThwaites @rdlarter https://t.co/mt1E0QBEkk pic.twitter.com/UQr1phpukL

February 24, 2020


Using satellite images from Google Earth, expedition member Peter Neff made a time-lapse model showing how the ice shelf's steady retreat since 2011 left Sif Island detached and alone in Pine Island Bay. From above, the dollop of ice looks like just another lonely iceberg. Now that its island status has been confirmed, further study of Sif could reveal how the region's rocky underbelly will continue responding to climate change.

It's likely that the island emerged due to a process called glacial rebound, Lindsay Prothro, a glacial geologist at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi who was not involved with the expedition, told Nature.com. When glacial ice melts, it relieves pressure on the underlying continent; in response, the continent may "rebound," or rise up higher than it previously was. It's unclear whether rebound hastens or slows the rate at which ice shelves break apart — hopefully, further study of Sif Island could provide some clues.

The team's expedition is due to end on March 25. After that, a full analysis of Sif Island rock samples can commence. 

Originally published on Live Science.

HOW TO WASH YOUR HANDS IN SPACE, EH

Why do we use soap?
By Kimberly Hickok - Reference Editor Live Science
Reference article: Facts about soap and the importance of washing your hands.

Wash your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds for maximum protection against germs.
(Image: © Hand washing via Shutterstock)

Did you wash your hands? Did you use soap? 

Children everywhere are grossly familiar with those questions, but it's for a good reason: Washing with soap is essential for preventing the spread of germs that make us sick.
Germs, or microbes, are everywhere. Literally, everywhere. In the air, soil, water and on every surface, including your body. Most microbes are harmless and some are important for human health, like the ones that live in our gut. But there are several germs that cause problems, and these are the ones we prefer not to have on or in our bodies. Our first line of defense against those harmful germs is soap.

What is soap?

Soap is a mixture of fat or oil, water, and an alkali, or basic salt.
The ancient Babylonians are credited with being the first people to make soap. Their recipe for animal fats, wood ash and water has been found carved into clay containers dating back to 2800 B.C., according to soaphistory.net. They likely used the concoction for washing wool and cotton so the materials could be woven into cloth and not so much for cleaning their bodies. 

The ancient Egyptians developed a similar recipe for soap, which they used for treating sores, skin diseases and personal washing. The Romans also made soap, but it wasn't until the later centuries of the Roman era that soap was used for personal hygiene; prior to that, soap was a physician's tool for treating diseases. 

The basic recipe for soap hasn't changed for thousands of years. It's still a combination of fat or oils with an alkali — basic ionic salt — and water. When those ingredients combine in the proper proportions, they go through a chemical process called saponification, which results in soap. Today, there are two techniques that people use to make soap: the cold process and the hot process. 

In the cold process, a room-temperature lye solution (sodium hydroxide in water) is mixed with animal or vegetable oil. As the ingredients react with one another, the mixture thickens and heats up. Before it gets too thick, the mixture is poured into a mold where it solidifies, and the saponification process is complete. The last step is to let the soap sit, or cure for a few weeks, which allows excess water in the mixture to evaporate. This makes a harder soap, according to the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetic Guild. 

The hot process is the more traditional and ancient way to make soap and requires an outside source of heat. The ingredients are heated as they're mixed, which increases the speed of the saponification process. The soap is in a liquid form when it's poured into molds and it's ready for use as soon as it's solidified. Hot-process soap can be cured in a way that's similar to the cold-process soap, but it's not usually needed, according to the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetic Guild.


How soap works

Soap doesn't kill germs on our hands, it removes them. 

Germs stick to the oils and grease on our hands (sounds yucky, but it's totally normal). Water alone won't remove much of the germs on our hands because water and oil don't like each other, so they won't mix. But soap likes both water and oil. That's because soap molecules are a type of surfactant, which means they have one end that's water loving, or hydrophilic, and one end that's oil loving, or hydrophobic.

When you wash your hands with soap, the soap molecules act as a mediator between the water and oil molecules, and bind with both of them at the same time. Then when you rinse everything off, the soap carries away the germs with the water.

For the most effective hand washing, you must use soap and you must be thorough. Work up a lather because the friction helps lift dirt and oils from your skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). How long you should scrub depends on how dirty your hands are, but most health authorities recommend at least 20 seconds, or as long as it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" twice. And don't forget to scrape underneath your fingernails. That area is prime real estate for germs.

Once you've washed, be sure to air-dry or towel-dry. There's no agreed-upon best practice for drying, but wet hands are more likely to spread germs than dry ones, the CDC says.

Is antibacterial soap even better? Nope.

Antibacterial soaps have added ingredients like triclosan or triclocarban, which are hydrophobic molecules that can penetrate bacterial cell membranes and kill the bacteria. Sounds impressive, but studies have shown that antibacterial soaps are no more effective than regular soaps at removing bacteria. 

In 2016, the FDA issued a rule that antibacterial soaps were no longer allowed to be marketed to the public.

"Consumers may think antibacterial washes are more effective at preventing the spread of germs, but we have no scientific evidence that they are any better than plain soap and water," Dr. Janet Woodcock, the director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), said in a statement. "In fact, some data suggests that antibacterial ingredients may do more harm than good over the long term."

What about hand sanitizer?

The CDC recommends cleaning hands with soap and water, but if that's not an option, then hand sanitizer is a good backup. Studies have found that hand sanitizers with alcohol concentrations of 60-95% are more effective at killing germs than nonalcohol or low-alcohol sanitizers.

Related: Hand sanitizer sold out? Here's how to make your own.
The alcohol kills some bacteria and viruses by breaking down their protective membranes, which basically makes them fall apart. But it doesn't work for all germs, such as norovirus, Clostridium difficile, which can cause life-threatening diarrhea, or Cryptosporidium, a parasite that causes a diarrheal disease called cryptosporidiosis, the CDC says. Hand sanitizers also likely don't remove harmful chemicals like pesticides or heavy metals, nor does hand sanitizer work well on super dirty or greasy hands.

Hand washing with soap is, by far, the most effective way to keep harmful germs at bay.
Additional resources:
Hand washing do's and don'ts, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Learn more about the importance of hand washing from the CDC.
Here's a video showing how to hand wash, from the World Health Organization.

Banks’ coronavirus plans won’t work, say experts
For trading floors, working from home creates myriad problems

 

Getty Images

By Paul Clarke March 9, 2020

Investment banks have rushed to implement plans to protect their workforce from the coronavirus outbreak. The bad news: they won’t work.

Financial News spoke to eight epidemic and medical experts who all agreed that banks’ disaster-recovery plans would not prevent a spread of Covid-19 in the financial sector.

“The short answer is almost undoubtedly no, they [banks] are not adequately prepared,” said Jonathan D Quick, adjunct professor of global health at Duke University and author of The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It, adding that financial services organisations have not briefed their employees well enough.

“It’s like the coach chalking a play on the board, letting the team look at it for a moment, ending the ‘preparation’ with a hearty ‘play ball’,” he said.


Last week, FN revealed the first case of coronavirus at a large financial institution in the UK as an HSBC employee tested positive for the respiratory illness. The bank evacuated 100 staff from its UK headquarters in Canary Wharf and contacted clients the senior research analyst had recently visited.

On the same day, 1,200 workers at S&P Global, the rating agency, were sent home after the affected HSBC analyst reportedly visited its London office. A Deloitte employee working in the City was also diagnosed with the virus last week.

Many banks in London have pulled the trigger on their disaster-recovery plans, which involve splitting their trading teams across multiple sites in a bid to reduce the risk of transmission. Unlike other parts of the business, where employees can easily work remotely, regulatory, compliance and technological restrictions mean banks have opted to keep trading floors open.

“Are we doing enough? Maybe not, but our business continuity guys have never been busier,” said one senior trader.

“These measures are reactive and not really adequate for the long term. In the short run they may prove minimally effective,” said Geary Sikich, author of Protecting Your Business in a Pandemic.

JPMorgan has split its trading floors in both the US and UK, moving some of its London-based staff to its disaster-recovery office in Basingstoke.

Citi has moved 10% of its Canary Wharf-based trading team to its back-up office in Lewisham. However, sources within the trading division told FN that up to half of some teams have been shifted. Citi’s ambition is to have a third of trading staff in its London headquarters, and the remaining employees between its recovery site and working from home. The teams will rotate across the locations.

Goldman Sachs moved around 200 employees to its recovery site in Croydon, south London as a test on 5 March, but has yet to shift traders permanently. Morgan Stanley has switched trading staff to its contingency office in Hounslow, near Heathrow Airport, but this is not a formal activation of its plan, according to a person familiar with the matter.

David Hesketh, a former Merrill Lynch trader and founder of TradingHub, a fintech firm that works with investment banks on market-abuse detection, said: “It’s not unprecedented for them to have people working in these disaster-recovery sites, because they need to test them regularly. However, having groups of people working on them because there’s a threat they’re trying to mitigate is something we haven’t seen since 9/11.”

However, Dr Simon Clarke, an expert in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said banks’ contingency plans were a “sub-optimal solution”. “Reducing the density of workers in one place reduces, but by no means eliminates, the chance of transmission,” he said. “Fewer people is less of a problem, but they still have to travel and commute to these locations. In an ideal world, they would stay close to the office to reduce their chances of exposing themselves outside of work.”

Medical experts admitted there was little more banks could do to prevent the virus spreading, beyond isolating their employees.

For trading floors, however, working from home creates myriad problems. Aside from equipping traders with their usual set-up of ultra-fast broadband and multiple computer screens, banks ban personal mobile phones on the trading floor and require all calls to be recorded – rules that are difficult to enforce from a home office.

The Financial Conduct Authority has remained steadfast in its requirements for traders to work remotely, which traders acknowledge are difficult to meet. In a 4 March statement, the regulator said banks need to “use recorded lines when trading and give staff access to the compliance support they need”.

“If firms are able to meet these standards and undertake these activities from back-up sites or with staff working from home, we have no objection to this,” it added.

Mike Hampson, chief executive of consultancy Bishopsgate Financial, said: “The current coronavirus outbreak is highlighting exactly why the FCA has been pushing for all institutions to demonstrate their operational resilience in the face of extreme and possibly unforeseen circumstances.”

Clarke added that financial services organisations are ultimately limited in what actions they can take to prevent the spread of the virus. “The fact is, there is only so far you can limit people’s movements to reduce risk. We don’t live in an authoritarian state.”

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FDA commissioner: CDC coronavirus tests have been used for 1,583 patients

March 8, 2020 By Jaimy Lee
 

Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Saturday that the government has shipped enough kits to test approximately 75,000 people for COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has sickened more than 400 people and killed 19 in the U.S.

COVID-19, which was first detected in December in Wuhan, China, has since spread to more than 90 countries and has led to infections in more than 107,000 people worldwide and at least 3,600 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering’s Centers for Systems Science and Engineering.

In remarks made on Saturday at a White House press briefing, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn acknowledged some of the problems with the test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“There were manufacturing problems with the CDC test,” Hahn said. “While those issues have been resolved, at the time, this created complications for expanding access for public health laboratories and other developers who might use the CDC test as the basis for development of their own test.”

The administration has been criticized for the botched rollout of the tests. There have been a number of problems with the tests, including an issue with the third component of the test kit, which required public health laboratories to send the test to the CDC in Atlanta for final confirmation, as well as questions about the availability of the test, particularly in states with growing clusters of infections like Washington state.

“I believe the CDC was caught flat-footed,” New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday. “I believe they’re slow in their response, and I believe they’re slowing down the state.”

Hahn said that the CDC kits have been used in the U.S. to test 1,583 patients, which is three times as many people who had been tested by Feb. 29, but still far below the number of people who have been tested in countries like South Korea, which has tested more than 180,000 people.

He also said that 1.1 million tests manufactured by Integrated DNA Technologies, a Skokie, Ill.,-based company that was acquired by Danaher Corp. DHR, -0.69% in 2018, had been shipped to nonpublic health labs on Friday. “IDT and other manufacturers believe they can scale up production so that by the end of next week, an additional 4 million tests could be shipped,” Hahn said.

Separately, a number of commercial diagnostics company have said they will develop COVID-19 tests, including Laboratory Corporation of America LH, -3.91% and Quest Diagnostics Inc. DGX, -3.16%, which both announced plans on Thursday to do so. LabCorp’s stock is up 6% year-to-date, while shares of Quest have gained 4%. The S&P 500 SPX, -1.70% is down 8% year-to-date.

The US government has completed fewer than 6,000 coronavirus tests as more states report new cases and deaths

Business Insider•March 7, 2020

Coronavirus test kits in Krasnodar, Russia, on February 4, 2020.

AP Photo

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tested fewer than 6,000 potential coronavirus cases so far.

The figure came from FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Saturday, who last week promised there would be 1 million test kits available by the end of the week.

The US was unable to meet that goal, though Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday the nation will produce some 1.2 million kits by next week.
The US has struggled with its coronavirus response, in part due to an issue with CDC-issued test kits that ended up requiring states to send the CDC all cases for testing.

Officials expect the number of tests completed to rise substantially over the next week.

The United States government has conducted 5,861 tests for the novel coronavirus as of Friday at 6 p.m., US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on Saturday at an off-camera press briefing, CNN reported.

The report comes amid a rise in US cases as the virus continues to spread across the country. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency in his state after announcing 21 new cases on Saturday, joining a handful of other states that have declared public emergencies as a result of people testing positive for COVID-19.

There have been at least 19 deaths in the US from the virus that has killed nearly 3,500 globally so far. Most fatalities have occurred in China.

As CNN reported, the number does not mean 5,861 people have been tested for the virus, as those who are tested for typically have two swabs taken and tested: one nose swab and one throat swab. The number also does not account for tests at private labs.

Saturday marked the first time the US government released official numbers on coronavirus tests.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducts coronavirus testing, has faced backlash over its handling of US cases. While other countries affected by outbreaks of the virus, which is believed to have originated in China at the end of last year, have tested millions of patients for potential coronavirus, the US has tested just thousands, according to a report from MIT Technology Review.

Part of the issue, the report said, is faulty COVID-19 testing kits issued to states by the CDC in early February. The kits were found to have "faulty negative controls," meaning the results of some test kits were inaccurate, and states had to continue sending test samples to the CDC for testing.

FDA policy prohibited states and private entities from developing their own test kits, meaning they only had access to the faulty FDA kits. The agency lifted that regulation on February 29, allowing states and commercial labs to create their own coronavirus testing kits.

As Business Insider previously reported, Vice President Mike Pence — the Trump-appointed head of the US coronavirus task force — admitted that the country was not able to meet up with the demand for the test kits.

The FDA commissioner had promised March 2 that the US would have 1 million test kits available by the end of the week, though Pence said the country failed to meet such a promise.

"We don't have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward," the vice president said Thursday, telling the BBC that the new goal would be met next week and had been increased to 1.2 million testing kits.

The CDC on March 4 broadened its criteria for testing, allowing more individuals exhibiting symptoms of the disease to be tested.

Read more:
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declares a state of emergency and confirms 76 cases of coronavirus in the state

The number of coronavirus cases outside China could jump tenfold every 19 days without 'strong intervention,' a study says

JIM BAKKER RELIGIOUS FAKIR IS BAAAACK
Televangelist ordered by New York attorney general to stop promoting ‘cure’ for coronavirus

SNAKE OIL SALESMAN

Danielle Zoellner, The Independent•March 8, 2020

Wikimedia Commons

A Christian televangelist has been ordered by New York's attorney general to stop promoting a "cure" for the coronavirus to the public.

The cease-and-desist letter was sent to the Jim Bakker Show after it had naturopathic doctor Sherrill Sellman as a guest on 12 February.

During the show, the doctor was asked if her $125 "Silver Solution" sold online would work against the coronavirus.

"Let's say it hasn't been tested on this strain of the coronavirus," Ms Sellman said, "but it's been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours."

Mr Bakker went on to promote the Silver Solution on his own website.

Lisa Landau, the chief of the state Attorney General's Health Care Bureau, sent the cease-and-desist letter on 3 March, giving Mr Bakker 10 days to comply or potentially face a $5,000 fine per violation.

"Your show's segment may mislead consumers as to the effectiveness of the Silver Solution product in protecting against the current outbreak," Ms Landau wrote.

"Therefore, any representation on the Jim Bakker Show that its Silver Solution products are effective at combating and/or treating the 2019 novel coronavirus violates New York law," she added.

The World Health Organisation says there is no FDA-approved drug or vaccine currently on the market to help treat or prevent the coronavirus for patients. Researchers are working on a vaccine, but it isn't anticipated for public use for another 18 months to two years at the earliest.

In a statement, Attorney General Letitia James warned the public against believing advertising for products that claim they provide protection against the virus.

"As we experience more cases of coronavirus, it is imperative that New Yorkers remain calm, but stay vigilant," she said.

"In addition to being mindful about our health, we must also beware of unscrupulous actors who attempt to take advantage of this fear and anxiety to scam or deceive consumers. I encourage anyone who believes they are the victim of a scam or predatory action to contact my office and file a complaint," she added.

The televangelist was previously convicted of fraud and served five years in federal prison after his illicit fundraising activities connected with his show Praise The Lord Club.

New York cracking down on false advertising relating to the coronavirus comes after the state declared a state of emergency on Saturday. Positive cases of the coronavirus continue to rise, and Governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed on Sunday there were 105 cases in the state.

Televangelist Jim Bakker Ordered By Attorney General To Stop Selling Fake Cure For Coronavirus

Whatever televangelist Jim Bakker is selling, the New York Attorney General ain’t buying.

Lisa Landau, Chief of the Health Care Bureau, gave The Jim Bakker Show 10 days to comply with a cease-and-desist letter that tells him to stop touting an alleged cure for the coronavirus. The letter was sent Thursday to Bakker’s office and cited a Feb. 12 episode of his show that claimed a Silver Solution sold on his website would be a preventative against the coronavirus.

John Oliver covered the claims on his HBO Last Week Tonight show (see video below at the 17-minute mark).

Bakker was previously convicted of fraud and served time in federal prison related to his activities connected to his popular Praise The Lord (PTL) Club show, a religious version of mainstream talk shows featuring Jim and wife Tammy Faye Bakker. The couple later divorced in 1992 in the wake of a scandal that saw Bakker pay hush money to cover up an affair with church secretary Jessica Hahn. But at one point in the 1980s, he was arguably the most prominent televangelist in America.

He now has a new show and a new wife.

On the Feb. 12 show in question, Bakker asked guest Sherill Sellman if the solution she was talking about would work against the coronavirus.

“Let’s say it hasn’t been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it’s been rested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours,” she replied.

“The World Heath Organization (‘WHO’) has noted that there is no specific medicine to prevent or treat this disease,” Landau said in her letter to Bakker. “Therefore, any representation on the Jim Bakker Show that its Silver Solution products are effective at combating and/or treating the 2019 novel coronavirus violates New York law.”

Landau also said a disclaimer had to be listed on the website denying any claims on its efficacy. “These statement have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease,” the disclaimer reads.

The Silver Solution products were on sale for more than $125.

Watch a segment from Bakker’s new show above. The John Oliver show that revealed the scandal is below.

Here's our piece from last night on coronavirus:https://t.co/gpIkmJy5Uz

— Last Week Tonight (@LastWeekTonight) March 2, 2020

Disney/Pixar’s ‘Onward’ Banned In Multiple Middle East Countries Due To Lesbian Reference

By Andreas Wiseman March 6, 2020 

Disney


EXCLUSIVE: Disney/Pixar’s family film Onward has been banned in multiple Middle East markets due to the film’s minor reference to a lesbian relationship.

In the movie, about two teenage elf brothers in a mythical world who embark on a quest for magic, there is a passing reference to an LGBTQ relationship between two secondary characters.

In the scene, the two lead characters, voiced by Chris Pratt and Tom Holland, are disguised as their mother’s centaur boyfriend, Officer Bronco, and get into a conversation about parenting with two female police officers. The purple cyclops officer named Specter, voiced by Lena Waithe, commiserates with Officer Bronco and says. “It’s not easy being a new parent – my girlfriend’s daughter got me pulling my hair out, okay?”

Waithe’s character has been heralded as Disney’s first openly gay character.

But the reference hasn’t gone down well with censors in some countries, sources have confirmed. Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have all banned the film due to the reference. The film, released regionally this week, is nowhere to be seen on cinema schedules in those territories. Other Middle East markets such as Bahrain, Lebanon and Egypt are showing the film.

Russia, another territory with recent history for banning or censoring LGBT content, censored the Onward scene by changing the word “girlfriend” to “partner” and the local version avoids mentioning Specter’s gender.

Russia last year censored scenes in Rocketman and Avengers: Endgame due to LGBT references. In 2017, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was banned in markets including Kuwait and Malysia due to an LGBT “moment.” Russia slapped the film with a 16+ rating.

We have reached out to Disney and Disney’s MENA distributor Italia Film for comment.

Onward kicked off its North American theatrical run Thursday night making $2 million in previews.

‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ Continues To Spotlight Trump’s Coronavirus Incompetence; Addresses Show’s Censorship In India

Dino-Ray Ramos, Deadline•March 8, 2020


Click here to read the full article.

John Oliver had a lot to unpack Sunday night on Last Week Tonight and he started with the hottest topic that has been invading the world and headlines: coronavirus…or how Oliver puts it, “How the common cold describes itself on its resume.”

Specifically, he wasted no time in dragging Donald Trump and his administration in how poorly they have been handling the outbreak as cases continue to rise. In one clip, he showed Trump talking during a press conference saying that a vaccine will be ready in a couple of months. Immediately after, a medical professional contradicted him saying that it could be a year to a year and a half for a vaccine to be deployed.

“Now it seems that with every Trump press conference has to come an epilogue from an expert clarifying everything he just got wrong,” Oliver remarks.

Not only has the Trump administration been giving bad information, but they have been giving no information at all. At another press conference, Mike Pence claimed that insurance will cover testing for coronavirus. Soon after, a member of the press asked if testing will be available for the uninsured — a question that Pence, who clearly heard the question, ignored while walking away from the podium.

Oliver then showed clips of Trump’s visit to the CDC where he called Washington Governor Jay Inslee a snake, asked if his Town Hall got good ratings on Fox News and said that anybody can get tested for coronavirus, calling the tests “beautiful”.

“What he just said is flagrantly untrue,” Oliver pointed out. “There are currently not enough available tests. You can’t just state something as a fact and wish it were true.” That said, he added that it’s clear that it’s a huge priority for Trump to manage expectations rather than giving facts.

Oliver than shifted to India’s reaction to a past story that Last Week Tonight did on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They criticized his policies ahead of Trump’s visit to the country. The criticism of Modi got backlash from journalist Arnab Goswami who Oliver referred to as the “Tucker Carlson of India”.

Goswami called Oliver an “ignoramus of global proportions” and said he was “not smart enough to be a satirist”. He added that Oliver is a third-rate TV host and said that he embarrasses himself.

“I’ll give you ignoramus i’ll even give you third-rate tv host my researchers assure me that’s an actual compliment — but I embarrass myself? Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?!” Oliver retaliated.

He went on to talk about all the embarrassing things he has done on and for the show including a very awkward school pic of himself he has used to promote the current season — which is on a billboard in Times Square. “I am beyond capacity for shame. You can’t hurt me!” Oliver exclaimed.

However, viewers alerted Oliver to let him know that the episode in question did not air India. Hotstar, the streaming service that broadcasts Last Week Tonight in the country never uploaded that episode which, to Oliver, means they have self-censored. However, this is not the first time they have done this — but it’s not exactly the censorship we’d think.

In an episode about the U.S. Census, Hotstar cut out a joke about Mickey Mouse being a cocaine addict and they also cut a joke that featured Donald Duck with a corkscrew-shaped penis. Turns out that Hotstar is owned by Disney and they could very well be sensitive to jokes about the Mouse House.

To this, Oliver snarked, “If you think you that you have to remove anything that reflects poorly on Disney from this show I have some bad news for you my friends — I’m fucking Zazu right here. Everything that comes out of this beak is a Disney fact.”

Of course, he is referring to his role in the recent live-action reimagining of The Lion King where he played the aforementioned winged character. He began to lean into these hilariously inappropriate Disney-centric jokes saying that Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast collects Nazi memorabilia. He said that Hotstar can learn more about these “Disney facts” on the show. Oliver assured, “They are going to be sliding into our stories like Chip and Dale slid into Richard Gere!”

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CRY ME A RIVER

OPINION (FROM THE RIGHT)

In Pennsylvania, natural gas industry prepares for battle

“There are true liberals who believe in individual rights,” he said. "But then, there's this extremist leftist elite whose common trait is that they are anti-capitalist, anti-middle class, anti-individual, and frankly, anti-American."

by Salena Zito| WASHINGTON EXAMINER, March 07, 2020

CANONSBURG, Pennsylvania — After years of ideologues and elites using the natural gas industry as a punching bag for politics and climate change activism, Nick DeIuliis, the CEO of CNX Resources, one of the largest natural gas producers in Western Pennsylvania, has had enough.

In remarks at a Rotary Club speech at the storied William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh last week, the blue-collar man who earned degrees in engineering and law, and his job at the top, decided to speak out to defend an industry that has become a regional economic game-changer.

“Natural gas and manufacturing have been demonized and ridiculed on a consistent and regular basis by a cabal of misguided, insulated elites,” DeIuliis stated in his speech in front of 80 of the region’s top business and professional leaders.

The usually reserved DeIuliis said in an interview with the Washington Examiner after the event that he had decided to speak out because he was tired of the natural gas and manufacturing industries being held to a completely different standard than other industries, tired of being used a political wedge issue, and tired of the people working with him being portrayed as the enemy of the well-being of our climate.

It is a stand in this lead-up to the presidential contest in the fall that a variety of local Democrats and Republicans will consider a blueprint for how to stand up to elites.

In the speech, the well-respected business leader took umbrage with how the mayor of Pittsburgh, William Peduto, has used the industry as a personal weapon. He was referring to Peduto’s speech last fall to environmental groups, in which he advocated a ban on further petrochemical development in the region.

DeIuliis also took aim at some of the public pension managers and foundations that are divesting their fossil fuel investments, as well as tech giants who, on the one hand, say they are doing this to save the climate even as they help China — far and away the world's largest carbon polluter — silence its pro-democracy youth.

“It is an inconsistent standard: Either they are going to divest of all Chinese companies in their portfolio and fossil fuels or they are going to divest of neither," he said. "You can't be holding an industry or a company that you know today is doing harm to you or to your fiduciaries, your retirees, your university, or your endowment when you're then turning around and saying, ‘But on this one (natural gas), we need to divest immediately, because 20 years from now, there could be a problem, although I can't quantify it today.’”

"I care about the company," he said. "I care about my team, my fellow employees, and I care about the industry. But I'm also approaching what I'm doing here as a long-standing member of a regional community that I care a lot about and I dearly love."

As a science and logic guy who is increasingly going up against dogma and ideology, DeIuliis said he has to go against his shy nature and speak out for his industry that has been widely slandered and misunderstood.
“Natural gas has not just been a massive success for the region, it has been a massive success for our country and the world," he said. "I want to set the story straight on what's occurring with this industry. It is disruptive technology; not since Jonas Salk has this region been able to deliver as positive of a step change to society as what it's been able to do with natural gas."

Pennsylvania is now the second-biggest state producer of natural gas (after Texas), having gone from producing almost no shale gas at all in 2007 to more than 6 trillion cubic feet in 2016. Oil and gas supported an estimated 323,000 jobs in Pennsylvania in 2015, according to a PriceWaterhouseCoopers study commissioned by an industry trade group.

Democrats running for president this past year have vacillated between a number of candidates who plan to destroy or cripple the shale oil and gas industry, and it hasn't escaped DeIuliis's notice. That includes Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who both promised to ban fracking on day one of their administrations. Joe Biden has done a dance on the issue, calling the Green New Deal “a crucial framework,” saying he would be willing to sacrifice jobs in the oil and gas industries to transition to a green economy, and supporting “aggressive methane pollution limits” and tight regulations on the sector.

“While I have used the words extremist and leftist to described the haters of this industry, this is not a partisan issue," said DeIuliis. "I'm not going after Democrats. I think there are Democrats in this region, thank God we've got them, that have been huge supporters and drivers of the extended family of natural gas,” he said.

“There are true liberals who believe in individual rights,” he said. "But then, there's this extremist leftist elite whose common trait is that they are anti-capitalist, anti-middle class, anti-individual, and frankly, anti-American."
The natural gas industry will certainly be at the center of American politics in this presidential cycle, particularly because of the importance Pennsylvania has in deciding who will win the presidency.

No Democrat has won the White House without Pennsylvania since John Kennedy in 1960; Republicans don’t need it to win, but they did succeed in winning the state for the first time since 1988 when President Trump, a vocal supporter of the industry, won it in 2016 by 40,000 votes.

Places such as Western Pennsylvania, which helped carry Trump over the finishing line, will be closely monitoring how Biden, who appears at the moment likely to win the nomination, is able to satisfy the climate change elite of his party while holding the support of labor and suburban voters who benefit from the industry.

That makes this area central to how this state is won — and DeIuliis's words all that more important.

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The World Changed Its Approach to Health After the 1918 Flu. Will It After The COVID-19 Outbreak?

Laura Spinney, Time•March 7, 2020


As the world grapples with a global health emergency that is COVID-19, many are drawing parallels with a pandemic of another infectious disease – influenza – that took the world by storm just over 100 years ago. We should hope against hope that this one isn’t as bad, but the 1918 flu had momentous long-term consequences – not least for the way countries deliver healthcare. Could COVID-19 do the same?

The 1918 flu pandemic claimed at least 50 million lives, or 2.5 per cent of the global population, according to current estimates. It washed over the world in three waves. A relatively mild wave in the early months of 1918 was followed by a far more lethal second wave that erupted in late August. That receded towards the end of the year, only to be reprised in the early months of 1919 by a third and final wave that was intermediate in severity between the other two. The vast majority of the deaths occurred in the 13 weeks between mid-September and mid-December 1918. It was a veritable tidal wave of death – the worst since the Black Death of the 14th-century – and possibly in all of human history.

Flu and COVID-19 are different diseases, but they have certain things in common. They are both respiratory diseases, spread on the breath and hands as well as, to some extent, via surfaces. Both are caused by viruses, and both are highly contagious. COVID-19 kills a considerably higher proportion of those it infects, than seasonal flu, but it’s not yet clear how it measures up, in terms of lethality, to pandemic flu – the kind that caused the 1918 disaster. Both are what are known as “crowd diseases”, spreading most easily when people are packed together at high densities – in favelas, for example, or trenches. This is one reason historians agree that the 1918 pandemic hastened the end of the First World War, since both sides lost so many troops to the disease in the final months of the conflict – a silver lining, of sorts.

Crowd diseases exacerbate human inequities. Though everyone is susceptible, more or less, those who live in crowded and sub-standard accommodation are more susceptible than most. Malnutrition, overwork and underlying conditions can compromise a person’s immune deficiencies. If, on top of everything else, they don’t have access to good-quality healthcare, they become even more susceptible. Today as in 1918, these disadvantages often coincide, meaning that the poor, the working classes and those living in less developed countries tend to suffer worst in an epidemic. To illustrate that, an estimated 18 million Indians died during the 1918 flu – the highest death toll of any country, in absolute numbers, and the equivalent of the worldwide death toll of the First World War.

In 1918, the explanation for these inequities was different. Eugenics was then a mainstream view, and privileged elites looked down on workers and the poor as inferior categories of human being, who lacked the drive to achieve a better standard of living. If they sickened and died from typhus, cholera and other crowd diseases, the reasons were inherent to them, rather than to be found in their often abysmal living conditions. In the context of an epidemic, public health generally referred to a suite of measures designed to protect those elites from the contaminating influence of the diseased underclasses. When bubonic plague broke out in India in 1896, for example, the British colonial authorities instigated a brutal public health campaign that involved disinfecting, fumigating and sometimes burning indigenous Indian homes to the ground. Initially, at least, they refused to believe that the disease was spread by rat fleas. If they had, they would have realized that a better strategy might have been to inspect imported merchandise rather than people, and to de-rat buildings rather than disinfect them.

Healthcare was much more fragmented then, too. In industrialized countries, most doctors either worked for themselves or were funded by charities or religious institutions, and many people had no access to them at all. Virus was a relatively new concept in 1918, and when the flu arrived medics were almost helpless. They had no reliable diagnostic test, no effective vaccine, no antiviral drugs and no antibiotics – which might have treated the bacterial complications of the flu that killed most of its victims, in the form of pneumonia. Public health measures – especially social distancing measures such as quarantine that we’re employing again today – could be effective, but they were often implemented too late, because flu was not a reportable disease in 1918. This meant that doctors weren’t obliged to report cases to the authorities, which in turn meant that those authorities failed to see the pandemic coming.

The lesson that health authorities took away from the 1918 catastrophe was that it was no longer reasonable to blame individuals for catching an infectious disease, nor to treat them in isolation. The 1920s saw many governments embracing the concept of socialized medicine – healthcare for all, free at the point of delivery. Russia was the first country to put in place a centralized public healthcare system, which it funded via a state-run insurance scheme, but Germany, France and the UK eventually followed suit. The U.S. took a different route, preferring employer-based insurance schemes – which began to proliferate from the 1930s on – but all of these nations took steps to consolidate healthcare, and to expand access to it, in the post-flu years.

Many countries also created or revamped health ministries in the 1920s. This was a direct result of the pandemic, during which public health leaders had been either left out of cabinet meetings entirely, or reduced to pleading for funds and powers from other departments. Countries also recognized the need to coordinate public health at the international level, since clearly, contagious diseases didn’t respect borders. 1919 saw the opening, in Vienna, Austria, of an international bureau for fighting epidemics – a forerunner, along with the health branch of the short-lived League of Nations, of today’s World Health Organization (WHO).

A hundred years on from the 1918 flu, the WHO is offering a global response to a global threat. But the WHO is underfunded by its member nations, many of which have ignored its recommendations – including the one not to close borders. COVID-19 has arrived at a time when European nations are debating whether their healthcare systems, now creaking under the strain of larger, aging populations, are still fit for purpose, and when the US is debating just how universal its system really is.

Depending on how bad this new pandemic gets, it may force a rethink in both regions. In the U.S., for example, we have already seen heated discussion of the costs and availability of COVID-19 testing, which could help revive the proposals to make healthcare more affordable, that President Obama put forward in his 2010 healthcare reform plan. In Europe, meanwhile, the outbreak could re-ignite a long-running debate over whether people should pay to use national health services (other than indirectly, through taxes or insurance schemes) – for example through a monthly membership fee. Whether current outbreak generates real change remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: we are being reminded that pandemics are a social problem, not an individual one.

Before coronavirus, Seattle was under siege by the deadliest flu in history. Here's what life was like.

Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY•March 8, 2020SEATTLE — As the coronavirus epidemic threatens Seattle, warnings to remain inside are starting to echo the city's 1918 crisis, when the Spanish flu forced many into lockdown.

My great-aunt Violet Harris was 15 when it hit. Partly out of boredom, she began keeping a diary. Her family and friends eventually emerged unscathed, if a little stir-crazy, from the tedium of having schools closed, mandates that masks be worn outside at all times and restrictions on group events.

At least 16 people have died in Washington state because of coronavirus, with most of the fatalities occurring in the greater Seattle area. The city's major employers, including Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, have told employees to stay home for at least three weeks. Local universities have called shifted to online classes for the rest of the quarter, including the University of Washington's 47,000 students.

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The city faced a much different health crisis a century ago. Many people mistakenly believe that Seattle was an epicenter of the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed as many as 50 million people as it raged around the globe. That's partly because one of the iconic photos of the global pandemic shows a line of Seattle policemen all wearing masks.

Policemen in Seattle wearing masks made by the Red Cross, during the influenza epidemic. December 1918.

That's actually the opposite of what happened, said Leonard Garfield, executive director of Seattle's Museum of History and Industry.

The epidemic had been spreading through the world in the spring of 1918 but was little reported, in part because national leaders didn't want the fear of it to affect public support for World War I.

The flu reemerged in the fall of 1918, hitting major cities like Boston, Cincinnati and Philadelphia hard. Seattle, home to about 400,000 people at the time and at the far northwest of the country, didn't begin to see cases until slightly later.

"That gave Seattle some time to prepare," said Garfield. "As they saw it coming, they acted fairly quickly. One of the first things they did was to close down large public gatherings and the schools."

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At the time, my Great Aunt Vi, as our family called her, was a junior at Lincoln High School. For her, the biggest — and happiest — news of the day was that the schools were closing.

On Oct. 5. 1918, she wrote in her diary: “It was announced in the papers tonight that all churches, shows and schools would be closed until further notice, to prevent Spanish influenza from spreading. Good idea? I’ll say it is! So will every other school kid, I calculate. … The only cloud in my sky is that the (School) Board will add the missed days on to the end of the term.”

Violet Harris, a Seattle resident who lived through the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, in front of her house near the city's University District.

In the early 1900s, public health infrastructure was only just beginning to be developed and Seattle was a little ahead of the curve, Garfield said.

"There was a fairly progressive civic mindset in Washington state at that time. Seattle had a brand new city public health officer and there was a state public department, as well," he said.

Nonetheless, the disease began to spread. It was, as usual, a rainy October. Vi had borrowed her best friend Rena's umbrella but heard hard news from a neighbor when she went to give it back.

On Oct. 18, 1918, she wrote: “She said Rena was sick and could hardly walk. I walked on a bit further when I met Mr. B. (Rena’s father) dressed in his best. He said Mrs. B and Rena were sick. That it was the flu and I’d better not go in. I didn’t. … I’m awfully sorry about the B’s. They seem to get everything that comes along. I hope they will be up soon. .... It is too bad, but then no one can take the chance of getting the flu. It’s too dangerous. I think they ought to go to the hospital. Mr. B. can certainly not give them the proper care. I hope he doesn’t get it. Then they would be in a fix.”

Rena's family later recovered.

Violet Harris' drawing of what the masks everyone in Seattle was ordered to wear when outside looked like.

On October 27, 1918, Vi wrote: “Rena called me up. She is well now …. I asked her what it felt like to have the influenza, and she said, ‘Don’t get it.’”

Seattle was important economically and to the war effort because of the large concentration of shipyards and army and navy stations in the area, one reason why such drastic measures were undertaken, Garfield said.

Oct. 28, 1918: “It says in to-night’s paper that to-morrow all Seattle will be wearing masks. No one will be allowed on a streetcar without one. Gee! People will look funny — like ghosts."

There were immediate shortages of the masks. Vi's father Cornelius was sent out to buy the family of seven masks but could only find three. Violet pasted articles from the local paper about the fashions in masks in her diary.

An article from the local Seattle paper about the fashions in masks due to the Spanish influenza epidemic in 1918.

Oct. 31, 1918: “I stayed in all day and didn’t even go to Rena’s. The flu seems to be spreading, and Mama doesn’t want us to go around more than we need to.”

Violet spent the next two weeks reading and sewing on a new dress for school and trying out new recipes from the paper, including one for fudge that turned out so badly she had to throw half the batch out.

An amusing story in the local Seattle paper about the requirement that everyone wear masks during the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic there.

Finally, after almost six weeks, restrictions on public gatherings were lifted. Vi was happy to get to go out but not thrilled at going back to school.

Nov. 12, 1918: “The ban was lifted to-day. No more .... masks. Everything open too. 'The Romance of Tarzan' is on at the Coliseum (movie theater) as it was about 6 weeks ago. I’d like to see it awfully. .... School opens this week — Thursday! Did you ever? As if they couldn’t have waited till Monday!”

1918: Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson bans public assembly for more than five weeks, closing all schools, churches, synagogues and theaters to stop the spread of the Spanish flu.

Nov. 14, 1918: “Our teachers were pretty lenient to-day. Except Miss Streator (her Latin teacher.) She gave out the words just the same as if we hadn’t had 6 weeks to forget them in. I got 75.”

Violet lived until 1954, having experienced an event that quickly faded from the public's memory.

"It was called the forgotten illness," said Garfield.

Diaries of Violet Harris, who was 15 when the Spanish flu epidemic shut Seattle down in 1918.

But Seattle's quick and draconian action was important in stopping a disease that is estimated to have killed more than 1,500 people in the city and somewhere between 700,000 and 1 million people across the United States, said Garfield.

"Some people say the action we took pretty seriously slowed the spread of the infection and helped hasten the end," he said.