Michael Mina shares insight on how to prevent another pandemic – Harvard Gazette

We have not had to deal with adversity on our shores in any real population-wide way in decades or even longer. We’ve lost track of what it means to act collectively. World War II was a great example of when we said, “We have to work collectively. We have to optimize our response.” By the end of World War II, we were rolling out B24 bombers every 60 minutes. That is something that would have been unfathomable if we were trying to optimize every individual’s safety and well-being and not thinking about the population-level response.

If you go further back and a plague was on board a ship, you’d burn the ship and quarantine every passenger on it. You’d do whatever was needed because the last thing we wanted is for this thing to spread to the population. We’ve advanced from that, but our problem today is that the virus is the same. It doesn’t care. The virus doesn’t feel for our emotions. It’s not an enemy that we can talk down. We can’t bribe a virus with money. It is completely emotionless. There’s nothing we can do to control it, except to control it. I think we have lost all sense of that.

We’re really good in this country at doing biology, at doing medicine. We were able to go from zero to a vaccine finishing phase three trials in months. But we completely fail — always in this country and in many countries — to actually do the public health part. We did all the expensive biological stuff; we did all the fancy stuff that gives people credit, all the doctor-y things, all the technology things. But then when it came to scaling and distributing the vaccine, the not-sexy, public health intervention part, nobody thought about it.  

Source: Michael Mina shares insight on how to prevent another pandemic – Harvard Gazette

Many deaths in India’s Goa as gov’t fails to ensure oxygen supply | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera

Pratik Sawant, president of the Goa Association of Resident Doctors (GARD), told Al Jazeera the hospitals had been overwhelmed with patients in April.

“Against a capacity of 700 beds in GMCH, we had 950 patients. Some of the deaths did occur due to oxygen deficit, but it was a combination of a lack of personnel, dearth of medical equipment, and low supplies of medicines,” he said.

‘This hospital has left us orphaned’

On May 8, Cracy Fernandes, 39, rushed both her parents to GMCH after they showed COVID-like symptoms. After four days of what she termed “complete negligence” by doctors and nurses, both her parents passed away on May 12.

“When we brought them in, they were forced to share one oxygen cylinder. When we checked, the cylinder was empty,” Cracy told Al Jazeera.

She said at one point, the doctor asked her to put the oxygen mask on her father, a 67-year-old patient with diabetes.

“They would ask us to take off the IV drip. How can we do such things without training? We had to run around for 20 minutes just to find a nurse,” she said.

Hours after her mother – who was 60 with no comorbidities – passed away, her father’s condition deteriorated. But there was no empty ICU bed in the hospital, Cracy said.

Source: Many deaths in India’s Goa as gov’t fails to ensure oxygen supply | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera

Estudo mostra intensa participação da agricultura corporativa no desmatamento ilegal das florestas tropicais —

Barbara Crane Navarro

Embora a agricultura de subsistência e a exploração madeireira ainda contribuam para o desmatamento, a expansão da agricultura em escala comercial é agora reconhecida como de longe o maior impulsionadora do desmatamento em todo o mundo e, portanto, também das emissões de gases de efeito estufa decorrentes da mudança no uso da terra. Agricultura comercial[…]

Estudo mostra intensa participação da agricultura corporativa no desmatamento ilegal das florestas tropicais —

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G1 – Globo: Operação da PF investiga esquema de exportação ilegal de madeira para EUA e Europa — Mágica Mistura✨

Barbara Crane Navarro

O ministro do Meio Ambiente, Ricardo Salles, e o presidente do Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (Ibama), Eduardo Bim, são alvos de uma operação, nesta quarta-feira (19), que investiga exportação ilegal de madeira para Estados Unidos e Europa. 44 morewords

G1 – Globo: Operação da PF investiga esquema de exportação ilegal de madeira para EUA e Europa — Mágica Mistura✨

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Hope over Fear

Powerful…

Grounds For Hope

 A child on the father’s lap
 With fearful eyes searching for answers
 "Are we ok? Who is this mob, dad?"
 Choking on his tears, he whispered, “cancer.”
 
     Little did he know the child was watching 
     the insurrection of the Nation.
     Little did he know the child heard
     The mobster’s call for sedition. 
 
 Cancer that metastasized,
 the father thought in his mind.
 Cancer that destroying us 
 Spreading faster than poison ivy.
 
     Cancer that disabled minds 
     Deeply concealed in men’s psyche.
     In the four years made so many blind
     The truth becomes so pricy.
 
 What do I tell to my dear child? 
 The father took a deep breath...
 He looked in her eyes and smiled
 Hope over fear. May God bless.

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‘His death is a catastrophe’: Gaza doctors mourn specialist killed in air strike – BBC News

Without warning, an Israeli air strike destroyed the four-storey building in the Gaza Strip where Dr Ayman Abu al-Ouf lived early on Sunday.

The doctor, who was head of internal medicine at the Palestinian territory’s main hospital, was killed along with 12 members of his extended family.

They included his mother and father, his wife Reem, and their 17-year-old son Tawfik and 12-year-old-daughter Tala.

“This is a really big loss not just for us personally because we knew Ayman – this is also a loss for his patients and students,” Dr Ghaith al-Zaanin, a close friend and former colleague who lives in Canada, told the BBC.

Dr Ayman Abu al-Ouf (file photo)
Dr Abu al-Ouf oversaw al-Shifa’s hospital response to the coronavirus pandemic

As well as being in charge of internal medicine at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Dr Abu al-Ouf oversaw its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: ‘His death is a catastrophe’: Gaza doctors mourn specialist killed in air strike – BBC News

Red-headed Woodpeckers are nature’s show birds

Roadtirement

Today was a little wild with all the new young starlings leaving their nests, and their apparent feeding frenzy with the adults.

Then suddenly Sher and I witnessed the arrival of one of the most striking birds in North America. The Red-headed Woodpecker has beautiful crimson head plumage accompanied by a pure white body and wings that are half white and half ink black. These birds are striking both at rest and in flight. This one was kind enough to stick around on the feeder long enough for the capture you see above.

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Just a walk

Inhale Peace; Exhale Love. Joy will Follow! - RUELHA

I really enjoy taking a walk. Been doing it since I wore frocks. Yesterday was no different from most days. Out on the main road, my usual way. For those of you who don't know about Tauktae. Well, she did come out in full swing to play. Rains and winds, so much of breeze. Approaching monsoons, a wonderful tease. A relief from the scorching summer heat. But though many of us thought it was a treat, it caused quite some destruction with people and trees praying for protection. In all honesty, we've endured much worse. Experts say the spread of covid will be adverse. All through the streets, there were trees fallen. Dying branches and leaves getting rotten. I witnessed some huge trees fall down right before my eyes. But at that moment I was at my window, blessed to be inside. Nature is just so gorgeous and beautiful. Sometimes…

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