All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Bolsonaro’s ‘genocidal’ Covid response has led to Brazilian catastrophe, Dilma Rousseff says | Brazil | The Guardian

Rousseff claimed Bolsonaro’s sabotaging of containment and vaccination efforts, refusal to order a lockdown and failure to offer adequate economic support to the poor had contributed to a tragedy of “catastrophic proportions”.

“I’m not saying Brazil wouldn’t have suffered deaths [with a different response] – all countries did,” she said. “I’m saying that part of the level of deaths here is fundamentally down to incorrect political decisions, which are still being taken.”

Brazil’s breakdown was also an international threat. “The absence of an effective fight against the pandemic [in Brazil] leads to something extremely serious: the emergence of the so-called new variants, which are highly infectious and have increased the number of deaths in neighbouring countries,” Rousseff said, pointing to how South American neighbours were closing their borders for fear of the more contagious P1 variant linked to Brazil’s Amazon.

Many critics now argue Bolsonaro’s actions amount to “genocide” – and Rousseff said she was among them.

“I use that word. What characterizes the act of genocide is when you play a deliberate role in the death of a population on a massive scale,” the 73-year-old said from her home in Porto Alegre, one of many cities where hospitals have been overwhelmed and doctors forced to play God.

Source: Bolsonaro’s ‘genocidal’ Covid response has led to Brazilian catastrophe, Dilma Rousseff says | Brazil | The Guardian

Coronavirus: US midwest sees signs of a new wave as hospitalisations soar | Michigan | The Guardian

In Michigan, hospitalisations have soared and intensive care beds are being rapidly filled. An average of 7,226 cases a day were confirmed in the state last week, according to Johns Hopkins University data, approaching record highs seen in November. Michigan’s public health system “is overwhelmed”, warned the state’s top medical official, Joneigh Khaldun.

The surge has prompted Governor Gretchen Whitmer to urge people to restrict activities and wear masks and for schools to halt in-person learning.

“A year in, we all know what works and this has to be a team effort,” the Democrat said. “We have to do this together. Lives depend on it.”

Source: Coronavirus: US midwest sees signs of a new wave as hospitalisations soar | Michigan | The Guardian

At Least 60 Killed During Myanmar Regime’s Massacre at Anti-Regime Strongholds

At least 60 people were gunned down in Bago Friday in a brutal assault on anti-regime strongholds by troops loyal to the military regime.

An accurate death toll was impossible, but the actual number of those killed was believed to be much higher…

However, local people said the number killed in Bago is likely to be much higher, perhaps more than 80.

Some of those wounded were taken away, and an accurate death toll was impossible because rescue workers were threatened with being shot if they ventured out. On Saturday, residents claimed that they saw piles of bodies at the town’s Sin Phyu Kwin cemetery.

Source: At Least 60 Killed During Myanmar Regime’s Massacre at Anti-Regime Strongholds

10th Day of April – Fatcowco – 1925 – The Great Gatsby is first published

1925 – The Great Gatsby is first published

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, the novel depicts narrator Nick Carraway’s interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby’s obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.

1925 – The Great Gatsby is first published

After its publication by Scribner’s on 10th April 1925, The Great Gatsby received generally favorable reviews, bu some literary critics believed it did not hold up to Fitzgerald’s previous efforts and signaled the end of the author’s literary achievements.

Despite the warm critical reception, Gatsby was a commercial failure.

The book sold fewer than 20,000 copies by October, and Fitzgerald’s hopes of a monetary windfall from the novel were unrealized.

Source: 10th Day of April – Fatcowco

AstraZeneca Vaccine and Blood Clots: What Is Known So Far – The New York Times (Me: 34 million shots(!) and 222 blood clots = over-reaction by bureaucrats…)

As of April 4, European regulators had received reports of 222 cases of the rare blood-clotting problem in Britain and the 30-nation European Economic Area (the European Union plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein). They said that about 34 million people had received the AstraZeneca vaccine in those countries, and that the clotting problems were appearing at a rate of about one in 100,000 recipients.

April 9, 2021 – Letters from an American – (Me: a year of pandemic…)

The 1918 influenza pandemic killed at least 50 million people across the world, including about 675,000 people in the United States. And yet, until recently, it has been elusive in our popular memory. America’s curious amnesia about the 1918 pandemic has come to mind lately as the United States appears to be shifting into a post-pandemic era of job growth and optimism.

A year ago today, I noted that we were approaching 17,000 deaths from Covid-19. Now our official death count is over 560,000. If anyone had told us a year ago that we would lose more than a half million of our family and friends to this pandemic, that number would have seemed unthinkable.

Source: April 9, 2021 – Letters from an American