All posts by nedhamson

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

Ask An Epidemiologist: Is New York Reopening Too Fast? – Gothamist

  • “If I was making a decision about which stadiums to be opening, it makes sense to focus on Yankee Stadium rather than Madison Square Garden, because we can feel a little bit more confident in people gathering in an outdoor setting,” she said.
  • “We also need to keep in mind things that happened on the way to and from these events,” Nash said, “as well as the employees, the ticket takers, the people that are working in food vending areas that are coming into contact with a lot of people over the course of the event that we need to be very concerned about.”
  • The “gray area” of the moment comes through in the data, as well. While hospitalizations and deaths are declining, positivity rates across the five boroughs have more or less flattened to an average of just more than 6 percent.
  • “I still would encourage us to be incredibly cautious as we go about reopening,” said Piltch-Loeb. “But I also think that we need to have some perspective that we’re not a hundred percent in a space of doom and gloom.”

Source: Ask An Epidemiologist: Is New York Reopening Too Fast? – Gothamist

Fleeing Myanmar police: We defied orders to kill protesters – The Washington Post

A group of police officers who defied the Myanmar army’s orders to shoot opponents of the coup recounted their experience after they escaped to India. While speaking, they raised a three-finger salute — a symbol of resistance to Myanmar’s military rulers. Source: Fleeing Myanmar police: We defied orders to kill protesters – The Washington Post

France’s top court says firefighters accused of raping teenager (from age 13-15) can’t be charged with rape – The Washington Post (outrageous!)

According to Julie’s family and lawyers, the firefighters got the teenager’s phone number and began sending her flirtatious messages. Over a two-year period, she was allegedly raped by 20 men. According to her mother, she made multiple suicide attempts and is now struggling with severe disability.

The Wednesday judgment from France’s high court backs a lower appeals court’s finding that Julie, now 25, “had the necessary discernment” to reject the men’s advances, and argues that investigators failed to establish that all of the men were aware that Julie was a minor.

Source: France’s top court says firefighters accused of raping teenager can’t be charged with rape – The Washington Post

Novel coronavirus likely was circulating in October 2019, U.S. researchers say – UPI.com (which means it could have begun to circulate globally in November/December 2019)

“Our results define the period between mid-October and mid-November 2019 as the plausible interval when the first case of SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Hubei province,” it added.

A molecular clock is a method that determines the mutation rate of genes to deduce when two or more life forms diverge, according to UC San Diego. In the case of the coronavirus, the common ancestor of all SARS-CoV-2 variants had appeared by November, the report said.

Source: Novel coronavirus likely was circulating in October 2019, U.S. researchers say – UPI.com

The Amazonian Indigenous communities fighting ‘balsa wood fever’ and COVID | openDemocracy

In Ecuador, for example, the indiscriminate logging of balsa wood has begun, exerting great pressure on the middle and lower basin of the Pastaza river in the territory of the Achuar nationality, as well as that of other nationalities, such as the Kichwa, Shuar and Waorani. The situation highlights the disastrous extent of the impacts of extractivism in the Amazon region.

What’s more, amid a global health emergency, the effects on the local population are even greater. In the Ecuadorian Amazon, the so-called ‘balsa fever’, which has seen the arrival of hundreds of loggers seeking to fell this precious Amazonian wood, became the fatal focus of the coronavirus contagion in Amazonian Indigenous communities that would otherwise have been cut off from the world.

There is much international demand for balsa wood, which is both light and very resistant – and is used to manufacture the blades of wind power generators in Europe and China. Together with my colleagues, Bryan Garces and Lenin Montahuano and the communication team of Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE), ‘Lanceros Digitales’, we decided to document the growing impact of the balsa fever through visits to the territory, particularly to that of the Achuar nationality.

Source: The Amazonian Indigenous communities fighting ‘balsa wood fever’ and COVID | openDemocracy