Thursday, September 3, 2020
Gamzu slams top rabbi over comments dismissing virus testing
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/B1dKzXamP
United Torah Judaism MK tells Gamzu 'not to get involved' in ultra-Orthodox affairs after coronavirus czar warns that without adherence to public health orders and encouragement of testing, officials would 'have to make complex decisions'
United Torah Judaism member, MK Yitzhak Pindros, later criticized Prof. Gamzu for his comments, suggesting the czar doesn't "get involved in what has proven to work for thousands of years," adding that those who take advice from their elders never fail.
"Gamzu's comments since he assumed the position only helped to worsen the virus' infection rate, hopefully, he will find more success managing a hospital," he said, referring to the fact that Gamzu is the CEO of Tel Aviv's Ichilov Medical Center.
Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought
In the most comprehensive study of COVID-19 pediatric patients to date, researchers provide critical data showing that children play a larger role in the community spread of COVID-19 than previously thought.
In a study of 192 children ages 0-22, 49 children tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and an additional 18 children had late-onset, COVID-19-related illness. The infected children were shown to have a significantly higher level of virus in their airways than hospitalized adults in ICUs for COVID-19 treatment, according to Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Mass General Hospital for Children (MGHfC).
The study, “Pediatric SARS-CoV-2: Clinical Presentation, Infectivity, and Immune Reponses,” was published today in The Journal of Pediatrics.
“I was surprised by the high levels of virus we found in children of all ages, especially in the first two days of infection,” says Lael Yonker, director of the MGH Cystic Fibrosis Center and lead author of the study. “I was not expecting the viral load to be so high. You think of a hospital, and of all of the precautions taken to treat severely ill adults, but the viral loads of these hospitalized patients are significantly lower than a ‘healthy child’ who is walking around with a high SARS-CoV-2 viral load.”
Transmissibility or risk of contagion is greater with a high viral load. And even when children exhibit symptoms typical of COVID-19, like fever, runny nose and cough, they often overlap with common childhood illnesses, including influenza and the common cold. This confounds an accurate diagnosis of COVID-19, the illness derived from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, says Yonker. Along with viral load, researchers examined expression of the viral receptor and antibody response in healthy children, children with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection and a smaller number of children with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C).
Children's role in spread puzzles scientists
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53946420
Logic dictates that in both children and adults, people with no or few symptoms - who aren't coughing and projecting the virus into the air - are likely to be less infectious, and children generally get milder cases of the disease.
But significant numbers of asymptomatic people could still have a noticeable effect on the infection rate.
And, as Prof Viner points out, keeping schools closed is not neutral either but poses its own set of risks - to children's development, education and mental health.
While the exact risk children pose remains an open question for the moment, answering it will be vital to controlling future outbreaks.
Dr DeBiasi believes that while the "vast majority of infected children have mild or unrecognised disease," they may play an "important" role in enabling the spread of infection through communities.
'Coronavirus disease isn't dangerous to children at all'
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/286541
Former Health Ministry Director Professor Yoram Lass today opened his program on 103FM with reference to the opening school year under the specter of coronavirus fears.
Lass said: "The school year opened this week with 'capsules' and masks and Zoom and isolation. And all this while we know with complete confidence that coronavirus disease isn't dangerous to children at all; fact: no children are hospitalized.
A review of evidence from around the world has found that no child is known to have passed COVID-19 on to an adult, reported Sky News.
U.S. Coronavirus Rates Are Rising Fast Among Children
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/31/us/coronavirus-cases-children.html
As some schools begin in-person classes, data compiled by the American Academy of Pediatrics from the summer show that cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus have increased at a faster rate in children and teenagers than among the general public.
Young children seem to catch and transmit the virus less than adults, and children of all ages tend not to experience severe complications from it. But Dr. Sean O’Leary, vice chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on infectious diseases, said that substantial community spread in many parts of the United States corresponded with more infections among children.
“Anyone who has been on the front lines of this pandemic in a children’s hospital can tell you we’ve taken care of lots of kids that are very sick,” Dr. O’Leary said. “Yes, it’s less severe in children than adults, but it’s not completely benign.”
Dr. William Raszka Jr., a pediatric infectious disease expert at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at the University of Vermont in Burlington, said research consistently showed that adults — not children — were driving the spread of the virus. Outbreaks at summer camps and schools, however, have demonstrated that transmission can, in fact, happen among children.
Trump’s Claim He Didn’t Have a Stroke Would Be More Convincing If He Didn’t Constantly Lie About Everything All the Time
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/donald-trump-stroke-lies
Remember, last November, when Trump made an unscheduled visit to Walter Reed hospital in Maryland to supposedly take advantage of a “free weekend” to have part of his physical performed, even though it had been less than a year since his last one, he was free the weekend before and the one after, the visit didn’t follow protocols for a routine presidential medical exam, he never went back for the rest of the exam, and no report was released after the visit, as has been traditionally been the case? At the time, the White House claimed the trip was much ado about nothing, and that the hack liberal media was back on its usual FAKE NEWS bullshit. Eventually, the story died down, and attentions turned to the president’s penchant for witness tampering, his fake war on Thanksgiving, and his decision to go full anti-Semite in a room full of Jewish people.
All of which feels a lot like a case of an administration doth protesting too much! But while Trump certainly exhibits some the symptoms of having had a stroke—he frequently slurs his words, gets easily confused, and struggles to control his limbs—at this time, there is no credible evidence to indicate that he has. And who knows, he probably didn’t! (Likely he just has a degenerative brain disease.) Unfortunately, it’s very hard to believe the president or his staff’s denials because they constantly lie about everything all the time. Crowd size. A deadly pandemic. How much Black people love him. Things he’s said on-camera in rooms full of people. Windmills. Toilets. Hillary Clinton’s health. Commercial flights full of looters. And thousands—literally thousands—of other things. So they’ll have to forgive people for not giving them the benefit of the doubt on this one.
He built a privately funded border wall. It's already at risk of falling down if not fixed.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/02/texas-border-wall-private/
Tommy Fisher billed his new privately funded border wall as the future of deterrence, a quick-to-build steel fortress that spans 3 miles in one of the busiest Border Patrol sectors.
Unlike a generation of wall builders before him, he said he figured out how to build a structure directly on the banks of the Rio Grande, a risky but potentially game-changing step when it came to the nation’s border wall system.
Fisher has leveraged his self-described “Lamborghini” of walls to win more than $1.7 billion worth of federal contracts in Arizona.
But his showcase piece is showing signs of runoff erosion and, if it’s not fixed, could be in danger of falling into the Rio Grande, according to engineers and hydrologists who reviewed photos of the wall for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. It never should have been built so close to the river, they say.
Fisher’s success and the $1.3 billion contract in Arizona he won in May — the largest border wall contract ever awarded — came despite repeated questions about his qualifications and work. Army Corps of Engineers officials have said the firm won because it submitted the lowest bid.
Fisher’s strategy was years in the making. Soon after the 2016 election, he became a frequent guest on Fox News, where he caught the attention of Trump. Last year, The Washington Post reported that the president “latch(ed) on” to Fisher’s claims of speed and quality and “aggressively pushed” for the firm in conversations with top Homeland Security officials.
Ultra-Orthodox press calls for virus czar’s resignation over rebuke of top rabbi
Ultra-Orthodox newspapers on Thursday condemned Israel’s coronavirus czar Ronni Gamzu and called for his ouster, after he denounced a prominent rabbi who reportedly told yeshiva students not to get tested for the disease.
Biden tops Trump in Pennsylvania, but lead shrinks: poll
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-tops-trump-pennsylvania-lead-shrinks-poll
An average of all the latest polls in Pennsylvania conducted by Real Clear Politics puts Biden ahead of Trump by 4.7 points. That’s down from a 6-point lead Biden enjoyed at the beginning of August.
Fox News Poll: Biden tops Trump among likely voters in key states
Democrat Joe Biden is ahead in three key states that President Donald Trump won in 2016, according to new Fox News statewide surveys of Arizona, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
Support for reelecting Trump falls below his 2016 vote share in each state. At the same time, there’s room for improvement, as more voters approve of his job performance than back his reelection.
Biden’s advantage comes from strong support among women and suburban voters. Moreover, suburban women in all three states trust Biden over Trump to handle coronavirus and policing/criminal justice.
Interest in the election is roughly the same among both Biden and Trump supporters.
'פער את פיו': היומונים החרדים נגד רוני גמזו
https://www.kikar.co.il/373422.html
חשיפת 'כיכר השבת' על הוראת מרן הגר"ח והתבטאות פרויקטור הקורונה נגדו, היום בכל היומונים החרדים • את הקו החריף הוביל עיתון 'המבשר', שקרא לרוני גמזו להתפטר (ארץ)
Rabbi Kanievsky: 'Don't test yeshiva students for coronavirus'
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/286465
Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, a leading haredi rabbi, has instructed that post-high school yeshivas not conduct coronavirus tests, since the tests may send thousands of students into quarantine, wasting time during which they would otherwise be learning Torah, Kikar Hashabbat reported.