Covid Returns To China
June 15, 2020
Daily Pnut’s Tim visited Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) or Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) and here are his photos of what is one of the most talked about areas in the USA right now.
We think mainstream media has covered CHAZ/CHOP with way too much fervor. Geographically, the area that has received so much coverage is no more than eight city blocks.
In this Sunday’s Daily Pnut we’ll include an essay covering and analyzing what we saw at CHAZ/CHOP and how mainstream media on both the left and right can occasionally overemphasize certain news events because sensationalism drives clicks (which then drives advertising dollars). Subscribers who have referred five other readers or who make a donation will receive our Sunday newsletters.
“[The] way infectious diseases have begun to come back shows that we remain caught in the web of life – permanently and irretrievably- no matter how clever we are at altering what we do not like, or how successful we become at displacing other species.”
Covid Shuts Down A Different Kind Of Market: The Price of a Covid-Free Life is Eternal Vigilance
(Kevin Frayer via Getty Images)
Just over a month ago, six new cases of coronavirus appeared in Wuhan. The reemergence, following a 35-day streak of no new infections, was confounding. Authorities immediately began testing all 11 million residents over the next 11 days in a massive push to extinguish any remnants of the virus from the original epicenter of the epidemic. A top Communist Party official in Wuhan warned citizens against becoming complacent: “We must not be careless or lax.”
Now, a new cluster of coronavirus cases has been discovered around the Xinfadi market — central Beijing’s biggest meat and vegetable market — prompting a frenzy of testing. Thursday, Beijing’s CDC reported that a man who visited the market June 3 to buy meat and seafood tested positive for the virus. On Friday, two quality control workers at the state-owned China Meat Food Research Center, who had visited Xinfadi and five other markets in the city to check on standards, were reported as testing positive.
By Friday’s end, authorities had swabbed 1,940 workers in large and small food markets in Beijing, and collected 5,424 environmental samples. Besides four more symptomatic cases, all related to Xinfadi market’s seafood section, another 45 asymptomatic cases were discovered. Coronavirus was found on 40 environmental samples, including on a chopping board used for imported salmon.
Officials immediately shut down Xinfadi, along with five other markets visited by the meat inspectors. All fresh salmon was removed from across the city and disposed of, and authorities began screening frozen and fresh meat in other markets. Nine kindergartens and elementary schools around Xinfadi were closed, and nearby apartment complexes were sealed off.
On Saturday, a municipal government spokesman warned the population “not to drop their guard even for a second in epidemic prevention control; we must be prepared for a prolonged fight with the virus.” He reiterated the need to stay alert to the risks of imported cases, and that epidemic control must, of necessity, “be here for a long time.”
You Are What You Eat — Dead
(Cameron Spencer via Getty Images)
- No doubt about it, vultures are ugly. But they serve a good purpose as nature’s refuse disposal squad. Unfortunately, they are also one of the most threatened groups of birds on the planet. In the early 1990s, observers in India began noticing that vultures, which usually gathered in huge flocks around animal carcasses, were declining at an unprecedented rate.
- In the 15 years between 1992 and 2007, the three vulture species most common in India declined by between 97 and 99.9 percent. Only then did people realize how important a job these unattractive birds of prey were doing in clearing up the corpses of domestic and wild animals. Without the vultures, rotting carcasses laid about, contaminating water supplies and allowing rats and feral dogs to multiply, leading to a huge increase in disease risk for humans.
- More than a decade later, the cause of their demise has been confirmed: Asia’s vultures were feeding on animal carcasses containing diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug routinely given to domestic cattle, but poisonous to birds.
- A similar story is now unfolding in Africa, home to 11 of the world’s 16 old world vulture species. Now, vultures are being poisoned purposefully, victims to a superstition that possessing a vulture’s head is protection against harm. Because vultures feed communally at a carcass, they are an easy target for poachers, who can wipe out hundreds of birds at a time.
- In June last year, 537 vultures of five different species were purposefully poisoned at elephant carcasses near Chobe National Park in Botswana. 12 species of vulture are now listed as endangered or critically endangered. (Guardian)
Now This Is Some News We Can Stand Within Six Feet Of
- British drugmaker AstraZeneca has signed a contract with European governments pledging to supply the region with its potential vaccine against the coronavirus. The deal is the first to be signed by Europe’s Inclusive Vaccines Alliance (IVA), a group formed by France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to secure vaccine doses for all member states as soon as possible. Under the terms of the contract, AstraZeneca would deliver up to 400 million doses of the vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford.
- AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot said Saturday that the company would provide the vaccine, which is still in clinical trials, for no profit during the pandemic. Soriot also said that the company will know by the end of summer if the vaccine is safe. Then, if the trial results convince regulators the vaccine is safe and effective, deliveries would be expected to start by the end of 2020.
- The alliance “will work together with the European Commission and other countries in Europe to ensure everybody across Europe is supplied with the vaccine,” he said. “We have a very self-sufficient supply chain for Europe” with manufacturers lined up in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Italy, among others. AstraZeneca has agreed to manufacturing deals globally to meet its target of producing 2 billion doses of the vaccine, including with two Bill Gates-backed ventures and a $1.2 billion agreement with the US government. (Reuters)
Additional World News
- Philippines’ Maria Ressa found guilty of ‘cyber libel’ in latest blow to free press (CNN)
- Dark Basin: Uncovering a Massive Hack-For-Hire Operation (Citizen Lab)
- UK economy to shrink by 8% in 2020, forecasters say (Guardian)
- Boris Johnson desperately needs his lockdown gamble to pay off (CNN)
- Yemen coronavirus: Death rates Aden could exceed its wartime fatalities (CNN)
COVID-19
- Ripple effects of downturn show pandemic’s early economic toll was just the beginning (WaPo, $)
- Germany says its coronavirus contact tracing app is ready (Verge)
- Prepare for the Never-Ending Coronavirus Plateau (Gizmodo)
- The Country Is Reopening. I’m Still on Lockdown (Wired, $)
- Coronavirus Cases Spike Across Sun Belt as Economy Lurches into Motion (NYT, $)
- Coronavirus: France announces significant lifting of restrictions (BBC)
- Record spikes in new coronavirus cases, hospitalizations sweep parts of U.S. (Reuters)
- Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam… How some countries kept Covid at bay (Guardian)
- Slowing the Coronavirus Is Speeding the Spread of Other Diseases (NYT, $)
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- We know that weight loss is hard – both to start and to maintain – but by helping people train their brain, Noom helps ensure the hard work is worth it.
An Eye for an Eye is Making Us Blind
- Amidst weeks of protest over the killings of black men by police comes another killing in Atlanta, Georgia. Last Friday night, workers at a Wendy’s called police over a car blocking their fast food lane. When two officers arrived they found Rayshard Brooks, 27, asleep in his car. After removing Brooks, the officers administered a sobriety test, then a breathalyzer test with Brooks’ permission.
- But when officers tried to handcuff him, Brooks resisted and a struggle ensued. Eventually, Brooks got loose and tried running away, at which point one officer fired at him three times, killing him.
- Atlanta is one of many cities where protesters have called for an end to police violence and racism in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Now, Brooks’ killing has had rapid repercussions: the officer who shot Brooks was fired and police chief Erika Shields resigned.
- On Saturday night, during protests outside the Wendy’s where Brooks was killed, someone set it on fire. Firemen responded, but early Sunday morning, flames rose again at the Wendy’s along with smaller fires in the immediate area. Later on Sunday, the Fulton County medical examiner said Brooks died from two gunshots to his back, and ruled the death a homicide. (BBC, CBS News)
Additional US News
- The Trump Administration’s Hateful Message on Health Care for Transgender Americans (New Yorker, $)
- How Worried Should You Be About the 2020 Election? (NYT, $)
- No, Melania Trump doesn’t want to be free (WaPo, $)
- A Canal That Opened the Montana Prairie May Soon Dry Up (NYT, $)
- Trump is quietly gutting the asylum system amid the pandemic (Vox)
- An Ambitious Federal Plan To Protect Miami From Climate Change (NPR)
Black Lives Matter
- Officials familiar with Lafayette Square confrontation challenge Trump administration claim of what drove aggressive expulsion of protesters (WaPo, $)
- Thousands gather Sunday for prayer and protests in Washington (WaPo, $)
- I covered the Rodney King and Freddie Gray riots. This moment feels different. That’s why I’m afraid (CNN)
- Tulsa Race Massacre: This is what happened in Tulsa in 1921 (Tulsa World)
Media Meltdowns
- The Tom Cotton Op-Ed and the Tired Old “Snowflake” Defense (New Yorker, $) & The New York Times’s Tom Cotton debacle, and the media’s new reality (Vox) A little known interesting fact: Tom Cotton’s political career has been inextricably linked to the New York Times. Cotton’s political career really took off while he was in the Army and when The New York Times did not publish an open letter he submitted to them while he was deployed to Iraq in 2006. Perhaps this might explain a small bit why The New York Times op-ed team felt inclined to publish his piece this time around.
- Inside the Culture of Racism at Bon Appétit (Jezebel) Why is it that sometimes presumably the most gentle-mild pursuits-hobbies have some of the most vicious actors or a rough elbow reputation? When we think of cooking these days we think of Martha Stewart and her insider trading, Alison Roman and her feud with celebrity cooks, and now what is happening at Bon Appétit.
- All of this reminds us of this additional quote: “Academic Politics Are So Vicious Because the Stakes Are So Small.” And Sayre’s Law: “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” By way of corollary, it adds: “That is why academic politics are so bitter.”
- Refinery29 is reeling from claims of racism and toxic work culture. Employees say it’s even worse behind the scenes (CNN) & Can Anna Wintour Survive the Social Justice Movement? (NYT, $)
- Tucker Carlson: advertisers desert Fox News host after he attacks protesters (Guardian) Neither the left or the right seem to be safe from the culture wars right now. And it seems like the best thing right now is to try to not be in the news.
Government-Approved Sex Tips
- The New York City Health Department doesn’t want you to have sex. In the midst of a pandemic, getting intimate doesn’t exactly fall under social distancing guidelines. However, health officials understand that desperate times call for desperate measures, prompting NYC Health to release of their shockingly blunt Safer Sex and COVID-19 fact sheet.
- The document’s details ranged from mild suggestions — such as wearing a mask or refraining from kissing — to some more kinky considerations — such as using “physical barriers, like walls, that allow sexual contact while preventing close face to face contact.”
- Guidelines even go so far as to detail how one would go about safely practicing group sex, suggesting that participants “pick larger, more open, ventilated spaces” for their pandemic party.
- Despite the internet responding accordingly to the idea of a government-sanctioned glory hole, kudos to the fine folks at the NYC Health Department for keeping it real during a time in which misinformation surrounding the coronavirus has plagued the public.
- These recommendations provide a stark contrast to the sweeping legislation passed in the UK, which recently criminalized sexual intercourse with anyone from outside your household. Under a newly ratified ordinance, getting it on with anyone but yourself is considered a “gathering” between 2 or more people and is therefore illegal.
Additional Reads
- As if this year hasn’t already felt a bit like Armageddon given the pandemic: Locusts Are Swarming In Record Numbers In 2020. Why? And … What Are They? (NPR)
- It’s really easy to block YouTube ads (maybe too easy) (Android Authority)
- Spies Can Eavesdrop by Watching a Light Bulb’s Vibrations (Wired, $) Reading this piece for some reason made us think of the light switch (morse code) scene from Parasite. And if you want to avoid the ad in the link to the YouTube clip, then please reference the tip from the above link.