Iran Masks the Virus | How To Become a Martian | COVID-Packed Cruises

August 4, 2020

The Good News

Returning the favor: An adopted 14-year-old girl is helping senior dogs find a forever home just like she did (CNN)
Dementia on the Retreat in the U.S. and Europe (NYT, $). The West is slowly beating one of humanity’s worst enemies.
Ingenious solar solutions: The ‘solar canals’ making smart use of India’s space (BBC)

“To cheapen the lives of any group of men, cheapens the lives of all men, even our own. This is a law of human psychology, or human nature. And it will not be repealed by our wishes, nor will it be merciful to our blindness.” ― William Pickens

Hidden In Plain Sight

(Amanuel Silashi via Getty Images)

The proliferation of COVID-19 has put other equally insidious diseases on the back burner. The symptoms and spread of tuberculosis (TB) are very similar to those of COVID-19, yet it is TB that is the biggest infectious-disease killer worldwide, claiming 1.5 million lives every year. The pandemic is now threatening to erode decades of painstaking progress made against TB and its deadly allies, HIV and malaria.

It’s not just that the COVID-19 pandemic has diverted scientific attention away from those diseases. Lockdowns, particularly across parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, have raised insurmountable barriers to patients who must travel to distant clinics to obtain diagnoses or their medication. Even a short delay in a malaria diagnosis can quickly turn fatal, sometimes within 36 hours of a spiking fever. Malaria season has begun in West Africa, which currently hosts 90 percent of malaria deaths in the world. But the normal strategies for prevention — distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets and spraying with pesticides — have been curtailed because of lockdowns.

Traditional antiviral drugs are in short supply, as the pandemic has interrupted supply chains and redirected manufacturing capacity. Severe restrictions on international transport have hindered the availability not just of chemical ingredients and raw materials necessary for critical HIV, TB and malaria drugs, but even packaging supplies. About 80 percent of these infectious disease programs worldwide have reported service disruptions in the face of COVID-19.

Piling onto the problem has been the hype over the crucial malaria medicine chloroquine as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Hoarding of the drug in some countries like Myanmar has depleted global stocks, keeping the drug from those who need it for legitimate treatments. President Trump has frequently recommended people take the drug, and hospitals in Brazil are giving chloroquine to patients with COVID-19, even though studies show as against the COVID-19 it is either ineffectual, or possibly even harmful.

In country after country, the pandemic has resulted in sharp drops in diagnoses of TB. The director of an advocacy group in Mexico said: “Nobody is testing for TB at any facility. The mind of clinicians … is stuck with COVID-19.” Public health experts warn that if current trends continue, the COVID-19 could erase decades of progress against TB, HIV and malaria. Yet considering the current collective focus on COVID-19, the director of the McGill International TB Centre in Canada isn’t optimistic: “I can’t imagine diseases of poverty getting any attention in this space.”

Cruising for a Bruising

(David Hecker via Getty Images)

In March, the MS Roald Amundsen was stranded at sea for several days with more than 100 passengers after Chile refused its entry to port because of confirmed COVID-19 cases onboard. The Hurtigruten line, owner of the Amundsen and 15 other vessels, halted business for three months, then became the first to return to oceangoing cruises in mid-June.
Now two ships have reported outbreaks of COVID-19, one in the Arctic and one in the Pacific. At least thirty-six crew members and three passengers onboard the Amundsen have tested positive so far; four crew members were hospitalized Friday when the ship arrived at the Norwegian port of Tromsø. 178 passengers were allowed to leave the ship in Tromsø, triggering a complex operation to locate them in order to contain any potential spread.
Four of the 387 passengers who traveled on the ship on two separate Arctic voyages since July 17 were found to be carriers of the virus. In the Pacific, the Paul Gauguin was sailing between Bora Bora and the Rangiroa islands when a positive case was detected in a crew member; the ship turned around and headed back to its home port.
The Gauguin resumed sailing on July 18 for local residents, and on July 29 for international guests. Days later, the Gauguin was docked in Papeete, Tahiti, and the ship’s passengers were told to stay in their cabins after COVID-19 was detected on board by the ship’s doctor. (Guardian)

Iran’s COVID Cover-Up

Iranian government records leaked to journalists show the real number of deaths from COVID-19 is nearly three times what has been officially reported. The government’s own documents reveal that, as of July 20, almost 42,000 people have died with COVID-19 symptoms. Iran’s Health Ministry reported just 14,405 deaths from the disease.
Additionally, the number of people known to be infected is almost double official figures, with 451,024 actual cases as opposed to the reported 278,827. The leaked information reveals that the government has released significantly lower daily case numbers despite having a record of all deaths, suggesting the actual count was deliberately suppressed.
The discrepancy between official figures and the number of deaths on these records also matches the difference between the official figure and calculations of excess mortality until mid-June. Excess mortality refers to the number of deaths above and beyond what would be expected under “normal” conditions. The first recorded death on the leaked list occurred on January 22, a month before Iran’s first case of COVID-19 was officially reported. Health Ministry officials insisted at the time there wasn’t a single case of COVID-19 in the country, despite reports by journalists inside Iran, and warnings from various medical professionals.
By the time the first official report was made on February 19, 52 people had already died. A doctor with first-hand knowledge said the ministry was “in denial,” and that the position of security services had been “not to admit to the existence of COVID-19 in Iran.” (BBC)

Additional World News

Abductions, Censorship and Layoffs: Pakistani Critics Are Under Siege (NYT, $)
Poland’s Supreme Court Declares Presidential Election Valid (NYT, $)
The Panopticon Is Already Here: Xi Jinping is using artificial intelligence to enhance his government’s totalitarian control—and he’s exporting this technology to regimes around the globe. (Atlantic, $)
Trump says TikTok sale can go through but only if the US gets a cut (CNN)
China will not accept US ‘theft’ of TikTok: China Daily (Yahoo)
‘Clean Up This Mess’: The Chinese Thinkers Behind Xi’s Hard Line (NYT, $)
Obituary: Lee Teng-hui, former Taiwan president, 1923-2020 (Financial Times)
North Korea has ‘probably’ developed nuclear devices to fit ballistic missiles
Australia to make Facebook, Google pay for news in world first (Reuters)
Facebook Obeys Brazil Judge’s Order to Block 12 Accounts (Time)
Brexit fuels brain drain as skilled Britons head to the EU (Guardian)

COVID-19

Irked By Birx

Unlike longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House COVID-19 task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx has been described as a COVID-19 optimist who has been careful not to give President Trump any bad news on the virus. Birx reportedly told the president that the US was on its way to flattening its curve like Italy, and that outbreaks were slowing.
But last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore into Birx in closed-door negotiations with administration officials, saying the White House was in “horrible hands” with the public health expert leading the COVID-19 taskforce. Pelosi continued her criticism of Birx on Sunday during an appearance on ABC. The same day Birx struck a more somber tone, telling CNN the pandemic was entering a new, dangerous phase.
“What we are seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread,” Birx said, adding that the pandemic was affecting both urban and rural areas. The next day Trump criticized Birx, tweeting: “So Crazy Nancy Pelosi said horrible things about Dr. Deborah Birx, going after her because she was too positive on the very good job we are doing on combating the China Virus, including Vaccines & Therapeutics. In order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!”
Trump’s public attack on Birx ran counter to recent messaging from his top spokespeople, who fiercely defended Birx days ago following Pelosi’s criticism. Later Monday afternoon, Trump spoke at the White House and again endorsed the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. (Politico)

Defendants of the First Amendment

Much attention has been given to the current state of affairs in Portland, Oregon. Primarily, the media has focused on frightening images of protestors being arrested and hauled off in unmarked vans. Perhaps more unsettling, however, is the treatment of protestors as they are being released from federal custody.
After jailing protestors on charges of “failing to obey,” authorities in Oregon are attempting to snuff out civil unrest by prohibiting released offenders from returning to protests as they await misdemeanor trials. Recent release documents are found to require that freed protesters to avoid “protests, rallies, assemblies, or public gatherings in the state of Oregon.”
For those who have complied with orders to avoid rallies, they feel as if they had no other choice. As detained protester Bailey Dreibelbis put it, “It was pretty cut-and-dried, just, ‘These are your conditions for [getting out] of here.’ If I didn’t take it, I would still be in holding. It wasn’t really an option, in my eyes.”
Constitutional scholars have found that conditioning one’s release on pledge to avoid further protests is in direct violation of the First Amendment’s right to free assembly. In using threats and intimidation to deter protestors — many of whom have been arrested for non-violent offenses — it appears federal agents are desperate to gain control over a situation that has been intensified by their agitative presence. (ProPublica)

Additional USA News

When We Become the Martians

Since humankind’s inception more than 7 million years ago, we have evolved in perfect conjunction with the planet we inhabit. Simply put, man has come to thrive in our warm, wet, terrestrial homeland. However, as our species aims to become interplanetary, scientists are considering what genetic tweaks will be necessary to prime humans for life on Mars.
Extended space travel — along with time on Mars’s surface — exposes astronauts to extreme amounts of radiation, which can alter and destroy cells, leading to cancer and unhealthy mutations in spacefaring explorers. However, biologists are researching alterations in our genetic code which could help humans become more resistant to ionizing radiation, and they aren’t stopping there.
Harvard geneticist George Church — who claims that “biological engineering” is integral to future space travel — has determined more than 40 genes which he considers ripe for space-friendly alterations. His findings include strains that can make humans less dependent on food and water, smarter and less forgetful, and even some that can decrease our natural human odors. Each of these human innovations could help us develop the ideal astronaut for deep-space travel.
As science progresses, the opportunities for significant human modifications grow with it. But where do we draw the line? If man seeks to colonize Mars, there’s a chance we could essentially create a new species, which propels us into an interesting ethical debate. Painful memories of eugenics and cautionary tales of science fiction delineate just how problematic the intelligent modification of life can become. But as we thrust ourselves into a global space age, the question appears not be if, but how? (Wired)

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