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Coronavirus Tidbits #70 7/30/20
Quick links News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty Announcements: First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting. Tidbits will likely be a bit shorter and a little less frequent for the next little bit. I have been immersed in it and I need to spend a little more time on self-care, which for me means seeing the spring flowers emerge and digging in the dirt. Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so…
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Coronavirus Tidbits # 19 3-26-20
News: This is very exciting to me and the best news of the day. I met David Fajgenbaum at a conference to launch CURE ID, the Drug Repurposing program I’ve been excited about. Go watch this video, starting at ~3:42:14 of his remarkable story. He’s translated that drive into #COVID19 research now and his team has done remarkable work extracting data in just 6 days! Also go watch ~31:40” for a 10 minute talk from Shira Strongin (I’ve written about her and rare diseases before) on her life before and after a repurposed Hail Mary drug for her rare disease. I’ve been excited about drug repurposing for years for its potential to…
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Thanksgiving 2019
With all the bad news in recent weeks—the impeachment hearings exposing such high-level graft throughout this administration, Hong Kong and Iran protests, and more—there have also been more glimmers of hope. Here are some of the people I am thankful for. Scott Warren, the humanitarian who faced 20 years in prison for offering food, water, and brief shelter to migrants crossing the arid desert, where thousands have died. Working with No More Deaths, Warren provided aid consistent with his firmly held religious beliefs,1 to prevent needless suffering and death. The government has harassed eight other volunteers with misdemeanor charges, and has tracked, searched and detained lawyers and journalists covering the…
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Kristallnacht
November 9-10 is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when violence broke out against Jews throughout Germany. While designed to appear spontaneous, the demonstrations had been carefully orchestrated by the Nazis. In response to an assassination, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, orchestrated a “spontaneous” reaction, and sent a teletype with explicit instructions to police and secret service. In two days, over 250 synagogues were burned, over 7,000 Jewish businesses were trashed and looted. Almost 100 were murdered. The morning after the pogroms, 30,000 German Jewish men were arrested for the “crime” of being a Jew and sent to concentration camps, where many of them perished. I fear…
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Round-up of Customs and Border Patrol Abuses and Protests
Human rights abuses continue on our Southern border, but there has been some good pushback. First, the bad news. The worst parts have been the abuses reported from CBP “detention” camps, what most people would call concentration camps, as I noted here. Members of Congress visited the camps earlier this month, but little has changed. There are inmates with no running water, inadequate food, and cramped together. For example, DHS inspectors visited Paso del Norte, a facility near El Paso. They found it was holding 900 in a facility designed for 125. Under this administration, at least 24 adults have died while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.…
