2021-04-15
First interesting mRNA COVID-19 vaccine side effect
2021-04-14
Fwd: Chinese Air Force Tawain
That was the largest daily incursion since Taiwan's defence ministry started to report Chinese Air Force activities in Taiwan's ADIZ last year.
Taiwan reports largest incursion yet by Chinese air force (msn.com)
Fired over insisting on Due Process for woman police officer
Before leaving the podium, Elliott noted that Boganey, as city manager, had the authority to determine whether the officer would be fired. Boganey noted that he would not take immediate action to remove the officer.
"All employees working for the city of Brooklyn Center are entitled to due process with respect to discipline," Boganey said. "This employee will receive due process and that's really all that I can say today."
When pressed on whether he personally felt the officer should be fired, Boganey again called for due process.
"If I were to answer that question, I'd be contradicting what I said a moment ago -- which is to say that all employees are entitled to due process and after that due process, discipline will be determined," Boganey said. "If I were to say anything else, I would actually be contradicting the idea of due process."
The Brooklyn Center City Council voted to fire Boganey, a longtime city employee, during an emergency meeting, the Star Tribune reported. At the same meeting, the council voted to give the mayor command authority over the city's police department.
During a virtual workshop after the meeting, Council Member Kris Lawrence-Anderson said she voted to fire Boganey out of fear of potential reprisals from protestors if she did not, according to the newspaper.
"He was doing a great job. I respect him dearly," Lawrence-Anderson said. "I didn't want repercussions at a personal level."
Both Elliott and Boganey addressed potential disciplinary action toward the officer during a press conference earlier in the day. At the time, Elliott called for the officer to be fired.
"Let me be very clear – my position is that we cannot afford to make mistakes that lead to the loss of life of other people in our profession," Elliott said. "I do fully support releasing the officer of her duties."
Domestic energy as a villain
Biden must put jobs first and stop treating our domestic oil and gas producers as the enemies of progress. Oil and natural gas power our computers, our cars and trucks, our factories, our furnaces, our cellphones -- and all that our $22 trillion industrial economy encompasses. To "build back better," let those producers be part of an "all-of-the-above" clean, cheap and reliable all-America energy policy.
Biden's Green Energy Plan Declares War on American Energy | RealClearPolitics
100 CEOs meet to discuss opposing voter ID laws
More than 100 CEOs and senior leaders on Saturday met on a Zoom call to map out how businesses should respond to new voting restrictions that are set to be enacted in Texas and other states across the country.
The executives discussed ways to oppose the voting laws, which were first enacted in Georgia.
This included halting donations to politicians who support the bills and postponing investments in US states that pass the legislation, four people who were on the call told the Washington Post on Sunday, including one of the organizers, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor.
In the wake of the controversy surrounding Georgia's new voting law, SB 202, with Major League Baseball pulling the 2021 All-Star Game from the state and companies like Coca-Cola and Delta pushing back against restrictive voting provisions, this effort would represent a significant development in the corporate sector weighing in on voting rights.
100 CEOs Discuss Halting Donations to Oppose New Voting Laws (businessinsider.com)
(9) They're Not The "Resistance," They're The Powerful | Ep. 1233 - YouTube
Dark Matter's Last Stand - Scientific American
No Charges Against Officer Who Shot Ashli Babbitt: DOJ
Semantic debate? in what world?
2021-04-13
2021-04-11
2021-04-10
The sneaky liberalism of Joe Biden's first few months in office - CNNPolitics
Which isn't the Joe Biden most people (including Democrats) likely thought they were getting. But it's the Joe Biden we have -- at least for now.
2021-04-09
2021-04-08
1st Cases Of Brazil Variant, More Contagious S. African Variant In L.A. – Deadline
Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer noted that, due to the expense, "Very few of our specimens are genetically tested in this way." Statewide, only 5% of tests are run through genomic sequencing, according to California's top health officer. The rate is even less at the county level.
According to the other article I posted, the Pfizer vaccine is 2/3 less effective against the South African Variant and the Moderna Vaccine is 6.4 times less effective.
2021-04-06
CPU? GPU? This new ARM chip is BOTH
A third of Covid-19 survivors suffer 'brain disease,' study shows - CNN
They found 34% of Covid-19 survivors received a diagnosis for a neurological or psychological condition within six months of their infection, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal Lancet Psychiatry.
The most common diagnosis was anxiety, found in 17% of those treated for Covid-19, followed by mood disorders, found in 14% of patients.
"That rate increased progressively as the severity of the Covid-19 illness increased. If we look at patients who were hospitalized that rate increased to 39%," said Maxime Taquet, an academic clinical fellow in psychiatry at the University of Oxford, and a co-author of the new study.
2021-04-04
How Many Strains of the Coronavirus Are There? About New Variants
You may be wondering if the coronavirus variants have an impact on the effectiveness of our current vaccines.
From what we know so far, it appears that the current vaccines may be less effective for B.1.351, the variant first identified in South Africa. This is currently an area of ongoing, intense research.
Let's look at a snapshot of what some of the data says so far.
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
Large-scale clinical trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine found a vaccine effectiveness of 95 percent against the original version of the new coronavirus.
This vaccine is currently authorized for emergency use in the United States.
A recent study investigated the effectiveness of this vaccine for test viruses containing the mutations found in B.1.351. To do this, serum from individuals who had been vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was used.
Researchers found that this serum, which contains antibodies, was less effective against B.1.351. In fact, neutralization of test viruses containing all of the mutations present in B.1.351 was reduced by two-thirds.
What about B.1.1.7, the variant first seen in the U.K.?
A study similar to the one we've discussed above found that neutralization of test viruses with the spike protein of B.1.1.7 was only slightly lower than it was for earlier versions of the coronavirus.
Moderna vaccine
The large-scale clinical trials on the Moderna vaccine determined that vaccine effectiveness was 94.1 percent against the original version of the new coronavirus.
Like the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the Moderna vaccine has been authorized for emergency use in the United States.
A recent study looked into the effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine for the B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants. In order to do this, researchers used serum from individuals who had received the Moderna vaccine and test viruses containing the spike proteins from the variants.
It was found that test viruses with the B.1.1.7 spike protein were neutralized in a similar manner to earlier versions of the coronavirus.
However, neutralization of test viruses with the spike protein of B.1.351 was 6.4-fold lower.
Johnson & Johnson vaccine
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the third COVID-19 vaccine to be authorized for emergency use in the United States.
Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, it only requires one dose.
This vaccine has yet to be tested against specific variants. However, large-scale clinical trials were performed in places where variants are circulating, such as South Africa and South America.
According to the data released from clinical trialsTrusted Source, the effectiveness of this vaccine 28 days after vaccination is:
66 percent effective overall
72 percent in the United States
66 percent effective in South America, where the P.1 variant is circulating
57 percent effective in South Africa, where the B.1.351 variant is circulating
85 percent effective at preventing severe COVID-19 symptoms across all geographical regions
Biden Makes Easter Plea; U.K. Plans Vaccine Passes: Virus Update - Bloomberg
The U.S. added almost 65,000 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday and remains on pace for the most weekly infections since the end of February. North Dakota has gone nine days without a Covid-19 fatality, the longest stretch since the first death there.