“Many will have heard Russia’s announcement that they have approved a coronavirus vaccine. I’ve already had several people ask me what I think of it, so let me be clear: I think it’s a ridiculous publicity stunt. If it’s supposed to make Russia look like some sort of biotechnology powerhouse, then as far as I’m concerned it does the opposite. It makes them look desperate, like the nation-state equivalent of a bunch of penny-stock promoters. The new airliner design prototype just got off the ground – time to sell tickets and load it full of passengers, right?
Why so negative? Look at what’s being claimed – the first coronavirus vaccine to receive regulatory approval. But “regulatory approval” is not some international gold standard, and these sorts of decisions show you why. Let’s be honest: there is no way that you can responsibly “approve” a vaccine after it’s only been into human trials for what numerous reports say is less than two months. That’s about enough time to do the first steps, a Phase I trial that gives you some idea of immune response across more than one dose. It is simply not enough time to do a reasonable efficacy workup as well, and absolutely not enough time to get any sort of reading on safety. Here’s a good article going into those timelines in more depth.”
Three sets of Q&As that I find very insightful. [K’s note: Love this quote: “The virus doesn’t have a brain. We are the one that have brains. […] how we can outsmart something doesn’t have a brain that we are not doing such a great job now.”]11:41 What are the keys to vaccines development? [HT Philip]12:38 Dr. Ryan’s answers.15:35 Dr. Bruce adds more. [… When it comes to a key to finding the vaccine …]
41:52 Q: When you talk about know your enemy, what is the virus trying to do?
42:13 Dr. Ryan: The virus doesn’t have a brain. We are the one that have brains. [… great answers ] Maria may have something to say about how we can outsmart something doesn’t have a brain that we are not doing such a great job now. #frank
42:59 Dr. Maria: [… “The goal of a virus is to make more virus. The goal of the virus is to, I would use the word “survive” if it was alive, it is NOT alive. It wants to reproduce. It wants to find individuals to …] […more great answers!]Read the rest of this entry »
“We're their closest allies… and he comes and backstabs us like this? Unacceptable,” said Ontario's @fordnation about U.S. President Trump imposing tariffs on Canadian aluminum. “We will come back swinging like they've never seen before.” pic.twitter.com/QioutphKCe
//On 12 January Huang got news his healthy 65-year-old mother had been checked into a hospital in the central Chinese city of Wuhan with a fever and a cough. […]
The hospital pressured the family to immediately cremate Huang’s mother, but they refused, asking for more information. A few days later, they relented and workers from a funeral home, also in protective clothing, retrieved, cremated and buried her within a few hours, leaving the family no time to say goodbye. Afterwards, the staff disinfected the van they had travelled in and threw away their hamzat suits.
“My mother’s death was dealt with without any dignity,” said Huang, 40, who did not want to give his or his mother’s full name. “She wasn’t even counted as a number on the government’s list,” he said, referring to the six people authorities say have been killed by the virus.//
//China’s National Health Commission has confirmed human-to-human transmission of a mysterious Sars-like virus that has spread across the country and fuelled anxiety about the prospect of a major outbreak as millions begin travelling for lunar new year celebrations.
Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory expert and head of the health commission team investigating the outbreak, confirmed that two cases of infection in China’s Guangdong province had been caused by human-to-human transmission and medical staff had been infected, China’s official Xinhua news agency said on Monday.//
“This discussion I’m having Amy and Jo have is, in some ways, my thesis. Or at least part of my thesis. Initially I was worried it was going to be too on the nose, this discussion of writing, but it seems to be something that people fold into the emotional arc of the story, that it doesn’t stand out in blinking lights, like, HERE IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT. In any case, this discussion of the subject of fiction as either conferring importance or reflecting it, is at the heart of my understanding of the book. It is one of the reasons this book is the book that so many female authors and creators point back to and say, “That is my book; Jo March is my girl.” […]
The very last two lines, about Amy being wise, aren’t directly from the book, but they are an extrapolation of one of my favorite lines of Amy’s—she says, “I don’t pretend to be wise, but I am observant.” That was one of the lines that I underlined and put little stars and exclamation points around because it was another key to the puzzle of Amy. She has always been seen as such a bratty character, with no depth or backbone, and yet when I revisited the book, I found her to be amazingly insightful and compelling. I wanted her to deliver some knowledge to Jo—sometimes creators don’t know what they create, and it is essential to have someone else reflect it back to you. And then of course Amy’s response to Jo, “You were just too busy noticing my faults,” is me in conversation with the 150-year-old audience of Little Women. It’s me—Greta, the author—saying, “WE MISSED HER! SHE WAS WISE ALL ALONG!”
In some ways this entire scene is that—a four-way conversation between me, the modern screenwriter, Louisa May Alcott, the characters of the book, and the audience as it spans across time and space. And I’m saying, it matters what we write. It matters what we make films about. I can because Louisa May Alcott did.”
“Velma Demerson was a young woman in love with a baby on the way — and for that, she was jailed for nearly a year.
It was 1939 in Toronto and Demerson, a white woman, was engaged to Harry Yip, a Chinese man.
Police showed up at the couple’s home in May 1939 and arrested the then-18-year-old under the Female Refuges Act of 1897, a since-repealed law that allowed authorities to jail women for “incorrigible” behaviour such as promiscuity, pregnancy out of wedlock and public drunkenness.”
“University of Toronto neuroscientist Morgan Barense has created an app called the HippoCamera, which mimics part of the brain compromised in Alzheimer’s disease. She offers her Brief But Spectacular take on how to improve our relationship with those suffering from memory loss.”
#TeachableMoments I love the Raptors but I’m not a traditional basketball fan. I love and look for those moments/insights that transcend the sport and try to learn from them. Just LOVE this Serge Ibaka segment in the article so very much, thanks Arden Zwelling for the great writing,
“Davis remembers Ibaka sitting him down shortly after Lowry’s injury to talk about his expanded role — how important it was for him to seize the opportunity as long as it lasted and prove he could be relied upon in critical moments.
Davis says he needed that talk to help drive home the fact he wasn’t only playing to help himself and his team presently, but in the future. Ibaka says it’s a message he might not have known he needed to deliver earlier in his career.
“After winning a championship, I learned that to win a championship, you need everybody. You need everybody to have confidence to play at a high level,” Ibaka said. “And since I want to win another one, I have to make sure that everybody around me is good. So, I’m going to start with the young fellas.
“I spoke with (Davis) a couple times. Just trying to make him understand that he has a chance to be great here. All he has to do is focus and do all the little things because he has talent. Sometimes, as a young guy, it’s very hard to understand that when you come into a team that has already won something. Even if you have talent, you have to do the little things to give your coach the confidence to put you on the court. So, it’s our job as the vets to talk to them and make sure that they understand that.”“
Posted by kempton 
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