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from CBS News (& affiliates)
UN food agency chief: World could see famines of "biblical proportions" within months
David Beasley, director of the United Nations World Food Program, warned Tuesday that the world is on "the brink of a hunger pandemic" as it grapples with the global coronavirus crisis. He said that without action, the world could face "multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months." We are already facing "a perfect storm" due to wars like those in Syria and Yemen and more frequent natural disasters, among other factors, he said. "It is critical we come together as one united global community to defeat this disease, and protect the most vulnerable nations and communities from its potentially devastating effects," Beasley told the U.N. Security Council.
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from CNBC
TV Network in Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Sweden resisted a lockdown, and its capital Stockholm is expected to reach ‘herd immunity’ in weeks
Unlike its neighbors, Sweden did not impose a lockdown amid the coronavirus outbreak. The strategy — aimed at building a broad-base of immunity while protecting at-risk groups like the elderly — has proved controversial. But Sweden’s chief epidemiologist has said “herd immunity” could be reached in Stockholm within weeks.
Sweden resisted a lockdown, and its capital Stockholm is expected to reach ‘herd immunity’ in weeks
Unlike its neighbors, Sweden did not impose a lockdown amid the coronavirus outbreak. The strategy — aimed at building a broad-base of immunity while protecting at-risk groups like the elderly — has proved controversial. But Sweden’s chief epidemiologist has said “herd immunity” could be reached in Stockholm within weeks.
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from The Hill
LEAST BIASED, MOSTLY FACTUAL, News & Media Website in Washington, D.C.Washington state to implement 'rapid-response' contact tracing workforce in May
Washington state will implement a rapid-response contact tracing workforce next month as part of the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said Tuesday. "We expect roughly 1,500 workers focused solely on contact tracing by the second week of May," Inslee said in a televised speech Tuesday, according to NPR. "This workforce will be rapid-response, something like a fire brigade." There are about 700 contact tracers available now who are state and local health employees, but more will be hired and the state will draw 500 additional tracers from the National Guard, NPR reports.
The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
BY DR. SCOTT W. ATLAS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function. Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown.
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from HumanProgress.org Education Website
The Simon Abundance Index 2020
The Earth was 570.9 percent more abundant in 2019 than it was in 1980.
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from KOMO News (ABC Seattle)
Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney has become the latest sheriff in Washington to voice his displeasure at the state's current "Stay at Home" orders amid the COVID-19 outbreak and reiterated his vow not to arrest those who defy it. Fortney took to Facebook late Tuesday night in a several-paragraph statement questioning Gov. Jay Inslee's plans amid what Fortney called were "drastic measures as the suspension of constitutional rights."
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from National Review RIGHT BIAS
Attorney General Bill Barr caused something of a stir yesterday by quipping that some of the state shelter-in-place restrictions to stem the coronavirus epidemic have been akin to “house arrest.” In essence, though, he was simply conveying the same civil-rights theory that we tracked here less than a week ago, when the Justice Department intervened in a lawsuit brought by Christians whose Mississippi town was capriciously denying them the right to communal worship. As the Civil Rights Division’s submission to the Mississippi federal court framed the matter: “There is no pandemic exception . . . to the fundamental liberties the Constitution safeguards.” ... [M]any of the state restrictions on commercial activity have focused on the question of whether, in the judgment of the governors or municipal authorities, businesses are “essential” or “non-essential.” This has led to some blatantly politicized regulating — abortion clinics are essential, elective surgery is not; union activity is essential, gun shops are not; sales of Lotto tickets are essential, sales of planting seeds are not; and so on. Barr appears intent on putting a stop to this arbitrary and ideologically driven line-drawing, not by substituting his policy preferences but by pointing out that states are asking the wrong question. It is not whether a particular business is “essential” or “non-essential”; it is whether the business can be operated safely. If it can be, the states are obliged to permit it to operate, particularly given that it is in the interests of businesses and their customers to observe safety precautions.
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from New York Times Newspaper in New York
Covid-19 Arrived in Seattle. Where It Went From There Stunned the Scientists.
Scientists traced the virus brought to the Seattle area in January. They were astonished to learn that the same branch of the virus traveled on through at least a dozen states and to other parts of the world. Using advanced technology that allows them to rapidly identify the tiny mutations that the virus makes in its virulent path through human hosts, the scientists working in Washington and several other states made two disconcerting discoveries. The first was that the virus brought in by the man from Wuhan — or perhaps, as new data has suggested, by someone else who arrived carrying a nearly identical strain — had managed to settle into the population undetected. Then they began to realize how far it had spread. A small outbreak that had established itself somewhere north of Seattle, they realized as they added new cases to their database, was now responsible for all known cases of community transmission they examined in Washington State in the month of February. And it had jumped. A genetically similar version of the virus — directly linked to that first case in Washington — was identified across 14 other states, as far away as Connecticut and Maryland. It settled in other parts of the world, in Australia, Mexico, Iceland, Canada, the United Kingdom and Uruguay. It landed in the Pacific, on the Grand Princess cruise ship. The unique signature of the virus that reached America’s shores in Seattle now accounts for a quarter of all U.S. cases made public by genomic sequencers in the United States.
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from The Saturday Evening Post
Since the removal of two dams on the Elwha River in the Pacific Northwest, salmon are spawning once again, animals large and small are returning to the river banks, and hundreds of acres of barren former lakebed are greening.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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