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from Asia Times
LEAST BIASED, HIGH; News & Media Website based in Hong Kong
US accuses China, Russia of joint conspiracies
The United States on Friday accused China and Russia of stepping up cooperation to spread false narratives over the coronavirus pandemic, saying Beijing was increasingly adopting techniques honed by Moscow. “Even before the Covid-19 crisis we assessed a certain level of coordination between Russia and the PRC in the realm of propaganda,” said Lea Gabrielle, coordinator of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which tracks foreign propaganda. The Global Engagement Center earlier said thousands of Russian-linked social media accounts were spreading conspiracies about the pandemic, including charging that the virus first detected last year in the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan was created by the United States.
Drug ‘cocktail’ shortens Covid-19 illness: study
Researchers in Hong Kong have found that patients suffering milder illness caused by the new coronavirus recover more quickly if they are treated with a three-drug antiviral cocktail soon after symptoms appear. The study tracked the virus in 127 adults admitted to six hospitals in Hong Kong after they tested positive. Of those participating, 86 patients were given a two-week course of three medicines: interferon beta-1b, a drug used to treat multiple sclerosis; HIV drugs lopinavir-ritonavir; and ribavirin, used to treat hepatitis.
Invoke Magnitsky on China, says Canadian MP
Privacy & pandemics – time for constitutional test
Americans never will adopt the indifferent attitude towards privacy that has made it easy for Asian nations to track Covid-19 contacts electronically. That is a good thing, in my view. The strength of the West has been its belief in the sanctity of the individual. But technology that can track carriers at the individual level will not only save lives but vastly improve the likelihood of a return to normal economic life. The same technology can be abused. The challenge to American governance is to use Constitutional checks and balances to apply the technology without eroding the individual liberties that are America’s raison d’être in the first place.
The United States on Friday accused China and Russia of stepping up cooperation to spread false narratives over the coronavirus pandemic, saying Beijing was increasingly adopting techniques honed by Moscow. “Even before the Covid-19 crisis we assessed a certain level of coordination between Russia and the PRC in the realm of propaganda,” said Lea Gabrielle, coordinator of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which tracks foreign propaganda. The Global Engagement Center earlier said thousands of Russian-linked social media accounts were spreading conspiracies about the pandemic, including charging that the virus first detected last year in the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan was created by the United States.
Researchers in Hong Kong have found that patients suffering milder illness caused by the new coronavirus recover more quickly if they are treated with a three-drug antiviral cocktail soon after symptoms appear. The study tracked the virus in 127 adults admitted to six hospitals in Hong Kong after they tested positive. Of those participating, 86 patients were given a two-week course of three medicines: interferon beta-1b, a drug used to treat multiple sclerosis; HIV drugs lopinavir-ritonavir; and ribavirin, used to treat hepatitis.
Canada’s conservative right is taking straight aim at China, and not holding back. The latest to fire torpedoes, is Conservative leadership hopeful Peter MacKay, who is calling for use of the Magnitsky Act if specific individuals in China can be identified as having suppressed information related to Covid-19, Canadian Press reported. A full inquiry, perhaps an international one, into how the novel coronavirus turned into a pandemic is required, MacKay told supporters. “We need to invoke existing laws like the Magnitsky Act to hold individuals personally accountable for misdeeds if that evidence exists,” he said. MacKay, as well as two other fringe leadership candidates, Erin O’Toole and Derek Sloan, also joined Cotler and hundreds of other politicians, academics and human rights advocates in signing a letter condemning China’s actions.
Americans never will adopt the indifferent attitude towards privacy that has made it easy for Asian nations to track Covid-19 contacts electronically. That is a good thing, in my view. The strength of the West has been its belief in the sanctity of the individual. But technology that can track carriers at the individual level will not only save lives but vastly improve the likelihood of a return to normal economic life. The same technology can be abused. The challenge to American governance is to use Constitutional checks and balances to apply the technology without eroding the individual liberties that are America’s raison d’être in the first place.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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