Do you have any studies or indications of accuracy of the currect covid tests? You noted before that they were far too inaccurate for your liking.
So she admitted that an activist group met with her and set her up a go fund me page before reopening AND she took the small loan money from the government even though she was open .... which she claims she doesn’t know how or why she got it because her employees are actually independent contractors... and to get the loan you have to fill out paperwork... so she is lying about the circumstances surrounding the loan... and supposedly she lives in a home worth 1.5 million dollars. So no, I don’t think her “trying to keep my children fed” BS isn’t going to fly. It was a political stunt and is disrespectful to people who really are suffering.
^ Agree if this is the case, they should throw the book at her. Fraud should be easy to prove because she would have to sign the PPP app. But I will also say that the govt is so overwhelmed at this time that many things are getting rubber stamped with no review.
China's Jilin in lockdown after coronavirus cluster: Live updates An emergence of a local coronavirus cluster in Chinese city of Jilin has fuelled fears of a second wave of infections. https://news.google.com/articles/CA...CoFCAowhgIwkDgw0O8B?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
With the gubmint spending trillions in such a short period of time I gotta think fraud is just absolutely rampant right now. I mean, even in a normal year the gubmint gets taken for 10's if not 100's of billions and that's just medicare.
My wife works in a business that did not take a PPP loan because they could not justify the fact that they would absolutely need it. You have to sign an affidavit that you don't have the cash or mean of getting money. Multiple businesses they work with took PPP loans that they probably didn't need. I think you'll see a big audit and a lot of those forgivable loans won't be forgiven, and there could be added penalties. On the flip side, and I think I've said this on here before: When things are good, you strive for perfection over energy. When you're in crisis, you strive for energy over perfection. The fed is basically blasting money into the economy knowing that a chunk will go to places that shouldn't get it, but they don't have time to be perfect about it. That money will get spent anyways. More is coming. The bill proposed by Pelosi won't get passed, but some bill will. Look for trillions more in bazooka blasts. I think a lot of businesses wll face a difficult decision with PPP money: Do I shut down and furlough, and then use the PPP money to reopen so people have a job to come back to, or do I stay open and pay my employees, but risk the economy not opening back fast enough and so I have to risk permanently shutting down later?
I think overall the test is good (and its the best thing we have) but tends to be problematic in instances where people like me have to interpret it for truly sick folks that you isolate or don't isolate, if you have mass testing I think in the normal population you could get some indication. But the truly sick folks... Its an extremely difficult thing to answer, how do you assess inaccuracy of this test? For other tests you do so by another test, that proves to be positive. Blood tests for a lot of diseases are pretty good, and we tend to look not for the virus itself but immunological markers (hepatitis for example). This isn't the case for COVID since it is so new. Theres a clinical picture that is pretty consistent with COVID in terms of lab/imaging. Not going to get into it too much, but essentially if those findings are consistent the CDC tells you not to remove isolation precautions even if the test is repeatedly negative. Maybe they would have tested positive at some point? Its really hard to say, stuff is changing daily I'm curious to know what they'll find in a couple months time.
Quick testing doesn't look to be as accurate as we need it to be... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/13/abb...-cases-raising-questions-nyu-study-finds.html
Ugh. I dread the day when early vaccine trials come back with mixed results and some people accuse scientists of sand-bagging their work b/c they want "perpetual lockdown" and "more funding." Get ready for that accusation when the planet is beyond sick of this virus.
On the topic of how to move into a real new normal, I love this quote from this guy in Lebanon, which is temporarily tightening restrictions again. It's spot on. We have to learn to live with this virus and the so-called lockdowns have to be temporary measures to halt the worst outbreaks and to give people time to regroup. WAPO: Some countries re-imposing restrictions as others ease up. Firass Abiad, who oversees coronavirus efforts at the Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon’s main government hospital, said a country’s success will depend less on how it curtails the spread of disease during a lockdown than on how the country manages the inevitable resurgence after lockdowns end. “A lockdown is a means and not an end,” he said. “It’s a means either to allow you to regain control or put measures in place to control coronavirus when it comes back. When we eased the lockdown, we knew there would be an increase in the number of cases.” Hell, I could even see a interim future where you have like one lock-down week a month or something, just to put a dent in the spread and give hospitals periodic breathers in new cases. [EDIT: maybe I should put this in the D&D thread b/c it involves policy decisions.]
It's pretty ridiculous all around. https://calmatters.org/health/coron...epublican-vendor-maryland-porter-gula-thomas/ Exclusive: California wires mask dealer half a billion dollars, then claws it back
Operation Warp Speed: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/white-house-coronavirus-vaccine/index.html Leaders named. Science Leader is former head of GSK vaccine division, and Operations lead is current 4 star general in charge of the Army's logistics (seems like a logical choice if you have to produce 300,000,000 of something).
Trillions being sloshed around during a crisis by all levels of government is a fraudsters dream. Some will get caught and be made examples of but so many more will get away with it. The government doesn't have the resources or the inclination to properly pursue all of it. It's sad. Same thing every year medicare/medicaid fraud and, I assume, other government programs. The checks and balances just aren't there. So many a&&holes driving around ferrari's paid for with our tax dollars inadequately stewarded by the gubmint.
It was much more vague than that. You simply had to assert that: “current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary to support the ongoing operations of the Applicant.” There really should have been some sort of stipulation that large businesses with access to liquidity be excluded, but that wasn't specified.
More Vitamin D stuff.... I was reading the commentary on the medscape site and it was interesting that the doctors noted that for extreme deficiency far more than the 1000-2000 IU supplementation would be needed. This kind of deficiency is seen in dark skin/black populations that aren't exposed to much sun. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/930152 There is a video at the link Does Vitamin D Protect Against COVID-19? JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH This transcript has been edited for clarity. Hello. This is Dr JoAnn Manson, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. I'd like to talk with you about vitamin D and COVID-19. Is there potentially a protective role? We've known for a long time that it's important to avoid vitamin D deficiency for bone health, cardiometabolic health, and other purposes. But it may be even more important now than ever. There's emerging and growing evidence that vitamin D status may be relevant to the risk of developing COVID-19 infection and to the severity of the disease. Vitamin D is important to innate immunity and boosts immune function against viral diseases. We also know that vitamin D has an immune-modulating effect and can lower inflammation, and this may be relevant to the respiratory response during COVID-19 and the cytokine storm that's been demonstrated. There are laboratory (cell-culture) studies of respiratory cells that document some of these effects of vitamin D. There's also evidence that patients with respiratory infections tend to have lower blood levels of 25-hydroxy-vitamin D. There's now some evidence from COVID-19 patients as well. In an observational study from three South Asian hospitals, the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was much higher among those with severe COVID illness compared with those with mild illness. In fact, there was about an eightfold higher risk of having severe illness among those who entered with vitamin D deficiency compared with those who had sufficient vitamin D levels. There's also evidence from a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials of vitamin D supplementation looking at acute respiratory tract infections (upper and lower). This was published in the British Medical Journal 2 years ago, showing that vitamin D supplementation was associated with a significant reduction in these respiratory tract infections. Overall, it was only a 12% reduction, but among the participants who had profound vitamin D deficiency at baseline (such as a blood level of 25-hydroxy-vitamin D of less than 10 ng/mL), there was a 70% lower risk of respiratory infection with vitamin D supplementation. So the evidence is becoming quite compelling. It's important that we encourage our patients to be outdoors and physically active, while maintaining social distancing. This will lead to increased synthesis of vitamin D in the skin, just from the incidental sun exposure. Diet is also important. Everyone should be reading food labels which list the vitamin D content. Food sources that are higher in vitamin D include fortified dairy products, fortified cereals, fatty fish, and sun-dried mushrooms. For patients who are unable to be outdoors and also have low dietary intake of vitamin D, it's quite reasonable to consider a vitamin D supplement. The recommended dietary allowance of vitamin D is 600-800 IU/daily, but during this period, a multivitamin or supplement containing 1000-2000 IU/daily of vitamin D would be reasonable. We are in the process of planning a randomized clinical trial of vitamin D supplementation in moderate to high doses to see whether it has a role in the risk of developing COVID-19 infections and also in reducing the severity of disease and improving clinical outcomes. In the meantime, it's important to encourage measures that will, on a population-wide basis, reduce the risk for vitamin D deficiency. Thank you so much for your attention. This is JoAnn Manson. Stay safe. Dr JoAnn Manson is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School; and chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Good stuff, @robbie380 -- you really bring the D. Seriously, the note about skin tone and lack of sunlight is especially interesting. (Detroit or NEst corridor in late winter anybody?) Also, who the hell eats "sundried mushrooms"? I love mushrooms, and we get dried ones occasionally, to cook with, but who the heck dries them in the sun? Crows around here would be all over that shiznit.
I know someone who has married/moved overseas, has been living there for over a year, and still receiving a stimulus check. I think the worst fraudulent activity, is all the business loan/grant stuff.
