Good news! America may be going back to work sooner.

[Darren]

It's a test for exposure. Got antibodies?

"In other clinical news, a new serological assay for SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, was developed by a microbiology lab at the Icahn School of Medicine. I spoke with Dr. Florian Krammer about his laboratory’s work creating the assay, our Q&A is now available on Contagionlive.com"

https://www.contagionlive.com/news/cont ... ch-24-2020

[Scooter]

Speaking of people who have their heads up their ass...

[Lord Jim]

Unsurprising News! Darren leaves out key information to give a completely false impression:

When you follow his link, you can see another link to a Q&A with one of the people involved with this, Florian Krammer, PhD, professor of microbiology at Mount Sinai. From the Q&A at that link. (For a complete understanding I recommend reading the entire Q&A; it's not that long:)

Contagion®: Could you explain what this test is and what different role a serological assay plays compared to the SARS-CoV-2 acute infection diagnostics we've heard a lot about the past few weeks?

Krammer: The PCR [polymerase chain reaction] or nucleic-acid based test is to figure out if somebody is acutely infected with the virus. The serological test is to figure out if somebody had been infected with the virus, it's not for finding acute infections...

You might, during an acute infection, already see some antibody, but typically that comes later.

It has a lot of uses in research. We can use it to better understand the antibody response and the dynamics. We can now perform serosurveys to figure out how widespread spread the virus actually is. People who might not have symptoms might still produce an immune response. Those are the research reasons for doing this. Now, there's 2 more practical reasons.

There is a large initiative to look for people who seroconverted, and then ask them to donate plasma and maybe use that as a therapeutic. This has been done in China to a certain degree and in Italy.

There are no clinical trials that show that this is effective, but there's anecdotal evidence that it might work. China is also doing a clinical trial. If you can screen people and look who has a strong immune response, you can identify them and ask them to donate. You could also do that with a neutralization assay, but that takes a few days and you need to do that at biosafety level 3. While the ELISA assay that we developed is very easy to do—there's no infectious virus involved at all, and the output is relatively high. With 1 operator, the current setup that he has, you can run a few thousand samples per week...

...Krammer: There needs to be research done of course, it's a different virus, but that's what we know for the human coronaviruses. That's was observed for people who got infected with SARS-CoV-1 in 2003...


...In the end it's up to the clinical labs to set this up and validate the assays and make sure that they get approval to use it as diagnostic. How far, who is getting tested then, and with what consequence is a different story that's above my pay line.

https://www.contagionlive.com/news/cont ... ch-24-2020

So to summarize:

As yet there are no clinical trials that show this has been effective, clinical labs have to set up and validate it and then get approval to use it as a diagnostic, but somehow, according to Darren this is going to get people back to work "soon"...

Typical Trumpist Fake News...

[Darren]

You missed the point, Jim.

In the search for a medical lab to run a blood test some interesting things came out. That particular test was difficult to find. Quest didn't have the option. Labcorp did offer it but it was unusual and not coded so that the office staff could find or understand it.

What became vary obvious was that the multitude of lab collection outlets were mostly involved in drug testing but did blood tests too. I said multitude. The offices are all over the place.

What continues to amaze me during the pandemic is how rapidly the country has mobilized.

Who knew one of the automakers had experience in making ventilators?

Because of our drug testing requirements in this country we have numerous collection points along with a system to rapidly get results. Walmart knows your drug test result for employment often the next day.

Get the point?

We're developing the ability to rapidly spot the infected. That's great news. When the abilities are coordinated it helps stop the spread. People can then go back to work.

[Lord Jim]

What continues to amaze me during the pandemic is how rapidly the country has mobilized.

Made all the more amazing by the fact that it is being accomplished with a complete lack of honest, competent, steady leadership from the top...

Hat's off to all the state and local officials, private companies that have come forward, medical care givers (thousands have come out of retirement to volunteer their time at significant risk to their own health) and other support folks and neighbors helping neighbors who have all stepped up...

[Gob]

You have to wonder...

Just a few weeks ago, I was confident that Donald Trump’s days in the White House were numbered.

The economy was tanking; coronavirus cases were soaring. And what was the president doing? Calling the coronavirus a “hoax” and mindlessly tweeting. On the same day, the Dow Jones plunged more than 2,000 points and Trump cheerfully retweeted a doctored photo of him playing a violin, remarking: “Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me!” “Nero” immediately started trending.

Trump may be fiddling while the world burns, but, over the past week, he has sharply changed his tune. The guy who recently assured us that Covid-19 would “like a miracle … disappear” now insists that, actually, he knew it was “a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic”. Having realised he can’t just bluster coronavirus away, Trump has rewritten the past, adopted a newly sombre tone and reinvented himself as a “wartime” president. Last Monday, Trump finally admitted the gravity of the situation and announced a 15-day plan to “slow the spread” of the virus.

Trump’s new pandemic persona has been playing well. Last Tuesday, CNN’s chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, lavished praise on the president. “He is being the kind of leader that people need,” Bash told viewers, “in a tone that people need and want and yearn for in times of crisis and uncertainty.” The public seems to agree. A poll released on Friday by ABC News and Ipsos found that 55% of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling the Covid-19 crisis. That is a 12% increase from a poll taken on 11-12 March. A Morning Consult poll conducted from Tuesday to Friday last week similarly found that 53% of Americans approve of the way he has dealt with the pandemic.

Trump has managed to turn himself from Nero to hero in a week. This is incredible, when you consider the fact that he has not done anything substantial; he has just acknowledged that Covid-19 may be more serious than the flu after all. But that is the beauty of setting an incredibly low bar for yourself; it is easy to fail upwards.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/com ... rus-crisis

.

[RayThom]

And what has happened to Dr. Trump's contrarian, the real doctor Anthony Fauci? He's seems to have been "disappeared."

[Lord Jim]

Il Boobce had a couple of good days early last week when he seemed to be finally grasping the reality of the situation...

But it didn't take him long to revert to form and head back to la-la land, talking about packing the churches for Easter, spreading happy talk misinformation, and claiming more people would commit suicide from losing their job in a recession than would die from getting this virus...

And diminishing himself and his office with gratuitous slam tweets at his political opponents (Just this morning he had some truly vile tweets about Romney)

[Darren]

Vile tweets about Romney?

[Scooter]

[Econoline]

I do find it funny the way the "pro-life" people have been reacting to this...

[Burning Petard]

The anti-abortion movement has never been about preserving life. These are people who favor the death penalty, pre-emptive war. "Pro-Life" is a code word for preserving male power over women, particularly poor women.

snailgate

[Econoline]

Word.

[BoSoxGal]

Not just male power over women - but ensuring a regular supply of cannon fodder and low wage labor and bodies to fill the bunks of the for profit prison system where labor is essentially at slave rates. That’s the truth behind ‘pro life’ policies.

[MajGenl.Meade]

US Christian leaders criticise Trump's Easter coronavirus deadline

The Rev Al Sharpton said ‘a premature resurrection will lead to a disaster’ as Rev William Barber called it ‘the height of hypocrisy’ . . .

. . . The Rev Laura Everett, a pastor and executive director of Massachusetts Council of Churches, told of her anger with Trump.

“Still fuming about Trump co-opting Easter for capitalism,” she tweeted. “Are his Christian followers going to follow him down this path? Do you not remember how Lent begins, when the devil takes Jesus to the heights of the city and shows him all the glittery things ‘if you but worship me?’”

Christianity Today published a critical editorial following Trump’s comments in which it warned that even with good hygiene and physical distancing, congregating during a pandemic “mars our witness”. It said: “Rather than looking courageous and faithful, we come off looking callous and even foolish, not unlike the snake handlers who insisted on playing with poison as a proof of true faith.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... rs-respond

[Lord Jim]

Churches won't be 'packed' for Easter despite Trump call

by Nicholas Rowan
| March 25, 2020 01:26 PM

Most churches will remain closed on Easter despite President Trump saying Tuesday that he hoped the pandemic would be sufficiently checked by then to have them "packed."

"Wouldn’t it be great to have all the churches full?" Trump said during a Fox News interview. "You'll have packed churches all over our country. I think it'll be a beautiful time."

But after already canceling their in-person services through Easter because of the coronavirus pandemic, many churches are not prepared to risk reopening. Catholic and Episcopal dioceses in every state have canceled. Many megachurches, as well as smaller congregations, have made similar decisions, advising their members to participate in worship through live-streamed services.

In Ohio, Catholic bishops in mid-March worked with Republican Gov. Mike DeWine's administration to cancel all in-person church activities in keeping with the state's ban on gatherings of 100 or more people. On Sunday, the state issued a "stay at home" order through April 6 with an exemption for churches. Even with that order, Catholic churches in Ohio will remain closed through Easter, which is on April 12.

In Michigan, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Monday exempted churches from a statewide shutdown, many are not taking the risk of opening up for Easter. Churches in the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit and the Diocese of Lansing will remain closed to public services for the foreseeable future, spokesmen for both said.

The same is true for many evangelical churches. Kensington Church, the largest evangelical congregation in the Detroit area, told the Washington Examiner that out of respect for the safety of its congregants, it has moved its operations online until further notice.

The Episcopal Diocese of Michigan has gone even further. On Tuesday afternoon, it completely closed churches, even for private prayer, indefinitely.

"I long for the time when we will once again be able to gather together to pray, to receive the sacraments, to laugh, to cry, to dance, and to serve," Bishop Bonnie Perry wrote in a letter to church members. "That time will come. For now, we are all affected by this pandemic and working together we will come through this very difficult time."

Elsewhere, many churches also do not plan to reopen for Easter services. Following Trump's comments, the Archdiocese of New York, where the coronavirus outbreak in the United States has been the worst, stated that priests will continue to celebrate mass in private, but Easter mass will not be open to the public.

In Washington, D.C., churches are tightening their lockdowns after a Tuesday afternoon order from Mayor Muriel Bowser that directed all nonessential businesses to close. The Episcopal Washington National Cathedral, one of the largest church buildings in the U.S., has moved completely online, closing its buildings and offices.

Other churches in the area followed suit. Georgetown Presbyterian Church, which has been streaming services following a member's exposure to the coronavirus at the Conservative Political Action Conference, announced on Wednesday that it is also moving everything involved with the church’s operations online until the order is lifted. Christ Church in Georgetown, where the first case of the coronavirus in the city was confirmed, has canceled all events. The church’s pastor, Timothy Cole, is still in intensive care, leaving the church's Easter plans uncertain, spokesman Rob Volmer told the Washington Examiner.

Nationwide, church cancellations have stretched far beyond Easter. The Southern Baptist Church on Tuesday canceled its general conference, scheduled for July, due to uncertainty about when it will be safe to gather in large groups. The decision followed the United Methodist Church's announcement last week that it postponed its 2020 general conference, which was set to be held in May. Church leadership cited "health and safety of all affected amid the coronavirus pandemic" in its reasoning.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news ... trump-call

[TPFKA@W]

Trump makes reminds me of the mayor of Amity in Jaws.

[Lord Jim]

Good comparison

[MajGenl.Meade]

Trump makes reminds me of the mayor of Amity in Jaws.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the altar

[Econoline]

Interestingly, (SF/fantasy/horror) author Adam-Troy Castro just did a thought-provoking Facebook post on this very subject. If you skip over any part of it, make sure you read the final part...especially the last sentence.

Murray Hamilton, who these days is largely only remembered as the mayor from JAWS, had a substantial acting career before that; it was just that he'd been away for a few years, nursing an ailing wife. JAWS was his first film after she passed away, and it can be said that Steven Spielberg pretty much rescued him.

I have already compared his character to Donald Trump's Coronavirus response, but the situation has progressed, and now I think of Trump's statement that he wants the Churches full on Easter Sunday. (Doesn't appear to want the Jews to gather for their seders, you note.)

Mostly I am thinking of the scene following the first shark attack where the Mayor prowls the beach crowded with tourists, unhappy that no one wants to be the first one in the water. He goes to one councilman who is just sitting there on his lounge, pretending the explanation that all he wants to do is get a tan. The Mayor says, We need someone to go in the water and show everyone that it's okay. For business, okay? And the guy hems and haws and the Mayor says, Do it, and the fellow tells his family that they're going in the water, and you see a nervous sideways glance from the wife as she starts paddling out. She's terrified, she is.

But they have bent to the Mayor's pressure, and because they go in the water everybody goes in the water. Where the shark is.

Death comes because of that.

Is the Mayor evil? This guy, no. He just wants what's best for business, and so he does what he can to shove the danger under the rug, something he does twice, causing death twice. (More than twice, if you count the sequel.)

JAWS is often called a rewrite of MOBY DICK, and yes, it becomes that with the arrival of Quint, but in the early going it owes as much to Ibsen's splendid AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, in which local politicians inexorably turn the town's most respected Doctor into a pariah, because he has tried to spread the word that the town's healing waters are actually infected with typhus. This conflicts with everybody's economic interests and so, by the end, the guy's house is surrounded by an angry mob, throwing rocks through his windows. It is really an astonishing play; you need to either read it (or the Arthur Miller adaptation), or see one of the several filmed versions. AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE became the model for every whistleblower character who the economic interests refuse to listen to in every disaster movie ever made, including EARTHQUAKE, DANTE'S PEAK, THE TOWERING INFERNO, and so on. Usually, the economic interests refuse the advise of the scientists and urge everybody onto the stage just before the roof caves in. When you are watching the movie, you cannot believe that anybody could possibly be such an asshole, and you eagerly anticipate the scene where the hand of fate punishes them. You know this as part of the formula. You have seen it a dozen times, right?

And now we have Trump saying he wants crowded churches on Easter Sunday, that everything will be fine by then, and behind him we have the Lieutenant Governor of Texas telling Tucker Carson that people need to go out and return to spending, because that's their duty even if a few old people die.

The Mayor from JAWS is the Mayor from AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE is the guy from the cruise line in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. C'mon. Don't be such a worry wart. There's no real danger. It's all overblown. There's profit to be had!

You know something, though?

When the Mayor from JAWS realizes the tragic size of his mistake, babbling that his own son was also in the water, it bloody destroys him.

He's NOT a bad man. Only a small one, a science-denier. A guy who turned his back on facts he could not process. A guy who sees the carnage he has wrought, who has that much self-awareness, at least.

I have no confidence that this virtue exists in the man who is ignoring the rising tide of the infection, to advocate crowded churches on Easter Sunday.