Stacie Sherman 14
hrs ago
(Bloomberg) -- New York City will have vehicle checkpoints at
key bridges and crossings, and will strictly enforce the travel quarantine,
Sheriff Joseph Fucito said.
The sheriff’s office will conduct spot checks when out-of-state buses
drop riders off at the curb. Test and tracing teams will be on the ground to direct
individuals to testing sites and provide education on quarantine, Fucito said.
The 14-day quarantine mandates that travelers quarantine or test out.
Violations of self-quarantine will be enforced, and may carry fines of $1,000
to $2,000, according to the mayor’s office.
The city will enforce the completion of traveler forms at airports, Penn
Station and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. There will be self-test site teams
on site.
New York, the early center of the U.S. outbreak, reported a seven-day
average of 1,476 new cases, and a seven-day positive test rate of 3.17%,
according to Mayor Bill de Blasio.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-will-have-covid-checkpoints-at-key-bridges-and-crossings/ar-BB1bjIWy
Long lines form at food banks
across country ahead of Thanksgiving By John Bowden - 11/24/20 06:46 PM EST
Americans are lining up in historic numbers at food banks across the
country this week as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates levels of food
insecurity for millions of people.
As the Thanksgiving holiday draws closer, news reports from states
around the U.S. indicate that more Americans face food insecurity now than at
any time in recent decades.
Video obtained by CNN on Tuesday from the Meadowlands entertainment
complex in New Jersey showed residents waiting for several hours to obtain
prepackaged boxes of meals for the Thanksgiving holiday.
"If it wasn't for this place, we wouldn't know where
we would get our food," one distraught woman told CNN of the food bank in
East Rutherford, N.J.
A report
"I don’t think we’re going to get through this unless
Congress approves another COVID-19 relief bill," the food bank's executive
director told The Providence Journal.
In San Jose, Calif., the program manager of
CityTeam, a local charity, told news station KTVU
2
"We're on track to serve about 5,000, maybe
more," in November as part of their annual Thanksgiving food
giveaway, Hermie Smit told KTVU 2.
"We're serving 70 percent more people. 40 percent of
the people who are coming have never ever looked for food assistance before. So
it's been staggering," added Willy Elliott-McCrea, CEO of the Second
Harvest Santa Cruz County charity.
Food bank officials in Dallas, Texas, have also noticed a
staggering increase in demand for food assistance. North Texas Food Bank
representatives told the Dallas Morning News that they handed out roughly 8,500
meals to local families during a giveaway on Saturday that in years past has
seen fewer than 1,000 show up for donations.
More
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/527462-long-lines-form-at-food-banks-across-country-ahead-of-thanksgiving
The world's famed shopping
streets are preparing for the worst amid Covid-19 Nov 23, 2020, 2:30 pm SGT
NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - World-famous shopping districts are
preparing - and bracing - for a holiday season unlike any they have ever seen.
Many consumers are still wary of visiting stores, with the
coronavirus pandemic reignited in much of the world. Travel restrictions will
also slash the number of wealthy tourists normally relied upon to spend oodles
of cash this time of year.
But luxury stores are still putting forth their best
socially-distanced effort. They are filling windows with Christmas displays in
a bid to salvage a crucial holiday season after Covid-19 wreaked havoc on retailers from Tokyo to New York.
Here's a look at what it is like on the ground at these
prominent thoroughfares as Black Friday (Nov 27) approaches.
Bond Street, London ----Bond Street has been hit hard due to its reliance on
foreign shoppers and the lack of office workers. Store visits had already
fallen by about half when new Covid-19 restrictions shuttered locations earlier
this month. "It's the perfect storm," Ms Thomas said.
Shops ranging from Cartier to Chanel are not waiting for
their reopening to get ready for the holiday season: Christmas lights are up
earlier than usual. And when they can reopen on Dec 3, the Bond Street
Christmas tree will be revealed with a brass band minus the carol singers. If
there are lines to get into stores, employees are planning to serve hot
chocolate.
Champs-Elysees, Paris The spread of the virus has led to the second lockdown in
France, forcing non-essential stores to shut on Oct 30.
"If we don't reopen on Dec 1, it will be extremely
serious," said Mr Edouard Lefebvre, general manager of the Comite
Champs-Elysees, which represents the 100 or so stores in the area. Still, the
organisation planned to put on its holiday light show starting on Nov 22, but
it will be virtual.
The Champs-Elysees has faced upheaval for several years,
including terror attacks, strikes, riots after soccer matches and violence
during the Yellow Vest protests. And continued lockdowns could bring even more
pain.
Ginza, Tokyo The streets of Ginza - one of Tokyo's most well known shopping
districts- would have usually been lit up by now, with the luxury shops dotting
its main drag covered in lights and decorations. It had become a must-see for
tourists and couples.
But this year many stores and buildings are dark. Japan still has strict
controls on allowing tourists into the country, meaning just a fraction of the
usual shopping traffic has returned to Ginza.
To combat that, the Ginza Street Association is planning a hand-washing
event at the main Ginza crossing in December, according to Ms Eriko Takezawa,
the head of the Ginza Street Association. Passersby who clean their hands will
be given a handkerchief and coupon to spend at a nearby store. They will also
add more illumination along the streets, hoping to draw more people.
----Fifth Avenue, New York Fifth Avenue is still home to two of the glitziest department stores in
the world: Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman. But the numbers have
dwindled in recent years, with fashion company Henri Bendel closing its
century-old store and Barneys New York, just a block off the strip,
liquidating. Several storefronts, including the former Ralph Lauren flagship,
remain vacant.
Its stores are now preparing for a muted holiday rush, with little or no
tourists in sight. But they will do their best to bring holiday cheer, even as
Covid-19 cases rise in New York, once the epicentre of the outbreak in the
United States.
More
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/the-worlds-famed-shopping-streets-are-preparing-for-the-worst-amid-covid-19
Millions of Americans Expect to
Lose Their Homes as Covid Rages Alex Tanzi
Mon, November 23, 2020, 9:21 PM GMT
(Bloomberg) -- Millions of Americans expect to face eviction by the end
of this year, adding to the suffering inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic
raging across the U.S.
About 5.8 million adults say they are somewhat to very likely to face
eviction or foreclosure in the next two months, according to a survey completed
Nov. 9 by the U.S. Census Bureau. That accounts for a third of the 17.8 million
adults in households that are behind on rent or mortgage payments.
The CARES Act, signed into law last March, allows homeowners to pause
mortgage payments for up to a year if they experience hardship as a result of
the pandemic. Borrowers who signed up at the start of the program could face
foreclosure by March.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s nationwide temporary
suspension on evictions -- aimed at stemming the spread of coronavirus -- is
slated to end Dec. 31. The timing is far from ideal given millions of people
are also set to lose their unemployment benefits at year-end without an
extension from Congress.
Roughly half of households not current on their rent or mortgage
payments in Arkansas, Florida and Nevada think there’s a “strong chance” of
eviction by early January. This equates to more than 750,000 homes where an
eviction is the biggest worry, according to the survey.
By metro area, the threat of eviction is most pressing in New York City,
Houston and Atlanta.
Coronavirus, which has killed more than 256,000 Americans so far, is on
track to claim another 30,000 lives by mid-December, according to forecasts
from the CDC. The model shows weekly cases and deaths both rising every week
for the next month, the maximum range of the agency’s projection.
President-elect Joe Biden in March
expressed his support for rent freezes and eviction moratoriums due to the
Covid-19 pandemic.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/millions-americans-expect-lose-homes-212124538.html
Finally,
will America really let this happen?
Beijing Sends Biden a Warning November 17, 2020 by Patrick
J. Buchanan
Because of Donald Trump, Vice President Joe Biden thundered during the
campaign, the U.S. “is more isolated in the world than we’ve ever been … America
First has made America alone.”
Biden promised to repair relations with America’s allies. And he appears
to have gone some distance to do so in the congratulatory phone call he
received from Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan.
According to Suga, during the brief call, Biden said Article V of the
U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty of 1960 covers the Senkaku Islands in the
East China Sea, islands Japan controls but China claims as its own.
“President-elect Biden gave me a commitment that Article 5 of the
US-Japan security treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands,” said a delighted
Suga. And what does Article V commit us to?
“Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the
territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own
peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger…”
Message: The U.S. will treat a Chinese attempt to take the Senkakus,
tiny rocky outcroppings in the East China Sea, as an attack on the USA, and
America will fight China to secure Japan’s right to keep the islands.
Biden has removed any ambiguity that may have existed and given Tokyo a
U.S. war guarantee that covers the Senkakus.
The response of China’s foreign ministry was to angrily lay claim to the
islands they call the Diaoyus as “inherently Chinese” and to dismiss the
U.S.-Japan security treaty as a “product of the Cold War.”
This diplomatic clash comes as Henry Kissinger was warning the Bloomberg
Economic Forum: “America and China are now drifting increasingly toward
confrontation, and they’re conducting their diplomacy in a confrontational way.
… The danger is that some crisis will occur that will go beyond rhetoric into
actual military conflict.”
---- Biden
repudiates an “America First” foreign policy that puts U.S. security,
sovereignty, liberty and vital interests above the interests of any other
nation.
But what is it, then, that Biden puts first?
Globalism. A New World Order. A Crusade for Global Democracy.
Been there, done that.
Sixty years ago when Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy faced off, the
foreign policy debate was over whether the U.S. should fight Mao’s China to
defend the tiny offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu.
Kennedy thought not. Kennedy won.
https://buchanan.org/blog/beijing-sends-biden-a-warning-142370
Senkaku Islands ----
The islands are the focus of a territorial dispute between Japan and China
and between Japan and Taiwan .[23] World War II . The United States administered the
islands as part of the United States
Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands from 1945 until 1972, when the
islands returned to Japanese control under the Okinawa Reversion Agreement between the
United States and Japan.[24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] diplomatic stalemate between China and
Taiwan, both governments agree that the islands are part of Taiwan as part of Toucheng
Township in Yilan County . Japan administers and controls
the Senkaku islands as part of the city of Ishigaki
in Okinawa Prefecture . It does not acknowledge the
claims of China nor Taiwan and has not allowed the Ishigaki administration to
develop the islands.
More
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senkaku_Islands
1943 Cairo
Declaration The Cairo Declaration was the outcome of the Cairo
Conference in Cairo ,
Egypt , on
November 27, 1943. President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston
Churchill of the United Kingdom, and Generalissimo Chiang
Kai-shek of the Republic of China were present. The
declaration developed ideas from the 1941 Atlantic
Charter , which was issued by the Allies of World War II to set goals for the
post-war order. The Cairo Communiqué was broadcast through radio on
December 1, 1943.[1]
The Cairo Declaration is cited in Clause Eight (8) of the Potsdam Declaration , which is referred to by
the Japanese Instrument of Surrender .
Text "The several military missions have agreed upon future
military operations against Japan. The Three Great Allies expressed their
resolve to bring unrelenting pressure against their brutal enemies by sea,
land, and air. This pressure is already rising."
"The Three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain
and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for themselves and have
no thought of territorial expansion. It is their purpose that Japan shall be
stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied
since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the
territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and
The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan will
also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and
greed. The aforesaid three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the
people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and
independent."
"With these objects in view the three Allies, in
harmony with those of the United Nations at war with Japan, will continue to
persevere in the serious and prolonged operations necessary to procure the
unconditional surrender of Japan."[2]
(Emphasis added.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_Cairo_Declaration
President elect Biden seems to
want to start out by breaking international law. The USA never held sovereignty
over the islands merely administration. It couldn’t pass sovereignty to Japan
even if it wants to break the Cairo Declaration that was affirmed at Potsdam.
Someone wake up Sleepy Joe before
he and Japan start World War Three. The islands are not Japanese.
The Republicans are
good for starting depressions. The Democrats are good for starting wars.
Wall Street saying.
Winter
Watch.
The Arctic winter sea-ice expansion and
northern hemisphere snow cover. From around mid-October, the northern
hemisphere snow cover usually rapidly expands, while the Arctic ice gradually
expands back towards its winter maximum.
Over simplified, a rapid expansion of
both, especially if early, can be a sign of a harsher than normal arriving northern
hemisphere winter. Perhaps more so in 2020-2021 as we’re in the low of the
ending sunspot cycle, which possibly also influenced this year’s record
Atlantic hurricane season.
Northern Eur-Asia turned snowy fast in
mid-October. The Arctic sea ice
expansion was slow, and from a very low level at the end of September, but with
the vastly expanded snow cover, sea ice formation sped up.
With the Laptev sea ice virtually back
to normal, at the end of the third week of November I’m starting to think that
it will likely be a normal to slightly warmer winter ahead for western Europe.
The failure of the Kara Sea ice to
return to normal, leads me to bet on a warmer western European winter ahead.
Arctic
and Antarctic Sea Ice.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
https://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
With the Astra vaccine costing
just £2.00 a shot, there’s no money to be made for the others, so let’s talk
down the Astra vaccine, even though it’s still far too early to know how it
will all pan out.
Astra Covid-Shot Data Leaves Some
Analysts Questioning It By Bailey
Lipschultz Suzi Ring
November 23, 2020, 3:25 PM GMT Updated on
November 23, 2020, 4:26 PM GMT
Company highlighted results
from small group, SVB Leerink Astra shares fell in London
and New York after analyst note Results
from a crucial study of AstraZeneca Plc and
the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine drew a
harsh review from at least one sell-side analyst as Wall Street grappled with
the future of a potentially less effective shot.
The
results showed the vaccine stopped an average of 70% of patients from falling
sick. However, the company’s formatting of the data that highlighted a 90%
effectiveness drew skepticism from SVB Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges. The
analyst said the company highlighted results from a “relatively small” group of
volunteers in the trial and wouldn’t get U.S. approval based on a lack of diversity
among participants, he wrote in a note.
Ruud
Dobber, head of Astra’s biopharmaceuticals business unit, said SVB Leerink’s
comments were harsh. “I think it’s far too early to speculate about how
regulators will react,” he told Bloomberg TV in response to questions on the
note.
SVB
Leerink holds an outperform rating on Astra with a $65 price target.
Still,
Astra shares fell as much as 3.3% in London trading to the lowest level in
almost three weeks, while the company’s U.S-traded shares slid 3.2% to $53.47
in early trading. Despite the mixed reaction from analysts, U.S. stocks edged
higher amid signs of progress toward a Covid-19 vaccine with the S&P 500 up
0.1%.
Porges
also said Astra and Oxford officials would be “roundly criticized” for a safety
disclosure that was “hardly reassuring.” The U.S. arm of the study was paused for almost seven weeks in
September after an adverse event involving a participant in the U.K.
U.S.
trials in the study are working on a two-dose regimen currently and about
10,500 participants have already been given both shots. Astra and Oxford said
they will talk to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week about setting
up a separate arm of the trial to test the more effective, lower dose regimen,
and conceded this could affect the
speed of approval in the region.
Porges
wasn’t alone on Wall Street in questioning the results from Astra and Oxford.
Jefferies analyst Michael Yee called the data “mixed” and highlighted that
results from competitors including Pfizer Inc. and
partner BioNTech SE as
well as Moderna Inc. looked more robust.
While
the Astra and Oxford program had positive effectiveness, Yee questioned which
countries would prefer to use the vaccine that has notably lower efficacy.
“Having any cases of Covid implies big risk, so why not use the best
(vaccines), and which populations of citizens would be OK knowing they are
getting one that has notably lower efficacy?” Yee asked.
Storage Advantage Officials
from Oxford and Astra said at a press briefing this morning they didn’t yet
know why the lower dose produced a better response and would be looking to
understand this better as they dig further into the data, which will be
peer-reviewed over the coming weeks.
Despite
not matching the success of frontrunners Pfizer and Moderna, one thing working
in Astra’s favor is storage. The Astra-Oxford shot only needs to be kept at
fridge temperature, unlike the other two which must be kept frozen for
long-term use. That makes Astra’s vaccine much more important for the developing world .
Some
drug developers that are racing to bring a shot to the market that can help end
the pandemic rallied after Astra and Oxford’s results. BioNTech and Moderna
each gained 2.8% while Novavax Inc.
climbed 2.7%.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-23/astra-covid-shot-data-leaves-some-analysts-questioning-it?srnd=premium-europe
Doctors say CDC should warn
people the side effects from Covid vaccine shots won’t be ‘a walk in the park’ Published Mon, Nov 23 20204:19 PM
ESTUpdated Mon, Nov 23 20208:14 PM EST
Public health officials and drugmakers must be transparent
about the side effects people may experience after getting their first shot of
a coronavirus vaccine, doctors
urged during a meeting Monday with CDC advisors as states prepare to distribute
doses as early as next month.
Dr. Sandra Fryhofer of the American Medical Association
noted that both Pfizer’s
and Moderna’s Covid-19
vaccines require two doses at varying intervals. As a practicing physician, she
said she worries whether her patients will come back for a second dose because
of the potentially unpleasant side effects they may experience after the first
shot.
“We
really need to make patients aware that this is not going to be a walk in the
park,” Fryhofer said during a virtual meeting with the Advisory Committee on
Immunization Practices, or ACIP, an outside group of medical experts that
advise the CDC. She is also a liaison to the committee. “They are going to
know they had a vaccine. They are probably not going to feel wonderful. But
they’ve got to come back for that second dose.”
Participants in Moderna and Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine
trials told
CNBC in September that they were experiencing high fever, body aches, bad
headaches, daylong exhaustion and other symptoms after receiving the shots.
While the symptoms were uncomfortable, and at times intense, the participants
said they often went away after a day, sometimes sooner, and that it was better
than getting Covid-19.
Both companies acknowledged that their vaccines could
induce side effects that are similar to symptoms associated with mild Covid-19,
such as muscle pain, chills and headache.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/23/covid-vaccine-cdc-should-warn-people-the-side-effects-from-shots-wont-be-walk-in-the-park-.html
Plasma from recovered patients
shows little benefit in those hospitalized with COVID-19: study November 24, 2020
10:02 PM
(Reuters) - Using blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors to treat patients
with severe pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus showed little benefit,
according to data released on Tuesday from a clinical trial in Argentina.
The therapy know as convalescent plasma, which delivers antibodies from
COVID-19 survivors to infected people, did not significantly improve patients’
health status or reduce their risk of dying from the disease any better than a
placebo, the study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found.
Despite limited evidence of its efficacy, convalescent plasma, which
U.S. President Donald Trump touted in August as a “historic breakthrough,” has
been frequently given to patients in the United States.
In October, a small study from India suggested convalescent plasma
improved symptoms in COVID-19 patients, such as shortness of breath and
fatigue, but did not reduce the risk of death or progression to severe disease
after 28 days.
The new Argentine study involved 333 hospitalized patients with severe
COVID-19 pneumonia who were randomly assigned to receive convalescent plasma or
a placebo.
After 30 days, researchers found no significant differences in patients’
symptoms or health. The mortality rate was nearly the same at 11% in the
convalescent plasma group and 11.4% in the placebo group, a difference not
deemed statistically significant.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-plasma/plasma-from-recovered-patients-shows-little-benefit-in-those-hospitalized-with-covid-19-study-idUKKBN2843AZ
Next, some vaccine links
kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most
informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.
World
Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines . https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
NY
Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker . https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Stanford
Website . https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132
Regulatory
Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker . https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some other useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
https://rt.live/
Covid19info.live
https://wuflu.live/
Centers for Disease Control
Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC
energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards.
Direct visualization of quantum
dots reveals shape of quantum wave function Date: November 23, 2020
Source: University of California - Santa Cruz
Summary:
Trapping and controlling electrons in bilayer graphene quantum dots yields a
promising platform for quantum information technologies. Researchers have now
achieved the first direct visualization of quantum dots in bilayer graphene,
revealing the shape of the quantum wave function of the trapped electrons.
The results, published November 23 in Nano Letters , provide
important fundamental knowledge needed to develop quantum information technologies
based on bilayer graphene quantum dots.
"There has been a lot of work to develop this system for quantum
information science, but we've been missing an understanding of what the
electrons look like in these quantum dots," said corresponding author
Jairo Velasco Jr., assistant professor of physics at UC Santa Cruz.
While conventional digital technologies encode information in bits
represented as either 0 or 1, a quantum bit, or qubit, can represent both
states at the same time due to quantum superposition. In theory, technologies
based on qubits will enable a massive increase in computing speed and capacity
for certain types of calculations.
A variety of systems, based on materials ranging from diamond to gallium
arsenide, are being explored as platforms for creating and manipulating qubits.
Bilayer graphene (two layers of graphene, which is a two-dimensional
arrangement of carbon atoms in a honeycomb lattice) is an attractive material
because it is easy to produce and work with, and quantum dots in bilayer
graphene have desirable properties.
"These quantum dots are an emergent and promising platform for
quantum information technology because of their suppressed spin decoherence,
controllable quantum degrees of freedom, and tunability with external control
voltages," Velasco said.
Understanding the nature of the quantum dot wave function in bilayer
graphene is important because this basic property determines several relevant
features for quantum information processing, such as the electron energy spectrum,
the interactions between electrons, and the coupling of electrons to their
environment.
---- This work provides
crucial information, such as the energy spectrum of the electrons, needed to
develop quantum devices based on this system. "It is advancing the
fundamental understanding of the system and its potential for quantum
information technologies," Velasco said. "It's a missing piece of the
puzzle, and taken together with the work of others, I think we're moving toward
making this a useful system."
In addition to Velasco, the authors of the paper include co-first
authors Zhehao Ge, Frederic Joucken, and Eberth Quezada-Lopez at UC Santa Cruz,
along with coauthors at the Federal University of Ceara, Brazil, the National
Institute for Materials Science in Japan, University of Minnesota, and UCSC's
Baskin School of Engineering. This work was funded by the National Science
Foundation and the Army Research Office.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201123161011.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29
25 November 1834 Delmonico's,
one of NY's finest restaurants, provides a meal of soup, steak, coffee &
half a pie for 12 cents.
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