Media reports
say Zhang Zhan, 37, was convicted on Monday
·
China has sentenced a former lawyer to four years in
prison over her posts about the coronavirus response in Wuhan, media reports said, the first
known conviction of someone who chronicled authorities’ early struggle to
manage the outbreak.
Zhang Zhan, 37, was convicted at the Shanghai Pudong New
Area People’s Court on Monday of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” the
South China Morning Post reported ,
citing one of her lawyers. The offense carries a maximum sentence of five
years. The Hong Kong Free Press earlier reported the sentencing.
The verdict represents China’s latest effort to punish
those who exposed shortcomings in the country’s initial response to the virus,
which was first discovered a year ago in the central city of Wuhan before
spreading around the globe. After being accused of covering up the severity of
the virus, President Xi Jinping’s government has sought to recast its response
as competent and compassionate.
Activists shows support for Zhang Zhan outside the Liaison
Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong, on Dec. 28.
Zhang was among several journalists -- professionals and
amateurs alike -- who rushed to cover the outbreak in Wuhan and its aftermath.
Her posts included a video of hospital hallways lined with patients on oxygen
and another suggesting that people had been charged for virus tests they
expected to be free.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-28/china-jails-ex-lawyer-for-four-years-over-virus-reports-in-wuhan?srnd=premium-europe
In business news, the EUSSR struggles but expects better
times ahead.
German exports down more than 12%
this year due to pandemic -BGA December 29,
2020 10:05 AM
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s BGA trade association said on Tuesday it
expects exports to shrink by at least 12% this year as demand from the United
States and Britain collapsed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed us back five years when it comes to
exports - and at the same time it has catapulted us five years into the future
in terms of digitalisation,” BGA President Anton Boerner said.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-economy-trade/german-exports-down-more-than-12-this-year-due-to-pandemic-bga-idUKKBN2930SK?il=0
Finally, so you really, really, want to buy an older EV.
A Tesla Model S erupted 'like a
flamethrower.' It renewed old safety concerns about the trailblazing sedans. Faiz
Siddiqui , The Washington Post Dec. 28, 2020Updated: Dec. 28, 2020
10:33 p.m.
Seconds after Usmaan Ahmad heard metallic bangs in his Tesla Model S
last month and pulled off a suburban Dallas thoroughfare, flames started
shooting out of his five-year-old car.
The sound was like "if you were to drop an axle of a normal
car" on the ground, Ahmad, 41, said. Only the car was intact, he recalled.
Suddenly, as he stood on the side of the road, the car ignited in flames,
concentrated around the front passenger-side wheel. "This was shooting out
like a flamethrower," recalled Ahmad, who works in strategy and business
development for a health-care system.
The combustion of Ahmad's car is one of a growing number of fire
incidents involving older Tesla Model S and X vehicles that experts say are related
to the battery, raising questions about the safety and durability of electric
vehicles as they age. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) is evaluating the fire of Ahmad's vehicle in Frisco, Tex., and has
contacted Tesla over the matter, NHTSA spokesman Sean Rushton said this month.
The agency opened an investigation last year into alleged battery defects that
could cause fires in older Tesla sedans and SUVs.
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment sent to multiple
representatives.
A lawsuit and defect petition that spurred the NHTSA probe allege Tesla
manipulated its battery software in older model cars to reduce the risk of
fire, lowering the range and lengthening charging times as it sought to address
an undisclosed defect. The attorney filing suit on behalf of Tesla owners last
year cited an "alarming number of car fires" that appeared to be
spontaneous. Since the agency agreed to look into the issue last year, little
more has been disclosed about the status of the probe.
Tesla has argued its cars are 10 times less likely to catch fire than
gasoline vehicles, citing data from the National Fire Protection Association
and U.S. Federal Highway Administration on the number of incidents by mileage
traveled for its fleet of electric cars vs. other vehicles. Tesla said in 2018
that its vehicles had five fires per billion miles traveled, vs. 55 fires per
billion miles traveled in the United States.
Other electric vehicle models have faced federal scrutiny and voluntary
recalls over fire risks. Last month, NHTSA announced General Motors was
recalling more than 50,000 Chevrolet Bolt electric cars in the United States
over the potential for fire in its high-voltage battery pack, after the agency
confirmed there were five known fires involving the vehicle, resulting in two
injuries. NHTSA advised owners to park their cars outside until the problem is
repaired.
General Motors spokesman Daniel Flores said dealers were updating the
cars' battery software to limit their charge capacity to 90 percent while the
company addressed the issue. The batteries, he said, "may pose a risk of
fire when charged to full, or very close to full, capacity," and the
company is "working around-the-clock to identify the root cause."
---- One
of the most gruesome incidents involving the Model S was the case of driver
Omar Awan, who was trapped in a burning car in South Florida in 2019 after the
car's electronic door handles failed to retract following a fiery crash, his
family said. The man's family blamed that design feature in a wrongful-death
lawsuit, saying his death was caused by the design features rather than the
crash itself.
The battery reignited at least three times in the impound lot, according
to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Another fatal wreck in South Florida, in 2018, led the family of a
teenage victim to sue Tesla, alleging the battery pack was defective. The firm
representing that family alleged there were at least a dozen cases of Model S
batteries igniting after a collision or while parked.
More
https://www.chron.com/business/article/A-Tesla-Model-S-erupted-like-a-flamethrower-It-15831399.php
“Beyond
this, the problem is universal. It is that governments are now held responsible
for the welfare of the people. The aspirations of the people can outrun their
ability to pay for them, and nobody has yet found a way to create answers to
the aspirations out of thin air.”
George
Goodman, aka Adam Smith, The Money Game. 1968.
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
California coronavirus lockdowns
extended as hospitals teeter on brink of crisis December 30, 2020 2:44 AM
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Strict stay-at-home orders were
renewed indefinitely on Tuesday for much of California, a leading U.S. hot spot
of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the state’s top health official said that many
hospitals were teetering on the brink of crisis.
Tough restrictions imposed earlier this month on social and economic
life were extended in densely populated Southern California - home to more than
half of the state’s 40 million people - based on data showing intensive care
units there likely to stay filled at or near capacity for weeks to come.
The stay-at-home orders, among the strictest in the United States, are
also being renewed in the agricultural heartland of the San Joaquin Valley,
whose hospital ICUs have likewise remained for weeks with little or no bed
space to spare.
California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Los
Angeles County, the most populous county, has been particularly hard hit by
weeks of surging infections and hospitalizations.
At least 90 percent of the county’s hospitals, he said, have been
stretched so thin by the influx of COVID-19 patients that they were forced to
divert incoming emergency patients to other facilities for much of the day over
the past weekend.
No hospitals have yet formally notified public health authorities that
they have reached the point of operating on a “crisis care” basis, involving
wholesale rationing of medical treatment and supplies to the sickest patients,
Ghaly said.
However, he added, “some hospitals in Southern California have put in
place some practices that would be part of crisis care,” such as weighing “the
effectiveness of certain treatments for certain patients who are unlikely to
survive, or do well.”
Ghaly said he knew of no instances so drastic as to require doctors to
choose, for example, between two patients who needed to be put on a ventilator
when only one was available. But he said hospital managers were doing all they
could to prepare for deteriorating conditions in order to avoid such dire
scenarios.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-usa-california/california-coronavirus-lockdowns-extended-as-hospitals-teeter-on-brink-of-crisis-idUKKBN29406C?il=0
Tokyo governor warns of possible
'explosion' in COVID-19 cases December 30, 2020 5:29 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - The coronavirus situation in Tokyo is quite severe and
the Japanese capital could potentially face an “explosion” of COVID-19 cases,
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said on Wednesday ahead of the New Year’s holiday.
“Please emphasise life over fun,” she told a news conference, calling on
people to stay at home as much as possible over the holiday, one of Japan’s
longest, in which people hold parties, gather in their homes and return to
their hometowns from the capital.
The number of new coronavirus patients in Tokyo was 856 on Tuesday.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-japan-tokyo/tokyo-governor-warns-of-possible-explosion-in-covid-19-cases-idUKKBN2940EB?il=0
Iran starts human testing of
first domestic COVID-19 vaccine December 29,
2020 9:43 AM
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran launched human trials of its first domestic
COVID-19 vaccine candidate, state media reported on Tuesday, which Tehran says
could help it defeat the pandemic despite U.S. sanctions interfering with its
ability to import vaccines.
Setad, a giant state-affiliated conglomerate controlled by Iran’s
supreme leader, said production of the vaccine developed by one of its
companies, Shifa Pharmed, could reach 12 million doses per month, six months
after a successful trial ends.
The first volunteers to take the vaccine were officials of the
conglomerate and the daughter of its head, in an apparent effort to boost
public confidence in the vaccine.
“The message of this act was that we do not see ourselves apart from the
people, and we brought our family first to test this vaccine,” Health Minister
Saeed Namaki said, according to state broadcaster IRIB.
Iran has been the worst-hit country in the Middle East by the global
COVID-19 pandemic. It complains that its ability to buy vaccines is hampered by
U.S. financial sanctions, reimposed after the Trump administration abandoned a
2015 nuclear agreement. Food and medicine are exempt from the sanctions, but
banks have been discouraged from financing Iranian deals.
Tehran said last week it had received approval from U.S. authorities to
buy coronavirus vaccines from the World Health Organization-led COVAX alliance.
Iran’s Red Crescent Society has said that, separately from the
government, it was planning to import a Chinese vaccine.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-iran-vaccine/iran-starts-human-testing-of-first-domestic-covid-19-vaccine-idUKKBN2930RB?il=0
COVID drives Dutch death rate up
to highest level since WWII December 29,
2020 8:43 AM
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The number of deaths in the Netherlands increased
at the highest rate since World War Two this year due to the coronavirus
pandemic, the Dutch national statistics office (CBS) said on Tuesday.
Up to last week, around 162,000 deaths were reported in the country of
17 million this year, 13,000 more than would have been expected in a regular
year, the CBS said.
“Such an increase of the number of deceased has not been reported since
World War Two,” it said.
Around 9,000 people more than normal died during the first wave of the
COVID-19 infections between early March and early May, the CBS said, while more
than 6,000 extra fatalities have been reported since the start of the second
wave mid-September.
The number of deaths was lower than normal in most other weeks, the
statisticians said.
A total of 770,400 people in the Netherlands have tested positive for
COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. More than 11,000 patients are known
to have died from the disease.
The actual number of infections and fatalities is likely to be
significantly higher, as a shortage of testing and lab capacity meant only
seriously ill patients were tested during the first months of the pandemic.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-netherlands-casual/covid-drives-dutch-death-rate-up-to-highest-level-since-wwii-idUKKBN2930OA?il=0
The Mysterious Link Between
COVID-19 and Sleep James Hamblin
12/21/2020
The
newly discovered coronavirus had killed only a few dozen people when Feixiong
Cheng started looking for a treatment. He knew time was of the essence: Cheng,
a data analyst at the Cleveland Clinic, had seen similar coronaviruses tear
through China and Saudi Arabia before, sickening thousands and shaking the
global economy. So, in January, his lab used artificial intelligence to search
for hidden clues in the structure of the virus to predict how it invaded human
cells, and what might stop it. One observation stood out: The virus could
potentially be blocked by melatonin.
Melatonin, best known as the sleep hormone, wasn’t an
obvious factor in halting a pandemic. Its most familiar role is in the
regulation of our circadian rhythms. Each night, as darkness falls, it shoots
out of our brain’s pineal glands and into our blood, inducing sleep. Cheng took
the finding as a curiosity. “It was very preliminary,” he told me recently—a
small study in the early days before COVID-19 even had a name, when anything
that might help was deemed worth sharing.
After he published his research ,
though, Cheng heard from scientists around the world who thought there might be
something to it. They noted that, in addition to melatonin’s well-known effects
on sleep, it plays a part in calibrating the immune system . Essentially, it acts as a moderator to
help keep our self-protective responses from going haywire—which happens to be
the basic problem that can quickly turn a mild case of COVID-19
into a life-threatening scenario.
Cheng decided to dig deeper. For months, he and colleagues
pieced together the data from thousands of patients who were seen at his
medical center. In results published last month, melatonin continued to stand
out. People taking it had significantly lower odds of developing COVID-19, much
less dying of it. Other researchers noticed similar patterns. In October, a study at Columbia University found that intubated patients
had better rates of survival if they received melatonin. When President Donald
Trump was flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
for COVID-19 treatment, his doctors prescribed—in addition to a plethora of
other experimental therapies—melatonin.
Eight clinical trials are currently ongoing, around the
world, to see if these melatonin correlations bear out. Few other treatments
are receiving so much research attention. If melatonin actually proves to help
people, it would be the cheapest and most readily accessible medicine to
counter COVID-19. Unlike experimental drugs such as remdesivir and antibody
cocktails, melatonin is widely available in the United States as an
over-the-counter dietary supplement. People could start taking it immediately.
More
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-mysterious-link-between-covid-19-and-sleep/ar-BB1c706W
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
The Spectator https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported.
KSTAR fusion device maintains 100
million degrees for record 20 seconds By Darren Quick December 28, 2020
While
harnessing the power of the Sun has progressed in leaps and bounds in recent
years, harnessing the process that powers the Sun is proving a tough nut to
crack. However, progress continues to be made on the various approaches to
practical nuclear fusion being pursued , of
which tokamak reactors remain a frontrunner. In another promising development
for the technology, the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR)
fusion device has set a world record by maintaining plasma at over 100 million
°C (180 million °F) for 20 seconds.
Completed
in 2007 and achieving first plasma in 2008, in 2016 KSTAR set a world record
for the longest operation in high-confinement mode by successfully maintaining
a high-temperature hydrogen plasma at about 50 million °C (90 million °F) for
70 seconds. China subsequently claimed a new record in 2017 with its
Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), managing to maintain
plasma at a similar temperature for 102 seconds .
But although 50 million °C might sound plenty toasty, when you're
talking about the process that powers the Sun you need to get to at least
double that to give the ions the kinetic energy to overcome the repulsive
electrostatic force, known as the Coulomb barrier, that stops them from fusing
together. You also need to successfully confine the ions close enough to each
other for long enough to avoid plasma cooling, and ensure the ions are confined
at a high enough density to maintain a suitable reaction rate.
KSTAR managed to achieve an important piece of the puzzle for the first
time in 2018, maintaining high-temperature plasma at over 100 million °C, but
only for about 1.5 seconds. In 2019, it managed to up the retention time to
eight seconds, and now it has claimed a new world record, this time by
maintaining high-temperature plasma with an ion temperature of over 100 million
°C in continuous operation for 20 seconds.
This is an important step towards the ultimate goal of maintaining
plasma with an ion temperature of over 100 million °C for five minutes by 2025.
"The technologies required for long operations of 100 million-
plasma are the key to the realization of fusion energy, and the KSTAR's success
in maintaining the high-temperature plasma for 20 seconds will be an important
turning point in the race for securing the technologies for the long
high-performance plasma operation, a critical component of a commercial nuclear
fusion reactor in the future," says Si-Woo Yoon, Director of the KSTAR
Research Center at the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE).
The significant jump in retention time from eight to 20 seconds was
largely due to improvements to the performance of the Internal Transport Barrier
(ITB) mode that aids in confinement and stabilization of the plasma.
More
https://newatlas.com/energy/kstar-nuclear-fusion-world-record-plasma-artificial-sun/
This is the way things are, and the Game has been
so successful that, like everything, it will get more and more successful until
it stops being successful.
George
Goodman, aka Adam Smith, The Money Game. 1968.
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