By James
Pomfret
HONG KONG (Reuters) - The arrest of
more than 50 democrats in Hong Kong last week intensifies a drive by Beijing to
stifle any return of a populist challenge to Chinese rule and more measures are
likely, according to two individuals with direct knowledge of China’s plans.
While stressing that plans haven’t
been finalised, the individuals said it was possible that Hong Kong elections -
already postponed until September on coronavirus grounds - could face reforms
that one person said were aimed at reducing the influence of democrats.
Both individuals, who have extensive
high-level experience in Hong Kong affairs and represent Beijing’s interests,
spoke on condition of anonymity.
Beijing’s involvement was
“substantial” in driving and coordinating actions with the Hong Kong
government, said one of the individuals, a senior Chinese official.
He told Reuters the latest arrests
were part of a wave of ongoing actions to silence activists and to “make sure
Hong Kong doesn’t slide back to what we saw 18 months ago,” when massive
demonstrations marked the boldest public revolt against China’s leaders since
the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989.
China has been “too patient for too
long, and needs to sort things out once and for all,” he added, saying more
tough moves would be rolled out for “at least a year”.
A spokesman for Hong Kong Chief
Executive Carrie Lam said the implementation of a national security law last
June had restored stability and reduced street violence.
“The legitimate rights and freedoms
of the people of Hong Kong have been upheld and criminals are brought to
justice through our independent judiciary,” he said in an emailed response to
Reuters, without responding to questions about Beijing’s role.
Hong Kong elections were scheduled
for Sept 5 and officials were working to ensure an open, fair and honest poll,
he added.
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-security-democracy/exclusive-china-plans-further-hong-kong-crackdown-after-mass-arrest-sources-idUSKBN29H0E8
In
any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than
to be right alone.
John Kenneth
Galbraith.
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
India Cases Lowest Since June;
Malaysia Emergency: Virus Update Bloomberg News January
11, 2021, 6:04 PM EST Updated on January 11, 2021, 11:56 PM EST
A World Health Organization team looking into the origins
of the coronavirus pandemic is set to arrive
Malaysia
Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE raised their vaccine production
target for this year to 2 billion shots, from 1.3 billion previously. U.S.
daily vaccinations, which have been slow due to an uneven rollout, rose by a
record 1.25 million.
Key
Developments: More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-11/who-sets-china-trip-portugal-president-has-covid-virus-update?srnd=coronavirus
Six-month "long COVID"
study reveals 76% suffer lasting symptoms By Rich Haridy January 10, 2021
In the largest and longest follow-up study conducted to
date investigating the lingering effects of COVID-19, researchers have found
more than two-thirds of hospitalized patients report at least one ongoing
symptom six months after contracting the disease.
Across much of 2020, doctors noted they were seeing some
COVID-19 patients display enduring symptoms beyond the few weeks of acute
disease. This condition is informally known as long COVID .
As 2020 progressed, a number of
studies began to appear exploring the phenomenon of long COVID. But considering
how fundamentally new this disease was, there was no clinical data to offer
insights into how many people could experience persistent symptoms.
A new study, published recently in The
Lancet , presents the largest and longest insight into long COVID published
to date. The study encompasses 1,733 hospitalized COVID-19 patients from Wuhan,
China. Each patient was followed for at least six months.
"Because COVID-19 is such a new
disease, we are only beginning to understand some of its long-term effects on
patients' health,” says Bin Cao, corresponding author on the new study. “Our
analysis indicates that most patients continue to live with at least some of
the effects of the virus after leaving hospital, and highlights a need for
post-discharge care, particularly for those who experience severe infections.”
A striking 76 percent of all
patients reported at least one continuing symptom six months later. The most
common lasting problem was fatigue or muscle weakness, reported by 63 percent
of all patients. Around a quarter of the cohort also reported sleep
difficulties and anxiety or depression.
A smaller subset of the cohort
completed comprehensive pulmonary testing and more than half displayed
persistent chest imaging abnormalities. The degree of ongoing lung damage six
months later correlated with the severity of the disease during the patients’
acute phase of hospitalization.
“Our work also underscores the importance of conducting
longer follow-up studies in larger populations in order to understand the full
spectrum of effects that COVID-19 can have on people,” says Cao.
A number
of surveillance studies are ongoing, tracking the long-term effects of
COVID-19. This particular new analysis is limited to hospitalized patients so
it doesn’t offer any insight into how the disease can linger in milder cases.
As more time passes, the long-term impact of COVID-19 will
hopefully become much clearer. Frances Williams, from King’s College London,
suggests it will take time to separate the direct impact of the virus from the
broader impact of the pandemic. But either way, Williams adds, the public
health fall-out from COVID-19 will persist for years, if not decades.
“With so much having happened over the last year, we will
need to tease apart which impacts stem from the virus itself versus which might
be the consequence of the massive social disruption wrought by this pandemic,”
writes Williams in a recent piece for The Conversation . “What is clear, however, is that
long-term symptoms after COVID-19 are common, and that research into the causes
and treatments of long COVID will likely be needed long after the outbreak
itself has subsided.”
https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/long-covid-study-lancet-lasting-symptoms/
One in five in England have had
Covid, modelling suggests Analysis shows 12.4 million people infected since start of
pandemic, against 2.4 million detected by test and trace
Sun 10 Jan 2021 18.56 GMT
One in five people in England may have had coronavirus, new
modelling suggests, equivalent to 12.4 million people, rising to almost one in
two in some areas.
It means that across the country as a whole the true number
of people infected to date may be five times higher than the total
number of known cases according to the government’s dashboard.
In some areas, however, the disparity may be even greater. Parts
of London and the south are estimated to have had up to eight times as many
cases as have been detected to date.
The analysis, by Edge
Health , reveals that the true number of coronavirus infections in England
could be as high as 12.4 million, equivalent to 22% of the population, as of 3
January.
The government’s test-and-trace programme had detected 2.4
million cases
by the same date.
The model estimates the number of cases in an areas by
comparing its number of deaths against an estimated infection fatality rate. It
assumes a three-week lag between recorded cases and any associated deaths.
The results suggest that more than 10% of residents in 138
of England’s 149 upper-tier local authorities have contracted the disease.
The model suggests that two in five people have been
infected in six London and south-eastern local authorities: Barking and
Dagenham, Newham, Thurrock, Redbridge, Havering and Tower Hamlets.
The London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham and Newham are
each estimated to have had well over 100,000 coronavirus infections each,
around 54.2% and 49% of their populations respectively.
Official figures from Public Health England show that
just under 14,700 cases recorded in Barking and Dagenham and just under 21,700
in Newham by 3 January.
According to the model, four north-western local
authorities, which were hit harder at the start of the pandemic’s second wave,
were among the 10 worst-hit local authorities: Liverpool with 38.8% infected,
Manchester 38.6%, Rochdale 38% and Salford 37.8%.
More
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/jan/10/one-in-five-have-had-coronavirus-in-england-new-modelling-says
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.
Nio EP7 promises 621-mile
electric range and quick-swappable batteries By Loz Blain January 10, 2021
Chinese Tesla rival Nio has unveiled its first electric
sedan following several SUVs and the Nurburgring-torching
EP9 supercar . At Nio Day in Chengdu, the company celebrated some 75,000
sales and launched its first autonomous-capable vehicle, the ET7 sedan, as well
as a monstrous 150-kWh "production-ready" solid-state battery pack
and the second version of its automated battery-swap station, which could
effectively top you up in a matter of minutes instead of making you wait for a
charge.
The ET7 is a reasonably tidy, if anonymous-looking
four-door starting around the US$70,000 mark. Peak power is a meaty 480 kW (643
hp), split between a 180-kW (241-hp) motor driving the front wheels and a
300-kW (402-hp) unit at the rear. Peak torque is 850 Nm (627 lb-ft), and
acceleration will be very quick if unspectacular at 3.9 seconds from 0-100 km/h
(0-62 mph).
Awkward
lumps over the windscreen and rear window are there to house some of the car's
33 environmental sensors, which include "11 8-megapixel high-resolution
cameras, one ultralong-range high-resolution LiDAR, five millimeter-wave
radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors, two high-precision positioning units, V2X and
ADMS." These can combine to generate up to 8 GB of data every second, to
be fed through four Nvidia Drive Orin processors to enable autonomous driving
with data-crunching capabilities seven times greater than Tesla's
current-gen in-house FSD computers .
Of course, you need a lot more than
a ton of data to make a car drive itself, and Nio seems fairly early in its
journey to autonomy. But it does have a terrific acronym for its Nio Autonomous
Driving system, or NAD. Cars with NADs will gradually gain a sackful of
abilities, from various safety systems, to hands-free highway driving, and
eventually to urban autonomy and self-parking – but there's no mention of when
these abilities will come online, and they're insanely difficult systems to
develop, so who knows how long they'll take.
----The
ET7 will launch with 70- and 100-kWh battery pack options, and by the end of
2022, there'll also be a whopping-big 150-kWh pack using a high-density
solid-state technology that Nio says is production-ready. With an impressive
energy density of 360 Wh/kg (the current Tesla Model 3 battery offers around
260 Wh/kg), this beast of a thing will give the ET7 an outrageous range over
1,000 km (621 miles) on a charge, says the company.
---- Range per charge may not be less of an issue
for Nio drivers than others anyway; the company also launched the second
version of its Power Swap Station. The cars will allegedly drive themselves
into these small boxes, and as you sit there, the entire battery pack will be
automatically dropped out from under the car and replaced with a fresh one. The
Power Swap 2.0 box, says Nio, will charge and swap as many as 312 batteries a
day, running a diagnostic on each vehicle to identify faults early.
As such, you can buy the ET7 with a
battery you can call your own, or pay less up front and subscribe to a
"Battery as a Service" (BaaS) model that lets you swap batteries out
at any of 500 Power Swap stations slated to be built across China by the end of
2021. BaaS versions will start around US$58,000, and may prove attractive not
just to long-haul travelers, but also to people that might live in apartments
or other places with nowhere to charge.
More
https://newatlas.com/automotive/nio-et7-electric-car/
In central banking as in diplomacy, style, conservative
tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count greatly and results
far much less.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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