COVID-19 Deaths More Frequent In Regions with High Air Pollution Levels
New research finds that high levels of pollution are closely associated with COVID-19 deaths. In a new study that examined 66 administrative regions in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, researcher Yann Ogen found that 78% of deaths occurred in just 5 regions. These regions had the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions, a gas that accumulates as vehicle emissions get trapped by weather conditions. The gas causes an increased likelihood of respiratory problems like wheezing coughs, colds and flu, lung infections, and bronchitis.
The results indicate that long-term exposure to this pollutant may be one of the most important contributors to fatality caused by the Covid-19 virus in these regions and maybe across the whole world…Poisoning our environment means poisoning our own body, and when it experiences chronic respiratory stress its ability to defend itself from infections is limited.”
Other research has found that air pollution is a potential risk factor for coronavirus in another way. Italian researchers have identified a gene-specific to COVID-19 in outdoor air pollution samples from the Bergamo province in Italy. The study has not been peer-reviewed. Additional research has found that COVID-19 can survive up to three hours suspended in airborne droplets.
Coronavirus Can Live on Surfaces for Hours, Study Shows
The CDC and other sources have shown that COVID-19 can live on surfaces for hours. Data shows that the virus was still detectable on copper for four hours, and cardboard for 24 hours, while it can live on stainless steel and plastic for up to 72 hours. It should be noted that the virus is predominately spread through airborne particles when someone sneezes or coughs.
As far as we know right now, people are much more likely to be infected by close contact with an infected person than by touching a contaminated surface. That said, it’s still important to be conscious of what we’re touching, especially high-touch surfaces”
Although there is not a high risk of catching COVID-19 from surfaces like cardboard and plastic packages, or groceries, some recommend decontaminating these surfaces in a specific area before bringing them into your home. You can find out how to make homemade hand sanitizer here.
While looking for honey at your grocery store, chances are you’ll find labels like “100% Pure Honey”, “100% Raw Honey”, or “True Sourced Certified”. Despite these claims and certifications, there’s a good chance that your honey isn’t what you were expecting. Much of the honey on grocery store shelves is imported, even the ones that claim to be produced in the U.S. Often times imported honey is adulterated, by adding sugars, heating it, or filtering it.
“We tested about 60 to 70 different companies, and we found that about 50 to 60 percent of those honeys tested are bad honey. Out of 110 products, around 70 percent were adulterated. There’s been something done to them. It is just pure fraud in our opinion. They’re selling products to the American public that isn’t what it says it is.”
– Kent Heitzinger, Lawyer
Honey has become widely more popular in recent years. Consumption of honey has gone up more than 40% in 20 years. Despite the rise in consumption, US beekeepers are having a difficult time selling honey because adulterated honey is the majority of what you’ll find on the market. Additionally, for environmental reasons, many beekeepers have lost a large percentage of their hives, thus making it harder to produce honey.
Adulteration is driving global honey prices down, leaving beekeepers barely able to sell their honey for a profit.”
Aside from the fact that companies are lying to consumers, this is a problem because adulterated honey does not have the same health benefits as raw honey. When honey is heated, it loses beneficial enzymes, and of course, when honey is diluted with sugar, you’re consuming sugar, oftentimes, unknowingly. Lawyers working with consumers who have bought adulterated honey have pointed out that companies have been doing this for years, and it is likely all profit-driven.
Read Vice’s in-depth article about adulterated honey, here.
73% of Inmates at an Ohio Prison Have Tested Positive for COVID-19
A prison in Ohio is accounting for the majority of coronavirus cases in Marion County, which has the leading number of coronavirus cases in Ohio. Officials are attributing the large number of cases to mass testing. Everyone, both staff and inmates have been tested for coronavirus. No COVID-19 deaths have been reported, however, more than 100 staff members and 2,000 inmates have tested positive for the virus.
“Because we are testing everyone — including those who are not showing symptoms — we are getting positive test results on individuals who otherwise would have never been tested because they were asymptomatic.”
Although California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas all have larger prison populations than Ohio, no one has reported case numbers as large as Marion County. Michigan has also reported a high number of inmates testing positive for coronavirus with 572 inmates testing positive out of 889 inmates tested. Michigan has some of the highest case numbers in the country. New York, who also has extremely high case numbers is only testing inmates who show symptoms and has only reported around 1,000 cases within the prison system.
In the midst of the pandemic, the Ohio governor recommended 300 out of 49,000 inmates be released early. Ohio is not the only state to release prisoners early, however, the governor has stated that he is not planning a “Wholesale release” where every prisoner in certain categories is released.
Scientist Explains Why Isolation was Not the Best Way to Flatten the Curve
In a recent article by Collective Evolution, Arjun Walia talked with Dr. Knut M. Wittkowski, a Senior Research Associate Rockefeller University, and discussed how social distancing may not be the most effective measure for flattening the curve. Dr. Wittkowski pointed out in a recent study that social distancing, isolation, and the closure of businesses and schools occurred after the peak in COVID-19 cases. This means, according to Wittkowski, that isolation did not actually have anHow to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut effect on the spread of the virus, and that the decline in cases should be credited to herd immunity rather than social distancing measures.
COVID-19 is not as dangerous as media and government is making it out to be, and therefore schools and businesses should be open so we can create herd immunity and kill this virus, while the elderly and immune-compromised individuals should be quarantined and practicing social distancing measures.”
While allowing schools and businesses to operate normally, society is able to build herd immunity. Through herd immunity, we can eliminate the virus and decrease the risk of infection for those who are elderly or immune-compromised. This is according to Wittowski’s data.
There is nothing to be scared about, this is a flu epidemic like every other flu, maybe a bit more severe, but nothing that is fundamentally different from the flus that we’ve seen in other years.”
Hello! Im a doctor in Sweden. I want to correct a few assumptions in this video that is erroneous. First of all, Sweden is working under one very simple presumption: Whether you like it or not, this virus will spread. Lockdowns are only useful if your healthcare service cannot cope with the influx, other than that you are simply just pushing the problem ahead of yourself. When you have a wide spread around the world, there is no point in a lockdown – even if you completely eliminate the virus from your country at some point you will have to reopen your borders. With that being said, the statistics in Sweden are skewed to have a higher mortality rate because we only test people who are admitted into the hospital or high risk patients. We dont test people with mild to medium symptoms.
In Sweden we have extended so that you can have up to 3 weeks of “sick leave” from work(WITHOUT A DOCTORS NOTE!) – and the money will be paid from the government. We have also made so that people can work only 20% of their time and still get 80% of their salary through subsidies from the government(to save small businesses). Alot of more have been done, and all this so that people who even have the mildest symptoms will voluntarily stay home. I think this is much better than holding a gun to someones head and forcing them to stay home. We have to also keep in mind other things:
1) In sweden, the public health ministry is calling the shot. They are a group of doctors, epidemiologists and statisticspeople. This is due to a law from hundreds of years ago that says that politicians cannot interfere with these ministries. Thus there is no political agendas to “look good” infront of the people. Denmark closed the primary schools AGAINST THE RECCOMENDATIONS of their public health ministry.
2) You have to keep in mind all of public health and not get tunnel vision entirely on the virus. Lockdowns skyrocket rate of suicides and domestic abuse. Depression, alcohol abuse, you name it.
3) Everybody who has a positive PCR test and die gets counted to the death toll. So for example: If someone gets posivite PCR test and then dies from a myocardial infarction it will still count as a COVID-19 death.
4) Just to finish this rant off: It is unfair to say that Sweden is doing an experiment. Technically speaking EVERY COUNTRY is doing an experiment right now, because this has never been done before so we dont know what is the “best way”.
New Antibody Tests Show Coronavirus Mortality Rate May Be Much Lower
According to antibody tests conducted in New York, more than 13.9% of the population may have been infected with COVID-19. 3,000 people were tested randomly to determine what percent of the population may have coronavirus antibodies. Tests were conducted throughout 19 different counties and 40 different grocery stores. Based on the results conducted, it’s likely nearly 2.7 million New Yorkers have been infected at some point.
On Sunday, Cuomo said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the state’s antibody test that will provide the “first true snapshot” of how many people have been infected with Covid-19 in New York. State officials don’t know the true number of infections because they haven’t been able to conduct diagnostic coronavirus testing on a large scale”
Results vary among different counties with New York City showing positive antibodies in 21% of the population, 16.7% in Long Island, and 11.7% in Westchester and Rockland county. Mortality rates in New York were originally reported at around 7.4%, but testing indicated that the mortality rate is likely less than 1%.
In America, USC and Stanford have released preliminary studies that show that between 1-2 million people who may have been infected with COVID-19, in California (around 2-4 percent of the population). Despite these findings, California has reported around 33,200 cases, making the mortality rate more than 3%. However, based on the findings reported by preliminary studies, the death rate in California would be closer to .04%, the overall death rate is likely closer to 1%.
In Gangelt Germany, test results show that nearly 14% of the population was infected, this dropped their mortality rate to 0.36%. In Robbio Italy, it’s likely more than 22% of the population may have been infected lowering the mortality rate to 0.7%. In Finland, they’ve reported 4,000 official cases but tests show it is likely closer to 80,000-100,000, lowering their death rate to 0.1%. Some places are reporting flu-like death rates while other states are reporting more than double flu-like rate mortality. This is likely due to the age of people in communities with higher death rates.
Hospital Layoffs and Pay Cuts Are Happening During the Pandemic
The United States healthcare system could be facing a bigger crisis than CoVID-19. While New York Governor Andrew Cuomo begs for healthcare volunteers to combat coronavirus, hospitals throughout the country are furloughing or laying off employees at the highest rate since 1990.
On April 6th, the West Virginia University Health System announced that some of their employees will see temporary 25% pay cuts during the pandemic. As the hospital system is seeing less clinical volume, WVU Health is moving people to new roles, and those who are not matched to a new role will be sent home with a 75% salary guarantee. This new policy will be reevaluated in mid-May.
The WVU Health System hospitals are only one example of the grim reality facing many healthcare workers. According to Altarum, a nonprofit research and consulting firm…
Health care has traditionally cushioned the blow of non-health sector job losses during and immediately following economic downturns…This time, health care looks to be contributing to instead of counterbalancing an accelerating economic calamity. Health care lost 43,000 jobs this month, by far the largest monthly drop in our data series going back to 1990.”
In the case of West Virginia, the state has seen relatively few coronavirus cases during the pandemic, with the number of total reported cases in the state less than 1000. In additional cost-cutting measures, the WVU Health System will institute a hiring freeze, suspend employer match to all employee’s 403(b) for the remainder of 2020, and the health system CEO, hospital CEOs, and certain senior executives will see a 10% percent salary reduction for the next six months.
WVU Medicine employees are lucky. Workers who are sent home will still be making a significant portion of their salary. It’s likely that the employees sent home by the hospital administration will be in lower levels positions or less busy areas of the hospitals.
According to Indeed.com, people in administrative assistant and registered nurse positions at WVU Medicine make $30,000 and $51,000, respectively. Twenty-five percent of these salaries represent a significant chunk of income. Yet health system CEO, hospital CEOs, and certain senior executives are only receiving 10% pay cuts. The average CEO salary in West Virginia is $720,000. If the CEOs of the eleven hospitals in the WVU Health System make that average salary were made to take the same temporary 25% pay cut as hospital nurses and administrators, the hospital system could potentially save $1.98 million. Why are hospital workers on the front lines of our healthcare system being asked to sacrifice further when there are those in much better positions to step up financially?