Category Archives: Coronavirus

Coronavirus, Covid 19, misinformation

Coronavirus lies, nonsense and misinformation… set straight

Misinformation goes Viral

TheStartup, by Jason Shepherd, Apr 13, 2020 (updated 4/22)

Self Isolation has led many to delve into crackpot theories that go from man-made viruses to spread of infections via 5G cell phone towers. Now, those that are rational are already asking the right questions and seeking legit sources of information…but more and more people are losing it. Feel free to use the information in this story to educate your friends. This pandemic is stressful enough without people confabulating nonsense!

I’ve found that people “listen” more if you have credentials, so while I’m not a fan of throwing letters at people…here are mine. I have a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. I did my postdoctoral work at MIT and am now an Associate Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Utah .

I run a research lab that works on the molecular mechanisms of memory and brain plasticity (www.shepherdlab.org). More recently, we made a surprising discovery between memory and..viruses. If interested, see here

and here.

All of that just means that I spent a long time being trained to problem solve, analyze data and I know a fair amount about biology.

All of the links below are public and I encourage you to read them. In no particular order here are some common themes of misinformation:

1. No, YOU (bar the first Chinese patients in Wuhan) did not have COVID19 prior to Jan 2020.

The first documented cases in China were in late November/early Dec 2019. Scientists can “track” the origins of viruses by sequencing their genetic material. Over time, viruses accumulate mutations that make them identifiable. Think of family trees and tracing genetic mutations, this is very similar. See this article for a good explanation:

UPDATE: If you are interested in the analysis mentioned in the NYTs article, here’s a great website that traces the sequencing data: https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global and for the US: https://nextstrain.org/narratives/ncov/sit-rep/2020-04-17?f_country=USA

2. The virus is NOT man made.

Scientists can compare the sequence of the new virus with other known viruses and determine how similar it is. The most similar virus is a coronavirus found in bats and the differences are due to mutations that occur through natural evolution, rather than an artificial sequence that was suddenly added.There are literally billions of viruses, all with different hosts and life-cycles…some mutations allow those viruses to jump into new hosts. The clearest picture so far is that SARS-COV-2 originated from bats and maybe an intermediate host. The most likely scenario is that this jump from an intermediate host happened in the wild animal market in Wuhan (https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30328-7).

In addition, the interaction between the virus spike protein (that make the “crown” of proteins that stick out from the balloon-like membrane) and the human receptor ACE2, which allows the virus to get into human cells, is complicated and something that would be extremely hard to engineer (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9). Indeed, the ACE2 interaction had already been identified with a bat coronavirus in 2010, giving credence for a natural origin (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711).

4/17 UPDATE: There are insinuations that a lab in China working on bat coronaviruses may have let the virus “escape”. There’s a lot of finger pointing by various US agencies, but I’ve yet to see any scientific analysis that makes this claim credible…so far. There’s also precedent for coronaviruses jumping hosts and into humans, both SARS and MERS for example. Indeed, scientists had publicly warned that this would be one of the most probable causes for an international virus outbreak. Here’s a good write up on the evidence for all of this:

3. NUMBERS and MODELS are not deliberately misleading people.

Guys, this is a new virus and nothing was known about it prior to Dec 2019. The good news is that it is similar to the previously known coronaviruses SARS and MERS. But infectivity and mortality were completely unknown. Scientists use models to refine their ideas but no one model is correct. You’re seeing discrepancy in models/projections precisely because science isn’t magic…the more we know about the virus and how it works, infects people etc the better the model.

Conversely, epidemiologists can study past and current data to INFER what will happen in the future. All models point to social distancing as a means to stop spread and indeed this is working

So no, there’s no conspiracy by scientists to “control the numbers”. While governments might be producing their own propaganda on how they are dealing with the pandemic, there are legit sources of data that are impartial to politics (eg. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/ and https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest).

4. COVID is not the flu! By now, I hope most are convinced.

But, here’s a representation of the worst case scenario happening in NYC right now (with updated numbers 4/16) and it’s scary ! From

The weekly COVID numbers are compiled from the daily Johns Hopkins numbers pulled from their GITHUB repository. The CDC flu, pneumonia and total death numbers are downloaded from the FluView site here: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html.

The CDC flu, pneumonia and total death numbers are downloaded from the FluView site here: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html

UPDATE: 4/22. Here’s a video that shows the daily deaths of COVID and the main causes of the death in the US. You get an intuitive grasp on how bad this pandemic is!

5. Bill Gates.

When he announced that he was going to help develop a COVID vaccine, people went nuts. People started asserting that: Gates wants to kill people with the vaccine; Gates patented the new virus; Gates knew about the virus before the Chinese. WTF people, let’s try and use critical thinking skills?! The richest man on earth gave up running a company to devote all his time to a foundation that is dedicated to public health (https://www.gatesfoundation.org/). Go check out their website. No, Gates won’t profit off of a new vaccine, no he doesn’t want to kill off people with it and NO he isn’t orchestrating some sort of grand plan to take over the world like a Bond villain!

6. The claim — virus is spread by 5G cell phone towers.

OMFG! First, 5G is just as safe as 4G. And 4G is just as safe as your home microwave. Second, a virus cannot be spread by cell phone towers because viruses, you know, only infect living things. So please don’t go and destroy cell phone towers.

UPDATE: Since I’m now also getting a lot of questions about 5G itself, I thought I would say something here. Cell phones use radio wave frequencies to transmit. If you remember your HS physics, electromagnetic waves include visible light, radio and X-rays. Radio waves carry less energy and are long-forms, X-rays much more energy and shorter. The latter is called ionizing radiation and are dangerous as we all know. The milli- and microwaves are safe, except for the generation of heat (which is how microwaves heat up food).

So, 5G has a little more energy than 4G but has orders of magnitude less energy/harm than visible light. You should be WAY more worried about UV rays from the sun. For more info, see here:

7. Health care workers and almost all the scientists I know are working to save lives.

There are accusations that scientists manufactured the virus or that we are covering up for big pharma companies. We are not paid off by the government or big pharma! We really just want to help people. Health workers are literally putting their lives on the line under challenging conditions.

Scientists are racing to find treatments and produce a vaccine. Science works by a process and that takes time. You will see announcements that X drug works but often this need repeating and validation. This isn’t because scientists don’t know what they’re doing! For a nice explanation of how this works, see here:

I understand that people are afraid and desperate for good news, but we should all wait for confirmation from the medical community before rushing to conclusions.

8. Herd immunity.

I’m loving that anti-vaxxers are now claiming that herd immunity is better than having a vaccine. Well, crap…did you know that vaccines actually WORK by accelerating herd immunity? Yes, that’s right..herd immunity is when enough people have recovered from the virus to then be immune and cannot reinfect other people or get sick. Now, there’s a lot of uncertainty of how well or how long people recovering from COVID will be immune, but ultimately the only way to control the pandemic is through herd immunity. BUT, natural herd immunity will need at least 70% of the total population to be immune. If this is done by just letting the virus spread unchecked, we are talking about millions of people dying world-wide over the next few years. Vaccines accelerate herd immunity without killing people by inducing antibody production that can kill the virus, the same kind of antibody response people achieve after recovering from an infection .

We are all in this together! The internet is a double-edged sword, endless access to information…but often it’s hard to determine what information to pay attention to. My advice,

Keep Calm and listen to Experts!

Big Oil, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Fossil fuel subsidies

Letter to Congress: Stop Coronavirus Handout to Big Oil

Center for Biological Diversity, April 23, 2020

Give Pandemic Relief to People, Not Polluters

The Center For Biological Diversity and about 300 other groups sent a letter to Congress on Monday demanding that federal relief money aimed at relieving the effects of the COVID-19 crisis be directed to people directly affected by it, not fossil fuel corporations.

The fossil fuel industry, said the letter, should be excluded from receiving loans in the next COVID-19 aid package. New bills should ensure that affected workers in that industry are provided with assistance and labor protections for weathering a job transition.

“It’s a moral outrage for fossil fuel executives to try to cash in while workers and communities suffer through a pandemic,” said the Center’s Ben Goloff, a climate campaigner. “Congress needs to protect people, not a handful of profiteering polluters.”

Tell Congress to direct taxpayer-funded COVID-19 aid only to those who need it.

Benicia CA, Benicia Independent, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Solano County CA

Headlines in search of stories… coronavirus in Benicia & Solano County

By Roger Straw, April 23, 2020

Those of you who are familiar with the Benicia Independent know what it is and what it isn’t.

I’m a one-person journalist.  For over 13 years here on the BenIndy, I have published news and opinion from a Benicia California perspective.

I am NOT an investigative reporter.  Mostly I repost interesting and important stories written by others.  I am an environmental advocate and an old time liberal on issues of race and gender, peace, justice, poverty and more.  I tend to focus on a single issue for weeks or months – or even years – at a time.  I’ve reported at length on hazardous oil trains, gun violence and the need for gun control legislation, local and national electoral politics, and so on.

Recently I’ve  taken on the COVID-19 pandemic here in Solano County.  And that’s where I want to take you today.

Every day now since the second week of March, I’ve posted Solano County’s numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths.  Most days I spend hours combing through local, regional and national news about the virus and posting it here on the BenIndy.

Your response has been amazing.  At the height of our successful effort to stop our local refinery from importing dirty and dangerous crude oil by rail, almost 1,800 of you paid a visit to my pages one day – a record for the BenIndy that lasted for about 5 years.  Since I started reporting on COVID-19, more than 3,000 of you have checked my pages on 9 occasions, and on April 1 you set a new all-time record of 8,105 views.  A huge and unexpected leap!

Thank you!

Now what does all that have to do with the title of this piece, “Headlines in search of stories… coronavirus in Benicia and Solano County”?

Here’s the deal: every morning I get up and flip back and forth through about 7 local and national news channels on the tv.  I spend about an hour like that while I drink too much coffee and lean my sore back on an electric heating pad.  And I take notes – ideas about important stories that I really SHOULD cover on the Benicia Independent.

Now if I were an editor in chief with staff, I’d assign reporters to make phone calls and conduct interviews and come back with stories, important stories that really should be written.

Alas, that’s not me, and that’s not the BenIndy…

So, with all that lengthy introduction, here is my list of headlines in search of stories.  Please.  Someone out there – please get on the phone or otherwise track down the information that the public needs to know, for instance…

  • There’s a NATIONAL crisis in nursing homes – how many are sick in Solano County’s congregant facilities?  Where ARE our nursing homes and retirement facilities?  (None here in Benicia – so where do Benicians go when we get old and in need of care?  And how are those facilities doing???)
  • Testing in Solano County long term care facilities – numbers, results?
  • Solano has recorded 3 coronavirus deaths, 2 among those aged over 65.  Did they die in a hospital?  And before that, were they living at home or in a long term care facility?
  • Solano County is testing fewer than 50 per day – why?!!!
  • Today’s news: Contra Costa, Napa, Sonoma and San Francisco are expanding testing – why not expanded drive-through testing in multiple cities in Solano?
  • Unemployment numbers in Solano and Benicia?  Local numbers on those unemployed? And local numbers of unemployed with no health insurance?
  • Bolinas and SF Mission District are testing EVERYONE – why not here in Benicia?  (Yes I know Bolinas is tiny and wealthy, but can’t we think big?  Who are a few philanthropists and billionaires with ties to Benicia who could fund such a project?)
  • Reopening moves are beginning to appear in Bay Area counties.  Who is planning the reopening of Solano County, and what are the plans?  And will they be open to public comment?
  • Coronavirus and guns – with schools closed, March was the first month with NO SCHOOL SHOOTINGS in the US since 2002.  Rather a bittersweet statistic – do we celebrate, or weep?  (This despite an uptick in gun purchases.  And what’s that all about?!)
  • Surely there is a dire fiscal impact of the coronavirus lockdown on Benicia and Solano governmental cash flow and operations.  Details needed, and possible solutions.

Etc., etc…  You get the idea.  But who can take it on?  The huge problem with all this is the horrific times our local news media, journalists and reporters were suffering even before the pandemic.  Too many cutbacks, too few local journalists, too few local newspapers, and now too many absences, too much loss of revenue during these historic pandemic times.  (So yes, there’s another headline in search of a story.)

Roger Straw
The Benicia Independent

Air Quality, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Keeping Watch on Earth News, Toxic pollutants

As people stay home, Earth turns wilder and cleaner

Associated Press, by Seth Borenstein, April 22, 2020
These maps made available by NASA show nitrogen dioxide levels over California during March 2-6, 2020, pre-shutdown against the COVID-19 coronavirus; March 9-13 during soft shutdown measures, March 16-20 when “shelter in place” orders were announced, and March 23-27 during a full period of “shelter in place” orders. NO2 is a noxious gas emitted by motor vehicles, power plants, and industrial facilities. (NASA/European Space Agency via AP)

An unplanned grand experiment is changing Earth.

As people across the globe stay home to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, the air has cleaned up, albeit temporarily. Smog stopped choking New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world, and India’s getting views of sights not visible in decades. Nitrogen dioxide pollution in the northeastern United States is down 30%. Rome air pollution levels from mid-March to mid-April were down 49% from a year ago. Stars seem more visible at night.

People are also noticing animals in places and at times they don’t usually. Coyotes have meandered along downtown Chicago’s Michigan Avenue and near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. A puma roamed the streets of Santiago, Chile. Goats took over a town in Wales. In India, already daring wildlife has become bolder with hungry monkeys entering homes and opening refrigerators to look for food.

When people stay home, Earth becomes cleaner and wilder.

“It is giving us this quite extraordinary insight into just how much of a mess we humans are making of our beautiful planet,” says conservation scientist Stuart Pimm of Duke University. “This is giving us an opportunity to magically see how much better it can be.”

Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, assembled scientists to assess the ecological changes happening with so much of humanity housebound. Scientists, stuck at home like the rest of us, say they are eager to explore unexpected changes in weeds, insects, weather patterns, noise and light pollution. Italy’s government is working on an ocean expedition to explore sea changes from the lack of people.

“In many ways we kind of whacked the Earth system with a sledgehammer and now we see what Earth’s response is,” Field says.

Researchers are tracking dramatic drops in traditional air pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide, smog and tiny particles. These types of pollution kill up to 7 million people a year worldwide, according to Health Effects Institute president Dan Greenbaum.

The air from Boston to Washington is its cleanest since a NASA satellite started measuring nitrogen dioxide,in 2005, says NASA atmospheric scientist Barry Lefer. Largely caused by burning of fossil fuels, this pollution is short-lived, so the air gets cleaner quickly.

These maps made available by NASA shows the average concentration of nitrogen dioxide in March 2015-19, top, and in March 2020 as people stay home against the COVID-19 coronavirus. NO2 is a noxious gas emitted by motor vehicles, power plants, and industrial facilities. (NASA via AP)

Compared to the previous five years, March air pollution is down 46% in Paris, 35% in Bengaluru, India, 38% in Sydney, 29% in Los Angeles, 26% in Rio de Janeiro and 9% in Durban, South Africa, NASA measurements show.

“We’re getting a glimpse of what might happen if we start switching to non-polluting cars,” Lefer says.

Cleaner air has been most noticeable in India and China. On April 3, residents of Jalandhar, a city in north India’s Punjab, woke up to a view not seen for decades: snow-capped Himalayan peaks more than 100 miles away.

Cleaner air means stronger lungs for asthmatics, especially children, says Dr. Mary Prunicki, director of air pollution and health research at the Stanford University School of Medicine. And she notes early studies also link coronavirus severity to people with bad lungs and those in more polluted areas, though it’s too early to tell which factor is stronger.

FROM OUR WHAT CAN BE SAVED SERIES

The greenhouse gases that trap heat and cause climate change stay in the atmosphere for 100 years or more, so the pandemic shutdown is unlikely to affect global warming, says Breakthrough Institute climate scientist Zeke Hausfather. Carbon dioxide levels are still rising, but not as fast as last year.

Aerosol pollution, which doesn’t stay airborne long, is also dropping. But aerosols cool the planet so NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt is investigating whether their falling levels may be warming local temperatures for now.

Stanford’s Field says he’s most intrigued by increased urban sightings of coyotes, pumas and other wildlife that are becoming video social media staples. Boar-like javelinas congregated outside of a Arizona shopping center. Even New York City birds seem hungrier and bolder.

In Adelaide, Australia, police shared a video of a kangaroo hopping around a mostly empty downtown, and a pack of jackals occupied an urban park in Tel Aviv, Israel.

We’re not being invaded. The wildlife has always been there, but many animals are shy, Duke’s Pimm says. They come out when humans stay home.

For sea turtles across the globe, humans have made it difficult to nest on sandy beaches. The turtles need to be undisturbed and emerging hatchlings get confused by beachfront lights, says David Godfrey, executive director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy.

But with lights and people away, this year’s sea turtle nesting so far seems much better from India to Costa Rica to Florida, Godfrey says.

“There’s some silver lining for wildlife in what otherwise is a fairly catastrophic time for humans,” he says.

___

Associated Press writer Aniruddha Ghosal in New Delhi contributed to this report.