Sunday, April 26, 2020

News

New York and U.K. Have Fewest Deaths Since March: Virus Update

Bloomberg News
New York and U.K. Have Fewest Deaths Since March: Virus Update
(Bloomberg) --
Spain and Italy reported the smallest rise in coronavirus fatalities in more than a month, while the death tolls in the U.K. and New York were the lowest since the end of March.
Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said U.S. President Donald Trump understands that disinfectant isn’t a treatment for Covid-19.
France and Saudi Arabia are among nations taking steps toward adjusting their lockdowns, or considering such a move. By contrast, Argentina and Kenya plan to extend limits.
Key Developments
Virus Tracker: Total cases 2.9 million; deaths exceed 203,000EU report says China deflected blame for pandemicWHO casts doubt on immunity after Covid-19 infectionBack-to-work is complicated decision for many workersEurope’s factories are starting up againWhy a second wave of Covid-19 is already a worry
Subscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg’s Prognosis team here. Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus. For a look back at this week’s top stories from QuickTake, click here.
N.Y. Deaths Lowest Since March 31 (12:05 p.m. NY)
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said new deaths fell to 367, the fewest since March 31, and virus cases continues to decline across the state.
Hospitalizations also declined, extending a trend from last week. The state also reported fewer new cases, Cuomo said.
Italy Deaths Slow (12 p.m. NY)
Italy reported its fewest virus fatalities since the early days of its nationwide lockdown as the government plans to gradually restart its economy and allow people limited movement.
Civil defense authorities reported 260 deaths for the 24-hour period -- the fewest since March 14 -- compared with 415 the day before. That brings the total number of fatalities to 26,644. Confirmed cases now total 197,675.
There were 2,324 new cases compared with 2,357 a day earlier.
State Hotlines Called on Disinfectants (11:50 a.m. NY)
New Jersey and Michigan emergency centers were flooded with calls last week after President Trump discussed the use of disinfectants to deal with Covid-19, the states’ governors said.

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Friday, March 6, 2020

Trump's mental state — not Biden's — is the real concern, mental health professionals say

David Knowles
Editor
 
 
 
Trump's declining faculties — not Biden's — is the real concern, mental health professionals say
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Mental health professionals who have expressed concern over what they see as Donald Trump’s declining faculties say that similar fears about Joe Biden’s are overblown.
“A few stumbled words are not the same as the extreme danger that result from a list of signs that Donald Trump has shown,” Bandy Lee, a psychiatrist on the faculty at the Yale School of Medicine, told Yahoo News, “and none of them apply to Joe Biden.”
Lee edited a collection of essays written by 27 mental health professionals titled “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” which detailed what the authors see as the risks posed by a leader who they regard as mentally and emotionally unfit for the most powerful office in the world.
Yet since Biden’s reemergence as a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Lee has been flooded by requests to assess the former vice president’s string of stumbles in public appearances. In response, she published a piece on Medium correcting what she sees as the false equivalence between Trump’s “mental instability” and Biden’s occasional gaffes.
Trump frequently misstates or invents statistics or facts in his speeches, and in remarks last year seemed confused on the birthplace of his own father, saying he was born in Germany. (It was the Bronx.) Biden bungled an appeal for campaign volunteers at a debate last year, and recently shared what appeared to be a false memory of being “arrested on the streets of Soweto,” in South Africa, on his way to visit Nelson Mandela. (He was briefly detained at an airport during an official visit, but not arrested.)
Joe Biden and Donald Trump. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP (2), Getty Images (2))
Joe Biden and Donald Trump. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP (2), Getty Images (2))
“None of them are catastrophically alarming the way the signs have been with Donald Trump. I think there needs to be a measure of proportion here. On the one hand, we have such mental instability and such great cognitive decline as well as neurological signs that show imminent risk to the entire human civilization, compared with some gaffes perhaps. If we’re not addressing the former, why are we even talking about the latter?”
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Oat milk was the most sought-after product in February in the food and beverage category that Nielsen tracks The surge in demand could be because it has a longer shelf-life than cow’s milk, which may appeal to consumers who want to be ready to shelter in place or engage in “social distancing,” which CDC officials have said could help stop the spread of the coronavirus
“As consumers assess their purchasing decisions around what can be stored for long periods and what cannot, there’s little doubt that buying will shift toward shelf-stable and frozen options,” Nielsen wrote in a report about “Pandemic Pantries” (The World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus a “global health emergency,” the organization’s highest alert level, but it is not considered a pandemic.)
Oatly, a brand of oat milk sold in the US., says that the 32 oz cartons sold on its site are “shelf-stable and will stay fresh until the best by date.” Until the carton is opened, there is no need to refrigerate it, Oatly adds.
Sales of aerosol disinfectant products were nearly 100% higher than last year, Nielsen found Sales of bath and shower wipes had increased nearly 60%. Several companies — including Clorox, GOJO (Purell’s parent company) and Lysol — claim to cleanse surfaces of coronavirus, but haven’t actually tested it against the novel coronavirus COVID19
American consumers are cutting back on fresh fruit and vegetables — sales for apples and celery decreased by 4% and 16% respectively in the last week of February, according to Nielsen But dried beans increased by 36.9%. (Beans are a favored staple of some “survivalists.”)
Shoppers have been flocking to stores like Costco US:COST to stock up on these products. The company reported better than expected results for the second quarter. Analysts attributed this to “an uptick in consumer demand.” 
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As coronavirus infections spread, demand for oat milk is outpacing hand sanitizer

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Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that the general public not use face masks, sales were 475% higher last week compared to a year ago

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Oat milk sales were 323% higher in late February this year compared to the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen.

 MarketWatch photo illustration/iStockphoto
Hand sanitizer and face masks are high on the list of products Americans have been stocking up on amid the coronavirus outbreak, but there’s another less obvious top seller: oat milk.
Worldwide, there are 102,168 COVID-19 cases and 3,491 deaths as of Friday evening; 57,375 people worldwide have recovered, according to data published by the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering. In the U.S., 14 people have died — 12 in Washington State and two in California — and there are 328 confirmed cases.
Demand for the plant-based dairy alternative surged in late February as the U.S. absorbed warnings from public health officials that the novel coronavirus COVID19 could soon disrupt their daily lives, according to new data from the market research firm Nielsen US:NLSN.
In fact, demand for oat milk is outpacing hand sanitizer In the last week of February, oat milk sales were 323% higher than the same week in 2019. Hand sanitizer sales were 313% higher than they were for the same week last year.
There is now a limited supply of hand sanitizer available online and in stores — prompting some consumers to make their own in the meantime (although the effectiveness of homemade versions is questionable)
Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that the general public refrain from wearing face masks, sales of face masks were 475% higher during that week than the year prior, according to Nielsen
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