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Israel has an antibody breakthrough But will it be enough to defeat the disease? Ross Clark

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://spectator.us/israel-antibody-breakthrough/

The Israeli government is reporting this morning that the country’s Institute for Biological Research has made a breakthrough in the development of a potential treatment against SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19. Scientists there have isolated a ‘monoclonal neutralizing antibody’ which could potentially neutralize the virus after infection. The antibody was obtained from the blood of an infected patient. It is called monoclonal because it is generated from a single cell — which could allow vast quantities of the antibody to be produced quickly.

Is it the breakthrough that could make all the difference? Treatment of novel viruses with monoclonal neutralizing antibodies has been under development for some time, notably for Ebola, Sars and Mers. For Ebola in particular, treatment has been shown to boost the production of antibodies in a patient and to reduce viral load — in one case two US patients who had been infected with Ebola in West Africa improved after treatment, although it wasn’t clear whether this was because of the treatment or because of their own immune systems. But most of the research so far has been limited to experiments in test tubes and in laboratory animals. A paper by Chinese and US government scientists from 2017 gave a progress report, reviewing various experiments.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

COVID statistics are just politics by other means Media outlets use statistics like the drunkard uses lamp-posts: for support rather than for illumination John Keiger

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://spectator.us/covid-statistics-politics-other-means/

Statistics is the continuation of politics by other means, to misquote Clausewitz. One hundred and fifty years after the crushing of the revolutionary Paris Commune, historians still clash aggressively about the death toll. Was it as high as 40,000 or as low as 10,000?

It matters because the Paris Commune is a shibboleth, a great left-wing site of memory and martyrdom, made famous by Karl Marx’s pamphlet The Civil War in France. He presented the Paris Commune as the first great experiment in communist government. Its crushing by the army of the conservative Adolphe Thiers is depicted in left-wing folk memory as the ‘reactionary, repressive forces of capitalism’ ending an idyllic experiment in socialism. So for martyrdom’s sake it is better to put the number ‘slaughtered’ at 40,000 rather than 10,000. And historians go to great lengths to adduce statistical evidence in one direction or another.

In the 1960s demographers revealed that the Soviet government stopped publishing its statistics on life expectancy because they were not progressing as fast as in the West. Today Chinese GDP growth statistics are widely viewed as manipulated. COVID-19 pandemic statistics have inevitably become political too. As the Cambridge statistician Prof David Spiegelhalter wrote in the Guardian on April 30, ‘people are not so interested in the numbers themselves — they want to say why they are so high, and ascribe blame.’ And why do they want to ascribe blame? Because other political agendas have not been laid to rest.

And so COVID statistics are the continuation of politics by other means. The relish with which certain international media highlight the death toll in the US, for example, is a rather transparent attack on Donald Trump, especially when they fail to adjust deaths to 100,000 population.

The otherwise authoritative left-of-center French daily Le Monde for example refers to the United States ‘as the most affected [country] as much in number of deaths (67,682) as in cases (1.15 million)’ but fails to account for population, which puts the US around 10th in the world.

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Media Attack Gov. Kristi Noem (R-South Dakota)For Not Panicking And Destroying Her State By Mollie Hemingway

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/05/media-attack-gov-kristi-noem-for-not-panicking-and-destroying-her-state/

As the Coronavirus spread from Wuhan, China, to the United States, most governors quickly acquiesced to the media’s demand that they force a governmental shutdown of their states in order to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. The media continue to be heavily invested in the shutdown model, even as the country realizes that hospitals are nowhere close to being overwhelmed and, in fact, many hospital systems are furloughing doctors and nurses due to the mandatory cessation on handling most non-COVID-19 cases.

With the predicted hospital demands being dramatically off, the media’s goalposts have shifted violently from demanding a shutdown to “flatten the curve” of exponential growth that would overwhelm hospitals to demanding a continued shutdown to lower the number of COVID-19 deaths, no matter the consequences, including long-term economic damage, serious harm to the food supply, or death from other causes. While the media generally praise “government shutdown” politicians such as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who kept unsanitary subways running, forced people into deadly nursing homes, and demanded tens of thousands of ventilators he never used — they condemn politicians such as South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who has strongly encouraged social distancing measures but not used government force to accomplish public health goals. The media predicted that Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ more measured approach would result in horrific disaster. It hasn’t. Unlike Cuomo, DeSantis focused on nursing homes more than the low likelihood of transmission on big, sunny beaches.

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Is Big Pharma behind the great war on hydroxychloroquine? By Monica Showalter see note please

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

Don’t blame big pharma…blame the big stockholders in Gilead Bill -Gates and George Soros and their media pet Dr. Anthony Faulti………rsk

Gilead’s Remdesivir is getting a lot of praise from the NIH, while the much cheaper hydroxychloroquine is getting a cold reception. Wonder why.

When President Trump brought up hydroxychloroquine as a promising potential treatment for COVID-19, a huge upsurge of negative political publicity followed from it.  It was strange stuff, because up until then, the treatment, which had been safely used to treat malaria, lupus, and arthritis, had been seeing promising results for COVID-19, too.  Yet the condemnations from all sides poured for weeks.  It wasn’t just the political establishment blasting it; it seemed to be the medical establishment, too.  That raises questions as to whether financial interests might be involved here.

It started with the press engaging in its customary contrarianism against Trump when he called the treatment “promising.”  The logic was simple: If Trump liked it, then it had to be bad.

How’s this for a slanted headline and report from NPR, which ran on April 10?

COVID-19 Patients Given Unproven Drug In Texas Nursing Home In ‘Disconcerting’ Move

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The contortions and collusions of ICC’s Bensouda  The ICC should be an important part of the international rule of law, but Bensouda is betraying its honorable legal tradition By Richard Kemp

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

  https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-contortions-and-collusions-of-iccs-bensouda-opinion-626892  
 
The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, has contorted the jurisdiction of the court into a dangerous parody in her desperate efforts to drag Israeli soldiers and political leaders into the dock at The Hague. Now, according to a senior Palestinian leader, she has also been colluding with members of the internationally-proscribed terrorist groups Hamas and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to achieve her baleful objective.
The ICC should be an important part of the international rule of law, but Bensouda is betraying the honorable legal tradition established by the court’s predecessor tribunals that brought war criminals to justice at Nuremberg and Tokyo after the Second World War.

The court’s founding Rome Statute allows investigations only within the sovereign territories of state parties to the treaty. But the prosecutor has unlawfully accepted delegated jurisdiction over the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza from what she calls the “State of Palestine.” Palestine is not a state and never has been. Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, from which the Palestinian Authority derives its very existence, the PA was not granted any criminal jurisdiction over Israelis whatsoever nor can it transfer such jurisdiction to international institutions like the ICC.

The ICC accuses Israel of committing crimes against international law (all demonstrably fallacious) within what is an area unlawfully treated as sovereign Palestinian territory. Yet the borders of any future Palestinian state – and of Israel, which is not a state party to the court – remain undefined under international law. Self-evidently, the ICC cannot obtain delegated jurisdiction from a non-sovereign entity in relation to territories that it does not possess.

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Ruthie Blum :Scales of Israeli justice Outrageously, a panel of 11 judges will determine this week whether the electorate made the right choice of parliamentarians at the ballot box.

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/scales-of-israeli-justice/

Israel’s High Court of Justice just spent two full days hearing petitions against the continued rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the national-unity deal that he signed last month with Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz. The only thing good about the proceedings was that they were broadcast live. This not only gave viewers a glimpse into the workings of judicial activism, as well as a better understanding of the arguments on both sides of the dispute, but hopefully served to keep the robed men and women on the illustrious bench somewhat in check.

After all, these self-anointed demigods of democracy may have been able to fend off coronavirus droplets with surgical masks and plastic seat dividers, but the rest of us need protecting from the political power that the High Court wields far beyond its purview.

Ironically, judicial reform was a key element of Netanyahu and his Likud Party’s platform during all three rounds of Knesset elections, the first two of which resulted in political deadlock. Though the outcome of the third initially appeared to be pointing in a similar direction, the stalemate was resolved (if you can call it that) by the very coalition deal whose legitimacy is being determined—you guessed it—by the court.

To put it simply, this means that a panel of 11 judges will decide later this week on whether the Israeli people made the right choice of parliamentarians at the ballot box. If it weren’t so outrageous, it would be funny that one of the petitioners against Netanyahu and the coalition-in-the-making is the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a self-described “non-partisan” NGO, whose president, Eliad Shraga, played a starring role in the High Court hearings on Sunday and Monday.

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Antibody blocks infection by the SARS-CoV-2 in cells, scientists discover

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200504074722.htm
Source:
Utrecht University
Summary:
Researchers report that they have identified a fully human monoclonal antibody that prevents the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus from infecting cultured cells. The discovery is an initial step towards developing a fully human antibody to treat or prevent the respiratory disease COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

Researchers at Utrecht University, Erasmus Medical Center and Harbour BioMed (HBM) today reported that they have identified a fully human monoclonal antibody that prevents the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus from infecting cultured cells. The discovery, published online today in Nature Communications, is an initial step towards developing a fully human antibody to treat or prevent the respiratory disease COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread rapidly across the globe infecting more than 3.3M people worldwide and killing more than 235,000 people so far.

“This research builds on the work our groups have done in the past on antibodies targeting the SARS-CoV that emerged in 2002/2003,” said Berend-Jan Bosch, Associate Professor, Research leader at Utrecht University, and co-lead author of the Nature Communications study. “Using this collection of SARS-CoV antibodies, we identified an antibody that also neutralizes infection of SARS-CoV-2 in cultured cells. Such a neutralizing antibody has potential to alter the course of infection in the infected host, support virus clearance or protect an uninfected individual that is exposed to the virus.”

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U.S.DEATHS FALL TO NEW LOW

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://twitter.com/paulinkjet/status/1257563094718582787

Fact found buried on BBC website: “The US records 1,015 virus deaths in 24 hours – the lowest one-day tally in a month.”

Alex Berenson

@AlexBerenson

Basically no outdoor transmission. Little proof that retail/office is a major vector. Weak if any proof that masks cut transmission, esp. in anyone asymptomatic. Much evidence that masks are virtue signaling and yet more government overreach. It’s time to stop pretending.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

BAD NEWS IN IOWA: SENATOR JONI ERNST FACES AN UPHILL BATTLE

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/495937-poll-ernst-lead-evaporates-in-iowa-senate-race

Joni Kay Ernst is  the junior United States Senator for Iowa since 2015. A Republican, she served in the Iowa State Senate from 2011 to 2014. She served in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1993 to 2015, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

To learn about her and support her please visit: https://joniernst.com/

Poll: Ernst lead evaporates in Iowa Senate race

The Senate race in Iowa is tightening, according to a new poll that shows Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) lead over her likely Democratic opponent, Theresa Greenfield, narrowing to just 1 point.

The survey from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling shows Ernst leading Greenfield, 43 percent to 42 percent. That suggests a significantly closer race than a previous poll conducted by the firm in December that found Ernst ahead of Greenfield by a 6-point margin.

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EU: Covid-19 Does Not Suspend Asylum Rights by Judith Bergman

Posted By on May 5th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15976/eu-covid-19-immigration

Persons “in need of international protection or for other humanitarian reasons”, however, are exempted from these restrictions on non-essential travel from third countries.” — European Commission statement, March 30, 2020.

This means that people who apply for international protection cannot be turned away and that the rights of migrants and refugees to apply for asylum cannot be suspended, even in the time of coronavirus.

This policy was on display during the recent crisis on the border between Turkey and Greece, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used migrants — whom Turkey transported to the border with Greece — as political blackmail, threatening to unleash a new migration crisis on Europe. At least 14,000 migrants were brought to the border, according to media reports.

As much as the EU remains committed to international law, it would seem that under the circumstances of a worldwide pandemic, which has forced countries to go to extremes in terms of limiting the liberties of their own citizens to fight Covid-19, it should be possible to find ways temporarily to suspend the right of third-country nationals to migrate to the EU.

On March 16, the European Commission recommended a temporary restriction of non-essential travel from third countries into the “EU+ area” for 30 days. On April 8, the European Commission recommended that the temporary restriction be prolonged until May 15. According to the European Commission’s press release:

“The Commission’s assessment of the current situation points to a continued rise in the number of new cases and deaths across the EU, as well as to the progression of the pandemic outside of the EU, including in countries from where millions of people usually travel to the EU every year. In this context, prolonging the travel restriction is necessary to reduce the risk of the disease spreading further.”