Charun posted:

wait, the us is keeping research secret?

twoday posted:

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1260136403666690049?s=20

LCQC posted:

Well, yeah I assume if we form the trans-tasman bubble australia will immediately gently caress us.

quote:

Reuters | a day ago
ANTANANARIVO - Madagascar is putting its, plant-based so-called cure for COVID-19 on sale and several countries in Africa have already put in orders for purchase, despite warnings from the World Health Organisation that its efficacy is unproven.

On Wednesday, Deputy Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission Kwesi Quartey tweeted Madagascar's health ministry "has agreed to collaborate with the African Union and Africa Centre for Disease Control to explore further, the remedy they have discovered for the treatment of COVID-19 to benefit the continent at large".

The AU said on Monday that it was trying to get Madagascar’s technical data on the remedy, and would pass that to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention for evaluation.

“This review will be based on global technical and ethical norms to garner the necessary scientific evidence,” the AU said.

https://twitter.com/AU_KwesiQuartey/status/1260460296537280513?s=20

Last month, President Andry Rajoelina launched the self-proclaimed remedy at a news conference, drinking from a sleekly-branded bottle filled with an amber liquid which he said had already cured two people.

On Friday, a Tanzanian delegation arrived in Madagascar to collect their consignment.

The tonic, based on the plant Artemisia annua which has anti-malarial properties, has not undergone any internationally recognised scientific testing. While Rajoelina extolled its virtues, the WHO cautioned it needs to be tested for efficacy and side effects.

Madagascar has been giving away thousands of bottles of “COVID-19 Organics”, developed by the state-run Malagasy Institute of Applied Research.

Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Guinea Bissau have all already received thousands of doses of COVID-19 Organics free of charge.

A legal adviser in the president’s office told Reuters on Wednesday that Madagascar would now begin selling the remedy, which domestically can be bought for around 40 U.S. cents per bottle.

“This remedy can be put on the market,” Marie Michelle Sahondrarimalala, director of Legal Studies at the Presidency, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. “Madagascar has already received orders from state authorities in other countries, but also from private individuals.”

Heads of other African countries said they were placing orders.

Isolated compounds extracted from Artemisia are effective in malaria drugs, the WHO noted, but the plant itself cannot treat malaria.

WHO Africa head Matshidiso Moeti said she was concerned people who drank the product might feel they were immune to COVID-19 and engage in risky behaviour.

“We are concerned that touting this product as a preventive measure might then make people feel safe,” she said.

Guinea Bissau has received over 16,000 doses which it is distributing to the 14 other West African nations. Liberia’s deputy Information Minister Eugene Farghon said this week there was no plan to test the remedy before distribution.

“It will be used by Liberians and will be used on Liberians,” he said, noting WHO had not tested other popular local remedies. “Madagascar is an African country ... Therefore we will proceed as an African nation and will continue to use our African herbs.”

By Thursday, Madagascar had a total 225 confirmed coronavirus cases, 98 recoveries, and no deaths.

Inceltown posted:

My fear is that everyone is going to get it anyway and people will be complacent and then it will flare up. The NZ government is way more competent than ours though so it will gently caress us up hard if that happens.

Charun posted:

wait, the us is keeping research secret?

UnfortunateSexFart posted:

I'm wondering how I'm gonna commute in the future. Used to get on a train that was so full that I'd be happy if I wasn't dick to dick with another dude.

quote:

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is one of the world’s most powerful leftists — a longtime champion of the poor who delivers scathing indictments of neoliberalism and the global elite.
Yet his approach to government spending — even in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout — might best be compared to that of conservative icons Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

López Obrador has eliminated entire government departments, slashed the salaries of officials and cancelled year-end bonuses. Those cost-cutting measures come on top of steep cuts enacted early on in his administration that targeted everything from the country’s Olympic training program to public hospitals.

At the same time, López Obrador has rejected bailouts, tax breaks and debt relief, making Mexico the only large country in the Western Hemisphere that has not announced an economic stimulus package to counter the economic fallout from the pandemic.

“We have to seek austerity and consume only what we need,” he said at a news conference Wednesday in which he urged Mexicans to save their money. “If we already have shoes, why buy more?”

The economy is expected to shrink by at least 7% this year — hammered by a lethal combination of plunging oil prices, less demand for manufactured goods, fewer remittances and the collapse of the tourism industry.

In March and April alone, Mexico lost more than 700,000 jobs in the formal economy. The Inter-American Development Bank predicts that by year’s end another 2 million people may be out of work.

The National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy predicts the crisis could push as many as 10.7 million people — about 8.5% of the population — into extreme poverty, defined as having a monthly income of less than $67 in cities or $60 in rural areas.

Catholic leaders recently urged the president to redirect money from some of his pet infrastructure projects — including construction of an $8-billion oil refinery — to give cash payments to families, warning that in a country with no unemployment insurance, many were already going hungry.

quote:

The number of people dying from the coronavirus pandemic in Mexico is five times higher than official government figures, according to health department insiders.

A Sky News investigations team working in the country's capital Mexico City has documented cremations and funerals and gained access to morgues and storage rooms full of bodies - all indicate the official data is wrong.

overnment claims that the virus curve has been flattened and that there will be a dramatic drop off in virus related deaths in the coming days.

In a recent briefing, the country's president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told the nation: "What the world knows about Mexico is that we are taming the pandemic, and we are basically doing this because Mexican people are making a conscious effort.

But that has been dismissed by many dealing with the crisis as incorrect.

Inceltown posted:

Next time we can rub dicks, I won't mind.

More seriously though public transport is going to be hosed for a while. I have a medical condition that means I can't drive and running / cycling / public transport is how I get around. Time to put some more k's on the bike I guess.

quote:

The findings included an extremely low support rating of 5 percent for Japan’s political leaders versus 86 percent for China, where the pandemic started, and 32 percent for the United States, now the hardest-hit region in the world. Even Hong Kong, which has the second-worst, received a support rating of 11 percent. The average for all 23 areas was 40 percent.

quote:

Saudi Arabia has installed self-sterilisation gates at the Grand Mosque in Makkah, as authorities step up precautionary measures aimed at stopping the spread of Covid-19.

The General Presidency of the Sacred Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque said the “advanced self-sterilisation” gates have been installed at the entrances to the Grand Mosque.

The gates sterilise people who pass through them with antiseptic spray, and are equipped with thermal cameras to detect temperatures from a distance of 6 metres, and are capable of assessing several people at the same time.

twoday posted:

https://twitter.com/GearoidReidy/status/1260859681334890498?s=20

https://twitter.com/PhillipLipscy/status/1260253272704790538?s=20


https://twitter.com/PhillipLipscy/status/1260253483699261440?s=20

This is kind of funny:
https://twitter.com/willripleyCNN/status/1259292863025709056?s=20

gay picnic defence posted:

How fake are Japan’s numbers?

twoday posted:

https://twitter.com/DrUdomoh/status/1258656951832993792?s=20

gay picnic defence posted:

How fake are Japan’s numbers?

quote:

Tokyo has not seen an increase in overall deaths during the coronavirus outbreak, boosting officials’ assertions that they have largely kept infections under control despite criticism over the limited scope of its testing.

The capital saw 33,106 deaths in the three months through March, 0.4 percent fewer than the average of the previous four years for the same period, according to data from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Data for April, when new daily virus cases peaked in the city, is not yet available.

UnfortunateSexFart posted:

Yeah my new apartment has bike storage and unlike my home town of Vancouver you can actually commute to and from work in Melbourne without your bike disappearing constantly. So I'll probably be doing that too. It's a beautiful ride along this river (my photo from this weekend).

UnfortunateSexFart posted:

Yeah my new apartment has bike storage and unlike my home town of Vancouver you can actually commute to and from work in Melbourne without your bike disappearing constantly. So I'll probably be doing that too. It's a beautiful ride along this river (my photo from this weekend).

Dr. Phildo posted:

As an Aussie I can say “oh most certainly”

RedneckwithGuns posted:

Speaking of KSA, did they mention anything about canceling the Hajj this year?

twoday posted:

Zyklon B Zombie posted:

What the gently caress, I just had a 2 minute long commercial on youtube talking about how the Chinese are to blame for the virus. They are really pushing this, huh?

twoday posted:

twoday posted:

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1260136403666690049?s=20