New Coronavirus News from 29 Jul 2020

Mysterious Coronavirus Outbreak Catches Vietnam by Surprise [The New York Times, July 29 2020]

By Hannah Beech and Chau Doan

After months without a single coronavirus death, or even a confirmed case of local transmission, a new outbreak has struck Vietnam. And it’s spreading.

In a world plagued by pandemic, Vietnam seemed like a miracle. As months went by without a single recorded coronavirus death, or even a confirmed case of local transmission, residents began leaving their face masks at home.

Noodle shops resounded with the clack of chopsticks and sipped broth. Schools opened. And lured by good deals, Vietnamese tourists began taking vacations again, crowding the coastal city of Danang, with its golden beaches and plentiful seafood.

But over the weekend, Vietnam, which had gone about 100 days without a single confirmed case of local transmission, announced that the virus was lurking in the country after all — and it was spreading.

First, a 57-year-old man from Danang tested positive for the virus and is now on life support.
Then clusters quickly emerged in five hospitals. By Wednesday, the virus had spread north to Hanoi, the capital, south to Ho Chi Minh City and afflicted two provinces in central Vietnam, as well as the remote Central Highlands.

The surge of the coronavirus in Vietnam, which has so far recorded fewer than 450 cases, revealed the dangers of the virus even in places that appeared to have done most everything right in their battle against contagion.

Japan, China, Australia and South Korea, all of which seemed to have their outbreaks reasonably under control, recorded spikes on Wednesday. In the Australian state of Victoria, authorities announced 295 new cases on Wednesday, along with nine new deaths.

Hong Kong, which kept its caseload low for months, is now racing against a wave of new infections, sickening about 100 people a day. With infections turning up in nursing homes and restaurants, Carrie Lam, the territory’s chief executive, warned on Tuesday that Hong Kong was “on the verge of a large-scale community outbreak.”

Although Vietnam, a nation of 95 million people, remains the largest country in the world to have not confirmed a single fatality from the coronavirus, the mystery surrounding the infections popping up across the country has spooked medical experts and residents alike.

“In my opinion, this outbreak is more dangerous than the previous one because it is happening at the same time in many places,” said Nguyen Huy Nga, the dean of public health and nursing at Quang Trung University in Binh Dinh Province. “We do not know the source of disease, especially with tens of thousands of tourists flocking to Danang.”

The Vietnamese authorities have reacted to the latest wave of cases with the kind of fast and forceful response that characterized their actions in the early days of the pandemic.

Hours after clusters of cases were confirmed in Danang hospitals earlier this week, officials said they would be shutting the city’s airport. Up to 80,000 local tourists who had flooded the city for a summer break would be evacuated, the authorities said.

Since then, several provinces have instituted quarantines for arrivals from Danang, and the dragnet has already turned up positive cases. A waiter at a pizzeria in Hanoi tested positive for the coronavirus after visiting Danang with his family, local news media reported. On Wednesday, the pizzeria was sprayed down with disinfectant by workers in protective gear, according to a video released by local news media.

In the Central Highlands, a 21-year-old woman who had been studying in Danang and returned home by car also tested positive.

In Danang, a normally bustling city popular with tourists and traders alike, restaurants and bars are closed. Face masks are mandatory again. With holiday swimming in the sea banned by local authorities, the city’s famous beaches were deserted on Wednesday, residents said.

“My family and I are not in the area where people are infected but I am very worried,” said Le Thi Thuy Vi, a grocer in Danang. “I decided today that the whole family should stay at home.”

As the coronavirus began radiating out from the Chinese city of Wuhan in January, Vietnam, which shares a border and a governing ideology with China but remains wary of its northern neighbor, moved swiftly. The country had learned from previous outbreaks of novel contagions, such as SARS and H1N1 influenza.

By late January, Vietnam had shut its schools. A bureaucracy well equipped to track the local populace turned its attention to comprehensive contact tracing. Most Vietnamese, already conditioned to wearing face masks because of air pollution, saw the value in protecting themselves from airborne viral droplets.

After a woman returned from the fashion shows in Europe and helped to spread the coronavirus at home, Vietnam stopped nearly all international flights in March, and returning nationals have to undergo quarantine in government facilities.

On Wednesday, 120 Vietnamese hydropower workers arrived on a government charter from Equatorial Guinea, where they had contracted the coronavirus. It is the largest contingent of infected returnees to take a government-sponsored repatriation flight, the Vietnamese foreign ministry said.

Last week, Vietnam effectively banned the wildlife trade, amid fears that the trafficking of exotic fauna might have precipitated the emergence of the latest outbreak. Vietnam is both a consumer of illegal wildlife products and a transit point of endangered animals destined for China across its shared mountainous border.

With no clarity as to the source of the outbreak in Danang, which has infected at least 26 people there, medical authorities were racing to figure out how cases were proliferating in a supposedly closed country.

The health ministry said that the strain of virus detected in Danang is different from ones that circulated during the earlier round of local transmission.

“This is imported,” said Professor Nga, the public health expert at Quang Trung University. “A virus cannot survive for three months in a community without causing illness.”

Professor Nga said he thought the virus likely arrived in Vietnam in late June or early July.

In Danang, the police fanned out across the city, trying to locate outsiders who might have brought the virus with them. On Saturday, the police apprehended nine Chinese nationals who had sneaked into Vietnam illegally, local authorities said. Dozens more Chinese who had entered the country illegally were nabbed earlier this month in central Vietnam. A Chinese man, whom the police said had set up an illegal immigration network, was arrested on Monday.

The Chinese who were caught were either put in quarantine camps or isolated in hospitals, the police said.

Across Vietnam, hospitals were getting beds ready to handle a rise in cases. Professor Nga noted that ventilators and other equipment needed in the fight against the coronavirus are limited in Vietnam.

People, he said, had become complacent.

“After 100 days with no outbreaks, people weren’t taking precautions anymore,” Professor Nga said. “They weren’t wearing masks or cleaning their hand with soap. People were going to crowded places.”

In Danang, Nguyen Thi Minh Hoa, a director of a marketing firm, said that grocery shelves were not being emptied en masse, meaning that residents were anxious but not panicked. Renewed social distancing measures were being followed carefully, she said.

“I’m just sad that this coastal city has suddenly become a center of disease after 100 days of peace,” Ms. Hoa said.

Houston Officials Are Using Sewage To Help Fight Coronavirus. Here’s Why [Houston Public Media, 29 Jul 2020]

by KATIE WATKINS

Health officials in Houston are turning to an unlikely source to track the spread of the virus — the city’s sewage system.

As COVID-19 cases climb and test results lag behind, health officials in Houston are turning to an unlikely source to track the spread of the virus — the city's sewage system.

The Houston Health Department is working with researchers from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine to test the city's wastewater for coronavirus and identify potential hotspots. Houston is one of several cities across the country turning to wastewater for answers about the virus and its spread.

"Infected people, both asymptomatic and symptomatic people, shed virus in their stool," said Lauren Stadler, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice. "That ends up in the sewer network where it's then transported through our collection systems to our wastewater treatment plants."

Stadler said samples are taken at each plant in Houston before the water has been treated.

"We can determine the concentration of the virus in that wastewater sample," she said. "The idea is that that would be reflective of the number of infected people that are served by that wastewater treatment plant."

While most major metropolitan areas have just a handful of wastewater treatment plants, Houston has 39. Loren Hopkins, the Chief Environmental Science Officer for the Health Department, said this gives Houston a unique advantage when it comes to testing wastewater for COVID-19 because each plant provides a snapshot of a certain segment of the population.

"If we sample each one of those, we can see 39 different measures of the virus load across the city," she said. "That information can tell us where the virus load is higher or lower."

The goal is to track how virus concentration levels change over time to see where cases are increasing or decreasing. Hopkins said wastewater testing can complement clinical data in several critical ways.

"If we can use it in neighborhoods where we can't get people to come out and get tested we can still understand what's happening in that neighborhood," said Hopkins. "If we can use that to get an idea about what part of the population is asymptomatic but still shedding the virus, that's also very helpful."

Hopkins said testing wastewater would never replace clinical data, but when paired together, they're a powerful tool. The researchers began testing Houston's wastewater back in March and fine-tuning their method. Hopkins said about a month ago they started integrating the wastewater data into the health department's decision making.

"We use the combination of the clinical data and that trend in magnitude of the virus in the wastewater to rank the zip codes across Houston and look at clusters," Hopkins said.

That then guides where the health department sends extra resources, like mobile testing units.

As the team continues to hone their technique, wastewater data could potentially play a bigger role. For example, Hopkins said they hope to be able to zero in on even more specific areas by using lift stations or manholes to collect samples.

"Once we have our method down, and we’re really able to see the virus at a small detection limit, then we can use the samples from a manhole, which gives us access to that wastewater from an individual facility," she said.

Hopkins said this could then be used to monitor congregate living areas with high-risk populations, such as jails, nursing homes or dormitories.

Even beyond the pandemic, wastewater epidemiology may play a bigger role in public health in Houston.

"There's a lot of viruses, bacteria, other disease-causing agents that are shed in your stool.
And, wastewater-based monitoring really is a powerful tool for capturing the entire community that is served by the plant," said Stadler, from Rice.

Stadler said other researchers have used it to identify areas with high opioid use or flu outbreaks.

"The whole idea of it is that if you can identify specific areas that are having burdens of drug use or disease, you can allocate resources appropriately," she said.

For now, the team is taking wastewater samples twice a week, and continuing to refine their method.

Japan researchers succeed in reproducing COVID-19 symptoms in macaques [The Mainichi, 30 Jul 2020]

OTSU -- A group of researchers at Shiga University of Medical Science in this western Japan city announced on July 29 that they have succeeded in generating COVID-19 symptoms, such as a fever and pneumonia, in crab-eating macaques by infecting the animals with the novel coronavirus.

The team led by professor Yasushi Ito, who specializes in pathology, said it is the first time in Japan to reproduce COVID-19 symptoms in primates other than human species. The group said the work will contribute to the early development of novel coronavirus vaccines and curative drugs as monkeys generally show reactions similar to those of humans.

According to the group, researchers dropped liquid laced with the novel coronavirus onto the noses and mouths of three crab-eating macaques between May and June and observed the animals. All of the three macaques developed a fever the day after they were given the liquid, with one of them showing pneumonic symptoms in an X-ray test. However, the three only suffered mild symptoms and all of them recovered about 10 days later.

The novel coronavirus was detected in the three animals for about one week after they were infected with the virus. In one of the monkeys, neutralizing antibody -- which works to protect animals from infection -- was detected in its blood.

Professor Ito and other scientists filed for a patent on the viral culture and other methods on July 27. They plan to confirm the efficacy and other effects of the methods by administering vaccines under development by the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science in macaques from September.

Japan's daily coronavirus tally tops 1,000 for first time amid nationwide surge [The Japan Times, 29 Jul 2020]

The total number of coronavirus cases nationwide surged past the 1,000 mark for the first time on Wednesday, with Osaka, Aichi, Fukuoka and Okinawa prefectures setting single-day records for new infections, media reports said.

Osaka reported 221 new COVID-19 infections, topping 200 for the first time, while Fukuoka saw at least 101 cases.

Aichi recorded 167 cases, 93 of which were reported in Nagoya. Meanwhile, Kanagawa and Chiba prefectures recorded 70 and 49 new cases, respectively, NHK said, both the highest since the state of emergency was called off on May 25.

Iwate, which had been the last prefecture to report no COVID-19 infections, confirmed its first two cases on Wednesday.

Tokyo confirmed 250 infections the same day, its second consecutive day over 200, the metropolitan government said, a day after the nation set a single-day record for the most cases of the deadly virus.

Wednesday’s figure brings the capital’s cumulative total to 11,861. The city’s daily count hit a record high of 366 on July 23. Over the past week, daily counts exceeded over 200, except for the 131 on Monday. Tuesday saw 266 cases.

The figures announced this week have drawn much attention because they may reflect how the virus spread during a four-day holiday that started July 22.

It also came as the government’s kicked off its controversial Go To Travel tourism campaign that offers subsidies for domestic travel, excluding trips to and from Tokyo.

Other prefectures in the metropolitan area, as well as large cities across the nation, have seen a surging number of infections recently.

The southern resort island of Okinawa has not been an exception. The prefecture reported around 45 new cases Wednesday, setting a record for the third straight day, local media said.

The surge in Osaka prompted the prefectural government to ask groups of five or more people to refrain from visiting restaurants, bars and entertainment establishments, but the move has been met with skepticism over whether it will lead to a reduction in COVID-19 cases.

Tokyo reported 250 cases of novel coronavirus infections on Wednesday, a week after the Go

Nationwide, Japan saw 982 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, the highest single-day total on record, according to a Kyodo News tally.

The figure, based on information from local authorities, reflects a resurgence of virus infections that is beginning to expand beyond Tokyo. The previous single-day record of 981 new cases came last Thursday.

On Tuesday, Osaka and Aichi prefectures reported 155 and 110 new cases, respectively. Both figures set new records before those numbers were toppled Wednesday.

Tokyo cannot bear cost of business closures as COVID-19 cases surge [Nikkei Asian Review, 29 Jul 2020]

by RURIKA IMAHASHI

Gov. Koike says city is considering setting up new coronavirus-focused hospitals

TOKYO -- Gov. Yuriko Koike said Wednesday asking restaurants and shops to close will be a "huge burden" for Tokyo's finances as the city faces a second wave of coronavirus infections.

Koike made the remarks in an interview with the Nikkei Asian Review. Tokyo reported another 250 new infections on Wednesday, the 21st consecutive day that its daily count has reached above 100. Koike also said that Tokyo is mulling a new medical facility to deal solely with the resurgence of cases.

On April 11, shortly after the national government declared a state of emergency, Tokyo asked restaurants and shops to close and subsidized those that followed the guidance. It fully lifted the request on June 19.

"At first, we did not know much about the virus and groped in the dark [over how to curb the spread of the epidemic]," said Koike. "Due to the request, many shop owners faced financial difficulties and we had to provide subsidies twice."

Those subsidies were a financial drain on the metropolitan government that had already spent around 95% of its 935 billion yen ($8.9 billion) reserves set aside for emergencies.

Koike said asking businesses citywide to close again will lead to "a huge financial burden," if Tokyo had to offer subsidies.

"We need a more strategic approach," Koike said. This could mean that the Tokyo government may request specific sectors or areas to close, if the need arises.

Like cities across the world, Tokyo also wants to stimulate the economy and has encouraged residents to eat out, while bearing in mind social distancing and hygiene measures.

The metropolitan government is handing out stickers to restaurants that can demonstrate that they have imposed strict hygiene standards like constantly disinfecting surfaces. "We have already handed out more than 70,000 stickers to restaurants," said Koike.

Koike is also considering doctors' suggestions to build medical facilities that solely treat coronavirus patients. She said on Wednesday that it would be "effective" to secure such facilities to protect Japan's medical system. She said the local government was mulling whether to build new COVID hospitals or to use existing ones, and the size of such facilities.

Koike said Tokyo will still host the Olympic Games next summer. "The metropolitan government is discussing items including simplification of the games," said Koike. "Now, we have to focus on the countermeasures against the coronavirus, so as to welcome athletes and spectators as a host city next year."

Latin America Is Facing a ‘Decline of Democracy’ Under the Pandemic [The New York Times, 29 Jul 2020]

By Anatoly Kurmanaev

The coronavirus is battering Latin American health systems and economies. It is also threatening the region’s fragile political freedoms.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Postponed elections. Sidelined courts. A persecuted opposition.

As the coronavirus pandemic tears through Latin America and the Caribbean, killing more than 180,000 and destroying the livelihoods of tens of millions in the region, it is also undermining democratic norms that were already under strain.

Leaders ranging from the center-right to the far left have used the crisis as justification to extend their time in office, weaken oversight of government actions and silence critics — actions that under different circumstances would be described as authoritarian and antidemocratic but that now are being billed as lifesaving measures to curb the spread of the disease.

The gradual undermining of democratic rules during an economic crisis and public health catastrophe could leave Latin America primed for slower growth and an increase in corruption and human rights abuses, experts warned. This is particularly true in places where political rights and accountability were already in steep decline.

“It’s not a matter of left or right, it’s a general decline of democracy across the region,” said Alessandra Pinna, a Latin America researcher at Freedom House, an independent Washington-based research organization that measures global political liberties.

There are now five Latin American and Caribbean nations with recent democratic histories — Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guyana, Bolivia and Haiti — where governments weren’t chosen in free and fair elections or have overstayed their time in office. It’s the highest number since the late 1980s, when the Cold War receded and several countries in the grips of civil war or military dictatorships transitioned to peace and democracy.

Most of these leaders were already bending the rules of democracy to stay in power before the pandemic, but seized on emergency conditions created by the spread of the virus to strengthen their position.

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has detained or raided the homes of dozens of journalists, social activists and opposition leaders for questioning the government’s dubious coronavirus figures.

In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega released thousands of inmates because of the threat posed by the virus, but kept political prisoners behind bars, while in Guyana, a lockdown prevented protests against the government’s attempt to stay in power despite losing an election.

In Bolivia, a caretaker government has used the pandemic to postpone elections, tap into emergency aid to bolster its electoral campaign and threaten to ban the main opposition candidate from running.

And in the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis, the government imposed a strict lockdown on its 50,000 people during the campaign for general elections in June, hampering opposition efforts to meet voters while also keeping international election observers from traveling to the country.

It was the first time that the Organization of American States, a regional group that promotes democracy, had its invitation to observe elections withdrawn by a host country in recent history.

The loss of public trust in Latin America is not new, but the erosion of democratic norms in the pandemic arrived at a time when the region’s economic growth and social progress were already unraveling, leaving many uncertain about the ability of democratic leaders to solve entrenched problems such as inequality, crime and corruption.

By 2018, only one in four Latin Americans said they were satisfied with democracy — the lowest number since Latinobarómetro, a regional polling company, began asking that question 25 years ago.

Discontent with the political establishment led to a wave of populist victories in recent years, including President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, who is on the far right, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, who is on the left. It also led to mass street protests in several Latin American countries last year.

The pandemic, hitting during this time of political upheaval, has plunged the region into the deepest recession in its history, exacerbating weaknesses in health and welfare systems and highlighting the ways in which many leaders are unable to meet public demands.

“All the things that Latin Americans have already been clamoring for — greater equality, better services — have been dramatically worsened by the pandemic,” said Cynthia Arnson, Latin America program director at the Wilson Center, a think-tank in Washington. “The economic pain is dramatic, and it’s putting additional strain on the already-weak institutions.”

It has also put a strain on the region’s struggling health care systems. Latin America has become a global hot spot for the virus, with Brazil, Mexico and Peru among the 10 nations with the highest number of deaths. And according to the United Nations, about 16 million Latin Americans are expected to fall into extreme poverty this year, reversing nearly all the gains made by the region this century.

Adding to these challenges, democracy in Latin America has also lost a champion in the United States, which had played an important role in promoting democracy after the end of the Cold War by financing good governance programs and calling out authoritarian abuses.

Under President Trump, the United States has mostly focused regional policy on opposing left-wing autocrats in Venezuela and Cuba and curbing immigration, making aid to Central American nations, among the region’s poorest, contingent on cooperating with the administration on immigration.

The Trump administration also refrained from commenting when Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, ignored Supreme Court rulings and used the military to crack down on quarantine violators during the pandemic.

American support for democracy initiatives in Latin America fell by almost half last year to $326 million, according to preliminary figures compiled by the United States Agency for International Development.

“In the last few years, we have not only abandoned our role as a democratizing force in Latin America and the world, but we have promoted negative forces,” said Orlando Pérez, a political scientist at the University of North Texas. “Our policy is now: ‘You’re on your own — America first.’”

In the few democratic strongholds in Latin America, such as Uruguay and Costa Rica, leaders responded to the pandemic with efficiency and transparency, boosting public trust in the government. In the Dominican Republic and Suriname, incumbent presidents recently bowed out of power after losing elections that were held despite the pandemic.

In many instances, judges and civil servants have resisted the attacks on democratic institutions during the pandemic, said Javier Corrales, a professor of Latin American studies at Amherst College in Massachusetts. “The defenders of liberal democracy in Latin America are not defeated,” said Mr. Corrales. “It’s not an open terrain for would-be authoritarians.”

Yet in most Latin American nations, the coronavirus accelerated a pre-existing democratic decline by exposing the weakness and corruption of governments in the face of the catastrophe.

“When confronted with an existential threat, countries that did not already have deep democratic systems are choosing tactics that help leaders consolidate their power,” said John Polga-Hecimovich, a political scientist at the United States Naval Academy in Maryland.

The political tensions gripping the region in the pandemic could be just the beginning of a longer wave of unrest and authoritarianism, said Thomas Carothers, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It will drag the region down into poorer economic performance,” he said. “It also means poorer treatment of human beings, their dignity and rights.”

A NASA mindset can help end the pandemic - STAT [STAT, 29 Jul 2020]

By SURESH KATTA

Eight months into the global coronavirus pandemic, the life sciences industry is ramping up drug research in previously unprecedented ways, investigating existing drugs as well as potential new therapies and vaccines to treat and prevent Covid-19.

The rush to research, however, has resulted in some haphazard, poorly designed, and costly Covid-19 clinical trials, as demonstrated by a STAT analysis.

What we need is a coordinated effort, something like the one used in the U.S. space program.
That effort began on July 29, 1958, when President Eisenhower signed legislation forming the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA not only brought together the best and brightest minds from academia, industry, and government, but it also focused the required infrastructure and resources on the audacious goal of landing the first human on the moon.

As the epicenter of U.S. civil aerospace research and development, NASA was charged with ensuring that the country’s scientific and engineering resources were used as effectively as possible. It worked closely with other government agencies to avoid duplicating efforts. NASA began with three research labs and two test facilities, but quickly expanded to include military and academic research organizations, leveraging a variety of brainpower and assets.

We have an opportunity today to provide similar NASA-type leadership to conquering the pandemic through an initiative that will accelerate the discovery, development, and availability of critically needed treatments to combat the novel coronavirus: an open-sourced clinical neural network to optimize and accelerate treatments and vaccines.

An open-sourced global clinical neural network, born of a partnership between government agencies, academic institutes, clinical trial sponsors, data analytics leaders, and others, would enable access to and sharing of clinical research and best practices on a previously unprecedented scale. This substantial set of information, complete with universal errors and collective insights related to Covid-19 research being conducted around the world, would be available in real time and free of charge.

Researchers could leverage this virtual neural network at any time and from any place to learn from ongoing and past clinical development efforts. As a result, drug development collaboration could be dramatically enhanced. We would be able to course-correct clinical trials in real time as new data become available. Research efforts would be more organized and efficient, as well as less costly, avoiding the duplication of common mistakes.

The overall effect would be to accelerate the development of therapies to cure and prevent Covid-19, enabling the medical community to defeat this devastating global pandemic with previously unmatched agility and speed.

A prototype of sorts for a clinical neural network is currently operational. Earlier this year, the White House, the Allen Institute for AI (AI2), and leading research groups created the Covid-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19), a publicly available database containing more than 130,000 scholarly articles about Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, and related coronaviruses.

Recognizing the imperative to expedite Covid-19 research, my AI-focused company quickly developed a semantic search capability to help the global research community use this database even more effectively. We used the most advanced natural language processing technology to apply a deep-learning reading comprehension model, trained explicitly for pharma, to CORD-19. This highly accurate search engine, which is free to use, shows every article header and text snippet that contains the search term entered.

On any given day, it receives between 20,000 and 30,000 queries. Researchers, doctors, and even the general public are using this tool to get the most enlightening answers and insights from the scholarly papers in the database. Other data analytics companies, including Amazon Web Services and Google, are leveraging AI-powered analytics to improve access to CORD-19.
Imagine the potential and power of a next-level clinical neural network, one that encompasses all of the stakeholders and their previous and ongoing Covid-19 research efforts. The result of such a partnership would accelerate drug discovery and development not only for Covid-19, but ultimately for drugs to treat every other disease and condition.

NASA offers a vital lesson about the extraordinary impact of collaboration between scientific and engineering minds: bringing together engaged experts gets things done.

To borrow a phrase associated with the Apollo 13 lunar mission, “Failure is not an option.”

Why The Novel Coronavirus Has The Power To Launch A Pandemic [npr, 29 Jul 2020]

By PIEN HUANG

On January 30, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus — then unnamed — to be a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern." The virus, first reported in China in late 2019, had started to spread beyond its borders, causing 98 cases in 18 countries in addition to some 7,700 cases in China at the time.

Six months later, the tiny coronavirus has spread around the world, infecting more than 16 million people worldwide and killing more than 650,000. It is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. in 2020.

"This is the sixth time a global health emergency has been declared under the International Health Regulations but it is easily the most severe," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, on July 27.

What was it about this coronavirus — later named SARS-COV-2 — that made it the one to spark a global pandemic?

Virologists point to several key traits that this virus possesses. Any one of them might be problematic. When combined in one microscopic virus, the result is what coronavirus researcher Andrea Pruijssers of Vanderbilt University calls a "perfect storm" — a one-in-a-million virus capable of triggering a worldwide health crisis.

It's a superfast spreader...

One of the novel coronavirus's biggest advantages is how easily it spreads from human to human, says Dr. Megan Freeman, a virologist at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, who conducted her Ph.D. research on coronaviruses.

The coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that infects the sinuses, throat, lungs — all parts of the body involved with breathing. As a result, the virus can be readily passed onward through breath and spittle expelled from the nose and mouth. Unlike Ebola, where direct contact with blood and other bodily fluids is the main route of infection, you don't have to touch someone to be infected with SARS-COV-2 — all it takes is getting close enough to an infected person and breathing in respiratory droplets they exhale.

And because it's transmitted rapidly through the respiratory route, "it's a virus that [also] has the capacity to spread across the globe fairly easily," says Pruijssers. All it takes to introduce the illness to a new continent is a single person who travels there while infectious.
... but not so fast that it'll knock itself out.

When a virus spreads too quickly, enough people in a community may catch it to create "herd immunity." With fewer people to infect, the virus's rapid spread can ensure its own demise, says Malik Peiris, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong. "It's a balance," he says, pointing out that other viruses such as dengue fever and chikungunya have surged and then died down in certain locations.

It's transmittable even with no symptoms.

Even before symptoms develop, infected people can spread this virus by speaking, singing, coughing and breathing out virus-laden droplets in close proximity to others. "For SARS-COV-2, a lot of the transmission is from asymptomatic, [presymptomatic] or mildly symptomatic people," says Pruijssers.

By contrast, SARS-COV-1, a related coronavirus that caused an epidemic in Asia in 2003, was most infectious when people were symptomatic. So as soon as someone showed symptoms, they were quarantined — which effectively stopped that virus from transmitting, says Peiris.
The SARS epidemic officially ended in 2004 after sickening 8,098 people; there have been no known cases reported since.

The severity of symptoms puts a strain on health systems.

Even though some people who are infected have no symptoms or mild symptoms, the novel coronavirus can inflict serious damage. "This coronavirus has the capacity to cause really debilitating respiratory disease and even death" for a higher proportion of infected people compared with, say, the flu, says Freeman.

Because COVID-19 can make people sick enough to require hospitalization, high rates of spread have strained hospital systems, making it difficult to provide optimal care for patients, as is happening in California and Texas. When hospitals run low on staff and supplies, the result can be care rationing and excess deaths. Since its emergence, in late 2019 in China, the novel coronavirus has killed more than 600,000 globally.

Then there's the pet theory...

Not only did the novel coronavirus come from animals, it also appears to have the ability to jump from humans to animals, including their pets — and possibly back again.

The virus likely originated in bats and spilled over to humans because of some unlucky coincidence, where a person was "in the wrong place at the wrong time" and came in contact with a bat or an intermediary animal that happened to be infected with this particular virus, says Carolos Zembrana-Torrelio, an ecologist with the nonprofit organization EcoHealth Alliance.

Now, researchers have found humans have occasionally infected their pet dogs and cats as well as several lions and tigers at the New York Zoo. There's no evidence yet of dogs and cats passing it to people, but sick minks on Dutch fur farms are thought to have given the coronavirus back to humans.

This could mean that if the virus starts circulating regularly among animals that we handle or live with, it may be really hard to ever get rid of it, says Freeman. "[If] there's an animal reservoir, there's always that possibility that the virus could come back in a spillover event," she says. In other words, a community could be virus-free only to have it reintroduced by a visiting animal.
...and this virus has the element of surprise.

The world has never dealt with a pandemic caused by a highly dangerous coronavirus before.
This means everyone in the world is likely susceptible to it and also that, in the beginning "we knew nothing about it — it was a brand new virus," says Pruijssers. And that lack of knowledge about treatments and control has contributed to the virus's ability to spread.

Unlike flu, which has been known to researchers for centuries, this novel coronavirus has required researchers to figure out everything from scratch — how it spreads, who's most likely to get very sick from it, and how to combat it with drugs and vaccines.

There's still a lot we don't know, says Pruijssers, and we're learning fast. But not fast enough to have stopped this pandemic from happening.

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Whether or not you believe in God, this message is a "must-read"!!

Throughout history, we can see how we have been strategically conditioned coming to this point where we are on the verge of a cashless society. Did you know that the Bible foretold of this event almost 2,000 years ago?

In the last book of the Bible, Revelation 13:16-18, we will read,

"He (the false prophet who deceives many by his miracles--Revelation 19:20) causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666."

Speaking to the last generation, this could only be speaking of a cashless society. Why? Revelation 13:17 states that we cannot buy or sell unless we receive the mark of the beast. If physical money was still in use, we could buy or sell with one another without receiving the mark. This would contradict scripture that states we need the mark to buy or sell!

These verses could not be referring to something purely spiritual as scripture references two physical locations (our right hand or forehead) stating the mark will be on one "OR" the other. If this mark was purely spiritual, it would indicate both places, or one--not one OR the other!

This is where it really starts to come together. It is incredible how accurate the Bible is concerning the implantable RFID microchip. Here are notes from someone named Carl Sanders who worked with a team of engineers to help develop this RFID chip:

"Carl Sanders sat in seventeen New World Order meetings with heads-of-state officials such as Henry Kissinger and Bob Gates of the C.I.A. to discuss plans on how to bring about this one-world system. The government commissioned Carl Sanders to design a microchip for identifying and controlling the peoples of the world—a microchip that could be inserted under the skin with a hypodermic needle (a quick, convenient method that would be gradually accepted by society).

Carl Sanders, with a team of engineers behind him, with U.S. grant monies supplied by tax dollars, took on this project and designed a microchip that is powered by a lithium battery, rechargeable through the temperature changes in our skin. Without the knowledge of the Bible (Brother Sanders was not a Christian at the time), these engineers spent one-and-a-half-million dollars doing research on the best and most convenient place to have the microchip inserted.

Guess what? These researchers found that the forehead and the back of the hand (the two places the Bible says the mark will go) are not just the most convenient places, but are also the only viable places for rapid, consistent temperature changes in the skin to recharge the lithium battery. The microchip is approximately seven millimeters in length, .75 millimeters in diameter, about the size of a grain of rice. It is capable of storing pages upon pages of information about you. All your general history, work history, criminal record, health history, and financial data can be stored on this chip.

Brother Sanders believes that this microchip, which he regretfully helped design, is the “mark” spoken about in Revelation 13:16–18. The original Greek word for “mark” is “charagma,” which means a “scratch or etching.” It is also interesting to note that the number 666 is actually a word in the original Greek. The word is “chi xi stigma,” with the last part, “stigma,” also meaning “to stick or prick.” Carl believes this is referring to a hypodermic needle when they poke into the skin to inject the microchip."

Mr. Sanders asked a doctor what would happen if the lithium contained within the RFID microchip leaked into the body. The doctor replied by saying a terrible sore would appear in that location. This is what the book of Revelation says:

"And the first (angel) went, and poured out his vial on the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore on the men which had the mark of the beast, and on them which worshipped his image" (Revelation 16:2).

You can read more about it here--and to also understand the mystery behind the number 666: [url=https://2ruth.org]HTTPS://2RUTH.ORG[/url]

The third angel's warning in Revelation 14:9-11 states,

"Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 'If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.'"

Great hope is in our midst, and is coming in a mighty way--the greatest revival for Jesus in the history of the world where we will see the most souls come to Him of all tribes, tongues, nations, and peoples (Rev. 7:9-10); for we have this promise in God's Word in the midst of these dark times:

"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years (not literal--rather a spiritual label for time spent in eternity); and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while (when the Antichrist and false prophet will rise up and God will test the world)." (Revelation 20:1-3)

"The coming of the lawless one (the Antichrist) is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)"

Who is Barack Obama, and why is he still in the public scene?

So what about his name? The meaning of someone's name can say a lot about a person. God throughout history has given names to people that have a specific meaning tied to their lives. How about the name Barack Obama? Let us take a look at what may be hiding beneath the surface.

Jesus states in Luke 10:18, "...I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

The Hebrew Strongs word (H1299) for "lightning": "bârâq" (baw-rawk)

In Isaiah chapter 14, verse 14, we read about Lucifer (Satan) saying in his heart:

"I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High."

In the verses in Isaiah that refer directly to Lucifer, several times it mentions him falling from the heights or the heavens. The Hebrew word for the heights or heavens used here is Hebrew Strongs 1116: "bamah"--Pronounced (bam-maw')

In Hebrew, the letter "Waw" or "Vav" is often transliterated as a "U" or "O," and it is primarily used as a conjunction to join concepts together. So to join in Hebrew poetry the concept of lightning (Baraq) and a high place like heaven or the heights of heaven (Bam-Maw), the letter "U" or "O" would be used. So, Baraq "O" Bam-Maw or Baraq "U" Bam-Maw in Hebrew poetry similar to the style written in Isaiah, would translate literally to "Lightning from the heights." The word "Satan" in Hebrew is a direct translation, therefore "Satan."

When Jesus told His disciples in Luke 10:18 that He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, if this were to be stated by a Jewish Rabbi today influenced by the poetry in the book of Isaiah, he would say these words in Hebrew--the words of Jesus in Luke 10:18 as, and I saw Satan as Baraq O Bam-Maw.

Malie and Natasha are the names of Obama's daughters. If we write those names backward (the devil does things backwards) we would get "ailam ahsatan". Now if we remove the letters that spell "Alah" (the false god of Islam being Allah), we would get "I am Satan". Coincidence? I don't think so!

Obama's campaign logo when he ran as President in the year 2008 was a sun over the horizon in the west, with the landscape as the flag of the United States. In the Isalmic religion, they have their own messiah that they are waiting for called the 12th Imam, or the Mahdi (the Antichrist of the Bible), and one prophecy concerning this man's appearance is the sun rising in the west.

"Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people— saying with a loud voice, 'Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.'" (Revelation 14:6-7)

Why have the words of Jesus in His Gospel accounts regarding His death, burial, and resurrection, been translated into over 3,000 languages, and nothing comes close (the Quran about 110 languages)? Because the same Spirit of God (YHVH) who created all people likewise transcends all people; therefore the power of His Word is not limited by people; while all other religions are man-made, therefore they tend to primarily stay within their own culture. The same God who speaks to all people through His creation of the heavens and earth that draws all people around the world likewise has sent His Word to the ends of the earth so that we may come to personally know Him to be saved in spirit and in truth through His Son Jesus Christ.

Jesus stands alone among the other religions that say to rightly weigh the scales of good and evil and to make sure you have done more good than bad in this life. Is this how we conduct ourselves justly in a court of law? Bearing the image of God, is this how we project this image into reality?

Our good works cannot save us. If we step before a judge, being guilty of a crime, the judge will not judge us by the good we have done, but rather by the crimes we have committed. If we as fallen humanity, created in God's image, pose this type of justice, how much more a perfect, righteous, and Holy God?

God has brought down His moral laws through the 10 commandments given to Moses at Mt. Siani. These laws were not given so we may be justified, but rather that we may see the need for a savior. They are the mirror of God's character of what He has written in our hearts, with our conscious bearing witness that we know that it is wrong to steal, lie, dishonor our parents, murder, and so forth.

We can try and follow the moral laws of the 10 commandments, but we will never catch up to them to be justified before a Holy God. That same word of the law given to Moses became flesh about 2,000 years ago in the body of Jesus Christ. He came to be our justification by fulfilling the law, living a sinless perfect life that only God could fulfill.

The gap between us and the law can never be reconciled by our own merit, but the arm of Jesus is stretched out by the grace and mercy of God. And if we are to grab on, through faith in Him, He will pull us up being the one to justify us. As in the court of law, if someone steps in and pays our fine, even though we are guilty, the judge can do what is legal and just and let us go free. That is what Jesus did almost 2,000 years ago on the cross. It was a legal transaction being fulfilled in the spiritual realm by the shedding of His blood with His last word's on the cross crying out, "It is finished!" (John 19:30).

For God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23). This is why in Isaiah chapter 53, where it speaks of the coming Messiah and His soul being a sacrifice for our sins, why it says it pleased God to crush His only begotten Son.

This is because the wrath that we deserve was justified by being poured out upon His Son. If that wrath was poured out on us, we would all perish to hell forever. God created a way of escape by pouring it out on His Son whose soul could not be left in Hades but was raised and seated at the right hand of God in power.

So now when we put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14), where God no longer sees the person who deserves His wrath, but rather the glorious image of His perfect Son dwelling in us, justifying us as if we received the wrath we deserve, making a way of escape from the curse of death; now being conformed into the image of the heavenly man walking in a new nature, and no longer in the image of the fallen man Adam.

Now what we must do is repent and put our trust and faith in the savior, confessing and forsaking our sins, and to receive His Holy Spirit that we may be born again (for Jesus says we must be born again to see and enter the Kingdom of God in John chapter 3). This is not just head knowledge of believing in Jesus, but rather receiving His words, taking them to heart, so that we may truly be transformed into the image of God. Where we no longer live to practice sin, but rather turn from our sins and practice righteousness through faith in Him in obedience to His Word by reading the Bible.

Our works cannot save us, but they can condemn us; it is not that we earn our way into everlasting life, but that we obey our Lord Jesus Christ:

Jesus says,

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

"And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." (Hebrews 5:9)

"Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.'

Then He who sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' And He said to me, 'Write, for these words are true and faithful.'

And He said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'" (Revelation 21:1-8)
by Sarahmug (2023-04-29 13:05)