H5N1

‘I hope you die’: How the COVID pandemic unleashed attacks on scientists

Via Nature News & Comment: ‘I hope you die’: how the COVID pandemic unleashed attacks on scientists. Excerpt:

Infectious-diseases physician Krutika Kuppalli had been in her new job for barely a week in September 2020, when someone phoned her at home and threatened to kill her.  

Kuppalli, who had just moved from California to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, had been dealing with online abuse for months after she’d given high-profile media interviews on COVID-19, and had recently testified to a US congressional committee on how to hold safe elections during the pandemic. But the phone call was a scary escalation. “It made me very anxious, nervous and upset,” says Kuppalli, who now works at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland.  

She called the police, but didn’t hear that they took any action. The threatening e-mails, calls and online comments continued. The police officer who visited Kuppalli after a second death-threat call suggested she should get herself a gun.  

Kuppalli’s experience during the pandemic is not uncommon. A survey by Nature of more than 300 scientists who have given media interviews about COVID-19 — many of whom had also commented about the pandemic on social media — has found wide experience of harassment or abuse; 15% said they had received death threats.

Some high-profile examples of harassment have been well documented. Anthony Fauci, head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was assigned personal security guards after he and his family received death threats; UK chief medical adviser Chris Whitty was grabbed and shoved in the street; and German virologist Christian Drosten received a parcel with a vial of liquid labelled ‘positive’ and a note telling him to drink it. In one extraordinary case, Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst and his family were placed in a safe house when a military sniper went on the run after leaving a note outlining his intentions to target virologists.  

These examples are extreme. But in Nature’s survey, more than two-thirds of researchers reported negative experiences as a result of their media appearances or their social media comments, and 22% had received threats of physical or sexual violence. Some scientists said that their employer had received complaints about them, or that their home address had been revealed online. Six scientists said they were physically attacked.  

Coordinated social-media campaigns and threatening e-mails or phone calls to scientists are not new: topics such as climate change, vaccination and the effects of gun violence have drawn similar attacks in the past. But even scientists who had a high profile before COVID-19 told Nature that the abuse was a new and unwelcome phenomenon tied to the pandemic. Many wanted the extent of the problem discussed more openly.  

“I believe national governments, funding agencies and scientific societies have not done enough to publicly defend scientists,” one researcher wrote in their survey response.  

Some researchers say that they have learnt to cope with the harassment, accepting it as an unpleasant but expected side effect of getting information to the public. And 85% of survey respondents said that their experiences of engaging with the media were always or mostly positive, even if they were harassed afterwards.  

“I think scientists need training for how to engage with the media and also about what to expect from trolls — it’s just a part of digital communication,” one wrote. Source: Nature analysis But Nature’s survey suggests that even though researchers try to shrug off abuse, it might already have had a chilling effect on scientific communication. Those scientists who reported higher frequencies of trolling or personal attacks were also most likely to say that their experiences had greatly affected their willingness to speak to the media in the future.  

That is concerning during a global pandemic which has been accompanied by a battery of disinformation and misinformation, says Fiona Fox, chief executive of the UK Science Media Centre (SMC) in London — an organization that collates scientific comment and organizes press briefings for journalists. “It’s a great loss if a scientist who was engaging with the media, sharing their expertise, is taken out of a public debate at a time when we’ve never needed them so badly,” she says.  

Tracking harassment  

In June, the Australian SMC in Adelaide asked researchers on its COVID-19 media lists about their experiences. The centre had been alerted to online bullying and hate campaigns directed at scientists, and wanted to know whether it was a broader problem, says Lyndal Byford, the centre’s director of news and partnerships.  

Byford shared the results with Nature. Fifty researchers answered the SMC’s informal survey. Nearly one-third reported experiencing emotional or psychological distress after talking about COVID-19; 6 people (12%) reported receiving death threats, and 6 said they had received threats of physical or sexual violence. “I think any organization involved in helping scientists communicate would find that quite disturbing,” Byford says.  

To get a broader sense of the scale of harassment, Nature adapted the Australian SMC’s survey, and asked science media centres in the United Kingdom, Canada, Taiwan, New Zealand and Germany to send it to scientists on their COVID-19 media lists. Nature also e-mailed researchers in the United States and Brazil who had been prominently quoted in the media.

The results are not a random sample of researchers who have given media interviews on COVID-19, because they represent only the experiences of the 321 scientists who chose to respond (predominantly in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States). But the numbers reveal that researchers in many countries are facing abuse related to the pandemic, and the proportions reported were higher than in the Australian survey. More than one-quarter of respondents to the Nature survey said they always or usually received comments from trolls or were personally attacked after speaking in the media about COVID-19. And more than 40% reported experiencing emotional or psychological distress after making media or social media comments.

Politicized science
To some extent, this harassment of scientists reflects their rising status as public figures. “The more prominent you are, the more abuse you’re going to get,” says historian Heidi Tworek at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who is studying online abuse of health communicators in the pandemic. Most US public-health departments have also received harassment directed at staff and officials, adds Beth Resnick, a public-health researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, who has surveyed 580 departments in a study that is not yet published.

And such attacks might have little to do with the science itself and more to do with who’s talking. “If you’re a woman, or a person of colour from a marginalized group, that abuse will probably include abuse of your personal characteristics,” says Tworek. For instance, Canada’s chief public-health officer Theresa Tam is Asian Canadian, and abuse levelled against her included a layer of racism, Tworek says. Kuppalli, a female scientist of colour, says she also experienced this. Abusers told her she “needs to go back where she came from”.

The police as public health crisis

Via The Lancet: Fatal police violence by race and state in the USA, 1980–2019: a network meta-regression. The summary and then a comment:

Background  

The burden of fatal police violence is an urgent public health crisis in the USA. Mounting evidence shows that deaths at the hands of the police disproportionately impact people of certain races and ethnicities, pointing to systemic racism in policing. Recent high-profile killings by police in the USA have prompted calls for more extensive and public data reporting on police violence. 

This study examines the presence and extent of under-reporting of police violence in US Government-run vital registration data, offers a method for correcting under-reporting in these datasets, and presents revised estimates of deaths due to police violence in the USA.  

Methods  

We compared data from the USA National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) to three non-governmental, open-source databases on police violence: Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and The Counted. We extracted and standardised the age, sex, US state of death registration, year of death, and race and ethnicity (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic of other races, and Hispanic of any race) of each decedent for all data sources and used a network meta-regression to quantify the rate of under-reporting within the NVSS. Using these rates to inform correction factors, we provide adjusted estimates of deaths due to police violence for all states, ages, sexes, and racial and ethnic groups from 1980 to 2019 across the USA.  

Findings  

Across all races and states in the USA, we estimate 30 800 deaths (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 30 300–31 300) from police violence between 1980 and 2018; this represents 17 100 more deaths (16 600–17 600) than reported by the NVSS. Over this time period, the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence was highest in non-Hispanic Black people (0·69 [95% UI 0·67–0·71] per 100 000), followed by Hispanic people of any race (0·35 [0·34–0·36]), non-Hispanic White people (0·20 [0·19–0·20]), and non-Hispanic people of other races (0·15 [0·14– 0·16]). This variation is further affected by the decedent's sex and shows large discrepancies between states. Between 1980 and 2018, the NVSS did not report 55·5% (54·8–56·2) of all deaths attributable to police violence. When aggregating all races, the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence was 0·25 (0·24–0·26) per 100 000 in the 1980s and 0·34 (0·34–0·35) per 100 000 in the 2010s, an increase of 38·4% (32·4–45·1) over the period of study.  

Interpretation  

We found that more than half of all deaths due to police violence that we estimated in the USA from 1980 to 2018 were unreported in the NVSS. Compounding this, we found substantial differences in the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence over time and by racial and ethnic groups within the USA. Proven public health intervention strategies are needed to address these systematic biases. State-level estimates allow for appropriate targeting of these strategies to address police violence and improve its reporting.

Canada is not much different. We have used our police, including the well-marketed Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to suppress Indigenous and other minority peoples, with increasingly poor results. I suggested a solution back in 2007: Disband the RCMP. 

New findings on pandemic kids. And what they really tell us

The Tyee has published my article: New Findings on Pandemic Kids. And What They Really Tell Us. Excerpt:

A new report by Children First Canada takes a long and detailed look at the state of our kids in this second year of pandemic. Even if you don’t have children, but hope for a decent and dignified old age, you’d better take note the findings of Raising Canada 2021 — and take appropriate action in this and future elections. 

The report finds that COVID-19 has aggravated ten major threats to our children. Those threats have been still more aggravated by “cross-cutting themes”: access to education and child care, access to health care and social services, inequity and inequality, and climate change. 

The report points to a host of threats to children that are also threats to us all. And those threats are unlikely to be blunted short of the kind of social transformation we usually call a revolution. 

Let’s look at the threats first. Some are simply intensified forms of the pre-pandemic status quo. Kids are coming into emergency departments with opioid and other poisonings, and cannabis ingestions. Their parents’ attempts to cope with stress don’t work with the kids either. 

Pre-pandemic Canada was stressful enough, but the report finds that “the effects of school closures have accelerated this threat,” leading to more eating disorders, substance misuse and suicide attempts among adolescents.

Systemic racism and discrimination stress racialized families, and the pandemic has only stressed them more. So it should be no surprise that “status First Nations, Métis, Inuit and Black children are disproportionately overrepresented in the child welfare system.” 

So stressed parents with no support are taking it out on their kids: “In some jurisdictions, clinicians have seen twice as many infants for maltreatment-related concerns, specifically fractures and head trauma.” 

More work for the health-care system 

Meanwhile, even less-stressed parents have skipped routine childhood vaccinations, ensuring more work for our health-care system when kids start coming down with measles and other preventable diseases. While many Canadian and U.S. states try to vaccinate their kids from age 12 and up, the report says, for those under 12 “vaccines may not be available until 2022.” Cuba is already testing its homegrown vaccines on kids as young as three. 

The pandemic has worsened childhood poverty, notably in a third of female lone-parent families, and “households with children are more likely to face food insecurity compared to households without children.” In other words, kids aren’t getting enough to eat. We are “ranked 37th out of 41 countries when it comes to providing healthy food for children.” Failing to nourish our children today will have consequences for the rest of the century. 

Well, not for those who die in infancy. The report says, “Canada’s infant mortality rate has increased. It is now the second highest among 17 OECD countries, at approximately 4.4 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. This is a marked change from 1960, when Canada ranked fifth lowest.”

A Texas hospital is so overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases that a man shot six times has waited a week for surgery

Via Business Insider Australia, a Fox 26 Houston report: A Texas hospital is so overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases that a man shot six times has waited a week for surgery. Excerpt:

A Texas man who was shot six times one week ago is anxiously awaiting surgery at a Houston hospital, where doctors are struggling to respond to COVID-19 cases. Joel Valdez, a local business owner from Houston, Texas, told Fox 26 Houston that he’s been waiting for surgery since last Saturday, August 7. 

“Everybody is really surprised I’m still in this bed a week later,” he told Fox 26 from his hospital room at Ben Taub. Valdez had been leaving a grocery store last Saturday morning when a stranger shot him six times in the neck and shoulder. 

Three of those shots left one of his shoulders broken, the body part on which he’s waiting to get surgery. 

“Having broken bones and bullets in me for over a week now, it’s a little frustrating,” Valdez said. 

Ben Taub’s ICU is at 98% capacity, a spokesperson told Fox 26. About a third of those ICU patients are being treated for the coronavirus, the spokesperson said. 

When reached for comment, the Harris Health System, which operates Ben Taub Hospital, told Insider the doctors at Ben Taub prioritize cases each day because of spiking COVID-19 numbers driven by the Delta variant. 

“In response to the increase in COVID-19 cases overwhelming the hospitals of Harris Health System, our medical experts review all surgical cases throughout the day to determine the acuity level and patient’s overall condition,” said Amanda Callaway, spokesperson with the Harris Health System. 

“Due to strained resources, surgical patients are being prioritized based on several factors, which unfortunately may result in a delay of non-emergent surgical procedures. Harris Health and its medical partners are working diligently to provide the best possible care during these difficult times,” Callaway continued. 

Valdez’s case comes as the Delta variant surges in Texas. More than 10,000 Texans have been hospitalized as of August 10, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Compared to the past week, that figure reflects an increase of nearly 3,000 patients.

MSF in Haiti: Violence puts patients, staff, and medical activities at risk

A news release from MSF: Haiti: Violence puts patients, staff, and medical activities at risk.

Port-au-Prince, June 11, 2021—A spike in violence in Haiti's capital is putting medical activities in jeopardy, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today, warning that medical care cannot be sustained while armed clashes and robberies affect patients, staff, health facilities, and vehicles. 

In the first week of June, clashes in the neighborhood of Martissant and other districts of Port-au-Prince caused many injuries and displaced more than 1,000 people, including MSF patients and staff. From June 2 to 4, MSF's emergency center in Martissant received 42 patients with gunshot wounds, many of whom were transferred to MSF's trauma hospital in the Tabarre neighborhood, which increased its capacity for trauma patients from 50 to 68 beds. 

"We are witnessing an extremely worrying deterioration in the security situation," said Alessandra Giudiceandrea, MSF head of mission. "Some armed clashes took place near MSF's emergency center and offices in Martissant, where staff had to take cover from stray bullets. Armed individuals robbed two MSF ambulance drivers among other vehicles traveling from Martissant. To protect our staff, we had to reduce our community activities, but we are still treating emergencies based on our initial admission criteria." 

Clashes also took place in the city's Cité Soleil and Bel Air neighborhoods from May 15 to 31, and MSF's Tabarre hospital reached the limits of its capacity after receiving 41 patients, including 32 with wounds from violence. In another incident, a staff member of the Tabarre hospital was shot and killed on May 25 while returning home from work. 

The increased level of chronic violence is taking place amid a broader political and economic crisis in Haiti that affects people in many ways. Health systems are strained not only by insecurity but by a current increase in COVID-19 cases, economic challenges, and a high level of medical needs. 

"At a time when we should be scaling up because of COVID-19 and other needs, we are struggling to keep our existing facilities open due to insecurity," Giudiceandrea said. "We ask everyone to respect the need for medical activities to continue." 

In Martissant, insecurity and displacement may be hindering patients' ability to reach health care services. While MSF's emergency center reported an influx of trauma patients following the largest incidents of violence last week, patient numbers have now dropped below the center's normal average. 

MSF also provides care to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence through clinics in Port-au-Prince and Gonaïves, but staff are now seeing fewer patients, as people may fear leaving their homes to seek medical attention. MSF is concerned that the general increase in violence in the country is affecting the ability of sexual violence survivors to seek much-needed care. 

MSF has provided life-saving medical care to communities in Haiti for 30 years, but to continue providing such services in any community, MSF must be able to ensure the safety of patients and staff en route to and inside health care facilities. MSF demands that all groups and individuals involved in incidents of violence in Haiti respect the safety of health care workers, patients, medical supplies and facilities and that health care vehicles are granted safe passage without risk of attack.

Amid political and civil unrest in Myanmar, health services are inaccessible

A letter in The Lancet: Amid political and civil unrest in Myanmar, health services are inaccessible.

Myanmar is a democratic country in political crisis, and a suspension of health services is placing millions of patients with chronic illnesses in increasingly difficult situations. On Feb 1, 2021, the military initiated a coup and committed aggressive repression. In response, Myanmar's citizens engaged in massive protests and a civil disobedience movement in an attempt to end the coup and restore democracy. 

Our colleagues and friends in Myanmar, who ask for anonymity to protect themselves and their families from military reprisals, have relayed to us how political turmoil turned violent and continues to escalate. Numerous service sectors, including transportation and health care, have been disrupted. Public spaces have become unsafe due to increased violence, streets have been closed as a result of confrontations, and health services have either been suspended or operate on reduced hours because of a decrease in workforce and military police raids. 

We are particularly concerned for those patients with chronic illnesses who have multiple unmet needs. For example, essential HIV services (including HIV testing), delivery of antiretroviral therapy, viral load testing, and adherence counselling have been reduced or suspended because of closed facilities and the disappearance of providers in many towns throughout Myanmar. Within the health-care system, many medical facilities have closed or relocated to avoid military or police targeting. Health-care workers' security is under threat from state violence, resulting in additional barriers to accessing care. Most public hospitals with inpatient services have stopped providing services, leaving patients no choice but to use expensive private institutions. 

Moreover, because public transportation is unavailable and personal safety is increasingly threatened by violence on the streets, patients are reluctant to travel to refill life-sustaining medications. Given the far-reaching impacts of political instability on the health-care infrastructure, people with various illnesses in Myanmar are likely to experience serious service interruptions. 

Considering these dire conditions, we urgently call for humanitarian interventions from the international health-care community to ensure patients in Myanmar with chronic illnesses have access to necessary medical care for basic health maintenance and survival. Financial aid, human resources, and technical support are needed to create one-stop, wrap-around services for these patients, from screening to treatment. A continuous flow of medical supplies must be secured. Safe transportation is crucial for access to health care. 

Finally, research is needed to investigate how patients with chronic illnesses in Myanmar use health services because their physical and psychological health is negatively influenced by traumatic geopolitics. This research would allow the development of evidence-based interventions and serve populations who need support during these unstable political conditions.

Unknown men kill 5 polio vaccinators in eastern Afghanistan

Via Radio Killid: Unknown Men Kill 5 Vaccinators in E. Afghanistan.

Unknown gunmen on Tuesday morning gunned down five vaccination campaign workers in the provincial capital of Nangahar province, a security source told TKG. 

The polio vaccination workers were killed in separate attacks in the fourth and seventh districts of Jalalabad city, the provincial capital, the source spoke to TKG on condition of anonymity.  

The source put the toll of the dead to four women and a man who were polio vaccination workers.  Provincial officials confirmed the attack without disclosing details of casualties. 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Health facilities targeted in Tigray region, Ethiopia

A news release from MSF.org: Health facilities targeted in Tigray region, Ethiopia. Excerpt:

ADDIS ABABA – Health facilities across Ethiopia’s Tigray region have been looted, vandalised and destroyed in a deliberate and widespread attack on healthcare, according to teams from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Of 106 health facilities visited by MSF teams between mid-December 2020 and early March 2021, nearly 70% had been looted, and more than 30% had been damaged; just 13% were functioning normally. 

In some health facilities across Tigray, the looting of health facilities continues, according to MSF teams. While some looting may have been opportunistic, health facilities in most areas appear to have been deliberately vandalised to make them non-functional.  In many health centres, such as in Debre Abay and May Kuhli in North-West Tigray, teams found destroyed equipment, smashed doors and windows, and medicine and patient files scattered across floors. 

In Adwa hospital in central Tigray, medical equipment, including ultrasound machines and monitors, had been deliberately smashed. In the same region, the health facility in Semema was reportedly looted twice by soldiers before being set on fire, while the health centre in Sebeya was hit by rockets, destroying the delivery room. 

MSF teams recently visited 106 medical facilities across Tigray region, Ethiopia. Of the facilities visited: 30% had been damaged, 73% had been looted, and 87% were no longer functioning or fully functioning. 

Hospitals occupied by soldiers 

Every fifth health facility visited by MSF teams was occupied by soldiers. In some instances, this was temporary; in others the armed occupation continues. In Mugulat in east Tigray, Eritrean soldiers are still using the health facility as their base. The hospital in Abiy Addi in central Tigray, which serves a population of half a million, was occupied by Ethiopian forces until early March. 

“The army used Abiy Addi hospital as a military base and to stabilise their injured soldiers,” says Kate Nolan, MSF emergency coordinator. “During that time, it was not accessible to the general population.” 

“They had to go to the town’s health centre, which was not equipped to provide secondary medical care – they can’t do blood transfusions, for example, or treat gunshot wounds,” says Nolan.  

"Health facilities and health staff need to be protected during a conflict, in accordance with international humanitarian law. This is clearly not happening in Tigray," said Oliver Behn, MSF General Director. 

Ambulances seized 

Few health facilities in Tigray now have ambulances, as most have been seized by armed groups. In and around the city of Adigrat in east Tigray, for example, some 20 ambulances were taken from the hospital and nearby health centres. 

Later, MSF teams saw some of these vehicles being used by soldiers near the Eritrean border, to transport goods. As a result, the referral system in Tigray for transporting sick patients is almost non-existent. Patients travel long distances, sometimes walking for days, to reach essential health services. 

Many health facilities have few – or no – remaining staff. Some have fled in fear; others no longer come to work because they have not been paid in months. 

Devastating impact on people 

The attacks on Tigray’s health facilities are having a devastating impact on people,” says Oliver Behn. “Health facilities and health staff need to be protected during a conflict, in accordance with international humanitarian law. This is clearly not happening in Tigray.”

The crisis of health care in Myanmar

A letter in The Lancet:The crisis of health care in Myanmar.

We are writing in solidarity with the health workers of Myanmar during the worsening crisis following a military coup on Feb 1, 2021. Many UK health research and care institutions have worked with clinical colleagues in Myanmar over many years, building both partnership and friendship. Together we have seen significant improvements in the country's health system, providing life-saving care to mothers, newborns, infants, and children. Those improvements are now at risk. 

Large numbers of Myanmar civilians, including health workers, are committed to the Civil Disobedience Movement, believing that peaceful protest is the best way to avoid a politically and economically disastrous slide back into military dictatorship, and to arrive at a way forward for Burmese democracy. Demonstrations have spread to all parts of the country. Through personal communication with colleagues in Myanmar and news reports, it is clear that many protesters are in hiding, sleeping in a different place each night in fear of their lives. Petrol is now scarce, banks are closed, and internet, electricity, and water supplies are all disrupted. Meanwhile, although government hospitals, schools, and universities are shut, groups of doctors are treating patients quietly and without charge in a variety of settings. 

UN Resolution 2286 prohibits harm against health workers in situations of conflict. They must be protected now, not least by the vigilance of the global community. Myanmar's doctors and nurses are a vital constituency in the country's social development. We urge all parties to respect their humanitarian role and to ensure their safety. We hope that by bearing witness alongside our Myanmar friends and colleagues, we may help to galvanise international support for Myanmar's recent democratic process, a resolution to the current crisis, and a resumption of the country's path to prosperity.

Ebola: The gendarme presumed author of the destruction of the vaccine kits in Gouecke remains untraceable

Via guineenews.org, a follow-up to an unusual story: Anti-Vaccine reluctance: the gendarme presumed author of the destruction of the kits in Gouecke remains untraceable. The person was originally said to be a soldier. The Google translation: 

The gendarme, accused of being the main actor of the destruction and the fire of the material serving as shelter for the vaccination of the people contacted in Gouecké, remains for the time being untraceable, we learned on the spot.  

Indeed, several days after the destruction and the fire of the tents and the hand washing kits, installed for the vaccination of the people contacted, the main actor indexed by the sub-prefect of Gouecké, remains for the moment untraceable despite all actions taken by the response committee. 

Joined by our reporter based in the N'Zérékoré region, Mr. Daniel Théa, relative of the gendarme, specifies “You know people are managing this Ebola case very badly. Our brother had every intention of surrendering. But he stayed with a woman from the WHO, who was convincing him to agree to come to N'Zérékoré, when a vehicle full of men in uniform came to stop him, and suddenly he fled. Imagine, all of Gouecké's cases of death are from his family. So psychologically, it's really hard to keep up. If to this is added more brutality, the situation can only become more complicated.” This is how our brother took refuge with certain young people, our interlocutor said. 

“You know, he was the one in front of the young people to destroy the equipment. On the pretext that her sister was sent to N'Zérékoré and that she died. For the moment he has not agreed to surrender," deplores Ibrahima Koné, the sub-prefect of Gouecké. 

Despite all the awareness campaigns carried out on the ground, reluctance remains relevant in Gouecké and Bangana in the urban commune of N'Zérékoré. 

Note that 302 contacts remain to be followed to date, 17 cases of alerts including 8 deaths have been recorded and 94 people contacted have been vaccinated, according to statistics provided by the response commission to date.