Trust

LONDON — As the coronavirus stampeded across Europe and the United States this spring, governments made their depleted citizens a tantalizing promise: Soon, legions of disease detectives would hunt down anyone exposed to the virus, confining them to their homes and letting everyone else get on with their lives.

Nearly eight months on, as a web of new infections spreads across Europe and the United States, that promise has nearly evaporated.

Despite repeated vows by Western nations to develop “world-beating” testing and tracing operations, those systems have been undone by a failure of governments to support citizens through onerous quarantines or to draw out intimate details of their whereabouts. That has shattered the hope of pinpoint measures replacing lockdowns and undermined flagging confidence in governments.

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Rigorous wildlife disease surveillence needed

Fri, 2020-07-10 19:55 — mike kraft

Rigorous wildlife disease surveillance Evidence suggests that zoonotic (animal origin) coronaviruses have caused three recent emerging infectious disease (EID) outbreaks: severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In the search for an intermediate host for SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19), studies have identified SARS-CoV-2–like strains in bats ([ 1 ][1]) and pangolins ([ 2 ][2]), but these do not contain the same polybasic cleavage site that is present in SARS-CoV-2 ([ 3 ][3]).

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NY Times: Did Exxon Deceive Its Investors on Climate Change?

Wed, 2019-10-23 10:51 — mdmcdonald

In an OP-ED in the New York Times, the director of the Rockefeller Family Fund states that EXXON systematically lied to the public and to its stockholders about the risks of climate change and EXXON's major contributions to the catastrophic damage climate change will inflict on humanity and on biodiversity.

To read the complete article, see:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/opinion/exxon-climate-change.html

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Zuckerberg Takes Out Ads to Apologize as Facebook Data Misuse Crisis Intensifies

Tue, 2018-03-27 09:16 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the Cambridge Analytica scandal with ads in multiple US and British newspapers Sunday. JENNY KANE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

usatoday.com - by Marco della Cava - March 25, 2018

As Facebook continues to buffet winds of criticism, its founder took out full page ads in U.S. and British newspapers Sunday to apologize to consumers for not properly securing their personal data.

"This was a breach of trust, and I'm sorry we didn't do more at the time," Mark Zuckerberg said in the signed ad, which was published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and six British papers. "We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can't, we don't deserve it."

The ad refers to the misuse of 50 million Facebook profiles, which were mined through an app created by a Cambridge University professor and then sold, in violation of Facebook's terms of service, to Cambridge Analytica, a company that used the profiles to create election ad-targeting tools for the campaign to elect Donald Trump.

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Sierra Leone May Be Ebola-Free But The Virus Still Casts A Shadow

Mon, 2015-11-09 21:57 — Maeryn Obley

Health workers in Sierra Leone check travelers entering the country from Liberia. Zoom Dosso/AFP/Getty Images

Image: Health workers in Sierra Leone check travelers entering the country from Liberia. Zoom Dosso/AFP/Getty Images

npr.org - November 7th, 2015 - Nahid Bhadelia

Today marks the 42nd day that Sierra Leone has had no new cases of Ebola. That potentially signals the end of the epidemic in that country.

I spent almost three months in Sierra Leone over the last year, both as a clinician in Ebola treatment units and as an infection control educator.

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Ebola terrified us a year ago. What did it teach us about West Africa?

Sat, 2015-08-08 15:24 — mike kraft

WASHINGTON POST by Ashoka Mukpo * Aug. 7, 2015

“If it bleeds, it leads.” That’s the cliché in journalism that describes why a certain kind of tragedy tends to dominate the news cycle. One year ago today, the World Health Organization declared Ebola an “international health emergency.” But today, coverage of West Africa is beginning its drift into media disinterest as Ebola cases wane. International attention has now largely disappeared along with the sight of biohazard suits and ambulances.....

But it would be a mistake to celebrate victory over Ebola and return to the pre-outbreak status quo. The lessons of Ebola reach beyond the preparedness of West African health systems to confront crises, touching on issues that have been critical for the region in recent years: peace, security and how responsive governments are to society’s most vulnerable members. These lessons must be understood before a post-outbreak aid and development agenda is designed....

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