Springtime for Us

Kleine Schneeglöckchen / Common Snowdrop - meaning, Spring is Near

The WHO is worried about stigmatizing diseased people as well or more than the disease itself. From their site:

Here are some examples and tips on possible actions to counter stigmatizing attitudes: 

• Spreading the facts: Stigma can be heightened by insufficient knowledge about how the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is transmitted and treated, and how to prevent infection.
 • Engaging social influencers such as religious leaders on prompting reflection about people who are stigmatized and how to support them, or respected celebrities to amplify messages that reduce stigma.
  • Amplify the voices, stories and images of local people who have experienced COVID-19 and have recovered or who have supported a loved one through recovery to emphasise that most people do recover from COVID-19.
 • Make sure you portray different ethnic groups. Materials should show diverse communities that are being affected, and show communities working together to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
 • Balanced reporting. Media reporting should be balanced and contextualised, disseminating evidence-based information and helping combat rumour and misinformation that could lead to stigmatisation.
 • Link up. There are a number of initiatives to address stigma and stereotyping. It is key to link up to these activities to create a movement and a positive environment that shows care and empathy for all.

P.S.: Steve Sailer locks it: W.H.O.: the Greatest Enemy We Face Is Not the Virus Itself; It’s the Stigma That Turns Us Against Each Other.

My humble comment: Stigmatizing transmissible diseased persons is a natural self-defense mechanism. The World Health Organization, an influential United Nations branch, tries to convince us that the problem is not the disease itself, but our instinctive reaction to it. I think the United Nations as a whole has been infected by a mental disorder, it is not doing its job and should be replaced.

Situation Report

Enlivex Therapeutics Announces Plan for Increased Production Capacity of AllocetraTM in Preparation for Potential Treatment of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Patients with Organ Failure

WHO:  No new countries reported cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. 

Living with the Virus

My daughter and husband are vacationing in Haifa. Their 7 months old daughter (pic) has been deposited with us and the two years old boy with the paternal grandparents. The baby has the flu and breaths with difficulty. They left us an inhalation steam machine for the baby to breath. We must be infected with her flu virus but no effects. She has a good temper, is very alert and talks to the toys. Loves to pull my beard and tear out my eyes with her sharp fingernails. 

We may be immune to the Wuhan Flu

From Gail:

COVID-19 is incredibly contagious. COVID-19 transmits extremely easily from person to person. Interpersonal contact doesn’t need to be very long; a taxi driver can get the virus from a passenger, for example.

The virus likely remains active on inanimate surfaces such as paper, plastic, or metal for many days. Human pathogens may remain infectious for up to eight days.

The only way to avoid spreading COVID-19 seems to be geographic isolation.

Perhaps 80% of people seem to get a fairly light form of the COVID-19 illness. Groups that seem particularly prone to adverse outcomes include the elderly, smokers, those who are obese, and those with high blood pressure, diabetes, or poor immune systems. Males seem to have worse outcomes than females.

People with East Asian ancestry (Chinese, Japanese, or Vietnamese) may have a higher risk of adverse outcomes than those of European or African ancestry. One of the things that is targeted by the disease is the ACE2 receptor. Hungarian Jews have few of them.

"We also noticed that the only Asian donor (male) has a much higher ACE2-expressing cell ratio than white and African American donors (2.50% vs. 0.47% of all cells). This might explain the observation that the new Coronavirus pandemic and previous SARS-Cov pandemic are concentrated in Asia."

My conclusion is in the title. I am the most optimist person on Earth and the Illegally Occupied Territories.

Water consulting is bad business

My alma mother TAHAL Water Consulting is in trouble and its CEO Bracha has resignes after the failure of selling the company to FIMI Funds. The agreement was that FIMI Funds will invest up to US$35 million in Tahal and float the company on TASE. From the money collected from buyers of the shares, FIMI would pay part of the purchase and have total control. The banks holding the loans of TAHAL and the monstrous amounts guaranteed for the completion of ongoing projects had given green light to financial operation. But the transaction failed somewhere. Simply, agricultural and infrastructure consulting in the Third World is no business. For one, Israeli experts are very expensive and two, water and civil engineering has become low tech and foreign experts are not needed anymore. 

The Guns of August

I am reading Barbara Tuchman's book on WWI. It describes the details of the calculations of the French and the German armies. The armies marched (imagine walking from Aachen to Paris with a bayonet in hand) and roads and marching days had to be calculated with precision while there was no wire communication among the units. Generals strategized without precise information and they were under tremendous stress and used to blank out. All those flanking maneuvers suddenly brought up the memory of my readings in the Circulo Militar of Buenos Aires. I was 14 and searching Buenos Aires public libraries for information about the rocket technology for the project we were doing with a Dutch school friend, he was fabricating the explosive fuel and I was trying to design and procure pipes. The Military Club was sited in an impressive palace in the most elegant neighborhood, surrounded by elaborate iron work gates. Inside there were large brown leather lounge chairs and sezlongs, with quiet old people reading the papers.

I took out the Military Science journals and read the articles. Remember one about artillery and rockets, with simple equations to calculate range. There were articles about the Triple Alianza (Paraguay) war, that struck me as uninteresting. Horsemanship and river crossing. I soon dropped out of the rocket project, the others were obsessed in building wood and iron pipe pistols, which they did.

Cursed Computer

I am desperate finding a file received yesterday. They sent me a DWG and a PDF version, and they do not match. Asked to send it again, and once more the DWG is different. The architect insists that I do not know how to open the zip file, showing his autocad literacy and my ignorance. Yet still I have two different versions and the contractor already is boring holes and demolishing walls. Oh, sweet gods of the computer, please lift the curse from my machine!