Wuhan Virus Watch: Tesla prepared to move out of California amid fight over lockdown

Wuhan Virus Watch: Tesla prepared to move out of California amid fight over lockdown

Today’s update will start with an intriguing development related to California’s continuing pandemic work restrictions.

Unhappy with the shuttering of his plant, Tesla CEO Elon Musk indicates that the company is preparing to file a lawsuit against Alameda County and will move its headquarters and future operations out of California.

On Friday, Alameda County’s interim public health officer, Dr. Erica Pan, said that health orders to contain a Covid-19 outbreak in the region are still in place, and that Tesla does not have a “green light,” to resume vehicle production at its main U.S. car plant in Fremont, California, yet. She also noted, “We have been working with them, looking at some of their safety plans, and have had some recommendations.”

Tesla had wanted to start production again on Friday afternoon. The plant is where the company makes vehicles for Europe and North America. The company’s headquarters are in Palo Alto, not part of Alameda County.

Unlike other automakers, Tesla’s employees are not part of a union, so it would be easier for the company to significantly alter its operations.

Insulting Pan personally, Musk wrote on Twitter:

“Tesla is filing a lawsuit against Alameda County immediately. The unelected & ignorant ‘Interim Health Officer’ of Alameda is acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!”

He also claimed that: “Tesla knows far more about what needs to be done to be safe through our Tesla China factory experience than an (unelected) interim junior official in Alameda County.”

I suspect Tesla is not the only firm contemplating relocation to another state.

COVID doctors challenge CDC’s rules on cause of death, concerned about inflated numbers

While Musk fights to reopen his plant, doctors reveal they are being pressured to classify deaths as caused by the coronavirus….which will help regulators justify the continuing lockdown. The doctors have also developed an independent reporting tool in responsereporting tool in response.

Frontline COVID-19 doctors this week have gone public saying they feel pressured to show COVID-19 as cause-of-death on certificates of patients suspected of having the virus when they also have had underlying medical conditions.

Dr. Jonathan Fishbein, a clinical researcher, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease and the World Health Organization have issued “vague if not misguided recommendations that unfortunately have been adopted by national, state and local leaders.”

“It is absolutely critical that we have accurate data to support decision-makers,” he also told Just the News. “If the data in our assessments included patients who have not definitively tested positive for COVID-19, that provides misleading information to policy-makers.

…Fishbein and his colleagues have in response created an independent survey to collect evidence to evaluate risk factors and treatments for COVID-19, with the expectation of more accurately recording causes of death.

The reporting tool was developed by Veracuity and the survey is being conducted in partnership with the Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety (ACRES).

Excess Cancer Deaths Predicted as Care Disrupted by COVID-19

There are so many reasons that doctors are clamoring to end the pandemic-mania.

The majority of patients who have cancer or are suspected of having cancer are not accessing healthcare services in the United Kingdom or the United States because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the first report of its kind estimates.

As a result, there will be an excess of deaths among patients who have cancer and multiple comorbidities in both countries during the current coronavirus emergency, the report warns.

The authors calculate that there will be 6270 excess deaths among cancer patients 1 year from now in England and 33,890 excess deaths among cancer patients in the United States. (In the United States, the estimated excess number of deaths applies only to patients older than 40 years, they note.)

“The recorded underlying cause of these excess deaths may be cancer, COVID-19 or comorbidity (such as myocardial infarction),” Alvina Lai, PhD, University College London, United Kingdom, and colleagues observe.

“Our data have highlighted how cancer patients with multimorbidity are a particularly at-risk group during the current pandemic,” they emphasize.

FDA approves first at-home saliva test for COVID-19

The pandemic is inspiring a great deal of medical testing innovation.

The first COVID-19 test using saliva samples that patients collect at home has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The emergency use authorization was issued to Rutgers Clinical Genomics Laboratory for the diagnostic test using home-collected samples. Patients return their sample to the New Jersey-based lab in a sealed package for analysis.

The screening is the only authorized test that uses saliva samples to check for the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. It is available only with a prescription.

Last month, the FDA gave emergency authorization for the first at-home COVID-19 test using a sample taken from the patient’s nose with a nasal swab and saline.

Fauci to begin ‘modified quarantine’ after exposure to infected person

Looks like Fauci won’t be appearing at President Trump’s side for awhileTrump’s side for awhile.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, tells CNN he will begin a “modified quarantine” after making a “low risk” contact with the White House staffer who tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

The “low risk” assessment means he was not in close proximity to the person who tested positive during the time when that person was known to be positive for the virus.

He is not doing a full quarantine like Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will self-quarantine for two weeks after he was exposed to a person at the White House who tested positive for Covid-19, a CDC spokesperson confirmed to CNN.

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