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Wuhan Virus Watch: Fauci Says Trump No Longer Talks Much to Him or Other Task Force Members

Wuhan Virus Watch: Fauci Says Trump No Longer Talks Much to Him or Other Task Force Members

Ccoronavirus is more common and less deadly than it first appeared. Health experts warn large protests heighten risk of coronavirus spread. European scientists modify tobacco cells to fight COVID-19. Eli Lilly begins first human tests of an antibody drug.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CFVgUmaHpo

Today’s update begins with some news that suggests that the response to the coronavirus will no longer be quite so intense.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading member of the Coronavirus Task Force, who established national guidelines and ensured that required resources were available and distributed, said President Donald Trump was now only rarely meeting with the team members.

In an interview with the health-news outlet STAT News published early Monday, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked whether he was in frequent contact with the president on the progress of vaccine candidates.

“No,” Fauci said.

“We used to have task force meetings every single day, including Saturday and Sunday, and about 75% of the time after the task force meeting we’d meet with the president,” Fauci added. “So I was meeting with him four times a week back, a month or so ago.

“But as you probably noticed, that the task force meetings have not occurred as often lately. And certainly my meetings with the president have been dramatically decreased.”

Antibody Tests Point To Lower Death Rate For The Coronavirus Than First Thought

While the riots certainly have placed the pandemic on the priority backburner, new data suggesting it wasn’t lethal as first feared is also weighing into the revised risk assessment.

Mounting evidence suggests the coronavirus is more common and less deadly than it first appeared.

The evidence comes from tests that detect antibodies to the coronavirus in a person’s blood rather than the virus itself.

The tests are finding large numbers of people in the U.S. who were infected but never became seriously ill. And when these mild infections are included in coronavirus statistics, the virus appears less dangerous.

“The current best estimates for the infection fatality risk are between 0.5% and 1%,” says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

That’s in contrast with death rates of 5% or more based on calculations that included only people who got sick enough to be diagnosed with tests that detect the presence of virus in a person’s body.

Health experts warn massive protests heighten the risk of coronavirus spread

Perhaps the fires associated with the looting will kill the virus?

Health experts fear carriers of coronavirus, which causes the disease, with no symptoms could unwittingly infect others at protests where social distancing is simply not taking place. The merits of the protesters’ cause “doesn’t prevent them from getting the virus,” said Bradley Pollock, chairman of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of California, Davis.

At least one protester in Tampa, Florida, is known to have COVID-19. Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan, who expressed dismay last week about Floyd’s death, tweeted Monday that five of his officers were exposed to the protester, whom he did not identify.

Protesting – especially without a mask – can put people at higher risk for infection, said Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that these can become breeding grounds for this virus,” he said during a Monday media availability. “I would not be surprised to see in the next couple of weeks that we see increases that may be linked to protests.

European scientists modify tobacco cells to fight COVID-19

Tobacco cells are being used to develop new coronavirus treatments.

A rising number of European countries are using tobacco products to treat the novel coronavirus. Scientists at the Institute for Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMCP) in Valencia, Spain are now using tobacco molecules against COVID-19.

Researchers have said tobacco products were found to be highly efficient against a number of viruses in the past, including Ebola. This came after doctors in France found people who smoke cigarettes are less likely to contract coronavirus.

European scientists have said genetically modified tobacco cells can create proteins preventing the virus from entering human cells.

“Plants are very useful for researchers as they are another mean of expressing viral proteins or nucleic acids without having to actually work with the causative virus itself,” explained George Lomonossoff, a virologist at the John Innes Center in Norwich, England. “And we can use techniques of synthetic biology to make things like virus-like particles without handling the infectious virus.”

Eli Lilly begins first human tests of an antibody-drug

The pandemic has had the effect of innovating treatments for viral infections.

Researchers have begun testing what appears to be the first new medicine developed specifically against Covid-19, in a milestone for drug companies aiming to combat the disease, the medicine’s makers said Monday.

The medicine, a human-made antibody against the coronavirus that causes the disease, was discovered by a Vancouver company, AbCellera, and is being developed by Eli Lilly, the Indianapolis-based drug giant. Two other efforts, one from the biotechnology firm Regeneron and another from the partnership of Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline, are expected to begin testing of their own antibody drugs soon. Lilly’s current study will only test the drug for obvious side effects, giving it to 32 people at various doses.

“We’re not racing against each other,” Daniel Skovronsky, the chief scientific officer at Eli Lilly, said of the other companies. “We’re racing against the death toll from the virus. I hope there will be multiple successful [antibody drugs]. I expect there will be.”

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Comments

Poor Fredo Fauci, momentary king of the showboats has lived through his glory days. Now, his glory has faded into memories of adoring moonbats fawning over every word he spoke, his neck ties, perfectly coiffed hair and crisply pressed shirts.

I was surprised that Trump gave the guy 30 minutes or the CDC as much as 10 minutes.

When Trump needs competent advice he should be looking at the private sector and persons who are accountable for their work.

UnCivilServant | June 2, 2020 at 7:14 am

Well, Doctor, it could be your miopic approach which is toxic to the mental and economic health of the populace – and the repeated failure of the models your approach is based on.

Your fifteen minutes are up, go slink back into obscurity.

Hmm, maybe the virus will kill the looters? Dr. Fauci did his bit and now he needs to go back to his lab. Leave America alone! This first “social media pandemic” has been an utter tragedy. People managed through the 1957-58 Asian flu pandemic and we managed through the 1968-69 Hong Hong flu pandemic. We even had Woodstock in 1969, talk about a crowd! The H1N1 pandemic in 2009-10 didn’t shut down the economy. It took an out of control news media and the extra insult of social media to cause this economic collapse.

This Chinese Virus was pushed for political means, and the states that have high numbers have pushed them higher because there is big money on the line from the Federal Government for Chinese Virus deaths. The states get something like $39,000 per death. It has been estimated that only 20% of the deaths reported from this Chinese Virus are actually directly from it.

Fauci is a fraud. How do you take him seriously when one minute he says “nothing to worry about” and the next it’s “going to kill millions” type of stance? He says we must wear masks, then we don’t. I am suspicious of what he says, his political posturing doesn’t help either.

I am only surprised President Trump listened to this man for as long as he did. He is past his prime, been in government for a long time, and I don’t believe he is the best informed Doctor for handling this illness or any other illness.

I see him being quietly given the boot once this all dies down. He is flaky.

caseoftheblues | June 2, 2020 at 7:23 am

Awww…sounds like Dr. Fauxi is stomping his feet cause he’s not getting the attention he feels he deserves…a true professional would NEVER be talking about/releasing that sort of information but this guy really only had ONE goal…to make sure the virus and response hurt Trump and this country as much as it could.

IF there is no second wave in the next two weeks, the ‘20 Antifa Riots will demonstrate that the “Wahoo Bat Soup Flu” has run its course.

    rdm in reply to NoFlow. | June 2, 2020 at 8:33 am

    Remember when the Wisconsin elections were going to cause a big spike?

      Tom Servo in reply to rdm. | June 2, 2020 at 9:20 am

      The reason there will be no “second wave” is that outside of New York, New Jersey, and New Orleans, there was never any “first wave”.

      It’s all been a big pack of hype meant to terrorize people.

Paging Dr. Fauci: Fame called to let you know that your fifteen minutes are up.

If you give one piece of bad advice after another to the boss, don’t be surprised when he no longer asks for your opinion.

Fauci Says Trump No Longer Talks Much to Him or Other Task Force Members

A good manager should be able to determine quickly who’s worth listening to, and who ain’t.

    CorkyAgain in reply to tom_swift. | June 2, 2020 at 1:20 pm

    I’m not sure it’s fair to interpret this as Fauci complaining about a lack of face-time. Even if he is doing that, this is mostly the media seizing upon what they see as an opportunity to paint Trump in a bad light.

    Me, I think Trump is just paying attention to more urgent matters. There’s nothing new happening on the COVID19 front, and he can reasonably conclude that there’s nothing about it that needs as much of his valuable time. The task force has their instructions and can be left alone to carry them out. (I assume VP Pence is still handling the supervisory role.)

2smartforlibs | June 2, 2020 at 9:28 am

don’t sweat it Doc when he need s a WRONG answer he will look you up.

MattLauersNob | June 2, 2020 at 9:37 am

Trump long ago rumbled Fauxi as a fraud but had to wait for political reasons to kick him to the curb.

JackinSilverSpring | June 2, 2020 at 9:46 am

Maybe the President doesn’t talk to you because of how stunningly wrong you and the models you depend 9n have been.

Now that the WHO funding from the US has dried up, only now is the WHO being critical of China and haring of information

In my humble opinion, the only reason he got as much attention as he did was because of that hearing before Congress where he said it was 10x deadlier than the flu. The media latched onto that and has never let go, treating him as the Oracle of Delphi.

NavyMustang | June 2, 2020 at 11:49 am

LMAO! What the heck does he expect? That PDT will have him over for lunch once a week? Fauci probably figures that he deserves a ticker tape parade in NYC. Heck, in ALL the major cities of the country!

This clown does not have a grip on reality.

Frank Hammond | June 2, 2020 at 12:09 pm

Fauciism n. The act of spreading, through incompetent work, uncorroborated, unverified, and/or inaccurate information with the intent to incite public panic.

Fauciist adj. Information generated by incompetent work, which is uncorroborated, unverified, and/or inaccurate, and spread with the intent to incite public panic.

Fauci v. To spread, intentionally or through neglect, uncorroborated, unverified, and/or inaccurate information generated through incompetence, with the intent to incite public panic.

Fauciily adv. Done in a Fauciist manner.

    puhiawa in reply to Frank Hammond. | June 2, 2020 at 2:20 pm

    Faucicide. A suicide occasioned by bungled medical advice causing overwhelming economic hardship, compounded by loneliness.

Honestly, why should he? Fauci has been wrong on just about everything, and now he’s saying that we need to open up because if we don’t, things will be worse.

Suicide because of economics and isolation is now known as Faucicide.

In summary:

Looting is the Covid19 vaccine/treatment.

Go out and grab yourself a tv and be cured!

WELL?……………Wonder why?/sarc

thelip95032 | June 3, 2020 at 12:32 pm

Well Doc, president is a little busy with protesters ,looters and people destroying businesses. Just as we were coming out of the effects of Covid-19 shutdown small business people are seeing any chance of them surviving being destroyed. Talking to people about how to open their business is a non starter for many.