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Cast Your Votes for Fat Bear Week’s Chunky Champion Smithsonian

Providing decent living with minimum energy: A global scenario Science Direct. Interesting.

Silent witnesses: what do three corpses have to do with a corruption case? FT

FAA administrator flies MAX in next step to recertification Leeham News and Analysis

WTO to Let EU Levy $4 Billion in Boeing/Airbus Dispute Industry Week

California task force will consider paying reparations for slavery Los Angeles Times

Newsom vetoes bill to provide rehiring protections for workers laid off amid COVID-19 pandemic Los Angeles Times. Of relevance:

Congress to the working class: pic.twitter.com/pwRkPBAapR

— 💜🧡🤍 (@marie_chellie) September 26, 2020

#COVID19

Epidemiology and transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in two Indian states (PDF) Science. Extremely important. From the Discussion: “Our findings provide insight into the epidemiology of COVID-19 in resource-limited populations based on comprehensive surveillance and contact tracing data from the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Our analysis suggests substantial variation in individuals’ likelihood of transmitting: no secondary infections were linked to 71% of cases whose contacts were traced and tested…. While the role of children in transmission has been debated (36, 37), we identify high prevalence of infection among children who were contacts of cases around their own age; this finding of enhanced infection risk among individuals exposed to similar-age cases was also apparent among adults.” Here is a summary; and a second summary. And of the same study–

Largest COVID-19 contact tracing study to date finds children key to spread, evidence of superspreaders Princeton Environmental Institute. “Lead researcher Ramanan Laxminarayan, a senior research scholar in PEI, said that the paper is the first large study to capture the extraordinary extent to which SARS-CoV-2 hinges on ‘superspreading,’ in which a small percentage of the infected population passes the virus on to more people. The researchers found that 71% of infected individuals did not infect any of their contacts, while a mere 8% of infected individuals accounted for 60% of new infections.”

HKU mechanical engineering study reveals airborne transmission of COVID-19 opportunistic in nature and poor indoor ventilation plays a role in transmission (press release) The University of Hong Kong. From July, still germane. Here is a long video on the same topic from the scientist, Yuguo Li:

One in Seven Dire COVID Cases May Result from a Faulty Immune Response Scientific American. A review of the literature.

CDC’s credibility is eroded by internal blunders and external attacks as coronavirus vaccine campaigns loom WaPo. Testing, masking, data, and aerosol guidance blunders are not minor. Absent that series of debacles, all of which are systemic, as we say, in origin, the CDC would be in a much stronger position politically, even if the way it’s being held to account now is extremely ugly. (The article includes the PMC solution, which is, naturally, to insulate PMC performance from accountability in the political realm altogether with a magic board that assures its “independence.”)

Community Health Workers and Covid-19 — Addressing Social Determinants of Health in Times of Crisis and Beyond NEJM

Surviving The Waves Of A Pandemic Storm: How To Fix The Supply Chain Flaws Exposed By COVID-19 Health Affairs

How to fix public health weaknesses before the next pandemic hits WaPo.

The common denominator is an antiquated and unstandardized system of linking data from clinical records and public health monitoring in ways that provide evidence on how to control the virus while minimizing the disruption to the economy and society. Electronic medical records — envisioned as a boon for public-health surveillance, providing data that could be readily analyzed — turn out to be much better for billing than for the exchange of data.

Because of course they did. (On standardized data systems, see NC here and here.)

A time for choosing: Masks or freedom? Twila Brase, Alpha News

China?

Hong Kong police officers, staff recognised in honours list for efforts during city’s anti-government protests South China Morning Post

Explainer: How Beijing’s security law transformed Hong Kong – month 3 Hong Kong Free Press

The new centre of dissent: Britain becomes hub for Hong Kong activists Guardian

* * *

China manufacturing data shows small rebound in September Macau Business but China’s manufacturing activity surges in September, affirming its path to economic recovery Business Insider and China’s manufacturing PMI rises in September Xinhua

China, Food Security and Geopolitics The Diplomat

Surging Prices Turn Pork Into Luxury Holiday Gift in China Bloomberg

At Milan Fashion Week, Brands Double Down On China Jing Daily (J-LS).

U.S. Aims to Boost Taiwan’s Role Funding Global Infrastructure Bloomberg

Tokyo Stock Exchange paralysed by hardware glitch in worst-ever outage Reuters

55 years of impunity: How Indonesia is going backwards after the 1965 genocide Jakarta Post

Filipinos make up 4% of nurses in the US, but 31.5% of nurse deaths from COVID-19 Business Insider

Force majeure: Apparel buyers’ deadly weapon The Daily Star

India

Occupation without End The Baffler

Syraqistan

The killing fields of Libya’s Tarhuna Middle East Eye

Israeli PM to UN: Hezbollah storing missiles in Beirut AP

UK/EU

Millions at risk of being blocked from Covid tests FT. “[T]heir identity cannot be verified by a credit-checking company contracted by the government to prevent the abuse of the public testing system.”

Deloitte selling contact tracing services to local UK health officials Guardian. Comment: “So private contractors set up a parallel contact tracing system, outside of public health, and now another private contractor is selling councils the chance to ‘integrate it’ back into the public health system. Have I got that right?”

Warren Mosler, Bill Mitchell, Patricia Pino, Chris Cook: Modern Monetary Theory and the economics of an independent Scotland (podcast) The MMT Podcast

New Cold War

Armenia publishes photos of wreckage it says is SU-25 warplane shot down by Turkish F-16 jet Reuters

Nagorno-Karabakh: A Flare-Up, or All-Out War? Carnegie Moscow Center

The legends of the Caucasus: Economic transformation of Armenia and Georgia Science Direct

Phantom Peril in the Arctic Foreign Affairs

RussiaGate

DNI Letter Supports Allegation That Hillary Clinton Created ‘Russiagate’ Moon of Alabama

Rescuing US Intelligence Project Syndicate

Alex Younger: ‘The Russians did not create the things that divide us — we did that’ FT. Outgoing MI6 head.

Trump Transition

‘One more serious try’ on COVID-19 relief yields progress but no deal The Hill. Still not getting why Pelosi didn’t take the lowball trillion or so that the Administration was offering — simply to relieve working class suffering, if for no other reason — and then go pedal to the medal after the inevitable Blue Wave in November gives them control of the Senate in addition to the House. Which is inevitable, right?

2020

The Politics That Led to the “Worst Debate” Black Agenda Report

Why Liberals Hate Leftists Caitlin Johnstone, Medium

Centrism:

“Human sacrifice was a bloody and barbaric tradition – but could stopping it altogether be why the rains aren’t coming?” – bronze age opinion columnist

— Tom Whyman (@HealthUntoDeath) September 29, 2020

Health Care

Investors Extracted $400 Million From a Hospital Chain That Sometimes Couldn’t Pay for Medical Supplies or Gas for Ambulances Pro Publica

For the first time, drug makers and PBMs must jointly face an insulin price fixing lawsuit STAT

Assange

Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange Hearing Day 21 Craig Murray

Big Brother Is Watching You

Palantir Grabs $21 Billion Valuation, but Debut Comes With a Hiccup WSJ

Scars, Tattoos, And License Plates: This Is What Palantir And The LAPD Know About You Buzzfeed

Gunz

Court OK’s $800M settlement for MGM Resorts, Vegas victims ABC

Class Warfare

Sara Nelson: the union boss fighting to ‘put workers first’ FT. On the other hand, industrial unions aren’t much good if their industry disappears…

Lies, Money And Cheating: The Deeper Story Of The College Admissions Scandal NPR

The Radical History of Corporate Sensitivity Training The New Yorker

How the “Sixth Sense” Shapes the Skeleton Weizmann Institute

What I Learned From Spending Almost 2 Months of the Pandemic Living With My Elderly Parents Time

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.