COVID-19: What’s Next? | Davos Agenda 2022

Elon Musk JUST SHOCKED Everyone With The 2022 Neuralink Update!

ARIZONA VALLEY FEVER: Dung Respiratory Fungus Ecology in The Dry Desert

A headline like that could certainly explain Koo-Kook politics here, but it appears to be a serious topic -- a fungal respiratory illness endemic to Arizona that can, in its most severe cases, be debilitating and even deadly to residents and visitors: Valley fever.

Here's a report from soon-to-be "Fun Gal" Shaena Montanari

HEALTH Arizona U.S. Sens. Kelly, Sinema introduce $500 million bill for Valley fever research "Hi, Shaena Montanari here, AZCIR’s investigative health reporter. Since last fall, I’ve been reporting on a fungal respiratory illness endemic to Arizona that can, in its most severe cases, be debilitating and even deadly to residents and visitors: Valley fever. . . .Scant state and federal funding have so far hampered efforts to better understand and prevent the growing impact of Valley fever, but a renewed push from congressional delegates from Arizona and California seeks to change that. On Thursday, Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema joined Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to introduce the “Finding Orphan-disease Remedies With Antifungal Research and Development Act,” known as the FORWARD Act. If passed, it could authorize $500 million for research on fungal diseases, including Valley fever. The senate bill from Sens. Kelly, Sinema and Feinstein follows the October introduction of the FORWARD Act to the U.S. House by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who introduced the FORWARD Act for the third time since 2018. =========================================================== RELATED Arizona leads nation in Valley fever infections Evidence points to Valley fever as a growing problem in Arizona, yet little is known about who is most impacted by a pathogen that now sickens more people here than in any other state. Research shows the most serious form of the illness disproportionately impacts people of color, and likely those who work outdoors, but insufficient data collection and a dearth of state and federal funding further shield the public from fully understanding the dangers the disease poses. READ MORE >>   Scientists work to unravel fungus ecology as Valley fever expands throughout West Arizona parents representing various geographic areas, income levels, and racial and ethnic backgrounds reported changing jobs, turning down jobs, decreasing their hours, forgoing promotions or leaving the workforce entirely as a result of inconsistent or unaffordable care. READ MORE >>   Valley fever vaccine for dogs shows promising results, first step toward human trials A Valley fever vaccine for dogs appears to provide a safe and effective defense against the fungal illness that sickens thousands of pets in Arizona each year, and it also marks a significant milestone that could lead to a similar vaccine for humans. READ MORE >>

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[...] The disease is caused by fungi in the genus Coccidioides that are found in soil and dust, and can easily become airborne and inhaled by people. In 2019, 39 Arizonans died from Valley fever, and in 2021 more than 11,000 people in the state were diagnosed with the illness. In recent years, Arizona has had the highest rate of Valley fever infections in the nation, my reporting showed.

My recent reporting also explored how scientific research—old and new—indicates that the most serious form of the disease, known as disseminated Valley fever, tends to manifest disproportionately in people of color, meaning there are indicators that genetics could play a part in severity of disease symptoms for specific groups of people.

Recently, a vaccine for the disease was shown to be effective in dogs. This new research paves the way for the development of a human version of the vaccine. But according to Dr. John Galgiani, the director of the University of Arizona Valley Fever Center for Excellence, getting to the “finish line” of a human vaccine could take another $200 million.

The legislation now making its way through Congress would provide $20 million each year for five years for epidemiological and clinical research on fungal diseases. The funding, which would pass through the National Institutes of Health, would include research on both treatments and vaccines for Valley fever. Additional funding would also be used to support activities such as a fungal disease working group composed of federal members, doctors, scientists and patients.

I will continue to follow any developments with this legislation as it makes its way through Congress. As always, I welcome your tips and feedback on this topic or any other health issue in Arizona that has caught your attention at shaena.montanari@azcir.org.

Thanks for following my work,

Shaena Montanari
Investigative Reporter — Health
Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting

 

Strategist says Federal Reserve in the 'worst' position he's ever seen

EASY-TO-FIND: USA Facts (The 10-Year Challenge + Omicron in 4 charts)

Omicron in four charts The Omicron COVID-19 variant set off an unprecedented increase in cases and hospitalizations nationwide — and after a fall season in which the Delta variant hit the American health care system hard. The latest government data shows how this variant is infecting more young people than previous waves. On January 10, an average of 25,285 adults were hospitalized daily with either confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases. The previous peak was one year prior: 24,284 daily hospitalizations in January 2021.    More children are also going to the hospital. An average of 1,612 children were hospitalized daily with confirmed or suspected cases on January 10. The previous pediatric hospitalization peak was 1,092 daily in September 2021. The current two-week average of 592,000 cases is 175% higher than two weeks ago. However, the two-week average of COVID-19 deaths is down 91%. In previous surges, deaths increased a few weeks after a rise in cases — whether that will happen with Omicron remains to be seen.  Explore more charts and data on this variant in this new report. Dive into updated data The USAFacts data pages enable readers to compare trends and interact with visualizations to better understand the government's impact on the American people. We've updated dozens of pages with the latest data available, ranging from 2019 to 2021, depending on the topic. Here is a sample of what's new. With layoffs and the uncertainty of the pandemic, thousands of Americans opted to start new businesses themselves. The number of businesses under a year old reached a high of 843,320 in 2021.   See more updated business metrics, including the net change in businesses and business applications by state. Did you know the South had the most business applications of any region in 2020?

There's also new insight into how the nation's children are faring. Over 17% of children were in poverty in 2020, up from 15.5% in 2019 but down from a trend seen throughout the 2010s.   We've also updated adoption data and the median age of children in foster care. Explore the data pages for even more, including disaster declarations in your state, 2020 border apprehensions, deaths of armed service members, and many nonpartisan numbers on a variety of issues impacting American life. Tracking voting rights Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. For years, Dr. King organized to secure African Americans' fair access to the ballot box. And last week, President Joe Biden gave a speech in Dr. King's hometown of Atlanta to urge Congress to pass voting rights legislation. Given both events, we wanted to reshare this article on the more than 30 states that have changed voting laws since the 2020 election. Scroll through the story to see where states have lengthened or shortened the window for mailing in ballots, proposed voter signature bills, and more. One last fact

It's taken over Facebook and Instagram, and now USAFacts is joining the #10YearChallenge. In 2019 (the year with the latest data available), federal, state, and local government spending was half a trillion more than spending for the 10 years prior. See more 10-year comparisons throughout the week at USAFacts on Instagram.

Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship’s Social Innovators of the...

Wait Wait...So Who's Really Making All Those Annoying Robo-Calls?

So they just don't stop

Why U.S. Robocall Hell Seemingly Never Ends

Failures

from the your-car-warranty-has-expired dept

Tue, Jan 18th 2022 6:38am — Karl Bode

"According to the YouMail Robocall Index, there were 3.6 billion U.S. robocalls placed last December, or 115 million robocalls placed every single day. That's 4.8 million calls placed every hour. Despite the periodic grumble, it's wholly bizarre that we've just come to accept the fact that essential communications platforms have been hijacked by conmen, salesmen, and debt collectors, and we're somehow incapable of doing anything about it.

it’s wild we’ve come to accept as a fact of life that neither the government nor the multibillion dollar telecoms it’s apparently beholden to can do anything at all to stop our super high-tech communications networks from being totally overrun by scams everyday, nonstop.

— Dell Cameron (@dellcam) January 11, 2022

Every 6-12 months or so the federal government comes out with a "new plan to finally tackle robocalls," yet the efforts only frequently make a small dent in the problem. One reason why is that each time the federal government unveils a new plan, it focuses exclusively on scammers. Said plan (and therefore the entire press coverage of said plan) discusses robocalls as if it's only something velour track suit clad dudes in Florida strip malls are engaging in.

Folks like Margot Saunders of the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) has testified before Congress for years about how the biggest robocallers are often legitimate companies, usually selling you services you don't want, or harassing people they know can't pay overdue bills with sometimes hundreds of calls per day. The group notes that as of last month, scammers continued to make up the minority of overall robocalls:

The issue has long been that the marketing and financial industries doesn't want any of this to change, and their influence on Congress, regulators, and policymakers generally means that solutions carve out large loopholes in rules that weaken their effectiveness. And their influence on the courts has consistently eroded what agencies like the FCC can do about much of it. Last April, a Supreme Court ruling (Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid) effectively nullified the Telephone Consumer Protection Act's ban on autodialed calls and texts to cell phones without your consent.

So folks like Saunders keep pointing out while we have a patchwork array of rules that sometimes limit pre-recorded robocalls, the rules governing annoying spam texts or live robocalls are negligible at best:

"A lot of the live calls that are survey calls and debt collection calls to cell phones that are so annoying to people are made with automated dialers,” Saunders said. “There is at the moment no way of controlling those calls unless the called party individually blocks the caller."  [...]