Clots, Strokes And Rashes. Is COVID-19 A Disease Of The Blood Vessels?
November 5, 202012:02 PM ET
By Will Stone

Whether it's strange rashes on the toes or blood clots in the brain, the widespread ravages of COVID-19 have increasingly led researchers to focus on how the novel coronavirus sabotages the body's blood vessels.

As scientists have come to know the disease better, they have homed in on the vascular system — the body's network of arteries, veins and capillaries, stretching more than 60,000 miles — to understand this wide-ranging disease and to find treatments that can stymie its most pernicious effects.

Some of the earliest insights into how COVID-19 can act like a vascular disease came from studying the aftermath of the most serious infections. Those reveal that the virus warps a critical piece of our vascular infrastructure: the single layer of cells lining the inside of every blood vessel, known as the endothelial cells or simply the endothelium.

Read more @ https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/05/917317541/clots-strokes-and-rashes-is-covid-19-a-disease-of-the-blood-vessels

Eta back to sea as Central America tallies damages and dead
As the remnants of Hurricane Eta moved back over Caribbean waters, governments worked to tally the displaced and dead and recover bodies from landslides and flooding that claimed dozens of lives from Guatemala to Panama
By CLAUDIO ESCALÓN and SONIA PÉREZ D. Associated Press
November 5, 2020, 10:02 PM


SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras -- As the remnants of Hurricane Eta moved back over Caribbean waters, governments in Central America worked to tally the displaced and dead, and recover bodies from landslides and flooding that claimed dozens of lives from Guatemala to Panama.

It will be days before the true toll of Eta is known. Its torrential rains battered economies already strangled by the COVID-19 pandemic, took all from those who had little and laid bare the shortcomings of governments unable to aid their citizens and pleading for international assistance.

Shortly after Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández asked neighboring Guatemala for help rescuing residents stranded near their shared border Thursday, Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said at least 50 people had been killed in landslides in his own country, most of them in a remote town rescuers struggled to reach. Guatemala’s national emergency agency later said only that at least 50 people were missing in San Cristobal Verapaz.

Read more @ https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/eta-back-sea-central-america-tallies-damages-dead-74053436

The FDA's cutoff for Covid-19 vaccine effectiveness is 50 percent. What does that mean?
No vaccine is 100 percent effective, but some work better than others.
Nov. 3, 2020, 2:58 AM MST
By Jacqueline Stenson

Over the summer, the Food and Drug Administration announced that in order for an experimental Covid-19 vaccine to get the green light, it would need to be safe and “prevent disease or decrease its severity in at least 50 percent of people who are vaccinated.”

In fact, no vaccine is 100 percent effective, but some work better than others. One of the most successful is the measles vaccine — two doses are 97 percent effective in preventing the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Still, 50 percent sounds like a far cry from 97 percent.

“I know that 50 percent does sound low but that is still some protection, and some protection is better than no protection,” said Dr. Jeff Kwong, professor of public health and family medicine and interim director of the Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases at the University of Toronto.

Read more @ https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-s-cutoff-covid-19-vaccine-effectiveness-50-percent-what-n1245506

Denmark plans to cull 15 million minks after coronavirus mutation spreads to humans
The country's prime minister said the mutated virus, found on mink farms, "may pose a risk to the effectiveness of a future vaccine."
Nov. 4, 2020, 4:20 PM EST
By Minyvonne Burke and Reuters

Denmark plans to cull its entire population of roughly 15 million minks in farms after the animals spread a mutation of the coronavirus to humans.

The country's prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said at a press conference Wednesday that the mutated virus could spread to other countries and it "may pose a risk to the effectiveness of a future vaccine."

“We have a great responsibility towards our own population, but with the mutation that has now been found, we have an even greater responsibility for the rest of the world as well,” she said.

Read more @ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1246445

Norway’s Supreme Court Hears Rights Challenge to Arctic Oil Drilling
Environmental groups argue that exploratory drilling licenses violate a constitutional right to a healthy environment. It’s a test case taking on an industry that is key to the country’s economy.
By Henrik Pryser Libell and Isabella Kwai
Nov. 5, 2020
Updated 3:21 a.m. ET

OSLO, Norway — The Norwegian Constitution declares that all citizens have the right to a healthy environment. But Norway’s economy is built around an oil and gas industry that accounts for more than half of national exports.

Now the country’s Supreme Court is being asked to confront this apparent paradox, as it hears a challenge by environmental groups seeking to invalidate licenses for new oil exploration in the Arctic on constitutional grounds.

The case, which began on Wednesday before a bench of 15 voting Supreme Court judges — a procedure reserved for the most significant issues — is the first climate-change litigation to be brought under the Constitution’s environmental provisions, which were passed in 2014, and experts said it was unclear how the judges would rule.

Read more @ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/world/europe/norway-supreme-court-climate-change.html

New Jersey signs strongest plastic and paper bag ban in US
Gov. Phil Murphy has banned single-use plastic and paper food items at stores and restaurants.By Alexandra Kelley | Nov. 04, 2020

On Nov. 4, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed the strongest single-use bag ban in the nation, effectively prohibiting the use of single-use plastic and paper bags in all stores and food service establishments across the state.

The bill, S864, was introduced into the New Jersey state Senate with five primary sponsors, including Sens. Bib Smith, Linda Greenstein, and Nancy Pinkin, all Democrats. It traveled through several committees before being passed on Sept. 24.

Some of the containers affected by the ban include plastic carryout bags, single-use paper carryout bags, polystyrene foam food service products (commonly known as Styrofoam), as well as the limited usage of plastic drinking straws.

Read more @ https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/524531-new-jersey-signs-strongest-plastic-and-paper-bag