The Pandemic Informer

Market recovery is contingent on a COVID-19 vaccine before year-end

Exactly seven weeks before Election Day and two weeks before the first presidential debate, President Donald Trump faced uncommitted voters in a 90-minute town hall special hosted by ABC News from the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos anchored the “20/20” event — “The President and the People” — from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The forum provided uncommitted voters, the opportunity to ask the president their questions on issues affecting Americans from the coronavirus pandemic and economic recovery to protests for racial justice. ABC News offered to host a similar town hall with Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden, but ABC News and the campaign were not able to find a mutually agreeable date.

Big landlords increased the number of eviction cases they filed after President Donald Trump announced his recent moratorium, signaling the struggle tenants face getting protection from the federal order. Institutional landlords filed more than 900 eviction cases across eight metropolitan areas from Sept. 2 to Sept. 8, according to data compiled by Private Equity Stakeholder Project, an activist group partly funded by organized labor. Landlords filed 165 cases in the same markets during the week of Aug. 3. Fears of an evictions crisis have swirled since expanded unemployment benefits and an original moratorium included in the federal CARES Act expired, with advocates worrying that millions of Americans will lose their homes. The Trump ban, enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to avert homelessness during a pandemic, was seen by tenant advocates as a way to delay evictions. But it provides no funding to cover unpaid rent, putting both landlords and tenants at risk and making it difficult to avert a rental crisis. “We’re quite surprised by the number of filings we saw,” Jim Baker, executive director at the Private Equity Shareholder Project, said in an interview. “What’s striking is that we’re not talking about mom-and-pop landlords. We’re talking about gigantic companies.” A wide range of institutional landlords, defined as those that own thousands of units, brought eviction cases during the first week of September. That includes industry giants Starwood Capital Group and Invitation Homes and lesser-known companies like Onni Group, a Vancouver-based developer that manages more than 7,200 apartments. Tenants who complete necessary paperwork should be protected by the moratorium, but that leaves a big hole if they’re not aware of the legal steps required to get protection and very few have lawyers to help. Baker’s organization started compiling eviction data in April to determine whether landlords were complying with the original moratorium, which was limited to buildings with federally backed financing. The research covers 10 large counties covering parts of Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix and five other large metro areas, offering a glimpse into how landlords proceeded in the week after the moratorium was announced on Sept 1. Baker wasn’t expecting to see a jump in evictions because Trump’s new ban goes beyond the old one and applies to all rental buildings. In more than half of the 17 cities tracked by Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, cases filed by landlords of all sizes surged after the CARES Act moratorium effectively expired Aug. 24, said Peter Hepburn, a research fellow for the group. While some building owners may not have been aware of the new tenant protections, others “might have been hoping that they could get under the wire, or that the local courts might take a landlord-friendly approach to enforcement,” Hepburn said. Baker’s research shows eviction cases were still being brought to court Sept. 8, when Invitation Homes, which owns roughly 80,000 single-family rental houses, filed three cases. “We have been doing what the CDC order directs since early in the pandemic – working with our residents facing COVID-related financial hardships and offering a variety of payment options so they can stay in their homes,” the company said in a statement. “As always, we will continue to follow all government directives.” Starwood Capital and Onni Group didn’t respond to requests for comment. The increase in evictions during the first week of September highlights key challenges to implementing the ban, according to John Pollock, coordinator for the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, an organization that seeks to establish a right to legal representation for defendants in housing court. One problem, he said, is the form tenants have to fill out to get protection, attesting that they’re eligible.“The moratorium is obviously a good thing and it’s going to help people if they know it exists,” he said. “But they have to learn the thing exists, get a copy, fill it out properly and get it to their landlord before the landlord rams an eviction through the court.”

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can sometimes hijack brain cells, using the cells’ internal machinery to copy itself, according to a new study. The research, posted Sept. 8 to the preprint database bioRxiv, has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it provides evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can directly infect brain cells called neurons. Although the coronavirus has been linked to various forms of brain damage, from deadly inflammation to brain diseases known as encephalopathies, all of which can cause confusion, brain fog and delirium, there was little evidence of the virus itself invading brain tissue until now. To see whether SARS-CoV-2 could break into brain cells, the study authors examined autopsied brain tissue from three patients who died of COVID-19. They also conducted experiments in mice infected with COVID-19 and in organoids — groups of cells grown in a lab dish to mimic the 3D structure of brain tissue. “This study is the first to do an extensive analysis of SARS-CoV-2 [brain] infection using three models,” said Dr. Maria Nagel, a professor of neurology and ophthalmology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. In the organoids, the team found that the virus could enter neurons through the ACE2 receptor, a protein on the cell surface that the virus uses to enter the cell and trigger infection. They then used an electron microscope, which uses beams of charged particles to illuminate the tissue, to peer inside infected cells. They could see coronavirus particles “budding” within the cell, demonstrating that the virus had commandeered the neurons’ internal machinery to build new copies of itself. While setting up shop in infected cells, the virus also caused metabolic changes in nearby neurons, which were not infected. These nearby cells died off in large numbers, suggesting that the infected cells might steal oxygen from their neighbors in order to keep producing new virus, the authors noted. in the autopsied tissue, the team found SARS-CoV-2 had infected some neurons in the wrinkled cerebral cortex. Near these infected cells, they found evidence of “small strokes” having taken place, hinting that the virus might steal oxygen from nearby cells in the brain just as it did in the organoids, Iwasaki said. Notably, the infected brain tissue was not flooded with immune cells, as might be expected. So it’s possible that when SARS-CoV-2 manages to infiltrate the brain, it may somehow escape the body’s typical defense against such invasions. It’s not yet known how this unusual immune response might affect the course of the infection, but it may make the virus more difficult to clear from the brain. And though few immune cells flock to the site of infection, dying neurons nearby can trigger a chain-reaction in the nervous system that still leads to harmful inflammation, the authors noted.

Finally, in the mouse experiments, the authors genetically modified one group of mice to express human ACE2 receptors in their brains, while another group of mice only bore the receptor in their lungs. The first set of mice rapidly began losing weight and died within six days, while the second set did not lose weight and survived. In addition, in the mice with brain infection, the arrangement of blood vessels in the brain changed dramatically, presumably to redirect nutrient-rich blood to “metabolically active hot spots” where the virus had taken over, the authors wrote. “Virus may be present in specific brain regions or may have more indirect effects on neurological function,” Nagel added. In particular, some patients experience symptoms reminiscent of chronic fatigue syndrome for months after their initial COVID-19 infection takes hold; it’s been suggested that the syndrome arises from changes in hormone function regulated by the specific parts of the brain, she noted. Another key question is whether the “virus affects the respiratory center in the brainstem — contributing to respiratory failure in critically-ill COVID patients,” she said. When scientists learned that COVID-19 can disrupt people’s ability to smell and taste, some theorized that the virus might infect the brain directly by traveling through nerves in the nose, Live Science previously reported. The virus may invade the brain through the nose, Iwasaki agreed, or it might enter through the bloodstream by crossing compromised regions of the blood-brain barrier — a wall of tissue that normally separates brain tissue from circulating blood and allows only certain substances through. Learning what route the virus takes into the brain will be key to preventing and treating the infection, the authors noted.

Originally published on Live Science.

(Bloomberg) — Policy makers are facing the most economically challenging part of the Covid-19 crisis in avoiding the creation of “zombie” companies, according to the Bank for International Settlements Ultra-easy monetary and fiscal support is helping companies avoid a liquidity crunch after the pandemic closed down businesses and demand collapsed. But that stance bears risks longer-term, said Claudio Borio, head of the Basel-based institution’s Monetary and Economic Department. “There’s a delicate balance to be struck between on the one hand withdrawing it too early, which will obliviously have short-term costs in terms of economic activity, and withdrawing it too late, which will mean that it will not favor necessary structural adjustments,” he said on Monday. Officials in Europe and the U.S. have unleashed unprecedented easing in response to the Covid-19 outbreak, which has pushed up equity markets even as economies face their deepest recession in decades. While the liquidity measures have helped companies stay afloat, there are concerns they may also be creating a swathe of uncompetitive firms that hold back investment and innovation. “The real challenge is to distinguish between viable and non-viable firms, which, given the uncertainty about future demand patterns, is not straightforward,” Borio said.

As the coronavirus continues to evolve and become more virulent, there are many unanswered questions as there have been no proper clinical or scientific studies that have been conducted on it yet with regards to its properties etc as the 2019-nCoV coronavirus only made its maiden debut in December 2019. There are questions about how long a virus such as the coronavirus, can survive outside a host ie on surfaces. The influenza virus can survive anything between 5 hours up to 7 days on an outside surface depending on the environment temperature and humidity whereas noroviruses that typically attack the gastrointestinal tract, can survive up to four weeks on surfaces even in hot and dry conditions and can withstand most disinfectants. Typically most respiratory viruses such as the coronavirus favour a cooler temperature. There have been no studies done so far on the new coronavirus or even on the SARS virus, its ‘close cousin’ with regards to how long it can survive outside on surfaces. It is wrong to assume that the coronavirus can only remain active for a few hours on the surface as suggested by one health organization via its online site, that is claiming it’s the leading source of information on the coronavirus when there is no scientific proof of that. In order to be safe, as we still do not really know how long these coronaviruses can survive on surfaces, its best to disinfect areas that have lots of contact with people whether or not they are showing signs of having been infected or not. One good way to do that is by deploying ozone gas.
Ozone gas has been proven to kill the SARS coronavirus and since the structure of the new 2019-nCoV coronavirus is almost identical to that of the SARS coronavirus, it is relatively safe to say that it will also work on the new coronavirus though it must be noted that there are no studies to date except one that is currently ongoing n China at the Institute of Virology In Hubei with regards to this. Progress of that study has shown that it works and the study should be concluded by the end of this week and officially published in the journal Virology. There are more than 17 scientific studies that show Ozone gas is able to destroy the SARS coronavirus.
Ozone is a naturally occurring gas created from oxygen atoms. The oxygen molecule is made up of 2 oxygen atoms. These oxygen molecules are broken into atoms by the corona discharge during lightning storms or by UV light from the Sun. Single oxygen atoms cannot exist alone without regrouping back into diatomic oxygen molecules. During this recombination stage, some atoms will regroup into loosely bonded tri-atomic oxygen. This new molecule is called Ozone or O3. Ozone generators are able to make ozone from normal air and are normally used as room disinfectants.
The antipathogenic effects of ozone have been substantiated for several decades. Its killing action upon bacteria, viruses, fungi, and in many species of protozoa, serve as the basis for its increasing use in disinfecting municipal water supplies in cities worldwide. Typically, viruses are small, independent particles, built of crystals and macromolecules. Unlike bacteria, they multiply only within the host cell. Ozone destroys viruses by diffusing through the protein coat into the nucleic acid core, resulting in damage of the viral RNA. At higher concentrations, ozone destroys the capsid or exterior protein shell by oxidation. Numerous families of viruses including poliovirus I and 2, human rotavirus, Norwalk virus, Parvoviruses, and Hepatitis A, B and non-A non-B are among many others that are susceptible to the virucidal actions of ozone. Most research efforts on ozone’s virucidal effects have centered upon ozone’s propensity to break apart lipid molecules at sites of multiple bond configuration. Indeed, once the lipid envelope of the virus is fragmented, its DNA or RNA core cannot survive. Non-enveloped viruses (Adenoviridae, Picornaviridae, namely poliovirus, Coxsachie, Echovirus, Rhinovirus, Hepatitis A and E, and Reoviridae (Rotavirus), have also begun to be studied. Viruses that do not have an envelope are called “naked viruses.” They are constituted of a nucleic acid core (made of DNA or RNA) and a nucleic acid coat, or capsid, made of protein. Ozone, however, aside from its well-recognized action upon unsaturated lipids, can also interact with certain proteins and their constituents, namely amino acids. Indeed, when ozone comes in contact with capsid proteins, protein hydroxides and protein hydroxides and protein hydroperoxides are formed. Viruses have no protections against oxidative stress. The enveloped viruses are usually more sensitive to physico-chemical challenges than are naked virions. Although ozone’s effects upon unsaturated lipids are one of its best-documented biochemical action, ozone is known to interact with proteins, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids. The new coronavirus is an enveloped virus. Typically ozone generators should only be used by trained personnel as ozone is dangerous to humans. It can destroy your cells lining your mouth, nasal pathways, and your lungs. It has the ability to cause cell mutations and cause cancer. And for those with the underlying disease, brief exposure to it can be dangerous. When using the small ozone generators for small room disinfection, make sure you have a timer and never be in the room when the machine is on. The machine should be operated with windows closed and no living thing in the room including pets for about 10 to 15 minutes. (these small machines have a lower ozone volume output, hence a longer time is preferred.) Do not go into the room for at last 3 hours and upon entering, wear a mask and open all windows and air the place for about 15 minutes first before stepping back in.

References:

Gérard V. Sunnen, SARS and Ozone Therapy: Theoretical Considerations, http://www.triroc.com/sunnen/topics/sars.html (2003)

Ozone therapy: A clinical review
A. M. Elvis and J. S. Ekta
J Nat Sci Biol Med. 2011 Jan-Jun; 2(1): 66–70.
doi: 10.4103/0976-9668.82319

SARS: CLEARING THE AIR
Jerome J. Schentag, Pharm. D., Charles Akers, Ph.D., Pamela Campagna, and Paul Chirayath.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92445/

Development of a Practical Method for Using Ozone Gas as a Virus Decontaminating Agent
James B. Hudson ,Manju Sharma &Selvarani Vimalanathan
Pages 216-223 | Received 30 Jun 2008, Accepted 26 Nov 2008, Published online: 27 May 2009, https://doi.org/10.1080/01919510902747969