Today's News: August 26, 2020

Drop in Brazilian coronavirus cases prompts herd immunity questions
Scientists question whether herd immunity could be reached at rates lower than 20%
Fox – An unexpectedly positive turn for Brazilian cities once plagued with the coronavirus pandemic is raising fresh questions about herd immunity.
A new report in The Washington Post described how the impoverished city of Manaus saw hospitalizations plummet even though it had never imposed a lockdown or taken the other drastic containment measures imposed in Asia and Europe. It’s also testing far more residents than it once did.
Initially, medical experts believed that between 60% and 70% of the population needed to develop antibodies to reach collective immunity, but Manaus never got past 20%. And the Amazonian city of 2 million suffered three times as many deaths as normal in the spring.
ALL hospitals declared free of Covid-19 patients in Beijing
RT – In a promising development, the last remaining coronavirus patients have been discharged from the hospital in the Chinese capital, where “wartime-like” quarantine measures were in force just two months ago.
No hospital in Beijing is now dealing with Covid-19 cases, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday. The last two patients, who were being treated at the Beijing Ditan Hospital, were sent home the day before.
One of these cases was attributed to a spike in coronavirus infections in the northeastern city of Dalian, while another caught the contagion abroad, the city health authorities said. Meanwhile, no new locally transmitted or asymptomatic cases were recorded throughout the Chinese capital, home to 21.5 million people.
Likewise, no new Covid-19 cases were transmitted locally within mainland China. A total of 15 infections originating from abroad were registered on Tuesday. So far, the country has reported almost 90,000 cases and over 4,700 deaths.
The first Covid-19 cases were discovered in Daxing, one of Beijing’s districts, earlier in January, with the virus quickly spreading through the capital. City authorities put in place a strict lockdown, at first considered draconian, that lasted until the summer, when some of the restrictions were gradually lifted.
Missing Fort Hood soldier’s body found hanging in tree
CBS – The body of a missing soldier is believed to have been found about 30 miles from Fort Hood, the Army base in Texas where he was stationed, police said Tuesday.
Identification found with the body in Temple, Texas, indicated the man may be missing Fort Hood soldier Sgt. Elder Fernandes, according to a statement from local police. Forensic confirmation was pending.
Fernandes is the third soldier from Fort Hood to go missing in the past year, and two have been found dead this summer.
Temple police received a medical call at 5:36 p.m. saying a male had been seen near some railroad tracks, according to the statement. When officers arrived, they determined the man was dead.
Foul play isn’t suspected, police said, but the investigation is ongoing. An autopsy has been ordered.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Fernandes family during this challenging time,” Temple Police Chief Shawn Reynolds said.
Natalie Khawam, an attorney representing the Fernandes family, said Army police told family members about the discovery late Tuesday night. She said the body was found hanging in a tree.
Fernandes’ backpack was with him, Khawam said, and police found the 23-year-old man’s driver’s license inside.
Fernandes was reported missing by Killeen and U.S. Army police on Aug. 19 after he was last seen on Aug. 17, when officials said a superior dropped him off at his house. Fort Hood said in a statement over the weekend that Fernandes had transferred units after reporting sexual abuse, an Army official said in a statement.
Fort Hood officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. The Army and the Fernandes family, from Brockton, Massachusetts, had asked the public for help in finding the missing soldier.
Foul play is not suspected, police said, but the investigation is ongoing. An autopsy has been ordered.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Fernandes family during this challenging time,” Temple Police Chief Shawn Reynolds said.
Natalie Khawam, who is representing the Fernandes family, said Army police told family members about the discovery late Tuesday night. She said the body was found hanging in a tree.
71 arrested in Louisville protests
The Hill – A total of 71 people were arrested during protests over Breonna Taylor’s death, police in Louisville, Ky., told The Hill on Wednesday.
Robert Schroeder, the interim chief for the Louisville Metro Police Department, said during a press briefing Tuesday evening that the demonstrations were “largely peaceful.” But he added that demonstrators blocked different streets for several minutes and “crossed several intersections, creating dangerous situations as traffic continued to try to make its way in the area.”
“At several points, officers gave directions to stay on the sidewalks and protesters were also given the opportunity to turn around and leave the area,” he said. “Those that did not were eventually arrested.”
Schroeder also said during the briefing that those arrested had been charged with obstructing the roadway and disorderly conduct.
“We want to respect the right for people to express their First Amendment rights, but we also have to ensure public safety for the whole community and the protesters themselves,” he added. “We said we would not allow traffic … to be completely obstructed or unsafe conditions to develop.”
The demonstrations come several months after police carrying out a “no-knock” warrant shot and killed Taylor, an aspiring nurse, after her boyfriend fired a warning shot, reportedly thinking the officers were intruders. Tuesday’s protest had been expected to be one of the largest since her death in March, CNN reported.
Protesters, who came from Florida, Michigan and New York, joined the crowd and called for charges against the officers involved. Signs saying “convict police” and “Black Lives Matter” were visible among the crowd, according to CNN.
WEEKEND: Berlin bans protests against anti-virus measures
AP – Germany will end mandatory coronavirus tests for travelers returning from high-risk areas abroad and again focus its testing strategy on people with symptoms or possible exposure to COVID-19 patients, the country’s health minister said Wednesday.
Health Minister Jens Spahn said that over the summer vacation period the number of virus tests performed in Germany nearly doubled, to 900,000 per week, in part to identify people who caught the virus during trips abroad.
People coming home from coronavirus risk areas were offered free tests at airports, train stations and highway stops, allowing them to cut short the required two-week quarantine if their result came back negative.
Travelers returning from high-risk areas, which include most countries outside the European Union and some regions inside the bloc, will in the future be required to go into mandatory quarantines for at least five days before taking a test, which may no longer be free unless ordered by a doctor.
“With the end of the vacation period … this risk is going down again,” Spahn told reporters in Berlin. “We have to focus more on patients with symptoms and those who had contact with COVID patients.”
Spahn did not say when exactly the testing strategy would change, but it is likely that that decision will be made at a meeting on Thursday between Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country’s 16 state governors.
The change in the country’s testing strategy is also due to Germany’s labs reaching the limits of their capacities, Spahn said.
The operators of Frankfurt Airport, Germany’s biggest, criticized the decision to focus on quarantining, rather than testing travelers.
Stefan Schulte, the chief executive of Fraport, said the move amounted to a second lockdown for the airline and travel industries. He called on the government to instead improve the existing system of testing travelers from high-risk areas rather than to dismantled it again.
WAR IN WISCONSIN: Gun battle on streets of Kenosha… Two dead, one wounded in clashes between militia, BLM
Daily Mail – Two people have been killed and another wounded on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin during a third night of unrest as dramatic videos captured a gunman shooting at protesters during clashes with militia following a wave of looting.
The shootings were reported at about 11.45pm after police drove away protesters from in front of a courthouse that has been the site of the main clashes between protesters and authorities.
Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said one victim was shot in the head and another was shot in the chest. Footage from the scene showed another man was shot in the arm and authorities later said his injuries were not believed to be life threatening.
Panic broke out after the man was shot in the head outside an auto garage. It is not yet clear what happened in the lead up to this initial shooting.
Cellphone video posted online showed a white man with a semi-automatic rifle running away in the moments after the gunshots rang out, saying ‘I’ve just killed somebody’.
Onlookers were filmed desperately trying to put pressure on the injured man’s head wound with a t-shirt as they yelled: ‘we’ve got to keep him alive’.
‘Put pressure, put pressure,’ one person said, while another yelled: ‘You’ve got to keep him alive.’
Separate videos that captured the other two shootings showed a group of protesters tailing the gunman as he ran down the middle of the street. Someone in the crowd can be heard asking ‘What did he do?’ and another responds that the man had shot someone.
American Airlines to Lay Off Another 19,000 Workers
Sputnik – American Airlines will lay off another 19,000 employees on 1 October as a result of the pandemic-induced decline in demand, Chief Executive Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said in a letter.
“We have come to you many times throughout the pandemic, often with sobering updates on a world none of us could have imagined. Today is the hardest message we have had to share so far,” the letter, posted by CBS’s WSUA9, said on Tuesday. “Approximately 19,000 of our team members will be involuntarily furloughed or separated from the company on Oct. 1.”
HURRICANE LAURA CAT 4 AT LANDFALL?
AP – Hurricane Laura rapidly gained strength on Wednesday, forecast to become an “extremely powerful Category 4 hurricane” when it strikes Texas and Louisiana. Officials implored coastal residents to flee before it’s too late.
Satellite images show Laura’s remarkable intensification into “a formidable hurricane” that can smash homes and sink entire communities with a storm surge reaching as high as 20 feet (6.10 meters), the National Hurricane Center said.
“Some areas, when they wake up Thursday morning, they’re not going to believe what happened,” said Stacy Stewart, a senior hurricane specialist.
“We could see storm surge heights more than 15 feet in some areas,” Stewart said. “What doesn’t get blown down by the wind could easily get knocked down by the rising ocean waters pushing well inland.”
Christians denounce QAnon as ‘cult,’ ‘satanic movement’
The Christian Post – Some Christian leaders, including a couple of prominent conservative evangelicals, have denounced the conspiracy theory movement gaining traction in conservative circles known as QAnon.
Created by an anonymous online figure in 2017, QAnon claims that President Donald Trump is in a war with a “Deep State” government, battling entities like elitist pedophile rings and satanism.
The conspiracy alleges that a Satan-worshipping “deep state” faction that includes A-list celebrities is working to defeat Trump and engage in child sex abuse.
Since its launching, the QAnon conspiracy theories have reportedly garnered growing support among some evangelical churchgoers and other mostly conservative communities. It has also gained notable supporters such as a Georgia congressional candidate and a U.S. Senate candidate in Oregon.
QAnon has gotten enough traction to be addressed by Vice President Mike Pence in an interview on CBS’ “CBS This Morning.”
MELANIA REPORTING FOR DUTY!
Melania Trump pleads for an end to ‘looting’ in convention spe
Daily Mail – Melania argued for President Donald Trump’s bid for a second term in a speech designed to appeal to female voters on Tuesday night – but also spoke at length on race and coronavirus, setting a strikingly different tone from her husband.
She painted herself as a wife and a mother during her 26-minute remarks, which outlined the reasons women should vote for President Trump in November and addressed the areas where female voters rate him as weak, the coronavirus pandemic and race relations.
And unusually she intervened directly in unfolding events, as violence flared for a second night in Kenosha, WI, in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, left paralyzed after being shot seven times in the back.
New Research Confirms Statins Are Colossal Waste of Money
Mercola – The lecturer in the featured video, Maryanne Demasi, Ph.D., produced the 2014 Australian Catalyst documentary, “Heart of the Matter: Dietary Villains,” which exposed the cholesterol/saturated fat myths behind the statin fad and the financial links which lurk underneath.
The documentary was so thorough that vested interests actually convinced ABC TV to rescind the two-part series.1 The Australian Heart Foundation, the three largest statin makers (Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Merck Sharp & Dohme) and Medicines Australia, Australia’s drug lobby group, complained2 and got the documentary expunged from ABC TV.
Cholesterol and saturated fat have been the villains of heart disease for the past four decades, despite the many studies showing neither has an adverse effect on heart health.
The entire food industry shifted away from saturated fat and cholesterol, ostensibly to improve public health, and the medical industry has massively promoted the use of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs for the same reason. Despite all of that, the rate of heart disease deaths continues to be high.3 That really should tell us something.
Statins Are a Colossal Waste of Money
Since the release of Demasi’s documentary, the evidence against the cholesterol theory and statins has only grown. As noted in an August 4, 2020, op-ed by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, a general practitioner with the British National Health Service:4
“New research shows that the most widely prescribed type of drug in the history of medicine is a waste of money. One major study found that the more ‘bad’ cholesterol was lowered, the greater the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost every other medical condition has been shoved onto the sidelines. However, in the UK last year, heart attacks and strokes (CVD) killed well over 100,000 people — which is at least twice as many as have died from COVID-19.
CVD will kill just as many this year, which makes it significantly more important than COVID-19, even if no one is paying much attention to it right now.”
According to a scientific review5 published online August 4, 2020, in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, lowering LDL is not going to lower your risk of heart disease and stroke. “Decades of research has failed to show any consistent benefit for this approach,” the authors note.
Since the commercialization of statin drugs in the late ’80s (lovastatin being the first one, gaining approval in 19876), total sales have reached nearly $1 trillion.7,8Lipitor — which is just one of several brand name statin drugs — was named the most profitable drug in the history of medicine.9,10 Yet these drugs have done nothing to derail the rising trend of heart disease.
>> Power Mall Product of Interest: Strauss Heartdrops
Many Thyroid Cancer Ultrasounds Unnecessary
Newsmax -As many as one-third of doctors may be sending patients for a thyroid ultrasound for reasons not supported by guidelines, a new study finds.
The use of ultrasound to detect thyroid cancer has led to a large increase in thyroid cancer cases, but many of these cancers are low-risk and won’t cause serious harm, the study authors explained.
For the study, the researchers questioned 610 surgeons, endocrinologists and primary care doctors involved in thyroid cancer care.
Most doctors said they used ultrasound for reasons that are supported by guidelines, such as a large nodule that can be felt or one seen on another imaging test.
But 33% said they prescribed an ultrasound because the patient wanted it and 28% said an abnormal thyroid function test influenced their decision.
“This study is the first to look at why physicians are using thyroid ultrasound for patients. While often it’s for clinically relevant reasons, a substantial number of physicians are not ordering them for reasons that are clinically supported,” said researcher Dr. Megan Haymart. She’s a professor of internal medicine at Michigan Medicine, in Ann Arbor.