:ooooo.

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At the beginning of March, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California announced a series of executive orders he hoped would help slow the spread, and subsequently mitigate the health impact, of COVID-19. One of those orders told Golden State residents to shelter-in-place. This order, set for two weeks, has been extended until May. Gov. Newsom has subsequently told residents that the process through which these public health safety measures will be loosened up is going to be deliberate, and done by degrees.

A study out of UC Davis in California says there is one silver lining to the shelter-in-place orders, though. According to researchers, the California highway patrol—who on average respond to more than 2,000 roadway “incidents” per day—have reported an enormous reduction in the daily rate of collisions. This means a lot less death and injury and a lot of public money saved.

UC Davis researchers found that the daily rate of collisions in California was cut in half after the order, and that cut closely matched the reduction in deaths and injuries connected to vehicular crashes. To this end, the study found that trauma centers reported a 40% reduction in people seen during this time, which includes pedestrians and cyclists involved in vehicular collisions. The savings to the public is estimated at about $40 million per day, adding up to around $1 billion in savings since the beginning of the shelter-in-place order.

What do you think about.this?

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Coronavirus patients taking hydroxychloroquine, a treatment touted by President Trump, were no less likely to need mechanical ventilation and had higher deaths rates compared to those who did not take the drug, according to a study of hundreds of patients at US Veterans Health Administration medical centers.

The study, which reviewed veterans’ medical charts, was posted Tuesday on medrxiv.org, a pre-print server, meaning it was not peer reviewed or published in a medical journal. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Virginia.

Essentially, the study found that some immune systems are less capable of recognizing the infection. This diminished ability to recognize the coronavirus can make a person more susceptible to developing symptoms in general, as well as more likely to experience severe symptoms that require hospitalization.

Getting down to the scientific specifics of the findings, the study focused on the immune system genes known as human leukocyte antigen genes. These genes are highly involved in the immune system’s ability to recognize pathogens, but they come in a variety of forms and vary from person to person.

The research team, from Oregon Health & Science University and the Portland VA Research Foundation, believe that HLA gene variations may make certain people more vulnerable to the coronavirus.

👽 A slap to health workers.

Fyodor R. Dawn Spelling

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Opening America. The President keeps teasing it in his daily propaganda, ego-stroke photo op. His sycophantic surrogates repeat the refrain on social media and in press releases. Soulless partisan television hosts pound us relentlessly with it. MAGA cult members protest mask-less and in close quarters for it.

This united offensive to quickly get Americans back to work, is all happening on days when we are losing over two thousand people a day, when we’ve eclipsed 644,000 confirmed cases, when 29,000 have died in the span of eight weeks.

And every single life that is threatened by this vicious, insidious illness—falls squarely on the shoulders of healthcare workers and first responders: doctors, nurses, EMTs, lab technicians, hospital staff, police officers, firefighters.

For weeks they have labored without sleep, without rest, without enough masks to protect themselves, without enough tests to identify the relentless flood of sick people in their midst, without enough ventilators to keep the gravely ill alive; continually stepping into harm’s way to attend to this unprecedented national emergency.