đEuropeâs largest economy is looking to make its post-virus recovery compatible with its ambition of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050.
The EU has similarly pledged to make its stimulus plan aligned with its climate commitments.
Germanyâs green energy shift may get a financial shot in the arm when the impact of the coronavirus ebbs, according to a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkelâs cabinet.
When the virusâ acute phase is over, the government plans a stimulus package that advances the nation technologically and helps the economyâs move toward climate neutrality, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said in an interview with Funke Mediengruppe. Such a package âmakes sense,â said the Social Democrat without adding details.
The global race to make a vaccine and treatment for the Covid-19 coronavirus is well underway as the epicenter of the pandemic is now shifting toward the United States.
Many of the vaccine and drug development efforts are building on past efforts to deal with other viral outbreaks, including coronaviruses like MERS and SARS â which means researchers had a head start with Covid-19. In the US, a phase 1 clinical trial of a vaccine is already underway.
The military branches are requiring troops to make their own cloth face masks after the Pentagonâs latest policy directed face coverings for all personnel during the novel coronavirus outbreak.
The Defense Department announced Sunday that troops, DoD civilian employees, contractors and family members are encouraged to make simple coverings out of clean T-shirts and other household materials. The do-it-yourself face coverings are mandatory whenever people cannot maintain six feet of social distance in public areas or places of work, according to the policy, signed by Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
The DIY masks will help preserve much-needed N95 and surgical masks for health care workers, the policy states.
Dr. Derek Yach, Founder, President, and Board Member of The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), joined me on ideaXme (http://radioideaxme.com/) to discuss his groupâs work in the core areas of Agriculture and Livelihoods, Industry Transformation, and Health, Science, and Technology (Disclosure â FSFW is funded ~$US1 Billion by Philip Morris International, but take a listen to full storyâŠ) â #Ideaxme #Smoking #Vaping #Tobacco #Cessation #AlternativeUses #HarmReduction #WHO #CDC #Health #Wellness #Longevity #Biotechnology #LifeExtension #Aging #IraPastor #Bioquark #Regenerage World Health Organization (WHO) CDC CDC Global United Nations Philip Morris International.
Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador and founder of Bioquark, interviews Dr. Derek Yach, founder, president, and board member of The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, and passionate advocate for health promotion and disease prevention. Dr Yachâs objective is to end smoking in this generation. We investigated to see how that might be achieved.
Disclosure: The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World has received its initial funding pledge of $80 million USD annually for 12 years, beginning in 2018 from Philip Morris International (PMI) â The Foundation has a nonprofit status as a US 501c3 organization, and by law and policy must operate completely independently from PMI, and cannot engage in activities designed to support PMIâs interests. Further, PMI can have no involvement or say in their work.
Ira Pastor Comments:
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that we currently have over 1.1 billion smokers on earth, and that tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year. More than 7 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.
The Royal Society is to create a network of disease modelling groups amid academic concern about the nationâs reliance on a single group of epidemiologists at Imperial College London whose predictions have dominated government policy, including the current lockdown.
It is to bring in modelling experts from fields as diverse as banking, astrophysics and the Met Office to build new mathematical representations of how the coronavirus epidemic is likely to spread across the UK â and how the lockdown can be ended.
The first public signs of academic tensions over Imperialâs domination of the debate came when Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford University, published a paper suggesting that some of Imperialâs key assumptions could be wrong.
Greetings everyone, I am running a very unique digital conference time-slotted for participants in Asia, AUS, NZ etc on April 9, 5pm Sydney time, see details below, with 2 very well known Futurist colleagues, Ross Dawson and Shara Evans, on the Future of Work. We are using the Zoom platform again, and have room for up to 500 people; right now weâre at 280 signups but itâs filling up quickly so please sign up soonest:)
Quantum computers will revolutionize information technology, ushering in an era where certain types of calculations will be performed with almost unimaginable speed. Practical applications will include healthcare disciplines such as molecular biology and drug discovery; big data mining; financial services such as portfolio analysis and fraud detection; and artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The federal government is helping to create an environment in which quantum computing innovation and experimentation can flourish. The National Quantum Initiative Act puts $1.2 billion into the quantum research budgets of the Energy Department, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NASA and the National Science Foundation. The law also outlines a 10-year plan to accelerate the development of quantum information science and technology applications.
Meanwhile, The White Houseâs Office of Science and Technology Policy is working to ensure that economic growth opportunities and opportunities for improving the world are baked into quantum policies and systems.
Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who created the highly-cited Imperial College London coronavirus model, which has been cited by organizations like The New York Times and has been instrumental in governmental policy decision-making, offered a massive revision to his model on Wednesday.
Fergusonâs model projected 2.2 million dead people in the United States and 500,000 in the U.K. from COVID-19 if no action were taken to slow the virus and blunt its curve.
However, after just one day of ordered lockdowns in the U.K., Ferguson is presenting drastically downgraded estimates, revealing that far more people likely have the virus than his team figured. Now, the epidemiologist predicts, hospitals will be just fine taking on COVID-19 patients and estimates 20,000 or far fewer people will die from the virus itself or from its agitation of other ailments, as reported by New Scientist Wednesday.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an American oncologist and bioethicist who is senior fellow at the Center for American Progress as well as Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, said on MSNBC on Friday, March 20, that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told him it would probably take 8â10 weeks to get ventilator production started at his factories (heâs working on this at Tesla and SpaceX).
I reached out to Musk for clarification on that topic and he replied that, âWe have 250k N95 masks. Aiming to start distributing those to hospitals tomorrow night. Should have over 1000 ventilators by next week.â With medical supplies such as these being one of the biggest bottlenecks and challenges at the moment in the COVID-19 response in the United States (as well as elsewhere) â something that is already having a very real effect on medical professionals and patient care â the support will surely be received with much gratitude. That said, while there has been much attention put on the expected future need for ventilators, very few places reportedly have a shortage of them right now. In much greater need at the moment are simpler supplies like N95 masks, which must be why Tesla/SpaceX is providing 250,000 of them.
Dr. Emanuel also said in the segment of MSNBCâs âMorning Joeâ he was on that we probably need 8â12 weeks (2â3 months) of social distancing in the US in order to deal with COVID-19 as a society. However, he also expects that the virus will come back and weâll basically have a roller coaster of âsocial restrictions, easing up, social restrictions, easing up ⊠to try to smooth out the demand on the health care system.â
