Last month, an announcement by Iran’s news agencies’ on the successful treatment of COVID-19 patients appears to have slipped beneath the radar. Unusually, contrary to customary reporting, the names of the drugs and the treatment were withheld. Has Iran found a cure for COVID-19? Dr James Freeman investigates

What next?

Urgent further investigation seems warranted, so my call to action is for researchers worldwide to add this seemingly proven combination to the array of medications we are looking to re-purpose. It would, I think, be sad if a cure was right under our noses but we refused to research/use it because Iran found it first. While these results suggest the cure we’ve all been hoping for may, in fact, exist, we need to urgently independently revalidate these trials across the world. To aid that, any researcher who wants Sofosbuvir/Daclatasvir to trial against COVID-19, is welcome to contact the author who will provide the medication free-of-charge on the sole proviso that the results, good are bad, are published.

FAKE NEWS

 

IS THIS RISK REALLY WORTH TAKING, JUST TO SAVE YOUR JOB, YOUR SAVINGS, YOUR HOME, YOUR SANITY?

Yesterday your chance of being one of the people newly infected by the coronavirus was about 1 in 4 million. SO DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOME!!  

Not everyone demonstrating against the lockdown is trying to save the "economy" but are trying to save themselves. The canary in the coalmine is much the same. The right and Murdoch media are trying to take political advantage of this in claiming that a return to work now is necessary now to save jobs and the "economy". However, what it is is really needed is for the "economy" to change and change with people in mind. COVID-19 has shown us the need for a guaranteed Universal Health System. Australia's success people say is because we partially have one. I say partially because the LNP has been doing the best to dismantle it all these years prior to COVID. We have Centrelink and a Welfare  System that blames the recipients for the inability of the current "economic" system to serve them "us". Trying to squeeze 750k people into 150k jobs is an impossibility and calling those that don't make it bludgers is dividing us and turning our personal hell into other people. They are the canary in the coalmine struggling when in fact the "economy" we are in is failing us.

The ALP in the face of COVID-19  can't allow the IPA News Corp and the Bolt's of this world take the lead by demanding workers be allowed to risk their lives and that the Morrison government has slipped to the left and become too "socialist" with their job keeper and stimulus packages which are missing millions.  They can't be allowed to promote "going back" rather than forward. The fact is they haven't been loud enough calling for the need of a UBI which has been a long time coming. A Universal Basic Income is necessary because the jobs aren't simply there and won't be there after COVID. 

Everyone would have a choice to stay at home like Andrew Bolt and have the right to be as unproductive as he is.  


LABOR DEMANDS MORE OF WHAT'S KILLING US

He wants more of the government intervention that actually caused those jobs losses in the first place: "Anthony Albanese has fired the opening salvo in the battle over how the economy should be managed in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, saying significant government intervention will be required to avoid massive job losses."
23/04/2020 
 

 The Left Can’t Just Dismiss the Anti-Lockdown Protest

Albanese is perfectly right  while Bolt is perfectly wrong

Trump's call which he's since backed down on "Liberate" is Bolt decrying government intervention is not his life but the life of workers struggling at the moment. Has Bolt asked Australian workers no! The majority of us approve of the government's intervention. Bolt wants us to go back to normal what was not what should now be. Mind you has anyone seen Bolt not practising social distancing and isolation not being the hypocrite? The protesters if any here in Australia are like the "Proud Boys" in the USA right-wing agitators. However, some are justified to show their concern worried because of government intervention failing to assist them.
Some of this frustration is a case of the Canary in the coalmine. The Canary protests before it dies too. These are Trump's expendables protesting the failure of Trump's People's Bailout measures which actually favour the major Corporate controlled Industries Oil, Airlines and Hotels. The $500 billion shouldn't just be a temporary measure and trickle down to insufficiently placate the needy but like universal health should be a sign that a Universal Basic Income is necessary. (ODT)
While supporters of the protests are a distinct minority, that might not last. The longer the lockouts last without a mass bailout for workers, the more ordinary people will be inclined to side with the protesters. Progressives and democratic socialists need to make the case that there’s a third alternative to business-as-usual centrists running the states Trump wants to “liberate” and the cynical demagogues who want to feed low-income workers to the capitalist death machine by prematurely ending the lockouts. Fortunately, the two can be separated by means of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) combined with a complete rent freeze that made sure no one had to pay back rent when they returned to work.
With a UBI-plus-rent-freeze, even truly essential workers would have the financial security to refuse to go back to any workplace that hadn’t been certified by representatives of the workers themselves as sufficiently safe. They could fall back on their UBI payments until this demand had been met. And with everyone getting an unconditional monthly check, public and private employers would have to provide those workers with decent pay and conditions to make sure that workers continued to show up to perform these essential functions.
The pandemic can be an opportunity for the Left if we’re prepared to fight for bold measures. But the anti-lockdown protests should serve as a warning that much more sinister forces will flourish if we do not.