NC A&T BIOLOGIST TELLS
TRUTH ABOUT COVID-19
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
We’ve seen many an expert doctor or scientist on television, lately explaining why, in their view, the novel coronavirus or COVID-19, is one of the most formidable biological infestations the world has ever had to deal with.
And virtually all of them have been either white, or from another country.
All but one, and his name is Dr. Joseph Graves, Jr., an African-American professor of Biological Sciences at NC A&T University in Greensboro.
Appearing earlier this week on the digital “Roland Martin Unfiltered” show, Dr. Graves - considered a widely published leading scholar in the social construction of race, and human aging - peeled back the mysteries of COVID-19, and warned that the mutating viral infestation is presenting more challenges than previously known, especially for poor communities of color.
CAN COVID-19 LIVE ON SURFACES FOR A PROLONGED PERIOD OF TIME?
Yes, says Dr. Graves, approximately up to 72 hours, so the key to handling boxes, containers or packages is maintaining personal sanitation - thoroughly washing both sides of your hands, in between fingers and nails with soap. If you get packaging in the mail, leave it and/or open it outside of your hime if you can, take out the contents and discard it afterwards. Certainly disinfect the contents if possible.
Even go so far as to empty the contents of a box of cereal, or packaged meat, into cleaned containers that you know and trust.
Best protection, Dr. Graves said, is to assume the worst when you come in contact with anything from outside your home, use soap and water religiously, and keep your hands clean after very handling. Make sure you never touch your nose or your eyes, key entry points for viral infections.
IS PLAIN SOAP AND WATER BETTER THAN ANTI-BACTERIAL CLEANERS FOR VIRAL DISINFECTING?
Yes, because anti-bacterial cleaners normally don’t work as well against viruses as soap and water does.
WHAT ARE MUTATING VIRUSES (LIKE COVID-19)?
Viruses are nonliving genetic codes that are wrapped inside of a protein shell, Dr. Graves says. They become rogue genetic codes that copy themselves at the expense of the host organism (humans in this case). The protein machinery that replicates the DNA, or RNA in the case of the coronavirus, is incapable of doing that perfectly. “Those mistakes we call mutations,” Graves says,”and that’s what drives the evolution of viruses.
“The viruses that have the ability to replicate inside of the cells of their hosts, are the ones that persist and go on to infect most hosts. And that’s simply the way all genetic systems work - replication, mutation, natural selection,” Dr. Graves continued, “And that’s what’s happening with the coronavirus.”
CAN VIRUSES BE STOPPED?
Viruses, like bacteria, naturally develop evolutionary resistances to anything created to control them. As long as there are plants, and animals (and humans), there will be viruses, says Dr. Graves. The problem comes when a new wave of viruses hits a specie…like the 1918 pandemic that killed 50 million worldwide, and now, the novel coronavirus, which Dr. Graves says “has [that] capacity.”
SOUTH KOREA AND THE UNITED STATES REPORTED THEIR FIRST CASES OF COVID-19 ON THE SAME DAY IN JANUARY, YET, WHILE SOUTH KOREA SEEMS TO HAVE GOTTEN IT’S PANDEMIC UNDER CONTROL DUE TO IMMEDIATE MEASURES TAKEN TO ADDRESS IT, THE UNITED STATES HAS NOT. WHY?
“Part of the reason why we were unprepared for this is because the administration that currently resides in Washington [D.C.], didn’t listen to scientists,” said Dr. Graves. “It has hampered the ability of scientists to do their job in regard to the danger that now the world is facing.”
THERE IS TALK FROM WASHINGTON, D.C. ABOUT ENDING MANY OF THE COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS LIKE SOCIAL DISTANCING, SOONER THAN LATER. PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS EVEN CITED EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 12TH. IF THAT HAPPENS, HOW CAN PEOPLE STILL KEEP THEMSELVES SAFE?
“What I said earlier in the program is always going to be your best friend with regard to personal sanitation (the thorough washing of hands with soap and water), being careful about what you touch, when you touch it, and going near your eyes and nose,” Dr. Graves said. “Even before this specific virus, that was always good practice.”
YOU AND OTHER SCIENTISTS HAVE BEEN WARNING FOR YEARS ABOUT COMING VIRAL PANDEMICS.
“This corona outbreak is just one of many that we’re going to experience, particularly as the human population grows, as more people are packed into less space,” says Dr. Graves. “We’ve created the conditions by which viruses and bacterial disease, have basically a windfall opportunity to spread themselves. So this is something that is not going away, so we need to change the way we live, and we need to do it soon.”
WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?
“One of the unintended side-effects of income inequality is creating a reservoir of …homeless people, and incarcerated people, who are always going to be the target of these viral and bacteria diseases, because of the conditions that they have to live in. But those people also come in contact with services where rich people are. So if [rich people] think they are going to be safe, you know, cloister themselves in their own communities, while allowing the majority of the [poor] people in this country to go homeless or under-employed, or thrown in jail, then they’ve got things absolutely wrong,” said Dr. Graves.” It’s even in their bet interest to have places or people to live…people with employment that is meaningful. It is important for us to end mass incarceration. Epidemiologically, it’s a terrible idea.”
HOW HAS COVID-19 EXPOSED THE WEAKNESSES WE HAVE IN OUR MEDICAL SYSTEM?
“We don’t have enough trained doctors. We don’t have enough hospital beds. We don’t have enough equipment, ventilators. Doctors in New York City are already making triage decisions about which patient gets a ventilator, and which does not.”
Dr. Graves continued,” Since the focus of our conversation is people of African descent in the United States and other underserved communities, these kind of tribulations are going to be visited more so in there health care infrastructure. The effect of this kind of pandemic is going to be even more devastating on the poorest people in this nation.”
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SEN. RICHARD BURR
SEN. BURR STOCK ALLEGATIONS
HOT POLITICAL ISSUE
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
It is one of those political scandals that has hit a deep nerve with everyone who is suffering from the impact the dreaded novel coronavirus has had on everyone’s lives.
North Carolina’s senior Republican U.S. Senator Richard Burr - chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and best known in the black community for blocking the nomination of former NC Supreme Court Associate Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson for the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals - allegedly used confidential information obtained from U.S. intelligence officials in mid-February about the projected dire impact COVID-19 would have on the American economy before the general public knew, and cashed out of an estimated $1.72 million in stock holdings before the stock market began to tumble shortly after.
Critics charge that Burr knew what was coming, and did not warn the American people at-large, but only a group of rich North Carolina business leaders, part of which was caught on a secret tape recording.
“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history. “ a voice identified as Burr is heard clearly saying. “It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
Once the full scope of the allegations became clear, even normally conservative allies, like Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, openly called for Sen. Burr’s head, demanding that “He must resign.”
Progressive NY Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has also demanded that Burr step down.
On Monday, a shareholder in Wyndham Hotels and Resorts sued Burr in federal court for “…[using] private information to motivate a mass liquidation of his assets. It is illegal for senators to use nonpublic information in conducting securities exchanges,” Politico reported.
A number of newspaper editorials across North Carolina have also called for Sen. Burr to resign.
Burr and aides in his Senate office have countered that he’s done nothing wrong, and have called for a Senate Ethics investigation. He is among four U.S. senators - three whole are Republicans, including the wife of the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange - accused of using their powerful political positions and access to intelligence briefings to benefit themselves right before the recent stock market downturn.
But Burr’s case has clearly drawn the most political fire.
“Senator Richard Burr knew coronavirus was going to hurt our country,” stated N.C. Rep. Yvonne Lewis Holley, Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor, in a recent campaign petition.
“But instead of taking action warn North Carolinians and prepare us before COVID-19 been top spread, he pulled over a million dollars out of the stock market - a week before it crashed.”
Rep. Lewis Holley’s campaign continued, “We know now that Burr was receiving daily classified briefings about the severity of the coronavirus pandemic. But when the trump administration claimed that the virus was confined, he kept quiet.”
“Join us to demand that Richard Burr resign immediately,” the campaign letter urged. “We need leaders with integrity that we can trust in these times. Add you name to tell Burr to step down. It is up to us to hold our elected officials accountable during this time of crisis.”
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REV, DR, CARDES BROWN, JR.
THE BLACK CHURCH’S ROLE
DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Confusion reigns across the nation as thousands of new COVID-19 cases are being reported; the national death rate climbs above 600; politicians angrily fight one another as the economy crumbles; and the president, against all scientific advice, vows to defeat the viral infestation in weeks, not months.
Incredibly, the elderly are being urged by the lieutenant governor of Texas to give their lives to save the nation’s economy; school systems and businesses are shuttered, and gatherings of 50 people or more are not permitted, not even for Sunday worship services.
Is this the biblical “end of times” as once predicted? Like the devastating 1918 plague that killed 50 million people the world over, is the novel coronavirus a message from GOD that, once again, He is not pleased with man, or his defiant behavior?
One of North Carolina’s oldest, and most revered Baptist ministers, the Reverend Dr. Cardes H. Brown, Jr., Senior Pastor of New Light Missionary Baptist Church in Greensboro for over forty-three years; local NAACP chapter president, and a disciple of the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., says there is no question in his mind, or his faith, that GOD is telling His children something.
“We’re living in a time where the disparities that exist in our society are amplified, and certainly visualized,” Dr. Brown says, noting that the COVID-19 crisis is forcing Americans to recognize those disparities, if not ultimately address them.
Rev. Brown cites II Chronicles 7:14, If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
“It seems to me that there are things that we, as believers, recognize in this pandemic. It’s a global situation….and if nothing else is realized through this coronavirus, [it should be that] all people are responsible to each other.”
Unlike many churches across the state that have cancelled their Sunday services or have streamed them online in the face of Gov. Roy Cooper’s original order that no more than 100 people could congregate in one area (recently the governor has reduced that to no more than fifty in order to contain the COVID-19 spread), Pastor Brown says New Light Missionary has both complied with the governor’s order, yet still had service for smaller congregations within the order’s boundaries.
“For those who do come to service, we will observe social distancing,” the Rocky Mount native added, referring to the prescribed six-foot space health officials have recommended individuals should maintain between themselves and others while in public to reduce viral spread.
And for those who feel safer staying sheltered, New Light Missionary’s services are being streamed as well.
Rev. Brown is urging all of his church family group members to stay in touch with one another to make sure they remain close, and help share both emotional and spiritual support during the course of the COVID-19 crisis.
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NAACP ENCOURAGES BLACK CENSUS WEEK
Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the NAACP is cautioning African Americans to check their mailer their U.S. Census form. That form will have a special code that they will use to fill out at my2020census.gov an online questionaire that will then be submitted electronically. It is important that the every black family is counted ensure that adequate federal funding is appropriated to black communities across the state and nation to fund important projects such as roads, schools and more.
COOPER DIRECTS FUNDING TO SCHOOLS TO FEED STUDENTS DURING COVID-10 CRISIS
[RALEIGH] Governor Cooper directed $50 million in school funding flexibility to help public schools and support the greatest needs to serve students during the COVID-19 crisis. Governor Cooper has ordered North Carolina public schools to remain closed to in-class instruction through May 15. The State Board of Education (SBE) and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) will establish a new $50 million flexible allotment for public school units to address COVID-19-related expenses.This allotment is comprised of unused funds from the current and previous school years as well as the State Emergency Response and Disaster Relief Fund.
GOVERNOR COOPER REQUESTS MAJOR DISASTER RELIEF DECLARATION FOR COVID-19
[RALEIGH] In a letter to President Trump, Governor Roy Cooper has requested a major disaster declaration for the State of North Carolina due to the continuing impacts of COVID-19 on North Carolina. “It’s important that we help North Carolinians stay protected from the health impacts of COVID-19 and recover economically from the financial impacts this crisis is having on our state,” Cooper said. n requesting the major disaster declaration, Governor Cooper asked the federal government to provide individual assistance for those affected, including crisis counseling, disaster unemployment assistance and Small Business Administration assistance, among other programs.
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