Covid-19 Update

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Continues to Combat Fraudulent COVID-19 Medical Products

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is providing an update on the agency’s efforts to combat the extremely concerning actions by companies and individuals that are exploiting or taking advantage of widespread fear among consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to scammers on the internet selling unproven medical products, the FDA has taken – and continues to take – a number of steps to find and stop those selling unapproved products that fraudulently claim to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose or cure COVID-19.

“While we seek to ensure access to critical medical products, it is imperative that we continue our efforts to find and prevent the sale and distribution of products that may be harmful to the public health. Americans can rest assured that we’re leveraging our experience investigating, examining, and reviewing medical products, both at the border and within domestic commerce, to help ensure that the critical resources reaching the frontlines in the battle against COVID-19 are appropriate,” said FDA Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs Judy McMeekin, Pharm.D. “We take seriously our responsibility to determine whether the medical products coming into our country are fraudulent, counterfeit or illegitimate, and take action as needed.”

To date, the FDA has issued 42 warning letters to companies making bogus COVID-19 claims, including one to a seller of fraudulent chlorine dioxide products, equivalent to industrial bleach, frequently referred to as “Miracle Mineral Solution” or “MMS”, as a treatment for COVID-19. After the seller refused to take corrective action, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the seller to immediately stop distributing its unproven and potentially dangerous product.

Additionally, as part of the FDA’s Operation Quack Hack, in just a few short weeks, the agency has discovered hundreds of such products including fraudulent drugs, testing kits and personal protective equipment (PPE) sold online with unproven claims. We continue to work with online marketplaces, domain name registrars, payment processors and social media websites to remove from their platforms products that fraudulently claim to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose or cure COVID-19 and to keep those products from reappearing under different names. At this time, the FDA has sent hundreds of abuse complaints to domain name registrars and internet marketplaces, who in most instances, have voluntarily removed the identified postings. We will continue to monitor the online ecosystem for fraudulent products peddled by bad actors seeking to profit from this global pandemic. We encourage anyone aware of suspected fraudulent medical products for COVID-19 to report them to the FDA.

There are a number of examples of unproven products that the FDA is keeping out of the country. Recently, the agency intercepted and investigated a case of mislabeled COVID-19 “treatment kits” offered for import. As a result, Special Agents with the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations, with the help of domestic and international law enforcement counterparts in the United Kingdom, led the Department of Justice to bring a criminal complaint against a British man who sought to profit from this pandemic and jeopardize public health.

Until the curve is flattened, and even after, the FDA will continue to carry out the agency’s mission of protecting the health and safety of American consumers and strive to prevent unlawful FDA-regulated products from entering, or being distributed in, domestic commerce.

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

THOUSANDS of job seekers have Skype/Zoom INTERVIEWS today!

1. Are YOU ready for that call? Prep like this: 1. Test audio and camera. 2. Elevate your laptop to avoid staring down into the camera. 3. Dress professionally. 4. Position yourself at a table, against a plain, neutral background. 5. Check the lighting in the room. 6. Close all other applications on your laptop. 7. Silence your cell phone, and disable vibration. 8. Have a copy of your resume and JD at hand. 9. Attach post-its around the laptop screen with prompts + questions you wish to ask the interviewer. 10. Exclude kids, pets etc from the room for the duration of the interview. 11. Have pen and paper at hand. 12. Have a glass of water next to you. 13. Have the phone number of the interviewer in case video connection is lost. You have fully researched the company in depth. You know how you add value. You have practiced behavioural questions using C.A.R.L. And you will send a “thank you” email within hours of the interview. Look into the camera, not the screen. Do a sound test with the interviewer as soon as you start AND…. Make sure everything is fully charged! Anything to add to my list, please?

10 Lessons From Gautam Buddha that will Help You Win in Life : 1. Don’t hesitate to start small 2. Thoughts are material 3. Learn to forgive 4. Action is what counts 5. Try to understand others 6. Win yourself 7. Live in harmony 8.BeGrateful
9. Keep Learning everyday 10. Travel Happy Buddh Purnima !!

Covid-19 antibody developed by Israel !!!????

Antibody developed by Israel Govt’s research institute : “ Jerusalem: Israeli Defence Minister Naftali Bennett has said that scientists at the country's main biological research institute have made a "significant breakthrough" in developing an antibody to the novel coronavirus, as the researchers wrapped up the development phase and moved to patent and mass produce the potential treatment. Bennett visited the labs of the Israel's Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), supervised by the Prime Minister's Office and mandated to develop a vaccine for coronavirus, in Ness Ziona on Monday and was shown the "antibody that attacks the virus in a monoclonal way and can neutralize it within the bodies of those ill", a statement from his office said “ .

Stress Can Be a Good Thing If You Know How to Use It

With all the media and medical attention on stress and its negative health impacts, it is easy to reach the conclusion that stress is irredeemably bad—something to be avoided as much as possible.

We have a different perspective. We believe that pursuing a “stress-free” life often causes more stress down the line—problems compound, and by failing to face our most intense challenges we never overcome them. Think about a time when you experienced substantial personal or professional growth, or a time when you performed at your highest level, such as finishing a race, building a business, or raising a child. What was it that motivated and fueled you to grow, learn, and improve during these times?  We are willing to bet that those times invariably involved some stress or struggle.

Stress has many wonderful attributes. It reminds us that we care; it connects us directly with the most challenging and important aspects of our lives. We aren’t suggesting that sustained stress does not take a toll, only that it can bring unexpected benefits, too, in the form of personal growth.  Combining our years of experience conducting leadership seminars and teaching meditation and martial arts (Tom) and exploring empirical research in the area of psychology (Alia) we have found that individuals who adopt a “stress is enhancing” mindset in their lives show greater work performance and fewer negative health symptoms than those who adopt a “stress-is-debilitating” lens.  Drawing on our work and research with executives, students, Navy SEALs and professional athletes, we have devised a three-step approach to responding to pressure that we believe can help you harness the creative power of stress while minimizing its deleterious effects.

Step One: See It

The first step to transforming your response to stress is to “see” your stress.  Rather than denying it, or dwelling upon it, we recommend simply naming or labeling the stress you are facing.  For example, you might simply say to yourself:  “I’m stressed about my son failing school.”   Or “I’m stressed about our year-end numbers.” Or “I’m stressed about my husband’s recent health diagnosis.”

Neuroscience research by Matt Lieberman shows how just acknowledging your stress can move reactivity in your brain from the automatic and reactive centers to the more conscious and deliberate ones.  In one study, participants in a brain scan were shown negative emotional images.  When asked to label the emotion the images invoked, neural activity moved from the amygdala region (the seat of emotion) to the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain in which we do our conscious and deliberate thinking.   In other words, purposefully acknowledging stress lets you pause your visceral reaction, allowing you to choose a more enhancing response.

Another reason to acknowledge and “see” your stress is that evading it is counterproductive anyway. Our research with Peter Salovey and Shawn Achor has shown that individuals who view stress as debilitating tend to either over or under react to stress whereas those with a “stress is enhancing” mindset have a more moderate cortisol response to stress and are more willing to seek out and be open to feedback during stress, which can help them learn and grow for the longer-term.

Mindfulness and other centering practices  can help you acknowledge and transform how you are responding to duress. Each person reacts differently. Do you have a racing heart?  Clenched muscles? Or are you in the minority who feel a sudden urge to fall asleep?  What are your psychological reactions?  To judge?  Blame others (or yourself)?  How about your behavioral reactions:  Do you check out of the conversation all together?  Rush to the refrigerator? Noticing these reactions releases us from their grip and helps shift our focus to pursuing more productive responses.

Step Two: Own It

The key to “owning” your stress is to recognize that we tend to stress more, and more intensely, about things that matter to us. Stress shows us that we care; that the stakes matter. Owning this realization unleashes positive motivation—because deep down we know that things that are important shouldn’t always come easy. A metaphor we often use to describe this state is “It’s just a cold, dark night on the side of Everest.”  If you were climbing Everest, you could imagine that there might be some cold, dark nights on your journey up.  But what did you expect—that climbing Everest would be a walk in the park?  Do you really expect that raising a child, running a business, living a life of impact would be easy?  Owning your stress won’t necessary make those cold, dark nights go away but they will likely be a bit more tolerable as you discover a sense of motivation and meaning.

“In Navy SEAL training,” former SEAL Commander Curt Cronin recently told us, “the leadership cadre designs situations that are exponentially more stressful, chaotic, and dynamic than any combat operation so that the teams learn to center [themselves] in the most arduous circumstances. When the stress of the training seems unbearable, we can own it, knowing that ultimately it is what we have chosen to do—to be a member of a team that can succeed in any mission.”

Step Three: Use It

Contrary to what you might think, the body’s stress response was not designed to kill us.  In fact, the evolutionary goal of the stress response was to help boost the body and mind into enhanced functioning, to help us grow and meet the demands we face.  When the body encounters stress, it pumps hormones such as adrenaline and dopamine which fuel the brain and body with blood and oxygen, a response which propels the individual into a state of increased energy, heightened alertness, and narrowed focus.  Although the stress response can sometimes be detrimental, in many cases, stress hormones actually induce growth and release chemicals into the body that rebuild cells, synthesize proteins and enhance immunity, leaving the body even stronger and healthier than it was before. Researchers call this effect physiological thriving, and any athlete knows its rewards.

The issue, then, is not in the stress response itself but in how we channel or employ this response.  Simply reframing your response to stress as something that is beneficial can be helpful.  Researcher Jeremy Jamieson demonstrated that students asked to reframe pre-test anxiety as beneficial perform better on the exams. Harvard Business School professor Alison Wood Brooks has shown how reframing anxiety as excitement can improve performance on tasks such as negotiating and giving an important speech.

Sometimes, however, it is not so clear how best to use stress, especially with longer-term or more complicated situations. Consider an ongoing conflict with a spouse or a boss, a complex health condition or even the recent passing of a loved one.  The key in these cases is to simply be open to the opportunities and learning inherent in the stress.  Experiencing these challenges as an inherent part of our life-cycle—no one goes through life untouched by grief or heartbreak—can facilitate the acquisition of mental toughness, deeper social bonds, heightened awareness, new perspectives, a sense of mastery, greater appreciation for life, a sense of meaning, and strengthened priorities.  Indeed, some leadership scholars—most notably Abraham Zaleznik—have drawn upon William James’ concept of “twice-born” personalities to argue that great leaders share the common experience of working through traumatic episodes in their lives.

That’s something the SEAL community has learned firsthand in recent years as its combat missions have increased. Commander Cronin recently told us, “After multiple years of back-to-back deployments, post-traumatic stress disorder continued to grow within the SEAL community.  Learning about post-traumatic growth, leaning to ask ‘how could these experiences serve us?’ and being pushed to own the experiences that we had been through and use them to fuel our future, proved a powerful tool in helping our individuals, teams and organization thrive, not in spite of the stress but because of it.”

As society we largely fail to frame stress as potentially enhancing and often miss opportunities to learn from and grow from stressful moments. That does not mean that we advocate viewing all stressors as a positive thing; but we do advocate that you embrace your stress response as a powerful tool for helping you overcome the inevitable challenges in life that can—and will—arise.

We Now Need A Rapid Response To Economic Revival

India is enforcing one of the largest and strictest coronavirus lockdowns in the world and it is showing the desired results. To ensure that the medical crisis does not snowball into a potentially devastating economic crisis, the government will have to restart the economy after May 3 with adequate safeguards and surveillance.

The shock waves unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic are estimated to lead to a loss of USD 9 trillion to global GDP over 2020-21. Organisations like the IMF have already declared a global recession.

In India, we could lose 30-40 million jobs by the end of the year if we are unable to bring the economy back on track.

Going forward, India needs to respond rapidly to the looming economic calamity, get into crisis management mode and prepare a plan to revive the economy and get back to normal growth at the earliest.

Protecting Health after Easing Lockdown

India has done a phenomenal job of ‘flattening the curve’ and current data indicate that the country is entering into a safe zone.

As of April 19, ICMR reported a Test Positivity Rate (TPR) of 4.4% (i.e. 1 in 23 people tested were positive). Compared to India, U.S. had a TPR of 19.3%, Spain’s was 18.2%, Italy recorded 13.2% and Japan’s figure was 8.8%.  However, there is a caveat that TPRs are not accurate projections of infection rates as it all depends on testing rates. Perhaps, India’s TPR could be even lower.

Furthermore, whilst total confirmed cases continue to grow in India, crossing the 21,000 mark on April 22, the growth rate of active cases was at ~6%. This means, the number of active cases are doubling every 10 days instead of every three days before the lockdown.

If we look at the mortality rate, India is much better than the western world where the mortality is much higher due to their ageing population. The world over, about 80% deaths have been reported among people aged 60 and above. India has a demographic advantage with 90% of its population being under 60.

Therefore, after the lockdown is eased, our focus should be on protecting the vulnerable sections, especially those over 60 years of age.  The rest of the young workforce under 50, should be allowed to go back to work to sustain the economy.

Opening up the lockdown needs some lifestyle changes which we must all adopt.  The government should continue to enforce social distancing measures and must not allow large public gatherings. Malls, cinemas and restaurants should remain closed, and permission should not be given for big sporting events. Wearing of masks, regular sanitization of public places, disinfection of common surfaces and temperature screening of people in public places should be mandatory.

Testing should also be scaled up to include general public, especially asymptomatic cases. Widespread antibody testing is  a critical step towards  determining onset of herd immunity.

Giving the Economy a Boost

On the economic front, India needs coordinated fiscal and monetary policy making to tide over the crisis and lay the foundation for a growth revival.

We will need some amount of quantitative easing to enhance liquidity in the economy.

The government will also have to provide a huge financial stimulus to boost industrial production, across small, medium and large enterprises. India’s oil import bill could halve from the USD 105 billion estimated for FY20 on account of the collapse in global crude oil prices. This will give the government the firepower for announcing a big bang stimulus package to prop up the economy. Allocating USD 20 billion (0.3% of GDP) of the oil savings to provide a stimulus package for SMEs is imperative.

The government should also look at introducing investment-linked and job-linked incentives tailored to the needs of a specific sector. For example, the real estate sector that has been one of the worst affected by this crisis should get the flexibility to re-purpose their residential projects into commercial ones especially given the success of remote working.

SMEs and Start-ups must receive funding for manufacturing, services & innovation. The government may provide such stimulus through advance purchase contracts for COVID-19 specific needs like tests, biomedical supplies, hospitalization and immunization.

Funds should be earmarked for a big infrastructure push both in terms of physical and cyber connectivity.  A significant part of healthcare investment ought to be directed towards providing Universal Healthcare and upgrading primary health centers.

Also, debt-equity ratio norms need to be eased to provide more liquidity to the industry.

From the geopolitical perspective, this crisis has given India an opportunity to position itself as a strategic partner of importance. As the world looks to de-risk supply chains originating from China, India can state its competencies and advantages much more emphatically. Today we are in a position to negotiate as equal partners with the U.S., EU or Japan. We must rise to the occasion, open the lockdown to revive the economy in a calibrated manner.

We have done a great job in saving lives now we must work towards saving jobs and livelihood.

Conclusion

India has an opportunity to be among the front runners in economic recovery ahead of many of the Western economies, including the U.S. The IMF expects India’s FY21 GDP to grow 1.9%, making it the fastest growing major economy in a recession-hit world. It forecasts a 7.4% growth for India in FY22, assuming the pandemic is brought under control, significant monetary and fiscal stimuli are announced, and a tailwind from lower oil prices.

We now need a mid- to long-term strategy that balances the economic, social and public health benefits and costs, while allowing for a gradual easing of restrictions.

Stay home and safe

It appears that the majority of people are getting cabin fever with the current pandemic. It’s similar to pulling of a bandaid excruciatingly slow.

Unfortunately the risk is still high for our compromised populations and we do not have an abundance of PPE available for our frontline workers.

Perhaps it would be best if the Herd went out and built their immunity. But with that needs to come responsibility that the herd does not go out recklessly infecting the comprised.

Doctors are dealing with people daily that know they have symptoms and are being tested however they continue to be out in public coughing and shedding the 🦠 without the respect of masking, washing their hands or social distancing.

So Doctor ask that if you want to risk getting the virus 🦠 as you don’t think you’re going to get sick, go ahead, then quarantine yourself from your family and friends that choose to stay home and safe.