AFRICAN PLUME

By Akin Ojumu As reported in the New York Times, “The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late Thursday to overturn the Affordable Care Act – a move that, if successful, would bring a permanent end to the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare. In an 82-page brief submitted an hour before a midnight deadline, the Trump administration joined Republican officials in Texas and 17 other states in arguing that in 2017, Congress, then controlled by Republicans, had rendered the law unconstitutional when it zeroed out the tax penalty for not buying insurance – the so-called individual mandate.” While the American people were sleeping, Donald Trump and the Republican Party went to the Supreme Court to seek the help of the Conservative justices on the bench to kill the Affordable Healthcare Act, the signature health insurance achievement of President Barack Hussein Obama. Being the children of darkness that they are, they put on the cloak of darkness and too

NIH, BETHESDA: SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2020 A clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of adults hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been stopped by the National Institutes of Health. A data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) met late Friday and determined that while there was no harm, the study drug was very unlikely to be beneficial to hospitalized patients with COVID-19. After its fourth interim analysis the DSMB, which regularly monitors the trial, recommended to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of NIH, to stop the study. NHLBI halted the trial immediately. The Outcomes Related to COVID-19 treated with hydroxychloroquine among In-patients with symptomatic Disease study, or ORCHID Study, was being conducted by the Prevention and Early Treatment of Acute Lung Injury (PETAL) Clinical Trials Network of NHLBI. The data from this study indicate that this drug provided no addition

By Akin Ojumu Lucky are you if you have a father to call your own. You’ll never know what it feels like to be fatherless. To comprehend the vastness of the hollowness of the soul of the fatherless, you’d have to walk in the shoes of the man without a father. Fatherlessness creates a canyon of emptiness in the deep innermost parts of the fatherless. Not having a father digs a hole in the heart that is dark, formless and void. Without the love of a father the fabrics of a man’s being shrivel like an old rag. A childhood marked by fatherlessness is like building a house with faulty foundation on a sinking sand. Such a man is left unshielded from the whirlwind of this world and he is far more easily blown away by the many vicissitudes of life. The stuff life throws at him leaves him hammered, battered, and shattered without a father to shield and shelter him from the unkind arrows of living. Going through life not having a father’s hand to hold on to is like sending

Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention (i.e. White Evangelical Movement) Summary of Findings All four of the men whom Southern Baptist  (i.e. the White Evangelical Movement)  leaders elected as the seminary’s founding faculty held slaves. The slave schedule of the 1860 federal census for the Greenville District recorded that John A. Broadus held two slaves, William Williams held five, Basil Manly Jr. held seven, and James P. Boyce held twenty-three. When Southern Baptists  (i.e. the White Evangelical Movement)  established the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1859, the prevailing orthodoxy of its white clergy included commitment to the legitimacy of slavery. White Baptists in the South had established the Southern Baptist Convention fourteen years earlier in order to provide organized missionary agencies for the Baptists of the slave states. Although most white Baptists in the

Rayshard Brooks Brooks, twenty-seven, was shot and killed by an Atlanta police officer on June 12, 2020, while fleeing during a struggle at a Wendy's drive-thru late Friday. Brooks had been asleep in his car at the drive-thru, causing other customers to drive around the car George Floyd Floyd, forty-six, was killed by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020, after the officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. The officer, who was fired, has been charged with second-degree murder. Ahmaud Arbery On February 23, 2020, Arbery, twenty-five, was chased and fatally shot by two white men in his South Georgia neighborhood. The men have been charged with murder and aggravated assault. Tony M c Dade McDade, thirty-eight, was fatally shot by a member of the Tallahassee Police Department on May 27, 2020. The officer has been placed on leave pending the outcome of an investigation. Trayvon Martin Martin, seventeen, was fatally shot on February 26, 2012,

There are two different types of COVID-19 tests namely; Diagnostic tests and Antibody tests. Diagnostic Tests A diagnostic test can show if you have an active coronavirus infection and should take steps to quarantine or isolate yourself from others. Currently there are two types of Diagnostic tests:      i.          Molecular (RT-PCR) tests that detect the virus’s genetic material,    ii.          Antigen tests that detect specific proteins on the surface of the virus. Antibody Tests An antibody test looks for antibodies that are made by the immune system in response to a threat, such as a specific virus. Antibodies can help fight infections. Antibodies can take several days or weeks to develop after you have an infection and may stay in your blood for several weeks after recovery. Because of this, antibody tests should not be used to diagnose an active coronavirus infection. At this time, researchers do not know if the presence of antibodies means that you

Seigneur, faites de moi un instrument de votre paix. Là où il y a de la haine, que je mette l'amour. Là où il y a l'offense, que je mette le pardon. Là où il y a la discorde, que je mette l'union. Là où il y a l'erreur, que je mette la vérité. Là où il y a le doute, que je mette la foi. Là où il y a le désespoir, que je mette l'espérance. Là où il y a les ténèbres, que je mette votre lumière. Là où il y a la tristesse, que je mette la joie. Ô Maître, que je ne cherche pas tant à être consolé qu'à consoler, à être compris qu'à comprendre, à être aimé qu'à aimer, car c'est en donnant qu'on reçoit, c'est en s'oubliant qu'on trouve, c'est en pardonnant qu'on est pardonné, c'est en mourant qu'on ressuscite à l'éternelle vie. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, may I put love. Where there is injury, let me sow pardon. Where there is discord, let me put the union. Where ther

NATURE – Monday, June 8, 2020 TITLE: The Effect of Large-Scale Anti-Contagion Policies on the COVID-19 Pandemic AUTHORS: Solomon Hsiang, Daniel Allen, Sébastien Annan-Phan, Kendon Bell, Ian Bolliger, Trinetta Chong, Hannah Druckenmiller, Luna Yue Huang, Andrew Hultgren, Emma Krasovich, Peiley Lau, Jaecheol Lee, Esther Rolf, Jeanette Tseng & Tiffany Wu BACKGROUND: Governments around the world are responding to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic with unprecedented policies designed to slow the growth rate of infections. Many actions, such as closing schools and restricting populations to their homes, impose large and visible costs on society, but their benefits cannot be directly observed and are currently understood only through process-based simulations. METHOD: Here, we compile new data on 1,717 local, regional, and national non-pharmaceutical interventions deployed in the ongoing pandemic across localities in China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France, and

OXFORD, UK - FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 2020: The RECOVERY trial is a randomized clinical trial conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford, UK, to test a range of potential drugs for COVID-19, including hydroxycholoroquine in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. This study aims to compare several different treatments that may be useful for patients with COVID-19. These treatments have been recommended for testing by the expert panel that advises the Chief Medical Officer in England. Although these treatments show promise, their effectiveness in helping patients recover than the usual standard of care at your hospital (which all patients will receive) is unknown. The treatments, which may be given in addition to the usual care at the hospital, include: Lopinavir-Ritonavir (commonly used to treat HIV); corticosteroids used to reduce inflammation; hydroxychloroquine; or azithromycin. For patients whose condition is more severe, tocilizumab (a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis) is al