BC SOCIETY
Saved by @ThomassRichards

When are we going to start talking about the fact that this pandemic was caused by eating animals? If it’s not this zoonotic disease, it will be the next one. Maybe we should start talking about stopping factory farming, wet markets, ⬇️ animal consumption & prevent the next one.

 A great read from @derekberes — who is not biased (like me!) because he is not vegan.🙏❤️

https://t.co/WHhg3XOiTh
Top experts in nutrition, health policy, environmental policy, infectious diseases, global economics contributed to the amazing work at EAT Lancet Commission and stated the following:

https://t.co/iIpQtI0Mmv
“We see clear signs of dangerous vicious cycles, threatening social stability, with food as part of the cause and as an effect multiplier. The pandemic thereby exposes a fundamental fact: Resilient recovery from Covid-19 can only be achieved by radically transforming our food
systems. Infectious disease outbreaks due to virus spill-overs from animals to humans have increased over the past 20 years, from SARS, to Ebola and MERS, and now Covid-19. That increase has followed the pace of our continued expansion of food production into natural wildlife
habitats, along with bush-meat and wet market trade, intensified factory farming, and other factors. Zoonotic diseases between 2000 and 2010 caused economic losses of more than $200 billion. This pales in comparison with the cost of the current pandemic, which could set back
the global economy by as much as USD 82 trillion in the next five years according to a worst case estimate by Cambridge University.[3] As the pressure on nature increases, the risk of new and potentially far more dangerous pandemics is growing. Climate change makes the situation
even more dire. Compounding the problem, inequality in access to adequate incomes, quality nutrition and health care undermines our ability to protect the most vulnerable and mount an effective pandemic response.” Open letter to the G20 from the EAT Advisory Board.
https://t.co/TUDD6krtUL
And important: I am NOT in the opinion that everyone has to go vegan. I don’t think that’s realistic and I would never expect that. But I think shifting conversations to focus on why eating a more *plant-forward* diet is important for both public & planetary health is beneficial.
I am OF the opinion that lab grown meat will be a solution of the future. For those who want to eat meat: in a sustainable way that helps to optimize planetary health. Looking forward to developments in this space. Follow @RyanBethencourt for more on this!
Also a fantastic and well done piece in @nytimes

https://t.co/FnZMoqYxSN
And changes in animal AG & wet markets need to happen everywhere - including the US which has plenty - NYC alone has over 70 wet markets.

https://t.co/iy904J9mH5
And we have certainly also been the origin of zoonotic disease!

https://t.co/MVBtQEGym5

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THREAD: We filed RTIs on behalf of @no2uid asking the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare questions about how your personal data will be protected while you're using CO-WIN, the COVID-19 vaccination registration platform.

We got answers... kind of. Here's the new info.

1/n


Just like with Aarogya Setu, many Indians are worried that about the potential CO-WIN has to leak your data or threaten your privacy in the name of dealing with a pandemic. So, we asked the MOHFW some questions about data protection under the Right to Information Act.
2/n


In the responses we received, MOHFW said that it cannot provide us with a privacy policy on CO-WIN (?!).

Thankfully it was clarified that Aadhaar is not mandatory for registration on Aarogya Setu or CO-WIN, and that physical vaccine certificates will be provided to everyone.
3/n

The data it says it will collect will be your name, gender, date of birth, photo ID, and number.

National, State, and District level admins will have access to use the app, but there is not much further clarity on this point.

But most importantly...
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The responses (or rather lack of them) related to your data privacy and protection are completely vague. We received no clear answers on which Ministries/Depts will have access to your personal data, the permissions provided, etc. This is a failure in terms of transparency.
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Unless we pass laws which support people to enable them to self-isolate properly, any improvements to test & trace will have marginal impact and cases will simply spiral out of control once again as we ease lockdown in December.

A short thread on what we can do and why 👇
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Improving the currently poor rates of self-isolation is actually the key point, which many scientists, politicians, & commentators do still seem to be missing.

This requires good public health communication, proper support for those who need to self-isolate, & trust.
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Massive testing and tracing will only significantly reduce
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I don't think I need to explain why it's so critical to improve these rates.

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Hollywood
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Overall I think Labour will be a bit disappointed with how the ‘relaunch’ has started. Labour have given themselves a mountain to climb anyway through a year of inaction but the speech today lacked coherence, purpose and distinction from the government.

Starmer is (funnily enough) making a lot of the same mistakes Corbyn made in 2019. He is listing a ‘bold’ set of policy proposals that come across as disjointed and lacking connection to Britain’s priorities.

The policies themselves were basically good, I wouldn’t argue against them. But I would cringe whenever Labour came out with spending proposal after spending proposal in 2019 without any rationale or connection to a larger economic strategy. That’s what Starmer did today.

The questions that voters will have about Starmer’s speech are the same ones that voters will have had about Corbyn’s 2019 manifesto: why are these policies your priority, how can we afford them and why aren’t we doing these already?

The first one needs to be answered by diagnosing Britain’s problems and their causes. He doesn’t have to diagnose all of them. For the purpose of today he could have picked three that feed off each other: inequality, stagnant income growth and stagnant productivity.
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Jonny Best
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Academic staff at universities can't be open about the complaints against them - and most complaints of transphobia from students seem to be directed at staff. I'm just a final year PhD student, under no contractual requirement to be confidential, so I can share.

The original complaint against me was typical of the sort of thing directed at many female professional academics (and some male too). The strategies employed by my complainants are commonly used.

One of these is to perform vulnerability while behaving aggressively. Performing vulnerability is essential in order to trigger the university's awareness of its duties under the Equality Act, and establish an oppressor/victim dynamic to the case from the outset.

My complainants did this effectively. The complaint was initiated by a fellow PhD student, who joined forces with the SU. A student from the SU wrote the actual complaint. This is how it begins:


In all my dealings with @HuddersfieldUni I accepted that sometimes anonymous complaints were necessary - and that, sometimes, victimisation could be a concern. However, I have never victimised anyone. Nobody has ever argued that I have.
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Once upon a time there was a Raja named Uttānapāda born of Svayambhuva Manu,1st man on earth.He had 2 beautiful wives - Suniti & Suruchi & two sons were born of them Dhruva & Uttama respectively.
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Now Suniti was the daughter of a tribal chief while Suruchi was the daughter of a rich king. Hence Suruchi was always favored the most by Raja while Suniti was ignored. But while Suniti was gentle & kind hearted by nature Suruchi was venomous inside.
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The story is of a time when ideally the eldest son of the king becomes the heir to the throne. Hence the sinhasan of the Raja belonged to Dhruva.This is why Suruchi who was the 2nd wife nourished poison in her heart for Dhruva as she knew her son will never get the throne.


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