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When Xi Jinping was in Hong Kong
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SCMP
+ myNEWS
Published: 11:26pm, 30 Jun, 2022
An unprecedented security blanket involving elite bodyguards, a 50-strong motorcade, ballistic briefcases and machine guns has been thrown around Hong Kong for President Xi Jinping’s visit for the 25th anniversary of the city’s return to Chinese rule, the Post has learned.
Security was raised to the maximum when Xi, 69, and his wife Peng Liyuan, 59, arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday for the two-day trip to mark the handover anniversary as authorities mobilised all law enforcement agencies to protect the Chinese president and his entourage from terrorist attacks.
The couple was escorted by elite officers from the force’s VIP protection unit, formerly known as G4, along with personal bodyguards from the Central Security Bureau as they arrived at the West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus on a special train from Shenzhen shortly after 3pm.
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3183726/ballistic-briefcases-machine-guns-and-bulletproof-sedan
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Why would China use a spy balloon when it has satellites?
By Kelly Ng
BBC News
News of an alleged Chinese spy balloon floating over the US has left many wondering why Beijing would want to use a relatively unsophisticated tool for its surveillance of the US mainland.
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“Beijing is probably trying to signal to Washington: ‘While we want to improve ties, we are also ever ready for sustained competition, using any means necessary,’ without severely inflaming tensions,” independent air-power analyst He Yuan Ming told the BBC.
“And what better tool for this than a seemingly innocuous balloon?”
The balloon’s anticipated flight path near certain missile bases suggests it is unlikely it has drifted off course, He Yuan Ming said.
But China expert Benjamin Ho said Beijing had more sophisticated surveillance technology at its disposal.
“They have other means to spy out American infrastructure, or whatever information they wanted to obtain. The balloon was to send a signal to the Americans, and also to see how the Americans would react,” explained Dr Ho – coordinator of the China programme at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
It may even be the case that China wanted the US to detect the balloon.
“It’s possible that being spotted was the whole point. China might be using the balloon to demonstrate that it has a sophisticated technological capability to penetrate US airspace without risking a serious escalation. In this regard, a balloon is a pretty ideal choice,” said Arthur Holland Michel from the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
Nevertheless, the experts point out that balloons can be fitted with modern technology like spy cameras and radar sensors, and there are some advantages to using balloons for surveillance – chief of which is that it is less expensive and easier to deploy than drones or satellites.
The balloon’s slower speed also allows it to loiter over and monitor the target area for longer periods. A satellite’s movement, on the other hand, is restricted to its orbital pass.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64508086
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The Washington Post
Updated February 4, 2023 at 4:46 p.m. EST|Published February 4, 2023 at 9:53 a.m. EST
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But it’s only in the past 10 years or so that military attention has returned to balloons, according to Michael Clarke, a visiting professor at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, “because they see how useful they are, or can be.”
“Balloons offer a few advantages over the use of satellites or drones,” James Rogers, an academic at Cornell and the University of Southern Denmark, who advises the U.N. Security Council on the transnational threat of drones, said in an email.
“Not only are they cheaper than launching satellites into space, but by operating within the bounds of the earth’s atmosphere, closer to the surface, they can obtain better quality images,” he added. The latest generation of balloons are high-tech in their own right, “envisaged as systems that can fly up to 90,000 feet” high, “deploy their own drone systems” and detect incoming missiles.
Balloons can soar above the range of most planes, Clarke said, and their slow speed means they aren’t always picked up by radar. Additional technology or paint can help to conceal them further.
Balloons also have an advantage over satellites because they are more maneuverable, according to Malcolm Macdonald, a professor and space technology engineer from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. “The motion of a satellite is very predictable, a balloon (or other aircraft) offers the chance for an unexpected overflight, to catch those you are observing by surprise,” Macdonald said in an email. “You might hope to get something you might not see, or hear, from space.”
Satellites can provide high-resolution imagery, Clarke said — but balloons can stay over one area for longer periods than satellites, if the weather permits.
There’s also the cost benefit: A satellite may cost up to $300 million over its lifetime, according to an estimate from 2020; even the most high-tech balloon would be cheaper.
Macdonald, the professor from the University of Strathclyde, said that “a balloon is very difficult to see on radar, although the sensor bay underneath will be more visible.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/04/china-spy-balloon-montana-why/
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Exercising several times a week for 30 to 60 minutes may: Keep thinking, reasoning and learning skills sharp for healthy individuals. Improve memory, reasoning, judgment and thinking skills (cognitive function) for people with mild Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment.
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by Judy George, Deputy Managing Editor, MedPage Today February 3, 2023
Sustained vigorous exercise might have slowed disease progression in two patients with positive Alzheimer’s biomarkers and mild cognitive impairment, two case reports suggested.
At age 64, patient 1 was diagnosed with amnestic mild cognitive impairment. More than 15 years later, at age 80, he had minimal cognitive and functional decline and was diagnosed with mild Alzheimer’s disease.
Patient 2 was diagnosed with amnestic mild cognitive impairment at age 72. At age 80, he showed no clinical progression.
Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) declines averaged 0.3 points per year for patient 1 and 0.125 points per year for patient 2, compared with the average 2-point MMSE annual decline in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease.Why the “strikingly benign, atypical clinical course”?Of all the possible contributors, intense physical activity was the likely disease-modifying factor, Davangere Devanand, MD, of Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, and co-authors wrote in Alzheimer’s & Dementiaopens in a new tab or window.Both patients regularly exercised vigorously for hours a day and increased their participation after they either retired or reduced their work hours.”We know that mild to moderate exercise is associated with a lower risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, but the effects of vigorous, regular exercise have been poorly studied,” Devanand told MedPage Today.”The two patients in this report had Alzheimer’s brain pathology based on established biomarkers and clinical features but showed little cognitive decline for 16 years and 8 years, respectively,” he said. “Vigorous, regular exercise was the most likely explanation for their lack of deterioration, because they had multiple medical problems and did not focus on diet or cognitively-stimulating activities beyond what they did earlier in life.”
Physical exercise has been linked with a reduced risk of cognitive decline, and daily movement including step countsopens in a new tab or window have been tied to lower dementia risk. In the EXERT trialopens in a new tab or window, moderate-intensity aerobic training for 12 months did not differ from stretching and balance exercises in cognitive outcomes among people with mild cognitive impairment. Meta-analyses also have found some evidence of a beneficial effect of physical exerciseopens in a new tab or window for Alzheimer’s cognitive symptoms.
“Nearly all published studies have evaluated mild to moderate exercise for a few months to 2 years without regular exercise being required during the entire follow-up period,” Devanand and colleagues observed.
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Diet was unremarkable in both patients and unlikely to have contributed to slow disease progression, they added.
“If this initial report leads to future prospective, controlled studies that confirm that vigorous, sustained exercise can slow disease progression, widespread adoption of this approach is likely with major public health implications,” Devanand and colleagues suggested. “Delaying Alzheimer’s disease progression by even a few years will lead to enormous health care and societal cost savings.”
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Mayo Clinic
Alzheimer’s disease: Can exercise prevent memory loss?
Answer From Jonathan Graff-Radford, M.D.
Possibly. Exercise has many known benefits for both physical and mental health, including reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, strengthening the bones and muscles, and reducing stress.
It also appears that regular physical activity benefits the brain. Studies show that people who are physically active are less likely to experience a decline in their mental function and have a lowered risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Physical activity is one of the known modifiable risk factors for dementia. Plus, regular exercise helps combat other Alzheimer’s disease risk factors, such as depression and obesity.
Exercising several times a week for 30 to 60 minutes may:
Physical activity seems to help your brain not only by keeping the blood flowing but also by increasing chemicals that protect the brain. Physical activity also tends to counter some of the natural reduction in brain connections that occurs with aging.
More research is needed to know how — and how much — adding physical activity may improve memory or slow the progression of cognitive decline. Nonetheless, regular exercise is important to stay physically and mentally fit. And for older adults, even leisurely physical activity offers health benefits.
With
Jonathan Graff-Radford, M.D.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alzheimers-disease/expert-answers/alzheimers-disease/faq-20057881
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Coronavirus Vaccines vs. NON COVID-19 related deaths (New Data)
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Some are saying that the BMJ study shows vaccines are a higher risk for causing severe myocarditis than covid. That’s wrong. If anything it says you’re ~4 times less likely to get myocarditis, ~23 times less likely to get heart failure, and ~80 times less likely to die. 1/12
First off the study is here. https://bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000373.abstract?ct= The study only attempts to look at consequences if people got myocarditis. 2/
To be honest this isn’t a thread I was even going to do! This isn’t a study designed to answer the prevalence/excess burden question! But there are very bad attempts to do this analysis undermining vaccination, so I feel I should show what it looks like when done properly. 3/
Ok so first thing is first, the study records the raw number of myocarditis cases w/in 28 days of vax, 28 days of confirmed infection, and in neither group. So what was the denominator for each? 4/
You might ask why I included the number of doses, surely the risk of a course of vaccination is what counts? Yes and no. Because the background rate of myocarditis isn’t zero, people getting 2-3 doses of vaccine will spend 56-84 days “at risk” and the number will be higher. 5/
So we can very easily convert this to how many million person years were spent “at risk” (i.e. able to have the event) in each category. So in our dataset there were: ~300,000 person years post infection ~3,600,000 person years post vax ~110,000,000 person years neither 6/
(Side note: this is based on a population of ~27mil vs 23mil in the study because it doesn’t exclude children.) 7/
So combined with our events what do we see? There are more cases of myocarditis after vaccination than expected by baseline risk! But that doesn’t translate to a higher risk of heart failure or death. After infection though is much higher than expected on all three metrics! 8/
So what if we subtract the expected number of events that would happen in each group based on the baseline rate? The results are dramatic, virtually no serious consequences from the excess myocarditis after vaccination. Myocarditis after infection though seems very serious. 9/
My conclusions: – There WERE extra cases of myocarditis after vaccination above what would have happened anyway. – These didn’t result in heart failure or death. – Infection resulted in far more cases of myocarditis, heart failure, and death. 10/
Remember, if somebody is trying to compare the number of events WITHOUT calculating person time at risk or a baseline rate, they’re probably not worth listening to. 11/
A note, I said at the beginning this isn’t an analysis I particularly wanted to do. The public data doesn’t perfectly match the study cohort (eg age). But there’s enough bad versions out there I at least wanted to show what it would look like if done as well as possible. 12/12
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BMJ Journals
Clinical outcomes of myocarditis after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination in four Nordic countries: population based cohort study
Research
Clinical outcomes of myocarditis after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination in four Nordic countries: population based cohort study
Objective To investigate the clinical outcomes of myocarditis associated with mRNA vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus compared with other types of myocarditis.
Design Population based cohort study.
Setting Nationwide register data from four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden), from 1 January 2018 to the latest date of follow-up in 2022.
Participants The Nordic myocarditis cohort; 7292 individuals aged ≥12 years who had an incident diagnosis of myocarditis as a main or secondary diagnosis, in a population of 23 million individuals in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
Main outcome measures Heart failure, or death from any cause within 90 days of admission to hospital for new onset myocarditis, and hospital readmission within 90 days of discharge to hospital for new onset myocarditis. Clinical outcomes of myocarditis associated with SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination, covid-19 disease, and conventional myocarditis were compared.
Results In 2018-22, 7292 patients were admitted to hospital with new onset myocarditis, with 530 (7.3%) categorised as having myocarditis associated with SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination, 109 (1.5%) with myocarditis associated with covid-19 disease, and 6653 (91.2%) with conventional myocarditis. At the 90 day follow-up, 62, nine, and 988 patients had been readmitted to hospital in each group (vaccination, covid-19, and conventional myocarditis groups, respectively), corresponding to a relative risk of readmission of 0.79 (95% confidence interval 0.62 to 1.00) and 0.55 (0.30 to 1.04) for the vaccination type and covid-19 type myocarditis groups, respectively, compared with the conventional myocarditis group. At the 90 day follow-up, 27, 18, and 616 patients had a diagnosis of heart failure or died in the vaccination type, covid-19 type, and conventional myocarditis groups, respectively. The relative risk of heart failure within 90 days was 0.56 (95% confidence interval 0.37 to 0.85) and 1.48 (0.86 to 2.54) for myocarditis associated with vaccination and covid-19 disease, respectively, compared with conventional myocarditis; the relative risk of death was 0.48 (0.21 to 1.09) and 2.35 (1.06 to 5.19), respectively. Among patients aged 12-39 years with no predisposing comorbidities, the relative risk of heart failure or death was markedly higher for myocarditis associated with covid-19 disease than for myocarditis associated with vaccination (relative risk 5.78, 1.84 to 18.20).
Conclusions Compared with myocarditis associated with covid-19 disease and conventional myocarditis, myocarditis after vaccination with SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines was associated with better clinical outcomes within 90 days of admission to hospital.
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https://www.youtube.com/live/3DKQjRb3eDk?feature=share
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https://www.youtube.com/live/Pn7I1rBuDbk?feature=share
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https://www.youtube.com/live/AHeRlaE0msk?feature=share
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https://www.youtube.com/live/ef_Lj90TNfw?feature=share
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