Historical Pattern That Trump's Criticism Of Rev Mariann Budde Falls Into - Jeff Wiersma

On June 28, 1933, with Hitler’s authorization, Ludwig Müller, a fervent Nazi, took over chairmanship of the council of the Federation of the 27 regional Protestant churches. A new constitution established a single “Protestant Reich Church.”

Restrictions were immediately placed on the clergy. They had to be “politically reliable.” and were pressured to expel Jewish Christians from ministry. The Nazi “Führer Principle” was to be adopted by the churches, which was a claim that Hitler was “lord” over the German church.

Some German Protestant pastors, led by Martin Niemöller (1892-1984), stood in opposition. Their Barmen Declaration was written in direct opposition to the national church government — the “Faith Movement of the German Christians” — rather than against the Nazi regime itself. It challenged Christians who were attempting to bring the Protestant church into line with the nationalistic ideals and aspirations of Nazi rule.

However, since the “German Christians” were a proxy for the Nazi state, the Declaration became also a condemnation of Hitler’s totalitarian rule.

The full article is available here

How Indigenous Societies Fought To Preserve Blended Gender Identities In The Face Of Colonialism - LitHub

White Colonial Supremacism placed Indigenous people in fixed and transhistorical categories, willfully obscuring a reality of cultural dynamism and physical movement in a bid to contain, control, and, if necessary, destroy Native people.

Between the late 18th and early 20th century, scholars, missionaries, traders, settlers, and government officials in the Americas, Europe, and Asia interpreted Indigenous cultural self-preservation as further proof of “Aboriginal” secretiveness and untrustworthiness.

Ethnological descriptions of Siberian shamans as sexless, asexual, or given to “perversions”—namely, “transvestitism” and “homosexuality”—further reveal the wild speculations that ethnographic writers indulged in.

White Colonial Supremacism placed Indigenous people in fixed and transhistorical categories, willfully obscuring a reality of cultural dynamism and physical movement in a bid to contain, control, and, if necessary, destroy Native people.

Non-Indigenous linguists attempted to corral gendered pronouns and impose some sort of order on Indigenous cultures. These intellectual labors were in keeping with the empirical thrust of the Western intellectual tradition.

In contrast, Native communities operated in worlds in which metaphor and mnemonic devices reminded people of the importance of adaptation and renewal to ensure balance in the overlapping worlds of the physical and the spiritual.

The full article is available here

Thoughts On Trump's Idea Of How History Should Be Taught - Calvin University historian emeritus, Robert Schoone-Jongen

Honest patriots seek the truth, all of it - warts and all. That is learning. The alternative is propaganda.

In the wake of President Trump’s embrace of “patriotic history” at the National Archives on Thursday, I rise to speak in favor of the discipline I taught, studied, researched, and wrote about for decades.

I also rise to oppose, categorically the debauched definition of history he espoused in that hallowed national space within sight of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence.

Back in the day, before the internet, I used to regularly listen to shortwave radio to find out what was happening in the world. Back in that day one of the loudest voices on those bands was Radio Moscow. I can still hear the baritone voices giving the English language version of the Soviet Union’s story.

Part of that story was the sovereign belief that the USSR had never been wrong, had always acted honorably, and that life under the Soviet Union had been uninterrupted rise to greatness. In this telling, there were no gulags, no forced labor, no liquidation of the kulaks, no pact with the Nazis. In fact by the 1980s Stalin had largely disappeared from the narrative. It was all sanitized, rosy, varnished, and a lie.

Since the advent of the internet, and my discovery of email, my signature has included the phrase, “History-the way today got here.” My history career rested on the truth that history is real, knowable, and valuable. The past is our mirror. In it, we can see ourselves for who we are, if we take the time to wipe the fog from that mirror. Something else promotes a clearer vision.

As Reinhold Niebuhr warned about sanitized national histories, such collective, willful ignorance destroys all it touches.

To say, as President Trump suggests, that the history of the United States is nothing but the triumph of freedom, is willful ignorance. Our national story is both 1776 and 1619, both “all men are created equal” and the “peculiar institution”. Both are true, not just one or the other.

Two of the founders carved on Mount Rushmore--beneath which the President stood in July--owned, bought, and sold human beings. The Confederacy’s leaders, whose statues the President deems sacred, committed treason against the United States (as actually defined by the Constitution) to preserve slavery.

The Constitution, which the President used as a prop the other day, condoned slavery.

In fact, condoning slavery made our national government possible. Abraham Lincoln, another face on that South Dakota mountain, was killed for his opposition to slavery. And Theodore Roosevelt lunched with Booker T. Washington at the White House—just once. Then came the backlash in the press. These are hard truths; nevertheless they are true.

History happens. People propel the events we read about and study; but people are not perfect. Therefore, the people’s story—our American history--will be rife with our imperfections. Unless we anesthetize ourselves into distortion, we have no choice but to address those imperfections staring at us in history’s mirror.

My grandfathers were both immigrants from the Netherlands—draft dodgers. Their trans-Atlantic passage allowed them to voluntarily dodge the law. They came to Paterson, New Jersey, and became good citizens of the United States. That is one thread in the American story, one we enjoy celebrating, and rightfully so.

But for millions of others, the passage across the Atlantic was not voluntary. A “person held to Service or Labour in one State” (a slave), to quote the Constitution’s Article IV, produced the fibers that were woven into the cloth produced in the mills Alexander Hamilton (of recent Broadway fame) financed, and Charles L’Enfant (who gave us Washington, D.C.’s street pattern) designed below the Great Falls of the Passaic River. That cloth, that came from fibers cultivated and harvested by slave labor, made Paterson a place that, even after slavery had been abolished, attracted immigrants like my grandfathers. Paterson’s prosperity was made possible by hardworking laborers—both slave and free. That is the unvarnished American story, whether the President likes it or not.

If we are to “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land” -- words cast on the Liberty Bell -- we need the truth; only the truth can make us free. A history of the United States that highlights Jackie Robinson but ignores Jim Crow, is just a story, not history. It would be an American version of the Radio Moscow version of the Soviet Union—fictionalized, sanitized, a lie.

In 2008, I had the privilege to teach an unvarnished version of American history to a group of Russian college students. When the course ended, I asked the students to tell me the most interesting, or important, thing they learned. I will never forget one student’s response. “I learned that it is okay to criticize your own country.” I kept that answer on my office desk for years. A Russian student grasped a truth that eludes our President; true patriots are honest patriots. Honest patriots seek the truth, all of it—warts and all. That is learning. The alternative is propaganda.

“You shall know that truth, and the truth shall make you free.” That’s good scholarship and the foundation of good citizenship. In the United States that means we always will see the interlocking of 1776, and 1619, and 1865, and today.

Unlike reality television or old westerns, history isn’t a simplistic story with stock characters and a scripted plot line.

History, the discipline I love, is complicated when it is real. History (a record of troubles and hopes) is the way today got here. That’s the simple truth. History education does not create the troubles, it studies them.

Trump's RNC Speech: Unholy Mix of Manifest Destiny and White Supremacy - Messiah college professor John Fea

What Trump leaves out are the Native American ancestors already living on the continent when European explorers and settlers arrived. It also leaves out slavery. 

The end of Donald Trump's speech at the Republican Convention celebrated an unholy mix of Manifest Destiny and White Supremacy.

In talking about our "American Ancestors," Trump said that, “They loved their families, they loved their country, and they loved their God. When opportunity beckoned, they picked up their Bibles, packed up their belongings, climbed into their covered wagons, and set out West for the next adventure.”

What Trump’s version leaves out is the Native American ancestors already living on the continent when European explorers and settlers arrived.

It was the Doctrine of Discovery, a series of papal edicts which many Christian denominations have since ruled to be heresy, that gave Christian explorers the right to claim lands they “discovered.”

It also leaves out slavery.

Overall, the story of American progress is more complicated than Trump made it out to be. Manifest Destiny was deeply informed by the long-standing idea that white Protestant ‘civilization’ must advance Westward. This belief claimed that God gave the continent to Christians and it was their ‘destiny’ to conquer and tame it.

The full article is available here

2020 Campaign Rhetoric Fact-Check: Does Joe Biden Advocate Socialism and Marxism?

 

The "Walk Away" from Democrats Campaign: When Bot Misinformation Warfare Meets Viral Hashtag - The Mercury News

There’s little actual evidence to suggest that Walk Away represents a mass exodus from the Democratic Party in support of Trump. 

The pro-Trump Internet is really good at convincing its audience that virality signals popular opinion, that its movement is and always will be winning.

There’s little actual evidence to suggest that Walk Away represents a mass exodus of Democrats in support of Trump. Instead, the Walk Away hashtag is going Conservative Internet viral on the hope that the country is on the verge of a mass conversion to Trumpian conservative thought. It never actually has to happen for the idea of it to go viral.

There is also evidence that the hashtag itself is being amplified artificially by bots and Russian trolls to seem bigger than it is, as well as using stock photos to depict people who are purported to be actual Walk Away-ers. 

The full article is available here

Common Fake News Claims About the Flu Vaccine - Dr. Melvin Sanicas

Fall is almost here, which means flu season is just around the corner.

It also means that anti-flu vaccine misinformation will go viral again.

Besides the common myths, there are posts that get shared over and over again through social media. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences investigated how misinformation grows online. The so-called “echo chambers” allow people to expand and amplify their own biases without obstruction.

Fake News #1: A Johns Hopkins Scientist exposed dangers of the flu vaccine.  The article in question was neither a peer-reviewed study nor a research article but an opinion piece (and everyone is entitled to an opinion!). This opinion piece was authored by an anthropologist who is neither a “Johns Hopkins scientist” nor a professional in the medical or biological fields.

Fake News #2: The CDC issued a flu vaccine apology.  On Dec. 3, 2014, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a health advisory to clinicians about the 2014–2015 flu season. The CDC press release stated that the H3N2 virus (only one of the three or four strains the vaccine was designed for) had mutated slightly, and protection for that one strain was reduced.

Fake News #3: The flu shot will make you susceptible to other respiratory viruses. There was one study (published in 2012) that suggested that the flu vaccine might make people more prone to infection of other respiratory infections. After the study was published, several experts looked into this issue further and performed additional studies to see whether the findings could be replicated. However, no other studies have found this effect.

Fake News #4: A CDC-funded study confirmed that flu shot link to spontaneous abortions.  A recent study showed an association between flu vaccine and miscarriage in this small group of women. It is important to note that millions of flu vaccines have been given for decades, including to pregnant women, with a good safety record. Indeed, pregnant women are at high risk of serious flu complications ― they are recommended for influenza vaccination during any trimester of their pregnancy.

The full article is available here

Structural Racism and Infrastructure In U.S. Cities - Johnny Miller in The Guardian

Urban infrastructure is not value-free. Government decisions made from the 1930's to the 1960's set the course for the inequality we face in U.S. cities.

To get an understanding of how infrastructure transforms communities, there’s no better place to start than the Federal Housing Authority “redlining” housing maps.

Commissioned by the federal government in the 1930's, these maps were critical to decisions of where and what type of infrastructure, lending and housing each neighborhood of each American city would be able to receive.

“The FHA promoted home ownership in new – and primarily suburban – neighborhoods so long as they were white and not ethnically or economically diverse,” writes Antero Pietila in Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City.

FHA maps were created for every major city in the US. Original assessment documents unearthed by researchers at the T-Races project reveal the cold, casually racist way in which data collectors consigned vast neighborhoods to neglect and poverty.

Nowhere is infrastructure so obviously structurally racist as with the vast interstate highway system.

By the 1950's and 60's, during the Interstate Highway building boom, the process of routing roads through black communities was so common it even had a name among critics: “White roads through black bedrooms.”

The result was decay, pollution, and crime.

The full article is available here

Widower of Lori Klausutis Asks Twitter To Delete Trump Conspiracy Theory Tweets About Her Death - New York Times

President Trump tweeted to his nearly 80 million followers alluding to the repeatedly debunked falsehood that Klausutis' wife was murdered by her boss, former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough.

Mr. Klausutis asked Mr. Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, to remove President Trump’s tweets that push a debunked conspiracy theory about the death of his wife, Lori Klausutis.

Twitter said it would not do so.

President Trump tweeted to his nearly 80 million followers alluding to the repeatedly debunked falsehood that Klausutis' wife was murdered by her boss, former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough.

The son of the president followed and more directly attacked the late Lori Klausutis by tweeting to his followers as the means of spreading this vicious lie.

The President’s tweet that suggests that Lori was murdered — without evidence (and contrary to the official autopsy) — certainly appear to be a clear violation of Twitter’s community rules and terms of service.

Mr. Klausutis wrote to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, saying, "I’m asking you to intervene in this instance because the President of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him - the memory of my dead wife - and perverted it for perceived political gain."

The full article is available here

What Is "Movement Conservatism?"

"Movement Conservatism" is a term describing conservatism in the U.S. and the New Right over the past 60-70 years. It differs from the moderate/traditional Republican Party which preceded it in being anti-regulation, anti-social web, pro-big business, and allied with the anti-Enlightenment Religious Right. 

Movement Conservatism is different from historic the moderate/traditional Republican Party in the vain of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Nelson Rockefeller, and Dwight Eisenhower. 

In his 2009 book "Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of Conservatism," George H Nash identifies a tension between middle-of-the-road republicans and movement conservatives.

Political scientists Doss and Roberts say that "The term movement conservatives refers to those people who argue that big government constitutes the most serious problem .... Movement conservatives blame the growth of the administrative state for destroying individual initiative."

Historian Heather Cox Richardson has articulated how the pre-Movement Conservative Republican Party believed that society worked best when people at the bottom had education and equality of opportunity - and that it was the role of government to actively distribute resources to those at the bottom to provide education and equality of opportunity.  This belief in a social web led to policies which have historically led to a rising middle class,

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman devoted a chapter of his book The Conscience of a Liberal (2007) to the movement, writing that movement conservatives gained control of the Republican Party starting in the 1970s and that Ronald Reagan was the first movement conservative elected President.

However, movement conservatives had to compete for President Reagan's attention with fiscal conservatives, businessmen, and traditionalists.

Author and magazine editor William F. Buckley Jr. was one of the founding members of the movement. His 1951 book God and Man at Yale argued against Keynesian economics, progressive taxation and the welfare state.

In 1955, he founded National Review, which provided a platform for arguing the movement conservative viewpoint. His emphasis was on pro-business, anti-union domestic policy. (However, in its early days the magazine also included sentiments of white supremacy).

The movement also gathered support from such disparate sources as libertarian Monetarists like economist Milton Friedman and neoconservatives like Irving Kristol. Friedman attacked government intervention and regulation in the 1950s and thereafter.

Judy Mikovits Didn't Discover Deadly Virus Delivered Through Vaccines, Wasn't Jailed For It - Snopes

Judy Mikovits - who was featured in a recently viral conspiracy theory YouTube video 'Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid 19' - did not discover a deadly virus delivered through vaccines and was not then jailed for it.

She was arrested for allegedly stealing equipment belonging to the Institute that fired her.

Fortunately, the video  - which had been widely shared on social media despite its obviously sensationalistic and preposterous title - has been removed from YouTube for violating guidelines.

The full article is available here

Conspiracy Theories Run Rampant When People Feel Helpless - Washington Post

The object of the conspiracy theories — the coronavirus — is, itself, the source of the undesirable psychological states that promote beliefs in conspiracy theories. Thus Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs are a self-fulling prophecy. 

Psychologists have identified a number of psychological traits that are related to conspiracy beliefs, including the predisposition to see systematic patterns where there is only random noise or to interpret coincidence as intentional cause.

But when it comes to a global pandemic — and the deaths, social isolation and collapsing economy that it has brought about — three other factors are key: uncertainty, anxiety and powerlessness.

The object of the conspiracy theories — the coronavirus — is, itself, the source of the undesirable psychological states that promote beliefs in conspiracy theories. In other words, coronavirus conspiracy beliefs are a self-fulling prophecy.

This is dangerous because belief in conspiracies undermines societal behaviors that are crucial to limiting the damage of the virus. Social distancing, hand-washing, and wearing masks in public all have the most impact at the outset of a global pandemic

Political and social leaders can combat pandemic-induced anxiety and uncertainty by visibly taking the threat seriously, including steps to promote public health and reduce the negative economic impact on people.

Even merely demonstrating that they are working hard to address the crisis and avoiding engaging in conspiratorial rhetoric themselves could limit the likelihood of the mass public turning further toward conspiracy theories for relief.

The full article is available here

There’s No Such Thing As "Judeo-Christian Values" - Charles D Dunst in The Forward

Rather than reference traditional and contemporary shared values between the 2 traditions, the term is utilized by those who wish to imply the existence of a contemporary cultural war and evoke the visceral responses that come from such war.

Sure, both Judaism and Christianity emanate from the Torah; there certainly are shared values.

These values, however, are not what the term​ “Judeo-Christian values” refers to.

Rather than reference traditional and contemporary shared values between the 2 traditions, the term is utilized by those who wish to imply the existence of a contemporary cultural war and evoke the visceral responses that come from such war.

The term, as used by the GOP, is not reflective of Jewish inclusion in Republican politics, but of an ideological strategy to unite 2 camps — the anti-immigrant nationalists and the evangelicals.

For anti-immigrant nationalists,​​“the promise of “Judeo-Christian values” implies a return to dominant whiteness.

For evangelicals, the promise of “Judeo-Christian values” implies returning Christian hegemony, privilege, and Dominionism.

Contemporary U.S. Jewish values — values which are largely liberal — are simply not reflected in the right’s usage of the term. The term is not one of Jewish inclusion and Jewish values, but of cynical Republican politics.

Using Judaism to posture to two groups – nationalists and evangelicals – whose values diverge so emphatically from those of the contemporary Jewish community is outrageous.

The full article is available here

Lockdowns Save Lives: The Evidence Is Clear From Around The World - Aria Bendix in Business Insider

Social distancing provided by the lockdowns has clearly slowed the spread of the virus.

Overwhelming evidence suggests that lockdowns help contain coronavirus outbreaks and prevent additional deaths.

China, Germany, and Spain all saw their number of daily infections drop off after lockdowns were instated.

"Social distancing provided by the lockdowns has clearly slowed the spread of the virus," Jeffrey Morris, director of the biostatistics division at the University of Pennsylvania, told Business Insider.

In Italy, towns with lockdown measures also seemed to fare better than those without.

"Clearly we need for society to practice new levels of caution in terms of social distancing, hygiene, and mask-wearing," Morris said. "Even they came at a great cost, Lockdowns achieved this."

The full article is available here

Right-Wing Pushing COVID Disinformation On Twitter Worldwide - Forbes

The U.S. right-wing has played a particularly important role in the rise and spread of various forms of COVID disinformation.

Conservative and right-wing voices play an outsized role in spreading mis- and disinformation online about the COVID pandemic worldwide.

The U.S. right-wing has played a particularly important role in the rise and spread of various forms of COVID disinformation. However, it is not just a U.S. online phenomenon, but rather a worldwide right-wing scourge.

A number of common themes and narratives are being pushed by right-wing Twitter accounts in the United States, Italy, and France in particular. These included racist and anti-immigrant themes and narratives, especially directed at China.

There is also a substantial overlap between right-wing voices promoting conspiracy theories and public health misinformation.

However, the campaign to push #FlattenTheCurve and related hashtags was successful for a time in mid-March. It was a small case study in the efficacy of science communication that attests to the positive, and likely life-saving, impact of credible information online.

The full article is available here

Eric Metaxas' Counterfeit Bonhoeffer - Richard Weikhart

Eric Metaxas simply does not have sufficient grounding in history, theology, and philosophy to properly interpret Bonhoeffer.

In the biography he wrote in 2010, Eric Metaxas presented a sanitized Bonhoeffer for evangelical audiences.

How did Metaxas get it so wrong? Part of the problem, perhaps, is that Metaxas simply got in over his head. Bonhoeffer was a sophisticated thinker immersed in early twentieth-century German philosophy and theology.

Bonhoeffer (like his mentor Barth) admitted that Kierkegaard was one of the most powerful influences on his theology, which means that Bonhoeffer was committed to an irrationalist, existentialist worldview that is quite different from the mindset of American evangelicals. Though most evangelicals probably do not know it, most Bonhoeffer scholars dismissively reject the idea that Bonhoeffer's theology is compatible with American evangelical theology.

Eric Metaxas simply does not have sufficient grounding in history, theology, and philosophy to properly interpret Bonhoeffer.

Victoria Barnett, the editor of the English-language edition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, wrote a scathing review of Metaxas's biography. In her opinion, Metaxas "has a very shaky grasp of the political, theological, and ecumenical history of the period." She then calls Metaxas's portrayal of Bonhoeffer's theology "a terrible simplification and at times misrepresentation." [2]

Clifford Green, another bona fide Bonhoeffer scholar who has edited part of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works and has written extensively about Bonhoeffer, has also criticized Metaxas heavily, claiming that Metaxas's biography should be entitled, "Bonhoeffer Hijacked."

Metaxas presented a sanitized Bonhoeffer for evangelical audiences.

The full article is available here

The "Government Tyranny" Boogeyman vs Social Darwinist Tyranny - Jeff Wiersma

If public servants failed to act in the interest of the public good, all of us would be left on our own against the tyranny of Social Darwinism.

Those who believe that various levels of government acting in the interest of public health is "tyranny" have an inadequate and misguided understanding of what tyranny is.

In a constitutional republic, various levels of government acting within their constitutionally-mandated roles to stop the spread of a deadly pandemic are not malevolently taking away citizen's liberty or trampling on their civil rights.

Though we should always be wary of authoritarianism, which desires totalitarianism over constitutionalism (especially with a would-be authoritarian in the Oval Office), it is inaccurate to label public servants acting in the interest of the public good as such.

More accurately, if those public servants failed to act in the interest of the public good, all of us would be left on our own against the tyranny of Social Darwinism.  The Social Darwinism would take on several forms, including the survival of those least-immunocompromised, the merciless and cynical forces of the financialized market, and potentially mob rule.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that those protesting social distancing are stirred up and organized by corporate interests like the Devos family's Michigan Freedom Fund, who see potentially diminished bottom lines as a higher priority than human life. 

How To Fight COVID-19 With All We've Got - Pro Publica

In an absence of an abundant supply of masks, both the WHO and CDC stressed how important social distancing was.

Since symptoms-based policies alone cannot be perfect, we need to turn to other strategies to catch the people who slip through the gaps presented by a broad “If you’re feeling unwell, stay home”-type recommendation.

After months of saying that healthy individuals should not wear masks, administration officials are now considering guidance for much broader, community-wide use of masks, Fauci told CNN on Tuesday.

In an absence of an abundant supply of masks — which, by the way, also need to be worn properly to provide protection — both the WHO and CDC stressed how important social distancing was.

Not only can social distancing protect you as an individual, but the better the general public is at adhering to these guidelines and staying at home, the less virus will be circulating in the public to potentially infect paramedics, grocery store workers and public works employees and other essential staff.

Increasing the chance that the virus will be “diluted” is important.

That means workplaces like factories and warehouses should do whatever they can to space out their workers, and not have meetings en masse in indoor spaces, where droplets are likely to persist and don’t have a chance to be carried away by wind.

Testing is critical, because it can let people know if they’re sick before symptoms emerge and prompt them to self isolate.

At a big picture level, testing helps public health officials know where the disease is spreading and better allow them to direct resources and responses efforts.

The full article is available here

Documented vs Undocumented COVID-19 Infection - Pro Publica

Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of COVID-19.

The W.H.O. so far has found few truly asymptomatic cases, in which a patient tests positive and has zero symptoms for the entire course of the disease.

However, there are many cases where people are “pre-symptomatic,” where they have no symptoms at the time when they test positive but go on to develop symptoms later.

“In some sense, symptomatic versus asymptomatic isn’t really the appropriate dividing line” for us to be focusing on, said Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “The appropriate dividing line is documented versus undocumented infection.”

What he means by “documented” is people who are identified as being infected, either because they were sick enough to go seek care or were tested through contact tracing, which is when public health officials track down all the contacts of someone who tested positive.

The “undocumented” could be people who have symptoms but didn’t get tested, or worse, people who had no symptoms or such mild symptoms that they decided to just carry on with their daily lives.

“Maybe they pop some ibuprofen, but still go to work, still get on public transportation, still do all the things we normally do, and the consequence of that is those people with mild infections — as well as if they’re truly asymptomatic — are taking the virus out into the community, and they’re spreading it far and wide,” Shaman said.

Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of COVID-19.

The full article is available here

You're Most Likely Most Infectious With COVID-19 Right After Contracting Virus - Pro Publica

Studies are now finding that people are shedding more virus during early stages of the disease rather than the later stages.

A virus that spreads in the way that COVID-19 does already a recipe for a bad outbreak, but this coronavirus has another aspect that’s helping to amp up its contagion factor.

You’re likely most infectious right after you contract the virus, possibly before you know you’re sick.

Studies are now finding that people are shedding more virus during early stages of the disease rather than the later stages.

"Shedding" is a term used by researchers measuring the amount of viral RNA from someone who is infected, from a sample gathered via a method like a throat swab.

The high viral load early on in the course of disease for COVID-19 patients suggests that the virus can be transmitted easily, even when symptoms are relatively mild.  This finding could account for the fast-spreading nature of this epidemic.

The full article is available here