IF iDir.com

After initial excitement about the discovery of a promising treatment for some coronavirus patients, executives with Gilead Sciences are now facing harsh criticism over the initial business decisions they’ve made in the midst of a pandemic. In recent days, state leaders and a government watchdog group have leveled complaints against the company for the price point it set for its antiviral drug remdesivir, a promising treatment shown to diminish recovery time in hospitalized coronavirus patients, and for allegedly not more quickly pursing a potentially cheaper alternative. “Gilead, on the one hand, has a product that helps people” said Dr. Erin Fox, the senior pharmacy director at the University of Utah.

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 04:00:29 -0400

The hub will connect Facebook and Instagram users to accurate and easy-to-find information about voting wherever they live and help them hold their elected officials accountable, the social media company said in a blog https://bit.ly/30RZP0z. Facebook said it was also speaking with election officials about misinformation surrounding election results as an emerging threat. The company is also offering free ad credits to U.S. state election authorities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to help them recruit poll workers.

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 03:49:34 -0400

Like many countries, Rwanda is finding it impossible to test each of its citizens for the coronavirus amid shortages of supplies. Rwanda’s mathematical approach, the researchers say, makes that process more efficient. Sema Sgaier, a Harvard assistant professor of global health, called the Rwanda approach an example of the “incredible solutions in very resource-poor settings” that have come out of the continent.

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 03:07:20 -0400

A sharp escalation in tensions with the United States has stoked fears in China of a deepening financial war that could result in it being shut out of the global dollar system - a devastating prospect once considered far-fetched but now not impossible. Chinese officials and economists have in recent months been unusually public in discussing worst-case scenarios under which China is blocked from dollar settlements, or Washington freezes or confiscates a portion of China's huge U.S. debt holdings.

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 02:18:43 -0400