Nation & World Glance
Biden unveils caregiver plan, says Trump ‘quit’ on country NEW CASTLE, Del. – Joe Biden offered a massive plan on Tuesday to create 3 million jobs and improve care for children and the elderly as he accused President Donald Trump of having “quit” on the country during a deadly pandemic.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee promised to spend more than three quarters of a trillion dollars – $775 billion over 10 years – to increase tax credits for low-income families, bolster care-giving services for veterans and other seniors and provide preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds.
“This is about easing the squeeze on working families” and showing families the “dignity and respect they deserve,” he said during a speech in New Castle, Delaware.
It’s the third plank of Biden’s larger economic recovery plan, following a $2 trillion environmental proposal he released last week and a $700 billion package unveiled the week before seeking to increase government purchasing of U.S.based goods and invest in new research and development. Biden is attempting to illustrate for voters how the coronavirus can present opportunities for job growth and new policy priorities in contrast to Trump, who has promised to rebuild the economy stronger than ever but otherwise struggled to articulate what he hopes to accomplish with a second term.
“For all his bluster about his expertise about the economy, he’s unable to explain how he’ll help working families hit the hardest,” Biden said. He added that Trump “failed his most important test as an American president: the duty to care for you, for all of us.”
Virus antibodies fade fast but not necessarily protection New research suggests that antibodies the immune system makes to fight the new coronavirus may only last a few months in people with mild illness, but that doesn’t mean protection also is gone or that it won’t be possible to develop an effective vaccine.
“Infection with this coronavirus does not necessarily generate lifetime immunity,” but antibodies are only part of the story, said Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. He had no role in the work, published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The immune system remembers how to make fresh antibodies if needed and other parts of it also can mount an attack, he said.
Antibodies are proteins that white blood cells called B cells make to bind to the virus and help eliminate it. The earliest ones are fairly crude but as infection goes on, the immune system becomes trained to focus its attack and to make more precise antibodies.
Dr. Otto Yang and others at the University of California, Los Angeles, measured these more precise antibodies in 30 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and four housemates presumed to have the disease. Their average age was 43 and most had mild symptoms.
After touting virus drop, SKorea sees cases rise SEOUL, South Korea – Just days after South Korean officials hopefully declared the country’s COVID-19 epidemic was coming under control, health authorities reported 63 new cases following a dual rise in local transmissions and imported infections.
South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday said at least 36 of the new cases came from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where about half of the country’s 51 million people live.