NATURE.COM -- Widespread antibody testing (known as a sero-prevalence surveys) in Santa Clara county, California, by Stanford University researchers revealed that coronavirus infection rates are [50 times] higher than official figures suggest. Jayanta Bhattacharya, a study co-author, says the results probably still undercount the infection rate. The findings also indicate the virus is less deadly than current estimates. The Santa Clara analysis follows preliminary results from a similar study in Germany. Sero-surveys can provide a better estimate of how deadly a virus is, using a measure known as the infection fatality rate (IFR): the proportion of all infection (not just those confirmed through clinical testing), that result in death. The Santa Clara team estimated an IFR for the county of 0.1-0.2%. Although some experts have raised concerns about the reliability of antibody kits, the researchers assessed the tests and state it correctly identified 93% of control positives and 100% of control negatives. Results are expected soon from sero-prevalence surveys from China, Australia, Iceland, Italy, Germany and ...

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RT.COM -- Standford University researchers used 3,300 residents in Santa Clara County to conduct their tests, which found that the coronavirus could have infected far more people than has been reported, "50-85-fold more than the number of confirmed cases." A Danish study published earlier this week using similar methods arrived at the same conclusion. Michael Mina, an immunologist and assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard, tweeted agreement with the study on Friday. The WHO has previously mentioned a 3% mortality rate for COVID-19. Stanford's study would lower the mortality rate to 0.14% or less, on par with or less than the deadliness of the seasonal flu, which has a yearly mortality rate around 0.1%, according to ...

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THEINDEPENDENTWHIG.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Jonathan Haidt was named a top 100 and top 30 global thinker by Foreign Policy and British Prospect Magazine, respectively. He is professor of social psychology and studies morality and religion. "The Righteous Mind" debuted at number 6 on The New York Times bestseller list.] ARTICLE: In a study I did with Jesse Graham and Brian Nosek, we tested how well liberals and conservatives could understand each other. We asked more than two thousand American visitors to fill out the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. This design allowed us to examine the stereotypes that each side held about the other and assess how accurate they were [in understanding the other side]. The results were clear and consistent. Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as "very liberal." The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals ...

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THEINDEPENDENTWHIG.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 1965: Left-wing attitudes tend not only to destroy the Faith of a man towards his religion but also the respect of one individual towards another. When the Faith is broken down everything goes with it: the family, society, the individual, the intelligence.] ARTICLE: As a lifelong liberal, I assumed conservatism = orthodoxy = religion = faith = rejection of science and, as an atheist and a scientist, I was, therefore, obligated to be a liberal. But Jerry Muller, in "Conservatism", asserted that modern conservatism is really about creating a society that brings the greatest happiness given local circumstances. Was there a kind of conservatism that could compete against liberalism in the court of social science? Might conservatives have a better formula for how to create a healthy, happy society? He laid out a series of claims about human nature which he said are core beliefs of conservatism. Based on my own research, I had to agree with him. And, as I studied conservative intellectuals, I saw they had crucial insights into morality I had never encountered. They understood the importance of moral capital. (Note I am praising conservative intellectuals, not the Republican Party.) Moral communities are ...

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