Category Archives: Peace Love Art and Activism

Hilltop Pop Festival

August 2, 2020 Woodstock Whisperer 11 Comments

Hilltop Pop Festival

Larry Luddecke from Far Cry here – that was a great day!!That’s me with the platinum hair and the kid on my shoulders in the far left of picture. That’s Jed Whiting, our singer Jere’s son on the bike with Cris Pearne. The living members of Far Cry are still in touch, and I have worked with our guitar player, Paul Lenart, making and producing music for the pat 54 years! The after-party at our commune was great, though the memory is a bit hazy!!!

Mason, New Hampshire

Saturday 2 August 1969

1969 Festival #32

In my seemingly ever-expanding list of 1969 festivals, my general rule is to include only multi-day events, but the exception proves the rule. Two weeks before Woodstock, a one-day festival occured in Mason, New Hampshire. Mason sits on the border of New Hampshire and Massachusetts and is about 60 miles from Boston.

The event truly reflected the cultural revolution’s 1960’s zeitgeist: it was a benefit for the Mason Volunteer Fire Department to buy a new fire engine. Admission to the event was $3, all the artists performed for free.

And who were these generous artists? Locals, some better known than others, and some bigger names.

Where the festival actually was is confusing. The poster seems to give directions from Boston as it says to take Rt 2 to Concord (MA) and then Rt 119 to Townsend (also MA). The address to mail for tickets is in Greenville, NH, which is about 6 miles north of Mason. The notes from a Velvet Underground site says, “The event is often placed in Rindge NH, but it really took place on Barrett Hill Road in Mason NH.”

Who knows?

2023 Post Script

As you can see below, post readers occasionally leave comments. In August 2023, I exchanged a few emails with a John Bowditch who had attended the festival. I asked him regarding the actual location. Here’s his response: “I did a lot of sleuthing and can positively identify where this festival took place. I spoke with a friend, Gene Roe, who was there and one of the organizers. It took place in Mason, New Hampshire in a field just south of the junction of New Hampshire Rte 31 (Fitchburg Road) and New Hampshire Rte 124. This is very close to the Massachusetts border.

My personal memories were that it was a lovely festival and fun to attend. My then wife and I were good friends with a number to the organizers. Of course this all happened a long time ago.”

Thank you John!

Mason, NH

Mason, NH is a small town that was the boyhood home of one Samuel Wilson. While not for sure, Wilson is purportedly the basis for the legendary “Uncle Sam” character. May be an example of some enthusiastic History Haze.

Hilltop Pop Festival

Performers

Bartholomew & Oglethorpe

Sorry. Cannot find anything about this duo?

Bill Lyons

The only musician Bill Lyons I can find is a William Lyons and much to young to have participated in the Hilltop Pop Festival.

Blew Jug Band

Ditto.

Bob Garfield

There is a Bob Garfield who is a commentator and journalist.

Chris Pearne

I found an obituary for a Chris Pearne that seems to be for someone who could have been the Chris Pearne of the Hilltop Pop Festival. The obituary read, in part, “Chris was born John Christopher Pearne in Oakland, Calf., on May 25, 1945, and grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, where he started performing music in the 1960s. After a short stay at Kent State University and serving in the National Guard, he moved to the Boston area in 1966, where he quickly became part of the folk scene. Then, migrating to New Hampshire in the seventies, he settled in the Peterborough area, becoming an integral player at the legendary Folkway club: as performer, sound man, and emcee, in addition to maintaining his guitar building and repair shop there. At around that time, he also became involved in working in human services, which he pursued for several years.” Follow the link above for more.

If it’s the same one (how many can there be, he asks innocently), then Chris played on Jamie Brockett’s 1993 Road Dancer album.

A response to my question under this YouTube video said this:

maxarsolutions: I don’t know much about Chris’s earlier years … He was a luthier working out of the Button Factory in Portsmouth NH … prior to that at Gary’s Guitars in Portsmouth. I do remember him mentioning his days playing at the Folkway ( I believe in the Petorborough NH area) He also used to play the Press Room in Portsmouth from time to time.

Hilltop Pop Festival

Country Funk

Though personnel changed, it seems for the Hilltop show the band consisted of: Adam Taylor (lead guitar), Hal Paris (rhythm guitar, piano), Jim Lanham (bass, pedal steel), and Verne Johnson (drums)

From Country Funk dot net: I heard about a band called Country Funk that was playing in the Boston/New England area, and I was managing musical groups at the time in Boston, so I went to see them play and wanted to sign them immediately. They were the answer to California’s Buffalo Springfield. Eventually I became their manager. Listen to the music and you’ll see what I mean and hear what I heard. Manager Ray Paret.

From All Music: In 1969, the group landed a record deal with Polydor, and with Johnson back behind the drums, Country Funk headed to the Record Plant in Hollywood, where they cut their self-titled debut album. (True to the group’s shifting lineup, Pfeifer played drums on four of the album’s 12 songs.) Despite a strong reception, the album’s sales were poor, and it proved to be the group’s only record for many, many years — until 2011, in fact, when they returned with an album titled Zuma.

Here’s some of their sound. Nice stuff.

Hilltop Pop Festival

Far Cry

From All Music: Sometimes hypes and supposed scenes turn up random work that gets lost in the flow of its time but which a later generation rediscovers and celebrates deservedly for qualities obscured at the time. Sometimes. Far Cry, though, won’t get that nod, though it’s not for lack of trying on the part of the Fallout label, who make a specialty of digging up random oddities. This one’s just a bit too random, though: a late-’60s Boston band caught up in the monumental PR flop of the “Bosstown Sound,” Far Cry made a debut and, in the end, what would be their sole album, which is exactly what one would expect from a group at that time and place operating on a limited budget. To the septet’s credit, their songs are all originals as compared to so many of the covers that would pad out many albums at the time, while snagging a piece of classic Persian art for the cover made for a vivid visual impact. But the seven-song album sounds flat and distant even after a CD remaster, not bootleg-murky but not striking, either, while the band is simultaneously reasonably talented in a workmanlike way without bringing anything new to the table. Lead vocalist Jere Whiting‘s white blues wails are serviceable without being remarkable, while the group’s jams and breakdowns totter between noodling and making something out of it all, not always successfully. Bassist Sean Hutchinson more often than not is trying to lay in at least a bit of funk, in a steady-as-she-goes way, but otherwise long songs like “Dream?” and “Sweet Little Angel” in particular just fill up the space or build to OK but not remarkable finishes. A little psych, a little blues, a little funk — a little album, in the end.

Hilltop Pop Festival

Fort Mudge Memorial Dump

From mmone.org: Fort Mudge Memorial Dump — Caroline Stratton, Dean Keady, James Deptula, Dave Amaral, Richard Clerici — formed in Walpole, Massachusetts, in 1969, and boasted a loyal local following during their brief existence. By dint of geography, they were lumped into the “Bosstown Sound” with Ultimate Spinach, The Beacon Street Union and Orpheus, but their lone album, 1969’s Fort Mudge Memorial Dump, (Mercury) revealed the band to be rooted in San Francisco psychedelia — Stratton, with her strong vocals, and Keady, with his jazzy, acid-soaked guitar leads, were easily the East Coast’s answer to Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick and Jorma Kaukonen. Fort Mudge Memorial Dump disbanded in 1973. (by Stephen Haag)

Hilltop Pop Festival

Jack Parmlee

Need some help here.

Jaime Brockett

From mmone: I first met Jaime Brockett at the Y-Not coffeehouse on Main Street in Worcester during the mid-sixties. He walked on stage with a hotel-toilet-seat “Sanitized for your protection” strip wrapped snugly around the body of his guitar. He had recently returned from Denver, where he’d met Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, who’d become his mentor and a major influence. Throughout ’67 and ’68 he would stop by Congress Alley whenever he was passing through Worcester, often staying for an all-night session of pickin’ and grinnin’.

That same year, Oracle Records released his first album, Remember the Wind and the Rain, which included “Black Beauty,” an original composition written by this reporter. More importantly, it contained his folk-rap version of Leadbelly’s “Ballad of the USS Titanic,” the cut that would catapult him back-and-forth across the country like a pinball. It would also get him in trouble. One of the song’s lines, concerning “Jewish people trading wives and Cadillacs,” resulted in a stern letter from then-ADL President Justin J. Finger, accusing him of “foisting hoary canards.” He stopped playing the song around ’73.

Hilltop Pop Festival

Jim Santos

Not confident in what I find for a “Jim Santos.” Again, any help here much appreciated.

Len Chandler

From All Music: When Len Chandler arrived in New York City in the 1950s, he had no intention of getting involved with the folk music scene. Born in Akron, Ohio in 1935, he showed an interest in music at an early age. “My father was in the army,” Chandler recalled, “and my mother bought me a little plastic flute with eight holes in it, and I played songs on it until I ran out of range.” At eight, he began playing piano and at 12, he started studying classical music. He learned to play the oboe so he could join the high school band, and during his senior year joined the Akron Symphony.

By the early 1960s Chandler felt himself drawn to the Civil Rights Movement. In 1962 he wrote his first topical song, and deepened his commitment to the movement after attending a freedom singers conference in Atlanta in 1964. “I started submitting a lot of songs to Broadside,” Chandler said, “because what sometimes got me off the most were topical songs. I really liked the impact that would be made on people when they would hear something that you had just written right out of the news about something that happened today.” He sang at demonstrations and rallies, and won a reputation as a protest songwriter.

Hilltop Pop Festival

Paint

Any help?

Peter Johnson

From AllMusic: Peter C. Johnson was one of the driving forces in the Boston music scene in the late ’60s. His singer/songwriter style was a big influence on the young musicians coming through the area, including a relatively unknown Bruce Springsteen. He teamed with Astral Weeks session player John Payne to form the Manic Depressives, a band best known for backing Bonnie Raitt, although they performed with Howlin’ Wolf numerous times during this period. The band broke up following a fistfight at a gig, and Johnson disappeared for a few years. When he reemerged, he had completely rethought his approach, this time performing with six mannequins and a fortune in electronic equipment that provided a chorus of voices and music behind what he was playing on-stage. He released a self-titled album on A&M, which was a critical success but never quite caught on with the record-buying public. On top of this, a poor contract left him penniless after his touring expenses caught up with him. He recorded an album with John Cale soon after, but eventually disappeared after trying to rehab his drug problem. In 1998, he joined Bonnie Raitt on-stage at a concert that would inspire him to make music again. Teaming with David Champagne (Treat Her Right) and Asa Brebner (Modern Lovers), he put together the rootsy Bloodshot for a 2001 release. Soul Sherpa appeared three years later.

He did not release an album until 1978.

Hilltop Pop Festival

The Velvet Underground

The Warlocks became the Velvet Underground in 1965. The band’s association with Andy Warhol helped establish them. They released their first album in, “The Velvet Underground & Nico” in 1967. It was a commercial flop.

In 1969 they were on the road in both the United States and Canada where they concentrated on their live performances. Some of these live recording shave been released, including their Hilltop Pop Festival’s.

Waiting For The Man (6:35)
Run Run Run (10:00)
Pale Blue Eyes (8:45)
What Goes On (11:45)
Heroin (8:28)

Hilltop Pop Festival

The Wild Thing

Not sure…maybe…but a Richard Julio commented: “The Wild Thing that played this festival were on Epic Records.”

As is always a wonderful thing, I heard from a Steve Minichiello, cousin of member Dennis.

• The Wild Thing ended up producing 2 LP’s for Elektra and one 45

• The band had Dennis (my cousin), Jesse, Pat and Pancho — only Jesse survives. The other three died fairly young with drug issues until the end.

• I’m always looking for new pictures of the band, so if you have any I’ll be happy to add them to my family archive.

Hilltop Pop Festival

Van Morrison

Van Morrison had made his first recording playing saxophone on “Boozoo Hully Gully” with the International Monarchs in 1962. With the band Them (a band in constant personnel change both while Morrison was in the group (1964 – 1966) and after). Until Them, Van Morrison hadn’t sung lead.

Them had a two-month tour of America in May and June 1966 that included a residency from 30 May to 18 June at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. The Doors were the supporting act on the last week and Morrison’s influence on the John Densmore, in his book Riders on the Storm, remarks on how Van Morrison affected Jim Morrison. “Jim Morrison learned quickly from his near namesake’s stagecraft, his apparent recklessness, his air of subdued menace, the way he would improvise poetry to a rock beat, even his habit of crouching down by the bass drum during instrumental breaks.”

On the final night, the two Morrisons and the two bands jammed together on “Gloria“.

In 1967 he released “Blowin’ Your Mind,” his first solo album. Though critically well-received, the album was not a commercial success. 1968’s “Astral Weeks” was both. Having said that, the release of his “Moondance” in 1970 put him on the map.

The concerts.fandon.com site shows Morrison’s 1969 American bouncing him back and forth mainly from the east and west coasts. Along the way, he was at the Hilltop.

Hilltop Pop Festival

Dorothy Perry

As always, a first-hand account is always better than any summary. In January 2023, Dorothy Perry commented: I remember this well! I was in the midst of this event. 2nd child of Jon and Helen Bateman (Earth Mother). We lived in the Big House on the hill on the Greenville- Mason line, not far from Barrett Hill where the festival took place. Dad was a member of the fire department and both my parents were active in the music scene all over New England, so they were instrumental (unintentional pun) in lining up the talent. In the poster I’m the young girl with crossed arms looking like she’s going to bite the photographer. I can shed some light on the people behind the festival, some of the performers; who they are/were and what happened after. The Far Cry were living in the old wing of our house, Chris Pearne and Jim Santos had just moved out, Jamie Brockett was a frequent visitor, etc.

Thank you Dorothy.

Next 1969 festival: Wonderland Pop Festival

Peace Love Art and Activism

San Francisco Diggers

August 2, 2020 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

San Francisco Diggers

In a capitalistic culture, the idea of giving away what you provide is the opposite of what you are all about. When Woodstock Ventures announced that the festival would be free, it was not as incomprehensible as some observers may have thought. Providing free services was a view that many had had and continued to have.

Billy Bragg‘s 1987 cover o f “The World Turned Upside Down” written in 1975 by Leon Rosselson.

Lyrics below.

San Francisco Diggers

Deep Roots

“In the beginning of Time, the great Creator Reason, made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, … but not one word was spoken in the beginning, That one branch of mankind should rule over another” Gerrard Winstanley (1609-1660)

Wherever a powerful elite exist, we will often find coexisting the idea of “leveling the field” so that all members of a society have an equal chance. The American Constitution contains that idea in its phrase, “to form a more perfect union.”

Capitalism is based on private ownership. Those who have, have. Those who have not can work for those who have. The relationship can be an equitable one as long as the haves provide safe working conditions and a fare wage.

San Francisco Diggers

British Civil Wars

In Britain, during the 1640s, forces composed of those who supported Parliament (the “people”) fought forces composed of those who supported King Charles (the monarchy). Charles was beheaded in January 1649 and England became a republic. His son, Charles II, became the king of a much weakened monarchy.

San Francisco Diggers

True Levellers

During the war, the Levellers were a faction supporting the a republican and democratic side, but more radical in their demands such as popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance.

The name “leveller” was used by their opponents in an attempt to associate the members with an earlier movement that actually leveled hedges that separated lands to open up the land to more people.

San Francisco Diggers

British Diggers

An even more radical branch of the Levellers emerged in April 1649 known as the True Levellers or Diggers. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard led this faction. Their view was that the civil wars had been fought against the king and the great landowners and that with Charles’s execution, land should be made available for the very poor to cultivate.

San Francisco Diggers

The San Francisco Diggers began in August 1966 as a spinoff of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Billy Murcott had moved to San Francisco from New York and joined longtime friend Emmett Grogan and playwright Peter Berg to collaborate on various undertakings including the founding of the Diggers. [see Chronology for a much expanded Digger timeline]

The Diggers site describe themselves as “…one of the legendary groups in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, one of the world-wide epicenters of the Sixties Counterculture which fundamentally changed American and world culture. “

They evolved out of the counter-cultural fabric already woven into San Francisco’s culture. The group used street theater, art happenings, and in October 1966, began to distribute free food. Members went to the San Francisco Wholesale Produce Market and asked for whatever the sellers weren’t going to sell. Their first kitchens were their own apartments.

In 1967, new Digger Walt Reynolds started the first Free Bakery using equipment in the kitchen of the All Saints Church that its pastor, Fr. Leon Harris, had donated. Reynolds insisted on using whole grain wheat flour, which slowly helped spur the general spread of whole grain foods far beyond San Francisco.

Necessity being the mother of inventing, the lack of baking equipment led him to use tin coffee cans. And so, Digger Bread was born.

The Diggers created a free medical clinic.

San Francisco Diggers

Actors

R.G. Davis had created the San Francisco Mime Troupe. It’s mission was “…to create and produce theater that presents a working-class analysis of the events that shape our society, that exposes social and economic injustice, that demands revolutionary change on behalf of working people, and to present this analysis before the broadest possible audience with artistry and humor.”

The Diggers followed suit with street performances, eg, Trip Without A Ticket., the Death of Money Parade, Intersection Game, Invisible Circus, and Death of Hippie/Birth of Free.

San Francisco Diggers

Members

Ariel, Sam, Peter. This was taken at Olema. Ariel was not yet two. I was about 29. (Peter Coyote)

Actor Peter Coyote was a member of the Diggers. He said, “The Diggers didn’t stand for anything, but they were about personal authenticity and taking responsibility for your own visions.

Co-founder Peter Berg: The Diggers have several goals. One was the immediate one: to simply act out free. Put free in front of any word you could think of–a free phone box, free lunch, free district attorney, free judge, free policeman, free boy, free girl, whatever–especially free love. Love being the word that had been foisted on Haight-Ashbery. And the long term goal was to create a bomb, a situation in which the people who were refugees from American culture at the time…would be able to re-see exchanges between each other.”

Like much of the idealism of the 60s, the Diggers activities gradually lessened and their operations ceased. Their operations ceased, but the philosophy of leveling the field continues.

San Francisco Diggers

The World Turned Upside Down

In 1649
To St. George’s Hill
A ragged band they called the Diggers
Came to show the people’s will

They defied the landlords
They defied the laws
They were the dispossessed
Reclaiming what was theirs

“We come in peace,” they said
“To dig and sow
We come to work the lands in common
And to make the waste grounds grow

This earth divided
We will make whole
So it will be
A common treasury for all

The sin of property
We do disdain
No man has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain

By theft and murder
They took the land
Now everywhere the walls
Spring up at their command

They make the laws
To chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven
Or they damn us into hell

We will not worship
The God they serve
The God of greed who feeds the rich
While poor men starve

We work we eat together
We need no swords
We will not bow to the masters
Or pay rent to the lords

We are free men
Though we are poor
You Diggers all stand up for glory
Stand up now

From the men of property
The orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers
To wipe out the Diggers’ claim

Tear down their cottages
Destroy their corn
They were dispersed
But still the vision lingers on

You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share

All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The orders came to cut them down

San Francisco Diggers

Peace Love Art and Activism

August 2020 COVID 19

August 1, 2020 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

August 2020 COVID 19

689,588 COVID Deaths Worldwide

August 2: 18,055,793 cases worldwide; 689,588 deaths worldwide

157,921 COVID Deaths USA

August 2: 4,765,155 cases in the USA; 157,921 deaths in the USA

August 2: Dr. Deborah Birx , the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, said the US was in a new phase in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, saying that the deadly virus was more widespread than when it first took hold in the US.

“What we are seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread. It’s into the rural as equal urban areas,” said Birx.

She stressed that Americans needed to follow health recommendations, including wearing a mask and practicing social distancing.

“To everybody who lives in a rural area, you are not immune or protected from this virus,” Birx said. “If you’re in multi-generational households, and there’s an outbreak in your rural area or in your city, you need to really consider wearing a mask at home, assuming that you’re positive, if you have individuals in your households with comorbidities.” [CNN story]

August 2020 COVID 19

Dr. Anthony Fauci/death threats

August 5: Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he had received death threats and his daughters had been harassed as a result of his high-profile statements about the coronavirus pandemic.

“Getting death threats for me and my family and harassing my daughters to the point where I have to get security is just, I mean, it’s amazing,” Fauci said.

Fauci didn’t reveal any more details about the threats and harassment. But he said he and his wife, and his three daughters, who live in three separate cities, were weathering the stress.

“I wish that they did not have to go through that,” Fauci said. He made his comments during an online forum sponsored by Harvard University that CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta moderated.

Fauci has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and has advised six presidents on matters of public health. In recent months, he has sometimes made statements that have contradicted President Trump.

“I wouldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams that people who object to things that are pure public health principles are so set against it, and don’t like what you and I say, namely in the word of science, that they actually threaten you. I mean, that to me is just strange,” Fauci said. [NPR story]

August 2020 COVID 19

Trump posts removed

August 5: both Twitter and Facebook removed a post shared by President Trump for breaking their rules against spreading coronavirus misinformation.

Twitter temporarily blocked the Trump election campaign account from tweeting until it removed a post with a video clip from a August 5 Fox News interview , in which the president urged schools to reopen, falsely claiming that children are “almost immune from this disease.”

Facebook also removed a post containing the same video from Trump’s personal page. Both Facebook and Twitter said the post violated their rules on COVID-19 misinformation.

August 2020 COVID 19

711,876 COVID Deaths Worldwide

August 6: 19,006,692 case worldwide; 711,876 deaths worldwide

161,608 COVID Deaths USA

August 6: 4,973,741 cases in the USA; 161,608 deaths in the USA

August 2020 COVID 19

> 97,000 US children tested positive

August 9: according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, at least 97,000 children in the United States tested positive for the coronavirus the last two weeks of July alone,. The report said that at least 338,000 children had tested positive since the pandemic began, meaning more than a quarter had tested positive in just those two weeks.

August 2020 COVID 19

711,876 COVID Deaths Worldwide

August 10: 20,055,099 case worldwide; 734,561 deaths worldwide

165,619 COVID Deaths USA

August 10: 5,200,313 cases in the USA; 165,619 deaths in the USA

August 2020 COVID 19

Russia pre-approves

August 11: a Russian health care regulator become the first in the world to approve a vaccine against the coronavirus, President Vladimir V. Putin announced, though the vaccine had yet to complete clinical trials.

The announcement came despite a warning last week from the World Health Organization that Russia should not stray from the usual methods of testing a vaccine for safety and effectiveness. [NYT article]

August 2020 COVID 19

Aerosol Virus

August 11: a team of virologists and aerosol scientists has produced exactly confirmation of infectious virus in the air.

“This is what people have been clamoring for,” said Linsey Marr, an expert in airborne spread of viruses who was not involved in the work. “It’s unambiguous evidence that there is infectious virus in aerosols.”

A research team at the University of Florida succeeded in isolating live virus from aerosols collected at a distance of seven to 16 feet from patients hospitalized with Covid-19 — farther than the six feet recommended in social distancing guidelines.

August 2020 COVID 19

Local Chinese Hid Information

August 19: the NY Times reported that according to American officials familiar with a new internal report by U.S. intelligence agencies, officials in Beijing were kept in the dark for weeks about the potential devastation of the virus by local officials in central China,

The report concluded that officials in the city of Wuhan and in Hubei Province, where the outbreak began late last year, tried to hide information from China’s central leadership. The finding is consistent with reporting by news organizations and with assessments by China experts of the country’s opaque governance system.

August 2020 COVID 19

787,777 COVID Deaths Worldwide

August 19: 22,474,212 case worldwide; 787,777 deaths worldwide

175,927 COVID Deaths USA

August 19: 5,687,014 cases in the USA; 175,927 deaths in the USA

August 2020 COVID 19

August 23: the NY Times reported that the Food and Drug Administration gave emergency approval for expanded use of antibody-rich blood plasma to help hospitalized coronavirus patients.

August 2020 COVID 19

813,045 COVID Deaths Worldwide

August 24: 23,615,418 case worldwide; 813,045 deaths worldwide

180,605 COVID Deaths USA

August 24: 5,874,358 cases in the USA; 180,605 deaths in the USA

August 2020 COVID 19

Reinfection

August 24: researchers in Hong Kong reported the first confirmed case of reinfection with the coronavirus.

“An apparently young and healthy patient had a second case of Covid-19 infection which was diagnosed 4.5 months after the first episode,” University of Hong Kong researchers said in a statement.

The report was of concern because it suggested that immunity to the coronavirus may last only a few months in some people. And it had implications for vaccines being developed for the virus. [NYT story]

FDA authorizes convalescent plasma

August 23: President Trump announced the emergency approval of blood plasma for hospitalized Covid-19 patients. Trump and two of his top health officials cited the same statistic: that the treatment had reduced deaths by 35 percent.

Trump called it a “tremendous” number. His health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, a former pharmaceutical executive, said, “I don’t want you to gloss over this number.” And Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said 35 out of 100 Covid-19 patients “would have been saved because of the administration of plasma.” [CNN article]

August 2020 COVID 19

F.D.A. ‘Grossly Misrepresented’ Blood Plasma Data

August 25: some scientists were taken aback by the way the administration framed plasma data announced on August 23, which appeared to have been calculated based on a small subgroup of hospitalized Covid-19 patients in a Mayo Clinic study: those who were under 80 years old, not on ventilators and received plasma known to contain high levels of virus-fighting antibodies within three days of diagnosis.

Many experts — including a scientist who worked on the Mayo Clinic study — were bewildered about where the statistic came from. The number was not mentioned in the official authorization letter issued by the agency, nor was it in a 17-page memo written by F.D.A. scientists. It was not in an analysis conducted by the Mayo Clinic that has been frequently cited by the administration. [NYT story]

August 2020 COVID 19

C.D.C. Pressured to Change Guidance

August 26: higher-ups in the Trump administration instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to modify its coronavirus testing guidelines this week to exclude people who do not have symptoms of Covid-19 — even if they have been recently exposed to the virus, according to two federal health officials.

One official said the directive came from the top down. Another said the guidelines were not written by the C.D.C. but were imposed. [NYT article]

August 2020 COVID 19

827,069 COVID Deaths Worldwide

August 26: 24,243,682 case worldwide; 827,069 deaths worldwide

183,317 COVID Deaths USA

August 26: 5,990,439 cases in the USA; 183,317 deaths in the USA

August 2020 COVID 19

More Plasma Fallout

August 28: the NY Times reported that two senior public relations experts advising the Food and Drug Administration were fired from their positions after President Trump and the head of the F.D.A. exaggerated the proven benefits of a blood plasma treatment for Covid-19.

Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the F.D.A. commissioner, , removed Emily Miller as the agency’s chief spokeswoman. The White House had installed her in the post just 11 days earlier. Ms. Miller had previously worked in communications for the re-election campaign of Senator Ted Cruz and as a journalist for the conservative cable network One America News.

The day before, the F.D.A.’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, terminated the contract of another public relations consultant, Wayne L. Pines, who had advised Dr. Hahn to apologize for misleading comments about the benefits of blood plasma for Covid-19.

Guidance Change Fallout

August 28: the leaders of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, and the Big Cities Health Coalition, two organizations that represent thousands of local public health departments in the United States sent a letter to senior Trump administration officials asking that they “pull the revised guidance” on virus testing and restore recommendations that individuals who have been exposed to the virus be tested whether or not they have symptoms.

The letter — addressed to Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Adm. Brett P. Giroir, an assistant secretary of health at the Department of Health and Human Services. The organizations’ leaders wrote that their members were “incredibly concerned” about the changes.