Coronavirus tracking website denies "resurrected" data

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The coronavirus tracking website CoronaTracker.com denies any kind of information indicating that a certain individual indeed "resurrected" from COVID-19 in the Philippines.

A number of posts circulating in social media combines news reports with the CoronaTracker.com logo, alongside with the Philippine coronavirus data, displaying a "1 Resurrected First World Record" at the lower rightmost portion.

CoronaTracker.com does not report people "resurrected" from the coronavirus disease. The tracking portal only reports the number of COVID-19 cases, recoveries, and deaths per country.

"Just like any other diseases, no one resurrects from the coronavirus disease. Always observe precautionary measures to avoid the risk of being infected," said Dr. Lau Cher Han, a data scientist and full stack developer who leads the project.

CoronaTracker.com is an open-source, community-based coronavirus tracking website portal keeping track of the latest news and developments about the coronavirus pandemic and gathers data for in-depth analysis (e.g. time series to monitor the growth, spread of the virus), including localized news (e.g. news related to Malaysia, or Kuala Lumpur only). Contents are handpicked, filtered, and curated by 460 volunteers across the globe, ranging from data scientists, medical professionals, UI/UX designers, and full stack developers ensuring these sources are reliable with minimal hoaxes and fake news. Natural language processing (NLP) helps analyze trending content and identify meaningful topics over various news sources and social media platforms prior to verification.

The website portal is also featured in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

Be updated about the coronavirus pandemic. Please visit the website at https://www.coronatracker.com/

Political Protests During Mass: Unethical or Wake-Up Call

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Not all who criticize the government are seen as doing good. There are some perceived as misguided elements that could only create further chaos leading to more divisiveness of this country.

There were these activists that were said to have gotten reprimanded by church workers who courteously asked them to stop what they were doing, but when they persisted, two cops accosted them....or is accosted such a strong and negative word to use?

But from some media outfits, they report that it was the church workers who asked help of the police. Please we need to be enlightened.

"Aktivistas" attended the Mass; two brought out protest placards marked with “Resist Anti Terror Law!” while a woman distributed leaflets during the Mass. The church staff remonstrated with them, but they would not be stopped.

According to Rev. Fr. Douglas Badong, Parochial Vicar of Quiapo Church, it is not appropriate to display placards and distribute flyers expressing opposition to the government within the Church and at the height of the holy celebration itself. The woman distributing leaflets appeared clueless. She asked police: "Why is this forbidden?"

Although the Church is united in opposing laws that may violate the human rights and freedoms of the people such as the controversial Anti-Terror Law, the manner in which opposition to the government was being expressed was not appropriate and acceptable.

"There is something wrong with … expressing opposition to the government … at the wrong time and wrong venue because it is a Mass… We are united in their expression of opposition to such a law -- but there is a right venue." ~ Fr. Douglas Badong.

If the church will not file charges on these activists, then it is double standard to what they did to Carlos Celdran.

But this is maybe because Celdran was attacking the church, and the activists were protesting against a recently-enactedg-enacted government bill.

Challenge Accepted: What it really means

Wazzup Pilipinas!

About that challenge accepted churva:

Don't you think we should only post when someone challenges us....hehehe...if not, no need to. Or is it a global/nationwide challenge for everyone?

So before posting I researched. The challenge is so much more than a selfie or old photographs from the aged family chest.

Over the past several days, many social media feeds have been overrun with black-and-white images of women both famous and not. But now, even men are joining the bandwagon, but not really understand what it was for.

I haven't done it yet, but tried to Google it. Though I came across a post that warns you about the illegal use of your photos for deepfakes or something similar.

If you're confused by the premise of the #WomenSupportingWomen #ChallengeAccepted challenge, don’t worry. Many people seem to be.

This challenge originally started to raise awareness for the current femicides occurring in Turkey, where women’s black an white photos are shown on news outlets after being murdered.

In July alone, 40 women have been murdered so far.

Then came #pınargültekin - a 27 year old student who after days of searching was found exhumed, beaten, strangled and buried in a barrel.

Her attacker was found and arrested due to social media coverage.

So whilst I am not all for the women empowering women movement (why do we need to be divisive, open the opportunity to help to men too), let’s also use this opportunity to shine a light on the issues Turkish women are facing.

I find it so telling that every publication that decided to do a story on this social media challenge, did it through the most critical lense.

From the most shallow perspective, it’s a challenge forcing women to look at themselves as beautiful (because B&W photos are the OG filters). You would be surprised how many women don’t post selfies because they don’t think of themselves as worthy of it.

There was so much weight on why the challenge mattered, that when it was finally traced back to violence against women in Turkey, it got essentially, one paragraph. The entire rest of the article is about criticizing women for being XYZ.

The fact that there have been more publications writing about this challenge than, for instance, AG Barr’s dad hiring Jeffrey Epstein to work at an elite all girls private school, which led to him becoming the most notorious child molester, is much more important and interesting for readers.

Still, as an IT, though inactive, the so called "naysayers" poking on security issues should be thanked for giving the warning. Not being paranoid but just being cautious. Let us not hate them for being party-poopers.

They are saying that you are just helping Facebook and other face recognition apps to perfect their AI in duplicating our features. The downside, they could successfully clone us and build clone profiles based on inputs we willingly give. Read more on face recognition, data mining, deep fakes, etc.

If it won't hurt you to follow, just like how many of us believe in Feng Shui, superstition, etc., let's appreciate their concern for us.

There maybe just a few who can't express themselves in a tone that suits you that you immediately reject and brand him with names.

By the way, the FaceApp could also be another way to gather similar data for illegal use....also Nametests, OMG, etc.

and why go far, Facebook seems to be the largest database of all sorts of information about us. We feed it with almost everything about us...well, I do.

Be afraid or not?