Coronavirus News (66)

Oil Price Shock: What It Means for Producers and Consumers For producers, the negative prices had them worrying briefly about paying buyers to buy their oil, but now they face longer term concerns, such as having to curtail output; shut down producing wells and defer new well openings; put off exploration; and file for bankruptcies or get acquired in a wave of consolidation ............ “Investors and traders were so desperate not to receive oil that they were willing to pay others to take the barrels instead” ........

“COVID is simply outside what even the most far-reaching energy market scenarios had considered.”

...... wrong calls by automated trading may be the culprit behind last week’s dramatic price fall. ........ “a new normal” is being defined by the pandemic ...... Many in the oil industry worry that the pandemic will continue in the summer months that usually see peak demand. ......... “And, just because crude oil is free or even better priced, it still costs money to refine it and distribute it. Gas prices at the pump won’t go to zero even at negative crude prices.” .......... “It’s expensive to cap the wells, so a lot of the wells were kept open and continued to produce” ........ “Capping a well is not like putting the cap back on the ketchup bottle,” said Smetters. “Capping some wells can be cheap. But high-pressure, high-temperature wells are harder to cap and plugging them is more permanent and expensive.” ........... The break-even rate of producing shale oil in the Permian Basin in Texas ranges between $40 and $55 a barrel ..........

“If prices settle at $10 for an extended period, it will mean the industry is in deep trouble”

............ “The 2022 futures trade around $40 per barrel, suggesting that the market expects oil demand to recover significantly post-COVID.” ............. “The market is desperately trying to find storage opportunities for the excess oil that’s still being pumped up, now that there’s no demand for oil with our empty freeways and grounded planes.” ......... Insofar as Russia’s predictability is concerned, it suffered a humiliating defeat and now knows that backing off on promises could bring swift retaliation from the Saudis. .......... Russia especially could be hit hard by the price crash, since it exports 70% of its oil production ........ The drop in oil prices in 2014 “wreaked havoc” on Russia’s economy, but last Monday’s price drop is much larger .......... as of April 17, the strategic oil reserve held 635 million barrels out of a total capacity of 797 million barrels. “Even ignoring shipping costs, that open reserve equals about two days of total world oil production ........ “To put it bluntly, given a limited amount of funds, would you rather keep and grow jobs in solar energy, or subsidize shale oil producers?

EXPERTS: PEOPLE PROBABLY AREN’T ACTUALLY CATCHING COVID AGAIN early experiments with animals, which showed that COVID-19 immunity would last for a year after infection. ........ “If you’re testing a lot of people like they did in China, you’re likely to get a lot of false positives and a lot of false negatives” .......... the coronavirus can mutate relatively quickly, which could end up giving people an immunity for only a short period of time after being infected. .......... Early signs point towards the coronavirus only mutating in smaller, insignificant ways. ....... “We hope this is going to be more akin to a measles vaccine.”

Here’s Why Elon Musk Keeps Complaining About Quarantine the mercurial entrepreneur doesn’t seem motivated by civil liberties. Instead, he’s angry that his factory is shut down — and he’s willing to put lives at risk to open it back up again. ......... We only have two car factories right now: one in Shanghai and one in the Bay Area, and the Bay Area produces the vast majority of our cars.” .......... “But to say they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist,” he said on Wednesday’s call. “This is not democratic. This is not freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom.” .........

That’s a sharp reversal for Musk, who tweeted in 2017 that if “my words are against science, choose science.”

........... “It will cause great harm, not just to Tesla, but to many companies,” he said. “And while Tesla will weather the storm, there are many small companies that will not.”

Report: COVID May Have Killed Way More Americans Than We Think According to experts, the pandemic's death toll could be vastly higher than we thought. ........... an estimated 15,4000 excess deaths — twice as many as those attributed to the deadly coronavirus at the time.

THIS DISINFECTANT CAN KEEP SURFACES CORONAVIRUS-FREE FOR MONTHS After successful clinical tests, MAP-1 will be commercially available in Hong Kong starting in May, Reuters reports. It’s already been used to coat low-income housing in the city in an attempt to stave off future coronavirus infections.

THIS COVID-19 VACCINE COULD BE READY BY SEPTEMBER "IT IS A VERY, VERY FAST CLINICAL PROGRAM." ........ As various teams race to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, one group at Oxford University says that — if everything goes perfectly — theirs could be available as soon as September.

SCIENTISTS FIND AIRBORNE CORONAVIRUS FLOATING IN WUHAN HOSPITAL "IT STRONGLY SUGGESTS THAT THERE IS POTENTIAL FOR AIRBORNE TRANSMISSION." ........ Chinese scientists have found new evidence that the coronavirus could spread through the air in airborne droplets ....... levels of concentration of the virus’ RNA in aerosols was very low in isolation wards and ventilated patient rooms — but elevated in “patients’ toilet areas” ....... “Our results indicate that room ventilation, open space, sanitization of protective apparel, and proper use and disinfection of toilet areas can effectively limit the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in aerosols” ......... The World Health Organization so far has claimed that the virus mainly spreads through larger droplets that fall to the ground relatively quickly and through contaminated surfaces. ......... But others have argued that the virus can spread through aerosol particles that can go airborne as well. ....“Those are going to stay in the air floating around for at least two hours” ........ while the scientists couldn’t find substantial traces of the virus in well-ventilated and open spaces, confined spaces such as bathrooms could be where the virus spreads. ......“I think it adds good evidence to avoid crowding”

Coronavirus News (65)

Combating COVID-19: Lessons from Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan How have Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea leveraged their IT infrastructure and capabilities to deal with the crisis? What could other governments learn from their experience? ..........

Newspapers, television, and social media have been awash with reports about COVID-19 developments.

.......... the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the country’s communication regulator, gave temporary access to the 5.9GHz spectrum for rural wireless broadband. Temporary access was granted to 33 fixed-wireless internet service providers (WISPs) ...... The agency’s stated aim behind this move was to bring access to telehealth, distance learning and telework to rural communities in several states. ....... in a bold legislative move, Congress relaxed several restrictions on the use of telemedicine to treat people covered under the Medicare program. .......

unlike in the world of business, there are no unambiguously measurable financial targets — such as profits, market share, unit costs and market capitalization – in the public administration of health

......... how

Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea

overcame daunting challenges and deployed technology to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. .......... There is perhaps no better example than that of Singapore when it comes to using ICT for rapid, large-scale social orchestration. ......... Singapore, which has a population density as well as a population comparable to that of New York City, reported its first case of COVID-19 on January 23, while New York confirmed its first case on March 1. Singapore had 9,125 cases on April 21, compared to New York’s 251,720 (and 11 deaths to NYC’s 14,828 on April 21). ............. At the heart of Singapore’s response to the pandemic is contact tracing, a process by which every newly discovered infected case (person) is mapped on to all the people that might have been potentially infected by that person. Within 24 hours of each new infection being discovered, more than 100 contact tracers working around the clock put together the contact map for that person. ...................... “Singapore invested heavily in developing capacity and an infrastructure to deal with these types of outbreaks over the past 10 to 15 years, including increasing capacity for intensive care and patient isolation facilities, building expertise in infectious disease.” ................... Singapore’s digital technological capabilities paid off. They enabled the state to take

extraordinarily thorough and swift measures at scale in the face of the pandemic

. ................ The capabilities that South Korea developed to fight disaster stemming from geopolitical conflicts were amplified by its use of digital technologies to orchestrate a swift and cohesive response at scale to the pandemic. ............ Ever since the SARS epidemic of 2003, Taiwan has been in a state of constant readiness to combat epidemics arising from China, given the deep and extensive contact between the two countries. As many as 2.71 million visitors from China entered Taiwan in 2019. ............. After the SARS outbreak in 2002, Taiwan had created a disaster management and recovery center — National Health Command Center (NHCC) – which focused on large disease outbreaks and served as the operational command for a coordinated response across multiple agencies and regions. In the face of the rapidly escalating pandemic, Taiwan was able to calm its citizens and convince them that the government was in control of several critical tasks. These ranged from border control, quarantine monitoring and resource mobilization to the effective management of logistics and operations. Careful and accurate communication helped Taiwan keep its citizenry well informed and fight misinformation.

The vice president of Taiwan, an epidemiologist by training, led the public information campaign from the office of the president.

................ Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s use of Facebook to reach out to the citizens. The PM posted “…Once a case is confirmed, within two hours [contact tracers] create a detailed activity log of the patient’s movements and interactions in the 14 days before admission….” ............ The ministry of health also provided regular and consistent WhatsApp group updates of what was happening in the country and the extent to which the virus had spread. The government opted for transparency and people were told in stark terms what could happen next. Not only did the delivery of information on social media channels help control panic, it also strengthened the credibility of the public administration in the eyes of its citizens. ..................

the investment in administrative capabilities in public health was strengthened by its digital technology capabilities and vice versa.

............. when a new COVID-19 case was found in a neighborhood, people within that geography were alerted by information sent to their mobile phones. The alert provided information about the patient’s demographic details as well the patient’s travel history. .......... Sharing of aggregate population trends and tracking of events in real-time are possible even in regimes that have stringent privacy laws. South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) provides for comprehensive safeguards for the protection of citizens’ privacy. Taiwan, too, has very strict data protection and privacy legislation including the Personal Data Protection Act, which regulates collection, processing and use of personal data. These laws have not restricted these countries from using information effectively when a swift response was called for in an emergency. .............. a contact-tracing smartphone app – TraceTogether – developed by GovTech that identifies people that have been within two meters of a patient for at least 30 minutes for follow up action by contact tracers. ............. Taiwan tracks quarantined peoples’ cell phone signals for possible violation of quarantine requirements. Texts to those found outside the quarantine zone as well alerts to enforcement authorities are sent by the automated system. Taiwan imposes a fine on people who leave quarantine without a phone. ............ Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan all made a distinction between the use of data to advance commercial objectives and the use of data to protect the well-being of citizens in an emergency. In all three cases, the use of data was restricted to narrowly defined and specific usage contexts that were only related to responding to the contagion. ..................

The authority that moves large numbers of people to cohesive action is not the coercive power of the state as much as the authority of specialists and the credibility that they command.

............. Singapore’s citizens have always been led by a technocratic government often praised for its efficiency. Within a week of China’s lock down of Wuhan, the government of Singapore closed its borders, set up a virus fighting task force and imposed stringent home quarantine measures. The initial response was led by Vernon Lee, director of the communicable diseases division at Singapore’s Ministry of Health, who said

his goal was to get ahead of the pandemic rather than to chase it and fall behind

. ............ Taiwan’s big data efforts coopted the public as collaborative partners. Rather than treat patients as careless offenders, the CECC took the view that the population faced a looming peril which was best combatted using collective measures. ..............

Taiwan’s approach was not only ‘big data’ but also ‘big tent’ – which means Taiwan did not seek to assign blame or take punitive measures against those infected and/or quarantined.

........... the approval ratings of the president and premier were about 70% and the minister of health and welfare was over 80% ..............

Taiwan .. has 420 cases and 6 deaths with a mortality rate of 0.25 per million people (the U.S. has a mortality rate of about 85 per million people).

........... a month after the surge in new cases, New York City reported about 7,500 new cases a day. ........... In each case, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan learned from the past and put in place a set of competencies and response capabilities. These capabilities required effective communication techniques, rapid dissemination of information, the ability to recognize emerging patterns and act on them, and finally, the ability to reach the individual citizen and orchestrate cohesive group action. ............. Any large-scale deployment of an information network will of course carry with it the hazards of cyber-attacks. Such hazards are no different from those faced by financial systems, public transportation systems, and indeed the power grid. ....... robust protections are needed both for the physical security of the information processing network as well as the privacy of individuals from overreach by commercial entities and bureaucrats ........ Indeed, the internet itself was first designed with the objective being able to withstand just about any catastrophe.

We are now officially living an era that many scientists call Anthropozoic or Anthropocene. An era where a class of man...

Posted by Partha Banerjee on Thursday, April 30, 2020

Not Like the Flu, Not Like Car Crashes, Not Like... It’s about the spike.
Donald Trump reveals plans to bring back his '25,000 people rallies' as he says he will travel to Arizona and Ohio, saying 'I'd like to get out' - and says of the virus 'it's going to leave'
NYC subway to end 24-hour service for first time for coronavirus disinfection
Japanese island suffering second wave of coronavirus after lifting lockdown too early
Singapore's coronavirus spike sends world a wake-up call Migrant worker infections turn success story into cautionary lesson ...... Surging coronavirus infections in Singapore's migrant worker communities have underscored the difficulty of stomping out the disease -- and may offer lessons for other countries.