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Monday, April 13, 2020

Coronavirus News (40)

Coronavirus latest: China tries to stop second wave as hard-hit Spain eases restrictions More than half of the planet’s population is staying home as part of efforts to stem the spread of the virus, which was first detected in China late last year and has now killed at least 112,500 people, overwhelming healthcare systems and crippling the world economy. ...... China reported the highest number of new coronavirus cases in nearly six weeks on Monday, as it tried to prevent a second wave of Covid-19 infections. .......

there are fears that a rise in imported cases could spark a second wave of Covid-19 - especially among Chinese citizens returning from abroad

....... Authorities counted 108 new coronavirus infections over the past day, including 98 cases among travellers returning from abroad ....... There are 70 coronavirus vaccines in development globally, with three candidates already being tested in human trials ........ North Korea claims the coronavirus has not made inroads into the country, with travel to and from China and Russia having been shut down since earlier this year. It has tested at least 700 people and has put more than 500 in quarantine, but has no confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, according to the World Health Organisation.

Coronavirus: what’s behind Vietnam’s containment success?
Over half of US retail space closed
CDC, Fauci see peak in US contagion



I’ve read the plans to reopen the economy. They’re scary. There is no plan to return to normal.
Trump: It's my decision when to reopen U.S. economy
Pelosi, Schumer double down on calls for 'interim' coronavirus relief bill
TRUMP SAYS U.S. ECONOMY AFTER COVID-19 WILL SOAR 'LIKE A ROCKET SHIP'
Trump retweets call to fire Fauci amid coronavirus criticism
Trump says he’ll decide on easing guidelines, not governors
Virus may dash Trump's plan for a 'big bang' economic opening

Unchecked Global Warming Could Collapse Whole Ecosystems, Maybe Within 10 Years
Trump Spends Easter Asking Confidants: ‘What Do You Think of Fauci?’ The president called various friends and allies over the weekend to ask for their opinion

on the doctor he says he made a “star”

—and even retweeted a call for his firing.
Fauci confirms New York Times report Trump rebuffed social distancing advice Health adviser says on CNN ‘you could logically say if you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives’
Belgian-Dutch Study: Why in times of COVID-19 you should not walk/run/bike close behind each other.



Cuomo says he will meet with NJ, Conn. govs to help reopen 'as soon as possible'
Coronavirus: Boris Johnson says 'it could have gone either way'
China's border with Russia new front line in coronavirus fight The government has imposed restrictions similar to those in Wuhan city to prevent a second wave from imported cases.
Italy And Spain Ease Lockdown Restrictions As The U.S. Watches For Repercussions



Stop covid or save the economy? We can do both

shutting down the country is also the quickest way to get it started back up again

....... US GDP will drop as much as 30% to 50% by summer. ........ “an optimistic projection” for the cost of closing nonessential businesses until July was almost $10,000 per American household. ........ letting the virus spread unchecked could kill as many as 2.2 million Americans ....... his essential argument remained: that in the coronavirus pandemic, there is an agonizing trade-off between saving the economy and saving lives. .......

a false dichotomy

. The best way to limit the economic damage will be to save as many lives as possible. ...... the situation is unprecedented in living memory. ........ “It isn’t like anything we’ve seen in a hundred years.” In any past recession or depression, the economic solution has always been to stimulate demand for labor—to get workers back on the job. But in this case, we’re purposely shutting down economic activity and telling people to stay at home. “It’s not just the depth of the recession,” Autor says. “It’s qualitatively different.” ......... those least able to withstand the downturn will be hit hardest—low-wage service workers in restaurants and hotels, and the growing number of people in the gig economy ......... Each adult earning less than $75,000 will be given $1,200, and for the first time, gig workers and self-employed people will qualify for unemployment benefits. Hundreds of billions of dollars will also go to helping businesses stay afloat. ........ any region with a large service economy is vulnerable ...... many of these places never recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. ......... The people losing these low-wage service jobs were already experiencing skyrocketing mortality rates from what economists have begun calling “deaths of despair,” caused by alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide. The coming crash could make things much worse. ....... shutting down businesses is the only real choice, given that an unchecked pandemic would itself be hugely destructive to economic activity. If tens of millions of people become sick and millions die, the economy suffers, and not just because the workforce is being depleted. Widespread fear is bad for business: consumers won’t flock back to restaurants, book air travel, or spend on activities that might put them at risk of getting sick. ........ In a recent survey of leading economists by Chicago’s Booth School, 88% believed that “a comprehensive policy response” will need to involve tolerating “a very large contraction in economic activity” to get the outbreak under control.

Some 80% thought that “abandoning severe lockdowns” too early will lead to even greater economic damage.

......... even moderate social distancing will save 1.7 million lives between March 1 and October 1 ...... Avoiding those deaths translates into a benefit of around $8 trillion to the economy, or about one-third of the US GDP, ....... “Our choice is whether we intervene—and the economy will be really bad now and will be better in the future—versus doing nothing and the pandemic goes out of control and really destroys the economy.” ........ the 1918 pandemic reduced national manufacturing output in the US by 18%; but cities that implemented restrictions earlier and for longer had much better economic outcomes in the year after the outbreak. .......... Cleveland and Philadelphia. Cleveland acted aggressively, closing schools and banning gatherings early in the outbreak and keeping the restrictions in place for far longer. Philadelphia was slower to react and maintained restrictions for about half as long. Not only did far fewer people die in Cleveland (600 per 100,000, compared with 900 per 100,000 in Philadelphia), but its economy fared better and was much stronger in the year after the outbreak. By 1919 job growth was 5% there, while in Philadelphia it was around 2%. .........

“A pandemic is so destructive,” he says. “Ultimately any policy to mitigate it is going to be good for the economy.”

......

The cure, then, isn’t worse than the disease.

........ there’s a way to get America quickly back in business while preserving public safety. ..... repeatedly testing everyone without symptoms to identify who is infected. (People with symptoms should just be assumed to have covid-19 and treated accordingly.) All those who test positive should isolate themselves; those who test negative can return to work, traveling, and socializing, but they should be tested every two weeks or so. .......... some might resist it or resist isolating themselves if positive ...... Each of Roche’s best machines can handle 4,200 tests a day; build five thousand of those machines, and you can test 20 million people a day. ........ “We just need to bend some metal and make some machines.” If you can identify and isolate those infected with the virus, you can let the rest of the population go back to business. .......... 93% of the economists agreed that “a massive increase in testing” is required for “an economic restart.” ....... ramping up testing and then isolating those infected rather shutting in the entire population. .......

widespread testing of various sorts to know who is vulnerable and who isn’t before we risk going back to business.

......... Many hospitals and doctors complain they can’t get needed tests; and Roche’s CEO said at the end of March that it will be “weeks, if not months” before there is widespread coronavirus testing in the US. ....... He calls the $2 trillion legislation passed by Congress “palliative care” for the economy. If you took $100 billion and put it into testing, he says, we would “be far better off.” .......... The idea that one day you will be able to restart the economy without massive testing to see if the outbreak is under control is just “magical thinking.” ........ without testing .. we will in fact be left with the Trumpian choice: between salvaging the economy and risking countless deaths.

Amazon Puts New Grocery-Delivery Customers On Hold As Demand Explodes
Ford expects coronavirus shutdown to cause $600 million quarterly loss
Apple Maps is working to display coronavirus testing locations 'as quickly as possible'
Test and trace: How the U.S. could emerge from coronavirus lockdowns Epidemiologists believe that if properly employed, testing and tracing can allow the U.S. to open some businesses and relax social distancing requirements.
Nursing home deaths soar past 3,600 in alarming surge
Whistleblower nursing home worker, 59, dies from coronavirus after she accused Massachusetts facility where 10 residents have died from the virus of a cover-up and claimed they failed to test staff

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Sunday, April 12, 2020

Coronavirus News (39)

Fears Of ‘Wild West’ As Coronavirus Blood Tests Hit The Market
The coronavirus spreads at least 13 feet, travels on shoes: CDC
The coronavirus crisis: How Trump is failing successfully The US president is mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic and getting away with it.
U.S. Has Most Coronavirus Deaths In The World
Trump reportedly asked Dr. Anthony Fauci whether it was possible to allow the coronavirus to 'wash over' the US
Pope celebrates joy of Easter amid sorrow of virus, alone
Pope Francis says it might be 'time to consider a universal basic wage' in Easter letter

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Saturday, April 11, 2020

Coronavirus News (38)

US GOVERNMENT CONSIDERING COVID-19 “IMMUNITY CARDS” ANTIBODY TESTS ARE ALREADY ON THEIR WAY.
BILL GATES: THERE’S GONNA BE A PANDEMIC “EVERY 20 YEARS OR SO” LET'S DEAL WITH THIS ONE FIRST, THOUGH.
TOP DOCTOR: GETTING COVID-19 ONCE PROBABLY MEANS YOU’RE IMMUNE FAUCI PREDICTS PEOPLE WHO RECOVER WILL "HAVE ANTIBODIES THAT ARE GOING TO BE PROTECTIVE."
APPLE AND GOOGLE TO LAUNCH APP FOR TRACKING THE CORONAVIRUS THE APP WILL ALERT YOU IF YOU'VE BEEN AROUND ANYONE WHO TESTED POSITIVE.
Coronavirus: China is not safe while Covid-19 continues to spread around the world, experts say Nations ‘can’t be at peace as long as there is an outbreak in any country’, Chinese respiratory disease specialist Zhong Nanshan says .....‘I still don’t see any light for the global pandemic,’ says Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
Food goes to waste amid coronavirus crisis The Covid-19 pandemic is leading to "tsunami" of change in how people buy food.



"There is no doubt you're going to see cases" when distancing restrictions are relaxed, Fauci says
New York state has more coronavirus cases than any other country in the world.
Trump spends Easter weekend pondering the 'biggest decision' of his presidency
Not everyone is getting a $1,200 coronavirus stimulus check. Here's who will be left out.
More than 2,000 US coronavirus deaths reported in a day, likely a peak toll, expert says

India Is No Longer India "You realize,” a friend wrote to me from Kolkata earlier this year, “that, without the exalted secular ‘idea’ of India … the whole place falls apart.” ........ If some commentators described the CAA as “India’s first Nuremberg Law,” it was because the law did not stand alone. ....... It worked in tandem, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah menacingly implied—in remarks he has recently tried to walk back—with a slew of other new laws that cast the citizenship of many of India’s own people into doubt. Shah, who has referred to Muslim immigrants as “termites,” spoke of a process by which the government would survey India’s large agrarian population, a significant portion of which is undocumented, and designate the status of millions as “doubtful.” ........ The CAA would then kick into action, providing non-Muslims with relief and leaving Indian Muslims in a position where they could face disenfranchisement, statelessness, or internment. India’s Muslim population of almost 200 million, which had been provoked by Modi’s government for six years, finally erupted in protest. They were joined by many non-Muslims, who were appalled by so brazen an attack on the Indian ethos. ....... Without a country we are adrift, like people whose inability to love another is linked to an inability to love themselves. ....... it was to be a place that cherished the array of religions, languages, ethnicities, and cultures that had taken root over 50 centuries. ........ beneath the topsoil of this modern country, a mere seven decades old, lies an older reality, embodied in the word Bharat, which can evoke the idea of India as the holy land, specifically of the Hindus. India and Bharat—these two words for the same place represent a central tension within the nation, the most dangerous and urgent one of our time. Bharat is Sanskrit, and the name by which India knows herself in her own languages, free of the gaze of outsiders. India is Latin, and its etymology alone—the Sanskrit sindhu for “river,” turning into hind in Persian, and then into indos in Greek, meaning the Indus—reveals a long history of being under Western eyes. India is a land; Bharat is a people—the Hindus. India is historical; Bharat is mythical. India is an overarching and inclusionary idea; Bharat is atavistic, emotional, exclusionary. ......... Savarkar was, as Octavio Paz writes in In Light of India, “intellectually responsible for the assassination of Gandhi,” in 1948, at the hands of Nathuram Godse, now a hero of the Hindu right. ........ As much as people in India bridle against the binary distinction of India and Bharat, it recurs again and again in the country’s discourse—Bharat as a pure, timeless country, unassailable and authentic; India as the embodiment of modernity and all its ills and dislocations. When a medical student was raped and murdered in Delhi in 2012, the head of the RSS had this to say: “Such crimes hardly take place in Bharat, but they occur frequently in India … Where ‘Bharat’ becomes ‘India,’ with the influence of Western culture, these types of incidents happen.” ........... Growing up in 1980s India, in a Westernized enclave where, to quote Edward Said, the “main tenet” of my world “was that everything of consequence either had happened or would happen in the West,” I had no idea of this other wholeness called Bharat. That ignorance of Hindu ways and beliefs was not mine alone, but symptomatic of the English-speaking elite, which, in imitation of the British colonial classes, lived in isolation from the country around them. Mohandas Gandhi, at the 1916 opening of Banaras Hindu University, a project that was designed to bridge the distance between Hindu tradition and Western-style modernity, worried that India’s “educated men” were becoming “foreigners in their own land,” unable to speak to the “heart of the nation.” Working closely with Nehru, Gandhi had been a great explainer, continually translating what came from outside into Indian idiom and tradition...............

By the time I was an adult, the urban elites and the “heart of the nation” had lost the means to communicate. The elites lived in a state of gated comfort, oblivious to the hard realities of Indian life—poverty and unemployment, of course, but also urban ruin and environmental degradation. The schools their children went to set them at a great remove from India, on the levels of language, religion, and culture. Every feature of their life was designed, to quote Robert Byron on the English in India, to blunt their “natural interest in the country and sympathy with its people.” Their life was, culturally speaking, an adjunct to Western Europe and America; their values were a hybrid, in which India was served nominally while the West was reduced to a source of permissiveness and materialism.

......... Hindu nationalists trace a direct line between the foreign occupiers who destroyed the Hindu past—first Muslims, then the British—and India’s Westernized elite (and India’s Muslims), whom they see as heirs to foreign occupation, still enjoying the privileges of plunder. .........

As Modi and Donald Trump bear-hugged each other, Hindu-nationalist mobs roamed the streets of New Delhi a few miles away, murdering Muslims and attacking their businesses and places of worship. The two leaders did not acknowledge these events

..........

I was not Muslim, and not Pakistani, but, as the writer Saadat Hasan Manto once noted, I was Muslim enough to risk getting killed. It was game over for my sort of person in India.

........... I had seen what had happened to my father in Pakistan, where the shape of society is identical to that of India. He had died like a dog in the street for his high Western ideals. They mourned him in the drawing rooms of Lahore, and in the universities, think tanks, and newsrooms of the West. But in Pakistan, his killer was showered with rose petals; his killer’s funeral drew more than 100,000 mourners into the streets. ..........

the “somewheres” and the “anywheres,” the rooted and the rootless

......... exile turning into asylum



More than 2,200 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes, but federal government isn't tracking them The numbers are likely a significant undercount, given the limited access to testing and other constraints, state officials and public health experts say.
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