Saturday, April 25, 2020

Coronavirus News (55)



#VIDEO: तेजस्वी यादव ने कहा- हवाई जहाज वाले बीमारी लाए, भुगत रहे पैदल वाले

When Denver backed off social distancing in the 1918 pandemic, the results were deadly It was 1918 and Denver Mayor William Fitz Randolph Mills bowed to business leaders and decided to back off social distancing. Armistice Day seemed like a perfect day to do it. The city had been all but locked down for five weeks and now there was something worth celebrating -- the end of the First World War. Grateful citizens streamed into the streets of the city on November 11, 1918, soon after Denver's Manager of Health William H. Sharpley declared the "plague under control!" ......... Even in those early days of public health, with limited scientific remedies, social distancing and masks were understood to help stem the tide of pandemic. In the town of Montrose, Colorado, as the Denver Post recounted, a health officer named Isaiah Knott warned his fellow citizens that "if you are sick and do not stay away from social gatherings, you have the heart of a hun," using a derogatory term for the Germans the US was fighting at the time. But superstition often overwhelmed science, as officials recommended that people avoid wearing tight shoes and recommended people have a "clean mouth, clean heart and clean clothes." Quack "cures" proliferated, peddling their wares to the gullible and the desperate, as we see today in all kinds of coronavirus scams and pseudo science. ........... by the end of the pandemic, an estimated 675,000 Americans died, primarily in the fall of 1918 ......... But folks were bristling at being asked to stay indoors in the picturesque autumn and businesses -- especially movie theaters -- were irritated at losing so much money because of what seemed like a relatively isolated pandemic. They argued it was better to simply quarantine those who showed symptoms and let everyone else go about their business. ......... Despite the name Spanish flu the disease is believed to have begun at US Army Camp Funston in Kansas earlier that year before spreading across the world, killing an estimated 50 million ............... Wealthy socialites flouted social distancing requirements with little recourse. ........ By backing off social distancing too early, they utterly failed to flatten the curve, and suffered a second bump, as this graph of cities by National Geographic shows. ........ By November 22, deaths were spiking and Denver officials scrambled to reinstate bans on public and private gatherings and requiring masks for all commerce. .....

But the damage had been done. Five days later, Denver Post headlines blared the bad news: "All Flu Records Smashed in Denver in Last 24 Hours," claiming that more Denver residents had died of influenza than Coloradans killed in the First World War

. ............. That didn't stop business owners from marching on City Hall, protesting that they were losing tens of thousands of dollars a week, similar to the protests we've seen around the country over restrictions to help flatten the Covid-19 curve. ......... As Harry Truman said, "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." .


Coronavirus: WHO row between US, China sees G20 leaders summit called off at last minute, source says The Group of 20 (G20) planned to hold a second virtual leaders’ summit on Friday, to be attended by President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump ..... But the video conference was called off amid US-China row over World Health Organisation (WHO), but could happen in near future ......... “China thinks the US ordered a halt in funding for the WHO to get rid of the poor leadership in combating the coronavirus and try to blame China, but the US thinks the WHO was partial to China and that China should be responsible for the heavy losses in the US” ............... “China-US relations have sharply deteriorated and it’s very worrying, The future will become worse.” ......... “American taxpayers provide between US$400m and US$500m per year to the WHO; in contrast China contributes roughly US$40m a year, even less,” Trump said on Tuesday. “As the organisation’s leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability.” ......... On Thursday, China announced it would provide a further US$30 million to the WHO ....... “It should be an opportunity for the two countries to work together to respond to the virus, but the US puts the blame on China, and China’s response gave it a reason for intensifying the confrontation” ......

if Trump was reelected in November, relations between China and the US may escalate into an all-out confrontation.



Post-Covid-19: the world is facing a hunger pandemic and other disasters of biblical proportions Locusts, pestilence of livestock, disease. The 10 plagues of Egypt seem to be playing out in today’s world, as locusts invade Africa, pigs die in China and Covid-19 stalks the Earth ......... Is this not all getting very biblical? Are we not all reliving Exodus and the 10 biblical plagues? I have not quite figured out who is today’s equivalent of the pharaonic enemy, or of the people of Israel, but maybe that will soon become clear. ........... Rereading Exodus, I see eerie parallels with today. The first plague was water turning into blood: we now see deep red algal blooms in the seas off Hong Kong too often for comfort. Then, plagues No 2 to No 4 were frogs, lice and flies – with locusts eventually arriving as plague No 8. ......... Today we watch gruesome BBC footage of

billions of locusts sweeping across East Africa, into Pakistan and India, with fears they may invade 60 countries and 20 per cent of the world’s land surface

. China’s Forestry Ministry is on high alert, where they say locusts already destroy an estimated 10 million hectares of crops every year. .............. Plague 5 was pestilence of livestock: today we have hundreds of millions of pigs culled in China, victims of African swine flu, and billions of farmed shrimp succumbing to Decapod iridescent virus 1, or DIV1, across 11 Chinese provinces, on top of the almost annual cull of chickens downed by avian flu. ......... And let’s throw in the bacteria and fungi cutting a swathe through Europe’s olive orchards and the world’s Cavendish banana plantations, as well as the collapse of honey bee populations. ......... Plague 6 was boils, and here perhaps we should not be too literal, though given a choice between boils and coronavirus, Ebola or other recent epidemics, I think the Egyptians got off lightly. ....... Plague 7 was thunderstorms of hail and fire, and again I think the Egyptians got off lightly, compared with the Americans and Australians who have survived recent wildfires, and the millions falling victim every year to typhoons, hurricanes and other wild weather. .......... After locusts, the ninth plague feels familiar: “…total darkness covered all the land of Egypt for three days. No one could see anyone else, and for three days no one left his place”. That sounds eerily like the lockdowns, which for many are now in their third and fourth weeks. ........ The final plague – and the one that finally got the Pharaoh to relent and give the Israelites their freedom – was the death of all firstborn sons. ..... Is there not a dreadful resonance with this week’s briefing from the UN’s World Food Programme, warning that we are “on the brink of a hunger pandemic” that could result in “multiple famines of biblical proportions” as the Covid-19 pandemic spreads, silent and deadly, to already impoverished parts of the developing world, in particular in Africa, pushing perhaps 130 million or more people “to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020”. ........

we are being punished for – and warned over – our profligate disregard for maintaining balance in our global ecosystem.

....... These are indeed biblical times, and it makes me nervous to see so many of our leaders worldwide with their eyes fixed on petty political point-scoring rather than keeping the plagues in check.




The hard truth about the global coronavirus pandemic: it can’t be fought off by countries working alone Scientists around the world are working together on Covid-19 research and possible vaccines ...... But they can’t by themselves bring the crisis under control, when the world’s leaders are blaming one another instead of strengthening multilateral cooperation ................. If there is one single lesson emerging from the terrible global Covid-19 pandemic it is that some challenges cannot be tackled alone.

However strong the urge to slam our doors, point fingers of blame, and focus our efforts on solving our own problems, the reality is that we face a global trauma that requires global cooperation and a coordinated international response.

............... “because nearly everyone is to blame … it is a waste of time for the G20 to point fingers”. ....... “Only with a concerted, cooperative, and holistic approach can the international community avoid a large-scale humanitarian tragedy – and protect the rest of the world from destabilising blowback.” ........ “National responses are vital, but in the medium term, multilateralism will be our best weapon in this fight – and our best defence against future global threats.” ....... After three years in which the Trump administration has championed “America First” unilateralism, undermined support worldwide for large numbers of multilateral institutions, encouraged “decoupling” and insinuated that “multilateralism” is a dirty word, there can be no more important moment to push back firmly. There are many circumstances worldwide where international cooperation is not only the best way of optimising gains for everyone – it is often the only way. ........ The global warming crisis may be the most obvious example, but it is not the only one. Food and energy security can only be ensured by multilateral cooperation. The 2008 global financial crash needed close international cooperation.




how badly Trump is sucking all on his own .... "nervous Republicans" are watching Trump crater and worrying he'll take the Senate majority with him. ..... his brief silence is certainly a welcome reprieve—not to mention a literal lifesaver.

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