Dear Friend,
Since the Corona crisis is grave, the government of India's decision to stop train services throughout the country till March 31 cannot be faulted. But this has grave implications for the poor. They are going to be stranded and worse, many will lose their livelihood as they cannot reach their work places.
Kindly support honest journalism to survive. https://countercurrents.org/subscription/
If you think the contents of this news letter are critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/news-letter/.
In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
As in Katrina disaster, the poor are Being left behind in India
by Vidyadhar Date
Since
the Corona crisis is grave, the government’s decision to stop train services throughout the country till March 31 cannot be faulted. But this has grave implications for the poor. They are going to be stranded and worse, many will lose their livelihood as they cannot reach their work places.
The Cornavirus Pandemic: Capitalism is questioned
by Farooque Chowdhury
The ramping coronavirus pandemic is questioning capitalism as at least a billion people around the world are confined in homes. Millions of workers have already lost jobs. A bleak future waits for them. Governments are struggling to face the situation. The United States, considered the most powerful, the most resourceful, the wisest and the smartest state, is actually in a state of mess. About 150 countries now have more than 300,000 confirmed cases, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. Some Spanish intensive care
units are close to their limit.
The ramping coronavirus pandemic is questioning capitalism as at least a billion people around the world are confined in homes. Millions of workers have already lost jobs. A bleak future waits for them. Governments are struggling to face the situation. The United States, considered the most powerful, the most resourceful, the wisest and the smartest state, is actually in a state of mess. About 150 countries now have more than 300,000 confirmed cases, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. Some Spanish intensive care units are close to their limit.
An AFP news-report from Rome said: Nearly one billion people around the world were confined to their homes on Sunday.
The pandemic has forced lockdowns in 35 countries. Countries in continents have closed down borders. France has deployed helicopters and drones to keep people within their homes. Following China’s measures, people in India have voluntarily followed a 14-hours-curfew – stay in home. Narendra Modi, the PM of the country, proposed the self-imposed-curfew.
Factories in Europe and the US have braced hardest hit since the WWII. Millions of workers have turned unemployed. More workers, it’s apprehended, will be unemployed. That means, billions of people are facing/going to face uncertainty and hardship. Lives, trade, travel around the world is disrupted at unprecedented level.
According to a leading investor, the world stock market has already lost $12 trillion. Governments, from Australia to Britain to the US, are doling out emergency stimulus packages. These are, in total, trillions of dollars.
According to an NBC News survey with more than 250 health care professionals across the US, there is a dire need for personal protective equipment in the US hospitals. One major challenge for health care professionals is the lack of available testing kits. “I don’t feel like my hospital is failing us. It’s the whole system that’s failing us”, said a nurse in Michigan.
A March 22-AP news report said:
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the government is “literally scouring the globe looking for medical supplies.”
Health care workers from Oklahoma City to Minneapolis sought donations of protective equipment. Staff at a Detroit hospital began creating homemade facemasks for workers. Rural hospitals are strained. In the farming community of Vidalia, Georgia, medical staffers at emergency room are wearing facemasks for their entire 12-hour shifts.
The pandemic has not spared the world’s mightiest military machine. An AFP news report datelined Washington, March 21, 2020 said: The coronavirus is handicapping the world’s most powerful military. The US’ crucial exercises are cancelled, and soldiers are confined to bases. “The Pentagon this week admitted that the global pandemic is a formidable foe like none other that it has confronted. Proud of its ability to project force to the furthest corners of the globe and to react instantly to any threat, the US military has been forced to curb operations to ensure its two million-plus active and reserve fighting force. The usually crowded halls of the Pentagon have thinned, with thousands told to work from home – a shift that has introduced new security challenges. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and his deputy secretary, David Norquist, and their staffs are no longer meeting in person, to ensure at least one national leader and his team stays healthy. Esper said on Fox News: ‘Mission number one for the United States military remains ensuring that the American people, the country and our interests abroad are protected.’ But regular operations have been disrupted. The Iraqi Security Forces have suspended all training. The US Centcom has pulled back troops from some of the smaller bases in Iraq. The US has been forced to suspend key joint exercises and war games in South Korea, Africa and elsewhere. On March 11, the Pentagon slashed its participation in what would have been the largest joint US-Europe war games in 25 years. The exercise has now been cut by more than half. At its hundreds of military bases across the country and around the world, US forces are prevented from traveling. The US army’s recruitment of new troops is being hampered. Now, it’s “basically, virtual recruiting”, said General James McConville, the US Army chief of staff.
Nevertheless, the Empire’s operations are not fully halted. A March 22-news report said: The Trump administration is ramping up construction of its multibillion-dollar border wall, although the US is facing widespread shortages in testing kits and essential protective equipment like masks, gowns and gloves while medical experts warn of insufficient ventilators and hospital beds to cope with the inevitable surge in sick patients.
There’re the prison populations in countries including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the US. The US harbors the largest prison-population in the world. There’re the refugees/internally displaced populations in Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Bangladesh including the Rohingyas. How much facility, bare minimum facility – hand washing soap and clean water – do these millions have? A news report have already said: Syrian refugees are facing a dangerous situation in the face of the pandemic. Gaza, the world’s biggest open-air prison, has already come across the danger: The coronavirus has appeared there.
This, in brief, is the appearance of today’s coronavirus pandemic-hit world dominated by imperialist order. Nevertheless, this isn’t the entire reality. There’s another reality: Not all is bad news.
Wuhan, the Chinese city with the first devastating experience of the virus, went a fourth consecutive day on Sunday without reporting any new or suspected cases of the virus.
According to the WHO, a vast majority of people recover from the virus. People with mild illness recover in about two weeks while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.
Countries including China and Cuba have already begun administering drugs to fight the virus creating havoc.
Dozens of teams of scientists in countries are working round-the-clock to devise necessary drugs. It’s a war being waged by science against the pandemic while politicians have wasted a lot of valuable time and resource to get prepared for fighting the pandemic.
A few of the newly innovated drugs including one in the US have already been administered to test side effects. The US Federal Drug Administration has already given approval to test a drug, which if successful can be administered at the point of care, and can bring results within a very short time.
A drug Cuba was producing since long is being administered in China while at least a dozen countries have sought the drug from Cuba. Fidel Castro, in the last century, initiated the research institute that innovated the drug.
China has already sent tons of medical equipment and medical teams to countries in Asia, Africa and Europe. One of these countries is Serbia. The president of Serbia has written: The EU unity is on paper, only China can help.
The Serb President sought medical equipment to fight the virus in his country with a population of 7.5 million. But he was denied. Italy had the same experience: Refusal by the EU countries to share their medical equipments. The EU members said: We don’t like to share our stock of equipment.
China has also delivered more than 100 tons of supplies to the Czech Republic, to a number of African countries.
Cuba, the geographically very small Latin American country facing the longest-ever sanction in human history imposed by the strongest-ever power on the earth, sent medical teams – “Armies of White Robes” – to countries including Italy, one of the richest countries in the world, a member of G-7 and NATO, and a party to the destruction of Gaddafi-run Libya, to combat coronavirus.
Cuba has already sent more than a hundred doctors and nurses to Grenada, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Surinam and Venezuela.
A Reuters report said: Leonardo Fernandez, 68, A Cuban doctor, member of the medical mission to Cuba has said before departure for Italy: “We are all afraid but we have a revolutionary duty to fulfill, so we take out fear and put it to one side. He who says he is not afraid is a superhero, but we are not superheros, we are revolutionary doctors.” The Italy mission is his eighth similar mission abroad. He was in Liberia in the fight against Ebola. Another member, 64 y/o, Graciliano Diaz, said: “We are going to fulfill an honorable task, based on the principle of solidarity.”
Britain has already thanked Cuba last week for allowing a British cruise ship that had been turned away by several Caribbean ports to dock on the island and for enabling the evacuation of the more than 600 passengers onboard. And, the countries that turned the British cruise ship are members of the British Commonwealth – “glory” of a crown or touch of a royal sword.
Thousands of Cuban doctors and medicine students are going door-to-door monitoring communities in Cuba.
Russia’s Defense Ministry informed: It was ready to fly mobile medical teams and disinfection equipment to Italy.
However, questions haunt.
An AFP news report dispatched from the UN headquarters has questioned: With the great powers focused intently on the pandemic, will armed conflicts across the world decrease in severity or intensify? Experts and diplomats at the UN say there is a serious risk of the latter.
The experts and diplomats have pointed out a number of reasons. Their analyses also vary. But, the main aspect went unattended: Imperialism. As long as imperialism is there on this earth, war shall not vanish. Epidemic or pandemic can’t refrain imperialism from waging war, can’t chain it as war is its permanent feature, one condition for its existence. The money-equation is the mirror: The money, time and labor spent behind wars, celebrations, image building is much higher than the money allocated for public health care, for research on public health safety and ecology. The time the powerful spend for self-eulogizing takes away the time required for fighting for public health. It’s a capitalist case. The pandemic has once again exposed this fact. The sad line is the intolerable fact: It’s the people, especially, the working people paying most, losing jobs, losing opportunity in the sector the mainstream lovingly calls the informal sector for daily earning. Their earning is slashed. They don’t know what to do. The hapless workers leaving Delhi days ago in hundreds for their rural homes in Bihar and the eastern UP in India are the living evidence. They, just, have been told by their maaleeks, owners of small enterprises: Leave, the business is closed. The low-earning, lower-middle class families having no opportunity to “earn” bribe? An unemployed journalist working with a small newspaper? A madrasa, Islamic religious school, teacher? How many of them could buy essentials including soaps at the middle of the month? Many of them go without salary for months. How much water and how many hand washing soaps the Dhaka or Chittagong slum-dwellers in Bangladesh or a slum-dweller in Manila or Karachi can afford? In their slums, social distancing? A fairytale in a modern, capitalist society that uses billions of dollars to rob all resources from a world that the people own!
Farooque Chowdhury writes from Dhaka.
COVID-19 Pandemic Slows Down In China
by Countercurrents Collective
China is slowing down the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
China is slowing down the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Beijing datelined AFP said a few days ago:
China reported on Tuesday just one new domestic coronavirus infection but found 20 more cases imported from abroad, with more regions imposing quarantines on foreign arrivals in a bid to stem the disease being brought in from overseas.
The single case in Wuhan will boost China’s view that it has “basically curbed” the spread of a disease that is believed to have emerged in a live animal market in the central city in December.
Wuhan and its 11 million people were placed under strict quarantine on January 23, with the rest of Hubei province going under lockdown in the following days.
Authorities tightened restrictions in the city even further on February 11, confining people to their homes as health workers faced a daily deluge of well over 1,000 cases – a move officials say was critical in containing the virus.
Other cities across the country enacted further measures to compel most people to stay indoors, and no new domestic infections have been detected outside Hubei for many days in a row.
But the country is now concerned about an influx of cases from abroad, with an average of 20,000 people flying into China every day.
Beijing started on Monday to require almost all international arrivals to go into 14-day quarantine in designated hotels.
People who live alone, minors, the elderly, pregnant women and people with underlying conditions are allowed to confine themselves at home.
Shanghai extended its mandatory quarantine to travelers from 16 countries on Tuesday including the US, Australia and several European nations, but said travelers may quarantine either at home or at a designated location.
Shanghai and Beijing, and another seven provinces or municipalities announced that they would make international arrivals carry out a mandatory quarantine either at home or in central facilities.
China also reported 13 deaths Tuesday, raising its toll to 3,226.
China’s progress stands in stark contrast with the growing crisis in other countries, with the World Health Organization (WHO) saying there were now more deaths and cases outside China.
The new coronavirus was officially identified as the cause of an outbreak of illness in Wuhan on January 9.
Coronavirus’ death rate found to be lower than WHO estimates
The coronavirus’ death rate may be lower than the WHO estimated, research suggests.
At the beginning of March, the WHO announced the virus had killed 3.4% of patients worldwide, which other experts called a likely “overestimate.”
To learn more, scientists from The University of Hong Kong looked at the 48,557 confirmed cases that had arisen as of February 29 in the Chinese city Wuhan, where the outbreak emerged.
They found the average death rate among patients under-30 was 0.3%, rising to 0.5% for those between 30 and 59, and 2.6% for people aged 60 or above.
Overall, they calculated the fatality rate to be 1.4%.
Although “promising,” experts have stressed estimating death rates in the midst of an outbreak is “fraught with difficulties.”
Cases have been plateauing in China since the end of February, with Europe now the epicenter of the pandemic.
In an attempt to combat the infection, scientists quickly got to work uncovering how severe the infection could be.
Using “public and published information,” the Hong Kong scientists looked at the 48,557 cases in Wuhan, of whom 2,169 died.
Based on this, the scientists calculated the overall “symptomatic” death rate in Wuhan at the start of the outbreak to range from 0.9%–to-2.1%, averaging at 1.4%.
Compared to those aged between 30 and 59 , the patients aged 60 or over were on average 5.1 times more likely to die “after developing symptoms”, according to results published in the journal Nature Medicine.
Patients without symptoms would likely have gone unreported and not been included in the analysis.
“This is a detailed epidemiological analysis and the results are cautiously encouraging, in that they indicate a lower fatality rate from [the coronavirus] than has thus far been estimated,” said Professor Robin May from the University of Birmingham.
“Using patient data from the original epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan, they show an overall death rate of around 1.4% of symptomatic cases, which is lower than previous estimates.
“They also show that mortality rates appear to be very low for people under 50 (around 0.3-0.5%) which is, again, promising.”
He stressed, however, the same results may not apply to other areas of the pandemic.
Death rates can vary according to the strength of the country’s health service.
“One important caveat, is this study is based primarily on data from Wuhan and therefore does not necessarily reflect mortality rates that may be seen in other areas of the world,” said Professor May.
“As with all epidemiological models, it also relies on various assumptions which, since we still know relatively little about the course of this infection in human populations, may not be entirely accurate.
“That said, however, this is a very important new piece of data that will help guide the public health response to this pandemic.”
Calculating death rate
The Hong Kong research comes after Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on March 3: “Globally, about 3.4% of reported [coronavirus] cases have died.”
Death rates are defined as the percentage of cases that die.
This is different from the death toll, which is the total number of deaths.
On January 29, the WHO cited a likely death rate of 2%.
Just a few days later, the Chinese National Health Commission reported it appeared to be 2.1%, based on 425 deaths among 20,438 confirmed cases.
On February 20, a WHO-China joint statement put the death rate at 3.8% based on 2,114 deaths among 55,924 cases.
With early research suggesting the infection is mild in four out of five cases, many non-serious incidences in the community will likely go unreported, skewing the death rate.
“We do not report all the cases,” Professor John Edmunds from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine previously said.
“In fact, we only usually report a small proportion of them.
“If there are many more cases in reality, then the case-fatality ratio will be lower.”
Asymptomatic infections similarly confuse how the death rate is calculated.
“Since subclinical [an infection not severe enough to cause “observable” symptoms] and asymptomatic infections have been reported, [the] true case-fatality ratio cannot be estimated until population surveys can be undertaken to estimate the proportion of individuals that were infected but did not manifest symptoms,” Dr Toni Ho from the University of Glasgow previously said.
Taking into account those with mild or no symptoms, Dr Christl Donnelly from Imperial College London estimated a 1% fatality rate appears more likely.
“In an unfolding epidemic it can be misleading to look at the naïve estimate of deaths so far divided by cases so far,” she previously said.
“The infection-fatality ratio is the proportion of infections (including those with no symptoms or mild symptoms) that die of the disease.
“Our estimate for this is 1%.”
Death rates can also change if countries alter how they define a case.
Cases “spiked” in China when it started defining a patient as “definitely infected” if they presented with symptoms, alongside a CT scan showing a chest infection.
Beforehand, patients were confirmed via a nucleic acid test. Nucleic acids are substances in living cells, making up the “NA” of DNA.
As a result, cases appeared to spike overnight in mid-February, despite one expert stressing it was “solely an administrative issue.”
Quarantines and other interventions can also make the population less exposed to the infection, driving death rates down.
A lack of awareness at the start of the outbreak may have meant patients only sought treatment when their symptoms became severe.
Death rates could also reduce as patients start “self-identifying” their symptoms earlier on.
“The best estimates of case-fatality rates would have to occur once an epidemic was over,” Dr Tom Wingfield from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine previously said.
“Estimating in real time during the epidemic is fraught with difficulties.”
Is China’s virus strategy a model for the world?
The head of the WHO believes China’s battle with the coronavirus offers a beacon of hope, but others question whether Beijing’s strategy can be followed by other countries, particularly Western democracies.
China has reported only one new local infection over the past four days, a seemingly remarkable turnaround given the chaos that surrounded the initial outbreak in the city of Wuhan.
While some experts caution against accepting Beijing’s figures at face value, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted China’s success “provides hope for the rest of the world.”
Close down and contain
In January, China effectively shut down Wuhan and placed its 11 million residents in effective quarantine, a move it then replicated in the rest of Hubei province, putting 50 million people in mass isolation.
Across the rest of the country, residents were strongly encouraged to stay at home.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese live in closed residential complexes where neighborhood committees can police movement in and out meaning compliance could be closely monitored.
“Containment works,” Sharon Lewin, professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne. “Two weeks after the closure of Wuhan, which is exactly the incubation period, the number (of infections) started to drop.”
Extreme social distancing and home quarantines have been used to differing degrees by a rising number of European countries, with some U.S. states following suit.
But an Imperial College London study warned that while that strategy appeared to have succeeded to date in China, it carried “enormous social and economic costs” in the short and long term.
“The major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package …. will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more),” it said.
If the intervention is relaxed, transmission rates “will quickly rebound,” it added.
Mass mobilization
At least 42,000 doctors and medical personnel were sent to Hubei province to shore up the province’s health services, which had, according to public health professor Zheng Zijie from Peking University, essentially “collapsed” under the strain of the fast-spreading epidemic.
Health experts from China’s Red Cross are currently helping overwhelmed hospitals in Italy, which has fast overtaken China as the worst hit country in terms of coronavirus deaths.
China’s ability to mobilize small armies of medical workers did not come with protection from contagion. More than 3,300 medical staff were infected across the country and 13 have died from COVID-19, according to health ministry figures published early March.
Government efforts in China were backed by an arsenal of propaganda, with messages repeated incessantly in the media and large street banners calling on citizens to be hygienic and stay home.
In an extraordinary effort two new hospitals with a total capacity of 2,300 beds were built in Wuhan within 10 days.
Masks and checks
In cities, it quickly became necessary to wear a mask as apartment blocks, businesses and even parks barred entry without one.
Widespread mask use may have helped slow the spread of the disease, “particularly when there are so many asymptomatic virus carriers,” Zheng said.
During the crisis, China produced up to 1.6 million N95 respirator masks per day, according to the official Xinhua news agency. These are considered the most effective protection, but need to fit correctly and be changed often.
To boost detection rates, temperature checkpoints were installed outside buildings and shops, or in public places.
“If it’s higher than 37.3 degrees Celsius (99.1 Fahrenheit), you are put in isolation,” one guard at the entrance to a park in Beijing told AFP.
And in the high-tech country where privacy is limited, many localities require citizens to show a QR code on their phone that rates them as “green”, “yellow” or “red”.
This assessment, based on tracking of whether they visited a high-risk zone, is now an entrance requirement for many businesses.
Government announcements have made clear that the coding system will remain in use in some form even after the pandemic subsides.
China central bank official calls for stepped-up global policy coordination
A Chinese central bank official called on Sunday for stepped up global policy coordination to manage the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and said Beijing’s recent policy measures were gaining traction while it had capacity for further action.
Chen Yulu, a deputy governor at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), also told a news conference that PBOC Governor Yi Gang had exchanged views with U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other agencies.
Chen said that while downward pressure on the global economy is increasing, he said he expects significant improvement in the Chinese economy in the second quarter.
While the coronavirus is expected to continue exerting upward pressure on China’s consumer prices in the near term, there is no basis for long term inflation or deflation, he said.
Chen also said he expects China’s yuan currency to remain stable around 7.0 to the dollar in the near term, due in part to ample foreign exchange reserves.
The country’s debt market is stable, with no significant rise in defaults, he said during a briefing where he was joined by other senior Chinese financial regulators.
Chinese officials on horseback traveling to the most remote areas to warn people
Even in China’s most remote regions, the police had to ride on horseback through snowy conditions to reach nomad communities and inform them about the dangers of the virus.
Striking photos that were taken February 19, when China was still recording thousands of cases a day, show what that looked like.
The Altay prefecture, located in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, is one of the most remote areas in the world.
The region of Xinjiang is home to the Uighurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority.
Xinjiang’s major cities are easily accessible, but its more remote regions are not.
To travel from Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, to Altay, it takes about one hour by plane, nine hours by day bus, 12 hours by night bus, and about 14 hours by train.
On February 19, as coronavirus cases across China were spiking, authorities traveled through rough, snowy conditions to reach the prefecture’s most isolated nomad families.
Wearing face masks and even hazmat suits, police officers, military troops, and medical workers had to trek through deep snow, sometimes on foot … … and other times on horseback.
Once they reached the nomad families, the police measured their temperatures …… and also informed them about ways to try to prevent the virus from spreading.
The coronavirus
The coronavirus is a strain of a class of viruses, with seven known to infect humans.
Others include the common cold and severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which killed 774 people during its 2002/3 outbreak.
The coronavirus tends to cause flu-like symptoms initially, such as a fever, cough or slight breathlessness.
It mainly spreads face-to-face via infected droplets coughed or sneezed out by a patient.
There is also evidence it can be transmitted in faeces and urine.
While most cases are mild, pneumonia can come about if the infection spreads to the air sacs in the lungs, causing them to become inflamed and filled with fluid or pus.
The lungs then struggle to draw in air, resulting in reduced oxygen in the bloodstream and a build-up of carbon dioxide.
The coronavirus has no “set” treatment, with most patients naturally fighting off the infection.
Those requiring hospitalization are offered “supportive care”, like ventilation, while their immune system gets to work.
Officials urge people ward off the infection by washing their hands regularly and maintaining social distancing.
Coronavirus pandemic: countries massively increase surveillance of phone
by Countercurrents Collective
As coronavirus sweeps across the globe, governments are stepping up surveillance of their citizens.Some countries are collecting anonymized data to study movement of people more generally, while others are providing detailed information about individuals’ movements.Governments across the world are galvanizing every surveillance tool at their disposal to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.Countries have been quick to use the one tool almost all of us carry with us — smartphones.
The Pandemic Surveillance State
by Dr
Binoy Kampmark
The order did not permanently suspend Shin Bet’s tracking of the locations of coronavirus patients. According to the court, the tracking of the locations of coronavirus could only continue with the establishment of a parliamentary oversight committee by March 24, 2020. Not doing so would see the immediate banning of the program. The rebuke by the court, while not entirely stinging, suggests that the technology wonks behind the health surveillance regime will not have it all their way.
Coronavirus: Africa finds extremely rapid evolution of pandemic, says UN
by Countercurrents Collective
More African countries have closed their borders as the coronavirus’ local spread threatened to turn the continent of 1.3 billion people into an alarming new front for the pandemic.
Desirable
Deaths, Malignant Neglect
by Subhash Gatade
As the world watches with bated breath the unfolding of the coronavirus pandemic and the unprecedented measures that states and municipalities have been forced to take to control it, similar stories of solidarity and hope are emerging from different corners of the world. In these days of gloom it is heartening to know, for instance, that doctors and paramedics from Cuba and China have arrived in Italy to assist the health authorities there.
The Threat Beyond The COVID-19 Crisis
by S G Vombatkere
When the economic system is slowing and huge numbers of people lose their livelihood and are in danger of irreversible destitution, what they need is not promise of a better tomorrow, but immediate economic help in terms of both food and money. Responsibility for this economic help for survival
rests firmly with the state and central governments for targeted social, economic and fiscal aid sans corruption. Governments must crush corruption without politically motivated considerations. This is not the time for political pettiness.
COVID-19 Pandemic & Coronavirus Suppression – Should Australian Schools Close?
by Dr Gideon Polya
Admittedly as a layperson, I suspect that the refusal of the Australian Coalition Government to close schools will eventually be overtaken by events and reversed, but in the process valuable time would have been lost in which to minimize infection in a scenario of exponentially increasing infection. As eminent UK epidemiologist Professor Neil Ferguson and his 30 research colleagues stated (16 March 2020): “We therefore conclude that epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time”
Coronavirus: Myths
Debunked, Hiding Information And The Necessary Blueprint
by Kabir Deb
I’m going to debunk some of the myths and absurd theories attached to this outbreak and what are the necessary things to remember in this outbreak:
Good morning fellas! I’m just sick and disturbed by what I am seeing in my country. People have gone more mad after the outbreak of the coronavirus. Some are organizing hawans, others are busy in namaz. The leader tells us to beat drums, the religious fanatics suggests us to drink gomutra (cow urine) and cow dung for it has the cure to every disease. I’m just sick of all of these. So now I’m going to debunk some of the myths and absurd theories attached to this outbreak and what are the necessary things to remember in this outbreak:
Question: How bad is the situation?
Answer – To be very honest, it is very bad. The government is not being honest to us. Let me tell you why! So, whenever an outbreak takes place, it gives us a one week span to gear up and stop it from entering the zone. India had the knowledge that an alien virus has evolved in China which is a novel strain and has no cure yet. But it did not take the precautionary measures that were needed to limit the spread. It did not consult with the Chinese officials and doctors to incubate the strain. Rather it kept on focusing on other things. It did not lock down the borders. The planes flew even a few days back. People too believed in being stupid and kept on staying sick without any kind of treatment. The educated fools with the disease came from abroad, broke the instructional parameters, partied with hundreds to spread the disease in a more rapid manner. We are now in the “community spread stage” wherein the government has left all the treatments on the hands of every hospital because it has gone out of control. Those people with no travel history are also getting infected. So please realize that we are now in a drastic phase where we need to be more cautious. We can’t listen to all the shit that’s going on in social media platforms because it is not the time to go by religion or it is not the time to relax rather now is the time to gear up.
Question: Why are we so doomed?
Answer – Regardless of all the nihilism, I always try to be optimistic, but now is not the time to be dishonest. India lacks proper healthcare resources and infrastructure. Believe that! We are not some developed country to boast on our facilities. We invest 5% of our GDP in our healthcare. So, here’s the thing, we’re doomed because of this only. More than 40% of our population live on streets, that is, 600 million people. Others are daily wage workers who work away from their home. Even then we are not getting an honest report from the top officials. To be very scientific, with proper information comes proper precautions. Our healthcare system isn’t that much capable of sustaining the tsunami of deaths that’s about to come. So, we must know all of these because the time demands to be honest. Yes, the population may panic but believe me panicking is much better than death.
Question – What are the myths associated with this virus?
Answer – See, I myself am a student of hardcore biology and I’ve been in this field from past ten years and I’ve studied the fundamentals of virology. There are many myths that need to be debunked because now is not the time to be absurd in the head.
*** So, firstly, the curfew won’t help in stopping the virus. Educated people like Sonu Nigam, and even good teachers are believing that the virus has a lifespan of 12 hours but the curfew is of 14 hours so it will help in creating a barrier for the virus. No. Not at all. Viruses stay inactive outside the body of the host. It needs a body to survive. So without the host the mortality rate of the virus is 72 hours and more. But still it is inactive so one cannot detect the proper mortality rate of the virus. So the curfew is good, but it should be extended a lot more because the situation is out of hand.
*** Secondly, cow piss won’t help in killing the virus. Please stop spreading this shit. Let the doctors do their job. They know the best. An uneducated nonsense religious fanatic cannot/should not become the reason for our stupidity.
*** Thirdly, no viruses don’t die because of sound waves that have been given as the reason why the Prime Minister told us to beat utensils. Please stop doing all of these because you’re killing logic and without logic we cannot fight with the virus.
*** Fourthly, please stop doing yajyas, hawans, namaz in the time of an outbreak. God won’t help us. It never will. It’d be stupid to believe that God will save us. Influenza killed more than 4 million people in Europe. Chicken pox killed 7 million only in France. Cholera killed more than a million people in India. They were fought with vaccines, not some God. If you keep organizing all of these, amidst the outbreak it would only lead to the spread of the disease. So just tighten up your asses and do what’s sensible and rational.
Question – Why do we need to learn from China?
Answer – Right after the outbreak the very bashing of Chinese officials started. I won’t go into politics. But let’s stick to the fact that everyday 12 million microbes evolve on this planet. China was the epicenter of the outbreak, but it controlled it. Factories, offices have started opening in China. It is not because they developed the virus. Rather it is because of the aggressive and old school method adopted by the Chinese government. A documentary report broadcasted by DW news suggests that the Chinese government sanitised the whole Wuhan. They isolated the whole city, knocked on every door, sanitized the entire country, isolated the strain of the virus, used extreme measures to catch the patients who were trying to hide the symptoms and hence, they were able to stop it. We, on the other hand, do not carry such resources to do all of these. Our international relationship with China ain’t that good, but we need to copy what China did in all these days. It is the dire necessity.
Question: Do we need to be afraid?
Answer – I believe yes. But that doesn’t mean that we should become stupid to do absurd things. Fear of death is good in times of crisis. It is time to lock ourselves and then to understand the basics of the virus, the biology of the virus. We cannot fall for fake news, rather we need to cross check every other information that comes in our way. Read how the virus works. At this point, our senses would help us only. Don’t believe that hot water would be a cure. Or some fluid of some monk could save us from this virus. We have dealt with many kinds of diseases and religion hardly had any answer to them. So please, be afraid but don’t panic. Don’t make the country a mess. There are workers who don’t have a home to live in. We cannot let their life at risk by believing in such stupid narratives. So please, maintain social distance. Spread art. Make the best use of this isolation and just help those who are helping us.
Kabir Deb is a published writer and poet. Born in Haflong and completed his Masters on Life Sciences from Assam University. His work has been published from different national and international magazine like Different bTruths, Counter Currents, Reviews, Cafe Dissensus, Spillwords magazine and his works rely on political activisvm. He recently won the Reuel International Poetry Prize in 2019. His debut book is now available in stores.
The fall of the ‘last Citadel’ of justice: Supreme Court of India
by George Abraham
Only time will tell whether Mr. Ranjan Gogoi has sold his soul or compromised the noble principles. Still, his actions during his tenure as CJI and now his acceptance of Rajya Sabha seat from the BJP has indeed cast a cloud suspicion around him and may have irreparably damaged the independence of the institution, he was sworn to protect and proclaimed to defend. However, for the people India, it is a steep and tragic fall of the last citadel of justice and a threat to
freedom itself.
Fear of COVID 19 must not let us ignore the virus of bigoted minds
by Gurpreet Singh
It’s time to join hands and stand up for each other, both in our fight against coronavirus, and the virus of a bigoted mind that is far more dangerous as it deliberately aims to single out communities and ethnic groups and create more divisions. Let’s ensure that those sitting in power do not take advantage of the crisis to push everything under the rug and make people forget the other virus completely. We must keep our eyes open to those challenges as a civil society.
It was a nice sunny, but chilly afternoon on Saturday, March 15.
A perfect day for a rally at Surrey’s Holland Park. The Coalition Against Bigotry (CAB) had organized a demonstration in protest against the recent appearance of racist flyers close to the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple, in Surrey-Delta, where Sikh immigrant Nirmal Singh Gill was murdered by white supremacists in 1998. This had rightfully alarmed the temple officials who have already reported the matter to the police.
CAB founder Imtiaz Popat, who had made a documentary on Gill’s murder, gave a call for action to raise awareness. Though Surrey has a sizable population of Sikhs and other South Asian communities, only eight people, including myself showed up.
This was disheartening but not surprising, as most people want to stay home these days in light of the growing threat of Coronavirus which has claimed more than 8,000 human lives worldwide, including eight in Canada at the time of filing of this article. A virtual lockdown has now been imposed to prevent the spread of disease in BC.
While it is understandable why people are so concerned and fearful, the scare of pandemic has eclipsed many important issues. What is more disturbing is to see how stories related to hate violence have taken a back seat.
Another case in point is that the first anniversary of the Christchurch massacre that shook the world on March 15, 2019 did not elicit much public interest.
51 people died in targeted attacks on two mosques in New Zealand. Last year, Canadians joined the rest of the world in mourning the hate crime. Negligible attention was paid to the first anniversary of the bloody episode.
Similarly, the incidents of violence against Muslims in India under a right wing Hindu nationalist BJP government have been lost under screaming headlines of COVID-19 stories.
Not long ago, more than 50 people died during bloodshed in New Delhi, when BJP supporters attacked peaceful demonstrators who were protesting against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act passed by the Indian government. The act discriminates against Muslim refugees coming to India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Since it violates the secular principles of India’s constitution, people have been protesting against it. Most of those who died in New Delhi violence were Muslims.
Notably, last August, in the name of national security, the BJP government scrapped the special status given to the Muslim-dominated state of Kashmir, to polarize the Hindu majority for future electoral gains. The people of Kashmir have been fighting for the right to self- determination for years. Instead of listening to them, the BJP government has placed the state under a lockdown that has entered its seventh month. Thousands of people have been arrested while communication services remain disrupted. After remaining indifferent to the situation of Kashmiri people, in spite of many protests in Vancouver and other parts of the country, Canada might now realise what it means to survive under such conditions. People who are now whining over losing social contact in Canada following tough measures taken by the government should take a moment to think about Kashmiris who have been forced to live under the worst situation.
Here in Canada, the stories of indigenous communities fighting against LNG and Trans Mountain pipelines being pushed through their traditional lands against informed consent, have almost been buried under the coverage of COVID-19. Nor is there any serious investigative journalism into the threats being made against protesters by white nationalists.
Ironically, the coronavirus, like any other natural calamity, does not discriminate and affects everyone, whether rich or poor, white or black. Yet human beings have learnt nothing from nature, and are discriminating against people of Chinese heritage because the pandemic originated from China. Not every Chinese person can be seen as a potential carrier of this disease, which has crossed over more than 150 countries, and yet, the Chinese community is facing an unnecessary backlash.
It’s time to join hands and stand up for each other, both in our fight against coronavirus, and the virus of a bigoted mind that is far more dangerous as it deliberately aims to single out communities and ethnic groups and create more divisions. Let’s ensure that those sitting in power do not take advantage of the crisis to push everything under the rug and make people forget the other virus completely. We must keep our eyes open to those challenges as a civil society.
Gurpreet Singh is a journalist
A Farewell And A Tribute
by Anitha S
Written in memory of ND Jayal who passed away recently on March 18th had a life that progressed from being an air force officer to mountaineer of High Himalayas to Joint Secretary, Department of Environment
and Director of Natural Heritage Wing of INTACH to mention a few. His close association with the Save Silent Valley Movement brought him to Kerala many a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.