How Fauci, 5 other health specialists deal with covid-19 risks in their everyday livesFauci: I do physically go to the grocery store, but I wear a mask and keep my distance. I usually go at odd times. ........ I don’t disinfect the bags. In general, I will take the materials out of the bags, then wash my hands with soap and water, and then use Purell, and let everything sit for a day. ......... Q: Do you take any precautions with your mail or packages? Fauci: I used to, but now I just bring the mail in, wash my hands, then let it lie around for a day or two before I open it. .......... Q: Are you willing to fly? What about bus, train, subway? Fauci: I’m 79 years old. I am not getting on a plane. I have been on flights where I’ve been seated near people who were sneezing and coughing, and then three days later, I’ve got it. So, no chance. No Metro, no public transportation. I’m in a high risk group, and I don’t want to play around. ........ Q: What is your best guess about when a vaccine will be available? Fauci: We have multiple candidates, and my hope is that we will have more than one, probably by the end of this year or the beginning of 2021.
Coronavirus: Quarantine hotel ‘acting like bandits’ in ChinaDuring their mandatory quarantine stay, the returnees from Pakistan were provided meals that were found to contain maggots, ladybug or small pieces of metal scraps ......... Millions of Chinese citizens have been stranded overseas because of coronavirus-related travel restrictions, and many of them want nothing more than to return to a country that has largely gotten the coronavirus under control. ........... However, some of the overseas Chinese that have managed to go back to China said they were greeted with poor service, profiteering hotels and a lack of empathy from authorities and their countrymen, while they were under mandatory quarantine. .......... there are about 10.7 million Chinese living overseas. Many have been unable to return to China as countries went into lockdown and imposed travel restrictions since earlier this year. But the ones who do manage to return are often viewed by their fellow citizens as being wealthy, unpatriotic and spoiled. .......... the perception that those who could travel abroad are rich ......... In March, a report of a returnee from overseas asking for bottled water during quarantine sparked debate on the Chinese internet, with the majority of commentators accusing the returnee of being unappreciative and demanding.
Even a coronavirus vaccine won’t offer an easy way out of the crisisThe WHO chief and medical experts agree there is no going back to the “old normal” any time soon, and warn that how people and governments behave is critical to getting things under control. ........... whether it will embed itself permanently in the population and circulate every year. ....... “We need to realize that this is truly an unprecedented virus for which there is no appropriate historical analogy” ......... Several places that appeared to have had the contagion under control saw case numbers spike after social distancing measures were eased. ......... Two factors that can drive these sudden increases are the spread of the disease by asymptomatic and mild cases, and the potential for superspreading events ........... With a vaccine unlikely to be ready before the middle of next year, the public should be prepared to deal with these measures “at any time if there’s an outbreak… but it’s all very unsettling and uncertain” ........... While vaccines are seen as a way to control the crisis, they should not be the basis for long-term measures .......... the virus is also taking hold in India – the world’s second-most populous country – and South Africa. .......... “If there isn’t long-term immunity, [in the absence of a vaccine] it could just become a vicious cycle of ongoing infection” ............ early vaccines were not likely to “completely prevent any infection in anyone”, she said.Instead they could be used alongside other control measures to reduce transmission, especially for at-risk people.
Hong Kong’s third wave of Covid-19 ‘getting a bit out of hand’an international study indicated mutations in one strain of the virus had increased its infection rate by 30% ........ If people relax their guard, cases will shoot up and we will face a bigger outbreak ....... “I think both the government and the public may have to tighten up measures to maintain social distancing and avoid going out as much as possible.”
The Week America Lost Control of the PandemicSixteen states have reported record caseloads since Sunday. ........... What should concern all Americans is that, as more and more states see their outbreaks intensify, the country will lose its ability to understand what is happening. .......... some of the country’s major testing providers are backlogged and overwhelmed, and are no longer able to turn around test results as quickly as is epidemiologically useful ......... Governor Gavin Newsom of California enacted some of the strictest pandemic rules outside the Northeast, but Los Angeles is seething with cases right now. Many of the states now facing outbreaks did not struggle much with the virus in March or April—except for Louisiana, which saw a major outbreak in March and is seeing cases spike again now. What seems to unite many of the most affected states is that they reopened indoor dining, bars, and gyms. What will distinguish them is how they react now. ........... The South is burning with infection at the same time other regions are trying to reopen. This feat—opening one region while suppressing the pandemic in another—has never been done before, and there is no guarantee that it can be done. Many public-health leaders signaled this week that they do not think it is possible. ........... “This is really the beginning,” Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the CDC, told Congress this week. “I think there was a lot of wishful thinking around the country that Hey, it’s summer. Everything’s going to be fine. We’re over this—and we are not even beginning to be over this. There are a lot of worrisome factors about the last week or so.” ............ the U.S. could soon see 100,000 new cases a day. If that prediction comes true, then what befell the Northeast could look like mere preamble. ......... The U.S., by one estimate, avoided more than 4 million infections. We are now losing that work, watching weeks of pandemic suppression vanish in days. It took the country acting in concert to subdue the virus in the spring. We may need to do the same, again, to avoid the worst now.
Over half of coronavirus patients in Spain have developed neurological problems, studies showNew research indicates that Covid-19 is causing a wide range of disorders in the nervous system and may be directly attacking the brain .......... The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus attacks the respiratory system, but there is growing evidence that it also affects the nervous system. ............. some research indicates that the virus is directly attacking the brain. ........ the most common symptoms experienced by coronavirus patients were myalgia, headaches and dizziness ....... Another 20% of patients (they are not exclusive groups) developed neuropsychiatric problems such as insomnia, anxiety and psychosis. .......... In a dozen cases, the patient went into a coma. What’s more, neurological complications were the main cause of death in 4% of coronavirus victims .......... 90% of cases simultaneously experienced changes to, or the loss of, the sense of smell and taste ........ the coronavirus can enter the brain. ........ “The brain is characterized for being isolated from the bustle of the world. If there is a pathogen in the rest of the body, the blood-brain barrier stops it from entering,” explains Segura. This defense system allows oxygen-filled blood to reach the capillaries and even the neurons, but filters out toxins, bacteria and viruses that travel in the bloodstream. “The rupture of this barrier is an effect that we have not seen before,” he adds. For Segura, finding the endothelial cells (the thin layer of cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels) in the samples of analyzed brain tissue could indicate that the coronavirus has overcome the blood-brain barrier, and that the neurological problems have not been caused by weakness from the immune system’s response to Covid-19. According to Segura, the world is facing “a respiratory virus that is also neurotoxic.”
Donald Trump simply doesn’t understand: We can’t deal with our economic crisis without solving the public health crisis.
And for all his bluster about his expertise on the economy, he is unable to explain how he will actually help the working families hit the hardest.
Tesla and the science behind the next-generation, lower-cost, ‘million-mile’ electric-car batteryNew battery technology is possible, allowing cars to go 400 miles or more between charges and lasting as long as 1 million miles. That could spur EV sales the same way the first 100,000-mile warranties on gas cars once did. .......... Vehicles with lithium-ion batteries, also used in cellphones, are expected to give way over the next few years to cars and trucks made with lithium-iron phosphate and other chemistries. This will cut costs, extend vehicle ranges to 400 miles or more between charges and enable batteries to last as long as 1 million miles. ............ “If you’re talking about batteries that can last twice as long for the same price, it completely changes the math for the consumer......... Iron phosphate batteries are safer, and they can have second or third lives as electricity storage.″ ........ Canning cobalt is one of the biggest elements of cutting the cost of batteries below the $100/kWh threshold that is a rough proxy for making electric vehicles as cheap as those powered by internal combustion engines .......... Today’s batteries cost about $147/kWh, down from about $1,000 in 2010 and $381 in 2015 ........... The most obvious is that the cost of electric vehicles — which recently has reached parity with gasoline-powered cars and SUVs in some luxury niche segments — could catch up to internal combustion engines by about 2023 ........ “I hope we get there sooner than 2025. Lithium-iron phosphate and its upgraded versions will have a major role in the future of EVs and fundamentally change large-scale energy storage.”
The flying taxi market may be ready for takeoff, changing the travel experience foreverThe goal is to link urban centers with suburbs while leapfrogging traffic — air taxis could cruise at 180 mph at altitudes of around 1,000 ft to 2,000 ft. But NASA has reported they can go at an altitude up to 5,000 ft. ......... The autonomous urban aircraft market may be worth $1.5 trillion by 2040 ....... The start-up is building a prototype that it says should eventually approach the cost of ground transportation and help a billion people save more than an hour in commuting time every day. ............ “Joby Aviation’s aircraft is designed for four passengers plus a pilot. It can travel more than 150 miles on a single charge, is 100 times quieter than conventional aircraft during takeoff and landing, and is near silent in flyover.” ........ It aims to make flying taxis cheaper than owning passenger cars. .......... “Air taxis are definitely the next phase of mobility” ....... They will usher in a nimble form of intracity travel, transporting people on the shortest possible route between two locations ........... “Everyone in the industry proceeds as though safety is guaranteed and technology will solve everything, which, as we know, is never the case” ........... Personal helicopter travel has been around for a long time but hasn’t expanded beyond wealthy passengers ........... “If they are priced correctly, air taxis may be able to democratize travel in cities where there is no public transport alternative or where the congestion and size of the urban area (Sao Paulo is the classic example) are so great”
5G is accelerating factory automation that could add trillions to the global economyImagine a manufacturing plant in which all the production equipment is continually changing in response to market needs. .......... Also known as Industry 4.0, the smart factory runs on data and artificial intelligence, but connectivity forms the backbone of operations. The new fifth generation of mobile networks (5G) is a catalyst for this new industrial revolution because it offers much greater speed and bandwidth than previous networks, as well as low latency, or time required for data to travel between two points. 5G will work with and in some cases replace existing fixed, wired connections, making manufacturing more flexible and ready to implement innovations. ............ 190 million 5G subscribers by the end of 2020 and 2.8 billion by the end of 2025. ........... “In the future, we might be able to create ‘what we want’ in smart factories and receive it in a short time as we do purchase mass-produced products at online malls like Amazon” ........... “For the customer experience, products will become unique, customized and enriched with services.”
U.S. Intel: China Ordered Attack on Indian Troops in Galwan River ValleyGen. Zhao Zongqi, head of the Western Theater Command and among the few combat veterans still serving in the People's Liberation Army, approved the operation along the contested border region of northern India and southwestern China, a source familiar with the assessment says on the condition of anonymity. Zhao, who has overseen prior standoffs with India, has previously expressed concerns that China must not appear weak to avoid exploitation by the United States and its allies, including in New Delhi, the source says, and saw the faceoff last week as a way to "teach India a lesson." ........ the deadly and contentious incident – in which at least 20 Indian and 35 Chinese troops died, and reportedly a handful on each side were captured and subsequently released – was not the result of a tense circumstance that spiraled out of control, as has happened before, but rather a purposeful decision by Beijing to send a message of strength to India. ........ Beijing's attempts to make India more amenable to future negotiations, including about contested territory, instead appear to have pushed the economic giant closer to the U.S. .......... Much is at stake, far beyond territorial control. The U.S. has pressured India for months to back away from employing Chinese tech company Huawei to help build its 5G infrastructure. In the aftermath of last week's incident, Indians were reportedly deleting Chinese social media app TikTok and destroying phones made in China. "It does the very opposite of what China wanted," the source says. "This is not a victory for China's military." ........... On June 15, a senior Indian officer and two non-commissioned officers traveled unarmed to a meeting place where they expected to be met by a comparable delegation of Chinese troops to discuss the withdrawal, according to the source familiar with the U.S. assessment of the incident. Instead, dozens of Chinese troops were waiting with spiked bats and clubs and began an attack. Other Indian troops came in to support, leading to a melee that caused more casualties from the improvised weapons, rocks and falls from the steep terrain.
The hard truth is that it didn’t have to be this bad, but Donald Trump ignored the experts and refused to take action. He has failed our nation. pic.twitter.com/WAhigUtsxz
1 number that proves 2020 is *nothing* like 2016 "After Trump's unexpected victory in 2016, there's a temptation to avoid making political projections. But one election result shouldn't cause us to ignore the data. And right now the preponderance of data points to a great election for Democrats." ....... At this point in the 2016 race. Clinton had a 1.1-point lead over Trump in the national polling average. Right now, Biden has a 9.1-point average lead over Trump in national polls. ....... Biden is also running close to Trump in longtime Republican strongholds like Texas, Arizona and Georgia.
‘Zero percent’ chance of U.S.-China decouplingNow, Washington is reportedly considering a blanket ban on Communist Party members (and maybe their families) in the United States. It's one step short of a "nuclear option" in U.S.-China ties — consider it heavy ordnance that would personally affect Chinese leaders and their families in a way that sanctions and tariffs don't. .......... could render as many as 270 million ineligible for Stateside travel. Countermeasures could be massive. Beijing loves the appearance of symmetry; what if it banned all registered Republicans from China? ......... shows just how far Washington is willing to go, as Trump stakes his re-election on the China question. ......... Chance of full decoupling is “zero percent,” but the era of seamless globalization is over. ......... The rise of the digital Renminbi. Expect a rapid move toward the use of digital currencies, either privately organized or through central banks, Friedlander said, part of “a race to see who will control global payment systems.” ........... "What the U.S. policy toward China needs is ‘social distancing.’” ....... “In a world where Covid-19 shows emerging threats don’t respect national borders, decoupling the two largest economies in the world is unrealistic.” .......... “The tech world is now starting a much broader China [versus] everyone else Great Schism, moving well beyond the Great Firewall, to encompass access to advanced CPUs, 5G telecom equipment, and access to consumer and business user bases.” .......... Analysts seem to think that political repression and lifetime tenure for despots like Xi are good for Party longevity. Actually, history suggests that lifetime tenure leads to madness and dissolution.” .......... The CCP’s Leninist metal does not seem destined for American bending under Xi Jinping .......... “Until recently, China had an ability to sense where the line was for international business interests — and stop just short of crossing it.” ............. “In January 2018 I observed that the foundation of U.S.-China engagement – the presumption of gradual if slow convergence – was deteriorating, due less to China’s intention than inability to take the next steps on its self-assigned reform and opening journey.” ........... “the coming 120 days [leading up to] the presidential election will not just make U.S.-China relations unworthy of optimism, it will make them extremely dangerous.” ........... Beijing thinks the real power in America lies with Wall Street, not Washington ........... “overlook[ing] the vital fact that, when it comes to dealing with an external threat, fear always trumps greed … Washington has seldom capitulated to commercial interests when American security is at stake.” ............ Half of Hong Kongers are contemplating exit, but only four percent list the U.S. as their first choice, and 10 percent the U.K. ....... The top choice: Taiwan, followed by Canada and Australia. ........... Average Chinese are not sympathetic to their sometimes wealthy, often liberal-minded compatriots abroad. .......... What do authorities really mean in Article 38, which technically gives them jurisdiction over everyone in the world? .............. “TikTok doesn’t appear to grab any more personal information than Facebook. That’s still an appalling amount of data to mine about the lives of Americans,” Fowler wrote. “But there’s scant evidence that TikTok is sharing our data with China.” ................ Is a U.S. WeChat ban in the cards? .. WeChat is an essential tool for Chinese living abroad to stay in touch with friends and family, and they’d need to use a VPN or other workarounds if there were a ban — in other words, they’d feel like Americans in China have for about a decade.
Op-ed: Hyperwar is coming. America needs to bring AI into the fight to win — with caution It is important officials in each nation understand how emerging technologies speed up decision-making but through crisis acceleration run the risk of dangerous miscalculation. ........ For not only is technology changing, the rate of that alteration is accelerating. ......... AI, once fully realized, has the potential to be one of the single greatest force multiplier for military and security forces in human history. ......... AI-enabled capabilities could be used to threaten our critical infrastructure, amplify disinformation, and wage war .......... The distinctions between hybrid warfare and hyperwar are important. ........... “Hybrid threats combine military and non-military as well as covert and overt means, including disinformation, cyber attacks, economic pressure, deployment of irregular armed groups and use of regular forces. Hybrid methods are used to blur the lines between war and peace, and attempt to sow doubt in the minds of target populations.” ............. By contrast, hyperwar may be defined as a type of conflict where human decision-making is almost entirely absent from the observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loop ............. the time associated with an OODA cycle will be reduced to near-instantaneous responses. .......... While AI has the capacity to magnify military capabilities and accelerate the speed of conflict, it can also be inherently destabilizing. ........ Now is the time for the U.S. and China to have the hard conversations about norms of behavior in an AI enabled, hyperwar environment. With both sides moving rapidly to field arsenals of hypersonic weapons, action and reaction times will become shorter and shorter and the growing imbalance of the character and nature of war will create strong incentives, in moments of intense crisis, for conflict not peace. This is foreseeable now, and demands the engagement of both powers to understand, seek, and preserve the equilibrium that can prevent the sort of miscalculation and high-speed escalation to the catastrophe that none of us wants.
China Is Done Biding Its TimeThe End of Beijing’s Foreign Policy Restraint? .......... as COVID-19 has ravaged the globe, Chinese President Xi Jinping has appeared to defy many of his country’s long-held foreign policy principles all at once. ........... It has tightened its grip over Hong Kong, ratcheted up tensions in the South China Sea, unleashed a diplomatic pressure campaign against Australia, used fatal force in a border dispute with India, and grown more vocal in its criticism of Western liberal democracies. ........... The world may be getting a first sense of what a truly assertive Chinese foreign policy looks like. ........... “If someone claims that China’s exports are toxic, then stop wearing China-made masks and protective gowns, or using China-exported ventilators,” a foreign ministry spokesperson tweeted after China was found to have delivered substandard medical supplies to several European countries. ........... Over the past few months, it has upped the ante in nearly all of its many territorial disputes and even provoked new ones, in another departure from past practice. ............ Since March, China has stepped up its patrols near the Diaoyu Islands (known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands) in the East China Sea and doubled down on its maritime claims in the South China Sea, sending vessels to linger off the coasts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. It has conducted aerial reconnaissance near Taiwan, effectively ended Hong Kong’s semiautonomous status, ginned up a new border dispute with Bhutan, and by all appearances, provoked a deadly border clash with India in what was the People’s Liberation Army’s first use of force abroad in 30 years. Any one of these moves by Beijing might have been unsurprising on its own. Put together, however, they amount to a highly unusual full-court press. ............... In the western province of Xinjiang, a government crackdown on the Muslim Uighur minority, initiated before the pandemic hit, has since turned into a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, a controversial new national security law has all but stripped Hong Kong of its unique legal status. The law contains provisions that could potentially transcend national boundaries and extend Chinese jurisprudence globally, marking a shift from China’s traditionally defensive conception of sovereignty to a more offensive approach to extend Beijing’s authority. ................ in June, the National People’s Congress announced its sweeping new national security law for Hong Kong. But the global chorus of condemnation that followed the announcement did not keep the CCP from implementing the new law with zeal ............ In this new Chinese foreign policy, there are few U-turns and no posted speed limits. ........... Xi is rumored to be making many of the most important decisions himself, without even a trusted cohort of advisers. This may help explain why China’s foreign policy has become less risk averse: with fewer voices pitching in, an undaunted Xi may have no one to dissuade him from pressing ahead. ........ Xi is taking advantage of the United States’ stunning abdication of global leadership in a moment of crisis to advance his interests on many fronts. His imperious coronavirus diplomacy is just the latest instance of China’s long-standing tradition of foreign policy opportunism and improvisation—only scaled up to fit the gaping hole left by the United States. ............... his belief that China’s geopolitical moment has arrived. ........... Familiar or not, Beijing’s bristling crisis diplomacy is costing it in novel and lasting ways. .......... By leaving a power vacuum in the world’s darkest hour, the United States has bequeathed China ample room to overreach—and to demonstrate that it is unqualified for a position of sole global leadership. If Washington does not return soon, however, it may not much matter how the world views China’s bumptious diplomacy—left with no alternative, strident excess will fill the void.
The world loves the US dollar. Trump and the pandemic could change that"We expect the US dollar to follow a path of reduced dominance and weaken over the long term" .......... As US caseloads spiral out of control, many states are reimposing strict lockdown measures, threatening the fragile recovery that started in April. In California, which boasts the fifth largest economy in the world, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday shut indoor seating at restaurants, movie theaters, zoos, museums and bars. At least 27 states have now put a hold on reopening businesses or reimposed measures aimed at slowing the spread of the virus. "The US has reopened too early, as you can see" ............. The US government is ramping up borrowing to fund massive stimulus programs to prop up the economy. ........ Other developed economies are borrowing way more, too. But in the United States, the government is issuing debt faster than the Federal Reserve is buying it. That means there are more US Treasuries in the market, which hangs over the value of the dollar ............. There are reasons to be cautious. The decline of the US dollar has been predicted on many occasions, and it's always been premature. ........ the dollar could lose up to 20% of its value over the next five years. ....... China, where the desire to increase global use of the renminbi is strong.
After Cruise Ships and Nursing Homes, Will Universities Be the Next COVID-19 Tinderboxes?Clusters of infection have been traced to college town bars popular with students. ......... A common misconception is that young people with COVID-19 don’t die and therefore college re-openings pose little risk. Sadly, this isn’t the case. COVID-19 deaths in the young are rare, but they happen. ......... One might imagine that the rapid, uncontained spread of a serious and poorly understood disease which is already killing students would cause universities all across America to put their re-opening plans on hold. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. ............ 60% are “going to open for business and bring all of their students back.” .......... this could be the largest-scale uncontrolled public health experiment America has ever undertaken, with students, staff, faculty, parents, and communities as the unwitting test subjects. No other nation has reopened schools and universities with the level of rampant community transmission we see in the U.S. today, or with so little coordination or guidance as to protective measures. ........... Safety measures proposed so far revolve around sanitation, masks, and physical distancing. These might be sufficient for a trip to the supermarket; for several reasons, they are likely to fail in the context of daily life at a university. ........... evidence suggests that when students and instructors spend extended time together in the classroom, even universal mask use and six feet of distancing may not be enough. .............. We now know that SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can linger in the air in the form of tiny droplets (aerosols) and can infect people as they breathe in. ............ In the absence of constant and efficient ventilation, viral particles can remain airborne for at least 3 hours. In most universities, opening all the windows and doors would be impractical or impossible, and air conditioning systems can waft recycled air over occupants for hours. .............. Beyond the classroom, colleges and universities are “congregate settings” that are known to create high risk for viral transmission, akin to nursing homes or cruise ships. The campus experience includes bringing students together in dormitories, dining halls, athletic training, parties, bars and clubs—gatherings that would risk becoming “superspreading events.” ............. The overarching message seems to be that just telling students not to do things and leaving it at that is not a reliable policy. ............ Even if they recover from the initial acute illness, infection with the novel coronavirus can have debilitating long-term consequences, including lung disease, heart problems, brain damage, and mental health problems. And we don’t yet know what other lingering effects the disease might have. ........... The highest risk of death will be among service and maintenance staff on campus—cleaners, bus drivers, food service employees, janitors, facilities managers and support staff—who wield little institutional power. .............. For the city where a campus is based, reopening will be like dropping a cruise ship into the center of town—and giving passengers free rein. Campus outbreaks cannot be hermetically sealed—they will inevitably cause a spike in community spread, affecting the city, state, and beyond. ........... Rather than leaving individual universities to piece together their own plans, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education produced a national strategy for college campuses. The strategy included an initial quarantine, frequent testing of all students, sanitation, masks, distancing, reduction of student density, cleaning of dorms twice daily with bleach, and allowing only one student per dining table. It also included mandatory quarantine for anyone exposed, and infection-number thresholds at which an entire university would shut down. With this huge array of protective measures on campus, Taiwanese universities were able to reopen successfully and see a total of just seven confirmed university-based cases by June 18, and only four new cases nationwide since then. ................ Aside from the safety protocols more rigorous than any we’ve seen proposed in the U.S., Taiwan’s universities had another advantage America’s don’t: a well-controlled epidemic with virtually no community transmission. To date, Taiwan has had only 451 cases and seven deaths. Not a single state in the U.S. has had anything like that level of success. .............. We understand the financial pressures that colleges and universities are facing. Some could risk bankruptcy without the revenue that reopening will generate. ............. The Trump administration is applying increasing pressure on the education system to reopen, hoping that Americans will grow numb to COVID-19 deaths.
From Norway's prison without cells to France’s law banning politicians from employing relatives, there is much the US can learn from its allies to help rebuild its democracy https://t.co/whTOxaFwB2
India records 1 million cases of Covid-19 ... and it's the poorest who are hardest hitit is the country's marginalized who are suffering the most from the devastating economic toll of lockdowns and job losses. ........ While more than 270 million people across India were able to climb out of poverty between 2006 and 2016, the country remains one of the world's most unequal, with the top 10% of the population holding 77% of the total national wealth -- and that gap only continues to widen ......... As well as unequal access to healthcare, for those who live shoulder to shoulder in overcrowded urban slums -- about 74 million people -- social distancing is impossible. There is little running water or sanitation, putting them at greater risk of contacting the virus. ........ experts say India's rich need to evaluate how the country depends on and treats informal laborers who make up the majority of the country's workforce. Everything from employment rights, access to good education and health care and welfare is suddenly under the microscope. .......... About 60% of India's 1.3 billion people are considered poor, with about 21% surviving on $2 a day. They often work as unskilled or daily-wage laborers in various industries such as farming or construction. In major cities, they make up a workforce of rickshaw pullers, street and drain cleaners, vegetable sellers, delivery boys, and domestic workers. .......... "Nine out of ten people are in informal work and it's not that we don't see them," said Harsh Mander, an Indian human rights activist and author. "They're everywhere and yet we never look at them as human beings, we look them as labor that is available at cheap and affordable prices to make our lives comfortable." ............ Because of the lockdown, for the first time many middle and upper class Indians, who rely on an army of maids, cooks, cleaners, drivers and gardeners, are having to cook their own food, clean their own houses, and take out their own trash. ......... "Our reliance is huge, every household, even a middle class household, has a maid coming to clean utensils, or to wash clothes, every single day of the year" .............. On Friday, over 400 million people in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Karantaka's capital city Bengaluru re-entered lockdown conditions after a rise in Covid-19 cases. ............ they are mostly employed on verbal contracts and there is little to no social security available to them. ........ Decisions that have to be made include: should I use the finite water supply to clean the dishes instead of regularly washing my hands and increasing the risk of infection? Should I spend money on a Covid-19 test for a sick relative and deplete my savings, leaving my children at risk of going hungry? .............. many distressed parents were anxious about where their next meal would come from, how they would pay rent without a job, all while keeping safe from the virus. ........ She said one woman called her scared for her life because she was locked down with her abusive, alcoholic husband who was going through withdrawal symptoms. ........... the lockdown was imposed a with little thought for the nation's poor. ......... Very often I think about what happened to the vegetable vendor who was sitting outside my house? What has happened to the woman who picks up the trash from outside my house, I wonder where she is ........... "I am really worried about the jobs, (people) can go a few months but what about after that?"
24-year-old who beat Covid-19 after nearly 80 days in the hospital says she regrets not wearing a maskCastillo went to the emergency room April 27 with difficulty breathing, a cough and a fever. The hospital said she had been exhibiting symptoms for six days prior to going to the ER and that she was placed on a ventilator during her first 24 hours there. ....... "Maybe if I would have just listened and worn a mask, just a simple thing, I would have avoided all this," she told KTVT. "I work at a bank, I'm always around people, but I was like, 'I'm fine, I'm fine.' Never did I think I'd catch it."
Coronavirus symptoms fall into six different groupings, study findsExclusive: Findings could give medics advance warning for hospital care and respiratory support ....... “Anything you can do earlier to stop people coming in half-dead is going to increase the chance of survival and also stop clogging up hospital beds unnecessarily” .......... six different groupings based on the type of symptoms, when they occurred, and their duration within the first 14 days of participants’ sickness. ......... headaches, and loss of smell and taste, which cropped up in all clusters, but the latter was longer lasting in milder cases. ....... tracking symptoms improves the ability to predict the trajectory of a Covid-19 patient.
Zuckerberg says he’s been disappointed by Trump’s handling of Covid-19Zuckerberg said he believed the resurgence of the coronavirus in the U.S. in July could’ve been avoided. ....... “Our understanding of the disease is of course evolving, and our response needs to be guided by science.”
The world falls apart as the US withdrawsAn administration that cannot govern makes a stark contrast with China ........ Covid-19 has not transformed the world, at least so far. But it has accelerated its development, technologically, socially and politically. ......... The west has valuable assets in any competition for influence with China. Many still admire its core values of freedom and democracy. Western cultural and intellectual influence remains far greater than that of China. ....... The US has been able to create and sustain long-lived alliances of like-minded countries. If one adds together the nations that naturally align with the US, including those of Europe, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australasia and, increasingly, India, their economic and political weight remains huge. ......... Mr Trump’s is a post-values US. It is also post-competence. ....... if the state does not work, nothing does. The Trump administration appears determined to prove this hypothesis. ....... An alliance of liberal democracies dedicated to creating a counterweight to China in some areas, while co-operating successfully with it in others, is conceivable. But it will not happen if the US does not recreate itself as a functioning state led by a president who does not admire every authoritarian he meets. ......... Yet modern China has weak foundations, too. ........ Some people seem to believe that artificial intelligence and the reaping of vast quantities of data will allow central planning to replace the market. Nothing is less likely. The driving force of change is the ideas inside people’s heads. No one can plan for that. People need the incentives to create new and challenging things. Will today’s more oppressive Chinese state nurture that? ......... On the one side, then, we have a rising despotic superpower, but one with real frailties. On the other, we have an incumbent superpower that has lost its way. .......... The problem is not so much Mr Trump as that so many Americans want him to lead them. The western crisis is a crisis of values. We can overcome it. But it will be hard.
US and China: edging towards a new type of cold war?Trust between the countries has deteriorated during the pandemic and is close to its lowest point since 1979 ........ Chinese historical figures who supported democratic ideals and helped in the 1940s to write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which remains a bedrock for liberal values today. ........... Facing historic job losses and behind in the polls, US president Donald Trump has moved to blame China for his administration’s struggles in responding to coronavirus. ......... “This is worse than Pearl Harbor. This is worse than the World Trade Center. There’s never been an attack like this,” Mr Trump said of the pandemic this week. “It could have been stopped in China. It should have been stopped right at the source, and it wasn’t.” He has claimed that the virus came from a Wuhan lab. ........ The announcement on Thursday that trade talks between the two countries were still on track was also a reminder that the substance of superpower relations can often differ from the rhetoric. ........ While this new era of geopolitical rivalry may differ in important respects from the US-Soviet Union tensions between 1947 and 1991, irreconcilable differences in political values and strategic ambitions are eviscerating trust. ....... “The level of trust between China and the US is at its lowest point since diplomatic ties were first established in 1979” ........... Military conflict was not likely and ties could still be repaired if wise actions were taken. “But the risk is that the boom years of globalisation will be over and we might see the global system breaking into two parts,” he says. “That would greatly slow down global growth and developing countries would have to side with one of the two camps.” ....... “The root cause [in deteriorating relations] is the fundamental difference in ideology between the US and China,” he argues. “Between 1978 and 2012, the Communist party put aside its communist roots and focused on developing economic strength. Once China succeeded economically, the CCP went back to refocus on its original intentions [of building socialism].” ......... China’s ties with the US for most of the past 40 years have been founded on an inherently unstable equation. Each side was willing to play down ideological differences and strategic tensions in order to benefit from economic co-operation. For decades, this bargain delivered impressive commercial gains; China’s annual gross domestic product expansion has averaged just over 9 per cent since 1989, making it the prime locomotive for global growth............ the rounding up of the US spy network in China starting in 2010 ... At least 30 spies are reported to have been executed in the sweep, leaving US officials “shell shocked” by the accuracy of Chinese counter-intelligence. ............ Many in Beijing blame the tensions on the insecurities of a superpower in decline: in Washington, they fear the overconfidence of a great power on the rise. ....... total Chinese investment into the US fell to $5bn last year, down from a recent peak of $45bn in 2016, when Chinese companies were much more free to acquire US counterparts. ........ pressure from American companies — particularly in industries such as semiconductors that depend on Chinese demand — will not allow anything close to a complete “decoupling” of supply chains.
Late Soviet AmericaLike the Soviet Union in its final years, the United States is reeling from catastrophic failures of leadership and long-suppressed socioeconomic tensions that have finally boiled over. For the rest of the world, the most important development is that the hegemony of the US dollar may finally be coming to an end. .......... the president is deeply incompetent and “stunningly uninformed.” If it wasn’t obvious already, the whole world now knows that the US lacks any strategic orientation or coherent executive leadership. .......... like statues of Lenin during the collapse of the Soviet empire, statues of Confederate leaders are being toppled just about everywhere. ............ The Soviet Union had a large, complicated planning and resource-allocation apparatus that attracted the society’s best-educated people, only to consign them to unproductive and frequently destructive tasks. The US has Wall Street. ........... Under President Donald Trump, America has become an international embarrassment. ....... Harold James is Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University
Kayleigh McEnany: "The President has said unmistakably that he wants schools to open... The science should not stand in the way of this." pic.twitter.com/GNstim2HkW
The least important thing about schools is the exact day it opens. If cases are climbing & the buildings are old and the teachers aren’t safe and you’re likely to shut down again, you already know the answer.
The US is diving into a dark Covid hole -- and there's no plan to get outthe coronavirus task force does not hold daily briefings, and when it does, they are an exercise in dodging difficult questions and self-congratulation. ........... Months into the worst domestic crisis since World War II, there is no sense that a fractured country is pulling together to confront a common enemy. People are still arguing about wearing masks -- a tiny infringement of personal freedoms that represents one of the few hopes of easing the contagion. The one federal official who does seem to have answers, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has been banished to the podcast circuit by President Donald Trump, who was on Fox News Thursday night boasting about acing a cognitive test as the US hit another daily record of infections -- over 60,000 -- on a day on which more than 900 new deaths were reported. ............. It's unimaginable that any other modern President would have handled things this way. .......... Belated attempts to halt the virus in southern and western states are being hampered by feuds between Democratic mayors who want mask mandates and Republican governors handcuffed by ideology. .......... It took the US 99 days to reach one million cases, 43 days to get to 2 million and 28 days to add another million. That's a horrific rate of increase. .......... The massive disconnects between federal and state and local officials are making President George W. Bush's Hurricane Katrina disaster look like a trifle. ......... Trump's top aides bristle at any criticism, reflecting how lionizing a President who has navigated states of denial, ignorance, indifference and negligence about the virus is more important than looking reality in the eye. ........ In parts of the country -- in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts for instance -- there is some hope that after proper mitigation efforts and a tight hand on the reopening tap the virus can be kept at low levels, at least until a feared winter outbreak. Republican governors in Ohio and Maryland who heeded epidemiology suppressed vicious epidemics. In states and cities where trusted leaders give simple, honest messages, progress is possible. ........... Early shutdowns, social distancing, the use of masks and prudent opening plans have helped lower new infections to manageable levels from New York City to Italy. Aggressive testing and tracing operations have kept a lid on the pandemic in South Korea and allowed officials in Singapore and Germany to quickly snuff out hotspots. ............. Only firm national leadership can plot a route out of the crisis and help states currently heading into the hot zone join those who have suppressed the virus
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