Coronavirus News (116)

Want to Be More Productive? Try Doing Less.  What if the answer to getting more of what we want isn’t addition at all, but subtraction? ......... evidence supports that if we want to ramp up our productivity and happiness, we should actually be doing less ...........  we’re truly focused on our work a mere six hours per week, which starkly contrasts our collective buy-in to the 40-hour workweek. ....... When you stop doing the things that make you feel busy but aren’t getting you results (and are draining you of energy), then you end up with more than enough time for what matters and a sense of peace and spaciousness that constant activity has kept outside your reach. ........... We need to  ....... identify what not to do....... It must be methodical and evidence-based. ....... Revel in the joy of doing less. 

As Covid-19 Disrupts Global Supply Chains, Will Companies Turn to India?  America’s relationship with the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, is undergoing a stark, rapid and perhaps permanent transformation. ........ While the Facebook-Jio deal is largely digitally driven, we believe that 2020 could mark an inflection point in the bilateral trade of goods between the United States and India. ........ CEOs are confidentially asking their supply chain teams to develop additional sources that are completely independent of China. .......  In 2019, the United Stated imported a staggering $452 billion of goods from China. Only five low-cost countries have GDPs larger than that: India, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, and Thailand. India is the biggest economy among these candidates and has the largest untapped potential for filling part of the supply chain vacuum that is created by exodus from China. ....... “While U.S. companies are looking for alternatives to China, India becomes a natural destination. You have an English speaking workforce, highly skilled, the cost of labor is cheap and more important it is a growing market of 1.3 billion people whose disposable income is growing.” ......... a lot of top American companies have their biggest or second biggest bases in India. ........   The cabin of Marine One, the presidential helicopter is fabricated for Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky unit in India, according to Aghi and he goes on to add “The Ford EcoSport is manufactured in Chennai, India for the U.S market.” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California is collaborating with the Indian Space Research Organization on the most expensive imaging satellite ever to be launched, NISAR.  ..........  India exports shrimp, processed foods, and agricultural products to the United States. Aghi says that 3.2 million Apple iPhones built in India will be exported from the country. Biswal of USIBC asserts that India can supply medical devices, energy efficient green transportation, power semiconductors, switches, and rectifiers for American needs. India already provides almost 40 percent of the generic drugs sold in the United States, produced at factories inspected and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. ......  We call this phenomenon “India Inside,” where much of what is imported from India goes unnoticed by both American consumers and the media, but is nonetheless crucial to the fabric of the U.S economy. .........  Indians love America and American culture but react strongly to what they perceive as American arrogance. .......  “Given amount of dependence on China, the only alternative country that can have the scale, the skills and the space to service American demand effectively is India.”

Understanding the Rise of Manufacturing in India India is the third-largest economy in purchasing power parity after the U.S. and China, it has a large population of engineers and factory workers, its intellectual property is widely respected, and it is easy to find English-speaking managers there. ....... Chicago-based Abbott, which operates in 150 countries and owns top brands such as Similac infant formula, recently built a manufacturing facility in Jhagadia, Gujarat, in order to compete in India’s large growing nutrition market. In 2014, its 14,000 employees in India generated $1.09 billion in sales. .........  “It is one of the fastest growing markets globally — with a young population, strong macroeconomic indicators, a huge consumption story, and a politically stable government working to accelerate reforms. For a healthcare company, the reasons to be part of this vibrant country are even more compelling — it’s an opportunity to serve the unmet healthcare needs of a 1.2 billion population.” .........  Another company planning to boost exports by manufacturing in India is GE. Among the 10 factories it has in the country, its new factory in the city of Pune serves as a global supply source for a number of its diverse businesses, from aviation and turbo machinery to wind turbines and diesel locomotives. ........ Former Texas Instruments engineer Lou Hutter, now CEO of the startup Cricket Semiconductor, is raising $1B dollars (largely from investors of Indian origin) to build India’s first analog chip fabrication (“fab”) facility. Hutter and his partners hope to be located in the middle-sized city of Indore in Madhya Pradesh, where the Chief Minister has offered free land and a stable supply of water and electricity. .......... Land ownership is often opaque, and re-zoning from agricultural to industrial use has been fraught with peril and delays. .......  Just two decades ago, most Western executives thought of Ireland or Central America as the place to outsource software and business processes; today, we believe that India’s knowledge worker base rivals those two destinations combined. We don’t expect Indian manufacturing to go head to head with factories in China, Japan, the United States, or Germany any time soon. But top executives who wish to diversify their supply chains should no longer only consider India as a supplier of software and call center services. Manufacturing is the next frontier in India, and companies such as Abbott, Cummins, and GE have already proven that the countries resources hold tremendous potential. ............ We believe that western CEOs should follow Jeff Immelt’s lead and begin including India as part of their global supply chain. ........ manufacturing is probably the only way to lift half a billion more of its population out of poverty 

Coronavirus News (115)

The Politics of Pandemics: Why Some Countries Respond Better Than Others The capacity of a state and the degree of economic inequality among its residents will determine how successful it is in coping effectively with a pandemic like COVID-19. Whether it is a democracy or a dictatorship matters relatively less ........... inequality increases the frequency and scale of an epidemic, and it undermines people’s compliance with epidemic containment policies such as social distancing and sheltering in place .......... “State capacity is a bulwark against the occurrence and ill effects of crises and emergencies, while economic inequality exacerbates them” ........ “Countries that score higher in state capacity, because they have more resourceful governments, regardless which party is running it, have fewer of these epidemics. And if they have one, they tend to have fewer deaths and cases.” ......... “But inequality can make the consequences of all of this much, much worse, especially in terms of the number of people affected.” ...........  while the pandemic is global, it is felt in very different ways around the world, and also that it didn’t start in every country at the same time. There is also a wide variation in the responses by governments and by people in different countries. ...........  Being a democracy and having state capacity are not always correlated ...........  It gets worse for poor countries that remain dictatorships. “They face a double whammy ......... in dictatorships, the population typically does not have much trust in the government and its responses to an epidemic, he added. “That’s the worst of all situations.” ......... South Korea, Taiwan and Iceland also showed low economic inequality .............  inadequate or fragmented state capacity was the reason why countries in Southern Europe like Spain and Italy have suffered heavily in the pandemic. It didn’t seem to matter that they are democracies – their governments have been “completely disorganized” in their response to the pandemic ........  To boot, the degree of economic inequality in Southern Europe is also higher than in Northern and Central Europe .......... Semi-authoritarian regimes like Malaysia or dictatorial regimes like Indonesia took action more swiftly, but with less consistency, and with uncertain outcomes due to favoritism and corruption .............  democracies structurally lend themselves to more effective responses to epidemics than dictatorships. ...........  With democracy, economies have the opportunity to recover after a crisis. Without democracy, economies may continue to slide, favoritism and corruption may rule the day, and governments may fall. ..........  Most dictatorships, however, tend to ensure that they will continue to run the country by allocating subsidies and rents to a few important groups that support it  .............  “Every infectious disease outbreak is a problem for the entire world, not just for one country, especially when it becomes a pandemic,” said Guillen. “So, it’s extremely unfortunate that right now very few countries are talking to each other. Part of this is because we came from a period of turmoil in the world, not knowing what the role of the U.S. was, for example, and having trade wars and other kinds of frictions in the world. It’s unfortunate that the pandemic came the moment when global cooperation on key issues, such as climate change, was at an all-time low.” ............  “It is unfortunate that the one organization that we have that can help coordinate global actions in the midst of a pandemic is under attack.” 

SpaceX spacesuits are designed for optimum functionality with Dragon pic.twitter.com/QW4DirDirx

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 27, 2020

Same is the case in Nepal, lockdown has not produced the result. Corona infection is increasing exponentially despite 60 days plus lockdown. What does Nepal government wants to do, people want to know.

Posted by Rudra Raj Pandey on Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Pulling Through the Pandemic: Advice for Entrepreneurs  view the next six to twelve months as an opportunity to become very lean, and perhaps emerge from the pandemic even stronger. .........  you [must] cut deep and cut hard .......... the bigger pitfall I see is people who are basically burning cash somewhat overly optimistically at this point ......... the VIDE model ........ value, or V, in entrepreneurship is a function of three factors: the idea (I); your skills and capabilities, or what you do with the idea (D); and exogenous factors (E) that are out of your control. ........ some little virus in a bat 8,000 miles away can crush my business ........... Some businesses will not make it to the other side of the pandemic, and neither will many jobs. Setbacks are hard, but they also provide an opportunity for firms and individuals to reevaluate and redirect. ......... “We were in a period of a lot of irrational exuberance, a lot of capital available, a lot of people [getting] by on swagger. I think those times are gone.”

How New York City’s Public Health Care System Responded to COVID-19  As the largest public health care system in the United States, NYC Health + Hospitals is accustomed to the challenges of caring for some of the most vulnerable communities across the city’s five boroughs. But when the first wave of patients with COVID-19 symptoms began arriving at the system’s dozens of hospitals and clinics, leaders quickly realized they were dealing with a crisis like no other in recent times. ............  new methods that they refined through daily feedback from doctors, nurses and others on the front lines. ........ As the city’s public health care system, we were the epicenter of the epicenter, and bore particular responsibility for poor and working-class patients as the safety-net system for New Yorkers. For many of us — despite having been through 9/11, Superstorm Sandy and Ebola — it was the most intense and harrowing two months of our lives.  ..........  holding a team together despite centrifugal forces from an unprecedented crisis. .......... Our system’s special pathogens program began monitoring the novel coronavirus in late December. By early January, we activated the incident command system (ICS), a management system designed to bring key stakeholders together, marry resources and delineate responsibilities clearly. ..........  In African cultures, call-and-response is a widespread pattern of democratic participation — in public gatherings, in the discussion of civic affairs, in religious rituals, as well as in vocal and instrumental musical expression. We used a modification of this simple technique to guide, nurture and hold the team responsible. Every day for three months, we would hold Tiger Team Briefings to ascertain the needs of the entire health care system. After a system-wide intelligence report focusing on trends around COVID-19 admitted patients and surge status, facilities reported any issues around personnel, equipment and space. ..........    For instance, one of our hospitals shared that they had started playing music overhead each time a patient was extubated, helping bolster spirits despite the extraordinary stress. Other hospitals rapidly adopted this practice and even started comparing notes on which songs they were playing! .............. With so much unknown about the novel coronavirus, it was particularly important to stand up channels to rapidly share information across hospital sites. In some cases, this drew upon existing fora, including an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Council that adjudicated both operational issues, such as how to quickly surge ICU beds, as well as clinical issues, such as appropriate criteria for using blood-thinning medications. ............. In other cases, rapidly-emerging issues, such as dialysis shortages, cut across organizational boundaries in a way that required seamless collaboration. ........... “New power operates differently, like a current. It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like water or electricity, its most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it, but to channel it.” ............  The entire team thrived on new power values, using networked governance, group wisdom and sharing. Our facility leaders particularly embraced radical transparency. When the data forecasts were saying we needed additional capacity, despite already Herculean efforts, they channeled another wave of innovation. Alternate sites were screened and secured, a new hospital was established, tents were set up, and we coordinated with military and other federal leaders. ............  “holding” is a psychological term to describe the way in which a person in authority contains and interprets what is happening in times of uncertainty   

Coronavirus News (114)

Why India Should Allow Dual Citizenship If foreign citizens of Indian descent return home to be in politics or government, they are more likely to do so in order to fix many of the developmental challenges that forced their migration, rather than to serve any ‘grand designs’ of foreign sabotage in India. ..........

Shashi Tharoor introduced a bill in Parliament to amend the Indian Constitution and allow dual citizenship for Indians.

........ people of Indian origin have risen to high offices, including as presidents and prime ministers of various countries. At one point in 2014, America had over half a dozen Indian-origin politicians in office – two of them as Governors. ........ For years, Indian foreign policy discourse has suffered from introversion and fence-sitting on matters of international politics and security. A large part of the domestic debate on foreign policy is restricted to the immediate neighbourhood – and often just one country out of them all: Pakistan. ......... it will reinstate India’s legacy as a civilisation that is open rather than insular, global rather than protectionist, and confident rather than insecure. For India’s aspirations to be a global power, there are few attributes more pertinent than those.

From the Secession of Pakistan to the Partitioning of India The creation of Pakistan was more a secession from India’s multicultural freedom movement than a partition of Indian territory into two states on the basis of religion. The ruling political ideology in India has now pledged allegiance to the ideals of the secession of Pakistan. ............ The Muslim League – the principal party of those who sought the secession of Pakistan – suffered heavy electoral losses year after year, even in the provinces whose secession it demanded: As late as in the elections of 1936-37, the Muslim League blanked out in Sind and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). In Bengal, it failed to capture even a third of the seats reserved for Muslims. In all, the Muslim League garnered fewer than 5 percent of the Muslim vote across the country. ........ Secession was successfully achieved, not through the force of ballots, but through the force of violence. The dubious nature of the two-nation theory lies in the fact that Muslims were so well integrated across the entire geography of undivided India that, for several years after independence, India had more Muslims than Pakistan, despite forced mass migration of Hindus and Muslims across the border. ........ India did not become the Hindu Republic of India; instead, it stayed true to the multicultural values of the larger freedom movement, which established Indian nationalism on the basis of universal principles rather than cultural or religious identity. .......

“That was a partition of India’s soil; this has become a partition of India’s soul.”

India’s Art of the Impossible Trade Deal For decades, India has remained among the most protectionist of the larger developing economies, despite adopting liberalization policies nearly 30 years ago. ...... India had introduced the second-most number of trade restrictions among all G20 economies between 2016 and 2018 (the highest number belonged to the United States, where President Trump has been waging a trade war on multiple fronts). ....... To most international commentators and economists, this is baffling: India’s economic boom since 1991 has owed enormously to trade and globalization ........ For years, India has pushed countries around the world – both developing and developed – to open up their borders to high-skilled Indian professionals and more sophisticated industries such as IT and pharmaceuticals. These are areas where Indian exports (and labour) are highly competitive, producing output of fair quality at low prices. ........ But in the Indian economy, only a minority of the workforce is engaged in activities where India is competitive: In 2018, only 31 percent of Indians worked in the services sector (and an even smaller percentage worked in areas such as IT or pharmaceuticals); the remaining 69 percent were employed in manufacturing or agriculture – sectors which remain plagued by regulatory red tape, infrastructural woes and labour productivity issues. ........

Opening up to trade in sectors where India is less competitive means political pushback from the majority of the workforce. Yet, on the other hand, trade blocs would not open up to Indian professionals or exports in services without liberalization in industrial or agricultural goods.

........ “services such as IT tend to be neglected by traditional trade deals [such as RCEP]. Only ambitious, forward-looking agreements venture deeply into these areas, and those deals usually entail a degree of openness to foreign manufacturers that would terrify India’s industrialists.” What’s worse, in an era of heightened populism and right-wing nationalism, countries around the world are increasingly pulling up barriers to immigration and trade in services. ..... The Modi government has said that it would like to pursue trade talks with the EU and the United States instead – it might have better luck there, but only if India is willing to open up to dairy products and manufactured goods in return.

How India Can Help Prepare the World for COVID-19 Vaccines the next 12-18 months will be critical for countries. They must prepare themselves for an extensive immunization program. ......... Modi called the International Solar Alliance (ISA) India’s “gift to the world” in the fight against climate change. The ISA is an inter-governmental organization, jointly launched by India and France in 2015 on the sidelines of the COP21 summit in Paris. The idea was to harness clean and low-cost solar power in solar-rich countries to make them energy secure and self-reliant. ..........

Unfortunately, most countries do not have a strong enough cold chain network to handle a mass immunization program for COVID-19.

...... Most of the ISA’s membership is African, with the continent contributing 34 ratified members. And India is attempting to establish itself as a responsible global leader by spreading its medicine diplomacy far and wide in Africa.

India Needs a Basic Income Scheme Instead of Welfare Subsidies The coronavirus lockdown has reinforced the merits of a basic income scheme. But apart from alleviating distress, the replacement of wasteful subsidies by a basic income scheme would even be financially prudent. It would make economic reform more viable and the public sector more efficient. ..........

the biggest advantage of a basic income scheme is the simplicity of its implementation

. India’s traditional welfare system has depended upon a dense network of schemes, most of which do not involve direct cash transfers. In almost all of these schemes, there are significant leakages which prevent the beneficiaries from receiving their full entitlement. .......

approximately one-fifth of households in the poorest 40 percent of the population do not receive any subsidies – a result of corruption and low state capacity.

...... for every rupee that the Indian government spends on welfare, society incurs a cost of three rupees. ...... A basic income scheme would serve as a safety net that insulates the poor from sudden drastic changes in income. The past six years have shown how low-income groups are the most adversely affected by economic crises, ranging from demonetisation to the current lockdown. This is supplemented by the nature of the informal economy (or even the formal gig economy) which breeds instability in employment. A basic income would alleviate the distress caused by the possible loss of employment income. .........

direct cash transfers in Latin America, Africa and Asia actually led to a decrease in alcohol and tobacco consumption around 82 percent of the time. This effect was even greater when cash transfer programs were targeted at women

........ a similar study in Madhya Pradesh showed that such unconditional cash transfers led to increased food security, a decrease in alcohol consumption and increased school attendance. This shows that low-income groups are actually far more adept at understanding their basic needs than policymakers. ....... Depending on the nature of the scheme, the cost could be anything between Rs 2 lakh crores and Rs 10 lakh crores (the estimated cost of the Congress NYAY plan was Rs 3.66 lakh crores). Nonetheless, there are several ways by which this fiscal gap can be plugged. Firstly, a basic income scheme would make the PM-Kisan Scheme redundant, saving the exchequer Rs 54,000 crores. Similarly, other welfare schemes like the PDS or MNREGA could be significantly reduced as a basic income scheme would eliminate their primary purpose. ....... a basic income scheme would reduce and remove the political imperative for governments to maintain several irrelevant public sector jobs – many of which have been sustained only as a means of providing employment. ........ the government spends an exorbitant amount of around 1.04 percent of GDP on subsidies that do not directly benefit low-income households. A replacement of such wasteful subsidies by a basic income scheme would be extremely financially prudent.........

the 190 million people who still do not have a bank account

...... The current migrant worker crisis emphasises the need to combine market and state more efficiently and equitably. It is time for a basic income scheme – one that merges the noble redistributive intent of socialism with the efficiency of the free market.

Inter-Religious Harmony in India Amidst the Coronavirus In these times, even as pious religious slogans like Jai Shri Ram have come to be used politically, many Muslims are rising above religious barriers and reflecting remarkable stories of love over hate. Yusuf Sheikh, one of those who attended the funeral in Bandra, said, “We knew Premchandra Mahavir quite well. At such times, we should show humanity transcending religious barriers.” .......... In Loyaitola village of Malda district in West Bengal, a group of Muslims – chanting Bolo Hari, Bolo Hari and Ram naam satya hai – carried the body of 90-year-old Binay Saha to the cremation ground. “Our father died of old age,” said his son, Shyamal Saha. “We were anxious about how to cremate him during the lockdown. None of our relatives would be able to come.” Saddam Sheikh, a neighbour, said, “We (Muslims of the village) are neighbours and carried out our duty. No religion is greater than humanity.” ......... In Aurangabad, Maharashtra, a Hindu man died and, due to the fear of the coronavirus, none of his relatives came to perform his last rites. Farhat Ahmad, a functionary of the Tablighi Jamaat in Aurangabad, lifted the bier and cremated the body. ....... over 1,000 Christian-run hospitals in India, with 60,000 inpatient beds, are fighting the coronavirus. During these testing times, members of all religious communities are running kitchens for people in distress.........

one, pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity; two, pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference; three, pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments which doesn’t require us to leave our differences; four, pluralism is based on dialogue.

 

Wear a mask.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 27, 2020

Trump says he wasn't criticizing Biden for wearing a mask then immediately criticizes the masked reporter who asked the question. pic.twitter.com/P2RLlzp41c

— The Recount (@therecount) May 26, 2020

T 3544 -43 YEARS .. !!! .. 'Amar Akbar Anthony' is estimated to have made Rs 7.25 crore in those days. Inflation-adjusted, it crosses the collections of Bahubali 2—The Conclusion today!

#43YearsOfAmarAkbarAnthony pic.twitter.com/u5IMiOV2zt

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) May 27, 2020

This woman called the police on a Black birdwatcher after he asked her to leash her dog in NYC’s Central Park, claiming that ‘an African American man is threatening my life’ pic.twitter.com/m41NhFD7No

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) May 27, 2020

100,000 dead Americans. One wrong president. pic.twitter.com/NTH4cT0Xum

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) May 27, 2020

Coronavirus News (113)

Trump’s seeding of a culture war over masks just got a lot less subtle stop a senseless and counterproductive culture war over the wearing of masks during the coronavirus outbreak. ........ “So with the masks, it’s going to be, really, a voluntary thing,” he said. “You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I’m choosing not to do it, but some people may want to do it, and that’s okay. It may be good. Probably will. They’re making a recommendation. It’s only a recommendation. It’s voluntary.” ........ Asymptomatic people can be carriers. The idea that a mask isn’t necessary because the potential wearer has no reason to believe they’re sick also ignores the benefit that masks could provide when it comes to contracting the virus oneself.

In explaining his decision, Trump suggested he was holding out in public because he didn’t want to allow reporters who have continually pressed him on the issue to win.

.......... “I wore one in this back area, but I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it,” Trump said. ......... When it comes to wearing a mask, public health isn’t the only consideration. So, too, are pride and Trump’s appetite for provocation. ...... Whatever can be gained by a president setting an example for the American people, there are other considerations........ In the days before Trump’s Monday retweet, anecdotal images showed Memorial Day weekend revelers in places such as the Lake of the Ozarks flouting not just mask-wearing guidelines but also social-distancing guidelines. .........

90 percent of Democrats thought Trump should wear a mask in public, but just 38 percent of Republicans said the same........ 87 percent of Democrats reported wearing one while leaving home in the previous week, while just 53 percent of Republicans did.

...... While 18 percent of Democratic-leaning voters said they never wore a mask, 46 percent of Republican-leaning voters said the same. ......... What’s most inexplicable, though, is that

wearing a mask is one of the simplest things to do — and something that could actually help when it comes to lifting those restrictions

. Masks help people reemerge in society without infecting one another

"We now see a trend in an uptick in hospitalizations. It's a small uptick, but it is an uptick and it is unmistakable, and it is probably a result of reopening," says @ScottGottliebMD. "We are going to have to watch it--we expected this." pic.twitter.com/1BuRaksMaT

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) May 26, 2020

WHO Media Briefing

The covid-19 lockdown has served its purpose. It’s time to end it. The objective of the lockdown was never to stop every American from getting covid-19, which is impossible; it was to buy time to learn about the virus and prevent our health-care system from being overwhelmed. ......... The Army Corps of Engineers spent $660 million to build emergency field hospitals across the country ......... “most of these facilities haven’t treated a single patient.” ....... in at least a dozen states there are now more coronavirus tests than there are people to take them, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D-N.Y.) recently said, “we have more sites and more testing capacity than we’re using.” ....... Those achievements have come at an enormous price.

In the past two months, almost 40 million Americans have lost their jobs — about a quarter of our working population.

One recent study suggested that 42 percent of those layoffs may be permanent. ........... The costs are not just in lost jobs, but in lost lives. Americans have been forced to put off care for non-covid-19 illnesses such as cancer and cardiac disease — forgoing screenings, surgeries, chemotherapy and emergency room visits. ..........

we could see an additional 40,000 deaths due to suicides and drug overdoses among the jobless, as well as an additional 2 million people addicted to drugs.

........ the vast majority of covid victims are older Americans, like my mother, with underlying health conditions. We must continue to shelter and protect them. But for everyone else, especially young people, the risks of resuming activity are much lower.......... Parents uncomfortable sending their kids to school should be given the option of distance learning. But the vast majority of students should be allowed back in the classroom with appropriate social distancing precautions. .......... children will suffer a 9- to-12-month learning loss because of the lockdown. That will only worsen if it continues in the fall. ......... Michael Chertoff, chairman of ReOpen DC Advisory Group, has recommended that Washington, D.C., schools not fully reopen for in-person learning until there is a vaccine. That’s completely senseless......... Michael Chertoff, chairman of ReOpen DC Advisory Group, has recommended that Washington, D.C., schools not fully reopen for in-person learning until there is a vaccine. That’s completely senseless.

Coronavirus News (112)

Will the coronavirus pandemic open the door to a four-day workweek? The world is watching New Zealand. ....... what once in many quarters would have come across as a fringe notion no longer seemed so unthinkable. ........ spent time in offices that had implemented the policy in Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea the United Kingdom, the United States and Scandinavian countries to track why they were making the shift. “It’s not just touchy-feely social democracies that are doing it,” he said, but

also countries where “overwork is the norm.”

........ workplace productivity and satisfaction go up under a shorter, more compressed schedule. ....... 64 percent of leaders of businesses with four-day workweeks saw an increase in staff productivity, while 77 percent of workers linked it to a better quality of life ....... before the pandemic, Karen Jansen, a researcher on organizational behavior in the U.K., estimated a major shift toward the shorter workweek wouldn’t happen before 2030. Now, she said,

the coronavirus is “accelerating” that timeline

. ........ Much like remote work, four-day weeks, even if they gained widespread traction, would not likely be available to all workers evenly. There are different models for the shortened week, some of which envision the same output condensed into fewer hours while other simply imagine longer hours spread over fewer days. ......... The crisis has also amplified inherent inequalities between workers in formal jobs, with set contracts and hours, and those in the gig and informal economy. ........ the three-day weekend would become a “bubble” like remote work, encompassing a growing number of people and professions while excluding others....... women worldwide bear the brunt of child care and other domestic responsibilities under lockdowns and work-from-home orders, which exacerbate preexisting dynamics. In contrast, he argued, a four-day workweek could normalize a pattern in which people of all genders split their time more evenly between home and the workplace, removing an entrenched barrier to female professional advancement. ......... “You’re never going to get women at the top unless you get the guys out of the office,” Barnes said. “It makes it okay [for men] to spend time at home, to look after kids, to have care responsibilities.” ....... a mix of office and remote work moving forward

EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD IS MYSTERIOUSLY WEAKENING, CAUSING SATELLITES AND SPACECRAFT TO MALFUNCTION A localised region of weakness is 'developing vigorously', scientists warn ......... Scientists studying the phenomenon observed that an area known as the South Atlantic Anomaly has grown considerably in recent years, though the reason for it is not entirely clear. ....... the area of the anomaly dropped in strength by more than 8 per cent between 1970 and 2020. ....... The challenge now is to understand the processes in Earth's core driving theses changes ...... One possibility, according to the ESA, is that the weakening field is a sign that the Earth's magnetic field is about to reverse, whereby the North Pole and South Pole switch places. ....... The last time a "geomagnetic reversal" took place was 780,000 years ago, with some scientists claiming that the next one is long overdue. Typically, such events take place every 250,000 years. ......... the process is not an instantaneous one and could take tens of thousands of years to take place....... magnetic field observations from Swarm are providing exciting new insights into the scarcely understood processes of Earth's interior.

Coronavirus: Migrant Crisis is Due to Poor Planning, Not Poor State Capacity Some believe that the migrant crisis unleashed by India’s lockdown was inevitable. But the government’s own track record proves otherwise. It already has the infrastructure and capacity to respond, including several assets that are not currently being used. .........

Social media is awash with posts documenting the inhumane suffering of homebound migrant workers, many of whom are travelling hundreds of miles home on foot.

........ a failure of policy and have questioned the haste with which the government implemented the lockdown. .......... the government should have predicted the exodus ........ the disaster mitigation policy adopted by the government in the wake of Cyclone Fani in 2019. The government shifted more than a million people from low lying areas to cyclone shelters and ensured that there was minimal loss of human life. ..........

The government feeds more than 100 million children through its midday meal program.

The infrastructure for this distribution of food is still in place but not currently in use, since most children are now at home. The government could have used the midday meal infrastructure and augmented it with other initiatives to ensure that all migrant workers were provided for in the cities. .......... Over the last few years, through the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, thousands of schools have been constructed. These schools – presently also closed – could have been used to increase the housing capacity of the existing shelter homes. ......... public transport systems (such as railways and buses) are not presently being utilised fully and could have been used to transport the migrants home after screening them. .......

there is no coherent national plan

......... The reason for this lack of planning lies in political apathy and not in a lack of state capacity. ......... a large section of the Indian middle class, many of whom incorrectly believe that the government does not have the resources or tools to deal with the scale of the migrant crisis. ........

India’s challenge is not one of poor state capacity but of low levels of empathy among many middle-class voters.

How COVID-19 Will Impact the Indian and Global Economies apart from its tragic human consequences, COVID-19 is likely to cost around $1 trillion to the global economy ........ COVID-19 will likely contract the global economy in 2020 by 2.5 per cent – the recessionary threshold for the world economy. ........ with the spread of COVID-19 having been fuelled by international migration and travel, globalisation may itself take a hit in the post-pandemic world. ...... Each day, countries get more restrictive, requiring more people to be quarantined upon arrival. ......... Unskilled and semi-skilled migrant labours are among the worst hit by the ongoing lockdown. It has tightened a job-scarce economy into a no-work economy – leading to the mass exodus of millions of daily wage workers from the big cities to the towns and villages...... Health of a population boosts the national economy through higher productivity and greater access to education and employment, which may otherwise be blocked by poor health. A growing health sector also provides gainful employment to many. By promoting mental health, we reduce conflict in society.........

Expenditure on healthcare includes expenditure on public health, family welfare, water supply and sanitation. India needs to spend more in these areas to create a resilient healthcare infrastructure and counter any potential future pandemics.

........... Cash transfer measures are set to benefit farmers, rural workers, poor pensioners, construction workers, low-income widowers and other marginalised people in the country. ....... The central bank has also permitted all lending institutions to allow a 3-month moratorium on the payment of instalments on term loans.

Inter-Religious Harmony in India Amidst the Coronavirus there is an outbreak of anti-Muslim hate during the nationwide lockdown. ........ In Indore, in the second week of April, when Draupadi Bai Verma died, her relatives refused to touch her body out of fear of contracting coronavirus. In response, a group of ten Muslim neighbours arranged for her last rites and carried her body to the cremation ground. Abdul Rehman Sheikh, a Muslim who carried her bier, said, “This is the purpose of humanity, to serve each other.” In Bulandshahar, Uttar Pradesh, when Ravishankar died, his relatives similarly feared contracting coronavirus and didn’t turn up for his last rites. Ultimately, a group of Muslims carried his bier to the cremation ground, chanting Ram naam satya hai.

My daughter lives in Nashville & wore her mask to buy groceries. Guy yells at her: ‘Liberal pussy!’ Back story: she nearly died of H1N1. She was in the ICU for a week, on a ventilator for 3 days. She CANNOT get covid. The ignorance & hatred is so painful. She’s trying to survive.

— rosanne cash (@rosannecash) May 26, 2020

Trump has shown more outrage in the last few days about Americans voting by mail during a pandemic than he has ever shown about Russian efforts to interfere with our elections.

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) May 26, 2020

The global pandemic is pushing over half a billion people into poverty. Meanwhile the 25 richest people on Earth have increased their wealth by $255 billion. We need international solidarity. We must address the grotesque level of wealth inequality that's getting worse every day.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 26, 2020

Cummings’ contempt for lockdown rules makes the public feel like fools | Fintan O’Toole https://t.co/uhrEmiWTWJ

— Fintan O'Toole (@fotoole) May 26, 2020

Cummings’ contempt for lockdown rules makes the public feel like fools The ordinary treachery of saying one thing and doing another – there will be £350m extra every week for the NHS; there will never be a border in the Irish Sea – is mother’s milk to them. Perhaps because it is so habitual or because they are so used to getting away with it, their sense of how it works has become dulled. They missed the crucial fact that this time it’s different. This time it’s personal. ............ the rules for collective survival in a pandemic are not ironic. They are intimate. They are embodied. They are the detailed texture of the lives we live every day. ..........

To use the Blitz analogy that England apparently cannot escape, it’s fine to leave your lights on during the blackout if you’re an important person with documents to read.

..... an unpardonable snigger of elite condescension.

Justice Gopala Gowda, former Supreme Court judge, writes in the @Freedom_Gazette: "Not only has the Court abdicated its judicial responsibility, but it has also demonstrated an unprecedented apathy & heartlessness to the plight of vulnerable citizens." https://t.co/pT4JcL0gC6

— Freedom Gazette (@Freedom_Gazette) May 26, 2020

Coronavirus News (111)

Minnesota COVID-19 survivor: 'There's this narrative that it's just the flu. It's not' Minnesotans need to understand the consequences, survivors say, particularly as many grow restless with restrictions designed to slow the pandemic. ........ Bernie Goldblatt didn’t think the lingering cough he developed back in March could be COVID-19. ........ But when it wouldn’t go away and his condition took a sudden and desperate turn in early April, the 68-year-old retiree wound up in the ICU for weeks. Nearly two months later, he’s still not home..........

“When it happens, it’s like you’re living in a nightmare and you can’t get out.”

......... Most people sickened by COVID-19 survive, but in serious cases, the experience is harrowing, the effects linger and the long-term health risks aren’t clear. .......... “Please, please, please take it seriously,” said Steve Soeffker, a 69-year-old McLeod County resident who spent 43 days in the hospital before returning home this month. .........

Doctors don’t know whether COVID-19 survivors will maintain immunity against the virus down the road

......... there are questions about long-term issues with the lungs, kidneys and liver in serious cases ...........

In the most serious cases, getting over COVID-19 is just the start of the struggle.

......... During her first night at Methodist Hospital, she couldn’t stop gasping for breath. ........

“I had this moment of total dread that came over me,” she said, “as I realized I could possibly die.”

.......... Life moved slowly in April, with Bort surprised by her fatigue walking up stairs. Now, she takes daily walks around Lake of the Isles but doesn’t feel completely recovered. ........ “Two months later, I’m still out of breath — much more out of breath than I normally would be. So, I’m a little worried. … Usually by this time of the year, I’d be riding my bike 10 or 15 miles a day.” ....... After landing in the hospital, Goldblatt spent about three weeks in the ICU and his memories are the stuff of

piercing nightmares and dark visions

. The distress is not unique to COVID-19 patients, doctors say, but a function of intensive care that can leave patients disoriented as they try to cope with disrupted sleep, heavy medications and a devastating illness. ........... “I think

I was one of those people who was in complete denial — that that was never going to happen to me,” Goldblatt said of COVID-19. “And I have to tell you — it could, and it did.”

.......... ....Soeffker didn’t have a cough or fever when he went to bed one night in early April. Around 4 a.m.,

his wife found him collapsed on the floor and gasping for air

. ......... “This COVID is real. A lot of people are thinking it’s not,” he said. “Yes, I’m sympathetic for the small businesses, sympathetic for the people who are laid off and are losing wages. But they’re in a position where they’re still alive, still functioning.” ....... “One of the most shocking parts of this illness is how quickly people can decline — go from just feeling a little short of breath to not able to breathe at all,” said Dr. Craig Marshall of Methodist Hospital. “It can happen very quickly, for some patients within six to eight hours.” ......... “I think everybody who has COVID —

there’s this narrative that it’s just the flu. It’s not

,” he said. “One of my hopes is that we tell people: Hey, this is really serious. And here’s a reasonably well-educated doctor … who just didn’t understand how serious it was.”

'The price you pay': Sweden's 'herd immunity' experiment backfires Unlike its Nordic neighbors, Sweden decided early on in the pandemic to forgo lockdown in the hope of achieving broad immunity to the coronavirus. While social distancing was promoted, the government allowed bars, restaurants, salons, gyms and schools to stay open. .........

Sweden's mortality rate is the highest in Europe.

........ "I think the mortality in Norway is something like ten-fold lower. That’s the real comparator." (Norway's daily death rate is less than .01 per 1 million people.) ........ Scientists estimate herd immunity for the coronavirus is reached when 70-90% of the population becomes immune to a virus, either by becoming infected or getting a protective vaccine. ....... only 7.3% had developed the antibodies needed to stave off the disease. ........ In Spain, for example, 5% of the population had developed antibodies as of May 14 .......... 2.5% of the U.S. population has been infected with the coronavirus. To possibly reach herd immunity, "you're going to have to get close to 100% of the population being antibody-positive" ....... we can keep doing non-pharmaceutical interventions like contact tracing, mask wearing and isolation quarantines, but also develop drugs that work better treating people who already have the infection so they don't require critical care in a hospital. ........

Sweden’s government insists that it does not have a herd immunity strategy, but Swedish virolgist Lena Einhorn said that “they have denied it, but under their breaths they have acknowledged” the strategy

The pandemic is sending India's poor into the abyss Already rife with inequality, the pandemic has distributed suffering unequally among India's underclass ........ Risk of hunger, uncertainty of future employment, and poverty-related suicide are imminent threats for many Indians. It seems that

post-pandemic India has brought massive pain and suffering among people living in extreme poverty

, particularly disadvantaged caste and religious groups, transgender people, women, and rural residents......... 46.7% of those employed earn below $3.20 a day ........ Among 5 million people employed in sanitation and cleaning work, 90% come from lower castes (including a significant number of Dalit women). Higher caste women in urban areas also likely to hire Dalit women for household work. The loss of daily wage jobs puts lower castes in economically precarious situation. Their employment in essential service jobs such as sanitation leaves them vulnerable to coronavirus exposure. ......... They face an increased likelihood of contracting the coronavirus due to their disproportionate employment in essential services — a situation that may lead to further marginalization....... neoliberal reforms, which call for deregulatory fiscal policies and privatization, have remade Indian society to favor a small portion of the wealthy class. This small proportion of affluent Indians, who have chosen to live in gated communities, are in constant need of service work from the lower class-caste poor, who generally live in shanty slums. .......

Usually, these burgeoning shanty slums are found in the rising upscale suburbs, albeit next to affluent gated high-rise buildings, in the large metropolis of Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore, New Delhi, and Chennai.

......... An example of high-rise buildings meeting the poverty-ridden dilapidated slums is clearly seen in Mumbai – the high-rises standing next to slums of Dharavi ........

since the COVID-19 lockdown, tens and millions of migrant workers have been left unemployed.

........ The lockdown has also commenced a nonessential travel ban that includes trains, buses and modes of public transportation. Meanwhile, the slums are ideal conditions to spread diseases like COVID-19: defined by small quarters, close contact, shared bathrooms and narrow alleys, constructed slums are not a safe place to be in a pandemic. Often these slums lack basic amenities, such as running water, toilets, and food, which makes living there impossible for social distancing and isolating for amid COVID-19. ..........

Amid agony, fear, and hunger, these repatriates — protesters and non-protesters — set out to walk tens or hundreds of miles back to these home villages.

........ Much of India's migrant population consists of women and children who live in shanty towns, generally built next to high rise buildings. ....... the COVID-19 situation has further aggravated the condition of victims of domestic violence, most of whom are women. Many women, like a 45-year old from the Indian city of Chennai who has lost her cooking job and has to contend with an unemployed husband, have seen their abusive relationships exacerbate. .......

The economic insecurity and uncertainty due to job loss, coupled with an existing patriarchal mindset, is fueling the rise in domestic violence against women.

.......... the pandemic has further intensified anti-Muslim sentiment in India ......... "It isn't just Hindu nationalist politicians or mobs" blaming Muslims for COVID-19, he writes. "The country's respectable press have joined in too."

Coronavirus News (111) https://t.co/ve5VYPKlN5 #coronavirus #COVID19Ontario #COVIDー19 #lockdown2020 #lockdownextension #pandemic #pandemia

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 24, 2020

Right Now America Is Looking At A Million Dead In Winter

A million dead just in winter. At least a million. That is not a million up to winter. That is not counting the 100,000 that have already died, and the next 100,000 that will surely die in the best of circumstances.

The million deaths through winter are avoidable. Nobody lacks any warning anymore. We already know what to do. These deaths can be avoided with or without a vaccine.

Those like Trump and Bolsanaro (twins?) offering a choice between an economy and deaths are demagogues offering a false choice. Saving lives is the best way to save the economy. Those that will kill people will also kill the economy.

Right Now America Is Looking At A Million Dead In Winter https://t.co/3xaYsrsyQE #coronavirusuk #coronavirusvaccine #coronavirusFacts #CoronaWarriors #Corona #CoronavirusLockdown #COVID19 #COVID #COVIDー19 #COVID19toronto #lockdownextension #lockdownhustle #pandemic #pandemia2020

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 24, 2020