Coronavirus News (225)

 Neuralink’s Wildly Anticipated New Brain Implant: the Hype vs. the Science  the brain mostly operates on electrical signals. If we can tap into these enigmatic “neural codes”—the brain’s internal language—we could potentially become the architects of our own minds. ..........  raw neural recordings are too massive for efficient transfer, and automated spike detection and compression of that data is difficult, but a necessary step to allow neural interfaces to finally “cut the wire.” ..............  an undercurrent of tension between what’s possible in neuroengineering versus what’s needed to understand the brain. ..........  as neuroscience is increasingly understanding the neural code behind our thought processes, it’s clear that more electrodes or more stimulated neurons isn’t always better. Most neural circuits employ what’s called “sparse coding,” in that only a handful of neurons, when stimulated in a way that mimics natural firing, can artificially trigger visual or olfactory sensations. With optogenetics—the technique of stimulating neurons with light—scientists now know that it’s possible to incept memories by targeting just a few key neurons in a circuit. Sticking a ton of wires into the brain, which inevitably causes scarring, and zapping hundreds of thousands of neurons isn’t necessarily going to help. ...................  Without an idea of how neural circuits work and in what sequences, zapping the brain with electricity—no matter how cool the device itself is—is akin to banging on all the keys of a piano at once, rather than composing a beautiful melody. ..........  the brain will eventually activate non-neuronal cells to form an insulating sheath around the electrode, sealing it off from the neurons it needs to record from .............  Rather than other brain-machine interface companies, which generally focus on brain disorders, it’s clear that Musk envisions Link as something that can augment perfectly healthy humans. Given the need for surgical removal of part of your skull, it’s hard to say if it’s a convincing sell for the average person, even with Musk’s star power and his vision of augmenting natural sight, memory playback, or a “third artificial layer” of the brain that joins us with AI. .................  Neuralink has a long way to go. ........ To quote Musk: “There’s a tremendous amount of work to be done to go from here to a device that is widely available and affordable and reliable.”

Algorithms Workers Can’t See Are Increasingly Pulling the Management Strings  At Amazon’s fulfillment center in south-east Melbourne, they set the pace for “pickers,” who have timers on their scanners showing how long they have to find the next item. As soon as they scan that item, the timer resets for the next. All at a “not quite walking, not quite running” speed. ............  US developer HireVue says its software speeds up the hiring process by 90 percent by having applicants answer identical questions and then scoring them according to language, tone, and facial expressions. .........  Granted, human assessments during job interviews are notoriously flawed. Algorithms, however, can also be biased. ........  Algorithms do what their code tells them to do. The problem is this code is rarely available. This makes them difficult to scrutinize, or even understand. ............  accepting gigs as quickly as possible and waiting in “magic” locations. Ironically, these attempts to please the algorithm often meant losing the very flexibility that was one of the attractions of gig work. ..........  When Uber Eats bicycle couriers asked for reasons about their plummeting income, for example, responses from the company advised them “we have no manual control over how many deliveries you receive.” .........  When algorithmic management operates as a “black box” one of the consequences is that it is can become an indirect control mechanism. ...........  this control mechanism has enabled platforms to mobilize a reliable and scalable workforce while avoiding employer responsibilities. .............  Without human oversight based on agreed principles we risk inviting HAL into our workplaces. 

New Zealand Is About to Test Long-Range Wireless Power Transmission  Earlier this month, Emrod received funding from Powerco, New Zealand’s second biggest utility, to conduct a test of its system at a grid-connected commercial power station. The company hopes to bring energy to communities far from the grid or transmit power from remote renewable sources, like offshore wind farms. ..........  four components: A power source, a transmitting antenna, several (or more) transmitting relays, and a rectenna. ............  First, the transmitting antenna transforms electricity into microwave energy—an electromagnetic wave just like Marconi’s radio waves, only a bit more energetic—and focuses it into a cylindrical beam. The microwave beam is sent through a series of relays until it hits the rectenna, which converts it back into electricity. ...................   if it works as intended, the beam won’t ever contact anything but empty air. .........  The system uses a net of lasers surrounding the beam to detect obstructions, like a bird or person, and it automatically shuts off transmission until the obstruction has moved on. ...........  metamaterials developed in recent years are the difference-maker. ..........  The relays, which are like “lenses” extending the beam beyond line-of-sight by refocusing it, are nearly lossless ............  the system’s efficiency is around 70%, which is short of copper wires but economically viable in some areas. .............  It’s not about replacing the whole infrastructure but augmenting it in places where it makes sense.” ..........  the company is also looking into whether they could beam power across 30 kilometers of water from the New Zealand mainland to Stewart Island. He said the system could cost as little as 60 percent of an undersea cable.   

Taiwan stuck at a crossroads with US and China over trade deals, facing conflicting prospects Speculation has mounted as to whether China will allow its Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with Taiwan to end amid rising political tensions US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar also floated the prospect of renewing long-running US-Taiwan trade talks, but doubts remain on both fronts ..............  If Trump decides to pursue an agreement, it would thus probably be for political reasons and could produce a reaction that he may not fully understand or expect.”  

Coronavirus News (224)

 Universities sound alarm as coronavirus cases emerge just days into classes — 530 at one campus

Is Your Organization Ready for Permanent WFH?  organizations large and small are realizing that jobs we used to assume had to be done on-site can in fact be done remotely .........  Many companies, including Twitter and Facebook, are moving to make certain roles permanently remote .........  Americans live 16 miles from the office on average, and about 98% live within 50 miles of their offices ..........  CEOs of the top fully-remote organizations cite access to distributed talent as a key competitive advantage .........  people are willing to give up as much as 8% of their pay for the opportunity to work from home ........  before the pandemic Americans spent more than 52 minutes every day, on average, commuting to and from the office ...........  shifting to remote work could free up the equivalent of 28 to nearly 50 workdays per year per employee ............  Map out critical tasks and needed competencies. ............  Once you know what competencies you need, you can start thinking about which roles can be sourced locally and which will need to be remote-friendly to attract more-elusive, competitive talent. ........  Remote work makes it easy to miss the socioemotional undertones communicated through nonverbal cues (gestures, body position) and paralinguistic cues (tone, pace, pitch), making collaboration especially difficult. ..........  To overcome these communication and coordination challenges, focus on building clearer hierarchies and formal organizational processes. Don’t hesitate to put pen to paper to sketch out more-detailed job descriptions and reporting lines along with guidelines for how to get work done. Engage your employees in the process to capture their knowledge and create a shared sense of ownership. And where possible, structure teams and tasks such that employees on a particular task are either all remote or all in person. Hybrid teams with both remote and on-site employees can have the greatest communication challenges. ...........  encouraging video calls as well as more-frequent, shorter meetings to provide more social contact points can improve remote collaboration ..........   Investing in tools and software for remote collaboration, such as virtual whiteboards, project management software, and high-quality webcams and microphones, can further help your team meet the challenges of remote work.   

Could Russia side with the US and India against China? Cracks are opening in the Russia-China relationship, from the status of Vladivostok to Russian arms sales to India The biggest crack involves New Delhi’s suggestion that Moscow join the US-led Indo-Pacific grouping, which is widely seen as anti-China .......   “The Chinese are also engaged in reverse engineering Russia’s military technology and then trying to sell indigenous platforms based on Russian designs, thereby competing against Russia on the global arms sales market”  .................    throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union had been a close friend of India, and the relationship remained warm today.    

Coronavirus News (223)

 So You Think New York Is Dead? It's Not. 

Schools Can Reopen, Germany Finds, but Expect a ‘Roller Coaster’ With nations determined to return to in-person learning, many will have trouble matching Germany’s formula: fast and free testing, robust contact tracing and low community spread.   

Can Tesla Maintain Its Momentum? Tesla’s stock has risen nearly tenfold over the past year to current levels of $2,000, making it the most valuable automobile company and Musk the fourth-richest man on the planet. Those gains have come on the back of four consecutive quarters of profits amid a pandemic; meeting delivery targets for cars; expanding manufacturing capacity globally; mastering storage battery technology to lower costs; and advancing the technologies for electric vehicles (EVs) and AVs, the next big promises for automakers............  Tesla has managed to check “all the boxes that analysts or investors or people like me who are observing Tesla have put in front of ourselves,” Kapoor said. “That is a great fairytale as far as Tesla and Elon Musk are concerned.” ..........  Over the next 10 to 15 years, the “vast majority” of the cars will be electric, and many of them will be fully autonomous ...........  unveiled a new electric pickup Cybertruck “that pulled science fiction into reality” ..........  “Tesla needs to play the game of scale,” now that it has earned its technology leadership spurs, especially in battery technology. Scaling up will make it “harder and harder for other players to catch up,” he noted. Chipmaker Intel did the same in the 1970s and 1980s, when it started with a manufacturing base out of California and scaled up with factories and plants across the globe. ............  “Waymo could do what Google did to the smartphone industry, with the launch of the Android and eventually giving an operating system to smartphone manufacturers for free.” ............  “If it can create an autonomous [vehicle] operating system, and it starts giving it to these established automakers, Tesla has a real competition on their hands.” ............  “This would be along the lines of what Microsoft has so successfully done with the transition to cloud or what Nestle did with the transition to premium coffee,” he wrote in the CNN op-ed. “Or will [established firms] continue to hold back and pursue piecemeal strategies that are more reminiscent of what Kodak did with digital photography or Nokia with smartphones?” 

Coronavirus News (222)

 

NOW IS THE BEST TIME EVER TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR

Fearing a ‘Twindemic,’ Health Experts Push Urgently for Flu Shots 

As Summer Wanes in N.Y.C., Anxiety Rises Over What Fall May Bring The coronavirus has retreated in New York, but the rituals of September are disrupted, and a sense of foreboding remains about a possible second wave. .......  In March and April, as ambulances raced through neighborhoods and refrigerated trucks sat humming behind hospitals overwhelmed by the pandemic’s dead, summer seemed a distant fantasy. Then it arrived as promised: The city unveiled in a series of phases that brought its streets back to something closer to life. The coronavirus infections dropped, the curve flattened, dinner and drinks were served beneath the stars, and friends reunited in parks and on beaches as if home from a war. ............  a deep and intense anxiety over what might lie ahead, as summer gave way to autumn and a new rash of frightening unknowns ...........  Schools, the economy, crime, food, shelter, travel and access to family, planning a vacation — nothing feels like a given in these waning days of August. ..........  Neither of his two children, away from classmates for months, has fallen ill since March — not a sniffle. “Unprecedented in my house” ............  the upcoming schedule at his 5-year-old daughter’s school — five days in the classroom every three weeks — will at least give her some interaction with other children .........  Visitors and newcomers to the city quickly pick up on the anxiety. ...........  Now, even as the threat of illness has diminished, the lure of the suburbs grows. Seeing others depart brings unsettling questions: Are we doing the right thing by staying? This will all pass, right? ..........  “It is so difficult to have your own space in this city” ........  She’d been considering moving for a while, but now it seems more urgent. “Maybe Westchester, maybe New Jersey” ............  “There is an impending-doom feeling.” ..........  “The level of anxiety is increasing, not decreasing”  “People are squeamish.” .......... consistent unease about losing a job or, for those who already have, finding a new one or returning to work after being furloughed. .............  “In some ways it’s more stressful than ever, thinking about what life will look like,” he said. “A friend asked me yesterday, ‘What’s the future of work?’ I have no idea.” ........  He said he wished there was a finish line, no matter how far-off. “There’s no set time. If there was a set date, you could say, ‘OK,’ and prepare for that. But there isn’t.” .......  “In the first 16 weeks this was like a natural disaster, like an earthquake or tsunami. It didn’t seem fair to ask, ‘Well, what are you doing about this?’ But by September, people are starting to make decisions for themselves or their families. ‘Am I going to move out? Am I going to stay? What am I going to do about this?’”   

New York’s School Chaos Is Breaking Me So this is how it feels to be abandoned by your government.......  when I lie in bed struggling to figure out how to balance physical risk, economic sustainability and emotional well-being, I can’t make the equation work. ........  A friend who works in chronically underfunded city high schools pointed out that privileged parents like me are getting a taste of something that other urban parents have always gone through. ..........  I’m one of many relatively rich people experiencing what poor people experience all the time — total abandonment by our government. ..........  Recently I ran into an acquaintance, a psychotherapist named Lesley Alderman, who told me that among her patients, those with young children were generally struggling the most. “Parents with young kids, they’re tearing their hair out,” she told me. Many of them, she said, “want their kids desperately to go back to school, and then there’s this kind of guilt: ‘Am I selfish for wanting this? Am I putting my kids in jeopardy? Are we putting the teachers in jeopardy?’” ...........  There are only two ways out of pandemic-driven insecurity: great personal wealth or a functioning government. Right now, many of us who’d thought we were insulated from American precarity are finding out just how frightening the world can be when you don’t have either. 

Coronavirus News (221)

 'It's a Race to the Bottom.' The Coronavirus is Cutting Into Gig Worker Incomes as the Newly Jobless Flood Apps  Hustlers are launching bots that use algorithms to grab jobs before humans can and then charge potential workers to use these bots, says Matthew Telles, a longtime Instacart shopper who has been outspoken about the platform’s flaws. The so-called “grabber bots” take a bunch of jobs as soon as they come out, which means only people who have the bots installed can find work. Instacart shoppers pay a fee to use the bots, which are also a problem on services like Amazon Flex.  ...........  The World Bank estimates that COVID-19 will cause the first increase in global poverty since 1998. .......  “It is a lot of supply but not a lot of demand.” ........  Sites like Upwork and Fiverr say the demand is still there. Adam Ozimek, the chief economist at Upwork, says that a third of Fortune 500 companies now use the platform, and that client spending has been stable since the pandemic hit. .........  Arguably, companies could save money and balance their budgets by hiring overseas marketers or coders willing to work for less money and no benefits. Nearly half of the world is now connected to the Internet, up from just 15% in 2007. ..........  Fiverr hit all-time daily revenue records four times in April, CEO Micha Kaufman said. ...........  Just as manufacturing shifted overseas for cheaper labor and as gig economy apps drove down wages for taxi and delivery drivers, the pandemic has hastened the gig-ification of white-collar jobs. 

A New Study Suggests COVID-19 Reinfection Is Possible. Here's What to Know it’s possible to get COVID-19 twice—but experts say the news is not as concerning as that headline may seem. .........  the Hong Kong patient was infected by two different strains of SARS-CoV-2, which suggests he indeed got sick twice. ...........  the man’s first infection likely protected him enough that he did not develop symptoms during his second infection. There’s no guarantee all patients’ immune systems will react that way  

“SAY 12 MORE YEARS”: AT THE RNC, TRUMP’S AUTHORITARIAN “JOKE” SLIPS CLOSER TO REALITY The media shrugs, yet again, as Trump makes extremist comments. It’s just a “provocation”—until it isn’t.

They tried to get Trump to care about right-wing terrorism. He ignored them. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security waged a yearslong internal struggle to get the White House to pay attention to the threat of violent domestic extremists. Frustrated, they gave up on the Trump administration.

CDC Details COVID-19's Massive Mental Health Impact — Young adults, people of color, essential workers, and adult caregivers particularly affected ...... Nearly 11% of American adults seriously considered suicide this June ........   Among 5,470 people surveyed in the last week of June, 30.9% reported symptoms of an anxiety or a depressive disorder, 25.3% reported a traumatic or stressor-related disorder (TSRD), and 13.3% said they were using substances to cope with the pandemic's stressors ..........  the risk for suicidal ideation was elevated among respondents between ages 18 and 25 (25.5%), Hispanic respondents (18.6%), Black respondents (15.1%), unpaid adult caregivers (30.7%), and essential workers (21.7%). ..........  interventions to reduce these numbers should target financial strain, racial discrimination, social connectedness, and community supports for patients considering suicide. ............  social isolation associated with social distancing, along with soaring unemployment rates, could further accelerate the national suicide crisis. ...........  40.9% reported having at least one mental or behavioral health condition. ..........  Compared with CDC data from the second quarter of 2019, adults in this survey reported three times the rate of anxiety symptoms (25.5% vs 8.1%) and four times the rate of depression symptoms (24.3% vs 6.5%)  

With Coronavirus Cases Surging, Europe Braces for New Phase in Pandemic Despite rules on masks and distancing, fears are growing that the end of the summer travel season will bring a wave of infections. ........  in recent days France, Germany and Italy have experienced their highest daily case counts since the spring, and Spain finds itself in the midst of a major outbreak. ............  The increase in cases in Europe, as in many other parts of the world, is being driven by young people. The proportion of people age 15 to 24 who are infected in Europe has risen from around 4.5 percent to 15 percent in the last five months .........  “Low risk does not mean no risk,” he said. “No one is invincible, and if you do not die from Covid, it may stick to your body like a tornado with a long tail.” .......  A growing number of French cities have made mask wearing mandatory in crowded streets and markets, and on Thursday the southern cities of Nice and Toulouse became the first to extend the rule to all outdoor areas. ..........  Nearly 40 percent of recent new infections in Germany have been brought back by returning vacationers .......  This month, tens of thousands of people in Berlin took part in demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions.  

Fearing a ‘Twindemic,’ Health Experts Push Urgently for Flu Shots There’s no vaccine for Covid-19, but there’s one for influenza. With the season’s first doses now shipping, officials are struggling over how to get people to take it. .......  As public health officials look to fall and winter, the specter of a new surge of Covid-19 gives them chills. But there is a scenario they dread even more: a severe flu season, resulting in a “twindemic.” .........  Flu can leave patients vulnerable to a harsher attack of Covid-19, doctors believe, and that coming down with both viruses at once could be disastrous. ...........  how to prompt people to get a shot that a majority of Americans have typically distrusted, dismissed and skipped. ..........  In the 2018-19 flu season in the United States, only 45.3 percent of adults over 18 got the vaccine, with rates for those ages 18 to 50 considerably lower. ............  should a vaccinated person contract the flu, the severity will almost certainly be reduced, hospitalization rarely necessary .......  “People who say ‘I’ll never get it because it gives me the flu’ have not had the flu and don’t know what it is”  .........  flu vaccine compliance rates among people ages 18 to 49 are low. Vermont’s, for example, is only about 27 percent. 

5/8/23 Update: Goshen (NY) puts Third World corruption to shame, thanks to greedy, corrupt, unethical lawyers like Andra Dumais. ..... I toppled a Third World dictator and German Radio called me Robin Hood On The Internet. I am not going to get intimidated by some small-town racist. Andrea Dumais is a small-town racist. ....... You are treating me worse than the people 2,000 years ago.

Coronavirus News (220)

 कोरोनाले अबकाे केही हप्ता तथा महिना नेपालमा खराब अवस्था निम्त्याउँछ : विश्व स्वास्थ्य सङ्गठन

CNN Exclusive: Details, title and cover revealed for Bob Woodward's upcoming book on Trump 

Google court docs raise concerns on geofence warrants, location tracking Google staffers have criticized how the company explains data privacy controls, calling Google's approach a mess.........  geofence warrants -- requests for location data in which law enforcement provides a time and a place, and Google responds with information on all devices that were in that area.......  Police have increasingly used geofence warrants, with a 1,500 percent rise from 2017 to 2018, and a subsequent 500 percent increase from 2018 to 2019. The surge in geofence warrant requests, coupled with confusion among Google staff about location data, rang privacy alarms within the search giant .......  "These emails describe a Google where employees know enough about geofence warrants to be scared, without knowing enough to actually fix the problem" .........  we shipped a [user interface] that confuses users and requires explanation

Leading in the New Reality  

US has ‘modest’ lead over China in artificial intelligence but gap has narrowed, American think tank says Beijing’s focus on AI and the advantage of having a vast population for big data sets is helping the country catch up, according to Rand report America has the edge in advanced semiconductors, but there is ‘no room for complacency’

Biogen conference likely led to 20,000 COVID-19 cases in Boston area, researchers say A new study estimates the Biogen conference held at Boston’s Marriott Long Wharf hotel in February played a far greater role in spreading the coronavirus than previously thought.

The Economic Model of Higher Education Was Already Broken. Here's Why the Pandemic May Destroy It for Good While there is considerable variety in the actual plans, ranging from mostly in-person to all virtual, they all share one imperative: to maintain an economic model that is as imperiled by the pandemic as the hardest hit service industries. ............  Over the past decade, colleges and universities have taken on staggering amounts of debt to expand their physical plant and justify spiraling fees. The selling point for the most competitive residential colleges has been not just the education and the credential but the experience, and with COVID-19 and health strictures making a “normal” college experience all but impossible for now, these schools are left with the unenviable challenge of trying to ensure enough student revenue to keep the music going for the next year. ............   The way most schools are structuring the next year compromises education, health and student life to the point where the next year is more likely to unravel the model rather than actually preserve it. ........  Without at least some students in residence, the delicate and extraordinarily expensive armature of higher education could collapse. ........  Schools seem to be trying to solve the square peg and round hole problem by smashing the peg into the hole in order to shore up a revenue model that was already out of control pre-pandemic. ...........  Given these pretzel-like contortions, it is hard to see what motivates the schools other than trying to preserve an imperiled economic model with a pseudo-opening. ...........  on-line education as the primary model is a fraction of the cost. A student can earn a degree via distance learning for a few thousand dollars a year.   

Megacities Are Not the Future. They Are Inhumane and Unsustainable  Megacities are not the future because they thrive on cheap labor and government policies fuel this abuse. Stagnant rural economies encourage people to move to the cities, hollowing out rural communities and leaving a hole often replaced by an increasingly concentrated and industrialized agricultural system......  One recent study in Mumbai’s slums found that over half of slum dwellers had antibodies for SARS-COV-2. ......... the pandemic makes population density look like a danger rather than an opportunity for productivity gains ........  In growing economies, mass urbanization will remain the focus, as it is still seen as the best, if not the only, vehicle for economic development, moving people from the “unproductive” countryside to the more productive cities. By emptying rural hinterlands with its demand for low-paid workers, this urbanization ultimately leads to more unstable, more damaging, and more unequal economies. ........  World economic growth in recent history has been centered on a few superstar cities: New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris and more recently Shanghai, for example. London makes up 30% of the UK’s economy, has 13% of its population and is more than eight times as populous as the country’s second largest city, Birmingham........  the pandemic has highlighted the inequality and unsustainability of these cities. A population of urban professionals, with safe and secure lifestyles, is supported by a large and poorly-paid service sector. These people work in the grocery stores, hair salons, restaurants, bars, and gyms, and live in poor neighborhoods or even slums. They deliver food, fix homes, cut hair, dispose waste, keep transport systems running, clean suburbs, look after children, and walk dogs. .....................  the privileged work-from-home crowd ....... The expansion of cities beyond the ability of infrastructure to cope means these communities have lower-quality housing, worse access to education, poor provision of electricity and clean water, bad sanitation, traffic congestion, dead spots for internet and mobile access, and “food deserts.” ......  Worse, urban lifestyles are increasingly oriented around the so-called innovation of the gig economy: service workers now lack even the basic protections afforded to proper employees. ........  While the impacts of remote work and other digital technologies are probably not as great as their promoters claim, it is true that they reduce the unique value that density provides and may finally dent the allure of large cities for white-collar workers. ............  Rural economies live off small business, but a hollowed-out economy and greater competition from national and global firms run them out of business. ..........  Cities will always be useful to national economies, but they have grown into unmanageable Frankensteins. Yes, there really are some things that can only be done in a dense, urban environment but that does not mean turning a blind eye to growing megacities with over five million people. Countries probably don’t need the extreme urbanization we’ve seen over the past few decades, nor should we be strangely resigned to the notion that urbanization is inevitable and a net good. The time has come to rethink whether we should continue to place cities at the heart of our nations, turning them into large parasitic centers which practice economic apartheid.  

Coronavirus News (219)

Global virus deaths top 800,000 

Work from here, there ... anywhere?  In Punta Mita, Mexico, one resort is preparing to offer WFP (Work From Paradise) and LFP (Learn From Paradise). Around 30% of the global workforce is expected to toil remotely in the coming months.  

Economic cost of 5 months of Nepal lockdown The country faces an even bigger challenge than Covid-19: economic collapse ........  all indications are of that SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay, and that it will resurface with added virulence in winter. ..........  The Rastra Bank estimates that it will take at least nine months after the lockdown is fully lifted for the economy to come back to previous levels. This means Nepal is not going to see a recovery this fiscal year. The central bank says 22.5% of those employed in the country have lost their jobs in the past five months of lockdown. ..............  “Everything is at a complete standstill, there are no transactions taking place except people buying food from day to day” ......  “The question is how long before businesses run out of cash to pay salaries, and families run out of savings.” ............ Even worse hit is the tourism and aviation sector where revenue is zero for the past five months. Banks had given loans worth Rs1.1 trillion for hotels and restaurants, and had lent Rs40 billion to the transport sector. They are not in a position to replay even the interest, let alone the capital..........  Even the sale of alcohol products are down by up to 80%. ..........  the real barometer of just how bad the crisis is can be felt in the banking sector where on the one hand liquidity is overflowing because of reduction in loan disbursement, but collection has also shrunk because of defaults. The print editions of the Nepali language press in the past month are full of bank notices for auctions of collateral property. However, even if the property is up for auction, they may be no buyers. ............ The government had told borrowers they had a grace period till December to repay bank loans without being put on the defaulters’ black list, but it is looking like even that is being optimistic.........  most businessmen have given up on a Dasain-Tihar revival this year. ..........  “This year we are just trying to get by, there is no hope for sales.”  

Ways Nepal can rebound from COVID-19 There are plenty of examples from the past of Nepalis turning crises into opportunities ............  One major impact in Nepal is the sudden return of large numbers of migrant workers who have lost overseas employment due to the shrinkage of the global economy. Even if economies in host countries stabilise in the next couple of years, it could be another five before they invite workers back from Nepal. ..........  In 1959, large numbers of Tibetan refugees fleeing the Chinese takeover arrived in Nepal. Timely response to the crisis by development organisations and Nepal government led to the launch of Nepal’s Tibetan carpet industry. At its peak in 1993, the sector employed 1.2 million people and brought in one third of Nepal’s foreign currency earnings. ...................  One proposed sector is high-value agriculture on under-utilised land in the Tarai and mid-mountain valleys. A high percentage of the returnees come from farming families and are already familiar with the basics. They can acquire the skills required for high-value agriculture once they see the potential returns from growing vegetables and fruits or raising livestock. ............  The amount of food Nepal imports from India annually provides a ready substitution market and the ecological niches provided by Nepal’s many micro-climates provide the opportunity for producing off-season fruits and vegetables which can be exported to India. ...........  In most parts of the Tarai, groundwater is accessible through shallow tube wells. The national grid has reached all municipalities in the Tarai and increasing numbers of farmers are able to use electricity for irrigation pumping. .........  a total investment of $170 million by the Government of Nepal and donors would enable 250,000 farmers with an average of a third of an acre to generate over $2 billion in vegetable sales over five years, with $750 million in annual sales going forward. While the government’s investment of $500 per farmer would be used to reduce the cost of purchasing simple greenhouses and solar pumps, each returnee would spend around $1,540 on seeds, fertiliser, land leases and farm equipment.