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