[OFF TOPIC] Coronavirus Pandemic

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10 hours ago, Fly_like_a_don said:

@up and down

 

A very important statistic for you :

 

In terms of testing Maharashtra the most affected state with 6000 cases and Rajasthan are in top 2 in terms of total tests. 

 

In terms of Tests Per Million Andaman and Nicobar Islands have the highest number in entire country 1311.

 

National average : 105 TPM

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indiatoday.in/amp/news-analysis/story/decoding-india-s-covid-19-testing-state-by-state-1666587-2020-04-13

 

 

This is from couple of days ago will look for new one soon. 

Thank you very much for your updates.

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10 hours ago, Fly_like_a_don said:

We're close to 23000 cases .Lockdown may go till September some channels say. Nonetheless the cases in certain parts are growing continuosly. Gujarat, Maharashtra especially Mumbai, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh , Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and now West Bengal are hotspots. 

 

The state I live had no more than 18 cases a day for 1 month (70 million  population) Then suddenly 38 ,34,37,44 cases . Testing increased. Today 18 cases last 2 days 12 ,9 respectively. 

 

To the district where I live 1.3 million population just 3 cases who were positive recovered No new case from last 25 days. It was Day 1 of life post lockdown. I didn't seem too interested going out but yeah some of my friends went out, construction activities have started . Malls, schools, colleges and public transport is closed. 

Thank you very much for your updates.

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https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/where-in-the-world-are-there-no-coronavirus-cases/

 

Of the 200 or so countries and territories in the world, 181 have reported at least one case of the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, according to the count being kept by the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus resource center. The pandemic, which emerged in late December in Wuhan, China, has spread across the world at an alarming rate — topping 1 million cases as of April 2. The virus is nearly everywhere.

 

What should we make of the countries that have not reported cases? Are they unable to test? Are they lying? Are they that isolated? 

 

The bulk of the states that have not yet reported cases are small Pacific Island nations, followed by a handful in Asia and Africa.

 

The Pacific Island states appear to have been largely spared so far, but regional governments have not been complacent. In late January, the Federated States of Micronesia declared a public health emergency and on March 14 enacted strict border control measures, including banning travelers from countries with COVID-19 cases and prohibiting citizens from traveling abroad to countries with recorded cases (with an exception carved out for Guam and Hawaii). On March 31, President David W. Panuelo put out a press release reflecting on two months of emergency. In it, Panuelo encouraged citizens to “Wash your hands; avoid large social gatherings; and, above all, maintain your Micronesian sense of empathy and compassion for your fellows.” He went on to urge Micronesians abroad to “heed the advice of your host Governments and their medical professionals as if their commentary were from the Bible itself.”

 

The largest of the Oceanic states to not have a confirmed COVID-19 case is the Solomon Islands. With a population just over 600,000, the country’s government has not sat idle. On March 25, a state of public emergency was declared and Honiara has been sending samples to Australia for testing (so far 10 tests have come back negative, with three more suspected cases pending confirmation). 

 

At present, only Papua New Guinea and Fiji have domestic testing capabilities. It’s not surprising that both have identified cases — one and seven, respectively. Guam has also logged cases, 82 as of April 2 and not counting the rising number of cases aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt docked at the mouth of Apra Harbor.

 

Besides the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa, Kiribati, Micronesia, Tonga, the Marshall Islands Palau, Tuvalu, and Nauru have no reported cases of COVID-19, though many have restricted travel and taken other steps to prevent the arrival or spread of the virus.

 

Elsewhere in The Diplomat’s coverage area, it’s less easy to believe governments denying cases and taking few steps to prevent COVID-19 from spreading. 

North Korea hasn’t reported any cases. The already isolated state took preventative steps early, sealing its border with China in January, denying all foreign travelers from entering, but North Korea watchers are skeptical of the state’s no-case claim. A lack of testing capacity, a situation arguably worsened by international sanctions; a weak healthcare system; and a high degree of state secrecy are all reasons for reasonable skepticism. Whether North Korea just can’t tell if it has cases or is blatantly lying are both reasonable options.

 

Elsewhere in Asia, there are similar reasons for skepticism. Turkmenistan and Tajikistan both claim to have not confirmed any cases, and that may very well be true. Turkmenistan is on par with North Korea in terms of state secrecy and isolation, but much more distant from the source of the virus, China. With objectively few travelers passing through the country, the virus may not have arrived yet. And with a poor healthcare system, Ashgabat may not have capacity to test for the virus. We just don’t know: While Turkmenistan hasn’t banned the word “coronavirus,” it hasn’t bothered to use it very much or enact preventative measures. There have been reports of some internal movement restrictions and, per the U.S. State Department, Ashgabat has barred entry of non-citizens and there are no scheduled commercial outbound international flights.

 

Tajikistan, for it’s part, has fiddled with various externally oriented travel restrictions, but President Rahmon continues to appear at large public gatherings, surrounded by crowds of women dressed in traditional garb or being hugged by throngs of children. Tajikistan announced it would block the entry of citizens from 35 coronavirus-hit countries in early March, but walked the restrictions back almost immediately. The U.S. government has provided aid to Tajikistan, including personal protective equipment, to deal with coronavirus reportedly at the request of Tajikistan’s Ministry of Health. 

 

So, in the end, what should we make of the countries that have not reported cases? Are they unable to test? Are they lying? Are they that isolated? The reality looks likely to be a mix.

 

The Pacific, in my mind, has benefitted from a kind of isolation and early efforts to head off what could be a total disaster. Regional governments are well aware of how bad a contagious virus in their islands could be, having fresh in mind the measles outbreak that originated in Samoa last year. 

 

North Korea and Turkmenistan may also be benefiting from their isolation as well. With few travelers in and out, the virus has fewer opportunities to enter these countries. But this is only reasonable up to a point: Analysts believe smugglers continue business with North Korea, and Turkmenistan doesn’t necessarily have the strongest border controls. In the “they might be lying” column, both states are heavily authoritarian, not transparent and lack typical accountability mechanisms.

 

In brief: they can lie and get away with it (political) consequence-free. 

 

Tajikistan also falls closer to this category than the Pacific, as an autocratic state with a demonstrated history of difficulty with the truth. Tajikistan also is far less isolated than Turkmenistan. It should deeply concern Dushanbe that the first cases in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, identified in mid-March, sprung from individuals who had recently traveled to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Tajiks make the same pilgrimages, thus posing the same risks, but Bishkek has enacted lockdowns, encouraged social distancing, set curfews and is actively testing individuals whereas Tajikistan’s leadership has been less forceful with such prevention and mitigation measures.

 

Time will tell, but arguably no inhabited corner of the globe will be spared.

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https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/the-missing-link-in-singapores-covid-19-strategy/

 

The Missing Link in Singapore’s COVID-19 Strategy
Singapore is held up as a model of pandemic management, but that success doesn’t extend to its migrant workers.

 

Nothing is more global than a pandemic. And there is no individual more quintessential to globalization than the migrant worker. Today, Singapore has 1.4 million foreigners working in-country, out of a total workforce of 3.7 million. Of these, 981,000 are low-wage migrant workers on temporary visas, many of whom remain in Singapore even though most work has ceased.

 

International commentators deem Singapore a success story in pandemic management, but the extent to which this success extends to migrant workers is doubtful. On April 6, in a widely-shared Facebook post, a prominent civil servant called migrant dormitories a viral “time bomb waiting to explode.” He was referring to the migrant workers quarantined in dormitories after authorities noticed COVID-19 transmission on the premises. By now, the government has fenced off four dormitories containing 50,000 workers, in effect protecting the surrounding local population while risking the health of the migrants.

 

This is not the first time that the Singapore government has treated migrant workers as a threat to be contained. In 2013, an Indian migrant worker was killed in a bus accident, reportedly causing 400 workers to react violently. The Singapore government immediately instituted a two-day alcohol ban in the vicinity. Today, alcohol sales are still restricted in the area, while recreational facilities in dormitories have been built to divert migrant workers from public spaces. COVID-19 has heightened similar anxieties over the need to restrict migrant workers to designated spaces.

 

But the pandemic has also exposed a longstanding callousness toward this population. A letter by the local NGO Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) pointed out the “undeniable” need for the government to announce plans to rehouse workers to “give reassurance to the resident and non-resident community.” The letter was prescient, appearing in the national newspaper a week before cases first appeared in migrant dormitories. The coronavirus has revived concerns for the health and safety of workers crammed onto the backs of open-deck lorries, yet these concerns have been voiced for at least 10 years.

 

Migrant dormitories have contributed 345 COVID-19 cases so far. On April 8, the Singapore government announced that all migrant workers staying in “non-quarantined” dormitories would “not be able to move out” for at least a month. Singaporeans, too, are now largely confined to their homes, but can access parks, supermarkets, and “essential services.”

 

Pandemics Exacerbate Precariousness

The primary risk that the pandemic poses to migrant workers is, of course, infection itself. Dormitories usually house male construction and shipyard workers from India and Bangladesh. Building codes indicate that workers in these facilities need only have 4.5 square meters of “living space,” including living quarters, dining, and toilet areas. In practice workers share showers and sleep on bunk beds, separated from each other by less than a meter. The WHO’s social distancing guidelines are near-impossible to achieve under these conditions. These living conditions affect approximately 200,000 workers in purpose-built dormitories and 100,000 in “temporary dormitories” converted from disused industrial sites.

 

Schematic sketch of a stereotypical dormitory room, based on Singapore’s building codes. (Source: Transient Workers Count Too) In the photo above we get to see 10 double deck bunk which can fit up to 20 people in one room.

 

Unlike hundreds of thousands of travelers who have flown home to wait out the pandemic, most of Singapore’s migrant workers remain there. One reason for this is the debt incurred by incoming migrants. Bangladeshi migrants to Singapore pay up to S$17,000 (US$12,000) for their first job in Singapore. This can take between one to two years to pay off, with 74 percent of Bangladeshi migrants earning less than S$25 a day. Another is migrant families’ reliance on remittances, with nearly half of Bangladeshi migrants providing for their families’ basic needs. Wages are hence of utmost importance to migrants and their families.

 

Singapore’s pandemic containment strategies may amplify pre-existing wage issues. The Ministry of Manpower has announced that “affected workers” will continue to be paid basic salaries in dormitories officially designated as quarantine sites. However, it is unclear whether salary deductions will be used to pay for catered food in these dormitories. This is concerning as employers are known to take unauthorized deductions, including for food and lodging, from workers’ wages. Existing research criticizes Singapore’s labor laws for condoning errant employer behavior, such as the manipulation of evidence for salary claims.

 

Debbie Fordyce of TWC2 is concerned that workers living outside of the quarantined dormitories are falling through the cracks. “The government says they will get food,” she says, “but this is on the assumption that employers are providing food.” Indeed on April 7, authorities announced that “employers should be able to continue to pay their salaries and provide accommodation and food,” urging employers to pass support measures onto workers. This statement shifts responsibility for the basic needs of migrant workers onto employers, without saying whether authorities will enforce their provision. Migrant workers who are recuperating from a workplace accident are in a particularly precarious position. As they cannot work, employers are disincentivized from providing them with food. “We know of many people like this who are not getting food,” Fordyce says. “We are overwhelmed with requests.”

 

The Mental Health Toll
Singapore’s migration regime ensures that migrant workers do not sink roots in the country. Work Permits, issued to workers earning less than S$2,200 a month, bar migrant workers from applying for permanent residency or citizenship, and must be renewed every two years.  This deters migrant workers from forming permanent social bonds in Singapore.

 

The coronavirus affects migrant workers’ relationships with parents, children, and spouses in their home country. A migrant worker interviewed by TWC2 recounts how his mother calls several times a day, to ask if he is washing his hands and going out. Precarious wage situations also create significant emotional stressors: migrants are out of work, in crowded living conditions, and uncertain of how they can provide for families. Research shows that 62 percent of Indian and Bangladeshi migrant workers exhibit signs of significant psychological distress. Most in this group had unpaid debt or were off work due to a workplace injury.

 

Current conditions reproduce these problems for an even larger proportion of migrant workers.

 

Phone calls are a lifeline for migrant workers in difficult times. To stay in touch with family, most migrant workers rely on WiFi where they can find it. This, too, is a livelihood strategy that allays the costs of debt-financed migration. However, workers in dormitories have little or no WiFi access, nor do they have the money to top up prepaid SIM cards. In response, TWC2 launched a SIM card campaign, aiming for S$20,000 in donations.

 

The response was astronomical: in five days, TWC2’s SIM card campaign raised S$127,000. More broadly, concerns that quarantined migrant dormitories would become “Diamond Princess all over again” – referencing the quarantined cruise ship in Japan that became a hotspot for infections — created a groundswell of sympathy for migrant workers. A spreadsheet collating cash and kind donation drives for migrant workers is circulating among Singaporeans. It attests to the range of initiatives seeking to alleviate migrant workers’ needs, ranging from masks and hand sanitizer to legal help and counselling.

 

However, organizers worry that a lack of transparency hampers relief efforts. Besides the four dormitories designated as quarantine sites, the government has not set clear guidelines for migrant dormitories, where individual dormitory operators decide what donations can be received. Organizers coordinating donations are constantly catching up with the dos and don’ts enforced on each site.

 

The migrant worker situation is symptomatic of Singapore’s model of economic growth. Migrant workers cannot buy SIM cards and worry constantly about remittances because they make barely enough to save. Densely packed dormitories result from an unflinching desire to keep wages low and profits high. Hence, the threat that large coronavirus clusters in migrant dormitories pose to the larger population directly relates to Singapore’s economic strategy too. Moreover, the current crisis exposes how the costs of this model are externalized into the public domain. “Now the costs are here, in terms of infection and costs to protect against infection,” Alex Au from TWC2 points out, “and they are public costs. This is the big picture.”

 

Live-in Domestic Workers Are Especially Vulnerable

Like migrants in the construction and shipyard sectors, migrant domestic workers face debt issues and maintain long-distance relationships with families back home. Singapore’s 256,000 domestic workers come predominantly from Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines. They live with their employers, and remain under this roof as social distancing measures tighten.

 

Domestic workers bear the brunt of housework in one-fifth of Singaporean households. This means that extra cleaning and sanitizing work is likely to fall onto their shoulders. Employers are understandably anxious about the pandemic, and hygienic homes benefit domestic workers too. However, domestic workers are unsure if they will be overworked and undercompensated. At present, Singapore does not have provisions for overtime work for domestic workers, but the law does stipulate that domestic workers be paid for work done on weekly rest days.

 

In March, the Ministry of Manpower advised that domestic workers remain in their employers’ homes on rest days. The Humanitarian Organization for Migrant Economics (HOME) has observed an increase in coronavirus-related calls to their helpline since. Domestic workers were unsure if they would be paid for working on rest days. Some felt compelled to work as they did not have their own room, and were under the constant scrutiny of employers, who were working from home themselves. A small number of domestic workers also reported salary issues and terminations as a result of the coronavirus. Employers have understandably been hit hard by the pandemic too. This is where government “advisories” are insufficient. Clear enforcement of rest days and wage protections for workers — and their employers — are critical to mitigating the impact of the pandemic on domestic workers.

 

The pandemic is particularly concerning for the minority of domestic workers subject to abuse. In the past, HOME’s shelter received domestic workers who had run away from these conditions and asked strangers to help them call HOME. Now safe distancing guidelines and “circuit-breaker” regulations make this impossible: domestic workers do not know where to run to, as few people are out on the street. Already, domestic abuse is on the rise in countries under lockdown. For domestic workers that are restricted from making phone calls, the pandemic poses the risk of abuse going unnoticed.

 

Domestic workers’ role in care work and housework is critical during these times. Yet whereas migrant dormitories draw public attention due to anxiety over rates of infection in crowded quarters, pandemic containment strategies shunt domestic workers into homes and out of sight. Without appropriate regulations that protect domestic workers’ wages and living conditions, tensions will rise in homes, hurting both employers and domestic workers in the process.

 

Migrant Workers Require a Redefinition of Vulnerable Groups

COVID-19 lays bare the relationships that sustain us. Around the world, people feverishly discuss trust in government, the place of family and friends amid crisis, and how Skype helps to weather the storm. Labor migration turns these issues on their head: the pandemic asks migrant workers to trust governments that are not their own, and to connect with family members at a distance, even when access to the internet is limited.

 

Right now, countries all over the world are turning inward, to protect the most vulnerable among them. Singapore too has sought to protect the elderly and the unemployed. But Singapore’s demography is unique: one in four members of its workforce are low-wage migrant workers, who are exceptionally vulnerable but not citizens. Moreover, vulnerability in coronavirus terms tends to be defined by age and immune systems. This obscures how the pandemic worsens migrant workers’ existing vulnerabilities to precarious work, mental health issues, and abuse. Indeed a limited, technical definition of health seems out-of-sync with everyday life itself. News outlets hurry to publish epidemiological models and pharmaceutical advances, as if these offer solace. Everyday life in isolation, sustained by being cared for and caring for others, says otherwise.

 

Societies should redefine pandemic management in wider terms. COVID-19 does not distinguish between migrant and citizen; hence migrant workers require the same access to safe distancing strategies as everyone else. However the coronavirus, and strategies to contain it, can have particularly adverse effects on this vulnerable group. For governments, this means tackling the pandemic in a way that addresses its toll on migrant workers’ livelihoods and wellbeing. Migrant workers must be assured that their wages are protected and that their basic needs for food and rest will be met. It is not enough to pass this task on to employers, who are also experiencing trying times. As Dr. Stephanie Chok points out, in Singapore the taxes that employers pay to hire migrant workers amount to more than S$2 billion per year. This money can sustain the welfare of migrant workers during this time.

 

Migrant workers expose the boundaries between the beneficiaries of Singapore’s coronavirus “success story,” and those who are systematically excluded from it. Sadly this is business as usual in a system that pursues growth at the expense of workers’ wellbeing.

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Another interesting article below.

 

https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/did-xi-jinping-deliberately-sicken-the-world/

 

Spoiler

Did Xi Jinping Deliberately Sicken the World?
PRC moral turpitude forces us to consider the unthinkable.

 

We often ascribe a basic level of humanity to even the cruelest leaders, but People’s Republic of China leader Xi Jinping’s actions have forced us to rethink this assumption. Although the emergence of the novel coronavirus now known as SARS-CoV-2 was probably not due to China’s actions, the emphasis that its authoritarian system places on hiding bad news likely gave the disease a sizable head start infecting the world. But most ominously, China’s obsession with image and Machtpolitik raises serious questions about its lack of moral limits.

 

At some point the Chinese Communist Party learned of the epidemic and made a decision to hide its existence, hoping it went away. Exposés in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post and the Chinese mainland’s Caixin show that the information that did flow out of China early in the crisis did so only because of the courage of individual Chinese people in the face of government repression. People in the Wuhan epicenter, however, began to get wise — and scared (here and here) — by the end of December 2019, forcing their government to say something. The authorities gave the impression of a nontransmissible disease already under containment. We know now this was entirely false, likely designed more to ease civil unrest than protect the people.

 

The mayor of Wuhan even suggested that the central government prevented him from revealing details about the epidemic until January 20. Considering the first public announcements came out of Wuhan on January 1, we can assume that Xi had a sense of the danger prior to that.

 

Clearly, downplaying the disease wasn’t working and it was time for the Party to get serious. But how serious? Would it provide full cooperation to the international community? Would being seen as the source of this virus hurt its international image? Beyond these, there was a darker dimension: the more Beijing cooperated, the less the disease stood to affect other countries. This includes countries China sees as a threat to its existence, like the United States.

 

Why should China suffer the effects of a pandemic while others stayed safe — and increased their strength relative to China — based on China’s own costly experience?

 

Such a question is of course inimical to human decency. And yet we must consider that Xi Jinping has produced the greatest program of ethnic cleansing in the world today. He has curtailed freedoms in China severely and is the father of the panopticon state. His incessant military buildup threatens neighbors while using economic and other subversive means to erode the sovereignty of countries around the world. We should not assume it was beyond his imagining to withhold a degree of support from the international community to ensure that China would not suffer alone.

 

Strong evidence supports this idea. Hearing the World Health Organization (WHO) repeat and praise the Party line while giving short shrift to health advice until quite recently has alarmed many. Seeing Beijing sell defective wares and claim it as humanitarian aid has angered many more. Spreading disinformation during the crisis and hinting at using life-saving goods for leverage (original here) — while denying even the faintest hint of wrongdoing — I suspect have ruined China’s reputation for some time to come. In short, China’s good offices have been reserved almost entirely for burnishing its image at the world’s expense, while calling it “the greatest kindness and good deeds.”

 

None of this can prove whether or when Xi made a deliberate decision to withhold information in order to imperil others. However, as a long-time student and admirer of China, it is with great sadness I must concede that such a state — and its increasingly paranoid leader — might very well provide less than full cooperation to stem the pandemic of the century in the crass pursuit of its own interests. This may constitute biological warfare. But even if it doesn’t Xi should be brought to account for his other crimes against humanity.

 

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https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/covid-19-is-a-test-for-world-leaders-so-far-japans-abe-is-failing/

 

COVID-19 Is a Test for World Leaders. So Far, Japan’s Abe Is Failing.
The pandemic has exposed feeble leadership on the part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Like many world leaders, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has not managed the COVID-19 outbreak very well. On April 7, Abe belatedly declared a national emergency in seven prefectures. On April 16 he extended this nationwide, but only after public pleas from prefectural governors and public opinion polls indicating broad dissatisfaction with his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. A mid-April Kyodo poll found that 80 percent think Abe waited too long to declare a state of emergency. His support rate has dropped by almost 10 percent since early March, landing at 40 percent.

 

Abe’s move was an acknowledgement that the half-measures taken so far have not worked.

 

Back in early February, when the Diamond Princess cruise ship was transformed into a coronavirus incubator due to botched quarantine procedures, Japan had a wake-up call about the coming pandemic. Alas, the government has not used the time to adequately prepare.

 

Since then the Abe government has come under fire for limiting testing and downplaying the crisis in what critics see as a bid to save the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. This limited testing left the government shooting in the dark in trying to contain the outbreak, while prioritizing the Olympics slowed the pandemic response.

 

The Japanese are now paying the price for this negligence. Numerous media reports warn that Japan’s healthcare system is on the verge of collapse.

 

The governor of Osaka pleaded for the public to donate raincoats because doctors have resorted to wearing trash bags as protective gear in dealing with COVID 19 patients. In response, the local Hanshin Tigers baseball team donated 4,000 ponchos — not ideal, but more than the central government has managed.

 

And at Tokyo’s gateway Narita Airport, after incoming travelers are tested many are now forced to stay in cardboard boxes for a couple of days until they get the results.

 

Raincoats and cardboard boxes? Really? This is not the Japan most imagine. Many nations have shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks, gloves, and face shields, but the plea for raincoats was shocking given that Osaka prefecture at the time had just 900 COVID-19 cases. How could that overwhelm the healthcare system for the nation’s third largest metropolis in a prefecture of 9 million residents?

 

This is a national problem, as in 43 out of 47 prefectures hospitals are already running out of coronavirus-care capacity. Japan has only half as many ICU beds per 100,000 people as Spain does; Germany has six times more. By ignoring early warning signs, the government failed to beef up preparations, leaving frontline healthcare workers scrambling to cope with an escalating outbreak.

 

A majority of Japanese are critical of Abe’s crisis management. In a recent Mainichi poll, 70 percent believe that he waited too long to declare an emergency, losing precious time to manage the outbreak.

 

In an Asahi poll from April 18-19, 57 percent said Abe has failed to provide leadership during the outbreak and 77 percent believe he should have declared a national emergency sooner.

 

In declaring a limited state of emergency on April 7 Abe acknowledged the healthcare crisis, one that emerged due to his unwarranted complacency about COVID-19. That complacency set the tone for the government’s tardy crisis response. Compared to resolute regional leaders in Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, New Zealand, and Australia, Abe dithered and failed the COVID-19 leadership stress test.

 

At a time when the public sought clarity, Abe sent a mixed message, stressing the need for social distancing to lessen transmission but in the same breath endorsing business as usual. His government’s stimulus package left many disappointed and others forgotten. Subsequently, Abe flipflopped on household support payments, moving from targeting the neediest to a one-time $900 payment for everyone. With no income replacement program, and limited telecommuting options for many workers, as of mid-April 60 percent of workers in greater Tokyo are still commuting because they must, with many riding trains where social distancing is impossible. Another survey found that only 18 percent of people nationwide have stopped going to work as people balance the transmission risks of commuting against losing their incomes.

 

Abe has also been savaged on social media for his mask distribution policy, dubbed Abenomask, a reference to his sputtering Abenomics policy. The gesture to send two cloth face masks to each household in Japan was announced soon after NHK aired a documentary that showed how Taiwan distributes masks far more efficiently and has outperformed Abe’s crisis response across the board.

 

Abe’s wife didn’t help matters by attending a cherry blossom party when everyone else was told to stay home. Then Abe tweeted a video of himself coping with the lockdown by cuddling his dog, sipping tea, and channel surfing, provoking a torrent of criticism zinging a leader seemingly oblivious to public anxieties and deprivations.

 

This is reminiscent of his blasé approach to lost pension records back in 2007 when he downplayed the issue and ignited a fierce backlash from worried citizens who hammered the LDP in the Diet elections. At the time Abe’s sobriquet was KY (kuuki yomenai), meaning clueless.

 

Leaders around the world are often prickly about criticism, and indeed Abe is fighting back. Buried in the government’s coronavirus stimulus package is $22 million to fund AI monitoring of his overseas critics so that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can correct any “wrong information.”

 

Allocating taxpayer money to contain the plague of criticism is indicative of a government that has handled COVID-19 more as a PR challenge than a profound public health crisis. Tokyo should be using AI to better deal with the pandemic, not to massage perceptions. Containing the outbreak, treating patients, and helping all those whose lives have been derailed by this crisis should be the priority, rather than going to war with the press.

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/covid-19-pandemic-testing-world-leaders-stepping-200402201221844.html

 

COVID-19 pandemic is testing world leaders. Who's stepping up?
Whether millions live or die depends on the decisions the world's leaders take in the coming days and weeks.

 

 

In just three months, more than a million people in 180 countries have fallen sick from the viral illness, while at least 50,000 have died in a public health emergency the United Nations is calling the world's "most challenging crisis" since World War II.

 

In large swathes of the globe, lockdowns aimed at stemming the virus's spread have brought life and economic activity to a virtual standstill. In the worst-hit regions, hospitals are overwhelmed with the sick and dying, while the poor and vulnerable everywhere are facing severe food shortages and starvation.

 

Highlighting the risk this poses to peace and stability in the world, the United Nations' Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued an urgent appeal for action on Tuesday, calling on politicians to "forget political games" and come together for a "strong and effective response".

 

"The world is facing an unprecedented test. And this is the moment of truth," he said.

Indeed, the stakes could not be higher.

 

Whether millions live or die depends on the decisions the world's leaders take in the coming days and weeks. But analysts say the early signs are worrying.

 

In some countries, responses from heads of governments have been marked by dithering and denial, driven by personal interests, distrust of science or fears of wreaking economic havoc.

 

"It's been disappointing in many countries - too many," said John M Barry, a historian who studied the Spanish flu pandemic that killed as many as 100 million people in 1918. "In some countries, it's been outright reprehensible - some leaders' actions will unnecessarily kill many of their citizens."

 

How should health workers fighting the pandemic be protected? (24:23)
In Xi Jinping's China, where the illness was first detected in late December, authorities are accused of engaging in a cover-up and punishing doctors who sounded the alarm in the early days of the outbreak - moves critics say allowed the virus to spread out of the central city of Wuhan to every corner of the globe.

 

In the United States, President Donald Trump initially downplayed the severity of the threat, predicting the virus would "disappear" like "a miracle" one day, and dismissing growing concerns over the disease as a "hoax" by his political rivals. He only changed tack last week after polling showed an increasingly worried public and modelling predicted that 200,000 people could die in the US without drastic containment efforts.

 

In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro continues to dismiss the illness as a "fantasy" and a "little flu". Just last week, he defied the advice of his own health officials on avoiding social contact by touring the streets of the capital, Brasilia, in a campaign to get his countrymen back to work.

Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, meanwhile, held political rallies late into March, kissing his supporters and urging Mexicans to "live life as normal". That came even as his health minister called on citizens to stay home to contain the virus.

 

Charles Call at the Washington DC-based Brookings Institute said Bolsonaro and Lopez Obrador's approaches are marked by "an aversion to scientific inquiry and state institutions". Their cavalier attitudes are attracting widespread criticism, he wrote in a blog post, predicting the crisis will pose a "test for populism" in both countries.

 

In Indonesia, President Joko Widodo admitted last week to deliberately withholding information on the outbreak; a strategy he said had been used to prevent panic. In the early days of the epidemic, some of his ministers said prayer would keep the disease away, while others said the country's warmer weather would slow the virus's spread.

 

Writing in The Diplomat, Asmiati Malik, assistant professor at the Universitas Bakrie in Indonesia, said the government's "unscientific" approach was based on concerns over the economy in the world's fourth-most populous country. But engaging in the politics of denial and limiting the public's access to information on the virus's spread could "cost thousands of lives", she wrote.

 

China fears second wave of COVID-19 outbreak (2:05)
The denial and delays will hurt these countries if and when tougher restrictions are required to stem the epidemic, said Barry, the historian. "If you expect public compliance with calls for social distancing, the public has to believe in them. If they don't trust those who advocate them, they won't, and compliance will not be as good and they will be less effective."

 

That is why the single most important lesson from the 1918 pandemic is "to tell the truth", he said. 

There are some leaders who have done that. 

 

On March 11, as infections began to spike in hard-hit Italy, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said some 70 percent of her country's population would contract the virus - a sober warning that stood in stark contrast to pronouncements from other politicians at the time. A week later, the chancellor appealed to Germans in a dramatic television address to respect tough restrictions on movement and social contact.

 

"The situation is serious; take it seriously," she said. In a democracy, such curbs "should not be enacted lightly - and only ever temporarily. But at the moment they are essential in order to save lives."

 

Germany has since led the way in Europe with large scale testing for COVID-19, collecting nearly a million samples since the start of the crisis. And although the country now ranks fifth among territories with confirmed cases - recording more than 80,000 infections - it has a much lower fatality rate than most.

 

Praising Merkel, Judy Dempsey of Carnegie Europe said the chancellor's approach "points the way forward to the unified, decisive response that is necessary and how democracies can best deliver it". 

 

In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is also winning plaudits for an aggressive testing and tracing campaign that has kept the number of infections in the country low - about 1,000 cases since the beginning of the outbreak. In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Lee said transparency and trust were key to his country's battle against the virus.

 

"We are transparent - if there is bad news, we tell you. If there are things which need to be done, we also tell you," he said. "If people do not trust you, even if you have the right measures, it is going to be very hard to get them implemented."

 

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele are also receiving praise for similar decisive and transparent action. 

 

Europe's healthcare systems pushed to brink (2:30)
Then, there are those leaders accused of using the crisis as a cover to amass power. 

 

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Monday obtained the open-ended right to rule by decree in a new law that also imposes jail terms of five years on those who spread "false information" - a move critics say could be used to muzzle journalists. Similar concerns are being raised in the Philippines, where President Rodrigo Duterte secured emergency powers that grant him the authority to crack down on false claims about the coronavirus. 

 

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using a state of emergency over the pandemic to authorise intelligence services to step up surveillance of the public and to close down the country's courts ahead of his trial on corruption charges.

 

"We recognise that this pandemic is posing an unprecedented test for world leaders," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Our problem is that some leaders have adopted authoritarian approaches. This is not the time for politics... any emergency powers must be proportionate, and states must always protect people's rights."

 

In addition to the covert power grabs, observers are also concerned by fighting between world powers, particularly between the US and China. Officials in Beijing, angered by Washington's insistence on labelling the coronavirus the "Chinese virus", are now engaged in a propaganda offensive, with some claiming - without evidence - that the US military had brought the virus to Wuhan.

 

The deteriorating US-China ties - as well Washington's retreat from the world stage under Trump's "America First" policy - are jeopardising a coordinated response to the pandemic.

 

"There isn't a global response. And it's a huge problem in the sense that this a crisis that is much better handled if key countries came together," said Charles Kupchan of the US-based Council on Foreign Relations.

 

"Whether the Ebola crisis of 2014 or the financial crisis of 2008, the US was a country that stepped up and said 'How are we going to manage this together?' But those days are over. The Trump administration has been extremely slow at responding to crisis at home, and its leadership abroad has been minimal."

 

This could be disastrous for the world's most vulnerable, Kupchan said.

 

"Core issues that need addressing include procurement and distribution of medical equipment, sharing of best practices on testing and isolation, and dealing with lower-income communities," he said. "I fear the worst if this virus hits refugee camps and countries with less-developed healthcare systems. It could be quite devastating."

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/23/trump-coronavirus-treatment-disinfectant

Donald Trump has stunned viewers by suggesting that people could receive injections of disinfectant to cure the coronavirus, a notion one medical expert described as “jaw-dropping”.

 

At Thursday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing, the US president discussed new government research on how the virus reacts to different temperatures, climates and surfaces.

 

“And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute,” Trump said. “One minute! And is there a way we can do something, by an injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that. So, that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me.”

 

Dr Deborah Birx, the task force response coordinator, remained silent. But social media erupted in hilarity and outrage at the president, who has a record of defying science and also floated the idea of treating patients’ bodies with ultraviolet (UV) light.

 

Several doctors warned the public against injecting disinfectant or using UV light.

 

Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and a former labor secretary, tweeted: “Trump’s briefings are actively endangering the public’s health. Boycott the propaganda. Listen to the experts. And please don’t drink disinfectant.”

 

Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics, added: “It is incomprehensible to me that a moron like this holds the highest office in the land and that there exist people stupid enough to think this is OK. I can’t believe that in 2020 I have to caution anyone listening to the president that injecting disinfectant could kill you.”

 

Trump was already facing a backlash over his championing of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, as a therapy for the coronavirus, a quixotic effort amplified by the conservative network Fox News. Research has found no evidence that it is beneficial and a government vaccine expert has claimed he was fired for limiting its use.

Hydroxychloroquine: how an unproven drug became Trump’s coronavirus 'miracle cure'

 

Undeterred, on Thursday he showcased an “emerging result” from the Department of Homeland Security research that says coronavirus appears to weaken more quickly when exposed to sunlight, heat and humidity, raising hopes that it could become less contagious in summer months.

 

William Bryan, the acting homeland security under secretary for science and technology, testified at the briefing: “Our most striking observation to date is the powerful effect that solar light appears to have on killing the virus, both surfaces and in the air. We’ve seen a similar effect with both temperature and humidity as well, where increasing the temperature and humidity or both is generally less favorable to the virus.”

 

Researchers found that the virus survives best indoors and in dry conditions, and loses potency when temperatures and humidity rise. Bryan said: “The virus dies quickest in the presence of direct sunlight.”

 

He showed a slide summarising the results of the experiment that were carried out at National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center. He also said tests had been carried out with disinfectants. “I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes. Isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds and that’s with no manipulation, no rubbing.”

 

Trump prompted awkwardness when he asked if Dr Birx had heard of heat and light in relation to coronavirus. ‘Not as a treatment,’ she said.

 

Trump seized on the findings to refer back to a claim he made on 14 February that warm weather might kill the virus, like common flu, noting that he had been criticised by the media. “I think a lot of people are going to go outside, all of a sudden, people that didn’t want to go outside,” he said.

 

And he asked Bryan an extraordinary question: “So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light and I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you’re going to test that too?”

UV rays are an invisible type of radiation that can penetrate and damage skin cells, and overexposure can cause skin cancer. How much sunlight would be needed to have an effect on the coronavirus is unknown. The virus has caused heavy death tolls in warm-weather areas such as Louisiana and Florida, and Singapore has seen a recent surge in cases.

 

A Washington Post reporter asked if it was dangerous for Trump to make people think they would be safe by going outside in summer heat. The president turned to Bryan and said: “I would like you to speak to the medical doctors to see if there’s any way that you can apply light and heat to cure.

 

“Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. Again, I say, maybe you can, maybe you can’t. I’m not a doctor.”

In a cringeworthy moment, he asked Birx if she had ever heard of heat and light in relation to the coronavirus. “Not as a treatment,” she said, explaining that the body responds to the virus with a fever.

 

When the Post reporter pressed further, Trump retorted: “I’m the president and you’re fake news ... I’m just here to present talent, I’m here to present ideas.”

Experts questioned why the homeland security report had been promoted at the briefing. Dr Irwin Redlener, the director of the Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told the MSNBC network: “Everything that this scientist talked about from homeland security was basically incoherent, nonsensical, not really supported by evidence and really quite contrary to a lot of things that we do know about some of the things he was saying.

 

“First of all, people do get Covid, have been getting Covid in warm climates, including New Orleans but also other countries that have a warm climate right now. Second of all, this issue with UV light is hypothetical but also UV light can be very harmful and we did not hear anything resembling a balanced discussion of what the evidence is for and against UV light, but it’s certainly not ready for prime time.”

 

He added: “The very fact that the president actually asked somebody about what sounded like injecting disinfectants or isopropyl alcohol into the human body was kind of jaw-dropping.”

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The best quote from the article above.

 

Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics, added: “It is incomprehensible to me that a moron like this holds the highest office in the land and that there exist people stupid enough to think this is OK. I can’t believe that in 2020 I have to caution anyone listening to the president that injecting disinfectant could kill you.”