Coronavirus Reads, Digest 13
Mumbai reaches community transmission stage, Wuhan ends 76 day lockdown.
It’s Wednesday, April 8th.
India news
As India’s coronavirus infections pass 5200, Prime Minister Modi said today that “it was unlikely” that the lockdown will be lifted in “one go” even after it ends on April 14. Lockdown restrictions are in fact tightening, as the UP government ordered a sealing from Wednesday midnight of 15 districts including Noida where there are clusters of outbreaks, which means residents cannot leave their homes even for groceries and will have to rely on home deliveries; markets too will be shut in the identified hotspots.
Wearing a face mask has been made compulsory in several places including the city of Mumbai, Chandigarh and the state of UP; not complying with it is punishable. Also, the governing civic body of Mumbai, the BMC, has said that Mumbai has reached the stage of community transmission, as “the fresh positive cases emerging from there are neither immediate contacts of patients nor have any travel history.” India’s official testing criteria continues to be narrowly focused.
The Supreme Court today said that coronavirus testing should be free, regardless of whether done in a private lab or government facility. The government today also announced their plan to do serological (blood) tests for antibodies in areas showing outbreak clusters.
Meanwhile, healthcare workers continue to get infected by the coronavirus due to a lack of adequate PPE, including a nurse at the Breach Candy hospital in Mumbai and a nurse in a Noida hospital. Several hospitals have had to be sealed and shut so far due to the spread of the virus
Gayatri Vaidyanathan reports in the Huffington Post about surveillance breaches in the Aarogya Setu app, that the government has created to track coronavirus cases. Those that download the app are at risk of their data being stored in perpetuity and being shared with other government agencies “for any purpose.”
Air pollution
A new study shows that those people with sustained exposure to higher air pollution levels, specifically fine particulate matter PM 2.5, are more likely to die if infected by the novel coronavirus. In fact, the study found even “a slight increase in long-term pollution exposure could have serious coronavirus-related consequences.”
This could spell serious consequences for India, home to some of the most polluted cities in the world, including Delhi. A recent report had said India has “21 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities.”
Meanwhile, Delhi residents are in pleasant shock over the drastically improved air quality currently in the city, thanks to the lockdown. Jeffrey Gettleman has more in The New York Times. India Savors a Rare Upside to Coronavirus: Clean Air
Lockdown
In the Hindu, Puja Mehra weighs how to balance public health with economic health in a country where the lockdown means a large section of the population could starve. She describes a policy of aggressive testing and isolation, eliminating fears associated with isolation by improving the isolation facilities, by partnering with hotels and restaurants. Furthermore points out a need for a shift in economic policies so that the public health sector becomes “the economy’s main engine for six months,” including the ramping up of manufacturing capacities for PPE and ventilators in the private sector.
US and International
Wuhan, China, the original epicenter of the virus, today ended its 76 day lockdown. Residents who are virus-free are now allowed to travel to other parts of China. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson remains in intensive care but authorities say he is “responding to treatment.” The French economy, in the first quarter of 20202, has shrunk the most since World War II, reports Bloomberg.
The U.S. faced its highest one day coronavirus-related death toll yesterday of 1,997. Meanwhile, the state of California is going to be spending close to $1 billion dollars on masks, the governor announced “enough is enough” and said California will be getting 200 million masks per month which will be shared with a few other states.
Alarming data now shows that Black Americans have been affected disproportionately by the coronavirus. In Illinois, African-Americans make up 15% of the state’s population, but account for 43% of the people who have died from COVID-19. In Louisiana, they are a third of the state population, but account for 70% of the deaths.
Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States, The New York Times
In The Atlantic, David Frum writes, “This is Trump’s Fault,” referring to America’s unpreparedness for the pandemic, and the heavy human and economic losses that the U.S. is facing, likely to be more than any other developed country.
And a great NYTimes data driven story: How the Virus Changed the Way We Internet showing new trends from this time in the pandemic. Highlights include turning away from phones (streaming platforms are seeing a drop in phone users), searching for local news, finding new ways to video chat.
Despite the fact that tigers have tested positive for the coronavirus, your pets are not likely to get the virus or transmit it. But if you get sick, protect your animals by staying away from them. Your Pets Are Not Likely to Get or Transmit Coronavirus. Here's What Experts Say, Time Magazine.
Nothing to do with the Pandemic
Author of an upcoming novel, C Pam Zhang has a moving piece in The New Yorker about her immigrant parents who didn’t talk about their past, and her identity as a second-generation Chinese-American.
An excerpt:
“There are, among us in America this very day, buying their groceries and paying their car insurance and scolding their children and walking their dogs, millions of Chinese and Mexican and Colombian and Vietnamese immigrants and refugees who should be writ as large as any Greek hero. They are survivors of famine and war, desert crossings and night bombings. They choose to live quietly. They minimize their origins and speak mostly of their children—the real heroes, these immigrants believe, of stories that take two generations to tell.”
When Your Inheritance Is to Look Away, C Pam Zhang