Coronavirus Reads, Digest 22
Higher mortality rate in India due to stigma? While some US states relax social distancing measures.
It’s Thursday, April 23rd.
India news
India’s confirmed cases climb past 21,000 as the AIIMS director today said that stigma around the disease is resulting in a higher mortality rate, with patients only showing up in hospitals when their symptoms become severe.
After multiple attacks on healthcare workers (due to stigma of perceived spread of infection and misinformation), the Indian cabinet passed an ordinance that makes such attacks a non-bailable offense punishable up to seven years in prison.
In Mumbai, over 50 journalists have tested positive for COVID-19, as have 26 journalists in Tamil Nadu from one television channel. In response, the states of Delhi and Karnataka are setting up special testing centres to test members of the media.
West Bengal’s low testing numbers and high percentage of tests showing positive results raise the alarm of undercounting, reports Arunabh Saikia in Scroll. However, the state did announce that they will cover the costs of COVID-19 treatment in private hospitals. They currently have more than 450 confirmed cases.
Now to the more controversial and ethically problematic news-- anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine will be tested on thousands in Mumbai’s “slum” Dharavi. The drug has serious side effects, and a trial in Brazil was halted after people developed heart arrhythmia. India Virus News: Will Test Anti-Malarial Drug in Mumbai Slums, Bloomberg
India’s wildlife authorities have put in place measures and checks to keep tigers safe from coronavirus, as India’s wildlife reserves are home to most of the world’s wild tigers. India Sees Coronavirus Threat to Fragile Population: Tigers
U.S. and International
After encouraging Americans to protest social distancing restrictions in several states, President Trump now says he disagrees with Georgia’s decision to reopen businesses and restaurants. Meanwhile, Anderson Cooper had a telling interview on CNN with the Mayor of Las Vegas who plans to reopen the casinos.
In response to the right-wing protests against public restrictions to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, historian David Perry writes in CNN about how social distancing is actually an act of patriotic love.
China puts out new restrictions as fresh cases emerge in northern cities, Singapore struggles with a new spike of infections, while the Pakistani government struggles with Islamic clerics, eventually relenting and allowing mosques to be open (it is the month of Ramadan).
Foreign trekkers have been stuck in Nepal for weeks after the country closed its borders. In the spring, Nepal’s abundant peaks attract over 150,000 trekkers each year. Rescued from Himalaya trails, trekkers find world in turmoil, AFP
What does the future look like?
Much has been written about how the pandemic will leave the world completely different. In Foreign Affairs, Richard Haass argues that actually the world will not be radically different afterwards. Instead, he writes that “COVID-19 will not so much change the basic direction of world history as accelerate it.” From a lack of American leadership, to greater global discord instead of cooperation, he notes that the world has been moving in this direction already for some time.
The Pandemic Will Accelerate History Rather Than Reshape It, Richard Haass, Foreign Affairs
The NYT’s Science reporter Donald McNeil spoke to experts on the next year or more ahead, here are the key takeaways (treatments are likely to arrive before a vaccine, the tighter the restrictions, the fewer the deaths and the longer the periods between lockdowns).
Will Americans continue to want to live in cities? Even before the pandemic, they were losing their appeal for many due to high rents and even higher property prices. Now, they're places that are at higher risk for the spread of the infection, and many with the means or the opportunities are trying to find ways to leave.
America’s Biggest Cities Were Already Losing Their Allure, What Happens Next?, by Sabrina Tavernise and Sarah Mervosh
News and media organizations have been hit badly during the pandemic due to steeply declining ad revenue. Australia is seriously trying to make Google and Facebook pay for the news that they use on their platform. Buzzfeed reports here that Google alone takes 47% of the $9 billion digital advertising market. If Australia is successful, it could be a groundbreaking roadmap for fixing the digital media revenue model elsewhere.
Australia Is Going To Make Facebook And Google Pay For The Journalism They Use, by Hannah Ryan.
Side Effects of the Pandemic
Despite the growing economic crisis, some startups are doing well. Not surprisingly, they’re working on the needs of the hour: remote work, telehealth, mental health. Now they’re wondering if they should take the cash that venture capitalists (VCs) are offering.
Start-ups surging in coronavirus lockdown decline venture money, by Ari Levy, CNBC
They may not garner much sympathy, but Instagram influencers are seeing major setbacks in terms of brand endorsements, and trips postponed indefinitely. They’ve also faced backlash for well, not reading the room, in terms of their posts at this time. Is the influencer industry going to get killed or will people want the escapism they offer as it continues?
Could the Coronavirus Kill Influencer Culture?, by Flora Tsapovsky, Wired.
And what does social distancing mean for the restaurant industry, and for food culture? Most independent restaurants could go out of business. In this interview with Dan Barber, a Michelin-starred chef, he interestingly (and depressingly?) points out that before this crisis,
“The world of processed Big Food was about to fall apart. There was a new era that was much less centralized and much more regional. Now everyone is staying home. There’s a return to efficient food, food that you can eat without thinking about it. Big Food is saying, “We’re back, and we’re not going to lose it this time.”
Here’s the full interview in Time Magazine.
Coping with the Pandemic
Photographers stuck in quarantine capture their lives at home, across the U.S in a photo series called Still Lives, The New York Times
Tips from the LA Times to married couples, to avoid becoming a statistic of the “post-pandemic divorce boom.” They include: open communication (especially about household chores) but also being more polite, ensuring each person has alone time even within the same home, and creating intentional times to make plans together.
Travel writers describe journeys that changed them, that stay with them as they cope with quarantine. An excerpt from Past Into Present: 4 Journeys That Changed Us, this one from Bonnie Tsui.
I spent two weeks on the reef, learning how to manage myself safely in the water. Eight of us travelers from all points on the globe had come together to live on a boat with our captain and our divemaster. We logged dives twice a day and wrote cryptic messages to each other underwater. We saw eagle rays, pufferfish, nurse sharks, massive mountain ranges of thriving coral. We learned to be gentle with the reef and the fishes, and with each other. By the end we were no longer strangers.
That generous opening up and the subsequent collapsing of foreign to familiar is hard to square with my current home confinement in California. Our family’s April calendar was once filled with trips crisscrossing the country. No longer. My world is now bounded by my house, populated only by my husband and two young children. The physical reality of our lives has shrunk to a degree that was unfathomable just a few weeks ago.
Lately, though, I’ve been noticing that it has begun to open us up, bit by bit, to other possibilities. We, too, are forced to rely on ourselves to solve problems in this unfamiliar new reality. We carve out space in our home for work, school and fun. We smooth frictions that come from close quarters. Swim practice happens on Zoom, on dry land; class happens through the computer; happy hour happens through the phone. We use our imagination to interact with the world.
The other day, my 9-year-old son made a funny little stop-motion film starring his Legos. In it, a lone scuba diver swims into the frame, the ocean varying shades of aquamarine in the background. The diver pauses to enjoy the view, but doesn’t see the menace swimming up from behind: It’s a … giant T-rex skeleton! The diver turns, and the two look at each other face to face, for one long, agonizing moment.
What comes next? We don’t know. We have to keep our eyes open to find out.