Coronavirus Reads, Digest 5
In India, Delhi emerges the center of new outbreak, and American workers protest over a lack of hazard pay and protective gear.
It’s Tuesday March 31st.
The New Yorker’s cover this week is inspired by the struggles of the doctors at this moment.
Read on for more details on how the cartoonist, Chris Ware conceived of the image.
And now on to the latest updates from India.
Delhi’s Nizamuddin neighborhood is looking at a big outbreak stemming from an Islamic religious conference earlier in March where thousands gathered from across the country. Several preachers from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and other countries had attended it too.
In Delhi itself, over 1,000 people are being monitored, of which 24 people have so far tested positive for COVID-19, over 300 symptomatic people are in hospitals, and more than 700 others are in quarantine facilities. Several others who attended the gathering and returned to their home states have tested positive including in Telangana, Kashmir, and Tamil Nadu. All 50 new positive cases in TN have been traced back to the conference.
The state of Maharashtra saw a jump today as 72 more people tested positive, bringing their total to 302.
The Indian government has zeroed in on 10 hotspots in India where there are virus outbreaks.
Officials say they are going to ramp up testing in these areas, but still keeping to the testing criteria. The current testing criteria in India is limited to symptomatic people who have travelled to one of the highly affected COVID-19 cases or asymptomatic people who have had direct contact with a positive patient, as well as pneumonia patients and healthcare workers. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-lockdown-day-6-coronavirus-covid-19-hotspots-6339441/
The government has also announced that Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium will be used as a quarantine facility.
Stigma and misinformation about the virus has led to doctors and other healthcare workers being evicted from their homes in India. Many of them are living in temporary accommodations or even staying in their hospitals. This is in addition to the lack of PPE equipment available, that was detailed in yesterday’s edition of the newsletter, leaving them vulnerable to infection.
This report in the LA Times, details the multiple challenges doctors and nurses are currently facing in India. For example, doctors in Bihar are being asked to keep working after showing COVID-19 symptoms because of a shortage of doctors, risking spreading the infections further.
“Experts say India’s failure to stockpile essential medical supplies could jeopardize the safety of frontline medical professionals, risking a collapse of the health system in the midst of a pandemic. Some scientists believe that by mid-May, India could have hundreds of thousands of infections, meaning it would run out of hospital beds.”
Doctors Battling the Coronavirus in India are being Infected, Trolled and Evicted., by Shashank Bengali, Vidya Krishnan and Parth M.N.. Los Angeles Times
In the state of Punjab, a tragedy. A 42-year old COVID positive woman suffering from “acute respiratory distress” died. She was admitted to a hospital, which had 14 ventilators but none were working.
Lockdown Updates
Many Indians are struggling to access medicines and healthcare for other illnesses due to the lockdown. In Al Jazeera, Sohini C details how the parents of an HIV+ patient walked over 20 miles in Delhi in order to get their son’s monthly antiretroviral medication, after a police officer refused to let them even bicycle.
Cancer and dialysis patients, along with those with chronic conditions have also been severely affected, either because they cannot get their medicines or their treatments have been delayed.
“Will the cancer not spread without treatment?" asked a patient’s husband.
India's COVID-19 lockdown hits HIV+ and chronic patients hard, Sohini C, Al Jazeera
The Indian government told the Supreme Court today that as many as 600,000 migrant workers have gone back to their villages in the past week. The government also claimed that there wasn’t any need for them to return as they were taken care of by the financial package (which was announced two days after the lockdown).
Dipankar Ghose chronicled their struggles, by travelling across four north Indian states, examining how the lockdowns and virus fears are playing out in smaller towns and villages.
Walking with the Migrants, Dipankar Ghose, The Indian Express
U.S and Global
And American workers in “essential services” roles across the country are staging strikes and walkouts to protest a lack of hazard or sick pay and absence of protective equipment (gloves, hand sanitizer, etc) while on the job. This includes grocery store staff at Whole Foods, delivery workers for Instacart and Amazon, and cooks at McDonald’s.
Is Your Grocery Delivery Worth a Worker’s Life? By Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times Opinion
And as New York City’s coronavirus cases cross 38,000, a Navy hospital ship, called the “Comfort,” has docked in Manhattan. The hospital ship, with 1,000 beds will treat patients who do not have the virus to ease the strain on the city’s medical system.
According to The Washington Post, the CDC is considering advising all Americans to wear face masks outdoors, regardless of whether they are sick or not. Their current guidelines are to wear a mask if you are feeling any symptoms, and to remain six feet apart. Because of the shortage of medical masks, the recommendations would be to make your own mask out of fabric.
Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic politicians including Kamala Harris and Corey Booker have called for comprehensive racial data on the spread of the virus in order “to monitor and address disparities”, after several cities with large black and Latino communities developed outbreaks.
New York City is conducting outreach about social distancing and the virus to their diverse immigrant communities. They've released information in over a dozen languages, including Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Mandarin, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish and Filipino.
Fox News executives are reportedly worried about lawsuits after they underplayed the coronavirus for several weeks and encouraged people to travel and go outside. Some of their hosts called the pandemic a “hoax” and “a conspiracy to impeach President Trump”.
Struggling with a lack of PPE, over 12,000 healthcare workers in Spain have gotten infected. This video story highlights how doctors and nurses are managing by making their own gowns and masks.
“Health Care Kamikazes”: How Spain’s Workers Are Battling Coronavirus, Unprotected, by Ainara Tiefenthäler, The New York Times
Portugal has temporarily given all migrants full citizenship rights in order for them to access the country’s healthcare system during the outbreak.
Could those with COVID-19 antibodies be brought back into the workforce? UK authorities are considering how “immunity papers” could be implemented in the future.
How to Deal with Social Isolation
Talking is a destressor, writes Sanchita Sharma in the Hindustan Times, as a way to alleviate the rage and anxiety that accompanies “cabin fever.”
So what’s the best way to connect with others at this time? Ankita Rao ranks the best chat apps in The Guardian. Spoiler: Zoom and Houseparty top the list.
And Vice lists 57 creative ways of socializing on these apps. I’ve done number 15 (have a dance party with friends on video chat) and can testify that it’s strange but fun! We all need the endorphins.
And two women pushing 100, who’ve lived through lots of crises of the 1900s have some advice for how to survive. They Survived the Spanish Flu, the Depression and the Holocaust, by Ginia Bellafante, The New York Times
Side Effects of the Pandemic
Russians have to hit pause on marriages and divorces for now, as the Justice Ministry has asked authorities to stop registering them until June 1st.
And in Amsterdam, an 1884 Vincent van Gogh painting was stolen after a Dutch museum was closed during the pandemic. "I am shocked and unbelievably pissed off,” said the museum director.
The Backstreet Boys did us all a favor at this time by singing “I Want it That Way” from their individual homes in social isolation. Vanity Fair analyzes it.