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nrashkind

Italy coronavirus death toll surges past 10,000; lockdown extension likely - Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...extension-likely-idUSKBN21F0R5

shared by nrashkind on 29 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy barrelled past 10,000 on Saturday, a figure that made an extension of a national lockdown almost certain.
  • Officials said 889 more people died in the previous 24 hours, the second highest daily tally since the epidemic emerged on Feb. 21, and that total fatalities reached 10,023.
  • Confirmed cases rose by about 6,000 to 92,472, the second-highest number of cases in the world behind the United States.
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  • Officials said the numbers would have been worse without a national lockdown.
  • Italy, the first Western country to introduce severe restrictions on movement after uncovering the outbreak five weeks ago, has since increasingly tightened them, and hopes that they would be eased from next Friday were fading fast.
  • Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told a news conference after the figures were released that he had approved a new package of 4.7 billion euros ($5.24 billion) of measures to help those worst hit, including shopping vouchers and food packages.
  • Italy’s minister for southern regions expressed concerns about potential social tensions and civil unrest in poorer areas if, as expected, the epidemic moves south.
  • “I am afraid that the worries that are affecting large sections of the population over health, income and the future, with the continuation of the crisis, will turn into anger and hatred,”
  • Minister Giuseppe Provenzano told La Repubblica newspaper on Saturday.
  • Michele Emiliano, governor of the southern Puglia region, downplayed played fears of civil unrest in the south but said the lockdown may have to be extended until mid-May.
Javier E

Opinion | What Happened When Germany's Far-Right Party Railed Against Lockdowns - The N... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...germany-afd-covid.html

germany pandemic Politics history crisis

shared by Javier E on 12 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • In November, as Covid-19 cases began to rise, thousands of people gathered in Berlin to protest against restrictions. In among the conspiracy theorists and extremists were several lawmakers from the country’s main opposition party, the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany.
  • the AfD’s support has slipped. Already struggling to reach new voters, its embrace of anti-lockdown sentiment seems to have further limited its appeal — and sped up its transformation into an extremist organization.
  • the AfD’s initial response was cautious. Prominent party legislators warned about the virus, encouraged the government to act swiftly and voted for a package of economic relief. “Closing ranks is our first duty as citizens now,” Alexander Gauland, a co-leader of the party, said.
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  • But this attempt to cater to the average voter came at a cost. The party soon found itself deprived of many of its usual supporters, who took a different course, downplaying the danger and castigating the government. On Facebook and social media, the party stuttered.
  • As the first lockdown was tentatively lifted, through April and May, many leading AfD figures performed a 180-degree turn. No longer consensual, they fiercely railed against restrictions of any kind, which they claimed were unconstitutional as well as economically ruinous.
  • In November, to demonstrate its defiance, the party held an in-person convention with hundreds of participants packed into a hall. That same month, an AfD legislator appeared in the parliament, where masks are mandatory, wearing one riddled with holes. And prominent party members not only attended some of the anti-lockdown protests that spread across the country last year but also adopted the protesters’ talking points, for example by calling Germany a “Corona dictatorship.” The AfD became something like the anti-lockdown party.
  • The move made sense. By the time the pandemic arrived, the party “had started to struggle,” Kai Arzheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Mainz, told me. Migration had vanished from the top of voters’ concerns, depriving the party of its momentum. It was unclear how it might make further inroads.
  • What’s more, the party was increasingly seen as extreme and radical. The media uncovered many ties to extremist groups
  • The historic showing of 2017 — when the AfD became the first far-right party to enter Germany’s postwar parliament — is unlikely to be repeated, let alone surpassed.
  • That doesn’t make the party less of a danger, though. In ways reminiscent of former President Donald Trump, the AfD is seeking to scuttle public trust in the political system.
  • Ahead of an election where many may vote remotely — Germany’s vaccination program probably won’t be complete by fall — this amounts to a calculated strategy of subversion. Though the party’s influence is limited, the fact that 8 percent to 10 percent of the electorate seems unshakable in its support is deeply concerning.
ethanshilling

Lockdown Eased in England, for Now, at Least - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...lockdown-uk-india-variant.html

england india pandemic

shared by ethanshilling on 18 May 21 - No Cached
  • The lifting of a wide range of coronavirus rules Monday coincided with a small but worrying spike in cases of a variant, first identified in India, that threatens a lockdown-lifting road map frequently described by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as “cautious but irreversible.”
  • In recent days the authorities have scrambled to ramp up testing and inoculation in parts of the country seeing a sharp rise in cases of the more transmissible variant.
  • The opposition Labour Party has accused Mr. Johnson of bringing on the trouble by delaying a decision to close borders to flights from India last month, while government scientific advisers have expressed their concerns about moving too fast to remove curbs.
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  • Under the changes that came into force on Monday, pubs and restaurants can serve indoors as well as outside, people can hug each other and mix inside their homes in limited numbers.
  • A legal ban on all but essential foreign travel ended too, though travelers to any other than a small number of destinations will have to quarantine on their return.
  • Pakistan and Bangladesh were red listed on April 9 but India was not added until April 23, and Mr. Johnson’s critics have suggested he was reluctant to upset India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, with whom he is trying to strike a trade deal.
  • While the government will fight hard not to have to reverse the changes introduced on Monday, there are growing doubts about whether it can proceed with the next stage of the road map. That change, scheduled to take place on June 21, would scrap almost all remaining restrictions.
  • “We must be humble in the face of this virus,” the health secretary, Matt Hancock, told Parliament on Monday, adding that there were now 86 areas with five or more cases of the variant whose higher transmission rate “poses a real risk.”
  • Mr. Johnson continues to hear criticism for failing to clamp down fast enough on travel from India, even sparing it for some weeks after placing restrictions on travel from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
  • Altogether, that represents the first real breath of freedom for many in England since the third national lockdown was declared in early January.
  • But some experts believe that the government should have reacted faster to the emergence of the variant. “Many of us in the U.K., we’re appalled at the huge delay in classifying it as a variant of concern,” said Peter English, a retired consultant in communicable disease control.
  • In general, Britons are being offered vaccination based on their age, with those oldest treated first. Appointments are to be extended this week to 37-year-olds, Mr. Hancock said.
  • On Monday, Mr. Hancock also said that of 19 cases in Bolton hospitals, most of the patients were eligible for vaccination but had not had one. That prompted a debate in and beyond Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party about whether the lifting of lockdown restrictions should be reversed to protect people who refuse a vaccine.
kennyn-77

Why China Is the World's Last 'Zero Covid' Holdout - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...china-zero-covid-virus.html

china pandemic policy covid lockdown

shared by kennyn-77 on 28 Oct 21 - No Cached
  • Since then, China has locked down a city of 4 million, as well as several smaller cities and parts of Beijing, to contain a fresh outbreak that has infected more than 240 people in at least 11 provinces and regions. The authorities have shuttered schools and tourist sites. Government websites have detailed every movement of the unlucky couple and their sprawling web of contacts, including what time they checked into hotels and on which floors of restaurants they sat.
  • China has reported fewer than 5,000 deaths since the pandemic began
  • Its thriving exports have helped to keep the economy afloat. The ruling Communist Party’s tight grip on power enables lockdowns and testing to be carried out with astonishing efficiency. Beijing is set to host the Winter Olympics in February.
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  • But the policy has also, increasingly, made China an outlier. The rest of the world is reopening, including New Zealand and Australia, which also once embraced zero tolerance. China is now the only country still chasing full eradication of the virus.
  • Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has repeatedly pointed to the country’s success in containment as proof of the superiority of its governance model
  • China may find itself increasingly isolated, diplomatically and economically, at a time when global public opinion is hardening against it.
  • the Chinese Communist Party’s very hold on power seemed to hinge on its ability to control the virus. Its initial attempts to cover up the outbreak in Wuhan gave rise to a stunning outpouring of public anger. Images of overwhelmed hospitals and patients begging for help flooded the Chinese internet.
  • China’s strict lockdowns and mass testing campaigns, once criticized as heavy handed, became models for other countries.
  • When Zhang Wenhong, a prominent infectious disease expert from Shanghai, suggested this summer that China learn to live with the virus, he was attacked viciously online as a lackey of foreigners. A former Chinese health minister called such a mindset reckless.
  • Australia, which was home to the world’s longest lockdown, is scrapping quarantine requirements for vaccinated residents returning from overseas. New Zealand formally abandoned its quest for zero this month. Singapore is offering quarantine-free travel to vaccinated tourists from Germany, the United States, France and several other countries
  • There are also more practical reasons for China’s hesitation. Medical resources are highly concentrated in big cities, and more remote areas could quickly be overwhelmed by an uptick in cases, said Zhang Jun, an urban studies scholar at the City University of Hong Kong.
  • In addition, though China has achieved a relatively high full inoculation rate, at 75 percent of its population, questions have emerged about the efficacy of its homegrown vaccines.
  • And, at least for now, the elimination strategy appears to enjoy public support. While residents in locked-down areas have complained about seemingly arbitrary or overly harsh restrictions on social media, travel is relatively unconstrained in areas without cases. Wealthy consumers have poured money into luxury goods and fancy cars since they’re not spending on trips abroad.
Javier E

Coronavirus has not suspended politics - it has revealed the nature of power ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...virus-politics-lockdown-hobbes

politics political theory hobbes coercion arbitrary power pandemic china korea

shared by Javier E on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • e keep hearing that this is a war. Is it really? What helps to give the current crisis its wartime feel is the apparent absence of normal political argument.
  • this is not the suspension of politics. It is the stripping away of one layer of political life to reveal something more raw underneath
  • In a democracy we tend to think of politics as a contest between different parties for our support. We focus on the who and the what of political life: who is after our votes, what they are offering us, who stands to benefit. We see elections as the way to settle these arguments
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  • But the bigger questions in any democracy are always about the how: how will governments exercise the extraordinary powers we give them? And how will we respond when they do?
  • These are the questions that have always preoccupied political theorists. But now they are not so theoretical.
  • As the current crisis shows, the primary fact that underpins political existence is that some people get to tell others what to do.
  • At the heart of all modern politics is a trade-off between personal liberty and collective choice. This is the Faustian bargain identified by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes in the middle of the 17th century, when the country was being torn apart by a real civil war.
  • As Hobbes knew, to exercise political rule is to have the power of life and death over citizens. The only reason we would possibly give anyone that power is because we believe it is the price we pay for our collective safety. But it also means that we are entrusting life-and-death decisions to people we cannot ultimately control.
  • The primary risk is that those on the receiving end refuse to do what they are told. At that point, there are only two choices. Either people are forced to obey, using the coercive powers the state has at its disposal. Or politics breaks down altogether, which Hobbes argued was the outcome we should fear most of all.
  • Autocratic regimes such as China also find it hard to face up to crises until they have to – and, unlike democracies, they can suppress the bad news for longer if it suits them. But when action becomes unavoidable, they can go further. The Chinese lockdown succeeded in containing the disease through ruthless pre-emption.
  • The rawness of these choices is usually obscured by the democratic imperative to seek consensus. That has not gone away. The government is doing all it can to dress up its decisions in the language of commonsense advice.
  • But as the experience of other European countries shows, as the crisis deepens the stark realities become clearer
  • This crisis has revealed some other hard truths. National governments really matter, and it really matters which one you happen to find yourself under.
  • Though the pandemic is a global phenomenon, and is being experienced similarly in many different places, the impact of the disease is greatly shaped by decisions taken by individual governments.
  • for now, we are at the mercy of our national leaders. That is something else Hobbes warned about: there is no avoiding the element of arbitrariness at the heart of all politics. It is the arbitrariness of individual political judgment.
  • Under a lockdown, democracies reveal what they have in common with other political regimes: here too politics is ultimately about power and order. But we are also getting to see some of the fundamental differences. It is not that democracies are nicer, kinder, gentler places. They may try to be, but in the end that doesn’t last. Democracies do, though, find it harder to make the really tough choices.
  • We wait until we have no choice and then we adapt. That means democracies are always going to start off behind the curve of a disease like this one, though some are better at playing catch-up than others.
  • In a democracy, we have the luxury of waiting for the next election to punish political leaders for their mistakes. But that is scant consolation when matters of basic survival are at stake. Anyway, it’s not much of a punishment, relatively speaking. They might lose their jobs, though few politicians wind up destitute. We might lose our lives.
  • Some democracies have managed to adapt faster: in South Korea the disease is being tamed by extensive tracing and widespread surveillance of possible carriers. But in that case, the regime had recent experience to draw on in its handling of the Mers outbreak of 2015, which also shaped the collective memory of its citizens
  • It is easier to adapt when you have adapted already. It is much harder when you are making it up as you go along
  • In recent years, it has sometimes appeared that global politics is simply a choice between rival forms of technocracy
  • In China, it is a government of engineers backed up by a one-party state. In the west, it is the rule of economists and central bankers, operating within the constraints of a democratic system
  • This creates the impression that the real choices are technical judgments about how to run vast, complex economic and social systems.
  • But in the last few weeks another reality has pushed through. The ultimate judgments are about how to use coercive power.
  • These aren’t simply technical questions. Some arbitrariness is unavoidable. And the contest in the exercise of that power between democratic adaptability and autocratic ruthlessness will shape all of our futures.
  • our political world is still one Hobbes would recognise
Javier E

As the rest of Europe lives under lockdown, Sweden keeps calm and carries on | World ne... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...eden-keeps-calm-and-carries-on

sweden pandemic strategies response

shared by Javier E on 29 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • “It’s the Swedish trust in government,” says Elias Billman, 22. “No one told me you have to stay home right now,” agrees his friend, Fredrik Glückman, a history student at Lund University. “We’re not in quarantine. And as soon as we hear from our government that we have to stay in, like you do in Britain, then we will do it.”
  • While every other country in Europe has been ordered into ever more stringent coronavirus lockdown, Sweden has remained the exception. Schools, kindergartens, bars, restaurants, ski resorts, sports clubs, hairdressers: all remain open, weeks after everything closed down in next door Denmark and Norway.
  • Universities have been closed, and on Friday, the government tightened the ban on events to limit them to no more than 50 people. But if you develop symptoms, you can still go back to work or school just two days after you feel better. If a parent starts showing symptoms, they’re allowed to continue to send their children to school.
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  • he defended the decision not to implement the tighter restrictions seen in Denmark, France and the UK. “We all, as individuals, have to take responsibility. We can’t legislate and ban everything,” he said. “It is also a question of commonsense behaviour.
  • The best explanation for why Sweden is such an outlier centres on the unusual level of independence given to government agencies such as Tegnell’s, and the reluctance of politicians to override them.
  • His team at the Public Health Agency of Sweden is critical of the Imperial College paper that warned this month that 250,000 people in the UK would die if the government failed to introduce more draconian measures.
  • “We have had a fair amount of people looking at it and they are sceptical,” says Tegnell. “They think Imperial chose a number of variables that gave a prognosis that was quite pessimistic, and that you could just as easily have chosen other variables that gave you another outcome. It’s not a peer-reviewed paper. It might be right, but it might also be terribly wrong. In Sweden, we are a bit surprised that it’s had such an impact.”
  • “As long as the Swedish epidemic development stays at this level,” he tells the Observer, “I don’t see any big reason to take measures that you can only keep up for a very limited amount of time.”
  • “They’re listening to the health department; they’re listening to the experts they have on hand.”
  • More than 2,000 Swedish university researchers published a joint letter on Wednesday questioning the Public Health Agency’s position, while the previous week saw leading epidemiologists attack the agency in emails leaked to Swedish television.
  • “How many lives are they willing to sacrifice so as not to lockdown and risk greater effects on the economy?”
  • Tegnell argues that because in Sweden there are almost no stay-at-home parents, closing schools would have knocked out at least a quarter of doctors and nurses, crippling the health service
  • Tegnell even questions whether stopping the progress of the virus is desirable. “We are just trying to slow it, because this disease will never go away. If you manage, like South Korea, to get rid of it, even they say that they count on it coming back
  • While Tegnell understands that he will be blamed if Sweden ends up in a similar situation to that of Italy, he refuses to be panicked. “I wouldn’t be too surprised if it ended up about the same way for all of us, irrespective of what we’re doing,” he says. “I’m not so sure that what we’re doing is affecting the spread very much. But we will see.”
Javier E

Opinion | Trump and His Allies Are Worried About More Than November - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...coronavirus-relief-trump.html

trump gop ideology right-wing 2020 election New Deal politics history crisis policy

shared by Javier E on 17 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • there’s another element underlying the push to reopen the economy despite the threat it poses to American lives, a dynamic beyond partisanship that explains why much of the conservative political ecosystem, from politicians and donors to activists and media personalities, has joined the fight to end the lockdown.
  • To even begin to tackle this crisis, Congress had to contemplate policies that would be criticized as unacceptably radical under any other circumstances
  • At $2.2 trillion, the initial relief package was a bill that was more than twice the size of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in 2009
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  • Democrats, at least, are contemplating trillions more in additional stimulus, including universal basic income for the duration of the crisis, a COBRA expansion that would cover 100 percent of health care costs for laid-off and furloughed workers and a proposal to cover payrolls for nearly every business in America.
  • On top of all of this, the Federal Reserve is flooding the economy with trillions of dollars in rescue loans and bond purchases, to stabilize markets and keep interest rates low.
  • Editors’
  • In one short month, the United States has made a significant leap toward a kind of emergency social democracy, in recognition of the fact that no individual or community could possibly be prepared for the devastation wrought by the pandemic.
  • in trying to destroy the administrative state — in trying to make government small enough to “drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub” — conservatives left the country vulnerable to a deadly disease that has undermined that project and galvanized its opponents.
  • Should the health and economic crisis extend through the year, there’s a strong chance that Americans will move even further down that road, as businesses shutter, unemployment continues to mount and the federal government is the only entity that can keep the entire economy afloat
  • the ideological danger is that it undermines the ideological project that captured the state with President Ronald Reagan and is on the path to victory under Donald Trump.
  • If the rolling depressions of the late 19th century disrupted the social order enough to open the space for political radicalism — from the agrarian uprising of the Farmers’ Alliance to the militant agitation of the industrial labor movement — then the one-two punch of the Great Recession and the Pandemic Depression might do the same for us.
  • In which case, it makes all the sense in the world for Trump, the Republican Party and the conservative movement to push for the end of the lockdown, public health be damned
  • After years of single-minded devotion, the conservative movement is achingly close to dismantling the New Deal political order and turning the clock back to when capital could act without limits or restraints.
  • this logic — that ordinary people need security in the face of social and economic volatility — is as true in normal times as it is under crisis. If something like a social democratic state is feasible under these conditions, then it is absolutely possible when growth is high and unemployment is low
  • all of this is happening as one of the most progressive generations in history begins to take its place in our politics, its views informed by two decades of war and economic crisis.
  • at this moment in American life, it feels as if one movement, a reactionary one, is beginning to unravel and another, very different in its outlook, is beginning to take shape.
brickol

India coronavirus: The country faces up to potential crisis, but is it really prepared?... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

crisis COVID-19 policy economics

shared by brickol on 25 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • India is the world's second-most populous country and has the fifth-biggest economy, with trade connections all over the world. Yet despite its size, the country of 1.34 billion appears to have avoided the full hit of the pandemic. To date, India has only 492 confirmed cases of coronavirus and nine deaths.
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi has maintained there is no sign of community spread, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has praised India's swift response, which has included grounding domestic and international commercial flights and suspending all tourist visas.On Tuesday night, Modi ordered a 21-day nationwide lockdown starting at midnight Wednesday. The order, the largest of its type yet to be issued globally, means all Indians must stay at home and all nonessential services such as public transport, malls and market will be shut down.
  • But fears are growing that the country remains susceptible to a wider, potentially more damaging outbreak. Experts have cautioned that India is not testing enough people to know the true extent of the issue -- and have questioned the viability and sustainability of a nationwide lockdown.
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  • So far, India has confirmed relatively few cases -- but the country is also testing relatively few people. In total, 15,000 tests have been conducted, compared with South Korea, where well over 300,000 people out of its 52 million population have been tested.
  • But Balram Bhargava, director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, said there is no need for "indiscriminate testing." At a news briefing on Sunday, he said the country has a test capacity of 60,000 to 70,000 per week. By comparison, the United Kingdom -- a country with 5% of the population size of India -- says it is hoping to increase its test capacity to 25,000 a day.
  • Although it's not yet clear why India's case numbers are relatively low, as with other countries, it's clear that an outbreak would be incredibly difficult to control.A growing number of governments are encouraging citizens to self-isolate, and wash their hands to control the spread of coronavirus. But in parts of India, even those basic measures would be extremely difficult.
  • In 2011, an Indian government report estimated that 29.4% of the country's urban population live in low quality, semi-permanent structures, known as slums. Many of the homes here don't have bathrooms or running water. Some slum residents get their water from a communal tap, while others collect theirs in canisters and buckets from tankers that visit a few times a week.
  • It may also prove difficult to maintain the type of social isolation as ordered by Modi. In India, there are 455 people per square kilometer (or 1,178 people per square mile), according to World Bank statistics -- significantly more than the world average of 60 people, and much higher than China's 148. "Social distancing in a country like India is going to be very, very challenging," Prabhakar said. "We might be able to pull it off in urban areas, but in slums and areas of urban sprawl, I just don't see how it can be done."
  • Every country that goes into lockdown faces a huge economic impact. But in India, telling people to stay home puts millions of jobs at risk.
  • According to government estimates, there are around 102 million people -- including 75 million children -- who do not have an Aadhaar identity card, which is used to access key welfare and social services including food, electricity and gas subsidies. Most of these people are essentially undocumented -- and are less likely to receive a government handout.
  • "There are some states with very well-resourced, well-equipped health systems, and others which are weaker," Swaminathan said. "So the focus really needs to be both in short term and the medium to long term on strengthening the health systems in those states where it is relatively weak and this would involve a number of different actions."
  • According to the World Bank, India spends about 3.66% of its GDP on health -- far below the world average of 10%. Although the United Kingdom and the US have struggled to deal with their own outbreaks, each spend 9.8% and 17% of their GDP on health, respectively.
andrespardo

New Zealand 'halfway down Everest' as Ardern plans big easing of Covid lockdown | World... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...s-big-easing-of-covid-lockdown

coronavirus crisis corona economics

shared by andrespardo on 07 May 20 - No Cached
  • New Zealand 'halfway down Everest' as Ardern plans big easing of Covid lockdown
  • Under level two, the “bar” area of a bar would be off-limits because it has been identified as a transmission hotspot for the virus. This was evidenced by a cluster of dozens of people who went drinking at a pub in Matamata on St Patrick’s day in March.
  • Public spaces such as playgrounds and libraries would be reopened, bars and restaurants would be able to accept patrons, and domestic travel and competitive sport allowed to resume, including the professional leagues, but there will be no stadium crowds for now. Most workers would be allowed to head back to the office, though Ardern urged any who could stay home – or found it more productive – to do so. Widespread social-distancing rules would continue to apply, including patrons being seated two metres apart in public spaces, strangers keeping their distance from one another, and hairdressers, barbers and beauticians being required to wear PPE.
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  • Under the plans outlined by Ardern on Thursday, they would be permitted to see friends, family and even online dates – so long as they keep a log of their movements, and did not participate in indoor or outdoor gatherings of any more than 100. Weddings, funerals and anniversary celebrations would also be permitted.
  • The detailed description of life under level two was greeted with jubilation by Kiwis, many of whom have been desperate for a haircut and a change of company and scene.
  • Hairdressers, bars and competitive sport could be back on the agenda for New Zealanders from next week as the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said the country was “halfway down Everest” in its fight against Covid-19. New Zealand has been under strict lockdown restrictions for more than five weeks, but the low number of cases this week – zero for two consecutive days – means restrictions will soon be lifted.
  • Kiwis should be proud of how quickly the country had got on top of the virus, compared with other countries. Less than 1,500 people have contracted the virus so far.
  • but
  • “Every alert level to fight Covid-19 is its own battle. When you win one, it doesn’t mean the war is over,” Ardern said.
  • “There is a much higher level of individual responsibly required at level two to prevent the spread of the virus. Even though the economy will be significantly opened up we still need everyone to remain vigilant and continue to act like you and those around you have the virus. “On Monday 11 May, we will make a decision on whether to move, taking into consideration the best data and advice we can, recognising the impact of restrictions, and ensuring we don’t put at risk all of the gains we have made. “We need to balance the risk of the virus bouncing back against the strong desire to get the economy moving again.”
ethanshilling

As Europe's Covid Lockdowns Drag On, Police and Protesters Clash More - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rus-europe-police-bristol.html

pandemic europe police

shared by ethanshilling on 23 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • In Bristol, an English college town where the pubs are usually packed with students, there were fiery clashes between the police and protesters.
  • In Kassel, a German city known for its ambitious contemporary art festival, the police unleashed pepper spray and water cannons on anti-lockdown marchers.
  • From Spain and Denmark to Austria and Romania, frustrated people are lashing out at the restrictions on their daily lives.
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  • In Bristol, the trigger for the clashes was sweeping new legislation that would empower the police to sharply restrict demonstrations.
  • Right-wing politicians who bridle at lockdown restrictions are as angry as the left-wing climate protesters who regularly clog Trafalgar Square in London as part of the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations.
  • In Britain, where the rapid pace of vaccinations has raised hopes for a faster opening of the economy than the government is willing to countenance, frustration over recent police conduct has swelled into a national debate over the legitimacy of the police
  • The mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, harshly criticized the violence, blaming much of it on outsider agitators who he said had seized on a peaceful demonstration as an excuse to pick a fight with the establishment.
  • The violent clashes in Bristol, which left two police vans charred and 20 officers injured — one with a punctured lung — are deeply frustrating to Mr. Rees, who is the son of a Jamaican father and an English mother.
  • This time, however, he fears that the images of shattered windows and burned police vehicles will help Prime Minister Boris Johnson pass the police law, which has already cleared two key hurdles in Parliament.
Javier E

Neil Ferguson: 'One year ago, I first realised how serious coronavirus was. T... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...us-was-then-it-got-worse-covid

uk pandemic response 2020

shared by Javier E on 14 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • there were also major failures, and one of the most important of these lay in our inability to scale up testing for the disease. “It was tragic how slow we were at increasing testing for the virus. We should have started testing in hospitals and GPs [surgeries] much earlier than we did. We would then have had a much clearer picture of how quickly infections were coming into the country. As a result, we would have almost certainly locked down earlier – and perhaps would have adopted very different strategies, such as more draconian restrictions on international travel.”
  • “I got a fair bit of abuse and it was quite stressful at times, not just for me but for my colleagues. It was part of a campaign to undermine the science behind the country’s Covid policy, and it was carried out by those who have taken an ideological stance opposing the lockdown.
  • Such attacks are nothing new, Ferguson acknowledges. For several decades, climate scientists who have warned about the dangers of global heating have had to deal with similar vilification: targeted, highly personalised attacks mixed with the cherrypicking of evidence in order to try to discredit research.
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  • “What is paradoxical is the fact that the UK has punched well above its weight in its epidemiology, in its vaccine development and in understanding the virus – yet we have the worst per capita mortality for Covid-19 in the developed world. The eventual public inquiry will have a very mixed bag of conclusions to make about our handling of Covid.”
  • A major problem for the UK – and for much of Europe – has been the assumption that controlling the virus is a matter of having a trade-off between the economy and imposing lockdowns. “That is a false dichotomy,” says Ferguson. “If you act early when you impose lockdowns and other restrictions, you don’t just minimise deaths, you minimise economic disruption because you can lift lockdown so much earlier.”
  • As to the differential impact of the disease on society, Ferguson is unequivocal. “The poor have been worst affected in multiple ways. They have the lowest job security and have the least ability to work from home. They tend to work in frontline professions where they are more exposed to the virus. They also tend to have poorer health and have more co-morbidities so that they get more severe reactions to Covid and suffer higher mortality rates.
aidenborst

Pandemic lockdowns tied to lower crime in many cities, study finds - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US history crisis Culture Pandemic Crime Lockdown

shared by aidenborst on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Stay-at-home policies put into effect to help control the spread of Covid-19 were linked with a 37% average reduction in crime in 27 cities across 23 countries, an international team of researchers reported Wednesday.
  • Robberies and thefts fell the most -- by 46% -- perhaps as people stayed at home instead of going to work. Homicides fell 14%, the researchers reported in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
  • "On average, the overall reduction in crime levels across all included cities was around 37%."
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  • "As most people stayed at home throughout the day, fewer houses were left unsupervised and residential burglary may have become much more difficult, while commercial buildings likely became less supervised and hence an easier target," they added. Also, fewer bar fights were reported, but the potential for domestic violence rose.
  • "The smaller decrease in homicide cases may be due to a number of factors. First, in many societies, a substantial proportion of homicides are committed in domestic contexts and are hence not affected by the reduction in the density of daily encounters in cities. Second, a varying proportion of homicide is associated with organized crime, conflicts between gangs or conflicts related to drug trafficking," the team wrote.
  • Burglaries fell by 84% in Lima and rose by 38% in San Francisco, the researchers found. Police in many US cities have reported significant increases in violent crime with the pandemic.
  • The strictness of lockdown laws did not seem to directly correlate with changes in crime, the researchers found.
  • "The results show that more severe restrictions on school opening, working from home, public events, private gatherings and internal movement are not significantly related to the size of effects, with one exception: More stringent reductions or closures of public transportation are associated with more negative effect sizes for robbery and vehicle theft only," they wrote.
anonymous

Rep. Jayapal Blames Insurrection Lockdown After Testing Positive For COVID-19 : Insurre... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...-testing-positive-for-covid-19

shared by anonymous on 12 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Rep. Pramila Jayapal has tested positive for COVID-19, a result that she blames on her Republican colleagues' refusal to wear face masks during the hours-long lockdown last Wednesday as pro-Trump extremists attacked the U.S. Capitol.
  • "Only hours after Trump incited a deadly assault on our Capitol, many Republicans still refused to take the bare minimum COVID-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic
  • Crowded conditions during the prolonged security lockdown recently prompted Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician to Congress, to urge members and staff to get coronavirus tests, citing a high chance of transmission.
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  • at least one lawmaker who was in a holding area was already positive before the chaotic events forced hundreds of people to gather together.
  • more than 50 lawmakers and 220 workers in Congress who have either tested positive, or are presumed to have been infected with the coronavirus.
  • Coleman, who had taken the first of the required two doses of the coronavirus vaccine, says she is "experiencing mild, cold-like symptoms."
  • Jayapal is pushing for people in Congress to show greater care in following safety guidelines, and for anyone who ignores mask requirements to be punished — including senators and representatives.
  • "Any Member who refuses to wear a mask should be fully held accountable for endangering our lives because of their selfish idiocy,"
lmunch

'Nightmare' Australia Housing Lockdown Called Breach of Human Rights - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ckdown-covid-human-rights.html

Australia politics Pandemic rights

shared by lmunch on 02 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The sudden lockdown this summer of nine public housing towers in Melbourne that left 3,000 people without adequate food and medication and access to fresh air during the city’s second coronavirus wave breached human rights laws, an investigation found.
  • “There is no rule book for this, nobody in Victoria has done this before,” he said at a news conference in Melbourne on Thursday. “We took the steps that the experts said were necessary to save lives.”
  • The report was also a reminder that such measures were rarely applied equitably and have come at great cost to those who are economically disadvantaged. Many of the towers’ residents are minorities or immigrants. Some residents noted that police officers had swarmed around the towers, making it difficult to leave.
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  • the residents had been effectively placed under house arrest for 14 days in July without warning. It deprived them of essential supports, as well as access to activities like outdoor exercise, the report said.
  • “We may be tempted, during a crisis, to view human rights as expendable in the pursuit of saving human lives,” the report warned. “This thinking can lead to dangerous territory.”
  • The authorities “at all times acted lawfully and within the applicable legislative framework,” Richard Wynne, the minister for planning and housing, said in a statement released on Thursday.“We make no apologies for saving lives,” he added.
rerobinson03

U.K.'s Boris Johnson Faces Revolt Over His Coronavirus Policy - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ohnson-coronavirus-revolt.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • LONDON — Two days after abruptly announcing plans to put England back into a lockdown, Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced a mutiny on Monday from members of his Conservative Party, who said he went too far, and scalding criticism from opposition leaders, who said he acted too late to stem a second wave of the coronavirus.
  • “Doctors and nurses could be forced to choose which patients to treat, who would live and who would die,” he said. “That sacred principle of care for anyone who needs it — whoever they are and whenever they need it — could be broken for the first time in our lives.”
  • For all the criticism of Mr. Johnson, his latest plans are not likely to be derailed. While a handful of Conservative members of Parliament said they would oppose the lockdown measure when it comes up for a vote on Wednesday, the prime minister’s 80-seat majority, plus the seal of approval from the Labour Party, all but guarantees that it will be approved by the House of Commons.
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  • Under the national lockdown, the government will extend a subsidy program that pays 80 percent of the wages of those people — a concession that the mayors said illustrated that the government does not treat the north the same as the south.
  • Conservatives have a litany of other objections — that the lockdown is a death knell for the economy, an infringement of civil liberties and proof that the government lacks a coherent strategy for getting past the pandemic.
  • The chaotic nature of the announcement added to the misgivings. Mr. Johnson convened an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday after internal deliberations leaked late Friday. T
Javier E

Europe's Battle-Hardened Nations Show Resilience in Virus Fight - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...navirus-europe-resilience.html

resilience international pandemic history crisis culture suffering

shared by Javier E on 11 May 20 - No Cached
  • As the coronavirus has hopscotched the world, a paradox has emerged: Rich nations are not necessarily better at fighting the crisis than poorer ones.
  • Wealthier countries, traditionally able to deploy resources quickly and fortified by well-funded state mechanisms intended to weather crises, have generally not managed the coronavirus pandemic well.
  • But smaller, poorer nations in Europe quickly imposed and enforced tough restrictions, stuck to them, and have so far fared better at keeping the virus contained.
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  • those that could draw on deep reservoirs of resilience born of relatively recent hardship
  • Compared to what their people had been through not long ago, the stringent lockdowns seemed less arduous, apparently prompting a larger social buy-in.
  • The nations include many in the former Communist East, as well as Greece and Croatia
  • “I was a kid, I remember playing soccer and seeing mortars falling out of the sky,” he said. He believes the disciplined, collected way in which Croats have responded to the pandemic harks back to wartime and the legacy of communism.
  • “People today are afraid, and the discipline we all learned helps us get in line and creates some sort of forced unity,”
  • Analyzing the different pandemic responses, academics at Oxford University have developed a stringency scale, an effort to rank the toughness of the measures governments took to stop the spread of the virus.
  • n Croatia, which has among the world’s top stringency scores on the Oxford scale, 86 people have died of Covid-19, putting the country’s death rate at 2.1 per 100,000. In New York State, that figure is 137 per 100,000.
  • “Croatia went to the max of our stringency scale, there is a strong official response,” Mr. Hale said. Echoing Mr. Morovic’s thoughts on discipline, he added, “It is possible that people are less willing to push back and they are willing to accept harsher measures.”
  • A word sometimes applied to societies in these parts of Europe is “resilient,
  • the trait was best defined as a person or society doing well in spite of experiencing acute stress or long-term adversity.
  • resilience alone does not explain why some countries are handling the crisis better: The positive outcomes rely on citizens believing the measures a government is taking are appropriate, leading to trust and compliance.
  • Greece is emerging from a lockdown with a low death toll and relatively high morale, even as it faces a recession.
  • The country has recorded the relatively tiny number of 151 virus deaths so far, just 1.4 per 100,000 people, and Professor Motti-Stefanidi credited the government’s frank and persuasive approach for motivating citizens to respect the tight lockdown measures.
  • “We’ve been through a lot, we are hardened, so I think we’re going to be able to rebuild,” she said. “We thought we were spoiled before the financial crisis, but now we can see we are resilient,”
  • In Croatia, Mr. Morovic said he was confident that the country was on track to stay healthy even as it reopened, but he was ready to go back into lockdown if the virus returned.
brookegoodman

Coronavirus: Lockdown easing in England 'modest' - Jenrick - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/uk-52869875

crisis culture policy

shared by brookegoodman on 31 May 20 - No Cached
  • The government is taking "modest" steps in easing lockdown restrictions, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick has said.
  • Meanwhile, the UK has exceeded its target to increase coronavirus testing capacity to 200,000 a day by the end of May.
  • Speaking at the daily coronavirus briefing, he confirmed the updated guidance on shielding which will mean that people who have been advised to stay home since the lockdown began will now be able to go outside either with members of their household or to meet someone from another household.
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  • On Saturday, Professor John Edmunds, a member of Sage - the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies which advises the government - said the levels of coronavirus were still "very high", adding that it was a "political decision" to ease measures.
  • In Wales, people from two different households will be able to meet each other outdoors from Monday.
  • And Phil Anderson, head of policy at the MS Society, said people would "rightly want to hear a lot more about the scientific evidence showing this will be safe for them".
  • Widespread testing forms a central part of the government's strategy to control the virus, as it aims to ease blanket lockdown in favour of more targeted measures.
  • The UK's R value - the number of people each infected person passes the virus on to, on average - is currently between 0.7 and 0.9.
brookegoodman

Coronavirus: Belgian Prince Joachim tests positive after lockdown party - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-europe-52864072

crisis culture

shared by brookegoodman on 31 May 20 - No Cached
  • A Belgian prince has contracted coronavirus after attending a party during lockdown in Spain, the country's royal palace says.
  • Under Córdoba's lockdown rules, a party of this size would be a breach of regulations, as gatherings of no more than 15 people are currently permitted.
  • Spanish police have launched an investigation into the party. Those found to have flouted lockdown rules could be fined up to €10,000 (£9,000; $11,100).
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  • "I feel surprised and angry. An incident of this type stands out at a moment of national mourning for so many dead," she said.
  • Spain has among the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world. As of Saturday, the country had 239,228 infections and 27,125 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
tsainten

France and Germany Lock Down as Second Coronavirus Wave Grows - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...germany-coronavirus-covid.html

germany france covid lockdown pandemic economics

shared by tsainten on 29 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • BRUSSELS — France announced a second nationwide lockdown and Germany moved to the very edge of one on Wednesday, testing their pandemic-weary populations as they tried to stop a mounting new wave of coronavirus infections from swamping hospitals and undoing hopes of economic recovery.
  • The pandemic surge and new lockdowns battered stock markets in Europe, as in the United States, with major indexes down about 3 percent Wednesday.
  • Starting Friday, France will go into a nationwide lockdown with just schools and essential businesses staying open until Dec. 1
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Spain went back into a state of emergency last week, while on Sunday the government in Italy moved to shut restaurants by 6 p.m. In Belgium, which currently has the continent’s highest infection rate, restaurants were shuttered this month, followed by museums and gyms over the weekend.
  • France, Spain, Italy and Britain are all among the European countries reporting spikes in new cases
  • More people have been protesting against restrictions
criscimagnael

Shanghai Reopens After Nearly 2-Month Covid Lockdown - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ghai-covid-lockdown-eases.html

shared by criscimagnael on 01 Jun 22 - No Cached
  • As Shanghai eased one of the longest, toughest lockdowns anywhere since the pandemic began, many of its 25 million residents celebrated being free to move around. The reopening on Wednesday came after Shanghai’s two-month siege against Covid had set off public anger over shortages of food and medicine as well as the harsh enforcement of quarantine rules.
  • For now at least, that anger gave way to relief after the government wound back many restrictions. During the day, people — all wearing masks — basked in the novelty of previously mundane pleasures like meeting friends and relatives, strolling in parks, and driving through streets that had been largely empty since early April. Hairdressers were, as in many cities freed from lockdowns, busy. Subway lines were open but quiet.
  • With daily infections now falling to low double digits, the government has launched an urgent effort to revive factories, companies and supply lines vital to China’s sagging economy. On Tuesday, Shanghai recorded 15 infections.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The uncertainty and anxiety about the future could impede Shanghai’s — and China’s — recovery. Officials have been cautiously lifting some restrictions on residents and selected companies since midway through May.
  • Over 10 million students in Chinese universities, many in Shanghai, are about to graduate and enter the job market.
  • Despite the easing, hundreds of thousands of Shanghai residents remain locked in their housing compounds because of recent infections in their areas. Under China’s stringent rules, being in the vicinity of a confirmed infection is enough to land someone in a quarantine facility.
  • Mr. Xi and other Chinese officials maintain that their zero-tolerance strategy has spared the country the millions of deaths that the virus has inflicted in the United States, Europe and other richer countries. China has officially recorded 5,226 deaths from Covid, though the real number is probably higher, because China typically classifies Covid-related deaths more narrowly than many other countries. Shanghai has counted 588 deaths from the recent outbreak.
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