| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Latest on Covid-19 - top 10 statistics
Why Is Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate So Low?
With more than 63,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of March 30, Germany is one of the countries worst-affected by the pandemic, according to official statistics.
But only 560 people known to be suffering from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus have died there, putting Germany’s case fatality rate at just 0.9%. That gives Germany one of the lowest rates in the world, making it an outlier compared to places like Italy, where 11.0% of confirmed patients have died from the disease, and even the U.S., which has a rate of 1.8%.
According to experts, Germany’s case fatality rate is so low due to its widespread testing. “In some countries only very symptomatic cases are tested (e.g. in Italy) and in others a broader testing strategy is done (e.g. in Germany),” writes Dr. Dietrich Rothenbacher, the director of the Institute for Epidemiology at Ulm University in Germany, in an email to TIME. That means that while Germany is currently the country with the fifth-most infections in the world, chances are that it has fewer unreported cases than many other countries, where testing is harder to come by.
“Between countries there are several reasons why the death rate might vary, but they’re very small compared to the impact of how many people get tested,” says Dr. Liam Smeeth, a professor of clinical epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Germany very rapidly rolled out testing to a very large number of people, relative to the population.”
As of March 15, Germany was behind only the UAE, South Korea and Australia as the country to have administered the most tests in the world per capita, at an estimated 2,023 per million people. (In South Korea, the only of these countries where the pandemic is at a similarly advanced stage to Germany, the case fatality rate stands at around 1.6%.) On March 20, Lothar Wieler, the president of the Robert Koch Institute—Germany’s main public health body—said German laboratories are now able to conduct some 160,000 tests per week, about as many as they performed in the entire two months to March 15.
Keep up to date with our daily coronavirus newsletter by clicking here.
Back in January, Germany became one of the first countries to develop a reliable method for testing for COVID-19. Unburdened by a restrictive central regulatory body, since healthcare is administered at the state level in Germany, private companies moved quickly to mass produce those tests, meaning they could be rolled out rapidly to the population. At least 1.4 million of the tests distributed worldwide by the World Health Organization by the end of February were produced by one German company based in Berlin.
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh at risk of COVID-19 infection
Activists are warning that conditions at crowded camps in southeast Bangladesh are leaving a million Rohingya refugees at risk of contracting the virus.
30 March 2020 13 hours ago
Activists are warning that conditions at crowded camps in southeast Bangladesh are leaving a million Rohingya refugees at risk of contracting the new coronavirus.
Internet shutdown in and around the camps is making the situation even more dangerous.
Al Jazeera's Mohammed Jamjoom reports.
Internet crackdown in Rohingya refugee camps is dangerous
By John Quinley III
Since September 2019, Bangladesh has restricted mobile-phone operators to limit 3G and 4G services in Rohingya camps
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a “controllable pandemic.” To control the pandemic, WHO experts recommend “social distancing” to prevent the spread of the disease and thus “flatten the curve” of infection.
But social distancing isn't an option available to the more than one million Rohingya refugees living in densely populated camps in Bangladesh. The conditions of the camps and their tight living quarters cause these refugees to face a dangerously high risk of contracting and spreading the virus. To make matters worse, Rohingya are not allowed to leave the camps or move freely within them. The camps also lack access to sufficient water and sanitation—conditions that could worsen the spread of a communicable disease like the coronavirus, known as COVID-19.
Bangladesh has confirmed more than 45 cases of coronavirus infections—with the first confirmed case in Cox’s Bazar District where the Rohingya live in one of the largest refugee settlement in the world. If COVID-19 reaches the camps, it is likely to spread like wildfire. To keep refugees safe, it is paramount that Bangladesh provides Rohingya refugees with access to the internet, mobile communications, and information about the pandemic.
But Bangladesh is doing just the opposite. Since September 2019, Bangladesh has restricted mobile-phone operators to limit 3G and 4G services in the camps. Bangladesh authorities have gone even further than just cutting mobile-phone communication: My colleagues and I at Fortify Rights have documented how authorities have prohibited the use of mobile phones in the camps and are confiscating them from Rohingya refugees.
Bangladesh included Rohingya refugees in the government’s National Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID-19—a positive step to be sure—but without any word on restoring access to the internet for refugees. It seems like a no-brainer to lift communication restrictions as a part of the national plan to combat COVID-19 both for Rohingya refugees as well as the community of Bangladeshis who live nearby the camps who also face internet restrictions.
Despite these restrictions, Rohingya-led groups, in addition to international humanitarian organizations, have been at the forefront of educating and disseminating information on hygiene and how to protect themselves if the virus enters the camps. Groups like Rohingya Youth for Legal Action, Rohingya Women's Empowerment and Advocacy Network, and Rohingya Students Network are all promoting best-practices in hygiene and information about the symptoms of COVID-19 through leaflets, audio speaker systems, and small gatherings. Not being able to use the internet to inform their community on protecting themselves from the virus is needlessly making their efforts significantly more difficult.
In the diaspora, Rohingya-led organizations are creating video and audio updates about COVID-19 for distribution in the refugee camps. For example, Dr. Anita Schug and Dr. Ambia Perveen of the Rohingya Medics Organization are producing critical audio and video information about health-related issues, including COVID-19, in the Rohingya language from their homes in Europe— material that requires the internet to be distributed to a larger audience.
Internet access and mobile communication is also necessary to stamp out the dangerous misinformation about COVID-19 that is spreading through the refugee camps. Some Rohingya have referred to the coronavirus as “moronavirus,” or “death-virus” in the Rohingya language, and many believe the fatality rate for the virus is far above the actual rate. In this context, the government has a unique opportunity to curb misinformation by immediately lifting communication restrictions. Doing so would allow Rohingya with accurate information to inform the others about what is true and not through popular messaging apps Rohingya often use, such as Whatsapp.
Rohingya refugees tell me that the lack of information in the camps has heightened distress and fear among Rohingya refugees and created an environment of mistrust.
In implementing Bangladesh’s National Plan, the government needs to make sure that nobody is discriminated against and that refugees can access health services, online communication, and other provisions just like Bangladeshi citizens.
Rohingya-led efforts should be supported and amplified by Bangladesh, not stifled through discriminatory and dangerous communication restrictions. During this time of crisis, information and communication will literally save lives. If the coronavirus reaches the camps, restricting the flow of information will not only accelerate the spread of the disease to refugees, but to the Bangladeshi host community as well. Lifting restrictions in the face of the virus could be a matter of life or death.
John Quinley III is a Senior Human Rights Specialist at Fortify Rights.
Monday, March 30, 2020
Covid infection doubling in the USA every 3 days
As of 7 p.m. EST, March 30, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 affected people has jumped to 163,000. If January 20 is believed to be the first known reported case of the virus, it seems that the infection is doubling every 3 days.
See the table below:
See the table below:
| Day | Total Infected |
| 1 | 1 |
| 4 | 3 |
| 7 | 7 |
| 10 | 15 |
| 13 | 31 |
| 16 | 63 |
| 19 | 127 |
| 22 | 255 |
| 25 | 511 |
| 28 | 1023 |
| 31 | 2047 |
| 34 | 4095 |
| 37 | 8191 |
| 40 | 16383 |
| 43 | 32767 |
| 46 | 65535 |
| 49 | 131071 |
| 52 | 262143 |
| 55 | 524287 |
| 58 | 1048575 |
| 61 | 2097151 |
| 64 | 4194303 |
| 67 | 8388607 |
| 70 | 16777215 |
Saturday, March 28, 2020
The sobering statistics of COVID-19
By Habib Siddiqui
As of Saturday, March 28, 2020, nearly 650 thousand people worldwide are confirmed to have been infected by the Corona Virus (COVID-19). As I write around 4 p.m. EST (USA), more than thirty thousand deaths have been confirmed. The latest statistics show that the USA has superseded China as the epicenter of the virus with more than 116 thousand infected people.
In any biological system, if you put a living organism into an environment where it can thrive, with unlimited resources and no predators or competitors, it will always grow in the same fashion: exponentially.
In the case of the coronavirus COVID-19, exponential growth will occur in the disease rate in humans so long as:
1.
there is at least one infected person in the population pool,
2.
regular contact between infected and uninfected members of the population
occurs,
3.
and there are large numbers of uninfected potential hosts among the population.
Thus, it is believed that over the next couple of weeks the number will go up very sharply (see the graph below, where it is assumed doubling of the infected people every 1-5 days) in many countries unless preventive measures against the spread are taken.
Thus far, eight countries, the USA, Italy, China, Spain, Germany, Iran, France and the UK, account for more than 80% of the infected countries.
As expected, a vast majority of the reported deaths also came from these countries. E.g., Italy, Spain, China, Iran, France, the USA and the UK – accounts for 89% the reported deaths.
On the other hand, if statistics around the infected cases per million inhabitants are compared, the published data appear to show that people in the European countries were more vulnerable (more than 500 per million) by this pandemic than those living in the comparatively warmer territories (see the graphs and table below).
It is worthnoting here that the above statistical inference is based on the assumpion of the supposed authenticity of the published data that are shared by individual countries, which may not necessarily reflect the ground reality in many illiberal democracies like India and countries that are ruled by authoritarian regimes. We would, thus, probably never know how many Uighurs and Rohingyas, encamped in Xi’s and Suu Kyi’s concentration camps, respectively, got infected and died.
Many governments were either in the denial of or too nonchalant about the effect of Covid-19 while they had missed the short window of taking preventive measures. In recent weeks, while it is heartening to see that government authorities have turned to proven public health measures, such as social distancing, to physically disrupt the contagion, such measures came rather late and have contributed to exponential growth of the virus-infected people all across the world.
In affected localities, all the academic insitutions are now providing on-line training. Unless required for emergency, most people are staying and working from home. These measures have severed the flow of goods and people, stalled economies, and is in the process of delivering a global recession. Truly, economic contagion is now spreading as fast as the COVID-19 itself. Millions of people have lost jobs in the last month. The Dow-Jones Index in the USA took a nose-dive, losing almost 40% of its value.
It’s clear that a vaccine would reduce the need for social distancing and thus relax the policy’s chokehold on the global economy. But no one within the scientific communities knows when that eureka moment will dawn.
In the U.S., politicians have passed a $2 trillion stimulus package to soften the blow of the coronavirus crisis. But such a package alone may not be sufficient even when the fear of the virus is gone without policy innovation that must include – amongst others – offering zero-interest loans to households and small businesses plus a moratorium on mortgage payments for residential and commercial borrowers.
No one in our lifetime has ever come across a crisis of this sort, triggered by an unknown and unseen enemy that could kill so many so fast. No one could forecast the devastating effect of this virus - sobering politicians, policy makers, and financial pundits. Perhaps the only certainty is that any attempt at a definitive forecast will fail.
Who knows this virus may teach humanity to sober up and make them God-fearing, thus, putting their collective efforts to better the lives of all, away from militarization and self-destruction!
Does Religion Matter? Communal Violence in India
Ram Puniyani
The carnage or to put it more
precisely the anti Muslim violence in Delhi (February-March 2020) has shaken us
all. Analysts are burning midnight oil yet again to understand the deeper
causative factors of the same. One of the neglected aspects of analysis of
communal violence has been the one related to prevalent factor of Caste in
Indian society. Caste is inherent in the scriptures called as Hindu scriptures;
caste has been the rigid frame work of Hindu society, which has also penetrated
into other religious communities in India. The deeper connection between Hindu
nationalism or Hindutva and caste has been explored somewhat but not too many studies
have taken up the relationship between the communal violence and caste in India.
Suraj Yengde (IE, Delhi Pogrom is an attempt to Divert attention from Government’s
Failures, March 8, 2020) makes some points on this issue. Yengde points out, “Many
are still downplaying the Delhi riot as an affliction of Hindutva or
Hindu-Muslim binaries. It is neither. It is not religious but caste tensions
that encourage such treacherous acts.”
He quotes from the Gujarat activist Raju Solanki, “in the 2002
Godhra riots there were 2,945 arrests in Ahmadabad. Of these, 1,577 were Hindus
and 1,368 Muslims. Among the Hindus arrested, 797 were OBCs, 747 Dalits, 19
Patels, two Baniyas, and two Brahmins. The upper castes became MLAs, the rest
were jailed. Also, it is not an accident that Dalits constitute nearly 22% of
the total arrests in India; Adivasis 11%, Muslims 20% and OBCs 31%. More than
55% of under trials also come from the same communities (NCRB 2015).”
While this data is on the dot it must be stated that while caste
has lot of role in the emergence of politics of Hindutva, in the resultant
violence the primary focus has been religion, here caste plays a role which is
secondary in some ways. To trace the outline of the Hindu nationalism’s prime
mover RSS; one can definitely say that its formation and rise is primarily due
to the rising caste consciousness and the beginnings of struggles aimed at injustices
due to the caste Varna System. While Hindu Mahasabha was already on the scene
as parallel and opposite to the Muslim League, these formations initially had
only Kings and landlords. Later these formations were joined in by some elite,
affluent sections of society.
RSS in particular was a response to the ground level changes
resulting in coming up of low caste/average people in social and political
space. It was the non-cooperation movement led by Gandhi and then the non
Brahman movement in Nagpur-Vidarbha area which disturbed the Brahmanical
sections, supported by landlord-kings, to take up the agenda of Hindu nation.
The core articulation of Hindutva politics was to present the glorious ancient
times, when Manu Smriti’s laws ruled the roost. These were getting a jolt now as
the efforts of Joti Rao Phule and later the campaigns of Ambedkar started
empowering the downtrodden dalits. This was a serious threat to Brahmanical
system.
While this was the core an external threat was to be created to ‘unify’
Hindu society. And here the Muslims, Muslim Kings rule came in as handy. It is
this anti Muslim tirade and actions which was the frontage for Hindutva, while
the anti dalit-agenda was the real underlying motive. The whole of Shakha (RSS
branches) baudhiks (intellectual sessions) were structured around this. The
promotion of communal historiography, the hatred for Muslims was the visible
part of RSS training, while glorification of past is the fulcrum which in a way
is the code language for retaining the hierarchy of caste and also of gender.
Practically also if we see the strengthening of Hindutva began on
the issue of a Muslim king destroying the temple of the birth place of Lord
Ram, this campaign got its vitriol after the implementation of Mandal Commission
in 1990. The anti Muslim Hate and promotion of values of caste and gender
hierarchy are synthesized by Hindutva politics. That’s as far as the political
agenda of Hindu nationalism goes. As far as communal violence is concerned, it
has been an anti Muslim work through and through. All the statistics shows that
victims of communal violence are primarily Muslims, around 80% of victims being Muslims. These
Muslims do come from all sections of Muslims, more from the poor.
The caste comes into operation in the mechanism of riot
production. Hindutva politics, through its extensive network has been working
relentlessly among dalits. The recent book by Bhanwar Meghwanshi, “I was a Kar
Sevak”, brilliantly describes the mechanism of co-opting dalits into the agenda
of sectarian politics. RSS has floated innumerable organizations, like Samajik
Samrasta Manch, which work among dalits to promote Brahmanical values and to
integrate dalits into the scheme of Hindutva politics. They are made to act as
foot soldiers of Hindu nationalist politics.
Those who spread hate through indoctrination and propaganda are safe in their cozy
houses or offices while the poor dalits are made to soil their hands with the
blood of religious minorities.
The face of Gujarat violence, Ashok Mochi, now talks of dalit-Muslim unity. The data
compiled by Raju Solanki and quoted by Yengde is the norm in the cases of
violence in India. Those who are incited, those who are later charged with
violence are not the ones who give donations to RSS or support its various
activities. Most of these do come from the sections of indoctrinated youth from
downtrodden communities.
Yengde has done a valuable job in drawing our attention to the
role of caste in communal violence; the problem with his thesis is the
undermining the role of ‘Hate against religious minorities’, which is the base
on which the violence is orchestrated. The extent and degree of indoctrination done
through shakhas is very powerful and effective. This can gauzed from the experiences
of the likes of Bhanwar Meghwanshi, who tells us the difficulties he had to
face to come to grips of reality of caste while overcoming the RSS propaganda.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)