False Belief a Poison Fights Coronavirus Kills Hundreds in Iran
Iranian healthcare workersare begging the public for just one thing: Stop drinking industrial alcohol or methanol over fears about the new coronavirus.

PTI 28 Mar 2020

Image use for represantional only. Image courtesy: Deccan Herald


Tehran: Standing over the still body of an incubated 5-year-old boy wearing nothing but a plastic diaper, an Iranian healthcare worker in a hazmat suit and mask begged the public for just one thing: Stop drinking industrial alcohol over fears about the new coronavirus,

The boy, now blind after his parents gave him toxic methanol in the mistaken belief it protects against the virus, is just one of hundreds of victims of an epidemic inside the pandemic now gripping Iran.

Iranian media report nearly 300 people have been killed and more than 1,000 sickened so far by ingesting methanol across the Islamic Republic, where drinking alcohol is banned and where those who do rely on bootleggers. An Iranian doctor helping the country's Health Ministry told The Associated Press on Friday the problem was even greater, giving a death toll of around 480 with 2,850 people sickened.

The poisonings come as fake remedies spread across social media in Iran, where people remain deeply suspicious of the government after it downplayed the crisis for days before it overwhelmed the country.

“Other countries have only one problem, which is the new coronavirus pandemic. But we are fighting on two fronts here,” said HosseinHassanian, an adviser to Iran's Health Ministry who gave the higher figures to the AP.

"We have to both cure the people with alcohol poisoning and also fight the coronavirus.” For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.

The pandemic has swept across the world, overwhelming hospitals, crippling economies and forcing governments to restrict the movements of billions of people. Particularly hard hit has been Iran, home to 80 million people.

As of now, there is no known cure for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Scientists and doctors continue to study the virus and search for effective medicines and a vaccine.

But in messages forwarded and forwarded again, Iranian social media accounts in Farsi falsely suggested a British school teacher and others cured themselves of the coronavirus with whiskey and honey, based on a tabloid story from early February. Mixed with messages about the use of alcohol-based hand sanitisers, some wrongly believed drinking high-proof alcohol would kill the virus in their bodies.

The Islamic Republic has reported over 29,000 confirmed cases and more than 2,200 deaths from the virus, the highest toll of any country in West Asia. International experts also fear Iran may be under-reporting its cases, as officials for days played down the virus ahead of a parliamentary election.

That fear of the virus, coupled with poor education and internet rumours, saw dozens sickened by drinking bootleg alcohol containing methanol in Iran's Southwestern Khuzestan province and its southern city of Shiraz. Videos aired by Iranian media showed patients with IVs stuck in their arms, laying on beds otherwise needed for the fight against the coronavirus, including the intubated 5-year-old boy. Iranian media also reported cases in the cities of Karaj and Yazd.

In Iran, the government mandates that manufacturers of toxic methanol add an artificial colour to their products so the public can tell it apart from ethanol, the kind of alcohol that can be used in cleaning wounds. Ethanol is also the kind of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, though its production is illegal in Iran.

ETHANOL AND METHANOL ARE KNOWN AS ORGANIC ALCOHOL 

AKA WOOD ALCOHOL IN CANADA, AND ONCE WAS USED BY BOOTLEGGERS IN NORTH AMERICA CAUSING BLINDNESS, ILLNESS AND DEATH AS IS NOW OCCURRING IN IRAN.

Some bootleggers in Iran use methanol, adding a splash of bleach to mask the added color before selling it as drinkable. Sometimes it is mixed with consumable alcohol to stretch supply, other times it comes as methanol, falsely advertised as drinkable. Methanol also can contaminate traditionally fermented alcohol.

Methanol cannot be smelled or tasted in drinks. It causes delayed organ and brain damage. Symptoms include chest pain, nausea, hyperventilation, blindness and even coma.

Hassanian said his figures included reports from coroner's offices around Iran also counting those who died outside of hospitals from the poisonings.

“Unfortunately in some provinces, including Khuzestan and Fars, deaths from drinking methanol has exceeded the number of deaths from the new coronavirus," he said.

Knut Erik Hovda, a clinical toxicologist in Oslo, said to expect more methanol poisoning victims.

“The virus is spreading and people are just dying off, and I think they are even less aware of the fact that there are other dangers around,” Hovda said. “When they keep drinking this, there's going to be more people poisoned.” Even before the outbreak, methanol poisoning had taken a toll in Iran. One academic study found methanol poisoning sickened 768 people in Iran between September and October 2018 alone, killing 76.

Other Muslim nations that ban their citizens from drinking also see such methanol poisoning, although Iran appears to be the only one in the pandemic so far to turn toward it as a fake cure. In Buddhist Cambodia, police said they seized 4,200 liters (1,100 gallons) of methanol from a man who unwittingly planned to make toxic hand sanitizer because of the virus outbreak.

Muslim drinkers in Iran can be punished with cash fines and 80 lashes. However, minority Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians can drink alcoholic beverages in private.

While police occasionally announce alcohol busts, the trade in non-toxic alcohol also continues. Locally made Iranian arak from fermented raisins, known as Araghsagi, sells for $10 for a 1.5-liter bottle. Imported vodka sells for $40 a bottle.

Diamond Princess Offered Scientists with Opportunity to Research on Coronavirus
Over 18% of the infected people among the passengers in the cruise ship did not have any symptoms, reported a team of Japanese and UK-based researchers who had conducted extensive research on the ship’s passengers.

Sandipan Talukdar 28 Mar 2020


Diamond Princess, had been brought into the spotlight when the entire cruise ship with more than 3,000 passengers on board, was quarantined in Japan for a long period. The incident leading to its quarantine was when a passenger, who had disembarked from the ship in Hong Kong on February 1, was tested positive for COVID-19. After two days, that is on February 3, the cruise was quarantined in Japanese water. Over a month, more than 700 people on board were found to be COVID-19 positive, which included a nurse.

Scientists and researchers took the opportunity to glean information about the novel coronavirus, mainly how easily the virus spreads, estimation of the disease’s severity and also to find out how many affected people go without symptoms.

John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University in California, says, “Cruise ships are like an ideal experiment of a closed population. You know exactly who is there and at risk and you can measure everyone.”

Percentage of Infected People Without Symptoms

Japanese officials conducted over 3,000 tests on the passengers of the cruise ship, prioritising the elderly ones and those displaying symptoms. Some passengers were even tested more than once so that the viral spread over time could be understood better.

The data out of the extensive testing was analysed by a collaborating team from Japan and UK led by Kenji Mizumoto. They published their results in the journal Eurosurveillance, where they reported that over 18% of the infected people did not have any symptoms. This is a significant number. The asymptomatic cases are especially dangerous for the elderly people. Because an asymptomatic infected person might transfer the infection to an elderly person or to a person who is immunologically not very strong.

This result shows the necessity of more and more testing for COVID-19.

Disease Severity

Another team led by Timothy Russel, a mathematical epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine attempted to estimate the case fatality rate (CFR), the proportion of deaths out of confirmed cases. They published their data in the preprint archive medRxiv, which stated that the CFR in China was way below what WHO predicted. It was 1.1%, while WHO estimated it to be 3.8%.

This difference in estimation was due to the denominator. WHO simply divided China’s total number of death by total number of infected people that were confirmed to have the infection. This method does not consider that only a fraction of the total infected people have been tested.

Russel’s team took the data from the cruise ship where almost everyone was tested and then extrapolated it to the situation in China. This, according to them, makes the estimation more robust.

Russel’s team also estimated the IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) for China. The IFR signifies the total infection, including the asymptomatic ones that could result in death. The IFR goes even lower, 0.5%.

Marc Lipsitch, the infectious-disease epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston says, “The IFR is an important indicator to help public-health officials understand disease severity and how to intervene.” Regarding the work of Russel and his team, Lipsitch says, “This is an important effort, but one important caveat is that the infections were ascertained by viral testing and might have missed people who had been infected but recovered.”

Ease of Spread of the Virus

Again, a joint study between Kenji Mizumoto of Japan and Gerardo Chowell of USA was conducted to look for the spread of the virus and how the quarantine measures reduced it. Published in Infectious Disease Modelling, their estimation said that before quarantine one person could infect seven others. The high infection rate was probably due to the close environment of the ship where hundreds of passengers touched surfaces contaminated with the virus. But after quarantining it dropped down to below one, meaning one infected person now could infect less than a person.

Former Venezuelan Soldier Reveals Plan to Assassinate Nicolás Maduro
Clíver Alcalá affirmed that he has a contract with Juan Guaidó and US advisors.

Brasil de Fato 28 Mar 2020

The former Venezuelan soldier also would have participated in the coordination of the assassination attempt against Nicolás Maduro in 2018.

This Thursday March 26, the former major-general of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB) Clíver Alcalá Cordones gave an interview and published a series of videos on his Twitter account revealing a plan to assassinate the president Nicolás Maduro. The plan, he alleged, was elaborated by him and opposition deputy Juan Guaidó as well as advisors of the United States government.

Alcalá – opposed to Chavismo since 2013 -, is one of the 13 Venezuelan citizens accused by the Attorney General of the United States, William Barr, for supposed crimes of narco-trafficking, money laundering and trafficking of arms. The denouncement was presented on Thursday by the US Department of Justice and included, in the same text, the names of other authorities of the Bolivarian government, such as President Nicolás Maduro, the president of the National Constituent Assembly, Diosdado Cabello and the president of the Supreme Court, Maikel Moreno.

Despite not having presented any proof, the Department of Justice of the US offered a reward of US$10 million for the arrest of Clíver Alcalá, Diosdado Cabello, Hugo Carvajal, former director of intelligence of the FANB and Tarek El Aisami, vice-president of Economy of Venezuela.

During a national broadcast on Thursday night, Maduro denied the accusations. “The government of Donald Trump itself is who will be hurt by this situation. We have 15 years of experience of combating narco-trafficking, since we expelled the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration of the US) from here.”

COUP PLAN

On Wednesday March 25, the Venezuelan government had denounced the seizure of a vehicle with 26 AR-15 rifles, manufactured in the US and without serial numbers, 28 night goggles, and silencers. Weapons that, altogether, cost around US$500 thousand and were found in a truck on the highway that connected Barranquilla to Santa Marta, in Colombia.

The driver of the vehicle confirmed that he was transporting the arms from Barranquilla to the city of Riohacha, located around 80 km from the border with Venezuela. The weapons would have been turned into ‘Pantera,’ the nickname of Robert Colina Ibarra, supposed leader of one of the paramilitary training camps, where the son-in-law of Alcalá, was allegedly training for the assassination attempt against Maduro.

According to the vice-president of Communication Jorge Rodriguéz, paramilitary groups are being trained in Colombian territory. Venezuelan intelligence had already identified, with drones, last year, the existence of at least three paramilitary training camps in Colombia.

During an interview with W Radio, former soldier Clíver Alcalá Cordones highlighted that the operation was being planned by the Venezuelan opposition, without participation of the Colombian government. He explained that he coordinated a group of 90 officials and that he had participated in seven meetings with US advisors along with Juan José Rendón Delgado, known as JJ Rendón, Venezuelan businessman and resident in the United States.

Alcalá also confirmed the version of the Venezuelan government about the arms seized in Colombia. “The weapons that were found in Colombia belonged to the Venezuelan people. All of this was in an agreement signed by president Guaidó, Mr. JJ Rendón, Mr. Vergara. We are working on a plan to free Venezuela. We agreed in a meeting with US advisors, to eliminate, in a surgical way, the criminal objectives that generate disaster in our country.”

Vice-president of Communications in Venezuela Jorge Rodriguéz stated that he does not believe the affirmation by Iván Duque that he supposedly knew nothing about the plans. According to Rodriguéz, Venezuela had already denounced, on more than one occasion, the presence of paramilitary training camps with Venezuelan citizens in Colombian territory.

“We have information, from people infiltrated in Colombian intelligence, that this type of situation occurs frequently,” affirmed the Venezuelan minister.

BETRAYED

Alcalá said that he decided to share the assassination plans after receiving the news that he had been included in the list of indictments of the US Department of Justice and for having received information that he could be the target of a new “false positive” case. “We had everything prepared, but there were infiltrators within the heart of the opposition. The opposition that wants to continue cohabitating with the government of Nicolás Maduro.”

“Why did it fail? Because we made these plans fail. This was a victory of the stability and peace of Venezuela,” assured Maduro during the press conference.

The Venezuelan government affirms that three weeks ago it had already identified three paramilitary training camps in the city of Riohacha and that, 48 hours ago, the Colombian President Iván Duque had authorized an arrest warrant for the former Venezuelan soldier for illegal weapon possession.

Still according to the military intelligence services of Venezuela, part of the group led by Alcalá also participated in the attempted magnicide against President Nicolás Maduro, in August 2018.

He was a major general of the Venezuelan army during the government of former president Hugo Chávez. He was part of the first military uprising led by Chávez in February 1992. In 2002, after the coup d’état against Commander Chávez, he led the reformation of the Metropolitan Police of Caracas, who played a fundamental role in the kidnapping of the former president.

He left the National Bolivarian Armed Forces in 2013 and Chavismo, after the death of the ex-president. He immediately joined the opposition movement against the government of Nicolás Maduro. In 2016, he collaborated with the movement that demanded a referendum to annul the presidential mandate of Maduro.

He has lived in Barranquilla for the last two years and was accused more than once of narco-trafficking.

JUDICIAL PROCESS

In response to the revelations, the Attorney General of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab announced that the Public Ministry of Venezuela will open an investigation of Juan Guaidó, Clíver Alcalá and other Venezuelan citizens involved in the coup plan.

The chief of the Venezuelan state, Nicolás Maduro guaranteed that all of the people involved will be arrested. “The FANB is ready for combat. For anything that is needed. We are for peace, but we are warriors. You have to be extremely miserable to put a coup plan in practice in the current situation. We are prepared. If one day the imperialists or the Colombian oligarchy decide to touch a strand of our hair, they will have to deal with the Bolivarian fury.”

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch,
Original published date:
27 Mar 2020

INDIA
Thousands Throng Delhi Shelters for Food as Hunger Overrides Fear of Disease
On Friday, about 5,000 migrants gathered in Yamuna Pushta shelter, most without masks, leaving them vulnerable to the deadly COVID-19.

PTI 28 Mar 2020


New Delhi: Every day, Rampal leaves his rickshaw at the edge of the road near Delhi’s NigambodhGhat and joins a queue of hundreds, sometimes thousands, at a Delhi government-run shelter for food – gnawing hunger subsuming the coronavirus threat and the need for physical distancing.

"Hunger will kill us before any disease does,” said the rickshaw puller from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, trapped like many thousands in a city that is not their home and unable to either return or earn money in a 21-day lockdown that has brought life to a grinding halt.

Battling hunger and joblessness, he knows about coronavirus and its perils but it’s an awareness that barely registers in his consciousness as he waits, one among the large crowd of daily wagers, homeless people and beggars outside the Yamuna Pushta shelter.

On Friday, said officials, about 5,000 people gathered outside the shelter, the imperative of food overriding the necessity to maintain at least one metre social distancing and the risk of infection.

Most are without masks, leaving them vulnerable to the disease that has affected more than 590,000 people worldwide and claimed over 27,000 lives. India has reported more than 820 cases and 19 deaths.

"What option do I have? Where else can I go? I haven't earned rupee in two days,” Rampal, who had been waiting for about an hour, told PTI.

The situation is the same in other shelters.

The Delhi government has asked the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) to provide free food to homeless and migrant workers who have been hit hard by the lockdown.

The DUSIB runs 234 night shelters in the national capital.

According to DUSIB member A K Gupta, they can provide food to 18,000 people per day but end up serving double that sometimes.

The government spends Rs 20 per person on food, which includes four chapatis or puri, rice and lentils.

“Due to the lockdown, a huge number of people are thronging the night shelters in search for food… Yes, there is some strain but there is no shortage of raw material,” he told PTI.

“Our staff is taking all precautions -- they wear face masks and wash hands regularly -- and following social distancing measures. But it is not feasible to ask people converging at the night shelters to maintain the mandatory one metre distance between them. Their first priority is food,” Gupta said.

Videos of serpentine queues of people, mostly men, sitting close on the floor as they are served their meal have been doing the rounds of social media. Rights activists say a large number of people have no idea where to go.

After food rights campaigners and workers’ unions complained that the number of night shelters was not enough, the Delhi government on Friday said it will provide free lunch and dinner at 325 government-run schools across the national capital.

"Delhi has a huge migrant population and a very large number of daily wagers. People working in the unorganised sector often don't have large savings. They fall into destitution very quickly. Unless there is decentralisation of cooked food, a very large number of people will start reaching these centres," food rights campaigner Anjali Bhardwaj told PTI.

"In this time of curfew, there's no public transport and people cannot walk for long to reach the night shelters. So, a nearby anganwadi or school would mean that these people have easy access to food and the place is not overcrowded, thus helping them keep a distance between them," she added.

The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, NGOs and civil society members have been lending a helping hand and providing food and water to hundreds of such homeless people and migrant workers who have no idea where to go.

Geetanjali Chopra, founder and chairperson of the NGO Wishes and Blessings that has been providing food to those stranded and stuck, said her organisation collects foodgrain directly from people from their homes and passes it on to the needy.

But many continue to be hungry.

In one video shot by a journalist, a rickshaw-puller called Munnacan been seen eating stale rice from a polythene bag.

“On a normal day, I would earn around Rs 300. Today, I got only one passenger who gave me Rs 30 and some rice to eat,” he said, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead.

Kashi, a beggar, who sits under a foot-over bridge in Jangpura, told PTI he is dependent on benevolent passersby whose numbers have reduced due to the lockdown.

Left with nothing to eat, he forages for food in a garbage bin behind a toilet.

Unaware that food is being provided at night shelters and Delhi government schools, Jagat Pal, a rickshaw puller, said he has been borrowing money from his friends every day.

Many others like him, dependent on their daily earnings, are also unaware that food is being given free, he said.

ChittuYadav, 55, took the risk of taking out his rickshaw despite the threat of police action to earn a few bucks. “My kids are hungry and I have no money left,” he said.

Yadav said he did know that the government is providing free food at shelter homes and state-run schools.

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INDIA
If Food is Not Available to Migrant Workers, Food Riots Can’t be Ruled Out: Pronab Sen
If the coronavirus pandemic spreads in rural areas, containment will be impossible, the former chief statistician said.

PTI 28 Mar 2020

Image use for represantional only. Image courtesy: Deccan Herald

New Delhi: Former chief statistician Pronab Sen has warned that if food requirements of migrant workers with no income are not fulfilled amid countrywide lockdown, then 'food riot' may be a real possibility.

In an interview to The Wire, Sen said that if the coronavirus pandemic spreads in rural areas, containment will be impossible.

In wake of the countrywide lockdown to combat the coronavirus threat, thousands of migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and other states have started returning back to their home states from cities, including Delhi and Mumbai.

"The problem is that if food is not made available (to migrant workers) and this, we have experienced in this country earlier, we had food riots during the times of famine.

"...we could have food riots again if food is not made available. Let's be clear about this," the economist said, while replying to a question on impact of the lockdown on India's vulnerable section.

"If supply system doesn't come unstuck, if the requirements of people who have no income are not met then food riots are very real possibility," Sensaid.

On Friday, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that from Saturday the government would be serving lunch and dinner to nearly four lakh people at over 224 night shelters, 325 schools and other locations.

He pointed out that the whole objective of the lockdown was to arrest spread of the coronavirus.

"Now, If we are in a situation when a very large number of population are forced to come together at a very short period of time in order to access food, whether it is cooked meal in rain basera(night shelter) or what they have done in Punjab and Uttarakhand, which is shops will open only three hours in the morning which is a classic curfew model...you will probably get a higher spread of infection because of this....," Sen observed.

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How Long Can India’s Health System Fight Covid-19?
By mid-May, all government hospitals will be occupied by infected patients, shows an estimate. India will fall short of infrastructure at the current rate of infections.

Pritam Datta, Chetana Chaudhuri 28 Mar 2020

Representational image. | Image Courtesy: YouTube

More than 5.49 lakh people around the world have been infected by the Novel Coronavirus, which has caused the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has already claimed some 25,000 lives, and China and Italy have witnessed the worst of it. These two countries together account for 36% of infections and 53% of all worldwide deaths. India is in the early stages of this pandemic. By Friday, 27 March it had reported more than 770 Covid-19 cases and at least 20 deaths, and the graph of new infections, serious cases and fatalities is, as expected, constantly shifting.

The case density in India of Covid-19 remains low, at 0.6 cases per million population. But cases are increasing at a faster rate (see Figure 1) now. The Indian government has taken several steps including quarantines, shutting the international borders, imposing social distancing and, finally, locking down the entire economy. Yet, at this crossroads for the whole human civilisation, the obvious question arises to what extent are Indians, who comprise 18% of world population, equipped to fight this pandemic. In other words, how long can Indians survive against this pandemic?

What we can learn from Italy and China’s health system is very relevant in this context.

Table 1: Outbreak of Novel Coronavirus in India

Source: Data sourced from https://covidout.in upto 22 March and thereafter, upto 25 March, from worldometers.info



Italy and China are the two economies worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. They both have far more developed and well-equipped healthcare systems than India. As compared to India, Italy and China have a five-fold higher availability of hospital beds per lakh population. They also have, respectively, two and five times higher availability of physicians per lakh population as compared to India.

According to a press release issued by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare 15.7 lakh beds are available in India’s public hospitals [July 2018] or 7 beds per million population. A study by the Indian Brand Equity Foundation [Page 10] estimates that the private sector accounts for 74% of hospitals and 40% of hospital beds in India. From this, one can conclude that India has 10.5 lakh beds available in private hospitals.

India may face a shortage of infrastructure to continue its battle against this global pandemic if the current rate of growth of Covid-19 positive cases continues for long.

Our estimate shows that by mid-May 2020, all government hospitals will be occupied by infected patients. All hospital beds, including private ones, are likely to be flooded by infected patients by the third week of May (see Table 2).

Table 2: Breakeven point for Indian Health Infrastructure (Hospital Bed) for Covid-19 treatment.

Source: Author’s own estimation, assuming 92% hospitalisation rate for Covid-19. [India’s Covid-19 recovery rate is roughly 7% and 1.9% is the death rate. Hence, a 92% hospitalisation rate has been assumed.



As of 24 March 2020, the global gross mortality rate for Covid-19 is 4.5%. The gross mortality rate for the two worst-hit countries i.e. China and Italy, is 4% and 9.9% respectively. The mortality rate among Indian patients who were tested positive for Covid-19, is 1.9%, much less than the global Covid-19 mortality rate. [Gross mortality rate estimates are based on the number of deaths relative to the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 infections.]

However, whereas the global average recovery rate from Covid-19 is 26% (in China and Italy, it is 90% and 12%), the average recovery rate of Indian Covid-19 patients is only 7% (See Table 1). This immediately implies an increase in the cumulative patient load. Hence, the only hope for India is its low case-density.

Table 3: Total Cases, Gross Morbidity, Recovery rate and case density of COVID-19

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries (as on 25/03/2020)


There are 0.6 Covid-19 cases per million population in India, but the country also has low availability of hospital beds (7 per million population). It is clear that India, though it has slowed down the speed of fresh transmissions of the Novel Coronavirus, has no time to relax given the crisis situation countries such as Italy and China have faced.

One should not forget that though the death rate is lower in India as compared to Italy and China, the recovery rate is also lower in India.

This is primarily caused by the lack of infrastructure and manpower, which is represented by the number of hospital beds and health professionals in this study. Comparative analysis shows that the number of physicians, nurses and midwives and hospitals per lakh population are also very low in India as compared to Italy and China, and even compared to the world as a whole.

We should also not forget that the population in India is more than 22 times that of Italy. A majority of the labour force in India works in the informal sector. [The share of informal sector among male workers in 2017-18 was 71.1% and among female workers was nearly 54.8% in non-agriculture and AGEGC sectors (Periodic Labour Force Survey, Annual Report, 2017-18).]

Many of these workers have returned to their homes in rural areas from urban areas due to the lockdown of the economy. If infected, they would expose their family members and neighbours to the disease. In the absence of sufficient numbers of test-kits, this would pose a serious threat to the detection, isolation and treatment of people and further increase the chances of new infections.

In such a situation, locking down the country would marginally reduce the growth in the number of infected persons, but it would not provide a long-term solution to the pandemic. There is an urgent need to increase the number of hospitals, isolation wards and to provide for safety measures to health professionals as the infection spreads.

In spite of the reduction in speed of transmission, the number of infected persons is likely to exhaust India’s public health facilities, unless it is strengthened sufficiently, and quickly.

Pritam Datta is a fellow at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi and Chetana Chaudhuri is a senior research associate at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Gurugram. The views are personal.

‘Humiliated and Beaten’: Kashmir Healthcare Workers Bear Brunt of COVID-19 Lockdown
Healthcare workers, who are at the forefront of the ongoing healthcare crisis in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, are becoming prime targets for security personnel on the ground using force to implement the lockdown.

#KASHMIR IS #INDIA'S #GAZA   #FREEKASHMIR

Anees Zargar 28 Mar 2020

File Photo.


Srinagar: People in Kashmir are alleging increased incidents of police brutalities as the region is placed under a lockdown to control the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the region.
Healthcare workers, who are at the forefront of the ongoing healthcare crisis in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, are becoming prime targets for security personnel on the ground using force to implement the lockdown.

Abid Rehman, a healthcare worker at a Srinagar hospital, was returning from duty on Friday when police posted at Dalgate locality stopped him. "After showing my ID card and explaining that I work in the hospital, I was told by one of the policemen to remove the barricades to pass through, which I did. But another policeman stopped me again and despite his colleague's intervention, he beat me up ruthlessly," Abid said.

The 25-year-old worker who couldn't resume his work on Saturday due to the thrashing he received says he almost fainted and suffered nausea. "He hit my head so hard that i almost lost consciousness and then he hit me with a rifle butt... I can't even stand properly now," Abid added.

The police and the security forces in the region have laid concertina wires and barricaded most of the key routes in and outside Srinagar city. Those working with the essential services including healthcare workers also complained that their movement has become difficult despite their exemption from the restrictions.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Dr Haseeb Mughal, however, told NewsClick that there is no such case. "Every government employee working in essential services department is being allowed after due identification," SSP Mughal said.

Another healthcare worker from SMHS hospital said that the police are resorting to unnecessary harassment on the ground. "The police are saying now these essential ID cards will not work and that we have to get special passes signed by the District Magistrate for movement," he said. The employee says that the hospital administration arranges passes for them during the crisis situation for movement, which they have not done so far.

"When I asked the hospital administration about the special passes, they said they have no such orders; so, we have not got them. Who would explain that to the police?" the paramedic questioned..

The situation is becoming even more difficult as the authorities are being stricter to enforce the lockdown. "It is a mess, we were asked not to stock supplies. Then, they enforced a crackdown and now, we are not allowed to go out to buy food or medicines and we have to face violence. Our locality provision store is shut and we can't go farther. How will we deal with this situation if this continues for long?" a resident of Sanat Nagar told NewsClick.

Human Rights activist Khurram Parvez says there is a need to have training programmes for law enforcers on how to deal with a healthcare crisis like the one we are witnessing now.

"Mindset of administration, police and forces imposing curfew in Kashmir for protection against coronavirus needs to be demilitarised first. They need orientation courses by healthcare professionals, so that they don't continue to abuse and beat people in these trying times," Khurram said.

Earlier, on Friday, the J&K police acted against a lower-rank police personnel after a video surfaced on social media in which he could be seen using foul and provocative language against the locals in the North Kashmir area. The video was widely circulated on social media networks and invoked severe criticism following which the police have filed an FIR and disengaged the policeman, according to a police spokesperson. On social media, following multiple videos of police personnel’s high-handedness, many censured them for using excessive force against locals during the ongoing crisis.

According to the police official statement, since the lockdown, as many as 329 FIRs have been lodged against the lockdown violators and 600 vehicles and shops have been seized for non-compliance of orders by the authorities. The police have also traced about 1,200 persons with international travel history who managed to miss the screening after entering the region.

One person has died due to the coronavirus in the region and the total number of cases in Jammu and Kashmir reached 18 on Friday with over a dozen cases reported in just four days. 7 new cases have been reported on Saturday. Over 25,000 people have been reported to have died and over 5 lakh people have been affected globally due to coronavirus disease that originated from China's Central Hubei province. Among the countries worst-hit by the disease, Italy has reported maximum fatalities at 8,215, followed by Spain at 4,858 and China’s Hubei at 3,174.

Trump’s Narcoterrorism Indictment of Maduro Already Backfires
Among those indicted by the US was Cliver Alcalá, a retired general who is considered the military leader of the pro-Juan Guaidó forces. Soon, Alcalá posted videos that threaten to cause further splits in the opposition and could result in the arrest of Guaidó.

Leonardo Flores 28 Mar 2020

US attorney general William Barr announces the indictment of Nicolas Maduro.
CRIMINAL ANTI HUMANITARIAN ROGUE STATE USA NOT VENEZUELA

For 20 years, right wing extremists in Miami and Washington have been slandering the Venezuelan government, accusing it of drug trafficking and harboring terrorists without ever offering even a shred of evidence. They finally got their wish on Thursday, when the US Department of Justice unveiled indictments against president Nicolás Maduro and 13 other current or former members of Venezuela’s government and military. In addition to the indictments, attorney general William Barr offered a $15 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Maduro, as well as $10 million rewards for Diosdado Cabello (president of Venezuela’s National Constituent Assembly), Tarek El Aissami (vice-president for the economy), Hugo Carvajal (former director of military intelligence) and Cliver Alcalá (retired general).

The indictment has backfired already. Hours after the announcement, Alcalá posted videos online that threaten to cause further splits in the opposition and could result in the arrest of Juan Guaidó. Before going into those details, however, it’s important to understand just how politically biased the charges are against Maduro et al.



The myth that Venezuela is a narco-state has already been debunked by the Washington Office in Latin America, a think tank in Washington that supports regime change, as well as by FAIR, 15 y Último, Misión Verdad, Venezuelanalysis and others. It cannot be denied that Venezuela is a transit country for cocaine, but as the maps above and below show, less than 7% of total drug movement from South America transits from Venezuela (the Eastern Caribbean region includes Colombia’s Guajira Peninsula). These maps, produced by the Drug Enforcement Agency and U.S. Southern Command, respectively, immediately raise questions as to why Venezuela is the country being targeted.

Maritime drug flows from South America in 2017. Photo: Adam Isaacson



Of course, the charges have nothing to do with the drug trade; they are the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure March.” The pretext is an alleged plot by the Venezuelan government to flood the United States with “somewhere between 200-250 metric tons of cocaine.” Although that figure might seem high, it’s important to understand the context. The United States is the world’s biggest consumer of cocaine and Colombia is the world’s biggest producer. On the other hand, Venezuela does not cultivate coca, does not produce cocaine and, according to the US government’s own figures, less than 10% of global cocaine traffic transits through the country.

For the sake of comparison, the US agencies that provided Barr with the figure of “200-250 tons” also say that an average of nearly 2,400 tons of cocaine flowed through Colombia between 2016 and 2019 (Venezuela averaged 216 tons – 10 times less – in the same period). Colombia’s current president, Iván Duque, is a close ally of the country’s former president, Alvaro Uribe, who himself has been linked to drug trafficking. Almost exactly a year ago, president Trump complained that “more drugs are coming out of Colombia right now than before” Duque was president, yet the US continues giving millions in security aid to Colombia as part of its failed war on drugs.

The US double standard about narco-states is not limited to Colombia. Honduras’s US-backed president, Juan Orlando Hernández, was linked to drug trafficking in a US court, yet this news did not warrant a major announcement by the DOJ, presumably because Hernández is an ally. Another US ally, Guatemala, had six times as much cocaine flow through its territory as Venezuela.

The indictments are another brick in the foundation for a pretext for either a direct US military invasion or a proxy war using Colombian forces. There are obvious comparisons to 1989, when the U.S. put a $1 million bounty on Panamanian president Manuel Noriega, only to subsequently invade the country, causing an estimated 4,000 deaths. The rewards the US is offering for Maduro and four others are also troubling, as they have already been compared to a bounty. Maduro has already survived at least one assassination attempt (in August 2018 when drones laden with explosives detonated prematurely), and the rewards could be interpreted as, at minimum, a “get out of jail free” card should someone succeed in murdering him. On the other hand, the rewards verify what the Venezuelan government has been saying all along: the US is offering millions of dollars for people to turn on the country’s leadership.

Yet the Trump administration appears to have made a serious miscalculation by including the retired general Alcalá in the indictments. A former ally of ex-president Hugo Chávez, Alcalá joined the opposition in 2015 and has been linked to various coup plots and planned terror attacks since 2016. He is the highest profile former officer to turn against Maduro and is considered the “leader of pro-Guaidó military personnel.” Alcalá is now wanted both by the United States and by Venezuela.

Alcalá is implicated in a recent plot to attack the Maduro government. On March 24, Colombian authorities seized a truck full of weapons and military equipment, including 26 assault rifles, worth $500,000. Venezuelan intelligence services linked the weapons to three camps in Colombia where paramilitary groups of Venezuelan deserters and U.S. mercenaries are training to carry out attacks against Venezuela. According to Venezuela’s communication minister Jorge Rodríguez, these groups were planning to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to attack military units and plant bombs. He also linked the groups to Alcalá.

These allegations proved to be correct, as Alcalá, in a video he posted online hours after the indictments, admitted that the weapons were under his command. He further admitted that the weapons were purchased with funds given to him by Juan Guaidó, with whom he allegedly signed a contract. Additionally, Alcala claimed that the operation was planned by US advisors, with whom he supposedly met at least seven times. Aclalá also alleged that Leopoldo López, the founder of Guaidó’s party Voluntad Popular, who was sprung from house arrest during Guaidó’s April 30 attempted insurrection, had full knowledge of the terror plot.

As a result of these videos, Venezuela’s attorney general has opened an investigation into Juan Guaidó for an attempted coup. Despite Guaidó’s self-proclamation as president in January 2019, his attempted insurrection in April 2019, his repeated calls for sanctions and a military invasion, Venezuelan authorities had refrained from moving against him. The US indictments appear to have caused the Venezuelan government to issue its strongest response to the Trump administration’s and Guaidó’s continued provocations.

Of course, if the Trump administration were truly serious about combating terror, corruption and drug trafficking, the first Venezuelan they should look at ought to be Juan Guaidó. After all, he was photographed with members of the infamous Los Rastrojos drug cartel, who allegedly helped him cross into Colombia in exchange for his turning a blind eye to the cartel’s expansion from Colombia into western Venezuela. Guaidó’s team in Colombia embezzled humanitarian aid funds and now he has been directly implicated in a terror plot, one which presumably used money given to him by the United States (as that is his only source of financing).

The revelations about Guaidó’s spending of US funds to buy weapons and his alleged involvement in yet another violent plot are putting pressure on opposition figures and parties that have hinted at wanting to participate in this year’s legislative elections but have yet to fully commit to dialogue. A day before the US indictments were revealed, president Maduro invited several of these leaders to join a dialogue in the Apostolic Nuncio (the Vatican’s embassy in Caracas) in order to try to reach consensus over the nation’s response to COVID-19. Now they are faced with the difficult choice of either angering Venezuelan voters (83% of whom reject a military option) by continuing to support Guaidó’s violence or angering the United States by working with indicted government officials.

The Trump administration has been sabotaging a negotiated solution to Venezuela’s problems for two years, including in February 2018, when it threatened an oil embargo and support for a coup during negotiations between the government and the opposition in the Dominican Republic, and again in August 2019, when it imposed a full embargo during another attempt at dialogue. These new indictments, which even the New York Times described as “highly unusual”, seemed timed to sabotage negotiations once again, as earlier in the week members of the moderate opposition, including National Assembly president Luis Parra, had recently urged the US to lift the sanctions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Yet another blunder with the indictments is that the Trump administration is sending contradictory messages. On the one hand, they have spent three years urging high-level Venezuelan government and military officials to defect, promising space to operate politically after a transition government comes into power. On the other, they indicted the most high-profile member of the military who has defected, Cliver Alcalá, on serious charges of narcoterrorism.

The brazenness of the indictments in attempting to cast Venezuela as a narco-state, the lack of foresight regarding possible repercussions, the attempted sabotage of dialogue and the mixed messaging are all signals that the Trump administration is desperate to ensure its regime change policy shows results. The victims of this policy are the Venezuelan people, who would be much better off with a policy of de-escalation, dialogue and a removal of the deadly sanctions.

Leonardo Flores is Latin American policy expert and campaigner with CODEPINK.
Courtesy: Peoples dispatch

Labourers on Foot for Hundreds of Kilometers Shows Lack of Government Planning
Four workers died in a road accident in Maharashtra when they were walking back from Gujarat to their native villages, almost 250 kms away. There are thousands of such cases.
Amey Tirodkar 28 Mar 2020

Tribal daily wagers from Raigad who were stuck in Anantpur, Karnataka.

On Saturday, March 28, news broke that four labourers got killed while they were walking on the road connecting Mumbai and Ahmadabad. They were daily-wagers walking from Valsad in Gujarat to Vasai in Maharashtra. With India under lockdown from March 25 due to fears around the coronavirus, these daily wagers had no work, and there was no transportation taking them home. So, they walked for close to 250 kilometers, and when they were just about 60 kilometers away from their homes, a tempo rammed into them. Four of the seven labourers lost their lives on the spot and three were critically injured.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the sudden announcement for a complete lockdown, labourers from across the nation had no option but to walk to their native villages. Visuals of thousands and thousands of labourers walking down from Delhi to Uttar Pradesh with no food and almost zero money to buy anything, have evoked sympathy. The lockdown is being criticised for a lack of preparedness. Though there could be claims, counter-claims and reasons behind why the governments imposed it, those that are suffering are the common man and woman of India, who have almost zero money in their hands.

Since March 24, a number of incidents from Maharashtra have come to light, which show lakhs of labourers leaving cities and returning home, all while trying every possible way to do so. In Yavatmal, a border district of the Vidarbha region, there was a case of some labourers returning from Telangana to reach their native villages in Madhya Pradesh in closed containers. The police were shocked when they found them sitting in the containers.

Social activist Ulka Mahajan told NewsClick that close to 500 tribal families from Raigad district in the Konkan region got stuck in Karnataka's Anantpur. They were working on a coal cleaning project. “They are daily wagers who are without work since the mines stopped working from March 24. Their contractor fled and now they do not have money to return home. So, we are arranging for help from our friends in Karnataka," she said.



On Friday evening, about two thousand labourers who worked at Jalana's steel factory started walking to their homes in Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara. They were given money by their contractors. Sangram Deshmukh, a local journalist from Jalana, was informed that the labourers tried to arrange for a bus or a tempo but no driver was ready to leave, fearing police action. “Finally, they decided to walk down to their homes. The distance is around 475 kilometers,” Sangram said.

There are also cases of workers covering great distances on foot in their own state. Kacharu Patil stays in Dombivali and works in Manchar. He left his workplace on the morning of March 25. “Why wait? I heard on Tuesday evening that no vehicle will be on the road from the next day. So I started walking down. It took me two days to reach Murbad from where I got vehicle for Dombivali," Kacharu said. In comparison, Kacharu got off easy, but still walked for 120 kilometers and was given a ride for the last 40.

It is not as easy for others, who are walking through walls of government apathy.

INDIA

'We Must Make Sure Hunger Does Not Emerge as a Bigger Killer'

The Indian government released a 1.75 lakh crore relief package to deal with the COVID-19 crisis.

The most widely quoted currency amount in India these days seems to be 1.76 Lakh Crore Indian Rupees (0r 40 Billion US Dollars). 

INR 1.76 Lakh Crore ($40 Billion) – Vadakkus!

https://vadakkus.com › 2010/12/30

Peoples Dispatch

27 Mar 2020

The Indian government released a 1.75 lakh crore relief package to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. However, the provisions for farmers and agricultural workers have been criticized by leftist organizations and activists, who say it is deeply inadequate. We talk to Vijoo Krishnan of the All India Kisan Sabha on the issues being faced by farmers during this crisis and the steps the government needs to take.