GOOD NEWS
Coronavirus: South Korea has more recovered patients than sick

By Sommer Brokaw

A worker cleans inside the Myeongdond subway station in Seoul, South Korea, to protect against the coronavirus pandemic. File Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI | License Photo

March 28 (UPI) -- South Korean health officials said Saturday that for the first time since the country's first confirmed coronavirus case, there have been more recoveries than active cases.

According to the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 4,881 cases are recovered and 4,597 are active.

"We believe this to be the result of selfless efforts made by the public, who worked to maintain disinfectant process while actively participating in social distancing," said KCDC Deputy Director Kwon Joon Wook during a regular briefing.

The Johns Hopkins University global trackerindicates that South Korea has the 10th highest number of cases in the world with 9,478 cases and 144 deaths. Worldwide, there have been at least 615,000 cases and 28,700 deaths.

Wook stressed that Koreans "must not let complacency take place" as some infections are still causing deaths.

He added that people should not break from strict social distancing measures until at least April 5, or else face fines or even a yearlong imprisonment.

Worldwide, the United States has topped the list of the number of cases with 104,860 cases and 1,711 deaths, according to the global tracker Saturday morning.

RELATED Pope gives special prayer for COVID-19 victims, healthcare workers

Italy has the second highest number of cases in the world -- 86,498 -- and has been hardest hit in regard to number of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic. The country has reported 9,134 deaths and recorded its worst 24 hours Friday with 919 deaths from the respiratory illness between Thursday and Friday alone.
China now has the third-highest number of cases, 81,996, and 3,299 deaths.

Spain is the second-hardest hit country in Europe with 72,248 cases and 5,690 deaths. It also reported Friday a record one-day figure for fatalities after 769 people died in 24 hours.

Germany has the fifth most cases in the world, according to the global tracker. Still, with 399 deaths in Germany, the death rate has been substantially lower than Italy, Spain and Britain.

Britain has 14,754 cases and 761 deaths.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the first head of government Friday to announce he tested positive for COVID-19. So far, he's experienced mild symptoms.

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India, which has 1.3 billion people, the second-highest population in the world next to China, has the world's largest coronavirus lockdown and thousands of migrant workers are trying to leave major cities after the lockdown left them without jobs or pay.

More than 9 million migrant workers a year move from India's rural areas to cities to find work at construction sites or factories and send money back to their families, according to government statistics. Now, many of them are left with no choice but to return home since those businesses are closed due to the lockdown.

India has 933 confirmed cases and 20 deaths, but the country has been criticized for not testing enough. Its testing rate is 6.8 tests per million, one of the lowest rates in the world. The country initially insisted on testing only those who traveled to high-risk countries or had come in contact with an infected person or health workers treating coronavirus patients, but later said anyone admitted to the hospital with severe respiratory distress should also be tested.

Only state labs in India were allowed to test for coronavirus initially and now permission has been extended to several private labs. In the past few days, the country has increased testing as the first made-in-India coronavirus testing kits reached the market.

The government-run Indian Council for Medical Research said Mylab was the only Indian company to achieve 100 percent accurate results.

Virologist Minal Dakhave Bhosale, Mylab research and development chief, submitted the testing kit to the National Institute of Virology to evaluate on March 18.

"Our kit gives the diagnosis in two and a half hours while the imported testing kits take six or seven hours," she said.

Pandemic empties streets, public spaces around the world 

PHOTOS HERE 

A Palestinian wears a protective mask outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, closed because of the coronavirus restrictions, in Jerusalem's Old City on March 28. The Israeli government has imposed tight restrictions of movement, leaving only essential stores open in an effort to stop the spread of the virus. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

US Should Lift Economic Sanctions to Avoid More Deaths From Pandemic

By: Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)


Authorities in Iran along with critics say the sanctions are hindering the government’s effort to face the crisis. | Photo: EFE
Published 18 March 2020

These restrictions will also make it harder for health authorities to control the spread of the disease within their countries

The U.S. government should immediately lift economic sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and other countries to avoid unnecessary deaths and more extensive propagation of the pandemic, said economist Jeffrey Sachs, professor, and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

While sanctions already cause tens of thousands of needless deaths, the lethal toll during the novel coronavirus pandemic will be made far worse in countries where imports of medications, medical equipment, and the maintenance of water, sanitation, and health care infrastructure are restricted due to the impact of U.S. sanctions. These restrictions will also make it harder for health authorities to control the spread of the disease within their countries.

“The Trump administration is using sanctions against Iran and Venezuela to pressure those governments by inducing widespread suffering,” Sachs said. “This policy is unconscionable and flagrantly against international law. Yet worse, it is now feeding the coronavirus epidemic. It is imperative that the U.S. lift these immoral and illegal sanctions to enable Iran and Venezuela to confront the epidemic as effectively and rapidly as possible.”

The crippling economic sanctions in place against Venezuela and Iran, and a number of the sanctions targeting North Korea, were unilaterally imposed by President Trump, thanks to the broad sanctions powers accorded to the U.S. president under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D–MN) recently introduced legislation that would reform these two laws in order to reestablish congressional control and oversight over executive branch sanctions powers.

“There is no doubt that Iran’s capacity to respond to the novel coronavirus has been hampered by the Trump administration’s economic sanctions, and the death toll is likely much higher than it would have been as a result,” Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said.

RELATED:
Calls Grow to Lift US Sanctions on Iran as Death Toll Rises

“There can also be no question that the sanctions have affected Iran’s ability to contain the outbreak, leading in turn to more infections, and possibly to the virus’ spread beyond Iran’s borders.”

Economist Francisco Rodriguez, a leading expert on the Venezuelan economy, said: “Regardless of whether one agreed or disagreed with the initial rationale for economic sanctions, it is clear that they severely harm the capacity of affected countries to respond to the global pandemic. This has dramatic consequences on the lives of their citizens and exacerbates a major global health risk.”

Even before the coronavirus began to spread, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that Venezuela was experiencing serious outbreaks of infectious diseases and noted that there had been “a breakdown of the medical infrastructure in Venezuela” and that “shortages of food, water, electricity, medicine, and medical supplies” had “contributed to an increasing humanitarian crisis.”

“Americans are the most generous people in the world in per capita giving to charity. In the midst of a global pandemic, I believe most Americans want to put politics aside and do everything possible to ensure that everyone, wherever we happen to live on this planet, has the best possible chance to obtain food, clean water, good hygiene, and medical care,” Linda Bilmes, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University, said.

“Removing sanctions is the right thing to do on humanitarian grounds and it is also in our own best interests.”

“In a time of crisis, with tens of millions of people in the affected countries at risk of contracting the disease and possibly dying from it, the only reasonable humanitarian response is to suspend the sanctions until the threat passes,” CEPR Senior Economist Dean Baker said.

“If the U.S. government is going to assist other countries, let alone provide some kind of leadership role during this global crisis, the first thing it should do is ‘cause no harm,’” Weisbrot added. “Economic sanctions, as the U.S. is applying against Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and other countries, cause immense harm.”

The article was first published on March 18 in the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

The COVID-19 Economy: A Glance Into What Is Missing and Needed
"The coronavirus is changing our way of perceiving the world" is the phrase that many people could repeat, although the corporate media refuses to accept.


Despite the high human costs prompted by the new pandemic, the ways of reporting reality remain virtually the same.

And this is clearly seen in the discourse on the economy where thousands of voices scream desperate when Wall Street speculators lose money but few say something about street vendors who cannot quarantine at home because they have no home at all.

The “worship of data” hides the disaster

One of the things that the Covid-19 pandemic has not changed is "the obsession with numbers." In the economists' world, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the most important macroeconomic indicator. With it, they believe the future can be foreseen, especially when it comes to imagining business earnings.

Just a few weeks ago, when China was the outbreak's epicenter, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that the pandemic would generate only a slight decrease in world production. There was not much to fear.

Oil prices had not yet fallen below US$25 a barrel, nor had stocks in New York sank. Now, however, the picture is different, for everything has become a little bit messier.

We model two scenarios on the #coronavirus outbreak morphing into #pandemic. An #Asia pandemic wld cut world GDP $0.4tn (0.5%) in 2020 vs our baseline forecast. A global pandemic wld cut it y $1.1tn (1.3%), with the US and eurozone pushed into recession: https://t.co/hzOc31gbKV pic.twitter.com/RezojhXkTl— Oxford Economics (@OxfordEconomics) February 28, 2020

On Monday, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) announced that the Covid-19 pandemic will likely cost the world economy US$1 trillion in 2020.

“Even if the worst is avoided, the hit to global income, compared with what forecasters had been projecting for 2020, will be capped at around the trillion-dollar mark,” the Unctad said and added that the global GDP growth rate could be less than 2 percent.

This downside, however, only exacerbates something that was already happening: since 2010, when the aggregate growth rate reached a little higher than 4 percent, the world GDP has been decreasing.

In Oct. 2019, in its World Economic Outlook, the IMF optimistically expected the 2020 global GDP to break that downward trend and hit 2.8 percent. But this will no longer happen.

“We envisage a slowdown in the global economy to under two percent for this year,” the Unctad’s Globalization and Development Strategies director Richard Kozul-Wright said, as reported by the World Economic Forum (WEF).



#CrudeOil #Prices #WTI #BRENT #USChinaTradeWar#shaleoil #OPEC #Worldstockmarketcrash #Oilprices #iransanctions #slowingeconomicgrowth #oilsupplycuts #Libyanwar #China #Covid19 #OPECCuts #USIranwar #worldeconomycrash #worldcoronaviruspandemia #SaudiRussiaoilwar pic.twitter.com/UntG3c8cf8— Polyestertime (@Polyestertime) March 18, 2020

With or without the Covid-19, a severe economic slowdown was the most likely scenario for most economies, especially for those developing countries that increased their dependence on commodity exports over the past two decades. But that is only one issue in the story.

Thanks to the IMF-promoted policies, these countries lost their institutional capacities to respond to earthquakes, hurricanes or any other natural catastrophe.

A typical example of this programmed destruction of social resilience is Argentina, a country where former President Mauricio Macri implemented an agenda of market-based reforms that dismantled the national industry, increased external debt, and destroyed public health.

In Latin America and Africa, the problem goes beyond GDP growth rates. The tragedy is the interference that multilateral institutions have in what governments do or fail to do.

As long as this policy dependence does not change, the containment of the Covid-19 pandemic will not make much difference.

In the Global South, the real disaster is governments that prefer to ingratiate themselves with the U.S. rather than protect their population. When this happens, common sense disappears.

Concerning the Covid-19 pandemic, the European Union countries are designing policies aimed at fostering higher output levels. Even in governments led by conservative politicians such as Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron, active state intervention is currently being appreciated as a necessary option to overcome the pandemic’s short-term effects.

For this reason, "countercyclical" fiscal policies are being proposed to stimulate consumption or alleviate debt burdens. It doesn't matter that these policies last as long as the collective scare. At least, those policies are there now.

In countries indoctrinated by the IMF, however, the Covid-19 economy is being tackled in the opposite direction.

Chanting Milton Friedman's mantra that "there is no such thing as a free lunch," the developing countries’ elites are prone to raise taxes and reduce spending, although their economies are either already in recession or will go into recession.

One example of this approach is Ecuador, a country where, in order to get an IMF loan, President Lenin Moreno administration seems to be willing to "fight" the Covid-19 crisis by allowing local bankers to continue their business as usual.

In this South American country, which uses the U.S. dollar as currency, politicians do not analyze the reasons why the FED lowered interest rates to zero. It seems they haven't heard about it yet. They are too concerned with envisioning mechanisms to collect more taxes and to reduce the fiscal budget as "there is no such thing as a free lunch".

Well, not for everyone in any case because... local bankers will continue to charge interest rates above 12 percent a year for dollar-denominated loans. It could be said that Ecuador is an exceptional case. Unfortunately, it is not.

In Latin America, the absurd prevails even when the Covid-19 expands. And this is also reminded by Bolivia's coup-born government, which prefers to buy ammunition so that its security forces are prepared for the likely victory of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) in the presidential elections to be held in May.

And not to mention Chile, the world’s cradle of the shock doctrine. After six months of continuous social unrest, which has left more than 289 people without eyes, President Sebastian Piñera's most ambitious economic policy for tackling the coronavirus crisis might be to control the prices of some basic goods.

Chile’s health minister, who also claimed the country’s beleaguered health system is among the best in the world, is questioning whether suspending school is a good thing as children will lose ‘food, protection and security’ - ignoring the global trend towards ‘social isolation’ https://t.co/chkOenWtLz— John Bartlett (@jwbartlett92) March 15, 2020

The virus that stripped capitalism… although it was already naked

From before Covid-19 landed at Mar-A-Lago in Florida, the U.S. citizens were intensely discussing the need to build a public health system capable of protecting them. The "Make America Great Again" sounded nice but has not accomplished that task.

Amidst the context of the frustrations that the presidential primaries have been uncovering, it was surprising to hear someone say that the bipartisan system no longer works and that "it is time for the U.S. to have a socialist party." It was hopeful to hear it, for people in the United States could be much more unprotected than in other developed countries.

“When it comes to your health, the market is not your best friend.” And this will be brutally unveiled by the Covid-19 as citizens find out that words, no matter how "huge" they are, are not enough.

Disaster Capitalism and the Real Culprit in the Italian Covid-19 Catastrophe - https://t.co/zhDgZyrPIq via @commondreams— Greg M. Schwartz (@gms111) March 18, 2020

The pandemic is breaking with what seemed normal to all of us. The perverse effects of contemporary capitalism and the weaknesses of "globalization" are becoming visible everywhere.

This happens every time the Covid-19 reminds us that the productive specialization of nations or the long-distance movement of products have not been as good ideas as they seemed.

What neoclassical economists call "consumer sovereignty" is sinking. People do not have some controlling power over goods that are produced. Right now, and throughout this year at least, the core problem will not be that the Oregonians cannot consume Mexican avocados or that the Panamanians cannot import Californian oranges.

The globalization promoted by big companies has been forcing countries to specialize in the production of those goods for which they are supposed to have "competitive advantages". "The more extreme this productive specialization is, the better the economic result should be," the World Bank used to tell us.

Will COVID-19 lead us deeper into Fascism or Socialism?
We will know soon enough.

The Coronavirus Lays Bare Capitalism’s Inhumanity https://t.co/mxK4qQEVeo— Tao Dao Man ��☮☯️ (@TaoDaoMan) March 18, 2020

As a perverse effect of this efficiency vision, which despises local production carried out for local consumers, rare situations have been created, which place everyone at vulnerability. One of them is the spatial concentration of the production of medicines and medical equipment.

Currently, India supplies almost 80 percent of some active ingredients whereby generic medicines are manufactured. And this is supposedly an optimal result, according to neoclassical economists.

In early March, however, to protect the health of its 1,339 million inhabitants, this Asian country set export restrictions on some 26 active ingredients related to the manufacture of such medicines as acetaminophen, acyclovir, metronidazole, clindamycin or erythromycin. This trade restriction even applies to masks, gloves and vitamins B1, B6 and B12.

Good for them! but…. Too bad for the rest of us! As this example shows, the market’s invisible hand did not bring outcomes where everyone wins. Productive specialization only deepened the dependence of millions of people on what a few economic agents do or fail to do.

To hide this potentially tragic situation, neoliberal rulers present the "interdependence" as a good thing, which makes us feel more optimistic about the destruction of national production systems. Nevertheless, on a planet where people's lives do not have the same value, "interdependence" is just a tale.



A British cruise ship with 1,000 people on board, five of whom are known to be infected with Covid-19, has been refused entry into Caribbean ports for weeks.

It was just accepted by Cuba, which said “it is allowing the passengers to transit as an act of humanitarian solidarity.” pic.twitter.com/byNFJY9S7J— Jerome Roos (@JeromeRoos) March 18, 2020

In contemporary capitalism, the distribution of profits or losses is not symmetrical but unequal. Globalization placed some producers and consumers at the mercy of other producers and consumers.

In complex societies, achieving economies of scale through either productive specialization or spatial concentration is not the only possible or desirable thing. And this is what the Covid-19 pandemic is showing us.

When this economic jargon is translated into plain language, the message for public policy is simple: "The State could protect you, the Market will never do it."

If the consequences of the pandemic are understood in the frame of social inequalities, the message is much simpler: Capitalism is not viable.

We all need another way to organize the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Federal Judge Bans Bolsonaro's 'Brazil Cannot Stop' Campaign


Saliva particles come out of President Jair Bolsonaro's mouth while speaking at Palacio do Alvorada, Brasilia, Brazil, March 27, 2020. | Photo: EFE

Published 28 March 2020 

"Some are going to die, they will die. Sorry, it's life. You can't stop a car factory just because you have traffic deaths,” Jair Bolsonaro said.

Federal Judge Laura Bastos Saturday ordered President Jair Bolsonaro's administration to suspend promos of “Brazil Cannot Stop”, a campaign that promotes the return to work, which is contrary to measures imposed by regional governors to contain the Covid-19.

Bolsonaro Suggests Brazilians are Naturally Immune to COVID-19

Bastos complied with an appeal filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office against ads that urge Brazilians to return to “normal life” without having “technical documents” as their basis.

The controversy broke out when the far-right President's son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, shared a video on networks that encouraged entrepreneurs to reopen their businesses and street vendors to resume their activities.

Although the Presidency's Communication Secretary categorically denied that this video was part of the "Brazil Cannot Stop" campaign, the Executive's press office stated that the video was just "experimental" and not approved for dissemination.

"For the avoidance of doubt, there is no Federal Government's campaign with the video that is circulating. Therefore, there was no budget expenditure," the official statement said.



Coronavirus COVID-19 #Covid_19 Tot Deaths/Tot Cases
Last updated: March 28, 2020, 17:24 GMT

Italy 10.8%
Indonesia 8.8%
Spain 8.0%
Iran 7.1%
Netherlands 6.5%
France 6.1%
UK 6.0%
World 4.7%↕️
China 4.0%
Belgium 3.9%
Sweden 3.0%
Brazil 2.7%
Portugal 1.9%
Switzerland 1.8%
USA 1.7% pic.twitter.com/UrUzjMSyUr— Bamboo Horse (@PonkotsuAudi) March 28, 2020

Nevertheless, Judge Bastos ordered the Bolsonaro administration to refrain from disclosing any advertisement suggesting to the population behaviors which are not "governed by guidelines issued by the Health Ministry."​​​​​​​

Rio de Janeiro's Justice also vetoed the celebration of a caravan called by Bolsonaro's followers against the restrictive measures imposed in this Brazilian state, which is the second region hardest hit by the pandemic. Other Brazilian courts also banned similar activities.

This week, the former captain Bolsonaro prompted enormous controversy after he called the imposition of quarantine and suspension of classes "a crime".

"Brazil has to return to normal immediately," he reaffirmed in an interview with local media TV Bandeirantes on Friday.​​​​​​​



Fica tranquila rainha, segundo Bolsonaro é histeria e só uma gripesinha. https://t.co/x0aZLmBTt4— wendll faleiro (@wendllfaleiro) March 27, 2020

Keep calm. Bolsonaro says it is only hysteria and small flu.

Instead of following the epidemiologists' recommendations, Bolsonaro defends reopening of schools and advised to quarantine only the elderly and people with previous illnesses.

"Some are going to die, they will die. Sorry, it's life. You can't stop a car factory just because you have traffic deaths,” the Brazilian president said, as reported by Anthropophagist.

"For 90 percent of the population, this will be a little flu or nothing... the number of deaths under 40 is insignificant," he added.​​​​​​​

The far-right politician also cast doubt on the numbers of Covid-19 deaths in countries such as Italy or in Sao Paulo, the Brazilian state that has been hit hardest by the pandemic with 68 deaths and 1,223 positives so far.

"They are trying to get Brazil into bankruptcy with that fear-mongering... the best remedy for the disease is work. If someone can work, they have to go back to work... You can't hide. It's not okay to be quarantined at home, who knows for how many days,” Bolsonaro holds.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/mutual-aid-solidarity-and-humor-in.html

Expert: Cuban Health System's Strength 

Against COVID-19

CUBA HAS MEDICARE FOR ALL SURPRISED BERNIE DID NOT MENTION IT

Photograph taken on March 22 that registered a delegation 

of 37 Cuban doctors and 15 nurses from Havana upon 

arrival at Leonardo da Vinci 'airport, Fiumicino, in Rome

 | Photo: Published 27 March 2020 
by Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

Despite the limitations imposed by the U.S. blockade policy, our country is capable of dealing with the pandemic with a public health system that reaches all the population, free of charge,' Celestrin told Prensa Latina.

Cuba's health system is capable of facing the challenge posed by the coronavirus SARS Cov-2, which causes Covid-19 disease, said here today Marylin Celestrin, master in infectious diseases.

RELATED:
Over 45 Countries Ask Cuba for Interferon to Treat Covid-19

'Despite the limitations imposed by the U.S. blockade policy, our country is capable of dealing with the pandemic with a public health system that reaches all the population, free of charge,' Celestrin told Prensa Latina.

She stressed that, in addition to ensuring the good health condition of the island's inhabitants, 'internationalist brigades have gone out to help other nations and are once again going to raise the white-coat army as Fidel (Castro) called it.'

But in order to be victorious, we need the cooperation of the people and to encourage social isolation, as well as an increase in health measures guided by the senior Cuban authorities, added the also specialist in General Comprehensive Medicine (GIM).

Celestrin praised the work of medical students in Matanzas province, who are carrying out active home investigations to identify flu symptoms in the population and possible cases of Covid-19.

Around 1,300 students from the Juan Guiteras Medical Sciences University in Matanzas support these investigations in the local health areas themselves, who have received the necessary training on the procedure and characteristics of the disease.

Heriberto Dominguez, Maria Osorio and Raidel Luis Torres, the last one in the third year of medicine and the first two in the fifth year, agreed in expressing their commitment to this responsibility that has been given to them by the local authorities.

'It is a modest way to contribute to this great effort of the country to move forward in the face of the risks represented by the Civid-19,' they said.

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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