French court faults Amazon over virus safety, limits deliveries

AFP/File / Thomas SAMSON

A court in Nanterre, outside Paris, said Amazon France had "failed to recognise its obligations regarding the security and health of its workers"

Amazon faces having its operations reduced to a bare minimum in France after a court ruled the e-commerce giant can deliver only essential goods while the company evaluates its workers' risk of coronavirus exposure.

The court in Nanterre, outside Paris, said Amazon France had "failed to recognise its obligations regarding the security and health of its workers," according to a ruling seen by AFP.

While carrying out a health evaluation, Amazon can prepare and deliver only "food, hygiene and medical products," the court said.

The injunction must be carried out within 24 hours, or Amazon France could face fines of one million euros ($1.1 million) per day.

Amazon has one month to carry out the evaluation.

The ruling comes as consumers around the world flock to Amazon during the coronavirus lockdown.

But concern has grown over the safety precautions taken by the company, and dozens of workers protested in the United States last month.

Amazon has been hiring thousands of workers as business booms in countries affected by the coronavirus outbreak after authorities imposed business closures and stay-at-home orders to try to limit infections.

The company said Monday it had filled the 100,000 US jobs it promised a month ago to meet demand from the coronavirus outbreak, and was ready to take on 75,000 more.

- 'Unacceptable pressure' -

But Amazon France's biggest labour union took the company to court saying more than 100 workers were being forced to work in close proximity despite the nationwide ban on public gatherings in force since mid-March.

Last month, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire accused Amazon of putting "unacceptable" pressure on employees after unions claimed the retailer was refusing to pay staff who did not go in to work for fear of coronavirus contagion.

His comments came after hundreds of employees walked out at several Amazon processing centres in France, exercising the "right of refusal" in France's labour code if an employee considers there is a risk to health or safety.

Amazon disputed claims that it was not taking sufficient precautionary measures, saying it had imposed stricter cleaning protocols and taken steps "so that employees can keep the necessary distance from one another."

- 'Evaluating implications' -

Amazon said that it would appeal the decision -- but the ruling is not suspended pending appeal.

"We are currently evaluating what the implications are for our French logistical sites," it added.

Amazon, which in February employed 6,500 permanent staff and 3,600 temporary employees at six French sites, insisted that it was properly respecting safety standards.

It said that it had handed out more than 127,000 packs of sanitary wipes, over 27,000 litres of gel as well as 1.5 million masks.

It had also put in place temperature controls and social distancing measures, it added.

Laurent Degousee, of the SUD-Commerce union that was behind the complaint, acknowledged that Amazon had "not stood idly by" amid the crisis but had taken a "slew of measures without any evaluation".

He said that the taking of temperatures had sometimes caused queues and thus risked possible infection.

---30---

 Amazon fires three critics of warehouse conditions in pandemic

By Aakriti Bhalla and Jeffrey Dastin,Reuters•April 14, 2020

(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc said on Tuesday it had fired three critics of the company's pandemic response for workplace violations, dismissals that drew sharp words from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and a labor coalition.

The company on Friday fired two user experience designers, Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, for what it called repeated violations of internal policies, without specifying which ones.

The two workers, who gained prominence for pushing the company to do more on climate change, had recently made public statements questioning Amazon's pandemic safety measures and pledging to match donations of up to $500 to support staff at risk of getting the virus.

The e-commerce giant also said it dismissed Bashir Mohamed, a warehouse worker in Minnesota, for inappropriate language and behavior. Mohamed told Reuters he had been warning colleagues about the virus and calling on management to increase cleaning; Amazon has been "tripling down on deep cleaning," it has said in recent statements.

Their dismissals follow Amazon's termination on March 30 of warehouse protest leader Christian Smalls on the grounds that he put others at risk by violating his paid quarantine when he joined a demonstration at Amazon's Staten Island, New York, fulfillment center.

In statements shared with Reuters, Cunningham said she believed Amazon could play a powerful role during the crisis, but to do so, "we have to really listen to the workers who are on the front line, who don't feel adequately protected."

Costa said in her statement, "No company should punish their employees for showing concern for one another, especially during a pandemic!"

The world's largest online retailer is facing intensifying scrutiny by lawmakers and unions over whether it is doing enough to protect staff from the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 1.9 million people, including workers at more than 50 of Amazon's U.S. warehouses, according to the New York Times.

The company has been racing to update safety protocols, distribute protective gear and keep warehouses functional as it works to ship essentials to shoppers under widespread government stay-at-home orders. Small groups of employees have staged high-profile protests at several Amazon warehouses.

Mohamed, a 28-year-old Somali-American, said his boss told him not to organize other workers at the Minneapolis-area warehouse. Once he began informing colleagues of the risks they faced from the virus, he said, Amazon started targeting him.

"They didn't like the way I was talking," he said.

In a statement, Amazon said, "We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so; however, these rights do not provide blanket immunity against bad actions, particularly those that endanger the health, well-being or safety of their colleagues."

Amazon said Mohamed had also violated social distancing guidelines.

A dismissal letter Mohamed shared with Reuters did not specify social distancing but focused on his declining to talk to certain team leaders starting in early March; Mohamed alleged that before that period his manager had discriminated against him.

Public pressure on Amazon mounted on Tuesday, following five Democratic U.S. Senators who wrote to Amazon's Chief Executive Jeff Bezos last week to request an explanation about what happened with the other fired warehouse worker, Smalls.

Sanders tweeted: "Instead of firing employees who want justice, maybe Jeff Bezos - the richest man in the world - can focus on providing his workers with paid sick leave, a safe workplace, and a livable planet."

Athena, a labor and activist coalition, called the latest dismissals "outrageous."

Focused on terrorism, the intelligence community ignored prior pandemic warnings

WHILE THE FBI CONTINUED THEIR POST 9/11 CAMPAIGN AGAINST SO CALLED 

ECO TERRORISTS ON THE WEST COAST ECO ACTIVISTS BY ANY OTHER NAME

LET'S NOT FORGET THAT THE CIA CLAIMED ALL WAS CALM ALL WAS RIGHT WITH IRAN A MONTH BEFORE THE REVOLUTION OF '79

Alexander Nazaryan National Correspondent, Yahoo News•April 13, 2020


WASHINGTON — The warning was written in clear, plain language. There was no ambiguity, nothing left to the imagination. A pandemic was coming, and the world was not ready.

“Infectious disease pathogens have the upper hand,” that warning went, “because they constantly evolve new mechanisms that can exploit weak links in human defenses.” There would be a global pandemic soon enough, and it would include “embargoes and boycotts,” not to mention “trade frictions and controversy over culpability.”

Only rigorous testing could stop the spread of an outbreak. And if the outbreak were not contained, untold lives and dollars would be lost.

That warning, delivered to the national security establishment in August 2003, is reminiscent of a famous admonition that had been issued two years before, in the spring of 2001: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” Both would go unheeded, to disastrous effect. And though the current pandemic that has paralyzed the country is not marked by a singularly horrific moment like the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in lower Manhattan, COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has already killed nearly eight times more Americans than the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Karen Monaghan at the 2009 Milken Institute Global Conference 

in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Phil McCarten/Reuters)

Karen J. Monaghan was the acting national intelligence officer for economics and global issues at the National Intelligence Council — a think tank that draws on expertise from across the entire intelligence community — when she wrote her prescient report, “SARS: Down but Still a Threat.” The report is among the clearest evidence that, contrary to what President Trump has said, the coronavirus pandemic was not only predictable but was, in fact, predicted.

“After 9/11, as a country, we weren’t about building resilience,” Monaghan told Yahoo News. “We were about whacking moles. We were about destroying the enemy.”

The report was commissioned by Tommy Thompson, then the secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Jack Chow, then a State Department deputy focused on global health. “Even after SARS and subsequent epidemics — MERS, H1N1, Ebola — leading countries chose not to invest in global health preparedness,” Chow told Yahoo News, “because among leaders, health ranked low on their strategic priorities, beneath hard power issues such as defense and trade. To them, insuring against a likely epidemic seemed more costly than attending to the pressing issues at hand. As a result of this neglect, the world is now paying a collective price from COVID-19 that is accelerating into trillions of dollars and countless lives.”

Monaghan is a 32-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency who retired in 2017 as a senior intelligence officer. She laments that many of her colleagues in the national security establishment dismissed her initial briefs on SARS. “It’s over there, not here,” she was told by dismissive peers in the intelligence and defense sectors. “This isn’t really worth our attention."

“SARS” is an acronym for “severe acute respiratory syndrome.” It is a type of coronavirus, a class of pathogen known for the spiky glycoproteins that protrude from its surface. “There are seven coronavirus that infect humans,” explains Ashita Batavia, an infectious disease specialist in New York City. “SARS, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), and four others that cause the common cold. They’re all in the same viral family.”

Mourners wear surgical masks to protect against SARS at a funeral

 in Hong Kong in 2003. (Lo Sai Hung/AP)

No two disease outbreaks could be identical. But given the similarities between SARS and SARS-CoV-2, a coronavirus outbreak was bound to resemble an outbreak of SARS to a high degree.

Monaghan began following the SARS epidemic after it originated in China in late 2002 and spread throughout Asia in the ensuing months. She tracked the disease as it took the same path the coronavirus would take 17 years later, spreading through China before spreading west. As the seriousness of the outbreak came into focus, she and a deputy at the National Intelligence Council began to produce two-to-three-page briefs on SARS.

Still, they believed that a pandemic outbreak was coming, if not of SARS then of another disease, and that the United States was not prepared for that inevitability, especially with the nation focused on combating terrorism.

John Sipher, who spent 28 years at the CIA, agrees with Monaghan that getting the intelligence community to focus on any nonterrorism issue was impossible at that time. “It is clearly a national security threat,” says Sipher of pandemics.

But despite warnings like Monaghan’s, many of Sipher’s colleagues across the intelligence community deemed that threat a secondary concern. That may be, in part, because pandemics cut across the usual lines of responsibility. “This is a complicated subject that involves weaknesses of a bureaucracy, the sinews of connection between intelligence and policymakers and how a government prioritizes things,” Sipher explains.

The comprehensive SARS report that Monaghan and her staff compiled throughout the spring and summer of 2003 was meant to make the case for a more coherent pandemic response. “If the intelligence community writes these things, it helps us,” Monaghan says public health and medical professionals told her in endorsing the effort.

If no one had direct ownership of pandemic preparedness, no one would be directly responsible for a government-wide plan for what to do when the pandemic comes. President Barack Obama did install a pandemic response team within the National Security Council, but the group was eliminated by Trump’s third national security adviser, John Bolton. Bolton also fired Tom Bossert, the White House homeland security adviser. That position was subsequently downgraded, depriving the White House of yet another potential site of coronavirus coordination.

Once the SARS report was completed, Monaghan asked three medical experts to review the work. Among them was a 62-year-old National Institutes of Health epidemiologist who had gained renown in the battle against HIV/AIDS that had consumed the previous two decades: Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has become one of the most public faces in the coronavirus outbreak.

Dr. Anthony Fauci at the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the 

White House on Wednesday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Today, the report Monaghan’s team prepared for the National Intelligence Council as the SARS epidemic wound down in the summer of 2003 seems like a near perfect description of how events have unspooled in recent months, leading to questions about why her warnings weren’t heeded.

Nor was hers the first such warning. In 2000, David F. Gordon — who preceded Monaghan at the National Intelligence Council — produced a report on the danger of a devastating pandemic. “The dramatic increase in drug-resistant microbes, combined with the lag in development of new antibiotics, the rise of megacities with severe health care deficiencies, environmental degradation, and the growing ease and frequency of cross-border movements of people and produce have greatly facilitated the spread of infectious diseases,” Gordon wrote.

Three years after that, Monaghan’s own brief makes clear that not only was an eventual pandemic all but a certainty, the course of that future pandemic could be charted with remarkable — and discomfiting — accuracy.

She noted, for one, that such a pandemic was more likely than before because population growth and economic development “are bringing more people into contact with non-domesticated animals, introducing new diseases more frequently into the human population.” SARS is believed to have originated in a civet, while the 2019 coronavirus may have jumped to humans from a pangolin that had been infected by a bat.

Both epidemics brought attention to China’s “wet markets,” where exotic animals are sold. “China lifted the ban on the sale and consumption of exotic animals” almost right after the SARS epidemic had quelled, Monaghan writes. Today, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and others are pushing for China to close its wet markets, something that is unlikely to happen.

Monaghan describes how as SARS bore down on the United States, “suspicion of Asians as carriers of the disease reduced patronage of Asian businesses and communities in the United States and sparked travel bans against Asian tourist groups and conference participants worldwide.”

The coronavirus has similarly led to anti-Asian prejudice, only to a vastly more severe degree than 17 years ago, with both verbal and physical assaults of Asian-Americans widely reported.

A worker in a protective suit at the closed seafood market in Wuhan,

 Hubei province, China, on Jan. 10. (Reuters)

And even in 2003, before the rise of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, the distinction between sound information, fearmongering and outright untruth was already a concern. “Intense media attention and uncertainty about the disease fueled wide-spread fear, even in some areas without any cases, exacerbating economic disruptions,” Monaghan wrote in describing coverage of the SARS outbreak.

One conspiracy theory from that earlier outbreak held that SARS was produced by Russian scientists. Coronavirus conspiracy theories have flourished online, where extremists have blamed Asians and Jews.

Monaghan accurately predicted how a global pandemic would test the capacities of individual countries to contain the disease. She describes how, during the SARS epidemic, some governments “resorted to strong steps, such as closing schools,” while also noting that “open societies seemed to have trouble enforcing quarantine orders.” Indeed, elected officials have railed against crowds gathering in New York City parks and thronging to see the famous cherry blossoms of Washington, D.C.

Then as now, Hong Kong and Singapore stood out for their effective responses. Hong Kong “employed software to track the spread of the disease,” a method of contact tracing that was relatively new at that time. As for Singapore, Monaghan writes how the city-state, long known for its strict civic codes, “issued over a million SARS toolkits with thermometers and facemasks to every residence in the country. Residents were regularly stopped at office buildings, schools, and other public places for temperature checks.” It has used similar measures to great effect in combating the coronavirus.

Students line up to have their temperature checked as a SARS 

precaution in 2003. (David Wong/South China Morning Post via Getty Images)

Many other countries, however, were left unprepared for a pandemic. “The cost of basic diagnostic and protective equipment is relatively modest yet still unaffordable for many countries,” Monaghan wrote. “SARS highlighted a widespread shortage of ventilators to support patients with pneumonia. The lack of adequate sterilization equipment raises the risk of spreading disease when medical instruments are reused.”

She also predicted that the “highest priority for many countries is likely to be diagnostic tests to determine which patients need to be isolated,” but also that “even many hospitals in affluent countries are not likely to have enough rooms to handle a serious outbreak.”

This time around, among the countries caught flat-footed has been the United States, which has found itself lacking in many of the ways that Monaghan outlined.

She wishes that the paper she wrote in 2003 had been more than “a sideshow” and that the federal government took pandemic response as seriously as it took terrorism. Preparing for disease outbreaks is “not sexy,” she says.

Efforts at pandemic response received a boost in 2005, after President George W. Bush read John M. Barry’s about-to-be-published “The Great Influenza,” about the 1918 pandemic that killed millions. He instructed his homeland security adviser, Frances Townsend, to put together a pandemic response plan. Within days, however, a disaster of another kind would bear down on New Orleans in the form of Hurricane Katrina. Bush faced intense criticism for his handling of the disaster in the months that followed. Other concerns, like pandemics, understandably receded in the collective consciousness.

Monaghan acknowledges that President Obama did take significant steps to prepare the nation for a pandemic. He was generally praised for his response to the outbreak of Ebola in 2014. Speaking at the National Institutes of Health headquarters in Maryland that year, he warned that greater funding would be necessary to forfend a future epidemic, which he said was all but inevitable.

“It is preposterous to say that no one saw this coming,” says Lisa Monaco, who served as Obama’s homeland security adviser. “Not only did people see it coming, people warned about it.” Monaco also warned about a pandemic, 14 years after Monaghan had done the same. In her case, it was to the incoming Trump administration.

“Frankly, a pandemic was the thing that was most concerning,” Monaco told Yahoo News. She described a “respiratory illness that is transmissible through droplets” as a “nightmare scenario” that would keep her up at night.

Lisa Monaco sits beside President Barack Obama after a briefing

 on Hurricane Matthew in 2016. (Chris Kleponis/Pool/Getty Images)

Monaco says that Obama told her to provide the incoming Trump administration with a thorough homeland security briefing, much as Obama had been briefed in 2008 by outgoing Bush officials.

“I specifically added a pandemic scenario,” Monaco says. She remembers that her replacement, Bossert, took the briefing “exceptionally seriously” and “did not need to be convinced.” But whatever lessons were learned that day have been undone by the administrative chaos and churn that have marked the executive branch under Trump.

“A very large number of the people who were in that room are no longer in the job that they assumed in 2017,” Monaco says. Some of them have been replaced by officials serving in acting capacities. Other positions have simply been left empty.

---30---

- World's smallest woman in India stay-at-home virus 

appeal -

The world's shortest woman took to the streets in central India to call on people to stay at home, after police appealed for help enforcing a coronavirus lockdown.

AFP / STRThe world's smallest woman, Jyoti Amge, greets a policeman in Nagpure while leading an appeal to Indian citizens to stay inside their homes

Jyoti Amge, who is just 62.8 centimetres tall (just over two feet tall), encouraged people to wash their hands and wear a mask and gloves when they leave their homes as s

he made appearances across Nagpur city, in Maharashtra state.

burs-sr/jah

NOTICE THEY ARE BOWING TO EACH OTHER THIS IS WHAT I WOULD SUGGEST WE ALL DO POST COVID-19 SOCIAL ISOLATION INSTEAD OF THE HANDSHAKE

CLASSIC
Bolt goes viral with 'social distancing' Olympic photo

AFP/File / Nicolas ASFOURI

Jamaica's Usain Bolt won the Beijing Olympics 100m in a world-record time

Retired track star Usain Bolt showed he's still a few steps ahead when he posted an AFP picture of him outstripping his rivals at the Beijing Olympics with the cheeky caption: "social distancing".

Bolt's post, featuring a picture by AFP photographer Nicolas Asfouri of the 2008 Olympics 100m final, blew up on social media, drawing more than half a million likes and 90,000 retweets.

It showed the Jamaican crossing the finish line at the Bird's Nest stadium in a then-world record time of 9.69sec, glancing round from lane four as his despairing competitors trail two paces behind.

"Savage", commented one Twitter user, while New York Times journalist Christopher Clarey posted another picture of Bolt out in front on his own, captioned "self isolation".

Bolt's chest-thumping celebration in Beijing added to a legend that grew further when he won the 200m in another world-record time. He retired in 2017 with eight Olympic gold medals and the current 100m mark of 9.58sec, set in 2009.

Bolt, 33, has been encouraging Jamaicans to self-isolate during the coronavirus pandemic, posting videos of himself exercising at home and juggling footballs with a friend. He also helped promote a major fundraiser, Telethon Jamaica.

After retiring from athletics, Bolt, a Manchester United fan, attempted to launch a career in football, and had a trial with Australia's Central Coast Mariners before contract talks failed.

Pacific clean-up after homes 'blown to smithereens' by superstorm

AFP/File / PHILIPPE CARILLO

Tropical Cyclone Harold caused widespread damage in Vanuatu

Tens of thousands of people remain homeless in Vanuatu a week after Tropical Cyclone Harold pummelled the impoverished Pacific nation, smashing houses and destroying crops, aid workers said Tuesday.

The cyclone careened through the South Pacific last week, peaking as a Category Five superstorm that gouged a trail of destruction across the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga.


With aid efforts hampered by coronavirus-related travel restrictions, World Vision said up to 35 percent of Vanuatu's 300,000 population were in temporary shelters after losing their homes.

"Shelter at this time remains absolutely the most pressing issue," World Vision's Vanuatu director Kendra Gates Derousseau told AFP.

She said in some areas the destruction was worse than the last Category Five system to hit the country, Cyclone Pam in 2015, which flattened the capital Port Vila and wiped out almost two-thirds of the country's economic capacity.

"After Pam, people were able to pick up the pieces pretty quickly, put a tarp on the roof and replant the garden," she said.

"What we're seeing from Harold is that houses have been blown to smithereens, there's nothing to pick up."

She said there was extensive damage on the islands of Pentecost, Ambae and Santo, where Vanuatu’s second-largest town, Luganville, took a direct hit.

The death toll in Vanuatu stands at three, although Gates Derousseau said that could rise as information filtered in from hard-hit remote areas.

In the Solomons, 27 people died when they were washed from the deck of an inter-island ferry, while the Red Cross said there was one fatality in Fiji.

No deaths were recorded in Tonga, where at least three tourist resorts and more than 400 homes were badly damaged.

Mark Lowcock, the UN head of humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, pledged US$2.5 million towards drinking water, food, shelter and healthcare in Vanuatu.

"The government and first responders in Vanuatu did an excellent job of making people safe ahead of the storm hitting and meeting immediate needs after it hit," he said in a statement.

"As the extent of the destruction becomes clear, this UN funding will ensure aid supplies are maintained and reach the people who need it."

The coronavirus pandemic has complicated disaster relief efforts, with Vanuatu reluctant to open its international borders as it seeks to remain one of the few countries without any confirmed cases of the virus.

Gates Derousseau said this meant aid distribution to some areas of Vanuatu had been slow, but the government could not afford to risk importing the disease.

"From the outside, it looks frustrating," she said.

"There's no choice though, a COVID-19 outbreak on top of the cyclone would be unfathomable."

Australia and New Zealand have airlifted disaster relief supplies to Vanuatu, and Gates Derousseau said China had also sent a plane loaded with COVID-19-related medical supplies.

She said all internationally sourced supplies went through strict quarantine measures before entering the country.

India extends world's biggest virus lockdown

AFP / SAJJAD HUSSAINA rickshaw driver carries passengers wearing facemasks past a mural in the Lodhi Art District in New Delhi

India's nationwide coronavirus lockdown, the biggest in the world covering 1.3 billion people, will be extended until May 3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday.

The move comes despite complaints from millions of poor, a vast underclass who have been left almost completely without support as jobs have vanished and incomes dried up.

"From the economic angle, we have paid a big price," Modi said. "But the lives of the people of India are far more valuable."

"From the experiences of the last few days it is clear that the path we have chosen is correct."

India's three-week-old lockdown, in force since March 25, was scheduled to end at midnight Tuesday.

Modi said there would be "limited relaxations" from April 20 for districts with no cases, and new guidelines for industry and agriculture would be released Wednesday.

The announcement comes as debate rages around the world on how to lift restrictions so the economic carnage of the pandemic can be eased without a new spike in infections.

AFP/File / Dibyangshu SARKARThere are fears that coronavirus infections in South Asia could skyrocket and overwhelm shaky healthcare systems

Official figures suggest South Asian nations have so far been relatively unscathed by the epidemic, with around 10,800 cases and 353 deaths in India.

Some experts say not enough tests have been conducted and the true number of infections is much higher.

And with some of the most crowded cities on the planet, there are fears that numbers could take off and overwhelm the shaky healthcare system.

Several states including Maharashtra -- home to Mumbai and with the highest number of cases -- Tamil Nadu and Odisha already announced lockdown extensions.

The World Health Organisation Tuesday praised India's decision to extend the lockdown, saying "it would go a long way in arresting the virus spread".

- India's poor -

The shutdown, with strict limits on activity, has been devastating for the economy -- and in particular for India's poor.

AFP / SANJAY KANOJIAHomeless people wait along a road in Allahabad to receive free food during the nationwide lockdown

Millions of daily wage labourers suddenly lost their jobs, forcing hundreds of thousands to travel hundreds of kilometres (miles) back to their home villages, often on foot.

Some died on the way, while others were shunned by locals when they made it back. One clip that went viral on social media showed a group of migrants being hosed down with chemicals by local officials.

Others have been stranded in cities in cramped, unsanitary conditions where the virus could spread quickly. New Delhi alone is providing hundreds of thousands of free meals.

In the financial capital Mumbai, some 800 migrant labourers gathered near a railway station on Tuesday and demanded to be allowed to return home. The protest was later dispersed by police.

- Snarl-ups -

Farmers have complained of a lack of workers to harvest crops while snarl-ups of thousands of trucks not allowed to move because of the lockdown have hampered food transport.

"We have tried to keep the interests of the poor and the daily wage workers in mind while making these new guidelines," Modi said in his 24-minute address.

AFP / Arun SANKARA motorist rides past graffiti painted on a road to raise awareness about COVID-19 in Chennai

"The central and state governments are working together to ensure that the farmers don't face any problems."

Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das has called the coronavirus an "invisible assassin" that could wreak havoc on the economy.

A restaurant industry group, a sector that employs millions of people nationwide, warned Monday there could be "social unrest" if it did not receive financial relief.

The commerce ministry has also reportedly urged the government to consider opening more activities "with reasonable safeguards" even if the lockdown is extended.

On the deserted streets of Delhi, Manoj, a businessman, said the extended lockdown would further devastate the economy.

"People are going to lose jobs, businesses are going to shut down, unemployment is going to rise and hungry people are going to die," he told AFP.

Even before the pandemic, the Indian economy was stuttering, with the highest unemployment for decades.

Growth had slowed to about 5.0 percent before the pandemic and some analysts say it could slump to 1.5-2.0 percent this year -- way below the level needed to provide jobs for the millions coming into the labour market each month.

Paris climate goals failure 'could cost world 

$600 TRILLION'

UNCDF/AFP/File / KAREL PRINSLOO 

With just 1C of warming since pre-industrial times, Earth is already undergoing devastating heatwaves, drought, wild fires and storm surges made worse by rising seas

Nations' failure to fulfil the promises they made in the Paris climate agreement to make drastic emissions cuts could cost the global economy as much as $600 trillion this century, new analysis showed Tuesday.

Under the landmark 2015 accord, countries pledged to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels in order to limit global temperature rises to "well below" two degrees Celsius.

The deal committed states to work towards a safer temperature cap of 1.5C, through individual emissions reductions plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

With just 1C of warming since pre-industrial times, Earth is already undergoing devastating heatwaves, drought, wildfires and storm surges made worse by rising seas.

The United Nations says that global emissions must fall by more than seven percent every year between now and 2030 to hit the 1.5C target.

Yet countries' current NDCs put Earth on course to heat by far more by 2100 -- between 3C and 4C above the historic baseline.

While several studies have sought to estimate the economic cost of failure to mitigate climate change, few have tried to quantify the potential net economic gain rapid action could bring.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, an international team of climate experts simulated the costs of global cooperative action under a variety of scenarios.

Considering aspects such as warming thresholds, the cost of low-carbon technology, the cost of climate damage and the idea of countries paying their "fair share" towards fixing the problem, the team was able to quantify net benefit -- that is how much the global economy stood to gain under various plans.

They found that the world would gain $336-422 trillion by 2100 if action was taken to keep warming to 2C and 1.5C respectively.

But if they fail to achieve the Paris temperature goals, countries stand to lose up to $600 trillion ($126-616 trillion) by century's end.

This amounts to an average loss of 0.57 percent of national GDP annually to 2100.

- 'Huge losses' -

With the US set to leave the Paris deal this year, the researchers also looked at the cost of countries failing even to live up to their current NDC pledges.

That loss ranged between $150 trillion and $790 trillion -- up to 7.5 times current global GDP.

"We think that if every country or region can greatly enhance their actions for emission mitigation, it is possible to achieve the 1.5C," said lead study author Biying Yu, from the Beijing Institute of Technology.

"But implementing such a self-preservation strategy in a real word requires countries to recognise the gravity of global warming and to make breakthroughs in low-carbon technologies."

Yu said countries had traditionally prioritised short-term economic gain over climate action -- and were therefore missing out on significant cost benefits from moving early.

"Without the upfront investment, emissions cannot be reduced, and the climate damage will occur with higher probability, which will result in huge economic loss," he said.

The study found that global upfront climate investment would need to be $18-113 trillion in order for the world to "break even" in its climate plan.

More than 90 percent of this should come from G20 nations, the research found.

"If countries are well aware of the huge losses they will suffer if they don't reduce emissions... will they be more rational in making choices that will protect them, thereby boosting their response to climate change and driving the global climate governance process?" said Yu.

Fewer meetings, more toilet lids: What workplaces will look like after lockdowns

AFP/File / Angela WeissPeople commute through Grand Central Station on March 25, 2020 in New York City

Around the world countries are hitting their coronavirus peaks and starting to grapple with questions about when and how to reopen their economies.

But those people fortunate enough to have not lost their jobs should be prepared for a "new normal" when they finally go back to work, say experts.

Here is a preview of what to expect.

- No handshakes, fewer meetings -

Handshakes are out "indefinitely," said Tom Frieden, the former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Next, offices will need to start thinking about practical measures.

"Can we have doors that don't have to be opened by people? Should we be taking the temperatures of all people who enter?" he said in a call with reporters.

No-touch hand sanitizer dispensers will become common. Steps may be taken to reduce overcrowding in common spaces, and computers and phones may no longer be shared.

Mask use will be encouraged, and some workplaces may provide them.

Businesses like supermarkets are already keeping down the number of people who can enter, placing clear plastic barriers between employees and customers and enforcing physical distancing -- this could be extended to all shops, cafes and face-to-face engagements.

Offices may also stagger employee hours and have workers come in on different days so that fewer people are present at a given time -- and cut meetings.

"One of the positive impacts of COVID I hope will be fewer meetings, because there are just too many meetings," added Frieden.

- More sick days -

"Staying at home if you are sick may be encouraged vs discouraged," said Brandon Brown, a University of California Riverside epidemiologist.

The US has a famously brutal work culture driven in part by the fact there is no federally mandatory sick leave.

As a result, people tend to power through despite illness: an October 2019 nationwide survey of 2,800 workers by the accounting firm Robert Half found that 33 percent always go in when sick. That may change.

Telework may become more common for many, especially as people have learned during enforced lockdowns that it is possible.

"One thing that we found out from this pandemic and sheltering in place at home, is that in-person meetings are not always necessary. Virtual meetings should be an ongoing option from here on out," added Brown.

- Counseling provided? -

The pandemic has already extracted a devastating death toll, particularly in the hardest-hit region New York, and the onus for providing counseling may fall to great extent on employers.

"Don't forget a lot of people are gonna go back to work having lost family members," said Marc Wilkenfeld, a doctor who specializes in occupational medicine at NYU Langone Health.

"I think the bigger companies or even the smaller companies are going to need to address these issues, because you do want a workforce coming back healthy, physically and mentally."

- Toilet lids and better plumbing -

Workplaces will continue to hammer home the message to wash hands regularly and thoroughly, said Brown.

Often touched surfaces will be cleaned more frequently, but greater attention will need to be placed on keeping bathrooms clean and improving plumbing, since there is some evidence that the coronavirus can be spread via feces.

A recent Lancet paper recommended "do not ignore unexplained foul smells in bathrooms, kitchens, or wash areas" and included tips for improving plumbing like having functioning U-bends that prevent the outflow of sewage gases.

One step toward mitigating the risk is flushing the toilet with the lid down, since a flush can release up to 80,000 contaminated droplets and leave them suspended in the air for hours if it's not covered, according to a recent Hong Kong study.

But many toilets in modern workspaces lack lids -- a trend that may be reversed.

- Who returns first -

People over the age of 65 or who have underlying conditions like heart disease or diabetes are at higher risk for complications arising from COVID-19 -- and their return to offices will come later.

"When people start to go back to work, I think that it's going to be that not everyone goes back at the same time," Wilkenfeld said.

On-off social distancing may be needed until 2022: Harvard study

MAY 1 GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST A RETURN TO CAPITALISM AS IT WAS

AFP / Johannes EISELEThe US flag is seen at half-mast at the almost 

deserted Times Square on April 13, 2020 in New York City

A one-time lockdown won't halt the novel coronavirus and repeated periods of social distancing may be required into 2022 to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, Harvard scientists who modeled the pandemic's trajectory said Tuesday.

Their study comes as the US enters the peak of its COVID-19 caseload and states eye an eventual easing of tough lockdown measures.

The Harvard team's computer simulation, which was published in a paper in the journal Science, assumed that COVID-19 will become seasonal, like closely related coronaviruses that cause the common cold, with higher transmission rates in colder months.

But much remains unknown, including the level of immunity acquired by previous infection and how long it lasts, the authors said.

"We found that one-time social distancing measures are likely to be insufficient to maintain the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 within the limits of critical care capacity in the United States," lead author Stephen Kissler said in a call with reporters.

"What seems to be necessary in the absence of other sorts of treatments are intermittent social distancing periods," he added.

Widespread viral testing would be required in order to determine when the thresholds to re-trigger distancing are crossed, said the authors.

The duration and intensity of lockdowns can be relaxed as treatments and vaccines become available. But in their absence, on and then off distancing would give hospitals time to increase critical care capacity to cater for the surge in cases that would occur when the measures are eased.

"By permitting periods of transmission that reach higher prevalence than otherwise would be possible, they allow an accelerated acquisition of herd immunity," said co-author Marc Lipsitch.

Conversely, too much social distancing without respite can be a bad thing. Under one modeled scenario "the social distancing was so effective that virtually no population immunity is built," the paper said, hence the need for an intermittent approach.

The authors acknowledged a major drawback in their model is how little we currently know about how strong a previously infected person's immunity is and how long it lasts.

- Virus likely here to stay -

At present the best guesses based on closely-related coronaviruses are that it will confer some immunity, for up to about a year. There might also be some cross-protective immunity against COVID-19 if a person is infected by a common cold-causing betacoronavirus.

One thing however is almost certain: the virus is here to stay. The team said it was highly unlikely that immunity will be strong enough and last long enough that COVID-19 will die out after an initial wave, as was the case with the SARS outbreak of 2002-2003.

Antibody tests that have just entered the market and look for whether a person has been previously infected will be crucial in answering these vital questions about immunity, they argued, and a vaccine remains the ultimate weapon.

Outside experts praised the paper even as they emphasized how much remained unknown.

"This is an excellent study that uses mathematical models to explore the dynamics of COVID-19 over a period of several years, in contrast to previously published studies that have focused on the coming weeks or months," Mark Woolhouse, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh said.

"It is important to recognize that it is a model; it is consistent with current data but is nonetheless based on a series of assumptions -- for example about acquired immunity -- that are yet to be confirmed."

https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/social-distancing-may-be-needed-until-2022-harvard-study-doc-1ql5bc3