Vaccine inequality in India sends many falling through gaps

NEW DELHI (AP) — As the coronavirus tears through India, night watchman Sagar Kumar thinks constantly about getting vaccines for himself and his family of five amid critical shortages of shots in the country. But even if he knew how to get one, it wouldn't be easy.  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The main way is to register through a government website. But it is in English — a language the 25-year-old Kumar and nearly 90% of Indians can't speak, read or write — and his family has a single smartphone, with spotty internet service.

And even though his state of Uttar Pradesh gives free shots to those under 45, there is no vaccination site in his village, with the nearest hospital an hour away.

“All I can do now is hope for the best,” Kumar said.

The pandemic’s disparities already were stark in India, where access to health care is as stratified and unequal as many other parts of society. Now wealth and technology is further widening those chasms, and millions are falling through the gaps.

That worries health experts, who say vaccine inequality could hamper India’s already difficult fight against a virus that has been killing more than 4,000 people a day in recent weeks.

“Inequitable vaccination risks prolonging the pandemic in India,” said Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center at Duke University in North Carolina. “Reducing barriers for the most vulnerable populations should be a priority.”

India's vaccination campaign began in January with a goal of inoculating 300 million of its nearly 1.4 billion people by August. So far, however, it has fully vaccinated a little over 42 million people, or barely 3% of its population.

The government didn't reserve enough shots for the campaign and it was slow to scale up vaccine production. Then, with the country recording hundreds of thousands of new infections daily, the government on May 1 opened up vaccination to all adults.

That made an already bad shortage even worse.

Amid those challenges, the federal government also changed its policy on who can get vaccines and who must pay for them. It allotted itself half of the shots in the country and said it would give free shots to front-line workers and those 45 and older.

Individual states and private hospitals could then negotiate deals with the country's vaccine-makers for the other half of the shots, the government said. That effectively put the burden for inoculating everyone under 45 on states and the private sector, who often ask members of the public to pay as much as $20 for a shot.

The disparities already are showing in rich states where private hospitals tend to be concentrated.

The capital of New Delhi has given first shots to 20% of its residents, while Bihar state, one of the poorest, has only given shots to about 7.6% of its population. And even states that are providing free shots often can't keep them in stock — both because of the shortage and competition with the private sector.

Many experts say the federal policy is a mistake, and it will hit the poorest the hardest.

“Vaccinating people is the national duty of the government and they need to vaccinate everyone for free,” said K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India. “Nobody should be denied a vaccine because they are unable to afford it or register for it.”

Vaccine disparity is “not just a question of inequality but also inefficiency,” said developmental economist Jean Dreze.

If people get sick, Dreze said, they will not be able to work. That in turn could push many more into poverty.

Already, the poor have to miss work, forgo the day’s wages and travel long distances to get vaccinated.

“We should not just make vaccines free but also give people incentives to get vaccinated,” Dreze said.

The national government is seeking to address some of the concerns. It has said the website to register for shots will soon be available in Hindi and other regional languages. Still, experts point out half the population lacks internet access, so the better solution would be easier, walk-in registrations for all.

The government also has said it will alleviate the vaccine shortages, insisting there will be about 2 billion doses available between June and December. Experts, however, say the government will likely miss that goal.

India’s health ministry did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Kavita Singh, 29, was making the equivalent of $250 a month working as a domestic helper in a wealthy part of the capital. But as cases began to surge in April, she lost her job.

“They were scared I would spread the virus and told me to come back only after I am vaccinated,” Singh said.

She could not afford paying for a shot, so Singh and her three daughters returned to her village in Bihar state. There's no vaccination center nearby, and Singh said she doesn't know if she'll ever be able to return to New Delhi.

“We barely manage to earn enough for our daily means," Singh said. "If we use that money for vaccines, then what will we eat?”

Neha Mehrotra And Sheikh Saaliq, The Associated Press

Crematoria so overwhelmed they are melting: 

How COVID-19 has hit India worst of all

Tristin Hopper

26/5/2021

VIDEO AT THE END

A special message from Microsoft News: India is currently being devastated by a deadly second wave of Covid. You can support Oxfam's Covid relief efforts in India, including reaching out to the most affected and vulnerable communities, distributing and installing medical equipment and accessories, and supporting the most marginalized households. You can donate here.

© Provided by National Post Relatives stand next to the burning pyre of a man who died from the coronavirus disease during his cremation at a crematorium ground in Srinagar May 25, 2021.

Just as the developed world begins its slow climb out of the hell of COVID-19, the pandemic has struck India with apocalyptic force, killing more people with greater speed than at almost any point in the last 14 months. In any other context, the carnage sweeping India would be generating global attention on a level with the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak or the 1992 Somalian famine. But with much of the world focused on its own COVID-19 crisis, the Indian tragedy is largely getting overlooked.

Below, how COVID-19’s worst chapter is playing out right now in India.
Crematoria are so overwhelmed with bodies they are beginning to melt

For all the millions of lives taken by COVID-19, the world has largely been spared the spectacle of mass graves — the signature to so many prior pandemics. Not in India.

As case rates hit their peak last month in cities such as Delhi, crematoriums have set up impromptu pyres to service traffic jams of ambulances delivering new bodies, and The Associated Press reported that authorities were getting requests to fell trees in city parks for emergency kindling.

© Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images Bodies, some of which are believed to be Covid-19 victims, are seen partially exposed in shallow sand graves following heavy rains at a cremation ground in Uttar Pradesh, India. Gravediggers at the site said that there was a threefold increase in the number of bodies arriving for burials and cremations since April.

“Before the pandemic, we used to cremate eight to 10 people (daily),” Jitender Singh Shunty, head of a crematorium in New Delhi, told a CNN crew on May 1 . “Now, we are cremating 100 to 120 a day.” In Gujarat, crematoria had begun to melt and collapse under the stresses of running all-out 24 hours a day.

At a current weekly average of 4,000 COVID-19 deaths per day, each week India loses as many citizens to COVID-19 as the 25,000 that have been claimed in Canada since the pandemic’s inception 14 months ago. And whereas Canada is an aging country directly within the demographic sights of COVID-19, India has a median age of only 26.8 years.

Other countries have been harder hit, but not like this

On April 1, 2020 — when the ferocity of COVID-19 had already spooked much of the world into strict pandemic lockdowns — the worldwide daily COVID-19 death rate stood at 4,193. On the 24 hours of May 18, the COVID-19 death rate in India hit 4,529.

This week, with more than 300,000 recorded COVID-19 fatalities to date, India became the third hardest-hit country in the world, behind only the United States and Brazil.

© Money Sharma/AFP Hospital staff take out a body from an ambulance at a mortuary in New Delhi on May 24, 2021, the day India passed more than 300,000 deaths from COVID-19.

Proportionally, this may not seem all that out-of-the-ordinary for a country of 1.4 billion, but it’s the suddenness of those deaths that have made COVID-19 particularly traumatic to India.

For the first weeks of 2021, Indian COVID-19 deaths were low enough to reach double digits. On February 8, they hit a low of only 78, which was almost exactly the same as the 70 Canadians killed by COVID-19 that day.

© covid19india.org A graph of daily COVID-19 fatalities in India. COVID-19 was relatively docile in India prior to a sudden, sharp spread in April unlike anything yet seen.

But then, starting in April, India began to be hit with a surge that is utterly beyond the pale of anything yet experienced. That month, in just one three-week period, new infections rose by 400 per cent and deaths rose by 500 per cent.

For a disease whose chief risk to public health is that it overwhelms healthcare systems, India’s hospitals have been utterly ravaged. In major centres such as Delhi, hospitals are full and turning away new patients, leading to scenes of COVID-19 patients gathered outside on the street and gasping for air as their families beg for oxygen. “We have been roaming around for three days searching for a bed,” one man, seated next to his immobile wife on the pavement, told Reuters . In some areas, oxygen tankers have needed to be placed under police escort to protect them from looters.

© Rebecca Conway/Getty Images Indian ward attendant Kishan Singh, 43, prepares to attach oxygen cylinders at a designated coronavirus treatment centre, in Rajasthan, India.

“Popular belief in the country, from the public to policymakers, was that India will not have a second wave — and unfortunately that let the guard down,” K. Srinath Reddy, an epidemiologist who advises the Indian government on COVID-19, told NPR in late April .

Tens of thousands of additional COVID-19 deaths may be occurring without official notice

On the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, India had one doctor for every 1,445 citizens . In Canada, that figure is closer to one doctor for every 384 citizens .

An utterly swamped medical system has meant many Indians dying at home from COVID-19 after being unable to reach medical care. Others are never able to have their COVID-19 diagnosis confirmed. Others still aren’t directly killed by COVID-19, but are the peripheral victims of a pandemic that has plunged even the most basic medical supplies into critical shortages.

© Noah Seelam/AFP A health worker ties a banner notice on the gate of a primary health centre about non-availability of the Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine in Hyderabad on May 24, 2021.

“I believe the actual number of people dying of COVID is two to three times higher than what the government is reporting,” Manas Gumta, general secretary of the Association of Health Service Doctors in West Bengal, told The Guardian in late April .

This week, analysis by The New York Times attempted to guess India’s true death rate based on what is known about COVID-19 fatality numbers. Their conclusion was that the disease has killed anywhere between 600,000 and 4.2 million .

What we know about 'black fungus' infections hitting India's COVID-19 patients

If the Lab-Leak Theory Is Right, What’s Next?

Instead of calling for a new and better inquiry into origins, let’s stipulate that pandemics can result from natural spillovers or from laboratory accidents—and then let’s move along to implications

Daniel Engber 

© Provided by The Atlantic jarun011 / Getty / Katie Martin / The Atlantic

Last summer, Michael Imperiale, a University of Michigan virologist and 10-year member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, published an essay on the need to “rethink” some basic research-safety practices in light of the coronavirus pandemic. But he and his co-author—another biosecurity-board veteran—did want to make one thing clear: There was no reason to believe that sloppy or malicious science had had anything to do with the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus; to suggest otherwise was “more akin to a conspiracy theory than to a scientifically credible hypothesis.”

Nine months later, Imperiale has a somewhat different view. “In my mind, the preponderance of the evidence still points toward a natural origin,” he told me earlier this week. “But that delta between the nature evidence and the lab-escape evidence appears to be shrinking.”

[David Frum: The pro-Trump culture war on American scientists]

Indeed, the slow sedimentation of doubts about COVID-19’s origin—whether the virus that causes it jumped directly from bats or other wild animals, or made a pit stop on a lab bench in Wuhan, China—has lately turned into a flood. In just the past two weeks, deltas have been in flux not just among the nation’s leading biosafety experts but also among public-health officials, pundits, and journalists at major dailies. The assertion by World Health Organization investigators in February that a lab-leak origin for the pandemic was “extremely unlikely” has since been challenged by the WHO director general, Tedros Ghebreyesus; a May 14 letter to Science magazine, signed by 18 scientists, called for “a proper investigation” and “dispassionate science-based discourse on this difficult but important issue”; David Frum suggested last week in The Atlantic that the Biden administration should “take possession of the truth about the virus”; and the election forecaster Nate Silver declared on Sunday that his estimated likelihood of a laboratory origin had increased by half, to 60 percent. Today, President Joe Biden said that the United States intelligence community still hasn’t decided which hypothesis is likelier, and that he wants to get “closer to a definitive conclusion” by the end of August.

© jarun011 / Getty / Katie Martin / The Atlantic

This shift is all the more remarkable for its lack of any major associated revelations. Arguments in favor of the “lab-leak hypothesis” remain grounded, as they ever were, in the mere and highly suspicious fact that a coronavirus likely borne by bats, likely from a cave in southwest China, emerged 18 months ago, quite suddenly, in a city very far from southwest China—where researchers had assembled an archive of cave-bat-borne coronaviruses. Much of the rest is window dressing. That the lab-leak hypothesis is gaining currency even as the facts remain the same has a useful implication, though. It suggests that definitive proof is not an absolute requirement. The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has killed millions of people. It might have started in the wild, or it might have started in a lab. We know enough to acknowledge that the second scenario is possible, and we should therefore act as though it’s true.

According to the May 14 letter to Science, the one demanding “a proper investigation” of COVID-19’s origins, “knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks.”

Just about every magazine story, Substack post, and piece of commentary about the lab-leak hypothesis includes a line like this, dropped like a smoke bomb, right up near the top. Did COVID-19 emerge from wildlife or might the virus have slipped out from a lab? “That urgent question is key to preventing the emergence of a SARS-CoV-3 or a COVID-29,” began one feature from March. “It matters a lot, because knowing how a virus-driven pandemic begins focuses our attention on preventing similar situations,” another article said in April. And “it matters a great deal which is the case if we hope to prevent a second such occurrence,” the science journalist Nicholas Wade wrote in a widely read essay earlier this month.

That’s a simple, unconvincing notion. The project to identify the source of the coronavirus pandemic surely has moral, legal, and political significance; but with regard to global public health—and to the crucial project of pandemic-proofing for the future—its outcome matters only at the margins. To say that we’ll need to know the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 in order to set policies for staving off SARS-CoV-3 commits us to the path of hindsight bias: It’s a pledge to keep on fighting the last war against emerging pathogens, if not a blueprint for constructing the next Maginot Line.

What information, really, would we get from a “proper investigation”? At best, we’ll have identified one more place to look for natural spillovers, or one more type of catastrophic accident: useful data, sure, but in the broader sense, just another case study added to a paltry set. Of the smattering of pandemics in the past century, one—the 1977 Russian flu—has been cited as the possible result of a laboratory accident. Whatever we might discover about the genesis of COVID-19 (and whether we discover anything at all), this historical record is bound to look more or less the same: Nearly all pandemics appear to have a natural source; possibly one or two have emerged, and more might do so in the future, from research settings.

Instead of calling for a new and better inquiry into origins, let’s stipulate that pandemics can result from natural spillovers or from laboratory accidents—and then let’s move along to implications. One important question has already gotten airtime (from right-wing media, at least): Should scientists be fiddling with pathogenic genomes, to measure out the steps they’d have to take before ascending to pandemic-level virulence? Should the National Institutes of Health be funding them? This was the subject of a fierce, unresolved debate among virologists that started back in 2012; it still isn’t clear to what extent such research helps prevent devastating outbreaks, and to what extent it poses a realistic risk of creating them.

Other questions include: Should coronavirus samples gathered from the wild be studied at moderate biosafety levels, as appears to have been the case at the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Is there any significant cost, in terms of preparing for the next pandemic, from slowing down surveillance work with more demanding safety regulations? And should China end the practice of transporting virus-laden guano from sparsely populated regions to population centers, as appears to have been the case in Wuhan? (One might also ask: Should studies of Ebola, or other outbreak-ready pathogens, be carried out in Boston?) As Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute, told me this week, we may yet discover that the COVID-19 story is a variation on “a small-town virus brought to the city, and suddenly becoming a star.”

Or we might be due for a far more substantial inquiry into the risks of scientific research. If we’re ready to acknowledge that a lab-induced pandemic is possible, and that we may be seeing the result, then “we’ll need to understand that the next major threat to public health could come from something else in biology—something that destroys crops, or changes the ocean, or changes the atmosphere,” Sam Weiss Evans, a biosecurity-governance scholar, told me. “This could be a moment of reckoning for the much wider biological community.”

For the moment, though, these discussions are on hold, while scientists chase—probably in vain—a full vetting of the lab-leak hypothesis.

They are not so process-obsessed when it comes to the “spillover” hypothesis, which, after all, is also wanting for direct evidence in the case of COVID-19. The Stanford University microbiologist David Relman—one of the organizers of the Science letter, and a former colleague of Michael Imperiale’s on the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity—told me this week that the research community already accepts that natural spillovers occur, and that they can cause dangerous outbreaks, so it doesn’t need any further proof. Scientists are bound to push ahead with efforts to prevent and anticipate human encounters with animals that harbor potentially dangerous viruses, he said. “That will happen almost regardless of what we learn now.”

Relman isn’t expecting a similar approach to laboratory safety. The idea that a lab accident might cause a pandemic “is a very difficult, uncomfortable scenario for many scientists to accept,” he said. Without more specific evidence in favor of the lab-leak hypothesis, “people will wring their hands and talk about it, just as they have since 2012, but I don’t think a lot will change to reduce the risk.”

[Karl Taro Greenfeld: We may never know the full story of COVID-19]

More specific evidence may never arrive, however, even after further study by the CIA or the WHO. A “proper investigation” might, at any rate, prove counterproductive. What happens if it drags on into the future, and never lands on anything concrete? (What if no one can agree on what constitutes substantive evidence?) Or what if researchers discover that SARS-CoV-2 really did begin in bats, or pangolins, or frozen meat? These outcomes wouldn’t make the risk of lab leaks go away, yet they’d surely shrink the scientific community’s inclination to address it.

“There’s a possibility of a lab escape,” Imperiale told me, and we should act on it, no matter what. “We don’t want to be asking these same questions again 10 years from now.” At this point, calls for further investigation are as likely to become an instrument of delay as of persuasion.

Fauci Defends Chinese Scientists But Says No Guarantee China Lab Didn't Use U.S. Funding for Research

Jon Jackson 

NEWSWEEK

26/5/2021

© Al Drago - Pool/Getty Images Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on June 30, 2020 in Washington, DC. Fauci has accused Tucker Carlson of spreading a conspiracy theory around the COVID vaccine.

Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday, where he found himself defending Chinese scientists during questioning from Sen. John Kennedy.

The Louisiana Republican kept pressing Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, if it was possible scientists in China lied to him in regards to not spending money on gain-of-function research. Fauci repeatedly said he trusts the scientists, though conceded there is "no way of guaranteeing" that they were fully truthful about how U.S. grant money was spent.


Play Video
Dr Fauci Says Investigation Into COVID-19 Origin Should Continue


The line of questioning began with Kennedy asking, "Dr. Fauci, I believe you have testified that you didn't give any money to the Wuhan lab to conduct gain-of-function research, is that right?"

"That is correct," Fauci responded.

"How do you know they didn't lie to you?" Kennedy asked, before asking Fauci again how he didn't know the scientists didn't use the money for gain-of-function research and then lie about how it was used.

Fauci said that he and others had seen the results of the experiments that were done and the viruses the Chinese scientists had studied. He noted that all that information is on public databases, and none of it indicates use for gain of functions.

Gain-of-function research refers to work done to alter an organism or disease in a way that increases pathogenesis, transmissibility, or host range. This includes taking virus that could infect humans and making it either more transmissible for humans. Some have theorized that the coronavirus was accidentally leaked from the Wuhan lab rather than spreading from bats to humans via another animal.

Addressing whether he and other American scientists were possibly lied to, Fauci said, "There's no way of guaranteeing that, but in our experience with grantees, including Chinese grantees, which we've had interactions with for a very long period of time, they're very competent, trustworthy, scientists. I'm not talking about anything else in China, I'm talking about the scientists."

Kennedy kept pressing Fauci whether it was possible that the Chinese government influenced the scientists or if the scientists concealed evidence of gain-of-function research. Fauci remained firm in his belief that the scientists were being truthful, however.

Toward the end of his time, Kennedy asked Fauci the following: "Can we agree that if you took President Xi Jinping and turned him upside down and shook him, The World Health Organization would fall out of his pocket?"

"I don't think I can answer that question, sir. I'm sorry," Fauci said while chuckling lightly.

Kennedy followed up by asking, "would you think that the President Xi Jinping has undue influence over the World Health Organization, do you?"

"I have no way of knowing the influence of the President of China over the WHO," Fauci replied.

Kennedy also accused Fauci and other scientists of "spiking" research done in the Trump administration about the Wuhan lab, another assertion that Fauci denied.

The exchange with Kennedy occurred during Fauci's appearance with Dr. Fancis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and others at Wednesday's National Institutes of Health 2022 budget request hearing.

Newsweek, in partnership with NewsGuard, is dedicated to providing accurate and verifiable vaccine and health information. With NewsGuard's HealthGuard browser extension, users can verify if a website is a trustworthy source of health information. Visit the Newsweek VaxFacts website to learn more and to download the HealthGuard browser extension.

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CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
'There's not one Scrooge McDuck, there's a lot of them': The Sackler family's sprawling wealth became the focus of a Purdue Pharma bankruptcy hearing

insider@insider.com (Allana Akhtar) 

© David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images 

A judge overseeing the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case said the company's wealth can't be tied to one person.

"There's not one Scrooge McDuck, there's a lot of them," Judge Robert Drain said.

If approved, the settlement would give the Sacklers immunity from future opioid-related lawsuits.
See more stories on Insider's business page.

A judge overseeing a landmark bankruptcy hearing involving Purdue Pharma, the maker of the opioid OxyContin, said the company's wealth can't be tied to one person.

Judge Robert D. Drain of the Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court heard from attorneys for Purdue Pharma and the creditors seeking bankruptcy settlement from the company. The May 26 hearing was meant for parties to bring up objections to Purdue Pharma's proposed disclosure agreement, which provides information on its finances to help creditors make an informed decision on the settlement plan.

During the hearing, representatives for the Department of Justice's Trustees Group and a committee of 24 non-consenting US states asked to include more details regarding the finances of the Sacklers, the billionaire family that founded Purdue Pharma.

"It's not like, as I gather, Scrooge McDuck who just takes a bath in vaults of cash he has in his apartment," Judge Drain said. 

"There's not one Scrooge McDuck, there's a lot of them."

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During the May 26 hearing, a lawyer for the US Trustees Program requested Purdue Pharma explain why the settlement payout would take nine years to deliver and not be paid in a lump sum.

Though Forbes estimates the Sackler family's net worth at $10.8 billion as of 2020, Darren S. Klein, an attorney from Davis Polk & Wardwell representing Purdue Pharma, said during the trial members of the family have different wealth depending on their ties to the company.

"There was very detailed financial diligence about individual wealth and liquidity of individual Sackler pods, which is why, each [side of the family] has a slightly different collateral package and a slightly different set of covenants," Klein said. "I think that it is the debtor's settlement and our job is to show that it's reasonable, and not in fact to publish every piece of information.

But lawyers from Davis Polk & Wardwell agreed to include more detail regarding the Sackler family's massive wealth in the disclosure agreement.

"We are delighted to add more language that the Sacklers would tell us if they believed in what Congress put out as having been submitted by the Sacklers is not correct," Klein said, referring to a Congressional report that showed the Sackler family's wealth totaled $11 billion. "We're happy to."

If approved by the court, the bankruptcy settlement would require the Sackler family to pay $4.2 billion to victims of the opioid crisis and forfeit control of Purdue Pharma, lawyers for Purdue Pharma said at the trial. But NPR's Brian Mann reported the settlement would give the Sackler family immunity from all future opioid litigation.

State governments, school districts, Native American tribes, and doctors submitted objections to the disclosure agreement prior to the hearing, per court filings.

The litigation surrounding Purdue Pharma has caused a rift among the various members of the Sackler family, Patrick Radden Keefe detailed in his book "Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty."

Though Arthur Sackler founded Purdue Pharma in 1952, his estranged brothers Mortimer and Raymond gained control of the company after Arthur died in 1987. Raymond Sackler's son, Richard, was chairman of the board who guided Purdue Pharma during the approval and initial release of OxyContin in December 1995.

OxyContin was the "most prescribed brand name narcotic medication" for treating moderate to severe pain by 2001, according to a report by the US Government Accountability Office. Deaths from prescription opioid overdose quadrupled between 1999 to 2019, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 247,000 deaths from prescription opioid overdose over the last two decades.

Grocery work shifting amid increasing automation, online sales, report finds

A sweeping new report on the state of Ontario's grocery industry paints a picture of a sector where jobs are rapidly changing as retailers dive deeper into e-commerce and automation gains speed.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

With online grocery orders and delivery accelerated by the pandemic, the hiring of warehouse, logistics and order fulfilment workers or "personal shoppers" has started to outpace more traditional supermarket jobs, the report says.

Concerns have also emerged over the possible disruptive impact of automation — changes that could have a lasting impact on the future of food retail work, according to the report.

The report released Wednesday by the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, an independent economic policy institute based at Ryerson University, highlights changes in e-commerce and automation that are shaping the grocery industry across the country.

"COVID-19 restrictions and risks have dramatically accelerated Canadian demand for online grocery shopping," the report said, noting that e-commerce grocery sales have increased 700 per cent since the start of the pandemic.

Rather than a predicted decline in jobs, the 43-page report found that the rise of automation and online shopping is instead shifting the nature of grocery retail work.

Unlike traditional grocery jobs like cashiers, clerks and in-store shelf and produce stockers, which tend to focus on customer service, the report found new e-commerce jobs involve fulfilling online orders, packing groceries, preparing food and delivering orders.

While many of these positions remain in stores, they are also increasingly located at distribution centres and so-called dark stores, which operate exclusively to fulfil online orders.



"What we can expect is for the nature of jobs and the demand for different skills to shift," said Kimberly Bowman, senior projects manager with the Brookfield Institute and one of the report's authors.

Workers in the front end of supermarkets are expected to have good communication and customer service skills, for example, whereas warehouse workers are focused on more independent tasks such as packing orders, she said. Personal shoppers who fulfil click-and-collect orders have a hybrid role, Bowman added.

While some jobs will indeed disappear or shrink, she said many others will change and new jobs will be created.

"We didn't find evidence that there was going to be a significant contraction in demand for workers," Bowman said. "We may see some job reductions, like cashiers being replaced by self-checkouts, but we also see other jobs emerge."

While the use of automated checkout kiosks is expanding and online grocery shopping is increasingly popular, an employee-free supermarket isn't likely any time soon, according to the report.

"Despite the public debate about automation potentially disrupting employment for food retail workers, employers are hiring and the pandemic has only increased the need for these positions," the report said.

Bowman added that human staff are still needed.

"The customer service component and the human component can actually be a really strong differentiator, especially for premium brands," she said.

But that doesn't mean the work available in stores isn't also changing.

The report, entitled Shakeup in Aisle 21: Disruption, Change and Opportunity in Ontario's Grocery Sector, said grocery retail jobs are increasingly becoming part-time and weekend work.

A generation ago, Canadians shopped for food on weekdays and Saturdays, the report said. But now the busiest shopping day is Sunday, with the most popular weekday shopping hours between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., according to the report.

Although cashier and clerk roles are increasing, the report said there was 15 per cent drop in full-time positions from 2006 to 2016.

Indeed, one food retail worker told researchers that while grocery stores used to hire full-time employees, "it doesn't happen like that anymore. Nobody gets hired full time."

Meanwhile, grocery work is low-paid at point of entry, the report said, with cashiers and clerks earning a median wage of $14.25 in Ontario.

Another food retail worker told researchers that with average rents of $2,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in the Toronto area, many people worked two or three jobs to stay afloat.

Yet despite low wages, Bowman said that doesn't mean grocery workers are low-skilled.

"Low wage does not equal low skill," she said, noting that more than half the grocery store workers the researchers spoke with for the report had some post-secondary training.

Bowman said food retail requires not just customer service and communications skills but also problem-solving and other valuable skills.

"Customer service remains in high demand," the report said. "Given challenges associated with pay and job quality, some of these workers may wish to investigate pathways into other occupations."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 26, 2021.

Brett Bundale, The Canadian Press

CANADA

Purchase of six recycling robots solves human shortage

MIDDLESEX - After struggling with staffing shortages, Bluewater Recycling Association (BRA) brought six robots into its Huron Park facility to help with the sorting of recycling.

“We’re the first in Canada to my knowledge to have this high-tech of an installation,” said an enthusiastic Strathroy-Caradoc Deputy Mayor Brad Richards, who also chairs the BRA Board of Directors. BRA President Francis Veilleux explained that the recycling industry is often quick to embrace the cutting-edge of technology.

“They use hyperspectral vision, which can distinguish different kinds of plastic that look identical to the human eye,” Veilleux said. Each bot has three components - a visual sensor to detect items, a mechanical arm to pick and sort, and an artificial intelligence (AI) database which stores the robots’ knowledge. As time goes on the AI gets better, drawing from a pool of data from Huron Park and other recycling facilities around the world. The Machinex

Samurai sorting robots were purchased in late 2020 for $1.9-million, after over a year of attempting to recruit for vacant human sorter positions. With combined savings and increased revenues, BRA is forecasting a payback on their investment in about 2.5 years.

According to Veilleux, robots work fast and consistently make 70 picks/minute, compared to around 30/minute for a human; however, BRA doesn’t yet plan on making a full transition away from human employees.

“We love our people, and we aren’t looking to get rid of them,” said Veilleux on the subject of job security. There have been no layoffs due to the new machinery; however, the addition means BRA can run the facility with six employees on the line instead of 12, which has led to the creation of an evening shift.

Workers remain on the line in case of emergencies or unusual recycling items. Single-use face masks are a large issue at the recycling plant currently as they get tangled in the equipment, noted Veilleux.

The association collects garbage and recycling in Middlesex County member municipalities, along with the Chippewas of the Thames & Oneida First Nations. The BRA Year-End report was released in May 2021, and is a very informative read for residents curious about the recycling process.

McKinley Leonard-Scott, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Middlesex Banner

HEY KENNEY;
Climate ambition, push for electric vehicles driving down need for oil: report

OTTAWA — The expected uptake of electric vehicles and stricter measures worldwide to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are the top reasons why a climate-focused research group is calling on governments not to invest any more money in Alberta's oil sector.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The International Institute for Sustainable Development has released a new study outlining how long-term demand for oil will be driven down by global targets to cut carbon-related pollution and the shift toward putting more vehicles on the road powered by batteries and alternative fuels.

Consequently, it recommends government spending not be directed at the production of combustible hydrocarbons and urges policy-makers to focus instead on Alberta's economic transition and diversification.

"Evidence shows that successful economic transitions and diversification take decades," the report reads.

"It is important that governments, communities, the private sector, unions, and non-governmental organizations accelerate these initiatives now."

ALBERTA PRODUCE'S THE MOST PRIVATIZED

WIND ENERGY IN CANADA AND IT'S EXPANDING 

In the short-term, however, the International Energy Agency expects global oil demand to reach around 99 million barrels per day by year-end — up from 93 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 2021 based on an easing of travel restrictions as vaccinations against COVID-19 ramp up.

The Paris-based agency also recently released a report on how the world's energy sector can achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

Canada, along with all other G7 countries, have pledged to reach net-zero emissions no later than 2050.

The agency's report says to do that on a global scale for the energy sector, no new oil and gas developments should be approved beyond what's already been planned, and coal mining shouldn't be expanded.

Following a virtual meeting with his G7 counterparts, Canada's environment minister wouldn't commit to that, saying in part that the country is coming up with its own plan on how to reach its 2050 goal.

“I do think it would be a little bit premature for us to foreclose anything," Jonathan Wilkinson said last Friday.

“Gas, in particular, one can see a pathway, where you essentially capture hydrogen from gas and capture all the CO2 and sequester it and you can do that in a way that’s not carbon polluting.”

The federal Liberal government has assembled an advisory body to provide insight on how to reach net-zero emissions. It has also promised to slash its greenhouse gas pollution output by up to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The government says current federal and provincial initiatives get it up to 36 per cent.

When it comes to the demand for oil, Wilkinson said because it's mainly used as a transportation fuel, ambitious sales targets for electric vehicles in different jurisdictions will no doubt have an impact.

By 2040, Canada has a goal that zero-emission vehicles make up all sales of light-duty vehicles.

“That obviously has implications for the production of oil, if in fact demand for that oil is being reduced significantly," Wilkinson said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 26, 2021

Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press

NEXT, THE TOBIN TAX

France's Le Maire urges G7 to back global corporate tax

PARIS (Reuters) - French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday it was paramount that G7 countries meeting next week in London agree on a new minimum corporate tax rate for multinational companies.

© Reuters/BENOIT TESSIER Restaurants and bars prepare to reopen in Paris

"At London's G7, the world's most power economies (...) must say: we agree on a new international tax, including a digital tax and a minimum tax. This will give a strong push so that at the G20 in Venice, in mid-July, a deal can be reached," Le Maire told France inter radio.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten)

DAY TWO

Oman protests see police fire tear gas in flashpoint city

Sohar similarly saw unrest during the 2011 Arab Spring

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Police in Oman fired tear gas Wednesday at demonstrators in a flashpoint city amid unrest over the sultanate's floundering economy and mass layoffs.

It wasn't immediately clear what sparked the police action in Sohar, a city some 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of the capital, Muscat. Demonstrators had marched and collected around an overpass that has been a rallying point.

Activists posted videos online showing some demonstrators responding by throwing rocks after police fired the tear gas. They described the demonstrations as peaceful, though videos showed they had shut down a major thoroughfare in the city.

Hours later, the state-run Oman News Agency alleged that some protesters had been “assaulting policemen, passers-by, drivers and blocking public and subsidiary roads” in Sohar. It also accused protesters of “attacking public and private property,” while saying many others had urged fellow demonstrators to be peaceful.

The agency added that the Royal Oman Police had “fulfilled its duty to maintain security, public order and the safety of citizens and residents, and not to disrupt their interests and freedoms," without elaborating on what that meant. The Royal Oman Police on Twitter denied anyone had been killed in the confrontation and urged the public “not to circulate false news.”

Demonstrations have struck in recent days across Oman, a nation on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula. Oman already faced economic trouble with tens of billions of dollars of outstanding debts and trouble finding enough work for its young people. Then came the coronavirus pandemic and repeated lockdowns that followed, further depressing growth in this nation of 4.5 million people.

Activists say some demonstrators had been arrested during the days of protests across the country, something not yet acknowledged by police. While Oman’s tightly controlled media did not initially cover the protests, newspapers and websites began showing images of the demonstrations and airing interviews with those aggrieved over the last day.

Sohar similarly saw unrest during the 2011 Arab Spring.

Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press