The great pandemic: A longish update
First, the numbers: We added 355,836 new cases and 3,434 deaths. Our total number of cases is now over 2 crores! Our cumulative death toll of 222,381 is the third highest in the world. In better news, all the leading states—Maharashtra, Punjab, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana etc.—witnessed a decrease in their cases. But we will have to wait and see if this is a typical weekend slump or a long-term trend.
An ongoing Serum drama: First the Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla told The Times UK that he was being threatened by powerful people in India—and that’s why he fled to London. Then he tweeted that he was in London for business, and planned to return home soon. Then he told the Financial Times that he expects the vaccine shortages in India to continue until July, adding:
“Poonawalla said the Serum Institute had been maligned by politicians and critics over the vaccine shortages, pointing out that the government, not the company, was responsible for policy… ‘I’ve been victimised very unfairly and wrongly,’ he said, adding that he had not boosted capacity earlier because ‘there were no orders, we did not think we needed to make more than 1 billion doses a year.’”
Then the government jumped in and insisted that it has indeed placed fresh orders for vaccines. Then Serum tweeted: “We endorse this statement, & the authenticity of the information. We have been working closely with the Government of India for the past year & thank it for its support.” Sigh!
Point to note: Serum will invest £240 million in the UK to “support clinical trials, research and development and possibly manufacturing of vaccines.” The Hindu has more.
Oxygen shortages: Are oxygen concentrators lying stuck in customs at Delhi airport? Social media images seem to suggest so, but government agencies have since strenuously denied it. Scroll has this story. Meanwhile, Doctors of Indian origin in the US have already raised $2 million to send oxygen concentrators, ventilators, and BiPAP machines—which hopefully won’t be stuck in customs. A good related read: The Atlantic on how Indian Americans are grappling with the guilt and anxiety triggered by the second wave.
About that Aussie travel ban: Anyone travelling to Australia from India faces both fines and up to five years in prison. A lot of folks are calling this unusually stringent travel plan racist:
"We didn't see differential treatment being extended to... the United States, the UK, and any European country even though the rates of infection were very high and the danger of arrivals from those countries was very high."
Meanwhile, former cricketer Michael Slater who is now an IPL commentator is furious on behalf of all fellow Australians stranded in India:
“If our Government cared for the safety of Aussies they would allow us to get home. It's a disgrace!! Blood on your hands PM. How dare you treat us like this. How about you sort out quarantine system. I had government permission to work on the IPL but I now have government neglect.”
Meanwhile, in the rest of the world:
- Japanese nurses are furious at the International Olympics Committee. The reason: The IOC wants 500 nurses to volunteer at the games—at a time when the healthcare system is under stress due to Covid.
- Wall Street Journal reports that Dubai has emerged as the new Casablanca—a place where international executives fly in to cut deals. All this due to its lax quarantine restrictions: “You can actually sit with someone in person, break bread and close the deals in the way you would have been able to do two years ago.”
- Nepal has kept the Everest base camp open to visitors despite the pandemic—and it has resulted inevitably in an outbreak. But the government is trying to keep it quiet: “[R]eports from Everest described a number of evacuations of climbers showing symptoms of Covid-19 even as doctors at base camp complained privately they were not being allowed by the country’s ministry of health to undertake PCR testing.” The Guardian has more. FYI, Nepal has now finally banned all domestic and international air travel.
Mamata’s election in question
The Bengal Chief Minister lost the election in her Nandigram constituency by a slim margin of 1,956 votes. She asked for a recount—and her request was denied by the Election Commission. She now claims that there was hera-pheri in the counting: “I received an SMS from someone in which the returning officer for Nandigram wrote to someone that if he allowed a recount, his life would be under threat.” Now she plans to take her complaint to the courts. OTOH, the EC insists the returning officer was being threatened by Trinamool, adding, “The EC has asked the West Bengal government to give the officer protection, but it’s up to them to do it”.
An unexpected complication: Even if her Nandigram challenge fails, Banerjee has six months to seek election from the same or another constituency. But now there is a cloud over that option as well. The reason: The EC has indefinitely suspended all by-elections due to Covid.
Speaking of the EC: Last week, the Madras High Court angrily chastised the commission for not enforcing pandemic protocols during the state elections—saying its officials could be held responsible for “murder.” Soon after, in Kolkata, the wife of a candidate who died of Covid filed a case of culpable homicide against the deputy election commissioner. The EC ran to the Supreme Court to ask it to: a) prohibit such cases; b) prevent High Court judges from making such remarks; and c) prevent the media from reporting such remarks. It lost on all counts. The justices said:
“We will have to maintain the sanctity of judicial order; we will have to also give liberty to the chief justice of the High Court. We also feel that the media should include in its reports everything that has been observed in the court… This is because the discussion in a court of law is equally in public interest. When we are dealing with the superior courts like the high courts, I place this (oral) discussion at the same pedestal as the final order.”
Bill Gates is getting divorced
Bill and Melinda Gates announced the end of their 27-year old marriage on Twitter:
“After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage. Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives. We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.”
Coming next: mad speculation over the divorce settlement. CNN has more context.
Bad news about plastic pollution
A 2017 study concluded that 90% of plastic waste is dumped into the oceans by 10-20 big continental rivers. Turns out it was wrong. A new study found that 80% of the waste comes from over 1000 rivers—and a lot of them are small ones that run through cities:
“Thus, the Yangtze, which traverses 3,915 miles across China and empties into the East China Sea, and was ranked most polluted by plastics, has been displaced by the 16-mile-long Pasig River in the Philippines, which flows through the capital city of Manila, home to 14 million people.”
What this means: The challenge of cleaning up rivers just got a lot bigger: “It’s not very difficult to address one river. It’s very difficult to do ten or one hundred or one thousand.” (National Geographic)
A new design for ‘Gladiator’ fans
Italy has unveiled plans to install a new floor on the Colosseum arena—so visitors can walk across it and enjoy the same view as ancient gladiators. Right now, the underground chambers lie exposed in the middle of the arena, and there is no ‘floor’ as such. Art historians are unhappy:
“Monuments are not things to be filled…It’s all very ridiculous, it’s Italy seen via Las Vegas…[visitors are privileged to see these underground corridors that are] unique in the world. It will be a shame to cover it.”
New York Times has more on this $18 million renovation. Also, this video gives you a sense of exactly what it will look like:
The world’s longest pedestrian bridge
The Arouca bridge in Portugal is a half-kilometer in length—and is suspended by cables 175 meters (574 feet) above the Paiva River. No one is allowed on the bridge without a guide, and kids below the age of six are banned. Also, it looks like this:
This is a very big fish
The US Fish and Wildlife Service caught a massive lake sturgeon weighing 108.8 kilograms (240 pounds) in the Detroit River in Michigan. Based on her girth and ridiculously large size—almost seven feet long!—experts think she might be over a 100 years old! FYI: She was released back into the water after being weighed since sturgeons are an endangered species. So you can enjoy the image below without any guilt:
