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from BBC News (UK)
Jack Ma: The billionaire trying to stop coronavirus (and fix China's reputation)
The richest man in China opened his own Twitter account last month, in the middle of the Covid-19 outbreak. So far, every one of his posts has been devoted to his unrivalled campaign to deliver medical supplies to almost every country around the world. "One world, one fight!" Jack Ma enthused in one of his first messages. "Together, we can do this!" he cheered in another. The billionaire entrepreneur is the driving force behind a widespread operation to ship medical supplies to more than 150 countries so far, sending face masks and ventilators to many places that have been elbowed out of the global brawl over life-saving equipment. But Ma's critics and even some of his supporters aren't sure what he's getting himself into. Has this bold venture into global philanthropy unveiled him as the friendly face of China's Communist Party? Or is he an independent player who is being used by the Party for propaganda purposes? He appears to be following China's diplomatic rules, particularly when choosing which countries should benefit from his donations, but his growing clout might put him in the crosshairs of the jealous leaders at the top of China's political pyramid. ... There's no doubt that China's wider reputation is benefiting from the charitable work of Ma and other wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs. Andrew Grabois from Candid, the philanthropic watchdog that's been measuring global donations in relation to Covid-19, says that the private donations coming from China are impossible to ignore. "They're taking a leadership role, the kind of thing that used to be done by the United States," he says. "The most obvious past example is the response to Ebola, the Ebola outbreak in 2014. The US sent in doctors and everything to West Africa to help contain that virus before it left West Africa." Chinese donors are taking on that role with this virus. "They are projecting soft power beyond their borders, going into areas, providing aid, monetary aid and expertise," Grabois adds. So, it's not the right time for Beijing to stand in Jack Ma's way.
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from Haaretz.com
Israel Upgrades Empty Roads and Rails Amid Coronavirus Restrictions
Roadwork is booming in Israel as construction crews take advantage of empty roads and railways in the time of coronavirus to upgrade the developed world's most congested highways. Many countries have debated whether to keep up construction amid fears of spreading the infection, but Israel, spotting a chance early on in its battle with the outbreak, took the risk and kept labourers deployed with masks and social distancing. The government injected over 1 billion shekels ($280 million) into the impromptu campaign and for nearly two months companies have been cramming in the work while the rest of the country is stuck at home.
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from National Review RIGHT BIAS
The Forgotten Hong Kong Flu Pandemic of 1968 Has Lessons for Today
We’re not just living through an earthshaking pandemic. We’re living through a new crisis in which a highly virulent virus arrives at the very moment when ubiquitous media coverage, global interconnectivity, and a certain amount of scientific conformity amplify everything. All of this has combined to create an unprecedented public-policy response. For the first time in history, we’ve effectively quarantined the healthy population while also practicing social distancing and protecting the old, vulnerable, and frail. Even public-health experts such as Doctors Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx admit that an economic lockdown is an untried and untested theory. Just how much so can be seen if we look back at how the U.S. — and indeed the world — handled the now largely forgotten 1968–’69 Hong Kong flu pandemic. It was an especially infectious virus that had the ability to mutate and render existing vaccines ineffective. Hundreds of thousands were hospitalized in the U.S. as the disease hit all 50 states by Christmas 1968. Like COVID-19, It was fatal primarily to people older than 65 with preexisting conditions. The Centers for Disease Control reports that it killed more than 1 million people worldwide, more than 100,000 of them in the U.S. Luckily, a vaccine was developed early — in August 1969. But the Hong Kong flu is still with us as a seasonal malady. ... We were more resilient then, there were no helicopter parents, and we were brought up in an era when it wasn’t unknown to get chicken pox, measles, mumps, German measles, or scarlet fever. Polio had haunted people’s nightmares until a vaccine was developed in the mid-1950s. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s earliest childhood memory is of the day he checked out of the polio treatment center in Warm Springs, Ga. During the Hong Kong flu, Americans rode buses less often, washed their hands, and practiced social distancing. But they went to work.
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from The New Yorker
LEFT BIAS, HIGH, magazine in New YorkSeattle’s Leaders Let Scientists Take the Lead. New York’s Did Not
The initial coronavirus outbreaks on the East and West Coasts emerged at roughly the same time. But the danger was communicated very differently. The first diagnosis of the coronavirus in the United States occurred in mid-January, in a Seattle suburb not far from the hospital where Dr. Francis Riedo, an infectious-disease specialist, works. When he heard the patient’s details—a thirty-five-year-old man had walked into an urgent-care clinic with a cough and a slight fever, and told doctors that he’d just returned from Wuhan, China—Riedo said to himself, “It’s begun.”
from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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Amid the Coronavirus Crisis, Heart and Stroke Patients Go Missing
Gina Kolata, The New York Times: Fear of the coronavirus is leading people with life-threatening emergencies, like a heart attack or stroke, to stay home when ordinarily they would have rushed to the emergency room, preliminary research suggests. Without prompt treatment, some patients ... have suffered permanent damage or have died. Emergency rooms have about half the normal number of patients, and heart and stroke units are nearly empty, according to doctors at many urban medical centers. Some medical experts fear more people are dying from untreated emergencies than from the coronavirus.
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from Yahoo News
Amid the Coronavirus Crisis, Heart and Stroke Patients Go Missing
Gina Kolata, The New York Times: Fear of the coronavirus is leading people with life-threatening emergencies, like a heart attack or stroke, to stay home when ordinarily they would have rushed to the emergency room, preliminary research suggests. Without prompt treatment, some patients ... have suffered permanent damage or have died. Emergency rooms have about half the normal number of patients, and heart and stroke units are nearly empty, according to doctors at many urban medical centers. Some medical experts fear more people are dying from untreated emergencies than from the coronavirus.
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