Back, back, back again. I have plans for editions of this focused on cute animals, ways to entertain children, and news that has nothing to do with viruses coming after this one. That said, there’s lots here that goes beyond the basics, though those matter two. I hope it continues to be valuable, and that you all continue to be well.
The country is slowly reopening but gap in the death rate between Canada (82K cases, 6,267 deaths) and the United States is narrowing. A few days ago, Air Canada added 20,000 layoffs to the significant national total. With much of the country still in various stages of lockdown, unemployment rates in the country are at 13% overall. But the impact of that unemployment is hitting different communities — specifically, women and young people — differently.
Case numbers are slowing overall in the U.S. (1.5M cases, 94,661 deaths) but that progress is uneven. Cases are dropping in the country’s northeast in particular, but increasing in meatpacking cities and states like Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, Arkansas, and South Dakota. Meanwhile, Trump’s failiest failson claimed coronavirus is a hoax, which seems unhelpful.
Six new cases of COVID-19 were found in Wuhan in China (84K cases, 4,368 deaths), which has prompted officials to release a plan to test every single one of the city’s 11 million residents in a period of about two weeks. And with an outbreak of new cases in Shuhan, the country put the city under a lockdown similar to the one Wuhan endured.
Germany (179K cases, 8,203 deaths), which has one of the lowest COVID-19 deaths rates for an affected country, is slowly reopening. As in the U.S. and Canada, the country has an outbreak tied to a meat-processing facility. In Germany’s case, it highlights the difficult conditions some migrant workers face.
Life is hard in slums in India (118K cases, 3,584 deaths) every day, but the coronavirus outbreak and related shutdowns have turned things from “our life was limited and small, but it was good,” to “everything is ruined,” in one resident’s words. The pandemic has also worsened the already dangerous and difficult situation for migrants and Muslims in the country.
Slovakia (1,500 cases, 28 deaths) took early action to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and the country’s public figures got visibly on board. The result is the lowest per-capita death rate in Europe and the start of reopening.
The LGBTQ community fears a backlash and forced outings in South Korea (11k cases, 264 deaths), where a fresh outbreak of coronavirus has been connected to a man who visited several gay bars in Seoul.
Sweden (32K cases, 3,871 deaths) and its experiment in “herd immunity” have been covered extensively, from both sides of the debate over whether or not the country’s measures worked — and whether their strategy is not so much a way to stop the virus as a look at how we’ll all have to live with it.
Mexico (56K cases, 6,090 deaths) restricted early measures to contain COVID-19 that were taken by many surrounding countries. Cases are now rising in the country, where physicians have been criticized as greedy by the president.
Nearly 40% of people in Iceland (1,800 cases, 10 deaths) are already using an automated contact tracing app, the highest national percentage in the world. But one government official said the app’s impact was limited without integration with manual tracing.
With Lima, the capital of Peru (108K cases, 3,148 deaths), under lockdown, thousands of migrants have begun to walk to their hometowns.
Several regions of Japan (16K cases, 771 deaths) have ended their state of emergency due to COVID-19, while Tokyo continues to have restrictions in place. The country also announced they are treating coronavirus patients in the ICU or on ventilators with remdesivir, which just received emergency approval there.
The outbreak continues to worsen in Brazil (291K cases, 20,047 deaths), where the president has promoted the use of an unproven malaria drug to treat COVID-19 and the health ministry is using it on patients with mild cases.
Travel
I have never been on a cruise. I am not too good for a packaged vacation — I have visited and enjoyed several resorts. But I am kind of wary of boats, and not sure what I think about all those people ON a boat. With that plus several years where cost and a kid meant international travel wasn’t happening, a cruise just did not happen.
After all of this *waves arms around in despair* I don’t think a cruise ever will happen. I was turned off the industry before the pandemic after learning more about the unequal working conditions many people experience on the boats — in particular, the way international workers from countries like the Philippines are treated versus those from countries like Canada and the United States. The environmental impact of cruises is also problematic. (But of course, there are plenty of other ways that travel has a negative effect on the environment and the cruise industry is far from the only one with discriminatory labour practices. The resorts I enjoy are hardly a beacon of light and good on this measure.)
More worryingly, I think it will be hard to forget the slow and ineffective response the cruise industry had to the quickening spread of COVID-19, or the plight of workers and passengers stuck on various ships as cases and deaths mounted. Passengers have since returned home, but there are still thousands of workers on boats — many not being paid, none of them sure how or when they will get home.
It’s also not entirely sure what the cruise industry will look like after the pandemic. The major players are losing money hand over fist right now and face significant lawsuits. Many North American ports will be closed to cruise ships for months. Two of them, Princess and Holland America, cancelled their 2020 summer season.
But a lot of people love cruises, and some of them will want to take one again. Many of those people will wait, but there are some who are ready to get back on those boats the first chance they can. Tourism is going to be an essential part of economic recovery for many places around the world. In Newfoundland and Labrador, where I live, tourism is worth $1 billion to our economy every year and the loss of it is devastating for small communities around the province. What we don’t know yet is how we can get back on planes and boats safely, but I hope that when we do it’s as participants in a more equitable and economically responsible industry.
Other Stuff
I don’t have to tell any of you about the mental health impacts of weeks and weeks of isolation, I’m sure. But it seems like we’re preparing for a wave of mental health impacts on the medical and care workers who have faced the brunt of the pandemic.
In April, a doctor in New York City who treated COVID-19 patients died by suicide. A couple days before that, an EMT in the Bronx did as well. Healthcare workers already have increased risk of suicide, and for weeks there have been warnings about the possibility of that risk increasing given current circumstances.
Workers in hospitals, long-term care homes, ambulance services, and other medical environments in the places hardest hit by COVID-19 have now dealt weeks of long hours, high patient loads, and deaths, often while helping family members have contact with loved ones when that’s not physically possible. Many people have been doing that work while worrying about their own safety and that of their colleagues, or even about their job security. PTSD and burnout seem like the logical, if terrible, consequences of that.
Amid all this, we’re learning more about the ways COVID-19 affects our bodies and spreads throughout communities. The idea of “natural immunity,” something promoted by anti-vaxxers, is getting mainstream attention amid the pandemic. It’s an idea with some elements of reality included in it, but one that takes legitimate medical knowledge into crazytown territory.
In short, please do not get your medical advice from Instagram influencers because COVID-19 can definitely kill you, and it can also make you very sick even if it doesn’t. Some of the virus’ potential health effects include silent hypoxia and strokes. Many people who get this coronavirus don’t get very sick, of course, and some show no symptoms at all. But many other people do.
Early in this pandemic, the idea of COVID-19 as an equalizer of sorts was touted. It’s certainly true that anyone can contract this virus but we’ve seen in many ways how it affects different people and communities — specifically, people of colour and marginalized people — differently and mirrors existing societal and health inequalities.
For example, in the United States the Navajo Nation has more COVID-19 cases than eight states combined and would have the third-highest infection rate per capita in the country if it if were a state. Doctors Without Borders dispatched a team to help affected communities. If you’re able, donations to the Navajo and Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund are one way to help.
I’ve also shared in previous editions how Black communities in the United States are being badly hit by illness and death during this pandemic. A recent episode of the podcast The Daily by the New York Times on that topic was a sad and difficult listen, but an important and informative one.
New York City was also badly affected by coronavirus — again, some areas more than others, but others not as badly as one might expect. In Queens, the neighbourhood of Flushing has the lowest COVID-19 rates in the five boroughs. But nearby Corona was the early epicentre of the outbreak. The two neighbourhoods have a lot in common: they are connected by the 7 train, they are high density, they have many residents who were born in other countries, they are working class, they have many residents who lack health insurance.
But Flushing has a large Asian community, and Corona has a large Latino community; it can’t be said for sure, but it seems that the residents of Flushing were helped by early action they took, in part because they were aware of what was happening in China. There is a lot more to learn but it could be valuable to research what happened in Queens and how that could help all marginalized communities.
And finally, there are a few places in the world that still do not have their own localized COVID-19 outbreak. In the Pacific island nation of Nauru, significant restrictions have kept the virus away — but the fear is present.