generalspeaking

Saturday, November 07, 2020

Slaughtering Mink

Mink breeder Thorbjoern Jepsen holds up a mink, as police forcibly gained access to his mink farm in Gjoel, Denmark on Oct. 9. The Danish government said Wednesday it wants to cull its herd of minks after a report showed a mutation in the virus found in some people who became infected by the animals. (Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix/Associated Press)

"[Transmission of the mutated virus strain between animals and humans is] a concern. Mutations [in viruses] are normal. These type of changes in the virus are something we have been tracking since the beginning."
"We are working with regional offices ... where there are mink farms, and looking at biosecurity and to prevent spillover events."
"[Denmark’s decision to cull its mink was aimed at preventing the establishment of] a new animal reservoir for this virus."
Maria van Kerkhove, technical lead for COVID-19,World Health Organization

"We need to wait and see what the implications are but I don’t think we should come to any conclusions about whether this particular mutation is going to impact vaccine efficacy."
"We don’t have any evidence at the moment that it would."
Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist, World Health Organization

"There’s always the potential that this can come back to humans. That is a concern because mammal species like mink are very good hosts and the virus can evolve within those species, especially if they are in large numbers packed closely together."
"[Other farm animals, such as pigs and poultry, have] very strict [biosecurity in place to prevent viruses jumping the species barrier]."
Mike Ryan, emergencies expert, World Health Organization

"Of course, we must not be the cause of a new pandemic. We do not know the professional basis for this assessment and risk ... but the government's decision is a disaster for the industry and Denmark."
Tage Pederson, chairman, Danish Breeders Association

Mink farmers protest in Holstebro in Jutland, Denmark, Friday Nov. 6, 2020. More than a quarter million Danes went into lockdown Friday in a northern region of the country where a mutated variation of the coronavirus has infected minks being farmed for their fur, leading to an order to kill millions of the animals. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the move was contain the virus, and it came two days after the government ordered the cull of all 15 million minks bred at Denmark’s 1,139 mink farms. (Bo Amstrup/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

Who might even have imagined that Denmark has a thriving mink industry to supply the world with mink fur? All the more so at a time of growing sensitivity to culling animals for their fur for human clothing when industrial fabrics are able to mimic the warmth factor that animal fur represents? Now, a recent finding that mink held in breeding pens have contracted a mutated strain of the novel coronavirus amidst fears that this virus may spread and compromise the usefulness of a vaccine, has caused the Danish government to mandate an entire cull of all mink in the country, some 15 million in total.

Just as humans living in close proximity to one another become susceptible to contagious disease transmission, so too are mink in close confinement alongside one another similarly susceptible and the little creatures have become victims of a coronavirus strain. The fear is that they became infected through initial contact with a person or persons infected with COVID-19, and in turn themselves infected other workers, a situation that could readily become uncontrollable, mandating their entire cull as a preventive measure.

Authorities fear that the mutated version of the virus could become a more resistant threat against future vaccines. Now restrictions have been imposed on movement across county lines affecting seven municipalities in northern Denmark, where restaurants and bars are to be shuttered, according to Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. Schools are also to be closed -- with all public transport shut down until December 3. Local inhabitants are encouraged to remain within their municipal boundaries and to get tested for the virus.

In this photo, minks in a farm in Gjoel in North Jutland, Denmark. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)

Denmark's mink pelt industry exports to the tune of $800 million annually, employing four thousand people, considered a fairly important industry for the small country. The proposed cull would surely result in a death knell for the outdated industry in a world where animal welfare concerns are becoming more mainstream and people increasingly reject the concept of wearing furs for their ornamental and practical uses. Denmark represents the largest producer and exporter of mink furs in Europe.

And oddly enough, it was a campaign launched first by Scandinavian countries, then taken up enthusiastically by the European Union, that gave a black eye to Canada's annual whitecoat seal hunt, and ultimately ended it. The annual hunt for adult seals by indigenous Inuit who traditionally hunt seals in season, to supplement their diets and who make use of every part of the animal in recognition of a culture and heritage in which this formed a way of life, is still realizing pressure from animal welfare groups.

Experts found agreement with Denmark's strategy to respond to the situation, according to state epidemiologist Kare Molbak, attending a meeting with the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. In Poland, another major mink pelt producer, no coronavirus has been detected. In neighbouring Sweden restrictions were imposed on mink farms after finding infections, but Sweden's infections are not reflective of the mutation discovered in Denmark.

(Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

According to Denmark's State Serum Institute, tests showed the new strain had mutations on its spike protein, representing a part of the virus that invades and infects healthy human cells, posing a potential risk to future COVID-19 vaccines, based on disabling the spike protein. "The danger is that the mutated virus could then spread back into man and evade any vaccine response which would have been designed to the original, non-mutated version of the spike protein", explained Ian Jones, a virology professor at University of Reading in Britain, of the five cases of the new virus strain recorded on mink farms and 12 cases for humans.

"[This represents a good solution, for] such an essential and science-based step to protect Danish citizens [has been decided in a total cull; there is hope that losing so many mink to the coronavirus causes fur farms to get out of the business]."
"Although the death of millions of mink — whether culled for COVID-19 or killed for fur — is an animal welfare tragedy, fur farmers will now have a clear opportunity to pivot away from this cruel and dying industry and choose a more humane and sustainable livelihood instead."
Joanna Swabe, spokesperson, Humane Society International-Europe

Labels: Coronavirus Mutations, Denmark, Infections, Mink Farms, Poland, Sweden, Vulnerable Animals

Saturday, June 06, 2020

Sweden's Mea Culpa

"What every country is trying to do is to keep people apart, using the measures we have and the traditions we have to implement those measures."

"The citizen has the responsibility not to spread a disease."

“If we were to encounter the same illness with the same knowledge that we have today, I think our response would land somewhere in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done."

Swedish public health agency's chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell

"[Tegnell] still can’t give an exact answer on what other measures should have been taken. That question remains, I think."

"For months, critics have been consistently dismissed. Sweden has done everything right, the rest of the world has done it wrong. And now, suddenly, this."

Sweden’s minister of health and social affairs, Lena Hallengren

People had lunch at a restaurant in Stockholm on April 21, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

The "this" that Sweden's Minister of Health refers to is a staggering death toll. It is a gamble that failed. Sweden is no further ahead economically, it failed in its goal to establish a country-wide 'herd immunity' effect that would in theory have seen the SARS-CoV-2 virus extinguish itself in exasperation at being unable to infect people because too many were immune to its lethal blandishments. The Swedes, goes the theory, are so logical in their thinking and so capable of independence of thought they would self-protect naturally.

No need for government to get in the way, to autocratically impose limits on people's freedom of movement. Common sense would prevail. Except, somehow, it failed to. Yes, there were some restrictions imposed; no large gatherings permitted and some schools were closed, while those who were able to work from home were encouraged to do just that. Otherwise, life in Sweden went on undisturbed, nothing out of the ordinary, no routines upended by inconvenient lockdowns.

Restaurants and bars remained open, schools for children under age 16 operated as per usual, in a decidedly calculated move to do things differently, logically, under the guidance of Anders Tegnell, the country's authoritative epidemiologist whose judgement everyone appeared to trust and to revel in. Who just happens to be the very same man who now regrets the immense loss of life in his country; win some, lose some.

He did enjoy the support of those who would have nothing to do with lockdown. And Swedes themselves in general appeared copacetic, confirmed in their belief in themselves and their government. And life went on. Though it stopped for many. Sweden has a death rate that considerably exceeds its neighbours' who did go into lockdown, and this was not the way things were supposed to turn out.

Sweden realized 450- deaths-per-million (for a total of 4,500 deaths), while comparable deaths-per-million for neighbours like Denmark (100), Finland (58), Norway (44) appear almost palatable by comparison, if any deaths at all can be felt to be acceptable under any conditions.That deaths-per-million for Sweden represents one of the worst the world has seen, even in hard-hit Europe. So much for death avoidance; that just didn't pan out.

And then there is the economy. While not the worst that Europe has seen, the country's economy is in fairly dire straits, a reflection of what has occurred around the world. Sweden has a drop in GDP of seven percent projected, commensurate with the same conditions and results seen elsewhere; in other words, nothing whatever gained. For one thing, it is hugely dependent on trade with neighbouring countries and they have been in no position to trade. A forgotten calculus.

Anders Tegnell Photographer: Pontus Lundahl/AFP via Getty Images

Herd immunity? The general consensus is that at least 60 percent of the population would have to be considered immune to have the entire population protectively impacted.Yet by April's end no more than 7.3 percent of the population were seen to have acquired a degree of immunity. Stockholm's eventual figure, according to Mr. Tegnell might reach just over 20 percent, and that most certainly does not equate with effective herd immunity. Another calculus gone kaput.

Labels: Crisis Management, Deaths, Failure, Herd Immunity, Infections, Lockdown Rejected, Open Society, Robust Economy, Sweden

Sunday, May 03, 2020

World Health Organization Unresponsive to Queries on COVID Recommendations and Timelines

"We haven't any alternative pitched to us [from the World Health Organization] at all. There could be perhaps an alternative pitch, which we would consider."
We asked for him [Canadian Dr.Bruce Aylward, WHO senior advisor] just to show up for an hour knowing that his time is valuable, but just one hour knowing that we would work around his time zone."
Canadian Member of Parliament Matt Jeneroux

"WHO has stated its strong commitment to a timely review of the global response in a transparent, independent and comprehensive manner."
"We are in the initial phase of the most complex and time-sensitive public health response in the history of the organization and our single-minded focus is thus on working with countries in the fight against the [global SARS-CoV-2] pandemic."
Canadian House of Commons Committee letter to WHO

"To me this is not about politics. I am not there [on the committee] to delve into the politics of the WHO. I am purely interested in their information and the way they responded to the COVID-19 crisis."
"I don't understand the difference. If he is prepared to come forward and on the record answer questions, why wouldn't he want to do that with our committee."
Member of Parliament Don Davies

Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organisation (WHO) attends a news conference of the WHO-China Joint Mission about its investigation of the coronavirus outbreak in Beijing, China, Feb. 24, 2020. Thomas Peter/Reuters

The World Health Organization has been criticized for giving the impression by its actions and statements clearly in favour of the Chinese response to the novel coronavirus, that its behaviour toward the Chinese Communist Party leadership is simply too deferential when its mandate is meant to be strictly objectively scientific in orientation, ensuring its guidance and advice to the world's nations is without bias, based strictly on medical science and factual evidence.

Not only has its chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, come under suspicion for the perceived unctuousness he displays toward China's Xi Jinping but that suspicion has now extended toward the former assistant director general of the World Health Organization who led an expert group examining the coronavirus' emergence in China. Dr.Aylward, in an interview with a television station out of Hong Kong where the issue of Taiwan was raised, terminated the interview rather than respond.

And because the WHO through Dr.Tedros initially praised the Chinese response and parroted its findings on human-to-human transmission, and played down the impending seriousness of the growing infection and death rate just as China did, leading to the international community being lulled into a state of complacency when a state of immediate alert should have been mandated, many countries' authorities have questions they would like answers to from the WHO.

Resident doctor Kelvin Lou puts a CVC line into a patient in a COVID suspect room in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at St. Paul's hospital in downtown Vancouver, Tuesday, April 21, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Jonathan Hayward)

To that end, the Canadian House of Commons committee looking into the issue had twice invited Dr. Aylward to come before them to respond to a number of queries relating to the novel coronavirus. To each of those invitations, Dr.Aylward responded in the negative. Had he recommended the presence of a senor aid to represent him, who would answer those questions, the committee would have accepted that as a reasonable alternative, but no such offer was forthcoming.

The UN agency's legal counsel responded to the committee by letter following the first invitation when counsel Derek Walton advised the agency is prepared for its decisions to undergo a full review, but not at the present. To which the head of the parliamentary committee, MP Jeneroux pointed out that Dr.Aylward has given time for media interviews, and as such it appears reasonable for him to spare time for an appearance before the committee representing his own government as a citizen of Canada.

That, since the Canadian response to the crisis of this global pandemic that has impacted so heavily around the world as an infectious disease afflicting over a million people worldwide with steadily growing numbers, while 244,000 people have died so far from its complications, the issues are of monumental importance. All the more so that the crisis and its response, driven by recommendations from the WHO, makes it incumbent on that body to be responsible for itself to the very audience so dependent on its guidance.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, Blair Gable / Reuters

The World Health Organization had been unequivocal, recommending against travel restrictions and border closings initially, with a side note that it would be 'racist' to close borders to China. They also advised against the use of protective masks by the public. Recommendations which Canada's chief public health officer, Dr.Theresa Tam, was guided by as she agreed with the WHO's recommendations before eventually changing her opinion over those issues.

Provided by: Public Health Agency of Canada

Labels: Canadian HoC Committee, Chna, Deaths, Dr.Bruce Aylward, Global Pandemic, Infections, Novel Coronavirus, Recommendations, World Health Organization, Wuhan

Saturday, May 02, 2020

SARS-CoV-19 -- China's Gift to the World, Transmitted Country-to-Country in Global Linkage

"We instituted the enhanced screening focused initially on China and then as it moved into Europe and Iran."
"In March, we in very quick succession told people not to go on cruises, issued a global travel health notice, because you can't actually tell which country the virus will come from, followed by the succession of border measures."
Dr.Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer, Canada

"We remain concerned that access from visitors from the United States continues to be allowed [into Canada]."
"It's our strong message that visitors from the United States not come to British Columbia."
Adrian Dix, B.C.Health Minister, March

When it became increasingly obvious that Canada would not be immune to the swift inroads of infections from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which surfaced in Wuhan, China, and whose viral infection rate, and transmission human-to-human of the new zoonotic was denied by Beijing, the federal government in Ottawa moved first to impose travel restrictions on China, but the last of the border restrictions to be put in place was for the United States, with mutual agreement.

Infamously, the Chinese Communist Party bristled with outrage at other countries closing their borders with China, calling the decision 'racist'. Ironically, when Chinese travellers returned to China after the Chinese New Year, bringing new cases of COVID-19 back with them from Italy, Spain, France and Britain, Beijing moved to exclude visitors from those countries.

And while the Canadian government claimed that it was instituting screening and isolation, none of it was formal, but merely suggestions that people do so. In the event, Canada moved tardily in comparison with many other countries to restrict international travel from China, beginning with airport screening relying on passengers to disclose whether they were experiencing virus symptoms and would commit to self-isolating.

Flights from China were suspended by Air Canada in February, with the government recommending people not travel to China, in early January. It took until March 18 when travellers from China were banned, and then sweeping global restrictions were imposed and international visitors barred from Canada altogether, with only Canadian citizens and permanent residents permitted to return.

Still, there was no closure of the U.S. border -- with a view to keeping essential goods between the two trading partners flowing. The continued open border between British Columbia and Washington State, which had become a focal point for an infection breakout, worried B.C. Minister of Health Adrian Dix, and he went out of his way to 'disinvite' Americans from travelling to British Columbia under the circumstances of their infection breakout.

By April 17, Ontario had identified 1,201 cases of COVID in people who had returned from some kind of international travel, five of whom had travelled from China, whereas 404 related to people travelling from the United States. The United Kingdom accounted for 126 cases, Mexico for 68 and Spain for 49 cases, rounding up the top destinations that gave Canadians with coronavirus infections they returned to Canada with.

Iran and Italy represent two other hot spots for the virus, both more heavily represented as sources for the virus than China; 19 cases attributed to Iran and seven from Italy. the United States gave Quebec 373 cases, with none at all from China, while travellers from France brought 151 cases back with them and 121 originated in Puerto Rico, and 117 in Austria. Alberta had one single case from China and 36 percent of their cases from he U.S.

According to data from Statistics Canada, the U.S., U.K. and China represented the top three destinations for travellers to Canada in 2018. Dr.Tam emphasized that curbs on travel from Iran arrived before Iran even reported it had any cases, reflecting that Canada had health data implicating Iran with a virus problem while Iran itself continued to deny it had any cases internally.

In the final analysis, all of the cases in Canada's early days of the novel coronavirus resulted from travelling, but as travel restrictions were enacted and Canadians returned home, travel-contact and infection began to represent a reduced part of the infection picture. On April 1 in Ontario, 695 cases connected to travel were identified. Three weeks later, 1,395 cases were identifiedc a period during which case numbers increased five-fold.

A body is removed after several residents died of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Eatonville Care Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada April 14, 2020. Reuters

Labels: Canada, China, Global Pandemic, Infections, Novel Coronavirus, Travel

Monday, April 27, 2020

Social Distancing in Closed Environments

"Very early on, we wrote two letters that we posted on social media that got tonnes of attention."
"Our method of protecting ourselves and the public from being infected is social distancing. And if you can't social distance ... you're just inviting disaster to strike."
"If you've got two people who are in a stadium and you tell them, close your eyes and just start walking around, the odds that they're going to walk into each other are pretty small. But if you have those same two people doing that in a room that's six-by-six metres, there's a pretty good chance that they're going to knock into each other. It's a simple function of the ability or the inability to distance."
"One of the advantages we have with long-term care facilities is at least we've been able to understand some degree of the problem. Someone's peeled back the scab, so to speak, to look under the bandage and we can see how absolutely horrific what was going on has been."
"The residents in these populations, we're just going to lose them. And that's a scar upon us if we can't protect our vulnerable."
"These are not closed systems. There are people who go and work there. And if we can't protect the healthcare workers, then almost certainly we're not protecting the health-care workers' families and therefore we're not protecting the public that is in contact with the health-care worker and their families and therefore we're not going to be able to get a hold of this whole problem."
Dr.Andrew Morris, professor of medicine, University of Toronto

"I think we're starting to see very quickly that hospitals are not really the front line of this pandemic in Canada."
"I think now people are almost playing a game of catch-up when you start looking at these settings [care homes for the elderly or disabled]."
Dr.Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto

Flowers are see outside Résidence Herron, a long-term-care home in the Montreal suburb of Dorval, Sunday, April 12, 2020.

The Quebec coronor's office has launched an investigation into a long-term care home in a suburb of Montreal where 31 people have died in a conditions the premier has called "deplorable"

It has now been six weeks and ongoing, where Canadians across the country have been counselled that it is up to everyone to 'flatten the curve'. To remain sequestered in their homes, to go out only on rare occasions when it's absolutely necessary, to remain distant physically from others. Schools closed, non-essential businesses shuttered, public spaces and events off limits, borders closed, travel plans nixed. All well and good, but none of this affected long-term care homes, yet fully 78 percent of all COVID-linked deaths have occurred in long-term care homes.

All of these measures to try to control a hugely infectious and sometimes morbidly-threatening new cornavirus were predicted before the virus entered North America. Dr. Morris, for one, was alert early on that COVID-19 would present an enormous problem to Canada when it arrived, as it surely would. But even he and colleagues of his whose thoughts took a similar track, were unable to visualize just how dramatically the Canadian reality of life-normalcy would ultimately be affected.

The Eatonville Care Centre, where multiple deaths from COVID-19 have occurred, is shown in Toronto on Tuesday, April 14, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

He and his colleagues got together to draft several letters outlining the situation that would unfold and their recommendations for an early response to the situation before it became a reality. At the time it seemed so difficult to believe that the country would swiftly be engulfed in a seemingly unstoppable epidemic they scarcely thought their communications would be given the serious consideration it required. Later, it would occur to them that though that attention was forthcoming, they had themselves failed to communicate the extent of the dire conditions that would ensue.

Now that Canadians have embarked on a voyage of countradicting the basic human impulse of sociability in an effort to halt the spread of the virus causing COVID-19, the very enormity of the threat takes on new proportions to our understanding of just how vulnerable we are as a population. But it is a readily identifiable demographic of the population that has borne the brunt of the infections.

Precautions were taken to close schools and daycares to shield children from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the most readily identifiable group within any population that is given first thought. Fears of overwhelmed hospital emergencies failed to materialize, with hospital admissions and ICU capacity at not only manageable levels, but anxiously awaiting the arrivals of other emergency situations more commonly making use of those facilities that have suddenly disappeared.

People are withholding their presence at Hospital Emergencies, hoping that their worrying symptoms of heart problems, stroke, appendicitis, accidental injuries will somehow abate, rather than subject themselves to the possibility of appearing at a hospital teeming with infectious agents and find themselves infected with the dread virus. And then there is another casualty that few had given prior thought to, but several of Dr. Morris's colleagues had.

The virus that thrives in the company of groups of people in close communion, and sees its opportunities dwindling when people exercise caution to keep physical distances, found its metier when it entered the confines of closed gatherings, where people are placed in situations with tight physical spaces and an abundance of potential targets. Places like nursing homes and long-term care homes, prisons and shelters for the homeless. "Congregate settings", perfect for a virus to thrive.

If more isn’t done to protect shelters, prisons and in other so-called “congregate settings,” advocates warn more mass outbreaks are inevitable. Francis Georgian/Postmedia/File

And in long-term and nursing homes the virus has done precisely that. Shelters and prisons next on the list. "I think we're going to see numbers jump dramatically", Cathy Crowe, a nurse with decades of working with the homeless in Toronto, stated. While many shelters are attempting to implement some elements of social distancing, in their limited spaces it is beyond difficult to adequately achieve.

"It's pretty much impossible to maintain social distancing in pretty much every congregate setting of a shelter or a drop-in, to be perfectly honest", Diana McNally, with her years working in Toronto shelters, offered. "The diagnostic differentiation of COVID among people experiencing homelessness is very challenging", Dr. Naheed Dossani, palliative care physician who often works with the homeless, pointed out.

In prisons and jails outbreaks are beginning to occur. "I'm speaking to senior citizens who are serving prison sentences and telling me, I didn't know this was going to be a death sentence", Paul Champ, a lawyer in Ottawa stated. As for long-term care homes where well over fifty percent of the COVID deaths not only in Canada but globally, have been taking place, the sheer vulnerability of the aged, infirm and health-compromised has shocked the world.

Homeless people make shelters on the sidewalk

As the coronavirus outbreak continues, Los Angeles has been providing unhoused people with motorhomes and RVs, which allow them to maintain social distance. Photograph: APU GOMES/Getty Images

Labels: Canada, Deaths, Homeless Shelters, Infections, Novel Coronavirus, Old-Age Nursing Homes, Prisons, Social Distancing

Monday, April 20, 2020

Coping Desperately With an Insatiable Novel Coronavirus

"To protect and build towards our shared prosperity at least $100 billion is needed to immediately resource a health and social safety net response."
"In a best-case scenario -- $44 billion would be required for testing, personal protection equipment, and to treat all those requiring hospitalization."
"We estimate that between five million and 29 million people will be pushed below the extreme poverty line of $1.90 per day owing to the impact of COVID-19."
UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)

Nigeria, the most populous and oil-wealthiest country on the African continent is set to lose between $14 billion and $19.2 billion in revenues from oil exports this extraordinary year of 2020. But then, the pricing war between Russia and Saudi Arabia not only beggared their own oil exports, but impacted deleteriously on oil revenues of first-world advanced countries like Canada. So Nigeria has not been alone in experiencing a drop of revenues from oil.

87 million people live in extreme poverty, in Nigeeia. Photograph: Sombo Sombo/Alamy

Yet even when Nigeria was receiving full value on the market from its oil exports, as one of two African wealthiest countries, it has never managed its economy to benefit its huge population of close to 200 million people, close to half of whom live in dire poverty, outstripping even India's indigent numbers with its far more numerous total population.

The African continent sees so many of its 54 countries in turmoil, beset with poverty and backwardness, conflict, ethnic and religious confrontations, tribal divisions of competitive advantage and never-ending territorial ambitions. All that, and endemic corruption, and national leaders wedded to self-aggrandizement siphoning off their nations' wealth to make themselves wealthy, withholding services other than to those who support their tyranny all make for a formula for failure.

So fa there have been fewer than 20,00 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus throughout the total of Africa's 54 countries while over two million have been reported globally. But the UNECA now warns that the pandemic is likely to kill at the very least 300,000 Africans, while placing 29 million in extreme poverty unless $100 billion is released as a continental safety net. This, at a time when the world's economy is fast sinking.

While EU countries Italy and Spain have been brought low by the virus, flooded with cases of COVID-19, with an incredible death rate resulting, they have appealed for help in securing personal protection equipment for their medical personnel who are also dying of the virus, and critical medication, seeing none of their neighbours in the European Union responding to their pleas. All countries of the world are facing dangerous shortages of drugs and protective equipment for health workers. Where will such short-supply equipment be sourced for Africa?

A private security guard stands with a semi-automatic rifle loaded with rubber bullets in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, on April 17, 2020

Moreover, African finance ministers have now as well collectively called for an additional $100 billion in stimulus; effectively placing a stop to all external debt service. This, at a time when countries in Europe, North America and South Asia are struggling to support their economies, borrowing heavily in a desperate attempt to shore up local business enterprise and mass unemployment to avoid total economic collapse. Focusing on stimulus for their own badly faltering financial status where is the stimulus for Africa to come from?

The UN agency created a four-scenario model based on preventive measures introduced by governments in Africa so that in the total absence of interventions a calculated 1.2 billion Africans would be infected, with 3.3 million dying this year. In other words, in a continent of 1.3 billion people in total, the forecast is for virtually all to contract the novel coronavirus. A winnowing out of the weakest and most vulnerable. Nature at its survival-harshest.

Municipal workers dressed in protective gear rest while on duty disinfecting a street during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in the Bab el-Oued district of Algeria's capital Algiers on April 9

However, since most of Africa has mandated social distancing ranging from curfews and travel guidelines in some countries to full lockdowns in others, with best-case scenarios reflecting intense social distancing, Africa would see 122.8 million infections, 2.3 million hospitalizations and 300,000 deaths, once a threshold of 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people weekly has been reached.

Then there is the dire reality of 36 percent of Africans living without access to household basic hygienic facilities, and adding to that the continent has 1.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people where advanced, developed countries average 5.98 beds per 1,000 people, and again a formula for disaster. Balancing that is the youth demographic of 60 percent below the age of 25, an age far less dramatically health-compromised by the infectious coronavirus.

Yet, Africa being Africa, 56 percent of the urban population live in overcrowded slums with a greater, vulnerable population resulting from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malnutrition. According to the UNECA report, 94 percent of Africa's pharmaceuticals are imported, hard up against 70 countries globally responding to their own flood of COVID cases banning or limiting exports of supplies essential to fighting the virus. A situation again, universally shared.

A man carries a box of protective masks to emergency workers Thursday in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. The West African country has seen relatively few confirmed cases of the coronavirus to this point — but global health officials fear that won't always be the case. John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images

Labels: Africa, Deaths, Global Pandemic, Infections, United Nations

Thursday, April 09, 2020

Europe's Urgency to Return to Business As Usual

"[The jump in the infection and death rate was] probably due to the delay in inputting [the deaths] and the fact that we are coming out of a weekend."
"That's an indicator that the epidemic is continuing its advance."
"We have not yet reached the peak [even if the rate of admissions was slightly diminishing. So], to talk about lifting confinement makes no sense."
Jerome Salomon, health director, France

"One of the most important parts is not to let go of the measures too early in order not to have a fallback again."
"It's similar to being sick yourself; if you get out of bed too early and get running too early, you risk falling back and having complications."
Christian Lindmeier, WHO spokesman

Ambulances outside the NHS Nightingale hospital. Photograph: Matthew Childs/Reuters

On Tuesday night the grim statistics revealed that the COVID-19 death toll had reached 10,000 in France, leading health officials to warn that discussions around the lifting of confinement "currently makes no sense"; since the peak of the epidemic in France had not yet been reached. With a daily death toll of 1,427 once deaths in care homes were included in the total, the situation is beyond critical. Including deaths from cornavirus taking place in retirement homes is of recent vintage.

Over 30,000 people are hospitalized at the present time in the country, with 7,131 of that total in intensive care. That, in and of itself is more than ample indication that France is nowhere near seeing an improvement in the infection and death rate as it rampages on. On the other hand, the number of patients leaving intensive care is now higher by a figure of 59 than the number of those entering those emergency hospital services.

Confinement, according to the nation's scientific committee, is slated to continue beyond the current deadline set for April 15, and likely to be extended until early May. The government of Spain, speaking of the first rise in the daily death toll in five days from COVID-19, dismissing it as a blip, with the insistence that the numbers were "going in the right direction", chose to extend their lockdown as well to April 26, at the very least.

CATALONIA, GIRONA, SPAIN - 2020/04/04: Emergency health workers in protective gear as a preventive measure, finalizing a transfer of a possible case of COVID-19.

Martí Navarro/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

In Italy, the hardest-hit of the European countries to be ravaged by the novel coronavirus, businesses have been begging the government to think about lifting confinement, even while the World Health Organization has strongly urged countries to refrain from lifting lockdowns too early. In the last 24 hours up to Tuesday morning, 743 people died in Spain, in comparison with 637 deaths that took place the previous day.

The figure, noted chief government spokesman Maria Jesus Montero was a mere "ripple" in the statistical trend owing to the weekend data processing. "The tendency of the data says we are going in the right direction", said Montero with confidence in announcing Tuesday's cabinet meeting had approved an extension of the nation's state of emergency.

A view from the empty Plaza de Colón in Madrid, Spain

Labels: COVID-19, Crisis Management, Death Rate, Europe, France, Infections, Italy, Spain