Brunello Cucinelli on the Opportunity Ahead Post-Coronavirus – WWD

Posted on by

MILAN For the philosophical entrepreneur Brunello Cucinelli, the coronavirus pandemic marks the start of a new time.

Only Cucinelli would use the release of his luxury brands first-quarter figures on Thursday which saw a 2.3 percent drop in preliminary revenues as COVID-19 spread first in China and then to the rest of the world as an opportunity to talk as much about humanity, Creation and a process of renewal than the details of financials and store openings. His Letter to Investors for the New Time echoes many of the themes Cucinelli has stated over the years and the tenets on how he tries to run his company.

Cucinellis letter is the second by a major Italian fashion figure to address the changes taking place as the pandemic rages worldwide, and the latest to address how the industry will be transformed by the crisis. Giorgio Armani last week wrote an open letter to WWD expressing his thoughts on the need for the fashion system to adopt a new methodology one that is slower and more sustainable.

In Cucinellis case, his letter was more about how the pandemic is transforming us as individuals, bringing into perspective what is important in ones life. Too many things we have learned in such a short time; too many things we thought indispensable have turned out to be superfluous, too many feelings we thought dormant re-emerged like new springs, he wrote, adding that in the letter he wanted to focus on those changes that slowly but surely, from day-to-day perhaps without us even realizing it yet are almost reshaping our human structure, showing us just how beautiful the world can be, that very same world that we took for granted until yesterday.

Until a few days ago, the time that flows from one daily action to the next was driven by the frantic urgency of an ongoing haste and frenzy without a conscious reason; today time has changed its pace like in a melody where every musical beat falls where the score of Creation wants it to be, and generates a music of memories and future that we wont easily forget, Cucinelli went on. How many times, in yesterdays life, our words stole the space of feelings, forgetting that the first truly universal word is the example of a life led with moderation! How many times, wrapped up in a life that we believed to be the best possible, somewhere, perhaps even in our dreams, we wondered if our behavior was not completely respectful of Creation, and for a moment we thought that maybe we were acting against nature?

But instead of being pessimistic about the crisis that is devastating lives and economies worldwide, Cucinelli expressed optimism over the renewal that will result. That extends to his own company, even though it saw first-quarter revenues drop to156.7 million euros from 160.4 million last year, with the first three months of 2020 almost a tale of two parts. In a statement accompanying the results, the businessman said the year started off strongly and remained so until the end of February, apart from China, where the pandemic had already taken hold.In China, revenues during the quarter fell 27.1 percent to 11.2 million euros, or 7.2 percent of the total. The first signs of improvement in China were seen in the first 10 days of March and over the past few days, following the gradual normalization of the health situation and the reopening of stores, as well as a desire to restart.

There were declines in other major markets as well, including Italy, where revenues fell13.9 percent to 24.4 million euros, impacted by the full closures of stores in the second part of the quarter, andEurope, which decreased 2.2. percent to 51 million euros, representing 32.5 percent of the total, with remarkable growth until the beginning of March. Sales rose in North America, which was up 9.5 percent to 50.8 million euros with a sharp improvement until stores had to close in the second half of last month, and were up 6.6 percent in the rest of the world to 19.3 million euros.

Despite the first-quarter drop in sales, the company believes its strengths will allow it to maintain the strategy and vision it laid out in its 2019-28 plan. The company said these strengths include: the flexibility of its manufacturing structure, which is fully Italian (75 percent of it is located in the Umbria region) and made up of 364 high-quality artisanal laboratories employing about 5,000 people; a strong partnership with all its main suppliers; the importance of the wholesale channel, which represented around 45 percent of total sales last year; the low level of debt, and a sound trust-based relationship with our customers hinged around the protection of their human privacy.

Our company structure has been planned for delivering balanced growth in the three-year period 2020-21-22, Cucinelli said in his statement with the results, cautioning that, we may have to wait another two or three months to get an overview of the whole year, but at the same time the fall/winter 2020 wholesale order backlog is very significant, and in this regard the strong reliability of our partners and hopefully ours, too reassures us a lot.

That said, the company admitted that COVID-19 will make it impossible for it tofully deliver the economic objectives we had set ourselves for 2020, with a much greater impact in the second quarter than in the first three months of the year.

However, in Cucinellis view, these challenges are only momentary ones. In his view, the new time that will emerge is brimming with fabulous opportunities, a bearer of new lifeblood, a creator of ideas revolving around a renewed desire for life. I know that there will be economic growth; I know that enthusiasm will make our hearts soar. But at the end of this all we will be different; we too, like time, will be somehow new.

Something has been transformed and it will make us see things and life in a different, beautiful, enchanted light, his letter on this new time stated. That very same bread, which we took for granted yesterday, will now be a new surprise, a warning to remind us of those who do not have any bread, and should have it. In every man we will recognize another man: our brother.

Something has changed, and it will reveal us that family is the bud of society. And so water, the fields of wheat, the orchards, and the animals that feed us, will take on a new look, they will be full of a meaning that is their natural, fair, balanced one, they will become almost sacred. This value is that of the rhythm of Creation, which beats in our hearts.

Cucinelli then turned to a theme that has occupied him for years: balance in ones life and balance in business. He believes the post-COVID-19 era provides the world a fascinating opportunity for us to restore the relationship between humanism and technology, between consumption and the economy, between the spirit and harmony, between profit and giving back. I have always imagined our life as the relationship between us and our destiny, which like the ring of a planet, or in the shape of an enormous wheel turns slowly but steadily, carrying some good and some pain on its every spoke, and always, always, the spoke of our cherished opportunities.

He went on: The new time is this opportunity: to redress our relationship with Creation according to its rules, the rules of simple use and not waste or consumption, respect for human dignity, fair work, and everything in the world that is worthy of being called human.

I have no doubt about this new time, a time that will speak to us with a silent and piercing language, a time as new as we will be. One day, thinking back to this lazy, idle time, for a while we will perceive it with a sort of revulsion, but then unexpectedly, maybe on a spring day like today, in the early morning, when the last night stars go out in the sky, when the painful memories overwhelm us, we will be surprised to feel almost a sense of fondness, an inconceivable warmth towards todays times, and we will then realize that with time we end up loving even our sorrows, because they taught us our new life.

See the rest here:

Brunello Cucinelli on the Opportunity Ahead Post-Coronavirus - WWD

Lockdown lessons from the history of solitude – The Conversation UK

Posted on by

When the poet John Donne was struck down by a sudden infection in 1623 he immediately found himself alone even his doctors deserted him. The experience, which only lasted a week, was intolerable. He later wrote: As sickness is the greatest misery, so the greatest misery of sickness is solitude.

Its hard to believe now, but until relatively recently, solitude or the experience of being alone for significant periods of time was treated with a mixture of fear and respect. It tended to be restricted to enclosed religious orders and was thus a privileged experience of a male elite. Change was only set in motion by the Reformation and the Enlightenment, when the ideologies of humanism and realism took hold and solitude slowly became something that anyone could acceptably seek from time to time. Most people in the West are now used to some regular form of solitude but the reality of lockdown is making this experience far more extreme.

I have spent the last few years researching the history of solitude, looking into how people in the past managed to balance community ties and solitary behaviours. This has never seemed more relevant.

Take the example of my own community. I live and now work in an old house in an ancient Shropshire village in England. In the 11th-century Domesday Book it was recorded as a viable community, on a bluff of land above the River Severn. Over the centuries, its self-sufficiency has declined. Now it has no services beyond the church on Sunday.

But it has long displayed a collective spirit, mostly for seasonal entertainment and the maintenance of a village green, which contains the ruins of a castle built to keep the Welsh in Wales. Planning was taking place for a formal ball in a marquee on the green this autumn, which has yet to be cancelled. In the meantime, the Neighbourhood Watch group, in place to deal with very rare criminal activity, has delivered a card to all residents, offering to help with picking up shopping, posting mail, collecting newspapers, or with urgent supplies. There is a WhatsApp group where many locals are offering support.

For the first time in generations, the attention of the inhabitants is not focused on the resources of the regions urban centres. The nearby A5, the trunk road from London to Holyhead and thence to Ireland, no longer goes anywhere important. Instead, the community has turned inwards, to local needs, and the capacity of local resources to meet them.

This experience of a small British settlement reflects the condition of many in Western societies. The COVID-19 crisis has led us to embrace new technologies to revitalise old social networks. As we begin to come to terms with the lockdown, it is important to understand the resources at our disposal for coping with enforced isolation.

This article is part of Conversation InsightsThe Insights team generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.

History can assist with that task. It can give a sense of perspective on the experience of being alone. Solitude has only become a widespread and valued condition in the recent past. This gives some support to our capacity to endure the COVID-19 lockdown. At the same time, loneliness, which can be seen as failed solitude, may become a more serious threat to physical and mental well-being. That failure can be a state of mind, but more often is a consequence of social or institutional malfunctions over which the individual has little or no control.

At the beginning of the modern era, solitude was treated with a mixture of exaggerated respect and deep apprehension. Those who withdrew from society imitated the example of the fourth-century desert fathers who sought spiritual communion in the wilderness.

St Anthony the Great, for example, who was made famous in a biography by St Athanasius around the year 360 CE, gave away his inheritance and retreated into isolation near the the River Nile, where he lived a long life subsisting on a meagre diet and devoting his days to prayer. Whether they sought a literal or metaphorical desert, the solitude of St Anthony and his successors appealed to those seeking a peace of mind that they could no longer locate in the commercial fray.

As such, solitude was conceived within the frame of a particular Christian tradition. The desert fathers had a profound influence on the early church. They conducted a wordless communion with a silent God, separating themselves from the noise and corruption of urban society. Their example was institutionalised in monasteries which sought to combine individual meditation with a structure of routine and authority that would protect practitioners from mental collapse or spiritual deviation.

In society more broadly, the practice of retreat was considered suitable only for educated men who sought a refuge from the corrupting pressures of an urbanising civilisation. Solitude was an opportunity, as the Swiss doctor and writer Johann Zimmermann, put it, for self-collection and freedom.

Women and the less well-born, however, could not be trusted with their own company. They were seen to be vulnerable to unproductive idleness or destructive forms of melancholy. (Nuns were an exception to this rule, but so disregarded that the 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act, which specifically criminalised monks and monasteries, did not mention convents at all.)

But over time, the risk register of solitude has altered. What was once the practice of enclosed religious orders and the privileged experience of a male elite has become accessible to almost everyone at some stage in their lives. This was set in motion by the twin events of the Reformation and the Enlightenment.

Attitudes were changing by the time Donne, poet and Dean of St Pauls Cathedral, was struck down by that sudden infection and deserted by all and sundry. He wrote that the instinctive response of the healthy to the afflicted did nothing except increase his suffering: When I am but sick, and might infect, they have no remedy but their absence and my solitude. But he found solace in a particularly Protestant conception of God. He saw the supreme being as fundamentally social:

There is a plurality of persons in God, though there be but one God; and all his external actions testify a love of society, and communion. In heaven there are orders of angels, and armies of martyrs, and in that house many mansions; in earth, families, cities, churches, colleges, all plural things.

This sense of the importance of community was at the heart of Donnes philosophy. In Meditation 17, he went on to write the most famous statement of mans social identity in the English language: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

In the Catholic church, the tradition of monastic seclusion was still the subject of periodic renewals, most notably in this era with the founding of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, more commonly known as the Trappists, in 1664 France. Within the walls of the monastery, speech was reduced to an absolute minimum to allow the penitent monks the greatest opportunity for silent prayer.An elaborate sign language was deployed to enable the monks to go about their daily business.

But in Britain, the work of Thomas Cromwell had devastated the enclosed orders, and the tradition of spiritual withdrawal was pushed to the margins of religious observance.

In the era following Donnes time of anguish, the Enlightenment further emphasised the value of sociability. Personal interaction was held to be the key to innovation and creativity. Conversation, correspondence and exchanges within and between centres of population, challenged structures of inherited superstition and ignorance and drove forward inquiry and material progress.

There might be a need for withdrawal to the closet for spiritual meditation or sustained intellectual endeavour, but only as a means of better preparing the individual for participation in the progress of society. Prolonged, irreversible solitude began to be seen essentially as a pathology, a cause or a consequence of melancholy.

Towards the end of the 18th century, a reaction to this sociability set in. More attention began to be paid, even in Protestant societies, to the hermit tradition within Christianity.

The Romantic movement placed emphasis on the restorative powers of nature, which were best encountered on solitary walks. The writer Thomas De Quincey calculated that in his lifetime William Wordsworth strode 180,000 miles across England and Europe on indifferent legs. Amidst the noise and pollution of urbanising societies, periodic retreat and isolation became more attractive. Solitude, providing it was embraced freely, could restore spiritual energies and revive a moral perspective corrupted by unbridled capitalism.

Read more: Walking with Wordsworth on his 250th birthday

At a more everyday level, improvements in housing conditions, domestic consumption and mass communication widened access to solitary activities. Improved postal services, followed by electronic and eventually digital systems, enabled men and women to be physically alone, yet in company.

Increasing surplus income was devoted to a widening range of pastimes and hobbies which might be practised apart from others. Handicrafts, needlework, stamp-collecting, DIY, reading, animal and bird breeding, and, in the open air, gardening and angling, absorbed time, attention and money. Specialised rooms in middle-class homes multiplied, allowing family members to spend more of their time going about their private business.

And although monasteries had been explicitly excluded from the epochal Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, Britain subsequently witnessed a bitterly contested revival of enclosed orders of both men and women.

By the early 20th century, declining family size combined with council houses began to supply working-class parents and children with domestic spaces of their own. Electric light and central heating meant that it was no longer necessary to crowd around the only source of warmth in the home. Slum clearances emptied the streets of jostling crowds, and adolescent children began to enjoy the privilege of their own bedroom.

In middle-class homes, domestic appliances replaced live-in servants, leaving the housewife, for good or ill, with her own society for much of the day. The motor car, the aspiration of the middle class between the wars, and increasingly the whole of the population in the second half of the 20th century, provided personalised transport, accompanied by privately-chosen radio and later musical entertainment.

After 1945, society more broadly began to self-isolate. Single-person households, a rare occurrence in earlier centuries, became both feasible and desirable. In our own times, nearly a third of UK residential units have only one occupant. The proportion is higher in parts of the US and even more so in Sweden and Japan.

The widowed elderly, equipped for the first time with adequate pensions, can now enjoy domestic independence instead of moving in with children. Younger cohorts can escape unsatisfactory relationships by finding their own accommodation. Around them a set of expectations and resources have developed, making solitary living both a practical and a practised way of life.

Living by yourself, for shorter or longer periods, is itself no longer seen as a threat to physical or psychological well-being. Instead, concern is increasingly centred on the experience of loneliness, which in Britain led to the appointment of the worlds first loneliness minister in 2018, and the subsequent publication of an ambitious government strategy to combat the condition. The problem is not being without company itself, but rather, as writer and social activist Stephanie Dowrick puts it, being uncomfortably alone without someone.

In late modernity, loneliness has been less of a problem than campaigners have often claimed. Given the rapid rise both of single-person households and the numbers of elderly people, the question is not why the incidence has been so great but rather, in terms of official statistics, why it has been so small.

Nonetheless, the official injunction to withdraw from social gatherings in response to the escalating threat of the COVID-19 pandemic throws renewed attention on the often fragile boundary between life-enhancing and soul-destroying forms of solitary behaviour. This is not the first time governments have attempted to impose social isolation in a medical crisis quarantines were also introduced in response to the medieval plague outbreaks but it may be the first time they fully succeed. No one can be sure of the consequences.

So we should take comfort from the recent history of solitude. It is certain that modern societies are much better equipped than those in the past to meet such a challenge. Long before the current crisis, society in much of the West moved indoors.

In normal times, walk down any suburban street outside the commute to work or school, and the overriding impression is the absence of people. The post-war growth of single-person households has normalised a host of conventions and activities associated with the absence of company. Homes have more heated and lighted space; food, whether as raw materials or takeaway meals, can be ordered and delivered without leaving the front door; digital devices provide entertainment and enable contact with family and friends; gardens supply enclosed fresh air to those who have one (now made still fresher by the temporary absence of traffic).

By contrast, the pattern of living in Victorian and early 20th-century Britain would have made such isolation impossible for much of the population. In working-class homes, parents and children passed their days in a single living room and shared beds at night. Lack of space continually forced occupants out into the street where they mixed with neighbours, tradesmen and passers-by. In more prosperous households, there were more specialised rooms, but servants moved constantly between family members, ran errands to the shops, dealt with deliveries of goods and services.

The history of solitude should also encourage us to consider the boundary between solitude and loneliness because it is partly a matter of free will. Single-person households have expanded in recent times because a range of material changes made it possible for young and old to choose how they lived. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the most extreme form of modern solitude, penal solitary confinement wreaks destruction on almost everyone exposed to it.

Much will now depend on whether the state engenders a spirit of enlightened consent, whereby citizens agree to disrupt their patterns of living for the sake of their own and the common good. Trust and communication police the boundary of acceptable and unacceptable isolation.

It is a matter of time. Many of the forms of solitude which are now embraced are framed moments before social intercourse is resumed. Walking the dog for half an hour, engaging in mindful meditation in a lunch break, digging the garden in the evening, or withdrawing from the noise of the household to read a book or text a friend are all critical but transient forms of escape.

Those living alone experience longer periods of silence, but until lockdown was imposed, were free to leave their home to seek company, even if only in the form of work colleagues. Loneliness can be viewed as solitude that lasts too long. For all the science driving current government policy, we have no way of knowing the cost to peoples peace of mind of isolation that continues for months on end.

We must remember that loneliness is not caused by living alone itself, but the inability to make contact when the need arises. Small acts of kindness between neighbours and support from local charities will make a great difference.

There is an expectation that, for good or ill, the experience of the COVID-19 epidemic will be standardised. Outside the lottery of infection, most will endure the same constraints on movement, and, through quasi-wartime financial measures, enjoy at least the same basic standard of living. But by circumstance or temperament, some will flourish better than others.

More broadly, poverty and declining public services have made it much more difficult to gain access to collective facilities. Last-minute funding changes by government will struggle to compensate for underinvestment in medical and social support over the last decade. Not everyone has the capacity or income to withdraw from places of work or the competence to deploy the digital devices which will now be critical for linking need with delivery. The more prosperous will suffer the cancellation of cruises and overseas holidays. The less so are in danger of becoming isolated in the full and most destructive meaning of the term.

Some may suffer like Donne. Others may enjoy the benefits of a change of pace, as Samuel Pepys did during another bout of plague-induced quarantine a few years after Donne. On the last day of December 1665, he reviewed the past year: I have never lived so merrily (besides that I never got so much) as I have done this plague-time.

David Vincents book A History of Solitude will be published by Polity on April 24.

For you: more from our Insights series:

To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversations evidence-based news. Subscribe to our newsletter.

Read the original:

Lockdown lessons from the history of solitude - The Conversation UK

Passover Is an Awful Story But Humanists Can Wield It Well – Patheos

Posted on by

Lets begin with a story. I dont talk as much about Judaism here, in part because Ive known more Jewish atheists than Jewish theists, and even at a young age the Jewish people in my community (Toronto) articulated awareness that many of Judaisms central stories didnt happen. Major Israeli/Jewish media outlets like Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, andJewish Journal are quite blunt about this, every Passover in particular: archaeological data makes plain the earthly fabrications in this supernatural tale.

But maybe I should talk more about Judaism, because it was my first real site of understandinghumanism, too long before I fully understood the wide reach of that term. I was charmed by Judaism as a child because of its high valuation of study, intellectual discourse, and the resolving of moral quandaries in a community of peers. Obviously, Orthodox Judaism wasnt great, but I admired what reform and liberal Judaism in particular had done to open up the faith in recent decades.

Here, I thought, was a faith and identity that knew its holidays and stories were more about using ritual to foster a sense of community, even and especially when ones community was persecuted with terrible frequency throughout history. Here was a faith and identity that welcomed new intel, and championed critical thought.

It helped, too, that Judaism didnt have much competition in this regard at least, from my exposure-sets growing up. Whereas the more prominent forms of Judaism embrace questioning, and readily cede flawed concrete details to open up room for mystery, other dominant monotheisms in my purview (Christianity, Catholicism, Islam) could not give up flawed core details as readily, and as such more often clashed with the fruits of empirical inquiry. For many of the loudest of these other faiths, the core stories needed to be true in a way that made embrace the mystery synonymous with just shut up about all the inaccuracies and let Jesus / Allah into your heart.

So, okay, I have a bit of a soft spot for Judaism even though, to be clear, there are forms of Islam and Christianity that also emphasize the figurative nature of their tales, too.

But every Passover, Im still reminded that its not enough simply to acknowledge that the Passover story is a fiction, because the Passover story itself is easily one of the least humanistic stories that the Abrahamic faiths have given us.

Can it be reclaimed? Of course. It already is, say, by Jewish women, who know full well how male-child oriented the original Exodus narrative is, along with the Passover rituals around it. But humanists (spiritual and secular alike) can push further still, since Israeli archaeologists and literary scholars are among the most open about how deeply fabricated Biblical stories are. As such, we have all the tools at our hands

a) to think deeper about reprehensible tales like the Passover story;

b) to come to a more humanistic understanding of why they exist; and

c) to decide what to do with that knowledge now.

So lets get cracking, shall we?

Yes, the Passover story is also part of the Christian Bible, butwere not engaging in in the dangerously anti-Semitic dogwhistling of Judeo-Christian elisions anymore in this column. As such, were looking at Shemot (Names), Vaeira (And I Appeared), and Bo (Come!), traditional weekly readings from Shemot or Exodus thesecondbook of the Torah. Im taking my quotes from a bilingual translation on Sefaria.org, which uses a plainer English than my favourite, a version you can read onMechon Mamre, which has a similarly poetic quality to the KJV.

I want to mention, though, that one key aspect of this storys awfulness exists in both versions: the hardening of Pharaohs heart by YHWH. Its just present alotmore in the original version of this tale.

Theres also a lot more about Moses (unsurprisingly) in Shemot. Moses is told by YHWH to ask Pharoah to let his people go out into the wilderness to worship their god, but Pharoah doesnt recognize YHWH as a god, and thinks his Jewish subjects are looking for an excuse to cut and run from their labours. He then makes their labours even harder as punishment, and Moses despairs of ever being made a prophet, when he only seems to be making things worse for his people.

Thats when YHWH tells him: See, I place you in the role of God to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet. You shall repeat all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh to let the Israelites depart from his land. But I will harden Pharaohs heart, that I may multiply My signs and marvels in the land of Egypt.

(Oh, and FYI: Aaron plays a huge role here, being very important to Judaism and its hierarchies, while the Christian Bible is big on streamlining characters. Now you know what HBO producers were up to in their past lives!)

And thats our first place of moral repugnance, obviously because right from the beginning all the suffering about to occur is created by a god who refuses to let Pharoah yield in full, so that he (YHWH) can make a great story about all the trauma later.

We know what comes next, of course. Signs and marvels happen to include a series of plagues, each nastier than the last. In the Hebrew Bible, though, its Aaron whos effecting most of them with his rod: lots of magical stick-work in this tale! More importantly, though, Pharaohrelents after the insects. He gives up and starts negotiating: Fine, fine, worship in the city. (In the city! Hes proposing a path to integrating different religious beliefs!) But Moses haggles, arguing that they cant worship with objects forbidden to the Egyptians in Egyptian lands, or theyll be stoned by the locals. FINE, says Pharaoh, do it outside the city but stay close, and first plead with your god to stop the plague of insects.

Pharaoh doesnt actually release the Israelites to worship, though, even after Moses has gained mercy from YHWH over the insects; and so next comes a pestilence of livestock one in which YHWH promises Moses that all Israelite livestock will be fine. Then come boils, and then hail (where, again, Israelite land is spared).

We then get a reaffirmation, in the Hebrew Bible, as to why this agony continues, because:

Then the LORD said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display these My signs among them, and that you may recount in the hearing of your sons and of your sons sons how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs among themin order that you may know that I am the LORD.

In other words: Everyones suffering right now because I wanted you guys to have a cool story to pass on through the generations about how badass I am, and how I totes humiliated the Egyptians that one time.

Nice gods our ancestors chose, eh?

Once more in the Hebrew Bible, then, Pharaoh is agonized by the trauma of the plagues, and begs for Moses and Aaron to intervene to make it stop which, they do, and YHWH does. But even after doing so

The LORD caused a shift to a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and hurled them into the Sea of Reeds; not a single locust remained in all the territory of Egypt.

But the LORD stiffened Pharaohs heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.

Then the LORD said to Moses, Hold out your arm toward the sky that there may be darkness upon the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be touched.

OH, COME ON, YHWH, YOU ABSOLUTE UNMENSCH.

Forget about Let my people go! let pharaohgo!

Quit hardening his heart just so you can show off!

But YHWH doesnt, and so we come to the critical pestilence for Passover: the murdering of firstborn sons. The Israelites prepare to take flight from Egypt so quickly that there isnt time to leaven bread for their passage, which underpins some of the rituals associated with the holiday. But, uh, lets take a closer look, first, at this horrible situation the Israelites are leaving:

And the LORD said to Moses, I will bring but one more plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt; after that he shall let you go from here; indeed, when he lets you go, he will drive you out of here one and all.

Tell the people to borrow, each man from his neighbor and each woman from hers, objects of silver and gold.

The LORD disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people. Moreover, Moses himself was much esteemed in the land of Egypt, among Pharaohs courtiers and among the people.

Moses said, Thus says the LORD: Toward midnight I will go forth among the Egyptians, and every first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the first-born of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; and all the first-born of the cattle.

And there shall be a loud cry in all the land of Egypt, such as has never been or will ever be again; but not a dog shall snarl at any of the Israelites, at man or beastin order that you may know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.

What the ever-loving fudge is this.

Remember, most folks distill this story for Passover to We were slaves in Egypt, and then Moses set us free by the will of G-d. But even before modern archaeology came along to illustrate that a) bonded servitude was different back then, and b) Israelites of the period had a different social standing uh, what kind of oppressed people are in such good favour with their neighbours that those helpful Egyptians are all, Oh, sure, you want to borrow silver and gold from us? No problem! Oh, hey, Moses! My man! For sure well help what do you need?

Now, the Christian Bible simplifies the reprehensible elements of this story to just having innocent firstborns killed willy-nilly by YHWH,but you have to grant that the Torah is at least honest and upfront about the nationalistic pissing contest here. To hell with the (neighbourly!) Egyptians who suffer so that the Israelites can rebuild their own land. Egyptian humiliation, far more than Israelite salvation, is the explicit point of this tale.

One scene for the seder, for instance, involves the idea of there being four different sons (four different reactions a child might have to why Passover is celebrated); and one of them, the wicked son, is supposed to be answered in a passive-aggressive way that suggests that, while YHWH did these things for the respondents benefit, probably the son would have been left to die with all the rest in Egypt, because of his resistance to the practice of gratitude. Ick and double-ick.

Yes, some liberal Jews try to spin this awful scripting as a positive because hey, hes being reminded of his offense, but he still has a seat at the table! No ones kicking him out! Is this really much different, though, than, say, a queer person being allowed to sit at the table with people convinced theyre hell-bound? OK theatre; lousy humanism.

So how on Earth can this story be redeemed?

How on Earth can Passover be made a site of humanistic practice?

As already noted, plenty of reform and liberal Judaism already works to this end by putting to one side as many horrible bits of this story as possible, focussing instead on a simplistic notion of Passover being about a time of suffering at last coming to an end, and gratitude for that deliverance from oppression.

However, we could all benefit from learning about why such a story came into being in the first place because inthatstory, the origin of the Passover story we gain a great deal of insight about human nature. Inthatstory, we learn the importance of looking at whos telling the tale to understand how human beings can be led into religious nihilism.

Ive already linked at the outset to three Jewish news outlets frank talk about Passovers history, so here Ill simply focus on the lesson from King Josiah. Indeed, sometimes it gobsmacks me how much this one dude shaped our modern mythologies if he existed, that is, since there are some contradictory details around the time of his rule (e.g. repairing the Temple seems to have happened earlier); but scholarly consensus is that its fair to assume he did.

Either way, as the story goes, when Josiah invested in Temple upgrades, his priest Hilkiah conveniently found a whole new book of divine ordinances (a precursor to Deuteronomy) that pushed for a massive nationalistic project, in which Josiah banned the worship of other gods from the preceding pantheon (including Baal, of the harvest: nice dude, all about them fertility rituals), dismantled their altars, desecrated the graves of their priests, and centralized worship of YHWH by reinstating Passover rituals as an expressly public affair involving sacrifices at the freshly elevated Temple.

Now, was it Josiah who benefitted most from this project? Or was it Hilkiah, a priest of YHWH who conveniently found the text that promised great suffering for those who didnt return to the proper worship of his god? Those sorts of details, we can never know for sure, although human nature and a study of geopolitics from that era makes personal gain mighty probable as a motivator.

However, wecan trace aspects of the modern Passover storyto spring-orientedfood rituals, including one for the first cereal crop of the season, which couldnt be leavened because there was no starter from preceding doughs after a winter of eating through reserves, and another for the use of lambs ahead of spring flock movements. (Generally, too, animal sacrifice had strong preceding roles in Israelite communities, all the way back to Mesopotamian pre-history.)

We also know that the story was reinstated with some critical shifts in location for the ritiuals, with what was once more of an at-home affair with localized sacrifices becoming a centralized act of community-wide worship. This is a logical step for the consolidation of state power, similar to how many other civilizations established strong states. The Torah doesnt even hide this in its description of Josiahs reforms and why should it? A mandatory return to the collectivized worship of a warmongering pantheon god was simply King Josiahs (and his priests) way of shoring up sovereign rule.

(Or, again, at least thats the way the Torah tells it, but recent archaeological discovers have illustrated that this centralization plan wasnt as uniform as Torah makes it out to be; another, sanctioned temple existed near Temple Mount in the same era.)

However, thats just a history of the time the story was first reconstituted for state-building purposes.

Whatever its true origins, we also know that something vitally humanistic happened to this tale over the course of subsequent Jewish history, because as the Jewish people were subsequently persecuted, driven from their homes, and slaughtered throughout succeeding centiries, the Passover story alsogaineda measure of truth at least figuratively for a scattered and traumatized people longing for safety. Longing for home. As such, while the original story might have been pure consolidation-of-power rhetoric, it later gave strength to Jewish communities in the wake of unconscionable horror; and then later to other peoples also given the story (albeit more often through the Christian retelling) in their own persecutions and enslavements.

So should this reprehensible tribalist tale be expunged entirely?

Its a bit of a silly question, I know, because the Passover talecantbe expunged entirely; its part of our collective history now. However, if it isntthis nasty bit of nationalistic rhetoric being bandied about at family functions, there will always be something else. (Certain national responses to pandemic, for instance, make clear that geopolitical pettiness doesnt simply disappear in the absence of faith.) And so, since the Passover story is alreadyso well known; because its mythopoetic vocabularyis already widespread why not wield it more humanistically?

Why not teach the story, that is but do so by telling it plainly, in full light of how it was created, and the purposes it served?

Why not walk the next generation through all the ways that power-plays like the one fictionalized between Egypt and Israel in the Passover tale required everyday people on both sides to suffer? Good neighbours, too! The kind who lent gold and silver because they were asked, and still woke the next day to grieve the deaths of their children.

Why not reflect on how those power disparities persist today? How dynastic and plutocratic systems continue in todays nation-state paradigm?

Why not keep the theme of gratitude, but reframe its practice as something that compels a widening of the table, after we ourselves are free, so that we can liberate others from oppression, too?

Even better, why not come up with ways in which we can seek to be freed together from tyrannical and egotistical rule?

Some truly awful stories underpin our society, and some of the worst have chauvinism at their core. The Passover story in particular, as it reads in Torah, is one of relentless tribalist cruelty so that a god might show Egypt that Israel is #1, and give the Israelites a story to tell for years to come. Its a nasty, brutish bit of nationalistic rhetoric exploited precisely for that aim by King Josiahs court! and yet it gained a measure of thematic truth over time, as horrific traumas were later visited upon Jewish peoples, as well as upon other demographics who also find strength from simplified versions of the tale.

And so, yes, the act of reshaping of this vicious tale is already underway.

Humanism, though, can take this reshaping a step further if we refrain from simply condemning the story on its own, awful merits; and if we refrain, too, from trying to spin as much of the good out of it as possible, while ignoring the bad. Rather, we need to face the storys nihilism head-on, so that we can expand our storytelling scope to include the storys political provenance and purpose, and then interrogate the many kinds of suffering left out of its redemption arc.

Why? Because history is a vital tool for 21st-century humanistic practice including the history of stories on which weve built whole cultures. And because the world of King Josiah is not beyond us yet. Because too many supposed democracies continue to imperil average citizens (up to and including via modern plagues, like our current pandemic) to advance their nationalistic and corporate projects.

But when humanists of every stipe and creed come together, we can instead advance a world where the Moseses, Aarons, Pharaohs, and YHWHs among us no longer matter anywhere near as much as the voices of everyday citizens. Not only can we, either, but we must because, Egyptian and Israelite alike, every one of us deserves a system of government that can adequately protect and provide justice to all.

Warmth to you and yours, then, as you seek to keep justice in your communities especially amid the pestilence upon us now, but also in whatever world we build after.

Read the original here:

Passover Is an Awful Story But Humanists Can Wield It Well - Patheos

The making of The Outer Wilds soundtrack – Critical Hit

Posted on by

Theres no other game like The Outer Wilds on the market currently. What looks like a quirky tale of exploration into a mysterious solar system, quickly evolves into a grand space odyssey. Its a game of beginnings and endings, destruction and creation trapped within an eternal time loop that you have to solve or spend eternity watching a star going supernova.

A project years in the making, The Outer Wilds is balanced on a visual and a mechanical level by a soundtrack that not only guides your actions but motivates you to keep pushing forward into the cosmos. You can thank composer Andrew Prahlow for that divine score which blends a more folksy theme with mournful interludes, grand explosions of cosmic hope andkazoos. Its a hell of a soundtrack, a BAFTA-nominated work of art that came tantalisingly close to winning last week.

So how was it made? How did Prahlow whip up a suite of music over the course of seven years, which bucked the easy trend of throwing boops and beeps at players, focusing instead on down to earth tunes to tell a story? When I was talking with Alex (Beachum) way back in the beginning , I had known him before this, and we were friends in grad school, Prahlow explained.

The main thing that was really fun for us to discuss was that I could take these folk instruments and sort of do this non-traditional sci-fi soundtrack for a sci-fi game and combine that with some of the more traditional types of synthesisers and those types of instruments for the textures. So I was able to take this big post-rock sound and make it intimate as well.

That was the most fun part to me, I felt like the score was very much the music that I love to write and just kind of transitioning that into a unique way to tell a story through the game.

Theres a charm to the music of The Outer Wilds, one that starts out with a rustic approach and grows over time to emphasise the destruction of your solar system and yet remain hopeful that in the end, life would prevail. The most important thing that I wanted to convey, I wanted the music to start off feeling happy over time as youre going through the loop, Prahlow said of the emotions within the score.

It starts to feel nostalgic, very emotive and not mournful but in the realm of remembering the adventure youve been on even though youre stuck in a loop. So at the end of the game I wanted it to feel very heart-warming but a little bit tear-jerking once it gets to the final scene. It started with the Banjo and folk music, and using that as the as the basis I would start to write some tracks that connects with atmosphere first, and I spent a lot of time with drones and loops while I was writing, and playing the folk instruments over that.

Eventually it helped me figure out which textures would work well, it didnt feel out of place with the banjo and also how to combine them. I was doing it all simultaneously, figuring out ways to blend them together with the Nomai, the Hearthian and the quantum themes. A lot of trial and error to convey a unique sound and not have anything feel out of place.

One of the key elements within The Outer Wilds was exploration, with your journey eventually crossing paths with five other Travellers who inhabited other planets and kept a tune going until the end of time. Players who listened carefully, would realise that each Traveller was playing the same tune with different instruments and once they were lined up, their strumming would result in a complete track being broadcast across the cosmos.

I think its really playing into the humanistic quality of the Travellers and the fact that theyre connected through the instruments and the music even though theyre all on different planets, Prahlow said of the Easter egg and how it resulted in fans scrambling to hear the completed track.

That is what I think feels calming. Theyre literally playing this infinite tune the whole entire game. When you use your signal-scope, theyre still playing all the way up until the very end of the game, so I think in a way the Travellers are playing these instruments in a sort of meditative state and just continuing on with their song as youre trying to solve the mystery.

It was pretty exciting to see that people caught on right away. I knew that musicians would notice it, but it was really exciting to read people on reddit or on Twitter talk about how they didnt notice at first and when they somehow figured it out on accident , people would just have this mind-blowing experience figuring out that all the Travellers are playing in unison.

When you realise the plot of The Outer Wilds, how youre an explorer doomed to repeat the same time loop that always ends with a star exploding and wiping out all life in the solar system, it makes from grim reading. And yet throughout that entire journey, theres always a sense of hope that guides you from beginning to end. An intentional emotion, that tied in with other themes in The Outer Wilds. I think at the end of the game, it gets into existentialist ideas, Prahlow explained.

Just because you might be needing to restart the universe, everyone was so excited, happy and hopeful for what youre doing as the explorer. Theyre all a little bit mournful, but still thats the joy of the ending of the game, jumping into the idea that youre helping everything move forward finally.

If you were looking for one single track to sell you on The Outer Wilds, Final End Times would be your best bet. Grand and majestic in scale, its a composition that sums up many of the themes of The Outer Wilds and the experience that the game provides. That track I felt was very inspired by accepting fate, because it felt too intense to have a very grim-sounding sun exploding music, Prahlow said.

With Final End Times, thats the final loop, but I think its just acceptance of what is to come next. At that time I was listening to a lot of Max Richter and Johan Johansson, and Im really more inspired by sci fi films that are more rooted in humanism. I love Arrival, I loved Ex Machina. Things like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind really go in that direction even though its more of a love story than sci-fi. It has those elements of time travel and going into your memories. I just felt all those movies had a very nostalgic message or feeling.

As for which track Prahlow himself is most proud of? That would be 14.3 Billion Years, a tune that capped off an incredible seven year odyssey of his own:

I really like 14.3 Billion Years Later because it was one of the last things I wrote and I was able to have a suite of music, touch back and rework some of those themes with my own sense of nostalgia. It was quite an emotional session when I was recording those parts. I knew it was going to be the last time I was going to be playing a lot of those tunes. It was the final version, this whole seven year period had been such a big part of my life.

To play that music one final time, I felt like I was in my own end times in a way. The music was going to go out into the world and once I would hit send for that file I was done with the game. That one I still really feel that, i love to listen to it and remember that it was the closing of an important part of my life.

One of the funnier parts of The Outer Wilds, is when your ears are hit by the sound of a Kazoo from out of nowhere. What began as a joke between the Beachum siblings, quickly became a funny and memorable addition to the soundtrack. As a joke, they were at home and recorded that and sent it to me for fun, Prahlow said.

We thought it was hilarious, and with a lot of the joke endings in the game they were just like why dont we just use this?. We have this joke song, and theres just so many hidden endings, like ending the loop early on accident, you can break the quantum space-time and it just felt fun to do that. It was their idea to put it into the game. That was them, they get the credit for that one!

And thats how one of the best video game soundtracks of recent memory was made. A sweeping collection of tunes thatll tug at your heart-strings, Prahlows efforts resulted in a soundtrack thatll stick with you long after the end credits have rolled on one of the best games of the 2010s.

Last Updated: April 8, 2020

See the rest here:

The making of The Outer Wilds soundtrack - Critical Hit

8 things the Congress could learn from 40 years of the BJP – ThePrint

Posted on by

Text Size:A- A+

Most thinking, writing, research and scholarship on the Bharatiya Janata Party obsesses about its Hindutva ideology, the parent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or the BJPs election strategies. The 40th anniversary of the BJP is an occasion to think deeper about the meteoric rise of this party.

Hindu nationalists had been around since Independence in both politics and society. But the turning point of 1980 was crucial, because its this avatar of Hindutva that has now become so wildly successful that it mirrors the Congress hegemony of yore.

The Congress party likes to be proud of its legacy, of being a 135-year-old party. This historical heft exists only in the imagination of its supporters, because the Congress has been transformed so many times that nobody really sees it as the party of Gandhi or even Nehru anymore.

If you were an anti-Congress person in 1980, it would have been very depressing to see Indira Gandhi getting voted back to power just three years after the humiliating defeat in 1977.

It would have been even more depressing if you were a Hindu nationalist, because even the main opposition, Janata Party, didnt want you. The secular socialists challenging Indira Gandhi under a coalition decided no one could be a Denver of both the Janata Party and the RSS. Choose one. The Hindu nationalists were out, forced to form their own new party, a fresh start after all these decades of being around in Indian politics but not really going anywhere. They still wanted to lay claim to the Janata legacy, so they called it the Bharatiya Janata Party. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the founding president.

The Congress and other opposition parties today are not doing half as badly as the BJP was in the 1980s. It may thus be useful to take a closer look at what the BJP did right to reach where it has.

Convert ideological cause into mass movement: The single biggest factor in the rise of the BJP was the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The party did not immediately succeed it gained power at the Centre for the first time only in 1996. But the Mandir movement took the partys ideology from the fringes to the masses.

The Congress and other opposition parties today worry a lot about ideology as Hindutva becomes dominant. The Ram Janmabhoomi campaign, arguably the biggest political movement in post-Independent India, is a good example of what ideological success takes. Some of the other major disruptions in Indian politics have also happened due to public movements and mass mobilisation, most recently the 2011 Jan Lokpal movement.

National first, states will follow: Throughout the 1980s, the BJP was a fledgling party, winning a few seats here and there in various elections. But it was the nationwide Ram Janmabhoomi campaign that lifted the BJPs fortunes in national as well as state elections.This is in contrast to the approach the opposition has taken today, seeing state elections as the way to gaining power in Delhi. Creating a national narrative and campaigning around it to win Lok Sabha elections does not necessarily need state politics. Narendra Modi in 2014 and 2019 once again showed how national elections dont have to be a mere sum of the states. To succeed nationally, think national. States will follow.

Also read: How is Modis BJP different from the one founded by Advani-Vajpayee 40 years ago?

Institution building: Lal Krishna Advani built this new party from scratch. He created a new, second rung of leadership, some of whom are still around (Rajnath Singh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Kalyan Singh, Narendra Modi). By building leaders, processes, institutional systems, Advani created a foundation on which the tall building stands today.

Who in the Congress party, or even most other parties, is trying to do long-term institution building?

The right face: L.K. Advani stood aside and let Atal Bihari Vajpayee take centre stage, because Vajpayee was relatively the more moderate and acceptable face of the BJP for coalition-building and gaining power. As an orator, Vajpayee was far superior, and thus the right face for the public.

This was despite Advani playing a bigger role in building the BJP and taking the party to the masses through the Mandir movement. Contrast this with the Congress, which isnt willing to even try a non-Gandhi as its face, no matter how much the Gandhi family fails at the job.

Balance ideology and strategy: The BJP has been clear about both furthering its ideology and winning elections. There is no contradiction between the two. Furthering the ideological cause needs power. And gaining power may need tactical compromises with ideology.

So when the BJP was founded in 1980, it adopted both Deen Dayal Upadhyayas integral humanism and Gandhian socialism as its dual principles.

Since 1980, it has oscillated between a hardline approach and a moderate approach. This oscillation sometimes seems like desperation, doing whatever it takes to win power.

But seen as a whole, it seems to be a well-designed strategy. A moderate position helps the BJP gain new followers, supporters, and voters. And once it has gained their support, the BJP brings back its hardline Hindutva stance. The formula repeats on a loop. The Mandir movement was preceded and followed by a moderate approach. Modi the Hindu Hriday Samrat did a development-only campaign in 2014.

This alternating approach helps achieve both objectives: ideology and power.

The Congress and other opposition parties often see a contradiction between ideology and power. They think they cant win elections because their commitment to secularism isnt selling, and some of them think they should junk secularism. But the alternating strategy of the BJP provides a good model.

Also read: Why cant the opposition tell people to do things from their balconies?

Guard ideological space: There are many secular parties in India, but there is only one Hindutva party. The Shiv Sena is not really a Hindutva party anymore, but even when it was, it was the only one and the BJP allied with it. The BJP has ensured in its 40 years of politics that there are no Hindutva splinter groups. Having been on the fringes of power, it knows the importance of ideological consolidation. All Hindutva forces are together, from the BJP to the Bajrang Dal.

The Congress, by contrast, allowed itself to be splintered again, thus fragmenting secular politics. This fragmentation did not happen for ideological reasons but for the inability of the Congress high command to accommodate the aspirations of local leaders amid factional in-fighting. Most recently, the Congresss refusal to promise a Rajya Sabha seat to Jyotiraditya Scindia led to his exit. The BJP doesnt make such mistakes and when it does (Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti), it rectifies them.

Accommodate caste: The BJP used the Bofors sentiment to piggyback on the popularity of then prime minister V.P. Singh, with the larger aim of defeating the Congress. But when V.P. Singh announced OBC reservations by implementing the Mandal Commission report, the BJP opposed it. Exploiting the anti-reservation sentiment, the BJP was able to break away the upper caste supporters of the Congress. Simultaneously, the BJP worked on the OBCs. Today, the BJP has a prime minister from an OBC community. RSS member K.N. Govindacharya worked on the OBC project.

By contrast, the Congress allowed itself to be uprooted by the rise of the OBC movement and has to date not been able to figure out the caste strategy. Most of the top national leaders of the Congress party are still upper caste, with notable exceptions in some states: Ashok Gehlot,Siddaramaiah, and Bhupesh Baghel.

A re-invention of caste strategies in different ways is the need of the hour in all parties. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) are struggling to reconcile the Yadav vote-bank with other castes. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is limited to its Jatav vote. How the BJP can be an upper caste-dominated party and still woo OBCs, even Dalits and tribals, is a model to study.

Propose to oppose: L.K. Advani always spoke of the BJP as an alternative model, and alternative vision. It wasnt simply anti-Congressism (the failed Janata Party and Janata Dal experiments had little other than anti-Congressism going for them). The BJPs successes have come through proposing rather than opposing. Even a negative campaign like demolishing a historical mosque was articulated through a positive-sounding proposal of building a mosque elsewhere. Narendra Modi proposed a different model of governance and development (no matter what you think of it), and did not limit himself to opposing the UPA-2.

The Congress and much of the opposition today come across as having no positive agenda other than anti-Modism. It may do well to look at the history of the BJP to see why positive campaigning works best.

The author is contributing editor to ThePrint. Views are personal.

ThePrint is now on Telegram. For the best reports & opinion on politics, governance and more, subscribe to ThePrint on Telegram.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Read more from the original source:

8 things the Congress could learn from 40 years of the BJP - ThePrint

Recessions and health: the long-term health consequences of responses to the coronavirus – – ifs.org.uk

Posted on by

The current lockdown and social distancing measures brought about by the coronavirus crisis, coupled with the direct effects of the virus on workers and firms, are having a huge impact on economies in the UK and around the world. Existing literature on the health impacts of business-cycle fluctuations and recessions shows that the resulting economic downturn will have significant consequences on peoples health outcomes in the short and longer term. A debate has started on whether the adverse health effects of a recession may be greater than the increased morbidity and mortality within the pandemic itself. This briefing note discusses some of the mechanisms through which shocks to macroeconomic conditions may affect health.

An economic downturn has a number of effects on peoples lives through increased unemployment, decreased employment, reductions in income and wealth, and increased uncertainty about future jobs and income. The health effects caused by these adverse macroeconomic conditions will be complex, and will differ across generations, regions and socio-economic groups. Groups that are vulnerable to poor health are likely to be hit hardest even if the crisis hit all individuals equally, but evidence is already emerging that the economic repercussions of the crisis are falling disproportionately on young workers, low-income families and women (Joyce and Xu, 2020) so this will also need to be taken into account. Policies that the government has put in place, as well as the subsequent policies that will be implemented both for the exit strategy and for post-pandemic economic recovery, will play an important role in determining the eventual health consequences.

This briefing note discusses what we know about the health effects of business-cycle fluctuations and recessions, but there are additional aspects of the coronavirus crisis that are unique to the current situation that stem from this being a pandemic. Most obviously, the crisis has an impact on the availability of healthcare. At the moment, all non-urgent elective surgeries have been postponed, and there are fears of lack of sufficient intensive care units at later stages of the pandemic. The aftermaths of this additional strain on the NHS on future healthcare are addressed in an IFS briefing note published alongside this one (Propper, Stoye and Zaranko, 2020).

Recessions have been shown to have large and persistent negative effects on health and mortality at the population level. This is particularly true when long-run dynamics, spillovers and spatial effects are taken into account. Janke et al. (2020) estimate a model of the impact of economic shocks on morbidity for Britain that allows for different responses by local area, for persistence in the effect of past shocks and for feedback from national changes in levels of morbidity to the local level. They find that employment changes during and after the 2008 financial crisis had a strong adverse effect on chronic health for five broad types of health conditions, with the strongest effects being for mental health conditions.

Quantitatively, Janke et al. estimate that a 1% fall in employment leads to a 2% increase in the prevalence of chronic illness. To put this in context, if employment were to fall by the same amount as it fell in the 12 months after the 2008 crisis, around 900,000 more people of working age would be predicted to suffer from a chronic health condition. Only about half this effect will be immediate: the full effect will not be felt for two years. The shock to employment from the coronavirus pandemic is likely to be much larger than this and so we may expect a larger rise in poor health. The Janke et al. analysis looks at the prevalence of long-standing health conditions but does not examine the intensity or the duration of the condition within an individuals life course. It is quite possible that health status, outcomes and levels of functioning may well continue to deteriorate over the longer run even once the prevalence of chronic long-standing conditions has plateaued.

The Janke et al. estimate is of an average effect, across all ages, areas and income groups. In any recession, many groups will experience worse-than-average changes in economic fortunes. It is likely that the groups that suffer the biggest economic losses from this crisis are also those who were more vulnerable to begin with for example, people with lower incomes are less likely to be able to work from home or have accumulated liquid savings to tide them over. In addition, even the same change in economic fortunes may have different health consequences for different groups. Research from many fields has shown that certain individuals are more resilient to shocks than others and that there are particular periods in life where shocks are most critical for long-term outcomes. Groups of particular concern are families with young children or where mothers are pregnant, and low-income or low-socio-economic-status individuals of all ages where health vulnerabilities and mental health problems are already prevalent.

Economic shocks and downturns have been shown to be important during pregnancy and early childhood. At this point of the life cycle, physical health and cognitive trajectories are being set and this has long-reaching consequences for later-life economic outcomes and later life health. Poverty rates increase in a recession. This may feed through to negative in-utero and early-childhood risk factors. Van den Berg et al. (2006) examine the Dutch population born between 1812 and 1912 and find that the state of the business cycle at birth affects mortality: being born in a recession reduces lifespan by about 5%. This illustrates the stark and lifelong effects that early childhood conditions have on health, not just because of the biological pathways, but also as a result of the effects of in-utero and early-childhood health conditions on other economic outcomes and family behaviours.

Currie (2009) documents the extensive evidence on the links between parental circumstances and child health, as well as the subsequent link between a childs early-life health and their eventual educational and labour market outcomes. It is well documented that poor nutrition in early childhood, as well as in utero, will have a long-lasting impact on individuals, and there are many other examples where vulnerabilities and shocks in early life have long-term consequences. Hence the interaction of childrens age and their family's vulnerability will be a key point when thinking about policies to mitigate the long-run health and economic effects of the crisis.

Those with pre-existing poor mental health will also be particularly vulnerable. The adverse impact of recessions on mental health and mortality from suicide is clearly documented across a number of studies (World Health Organisation, 2011). Prevalence of mental health conditions in the UK has been rising even before the coronavirus crisis, making this a particularly important outcome to consider. Estimates drawn from Janke et al. (2020) suggest that if the economic downturn were similar to that after the 2008 financial crisis, the number of people of working age suffering from poor mental health would rise by half a million. Poor mental health and depression are also a risk factor for a number of physical health conditions (Kivimaki et al., 2018) and interventions targeting improved mental health can reduce future hospitalisation (Gruber et al., 2019). Thus the impact of the economic downturn on mental health will also affect overall long-run health and mortality through this channel. To add to this, social distancing in itself is likely to have complex and nuanced effects on individuals social isolation and mental health, which will then in turn feed through to physical health and mortality (see, for example, Shankar et al. (2011) or Steptoe et al. (2013)). These social distancing effects of the coronavirus crisis will be additional to any mental health effects that might be predicted when extrapolating from analysis of previous downturns and they are hard to predict.

Reduced economic activity as a result of a recession and the lockdown may also have some positive health impacts. Some unhealthy behaviours such as drinking, smoking and unhealthy eating have been shown to fall, on average, when there are negative income shocks (Ruhm, 2000; Adda et al., 2009; Griffith et al., 2016). Reports already show reduced levels of air pollution in the industrial areas of China and Italy as well as London, and there is a clear link between mortality from certain cardiovascular and respiratory causes and air pollution (see, for example, Janke et al. (2009)). Moreover, the rate of accidents in traffic or at work will be lower given fewer cars on the roads and reduced industrial activity. And in addition to the short-term effects of the social isolation in slowing down the spread of the coronavirus, Adda (2016) finds that economic downturns slow down the spread of viral disease as inter-regional travel and trade are reduced. Thus even after the social distancing measures have been lifted, we can expect the rate of viral transmission to be lower in an economic downturn than it would have been otherwise.

In the long run, the current economic downturn and the social distancing measures that accompany it will hit some industries more than others, and consequently some regions more than others. Janke et al. (2020) find heterogeneous morbidity responses to economic shocks across local areas. Those areas that are hit hardest are those that are the most deprived and have older populations and older industrial structures, which are precisely the kind of areas least able to withstand negative shocks.

The coronavirus crisis has the potential to create long-lasting structural changes in the UK economy. In terms of industries, travel and tourism, as well as hospitality and any non-essential retail trade, have come to a complete halt over the last couple of weeks. Areas of the UK that are disproportionately reliant on one of these sectors may see a severe collapse of activity in the local economy if recovery after the crisis is not fast enough. US studies of areas that were most exposed to structural shocks and industrial decline due to the rise of trade between the US and China have shown long-lasting and severe effects, particularly for males (Autor et al., 2016 and 2019). These shocks have fed through to mortality outcomes (Pierce and Schott, 2020). This is a specific example of how changes in economic fortunes can lead to deaths of despair, the term coined by Case and Deaton (2015 and 2017) who documented strikingly large rises in mortality associated with suicide, alcohol and drug abuse amongst low-educated white American males. The health effects of wholesale structural change, where industries are eradicated in a local area, are severe and persistent as the economic opportunities of people in these areas disappear either permanently or at least for decades.

In facing this economic downturn, government intervention will play a key role in determining the eventual health effects of the resulting recession. The government will need to decide where resources are best used. Importantly, in recent years, the UK welfare system has evolved to protect incomes through the extensive use of in-work benefits. Whilst this proved to be a positive during the 2008 financial crisis when incomes and wages fell but employment held up (see Cribb et al. (2017)), continued erosion of the value of out-of-work benefits relative to average wages leaves the system far less capable to deal with mass unemployment shocks than it was.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (JRS) has a specific purpose of preserving jobs as well as incomes and is desirable in this respect (see Costa-Dias et al. (2020) for further commentary on the JRS). Obviously, within the lockdown period, most of those who do lose their jobs will find it very difficult to find new work, but the JRS should help to ensure that once the social distancing measures are lifted, more have retained their jobs and can return to work. In the absence of measures that protect employment, job separation and long spells of unemployment can lead to a loss of human capital either through depreciation in skills or a loss of firm-specific human capital that has accumulated through matching in the labour market (Fujita et al. (2020) further discuss the importance of preserving workers attachment to their current employer in the context of the coronavirus crisis). This will have long-run consequences for individuals lifetime earnings as well as affecting their financial security, sense of purpose and mental health. Thus we would also expect knock-on adverse effects on morbidity and mortality. Therefore protecting human capital and minimising unemployment consequences beyond the duration of the social distancing measures is particularly important for both the economic and health consequences of the recovery. Rebuilding lost human capital may well be much more complex than replacing the physical or financial capital that has been wiped out in the large recessions experienced recently.

The example of JRS shows that even the policies that are not directly aimed at improving health outcomes can help alleviate the eventual health consequences of the economic downturn. Thus it is important that any government action is taken with consideration for the long-term health outcomes it may affect. Different policies will help certain groups more than others, and affect their long-term health in differing ways. For example, it is clear that the long-run returns from supporting vulnerable mothers and children through this crisis will have far-reaching consequences for the outcomes of the children. But the current policies aimed at supporting furloughed workers may not do enough to reach these families. Thus any policy should come with an assessment of who it will benefit most and how the health effects may differ by cohort, prior socio-economic status and region. This will be particularly important when the government designs its policies for the removal of the social distancing measures and any subsequent reimposition of them, and then again as additional government economic support measures are phased out.

See more here:

Recessions and health: the long-term health consequences of responses to the coronavirus - - ifs.org.uk

This virus is a robber of health and wealth – Daily Nation

Posted on by

By BITANGE NDEMOMore by this Author

We watched as China confronted the coronavirus and as it threw everything it had at the virus.

We watched as the virus escaped to Korea, then to Europe and now in the US, and as the number of infections and deaths skyrocketed in Europe.

Then we started to see African countries confirm cases. If the trend is anything to go by, then in the next two to three weeks will be our turn to suffer.

Like in the US, we thought the threat was minimal and this affected our decisiveness on response. Now, the number of infections is increasing.

It is as though this Covid-19 sends warning shots and then after 19 days, it comes with vengeance.

This, in my view, is a window that we must exploit by planning for: our homeless, food supply chains, our medical staffs protective gear, new sites for expanding hospital beds, medicines, emergency vehicles, people who rely on daily income.

Above all, we must candidly address our cultural practices on death and burial in light of this pandemic.

Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said that Kenya has entered what is known as community infection stage, perhaps the worst stage along the continuum of infections considering that the virus can rapidly spread across the country if we fail in social distancing.

Lessons from Italy and Spain show that the only way of stopping the virus from spreading is through strict adherence to social distancing. Many countries have had to lockdown their countries as a strategy to distance themselves from mingling.

The chairman of the Council of Governors says that a total lockdown will bring misery to citizens. Others say the Governors are using the crisis as a bargaining chip to get more resources.

Either way, we are losing the valuable time to mitigate against the crisis. The more time we take to take action, the more we endanger the lives of people.

SOCIAL DISTANCINGOur context is more complicated than that of developed countries. We have more people crammed up in shanties. A quick decision to give incentives for those who can move to rural areas to do so is urgent. The more people we move from slums areas to rural areas, the better social distancing we create.

We also move the homeless to less densely populated areas, protect food supply chain companies from harassment by the police, establish a local industry to produce some hospital supplies and develop a public private partnership on emergency vehicles.

In as much as we are in a health crisis, some people must focus on the economy to fight off a possibility of economic collapse and further suffering.

Last week, McKinsey & Company published a report, Tackling Covid-19 in Africa: An unfolding health and economic crisis that demands bold action, highlighting their initial analysis of the pandemics economic impact.

Their findings show that Africas GDP growth in 2020 could reduce by 38 percentage points. The report says that in the absence of a major fiscal stimulus, the pandemic and the oil-price shock are likely to tip Africa into an economic contraction in 2020.

The report anticipates four likely scenarios for Africa. These include a scenario where the pandemic: is controlled in the near term, intensifies throughout the world, Asia, Europe and the US takes long to contain the epidemic and a significant outbreak in Africa with repercussion on the economy and lastly continued recovery in Asia, Europe and the US with significant outbreak in Africa.

GRIM PICTUREIn three of the scenarios with the exception of containment of the virus in the near term, the economies of Africa will record negative growth. Various organisations trying to model the infection trajectory paint a grim picture, with some opining that dealing with Covid-19 may take as long as 18 months.

On Kenya, the report says:

In two out of four scenarios, Kenya is facing a likely economic contraction. Under the contained outbreak scenario, GDP growth could decline from 5.2 per cent (after accounting for the 2020 locust invasion) to 1.9 percentrepresenting a reduction in GDP of $3 billion (Sh300 billion).

The biggest impacts in terms of loss to GDP are reductions in household and business spending (about 50 per cent), disruption to supply chain for key inputs in machinery and chemicals (about 30 per cent) and tourism (about 20 per cent). In scenarios in which the outbreak is not contained, Kenyas GDP growth rate could fall to -5 per cent, representing a loss to GDP of $10 billion (Sh1 trillion). As in Nigeria, disruption of consumer spend would be the biggest driver of this loss.

On the continental level, the picture isnt rosy either. Most African countries, including Kenya, are dependent on imports from, and exports to, China. Although China is back to business, the supply chains are already constrained.

To add salt to injury, oil prices have collapsed, with negative consequences on Africas oil rich countries.

Further, African oil producers largely export to China meaning that any disruption to Chinese trade will devastate countries like Nigeria, Angola, South Sudan and Eritrea.

In spite of the locust invasion and now Covid-19, Kenya must sustain its food production and horticultural exports to Europe.

Food production is the most important industry today that can provide jobs as well as income in a very difficult period.

With a projected economic downturn, a significant number of people losing jobs and others needing healthcare, it is surely our turn to suffer.

Within the small window of opportunity that we have, we must fight the pandemic by all means but also find means of tapering down our politics and dealing with our anticipated socio-economic crisis by taking bold actions.

The writer is a professor of entrepreneurship at University of Nairobis School of business.

Original post:

This virus is a robber of health and wealth - Daily Nation

Can Germany Weather The COVID-19 Storm More Robustly Than Other European Countries? Analysis – Eurasia Review

Posted on by

By Heribert Dieter

The Covid-19 virus has hit Germany as unexpectedly as other European countries. For a few weeks, Germans thought the pandemic was an issue for Asian countries and not their own. Today, although Germany is severely affected, the situation is not nearly as dire as in Italy and Spain. Germany, with its enormous financial resources and a well-equipped medical sector, appears to be better placed than other economies to weather this storm.

One of the most striking effects of the crisis is that Chancellor Angela Merkel is experiencing a revival. The debate over her succession and the next chairman of the Christian Democratic Party have become irrelevant. Merkel is firmly in power, and her popularity is quite high. Ironically, the current crisis has been falsifying the claim she made in 2015 that the German borders cannot be protected. On 7 October 2015,she had arguedin a rare television interview that borders cannot be closed. Since 16 March 2020, the German government has implemented policies that were previously considered impossible or inappropriate.

Today, the German authorities are desperately trying to regain control over the coronavirus. These blunt measures are a reflection of the previous complacency. If the German government would have acted earlier, say in mid-February, the restrictions could have probably been less severe. The mistakes Germany made and continues to make become evident when setting Germanys experience against that of Hong Kong. Based on my own calculations, while one in 1,070 citizens in Germany is infected with the coronavirus, the number in Hong Kong is only one in 9,934 inhabitants. Why is a densely populated city-state like Hong Kong apparently more successful in addressing the coronavirus than Germany?

There are some surprising similarities between Germany and Hong Kong in the current crisis. Both are very open economies with substantial fiscal resources, which are proving quite useful today. Both are very dependent on China, if in different ways. And both economies have seen their business models weakened by the crisis. Their response to the pandemic, however, has been extremely different.

The authorities in Hong Kong have been trying to control and monitor the outbreak of the crisis. Fuelled by the experience from the SARS epidemic in 2003, the Hong Kong government quickly implemented measures to control the virus. Schools and universities were closed and now use the online teaching method, and the health authorities continue to document each individual case on several websites. Citizens can identify which train, plane or taxi an infected person has used. The government is using a supercomputer of the Hong Kong Police Force to monitor outbreaks and react against them.

While the Hong Kong government has implemented many measures to curb the spread of the virus, there has been no curfew like the kind implemented in Italy, France, Spain or Germany. From day one, many citizens of Hong Kong have been wearing face masks, which may not be very effective in preventing the user from catching the virus but is useful to curb its spread. Wearing a mask has thus become a symbol of care for others in Hong Kong, where respect for others has been an established social norm. The city has just under 1000 confirmed coronavirus cases, four of whom have died. Considering Hong Kong is a part of China and there has always been an intensive movement of people between the city and the mainland, these relatively low numbers are remarkable.

The measures taken against the coronavirus may have reduced total mortality in the city. Simply put, in 2020, ordinary influenza claimed significantly fewer lives in Hong Kong than the year before, thanks to social distancing and other measures. In 2019, the influenza season lasted 14 weeks and claimed 356 lives. In 2020, the influenza season ended after a mere five weeks, and 113 Hong Kong citizens died from influenza, about two thirds less than the year before. A positive side effect has been the reduction of admissions to intensive care units due to influenza, which dropped from 601 in 2019 to 182 in 2020. Thus, the healthcare systems capacity to handle Covid-19 cases was higher than it would have been in a regular influenza season. Dr. Joseph Tsang, an expert for infectious diseases,called the reduced influenza cases a collateral benefitfrom the coronavirus outbreak.

The contrast between Germany and Hong Kong is stark. Germans very reluctantly embraced the precautionary measures. Despite the virus wreaking havoc across the world, including in Italy, many Germans thought that Covid-19 would not severely affect them. The German government was equally reluctant in implementing comprehensive measures to stop the spread of the virus. Instead, the federal and state governments implemented what an ex-post approach, waiting until the crisis hit and infection rates skyrocketed to implement harsh measures.

To be fair, that may have been the only avenue available in a democracy in general and in Germany in particular. Policies that severely curtail the freedom of individuals are always contested, and without evidence, it is incredibly complicated to convince citizens that they should alter their behaviour. In Germany, the use of emergency acts is currently accepted by a vast majority of citizens but perhaps would not have been tolerated at the end of February. As we know from other policy domains, democracies are not very good at implementing precautionary policies.

German policymakers have continued to emphasise that the country is well-prepared for a health emergency. But this is true only on two fronts: have a good number of hospital beds and laboratory capacity. Germany currently has 28,000 intensive care beds, out of which 25,000 are equipped with ventilators. Germany has more hospital beds than most other European countries.According to World Bank data, Germany has 8.3 beds per 1000 people, while France 6.5 beds, Italy has 3.4 beds and the UK 2.8 beds. Even in the US, which has one of the most expensive health care sectors in the world, there are only 2.9 beds available per 1000 people.

The German approach can partly be explained by the confidence in the existing medical resources. But despite having many hospitals, there is a lack of necessary medical equipment such as masks.

Like most other European governments, Germany has implemented unprecedented measures to stimulate the economy and to keep businesses afloat. What sets the country apart is its fiscal muscle. After years of economic boom, high levels of taxation and restricted government expenditure, Germany can use its vast financial resources to avoid an economic collapse. In 2019, gross public debt was reduced to 59.2 percent of GDP. Somecommentators have suggestedthat saving has paid off. The debate on a possible exit from the measures adopted to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus has continued. While it appears that the strict rules will remain in place at least until mid-April, Germany might consider a model adopted by many other countries some restrictions on public life, but a return to the workplace for a significant number of the workforce.

Indeed, estimations by some virologists appear bizarre. Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert-Koch-Institute, which advises the German government,had suggestedin mid-March that in an extreme scenario, Germany may have to remain in lockdown-mode for up to two years. Of course, the implementation of the current measures beyond April would risk the stability of many German companies and could lead to massive unemployment, widespread bankruptcies and severe political instability.

Some commentators have already criticised the harsh measures. Hans-Juergen Papier, former president of the German Constitutional Court, has warned that emergency measures do not justify the suspension of civil liberties in favour of a state of authority and surveillance. He said a curfew that has no limitation in space and time most probably represents aviolation of the German constitution. Policymakers in Germany and elsewhere must find a balance between protecting their societies as well as protecting the economy. To place the safeguard of citizens health above all other considerations is a risky strategy. Without a return to economic activity in the foreseeable future, Germany and other European countries may rapidly be exposed to severe socio-economic problems.

If Covid-19 is a severe health crisis, but not an unprecedented one, the question arises why governments all over the world, including the German one, are outbidding each other to curb the freedoms of their citizens. One reason might be the rivalry with China. The Chinese Communist Party has been trying to recover from the mistakes made in Wuhan in the early phase of the outbreak by implementing a draconian lockdown.

Today, the Chinese government is portraying itself as one of the few governments able to protect its population from the virus. Explicitly, the Chinese Communist Party has been suggesting that democratic governments are not well placed to combat a serious threat to their citizens. At the same time, policymakers in those societies want to demonstrate their ability to act forcefully, and they have used the Covid-19 crisis to do so. They have simply copied the Chinese blueprint, perhaps prematurely. The precedent set by China may have hurt the ability of politicians in Europe and North America to develop their strategies to combat the virus.

There are, however, some very optimistic observers in Germany that neither expect a lasting lockdown nor a severe effect on the economy. The Council of Economic Advisors to the government has suggested that Germany may suffer quite limited economic damage from the crisis. In a best-case scenario, they expect a drop five percent drop in GDP in 2020, which would be less severe than the contraction of the economy in 2009. Even if Germany were to stay in lockdown for seven weeks, thereduction in GDPwould be limited to six percent.

What will change is Germanys fiscal position. At the start of the current crisis, the countrys coffers have been well filled. Federal, state and social security funds aresaid to haveliquid reserves of 200 billion euros. In times of crisis, this comes in handy. The federal government has adopted a far-reaching package of measures to mitigate the consequences of the spread of the coronavirus. The cabinet initiated emergency aid for micro-enterprises and self-employed persons. Clinics and practices will be strengthened, and access to short-time work benefits simplified. And the government is helping large companies with an economic stabilisation fund.

Thatfund has three elements:

Given the uncertainty about the duration of the crisis and the severity of the economic decline, the German government has had one primary objective: to stabilise the expectation of its citizens. This goal may have been achieved for now, but any significant deterioration of the situation will alter the equation quickly.

In 2020, Europe is experiencing a problem of historic dimensions. Although there is some solidarity between member states, by and large, each country is fighting the crisis on its own. It is unrealistic to expect Europe to emerge strengthened from the Covid-19 crisis. The nation-state has been the primary source of protection and help, and the citizens of each country will remember that supranationalism, let alone multilateralism, did not provide convincing answers in the crisis.

Of course, there have been nasty episodes during the crisis, and it would be easy to point fingers at the mistakes of others. In an existential crisis, perhaps it is unavoidable for policymakers to act in the national interest. Germany is no exception. The much-criticised ban on exports of medical equipment was implemented after the German government realised that the country did not have sufficient basic equipment (sanitiser, masks) for its own medical personal.

Nevertheless, Germany is contributing significantly to the stabilisation of the European economies. The countrys solid fiscal position, a result of policies that were criticised in the past, today enables Europes largest economy to act as a significant provider of demand. Put differently, if Germany were not able to stabilise the purchasing power of its citizens and the capacity of its companies to survive the crisis, Europes prospects in a post-Covid-19 world would be much bleaker.

Surprisingly, the crisis may have some positive effects on the Germans perceptions of the existing economic and political structures. In the current crisis, the German government is mobilising resources for its citizens, who for years have been funding the state and the social security system with high taxes and high social security contributions. Today, Germans see the benefit of previous frugality. And so, while the Covid-19 crisis will take its toll, the long-term effects may not as bleak for Germany as elsewhere.

Please Donate Today Did you enjoy this article? Then please consider donating today to ensure that Eurasia Review can continue to be able to provide similar content.

Read more from the original source:

Can Germany Weather The COVID-19 Storm More Robustly Than Other European Countries? Analysis - Eurasia Review

Has Narendra Modi lost the plot in tackling the coronavirus pandemic? – Deccan Herald

Posted on by

In the past ten days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed the nation an unprecedented four times, all about how his administration is responding to the coronavirus pandemic. In each of these addresses, the public at large has been told what they should do for the country, and not what the country will do for them.

When on March 19, Modi went live on TV at 8 pm, he asked people to observe Janata Curfew the following Sunday (March 22) and demonstrate the national zeal to defeat the pandemic through a 5 pm thali-bajao exercise. On 24 March when Modi came live, again at 8 pm, he announced a much-feared three-week nationwide lockdown, and from that very midnight. This gave a mere four hour warning, resulting in a late-night panic buying spree. Thousands caught off-guard by the lockdown, who unsurprisingly were daily wage labourers and poor working classes, were forced to pick up their kids and meagre belongings and start walking to their homes in faraway villages. Scores were subjected to exhaustion and hunger. However, in his Mann ki Baat that came a few days later, Modi merely extended an apology for the suffering heaped on the poor and the migrant workers due to the lockdown. Nothing more.

Modi came out once more to speak to the nation on April 3 and thankfully in the morning. Given the widespread criticism of what has come to be known as a #lockdownwithoutplan, the expectation this time was that he would delve into the details of preparedness essential in dealing with this difficult period. This is what leaders of other pandemic affected countries have been doing, spelling out the details and with great sensitivity too. Modis speech once again was without any details; as before he asked people to perform yet another public demonstration of their support for ongoing efforts to tackle the pandemic shine a diya, or candle, or a torchlight from their darkened homes and balconies. There appears to have been very little thought paid to the fact that this nation-wide darkening of homes could result in a grid collapse, and a possible blackout, and that this could potentially jeopardise lives of thousands relying on continuous electricity supply, especially those in critical care.

Pandemic, not politics

But such complexities have hardly been of concern to Modi. His way is to be sparing with the truth but high on hyperbole. His solutions for resolving complex problems are simple and sometimes even simplistic. But his ability to communicate in ways that is accessible to a majority of the population, relying on entreaties of sacrifice for the greater common good proclaimed as fundamentally transformative, is what Modi has done in all his speeches. He did this with demonetisation and in introducing GST, both reforms undertaken without any planning or preparation. Expectedly they have had devastating consequences on the Indian economy and on millions of lives and livelihoods.

To his advantage has been the weak and fragmented Opposition, a largely compromised media and uncritical corporates -- factors that have enabled him to carry on with a form of governance that is didactic and unapologetically explicit in promotion of majoritarian politics based on divisiveness. Such political methods have worked wonders in normative politics, indicated by the thumping majority he gained in the last general elections. Employing which he abrogated Article 370 and then enacted the highly divisive and sectarian Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 disregarding nation-wide protests.

The question is, can such methods work in tackling the pandemic? For dealing with a virus demands a rational approach, which is at once nuanced and scalable. With the exception of Kerala, which prepared well in advance and graded its lockdown, thus arresting the spread of the disease, the rest of the country has been caught rather unprepared. Reliance was heavy on guidance from the Centre, which has largely been reactive, down to writing manuals on how to make masks well after the lockdown was in place. A number of circulars issued by the Ministry of Health and Home Affairs, clarifying various normative aspects of lockdowns on public health grounds, is most revealing of the utter state of disaster unpreparedness.

Swallowing pride and comfort at the sudden erosion of fundamental freedoms and dignity, and dealing with a variety of police excesses, even brutality, people are still faithfully following Modis ways in dealing with the pandemic. While one hopes steps taken thus far will pay off, and that the lockdown will end as scheduled, given the woefully underprepared state of Indias health sector and extension of relief measures, the next two weeks are promising to be exceedingly long and excruciating. Every State would do their people a lot of good if they would develop a range of scenarios and be prepared in every manner necessary to deal with the worst-case scenario, i.e., massive spread in infection, high rates of morbidity and also high death rates. It is of utmost necessity that preventive, curative and relief operations are organised ground up so none is left to suffer without care, and due to lack of food, shelter and security.

This situation, in many ways, is the direct outcome of Modis style of functioning -- centralised, didactic and disempowering. While such methods may have been useful in dealing with the usual adversarial political situations, it is highly unlikely to be of any use in dealing with a viral pandemic. There is no Opposition to bait here, no legacy to attack. If mishandled, people will suffer, and millions will die. The political comfort one can draw from the fact that this is a global pandemic and so one must grin and bear, or that it has not impacted India as much as it has the rest of the world, are positions unlikely to weigh in Modis favour.

Already, news of frontline sanitary, health and police personnel getting infected due to inadequate provisioning of Personal Protective Equipment is filtering in. This is a very disturbing indicator, and does not help build public confidence in the response strategy. Instead of focusing on such crises, the narrative appears to have been deliberately shifted to communalising and criminalising victims of a disease outbreak. Such methods will only spread more fear of the disease and force massive suppression of infections, a nightmarish situation that must be avoided in dealing with a pandemic.

It is high time, therefore, that those in the Centre and state governments who really care about getting India on the right track in dealing with the pandemic, immediately focus attention on drawing from deep and extensive experiences of public health and environmental health experts in the country, and step up efforts to win the trust and build public confidence in the governments efforts. It is that collective spirit that can and will help India survive this pandemic, in bringing down the extent of suffering and much-feared socio-economic collapse.

(Leo F Saldanha works on environmental and social justice, and governance concerns through the non-profit, Environment Support Group)

The views expressed above are the authors own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.

Read the original post:

Has Narendra Modi lost the plot in tackling the coronavirus pandemic? - Deccan Herald

Risk of social isolation and greater health crisis – newagebd.net

Posted on by

People, mostly apparel workers, headed for Dhaka crowd at a place at Uthali in Manikganj on Saturday amidst a public holiday aimed at staving off the novel coronavirus threat. New Age

I feel compelled, I feel obliged to share the insufferable experience of two friends from the past weeks the lived experience of fear of the novel coronavirus that changed their lives. One of them is an organiser of womens movement and the other is an organiser of workers movement in the apparel industrial sector. One of them is in hospital with COVID-19-like symptoms and the other is homebound with critical heart disease. Both are my dear ones. Their experiences are haunting me like trauma. However, it is important to share a few words about the current situation of apparel workers and the COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh before I move on to their stories.

I

LOCALLY and globally, the COVID-19 pandemic is taking a new turn every day, alongside escalating fear and uncertainty. It is signalling an economic recession and severe health insecurity. The total death toll of the pandemic has crossed over 64 thousand. On International Womens Day 2020 (March 8), the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Bangladesh. Since then, as of April 4, 70 are infected and eight people are dead. Developed countries in Europe and America are struggling to contain the spread of the virus.

Bangladesh, from the very beginning, has been rather laid back in responding to the crisis. From government announcements, it appeared as if nothing serious would happen. The national plan to prevent the spread of the virus including the declaration of a general holiday was rather sudden. Then began the panic buying middle-high income groups begun stockpiling three to six months worth of food supply. All educational institutions closed, government and non-government offices suspended their business activities. Ever crowded Dhaka slowly became deserted, rural areas also became desolate. The military took to the street along with the police. New forms of societal and state harassment begun. People with COVID-19-like symptoms and their families are harassed by neighbours, burials of COVID-19 victims are obstructed, workers are beaten by the police in the name of teaching social distancing and government officials are humiliating people by making them do sit-ups holding their ears for violating government directives on coronavirus prevention.

The national economy is also affected. The president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association in a video message called the European and American retailers to reconsider the large number of orders they cancelled and suspended so far. Labour organisations demanded that industrial owners, the government and global buyers take the responsibility of the 41 lakhs workers health safety and announce paid leave during the outbreak. Still, in the prime ministers national address on March 25, no declaration came on the question of shutting down the production line. But, an announcement came of a stimulus package of Tk 5,000 crore for export oriented industries. The following day, the president of BGMEA, instead of announcing the factories closed, personally requested owners to consider temporary factory closure. The president of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association also made similar requests. This is how began the phase of killing time. Workers feared the contagion. They became anxious about losing jobs and their struggle for economic survival. Some factories were closed at owners will. In some places, when workers refused to work, factories were closed. This is how the ploy of keeping the factories close and open continued. And the work order cancellation by international retailers may cost the apparel sector about $3 billion.

A research of the Workers Rights Consortium shows that 10 lakh worker may lose job in the near future. Many workers are already losing job. Meanwhile, the government has extended the public holiday from April 4 to April 11. The president of the BGMEA, referring to the government, has said that factories can be opened on the conditions that the health rules are followed. In fear of losing jobs, on April 4, thousands of workers began walking to their workplaces from distant districts. On the way to work, two apparel workers were killed in a road accident in Mymensingh. This inhuman scenario shocked the nation. In the face of fierce criticism, later at night on April 4, leaders of the BGMEA and the BKMEA requested to keep the factory closed, but it was already too late.

Questions arise, who benefited from this ploy of killing time? Isnt it absolutely irresponsible that the government and the factory owners brought the workers back to factories disregarding their health safety concerns? What is the real reason behind the supposed disunity between industrial owners? Why has the prime minister remained silent on workers health issue? Why has the attention been diverted to the prime ministers address or to the BGMEAs announcement? Is it to complete pending orders, to keep the production line open? Why havent they thought of making personal protection equipment before? Why have the local and international media including the New York Times and the BGMEA been lamenting the loss that Primark, Zara and H&M incurred or may incur during this pandemic? Workers sweat and hard work brought fortune for the global buyers and local owners, and helped the country to earn 84 per cent of its export earnings. These workers are the primary capital of our national economy, of buyers and industry owners. Why such negligence towards their lives? If their health and livelihood are not protected, can the industry survive?

We could have made a historically unprecedented example by ensuring workers health security through creating an emergency fund from a share of the profit from global buyers and local industry owners, financial assistance from the government and other sources. If necessary, the government could have taken the lead in this regard. Not just because of humanity and ethics, but in the interest of industry and national economy, all three parties benefitting from this sector could have taken up a special plan to protect these workers. In this way, despite the predicted economic recession, the industry could have better managed its finances in the long run. Sadly, in our socio-economic system, it is normal that such possibilities are not considered. Instead, we are witnessing a decline in social empathy and solidarity. Society is teaching us, in this time of crisis, to selfishly stay safe, alone.

II

LETS return to the stories of my friends. I will begin with labour organiser Aminul Islam Shamas (36) story. He is a known face in industrial areas as the organising secretary of Garments Workers Solidarity. Nine years ago, because of his illness he had to leave the factories. In a complicated surgery, two of his heart-valves were replaced. Many physicians refused to do the surgery, but in 2011, Dr Prashanta Kumar Chanda of National Heart Foundation Hospital had agreed to do the surgery. Now, his valves are not functioning properly leading to breathing difficulty, cough and accumulation of water in the lungs.

Every day of the past two weeks was passed by worrying about Shamas future. On March 15, around midnight, Julhas Nayeen and I took him to the NHFH as he was having serious breathing difficulty. Physicians there told us that he has congestive heart failure. He needs immediate replacement of heart-valves. There is not enough time in hand, but there is no seat available to admit him. We need to take him somewhere there is an Intensive Care Unit or to the heart institute. By then the fear of the coronavirus has gripped the city.

After visiting another private hospital, at last, around 2:30am, we were able to admit him to the National Heart Institute. The institute had no seat in their PCCU. Shama was accommodated on a mattress laid on the floor by the bathroom. Shamas breathing difficulty intensified, he begun to vomit. The ward was already overcrowded. We started to worry. What if he catches the virus in this unsafe hospital environment? We waited until 2:00pm the next day to get him a seat. But then, to avoid the crowd, we took him to Dhaka Community Hospital at our own risk. Physicians there tried to improve his heart condition and address his breathing difficulty.

Fear has heightened at hospitals. Some hospital authorities were making announcement on PA system urging attendants to leave. A day later, they arranged for hand washing and sanitising dispenser at the entrance of the DCH. Because of Shamas condition, he needed to be in the hospital, and he urgently needed a second surgery. On the other hand, there is the risk of being infected. At DCH, number of patients begun to decline. Our fear of the virus intensified. Amid confusion and fear, instead of taking Shama to the NHFH, he was sent back to his rented home in Ashulia on March 20. We thought, in the current situation, home is the relatively safer option for him.

A few days later, Shama came to see cardiac medicine specialist, Mir Ishrakuzzaman at the NHFH. That is when we realised that the entire health system is on the verge of collapse. Security guards prevented us from entering the premise. No physician would see outdoor patients. With the help of a friend, Dr Anika Nawar, we finally managed to find the doctor. He tried to comfort Shama, gave him courage. We felt really lucky. There were not that many outdoor patients. Patients were not attended to outside of the emergency. Security guards were extra alert. The hospital authority couldnt even think of admitting new patients, let alone doing surgery. The situation appeared as if the ICU and the emergency ward may also face lockdown and the majority of the doctors will go on leave. Later, we heard, except for the emergency unit, the NHFH is under lockdown.

In this trying time, Dr Prashanta Kumar Chanda, Dr Mir Ishrakuzzaman, Dr Anika Nawar of the NHFH, Dr. Haun-ur-Rashid of Dhaka Community Hospital, Dr. Sayema Sadia in Chattogram helped in so many ways. We are immensely grateful to them. Shama and I spoke to Dr Prashanta this week. He gave us courage. We talked about the preparation for an impending surgery. But, waiting is all we could do now. Some physicians gave us hope, but some didnt want to see him again. It is because the majority of physicians are left unprotected in this time of a pandemic. There is fear, and it is justified. It is not easy to fight an invisible virus. Without access to PPE, any physician could get infected. They could spread the infection to others. Dr Abdul Wadud Chowdhury is an example. After treating a patient in Tolarbagh, he had to stay in self-isolation for 14 days with COVID-19-like symptoms.

III

NOW, the story of Mina (45), an organiser of womens movement. She is also a patient suspected of being infected with COVID-19. Since March 26, she has been admitted in a hospital designated for coronavirus treatment in Dhaka. The report of her COVID-19 test has not arrived yet, so she has been treated for pneumonia. Mina works for a private organisation with a meagre salary. Her husband is a small entrepreneur. With two of their incomes they barely manage their household. Their two daughters are students. I am left with no choice but to introduce her with a pseudonym Mina. I did so to prevent any further harassment and humiliation of her family.

On March 25, her husband Apu (pseudonym) left home with a critically ill Mina to see if he could get her admitted to a hospital. The harrowing experience of the next 13 hours, visiting from one hospital to another, 11 to be exact, is something he will never forget. We must know the backstory of Mina and Apu, or else we will not know the grave crisis that is awaiting us.

Mina has preexisting chronic condition of high blood pressure, diabetes and asthma. In past weeks, she has also developed cough, breathing difficulty and fever. In a CNG, Apu took the critically ill Mina to a nearby clinic. There they told him to take her to BIRDEM since she has high diabetics (sugar level 31). In BIRDEM, they saw it was rather deserted. Instead of treating the patient, they sent her to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

Once arrived at DMCH, a chill went down Apus spine. As if they had arrived at a haunted place, there was no sign of the familiar hustle and bustle. In my 52 years, never have I witnessed such silence in DMCH. After buying a ticket from the emergency, they went to the ward number 512 on the 5th floor. There was not even a single patient. Just one physician and a few nurses. They provided Mina with oxygen support and nebulised her before doing an X-ray and ECG. After viewing the test reports, the physician said, Mina has excess fluid in her lung, and she is a suspected COVID-19 patient. As the DMCH does not have treatment for her, they must go to a designated hospital for treatment.

Apu took her to another hospital near their house before going to the designated hospital. There, he learnt, it will take 45 days to start treatment. Helpless, as it is, he took her to the hospital where she is now admitted. This time they were able to manage an ambulance. In the first attempt, the hospital authority said, Minas condition require ICU treatment, she should be transferred to a hospital with ICU facility. By then, the family has already visited five hospitals. The run from hospital to hospital begun, again. Mina was in an ambulance with oxygen support. They went to a hospital in Sayedabad, but they did not take her. The ambulance driver recommended a hospital in Shanir Akhra. After two hours and an X-ray, they said, For the sake of other patient, they cannot keep her there, Mina is a suspected [of corona] patient, and she needs to be taken elsewhere.

It was past midnight by then. Apu desperately took her to the IEDCR. They told him that tests are done only between 10:00am and 5:00pm. For the second time, they went to the designated hospital, and this time around, they said, Mina is a cardiac patient. They should go to the heart foundation hospital. So, they went to the NHFH. At the heart foundation emergency unit, after an ECG, they said, Heart is fine and wrote, suspected corona, immediate admission. Then, for the third time, they went back to the designated hospital. It is only after doing 11 rounds in different hospitals they were able to earn the sympathy of the physicians there. They finally admitted Mina. Apu asked, If they were going to admit her in the end, why refuse her so many times? Why such harassments? No response.

Momentarily, her family was relieved. Finally, they were able to get her admitted to a hospital. The elder daughter is staying with her mother as attendant. Physician comes once a day. But they do so from a distance, hesitate to come close. Nurses leave medicine and food by the door. Apu visits every day. From a three 9 feet distance, leaves food for their daughter, even managed a PPE for her. Minas family is still grateful to the physicians and nurses.

A day after the admission of Mina to the hospital, her family was socially harassed. The Facebook posts of Minas concerned friends come to the notice of her neighbours. By the next morning, 8am to be precise, they received eviction notice. Apu and Minas daughters got anxious. Where are they going to go? What will they manage, hospital or the landlord? A few friends spoke to the landlord and managed to stop the eviction notice. They were allowed to stay on the condition that they will follow the rules. When all these were going on, one of the nights, the designated hospital was out of syringe for insulin. They couldnt get it to Mina, even after trying for hours. This is how it is. Eight days have passed but the result of the COVID-19 test still has not arrived.

The insufferable experiences of Mina and Shama tell us that the country is awaiting a serious crisis. I know of many physicians who will work tirelessly to help patients like Mina and Shama. Until and unless, physicians and hospitals are supported with proper protection from the contagion individual commitment will not do much. Many will discourage patients needing urgent care. Stating different flimsy excuses such as, seats are there, cant admit patients, physicians are on leave, or patient will not suffer much in this condition, they will signal us their limitations. Perhaps, Shama will be able to gain some access using her organisational contacts. But, as we wait for his operation, will he be able to survive only on medication? Will he get a chance to do the second surgery? Shama or his physician, will they be able to get out of their home to reach hospital? If Mina is tested positive, what will happen to her nurse and physician? Will they go even further away? What will her neighbours do? We are all walking towards an extremely uncertain future.

A deafening siren is ringing. It is reminding us, no matter how many times we say the words like health security, nutrition, warning home quarantine, hygiene, these words only make meaning for the ruling elite. For the working class, public and private sphere are equally unsafe. Still they try their best to stay home for safety. To protect the country, its people and its economy, the government must put in its highest effort. The government must protect people from corona. It must ensure that patients with diseases other than corona are not left to die and more importantly, people are not left to starve. A united effort to tackle this emerging crisis is the demand of the time.

Taslima Akhter is the president of the Garments Workers Solidarity and photographer.

Read more:

Risk of social isolation and greater health crisis - newagebd.net

The International Space Station – WCNC.com

Posted on by

CHARLOTTE, N.C. The WCNC Weather School is back in session with a free, educational science class about equipment used to observe the weather.

Friday's lesson is from forecaster Larry Sprinkle, who tells us all about the International Space Station. From how fast it orbits the earth to the station's importance on weather forecast, Larry will explain in great detail why the ISS is so valuable.

WCNC Charlotte's First Warn Storm Team is helping parents, students, and teachers learn from home with free atmospheric science lessons that can be seen each weekday on the streaming platforms of WCNC Charlotte.

The lessons, which will stream live starting at 1 p.m., will feature a variety of weather lessons and explainers hosted by the WCNC Charlotte weather team.

Join the conversation live to ask questions and be a part of the virtual class.

RELATED: Explaining tornadoes: WCNC Weather School

RELATED: Astronomy and night sky: WCNC Charlotte Weather School

RELATED: The seasons and why we have them: WCNC Charlotte Weather School

RELATED: What are weather balloons: WCNC Weather School

RELATED: How high and low pressure affect forecasts: WCNC Weather School

RELATED: Explaining dew point and frost point: WCNC Weather School

RELATED: How lightning forms: WCNC Weather School

RELATED: How fog forms: WCNC Weather School

RELATED: How to grow your own fruits and vegetables: WCNC Weather School

Can't watch it live? The lessons will be available on-demand for playback at anytime.

WCNC Charlotte Weather School can be seen live on wcnc.com, the WCNC mobile news app, the WCNC Charlotte Facebook page, the WCNC Charlotte YouTube page, on Periscope and Twitter, and on ournew Twitch channel.

Like, follow, and subscribe on your favorite platform to be notified when each day's class begins.

View post:

The International Space Station - WCNC.com

Three Astronauts Just Docked With The Space Station, Leaving Behind an Uneasy Planet – ScienceAlert

Posted on by

A three-man crew docked successfully at the International Space Station Thursday, leaving behind a planet overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Russian space agency Roscosmos said the Soyuz MS-16 capsule docked successfully in a statement on its website.

Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner of Roscosmos and NASA's Chris Cassidy reached the ISS at 1413 GMT, just over six hours after blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where COVID-19 caused changes to pre-launch protocol.

Usually the departing crew faces questions from a large press pack before being waved off by family and friends.

Neither was possible this time round because of travel restrictions imposed over the virus, although the crew did respond to emailed questions from journalists in a Wednesday press conference.

Cassidy, 50, admitted the crew had been affected by their families not being unable to be in Baikonur, Russia's space hub in neighbouring Kazakhstan, for their blastoff to the ISS.

"But we understand that the whole world is also impacted by the same crisis," Cassidy said.

Astronauts routinely go into quarantine ahead of space missions and give a final press conference at Baikonur from behind a glass wall to protect them from infection.

That process began even earlier than usual last month as the trio and their reserve crew hunkered down in Russia's Star City training centre outside Moscow, eschewing traditional pre-launch rituals and visits to the capital.

The next crew to return to Earth from the ISS will be flying to their home countries on April 17 via Baikonur, rather than Karaganda in central Kazakhstan as usual, as part of new travel measures related to the pandemic.

The ISS typically carries up to six people at a time and has a livable space of 388 cubic metres (13,700 cubic feet) - larger than a six-bedroom house according to NASA.

Those dimensions will sound enviable to many residents of Earth, more than half of whom are on various forms of lockdown as governments respond to COVID-19 with drastic measures.

In recent weeks, astronauts and cosmonauts on the ISS and on Earth have been sharing tips on coping with self-isolation.

In a piece for the New York Times last month, NASA's Scott Kelly said his biggest miss during almost a year in space was nature - "the colour green, the smell of fresh dirt, and the feel of warm sun on my face".

During his time aboard the ISS he "binge-watched 'Game of Thrones' - twice" and enjoyed frequent movie nights with crewmates, he wrote.

Two-time cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy has become the face of a 10-week challenge that will see participants post videos of themselves completing physical exercises as part of a competition aimed at both youth and adults.

The initiative that Roscosmos is backing aims "to support people in a situation of isolation, instil a healthy lifestyle and thoughts through regular sports, without going out in public places", Ryazanskiy said in a video promoting the "Cosmos Training" challenge.

The launch of Ivanishin, Vagner and Cassidy marks the first time a manned mission has used a Soyuz-2.1a booster to reach orbit, after Roscosmos stopped using the Soyuz-FG rocket last year.

The newer boosters have been used in unmanned launches since 2004.

The upgraded rocket relies on a digital flight control system rather than the analogue equipment used in prior Soyuz models.

Russia and Baikonur have enjoyed a near decade-long monopoly on manned missions to the ISS since NASA wound up its Space Shuttle program in 2011.

But that may change as early as next month when Elon Musk's SpaceX could be ready to launch a two-man crew to the orbital lab, NASA said in March.

NASA said that the tech entrepreneur's company and the space agency are targeting "mid-to-late May" for a test launch that will transport NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS in SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.

The International Space Station - a rare example of cooperation between Russia and the West - has been orbiting Earth at about 28,000 kilometres per hour (17,000 miles per hour) since 1998.

Agence France-Presse

View original post here:

Three Astronauts Just Docked With The Space Station, Leaving Behind an Uneasy Planet - ScienceAlert

Boeing intends to reattempt Starliner test flight to space station – CBS News

Posted on by

Boeing plans to launch a second unpiloted test flight of its CST-100 Starliner crew ferry ship after software glitches last December prevented a rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station and briefly threatened the spacecraft's survival, company officials said Monday.

A review of the December flight pinpointed the causes of the problems and the steps required to correct them. No new issues were uncovered, but NASA managers said at the that time no decision had been made on whether a reflight might be required.

The Monday announcement said Boeing had "chosen to refly our Orbital Flight Test to demonstrate the quality of the Starliner system."

"Flying another uncrewed flight will allow us to complete all flight test objectives and evaluate the performance of the second Starliner vehicle at no cost to the taxpayer," the company statement said. "We will then proceed to the tremendous responsibility and privilege of flying astronauts to the International Space Station."

A Boeing spokewoman said the capsule originally intended for the first piloted Starliner test flight will be used for the unpiloted reflight. She said Boeing is "working with NASA to determine an agreeable schedule for the second OFT."

While details still need to be worked out, she said in an email, "we anticipate flying the mission in the Fall of 2020." That would appear to rule out a piloted Starliner flight in 2020, but no decisions have been announced on subsequent launch targets.

Boeing and SpaceX are both building piloted astronaut ferry ships for NASA under commercial contracts valued at up to $6.8 billion. The goal is to end the agency's sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to carry U.S. crews to and from the International Space Station.

SpaceX carried out a successful unpiloted test flight of its Crew Dragon spacecraft last year and is gearing up for a second test flight, this one with two NASA astronauts on board, in the late May timeframe.

If that flight goes well, a second, operational Crew Dragon mission with four astronauts on board could be ready for takeoff by the end of July.

Boeing had hoped to launch a crew this year as well but during the December OFT mission, a major software error, coupled with communications dropouts, prevented a planned rendezvous and docking with the space station.

Another software oversight could have caused a catastrophic failure during the capsule's re-entry, had it not been caught in time.

Douglas Loverro, director of spaceflight at NASA Headquarters, told reporters in March the incidents had been classified as a "high-visibility close call," a formal designation that kicks off additional government review. At that time, he said it was too soon to say whether a second test flight would be needed.

Boeing told investors earlier that it was taking a $410 million charge against pre-tax earnings in large part to cover the possible cost of another test flight.

"For us, it's not that complicated," Jim Chilton, senior vice president at Boeing Space and Launch, said in March. "Boeing stands ready to repeat an OFT (if required). ... There's not any intent on our part to avoid it. We just want to make sure that whatever we fly next is aligned with NASA's preferences. And of course for all of us, crew safety is number one."

See more here:

Boeing intends to reattempt Starliner test flight to space station - CBS News

UC San Diego to advance stem cell therapies in new space station lab – – KUSI

Posted on by

April 9, 2020

Posted: April 9, 2020

Updated: 5:22 PM

KUSI Newsroom

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) UC San Diego and Space Tango receive NASA award to develop first dedicated stem cell research laboratory within the International Space Station.

UCSDs website reports, A three-year, nearly $5 million award from NASA will allow researchers at the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center at UC San Diego Health, Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine and their partners at Space Tango to develop a new integrated space stem cell orbital research laboratory within the International Space Station (ISS) and launch three collaborative research projects within it.

Stem cells self-renew, generating more stem cells, and specialize into tissue-specific cells, such as blood, brain and liver cells, making them ideal for biological studies far from Earths resources. The goal of the new effort is to leverage microgravity and these unique properties of stem cells to better understand how space flight affects the human body. The studies will also inform how aging, degenerative diseases, cancers and other conditions develop in a setting with increased exposure to ionizing radiation and pro-inflammatory factors. The findings from these studies may speed the development of new therapeutics for a broad array of degenerative diseases on Earth.

Dr. Catriona Jamieson, the lead researcher on this NASA award story, visited KUSI News to tell us all about it.

For more information, click here.

Here is the original post:

UC San Diego to advance stem cell therapies in new space station lab - - KUSI

Great stargazing night ahead, when to see the International Space Station pass over Michigan – MLive.com

Posted on by

Stargazers across Michigan will have a few fun things to seek out Sunday night as they turn their eyes to the sky.

With clouds moving in on Monday, this might be your only night to view with nearly full Pink Supermoon. Its the third supermoon of the year, and some say its expected to be the largest yet. It wont be full until Tuesday, but it should look pretty good tonight.

Another treat for night sky lovers is the chance to see the ISS glide overhead for about 4 minutes.

Mostly clear skies tonight will give northern Michigan one last shot at seeing the International Space Station this weekend! National Weather Service meteorologists in Gaylord posted on their Facebook page today. To check viewing times for your city: https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/index.cfm

Look lower in the southwestern sky about 9:18 p.m.

Need some help finding the ISS? Download a free star-finder app like Sky View Lite on your phone, then hold your phone up to that section of the sky around that time. A little space station icon will show you where it is.

Night sky apps like that are also a great way to get kids involved in spotting constellations and planets.

A little note on this weeks Full Pink Supermoon: it wont actually look pink. Its name comes from the early pink-colored phlox flowers that tend to bloom in the eastern United States around this time in spring.

READ MORE:

You can get the garden started this weekend; Heres what to plant now in Michigan

Several Great Lakes may reach highest water levels ever experienced in modern records

Satellite photos show Northern Lights flowing across U.S.

The rest is here:

Great stargazing night ahead, when to see the International Space Station pass over Michigan - MLive.com

How to see the International Space Station in the Colorado Springs area on Tuesday and Wednesday – Colorado Springs Gazette

Posted on by

Those looking for a diversion amid coronavirus-induced isolation can find it in the night sky Tuesday and Wednesday.

According to NASA's ISS tracker app, the International Space Station will be visible the next two nights.

It will be visible for 3 minutes Tuesday night, starting at 8:55 p.m., at 11 degrees above the WSW horizon. It will disappear at 10 degrees above the SSW horizon.

Wednesday, the station can be seen starting at 8:08 p.m. at 21 degrees above the WSW horizon. Three minutes later, it will disappear at 11 degrees above the south horizon.

According to NASA, no telescope is needed to see the space station pass overhead. It reflects the light of the sun, making it visible near dawn and dusk. It will look like an airplane or a very bright star moving across the sky.

Because the space station is moving at 17,500 mph, it will move across the sky much faster than an airplane.

The rest is here:

How to see the International Space Station in the Colorado Springs area on Tuesday and Wednesday - Colorado Springs Gazette

Jewish astronaut offers isolation advice from the International Space Station – Jewish News

Posted on by

Jewish astronaut Jessica Meir has advice about how to stay mentally healthy while living in isolation, as the people on Earth she left behind last fall now are because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Meir spoke on Friday from the International Space Station, where she has lived since late September with a handful of other astronauts, in a clip posted on the Twitter feed of the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.

It is very strange and a bit surreal for us to see it all unfold when weve been up here for the entire duration of whats going on down on the ground and it seems that we will be completely going back to a different planet, Meir said.

Get The Jewish News Daily Edition by email and never miss our top storiesFree Sign Up

Meir recommended that people in isolation in their homes stay mentally and physically healthy by sticking to their regular routines, exercising and staying in regular contact with friends and family.

In March, Meir posted onTwittera photo of Tel Aviv that she took from space, in which the usually bustling Israeli city is seen looking desolate amid the spread of the coronavirus.

Gazing down at the city in which my father was raised, I take to heart one of his most uttered expressions, This too shall pass. Wise words to remember, in both good times and bad. Goodnight #TelAviv #Israel! #GoodnightFromSpace #TheJourney #EarthStrong, she tweeted at the time.

Read more here:

Jewish astronaut offers isolation advice from the International Space Station - Jewish News

What is the National Security Act, (NSA),1980 and when is it imposed? – Jagran Josh

Posted on by

Recently, the National Security Act,1980 or 'Rasuka' is imposed in various cases in different states of India. Recently, many offenders are arrested under this law for attacking corona warriors i.e. Doctors, Nurses, housekeeping staff and security personals.

Let us know in this article, what is the National Security Act (NSA), or Rasuka, when is it imposed and what kind of punishment provisions are there under it?

What is the National Security Act, 1980

The National Security Act (NSA) came into existence on 23 September 1980 during Indira Gandhi's government.

The National security Act, empowers the Central Government and State Governments to detain a person to prevent him/her from acting in any manner against the welfare and security of the country, damaging the Indian relations with foreign countries, obstructing the maintenance and supply of essential services to the community.

The suspect can be kept in jail for 12 months without any charge under the NSA. This is the most vital and critical provision of this whole act.

Provisions of the National Security Act, 1980 (NSA)

1. If a person, does not believe in the rule of law, harms the Indian relations with other countries of the world, disrupt the maintenance or supply of public services, attack police personnel on duty and creates the threat to the national security; can be arrested by the concerned government under this act.

Recently, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have registered FIR under this act against some anti-social elements.

2. Under NSA, the concerned officer has the power to keep the suspect in captivity for 5 days without assigning any reason while in special circumstances this period can be up to 10 to 12 days. After this, the officer needs the permission of the state government for further detention.

3. The arrested person is not entitled to the aid of any legal practitioner in any matter connected with the proceedings before an advisory board. This panel is constituted by the government for dealing with NSA cases.

4. This law empowers the central government to arrest or expel a foreigner to control his activity.

5. Some people have been booked under Rasuka for misbehaving with doctors, for transferring their corona infection to other healthy people and attacking the police personals in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi.

Imprisonment under the NSA

The National Security Act (NSA), empowers the concerned government to keep a suspect in jail for 12 months without any charge. But this period can be extended if the government finds fresh evidence against the suspect.

If an officer arrests a suspect, he has to explain the reasons to the concerned state government. Until the state government approves this arrest, the maximum period of arrest cannot be more than twelve days.

Keep in mind that arrest orders can be issued by the District Magistrate or Commissioner of Police under their respective jurisdiction.

Chandrashekhar Ravana, the founder of 'Bhim Army', was also arrested under 'Rasuka' and kept in jail for a year but released later on.

Criticism of the National Security Act (Rasuka)

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) does not include cases under the NSA in its data because very few FIRs are registered under this law. Therefore, there is no accurate information about the number of arrested persons under this act.

Under this law, a suspect can be arrested without giving any reason and even he/she is not allowed to hire a lawyer for some time. That is why this law is also compared to the British Rowlatt Act. According to many experts, the state governments have also used NSA as 'Extra-Judicial Power'.

So in conclusion, it would be wise to say that a law should be for the people; while people should not be for the law.

List of National Security Advisor in India

Union Territory of Delhi: A snapshot of the Economy

The rest is here:

What is the National Security Act, (NSA),1980 and when is it imposed? - Jagran Josh

Posted in NSA

February construction unemployment rates down in 37 states year over year – AZ Big Media

Posted on by

Estimated February not seasonally adjusted construction unemployment rates fell nationally and in 37 states, rose in 12 states and were unchanged in one state (Texas) on a year-over-year basis, according to an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data released today by Associated Builders and Contractors.

As of February 2020, the construction industry employed 208,000 more workers nationally compared to February 2019 while the national NSA construction unemployment rate decreased from 6.2% to 5.5% over the same period, according to BLS numbers. This is an indication of the underlying strength of the construction industry prior to widespread concern over the impact of the coronavirus and reaction to it in the United States.

In February, large portions of the country experienced above-average temperatures. The Eastern third of the country, along with the Northern tier of states and the West Coast, had warmer than normal weather. This aided construction activity and employment, said Bernard M. Markstein, Ph.D., president and chief economist of Markstein Advisors, who conducted the analysis for ABC. These numbers were collected before actions were taken by many localities and businesses to control the spread of COVID-19 in the United States. These efforts to limit the impact of the coronavirus on the health of the nation and consequently on construction activity will begin to show in the data for March and April and beyond.

March national employment and unemployment figures released on Friday, April 3, along with the recent surge in unemployment insurance claims, indicate a large impact on the economy. The March employment and unemployment data were collected before many places issued stay-at-home recommendations. However, growing concern over the spread of the disease was adversely affecting employment. The NSA construction unemployment rate jumped from 5.5% in February to 6.9% in March, only the third time in the history of this number that it rose from February.

Because these industry-specific rates are not seasonally adjusted, national and state-level unemployment rates are best evaluated on a year-over-year basis. The monthly movement of rates still provides some information, although extra care must be used when drawing conclusions from these variations.

The national NSA construction unemployment rate increased 0.1% from January to February. Over the time since the data series began in 2000, the historical pattern generally has been an increase in rates from January with 12 increases, seven decreases and once unchanged. Among the states, 27 had higher estimated construction unemployment rates than in January, while 20 were lower and three were unchanged. At the same time, the nation and 23 states posted their lowest February construction unemployment rate on record.

The states with the lowest estimated NSA construction unemployment rates in order from lowest to highest were:

1. Florida, 2.8%

2. South Dakota, 3.1%

3. Oregon and Utah (tie), 3.2%

5. Maryland, 3.5%

Three of these statesFlorida, Maryland and Oregonwere in the top five in January. For the third consecutive month, Florida had the lowest construction unemployment rate among the states. This was also the states lowest February rate on record.

South Dakota had the second lowest rate in February, up from ninth lowest in January. This was the states lowest February rate on record.

Oregon and Utah tied for the third lowest rate in February. For Oregon, this was up from fourth lowest rate in January based on revised data (originally reported as tied with Utah for fifth lowest). It was also Oregons lowest February rate on record. For Utah, this was up from the seventh lowest rate in January, tied with Arizona, based on revised data (originally reported as tied with Oregon for fifth lowest). This was Utahs lowest February rate since the 2.3% rate in 2015.

Maryland had the fifth lowest rate in February, down from second lowest in January. Nevertheless, this was the states lowest February rate on record.

Colorado, which was third lowest in January, dropped to 13th lowest in February with a 4.3% rate. After reaching 3.8% in February 2019, it was the states lowest February rate since posting a 4.2% rate in 2000, making it the third lowest February rate on record for the state.

South Carolina and Texas, which tied for fifth lowest rate in January based on revised data (originally reported as third lowest for South Carolina, tied with Colorado, and seventh lowest for Texas, tied with Arizona), tied for eighth lowest in February with a 3.8% rate. For both states, it was their lowest February rate on record.

The states with the highest estimated NSA construction unemployment rates in order from lowest to highest were:

46. Missouri, 10.2%

47. Kentucky, 10.4%

48. Wyoming, 10.7%

49. Alaska, 10.9%

50. West Virginia, 15%

Three of these statesAlaska, Missouri and West Virginiawere also in the bottom five in January. West Virginia had the highest estimated construction unemployment rate in February, compared to third highest in January. After the 14.5% rate in February 2019, this was the states lowest February rate since the 14% rate in 2013. West Virginia also had the largest monthly increase in its rate among the states, up 3.1%.

Alaska had the second highest rate in February compared to highest in January. Nonetheless, this was the states lowest February rate on record.

Wyoming had the third highest rate in February compared to seventh highest in January. Wyoming had the largest year-over-year increase in its rate among the states, up 3.1%.

Kentucky had the fourth highest rate in February compared to sixth highest in January. This was Kentuckys second lowest February rate on record, behind the 10.3% rate in 2006.

For the second month in a row, Missouri had the fifth highest rate in February. This was the states lowest February rate since the 9.5% rate in 2016.

Iowa, which had the second highest rate in January, had the seventh highest in February with a 9.8% rate.

Montana, which had the fourth highest rate in January based on revised data (originally reported as third highest, tied with West Virginia), had the sixth highest in February with a 10% rate. This was the states second lowest February rate on record, behind the 6.7% rate in 2007. Montana had the second largest year-over-year drop in its rate among the states, down 3.1%, behind Washington states 3.3% decrease.

See the original post here:

February construction unemployment rates down in 37 states year over year - AZ Big Media

Posted in NSA

Behold! See the Hubble telescope’s iconic ‘Pillars of Creation’ view in infrared – Space.com

Posted on by

Scientists have revisited one of the most iconic images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, revealing incredible details in infrared light.

The image, dubbed the "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula, was taken by Hubble in 1995. The elephant trunk-shaped features in this iconic Hubble image are star-forming regions made up of incredible, monolithic structures of interstellar dust and gas.

This region is located about 6,500 to 7,000 light-years from Earth and is part of the larger region known as the Eagle Nebula, which is a stellar nursery in the constellation Serpens. While the "pillars" stretch about 4 to 5 light-years long, the Eagle Nebula spans a vast 55-70 light-years.

Related: The most amazing Hubble Space Telescope discoveriesMore: Another breathtaking Hubble view of the Pillars Of Creation

The famous image of the "Pillars of Creation," which NASA originally released in 1995, shows the region as seen in visible light, which is the range on the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that the human eye can see. But, in this new view of the "pillars," researchers instead showed them through infrared light, which can pierce through thick clouds to reveal what is lurking behind dust and gas in the foreground.

This new image offers a striking new perspective of what the region looks like within those thick clouds of dust and gas. In this infrared view, you can see a smattering of bright and brilliant stars, even baby stars in this star-forming alcove in the cosmos.

As opposed to Hubble's 1995 image of the region, the "pillars" in this infrared image appear faint and ghostly and are not as prominent as they were in the visible light image. They almost look like shadows in the background, taking a backseat to the brilliant stars in the foreground.

The Eagle Nebula was discovered in 1745 by Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Chseaux. The nebula has an apparent magnitude of 6 (magnitude in astronomy is used as a measure of brightness) and can be observed from Earth with smaller, standard telescopes relatively easily, though larger telescopes would be required to spot the "pillars." The nebula is easiest to spot in the summertime in July.

Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

View original post here:

Behold! See the Hubble telescope's iconic 'Pillars of Creation' view in infrared - Space.com