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Category: Society

Like previous pandemics, Covid-19 will shape the fates of nations

Like previous pandemics, Covid-19 will shape the fates of nations

By Richard Heinberg, Undark, March 20, 2020 For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been delving back into one of my favorite books, “Plagues and Peoples,” by the celebrated historian William H. McNeill. Its relevance to today’s headlines is fairly obvious. What makes the book so compelling is McNeill’s ecological sensibility: He understands human beings as biological organisms embedded in living systems. For him, conquerors like Genghis Khan are macropredators, disease organisms are micropredators, and human history is the tale…

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Coronavirus could overwhelm U.S. without urgent action, estimates say

Coronavirus could overwhelm U.S. without urgent action, estimates say

The New York Times reports: The coronavirus has infected far more people in the United States than testing has shown so far, and stringent measures to limit social contact in parts of the country not yet seeing many cases are needed to significantly stem the tide of illness and death in the coming months. Those are the conclusions of Columbia University researchers who used a New York Times database of known cases and Census Bureau transportation data to model how…

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Coronavirus will radically alter the U.S.

Coronavirus will radically alter the U.S.

The Washington Post reports: When Jason Christie, chief of pulmonary medicine at Penn Medicine, got projections on how many coronavirus patients might soon be flocking to his Philadelphia hospital, he said he felt physically ill. “My front-line providers — we were speaking about it in the situation report that night, and their voices cracked,” Christie said Wednesday. They saw how quickly the surge would overwhelm the system, forcing doctors to make impossible choices — which patients would get ventilators and…

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U.S. economy deteriorating faster than anticipated as 80 million Americans are forced to stay at home

U.S. economy deteriorating faster than anticipated as 80 million Americans are forced to stay at home

The Washington Post reports: The U.S. economy is deteriorating more quickly than was expected just days ago as extraordinary measures designed to curb the coronavirus keep 84 million Americans penned in their homes and cause the near-total shutdown of most businesses. In a single 24-hour period, governors of three of the largest states — California, New York and Illinois — ordered residents to stay home except to buy food and medicine, while the governor of Pennsylvania ordered the closure of…

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A growing number of Americans say they can’t afford to stock up on groceries

A growing number of Americans say they can’t afford to stock up on groceries

The Washington Post reports: More than 37 million Americans — or about 1 in 9 people — struggled to put food on the table in 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That number could soon double as the outbreak wreaks havoc on workers around the country, said Katie Fitzgerald, chief operating officer of Feeding America, a nonprofit that oversees 200 food banks. Already, companies like Marriott International, MGM Resorts and Caesars have signaled plans to shed thousands of…

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A New York doctor’s coronavirus warning: The sky is falling

A New York doctor’s coronavirus warning: The sky is falling

Cornelia Griggs writes: Today, at the hospital where I work, one of the largest in New York City, Covid-19 cases continue to climb, and there’s movement to redeploy as many health care workers as possible to the E.R.s, new “fever clinics” and I.C.U.s. It’s becoming an all-healthy-hands-on-deck scenario. The sky is falling. I’m not afraid to say it. A few weeks from now you may call me an alarmist; and I can live with that. Actually, I will keel over…

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Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks

Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks

Gideon Lichfield writes: To stop coronavirus we will need to radically change almost everything we do: how we work, exercise, socialize, shop, manage our health, educate our kids, take care of family members. We all want things to go back to normal quickly. But what most of us have probably not yet realized—yet will soon—is that things won’t go back to normal after a few weeks, or even a few months. Some things never will. It’s now widely agreed (even…

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Coronavirus and the isolation paradox

Coronavirus and the isolation paradox

Abdullah Shihipar writes: In December, a woman in Tulsa, Okla., used a Craigslist post to plea for holiday companionship. “Anybody need a grandma for Christmas?” she wrote. “I’ll even bring food and gifts for the kids! I have nobody and it really hurts.” More than three in five working Americans report feeling lonely. Now that the country is facing a disease outbreak that demands measures like “social distancing,” working from home and quarantines, that epidemic of loneliness could get even…

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At ‘lockdown parties’ around the world, young people ignore their impact on the rest of humanity

At ‘lockdown parties’ around the world, young people ignore their impact on the rest of humanity

The Guardian reports: Authorities in countries around the world in lockdown over the coronavirus outbreak are warning young people to obey the rules on social distancing amid widespread reports of partying and gatherings. Scientists and health officials say that revellers meeting for “lockdown parties” and “end of world” drinking sessions were acting irresponsibly by contributing to the spread of the virus. Statistics show that young people are as likely as older people to get infected and spread the virus. But…

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COVID-19 social distancing guidelines are impossible inside overpopulated U.S. prisons

COVID-19 social distancing guidelines are impossible inside overpopulated U.S. prisons

Morgan Simon writes: At a time when across the country, states are limiting gatherings of over 250 people and those who can are choosing to self-quarantine, there’s one place where millions of people are involuntarily gathered in close proximity — our nation’s prisons and immigrant detention centers. An epidemiologist at Brown University has recommended that the United States could release close to 44,000 detained immigrants who are being held for civil, not criminal, infractions. This would not only prevent the…

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Anatomy of a pandemic

Anatomy of a pandemic

Kevin Patterson writes: Wuhan, in the province of Hubei, China, is a transportation hub of 11 million built where the Yangtze and Huan Rivers meet. In December, patients began presenting, in steadily increasing numbers, with symptoms and clinical findings suggestive of viral pneumonia. (Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs; it may be caused by viruses, bacteria, or fungi.) Tests for known pathogens capable of causing such an illness came back negative. This raised the question of whether a novel…

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Scientists warn we may need to live with social distancing for a year or more

Scientists warn we may need to live with social distancing for a year or more

Vox reports: Life in America — and in many countries around the world — is changing drastically. We’re physically distanced from our favorite people, we’re avoiding our favorite public places, and many are financially strained or out of work. The response to the Covid-19 pandemic is infiltrating every aspect of life, and we’re already longing for it to end. But this fight may not end for months or a year or even more. We’re in this because public health experts…

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How long social distancing for coronavirus will have to last depends on these factors

How long social distancing for coronavirus will have to last depends on these factors

The Washington Post reports: How long are we going to have to keep this up? The closed schools, working from home, six feet of personal space and zombie-apocalypse empty streets? It’s the question now preoccupying America as millions of parents silently scream it into the void amid the coronavirus pandemic. But it is an especially hard one for science to answer. The best and most honest reply, according to epidemiologists and virologists, is simple: “It depends.” It’s not going to…

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Social distancing is a social justice issue

Social distancing is a social justice issue

Phillip Picardi writes: The headlines have not been bringing good news. The infection and death rate of COVID-19 (known colloquially as coronavirus) is steadily rising, with the CDC estimating a worst-case scenario of between 160 and 214 million infected people in the United States alone, with the potential for more than a million deaths. To avoid this nightmare scenario, many companies have asked their employees to work from home, live television talk shows have pivoted to skeleton crews and empty…

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Gathering in groups right now is selfish and puts the lives of others at risk

Gathering in groups right now is selfish and puts the lives of others at risk

Charlie Warzel writes: The coronavirus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, are spreading across the United States faster than we can track or test. This week the confirmed caseload jumped from 309 to at least 2,170 cases in 49 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. A testing shortage has experts fearing the true number is likely thousands of cases higher. Public life in America has methodically ground to a halt. This week companies instituted mandatory…

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Italy’s coronavirus nightmare offers a chilling preview of what’s coming

Italy’s coronavirus nightmare offers a chilling preview of what’s coming

Bloomberg reports: In Rome, the first signs of change came from overhead. Shortly before cocktail hour on Monday, the thrum-thrum-thrum of a helicopter could be heard above the winding lanes of the 2,000-year-old historic center. The police were keeping an eye on the Trastevere neighborhood, where smoke billowed from the windows of a jail as inmates rioted, protesting cramped conditions that put them at risk of coronavirus infection. About the same time, the stock market was opening in New York,…

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