"More women than men are dying of coronavirus in Massachusetts. Why is that?; Experts say behavior, biology, and societal factors may all play a part in sex disparities, but an important key may be found in nursing homes" by Rebecca Ostriker Globe Staff, May 16, 2020
Around the world, the death toll from COVID-19 has a stark gender divide: More men are dying with the coronavirus than women. In the United States, government data show men account for a significant majority of all deaths, but Massachusetts is one of a handful of states that stand as exceptions: Here, women make up nearly 52 percent of all coronavirus-related deaths — a percentage that has steadily ticked up in recent weeks, and among the 10 states with the highest death tolls where COVID-19 fatalities by sex are publicly reported, Massachusetts women make up the biggest share of those who died.
Along with our top five rankings in cases and deaths, here is more alleged evidence that Baker's strategy was a miserable failure. There is no other way of describing it.
Experts say behavior, biology, and societal factors may all play a part in national disparities in coronavirus deaths between men and women — everything from hand-washing habits to hormones and exposure to infection in certain jobs. Understanding these factors better, they say, could have huge implications for combating the pandemic, both in prevention and in treatment.
In Massachusetts, one key to why the coronavirus has taken a greater toll on women may ultimately be found in these dual truths: They live longer than men on average and therefore populate nursing homes in higher numbers, and it is long-term care facilities here that have been particularly hard hit compared to much of the country, as infections have swept through the Commonwealth.
Related: Nursing This Blog Home
As the COVID $camdemic recedes into the background and the pre$$ pivots to another planned crisis, I will be winding down my postings. This blog will now be dedicated to follow the mass vaxx tyranny that will undoubtedly be advanced under cover of skin.
“Whatever happens in nursing homes is going to sway all our statistics,” said epidemiology professor Lisa Berkman, who directs the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
From a worldwide perspective — where more than 300,000 deaths have been recorded — Massachusetts is an outlier. From China to Italy and Spain, studies have found that men make up a disproportionate share of COVID-19 deaths, compared to women. The pattern has largely held in the United States, where an April study of hospitalization rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that “males may be disproportionately affected” by COVID-19. Preliminary data gathered by the National Vital Statistics System and reported by the CDC found that men accounted for 55 percent of 54,861 deaths across the country, compared to 45 percent for women.
In addition to culling the useless elderly eaters, they have struck at the heart of our strength by eliminating men who will fight to protect core values such as family and freedom.
Researchers have suggested various biological reasons why men might be more vulnerable to COVID-19. To begin with, women typically have more robust immune responses, which could play a role in combating a new virus, they say.
“Immunologically, men and women can often and do mount very different responses, both in terms of the timing of those responses — the tendency for antiviral responses to be more rapid in women than in men — and the magnitude,” said Sabra L. Klein, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Women’s Health, Sex, and Gender Differences.
Klein and Berkman, huh?
Both from two institutions that are integral to the advancement of the evil and nefarious plan to cull and vaxx the world that the Globe has been endlessly promoting.
Some researchers believe the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone may play a part in coronavirus responses, which has led to clinical trials in New York and California in which scientists are treating male patients with female sex hormones.
(Blog editor is aghast at the emasculating experiments on human subjects. No wonder the gene pool is so fucked up. You got tits yet, buddy?)
COVID-19 also enters cells through an enzyme known as the ACE2 receptor, and researchers think biological differences may play a part there, too.
“There is higher expression of ACE2 in males compared to females,” said Kathryn Sandberg, director of the Center for the Study of Sex Differences in Health, Aging and Disease at Georgetown University. She noted that her lab’s result was in animal studies and would need to be confirmed in humans, “but if there's more ACE2 around in a man compared to a woman, then the virus has more chance to grab hold, get into cells, and wreak its havoc.”
Many scientists say that focusing solely on sex-linked biology is simplistic, however. It’s important, they point out, to look at social factors including everyday behaviors that are more common in men than women, and that may now put them at risk.
It's the age-old argument, heredity versus environment, and what one wouldn't give to be Trading Places.
“For example there’s very well documented differences in gendered behaviors around hygiene in bathrooms,” said Nancy Krieger, professor of social epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Studies show “men are much less likely to wash their hands after using the restroom than women are. So that’s going to have implications for infection.” In addition, “men are often a bit more delayed in seeking health care,” Klein noted, which might influence the course of an illness.
I love the stereotyping coming from the professor of Ha-vahd," don't you?
At many stages of life, men already die at higher rates than women, researchers have found, for reasons that can include both biological and lifestyle factors such as smoking, drinking, and risk-taking behavior.
“I think that COVID-19 is exacerbating the death rates of both men and women, and is doing so relative to what their death rates already are,” Krieger said. How it’s amplifying them could be connected to gender-related patterns of health practices and exposures, she explained.
I think could be, if, maybe, even if, to be sure, nevertheless, yet, but, still....
While the pandemic has seen gender disparities in mortality around the globe, “there’s huge variation across localities in the degree of that disparity, with some localities being close to 50-50 and others having a huge excess of male deaths,” pointed out Sarah Richardson, a professor who studies gender and sex in biology as director of the Harvard GenderSci Lab.
That kind of variation suggests the presence of non-biological factors, she says. Based on previous epidemics and pandemics including the Spanish flu, SARS, and MERS, which saw huge numbers of male deaths, she says a key factor could be occupational and environmental exposure. In the Spanish flu, for example, a small subset of men were exposed at much higher rates, including military and working-class men who had to continue working during the pandemic.
Another factor could be serious underlying health problems such as heart disease or diabetes: “Co-morbidities pretty much totally explained the sex difference in outcomes for SARS,” said Richardson, who says that in many instances, men may be entering the coronavirus pandemic in less robust health.
She points to Alabama, one of the few states that release data on pre-existing medical conditions. As of May 4, about 60 percent of COVID-19 deaths in Alabama were men, she said, but when her lab looked only at people with no reported underlying health problems, the percentage of male deaths dropped to 50 percent.
Obtaining a full national picture of sex disparities in COVID-19 deaths is not yet possible, and publicly available data are changing daily. Across the country, slightly more than two-thirds of states reported gender data for coronavirus deaths on their websites, a recent Globe survey found. The vast majority of those, over two dozen states, reported more male deaths as of May 14. Four states were split about 50-50 in male and female deaths, and six states, including Massachusetts, reported more female deaths than male. Massachusetts had the most deaths among them, at 5,482.
COUGH!
I mean, SIGH!
Why are more women dying in those states? The answer may be found in nursing homes. Massachusetts has seen staggering fatalities in its nursing homes the past two months. Nearly 61 percent of the state’s coronavirus deaths were in long-term-care facilities as of May 14, according to the Department of Public Health — a strikingly high rate compared to most of the rest of the country.
A similar pattern exists elsewhere: Among the top 10 states in coronavirus deaths, only Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania reported more female fatalities than male — and all have high nursing home deaths. In Connecticut and Pennsylvania, the share of all confirmed and probable coronavirus deaths linked to long-term-care facilities was 60 and 69 percent, respectively, recent data show.
When a pandemic hits nursing homes particularly hard, the high concentration of vulnerable women gathered in these homes can suffer disproportionately, perhaps to the point of shifting an entire state’s results. Especially in urban areas, nursing home workers may have two or three jobs in more than one long-term-care facility, so they may spread infection among patients in more than one place, said Berkman. “What I would suspect is that it’s a perfect storm,” she said.
Richardson also suggests that some states may not be fully tallying up their nursing-home coronavirus deaths, and could thus be exaggerating the gender divide. While male-female disparities in coronavirus deaths may appear striking, researchers say the true picture remains unclear — and critical to study. The answers could unlock solutions for preventing and treating COVID-19, said Dr. Hadine Joffe, executive director of the Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
In a commentary published in Annals of Internal Medicine, Joffe called on fellow scientists to include factors related to men and women in research related to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Sex and gender should be incorporated at the foundation of science,” Joffe said. “That is optimal for the entire population. If you don’t do that you might miss important factors for disease outcomes and treatment.”
I'm sorry, honey, what did you say?
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Of course, policy makers and advocates worry that the coronavirus crisis will set women back because in one month, job cuts wiped out women’s gains of the past decade even as a mysterious old photograph in Cambridge was identified as an old epidemic echoes forward to today (it turned up in an odd place in the home of Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary at the US Department of Homeland Security who teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, who said it was tucked away in an attic space, and look jwho is playing Mr. Mom).
Of course, it was with astonishing speed that Covid-19 ripped through a Salem nursing home, bringing chaos and grief at the same time that a coronavirus outbreak at a Medford nursing home killed 54 residents -- with it being the same company in the same city where two coronavirus outbreaks at separate nursing homes.
Thus as funeral homes cope with a coronavirus surge (they have never seen anything like), the nursing homes are granted “immunity that gives the medical providers, and the corporations that own and operate [them], a license to neglect by blaming COVID for everything to get away with their poor practices with no accountability.”
It sure is a dilemma:
"Women face dilemma in a war zone: risk the blasts or sexual assault" by Anam Zakaria, Jalaluddin Mughal and and Maria Abi-Habib New York Times, May 16, 2020
NEELUM VALLEY, Kashmir — There is another lockdown underway, forced by falling artillery shells rather than invading viruses. This one also requires frightening choices between bad options.
Cross-border shelling between Pakistan and India has intensified in recent months along the Line of Control in Kashmir, sending more families rushing to community bunkers when the alarm sirens ring, particularly on the Pakistani side, but some families will be leaving girls and young women behind in their vulnerable homes — choosing to risk the falling shells rather than face the sexual assault that is epidemic in the cramped bunkers.
In the absence of government support, affluent families from villages and towns across Pakistani-controlled Kashmir build their own bunkers. Poor families like Mehnaz’s have to rely on their neighbors for shelter, making them easy prey for sexual predators who own shelters and expect to buy the silence of the victim’s families in exchange for using the refuge.
Sexual violence often goes unreported in Pakistan, as victims risk being cast out by their parents, are forced to marry their rapists, or are killed over the perceived injury to their families’ honor. While it is impossible to estimate how widespread the problem is in the bunkers along Pakistan’s border, interviews with more than two dozen men and women suggest that it is prevalent.
“Sexual harassment in bunkers is a critical issue facing women in the border regions, but the local community is in denial and do not want to acknowledge this gender-based violence,” said Amina Mir, a Kashmiri researcher and scholar. “There is no institutional support available for women to seek help in these situations,” she added.
Divided between India and Pakistan and fought over for 73 years, Kashmir has seen some of the worst cross-border shelling since August, when the Indian government stripped the autonomy from the portion of Kashmir it controls.
That Indian move has been met with as much condemnation from the world as Israel receives. Very telling.
Since January, 45 attacks on the Pakistani side of Kashmir have resulted in nine deaths and 60 injuries, according to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, an independent research group.
Pakistan has only recently started acting to make more bunkers available to civilians on the Pakistan-held side of Kashmir, known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Nasreen was raising her children alone in Athmuqam, a border town, when the mortar shells started flying around her home in 1998, while her husband, a truck driver, was on the road. She gathered her five children and ran into a nearby bunker, five other families crammed into 32 square feet; shoulders, backs, feet pressed together in a suffocating mess.
“We spent entire days and nights in the bunker with no light or ventilation,” said Nasreen, who now chooses to stay at her home when the shells slam into her town.
In that cramped shelter, her eldest daughter Ayesha, 13 at the time, was molested by a man twice her age, Nasreen said. He pounced at night when everyone went to sleep or when Nasreen and the other adults left the shelter to fetch food and water for their children during a lull in shelling.
Ayesha told her mother the man was touching her but out of fear and shame did not tell her about the rape.
As wretched as the account is, all I can think of is some young girl lifting off in Epstein's plane.
Nasreen had a painful choice to make as a mother alone with five children. Despite Ayesha’s pleas, she forced all her children to continue going down into the bunkers where her daughter would see her tormentor, whom Nasreen tried to keep at a distance.
“I had no other option to keep my children safe from shelling than to return to that bunker each time firing began,” Nasreen said. “There was no other bunker nearby for us to shelter in. “All I could do was tell Ayesha to keep her distance from him.”
I greened it because it is one of the few life-affirming and uplifting things I see in a paper full of evil.
A few months later, she would find her daughter vomiting and running a fever. When Nasreen suggested a hospital visit, Ayesha looked terrified. At the doctor’s office they were told that Ayesha was three months pregnant.
“Ayesha kept sobbing,” Nasreen said tearfully, hunched over in pain. “When she finally spoke, she said the man who she had complained about . . . had pinned her down and raped her in the camp.”
Ayesha said the man had threatened her with a dagger and told her he would kill her if she did not cooperate or if she told anyone. She said he raped her several times after that day and for many days thereafter, as mortar shells shook the ground they sheltered in.
While the family wanted justice, a community gathering judged that Ayesha should be married to her rapist to save what remained of her honor. Nasreen said they accepted the decision as the will of God.
A few months later, Ayesha died during labor, her body unable to handle the birth and doctors unable to stop her from hemorrhaging to death. Her son, born premature, died a few months later.....
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I've waited until the end of the report to comment because the article is so warped on so many levels I don't even know where to begin. I'm somewhat astonished the pre$$ covered Kashmir; however, as expected, it was another in a long list of one-day wonders. Not something they will focus upon, and Kashmir gets no vote regarding self-determination.
I suppose the first message from the Zioni$t War Pre$$ is how brutal are the Muslim men to their women, and that trope has become tiresome. They sure have a lot of children for men who hate women. I am not approving of or condoning rape in any way, shape, or form; however, some are ignored (page Bill Clinton) and such selectivity casts into doubt the altruistic nature of the #MeToo pre$$.
Beyond that, what is left on the battlefield are all the widows, widowers, and orphans in so many places across the eastern hemisphere it becomes a chore to list them all of the top of one's head: Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Palestine, Syria. I apologize to any I have left out as the stacks of corpses from EUSraeli wars rises higher and higher.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Here is the coverage from both sides of the border over the last month or so:
"Unified in coronavirus lockdown, India splinters over reopening" by Kai Schultz and Sameer Yasir New York Times, April 28, 2020
NEW DELHI — When the Indian government eased coronavirus restrictions last week, allowing many shops to reopen in rural areas, Uday Shankar Sharma, a retail store owner in a farming village, said he had no intention of complying.
In the past few weeks, Sharma said fear had deepened in Sabna, where he lives in northern India. Community meetings held under a clock tower have stopped. Neighbors barely talk to each other. Streets are so silent that people can hear grasshoppers in the daytime.
Sharma said resuming business was simply too dangerous right now, even though his district of more than 3 million people has only reported one case of the coronavirus.
“It is better to stay hungry than to get the coronavirus,” he said in a telephone interview. “Why should I risk the lives of my family members for a few hundred rupees?”
Umm, no. The death rate from starvation is 100%; from COVID, about 0.0004 percent or some such thing.
Just pre-programming us for the future, I guess -- as if human beings will just shrivel up and starve to death rather than kill those who brought famine upon them.
For five weeks, Indians of all stripes have united to zealously conduct a nationwide lockdown, the largest and one of the most severe anywhere, but as the central government has started lifting restrictions in areas with few or no known cases of the coronavirus, officials are facing a new challenge: persuading fearful residents, and their leaders, to consider a partial reopening.
By many measures, the nationwide lockdown imposed last month by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has helped blunt the spread of the coronavirus. India’s doubling rate for cases has slowed to around nine days, and although testing is still restricted, infections have remained relatively low for a nation of 1.3 billion, with nearly 30,000 confirmed cases and 900 deaths.
Then they must be lying about it, and if true, why did Modi kill their economy over it?
That computes to a fatality rate of 0.0000069. Hope it was worth it, and why?
On April 20, India took a step toward reviving the economy to “mitigate hardship to the public,” allowing construction, plantation work, and some manufacturing to resume. By Friday, the central government had further eased restrictions, permitting many shops to reopen in rural parts of the country and outside hot spots, which have largely been traced to bigger cities like Mumbai and New Delhi, but unlike the initial lockdown, which Indians widely endorsed despite the clear cost of shutting a country where around half the population lives on less than $3 a day, the lifting of restrictions has divided state leaders. They have some autonomy to set their own coronavirus guidelines as long as they are no less strict than those imposed by the central government.
While critics of a prolonged shutdown in the United States, for instance, have often grounded arguments for reopening in notions of individual liberty, Indian officials have almost uniformly rallied around Modi’s framing of the pandemic as a collectively felt crisis that required cooperation at every rung of society.
Many embraced Modi’s order for a “total ban of coming out of your homes,” heeding his directives to police one another and fight the virus like a “dedicated soldier,” but as India’s economy suffers, the consensus has started to fray.
After lockdown measures were eased last week, the states of Kerala and Gujarat were among those that planned to move forward with reopening shops. Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra indicated they would keep businesses shut until at least May 3, when Modi will decide whether to extend the lockdown or let it expire. Other states barely said anything.
Crafting enforceable orders is challenging in a country as diverse and fragmented as India, with nearly two dozen official languages and vast cultural chasms across states and even neighboring villages. The cryptic nature of the government’s news releases has not helped.
After announcing that many shops selling nonessential items could reopen late Friday, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued multiple corrections over the next 24 hours. On Twitter, Vasudha Gupta, a spokeswoman, revised an earlier announcement that “ALL shops” outside municipalities could reopen by exempting liquor stores, then restaurants, then salons.
In the southern state of Karnataka, Subhash Chandra, the managing director of Sangeetha Mobiles, told the Economic Times that nearly half of the chain’s 260 outlets had reopened Sunday, only to be promptly shut by the local police.
Even business owners who faced fewer roadblocks in resuming operations said supply chain wrinkles had made it nearly impossible to complete most of their work.
After Modi announced the lockdown March 24, migrant workers typically hired for construction jobs left cities for their home villages, some of them hundreds of miles away. With train and bus service suspended, they have no easy way to return.
Mukesh Goel, a government official who oversees construction projects in the state of Punjab, said his office reopened last week with a “skeleton crew” and no business.
“We are trying to find a way to fully resume work, but it doesn’t seem likely anytime soon,” he said. “We need machinery, labor that is almost impossible to get at the moment.”
Arunoday Singh Parawar, a social worker in the state of Madhya Pradesh, said skepticism to reopen went beyond fears of the coronavirus. In Chhatarpur, the town where he lives, local leaders have imposed harsher restrictions than most by allowing food shops to open only on alternate days, even though the area has been mostly unaffected by the coronavirus.
They are behaving like US governors!
Parawar said the reason was simple: Officials feared that if they eased restrictions too soon, or by too much, they risked the ability to reimpose coronavirus rules and persuade millions of people, many of them without a formal education, to return to a life indoors. “They do not want to lose control of the public,” he said.
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Still, economists say an indefinite lockdown is hardly sustainable. With so many Indians out of work, the country’s public distribution system, which provides food and other handouts to hundreds of millions of people, has been severely stressed, and in remote areas of the country, authorities have sometimes used force to keep people inside, making it difficult to reach markets and ration shops.
Say again?
In India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, state leaders have already indicated they will not implement the central government’s loosening of restrictions. In Sabna, a community of farmers, Rajesh Kumar Jaiswal, the village’s leader, said changing people’s psychology was one of the biggest stumbling blocks to reopening.
“People have developed a habit of following restrictions,” he said. “Even if the government eases them, would people come out? No one is gathering.”
As if Indians didn't have enough food insecurity!
You will be looking at a massive famine over there soon.
No wonder Modi wants to get a war going with Pakistan.
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Related:
"India on Friday ran the first train service for thousands of migrant workers desperate to return home since it imposed a nationwide lockdown to control the spread of the coronavirus. Relieved and smiling, 1,200 people clapped as they boarded the train at Lingampally in southern Telangana state for Hatia in the eastern state of Jharkhand — a 19-hour journey; however, railroad authorities said Friday’s service was only a one-off special train and a decision on running more trains will be taken soon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to announce on Sunday his decision whether to extend the 40-day-old lockdown or gradually ease it to resume economic activity. Earlier this week, the government allowed some shops to reopen and manufacturing and farming to resume. On Friday, India registered another daily high of nearly 2,000 infections, bringing totals to 35,043 with 1,147 deaths."
"Health officials are rushing to contain a coronavirus outbreak in one of Asia’s largest fruit and vegetable markets in the southern Indian city of Chennai. So far, the market has been linked to more than 500 cases in several districts of Tamil Nadu state and adjacent Kerala state. More than 7,000 people with connections to the Koyambedu market are being traced and quarantined, said J. Radhakrishnan, the leader of Chennai’s response to the coronavirus. The market, which had remained open during India’s six-week virus lockdown, is central to the region’s food supply chain. The challenge for public health officials is to track the many traders, workers, and shoppers who visited the market. Specialists said the virus cluster has exposed India’s poor surveillance during the pandemic. They said the country’s long denial of how prevalent the virus was resulted in people not taking precautions, and warned that the market cluster could result in cases in India snowballing."
Better close down again.
"In a televised address Tuesday night, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced an economic rescue package of more than $260 billion for a nation that, although relatively successful in controlling coronavirus infections, has been left economically devastated. Modi was short on details but said the relief package, which amounts to around 10 percent of India’s gross domestic product and was larger than expected, would help all classes, from farmers and migrant laborers to big businesses. He urged Indians to become more economically self-reliant and harkened back to Mohandas K. Gandhi’s century-old campaign to boycott British textiles and buy Indian cloth instead. Modi has been under intensifying pressure to announce a rescue package. Economists said the package was bigger than they had predicted but should have come earlier."
Turns out Gandhi was gay, and how about that chutzpah from Modi in citing the Great One?
Poverty, he once said, was the greatest violence!
"The coronavirus problem that India had feared is becoming reality in Mumbai. It is India’s most densely populated city, a scraggly peninsula framed by the Arabian Sea and other waterways, a metropolis of towering apartment blocks and endless slums, a city of oversize dreams and desperate poverty, all sandwiched together. This is where Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, built a 27-story single-family home. This is where “Slumdog Millionaire” was filmed and set. Indians call it Maximum City. As the coronavirus gnaws its way across India, Mumbai has suffered the worst. This city of 20 million is now responsible for 20 percent of India’s infections and nearly 25 percent of the deaths. Hospitals are overflowing with the sick. Police officers are exhausted enforcing a stay-at-home curfew. Doctors say the biggest enemy is Mumbai’s density. Particularly in the city’s vast slum districts, social distancing is impossible. Police officers prowl the main roads. Hundreds have tested positive for the coronavirus, and several have died. More than 70 Mumbai journalists have also tested positive."
An Indian police state, wow!
"India on Sunday extended its nearly 2-month-old lockdown by two weeks after reporting nearly 5,000 new coronavirus cases, but said restrictions could be eased in low-risk areas to boost economic activity. After surpassing China on Saturday, India now has the most confirmed virus cases in Asia, with nearly 91,000. New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and some other key regions are still battling to control the rising curve of coronavirus infections, but the Home Ministry said low-risk areas will be allowed to restore economic activity. All domestic and international passenger flights will remain prohibited. Metro services, schools, colleges, hotels, and restaurants will also remain shuttered nationwide, the Home Ministry said. The Health Ministry on Sunday reported a record jump of nearly 5,000 cases in the past 24 hours, raising the number of confirmed cases in India to 90,927, including 2,872 deaths. India had fewer than 500 confirmed cases and nine deaths when the lockdown was first imposed on March 25."
"India recorded its biggest single-day surge in coronavirus cases on Monday, attributed largely to migrant workers returning home after losing their jobs in India’s population centers. The 5,242 new cases and 157 deaths due to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours took the country’s infection tally to more than 96,000, the most in Asia. It now has 3,029 fatalities. On Sunday, the federal government extended a nationwide lockdown to May 31 but eased some restrictions to restore economic activity and gave states more control in deciding the nature of the lockdown. Authorities are largely blaming the surge in infections to the return of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to India’s villages, which have weaker health infrastructure. India eased its lockdown rules on May 4 and allowed migrant workers to travel back to their homes, a decision that has resulted in millions of people being on the move for the last two weeks. Rail service resumed, with a limited number of trains running. All passenger flights remain grounded, and metro services, schools, hotels and restaurants are shuttered nationwide. Most infections reported in India are from its major cities. Mumbai, the financial capital and home to the Bollywood film industry, alone registered almost 20 percent of total cases."
Best to avoid the cities no matter which country you reside.
"As if India needed more challenges, with coronavirus infections steadily increasing, a heat wave hitting the capital, and 100 million people out of work, the country now has to fight off a new problem: a locust invasion. Scientists say it’s the worst attack in 25 years and these locusts are different. “This time the attack is by very young locusts who fly for longer distances, at faster speeds, unlike adults in the past who were sluggish and not so fast,” said K.L. Gurjar, the deputy director of India’s Locust Warning Organization. The locusts poured in from Iran and Pakistan, blanketing half a dozen states in western and central India. Because most of the crops were recently harvested, the hungry swarms have buzzed into urban areas, eager to devour bushes and trees, carpeting whatever surface they land on."
They came from Africa, as India looks to a future with less children and less food.
"India registered another record single-day jump of 7,964 cases and 265 deaths. The government had been expected to end a two-month nationwide lockdown but instead extended measures in some areas due to coronavirus outbreaks."
"India reported more than 8,000 new cases of the coronavirus in a single day, another record high that topped the deadliest week in the country. Confirmed infections have risen to 182,143, with 5,164 fatalities, including 193 in the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said Sunday. Overall, more than 60 percent of the virus fatalities have been reported from only two states — Maharashtra, the financial hub, and Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The new cases are largely concentrated in six Indian states, including the capital New Delhi. Public health specialists have criticized the Modi government’s handling of the outbreak. Modi, who addressed the nation through his monthly radio program on Sunday, said India was faring better than other countries. India has a fatality rate of 2.8 percent. There are concerns that the virus may be spreading through India’s villages as millions of jobless migrant workers return home from cities during the lockdown. Specialists warn that the pandemic has yet to peak in India."
Nothing left to do but turn on the television and watch some TV:
"Reruns of religious dramas comfort Indians in dire times" by Vineeta Deepak Associated Press, May 23, 2020
GURUGRAM, India — Staying home under lockdown as they wait for the worst of the coronavirus pandemic to pass, millions of Indians are turning to their gods. Not in prayer rooms, but on TV.
Seeking comfort in the certainty of the past, Indians are devouring reruns of popular Hindu religious dramas. They’re drawing on shared experiences of Indian mythology, which is replete with tales of moral and ethical choices in times of crises and invokes the virtues of individual sacrifice for social good.
The country’s public broadcaster has revived epic television shows like “Ramayan” and “Shri Krishna” — both highly revered mythological tales — airing them in prime time every night.
“Shri Krishna,’’ a TV series originally broadcast in 1993, is an adaptation of the life of one of Hinduism’s most popular gods.
In “Ramayan,” a wildly popular series from the 1980s, filmmaker Ramanand Sagar tells the story of Lord Ram, the prince of Ayodhya, who was sent into exile for 14 years and rescued his kidnapped wife, Sita, from the demon Ravan.
“When the show was first telecast, the streets used to be completely deserted and everyone watched it with devotion. The stories about the victory of good over evil were very engaging,” said Vijay Kumar Jain, a physician and gastroenterologist practicing in New Delhi and an avid fan of the dramas.
On April 16, the show had a record 77 million viewers, India’s public broadcaster Prasar Bharati tweeted.
“In this era of crisp and Gen Z content, these figures clearly indicate that there is still demand for values and ethos-driven content in the world’s largest democracy,’’ Prasar Bharti said in a press release.
Meanwhile, on the streets, an epic but tragic drama of another kind is playing out.
Millions of poor migrant workers, hungry and in despair, have walked from cities to their villages after India’s nationwide coronavirus lockdown took away their jobs and left them to fend for themselves.
With India’s virus caseload at more than 126,000, the economy is beginning to reopen with some restrictions, but the anxiety over what lies ahead is running high.
‘‘Showing majoritarian mythologicals when a diverse country faces a human crisis of unparalleled scale may create an illusion of wellness,’’ filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee wrote in the Indian Express newspaper.
“In the midst of a pandemic that levels all, the chosen and the downtrodden, many of us fantasize about a return to a golden, simple past,’’ he wrote.
Not happening, ever.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has often invoked Hindu scriptures in his speeches during the lockdown, asking people to do their duty and follow social distancing rules to win the battle against COVID-19.
“There is no bigger force than our enthusiasm and conviction. There is nothing we can’t achieve,” Modi said in a national address on April 3 , taking inspiration from a verse in the Hindu epic “Ramayan.”
A court verdict last year paved the way for building a grand Ram temple on a site in northern India where Hindu hard-liners demolished a 16th-century mosque in 1992, sparking deadly religious riots, but faith transcends the politics of strident Hindu nationalism, and millions of moderate, practicing Hindus keep idols of Ram in their homes for daily prayer.
“In today’s uncertain times, people are trying to make sense of their lives: who am I, what is my place in the universe,’’ said Jain, “and mythology offers us truth and wisdom.”
It does, but turn off the damn TV!
--more--"
Oh, wait, there is a BREAKING NEWS BULLETIN:
Cyclone bears down on India and Bangladesh
A photo from the District Administration of Bhola shows residents being evacuted Tuesday in Dhalchar village on the island of Bhola as the cyclone barreled towards Bangladesh's coast (District Administration of Bhola via Getty Images)
Where are their masks?
Initial reports were at least 14 dead, but the death toll quickly rose:
"More than 80 people were killed by the powerful cyclone that slammed into India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, wiping out thousands of homes and drenching low-lying areas in torrential rain, officials said Thursday. Many of the dead were crushed by falling trees, electrocuted by downed wires, or buried inside collapsing buildings as Cyclone Amphan pummeled the region, leaving a wide swath of devastation and grief. The worst damage was reported in the Indian state of West Bengal, which includes the metropolis of Kolkata and many small, coastal villages where people live in shacks made from mud and sticks. The storm ripped through there, and although many villagers had evacuated beforehand, as Indian authorities had urged, some had resisting packing into shelters because they feared the coronavirus. Initially, Indian authorities believed that a combination of an impressive evacuation effort and the weakening of the storm as it swirled onto land had spared more lives, but West Bengal’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, one of India’s most powerful women, said she had “never seen such a disaster before.” “At one end there is this small COVID virus that is terrifying people,” she said in a video conference. “This was another virus from the sky.”
Could this have been what was raining down?
Chemical leak at LG plant in India kills 11, about 1,000 ill
The videos and photos from the area show dozens of people, including women and children, lying unconscious in the streets, arms open wide with white froth trailing from their mouths.
Better climb aboard a boat and flee:
"More than 250 Rohingya Muslim refugees who had been floating for weeks on a fishing boat in the Bay of Bengal arrived Friday on an island in southern Bangladesh, officials said. The 277 refugees were taken to Bhasan Char island after they reached Bangladesh’s coast, said Mohammed Alamgir Hossain, police superintendent in Noakhali district where the island is located. Taking the refugees to Bhasan Char is an issue of concern for the UN and other international agencies. They earlier opposed a government plan to relocate 100,000 Rohingya, most originally from neighboring Myanmar, to the island from crowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. Bhasan Char was previously submerged by monsoon rains but the government said in January that it was ready to relocate the refugees there. The navy was involved in a project in which flood protection embankments, houses, hospitals, and mosques were built on the island, but so far, no refugees have agreed to voluntarily move there....."
Here is what happened when they reached the shores of Myanmar
"A court in Myanmar has sentenced a journalist to two years in prison for a story that erroneously reported a death from COVID-19. The lawyer for Zaw Ye Htet, an editor with the Karen State-based news agency Dae Pyaw, says his client was sentenced Wednesday. Myanmar deems it an offense to publish or circulate any rumor or report that can cause fear or alarm among the public that may induce unrest. Zaw Ye Htet’s wife, Phyu Phyu Win, says her husband acknowledged the error after being summoned by police. He posted a correction online, but was arrested."
It's a good thing they didn't catch a flight to Pakistan instead:
Pakistani passenger plane crashes near Karachi with 98 onboard
Fire brigade staff tried to put out a fire after a Pakistan International Airlines flight crashed in a residential neighborhood in Karachi (Fareed Khan/Associated Press).
What's with all the wreckage?
Family of a victim mourned Saturday in Lahore, Pakistan. The Pakistan International Airlines flight crashed a day earlier into a crowded neighborhood of Karachi (ARIF ALI/AFP via Getty Images).
My heart goes out to those women.
"Pakistan plane crash leaves grim task: identifying victims from DNA" by Zia ur-Rehman and Salman Masood New York Times, May 23, 2020
KARACHI — The bodies were pulled one by one from the ruins of damaged buildings and the smoldering wreckage of the Pakistan International Airlines plane that had crashed a day earlier into a crowded neighborhood of Karachi: 97 of them by Saturday.
Many were charred beyond recognition, leaving families — some clutching pictures of their loved ones — to depend on DNA results from a laboratory to identify those they had lost.
The crash has cast a pall on the nation a day before Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. The nation’s aviation industry has long had a troubled history of crashes. Most of the passengers, including top banking executives, a senior civil servant, and military officials, had been returning to Karachi for Eid.
That is when alarm bells went off for me!
Pakistan Civil Aviation officials said 91 passengers and eight crew members had been onboard Flight 8303 when it crashed Friday afternoon after departing from the eastern city of Lahore en route to the southern port city of Karachi. Two reportedly survived. The plane went down at 2:37 p.m. a few miles from the airport.
The pilot reported having lost engines as he tried to land, declaring, “Mayday, Mayday!” Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered an inquiry, and the country’s Safety Investigation Board, comprising senior air force and aviation officials, is leading the investigation.
Officials said on Saturday that, miraculously, there were no fatalities on the ground. The survivor pulled from the rubble was later identified as Zafar Masud, president and chief executive of Bank of Punjab, one of Pakistan’s largest lenders. Masud moved to Lahore in March after he landed the job and was visiting family in Karachi for Eid. “He is shaken but in good spirits, all other things considered,” Zainab Imam, Masud’s younger sister, said in an interview Saturday.
“He told us how he was rescued by some very kind people who carefully pulled him out of the debris and into the ambulance,” Imam said. “That’s when he realized he’s broken his arm and injured his leg.”
The other survivor of the air crash, Muhammad Zubair, told local news outlets that the flight felt normal after departing from Lahore — but things changed as it approached the Karachi airport.....
Has the stench of assassination, sorry.
--more--"
Oddly enough, it is time to go down under:
Poverty, he once said, was the greatest violence!
"The coronavirus problem that India had feared is becoming reality in Mumbai. It is India’s most densely populated city, a scraggly peninsula framed by the Arabian Sea and other waterways, a metropolis of towering apartment blocks and endless slums, a city of oversize dreams and desperate poverty, all sandwiched together. This is where Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, built a 27-story single-family home. This is where “Slumdog Millionaire” was filmed and set. Indians call it Maximum City. As the coronavirus gnaws its way across India, Mumbai has suffered the worst. This city of 20 million is now responsible for 20 percent of India’s infections and nearly 25 percent of the deaths. Hospitals are overflowing with the sick. Police officers are exhausted enforcing a stay-at-home curfew. Doctors say the biggest enemy is Mumbai’s density. Particularly in the city’s vast slum districts, social distancing is impossible. Police officers prowl the main roads. Hundreds have tested positive for the coronavirus, and several have died. More than 70 Mumbai journalists have also tested positive."
An Indian police state, wow!
"India on Sunday extended its nearly 2-month-old lockdown by two weeks after reporting nearly 5,000 new coronavirus cases, but said restrictions could be eased in low-risk areas to boost economic activity. After surpassing China on Saturday, India now has the most confirmed virus cases in Asia, with nearly 91,000. New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and some other key regions are still battling to control the rising curve of coronavirus infections, but the Home Ministry said low-risk areas will be allowed to restore economic activity. All domestic and international passenger flights will remain prohibited. Metro services, schools, colleges, hotels, and restaurants will also remain shuttered nationwide, the Home Ministry said. The Health Ministry on Sunday reported a record jump of nearly 5,000 cases in the past 24 hours, raising the number of confirmed cases in India to 90,927, including 2,872 deaths. India had fewer than 500 confirmed cases and nine deaths when the lockdown was first imposed on March 25."
"India recorded its biggest single-day surge in coronavirus cases on Monday, attributed largely to migrant workers returning home after losing their jobs in India’s population centers. The 5,242 new cases and 157 deaths due to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours took the country’s infection tally to more than 96,000, the most in Asia. It now has 3,029 fatalities. On Sunday, the federal government extended a nationwide lockdown to May 31 but eased some restrictions to restore economic activity and gave states more control in deciding the nature of the lockdown. Authorities are largely blaming the surge in infections to the return of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to India’s villages, which have weaker health infrastructure. India eased its lockdown rules on May 4 and allowed migrant workers to travel back to their homes, a decision that has resulted in millions of people being on the move for the last two weeks. Rail service resumed, with a limited number of trains running. All passenger flights remain grounded, and metro services, schools, hotels and restaurants are shuttered nationwide. Most infections reported in India are from its major cities. Mumbai, the financial capital and home to the Bollywood film industry, alone registered almost 20 percent of total cases."
Best to avoid the cities no matter which country you reside.
"As if India needed more challenges, with coronavirus infections steadily increasing, a heat wave hitting the capital, and 100 million people out of work, the country now has to fight off a new problem: a locust invasion. Scientists say it’s the worst attack in 25 years and these locusts are different. “This time the attack is by very young locusts who fly for longer distances, at faster speeds, unlike adults in the past who were sluggish and not so fast,” said K.L. Gurjar, the deputy director of India’s Locust Warning Organization. The locusts poured in from Iran and Pakistan, blanketing half a dozen states in western and central India. Because most of the crops were recently harvested, the hungry swarms have buzzed into urban areas, eager to devour bushes and trees, carpeting whatever surface they land on."
They came from Africa, as India looks to a future with less children and less food.
"India registered another record single-day jump of 7,964 cases and 265 deaths. The government had been expected to end a two-month nationwide lockdown but instead extended measures in some areas due to coronavirus outbreaks."
"India reported more than 8,000 new cases of the coronavirus in a single day, another record high that topped the deadliest week in the country. Confirmed infections have risen to 182,143, with 5,164 fatalities, including 193 in the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said Sunday. Overall, more than 60 percent of the virus fatalities have been reported from only two states — Maharashtra, the financial hub, and Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The new cases are largely concentrated in six Indian states, including the capital New Delhi. Public health specialists have criticized the Modi government’s handling of the outbreak. Modi, who addressed the nation through his monthly radio program on Sunday, said India was faring better than other countries. India has a fatality rate of 2.8 percent. There are concerns that the virus may be spreading through India’s villages as millions of jobless migrant workers return home from cities during the lockdown. Specialists warn that the pandemic has yet to peak in India."
Nothing left to do but turn on the television and watch some TV:
"Reruns of religious dramas comfort Indians in dire times" by Vineeta Deepak Associated Press, May 23, 2020
GURUGRAM, India — Staying home under lockdown as they wait for the worst of the coronavirus pandemic to pass, millions of Indians are turning to their gods. Not in prayer rooms, but on TV.
Seeking comfort in the certainty of the past, Indians are devouring reruns of popular Hindu religious dramas. They’re drawing on shared experiences of Indian mythology, which is replete with tales of moral and ethical choices in times of crises and invokes the virtues of individual sacrifice for social good.
The country’s public broadcaster has revived epic television shows like “Ramayan” and “Shri Krishna” — both highly revered mythological tales — airing them in prime time every night.
“Shri Krishna,’’ a TV series originally broadcast in 1993, is an adaptation of the life of one of Hinduism’s most popular gods.
In “Ramayan,” a wildly popular series from the 1980s, filmmaker Ramanand Sagar tells the story of Lord Ram, the prince of Ayodhya, who was sent into exile for 14 years and rescued his kidnapped wife, Sita, from the demon Ravan.
“When the show was first telecast, the streets used to be completely deserted and everyone watched it with devotion. The stories about the victory of good over evil were very engaging,” said Vijay Kumar Jain, a physician and gastroenterologist practicing in New Delhi and an avid fan of the dramas.
On April 16, the show had a record 77 million viewers, India’s public broadcaster Prasar Bharati tweeted.
“In this era of crisp and Gen Z content, these figures clearly indicate that there is still demand for values and ethos-driven content in the world’s largest democracy,’’ Prasar Bharti said in a press release.
Meanwhile, on the streets, an epic but tragic drama of another kind is playing out.
Millions of poor migrant workers, hungry and in despair, have walked from cities to their villages after India’s nationwide coronavirus lockdown took away their jobs and left them to fend for themselves.
With India’s virus caseload at more than 126,000, the economy is beginning to reopen with some restrictions, but the anxiety over what lies ahead is running high.
‘‘Showing majoritarian mythologicals when a diverse country faces a human crisis of unparalleled scale may create an illusion of wellness,’’ filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee wrote in the Indian Express newspaper.
“In the midst of a pandemic that levels all, the chosen and the downtrodden, many of us fantasize about a return to a golden, simple past,’’ he wrote.
Not happening, ever.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has often invoked Hindu scriptures in his speeches during the lockdown, asking people to do their duty and follow social distancing rules to win the battle against COVID-19.
“There is no bigger force than our enthusiasm and conviction. There is nothing we can’t achieve,” Modi said in a national address on April 3 , taking inspiration from a verse in the Hindu epic “Ramayan.”
A court verdict last year paved the way for building a grand Ram temple on a site in northern India where Hindu hard-liners demolished a 16th-century mosque in 1992, sparking deadly religious riots, but faith transcends the politics of strident Hindu nationalism, and millions of moderate, practicing Hindus keep idols of Ram in their homes for daily prayer.
“In today’s uncertain times, people are trying to make sense of their lives: who am I, what is my place in the universe,’’ said Jain, “and mythology offers us truth and wisdom.”
It does, but turn off the damn TV!
--more--"
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Oh, wait, there is a BREAKING NEWS BULLETIN:
Cyclone bears down on India and Bangladesh
A photo from the District Administration of Bhola shows residents being evacuted Tuesday in Dhalchar village on the island of Bhola as the cyclone barreled towards Bangladesh's coast (District Administration of Bhola via Getty Images)
Where are their masks?
Initial reports were at least 14 dead, but the death toll quickly rose:
"More than 80 people were killed by the powerful cyclone that slammed into India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, wiping out thousands of homes and drenching low-lying areas in torrential rain, officials said Thursday. Many of the dead were crushed by falling trees, electrocuted by downed wires, or buried inside collapsing buildings as Cyclone Amphan pummeled the region, leaving a wide swath of devastation and grief. The worst damage was reported in the Indian state of West Bengal, which includes the metropolis of Kolkata and many small, coastal villages where people live in shacks made from mud and sticks. The storm ripped through there, and although many villagers had evacuated beforehand, as Indian authorities had urged, some had resisting packing into shelters because they feared the coronavirus. Initially, Indian authorities believed that a combination of an impressive evacuation effort and the weakening of the storm as it swirled onto land had spared more lives, but West Bengal’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, one of India’s most powerful women, said she had “never seen such a disaster before.” “At one end there is this small COVID virus that is terrifying people,” she said in a video conference. “This was another virus from the sky.”
Could this have been what was raining down?
Chemical leak at LG plant in India kills 11, about 1,000 ill
The videos and photos from the area show dozens of people, including women and children, lying unconscious in the streets, arms open wide with white froth trailing from their mouths.
Better climb aboard a boat and flee:
"More than 250 Rohingya Muslim refugees who had been floating for weeks on a fishing boat in the Bay of Bengal arrived Friday on an island in southern Bangladesh, officials said. The 277 refugees were taken to Bhasan Char island after they reached Bangladesh’s coast, said Mohammed Alamgir Hossain, police superintendent in Noakhali district where the island is located. Taking the refugees to Bhasan Char is an issue of concern for the UN and other international agencies. They earlier opposed a government plan to relocate 100,000 Rohingya, most originally from neighboring Myanmar, to the island from crowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. Bhasan Char was previously submerged by monsoon rains but the government said in January that it was ready to relocate the refugees there. The navy was involved in a project in which flood protection embankments, houses, hospitals, and mosques were built on the island, but so far, no refugees have agreed to voluntarily move there....."
Here is what happened when they reached the shores of Myanmar
"A court in Myanmar has sentenced a journalist to two years in prison for a story that erroneously reported a death from COVID-19. The lawyer for Zaw Ye Htet, an editor with the Karen State-based news agency Dae Pyaw, says his client was sentenced Wednesday. Myanmar deems it an offense to publish or circulate any rumor or report that can cause fear or alarm among the public that may induce unrest. Zaw Ye Htet’s wife, Phyu Phyu Win, says her husband acknowledged the error after being summoned by police. He posted a correction online, but was arrested."
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
It's a good thing they didn't catch a flight to Pakistan instead:
Pakistani passenger plane crashes near Karachi with 98 onboard
Fire brigade staff tried to put out a fire after a Pakistan International Airlines flight crashed in a residential neighborhood in Karachi (Fareed Khan/Associated Press).
What's with all the wreckage?
Family of a victim mourned Saturday in Lahore, Pakistan. The Pakistan International Airlines flight crashed a day earlier into a crowded neighborhood of Karachi (ARIF ALI/AFP via Getty Images).
My heart goes out to those women.
"Pakistan plane crash leaves grim task: identifying victims from DNA" by Zia ur-Rehman and Salman Masood New York Times, May 23, 2020
KARACHI — The bodies were pulled one by one from the ruins of damaged buildings and the smoldering wreckage of the Pakistan International Airlines plane that had crashed a day earlier into a crowded neighborhood of Karachi: 97 of them by Saturday.
Many were charred beyond recognition, leaving families — some clutching pictures of their loved ones — to depend on DNA results from a laboratory to identify those they had lost.
The crash has cast a pall on the nation a day before Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. The nation’s aviation industry has long had a troubled history of crashes. Most of the passengers, including top banking executives, a senior civil servant, and military officials, had been returning to Karachi for Eid.
That is when alarm bells went off for me!
Pakistan Civil Aviation officials said 91 passengers and eight crew members had been onboard Flight 8303 when it crashed Friday afternoon after departing from the eastern city of Lahore en route to the southern port city of Karachi. Two reportedly survived. The plane went down at 2:37 p.m. a few miles from the airport.
The pilot reported having lost engines as he tried to land, declaring, “Mayday, Mayday!” Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered an inquiry, and the country’s Safety Investigation Board, comprising senior air force and aviation officials, is leading the investigation.
Officials said on Saturday that, miraculously, there were no fatalities on the ground. The survivor pulled from the rubble was later identified as Zafar Masud, president and chief executive of Bank of Punjab, one of Pakistan’s largest lenders. Masud moved to Lahore in March after he landed the job and was visiting family in Karachi for Eid. “He is shaken but in good spirits, all other things considered,” Zainab Imam, Masud’s younger sister, said in an interview Saturday.
“He told us how he was rescued by some very kind people who carefully pulled him out of the debris and into the ambulance,” Imam said. “That’s when he realized he’s broken his arm and injured his leg.”
The other survivor of the air crash, Muhammad Zubair, told local news outlets that the flight felt normal after departing from Lahore — but things changed as it approached the Karachi airport.....
Has the stench of assassination, sorry.
--more--"
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Oddly enough, it is time to go down under:
"New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sold a drastic lockdown with straight talk and mom jokes" by Damien Cave New York Times, May 23, 2020
In 1965, New Zealand was the world’s sixth-wealthiest country per capita, but by 1980, when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was born, it had slipped to 19th, and that was before free-market reforms led to major job losses in manufacturing, public service, and farming.
Neo-liberalism really didn't work out for anybody but multinationals and the Bill Gates crowd, huh?
It all reached a breaking point in 1992, when unemployment peaked at 10.7 percent and a national referendum asked New Zealanders if they wanted to remake how the country conducted elections. They responded with a resounding yes.
New Zealand adopted a German-style system that lets people cast two ballots: one for a local member of Parliament and one for a party. Ardern was in high school when the first election under the new system produced what would become a trend: gains for smaller parties, and a coalition government.
Uh-oh.
Whether it is the world’s best-designed democracy, as some government geeks claim, Kiwis have been clear about what they want. No single party has won a majority since 1996, encouraging a culture of cooperation, moderation, and openness.
Much of the world first saw Ardern in action after the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attacks, when she stood with the Muslim victims of a white supremacist mass shooter and declared: “They are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not.”
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/bostonglobe/7MBZHKU5GQI6VB7L7AUF6EEZ5Y.jpg)
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced COVID-19 lockdown measures at a news conference at Parliament House in Wellington in April (POOL/AFP via Getty Images/AFP via Getty Images).
I always wondered what a FEMALE SITH looked like!
The urge to draw people into an “us” rather than an “us versus them” has served New Zealand well during the coronavirus pandemic.
(I was just struck by their blade)
It follows an evolution in how Ardern speaks and handles leadership. As recently as a few years ago, she presented herself as a much more conventional politician, posting videos about homelessness, social workers, or a new bike repair station.
With her 2017 election victory, however, she seemed to emerge from the constraints of what might be expected from a typical (male) politician. She quickly became a leader who could talk policy from a podium, dress down a sexist commentator on camera, or post a Facebook video encouraging a rugby team while the cat on her lap struggled with a plastic lampshade collar.
In June 2018, she opened up even more to her audience, with a Facebook Live of herself leaving the hospital with her newborn daughter, Neve. She was the first female world leader to give birth in office since Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan in 1990. The comments pouring in were overwhelmingly positive, but hinted at high expectations.
You know what happened to Bhutto, right?
Her response was not to hide from critics who questioned whether she could do the work of both a mother and a world leader. She made them watch. When Ardern returned after about six weeks, her Facebook presence became more active — a flood of scenes from home and work as she communicated her way through the challenge.
Ardern started doing weekly updates, often from home, mixing comments about nap time with details about poverty or transportation legislation. With each update, she got better at boiling down government into a conversation you might hear over dinner.
They became a model for how she has communicated online during the pandemic.....
--more--"
Related:
"New Zealand reported just a single person in the entire nation of 5 million people is known to still have the coronavirus after no new cases have been detected for the past week. In total, 1,504 people were found to have contracted the virus. Of those, 1,481 have recovered and 22 died. About 275,000 people have been tested."
Also see:
"An Israeli court Tuesday ruled that a former teacher accused of sexually abusing her students in Australia is fit to stand trial for extradition, capping a yearslong battle that has strained relations between the two allies and angered Australia’s pro-Israel Jewish community. The ruling was hailed by Malka Leifer’s alleged victims, who have accused their one-time school principal and Israeli authorities of dragging out the case for far too long. A July 20 extradition hearing was set by the court. “OMG!!!” Dassi Erlich, one of her accusers, wrote on Facebook. “Too many emotions to process!!! This is huge!” She accused Leifer of “exploiting the Israeli courts for 6 years” and causing delays that have ‘‘lengthened our ongoing trauma!” The Associated Press does not usually identify alleged victims of sexual abuse, but Erlich and two of her sisters have spoken publicly about their allegations against Leifer. The women say Leifer abused them while they were students at an ultra-Orthodox school in Melbourne, and there are said to be other victims. In 2008, as allegations surfaced, the Israeli-born Leifer — a trusted educator in an insular religious community — left her position at the school suddenly and returned to Israel, where she has lived since. Australia requested Leifer’s extradition in 2014 on 74 charges of child sex abuse and more than 60 Israeli court hearings have followed. In Israel, critics say the legal proceedings have been marred by needless delays by Leifer’s legal team. Israeli police also have recommended charges of fraud and breach of trust be brought against former health minister Yaakov Litzman for suspicions he pressured ministry employees to skew Leifer’s psychiatric evaluations in her favor. Litzman, a powerful ultra-Orthodox politician, denies wrongdoing....."
The damn perverts receive sanctuary in Israel, and did you notice how the pre$$' main concern was the anger of Australia’s pro-Israel Jewish community?
The only question now is if Australia will allow the travel to a huge kookaburra for trial
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"More states opened up and crowds of commuters trickled onto the roads in many of India’s cities Monday as a three-phase plan to lift the nationwide coronavirus lockdown began despite an upward trend in new infections. Businesses and shops reopened in many states and the railways announced 200 more special passenger trains. Some states also opened their borders, allowing vehicular traffic. The coastal state of Maharashtra, home to the financial hub of Mumbai and Bollywood, allowed the resumption of film production with some restrictions in place. In New Delhi, the capital, authorities announced the reopening of all industries and salons, while keeping the borders sealed until June 8 to try to prevent a spike in new virus cases."
ALSO SEE:
"Authorities in Bangladesh have confirmed the first death of a Rohingya refugee from the coronavirus, as infections rise in camps where more than 1 million Rohingya Muslims have been living since fleeing from neighboring Myanmar. The 71-year-old refugee died Saturday at Ukhiya in Cox’s Bazar, and samples collected from him tested positive on Monday, said Abu Toha M.R. Bhuiyan, chief health coordinator of the office of the Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commissioner. Louise Donovan, a spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, said at least 29 Rohingya refugees have tested positive for the disease. Aid agencies and government officials say the challenge of handling a wide outbreak of the virus in the camps could be huge."
