New Delhi: The Covid-19 pandemic continues to devastate several countries across the world — the latest count is 45,27,811 cases and over 3,03,438 deaths.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to cut-off his country’s entire relationship with China. The pandemic is now spreading through war-torn Yemen. Doctors are increasingly dying in Russia as the virus spreads further. Meanwhile, the outbreak is also making some Artificial Intelligence (AI) models useless in the e-commerce sector.
ThePrint brings you the most important global stories on the Covid-19 pandemic and why they matter.
Trump threatens to end ‘whole relationship’ with China, Beijing paper calls it ‘election strategy’
As the US-China tensions continue to escalate, President Donald Trump said Thursday that he was no longer on “talking terms” with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, and Washington could go as far ahead as to end the “whole relationship” with Beijing, the Straits Times is reporting.
In turn, China’s state-run Global Times has said, “Trump turns up election strategy nonsense with China ‘cut-off’ threat”.
During a morning show on Fox Business, Trump said, “I have a very good relationship (with Xi Jinping) but I just – right now I don’t want to speak to him.” He went on to threaten the US’ relationship with China if the two countries failed to resolve their trade disputes. “We could cut off the whole relationship. Now if you did, what would happen? You’d save $500 billion, if you cut off the whole relationship,” he said.
“Trump did not explain what he meant by “the whole relationship,” but the $500 billion figure suggests that he might have been referring to trade. He has tweeted in the past that “we lose 500 Billion Dollars” a year to China on trade,” notes the Straits Times report.
Covid-19 deaths surge in war-torn Yemen
There has been a dramatic rise in the number of deaths due to Covid-like symptoms in the southern Yemeni city of Aden, says a BBC report. “Citing official figures, Save the Children said there had been at least 380 deaths in the past week,” notes the report.
While it seems like the pandemic is finally spreading through war-torn country, Yemen has only reported a few dozen cases until now. Moreover, owing to almost five years of civil war and the war with Gulf Cooperation Council countries, the country’s healthcare system is completely damaged.
“Our teams on the ground are seeing how people are being sent away from hospitals, breathing heavily or even collapsing. People are dying because they can’t get treatment that would normally save their lives. There are patients who go from hospital to hospital and yet cannot get admitted,” Mohammed Alshamaa, Save the Children’s director in Yemen, tells the BBC.
Also read: Drugs, mafia, alcohol — Lucknow to London, how underground economy is thriving in pandemic
Frontline doctors dying as Covid sweeps through Russia
As the novel coronavirus pandemic spreads through Russia, over 180 doctors have lost their lives to the lethal virus, the New York Times reports.
“Russia is hailing its medical workers as heroes, their photographs plastered on billboards and their stories glamorized on state TV. But as the country develops into one of the global epicenters of the disease, those workers are suffering astonishing levels of infection and death in their ranks,” notes the report.
A website that memorialises the doctors, nurses, and other health workers who have lost their lives to Covid-19, lists at least 180 doctors. Moreover, according to the country’s health minister at least 400 Russian hospitals have experienced an outbreak.
Danger of rushing through clinical trials during a pandemic
Over the past few weeks, several drugs such as remdesivir have been undergoing rushed clinical trials to test their potency as anti-Covid drugs.
In an interview to The New Yorker, “Peter B. Bach, a physician and epidemiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he runs the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes” talks about how effective remdesivir might be and “how we should be thinking about standards of evidence in the middle of a public-health catastrophe.
“There’s this romantic vision of the genius scientist who has the eureka moment and it all plays out well, but cluttered among all those events are many more missteps where we have an idea and we think it will work and, when we rigorously evaluate it, it doesn’t. And that’s all O.K,” says Bach.
“Frustrating as it is in the moment, it’s the only way we have consistently made progress against human disease — and we have made considerable progress,” he adds.
First Covid case found in Bangladesh Rohingya refugee camps
The novel coronavirus has now been detected in one of the Rohingya refugee camps in southern Bangladesh, Al Jazeera is reporting.
“An ethnic Rohingya refugee and a local person tested positive for Covid-19, a senior Bangladeshi official and a United Nations spokeswoman said on Thursday. It was the first confirmed case in the densely populated camps as humanitarian groups warned the infection could devastate the crowded settlement,” notes the report.
Bangladesh has so far reported over 18,000 cases and 280 deaths. The rising fear of Covid-19 spreading through the refugee camps has alarmed the country’s health officials, who feel that it could substantially worsen the crisis faced by the Rohingyas.
Also read: US-shaped void forces Australia to stand up to assertive trade-partner China
How Bali escaped being virus hotspot with local traditions
The popular Indonesian resort island Bali has managed to duck the pandemic with the help of its local traditions, says a Bloomberg report.
“The success in curbing the virus has come with the help of about 1,500 traditional village committees with considerable sway over the majority Hindu residents, according to Governor Wayan Koster. The island with a population of 4.2 million has reported just four virus-related deaths and 337 confirmed cases for a fatality rate of 1.2%, far below the national average of 6.4%,” notes the report.
“It’s also in sharp contrast to the widely-criticized efforts at the national level, which have led to deaths swelling to more than 1,000 and officials now warning the disease may infect almost 100,000 before starting to ease,” it adds.
Weird behaviour amid pandemic is messing with AI models
In an unexpected development, several AI models that are responsible for helping various e-commerce platforms with “inventory management, fraud detection, marketing, and more” are no longer working the way they should because of change in customer behaviour amid the Covid-19 pandemic, notes a report in the MIT Technology Review.
“Machine-learning models trained on normal human behavior are now finding that normal has changed, and some are no longer working as they should. Machine-learning models are designed to respond to changes. But most are also fragile; they perform badly when input data differs too much from the data they were trained on,” adds the report.
How big a threat does Covid pose to wildlife in Africa?
A raging pandemic is not just threatening human life but is also emerging as a major risk for the safety of wildlife in Africa, Al Jazeera reports.
Given that most governments are now focused on only dealing with the pandemic, it is giving a free hand to poachers, criminal syndicates, and illegal wildlife traders, it says.
Also read: People living longer and healthier lives but Covid threatens to disrupt that: WHO report
World War Three Threat In the Making During Mid-March To June In 2020.
1. The happenings across the world are taking shape fast since mid-March and after in 2020, relatable to fears or apprehension of WW3. The Coronavirus known as Covid-19 brought most part of the world on the one side and China on the other. The U.S. who has suffered most from Covid-19 , came out in the open to accuse China of having been responsible to spread the COVID-19 from Wuhan , demanding investigation by an independent body from among the world so that appropriate action against China can be taken. However , some countries seemed to be entertaining a view that China ought to have brought the spread of the virus to global notice timely. The U.S. has been expressing unhappiness with W.H.O. also for not doing enough to tackle the spread of the virus. This has reportedly led to the U.S. disassociating with the W.H.O. on 29 May 2020. That is briefly one part of the global woes developing between mid-March to May end in 2020.
2. The global scene witnessed another flashpoint in early May , 2020 with potential of global ramifications. Chinese troops were reported to have intruded on 4 May or around into Indian territory on the Ladakh border in J&K. It was found that China was building up the other side of the border capable of causing grave military concern to India. For a moment , it seemed that a war could break out. The situation attracted global attention. Even the U.S. President Donald Trump was reported to have offered to mediate to resolve the issue though the parties to the conflict thought they could themselves resolve it. The present position of the situation is that Chinese troops have gone back into the territory across the L.A.C. But war-like hostility cannot be said to be over there.
3. In the month of April –May 2020 , the South China Sea was also in the news suggesting high military tension. China has been claiming territorial sovereignty over South China Sea for a long time. Some militarily less powerful nations in Asia also have a claim but China does not recognize this. Superpower countries like the U.S. claim that they have right of navigation there. The military confrontation between the U.S. and China grew intense in April –May , 2020.
4. Amidst the aforesaid scenario , two age-old bitter rivals have figured in the news covering location of Black and Baltic Seas. According to news reports , Russian fighter jets intercepted U.S. Air Force B-1 B strategic bombers over the neutral waters of the Black and Baltic Seas , Russian Defence Ministry announced on 29 May , 2020. It has been mentioned in the announcement that the Russian fighters apprehended the air targets inside a secure distance and recognized them as B-1B strategic plane , after which the U.S. bombers modified their flight course and flew away from Russian state border.
5. The aforesaid details suggest that likelihood of situation having potential to develop into anything like WW3 has grown in May 2020. In this context , it may be apt to refer readers to this Vedic astrology writer’s predictive alerts of 11 November 2019 through article – “ Astrological probable alerts for 2020” – published at wisdom-magazine.com/Article.aspx/5176/ on 1 January , 2020. The text of predictive alert related to the point of view aforesaid reads like this in the article :-
“ Predictive Conclusions
4. The months of April to June , particularly May-June in 2020 look to be trending into the scene sme serious worrisome landscapes. There could be some war or war-like conditions across the world , which the U.S. may be called upon to address. Sea or oil regions or such stuff seems to be calling attention”.
6. This writer had contributed the following predictive alert last year 2019 on 18 November , to the opinion piece by Mr. Madhav Nalapat published at sundayguardianlive.com/news/warzones-heat-us-china-conflict-continues :-
“ kushal kumar says :
November 18 , 2019 at 7 : 44 am
This Vedic astrology writer has been , for some years past , making yearly predictions every October-November before commencement of new year for nations like India , Singapore , Japan , Canada , Italy and the U.S. In relation to coming year 2020 , this writer’s predictive alerts for more care and appropriate strategy were published as early as on 10 October , 2019 through article – “ Predictions for world in coming year 2020 by kushal kumar” – at theindiapost.com. Singapore and Japan in coming year 2020 have been covered in October 2019 by bringing those to public domain widely. The U.S. predictions for 2020 have been submitted to Wisdom Magazine for publication in its monthly Webzine. It is expected to be published on 1 December 2019. In relation to worrisome concerns of war , there could be even some kind of WW3 , April to June in 2020 have been indicated as potential time. In any case , even if better wisdom prevails not to venture WW3 , widespread catastrophic times involving huge shortages , disease and destruction , massive earthquakes , floods , storms and the like look to be likely in vulnerable regions and countries , deep economic stress or disaster during the said period”.
7. The sum and substance of the aforesaid details is that potential of WW3 has come to stay markedly during mid-March and after in 2020 , which has grown dangerous during May to continue in June , 2020. The dates 11 to 13 and 21 to 22 in June 2020 may be watched with more care and caution. And this writer had alerted about the same in more clear terms , much prior in November , 2019.