New Delhi: The novel coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate countries across the world — the latest count being over 3 crore cases and more than 9.5 lakh deaths.
Contact tracers in Ireland face sleepless nights. The pandemic has threatened the livelihood of Turkish musicians, many of whom have died by suicide, and workers in Covid test labs in France have gone on strike.
ThePrint brings you the most important global stories on the coronavirus pandemic and why they matter.
Ireland’s contact tracers face ‘sleepless nights’
Contact tracers in Ireland, who have to notify infected people and find out who else they have been in contact with, are facing sleepless nights since they have been tracing multiple close contacts of infected patients, reports The Guardian.
The report quoted Eammon Gormley, a tracer at University College Dublin, who said, “One person collapsed on the floor and we could hear them gasping for air. You got questions like: ‘Am I going to die?’ Some nights I had trouble sleeping.”
“During the lockdown, infected people tended to have close contact with just a few other people but the median number of contacts is about 10, with some infected individuals disclosing close contact with 25, 30, even 50 people,” says the report.
Ireland has reported 32,023 Covid-19 cases and 1,789 deaths.
Covid-19 testing lab workers in France go on strike
Hundreds of workers at Covid-19 laboratories in France went on strike on Thursday in anger over poor working conditions, especially considering the Covid testing system is under a lot of demand, reports Reuters.
The strike comes at a time when the French government has demanded faster testing to fight the spike in Covid cases.
“The hard-left CGT union said the strike was disrupting testing in some towns and could drag on if laboratory owners failed to deal with staff shortages and increase pay,” says the report.
France has recorded 4,15,481 cases of Covid-19 and 31,095 deaths.
‘Legendary’ dance hall in Mexico struggles to survive in pandemic
The Salón Los Ángeles, a dance hall in Mexico City, has been fully or partially shut for more than five months. The owners of the dance hall reveal they are in debt and may have to demolish the hall, reports El Universal.
“The Salón Los Ángeles had been crowded every weekend since 1937 with couples twirling to mambo, cha-cha-cha, salsa, and danzon. Everyone from slum-dwellers to movie stars and millionaires have danced at the fabled hall that boats, ‘Anybody who hasn’t been to the Salón Los Angeles doesn’t know Mexico’,” says the report.
Mexico has recorded 6,48,113 cases of Covid-19 and 72,179 deaths.
Criticised CDC recommendation not written by scientists
An investigation by The New York Times has found that a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US on who should be tested for coronavirus was not written by CDC scientists. This is in contrast to the belief that the recommendation had been promoted by CDC scientists.
The recommendation maintained that it wasn’t necessary to test people for Covid-19 symptoms even if they had been exposed to the virus.
“But officials told The Times this week that the Department of Health and Human Services did the rewriting and then ‘dropped’ it into the CDC’s public website, flouting the agency’s strict scientific review process,” says the report.
The US has recorded 68,74,596 cases of Covid-19 and 2,02,213 deaths.
Covid threatens livelihood of Turkish musicians
Over 100 musicians have died by suicide in Turkey since the pandemic in March, reports Arab News.
There are over 1 million registered musicians in Turkey. Most work without insurance and therefore haven’t been able to claim benefits during the pandemic.
“Representatives of the entertainment industry have urged the government to introduce comprehensive aid packages for the sector in order to prevent a wave of social unrest and further suicides,” says the report.
Turkey has reported 2,89,039 cases of Covid-19 and 7,3155 deaths.
Yangon residents rely on makeshift barriers to prevent second Covid wave
Amid a spike in Covid-19 cases in Myanmar, residents of Yangon are relying on makeshift barriers made from wooden planks, bamboo or metal pipes, to guard their neighbourhoods from the risk of infection, reports The Strait Times.
“Most of Yangon’s urban township have been put under ‘stay home’ orders, with residents allowed to leave homes only to work, buy groceries or seek medical help. Domestic travel is banned,” says the report.
Myanmar has recorded 4,299 Covid-19 cases and 61 deaths.
What else we are reading:
The impact of banning alcohol during Covid-19: BBC
Wealth of US billionaires rises by nearly a third during pandemic: The Guardian