New Delhi: With over 3,19,000 cases and more than 2,18,000 deaths, the novel coronavirus continues to wreak havoc across the world.
The pandemic is also accompanied by several risks including a possibility of turning into surveillance states as several countries are increasingly relying on technology and smartphone applications to track the infection, putting data privacy at serious peril. Covid-19 has also pushed Lebanon into chaos while in Brazil, it is still unclear how much damage the infection has done.
ThePrint brings you the most important global stories on the coronavirus pandemic and why they matter.
When unemployment pays more than actual work during Covid-19
In a startling find, the Wall Street Journal reports that at least half of US workers are being paid more by coronavirus relief packages than their actual jobs.
“Roughly half of all U.S. workers stand to earn more in unemployment benefits than they did at their jobs before the coronavirus pandemic shut down swaths of the U.S. economy, a result of government relief that employers say is complicating plans to reopen businesses,” notes the report.
The Journal adds that with so many workers making more money during the lockdown, US’ plan to gradually reopen the economy and return to work may now become more complicated. On a more fundamental level, this highlights the income inequality rampant in the county, which has also become a key focal point in US politics.
Also read: US reports more than a million Covid-19 cases, death toll nears 59,000-mark
Coronavirus apps: The risk of slipping into a surveillance state
A new long read in the Financial Times looks at how several states and technology giants are increasingly investing in smartphone applications that can help detect and trace the spread of the novel coronavirus. While these apps might perform a necessary immediate function, they raise some fundamental long-term risks regarding privacy and surveillance.
“Many nation states have their own ideas of how best to harness technology to stem the outbreak, including by monitoring their population’s detailed movements and building vast databases of information about their citizens,” notes the report.
“The core issue with the new apps is that there is a direct trade-off between how effective they might be in helping control new outbreaks and the potential invasion of privacy, whether that involves the type of information that is being used or the level of compulsion to use the technology,” it adds.
The man behind Trump’s new hawkish China policy
Matthew Pottinger, a former reporter with extensive reporting experience in China through the 1990s, is now the US deputy national security advisor and is driving Trump’s hard-line policy against China, reports the Washington Post.
Pottinger is, reportedly, the man responsible for urging Trump to start using the term “Wuhan virus”.
“The episode illustrates the quiet but potent influence of the White House’s foremost China expert, whose personal experience as a journalist in that country two decades ago left him deeply distrustful of the regime in Beijing and is now shaping the administration’s hard line posture,” the report notes.
Also read: How China is attempting to prevent a second wave of infections
How bad are things in Brazil?
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has come under a lot of domestic and international fire for his response to the coronavirus pandemic. In recent days, there have been reports of mass graves and a large number of Brazilian hospitals already having reached their limits. The country has over 68,000 cases of coronavirus.
To get a sense of how bad things really are in Brazil, New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner interviewed Sergio Davila, the Editor-in-Chief of Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil’s leading anti-establishment daily.
In the interview, Davila discusses “how Bolsonaro makes decisions, whether the political opposition can use his handling of the coronavirus crisis against him, and how Bolsonaro has been able to continue his war on the rain forest despite the pandemic”.
Coronavirus leads Lebanon into deeper chaos
Violent protests in Lebanon saw a major escalation Tuesday as demonstrators burned down a series of banks in the Tripoli and hurled stones at the security forces, reports Washington Post. This comes after the coronavirus pandemic has made a bad economic situation untenable in Lebanon.
The newspaper notes that even before the pandemic arrived, Lebanon had seen a rapidly deteriorating economy and consistent mass protests. Now with the coronavirus outbreak, the country’s currency has completely collapsed, which has been a major blow for already struggling businesses.
As coronavirus fears lessen, Hong Kong could see fresh round of protests
As coronavirus fears gradually decrease in Hong Kong, the city-state is now bracing itself for another wave of anti-establishment and pro-democracy protests, reports the South China Morning Post. Over most of 2019, Hong Kong saw sustained anti-Beijing protests and are said to have inspired a wave of anti-regime movements across the globe.
Now, with the coronavirus crisis seemingly contained on the island, it may be returning to making more fundamental demands from Beijing.
Also read: Trump rules out change in poll date, New Zealand to lift lockdown & other global Covid news
Coronavirus is creating new problems for Putin
During a sombre speech Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin extended the nationwide lockdown till 11 May and warned citizens that they had not yet witnessed the peak of the virus.
According to a report by the New Yorker, the coronavirus is now spreading through the country’s remote and deeply under-resourced arctic region.
There are also fears of coronavirus spreading to three nuclear cities that house the country’s nuclear arsenal, reports the Guardian. “The head of Russia’s state-run nuclear corporation has expressed concern about the spread of the new coronavirus to three ‘nuclear cities’, including one that houses a top-secret research institute that helped develop the Soviet atomic bomb,” it notes.
What else we are reading:
There’s no such thing as just ‘following the science’ — coronavirus advice is political: The Guardian
Authoritarians are using coronavirus for power grabs in Southeast Asia: Nikkie Asian Review
Africa’s coronavirus cases double in 2 weeks, but do low rates of testing hide an even bigger crisis?: South China Morning Post
The time when a New York Governor Disobeyed the Federal Government: Politico
Coronavirus Diplomacy: How China’s Red Cross Serves the Communist Party: The New York Times
Vietnam power struggle enters critical stretch after virus victory: Nikkei Asian Review