Registered in the Department of Posts of Sri Lanka under No: QD/146/News/2020

WEDNESDAYMAY 06, 2020VOL: 4 - ISSUE 356

30.

WHO SAYS IT HAS NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT ‘SPECULATIVE'

COVID-19 LAB THEORY

PAGE 02 HOT TOPICS PAGE 03 GLOCAL

THREE NEW COVID-19 CLUSTERS EMERGE FROM

COLOMBO AND KANDY AS 9TH FATALITY IS CONFIRMED

PAGE 04 COMMENTARY

HOPE AND WORRY MINGLE AS COUNTRIES RELAX CORONAVIRUS

LOCKDOWNS

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India: Officials in New Delhi im-pose a special tax of 70% on retail liquor purchases to deter large gatherings at stores as authorities ease a six-week lockdown imposed to slow the spread of the corona-virus.

France: Experts say a study by French scientists which suggests a man was infected with COVID-19 as early as Dec. 27, nearly a month before the country confirmed its first cases, could be important in assessing when and where the new coronavirus emerged.

Asia: Coronavirus cases in the re-gions rises to a quarter of a million, driven by outbreaks in Singapore, Pakistan and India, even as China, South Korea and Japan significant-ly slow the spread of the disease.Palestine: Scrambling to tackle COVID-19 in camps across the Middle East, the UN agency sup-porting refugees in the country says it only has enough cash to op-erate until the end of May because of American funding cuts.Ecuador: One of the country’s indigenous communities fears it

could be wiped out as coronavi-rus infections rise in its territory, prompting dozens of its members to flee into the Amazon rainfor-est for shelter from the pandemic which has killed nearly 1,600 in the country.Germany: The country’s top dis-ease control official warns that second and third waves of novel coronavirus infections are likely on the horizon.Syria: A war monitor says over-night strikes on positions held by Iranian-backed militias and their

allies in eastern Syria have killed 14 fighters.

Yemen: The Huthi rebels an-nounce the first coronavirus death in Sanaa, which they control, stok-ing new fears of a major outbreak in the war-torn country.

Bangladesh: Rights groups and aid agencies raise concerns after dozens of stranded Rohingya refu-gees, who landed at the southern coast at the weekend, were sent to an inhabitable island in the Bay of Bengal.

Migrant labourers in face masks cy-cle in a row in Allahabad yesterday (5), as they make their way to Patna from Delhi, during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavi-rus. Migrant labourers in Indian cities whose incomes have plum-meted as a result of anti-coronavirus

lockdown measures have been told that they will have to pay to board special trains taking them back to their homes in the countryside. The decision has prompted derision in India, where most labourers live off what they earn in a day and have been surviving on state handouts. Since the lockdown was imposed on March 25, an estimated 10 million

labourers have been trapped in the company of strangers in cities across India, with no work or income and a long way from the comfort of home and family. With public transport shut down, many labourers walked and cycled hundreds of miles to their homes in a massive reverse migration. Those who remained have been sequestered in govern-

ment shelters. As time has gone by and the lockdown, which was meant to end last Monday (April 26), has been extended a third time, they have run out of money to recharge their phones, snapping their last tie to their families. Meanwhile the gov-ernment has arranged special flights to bring home affluent Indians who were stranded abroad

-SANJAY KANOJIA / AFP

NEW DELHI - India has em-barked on a ‘massive’ operation calling up passenger jets and naval ships to bring back some of the hun-dreds of thousands of its nationals stuck abroad due to coronavirus re-strictions, the government said yes-terday (5).

India banned all incoming inter-national flights in late March as it imposed one of the world's strict-est virus lockdowns, leaving vast numbers of workers and students stranded.

Two ships were steaming towards the Maldives' capital Male to evacu-ate some 1,000 citizens from Friday (8), the navy said in a statement late yesterday. A defence spokesman

told AFP a third vessel was heading to the United Arab Emirates - home to a 3.3-million-strong Indian com-munity, who make up around 30% of the Gulf state's population.

A government statement said re-patriation flights would start bring-ing nationals home from Thursday (7), and that Indian embassies and high commissions were preparing lists of "distressed Indian citizens."

But to the anger of some of those abroad, the evacuees will have to pay for their passage, the statement said, and spend 14 days in quaran-tine on arrival.

"COVID test would be done after 14 days and further action would be taken according to health pro-

tocols," it added. The consulate in Dubai said that it alone had received almost 200,000 applications, ap-pealing on Twitter for "patience and cooperation" as India undertakes the "massive task" of repatriation.

The oil-rich Gulf is reliant on the cheap labour of millions of for-eigners - mostly from India, Paki-stan, Nepal and Sri Lanka - many of whom live in squalid camps far from the region's showy skyscrap-ers and malls.

But coronavirus and the devas-tating economic impact of the pan-demic has left many workers sick and others unemployed, unpaid and at the mercy of sometimes unscru-pulous employers.

It has also blown a large hole in remittances sent back to India from its workers abroad, which totalled almost $80 billion in 2018, accord-ing to the World Bank.

According to the civil aviation ministry, around 14,800 people will be taken back on 64 flights from 12 countries, with the first leaving the UAE and Qatar on Thursday. Other flights will leave Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as London, San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Washington. The flights will bring an average of 2,000 people back to various Indian destinations every day for a week, according to the foreign ministry.

-AFP

India embarks on ‘massive' coronavirus repatriation

COVID-19 and curfew in Sri Lanka • Sri Lanka recorded its ninth COVID-19 death yesterday (t). The health ministry identified the deceased as a 52-year-old female from Colombo 15 who had been receiving treatment at the Intensive Care Unit of the Infectious Disease Hospi-tal, Angogda. • Fourteen people were confirmed as COVID-19 positive yesterday (5), taking Sri Lanka’s tally of the novel corona-virus infection to 765. 543 individuals are receiving treat-ment, 213 have been deemed completely recovered. • Around 1200 persons from a multi-storey housing scheme in Modara, have been put on self-quarantine, following the confirmation of a COVID-19 patient who became the 9th fa-tality. Fifteen members of the deceased’s family have been sent to a quarantine centre.• Countrywide curfew to be imposed from 8:00 p.m. today (6) until Monday (11)• Curfew in the districts of Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara and Puttalam to continue until further notice.• Sri Lankans stranded in Europe, Canada and the US, along with 194 students from the UK to be repatriated in a flight scheduled to arrive fromthe UK today.• Ministry of Education says no decision has been taken to reopen schools on June 1.• Civilian life in the districts of Colombo, Gampaha, Kalu-tara and Puttalam to resume on Monday• The Election Commission has initiated discussion with the health authorities to formulate a manual of guidelines to conduct the parliamentary elections in a COVID- 19 con-tained environment instead of waiting for its total eradica-tion.• Those with suspected COVID-19 symptoms are urged to call 1390 - emergency hotline- set up for free medical advice and assistance, and to facilitate hospital admissions.

Coronavirus toll

Study reveals

PARIS - The novel coronavirus has killed at least 251,512 people since the outbreak first emerged in China last De-cember, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT yesterday (5).

More than 3,595,970 cases were registered in 195 coun-tries and territories. Of these, at least 1,104,600 are now considered recovered. The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.

Many countries are testing only the most serious cases.The United States has the highest number of total deaths

with 68,934 out of 1,180,634 cases. At least 187,180 have been declared recovered. Italy has the second highest toll with 29,079 deaths out of 211,938 cases, followed by Brit-ain with 28,734 deaths from 190,584 cases, Spain 25,613 deaths and 219,329 cases and France with 25,201 deaths and 169,462 cases.

China - excluding Hong Kong and Macau - has to date declared 4,633 deaths and 82,881 cases. It has 77,853 re-covered cases. Europe has a total of 145,612 deaths from 1,583,788 cases, the United States and Canada have 72,897 deaths and 1,241,406 cases, Latin America and the Carib-bean have 14,415 deaths and 272,061 cases, Asia has 9,506 deaths and 252,541 cases, the Middle East has 7,115 deaths and 191,152 cases, Africa has 1,843 deaths from 46,857 cas-es, and Oceania 124 deaths from 8,174 cases.

Please note that due to corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24-hour period may not correspond exactly to the previous day's tallies.

-AFP

251,512 deaths at 1100 GMT yesterday

LONDON - Britain has over-taken Italy to report the highest official death toll from corona-virus in Europe with more than 32,000 deaths, figures released yesterday (5) showed.

The high death toll could increase political pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who waited longer than other European leaders to order a lockdown to curb the spread of the virus in March.

Weekly figures from Britain’s national statistics office added more than 7,000 deaths in Eng-land and Wales, raising the to-tal for the United Kingdom to 32,313.

The figure is one of several methods for calculating deaths and difficult to compare with other countries, but it offers the clearest sign yet that Britain

could emerge as the worst-hit country in Europe, despite be-ing hit later than other coun-tries.

Opposition parties have raised questions about John-son’s initial decision to delay a lockdown at a time when hospi-tals in Italy were already being overrun.

They also say his government was too slow to introduce mass testing and provide enough pro-tective equipment to hospitals.

The true figure for deaths from coronavirus may be even higher. The Office of National Statistics said 33,593 more peo-ple had died than average up to April 24 in England and Wales, compared to 27,365 cases in which coronavirus was men-tioned on the death certificates.

-Agencies

Britain outpaces Italy with Europe's highest official coronavirus death toll

LONDON-The human cost of the climate crisis will hit harder, wider and sooner than previously believed, according to a study that shows a billion people will either be displaced or forced to endure insufferable heat for every additional 1C rise in the global temperature.

In a worst-case scenario of accelerating emissions, areas currently home to a third of the world’s population will be as hot as the hottest parts of the Sahara within 50 years, the paper warns. Even in the most optimistic outlook, 1.2 billion people will fall outside the comfortable “climate niche” in which humans have thrived for at least 6,000 years.

The authors of the study said they were “floored” and “blown away” by the findings because they had not expected our species to be so vulnerable.

Instead of looking at climate change as a problem of physics or eco-nomics, the paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Acad-emy of Sciences, examines how it affects the human habitat.

The vast majority of humanity has always lived in regions where the average annual temperatures are around 6C (43F) to 28C (82F), which is ideal for human health and food production. But this sweet spot is shifting and shrinking as a result of manmade global heating, which drops more people into what the authors describe as “near un-livable” extremes.

-The Guardian

NEW YORK - Pfizer and the Ger-man pharmaceutical company BioN-Tech announced their potential cor-onavirus vaccine began human trials in the United States on Monday (4). If the tests are successful, the vac-cine could be ready for emergency use here as early as September.

The two firms are jointly develop-ing a vaccine candidate based on ge-netic material known as messenger RNA, which carries the instructions for cells to make proteins. By inject-ing a specially designed messenger RNA into the body, the vaccine could potentially tell cells how to make the spike protein of the coronavirus without actually making a person sick.

Because the virus typically uses this protein as a key to unlock and take over lung cells, the vaccine could train a healthy immune sys-

tem to produce antibodies to fight off an infection. The technology also has the advantage of being faster to produce, and tends to be more stable than traditional vaccines, which use weakened virus strains.

Moderna, Inovio, CanSino and several other pharmaceutical com-panies are trying similar approaches, some of which began the first phase of tests in humans a few weeks ago. But no vaccine made with this tech-nology for other viruses has ever reached the global market.

Pfizer, which is based in New York, and BioNTech injected the first hu-man volunteers with their vaccine candidate, called BNT162, in Ger-many last month. The experimen-tal shot was given to just 12 healthy adults, although the trial will eventu-ally expand to 200 participants.

-NYT

One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years

Pfizer begins human trials of possible coronavirus vaccine

-Mencius

2 WEDNESDAY, MAY 06, 2020 DAILY EXPRESS

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Eileen SullivanBy Joseph Goldstein

HOT TOPICS

GENEVA- The World Health Or-ganization says the United States government has not given any evi-dence to support Trump administra-tion officials’ “speculative” claim that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab, as China dismissed the theory as “in-sane.”

Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he has proof the virus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan – whereas scientists believe it jumped from ani-mals to humans at a wet market in the city last year.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said on Sunday (3) that the US had “enormous evidence” to back the theory. But the administration had not produced it publicly or provided it to the WHO, said its emergencies di-rector, Dr Michael Ryan. “So from our perspective, this remains speculative.

“Like any evidence-based organiza-tion, we would be very willing to re-ceive any information that purports to the origin of the virus,” Ryan said, stressing that this was “a very impor-tant piece of public health information for future control.”

“If that data and evidence is availa-ble, then it will be for the United States government to decide whether and when it can be shared, but it is difficult for the WHO to operate in an informa-tion vacuum in that regard.”

Ryan said it was important for the WHO to learn from Chinese scientists’ data and exchange knowledge to “find the answers together,” but cautioned against politicising the issue. “If this is projected as aggressive investigation of wrongdoing that is much more difficult to deal with. That’s a political issue,” he said.

Chinese State media attacked the US claims, with the State broadcaster CCTV labelling them “insane and eva-

sive” in a Monday (4) opinion piece en-titled ‘Evil Pompeo wants only to spew poison and spread lies.’ The State-backed Global Times also published an editorial accusing Pompeo and Trump of “bluffing,” and said if the US had evi-dence it should present it.

“If Washington has solid evidence, then it should let research institutes and scientists examine and verify it,” the editorial said. The Global Times’ editor, Hu Xijin, tweeted that demands to investigate the Wuhan lab were an attempt to “fool the American people.”

Intelligence sources have told the Guardian there is no current evidence to suggest coronavirus leaked from a Chinese research laboratory. Reports in Australia suggested its intelligence officials believed a “dossier” – touted by the Trump administration to sup-port the laboratory theory – was com-piled from news reports rather than actual material from the ‘Five Eyes’ spy network of Australia, the US, New Zealand, Canada and the UK.

The US’s senior infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, has said the available evidence was “very, very strongly leaning toward this [virus] could not have been artificially or de-liberately manipulated”.

The WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, stressed during Monday’s briefing that there were some 15,000 full genome sequences of the novel coronavirus available, and “from all of the evidence that we have seen ... this virus is of nat-ural origin.”

While coronaviruses generally origi-nate in bats, both Van Kerkhove and Ryan stressed the importance of dis-covering how the virus that causes COVID-19 crossed over to humans, and what animal served as an “inter-mediary host” along the way. Several

nations, including Australia and the UK, have called for an independent in-vestigation into the outbreak, angering China.

Scott Morrison, the prime minister of key US ally, Australia, said yester-day (5) it was “most likely” that the virus originated in a wildlife wet mar-ket. Australia is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence network that includes the US. Morrison reiterated his call for an independent investigation into the virus’s origins and said he had written to G20 leaders asking for support for a “proper review.”

Citing an internal Chinese govern-ment report yesterday, the Reuters news agency reported international anti-China sentiment was at its high-est since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

According to the report, which Reu-ters said was presented in early March to top Beijing leaders including the president, Xi Jinping, the global hos-tility could tip US-China relations into confrontation once the pandemic was over.

Around the world infection numbers and fatalities have continued to rise. The death toll has passed a quarter of a million globally, and the US’ daily toll is projected to double by June to 3,000 “based on modelling by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

By yesterday morning the United Kingdom was approaching the death toll of Italy with 28,734 fatalities re-corded. So far at least 29,079 people in Italy have died of COVID-19 – the second most globally after the US – al-though it is believed by experts that the true death toll is higher.

-The Guardian

US quietly fears virus daily toll will soon double WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump presses states to reopen their econo-mies, his administration is privately project-ing a steady rise in coronavirus infections and deaths over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1 — nearly double the current level.

The projections, based on data collected by various agencies, including the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and laid out in an internal document obtained Monday (4) by The New York Times, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of May, up from about 30,000 cases now. There are currently about 1,750 deaths per day, the data shows. They are not the only ones fore-casting more carnage. Another model, closely watched by the White House, raised its fatality projections on Monday to more than 134,000 American deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, by early August. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evalu-ation at the University of Washington more than doubled its previous projection of about 60,000 total deaths, an increase that it said partly reflects “changes in mobility and social distancing policies.”

The numbers underscore a sobering reality: While the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, the prognosis has not markedly improved. As states reopen — many without meeting White House guide-lines that call for a steady decline in corona-virus cases or in the number of people testing positive over a 14-day period — the cost of the shift is likely to be tallied in funerals.

“There remains a large number of counties whose burden continues to grow,” the CDC warned, alongside a map that offered a de-tailed view of the growth of the pandemic.

The projections amplify the primary fear of public health experts: that a reopening of the economy will put the nation right back where it was in mid-March, when cases were rising so rapidly in some parts of the country that patients were dying on gurneys in hospital hallways amid overloaded health systems.

Under the White House’s reopening plan, called ‘Opening Up America Again,’ states considering relaxing stay-at-home policies are supposed to show a ‘downward trajecto-ry’ either in the number of new infections or positive tests as a per cent of total tests over 14 days, and a ‘robust testing program’ for at-risk health care workers.

In New York, where the number of overall cases is declining, a cautious-sounding Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Monday that the state would monitor four “core factors” to determine if a region is ready to reopen: the number of new infections; the capacity of the health care system; the testing capacity; and the capacity for “contract tracing” to identify people exposed to those who test positive.

“While we continue to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus, we can begin to focus on reopening, but we have to be careful and use the information we’ve learned so we don’t erase the strides we’ve already made,” Cuomo said. “Reopening is not going to happen state-wide all at once.”

Nationally, 27 states had loosened social distancing restrictions in some way as of Mon-day, and others had announced changes that will take effect in the coming weeks, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Founda-tion.

But only 19 of those states meet the caseload or testing criteria set out by the Trump admin-istration.

The remaining seven — Indiana, Iowa, Kan-sas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska and Wyoming — are still showing a rise in daily infections and positive tests, but have moved toward reopening anyway.

If anything, the administration’s projec-tions are too optimistic, forecasting experts said Monday. In the projections, the num-ber of actual deaths for one of the last days in April turned out to be slightly lower than what the model showed. But for much of April and parts of May, actual deaths were some 10 times higher than the model predicted.

Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epi-demiology at the University of California, San Francisco, noted that the government’s model has already come in below reported deaths from COVID-19, and that death toll is not counting deaths not officially recorded. “Re-member,” he said, “these are reported deaths; the true number is likely higher.”

In the absence of a national policy to slow the virus, state officials have been left to an-swer a wrenching question: How many deaths are acceptable?

The White House distanced itself from the projections, saying the document, dated May 2, was not produced by or presented to the president’s coronavirus task force, which does its own modelling.

“The data is not reflective of any of the mod-elling done by the task force or data that the task force has analysed,” Judd Deere, Trump’s deputy press secretary, told reporters on Monday.

On Sunday (3), the president offered his own projections, saying that deaths in the United States could reach 100,000, twice as many as he had forecast only two weeks ago. But that figure falls short of what his own ad-ministration is now predicting to be the total death toll by the end of May — much less in the months that follow. It follows a pattern for Trump, who has frequently understated the effect of the disease.

“We’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people,” he said in a virtual town hall on Fox News. “That’s a horrible thing. We shouldn’t lose one person over this.”

Public health experts and epidemiologists say they were not surprised by the administra-tion’s numbers. Many do not expect the virus to slow down until 60-70% of the population is infected, creating what experts call “herd immunity.”

-New York Times

People wear face masks as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus as they use a phone app to scan a code required to prove their health and travel status before being allowed to enter a shopping mall in Beijing on Saturday (2), the second day of a five-day national holiday

-GREG BAKER / AFP

NEW YORK — Fifteen children, many of whom had the coronavirus, have recently been hospitalized in New York City with a mysterious syndrome that doctors do not yet fully understand but that has also been re-ported in several European countries, health officials announced Monday (4) night.

Many of the children, ages 2 to 15, have shown symptoms associated with toxic shock or Kawasaki disease, a rare illness in children that involves inflammation of the blood vessels, including coronary arteries, the city’s health department said.

None of the New York City patients with the syndrome have died, according to a bul-letin from the health department, which de-scribes the illness as a “multisystem inflam-matory syndrome potentially associated with COVID-19.”

Reached late Monday night, the state health commissioner, Dr. Howard A. Zuck-er, said state officials were also investigating the unexplained syndrome. The syndrome has received growing attention in recent weeks as cases began appearing in European countries hit hard by the coronavirus.

“There are some recent rare descriptions of children in some European countries that have had this inflammatory syndrome, which is similar to the Kawasaki syndrome, but it seems to be very rare,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, a World Health Organization sci-entist, said at a news briefing last week.

It was not immediately known whether children in other parts of the United States have come down with this illness. New York City has been the centre of the pandemic.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the coro-navirus, tends to be much more dangerous for older people and those with underlying health conditions. Children are less likely to become seriously ill than adults. But some do. In New York City, six children have died of COVID-19, according to data from the health department.

Reports of children sick with the unex-plained syndrome in New York City have been circulating for several days, but Mon-day’s bulletin was the first time the city’s health authorities warned doctors to be on the lookout for patients who might have it.

The bulletin said that most of the 15 chil-dren had a fever and many had a rash, vom-iting or diarrhoea. Since being hospitalized, five of them have needed a mechanical ven-tilator to help them breathe, and most of the 15 “required blood pressure support.”

“The full spectrum of disease is not yet known,” the bulletin said. Of the 15 patients, most either tested positive for the coronavi-rus or were found, through antibody testing, to likely have been previously infected.

The city’s health commissioner, Dr.OxirisBarbot, said in a statement: “Even though the relationship of this syndrome to COVID-19 is not yet defined, and not all of these cases have tested positive for COV-ID-19 by either DNA test or serology, the clinical nature of this virus is such that we are asking all providers to contact us im-mediately if they see patients who meet the criteria we’ve outlined.”

“And to parents,” she added, “if your child has symptoms like fever, rash, abdomi-nal pain or vomiting, call your doctor right away.”

Conjunctivitis, or inflammation of the eye, and swollen lymph nodes are also symptoms of Kawasaki disease.

The health department identified the 15 patients by contacting hospital paediatric intensive care units across the city in recent days. “Only severe cases may have been rec-ognized at this time,” the bulletin said.

The 15 patients were all hospitalized on or after April 17.

WNBC-TV previously reported that Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital had treated some patients believed to have this syndrome — and that some had developed heart problems and low blood pressure.

Zucker, the state health commissioner, was asked last week about reports of toxic shock in younger patients. On Monday night, he reiterated that state health officials were aware of multiple cases of this syndrome in New York City hospitals, and that he had spoken with medical providers state-wide about it. Zucker said the state health depart-ment was also looking at possible Kawasaki cases in children and adolescents in Europe, which were the subject of an international webinar last weekend.

“So far, from what we understand, this is a rare complication in the paediatric popu-lation that they believe is related to COV-ID-19,” Zucker said, adding, “We are follow-ing it very closely.”

-New York Times

WHO says it has no evidence to support ‘speculative' COVID-19 lab theory

15 children are hospitalized with mysterious illness possibly tied to COVID-19

X Æ A-12 Musk

BERLIN - Tesla founder Elon Musk an-nounced the birth of his sixth child late on Monday (4) amid a Twitter conversation with a follower.

"Mom & baby all good," he wrote on Twitter amid a conversation with someone who follows his posts. When asked about the child, he would only say it was a boy. When asked about the name, he wrote "X Æ A-12 Musk."

He did not state the name of the mother, but he has long been linked to Canadian singer Grimes in US media. She has ap-peared to be pregnant in recent photo-graphs.

It would be the couple's first child. Musk has five children from a previous marriage.

-dpa

Tesla founder Elon Musk announces birth of son on Twitter

Unexplained syndrome in New York

MANILA - ABS-CBN, the Philip-pines' largest television network, has been ordered to cease operations after President Rodrigo Duterte's al-lies in Congress refused to renew the station's 25-year licence.

In an order issued yesterday (5), the government agency tasked with awarding broadcasting licences said "absent a valid Congressional Fran-chise, as required by law", the net-work should stop its various televi-sion and radio operations.

The National Telecommunica-tions Commission (NTC) said ABS-CBN's licence expired on May 4 and gave the station 10 days to respond.

In an interview with ABS-CBN's radio station, DZMM, NTC Deputy Commissioner Edgardo Cabarios said that the order is "immediately executory", and Department of Jus-tice Secretary MenardoGuevarra af-firmed the legal opinion.

In a statement, which was first read on-air over DZMM, the ABS-CBN management said that it will abide by the order and will stop op-eration by the end of Tuesday.

After ABS-CBN files its response within the next 10 days, a hearing will be scheduled as soon as the coronavirus emergency lockdown in Metro Manila and other areas of the country is lifted.

On Sunday (3), Duterte's Solic-itor-General Jose Calida issued a statement warning the NTC of pros-ecution if it did not carry out the clo-sure order.

Calida, the top government law-yer, said there was no legal basis to give the company even a provisional licence as it awaited approval from Congress, which resumed its ses-sion on Monday after a recess. In a speech at the House of Representa-tives on Tuesday, Congress member Arlene Brosas denounced the order as a "brazen clampdown of the free-

dom of the press." Danilo Arao, jour-nalism professor at the University of the Philippines, said that NTC's decision reflects that limits of its in-dependence as a government body under the office of the president.

"This closure order is clearly an at-tack on press freedom and we should confront this head on. The adminis-tration should be exposed as the real enemy of press freedom," he said.

Since becoming president in June 2016, Duterte repeatedly expressed his disdain towards the television network, which is owned by one of the richest families in the Philip-pines.

Duterte claimed that ABS-CBN re-fused to run his political advertise-ments during the campaign season - allegations denied by the network.

ABS-CBN's coverage of Duterte's so-called war on drugs, which has killed thousands of people, also an-gered the Philippine president.

On many occasions, Duterte has threatened to block the renewal of the network's franchise, while sug-gesting the owners should sell the company to break the impasse. At the same time, he insisted his hand-picked leaders in Congress were free to decide on the issue.

Calida, the solicitor-general, maintained that the NTC has no power to issue any such licence to ABS-CBN, citing provisions in the Philippine Constitution which, he said, gave Congress "exclusive pow-ers."

In a statement yesterday, the Na-tional Union of Journalists of the Philippines denounced the "das-tardly move" of the Duterte admin-istration.

"All this stems from President Rodrigo Duterte's personal vendetta against the network, whose fran-chise renewal he pledged to block.

-Al Jazeera

Philippines largest TV network ordered shut Venezuela claims 2

Americans among those captured

Failed invasion

CARACAS- President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela said on Monday (4) that two US citizens were among 13 ‘terrorists’ captured by authorities in connection with what offi-cials have called a failed plot to invade the country and topple his government.

Reuters reported that in a state television address, Maduro showed what he said were the passports and other identification cards of Airan Berry and Luke Denman, whom he described as employees of Silvercorp, a Flor-ida-based security company whose owner has claimed responsibility for the failed in-cursion on Sunday.

The Silvercorp owner, Jordan Goudreau, a retired Green Beret, and a retired Ven-ezuelan army captain, Javier Nieto, said in a video posted on social media that ‘Opera-tion Gedeon’had been successfully launched “deep into the heart of Caracas.” They added that other armed cells had been activated throughout the country.

There was no evidence of fighting in Ca-racas or elsewhere in Venezuela after the reported incursion, which officials said had been repulsed. Maduro and his officials have denounced dozens of what they said were coup and assassination attempts in re-cent years as the economy has sunk deeper into crisis and millions of Venezuelans have fled the country. Some of the assertions later proved to be true, while others were never independently verified.

Kay Denman, the mother of one of the captured Americans, told The Associated Press that the last time she heard from her son was a few weeks ago when he texted her from an undisclosed location to ask how she was coping with the coronavirus pandemic. She said she never heard her son discuss Venezuela and only learned of his possible capture there after his friends called when they saw the reports on social media.

-New York Times

By Helen Davidson

E press e spapers ey vt td185, Grandpass Road, Colombo 14, Sri LankaTelephone: 0117 322 705 (Editorial) 0117 322 731 (Advertising)0117 322 789 (Circulation)Email – editor.dailyexpress@encl.lk/weekendexpress@encl.lk Epaper - http://epaper.newsexpress.lkFacebook –News Express Sri Lanka

3 DAILY EXPRESS

GLOCALWEDNESDAY, MAY 06, 2020

COLOMBO - Two new clusters of COV-ID 19 positive patients have emerged in the Colombo District and another cluster from Kandy yesterday (5), as the country recorded its 9th fatality.

Officials identified the deceased as a 52-year old woman from Colombo 15, who had been receiving treatment at the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH), An-goda, at the time of her death.

They said the patient had been sick from an unknown respiratory ailment for around a month and had been admitted to the National Hospital in Colombo on April 26 before being transferred to the IDH late Monday (4) night.

She had tested positive shortly before passing away around 1: 30 a.m. yesterday morning.

The Colombo Municipal Medical officer of Health said the woman had been liv-ing on the 13th floor of a block of flats in Colombo 15, with her husband and five children, who are now under quarantine. A number of people whom she had asso-ciated with were also quarantined yester-day.

The number of COVID-19 related deaths had stayed steady at seven for many weeks before the two fatalities were recorded, literally back-to-back. On Monday (4) a 72-year-old woman with

a kidney condition passed away at the Homagama hospital where a separate section to house COVID-19 patients has been established.

Meanwhile, Army Commander Lt. Gen. Shavindra Silva said two new clusters of patients had been identified from Rajag-iriya and Modera, with a person described as a drug addict and a three-wheeler driv-er, testing positive for COVID-19 from Kolonnawa and Rajagiriya respectively, yesterday. Investigations are on to get more details of the third person.

Fifty-six people have reportedly been sent to quarantine from Modera and Ra-jagiriya after the positive cases were di-

agnosed. Officials said the third cluster was from Kolabissa in the Kandy District, where an infected naval officer had been on holiday. Sixty seven people he had as-sociated with have been quarantined.

Lt. Gen. Silva said 138 persons from Rajagiriya, Kolonnawaand Kolabissa had been sent to quarantine centres following the detection of one COVID-19 positive patients in each area.

The number tested positive for the disease rocketed up from 199 to 760 in the last 23 days with the largest number emerging from the Sri Lanka Navy’s Wel-isara camp.

-ENCL/economynext.com

Three new COVID-19 clusters emerge from Colombo and Kandy as 9th fatality is confirmed

COLOMBO - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is continuing discussions with Sri Lanka on emergency supports as the island bat-tles a coronavirus crisis, amidst tighter external conditions and debt repayments.

In April the central bank asked for IMF sup-port under its Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI), while an existing reform-backed Extend-ed Fund Facility, which would have improved state finances, was in abeyance pending the last review. Sri Lanka has asked the IMF whether the existing program, which analysts say had been de-railed by tax cuts announced in Janu-ary, could be switched to the RFI.

“We will work in close coordination with the authorities to assess all relevant conditions,” an IMF spokesperson said.

“The authorities have also expressed inter-est in a range of options for future engagement with the Fund, and in this context, we are dis-cussing the authorities’ intension to replace the EFF arrangement with the RFI,” the spokes-person elaborated, adding that the program is designed for situations where a full-fledged economic program is either not necessary or feasible.

“The former situation may arise when the shock is transitory and limited in nature, while the latter may arise when the member’s policy design or implementation capacity is limited, including due to the urgent nature of the bal-ance of payments need or to fragilities,” the IMF said. It also said a country can borrow up to 100% of its quota under the RFI, after it was doubled in response to the coronavirus crisis

Sri Lanka’s quota is US$ 578.8 million spe-cial drawing rights or about US$ 794 million.

The central bank had already borrowed about 952 million SDR (about US$ 1.3 billion) from the IMF for support over previous balance of payments crises.

Though IMF loans go to the central bank, the agency could sell its reserves to the Treasury to repay foreign loans and avoid sovereign de-fault. Sri Lanka’s gross foreign reserves are now a little over US$ 7.0 billion.

The central bank has taken the country to the IMF, 16 times since it became a member on August 29, 1950, a day after the soft-peg with money printing powers, which could generate balance of payments troubles was set up.

-economynext.com

COLOMBO– Sri Lanka’s rupee was quoted around 188.25/188.50 to the US dollar in one week forwards in intra-day trade but weakened to 189.00/189.50 in late afternoon trade yes-terday (5), dealers said with trimmed net open positions contributing to volatility.

There was no active trading in the spot mar-ket.

Central bank data yesterday showed that banks were buying dollars from telegraphic transfers at an average rate of Rs 185.81 and were selling at Rs 191.70.

The rupee steadied from wildly erratic trading after the central bank intervened to strengthen the peg after printing money, despite weak pri-vate credit.

On Thursday (April 30) the one week dollar slipped as some banks bought dollars, deal-ers said. The regulator cut net open positions of several banks earlier in April, after printing money, which tends to reduce depth in the mar-ket and increase the volatility of the peg.

However, with a two month lockdown in place domestic sales of goods and consumption has come down, reducing import demand.

Sri Lanka also slapped import controls and exchange controls as large volumes of money was printed to target call money rates put pres-sure on the rupee.

In the secondary bond market yields edged up in moderate trading, dealers said with li-quidity centred on 2024 maturities.

A bond maturing on 15.12.2021 was quoted at 7.30/45% flat from Monday (4), while a 2-year bond maturing on 01.10.2022 closed at 8.80/8.85% up from 8.00/05% from yester-day’s close and a bond maturing on 01.09.2023 closed at 8.30/40.

A bond maturing on 15.09.2024 closed at 8.73/80% yesterday up from 8.70/75% Thurs-day, while a bond maturing on 15.10.2027 closed at 9.00/9.10, unchanged from 9.00/9.05 on Monday.

-economynext.com

COLOMBO – Sri Lanka Tourism has asked an estimated 11,389 tourists and expatriates in the country to register at an online support centre which will provide updates on coronavirus and assistance.

Sri Lanka Tourism had already set up a 24 hour call centre to assist tourists with air tickets and travel to airport during curfew.

The ‘Tourist & Expatriate Support Centre’ at www.register.sltda.gov.lk which will provide live updates on COVID-19 and essential travel information and assistance, Sri Lanka Tourism said. The website was developed by TekGeeks (Pvt) Ltd, a Colombo-based technology firm under the guidance of Sri Lanka’s ICT Agency. TekGeeks also built the ContactSriLanka portal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Sri Lan-kans abroad.

According to immigration data there were 11,389 tourists in the county as of Monday (4).

Sri Lanka Tourism Chairperson Kimarli Fer-nando said there was no mechanism to track tourists in Sri Lanka up to now.

Registration will allow the agency to reach out and provide assistance during emergencies and also be a database on expatriates and busi-nessmen in the longer term, she said.

-economynext.com

Sri Lanka, IMF continuing talks for emergency support over COVID-19 crisis

Rupee weaker against greenback on one week forwards

Govt. asks 11,000 tourists and expats to register at online support centre

Workers and families stranded in Colombo, register with police personnel at a public ground in Mirihana, some 10 kilometres from Colombo, before boarding special buses organized by Sri Lanka police to travel back to their hometowns yesterday (5). The district of Colombo has been locked down with an indefinite curfew since March24, as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus

A representative from Huawei hands over a document to a representative of the Sri Lankan government at a handing-over ceremony of hi-tech equipment in Colombo on Monday (4)

- J. Sujeewakumar/ENCL

-Xinhua

COLOMOBO - Sri Lanka will re-impose a countrywide curfew from 8:00 p.m. to-day (6) until May 11, while curfews will continue indefinitely in the red zones of Colombo, Kaluthara, Gampaha and Put-talam, the president’s office said.

But work will begin in the red zones on May 11 at 10:00 a.m in the curfew dis-tricts with only the minimum number of persons required reporting to offices and places of business.

“While curfew is still in force civilian life in the districts of Colombo, Gampa-ha, Kalutara and Puttalam will resume from Monday, the May 11,” the presi-dent’s office said in a statement.

“Although this plan was scheduled to be implemented from May 4, due to four holidays falling this week it was extend-ed till May 11,” the statement said.

Sri Lanka is celebrating Vesak, a Bud-dhist holiday this week. The holiday is usually marked by colourfully illumi-nated lanterns and pandals which draw large crowds in the evenings. In the red zones, where indefinite curfews are in force, people going out for shopping and other requirements should do so based on the last digit of their identity card, it said, adding that the requirement does not apply to persons reporting for work.

-economynext.com

COLOMBO– Sri Lanka Retailers’ Asso-ciation (SLRA) which represents clothing, consumer durables, footwear, fashion and jewellery as well as fast moving consumer goods, have appealed to landlords to cut their rents in half.

“The ongoing lockdown has drastically limited all retailers’ ability to operate their respective outlets,” SLRA President SidathKodikara said in an appeal. He said the lockdown had resulted in more than an 85% drop in revenues across all retail establishments and sectors, adding, “This significant drop in revenue has resulted in losses for all retailers; and currently all our members are struggling to stay afloat.” Most clothing and electronic shops as well as restaurants have been closed for al-

most two months in the Western province, though in other areas, they have opened sporadically. Only grocery shops which are doing delivery have been able to get sales. Some pharmacies are open.

“We make this request fully understand-ing the impact this may have on landlords or lessors,” Kodikara said.

“However, this is an urgent need for re-tail industry -an industry which employs more than 15% of the work force.”

SLRA now represents FMCG; Clothing, Fashion &Jewellery; Shelter & Housing; Household & Consumer Durables; Foot-wear & Accessories; E-Commerce; Mobil-ity; Entertainment, Restaurant and QSR; Healthcare & Wellness.

-economynext.com

Country-wide curfew from today till MondayWork in all red zones from May 11

Soldier who collapsed in Damublla

Department of Immigration and Emigration agrees on

COLOMBO - Five Sri Lankans have contracted the novel coronavirus in Ro-mania, the Romanian media reported on Monday (4).

The Sri Lankans had been employed at a local company in Tărtășești, a commune in the Dâmbovița County in southern Romania.

Quoting officials, reports said 1,019 tests had been performed in Dâmboviţa County since beginning of the pandem-ic, and as of Monday, 112 cases had been confirmed as COVID-19 positive, five of them in Tărtășești, all of who are Sri

Lankans. Reports quoting officials said the Sri Lankans have been in contact with 27 people, all of who are under ob-servation.

Of the cases testing positive in the Dâmbovița County, 32 had recovered, 73 are under strict medical supervision, and seven people had died, with the last death recorded on Monday, reports said.

Reports also said the Romanian com-pany had been imposed a fine for failing to prevent the virus from spreading in the premises.

-ENCL

Five Sri Lankans contract coronavirus in Romania

Cause of death unknown

Retailers appeal for 50% rent cut as most shops closed

COLOMBO - Modalities to issue temporary travel documents to un-documented workers abroad follow-ing proper authentication procedures has been agreed upon by the Depart-ment of Immigration and Emigration. This follows consultations between the Ministry of Foreign Relations, Min-istry of Skills Development, Employ-ment and Labour Relations and Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE). It is intended to facilitate the repatriation of migrant workers, once the government decides on a timeline for their repatriation.

This was discussed at a meeting con-vened by the Minister of Foreign Re-lations, Skills Development, Employ-

ment and Labour Relations, Dinesh Gunawardena with the relevant line agencies on Monday (4).

The interest expressed through the ‘Contact Sri Lanka’ portal by migrant workers to return and the amnesties presently declared by Kuwait and Jor-dan were reviewed.

The vulnerability faced by migrant workers particularly in the Maldives and possible measures to address it, was also discussed. The program by the foreign ministry and the SLBFE to provide dry rations to the Sri Lankan migrant communities most affected was also assessed.

Gunawardena briefed those present on the negotiations that have taken

place with the foreign governments concerned and efforts being made to be responsive to these governments, while ensuring that any repatriation remains consistent with the ongoing quarantine process.

Foreign Secretary Ravinatha Ar-yasinha, Senior Additional Secretary (Development) of the Ministry of Skills Development, Employment and Labour Relations Sujeewa Thissera, Controller General of Department of Immigration & Emigration Sarath Ru-pasiri, Chairman of Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment Kamal Rat-watte, and other Senior Officials, par-ticipated at the meeting.

-ENCL

Modalities to issue temporary travel documents to undocumented workers

Sri Lanka issues ‘extreme heat’ alert as temperatures soar

Huawei donates hi-tech equipment to fight COVID-19 pandemic

COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's Natural Haz-ards Early Warning Centre yesterday (5) issued an "extreme heat" alert for several districts as temperatures were expected to rise to over 40 degrees in the coming days.

In a statement, the centre said ex-treme heat would be experienced in the Eastern, North-Western, North-Central, Western and Southern Provinces as well as several areas in the North.

According to the advisory, the temper-ature felt on the human body is expected to increase up to ‘Extreme Caution’ level, especially in the noted areas.

The Meteorology Department said the public have been warned of possible heat cramps, exhaustion and even heat strokes, especially in the worst affected districts. "The public are advised to stay hydrated and take breaks in the shade as often as possible while at work, check up on the elderly and the sick while indoors, never leave children unattended in vehi-cles, limit strenuous outdoor activities," the Meteorology Department said.

Due to the excessively dry weather, Sri Lanka is also facing a drought in many parts of the country.

- Xinhua

COLOMBO - Chinese tech giant Hua-wei on Monday (4) donated hi-tech equipment to the Sri Lankan govern-ment as part of its efforts to support Sri Lanka's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, a statement from Huawei Sri Lanka said.

The donation, handed over to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, included five sets of high definition video confer-ence system and six high precision ther-mal cameras.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said at the hand-over ceremony that he was glad to see ICT sectors contribute unique values during this challenging time, and the Sri Lankan government

appreciated Huawei's timely support.Liang Yi, chief executive officer of

Huawei Sri Lanka, said Huawei be-lieved emerging ICT technologies would play important roles under the current situation.

"Huawei will continuously support Sri Lanka with cutting-edge technolo-gies, to help this beautiful island to win this epidemic battle and bring joy and contentment back to people's life," Li-ang said.

Over 750 people have been infected with the COVID-19 in Sri Lanka to date while nine deaths have been reported, figures showed.

- Xinhua

COLOMBO -The cause of death of a soldier who died upon collapsing at the Dambulla bus terminal on Monday (4) is still unknown, as the postmortem report is still pending, police said.

A video that went viral on social media showed the soldier in question collapsed near the public toilet at the bus terminal, but fearing a possible COVID-19 infec-

tion, no one came forward to help him.Police identified the deceased as a

23-year-old from Galewela, Pallepola, who was attached to the Sri Lanka Army Volunteer Force at Kosgama. Police said he was returning from home to report for duty, after being treated at a hospital for epilepsy until April 30.

-economynext.com/ENCL

4 DAILY EXPRESSWEDNESDAY, MAY 06, 2020

By Jason Horo it

By yla li han

By Souti Bis asBy ar an Bishara

COMMENTARY

How COVID-19 is ravaging India's newsrooms

-Alessandro Grassani/ The New York Times

MUMBAI - Last fortnight, a camera opera-tor working in the studio of a news network in the western city of Mumbai joined some of his colleagues to test for the novel coronavi-rus which was sweeping the city.

Days after, the 35-year-old man tested posi-tive. He had developed no symptoms at all.

"It came as a shock to all of us. He hadn't even stepped outside for work," Prasad Kathe, the editor of Jai Maharashtra, told me.

Since then, 15 people working at the seven-year-old Marathi news network have tested positive for the virus. Most of them are re-porters and camerapersons. Three weeks ago, the network stopped deploying journalists for field assignments. Most of them are quaran-tined at home. The contagion has effectively shut down the network's 12,000 sqft two-stu-dio newsroom in an eight-storey building in the busy neighbourhood of Andheri. Only two people - an electrician and a production con-trol room technician - remain there. A major-ity of the 120 employees - from the journalists to technicians to company drivers - have been tested. The results are arriving slowly from the overwhelmed labs. The infections could rise further.

"Hit by the virus, running a live news chan-nel became a challenge," Kathe told me. "So we had to redesign our format to keep it run-ning."

For the last three weeks, the direct-to-home network has been broadcasting six 28-minute live bulletins a day instead of the usual 18. The rest of the time is filled with recorded news and current affairs programs. And the station is far from the only one to be affected: almost 100 journalists have tested positive for the virus - a considerable amount in a country where just more than 42,000 cases have been officially reported.

Anchors sitting in their boxy homes in the space-starved city have set up cameras and gamely read the news with the network's branding in the background. The broadcasts are relayed to its production centre home us-ing their home broadband and 4G mobile hot-spots.

"There are glitches. Sometimes the electric-ity goes off in the anchor's home in the middle of the bulletin. Sometimes the internet gets disconnected. It's not easy, but we are cop-ing and haven't missed a single bulletin," says Kathe. India has ordered its people to stay at home, shut businesses and suspended all transport in what is the world's most grinding lockdown to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. But many journalists - especially working for networks - have been going out regularly to report and getting infected.

Some 35 are infected in southern Chennai city. A sports photographer in the eastern city of Kolkata has died in what doctors be-lieve was a suspected case of COVID-19. There are reports of 19 employees of the influential Punjab Kesari media group in the city of Lu-dhiana in Punjab state testing positive. Earlier this month, the group asked its employees to work from home. But most of the infections have been reported from Mumbai, which has emerged as a raging hotspot - more than 11,000 infections and 340 deaths have been reported in India's financial and entertain-ment capital so far.

Fifty-three of the 167 journalists tested for the infection in the city so far have turned in positive results. Three dozen of them have returned home; the others are recovering in hospitals. Many more are quarantined at homes and hotels. Some 170 more journalists are waiting to be tested. Most of the infected are TV reporters and camerapersons and have shown no symptoms. The majority of the infected in India could be asymptomatic or show mild symptoms, reckons the Indian Council of Medical Research. But why are so many journalists getting infected with the vi-rus?

"There's a bunch of reasons. Initially, there was a lot of editorial pressure on TV journal-ists at some networks to go out and get visuals of the lockdown. Then there were some over-enthusiastic journalists who possibly didn't take enough precautions. They were going to hotspots and filming and doing interviews," Vinod Jagdale, president of Mumbai's TV Journalist Association, told me.

The journalists were also taking company taxis on assignments and sharing compact work places with colleagues on return to of-fice. The infected include at least three drivers who were driving the journalists around.

Things are so bad now that networks have sent most of their journalists to work from home. There are well laid out guidelines for journalists reporting on COVID-19. Mak-ing sure they are followed is important. BarkhaDutt, who has reported more on the pandemic and the fallout of the lockdown than any other journalist in India, says she follows every precaution in her gruelling routine.

Dutt has travelled more than 4,000km (2,485 miles) from her base in Delhi to report from six states in a little more than a month. Her three-member crew and the vehicle driv-er have remained unchanged during her jour-neys.

"Precautions have changed as the science has," Dutt told me. "We wear masks and gloves at all times. We ensure our mike is tied to a stick and we interview from a physical distance instead of huddling too close to the interviewee."

After every shoot, the crew dispose of their gloves and masks and wash their hands and equipment with antiseptic lotion and special sponge. When they entered a COVID-19 hos-pital in the hotspot city of Indore, they wore protective gear. And they try to make sure that they return to their homes in Delhi so "avoid strange beds in public places."

"It is typical for us to drive eight hours one way, shoot for four to five hours and then drive back another eight hours to Delhi," saysDutt.

With all the precautions, pandemic journal-ism is in fact an act of courage and very hard work.

-This article was originally featured on bbc.com

It may be premature to take stock of the coronavirus pandemic or make sense of it while it is still going on. But how we con-front this calamity and what we learn in the process will determine what or who we are when it ends.

Within the first four months of the out-break, COVID-19 has already killed hundreds of thousands and infected millions more, pushing tens of millions out of work and forc-ing hundreds of millions into home quaran-tine.

The ramifications of the outbreak have gone so far beyond public health, complicating the already complicated economic and geopoliti-cal conditions of countries across the world, rendering it abundantly clear that there is no quick fix, no magic wand out of this crisis.

Many have taken to framing the pandem-ic as a war. But as I have previously argued, the "war on the virus" may be attractive and practical for leaders and their followers who seek quick wins, but for the majority of people stuck at home, the fight takes a whole differ-ent form.

The war metaphor obscures more than it clarifies since the virus is "an enemy" that cannot be deterred, does not die and will not surrender. It can mutate, adapt and reappear when it is least expected.

Declaring war glosses over and even mys-tifies the real nature of the challenges we all face by resorting to a familiar but inadequate framework.

It lacks the vision to address our own fail-ures and the imagination to reinvent our post-coronavirus future.

Worse still, the rush to accept any medi-cine as a cure, declare a victory and go back to "business as usual" is as naive as it is danger-ous. After all, it is our "business as usual" that either keeps getting us into trouble, or keeps us ill-prepared to deal with new trouble.

The call of science to "test, trace, contain" is proving an effective medical strategy, devoid of war reference. If governments were to in-vest in scientific research as they do in arms and the military, we might be far better pre-pared to deal with the next plague.

But even science has its limits. Why? Be-cause it depends on what we as humans do with scientific knowledge.

Fortunately, most of us have come to con-sider science, not politics or war, as the way forward, to find a cure and a vaccine to protect us from this and other health crises.

But this realization still needs to be trans-lated into public policies, putting health above profit, especially in developed countries where leaders are addicted to profit and dismissive of science. Meanwhile, for the majority of us staying at home, the struggle is emotional, ex-istential and utterly instinctive.

Regardless of gender, race, religion, nation-ality or class, we seem to move from one phase to another along different stages which stem from our common human experience. These include, denial, alarm, fear, suffering, anger, resistance, bargaining, exhaustion, depres-sion, resolution, acceptance, and unity.

Thanks to social media, we have discov-ered through sound and image that not only do we share similar woes and worries, but we also express them through a similar sense of humour, and lots of it, surprisingly, self-dep-recating.

It is a victory for human civilization that in the middle of tragedy, comedy proliferates faster than COVID-19, allowing our human-ity to connect us when social distancing, will, separates us. This should pave the way for the healing stage and for finding some meaning in this crisis, which helps prepare us for a poten-tially graver threat in the future.

Searching for meaning, including soul searching, both personal and collective, is es-pecially important if we are to emerge from this tragedy stronger than when we were at its onset.

Could we, in its shadow, hope for a gentler, fairer, more humane society? Commit to a world where everyone, or at least every child and every senior, have access to healthcare?

The coronavirus might have separated us physically as nations, communities and as in-dividuals, but it has also brought us together as human beings sharing a common destiny.

Never have we all panicked together, feared for our lives together, felt that we are chang-ing together, that we are all in this together, and must all get well together, as we do today.

-Marwan Bishara is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera where this article was

originally featured

All of us are trying to adjust to the unforeseen changes brought about by the onset of COVID-19.

The transition to the virtual world has not been a cakewalk for everyone. Several people, particularly of my parents’ gen-eration, are not technology friendly but are now having to adapt to talking with friends and family via SKYPE or ZOOM.

And uncertainty looms large. No one knows what tomor-row will bring. In the midst of the unwieldy fear caused by the pandemic, bigotry continues to run rabid. Some governmen-tal agencies as well as vigilantes brazenly conflate COVID-19 with a particular religious community or racial group.

While economies are plummeting and the world is shutting down, fundamentalist interests have resurfaced as well as the political interests related to them.

Instead of emphasizing preparation, vaccines, and educa-tion in an attempt to prevent the spread of COVID-19, right-wing governments deploy disease to fuel their morbid agen-das and vilify entire communities.

At this point, we need a global response not just to COV-ID-19 but to humanitarian disasters that have followed in its wake. A lot of us focus on BIG achievements, forgetting that

the small moments count as much as the big ones. I have sev-eral students who are trying to make ends meet in the midst of this unforeseen crisis. Some of them are now working two jobs, so they can pay their bills.

Others are working hard to support those of their family members who have been furloughed. There are some who don’t have WIFI access or erratic internet connections, and cannot participate in ZOOM meetings as efficiently as they would like to. A couple of days ago, one of my students par-ticipated in a ZOOM meeting from her car, because her entire family was in the house and she couldn’t concentrate. I see de-termination and perseverance in these kids. Several of them are pushing themselves to meet deadlines and step up to the plate. They are learning to see their challenges as opportuni-ties to grow, and, as an academic, I am here for them.

I want to be present not just for the big moments, but for the small ones as well. There is potential for meaning in every moment. COVID-19 compels me to rethink perceptions that some of us thought were unquestionable and self-axiomatic.

I question political and cultural divides that were rein-forced by imperial discourse.

I question politics that divide the world into the homoge-neous categories of the “Muslim World” and the “Christian World.’

I question the rationale of reducing nations to rubble, sup-posedly for the liberation of their people.

I question alliances forged with dictators responsible for pogroms in their nations.

I question the rhetoric of hate that engenders mass hysteria and incites communal riots.

I question the construction of the “first world–third world” dichotomy, which befouls politics and cultures.

I question those that hamper progressive political and social change. I realize more than ever that political leaders who section off humanity into various “races” and various “worlds” rob us of our power to prevent disease from destroy-ing the world.

- Nyla Ali Khan is the author of ‘Fiction of Nationality in an Era of Transnationalism,’ ‘Islam, Women, and Violence

in Kashmir’,’ The Life of a Kashmiri Woman,’ and the edi-tor of The Parchment of Kashmir. She can be reached at

nylakhan@aol.com

ROME — Wearing a Plexiglas visor, large white mask and blue rubber gloves, CatiaGa-brielli looked ready for whatever could come her way on Monday (4) as Italy tentatively loosened some of its strictest lockdown pro-visions against the coronavirus.

“I see a lot more movement,” Gabrielli, a bookstore owner, said in the historic centre of Rome as she worried about the people around her, out taking walks without masks. “It’s a lot of people.”

That same wariness mixed with hope was expressed throughout Europe and beyond on Monday as at least a dozen countries — including Germany, Spain, Greece, Belgium, Lithuania, France, Nigeria and Lebanon — began to ease weeks of restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of the contagion.

But in many places, the much-anticipated relaxation of restrictions looked a lot like a real-time experiment in figuring out how to live with the virus. And while the easing var-ied country to country, many leaders made clear that things could be shut down again — if citizens grew suddenly too incautious.

In most countries, not all stores and indus-try were allowed to resume business. School openings were selective, carried out in re-configured classrooms, or put off until the fall. Social distancing rules were still in force. Masks were often required. Bars, cafes and restaurants largely remained shuttered.

Italian authorities warned that any loos-ening of restrictions could be short lived if citizens didn’t adhere to social distancing measures. And if infections shot up again and overwhelmed health systems just coming up for air, they would lock society back down.

“We will intervene and close the tap,” Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy has said, warning Italians of the dangers of bring-ing up the curve of infections that the country had worked so hard to suppress. In Italy, the virus has claimed more than 28,000 lives.

The problem with relaxing restrictions is that officials will not have a reliable sign of the consequences for at least two weeks — the incubation period of the virus. So there re-mains the risk that in the blind gap, the virus stealthily surges, setting off another wave of infections, as bad as or worse than the first.

Public health experts, while recognizing the need to strike a balance between saving lives and livelihoods, have long warned that open-ing up shops and releasing citizens from their homes could be more difficult and dangerous than shutting them in.

Even so, India allowed businesses, local transportation and activities like weddings to resume in areas with few or no known in-fections. Lebanon reopened bars and restau-rants.

Nigeria relaxed lockdowns in its capital, Abuja, and its biggest city, Lagos, with mar-kets, stores, malls and construction compa-nies opening.

In Germany, which has reported 163,100 infections and 6,692 deaths, according to the Robert Koch Institute, zoos, museums, hair-dressers and barbershops opened on Monday

for the first time since mid-March. On Sun-day (3), 122 pre-screened worshippers con-vened in Cologne Cathedral, wearing masks and sitting apart in pews, to celebrate Mass. Other churches will begin services, under similar restrictions, later this week.

Some playgrounds opened over the week-end.

“It is a huge relief,” said Katherin Bravo, who guided her nearly 2-year-old daughter down a Berlin slide. “You can’t explain to little children why they can’t play here. We would walk by every day and she would say, ‘slide, slide,’ but we had to keep going.”

In Spain, where more than 25,000 peo-ple have died, small businesses reopened on Monday.

The government hopes to return the coun-try to a “new normalcy” by late June, letting some areas with less contagion and hospital saturation open up earlier than more infected parts.

Cristina Cros, who owns a small salon in Barcelona, said she was happy to return to work after seven weeks of lockdown, but was also finding the new rules “pretty chaotic.”

For example, all clients must stay at least 2 metres, or roughly 6 feet, apart while in the salon. The hairdresser must thoroughly clean the premises after each client, and also mop the floor two or three times a day, Cros ex-plained.

“I have been doing as much cleaning as cut-ting so far,” Cros said, wearing a mask and gloves, just like her customer.

After 42 days of confinement, Greeks on Monday were free to leave their homes with-out an authorized reason, and hair salons, book stores, clothes shops and other small re-tailers reopened. Transportation authorities cordoned off every other seat in buses and metro cars.

But even though the country had limited infections to about 2,626 cases of infection and around 150 deaths, restaurants and bars were expected to remain closed until June.

But in Greece, too, the opening came with admonishments from the government. “If we are to continue to see this virus in a down-ward trajectory, we must all be doubly cau-tious,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

Poland, which began its lockdown on March 14, reopened its hotels, shopping malls and sports areas as well as some museums and art galleries.

The country’s kindergartens and nurseries could also open later this week, though strict new sanitary guidelines and isolation spaces for suspected cases will probably lead many re-openings to be delayed.

Estonia and Lithuania began lifting restric-tions, as did Belgium, where construction started up again, and companies from nones-sential sectors — including shops selling fab-ric — were allowed to resume activity.

President Emmanuel Macron of France on Monday called for “calm” and “pragmatism” as the country prepared to slowly lift lock-down restrictions starting on May 11, but he

warned that “this isn’t a return to normal, it is a new step.” “It is necessary to live with the vi-rus,” Macron said, arguing confinement could not continue forever because it would cause vast economic and social harm. Still, he said, “the ice is very thin.”

In Italy, the success of the opening seemed to depend on how relative the meaning of the word “relative” is.

In preparing Italians for the easing of re-strictions last month, Conte, not known for his plain speaking, said Italians could visit their congiunti, a word that could be trans-lated as relatives, but also relations.

The government defined accessible rela-tives as those “within the sixth grade” of kin-ship, a definition that bewildered many Ital-ians. Things got muddier when Conte said congiunti also included a person of “stable affection.”

A national semantics debate ensued and this weekend, hours before the lockdown lifted, the government tried to settle the issue.

Friends just didn’t cut it. Spouses, partners in civil unions and people who had moved in together — but found themselves separated by the lockdown — could see one another again. But so could people with a “stable af-fectionate connection.”

But Italian privacy laws meant that police could not force anyone to reveal the identity of the object, or destination, of their affection as the congiuntitravelled for conjugal visits and family reunions.

About 4.5 million people were expected to return to factories and construction sites in Italy on Monday. Joggers and cyclists can now legally go farther than 200 metres from their homes. And travel for work or essential shopping or health needs can take place more broadly within each region, though travel be-tween regions is still tightly restricted.

Masks are required on public transporta-tion and in stores, and in other closed spaces open to the public.

Already, there were signs that some Italians were slipping back into their pre-virus habits.

In Rome’s Villa DoriaPamphili park on Monday, teenagers in groups of six and 12 wore no masks as they squeezed together on benches or caught up, closely, with their sweethearts. Families rode by on bikes. And Giulia Quadri, a professional dog walker, took some dogs out on a “test run.”

She said she had lost most of her business during the lockdown, when dog walking was an acceptable reason for people to leave their apartments.

“I need to understand if I can go pick up my clients’ dogs with the car and bring them here,” she said, unclear whether that was le-gal or not.

As Italians tried to figure out what was al-lowed and what was not, the big worry was that they would push the limits too far.

Walter Ricciardi, a top consultant to Italy’s health ministry, warned that if the infection rate showed an increase in two weeks, “We will have to shut down once again.”

-New York Times

COVID-19 manifests the danger of sectioning off humanity into various ‘races’ and ‘worlds'

Hope and worry mingle as countries relax coronavirus lockdowns

The plague

Subway commuters sit with the new signage that requires keeping safe distances in Milan on Monday (4). At least a dozen countries began to ease restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of the contagion but in many places the much-anticipated relaxation of restrictions looked a lot like a real-time experiment in figuring out how to live with the virus

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Counting the cost is about more than numbers