Corona Daily 248: An Online School Student Speaks

This week, I interviewed a 17-year old student M, who spoke on condition of anonymity. I was keen to know the student’s experience of online school and exams.

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-        First feelings on hearing about classes shifting online, in March.

M: I was excited because I hadn’t done online school before. I thought it would be fun. Also, because I would save two hours commute every day, but our year-end exams were due and I was a bit stressed because I didn’t know how they would be conducted.

-        More independence as a result of shifting online?

M: Not really. Many teachers become paranoid about kids bunking classes or cheating in the exams. They become authoritative and restrictive. The cameras must be on all the time. To go to the washroom in your own house, you have to ask the teacher. Some teachers give me my own time- to work asynchronously. But not all, varies from teacher to teacher.

-        Benefits and downsides.

M: I get more time to myself. With no commute, I can do more things outside school hours, which I really like. Talking of downsides, sitting in front of the screen for eight hours is really exhausting. Teachers become paranoid and give us more work, without realizing we have eight subjects. In normal times, they have an eye on each of us. Teachers see what we’re doing in the class. Not having that rapport with my friends is something I really miss. Each of us has different relationships with different classmates. Online school has changed the class dynamics. In a class like English, there are always lots of jokes going around. I miss that liveliness.

-        On exams that were conducted online.

M: Online exams have made the playing field more uneven. Some teachers opted to ignore students who were cheating. I could see some students using their phones, calling friends. That is frustrating for students like me who don’t cheat. The pressures are different. You are not in the exam hall, not sitting in a school uniform.  

-        On technical difficulties.

M: Fortunately, absolutely none. But it’s a great excuse. (smiles). If you want to disappear from class, you can always blame it on the WiFi connection.

-        On millions of Indian children studying on their smartphones.

M: Fortunately, I have a laptop. But school on the smartphone is a real challenge. Not only the screen size, but a laptop is different. We use our phones to text, to take pictures, to listen to music, and just that makes our phones overheat. The battery runs out. I can’t imagine zoom calls and submissions through a phone. Schools should be more accommodative if they know students don’t have laptops.

-        How do students cheat on exams?

M: Extensions, multiple devices, blurring zoom screens or google meets. We give exams on exam.net, a special platform. It doesn’t allow you to leave the screen during exams. You can’t press escape. You can’t switch screens. I’ve heard some students split screens between two windows. Also heard about “exam.net hack”, a software that has become popular worldwide in the last couple of months.  Don’t know how it works, but schools are now banning it.

-        Would you like to keep elements of online school post-pandemic?

M: We are still being treated like we are in a physical school. A physical school achieves a variety of interactions in eight hours. An online school doesn’t have to go on for eight continuous hours. Online courses (like Coursera) are different. The teachers there don’t know you personally. But our school teachers know us well. They have a good idea about our performance and participation. Online learning is usually voluntary. Here the online school counts in my scores and university admissions. The accountability is high. I sincerely hope after pandemic the world goes back to the physical school.

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Ravi 

Corona Daily 249: The Algorithmic Kingdom

United Kingdom has some of the world’s oldest universities. To apply to the old and the new Universities, British teenagers must score well at the A-level exams. In March, with the onset of the pandemic, schools were shut and exams cancelled.

Schools were asked to offer the predicted grades based on the student’s ability and past performance. But as we know; teachers are human. Some schools grade students leniently, some strictly. The purpose of most external exams, conducted on a state or a national level, is to create a level playing field for all students.

England has an exam watchdog called Ofqual (the office of qualifications and examinations regulations). At the end of March, Gavin Williamson, the education secretary asked Ofqual to ensure qualification standards are maintained, and grade distribution patterns are similar to those in the previous years.

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Ofqual was one of the few super-busy organisations during the pandemic. Over the next few months, it started developing a series of algorithms. To find that formula which will standardize the grades given by public and private schools, by indulgent and harsh-marking teachers. In June, schools began submitting teacher-assessed grades which were fed into the algorithm.

In July, Sir Jon Coles, former Director-General of the Department of Education, warned that the algorithm would be 75% accurate at best. A bit like the effectiveness of vaccines. Williamson had a video conference with Sir Coles, but decided to press ahead with the algorithm. External experts issued warnings that the Ofqual formula was as volatile as the stock market, and the outcomes were bound to be erratic.

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In mid-July, MPs on the education committee asked Ofqual to publish the algorithm for transparency and scrutiny. The exam watchdog refused, saying it would allow schools to calculate the awarded grades. In the last two weeks of July, Ofqual ran summer symposiums, but refused to divulge the algorithm. It admitted testing 12 different approaches, and finalizing one.

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On 13 August, the A-level results were published. They caused a mayhem greater than covid or Brexit.

40% of the students were downgraded, 36% by one grade, 3.5% by two grades and others by three grades. As a result, most of them would not be able to join the university of their choice. The proportion of private (elite) school students receiving A and A* was more than double that of students at the comprehensive (public) schools.

For your benefit, I give the algorithm here.

P_kj = (1-r_j)C_kj + r_j(C_kj + q_kj - p_kj)  

The ugly-looking formula considers factors like the history of the school, grades and distribution in the previous years, teacher-student ratio and availability of historical data. If a school has had low average performance in the past, and suddenly there is a bright student from that school, the formula makes sure that he/she is downgraded to be in line with the school’s past.

Students came out on the streets in thousands and protested vocally, with emphasis on the F verb, against the algorithm, against Boris Johnson and Williamson. Many felt their life and future career were ruined.

Boris Johnson, having nothing to do with education for a long time, said the exam results were “robust” and “dependable”. Ofqual said any statistical model, no matter how good, would produce anomalies.

Labour and LibDems supported students starting a legal action, with legal costs paid by the State.

Williamson imagined more than 200,000 students launching court cases against the government in pandemic times. He acknowledged the unfairness of the algorithm, pointed to the danger that a high-performing child in a low-performing school will not get deserving grades. (Something known for months). He apologized, England’s government made a U-turn, scrapped the algorithm and allowed the students to proceed with the grades the teachers had given them.

More than 400,000 students had their places confirmed in the universities. Human beings showed they were superior to algorithms.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 250: The Indian Institute of Technology

IIT (the Indian Institute of Technology) is probably the toughest university in the world to enter. The competition is so brutal that children whose parents can afford it, apply to America’s Ivy league as a backup.

The 17-year olds have to clear three hurdles. Each of India’s 28 states has its own education board. The student must be in the top 20 percentile in the state’s grade 12 exam. This is a necessary but not sufficient condition. A million students then appear for the Joint Entrance Exam (Main), a national exam for all engineering students. The top 250,000 students qualify for the Joint Entrance Exam (Advanced). In the end, 16,000 of the brightest Indians triumph.

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Several states reduced the state board syllabus by 30% to recognize the pandemic impact on studies. Ramgopal Rao, the IIT Delhi director, was asked if IIT would do the same. Mr Rao was surprised at the question. JEE Advanced is a deliberately tough exam, he said. Its job is to pick up 16,000 students from among a million. It is an “elimination exam”, not a selection or a certifying exam. Certainly, no question of making the exam easier.

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JEE (Mains) is conducted every January and April. The January exam happened as scheduled, but the April exam was postponed. There is another national exam called NEET (national eligibility cum entrance test) for admissions into medical colleges. The competition here is just as cruel as for engineering.

Students start preparing for IIT and medical entrance exams years in advance. In the two years prior to exams, as a rule, students attend specialized coaching classes. Some classes are pre-dawn to enable students attend their regular classes in time. In March, three million engineering and medical aspirants were thrown into an abyss of uncertainty.

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First there was a case in India’s Supreme Court trying to stop the IIT and medical entrance exams in coronavirus times. The Supreme Court is made of human beings. They understand the possible chaos if India has a backlog of three million students. They dismissed the case, saying students’ careers can’t be risked. Then ministers of six states filed a review petition. That was duly dismissed as well.

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Despite the pandemic, the IIT Advanced took place in September. 160,000 candidates appeared in 222 cities. Students were given different reporting times to avoid crowding. They wore masks and hand gloves, and were required to carry a personal 50 ml sanitizer bottle and a simple ballpoint pen. Chirag Falor, who topped, complained later he felt suffocated. The mask obstructs flow of oxygen to the brain, and slows you down, he said. Unrelated to the complaint, he opted not to join IIT, and flew to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he had gained admission as an alternative.

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For undergraduates, IIT is now conducting online exams. The students are required to sit in front of the cameras in full view. IIT plans to introduce AI (artificial intelligence) to proctor the online exams. AI algorithms will detect any cheating attempts. IIT has asked for recorded videos of students giving exams. These will be used for machine learning, to educate the AI. Last month, 70 IIT Bombay students were found cheating. At the time of the exam, they were using a WhatsApp group. Now that exam is cancelled, and a reexam ordered. Surely, IIT can develop a top caliber AI to avoid these situations in future.

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Microsoft offers $200,000 as a starting package to top fresh IIT graduates. Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Qualcomm, Salesforce, Amazon queue up to pick the talent. Google’s Sundar Pichai is just one example of IIT graduates’ prominence in the software industry. IIT was criticized for India’s brain drain with 80% of the graduates settling in the USA. Now the percent has come down to 30%. Narendra Modi’s government has 22 top civil service secretaries who graduated from the IIT.

No matter how severe the pandemic, it is not possible to halt the IIT inflow and outflow processes.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 251: The Highest Stake Exams

Leaving school is a momentous event in everybody’s life. In most cases it coincides with adulthood. Children can trash school uniforms, and sense freedom for the first time. In developed countries, children usually leave school and home at the same time. An independent journey begins now.

The price to achieve that liberation is a high-stake exam in the final year of school. It may happen on a state or a national level. Depending on the size of the population and the degree of cut-throat culture, students may prepare for this exam for years. Besides the formal school, they may attend coaching classes or have tutors. The final years are filled with anxiety and stress.

As if that was not enough, the coronavirus pandemic began before most of the final exams. Worldwide, education was disrupted for more than 1.5 billion students. Schools shut down, and exams were postponed.

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China’s National College Entrance Exam (NCRR) is better known as “gao kao”. More than 10 million students register for it. A high score in the exams is the ticket to a top university, a lucrative career and upward mobility. The exams, held in June, last for two or three days. Most young children are told over the years that gao kao would be the most important task for them to complete. A typical high school student studies from 7 am to 9 pm. The exam becomes a family focus, with many activities dropped to let the child concentrate on studies. Unless you are a Chinese student preparing for gao kao, it is difficult to imagine the level of stress on hearing the news that the coronavirus may postpone the June exam.

In fact, the exams were held a month later, on 7/8 July. All exam centers had quarantine sections for students with even the mildest symptoms.

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In terms of student stress, South Korea is not much behind China. Its CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test) known locally as Suneung, is taken by more than half a million students. The exam was scheduled on 19 November, but is now postponed to 3 December. This is a special day in the life of South Korea. Stock markets open late, public transport runs additional buses and subway trains to make sure students reach in time. During the exam hours, planes are grounded so as not to disturb the examinees. Police cars escort students running late. Some families gather outside the test centers until the children come out.

Students sleep for five hours a night during the year. More than 200 commit suicide every year.

On 3 December, the Suneung students will give the exams wearing masks. A special squad will deliver the exam papers to candidates in hospitals.

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In Europe, Germany managed to conduct Abitur as scheduled. Italy cancelled written exams, but allowed orals. Austria and Hungary did the opposite. Spain held them under trying circumstances. Britain, France and Ireland cancelled exams.

In the United States, the College Board offers AP (Advanced Placement) exams in May. This year, the exam for each subject was converted into a 45- minute online at-home exam. Students were allowed to use textbooks, class notes, or any other non-human help during the 45 minutes. Testing was conducted simultaneously across the world. American children abroad, particularly at the military bases, ended up giving the exams at odd hours. In Europe, they gave exams around midnight, and in Japan they began at 02.00 in the morning.

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More on these high-stake exams tomorrow.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 252: Flowers of Hope

The Kenya flower council founded in 1996 has a mission of making Kenya the home of the world’s best flower growers. Tambuzi Limited, one of its 130 producers, grows eight million flowers a year on 22 hectares. Located 180 km north of Nairobi, on the rainy foothills of Mount Kenya, Tambuzi exports to sixty countries, including the UK, Holland, Russia, Australia, USA and China.

Twenty years ago, it started with just twenty amateur people growing roses outdoors. Now it employs over 500 people, and supports 5000. It grows 80 flower varieties, including roses, gypsophila and ammi, and bouquet fillers like rosemary, mint and lavender. Its biggest known specialty, though, is the David Austin scented rose. Austin was a British breeder of exquisite roses. Tambuzi chooses roses from breeders and runs trials on the farm. The specialists look for a scent they love, the number of petals, the flowers’ tolerance to pests and disease, the colour and the yield.

After eight weeks, workers bend the chosen rose stems so shoots can sprout. At twenty weeks, they are harvested by hand, by 67 workers, all women. The women cut the stems and put them into a solution of nutrients, where they continue to grow. The stems then go into a 4 C cold storage, are sorted into bunches and after packing sent in a refrigerated lorry to the Nairobi airport.

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Tambuzi is a Fairtrade flower organization. Like an author’s royalty, a Certified Fairtrade farm must pay 10% of the sales price to the workers. Kenya, Ethiopia, Ecuador and Tanzania account for 98% of the certified Fairtrade production. Kenya is at the top. The European buyers call the roses from Kenya large, multi-petalled and voluptuous, their fragrance extraordinary.

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Around Valentine’s day, 2020, the Tambuzi farm managers heard something was wrong. They had learnt about the virus from China, and talks about various flight cancellations. In March, as the orders collapsed, and the air traffic shut, Tambuzi first cleared ten hectares of gypsophila flowers and planted food crops instead. The farm had 500 employees and no money to pay their salaries. With tears in their eyes, they dumped thousands of roses in the pit.

The flower workers with a great sense of urgency planted beans, maize, potatoes, kale, onion and tomatoes in the cleared plots. By June, the vegetables were ready to harvest. They were distributed among the employees. The great team-building exercise which brought the farm owners, directors and workers together helped everyone survive.

Tambuzi is already thinking of diversification. It has faced floods and droughts in the past. To counter that, it harvests rainwater, uses solar panels and some production has been moved indoors. But coronavirus crushing the demand and halting the supply lines was an unmatched event. Now Tambuzi is thinking about building resilience, and other lines of income such as livestock breeding.

To see the Tambuzi farm with your own eyes, I recommend the 23-minute BBC clip that shows the flower farm’s usual operations, and their actions during the pandemic.

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Not all roses were thrown away. The Kenyan rose farms and Kenya Airways on 28 April sent 300 bouquets to the UK as a gesture of support and empathy. UK had already lost 20,000 people to coronavirus. The campaign was called “flowers of hope”. In the UK, the aromatic bouquets were distributed to doctors and nurses.

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It’s not just about flowers or roses. The pandemic has highlighted several global supply chains we were not aware of. Can Europe live without flowers coming from Africa? The world is interlinked by Americans wearing Bangladeshi jeans, and European weddings decorated with Kenyan roses.

It shows how profoundly bogus the “Make America great again” or “Brexit” or other “My country first” campaigns are. It is in the interest of the human race to acknowledge our interdependence and make trade freer by removing borders.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 253: The Withering Flower Trade

Flowers are an essential component of human happiness. They please our visual and olfactory senses. They connect us, decorate us and our surroundings. None of us could fall in love or marry without flowers being a part of that journey.

The global cut flower industry is worth $18 billion and growing rapidly. The five bestselling varieties are rose, carnation, lilium, chrysanthemum and gerbera. In the UK and USA, flowers are bought in supermarkets, in the EU from florists. India sells fresh flowers and garlands on the streets and local markets.

The flowers you buy in London’s Covent garden could have come from the Netherlands, but they possibly grew in Kenya. Kenya, Ethiopia, Ecuador and Columbia are the world’s biggest growers and exporters. This has a fifty-year-old history. In the 1970s, the oil crisis prohibitively increased the cost of heating greenhouses. It made sense to move the flower production to sunny countries in the south. Kenya and Ethiopia became the supply centres for Europe, Ecuador and Columbia for the USA. The four countries had high altitudes with cool nights, ideal for flowers. They also had maximum sunlight and cheap labour. Instead of the seasonal production earlier, now it is 365 days a year. Every third rose in the European Union is imported from Kenya.

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When we talk of Tulip gardens, we think of the Netherlands. Netherlands runs a global auction trade for flowers. In an incredibly efficient operation, the Royal Flora Holland, the auction company, sells 20 million stems every day. This is the Wall Street of flowers. It trades in 22,000 different varieties.

In the beginning of March this year, tulip growers put their wares up for sale. Tulip season usually lasts for eight weeks. International women’s day 2020 escaped the coronavirus. However, on Friday 13 March, the Dutch auction collapsed. When the prices for roses and tulips hit zero, the auction house stopped trading. Weddings, parties, events, cruises were cancelled.

For the perishable commodity that flowers are, its supply is based on cold chain logistics (the term often heard for vaccines now). At a constant temperature, the flowers from a Kenyan farm must reach the London supermarket in 48 hours. The vase life is just 12-15 days at best. Flowers lose 15% value every day.

Demand for Kenyan flowers is so high, Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International airport has a dedicated flower terminal. Suddenly in the second week of March, the airport shut its doors. Flowers are Kenya’s second biggest export after tea. The Kenyan flower trade has grown ten times in the last thirty years. By May, 50,000 Kenyans lost their jobs. Livelihood of two million Kenyans was indirectly affected. It was called a humanitarian crisis. All roses and other flowers had to be composted.

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In the Netherlands, coronavirus crushed 400 million flowers including 140 million Dutch Tulips. Tulip growing is a long process. In July 2019, the farmers had dug up the bulbs, given them the right treatment and planted them in October 2019. Later they were moved to the greenhouse. The quality of tulips this year was excellent. March to May is the high season, with Easter holidays and Mother’s Day. The Dutch tulip industry sells an average of $30 million flowers daily. This year they had to destroy all tulips.

Keukenhof, the largest flower park in Netherlands, usually welcomes 1.5 million visitors during the tulip season. The park had to be shut throughout.

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Since May, things have improved a little. The Kenyan flower council fought for starting the flights again. The Dutch auction has reopened but still shut for visitors. In some places, business has recovered about 70%, but in value terms still down in the absence of lavish weddings, parties and other events. All flower traders are worried about the impact of the latest wave.

As to how the Kenyan flower growers survived, I will write tomorrow.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 254: AstraZeneca Vaccine – Trial and Error

On Mon. 9 November, Pfizer released its vaccine news an hour before the opening of the US stock market. Pfizer’s CEO unloaded $5.6 million worth of Pfizer stock at a 52-week high price. Inspired by this, a week later, Moderna announced its 95% effective vaccine on Monday morning. Not surprisingly, AstraZeneca soon followed suit.  On Mon. 23 November, it was the third company to declare the arrival of its vaccine. However, while Moderna’s shares have gone up 22% since its announcement, AstraZeneca fell by 7%. Why did this happen?

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In fact, the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine was awaited more than the earlier two. The freezing storage requirement means Pfizer and Moderna are unlikely to be used outside North America and Europe. AstraZeneca, on the other hand, apparently costs less than a cup of coffee. Easy to make, easy to store in a normal refrigerator. India’s Serum Institute has gambled and produced 40 million doses already. Narendra Modi will visit the Indian factory tomorrow. AZ/Oxford vaccine will be the savior of the developing world. UK’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, has already ordered 100 million doses. Boris Johnson said the vaccine has the makings of a wonderful British scientific achievement.

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Pfizer and Moderna had quoted 94-95% effectivity figures. The bar was high. Depending on which newspaper you read, AstraZeneca vaccine was 62%, 70% or 90% effective. Investors rushing to trade didn’t understand what this meant.

The scientific route is to publish the data and results in a reputed medical journal, and get them peer reviewed. This allows the scientists and health authorities to ask relevant questions. All three vaccine companies have opted instead to talk to the Wall Street journalists and offer interim results, before the public or scientists can see the data. In the absence of data, curious people asked: why three figures? And why such a large variation?

Sir Mene Pangalos, the British executive VP at AstraZeneca explained the two versions of the double-dose trial. In one trial, participants received only half a dose the first time, in the other, a full. The second dose was full in both trials. The first trial produced 90% effectivity. The second 62%. The weighted average was 70%.

Rather embarrassingly, the half dose trial produced 90%, and a full dose 62%. Scientists and other people with common sense were puzzled. Then it transpired this half dose trial had happened by accident. It was a manufacturing error made by a contractor. The company explained this as a lucky scientific break.  Who would have guessed half a dose is far more effective than a full dose? (A question that can be set in a SAT test: Effectivity: full dose: 62%, half dose: 90%, no dose:?)

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Meanwhile, Moncef Slaoui, the head of Operation Warp Speed, fortunate to have access to the data, noted that AstraZeneca had limited the half dose trial to those below 55 years of age. This 90% effective vaccine will be first given to doctors and nurses (who may be 55+ as well) and the elderly, but the trial had nobody above 55. With increasingly red faces, the AstraZeneca directors said this was true. All the 2800 participants in the smaller dose regimen were below 55. But there were older people among the 8900 participants who had received two full doses.

The tiny size of the 90% effective trial – 2800 participants – came as another shock. A quick emergency authorization in the USA looked out of question. (It could be the USA vs UK politics as well). Serum institute of India (SII) has produced only the full doses. Hurriedly, SII said it would be ok with the 62% effective vaccine. UK would also be willing to overlook the small matter of half a dose.

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AstraZeneca has now announced it will conduct another global trial with the half dose/full booster regime (90%). At the same time, it will apply for an emergency authorization for the two full doses (62%) regime.

Is it any wonder that the anti-vaxx movement keeps growing?

Ravi   

Corona Daily 255: The Canine Year

Among the few businesses booming in the pandemic is the “Pet business”. Parents and children are home, working and learning remotely, socially distancing themselves. Particularly in Northern America, people are buying, adopting and fostering companion animals for mental and emotional support. Dogs followed by cats are the leading choice, but you also read about the purchase of guinea pigs, birds, fish, even reptiles. Even in the strictest lockdowns, one can take a dog for a walk legitimately.

CDC, the American health body, lists several medical benefits of owning a pet: decreased blood pressure, cholesterol, triglyceride levels. The American Heart Association associates pet ownership with lowered risk of heart disease. If true, it sounds like a good remedy in coronavirus times.

Fortunately, till date, there is no real evidence that coronavirus passes to or from dogs or cats. While you must keep distance from people, it is safe to cuddle the pet. Cuddling is an essential physical need; a puppy or kitten is more easily available and more practical than having a baby.

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Having said that, pet owners know children and pets are not really different. In America, pet merchandise is one of the top gift-giving categories in the holiday season, with people planning to spend $90 on average. Walmart said it will sell more than 3 million pet beds this season. Chewy offers gift cards and personalized mugs, blankets and bandanas for pets. PetSmart carries fancy attires including Santa costumes for dogs. Dogs are getting scans done, getting hip replacements, cancer care and eye exams.

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One research found that 37% of those surveyed had brought a new pet home during the pandemic. Dogs’ and cats’ fostering and adoptions boomed. Some shelters managed to empty their kennels of adoptable pets. In New York, pet food sales grew 260% in March. Despite the lockdowns, JustFoodForDogs began night shift production of pet food. E-commerce orders grew 400%. In Canada, sales of dog diapers went up 202%. Sales of crates, feeding bowls, leashes, toys and treats surged. Chewy started a subscription service, called the Autoship program that regularly delivers refills of pet food, cat litter and other pet necessities home. It has also launched a telehealth service, where pet parents can consult vets through video calls. As a result, Chewy saw its share price more than double during the pandemic.

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In North America, buying a dog ($3000) is usually more expensive than adopting ($1300) from a shelter. Annual costs can range from $1000 to $2300, including vaccinations ($400), neutering ($500), and food ($900). Only the rich can afford fresh food for dogs ($4800 a year). A dog-walker costs $20 a walk. Cats are cheaper, about $1000 initial costs, and annual expense of $1200. (If it was practical, India should export pets to the USA. Mumbai is flooded with stray dogs and cats, free to adopt).

Some Americans are also surrendering their pets, because they can no longer afford to keep them. However, since pets are family members, the surrender happens as a last resort.

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In the pandemic; buying, adopting and fostering pets has suited the owners as well as the pets. During the stay-at-home, pet owners, particularly singles and the elderly are enjoying the pet companionship. But bringing home a puppy or a kitten is a 15-year commitment. Hopefully, the pandemic will be over by 2022. What happens then? The adults in the house go back to work. The kids start going to school.

The pet dog has helped reduce the owner’s loneliness and depression in pandemic times. Post-pandemic, the danger is that the pandemic pets will go into depression by having to spend the whole day in loneliness at home.

Ravi   

Corona Daily 256: Lessons from Thanksgiving, 1918

“See that Thanksgiving celebrations are restricted as much as possible so as to prevent another flare-up.”

This message is not from today. An American newspaper Omaha World Herald ran it on 28 November 1918. It was a Thanksgiving Day during the Spanish flu pandemic. It is fascinating to read the 1918 newspaper archives. History can teach us so much.

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American Thanksgiving is a 400-year-old tradition. Historically, it was a harvest feast after a successful growing season. Families sat together to thank the Lord and eat well-bred Turkeys.

This day, the fourth Thursday of November, is America’s heaviest eating day. Tomorrow, American families will sit at a table and eat Turkeys with stuffing, sweet potatoes, buttered rolls, peas, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie with whipped cream and coffee for dessert. This year, it is incredibly cheap, the cheapest since 2010. The whole menu for ten people will cost just $46.90.  

In 1918, the Turkey meal was exorbitant. The First World War, at that time called the Greatest War Ever, was over only sixteen days before Thanksgiving Day. People were euphoric, filled with patriotism. In his Thanksgiving proclamation, president Woodrow Wilson didn’t mention a word about the pandemic. In California, on 21 November, after a month of mandatory masks, the mask order was lifted. The jubilant crowds tossed out their masks on the streets. “After four weeks of muzzled misery, San Francisco unmasked and ventured to draw its breath. Despite the published prayers of the Health Department for conservation of gauze, the sidewalks and runnels were strewn with the relics of a tortuous month.” Said a newspaper.

American families celebrated Thanksgiving 1918 together, and then celebrated the Christmas holidays in person, too.

And the flu came back with a vengeance. San Francisco’s death toll doubled in January 1919. And yet in mid-January an “Anti-mask league” rally was held with 2000 people. The mayor James Rolph was against masks, and was fined $50. When the flu surged, Rolph blamed outsiders coming to San Francisco, after the city had successfully stamped it out.

When we call current times unprecedented, they are not exactly unprecedented.

By January, USA was engulfed in its third wave. The virus infected one third of the world’s population. It killed 675,000 Americans before subsiding in the summer of 1919.

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In 1918, there was no testing. Medical science had not yet advanced enough. Masks were mandatory in earlier waves. Social distancing was called “crowding control”.

By Thanksgiving Day, few vaccines were already available and administered. Unfortunately, the world didn’t know about viruses until then. The vaccines were made against bacteria, which were thought to be the cause of the influenza pandemic. The vaccines were crude and not very effective, because they were developed for the wrong organism.

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On the 1918 Thanksgiving, Americans were happy the war was over. In 2020, they are happy that effective vaccines will end the pandemic next year. However, vaccine announcements don’t protect, vaccines do.

USA has registered nearly 13 million cases, and 266,000 deaths. Now every day is a record in the number of cases, exceeding 200,000 a day. Daily, 2000 Americans are dying. Until Biden’s inauguration in January, 100,000 more may die.

Dr Fauci has asked whether people really want to travel in cold weather and sit indoors with 10-20 people for a Thanksgiving meal.

The answer to that question seems to be “yes”. The American Automobile Association projects that across the USA, 50 million Americans will travel by cars, buses, trains and air during the Thanksgiving holiday period from 25 November to 29 November. It is worth remembering that the initial global transmission of the novel coronavirus started with five million people from Wuhan travelling to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year with their families.

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History can teach us much only if we are willing to learn from it.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 257: The Takeaway Pizza Story

The Indian cricket team, currently in Sydney, is training with pink season balls. The first test match between India-Australia will be a rare day-night affair at Adelaide where pink balls will be used. Last week, the scary news from Adelaide meant the venue would be shifted. Sydney and Melbourne offered themselves as candidates.

On Wednesday, 18 November, the State of South Australia announced a draconian 6-day lockdown. On 1 November, Australia had zero cases nationwide. Despite rigorous testing, South Australia has had only 557 cases and 4 deaths so far. But now some traveller had brought from the UK a super-contagious virus - spread by merely touching the delivery boxes.

Following the emergency order, Adelaide international airport was closed. Other Australian states closed borders for people from South Australia. Weddings and funerals were cancelled, elective surgeries banned. Schools and universities were hurriedly shut, any celebrations scrapped. All pubs and restaurants were shut, compelling them to waste perishable food. Most businesses were closed. Vast traffic jams were seen, particularly across Adelaide, with residents queuing up for hours to get themselves tested. 1.7 million people were thrown into one of the world’s strictest lockdowns. 4000 people were sent into quarantine centres. As is typical of an Australian state, the area of South Australia is more than 1 million sq km. Except for the presence of police, the streets, the city centers were completely barren.

A public health alert was issued urging anyone who had ordered food from Adelaide’s Woodville Pizza Bar over a ten-day period to immediately isolate and seek a coronavirus test. The Chief Public Health Officer was already worried the virus seemed to be reproducing rapidly.

As to the economic damage caused by the lockdown, varying estimates are in millions of Aussie dollars.

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On the third day, Friday, Steven Marshall, the South Australian premier, appeared on TV to give an update. In the press conference, he looked grim, angry, confused and embarrassed.

The facts were simple: a security guard at the Woodville Pizza bar was infected with Covid-19. A worker at hotel Stamford was also infected. When the contact tracers spoke to the hotel worker, he said he had ordered a takeaway pizza from the Woodville Pizza bar. This led to the suspicion that virus can be transmitted simply by touching the pizza box, something unheard of anywhere before. To prevent the pizza pandemic, a strict circuit-breaker lockdown was necessary.

The authorities later found out that the hotel worker had simply lied. He was actually working at the Woodville Pizza bar, his second job. As to why he deliberately lied is not known. Police were not allowed to reveal his name for his own safety, but they revealed it was a 36-year-old male from Spain, on a graduate visa. It is possible he didn’t want the contact tracers to know he was working in two places. His single deliberate lie threw an entire state into lockdown.

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Police issued 337 cautions and 157 fines for breaches of lockdown measures. Paradoxically, the 36-year-old Pizza liar can’t be charged or fined, because lying is not a crime. His electronic devices are confiscated. The Police are scrutinizing them to find out if he can be charged under any crime. Under some pretext, he can be sent back to Spain when his visa expires in December.

A message on the Pizza Bar’s Google review page reads: “Incompetent staff. They forgot my garlic bread. They also put the whole state into lockdown.”

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Following the premier’s TV conference, the lockdown ended. The Indian cricketers have started training with the pink balls. In the coming days, if every South Australian is truthful with the contact tracers, the first cricket test match will happen in Adelaide as scheduled.

Ravi