Corona Daily 131: UK’s Puppy Mafia

Tilly was snatched from her bed, Moet grabbed from her home, Angel carried off from her garden. A thief showed a knife to a former boxer to steal his Rosie. Nala disappeared with her dog walker’s van. Denzel and Welly, a pair of Labradors were carried off from an upscale supermarket.

In The Canine Year, I wrote about a pandemic boom to the dog business. In the UK, its dark twin has emerged. Britain is facing a huge dog stealing crime wave. This week 27 stolen dogs, including spaniels, a French bulldog, terriers, and a Rottweiler were seized in Essex. In a raid in Suffolk in March, 83 dogs were seized. The crime is becoming so acute; Nottinghamshire has appointed a “dog theft police officer” – a novel designation.

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Since the pandemic began, nearly 3.2 million UK households have bought an animal companion. As a result, prices for dogs have gone through the roof, two to five times more expensive. The extraordinarily high demand means rescue shelters are out of mutts. Desperate people have paid £3000 in a parking lot to buy a puppy with no papers and no shots. A litter of six puppies can yield £10,000. A stolen smart phone is worth a few hundred pounds, but a stolen dog can fetch thousands.

This is an average price list for the top end breeds: Chow Chow (£3700), Golden Retriever (£3360), English Bulldog (£3300), Cavapoo (£3030), Golden Doodle (£2976), Miniature Schnauzer (£2930), Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (£2784), Standard poodle (£2770), Cockapoo (£2740), Labradoodle (£2700).

This has led to the emergence of a new “puppy mafia”. Those dealing earlier with prostitution, guns and drugs have added this lucrative line to their business.

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One organization that deals with missing dogs had 400 cases just in England. None of them had run off or lost their way. They were all stolen.

British law requires that puppy buyers should see the puppy’s mother before buying the puppy. Puppies must be microchipped with their contact details, and accompanied by paperwork from licenced operators. Buyers are either not aware of the law, or don’t bother about obeying it. The dog thieves remove the microchips via crude surgery, or with a pair of pliers, or disable them with powerful magnets.

Thieves look for good breeds, preference being fertile females. They are stolen from stationary cars, yards, outside stores and kennels. Those selling puppies on the internet are targeted. First an innocent fake customer visits and makes notes of the layout of the house. Thieves visit the same place later and take the puppies away without paying for them.

Stolen male dogs are quickly sold off in the black market. Females are sent to illegal breeding farms.

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In Britain, stealing dogs is a high-reward, low-risk business. Because English law treats dogs as property, with punishment in line with the value of the object. Prosecutions are rare; in 2019 only 1% resulted in conviction. Even when convicted, the criminals are usually sent home with a fine of £250.

London’s puppy mafia has become more brazen and violent as a result. Like purse-snatchers, they are now willing to slash at owner’s or walker’s wrists to nab the dog.

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It is time the law is changed. It considers a dog as an object similar to a mobile phone, TV or car stereo. Even an expensive TV stolen from the house can be replaced. But to an owner, a stolen dog is like a kidnapped child. For causing that emotional trauma a convicted thief may escape by paying a £250 fine.

Two petitions with hundreds of thousands of signatures have now urged the authorities to take action. They want dog stealing to be a serious offence, punishable by eight years in prison and £5000 in fines. The UK parliament will debate the matter now. Whatever the parliament decides, if you live in Britain and own a dog, be on your guard.  

Ravi 

Corona Daily 132: An Analogy

Have you ever memorized a poem? Surely you have - as a student in school. One rarely loves anything in textbooks strongly enough to store it in memory. And yet the academic systems until recently needed students to memorise a lot of things: poems, Mendelev’s table, math formulas and so on.

In India, we call the memorisation process “learning by heart”, even when the learner’s heart is somewhere else. In my school days, I memorised at least three chapters of Bhagvad-Geeta, Sanskrit conjugation, film songs, dozens of prayers, multiplication tables till thirty, all phone numbers I knew, value of π till fifty decimals (fairly useless unless you want to impress your first love) and poems – lots of poems. Because I loved Marathi poetry.  

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Years later, as a thinking adult, I asked myself how I managed to memorise so many poems. And some of them were fairly long. Certainly I would read it once, then again, a few times more, and the poem became part of me. Exactly at which reading I learnt a particular poem ‘by heart’ I can’t tell. But I can confidently say it didn’t happen in one reading. Only freaks or accidental brains or professional memory practitioners may be able to memorise a poem without repetitive learning.

In my life, I have been fortunate to meet many stage and film actors closely. With cultivated skill, they are capable of memorising passages quickly, particularly before shooting for a TV serial. Stage actors don’t even have the liberty of twisting the playwright’s words. How do they store pages of dialogue to reproduce it verbatim?

Curious about this, in 2009, I played a role in a full-length Marathi play at our annual neighbourhood event. I dreaded watching the DVD recording, but am proud to say I didn’t miss a single line of several lengthy dialogues. It was, unfortunately or fortunately, my only performance. Twelve years have passed since. Today, I am not able to remember any of the lines.

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My friends or readers sometimes ask me why covid vaccines require two shots, two identical shots at that. Not trained in science, but fond of poetry, I tell them that a poem needs to be repeated before it can be memorized. The first time you read it, you may remember a few lines, or the rhythm, or the skeleton, but not the poem in its entirety. If you need to perform it on stage, would you do it after the first reading? Our immune system needs repetition of the vaccine dose before it is confident to go to the battlefield against coronavirus.

And now Pfizer and others are developing a third shot- called a booster. What is that? That is simply because the coronavirus is changing certain lines of the poem or adding new stanzas. We don’t need to memorise the poem from scratch, only memorise the amended couplets.

Are two shots, two repetitions, enough? Well, if we were to take a Moderna shot eight or ten times, certainly its imprint on our body’s memory will be fantastic. But the whole world will be working only in the vaccine business. Pragmatically, two is the number currently decided, particularly because the virus may keep changing the stanzas in the poem.

What about the gap between the shots? The second shot must be given before the first is forgotten. Four weeks is that point as determined by scientists. Of course, it can be delayed, and delayed, but who knows at which point the first shot is forgotten.

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How is it that several childhood vaccines are taken only once, and the effect lasts for life? That is an important question with relation to covid vaccines. The world of science is trying to grapple with “vaccines for adults”, which is not a norm.

I don’t remember a single line from the play enacted twelve years ago. But I flawlessly remember my childhood poetry more than forty years later. Can this be done for covid? Will the scientists be able to develop an infant coronavirus vaccine that will protect a child lifelong? That is the question.

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Ravi 

Corona Daily 133: The Balmis Expedition

P.S. By way of postscript to yesterday’s piece, all vaccine-afflicted people mentioned in it are miraculously back to normal today. The immense readers’ response, apart from good wishes, mentioned their own post-vaccine experiences that ranged from no effect to becoming vegetables for a day or two. No reader has reported two bad shots so far. One kind reader has sent a link that says reactions after the second dose of AstraZeneca/Oxford’s are milder. Thanks to all.

For the record, my vaccine after-effects began 12 hours after the shot, lasted for 36 hours (i.e., 48 hours from the shot). In our domestic experiment, my wife and brother took Dolo (paracetamol tablets), I didn’t take any. That made no difference whatsoever (except to the Dolo sales). For those waiting for their first shot, I suggest budgeting 48 hours of inactivity after it.

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A year ago, I wrote about Smallpox, one of the deadliest viruses that killed eight European kings and queens. In the sixteenth century, Spain actually sent an infected African slave to spread smallpox to defeat the Aztec and Inca empires. In today’s world, we would call it bioterrorism. The Aztec population of 26 million before the Spanish conquest (1520) was reduced to 1.6 million (1620). (If conspiracy theorists were to study that history, they may believe China did the same in 2020 to defeat America and Europe.)

In 1797, Edward Jenner, the English scientist, used pus from blisters due to cowpox, a relatively minor infectious disease, to offer immunity against smallpox. Jenner coined the term vaccine from “vacca”, Latin for cow.

King Carlos IV was the king of Spain then. His brother and sister-in-law had succumbed to smallpox. It was a difficult time for Europe. Napoleon had invaded Spain; Nelson had defeated French and Spanish armies at Trafalgar. Still, the compassionate Spanish King decided to send a warship to vaccinate people from different continents for smallpox.

But how to carry the live virus around the world to vaccinate millions? We must remember this was a time when there was no refrigeration, no sterilization, and no concept of asepsis. A decision was made to bring to the project 22 orphaned children, aged between eight and ten. In November 1803, Maria Pita, a warship sailed on its global expedition. It was led by Francisco Xavier de Balmis, an enthusiastic physician, world traveller and one who had translated a book on vaccines in Spanish.

Before the warship sailed, Balmis infected two orphans with cowpox. By passing of vesicle fluid from the skin of one child to another, it was decided to form a living transmission chain. Over the next four years, the infection was kept alive by carefully transferring it from boy to boy, in the process inoculating hundreds of thousands of people from Peru to Philippines.   

In February 1805, when the ship planned to leave Mexico for Philippines, 25 orphaned Mexican children were recruited as human carriers. The orphaned children from Spain stayed back in Mexico.

The orphan story tells us about a basic truth. Creating vaccines is a job for biology, and biology requires living systems. That is why some flu vaccines are cultivated in eggs.

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The territory covered by the Balmis expedition was not only vast, but brutally harsh, with dense jungles, mountains, and uncharted rivers. They encountered political rivalry, tribal attacks, cultural beliefs preventing vaccination attempts. The mission took the vaccine to the Canary islands, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, the Philippines and China.

King Carlos IV’s vaccination campaign was visionary, launched 150 years before the formation of the WHO. Balmis expedition was successful due to the heroic perseverance and dedication of those who took part in it, the creativity to use human carriers, and the orphans who served humanity in this way. In A Coruna, a Spanish city, a monument (picture above) is built in honour of the orphan children who took part in the expedition.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 134: First Hand Experience

I am writing today’s column on my reserves. It was a struggle to get up from bed, and reach my computer chair. My body is aching. Last night was awful. An uncontrolled shivering attack meant I went to bed wearing a jacket, enveloped in a duvet. I lost count of how many times I had to visit the bathroom. My fever is about 101 F (38.5 C). Haven’t measured it, but I know because my wife, my brother, my neighbours, and a couple of friends have 101 F. No, none of us has covid-19, I don’t think. This is sort of self-inflicted. This week, India made 45+ eligible for vaccines. We all took our Oxford shot (called Covishield in India) yesterday, and are in bad shape today.

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There is nothing like a first-hand experience (or first-arm experience). You can spend hours and weeks studying everything on the coronavirus. But nothing can match empirical evidence. Yes, my left arm is sore and sensitive. During last night’s sleep, I was like a circus acrobat, trying to avoid leaning on that arm.

Honestly, despite my year-long research, I was not prepared for this. My parents in their eighties had no after effects. They have had both their shots. If they didn’t suffer, how can a marathon runner like me suffer? Well, it seems science is exactly the reverse of common sense.

Younger people with higher immunity suffer more. Because their bodies start fighting the vaccine with all their strength. Elderly people, their immunity weak with ageing, report few side effects. In short, I am supposed to feel happy for my flattened state. If I am bad, my immunity system is good.

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Are the side effects worse if you already had Covid-19? It appears so. My brother was under house arrest for five weeks last August-September. He had symptoms for about ten days, but his tests continued to be positive. Of all of us, he is in the worst state. He says he is almost in the same physical condition today as he was when he contracted Covid-19 last year.

Because my wife, neighbours, friends and I have fatigue and fever, scientists say it is possible we have had covid-19 without knowing.

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Dr D.V., our family friend is 59. As a doctor, on priority basis, he was fully vaccinated. This week, he has tested positive, is feeling terrible, has all the symptoms. For the next two weeks, he is to be isolated. Dr D.V. is an ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) doctor. That may make social distancing difficult. But his case shows that fully vaccinated people can still contract covid-19, and presumably spread it as well. Two vaccine shots offer no guarantee it won’t happen again. Scientists say full vaccination reduces the chances of hospitalization and death. Until we collect enough evidence to support that, better to continue life as if we haven’t taken the vaccine.

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There is still some confusion in India about the gap between the shots. It was meant to be four weeks. Now Covishield (Oxford) gap can be stretched up to 56 days. Covaxin (Bharat Biotech) up to 42 days.

Britain took a pragmatic and unscientific decision to give first shots to a lot more people by widening the gap between the doses. Luckily, it has worked for them. Top epidemiologists insist the gap should be whatever it was in the trials. (Four weeks for Oxford). If you ask me, take the second shot after 28 days. Cowin, the government website, allows it. My parents took their second shot yesterday after 28 days.

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When I browsed the internet to find out how long my misery would last, it says “a few days”. What on earth is meant by a few days? Why can’t they specify the exact number of days? Anyway, now I will be able to know empirically.

In my research, I came across the following: The Covid vaccine side effects, especially after the second dose, can be really bad. That immediately lifted my spirits. What I am experiencing today is not as bad as what will follow after four weeks.

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Ravi 

Corona Daily 135: Her Vogue Outfits

For La Verne Ford Wimberley, the coming Sunday will be the second Easter Sunday when she will attend the church service virtually.

La Verne from Oklahoma is 82, a widow living on her own since 2009. She is formally referred to as Dr Wimberley. Holding a doctorate in education, she was a school principal for many years.

For more than twenty years, she has been going to the Metropolitan Baptist Church on Sunday mornings. She had picked up a little routine from her mother. On Saturday evening, she would choose a nice outfit and a matching church hat and lay it out. She wanted to be prepared and presentable before going to the church. She always sat in the last row, section two, dressed to the nines.

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On 29 March 2020, Le Verne learnt that the Sunday mass would be streamed online due to the coronavirus threat. She couldn’t imagine herself wearing her gown and slippers to attend the service on screen. ‘Oh my goodness’, she said to herself, ‘I can’t sit here looking slouchy in my robe.’ That Sunday, she woke up early as always to style her hair, put on some lipstick and wore a favorite white dress trimmed with eyelets, a pure white ruffled hat, matching shoes and a beaded turquoise and gold necklace.

On a whim, after the service, she took a selfie and posted it on Facebook.

The following Sunday she was all blue, and on Easter Sunday last year, she chose a pink skirt, a beaded sweater jacket, and a hat decorated with pink and yellow lilies.

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She started dressing up every Sunday, and posting her selfies. She kept a calendar so as to never repeat an outfit. (Clever, because in photos it is easier to notice someone repeating an attire). On the previous fifty-three Sundays, she has worn fifty-three different outfits, all coordinated down to the smallest detail. Her fashion includes a variety of hats with huge bows and ribbons, statement jewelry, matching shoes, pearl necklaces, lipstick, tidy hair.

Le Verne is no Princess Diana, but her outfits are tasteful and diverse. On social media, her outfits started receiving hundreds of comments, positive. The photos made them smile. She said she wanted people to focus not on the selfies but on the message that her fellow churchgoers should keep faith. She wished to inspire people and make them feel good. On her facebook page, so many strangers wrote their spirits were boosted seeing her enthusiasm and optimism.

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Recently, she was interviewed by the media. People notice she hasn’t repeated an outfit for an entire year.

Le Verne said being 82 years old had its advantages. She has been buying clothes for many years, and she has kept most of them because they are of good quality. She has three wardrobes and a collection of church hats, neatly placed in hatboxes.

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I have a group of international friends covering the global map all the way from America to Australia. All of us studied Russian language together at a Moscow university. On one Sunday every month, despite awkward timings for some, we gather on Zoom and spend a delightful couple of hours.

After reading the story of Le Verne, I have decided to wear a suit, tie and shoes for the next meeting. If I make this suggestion to my friends, I think most of them will be tempted to dress up as well. It is time to come out of the wretched sweatpants and t-shirts. The theatre comes alive only with the right costumes.

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Ravi 

Corona Daily 136: The Worst Pandemic Leader

Which world leader has the worst pandemic record? In yesterday’s Washington Post, Frida Ghitis, a columnist, analyses this interesting question.

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Anyone who didn’t vote for him would think of Donald Trump as a candidate. USA has had 31 million cases, over half a million deaths. With an estimated 3.2 million American deaths, 2020 was the deadliest year in American history. This week Dr Deborah Birx, the former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, said only the first 100,000 deaths were unavoidable. (Meaning the next 400,000+ were avoidable). It may be an exaggeration, but America was truly unfortunate in having Trump as the pandemic president. He justified his behaviour by calling himself a cheerleader, when there was little to cheer about.

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When other countries were announcing lockdowns, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega organized a festive parade called “Love in the time of Covid-19”, a parade as surreal as Marquez’s novel. His son tweeted Nicaragua was a unique country and asked the citizens to enjoy life as usual. Months later, Nicaragua published a white paper comparing their strategy with Sweden. If you want to criticize Nicaragua, criticize Sweden first.

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I have written earlier about Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. He called it “little flu”, to which Brazilians were immune anyway. He coughed in the crowd and shook everyone’s hands to rubbish the social distancing concept. Stop whining, he said to people who pointed out the terrible pandemic toll. Bolsonaro militarized the government, an Army general is his health minister. He is the world’s only leader to use military to oppose lockdowns. Brazil’s supreme court equated his covid policies to genocide. This week heads of the Brazilian army, navy and air force resigned. Brazil is currently the worst placed nation with nearly 4000 deaths a day, and a near collapse of health care. It is also serving as an epicenter for Latin America.

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Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejected masks. He also asked people to live life as usual. He promised he would wear a mask only when Mexico is free of corruption. This week, Mexico officially admitted their covid death toll is underreported by 60%. Mexico’s new tally of 321,000 dead suddenly puts it in the second place jointly with Brazil.

Belarus’s dictator Alexander Lukashenko called the whole thing a “psychosis”, and suggested vodka and sauna as the definitive cure.

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Berdimuhamedow’s Turkmenistan has reported no cases, because reporting cases is banned. Mask-wearing is banned, discussing the pandemic is banned. Masks can be worn voluntarily to protect against “airborne dust”. The website of the US embassy in Turkmenistan mentions reports of people with covid-like symptoms placed in hospital quarantine. A human rights group calls the situation in Turkmenistan a disaster. The government’s denial prevents sick people from getting proper treatment or doctors from having the basic knowledge to treat them.

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Tanzania’s John Magufuli belonged to the covid-denial group. He assured the nation that three days of prayer eradicated the virus. The virus was a western hoax and couldn’t survive in Christ’s body. He suggested steam inhalation and traditional herbal medicines.

Trump, Bolsonaro, Lukashenko and most other leaders in this article were infected despite their displayed masculinity. If you have wondered how no political leader dies, well, Tanzania’s president did. Two weeks ago, on 17 March, the 61-year-old Magufuli died, with covid-19 as the suspected cause.

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Who wins the prize for the worst pandemic leader? In my view, it is a tight race between Trump and Bolsonaro, because USA and Brazil are, or are supposed to be, democratic countries.

USA was the best prepared nation for the pandemic. USA has a fearless media, world’s best epidemiologists, and strong financial muscle. Despite all that, the bull-headed Trump managed to bring America to its knees and thousands of Americans to graveyards.

My vote goes to Donald Trump.

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Ravi 

Corona Daily 137: Purple Visits

After banning them for more than a year, in-person family visits to the prisons have started in the UK this week. Prisons around the world are susceptible to outbreaks. They are crowded, with poor ventilation, inadequate healthcare, low hygiene. Even in developed nations; gym sessions and prison jobs have been suspended. The result is a 23-hour cell lockdown for most inmates. In many countries, prisoners were not allowed to take showers for weeks. Infected patients moved to isolation cells had to beg for medicines and hydration. In the USA alone, there have been 660,000 cases and 3,000 deaths in prisons so far.

In Delhi, certain prisons allowed in-person visits in October, after a gap of more than six months. Prisoners asked their families for a fresh set of clothes. Their clothes were worn and torn. As per covid regulations, fresh clothes had to be soaked in soap water for an hour before they could be worn for the first time.

Indian prisons have jail phones that can be used for a few minutes every month to contact the family. Strangely, in many Indian states, women prisoners are not allowed to use the phone, reportedly because it is installed in the male section.

From 11 February, Bombay’s Arthur Road jail allows two visitors (instead of five pre-covid). Those below 15 or above 55 are prohibited from visiting the jail.

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The in-person visits after a year create anxiety and awkward interactions. Children are older by a year. California will allow visits from 10 April. Michelle Tran plans to visit her husband for the first time after 8 March 2020. She needs to see that her husband is still real, she says. She needs to see his face.

Lamont Heard, 43, has struggled with his mental health because he hasn’t seen his family. “I’m not evolving.” He said in an email. “Having the feelings of being ignored, rejected, left out and cut off. It makes me feel like I’m by myself, and I go into a deep depression. But a visit takes all of that away.”

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UK has 312,000 children with a parent in prison. A study has shown they are at an increased risk of future crime, mental health issues and poor educational achievements.

Most prisons in the world don’t allow cell phones, wifi, or internet access. This is hard to believe, because we take these things for granted. The in-person visits and the jail phone communication happen strictly under supervision.  

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Against this backdrop UK’s “Purple Visits” rollout started by the Ministry of Justice is commendable. This is a video calling software exclusively for the prison population. (Zoom and Skype are not allowed inside prisons, since in theory prisoners could communicate with the world outside).

This month, an English reporter was allowed to interview Al, a prisoner since 2013, on Purple Visits. They chatted for the allowed thirty minutes.

Al said this year was the first time he saw his dog in seven years. His wife and two children could visit him every two weeks before lockdown, but never his dog. The family has shifted since Al went behind bars. On the video call, his children showed him around the house, their bedrooms, the posters, everything. All that couldn’t replace hugs, but it was still a bonus. Al’s prison is pragmatic. Though two purple visits a month is the official maximum, he is allowed three or four, if there is a free space.

At the moment the UK government pays for the video calls. Post-covid, Al feels prisoners will have to pay something like five pounds. Anyway, his family spends more in travelling to the prison to meet him. The Purple Visits currently make the best of a bad situation. In future, ideally, Al would like to have four visits a month – two in-person and two Purple. That way he can see the environment in which his family lives.

Prisoner family support groups had been urging the UK government to invest in video call technology for years. Finally, the pandemic made it happen.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 138: Should Go to Bed, but Not Yet

The Latin “cras” meaning tomorrow is the root of the word procrastination. We were aware of the word since we were students, faithfully postponing studying for an exam month after month, until a deadline provoked us into action. (My 2007 article on procrastination is still not outdated). For writers, perfectionism is often a major reason for procrastination. The writer wants to write that great novel, so great that it never gets written.

Procrastination is defined as a voluntary delay of an intended act despite knowing you will be worse off in the long run for not acting. I know a CEO of a mid-size company, who is sick of his current employer. Every time we talk, he says he wants to prepare a top-class resume, meet headhunters, update his LinkedIn profile. Last two years, he hasn’t managed to do any of it. And he can’t explain why.

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Today, I want to talk about only one aspect of procrastination, and how it has been affected by the pandemic.

In 2014, Kroese and others from the Netherlands first published a research paper on Bedtime Procrastination. The paper studied the modern tendency of delaying going to bed. This form of procrastination has some peculiarities. Unlike other tasks we keep postponing (and eventually not do at all), going to bed is a question of when and not if. Secondly, sleeping is not something we want to avoid, like going to a dentist. Delaying sleep is technically called an intention-behaviour gap. We simply engage in a trade-off of pleasures and prefer other activities (like Netflix binge watching, online games, Instagram, senseless browsing) before going to bed.

Students and women are the two most vulnerable groups. Students are young, usually unemployed, textually active. University students are capable of postponing sleep till sunrise or beyond. For them, artificial lighting has eliminated the distinction between darkness and light.

Women everywhere perennially suffer from time poverty. Working women are engaged in additional unpaid work at home. A mother may get some peace to read or watch, only once the children are in bed. Plus, she has the morning alarm to feed, prepare and send them to school on time.

In a global research, 62% adults complained of sleep deprivation. On average the weeknight sleep for them was 6.8 hours. Hectic work and school schedule were mentioned as the two culprits.

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Pandemic and lockdowns have added fuel to the fire. The increased stress, anxiety and depression have led to aggravation. In a multi-nation study, 40% of the population complains of sleeping difficulties during the pandemic. Patients with active covid-19 have higher rates.

Revenge bedtime procrastination is a 2020 term originated in China. People who don’t have much control on their daytime life refuse to sleep early in order to regain their sense of freedom during late night hours. With technology, the boundary between work and home was already blurred. With work from home, it has vanished. You have spent the day working for someone else (employer), now you want to have your revenge by having your own time.

This should not be confused with insomnia. Revenge bedtime procrastination is a deliberate act of postponing sleep, in order to relax. (Though you may regret it the next morning).

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Sleep deprivation is a common technique used for torture. And now we inflict it on ourselves. Several solutions are suggested to fight this phenomenon. You may want to appoint an accountability partner (usually a spouse, unless he/she wants to binge watch with you). Digital curfew for the family is an option. I recommend setting a going-to-bed alarm and respecting it.

While-in-bed procrastination is an extension of the problem. Bed is meant only for two things: sleep and sex. Social distancing and sex drive generally don’t go together. Screen time must be avoided before as well as in bed. Now work and leisure are all on lit screens, making sleeping difficult. The presence of electronic devices in bed ruins the quality of sleep.

Having said all this, if it is any comfort to you, I must mention that procrastination is one disease for which no drugs or vaccines are yet developed.  

Ravi 

Corona Daily 139: Indignity

Even before the pandemic started, USA had a huge problem of unclaimed dead bodies. Around the country, medical examiners were flooded with cadavers nobody claimed. This was partly attributed to the opioid epidemic. The drug overdose deaths grew 10% annually in certain years. Cash-poor cities like Detroit have no policy and few resources. They scatter human remains in haphazard ways. After the earlier financial crisis, there were a couple of high-profile scandals with unclaimed bodies stuffed in refrigerated trailers.

The Coronavirus pandemic made the situation catastrophic. People started dying every minute in hospitals, nursing homes, at homes. Strict covid regulations and lockdowns meant many relatives couldn’t reach the deceased. In some cases, authorities were so overwhelmed, they had to transfer the dead person before finding the family. The dead had to make way for the sick. Funerals and cemetery plots are expensive. Americans in dire economic state sometimes opted to not claim the body.

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I mentioned Hart island in the previous article. This place was unknown to most New Yorkers before the pandemic. This largest public cemetery in America is the graveyard of the last resort. Generally, the poor, forgotten or lonely were buried here. Half a mile from the Bronx, this island has served this purpose since 1869, and has sheltered the victims of the Spanish flu, tuberculosis, AIDS and now Covid-19.

Burials here lack dignity. Bodies are stacked by hundreds in long muddy trenches. Plain pine boxes are loaded one on another. Since the 1950s, there are never any ceremonies, just a simple burial. The plots don’t have unique markers. AIDS victims were buried here by those wearing protective gear, until it was found AIDS doesn’t transmit through air or by touch.

Burying is done by prisoners. 10% of New York city is resting on this island. In 2019, 846 New Yorkers were brought here. In 2020, the number shot up to 2,334. Initially, short-term prisoners were put on the job. When the world was not working, why were they made to work, they thought. With the numbers growing, pre-trial detainees were added to the task force. Then the prison officers became ill with covid-19. The virus was spreading among the prisoners. They were released. Private contractors brought in 40 workers, but most of them refused to start the assignment on learning the job description.

Hart island has no electricity. It is isolated from the city. It can be reached only by a ferry. Because the prison department is in charge of the island, visiting it is difficult – unless you are dead. Visits are allowed once a month, and after some serious form-filling. It is expected that by 2027, Hart Island will have no capacity left.

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In 2016, New York banned unclaimed body donations. So, pathology students or medical schools can no longer receive them.

In the first year of the pandemic, New York city has lost nearly 35,000 people. Some remains are with foreign consulates, at various funeral homes, makeshift storages and trucks. As of today, some 800 bodies are languishing in refrigerated trucks.

During the first wave, shelves were placed inside trailers at hospitals to double the storage capacity. But the shelves were unstable. When the trailers moved, the shelves and the bodies they carried started collapsing.

In April, it was decided to set up a disaster morgue on the 39th street’s Pier in Sunset Park. This long-term storage facility can hold at least 1500 bodies. Storage is free, and there is no time limit.

Long-term freezer storage in containers is a pandemic outcome. It appears to be more socially acceptable than an unceremonious burial on Hart island. In the second wave; hospitals, funeral directors and city medical examiner’s office started discussing how to store hundreds of bodies over long stretches.

Many of the unclaimed bodies belonged to the uninsured urban poor. Now the Biden administration has offered a reimbursement of up to $9000 for funeral expenses. Cost should no longer be a reason for not claiming a body.

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The nearly 3000 toll of 9/11 is dwarfed by covid numbers. New York’s 9/11 memorial and museum are considered the fabric of New York city. Now, there is a demand for building a memorial for Covid-19 victims. Perhaps New York will wait till the end of the pandemic before planning the memorial.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 140: Ellen Torron’s Story: Part Final

At the Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten island, the chief Rabbi greeted Donofrio. A group of volunteers wearing protective gear dressed Ellen’s corpse in eight separate pieces of white linen clothing, including a bonnet, shirt, pants, gown and belt. They carried the coffin to Ellen’s new burial plot, in section 91 of the cemetery. The Rabbi opened a prayer book and recited prayers in Yiddish. The ritual was over once the coffin was covered with soil.

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About a month later, Rhoda Fairman, 83, accidentally saw a brochure from the Hebrew Free Burial Association. Normally, it would have been junked, but Rhoda noticed it on her kitchen table. The brochure displayed the names of the 333 people the association had buried in the past few months. Rhoda was stunned to see the name Ellen Torron.

Rhoda and Ellen had worked together for more than twenty years as legal secretaries at a Manhattan law firm. Ellen had never opened a Facebook account, and lost touch with colleagues. The two women would share lunch, shop together, occasionally visit museums. On 9/11, they were together watching the second plane crashing in the South tower from their 49th floor office of One Penn Plaza.

Ellen was born in 1946, the only child of Polish and Lithuanian immigrants. Since the age of 18, she lived on her own, graduating with a double degree in English and classical studies. As far as Rhoda knew, Ellen had never married. She claimed to have a daughter in Brazil, but nobody ever met her or saw any picture. Ellen was intelligent and well travelled. She didn’t mind travelling alone.

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In the eight months since her second burial, investigators found over $56,000 in her bank accounts plus jewelry including a pearl necklace, silver brooches and ruby-diamond earrings. By law, the Queens county public administrator must attempt to track down Ellen’s relatives to distribute the estate. No daughter has ever emerged. Only relatives who are siblings or first cousins (till once removed) are eligible.

Meryle Mishkin-Tank, 56, was found to be a daughter of Ellen’s first cousin. She had never met Ellen Torron, nor was she aware of her existence. However, Meryle, a paralegal, has taken great interest in trying to uncover details about Ellen’s life and death. Thanks to this episode, and extensive genealogical research, she has found and contacted five more cousins and an aunt. None of them knew anything about Ellen Torron.

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Meryle Mishkin-Tank grew up in Manhattan. But until she was told about the death of Ellen, her unknown cousin, Meryle had not heard of the Hart Island or the Mount Richmond Cemetery. Through her committed research, she found out that Ellen’s paternal grandfather, Zelman, and grandmother, Elka, were buried in the Mount Richmond cemetery as well. In fact, it turned out that their graves were located quite close from their granddaughter’s plot.

In that sense, Ellen Torron is not alone any more.

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P.S. In summer 2020, TIME magazine was granted unprecedented access to Hart Island to observe burial and exhumation operations. W. J. Hennigan, a TIME reporter witnessed first hand the retrieval and formal reburial of Ellen Torron. He just happened to be there on that day. TIME was also allowed to join the investigators’ team and visit Ellen’s apartment in July. W.J. Hennigan deserves readers’ thanks for unearthing the story.

More than a million people are buried in unmarked graves on Hart island. Most of them are anonymous and forgotten. But Ellen Torron’s story shows that with the efforts of social workers, government employees and reporters, a biography of an anonymous person can be resurrected.

Ravi