Corona Daily 056: How will the Covid Pandemic End? When?

Predicting the future is dangerous business. We live in a misinformation age, where accurately knowing the past is challenging. The pandemic end-date is something everyone is desperate to know about, and few would dare to foretell. India’s PM Modi declared victory in January, and was proved wrong. UK’s PM Johnson had announced 21 June as UK’s Freedom Day (from the virus), now the threat of the Delta variant has postponed British freedom by four weeks.

Over today and tomorrow, I will risk foretelling the end date of the pandemic. I will use logic, available research, analysis of history, opinions of various epidemiologists, and statistics. Of course, the prediction can go wrong. But then, unless you have a railway timetable, how will you know how late the train is?

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In my research, I came across two interesting concepts. One is a concept in biology called “self-limiting”. It particularly relates to parasites. A parasite can enter your tummy; start multiplying in millions, billions to cause serious gastrointestinal diseases. Nature is a master designer. Parasites, like viruses, have no brains and certainly no souls. By occupying the host’s guts, the parasite colony will harass the host, make his life miserable. However, it will not grow beyond a certain number, for fear of killing the host. If the patient dies, the parasites’ life would end as well.

To give an analogy: Imagine a corporate husband working hard, earning a decent package. His non-working wife is fond of spending. There is an ongoing race between his earnings and her spending. The innate wisdom of the wife makes sure she will not spend so much as to cause divorce, lose the husband, and her credit cards. (Sorry for the sexist analogy, but it is a historical stereotype that is easier to relate to).  

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In medical science, this beautiful concept of Nature results in Self-Limited diseases that resolve spontaneously. We are familiar with mild ones like the common cold, flu, conjunctivitis, or simply headache or back pain. They can all be self-limiting in that they will go away on their own, without any treatment. There is a long list of diseases that neither I nor my spell check recognize: Epiploic appendagitis, mesenteric adenitis, pericardial fat necrosis, omental infarct and so on. Maybe we don’t hear about them because they are self-limiting.

My key take-away from the concept is that lots of things in nature are self limiting, so are pandemics. Every single major pandemic in history came to an end, so will the current pandemic.

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Error Catastrophe is an expression I had never heard before the pandemic.

By now we all know viruses mutate. Earlier I had mentioned that the covid virus uses our living body as a photocopier, and keeps making copies of itself. This replication process is not perfect, the virus keeps on making mistakes, its copies differ or in other words mutate. We know that the mutations (now a lesson in re-learning the Greek alphabet) help the virus escape recognition by the immune system. A certain mutation can be more transmissible, faster spreading, or deadlier. Some mutations can even escape or reduce vaccine effectiveness. This has given us great cause for concern. What if the number of mutations keeps growing and goes beyond the Greek and all other alphabets?

Well, it is unlikely. The principle of Error Catastrophe explains why. If the virus makes too many mutations, it usually loses some of its biological features which have evolved to its advantage, including the ability to reproduce at all.

The Darwinian principle of ‘survival of the fittest’ applies to the virus as well. In the first few mutations, the virus is fit. After reaching a certain number, it loses its potency. Mathematicians are always working with hideous-looking formulas to arrive at that number.

In fact, some scientists are trying to use this concept to create a new antiviral medicine. Any replication system has a maximum error rate beyond which the original genetic information is gone. The antiviral medicine tries to use this rate to disrupt the virus’s replication ability.  

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(Continued tomorrow)

Ravi    

Corona Daily 057: Internet’s Dad

Rob Kenney, who will turn 57 this year, is essentially an introvert. Happily married, his two grown up children are well settled. When the pandemic started, Rob thought of posting a few simple YouTube videos giving his kids some practical lessons based on his lifetime experience. Maybe another 30-40 people would view the clips.

On 3 April 2020, he posted a two minute video called “how to tie a tie?” It’s a simple visual demonstration of how any male can tie a tie. Even geniuses and male Noble laureates had to learn this skill from someone else. Rob’s video went viral. Instead of the 30-40 viewers he had expected, it was viewed 1.3 million times. Some viewers wrote to him that they sobbed watching the video because of the “dad vibes”.

This was followed by regular uploads of short clips: how to fix running toilets? How to polish your shoes? Get a close shave? Install a ceiling fan? Change the car tires? Make a pizza? Plant grass seeds? Fry an egg? Get a driver’s license? Replace a refrigerator filter? How to read a bible? And many others.

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Rob Kenney became an internet sensation. His YouTube channel which was named “Dad, how do I?” got 3.5 million subscribers with no soliciting. There were requests for TV interviews, thousands of daily comments from viewers, corporate job offers, invitations to host TV shows.

A British girl commented on a YouTube video: “I lost my dad when I was 3 years old and I don’t know how it feels to have a dad over my head. Can I call you my father please?”

Each of his videos starts with the words: hey kids. “Hey kids, today I am going to show you how to replace a car battery.” And ends with “I love you. I am proud of you. God bless you.”

Followers flooded Rob with personal stories about their parents, broken relationships, and traumatic experiences. They looked at the ‘Internet’s dad’ for comfort.

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Rob’s parents had divorced early. His dad gained custody of the children, as the mother was manic-depressive and alcoholic. His father found another woman, and left the eight children on their own. Rob was the seventh child, 14 at the time. He moved in with his 23 year old married brother, three of them living in a 280 sq foot trailer. Rob’s teenage life was full of anger, sorrow and mental trauma. He resolved he would never allow anything similar to happen to his own children. As he grew up, he learnt he was not the only fatherless kid. There were thousands without a dad; they needed a father figure in their life.

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YouTube is full of “how to….” Videos. Why did Rob Kenney stand out and became a father figure for millions? Primarily because of his warmth and simplicity. An unassuming fellow, he didn’t even ask anyone to subscribe to his channel. His videos are shot on his Samsung Galaxy phone, using the phone’s basic free editing software. After his becoming a sensation, his daughter handles his social media, including FB and Instagram pages.

When asked what distinguished his videos from other DIY videos, he gave a one-word answer: “heart”. There is more to being a dad or mom than just fixing things, parents must share their heart with the kids, he says. And that is evident in his videos. His tone is never patronizing, or paternal. It is more about ‘let us do this thing together’.

Rob reads passages from the Bible every morning. It adds calmness and clarity to his life. In the mornings, he stays off his phone and computers.

Last month, he has published his first book called: “Dad, How do I?” In a way it is an extension of his YouTube channel, the book offering ‘dadvice’ for everyday tasks and successful living. It has many more how to chapters than the YouTube channel.

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The surreal year for the Internet’s dad continues. Tomorrow, on Father’s day, Rob is likely to get thousands of emotional letters and emails again.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 058: Quest for a Magic Pill

Yesterday’s announcement by the White House may take the world closer to the pandemic finish line. The Biden administration will invest more than $3 billion for the discovery, development and manufacturing of a medicine, ideally an oral pill, against Covid-19. America’s $18 billion investment in vaccines produced five vaccines at miraculous speed. Reliable covid tests and effective vaccines were great scientific and political achievements. An oral pill is missing in the portfolio. AIDS, once considered a death sentence, can now be managed with pills. Flu and hepatitis C also have pills.

The plan is to have a rapid test kit at home. If you test positive, you buy a strip of covid pills, and complete the 5-10 day course. As easy as measuring temperature and swallowing a paracetamol. It is hoped this investment will produce pills by the end of this year. In the next few months, you will likely keep hearing three names of pill makers: Pfizer, Merck and Roche.

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Why is this investment by the US government so important? Because private investors are absolutely not interested in drugs that cure anything quickly. The commercial angel investors prefer chronic ailments such as high cholesterol, diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis. Only lifelong drugs attract private investors.

The $3.2 billion are invested for scientists to develop pills not only against covid-19, but against any viruses with pandemic potential. Compared to vaccines, pills can have wider applications, they are easier to repurpose. Vaccines are incredibly disease specific, medicines less so. Remdesivir, initially approved to treat covid, was originally developed for hepatitis C, and tested during the 2018 Ebola epidemic in Congo.

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Scientists have found that the best way to defend against the covid virus is to control it right when the infection starts. This is the time when the virus is multiplying rapidly in the infected body. The pills will disable this process of copying. Once the patient is taken to the hospital, it is generally too late. The virus has already made millions of copies that are eroding the organs. Remdesivir failed because it can be applied only intravenously, in a hospital setting, by which time the virus has already penetrated the body.

The antiviral pills we are likely to see this year will aim to stop the virus’s ability to make copies.

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Vaccines are given to healthy people. It is not difficult to find healthy volunteers for trials. Testing antiviral pills is a difficult job. Because you want to catch volunteers immediately after they are infected. Many Covid-19 positive people are asymptomatic, so it is difficult to know if the pill worked on such people. Making safe pills is not the difficult part. Scientists need to have an ongoing disease for carrying on tests. Getting enough covid-19 positive people for trials should not be a problem yet.

Tamiflu, a pill that is taken both to prevent and cure flu, is a role model. Scientists expect covid-19 to become seasonal like flu. Vaccinating the whole world with two doses (16 billion) every year is impractical. Much easier to take pills on first sight of the symptoms. So far, the official number of worldwide cases is 178 million, including asymptomatic cases. Even allowing for under-reporting, these are more manageable numbers.

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This month, on 9 June, USA booked their first pre-order for 1.7 million courses of the pills Molnupiravir. (This is another name you are likely to hear often in the coming months). Developed by Merck, the Biden administration will pay $1.2 billion only if the drug is approved by FDA.

Where private investors are reluctant, such public-private partnership is a viable commercial model to develop treatments against diseases. America’s vaccine gamble paid off; let us hope the antiviral pills one is successful as well.  

Those hesitating to take vaccines will surely run to the chemist to buy pills once they feel the symptoms.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 059: Vacancies without Takers

USA is among the first countries trying to exit from the pandemic – to go back to the old normal. In April, a record 9.3 million jobs were available for workers to grab. By a freak coincidence 9.3 million Americans were unemployed in May. Some industries have a greater worker shortage than others.

Many employers are raising wages to attract workers. If you see lots of vacancies in McDonalds, it is not a real shortage. Hotels and restaurants are receiving more applications than job openings. It is only a matter of recruitment time to fill up those jobs. There are other industries which are not getting workers despite raising salaries. This week, the Washington Post has analysed wage and employment data across hundreds of industries and identified seven sectors where record paychecks for non-managerial jobs have failed to fill up the vacancies.

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The non-managerial staff working with psychologists and other mental health practitioners is now paid 30% more than at the start of the pandemic (reaching $731 a week). Anxiety, depression and stress were on the rise before the pandemic, they peaked during it. Last September, 40% practitioners said they felt burnt out. Like doctors and nurses, psychologists and their staff are experiencing pandemic fatigue. Few new faces want to join the profession.

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Americans want to start wearing new clothes, both formal and casual. But worker shortages at Textile Mills are so acute they are turning down big orders. Workers’ wages went up by 18% (now $880 a week) during the pandemic. This is a more skilled job than a restaurant waiter. Qualified factory workers are in short supply, and different industries are competing for them. Some mill workers might have chosen an alternative career. It appears the USA would need to import textiles from China for a long time, whether they like it or not.

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I wrote earlier about Specialized Long Distance Truck Drivers. Driving long vehicles like refrigerated trailers is a job that requires training and experience. In 2021, their wages have gone up by 10% (now $1060 a week). Bonuses can be double that amount.  Despite a lucrative package, it is a challenging and exhausting job. The pandemic alone is not responsible for the shortage.

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In April 2020, pet adoptions hit a record level. Socially isolated people adopted pets, many becoming dog-owners for the first time. Vet doctors and staff are mentally and physically exhausted trying to manage the number and inexperience of pet owners. Most of them complain they have no personal life left. (Pet owners can call a vet during the night, and sometimes do). Weekly earnings for non-managerial staff rose 16% to $1,352 in 2021. But in most places available staff is reduced by 20%.  

One vet said she lost two receptionists when a client was rude, using profanities, making the receptionists cry. Customers’ emotions ran high during the pandemic, raising stress levels of staff along with them.

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USA has plenty of timber. With nearly interest-free mortgages and the work-from-home revolution, many Americans are thinking of moving to new houses. But to convert the timber to boards, sawmills don’t have enough workers. The weekly paychecks are up by more than 10% to $942. The timber price bubble has already burst, and the mills are not interested in investing in modernization. It is possible some workers prefer to collect the stimulus checks and unemployment allowance rather than resume work.

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Connected to the heated housing market are the two industries: Movers and Specialty Finishing Contractors. Moving companies pay 14% more in 2021 (now $745 a week), but not enough workers are turning up. Across the USA, frustrated customers are waiting for weeks for their belongings to arrive.  

Specialized contractors deal with new construction, re-modeling, interior decorators for residences and commercial property. The 17% raise this year has elevated their wages to $1,075 a week. But they are losing rather than gaining skilled workers.

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By August or September, the unemployment allowances will likely disappear. Schools may re-open allowing parents to go back to work. Some of those vacancies may get filled. If not, a no-brainer solution is to import the goods or bring in migrant workers.  

Ravi                                                                                      

Corona Daily 060: Hygiene Theatre

Last year, the first time my family went to a restaurant, our temperatures were checked. When I asked the waiter for the menu, he said it would be on my smartphone. Please click on the QR code and you will see the menu.

The ice cream shops stopped serving cones. McDonalds ketchup pumps disappeared. In Bombay, a roadside vegetable vendor asked me to pay him through Google Pay.

Cleaning of handles and knobs, metal surfaces, Amazon parcels; washing of vegetables and fruits became an obsession. A friend of mine carries a special stick to press the lift knobs. For the first time in 116 years, New York City shut down its subway system in the night to disinfect seats, compartment walls, and poles with antiseptic weapons. “They are power washing the outside of cars as if New Yorkers were going around licking the exteriors of subway cars. It’s hygiene theatre, and it has no place in the public discussion about covid now.” Said someone.

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This obsession is similar to the safety theatre triggered by the terrorist attacks. Before entering Bombay’s shopping malls and luxury hotels, a guard checks under your car with a mirror. The same car can carry a rocket launcher or Kalashnikovs inside, not under. At the airport, toothpastes and perfume bottles get confiscated. In 2006, a British not-such-a-gentleman was planning to carry a powdered drink Tang, and with a set of batteries wished to detonate the drink on a flight. He was arrested before boarding. Not sure if anybody has checked whether 100ml+ Tang can cause an explosion. But that single speculative case has prevented millions of air passengers from carrying ordinary water bottles on flights. Would the “hygiene theatre” continue like the “security theatre”?

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Last July, Emanuel Goldman, a microbiology professor, published a paper in the Lancet called “Exaggerated Risk of Transmission of Covid-19 by Fomites”. In medical lingo, Fomites are objects and surfaces that can transmit an infectious pathogen.

It is believed that if you touch a surface that a sick person has touched, and then touch your eyes or mouth, you will infect yourself. Goldman says this is true of some diseases, particularly bacterial diseases. However, most respiratory viruses spread primarily through air. RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) is the only one where there is evidence fomite transmission can happen. Rhinovirus that causes the common cold, and flu overwhelmingly spread via aerosols.

Ventilation, therefore, is more important than surfaces. Open windows may be safer than the strongest disinfectants. Washing hands, though, is a good habit, before preparing food, and after going to the bathroom. This has nothing to do with the pandemic.

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A well known case study in Seoul, South Korea talks about cases in a skyscraper. On its eleventh floor was a call center. This is where people were talking loudly as part of their job. More than half the members of the call center became sick. More than 1000 employees and residents shared elevators in the same building, and touched the same buttons as the call center employees. However, less than one percent was infected in the rest of the building. This case is cited as an example that transmission happened mainly through aerosols and was airborne, rather than by touching the surfaces.

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Two months ago, America’s CDC finally acknowledged that the risk of getting infected through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects (fomites) was low. The CDC director said disinfection is recommended in indoor settings such as schools or homes only if there has been a suspected or confirmed case in the last 24 hours.

Aggressive cleaning of surfaces creates a false sense of security. It is also a waste of money and time. The current consensus is that outdoor activities are much safer. Indoors, ventilation is critical. Masks and handwashing are more useful than obsessive cleaning of surfaces.

One hopes the hygiene theatre doesn’t become a constant the way security theatre has.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 061: If I Have It, You Have It

Shane Michael, 42, a married man with six children is a resident of Des Moines, capital of Iowa, North America.

On 11 November 2020, he had gone to an eyewear shop to buy a new pair of spectacles. A stranger in the shop approached Shane and said, “Can you pull your mask over your nose?” The CDC guidance on correct mask-wearing requires Americans to put the mask over their nose and mouth and secure it under their chin.

Shane, enraged by this nosey stranger, exchanged words with him. A few minutes later they met in the parking lot.

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From here on, the version of events differs. The name of the other guy was Mark Dinning.  Shane didn’t know it. (After all that happened later, he will never forget that name).

Mark Dinning told police that Shane followed him out of the eyewear shop, and began assaulting him. Both men fell to the ground, with Shane on top. Shane’s left arm hit Mark’s left eye hard, and Mark instinctively bit that arm. In response, Shane hit Mark’s private parts with his knees. Then Shane took down his mask, coughed in Mark’s face, spat on him and said, “If I have it, you have it.”

These are the details in the police report that Mark Dinning filed.

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Shane told the police it was Mark who began the fight. When Shane walked to his car, Mark nudged him and poked his thumb into his stomach. He said he was holding Mark down on the ground in self-defense. Dennis Michael, Shane’s father, said his son has asthma and he was not going to cover his nose and mouth because he can’t breathe.

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Multiple witnesses at the scene of the fight told police Shane was the aggressor. An employee in the eyeware shop described him as a problem. Photo of Mark Dinning’s face, red and badly swollen, and his swollen left eye shut was offered as an exhibit to the court. The following day, Mark had described on his Facebook wall how he had nearly lost his eye.

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Shane was arrested and charged. In February, the prosecutors offered a plea deal. Shane should enter a plea accepting his willful act causing bodily injury. This gets classified as a class D felony. In exchange, the prosecutors would request the court a deferred judgment with Shane on probation for two years.

Shane Michael refused that offer, saying he would prefer to argue the case to a jury. Prosecutors upgraded the charge to an act causing serious injury, a class C felony.

The jury unanimously found Shane guilty. Last week, on 9 June, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. This particular offence carries a mandatory 10 years sentence, which the judge doesn’t have discretion to reduce once a jury convicts a person.

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Shane’s father said the sentence was not fair. It’s like the other man got a black eye in a bar fight, and now his son will be in prison for ten years. He also complained there was no mask mandate in the state, the source of the fight. Here his son was rather unfortunate. The Iowa governor had issued a mask mandate on 10 November, only one day before the fight.

Shane’s wife, Becky, said they have six children, and she is not sure how she will get by with her husband in prison. “He is my rock, he is my protector. I am lost without him.” She said.

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Out of all the mask-related cases, this case was given the longest sentence.

The lessons from the case: Wear your mask properly if it is a legal requirement in your area. If a stranger points out that the mask should cover your nose rather than chin, politely accept the criticism and pull the mask up immediately. If your instinct gets the better of you and you assault a stranger, accept your guilt, be remorseful, and accept whatever plea the prosecution offers. Also, the more children you have, the more responsible your behavior should be.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 062: Your Next Stay at a *****Star Hotel

With coronavirus retreating and the sun shining, American families are rushing out holidaying. At the beginning of April, over ten million travelers passed through airport security at American airports. People are heading south in particular, to warm weather and lax covid protocols. Hotels in Tampa and Phoenix are almost at full occupancy.

Hotels, including the luxury hotels, are planning a new post-pandemic business model. Pandemic taught them certain things about guest expectations. The new strategy is to improve profits by employing fewer workers. Two big areas are daily room cleaning and breakfast spreads.

In most hotels, whether earmarked for quarantine or not, staff was instructed to minimize their interaction with the hotel guests. Coronavirus-era government health guidelines said, “Guest rooms occupied by the same customer over multiple days should not be cleaned daily, unless requested.” The American hotel association would love to retain them post-pandemic.

If room cleaning were to happen on alternate days instead of every day, the hotel can employ half the housekeeping staff, instantly boosting profit margins. USA conducted a national survey in August 2020 asking frequent travelers a few questions. 86% said they were happy with suspending daily housekeeping. 85% were happy using technology to reduce direct contact with hotel staff. 77% were happy with temporary closing of swimming pool, gym etc. Hotel owners have concluded, perhaps wrongly, that these services are not critical. If customers could live without them during the pandemic, why not later?

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Different options are considered. Frequency will be reduced. An extreme suggestion is to offer it only between check-out and check-in. If you stay for seven days, you will have a clean room on arrival. It will be cleaned only seven days later when you leave. (In USSR times, I have lived in Soviet hotels, where this was common practice. I never thought it would one day become best practice for American hotels).

Marriot hotels would like to move to “opt-in” as opposed to “opt-out” housekeeping services. The default is absence of housekeeping. If you want it, ask for it, and pay for it. The day is not far when you will need to tick the box for “room cleaning” and pay extra when booking a hotel room. (Like food on a domestic flight).

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Breakfast is the other thing that may become a casualty. In the pandemic, hotels sent packed boxes to the rooms, and guests were happy to eat in their rooms. (The word happy is used by the hotel owners). Why spread a table every morning with cornflakes, fruit, juices, cakes, egg dishes, meat slices, cheese and grapes? In a bed and breakfast model, the guests tend to eat more and damage the hotel’s profitability.

Breakfast is another item that may become an opt-in.  

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Marriott, the world’s largest hotel chain has installed “contactless arrival kiosks” at its hotels in New York, Louisiana and Miami. Convenience stores have been replaced by giant vending machines. These contact-free innovations are for the benefit of the guests and their health.

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In America, employment in the hotel industry is still down more than 25%, with more than 500,000 jobs lost in the pandemic. The labour union “Unite Here” estimates that the loss of the practice of daily room cleaning would lose 181,000 cleaning jobs, 39% of all cleaning jobs. They would never come back.

Hilton’s CEO Chris Nassetta said he is focused on reducing labour costs at the chain’s 6,400 hotels. “The work we are doing right now in every one of our brands is about making them higher margin businesses and creating more labour efficiencies. (genteelism for job cuts). When we get out of the crisis, those businesses will be higher margin and require less labour than they did pre-covid.”

The Hilton share price rose by 20% after his speech. CEO Nassetta’s pay package went up from $21 million (2019) to $56 million (2020).

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If you ask me, book an Airbnb the next time you want to book a hotel. You have to clean the place yourself, but that is no longer a shortcoming, is it?

Ravi 

Corona Daily 063: Blood Connects Us All

Tomorrow, 14 June, is World Blood Donor Day, the second one in this pandemic. This day is celebrated annually since 2005 on the birth anniversary of the Austrian biologist Karl Landsteiner. He won the Nobel for his discovery of the blood groups A, B, O and others. This year Rome is the host.

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Last April, most blood drives were cancelled threatening serious blood shortages everywhere. Hospital refrigerators started running out of blood. Schools, corporations and places of worship were shut – these are the places where the major blood donation drives take place. Most people, anywhere in the world, have donated blood the first time in a school. The Red Cross receives 80% of its blood stock from drives at these venues.

Temporary donation centers moved the donor beds six feet apart, added sanitisers, bought thousands of pairs of gloves, but donors and staff were worried about catching the virus. The number of road accident cases dropped, but women were still hemorrhaging during childbirth. In gun cultures, people were still getting shot. And cancer patients needed transfusions.

Only in the USA, every two seconds someone needs blood. And a single donation can save up to three lives. In a year, more than 1.75 million people are diagnosed with cancer for the first time. Many of them need blood, often daily, during chemotherapy. Type O-negative blood, and type AB plasma can be transfused to any patient, but both are in short supply.

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Blood outside our body is a perishable product. Red blood cells last about 42 days, and plasma can be frozen. However, platelets – the tiny cells in blood that help it clot – last only five days. Excluding the collection and transport time, it is effectively three days. This is the reason constant donations and a rolling blood supply is critical.

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In poor countries, 54 % blood transfusions are given to children under 5 years of age. In the rich countries, 75% transfusions are given to patients 60+. On the other hand, because rich countries are ageing, 65+ donors are a big percentage of donors. (In young countries like India, a person above 65 is not eligible to donate.) In America and Europe, this was another reason for the drop in collections. The 65+ donors were told they were vulnerable and shouldn’t leave their houses.

Countries wanted to attract young donors. But due to school closures, organizations like the Red Cross didn’t manage to reach them. It is feared three or four batches of youngsters will miss the experience of donating blood as they step into adulthood.  

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Scientists in many countries including the USA, Korea, Pakistan, China, and France analysed thousands of blood donations for the presence of the coronavirus.  The good news is the researchers uniformly found that the risk of transmission of covid-19 through blood donation is close to zero. Even in the rare cases where donated blood tested positive, transmission through transfusion didn’t happen.

The gap between a vaccine and blood donation varies depending on the country and vaccine, but is usually 14 days. If you have had a covid infection, in India you need to wait for 28 days before donating. With the covid crisis, India has opened an online platform BloodForIndia.

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In the UK, generally speaking a liberal democracy, two men can form a civil union, but may not be able to donate blood. When a British man goes to donate blood, one of the questions on the form is: “have you had sex with another man in the last three months?” If he says yes, he is disqualified.

The law was reformed in 2017. Before that any man who had had sex with another man in the previous 12 months was disqualified.

Tomorrow, on the occasion of World Blood Donor Day, this barrier is removed. Gay and bisexual men with a stable sexual partner and with no sex-transmitted disease or AIDS can donate their blood from tomorrow, without resorting to abstinence.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 064: Choose a Chant

Yesterday, I talked about the impact of empty stadiums on referee decisions and player performance. Players from different sports have shared their experience of playing without fans. The Tokyo Olympics which will start next month may be held without spectators. The organizers are currently studying learnings from the past year.

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Players from mega sports such as baseball and cricket mentioned they could talk directly to the dugout from the mound/pitch. There was no traffic noise from outside the stadium. Their own talk and opponents’ chatter was clearly audible, even whispers.

When the guys hit the ball, it sounded very loud off the bat. The fans in the stands usually dilute that sound.

Preston Tucker of the Kia Tigers said crowd noise often indicated to him the importance of the situation. Players like him realize the big situation moment based on the crowd decibels. Even the silence of the stands can denote a critical moment. (Like during a penalty shootout in football). In empty stadiums, the game was uniformly quiet.

Most players said they missed the feedback from the crowd. After a big strikeout (baseball), a goal (soccer), a wicket or a six (cricket), players are accustomed to instant feedback. It keeps the adrenalin going, particularly in the later phase of the game when players are tired. Fan support is their reserve energy.

A passionate crowd is capable of turning a match around. Star athletes who claim such focus that they never hear the crowd realized it was not so.

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There is now a whole new profession and skill development for creating simulated crowd noise. Sky Sports created a range of custom-tailored, and team specific crowd noises and chants. This was to make the Premier League lively. Now, even when the spectators return, TV viewers will have a choice between the stadium noise, and the simulated crowd sound. There is also a “choose a chant” feature. When England plays Croatia tomorrow at the Wembley stadium, in theory, the Croatian viewers of Sky Sports can choose crowd cheers, jeers and chanting in Croatian.

When Bundesliga went ahead with matches in empty stadiums, a set of skilled operators were watching the games from a studio in Munich. They had at their disposal dozens of carefully selected audio samples, as specific as a rising applause when a team is chasing an equalizing goal, or loud booing for a call overturned by a video review. A clip for every situation, and the job of the operator is to press the right clip at a flash.

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Jean Baudrillard, a French intellectual, had lamented that simulated experiences were replacing real life in postindustrial society. The big sport is now geared towards TV viewership. A man in the stadium watching the live action instinctively waits for action replay, and realizes that it is on offer only at home. (Now, though, some sports offer simultaneous viewing on big screens in stadiums).

Baudrillard describes the media-saturated culture moving towards “hyper-reality”, a state where the simulated is more prominent than the authentic. Where images and copies are considered realer than real life.

The hyper-reality problem has become worse during the pandemic, not only for sport. We can conveniently meet and chat on Zoom. Ballets and orchestras can be watched online. Offices and office life can be made redundant through remote work. Students can procure their degrees without ever visiting a university.

In sitcoms, viewers accept the fake laughing tracks that go off at the opportune moments. But it still makes us a little uncomfortable – we would prefer natural laughter.

If TV viewers start choosing the crowd noise and chants, why have real players? Fantasy sport competitions can be arranged, where the viewer chooses not only the chants, but also the winner. Maybe such competitions are already happening.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 065: Football without Fans

With noticeable delay, Euro 2020, the European football championship begins today. It is likely to have fans in the stadium, though the virus cases scoreboard may change that. For the first time, VAR (video assistant referee) system has been introduced.

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Big sport earns its revenue from TV advertising rather than gate receipts. Historically, spectators at the stadium were critical for most sports. In the pandemic, notwithstanding the risks, football and cricket tournaments were conducted in empty stadiums. Fake pre-taped crowd cheering was added in the mix for the TV viewers. Though the players and devotees of the game were frustrated, researchers were delighted at this unique opportunity.

Among others, studies tried to answer the question: why do home teams tend to win more? One of the suspected causes was the bias of the referee.

Researchers found that with crowds, referees penalize home teams less. Without fans, this bias disappeared. In one experiment, officials were shown past recorded games and asked how they would have ruled. When the crowd noise was on, they were kinder to the home team. When the sound was muted, they were more objective.

One paper published last year found that in the pandemic’s empty stadiums, the home team’s edge vanished. Referees gave similar number of cards for fouls to both sides, and visitors won as often as the hosts. A study commissioned by the Economist analysed 1,534 matches without fans in 2020. The total number of cards received by the home team went up from 46% pre-pandemic to 50%. (You may think this is close, but 46% for the home team meant 54% for the visitors).

Other than cards, in normal times, home teams received more injury time. When home teams were leading, injury time became shorter.

An earlier Italian research (in 2007, Italy had banned spectators for their behavior) noted that the same referees officiating in a game between the same two teams at the same venue behaved dramatically differently when spectators were present versus when no one was watching.

It is not because referees are biased or corrupt, but because they are human. They get carried away by the crowd pressure, often without realizing it.

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The latest Economist mentions another study that is even more interesting.

Fabrizio Colella, an economics graduate student researched the impact of racism on players with and without fans. (I wonder why many football researchers are Italian). For each player in Serie A, the top tier of Italian football, Fabrizio compiled individual performance scores for the last two years. The performance was rated on the scale of one to ten, taking into account many aspects including goals and assists. He classified over 500 players into white and non-white. For each of these players, he compared how they fared, on average, when performing before fans and in empty stadiums.

On average, white players scored worse without fans than in packed stadiums. The non-white players’ performance metric improved significantly. The researcher built a mathematical model to look for other variables, such as player’s nationality or the quality of the team. However, the only thing that stood out was skin colour. It seems the racial chants that are common in football stadiums affect the black players more than the white players. In fact, the study found that the effect was greater for the darkest-skinned players than for brown or olive-skinned ones.

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This month, Romelu Lakaku, a striker in the Belgium team said that racism in football right now is at an all-time high. Euro 2020 that starts today will bring back the fans to the stadiums and inevitably racial abuse as well.

The Video assistant referee may be able to reduce the bias of the on-field referee. But no solution is in sight for the football hooligans and their racist chanting.

Ravi