Corona Daily 041: Value of Life

Now that most of the world is on the descending side of the virus curve, economists have started evaluating the pandemic actions. Were the lockdowns really worth it? Was saving lives more important than saving economies? The latest Economist opens up the debate lives versus livelihoods by citing dozens of papers published during the pandemic.

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For most people from Bill Gates to a man on the street, the question was a no-brainer. The economy can bounce back; a life gone can’t be revived. Human life is priceless, said politicians before announcing total shutdowns.

Supporters of lockdowns claimed people were so scared they would have shut themselves anyway. If at your office or factory, colleagues were reporting ill every day or falling dead; would you be keen to continue working? Before the vaccines, a lockdown was the only preventive tool available, they said.

Opponents said lockdowns destroyed livelihoods, without controlling the virus spread. Officially four million people have died, and in reality perhaps 10-20 million. Many nations suffered heavy tolls despite strict lockdowns. Children in many countries will probably miss in-person classes over three academic years.

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Let me ask a hypothetical question. If covid-19 was known to be dangerous exclusively for people aged 100 and above, would the world have taken any action? Probably not. There are about half a million centenarians alive, and they have so few years left, it is not worth shutting down anything, or even investing heavily in vaccines. Evidently we are willing to sacrifice 100+ year olds (unless we are one ourselves).

Here, I would like to discuss two concepts mentioned in the Economist article. One is VSL (Value of Statistical Life).

Economists must keep aside emotions, and ruthlessly put a value on a human life. I will offer an example where we subconsciously attach some kind of a monetary value to our own life. A family of four is planning to go on vacation. A ticket on Qantas, Lufthansa or Singapore Airlines is $1000 more expensive than say on Malaysian airlines, Ethiopian airlines or Asiana airlines. The head of the family decides to buy the cheaper tickets and save $4000. By opting for a less safe (actual or perceived) airline, the family has put a lower value on their lives.

The American regulatory agencies consider the value of an American life to be $11 million (VSL). The VSL concept helps policy makers conduct the cost-benefit analysis. For example, USA can invest $11 trillion as stimulus to save 1 million American lives. The underlying assumption is that those one million Americans will be able to recover that amount by their future contribution to the GDP.

The downside of VSL is that it doesn’t differentiate between young and old. QALY (Value of a Quality Adjusted Life Year) is a better measure.

In 2008, Stanford economists had calculated $129,000 as the QALY for someone on kidney dialysis. Meaning, each $129,000 spent would add a year to the dialysis patient’s life. Once this was known, the insurance company and the state could decide whether to offer the treatment and at what cost.

For the Covid-19 pandemic, Britain has decided the QALY to be GBP 30,000 per annum. In other words, if covid death is going to take away ten years from someone’s life, the value of that saved life is GBP 30,000x 10=  GBP 300,000 ($417,000).  

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There is no official data about the value of human life. One good measure is to see how much a nation pays if its soldier dies in a war. USA pays $500,000 to the families of soldiers dying in Iraq or Afghanistan, $100,000 to those in other combats. India pays $40,000.

It should be evident that poor countries have a lower VSL. The lockdowns (statistically) become worthwhile for rich nations, because they place a higher value on the lives of their citizens. Every life saved offers a greater economic benefit.

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It is easier for economists to do these ruthless cost-benefit analyses. A lot more difficult for those who govern. However, since the pandemic is still on, governments would do well to conduct the trade-off exercise. It can improve their decision-making.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 042: Deforestation

An extreme heat wave is currently on in the western part of America and Canada. Canada recorded an all-time high of nearly 50C (122 F) this week. At least 500 people have suddenly died due to heat. Lytton, a Canadian village in British Columbia, caught in a natural wildfire, was almost entirely burnt down.

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Forests are our key weapon in the fight to slow the Earth’s warming. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, older trees have greater ability to absorb and lock up CO2.

2019 was the second or third warmest year in recorded human history, depending on the source of data. It was expected that during the pandemic, the process of de-forestation would slow down. What happened in reality?

In yesterday’s article, I mentioned that in 2020 the global carbon emissions came down by 7%. That was the good news.

During the pandemic time, the world lost more than 100,000 square miles of tree cover. (The area of Italy or New Zealand). Tree cover loss in Russia alone was 21,000 sq miles (the size of Switzerland). Russia was followed by Brazil (13,000), Australia (9,100), USA (7,600) and Canada (4,600). In the tropics which include Brazil, India and Africa, more than 16,000 sq miles of forests vanished, a 12% increase over 2019. This was despite severe shutdowns.

The pandemic summer months saw massive wildfires in Russia, Australia and the USA. Droughts and insect infestation also played their role. Tropics, on the other hand, had mainly man-made disasters. It is either the inability to control wildfires or the deliberate expansion of agriculture, and illegal grabbing of forest land. Brazil has the worst record in this respect.

Global pandemic shutdowns reduced carbon emissions by 2.4 billion tons (7%). The loss of trees resulted in 2.6 billion tons of emissions in the atmosphere.

The deforestation more than wiped out the pandemic carbon savings.

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The forests lost in wildfires can grow back. From the carbon viewpoint it is not the same, though. A newly planted sapling will take decades to acquire the CO2 absorption capacity of a 100-year old tree.

Forests lost in the tropics rarely come back. The destroyed forest lands are generally used for cattle ranching or growth of crops like soy. In the southern Amazon, Brazil has illegally claimed large swathes of land. Wildfires in Brazil often happen when humans light fires to clear land, and then can’t control the fire. Last year, in Brazil’s vast western wetland region known as the Pantanal, out-of-control fires consumed a mindboggling 30% of the rich forest land.

Deforestation sets up a vicious cycle. The destroyed forests raise the carbon emissions making the earth hotter still. The hotter Earth causes more wildfires ravaging more forests.

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Every year, the ever-growing world population creates millions of extra mouths to feed. More meat-eating requires even higher amount of vegetables (because some animals we eat consume multiple times more vegetables).

Climate experts suggest (a) checking the growth of the world population through consistent family planning strategies; particularly in Asia and Africa (b) learn to increase the efficiency of existing agricultural land. Produce more in the same plot. (c) Reduce food waste. This is something we can do at our homes and when we eat out. (d) Shifting human diets to include less meat and fewer dairy products. The vegetarian and vegan movements are not ideological. Their success will certainly restrict agricultural land expansion. (e) Planting massive new forests, a process known as “afforestation”. This could remove substantial amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. However, doing this on a massive scale could result in a sharp increase in food prices, according to a report.

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Our destruction of nature is the root cause of pandemics. Razing forests and hunting wildlife bring people into contact with the viruses and microbes animals carry. This is well known.

Destroying trees and forests also cause irreversible climate change. The covid pandemic showed that the loss of forests increases CO2 emissions that can’t be saved by the world’s strictest lockdowns.

Ravi   

Corona Daily 043: Build Back Better

Last year in March, Bombay, like most of the world, suddenly joined a historic natural experiment. Roads became deserted, planes stopped flying, we could see the horizon with the smog clearing up, world’s most crowded city trains became static, not only shops but factories and mills were shut, noise levels plummeted. Air felt, and was, cleaner. In a selfish way, some people secretly prayed for a continued lockdown.

Climate scientists became excited. They could now see how CO2 was changing. The arithmetic was simple. If a severe lockdown in a city brought carbon emissions down by x million tons, the city generated that many tons of carbon emissions during that period.            

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French climate scientists showed the calculations were more nuanced. Even with uniformly strict lockdowns, there were wide variations in emission reductions in various cities of the world.

They compared Paris with New York. In March 2020, Paris saw a drop of 72% as compared to normal, while New York City only 10%. Why such a huge difference?

Professor Philippe Ciais explained that Paris doesn’t have any fossil fuel power plants, or industrial sites, New York City still does. The other key difference is the way buildings are heated. In France, 70% of buildings are heated with clean nuclear based electricity. New York City heats with fuels; and much of its CO2 emissions are related to the heating of buildings. Even during severe lockdowns, these buildings continued to be heated the same way, with no reduction in emissions. The fossil fuel plants within the New York City limits were the major culprit. Cars made up a much smaller proportion of overall energy use.

Even when New York City was completely shut down, it continued to emit more than 80% of the previous level. Personal behavior in New York or many other megacities is not going to fix the carbon emission problem. The way energy is generated and transmitted is crucial. Governments will need to systematically make energy cleaner.

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2008 was the earlier major crash for the European electricity industry. That was not health related, but a financial crisis. Demand for power fell sharply. Post recession, when the demand picked up, solar and wind supplied the growth. Europe’s use of fossil fuels never returned to the pre-2008 levels.

Experts believe the same thing can happen with the coronavirus pandemic. It can trigger governments to move to cleaner energy.

C40 is a climate change network of the world’s megacities. Mark Watts, its head, feels the change will be driven by cities, rather than countries. During the pandemic, mayors of big cities have been meeting virtually twice a week to discuss ways to manage a green recovery.

Sally Capp, the mayor of Melbourne, was already committed to climate action. However, covid-19 has made her greatly speed up her environmental improvement plans. She is rolling out her bicycle lane plans in twelve months, originally planned to take ten years. Melbourne has committed to planting 150,000 trees, shrubs and grasses in the next six months.

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The worldwide shutdown was imagined to be the biggest carbon crash ever recorded. By December 2020, the global carbon emissions went down by 7%. However, they are recovering much faster than the recovery of the society and economy. Unfortunately, the pandemic pause will have no real effect in the short or long term. Scientists now estimate that by 2030, the global temperature will be 0.01 C lower as a result of Covid-19. In short, negligible.

Since the mid-1850s, carbon emissions have driven temperatures up by 1 C. If CO2 levels are not dramatically reduced, they are expected to rise by 3-4 C by the end of this century. Today’s toddlers will experience many genuinely unbearable summers.

Several findings suggest climate is as serious a crisis as covid-19. There is a sense that not individuals, but governments are the biggest actors in the climate change process.   

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The covid-19 emergency prompted most governments, albeit reluctantly, to put health and lives ahead of the economy. Governments need to do the same for the climate change crisis.

Ravi                           

Corona Daily 044: The Euro 2020 Virus

Do you know who has travelled to all eleven European cities, and was present at each football game in the Euro 2020 tournament? Coronavirus. First time in the past ten weeks, coronavirus cases are rising across Europe. Is it any surprise?

Tomorrow, on 3 July, England will play Ukraine in Rome. Yesterday, the Italian government shocked English fans holding confirmed tickets by asking them not to come to Italy. Until 9 pm yesterday, they could pass on their tickets to friends in Italy, or surrender them to claim a refund. Italy has a five-day quarantine requirement. The Italian government was confident the English fans had ignored it. Considering that England is a potential opponent in the final for Italy, this could be strategic warfare rather than a health measure.

Meanwhile, from tonight Portugal has imposed a nighttime curfew. This is to discourage the gathering of young people at night, said a cabinet minister. Portugal only recently had reopened the economy to prepare for summer tourists. It is suggestive that the curfew was thought of only after Portugal lost to Belgium on 27 June.

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Germans are furious. Yesterday, Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister said England’s plans to have 60,000+ spectators for the semi-finals and final were “utterly irresponsible”.

Karl Lauterbach, a parliamentarian said, “UEFA is responsible for the deaths of many people.”

All matches in Munich were played before only 14,500 fans, everyone required by German regulations to wear masks, and give a negative test result before the match. Whereas the England-Germany match in Wembley with 42,000 fans was the largest pandemic crowd in England. Both the semifinals and the final will happen in London’s Wembley stadium. For the finals, Wembley will take more than 60,000 unmasked spectators.

We have no ability to know what happens in the parallel universe. The German criticism from ministers and health experts began after Germany lost 0-2 to England on 29 June. Germans are not expected to lose, and certainly not to England. Had Germany won, would any German minister have talked about football causing deaths?

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This week, Scottish officials have linked 2,000 cases to Euro 2020. Most of them had travelled to London for Scotland’s game on 18 June. Others had caught the virus at a fanzone in Glasgow or participated in a match watching party at pubs or someone’s home.

Scotland was qualified to play in the Euro after 25 years. One can’t really blame the Scottish fans for risking attending an event that is only slightly less frequent than a pandemic.

When Scotland-England played at an early stage of the tournament, Scotland’s midfielder Billy Gilmour tested positive. After a thorough health review, two players of their opponents were sent into self-isolation. I have wondered how this contact tracing happens. Did they replay the match on video and noted the players who came closer than six feet to Gilmour? How was it that two English players and no Scottish player were sent into isolation? The only possible explanation is that the three players belong to the same club, Chelsea.

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Russia’s St Petersburg is hosting the Spain vs Switzerland quarterfinal today. For each of the last three days, Russia has posted record virus deaths. St Petersburg itself had 107 covid deaths yesterday, a daily record for any Russian city.

Earlier, more than 300 Finnish fans returned positive after watching matches in Russia. This was a particular tragedy since the fans had to witness Finland losing twice in that city.

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Katy Smallwood, WHO’s emergency officer,  said yesterday authorities must properly weigh the public health risk. She said it was not just the crowds at the stadiums but the mixing connected with the games. She asked several questions: Are people travelling in crowded buses? Are they wearing masks, and maintaining distance? What’s happening after the games? Are they going into crowded bars and pubs? Are those not vaccinated going out to watch?

I wonder if Ms Smallwood has ever attended a football match.

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There are still eight surviving teams in Euro 2020. You can expect more criticism from countries after their team is knocked out. After the 11 July final, Europe can announce a two week lockdown, allowing infected fans to watch the match recordings during home isolation.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 045: Extra Screen Time

With no commute, no holidays, no restaurants or bars, and no parties; the world spent excessive time glued to a screen. Now with vaccination and easing of lockdowns, what will happen to those habits? Is our screen time or music listening likely to go down dramatically? An article in the Economist tries to answer these questions, based on the lockdown and post-lockdown data.

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A full-time worker by saving on the commute roughly got 15% more time. The fortunate workers who retained their jobs saved a lot more money. Americans’ spend on recreation and holiday went down by 30%. Time and money going up together is a rare event. People in rich countries, and well-off people in other countries, switched the saved time to screens. In Britain, time spent online went up 20% to 5 hours a day. Before the pandemic, 10% British people had no internet, now only 5%.

Smartphone users installed 143 billion new apps, in the process more than doubling the growth rate of the previous year.

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TV and video viewing went up by 80 minutes every week. Video-gaming had the biggest jump. Youngsters spent 30% more time on games. While music listening grew modestly by 5%, audio books and podcasts listening rose by 25%.

Surprisingly, people read more printed books as well. Young women were the heaviest readers. Some read to kill time, but usefulness was important. Cooking and gardening books were bought in record numbers. In children’s books, parents preferred “home learning” books.

Netflix was a pandemic success story. Possibly as a result, in those countries where cinemas are open, new releases are happening at the same time on the giant and the small screen. Earlier, producers wanted a window before releasing the movie in the web.  

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Technology was a booster to screen time. As little as fifteen years ago, we had dozens of devices in our house for entertainment. Television, DVD player, CD (or audio cassette player), computer, music stereos, video gaming console. A mobile phone was for communication, rather than entertainment.

Now a smartphone or tab has replaced all those devices. We can have non-stop entertainment without ever leaving the device or our sofa. Earlier, bored people switched from one TV channel to another. Now, they can effortlessly move from a Netflix series to a game to news to music to reading a Kindle book.

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Research shows audio listening boomed. People listened to more of everything, music (5% increase), podcasts and audio books (25% up). This trend is probably supported by the marketing efforts of streaming companies. For licensed music, they have to pay hefty fees. They are commissioning podcasts themselves. In April 2021, podcasts continue to eat into the share of music. Recognising the trends, Amazon has launched Audible, its audio-book company.

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The biggest lockdown boom was “Gaming”. Last year, people installed 56.2 billion gaming apps, tripling the year-on-year growth. Gaming is essentially popular with Generation Z, the under 25s. This is one habit that is considered a “sticky habit”. In 2021, the apps downloading continues to surge. Roblox is a popular platform on which youngsters make and share their own games. In the first quarter of 2021, players spent nearly 10 billion hours on this platform, compared to 5 billion in the first Q of 2020.

Deloitte’s survey found something interesting. American generations other than generation Z named TV and films as their favorite form of home entertainment. Generation Z ranked them last, after video games, music, web browsing and social media. The survey will make TV and movie producers nervous.

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People spent an extra 40 minutes a week on social networks, and 30 minutes more consuming news, mostly through the social media platforms. Last month, Facebook said the increased levels of engagement during lockdown have started falling now.

For dating apps, such as Tinder, sign-ups fell in every wave, in line with a wave. The latest data shows people are making up for lost time. The owners of Tinder have told the shareholders to look forward to a “summer of love”.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 046: The Billionaire Boom

If extreme poverty is at one end of the spectrum, “extreme wealth” is at the other. The coronavirus pandemic has truly helped those belonging to that category. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerburg and six American tech titans added $360 billon to their already extreme wealth, $1 billion every day.

FB Zuckerburg is worth more than $100 billion. Tesla’s Musk competes with Amazon’s Bezos for the first spot, usually decided by the moods of the stock market.

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In most countries, rich and poor, the unemployment rate now exceeds 15%. The pandemic has provided the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression. In the USA alone, 20.5 million Americans lost their jobs. Low wage earners, manual workers have been disproportionately affected, struggling for economic and emotional survival.

This has led some economists to talk of the “K shaped recovery”. The wealth of the rich and the extreme rich going up and the poor classes staring at a financial abyss.

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Even experts now assert that stock markets are completely divorced from reality. Covid-19 numbers and share prices are capable of reaching peaks at the same time. However, for the extreme billionaires, stock markets are always real. Why did their shares boom during the pandemic? Because you and me and everybody else was helping the super rich. Just six stocks; Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Apple were responsible for 60% of the market boom. Even those of us who are not Americans made increasing use of these brands.

Since 2014, tech stocks have dominated share markets. But the pandemic was an unforeseen gift for them. Work from home, online schools and universities (Google classrooms), bored people running marathon film sessions on Netflix, people ordering every little thing from Amazon, food delivery apps, and flourishing social media (WhatsApp owned by FB) meant we were all helping the extreme billionaires get richer every day.

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The total wealth of billionaires went from $8 trillion (twelve zeros after eight) to $13 trillion in twelve months.

The central banks of the world injected an unprecedented $9 trillion stimulus to save the economy. It is suspected most of this stimulus went into financial markets and from there into the pockets of the extreme billionaires.

Elon Musk is a special case. He is considered by some as a visionary hero who will make the world clean with his electric vehicles. The gullible young who invested in Bitcoin, succumbing to Musk’s tweets, consider him an evil manipulating genius. (Bill Gates’ wise advice: invest in Bitcoin only if you are richer than Elon Musk). Until the pandemic, Musk was never part of the top 10. Tesla’s share had lingered around $60 in 2019. During the pandemic, it rose 15 times, peaking at $900 a share; making Musk the world’s richest man. He then went and bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, like going to a Gap store and buying a pair of jeans. Unlike Gates, Bezos and Zuckerburg; Elon Musk is eccentric and volatile. I suspect he can go down as rapidly as he went up.

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What do these ultra-rich need so much money for, is a question frequently asked by those who don’t have much money. In fact, it is often observed that the ability and willingness for charity are inversely proportional.

Bezos, accused of risking the lives of Amazon workers, donated $150 million (0.26% of the profits), Musk reportedly gave $5 million (0.004% of the wealth windfall) and a few dozen ventilators, Zuckerburg’s wife gave $104 million (0.36%) to support covid research, testing and treatment.

Bill Gates, known for his philanthropy, donated $1.75 billion (7.3%). Other noteworthy exceptions were McKenzie Scott, Bezos’s ex-wife and Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, who continue to donate substantial amounts.

Most other American extreme rich resorted to what is known as “zombie philanthropy”. They donate to trusts created and controlled by themselves. The money will stay in those trusts until the pandemic is over, and then be quietly taken back. It is the same with taxes. Most extreme rich are able to use their financial muscle to find enough loopholes to pay little or no taxes.

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I won’t blame those guys if they wish the pandemic to continue forever.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 047: The Case of the Naked Deer Men

Last Sunday, on 27 June, two grown men from Sydney decided to go sunbathing. This is winter time in Australia. Even temperatures of 15C can tempt people to go to a beach. The two unnamed men, (and it will soon be clear why they are not named) went to the beach, took off their clothes and lay in a state of nature, their eyes closed. They would have needed only a few hours to develop a nice darkish tan.

Except for the two naked Australians, the beach was empty. Eerily silent. In that silence, they both heard an unfamiliar sound. When they opened their eyes, they saw a deer darting in their direction. The startled men jumped to their feet. The younger naked man, 30, took his backpack which he was using as a pillow and ran for his life. The older naked man, 49, ran with just his t-shirt in his hand. Neither of them looked back. They kept running and entered a nearby forest. They stopped only once they were certain the deer was nowhere near.

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Not known if the nude dudes were aware they had entered the Royal National Park, some 25 miles from central Sydney. As can be expected of Australian forests, this park is a 15,000 hectare (37,000 acre) coastal stretch. The naked men spent the first hour trying to find each other. That proved impossible. Then they tried to find the way out. Their clothes and footwear were still lying far away on the beach where the deer had charged at them.

Unfortunately, the newspaper reports are stripped off many details. For example, were the two men wearing masks as required by the regulations?

At 6 pm, with the forest getting dark, the 30 year old called the police. Presumably, he had his cell phone in the backpack. He gave to the police the bare sequence of the events. When the police asked where they were, he replied he didn’t know where his friend was. Neither could he give his location.

The State Emergency Service of New South Wales deployed 18 members to assist with the search. The police rescue team, an NSW ambulance, and a Polair helicopter began the search. In an hour or so, they found the young caller, still in his birthday suit, near Lady Wakehurst Drive. Though nothing on him, he was carrying his backpack.

After a further search, they found the 49 year old man as well. The police statement says he was “partially clothed”, though the statement could have been more specific.

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Both men were taken to St George police station. Each was fined $1,000 Australian for the breach of lockdown orders that prohibit residents of greater Sydney from travelling outside the city. (It is noteworthy they were not fined for not wearing masks.)

Mick Fuller is the NSW police commissioner. At yesterday’s news conference, he described the incident and said “it was difficult to legislate against idiots.”

Only one journalist spoke in defence of the two men. “Running from a deer surely counts as strenuous physical exercise, and thus permissible under the stay at home orders.” Said ABC journalist Casey Briggs.

Australia is such a coronavirus-cautious country that a single Australian coughing is capable of throwing the entire state into lockdown. The Australian public is sick of listening to the daily bulletins giving the list of restrictions, the delta plus variant, absence of vaccines. They expressed their thanks to the naked men who ran from the deer and got lost in the forest. The public has demanded more such stories in the government’s daily broadcasts.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 048: Russia’s Booming Business

Tanya, the Russian doctor, read the serial number on the Sputnik V vial twice before entering it into the system. The scanned copies of the person’s passport and SNILS (individual insurance account number) were in the file. Tanya made sure they were accurately input.

That evening, Oleg, to whom that passport belonged, logged in to his medical portal account. He was delighted to see the information about his first shot of Sputnik V. The Russian government’s lovely software provides space for the vaccinated people to write comments in the portal on a daily basis. They can write any symptoms, allergic reactions, vaccine side effects. As per protocol, they should write 1, 2,3,7,14,21,22,23,28 and 42 days after the first dose. Any serious comment may automatically trigger a call from the doctor. Oleg wondered if he should write something there. Maybe: left arm sore. Head aching.

Finally, he decided against it. He was getting late to drive to the night club.

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Precisely three weeks later, Doctor Tanya, dressed in her uniform, once again was looking at copies of Oleg’s identity papers. She fed in the system the serial number of the vial in her hand. She verified the details in the system. This was the gentleman’s second shot. Having done her job, she poured out the vial. She then took out the next set of papers, and the next vial. There was nobody else in her room.

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Oleg, who lives in the south of Moscow, logged in the same evening, his heart in his mouth. In a business transaction there is never any guarantee the other party will perform as promised. Bravo! It was there. The certificate that said he was fully vaccinated with Sputnik V. There was an accompanying QR code. Now he would retain his job in the supermarket. He can enter any restaurant, club. If he really were to fall ill, he would have access to the free medical service.

The whole thing was worth paying 25,000 rubles for.

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Russia is battling with several pandemics. Despite suppressing covid-19 data, cases and deaths are surging dramatically. Moscow has reached new records this week. Putin has repeatedly said vaccines won’t be mandatory. He has never worn a mask, neither is there a picture of his getting vaccinated. His spokesman confirmed today that vaccination was not mandatory, not de facto nor de jure.

However, Moscow’s mayor has made vaccination mandatory for people working in trade and service industries. Employers must ensure at least 60% employees are vaccinated with first dose until 15 July, and second dose before 15 August. Many regions across Russia have introduced what is called a “voluntary mandatory vaccination”. Though it is not a crime, unvaccinated people can lose their jobs. They can’t go on vacations, because trains, flights, and hotels won’t accept unvaccinated Russians.

This has created a huge demand, and a booming black market, for the vaccination certificates.

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Initially, the vaccination certificates were available relatively cheaply in paper form. For up to 3000 rbls, they would be sent in envelopes home. A negative PCR coronavirus test results are even cheaper, and readily available.

But the Russian government is smarter. The electronic QR code will be needed even to enter a restaurant or a bar in Moscow. The brilliant Russian software engineers can easily forge QR codes to fool a waiter in a restaurant. But in other places, such as airlines, they may be allowed to verify the code in the central system.

The resourceful Russian black marketers have started creating what I would call “genuine fake vaccination certificates”. This online vaccination is accomplished by doing everything exactly as it would be done, except throwing the dose out rather than in the person’s arm.

Any simple Google or Yandex (Russian Google) search for “buying vaccination certificate” would direct a person to the messaging app Telegram and dozens of forums on Dark Net. Several investigative reporters posing as clients paid and obtained the vaccination certificates and the QR codes successfully. One reporter got a certificate saying he was vaccinated both times in Saratov, a town where he had never been in his life.

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Ravi 

Corona Daily 049: Nightmare Scenario

Next Tuesday, HarperCollins will publish a book “Nightmare Scenario”.  Written by two Washington Post journalists, Damien Paletta and Yasmeen Abutaleb, the book documents the behind-the-scenes panic over Trump’s covid-19 illness. Some excerpts and reviews of the book are out.

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On 1 October, Alex Azar, the health secretary, received a call from the White House requesting help with an experimental treatment “monoclonal antibody”. The drug was in clinical trials, not yet available to the public. Azar was not told who the drug was meant for. He speculated it was Trump’s advisor, Hope Hicks, who had tested positive.

A little later, Stephen Hahn, the FDA commissioner received a call. Could he please immediately sign off a “compassionate use authorization”? In life-threatening emergencies American doctors can apply to the FDA for unapproved medicines. But nobody directly calls the FDA commissioner. Hahn, just like Azar, did not know who the patient was.

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On the previous Saturday, 26 September, Trump had held a mask-less, distance-less party in the White House garden to announce Amy Barett as the Supreme Court Justice. The party had moved indoors. No mask was the unofficial policy. If the head of the house never wore a mask, how could others? Trump actually asked aides to take them off. In news conferences, he didn’t want any masked people behind him in the same frame.

On 27 September, Trump hosted military families at the White House. He complained to his security guards later. Why were they letting people get so close to him? “If these guys had covid, I’m going to get it, because they were all over me.” He said.

On 29 September, in the first debate with Biden, Trump was more incoherent than his usual self. By the following evening, he was terribly ill. His fever shot up, his oxygen level started falling, at one point dipping into the 80s. He was immediately given oxygen.

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Trump initially refused to go to the hospital. His aides gave him the two possible options: either he went that day while he could still walk on his own, or wait and let the TV cameras capture him in a wheelchair or stretcher. There is no easy way for the president to hide his condition.   

Few people in the White House knew the severity of Trump’s condition. Pence and his team were never informed the vice president may have to take up Trump’s job at short notice. By now, realizing who the exceptional patient was, Alex Azar and Stephen Hahn had authorized the unapproved drugs for compassionate use.

Trump was 74, never exercised, ate junk food, drank Coca-Cola and was medically obese. Ideal prey for the coronavirus.

After FDA’s sign-off, Trump was given an eight gram dose of two monoclonal antibodies through an intravenous tube. He was also given through IV the antiviral drug Remdesivir. (But not hydroxychloroquine, his pet). Remdesivir was in such short supply that ordinary Americans had no access to it.

On 3 October, on becoming worse, Trump was given dexamethasone. This is given when someone is extremely ill. Every hour, doctors consulted Fauci, Hahn and others whom Trump had openly hated, opposed and insulted.

The cocktail of medicines, available only to a single person on the planet, helped. Monoclonal antibodies proved to be a miracle.

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Fauci, Birx, Redfield and other health experts felt the illness was a blessing. The near-death experience would make the president change the course of his message. Now he would tell his millions of followers how dangerous the virus was. He could perhaps announce a mask mandate.

On his return, Trump faced the cameras from the balcony, and triumphantly pulled the mask off his face. He was heavily made up that morning, with additional orange colour added to his face. He made a military salute, and still contagious, entered his house without a mask.

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While reading the excerpts, I felt sorry the extraordinary, rare and expensive treatment which saved this undeserving man was not available to the 3 million+ victims of covid-19.

On the other hand, I am happy Trump didn’t die that week. America and the world needed his defeat and not death.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 050: Cosplay

The pandemic has revealed certain hobbies and professions I was not aware of. Cosplay is one of them. This Costume Play is about wearing costumes, make-up, hair-do to represent a certain character - from comic books, a cartoon, a television series or video games. (Homer Simpson, Mickey Mouse, Charlie Brown, Flintstones, Scooby-do, Pink Panther, Winnie the Pooh, superman, Spiderman, batman, Yogi Bear, Donald Duck are some names I can recognize with my limited knowledge). This phenomenon is big in Japan where it is called ‘Cosupure’. Japan has a cosplay culture, fans, competitions and championships.

The World Cosplay championship that began in 2005 is different from Halloween or fancy dressing. Cosplayers are trying to replicate a particular character. They are expected to mimic not only costume and make-up but also represent body language and mannerisms. Dressing up as Spiderman may not look attractive if the cosplayer’s body is not nimble, and he or she can’t move like a spider.

Costumes are available online, but in many cases they are custom-tailored. Costumes, props, wigs, hair dye, body paint, prop weapons and jewelry are often designed by the cosplayers themselves. Japan has two fan conventions every year, in summer and winter, where professional cosplayer models appear, at times giving short performances.

The best known event, the world cosplay summit, selects the best players from among forty countries. This event happens in Nagoya, Japan. The points are based on accuracy (how close the player looks to the character), craftsmanship (how well is the costume made), presentation (is the cosplayer” in character”) and audience impact.

Once the pandemic began, all these events were cancelled.

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Yaya Han is a Chinese American, a professional cosplayer for the past twenty years. She paid her bills and staff salaries with her event appearances. At the events, she would also sell signed merchandise, cosplay patterns, fabric and trims, and had three full-time employees to assist her. Suddenly, her income stream dried. On one hand, she was worried about her relatives in China, on the other the rising racist sentiment in the USA. Instead of firing her employees, she began sewing masks. In the early days of the pandemic, it was difficult to get the cotton fabric and elastic ties. Yaya and her team had ample materials and expertise to sew masks for the entire neighbourhood.

Yaya has also been appearing online. She has done a few modeling assignments.

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Some cosplayers found ways to meet in person. They found photographers who could play tricks with modern cameras. Chuang, a Chinese American photographer, arranged multiple socially-distanced photo shoots. By shooting with a long lens, he could photograph characters keeping six feet distance but the photos showed them next to each other.

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Marie Chante Ramos has cosplay as a passionate hobby. But she works full time as an ICU nurse. In her New Jersey hospital, she began doing night shifts. It was stressful to see people they were treating die every day. Ironically, Marie was wearing a PPE costume which was never before part of any cosplay.

To relieve the stress, Marie found fellow cosplayers in the health industry. They formed a chat group. She told the chat, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we did a video in our PPE garb?” Patients and the public saw them as faceless health robots. Along with twenty-two other cosplaying nurses, Marie created a video called “Heroes behind the PPE”. It already has half a million views.

“I liked being able to shine some light on these health care professionals who also have a creative side.” Said Marie. “The hospital is not the only thing going on in our lives.”

Ravi