Corona Daily 026: England is Free

In England’s nightclubs, people danced and sang and hugged and kissed yesterday. Pubs and restaurants operated at full capacity. The limit of six to meet indoors was removed. Mask-wearing is no longer a legal requirement. It was called Freedom Day. You watch a nightmarish sci-fi movie, and after leaving the cinema theatre feel a level of comfort to return to the normal world outside. That was the kind of feeling in London and around the nation.

English can go back to offices, invite any number of guests for weddings. Funerals can be grand as well.

The anti-shutdown protestors enjoyed the newly-found freedom. They gathered near the parliament, holding posters like “no to vaccine passports”, “covid is a scam”, “Leave our DNA alone”. They quarreled with the uniformed police, and asked the journalists to remove their masks.

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England this month is facing a “Pingdemic”, where more than half a million people in a single week were pinged by the NHS mobile app sending them to 10 day quarantine. The Health secretary tested positive, following which the Prime minister and Chancellor received pings. Boris Johnson had not imagined himself to be in self-isolation on Freedom day.  

As a result of the pings, there is a labour shortage everywhere, in factories, pubs, restaurants, schools. Even fully vaccinated people are getting pinged. Nissan car factory has 900 ‘positive’ workers at home. Rolls Royce is considering shutting its plant.

Liverpool, Bristol, Norfolk, Sandwell, Coventry and Lancashire are smelling differently. Rubbish bin collection is disrupted by a high number of pings among the garbage collectors.

Yesterday, many English people pragmatically deleted the NHS app. The threat of a ping is deadlier than the threat of the virus.

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Now nearly 50,000 cases are found every day. Cases have gone up by 81% in the last two weeks. Deaths have increased by 131% (from a small base). Health experts expect the case numbers to rise exponentially, because of the highly contagious delta variant, the hosting of Euro 2020 with the nation coming together behind the soccer team, and the freedom from all restrictions since yesterday.

United States issued its highest level (level 4) advisory yesterday, delivering the sternest warning to Americans thinking of visiting the UK. The US state department apparently considers coronavirus in the UK to be more dangerous than terrorists. Read the first two sentences of the advisory.

“Do not travel to the United Kingdom due to COVID-19. Exercise increased caution due to terrorism.”

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Meanwhile, UK’s met office has issued an extreme heat weather warning for the first time. This week, Thursday is likely to be unbearably hot. Last weekend, all four UK nations recorded the hottest day of the year. Forecasters warned temperatures would continue to climb.

It also warns that more people are likely to visit coastal areas, lakes and rivers increasing the risk of water safety incidents. Over the weekend, six people drowned in English lakes and rivers.

Some people reading the Met office warnings have opted to shut themselves up in the house once again.

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Some health experts within the UK and outside have criticized England for opening up in this manner. Cases are rising and are expected to shoot up. The Delta variant is spreading rapidly. Vaccination levels of about 70% are expected to minimize deaths and hospitalizations. Boris Johnson has asked, when if not now?

I think the world should applaud England’s experiment. Once you accept that the elimination of coronavirus may not be possible, each nation will be forced to go for a similar trade-off. Accept a certain number of cases and deaths, and move on. Get back to life. If after vaccinating everyone willing to be vaccinated, the country is still going to be locked down, what’s the point? When are we going to dance and sing with abandon?

May England succeed in its huge gambit, and show the way out to the rest of the world.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 027: The Anti-Truth Movement

Before judging the role of Facebook or Twitter in promoting anti-vaccine sentiment, I must make a distinction between private and public. Our conversations with family and friends, phone calls, emails are generally private. In them, as we know, people have the highest freedom to express themselves. But take a young man who uses F language as punctuation, put him on a stage in front of an audience, his swearing gets restricted or stopped. Newspapers and TV can sparingly use taboo words if at all and pornography never. Facebook, Twitter and other social media are designed to be public platforms. The nearly-unrestricted private freedom of speech is not suited to public platforms. By banning obscene language and images, these companies accept the limits on the freedom of speech.

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In democracies, people are free to express opinions, even on public forums. One could tweet “President Trump is an idiot”. It may or may not be reality, and there is no reason for decent people to be nasty on public platforms, but the freedom exists. Also one may passionately love or hate fish, rock music, Elon Musk, communism, Marmite, bitcoin, Salman Rushdie or Picasso. It is a matter of taste, and we have the freedom to unashamedly voice our like and dislike. In true democratic spirit, we are also free to hate whites, blacks, Asians, gays, religious groups or atheists. That may be our prejudice. It is neither nice nor decent to give vent to that prejudice on public forums, but advocates of freedom of speech would not think of banning it.

However, when someone says “the president should be killed” or “mosques should be demolished”, that is no longer an opinion. One can hate the president and one can hate Islam, but suggesting killing or destruction is not an opinion, it is violence, an act against core moral values. Based on their current rules, FB is likely to ban such posts and their owner.

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Truth is another core moral value. ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness’ is as important a commandment as ‘Thou shalt not kill’.

Truth has very little protection, only under oath in the courts of law (perjury). Out of courts, in the vast world; Truth is naked, vulnerable, open to being twisted, bullied, denied, and suppressed.

Like an anti-vaxx movement, imagine an anti-maths movement, where people deny 5+8=13. According to them 5+8 can be 1o or 200 or whatever they say it is. I call this the Anti-Truth movement.

Donald Trump, holding the planet’s most powerful position, legitimized this movement. Populist leaders of the world joined it. The likes of the ‘disinformation dozen’ gleefully carried the torch and earned millions of followers.

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Scientists spend years analyzing viruses and developing formulations for vaccines. They publish scientific research for review and scrutiny. Companies conduct trials on animals and hundreds of thousands of humans. Experiment and control groups are created with vaccines and placebos. Regulators scrutinize the process and results at every stage. Once approved, their effectiveness and dangers are monitored in the real world. This is the scientific method that gives birth to vaccines. Anti-vaxxers with a single Tweet can call them killers, causing infertility, autism, surveillance tools.

Since the conception of the idea, it took 30 years to build the Twin Towers. But it took only 56 and 120 minutes to bring them down.

Seeking the Truth is always a lengthy, laborious process. Murdering Truth takes seconds.

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Vaccines, just like everything else, can be doubted and challenged. Those who wish to challenge should conduct their own trials, write papers, get them peer-reviewed and published, and open them to public scrutiny. Following the scientific method is the way to challenge, as against stating 5+8 equals zero.

The toxic Anti-Truth movement is led and followed by lazy, opportunist, fake, unscientific people. (I know some people who deny the existence of the coronavirus. I urged them to work as volunteers in a Covid ward. Not a single person has taken up that challenge). Dictators always favoured anti-Truth, but after Trump’s triumph in 2016, it has also infected the democratic world. Facebook and Twitter have offered the movement a stage and loudspeakers.

If the guidelines of the social media platforms don’t allow posts urging violence and terrorism, they should not allow the serial killing of Truth. Truth, a core moral value, needs to be protected.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 028: The Disinformation Dozen

“They are killing people”, said President Biden yesterday when a reporter asked if he wished to pass any message to Facebook and other social media platforms. “The pandemic is now only among the unvaccinated…”

In May 2020, a 26 minute video called “Plandemic” had alleged that a secret group of powerful people were using the virus and the potential vaccines to make more money and further consolidate their grip over the world. On YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, ‘Plandemic’ was viewed more than eight million times and had generated hundreds of thousands of posts.

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“Center for countering digital hate” (CCDH) is a UK/US based organization. It tries to fight the fringe movements, the custodians and drivers of hate and misinformation. This organization did a detailed analysis of the posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media. Curiously enough, they found 65% of the anti-vaccine posts were created/shared by just 12 individuals. Analysis of anti-vaxx content on Facebook showed an even greater concentration. These 12 people were responsible for 73% of the content. The CCDH research showed that by December 2020, the anti-vaxx accounts had a following of 59.2 million.

A detailed report prepared by the center is called “the Disinformation Dozen”. CCDH has requested Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to completely de-platform the dangerous dozen, instrumental in creating vaccine hesitancy at a critical crossroad in the pandemic.  

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The varied group includes physicians who preach pseudoscience, a bodybuilder, a wellness blogger, a religious zealot.

The most well known name (or rather surname) is Robert F. Kennedy Jr, nephew of the late American president. He is a lifelong anti-vaxx missionary. His posts said Pfizer and Moderna vaccines cause miscarriages, pregnant women must avoid them. 86 year old baseball legend, Hank Aaron, died eighteen days after taking the vaccine. Kennedy called it suspicious and part of the wave of deaths caused by the vaccines. Kennedy is banned on Instagram but active on other social media.

Joseph Mercola is an anti-vaccine entrepreneur who peddles dietary supplements and false cures as alternatives to vaccines. According to him, HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Mobile phone radiation increases the risk of cancer. He repeatedly confirms the same number of people died in 2020, on average, as in the previous years. Why is it called a lethal pandemic? This guy has 3.6 million followers.

His partner Erin Elizabeth has a website called “Health Nut News”. She claims vaccines are part of the medical industry plan to create a “chronically ill population”. Creatively, she calls it ‘Harmacy’.

A couple, Ty and Charlene Bollingers, promoted the theory that Bill Gates plans to inject a microchip into everyone. “Have you had enough of the fake pandemic yet?” ask their posts. Bollingers’ interests are diverse. Their posts confirm the US presidential election was stolen. The couple spoke at the rally on 6 January.

Sherri Tenpenny claims vaccines cause autism. Vaccines also magnetise people and connect them with cellphone towers. She has written four books opposing vaccines. The longer you wear a mask, the more unhealthy you get, she tweets.

Rizza Islam tweets covid vaccines make women infertile. Rizza Islam himself was infected, but recovered from Covid in 48 hours, by following a special diet. Rashid Buttar urges followers to avoid covid-19 tests, because they carry living micro-organisms.

8 Sayer Ji, probably not a real name but with a real large following, says the Pfizer vaccine has killed more people than covid. 40 times more people, and among the younger group 260 times. Kelly Brogan, his partner, claims to practice ‘holistic psychiatry’. She says human diseases are not caused by infectious agents, but rather by psychological factors. No such thing as little invisible pathogens, it is all in your minds. The virus doesn’t exist. The fear of a virus makes people sick and die.

Christiane Northrup recommends HCQ and Ivermectin as cures. She is certain vaccines cause an 800% increase in chronic illnesses. Ben Tapper, a chiropractor, speaks out against masking. Kevin Jenkins calls vaccines a conspiracy to wipe out black people.

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Should Facebook ban the disinformation dozen? What about their freedom of speech? I will offer my view on this delicate debate tomorrow.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 029: Turning to the Bottle

One of the most vivid images I remember during Bombay’s strict lockdown was a mile long queue outside a booze shop in my neighborhood. The roads were empty and silent, not a single vehicle in sight. It was the first day the local government had allowed alcohol shops to operate for a few hours. Weeks had passed without access to alcohol. Spirit starvation promised to be as great a crisis as the pandemic.

India consumes more whiskey than any other country (USA is second). Every second bottle of whiskey produced in the world is sold in India. At the other end, a third of Indian drinkers consume cheap and suspect quality locally brewed or country liquor, regularly causing tragedies.

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This week, several studies and articles have been published in the USA, UK and other countries on how the pandemic has affected drinking habits.

In England, deaths from liver disease related to excessive drinking shot up by 21% in 2020. In the pandemic, the heaviest drinkers consumed even more alcohol. UK had closed its pubs, restaurants, night clubs for 31 weeks (more than seven months). Strangely, alcohol sales didn’t go down, suggesting people were compensating by drinking more at home.

Nearly 60% of the surveyed people said they were drinking at increasing and high-risk levels. (High risk is 50 units a week for men and 35 for women). What is heavy drinking? It is 14 drinks (units) per week, equal to six large glasses of wine or six pints of beer per week. And this should be well spread across the week, with four drinks as a maximum per day for men (three for women).

(I thought this discipline is comparable to marathon runners’ weekly mileage. You spread your mileage over the week, allowing for longer runs over the weekend).

In many countries, liver disease is currently the second leading cause of premature death of those under 60. If you want to find your level of risk, you can take the British Liver Trust’s online quiz here.

Another disturbing study tries to establish drinking as a leading cause of cancer globally. There are many ways in which alcohol consumption can lead to cancer, but mainly by damaging DNA. In 2020, alcohol was responsible for 740,000 new tumours.

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Stress, loneliness and the lack of access to alcohol support services made matters worse. Historically, alcohol consumption falls during a recession. But this recession was different, with drinkers locked up in their houses, filled with anxiety. It pushed some drinkers towards the particularly destructive habit of solitary drinking. It is believed that solo drinkers get more depressed as they drink.

Even before the pandemic, bartenders have noticed a type of young customer who comes to the bar, orders a drink, and plays video games or some other activity on his/her smart phone. They don’t speak to anyone. Why don’t they drink at home? One hypothesis is that they are willing to spend money to sit in a bar alone to avoid loneliness without actual togetherness. These young people were forced to drink alone at home during the lockdown. Not having to pay for each individual drink, it is easier to cross the boundaries.

In August last year, Busch – the beer maker, launched a new product to address this problem. “Dog Brew” was bone broth packaged as beer for your pet. “You’ll never drink alone again”, the ad campaign said. The dog beer promptly sold out.

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Americans started drinking more from the start of the pandemic. Nielsen data shows an increase of 54% year on year (April 2020-March 2021). A December survey found 75% Americans devoted at least one more day during a month to drinking. Women increased their intake by 39%. Women had a greater increase in excessive drinking, so much so, they threatened to catch up with men. The European Union was far more sober than UK or USA.

In Russia, in March 2020 itself, sales of vodka shot up by 65%. Domestic violence perpetrated by drinking men went up. Some Russians conveniently believe that vodka kills all bacteria and viruses. For them, the choice between a vaccine and vodka is clear.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 030: Meet Dr Juli Mazi

Dr Juli Mazi, 41, of Napa, California is a licenced Naturopathic doctor and the CEO and CFO of “Juli Mazi, a Naturopathic Doctor Corporation’’. People know her as a homeopathic doctor.

On 17 June, her male receptionist transferred a call asking for the doctor. For the patients’ safety, Dr Mazi has been offering advice exclusively over the phone. Though it was only an audio call, she put on her best smile and soothing voice. She began talking about her homeopathic cure for covid-19.

“Homeoprophylaxis” she said, “is a branch of homeopathy. It uses the same underlying theory as vaccination. The capsules I give introduce a minute amount of the disease, for the body to create immunity. Four total days of doses are required, before lifelong immunity is achieved.

“In nature, you know, we typically catch these infectious diseases with germs entering through one of our orifices. So, we introduce the treatment orally. In doing so, it automatically signals the immune system’s attention, without the need for any other ingredients. Vaccines, because they are injected, are not coming through one of the natural entry routes.”

She spent some time on the phone deploring the three authorized vaccines in the USA - Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson& Johnson. They contained toxic ingredients and could do irreparable harm. Her capsules were healthy, boosted energy, and offered a lifelong protection. The magic capsules were suitable for children as well. Her homeopathic immunization allowed children to attend schools safely. What was more; babies could take the same medicine. The doses for any age were the same.

The capsules would be sent by post with the vaccination cards. “Make sure to only use dates on the official record that correspond to the dates you took the capsules. That being said, please check that covid-19 vaccines were available in the area where you live. Two dates are required, so only choose to use two dates, which are at least one month apart on the official immunization cards. Enclosed are the covid-19 CDC cards. The standard practice is for the health care provider to write the manufacturer, lot number and health care professional’s name on the card, and have the patient fill the rest.”

Dr Mazi suggested Moderna, which in her view was the least dangerous of the three authorized vaccines. She dictated to the caller Moderna’s lot numbers.

“Even though it’s more than an ethical stretch that I am happy about, I am just stepping up to the plate to offer these.” Her rehearsed voice suggested embarrassment. For months, she had made the same offer to give Moderna vaccination cards to her customers.

The office manager took over. He said the magic capsules kit cost $243 in total. Two visits were required, but both would happen over the phone. Office manager said Dr Mazi was very busy and it takes months to schedule a personal visit.

Neither Dr Mazi nor her office manager knew that the call was monitored and recorded by one Victoria Schwarz. She was a Special Agent.

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Two days ago, Dr Juli Mazi was arrested and charged with wire fraud (financial scam with the use of IT), selling fake covid-19 vaccine cards, selling unauthorized immunization capsules, endangering patients and the community they lived in. The special agent recorded several of her calls made with the consent of the callers.

It is not yet known how much money she made. But the digital payments record show she earned $221,817 in 1,242 transactions from January to May 2021. Some payments mention “covid-19 treatment” as the purpose of the transaction.

The lot numbers from Moderna she gave were found to be real numbers, probably stolen from the net. She never had access to a Moderna vaccine nor has administered one.

Despite silicon valley, the USA is primitive when it comes to things like voting or vaccination cards. Vaccination cards are paper cards in America. It made Dr Mazi’s job easier.

If convicted, Dr Mazi faces up to 20 years in prison, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Please note that the criminal complaint is merely an allegation and Dr Mazi is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 031: Wrong Number

On 1 April 2020, I wrote an article called “patient zero”, the first patient to start the pandemic. American newspapers had confirmed Wei Guixian, a 57 year old lady selling shrimps as patient zero. The Chinese had not confirmed her name. Wei Guixian has not been mentioned since.

In January-February this year, a professional joint WHO-China study was conducted. An international team nominated by WHO visited China, and along with the Chinese scientists published a detailed 120 page report in April 2021.

Several journalists and scientists have since questioned WHO on the data and other contents of the report. WHO today confirmed the report included “unintended errors”. WHO will try to fix them by removing the discrepancies.

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The map in the WHO-China report shows the first case (patient zero) living on the western side of the Yangtze River. As a matter of fact, he lives on the eastern side of the river. The reports in Wuhan confirm this.

Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO spokesman, said which side of the river the patient lived on is not relevant to the debate about natural or lab-leak origin of the virus. The patient’s wrong address is not important, he wrote, because anyway “the current first known patient is most probably not the first case”.

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In December 2019, a Chinese accountant fell ill. He didn’t go to Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market. He shopped at the sleek RT-Mart near his house on the eastern side of Yangtze. He had not left Wuhan for weeks before his illness. He had never visited a bat cave in his life. In the WHO report, the trail ends with this man, codenamed SO1, China’s first confirmed case. He was not a shrimp seller, bat hunter, or lab scientist. He was an accountant (surname Chen) who shopped at a very large supermarket. Mr Chen, So1, was the most scrutinized patient. He spoke to the WHO delegation during the visit.

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Each patient has a unique sample sequence ID. It is a long stream of digits that make no sense to anyone except the scientists.

Enigmatically, the ID of the first case in the WHO report doesn’t belong to the 41-year old Mr Chen, but to a 61-year old market worker. The 61 year old man had fallen ill on 20 December 2019, and within days died of septic shock. The Chinese databases clearly mention those facts.

WHO confirmed the first case was the 41 year old, and not the 61 year old man. WHO spokesman Jasarevic called it an editing error.

The other mystery is the date of the first case. The WHO report says he fell ill on 8 December. The Chinese databases say the date was 16 December. Jasarevic said the WHO will look into why the Chinese database varies from the WHO report.

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Jasarevic said sequence IDs will be corrected for other patients in the report as well. SO5 was a 61 year old man who died, and S11 was a 52-year old woman, he clarified. (The report has wrong genome sequences attributed to both). “All sequences will undergo thorough revision”, said the WHO spokesman. The numbers could have gone wrong during the continued process of submission and publishing, he added.

There is no clarity on who is responsible for the typos, the unintended errors and attributing wrong IDs to patients. The WHO? The Chinese? Or the team together? I wonder if the WHO-China team had any access to translators or interpreters.  

China’s National Health Commission and the Wuhan CDC did not respond to newspapers’ request for comment.

The Chinese embassy in Washington in a statement said that the origin study must follow science and can only be a joint scientific study. Any action that politicizes origin-tracing poisons the atmosphere of scientific research, hampers global co-operation in this regard, and undermines global efforts to fight the virus.

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President Biden has asked his intelligence services to investigate the lab-leak theory. He may want to add to the investigation the task of finding the real Patient Zero.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 032: Run but Slowly

This week the South Korean government has introduced some novel coronavirus restrictions. Novel refers to the restrictions, not the virus. Violators face fines of up to 100,000 won ($87).

The residents of Seoul and its suburbs have gotten accustomed to the variety of rules introduced in the last eighteen months. Last week, the number of cases exceeded one thousand every day. That made the government particularly worried.

Nightclubs are shut, but gyms are allowed to stay open – with conditions.

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Two key novel restrictions relate to the runners’ speeds and the music played at the gyms.

From Monday this week, treadmill speeds are capped at 3.7 miles per hour (under 6 km/ hour). Many Korean gym-goers walk faster to the gym. Once they enter the gym, and get on the treadmill, they will need to reduce their speed.

After extensive research and prolonged consultations, the government has also regulated the speed of the music at gyms. Gyms are now forbidden to play songs that exceed 120 beats per minute (bpm).

As a regular gym-goer, I would like to explain what this means. A tempo of 60 beats per minute signifies one beat per second, while a tempo of 120 beats per second is two times faster, signifying one beat every half a second. Fans of classical music may remember the Italian terms Allegro (Cheerful), Andante (walking-pace) or Presto (quickly). Korean gyms can play Andante, but not Allegro or Presto any more.

For the benefit of gym administrators, newspapers have given examples of songs and their BPMs. Call me maybe (Carly Rae Jepsen) can be played. Born in the USA (Bruch Springston), Bad Romance (Lady Gaga), Respect (Aretha Franklin) and the apt New Workout Plan (Kanye West) are permissible. Boombayah (Blackpink) at 123 bpm becomes illegal.

Thousand (Moby) holds the Guinness record for the fastest tempo at 1015 bpm. You can listen to it here to understand the dangers of such speeds in pandemic times. (Listen to it only if you are not inside a Korean gym.)

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Yesterday, gym-goers in Seoul said they were relieved gym facilities were not shut entirely. Every gym-goer is required to wear masks all the time, even if fully vaccinated, and class size is limited. Nobody is allowed to use the gym showers.

Kang Seung Hyun, a teacher and former Rugby player said his gym had opted to shut off the treadmills. That will save some electricity, and save the runners from the effort to adjust to the novel speeds. The cardio bikes are open, and members are using them at speeds faster than usual, in the process sweating profusely. The new regulations apply only to treadmills but not to bikes or other cardio equipment.

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When fitness freaks talk about bpm, they generally refer to the resting heart rate. The beats per minute are the beats of the heart. Resting heart rate for an average person could be around 72. Marathon runners would have it lower, around 50. Elite athletes such as Federer or Usain Bolt may have it in their 30s. The lower the resting heart rate, faster the heart pumps, which is healthy.  

Ralph Yun, a crossfit Korean coach said listening to music at a pace similar to your heart rate doesn’t necessarily make you work harder.

Costas Karageorghis, a professor in London, said he understood why the Koreans had selected the speed of 120 bpm. It is the common rate of walking. Wedding DJs have told professor Karageorghis they use 120-beat songs to entice people onto the dance floor. The disc jockeys offered the example of I wanna to dance with somebody (Whitney Houston) to prove their point.

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Son Young-rae, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health, defended the new measures. He acknowledged that masks, mandatory in gyms, were effective. However, the delta variant is more easily transmissible, he pointed out. “When you run faster, you spit out more respiratory droplets, so that’s why we are trying to restrict heavy cardio exercises.” He said.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 033: Why is China Covid Free?

In the last fifteen months, there has not been a single covid-19 death in China.  This week, newspapers reported cases arising (not rising) in China. What are the numbers? 23, 26, 24, 27, 29 new cases each for the past five days. Many foreigners are mystified or bothered by these facts.  Has China been suppressing cases and hiding deaths for over a year? Was coronavirus really a bio-weapon that China unleashed on the rest of the world, with full knowledge of how to keep itself safe?

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I have been trying to read what ordinary young Chinese have posted on the internet. I quote here TsehNan Chin, a young guy living in Guangzhou. He graduated from Chicago, spent a few years in the USA and Germany, but has lived in China throughout the pandemic. This entry was written on 26 June and updated two days later.

On 21 May this year a case was identified in Canton, Guangzhou. It caused an outbreak (by China’s standards), with 153 people testing positive. In a month’s time, on 21 June, Canton didn’t have a single case.

The local authorities put all positive cases under quarantine and treatment immediately. In total, 119 people who had come in contact with them were taken to the quarantine hotels. All communities where infected people lived were locked down. Health workers and volunteers conducted regular tests throughout the community. Government officials and volunteers provided food and other necessities to people in isolation.

A mass testing campaign tries to test as many people as possible on a single day. Three such test campaigns were conducted in May and June. For the city of 18.68 million residents, 36.02 million tests were conducted between 21 May and 12 June.

Eating places could deliver, but eating-in was prohibited. Indoor sport centers and swimming pools were shut.

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Nobody was allowed to enter a shopping mall or metro without showing a green code on the smartphone. The green code means you have taken a vaccine and tested negative in the past 48 hours. Everyone’s temperature was measured before entering a mall or a station.

All vaccines are free. All tests are free. Quarantine is free for those who test positive and those who were in close contact with them.

Irrespective of the level of sickness, treatment is free.

Those who have been in close contact with a covid positive person, and try to hide it; are arrested, charged and tried after making certain they test negative.

If one is covid positive, and tries to avoid quarantine or treatment, the person is forcefully quarantined and treated. Once recovered, he/she is arrested, charged and tried.

For the last eighteen months, the same rules have been followed. TsehNan Chin, the blogger, says most Chinese people are happy to cooperate and abide by these regulations.

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Assuming all this is true, and there is no particular reason to doubt the stated modus operandi to crush the pandemic, would we like this practice to be adopted everywhere?

This is a delicate and difficult question. China, the most populated state, has avoided a health catastrophe and economic damage. Before any other big nation, China was back on its feet. Do authoritarian measures justify the great results?

If you ask me, they don’t. I will paint an extreme scenario. If a dictator decides to kill every person who tests positive, he may succeed in eliminating the virus. It may even make mathematical sense to kill a few thousands to stop the spread and stop virus mutations. The health system will not be overwhelmed either.

Most of us would immediately reject this scenario. A dictator has no moral right to kill covid patients, no matter what the trade-off is.

For me, it is the same thing with arresting people. Civil law and criminal law are different. The state may fine people for committing civil offences (not wearing a mask etc), but to criminalise their actions, and put them behind bars makes me uncomfortable.

Does that mean we should suffer hundreds of thousands of covid deaths and economic damage? Yes, unfortunately. That is the choice made by India, USA, UK and other democracies.

Ravi    

Corona Daily 034: Threat of a Scamdemic

UK’s cybersecurity agency took down more scams during the pandemic than in the previous three years combined. Fraudulent online campaigns grew 15 times. Experts found 43 fake NHS covid-19 apps hosted outside the official app stores. In the USA, Federal Bureau of Investigation said complaints rose by 69%, reaching a record 791,790.

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Phishing was a term coined in 1996 by hackers using email lures, setting out hooks to “fish” for passwords and financial data from the “sea” of internet users. Twenty five years later, the lexicon is richer.

Spear phishing is custom-made messaging or emails. The scamster will take data from your social media account, and send you a personalized phishing message. Smishing is phishing done through SMS.

David Robson, the author of the intelligence trap: why smart people make dumb mistakes, in a BBC article calls the global wave of scam attacks a “scamdemic”.

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Smartphones have made the job of fraudsters easier. On the small screens, details are rarely scrutinized. While emails may sit in our laptops for days, we tend to read and respond quickly to phone messages. The smartphone users are multi-tasking, watching a film, chatting with friends, forwarding Whatsapp pictures, switching between apps. Some people read and respond to messages while driving, endangering their life expectancy.

One research monitored fifty smartphone users, and found they switched apps an average of 101 times a day, though they looked at the screen for 2 hours 30 minutes. With such lack of focus, a smartphone user is prone to become a phishing victim.

We instinctively feel it is easier to dupe elderly people. But their use of technology is limited, and they are more suspicious. The young, on the other hand, have no fear. Without thinking, they can quickly open links, order online, fill forms, and give information they shouldn’t. Smartphones put the millennials and generation Z at a higher risk.

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Pandemic filled people with anxiety and stress, making them more vulnerable. In the lockdowns, we became more reliant on online communication and smartphones. Psychologists talk of a Pavlovian behavioral loop. Every sound of a new notification lifts our mood a little. It triggers a desire to read and respond.

Security experts advise us to not respond to any message immediately. Wait. Ask yourself: Is this real? Don’t automatically click on links. (The way we accept “terms and conditions” without reading them). Clicking on links may put your personal data in the hands of a cyberscammer. If you don’t know the sender, or trust the link, it is better to manually type out the address. That way, you can spot anomalies in the URL.

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The list of coronavirus scams is long.

On Facebook, some people proudly post their vaccination photos as well as the vaccination card. Scammers can steal your name, birth-date and other information to easily impersonate you. Don’t ever post your vaccination certificate on social media.

There have been covid-19 testing, vaccine, and treatment scams. Since vaccine is a scarce item in many countries, you may be offered early access to it. All you need to do is to fill a form giving your details. Don’t.

Fake charities have mushroomed. Your screen will show crying children, distressed widows, dying patients. The pictures move our hearts, but they are often from crooks. Scamsters are also using real charities to perpetrate their attacks.

If you think human beings can’t be viler, let me tell you about funeral assistance scams. Scammers call family members of people who have just died. (Probably steal the information from the hospital). They claim to be from the government’s funeral assistance programme. In USA, many such “funeral directors” have stolen family members’ social security numbers.

Those working from home have been cyberattacked not for their own money, but to attack the employer. BEC (Business email compromise) attacks involve a hacker gaining control of legitimate email accounts to steal company funds.

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During the pandemic, and after it, it is a good practice to assume nobody is immune to phishing attacks. Never give your personal and banking details. Slow down your response speed on smartphones. Don’t open untrusted links.

The coronavirus pandemic will get over, but the scamdemic will continue.

Ravi 

Corona Daily 035: Everyone under One Roof

Before the pandemic, the different generations of the Crafts family couldn’t meet each other without flying.

Trevor and Ellen Crafts, the young couple, lived with Riley, their five year old daughter in California. Trevor’s parents, Edward and Heather Crafts lived in Texas. Ellen’s mother, Jackie Chirico lived on her own in the state of Nevada.

For the first time in their memory, Trevor and Ellen couldn’t meet their parents for a whole year. Christmas came and went with all restrictions intact. Riley couldn’t go to a playgroup, nor was it recommended to hire a child caretaker. Trevor and Ellen both worked online. It was a juggling act to take time off their laptops to look after Riley. On weekends, sometimes more often, they called their parents. Both grandmothers complained Riley had grown a year older without them kissing her once.

In March 2021, together they hatched a revolutionary plan. They listed their respective houses in California, Texas and Nevada for sale. They had heard the US housing market was hot. Soon they understood how hot. Within a week, all three houses got sold at prices higher than their expectations. Their combined windfall was $2.6 million.

In May 2021, with that sizeable amount, they bought an 8.5 acre property in Connecticut, a state none of them had ever lived in. It was a truly grand house (see picture) with five bedrooms, a guest house, a barn with a studio.

Trevor and Ellen began their zoom calls in peace. Riley was happy to be pampered by the grandparents. In the evenings and on weekends, the large family started having meals together. Their isolation ended, the grandparents could hold Riley in their arms and kiss her every day.

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In the USA, single family homes are shooting up in prices. Many families want extra rooms as offices to work from home. With remote work, people are happy to move to bigger houses in suburbs. In fact, properties at the top end, such as the $2.6 million villa bought by the Crafts are easier to find.

With stories of the number of deaths in nursing homes, people were worried about their aged parents. Particularly in Asian and Latino families, multi-generation living went up. In a national US survey, during the first virus wave (April-June 2020), 15% of home buyers said they bought multi-generational homes, a record in the last decade.

Those who had babies during the pandemic found co-living with their parents mutually beneficial. With schools shut, children were entertained by their grandparents, while the parents worked.

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The average price of an American home went up by 24% to $350,300. The earlier trend was accelerated during the pandemic. May 2021 was the 111th consecutive month of year-over-year price increase.

For some landlords, tenants stopped paying rents and simply left. Those landlords often opted to invite their families to fill up those apartments to bring everyone under the same roof.

In April 2021, a Google search for “when is the housing market going to crash” went up by 2500% compared to March 2021. This is now the most popular search question in the USA. It is followed by “should I buy a house” and “sell my house”. Earlier it was typical to wait for at least 60 days since the first advertisement, before the house could find the buyer. Now houses are sold within 20 days on average.

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In India, three generations living under one roof is the norm. In rich nations of Europe and North America, family units are increasingly becoming smaller, often logically ending in a person living alone.

The pandemic and the resultant shutdowns have done a great service to make people understand the comfort, convenience and happiness of living in multi-generational homes. Of course, there are challenges being close to your parents (or children) on a daily basis. But in $2.6 million homes, those challenges are easier to manage.

With all its difficulties, multi-generational living may bring greater happiness than living on your own. It took a pandemic for many families to realize this.

Ravi