https://m.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/pics-protest-over-food-parcels-erupts-in-johannesburg-20200428
You know it’s real when people protest in bad weather (seriously, it’s a real factor in turnout, as anyone who has tried to organise a protest will attest)
‘Seattle’s Leaders Let Scientists Take the Lead. New York’s Did Not’ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leaders-let-scientists-take-the-lead-new-yorks-did-not
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30095-X/fulltext ‘School closure and management practices during coronavirus outbreaks including COVID-19: a rapid systematic review’
The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 5, P397-404, MAY 01, 2020
https://unherd.com/2020/04/which-epidemiologist-do-you-believe/
And as well as asking this, he provides a nice analysis. “…right in spirit, wrong on numbers” is something that I’ve tried to account for in my model of good epidemiological prediction. In no other field of knowledge besides forecasting do we so easily accept accuracy to indicate knowledge. In no other field do we suffer so severely from a lack of tools to distinguish knowledge from lucky guess. Now we are seeing that I think.
Swedish expert: why lockdown is the wrong policy: https://unherd.com/podcasts/swedish-expert-why-lockdowns-are-the-wrong-policy/
Imperial’s Neil Ferguson defends lockdown strategy: https://unherd.com/podcasts/imperials-neil-ferguson-defends-lockdown-strategy/
Was pointed to this interesting website by Jason Mitchell – seems great.
Documentary showing the reality of lockdown for the world’s poor
7 min version (low res, suitable for whatsapp etc)
COVID on the Breadline. Short version from PICTURING HEALTH on Vimeo.30 min version
COVID on the Breadline from PICTURING HEALTH on Vimeo.For me the most striking point is that measures other countries are adopting as they ease restrictions look rather like what Sweden has been doing. South Africa is going to “Level 4” but the rationale is not apparent from the death rate or infection rate, which both continue to curve upward. I think there is a lot of tacit admission of failure going on in places where a lockdown should have been more carefully considered.
Thanzi la Onse (Health of All) from PICTURING HEALTH on Vimeo.
This is a film someone sent me about allocating resources in Malawi’s main hospital, and by extension, in all low resource settings. It’s interesting in itself but I think just the images are worth seeing if you’re from the West/North and have a Western/Northern image of a hospital. It’s not gruesome or graphic: it’s just striking how small and informal everything looks. Watch a bit more and you’ll get a flavor of both the shortages, and the way that allocation works – competition, persuasion, patching budgets together. It gives you a flavour of the sub-Saharan context of operation. The lack of basic equipment such as ventilators is of course shocking. (If you aren’t aware, the ICU unit is fundamentally built around the mechanical ventilator.) It’s eye-opening. You’ll see what I mean…
https://afsee.atlanticfellows.org/events/lockdown-is-a-luxury
25 April 14:00 UTC / 15:00 London / 16:00 Johannesburg / 17:00 Nairobi / 19:30 New Delhi / 19:45 Kathmandu
Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/upwrfu2pqz4tH9ZCBpKzvlXj4keyGefn5vlJ
Join the first of Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity’s online conversations that look towards a new social and economic future after the COVID-19 pandemic. “Lockdown is a Luxury” will be led by Fellows living and working in Asia and Africa. Saida Ali, Tracy Jooste, Appu Suresh and Kripa Basnyat will share first-hand experiences and insights on the pandemic and its current and long-term impacts.
A third of the world’s population — some 2.6 billion people — are now under varying degrees of lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. For those who have the privilege of withdrawing into comfortable isolation, who can work from home and who have enough money to weather the storm, lockdown and social distancing are effective options. But what about the poor, who make up the majority of the world’s population and who are already facing social and economic inequalities? Is the worldwide WHO-approved lockdown an unaffordable luxury?
From street vendors to house cleaners, sex workers to migrant labourers, daily wage workers everywhere are struggling with immediate and often complete losses of income and the impracticality of following measures such as lockdowns and social distancing. Those living in dense, low-income informal settlements in countries such as Kenya, India, Bangladesh, South Africa and Brazil have seen limited access to water and sanitation restricted further still. Around the world, cases of domestic violence and sexual abuse are rising. “Flattening the curve” is a distant goal, but hunger and poverty are here now.
In India, nearly 400 million migrant workers’ lives have been upended. As places of work close down, as states shut borders and halt transportation, and as workers run out of cash, they have no choice but to walk hundreds of miles back home. In Kenya, rural widows are working and walking longer hours for fewer shillings to put food on the table: the struggle now is not for social justice or gender equity, but survival. For millions of Africans, coronavirus and the responses of states and governments have only exacerbated poverty and powerlessness.
What does today look like on the ground in Asia and Africa? What will tomorrow bring? Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity — activists, policy-makers, practitioners and movement-builders from around the world — offer their insights.
Speakers: Saida Ali, Kripa Basnyat, Tracy Jooste, Appu Suresh
CPEMPH 