DIGEST SECTION: CORONAVIRUS as seen by experts and an artist |
Practical advice from UN University experts
Stopping coronavirus – what does the evidence say are the best measures?Claudia Abreu Lopes, United Nations University et Sanae Okamoto, United Nations UniversityThe new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been spreading rapidly but at a different rate in different countries. A variety of emergency responses and policy strategies have been implemented with varying outcomes so far. The Asian countries and territories that were first hit by the outbreak have built on responses to previous epidemics such as SARS. Other countries are learning from this but also adopting their own strategies. It’s possible there is no best strategy that works for everyone, as measures will have different results in countries with different political and health systems, social norms or operating procedures. There also seems to be a lack of consensus between various experts and governments as to what will work best, partly thanks to the limited evidence. However, there have been a number of new studies that give us some indications. One of the first measures many countries try to prevent the disease reaching them but also to limit its spread after it is established, is to ban travel in and/or out of a region. A study on restrictions in Italy showed they reduced travel by 50% in affected regions after three weeks. A global analysis that modelled how travel restrictions have affected transmission revealed that a travel ban in Wuhan delayed the inevitable epidemic progression by only three to five days in Mainland China. But travel restrictions were effective in reducing international transmission by nearly 80%, suggesting that such bans can be effective when paired with other interventions. Social distancingOne strategy that does seem to be effective at interrupting the transmission of the virus is social distancing, minimising social contact by limiting public gatherings and getting people to stay in their homes unless necessary. We have seen evidence for this in the slowdown of new cases in China and South Korea, as well as the relatively low numbers of cases in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. À lire aussi : Why Singapore's coronavirus response worked – and what we can all learn European countries have learned the hard lessons from the rapid spread of the virus in Italy and are implementing social distancing measures in the first stages of the outbreak. This includes the UK, which has ramped up the limited measures it introduced initially. But there are ongoing debates over whether social distancing should be encouraged or enforced, and whether social isolation should apply to the whole population or the groups most at risk. These options reflect two main approaches: mitigation and suppression. These have been modelled in a report by the scientists from Imperial College London advising the UK government on its approach. The aim of mitigation is to delay the spread of infection to avoid a large peak in healthcare demand that could overwhelm the health system. This was the UK’s initial strategy, which involved encouraging those with symptoms to stay at home, and testing and treating only those with moderate or severe symptoms. It is only likely to work in countries with very robust health systems that can cope with a surge of mild and severe cases. But the Imperial report showed that the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) would still be overwhelmed by pursuing mitigation, and that suppression would be better to reduce the number of deaths both from COVID-19 and other causes. Suppression consists of halting the progression of the pandemic in a shorter period, keeping the total number of cases very low. It involves more extensive social distancing even among those at low risk from the disease, banning public gatherings and potentially closing schools and other public venues. This can be done on a voluntary basis or with an enforced lockdown, as has been implemented in parts of China with a positive outcome. But there are other factors to consider besides the effect on the spread of disease. Women may be more vulnerable to the infection given the fact they make up most of the health workforce. School closures may force health workers and other essential personnel to stay at home to look after their children. Children from low-income families will not have the same resources to learn. Lockdowns may trigger or aggravate mental health problems. People living with depression and anxiety will suffer from withdrawing social contact and psychotherapy. Elderly households will be isolated. Victims of domestic violence will be confined to the same space as their aggressors. Evidence from China suggests that suppression is possible in the short term without a massive increase of cases after the measures are lifted (at least so far). It remains to be seen what the optimal duration of lockdowns should be and whether it’s possible for suppression measures to work consistently or even be kept in place for longer. It is possible to pursue a combined strategy of intermittent social distancing, guided by changes in the spread of the disease. This involves relaxing restrictions for short periods and observing the effect. If the number of cases rebounds, suppression measures need to be reintroduced. This could help prevent people from becoming so psychologically fatigued by the restrictions that they start to ignore them, although behavioural scientists have argued there’s no evidence for this problem. TestingOne final element that South Korea’s success in limiting the spread of the disease suggests is essential is the testing of suspected cases. Evidence from one of the initial clusters of COVID-19 in Italy supports the idea that widespread testing coupled with quarantining sufferers can significantly reduce the number of people infected and halt the disease progression. Without working out who has the disease and ensuring they self-isolate, it’s much harder to break the infection chain. The World Health Organization is encouraging widespread testing, but many scientists disagree because testing everyone is unnecessary, could induce a panic and raises the question of how to counsel patients about their result. There is also a shortage of test kits in certain countries and screening capacities are stretched in countries with many cases. Not only does this make stopping the spread of the disease difficult, but it also means less accurate evidence about whether measures are working. Claudia Abreu Lopes, Research Fellow, International Institute for Global Health (IIGH), United Nations University et Sanae Okamoto, Researcher in Behavioural Science, Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute (MERIT), United Nations University Cet article est republié à partir de The Conversation sous licence Creative Commons. Lire l’article original. |
"The treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam!"
Prepare for
the Ultimate Gaslighting* (part 1) by Julio Vincent Gambuto. The N&C staff wishes to thank the author for his friendly response to our mail and his permission to use these two articles.
Mister Gambutto, a graduate of Staten Island Academy, Harvard University, and the USC School of Cinematic Arts is a writer whose work has appeared in Forge and LEVEL magazines on Medium, The Harvard Crimson, Genre, HX, and the Staten Island Advance and a film director who has written and produced film and television content for Nickelodeon, PBS, E! Entertainment, James Franco’s Rabbit Bandini, and Stone & Co. The text proposed here has already gone viral and read by 2 million viewers as of early may 2020 *Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.
Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms: a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming. "Gaslighting" comes from the 1944 classic "Gaslight" (above). It has come to describe the manipulation of perfectly sane people in order to convince them that they are insane when they start questioning the extremely toxic relationship they got trapped in.
For the last hundred years, the multibillion-dollar advertising business has operated based on this cardinal principle: Find the consumer’s problem and fix it with your product. When the problem is practical and tactical, the solution is “as seen on TV” and available at Home Depot. Command strips will save me from having to repaint. So will Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. Elfa shelving will get rid of the mess in my closet. The Ring doorbell will let me see who’s on the porch if I can’t take my eyes off Netflix. But when the problem is emotional, the fix becomes a new staple in your life, and you become a lifelong loyalist. Coca-Cola makes you: happy. A Mercedes makes you: successful. Taking your family on a Royal Caribbean cruise makes you: special. Smart marketers know how to highlight what brands can do for you to make your life easier. But brilliant marketers know how to rewire your heart. And, make no mistake, the heart is what has been most traumatized this last month. We are, as a society, now vulnerable in a whole new way.
What the trauma has shown us, though, cannot be unseen. A carless Los Angeles has clear blue skies as pollution has simply stopped. In a quiet New York, you can hear the birds chirp in the middle of Madison Avenue. Coyotes have been spotted on the Golden Gate Bridge. These are the postcard images of what the world might be like if we could find a way to have a less deadly daily effect on the planet. What’s not fit for a postcard are the other scenes we have witnessed: a health care system that cannot provide basic protective equipment for its frontline; small businesses — and very large ones — that do not have enough cash to pay their rent or workers, sending over 16 million people to seek unemployment benefits; a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save their lives. THE GREATEST MISCONCEPTION among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. We just don’t have the time to do anything about it. The cat is out of the bag. We, as a nation, have deeply disturbing problems. You’re right. That’s not news. They are problems we ignore every day, not because we’re terrible people or because we don’t care about fixing them, but because we don’t have time. Sorry, we have other shit to do. The plain truth is that no matter our ethnicity, religion, gender, political party (the list goes on), nor even our socioeconomic status, as Americans we share this: We are busy. We’re out and about hustling to make our own lives work. We have goals to meet and meetings to attend and mortgages to pay — all while the phone is ringing and the laptop is pinging. And when we get home, Crate and Barrel and Louis Vuitton and Andy Cohen make us feel just good enough to get up the next day and do it all over again. It is very easy to close your eyes to a problem when you barely have enough time to close them to sleep. The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. We just don’t have the time to do anything about it. Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too.
Well, the treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam! And that feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken. |
WHAT IS ABOUT TO BE UNLEASHED (...) WILL BE THE GREATEST CAMPAIGN EVER CREATED TO GET YOU TO FEEL NORMAL AGAIN. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right. We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels.
WE CARE DEEPLY ABOUT ONE ANOTHER (...) THAT CAN BE SEEN IN EVERY supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define — on our own terms — what this country looks like in five, 10, 50 years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.
THE QUESTION TO BE ASKING yourself right now, and asking your family, is this: Who and what do you want to support? To whom and to what do you want to give your time and money?
RIGHT NOW, WE ARE ALL EXPERIENCING 'THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL' Screenwriters use this term to refer to that moment when the main character has lost everything, has not achieved his or her goal, has been beaten up and broken down, and is at her or his lowest point. You know this part of the movie. It takes place about three-quarters of the way in. The character is alone in her bedroom, his shower, her car, a forest, a cave. And they must look inward before they can move forward. That is where we are as a nation.
