April, 2020

• 19 April

  S’pore records most virus cases in SE Asia

  

  Bloomberg Singapore overtook Indonesia in coronavirus infections and now has the most cases in Southeast Asia after the city-state detected hundreds more victims among low-wage foreign workers. Authorities said an additional 596 cases were confirmed as of noon on Sunday, bringing the total to 6,588 in the country. Of the 596, only 25 are Singaporeans or permanent residents, the health ...

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• 19 April

  Mali holds elections despite coronavirus

  

  Bloomberg Malians voted in parliamentary elections on Sunday despite a partial lockdown to contain the coronavirus and with the main opposition leader being held hostage by suspected extremists. Voters in the capital Bamako were hesitant to venture out, heeding calls from authorities and NGOs to stay indoors as much as possible. “I believe voter turnout will be very low,” Kalilou ...

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• 19 April

  Tornadoes, floods, storms hit US South

  

  Bloomberg For the second straight Sunday, tornadoes, thunderstorms, floods and hail hit the South with the worst sweeping across from Louisiana to Georgia, the same swath that bore the brunt of last week’s carnage. In all, almost 12.3 million people from eastern Texas to North Carolina’s southern Atlantic shore are in harm’s way. The deadly storms could strike from Shreveport ...

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• 19 April

  As Covid-19 reaches Amazon, indigenous tribe put at risk

  

  Bloomberg Since his 2018 election, Jair Bolsonaro has pushed for opening up the Amazon to mining and making Brazil’s indigenous population less like “animals in a zoo.” Now the government is helping those same communities seal themselves off from the outside world in a bid to hinder the coronavirus. As the vast state of Amazonas becomes one of Brazil’s virus ...

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• 19 April

  ‘Foreign workers are safer in Singapore’

  Bloomberg Foreign workers in Singapore know they are currently safer in the city-state than elsewhere including their own countries, a minister said, even as a massive coronavirus outbreak among that community shines a spotlight on cramped and oft-unsanitary lodging provided for the low-wage employees. The workers from overseas are “appreciative” of efforts that range from relieving overcrowding in current facilities, ...

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• 19 April

  What we lost when we stopped binge reading!

  

  Long before today’s coronavirus lockdown provided occasions for the vice that the phrase denotes, “binge watching” had entered Americans’ lexicon. Few, however, speak of binge reading. To understand why this is regrettable, mute Netflix long enough to read Adam Garfinkle’s “The Erosion of Deep Literacy” in National Affairs. He believes that because of the displacement of reading by digital, usually ...

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• 19 April

  Can remdesivir live up to the hype?

  

  The latest round of hype on Covid-19 drugs began when Stat News reported on a leaked video discussion about Gilead Sciences Inc’s remdesivir. A Chicago doctor who had tested it on severely ill patients suggested it was working — that most of those who were given the medicine recovered and were discharged. The market is reacting as if the drug ...

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• 19 April

  Why science won’t ace its coronavirus test

  A New York Times article published earlier this month proclaimed that, according to scientists, “never before have so many of the world’s researchers focussed so urgently on a single topic.” It went on to describe the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine and drugs for treating it, involving global collaborations of medical researchers. Epidemiologists are also labouring tirelessly to save ...

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• 19 April

  Trump’s sign on checks unconstitutional in US

  President Trump’s decision to include his signature on stimulus checks has struck many as unseemly, even unconstitutional. From the perspective of US history, it could have been worse. If not for a colourful little episode during the Civil War, Trump may have had the leeway to go bigger, putting himself on actual money. But he can’t — thanks to a ...

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• 19 April

  Covid-19 crisis may keep Sanders revolution rolling

  

  Now that Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed presumptive candidate Joe Biden, it’s worth considering just how profoundly Sanders seems to have shifted the policy landscape. Despite the rise of inequality and other long-term economic problems, a majority of Democrats probably felt too comfortable with the current system to embrace revolutionary change. Although the Sanders ...

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