Coronavirus update, Tuesday: British PM In ICU, 5G Conspiracies, JobKeeper Fight
Social distancing until vaccine; NYC park burials; and an incredible new meme
Hello, it’s April 7, here’s today’s ‘5+5: coronavirus edition’.
Each day I’m bringing you 5 big things to know, and 5 other bits, about the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. The fire hose of news being blasted out every day is getting more intense and confusing. Let me try to help you get it under control.
You can email me at joshb2@protonmail.com if you have tips, feedback, ideas or just want to chat
You can also find me on Twitter at @joshbutler; on Facebook; or on Instagram
Wash your hands and sneeze into your elbow. Practise physical distancing - at least 1.5 metres of separation. “Stay the fuck at home”.
5 BIG THINGS
Today’s stats:
The latest stats from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (as of 9.13am Sydney time on Tuesday) report 1,345,408 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide. There have been 74,565 deaths, and 276,515 people have recovered.
The United States (366,614 cases), Spain (136,675), Italy (132,547), Germany (103,374) and France (98,963) and China (82,665) have reported the most cases. Italy has the most deaths (16,532) followed by Spain (13,341), the USA (10,783) and France (8,911)
By comparison, in Australia — the latest federal Department of Health stats (as of 6am Tuesday) show 5,844 cases. The death toll is 42. We’ve done more than 304,000 tests.
The latest Australian graph:
How long will it be like this? Until the vaccine
People are already getting bored of having to stay inside most of the time, being restricted in where you can go and who you can see. Wondering how long things will be out of the ordinary? Sadly, despite new cases dropping, these social distancing measures won’t vanish for quite some time. Scott Morrison has been warning of at least six months, but NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian this morning gave an even longer timeline before things could normalise, saying:
“until a vaccine is found, social distancing is a way of life now”
On best estimates, that’s more in the realm of 12-18 months. Now, that doesn’t mean a year of lockdowns. The thought — in Australia, at least — is that we will remain under the current strict stay-home orders (or even stricter ones, in small suburb or township ‘lockdowns’ as localised outbreaks appear) for a few months, with the measures gradually pared back over a long period of time. We won’t be living like this forever, but it will be quite some time before we go back to ‘normal’. (SMH story here)
Migrant workers:
Federal parliament will resume for exactly one day this week, with a small number of MPs returning to Canberra on Wednesday to debate the government’s massive $130 billion JobKeeper package. It will keep millions of people in work by providing employers with a $1500 per fortnight subsidy for employee wages, and is supported in principle by trade unions and the Labor party, but the details are still to be hashed out. For instance, casual workers are only supported if they’ve been with their employer for 12 months, and more than one million people on temporary visas will not be included.
A huge coalition of more than 120 civil society, faith, business, union and migrant groups are calling on the government to extend JobKeeper to “all working people” (SBS story here). They’ve taken out this ad in national newspapers this morning:
Matt Kunkel, director of the Migrant Workers Centre, said leaving the 1.1 million temporary visa holders out of the scheme would “push them onto the streets at a time when food and housing security is essential for fighting this pandemic.”
Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary, Luke Hilakari, agreed. “Migrant workers are part of our communities - on the one hand the Morrison Government is praising these workers while on the other they’re demanding they go home. This isn’t good enough,” he said.
BoJo in ICU:
Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, is now in intensive care in hospital. He was admitted to hospital yesterday after his coronavirus symptoms failed to subside after a week in self-isolation. It’s not known exactly how sick he is, but at age 55, he is in a higher-risk category for the virus (story here).
5G conspiracy theories:
And this is one of the most cooked coronavirus conspiracy theories out there. You’ve probably seen it on Facebook. (For those who don’t know — 5G is basically a new generation of tech, meaning better quality and faster phone/internet signal. Your phone might say 3G or 4G, depending on the generation) The various stories differ slightly between weird memes, but the general gist of the (totally baseless and false) claims is that new 5G mobile towers are linked to coronavirus in some way; either by spreading the virus, or that it affects the immune system, or working to ‘activate’ something in people’s bodies, or that flu vaccines are putting nanotechnology into people’s bodies and that 5G works with the nanotech. You might even have seen it in connection with claims about Wuhan, China, or even the Ruby Princess cruise ship. 5G towers in the UK are even being burned down in connection to the claims (story here).
Please don’t believe these. They’re all incredibly false and wrong. The World Health Organisation has debunked 5G claims here; British health official Stephen Powis called the theories “the worst kind of fake news”; Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, called it “complete rubbish” (BBC story here).
5 OTHER THINGS:
As we’ve been covering, New York City’s coronavirus situation is spiralling. On Tuesday, JHU reported there had been 3,485 deaths in NYC since the outbreak began. The chair of the city council’s health committee tweeted that if death rates didn’t start falling, NYC may have to start looking at a “contingency” plan of burying people temporarily in parks (The Hill story here)
Supermarkets are returning to (some sense of) normality, as panic-buying subsides and people start to realise most products are not going to run dry. Or maybe they’ve just stockpiled all the toilet paper they can. In any case, supplies are returning to normal, and more. Don’t be surprised to see sights like this in your local:
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling said she has been suffering coronavirus symptoms, and has now recovered (story here)
Patrick Stewart is reading sonnets each day online. “A sonnet a day keeps the doctor away",” he says.
And this isn’t coronavirus but you need it anyway. This wild new meme format, splicing celebrations at a Ghanaian funeral, has consumed nearly every thought I’ve had for a few days now
Just revel in it.
There’s a whole subreddit, filled with more, if you need it.
IMPORTANT EVERY DAY:
You “must” stay home at all times unless: shopping for essential supplies, and even then, doing that as infrequently as possible; getting medical care; exercising alone or with one other person; or work and education (more information here)
be hygienic; wash your hands properly, for at least 30 seconds with soap and water, multiple times a day (here’s how you need to do it, plus a handy Dr Karl video tutorial); sneeze and cough into your elbows; use hand sanitiser
Listen to only official information from the World Health Organisation and legitimate health bodies — Don’t share dodgy stuff on Facebook. If it looks too good (or bad) to be true, it often is. Verify, fact-check, don’t be part of the misinformation problem
World Health Organisation latest statistics here
Australian government latest statistics here
Signing off - stay safe, be healthy, look after yourself and others
Josh