human condition 1

I am going to keep a note of some passages from news articles as the covid-19 coronavirus epidemic unfolds. Because if I do make out

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Many states and hospitals are developing plans for how to ration care if the number of critically ill coronavirus patients exceeds capacity. Patients who develop severe respiratory distress from coronavirus infection often require support from mechanical ventilators for days to weeks, and the machines are expected to be in short supply in the United States.

Many plans would prioritize patients who were most likely to survive their immediate illness, and who also had a better chance of long-term survival. Some assign patients a score based on calculations of their level of illness, with decisions between patients who have the same score made by random selection. Some plans instruct hospitals not to offer mechanical ventilators to people above a certain age or with particular health conditions.

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In one of the biggest migrations in India’s recent history, hundreds of thousands of migrant laborers have begun long journeys on foot to get home, having been rendered homeless and jobless by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

 India already had one of the world’s largest homeless populations, and the lockdown may have tripled it overnight, workers for nongovernmental organizations say. A 2011 government census put the number of homeless at 1.7 million, almost certainly a vast underestimate in the country of 1.3 billion.

The lockdown, which includes a ban on interstate travel, was announced with just four hours’ notice on Tuesday, leaving India’s enormous migrant population stranded in big cities, where jobs lure them in vast numbers from the countryside.

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Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here’s How.

The inequality gap will widen.

Theda Skocpol is professor of government and sociology at Harvard.

Discussions of inequality in America often focus on the growing gap between the bottom 99 percent and the top 1 percent. But the other gap that has grown is between the top fifth and all the rest—and that gap will be exacerbated by this crisis.

The wealthiest fifth of Americans have made greater income gains than those below them in the income hierarchy in recent decades. They are more often members of married, highly educated couples. As high-salary professionals or managers, they live in Internet-ready homes that will accommodate telecommuting—and where children have their own bedrooms and aren’t as disruptive to a work-from-home schedule. In this crisis, most will earn steady incomes while having necessities delivered to their front doors.

The other 80 percent of Americans lack that financial cushion. Some will be OK, but many will struggle with job losses and family burdens. They are more likely to be single parents or single-income households. They’re less able to work from home, and more likely employed in the service or delivery sectors, in jobs that put them at greater danger of coming into contact with the coronavirus. In many cases, their children will not gain educationally at home, because parents will not be able to teach them, or their households might lack access to the high-speed Internet that enables remote instruction.

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Coronavirus: The Real Risks and Human Biases behind the Panic

Second, I know we call them economic “crises” but really, economic contractions are normal and healthy things for an economy. It’s where we cull the dead weight and sort out which businesses are actually creating value for society and which ones are just leeching off the rest of us. Or as Warren Buffett puts it, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”

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Dirk Pfeiffer, a veterinarian at City University of Hong Kong who studies emerging infectious diseases, says he thinks the city has handled the outbreak reasonably well. But Pfeiffer is troubled by the way the outbreak is dominating life in Hong Kong and causing so much fear.

"I find that disturbing," he says. "Because I don't think our reaction is proportionate to the impact it has on human health."

He points out that in the first two months of this outbreak two people in Hong Kong died from COVID-19 while more than 100 died from the flu.

"At the moment, I worry that everything is focused on COVID-19," he says. "Certainly here in Hong Kong, there's people that turn up [at hospitals] with other ailments or diseases, and it's difficult for them to get into the emergency wards. We need to get the balance right."

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Coronavirus outbreak raises question: Why are bat viruses so deadly?

As the only flying mammal, bats elevate their metabolic rates in flight to a level that doubles that achieved by similarly sized rodents when running.

Generally, vigorous physical activity and high metabolic rates lead to higher tissue damage due to an accumulation of reactive molecules, primarily free radicals. But to enable flight, bats seem to have developed physiological mechanisms to efficiently mop up these destructive molecules.

This has the side benefit of efficiently mopping up damaging molecules produced by inflammation of any cause, which may explain bats' uniquely long lifespans. 

This rapid tamping down of inflammation may also have another perk: tamping down inflammation related to antiviral immune response.

"This suggests that having a really robust interferon system would help these viruses persist within the host," Brook said. "When you have a higher immune response, you get these cells that are protected from infection, so the virus can actually ramp up its replication rate without causing damage to its host. But when it spills over into something like a human, we don't have those same sorts of antiviral mechanism, and we could experience a lot of pathology."

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