Displaying posts categorized under

WORLD NEWS

How Isaac Newton Turned Isolation From the Great Plague Into a “Year of Wonders” Kerry McDonald

https://fee.org/articles/how-isaac-newton-turned-isolation-from-the-great-plague-into-a-year-of-wonders/?utm_source=ntnlrvw&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=nationalreview_partnership

In 1665, “social distancing” orders emptied campuses throughout England, as the bubonic plague raged, killing 100,000 people. Isaac Newton, a 24-year-old student from Cambridge, was among those forced to leave campus and return indefinitely to his childhood home.

College students around the world left campus this month, unsure when they would return and what daily life would look like until then. Forced to leave their friends and classmates behind and return to their childhood bedrooms, young people, who on average are less impacted by COVID-19’s dire health effects, may understandably feel angry and resentful. Free and independent, with their futures full of possibility, these students are now home and isolated. It can seem wholly unfair and depressing. But the story of another college student in a similar predicament might provide some hope and inspiration.

Isaac Newton’s Quarantine Experience

In 1665, “social distancing” orders emptied campuses throughout England, as the bubonic plague raged, killing 100,000 people (roughly one-quarter of London’s population), in just 18 months. A 24-year-old student from Trinity College, Cambridge was among those forced to leave campus and return indefinitely to his childhood home.

His name was Isaac Newton and his time at home during the epidemic would be called his “year of wonders.”

Away from university life, and unbounded by curriculum constraints and professor’s whims, Newton dove into discovery. According to The Washington Post: “Without his professors to guide him, Newton apparently thrived.” At home, he built bookshelves and created a small office for himself, filling a blank notebook with his ideas and calculations. Absent the distractions of typical daily life, Newton’s creativity flourished. During this time away he discovered differential and integral calculus, formulated a theory of universal gravitation, and explored optics, experimenting with prisms and investigating light.

Complicated Mathematical Models Are Not Substitutes for Common Sense By Philippe Lemoine

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-common-sense-dictates-prudence/#slide-1

Uncertainty still reigns, so prepare for the worst. A lockdown would be prudent, not the end of the world.

As of today, half of mankind is confined at home because of the coronavirus pandemic, although the severity of the confinement varies greatly depending on countries and regions. This situation must be all the more disconcerting given that, less than a month ago, many government officials and public-health experts were still claiming that Western countries would be able to weather the storm without any difficulty and encouraging people not to change their behavior because of the virus. On that point, Trump’s handling of this crisis has been atrocious, but as Zeynep Tufekci recently pointed out, he’s hardly the only one to have underestimated the seriousness of the threat.

Although I think people underestimated the seriousness of the threat until recently, many now seem to underestimate how much uncertainty there is about what is going to happen. To be clear: No matter where we are headed exactly, this is no flu. As of March 29 in France, 2,606 people who tested positive for COVID-19 had died in hospitals alone. Perhaps even more worrisome, there were already 4,632 people in intensive-care units, up from approximately 1,500 one week earlier. Between the number of people who left intensive care because they had died and those who left because their condition had improved, it means that probably almost twice as many people have already required admission to intensive care since the beginning of the outbreak in France. By comparison, during the entire 2018–19 season, 490 people who had the flu died in hospitals, and 2,915 people required admission to intensive care. Not only are we already way past that with the COVID-19 pandemic, but, even in the most optimistic scenario that I consider plausible, those figures will be at least 15 times higher.

Pandemic, Plague, and Protests: Will Chile Join the Sh–hole Country Club? Ilana Mercer

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/29/pandemic-plague-and-protests-will-chile-join-the-sh-hole-country-club/

Lower-case, doctrinaire democrats in America doggedly conflate the “will of the people” across the world with liberty. This Disneyfied view of democracy ignores that, in a democracy, the right to vote gives one man control over another’s life and livelihood.

Before the coronavirus pandemic and the plague of locusts came the protesters.

From the affluent locales—Chile, France, Britain, Hong Kong, Catalonia—to the impoverished ones—Algeria, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Lebanon and more the world was on fire (to borrow from Amy Chua’s brilliant book).

The reasons cited for a worldwide conflagration ranged from the evils of free-market capitalism (says the Left) to the “socialist regimes in Cuba and Venezuela” (says the Right), to “economics, demography, a sense of powerlessness . . . and social media.”

Some experts spoke of a “youth bulge” of overeducated young people chasing too few jobs. In truth, this was more like ill-educated youngsters with useless degrees who thought it chic to don a balaclava and lob hard objects at the police and the property they were protecting.

Chile is the jewel of Latin America. In 2014, it even surpassed the United States on the Index of Economic Freedom, ranking seventh to America’s 12th. Since 1990, economic growth in Chile has been as steady as the stability of its institutions. Poverty rates had plummeted and social services had been extended to the needy.

On the Right, Pat Buchanan has described Chile as “the country with the highest per capita income and least inequality in all of Latin America.”

On the Left—yet still on the side of a competitive market economy—the Economist agrees. Chile “is the second-richest country in Latin America, thanks in part to its healthy public finances and robust private sector.”

Corona Riot in China The virus isn’t yet beaten in the place where it started.Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/corona-riot-china-lloyd-billingsley/

“Thousands of residents of the central Chinese province of Hubei gathered in angry protest on Friday,” Wong Siu-san and Lau Siu-fun of Radio Free Asia reported Friday, “amid a physical melee between their police force and that of neighboring Jiangxi province at a checkpoint on a bridge between the two.”

As Athan Vanderklippe of Canada’s Globe and Mail reported, “Violent clashes erupted on a bridge between China’s virus-stricken Hubei province and neighboring Jiangxi province, days after authorities relaxed an epidemic lockdown.” The confrontation came after “authorities in Jiangxi blocked entry to people from Hubei,” and according to the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, “the risk of sporadic cases and local outbreaks still exists.”

The next morning, March 28, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post were dodging a story they should have seen coming.

“Large-scale protests could break out in Wuhan, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus epidemic,” Yuichiro Okuma of KYODO News reported on March 25, “when a lockdown on the city ends next month, as residents unhappy with unprecedented restrictions on their movements vent their pent-up frustrations.” Wuhan had been on lockdown since January 23 and “the authorities have been lambasted for having tried to deliberately conceal information about infections at the beginning of the outbreak of the new coronavirus, first detected in Wuhan late last year.”

The riots exploded the line that China’s Communist Party has the coronavirus whipped, as proclaimed by World Health Organization boss Tedros Adhanom Ghegreyesus. On Friday he tweeted, “For the first time, #China has reported no domestic #COVID19 cases yesterday. This is an amazing achievement, which gives us all reassurance that the #coronavirus can be beaten.” In reality, the virus isn’t beaten in China, and the RFA report outlined the back story.

Sweden: Culture of Silence by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15741/sweden-culture-of-silence

“The interviewee realized that the conclusions would be politically unpopular, but had nevertheless written them… Other former employees have pointed out that it was clear that there were political reasons why they were pressured to change content in reports…” — Report by Linköping University about the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), “Can Brå be trusted?”

“One employee reported, among other things, that a director-general expressed that ‘there is a reality and a political reality’ when the director-general demanded that an employee change a report…” — Report by Linköping University, “Can Brå be trusted?”

“If results were not liked then censorship was used, correction of results, toning down results and highlighting other parts of [the] study that were not so sensitive or that could show positive results”. — Report by Linköping University, “Can Brå be trusted?”

“After I was hired at Brå, it took me a short time to understand that working at Brå is a big challenge. As an employee of Brå, you should write and think in a certain way. Brå is extremely controlled from the top. There are some people at Brå who control with an iron hand. If one were to be a little harsh then one could liken it to a sect. I don’t think they really understand what kind of culture they have created” — Another employee, from the report by Linköping University, “Can Brå be trusted?”

The report also found that Brå appears to strive to hire employees that will “act as obedient bureaucrats at an authority, rather than people who have accepted a researcher’s role”.

Meanwhile, Sweden continues its downward spiral.

A recent report published by Linköping University about the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), “Can Brå be trusted?” has claimed that Brå’s reports are politically biased.

According to Brå’s own website, “Brå is an agency under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice and a knowledge centre for the criminal justice system. The agency’s mandate is to contribute to the development of knowledge within the criminal justice system and the criminal policy area, as well as to promote crime prevention work. Brå is responsible for the official criminal statistics and other statistics, which includes producing, following, analysing, and reporting on criminality and the criminal justice system’s responses to crime”.

It is therefore crucial that Brå fulfill its obligations in a factual and objective manner, not least in the current environment, when Sweden is experiencing a veritable crime wave, including shootings, bombings and other gang-inspired violence that some commentators have likened to “war”.

According to the Linköping University report, the results of which were based primarily on interviews with former and current employees and managers of Brå, in addition to a number of former police chiefs and ministers of justice, Brå’s work is politically biased due to political pressure from the Ministry of Justice as well as the management of Brå. The report states:

Coronavirus: How “Progressive” Ideology Led to Catastrophe in Spain by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15821/coronavirus-how-progressive-ideology-led-to

A class action lawsuit filed on March 19 accuses the Spanish government — highly ideological by any standard, as the Communist coalition partner, Podemos, was founded with seed money from the Venezuelan government — of knowingly endangering public safety by encouraging the public to participate in more than 75 feminist marches, held across Spain on March 8, to mark International Women’s Day.

The Spanish government’s main point man for the coronavirus, Fernando Simón, claimed in a nationwide press conference that there was no risk of attending the rallies on March 8. “If my son asks me if he can go, I will tell him to do whatever he wants,” he said.

“Honestly, it seems to me a joke that the government has waited until today, clearly for political reasons, to make this announcement. The Socialist-Communist government has once again put its political interests above the common good. This gross negligence should lead to resignations. — Elentir, Contando Estrelas, March 9, 2020

The Spanish government, comprised of a coalition of Socialists and Communists, is facing legal action for alleged negligence in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The government is accused of putting its narrow ideological interests ahead of the safety and wellbeing of the public, and, in so doing, unnecessarily worsening the humanitarian crisis now gripping Spain, currently the second-worst afflicted country in Europe after Italy.

A class action lawsuit filed on March 19 accuses the Spanish government — highly ideological by any standard, as the Communist coalition partner, Podemos, was founded with seed money from the Venezuelan government — of knowingly endangering public safety by encouraging the public to participate in more than 75 feminist marches, held across Spain on March 8, to mark International Women’s Day. The nationwide rallies were aimed at protesting the government’s perennial bugbear: the alleged patriarchy of Western civilization.

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in those marches, and several high-profile attendees — including Spain’s deputy prime minister, as well as the prime minister’s wife and mother, and also the wife of the leader of Podemos — have since tested positive for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). It is unknown how many people were infected by the coronavirus as a result of the rallies.

Ten Thousand Coronavirus Deaths in Italy in Three Weeks By John McCormack

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/woody-allen-and-affirmative-action/

On March 7, the coronavirus death toll in Italy was 233. As of March 28, Italy’s coronavirus death toll was 10,023.

Some skeptics of “social distancing” have suggested that if most Americans had generally carried on with life as usual, the coronavirus would not present any greater threat than the seasonal flu or car crashes, each of which kill about 40,000 Americans a year. The fact that 10,000 people have died from the coronavirus in three weeks in Italy — a country with one-fifth the population of the United States — should dispel such wishful thinking.

And keep in mind that this is the death toll in Italy weeks after lockdowns were imposed — first within the region of Lombardy on February 21 (affecting only about 50,000 people) and then on March 9 for the entire country.

The spike in the daily death toll in Italy — a record 919 coronavirus deaths were recorded on March 27 alone — does not mean that the national lockdown is not working.

There is an average five-day delay between infection and appearance of symptoms and an average 18.5 days between the appearance of symptoms and death (for those who don’t survive).

The good news out of Italy is that the daily percentage growth of new cases has been decreasing:

Britain’s Creaking National Health System Gears Up for Coronavirus Crisis By Max Colchester and Alistair MacDonald

https://www.wsj.com/articles/britains-creaking-national-health-system-gears-up-for-coronavirus-crisis-11585479601

EXCERPTS

LONDON—A vast convention center in east London is being turned into a sprawling hospital that can handle up to 4,000 patients. Thousands of retired nurses and doctors are being drafted back to work. The British army is delivering protective clothing to dozens of hospitals around the country.As the new coronavirus spreads here, Britain’s tightly funded National Health Service is taking drastic action to manage a crisis that some worry will overwhelm it.

How the NHS deals with an expected flood of patients will test whether a relatively low-cost, state-run health care system that is free at the point of delivery proves more resilient than its U.S. equivalent.The British system is limping into the crisis following 10 years of government belt tightening.

“This is a real problem at the moment,” said Chris Ham, a former director of strategy at Britain’s Department of Health. “The chickens are coming home to roost.” Already, doctors are complaining about a lack of protective clothing, with one NHS supplier reaching out to hardware stores to donate protective masks. The NHS is also struggling to ramp up mass testing for the coronavirus.

Going into the pandemic, U.K. hospital bed numbers had halved in three decades to 140,000, according to the King’s Fund, a health care charity.

More than 90% of hospital beds were occupied for all but four days of the 2017-18 winter, according to the British Medical Association, the doctors’ trade union. “It always runs right on the edge,” Mr. Edwards said.

The U.K. had 2.1 acute hospital beds—those where a patient receives treatment for severe injuries or illnesses—for every 1,000 inhabitants. That is among the lowest among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to 2017 data, and compares with 2.4 beds per 1,000 in the U.S.

Italy Reports Second Straight Daily Drop in CCP Virus Deaths By Jack Phillips

https://www.theepochtimes.com/italy-reports-second-straight-daily-drop-in-ccp-virus-deaths_3289999.html

Italian health officials reported a second daily drop in CCP virus deaths, hoping that strict measures implemented by the government will help curb the spread of the disease.

Italy’s Civil Protection agency said on Sunday that 756 people died from the virus in the past 24 hours, compared to 889 on Saturday as well as 919 deaths on Friday, according to ANSA.

The total number of those who have succumbed to the virus is now 10,779 in the country. New infections in the past 24 hours totaled 5,217, compared with 5,974 during the previous day, officials said in an update, bringing the number of cases to above 97,000.

The drop in numbers shows that Italians must continue to adhere to national lockdown measures, said officials. Politicians in the country have been quick to seize on drops in cases and deaths as proof that the lockdown is working.

“We must be even more convinced in respecting such measures,” said pulmonologist and government committee member Luca Richeldi during the conference. “The battle is very long, we must not let our guard down. In particular, the drop in deaths and ICU admissions gives solid and concrete data.”

North Korea Fires More Missiles Than Ever Amid CCP Virus Pandemic

https://www.theepochtimes.com/north-korea-fires-more-missiles-than-ever-amid-ccp-virus-pandemic_3289909.html

North Korea fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles into the ocean off its east coast on Sunday, the latest in an unprecedented flurry of launches that South Korea decried as “inappropriate” amid the global CCP virus pandemic, also known as the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Two “short-range projectiles” were launched from the coastal Wonsan area, and flew 143 miles at a maximum altitude of 19 miles, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) reported.

“In a situation where the entire world is experiencing difficulties due to COVID-19, this kind of military act by North Korea is very inappropriate and we call for an immediate halt,” South Korea’s JCS said in a statement, according to Yonhap news agency.

Japan’s Ministry of Defense said they appeared to be ballistic missiles, and they did not land in Japanese territory or its exclusive economic zone.

They would be the eighth and ninth missiles launched in four rounds of tests this month as North Korean troops conduct ongoing military drills, usually personally overseen by leader Kim Jong Un.