Six flaws in the arguments for reopening

Leana S. Wen, an emergency physician and visiting professor at George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, debunks the six reasons offered by the US government to open up the economy. She says: “Most states are reopening to some degree this week, even as public-health experts warn that it’s too soon.”

Read here (Washington Post, May 6, 2020)

Inventive routes back to normal life

‘Across the world, countries are embarking on enormous experiments in ending coronavirus lockdown measures - and others are looking on nervously, asking themselves what's the best way back to normality.

‘All these novel schemes, and many more, may help a return to some form of normality. But Ngaire Woods, professor of global economic governance at Oxford University, says easing lockdown requires us all to rethink our lives. "We have got to get testing tracing and isolating up and running fantastically well," she told Radio 4's Briefing Room. "We have to start thinking about preventative measures in public spaces and schools. We have got to manage the import of cases - so think about travel restrictions. That's a clear checklist in order to safely start lifting the lockdown."

‘Prof Woods says thinking will have to go far beyond just re-opening closed-down businesses. We may need to split workforces by age group - an example could be that older teachers must take their classes by video link. "Those are the questions we have to ask - they are not insurmountable problems. The alternative is to stay in a total lockdown."

Read here (BBC, May 4, 2020)

List of banned activities during conditional MCO

The government has decided to reopen the economy from May 4 but some sectors will either still be barred from resuming business or subject to many conditions and a conditional movement control order (MCO) will be imposed.

This story contains (1) the list and (2) a number of related news stories pertaining to the conditional MCO announced by the Prime Minister on May 1, 2020.

Read here (Malaysiakini, May 1, 2020)

How life in our cities will look after the coronavirus pandemic

‘Cities are at the center of this pandemic, as they have been during so many plagues in history. The virus originated in a crowded city in central China. It spread between cities and has taken the most lives in cities. New York has become the world’s saddest, most dismal viral hotspot...

‘Cities thrive on the opportunities for work and play, and on the endless variety of available goods and services. If fear of disease becomes the new normal, cities could be in for a bland and antiseptic future, perhaps even a dystopian one. But if the world’s cities find ways to adjust, as they always have in the past, their greatest era may yet lie before them.

‘To help us make sense of urban life after the pandemic, Foreign Policy asked 11 leading thinkers from around the world to weigh in with their predictions. One of the contributors is Maimunah Mohd Sharif from Penang, Malaysia.’

Read here (Foreign Policy, May 1, 2020)

There is no exit from coronavirus, only containment: A perspective from India

‘Devi Sridhar, the chair of global public health at Edinburgh Medical School and director of the Global Health Governance program, recently tweeted on the three options open. Sridhar wrote: “There are few short-term options. 1: Let the virus go and thousands die. 2: Lockdown and release cycles which will destroy economy and society. 3: Aggressive test, trace, isolate strategy supported with soft physical distancing.”

‘Having said that, the horrifying twin-reality still remains to be that an end to lockdown will by no means represent a return to normality, and, equally, a second, far more destructive wave is virtually an unavoidable possibility, notwithstanding the infection-reducing social distancing as a “new normal” in our daily life.’

Read here (Indian Punchline, April 29, 2020)

Dare to imagine the best possible new normal

‘We are at such a point in time again, when we are forced to think of ourselves as a species, and in fact, to institutionalise that fact even more thoroughly than before.

‘The added difference between 1945 and 2020 is that the pandemic should make us realise more deeply the fact that we are merely a species among other species and how species relate to each other cannot continue to be haphazard, and that the environment that supports us and that we all share is fragile. The environment has to be respected and cared for. And our existence is a shared one — within the species and among species.’

Read here (The Edge, April 29, 2020)

Learning how to dance - Part 3: How to do testing and contact tracing. Tomas Pueyo

‘Thankfully, a set of four measures can dramatically reduce the epidemic. They are dirt cheap compared to closing the economy. If many countries are enduring the Hammer today, these measures are the scalpel, carefully extracting the infected rather than hitting everybody at once. These four measures need each other. They don’t work without one another:

• With testing, we find out who is infected
• With isolations, we prevent them from infecting others
• With contact tracing, we figure out the people with whom they’ve been in contact
• With quarantines, we prevent these contacts from infecting others

‘Testing and contact tracing are the intelligence, while isolations and quarantines are the action. We’ll dive into the first two today — testing and contact tracing — and the next two will be covered next.’

Read here (Medium, April 28, 2020)

All-of-government, whole-of-society involvement needed to fight virus

‘To enhance efficacy and minimise disruptions, an ”all of government“ approach at all levels needs to be developed, involving much more than public health and police enforcement authorities. Human resource, social protection, transport, education, media, industry, fiscal and other relevant authorities need to be appropriately engaged to develop the various required transitions and to plan for the post-lockdown “new normal”.

‘Another condition for success is “whole of society” mobilisation and support. Government transparency and explanations for various measures undertaken are important for public understanding, cooperation, support and legitimacy. The authorities must also realise how measures will be seen. Singapore’s apparent early success, for example, was not what it seemed as it had overlooked official disincentives for possibly infected migrant workers to cooperate...’

Read here (IPS News, April 28, 2020)

Inc.'s essential business survival guide for the Covid-19 crisis

‘Inc.'s solutions center offers expert advice on handling panicked customers, interrupted supply chains, webinars, Zoom meetings, hyper kids, and a work environment that changes by the hour.” America-oriented, however, there many generic lessons that businesses anywhere can learn from. More specifically, for example, tips on working from home:

• The right way to keep your remote team accountable
• Some jobs can't be done remotely. Here's what business owners are doing to keep those employees safe
• Working from home? Here are 7 things you should start doing today
• A beginner's guide to working from home without driving yourself and your family crazy
• 23 essential tips for working remotely
• How to avoid loneliness and isolation when you live alone and work from home’

Read here (Inc, April 27, 2020)

Malaysia not ready to lift MCO, says medical expert

‘Malaysia is not ready to lift the movement control order (MCO), implemented to contain the spread of Covid-19, in the near future due to many issues that still need to be addressed, said senior consultant paediatrician Datuk Dr Amar Singh HSS.

‘According to the former head of the paediatric department at the Raja Permaisuri Bainun Hospital in Ipoh, Perak, out of the six criteria listed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) with regard to lifting the movement order, Malaysia was still lacking in four aspects—testing and screening, health system capacity, contact tracing and, most importantly, community’s mindset.

‘(The six criteria listed by WHO are transmission is under control; health systems are able to detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact; hot spot risks are minimised in vulnerable places, such as nursing homes; schools, workplaces and other essential places have established preventive measures; the risk of importing new cases can be managed; and communities are fully educated, engaged and empowered to live under a new normal.)’

Read here (The Malay Mail, April 26, 2020)

McKinsey & Co: The phase of Return is in sight. But rapid Return comes with higher risk, and a new reality

Pages 29 to 55 of this 63-page McKinsey & Co report start with the following introduction:

• Weeks of shelter-in-place provisions globally have caused a deep economic challenge, straining governments’ ability to save lives while safeguarding livelihoods
• Governments are now considering options and timing for a gradual re-opening, with the US being the most recent announcement.
• Many of these re-openings are occurring in very different environments. Some geographies are considering opening after they have plateaued, while others are seeking to return after additional verifications are complete (e.g., hospital capacity, testing capacity, other)
• These variations are driving concerns within businesses around risks associated with a return-to-work, and whether these risks can be adequately managed
• Additionally, COVID-19 has changed many realities for businesses. Remote first may be a goal achievable in months, consumers have structurally adopted digital channels, and the prospect of the largest economic recession since the second World War could quickly challenge the business

The section goes on to discuss ‘Return planning’ which is relevant to all Malaysians as we enter the phase of conditional MCO.

Download the report here (McKinsey & Co, April 24, 2020)

Learning how to dance - Part 2: The basic dance steps everybody can follow. Tomas Pueyo

‘Any country can follow a series of measures that are very cheap and can dramatically reduce the epidemic: mandate wearing home-made masks, apply physical distancing and hygiene everywhere, and educate the public.

‘It’s time to dive deep into all these possible measures, to understand them really well and decide which ones we should follow. We can split them into 4 blocks:

• Cheap measures that might be enough to suppress the coronavirus, such as masks, physical distancing, testing, contact tracing, quarantines, isolations, and others
• Somewhat expensive measures that might be necessary in some cases, such as travel bans and limits on social gatherings
• Expensive measures that might not always be necessary during the dance, such as blanket school and business closures
• Medical capacity

Read here (Medium, April 23, 2020)

Could it be time to swop fast car for slower, sturdier one?

Danny Quah, dean, and Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, addresses the questions: How should the world change post Covid-19? Will we all just go back to business as usual? What lessons do we need to learn from this pandemic?

Upclose and personal: “Post-Covid-19, the new focus will concentrate more sharply on individual well-being and individual responsibility. Old political dogmas about individual rights and state surveillance and control need to be recalibrated. In a world of spillovers, individual rights are immediately social ones too. Covid-19 has shown how our economic world is rife with externalities, where we ourselves rise by lifting others around us."

Two paradigms: The overall tradeoff involves two paradigms of development. Comparing a highly souped-up car with a slower sturdier one, he concluded: “The critical trade-off is between driving an economic system to maximal efficiency and building in redundancies and resilience through spare back-up capacity. Government intervention is needed to repair the problems created by externalities in health systems.”

Read here (Straits Times, April 23, 2020)

Amar Singh and other doctors offer guidelines for supermarkets under new normal

‘Supermarkets play an important role in Covid-19 prevention. Many supermarkets have put in place measures to limit the spread of Covid-19 at their premises. However, as the movement control order is relaxed, and client numbers increase, supermarkets will have to be even more vigilant.

‘We offer here a “Guide for Supermarkets to Standardise Covid-19 Prevention”: The “new normal” for supermarkets. This guide aims to help standardise the measures to be taken by all supermarkets, as well as offer ideas and initiatives that could be taken.’

Read here (The Malay Mail, April 22, 2020)

When Americans go back to work, things won't be the same... and what can be done

‘Modern manufacturing plants are very capital-intensive enterprises with a lower population density. And a typical factory is used to putting a premium on controlled work processes that are safety-driven. Many could open now.’

‘For the record, Caulkins thinks restaurants should stay open, too. But, with more creativity and flexibility from governments, he sees a pathway for millions of additional workers to soon join cooks and cashiers back at work with even greater safety than we have today. Even furniture and electronics stores are potential candidates.’

Read here (Futurity, April 20, 2020)

Reflexivity in the age of pandemia: Adaptive policy making and the Covid-19 crisis

The authors argue that ’the current tendency of using the war metaphor is not the way to respond. Such a metaphor is useful to mobilise and rally people around a short-term external threat. But it is also the root cause for the chaos we are experiencing now – the lack of government preparedness despite having experienced similar events such as the ‘Spanish’ Flu, SARS or the Zika virus epidemic throughout the last century. The war metaphor masks the fact that the threat of pandemic is a long game requiring a more complex response at the local, national and global levels of society.

’We require far-reaching changes to the way we design and organise our cities and supply chains, and a rethinking of the way we interact and transact as a global society. Arundhati Roy wrote recently that, “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew.” In this paper, we argue that such a response would require reshaping policy making around the concept of reflexivity and made operational through an adaptive policy making approach.’

Read further and download here (Think City, April 2020)

Could the next normal emerge from Asia?

This McKinsey & Co report talks about Asia’s resilience to disruption and focuses on four areas that will shape the next normal: (a) Rethinking social contracts (b) Defining the future of work and consumption (c) Mobilising resources at speed and scale (d) From globalisation to regionalisation. It concludes that the future global story starts in Asia.

Read here (McKinsey & Co, April 2020)

Intermittent social distancing may be needed through 2022 to manage Covid-19

‘On-and-off periods of social distancing will likely be needed into 2022 to ensure that hospitals have enough capacity for future Covid-19 patients in need of critical care, according to a new modeling study from researchers at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

‘The research, published April 14, 2020 in the journal Science, predicted several scenarios for how the coronavirus might spread over the next five years, taking into account factors such as whether or not the virus will exhibit seasonality, whether people who are infected go on to develop short-term or long-term immunity, and whether people would get any cross-protective immunity from having been infected with other types of coronaviruses that cause common colds.’

Read here (Harvard School of Public Health, April 14, 2020)

I’ve read the plans to reopen the economy. They’re scary. There is no plan to return to normal

‘Over the past few days, I’ve been reading the major plans for what comes after social distancing. You can read them, too. There’s one from the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, the left-leaning Center for American Progress, Harvard University’s Safra Center for Ethics, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer.

‘I thought, perhaps naively, that reading them would be a comfort — at least then I’d be able to imagine the path back to normal. But it wasn’t. In different ways, all these plans say the same thing: Even if you can imagine the herculean political, social, and economic changes necessary to manage our way through this crisis effectively, there is no normal for the foreseeable future. Until there’s a vaccine, the US either needs economically ruinous levels of social distancing, a digital surveillance state of shocking size and scope, or a mass testing apparatus of even more shocking size and intrusiveness.’

Read here (Vox, April 10, 2020)

Prepare for the ultimate gaslighting

A massive campaign to return to normality is on the way, however, this writer implores his fellow citizens to listen: ‘From one citizen to another, I beg of you: Take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud...

‘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.’

Read here (Medium, April 10, 2020)