Home » Posts tagged 'social distancing'
Tag Archives: social distancing
There Will Be No Recovery Without Production
THERE WILL BE NO RECOVERY WITHOUT PRODUCTION
Through most of the coronavirus crisis, those who have made the case for stay-at-home, reduce or stop work, and narrow the range of retail shopping to assure “social distancing” to reduce the spread of the virus have accused their critics of being more interested in preserving livelihoods than “saving lives.” But there is no preservation of any lives if people are not able to produce and work, without which none of the necessities and other wants of any members of society can be fulfilled.
Listening to many politicians and political pundits, and even some “economists,” you could easily think that 250 years of economic understanding had never happened. One of the oldest of economic fallacies is that money is wealth; that is, the notion that if you create pieces of paper, put some kind of government stamp on it announcing that it is “money,” and spread it around among the members of society, you thereby conjure up from nothing actual material and other forms of wealth.
Money is a medium of exchange, some commodity or other useful thing that is found widely advantageous to use as a convenient intermediary to better facilitate the exchange of other goods and services one for the other when more direct barter transactions are found to be impossible to arrange or more costly to carry out.
Printing Money Does Not Magically Create Goods
But increasing the number of units of the particular item used as money does not, in itself, increase the physical quantities of all the other goods that people want to acquire through exchange to satisfy their wants and desires. These other goods that people actually want must be produced, manufactured, transported and made ready in the forms and at the places desired by members of society.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Disobedience, Protest, and the Pandemic: Climate Change and Citizen Action under Conditions of Social Distancing
Disobedience, Protest, and the Pandemic: Climate Change and Citizen Action under Conditions of Social Distancing
Civil disobedience is not just a checklist of components, but a tradition of morally purposeful action and an expression of citizenship, CUSP Fellow Graeme Hayes writes. As the pandemic ushers in new social norms, and political and economic interests may seek to capitalise on the crisis to further deepen social inequality, how social movements rethink their tactics may have profound consequences for the effectiveness of future protests.by
So far, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of over 200,000 people; if we measure excess deaths against the five year average, the figure is even higher, at over 300,000. To stem the tide, liberal and authoritarian states worldwide have introduced social restriction regimes with varying intensities, speeds, and success. By the end of March, 2.6 billion people, or a third of the global population, were living under some form of ‘lockdown’. The social and economic consequences are profound, with the IMF predicting the global economy to shrink by 3% in 2020, the ILO emphasising the devastating effects of workplace closures on 1.6 billion workers in the informal economy. Poorer and more marginalised populations are not only more likely to be exposed to the virus; they are less likely to be able to adapt to and cope socially and economically with conditions of lockdown. This is, as Richard Horton writes in The Lancet, a global health crisis whose meanings are not biological but biographical, located in the vast social inequalities and organisational assumptions that underpin late capitalist societies.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
US, European Cities Turn to “Talking Drones” From China to Enforce Social Distancing
US, European Cities Turn to “Talking Drones” From China to Enforce Social Distancing
“STOP gathering, disperse and go home.”
(TMU) — As an increasing amount of cities and states across the world clamp down on citizen movement due to the coronavirus, officials have been deploying drones in a bid to scare some sense into social distancing scofflaws.
The trend has seen dozens of law enforcement agencies and municipalities flock to one drone manufacturer based in China to help enforce quarantine rules while cutting costs on traditional public safety services.
One of the latest cities to enlist drones into its arsenal is Daytona Beach, Florida, which now has eight of the flying tools, including two loaned by Shenzhen, China-based drone manufacturer DJI Technology.
Over the past week, the Daytona Beach Police Department has flown upwards of 30 missions to enforce the statewide stay-at-home order in the city’s beachfront parks and on hiking trails. For police management, the use of drones is a common-sense solution to the problem of dissuading law-breakers while maintaining a safe distance amid the ongoing pandemic.
Sgt. Tim Ehrenkaufer, the head of DBPD’s Unmanned Aviation Systems Unit, told WKMG:
“We’re reducing the officer having to go out there, walk into the park property, walking into a crowd of people, share those germs back and forth just to deliver a message that, ‘The park’s closed. Don’t be in here.’”
The drone also has a FLIR thermal camera that can read people’s body temperatures, allowing police to single out those potentially infected by CoViD-19—a tool that Ehrenkaufer says will help officers know from a glance what precautions should be taken.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Coronavirus: European Leaders Finally Acknowledge Scale of Crisis
Coronavirus: European Leaders Finally Acknowledge Scale of Crisis
- The number of new coronavirus cases in Europe has been doubling, on average, every 72 hours.
- “It has increased in some countries over the last two weeks by one thousand… There is nothing to stop that expansion… unless those societies move aggressively… including introducing social distancing…. We need to modify our behavior. We need to start practicing that now. We have to modify our behavior in ways that reduces the risk of transmitting the virus….” — Dr. Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
- “I think we need to start thinking in terms of the social risk. If I have a cold and I go to work and shake hands with my older colleague who has a chronic medical condition, I could be responsible for that colleague’s death. We all need to think about our responsibility to each other as we govern our behavior. We can’t view the epidemic in terms of our personal risk, we need to act collectively in a cooperative manner…” — Dr. Richard Hatchett.
- Merkel said that her government’s top priority was to slow down the contagion to prevent a collapse of the German healthcare system.
| After months of complacency, European leaders are beginning to acknowledge the scale of the unfolding coronavirus crisis. The number of new infections in Europe has been doubling, on average, every 72 hours. More than 30,000 people have tested positive for the disease, and 4% of them have died (as of March 12). Pictured: A man receives assistance at a pre-triage medical tent in front of a hospital in Cremona, Italy, on March 4, 2020. (Photo by Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images) |
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has now reached more than 45 countries in Europe, where (as of March 12) more than 30,000 people have tested positive for the disease, according to a Gatestone Institute tally based on calculations from European health ministries.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
