Kalam Se
Netflix, Amazon… : Beneficianries Of Coronavirus
Coronavirus pandemic has lead to the unthinkable; offices closed or issued ‘work from home’ to its employees, schools and colleges have declared a temporarily holiday; however, no one is worried about the prevailing situation. Hostellers making their way back home in crowded buses/trains/planes yet everyone is masked and using sanitizer- what has the virus done to us?
Everyone is hitting the pause button, reflecting on the recent developments that brought the world to a standstill; but out of these happening can we look for the positives?
Let’s analyse how the pandemic hit the world a bit deeper:
Why a sudden decrease in pollution and road accidents?
Fewer people driving to offices, schools or even hangouts mean less level of pollution. In China, there has been a drastic decrease in pollution since the spread of the virus. According to NASA’s satellite image over China, it is clearly evident that pollution has decreased a lot since February.
Source: NASA
Moreover, as the number of vehicles is less on-road the accident rate has also gone down, which is another unseen benefit of the coronavirus quarantine situation. Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled. So quarantine seems like keeping people alive too!
Growth in hand sanitizer and other cleaning product market
Amidst the coronavirus outbreak, there is this one sector that has benefited the most–hand sanitizer and other cleaning products market. Many leading companies in this sector have reported witnessing an unpredicted hike in demand for their products. It is reported that by the time coronavirus spread in Wuhan, China Touchland had already found a groove with consumers, having finished its first full year in business with 2 million dollars in sales and on the brink of announcing a 1.75 million dollars second seed round of funding.
Same is the case with Purell, Lysol, Clorox and other companies, as the cleaning products are “flying off the shelves” as people are trying to stock in case of emergency.
Apart from hand sanitizers, mask, cleaning wipes household disinfectants, and other cleaning products demands are also increasing; despite this, the death toll around the world is gradually rising and is above 10,000 now.
It is reported that the stock market value for these industries is shooting high up.
Coronavirus is changing the way people eat
Due to the quarantine, people are now forced to eat from home leading to a decrease in the demand for fast food products. Fast-food chains, restaurants, coffee shops are all being hit by the pandemic as people now prefer social distancing. Even Starbucks has predicted a drop in sales for the first quarter of this year.
Chinese food business– especially those in the Chinatown worldwide are suffering as Chinese tourists have reduced. However, this has lead to people cooking at home and thus a rush in supermarkets and fresh produce supply stores was something unexpected. Reports say that Walmart and other similar big giants which operate as a chain of hypermarkets, grocery stores and discount stores saw a sudden rush of the customers in grabbing the kitchen essentials and other produce.
Booming of homebody economy
Yes, the online business is thriving despite the coronavirus outbreak; though quarantine has stopped the people from stepping out of their home, to fulfil their needs now they rely on online services. From online transactions to shopping to buying groceries this industry is booming.
Of course, the e-commerce sites and delivery providers have geared up to make the maximum out of the situation. Amazon, the largest virtual marketplace in the world is a company that’s arguably poised to benefit the most from the pandemic. According to data Vox received from Helium 10, a software suite for Amazon sellers, nine of the top 10 keywords being searched on Amazon.com are coronavirus-related. Shoppers are mostly searching for N95 respirators, medical face masks, and hand sanitizer.
Netflix and Tik Tok are Burgeoning
With millions of people trapped in home in quarantine, with no cultural or social gatherings, and cinemas being closed, in order to kill their boredom they have switched to Netflix, Amazon Prime and Tik Tok.
It was reported that companies that provide in-home entertainment services are flourishing as people are looking for an alternative to kill their time. Thus these industries are able to withstand the storm of the virus, even when the world is getting lockdown.
Socializing in the age of social distancing
Though the coronavirus has disrupted the work culture, social gathering, conferencing, and cultural events it comes with a positive side as well. School is out, parents are not at work, and it is a rare time when everyone is at home.
Though the only thing that can be done when everyone is free is to take a trip, visit relatives or go on some exotic vacation; all that is not possible due to the coronavirus outbreak. So why not some quality time with family?
However, the online telecommunication software, apps are also booming; Softwares like Skype, TeamViewer, Google Hangouts and other such telecom software and apps have seen an increase in download in the recent time, as office have now given their employees “work at home” option.
Protests
Headlining Citizenship Amendment Act protests have been forgotten. Amid the virus which has claimed four lives in India, the protests are still ongoing in many parts of the country.
Despite WHO as well as the Indian government advocating social distancing, many people are still protesting in quiet revolt against the controversial law and the associated National Register of Citizens and National Population Register.
The Tamil Naidu government had got the right idea and recently called off a protest of the same happening in Chennai’s Washermanpet area. It is time people are equally concerned about their neighbour’s health and call off protests and ensure that the hygiene protocol is followed.
Staying at home has many benefits, coronavirus is teaching us all to be patient, take a pause and be hygienic. There is no way to get contaminated unless we break the rules, so let’s challenge ourselves to stay safe with #stayathomechallenge.
The greatest PR company in the country was back in action a few weeks ago, but their latest attempt at damage control was, at best, pathetic. Two opinion pieces in supposedly international publications were aggressively pushed on Twitter by the BJP army.
One is published on a website called The Daily Guardian and screams, “PM MODI HAS BEEN WORKING HARD; DON’T GET TRAPPED IN THE OPPOSITION’S BARBS“. The writer is Sudesh Verma, unsurprisingly from BJP’s Media Relations Committee. The website itself is unimpressive, and the portal has around 2000 followers on Twitter, a rather low number considering the numerous BJP leaders who have shared the article, along with the 45 subscribers on YouTube.
The second piece, “Besides COVID-19, India is also fighting with vulture journalists, who are spreading more panic and despair than pandemic“, on a website called Australia today, is nothing more than a foul-spirited diss track against Burkha Dutt. The website domain is registered in the name of Jitarth Jai Bhardwaj, and its Twitter and Instagram accounts have meagre 1074 and 36 followers, respectively. This article is re-published from The Trunicle, a site that describes itself as “a pro nationalist opinion and news portal, launched in July 2020 by US-based NRIs”.
Considering how critical international media has been of the ruling Government, it is obvious why these pieces were published in obscure, supposedly foreign news outlets when Swarajya or OpIndia would have happily published them. This was not even the first time the Indian Right has used such fake international websites. The irony is not lost when proud nationalists need foreign validation to beat foreign criticism.
Asking Twitter to take down dissenting posts makes it very clear that the Government cares more about its image than the lives of its citizens. All this was accompanied by the usual ‘communist foreign media is biased and conspiring against Modi and India’. Great Hindi poet Harishankar Parsai sums it up beautifully-
“तानाशाह एक डरपोक आदमी होता है। अगर पांच गधे भी साथ-साथ घास खा रहे हों तो तानाशाह को डर पैदा होता है कि गधे भी मेरे ख़िलाफ़ साजिश कर रहे हैं। “
Translating to-
“A dictator is a coward. If five donkeys just graze grass together, the dictator feels that the donkeys are conspiring against him.”
A recent Reuters report exposed the nonchalance of our leaders. The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genetics Consortium (INSACOG), set up by the Government in December last year, warned of a new dangerous variant in early March. Scientists on February 1 detected the B.1.167 variant, and they warned the Health Ministry’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) that infections could quickly rise in the country.
The INSACOG also formulated a media statement for the Health ministry saying that the two mutations called E484Q and L452R were of “high concern”. The ministry published the findings on March 24; the statement did not mention the words “high concern”. How many catastrophes have befallen us just because politicians paid no heed when scientists said “high concern”.
Shahid Jameel, one of the top virologists in the country, recently quit as the head of INSACOG. In an article for The New York Times, he suggested methods to control the rise of infections and then wrote, “All of these measures have wide support among my fellow scientists in India. But they are facing stubborn resistance to evidence-based policymaking.”
Earlier, he also told Reuters, “Policy has to be based on evidence and not the other way around. I am worried that science was not taken into account to drive Policy. But I know where my jurisdiction stops. As scientists we provide the evidence, policymaking is the job of the Government.” Imagine hiring the best engineers to build a building, then ignoring their suggestions and when the roof falls on someone’s head, saying that you “feel their suffering equally“.
A Senior Central Government official in a Secretary Level meeting on April 5 had raised the issue that the Kumbh Mela might become a super spreader event. To allow and endorse such a massive religious festival after numerous warnings and to print front-page ads (with the Prime Minister’s face of course) inviting people to gather in the millions, that too a year early because of astrological reasons, was, in the politest term possible, extremely stupid.
Broadcast media was all over the 9,000 strong Tablighi Jamaat gathering last year, but they didn’t seem to have a problem with the 91 Lakh strong Kumbh Mela. The lengths to which Aaj Tak went to defend the Kumbh and attack the Markaz show their bigotry and dishonesty. The point is not to say that the Markaz was without fault, but to say that one should not consume news on television.
The National Task Force for Covid-19 met on April 15 and “unanimously agreed that the situation is serious and that we should not hesitate in imposing lockdowns,” said one of the scientists who took part in the meeting, reports Reuters. This Task Force is headed by V.K. Paul, the Government’s top coronavirus adviser. On April 17, Narendra Modi said in Bengal, “Have never seen such a huge crowd in any rally”.
Sujeet Kumar Singh, head of the National Centre for Disease Control, said, “It was highlighted very, very clearly that unless drastic measures are taken now, it will be too late to prevent the mortality which we are going to see…… The exact time, as per our thinking, was 15 days before,” in meetings on April 18th and 19th, referring to the need for stricter lockdown measures. All these statements by top scientists, almost unheard of, shows that media bias is anything but against the Government.
Early victory against the virus was declared by multiple leaders, including PM Modi and Dr Harshvardhan. Addressing the World Economic Forum in January, Modi said, “(India) has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively”. In early March, when cases had already started to rise, Harshvardhan said, “We are in the end game of the COVID-19 pandemic in India…… Unlike most other countries, we have a steady supply of COVID-19 vaccines.”
How these words must haunt him now that we know the ‘game’ is very much on. We don’t have any vaccines either. The shortage is such that only six states began vaccination for the 18+ age group after the Centre decided to open it up on May 1. Even senior citizens are finding it difficult to get their second dose.
The Foreign Contributions Regulation Amendment Act passed last year forces NGOs to, among other things, have an account in a specific SBI branch in New Delhi to receive foreign aid and stops them from passing on this aid to other smaller NGOs (leading to lack of funds in local NGOs). The same act allows only 20% of such assistance to be used as administrative expenses (salaries, training, equipment, legal charges, etc.).
Such backbreaking bureaucracy and micromanagement have proven disastrous in the pandemic when NGOs have been feeding the poor in lockdowns and helping with oxygen cylinders and medicines. Amnesty International India shut down operations last year after what it described as a two year “incessant witch-hunt” by the Government of India after the Enforcement Directorate froze its accounts. These draconian measures were introduced to stop misuse of foreign funds while the Government uses its full force to illegally stop the PM Cares fund from coming under the purview of RTI.
The Government’s endorsement of Patanjali’s Coronil has to be the final nail in the coffin. A doctor trained in modern medicine—India’s Health Minister—sitting on a stage with a saffron-clad man endorsing pseudoscientific medicine goes a long way in invalidating scientific research. False claims saying Coronil is a cure for covid and that WHO has certified the herbal concoction were floated around. The BBC found the drug to be absolutely ineffective at preventing Covid infections. It is not even legal to advertise Coronil in the United Kingdom par India me toh sab chalta hai. Read more about the useless trial conducted in Rajasthan to prove Coronil’s supposed effectiveness here, here, here and here.
On top of this, Ramdev ridicules science by saying that lakhs have died of covid after taking ‘allopathic’ medicine. He also posted 25 incredibly dumb questions to the IMA like, “Does the pharma industry have permanent treatment for thyroid, arthritis, colitis and asthma?” making ridiculous remarks like, “Doctors should not fall ill at all if allopathy is all-powerful and ‘sarvagun sampanna’.” He has now gone on to say, “Arrest toh unka baap bhi nahi kar sakta,” after doctors called for his arrest.
Even a dysfunctional autocrat like Donald Trump held daily press conferences when Covid-19 raged in the United States. In India, thousands of bodies floating in rivers don’t seem reason enough for the Prime Minister to answer any questions. Official infection and death counts seem to be so inaccurate that one can confidently ignore them.
Image Source: Murad Banji @muradbanji
The situation is so bad that one of the best-regarded medical journals globally- 198-year-old The Lancet published an editorial calling out the Modi government on its mishandling of the situation.
Obviously, healthcare is a state subject, and the states are also to be blamed, but no one can deny that Narendra Modi is the single most influential man in the country. His following experts’ suggestions and acting in a way befitting a leader would have made an enormous difference. Shed tears on national television all you want, Mr Prime Minister, you are fooling no one. You have brought this upon us.
“Modiji Modiji jhola utha lo ab tum ji
Ya Kailasa chale jao, Ya sanyas lelo ji”
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of News Aur Chai and News Aur Chai Media does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
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