{"id":9593,"date":"2020-04-09T04:54:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T11:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=9593"},"modified":"2020-04-13T03:31:46","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T10:31:46","slug":"message-of-the-day-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=9593","title":{"rendered":"Message of the Day: Disease, Hunger, Economic Opportunity, Environment, War, Population"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A new battle zone for the coronavirus looms: the developing world<\/em>, National Geographic<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A number of publications have made their stories on Covid-19 free. Some have made this more far-reaching than others.<\/p>\n

We have congratulated The New York Times already on comprehensive free coverage. We featured their cover story in our first post on the issue.<\/p>\n

We also featured an article from National Geographic.<\/p>\n

They too deserve congratulations for free ongoing coverage.<\/p>\n

They feature numerous articles that are excellent, informative, and of course, accompanied by compelling photography.<\/p>\n

We post an article here that just starts to mine what is happening and will happen as Covid-19 impacts the majority of world, where the huge majority of the population lives, including a majority of the most vulnerable. It\u2019s connected to many other related articles.<\/p>\n

This one focuses on\u00a0Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.<\/p>\n

The author, and photographer, Paul Salopek, is the writer\/photographer of\u00a0Out of Eden Walk<\/a>, \u201ca storytelling odyssey across the world in the footsteps of our human forebears.\u201d He\u2019s been on this singular and extraordinary journey with National Geographic for years, and we\u2019ve referenced it before.<\/p>\n

This is his latest dispatch.<\/p>\n

As Salopek puts it:<\/p>\n

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, awaits the storm.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a brief excerpt:<\/p>\n

\n

Since COVID-19 first erupted in China in December and began its devastating race across the continents, the pandemic\u2019s early outbreaks have burned hottest in the richer, globalized quarters of the world linked by busy commercial air routes\u2014Europe and the United States.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

But that\u2019s set to change, disaster relief experts warn, as the highly contagious virus begins spreading through the poorer societies of the planet. There, threadbare health care services, the impossibility of social distancing in packed slum communities, and an absence of economic safety nets are incubating a human tragedy of potentially cataclysmic scale.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, rich countries are the epicenter of this deadly virus,\u201d Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Vera, the Interim Executive Director of Oxfam International, wrote last week in a call for a massive international aid program<\/a> to brake the virus\u2019s impact in developing countries. \u201cBut we must talk of the world. We all need each other\u2019s help right now. It is clearer than ever that none of us will be safe until all of us are safe.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As readers know, we like to emphasize or repeat certain lines. We find it necessary. So here goes:<\/p>\n

It is clearer than ever that none of us will be safe until all of us are safe.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the article. We highly recommend using the link to Salopek\u2019s ongoing series as he walks the planet and chronicles its history, Out of Eden Walk<\/em>, and all the other articles continually updated on Covid 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cA new battle zone for the coronavirus looms: the developing world\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Story and photgraphs by Paul Salopek, April 6, 2020, National Geographic<\/p>\n

People in Mandalay, Myanmar\u2019s second-largest city, are coming together in the face of a possible catastrophe.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/picture>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
\n
\u00a0Sanitation workers in Mandalay, a hub in northern Myanmar, gear up to spray disinfectant on city streets.\u00a0PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL SALOPEK<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

MANDALAY, MYANMAR\u2013<\/span>\u201cDo you know how to distribute food?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Aung Ko Ko was trying to learn\u2014fast\u2014how disaster relief works. The young hotel manager in Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar, was scouring the web on his smart phone, searching for nutritional guidelines for food aid during famines, a bleak but possible endgame of the COVID-19 pandemic among the world\u2019s weaker economies. He texted business friends to organize a head count of his city\u2019s most vulnerable citizens: the homeless mainly, but also destitute day laborers who couldn\u2019t self-isolate without starving. And he even resorted to asking the advice of the last guests at his all-but-empty tourist lodge, whose business was wiped out by the worst global health crisis in a century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t really know what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Ko Ko admitted, pulling on his kitchen staff\u2019s plastic cooking gloves as makeshift antiviral protective gear, before going out to deliver bags of biscuits from a motorized rickshaw. \u201cBut we\u2019re trying to help.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Mandalay could certainly use it.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\"A<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aung Ko Ko, the manager of a virus-emptied hotel in Mandalay, distributes food to his city\u2019s homeless.\u00a0PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL SALOPEK<\/small><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

One of the poorer countries in the world with a per capita income of $1,200<\/a>, Myanmar is girding for the brutal onslaught of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has surged across the Earth and overwhelmed the economies and hospitals of far richer nations. As of April 4, the Myanmar government had officially tallied 21 positive cases of the disease<\/a>. But doctors here warn that this improbably low number masks a dire reality: With minimal testing available and a population of 54 million, the country\u2019s actual infection rate is likely far higher. And once the infection peaks, it easily could smother the nation\u2019s frail public health system. In Mandalay, a city of 1.2 million\u2014about the size of Dallas or Prague\u2014just a handful of life-saving ventilator machines are available to medical teams staffing the sole isolation ward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cWhy talk ventilators?\u201d Khun Kyaw Oo, a doctor involved in the city\u2019s emergency planning committee, said tersely. \u201cWe don\u2019t even have enough surgical masks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even basic hygiene products such as hand sanitizer were unobtainable in Mandalay, Kyaw Oo said. Chemistry students at a local university were recruited to mix batches of the antiviral hand-wash in their labs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Since COVID-19 first erupted in China in December and began its devastating race across the continents, the pandemic\u2019s early outbreaks have burned hottest in the richer, globalized quarters of the world linked by busy commercial air routes\u2014Europe and the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

But that\u2019s set to change, disaster relief experts warn, as the highly contagious virus begins spreading through the poorer societies of the planet. There, threadbare health care services, the impossibility of social distancing in packed slum communities, and an absence of economic safety nets are incubating a human tragedy of potentially cataclysmic scale.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cCurrently, rich countries are the epicenter of this deadly virus,\u201d Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Vera, the Interim Executive Director of Oxfam International, wrote last week in a call for a massive international aid program<\/a> to brake the virus\u2019s impact in developing countries. \u201cBut we must talk of the world. We all need each other\u2019s help right now. It is clearer than ever that none of us will be safe until all of us are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Affluent Spain provides one doctor for every 250 citizens, Vera noted, and yet the death toll there has rocketed to more than 12,000<\/a>, the second highest in the world after Italy. \u201cNow consider a country like Zambia which has one doctor<\/a> for 10,000 people,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

As coronavirus infections climb past 1.2 million worldwide, the United Nations has launched a $2 billion emergency medical fund<\/a> to help poor nations confront the pandemic. But that stopgap sum\u2014less than a thousandth<\/a>of the total the United States so far has earmarked for its own pandemic recovery\u2014won\u2019t even begin to soften the virus\u2019s shockwaves across vulnerable regions already reeling under the burdens of poverty, war, and climate change.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\"A<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Ko Win Aung, a schoolteacher, manages a Mandalay citizen group, Stop Mandalay from COVID-19, combating the virus. \u201cSome people say our people are immune because our health care system is so limited,\u201d Win Aung joked. \u201cWe\u2019ve adapted. Our antibodies aren\u2019t afraid of any virus.\u201d PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL SALOPEK<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

According to the UN, economic losses caused by the pandemic could exceed $220 billion in developing countries<\/a>, \u201cimpacting education, human rights and, in the most severe cases, basic food security and nutrition.\u201d More than eight million people in the Arab world<\/a> may teeter into extreme poverty, one study says. And in India, a 21-day general lockdown now threatens the wheat harvest<\/a> in the world\u2019s second-largest producer of food grains.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, awaits the storm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Early on, its government was criticized for being too slow in reacting to the pandemic. (Last month, an official spokesman asserted that Myanmar\u2019s \u201clifestyle and diet\u201d<\/a> offered a good defense against COVID-19.) But the authorities have mobilized since, closing restaurants and national borders, urging people to stay indoors, and requiring thousands of frightened migrant workers rushing home from abroad to self-quarantine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In wealthier nations, such measures appear obvious.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

But in places where millions eke out lives week-to-week\u2014or in extreme cases, even meal-to meal\u2014such policies present agonizing choices.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\"A<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The famed Irrawaddy River flows past Mandalay. Day laborers who unload ships are mostly idled by the virus\u2014making these river workers among the most vulnerable of the city\u2019s people. One of the pandemic\u2019s most sobering aftereffects in poorer countries may be hunger.\u00a0PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL SALOPEK<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy business is dead,\u201d said Yin Yan Mar, whose noodle stall in Mandalay was shuttered by the quarantine. \u201cFor the time being, I\u2019ve stored food for two weeks. After that, I have no plan B. Five people depend on me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Once roaring with trucks, scooters, and rickshaws, the streets of Mandalay are silent today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In the face of a looming COVID-19 disaster, many citizens are banding together spontaneously, hoping to barricade their city from collapse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A gold-leaf manufacturer shelters 15 workers, idled by the virus, for free. \u201cThey\u2019re going to get free food too for as long as we have money to buy it,\u201d said Sithu Naing, the sales manager.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

One landlord, terrified of contagion, ejected several doctors and nurses from their apartments. Guesthouses, long abandoned by tourists, immediately offered them rooms gratis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

And the hotelier Aung Ko Ko rattles around Mandalay\u2019s harder edges, looking for the hungry. The poor most exposed to the pandemic, he learned, have no means of cooking dry rice. So he hands out fruit and canned goods instead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cDo nothing, get into no mess, and you\u2019re safe,\u201d Ko Ko said, quoting a Burmese aphorism. \u201cThis is not true anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published on the National Geographic Society\u2019s website devoted to the Out of Eden Walk project. Explore the site here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Paul Salopek\u00a0<\/i><\/b>won two Pulitzer Prizes for his journalism while a foreign correspondent with the <\/i>Chicago Tribune.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              A new battle zone for the coronavirus looms: the developing world, National Geographic   A number of publications have made their stories on Covid-19 free. Some have made this more far-reaching than others. We have congratulated The New York Times already on comprehensive free coverage. We featured their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9593"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9593"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9643,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9593\/revisions\/9643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}