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New outbreak, same old mistakes

QuickTake Tonight
Bloomberg

Greetings, QuickTake readers! In this edition: Employees strike for safety, a global condom shortage looms and the hidden environmental impacts of living under lockdown.

Italy falling into China's traps

Italy must forcibly mass quarantine coronavirus patients instead of letting them self-isolate, according to Chinese experts who said Wuhan doctors made the same mistake early on in the outbreak. Then, only seriously ill patients were admitted to hospitals. Now, researchers know even those with mild symptoms were just as contagious, and once those patients in Wuhan were quarantined starting in February, cases dramatically slowed.

But in Italy, the country with the most deaths, officials risk losing their grip on containment measures, especially in the underdeveloped South. Police were deployed on the streets of Palermo, Sicily, amid fears the shuttered economy would cause riots, looting—and even the mafia to step in.

$ignificant figures

$2.5 trillion. The U.N. called for a coronavirus crisis package to aid developing countries where the Covid-19 pandemic and a global recession could inflict "catastrophic" damage on two-thirds of the world's population.

July 23, 2021. IOC and Japanese organizers for the Tokyo Olympics set a new date for the opening ceremony, saying the timeline would give "the maximum time" to deal with Covid-19 and "only accelerate our progress."

Two months. How much longer the stockpile of condoms from the world's biggest manufacturer will last as demand rises amid prolonged stay-at-home orders, likely leading to a global shortage and a big price hike.

Highly quotable

"What are we waiting for, someone to die?" Amazon warehouse workers in New York went on strike for improved safety measures and paid leave. Employees at Instacart and Whole Foods also walked off the job.

"Just an aspiration." Trump extended social distancing measures until April 30 and ditched his goal of reopening the U.S. by Easter since top doctors "didn't like the idea" and warned deaths could reach 200,000.

"It won't go down by itself." The WHO emergencies chief said Covid-19 case counts in Italy and Spain are "potentially stabilizing," but both must "redouble public health efforts to now push the virus down."

This is not normal

Negative impact. Lockdowns have led to cleaner air in Europe and China, but cities worldwide have stalled recycling and voided single-use plastic bans, producing more waste that risks chronic environmental problems.

The future is now

Algorithmic MD. Italian doctors are using Chinese AI that can detect in 20 seconds if a patient's pneumonia is linked to Covid-19 by scanning lung tissue patterns and reporting either a "suspected" or a "No-Covid" result.

What's good

Quarantined in harmony. As orchestras worldwide adjust to lockdown life, some like the Antwerp Philharmonic are reuniting remotely to weave together strings, woodwinds and brass into powerful at-home concerts.

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BTW: Vincent van Gogh's "The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring" has been stolen from Amsterdam's Singer Laren museum, authorities said.

Thanks for reading!
-Andrew Mach

     

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