TheNewsGuru

Tag: america

  • One death, a million protesters – Hope Eghagha

    One death, a million protesters – Hope Eghagha

    By Hope Eghagha

    Last week in faraway America, George Floyd’s death in the hands of four white policemen sparked protests and riots across America that has shaken America to its foundations. Mr. President Donald Trump sought refuge inside the bunker in the White House! The reactions reminded everyone of the 1968 race riots in the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s assassination. Americans of all colours simply said: ‘enough is enough’ to deaths of unarmed black men in the hands of law enforcement officers! The ‘Black Lives Matter Movement’ which had been ridiculed by establishment America came to haunt racist America with embarrassing force and vengeance.

    In the same week, in Nigeria a 22year old undergraduate student of UNIBEN Miss Uwalia Omozuwa had gone to study in a church building owned by Redeemed Christian Church of God in Ikpoba Hill Edo State. Before the night ended, it was discovered that some scoundrels, sons, or a son of the devil had violated the sanctity of the church building, attacked raped Uwadia and left her for dead. She was taken to a hospital but ultimately succumbed to her injuries. She was in a coma throughout her stay in the hospital and so could not narrate what transpired. Tears just kept flowing from her eyes. A social media campaign – JusticeforUwa- took off to draw attention to the dastardly act. But sadly, it did not carry the urgency or power of the forces brought together to fight the George Floyd’s assassination. Somehow in Nigeria such deaths have become routine. Life is cheap. Sad. Tragic. How did we descend into such a cesspit?

    We read about deaths of over ten, fifteen or seventy persons in a community in Nigeria. We read that some villages in the north are under the control of criminals. They have appointed their own judges and operate outside the framework of the Nigerian constitution. Lives are routinely violated. But we have become immune to the scandal that is impunity. Yet we have a government, a federal government whose duty it is to secure the federation. There are state governors who claim to be chief executives. I remember the Agatu massacre of over seventy souls and the lackadaisical attitude of the IG and the presidency. I remember Ughweru in Delta State and how ten lives were lost to Fulani herdsmen. I remember the lives routinely lost in Abraka to these same herdsmen who have taken to the forests of these largely agrarian communities.

    Whereas in America the issue was police brutality on black men, in Nigeria the focus is on security breaches and the failure of the police to effectively protect the people of this country. Across the world there were protests in support of George Floyd, in support of the black population in the US. There was even a demonstration in Nigeria. But there was no demonstration against the killing of Uwalia and others with a similar fate. At the peak of the crisis the police chief of Houston asked President Donald Trump to ‘shut up’ if he has nothing to offer to the people of his beloved city! Of course, free speech is guaranteed by the American constitution which also recognises 17985 police agencies across the country. Most of the heads of these agencies are locally appointed. They are accountable to the people. Not to a distant IG or an ignorant and racially biased President.

    Life is life. Death is death. The life of Uwalia like the lives of thousands lost to criminals in any part of the country, is as important as that of George Floyd. Yet, the whole world stood still to draw attention to Floyd’s death. When a village of seventy is sacked say in Plateau state or in Taraba, we look on and hope that the nightmare will be over. Indeed, there are many issues crying for mass protests in Nigeria. Strangely the human rights and civil liberties organisations have conveniently gone to sleep. The government has failed the people. The government is complicit. No modern state is run the way the country currently bumbles and fumbles on!

    The big point is this: policing is local, should be local. Which is one of the ugliest distortions of the federal system that we run. The unitary system of command and control from the military era has eaten deep into our system. How can Abuja effectively and conscientiously police my hometown of Mereje or Kiagbodo or Kaura Namoda or Nnewi or Shaki especially with the multi-ethnic and skewed system that we operate? We currently run a government that concentrates power in the centre. The centre is inefficient. As a result, the entire nation is inefficiently run. We depend on the resources produced by a section of the country to run the inefficient and prebendal bureaucracy in 774 local and 36 state governments.

    The time has come for a rethink of our national life. Nigeria is on the brink. We are wasting the lives of too many young people by inefficiency and backward reasoning. The right things are not being said. The right actions are not being taken. I do not have to be a prophet to say that the current set of rulers will not easily relinquish the powers which they have exploited for nearly six decades at the expense of the people. Yet, things must change. The lives of all citizens matter. Christians. Muslims. Southerner. Northerner. They are not just figures. They are human beings. Fathers. Mothers. Brothers. Sisters. Cousins. Flesh and blood.

    ‘Justice’, writes Wole Soyinka, ‘is the first condition of humanity’. But we cannot have justice if the holders of power do not subscribe to the ideals of justice and fair play. The security arrangements do not favour dispensation of justice. Every life deserves respect. Those murderous herdsmen in bushes across the country should be smoked out. Marauders who sack communities in Kaduna state are not spirits. With the necessary will, they can be and should be brought to justice. Fortunately, the killer of Uwalia has been arrested though his master the pastor is said to be on the run. All cases of murder should be resolved. Policing should be reorganised in such a way that there is local input. The current policing architecture is not working. It is oppressive, self-serving, and protective of some nefarious interests of the people in Abuja. George Floyd and Uwalia Omozuwa though belonged in different climes and circumstances, were victims of a failed system. Too many young girls have suffered the fate that befell Uwalia. Another rape and death case happened in Ibadan during the week. With one voice, let us tell the Lords of the Manor that ‘enough is enough! If they cannot secure the citizens of this country, they have no business being in power.

    Eghagha can be reached on 08023220393.

  • The American carnage – Chidi Amuta

    By Chidi Amuta

    Today’s America has degenerated into a rowdy cafeteria of unhealthy options. Prime on the menu is a trinity of unpalatable offerings. There is a wild version of the Covid-19 pandemic. There is looming economic disaster as a consequence of the pandemic. And there is now a nasty civil unrest that has not quite gone away.

    A televised police gang lynching of a hapless African American man on the streets of Minneapolis has rekindled the tinder of systemic racial tension in the country. Protests have flared in many cities all over the country and major world capitals. Police barricades have multiplied all over the place as public peace and social order have come under severe stress.

    Some protesters have gone violent just as thugs and miscreants have taken advantage of the mayhem to loot shops and torch public and private property. Many states have called in National Guard contingents for heightened crowd control. Remarkably, the protesters have thronged the perimeters of the White House, forcing the Secret Service to erect a new taller fence overnight. On one occasion, Mr. Trump had to be shepherded into a bunker at the menacing approach of ‘the people’. He later claimed he went to inspect the bunker!

    Quite significantly, America’s latest civil unrest is raging on the trail of China’s clampdown on Hong Kong with a security legislation that has literally ended the Island’s semi autonomous status. Predictably, official China and party media have reacted to the crisis in the United States by cynically urging America to respect the ‘human rights’ of its protesting African American citizens while condemning rampant instances of police brutality and racial discrimination in America.

    The racism inspired protests have spiraled to major centres of the world. From Ottawa to London, Amsterdam to Damascus and Paris, huge crowds have marched in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. These crowds have defied the requirement of social distancing and other protocols around the Covid-19 emergency to march in support of something more important to our common humanity, namely, justice for ordinary people irrespective of skin colour. The content and insinuations on the placards on display at all these protests should worry Mr. Trump and his White House establishment.

    All this is coming against a backdrop of the embarrassing decimation of over 105,000 Americans by the Covid-19 pandemic. That America now accounts for one third of the global deaths from Covid-19 is not a glowing tribute to the leadership of the United States. For the world’s richest nation with presumably the best science and technology standing, a death toll higher than that in any of the great wars it has fought in all its history should be worrisome. Responsibility for this disaster falls squarely at the doorstep of Mr. Trump, easily the most incompetent and shambolic president in recent American history.

    Predictably, President Trump has assumed vicarious ownership of the current crisis by choosing grand standing and drama over statesmanship. Instead of words to assuage the injured soul of his nation, the president has threatened protesters with ‘vicious dogs’ and ‘ominous weapons’. He has also threatened to call in the military to beat down the protests, accusing governors of weakness in the face of widespread lawlessness.

    The possibility that America is standing at the brink of a nasty civil unrest and possible racial confrontation could be real. Happily, however, the racial configuration of the protesters all over the world is a rainbow assembly of concerned people. Yet the crisis could morph into other confrontations because the Covid-19 emergency has multiplied the frontiers of dissent and fertilized the soil for multiple flare -ups in the United States. An unprecedented 42 million plus Americans have lost their jobs in the wake of the Covid-19 dislocations. The pandemic has also amplified other vulnerabilities and exposed latent fault lines in the American society. Ugly ghosts from a past of racial injustice against blacks have returned to haunt the streets.

    Quite significantly, the coronavirus has claimed its highest casualties among African Americans and Hispanics, a segment that coincides with the highest incidence of poverty and other deprivations in the American society. As the protests and mayhem rage, it is becoming difficult to separate the anger over the racist police murder of one black man from the litany of other socio economic grievances that plague the American society, now magnified by the economic consequences of Covid-19.

    In all of it, the challenge that has emerged for the United States goes far beyond ensuring judicial retribution for the latest victim of America’s systemic racism and manicured injustice. Of course the errant police men in Minneapolis will be arrested, put on trial and may probably be jailed. But it will only take another police shooting of another innocent black man to re-ignite another round of protests and fiery speeches. What is urgently needed is political will and statesmanlike courage to confront this perennial blight in American history and society. Sadly, the current political leadership of the United States happens to be the least equipped or disposed to initiate any such serious reforms.

    For individual state governors, the current crisis has added anger management to the curriculum of the administration of states whose economies have been hobbled by the Covid-19 crisis. The question now is: how do you navigate the treacherous divide between police establishments that feel they have a duty to do their job the old draconian way and publics whose civil rights have been injured by the injustices of systemic racism?

    The ultimate burden, however, remains that of national leadership and statesmanship at a very difficult moment in American and world history. How do you maintain law and order among a populace where over 42 million people have lost their jobs and livelihood? For each job lost another three Americans on the average have their livelihood severely threatened.

    For Mr. Trump and his ruling Republican party, therefore, the larger question is how to salvage whatever remains of America’s internal cohesion and international credibility. The minimum requirement of the moment is a certain inclusive statesmanship and rhetorical candour that could reunite a badly divided nation and reassure a world that is becoming increasingly nervous about America’s prospects.

    In every direction, we come face to face with the looming ominousness of Donald Trump’s troubled personality and beleaguered presidency. Even in the face of a palpable national tragedy, Mr. Trump has refused to appeal for calm in a neutral adult fashion. He has instead threatened state violence against the protesters who have however defied his bluster to besiege the perimeters of the White House. He has even defied the crowds to teargas his way across the street to the historic St. Johns Episcopal Church for a foolish photo opportunity.

    Ironically, the man defined the character of what is fast taking shape as the landscape of his legacy America. This is a landscape of utter disharmony, division and devastation of everything positive that American once stood for. Before our very eyes, a proud nation and global civilization has been reduced to a nasty carnage by the serial bumbling of an autocrat in the White House.

    Ironically, Mr. Trump had undertaken to end the carnage face of America right from his inauguration on Friday 20th January, 2017. He highlighted his inauguration with an unusual stitched up address. Scanty in substance but pointlessly irreverent, his inaugural was replete with unconnected dramatic outbursts. Trump painted a ghastly picture of America that literally rubbished the work of all his immediate predecessors. Hardly did his audience know then that he was previewing what was going to be his own legacy. ‘Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation …This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

    The current civil unrest on the streets of almost 350 American towns and cities demands more than cosmetic reforms of police protocols and the criminal justice system. America’s prevailing social order and concept of rights and justice have since expired. Token acts of affirmative action and legislative white wash can no longer serve to mask the hypocrisy of systemic racism and and socio economic inequality. Mr. George Floyds dying cry of ‘I can’t breathe’ in many ways captures the collective socio- economic asphyxiation of persons of colour, especially blacks, in today’s America. The existing system can no longer convince generations whose forebears have borne the burden of racism for so long that America holds a promise of fairness and justice for them.

    The lopsided cultural hegemony that enabled America to sustain and market this hypocrisy to the world for centuries has unraveled. Technology has brought the reality of racism and inequality into every living room and into every hand that holds a cell phone in the world. Underlying the neon lights of Las Vegas and the blinding klieg lights and flash photography of Hollywood is a backdrop of the carnage of poverty and squalor. Often hidden are the ugly inner cities and the bloody desperation of fierce urban gangs.

    The urgent challenge of radical and rapid social reform in the United States is ultimately one of political economy. At the level of politics, the crisis of systemic injustice is ingrained in American history and politics. Democracy as a template for justice and fairness is on trial. While a tradition of protest advertises freedom and liberty, the frequency of injustice and police violence and disproportionateof force speaks to a tradition of unrelenting abuse.

    Identity politics in America has always come with tension and protest. The Minneapolis police murder has however come at a time of great political difficulty for America. There is no Lyndon B Johnson in the horizon. Instead, the country is struggling under the burden of easily the most problematic presidency in American history. The presidency as a symbol of national unity and a commitment to justice has been dead in the last three and half years. Long standing systemic racism and inequality have been licensed onto the surface. Extremists and white supremacists no longer need to hide their faces or nuance their hateful rhetoric. In Trump’s badly divided America, the gains of the Civil Rights movement and the heartening symbolism of the Obama presidency have been eroded.

    At the economic level, there is a bigger crisis, a systemic one. Capitalism is under yet another crisis and trial so soon after the 2008 crisis. The Covid-19 crisis has exposed its failure to manage a crisis in an area that touches on the basic survival of the people: healthcare. The system has failed its managers and failed the people. It did not protect the lives and livelihood of the American people at an hour of grave need. Over 105,000 dead and more than 42 million thrown into the wilderness of joblessness in less than three months!

    In a sense, the George Floyd powered civil unrest completes the trinity of factors that could herald the real decline of America’s integrity, power and influence. Looming economic crash, the Covid-19 pandemic and civil unrest is a lethal combination even for the strongest of systems. In past crises, America’s proverbial exceptionalism has enabled the country to bounce back even stronger. But the national and international environments were different. Today, there is a conspiracy of factors that make things a little more difficult for the United States.

    First is the combination of the rise of an ambitious and powerful rival for global pre-eminence, China, abroad and the disruptive braggadocio of the feckless political leadership of Mr. Trump at home. It is even worse. The combination of a rich and ambitious China with a fierce and wily Russia is a geo strategic nightmare that the United States cannot afford to ignore. Mr. Trump has worsened America’s international burden. The European Union with an alienated Germany, an injured France and without the United Kingdom is a strategic misfortune for a United States that has always been bolstered by the support of trans Atlantic allies.

    Weakened and disunited at home and alienated and deserted abroad, America’s survival kit may have been mortally depleted. Trump’s America has exited the Paris Climate Accord, the World Health Organisation, the World Trade Organisation; it has shredded the Iran nuclear treaty and destabilized the Middle East. He has rubbished most multilateral trade agreements that sustained a thriving international system. His conscious erosion of the post World War II world order on which the stability of the world rested for over 70 years has inaugurated a fever of nationalism and growing isolationism in which America’s own global leadership is no longer tenable or even attractive.

    America’s long reputation as a citadel of democracy and a land of opportunity has in the last three and half years virtually evaporated. A combination of hostile immigration and trade policies and the pursuit of exclusionary nationalism have frightened off many of America’s friends and admirers around the world. The economic consequences of a global pandemic and now the reality of widespread civil unrest and insecurity now make the United States a very unattractive destination for all those who seek peace, rest, security or opportunity.

    For us in Nigeria, the current civil unrest in America has many teachable dimensions. In the heat of the protests, president Trump called on state governors to be more stout in their response. He not only called for contingents of the National Guard to be mobilized, he has threatened to deploy active –duty military. This threat met with instant stiff rejection and rebuff by sundry government officials and senior former political appointees. His own Defense Secretary, Mr. Mike Esper, went on global television to disown Mr. Trump and reject the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty soldiers to quell the civil unrest on American cities. Said Mr. Esper: ‘I do not support the use of active-duty soldiers to quell protests…”

    This is most instructive for Nigeria’s current internal security posture. The Buhari administration and indeed the ones before him have all taken an easy recourse to the military option whenever internal security challenges have escalated. The silly argument has been that when criminals and bandits outgun the police, the natural recourse is to call in the military who are however not trained for internal security challenges. In the US case, the argument is that the military is trained and equipped to defend the nation against external enemies, not to chase tax payers and citizens around the streets. It is even the height of lazy governance for politicians in a democracy to invite soldiers into civil security duties. The result has been a corrupting of soldiers and a weakening of civil authority with a depletion of the military’s professionalism.

    The primacy of the rule of law in matters of civil liberty has suffered in our land. The constitutional right of citizens to freely assemble and protest has been constrained by the sustenance of colonial police laws. Even the mere expression of an intention to peacefully protest against unpopular government policies has often been beaten down and would be organisers arrested, clamped into detention or put on trial on spurious charges.

    Like the United States, Nigeria is a diverse polity. The navigation of identity politics and diversity are real challenges here as well. Even more frightening, a subterranean nation is in the making. This is the land of the over 100 million certified poor Nigerians. Let us make no mistake about it. The challenge of managing our diversity and desperate inequality will place a great burden in the way of politics and governance in the years ahead.

    From a distance, America’s current travails look like the throes of an empire struggling with the difficult logic of decline.

     

     

    Chidi Amuta is a member of TNG’s editorial advisory board

  • Taking analgesics for another person’s headache – Owei Lakemfa

    By Owei Lakemfa.

    The last of five Iranian ships carrying petroleum products to Venezuela berthed safely this week after repeated United States (US) threats to militarily stop them. The first ship, Fortune, had arrived on Saturday May 23, escorted by Venezuelan Navy to ward off possible American attacks. It was followed by the vessels, Bella, Bering and Clavel.

    Apart from threatening the ships as they sailed from Iran, America had dispatched destroyers, littoral combat ships, Poseidon maritime planes and Air Force surveillance aircraft off the Venezuelan coast ostensibly to check drug smuggling but making it clear it could use them against the Iranian ships.

    But Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had warned: “Any pirate-like action by the U.S. Navy against the Iranian fuel shipments to Venezuela would trigger a harsh response.”

    The US was willing to spark off an international conflagration on the bizarre basis that it does not approve trade between the two sovereign countries. Secondly, the Americans claim that since they have imposed sanctions on both countries, they have lost the legitimate right to trade even between themselves. Thirdly, it says the Iranian supply of petroleum products to Venezuela amounted to an intervention in that country which is against its 19th Century Monroe Declaration under which US rejects outside intervention in the Western Hemisphere, a region it regards as its “backyard” This, the Trump administration says, gives it the right to militarily attack the ships. The Commander of U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Craig Faller in buttressing this inane position claimed Iran’s objective was to “gain positional advantage in our neighborhood in a way that would counter U.S. interests.”

    Fourthly, America says it is angry that Iran is trying to help Venezuela restart its 310,000 barrel-per-day Cardon refinery, a claim Iran denies. But what is criminal in Venezuela working to end fuel shortages and bringing relief to its people?

    Fifthly, the US childishly wails that the petroleum products were stolen by the Iranian government from the Iranian people and given illegally to Venezuela. If this weird claim were true, how is it America’s business? How is it in America’s place to cry for Iranians who in the first place have not reported their oil stolen? How can it be America’s business to take analgesics for the headache it claims Iranians have? If America were a human beign, I would have suggested its sees a psychiatrist because its actions and postulations do not make any sense.

    Elliott Abrams, the U.S. Special Representative to Venezuela – the elegant title given to the man charged with overseeing the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Nicholas Maduro – says American is opposed to the fuel supply because: “You have two pariah states finding that they are able to exchange things they need for things they have.”

    Mr. Abrams, an ex-convict might have been chosen for that role because he has a sordid past of being lawless and having little or no regard for human lives. He was appointed in January, 2019, thirty years after exiting the American State Department.

    In December 1981, American-trained special units of the Salvadorian military entered the village of El Mozote and massacred almost 1,000 men, women and children. When the massacre became public knowledge, the American Senate decided to probe it. The CNN in its January 26, 2019 report quoted the Human Rights Watch Report of the massacre which said Abrams at the Senate hearings “artfully distorted several issues in order to discredit the public accounts of the massacre,” insisted the numbers of reported victims were “implausible” and “lavished praise” on the military battalion behind the mass killings.

    The Reagan administration from August 20, 1985 to March 4, 1987, sold arms to Iran which was ostensibly under American sanctions, and used the money to fund Nicaraguan terrorist campaigns which included blowing up civilian ships at that country’s ports, and killing civilians especially in the rural areas.

    When the US Congress probed what became known as the Iran-Contra Scandal, Abrams lied to Congress. In order to escape multiple felony counts, he agreed to a guilty plea and was sentenced to two years probation and 100 hours of community service. The President George Herbert Walker Bush government later granted him pardon.

    The American establishment in resurrecting such a man three decades later, is a clear statement that the American interests in Venezuela is neither democracy nor human rights, but Venezuela oil and gas which it has been unable to exploit since the election of Hugo Chavez twenty two years ago.

    The Venezuelan refineries might not start running soon, and these Iranian supplies might soon be depleted necessitating more purchases which the Iranians might oblige. So, soon, there might be another round of American threats to go to war because two sovereign countries decide to buy and sell legitimate goods to each other.

    It is this type of incomprehensible diplomacy America displayed in warning Coronavirus-wracked countries not to accept medical aid from Cuba. With 1.87million infections, 421,000 recoveries and 108,000 deaths, as at Wednesday, America has clearly been unable to withstand the virus onslaught. So it has been in no position to assist other countries. In contrast, tiny Cuba with its sophisticated healthcare system built on prevention and community-based fights against viruses, is able to send medical personnel to fight Covid-19 in countries like Italy, South Africa, Jamaica, Grenada, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Suriname. In fact, it is trying to keep up with aid requests from 22 countries. But in a curious move, the American State Department issued a statement demanding countries to reject Cuban medical aid claiming that it is “an abusive programme” that engenders “end labour abuses” in Cuba. No country has responded to the odd American request as they are more interested in saving the lives of their people than be distracted by an administration locked in queer Cold War battles.

    A major headache of the American government might be campaigns by appreciative groups calling for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade which is fighting Covid-19 in various countries.

    America had exhibited a similar diplomatic attitude when it asked African countries to reject Chinese development loans which have favourable repayment terms and spread in contrast to those of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Ironically, while Africa’s total loan from China is less than $140 Billion, the US alone is owing China $1.1 trillion.

    The US is a busybody interfering in the internal affairs of various countries, dabbling in many issues it has no direct, and sometimes even indirect stake. All the while, it claims to be all-knowing and omnipresent across the globe and even the planetary system. The universe will be a better place if the US stops playing god in world affairs.

  • Covid-19 winners and losers – Udeme Nana

    Covid-19 winners and losers – Udeme Nana

    By Udeme Nana

    As the lockdown , self and compulsory isolation or quarantine of people forced by the corona virus disease pandemic eases , its pertinent to take a look at some winners and losers within the last three months.

    The Gold medalist is no doubt the Peoples Republic of China , a country of more than 1.4 billion people and the most populous nation on earth.

    Although it is alleged that the corona virus disease originated from one of its regions ; Wuhan to be specific, the country was proactive in its response and was able to push back the disease faster.

    It was also one of the first countries to return to a normal way of lifeinspite of the impact of the dreaded virus disease in other parts of the world.

    China’s President , Xi Jinping , who took office seven years ago also shares in the glory of his nation.Under his leadership, the Red country has grown in stature and prominence and the communist country has stood boldly , toe to toe with the United States of America in the wake of the rampant Covid – 19 pandemic.Even though the economies of most countries of the world have been impacted negatively by the pandemic, that of China is still robust and its well known billionaire has emerged as a prominent do – gooder , ferrying medical aid to less endowed countries in the world.

    If China was a mere challenger for the topmost spot in world politics, in post Covid 19 diplomacy and world politics , it is assured a more visible role and voice and its President would be bouncing sprightly like our own dear General Ibrahim Babangida walked during his heydays as Nigeria’s first and only Military President.

    On the flip side , the country which prided itself as the world’s only superpower and policeman , the United States of America lies prostrate, dazed and more confused than at any other time since Pearl Harbour.

    Just as it happened in 1945, ‘God’s own country’ was taken by surprise by coronavirus and though its Congress closed political party ranks to approve a humongous bail out in emergency appropriation worth trillions of US Dollars and its professionals made to rise to the occassion , its iconoclastic President behaved like a boxer drunk with a flurry of hard blows to his medula oblangata .

    As President Trump muddled along in a reactionary manner ; prescribing drugs , quarrelling with China , the World Health Organisation (WHO), his top Medical adviser , Dr.Anthony Fauci and grumbling with some of the State Governors who requested for Federal Aid by way of more equipment while the popularity , self confidence and control of the American and world political arena became like shifting sand under the feet of President Trump, the popularity of his main opponent in this year’s Presidential elections scheduled for November, former Vice President , Joe Biden, whom Trump derides as sleeping Joe is on the move, saying the right things and acting more Presidential.

    If Covid – 19 exposed President Donald Trump as a freak, the gruesome murder of George Floyd and the riots sparked by that dastard racist action has greatly exposed the soft underbelly of Donald Trump’s America.China’s and Joe Biden’s gains might yet turn out to be Trump’s huge loss. Trump is the loser here.

    Prayer warriors are praying for the conquest of Corona virus disease but it is possible that a lot officers and men of the Nigerian Police Force are countering such prayer points because the lockdown and curfew season have turned out to be their best ever moment.

    If it depended on them , Coronavirus should last forever.They were so excited while at the various road blocks everywhere , wore tough looks and harrassed , impounded vehicles and Keke from hapless citizens who breached the confinement of people and curfew no matter the excuse given by their victims.The Police also invented another synonym for bribe money, it was no longer ‘Roger’ but ‘sanitizer’ ! Anybody who heard the command to bring out and give out a sanitizer at a checkpoint who brought out the container of glycerine with alcohol hand cleanser was seen as a joke! You needed to watch them share the ‘sanitizers’ which they extorted each day.When the policeman next door moves house into his newly completed home at the end of the year, don’t ask how he made it so soon , it is the windfall from mounting roadblocks in the wake of COVID – 19.They are winners , indeed.

    Another set of winners are the Pharmacists , Patent medicine shop outlets and shylock traders who raised the prices of goods to high heavens.The price of a medical nose mask which was N100 pre COVID – 19 pandemic rose to N500 ! The smallest bottle of a real hand sanitizer sold for N3,000.00 from N1000.00.The prices of basic food items went up and so these category of business people are winners.

    Wives and children ; indeed family life also won.Covid – 19 Pandemic and the resulting restriction of movement forced couples to stay and spend more time at home with their children.To many couples , it was honeymoon all over again while children got to know more about their parents and vice – versa.Parents no longer hurried out from home every morning to return to eat and sleep at night.Most wives loved this but for the tragedy associated with COVID – 19 , many married women would pray that the pandemic lasts forever.Yes , families won as previously absentee parents quarantined themselves at home.

    On the other hand , the hospitality industry got severely hit.They were forced to close.Bars , sit – outs, club houses , gyms , swimming pools , fast foods and joints where the old and young met to socialize became desolate places. The market for ‘side – chicks’ and their patrons closed and parents had the chance to live with their grown but estranged female children.’Runs’ ceased for a moment .

    Another big loser is the World Health Organisation (WHO). Led by an Ethiopian, Dr.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Organisation has lost some credibility for late reporting of the incidence of Corona virus.It has also been accused of having worked in cahoots with China.The fall out of this is the withdrawal from that Organisation by the United States of America , its largest patron.Another country, Madagascar has also exited it over the management of its home made COVID – 19 therapy.

    A further set of winners are manufacturers of health personnel protective equipments like face masks , hand gloves , foot wears , aprons , disinfectants , sanitizers including other big ones like test kits , PCU’s and ventilators. The health sector and its professionals have also been accorded more respect and importance by political leaders because of their frontline role in trying to push back and managing COVID – 19 patients.

    Worship centres and their Pastors lost out .They missed, though temporarily, their stages, their offerings and those who prophesied about when the pandemic would end or those who failed to see its coming have lost a measure of their ecclesiastical integrity.

    In addition to all these ones , the Aviation sector, active politicking , Education, Transportation sector have lost immensely.

    The Almajiri system in the Northern zones and core Muslim parts of Nigeria have lost too because it has been disbanded and the Almajiris sent back to their states of origin.

    Several marriages were put off defering much hope and joy of prospective couples. People postponed trips long planned and anticipated.

    Like everything in life , COVID – 19 has been both a blessing and a curse to the global community.

    But no matter its positives , winners or losers, let COVID – 19 just go away and not return to infect and disorganise the world.

  • The Unravelling of America: You’ve Gotta Watch To Cry – Azu Ishiekwene

    The Unravelling of America: You’ve Gotta Watch To Cry – Azu Ishiekwene

    Azu Ishiekwene

    I first watched the movie in the lockdown. At the beginning, it was funny when the pair was fiddling with their entrée in the restaurant and wondering why they had both avoided each other until now.

    A few minutes after they left the restaurant, trouble started. The movie, entitled “Queen & Slim,” is the love story of two black Americans drawn to each other by tragedy even before their love story began.

    Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya), were driving home from their date when a white police officer flagged down their car for a minor traffic offence. In the testy, racially charged atmosphere, the lone white police officer shot at Queen as she tried to come down from the passenger side, hitting her leg.

    Slim, who had already been profiled and was being frisked by the officer behind the car, feared that his date may have been fatally shot. He tackled the officer whose gun fell in the process. Slim got the gun first and as he scrambled up, he shot the white police officer who died in a pool of his own blood a few minutes later.

    What next? An argument immediately broke out in my living room as it well might have happened in many homes around the world wherever this horrific scene was watched.

    I said the right thing was for Slim to call the police and immediately report what had happened. He had acted in fear and panic during the scuffle, with no intention to kill. But once the deed was done the full weight of the incident left him stricken and confused.

    Queen, his companion and black lawyer who was already bleeding from the gunshot wound, asked Slim to get off the ground and jump into the car so they could get away fast. I thought that was wrong and screamed for Slim to call the police, as if he could hear me.

    My son, 26, replied that he didn’t think Slim should report. Why, I turned towards him, puzzled! Because a black man in his shoes in America might not get away from that scene alive, if he called the police immediately. And not only him, his injured companion too, would be lucky to leave the scene alive, once the police arrive.

    At the end of the movie – a tale of dangerous living, adventure, love, fatal heroism and betrayal – you are in no doubt at all that racism is still alive, well and prospering in the US.

    Although a white cop was undeservedly at the receiving end of the bullet at the beginning of the movie, by the time it ends, Queen & Slim turns out to be only a modified version of what the world witnessed on the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week.

    It’s a narrative that has blurred any distinction between fiction and reality; a narrative replete in movie adaptations such as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, produced long before Queen & Slim was even conceived.

    In America, life imitates movies. And in Hollywood, the life of blacks and minorities imitates movies in a horrifyingly real way that it’s sometimes difficult to separate life from movies or movies from life.

    As I watched the video of George Floyd handcuffed and Derek Chauvin dug his knee into Floyd’s neck, life ebbing away as Floyd begged to breathe, I understood why Queen urged her companion to flee the crime scene in that movie, when it was clearly the wrong thing to do. In America, it appears your life doesn’t matter, if you’re black.

    And watching President Donald Trump emerge from the bunker in the White House on Monday only to deploy the National Guard in teargassing protesters so that he could have a photo op with a borrowed bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church across the White House, the unintended message was that Floyd won’t be the last victim of racial bigotry in the US.

    Think, for a moment, what would be happening now if Floyd was white, the police officer black, and Barrack Obama was still president.

    After just one opening sentence of remorse for Floyd, President Trump had plenty to say about law and order, about professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, rider rioters, Antifa and others. You could see that his speech was exactly where his heart was: with his white, right-wing base.

    He even went back 213 years in time to invoke the insurrection act deploying the National Guard, when the other three accomplices in Floyd’s murder have still not been charged. Trump’s America is worse than anything I have seen in a banana republic. With him, it promises worse. If America lived racism in whispers and pretense before, Trump’s presidency has put it on open display and he’s doubling down.

    Had the scenes from cities across the US in the last few days been from Venezuela, Papua New Guinea or some corner of Africa, a section of the US press would have had a lot to say, with reel after reel of footage on how bad leadership, human rights violations and police brutality had brought the country in question to its knees. Memes of the Statute of Liberty in tears would have flooded the internet.

    A group of bipartisan US legislators would even have proposed a bill for the review of US relationship with such a country, while dire warnings of American reprisals would echo at the Capitol Hill. American hypocrisy can be impatient and relentless, except when the US is the man in the mirror as it has been these past few days.

    Sure, Nigeria has had its own moments of shame in the last few days, too. The senseless killing by the police of the 17-year-old Justina Ezekwe; the rape and murder of undergraduate Vera Uwaila Omozuwa inside a church where she was studying; and the continuing reports of widespread killings in Kajuru, southern Kaduna almost in a cavalier manner while government appears like a bystander, are all truly heartbreaking.

    These incidents are a reproach, a continuing blemish on the record of President Muhammadu Buhari whose strongest point when he ran for the presidency was the promise fix insecurity.

    We can’t get used to violent killings and senseless murders as normal. The world should rightly be outraged wherever it happens, especially when those elected to protect citizens are complicit.

    From the recent turn of events in the US, Trump appears to be acquiring exceptional notoriety for stoking the flames with a growing suicidal streak that makes any moral equivalence pointless. The world may have laughed him off, and even ignored him as a maverick, but now it really needs to worry.

    It needs to worry because the rise of Trump propped and sustained by dangerous right-wing multibillionaires and their media interests is affecting not only the US, but also creating fertile breeding grounds in other parts of the world.

    In Europe, Hungary’s Viktor Orban excites his base by treating immigrants like viruses; while in Britain a remnant of institutional order managed, even in defeat, to restrain the Brexit mob led by Nigel Farage and Prime Minister Boris Johnson from a dangerous frenzy of nationalism and xenophobia.

    Thanks to Trump-myelitis, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, and President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil are testing the limits of democracy and yet it would not matter if they were not doing so at the expense of individual liberties and the lives of citizens. But who can question them now, when the US, the city on the hill, has become a spectacularly bad example?

    With US streets more militarised than Chinese streets during Tiananmen Square, Trump may as well finish off what he has started by leaving troops to roam till after the election in November. That way, he can be sure to win again without Russia remotely in the picture.

    Then, President Justin Trudeau would know that Canada’s southern neighbours have just traded places with Kim Jong Un, Queen & Slim would win an Oscars, and all pretenses to the US being a democracy would be well and truly over.

    Ishiekwene is the MD/Editor-in-Chief of The Interview

  • COVID-19: Trump rejects expert’s warning on reopening schools, businesses in America

    COVID-19: Trump rejects expert’s warning on reopening schools, businesses in America

    U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday rejected a warning given by top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci about the dangers of reopening the economy and schools too quickly.

    “To me it’s not an acceptable answer, especially when it comes to schools,” Trump said at the White House.

    He was responding to a reporter’s question on the issue.

    Fauci directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and is on the COVID-19 task force set up by Trump.

    He also warned in a virtual hearing with the Senate on Monday that a premature lifting of lockdowns could lead to additional outbreaks of the deadly coronavirus.

    So far, the virus has killed more than 82,000 people in the United States and brought the economy to its knees.

    Trump, in contrast, said the only thing that would be acceptable would be professors or teachers “over a certain age” not holding classes.

    “I think they ought to take it easy for another few weeks,” he added.

    Trump has made the strength of the economy central to his pitch for re-election in November.

    He has therefore encouraged states to reopen businesses and schools that were shuttered to halt the spread of the highly contagious respiratory disease.

    Fauci, 79, a proponent of the lockdowns, has become a target for criticism from the American far right and online conspiracy theorists since he made statements about the outbreak that were at odds with Trump’s.

    In April, Trump retweeted a call to fire Fauci, after the doctor said lives could have been saved if the country had shut down sooner, spurring speculation his days in the administration could be numbered.

    “Anthony is a good person, a very good person, I’ve disagreed with him,” Trump said in an interview earlier on Wednesday with Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” repeating his refrain that the country must reopen.

    “We want to do it safely, but we also want to do it as quickly as possible. … We have to get it open. I totally disagree with him on schools,” Trump said.

    Asked about Trump’s comments, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN that Fauci was “sounding an honest voice of caution and I share his view.”

    “I think we have to be very careful about the steps we take.”

  • COVID-19: Trump claims heat kills virus, tells Americans to ‘enjoy the sun’

    COVID-19: Trump claims heat kills virus, tells Americans to ‘enjoy the sun’

    U.S. President Donald Trump called on Americans to “enjoy the sun” after unveiling a study that supposedly showed that the novel coronavirus dissipates more quickly with sunlight and at higher temperatures.

    “I hope people enjoy the sun, and if it has an impact that’s great,” Trump said during his daily coronavirus task force briefing.

    Bill Bryan, head of science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security, presented the information, saying the coronavirus reaches its half life at two minutes in summer conditions versus 18 hours with no sunlight.

    Bryan and Trump did not say how the study was conducted or provide any underlying data.

    Notably Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci, the two top experts handling the U.S. response to the coronavirus, were not made available during the news conference to comment on the study.

    Places like Singapore that have high heat and sun exposure have seen coronavirus outbreaks.

    “I’m here to present ideas,” Trump added.

  • SPECIAL REPORT: Why Nigeria, other African countries must look beyond Europe, America’s COVID-19 combat approach

    SPECIAL REPORT: Why Nigeria, other African countries must look beyond Europe, America’s COVID-19 combat approach

    Nigeria and almost the remaining 51 other countries in Africa no doubt are responding in the best ways possible to tackle the spread of the Coronavirus [COVID-19] pandemic.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports that Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari and other African leaders have imposed a total lockdown on their countries as a first responder sort of technique to combat the further spread of the virus which is already spreading at an alarming rate in Lagos and Abuja.

    However, so far, the continent has only adopted mostly foreign measures with little or no adjustments to its entirely different population.

    With over 21, 950 confirmed cases and 1,088 deaths as at Sunday, April 19, 2020, Africa though with relative low cases (due to poor testing culture) might have to adopt tailored measures to contain the virus before a more deadly pandemic befalls the fragile continent.

    In response to the coronavirus pandemic, varying levels of social distancing have been implemented around the world, including in China, Europe, and much of the United States. Hundreds of millions of people have accepted dramatic disruptions to their daily lives and substantial economic losses based on the reasoning that slowing the spread of the coronavirus can keep health care systems from becoming overwhelmed.

    Epidemiological models make clear that the cost of not intervening in rich countries would be in the hundreds of thousands to millions dead, an outcome far worse than the deepest economic recession imaginable. In other words, social distancing interventions and aggressive suppression, even with their associated economic costs, are overwhelmingly justified in high-income societies.

    But the logic of this response is built on the characteristics of the industrialized, relatively wealthy societies where the policy has emerged. Low- to middle-income countries, such as Bangladesh and Nigeria, are different and raise different questions, namely: Do the benefits of countrywide lockdowns also outweigh the costs in poor countries?

    According to a report authored by Zachary Barnett-Howell and Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak both of Yale School of Management on if ‘Low-income countries should impose the same social distancing guidelines as Europe and North America to Halt the Spread of COVID-19, several reasons—including demographic composition, the source of people’s livelihoods, and institutional capacity—suggest that the answer may be different than in the United States or Europe. To put it bluntly according to the report, imposing strict lockdowns in poor countries—where people often depend on daily hands-on labor to earn enough to feed their families—could lead to a comparable number of deaths from deprivation and preventable diseases.

    Already, and as expected some of these countries that adopted the foreign social distancing measures are already witnessing daylight looting of stores and malls, robbery, kidnapping for ransom and other dangerous vices launched almost on an hourly basis.

    Impact of COVID-19 on High-Income and Low-Income Countries

    It’s worth looking first at the likely impact of the disease on different countries. While the young are not safe, the coronavirus hits older people hardest, with an estimated fatality rate of 6.4 percent in people above the age of 60, increasing to 13.4 percent for people above the age of 80.

    Low-income countries (where per capita income is less than $1,000 per year) have smaller proportions of people over 65 (3 percent) than wealthy low-fertility nations (17.4 percent), according to the World Bank.

    As a result, the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team’s influential epidemiological model estimates that the unmitigated spread of the new coronavirus would kill 0.39 percent of Bangladesh’s population and 0.21 percent of the sub-Saharan African population; that’s less than half the 0.8 percent mortality rate estimated for the United States and other OECD countries.

    This model accounts for country-specific demographics, differences in health care capacity, and infection rates, and it projects higher mortality in rich countries despite the comparatively poor quality of health systems in poorer nations. The model, however, does not account for the greater prevalence of chronic illnesses, respiratory conditions, pollution, and malnutrition in low-income countries, which could increase the fatality rates from coronavirus outbreaks. That is an important limitation of these comparative projections.

    To calculate the comparative benefits of imposing social distancing guidelines in rich versus poor countries, the report combined these estimates of country-specific costs of mortality with epidemiological predictions of mortality from the spread of the virus to generate estimates for a range of countries. In research that is currently under peer review, we found significant differences in the value of social distancing across countries.

    An equally effective social distancing policy is predicted to reduce coronavirus-related mortality by 1.3 million people in the United States and 426,000 in Germany. Such a policy would only save 182,000 people in Pakistan and 102,000 in Nigeria. The question is how many lives would such a policy endanger in those poor countries.

    The very large social distancing benefits estimated for the United States and Western Europe leave no room for debate about the public health value of widespread lockdowns and stay-at-home orders in those regions. That’s why calls from U.S. President Donald Trump and others to not make the cure worse than the disease make little sense in a country like the United States. The quantitative picture is a lot less clear in low- or middle-income countries, however. Those citizens also want to be safe from illness, but they don’t want to be unemployed, impoverished, or hungry.

    The net gains in welfare from saving lives by imposing coronavirus suppression policies is even larger in high-income countries relative to low-income ones, because social distancing lowers disease risk by limiting people’s economic opportunities. According to our recent research, poorer people are naturally less willing to make major economic sacrifices. Indeed, they place relatively greater value on their livelihood concerns compared to concerns about contracting the coronavirus.

    Impact of Social distancing policy in poor countries and wealthy countries

    Estimates may even overstate the value of social distancing in poor countries, where such policies may also exact a heavier economic toll, especially on the poorest and most vulnerable. Workers in these countries are more likely to be employed doing hands-on work that cannot be conducted while social distancing. They are also likely to in the informal sector and rely on a daily cash wage—without access to a social safety net. In the short term, social distancing prevents them from working and generating an income; in the long term, this can lead to hunger, malnutrition, other non-coronavirus-related health problems, and death.

    Flattening the epidemiological curve of the coronavirus to buy time until a vaccine can be developed may prove counterproductive for poorer countries if it increases these other causes of mortality. Based on data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, it was discovered that between 16 percent and 37 percent of households in lower-income countries are food insecure—people who already face hunger and stand to face increasingly dire circumstances if social distancing measures are imposed.

    Poorer countries also have limited capacity to enforce distancing guidelines and to ameliorate problems caused by such policies. Recent Community Mobility Reports published by Google show widespread adherence to social distancing guidelines in high-income countries but smaller changes in mobility trends for workplaces and retail shops in many lower-income countries.

    The social distancing and suppression interventions pioneered in Wuhan, China—and now in place throughout Europe and parts of the United States—rely on government support systems. Many workers throughout Europe still receive their salaries, and U.S. taxpayers will receive a stimulus check. By contrast, informal workers in developing countries do not always appear in government and bureaucratic records.

    So even in the unlikely event that social insurance policies were implemented in these countries, it is not at all clear how quickly the estimated 50 to 80 percent of workers informally or self-employed in lower-income countries could be located, if at all, to deliver relief benefits to them. In addition, a lockdown may have counterproductive effects if it forces informal sector workers and migrants to reverse-migrate from densely populated urban areas and spread the disease to remote rural areas of poor countries.

    Efforts by the Indian government to impose a lockdown already appear to have had significant negative consequences for the most vulnerable members of its population. Interviews with workers from the informal sector tell a story of impending poverty, evictions, and hunger, as their incomes and work opportunities have been curtailed. Migrant laborers in India’s largest cities, now without access to employment, are without food or shelter. Thousands are in the process of literally walking back to their homes, with deaths along the way already being reported. These mortality consequences cannot be ignored when devising public policy strategies to contain the coronavirus.

    The social distancing policies implemented in European countries and the United States may well be applicable to other parts of the world. If widespread social distancing must be pursued, then enormous and innovative efforts must be made to get food, fuel, and cash into the hands of the people most at risk of hunger and deprivation. This is especially challenging in countries without well-developed social safety nets. It is important for governments, the private sector, humanitarian groups, mobile phone operators, and technology companies to experiment with innovative solutions such as sending cash transfers via mobile phones.

    Because there is ample evidence that the economic costs of distancing—especially the burden on the poor—are a lot higher, a serious assessment is urgently required to determine what other measures could effectively save lives while minimizing losses in aggregate welfare.

    Alternative, realistic policies to combat COVID-19 pandemic

    Leaders in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America need to look carefully at alternative policies, including harm-reduction measures that allow people in low-income countries to minimize their risk from COVID-19 while preserving their ability to put food on the table.

    Some possibilities include: a universal mask-wearing requirement when workers leave their homes (as masks and homemade face coverings are comparatively cheap, and such a policy is likely feasible for almost all countries to implement); targeted social isolation of the elderly and other at-risk groups, while permitting productive individuals with lower-risk profiles to continue working; improving access to clean water, hand-washing, and sanitation, and other policies to decrease the viral load; and widespread social influence and information campaigns to encourage behaviors that slow the spread of disease but do not undermine economic livelihoods. This could include restrictions on the size of religious and social gatherings or programs to encourage community and religious leaders to endorse safer behaviors and communicate them clearly.

    The coronavirus pandemic represents a serious threat to the entire world, but that threat takes on a different shape in each country. Furthermore, the capacity of societies to respond and to endure the disruption and costs of social distancing vary greatly. The benefits of each policy must be carefully weighed against the economic costs and risks imposed on a particular society. While policymakers must think carefully about these differences, they must also act quickly, as both the disease and the measures imposed to contain it are already causing suffering throughout the world.

     

  • COVID-19 Lockdown: Trump Outlines reopening of America in three phases

    COVID-19 Lockdown: Trump Outlines reopening of America in three phases

    In a bid to ease hardships faced by Americans due to the Covid-19 Lock down order, US President Donald Trump has asked governors of the Country’s 50 states to relax the restriction of movement in three phases.

    Trump gave the outline during the Thursday edition of his Covid-19 daily media briefing in the White House

    In an 18-page document, President Trump said the three phases are to reopen state economies, with each phase lasting, at minimum, 14 days.

    PHASE ONE (1)

    Phase one includes much of the current lockdown measures such as avoiding non-essential travel and not gathering in groups. But it says large venues such as restaurants, places of worship and sports venues “can operate under strict physical distancing protocols”.

    PHASE TWO (2)
    If there is no evidence of a resurgence of the coronavirus, phase two allows non-essential travel to resume. The guidance says schools can reopen and bars can operate “with diminished standing-room occupancy”.

    PHASE THREE (3)
    Under phase three , states which are still seeing a downward trend of symptoms and cases can allow “public interactions” with physical distancing and the unrestricted staffing of worksites. Visits to care homes and hospitals can resume and bars can increase their standing room capacity.

    According to a BBC reports, Some regions could begin returning to normal after a month-long evaluation period, at the earliest, according to the document.

    In places where there are more infections or where rates begin to rise, it could take longer.

    The co-ordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Dr Deborah Birx, told Thursday’s briefing that as states worked through the three phases, they could allow for more and more employees to return to work in increments.

    Phase three would be the “new normal”, she said, and would still include suggestions that vulnerable people should avoid crowded spaces.

  • How America missed opportunity to stay ahead of Coronavirus – Bill Gates

    American billionaire, Bill Gates has said the United States missed the opportunity to stay ahead of the deadly Coronavirus pandemic.

    The novel coronavirus has infected more than 1,016,000 people and killed over 53,000 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.

    The US has reported more than 245,500 cases, with over 6,000 deaths. Top infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has called for a federally mandated stay-at-home order.

    However, Gates, on his twitter handle said all the work that rich countries were doing now to develop vaccines would save lives in developing countries too.

    “Without a vaccine, those countries are at even greater risk than wealthy ones, because it’s even harder for them to do physical distancing and shutdowns.

    “If everything goes well, there might be an effective vaccine in less than 18 months—the fastest a vaccine has ever been developed. That will depend on decisions we make today, including the federal government investing in building up manufacturing capacity.

    “There’s no question the United States missed the opportunity to get ahead of the novel #coronavirus. But the window for making important decisions hasn’t closed. The choices we and our leaders make now will have an enormous impact,” he said.

    Gates said in the meantime, frontline health care workers were making heroic efforts to test and treat patients across the United States and the world.

    “Here in my hometown, Public Health Seattle & King County is doing incredible work that we should all be very proud of.

    “If we make the right decisions now—informed by science, data and the experience of medical professionals—we can save lives and get the country back to work,” he said,