There is little doubt that –whatever countries do to fight the virus- the economies of many EU countries will be in serious disarray. It is likely that Governments and the EU in the struggle to regain employment and income will fall back into the “old normal” and put aside their agreed strategies to achieve sustainability and to further a social Europe with a strong public sector.
A vision is presented for an emergence of EU countries out of the crisis with sustainability and with an improvement of the public sector. EU cooperation is a must for that vision, with a commitment of EU countries to the conditionality’s for joint Euro area monetary funding (ECB) and joint Euro area borrowing (though ESM) or joint European borrowing through the EIB or otherwise. These conditionality’s are in terms of a commitment to sustainable development, to improvement of the public sector (health and education), to joint taxation as well as to sound fiscal behavior.
A memorandum by Jo Ritzen (together with Javi Lopez, André Knottnerus, Salvador Perez Moreno, George Papandreou and Klaus F. Zimmermann) has just elaborated this in a new UNU-MERIT Working Paper (see online access below).
Jo Ritzen has presented the memorandum in a UNU-MERIT seminar in Maastricht on April 23, 2020. His presentation was followed by a discussion prepared by Luc Soete and Bart Verspagen.
Some insights to begin with:
The lockdown measures will cause a tremendous recession, much stronger than the global (2007-8) financial crisis with substantial long-term negative consequences for government debt and the flexibility of government activities.
The burden for the next generations has therefore substantially increased above the huge challenges already present through climate change, demographic imbalances, global refugee pressures and digitization.
The state is back in a dominant role for society and economy, while the end of Schengen and of free labor mobility seem possible (if not even likely).
Europe has been largely absent in the initial response to the Corona-crisis leaving the message: the European Union is superfluous.
This is a dangerous development since a strong European collaboration is essential to deal with the challenges and to ensure a healthy and prosperous social and economic development of Europe.
The challenge has to be used to foster structural reforms to invest in the future to strengthen education, digital and transportation infrastructure, the healthcare industry, and to handle the challenges of climate change, demography, open labor markets and refugees.
GLO Fellow Jo Ritzen is a Professorial Fellow of UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance.UNU-MERIT is a joint institute of the United Nations University (UNU) and Maastricht University. Ritzen is a former Minister of Education, Culture, and Science of the Netherlands, served in the Dutch Cabinet at the Maastricht Treaty. He is a former Vice President of the World Bank and a former President of Maastricht University.
Posted inNews, Policy|Comments Off on How to strengthen the public sector and restart a more sustainable and social Europe in the aftermath of the coronacrisis.
A new GLO Discussion Paperdefends the quality of key available coronavirus data: The cross-country correlation between log of tests and log of reported cases (per capita) and the correlation between log of reported cases and log of reported deaths (per capita) are high. It suggests that currently the infection rate in no country is higher than 10% and the fatality rate is at least 0.4%.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: COVID-19 mystery feeds the belief that the reported morbidity rates are not related to the true ones and that large parts of the population are already infected, the virus is not very dangerous, and the lockdown is unnecessary. Yet one observes two very strong correlations that disprove this belief. The cross-country correlation between log of tests and log of reported cases (per capita) is 0.87 and the correlation between log of reported cases and log of reported deaths (per capita) is 0.89. Using these correlations, I suggest that the infection rate in no country is higher than 10%. Furthermore, I suggest that the mortality from COVID-19 is at least 0.4%.
A new GLO Discussion Paperpresents a theoretical conceptualization of the data economy: Knowledge extraction from large, inter-connected data sets displays natural monopoly characteristics that generate and disclose the amount of knowledge that maximizes their profit. Provided that monopoly theory holds, this level of knowledge is below the socially desirable amount.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Featured image: Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
Author Abstract: This paper presents a theoretical conceptualization of the data economy that motivates more access to data for scientific research. It defines the semicircular flow of the data economy as analogous to the traditional circular flow of the economy. Knowledge extraction from large, inter-connected data sets displays natural monopoly characteristics, which favors the emergence of oligopolistic data holders that generate and disclose the amount of knowledge that maximizes their profit. If monopoly theory holds, this level of knowledge is below the socially desirable amount because data holders have incentives to maintain their market power. The analogy is further developed to include data leakages, data sharing policies, merit and demerit knowledge, and knowledge injections. It draws a data sharing Laffer curve that defines optimal data sharing as the point where the production of merit knowledge is maximized. The theoretical framework seems to describe many features of the data-intensive economy of today, in which large-scale data holders specialize in extraction of knowledge from the data they hold. Conclusions support the use of policies to enhance data sharing and, or, enhanced user-centric data property rights to facilitate data flows in a manner that would increase merit knowledge generation up to the socially desirable amount.
A new GLO Discussion Paperfinds that in Italy groups at risk of COVID-19 work in sectors that are little exposed to physical proximity, they are currently under lockdown or can work remotely. The sectoral lockdowns put in place by the Italian Government in March 2020 seem to have targeted sectors who operate in physical proximity, but not those directly exposed to infections.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: We analyse the content of Italian occupations operating in about 600 sectors with a focus on the dimensions that expose workers to contagion risks during the COVID-19 epidemics. To do so we leverage extremely detailed and granular information from ICP, the Italian equivalent of O*Net. We find that several sectors need physical proximity to operate: the workers employed in Italy in sectors whose physical proximity index is above the national average are more than 6.5 million (most of them in retail trade). Groups at risk of contagion and complications from COVID-19 (mainly male above the age of 50) work in sectors that are little exposed to physical proximity, currently under lockdown or can work remotely. The sectoral lockdowns put in place by the Italian Government in March 2020 seem to have targeted sectors who operate in physical proximity, but not those directly exposed to infections (the health industry is not subject to lockdown). Most workers who can operate from home have not been put under lockdown and are currently working. Therefore, the number of workers who are not in workplaces could be up to 3 million higher than those whose sector has been shutdown.
Still too early for a final judgment; but Sweden is an important alternative to the mainstream approach of total lockdown. Only this way we can learn how to best approach such pandemics to save lives in the future. Final answers only after we are “out of the fog”.
The world still struggles about a convincing strategy to handle the #coronavirus crisis. What is the right strategy with social distancing. Were the huge lockdowns in many states necessary? How to move out of the lockdowns? Read the insights of one of the leading experts on epidemics world-wide.
Some core messages of theinterview:
Our research showed that those cities that acted early in the big influenza epidemic of 1918, for long periods of time, and used several non-pharmaceutical interventions saw far lower rates of influenza cases and deaths compared to the cities that failed to take such measures or took them too late.
I do not believe letting the virus run wild to achieve herd immunity and leaving things wide open, as in Sweden, is a good idea.
In the fog of war it is always hard to gather good data.
We are all flying by the seat of our pants and making best guesstimates.
At least in the US, we are not there yet to terminate the widespread lockdowns.
I fear that CoVID-19 will be much worse than the influenza epidemic of 1918.
He is the pre-eminent social and cultural historian of medicine, public health, and epidemics in the world. Author of 11 books and has contributed over 500 articles, reviews, essays and book chapters to a wide range of scholarly publications and popular periodicals. He has made hundreds of contributions for the media and is a prominent policy advisor.
More details about his expertise on epidemics below the interview. Full Bio.
Howard Markel: In 2007, my colleagues and I at the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) taken in the U.S. during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, which killed, at least, 40 million people around the globe and 500,000 to 750,000 Americans. We evaluated the public health efforts of 43 large cities that implemented some combination of commonly used NPIs:
1) isolating the ill or suspected cases in hospitals or at home; 2) banning public gatherings and in some cases, shutting down roads and railways; and 3) closing schools.
What we discovered was quite remarkable. Many cities acted early, meaning they pulled the levers to shut the gates of their city before the virus reached what is called an inflection point and spread widely causing hundreds if not more cases per day. We estimated that rate to be twice the normally expected number of cases of influenza in that city at that time, based on the previous year’s statistics.
Those cities that acted early, for long periods of time, and used more than one NPIs saw far lower rates of influenza cases and deaths compared to the cities that failed to take such measures or took them too late —after the virus had a chance to spread through the community.
GLO:Social distancing as a concept is applied to some extent in most countries, but was the complete lockdown of societies and economies really necessary? Why are e.g. the policies applied in South Korea and Sweden wrong?
Howard Markel: Early action is the key, of course, because these measures do not cure or prevent the spread of a virus. They only buy time, so that hospitals are not overrun with sick people and, perhaps, modern medicine can manufacture effective anti-viral drugs, treatments, or a vaccine. And because these measures are extremely disruptive to society, they should be employed only as a last resort and only for highly lethal and easily transmissible infections. When is meant by the phrase “last resort,” is that all other measures leading up to such socially disruptive NPIs do not seem to work elsewhere and we are dealing with an epidemics that has an especially high case fatality rate (number of deaths divided by total number of cases).
In 1918, the case fatality rate (CFR) was 2.5% (and in some countries such as India, over 10%), which is staggering compared to seasonal flu case fatality rates of about 0.1%. The 1918 pandemic that merited the most draconian of measures and it is important to note, they had no other tools to use, no antibiotics or antivirals, no vaccines, not even IV fluids. Right now, we are estimating relatively high CFR’s for CoVID-19, but are unsure of the precise number because while deaths are easy to quantify, the total number of cases is unclear—especially those with mild cases that do not see their doctor. We need better testing to be sure but given how sick CoVID-19 makes people and the number of deaths we are seeing, I believe it is better to be safe than sorry.
I do not believe letting the virus run wild to achieve herd immunity and leaving things wide open, as in Sweden, is a good idea given how many people with co-morbid diseases are at risk to get very sick and die. In 2020, there are many people living with cancer, AIDS, heart disease and other serious illnesses who would never be alive in 1918. These people are at serious risk of dying of CoVID-19 herd immunity, meaning 90% or more of a community is immune to a virus to prevent further spread of an epidemic disease, is best achieved by universal vaccination.
And a huge problem with CoVID-19 is that we have never experienced an epidemic with this particular virus and we do not yet have a stable case fatality rate to make good judgments. Hence, the policies we do develop are likely to be influenced by the adage, better safe than sorry. As such, we should not grouse about calls made “too early,” in the cause of fighting what may be a deadly epidemic.
GLO:Now we are in the middle of the fog, and it is difficult to know when to move back to some normal. Why are the statistics we have to rely on world-wide of so low quality?
Howard Markel: Precisely because we are in the fog of war and it is always hard to gather good data on the epidemic disease in question.
GLO:How long does it take to see the effects of public measures in the statistics?
Howard Markel: We should have better data in the coming weeks, late in the epidemic curve of each city, state or province, and country. But we are all flying by the seat of our pants and making best guesstimates based on a great deal of epidemiological data, modeling data and clinical information.
GLO:What could be the statistical indicator to decide on the termination of the widespread lockdowns?
Howard Markel: That’s the million dollar question. We don’t have a precise time to do this even though we know it needs to be late in the epidemic curve, not when cases are doubling every day, but instead are only popping up on a much more slow basis. We also need far more test kits to be able to contact trace the new cases and implement quarantine and isolation procedures for them. Simply put, at least in the US, we’re not there yet.
GLO:Why is New York the center of the epidemic in the US?
Howard Markel: Well, it’s the largest city in the world; it was late to implement social distancing measures, compared to other American cities and states; people live in crowded conditions—especially the poor—and then there is the mass transit system where people travel cheek by jowl on subways. These are just a few speculations but it has been sad to see how seriously my beloved New York City has been affected.
GLO:Moving outside of your territory as a historian, what do you speculate: Will we consider in some decades the coronavirus comparable to the influenza epidemic of 1918?
Howard Markel: To be honest, I fear it will be much worse. Let me put it this way, it will certainly keep historians of epidemics busy for many, many years!
GLO: Thank you very much for these insights!
************* With Howard Markel spoke Klaus F. Zimmermann, GLO President on April 18, 2020. Both have been Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellows in 2017. Further activities and reports of the GLO Research Cluster on the coronavirus.
Review of epidemics-related work of Howard Markel
Dr. Markel is the author, co-author, or co-editor of eleven books including the award-winning Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997; paperback, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) and When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America Since 1900 and the Fears They Have Unleashed (Pantheon Books/Alfred A. Knopf, 2004; paperback Vintage/Random House, 2005).
From 2005 to 2006, Professor Markel served as a historical consultant on pandemic influenza preparedness planning for the United States Department of Defense. From 2006 to 2015, he served as the principal historical consultant on pandemic preparedness for the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From late April 2009 to February 2011, he served as a member of the CDC Director’s “Novel A/H1N1 Influenza Team B”, a real-time think tank of experts charged with evaluating the federal government’s and President Barack Obama’s influenza policies on a daily basis during and after the outbreak. His historical research has played a pivotal role in developing the evidence base for many community mitigation strategies employed by the World Health Organization, the CDC, the Mexican Ministry of Health, and numerous state, provincial and municipal health departments around the globe during the 2009 influenza pandemic.
In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Michigan and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Markel is Co-Editor-in-Chief of The 1918-1919 American Influenza Pandemic: A Digital Encyclopedia and Archive, which was first published in 2012 by the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine and the University of Michigan Scholarly Publications Office. Funded by grants and contracts from the CDC, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the digital encyclopedia represents one of the largest collections of historical documents ever assembled on a single epidemic and is accessible on the Internet at: www.influenzaarchive.org. The second edition of the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic: A Digital Encyclopedia and Archive 2.0 was released in 2016 and a third edition is now in preparation.
During the Ebola epidemic of 2014, he was a much sought-after expert on the history of epidemics and quarantines. Aside from wide press coverage, in the form of interviews, and his contributing several influential op-eds for the New Republic and Reuters Opinion, Professor Markel was the lead interview on NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC World Service, CNN/Sanjay Gupta MD, and PBS NewsHour. Dr. Markel’s landmark scholarship on the tangled history of stigma, politics and contagion was also lauded on the front page of The New Yorker, (Talk of the Town/Comment, November 10, 2014). In the aftermath of the Ebola crisis, in February of 2015, the Presidential (Barack Obama) Commission on Bioethical Issues invited him to consult on the ethical issues surrounding the stigma of epidemic and infectious diseases.
More recently, Dr. Markel played a prominent role in evaluating public health and social distancing policies as they played out in China and around the world during the CoVID-19, or coronavirus, epidemic of 2019-2020. His pioneering 2007-2009 research on the use of community mitigation strategies for influence pandemics was the driving and life-saving force behind the entire global policy to CoVID-19.
On March 11, 2020, Nicholas Kristof, the eminent columnist for the New York Times cited Dr. Markel and his research team’s work as one of the “12 Steps to Tackle the Coronavirus.” On April 1, 2020, he was the subject of a New Yorker magazine profile, “A Medical Historian on Why We Must Stay the Course in Fighting the Coronavirus.” At the National Academy of Medicine CoVid-19 briefing on March 25, 2020, he was “widely credited with coining the term flattening the curve.” On April 6, 2020, Google honored the concept of “flattening the curve,” which he helped coin and scientifically demonstrate, by making it the first in a series of @GoogleDoodles for CoVid-19, on its masthead, dedicated “to public health workers and to researchers in the scientific community” during the crisis. On April 16, in response to those wanting a lifting of the state’s CoVid-19 lockdown, Governor Gretchen Whitmer cited Dr. Markel’s non-pharmaceutical intervention research as the evidence base for her social distancing policies for the State of Michigan.
Markel’s two prominently run “Op-Ed” essays on the Chinese quarantine and containment strategies in Wuhan ran back-to-back in the Washington Post (January 26, 2020) and the New York Times (January 27, 2020) and were translated into multiple languages overseas, for the Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Polish press. He discussed the impact of modern technology and connectivity on pandemics in an opinion essay for WIRED on March 4, 2020. A highly influential Op-Ed essay on the importance of early school closures as a community mitigation strategy for CoVid-19 appeared online in the New York Times on March 6, 2020 and in print on March 9, 2020. Within a few days of its publication, school districts across the nation shut their doors. He also wrote important op-eds on the use of face masks, for NBC Think (April 3, 2020) and lessons from the 1918 influenza pandemic for The Washington Post (April 8, 2020). Professor Markel was also extensively interviewed about CoVID-19 for hundreds of stories and updates.
Posted inInterview, News|Comments Off on Why social distancing and lockdowns play an important role to fight the coronavirus: Interview with top medical historian Howard Markel of the University of Michigan.
The world still struggles about a convincing strategy to handle the #coronavirus crisis. The developed world was affected first, but the forthcoming consequences for the developing countries may be much worse. Some insights from an interview with development economist Asad Islam of Monash University, Australia.
Some core messages of the interview:
The impact of COVID-19 is likely to be more severe in developing countries than in developed countries.
A temporary lockdown makes it possible to alert people that this is a serious health issue and everybody needs to protect themselves as much as possible.
Most developing countries have the capacity to provide three meals a day for its poorest population.
Developing countries need to allow their people to leave the lockdown earlier.
Our proposal for India suggested a broad-based transfer system, targeting more on poor people and increase the global fiscal stimulus substantially.
The pandemic is of more serious concern than initially thought.
Issues previously considered to be local ones are now recognized to be of global relevance and have to be addressed by global collaborations.
GLO Fellow Asad Islam is a Professor at the Department of Economics, and Director of the Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability (CDES) at the Faculty of Business and Economics at Monash University, Australia.
Interview
GLO: What is different with COVID-19 in a developing country than in a developed country?
Asad Islam: In developing countries, we see poorer health infrastructure such as a severe lack of hospital beds, intensive care units are not equipped with proper facilities for COVID-19 patients, missing trained nurses and doctors, lack of awareness among masses of people. Thus, the impact of COVID-19 is likely to be more severe in developing countries than in developed countries.
GLO:Is there no alternative to a complete lockdown of society and economy?
Asad Islam: The temporary lockdown in a developing country is a necessary evil to raise awareness about COVID-19. Social distancing won’t work without it. People have now almost stopped going to temple, mosque, church or social gatherings. This won’t happen without a lockdown! Lockdown needs to be temporary with gradual withdrawal (because of concerns for the poor) while making sure that the people try to maintain social distance (1.5 meter), and wear masks. A temporary lockdown makes it possible to alert people that this is a serious health issue and everybody needs to protect themselves as much as possible.
GLO:But unlike in developed countries, it seems very difficult for the government to financially support people. How can they survive?
Asad Islam: Most developing countries have the capacity to provide safety nets (e.g., providing three meals a day) for its poorest segments of the population. The problem is not lack of resources, but absence of mechanisms to reach the food to these poor people. The food distribution system could be made fairer even within this short period of time and most poor people can be brought under a direct transfer system. Of course, the pressure on the government is huge for maintaining this over a longer period. However, supporting its needy 30-40 percent of the population for 3-6 months using a public food distribution system is not an impossible job. International organizations such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank can also play a supportive role in ensuring this, particularly in countries where we see a serious lack of resources.
GLO:Lockdowns need to end at some time and one needs good statistics. What to do?
Asad Islam: We need to flatten the curve in developing countries, which means one needs to wait when the number of cases is rising rapidly. While the developed country can wait till there is no new case, in developing countries that would be very hard to achieve considering the economic hardship of poor people. One option is to allow the people to start working (for temporary period) who test negative, and younger people (age 20-50) if they do not have any major pre-existing condition.
GLO:With some colleagues you have recently proposed a strategy for India (see for a media report and the full memorandum). What is the message?
Asad Islam: Our main point was to have a broad-based transfer system, targeting more on poor people to enable them to cope with hardship during the lockdown, and increase the fiscal stimulus in manifold to address the economic woes of people.
GLO:Have economists underestimated the dangers of this pandemic?
Asad Islam: I think there were not enough data to begin with, and as it now stands both the number of infection cases and deaths were not reported accurately. As economists rely mostly on numbers there was more support for herd immunity in the beginning as the death rate was very low. However, as more accurate data are coming and we observe higher rate of deaths/infections we have now started to realize that the pandemic is of more serious concern on both health and economic grounds than initially thought.
GLO:How will the coronavirus change development economics?
Asad Islam: The world should now realize more that there are many issues we should not ignore, issues which sometimes we perceive to be the problem of a country or region only. Many problems including poverty and climate change need to be tackled globally and developed countries have more obligations to address them. The global public health issue will remain a serious concern in the coming years, and the problems of developing countries need to be better understood to address these challenges.
************* With Asad Islam spoke Klaus F. Zimmermann, GLO President on April 18, 2020. Further activities and reports of the GLO Research Cluster on the coronavirus.
A new GLO Discussion Paperfinds that male and female self-employed workers in Western Europe devote 14% and 20% less time to commuting than their employee counterparts.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper explores the commuting behavior of workers in Western European countries, with a focus on the differences in commuting time between employees and the self-employed in these countries. Using data from the last wave of the European Working Conditions Survey (2015), we analyze the commuting behavior of workers, finding that male and female self-employed workers devote 14% and 20% less time to commuting than their employee counterparts, respectively. Furthermore, differences in commuting time between employees and self-employed females depend on the degree of urbanization of the worker’s residential location, as the difference in commuting time between the two groups of female workers is greater in rural areas, in comparison to workers living in urban areas. By analyzing differences in commuting time between groups of European workers, our analysis may serve to guide future planning programs.
The world still struggles about a convincing strategy to handle the #coronacrisis. The taken measures may have helped to contain the development, but generate also very serious challenges for the longer future of the planet and global solidarity. The award-winning Jordanian author Hisham Bustani has been interviewed to provide his insights, requests and visions.
Some core messages of the interview:
The panic of the emergency situation eliminates any possibility to conduct the necessary discussions about the major failures, witnessed so far, of a “system” that has been taken for granted, unquestioned, for too long.
The measures taken in Jordan have succeeded so far to keep the spread of COVID-19 slow and manageable.
As a remedy to the future, a rapid detachment from the global economy should get underway initiating modes of production aimed at local needs, food security and sufficiency, in place of export-oriented “growth” strategies that serve banks and financial elites, not people.
The main challenge is to reconsider the “system” that governs human existence on this planet, and put forward, and struggle for, a more just alternative.
The current experience will be part of my future writing: The destructive presence of humans on Earth is one of the main areas of my literary exploration.
A sense of doom is very present now, along with eye-opening experiences of solidarity, collectiveness, and modesty in front of nature’s might and immensity.
Hisham Bustani is an award-winning Jordanian author of five collections of short fiction and poetry. His fiction and poetry have been translated into several languages, with English-language translations appearing in prestigious journals including The Kenyon Review, Black Warrior Review, The Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, World Literature Today, and The Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly. His fiction has been collected in The Best Asian Short Stories, The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human: Tales from Many Muslim Worlds, The Radiance of the Short Story: Fiction From Around the Globe among other anthologies. His book The Perception of Meaning (Syracuse University Press, 2015) won the University of Arkansas Arabic Translation Award. Hisham is the Arabic fiction editor of the Amherst College-based literary review The Common and was the recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Fellowship for Artists and Writers in 2017.
Interview
GLO: The corona crisis has reached Jordan late on March 15 and the intensity of the disease is still low. How much is public life in your country nevertheless affected by the coronavirus debate and how do you judge the situation?
Hisham Bustani: Like everywhere else around the world, nothing is in the discussion and in the news except COVID-19, mainly in the crude form of statistics, more statistics, and even more statistics – the number of infected people, the number of those who died, and to a lesser extent, the number of those cured.
Although this might be a good way to raise awareness about the seriousness of the disease, and the calamity of the situation (thus stressing the importance of personal preventive measures and social distancing), the fever of numbers and the panic of the emergency situation eliminates any possibility to conduct the necessary discussions about the major failures, witnessed so far, of a “system” that has been taken for granted, unquestioned, for too long.
One can observe that the “free market”, “capitalist globalization”, and the reign of corporations and financial institutions was not just ineffective in dealing with the pandemic (among many other things), but costs tremendous human lives and suffering. This “system” is incapable of functioning in emergencies and is continuously in need of being bailed out with taxpayer’s money instead of bailing out the people themselves. As matters get worse, they get contained with intensive “socialist” remedies, imposed through government-led measures, and intensive government intervention, the exact opposite of the neoliberal doctrines vigorously promoted around the world since the 1980s.
One can observe that the most important people around the world today are not the CEOs of transnational corporations and their incompetent politicians, but the massive army of underpaid public health professionals and other low-paid laborers who are maintaining the necessities of life and survival.
One can observe that what really matters are not useless, valueless, glamor commodities but food essentials, ventilators, and a universal health system for all.
One can observe that the reversal of catastrophic pollution levels is attainable, and desirable results can be achieved in extremely short periods.
One can observe that “collaborative” institutions (like the European Union) have failed their “internal” test as each member state scrambled to contain its own situation, leaving other deeply-affected countries (like Spain and Italy) without help; the only efficiency they can claim is mediating and concentrating power, while during a pandemic: allies are no longer allies but cutthroat competitors for the acquisition of medical supplies and test kits.
While a curfew situation is being imposed in Jordan, as well as in many countries around the world, and while health carers are on the frontlines of confronting the pandemic, doing whatever they can to save lives in haphazard field hospitals erected in boulevards and piazzas; these are the observations that should provide food for thought, the material for a deep public discussion, possibly contributing to initiating another future for us humans, our ways and governing systems, after the disease.
GLO:How did your country initially reacted to the new threat, beyond the many others you already have: development, conflict and peace, and refugees?
Hisham Bustani: In Jordan, the governmental response was rapid and radical. A strict lockdown was imposed for a number of days starting March 21, eased later to a 6pm-10am curfew period while allowing people to go out during the day to purchase necessary items. Cars and not allowed to move except with special permits. The twelve governorates that comprise Jordan are isolated from each other and movement between them is banned. Flights in and out of the country were stopped, all borders closed down, and the last group of people who entered the country (more than 5000) were quarantined in hotels for two weeks.
These measures have succeeded so far at keeping the spread of COVID-19 slow and manageable. The country’s resources, and its political and societal composition cannot bear the consequences of the sort of health sector collapses witnessed in countries like Italy. The majority of Jordanians have been cooperative and collaborative. Except for a massive wave of shopping craze on March 20, just before the lockdown, things quickly returned to a quasi-normal state: grocery shops, bakeries and pharmacies reopened, shortly followed by banks, but all under strict conditions of social distancing and infection control. There are investigation teams that promptly identify and test people who were in contact with any infected person. The only missing element is wide scale testing, simply because test kits are not available, and the limited global supply is snatched by bigger, more powerful countries, sometimes through crooked ways.
There has been an upside to this lockdown situation: in addition to the extended calm and quite, the slowed-down pace of life, the cleaner air, and the reintroduction of walking as a daily routine, a rapid reorientation towards producing for local needs and necessities got under way, signalling that models of need-based self-sufficiency are more important than export-oriented models of massive consumption.
I am not sure what the future holds since many of the more-vulnerable segments of the population received a direct blow: daily workers ended up with no income at all, many employees were, or will be, laid off, and as the lockdown continues, people will become short of money needed to buy food and necessities as they spend their meagre savings.
However, the economic collapse and its effects will be global rather than local, it will happen either way, and I am happy that Jordanian decision makers (so far, and in a rare occurrence) have chosen people over the economy. As a remedy to the future situation, a rapid detachment from the global economy should get underway (there is an excellent window of opportunity to do this), initiating modes of production aimed at local needs, food security and sufficiency, in place of export-oriented “growth” strategies that serve banks and financial elites, not people.
GLO:It seems that the virus has crowded out currently most other major challenges in the world. Rightly or wrongly, there is debate about how large the virus threat really is; but the substantial lockdowns of the economies in most countries will reduce the possibilities to deal with the old challenges when they come back to the table soon. How will your society perceive this challenge?
Hisham Bustani: The main challenge in my society, and probably all other societies around the world, is to reconsider the “system” that governs human existence on this planet, and put forward, and struggle for, a more just alternative.
The COVID-19 experience illuminated for us what is necessary for life, and how destructive those unnecessary elements can be.
The COVID-19 experience showed us how economic concepts based on profit are unable to deal with global human emergencies.
The COVID-19 experience taught us that economic considerations should never come before people-nature nexus, and that the former can be easily compelled to serve the well-being of the latter.
The challenge is to maintain and develop those insights after everything goes back to “normal”.
GLO:War refugees in particular will receive in the future even lower support of the world to fight sources and misery. Countries like Jordan will have to expect further challenges. What do you think is our role as scientists, writers and poets in the corona crisis?
Hisham Bustani: The main role is to expose the hypocrisy and double standards of what goes on in the world today. Example: colonialist Europe has plundered the wealth of the global south, leaving their societies crippled and poor, and then unleashed upon them interventionist wars, interventionist politics and interventionist economics, burying them further into debt, corruption and tyranny, and once people started fleeing this doomed fate to that same Europe, now self-designated as “the bastion of human rights”, they were faced (in most, but not all instances) with barbwires, teargas, truncheons, and racism, left to drown in the Mediterranean.
It is quite revealing that a country like Jordan, with an area of 89,000 square kilometres, of which 75% is a desert, and a population of 9 million, has taken in what is estimated to be 1.3 million Syrian refugees as from 2011 alone, and that is not taking into consideration previous waves of Iraqi, Syrian and Palestinian refugees from 1948 onwards, mostly caused by Euro-US-supported settler-colonialism (in Palestine) and Euro-US invasion and/or interventionism (in Iraq and Syria).
On top of that, Europe offers pennies as “assistance packages” for countries like Jordan to “keep the refugees put”, not allow them to move. What kind of “free world” is that? I will tell you: one that sells aggressive regimes fighter planes for billions of dollars, then sends in their “international aid agency” to finance prosthetic limbs for the victims of its raids for a fraction of a fraction of the profit.
The corona crisis has moved this “divide”, that blockade, that hypocrisy, further up north towards US-Europe itself, in the same sense that (as Sven Lindqvist explains in his book A History of Bombing) massive bombings of native communities in the colonies finally found its way into Europe in WWI and WWII.
Is it not eye opening how the US blocked the export of facemasks to Europe, or how the US, UK and many EU countries failed to take sever measures in the favour of people’s health for the sake of “maintaining the economy” and “business as usual” which basically pours profit in the pockets of the few who flew their private jets to special disaster bunkers? All this happened after neoliberalism has robbed the public sector (in the previous rampage of privatization) of its capacity act efficiently in favour of the public, leaving doctors and nurses struggling with an ever-increasing number of sick people who can’t find a hospital bed, making tough decisions on who lives and who dies because of the lack of social resources created by neoliberalism.
In response to the corona crisis, scientists, writers and poets should think about all this, think about its opposite: an egalitarian future, and the means to achieve it.
GLO:Your work as a poet and a fiction writer has been inspired by the many realities you observe. Will you soon write about the bad and good sides of humans revealed by the crisis?
Hisham Bustani: Two weeks ago, I was invited to contribute to “The Quarantine Chronicles” series, curated by Carol Sansour for The Sultan’s Seal literary e-zine, I obliged by writing “Eyes Without a Face”, a literary text that explores the manifestations created by, and the consequences left behind, the compulsory quarantine: its tragedies, catastrophes, farces, and hopes. The title is inspired by a Billy Idol song with the same name that was playing in the background, the singer making a special appearance in the piece, telling me (from yet another of his songs): “There is nothin’ fair in this world, nothin’ safe, nothin’ sure, nothin’ pure. Look for something left in this world.” “I think about those long held in an indefinite quarantine in refugee camps, prisons and shantytowns,” I wrote in response.
I am sure this experience will be part of my future writing, especially that the destructive presence of humans on Earth is one of the main areas of my literary exploration; examples of this can be found, for example, in my book: The Perception of Meaning.
I’ve written about war and its deeper effect on sanity (as in the short stories: “One Moment Before the End” and “Skybar”), about human’s violence against nature, his selfishness and lack of consideration (as in the poem: “Mirror, Mirror”), the effect of urban enclosures and their continuity within an internal isolation of individuals (as in the prose/poem hybrid piece: “Voices Within”), the reproduction of enslavement in societies that uphold selfish individualism, competitiveness, and consumption as key principal values (as in: “Starddust”), all of this leading to a general sense of doom (as represented in the poem: “Apocalypse Now”, after Francis Ford Coppola’s film of the same name, which is based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness).
This sense of doom is very present now, along with eye-opening experiences of solidarity, collectiveness, and modesty in front of nature’s might and immensity. This makes my literary work more relevant than any other time before. It makes art (as juxtaposed to “entertainment”) more relevant than before, since art is all about diving deep, contemplating, and opening up questions: the unleashing of creative possibilities within the recipient, things that entertainment has killed and replaced with passivity and idleness, undermining the “human condition” even more.
************* With Hisham Bustani spoke Klaus F. Zimmermann, GLO President, on April 9, 2020. Both have been Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellows in 2017. Further activities and reports of the GLO Research Cluster on the coronavirus.
Posted inInterview, News|Tagged#coronavirus, #covid-19, #Jordan|Comments Off on Interview with the Jordanian author Hisham Bustani on the future of the planet and global solidarity in face of the #coronacrisis
A new GLO Discussion Paperfinds for wellbeing in China in the coronacrisisthat credibility of real-time updates and confidence in the epidemic control are associated with a decline in depression and an increase in happiness.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: While quarantine has become a widely used control measure during the outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), empirical research on whether and to what extent quarantine and attitudes towards COVID-19 influence psychological outcomes is scant. Using a cross-sectional online survey, this paper is the first to investigate the heterogeneous impact of quarantine experiences and attitudes towards COVID-19 on the whole distribution of psychological well-being in China. We find that credibility of real-time updates and confidence in the epidemic control are associated with a decline in depression and an increase in happiness. Such effects are stronger in the upper distribution of depression and the median of happiness. We also discern that individuals with severe depressive symptoms (or lower levels of happiness) are more susceptible to the severity of the pandemic. Moreover, home self-quarantine is associated with a decrease in depression but an increase in happiness, by contrast, community-level quarantine discourages happiness, especially in the lower distribution of happiness.
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