Population may increase in old villages

From 17th to 22nd September I spent four days in Central Italy's old villages. While I was visiting those beautiful places in Tuscany, I was delighted to see economy wasn't hit enough by the epidemic crisis. The two distinctive local products, wine and olive oil, have been shipped abroad, and many tourists, mainly from Norther Italy and Germany, have been gathering the beautiful alleys and the museums, that exihibit large collections of Etruscan findings. Obviously, people have been observing social distancing rules strictly.

Some old villages in Tuscany are perched at cliff of the rock, and divided in narrow alleys and small squares. Their old urbanistic system clearly represents the medieval structure. Each alley hides other curiosities and bears witness to the importance of those small towns in ancient times. Underground passages and rooms, carved into the heart of the rock, had been used in medieval time as cereal container, wells and wine cellars.

 

The good news is that since the pandemic began, early this year, many people who work and live there, such as grocery clercks, B&B owners and supermarket cashiers, haven't lost their job. It seems that most workers, who continue to work from home two or three days a week, have choosen to leave Rome and other big towns. It's easy to forecast real estate's price will increase in those old villages.  

Good effects of remote working on our planet

As the Covid-19 pandemic still continues to transform our worklife, it is easy to see that the post-coronavirus future will be a model that combines remote work and office time. And many experts forecast that the proportion of regular home workers will double in one generation.

As it is known, since Covid-19 pandemic started in early 2020, companies have been managing in varied ways, and they have sent their employees home. Actually, coronavirus epidemic has been forcing businesses globally to adopt remote working. In this context, some employees will continue to work remotely, until at least 2021. Others can decide where to base themself. 

Working from home two or three days a week could be optimal for balancing socialbility, independence, an flexibility. That's the main reason why many models of hybrid working include alternative ways of how to structure remote work with phisical presence (office work). As a consequence, some companies will not maintain the same amount of office space for a smaller number of workers. 

The good news, in terms of pollution, is that the reduced proportion of commuting workers will give positive environmental effects on our planet. 

The picture above shows a medieval village in Central Italy, where we spent last weekend. The vulcanic tufa rock is found everywhere, from the bare rock to the houses, towers and churches.  If I were a remote worker, I would like to live there.

Combination of epidemic, conflicts, economic crisis, and drought

According to Oxfam, an estimated 122 Million people could face starvation due to coronavirus epidemic, as many as 12,000 people could die a day from hunger before the end of this year.

As a result of Coronavirus, most people in Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, and Yemen are facing famine. In those countries, informal laborers are suffering the most, because hundreds and hundrends of people have lost their job. Many people have been displaced, and many of them have been living in places where world  powers have triggered regional conflicts. We also have a combination of two or more problems, such as conflicts, economic crisis, and drought related to climate change. This is not something that the poorest countries can deal with.

In this context, the Coronavirus crisis shows that we have a broken food system, millions of people live in those countries above mentioned, identified by the World Food Program as "hunger hotspots", where travel restrictions have disrupted global food supplies and incomes. That's the main raison why the World Food Program has been supporting farmers in West African Sahel, helping them to consolidate their land and environs, supplying food with the aim of find a solution. But while Covid-19 crisis is growing around the world, with infections rising by the day, experts say the solution is not just in donating to charities. 


As mentioned recently by "Millionares for Humanity", a collective of 83 wealthy people, permanent tax increase on the wealthiest people on the planet is the right choice.  In 2013 a French economist, Thomas Piketty, already said in his book, that the implementation of a more progressive tax system at the global level is the only choice. 

Covid-19: lesson learnt! ... It seems.

In many countries with fewer new daily infection cases people are going back to work, as lockdowns to stop the further spread have been lifted across the world. Experts say the scale of a second wave can be reduced  by wearing masks and observing social distancing rules, considering that the future shape of pandemic will be decided by people actions and nature of the virus. Actually, if societies reopen too soon, the first wave of epidemic may not be completely eradicated.

The bad news is that some countries, such as Germany, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea, have reported a huge rise in new infections after easing restrictions. That's the main reason why many governments, mainly in the Middle East and East Asia, have been adopting some proactive steps with the aim of push people behaviour in a certain direction. In this perspective, in those countries wearing a mask is required by law. So people can't walk across any store not wearing a mask or without showing their mobile phone app that shows that they are not been tested positive.

In brief, since the Covid-19 epidemic hit the world in early 2020, societies have been learning the lesson: they have to act early and be prepared in terms of testing kits, medical facilities, education of the people, testing capabilities, social distancing rules, and so far.

And last but not least, the easing of lockdowns has showed the importance of individual, emission-free, socially distanced transport, as governments try to prevent spiked in car use, and pollution. And this has paved the way to e-scooters, that are seen as an environmentally friendly options for short journeys. But using e-scooters on roads without sufficient infrastructures,  such as cycle lanes, may be risky. 

Origin of Coronavirus

Since late January 2020 we have heard a lot of theories about the origin of the Covid-19 oubreak, which have created mystery and suspicion on this topic. In addition, many hypothesis about the origin of Coronavirus have been used by the Trump Administration against China, by calling it a "Chinese virus".

In February and March 2020 some articles, published in the US, showed that there were many possibilities that the virus started there. Actually, in the US in 2019 there were many unexplained respiratory illnesses in Maryland, that caused pneumonia and didn't respond to antibiotic. According to China's Foreign Ministry, US military officials, who went to China in October 2019, were already infected while they were visiting Wuhan. 

Therefore, some members of the US team at the Wuhan Military Games had become infected by the virus from an accidental outbreak at Fort Detrick, the Army Biological laboratory in Maryland. That's the main reason why speculation over the Covid-19's origin have been also growing with petition demanding that the US government discloses more information on the closure of the Fort Detrick biological laboratory, that may be connected to the outbreak. As a result, the novel coronavirus had been intoduced to China when 300 US military members arrived in Wuhan, in October 2019, and infected the local population.
In this perspective, Stanford Institute's experts have mentioned that some US people may have had Covid-19 a few months earlier than the US health system suspected it could have been spreading. Actually, on April 15, 2020, the US had the largest number of cases with 609,685 people tested positive, compared with Spain and Italy, with respectively 177,633 and 162,488 coronavirus cases. And the fact that numbers in the US are four times bigger than Spain and Italy may mean that the virus has been spreading there silently since long time. 
In addition, an article published by Science Magazine reports that an infection disease expert, at Georgetown University in Washington, said that the first human infection has been confirmed as occurring in November 2019, suggesting that the virus didn't orginate in Wuhan. Someone put the origin of the outbreak in September. Then the virus spread to the Wuhan's seafood market.
There's also another hypothesis about the Biological laboratory in Wuhan, which had been collecting viruses from bats, although there's no evidence at the moment. Actually, after Wuhan "Wet market" had been closed, the health laboratory in Wuhan came under increasing scrutiny. 

With regards to the two biological laboratory, in Wuhan (China) and in Maryland (US), there is nothing "conspirational" about a lab accident, because accidents may happen. As confirmed by many scientists, the claim that the virus was engineered in US, EU, Israel, China, or elsewhere is a fake news, which can't be considered a theory.

How Covid-19 has been spreading in Italy

The first cases, in the most affected country by the coronavirus outside China, were two visitors from the Chinese town of Wuhan, the epicenter of the infection. 

The next day Italy became the first country to block all flights to and from China. But the virus was already spreading: a man known as "patient one", with severe flu-like symptoms, was only diagnosed  on the second visit hospital after 36 hours. He had had a dinner party and had gone running a marathon. Northern Italy was sealed off quickly.

Within a few day, exactly on March 11, the lockdown was extended to the entire country. Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, ordered all but most essential businesses to close until at least April the 3rd. The entire country, home to over than 60 million people, was, and still is, on lockdown. Italy became first democratic country since the second world war to impose a nationwide lockdown.

Meanwhile, other countries, such as Spain, Germany, and the UK, that would have learnt the lesson from Italian experience, allowed the virus to spread silently until the last week of March 2020.

On the one hand, we saw that some Italian hospitals and care centres for elderly people became the epicenters of transmission. On the other hand, Italy couldn't endorse the same approach as we saw in Japan and Singapore, because there weren't enough coronavirus detection testing kits to meet demand. Consequently, the high rate of asymptomatic cases complicated efforts to stop the spread of the infection, because many hospitals didn't test people who hadn't a fever and flu-like symptoms.

Now, in late March, it is not too late to act in the rest of Europe. Many lives can be saves, as Italy has become the symbol of the challenge facing the Europe's public health system.

ECB announces 750 billion Pandemic Emergence Purchase Programme (PEPP)

There isn’t any good news yet, as death toll are more than 3000 in the most affected country by the coronavirus outbreack outside China. Unfortunately, on  18 and 19 March, Italy reported the biggest daily jump in terms of coronavirus death since the contagion. And while Italians are sending optimistc messages from their windows, nearly 220,000 people have now been confirmed with the coronavirus infection globally.

Most countries around the world have been imposing Italian-style lockdown in bid to contain coronavirus outbreack.

As mentioned by WHO Director General, T.A. Ghebreyesus, this will be the first pandemic in history that could be controlled. Governments around the world have no choice but to ban on any movement and avoid contacts. All bars and shops have been closed, with the exception of grocery stores and pharmacies. From a global perspective, a steady recession is inevitable. Weakened demand caused by coronavirus outbreack has slowed down manifacturing activity. And This has led to weakened demand for oil causing prices to fall sharply.

Meanwhile, European Central Bank announces 750 billion Pandemic Emergence Purchase Programme (PEPP), which may help the process of normalizing as soon as coronavirus outbreack slows.

Thanks to all the people who are working for us in these difficult days. Thanks to doctors, nurses, food workers, delivery drivers, grocery clerks, police officers, firemen and all other people who are fighting for us. And last but not least, staying at home can make a huge contribution to fighting coronavirus outbreak.