AS the world moves to try and get back to normal, things are far from normal. The usual background noise of global chaos that we are used to is now turned up to “11” on the 1-10 volume meter. Things are still a mess, perhaps getting worse, with no light at the end of the tunnel.
“Haitian President Jovenel Moïse assassinated in his home.” It would be easy to write this off as a continuation of the political and social disaster that has been “Haiti” since dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier—and subsequently his son “Baby Doc”—was removed in 1986. The country has been faced with a series of “bad” elections, “bad” leaders, “bad” coups, and constant political instability.
The nation has been spared the worst of Covid with less than 20,000 cases and some 400 deaths. But Haiti is one of the poorest nations on Earth. However, with the world still in pandemic mode, there is no burning desire to assist Haiti with much more than words.
File under “Just When You Think You Are Safe.” When your life is disrupted, it helps to try and get back to some sort of a normal routine. Artists have conducted online concerts. Families have done everything from “movie nights” to “beach outings,” all at home of course, to try and duplicate the real experience.
Mexico decided that its “Miss Mexico 2021” pageant should carry on. All the contestants were Covid tested negative. “Prior to the pageant the contestants travelled to a school in the scenic but impoverished Copper Canyon run by nuns for indigenous Tarahumara children, where they delivered school supplies and posed for selfies with the students.”
However, by the time they all returned to the pageant, at least 15 of the 32 contestants in the Miss Mexico 2021 pageant tested positive for coronavirus. Perhaps taking a cue from governments around the world, “Even though many [of the contestants] were coughing, had body aches and even a temperature, they asked them not to complain,” a source from the pageant told the newspaper Reforma.
According to some estimates, Japan will have spent as much as $25 billion to $35 billion to host the games, crushing the original $7.5 billion budget. The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to begin on July 23, and they still have not figured out how it is going to run.
Japan is set to declare a state of emergency for Tokyo that will run through its hosting of the Olympics. Two workers in the Olympics village tested positive just two weeks before the opening ceremony. A member of Uganda’s Olympic squad became the first to test positive for Covid-19 on arrival in Japan. Foreign spectators have been banned from the Olympics and a decision is expected “soon” on whether to allow domestic spectators. Restrictions on business and other activities in the capital and neighboring Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba—population more than 30 million—were supposed to end this week. Now the restrictions will extend until the end of the games.
It is fine to complain what government should and should not be doing. But the truth is, there are no easy—or even difficult—answers to the “Covid Solution” question. There are no definite ways to resolve the pandemic.
Want more depressing news? “While humans continue to grapple with Covid-19, a new epidemic seems to have hit multiple bird species in North America. Across the United States, people have been finding dead birds. The birds appear to have been hit by a wave of mysterious illnesses since April.”