China's audacious plan ⚡
Progress in vaccine, Nature on break, and scarcity of sanitary pads in schools.
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Stock market summary:
US - S&P 500 up 0.24% 🔼
India - Sensex down 0.84% 🔽
China plans on overtaking US Tech ⚡
The Chinese have come up with a massive plan to invest over $1.4 Trillion (4 times India’s stimulus package) in the nation’s technology sector, particularly in building infrastructure necessary to accelerate adoption of critical tech like AI and 5G.
The infrastructure blueprint, as they call it, is aimed at stimulating the virus hit economy and at the same time preparing China to compete in the post-COVID world. The promised $1.4 Trillion investment will come over the next 5 years, through local governments and top technology companies HQ’ed in China, that the Chinese government partially controls. This includes players like the controversial global telco company Huawei, which was banned by many western nations for illegal surveillance.
A core promise of China’s plan is to accelerate the build out of rails necessary for 5G wireless telecommunication technology. 5G is a major step upgrade from 4G that we currently use in India. The wireless standard is capable of delivering more speed, reliability and lower latency, drastically cutting down costs and use of resources.
Even though China is a global leader in technology, it relies on American companies to supply it with a lot of products in high speed networking, storage, computing, CPUs, etc. since America owns majority of global tech patents. The ongoing bitter relations between the two nations is now making it harder for China to access easily the tech they need, and hence the move to be self reliant.
Experts across the world believe the era of globalization is behind us and nationalism will prevail after the pandemic. which will force each nation to look out for themselves. With this investment, China is catalyzing the inevitable early on and setting the tone for the next couple of decades of self reliance.
Also, earlier this month, South Korea came up with a new stimulus deal that highlighted the importance of AI and wireless communications in creating new jobs and in boosting growth in the long run.
We soon expect India to come up with a massive technology focused plan too, as the PM recently indicated strong sentiment to becoming self reliant. Read more here.
A blessing in disguise 🐝
Yesterday, May 22 was The International Day for Biodiversity. To raise awareness and understanding of biodiversity issues, this years theme was ‘Our solutions are in nature’, which emphasizes on hope and importance of coming together to build a life of harmony with nature.
The lockdown has come as a blessing in disguise for our biological treasures, as we have seen several positive changes in the environment due to drop in human activity. The CO2 levels have gone down significantly, water bodies are cleansing, sound and light pollution is down, air and road traffic is low. 🌍
As people are confined to their homes, wildlife has been facing less interference by human activities. The Dolphins have returned to the canals in Venice, wild boars are coming out on the streets of Israel. Countless such stories are surfacing on social media.🐬
Among these, one such animal that was seeing a much needed revival was the wild bee. Before the lockdown, due to pollution and the excessive use of pesticides, the bee population had been seeing a rapid decrease. 🐝
Bees are the world's most important pollinators and fertilize almost a third of the food we eat. Air pollution reduces the longevity of the floral scents and makes it difficult for bees to find food.
While this seems to be a temporary respite for the bees, commercial beekeepers are facing the brunt of the situation as travel is still restricted. Most of the bee keepers rely on travel to replenish their bee colonies and since airplanes are grounded continuing with this practice seems almost impossible.
Hopes of a vaccine💉
The second phase of the vaccine trial for treatment of the infected coronavirus patients is underway. The trial will be conducted on children and older adults.👏👏
The first phase of vaccine development began in April in Oxford University and it involved 1,000 adults who were 55 year old and under. The same vaccine trial which was conducted on monkeys has shown positive results and prevented the monkeys from the virus but the scientists are not very sure about its efficacy in humans just yet.
Most experts say that it takes at least 12-18 months to develop a vaccine and then to manufacture and distribute it. Researchers worldwide have been working on 100 different vaccines against the virus. The good news however is that all of the smartest people in the best of labs across the world today are working with one objective in mind- the elimination of the COVID-19 virus.
And as history shows us repeatedly, when mankind puts its surgical focus and force singularly behind something, we have always triumphed against all odds. 💪
The adults in this vaccine trial will be subjected to one or two doses of either the new vaccine “ChAdOx1 nCoV-19” or another licensed vaccine and later the infections in both categories will be compared. This is a standard placebo procedure. The trials will take at least 2-6 months depending on how many people are exposed to the virus.
Another study conducted on 60 COVID patients showed that people with the extreme form of disease showed a serious drop in immune/T cells. T cells are responsible for clearing infections from the body. Scientists in the UK are testing a treatment by giving patients a drug called “Interleukin7”, which is known to boost T cells.
Scientists say, that at the least, these studies might go a long way in finding out who is more susceptible to the virus by checking their T cell count. As of now, there remains no direct active treatment other than supportive measures against the virus.
Crisis in a crisis 🩸
School girls across India are struggling with a massive shortage of sanitary pads because schools, which act as the crucial point of distribution in rural parts of the nation, remain closed because of the lockdown.
The process of sanitary pad distribution in schools is a government scheme to promote menstrual hygiene among young girls in India.
India is still early on the curve of learning about menstrual health. In an astonishing survey it was found that out of 355 million females or only 36% of the Indian women use sanitary napkins, with the number majorly skewing towards urban women. Over 23 million girls drop out of school on the onset of menarche. In 2020. 😔
Women in the rural parts of the country often use pieces of old cloth, husks and even ash to manage the flow. These materials more often than not cause infections which often go rarely treated.
The pad distribution scheme was also very beneficial to the girls of underprivileged households who couldn't afford to buy sanitary pads outside for high prices. Read more.
More than 60 Mammoth skeletons found⚒️
In a shocking discovery, archaeologists have found over 60+ Mammoth skeletons along with other animals. They have also discovered human bones buried along with them.
Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said the bones found at the site date back to 15,000 years. Read more.
What else are we snackin’🍿
🌀 Rs. 1,000 crore relief for West Bengal,announces PM
✈️ Flight with 107 onboard crashes in residential areas near Karachi Airport
🤝 China’s parliament will discuss new security measures for Hong Kong
🚫 Will end use of SAT and ACT for admissions, says California University
Tweet of the day -
This has been a busy week for technology companies around the world announcing work from home policies, effectively leaving other companies with no option but to announce similar policies to retain talent. While change may not be evident to us right away, the implications will be very drastic.
Most impactful change? Democratizing access to opportunity.
In the world of yesterday, while talent was universal, opportunity has often been restricted behind geographic boundaries, religious limits, casteist and social barriers, or financial hurdles.
But remote work has the potential to create an equalizing field. Imagine if a student in the rural parts of India who is connected to the internet can work and actively contribute to a growing technology startup in San Francisco? The same applies to countless women in the country who can’t work because of domestic responsibility.
The possibilities are endless and we are excited.
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