People avoid doctors😷
Oil spill, nobody wants China's planes, and HCQ trials to restart.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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IT companies shift to remote work🗃️
Ever since the pandemic began, work from home has become the topic of discussion of almost every conversation. With cases in India increasing everyday and no reliable treatment yet, we don’t think people will be comfortable with the idea of returning to the offices anytime soon.
Thankfully the IT employers think the same, and in a bid to prevent community spread, are in no hurry to get the staff back to the office.
Currently Infosys has about only 15% of its staff working from the offices across the country. The company is carefully observing the situation and plans on reopening only if the situation permits. HCL Tech has about 4% of its staff on the floor at present. TCS had previously announced 75% remote work by 2025. Many small companies have similar policies in place.
While employers unanimously claim that remote work improves performance and productivity, employees seem to have mixed feelings as the flexibility to control your schedule is also accompanied by frequent overworking.
The final word though is that companies are starting to look at this as a major cost advantage, and the savings for them from not having to pay for employee office space, food, transportation seem too attractive to ignore.
Emergency room visits plummet📉
According to a recent report by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), emergency room visits in the USA have dropped by 42% in 4 weeks in April compared to the same time last year. Fears of contracting the virus are preventing people from making visits to the hospitals.
Even as states are seeing phased openings, the number of visits remained low as May visits went down to 26% as compared to last year.
As hospitals are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients, people who usually come to the hospitals for normal care are waiting out, in some cases even as their symptoms worsen.
To tackle this problem hospitals are now coming up with virtual visits and are pushing for adoption of telemedicine so that the nation does not witness another heath crisis in the midst of an already worsening pandemic.
Cinemas fear permanent shutdown🔐
As recreational activities are paused, movie theaters are feeling the squeeze. According to recent reports by China Film Association 40% or more theaters are set to permanently shut down. Oddly, the Chinese people had just begun embracing “movie going” as a thing.
Despite many regions opening theaters in a phased manner, viewership has remained low. Also, box office ratings have fallen drastically in the first quarter of 2020. As a result of this, in China alone film industry is estimated to lose a whopping $4 Billion this year while the global movie industry losses are projected north of $25 Billion.
In similar events:
The world’s biggest movie theater chain said that it had “substantial doubt” it can remain in business after the coronavirus shuttered all the theaters. The closing of AMC theaters is estimated to cost it $2.1 billion and $2.4 billion in the first quarter. The company’s revenue fell to $941.5 million from $1.2 billion in the same quarter last year, down 22%.
Online streaming platforms on the other hand are booming and production studios are looking to launch movies directly to consumers now. Universal studios tried this with the “Trolls World Tour”, only to get backlash from AMC, with AMC banning all of future Universal films from its theaters here on out.
The struggle for theaters to get back on its feet is going to be a long drawn one.
US to prohibit passenger planes from China✈️
The latest tensions arising between China and US have led the US to bar all passenger planes from China from 16 June onward.
The barring applies to three airlines Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines. According to the department of transportation this move came after Beijing barred US flights from resuming in China. There used to be about 325 round trips weekly between US and China but the numbers have reduced to 34 since the end of March.
Delta Airlines told BBC that this action was necessary to enforce rights and ensure fairness. The approval of the order by President Donald Trump is still awaited.
Emergency declared over spilled oil🛢️
Nearly 20,000 tons of fuel spilled into a nearby river from a power station in Russia. Russian President Putin has ordered a state of emergency.
This is a tragedy as the contaminants in the river have already crossed permissible levels and is proving harmful for the flora and fauna of the river.
The employees tried to control the spill on their own and did not report the incident. Local authorities only later learned about the incident from social media. According to the authorities the clean up of the river could take weeks as there are no navigable roads to the river.
Norlisk has been one of the world’s most populated cities. It tops the list for Sulphur Dioxide pollution emitting 1.9 million tons of gas over the Arctic Tundra.
Tweet of the day -
The Black Lives Matter protest has now reached other parts of the world with Paris, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, and now even London witnessing strong turnouts for demonstrations.
Also, the funeral for George Floyd, the victim of the police attack, was a grand gathering of who’s who in America. Analysts and Pundits are hopeful for serious change and even legislative reforms to put an end to racism given the strong momentum the protests have begun to pick up.
What else are we Snackin’🍿
😷India’s COVID recovery rate at 48% - ray of hope or may be too early to say, but India’s recovery rates are looking promising. In fact better than many western nations. However, experts still fear we might be in the early stages of the first wave itself and more cases could be coming.
🛑 Lion Air restarts and cancel flights as people fail to abide by safety regulations - travel restrictions have destroyed the airline business. Most airlines are turning to governments for bailouts. The others are left to fend for themselves. Lion Air learnt a tough lesson that despite its tight controls, it absolutely cannot operate flights and control transmission.
📱 Apple is tracking looted iphones from its stores - looted an iPhone in the riots? Good luck trying to use it. Apple has announced it will track, deactivate and report users who end up with the stolen iPhones. As civil unrest ravages the US, rioters stormed through many electronics stores and made way with whatever they could get their hands on.
👻Snapchat to stop promoting Trump over controversial posts related to recent protests - after Twitter standing up to the US President, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel took down controversial posts promoting the Trump administration. Obviously, Trump was livid and claimed big action will follow.
💊 Hydroxychloroquine trials to resume says WHO - the drug was banned after trials had shown evidence of other health complications among patients. WHO now sees reason to resume testing again. If we know anything for sure then it's that HCQ isn’t what will save us from this pandemic.
🚨3 more officers charged with aiding and abetting murder - in response to the civil unrest in the US right now, 3 more officers have been charged bringing the tally to 4 for the murder of a black man George Flyod. A US courts judge has set their bail to $750,000 each.
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
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