University goes virtual 👨🏫
Disneyland opens, Zoom skyrockets, and a restaurant comes up with a wacky idea
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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Let’s go ahead and get started:
Stock market summary: 😕
US - S&P 500 down 1.75% 🔽
India - Sensex up 2.3% 🔼
Disneyland follows Carnival Cruises in reopening 🎠
The Disneyland theme park in China’s Shanghai is all set to reopen this summer since the Coronavirus outbreak forced it shut in January of 2020. The famous amusement park which is nothing short of a national attraction for kids and adults alike in China ran out of tickets within no time as loyalists jumped at the first opportunity to get in.
Below are a few precautions the amusement park is planning on taking:
Masks are mandatory at all times
Maintain physical distancing at all times (6 ft.)
The park will be functioning at a reduced capacity
Children's play areas and theater shows that drew more crowds will be shut
No selfies with the Disney characters this time
Stepping up cleaning measures
What good is an amusement park visit if one cannot click pictures with GOOFY and scream their lungs out on a roller coaster 😒
Before entering the park, visitors will be required to undergo a screening test to prove that they are free from COVID-19.
Since the pandemic hit, Disney's business has nosedived, leading the entertainment giant to lose $1.4 Billion in the first quarter of 2020 alone, and forcing it to furlough more than 1 Lakh of its employees across the world. 🔻
According to the Shanghai Daily, the city has not had any new confirmed cases of COVID-19 since early March, and the move is part of a series of other steps currently being taken to revive the economy and get things back to normal.
We think that is wishful thinking. 🙃
Zoom is almost a 50 Billion Dollar company 🚀
Zoom, the video conferencing app has been gaining a lot of popularity during the pandemic. Work calls, family calls, school classes, meetups, dates and even weddings are now happening over Zoom. Yes, we’re in a new world already.
Even brands and artists are using the platform to engage their audience online. Many notable fashion brands are holding virtual fashion shows via Zoom while world-class Magicians like Daniel Chan are keeping people entertained through zoom magic shows. Not long before we see concerts being conducted here too.
The global active users of zoom has spiked to 67% since the start of 2020 to reach over 100 Million users worldwide. As a result, the company’s stock has surged almost 250% since the start of the year.
Despite strong market competition from Google, Microsoft, and networking giant Cisco, Zoom’s success solely rides on the fact that it’s product is ten times better to use. Zoom seamlessly accommodates video calling of more than 10 people at once and also allows one-on-one video calling for an unlimited duration, while limiting group call times to 40 mins on the free plan. In the process, the company picks up a lot of free users which it hopes will eventually convert to paid and stick with it forever.
Careful though, the Chinese might be sniffing your butt.
Independent investigations of the platform revealed majority of the company’s servers are actually based in China. Users weren’t explicitly informed about that in the past, although you could sense this coming since a large part of Zoom’s team of engineers is based in China. Needless to say, China has a notorious reputation for monitoring flow of data traffic within its boundaries.
Also, reportedly Zoom’s iOS application was sending data to Facebook without asking for the users permission and the data was sent even if the user did not have a Facebook account. What?!
Zoom has also had other security flaws in the past where according to BBC, a vulnerability allowed hackers to spy via the users’ webcam and the hacker was able to remove attendees from meetings without their knowledge. Strangers have also been reportedly video-bombing school classes in Europe by randomly guessing call links, spooking young kids and teachers in the process. 👿
If you’re a regular user, we’d recommend you:
Not share meeting links with anyone you don't trust
Manage participants by ensuring only signed in participants get to join the call
If any unwanted and suspicious activity is detected, report it to zoom directly
Is this the end of Classrooms as we know it? 😎
With fears of the second wave of the virus seeping in, California State University, which is the USA's largest public university system, said it will conduct classes exclusively virtually (online) for the upcoming fall semester that begins in August 2020.
The Chancellor said that the risk of bringing 4.8 Lakh students back on the university’s 23 campuses poses a very high risk. If health and safety precautions permit, clinical classes in the nursing program as well as science lab might be held in person. But otherwise, most learning will shift to distance.
The announcement came as Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, told the country’s senate that unnecessary suffering and death could result if states move too quickly to reopen schools and businesses.
McGill University in Montreal, Canada made a similar announcement later in the day, pushing Fall semester online.
This makes us wonder how things would look like if India follows suit and recommends universities to cancel classes for the next semester. Virtual classrooms could be a mixed bag, while saving students a ton of time that is usually wasted on travel and other things, but also taking a toll on the social aspect of colleges.
Ideally, we imagine education will somewhat be a hybrid of digital and in-class sessions after the pandemic is over, challenging the notion of full-time study. As a result, students will likely have a lot of free time in their hands, and working while studying could be very common. Take our advice and start something during this break, its a new world out there. We talked out this in our issue yesterday.
Remdesivir to the Rescue 💊💊
Hetero Pharma, the leading producer of antiretroviral drugs in India has entered into a licensed agreement with Gilead Sciences Inc. of California, USA for the manufacturing and distribution of Remdesivir in 127 countries, including India.
Gilead’s Remdesivir is an investigational drug that has received emergency Use Authorization (UFA) from the US Food and Drug Administration for treatment of patients with severe COVID-19. The drug will be manufactured at Hetero’s formulation facility in Hyderabad, Telangana.
The other drugs used to treat Coronavirus besides Remdesivir are Favipiravir and Hydroxychloroquine (remember the Trump vs. Modiji spat?).
While the effectiveness of most medication at our disposal right now is questionable, we’re hopeful of the progress being made.
What else are we Snackin’
✈️ Special domestic flights of Air India will ferry stranded passengers between May 19 and June 2 and will connect Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kochi, Jaipur and other major urban centers.
🚫 Total cases in Asia’s largest slum Dharavi cross 1,000, with 66 new patients reported overnight
😷 Goa no more a green zone; reports 7 cases of COVID-19
💰 3,100 Crore to be allocated to displaced migrants, ventilators and vaccine from the PM Cares Fund
Tweet of the day -
The Inn at Little Washington in Virginia, a famous Michelin Star restaurant on the USA's east coast, is placing mannequins at its dining tables to make the place appear booked and to ensure customers maintain social distance. The news comes as the state of Virginia looks to reopen its economy partially.
While we admire the breadth of imagination of whoever came up with the idea, we don’t think we have heard anything more absurd this entire week. Let us know if you have.
But seriously though, forced closure has brought a tough fight to the doorstep of restaurants. Nobody can say for sure whether the industry and outdoor dining as an experience will ever make a comeback. But props to them for being innovative. 👏👏
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
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