Tag: coronavirus

Virus Could Push 150 Million People Into Extreme Poverty

The World Bank suggested upwards of 150 million people could be pushed into “extreme poverty” due to the virus pandemic, erasing nearly three years of progress in global poverty reductions. 

According to the report, for the first time in two decades, the virus pandemic, compounded by the effects of climate change, are slowing poverty reduction progress, resulting in an additional 88 million to 115 million people falling into extreme poverty this year, with total estimates of 150 million in 2021, depending on the economic recovery shape. 

The biennial Poverty and Shared Prosperity Report defines “extreme poverty” as living on less than $1.90 per day, which is likely to affect between 9.1%-9.4% of the world’s population this year. With the world’s poverty rate expected to rise this year, it would mean extreme poverty is at 2017’s 9.2% level, marking the first rise in the poverty rate in two decades. The rate was expected to drop to 7.5% by 2021 before the coronavirus pandemic.

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As World Plunges Into Poverty, Super Rich Top Unprecedented $10 Trillion Net Worth Thanks to COVID-19

Make no mistake, the government’s reaction to COVID-19 — shutting down business, forcing people to state home, all the while granting monopolies to massive chains like Amazon, Walmart, etc. — has decimated the middle class and pushed the already-struggling poor that much deeper into despair. But you won’t see the owners of those monopolies complaining as they have seen their wealth soar to unprecedented highs.

As the rest of the country struggles to pay their mortgages, has their businesses shut down, and descends into poverty, COVID-19 for the super rich has been a record setting windfall. Four of the most controversial billionaires on the planet, have seen their wealth increase by over a combined $100 billion in just the last 10 months.

Since the COVID-19 lockdowns began, Jeff Bezzos has seen his net worth shoot up by nearly $70 billion. Bill Gates, who has been embroiled in controversy and has somehow become the mainstream media’s go-to “expert” on COVID-19, has seen his net worth increase by nearly $10 billion. As his platform censors any information that challenges the establishment’s narrative on COVID-19, Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth increased by $20 billion. And, as his platform also censors information like Facebook, Larry page has seen his profits from Google add $5 billion to his net worth.

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New Technology Refuses Entrance To Shops If You’re Not Wearing A Face Mask

A new technology being used in shops in Thailand and other countries to enforce coronavirus restrictions conducts a face scan to check if the customer is wearing a mask and refuses entry if they don’t have one.

“My local shops in Thailand. In 2 seconds scans my temperature and to see if wearing mask. Doors don’t open if not. 3 cases in 100+ days here. Removes awkward mask arguments for staff as well,” tweeted Niall Harbison.

The system resembles something you’d see as part of airport security. The customer walks up to a screen which displays the words ‘Face Detector’. The system then scans to check if the customer is wearing a mask before allowing them to pass through a barrier.

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‘Twindemic’ test: Massachusetts, many colleges mandate winter flu shots

Protesters have swarmed downtown Boston and the state Capitol in the seven weeks since Republican Gov. Charlie Baker issued the first-of-its-kind requirement for students from preschool through college.As the Massachusetts mandate plays out, other states have weighed similar requirements while colleges throughout the country pile on their own orders to prevent flu patients from clogging doctors offices and emergency rooms alongside people infected with coronavirus this winter.

State laws across the country already require various vaccines for students and health care workers, while allowing a host of exemptions. Governments still have broad authority to implement new flu shot orders, potentially paving the way for mandatory inoculation against the coronavirus in a country where vaccine skepticismis spreading and President Donald Trump has resisted many public health protocols during the pandemic.

“This is a brave new experiment by the state of Massachusetts,” said Lawrence Gostin, who heads a university-based center on health law that serves as an official collaborating institute with the World Health Organization. “If it turns out to be a wholesale success, that should influence other states to go a similar route, not just with flu but with other vaccines. But if it causes a backlash and only marginal benefit, states might be hesitant to adopt that model in the future.”

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Did The WHO Just (Accidentally) Confirm COVID Is No More Dangerous Than Flu?

The World Health Organization has finally confirmed what we (and many experts and studies) have been saying for months – the coronavirus is no more deadly or dangerous than seasonal flu.

The WHO’s top brass made this announcement during a special session of the WHO’s 34-member executive board on Monday October 5th, it’s just nobody seemed to really understand it.

In fact, they didn’t seem to completely understand it themselves.

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Lockdown has caused a mental-health crisis

What’s strange is that a mental-health lobby that has spent years redefining mental illness to include more and more people, and spent years discussing the potential social causes of this supposed ‘crisis’, is strangely hesitant to criticise lockdown. This is despite the fact that lockdown forces us into circumstances pretty much guaranteed to increase anxiety, depression and debilitating mental illnesses

A major survey by Mind, the mental-health charity, has found that two thirds of adults and three quarters of young people with existing mental-health problems have experienced worsening mental health over the course of the pandemic. In addition, more than one in five adults with no previous experience of such problems described their mental health as poor or very poor. One in four of those who tried to access support was unable to get it from the NHS.

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