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ACID TEST FOR VIRTUAL SELLING

Davao developers see real-estate recovery soon, shift to online marketing

By Manuel T. Cayon Mindanao Bureau Chief

D

AVAO CITY—Crisron Holiday Builders Inc., the developer of a big-ticket condominium project here, remains upbeat and optimistic on the future of the real-estate industry and has taken marketing a notch higher to attract prospective buyers amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Legacy Leisure Residences consists of four mid-rise mixed-use condominiums costing a whopping P4 billion, located along Ma-a Road at the heart of Davao City. The project was held off at the onset of the contagion, just like most residential projects all over the world.

“We admit at the beginning we had to stop operations because of our concern for our clients and our employees. But soon after, we jumped right to working, planning, strategizing for the future. In other words we never really stopped,” the developers told the BusinessMirror.

The project would be the first multibillion-peso venture of the scions of the Yaps and Bangayans, two prominent families engaged in construction, retail and convenience store chains and resorts development.

Virtual tour

THE project got numerous inquiries through its social-media channels, but they said there were very minimal site visits from prospective buyers. Thus, they have started to bring interested buyers to online tours of their showrooms, a new

mode that has brought back home buyers to the flurry of inquiry.

“The types of customers who were inquiring were of different demographics,” the developers said. “We expected a low turnout during these tough times but on the flip side, people were on their devices, most of the time during the lockdown.”

“We had to find ways to reach and educate more of our clients, which led the way to doing virtual tours of our showroom, faster response to online inquiries and digital selling kits for our agents.

Through these, we were able to reach our targeted market across the border,” they added.

Prospective buyers were allowed to experience luxury, fun and a relaxed ambiance of Legacy Leisure Residences from the comforts of their homes with a mere touch or click of a button.

“Online selling and marketing is the new normal, and despite the pandemic, real estate has a bright future in Davao,” said Clark Lawson Yap, vice president for marketing of Crisron Holiday Builders Inc. Continued on A2

How the pandemic might be hurting your eyes

By Breanna T Bradham | Bloomberg News

In other words, the pandemic spike in television, streaming and even social media “doomscrolling” may be here for awhile. And all that additional screen-time?

Well, it could be bad for you.

W

HEN Allyn Morrison was furloughed from her job as a barista at The Perk in Fort Worth, Texas, the 25-year-old actor decided to spend the lockdown streaming shows like Unorthodox and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She wasn’t goofing off, she explained—she was just trying to sharpen her acting skills. shift may soon reverse itself.

With US infections out of control in some states and death rates rising, new restrictions are being put in place and more schools are planning on remote learning. The coming of fall also means more time indoors, a potential surge in new cases and more jobs lost as businesses retrench.

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 49.0550

BEKIRUGUR BEKIR UGUR | DREAMSTIME.COM

The combination of 30 million Americans out of work and tens of millions more working from home exploded the number of hours people have been glued to a screen. Indeed, streaming jumped by 20 percent when coronavirus shutdowns first began back in March. And while rates began to fall back to Earth as businesses reopened in June, that

No so eye-friendly

THE LED light emitted from most screens exposes your eyes to high levels of “blue light,” which can disrupt sleep patterns and lead to “computer vision syndrome,” associated with headaches and eyestrain, said ophthalmologist Robert Weinstock. And while he acknowledges that it may be hard for people to reduce the amount of time they’re spending in front of screens these days, there are ways to make it safer.

Investing in screen covers that filter out harsher light from laptops and phones is one option, and of course you can turn down the screen brightness, or look away for 20 seconds every once and awhile.

(Weinstock is on the advisory board of Eyesafe, a company that Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4650 n UK 64.4975 n HK 6.3296 n CHINA 7.0544 n SINGAPORE 35.8275 n AUSTRALIA 35.4717 n EU 58.2675 n SAUDI ARABIA 13.0852

Source: BSP (August 7, 2020)

NewsSunday BusinessMirror

A2 Sunday, August 9, 2020

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Acid test for virtual selling Continued from A1

“If there’s anything Covid-19 and the community quarantine has taught us, it is the importance of proper home design.

Home is the ultimate place of refuge, a sanctuary. Among the perks of living in a condominium like Legacy Leisure Residences is privacy, 24/7 security, in-house amenities, and a commercial strip that will include food outlets, convenience stores and pharmacy. Essential commodities are in the same building for convenience and safety,” Yap added.

More ‘perks’

THE project is carved out of a 2.8-hectare property and consists of four 15-story buildings and a commercial strip at the front section of the property. There is a jogging lane that winds through the buildings, and across the Olympic-sized pool, the only residential sprawl in the Philippines with an international-standard swimming facility. It also has a spray park, pitch and putting green, and parks and playgrounds.

“When the city government required all developers to allocate 30 percent of the property for green space and 30 percent for amenities, we have allotted 68 percent for greens and amenities. This sets us apart from other residential property developments,” said Wesley Bangayan, who is in charge of sales and marketing for Legacy Leisure.

The property has one-, two- and threebedroom units. Each building has 429 rooms and may in the future accommodate short stays, or staycations. Flexible payment terms are offered to lessen the burden of clients while trying to recover from the pandemic.

Uphill battle

AMID a pandemic and the consequential global economic downturn, the project developers are on the right marketing track by going virtual.

The ultimate outcome, however, may depend on how fast the country and its people are able to win an uphill battle against the virus.

In the over five months since the pandemic-forced lockdowns that cost the economy dearly—not least a 16.5-percent contraction in the second quarter, a historic plunge—much has been said about how a crisis has opened opportunities for businesses that can fit in with virtual selling. Yet, it’s clear, at this point, the results of this acid test for the property market are not yet in.

Continued from A1

produces technology for eye protection products.)

But while many workplaces have sought to mitigate employee eyestrain over the years, the unprecedented effect of the pandemic—given the mass migration to home environments that can be less eye-friendly—has yet to fully manifest itself.

In the first months of lockdowns, people spent almost an hour more on their desktop devices, according to an analysis of 14,000 users tracked by software company RescueTime. Communications tools drove the shift— with video-chat time surging 350 percent, social media up 200 percent and entertainment platforms like Netflix and YouTube rising 200 percent.

Highest spike

COMCAST said it saw internet traffic on its network spike by as much as 60 percent in some areas as the pandemic set in.

American computer usage peaked in April, jumping 24 percent above pre-pandemic levels, according to data from website analytics firm SimilarWeb. By the end of June, it was still elevated by 14 percent.

People have also been spending more time on top social-media apps: The total time on seven

of the biggest, including Twitter and Facebook, is higher this year than last, based on data from app analysis company Apptopia.

“The saying goes, ‘rising tides raise all ships,’ and that was the case for television and digital screen-based media overall,” Peter Katsingris, senior vice president of audience insights at marketing research company Nielsen, wrote in an e-mail.

But it comes with a price.

Sleep deprivation is a common problem associated with an uptick in screen time. Exposure to blue light before bedtime can make it harder to get to sleep, possibly through suppressing the production of melatonin. This is especially the case for close-proximity devices such as laptops and mobile phones. Dry eye can also be a problem.

The Mayo Clinic suggests adding moisture to the air, taking breaks during longer tasks, positioning your computer screen below eye level and using artificial tears. (Experts remain divided on whether blue light glasses are effective.)

The best way to cut time in front of your phone is to designate a time or day that’s screen-free, according to Adam Alter, author of the book, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping us Hooked. That can mean putting it in a locked

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How the pandemic might be hurting your eyes

drawer during dinner, stopping an hour before going to bed, or turning it on airplane mode for large chunks of the weekend.

“You just have to be mindful and purposeful, and to cultivate the habit of leaving your phone as far away from where you are as possible,” Alter wrote in an email. “Most of us can reach our

phones without moving our feet for most of the day, so the key is to thoughtfully introduce distance between us and our phones.”

Stuck

BUT time away from a screen isn’t feasible for Americans working from home. For now at least, Americans are stuck between a

screen and a pandemic.

Some seem to think screen time may recede—Netflix, which added more than 25 million paying subscribers in the first half of the year, forecasts lower subscription growth for the third quarter.

But Katsingris isn’t so sure.

“It’s such an unpredictable time as states and businesses

across the country are all at different stages of opening and closing,” he wrote. “Whether schools reopen or remain closed in the fall is a factor to keep an eye on in regards to media consumption.”

So it’s really up to individuals to regulate themselves. Allyn Morrison tried to monitor how much time she was looking at a screen and take breaks. Now she’s back at work at The Perk, and no longer stuck at home all day.

“It’s great to just go somewhere and not have to be here,” she said.

But for many others, screenfixation mode—whether it’s scrolling social media for the latest news or playing video games to just tune out—remains hard to resist. At least one mental health professional thinks you shouldn’t be too concerned.

Mike Brooks, a licensed psychologist based in Austin, Texas, and author of a book on raising children in a hyper-connected world, Tech Generation: Raising Kids in a Hyper-Connected World, said the need for an electronic outlet may outweigh any damage being done.

“We need to lower the bar a little bit for what’s acceptable and not punish ourselves for the screen time,” Brooks said. “This is going to help us get through this pandemic better than we would otherwise.”

The World BusinessMirror

Editor: Angel R. Calso

Sunday, August 9, 2020

A3

Covid-19 resurgence in Japan blamed on haste to normalize

A

fter initial success, Japan is facing a reality check on the coronavirus.

The country garnered global attention after containing the first wave of Covid-19 with what it referred to as the “Japan Model”—limited testing and no lockdown, nor any legal means to force businesses to close. The country’s finance minister even suggested a higher “cultural standard” helped contain the disease.

But now the island nation is facing a formidable resurgence, with Covid-19 cases hitting records nationwide day after day. Infections first concentrated in the capital have spread to other urban areas, while regions without cases for months have become new hot spots. And the patient demographic—originally younger people less likely to fall seriously ill—is expanding to the elderly, a concern given that Japan is home to the world’s oldest population.

Experts say that Japan’s focus on the economy may have been its undoing. As other countries in Asia, which experienced the coronavirus earlier than those in the West, wrestle with new flare ups of Covid-19, Japan now risks becoming a warning for what happens when a country moves too fast to normal-

ize—and doesn’t adjust its strategy when the outbreak changes.

While Japan declared a state of emergency to contain the first wave of the virus, it didn’t compel people to stay home or businesses to shut. That was ended in late May and officials quickly pivoted to a full reopening in an attempt to get the country’s recessionary economy back on track.

By June, restaurants and bars were fully open while events like baseball and sumo-wrestling were back on—a stark contrast to other places in the region like Singapore which were reopening only in cautious phases.

Japan’s haste may have been premature, say experts.

“This is the result of the government prioritizing economic activity by getting people to move around again over infection control,” said Yoshihito Niki, a professor of infectious diseases at Showa University’s School of Medicine.

A panel of experts, praised for showing leadership during the first wave, was dissolved in a political mix-up, while a much-derided campaign to encourage domestic travel began just as infections started to surge.

Proper strategy

Countries throughout the AsiaPacific are experiencing second waves, many—like Hong Kong, Australia and Vietnam—after being standard bearers for virus containment the first time around.

They’re providing a window into the future for places just emerging from their first outbreaks, or continuing to battle through them, like the US. A number of factors contributed to Japan’s resurgence, according to public health experts. The state of emergency may have been lifted too early, before infections had sufficiently slowed. That also resulted in an ill-defined reopening plan— leaving officials slow to take steps when new infection hot spots first emerged in nightclubs late in June.

As cases increased, officials continued to talk down the dangers and insist they were mainly confined to nightlife spots.

“The government should have had a proper strategy to contain the transmission as promptly as possible,” said Kenji Shibuya, a professor at King’s College London and a former chief of health policy at the World Health Organization. “Both Hong Kong and Australia acted very quickly and are trying to contain it as fast as possible, with expanded testing and aggressive social distancing including local lockdowns. Japan

is making things worse by just waiting and seeing.”

Cases in Japan nationwide topped 1,000 for five consecutive days as of last Monday, with the number of infections above 1,500 on two of those days. During the previous peak in April, daily cases maxed out at just over 700.

Although Japan understood earlier than many Western countries that the virus was more likely to spread through droplets in the air, and warned residents to avoid crowded, unventilated conditions, it wasn’t enough to change individual behavior as the restrictions were lifted. While people have continued to wear masks throughout the pandemic, the current infections have largely occurred in situations where face coverings aren’t typically worn, like group dining and drinking events.

Unlike New Zealand, Japan never spoke of eliminating the pathogen. Experts tried to encourage a “new way of living” and spoke of an era in which people lived with the virus. But the messaging from central and regional governments was mixed, with local officials in Tokyo warning against travel even as the national government encouraged it, and both sides bickering over who was to blame.

The national government continues to argue that the situation this time is different. Chief

Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga reiterated on Friday that another state of emergency isn’t required.

The death rate in Japan remains low by almost any standards, and the medical system isn’t over-burdened—a key factor public health officials use to judge success of virus containment. The country has fewer than 100 people in critical care due to Covid-19.

But treatment won’t bring the current spread to a halt.

“Hospitals can treat the infected,” said Koji Wada, a public health professor at the International University of Health and Welfare in Tokyo. “But only the government, through public health measures, can reduce the number of infected people.”

When Shigeru Omi, the head of the current panel of experts advising the government, told officials to delay the domestic tourism push, he was ignored. The “Go To Travel” campaign then turned into a public relations nightmare, as Japan’s rural residents grew angry over the potential of infections being brought to the countryside by city-dwellers.

Eventually, Tokyo was excluded from the campaign in a last-minute about-face.

‘Last chance’

What impact the tourism campaign had on spreading the virus won’t be known for weeks. Experts

Coronavirus hunters sift through sewage to detect Covid-19 hot spots

W

earing face shields, masks, two layers of gloves and navy cotton overalls, two scientists carefully lift off a metal manhole cover to reveal the cumulative waste of some 400 migrant workers.

As one of them lowers a yellow rubber tube into the fetid sewer outside a dormitory in central Singapore, a third explains how samples of the brownish liquid provide a crude snapshot of how the city-state is trying to keep a step ahead of the coronavirus.

Wastewater sur vei l lance— which Dutch scientists showed in March can identify evidence of the pathogen earlier than testing patients—is one of a handful of strategies around the world being developed to pinpoint emerging hot spots and flare-ups before cases spiral out of control.

“If you think the community has no Covid, but it’s found in the wastewater, then you know it’s there somewhere,” said Dale A. Fisher, an infectious diseases physician at Singapore’s National University Hospital and chair of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, a group that monitors and reacts to dangerous epidemics.

With countries from Australia to Spain struggling to arrest fresh waves of the contagion, scientists and public health officials are looking to additional tools, including sniffer dogs and drones, to hunt down the insidious virus.

People can transmit the virus before they develop symptoms, frustrating efforts to stem transmission using the mainstay approach—testing and isolating infected people and tracing their contacts—alone. Resurgences have occurred in places that have gone months without recording a new infection, forcing governments to impose economically crippling restrictions again and testing citizens’ tolerance for the disruption wrought by the pandemic.

The virus’ stealthiness means it’s crucial to find ways to augment traditional sur veillance, said Peter Collignon, a professor of clinical medicine at the

Scientists insert a rubber tube into the manhole outside a foreign workers’ dormitory to collect wastewater samples. Faris Mokhtar/Bloomberg

Australian National University Medical School in Canberra.

Monitoring wastewater is a useful way to find the pathogen before it’s identified within a community, said Collignon. Infected people don’t just shed the virus in their respiratory droplets; it may also be in their urine and feces— sometimes during the incubation period and even after nose and throat tests are no longer positive for the virus.

Early warning

“A lot of data suggested it predates the increase in clinical cases,” Collignon said in an interview.

Finding the virus in wastewater can serve as an early warning system, and provide a trigger for authorities to start increasing restrictions on people and their movements, he said. “Because if we do it now, rather than waiting for 10 days, we’ll probably see less of an outbreak.”

“You can use sewage testing to adjust the limits you put on the movement of populations over different periods of time,” Collignon said.

That sort of nuance may be useful as the pandemic—now in its eighth month—grinds on. Strict social distancing measures are

proving harder to enforce in some places, particularly among young people and those who don’t get paid if they’re ill or self-isolating.

Another mass lockdown in the Australian city of Melbourne has proved less effective the second time around with some defying the restrictions. Authorities imposed a nighttime curfew in Melbourne at the weekend as case numbers continue to surge.

Wuhan, the central Chinese city where Covid-19 first emerged in December, is routinely testing sewage and environmental samples from hospitals, markets and shopping malls. No traces of the virus have been found in wastewater since the data were made available in mid-June.

In Singapore, an explosion in cases among migrant workers caught authorities off guard, triggering a pivot in its approach to the virus. The country started a pilot program to monitor wastewater in April, focusing on the dormitories that accommodate the workers, infections among whom have pushed Singapore’s case tally beyond 52,000. Testing of wastewater has since been expanded to include other population-dense centers such as hostels and residential care facilities.

Other alternative surveillance methods that don’t require people to front up for testing are also being deployed elsewhere.

Separate teams in Germany, the UK, France, Finland and Australia are training dogs to sniff out people with the coronavirus, counting on the animal’s ultrasensitive noses to detect metabolic changes in Covid-19 that the patients themselves may not notice.

An international team aims to have dogs trained in months for “low cost, instantaneous and reliable screening” at airports, hospitals and quarantine sites, according to the University of Adelaide, in South Australia, which is helping to study the sensitivity and specificity of “canine olfactory detection” of Covid-19 against standard lab tests.

Fever-spotting drones

In the same city, researchers at the University of South Australia are working on “pandemic drones” that have specialized sen sor a nd computer v i sion systems to spot people with the telltale signs of a respiratory infection in crowds. They could be used in offices, air ports, cruise ships, residential care facilities and other places where groups of

people may work or congregate.

In South Korea, widely lauded for its success in suppressing the pandemic without disruptive measures like lockdowns, health officials in Seoul have relied on their version of Navy Seals—elite teams of epidemiologists, laboratory technicians and database specialists—to identify infected people early in order to curb spread.

Aut hor it ies say t hey h ave compressed the time it takes to trace contacts w ith those infected from one day to 10 minutes, potentially limiting the scale of infections through speedy inter vention. But their speedy response also relies on a wide range of data collected by mobile carriers, credit-card issuers, the sur veillance cameras that are ubiquitous in cities like Seoul and lately a QR code registering system installed at entertainment venues to pin down potential contacts.

To be sure, most of these alternative methods aim to seek out vestiges of the virus in places where it isn’t apparent, making their relevance where the illness is widespread, such as parts of the US and some developing countries, questionable.

Wastewater surveillance is a “blunt tool” that’s not helpful in places where the virus is circulating widely, said Fisher at the National University Hospital.

Researchers at Shanghai’s Tongji University found the pathogen was harder to detect in sewage after toilets were cleaned with chlorine and other disinfectants.

But as the world anxiously awaits the development of safe and effective vaccines, a combination of active monitoring and early inter vention is the only sure way to gain control over the stealthy v ir us, according to Collignon at the Australian National University.

“This is an essential public health measurement that needs to be done not only now but continuously, and the results need to be available for everybody to see within 24 hours,” he said. “People have to act on the results, not just assume it’s a research project.” Bloomberg News

are now more concerned over the upcoming traditional Obon holiday period in mid-August, when many young Japanese return home to pay respect to the dead and spend time with often-elderly relatives.

In a sign that the situation can no longer be ignored, local officials are starting to backtrack on economic reopening. Osaka has asked people to refrain from dining in groups of five or more.

In Tokyo, restaurants, bars and karaoke shops have been asked to shorten operating hours. Governor Yuriko Koike has threatened to declare another state of emergency for the capital. Okinawa has already done so.

“The central government hasn’t shown clear guidance and a clear strategy on what to do about Covid-19, and is pushing the responsibility to the local government,” said Haruka Sakamoto, a public health researcher at the University of Tokyo. “In ordinary times, the government is very centralized, and usually prefectures don’t have strong opinions.”

Some think the steps don’t go far enough. Haruo Ozaki, the head of the Tokyo Medical Association, called on Thursday for the government to revise legislation so it can legally force businesses to close.

“This is our last chance to mitigate the spread of infection,” he said. Bloomberg News

Canada close to regaining half of jobs lost in pandemic

C

anada’s labor market likely continued its comeback last month, but gains are slowing on the long road to full recovery.

Statistics Canada is expected to report that 365,000 jobs were added in July, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

That would bring total jobs recovered to 1.6 million in the past three months, or just over 50 percent of the 3 million lost in March and April.

While the employment gains will be welcome, economists have warned it could still take years before the labor market returns to pre-pandemic levels. Nor are the outcomes evenly spread.

Women, low-income earners, youth and immigrants have been hit harder and will take even longer to recuperate. On Friday, Statistics Canada will release jobs data by race for the first time that are expected to show minorities have been disproportionately hurt by the recession.

“We are going to see quite a lot of racial impact in who was hit hardest because low income often intersects with race and recent immigration status as well as gender and youth,” said Armine Yalnizyan, a research fellow at the Atkinson Foundation.

Separate polling is also showing a steady but gradual rebound. About 38 percent of Canadians who either lost their job or were working reduced hours because of the pandemic were reemployed or working more, according to the latest survey by Nanos Research taken at the end of July for Bloomberg News. That figure falls to 33 percent for women who lost jobs or hours.

Job-listing data from Indeed Canada show total postings last week were down 26 percent from a year ago, an improvement from a nearly 50-percent gap three months ago.

Fear of returning

For some companies, the problem isn’t creating jobs but getting workers to come back to them.

Survey data from KPMG suggest more than half of Canadians are afraid to return to the workplace because of Covid-19.

In lower-paying industries, there’s also a financial challenge. The federal government’s Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) pays C$2,000 ($1,505) per month to people affected by the pandemic. That’s similar to or more than what some part-time workers can earn in a month.

“I’ve been hearing from a lot of employers that they have a tremendous amount of jobs available and people just aren’t coming back to work because of the CERB. That’s concerning,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference on Thursday.

Bloomberg News

A4

The World BusinessMirror

Sunday, August 9, 2020

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Donald Trump tests China’s red line on Taiwan using Beijing’s playbook

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t didn’t take long for Donald J. Trump to throw out the longestablished diplomatic rulebook on Taiwan: A month before taking office in January 2017, he accepted a telephone call from President Tsai Ing-wen.

T hat 10 -m inute conversation amounted to the first time a president-elect had spoken to a Taiwanese head of state since the US cut ties with Taipei in favor of Beijing in 1979, and it infuriated President Xi Jinping’s administration. Trump threw fuel on the fire a few days later by questioning whether the US needed to abide by its “one-China” policy.

While Trump soon backpedaled, displaying an inconsistency that has become a hallmark of his presidency, it showed China that relations with the US were changing quickly. And Sunday’s visit by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, the highest-level trip since the US recognized China 41 years ago, marks yet another step toward America treating Taiwan like any other country in the world—an outcome that Beijing has threatened could lead to war.

So far China’s response to the trip has been fairly subdued, suggesting that leaders in Beijing may be keeping their options open ahead of the election, particularly as Trump struggles in the polls. It comes at a time when the world’s two biggest economies are struggling to boost growth in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and handle social unrest.

While a certain amount of nationalism can help both leaders, anything that could trigger a war

would be devastating. Even as the Communist Party’s nationalist tabloid Global Times published a scathing editorial on Wednesday night warning China could play the “military card,” the official mouthpiece People’s Daily appeared much more restrained.

On Thursday, the paper carried a statement on a bottom corner of the 11th page from Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office. He urged the US to adhere to Beijing’s one-China principle and the three joint communiqués underpinning ties between the countries, while also hitting out at Tsai’s ruling party in Taiwan.

“Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party is willing to become a chess piece and collude with the US in a bid to seek political gains,” Ma was quoted as saying. “This is a very dangerous move and will not succeed.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin repeated the government’s opposition to official US-Taiwan interactions, while saying China “will take strong countermeasures in response to US behavior.” China views separately ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and regularly threatens to bring it under its control by force if necessary. Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s claim, asserting the island is already de facto independent state.

President Donald J. Trump pumps his fist as he finishes speaking during an event at the Whirlpool Corp. facility in Clyde, Ohio, on August 6. AP/Susan Walsh

‘Salami slicing’

China has long referred to Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in relations with the US, and warned the Trump administration against breaching its “red line.” But just where that line sits is unclear.

“It’s not easy for an individual scholar to answer questions about the bottom line,” said Liu Guoshen, director of Xiamen University’s Taiwan Research Institute. “In principle, the official response is the bottom line, but how to grasp specific indicators is an art. It needs comprehensive evaluation and decision-makers will make the judgment.”

Now American politicians are testing China’s bottom line using a page from Beijing’s playbook.

Neighboring countries have accused China of “salami slicing”— taking small steps over time—to strengthen territorial claims in the South China Sea, India and elsewhere. And now China is accusing the US of using the same tactics with Taiwan: In June, Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian used the term while saying the People’s Liberation Army is on high alert, and the Global Times used it again this week to warn

Taiwan it could face an “unbearable disaster” if it serves as an American “pawn.”

When Tsai was first elected president in 2016, she expressed a willingness to talk to Beijing but refused to accept the notion that Taiwan is part of China.

China responded by cutting off direct contact between the governments and resuming its efforts to persuade Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies to switch recognition to Beijing after an eight-year diplomatic truce under Tsai’s China-friendly predecessor Ma Ying-jeou.

After Sao Tome and Principe and Panama switched allegiance in 2017, the US began taking a tougher line against Chinese efforts to isolate Taiwan. In January 2018, the US House passed a pair of bills seeking greater diplomatic support for Taiwan: One encouraged visits between the US and Taiwan “at all levels,” including “cabinet-level national security officials.” The other urged the US State Department to develop a strategy to help Taiwan regain its observer status in the World Health Organization.

At t he same time, Beijing

stepped up its policing of international companies such as Inditex SA-owned Zara and Delta Air Lines Inc. and Marriott International, demanding they clearly label Taiwan and Tibet as part of China on their web sites and any labeling. China has also increased its patrols of military aircraft and vessels around Taiwan over the past few years, regularly encroaching into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and occasionally crossing the middle line of the strait.

The US has responded in kind, sending its warships through the strait in what it deems freedom of navigation operations. The Trump administration has also made moves to bolster Taiwan’s ability to defend itself, approving the sales of billions in advanced weaponr y over t he past t wo years, including 66 F-16s—the first sale of fighter jets to Taiwan since the early 1990s.

Taiwan came up in a phone call on Thursday night between Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe and US Defense Secretary Mark Esper. “Both leaders agreed on the importance of maintaining open channels of communication and developing the systems necessary for crisis communications and risk reduction,” the Pentagon said in a readout of the call.

The US moves have largely been in response to China’s pressure on Tsai’s government, according to Kharis Templeman, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.

“Beijing likes to play this game with Taiwan where they make a series of small changes to ratchet up pressure,” he said. “Well, now the US has shown repeatedly that it can respond in kind. If Beijing doesn’t like Cabinet-level visits, maybe they should stop sending military aircraft into Taiwan’s ADIZ.” Bloomberg News

How travelers are beating tough flight restrictions in Covid-19 era

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ravel curbs and border restrictions are upending lives around the globe, with some people resorting to chartering planes on their own or paying many times the regular ticket price to get back to their jobs and homes.

Eight months into the pandemic, the push to normalize is seeing some try to travel internationally again, whether for a long-delayed but essential business trip or to return to where they live. Yet with global coronavirus cases surpassing 18 million and rising, airlines are only reluctantly adding flights to their bare-bones schedules, and virus resurgences have some countries imposing new travel rules.

The flight paralysis underscores how deep and lasting the pandemic’s damage is proving to be. The number of international flights to the US, Australia and Japan has fallen more than 80 percent from a year ago, while flights to China are down by more than 94 percent, according to aviation industry database Cirium.

Travelers have to be creative just to get on a plane. Support groups have sprung up on Facebook and WeChat for those who have been stuck thousands of miles from their jobs, homes and families. Unable to get tickets, some are attempting to organize private chartered flights, while travel agents say they’re having to bribe airlines for limited seats. Others are shelling out for business or first-class tickets, only to be turned away for lack of the

right documentation.

“So many people with families are separated, it’s so heartbreaking,” said Ariel Lee, a mother in Shanghai who administers a few WeChat groups of 1,650 members in total trying to get into China.

“The toughest part is there are no clear guidelines and there’s no end date to this.”

The hopeful talk of travel corridors and a summer recovery have faded away among airline industry experts, replaced by a consensus that global travel will not effectively re start before a vaccine is found.

“We are not going to see a material recovery for international travel in the near future,” said Steven Kwok, associate partner of OC&C Strategy Consultants Ltd. “The pandemic also brings about a consequential impact beyond the virus outbreak—it is causing a slowdown in the global economy, which will hurt travel appetite for a longer term.”

Higher prices

Chris Wells had been stuck in his hometown of Houston for half a year, eagerly looking to return to Guangzhou, a city in southern China where he’s been living and working for more than a decade.

International travel to China has been severely limited by the government to stem imported infections, and any seats on flights are snatched up almost instantly.

Wells, 41, a manager in an international sourcing company,

An official, left, gestures to travelers wearing personal protective equipment toward a quarantine area in the arrivals hall at Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong on July 15. Bloomberg

searched and searched for a ticket. The only one he could find: an $8,800 one-way, first-class flight from Chicago to Shanghai, via Zurich.

“It was the only seat available,” he said. “I’d normally never pay that much for a ticket, but I was desperate to get back so I grabbed the seat when I found it.”

Cherry Lin, a Shanghai-based travel agent, said her company is having to pay kickbacks to airlines—more than 10,000 yuan ($1,438) per seat—to get tickets on popular routes like those departing from the US and UK that they can then sell to customers.

The flight or passenger cap set by many countries largely limits seats, pushing fares up—a ticket for a direct flight from London to Shanghai is currently going for

about $5,000, said Lin, but those are quickly purchased.

Additional seats are likely to pop up this month as more airlines resume flights, “but still not enough that everyone can easily buy online,” she said.

Changing rules

Jessica Cutrera, 44, an American who has lived in Hong Kong for more than a decade, was looking to return to the Asian financial center last month when the city suddenly required a negative virus test for passengers coming from high-risk countries including the US. She had to show results from a test taken within 72 hours before boarding and fulfill a requirement that travelers present a letter—signed by a government official—verifying that the lab is accredited.

Getting test results within 72 hours was hard enough given that testing is so backed up in the US that results usually aren’t available before a week. Then there was the required letter. “I called everybody I could find,” she said. “Most offices and agencies said no, it didn’t make sense to them to sign such a letter.”

Eventually, someone in California agreed to sign. So Cutrera flew from Louisville, Kentucky, to Chicago, and then to Los Angeles, where she had the test done. A few days later, she was allowed to board her flight to Hong Kong, while others trying to get on the same plane were turned away as they didn’t have the proper paperwork. Cutrera is proving to be one of the lucky ones, as many continue to be in limbo.

Lucy Parakhina, a 33-year-old Australian photographer, had decided to stay in London, where she has lived for two years. But in June, she started to plan a return trip when her UK work visa expired. Though she managed to buy a one-way ticket from London to Sydney for less than 700 pounds ($922) with Qatar Airways, she was bumped from her flight and told it was postponed. She already left her job in London and gave up her apartment, and won’t have income to stay in the UK beyond September. But with a virus resurgence in Australia showing no signs of ebbing and international flights down by 92 percent to the country, she’s likely stuck for a while.

“Now the only thing I can do is to wait for the easing policies and my flight to depart as planned,” she said.

Bloomberg News

Bankruptcies rip through US mall tenants, no end in sight

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very week seems to bring another round of retail bankruptcies.

With conditions worsening, the numbers are likely to keep climbing.

Over the weekend, Tailored Brands Inc.—the owner of Men’s Wearhouse and JoS. A. Bank—and department store Lord & Taylor filed for Chapter 11. The Canadian unit of Chico’s FAS Inc. declared bankruptcy on July 31. The previous week, it was Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant parent Ascena Retail Group Inc. At least 25 major retailers have now filed for bankruptcy this year, with 10 of these coming over the last five weeks. The steady drumbeat of bankruptcies goes back to midMarch, when the lockdown of non-essential retailers began in an attempt to halt the spread of Covid-19. The US economy has now largely reopened, but this hasn’t provided relief to the battered industry, which has taken on more leverage in the battle to survive.

“The common denominator is debt,” said Simeon Siegel, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets. “At this point, now everyone has debt. Everyone took on massive amounts of liquidity.”

With the US seeing a resurgence of Covid-19, retailers are now flying blind into the year’s most vital shopping months. Companies have to juggle decisions on cost cutting, store closures and merchandise without having a clear picture of where consumer demand will be or how bad economic conditions will get.

Clothing stores have been particularly hard hit. Two denim shops—G-Star Raw and Lucky Brand—went bankrupt on the same day in early July.

Household names J.C. Penney Co., Neiman Marcus Group, J. Crew Group Inc. and Brooks Brothers all filed Chapter 11 earlier this year.

Apparel sales were down about 30 percent in June, even as overall US retail sales have picked up this summer, according to Panjiva, the supply chain research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

As many as 25,000 stores are expected to close in the US in 2020, mostly in shopping malls, according to Coresight Research. Department stores and fashion boutiques are seen as the most endangered.

Most of the companies in bankruptcy are trying to survive, but that could change if conditions worsen, or if lawmakers are unable to reach an agreement on unemployment benefits.

Coresight analyst Deborah Weinswig said in June that she expects to see more retailers go straight to liquidation, rather than try to continue operating by restructuring debt.

At the moment, conditions are far from optimal: Demand and store traffic are low and companies are more heavily indebted.

“If holiday follows the same course, we’re all in for a world of trouble,” said Siegel. “The hope is come holiday, there will be some sort of return to a better version of new normal.”

Bloomberg News

Science

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www.businessmirror.com.ph • Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

Sunday

Sunday, August 9, 2020 A5

Russia’s race for vaccine alarms world’s scientists

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OSCOW—Russi a boa sts that it’s about to become the first country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, with mass vaccinations planned as early as October using shots that are yet to complete clinical trials—and scientists worldwide are sounding the alarm that the headlong rush could backfire.

Moscow sees a Sputnik-like propaganda victory, recalling the Soviet Union’s launch of the world’s first satellite in 1957.

But the experimental Covid-19 shots began first-in-human testing on a few dozen people less than two months ago, and there’s no published scientific evidence yet backing Russia’s late entry to the global vaccine race, much less explaining why it should be considered a front-runner.

“I’m worried that Russia is cutting corners so that the vaccine that will come out may be not just ineffective, but also unsafe,” said Lawrence Gostin, a global public health law expert at Georgetown University. “It doesn’t work that way.... Trials come first.

That’s really important.”

According to Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund that bankrolled the effort, a vaccine developed by the Gamaleya research institute in Moscow may be approved in days, before scientists complete what’s called a Phase 3 study.

That final-stage study, usually involving tens of thousands of people, is the only way to prove if an experimental vaccine is safe and really works.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said members of “risk groups,” such as medical workers, may be offered the vaccine this month.

He didn’t clarify whether they would be part of the Phase 3 study that is said to be completed after the vaccine receives “conditional approval.”

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova promised to start “industrial production” in September, and Murashko said mass vaccination may begin as early as October.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease specialist, questioned the fast-track approach last week.

“I do hope that the Chinese and the Russians are actually testing a vaccine before they are administering the vaccine to anyone, because claims of having a vaccine ready to distribute before you do testing I think is problematic at best,” he said.

Questions about this vaccine candidate come after the US, Britain and Canada last month accused Russia of using hackers to steal vaccine research from Western labs.

Delivering a vaccine first is a matter of national prestige for the Kremlin as it tries to assert the image of Russia as a global power capable of competing with the US and China.

The notion of being “the first in the world” dominated state news coverage of the effort, with government officials praising reports of the firststep testing.

In April, President Vladimir Putin ordered state officials to shorten the time of clinical trials for a variety of drugs, including potential coronavirus vaccines.

According to Russia’s Association of Clinical Trials Organizations, the order set “an unattainable bar” for scientists who, as a result, “ joined in on the mad race, hoping to please those at power.”

The association first raised concern in late May, when professor Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya institute, said he and other researchers tried the vaccine on themselves.

The move was a “crude violation

Ateneo releases report; commits to greater sustainability

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he Ateneo de Manila University doubled down on its commitment to pursue sustainability as it shared the highlights of its third Sustainability Report.

The Ateneo Sustainability Report, which is released on a triennial basis and covers the years 2016 to 2019, focuses on the efforts of the university to care for its constituents, build an environmentally responsible campus, and train service-oriented leaders who can continue to shape society beyond the borders of the institution.

“It is not an exercise to pat ourselves on the back, but a way to hold a mirror to ourselves, to see what we’ve done and how we can further improve our efforts toward sustainable and inclusive development,” said Ma. Assunta Cuyegkeng, director of the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability.

The focus of the report was identified through the Ateneo Sustainability Survey and through consultations with the university’s top management.

The key areas are: mobility and traffic; wastewater management; solid waste management; greenhouse gas emissions; energy consumption and reduction; water consumption reduction and recycling; employee benefits; affordability of products; access for persons with disabilities; gender discrimination; and disaster protocols.

In the years covered by the third sustainability report, it is shown that both the number of electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions had been on a steady rise.

On average the university consumed 40 million megajoules per year or 1,900 megajoules per Atenean.

As for greenhouse gas emissions, the university emitted an average of 10,100 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, which amounts to half a metric ton per person.

According to the authors, the increase in emissions are tied to the increase in electricity consumption that in turn was driven by the construction of buildings within the campus.

Fuel for the fleet of vehicles of the university and its generator sets also added to the total emissions of Ateneo.

As for water consumption, Ateneo consumed 307,000 cubic meters of water in the period covered by the report.

To help the university save water, several projects have been put in place, like a decentralized wastewater treatment system, building wastewater system, and a rainwater trapment and harvesting facility.

Though mobility remains to be a problem for the university, they have made headway in addressing some of their problems.

Electric jeeps have helped people move around the campus while reducing the emissions.

A point-to-point bus system is also in place, which brings students and employees to and from bus stops to the campus. Carpooling initiatives have also proven successful among students.

“What really makes sustainability efforts work and what makes them successful is really the sense of community, and I think that’s the base value that all of us have to exemplify that our actions are not only for us as individuals, but being part of a society, being part of a community means we have to think of others,” Abby Favis, project manager for Campus Sustainability of Ateneo said.

Former Ateneo president, Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ, also outlined some future efforts of the university to become more sustainable.

One of these is a 2-megawatt solar facility within the campus that will help meet the electricity needs of the university.

Aside from discussing the sustainability efforts of the university, Villarin also underscored the value of living simply and knowing when enough is enough especially today when people are experiencing the impact of climate change.

He also reminded the university that the pursuit for sustainability is multifaceted.

“As we know, sustainability is more than just the environment. We have to address not only this mobility and logistics, but there are social things we have to address as well. We have to look at our processes and governance,” Villarin said.

The report follows the stringent Global Reporting Initiative standards and is streamlined with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Data was collected from all units of the university from Ateneo Grade School to the Ateneo Professional Schools.

In this photo made from footage provided by the Russian Defense Ministry on July 15, medical workers in protective gear prepare to draw blood from volunteers participating in a trial of a coronavirus vaccine at the Budenko Main Military Hospital outside Moscow, Russia.

Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

of the very foundations of clinical research, Russian law and universally accepted international regulations” the group said in an open letter to the government, urging scientists and health officials to adhere to clinical research standards.

But a month later, the Health Ministry authorized clinical trials of the Gamaleya product, with what appeared to be another ethical issue.

Human studies started June 17 among 76 volunteers. Half were injected with a vaccine in liquid form and the other half with a vaccine that came as soluble powder.

Some in the first half were recruited from the military, which raised concerns that servicemen may have been pressured to participate.

Some experts said their desire to perform well would affect the findings.

“It’s no coincidence media reports we see about the trials among the military said no one had any side effects, while the [other group] reported

some,” said Vasily Vlassov, a public health expert with Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.

As the trials were declared completed and looming regulatory approval was announced last week, questions arose about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.

Government assurances the drug produced the desired immune response and caused no significant side effects were hardly convincing without published scientific data describing the findings.

The World Health Organization said all vaccine candidates should go through full stages of testing before being rolled out.

“There are established practices and there are guidelines out,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said on Tuesday. “Between finding or having a clue of maybe having a vaccine that works, and having gone through all the stages, is a big difference.”

Offering an unsafe compound to

medical workers on the front lines of the outbreak could make things worse, Georgetown’s Gostin said, adding: “What if the vaccine started killing them or making them very ill?”

Vaccines that are not properly tested can cause harm in many ways— from a negative impact on health to creating a false sense of security or undermining trust in vaccinations, said Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“It takes several years to develop any drug,” said Svetlana Zavidova, executive director of Russia’s Association of Clinical Trials Organizations.

“Selling something the Gamaleya [institute] tested on 76 volunteers during Phase 1-2 trials as a finished product is just not serious.”

Russia has not yet published any scientific data from its first clinical trials. The WHO’s list of vaccine candidates in human testing still lists the Gamaleya product as in Phase 1 trials.

It uses a different virus—the common cold-causing adenovirus—that’s been modified to carry genes for the “spike” protein that coats the coronavirus, as a way to prime the body to recognize if a real COVID-19 infection comes along.

That’s similar to vaccines being developed by China’s CanSino Biologics and Britain’s Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

It’s not the first controversial vaccine Russia developed. Putin mentioned earlier this year that Russian scientists delivered an Ebola vaccine that “proved to be the most effective in the world” and “made a real contribution to fighting the Ebola fever in Africa.”

Russia’s Health Ministry authorized two Ebola vaccines for domestic use—one in 2015 and another one in

2018—but there is little evidence either was widely used in Africa.

In 2019, the WHO considered the 2015 vaccine along with several others for use in Congo, but didn’t pick it. It pointed out that it had been approved for emergency use after Phase 1 and 2 trials, but not Phase 3.

According to ClinicalTrials.Gov, a web site maintained by the US National Institutes of Health, a study among 2,000 people in Guinea and Russia was still ongoing last month.

The 2018 Ebola vaccine, according to the WHO, was tested on 300 volunteers in Russia and completed all three phases.

The Associated Press couldn’t find any records of the studies in the Health Ministry’s registry of approved clinical trials. As of 2019, both Ebola vaccines were listed by the WHO as “candidate vaccines.”

Russia’s Health Ministry did not respond to numerous requests for comment, and the Gamaleya institute referred an interview request to the ministry.

It remains unclear whether Phase 3 trials, said to be carried out after the Covid-19 vaccine receives “conditional approval,” will wrap up by October, when health officials plan to start mass vaccinations, and how trustworthy the results will be.

The study will supposedly involve 1,600 participants—800 for each of the two forms of the vaccine; in comparison, a similar Phase 3 trial in the US includes 30,000 people.

According to Dmitriev, countries including Brazil and India have expressed interest in the vaccine.

For Lawrence Gostin, this is another cause for concern.

“There may be many people in the world who don’t care about the ethics and just want the vaccine,” he said. AP

2020 Natl Informatics Olympiad set online

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fter nabbing a bronze medal in last year’s International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), the organizers behind the country’s participation in the prestigious plum are wasting no time—pandemic and all—to put together the best team to challenge the world in programming.

This, as the National Olympiad in Informatics-Philippines (NOI.PH) Finals kicked off last August 8 to serve as the selection phase to determine the official representatives for this year’s IOI. The NOI.PH is an annual programming contest for Filipino high school students organized by the group of the same name. The winners who will compose the national team will be announced on August 9.

Last year, Dan Alden Baterisna from De La Salle University Senior High School won a bronze medal at the 31st IOI held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from August 4 to 11, 2019.

Baterisna was joined by Dion Stephan Ong from the Ateneo de Manila Senior High School, Steven Reyes from Saint Jude Catholic School, and Ron Mikhael Surara from Philippine Science High School-Bicol Region Campus.

The IOI is a competitive programming competition for secondary-

Last year’s national team members at the 31st IOI held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in August 2019 are (from left) Ron Mikhael Surara from Philippine Science High School-Bicol Region Campus, Dion Stephan Ong from the Ateneo de Manila Senior High School, Dan Alden Baterisna from De La Salle University Senior High School and Steven Reyes from Saint Jude Catholic School. NOI.PH photo school students from more than 80 countries a year.

It involves a series of individual contests on computer prog ra mming, hence, each participant is awarded a medal depending on his/ her final score.

Last year’s IOI tallied a total of 322 participants from 83 countries.

For the NOI.PH, 30 finalists look

to battle for the precious spots in the national team roster.

The top two students in the NOI Finals will automatically take the first two slots. The remaining two slots will be chosen based on their performances in the NOI Training season.

Because of the pandemic, the NOI. PH Finals—and possibly, the training season—will be done online.

Marte Soliza, who is among the organizers of NOI.PH, is positive that the competition will promote programming as an expertise among the youth.

“In this digital age, you need computational thinking to thrive. Cultivating that is one of our goals as we train high-school students and challenge them in the NOI Finals.

Although there are unfamiliar challenges to overcome, we are fortunate enough to push this event through despite the pandemic,” Soliza said.

He also thanked the Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) for backing the competition and the country’s participation in the IOI. “We thank the DOST-SEI for their timely support without which we might’ve fallen from our crutches,” he noted.

Dr. Josette Biyo, DOST-SEI’s director, likewise thanked NOI.PH for providing a platform in developing the country’s future problem solvers.

“We thank NOI for sustaining this program that manifests your belief in the excellence of our students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This year’s NOI will surely be a showcase of gifts in coding or programming,” Biyo said.

U.S. kids, parents perform D.I.Y. tests for coronavirus science

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n a comfy suburb just outside Nashville, a young family swabs their noses twice a month in a DIY study seeking answers to some of the most vexing questions about the coronavirus.

How many US children and teens are infected? How many kids who are infected show no symptoms? How likely are they to spread it to other kids and adults?

“The bottom line is we just don’t know yet the degree to which children can transmit the virus,” said Dr. Tina Hartert of Vanderbilt University, who is leading the government-funded study.

Evidence from the US, China and Europe shows children are less likely to become infected with the virus than adults and also less likely to become seriously ill when they do get sick.

There is also data suggesting that young children don’t spread the virus very often but that kids aged 10 and up may spread it just as easily as adults. The new study aims to find more solid proof.

“If we don’t see significant transmission within households, that would be very reassuring,”Hartert said.

Some 2,000 families in 11 US cities are enrolled in the DIY experiment, pulled from participants in previous government research.

In all, that’s 6,000 people. They have no in-person

contact with researchers. Testing supplies are mailed to their homes.

They collect their own nasal swabs for Covid-19 tests, and less often blood and stool samples.

The specimens are mailed to the study organizers.

Participants get text messages asking about symptoms and reminding them to test and they fill out questionnaires.

The study could help determine the safety of inclass education during the pandemic. But results aren’t expected before year’s end.

For Mendy and Joe McNulty and their two youngest sons in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, nasal swabbing at home is a family affair.

Testing supplies are spread out on a carefully wiped down kitchen counter, where the four gather to perform what has become a ritual. Mendy McNulty helps the boys with their swabbing.

“We were excited to be able to feel like we could contribute somehow,” she said, explaining why the family chose to participate. “This virus is so unknown.

Any little bit we can do felt like we were doing something to help.”

It’s hard to pin down the exact number of Covid-19 cases in kids. The Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention says at least 175,000 cases have been confirmed in those aged 17 and under, accounting for less than 10 percent of all confirmed cases.

But the true number is likely much higher because many kids have silent infections or only vague symptoms and don’t get tested.

Data on kids and coronavirus spread is also murky.

Hundreds of infections have been reported in children and staff members at US day care centers, but whether kids or adults were the main spreaders isn’t known.

The family study is also investigating whether children with asthma or allergies might have some protection against Covid-19.

Anecdotal evidence suggests they might but ”we don’t know what the mechanism of that might be,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The institute is paying for the research.

As a mom, former school teacher and scientist, Hartert is anxious to help fill in the gaps. She acknowledges it’s possible that none of the families will get infected, but given the number of Covid-19 cases around the country, she says that’s highly unlikely.

Mendy McNulty says so far her family has remained

healthy. She and her husband are both 39 and don’t feel overly worried about getting infected.

She’s interested in what happens when her kids return to school in mid-August—two classroom days a week with masks and social distancing, three days online.

“Schools are like little petri dishes anyway,” said McNulty, also a former teacher.

“I am prepared to bring everyone home”if outbreaks occur, she said.

The boys—seven-year-old Andrew and nineyear-old Hudson—were excited to take part in the study, McNulty said.

She helps them do the nose swabbing, and they both say it doesn’t really hurt.

“Sometimes it tickles,” Andrew said. Other times, “it feels like she’s sticking it up super far.”

Dr. David Kimberlin says he and other infectious disease specialists have been waiting for the kind of data the study will provide.

“Generally speaking, the virus behaves differently in children than adults,” said Kimberlin, a pediatrics professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “Why is that? We just need to know so much more.” AP

Faith A6 Sunday, August 9, 2020

Sunday

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion •www.businessmirror.com.ph

CBCP to the public: Stay home, help the frontliners

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he social action arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) recently urged the public to do their share in the fight against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) by staying home.

Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo, the national director of National Secretariat for Social Action/Caritas Philippines, said the people will greatly help the frontliners by not leaving their homes.

“Staying home is the only way everyone can show solidarity and compassion to our frontliners. Let’s do everything we can to help them,” he said in a statement.

President Duterte, in a late Sunday night public address, announced that Metro Manila, Bu lacan, Cav ite, Lag una and Rizal would be reverted to more str ingent modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ ) from August 4 to 18 from general community quarantine.

Duterte made the decision in response to the medical frontliners’ appeal for a two-week “timeout” to address “health-care work force deficiency, failure of case finding and isolation, failure of contact tracing and quarantine, transportation safety and workplace-safety public compliance.” as infections surged beyond 100,000.

As of August 5, the number of Covid-19 cases in the Philippines jumped to 115,980 with 3,462 new cases, the Department of Health reported 3,226 new Covid-19 infections.

Bishop: Fight vs Covid-19 is ‘everybody’s responsibility’

Another Catholic bishop said efforts to thwart the coronavirus won’t work unless the public “would do their part.”

Bishop Roberto Gaa of Novaliches said the fight against the pandemic

is everybody’s responsibility.

“First, we should take care of ourselves. Let us not pass this responsibility to others,” Gaa said.

“And if we do that, we also take care of our family and all the people we meet,” he said.

The bishop was urging the public to strictly follow the advised health protocols and avoid going out if not necessary.

According to him, this is a time to act together in order to combat a threat of this scale.

“If we do our part, we are also helping our [medical] frontliners,” Gaa pointed out.

Masses offered every Wednesday

Diocese of Balanga Bishop Ruperto Santos announced he is offering the Holy Masses every Wednesday to all health-care workers, particularly in Bataan.

“We will dedicate the celebration of the Holy Eucharist every Wednesday as an offering to all the healthcare workers, most especially here in Bataan,” he said in a statement.

Public Masses suspended in 10 dioceses under MECQ

When the government issued new orders restricting movements, public Masses in Mega Manila and nearby areas were suspended anew.

Metro Manila and four provinces have been placed under a stricter quarantine status again from August 4 to 18.

Besides the Manila archdiocese, the MECQ covers nine other dio-

protocols such as physical distancing, wearing of face masks and frequent washing of hands.

“Our compliance w i l l help save lives and stem this virus,” Ongtioco said.

For his part, Bishop Jesse Mercado of Parañaque appealed, “Let us intensify our support to our beloved frontliners, especially our prayers for their strength and good health, as well as protection of their families against Covid-19.”

Faithful urged: Pray for priests amid pandemic

CBCP headquarters in Intramuros, Manila.

ceses: Cubao, Kalookan, Parañaque, Novaliches, Pasig, Antipolo, Imus, Malolos and San Pablo.

Religious gatherings in areas under MECQ would be highly restricted and limited to five persons.

However, Churches in areas under MECQ are holding online Masses everyday for the faithful.

Archdiocese of Manila responds to frontliners

Even before the government’s order, the Archdiocese of Manila and the dioceses of Cubao and Parañaque have already initiated a temporary suspension of public liturgical services for two weeks.

In a pastoral instruction issued on August 1, Bishop Broderick Pabillo said the decision was made in response to the appeal of the medical community for a “time out” to arrest the Covid-19 surge.

“As a response to the call of our medical people, all the Churches and shrines in the Archdiocese of Manila will revert to the period of the ECQ [enhanced community quarantine] protocols. We will not hold public religious activities from August 3 to August 14 but we continue our online religious activities. We will also use this time

to evaluate our Church response to the pandemic and see how we can improve them,” the diocese’s statement said.

“We share the compassion of the medical frontliners for the many sick people being brought to our hospitals. We have witnessed their dedicated service to those who come to them. Many among them are tired and even discouraged by their heavy responsibilities. So we support their appeal for a ‘timeout,’” Pabillo said.

“It seems that the current responses are not working because the cases are rising after four months-and-a-half of quarantine,” Pabillo said.

The archdiocese also asked the public to pray for frontliners, those affected by the deadly disease and their families.

Other dioceses that also suspended the holding of public Masses are Cubao, Parañaque, Pasig, Novaliches and Malolos.

Bishop Honesto Ongtioco of Cubao said the situation also calls for the Church to evaluate how it can better help those who are suffering.

He asked the faithful “to be diligent” in practicing simple health

The CBCP urged the faithful to offer prayers for all priests around the world, especially Filipino priests who continue to serve and spread the word of God amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Let’s pray for our priests for them to continue their mission, the celebration of Masses and the spread of the Good News,” said San Pablo Bishop Buenaventura Famadico, chairman of the CBCP’s Episcopal Commission on Clergy in an interview over Church-run Radio Veritas.

The statement was issued in connection with the celebration of the recent feast of St. John Vianney, the patron of priests.

Famadico expressed hope that priests will continue to respond to the needs of the faithful, particularly to the less fortunate who are the most affected by the crisis as they have lost their source of income.

He believes that their compassion will help the people to feel the love of the Lord in the midst of the crisis the public is experiencing right now.

“In such spirit, they will be able to make the faithful feel that Jesus is with them and He will not forsake us,” Famadico said.

He a lso asked to pray for priests all over the world, numbering to 400,000, wherein 2 percent or more than 10,000 priests,

are serving in the Philippines, a predominantly Roman Catholic country.

Pabillo now Covid-19 negative; Iñiguez ill

Meanwhile, Bishop Pabillo is now negative for Covid-19, after announcing on July 23 that he had contracted the disease.

However, Kalookan Emeritus Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez tested positive for Covid-19 on August 1.

He is now receiving treatment at a hospital, said Kalookan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David during his Mass at the San Roque Cathedral.

Speaking at a webinar, the administrator of the Manila archdiocese thanked those who prayed for his fast recovery.

“I have no more virus,” Pabillo said. “I attribute this to your prayers. Prayers are really powerful.”

The prelate earlier said he is asymptomatic.

Since his retirement in 2013, Iñiguez has been staying at the National Shrine and Parish of the Divine Mercy in Marilao, Bulacan.

According to the parish, the 79-year-old retired prelate is isolated in the hospital “but in stable condition.”

“We urge everyone for fervent prayers to ask the mercy of God for Bishop Deogracias’s speedy recovery,” the parish said.

As a safety precaution, services at the shrine have also been suspended until all priests and personnel in the rectory are tested negative from the virus.

“We assure the public that we are doing all necessary health protocols to stop the spread of the virus,” it said.

“May the Lord grant His healing grace to our beloved bishop Iñiguez and all the people affected by the disease,” David said.

Iñiguez is the second Catholic prelate to fall ill of Covid-19 after Pabillo. PNA and CBCP News

Religion and pandemic: A call for social coexistence N

EW YORK—”I have never been interested in religion or spirituality before, but I found myself tuning in to all sorts of online religion and spirituality related forums ‘in search of something.’”

These are the words of a 30-something single young, middle-class man (born into a ProtestantCatholic family background) in a European country.

The latter is known more for turning several Churches into museums or shopping centers, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

When people are afraid, lonely and alone—they tend to seek “something” beyond science.

A quarter of Americans say their faith has become stronger because of the pandemic, according to a Pew survey conducted from April 20 to 26 of 10,139 US adults.

Lives to pray But this is to be contrasted with the experiences of those from an older generation (60 plus) in the southern hemisphere, like my own 85-year-old Muslim father, who lives to pray.

For him, the mosque has, over the last decade since my mother’s death, become both his spiritual hub and social club.

His cohort is differing ages of retirees, who, in spite of very different political perspectives in a Middle Eastern country reflecting the now normal of intense polarization, treasure their prayerful community spaces.

This middle class (an endangered species to be sure) of retirees, share a sense of deep faith informing their social and political convictions.

For many of them, the lockdown was experienced primarily as an inability to go to the mosque, and, thus, as almost physically painful.

None of them countenanced the idea of online prayers, that doesn’t make any sense, they maintained.

Their sense of depression was almost palpable throughout the lockdown period, as was their joy at the reopening of some mosques.

Coronavirus barriers The coronavirus presents barriers to caring for the sick and to performing certain death and burial rites which are core religious practices, and especially needed in a pandemic that has already claimed nearly hundreds of thousands of lives.

In Sri Lanka for example, public health measures for safe burial practices have already challenged traditional rites, wherein authorities mandated cremations for Covid-19-linked deaths, despite the fact that cremation is supposed to be forbidden in Islam.

Covid-19 also complicates Jewish and Muslim burial practices of washing and cloaking bodies before burial, given concerns about transmission.

Innovative religious responses seeking to reconcile public health policies with traditional burial practices have been taking place.

In Israel, for example, bodies are wrapped in plastic before burial, and before that, ritual washing is completed while wearing full protective gear.

Some Islamic scholars are providing exegesis and guidance on how the ritual of washing the body prior to burials could be conducted safely while following Islamic principles.

This echoes what occurred during the Ebola crisis in West Africa. In fact, while Covid-19 differs from HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and Ebola, there are nevertheless some important similarities.

Critical lapses In cases of dealing with diseases where transmission affects large numbers of people, and vaccines and medication remain relatively hard to find and/or provide to all affected, beyond the health inequities which are underscored during such times, there are critical lapses by national and international authorities in acknowledging and supporting the role of religious leaders.

In fact, during previous outbreaks of HIV/ AIDS around the world, and of Ebola in Central and West Africa, the strengths of religious communities were rarely incorporated into public

Religions for Peace Inter-religious Council of Albania distributing Covid-19 relief supplies from the Multireligious Humanitarian Fund. Erzen Carja policy—until national and international secular authorities lose the plot.

Religions for Peace In Religions for Peace (RfP), the only multireligious organization representing all religious institutions and communities around the world with 90 national and six regional Inter-Religious Councils (IRCs), a founding mantra of caring for the most vulnerable is deeply embedded in all faith traditions.

As a result, religious institutions, communities a n d f a i t h - i n s p i re d / b a s e d n o n g ove rn m e nt organizations (FBOs or NGOs), as they are often referred to), have historically served as the original providers of essential social services.

In fact, FBOs are the first responders in most humanitarian emergencies. Their work includes providing spiritual sustenance for sure, but also hunger relief, heath care, and shelter.

This is not only a feature of the developing world. Samaritan’s Purse set up a health center at the height of the pandemic in Central Park—an icon of New York city.

Caritas, at one point, was feeding 5,000 people

a day, in Geneva, Switzerland.

For 50 years, RfP worked to equip its IRCs through the respective religious institutions and services to seek peace through advocating for human rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples, as well as women, religious minorities, the disabled, elderly, and youth.

It is also involved in mediating conflicts, providing emergency humanitarian relief, and contributing to sustainable development efforts, including health, nutrition, sanitation, education and environmental sustainability.

Multireligious collaboration The defining feature of RfP IRCs is multireligious collaboration. The main principles of this are representativity and subsidiarity.

In the case of the former, each IRC earns RfP affiliation by ensuring its governance represents each and all of the nations’ religious institutions and communities.

In return, each IRC is guaranteed its independence to determine its national/regional priorities, and its modus operandi.

Half a century of collaboration with several United Nations entities at different moments in time provides a comparative context to enable an assessment of how the UN works with some religious actors.

At the very least, this historical time-line of partnership efforts on peace and security, sustainable development and human rights, provides a learning context.

It is with that in mind that we can say that UN efforts in seeking partnerships with faith-based NGOs in facing the Covid-19 implications, are noticeably on the increase relative to pre-Covid dynamics.

Entities of the United Nations—like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations Children’s Fund, United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, World Health Organization, and even nonoperational entities like the SecretaryGeneral’s own office, as well as UN Office of Genocide Prevention and Responsibility to Protect—have, respectively, issued statements calling on religious leaders and actors to uphold their unique influences.

They also sought religious input on and in Covid-19 guidance documents, and hosted multiple consultations to strengthen myriad joint responses.

Resources for pandemic relief In working with multiple stakeholders, RfP research is revealing that while some religious charities are struggling to find resources to continue their services for communities, other FBOs are able to raise more resources for pandemic relief than anticipated.

This is particularly the case for Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist organizations in Asia, but also Muslim and Christian charities in Africa and the Middle East.

Almost 90 percent of RfP IRCs reported a 100-percent increase in engagement of their advocacy and messaging efforts from/by national governments, particularly as of May and June 2020—as compared to this time last year.

This is evidenced through national campaigns during religious occasions and holidays, as well as

local awareness-raising efforts by religious leaders in particular, as opposed to faith-based NGOs. Out of the Covid-19 response efforts tracked by 25 RfP IRCs in four regions, thanks to the Multireligious Humanitarian Fund administered by RfP, multireligious efforts are, on average, much harder to encourage than efforts administered by ecumenical or single religion organisations.

A rough estimate shows that out of the nearly 100 humanitarian assistance projects being tracked

by RfP in 40 countries in parts of Africa and Asia, only 1 percent involve multireligious efforts.

Several IRCs have also reported finding it harder to even advocate for multireligious collaboration to provide pandemic assistance (food and medicine packages) in conflict-impacted countries (i.e., to seek to mediate some of the conflicts and/or work with governments in mediation efforts).

Social coexistence While it is now almost a cliché to call for more partnerships with religious, or faith-based actors, this is simply not good enough.

FBOs, like many NGOs fully immersed in relief efforts, are finding several excuses not to work together.

Faced with a global pandemic, even the FBOs— ostensibly inspired by religious calls for serving all, including the most vulnerable—are less keen on collaborating across their multiple differences (institutional, theological, structural, financial and political), as they continue to serve millions.

Is it enough to serve all who need regardless of religious affiliation (the current bar against which religious NGOs are often measured by the UN and other international entities), or should a pandemic inspire more, and better collaboration among multireligious partners?

One can but wonder what the relative lack of religious NGO collaboration may foretell for social coexistence after the pandemic, not to mention what this lack of collaboration spells for the legitimacy of the so-called prophetic voice many of them speak of. Azza Karam/IPS

Biodiversity Sunday BusinessMirror

Asean Champions of Biodiversity Media Category 2014

Sunday, August 9, 2020

Editor: Lyn Resurreccion

A7

Protectors of Philippine tamaraw in peril

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By Jonathan L. Mayuga

inside the 106,655-hectare MIBNP, which hosts at least 480 of the estimated 600 remaining tamaraws on Mindoro.

he Philippine tamaraw, also known as the Mindoro dwarf buffalo, is the country’s most iconic land mammal.

Its population’s earlier decline was widely believed due to a deadly disease that continued until the 1960s, and hunting for food and trophy until not more than 100 of them were left in the wild.

In the 1970s, recognizing the importance of conserving and protecting the tamaraw, the Philippine government launched the Tamaraw Conservation Program (TCP) anchored on captivebreeding program.

Its known habitat, the hinterlands of Mindoro that includes vast portions of Mount Iglit and Mount Baco, were declared as sanctuary and conservation area.

The program has produced but one tamaraw—Kalibasib—short for kalikasan bagong sibol, or newly sprung nature, and would perhaps be the first and the last tamaraw bred in captivity.

Fortunately, a small population of the smaller but more aggressive cousin of the Philippine carabao has seen a slight but steady increase in the last decade—a sign of hope that the iconic animal will continue to roam the grasslands of Mindoro for years and years to come.

A keystone species Experts believe that the tamaraw is a keystone species.

Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) Executive Director Theresa Mundita S. Lim said protecting and conserving the tamaraw in its sanctuary and natural habitat is unique and iconic.

“First, the tamaraw is found only in Mindoro. It is iconic, one of the smallest buffalos in the world, and therefore, should be a source of national pride and pride for the people of Mindoro as well,” Lim told the BusinessMirror in an interview via Messenger on August 6.

A former director of the DENRBMB, Lim said more importantly, the

tamaraw is attached to the culture and traditions of the Mangyans and can be considered a keystone species.

“Its habitat is associated with other unique plants and animals found only in Mindoro. Its survival, therefore, can be an indication of the health of other species it is associated with, as well as the effective functioning of the ecosystem, where they are naturally found, and one of their known habitats is Mounts Iglit-Baco,” she explained.

Asean Heritage Park Str addling adjacent mountain range territories from which it got its name, Mounts Iglit-Baco National Park (MIBNP) is covered under the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act. Considered to be a conservation area of great value not only to the Philippines but to the Southeast Asian region, it is fitting of the designation as an Asean Heritage Park (AHP).

Home to some of the island’s endemic species like the tamaraw, the area is a gene pool of threatened flora and fauna, including some that cannot be found anywhere else in the world, except on Mindoro Island.

According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Biodiversity Management Bureau (DENR-BMB), other important species can be found on Mounts Iglit-Baco.

These are the Philippine deer, wild pig and Mindoro cloud rat.

Endemic bird species there include the Mindoro imperial pigeon, Mindoro scops owl, black-hooped coucal, scarlet-collared f lowerpecker and heart pigeon.

ACB priority area According to Lim, Mounts Iglit-Baco National Park, being an AHP—a title bestowed upon national parks that are

ACB chief: Stimulus needed for post-Covid-19 tourism

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cotour ism sites and the communities relying on them must be supported through an economic stimulus to help them prepare for the anticipated resurgence of nature travels in the post-Covid-19 pandemic period, the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) said.

ACB Executive Director Theresa Mundita S. Lim pointed out that losses from tourism revenues of ecotourism sites and their communities are a major concern as efforts to conserve and protect ecosystems and their rich biodiversity may be directly affected due to financial constraints.

“One immediate solution is the provision of economic stimulus for communities whose livelihoods are dependent on ecotourism and have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic,” Lim said in an episode of the “Ecotourism Opportunities” webinar series on July 31.

The webinar series is an initiative of the International School of Sustainable Tourism (ISST) Philippines in partnership with Global Ecotourism Network and Asian Ecotourism Network and Green Architecture Advocacy Philippines.

“Including ecotourism in the economic stimulus programs as immediate and appropriate support for the communities may relieve mounting pressures on the ecosystems, such as poaching, overfishing, illegal logging,” Lim said in an ACB news release.

Tourism is one of the industries worst hit by Covid-19, as mandatory restrictions in movements halted local and international leisure travels.

Citing the International Labour

Organization (ILO) data, 15.6 million jobs and livelihood in the tourism sector in the Asia Pacific are affected by the pandemic.

Lim, however, underlined the reasons why the ecotourism sector should maintain nature attractions and prepare for the post-Covid 19 scenarios.

“What the sector is experiencing now is temporary. Once lockdowns and travel restrictions are lifted, people will want to be closer to nature,” she said.

Citing the global report of Campaign for Nature, which was released in July 2020, Lim said as the global tourism grows at 4 percent to 6 percent annually on average, the financial and economic benefits of nature conservation outweigh the costs.

“Based on these scientific studies, ecotourism, which coexists harmoniously with biodiversity conservation, has a significant economic contribution, especially in the post-pandemic scenario,” Lim said.

Joining Lim in the webinar was Albert Teo Chin Kion, founder of Borneo Eco Tours and Sukau Rainforest Lodge in Sabah.

Kion talked about the highs and lows of running an ecotourism company and how ecotourism benefited communities and contributed to the conservation of Sabah’s natural resources.

Dr. Mina Gabor, president and founder of ISST Philippines, said that “biodiversity will have to be part of the ecotourism planning” and that greater focus must be given on the livelihood component of ecotourism, especially during a pandemic, the news release said.

Covid-19 impact

A Taw’buid tribesman is armed with a tulag (spear) inside the Iglit-Baco Mountain Range.

Indigenous tribesmen are employed as porters, scouts and trackers and serve to educate their fellow tribesfolk about the merits of protecting the land. Gregg Yan/National Geographic Channel considered “best of the best” in Southeast Asia—receives priority attention from the ACB for capacity building of the park staff.

The ACB has provided assistance to the national park’s law enforcement and monitoring program, through equipment, such as Global Positioning Satellite, camera body and lens, laptops, hand-held radio and binoculars.

It suppor ted tra ining on law enforcement and protected area management.

ACB’s livelihood support is consistent with the management plan, i nc lud i ng t he est abl i sh ment of model sustainable communal and agro-forestry farms.

The interventions of ACB in Mounts Iglit-Baco, Lim said, is largely through its Biodiversity Conservation and Management of Protected Areas in the Asean Project, which is a partnership with the European Union.

“We are allocating some amount this year to support possible livelihood programs for selected communities as part of our economic stimulus for AHPs, whose revenue from tourism have been affected by the [coronavirus disease] Covid-19 lockdown. We hope that this should help them to continue to be our partners in protecting AHPs,” Lim said.

Expanding territories DENR Assistant Secretary Ricardo

Calderon said despite funding problems, efforts to protect and conserve the Philippine tamaraw is paying off.

“Over the years, there’s a steady increase in the number of tamaraws.

We have also received sightings outside Mounts Iglit-Baco,” Calderon told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview on August 5.

He said sightings in the nearby Mount Calavite National Park, a game refuge and bird sanctuary in Occidental Mindoro, was welcome news.

“We are considering the inclusion of some areas outside Mounts Iglit-Baco in the annual tamaraw count,” said Calderon, concurrent director of the DENR-BMB .

Protectors in peril A forestry expert, Calderon said the tamaraw going beyond its known habitat is expected and is encouraged by the fact that the forest on the island is expanding, thanks to the protectors of Mounts Iglit-Baco and tamaraw.

The park’s wardens serve as guides and porters for tourism and research expeditions, while both the TCP and park rangers keep poachers at bay in case the Covid-19 quarantine entices some to illegally enter the park and hunt animals.

However, only 23 TCP rangers and three MIBNP wardens are currently patrolling a core area of 2,500 hectares

Faced with funding woes, which were aggravated by lockdown in many areas in the country to prevent the spread of Covid-19 pandemic since last March, the protectors of the tamaraw and their habitat are in danger of losing their jobs.

Actually even before the pandemic, the national park was already experiencing a funding problem. This was the reason for the launching of the #TogetherforTamaraws campaign last month.

Calderon said the pandemic caused the stop of the income generated through ecotourism. Many of the national park and tamaraw protectors were laid off just last month.

He said before the lockdown, the income from ecotourism, through the entrance fees collected from visitors to Mounts Iglit-Baco are fueling the operation of the protected area.

Wanted: More conservation partner “Unlike the Philippine eagle, the tamaraw conservation is not getting much support from the private sector,” Calderon said.

He said the adopt-a-species program of the DENR-BMB has fetched benefactors for the Philippine eagle.

Multinational corporations allocate funding from their various corporate social responsibility units that make the conservation of the iconic bird of prey more successful.

“If you noticed, more and more eagles are being discovered and rescued because of successful campaigns to protect and conserve the Philippine eagle with the support of the private sector,” Calderon said.

According to Biodiversity Finance Initiative (Biofin) Philippines, one of the 24 TCP rangers, together with 32 of the 35 Taw’buid, Buid and Iraya tribal wardens who patrol the area to deter tamaraw hunters and poachers, have lost their jobs due to the MINBP’s closure following community quarantine measures.

Tamaraw Society

On July 31, as part of the celebration of the World Ranger Day, the Philippine Parks and Biodiversity, a not-for-profit nongovernment organization, launched the Tamaraw Society in an effort to unite 20 champions of the tamaraw and their protectors, the group said in a news release.

There are currently nine champions that have committed to the group’s cause.

They are the World Wildlife Fund for Nature-Philippines, Masungi Georeserve, Eco Explorations, D’Aboville Foundation, Planet Cora, Fund the Forest, Echoheroes, Kids for Kids and Oscar Lopez Jr. Each of the initial 20 champions were called to commit a financial aid of P20,000 in support of #TogetherforTamaraws campaign of Biofin Philippines project under the United Nations Development Programme, the DENR-BMB and Mimaropa Regional Office.

The fund campaign aims to raise at least P1 million to cover for the half a year’s worth of salaries for the wardens and rangers whose livelihood is affected by the pandemic, the news release said.

The fund campaign’s proceeds will be disbursed through the TCP under the DENR.

‘Bayanihan’ for tamaraw “Our campaign is a Covid-19 emergency response to unite concerned groups by securing the much-needed salaries and allowances for the retrenched [tamaraw] frontliners who protect them,” PH Parks and Biodiversity representatives Nella Lomotan and Ann Dumaliang said in a joint statement.

For his part, Onno van den Heuvel, Biofin Global Project manager, said: “Exotic places like the Iglit-Baco mountain range might seem distant to most people, but they must be conserved. Rangers and wardens need and deserve our support to keep doing good conservation work.”

“This pandemic should bring forth empathy and not drive us to apathy,” Occidental Mindoro Rep. Josephine Ramirez-Sato said. “Let us all show the spirit of bayanihan by helping our rangers and wardens in saving the tamaraw.”

Manila embarks on cleaner, safer air T

he City of Manila has embarked on the landmark Asia Blue Skies Program to bring science-based air quality solutions to the Philippine capital.

Dubbed as “Hinga Maynila” (Breathe Manila) by the local government unit of Manila, the initiative has a vision of a cleaner air and a healthier, more livable urban environment.

Under the stewardship of Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, and in alignment with the city’s Bagong Maynila (New Manila) initiative, the 449-year-old city is partnering with international nongovernment organization Clean Air Asia and science company 3M on the five-year program that kicked off in November 2019, a 3M news release said.

The initiative aims to improve the air quality in the second most-populous city in Metropolitan Manila, and advance the Clean Air Initiative announced by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in July 2019.

Over the next five years, 3M will assist Clean Air Asia in its efforts to assess baseline air quality conditions, design capacity-building programs for air quality management, implement awareness and education campaigns, develop Clean Air Action Plans with selected city and district governments, and measure the resulting impact

on air pollution levels.

According to a 2018 Clean Air Asia analysis on ambient air quality in Asia, 98 percent of Asian cities are still at risk of the health impacts of exposure to PM2.5—the particles that are 20 times smaller than the width of a human hair, the news release said.

Because of their size, the particles are able to pass directly into the bloodstream and lungs, and have been linked with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, asthma, cancers and other serious health conditions.

PM2.5 in the air predominantly emanates from combustion processes from industries, powerplants, vehicles, and other burning activities.

The same report also found that the inadequate response of cities to this health threat was attributed to weak institutional capacity, gaps in policies, a lack of awareness of the health and environmental impacts, a lack of information about technology solutions, and the absence of financial support for clean air measures.

In response to this, the historic City of Manila, home to nearly 1.8 million residents, has committed to achieving safer air quality and to meeting the World Health Organization’s air quality targets by 2030.

“As one of the densest cities in the region, the City of Manila recognizes the need to improve air quality.

We are dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of our people by eliminating the imminent risks that air pollution poses,” Domagoso said.

“By doing so, we are not only preserving the rich culture and strong heritage of the city, but also ensuring that it will thrive for the generations to come,” he added.

“With the data and expertise provided by Clean Air Asia and the genuine cwommitment of 3M to sustainability, I’m convinced that in five years’ time, residents will be able to enjoy safer and cleaner air, and I’m hopeful that other cities will follow suit.”

To achieve these goals, Clean Air Asia and 3M will spend the next five years assessing baseline air quality conditions, designing capacity-building programs for air quality management, undertaking awarenessraising and education campaigns, developing a Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP), and measuring the resulting impact on air pollution levels, 3M said.

The first year will involve the development of the CAAP, while the second and third years are focused on implementation of the CAAP. The fourth and fifth years will deal on scaling up the air quality solutions to other cities.

“We advocate for an evidence-based and participatory approach to addressing air pollution,”

said Clean Air Asia Deputy Executive Director Glynda Bathan-Baterina. “This is demonstrated by the Asia Blue Skies Program, wherein the development and implementation of science-based clean air action is at the very core of a sound air quality management system.”

“3M has accelerated its long-standing commitment to sustainability over the past year, in both strategy and action. Science is in everything we do, and the ultimate goal is to make lives better through it,” said 3M Philippines’s Country Leader Bettina Luz. With air pollution being one of the more pressing health and environmental threats in urbanized areas around the world, "we are actively seeking ways to support cities where it is critical,” Luz said.

“Working with the Philippines and the City of Manila gives us an opportunity to help where we can to improve the lives of Filipinos. And working together with the local government of Manila alongside Clean Air Asia is a great example of collaboration crucial to nation-building,” she explained.

Earlier this year, three air quality sensors were installed in Manila City to gather baseline data that, together with an emissions inventory and health mapping, will form the basis of the city’s CAAP, to be mapped out by the end of the year, the news release said.

Vietnam bans wildlife imports, markets amid new health fears

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ANOI, Vietnam—Vietnam announced recently that it was banning wildlife imports and would close wildlife markets in response to renewed concerns about the threat from diseases that can jump from animals to humans, such as the virus that causes Covid-19.

An order signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc bans all imports of wildlife dead or alive that includes eggs and larvae.

It also merits tougher penalties for crimes involving the trade in wildlife.

Vietnam has been a popular destination for wildlife products—often from endangered species—that are used in traditional medicine or in preparing exotic cuisine.

Th e g o v e r n m e n t ’s m o v e c o m e s a m i d increased scrutiny of the health risks of the wildlife trade as the world deals with the new coronavirus, which is thought to have jumped from animals to humans.

“The existence of wildlife markets in many locations has been a big problem in Vietnam for a long time,” said Phuong Tham, country director for the Humane Society International Vietnam.

“This rapacious appetite for wildlife is endangering not just these species’s survival, but as we have seen with the coronavirus outbreak, it is endangering people’s lives too. So this ban can’t come soon enough,” Tham said.

The new directive includes recommendations

that conservationists have been making for years, including cracking down on domestic markets, said Steve Galster, the director of Freeland, a group working on ending the wildlife trade.

“Covid-19 elevated the issue of wildlife trade, so Vietnamese lawmakers got involved with the issue in the past few months and helped push the directive forward,” he said.

The directive is not perfect as it still has exceptions that will allow some trade in wild animals to continue, but it is a good start and can hopefully made stronger over time, Galster said.

The Australian government welcomed the decision. Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said Vietnam’s crackdown was a huge win for

global public health.

“Vietnam is reducing the risk of future pandemics and showing the world how we can manage these markets into the future,” Littleproud said.

“All nations have a responsibility to keep people safe from harm and regulating the production and sale of wild animals that carry diseases is a critical part of that,” he added.

He said the Vietnamese government should be congratulated for their leadership in taking “evidence-based approach to reducing the risk of animal to human diseases being spread. Australia will also continue to pursue global reforms on this issue where other opportunities exist.” AP

From Olympic speedskater to major leaguer THE Olympic rings are seen on the knob of Miami Marlins’ Eddy Alvarez’s bat. AP

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O those overserved boors who insist on screaming “Mashed Potatoes!” every time Dustin Johnson or Brooks Koepka unloads with their driver, we have one simple request for you.

Please come back.

For this week at the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) championship, the same goes for every lunkhead who snapped a photo in the middle of a backswing, every 50-year-old who crowded out a kid in an autograph line, every scampering porta-potty seeker who incurred the wrath of an over-officious caddie.

When golf returned eight weeks ago from its coronavirus-inflicted hiatus, we were grateful.

Grateful simply to have something new, and live, to watch. Someone to cheer for. Or against. Only problem: There was hardly any cheering. And, as Rory McIlroy put it about midway through a largely silent, largely joyless, very sanitized restart to the 2020 season: “Every tournament has felt the same.“ Now the stakes are higher. It’s the PGA. The year’s first major under the pandemic-shuffled schedule. Players are making their way around the grounds of Harding Park in San Francisco in virtual silence. And, true to McIlroy’s word, except for the marine layer, a few more stocking caps, that neck gaiter Tiger Woods is wearing and the live shots of players getting ready for their rounds in the parking lot, this one looks the same as they all have this year: empty, silent, sterile.

“You miss the positivity, the energy,” said Martin Kaymer, whose round of 4-under 66 put him within one of the lead after the morning action Thursday. “But you have to create it somehow yourself.”

The day began with the usual pomp of the

opening-tee introductions. “Now on the tee, please welcome, from Dallas, Texas, Scottie Scheffler.” The starter used a microphone. Why? Some things never change. Woods still draws the biggest crowds. But it was only reporters and cameramen following him around the course, this time. And Koepka, in search of his third straight PGA title, still plays under the radar. Of course, this week, he’s not the only one not being seen.

“That’s the way it’s going to be for the foreseeable future, unfortunately,” McIlroy said.

The PGA trimmed its roster of volunteers from around 3,500 to fewer than 300 for a tournament that was supposed to take place in May but is now taking place in August.

There is no need for crowd control, for shuttle buses, for people taking your credit card at the merchandise tent, which has been converted into what might just be the largest player’s locker room in golf history.

“I’ve played in tournaments where there’s nobody around so it’s kind of normal for me,” said Jeff Hart, one of the 20 club pros in the field this week. “But it was odd, and it was just— you didn’t even feel like you were at a major championship.”

About halfway through the day, journeyman Bud Cauley made a snaking, 70-foot putt for a birdie that pulled him within one shot of the lead. It was so quiet out there, you could hear the ball hit the bottom of the cup. Adam Hadwin started his afternoon by jarring the ball off the stick and into the hole on No. 1 for an eagle. He received warm applause from the 20-or-so volunteers, staff and scorers surrounding the green.

But if you’re inside the gates, you are among

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IAMI Marlins Manager Don Mattingly knew about Eddy Alvarez’s background as an Olympic medalist in speedskating, and also knew that didn’t necessarily mean he could hit a slider.

After all, Alvarez was a 30-year-old infielder still stuck in the Marlins’ farm system.

Then in spring training, and again during summer camp, Mattingly had a chance to check Alvarez out. And this week, Alvarez finally reached the majors.

“I told him, it was like, ‘Eddy, it’s good to have you. You’re better than I would have ever thought,’” Mattingly said with a laugh.

Alvarez put his major league dreams on hold to pursue success in speedskating, an odd choice for a youngster born to Cuban parents and raised in Miami, where ice can be hard to find.

He made the right decision, winning a silver

at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. And this week he achieved another goal by making his major league debut.

“I’ve literally had dreams of that moment since I was a kid, no joke, about stepping in for my first at-bat,” Alvarez said Thursday. “But I got to skate in front of 25,000 people in an arena, and that prepared me for a future in athletics. It’s pretty similar—I had the same jitters walking in the opening ceremonies as I did hearing the announcer say it was my big league debut.”

That came Wednesday, when Alvarez started both games in the Marlins’ doubleheader sweep at Baltimore. He’s part of the Marlins’ wave of reinforcements after a coronavirus outbreak sidelined more than half their team.

A 5-foot-9 switch-hitter, Alvarez went 0 for 5 in the doubleheader. But he showed his versatility by starting the first game at second base and the nightcap at third, and he can also play shortstop.

“I expect him to be successful,” Mattingly said. “He was trying a little hard, but I think he’s going to settle down. I expect him to play well.”

There are no doubts about Alvarez’s athleticism.

He was the leadoff skater for Team USA’s Olympic 5,000-meter short-track relay team that finished second to Russia in 2014.

Then, at age 24, Alvarez resumed his baseball career. He was signed by the Chicago White Sox and spent five years in their minor league system.

The Marlins acquired him in March 2019, and he batted .323 last year with a .978 OPS and 12 steals in 66 games for Triple-A New Orleans.

“We were pretty excited when we brought him into the organization,” Marlins President of Baseball Operations Michael Hill said. “We wanted to see how his athleticism translated on the baseball field, and he did a great job for us in New Orleans.”

Now Alvarez is part of an improbable story with the Marlins, who have surprised observers

by seizing first place in the National League East despite their patchwork roster.

Alvarez was in Miami with his significant other when he learned that after 581 games in the minors, he was being summoned to the big leagues.

“We’re expecting a baby in a couple of weeks. I kind of lost it on the couch with her,” he said. “I knew immediately I had to share the news with my parents, who live not even half a mile away from me. My bright idea was to yell at them through the window. I surprised them—something along the lines of ‘We did it!’”

Now the challenge is to stick in the majors.

“I’m as optimistic as I possibly can be,” Alvarez said. “We all deal with our inner pessimist. I’m a firm believer that positive thinking creates positive results.”

To help with that, Alvarez will carry with him a reminder of past success. The knob of his bat is adorned with the Olympic rings. AP

Sports BusinessMirror

SHHH...

QUIET PLEASE

A8 | S

unday, August 9, 2020 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

FANS look through holes in the fence along the 12th hole at TPC Harding Park on Thursday. AP

the lucky few who have undergone and passed Covid tests and been deemed essential to make this tournament run.

“We’re going to celebrate what we’ve got,” PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh said about the week’s eerily silent arrangement.

Not all fans were taking “no” for an answer.

Jason Day, whose 65 gave him the lead after the morning rounds were complete, spotted fans peering through a hole cut

through a blue tarp that walled off the 12th tee box from the outside. That’s as close as they’ll get this week.

“I actually miss playing in front of fans because you obviously work off that, especially in a major championship,” Day said.

This week, though, instead of fans surrounding the tee boxes, there are a hand-sanitizer dispensers. And instead of roars echoing through the cypress trees, it’s

Cyclists union reiterates call for standard barriers at races

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HE Professional Cyclists Association (CPA) asked the International Cycling Union (UCI) to open an investigation into the crash on the opening stage of the Tour de Pologne in which Fabio Jakobsen sustained severe injuries.

In a letter to UCI President David Lappartient and Tour de Pologne Director Agata Lang, CPA President Gianni Bugno reiterated his association’s call for universal standards to be imposed for barriers at finish areas and queried why the race organization had seen fit to hold a downhill finish in Katowice on a stage that was always likely to end in a bunch sprint.

The CPA also highlighted a need for “exemplary penalties” for riders who cause such crashes.

Jakobsen underwent five and a half hours of facial surgery overnight and the Dutch national champion remains in an induced coma in the intensive care unit in Sosnowiec, Poland. His Deceuninck-QuickStep team described his condition as “stable.”

Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) was disqualified from the Tour de Pologne for his part in the crash and fined CHF500, while the matter was referred to the UCI Disciplinary Commission.

In a statement on Wednesday evening, the UCI described Groenewegen’s behavior as “unacceptable,” but the governing body made no reference to the dangers of the stage finale and the apparent shortcomings in the barriers placed along the finishing straight.

“In the recording of the accident, the barriers seem way too low to guarantee a real protection in the event of a crash and they also seem insufficiently secured to the supports so as to ‘fly anywhere’ after the impact. Same as for the billboards placed alongside the race course,” Bugno wrote on behalf of the CPA. “We ask if a check has been carried out on the suitability of these protections and their correct installation before the start of the race,” he added.

In meetings of the UCI Technical and Regulation Working Group, Bugno added the CPA had repeatedly requested the use of barriers that “were both standard and approved” in order to safeguard riders.

“We deem it appropriate and urgent to accept our request for ‘approved barriers’ and

no longer allow the use of certain unsafe protections and freedom of choice for the organizers on the barriers to be used in the most critical points of the race,” Bugno wrote.

Speaking to Cyclingnews on Thursday, Robbie McEwen said that he had lobbied the UCI during his professional career to introduce a standard, metal barrier for race finishes that would help to deflect falling riders back onto the road.

“The barriers in Poland flew every which way, and it looked to me like they were made of plastic,” McEwen said. “One of them broke into pieces and that doesn’t happen with the metal ones. There’s a lot to be done in regard to safety in the last few hundred meters.”

The CPA letter also criticized the decision to finish the stage on a downhill section of road in Katowice, a finale that has featured repeatedly at the Tour de

the quiet congratulations of a fellow playing partner: “Nice shot. Great putt. Good one.”

But no “You Da Man.” No “Baba Booey!”

No “Get in the hole!” for a putt that has barely started rolling off a player’s putter.

Is that good? Or bad?

“It’s just different,” Woods said. “That’s probably the only way to say it. This is what we’re going to have to get used to in the near future, and probably for a while.” AP Pologne in recent years.

“The riders’ speed in such circumstances make the show certainly attractive but at too high a price for the athletes,” Bugno wrote.

“We therefore ask for a rethinking of downhill arrivals at races where mass sprints are expected.”

In his final point, Bugno asked that the UCI set an example by issuing “very severe” sanctions to riders whose actions lead to crashes.

“We ask that the penalties for riders who commit incorrect actions such as that committed by Dylan Grenewegen yesterday are very severe,” Bugno said. “The riders must be educated to respect their competitors through exemplary penalties so that the fair play and the sporting spirit never get missed.”

Cyclingnews Deceuninck-QuickStep team officials describe Fabio Jakobsen’s condition as “stable.”

‘The Loneliness Epidemic’

Where’s the sympathy for the lonely youth?

2

BusinessMirror AUGUST 9, 2020 | soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com

YOUR MUSI

NEXT GENERATION STORYTELLER Alec Benjamin bares his soul on ‘These Two Windows’

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AILED by TIME Magazine as a “storyteller for the next generation”, singer-songwriter Alec Benjamin recently released his debut album These Two Windows, which include fan favorite songs such as “Oh My God” and “Demons.”

Alec Benjamin

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Known for his honest storytelling woven seamlessly into the mellow instrumentals, the 26-year old Arizona native uses his words to grab people’s attention and speak volumes about his feelings and experiences. His debut album, These Two Windows, showcases his knack for storytelling as he navigates through life and the world he lives in through his own eyes.

“There’s not that many different stories that you can tell,” he confessed during an online interview, “but what differentiates one movie from another movie or a book from another book is the perspective. So I feel that what differentiates my record from another singer-songwriter’s record is my perspective on things.”

Inspired by artists who “tell stories” such as John Mayer, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jason Mraz, Alec was drawn to music at age 17 when he realized how much studying he had to do for a different career.

“Out of all the things that I could do for a career, this is probably like the best,” he admitted, “I guess I decided that this was what I wanted to do when I realized how much school I would have to go to do anything else.”

Alec first made a splash in the music scene with his mixtape Narrated for You in 2018 which garnered over a million sales worldwide and cracked Billboard’s Top 200 album chart. Seven songs including the big hits “If We Have Each Other” and “Let Me Down Slowly,” also released as a duet featuring Alessia Cara.

“Let Me Down Slowly” earned over 2 million cumulative streams in its first week. As of July 2020, has over 617 cumulative million streams. On YouTube, the combined lyric and music videos for the songs has generated over 400 million views to date.

Armed with a whole new perspective in songwriting, he followed it up with These Two Windows, a 2020 release that charted higher in the album chart and for the first time, introduced him to the UK market. The album again yielded seven singles including the popular streaming favorites, “Must Have Been The Wind” and “Oh, My God.”.

“Instead of telling stories, I took a look at myself. I thought about how I feel inside of my head. The songs are more on-the-nose. You’ll know what I’m thinking. There was stress.

There was pressure. I thought about giving up. I didn’t stop though.

I’m glad I didn’t. I knew the message was too important to me,” he said.

The album was worked on “sporadically” for over a year during his tour. Alec initially moved the record’s release back in hopes of refining it as soon as he returned from touring.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic struck as soon as he returned home, forcing him to release the finished recordings.

“I would have liked to have spent a little longer on it, but that’s okay. I can always add more music,” he stated.

Perhaps it was for the best.

The minimalist, lo-fi like melody provides an almost cinematic landscape for each of the songs, practically transporting you into his shoes. You feel everything and anything he was feeling in the song, the album’s cool tones and vocals providing a short yet immersive look into what it is like in that situation.

“I feel like I’m not in control of a lot of things happening in my life,” he says about the things he writes about. “So I just try to pick the best experiences, when big things happen in your life, I don’t know, I’m trying to figure it out right now.”

Alec Benjamin’s These Two Windows is now available on all streaming platforms worldwide.

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soundstrip.businessmirror@gmail.com | AUGUST 9, 2020

BUSINESS

3

RHYTHM & RHYME

by Kaye Villagomez-Losorata

Top 10 relevant lyrics from ‘Hamilton’ the movie

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MINEM’S “Stan” is 6 minutes and 44 seconds of pure storytelling genius. If you multiply “Stan’s” magnitude by a couple of hundreds, throw it on a stage and use American history as backdrop then you have Broadway’s “Hamilton,” said to be “America then, as told by America now.” “Hamilton’s” recent worldwide release reminded fans—and converted even more—about its relevance.

I’m not talking about lines from the show about love and heartbreak like these series from “Burn,” “You and your words flooded my senses/Your sentences left me defenseless/You built me palaces out of paragraphs/You built cathedrals” or that spot-on moment when Angelica rationalizes, “At least I keep his eyes in my life” in “Satisfied.” I’m talking about words that connect the ‘present us’ to the period play. Let’s see how much of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s poetry hits home these days.

“And no don’t change the subject coz you’re my favorite subject, my sweet submissive subject.” From “You’ll Be Back,” blurted out with a tinge of madness by Jonathan Groff’s King George. Today, we’re seeing massive displays of subjects, some of them congressmen who subjected 11,000 employees to an even more uncertain future.

“If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?” Miranda’s Alexander Hamilton said this to Leslie Odom, Jr.’s Aaron Burr in the song “Aaron Burr, Sir.” Philippine social media has been ablaze with press freedom issues. We see most people taking sides and it’s difficult to see families being divided by votes when love of family is one of the few remaining values we have.

But now, opposing voices are starting to display thickness that is more dense than blood’s.

“There are moments that the words don’t reach. There is a grace too powerful to name.

We push away what we can never understand. We push away the unimaginable.” From “It’s Quiet Uptown,” here’s when

Hamilton and wife Eliza nursed the unfathomable loss of their son.

Its impact extends to what we’re going through at a time when the world is on pandemic pause. There are a lot of things we couldn’t make sense out of no matter how hard we try so pushing them away becomes a band-aid.

“Dying is easy, living is harder.” When the most difficult of things continue to pile up like 162 COVID deaths in one day, it’s easy to be swayed by lyrics like this one from the number “Right Hand Man.” “Death doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints.” We’re still dealing with a virus that doesn’t discriminate either. From the song “Wait For It,” which also coughs out this gem of a verse: “Love doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes and we keep loving anyway.”

“Let me tell you what I wish I’d known. When I was young and dreamed of glory. You have no control: Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” Alexander Hamilton was lucky Miranda told his story. Right now though, we have an opportunity to shape one. We’re part of a history-bending generation that will eventually beat this pandemic.

When the dust settles, hopefully in a future that’s closer than the disorienting one we’re facing, we get to rise up and tell a story of survival.

These lines are from “History Has Its Eye On You.” “We want our leaders to save the day but we don’t get a say in what they trade away.” Lifted from that recall-positive “The Room Where It Happens,” sometimes justice and even lives are traded

Scenes from Hamilton (Photos courtesy of DisneyPlus)

for opportunities when those who “matter” talk behind closed doors, gambling with our future. This is not limited to leaders and politicians who give up public interest for personal agenda. It happens even in the corporate world or school communities. Those in power would usually use their position in meetings “where it happens.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes, I’ll make a million mistakes.” From the number “Dear Theodosia” where Hamilton and Burr are seen living parallel lives even when they have been and remained each other’s undoing. This line feels familiar because these days, we tend to experiment a lot with time unbelievably on our side compared to before-pandemic.

The slow-down accommodates mistakes in the kitchen or when we’re figuring out how to get through each day. It also allows us to separate the things that truly

matter from the ones we thought were our priorities.

“Corruption’s such an old song that we can sing along in harmony.” Enough said from the song “Non-Stop.”

“Legacy. What is legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see. I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me.” Lastly, from “The World Was Wide Enough,” we need “Hamilton” to remind us that this world made smaller and smaller by the pandemic is still wide enough to provide a future that will honor our resilience. And if this world gives space for resilience, healing shouldn’t be far behind.

The author is a former entertainment reporter and editor before shifting to corporate PR. Follow @kayevillagomez on Instagram and Twitter for more updates.

‘The Loneliness Epidemic’

Where’s the sympathy for the lonely youth?

By Sarah Green Carmichael

I

Bloomberg Opinion

magine a condition so bad for your health, it reduces your life expectancy as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

It weakens your immune system and carries an increased risk of dementia and heart disease. It even causes your wounds to heal more slowly and hurts your ability to recover from cancer.

There is one: loneliness.

Former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has been warning about the health effects of what he calls a “loneliness epidemic” since at least 2017, but his clarion call is carrying further these days, thanks in part to a perfectly timed new book and months of Covid-19-induced isolation.

I mention the physical health effects of loneliness because, in the face of a pandemic whose deadliness is as obvious as the refrigerated trucks parked outside hospitals, the world seems to have decided that people—especially younger people—who feel lonely right now are selfish, weak, entitled or simply bored. The Greatest Generation survived the Great Depression and fought World War II, after all, and today’s youth are merely being asked to binge on Netflix.

This glib comparison, a favorite jest of late-night comics, ignores the fact that connection is one of humanity’s most fundamental and basic needs. And while phone calls and video chats can keep people in touch, they’re not the same as getting together. Nor can people support one other quite as fully via technology. Videoconfer-

encing doesn’t let you babysit children or help a friend move.

There’s been lots of sympathy for lonely elders during the pandemic. Without diminishing their suffering, it’s worth asking: Can’t this same empathy be extended to lonely young people? Smooth skin and a full head of hair don’t lessen the pangs of isolation.

On the contrary, young people may feel even worse than their elders; surveys conducted before the pandemic found the highest rates of loneliness among the young and the lowest among people over the age of 72.

Younger people report higher rates of anxiety and depression as well, and the pandemic hasn’t changed that. In July, 47 percent of people under 30 reported feeling anxious, according to data published by the CDC, and that percentage drops steadily with age. Only 13 percent of people 80 and above reported symptoms of anxiety. Undergrad and graduate students are often able to access afford-

able mental health care through their colleges, but closing schools has made those resources harder to access.

Working people in their 20s have been more likely than older people to be laid off than older workers this spring. One in four workers under 25 have lost their jobs, and 13 percent of those aged 25 to 34. That has left them without not just health benefits, but also the sense of purpose and structure a job provides.

Work provides an important social scene for younger people. In general, people in their 20s are more likely than older people to value socializing and to make new friends, but this is especially true at work, where they form more personal bonds and say that such friendships improve their performance.

People under 35 are also less settled at home, generally living with family, roommates or an unmarried partner. Thinking back to my own 20s, a single year could involve all of these options. Friends provided the only ballast in a life of ever-

changing roommates, boyfriends and jobs. A pandemic would have rendered my 20s life unrecognizable.

That’s not the case now that I’m closer to the middle of life than its beginning. In fact, the age group perhaps least likely to be lonely right now is the 35-64 cohort—the most likely to be employed and the most likely to be living with a spouse, according to Census Bureau data.

Older folks may be better equipped to cope with isolation and more resilient in the face of adversity. The human brain changes throughout life, and people with older brains report higher levels of contentment and satisfaction, and are better at seeing things in perspective and concentrating. They’re better able to focus on the positive, less reactive to criticism and more accurate when it comes to reading other people’s feelings. The intense highs and lows of youth—the angst and agita—give way to the equanimity of maturity.

Those over 65 are more likely to live alone, which is a risk for loneliness. On the other hand, they’ve got practice at being on their own. Some retirees I’ve talked to say that the pandemic has barely changed their lives at all.

So, I’d like to see a little more understanding directed at the young. Shame discourages people from seeking treatment and it encourages them to lie about whether they’ve been exposed to Covid-19, making it harder to test and trace. If we don’t want people in their 20s going to bars, we should shut down bars—not reopen them and then yell at whose who show up.

Public policy to control Covid-19 cannot rely on shaming or harassing people into compliance. Yes, some young people could be doing a better job of social distancing.

But understand that, for them, it’s probably harder.

Study: Millennials think they’re ‘too boring’ to get hacked

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ver a third of millennials think they’re too boring to be the victim of cybercrime, despite the fact that online security ranks as the top factor in finding their “Digital Comfort Zones” at home, a new study by Kaspersky shows.

Kaspersky’s latest global report, titled “More Connected Than Ever Before: How We Build Our Digital Comfort Zones,” explores how we are changing our habits to ensure that we are comfortable with the role of technology in our lives. The study finds that although millennials intend to tighten up their online security, their actions tell a different story.

Around 37 percent of millennials think they’re too

boring for cybercriminals. Meanwhile, 36 percent say that they nevertheless should be doing more to strengthen their digital security, but the task drops to the bottom of their to-do list.

“With many of us all over the world in lockdown, the amount we interact with, and rely on, technology has increased dramatically,” said Andrew Winton, vice president, Marketing at Kaspersky. “Because of this, we wanted to conduct a study that would unveil just how much this year has impacted our actions and our feelings when it comes to our digital life; what are our ‘digital comfort zones,’ and what they mean to us now.”

He added: “Protecting ourselves from digital threats

4 BusinessMirror

can be simple, and this helps us better understand how we can help optimize safety within individual digital comfort zones.”

To make sure devices and personal information remain protected on the Internet, Kaspersky advises millennials to do the following: n Pay attention to the web site’s authenticity. Do not visit web sites until you are sure that they are legitimate and start with “https.” Try looking for reviews of sites that seem suspicious to you; n Keep a list of your online accounts so you have a full understanding of which services and web sites may be storing your personal information; August 9, 2020

n Block the installation of programs from unknown sources in your smartphone’s settings and only install apps from official app stores; n Start using “Privacy Checker” to help make your socialmedia profiles more private. It will make it harder for third parties to find highly personal information; and n Use Kaspersky Security Cloud with its home network monitoring feature that can send real-time alerts and warnings to all devices in the home that are at risk, and detect Wi-fi intruders immediately.

More findings from Kaspersky’s recent report are available at kaspersky.com/blog/digital-comfort-zonereport.