16 minute read
INTERNATIONAL
INDIA’S SECOND WAVE SHOCKS THE COUNTRY
DIANE ERICKSON
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An unprecedented surge of COVID-19 infections has led to skyrocketing rates of hospitalizations and deaths all throughout India, according to Reuters. For 17 days straight, the country reported 300,000 daily infections, bringing the country’s total infections to 21 million cases on May 6.
India, with a population of 1.3 billion, is the world’s second most populated country, and many people live in close proximity to one another in densely inhabited cities, towns and neighborhoods.
India’s healthcare system has been overwhelmed by the country’s second wave of infections. Entire families have tested positive for COVID-19, filling hospitals with people of all ages. The overflow of patients has led to a critical shortage of beds and space, forcing many hospitals to turn patients away.
According to NBC, Praveen Durge, a 40-yearold teacher from the city of Chandrapur, went to a private hospital to receive treatment when he began showing COVID-19 symptoms. The hospital had no beds available, so he was turned away with nothing but cough medicine to soothe his sore throat. Only a day later, Durge’s symptoms worsened dramatically, and he could no longer breathe properly. Durge’s family put him in their car and drove for over three hours to 12 different hospitals in Chandrapur, but not one hospital could admit him. When they made it to the last hospital on their list, he passed away in the backseat.
“Not one single doctor even came out to take a look at my brother, even as we begged them to,” said Durge’s sister Ujwala, who was with him in the car when he died, as reported by NBC. “We were so distressed, we even begged the doctor to let him sleep on the hospital floor. Everyone said no.”
Indian hospitals are not only low on beds, but many are also lacking basic and essential medical supplies. One serious issue has been the widespread scarcity of medical oxygen. The Times of India reported 20 COVID-19 patients died at Jaipur Golden Hospital on April 23 due to a delayed oxygen shipment.
“When the oxygen supply didn’t arrive for five hours, we had to use 50 big cylinders kept in reserve to continue oxygen therapy to our patients. It couldn’t deliver oxygen with the required pressure, leading to the death of some of our critically ill patients,” said Dr. D. K. Baluja, medical director of the hospital. “It is a combined failure of all of us. It is a catastrophic man-made disaster.”
Unable to get the help they need from their country’s infrastructure, thousands of Indians have been turning to social media for help. Some are looking for available hospital beds in their home states, while others are trying to get various medications so they can treat the disease at home.
India has banned exports to keep the country A HEALTH WORKER TAKES A MOUTH SWAB SAMPLE OF A KASHMIRI BOY TO TEST FOR COVID-19 IN SRINAGAR, INDIA. DAR YASIN/AP PHOTO
quarantined, and national pharma manufacturers are trying their hardest to meet the demand. The drug shortages have led to a growing black market in Delhi and other big cities.
The second wave has also put a serious strain on cremation services throughout India. Some crematoriums have been running their furnaces continually due to the high number of incoming bodies, leading to maintenance issues.
“Before the coronavirus outbreak last year, around 20 bodies were cremated everyday,” said Kamlesh Sailor, a manager at Kurukshetra Crematorium in Surat. “At present, we are handling about 100 bodies per day.”
In late January, when daily cases fell to an alltime low, the government declared it had beaten the coronavirus and lifted restrictions on big gatherings and religious festivals.
However, health experts believe that this surge has been caused by a newer, more dangerous strain of the coronavirus.
“While complacency in adhering to masks and physical distancing might have played a role, it seems increasingly likely that this second wave has been fueled by a much more virulent strain,” wrote Vikram Patel, Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School, in The Indian Express.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been heavily blamed for the recent surge of infections due to his handling of the pandemic. As the coronavirus spreads and the death rate increases, the Prime Minister has not responded with any lockdowns or social distancing laws. Instead, Modi has allowed huge festivals to take place, like the religious Kumbh Mela festival in Uttarakhand, which was attended by millions of Hindu devotees, according to BBC.
Modi has also encouraged Indians to vote “in person” for his political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been running for the state assembly election in West Bengal. On April 17, tens of thousands attended Modi’s rally in the state, while thousands of Indians and their families suffered from the coronavirus in hospitals across the country. Only two days later on April 19, #ResignModi became the top trending hashtag on Twitter in India.
Countries across the world along with international relief organizations are in the process of providing aid to the country. PBS has compiled a list of organizations that people outside of India can donate to.
Even with outside assistance, however, some wonder whether help is coming too late due to Modi’s leadership.
“How many deaths does it take ‘til he knows, that too many people have died?” Nirupama Menon Rao, a former foreign secretary, wrote on Twitter.
NICK GATLIN
On April 6, 14 adjunct faculty in the University Studies department at Portland State were sent emails from the Interim Executive Director of University Studies, Dr. Linda George, notifying them that their appointments with PSU would not be renewed when they expire on June 15.
The email to each professor read in part, “Your efforts and contributions to the University are recognized and appreciated, and are not diminished by the issuance of this letter. In the event it is later decided your services are required, a new Notice of Appointment executed by the University will be offered to you.”
Ariana Jacob, Chair of Bargaining for PSUFA, the University’s adjunct faculty union, said the adjuncts “were sent very brief, utterly impersonal letters saying that they had no work for next year.”
“Some of those adjuncts have been teaching for over a decade,” Jacob said. To be told one is losing their job with no warning, she said, “it’s very scary. It’s very painful. And it’s so incredibly disrespectful of our community of people that makes PSU happen.”
Jacob emphasized that as far as she knew, the adjuncts were not fired for poor performance. “They are projecting low enrollment and they’ve already been dealing with lower than expected enrollment,” she said. “So it means that they’re cutting a number of courses for next year in University Studies.” She believes this foreshadows other changes at the university.
George confirmed that the layoffs were a result of a “sustained decline in enrollment at PSU,” stating University Studies is “particularly sensitive to enrollment...so when enrollment declines we have to cut sections.”
The adjuncts were not given advance notice of the decision. Professor Erica Thomas, who teaches the SINQ course Design Thinking at PSU, said the letter was “shocking.”
“I think the initial letter lacked so much context and had so little context and so little feeling and so little empathy that it was kind of shocking, actually, how cold it was,” Thomas said.
Thomas feels she does not have a relationship with the administration. “The lower in the hierarchy that you go, the more helpful and communicative people are,” she said. “But then we get communications from on high...that do come out of context, or they are written in a way that is confusing or doesn’t feel very empathetic.”
“I think there’s two kinds of administration going on,” she continued. “there’s the administration that has the ability to control our workplace conditions, and our employment. And then there’s the administration who’s responsible for communicating about it.”
“There was no direct indication [of the letter] of any kind,” another professor said. This professor, who requested to remain anonymous, will be referred to from here on as Professor Smith. They had heard talk about enrollment problems from other people in the university, they said.
Some professors had expected to have multiple courses in the spring quarter, only to have these classes cancelled with no warning, in a manner one professor described as “strange.”
Another professor, from here on referred to as Professor Johnson, said they were also given no advance warning before the email was sent by the administration: They had just completed their two-year contract and expected it to be renewed, they explained, because they teach one of the most in-demand undergraduate courses.
Johnson questioned the rationale for the decision. “The assumption that what we’re seeing right now in terms of registration reflects what the registration is going to be seems premature,” they said. Considering the low amount adjuncts are paid for each credit hour, they said, as well as the number of
BUILDING DIRECTORY FOR THE UNIVERSITY STUDIES OFFICES IN CRAMER HALL. JUSTIN GRINNELL/PSU VANGUARD
students in each class, they believed classes would still be profitable even with a reduction of tuition due to the pandemic.
Shelly Chabon, vice provost for Academic Personnel and Dean of Interdisciplinary General Education at PSU, stated the adjunct faculty who were laid off are “excellent instructors who have taught many PSU students.” She said that “when enrollment declines, as it has at PSU in recent years, we simply do not have enough classes for all the faculty we employed when student enrollment was higher,” and explained that the letters of non-renewal were sent to the adjuncts in accordance with the PSUFA Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The possible reduction in University Studies programs goes beyond the layoffs of these 14 adjunct professors; according to Professor Sarah Wolf Newlands, a proposal to reduce Sophomore Inquiry (SINQ) requirements will go before the Faculty Senate in June. Faculty members in the department said that the proposal would likely reduce SINQ requirements from three classes to two.
George denied that the proposed reduction in University Studies course requirements was related to the layoffs in the department. “The proposed reduction comes from our analysis of assessment data that shows that the first and second SINQs are highly impactful on retention and student success,” George said. “Given the budget constraints,” she explained, the university is looking to “optimize” its curriculum and requirements.
“It just looks like, from everything I’ve seen, that enrollment is trending towards a somewhat smaller university— which means we need fewer faculty. It is kind of as simple as that,” George said.
Johnson called the proposal “senseless and counterproductive.”
“I can tell you from my own experience, that doesn’t make any sense to me,” they said. Their students often have belowaverage writing skills, they explained, and University Studies is where they get much of their writing instruction. “I am surprised that they would want to reduce the requirement, because where else will students get this support?” they said.
Johnson also argued the move to cut classes over low enrollment was unwise.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a driving factor in falling enrollment, they said. “Many folks feel it’s very important to them to have a college experience in the way that is depicted in media, right?”
“The whole situation is very anxiety ridden. Folks are losing family members and friends, some students have [longterm COVID-19].” These factors all influence the lower rate of enrollment and lack of participation in classes by students, Johnson said.
When courses return to in-person classes in the fall, Johnson said, students are going to say “‘what the heck, all the classes are full!’ and ‘why aren’t there more sections of this?’”
The adjuncts in University Studies were given no notification of the proposal to reduce SINQ requirements. Professor Thomas said, “I actually found out...in the way that I find out about most things that the university probably isn’t interested in email-blasting out to us until after it’s too late, which is that the union [PSUFA] told me.”
Thomas said she finds out most information about her employment from PSUFA: “all the things that I probably should find out from HR, or the higher level administration in UNST—I find all of that information out from the union,” she said.
“I learned about [the proposal to reduce SINQ requirements] by word of mouth from one of the regular faculty members, not in University Studies,” Professor Smith said. “So there was no discussion that I know of that included adjuncts in University Studies about it.” They don’t know the reasoning behind the proposal or who introduced it, they said.
Smith criticized the proposal, explaining, “I think it’s a very bad idea because students need much more general education today than perhaps in previous times. They also need to learn critical thinking, correct writing. It’s not a one-shot thing; you need a revolution of the calendar, a year, to get some of the things into you.”
The proposed reduction of general education requirements, according to Smith, serves students poorly. “It enables them to move to their specialized work with less secure, less solid grounding in basic skills,” they said.
Smith also said that they learned from speaking to other faculty that the proposal is likely to pass.
Smith gave a defense of general education more broadly: “We need students—[we need] citizens who have a general education, who have these general skills. We do not need citizens who are only specialists.” They described the proposed reduction in SINQ requirements as “a very small piece” of a broader trend of “the dumbing down of national education.”
Thomas said that despite the university expressing a desire to avoid “austerity” measures, “this is a really harsh austerity measure that’s being put in place as a response to the pandemic, which is a temporary and outlying experience that we’re having.”
The long term effect of this reduction in faculty and academic programs will be a reduction in the quality of classes, she said. “I think that riding the pandemic enrollment lull out by firing teachers is not a good choice.”
The professors also spoke to the issue of precarity and job insecurity among adjunct faculty. Jacob said that full-time faculty positions at the university had been “broken” into “many, many, many small adjunct positions which then are more affordable to [the university], but allow [the university] to treat workers with a disregard for their ability to survive as people.” PSU has a financial incentive to do so, she said, because the university does not have to pay benefits to adjunct faculty.
Johnson said of their experience at PSU, “It just seems like the university is not really interested in supporting the [University Studies] program,” in part because University Studies faculty are not eligible to earn tenure as faculty in other departments can.
They said that even though University Studies faculty are “expected to teach, to provide service to the University, and to meet publication and research goals,” they did not have the same job security as faculty in other departments.
Johnson said they felt University Studies was thought of as “unimportant,” which did not make sense to them considering the importance of general education. “When students complete their bachelor’s degree, there’s an expectation that they will have writing skills…[and] be well-rounded individuals in terms of their education,” Johnson said.
Smith echoed this sentiment. “We do okay because we have a strong union,” they said. “I have no complaints about University Studies; they really have given me everything that I need. But the general condition of being underpaid and being precarious has a number of effects. One is on the teaching, of course, and the quality of the teaching is always a victory against those circumstances.”
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THIS WEEK around the WORLD
May 3–7
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May 3 MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
An overpass collapsed on Line 12 of the Mexico City Metro, causing the deaths of 26 people and injuring 80 more, according to AP News. The Mexico City Metro is one of the world’s busiest metro systems, which is used by millions of people daily. On May 8, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced that families of the victims will receive financial compensation from both the city and the metro train line. “We are not going to leave them alone,” Sheinbaum said during a news conference. “We are going to be with them and we are going to give them all the support they require.” In a telephone poll of over 400 residents, 22% of respondents said they blamed Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard—who was mayor during the construction of Line 12—and 4.5% blamed Sheinbaum due to other metro accidents happening since she took office. Ebrard and Sheinbaum are seen as the leading candidates to succeed Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. “If the problem was structural, it hits Marcelo...if the problem was maintenance, it hits Sheinbaum,” said Fernando Belaunzaran, an opposition politician. “The struggle over succession will be about trying to demarcate the responsibility.”
May 5 BRIGHTON AND HOVE, ENGLAND
The U.K.’s largest international LGBTQ+ Pride Festival announced its cancellation for the second year in a row due to COVID-19 uncertainties. This comes after the announcement in February that the event, which typically brings around 250,000 visitors to the city, would occur from August 7–8. The 2020 festival was originally set to celebrate the annual festival’s 30th anniversary and have Mariah Carey headline. “We are devastated at having to make this decision for a second year and recognise the huge impact on local businesses, charities and community groups who rely on the fundraising potential of the Pride weekend,” said Paul Kemp, director of Brighton Pride. “Pride attracts tens of thousands of people to our city for the LGBTQ+ community parade which is the heart of the Pride celebrations, where social distancing clearly can’t be facilitated safely.” With the announcement, the Brighton and Hove Pride team announced they are still planning smaller in-person community and cultural events that adhere to COVID-19 guidelines.
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May 6 RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
A police raid on a poor neighborhood targeting drug traffickers left 28 people dead, making it the deadliest operation carried out by security forces in the city, according to Reuters. Of the 28 deaths, one was a police officer and 27 were civilians who allegedly had associations with a drug trafficking operation. Residents in the area along with human rights groups have spoken out about a need for a thorough investigation into the shootout. “It’s completely unacceptable that security forces keep committing grave human rights violations such as those that occurred in Jacarezinho today against residents of the favelas, who are mostly Black and live in poverty,” said Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil. “Even if the victims were suspected of criminal association, which has not been proven, summary executions of this kind are entirely unjustifiable.”
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May 7 PORTO, PORTUGAL
European Union heads of state met to discuss the bloc’s social affairs at the EU Social Summit 2021. 24 leaders attended the summit in-person in addition to three attending virtually to discuss their goals of implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights. “As vaccination is well on track, as we return to our normal lives, it’s time to mend our social fabric, damaged by the crisis,” European Commision President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on Twitter. Ahead of the summit, 11 EU governments issued a joint statement warning against too strong labor and social policy interventions. In addition, leaders of Poland and Hungary lobbied on Friday to remove the phrase “gender equality” from a declaration on the goals of the European Union to rebuild from COVID-19, opting for looser language regarding fighting discrimination, according to Reuters.
