Buenos Aires Allows Bedside Vigils for COVID-19 Patients as Case Numbers Climb

On Aug. 27, the city council of Buenos Aires, Argentina, approved a new law that allows family members to maintain bedside vigils for patients dying of COVID-19. This comes after months of strict government-imposed lockdown measures which had drawn criticism and protests by citizens.

The new policy, known as “the Law of the Right to a Final Goodbye,” allows one family member of a patient dying of COVID-19 between the ages of 18 and 60 to maintain a bedside vigil with the patient, as long as they themselves are not pregnant or have preexisting medical conditions. 

According to a press release from the Buenos Aires city council’s website, “the Plan of Accompaniment for patients infected with COVID-19 in an end-of-life situation [has the goal that] patients will be accompanied virtually or in-person, depending on their circumstances, by a person from their family environment.”

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Juan Facundo del Gaiso, one of the legislators who voted for the law to be implemented, expressed his support for the new policy on Twitter in Spanish.

“Today we approved in [the city council] the first law in the country for the right to say goodbye,” del Gaiso tweeted. “As of today patients in critical condition can be accompanied by their [family members, out of] respect for the life and dignity of each person.”

Other cities across the country are currently looking toward the Buenos Aires law to find ways to ease tensions within their own communities, as protests have continued throughout the pandemic in response to the government’s strict quarantine regulations. 

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Argentina imposed a mandatory lockdown on March 20. This initially saw success, as throughout the first months of the pandemic the country had significantly lower numbers of cases compared to neighboring Chile and Brazil. However, cases continued to climb as the country considered easing restrictions, resulting in a prolonged lockdown which has lasted more than 160 days.

According to Rosendo Fraga, a political scientist based in Buenos Aires, a lot of the resentment toward the government’s restrictions is due to the psychological effects caused by the prolonged lockdown.

“People are at the end of their ropes; they are in trouble and they just cannot go on any longer,” Fraga said in an interview with Deutsche Welle. “President Alberto Fernandez's government simply underestimated the psychological damage such a long period of isolation would have on people.”

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Much of this uncertainty dates back to long before the pandemic began. Over the past several decades, Argentina has faced several instances of hyperinflation, ending 2019 with an inflation rate of 53.8%, the highest in the past 28 years. In the same year, 25.6 percent of the country’s population was living in poverty.

According to Ana Ines Navarro, the director of the economics department at Austral University in Buenos Aires, this current socioeconomic crisis differs from prior ones on account of the country’s pandemic response.

“The serious problem that Argentina has at the moment is the closure of businesses,” Navarro said in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine. “It’s the number of companies that have stopped producing, or that can’t produce because they’re not yet operational, and that are unlikely to reopen after the quarantine. Then you are going to find, after the quarantine, a very worrying landscape from the point of view of the generation that is looking for employment.”

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President Alberto Fernandez had originally stated earlier this summer that lockdown restrictions would be loosened on Sept. 1. However, on Aug. 28 President Fernández extended most restrictions until Sept. 20.

As of Aug. 3, Argentina has had 439,172 cases of COVID-19, the 10th-highest number in the world and the third-highest in South America. The majority of cases have been in and around Buenos Aires, which has a metropolitan population of over 15 million.

Jacob Sutherland

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is a recent graduate from the University of California San Diego where he majored in Political Science and minored in Spanish Language Studies. He previously served as the News Editor for The UCSD Guardian, and hopes to shed light on social justice issues in his work.

Venezuela Labels Coronavirus-Infected Citizens as ‘Bioterrorists’

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has implemented harsh measures throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to arrest, detain and punish those infected with the virus and citizens who have broken quarantine measures. These authoritarian measures mark a stark contrast with the relief efforts of neighboring countries, as Maduro has labeled those suspected of coming in contact with the virus as “bioterrorists.”

The government was initially quick to respond to the virus, suspending all flights from Europe and Colombia and banning all public gatherings on March 12, before the country had officially reported any cases. However, cases in Venezuela have since risen, with experts suggesting that the current tally of 42,898 infections is much lower than the actual case number due to an insufficient amount of testing materials.

Infected Venezuelan citizens have been subjected to inhumane treatment, leading many to defy the government’s orders. According to a taxi driver from Caracas who was forced into a state-run isolation facility, the government treats infected citizens in an inhumane manner.

“I spent three days sleeping on an aluminum chair,” the driver said in an interview with Bloomberg. “They fed us cold rice, lentils and arepas. The place was controlled by armed militias and Cuban doctors.”

Venezuela’s approach to the pandemic is a result of its failing health care system and Maduro’s resistance to internal reforms advocated for by activists over the past decade. The country’s sociopolitical system, which at one time was hailed by some as one of Latin America’s best, was brought to its knees after oil prices plummeted in the early 2010s. This just exacerbated shortages of basic food staples that began under the presidency of Hugo Chavez.

Using drastic anti-protest tactics which became commonplace in the mid-2010s, Maduro has authorized security forces to impose punishments for violating social distancing protocol such as sitting under the hot sun for hours, intense physical exercise and beatings.

In response to citizens evading testing facilities for fear of being subjected to harsh punishments, the Venezuelan military has encouraged citizens to turn in neighbors who they suspect have come into contact with the virus throughout the summer.

“Defense for the health of your family and community,” one tweet by the military stated in Spanish. “[Someone who helps others hide their infections] is a bioterrorist, which puts everyone’s health at risk. Send [us] an email with their information and exact location. #ReportABioterrorist.”

Maduro has largely ignored calls to reform his response to the pandemic, dismissing claims that those infected have been treated inhumanely.

“[In Venezuela] you’re given care that’s unique in the world, humane care, loving, Christian,” Maduro said in an Aug. 14 national address.

In response to calls for aid from organized opposition groups, on Aug. 21 the United States granted activists access to millions of dollars of previously frozen Venezuelan assets to be used to support health care workers. However, it is unclear how these funds will be accessed by opposition-supported health care workers, or if the Venezuelan government will be able to interfere with their distribution.

As of this article’s publication, Maduro has not responded to calls for pandemic relief reform, nor have efforts been made to test in a more humane manner.

Jacob Sutherland

is a recent graduate from the University of California San Diego where he majored in Political Science and minored in Spanish Language Studies. He previously served as the News Editor for The UCSD Guardian, and hopes to shed light on social justice issues in his work.

Congo Faces New Ebola Outbreak Amid Global Pandemic

The World Health Organization has called on the international community for financial support and aid in combating the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This latest outbreak was announced by the country’s government on June 1 and has seen 56 cases reported in the Equateur province, a region which has been a hot spot for the disease in recent years.

Ebola is a deadly disease with outbreaks occurring primarily in Africa. In humans, the virus can be caused by one of four virus species: Ebola virus, Sudan virus, Tai Forest virus and Bundibugyo virus. The virus spreads through direct contact with organic matter from infected humans and animals. Common symptoms include fever, aches, weakness, fatigue, abdominal pain, gastrointestinal symptoms, and hemorrhaging, bleeding and bruising.

This latest outbreak comes as the 11th in a long line of Ebola outbreaks in the Congo since the disease was first discovered in 1976. A couple of weeks ago, the WHO celebrated the end of the country’s 10th outbreak, which began in August 2018. That Ebola outbreak was the deadliest recorded in the DRC and second worst in history, seeing 2,280 deaths.

According to The New York Times, the WHO has gathered $1.75 million to combat the outbreak, but this funding would only last the organization for a couple more weeks. Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, called for additional funding to be allocated toward vaccinations, testing and treatment, as well as contact tracing and health education resources.

“Responding to Ebola in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is complex, but we must not let COVID-19 distract us from tackling other pressing health threats,” Dr. Moeti said. “The current Ebola outbreak is running into headwinds because cases are scattered across remote areas in dense rainforests. This makes for a costly response as ensuring that responders and supplies reach affected populations is extremely challenging.”

Dr. Moeti also stated that over 12,000 people living in the Equateur province had been vaccinated since the outbreak was first reported in June.

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed Dr. Moeti’s sentiments in a recent news release on the situation.

“This is a reminder that COVID-19 is not the only health threat people face,” Dr. Ghebreyesus said. “Although much of our attention is on the pandemic, WHO is continuing to monitor and respond to many other health emergencies.”

This call for funding follows a challenging six months for the organization, as the WHO has partnered with global leaders to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

While much of the world has been supportive of the organization, the United States has been an exception. President Donald Trump pulled the country out of the WHO in late May over concerns about Chinese influence, with the withdrawal going into effect on July 6, 2021. The U.S. is the organization’s single largest financial contributor, having provided over $400 million in 2019.

President Trump has not publicly commented on this latest Ebola outbreak. While the U.S. directed $21 million in aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development for the 10th outbreak in 2019, it is unclear whether the country will direct any funding toward this latest outbreak’s relief efforts.

The WHO is expected to continue Ebola relief operations within the Equateur province for the foreseeable future, as governmental agencies such as the United Nations have directed additional funding to the organization. However, it is unclear how long this funding will last and how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will complicate these relief measures.

Jacob Sutherland

is a recent graduate from the University of California San Diego where he majored in Political Science and minored in Spanish Language Studies. He previously served as the News Editor for The UCSD Guardian, and hopes to shed light on social justice issues in his work.

Ableism in the Age of the Coronavirus Pandemic

What is Ableism?

“Ableism is the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior.” Ableism rears its ugly head in our society every day through large discriminatory practices such as the eugenics movement as well as minor ableism that is utilized when assuming someone’s disability must be visible for it to be a disability. On a day-to-day basis people with disabilities (or disabled people as some in the community prefer to use identity-first language) endure ableism and now during the COVID-19 pandemic they are facing ableist rationing practices.

Triage and It’s Ableist Undercurrents

Disability activists have been speaking up about how many of the guidelines and criteria for triage during the COVID-19 pandemic are proving to be ableist. As Elliot Kukla puts it, “This is not an unusual triage decision to make in wartime or pandemics; our lives are considered, quite literally, more disposable.” Various states are under fire for their ableist triaging policies, with many of them receiving federal complaints from a coalition of national disability advocates including the Center for Public Representation, The Arc of the United States, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, and University of Michigan law professor Samuel Bagenstos. In Alabama, the state’s policy (which has since been retracted following retaliation from disability advocates) conceded that “individuals may be excluded under Tier 1 with … functional domains include cognitive, neurological, and psychosocial. For example, persons with severe mental retardation, advanced dementia or severe traumatic brain injury may be poor candidates for ventilator support.” In New York, where the virus hit the hardest in the U.S., a doctor made the decision to take a non-COVID and terminally ill patient off a ventilator to save another patient with COVID. This disregards the fact that many disabled people are already living with the use of a ventilator. 

Statements and Solutions from the Disability Community

In an op-ed from The New York Times, disability rights activist and author Ari Ne’eman says that, “While many disabled people need ongoing medical care, many doctors view life with certain disabilities as unworthy of living. Disabled people who require ongoing ventilator care and other forms of expensive lifelong assistance are used to being asked by medical professionals if they would rather abandon life-sustaining treatment — often with the clear implication that ‘yes’ is the right answer.” These experiences are not an anomaly among the disabled community, as disability activist Alice Wong argues that, “Eugenics isn’t a relic from World War II; it’s alive today, embedded in our culture, policies, and practices. It is imperative that experts and decision-makers include and collaborate with communities disproportionately impacted by systemic medical racism, ageism and ableism, among other biases.” 

Others such as Joseph Stramondo, a philosophy professor at San Diego State University, are focusing on creating a paradigm shift in the way professional bioethicists respond to the coronavirus pandemic. He advises against using deeply biased quality of life judgment due to there being “a significant body of empirical evidence showing that there is a substantial gap between a disabled person’s self-assessment and how their quality of life is judged by folks that have never experienced their disability.” He furthers the discourse by highlighting Shelley Tremain, a feminist philosopher who studies disabilities and hopes to push the conversation away from just fixing triaging protocols. “The primary object of our analysis seems to sanction the idea that these hard choices are inevitabilities,” Tremain writes of triage practices. Instead, bioethicists “should be putting our energy behind efforts to reduce the need to make such choices at all.” 

Hanna Ditinsky

is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is majoring in English and minoring in Economics. She was born and raised in New York City and is passionate about human rights and the future of progressivism.

The Impact of the Coronavirus on Efforts to End Child Marriage

The coronavirus pandemic has negatively impacted the world, creating unforeseen challenges and serving to highlight and deepen racial disparities and global inequalities. Since the start of the pandemic, many countries have enacted mandatory quarantines in order to slow the spread of the virus, while a few countries are now in the process of easing, and in some cases lifting, restrictions. In addition to the coronavirus’s effects around the world, the pandemic is also having lasting impacts on the lives of women and girls across the globe—from school closures to a rise in domestic abuse to a loss of access to health care and community programs. In particular, COVID-19 is setting back efforts to end child marriage as it causes delays in programs around the world that are dedicated to ending child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM). According to the World Health Organization, more than 3 million girls are at risk for FGM every year. According to UNICEF, there are approximately 15 million child marriages annually.

Researchers at the United Nations Population Fund predict that there “could be an extra 13 million child marriages and another 2 million cases of FGM in the next decade as the pandemic stymies global efforts to end both practices,” according to a report from Reuters. As more families face economic struggles caused by a global recession in the wake of the pandemic, “parents may marry off girls as a way to reduce the number of children they have to support or to access dowries,” according to the World Economic Forum. The risks of child marriage and FGM are also increasing during the pandemic because schools are closed and many organizations are finding it difficult to operate under lockdown. Schools help protect children, particularly girls, and when the schools shut down, organizations found it difficult to reach the girls and communities they support, according to Girls Not Brides, a global organization dedicated to ending child marriage.

The Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) said that “some girls are prioritizing marriage and children over education” and “in Malawi, some people are saying, ‘Schools won’t reopen, so just marry,’” according to Voice of America. Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, according to UNICEF. In Malawi, 42% “of girls are married before the age of 18 and almost one in 10 are married before their 15th birthday,” according to a 2016 study.

The Centre for Social Concern and Development (CESOCODE) is one group that is trying to continue its work despite the challenges of COVID-19 restrictions. The programs director for CESOCODE, Ephraim Chimwaza, said, “When girls are forced to stay at home or within their communities rather than attending school, they are at far greater risk of experiencing gender-based violence and are more vulnerable to child marriage. The difficulty of the lockdown means that they cannot report anything that does happen to them, as they are much more isolated,” according to Girls Not Brides. CESOCODE utilized technology to keep in touch with the girls, using social media and a Bluetooth messaging service to check in with them and to promote domestic violence prevention and public health. They have also developed a podcast about domestic violence against girls, and for communities without access to technology the organization is handing out flyers and brochures to educate and spread advice on how to keep safe.

In Somalia, the coronavirus lockdown led to a huge increase in FGM. The country has the world’s highest FGM rate “with about 98% of women having been cut,” according to Reuters. The practice is “traditionally carried out during school holidays in urban settings or during the rainy season in rural areas,” according to Plan International, a girls’ and children’s rights charity. According to Plan International, Somali girls are being subjected to FGM from door-to-door circumcisers who are using the lockdown as an opportunity to carry out FGM since the girls are not in school. Since the period that girls are off of school is longer than other years, there is already an increase in FGM cases.

Girls and young women who were already at risk before the pandemic are now left unprotected, and as such, Sadia Allin, Plan International’s head of mission in Somalia, says, “Measures to address increased risk of gender-based violence and harmful practices, including FGM, should be included in response and recovery plans and these should be gender and age responsive. Girls and young women should be involved in the development of response and recovery plans to ensure their unique needs are met.”

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Asiya Haouchine

Asiya is an Algerian-American writer who graduated from the University of Connecticut in May 2016, earning a BA in journalism and English. She was an editorial intern and contributing writer for Warscapes magazine and the online/blog editor for Long River Review. She is currently studying for her Master’s in Library and Information Science. @AsiyaHaou

Elections Strive to Avoid Contributing to Upticks in Coronavirus

The coronavirus is one of democracy’s newest adversaries, especially when it comes to running elections. Although each country is subject to its own set of laws and customs during this formalized process, no one wants to let voting become another opportunity for virus numbers to spike. With governments dissuading large public gatherings and social distancing still being a critical asset to the prevention of COVID-19 across the globe, democratic countries need to organize upcoming voting events with new considerations in mind. 

COVID-19 has been labeled by the World Health Organization as a pandemic since March 11, and many voting events have since come and gone. Although elections across the world have been postponed, there are some countries that have pursued the process anyway. The elections that have occurred are on both national and local scales and have been met with varying levels of success. The Council on Foreign Relations released a short video on the optimal way to have an election; although this organization is American and focuses on United States elections, the suggestions are broad enough to be applicable in most democratic countries and include an emphasis on mail-in ballots, careful fund management and safe-in person voting procedures. One of the best examples was South Korea, which on April 15 became the first country to attempt a national election. The country had the highest voter turnout for a parliamentary election in 28 years, with 66.2% of about 44 million registered voters casting ballots. 

Prior to April 15, the country came out with a set of election guidelines that all voters and polling places would need to follow. This included the downloading of a self-quarantine app so voters’ movements could be tracked and social distancing at the voting stations. Voters had their temperatures taken on location, wore masks, and had gloves and hand sanitizer at their disposal. South Korea also made sure to account for people in quarantine and active COVID-19 patients, all of whom had to abide by additional voting guidelines. Despite all of these extra precautionary steps, one person reported that it took them less than 10 minutes to go through the whole voting process. When asked about why South Korea was so successful, many citizens said they had a lot of trust in the country’s actions involving the health care system. South Korea has recorded over 13,300 cases of the virus, but the number of new cases has not exceeded 80 since early April. Although an early voter in the city of Busan tested positive some time later, contact tracing later determined that only one person they came into contact with on Election Day had contracted the virus as well. 

Other places have also attempted to hold large-scale voting events, although none of them quite as successfully as in South Korea. For example, Croatia ran a presidential election with a 46% voter turnout (average of 53%), and Japan ran multiple elections as well. Tokyo’s election for governor resulted in about 52% of eligible people coming out, just above the average gubernatorial election turnout rate of 48%. In Poland, the presidential election was originally scheduled to occur in early May and would have been Europe’s first try at a presidential election since the pandemic. The country attempted to modify the voting standards beforehand (it wanted to offer more remote voting options so that there would be less crowding at polling places) but long-established laws prevented the country from making major changes to the process less than six months before the scheduled election. There was some conflict between the parties about the timing of the election—the incumbent party wanted a quick, on-time election while the challenging candidates asked for a delay—that ultimately resulted in the vote being postponed to June 28 and done with a larger number of postal ballots than the country had seen before. 

With a string of elections still on the horizon for this year, now-completed elections offer a template to copy or learn from, ultimately proving that safe voting is doable despite the pandemic. There are ways to work around the dangers of congested polling stations and there is considerable value in encouraging people to vote remotely (if the laws allow for it). While online voting is still very vulnerable to potential cyberattacks and other security concerns, postal ballots are an effective alternative. Safe and sanitary in-person voting is potentially the greatest universal asset for elections going forward. Although there are a multitude of factors that must be addressed when organizing elections, it is clear that ultimately, with sufficient and well-allocated resources, voter turnout does not necessarily have to suffer during this pandemic.

Phoebe Jacoby

is a Media Studies major and Studio Art minor at Vassar College who believes in the importance of sharing stories with others. Phoebe likes to spend her free time reading, drawing, and writing letters. She hopes to continue developing her skills as a writer and create work that will have a positive outward effect.

COVID-19 Further Complicates Kenya’s Health Care System

Kenya is facing a double burden of communicable and noncommunicable diseases. Clustering of infections, such as HIV and tuberculosis, and noncommunicable diseases, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, renders Kenyans vulnerable to COVID-19. This has pressured an already overstretched health care system.

Hospital entrance sign in Kenya’s Rift Valley province. Melanie K Reed. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In mid-March, shortly after Kenya’s first confirmed COVID-19 case, the word “corona” began circulating around western Kenya’s villages. Young people used the word as a novelty, and the overall population remained preoccupied with existing illnesses. “This is a disease for whites,” said Sylvanus, a local father of seven. When calling after white people on the street, children replaced their traditional “mzungu!” (white person) with “coronavirus!” At this point, Europe was the pandemic’s epicenter. Kenyans felt that this foreign virus was removed from their world. 

However, Kenya’s high prevalence of preexisting health conditions renders a significant portion of the population immunocompromised and therefore vulnerable to the coronavirus. In a country experiencing health issues such as HIV, tuberculosis, diabetes and malaria, the pandemic has posed a threat to an already fragmented health care system. Although less than 4% of Africa’s population is over the age of 65, countries such as Kenya have seen high coronavirus mortality rates. 

Global evidence shows that people with underlying medical conditions are at a greater risk from COVID-19. In 2019, half a million Kenyans were living with diabetes, and over half of accounted deaths were associated with noncommunicable diseases. Currently, Kenya’s health care system is structured to manage individual diseases, rather than multiple ones. Because patients frequently carry more than one health condition, the health care system has been overstretched and inadequate. HIV, tuberculosis and malaria treatments are easily accessible, but noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes and cancer often go undiagnosed, and care is costly. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these shortcomings, as social distancing restrictions prevent Kenyans from accessing medical resources, and a surge of coronavirus cases imposes a double burden of disease. Additionally, front-line workers with undiagnosed, chronic illnesses have critically compromised their health, and hospitals have dealt with equipment shortages. 

Transcontinental travel has heavily contributed to the increase in COVID-19 cases across Africa. In order to minimize Kenya’s number of infections, President Uhuru Kenyatta stopped all flights from Europe. Kenyatta also imposed a national curfew and restricted movement between populated areas. Domestically, middle-class, urban dwellers have carried the virus into rural areas. On Kenyan television, villagers have urged educated, urban residents to remain in the city, instead of threatening the lives of others. 

In African countries, lockdowns are nearly impossible to implement because they would spur social and economic crises. Many people rely on cash earned daily to sustain themselves and their families. A strict lockdown would result in poverty and starvation. Kinship systems also play a crucial role in social welfare, as relatives care for one another. For people already barely getting by, cutting these social ties would be dangerous. Finally, a lockdown would interrupt the supply chains of essential drugs, preventing access to tuberculosis, HIV and malaria treatments. 

According to several African presidents, developed countries are failing to fulfill their pledges of financial support and debt relief. Throughout the pandemic, outside aid has not met the continent’s needs. While wealthy countries in the global north have funneled trillions of dollars into their own stimulus packages and health initiatives, the global south cannot afford such measures. With limited testing capacity, Africa has not confirmed many of the world’s COVID-19 cases, but the continent has been grossly affected by the economic crisis and global trade disruptions. Furthermore, the global shortage of testing kits, hygienic material and personal protective equipment has left developed countries vying for their own supplies, without consideration for underdeveloped nations. 

Anna Wood

is an Anthropology major and Global Health/Spanish double minor at Middlebury College. As an anthropology major with a focus in public health, she studies the intersection of health and sociocultural elements. She is also passionate about food systems and endurance sports.

Even Antarctica Is Impacted by COVID-19

Antarctica is the only continent without any reported cases of COVID-19. As lucky as Antarctica’s temporary residents might consider themselves, they know that a single diagnosed case could be devastating for the 5,000 people living there. Not only is there a lack of medical equipment, but also of resources because nearly all of them have to be brought from elsewhere in the world. The continent has already had a few close calls with the virus thanks to cruise ships coming to visit. The most alarming incident occurred when almost 60% of the passengers on board the Greg Mortimer, an Antarctica-bound cruise liner, tested positive for the virus in late March.

Isolation is, in many ways, already an innate aspect of living in Antarctica. Nevertheless, those on the continent are still taking precautions against the virus. Rob McKay, director of the Antarctic Research Centre in Wellington, New Zealand, summed up the situation: “Antarctica's an isolated environment - if you had a medical emergency with a high number of people sick, you just don't have the capacity to deal with it. And with close-quarter, confined environments, it's kind of like living on a cruise ship down there.” Many researchers and scientists currently stationed on the continent have been forced to reassess their travel plans as well as their research. As the Antarctic winter approaches and the world wrestles with COVID-19, residents are growing increasingly concerned. 

Life in Antarctica

There are over 80 bases established across Antarctica, each of which has its own community and is adjusting to COVID-19 independently from its neighbors. Although the bases are run by a multitude of countries and organizations, there is a universal understanding that the virus cannot reach Antarctic shores. If it does, there are plans for the virus to be dealt with immediately with methods such as isolation and contact tracing. Multiple organizations have announced that their priorities lie in keeping the stations safe for inhabitants and in continuing to operate the various base locations, even if it means redirecting resources. This reorganization means that construction and many major research projects have been canceled or postponed, leaving scores of researchers potentially cut off from a trip to the region. 

For some stations, day-to-day life has continued mostly as normal. Davis Station, a research base between Australia and Africa, is home to 23 researchers who are still enjoying communicable luxuries such as a shared gym, sauna and bar. Fortunately, people who are living in Antarctica were trained before going there and taught how to live an isolated lifestyle. Nevertheless, the age of COVID-19 has brought isolation to a new level and even the smallest connections are being cut off. At the Bharati base, one of the more remote research outposts, residents say that although they typically get “regular visits” from nearby expeditions and bases, they have not seen anyone from another facility since the beginning of March. Australia has stopped shuttling people between its three Antarctic bases because they typically make stops at other nations’ places. Even in a place with no cases of COVID-19, there is a fear of inadvertently spreading the virus; people are wary of cross-continental travel, even if it's with residents who have been in Antarctica for months. 

People in Antarctica have been watching the virus unfold from a distance. Some are struggling to conceptualize what a quarantined world looks like and wonder if they should practice social distancing to create good habits in anticipation of their return home. Everyone is worried about their loved ones, all of whom are at the very least 774 miles away. 

Coming Home

Penguins on a stony beach on the Antarctic Peninsula while an expedition ship transfers passengers in the background. Derek Oyen. Unsplash

Beyond setting high levels of restriction in order to enter Antarctica, isolation policies in the rest of the world have affected people’s ability to leave the continent as well. Many organizations wishing to bring people back are encountering closed borders, forcing travelers to reroute. Out of anyone to face these problems, however, Antarctic researchers seem to be the best suited. Despite running into major barriers about a month ago, organizations have been working to resolve this problem and have determined various ways of getting people out of Antarctica, especially in anticipation of the Antarctic winter. As one researcher said, “...that's the kind of the thing that we have to deal with. We have to be completely adaptable because working in Antarctica is like that - conditions change, the weather changes. So, we have to be ready.”

Phoebe Jacoby

is a Media Studies major and Studio Art minor at Vassar College who believes in the importance of sharing stories with others. Phoebe likes to spend her free time reading, drawing, and writing letters. She hopes to continue developing her skills as a writer and create work that will have a positive outward effect.

Colorism Shows its Face through India’s Skin Whitening Creams

Since 1975, India has had a market advertising products that can achieve being “fair and lovely” by whitening the skin, but what effect has this had on Indian society?

People on the street in India. Craig J Bethany. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

On June 26, Unilever made the decision to remove the word “fair” from its whitening creams sold throughout India and parts of Asia. It is assumed that the decision to rename the product was due to the global response to the death of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. For Indians, skin lightening is a painful reminder of their colonized past.

Commercials for whitening creams have advertised the products as the solution to all of life’s troubles. Along with that, they have carried the notion that having darker skin is harmful and will set you back in life. It only perpetuates colorism, when people within the same race discriminate against skin colors. Often, colorism takes on the form of favoritism toward lighter skin shades over darker ones. 

Colorism is a byproduct of colonization. From 1858 to 1947, India was under British rule in hopes of extracting the resources that were making India so profitable through the East India Company. Britain took advantage of the wealth by imposing strict policies and limiting government representation across India. However, those that had lighter complexion were favored and often offered more better jobs than those with darker complexions. Britain maintained its control over India until the country’s independence after World War II. 

Thus, in 1975, Unilever’s “Fair & Lovely” cream first debuted. Despite a decadeslong appeal toward fair skin, this “luxurious” type of cream would not become popular until the 1990s, when it became more accessible in the form of cosmetic products such as deodorants, creams and at-home treatments. Even though it is a more recent trend, skin lightening still reflects and enforces the mindset of British colonizers. Bollywood even joined the trend by selecting lighter-skinned actors who can “better represent Indian life.” Since the first release of Unilever’s product, the skin lightening industry has become a multimillion dollar market, with some estimates around $4 billion globally, due to the high demands to meet the beauty standards. The highest usage is across Asia and Africa.

Typical usage for skin lightening creams, also known as skin bleaching, is to help reduce the appearance of scars or age spots. In India, though, the products are also used to reduce the melanin levels in one’s skin. Most products must be applied over the course of six weeks to see results. Often, there is a combination of different steroids or chemicals used to help change skin tone.

Research by the World Health Organization has found that mercury is often an active ingredient. Even though it is banned for use in the U.S., other countries do not have much regulation over mercury’s usage. Mercury can cause a range of problems, from neurological to fertility in nature. 1 in 4 skin lightening products made in Asia has been found to contain mercury. Other risks include skin cancer, premature aging of skin, skin thinning and allergic reactions.

Skin lightening treatments at a convenience store. Sophia Kristina. CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

Additionally, the color of one’s skin in India is critical when it comes to arranged marriages. Often, parents place advertisements in newspapers known as matrimonial ads in order to find potential spouses for their children. Often in these ads, there are descriptions of the child’s skin tone ranging from “fair” to “wheatish,” with “fair” individuals pursued the most. Along those lines, many dating websites for arranged marriages, such as Shaadi.com, allow users to select preferences based on skin tone. However, Shaadi.com representatives did announce earlier this month they were removing the search option.

This is not to say that the skin lightening industry is to blame for colorism today. It has become a deeply-rooted mechanism, with discrimination and racism existing in Indian society since the 1850s. Activists have encouraged the stop of these products’ production, as organizations such as Women of Worth have found that skin lightening practices cause a sharp decrease in self esteem for brown girls.

Eva Ashbaugh

is a Political Science and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies double major at the University of Pittsburgh. As a political science major concentrating on International Relations, she is passionate about human rights, foreign policy, and fighting for equality. She hopes to one day travel and help educate people to make the world a better place.

Coronavirus—the Newest Excuse for Miners’ Mistreatment in the Congo

In the far south of the Democratic Republic of Congo lies the Copperbelt, a region that leads Africa in copper production and accounts for 70% of the world’s cobalt supply. The area’s mines play a key role in supplying the world with electrical wires and the batteries found inside smartphones and electric cars.

The Congo’s Copperbelt is also a region of severe worker mistreatment. Miners, often children, receive around $1 a day as they toil in shafts prone to collapse for long hours. This occurs while cobalt’s market price hovers at nearly $30,000 per ton.

As COVID-19 ravages Africa, copper and cobalt mines in the Congo have adjusted by instituting harsh rules to curb the virus’s impact on their production levels. The mines’ provisions have, unsurprisingly, not been in workers’ favor. The adjustments, confirmed by workers and union representatives, include:

·       Mandatory confinement at mine sites, 24 hours per day, or risk losing employment

·       Extended shifts without receiving additional pay

·       Inadequate food and water rations

·       Overcrowded sleeping arrangements and unsanitary toilet and hand-washing facilities

·       Limited or nonexistent communication about the confinement’s duration or future COVID-19 measures

The response to allegations of further worker mistreatment in the Congo has been immediate. Eleven human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, sent a letter to 13 mining corporations across the region setting standards for worker treatment.

“We believe that companies around the world will be remembered,” the letter states, “by how they treat their workers during these challenging times. At a minimum, companies should not require workers to be held in mandatory confinement under threat of unemployment, should provide adequate personal protective equipment and access to water and sanitation facilities for all workers, and employ social distancing measures at all times.”

Whether the suggested guidelines will be followed in the Copperbelt remains to be seen. Mining titans Glencore, Eurasian Resources Group, Chemaf, Huayou Cobalt and Ivanhoe Mines declined to immediately respond to requests for comment.

Workers shovel copper into railway cars at a processing plant in Lubumbashi, from where it will be sent abroad. International Labour Organization ILO. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Pressure has been mounting on copper and cobalt producers – and their recipients – for years. International Rights Advocates, a human rights lobbying group, filed suit against Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dell and Tesla in December 2019 accusing them of “knowingly benefiting from” the use of child labor at Congolese mines. While the companies restated their commitment to “only sourcing responsibly-produced materials,” very few tangible steps have been taken.

The problem, then, continues today. Though Apple revealed its full list of cobalt suppliers upon request, many major companies cannot verify that their supply chains are free of worker mistreatment. Faced with slim human rights pressure from buyers and a generally impoverished workforce, most cobalt and copper producers feel little incentive to change. Their COVID-19 response so far stands as only the most recent example.

Accountability remains the first step toward ending the mistreatment of Congolese miners. Supply chain traceability alone could prevent companies from buying minerals unearthed by unprotected workers facing mandatory confinement. A positive step came in late May when Huayou Cobalt, China’s top producer, agreed to temporarily stop sourcing cobalt from the informal sector “until relevant standards can be recognized and supported by the whole industry.”

While this step is welcome, much more can be done. COVID-19’s spread complicates mines’ production efforts, but by no means necessitates mandatory confinement, threats to employment, and steep cuts to health and wellness standards. Groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Rights and Accountability in Government are working to fight against worker mistreatment, and this letter is just the first move.

Stephen Kenney

is a Journalism and Political Science double major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He enjoys sharing his passion for geography with others by writing compelling stories from across the globe. In his free time, Stephen enjoys reading, long-distance running and rooting for the Tar Heels.

Defunding the Police: What it Means and How it Works

Amid protests against racism and police brutality, Minneapolis has pledged to dismantle its police department and restructure its system of public safety. To further promote reform in the city of George Floyd’s murder, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced, “We need a new compact with police, one that centers around compassion and accountability, one that recognizes that the way things have been done for decades and decades is not acceptable. We need change." 

Cities across the United States have joined this movement to defund and downsize their police forces. Police departments currently oversee an array of services, including monitoring the homeless, resolving domestic disputes, receiving mental health calls, disciplining students, and addressing minor complaints like a counterfeit $20 bill, the accusation that led to George Floyd’s death. Many activists urge funds to be reallocated towards neglected social services, such as mental health, education and housing. By assisting underprivileged and overpoliced neighborhoods, these programs would alleviate the underlying causes of crime. Thus, defunding the police means a “divest and invest model: divesting money from local and state police budgets and reinvesting it into communities.” 

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 14 million students attend schools with police officers but no counselors, nurses, psychologists or social workers. With few behavioral resources, teachers and principals turn to law enforcement to discipline children. This results in an increased criminalization of minors, especially marginalized students of color. Black students are three times as likely to be arrested as their white counterparts, and black students with disabilities account for 12% of school arrests. The ACLU also found that roughly 25% of school police had no prior experience working with youth. Police are trained to arrest and detain, not to oversee the social and emotional well-being of minors. Schools with health and youth professionals see improved attendance, lower rates of disciplinary incidents and higher rates of graduation. 

Rather than funding police officers, Chicago Public Schools hires counselors from Alternatives, a multicultural youth development organization. Alternatives operates as a support system for more than 3,000 students in Chicago. Counselors promote “restorative justice,” teaching students leadership, responsibility, community-building and respect. Last year, in schools with Alternatives, reports of misconduct dropped by 31% and out-of-school suspensions dropped by 50%, showing that police may not be necessary in schools. 

A protester in Minneapolis holds a sign that explains defunding police. Featous. CC BY 2.0

Criminalization of drugs also drives violent encounters between police and citizens, like the tragic shooting of Breonna Taylor. Since the “War on Drugs” began in the 1970s, police have targeted black neighborhoods, implementing stop-and-frisk protocols to subject thousands of “suspicious” minorities to searches. Higher arrest and incarceration rates in these communities reflect oversurveillance, not increased drug use. In the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 17 million white people and 4 million black people reported using an illicit drug within the last month. However, black Americans are six times more likely to be incarcerated for drugs than whites. Prosecutors are also twice as likely to issue a mandatory minimum sentence for black people than for white people charged with the same offense. Those selling small amounts of drugs to support their addiction may face decades of jail time. Since prisons rarely offer addiction treatment, released convicts often endure a cycle of drug abuse and arrests. 

Oregon is at the forefront of decriminalizing drugs. In November, voters will review Initiative Petition 44, a measure to reduce possession of illegal drugs to a $100 citation. This citation could be waived if the person agrees to a health assessment at a drug recovery center. Drug trafficking and possession of large quantities of drugs would still result in criminal penalties. The initiative also includes $57 million a year for funding drug treatment programs. “We are trying to move policy towards treatment rather than prison beds,” former state senator Jackie Winters told the Washington Post in 2017 ahead of a similar bill. “We can't continue on the path of building more prisons when often the underlying root cause of the crime is substance use.”   

George Floyd protest in Miami. Mike Shaheen. CC BY 2.0

Every year, two million Americans with mental illnesses will be jailed. People living with mental illnesses are also 16 times more likely to die as a result of a police encounter compared to the general public. In 2017, one in four killed by police suffered from mental illness. These statistics prove that people experiencing a mental health crisis are more likely to encounter police than medical professionals. Although officers may receive crisis intervention training, police continually shoot and kill schizophrenic and mentally disabled people. 

To prevent these senseless killings, cities have diverted funding to mental health programs. Austin, Texas, recently revamped its public safety department by adding millions of dollars to its mental health budget. Now, 911 operators inquire whether the caller needs police, fire or mental health services. The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) refers to a group of law enforcement officers specifically trained in mental health crises. CIT diverts patients from the criminal justice system, instead connecting them with mental health services. Eugene, Oregon, also launched a service called CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets) which deploys a medic and a mental health crisis worker to emergency calls. CAHOOTS avoids the need for law enforcement by providing immediate stabilization to urgent medical and psychological needs. 

While defunding the police may seem inconceivable, programs and initiatives across the country are already similarly preventing crime. By reducing the reliance on police, community-driven solutions can de-escalate situations that result in arrests and police violence. Globally, the U.S. has the highest rate of police brutality and the largest prison population, with black people constituting 34% of the total 6.8 million inmates. One in 13 black Americans are now denied the right to vote due to laws that disenfranchise people with felony convictions. To afford such mass incarceration, the U.S. spends an estimated $100 billion on their police forces annually and $80 billion on incarceration. Yet, social services remain underfunded. It’s evident that people of color experience discrimination at every stage of the criminal justice system. With police brutality and incarceration on the rise, activists urge the United States government to finally reimagine policing in America.

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Shannon Moran

Shannon is a Journalism major at the University of Georgia, minoring in English and Spanish. As a fluent Spanish speaker, she is passionate about languages, cultural immersion, and human rights activism. She has visited seven countries and thirty states and hopes to continue traveling the world in pursuit of compelling stories.

Cuba’s Pandemic Response Could Offer Solutions to Other Nations

Cuba has long been renowned for its health care system. The island nation of 11 million maintains a ratio of 8.4 doctors per 1,000 citizens, the highest for any country according to the World Bank.

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a significant threat to this system, as housing shortages and limited financial resources continue to remain widespread issues for the country. Despite this, Cuba has maintained a relatively low number of cases in comparison to similar-sized countries, with The New York Times reporting 2,119 total cases and 83 deaths as of June 5.

This has led some to argue that the successes of the Cuban health care system and COVID-19 response can serve as a model for other countries still combating the virus.

Universal Health Care

One of the hallmarks of the Cuban health care system is that it is available to all citizens either for free or at a significantly reduced cost. This can be attributed to the nation maintaining a deeply centralized authoritarian government, which allows for strict control on the prices of medical goods and services.

Cuba’s health care system is by no means perfect. The nation still faces shortages on a number of medical resources, and access to more advanced procedures is often limited to the larger cities like Havana and Santiago de Cuba. However, Cuba has continued to retain low infant mortality rates and high life expectancies, numbers which outpace similarly developed countries and are on par with those of the global north.

A Rapid Domestic Response

The Cuban Ministry of Public Health implemented a “prevention and control” plan on January 28, a solid month and a half before the country would see its first positive COVID-19 case on March 18. The plan outlined concrete details as to when and how the nation would limit international travel in the name of public health, as well as policies for how virus relief resources would be distributed throughout the island.

The plan was fully implemented on March 20 with a ban on tourist arrivals to the island and the enforcement of domestic quarantine procedures. At the time, Cuba had only 21 confirmed COVID-19 cases. The nation began mass testing on May 11 to further contain the spread of the virus.

The swift implementation of the “prevention and control” plan proved successful; the number of active COVID-19 cases peaked at 849 on April 25. The Ministry of Public Health reported that the number of active cases in the country had dropped to 161 as of May 28.

Cuban Doctors Abroad

Beginning in 1963 with the stationing of 56 Cuban doctors in Algeria, Cuba has continued to send doctors, nurses and health care workers abroad on both a voluntary and monetary basis, which has grown to an estimated 28,000 Cuban medical professionals working abroad today. This practice of medical diplomacy has continued into the COVID-19 era, with the nation having sent over 2,300 medical personnel abroad to over 24 countries to combat the virus as of May 26.

While some countries like the United States have refused this sort of outside medical aid, others have been more welcoming to Cuban health care workers. Italy welcomed two separate teams of Cuban doctors to Lombardy and Piedmont, two of the hardest hit regions in the country, during the pandemic’s height in the country.

Critics have argued that the practice of sending doctors abroad is merely a form of exploitative diplomacy done in an effort to legitimize the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba. That said, the vast majority of Cuba’s medical diplomatic efforts are done in developing countries whose citizens would otherwise have no access to quality medical care.

Jacob Sutherland

is a recent graduate from the University of California San Diego where he majored in Political Science and minored in Spanish Language Studies. He previously served as the News Editor for The UCSD Guardian, and hopes to shed light on social justice issues in his work.

Delivered: Bicycle Delivery in the Age of COVID-19

“A slice of life in the time of corona; thousands of invisible front line workers risk their health every day to bring food to your couch. They aren't just immigrants struggling to survive in New York City . . . They are the backbone of New York City, and they are the essential.” -Law Chen

Native American Tribes Sue US Treasury Over Distribution of Stimulus Aid

Native American tribes are among the communities who have been suffering the most from the coronavirus, and receiving the least amount of aid. Native Americans are a high-risk population for COVID-19. According to Health Affairs—a peer-reviewed healthcare journal—heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, and diabetes are the leading causes of death among Native American populations, which means that life expectancy is 5.5 years less than the rest of the US population.

The coronavirus has highlighted the disparities that Native American communities face, even under “normal” circumstances. According to the American Bar Association, “health care for Native Americans lags behind other groups, despite a legal obligation on the part of the United States to provide health care to American Indians and Alaska Natives.”

In mid-March, the Seattle Indian Health Board reported that instead of receiving the medical supplies they asked for, they received a box of body bags. Though it was determined to be a mistake, the mix-up echoes the pressing lack of resources and funding that the Native American communities need. As the coronavirus continues to devastate vulnerable communities in the US, it is of the utmost importance that stimulus aid goes directly to individuals, not corporations.

The Navajo Nation, the second largest Native American tribe, now has the highest per-capita COVID-19 infection rate after New York and New Jersey. As of May 9, there were 2,973 confirmed cases and 98 confirmed deaths for the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation with a population of 350,000 residents, and it continues to rise. On May 6, the Nation finally received their portion of the federal coronavirus stimulus aid, six weeks after it was promised to them, and only after the US Treasury Department was sued.

In April, a group of Native American tribal governments sued the US Treasury Department over unjust distribution of coronavirus stimulus aid. They sued the Treasury in order to prevent the agency from allowing for-profit Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) to access the $8 billion allocated to Native American tribes from the $2.2 trillion emergency stimulus rescue package.

The ANCs were established after the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971—a law governing how Alaska Natives could manage their lands. According to Vox, the passage of the ANCSA was likely because the “ANCSA paved the way for oil and gas exploration, which some ANCs have gone on to profit from in the years since.”

The tribes argue that the aid should not include the for-profit Alaska Native Corporations, and should be distributed solely to the 574 federally recognized tribes. If the 237 ANCs were able to apply for the relief money, it would greatly reduce the amount the nation’s tribal people would receive because the Alaskan Native Corporations would disproportionately benefit. According to Politico, “it could also tilt much of the funding even further toward one state by giving some Alaska Natives the ability to seek aid as both villagers and shareholders of a corporation.”

On May 5, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta gave the tribes a victory when he limited access of the relief aid to the Native American tribes, blocking the ANCs from getting money from the stimulus funds.

Asiya Haouchine

is an Algerian-American writer who graduated from the University of Connecticut in May 2016, earning a BA in journalism and English. She was an editorial intern and contributing writer for Warscapes magazine and the online/blog editor for Long River Review. She is currently studying for her Master’s in Library and Information Science. @AsiyaHaou

Meet the Helpers Rising Up During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Mister Rogers taught us that when things feel scary, “look for the helpers.” Today, people all over the world are stepping up to help their fellow human beings during the COVID-19 pandemic. This one’s for them—for the doctors, nurses and paramedics risking their own lives to keep us healthy; for those in the garment industry making masks for the workers on the front lines; for the chefs, the kitchen and delivery workers making sure no one goes hungry. These are the everyday heroes showing kindness and strength when we need it the most.

There are so many ways you, too, can help. If you’re looking to lend a hand, here are just a few ways you can make a difference.

Make Masks

The folks at the Minnesota Opera costume shop, EquiFit (a company that designs gear for horses and riders), Stitchroom (a custom home goods outfit) among so many others are retooling their operations to make and deliver masks to those working on the frontlines. If you’ve got a sewing machine and some free time, you can, too. Here’s what you would need.

For supplies, the most effective household materials to transform into masks include vacuum cleaner bags, dish towels, T-shirts, and pillowcases. Find more information about the efficacy of different materials right here.

There are many different types of masks you can create, from double-layered, to those with a pocket for a reusable filter. Here’s a tutorial to one of the simplest masks you can make from home. Find more mask-making resources here.

There are many different places you can donate your masks, including your local hospital. If you are looking for organizations that are helping to distribute, check out Stitchroom, and join their Facebook group for more maker resources.

Give Food

Chefs like José Andrés and Marcus Samuelsson are working to bring relief to those affected by COVID-19 through World Central Kitchen. So many other small restaurants and businesses in the US and beyond are donating food to make sure no one has to go hungry.

Save the Children and Blessings in a Backpack have teamed up with school districts to provide meals to students. You can donate to Save the Children here, and Blessings in a Backpack here.

Older adults are also among the most vulnerable right now. Meals on Wheels provides home delivery of food to seniors, and needs resources now more than ever. You can donate here.

Food banks are also facing an increased need during this time. Feeding America has set up a COVID-19 Response Fund to support its 200 food banks nationwide, and has set up mobile, drive-through distribution points.

Support Healthcare Workers

People like 16-year-old pilot TJ Kim and the motorcyclists at Masks for Docs are going the distance to deliver PPE to healthcare workers. Here’s how you can help, too.

The World Health Organization, the UN Foundation and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation have come together to create the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund to finance diagnostic tests, buy supplies for healthcare workers and fund research efforts. You can donate here.

International Medical Corps is working with WHO to provide training, supplies and emergency medical response planning in high-risk locations. You can donate here.

Direct Relief is supplying health authorities in the US and China with protective equipment they need right now. You can donate here.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON GREAT BIG STORY

Studying Abroad Amid Lockdown

According to the Institute of International Education, the University of Georgia ranks thirteenth in the nation for the number of students who study abroad. With over one hundred faculty-led programs and nearly 2,000 students studying abroad each year, global experiential learning promises an expanded worldview and diversified education. 

During my second year pursuing a Spanish degree at the University of Georgia, I decided to study abroad in Valencia, Spain. Expecting to explore Europe for six months, I eagerly boarded a plane from Atlanta to Madrid with three bulky suitcases. From December to January, I spent my days attending lectures at a local university, traversing the Spanish countryside, and conversing with locals. Amid my cultural immersion, reports began to emerge about the coronavirus outbreak in China. I naively believed this novel disease would not impede trips to England, France, and Portugal.  

By February, however, COVID-19 had inundated Europe, forcing many study abroad students to return home. UGA’s Office of Global Engagement, like many universities, consequently issued this statement: “The University of Georgia recognizes that international travel, communication, and partnerships are essential to UGA's academic, research, and outreach mission and supports these endeavors. Countries and areas that carry U.S. State Department Travel Advisory Level 3/4 require special consideration and review to manage and mitigate risk, and in many circumstances, require the avoidance of travel altogether.” After a soccer match against Milan, a coronavirus epicenter, Valencia’s travel advisory was raised to a level 2. 

Fearing my study abroad program would abruptly end, I intended on visiting as much of Europe as possible. For three consecutive weeks, I took advantage of cheap airfare and traveled to London, Paris, and Lisbon. Each city’s hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions were practically vacant. I had imagined the streets of Paris, the city of romance and culture, to be bustling with music and lovers walking hand in hand. Yet, during the last week of February, Paris was eerily still. I waited for five minutes to climb the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, while most tourists wait over an hour. In the Louvre, which normally averages 15,000 visitors per day, I observed artwork like the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo in silence. Even Champs-Elysees, the most famous street in Paris, was deserted. Apart from the occasional Parisian in mask, it seemed I had the city to myself. Days after departing Paris, the government announced, “All gatherings of more than 5,000 people in confined spaces will be cancelled.” Infamous sites that I had just toured, like the Louvre and Eiffel Tower, were closed indefinitely. 

On March 11, more chaos ensued as the World Health Organization’s Director General, Tedors Adhanom, declared the coronavirus a pandemic, stating, “We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear.” The following day, while I slept in my Valencia dorm, President Trump announced travel restrictions on 26 European countries, including Spain. Although the 30-day travel ban did not apply to legal residents of the United States, Spain simultaneously imposed a nationwide lockdown to combat the virus. Madrid barred travel to and from the city, and word spread that international flights would soon be suspended. In the early hours of March 12, I was awoken to program directors frantically pounding on my door. They affirmed we had a mere 24 hours to escape Spain on the final flight to Atlanta. 

I hastily packed clothes and souvenirs and boarded a bus to Madrid, leaving behind two suitcases full of belongings and many unsaid farewells to Spanish friends. After a five-hour excursion and many failed attempts to enter the city due to strict quarantine orders, I finally arrived at the Madrid-Barajas Airport. Panicked passengers in makeshift masks and hazmat suits rushed to their gates. Travelers emptied suitcases into trash cans to avoid long check-in lines. University students tearfully begged customer service for tickets home. While rushing through security, the customs officer reviewing my ticket murmured, “You’re lucky you found a flight out of here. Volver pronto,” meaning “come back soon.” On March 14, one day after my return to the United States, the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, declared a state of emergency which placed the country on lockdown and cancelled all outgoing flights. I had narrowly escaped an impending two-month state of emergency.

On March 13th, travelers in hazmat suits rush through the Madrid-Barajas Airport. Photo by Shannon Moran.

Upon arrival in Atlanta, CDC workers recommended 14-day quarantine and randomly screened a handful of passengers for fevers. On April 20, Georgia Governor Kemp disregarded public health officials by announcing, “We will allow gyms, fitness centers, bowling alleys, barbers, cosmetologists, hair designers, nail care artists, estheticians, and massage therapists to reopen their doors.” Following a chaotic return to the United States and cancellation of my study abroad experience, I continue to fear contracting and spreading COVID-19 in a state reopening. In spite of dismay and uncertainty, I witnessed the world at a pivotal moment in history. Amidst a worldwide pandemic, I visited Europe’s cultural epicenters, and volveré pronto, I will return soon.

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Shannon Moran

Shannon is a Journalism major at the University of Georgia, minoring in English and Spanish. As a fluent Spanish speaker, she is passionate about languages, cultural immersion and human rights activism. She has visited seven countries and thirty states and hopes to continue traveling the world in pursuit of compelling stories.

The Detrimental Impact of Covid-19 on Developing Nations

The world has dealt with COVID-19 since the beginning of the year with varying countries successfully staving it off. However, the question of how developing countries are doing has crossed the media only a few times. The problem is our inability to know the true extent of their situation since they do not have the same means as more developed countries like ourselves and other impacted countries. Their economic situations are close to being called a crisis while medical care is scarce to come by. In countries like Bangladesh, Nigeria and South Africa, their vulnerability to the virus has increased with the global economic shut-down and sparse supplies. 

The Economic Crisis 

The biggest issue with developing countries is their reliance on “foreign income and tourism”. This ultimately means that regardless of confirmed COVID-19 cases, they will feel the impact of the virus as the world economy faces major setbacks and in some cases come close to halting as some countries' exports are affected. For example, in Bangladesh “only 15% of Bangladeshi workers make over $6 a day”, meaning very few families are able to support themselves in the event of an economic shut down. The World Bank has sent aid across the globe and plans to send out close to $160 billion dollars of relief money to Africa and countries such as Pakistan, India, Ethiopia and more, hoping to help relieve them of economic stress and strengthen “their national health systems.” An issue that has risen with giving aid to these countries is that their situation is not like the United States of America where we can enforce “social distancing guidelines and then pair them with stimulus packages”. Poorer countries, such as Bangladesh, are more spread out with the majority of their population self-employed or working in informal sectors meaning they are not under the tax and benefits system. They tend to live “hand-to-mouth” instead of pay-check to paycheck. This means they are completely reliant on what they make that day to feed their families and survive. Further complicating the matter, with so few resources spread out across the country, we are unable to find the COVID-19 epicenters of these countries. They lack the proper test kits and quantity, resulting in an inaccurate number of positive COVID-19 cases and too few resources for help and trained professionals. 

The Impact on Medical Care

It has been predicted that with the rest of the world’s cases slowly dropping, the new world epicenter for COVID-19 will shift to Africa. Currently, they have “10,000 reported confirmed cases and over 500 fatalities”. While they were not the first to be impacted, their curve of cases has yet to flatten, worrying health officials worldwide. Just this last week, Capetown, South Africa jumped 43% with confirmed cases, alerting the WHO of the rising crisis but no way to determine the true epicenter of the continent. Without proper safety equipment in hospitals, many doctors or nurses try to avoid seeing patients who predict they have the virus, seeing as they won’t be protected themselves. Additionally, there is a severe lack of testing kits available, so they’ve tried to spread them out as much as possible nationwide. A stark example is Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with over 200 million inhabitants, which has reported almost 900 COVID-19 cases with only 28 confirmed deaths. They have only conducted just over 7,000 tests with only 5,000 of these coming in this past week and being used. This lack of equipment again adds to the ignorance of the true numbers of cases these countries have and how we can help. 

Lastly, countries such as South Africa and Bangladesh have an inability to obtain an adequate amount of medical supplies, and the ones they do have are spread so thin that they are hardly useful. Populations are scrambling to seek help, but social-distancing guidelines like we’ve seen in our own country are impossible to implement in countries where most of their population do not live in an urban setting. For example, in Bangladesh, the entire country only has “432 ICU beds with only 110 outside the capital city of Dhaka”. This ultimately means unless the Bangladeshi population lives inside the city, it’s unlikely they will receive the help they need. Already Bangladesh has over 5,000 confirmed cases and over 150 deaths.  Their inability to give out adequate healthcare has required donations from all around the world to enable people to get the help they need. Bangladesh, Nigeria and South Africa are only a few examples of the countries who rely on each other to take home food and money to their families, and most do not live in a country that has an organized, official census. This makes it hard for health officials to know how much supplies they need to send to these countries and give them aid.

Implemented Strategies

Initially, their ability to sustain their countries through this pandemic has looked grim, but the world has flooded in to help by donating supplies and tests. For example, in Bangladesh, officials have implemented a survey to try to get a good grasp on the exact number of population while increasing their efforts to educate the general population on what COVID-19 is and how to keep themselves safe. Additionally, they are working on an already established census to call citizens to check in on them, making sure they have the help and resources they need. In other countries like South America and Nigeria, they are currently working on educating their populations and trying to implement as little contact as possible with people not related to each other. At the end of the day, the most that can be done is a step by step process that starts with getting the full scope of what these countries are dealing with. This starts with getting more test kits sent out and more government officials working on getting the exact numbers on a population.

Ultimately, the world has been floored by this pandemic, and each day brings a new challenge. But globally, people are gathering to find ways to help countries who are not as equipped to function as normal, while ensuring the safety of everyone is kept at the forefront of their minds.

Elizabeth Misnick

is a Professional Writing and Rhetoric major at Baylor University. She grew up in a military family and lived in Europe for almost half her life, traveling and living in different countries. She hopes to continue writing professionally throughout her career and publish her writing in the future.

Coronavirus and the Amazon’s Indigenous Population

The Indigenous populations of the Americas have been decimated by diseases brought by colonizers for centuries. With the first case of Coronavirus among Brazil’s Indigenous population identified on April 1st, the trend continues. They are under considerable risk of an outbreak spiraling out of control. Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, has time and time again placed his opinion and policy against the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Their resources and social environment are not fit to handle a pandemic. The outbreak could have serious repercussions.

One of Bolsonaro’s first actions in office was an assault on protections of the Amazon, exploiting Indigenous land and putting their populations at risk in the process. Later, he admitted to fueling fires in the Amazon to clear land for agriculture. This has caused severe damage to the local populations and the ecosystem. Their lands are being taken and their communities destroyed for the sake of corporate profit.

Bolsonaro has a history of racism against the Indigenous people of the country. He once stated: “It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry hasn’t been as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians,” one of many such remarks. He has permitted illegal loggers to seize and raid territory in the Amazon, which alongside the health risks of the virus, has lead Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry to warn of the “risk of genocide.”

Bolsonaro has displayed little care about Coronavirus. He has called it “a little flu” and has urged Brazilians to leave isolation and go back to work. This is in a country that has reported 22,720 cases and 1,270 deaths as of April 13. His lack of regard for both taking the necessary precautions against Coronavirus and protecting the Indigenous communities in the territory project a very dangerous situation in Brazil.

The Indigenous territories of the Amazon do not have the resources to fight this battle alone.   

Their communities have very limited access to healthcare. People often live in close quarters with each other. Not to mention that 107 groups who have no contact with the outside world and would have no means to deal with an outbreak. And that doctors pose the risk of spreading the disease further. 

Indigenous populations have a history of disease decimating their populations, and given the lack of resources and government response, there is a great possibility of Coronavirus dealing massive damage. Karl Marx said that history repeats itself, “the first as tragedy, then as farce.” Without a government to turn to, this situation is seemingly in the hands of non-profit groups and Brazilians willing to step up and help their fellow compatriots.

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Arlo O’Blaney

Arlo grew up in New York City and is currently a Human Rights major at Bard College. He intends on using this background to pursue a career in journalism. He almost played D3 Lacrosse but realized how bad of an idea that was.

Covid-19 Crisis Management in the Face of Syria’s Ongoing Refugee Crisis

Refugee populations and internally-displaced persons are increasingly at risk of infection during the growing Covid-19 crisis. Focusing on Syria’s refugee and informal settlement populations, organizations such as the International Rescue Committee have begun to outline and employ a strategy for crisis management among these incredibly at-risk populations. 

Escalating concerns about rapidly-rising case counts, economic shock, and ill-equipped hospital facilities have dominated the majority of front-page coverage of the novel Coronavirus, or Covid-19. Noticeably absent from much of the discussion is a critical locus in dire need of crisis response efforts: refugee camps and settlement populations, especially those that have developed in and around Syria in the nine years of violence, beginning in 2011. 

Even among the ruling classes, the Middle East has been hit incredibly hard by the virus; as many as 150 members of the Saudi royal family are known to have contracted the virus. 

So far, Syria has reported 29 cases of the novel coronavirus, resulting in two fatalities. However, a critical dimension of the rapidly-evolving Covid-19 crisis is the lack of adequate testing resources, even in countries typically looked to as leaders in crisis-management and resilience, such as the United States. Consequently, with so many internally displaced persons and a crippled healthcare system, it is difficult to say exactly how many cases of Coronavirus are actually present in Syria. Given the crowding and scarcity of resources in refugee camps and informal settlements, the ever-growing risk of Covid-19 infection among these communities has been labeled a “death sentence” for refugees. 

Moreover, as of Tuesday, April 14th, President Trump announced a freeze in the $400 million provided yearly to the World Health Organization by Washington. Global health officials are urging the President to reconsider, given the state of the global emergency. The WHO has partnered with the Syrian Ministry of Health in order to provide protective equipment, testing resources, as well as services such as isolation and contact tracing. The majority of recent WHO efforts have been concentrated in Northwest Syria, home to the last opposition stronghold, and as a result, the most violence and internal displacement. 

In a recent interview with Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker, David Miliband, former Foreign Secretary for the U.K and current President and C.E.O. of the International Rescue Committee, outlined the critical dimensions of crisis response in refugee camps along Syria’s borders and informal settlements concentrated in urban areas. In his interview, Miliband emphasizes the importance of information campaigns designed to reach all corners of at-risk populations, which fight disinformation and spread facts regarding best health practices in the face of the virus. 

Taking notes from failures and successes of the ongoing Ebola crisis, Miliband also extols the importance of trust in crisis response. In order to foster this sense of trust inside camps and settlements, the IRC employs local staffers, and opens its health facilities to members of the population surrounding the refugee camps and informal settlements. By opening the facilities to all members of the local population, the IRC is able to foster cooperation and reduce social strain. Moreover, because the virus cannot be contained, in providing services to all in need to the best of its ability, public health responders such as the IRC are able to ultimately reduce the number infected inside the at-risk refugee camps. 

It is this sense of cooperation which Miliband outlines as another pillar of effective crisis response: both in a cross-organizational sense when considering local hotspots of crisis relief, as well as in a global sense. As Miliband acknowledges, it is not necessarily unreasonable for a nation to prioritize its own citizens, but, put simply, viruses know no borders. As Miliband goes on to say, “To my mind, Covid-19 is a disease of the connected world, where all of us are only as strong as the weakest link in the chain, where the only solution has got to be a universal solution.” It is then only through collaboration, not protectionism, that the risk of widespread infection can be mitigated among refugee communities in and around Syria.

Hallie Griffiths

is an undergraduate at the University of Virginia studying Foreign Affairs and Spanish. After graduation, she hopes to apply her passion for travel and social action toward a career in intelligence and policy analysis. Outside of the classroom, she can be found, quite literally, outside: backpacking, rock climbing, or skiing with her friends.

Volunteer Tourism is (Sometimes) Not the Answer

“The number of truly orphaned children in Cambodia halved in 2013, but the number of orphanages doubled.”

Perhaps you woke up today and realized that it was time for you to travel the world. If you’re anything like me, avoiding traditional tourism is a priority as you begin to research the ways and places to travel. The good news is, there are many alternatives to traditional tourism. Oftentimes, travelers want to make a difference as they move through the world so, naturally, combining your travel adventures and your philanthropy is a good idea, right? Not necessarily. While it’s likely that the most effective way to help someone in need, is to stay put and send them the money you were going to use on your trip, I know that most folks who volunteer in place of traditional tourism do so with good intentions. You should know then that there are some things that often go over-looked by those of us who want to see the world and make it better as we do. So, before you pack up and head to the Bahamas to do some hurricane relief here are three of the more commonly overlooked risks to keep in mind:

1)     Carbon footprint

Chances are if you’re going somewhere that falls into the category of volunteer tourism, or voluntourism, it’s going to take massive amounts of fuel to fly there. Make sure that it’s worth the environmental cost before you hop on a plane and travel somewhere that is likely experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand. Check for train routes, and other alternative forms of transport before you book a flight that covers the whole length of your trip.

2)     Building Projects

Many do-gooders hope to help people in need by building homes, schools or orphanages. While these things are certainly needed around the world, I hate to say it, you’re most likely not a qualified builder, and you probably don’t know building codes/laws for the place you’re visiting (though if you are-good on ya). You’re more likely to build a poor standing structure than say, a local professional, who you may have inadvertently taken the job from because you were willing to do it for free (though this isn’t always the case).

3)     Orphanages

Turns out that many children in orphanages around the world have at least one living parent –or at least an Aunt or two. Many families are told that their children will be better cared for and given better opportunities if they allow their child to be separated from them. Those opportunities rarely arise, and governments love to capitalize off the billion-dollar (orphan) travel industry. For example: the number of truly orphaned children in Cambodia halved in 2013, but the number of orphanages doubled.

Children are included in a workshop on how to mitigate the struggles their community faces. Raeann Mason

In an increasingly xenophobic world, however, travel volunteerism can be used to combat these very problems. In order to avoid falling into the trap of becoming volunteers who perpetuate poverty and crisis, we need to shift our focus. We can mitigate the negative effects of voluntourism by first engaging with a place as it is –be patient— wait to be invited by a local and help in their pre-existing projects. We can also educate ourselves about the organizations we are considering volunteering with – doing some vetting is necessary if we want to be responsible travelers. Don’t forget, we can always not volunteer with an organization at all. Get neighborly and meet the people around you; see if you can meet their needs all on your own. Because if we can shift our mindset from “helping” the poor to engaging in a cultural exchange we allow ourselves, and those we hope to benefit, a stable foundation that can be built upon. The more we learn about the places we hope to go, and the people who live there (like, on a personal level), the better we can bring the world together instead of breaking it down with our ignorance.

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Raeann Mason

Raeann is an avid traveler, digital storyteller and guide writer. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Comm & Media Studies from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication. Passionate about a/effective journalism and cultural exchange, she is an advocate of international solidarity and people's liberation. As the founder of ROAM + WRITE and EIC of Monarch Magazine, Raeann hopes to reshape the culture of travel and hospitality to be ethically sound and sustainable.