Global Health: Coronavirus, or Covid-19
October 2 – North America: United States
President Donald Trump and First lady test positive for COVID-19. Several other high-profile people and staffers in the White House also test positive. President Trump has been criticized for downplaying the severity of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 207,000 people in the United States so far, questioning the effectiveness of wearing face masks and social distancing, likening the virus to the flu, and insisting that it will just disappear.[1] He has held crowded political rallies where attendees did not wear masks nor social-distanced.[2] As President Trump’s symptoms worsen, he is taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He is given three drugs: an experimental antibody therapy Regeneron, which may reduce levels of coronavirus and speed up a recovery, but has yet to be approved for general public, as well as remdesivir and dexamethasone. [3]
(Oct 5): President Trump is discharged from the hospital.
(Oct 15): The U.S. reaches eight million Covid-19 cases.[4]
(Oct 23): The U.S. registers a single-day record of more than 85,000 new cases. This time the coronavirus surge is raging across America’s rural areas, especially in the Midwest and Mountain West.[5] One rural state, Vermont, is an exception. It has not recorded a single Covid-19 death in more than two months (read an article below).[6]
Opinion: How Could the President Get the Coronavirus
Vermont’s Approach to the Virus
(Oct 9) – South Asia: Nepal
Nepal’s total number of coronavirus infections passes 100,000, with 600 deaths. Daily numbers of infections are rising at a faster rate than in any South Asian country, with an exception of India, putting an extreme stress on the country’s health care system. This increase in Covid-19 cases in Nepal started in June when the government downplayed the risks and began to ease restrictive measures imposed in March to prop up the economy. It also failed to enforce wearing masks, social distancing, and sanitation.[7]
(Oct 11) – Latin America: Brazil
Brazil passes 150,000 deaths from Covid-19, making it the second-highest death toll after the United States. Brazil also has the third-highest number of cases after the U.S. and India.[8]
(Oct 18) – Global
Nearly 40 million people around the world have been infected with the coronavirus.[9]
(Oct 18) – Europe
Cases of coronavirus and hospitalizations are rising in Europe. Great Britain is imposing new restrictions, and France is placing cities on “maximum alert.” Germany and Italy set records for the most new daily cases.[10]
(Oct 26): With one of the world’s highest infection rates, Spain declares a state of emergency and orders a nationwide 11pm curfew.
(Oct 29): With deaths from Covid-19 increasing by 30 percent and hospitalizations reaching their highest levels since spring, World Health Organization (WHO) says Europe is at the epicenter of this pandemic once again. However, it also states that nationwide lockdowns should be viewed as a last resort because of the economic toll and effects on mental health.[11]
October 9 – International Organizations: The Nobel Prize
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize for 2020 to the World Food Program (WFP), a United Nations agency, “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”[12]
Combined with the coronavirus pandemic, some countries have experienced a dramatic spike in the number of people living on the brink of starvation. But the WFP has intensified its efforts, stating, “Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos.”[13]
Background
The World Food Program is the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger and promoting food security. In 2019, 135 million people around the world suffered from acute hunger, the highest number in many years. Most of the increase was caused by war and armed conflict. In that year, the WFP provided assistance to nearly 100 million people in 88 countries.[14]
Nobel Prizes 2020
October 14 – East Asia: Australia
Environment – Great Barrier Reef
A study published by Australian researchers says that half the coral that makes up the Great Barrier Reef has died since 1995 due to warmer seas driven by climate change. Also, about two-thirds of the reef is damaged by mass bleaching that occurs when corals drive out the algae that give them color due to heat stress. Global temperatures have already risen by about 1°C since pre-industrial times. The scientists warn that if that rise reaches 1.5°C, 90 percent of the world’s corals will disappear. Corals can recover if normal conditions return, but it can take decades.[15]
Background
The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for 1,400 miles. The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia. The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world’s biggest single structure made by living organisms.
The reef was designated a World Heritage site in 1981 for its “enormous scientific and intrinsic importance”.[16]
Map of the Great Barrier Reef region
Various photographs of the Great Barrier Reef
The bleached Australian reef and a Covid challenge
How the Great Barrier Reef was saved in the 1960s
October 18 – Latin America: Bolivia
Elections
Luis Arce of the Movement for Socialism party (MAS), the progressive candidate and former finance minister in the Evo Morales administration, wins a landslide victory in Bolivia’s presidential election, beating his nearest rival Carlos Mesa from the Revolutionary Left Front (FRI) by nearly 30 percentage points. The MAS party also retains its majorities in both chambers of the parliament, but it comes short of a two-third majority. The MAS victory can be credited in the popularity of its policies, such as significant reduction of poverty in Bolivia, and the rejection of the policies pursued by the conservative government, including its mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis. Bolivia has the world’s third-highest per-capita death rate from the pandemic.[17]
Background
This election is a rerun of Bolivia’s October 2019 presidential election, which was rife with accusations of fraud to benefit of President Evo Morales. He was forced to resign and went into exile in Argentina amid mass protests, political violence, and military pressure. Jeanine Anez, a rightwing conservative and second vice president of the Senate, took over as an interim president. The situation caused mass street protests.
More on the background of the Bolivian elections
October 26 – North America: United States
U.S. Supreme Court
The United States Senate confirms Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The confirmation takes place just a week before Election Day and only 30 days after Barrett’s nomination. The vote is split along party lines, with 52 Republican Senators voting for the confirmation and all Democratic Senators voting against. Democrats criticized Barrett’s nomination so close to Election Day, after the Republican-led Senate in 2016 refused to hold hearings for then-President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, nearly eight months before that year’s election. Barrett’s appointment solidifies the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority.[18]
Why the Supreme Court has nine justices
October 26 – East Asia: Japan
Environment: Carbon Neutrality
Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga pledges to make Japan carbon neutral by 2050, joining other countries, such as China (which produces 26 percent of the world’s emissions) and the European Union who have made similar promises to fight the climate change. The United States, the world’s second largest carbon emitter, has not made any pledges to become carbon neutral. Carbon neutral refers to balancing carbon emissions by also removing carbon from the atmosphere. Japan plans to focus on the production of solar panels and carbon recycling.[19]