huffingtonpost--2020-04-02--'Coronavirus' Is Now A Racial Slur In India: What Can Govt Do To Prevent Attacks?

ASSOCIATED PRESS Students march during a protest in New Delhi on February 1 , 2014 after the death of Nido Tania .
Just last week , two students from Nagaland were refused entry into a supermarket in Karnataka ’ s Mysuru and allegedly told that they were “ not Indians ” .
In an Instagram post , one of the students said they even showed their Aadhaar card but the security people told them , “ we don ’ t accept foreigners ” .
Alana Golmei , a lawyer and activist who runs the North East Support Centre and Helpline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received about 100 complaints from the end of February until the lockdown was announced this month .
She herself was at the receiving end of a racist attack related to the outbreak in February .
This is not unique to India .
Many Asians living in the US and Europe have also said they are becoming targets of racist attacks and verbal slurs .
US President Donald Trump ’ s use of the word “ Chinese virus ” added fuel to an already fraught situation .
A 26-year-old woman named Yuanyuan Zhu told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ walking to her gym in San Francisco when a man started shouting at her and then spat at her while she waited at the crosswalk .
This was similar to the frightening experience that a Manipuri woman in Delhi went through last month when she stepped out to buy groceries—a middle-aged man on a scooter spat paan on her and called her “ corona ” .
He was identified from CCTV footage and arrested .
The alarming number of cases in India prompted the Ministry of Home Affairs ( MHA ) to issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that “ all law enforcement agencies in states and Union Territories be sensitised to take appropriate action in cases of harassment when these are reported.
” Golmei said that she had written to the MHA , Jt .
Sec , North East Division almost a month before that , on 25 February , asking for an advisory after being called “ coronavirus ” by a man .
She , however , said the advisory was just one component and a stringent law was needed to deal with these incidents .
Nepram said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ January , both the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace ( Nepram is the convener of Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace ) have been receiving increased reports of racism against people from the Northeast who are studying , working or living in metropolitan cities of India .
She added that one of the reasons why there has been very little change in this attitude is because the rich history of the region is not included in Indian textbooks or in any curriculum .
“ Hence , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knowing about us , our history , our culture and as a result they think whatever pre-conceived notions of who we are .
Overtime , stereotypes — such as ‘ North East people are uncivilised ’ , ‘ North East people eat anything that moves , eat stinky food ’ , “ North East women are morally loose ’ and so on — started building up.
” Nepram said what was really shocking about the racism displayed this time was that people from the Northeast were even not allowed to buy essentials like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They were told to “ go back to China ” .
2 .
“ India must implement the Bezbaruah Committee report on ending racial discrimination .
I worked with several others on this committee for six months following the murder of Nido Tania , who was killed in Delhi .
The committee report is 80 plus pages long and can be found on the Ministry of Home Affairs website and has extremely detailed steps that must be taken to confront racism in India .
”

ASSOCIATED PRESS Students march during a protest in New Delhi on February 1, 2014 after the death of Nido Tania.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak began, there have been multiple reports of discrimination and racist attacks against Indians from the Northeast states and Ladakh.
Just last week, two students from Nagaland were refused entry into a supermarket in Karnataka’s Mysuru and allegedly told that they were “not Indians”. In an Instagram post, one of the students said they even showed their Aadhaar card but the security people told them, “we don’t accept foreigners”.
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A 21-year-old student from Ladakh told HuffPost India’s Betwa Sharma in March about being shaken to the core after being called a racial slur and how he tried to fight back. At a local market in Jammu city on 21 March, he was told by a man, “chal hatt, aap logon ki wajah se coronavirus aaya hai.”
Alana Golmei, a lawyer and activist who runs the North East Support Centre and Helpline, told HuffPost India that they have received about 100 complaints from the end of February until the lockdown was announced this month. She herself was at the receiving end of a racist attack related to the outbreak in February.
This is not unique to India. Many Asians living in the US and Europe have also said they are becoming targets of racist attacks and verbal slurs. US President Donald Trump’s use of the word “Chinese virus” added fuel to an already fraught situation. A 26-year-old woman named Yuanyuan Zhu told The New York Times that she was walking to her gym in San Francisco when a man started shouting at her and then spat at her while she waited at the crosswalk.
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This was similar to the frightening experience that a Manipuri woman in Delhi went through last month when she stepped out to buy groceries—a middle-aged man on a scooter spat paan on her and called her “corona”. He was identified from CCTV footage and arrested.
The alarming number of cases in India prompted the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to issue an advisory on 23 March, asking that “all law enforcement agencies in states and Union Territories be sensitised to take appropriate action in cases of harassment when these are reported.”
Golmei said that she had written to the MHA, Jt. Sec, North East Division almost a month before that, on 25 February, asking for an advisory after being called “coronavirus” by a man. She, however, said the advisory was just one component and a stringent law was needed to deal with these incidents.
Binalakshmi Nepram, a rights activist and founder of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network, also told HuffPost India that an advisory was not enough and there is no pan-India level resource for Indians from the Northeast who are racially attacked.
HuffPost India spoke to Golmei and Nepram to understand if there’s anything different about the racism displayed after the COVID-19 outbreak and what the government can do to prevent such discrimination.
“Racism virus” must end: Binalakshmi Nepram
Nepram said that since the COVID-19 outbreak in China in January, both the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace (Nepram is the convener of Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace) have been receiving increased reports of racism against people from the Northeast who are studying, working or living in metropolitan cities of India.
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She, however, pointed out that while the purported reason this time may be new, Northeast Indians have been racially targeted in many parts of the country for decades.
“Our research shows that racism against Northeast people has been prevalent since the 1970s when people from the region started to travel outside for studies and work,” she said.
She added that one of the reasons why there has been very little change in this attitude is because the rich history of the region is not included in Indian textbooks or in any curriculum.
“Hence, 1.3 billion Indians do not grow up knowing about us, our history, our culture and as a result they think whatever pre-conceived notions of who we are. Overtime, stereotypes — such as ‘North East people are uncivilised’, ‘North East people eat anything that moves, eat stinky food’, “North East women are morally loose’ and so on — started building up.”
Nepram said what was really shocking about the racism displayed this time was that people from the Northeast were even not allowed to buy essentials like groceries at the time of a pandemic. They were told to “go back to China”.
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“If COVID 19 is a virus, we are clear that racism too is a virus that equally hurts us. It is time that what I call “racism virus” must end,” she said.
Successive governments are also to blame, said Nepram, pointing out the problem with discriminatory policies such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
According to Nepram, the Centre can take the following steps to tackle racism:
1. “India is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (India signed in 1967) and Indian Parliament must pass an anti-racism law. (Nepram’s office has worked with lawyers and has a draft ready on this).”
2. “India must implement the Bezbaruah Committee report on ending racial discrimination. I worked with several others on this committee for six months following the murder of Nido Tania, who was killed in Delhi. The committee report is 80 plus pages long and can be found on the Ministry of Home Affairs website and has extremely detailed steps that must be taken to confront racism in India.”
3. “India must include the rich history, culture, politics of the people of North East India in the curriculum so every child knows, learns and appreciates that India is a land of diversity.”
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(Ed—The committee was set up following the murder of 19-year-old Nido Tania in January in 2014. One of the recommendations was a new law against discrimination. The other was creation of fast-track courts for handling cases relating to the North East people)
Fast-track courts are essential: Alana Golmei
Golmei also said that there is no severe law to punish perpetrators involved in a racist attack and therefore, they get away easily and repeat the behaviour.
“There is no exemplary action to prevent such racial abuses, police are not sensitive enough to tackle such harassment, enough sensitisation is not done both short term and long term,” she added.
Golmei also said that this time not just young people, but even old and middle-aged people have been at the receiving end of these racist attacks and abuses.
She said that people from the Northeast have been asking for an anti-racism law, but their demand has not been fulfilled yet.
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Talking about the Bezbaruah committee, Golmei, who was also a member, said one of the major recommendations was creation of fast-track courts.
“Fast-track courts would deal with cases relating to Northeast people ‘particularly those which are racially motivated and heinous crimes against women and children’.”
Another major recommendation, she said, was the amendment of IPC sections 153C and 509A.
The committee recommended a provision in Section 153 of IPC, and insertion of a clause in Section 509 of the IPC to provide a maximum of five-year imprisonment and a fine as punishment for racism, according to The Indian Express.
“The most common demand is to make words like ‘momos’, ‘chinkies’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Nepali’, or any derogatory remarks related to race, culture, identity, or physical appearances punishable,” she said.


huffingtonpost--2020-06-03--BAME People Are More Likely To Die Of Coronavirus Than White People

Coronavirus has changed everything .
Make sense of it all with the Waugh Zone , our evening politics briefing .
Sign up now .
Black , Asian and minority ethnic ( BAME ) people are more likely to die of coronavirus than their white counterparts , an official report has found .
Public Health England ( PHE ) research suggested people of Bangladeshi ethnicity were twice as likely to die as those who are white British .
People of Chinese , Indian , Pakistani , other Asian , Caribbean and other Black ethnicities had a 10 % to 50 % @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white British ethnicity .
The findings are adjusted for age , sex , deprivation and region , meaning that even with disparities in those factors between ethnic groups there is still a difference in mortality rate .
“ These are important factors because they are associated with the risk of acquiring Covid-19 , the risk of dying , or both , ” the report said .
The report was published with ministers under pressure amid reports it could be delayed due to the Black Lives Matter protests against racism in the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ People in deprived areas “ may ” be more at risk of infection because they live closer together , or because they live in places that contain a higher proportion of workers in jobs more likely to be exposed to the virus , the report said .
But “ further investigation ” is needed on the role of underlying health conditions in people from deprived areas , who are more likely to die even after adjusting for ethnicity , the report said .
There was also a “ particularly high increase ” in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the population for any reason – during the Covid-19 pandemic among : Furthermore , there were 54 men and 13 women diagnosed with Covid-19 with no fixed abode , who are likely to be rough sleepers .
PHE estimated that this represents 2 % and 1.5 % of the known population of women and men who experienced rough sleeping in 2019 , suggesting a much higher infection rate in rough sleepers compared to the general population .
In the Commons , he said : “ People are understandably angry about injustices .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ responsibly because this pandemic has exposed huge disparities in the health of our nation .
The analysis did not take into account jobs , an “ important shortcoming ” given that some key occupations have a higher proportion of workers from BAME groups .
But the higher BAME death rates were the “ opposite of what is seen in previous years ” , when deaths were lower in Asian and Black ethnic groups compared to white groups .
The report said BAME people were “ likely ” to be at higher risk of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ live in urban or deprived areas , overcrowded households , or have jobs that expose them to have a higher risk .
BAME groups are also more likely than those of white ethnicity to be born abroad , meaning they may face cultural or language barriers in accessing services , the report said .
The report said people people of Bangladeshi and Pakistani background have higher rates of cardiovascular disease than white people , and people of Black Caribbean and Black African ethnicity have higher rates of hypertension compared with other ethnic groups @

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Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people are more likely to die of coronavirus than their white counterparts, an official report has found.
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Public Health England (PHE) research suggested people of Bangladeshi ethnicity were twice as likely to die as those who are white British.
People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, other Asian, Caribbean and other Black ethnicities had a 10% to 50% higher risk of death than those of white British ethnicity.
The findings are adjusted for age, sex, deprivation and region, meaning that even with disparities in those factors between ethnic groups there is still a difference in mortality rate.
But PHE stressed that the research did not account for the effect of occupation, existing conditions (comorbidities) or obesity.
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“These are important factors because they are associated with the risk of acquiring Covid-19, the risk of dying, or both,” the report said.
“Other evidence has shown that when comorbidities are included, the difference in risk of death among hospitalised patients is greatly reduced.”
The report was published with ministers under pressure amid reports it could be delayed due to the Black Lives Matter protests against racism in the United States and solidarity movements around the world.
Number of deaths of people who had a positive Covid-19 test in England, by ethnicity Public Health England
The report also found that those at higher risk included:
Those over 80, who were 70 times more likely to die than under-40s
Men
People in the most deprived areas, who were more than twice as likely to die as those from the least deprived areas
People in deprived areas “may” be more at risk of infection because they live closer together, or because they live in places that contain a higher proportion of workers in jobs more likely to be exposed to the virus, the report said.
But “further investigation” is needed on the role of underlying health conditions in people from deprived areas, who are more likely to die even after adjusting for ethnicity, the report said.
There was also a “particularly high increase” in all-cause deaths – that is deaths in the population for any reason – during the Covid-19 pandemic among:
Those born outside UK and Ireland - with the biggest increases coming in people from central and western Africa, the Caribbean, south east Asia, the Middle East
and south and eastern Africa
and south and eastern Africa Those in caring occupations, including social care and nursing auxiliaries and assistants
Taxi drivers and chauffeurs
Security guards and related occupations
Care homes
Furthermore, there were 54 men and 13 women diagnosed with Covid-19 with no fixed abode, who are likely to be rough sleepers.
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PHE estimated that this represents 2% and 1.5% of the known
population of women and men who experienced rough sleeping in 2019, suggesting a much higher infection rate in rough sleepers compared to the general population.
Health secretary Matt Hancock said equalities minister Kemi Badenoch would be “leading” on work with PHE to “further understand” impact of Covid-19.
In the Commons, he said: “People are understandably angry about injustices. And as health secretary I feel a deep responsibly because this pandemic has exposed huge disparities in the health of our nation.
“It is very clear some people are significantly more vulnerable to Covid-19.
“This is something I am determined to understand in full and take acton to address.”
The analysis did not take into account jobs, an “important shortcoming” given that some key occupations have a higher proportion of workers from BAME groups.
But the higher BAME death rates were the “opposite of what is seen in previous years”, when deaths were lower in Asian and Black ethnic groups compared to white groups.
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The report said BAME people were “likely” to be at higher risk of infection because they are more likely to live in urban or deprived areas, overcrowded households, or have jobs that expose them to have a higher risk.
BAME groups are also more likely than those of white ethnicity to be born abroad, meaning they may face cultural or language barriers in accessing services, the report said.
Some existing conditions which could increase the risk of death are also more common among certain ethnic groups.
The report said people people of Bangladeshi and Pakistani background have higher rates of cardiovascular disease than white people, and people of Black Caribbean and Black African ethnicity have higher rates of hypertension compared with other ethnic groups.
Data from the National Diabetes Audit suggests that type II diabetes is more prevalent in people from BAME communities, PHE found.
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Comparing to previous years, deaths from all causes was four times higher than
expected among Black males for this period, almost three times higher in Asian males and almost two times higher in White males.
Among females, deaths were almost three times higher in this period in Black, mixed and other ethnic groups.
Deaths were 2.4 times higher in Asian females compared with 1.6 times in white females.


huffingtonpost--2020-06-03--UK Stats Watchdog Slams Matt Hancock's 'Misleading' Testing Figures

In his letter released on Tuesday , Norgrove said “ the figures are still far from complete and comprehensible ” despite attempts by Hancock to address his concerns .
“ The testing statistics still fall well short of its expectations .
It is not surprising that given their inadequacy , data on testing are so widely criticised and often mistrusted , ” Norgrove said .
He said the current statistics on testing fail to help the public understand the pandemic properly or to help manage the new NHS Test and Trace system .
Statistics on testing perhaps serve two main @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be to show the largest possible number of tests , even at the expense of understanding .
It is also hard to believe the statistics work to support the testing programme itself .
The statistics and analysis serve neither purpose well , ” he said .
The most recent figures show that of the 115,725 tests counted as done , some 42,139 were in fact merely swabs put in the post .
“ The headline total of tests adds together tests carried out with tests posted out .
This distinction is too often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ press conference , where the relevant figure may misleadingly be described simply as the number of tests carried out , ” Norgrove writes .
“ There are no data on how many of the tests posted out are in fact then successfully completed .
The slides used in the daily press conference do not show the date when the tests were carried out.
” Norgrove had already told Hancock on May 11 that he had concerns about the “ trustworthiness ” of the way the government was presenting and counting its numbers of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ministers from the watchdog are extremely rare and to have two within a few weeks underlines how seriously it takes the issue .
In the latest missive , Norgrove further says it is “ not clear from the published data how often ” people are tested more than once for the virus .
“ More generally the testing figures are presented in a way that is difficult to understand , ” he writes .
That should “ include key types of employment ( e.g .
medical staff , care staff ) , age @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and place , such as care homes ) .
How many people in what circumstances are infected ?
Where do they live ?
” With the government relying on its new NHS Test and Trace scheme as a way out of the lockdown measures , the watchdog is scathing about the figures being relied upon “ For Test and Trace it is important that a statement of the key metrics to measure its success should be developed systematically , and published , to avoid the situation that has arisen in relation to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need to be capable of being related to the wider testing data and readily understood by the public , through for example population adjusted maps of hotspots.
” Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said : “ Following the Cummings scandal it ’ s vital ministers rebuild trust in their strategy especially as we want the public to adhere to social distancing to keep everyone safe .

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The UK’s statistics watchdog has warned Matt Hancock that government figures used on Covid-19 testing are neither “complete” nor “comprehensible”.
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In a fresh rebuke to the health secretary, the UK Statistics Authority has written to him to express a raft of concerns about “misleading” data presentation.
It singles out the heavily criticised decision of the government to classify tests posted out as the equivalent to tests actually carried out.
The move, seen as a dodge by critics, meant that Hancock was able to meet his 100,000 daily testing target by the end of April.
HuffPost UK revealed last week that the UK Statistics Authority had remaining concerns despite a letter from Hancock attempting to respond to a previous warning about his use of statistics.
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Now its chairman Sir David Norgrove has written again directly to the health secretary to make plain his continuing worries about the use of statistics.
In his letter released on Tuesday, Norgrove said “the figures are still far from complete and comprehensible” despite attempts by Hancock to address his concerns.
“The testing statistics still fall well short of its expectations. It is not surprising that given their inadequacy, data on testing are so widely criticised and often mistrusted,” Norgrove said.
Sir David Norgrove has today replied to @MattHancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care regarding the Government’s COVID-19 testing data https://t.co/jOvTnLMSXK pic.twitter.com/jSUjcZoZrV — UK Statistics Authority (@UKStatsAuth) June 2, 2020
He said the current statistics on testing fail to help the public understand the pandemic properly or to help manage the new NHS Test and Trace system. Statistics on testing perhaps serve two main purposes.
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“The aim seems to be to show the largest possible number of tests, even at the expense of understanding. It is also hard to believe the statistics work to support the testing programme itself. The statistics and analysis serve neither purpose well,” he said.
Among the raft of issues he raises are the controversial decision to classify test swabs sent in the post as tests actually completed.
The most recent figures show that of the 115,725 tests counted as done, some 42,139 were in fact merely swabs put in the post.
“The headline total of tests adds together tests carried out with tests posted out. This distinction is too often elided during the presentation at the daily press conference, where the relevant figure may misleadingly be described simply as the number of tests carried out,” Norgrove writes.
“There are no data on how many of the tests posted out are in fact then successfully completed. The slides used in the daily press conference do not show the date when the tests were carried out.”
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Norgrove had already told Hancock on May 11 that he had concerns about the “trustworthiness” of the way the government was presenting and counting its numbers of tests for the virus.
Letters to ministers from the watchdog are extremely rare and to have two within a few weeks underlines how seriously it takes the issue.
In the latest missive, Norgrove further says it is “not clear from the published data how often” people are tested more than once for the virus. “More generally the testing figures are presented in a way that is difficult to understand,” he writes.
He also advises that test results should have a breakdown of various characteristics of those tested.
That should “include key types of employment (e.g. medical staff, care staff), age, sex and location (by geography and place, such as care homes). How many people in what circumstances are infected? Where do they live?”
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With the government relying on its new NHS Test and Trace scheme as a way out of the lockdown measures, the watchdog is scathing about the figures being relied upon
“For Test and Trace it is important that a statement of the key metrics to measure its success should be developed systematically, and published, to avoid the situation that has arisen in relation to the testing programme.
“The statistics will need to be capable of being related to the wider testing data and readily understood by the public, through for example population adjusted maps of hotspots.”
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “Following the Cummings scandal it’s vital ministers rebuild trust in their strategy especially as we want the public to adhere to social distancing to keep everyone safe.
“This intervention from the UK statistics authority is damning. For test and trace to be effective we all need confidence in the data.”
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Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran pounced on the watchdog’s latest letter, saying it highlighted a “shocking misuse and spinning of statistics”.
“The number of tests posted out is not the same as the number of people actually tested. Everyone sees through this and all it does, in the end, is erode trust in politics and politicians.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The Secretary of State has spoken to Sir David and reiterated the Department’s commitment to continuing to work closely with the UKSA to address their concerns.
“We have sought to work closely with the UKSA throughout our response to coronavirus to ensure statistics, which are prepared in very challenging circumstances, are presented in the best way possible.
“Our approach throughout has been to increase transparency around the government’s response to coronavirus.”


huffingtonpost--2020-05-28--Rich Torontonians Eyeing An Exodus From City After Pandemic: Agency

JHVEPhoto via Getty Images Bracebridge , Ont.
, a town in the `` cottage country '' north of Toronto , is seen in this stock photo taken Oct. 15 , 2016 .
As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the world earlier this year , news reports emerged that many rich people were fleeing dense cities for the perceived safety of suburbia or the countryside .
Now , some observers say that trend could become permanent .
The pandemic has been “ a wake-up call for homeowners , not just like , ‘ where do I want to live , ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ live ?
’ ” Hahne said in an interview with HuffPost Canada earlier this month .
It ’ s hard to tell at this point whether the trend Hahne sees anecdotally is playing itself out .
But the latest sales numbers from the Lakelands Association of Realtors , which covers a large part of cottage country , show the real estate market in the region is more active than the one in Toronto .
While Greater Toronto home sales fell 67 per cent in April , the first full month of the lockdown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per cent in cottage country .
And prices seem to be holding up better as well .
The market “ is dropping off the cliff fast , but when it starts to recover , I think we ’ re going to see a spike in ( the third and fourth quarter ) and maybe sooner , because I ’ m noticing this lockdown fatigue.
” Hahne sees moving out of the city as a broader trend he thinks we will likely see in the coming years , helped along by the fact many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home , either partially or fully , on a permanent basis .
“ Now I think you ’ re going to find more people moving to Collingwood ( a cottage-country town ) because their companies will allow it , and they have the tools , and they are comfortable using the tools.
” In the U.S. , the trend is evident not only among the wealthy ― the New York Times , for instance , reported that as many as 40 per cent of the people in Manhattan ’ s wealthiest areas appear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic ― but also among youth .
Young people , who led the rejuvenation of urban neighbourhoods over the past few decades , are looking to move out to the more spacious suburbs , Bloomberg News reported recently .
In many instances , that means moving back in with their parents .
The impact will likely mean lower rents , particularly in more overpriced cities with previously heavy demand on urban housing , such as New York and San Francisco , Bloomberg cited housing experts as saying .
That ’ s thanks to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who have been active in business their whole lives but are looking to slow things down , and improve their quality of life as they age , Badminton said before the pandemic .
But not everyone in the real estate industry north of Toronto sees a permanent exodus of city dwellers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic ― at least not anymore than there was before the crisis .
This spike in interest from Toronto homebuyers may be nothing more than people stuck with nothing to do in the lockdown , amusing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Quinn , a sales rep in the Muskoka/Port Carling office of Chestnut Park Realty .
“ For two or three years , we ’ ve seen people want to ― I would say downsize , get out of such a busy market and take advantage of the high housing prices ( in the city ) .
… The differential between Toronto and Muskoka ( can ) save you a lot of money .
”

JHVEPhoto via Getty Images Bracebridge, Ont., a town in the "cottage country" north of Toronto, is seen in this stock photo taken Oct. 15, 2016.
As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the world earlier this year, news reports emerged that many rich people were fleeing dense cities for the perceived safety of suburbia or the countryside. Now, some observers say that trend could become permanent.
In Toronto, the centre of Canada’s second-worst COVID-19 outbreak, the wealthy are turning their attention to the Muskoka region, the cottage country north of the city, said Max Hahne, a Collingwood, Ont.-based real estate agent at high-end agency Engel & Volkers.
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And it’s not out of some sudden interest in weekend getaways ― these people are looking to resettle permanently, Hahne says.
Watch: Pandemic prompts tech workers to flee Silicon Valley for mellower pastures. Story continues below.
The pandemic has been “a wake-up call for homeowners, not just like, ‘where do I want to live,’ but ‘how do I want to live?’” Hahne said in an interview with HuffPost Canada earlier this month.
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He said interest has “spiked” since April, with much of it concentrated in high-end housing ― properties above $1.5 million.
“I’m locked down here on my farm, getting calls and emails from people sitting outside a property,” he said, a phenomenon he attributed to “lockdown fatigue.”
It’s hard to tell at this point whether the trend Hahne sees anecdotally is playing itself out. But the latest sales numbers from the Lakelands Association of Realtors, which covers a large part of cottage country, show the real estate market in the region is more active than the one in Toronto.
While Greater Toronto home sales fell 67 per cent in April, the first full month of the lockdown, they fell a relatively mild 46 per cent in cottage country. And prices seem to be holding up better as well.
Canadian Real Estate Association The median house price in cottage country north of Toronto took a slight dip in March of this year, as the pandemic lockdown began.
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The market “is dropping off the cliff fast, but when it starts to recover, I think we’re going to see a spike in (the third and fourth quarter) and maybe sooner, because I’m noticing this lockdown fatigue.”
Hahne sees moving out of the city as a broader trend he thinks we will likely see in the coming years, helped along by the fact many companies are now switching to working from home, either partially or fully, on a permanent basis.
“Now I think you’re going to find more people moving to Collingwood (a cottage-country town) because their companies will allow it, and they have the tools, and they are comfortable using the tools.”
In the U.S., the trend is evident not only among the wealthy ― the New York Times, for instance, reported that as many as 40 per cent of the people in Manhattan’s wealthiest areas appear to have fled the city during the pandemic ― but also among youth.
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Young people, who led the rejuvenation of urban neighbourhoods over the past few decades, are looking to move out to the more spacious suburbs, Bloomberg News reported recently. In many instances, that means moving back in with their parents.
The impact will likely mean lower rents, particularly in more overpriced cities with previously heavy demand on urban housing, such as New York and San Francisco, Bloomberg cited housing experts as saying.
It’s a trend many predicted even before the pandemic. Futurist Nik Badminton told HuffPost Canada earlier this year that he sees cottage-country communities near Canada’s largest cities as potential “boom towns” in the years to come.
That’s thanks to a class of “semi-retired entrepreneurs” who have been active in business their whole lives but are looking to slow things down, and improve their quality of life as they age, Badminton said before the pandemic.
Communities of “relocated wealthy middle-aged ‘retirees’” will become “new centres of business and will become more established,” he predicted.
Idle curiosity?
But not everyone in the real estate industry north of Toronto sees a permanent exodus of city dwellers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic ― at least not anymore than there was before the crisis.
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This spike in interest from Toronto homebuyers may be nothing more than people stuck with nothing to do in the lockdown, amusing themselves with idle house-hunting, said Joe Quinn, a sales rep in the Muskoka/Port Carling office of Chestnut Park Realty.
The trend of Torontonians moving out to the nearby countryside began well before COVID-19, Quinn said.
“For two or three years, we’ve seen people want to ― I would say downsize, get out of such a busy market and take advantage of the high housing prices (in the city). … The differential between Toronto and Muskoka (can) save you a lot of money.”
He says he has seen people heading into their retirement years who were able to sell their homes in Toronto and buy a new one in the country, leaving them with hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund their retirement.
And he doesn’t particularly object to the potential influx of urbanites into his community.
If more people live in cottage country year round, “we’re going to have more stuff open year round, more good restaurants, more good produce in our stores. If we have more people I see it as a positive.”


huffingtonpost--2020-05-27--Boris Johnson Won't Sack His Top Aide For Breaking Lockdown. Here's Why.

From then on , the Johnson and Cummings team swept all aside and did not care who got in their way – from the Remainer Tory MPs they purged and the judges who overturned their decision to prorogue parliament , to their confidence and supply partners the DUP , who they sold out on Northern Ireland to get a Brexit deal over the line .
“ You ’ re on the backbenches towards the end of Theresa May .
It doesn ’ t look like it ’ s going anywhere .
You ’ re not necessarily favorite for next leader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which doesn ’ t look like it ’ s going to happen , and the Tories look in all kinds of trouble .
“ You ’ re Boris in that position and this guy [ Cummings ] says to you : ’ I can help you be prime minister .
Not only that – if we get in , we can get Brexit done or get us into a place where it ’ s not such a wedge issue , and then we ’ re going to call an election and you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and you ’ re going to have a majority.
” ‘ Whatever the anti-zeitgeist is , you become that ’ “ I can ’ t really comment on that because they don ’ t spend any time explaining to us , and Cummings actively doesn ’ t like us in the parliamentary party .
We just don ’ t get to see it so we have to take it on face value that he ’ s very useful .

Coronavirus has changed everything. Make sense of it all with the Waugh Zone, our evening politics briefing. Sign up now.
Boris Johnson’s defence of the seemingly indefensible – his refusal to sack Dominic Cummings – has left many people asking one question.
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Why is a newly elected prime minister with an 80-seat majority, who is beginning to turn the tide on coronavirus, burning through so much political capital to save one senior adviser?
Cummings has helped deliver victory after improbable victory for Johnson – from winning the EU referendum with Vote Leave to surviving half a year of chaotic minority government before delivering a thumping election win and getting Brexit “done”.
But now the PM is facing open revolt from MPs, with one even suggesting he should leave No.10 himself if he needs a “svengali” to “tell him what to say”.
And insiders question whether Cummings, seen as one of those political figures who “gets” voters’ concerns, has in fact now “lost it” amid an extraordinary political backlash and tanking poll ratings.
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Either way, Johnson is sticking by Cummings for now, perhaps in a belief that their fates are intertwined.
Here’s why that might be.
‘He’s a winner’
Cummings had been a relatively minor figure until the Brexit referendum of 2016, when he took charge of Vote Leave and won an underdog victory for the ages after coining the “take back control” slogan.
Of course, many derided his campaign for spreading disinformation about the cost of EU membership and the threat of mass Turkish immigration.
Cummings also had a trump card in Johnson, the flawed politician but ace campaigner who made an agonising choice to back Brexit having written both pro-Leave and pro-Remain articles before deciding.
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The faces of Johnson and ally Michael Gove the morning after the result told a story – they had not expected to win.
“Boris had a lot of trust in Cummings from that,” says a former colleague. “He saw someone who is steely, determined [and] focused, and he stayed in touch on and off after that point.”
Michael Gove (left) and Boris Johnson holding a press conference at Vote Leave HQ in Westminster, London, after David Cameron announced he would quit as prime minister following a humiliating defeat in the EU referendum. PA
The “Dom” legend was born as he spent the next three years fighting allegations of wrongdoing in the referendum campaign, deriding the “thick as mince” government for failing to deliver Brexit, and being immortalised by Benedict Cumberbatch in a Channel 4 film.
Johnson meanwhile enjoyed a chequered stint as foreign secretary before quitting the government in protest at Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
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On the backbenches, it looked like he would struggle to realise his lifelong ambition to be prime minister.
But when May was finally ousted with the Tories in civil war, Johnson was perfectly placed to take over: the party feared an imminent election and needed to win.
There was little surprise when Johnson decided to get the Vote Leave campaign back together in Downing Street to fight a new insurgency against the EU (which was refusing to renegotiate the Brexit deal) and parliament (where May had lost the Tories’ majority).
From then on, the Johnson and Cummings team swept all aside and did not care who got in their way – from the Remainer Tory MPs they purged and the judges who overturned their decision to prorogue parliament, to their confidence and supply partners the DUP, who they sold out on Northern Ireland to get a Brexit deal over the line.
The end result was December’s election victory and Britain leaving the EU on January 31.
“Forget everything that’s happening now, as hard as that is, and rewind,” the former colleague says.
“Put yourself in Boris’s position.
“You’re on the backbenches towards the end of Theresa May. It doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. You’re not necessarily favourite for next leader even if there was a leadership election, which doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, and the Tories look in all kinds of trouble.
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“You’ve got the best opposition leader you can hope for in Corbyn and the Tories still aren’t doing that well in the polls.
“You’re Boris in that position and this guy [Cummings] says to you: ’I can help you be prime minister. Not only that – if we get in, we can get Brexit done or get us into a place where it’s not such a wedge issue, and then we’re going to call an election and you’re going to be prime minister and you’re going to have a majority.”
Johnson driving a Union flag-themed JCB, with the words "Get Brexit Done" inside the digger bucket, through a fake wall emblazoned with the word "gridlock", during a visit to JCB cab manufacturing centre in Uttoxeter, while on the general election campaign trail. PA
One government source, meanwhile, believes Cummings’ winning record goes back even further – highlighting his past campaigns against devolution in his native north-east and against the UK joining the euro.
“He’s a winner,” they said.
“He’s always won – from North-East Says No to the euro campaign, and then Brexit.
“I know he didn’t work directly on the election but all the strategy setting it up almost as a sort of people-versus-parliament thing has his fingerprints all over it.
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“That’s almost as important as the campaign, to be honest.”
‘Whatever the anti-zeitgeist is, you become that’
Since entering Downing Street, Cummings has no doubt ruffled feathers.
He has overseen a clear-out of special advisers, including having one frogmarched out of Downing Street, threatened to completely overhaul the civil service and other British institutions like the Supreme Court, and declared war on sections of the press.
But some of those who remain in government see his value to Johnson, designing and overseeing the “levelling up” agenda for Brexiteer voters in neglected parts of the country on behalf of a PM who likes to delegate.
“Cummings is incredibly productive – he gets a lot more out of a day than anyone else would,” the government source said.
“I’ve seen him be in two meetings at the same time, walking between them – he’s obviously got the brainpower to deal with two quite complicated policy meetings at the same time.
“He’s a massive driving force behind what happens – a lot of the long-term delivery, the project management stuff. He’s got a key role.”
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Cummings leaving 10 Downing Street, London, as lockdown questions continue to bombard the government after it emerged that he travelled to his parents' home during lockdown. PA
The former colleague meanwhile highlights Cummings’ “focus and balls”, his willingness to “keep going on what you think is right even in the face of intense opposition”.
“You’ve got MPs, donors, the cabinet, commentators, saying: ‘This is nuts – you can’t prorogue parliament.’
“Alastair Campbell had that. Thatcher had that.”
They also credit Campbell and Thatcher with basing their battles on a deep understanding of voters, just like Cummings – who “spends days and weeks going up and down the country, going to focus groups, listening to people and putting together ideas”.
But the ex-colleague questions whether his reaction in recent days has been a “mistake”.
“I think now his judgment’s off,” they said.
“I think you would find it hard to argue that even the comms [communications officers] over the last few days have understood what the public mood is on this – they haven’t.
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“That doesn’t mean he’s lost it for good – it may be that it’s too personal.”
They added: “We know it happened with Thatcher and we know it happened with Campbell. You get to a point when you are not in sync with the public.
“Whatever the anti-zeitgeist is, you become that.
“It could just be a blip but there is clearly a point where that happens.”
‘He actively doesn’t like us’
Johnson alongside Douglas Ross, who quit as a Scotland minister over Dominic Cummings' alleged breach of lockdown rules. PA
There is one reason why Cummings is not yet out of the woods – and that’s the drip-drip of Tory MPs coming out calling for his head and the potential of further resignations to follow Douglas Ross.
The aide has always insisted he is not a Conservative and has often ploughed ahead in the face of intense opposition from the party’s MPs, even managing to alienate arch Brexiteers like Steve Baker.
Asked why Johnson values him so much, one Tory says: “There is obviously something there in which people very much value what he does.
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“I can’t really comment on that because they don’t spend any time explaining to us, and Cummings actively doesn’t like us in the parliamentary party. We just don’t get to see it so we have to take it on face value that he’s very useful.
“He’s obviously bright and he obviously knows what he’s doing in referendums.
“But we can’t answer that question, either.”
Another is damning: “I don’t know the bloke, all I know is he’s caused huge embarrassment on more than one occasion to the Conservative party.
“He’s not a Conservative and I don’t understand why the prime minister is so dependent on him unless the prime minister believes he’s got to have a svengali – someone to tell him what to say.
“And, if he has, he shouldn’t be prime minister.”


huffingtonpost--2020-05-21--Indian Govt Trots Out Meaningless Data As COVID-19 Cases Rocket Despite Lockdown

P. Ravikumar / Reuters A doctor in a protective chamber takes a swab from a man to test for coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ a Walk-In Sample Kiosk ( WISK ) in a government-run hospital in Chennai , April @ @ @ @

P. Ravikumar / Reuters A doctor in a protective chamber takes a swab from a man to test for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a Walk-In Sample Kiosk (WISK) in a government-run hospital in Chennai, April 13, 2020.
NEW DELHI — On May 17, the day the Union government significantly relaxed India’s punitive national lockdown, the country recorded the largest single day spike in fresh cases of and fatalities due to the novel coronavirus.
The same day, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said India had hit the 80,000 cases mark in 106 days after recording its first infection while many developed nations took just 44-66 days to reach that mark. The health ministry said the number of COVID-19 cases in the country were now doubling every 13.6 days, an improvement over the past fortnight, when cases were doubling every 11.5 days.
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These cautiously upbeat statements and the easing of lockdown restrictions juxtaposed against the grim news of steadily spiking infections and fatalities reveal a worrying pattern: The Union government is using incomplete national-level data to justify arbitrary policy decisions, defend its record, and underplay the extent of the COVID-19 crisis.
HuffPost India’s analysis of publicly available data, local health bulletins, government documents, interviews with district and state-level officials, and infectious disease experts suggests that these imperfect numbers at best, offer an underestimate of the coronavirus’s spread, and at worse, form the basis for misleading conclusions to support arbitrary policy decisions.
Despite widely acknowledged inconsistencies and limitations of these data —the numbers are significantly dependent on India’s testing strategies and availability of testing infrastructure— senior health officials continue to display graphs at press conferences to give the illusion that the government is aware of how the pandemic is unfolding in real-time. Future projections of COVID-19 cases shared with states by the NITI Ayog and the Union Health Ministry are sometimes wildly divergent.
On April 11 for instance, the health ministry justified Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s controversial decision to lockdown the entire country without prior warning or planning, by presenting a graph that claimed India would have witnessed 800,000 cases by April 15 had the lockdown not been imposed. Experts questioned this projection, noting there was no explanation to justify these numbers.
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Source: Health Ministry Press Conference, April 11 On April 11, the health ministry claimed, with little evidence, that India would have witnessed 820,000 cases of COVID-19 had the lockdown not been imposed. Experts have questioned this estimate.
If the decision to impose the national lockdown on March 24 was justified on the basis of such ambiguous data and modeling, the government has offered no empirical explanation for the subsequent extension or easing for the lockdown.
To be sure, countries across the world have struggled to collate robust coronavirus statistics. But India, with its poor track record of data governance, has its own peculiar issues: Statistics routinely shared with the public by both the union government and state governments are compromised by long delays in processing tests, questionable interpretation of available numbers, and rudimentary modelling of India’s coronavirus crisis. This makes it hard to understand how the disease will spread over the next several days, weeks and months, when and where the number of cases will peak, and if India’s patchwork system of public and private healthcare will hold up.
The crisis in India’s data gathering, and the way this data is deployed by policymakers, is likely to become more pronounced in the coming weeks as travel restrictions ease and COVID-19 cases spike.
India’s narrow testing strategies and the limited testing infrastructure mean that even the highest levels of government do not have a real-time picture of how the pandemic is unfolding across the country.
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The largely rosy view from the Union Health Ministry in New Delhi obscures vivid regional disparities across every metric used to measure the progress of the virus; making the case that states should have been given more freedom to devise their COVID-19 responses — including when and where to impose strict lockdowns — from the very beginning.
For instance, HuffPost India’s analysis suggests the country’s steady test positivity rate of 4% for several weeks (meaning there 4 positive cases out of every hundred tests conducted in India) appears to be a case of divergent regional trends cancelling each other out: On 10th April, Tamil Nadu’s test positivity rate was 10.8%, while Maharashtra’s was only 3.8%. By 16 May, Maharashtra’s positivity rate rose rapidly to 11%, while Tamil Nadu moved in the opposite direction to 3.4%. All this while, the national figures stayed flat at 4%.
HuffPost India While Union Health Ministry officials in Delhi continue to use aggregated national-level data to insist that the spread of the virus has been contained, granular data shows wide divergence among states.
Yet, the Union Health Ministry continues to speak in large, aggregate numbers that are essentially meaningless and devoid of context, and are occasionally used to present ludicrous scenarios.
In a press conference on April 24 for instance, VK Paul, NITI Aayog and head of a government empowered committee on medical management, presented a slide suggesting that if current trends held, fresh cases were expected to trend to zero on May 16. In reality, as noted earlier, India reported the largest single day spike in coronavirus cases and fatalities on May 17.
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“It makes a mockery of our response to the pandemic,” said Gautam Menon, a professor of physics and biology at Ashoka University, who researches infectious disease modelling. “What India and the world needs now is transparency and clarity regarding what is going on.”
“I recognise the desire of the government to present a positive face, but this should not be done by concealing data, by not revealing details of its preparation, by refusing to respond to genuine questions about its data and so on,” Menon said. Rather, Menon said, the government should maintain the trust of the public by being transparent in its presentation of facts.
Delayed tests
India’s testing trajectory is two-pronged. One one hand, the country has consistently ramped up testing, and now has a daily capacity to test over one lakh samples a day—only six countries have conducted more than India’s 2.4 million tests.
On the other hand, India’s vast population has meant the testing rate of 1,744 per million remains low. Of 149 countries to have reported at least 100 cases, only 33 have a lower testing rate than India, according to Worldometer.
HuffPost India testing rate
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As long as the testing remains limited, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases will have limited meaning as well: increased testing might reveal more positive cases, but will not help us map the spread of the virus.
To understand how India’s attempts to contain the coronavirus have been hampered by the country’s persistent inability to test enough people and deliver timely results, consider Madhya Pradesh’s Ashok Nagar district, home to about a million people.
Ashok Nagar is a “green” district with only 2 COVID-19 cases thus far, but with train services resuming, the region expects thousands of workers stranded across the country to return home soon.
In the first day of May, Ashok Nagar had collected a total of 330 samples and received reports of 248 patients; the results of 82 samples were pending from April. By the 13th of May, the district had sent 940 samples, but a bottleneck in analysing these samples meant the number of pending samples had ballooned to 345 — more than four times the number of pending samples from a fortnight ago.
In a phone call, Ashok Nagar’s Chief Health and Medical Officer JR Trivediya confirmed the delays in receiving test results. Ashok Nagar’s experience can be extrapolated across Madhya Pradesh, say health activists.
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HuffPost India A daily breakdown of testing data in Ashoknagar, Madhya Pradesh, shows how quickly a backlog of test results can pile up.
“The backlog of pending samples awaiting results has been increasing at a rapid pace,” said Bhopal-based activist Amulya Nidhi of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan in a letter sent to the Union health secretary on May 6. “Patients were waiting for their test results and there are multiple instances of deaths happening before test results arrived.”
As of April 25, for instance, Madhya Pradesh had 9,021 pending samples against a daily testing capacity of around a thousand tests. This meant test results — on average — were delayed by nine days. The following day, Madhya Pradesh simply stopped publishing data on the number of pending tests.
In a fast-moving pandemic like COVID-19, this delay has significant real-world effects: For a health official in Madhya Pradesh hoping to use the data to figure hotspots, trace contacts, and prepare for an influx of patients, the state’s infection rate data would be obsolete well before it reached his desk.
Madhya Pradesh is not alone in hiding uncomfortable statistics. HuffPost India found only eight of the twenty large states publish pending tests data. On May 15, these states — Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh — together tested around 36,000 samples on the day, and had a total backlog of 18,379 samples.
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HuffPost India A snapshot of pending tests across eight major Indian states. It is worth noting that states with the highest case counts do not publish data on pending tests.
It is worth noting that the test positivity rate of all the eight states is less than the national average, meaning none of the states where the detected infection rate is higher have shared their data on test pendency. The available numbers do not tell us how widespread the delays are, a concern that anecdotal new reports from many states have raised where patients say they have waited for upto 10 days to receive their test results.
“Delayed test results lead to delay in getting individuals timely treatment and could lead to complications; it also affects contact tracing and breaking the chain of transmission,” said Genevie Fernandes, a public health researcher and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
“The first government response should be transparent reporting on websites and other forums regarding the delay in test results and also explaining the reasons for the same,” Fernandes said. “The second response should be fixing this delay.”
In this context, the record national spike of positive cases on May 17 doesn’t offer particularly helpful insights into the virus’s march across India — the “record” numbers simply indicate that the aggregated national level data across 36 states and union territories, each with varying degrees of delay and pendency, added up to the highest daily number till date.
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Test positivity
The limitations of the numbers is just one concern. The manner in which they are interpreted in public is also contested.
Consider India’s low test positivity rate, which Union health officials use to reassure an anxious public that the coronavirus is not as widespread in India as it is elsewhere in the world and to deflect criticism that India, as a country, is not testing enough of its population.
At a press briefing on April 16, Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at the ICMR, referred to the low national positivity rate to justify the low rate of testing in India.
“In countries like Japan, one out of 11.7 tests turns out to be positive, which is among the highest in the world. Italy tests 6.7 persons for one positive test while the USA tests 5.3 persons and the United Kingdom 3.4,” Gangakhedkar said at the press conference.
“Taking their population base into consideration, it is difficult to comment about our testing rate,” Gangakhedkar said. “In India, we are conducting 24 tests out of which one comes out to be positive. Also, we have a huge population and not all people belong to vulnerable groups. Hence, can’t say our testing ratio is low.”
But experts say that India’s test positivity rate is more reflective of the country’s testing strategy.
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“Our testing criteria is limited. We are not conducting widespread testing regardless of symptoms, hence we will not know the true figure of those who have the infection in a population,” Fernandes, the public health researcher, said. “Hence, the assumption of reduced transmission owing to the low test positivity rate at the national level may not hold true.”
A deep dive into state-wise test positivity rates shows the number fluctuates significantly. As mentioned earlier, in states like Maharashtra, the test positivity rate has risen significantly as the government expanded testing, while Tamil Nadu has witnessed the opposite trend.
Perhaps the most vivid example of the unpredictability of test positivity trends, and a good reason to test as widely as possible, is the case of Bhilwara in Rajasthan which gathered national attention as one of the first hotspots, and was subjected to what was described as a ”ruthless lockdown”.
Today, the district with 2.8 million population has done 15,993 tests—5,711 tests per million, more than three times the national average— with a test positivity rate of just 0.5%, ten times lower than the national figure.
“The national figure definitely makes no sense in the context of a disease which is spreading very differently in different parts of the country,” Menon of Ashoka University said, referring to the wide variation in the test positivity rates.
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Modelling woes
At a press conference on April 24, VK Paul, NITI Aayog and head of a government empowered committee on medical management, displayed a surprising slide suggesting the number of new cases would go to zero on May 16, which, according to The Hindu, members of Paul’s own committee didn’t agree with. May 16, coincidently, was a day before Prime Minister Modi’s second extension of the lockdown was scheduled to end.
Paul subsequently walked back his remarks in a statement to Caravan, suggesting “that was a trend line” without offering any further details, but the slide is a worrying illustration of the quality of the modelling and future projection scenarios panning out in India that are central to managing the pandemic response.
“Those were ridiculous predictions, especially because the methodology that led to them has never been disclosed,” Menon said. “So it is impossible to say whether there is a real epidemiological model behind them or not. Anyone can plot a function that runs through a given set of points.”
HuffPost India Experts say government projections such as this slide presented before the media on May 16 make a mockery of attempts to model the coronavirus's spread across the country.
The government’s own internal projections, shared amongst officials but not with the press, suggest that the public claims are carefully choreographed to manage the national narrative.
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Take Punjab. According to the task force report on the existing lockdown strategy released on April 25, the state was presented with three different projections: from the Punjab’s health department, NITI Aayog and the Union health ministry.
The health ministry projections for Punjab said the state would need 602 ICU beds by 24 May while NITI’s estimate was six times, at 3612 beds. In fact, NITI— of which Paul is a member—told the state to expect 3,680 new cases per day from 31 May.
HuffPost India A slide from a Punjab government presentation revealing widely diverging projections on the health infrastructure required to tackle the crisis.Source: Exit Strategy for COVID-19 Lockdown Restrictions, Punjab Task Force / 25 April 2020
An official who helped the state task force said Punjab had not been provided details on how these projections were arrived at, which meant they could not reconcile why the numbers from the Centre were significantly higher than the state’s own health department.
“Data science should be transparent. All models are wrinkled with assumptions but it should be clear what the assumptions are,” said Bhramar Mukherjee, a professor and chair of biostatistics at the University of Michigan.
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The opacity of much of India’s modelling does not allow external experts to evaluate the built-in assumptions—a critical component of improving the models. Neither is the public informed of the basis on which decisions are being made.
Models, Mukherjee said, should not be quoted or taken as destiny for their exact numbers as there are huge uncertainties associated with the projections, but to help decision makers evaluate likely scenarios based on possible interventions.
Thus far, details of only one modelling project, MedInventory—which was facilitated by Principal Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister—are in the public domain. It provides district-wise projections for the healthcare infrastructure requirement in the next four weeks. However, it is not clear who is using it.
Health officials of three states—Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu— told HuffPost India they were not using the MedInventory website. Instead, agencies at different levels of government are making their own projections.
“Even though the state had also requested the Ministry of Health for projections in April, Andhra Pradesh has been relying on its own projections arrived at by expert committees which have access to data compiled by the state,” a state health official of Andhra Pradesh explained. “Based on the state’s projections, AP has readied a total of 50,000 beds for Covid-19 patients for June-July.”
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Doubling rate obsession
Across the country, most health officials continue to speak in terms of “doubling rates”, the time taken for the number of COVID-19 cases to double in number, to make future projections.
“We are keeping track of the doubling rate,” said Pradip Awate, state surveillance officer of Maharashtra. “ As of May 13, it stands at 10.2 days. So if we have 24,000 cases today, we are projecting 48,000 cases after 10 days, and accordingly we think of the capacity needed.”
Awate said the state does not make district-wise projections.
But experts raise questions about this metric.
“The doubling time is a crude measure. It is a measure on the relative scale,” Mukherjee from the University of Michigan said.
“For prioritization and resource allocation you need an idea about total case-counts, hospitalization counts and estimated counts for those that will seek critical care. I am not sure how ‘doubling time’ will help with these projections,” she said.
“I wish there were more savvy statisticians working closely with the government,” Mukherjee said.
Menon, the Ashoka University professor, said that the doubling rate is not a bad proxy in the early part of the epidemic when the disease is in its exponential growth phase to tell what might happen in the next few days. “But once the case numbers begin to drop, this approach will of course make no sense at all,” he explained.
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“The doubling rate ignores the fact that the disease spreads at different rates in different places,” Menon said. “It will spread slowly in places where physical distancing is taken seriously, mask wearing is common and hand-washing and similar measures are prevalent. It will spread fast in dense crowded regions where none of these is attended to.”
“So to use a single doubling rate across a whole state can mask the growing number of cases in districts and sub-districts, since it is a less granular measure,” Menon said.
Over a long period of 6 to 8 months, Awate, the Maharashtra official said, the state is expecting 0.5% of its residents to be infected with the virus, of which 15% would need hospital treatment and 5% would need critical care—and the state is ramping up its healthcare capacity accordingly.
“We are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst,” Awate said.


huffingtonpost--2020-05-21--What Are The Coronavirus Vaccine Human Trials Actually Doing And What Is Involved?

What is the purpose of the human trial of the coronavirus vaccine ?
Who can take part in the human @ @ @ @ @ Why are human volunteers needed for the trial ?
How does the trial work and @ @ @ @ @ do ?
What is the vaccine being tested ?
What happens next ?
Will people @ @ @ @ @ to the vaccine first if it is successful ?
Is there a chance the vaccine @ @ @ @ @

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The nation has been given a glimmer of hope in the fight against coronavirus with the news that up to 30 million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine will be made available to the UK by September – if human trials by Oxford University prove successful.
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Business secretary Alok Sharma said earlier this week that Oxford was one of the world’s forerunners in the race for a vaccine and that clinical trials were “progressing well” with all phase one participants having received their vaccine doses on schedule.
But what exactly is the coronavirus vaccine trial, what are scientists trying to find out and what do participants have to do as part of their involvement in their involvement in the clinical study?
What is the purpose of the human trial of the coronavirus vaccine?
The aim is to test a new vaccine against Covid-19 in healthy volunteers.
The study will assess whether healthy people can be protected from coronavirus with this new vaccine called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19.
It will also provide valuable information on safety aspects of the vaccine and its ability to generate good immune responses against the virus.
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Who can take part in the human trial of the vaccine?
Up to 1,102 participants have been recruited across multiple sites in Oxford, Southampton, London and Bristol.
Volunteers must be aged between 18 and 55 and cannot have tested positive for Covid-19. They must be in good health and be based in one of the recruiting areas.
They must not be pregnant, intending to become pregnant, or breastfeeding during the study.
Participants cannot have previously taken part in a trial with an adenoviral (relating to this particular group of viruses) vaccine or received any other coronavirus vaccines.
Jack Sommers, 34, who is taking part in the Covid-19 vaccine trial. Jack Sommers
Jack Sommers, 34, who lives in south-west London, volunteered for the trial the day after discovering he was being made redundant from his job.
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He told HuffPost UK he realised he was the perfect candidate for the study and wanted to do something useful.
“I am healthy, have had an uneventful medical history and have had no symptoms of coronavirus,” he said. “And as I live alone, there is no risk of me infecting vulnerable people or frontline workers.
“I also only live a 10-minute walk away from St George’s Hospital in Tooting which is one of the sites for the trial so I knew taking part would be relatively easy.
“For me to take part seemed a no-brainer and I knew how important it was.”
Why are human volunteers needed for the trial?
Until now, this Covid-19 vaccine has only been tested on laboratory mice and other animal species and this trial is the first time it has been given to humans.
The vaccine was developed in less than three months by a team at Oxford University and, although there has been pre-clinical research, it needs to be tested on humans and data needs to be evaluated.
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Scientists need to demonstrate the vaccine actually works and stops people getting infected with coronavirus before it can be rolled out to the wider population.
“When my grandkids ask: ‘What did you do during the Great Coronavirus Lockdown Grandad?’ I’ll be able to say: ‘I did this.’ It makes me feel I am doing something worthwhile.” - Jack Sommers
“Without people willing to take part, new vaccines wouldn’t be developed,” said Jack.
“I know there are some theoretical risks, but I have the greatest faith in the doctors and scientists and feel safe in their hands.”
Jack added: “In years to come when we all look back and talk about this time and my grandkids ask: ‘What did you do during the great coronavirus lockdown grandad?’ I’ll be able to say: ‘I did this.’ It makes me feel I am doing something worthwhile.”
How does the trial work and what do participants have to do?
Half the volunteers taking part in the trial will be injected with the prospective coronavirus vaccine while the other half will be given a meningitis vaccine that will be used as a control for comparison.
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Volunteers will not know which vaccine they have received.
Jack said: “I completely understand there needs to be a placebo in clinical trials and, for this study, they wanted something stronger which is why they have used the meningitis vaccine.
“As far as I am concerned, I’m quids in. Whichever jab I have received, I’ve either been vaccinated against coronavirus or meningitis.”
After filling in paperwork, giving blood and urine samples for testing and watching a safety video, Jack was accepted on the trial.
He returned to hospital to receive an injection in his shoulder, which he described as “exactly like getting your holiday jabs”.
Jack Sommers, 34, who is taking part in the Covid-19 vaccine trial. Jack Sommers
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Jack and the other participants were sent home with a thermometer and a measuring tape to measure any potential swelling of the injection site.
Participants were also asked to fill in an e-diary to record any symptoms they experience in the first seven days after receiving the vaccine and to report if they feel unwell over the following three weeks.
Jack reported experiencing a very mild throat tickle the day after the injection and, the next day, he had a slightly raised temperature.
He is now in the second week following the vaccination and simply logs on to the e-diary every day and answers two straightforward questions on whether he has symptoms.
“I only have to give any details if I feel anything different, but I haven’t as yet,” he said.
Jack will return back to the trial site one month on from to have tests.
There will then be another visit and check-up six months on from the injection and an optional one a year on from the vaccination.
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Jack said: “The symptoms for me have been very mild so I have barely suffered any inconvenience to my life at all.
“I had to input my temperature into the online diary for the first week, but now all I have to do is spend about five seconds putting: ‘No, I don’t have any symptoms.’”
At the start of the trial, a separate small group of 10 volunteers were also recruited to receive two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine four weeks apart.
This is to assess different reactions to a second dosage and establish both safety and how the immune response differs from those receiving a single dose.
A file image of a doctor filling a syringe with a vaccine. Meyer & Meyer via Getty Images
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What is the vaccine being tested?
The vaccine being tested in this research study is called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19.
It is made from a virus (ChAdOx1), which is a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections in chimpanzees. It has been genetically changed so that it is impossible for it to grow in humans.
Scientists are hoping to make the body recognise and develop an immune response to the spike protein on the outside of the virus to stop it entering human cells and so prevent infection.
The main focus of the study is to find out if this vaccine is going to work against Covid-19, ensure it won’t cause unacceptable side effects, and see if it induces good immune responses.
What happens next?
There are a lot of complex stages in vaccine development according to Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford University’s Jenner Institute.
She says they will increasingly immunise more people to check for safety and immune response to the vaccine in older people as well as younger ones.
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“This is particularly important because it’s the older population that we really need to protect with a vaccine,” she said. “But with vaccines in general you often get a lower immune response as the immune system ages. So, we need to find out how well this vaccine works in older people compared to younger people by measuring the immune response to the vaccination.”
Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the Jenner Institute at Oxford University. University of Oxford
She said the research team would also be checking if the vaccine actually protects people against Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
“People don’t know which vaccine they’re having and, over time, as people become infected or have symptoms of coronavirus, they’ll come to us to get tested.
“When enough people have become positive for the coronavirus, the statisticians will look at which groups those people are in, to find out whether they are in the group that had the coronavirus vaccine, or whether all positive cases are in the group that had the meningitis vaccine.
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“We’re hoping for the infections to happen only in the meningitis vaccine group. And if that’s the case we will then be able to say that this vaccine works, at least in the age range we have vaccinated, and we can then start expanding the studies and we can start to apply for emergency use licensure so that the vaccine can be used more widely.”
Will people in the UK get access to the vaccine first if it is successful?
The UK will be first in line for 30m doses of Oxford University’s coronavirus vaccine by September if it passes trials, business secretary Alok Sharma has said.
He announced a deal had been struck between Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca meaning that 30m doses would be made available by September for the UK as part of an agreement to deliver 100m doses in total, if ongoing trials succeed.
“The UK will be first to get access,” said Sharma. “Once a breakthrough is made, we need to be ready to manufacture a vaccine by the millions.”
He also announced a further £84m in funding to accelerate the work currently being done in vaccine trials at Oxford University and at Imperial College.
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Is there a chance the vaccine won’t work?
Despite putting considerable investment into vaccine development, the government has cautioned that an effective coronavirus vaccine may never be found.
Gilbert agrees that, while she believes the prospects of developing a workable vaccine are good, nothing is certain.
“Nobody can be absolutely sure it’s possible to produce a successful vaccine, that’s why we have to do trials to find out.


huffingtonpost--2020-05-26--The UK's CO2 Emissions Dropped To A Hundred-Year Low During Lockdown

During peak confinement in individual countries daily CO2 emissions fell by 26 % on average .
The UK ’ s average fell even further than this number due to an overrepresentation in surface transportation – mostly made up of private cars and other road vehicles – a huge proportion of which was taken off the road as businesses shut up shop on March 23 .
Friends of the Earth ’ s head of policy , Mike Childs , told HuffPost UK : “ A 31 % emissions drop in April is dramatic , but in the long run it won @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are made permanent .
This lockdown moment is a chance to reset our carbon-guzzling economy and rebuild in a way that leaves pollution in the past , to stop climate-wrecking emissions spiking right back up to where they were before , or even higher .
Burke said : “ It ’ s difficult to summarise the true and likely impacts of climate change without sounding as though you ’ re engaging in hyperbole , but the fact is that all of the reliable science and reliable sources of data are very clear that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the future of human civilisation .
“ I think politicians now have to have the confidence to say that for the right reasons we actually can change rapidly , and there needs to be implications for policymaking .

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The UK’s CO2 emissions fell to their lowest level in almost a century during lockdown, scientists have revealed.
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As the nation ground to a halt in late March so did 31% of our total emissions, with transport – notably cars and planes – brought to a near-standstill. The UK had not seen such a low rate of emissions for almost a hundred years, in the mid-1920s.
Research, carried out as coronavirus outbreaks took hold around the world, found that on April 7, the level of emissions had fallen by 17% globally – the lowest the world had seen since 2006.
During peak confinement in individual countries daily CO2 emissions fell by 26% on average. The UK’s average fell even further than this number due to an overrepresentation in surface transportation – mostly made up of private cars and other road vehicles – a huge proportion of which was taken off the road as businesses shut up shop on March 23.
A graph created by University of East Anglia senior researcher Matt Jones, based on the Le Quéré et al Nature Climate Change study. Matt Jones / Le Quéré et al
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The study’s lead author, Corinne Le Quéré, professor of climate change science at the University of East Anglia, explained: “A lot of emissions in the UK come from surface transport – around 30% on average of the country’s total emissions. It makes up a bigger contribution to total emissions than the average worldwide.
“It was also the sector that was most affected by lockdown as a result of people being forced to stay at home and, in particular, not able to drive to work.
“The UK also reached full lockdown, whereas lots of the countries we studied did not, so that made a difference in terms of its average.”
In order to estimate daily global CO2 emissions – which are usually measured months or years after the fact – researchers had to take a radically different approach.
The peer-reviewed paper, published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change, examined six sectors which usually contribute to climate change; electricity and heat, the largest factor; industry; surface transport; homes; public buildings and commerce; and aviation.
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Usage during lockdown was calculated using a variety of methods from different countries, with changes in the residential sector, for example, inferred from UK smart meter data.
In order to meet the ambitions of the 2015 Paris Agreement the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said, of keeping global warming below 2C, the world needs to collectively slash emissions 45% from their 2010 levels by 2030.
Failure to do so, scientists say, will risk a build up of greenhouse gases so significant that unpredictable, disastrous climate events will accelerate rapidly both in frequency and scale.
What the pandemic has shown, Le Quére explained, is how ill-prepared we are globally for deadly events like a disease outbreak or a natural disaster.
“This crisis has really shown how vulnerable we are and how we don’t take the risks seriously enough. We were unprepared, worldwide, to deal with this crisis in spite of the fact that there have been coronaviruses before.
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“With climate change it is the same. Scientists have been saying for decades ‘there is a huge problem, we need to tackle climate change, we need to adapt and prepare’, but that just isn’t happening.
“I am hoping and expecting that governments, when they rebuild the economy and society, they will rebuild in a way that is a lot more resilient to the risk of extreme events like pandemics and climate change.”
Carbon emissions dropped to their lowest level in almost 100 years during lockdown. JUSTIN TALLIS via Getty Images
According to Le Quéré drop in emissions in 2020 is likely to be the biggest since World War Two, but, temporary in nature, the pause of lockdown isn’t enough to stave off global warming.
“It’s the biggest decrease in emissions, but the impact of that decrease on global warming will really nothing because global warming is caused by an accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere – which has taken place over decades.
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“To stop global warming we need to bring emissions down to zero, and just now we’ve seen a drop of 17% globally. It’s been a terrible event, but this [coronavirus] is really just a small thing and to attack climate change we need structural, long-term efforts.”
Le Quéré is clear – the huge changes, born out of a need to contain a deadly pandemic, are not sustainable.
In order to avoid climate disasters on a catastrophic scale, policy makers need to transform every element of infrastructure – the way we travel, the way we work, the way we consume.
In the wake of the 31% drop, environmental campaigners have urged leaders to use the harsh lessons learnt during the coronavirus outbreak in order to protect society from future disasters.
“Let’s learn from this tragedy, build back better and not make the mistake of ignoring the next crisis heading our way.”
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Friends of the Earth’s head of policy, Mike Childs, told HuffPost UK: “A 31% emissions drop in April is dramatic, but in the long run it won’t mean anything unless some reductions are made permanent. This lockdown moment is a chance to reset our carbon-guzzling economy and rebuild in a way that leaves pollution in the past, to stop climate-wrecking emissions spiking right back up to where they were before, or even higher.
“In practice that means government and councils have to permanently change how road space is used - to prioritise people over cars, and support walking and cycling. The government should scrap its massive road-building programme in favour of creating the sustainable and modern transport system we urgently need.
“Flying is one of the dirtiest industries, so the government should end their support for airport expansions and introduce a levy on the most frequent fliers. We can eradicate fuel poverty by investing in better home insulation, saving lives while at the same time cutting carbon emissions and creating jobs.
“It’s clear that the old normal wasn’t working for people or for the planet, but by prioritising our health and wellbeing with sustainable transport and renewable energy we can make the next normal a clean new world.”
His comments were echoed by Paul Morozzo, senior climate campaigner at Greenpeace UK, who also called for the government to take drastic steps as the lockdown is lifted in order to avoid returning to pre-coronavirus emissions.
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He said: “The only way this reduction will mean anything is if governments lock it in as we recover and rebuild. We know how to do it.
“We have to rebuild our cities around walking, cycling and public transport. We’ve got to create hundreds of thousands of jobs upscaling renewable energy and insulating people’s homes.
“At its core, it means putting the climate emergency, jobs and health at the very centre of the recovery. Let’s learn from this tragedy, build back better and not make the mistake of ignoring the next crisis heading our way.”
There are clear calls for the nationwide government to take action, but the pressure is also on for local authorities – some of whom are already using a new demand for socially-distance travel to reimagine how our cities function.
In Bristol, for example, the council has announced the pedestrianisation of the historic Old City in a bid to change how people move around the area.
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In a statement, Bristol’s directly-elected mayor Marvin Rees said: “Work on the Old City and Bristol Bridge proposals are already underway, but the coronavirus means we now need to accelerate the changes that will transform the way we travel in the city centre.
“The current situation is challenging our usual travel habits and behaviour in a way that we’ve never seen before. Many of us have already embraced more walking and cycling journeys and, whilst it is understandable bus usage has dropped, we want to protect the long-term viability of our public transport services because of their intrinsic value to communities across the city.”
Elsewhere councils are also waking up to the new ways in which their residents will interact with their local area post-coronavirus, and some politicians with responsibility for remits such as waste and energy are pushing forward radical proposals for a new era.
Hackney councillor Jon Burke, who oversees the borough’s approach to energy, waste, transport and public spaces, explained that now was the time for leaders to make bold decisions at a local and national level to decelerate climate change – even if they prove unpopular in the short term.
Burke said: “It’s difficult to summarise the true and likely impacts of climate change without sounding as though you’re engaging in hyperbole, but the fact is that all of the reliable science and reliable sources of data are very clear that what’s at stake here is the future of human civilisation.
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“I think politicians now have to have the confidence to say that for the right reasons we actually can change rapidly, and there needs to be implications for policymaking.


huffingtonpost--2020-04-20--Nova Scotia Shooting Manhunt Ends With 16 Dead, Including Mountie

An RCMP officer was one of at least 16 people killed during a shooting rampage that began on Saturday night in Nova Scotia , and ended after a police pursuit and the gunman ’ s death .
Const .
Heidi Stevenson , a 23-year veteran of the force and mother of two , was killed while another Mountie was left with non-life threatening injuries .
Police said the shootings appeared to be random , and some of the victims didn ’ t seem to have known the suspect — who reportedly wore an RCMP uniform at one point .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from one part of the province to another , ” said RCMP Chief Supt .
Chris Leather during a Sunday evening press conference .
Police first responded to a firearms complaint and several 911 calls in the Portapique area , a rural coastal village about a 130 kilometres from Halifax , on Saturday night .
When they arrived , police found several people dead inside and outside a residence , said Leather , estimating “ in excess of 10 people ” had been killed .
It was difficult to specify the number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ areas that we have not yet explored across the province.
” RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said late Sunday that the victim death toll had risen to 16 , which surpasses the 14 people killed in the 1989 Polytechnique massacre in Montreal .
As a search was launched for Gabriel Wortman , 51 , residents in the area were told to lock their doors and stay in the basement .
Police said Wortman was driving what appeared to be an RCMP cruiser and wearing an RCMP uniform .
They also said he seemed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provincial pursuit which stretched over Saturday night and into Sunday morning .
The manhunt led to multiple sites around the area , some of which were on fire , said Leather .
# Colchester : Gabriel Wortman may be driving what appears to be an RCMP vehicle & may be wearing an RCMP uniform .
There 's 1 difference btwn his car and our RCMP vehicles : the car # .
The suspect 's car is 28B11 , behind rear passenger window .
If you see 28B11 call 911 immediately .
pic.twitter.com/yyeOeBt8Ui — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) April 19 , 2020 At 10:40 a.m. on Sunday , police tweeted that Wortman was in custody .
Leather said the pursuit ended with Wortman ’ s death , but didn ’ t provide details on the cause .
At one point , police and Wortman did exchange gunfire , he said .
Yellow police tape surrounded the gas pumps , and a large silver-coloured SUV was being investigated by police .
A body was seen lying at the gas station .
Police would not comment on the body ’ s identity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a denturist in Dartmouth , according to the Denturist Society of Nova Scotia website .
A suspect photo issued by the RCMP matches video footage of a man being interviewed about dentures by CTV Atlantic in 2014 .
N.S .
RCMP Commanding Officer Lee Bergerman said that Stevenson left behind two children and a husband .
“ There are no words to describe their pain , ” she said .
Police were asked if the COVID-19 pandemic might have played a part in the shooting , but Leather said there was nothing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out to everyone affected in what is a terrible situation , ” he said .
“ I want to thank the police for their hard work and people for co-operating with authorities .

UPDATE: As of Apr. 21, 2020, RCMP have confirmed that 23 people were killed in the shooting.
An RCMP officer was one of at least 19 people killed during a shooting rampage that began on Saturday night in Nova Scotia, and ended after a police pursuit and the gunman’s death.
Const. Heidi Stevenson, a 23-year veteran of the force and mother of two, was killed while another Mountie was left with non-life threatening injuries.
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Police said some of the victims didn’t seem to have known the suspect, who reportedly wore an RCMP uniform and drove what looked like a police cruiser.
“The impact of this incident will extend from one part of the province to another,” said RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather during a Sunday evening press conference.
On Monday morning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at least 18 people were killed in the “senseless” violence. The RCMP later confirmed the death toll had risen to 19 and could rise as more victims are identified. (UPDATE: The final death toll of the rampage was 22 people, making it Canada’s worst mass killing in its history.)
Statement from Nova Scotia RCMP Commanding Officer, Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman https://t.co/mV9IcRqe2B pic.twitter.com/yRaL8F8EdS — RCMP, Nova Scotia (@RCMPNS) April 19, 2020
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Police first responded to a firearms complaint and several 911 calls in the Portapique area, a rural coastal village about 130 kilometres north of Halifax, on Saturday night.
When they arrived, police found several people dead inside and outside a residence, said Leather, estimating “in excess of 10 people” had been killed. It was difficult to specify the number of victims because “the investigation continues into areas that we have not yet explored across the province.”
About 100 people live in Portapique year-round, while the population grows to about 250 with cottagers in the East Coast summer.
Tim Krochak/Canadian Press RCMP officers prepare to take a suspect into custody at a gas station in Enfield, N.S. on April 19, 2020.
As a search was launched for Gabriel Wortman, 51, residents in the area were told to lock their doors and stay in the basement.
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Police said Wortman, who worked as a denturist, was driving what appeared to be an RCMP cruiser and wearing an RCMP uniform.
“The fact that this individual had a uniform and a police car at his disposal certainly speaks to it not being a random act,” Leather said.
Police also said the shooter seemed to have switched cars several times during the manhunt which stretched through several communities over Saturday night and into Sunday morning along a busy highway.
The suspect search led to multiple sites around the region, some of which were on fire, said Leather.
#Colchester: Gabriel Wortman may be driving what appears to be an RCMP vehicle & may be wearing an RCMP uniform. There's 1 difference btwn his car and our RCMP vehicles: the car #. The suspect's car is 28B11, behind rear passenger window. If you see 28B11 call 911 immediately. pic.twitter.com/yyeOeBt8Ui — RCMP, Nova Scotia (@RCMPNS) April 19, 2020
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Darcy Sack told CBC News that she came across two burning police cars and the suspect’s vehicle as she was driving near Highway 102 on Sunday.
“There was one officer we could see on scene and then all of a sudden, he went running toward one of the burning vehicles,” Sack said. “We heard gunshots.”
She said the suspect was dressed like a police officer.
On Sunday morning, he was stopped about 90 kilometres away in Enfield, a scene that was surrounded by a half dozen police vehicles.
Leather said the pursuit ended with the man’s death, but didn’t provide details on the cause. At one point, police and the suspect did exchange gunfire, he said.
‘Chaotic scene’
Yellow police tape surrounded the gas pumps, and a large silver-coloured SUV was being investigated by police. A body was seen lying at the gas station. Police would not comment on the body’s identity.
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“This was a quickly evolving situation and chaotic scene,” the chief superintendent said.
The Globe and Mail reported that an acquaintance said the suspect was obsessed with the police and interviewed others who said he bought old police cruisers at auctions.
Andrew Vaughan/THE CANADIAN PRESS RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather, left, and N.S. RCMP Commanding Officer Lee Bergerman field questions at a news conference at RCMP headquarters in Dartmouth, N.S. on April 19, 2020.
N.S. RCMP Commanding Officer Lee Bergerman said that Stevenson left behind two children and a husband. “Heidi answered the call of duty and lost her life while protecting those she served,” she said. “Earlier this afternoon, I met with Heidi’s family and there are no words to describe their pain.”
Leather told reporters there are no indications the COVID-19 pandemic might have played a part in the attacks.
On Sunday, Trudeau touched on the shooting during his daily pandemic briefing.
“My heart goes out to everyone affected in what is a terrible situation,” he said.
“As a country, in moments like these, we come together to support one another. Together we will mourn with the families of the victims, and help them get through this difficult time.”
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Watch Trudeau’s statement:
Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil described the massacre as “one of the most senseless acts of violence in our province’s history.”
“I never imagined when I went to bed last night that I would wake up to the horrific news that an active shooter was on the loose in Nova Scotia,” McNeil said in Halifax on Sunday.
In a series of tweets, he added that all Nova Scotians would be affected by the tragedy.
“It’s okay to feel sad, or angry, or hopeless,” he wrote. “But what’s not okay is to bear all of those feelings alone. Reach out to a loved one, a friend, a neighbour. And if you need more support, that’s okay too. The provincial crisis line is available 24/7: 1-888-429-8167.”
With files from The Canadian Press
CORRECTION: This article previously referred to the shootings as the “deadliest mass shooting” in Canadian history. Due to the nature of the victims’ deaths, this is not factual. The headline and story have been updated.
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