📰 Picks of the Week
Covid-19, Death of Cosmopolitanism, MLB Returns, Ebola Outbreak, Tobacco Ban, Yuval Noah Harari
Hello! We made it through another week, which means it’s time for another round up of the most interesting and weirdest news from around the world. We’ll dig into the death of cosmopolitanism, the death and return of Ebola, the return of baseball in the U.S., and South Africa’s smoking ban. Before we do, check out the election round up from yesterday as we dissected elections in Serbia and Kiribati from this week. And next week we’ll round up what went down in Mongolia, Iceland, Poland and Anguilla as the wave of rescheduled elections continues… Until then, enjoy Picks of the Week and have a safe weekend. ✊
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Covid-19 Around the World
Shameful plug time as I include my first published project for The Wall Street Journal, as we looked at the Covid-19 situation around the globe. Many people feel the need to visit beaches during the worst pandemic in 100 years including in Southend and Bournemouth in the UK, so much so that a ‘Major Incident’ was declared on the south coast.
The past fortnight has seen the largest rise in global daily cases of any two-week period since the start of the pandemic in November. While the worst-hit regions include Latin America, the Caribbean and South Asia, second waves are popping up around the world. A number of reasons can explain the second spikes, but they’re most likely due to the mass protests over the past month and other general failed social distancing. Deaths will surge again as well, though that’ll take a few weeks due to the time lag between becoming ill and dying. I realize not everyone has a WSJ subscription, so I’ve included a couple of the charts we used below.
Death of Cosmopolitanism
More Covid-related content (sorry!) but this one is worth fully digesting. As we’ve discussed for months in this newsletter, this pandemic will change the world in many ways for many people. When I hear the word ‘cosmopolitan’, I think of, well, the magazine. It never occurred to me that the actual meaning of the word is derived from ‘cosmopolis’, which describes a city inhabited by people from multiple countries. And cosmopolitanism as an idea, or a way of life, has never played a larger role in our society, whether it’s something as small as a city break in Naples, or something as large as seemingly having every type of cuisine in Toronto. Exchanging ideas and culture haven’t stopped on this scale arguably since the end of World War Two, and it’ll be fascinating to see the long-term effects of this historic episode.
Baseball Is Back
After months of painstaking negotiations, MLB will finally start its 60-game regular season around July 24, followed by a normal postseason in October. Players will report to training camp on July 1. On paper baseball should’ve had the least hurdles in returning to the field among all the major sports, because unlike basketball, soccer and MMA, the proximity of players on the baseball field is at its spaciest, save for the hitter, catcher and umpire. Among many reasons why MLB faced an uphill battle to save its season, the bitter tension between team owners and players has reared its ugly head once again. The fractured relationship stretches back decades, and mostly focuses on the league’s economic structure — MLB is the only of the four major U.S. leagues to not have a salary cap — and number of games — MLB consists of a 162-game season, almost double that of the NBA and NHL’s 82. As a result, MLB has been involved in eight work stoppages in its history, compared with the NFL’s six, NHL’s four and NBA’s three. Very soon we’ll able to put our feet up, pop a cold one and enjoy America’s true past time. 😋
Ebola Outbreak Over, Returns Immediately
While our smart friends in Southend and Bournemouth enjoy an ice cream and stick of rock, a fresh outbreak of Ebola has been discovered in the north-west of the Democratic Republic of Congo, just days after its deadliest Ebola outbreak was declared over in the north-east of the country. The DRC’s initial outbreak lasted almost two years and killed around 2,280 people, in part because of the difficulty in developing a safe and effective vaccine. As we discussed last month, there’s no guarantee a vaccine can be developed for any disease, just ask HIV-Aids victims who are still without a safe and effective vaccine after almost 40 years. The events this week in the DRC are more evidence that we can expect multiple waves of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the coming months and years.
South Africa Tobacco Ban
The country banned tobacco in March in an attempt to curb the effects of Covid-19 on its people, but… smokers gonna smoke, and an illegal cigarette smuggling network has emerged with the country’s north-eastern neighbour. South Africa and Zimbabwe have increased patrols of their border, which features more than 200 illegal entry points. It’s important to note that because of Covid-19’s infancy, there’s no peer-reviewed study exploring the effects of smoking as it pertains to catching and dealing with the virus. Tobacco companies will be tobacco companies and have denied any harmful links, just as they did back in the second half of the last century when the effects of smoking were widely unknown, and continue to do so today. I’m going to go on the record and say it’s highly unlikely smoking tobacco can protect us from the virus, or any virus, or anything, though the impact for some people of a sudden ban should also be considered.
Yuval Noah Harari
Harari is a history professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and his books — Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century — have sold more than 27 million copies worldwide. To say he’s a phenom would be an understatement. I’ve just started Sapiens — I know, late to the party as usual — and it’s absolutely blowing my fucking mind. I’m only 60 pages in and already most of what we experience today, whether it’s our failure to social distance or inability to see the grey within certain issues, makes so much more sense. I cannot recommend his stuff more, and here’s a profile The New Yorker did on Harari earlier this year. Enjoy. Until next week 👋
Yuval 👇 | Credit: WSJ
