Flying fears
With an analytics company reporting that almost a third of the world’s passenger jets are parked around the world, and with airlines grounding more planes due to a lack of demand, pilots are bound to get rusty.
With an analytics company reporting that almost a third of the world’s passenger jets are parked around the world, and with airlines grounding more planes due to a lack of demand, pilots are bound to get rusty.
Germany became the latest country to announce shutdowns of bars, restaurants, cafes, cinemas and theatres.
The government told Parliament that 10.5 million workers had left for home during the lockdown but said it did not know how many had died on the journey, or who, if anyone, had been compensated. The government claimed further to not know how many workers had lost their jobs, nor how many policemen had died from Covid.
By the end of this week, India should overtake Brazil to record the second-highest number of afflictions; already it has overtaken the South American nation in terms of active cases, and by a considerable measure.
In the other development, President Halimah Yacob in her traditional opening address to Parliament devoted considerable time to assuaging fears about competition for jobs from foreigners.
The projections of the UN body are in line with those of IATA, which has revised its 2020 numbers forecast to a decline of 56 per cent, as compared to the 46 per cent drop it had foreseen in April.
Young people are said to be stepping out for commuting to work, but worryingly, to also visit bars and nightclubs and even sometimes to attend Covid-19 parties to deliberately get infected.
This is only partially explained by its federal structure; the greater blame must attach to the frequent U-turns in governmental response provoked by a President who has consistently viewed public health through the prism of his re-election bid.
This growth has come even as other major economies are projected to suffer stunning contractions ~ the United States by 5.9 per cent; Japan by 5.2 per cent; United Kingdom by 6.5 per cent; Germany by 7 per cent; France by 7.2 per cent; Italy by 9.1 per cent; Spain by 8 per cent and India by 4.5 per cent.
