Has the COVID-19 pandemic increased support for Universal Basic Income? What social policies have governments implemented to cope with the economic effects of the pandemic? In this webinar, we’ll answer these questions while analysing GEF’s brochure on social policy responses to COVID-19.
About the event
“The Unconditional Basic Income is a periodic cash transfer granted to all members of a political community, without work requirement nor means-testing, and high enough to ensure an existence in dignity and participation in society”.
During this event, we’ll put UBI on the spotlight as a driving solution to tackle poverty and income inequality and other problems in a changing world.
We will also review GEF brochure on social policy responses to COVID-19, which examines the social policy reactions to the Covid-19 crisis in a dozen different European countries.
Context
The COVID-19 crisis continues to change the way we live our lives, and how social services continue to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable. This crisis will affect how governments plan their future responses to social emergencies, and UBI could be one effective way to do it.
This event is part of our knowledge community ‘A welfare state of the 21st century’. The Green European Foundation has been working on this issue for several years with the aim of opening a debate on UBI across Europe. We are now joining forces with other social actors to give this effort a broader scope.
As the debate continues, we too would be interested in expanding our analysis to include new information and additional countries.
Speakers
• Valerija Korošec, PhD in Postmodern Sociology. She is a representative of Slovenia in the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and the European Network for the Fair Sharing of Working Time. • Natalie Bennet, Green member of the House of Lords in the UK. Former leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2012 to 2016. She previously spent 20 years working as a journalist, (the Bangkok Post, The Times, and the Guardian Weekly) • Simo Raittila, Coordinator of the Finnish think tank Visio and a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Helsinki. In 2018 he worked on last-resort social assistance register research at Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland.
Moderation: Hannes Mehrer. Coordinator of the Basic income working Group of the German Green party and of the Green Network of UBI supporters.
Practicalities
Date and Time: October 19th (17:00-18:00) Audience: The webinar is free and open to the general public. Registration: Please register in advance via this link. https://survey.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0vnlbynAXaKUtVQ
This event is organised by the Green European Foundation with the support of Transición Verde and with the financial support of the European Parliament to the Green European Foundation. The European Parliament is not responsible for the content of this event.
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, June 06, 2020 Region: Europe, USA Theme: Media Disinformation, Police State & Civil Rights, Science and Medicine
“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. Because they control the minds of the masses, they have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power…If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
“For one bright moment back in the late 1960s, we actually believed that we could change our country. We had identified the enemy. We saw it up close, we had its measure, and we were very hopeful that we would prevail. The enemy was hollow where we had substance. All of that substance was destroyed by an assassin’s bullet.” – William Pepper (page 15, The Plot to Kill King)
***
Across America, as well as in Western Europe, there is an ongoing campaign against racism following the dramatic events in Minneapolis. Our thoughts are with George Floyd, his family and friends. We stand in solidarity with African-Americans who are the target of police killings and racial discrimination. Colonial and contemporary history has left its mark. Today, African-Americans are also the victims of neoliberalism which triggers poverty, social inequality and unemployment.
The campaign against racism including the protest movements cannot be divorced from the broader battle against neoliberalism and the carefully designed instruments of economic and social oppression.
At this juncture, there is an important question which must be addressed. The Covid-19 pandemic, which is based on manipulated data coupled with a fear campaign is destroying people’s lives. It is an act of economic and social warfare against humanity. It is carried out Worldwide.
The most recent evidence from a leaked report of Germany’s Ministry of the Interior confirms that the COVID-19 virus is a “Global False Alarm”. According to the team of experts contracted by the German Government, Covid-19 is of lesser significance than the 2017-2018 seasonal flu, which barely made the headlines. While the report acknowledges the dangers to public health, it nonetheless emphasizes that “The danger is obviously no greater than that of many other viruses. There is no evidence that this was more than a false alarm”. [in German in the report: globalen Fehlalarm]
Other reports come to similar conclusions not to mention the manipulation of death certificates.
Italy’s lockdown in early March was justified by quoting “fake data”. Vittorio Sgarbi, MP stated in Parliament that the closure of 60% of Italy’s economy was taken on the basis of an “estimated” 25,000 Coronavirus deaths.
“It’s not true,” he said. “According to the National Institute of Health, 96.3% did not die of coronavirus, but of other pathologies stated Sgarbi – which means that only 925 have died from the virus and 24,075 have died from other things claimed Sgarbi, “… the virus was little more than an influenza. Don’t lie! Tell the truth!”
The lies are numerous: Both in Britain and the US, “duplicate counting” has been used to inflate the reported positive cases.
Many prominent scientists and politicians have courageously spoken out:
Senator Dr. Scott Jensen of Minnesota “received a 7-page document that showed him how to fill out a death certificate as a “COVID-19 diagnosis” even when there isn’t a lab test confirming the diagnosis”. According to Jensen:
“Right now Medicare is determining that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you get $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator you get $39,000, three times as much. Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine that sometimes those kinds of things impact on what we do.” (Dr. Sen. Scott Jensen, from Fox Interview, emphasis added)
Meanwhile, politicians have been lying through their teeth, the media has been entrusted to sustaining the fear campaign. People’s lives are threatened. Lies and Bribes are the driving force. Politicians and scientists are co-opted.
All of which is intent on justifying “social distancing” as well as enforcing the infamous lockdown which confines people to their homes, in many cases without income, food and medical attention. And people obey because they are scared.
But why have these issues not been raised by the anti-racism campaign?
Confinement is “racist”. It serves as a justification to deny peoples’ fundamental right to employment. It’s social engineering. The lockdown destroys our institutions, undermines family life and social relations, destroys culture (including music and the arts), closes down schools and universities, and of course it impoverishes large sectors of the World population.
And if the pandemic is “A Global False Alarm” (Official Germany Report), there is no justification for closing down the economy. But that report along many other independent reports is subject to media censorship.
The Anti-Racism Campaign and The Lockdown
The lockdown from the outset is being used as a means to destabilize the US economy and create massive unemployment. Why then is the campaign “against racism” firmly supportive of the lockdown?
This campaign against racism is not a protest movement against the financial elites who are pressuring governments to postpone the reopening of the national economy as long as possible.
Big Money controls the politicians. They control the media that wages the fear campaign. They are also the creditors of the State, who are now in the process of concocting a multi-trillion dollar loan package for indebted governments. Their intent is to deregulate the labor market, and pick up the pieces of bankrupt enterprises.
The protests and the riots serve their interests. The financial elites are not the target of the protest movement. Quite the opposite: their elite billionaire foundations are supporting many of the progressive NGOs which are waging the campaign against racism, while also paying lip service to the Democratic Party which is firmly against the reopening of the US economy as part of their 2020 election campaign.
BLM’s #WhatMatters2020 is a campaign aimed to maximize the impact of the BLM movement by galvanizing BLM supporters and allies to the polls in the 2020 U.S Presidential Election to build collective power and ensure candidates are held accountable for the issues that systematically and disproportionately impact Black and under-served communities across the nation.
BLM’s #WhatMatters2020 will focus on issues concerning racial injustice, police brutality, criminal justice reform, Black immigration, economic injustice, LGBTQIA+ and human rights, environmental injustice, access to healthcare, access to quality education, and voting rights and suppression.
This initiative will inspire and motivate people to ask themselves and their candidates are you really addressing What Matters in 2020?
“What Matters in 2020?” While rightly focussing on the police killings and the criminalization of justice,What Black Lives Matter fails to address is that African-Americans are the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic fear campaign, which in practice is contributing to social divisions, racism and the development beyond bounds of a police state apparatus.
It’s a scam: Confinement creates unemployment, affecting African-American communities across the United States. It is an instrument of “economic injustice”. It’s neoliberalism.
The economic and social “collateral damage” of COVID-19 is mass unemployment, poverty, death and despair. It emanates from the financial establishment.
Supporting the lockdown which creates poverty and disrupts economic activity Worldwide has de facto racist overtones. Why? Because it destroys peoples lives.
The damage incurred by a “global economic lockdown” far exceeds the health impacts of the corona virus.
The objective of the financial elites, the billionaire foundations and philanthropists is the concentration of wealth, bankruptcy of the real economy, mass unemployment, social inequality and racism.
If you are against racism, an end to confinement, the reopening of the national economy and the restoration of employment should be a number one priority.
To put it bluntly: There is no mass protest movement against the COVID-19 lockdown. The lies are accepted at face value.
The WHO is funded by the Gates Foundation and Big Pharma, politicians around the World are co-opted and bribed. But at the same time, the billionaire charities and foundations (including Soros, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller et al) are financing the “progressive” anti-racist NGOs, which are acting as a “controlled opposition”.
Manufactured dissent and the funding of dissent is also a multibillion dollar undertaking. “The mechanisms of “manufacturing dissent” require a manipulative environment, a process of arm-twisting and subtle cooptation of individuals within progressive organizations”.
And these NGOs have decided to overlook the fact that African-Americans are the victims of neoliberalism and the lockdown of the US economy.
And the lockdown is an integral part of the 2020 election platform of the Democratic Party, which is a neoliberal pro-war racist agenda imposed by Wall Street, Big Pharma, the Military Industrial Complex, et al.
You cannot wage a battle against the Empire and then ask the Empire to finance your protest movements.
“Everything the [Ford] Foundation did could be regarded as “making the World safe for capitalism”, reducing social tensions by helping to comfort the afflicted, provide safety valves for the angry, and improve the functioning of government (McGeorge Bundy, former National Security Advisor and president of the Ford Foundation, (1966-1979)
BLM does not in any way “endanger” global capitalism:
“… Black Lives Matter is increasingly awash in cash, raking in pledges of more than $100 million from liberal foundations [2016]… [including] The Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy … That funding comes in addition to more than $33 million from top Democratic Party donor George Soros …, as well as grant-making from the Center for American Progress.” [headed by John Podesta Jr., Obama’s White House chief of staff]
This is not an issue of “choice” between Republicans and Democrats both of which are racist and corrupt. It is an issue of confronting the “Big Money” architects of this diabolical project to destabilize the economy, social relations and institutions of the entire planet. The police state and racism is an integral part of that “destabilization agenda”.
A Real Grassroots Movement
What we need is a real grassroots movement, across the land, nationally and internationally, independent of corporate funding. The Coronavirus crisis is an act of war against humanity. We must reach out to all those who are victims of the corona crisis. The legitimacy of the COVID-19 pandemic depends on fear, disinformation and submission to higher authority.
Breaking the lie means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force.
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215 Articles by: Prof Michel Chossudovsky
About the author:
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research. He has taught as visiting professor in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. He has served as economic adviser to governments of developing countries and has acted as a consultant for several international organizations. He is the author of eleven books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005), The Global Economic Crisis, The Great Depression of the Twenty-first Century (2009) (Editor), Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011), The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015). He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at [email protected]
Darren McCaffrey
Euronews Political Editor
@DarrenEuronews
In the coming weeks, our daily special coverage newsletter will be dedicated to bringing you the latest updates from Europe on the coronavirus outbreak.
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
SECOND WAVE Countries are starting to ease lockdown measures and citizens are gradually returning to some semblance of normality. Experts warn lower infection rates combined with higher temperatures could lead to complacency among people regarding social distancing and hygiene rules. Based on studies of previous pandemics, a second wave is likely to occur this time as well. The EU institutions are paying close attention to these warnings, as Jack Parrock reports from Brussels.
AND SECOND LOCKDOWN Most shops in Greece are now allowed to reopen, but some owners are worried about what comes next. They fear that, if infections rise again in the coming weeks and restrictions are reinstated, their businesses will never recover. While Greece has so far managed to weather the health crisis comparatively well, it’s expected to be one of the European countries to suffer the most from the economic fallout
INSIDE THE CARE HOME CRISIS The coronavirus has swept through Europe’s care homes, killing thousands of residents. These deaths are believed to account for half of the total victims of COVID-19. In the latest episode of Unreported Europe, Valérie Gauriat speaks to families, care workers and associations as she investigates some of the best and worst practices surrounding the management of this tragic crisis.
CARE HOME DEATHS The Irish government is coming under mounting pressure over the number of deaths in care homes. Residential and community care facilities, including nursing homes, now account for more than 62 percent of COVID-19-related deaths in the country, according to figures released by the Department of Health. One nurse told Euronews that more than half of the care staff at the nursing home where she works are off sick. Shona Murray has more.
WORST-HIT WORKERS The UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) reports that male security guards, taxi drivers and chefs are among the UK workers worst-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Bus drivers, sales assistants and male construction workers also seem to be particularly susceptible.
ADDITIONAL ENTRY POINT The novel coronavirus is known for infiltrating the body through the respiratory tract. However, researchers in Hong Kong are now warning that COVID-19 infection via the eyes is also a big risk, because this strain is stronger than previous coronaviruses. But they insist hand hygiene is still more useful than wearing face protection.
FOOTBALL RESTART The first football match to take place in western Europe since the coronavirus outbreak was not in one of Europe’s elite leagues, but in a tiny self-governing archipelago with a population of just 50,000 people. And it currently sits at number 110 in FIFA’s official rankings. Can you guess where it is?
STAT OF THE DAY
Europe’s biggest budget airline will resume 1,000 flights a day from 1 July and restore 90% of its pre-pandemic route network. Before the COVID-19 crisis, Ryanair was operating 2,400 flights a day. It will restart flying from most of its 80 bases across the continent. All passengers will be forced to wear face masks and, yes, put their hand up, if they want to use the toilet.
THE SCIENCE OF SOCIAL BUBBLES
Weeks of non-existent physical contact with friends and family living anywhere other than their own household have been a difficult feat for many. But the advice of many governments is that this has also been key to stopping the spread of the coronavirus. As Europe begins to look past its lengthy lockdowns, a fine balance is becoming apparent; between reintroducing crucial social interaction and maintaining a low transmission rate.
The UK is currently mulling over the idea of implementing “social bubbles” – a restricted form of face-to-face contact – while waiting for a vaccine to be developed. The general principle of a social bubble is that you can have contact with people outside of your household, but keep the number of people tightly restricted.
“If we all interact within this small group of people, we can prevent the virus spreading further,” Oxford University sociologist Per Block told Euronews. “If I am in a bubble with nine people, I can only spread the virus to them and they can’t spread it any further.” But how do you choose your bubble? Who do you let in and who do you leave out? Rachael Kennedy explores these and other questions about the concept.
ON A POSITIVE NOTE
It’s a dilemma that restaurateurs have been scratching their heads about: how to re-open to diners and stay safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic. One venue in Amsterdam thinks it might have found a solution. Mediamatic Biotoop, an art centre in the Dutch city, is putting outdoor diners in tiny greenhouses in a bid to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
The small greenhouses were built as an art project. But now they have been turned into private dining spaces. Waiting staff wear protective equipment and serve food on long wooden planks. The greenhouses can hold a maximum of two people.
Willem Velthoven, director of the art centre, said the COVID-19 crisis had forced restaurants to “rethink hospitality.” “Being together in large groups will probably be out of fashion for a while, but still, coming in a social situation and really enjoying things together is something that we long for even more,” said Velthoven.
The centre held a test event earlier this month and is planning on using the greenhouses again on 21 May and 27 June.
NO COMMENT
Paris commuters are subject to strict rules and regulations, stretching beyond carrying a work certificate, as they board public transport.
At the end of February, the world was discussing the restrictive measures that had to be taken against the Coronavirus pandemic. Now, just 3 months after, people are beginning to criticize these measures and demand the end of the restrictions.
This situation reminded me of a tweet by George Friedman, the founder of Stratfor (A think tank associated with the CIA). Friedman analyzed the possible political and social effects of the coronavirus pandemic with the following words; “When the coronavirus first appeared, the natural public response was to demand that the government stop it. The next phase was to blame the government for failing to protect them. The third phase will be attacking the government for taking the steps it took to protect them.”
The situation in Turkey and in the rest of the world shows us that we are currently entering the third phase.
Pandemic by the numbers
To date, 3,786 people in Turkey have died from the Coronavirus, while the total number of confirmed Coronavirus cases had reached 138,657 and 1,542 more people having tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has announced on Twitter.
According to the official announcements, a total of 92,691 patients have recovered and have been discharged from the hospitals since the beginning of the outbreak, while 1,154 patients are still being treated in intensive care units.
In Turkey, the number of overall tests done so far is 1,370,598.
The numbers are on the decline, but tensions are still high.
Limitations of anti-epidemic measures
Last week, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced the end of first phase in struggle against the Coronavirus pandemic and the opening of second phase which includes;
– Reopening of the shopping malls, barbershops and some stores starting May 11.
– On May 10, citizens older than 65 will be allowed to go out within the walking distance from their homes for a limited number of hours. The same measures will subsequently be applied for the children and young people younger than 20 years, with a day for each group.
– On May 13, children up to the age of 14 will also be able to go out within the walking distance from their houses from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. The same four-hour allowance will be given to those aged between 15-20 on May 15.
Since March 21, these two age groups have been under a lockdown, and were banned from going outside.
– Reopening of university academic programs is scheduled for June 15.
– The travel restrictions for Antalya, Aydin, Erzurum, Hatay, Malatya, Mersin and Mugla have ended. Entrance and exit restrictions will stay in place for the remaining 24 cities, which includes Turkey’s economic and cultural hub of Istanbul and its capital Ankara, for another 15 days.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used these words to describe the new measures, part of the so-called “plan for going back to normal”: “Like the rest of the world, our country will not be able to return to its old way of living. It is unclear how long the pandemic will last and how many people will have the access for a cure. So, there will be a new norm from now on. Though restrictions will be eased, they will still be in place. Wearing masks in crowded places, watching out for the social distancing measures and adhering to the hygiene rules will continue.”
Opposition parties have shown their criticism for two of the fundamental arguments of the new coronavirus plan: firstly, the opposition has described this normalization process as too early and claimed that human lives were being put at risk for the sake of the economy. The second argument was against beginning the normalization plan by opening shopping malls.
While the rise of the dollar and euro exchange rates continues in Turkey, difficult times are being experienced in the economy.
The coming days will show us how effective the normalization plan and the new measures against the coronavirus will be.
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Onur Sinan Güzaltan
Onur Sinan Güzaltan was born in Istanbul in 1985. He had his Bachelors’s degree in Law, from the Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne Universty /Paris XII and a Master’s degree in International and European Law. He got his certificate of diploma equivalence at Galatasaray University. Later, he got a Master’s degree in International Trade Law, at the Institut de Droit des Affaires Internationales, founded jointly by the Sorbonne Universty and the Cairo Universty. In this process, he had served as the Cairo representative for the Aydinlik Newspaper. He has several articles and television streams within the international press, in such as People’s Daily, Al Yaum, Al Ahram, Russia Today France, Al Youm Al Sabea. In addition to being the author of the Tanrı Bizi İster Mi?, a work that studies the 2011-2013 political period in Egypt, he had also contributed to the multi-author study titled Ortadoğu Çıkmazında Türkiye, with an article that focused on the Turkish-Egyptian relations. While currently working as a lawyer, he also writes a weekly column for Aydinlik Newspaper on the subject of international politics and geopolitics.
‘I’m not racist, I just don’t want to get the virus,’ one patient told me
(Courtesy of Sojung Yi; iStock; Lily illustration)
Sojung Yi April 21
“Where are you from?”
Those are the first words out of my patient’s mouth when I ask how I can help her today. A lifetime of being asked this question as an Asian American has prepared me to simply reply, “I’m from here.”
Usually that dissipates the conversation, but today, my patient adds, “I’m not racist, I just don’t want to get the virus.”
I am an Asian American physician working in the emergency room at the University of California in San Francisco, and my experience is not isolated. As headlines continue to provide updates about the covid-19 virus overwhelming hospitals across the country, an overt wave of xenophobic and racist sentiment has also swept in.
Early on, even before the coronavirus was officially labeled a pandemic, Asian commuters shared traumatic stories of harrowing public transits marked by racial slurs, spitting, and physical assaults from passersby. And on Sunday, a man wearings medical scrubs and an N95 mask blocking an anti-lockdown protest in Denver was told to “Go back to China”.
Video shows standoff at Denver protest against stay-at-home order
0:51
People wearing scrubs stood in front of vehicles filled with protesters campaigning against Colorado’s stay-at-home order on April 19. (Marc Zenn via Storyful)
Despite being on the front lines of this pandemic, Asian American health care workers are also subjected to this racism. Some patients have even asked my Asian nurses if someone “not from China” could take care of them.
A month ago, after President Trump defended his use of the term “Chinese Virus,” I began to worry about the safety of my patients.
I treated an elderly Chinese man who had been walking in the park with a mask on when he was spit on, pushed over and kicked. He was called “dirty,” and told to “Go back to China.” His arthritic hands were scraped and studded with gravel, and the bruise on his head seemed to be blushing into a deeper purple while I reached for the stool next to his bed. As he recounted the incident with a stoic calmness, the young Cantonese video interpreter paused before her eyes teared and voice cracked, apologizing for seeming unprofessional.
I felt her pain, I felt our collective pain. While I am not Chinese American and recognize the hazard of grouping Asians, my identity as an Asian American from an immigrant family is as much defined by me, as it is perceived and imposed by others, including my own patients.
When Trump uses the term “Chinese Virus,” the message to the public is to place blame abroad despite a dismal initial and ongoing public health response in the United States, and to allow xenophobia and racism to fuel public panic and fear.
From my patient’s room, it does not seem so foolish to be aware of how words can turn into scars inflicted on another human. History has shown how dehumanizing people through analogies to rats or roaches can lead to both insidiously erosive racism and mass violence. In the aftermath of Ebola in 2014, anti-black sentiments comparing West Africans to animals increased, and black people with no affiliation with West Africa experienced racism from the larger public. While geography is important for epidemiologic study, these labels reduce a heterogeneous population with diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds into one broad category that widens existing stigma.
[ The coronavirus is spreading. So is discrimination.]
Last week, ads for Trump and Republican senators in difficult races blamed China as the common enemy who spread the virus. Imagery of Asian people filled the screen, reinforcing the label of “Chinese virus” and giving a face to blame for high unemployment in the United States amid a still rising death toll. Prior public health emergencies reveal how stigmatization of groups can be a common strategy for collective coping. However, it is precisely in these moments of crisis that we cannot let racism arouse fear and divert our attention from the true work at hand: taking care of each other.
This racism and racialization of disease is not new in the United States, but our response can be. As we ask what lessons to gather from this pandemic, as we imagine what “new normal” we wish to build and fight for, I hope we will consider the power of our words and discourse.
Only together, we can flatten the curve, and only together, we can prevent another curve of hate crime from rising. The covid-19 virus has revealed how interconnected our world is. Not just in the physical movement of patients spreading the virus, or the disrupted supply chains of protective equipment and ventilators, but also in the reverberations of our conversations, how everyday words from leaders can translate into real violence against innocent people.
Instead of pointing fingers, amplifying fear and fracturing communities, could we care for each other and combat this racism in solidarity?
Turkey has surpassed China in its number of confirmed coronavirus cases, as the tally rose to more than 90,000 by Monday, with deaths reaching at least 2,140, according to official government figures. But the true death toll may be much higher.
Officers and relatives carried a coffin in a special area of a cemetery that the government opened for coronavirus cases in Istanbul in late March.Credit…Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Turkey has surpassed China in its number of confirmed coronavirus cases, as the tally rose to more than 90,000 by Monday, with deaths reaching at least 2,140, according to official government figures. But the true death toll may be much higher.
Data compiled by The New York Times from records of deaths in Istanbul indicate that Turkey is grappling with a far bigger calamity from the coronavirus than official figures and statements indicate. The city alone recorded about 2,100 more deaths than expected from March 9 to April 12, based on weekly averages from the last two years, far more than officials reported for the whole of Turkey during that time.
While not all those deaths are necessarily directly attributable to the coronavirus, the numbers indicate a striking jump in fatalities that has coincided with the onset of the outbreak, a preliminary indicator that is being used by researchers to cut through the fog of the pandemic and assess its full toll in real time.
The government maintains that it acted swiftly, stopping flights and border crossings from five of the most affected countries in February and closing schools, restaurants and bars in mid-March when the first case of infection was confirmed.
But by then, the statistics compiled by The Times show, the damage was done. And medical professionals say that Turkey did not do enough to halt international travelers, and neglected contact tracing and community care.
In February, they did nothing, although it was known the disease was there,” Dr. Sinan Adiyaman, head of the Turkish Medical Association, said in an interview.
The government announced its first death from Covid-19 on March 17. But the statistics compiled by The Times suggest that even around that time, the number of deaths overall in Istanbul was already considerably higher than historical averages, an indication that the virus had arrived several weeks earlier.
Any death statistics in the midst of a pandemic are tricky to pin down and must be considered preliminary. Many European countries are engaged in trying to improve their death statistics, which they now acknowledge are incomplete.
COUNTING CASES:
Coronavirus cases have ballooned in Istanbul and Izmir, big cities with international business and tourism connections, amid questions about Turkey’s statistics.
