World Health Organization: New COVID-19 Law Lab to provide vital legal information and support for the global COVID-19 response. “Launching today, the COVID-19 Law Lab initiative gathers and shares legal documents from over 190 countries across the world to help states establish and implement strong legal frameworks to manage the pandemic. The goal is to ensure that laws protect the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities and that they adhere to international human rights standards.”
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Reuters: World leaders to send videos instead of traveling to U.N. in September
Reuters: World leaders to send videos instead of traveling to U.N. in September. “World leaders will send videos instead of physically gathering at the United Nations in September due to the coronavirus pandemic, the General Assembly decided on Wednesday, a move that paves the way for people wary of traveling to the United States – like North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un – to participate.”
Tech Xplore: Twitter data reveals global communication network
Tech Xplore: Twitter data reveals global communication network. “Twitter mentions show distinct community structure patterns resulting from communication preferences of individuals affected by physical distance between users and commonalities, such as shared language and history. While previous investigations have identified patterns using other data, such as mobile phone usage and Facebook friend connections, research from the New England Complex Systems Institute looks at the collective effect of message transfer in the global community. The group’s results are reported in an article in the journal Chaos, by AIP Publishing.”
Coronavirus: WHO reports record single-day global increase in cases (BBC)
BBC: Coronavirus: WHO reports record single-day global increase in cases. “The number of new cases of coronavirus rose by almost 260,000 in 24 hours – the largest single-day increase since the pandemic began, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday. According to the WHO, this is the first time the number of new daily infections has surpassed a quarter of a million. The biggest increases were in the US, Brazil, India and South Africa.”
Polygon: This website turns your browser into a view through someone else’s window
Polygon: This website turns your browser into a view through someone else’s window. “Their new website WindowSwap invites users to ‘open a new window somewhere in the world.’ When you click on the button on the site, it opens a new browser window (ha) that takes up the width of the computer screen and is filled with a video of a user-submitted view from their window.” Super-neat and a much-needed reminder that the world is beautiful.
Phys .org: Socio-economic, environmental impacts of COVID-19 quantified
Phys .org: Socio-economic, environmental impacts of COVID-19 quantified. “The first comprehensive study of the pandemic shows consumption losses amount to more than US$3.8 trillion, triggering full-time equivalent job losses of 147 million and the biggest-ever drop in greenhouse gas emissions.”
News-Medical: Researchers develop new tool to visualize worldwide trends in coronavirus infection
News-Medical: Researchers develop new tool to visualize worldwide trends in coronavirus infection. “Researchers at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH) developed a tool that uses the well-known traffic light system to visualize worldwide trends in coronavirus infection. The ‘CSH Corona Traffic Light’ shows countries in green, yellow, or red based on the confirmed cases within the past two weeks.” The tool is available at https://vis.csh.ac.at/corona-traffic-light/world/ .
State of the Planet, Columbia University: New Website Maps and Models the Science of Peace
State of the Planet, Columbia University: New Website Maps and Models the Science of Peace. “A new website … centering on recent research on sustainably peaceful societies has just been launched at The Earth Institute at Columbia University. The website presents an interactive introduction to the findings and outputs of the work of a multidisciplinary team of scholars that began studying peaceful societies in 2014. It showcases a global map of peaceful societies, findings from hundreds of empirical studies, and peace tech visualizations and simulations from the Sustaining Peace Project at the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity (AC4), which seeks to advocate for more a more comprehensive understanding of how peace is sustained with local stakeholders, policymakers, and academics.”
Post-COVID, more in West see China as major power: study (Phys .org)
Phys .org: Post-COVID, more in West see China as major power: study. “The coronavirus pandemic has led a growing number of Westerners to see China as a top power, with the lead of the United States slipping, a study said Tuesday. A survey of French, German and US opinion released by the German Marshall Fund of the United States found significant increases in perceptions of Chinese influence since the outbreak of COVID-19—in which Beijing has alternately been portrayed as a culprit and an aid provider.”
CNET: Coronavirus cases hit 10 million as outbreaks surge in the US, Brazil and India
CNET: Coronavirus cases hit 10 million as outbreaks surge in the US, Brazil and India. “The daily number of coronavirus cases continues to rise across the globe, with the World Health Organization on Sunday reporting the highest number of recorded cases in a 24-hour period. The increase saw the pandemic reach another grim milestone as the total number of confirmed cases crossed 10 million with 500,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 database. Over 5 million are listed as recovered.”
New York Times: How the World Missed Covid-19’s Silent Spread
New York Times: How the World Missed Covid-19’s Silent Spread. “Symptomless transmission makes the coronavirus far harder to fight. But health officials dismissed the risk for months, pushing misleading and contradictory claims in the face of mounting evidence.”
Phys .org: Global economic stability could be difficult to recover in the wake of the COVID-19, finds study
Phys .org: Global economic stability could be difficult to recover in the wake of the COVID-19, finds study. “Analysis from the University of Surrey suggests that the economies of countries such as America, the United Kingdom and Germany should prepare for a long slow recovery with prolonged periods of instability.”
AP: Masks, travel restrictions, testing as virus cases surge
AP: Masks, travel restrictions, testing as virus cases surge. “Coronavirus case numbers are rising to dire new levels in several U.S. states and around the world, potentially wiping out two months of progress in fighting the pandemic and prompting governments and businesses to impose new restrictions.”
New York Times: Slowing the Coronavirus Is Speeding the Spread of Other Diseases
New York Times: Slowing the Coronavirus Is Speeding the Spread of Other Diseases. “This spring, after the World Health Organization and UNICEF warned that the pandemic could spread swiftly when children gathered for shots, many countries suspended their inoculation programs. Even in countries that tried to keep them going, cargo flights with vaccine supplies were halted by the pandemic and health workers diverted to fight it. Now, diphtheria is appearing in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.”
Goethe University: Comparing covid-19 data worldwide with a click of the mouse
Goethe University: Comparing covid-19 data worldwide with a click of the mouse. “The new web service ‘Goethe Interactive Covid-19 Analyzer’ which Fabian Schubert in the working group for the theory of complex systems at the Institute for Theoretical Physics developed alongside his dissertation is simple to use: go to the ‘Goethe Interactive Covid-19 Analyzer’ website, click on the countries and number of cases in questions, and drag the curves over each other. Congruent? The answer is immediately visible. In the same way – depending on the individual question – the daily number of cases or deaths, or the total number of infected or deceased individuals can be compared.”
