politicodiary

With lockdown opening up, there are reasons to prepare to face an evolving virus that might have become airborne The new scare gripping people’s lives is a possibility that the Covid-19 virus can actually stay airborne and survive different climatic conditions too. In a lab in Bristol, scientists are now going through tests to ascertain this for sure. There are indications that the virus can survive in the aerosol particles that we breathe from around us. Last week started the launch of tiny droplets of live Sars-CoV-2 in the Bristol lab. These were then levitated between two electric rings to test how long the airborne virus remains infectious under different environmental conditions. There are now questions being raised over how long can the virus remain alive in conditions where air conditioning is leading to air recycling where these particles might already be suspended in the air. There is now a growing belief that besides getting transmitted through human contact, the infecte...

The New Jersey Blueberries that America and the rest of the world enjoys, comes at a very heavy inhuman cost paid....    It is sad state of affairs for workers who are risking their lives to get fresh fruits to your doorstep in pandemic times.   It is for a fact that every year, each summer, thousands of temporary agricultural workers and their families arrive in New Jersey for the blueberry harvest. The state produces 40 to 50 million pounds of the fruit each year. This year has been tough on them, thanks to the Covid-19 scare, where they have risked their lives to produce the same fruit. The summer has also led to the worst heat wave. Most of these workers are not given proper protective gears to wade off the corona virus. Blueberry is big business in New Jersey and Hammonton makes for the ‘blueberry capital of the world’.   It has more than 50 blueberry farms in and around the town with a meager population.   But every year, it attracts temporary labour...