Contents
The world has been hit by a new wave of lockdowns, Koreans are testing a high-speed tunnel, and alternative energy sources have fallen sharply in the United States
Topics of the week
- Quarantine 2.0 and a year with COVID-19
According to WHO, on November 17, 2019, the first SARS-CoV-2 infection was recorded in China. The first anniversary of humanity’s fight against the coronavirus, alas, cannot yet be considered a holiday: the situation remains tense around the world. The special project brings together everything about COVID-19 and its consequences for our country and the world in a multimedia format.
By the end of 2020, the front line has finally moved to the laboratories of pharmaceutical companies. The American vaccine developer Moderna said that the effectiveness of the vaccine is 94,5%. And the results of Pfizer and BioNTech’s drug are said to be 95% successful. In the coming weeks, Moderna and Pfizer may receive approval for the mass use of the vaccine in the United States. In Europe, they plan to register a coronavirus vaccine in December 2020 or early 2021. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the European Commission is considering drugs from American and European pharmaceutical companies for use.
And the Ministry of Digital Development of our country is testing a mobile application to combat the spread of coronavirus “Stopcoronavirus”. The service will track devices whose owners have tested positive for COVID-19. Such users will enter in the application a special code received along with the results of the study. The service is developed using the secure protocol of Apple and Google. With its help, tech giants are trying to protect user data from unscrupulous developers and secure marketplaces from dubious applications.
“The fact that someone refuses to wear masks is completely incomprehensible to me. They are like nudists. We wear trousers. And none of the Americans, well, or almost no Americans, will say that this is terrible, ”Microsoft founder Bill Gates in a podcast with actress Rashida Jones.
World Health Organization spokesman Hans Kluge said November 19 that only the widespread wearing of masks will save countries from another lockdown. Many European countries have already made it mandatory for citizens to wear face protection everywhere. Kluge estimates that at least 95% of the population should wear masks, but he acknowledged that this is an extremely difficult task.
For almost a month in our country, the resolution of Rospotrebnadzor on the mandatory wearing of masks in public places has been in force. Nevertheless, the statistics of mortality from coronavirus in our country set records for several days in a row. Health Minister Mikhail Murashko called on the regional authorities to introduce additional restrictions on the ground, taking into account the upcoming holidays. The department is confident that hospitals need to prepare for the influx of patients now. In St. Petersburg, at least until January 15, food courts were closed, the opening hours of restaurants and clubs were reduced, and concert halls were allowed to fill only 50%. In Moscow, theaters and cinemas will be able to receive no more than 25% of the audience, and exhibitions, trainings, presentations, master classes and promotions are ordered to be held only online.
Restrictions against the backdrop of another wave of the pandemic are being introduced even by countries that previously managed to do without drastic measures: Sweden and Iran. “Don’t go to gyms, don’t go to libraries, don’t go to parties,” Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told a press conference. For the first time since the beginning of the global pandemic, Iran announced a lockdown: there will be no communication between cities for two weeks, only grocery stores and pharmacies will remain open from retail outlets. In Northern Ireland, Germany and France, a national lockdown: bars, restaurants, theaters, concert halls, fitness clubs and tattoo parlors are closed. There are no restrictions on the education system. In these countries, the option of hybrid or distance learning is not being considered.
“We will not allow our children and youth to become another victim of this disease. They need education,” Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin.
- Don’t get out of the way
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announced the closure of schools – all educational institutions in the city switched to distance learning from November 18. The formal reason was that in the city during the week the number of positive results when testing for coronavirus exceeds 3%. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has extended distance learning for grades 6-11 for another two weeks, until December 6, 2020. Parents of Russian schoolchildren unite in spontaneous movements and write petitions demanding the return of their children to schools. Parent chats are exploding with protest discussions and conspiracy theories about distance learning lobbying to abolish unprofitable education.
“There was a conflict of two rights given to us by the Constitution of the Russian Federation: the right to health and the right to quality education. It is impossible to resolve this conflict emotionally: the right of some in favor of others cannot be infringed if someone put forward a hypothesis that was replicated,” Ilona Menkova, President of the public movement “Parents of Moscow”.
But what do the students themselves think? 47% of students in Russian schools believe that digital tools will not replace the teacher. But 39% are confident that after significant improvements, various platforms and services will be able to provide education at a decent level without the participation of a teacher. These are the results of a survey conducted by Skyeng in conjunction with the Prosveshchenie publishing house.
Universities have also switched to distance learning – until February 6. For example, since November 16, the Higher School of Economics has allowed students to visit classrooms no more than twice a week. One of the first to protest was the students of the Ural Federal University. They demanded to reduce the cost of distance learning. Students of the paid department at Moscow State University also plan to seek discounts through the courts. But the main university of the country has already stated that they see no reason for any compensation.
News of the week
- Crew Dragon, Elon Musk’s SpaceX spacecraft, has successfully delivered astronauts to the ISS.
- Ozon applied for an IPO: the quotes of one of the retailer’s shareholders, AFK Sistema, jumped 4% on this news.
- Huawei to sell its Honor smart phone brand to get it out of US sanctions; estimated cost – $ 15,2 billion.
- Barack Obama released his third book, the memoir Promised Land, which sold 887 copies on the first day.
- Tesla will enter the S&P 2020 by the end of 500.
- In the UK, from 2030 they want to ban the sale of cars on gasoline and diesel.
- In 2020, the regions broke a 16-year record for air pollution levels.
“Green” economy: light from the stalk, the cheapest electricity and a reward for parking
A new lighting fixture based on spoiled fruits and vegetables has received the top award of the James Dyson Award, an international award for industrial design. The Aureus system was developed by 27-year-old researcher at the University of Mapua (Philippines) Carvi Eren Meigu. The compact panel can be attached to windows and walls. Unlike solar panels, Aureus works even without direct sunlight: the system captures ultraviolet radiation passing through clouds or reflected from any surfaces.
British startup Fetch.ai is testing AI parking in Munich. Motorists who drive less will be rewarded with free public transport tickets or digital money.
A report by the American analytical company Lazard showed that wind and solar have become the cheapest sources of electricity in the United States. The latest wind and solar installations for the first time bypassed the cost of electricity stations running on natural gas, coal and nuclear fuel.
Week numbers
Jeff Bezos called on his Instagram 16 environmental organizations, with which he will transfer the first tranche of his $10 billion fund to fight climate change.
Together, they will receive $791 million. The Bezos Foundation’s capital is ten times the amount that charities around the world spent on programs to reduce the negative impact on climate in 2018. The fund contains more than 7% of the personal wealth of the owner of Amazon.
Airbnb due to lockdown lost 19% annualized income, according to the IPO documents.
The private housing rental platform filed on Nov. 16 for an initial public offering on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ABNB. In the second quarter of 2020, Airbnb’s revenue fell to $1,34 billion from $1,65 billion a year earlier. In the second half of the year, business began to recover, and the business turned into a plus: profit for July-September was $219 million. However, if you look from the beginning of the year, Airbnb’s net loss for January-September reached almost $700 million, which is twice the loss for the same period of 2019.
What to see
- The first passengers tested the vacuum tunnel in the American Nevada desert.
Josh Gig, CTO and co-founder of Virgin Hyperloop, and Sarah Lucian, Virgin Hyperloop’s director of passenger experience, became the first to ride at 160 km/h in a levitating pod. The journey through the test site took 15 seconds.
- Almost simultaneously, the vacuum tunnel was tested in South Korea.
The Korean Railway Research Institute has driven a mini train in a vacuum tunnel to a record speed of 1019 km/h, just below the speed of sound (1192 km/h). Scientists expect to launch this transport along the Seoul-Busan route as early as 2024. Travel time will be reduced from three hours to 30 minutes.
- The Russian School of Economics is launching a cycle of free online lectures “Professions of the Future in Finance”.
From November 25 to December 16, experts will talk about fintech entrepreneurs, quants, risk managers, asset managers, and other professions. Four lectures are planned in the cycle with the participation of fintech entrepreneurs, teachers and professors from leading universities in our country and the world.
What to read
Longread based on the book by Robert Garaev “The word of a kid. Criminal Tatarstan of the 1970s–2010s”, published by Individuum. This is a detailed excursion and at the same time a nostalgic essay on the environment that many strongly associate with the 1990s. The subculture of gopniks is shown on the example of the author’s hometown – Kazan. There she really blossomed to the right to have her own term – “Kazan phenomenon”. But many things will be familiar to residents of other regions, and the younger generation will discover a whole world with its own language, hierarchy and laws: about how a 15-year-old “shell” became “super” in a year of “winding”, and eventually grew to “old men” and “hammered arrows” to informals.
The book by Brad Smith and Carol Ann Brown IT as a weapon. What dangers are fraught with the development of high technologies” talks candidly about how IT companies dispose of their enormous power. They own more personal data than governments, they collect information that can be not only a tool for progress, but also a weapon. Therefore, the leaders of tech giants are forced not only to solve strategic problems, but to seek answers to ethical questions.
What to listen
Podcast “What will the world be like after COVID-19?” is the first episode of conversations between Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and actress Rashinda Jones. According to the IT genius, society will change forever, and it will take a lot of time to adapt to the new reality. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, discusses this with the authors of the podcast.
The podcast of three fathers about the upbringing and education “First give birth.” In the latest issue, authors Alexander Borzenko, Yuri Saprykin Jr., and Vladimir Tsybulsky discuss the difficult role of the “Sunday dad,” a term from Naum Birman’s 1985 film of the same name about a family after a divorce. The hero of the podcast tells how to remain a father on the rest of the week, and how he himself manages not to lose contact with his daughters in their difficult transitional age.
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