The world last week: Alarm bells

SPECIAL OBITUARY

Instead of the eye-catching graphic articles that typically appear on the front page of The New York Times (NYT), the May 24 issue was filled with a long, formal, three-page list of what it called obituaries of people who have died from the Covid-19 pandemic across the country.

The New York Times devoted a page of obituaries to remember Covid-19 victims. Photo: The Guardian

The influential US newspaper emphasized in its headline: “The death toll in the US nears 100,000, an incalculable loss.” And the way the newspaper detailed the deaths made the whole community think. In the short introduction at the beginning of the article, it said: “The 1,000 people here represent only 1%. They are not just names on a list. They are us. Numbers alone cannot measure the impact of Covid-19 on the US, whether it is the number of patients treated, the number of jobs affected or the lives taken.”

The NYT said it had previously spent time researching how to depress the 100,000-death milestone. It had collected names from 1,000 obituaries and death notices in American newspapers to emphasize the number of casualties in the pandemic. According to research by Johns Hopkins University, the number of deaths from the pandemic in the US is more than 97,000, the highest in the world.

In an article for Times Insider, Simone Landon, assistant graphics editor at the NYT, explained that this was a way to personalize the tragedy when readers and data developers were tired of constant updates about the pandemic. Landon led a research team that searched hundreds of American newspapers for obituaries that listed Covid-19 as the cause of death, then took the name and the most important personal details that described the uniqueness of the deceased. For example: “Alan Lund, 81, Washington, conductor with ‘the most amazing ear.’”

The US is currently the world's largest epidemic area with more than 100,000 deaths. Photo: TIME

Landon said that simply putting 100,000 dots or embeds on a page doesn’t really tell the reader much about the people who died, the lives they lived, and the meaning of their lives. So he came up with the idea of ​​compiling obituaries and death notices of Covid-19 victims from newspapers large and small across the country.

The design was presented early, but presenting a front page without an image is “certainly a first in the modern century and since the paper was published in 1851,” said Tom Bodkin, NYT's creative director.

There are some notable people who have appeared in special obituaries in the Times. There is “Joe Diffie,” 62, of Nashville, the Grammy-winning singer, and “Lila A. Fenwick,” 87, of New York, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Law School. But that is not a privilege reserved for a small, privileged group. Hundreds of ordinary people have been introduced in the same grand manner in the Times. There is “Myles Coker,” 69, of New York, who was released from prison; there is “Ruth Skapinok,” 85, of Roseville, who left food on her hands for backyard birds; there is “Jordan Driver Haynes,” 27, of Cedar Rapids, a kind young man with a charming smile.

A nurse at a testing station in Seattle, Washington, USA. Photo: Reuters

The NYT shared its front page on Twitter at the same time, and within a few hours it had received 61,000 retweets and more than 116,000 likes. Many comments below the post expressed grief and mourning: “1000 names, 1000 stories”, “Shocked and sad”. And an NYT editor shared: “100 years from now, when we look back, the next generation will understand what we are going through”. May 27 marked the number of deaths from the epidemic in the US surpassing 100,000 people. The number shows the severity of Covid-19.

BE HIGHLY VIGILANT

South Korea has eased social distancing measures and shifted to “everyday life prevention” starting May 6. However, soon after, the country’s health authorities discovered a number of highly contagious outbreaks in the capital Seoul and its surrounding areas, which account for nearly half of the country’s population. Recently, on May 28, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said that the country recorded 79 new Covid-19 infections, the highest increase since April 5.

The Northeast Asian country has seen a resurgence in infections following cluster outbreaks in Seoul's Itaewon district and a warehouse run by e-commerce company Coupang in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, west of Seoul. The warehouse has now recorded 69 cases. All staff at the facility who had contact with the patient have been quarantined and the facility has been shut down.

Coupang's warehouse in Bucheon, South Korea, in this photo taken on May 27. Photo: Reuters

South Korea will reimpose a series of social distancing measures to prevent a new wave of Covid-19 infections, Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said. All museums, parks and art galleries in the Seoul metropolitan area will be closed again for two weeks from May 29 to June 14, while companies will be asked to reintroduce flexible working arrangements.

Before the incident, South Korea was praised by the world as a model for effective epidemic control without strict lockdown measures. Thanks to active testing, application of technology to trace infected cases, and people's cooperation and compliance with social distancing, South Korea quickly flattened the "curve" on the chart. This positive development prompted the South Korean government to ease restrictions, shifting to a strategy of "distancing in daily life", aiming to normalize society, especially reopening the economy.

But the outbreak of a new wave of the disease in South Korea, Time columnist Amy Gunia warns, shows that all countries, even those that have controlled the pandemic, must remain vigilant. The city of Wuhan (China), where the pandemic began, decided to test all 14 million people after recording a new case in the same residential area.

South Korea eased social distancing measures starting May 6. Photo taken at a subway station in Seoul on May 18. Photo: Bloomberg

Despite the difficulties ahead, experts still express confidence in South Korea's ability to control the epidemic with the system that helped them succeed. Son Young-rae, a senior epidemiologist for the South Korean government, assessed: "A second wave of the epidemic is inevitable. However, South Korea is operating a continuous surveillance and screening system throughout society, so it can prevent the epidemic from exploding quickly like before."