345 Malaysian nationals evacuated from Chennai

TNN | Apr 3, 2020, 08.35 PM IST

CHENNAI: Two planes that arrived from Kuala Lumpur on Thursday night and Friday evacuated 345 Malaysian nationals stranded in Chennai.

Malindo Air operated two flights to evacuate the Malaysian citizens stranded here because of the lockdown, in force to contain the spread of novel coronavirus infection. The airline will operate five more flights till April 5.

More such special flights are scheduled to evacuate citizens of Singapore, Malaysia and European countries from Chennai.

Covid-19: Anna University team develops washable, reusable masks

Apr 03, 2020, 04:49PM ISTSource: TOI.in

A team of researchers from Chennai's Anna University has given a ray of hope to the ever growing demand for protective mask amid coronavirus spread in the country. The team has come out with reusable masks with better filtration efficiency and at affordable prices. Till now common people are wearing non biodegradable single use masks that may pose a risk of infection. While the pharmacies are selling single use mask at high prices the reusable mask will be available at 25 or 30 and can be washed and reused up to 20 times. However, the reusable mask is thicker than the single-use mask available in the market.

#LifeInTheLockdown

We complain now, but we may miss this quiet: Nithya

04.04.2020

The lockdown came upon us a bit unexpectedly, but I don’t think that we are in a terrible situation. It was the need of the hour. None of us would have even imagined that a pandemic would grip the world in our lifetime. It was the stuff of literature and films. So, why can’t this moment in time actually be considered a trigger for creativity?

The first thing I noticed after the lockdown was the quiet all around. It was so calming and spurred me on to write. I am developing scripts and story ideas that I have long churned in my mind. It was difficult for me so far, because my work was taking up my time. Right now, I am loving the open-endedness of the situation. It is so beautiful and uncertain. It makes me feel free. I am learning a new language, new music and songs and also doing yoga every day. I am also catching up on my film viewing and reading. I’ve watched some beautiful films like Kumbalangi Nights, Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, A Separation by Asghar Farhad and Capernaum by Nadine Labaki. And this seems like a good time to be lost in some nostalgia amid the pages of RK Narayan’s Malgudi Days.

I don’t mean to trivialise the situation, but I think as long as we maintain social distancing and stay at home, we are safe. We may miss some of the things that we saw as routine earlier, but things aren’t so bad. Every time I see people posting on social media about how terrible the current situation is, I think the world has seen worse things than the lockdown. And remember, as soon as this is lifted, we will go back to our routine, mechanical way of life; we may even miss this. And thanks to the lockdown, a lot of creatures, plants and organisms can finally breathe freely. A lot of us are getting the free time that we’ve always craved. If you aren’t directly affected by the disease, I think you should feel blessed and be positive. We can use this time to slow down, stay inside, look into ourselves and get in touch with our emotions. You may get something beautiful out of it.

— As told to Anjana.George@timesgroup.com

NITHYA MENEN

RK Narayan’s Malgudi Days is providing Nithya with a dose of nostalgia

She has been catching up on acclaimed films like Kumbalangi Nights, Roma and A Separation

7 WAYS TO EXPLORE THE WORLD WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR HOME

From live-streamed opera performances to 360-degree tours of tourist destinations, here is how to virtually travel during the global health crisis

businessinsider.in  04.04.2020

Tune into the Metropolitan Opera’s website for a livestreamed show

In response to New York City’s ban on public gatherings, New York’s Metropolitan Opera has suspended shows through the end of April. Until operations resume, the opera is streaming past performances for free on its website at 7.30 pm ET each night. The performances will be available to watch for 20 hours post stream.

Listen to Broadway stars perform hits in a series of Living Room Concerts

Broadway has shuttered productions till April 12. In the meantime, Broadway stars have partnered with Broadway World to produce a series of virtual mini-performances. The performances are filmed by stars in their living rooms and posted on BroadwayWorld.com.

Check out the world’s largest live nature camera network

Explore.org has hundreds of webcams set up in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries around the world and aggregates their live-streams on its website. These include the underwater Channel Islands Kelp Forest cam, the abovewater Manatee Cam at Florida’s Blue Spring Park and the Decorah Eagles cam, positioned at eye-level with bald eagle nests in Decorah, Iowa.

Tour Stonehenge, Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal in 360 degrees

Google Arts & Culture, thanks to its 360-degree mapping technology, offers an inside look at some of the world’s most iconic attractions like the Bogd Khaan Palace Museum in Mongolia, Milan Cathedral in Italy, Pyramids of Egypt, etc.

Visit digitised collections of more than 1,200 cultural institutions

In addition to iconic monuments and tourist attractions, Google Arts & Culture allows users to tour the world’s foremost museums in 360 degrees and browse hi-res images of their collections. The collections are searchable by artist, art movement and country, among other categories.

Hike over six miles of the 2,000-year-old Great Wall of China

The China Guide, a Beijing-based travel agency, has developed a virtual tour of one of the Great Wall of China’s most iconic sections, Jinshanling to Simatai. This section crosses the border between Beijing and Hebei provinces and has been the go-to destination for many magazine shoots thanks to its sweeping views, according to the agency.

Peer inside the enclosures of pandas, polar bears and beluga whales

A number of zoos and aquariums around the US have set up webcams in their most popular enclosures. The Houston Zoo, Monterey Aquarium and San Diego Zoo each run multiple webcams. The Atlanta Zoo runs a dedicated live-stream of their pandas and the Georgia Aquarium runs a live-stream of its beluga whales

PICS: ATLANTA ZOO, GOOGLE ARTS CULTURE, EXPLORE ORG, THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE, GETTY IMAGES

How to comfort stressed-out friends and colleagues

During uncertain times, encourage troubled buddies to talk about their thoughts, say researchers

04.04.2020

If you are wondering what messages to give your family and friends who could be stressed due to the restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus, researchers have a solution that may work for you.

Avoid negativity

During uncertain times, messages that validated a person’s feelings were more effective and helpful than ones that were critical or diminished emotions. The researchers tried to understand why wellintentioned attempts to comfort others are sometimes seen as insensitive or unhelpful. “One recommendation is for people to avoid using language that conveys control or use arguments without sound justification,” said one of the study authors Xi Tian from the Pennsylvania State University in the US.

“For example, instead of telling a distressed person how to feel, like ‘don’t take it so hard’ or ‘don’t think about it’, you could encourage them to talk about their thoughts or feelings so that a person can come to their own conclusions about how to change their feelings or behaviours,” Tian said.

Acknowledge feelings

The findings, published in a virtual special issue of the Journal of Communication, suggests that your comforting words can have different effects based on how you phrase them. The researchers said people can try using language that expresses sympathy, care and concern. For example, “I’m sorry you are going through this. I’m worried about you and how you must be feeling right now.” Acknowledging the other person’s feelings or offering perspective — like saying “It’s understandable that you are stressed out since it’s something you really care about,” — may also be helpful.

According to the researchers, a high person-centred message recognises the other person’s feelings and helps the person explore why they might be feeling that way. Meanwhile, a low person-centred message is critical and challenges the person’s feelings. For example, “Nobody is worth getting so worked up about. Stop being so depressed.”

— IANS

A high personcentred message recognises the other person’s feelings and helps the person explore why they might be feeling that way

What to do if your home network is jammed

If you have noticed that your internet has slowed down, you are hardly alone. Our new work-from-home lifestyle is heavily taxing the web

With so much of the workforce and their families now cooped up at home to combat the spread of the coronavirus, it is not a surprise that home internet is showing the strain.

If you’ve had a business videoconference stutter while your teenagers play PC games online or found yourself unable to stream the news while your spouse uploads huge data files for work, you’ll have a good idea of the problem.

Is there a bandwidth problem?

The internet’s core is managing the spike in traffic just fine, experts say. It has massive capacity to handle streaming services.

True, Netflix recently throttled down its video quality in Europe at the request of authorities there. But the company stores its programs on servers close to users’ homes, and there’s no evidence that it is clogging networks.

Why does your home connection falter?

The problem partly lies in the socalled ‘last mile’, the link that connects your home to the ultrahigh speed internet backbone.

Most homes get their internet from cable companies or telecom operators and thus connect to the broader network via cable. These connections provide faster ‘downstream’ speeds to your home than ‘upstream’ speeds back to the internet. Since videoconferencing sends equal amounts of data both ways, simultaneous sessions can clog the upstream channel and disrupt service. If that happens, one solution is to have some family members switch to audio-only, which conserves bandwidth. You could also order a service upgrade, although that might not be necessary always.

Does your home network need an upgrade?

It might. Start with your internet modem. If it’s several years old, it’s probably time to ask your provider if upgrading the modem’s internal software, or replacing the modem entirely, will help. Older modems often can’t deliver the full bandwidth you’re paying for to your household.

Next up is your WiFi router. If you have cable, it may be built into your modem. Try moving it to a more central location in your home or apartment that will ensure bandwidth is distributed more equally. Or you can add more access points and distribute WiFi with a ‘mesh’ network. One more possibility: You can connect some devices directly to the router

— AP

Latest mesh routers let you add several satellite stations that boost your signal throughout the house

New York’s Covid-19 Toll Nears 9/11 Level

State Sees Biggest Daily Toll Of 500+; US May Ask All To Wear Masks

Chidanand.Rajghatta@timesgroup.com

Washington:04.04.2020

Amid rising concern about the durability and lethality of the coranavirus, including its professed ability to transmit through even regular breathing/exhalation, American health and public safety mandarins are further tightening public health protocols and social distancing norms, even as toll from the pandemic neared 7,000 in America.

This comes as New York state on Friday recorded more than 500 coronavirus-related deaths in a single day, bringing its total to nearly 3,000, or about the same number killed in the US in the 9/11 attacks. The 24-hour toll was 562, raising the New York state total to 2,935 fatalities, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, calling it the “highest single increase in the number of deaths since we started”. Cuomo said the state also had more than 10,000 new cases in a single day, passing 1,00,000 in confirmed infections.

New guidelines recommending wearing of masks in public places at all times are expected anytime now, overriding suggestions that only sick people are needed to wear masks. Because of the shortage of masks and the need for higher grade N95 masks by medical personnel, people are being asked to wear any kind of mask, including home-made masks, scarves, bandannas, handkerchiefs etc, under the principle that something is better than nothing.

The updated guidelines follow research results that purportedly show the coronavirus has extraordinary durability and stealth features, including ability to transmit asymptomatically and to stick around in the air and surfaces longer than normal.

While a majority of infected people still appear to show mild symptoms and its mortality rate is now thought to be closer to 1% or even less, the transmissibility of the virus is something that has surprised scientists. A leading infectious disease scientist on Wednesday wrote to the White House in response to its queries that “currently available research supports the possibility that (virus) could be spread via bioaerosols generated directly by patients’ exhalation” — in other words, the simple act of breathing normally (not just coughing or sneezing) by even asymptomatic carriers could transmit the virus.

“If you generate an aerosol of the virus with no circulation in a room, it’s conceivable that if you walk through later, you could inhale the virus. But if you’re outside, the breeze will likely disperse it,” Dr. Harvey Fineberg, chairman of a committee with the US National Academy of Sciences, explained in a CNN interview, adding how long coronavirus lingers in the air depends on several factors, including how much virus an infected individual puts out when breathing or talking, and also on the amount of circulation in the air.

Meanwhile, wrangles continued between the White House and state and city officials over limited resources even as the president continued to boast about how his quick action on stopping travel from China very early helped contain the pandemic in the US. However, data from the US Customs and Border Protection reported in the local media shows that nearly 4 million travellers entered the US during December, January, and February when the outbreak was taking a foothold across the world. Of them, 759,493 people entered the U.S. from China, while 343,402 travellers arrived from Italy, 418,848 from Spain, and about 1.9 million more came from Britain.

Top officials at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention are pushing for President Trump to advise everyone to wear masks when in public, arguing that doing so will reduce the number of people who get infected

‘Don’t use pandemic to target minorities’

Chidanand Rajghatta

Governments and establishments across the world should not use the coronavirus pandemic to target minorities, a key US official said on Thursday. “We are tracking the blaming of religious minorities for Covid-19 virus, and unfortunately, it is happening in various places. This is wrong … Governments really should put this down and state very clearly that this (religious minorities) is not the source of the coronavirus,’’ Sam Brownback, a former Senator and governor and the current US ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom, said. Brownback’s observation was part of a broader critique of the persecution of religious minorities across the world and the need to release them in the time of the coronavirus pandemic because of the conditions they are held in. He also criticised the killing of minority Sikhs in Kabul in an attack on a gurdwara last weekand.