Covid-tude Resources Page

This is a resource page to help (me, maybe you?) navigate the knowledge ecology out there, synthesise and enact the best guidance, hidayat.

So many people are losing loved ones, falling ill themselves and we are generally being shielded/manipulated/harmed by non-neutral actors and structures responding to the emergence of this bewildering, deadly virus, in an already busy hazardscape.

It is like a huge involuntary Adaptation case study in the presence of collective grief, only its RealTime and cloaked in codes, uncertainties and contingencies.

Heart goes out to people in tough accommodation situations, the displaced, poor, elderly, at risk and all combinations. One particular Puzzle is adjusting policy and practices to enable the safety of multigenerational  (at least three generations) families in cramped accommodation.  Self isolation policy is murabbicidal for people in this group.

As well as regular disinfecting, good ventilation and extreme family self discipline we need well thought through and flexible options as well as enabling conditions for swift innovation.


Some questions
Why is the pricing of 'halal' (not tayeb) meat so high on the agenda of people?
What home adaptations are possible to make self isolation possible in such circumstances?
How many grandparent-children-grandchildren situations of crampedness are there in the country?
How might private and state sectors collaborate for rehousing solutions?
How adaptable are we going to be through this?
How are and how will coronitude combine with preventitude and climitude?
How have we contributed to our own non-adaptability and vulnerability?


Learning Resources
Dr John Campbell is an really wise educator who launches videos quite frequently that are accessible and informative in a multigenerational way.
3Blue1Brown is an epic youtube channel about physics and maths, which has prepared a very enchanting visual 'treat' called Simulating an epidemic.

Modelling Studies that have hit the news
Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID- 19 mortality and healthcare demand  from the Imperial College COVID 19 Response Team
Fundamental principles of epidemic spread highlight the immediate need for large-scale serological surveys to assess the stage of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, Laurenco et al AKA the Oxford One


Technical "fixes"
Soap

UVC light is lethal to viruses like Covid-19, but its harmful for untrained humans to handle and specific testing has a long way to go. UV light has a history as a germicide and a modern day air purifiers using this technique can be found if you can find and afford them (scale of cost hundreds of £). Emerging REHVA guidance suggests they may be of some use in breathing areas, but the industrial airconditioning lobby would say that right? In any case, public authorities, banks and hospital are using UVC lamps to disinfect public transport.


Socio-technical wisdoms
Sheila Jasanoff interview on Science Will Not Come on a White Horse With a Solution


Institutional Resources
UK Coronavirus Death Map from  Health Service Journal

Harvard Healthy Building Group 

World Health Organisation
Society of Critical Care Medicine
Oxford COVID 19 Evidence Service

REHVA COVID 19 Guidance - Federation of European Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning Associations
CIBSE Journal - Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers

[New Word] Wancle

That brand of entitled humour rooted in anti auntyness, devaluation of their spirit, labour and a confidence that another Wancle will laugh.

All rise the Muslims of Dinia

It is a crying shame that the Muslim Communities of Britain's responses to the outrageous crimes of the Indian Government, its goons and supporters has not been wiser, stronger, more vibrant and courageous. It is really disgusting to see so many ignocratic thank-Jinnah-we-aren't-Indian hot takes from the alleged followers of the best of creation on Mark's Zuckerbook.

This poem about the situation, "All will be Remembered" by Aamir Aziz is quite electric.




bismIlla

The violence being meted out to Muslims in India is historic, systemic and varies in its deadliness across its valleys and plains, from Assam on the Bangladesh border,  to Kashmir in the North West and now very vividly, Delhi once a thriving heart of Islamicate civilisation in the region.

As our brother outside the Indian Consular Office in Birmingham reminded us, Modi is the rule not the exception, Nehru presided over horrid ethnic cleansing in Jammu and Gandhi was as bloody minded and uncreative at times.

So solidarity to the families and communities and heros of the situation. May the vulnerable reach situational and structural safety, and may the martyrs be raised in the hearts of green birds in lanterns by the throne of the All Mighty, All Hearing, All Seeing, Avenging and Protecting Friend.

May every physical, intellectual, communicative and nonsecular act of solidarity be made with utmost success.

With ummahtic disasters like this we see eachother's faults features quite clearly. We see self promoting 'anti colonial' ( yet Congress) warrior intellectuals like Shashi Tharoor objecting to Muslim people affirming their existence as Muslims with public pronouncements of the statements that define them as Muslims. Meanwhile up and coming academic Neha Shah started a really crucial community excavation of the British East African Hindus.

What to do is harder, but switching off from a passive mode and into a serious social learning and organising one is beneficial. [ I will expand on these resources with tie iA]

Listening
Listen to unmediated voices from the front, its easier these days. Folks in India be careful with social media practices lest Sanghis trap you. Yes Arundhati Roy writes very well in English, but she's really not a proxy for sisterhood and brotherhood.

The Documentation Of The Oppressed (DOTO) Database is a startlingly awesome and data rich project hosted online here and on Mark's Zuckerbook here.

Violence against religious minorities in India though not new but over the past few these violence has taken an increasingly political and institutional character in the changed socio-political landscape post-2014. DOTO Database is a non-profit documentation center based in Delhi, documenting incidents of hate-crimes since 2014 against religious minorities(Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Parsi, Buddhists and Zoroastrians) in India. 

Most importantly, we seek to entrench community-based reporting and intervention through a common documentation platform for civil society of marginalized groups: DOTO database. A platform that addresses both immediate and long-term issues related to the systemic violation of fundamental rights, erosion of constitutional values and the organization and deployment of ‘hate’.

Alliances
Study, then affect the alliances (loud, quieter and unspoken) that excuse and empower this tyranny,  divest from them, then build ever growing and deepening circles of solidarity.

Petitioning
Petition all kinds of power-holder over the situation, even white ones. There should be more widely organised evidence gathering, calls for immediate deployment of UN Observer force and a freeze on the UK assets and movements of Delhi Police and identified others. There is plenty for those who stick themselves up the arses of the British Establishment to be busy with

Transformation 
Bros in Bamboo Houses under canon fire sharpen each other. It goes without saying and doesn't detract from the intense suffering and fear people are feeling to recognise there is a pressing need to challenge the reflections of this ultra-nationalist crap ( with caste features) in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.

It is always easier to point out another's crime than one's bosses, but moral authority is gained by tackling one's own demons simultaneously. But there's pragmatic reasons too, a lot of the institutions inflict and benefit from violence in the same ways. Chief of Police and in charge of Dhaka Massacre 2013, Benazir Ahmed was promoted shortly after the massacre and cover up. The US government showered the police force with 'Special Events Training' and Muslim of the House Baroness Warsi did bugger all.  As well as the securocrats though, the media and NGO class of Bangladesh and the West were actively involved in the dehumanisation of the traditional Islamic Bangladeshi schooling network, which was unable to challenge the demonisation at the international level.

On the other hand, what we have come to know from the Delhi case is that Shaheenbagh has had different resources, far wider alliances and different strategies to hand. Muslims in Assam and Kashmir have different immediate actions still. Kashmir being cloaked in state enforced silence, Assam in wider societal ignorance. And decolonial duas to all of them.

...and finally
For goodness sake, concerning India don't let unreconstructed Pakistani nationalism do any of the talking.