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THE TIMES OF INDIA
The largest selling English-language daily newspaper in the world, The Times of India published its first edition in November of 1838. Its headquarters in Mumbai work to print 2.7 million broadsheets each morning.
A Chinese company launched smart helmets at the end of April
BUSINESS INSIDER

Early Detection: Health Tech Helps Boost COVID-19 Testing

As countries around the world scramble to conduct sufficient COVID-19 testing, there is now an urgent need for the design of rapid diagnostics of early symptoms to identify potential carriers to test, and eventually, isolate them. Researchers and the so-called "health tech" and "wearables' sector are racing to release new devices, and adapt existing ones, to help the early detection and identification of the virus.

  • Smart wristband: The Indian healthcare platform GOQii is launching GOQii Vital 3.0, a smart wristband that can track vitals such as body temperature, blood pressure and heart rate, The Times of India reports. Thanks to an inbuilt temperature display and thermal sensors, the device could help detect one of the early symptom of the virus, which is high body temperature. It could also help health workers such as nurses and doctors, as well as patients check their temperature without any human contact. The company has partnered with German health tech startup Thryve to conduct a clinical study in India to test the accuracy of early detection of infections. GOQii has donated 1,000 of its smart wristbands to Mumbai Police and is in talks with governments, hospitals and private enterprises. The GOQii Vital 3.0 will also be soon available for sale to the public on platforms such as Amazon.

  • Mask detector: Researchers from MIT and Harvard in the United States are adapting the technology they developed to detect viruses causing Zika and Ebola to identify COVID-19. The team has designed a face mask with a sensor that produces a fluorescent signal when a person infected with the virus coughs, breathes or sneezes. The project is still in the "very early stages' bioengineer Jim Collins told Business Insider, but the first results have been promising. The sensors could offer a cheaper and quicker way to detect the virus as traditional diagnostic tests can take about 24 hours to run, compared to one to three hours for the mask. The laboratory hopes to begin mass manufacturing by the end of summer.

  • Fever-detecting helmet: Chinese startup KC Wearable launched smart helmets at the end of April for public officers and health workers, that allow them to detect high temperatures in people from up to 5 meters way. According to China Daily, the company, which has conducted millions of tests in several Chinese cities, says that the helmets can scan the temperatures of around 200 individuals in one minute thanks to an infrared camera connected to an AR headset. Since then the company has sent helmets to Italy's carabinieri military police and to the Netherlands for testing, as well as to the police in Dubai, among others.

The device can be worn on the throat, like a patch — Photo: Northwestern University

  • Sneezing on a smartphone: Professor Massood Tabib-Azar, an engineer at the University of Utah in the United States is leading a project to create a sensor that users can plug into their smartphones' charging port and that can tell whether they are infected or not within one minute if they sneeze or cough on it, International Business Times reports. The project was started last year originally to fight the Zika virus but is now being adapted to detect COVID-19 instead. The inch-wide sensor communicates with the smartphone via Bluetooth and is reusable, as it can destroy a previous sample with a small electrical current. It could be available to the public as soon as August and would cost around $55.

  • Smart throat patch: An engineering laboratory at Northwestern University in the United States has created a soft and flexible wearable sensor that is about the size of a stamp and can be worn on the throat, like a patch. The device monitors coughing, respiratory activity as well as temperature and heart rate by measuring motions that appear at the surface of a skin, in the same way a stethoscope does. Through a set of data algorithms, the sensor, which was designed initially to monitor speaking functions in stroke survivors, can now catch and identify early signs and symptoms of the virus. The device is currently being tested on 25 people including patients and healthcare workers.

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a morning COVID-19 update meeting remotely during his self-isolation.
BBC

Coronavirus — Global Brief: Why We Care About Boris Johnson

The insidious path of COVID-19 across the planet is a blunt reminder of how small the world has become. For the coming weeks, Worldcrunch will be delivering daily updates on this crisis from the best, most trusted international news sources — regardless of language or geography. To receive the daily Coronavirus global brief in your inbox, sign up here.

SPOTLIGHT: WHY WE CARE ABOUT BORIS JOHNSON

Boris Johnson Taken To Intensive Care: It's a headline that stands out among the non-stop flow of disturbing coronavirus news flashes. We already knew the 55-year-old British Prime Minister had been infected two weeks ago, and even Sunday's news that he was being brought to the hospital with a persistent fever was presented as routine testing.

But there's nothing routine about the ICU, nor the oxygen he was being given after breathing difficulties had suddenly appeared on Monday. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is running the country, and Boris Johnson is by all appearances fighting for his life.

There will be time another day to reflect on what this means politically in the UK, where Johnson has been questioned for his choices in fighting the pandemic and more generally criticized about his policies on healthcare. But serious illness turns every politician into a person.

He is of course hardly the only person: 1.4 million have been infected, and more than 76,000 people have died from COVID-19 around the world. On Tuesday, Britain's death toll alone hit a one-day high of 854. Yet for those not touched directly, the gravity of this pandemic hits home again as a very public person deteriorates in real-time before our eyes. Indeed, Johnson had posted a video just before being taken to the hospital where he seemed a bit fatigued, but otherwise his usual moppy-haired wry self. So it's him this time, we tell ourselves. Who will be next?

This has happened before in Britain, in 1918, when the nation's war hero prime minister David Lloyd George caught the flu during a ceremonial visit to Manchester's Albert Square. As his condition worsened, and with World War I in full swing, the prime minister's illness was kept hidden to prevent the news from reaching the country's enemies.

A century later, the stricken leader is very much in plain view — it's the enemy that we can't see.

— Jeff Israely

THE SITUATION: 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

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Before India's lockdown, pro-democracy activists in New Delhi.
Algeria
Carl-Johan Karlsson

Algeria, Hong Kong, India: COVID-19 Halts Protest Movements

A "pause sanitaire" is the phrase El Watan, the French-language Algerian daily, used. Such "health pauses' have been happening among popular protest groups in a number of countries, either imposed by the government or self-imposed by the demonstrators in the face of the threat of spreading coronavirus in the close proximity of street protests.

  • Algeria: Recently inaugurated President Abdelmadjid Tebboune banned street protests as of last week, bringing to an end regular mass anti-government demonstrations that began in mid-February last year after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced he would seek a fifth term in office. But few are criticizing the move: "It does not mark an abdication of the movement," El Watan"s editorial board wrote. "Just the opposite, it is the sign of true lucidity...facing the urgent question of saving thousands of lives."

  • Hong Kong: COVID-19 has in the last two months put a damper on the anti-government protests that defined 2019. But as the South China Morning Post reports, the outbreak has fueled further resentment against authorities that now fear even more violent clashes might occur as the spread of the virus dwindles.

  • Chile: The 90-day state of emergency announced by President Sebastian Pinera last week coincided with the five-month anniversary of nationwide mass protests against structural inequality. El Tiempo reports that the move was seen by many as a way of curbing the protests that had been escalating throughout March, especially as the government simultaneously postponed a referendum on a new constitution scheduled for April 26.

  • India: The government last week banned gatherings of more than 50 people, putting a stop to the long-running protest against a controversial law that bars Muslim refugees from citizenship. More bans have been imposed in other cities since, including south Mumbai, where a dispersing protester told the The Times of India: "We may have differences with the government ... but we are with the government in the fight against COVID-19."

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A fast-evolving question ...
THE TIMES OF INDIA
Rozena Crossman

Work → In Progress: Gender In The Workplace, Past And Future

PARIS — In 1919, the International Labor Organization adopted the first conventions on women in the workplace. In 2019, the women who won the World Cup earned $850,000 less than their male counterparts. Three waves of feminism have transformed sexual and interpersonal dynamics. Still, the #MeToo movement reminded us of entrenched power-and-sexual dynamics in the workplace. And other contradictions abound: a case is now before the United States Supreme Court about whether a company can force women to wear skirts or fire an employee for being transgender; and even as some women rise to the heights of corporate power, a report last year on gender disparity in tech found that men own 91% of employee and founder equity in Silicon Valley ...

Whatever the gender gap looks like in 2119, at the heart of the matter will be questions about work. The working world is both a microcosm of the world around us and its fuel: a place where networks are formed, ambitions are achieved and wages are earned. This edition of Work → In Progress looks at the future demographics and dynamics around the water coolers of the world.

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A mess of signs in Hong Kong
AHVAL NEWS
Emeraude Monnier

From Punjabi To Breton: Five Language Controversies Around The World

More than just a vehicle to communicate, language expresses and helps construct identity. As such, it has the power to inspire and unite people — but language can also be a source of division, or an impediment to peace between groups already in conflict. From squabbles over things like spelling and pronunciation, to minority groups fighting for the survival of their mother tongue — and everything it stands for — language politics can be deeply disruptive. Here are five examples from around the world:

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