infrastructure failure – Page 7

Aerial view of a flooded home that is partially underwater in Gilroy, California, on 9 January 2023. Photo: Josh Edelson / AFP / Getty Images

January 22, 2023

California storms leave billions of dollars in damage to businesses, homes, and infrastructure – Few homeowners have flood insurance – Total costs associated with storms estimated at $31 billion to $34 billion

By Jim Carlton 21 January 2023 ANTIOCH, California (The Wall Street Journal) – Paradise Skate Roller Rink was preparing to host a New Year’s Eve bash when floodwaters poured in from a nearby creek, destroying the wooden floor and leaving the decades-old business in this San Francisco Bay Area suburb out of commission for months. […]

Yearly change in life expectancy in the U.S. and 30 other countries, 1901-2022. Data: Schöley, et al., 2022. Graphic: Fortune

January 10, 2023

The first global decline in life expectancy since World War II poses a major threat to the economy

By Matthew Heimer and Nicolas Rapp6 December 2022 (Fortune) – COVID’s devastation shows up starkly in life expectancy data: The pandemic’s peak marked the first time since World War II that LE (as demographers call it) declined across the globe. The graphic above is based on a data set that focuses mostly on Europe, but similar […]

Beds in acute NHS trusts taken by UK influenza patients in winter 2021/22 compared with winter 2022/23. Data: NHS Digital. Graphic: The Times and The Sunday Times

January 5, 2023

UK after Brexit: “Shocking” emergency room delays “killing up to 500 people a week” as NHS care collapses – “We are seeing equivalent levels of pressure to the early months of Covid”

By Rhys Blakely and Henry Zeffman 2 January 2023 (The Times) – As many as 500 people are dying each week because of delays in emergency NHS care, a senior doctor has said. Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), said that a bad flu season was piling pressure on […]

Body bags lay on gurneys at the back entrance of a funeral home in Shanghai, China, on Saturday, 31 December 2022. Photo: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg

January 3, 2023

Bodies pile up in China as Covid surge overwhelms crematoriums – “Bodies are overflowing everywhere”

3 January 2023 (Bloomberg News) – For five days the elderly Chinese lady’s corpse lay decomposing in the Shanghai house she shared with her family before a hearse finally arrived to take away her remains. “We’re lucky it’s the cold winter time,” a relative said last week at Shanghai’s Longhua Funeral Home, recounting the ordeal […]

S. Saksan, 5, who has been diagnosed with leukemia, takes a nap in a corridor of a cancer care transit home near Apeksha Hospital, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 16 August 2022. “Due to the current crisis in Sri Lanka, we are facing severe problems in transport and food,” said his mother Sathiyaraj Silaksana, “I have no option but to pay for my son's needs. My husband is a construction worker. In order to pay for all these expenses, we pawned our jewelry.” Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon / REUTERS

December 31, 2022

Sri Lanka cancer patients struggle amid economic chaos

COLOMBO, 22 December 2022 (Reuters) – Priyantha Kumarasinghe starts his day in the small Sri Lankan town of Maharagama with a breakfast of two biscuits and a small glass of tea, followed by a round of cancer medicines. The 32-year-old vegetable farmer was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2021 and started receiving treatment earlier this […]

Provisional number of deaths with COVID-19 and deaths mentioning long COVID in the United States, by month and year of death, 1 January 2022-30-June 2022. Graphic: Ahmad, et al., 2022 / NVSS / CDC

December 30, 2022

Long Covid responsible for thousands of U.S. deaths, but true numbers are likely much higher – “This is very clearly data from folks who got very sick, ended up at the hospital with sustained organ damage”

By Jen Christensen 14 December 2022 (CNN) – Long Covid leaves some people with long-term symptoms, but it can be deadly, too. It played a part in at least 3,544 deaths in the United States in the first 30 months of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new report says. The report is the first official attempt by […]

Global excess and reported COVID-19 deaths and death rates per 100,000 population, January 2020-January 2022. (a) Cumulative global excess death estimates and the cumulative reported COVID-19 deaths by month from January 2020 to December 2021. (b) Global excess death rates per 100,000 population and the reported COVID-19 death rates per 100,000 population, also by month, from January 2020 to December 2021. On both plots, the central lines of the excess mortality series show the mean estimates, and the shaded regions indicate the 95 percent uncertainty intervals. Graphic: Msemburi, et al., 2022 / Nature

December 30, 2022

WHO study reports global Covid death toll likely three times higher than official records – Pandemic may have claimed nearly 15 million lives, more than 2.7 times official reports of 5.4 million – India mortality alone may be 6.45 million dead

By Robert Hart 14 December 2022 (Forbes) – The Covid-19 pandemic may have claimed nearly 15 million around the world in 2020 and 2021, according to World Health Organization estimates published in Nature on Wednesday, almost three times what was reported in official records and underscoring the devastating and far-reaching impact of the disease as countries strive to return […]

People walk between homes that are covered in ice on Wednesday, 28 December 2022 in the waterfront community of Crystal Beach in Fort Erie, Ontario. Photo: Cole Burston / AFP / Getty Images

December 29, 2022

Buffalo’s “blizzard of the century” and Southwest’s 2,900 canceled flights prompt closer look at climate change and severe storms – “Nobody ever said global warming would eliminate winter”

By Rachel Koning Beals 27 December 2022 (MarketWatch) – Snowed-in Buffalo, N.Y., braced Tuesday for more wintry accumulation just days after an epic blizzard that killed at least 34 people, stranded some motorists in cars for days over the Christmas holiday and brought the city’s airport to a standstill. About 4,000 domestic flights were canceled […]

A boat sails in front of a wave caused by the advance of sea water on the river during the dry season in the Bailique Archipelago, district of Macapa, state of Amapa, northern Brazil, Monday, 12 September 2022. During a full moon, the sea invades the river with such strength that, in some places, it turns into a single giant wave of up to 4 meters (13 feet), a phenomenon known as pororoca. Photo: Eraldo Peres / AP Photo

December 23, 2022

Climate migration: Açai growers flee salty Amazon water – “The village is approaching its end”

By Fabiano Maisonnave and Eraldo Peres 10 November 2022 MACAPA, Brazil (AP) – Where the mother of all rivers meets the Atlantic Ocean in coastal Brazil, it’s not a single channel, instead it braids around 230 kilometers (142 miles) of islands including the Bailique Archipelago. A native of the mouth of the Amazon, Elielson Elinho, […]

Women carry belongings salvaged from their flooded home after monsoon rains, in the Qambar Shahdadkot district of Sindh Province, of Pakistan, 6 September 2022. Photo: Fareed Khan / AP Photo

December 21, 2022

Pakistan’s premier urges global aid for 20 million flood victims – “People living in such areas are looking toward the sky for help”

By Munir Ahmed 21 December 2022 ISLAMABAD (AP) – Pakistan’s prime minister on Wednesday urged the international community to give his country desperately needed aid to help 20 million flood victims survive the harsh winter, as the country struggles to cope with the humanitarian aftermath of vast floods earlier in the year. Prime Minister Shahbaz […]

Desdemona Despair

Category: infrastructure failure