Than an Accident

BORDEAUX 2005 KEEP THEM CLEAN FLAIR FOR DESTRUCTION A WINE VINTAGE HAND HYGIENE ANTI-CONSUMERIST ETHIC WORTH THE WAIT STILL MATTERS LIGHTS HIS ARTISTIC PATH BACK PAGE | LIVING PAGE 17 | WELL PAGE 18 | CULTURE .. INTERNATIONAL EDITION | FRIDAY, JULY 23, 2021 Of children Nations lean and their lost toward new caregivers Covid plan: Lucie Cluver Live with it SINGAPORE OPINION From March 2020 to last April, over a Officials encourage return million children worldwide lost a mother, father, grandparent or another to normality, even as some adult they relied on as a primary care- scientists warn it’s too soon giver to Covid-19. In South Africa, one in every 200 children lost his or her BY SUI-LEE WEE primary caregiver. In Peru, it was one in every 100. England has removed nearly all corona- Because of international gaps in virus restrictions. Germany is allowing coronavirus testing and reporting, vaccinated people to travel without these numbers are likely underesti- quarantines. Outdoor mask mandates mates. But our team of researchers, are mostly gone in Italy. Shopping malls including experts from public health remain open in Singapore. organizations and universities around Eighteen months after the coronavi- the world, used mathematical mod- rus first emerged, governments in Asia, eling and mortality and fertility data Europe and the Americas are encourag- from 21 countries with 76 percent of ing people to return to their daily global deaths from Covid-19 to esti- rhythms and transition to a new normal mate the number of in which subways, offices, restaurants Other mass- children who lost a and airports are once again full. Increas- fatality out- caregiver (some lost ingly, the mantra is the same: We have one or both parents, to learn to live with the virus. breaks, like others lost grandpar- Yet scientists warn that the pandemic H.I.V. and ent caregivers). We exit strategies may be premature. The Ebola, offer created an online emergence of more transmissible vari- guidance on calculator that shows ants means that even wealthy nations a way for- minimum estimates with abundant vaccines, including the ward in the for every country in United States, remain vulnerable. era of Covid. the world. RITCHIE B TONGO/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK Places like Australia, which closed its What we found Salvage operations in eastern Taiwan in April. A government adviser told officials in 2017 that the rail line where the collision occurred was an accident waiting to happen. border, are learning that they cannot was a scale of family keep the virus out. loss that has not So rather than abandon their road been seen since AIDS first rampaged maps, officials are beginning to accept through sub-Saharan Africa. “Do you that rolling lockdowns and restrictions remember Africa in 2002, when we are a necessary part of recovery. People realized that all the dying adults meant are being encouraged to shift their pan- orphaned children?” asked the lead More than an accident demic perspective and focus on avoid- author of our study, Susan Hillis, a ing severe illness and death instead of senior technical adviser for Covid-19 at TAIPEI, TAIWAN safety experts, found that the agency infections, which are harder to avoid. the Centers for Disease Control and suffered from a culture of complacency And countries with zero-Covid ambi- Prevention. and weak oversight. tions are rethinking those policies. I did. I remembered the spread of a Contractors like Mr. Lee were mis- “You need to tell people: We’re going deadly virus at a time when lifesaving Failures at rail agency managed, maintenance problems fes- to get a lot of cases,” said Dale Fisher, a medicines were available in the United tered, and officials missed or ignored professor of medicine at the National States and Europe, but still years away contributed to 49 deaths safety warnings — creating conditions University of Singapore who heads the for other countries. I remembered that in Taiwan train crash that contributed to the crash. National Infection Prevention and Con- we were too slow to invest in caring for A government adviser told officials in trol Committee of Singapore’s Health those children losing their mothers, BY AMY QIN, AMY CHANG CHIEN 2017 that the line where the crash oc- Ministry. “And that’s part of the plan — fathers and grandparents. The global AND STEVEN LEE MYERS curred was an accident waiting to hap- we have to let it go.” community made well-meaning but pen. For months, many residents in Singa- terrible errors in our response: send- It seemed at first like a freak accident. This year, a local worker for the pore, the small Southeast Asian city- ing hundreds of thousands of young- A contractor was navigating a sharp agency twice warned about the risk of state, pored over the details of each new sters to orphanages, and so putting turn on a sand-packed road. He had heavy equipment maneuvering around Covid case. There was a palpable sense them at a higher risk for mental health been hired to shore up a steep hillside on that same turn. of dread when infections reached double problems, infectious diseases, physical Taiwan’s east coast — any falling debris No one did anything. digits for the first time. And with bor- abuse and sexual violence and poverty. could be a safety hazard to the trains The authorities are investigating ders closed, there was also a feeling of A similar situation is playing out that rushed by below. whether the agency should have done defeat, since even the most diligent now with Covid-19. Our estimates At the edge of the embankment, his more to follow up, Chou Fang-yi, a pros- measures were not enough to prevent suggest that every 12 seconds, a child truck got stuck. He and another worker ecutor on the case, told The Times. infection. loses an important caregiver to the tried to pull it free, using a cloth strap BILLY H.C. KWOK/GETTY IMAGES Mr. Lee should never have been “Our people are battle weary,” a group coronavirus. Even though there have and an excavator. The strap snapped, Rescue workers at the rail disaster. In addition to the deaths, more than 200 people awarded the project, under the agency’s of Singapore ministers wrote in an opin- been over half a billion Covid-19 vac- and the truck tumbled down the hill onto were injured in a crash that one Taiwan safety official said could have been avoided. rules. ion essay in The Straits Times newspa- cine doses administered worldwide, the railway tracks. According to the indictment, he ille- per in June. “All are asking: When and more than 75 percent of them have About a minute later, a train, Taroko gally misrepresented his company on how will the pandemic end?” been used by the world’s richest coun- Express No. 408, collided with the truck, this island democracy of 23.5 million negligent homicide, the roots of the dis- the application, using the credentials of Officials in Singapore announced tries. killing 49 people and injuring more than people, which prides itself on being a aster go much deeper, revealing sys- a larger, more experienced company to plans to gradually ease restrictions. The This toll is unequal in many ways. In 200. well-managed and accountable society. temic failures at the government qualify for the project. The agency did plans included switching to monitoring CLUVER, PAGE 9 In an instant, the picturesque ocean- It has undermined confidence in the agency that runs the train system, the not do enough due diligence to uncover the number of people who become very side slope became the site of Taiwan’s government at a time when Taiwan has Taiwan Railways Administration. the problem. ill, how many require intensive care and The New York Times publishes opinion deadliest railway disaster in seven dec- struggled with a surge in coronavirus A close examination of the crash by “This accident could have been how many need to be intubated, instead from a wide range of perspectives in ades. cases and rolling electrical blackouts. The New York Times, based on inter- avoided,” Li Kang, a member of the Tai- of how many are infected. hopes of promoting constructive debate The tragedy on that April morning is While prosecutors have accused the views with current and former officials, wan Transportation Safety Board, a gov- Those measures are already being about consequential questions. one of several crises that have shaken contractor, Lee Yi-hsiang, and others of railway employees, contractors and TAIWAN, PAGE 4 PANDEMIC, PAGE 4 The Olympics that hailed a new Japan TOKYO For both Japan and the Olympic movement, the delayed 2020 Games may represent less a moment of hope for Understand today. the future than the distinct possibility of Together. In 1964, the entire country decline. And to the generation of Japa- nese who look back fondly on the 1964 Getthe story, firsthand. Hear vital voices, burned with excitement. Games, the prospect of a diminished, There’s less to cheer now. largely unwelcome Olympics is a grave in their own words. Connect with your disappointment. world and the people shaping it. “Everyone in Japan was burning with BY MOTOKO RICH, HIKARI HIDA Explore the full schedule. AND MAKIKO INOUE excitement about the Games,” said Kazuo Inoue, 69, who vividly recalls be- timesevents.nytimes.com Under crisp blue skies in October 1964, ing glued to the new color television in Emperor Hirohito of Japan stood before his family’s home in Tokyo in 1964. “That a reborn nation to declare the opening of is missing, so that is a little sad.” the Tokyo Olympic Games.

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