How NOT to stop a virus pandemic:
Bosnia crams thousands of migrants into tent camp to 'halt Covid-19 spread'
Move to makeshift facility in remote village sparks fears over social distancing and access to water, heat and power
Lorenzo Tondo
Fri 27 Mar 2020 07.00 GMT
Authorities in Bosnia have ordered the transfer of thousands of migrants to a remote camp in Lipa, a village about 25 kilometres from the border with Croatia, due to the coronavirus outbreak in the country.

In a document seen by the Guardian, the Bihać city civil defence headquarters asked that the move be carried out “in order to take urgent measures to prevent the onset of the disease caused by Covid-19”.

The construction of the new camp started a few days ago, prompting panic among asylum seekers and volunteers, who fear the measure will not guarantee any assistance to migrants. There is particular concern over access to water, heat and electricity, as well as a feeling that the move marks a further deterioration in their living conditions.

“The move by [the] authorities to set up a further tent camp in Lipa shows a cyclical regression in the treatment of people-on-the-move in western Bosnia-Herzegovina,” said the Border Violence Monitoring Network, a watchdog organisation that documents abuse against migrants in the Balkans. “With the onset of Covid-19, the internal dispersion of people to a remote tent settlement marks a further stage in the suppression of living conditions and restriction on movement.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... -19-spread

The urban poor in Vietnam are suffering, and a COVID-19 lockdown in Cambodia could produce similar effects if informal food supplies are shut down for city dwellers.

The impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the diets of Hanoi’s urban poor
Source(s): International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
By Sigrid Wertheim-Heck

The urban poor in Vietnam depend heavily on informal food systems. How will COVID-19 lockdown measures impact their food security and what will be the knock-on effects for daily life?

The COVID-19 pandemic is driving governments to enforce major restrictions on the lives of citizens. Vietnam, with nearly 100 million people, is no exception. The country was praised internationally for its rapid response in deploying strict quarantine measures during the initial outbreak of the virus.

It is now facing a second wave of transmissions and a national lockdown is in place until mid-April. People are required to stay at home unless buying food and medicine. Businesses are closed, public transport is suspended and public gatherings are prohibited.

In terms of food provision, only supermarkets and formally registered markets remain open for daily necessities.

Street vending is forbidden, leaving the once teeming streets of the capital Hanoi completely transformed. The hustle and bustle of the city’s complex and extensive informal vending systems that attract tens of millions of tourists from around the world every year – street markets, stalls selling traditional food and drinks, hawkers carrying goods on shoulder poles – have been swept away almost overnight.

COVID-19: accelerating Vietnam’s supermarket drive
For some years, with urbanisation and as incomes have grown, Vietnamese authorities have driven a national push for ‘supermarketisation’. Policies promote modern retail outlets including supermarkets and convenience stores while increasingly repressing informal vending.

The government’s goal is to improve food safety on the basis that informal vending is much harder to regulate; food-related problems stemming from goods sold here are difficult to track.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought Hanoi’s informal food markets and vendors under even closer scrutiny as these spaces are deemed unhygienic and hot spots for virus contamination.

In Vietnam, and indeed other countries with complex, self-organised informal vending structures, this blanket shutdown will have huge ramifications for the urban population. The urban poor in particular rely heavily on these structures for their daily necessities, most importantly affordable foods.

Why supermarkets don’t work for the urban poor
Along with ‘supermarketisation’ comes ‘food gentrification’: supermarket corporations generally target high- or middle-income neighbourhoods, leaving behind low-income areas.

But even when supermarkets are physically accessible to the urban poor, our research found that modern ways of shopping that are deemed “progressive” or “convenient” – and where customers often buy larger quantities – does not suit their daily realities. Often depending on unstable incomes, urban poor groups need to budget daily for food and purchase in small quantities. Local markets are the convenient and affordable alternative.

The fresh foods sold in supermarkets and formal markets are often less affordable or inaccessible to urban poor groups. With only these outlets remaining open during the COVID-19 lockdown, the food and nutritional security of urban poor populations will be at risk.
https://www.preventionweb.net/news/view/71265

The US is reportedly deporting migrants who are infected by coronavirus to Guatemala.

April 18, 2020 / 8:53 AM / Updated 2 hours ago
Many migrants on U.S. deportation flight had coronavirus, Guatemalan president says
Sofia Menchu

3 Min Read

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said on Friday a large number of migrants on a deportation flight to Guatemala from the United States this week were infected with the coronavirus, adding that U.S. authorities had confirmed a dozen cases.

Giammattei said 12 randomly selected people on the deportation flight tested positive for coronavirus when examined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He suggested more on the flight had tested positive as well.

“A large part of it was infected,” the president said in a televised address, referring to a flight carrying 73 Guatemalans that left the United States for Guatemala City on Monday.

The Trump administration has pressured Guatemala to keep receiving deported migrants despite growing concern in the poor Central American nation that returnees are bringing the virus with them and could infect remote communities.

Monday’s flight has been at the center of a political storm since Guatemalan Health Minister Hugo Monroy this week said up to 75% of passengers on a deportation flight were infected with the virus. The Associated Press later cited a Guatemalan official saying 44 people on the Monday flight were infected.

The United States said on Thursday it had sent a CDC mission to assess the situation and test the migrants, who remain in quarantine in a hospital.

It is not clear when the deportees became infected. There have been 30 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among ICE employees working in the agency’s detention facilities, including 13 at the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana, ICE data shows.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... 2002Q?il=0

Really don't know what's happening for homeless or semi homeless people in UK other than being told to 'stay at home'...

God'sGift wrote: ↑Sat Apr 18, 2020 2:54 pm Really don't know what's happening for homeless or semi homeless people in UK other than being told to 'stay at home'...

Well they're not staying home at an alarming rate! I hope Boris does not prosecute them because they are disregarding the directive. They could of course plead that they never got his letter which he posted to every household!

A household became homeless every 4 minutes in England in the last year

The latest figures show:
A household became homeless every 4 minutes in England in the last year (April 2018 to March 2019)
A new generation of young people and families are being hit by our housing emergency. 56,440 young people aged 16 to 24 became homeless or threatened with homelessness in the last year.
Young people are disproportionately affected by homelessness – they represent a fifth (21%) of all applicants found to be homeless or threatened with homelessness in the last year, but make up just 14% of the general population
22% of households found to be homeless or threatened with homelessness lost their last settled home due to the ending of a private rented tenancy.
28% of households found to be homeless or threatened with homelessness were living in a private rented home – this is the most common type of accommodation to live in at the time of applying for homelessness support.
More than a quarter (27%) of applicants owed a homelessness duty are in work
https://england.shelter.org.uk/media/pr ... _last_year

A child in Britain becomes homeless every eight minutes new Shelter report finds

A child becomes homeless in Britain every eight minutes according to a new report.
The homeless charity Shelter has found that 183 children lose their homes every single day - that's enough children to fill two double-decker buses.
Shelter says more needs to be done to tackle the issue and says that homelessness is at its highest rate since 2006.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/50631620

not sure what you do if you're homeless right now as even if you have money, all hostels, B and b's ,hotels etc closed.

This is never mentioned on MSM - just call '111' for advice! (which is 'stay at home')

I think this is why there is no testing at UK airports as there's no where to put people if positive anyhow