Author Archives: Pippin Hum

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(Needle Shortage in Brazil)

Needles are one of many shortages that the Brazilian governments vaccine rollout program is facing. The articles covers this first and foremost, then uses it as a pivot point towards revealing a vague amount of the politics of the situation. It short it is a bite sized articles that expresses a new challenge the Brazilian government is facing.

Brazil and the rampant class disparity, inequality, that exists will make for a difficult challenge for the health ministry to enact. Including vaccinating rural and urban communities, this requiring a high level of administrative skill within both the state and local levels of government.

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Observing the population pyramid graphs of Mozambique and Philippines you can see that they are both countries with a positive trend. Both of their populations are growing, however Mozambique has a more intensive shape as such it’s growth is much higher. Looking at the forcast, Mozambique’s population will double by 2050 while the Philippines will increase by a factor of 1.5. In relation to the structure of these graphs. The Philippines graph has a plumper shape to it, while Mozambique is sharp and clearly suggest rapid population growth. This places Mozambique in stage 1 and Philippines in stage 2.

Mozambique:
Males per 100 Females: 96.9
People per square kilometer: 38.3
Number of children per woman: 5.0
Current Population: 30.1M
Estimated Population 2050: 63.4M
Philippines:
Males per 100 Females: 100.7
People per square kilometer: 366.2
Number of children per woman: 2.9
Current Population: 109.2M
Estimated Population 2050: 155.4M

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You can find the article I'm summarizing here: "Brazil greenlights human trials for J&J's potential COVID-19 vaccine."

In short this article is a small piece of a larger puzzle, so to write, that has been going on in Brazil. Brazil is a country that is struggling to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. Reputably corrupt government officials irresponsibly handling the crisis has led to one of the highest mortality rates of victims infected with the virus; this has made Brazil a willing participant for several human trails of potential covid-19 vaccines. This article highlights a particular vaccine, made by the Johnson and Johnson company, will enter human trials in Brazil. It also updates the status of a number of other vaccine trials that are wanting to be tested in Brazil.

As for geographic concepts I believe that this article has its backbone in the significant inequality issues in Brazil. As well as the density of the large megacities within Brazil, take Sao Paulo as an example, is a densely populated city with poor city planning and infrastructure. It's a place where slums are commonplace and this is, in my opinion, indicative that Sao Paulo likely doesn't have the medical facilities and infrastructure in place to properly deal with a pandemic like Covid-19. Hence the current problems!

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To celebrate.. erhm... partake in the Coronavirus enthusiasm I've an article from the Japan Times. It reports that Russia has closed their Southeastern and Far Eastern region's border to China. With the sole exception of a train that runs directly from Moscow to Beijing. The article: Europe evacuates citizens from china; Russia shuts border." It continues to briefly summarize European actions in regards to the Coronavirus. These can be easily summarized as the varying nations actions to restrict potentially infected hosts from entering their respective country.

You can find the article here to read further: "Europe evacuates citizens from china; Russia shuts border."

Geographically speaking the quarantine actions of Europe and the Russian/central asian realm is requiring significant effort to control, limit and properly quarantine passenger coming in through ports, airports and through land borders. As reported in the paper Russia has closed the border between China and Russia, however this may or may not be the best choice as if you have the border open you can more appropriately deal with people coming through border and not risk unauthorized entrances. Aside from land borders other ports of activity, sea and air, input is limited to single nodes of entry.

 

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Good day to you all. You can call me Hum. I'm currently in my final year of studies at UAF and am looking forward to graduating. Heh heh. My major is Japanese Studies, which means as per UAF JS degree requirements I've been to Japan and have spent roughly a year there in school including a fair bit of travel. Primarily in the wonderful city of Nagoya. You'll find it just south of Tokyo, and east--or so-- of Osaka. It is the best city of the three, but I am certainly biased.

I am, perhaps, of an older generation of mushers. It was my lifestyle for nineteen years, but times change as they say and I'm ready to move on from Alaska.

I have only studied Geography in an amateur setting and possess no field related knowledge, though perhaps navigating while mushing, hiking or within urban environments I'm at least familiar with some geography. I'm also quite partial to world building and cartography of limited skill, magic is deitous after all. This class is a requirement for my degree and I'm taking it instead of what I was taking: Anthropology. My previous Anthropology class didn't quite sit well with me. A shame, perhaps.

I believe that about covers the information relevant to this class.

~ Hum