8. Does Apple owe you Rs 1,831 too?

• Class apart: More than two years after its admitted to deliberately slowing down its older iPhone models, Apple has agreed to pay up to a maximum of $500 million (approx. Rs 3,662 crore) to settle a class action suit that had iPhone owners accusing the company of introducing the ‘slowdown’ feature to compel them to buy newer models. The settlement entitles each of the users in the US owning an iPhone model bought before December 21, 2017 — namely iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, 7, 7 Plus or SE device — a minimum of $25 (Rs 1831.45) per affected device.
• Rotten Apple: The issue first came to light in 2016 after several iPhone users complained about their devices shutting down unexpectedly despite the battery showing that there was some power still left. It took the company a year to confess that yes, its software update was slowing down older phones in order to — what Apple claimed — extend the battery life. Consumers however, were unconvinced — accusing the company of doing so in order to force them to buy newer models. To assuage the iPhone users, Apple dropped the price of the replacement battery from $79 to $29 for the affected models.
• What about Indians? While the US isn’t the only country where iPhone users exist, the order — which still needs to be approved by a judge on April 3 — awards compensation to only US users plus the lawyers, who take home $93 million as fees. Last month, French regulators fined the company €25 million (approx. Rs 204 crore) for the same reason. There are almost 12 million iPhone users in India and while the company has just 2-3% market share in the smartphone segment, it commands a whopping 44% market share in the above Rs 30,000 smartphone segment — which is the price level where the affected models lie. A class action against Apple in India too, then?

• India on Tuesday sent 21 tourists and three Indian tour operators to the ITBP quarantine facility in Delhi after an Italian who was part of the group tested positive for novel coronavirus (Covid-19) in Jaipur. The quarantined individuals had stayed at a hotel in south Delhi. The wife of the Italian is a suspect case and further analysis of her sample is being carried out.
• Panic spread on the day after reports emerged that the Indian national who confirmed positive in Delhi on Monday had interacted with several others before being hospitalised. The individual’s family, families who had gone to a celebratory dinner with them at Hyatt Regency, and the staff at the restaurant are being closely monitored, while the school his two children attend, Shriram Millennium in Noida, has temporarily closed. Six others in Agra who were visited by a kin of the Delhi patient have a “high viral load”. In total nearly 70 who were in touch with him are being monitored.
• Karnataka and Telangana are tracing the co-passengers of the Hyderabad man who had tested positive after it emerged that he had travelled to Bengaluru, went to office, and travelled back to Hyderabad on a bus before getting tested. So far, two Indians and one Italian tourist have tested positive, taking the total to 4, not including the three Keralites who have recovered from Covid-19.
• India’s Director General of Foreign Trade has restricted the export of 26 pharmaceutical ingredients and drugs made from them, including paracetamol, amid rising prices reports Reuters.

A note: Delhi is also witnessing a spike in H1N1 influenza (swine flu), so consult your doctor if you exhibit any symptom.

Around the world

• The epidemic in Iran is continuing unabated, with 23 Parliament members testing positive, even as the number of fresh cases in China fell.

UEFA under fire

• The European football body, UEFA, has come under fire after reports said its members spent just “two minutes” discussing the Covid-19 crisis at the executive committee meeting in Amsterdam. UEFA’s cash-cow and flagship international event, the Euro, is scheduled to commence on March 21 — this time hosted by multiple cities, including Rome, Italy.

And Tokyo?

• Shortly after the Euro are the Tokyo Games, commencing on July 24, and the Paralympics, beginning on August 25. The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, remains confident. “We are preparing for a successful Olympic Games Tokyo 2020,” he said at an executive meeting at Lausanne. But doubts persist and Japan’s Olympics Minister said the contract allows for a postponement until the end of the year. Note: The Olympics were cancelled only during the World War before.

• Nearly 70 people who were in touch with the Covid-19 patient in Delhi have been quarantined or advised to self-quarantine. In Karnataka and Telangana, over 100 who travelled alongside or worked in the same office as the Hyderabad patient is being monitored. The situation is eerily similar to South Korea’s “patient 31”, a suspected super-spreader responsible for countless other positive cases, many of them followers of the Shincheonji church like him.
• Medical professionals designate a patient identified as the cause of infection to multiple other individuals as a super-spreader. The term, though, is not used by the WHO. Case of “super-spreaders” was also noticed during the 2003 SARS epidemic — an airport worker infected over 100.
• Contrary to what the term might suggest, a super-spreader is not someone with a superior ability to spread contagion. Super-spreaders are often a consequence of the circumstances. Take the case of the SARS super-spreader. The individual’s employment as an airport worker brought him in contact with more people than usual, and hence the higher rate of contagion.
• Yet, there is also a medical aspect to it. An individual whose immune system is good to suppress the effe