COVID-19 - social and political fallout (5)

US GDP fell at 5.0% rate in Q1; worse is likely on the way
MARTIN CRUTSINGER | 6/25/2020

...The first quarter period captured just two weeks of the shutdowns that began in many parts of the country in mid-March.

Economists believe that GDP plunged around 30% from April through the end of this month.

That would be the biggest quarterly decline on record, three times bigger than the current record-holder, a 10% drop in the first quarter of 1958.

Forecasters believe the economy will rebound in the second half of the year. The Congressional Budget Office is predicting a 21.5% growth rate in the upcoming July-September quarter followed by a 10.4% gain in the fourth quarter.

...Economists are...worried about the devastating impact a second serious wave of the coronavirus could have if it forced widespread shutdowns again.

...Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said for the country to avoid a double-dip recession, an effective vaccine needs to be available next year and new waves of coronavirus cases will need to do less damage than the first wave. Congress needs to soon pass another package of at least $1 trillion in further support for laid-off workers and struggling businesses...“If any of these three things don’t happen, then the outlook is much darker...I think we are in a recovery mode right now but the economy is very fragile.”

https://apnews.com/b52fed52404951a2c876bd340d22e6c3

Treasury sent more than 1 million coronavirus stimulus payments to dead people, congressional watchdog finds
The checks sent to dead people as of April 30 totaled nearly $1.4 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office
Erica Werner | June 25, 2020

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, an independent investigative agency that reports to Congress, issued the finding as part of a comprehensive report on the nearly $3 trillion in coronavirus relief spending approved by Congress in March and April. It said it had received the information from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration in an accounting as of April 30.

The revelation comes as President Trump and some members of his administration advocate for another round of stimulus checks. The news that so much money has gone to the dead could add to reluctance from some Republicans to agree to more direct relief payments...

The problem relates partly to the fact that, while IRS has access to the Social Security Administration’s full set of death records, the Treasury Department and its Bureau of the Fiscal Service -- which actually issue the payments -- do not...

The report said that Congress should “provide Treasury with access to the Social Security Administration’s full set of death records, and require that Treasury consistently use it, to help reduce similar types of improper payments.”

The GAO also recommended that the IRS “should consider cost-effective options for notifying ineligible recipients how to return payments."...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/06/25/irs-stimulus-checks-dead-peo...

>2 margd: Ha! So they want the dead people to return the money. I can understand that. But how in the heck do they intend to contact those dead people? At least in a cost effective manner. I see government contracts with spirit mediums.

Indonesian villagers defy Covid-19 warnings to rescue Rohingya refugees (Guardian)

Governments across south-east Asia are turning away boats but in Aceh locals took matters into their own hands...

It’s Official—Americans Won’t Be Allowed Into Europe When It Reopens (AFAR)

The European Union has revealed the list of countries whose travelers will be welcomed back to the continent on July 1, and it does not include the United States... the European Union plans to continue to bar travelers from the United States due to the fact that the country has not brought the coronavirus outbreak under control...

The full list of approved places provided to the New York Times on Friday includes Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay, Andorra, San Marino, Monaco, and the Vatican. It could also include China, but only if China allows EU travelers to visit as well...

The list will be updated every two weeks, which leaves open the possibility for countries to be added to or removed from it...

> 5

I'll make a prediction here since it "don't cost nothing":

Forget the E.U. - by two months from now most countries in the world will have banned U.S. residents from entering their borders.

And the few which don't will soon greatly regret their decision not to do so.

We have a President and a Vice President who refuse to wear masks---who are continuing to send mixed signals out to the populace. A good many of those in the populace are refusing to wear masks too now for a wide variety of almost entirely stupid reasons and finding encouragement in 'Trump and Pence don't either---why should I?' We have no national response because we have a President who won't take responsibility for anything and who encourages right wing governors to put the economy before the health and safety of their populations.....and now we have our three most populous states taking off doing anywhere between 5000 and 9000 new cases a day each as well as skyrocketing numbers in other states and ironically now the Northeast is probably the safest region in the United States. But it's like all the progress we have made has gone away because states opened too early and too fast and it's not even like we've gone back to square one....it's like we've gone even further back than that. The United States response to the Coronavirus pandemic is arguably the worst of all countries in the world and we have almost 7 months of this dunce of a POTUS left before maybe we'll be able to put together a coherent strategy to combat the pandemic and all kinds of further damage can happen over that period of time while this fuckhead worries most about his golf game.

How did face masks become a political issue in America? (Guardian)

It is usually a cloth with two stretchy bands at two ends. You put it on your face so you can cover your mouth and nose, and it acts as a barrier to the rest of the world. Masks, therefore, are very simple objects.

But in the US they are a huge source of controversy. While many Americans follow public health recommendations and wear masks in public to limit the spread of Covid-19, others passionately fight against them, saying they impair individual freedom...

A recent Pew Research Center poll found Democrats were more likely to say they wear masks than Republicans. This is in line with messaging from leaders within the two parties.

Democratic leaders have been more vocal about the importance of face masks. Many Democratic governors have made it mandatory to wear masks in public. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said if he were in the White House, he would “do everything possible to make it required that people have to wear masks in public”.

In contrast, while many Republican leaders have also spoken out about the importance of masks, other top Republicans have been more hesitant to mandate masks, even as their states have started to see surges of new cases amid reopening phases. The most obvious of these is Donald Trump himself.

And though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends wearing masks to prevent the spread of the virus, the US president has suggested wearing a mask could be seen as a political statement against him and mocked Biden for wearing a mask in public...

Kenyans to be barred from EU as Europe opens borders (Star)

Kenyans wishing to travel to the European Union will have to wait longer after Europe opens its external borders later this week. Kenya has not been listed among countries whose citizens can be given Schengen visas in the interim... countries like the United States, Brazil and Russia have also been excluded from the list...

Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Australia, Bahamas, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Dominica, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan and Kosovo are those that have been granted access. Others are Lebanon, Mauritius, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Palau, Paraguay, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Serbia, South Korea, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vatican City, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zambia...

'No kissing': Amsterdam's red light district reopens after coronavirus shutdown (Guardian)

Sex workers welcome the chance to earn again but with strict rules about face-to-face contact, hygiene and making clients check for symptoms...

Coronavirus: 'I'm all for masks,' says Trump in change of tone (BBC)

US President Donald Trump, long opposed to wearing a face covering in public, says he is "all for masks" and they make him look like the Lone Ranger. Mr Trump also maintained that face coverings do not need to become mandatory to curb Covid-19's spread...

Pandemic costs Africa travel, tourism almost $55 bln (Reuters)

African countries have lost almost $55 billion in travel and tourism revenues in three months due to the coronavirus pandemic, the African Union (AU) commissioner for infrastructure and energy said on Thursday. Amani Abou-Zeid told a news conference the economic impact of lockdowns and border closures to curb the spread of the virus would be severe, with the continent’s air industry hit particularly hard. She said tourism and travel represented almost 10% of the gross domestic product of Africa...

Credit card fraud:

COVID-19 ‘Breach Bubble’ Waiting to Pop?
Brian Krebs | 30 Jun 20

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it harder for banks to trace the source of payment card data stolen from smaller, hacked online merchants. On the plus side, months of quarantine have massively decreased demand for account information that thieves buy and use to create physical counterfeit credit cards. But fraud experts say recent developments suggest both trends are about to change — and likely for the worse.

The economic laws of supply and demand hold just as true in the business world as they do in the cybercrime space. Global lockdowns from COVID-19 have resulted in far fewer fraudsters willing or able to visit retail stores to use their counterfeit cards, and the decreased demand has severely depressed prices in the underground for purloined card data...

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/06/covid-19-breach-bubble-waiting-to-pop/

A Problem for College in the Fall: Reluctant Professors
Most universities plan to bring students back to campus. But many of their teachers are scared to join them.
Anemona Hartocollis | July 3, 2020

...More than three-quarters of colleges and universities have decided students can return to campus this fall. But they face a growing faculty revolt.

“Until there’s a vaccine, I’m not setting foot on campus,” said Dana Ward, 70, an emeritus professor of political studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., who teaches a class in anarchist history and thought. “Going into the classroom is like playing Russian roulette.”

This comes as major outbreaks have hit college towns this summer, spread by partying students and practicing athletes.

In an indication of how fluid the situation is, the University of Southern California said late Wednesday that “an alarming spike in coronavirus cases” had prompted it to reverse an earlier decision to encourage attending classes in person...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/us/coronavirus-college-professors.html

Senators concerned about Covid-19 vaccine price controls
SARAH OWERMOHLE | 07/02/2020

Senate appropriators on Thursday expressed concern about whether the government was doing enough to ensure that coronavirus vaccines developed with federal assistance are made affordable...

Acting BARDA chief Gary Disbrow said the goal was to negotiate the best price for the U.S. government, adding, “We would probably have to pay a slightly higher price” for vaccines made by pharmaceutical companies that had not received government funding.

...The background: Seven government grants for hundreds of millions of dollars for Covid-19 treatments narrow or remove boilerplate language designed to let the government assert authority over prices and production...

...BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) and Pentagon contracts with vaccine-makers...are heavily redacted but change or remove some of the language that gives the government those authorities under the Bayh-Dole Act.

...“It’s important to keep in mind that when the federal government pays for all of the development and manufacturing of a product, the federal government owns the doses of the product manufactured with tax dollars,” (a spokesperson for the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, which oversees BARDA) said.

What’s next: The Moderna candidate vaccine developed in partnership with NIH is slated to begin phase III trials this month, meaning it could potentially be first to market with positive results.

Several other candidates, including Pfizer’s shot and the CanSino Biologics* option developed with the Chinese government, have not received U.S. funding.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/02/senators-express-concern-over-covid-19-...

____________________________________________________________________

* Tianjin, China's CanSino Biologics will hold the commercialization rights in Asia except Japan. British Columbia’s Precision NanoSystems (PNI) will hold commercialization rights for the rest of the world (incl. Japan). No financial details available.

China's CanSinoBIO Partners with Canada's Precision NanoSystems on COVID-19 Vaccine
Mark Terry | May 21, 2020

Tianjin, China’s CanSino Biologics entered into a co-development agreement with Vancouver, British Columbia’s Precision NanoSystems (PNI) for an mRNA lipid nanoparticle vaccine against COVID-19.

The two companies will use PNI’s proprietary RNA vaccine platform to advance a COVID-19 mRNA-LNP vaccine into the clinic based on regulatory approvals and commercialization in various regions. PNI will handle development of the vaccine and CanSinoBIO will take care of preclinical testing, human clinical trials, regulatory submissions and commercialization.

CanSinoBIO will hold the commercialization rights in Asia except Japan, while PNI will hold rights for the rest of the world. No financial details were disclosed.

https://www.biospace.com/article/china-biotech-cansino-biologics-inks-covid-19-v...

Could COVID-19 Winnow Out Low-Value Cancer Care?
Peter Wehrwein | Jul 02, 2020

...In an opinion piece in today's JAMA Oncology, Bishal Gyawali, M.D., Ph.D., of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and his co-authors, discuss the priorities that oncologists and cancer patients have made around the world because of COVID-19.

"The necessity to change, adapt,and innovate created by the COVID-19 pandemic may yield a more lasting series of changes that can help address overstretched, costly, and at times inefficient cancer care systemns," wrote Gyawali; Bishesh Sharma Poudyal, M.D., of the Civil Service Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, and Elizabeth A. Eisenhauer, M.D., of Queen's Hospital. "Decisions made during this period will be an opportunity to identify and discourage low-value practices in oncology."

In "real-life terms," they say, some oncologists stopped prescriptions of drugs with small clinical benefits but a high chance of an adverse event that would create hospitalizations. "Indiscriminate" off-label use of targeted therapies based on genomic alterations has slowed. "Even immunotherapy use has been reserved for cancers such as melanoma or lung cancer where the benefit is substantial," note the trio. They also reference a social media debate about whether women should get mammograms; in their view, most of their colleagues said no.

"We argue that we need to take it a step further — not just for mammography in particular but for every intervention or medicine — and consider if we should do it even if there is no pandemic," said Gyawali, Poudyal, and Eisenhauer.

https://www.managedhealthcareexecutive.com/view/could-covid-19-winnow-out-low-va...
---------------------------------------------------

Bishal Gyawal et al. 2020. Covid-19 Pandemic—An Opportunity to Reduce and Eliminate Low-Value Practices in Oncology?
JAMA Oncol. Published online July 2, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2020.2404 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/article-abstract/2767424

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought critical challenges to the practice of oncology in many high-income countries (HICs) such as the US and Canada. Measures are now being taken to reduce the flow of patients to cancer centers and hospitals by substituting electronic or telehealth visits for in-person visits wherever feasible, reducing the frequency of follow-up visits, reducing surveillance imaging and other tests, and engaging in discussions about which are the most important anticancer therapies to deliver, if and when capacity to provide treatments become reduced. These are just a few of the measures being taken by health care institutions and physicians to minimize face-to-face patient visits to control the spread of COVID-19 and to optimally deploy health care workers in the health system. These are obviously rational steps to take during a pandemic, especially as new data suggests that patients with cancer may be at a higher risk of death with COVID-19 infections, although there are some uncertainties about the reliability of this information.

Coronavirus: What are the UK's travel rules and which countries can you visit?
Eleanor Lawrie | July 3, 2020

Passengers entering England from dozens of countries will no longer have to quarantine, from 10 July.

...The government has issued a list of 59 destinations - including many popular holiday spots - which now pose ''a reduced risk'' from coronavirus.

However, not all of them have ended restrictions for UK tourists when they arrive there.
Where can I go without quarantining when I get back?

The list focuses on countries in Europe, island nations around the world including the Caribbean, and countries further east - including Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

Arrivals are exempt from quarantine if they arrive in England from:

Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, Croatia, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Mauritius, Monaco, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Réunion, San Marino, Serbia, Seychelles, South Korea, Spain, St Barthélemy, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Pierre and Miquelon, Switzerland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Vatican City, Vietnam.

The 14 British Overseas Territories are also exempt.

...You will still have to isolate for 14 days if you arrive back in England from Canada, the US and much of Central or South America...

https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-53221896

Let's face it: The new school will be more difficult than the last. Here's why.
Mark Weber | July 2, 2020

...Children, especially young children, cannot be expected to stay six feet away from everyone else during an entire school day...

Children cannot be expected to wear masks of any kind for the duration of a school day...

The typical American school cannot accommodate social distancing of their student population for the duration of the school day...

School staff do not generally have isolated spaces in their workplaces where they can stay when not working with children...

School buses cannot easily accommodate social distancing, nor can they easily adjust to accommodate staggered school sessions...

Like every other workforce, school staff have many people who have preconditions that make them susceptible to becoming critically ill when exposed to covid-19...

Schools are only one part of the child-care system in this country...

Unsupervised adolescents cannot be expected to socially distance outside of the school day if schools are reopened...

Teachers are trained and experienced within an area of certification; moving them out of that area will lead to less effective instruction...

Even within an area of certification, moving teachers on short notice to a new subject or grade will lead to less effective instruction...

Moving a teacher to another school building is often difficult...

Many schools had a hard time getting qualified people to become substitute teachers before the pandemic...

jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com

While disappointing that a Phase III clinical trial of (400 mg) rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara (Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals' sarilumab) failed to meet its primary and key secondary endpoints in Covid-19 patients who required mechanical ventilation in the US, the US-based trials (400 and 800 mg doses) were halted based on (statistical insignificance of minor positive trends and significant rates of adverse events--at worst multi-organ dysfunction syndrome and hypotension in 3%) .

Why then is Sanofi continuing a Phase III study (IV, higher dose, lower dose and placebo arms)* outside of the US (Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Canada and Russia?)* in hospitalised patients with severe and critical Covid-19 using a different dosing regimen (?), per recommendation of Independent Data Monitoring Committee (IDMC), which oversees both US and foreign trials? Is there some difference that makes the foreign trials safer than the US ones, and thus worth continuing?

* Kevzara (sarilumab)--a fully-human monoclonal antibody designed to inhibit the interleukin-6 (IL-6) pathway. IL-6 is linked to the overactive inflammatory response in the lungs of severely or critically ill Covid-19 patients
* https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/sanofi-kevzara-covid-19-ex-us/
__________________________________________________

Sanofi and Regeneron’s Kevzara fails in Phase III Covid-19 trial
3 July 2020
https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/kevzara-us-covid19-trial-data/

>16 margd: Canada, EU, UK, and now Mexico-Arizona border controls...

Consulmex Phoenix @ConsulMexPho · 11:19 PM Jul 2, 2020
https://twitter.com/ConsulMexPho/status/1278891031379898369

In order to limit the further spread of COVID19, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, through the Consulate General of
🇲🇽 in Phoenix, urges Foreign and Mexican nationals avoid all non-essential travel across the 🇲🇽 -🇺🇸 border, unless any avoidable or urgent travels (1/5)

From Thursday July 2-Sunday July 5, sanitary checkpoints will be set at Ports of Entry, roads and highways in 🇲🇽 to verify the purpose of travel and conduct health screenings. These measures are implemented to protect MX population's health, especially at the border areas (2/5)

Due to the high spread rate of COVID-19, and to protect Mexican and Foreign nationals, we encourage people to limit any travel that is considered tourism or recreational in nature.(3/5)

This way, long wait time at Ports of Entry will be reduced, as well as preventing from entrance into Mexican territory.(4/5)

The Government of Mexico, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has reiterated its commitment to avoid the spread of SARS-CoV-2, particularly in close collaboration with the Mexico and United States authorities across the border.(5/5)

-------------------------------------------------------------

Mexico has closed its border between Sonora and Arizona. As of right now, there’s no reopening date. With the exception of essential business, you can’t get to Mexico via Arizona right now. Be aware they may extend this to the entire southern border.
- AltUSCustoms @alt_uscbp | 8:06 PM · Jul 3, 2020

Donald Trump Jr.'s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle has tested positive for the flu....um...er....I mean Covid-19. Apparently Jr. hasn't but supposedly he's going to isolate himself away too....whatever that means.

The entire thing is a democratic hoax. I don't know why they even bother to check. She feels fine.....asymptomatic even. 'Masks!.....Masks!.....we don't need no stinking masks!!'--the crowd howled. She had to miss all the great festivities--the fireworks and Donald Sr.'s great speech for christsakes! Can't even give him a hug now.......well maybe.

Trump is scooping up the world’s remdesivir. It’s a sign of things to come (Guardian)

The case of the Covid-19 drug shows how national interests will continue to define the allocation of research products...

#21--it was reported back in early April that the US military had secured a very large supply of remdesivir.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/how-the-military-secured-experimental-c...

Anyway it's hardly a surprise that the groping for any solution Trump administration would try to lock up the market on the drug especially with Trump's catastrophically inept pandemic policies that have the virus wreaking havoc all over the country and driving our economy into the dust.

Actually the Military Times in an article on March 10 by Patricia Kime (back before any of the shit had hit the fan here when the virus was all democratic bullshit) talks about the Army (looking at Covid) and Gilead making a deal on remdesivir. The Army medicos were way ahead of anyone in the Trump administration.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/03/10/army-signs-agreement...

The Military Times by the way is pretty accessible to even the lowest ranks of active duty service people--like someone just out of boot camp. If Trump would ever read his briefings or listen seriously to any of his briefers he might not have wasted so much time with his hydroxychoroquine horseshit. He really is a numbskull. Even in the Coast Guard it was around and as a retired Post Office employee I can say with a lot of certainty that many military retirees have subscriptions to the Military Times. They were just another one of the magazines and newspapers I used to sort all the time. Why is Donald always behind on everything? I thought he was supposed to be pro military?

>21 John5918: "Sign of the times" included the PPE piracy a month or two ago. One can't blame countries for caring for their own first, but grasping will not be forgotten.

Good thing the world has options, e.g., Britain (Oxford), Canada (CanSino), and others have commercial rights to vaccines under development. Also helpful to have leverage as Canada did during 3M standoff: Canada hinted that it might withhold pulp used in PPE manufacture and block Canadian healthcare workers who man Detroit hospitals--lo and behold, 3M was allowed to deliver Canadian PPE order. I think that's when Canada began working more closely with China on PPE manufacture, vaccine development?

Last laugh will be on Trump for spending $$$$$ to buy up supply?

Remdesivir will be eclipsed by other drugs in time. Hopefully these will include cheap ones already widely available, such as famotidine.

Gilead is allowing generic production of remdesivir for developing countries, but then India and China would manufacture it anyway--and who could blame them.

So, Trump might spend too much of our tax dollar to help his election campaign (perhaps). Big Pharma might not be entirely happy with damaged global respect for trademark and copyright system, and bad PR that might lead (finally) to negotiated/controlled prices in US. Allies' respect--what's left of it--will also be squandered. Putin laughs. China captures markets.

#24--a hallmark of the Trump presidency is to take as much to all of the credit for the work and foresight of others. Trump is very much a Capt. Blackbeard. He's been pirating from other countries but he's been pirating from his own states too. Governor's have had at times to send their state police or national guard to protect purchases of medical supplies and equipment from federal authorities sent to plunder them. What he's been doing to others he's been doing to his own.

I agree that Remdesivir is probably one of the better treatments at the moment but likely to be eclipsed by something better. It seems to me that doctors are getting savvier and savvier at saving lives (which is a good thing) and even as new cases are skyrocketing here the mortality rate seems to be going down. I'm not sure what happens when or if hospitals get overwhelmed in multiple states all over the country at the same time but it looks like we might be finding out very soon. Florida by the way says it's finally going to make public their hospitalization records this week--we'll see but they're going to be really really high.

The biggest crime IMO by Trump in all this is not his piracy but his abdication of his role as leader of the country in doing nothing to set up any kind of national response to contain the pandemic which has allowed it to continue to grow to the point where it is in all practical terms a fire burning out of control. Florida went over 11,000 new cases yesterday which I think is the new record for now--quite possibly to be broken in the next day or two maybe by Florida again or by Texas or by California. We're in a worse place than we were in March, April or May and we have 6+ more months of his presidency to go. As aggravating as his treatment of other nations almost every other nation has done a much better job of containing the virus and FWIW I'd rather be riding this pandemic out just about anywhere else than here.

Coronavirus will undermine trust in government, ‘scarring body and mind’ for decades, research finds
Christopher Ingraham | July 5, 2020

Two new working papers present complementary data showing that the coronavirus pandemic will leave a deep psychological scar on the nation for years to come.

The first, led by Julian Kozlowski of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, finds that the experience of the coronavirus and ensuing recession could make people and businesses less likely to resume their previous spending and investment patterns, which would have an extended stunting effect on economic growth.

The second, led by Cevat Giray Aksoy of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, finds that people who endure a pandemic in young adulthood tend to be more distrustful of government institutions for the rest of their lives, an outcome that makes it more difficult for governments to effectively respond to future pandemics.

Taken together, the studies bolster a view increasingly voiced by experts: there may never be a “return to normal.” Rather, the ill effects of the pandemic will resonate long after an effective coronavirus treatment is discovered...

...(Kozlowski et al. 2020) If the pandemic costs the U.S. economy between 6 and 9 percent of gross domestic product in 2020, for instance, the authors expect the long-term losses from behavioral changes, such as reduced business investment and lower consumer spending, to be between five and six times as large....

...(Aksoy et al. 2020) How does the experience of an infectious-disease outbreak in a person’s young adulthood shape their trust in institutions later in life?...“An individual with the highest exposure to an epidemic (relative to zero exposure) is 7.2 percentage points less likely to have confidence in the honesty of elections; 5.1 percentage points less likely to have confidence in the national government; and 6.2 percentage points less likely to approve the performance of the political leader”... (The general population averages for those values hover around 50 percent, so that represents more than a 10 percent reduction in trust.)

Conservative media misinformation may have intensified the severity of the pandemic, research finds...

...Mark Schmitt, director of New America’s Political Reform Program: “Poor performance leads to deeper distrust, in turn leaving government in the hands of those with the least respect for it.”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/05/coronavirus-pandemic-trust-go...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scarring Body and Mind: The Long-Term Belief-Scarring Effects of COVID-19
Julian Kozlowski, Laura Veldkamp, Venky Venkateswaran

NBER Working Paper No. 27439
Issued in June 2020
NBER Program(s):Asset Pricing, Economic Fluctuations and Growth

The largest economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic could arise from changes in behavior long after the immediate health crisis is resolved. A potential source of such a long-lived change is scarring of beliefs, a persistent change in the perceived probability of an extreme, negative shock in the future. We show how to quantify the extent of such belief changes and determine their impact on future economic outcomes. We find that the long-run costs for the U.S. economy from this channel is many times higher than the estimates of the short-run losses in output. This suggests that, even if a vaccine cures everyone in a year, the Covid-19 crisis will leave its mark on the US economy for many years to come.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w27439
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Political Scar of Epidemics
Cevat Giray Aksoy, Barry Eichengreen, Orkun Saka

NBER Working Paper No. 27401
Issued in June 2020
NBER Program(s):Development of the American Economy, Political Economy

What will be political legacy of the Coronavirus pandemic? We find that epidemic exposure in an individual’s “impressionable years” (ages 18 to 25) has a persistent negative effect on confidence in political institutions and leaders. We find similar negative effects on confidence in public health systems, suggesting that the loss of confidence in political leadership and institutions is associated with healthcare-related policies at the time of the epidemic. In line with this argument, our results are mostly driven by individuals who experienced epidemics under weak governments with less capacity to act against the epidemic, disappointing their citizens. We provide evidence of this mechanism by showing that weak governments took longer to introduce policy interventions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. These results imply that the Coronavirus may leave behind a long-lasting political scar on the current young generation (“Generation Z”).

https://www.nber.org/papers/w27401

This pandemic has exposed the uselessness of orthodox economics (Guardian)

Post Covid-19, our priority should be to build resilient systems explicitly designed to withstand worst-case scenarios...

#27--I think Aldred is right. There are more disaster perhaps even future pandemics looming. We need economies that are built to withstand these kinds of disasters. The United States health care system is about the worst you can have for this pandemic that hit us. It leaves so many behind to start with. Dog eat dog capitalism is a winner takes all system of economics that doesn't help to keep your society afloat during a catastrophe.

Austria donates €2 million to CEPI* to support COVID-19 vaccine programmes
CEPI | 02 Jul 2020

...CEPI’s COVID-19 vaccine development programme

In response to the global crisis, CEPI has worked urgently and in coordination with its partners to support nine COVID-19 vaccine development programmes.

Built on the principles of speed, scale, and access, CEPI’s diverse COVID-19 vaccine portfolio includes modern and traditional approaches to increase the chances of finding a successful vaccine as quickly as possible. CEPI’s vaccine portfolio includes a partnership with a consortium led by the Institut Pasteur, which includes the Austrian-based company Themis.

Six CEPI-supported vaccine candidates – under development at Clover Biopharmaceuticals, CureVac, Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc., Moderna Inc., Novavax Inc., and University of Oxford and AstraZeneca – have already entered clinical trials.

Alongside its partners Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO), CEPI is co-leading COVAX, an initiative that is working as an end-to-end solution to address the need to ensure global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. COVAX represents one of the four pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator.

https://cepi.net/news_cepi/austria-donates-e2-million-to-cepi-to-support-covid-1...
------------------------------------------------------

* About CEPI

CEPI is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organisations, launched at Davos in 2017, to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. CEPI has moved with great urgency and in coordination with WHO in response to the emergence of COVID-19. CEPI has initiated 9 partnerships to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus. The programmes will leverage rapid response platforms already supported by CEPI as well as new partnerships.

Before the emergence of COVID-19 CEPI’s priority diseases included Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, Nipah virus, Rift Valley Fever virus and Chikungunya virus. CEPI also invested in platform technologies that can be used for rapid vaccine and immunoprophylactic development against unknown pathogens (Disease X).

Unemployment and wage loss (March - May) by age, gender, ethnicity, and economic status:

Federica Cocco (Financial Times) @federicacocco | 6:52 AM · Jul 7, 2020:
I never tweet the data research I do for @martinwolf_ & others but these charts are too incredible to ignore.
Here's what's happened to the most vulnerable groups in the US in just three mere months:

Image ( https://twitter.com/federicacocco/status/1280454643915665412/photo/1 )
Image ( https://twitter.com/federicacocco/status/1280454643915665412/photo/2 )

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Surprising that Asians and Hispanics are more affected than even Blacks.
- Maadhav Anand Kumar @Maadhavak · 2h

I’m sort of fascinated by the Asian men stats here. I think previously they were the one group to earn more (by median wage) than white men. Is it to do with which sectors have been impacted and concentration of jobs?
- Matt @themattmyth · 3h

Yes it is definitely to do with sectors (for example Hispanic women have suffered enormous losses because they tend to work in the hospitality sector) but I can't say with great detailed what happened to Asian men specifically. Worth investigating though.
- Federica Cocco @federicacocco · 2h

Bridal masks?

>31 2wonderY: Hah! A family member is planning a wedding in ~six months. Oh, the drama!

I am still predicting a long-term uptick in the wearing of hoop skirts

>33 kiparsky: Good prediction! :D

photo ( https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1281158674854141953 )

Need Help Social Distancing? Try These Giant Summer Dresses
Busy women are turning to voluminous, full-skirted styles that safeguard their personal space
Katherine K Zarella | July 8, 2020
https://www.wsj.com/articles/need-help-social-distancing-try-these-giant-summer-...

Hunger could kill millions more than Covid-19, warns Oxfam (Guardian)

Millions of people are being pushed towards hunger by the coronavirus pandemic, which could end up killing more people through lack of food than from the illness itself, Oxfam has warned.

Closed borders, curfews and travel restrictions have disrupted food supplies and incomes in already fragile countries, forcing an extra million people closer to famine in Afghanistan and heightening the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, where two-thirds already live in hunger...

French bus driver dies following attack by passengers who refused to wear masks (Guardian)

A French bus driver declared brain dead after an attack by passengers who refused to wear face masks has died, according to his family... Monguillot was attacked in the south-western town of Bayonne on Sunday after he asked three passengers to wear masks – in line with coronavirus rules across France – and tried to check another man’s ticket...

Coronavirus media coverage must avoid the mistakes of the Aids pandemic in Africa (The Conversation)

As COVID-19 becomes the most intensely covered virus in history, there are important lessons to be drawn from the media’s reporting of another global pandemic: HIV/Aids.

Whose lives the world deems worthy of saving depends, at least partly, on the stories that journalists tell...

At the height of that pandemic, journalists helped to expose how intellectual property laws and the business models of big pharmaceutical companies disregarded the health needs of those living in poorer countries. Such reporting played an important role in creating the political momentum for the mass roll-out of life-saving treatment across the global south.

But Aids also provides a darker lesson about the capacity of the media to normalise millions of deaths taking place around us.

Until the late 1990s, millions of people dying of Aids-related causes across sub-Saharan Africa were a non-issue for the British media, much like the initial wave of coronavirus deaths in China barely registered on the international media radar...

As late as 2001, The Economist concluded that: “The world is not going to rescue Africa from Aids. Only Africans can do that, by changing their behaviour.” The spectacular concentration of the pandemic in Africa, Economist readers were told, was driven by Africans’ presumed hyper-sexuality, cultural “myths” and the incompetence of the continent’s leaders. Poverty was also to blame, since, as the magazine wrote in 1998, “those who cannot afford television find other ways of passing the evening.”

Rooted in thinly-veiled racist assumptions, these assertions steered attention away from the ways that the rules of the global economic order undermined the public health capacities of developing countries...

A lovely quote from an article entitled Tourism Will Reboot When Industry Faces COVID-19 Reality in eTurboNews:

there are precious few steps that we as consumers can implement in an attempt to maintain good health. The good news is that the steps are easy and inexpensive; the bad news is that, thanks to people living in Washington, DC and the White House who use their public relations skill set to move COVID-19 from a health and wellness issue to becoming a political debate, the steps toward mitigation have become a metaphysical comment. The disastrous outcome of politicizing a health issue is divisive and the decision to wear (or not wear) a face mask while keeping a minimum of 6-feet apart, is based on politics and not on the advice of doctors and scientists...

Covid-19, ‘Sinophobia’ and African Citizens’ Voice in China-Africa Relations (African Leadership Centre)

In Summary

- COVID-19 with or without pre-existing tensions, exposes the tenuous underbelly of China-Africa relations; the acrimony at the level of citizen-to-citizen relations, versus the cosy government-to-government interactions.
- Chinese national are perceived rightly or wrongly, to be part of the grand theft and exploitation of natural resources and business opportunities belonging to Africans.
- It is not impossible that Chinese monopoly of development projects such as infrastructures and technology, in Africa imbues some Chinese nationals, quite wrongly, with a sense of a ‘Civilization Mission’ in Africa.
- The ‘Sinophobia’ in some parts of Africa signpost underlying discontent of African nationals towards their national government and their perceived Chinese collaborators...

#38--Trump's refusal to wear a mask of any sort and his attempts to put the economy over health and safety--his continual playing down on the seriousness of the pandemic has fed a lot of the denial and resistance towards taking precautions by thousands and thousands of people particularly in certain regions of the United States. He's been an encouragement to those loyal to him politically who have played their own part in this encouraging others to dismiss the pandemic. We don't have a responsible national policy and are not likely to have one until late January when inauguration day comes around assuming that Biden will be sworn in. So as a nation the United States is really to blame for a lot of what's going on here but all over the world. There will be food shortages--there will be other right wing led governments trying to copy us--there will be shortages of needed medical supplies etc. etc......but also there are going hotspots that skyrocket here in the United States for the next 6 months and a lot more people dying and still a lot of denial and blame shifting all because we have a leader who is incompetent and only cares about his own self interests.

Don't know what else to say other than that we're fucked up and a real part of the problem.

Why meat processing plants have become Covid-19 hotbeds
Anna Stewart, Ivana Kottasová and Aleesha Khaliq | Updated June 27, 2020

...Cold and wet environment

A number of scientists have suggested that the cold, humid environment inside the plants could help the virus spread. "These animal cadavers have to be sprayed with water all the time, so you have aerosols, and it's cold ... it is something that definitely deserves very thorough investigation," (Dr. Thomas Kamradt, an immunologist and professor at the University Hospital at Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, Germany) said.

Without fresh air and direct sunlight, the novel coronavirus can linger for hours, or even days...the virus can survive for up to three days on plastic and stainless steel surfaces, materials that are common in food processing plants. In aerosol form, it can remain viable and infectious for hours.

Rowland Kao, a professor of veterinary epidemiology and data science at the University of Edinburgh, also pointed out that experiments have show that low temperatures result in higher rates of transmission of influenza and improve the survival of other coronaviruses such as MERS. "While this is not proven for Covid-19, similar mechanisms may apply"...

Essential workers packed in close quarters

...the epidemics inside food processing plants are likely caused by a combination of factors "that can make them lethal...People have to stand close to each other and shout to make themselves heard ... you have people working long shifts close to each other, all those things magnify the risk of infection" (said James Wood, a professor at Cambridge Infectious Diseases, a research center at the University of Cambridge)...

Shouting, singing and speaking loudly is thought to release more virus-laden droplets into the air. Crucially, people can spread the virus unknowingly, without feeling sick.

...unlike car assembly lines and plane factories, (food processing industry) remained opened for business, even when social distancing wasn't possible. They play an essential role in the food supply and shutting many of them at the same time would lead to food shortages and force farmers to euthanize their animals. In the US, President Donald Trump even issued an executive order forcing meat plants to open.

Vulnerable communities

...Jobs in the food processing plants are notoriously hard and among the lowest paid...

"They're not very popular places to work, so often you end up with migrants or foreign workers living in large communities around the plants and so you've got transmission potential that goes on outside the plant as well as in the plant itself," Wood said.

A large proportion of workers in the industry are often foreign-born and come from a number of countries. More than two-thirds of the 75,000 workers employed in meat processing in the UK are migrant workers from elsewhere in Europe, according to the British Meat Processing Association. In the US, immigrants make nearly 30% of all meat-packing plants workers. In Germany, it's around a third.

Paddy McNaught, the regional officer for the labor union Unite in Wales, said workers in the industry often don't receive sick pay, another factor that could lead to outbreaks...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/27/health/meat-processing-plants-coronavirus-intl/in...

More evidence emerges that a TB vaccine might help fight coronavirus
Lauren Mascarenhas | July 10, 2020
Germany testing tuberculosis drug as coronavirus treatment

...us(ing) existing data to explore whether countries without a national BCG vaccination program have greater coronavirus mortality rates...account(ing) for factors such as population density, access to health care and response to Covid-19...found a strong correlation between BCG vaccination use and lowered Covid-19 mortality rates in socially similar European countries. Every 10% increase in the BCG index, which indicates the degree of universal BCG vaccination, was associated with a 10.4% reduction in Covid-19 mortality...

...The finding is "remarkable, but not sufficient to establish causality," the team wrote. It's not enough to show for sure the BCG vaccine somehow protected people against coronavirus.

More than 100 years old, the BCG vaccine is used in many countries, not including the United States, and has been associated with reduced overall mortality rates in infants and children. There is strong evidence to suggest that the vaccine provides nonspecific immunity -- protection beyond tuberculosis. The vaccine's effects on adults have been inconsistent.

Other researchers have suggested that vaccines for polio and measles, mumps and rubella, may provide similar protections against lethal infections, including coronavirus.

The researchers caution that clinical trials are needed to prove the vaccine's impact on severe Covid-19...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/health/tb-bcg-vaccine-coronavirus-study/index.htm...

----------------------------------------------------------------

Luis E. Escobar et al. 2020. BCG vaccine protection from severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). PNAS first published July 9, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2008410117 https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/07/2008410117

Significance
The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most devastating in recent history. The bacillus Calmette−Guérin (BCG) vaccine against tuberculosis also confers broad protection against other infectious diseases, and it has been proposed that it could reduce the severity of COVID-19. This epidemiological study assessed the global linkage between BCG vaccination and COVID-19 mortality. Signals of BCG vaccination effect on COVID-19 mortality are influenced by social, economic, and demographic differences between countries. After mitigating multiple confounding factors, several significant associations between BCG vaccination and reduced COVID-19 deaths were observed. This study highlights the need for mechanistic studies behind the effect of BCG vaccination on COVID-19, and for clinical evaluation of the effectiveness of BCG vaccination to protect from severe COVID-19.

Abstract
A series of epidemiological explorations has suggested a negative association between national bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccination policy and the prevalence and mortality of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, these comparisons are difficult to validate due to broad differences between countries such as socioeconomic status, demographic structure, rural vs. urban settings, time of arrival of the pandemic, number of diagnostic tests and criteria for testing, and national control strategies to limit the spread of COVID-19. We review evidence for a potential biological basis of BCG cross-protection from severe COVID-19, and refine the epidemiological analysis to mitigate effects of potentially confounding factors (e.g., stage of the COVID-19 epidemic, development, rurality, population density, and age structure). A strong correlation between the BCG index, an estimation of the degree of universal BCG vaccination deployment in a country, and COVID-19 mortality in different socially similar European countries was observed (r2 = 0.88; P = 8 × 10−7), indicating that every 10% increase in the BCG index was associated with a 10.4% reduction in COVID-19 mortality. Results fail to confirm the null hypothesis of no association between BCG vaccination and COVID-19 mortality, and suggest that BCG could have a protective effect. Nevertheless, the analyses are restricted to coarse-scale signals and should be considered with caution. BCG vaccination clinical trials are required to corroborate the patterns detected here, and to establish causality between BCG vaccination and protection from severe COVID-19. Public health implications of a plausible BCG cross-protection from severe COVID-19 are discussed.

Global ‘catastrophe’ looms as Covid-19 fuels inequality (Guardian)

The pandemic has exposed and reinforced deep inequalities across the world, with the true extent yet to be seen, according to a major new report.

The crisis in the poorest countries threatens to escalate into a catastrophe as job losses and food insecurity mount. “The economic, social and political impacts are only starting to unfold,” says Building Back with Justice: Dismantling Inequalities after Covid-19, to be published by Christian Aid later this month.

The number of people facing acute hunger could double to a quarter of a billion in 2020 without urgent support... Routine healthcare, such as immunisation and maternity care, has been severely disrupted. “In many countries, the disruption to non-coronavirus-related healthcare could cause more deaths than the virus itself”... Precautions against Covid-19, such as regular hand washing, are more challenging in countries with poor sanitation. According to the report, three billion people – about 40% of the global population – do not have access to a basic hand-washing facility at home...

#43--to me the solutions for this are on the left side of the political spectrum. A socialist version of populism--a kind of liberation economic ideology. You create vibrant societies by bringing those on the bottom of the economic ladder up--not having those on top pissing down with their trickle down economic dog eat dog unregulated capitalism. Certain parts of a capitalist economic system can work but those parts need to be kept in check.

Most French, Germans and Spanish prefer British and American tourists to stay away, poll suggests (The Local)

A majority of French, Spanish and Germans would prefer it if British and American tourists stayed away this summer, according to a new poll... "People in France, Spain, Italy and Germany are all more likely to oppose British tourists coming for this summer than they are tourists from other European countries"... The reluctance to see British tourists descend on their country is likely to do with the virus rates in the UK. The country has Europe's highest death toll for Covid-19 and the second-highest rate if deaths after Belgium...

If British visitors are not exactly wanted in Europe right now there is even greater reticence among the part of Europeans to see tourists from the US and China return... "American tourists are the most opposed in all countries surveyed (except Sweden where they come second to Chinese tourists, and Finland where they come second to Swedes)...

Interesting that so many people are lumping the USA and China together while those two countries themselves are taking great pains to distance themselves!

#45--if I were them I wouldn't want us either. That said I don't think they have a whole lot to worry about as far as Americans travelling to Europe this year.

Gilead rationale for pricing remdesivir...

Press Releases
June 29, 2020
An Open Letter from Daniel O’Day, Chairman & CEO, Gilead Sciences

... In normal circumstances, we would price a medicine according to the value it provides. The first results from the NIAID study in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 showed that remdesivir shortened time to recovery by an average of four days. Taking the example of the United States, earlier hospital discharge would result in hospital savings of approximately $12,000 per patient. Even just considering these immediate savings to the healthcare system alone, we can see the potential value that remdesivir provides. This is before we factor in the direct benefit to those patients who may have a shorter stay in the hospital.

We have decided to price remdesivir well below this value. To ensure broad and equitable access at a time of urgent global need, we have set a price for governments of developed countries of $390 per vial. Based on current treatment patterns, the vast majority of patients are expected to receive a 5-day treatment course using 6 vials of remdesivir, which equates to $2,340 per patient.

Part of the intent behind our decision was to remove the need for country by country negotiations on price. We discounted the price to a level that is affordable for developed countries with the lowest purchasing power. This price will be offered to all governments in developed countries around the world where remdesivir is approved or authorized for use. At the current price of $390 per vial, remdesivir is positioned to achieve the aim of providing immediate net savings for healthcare systems.

In the U.S., the same government price of $390 per vial will apply. Because of the way the U.S. system is set up and the discounts that government healthcare programs expect, the price for U.S. private insurance companies, will be $520 per vial. At the level we have priced remdesivir and with government programs in place, along with additional Gilead assistance as needed, we believe all patients will have access.

Gilead has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) whereby HHS and states will continue to manage allocation to hospitals until the end of September. After this period, once supplies are less constrained, HHS will no longer manage allocation.

In the developing world, where healthcare resources, infrastructure and economics are so different, we have entered into agreements with generic manufacturers to deliver treatment at a substantially lower cost. These alternative solutions are designed to ensure that all countries in the world can provide access to treatment...

https://www.gilead.com/news-and-press/press-room/press-releases/2020/6/an-open-l...

It’s 2022. What Does Life Look Like?
David Leonhardt | July 10, 2020

The pandemic could shape the world, much as World War II and the Great Depression did.

1. Weak companies will die
Local newspapers
Traditional department stores
Malls
Higher education

...damaging side effects. When local newspapers close, corruption and political polarization tend to rise, while voter turnout tends to fall...Cuts to higher-education budgets could make it even harder for poor and middle-class students to graduate.

2. Habits will change

...for many white-collar workers, the remote-work experiment shows no sign of ending — a trend that could depress the commercial real-estate market and business travel long after a vaccine is available...less time spent on traffic-clogged roads, more flexibility for parents and people caring for elderly relatives.

...online meetings...airline...companies expect airline travel to be depressed for years

3. Politics will shape the economy

Past crises have transformed the economy, but almost always because of government policy.

If President Trump wins re-election this year...likely to continue giving businesses more flexibility to behave as they want.

...implications could be further consolidation in many industries, with big companies becoming even bigger. Early signs indicate they are surviving the lockdown better than smaller rivals, in part because they have more cash on hand, better access to loans and an easier time switching to online sales...Consolidation, in turn, tends to increase income and wealth inequality, in part because the largest companies are run by highly paid executives, typically based in major metro areas, and the companies’ stock is disproportionately owned by the affluent.

...If Democrats control both the White House and Congress, they will be poised to embark on a sweeping economic agenda...two defining features. The first is reducing inequality — through higher taxes on the rich, greater scrutiny of big companies, new efforts to reduce racial injustice and more investments and programs for the middle class and poor, including health care, education and paid leave. The second is acting on climate change, which could cause even more global misery than the coronavirus.

...the potential exists for the farthest-reaching period of legislative change since Ronald Reagan’s presidency...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-economy-two-years....

>45 John5918: Criticism welcome, but this purports to be a list of the places still accepting American travelers coming from the US.
https://imgur.com/gallery/nHPJt4R (link via here)
Pretty bleak.

ALL THE PLACES YOU CAN GO
1. Albania | 15. Lebanon
2. Antigua and Barbuda | 16. Maldives
3. Aruba | 17. Mexico
4. The Bahamas | 18. North Macedonia
5. Barbados | 19. St. Lucia
6. Belize | 20. St. Maarten
7. Bermuda | 21. St. Vincent &
8. Croatia | 22. Serbia
9. Dominican Republic | 23. Tanzania
10. Ecuador* | 24. Turkey
11. French Polynesia | 25. Turks &
12. Ireland* | 26. Ukraine
13. Jamaica | 27. UAE*
14. Kosovo | 28. UK*
29. South Korea*
*14 day quarantine required, not included in map. Korea is apparently accepting Americans with a quarantine, but that's not in the source article. I have (now) included it here.

Kenya’s teen pregnancy crisis: More than COVID-19 is to blame (The New Humanitarian)

‘When you talk about women’s empowerment... it’s going to be affected by what is happening right now’...

The articles all cited data from a recently released Kenya government health information survey, and most attributed the high pregnancy numbers to the COVID-19 lockdown. That seemed to make sense. Since the pandemic hit Kenya in mid-March, healthcare providers have been warning about its potential to increase rates of teenage pregnancies.

School closures have cut off girls from teachers who can sound the alarm in suspected cases of abuse at home, and students have been left idle and often unchaperoned by busy parents. Restrictions on movement have also made it harder for girls to access contraceptives and family planning services, and mandatory curfews have trapped girls in homes with predatory family members and neighbours.

But many of the articles published last month failed to put the numbers of teen pregnancies into context. In Kenya, high-risk early pregnancy has long been a societal challenge. Government demographic data from 2014, the latest available, show that 15 percent of girls aged 15-19 had already given birth, and another three percent were pregnant with their first child – the highest rates in East Africa.

Underpinning any COVID-19-related rise in teen pregnancies are other significant challenges, including insufficient funding for reproductive health services and a lack of comprehensive sex education in schools – which have contributed to Kenya’s alarming numbers...

I Can’t Keep Doing This:’ Small-Business Owners Are Giving Up
Emily Flitter | July 13, 2020

...It was harrowing enough for small businesses — the bars, dental care practices, small law firms, day care centers and other storefronts that dot the streets and corners of every American town and city — to have to shut down after state officials imposed lockdowns in March to contain the pandemic.

But the resurgence of the virus, especially in states such as Texas, Florida and California that had begun to reopen, has introduced a far darker reality for many small businesses: Their temporary closures might become permanent.

...Researchers at Harvard believe the rates of business closures are likely to be even higher. They estimated that nearly 110,000 small businesses across the country had decided to shut down permanently between early March and early May.

...Small businesses account for 44 percent of all U.S. economic activity, according to the S.B.A., and closures on such an immense scale could devastate the country’s economic growth...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/business/small-businesses-coronavirus.html

Pandemic-induced poaching surges in Uganda
Dina Fine Maron | July 9, 2020

Lions, giraffes and even a silverback gorilla are recent casualties of the collapse of ecotourism...

Night after night, men infiltrate the forests blanketing northwestern Uganda. They come by boat, paddling east across Lake Albert in canoes made from hollowed out trees, before creeping into the lush undergrowth of the country’s largest protected area, Murchison Falls National Park.

They quickly unload their cargo—cheap wire snares and deadly steel traps repurposed from old car parts. The latter, made locally in Uganda and across the border in Democratic Republic of the Congo, require little skill to use. They’re also powerful enough to snap the leg of an antelope, giraffe, or lion. Animals pinned to the ground may die from a combination of blood loss, dehydration, and starvation. The devices are indiscriminate—they snag any animal that stumbles into them.

Authorities believe that thousands of these illegal devices have been hidden within Murchison and Uganda’s nine other national parks since the coronavirus lockdown began in mid-March and flatlined the wildlife tourism industry. The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) recorded 367 poaching incidents in the parks between February and May of this year, more than double the number during the same period in 2019, says Charles Tumwesigye, the agency’s deputy director of field operations. And those numbers likely underestimate the problem, because dead animals and traps may be whisked away before authorities detect the activity...

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/07/covid19-behind-uganda-poachin...

Officer fatally shoots Michigan man after mask dispute leads to stabbing (Guardian)

A Michigan man was shot dead by a sheriff’s deputy on Tuesday after stabbing another man who challenged him about not wearing a mask at a convenience store, police said.

It was far from the first reported violent incident over the wearing – or not – of masks as a basic measure to guard against the spread of the coronavirus.

For some, perhaps encouraged by Donald Trump’s long reluctance to wear a mask in public, the decision about whether to do so has become a political statement...

Americans Tear Up Old Eating Habits, Forcing Farms to Raze Crops (Bloomberg)

Americans have rapidly changed the ways they buy, cook and eat food in just four months, leaving everyone from farmers to restaurants unable to match their pivot.

U.S. consumers, whose previous food preferences were stable enough that farmers could often make reliable planting decisions years in advance, have shifted their habits at a torrential pace during the coronavirus pandemic. That includes cooking more at home, buying more organic food, purchasing in bulk, forgoing brand-name treats and eating smaller meals due to fewer trips to restaurants with their often oversized portions.

Even one of those changes by itself could throw a wrench in the global food supply chain. Add all five together, and some suppliers are finding they can’t adapt fast enough to keep pace with all the changing consumer demands...

The ways Americans are changing their food habits are not only multiple and significant -- they’re also potentially permanent.

Almost a third of U.S. adults say they plan to cook at home even more than they do now, once stay-at-home recommendations have lifted...

Before the pandemic, Americans spent more than half their food budgets on dining out. Over the next 12 months, 70% of consumers plan to significantly decrease spending on restaurants...

Couldn't resist posting this, from the Telegraph!

Even in our post-Covid world, steam trains offer a perfect trip back in time

After a 123-day coronavirus-induced hibernation, steam trains have returned to the main line, with Crewe-based Saphos Trains being the first company to have a green signal to resume operations on the national network yesterday...

Crucially, the main reason to travel behind steam – the experience of being hauled by the closest thing man has created to a living and breathing object – remains as before, especially when we reached the S&C, which, with its challenging gradients and spectacular scenery, is easily the highlight of the trip...

One of the major appeals of travelling behind steam on the national network is the opportunity to leave the real world behind for a day and roll back the years to a period in which train travel was to be savoured and that remains even more so during the current climate, as you don’t have to worry (as much) about the outside world in the steam bubble.

Women’s participation in labour force reaches lowest level in three decades: RBC
Tara Deschamps | July 16, 2020

TORONTO - The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed women’s participation in the labour force down to its lowest level in three decades and rebounding won’t be easy, says a new study from the Royal Bank of Canada.

The report Thursday shows 1.5 million Canadian women lost their jobs in the first two months of the pandemic and says women accounted for about 45 per cent of the decline in hours worked over the downturn, but will only make up 35 per cent of the recovery.

...women are being hardest hit because they tend to work in industries — hospitality and food services, retail trade, educational services, health care and social assistance — most affected by closures, earnings losses and layoffs.

...Women are also impacted because they shoulder more childcare responsibilities than their male counterparts and may have to refuse work or seek a reduction in hours if students don’t go back to school in the fall or go back part-time...

Employment among women with toddlers or school-aged children fell seven per cent between February and May, compared with a four per cent decrease for fathers of children the same age.

Single mothers with a toddler or school-aged child saw their employment drop 12 per cent between February and June, compared with a seven per cent decrease for single fathers.

It’s a stark contrast to prior recessions, when men were significantly more likely than women to be laid off...

https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ts/business/2020/07/16/womens-participation-...

https://www.theblaze.com/mark-levin/fauci-trump

Mark Levin believes that Fauci is now a zip-between-the-ears cult
leader. Levin's once high IQ has not served him very well during
the Trump era. It has been spiraling downward at a very fast
clip. Trump's kool-aid kegs have been working very well.

UN chief slams 'myths, delusions and falsehoods' around inequality (Guardian)

The UN secretary general will today deliver one of his most stinging speeches to date, attacking the “myths, delusions and falsehoods” around international progress on equality.

In an unusually strongly worded speech, António Guterres urged major reform to the UN security council, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to address systemic inequalities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The health crisis had revealed the world’s fragility and “laid bare risks we have ignored for decades: inadequate health systems; gaps in social protection; structural inequalities; environmental degradation; the climate crisis”, he said.

He said the pandemic was exposing “fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all. The fiction that unpaid care work is not work, the delusion that we live in a post-racist world, the myth that we are all in the same boat.”

The anger of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements were a measure of “utter disillusionment with the status quo”, Guterres said, while colonialism and patriarchy were historical sources of inequality.

“Let’s not fool ourselves. The legacy of colonialism still reverberates. We see this in economic and social injustice, the rise of hate crimes and xenophobia; the persistence of institutionalised racism and white supremacy.

“We see this in the global trade system. Economies that were colonised are at greater risk of getting locked into the production of raw materials and low-tech goods – a new form of colonialism. And we see this in global power relations”...

You know your country is in BIG trouble when the rants of
wingnut radio and TV show hosts are given more sway in the
minds of people than the knowledge of a world-renowned
pandemic specialist. Resentment and hate have dissolved
the self-preservation instincts of millions of Americans.

Baseball, Hockey, and the US/Canadian border:

Canada denies Toronto Blue Jays' request to play home games due to pandemic
Amir Vera, Laura Ly and Homero De La Fuente | Sat July 18, 2020

...The Blue Jays were initially given exemption for summer workouts in Toronto, as long as they agreed to have all players remain in a "modified cohort quarantine" at the Rogers Centre and an adjoining hotel. The Major League Baseball season is set to begin July 23.

The Canadian government determined that "the cross-border travel required for MLB regular season play would not adequately protect Canadians' health and safety," according to a statement from Marco E. L. Mendicino, the country's immigration minister. The Blue Jays would also be required to play in locations where the risk of Covid-19 transmission remains high, Mendicino said.

"Canada has been able to flatten the curve in large part because of the sacrifices Canadians have made," Mendicino said. "We understand professional sports are important to the economy and to Canadians. At the same time, our government will continue to take decisions at the border on the basis of the advice of our health experts in order to protect the health and safety of all Canadians."

Under Canada's Quarantine Act, any person entering Canada from the United States is subject to a strict 14-day quarantine. Gatherings of more than 10 people are also prohibited in the city of Toronto.

While the Blue Jays' first choice to play home games in Toronto is now a bust, thee team is considering using its Triple-A home in Buffalo, New York, or its Spring Training base in Dunedin, Florida.

A team spokesperson told CNN the team prefers the Buffalo location due to surging coronavirus cases in Florida...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/18/us/canada-mlb-blue-jays-denied-spt-trnd/index.htm...

_______________________________________________________________

Edmonton, Toronto chosen as hub cities for NHL Return to Play Plan
Qualifiers, Stanley Cup Playoffs to take place at Rogers Place, Scotiabank Arena
Tom Gulitti | July 10, 2020

The NHL will resume play with five games in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers on Aug. 1 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto and Rogers Place in Edmonton.

The NHL announced the schedule Friday along with plans for Toronto and Edmonton to serve as the hub cities for the 24-team Cup Qualifiers and the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The 12 Eastern Conference teams will be based in Toronto, the 12 Western Conference teams will be based in Edmonton.

Edmonton will also host the Eastern Conference Final, Western Conference Final and Stanley Cup Final, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Sept. 22 and will end no later than Oct. 4...

https://www.nhl.com/news/edmonton-toronto-chosen-as-hub-cities-for-return-to-pla...

_______________________________________________________________

SIMMONS: 'NHL sold us out,' Canadian broadcast worker says. 'Government sold us out'
Steve Simmons | July 13, 2020

NBC will fly upwards of 50 broadcast people to Toronto — producers, directors, camera people, technicians and more — to serve as the world feed for all National Hockey League games played in this hub city, while many Canadian broadcast freelancers, out of work since March, are not at all happy about the snub.

“It’s a travesty,” said one longtime Canadian broadcast worker, who asked not to be identified for obvious reasons. “The NHL sold us out. Our own government sold us out. All we want to do is work and this is our job.

“I could understand (NBC) bringing people in if we couldn’t do the job, but it’s proven we can.”

Canadian hockey broadcasters have long been considered the best in the world. Virtually every Winter Olympics world feed in recent memory has been produced and directed by a Canadian. The majority, it not all, of the world feed staff at every Olympic hockey tournament of the past 25 years has been Canadian...

https://torontosun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/simmons-nhl-sold-us-out-canadian-broadc...

Covid-19 ecotourism collapse could spell disaster in the Masai Mara (Independent)

Any day now an estimated 500,000 wildebeest will arrive in the dusty flats of Western Kenya’s Masai Mara as part of their annual migration.

This awesome spectacle — just part of over one million animals that move north from Tanzania every July — would usually be watched by thousands of tourists. This year there are none.

Jackson Looseyia, a Masai conservationist and lodge owner in the Mara, told The Independent: “From a nature-loving point of view, it has been beautiful - no vehicle tracks, rest for the animals.

“However, in conservation terms it is a crisis. We have no money coming in whatsoever, and the future is so bleak.

“We are terribly worried about poachers, they have already laid thousands of snares to trap wildlife. I’ve had to set wildebeest free with my bare hands”...

All very true, except that I have my doubts whether the headline "ecotourism" really describes the average tourist to the Mara. From what I can see, it is highly commercialised mass-tourism, managed perhaps to try to reduce the environmental damage a bit, and certainly with some of the profits going towards conservation, but it is not what I would call green tourism. If you want to see a lion, look for a flock of minibuses - you'll find a lion somewhere in the middle.

>60 margd: US/Cdn border, contd.

Leaky border: Tourists and quarantine cheats threaten Canada amid U.S. COVID-19 surge
Julie Gordon, Tessa Vikander | July 20, 2020

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-canada-border-idUSKCN24L2F...

#60--the Canadian broadcaster worker makes a very good point but one of the main reasons why the NHL is doing this at all is their fear they are going to lose their United States broadcasting contract which I'm pretty sure is right around the corner. Losing the end of this year and possibly all of the next year might doom any American television contract for a long while and for all the billionaire owners who share the revenues from that and who have lost a lot of ticket, concession and merchandising revenue already that's something they fear a lot. In the meantime they've also used this to renegotiate the CBA or owners/NHLPA's player agreement several years into the future.

I am a hockey fan--it's the only sport I really follow. I knew they were going to push heaven and earth to do this and can only hope it goes off without blowing up. Sounded for a long time like one of the hub cities was going to Vegas. I did not like that idea. The idea of doing it in Canada or even Europe makes a lot more sense to me than the United States which is a tire fire as far as I'm concerned with any number of stupid and uncontrollable assholes running about.

Hamilton parody in praise of Dr. Fauci:

𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐃 @aalkermd 9:04 AM · Jul 21, 2020
Just wanted to make sure you saw this. #Hamilton #Fauci

1:02 ( https://twitter.com/aalkermd/status/1285561215117340673 )

Global report: Red Cross warns of big post-Covid-19 migration as WHO hits back at US (Guardian)

The coronavirus crisis could spark huge waves of fresh migration once borders reopen, the head of the Red Cross has warned. It comes as the WHO’s chief accused the US of making “untrue” and “unacceptable” claims against the global health body.

The head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Jagan Chapagain, said he was deeply concerned about the secondary effects of the pandemic, as border closures and Covid-19 restrictions have driven millions into poverty.

“Increasingly we are seeing in many countries the impacts on the livelihoods and the food situation,” he said in an interview with Agence France-Presse.

Many people are already faced with the choice of risking exposure to the novel coronavirus or going hungry, Chapagain said, warning that the desperation being generated could have far-reaching consequences.

“What we hear is that many people who are losing livelihoods, once the borders start opening, will feel compelled to move,” he said. “We should not be surprised if there is a massive impact on migration in the coming months and years.”

Chapagain called for immediate support to relieve people’s desperation and warned that increased migration would result in numerous “tragedies along the way”, including deaths at sea, human trafficking and exploitation.

“The cost of supporting the migrants, during the transit and of course when they reach the country of destination, is much more than supporting people in their livelihoods, education, health needs in their own country,” he said.

Chapagain also condemned efforts in some countries to secure vaccines for their own people first: “The virus crosses the border, so it is pretty short-sighted to think that I vaccinate my people but leave everybody else without vaccination, and we will still be safe,” he said.

The warnings came as the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, strongly criticised the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, after British media reported that US’s top diplomat had made a comment about the health agency chief having been bought by China.

“The comments are untrue and unacceptable, and without any foundation for that matter,” Tedros said. “If there is one thing that really matters to us and which should matter to the entire international community, it’s saving lives. And WHO will not be distracted by these comments”...

Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) in the Greater Horn of Africa during COVID-19 (Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa)

Unfortunately, there is an attitude that VAWG is unimportant in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. This briefing paper endeavours to highlight just how untrue and unjust that attitude is.

The disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 on women and girls in the Greater Horn of Africa stems from structural and systemic inequalities that existed before the pandemic...

Scott Bonner (Library director) @ScottyBonner | 11:48 AM · Jul 22, 2020:
Just now at our front desk:

Patron: I need to ask about a notary.
Librarian: Sure. What do you need help with?
P: Well, I'm a teacher and I'm going back to work....
L: So you need a will?
P: Yes.

Canada Got Better. The United States Got Trump.
David Frum | 7/24/2020

Two North American nations seemed to be on the same path—and then they diverged...

...When you arrive in Canada, you instantly understand the basic cause of the disparity.

It’s not the health-care system, exactly—although that has coped better, too. A close friend in Los Angeles combatting cancer this week began to experience COVID-19-like symptoms. Her cancer treatment had to pause while she awaited first a test (a two-day delay) then the results (God knows how long). Meanwhile, my two Canadian nephews took the precaution of a COVID-19 test before coming to visit us in the country. They got the test on a walk-in basis. The results arrived a few hours later: all clear.

Outside the hospitals and clinics, people in every walk of life are taking the disease seriously. They wear masks. They stand outside of stores. They don’t complain all the time about trivial inconveniences.

The politicians have behaved better, too. Canada has politics, same as everywhere else. I see those political divisions close up; my sister serves in the Canadian Parliament as a Conservative senator. The Liberal Trudeau government depicts its Conservative opponents as Trumpy bigots and barbarians. The Conservatives retort by highlighting the ethics troubles of the Trudeau government. The latest such trouble: Justin Trudeau apologized for not recusing himself before his government directed a C$900 million contract to a well-connected charity that had paid more than C$300,000 in speaking fees to the prime minister’s mother and brother.

But nobody has thought to make a political issue out of the science of fighting pandemics. Back in April, the Conservative premier of Ontario denounced people protesting social-distancing rules as “irresponsible, reckless, and selfish.” The Conservative premier of Alberta has distributed 40 million free masks in his 4.4-million-person province. Left, right, and center, Canadians wear coats when it gets cold. Left, right, and center, they wear masks during a pandemic spread by airborne droplets. It’s just not something to argue over.

Canada has made some serious policy mistakes, especially in the earliest days of the pandemic. The Trudeau government was notably reluctant to impose restrictions on travel to and from China, lest it appear “discriminatory.” The country did not restrict travel until mid-March, six weeks after the United States.

This mistake proved deadly to Canadians, but not primarily because of infection from China. This mistake proved deadly to Canadians because it exposed them to infection from the United States.

Canada has suffered 8,874 COVID-19 deaths as of July 24. A large majority of those deaths occurred in Quebec, Canada’s second-largest province. Quebec reported more than twice as many deaths as Ontario, despite a significantly smaller population. Why the difference?

The Quebec school break for 2020 began on February 29. That day, many Quebec families headed out on vacations—in particular, to New York and Florida. On March 1, Florida reported its first coronavirus cases. Mindful of the economic value of spring-break tourism, however, the state refused to take action. Not until March 17 did Governor Ron DeSantis order the closing of bars and restaurants. New York State didn’t declare an emergency until March 7; New York City, not until March 12—and restrictions on bars and restaurants didn’t go into effect until well after that. By then, vacationing Quebecers had long since returned home, perhaps carrying the infection with them.

Ontario, by good luck, had set its spring break to start on March 16—the same day that Canada belatedly began implementing travel restrictions. Ontario escaped more lightly.

But even unlucky Quebec has gotten its act together since March. On July 22, Quebec reported zero deaths from COVID-19. That same day, the state of Arizona, home to 1 million fewer people than the province of Quebec, reported 89 deaths.

Canada is not a star of the COVID-19 class. Per capita, it has suffered three times as many deaths from the disease as Australia and Germany. What the Canadian example does show, however, is what the United States could have looked like if the U.S. effort had not been led by malicious, self-seeking incompetents. Some Americans would still be getting sick; some would be dying. The disease would remain very much a problem to reckon with. But the worst would be over. Reopening schools would be feasible. Transit systems would not threaten the lives of their users. Economic recovery would have begun.

Instead, the Trump administration and Trump-swayed governors have turned a crisis into a catastrophe—a catastrophe that continues to get uniquely worse in the United States even as it ebbs almost everywhere else in the developed world. In retrospect, the most humiliating fact about the coronavirus pandemic was that under responsible leadership and with some moderate amount of social cohesion, it was a highly manageable threat. Within less than six months of the first cases, it became apparent what to do. Almost everybody else in the developed world then did it. Almost everybody else in the developed world is now collecting the benefits of having done it. Donald Trump, following the imperatives of his own ego, refused to do it. He then imposed that refusal on the federal government, and encouraged it in Republican-led states, as Fox News hosts and Facebook posters applauded...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/i-moved-canada-during-pandemic...

Covid-19 and collective remembering in Rwanda: ‘e-Mourning’, ‘e-Commemoration’ and the limits of Technology (African Leadership Centre)

- The COVID-19 crisis has affected Rwanda’s annual genocide commemoration events with a shift from physical to technology-driven commemoration, amongst other changes to the usual schema.
- While the individual mourner experienced emotional loss, the Rwandan government lacked space to pass on political messages, such as those on the role of the international community in Rwanda’s post-genocide reconstruction.
- Changes have significant implications for the psychosocial health and the socio-cultural and spiritual wellbeing of Rwandans, which saw toll-free mental health hotlines being made available.
- The ‘digitization’ of remembrance activities, or ‘E-Commemoration’, exposed the technology gaps between rural and urban areas, implying an accompanying emotional gap among mourners that raises questions about what would constitute inclusive commemoration for such a society when technology becomes essential...

>68 margd:

Niagara Falls tour boats highlight US and Canada's stark Covid-19 divide (Guardian)

New York state boats have ferried many more tourists than their counterparts in Ontario, where distancing has been stricter...

>70 John5918: In the beautiful St Lawrence R Thousand Islands area, it is especially depressing to see tour boats stay to their respective sides of their border EVEN IN CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN NEITHER CREW NOR PASSENGERS WOULD DISEMBARK! Picturesque islands, many quite tiny, straddle the border.

SOLIRAIL: The Trans-Gabon Railway's Solidarity-Based Campaign (Railways Africa)

A most novel idea and an unprecedented solidarity-based act: using the train usually meant for travellers, filling it to the top with rice bags, oil bottles or canned food, and protection equipment and stopping at all stations of the Trans-Gabon railway between Owendo and Franceville, in order to distribute food kits and protection kits to around 1,500 families. Setrag had suspended its passenger trains as soon as the crisis began, but it has maintained its freight activity in order to dispatch foodstuff, pharmaceutical products and raw materials in every corner of the country...

The Fed Is Going To Buy Stocks
Kevin Coldiron | Jul 18, 2020

...What would happen if the Fed explicitly ruled out buying stocks?

It seems fair to suppose that this would cause an immediate market sell-off. But, that might well be temporary. Longer-term, though, there would be important consequences. The Fed is already buying both investment-grade and junk-rated corporate bonds. Drawing a line in the sand with equities would only encourage a further shift toward debt financing. Why use equity when debt is cheaper and, with Fed support, easier to roll-over and thus competitive with equity in terms of duration as well? Unfortunately, more corporate leverage would boost equity market volatility, increasing the probability of large fall in equity prices and deep recession.

It’s not hard to see the trap. Given Fed actions to date, ruling out future equity purchases would accelerate a structural dynamic that risks more frequent and deeper recessions, the exact outcomes the Fed is mandated to avoid.

There’s more. The ongoing shift of retirement assets to saver-controlled DC plans makes such a line in the sand even harder to hold politically. Wait, you helped bail out banks in 2008, you bought junk bonds in 2020, but now you won’t step in to support the 401K’s of individual savers? Less than a decade ago Texas Governor Rick Perry infamously suggested Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke would be in for some “ugly” treatment if he kept “printing money”. I suspect the tables have now turned so dramatically that future Fed chairs will be in for rough treatment if they do not print money...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevincoldiron/2020/07/18/the-fed-is-going-to-buy-st...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/25/covid-cases-top-4-million-trum...

As America tops 4 million COVID cases, the cult of Donald Trump has become a death cult
by Tom Nichols ~ Conservative/U.S. Naval War College professor

People who refuse to wear a mask are bolstering their sore egos.
Their national motto is not 'E Pluribus Unum,' it's 'You're not the
boss of me.'

The Pandemic Really Has Changed The World Forever (Forbes)

What should we do when faced with a virus that incompatible with our economic model? Given that the virus won’t change its habits, and that any vaccine we are able to come up with won’t be a magic bullet, the only alternative is to change our economic model. Change our way of life. Start thinking that many of the things we did before March of this year are gone for the foreseeable. Nightclubs, bars? We won’t be going out late for some time. Important sectors of the economy? Sure, but not worth sacrificing lives for. We’re talking about scales of values, not convenience or profit and loss accounts.

What is the point of taking a test if, in the four days it takes to get the results, you’ve gone shopping, to a party, a family reunion and had a few drinks with friends? Either we continue to evolve our methodologies to obtain cheap, immediate and simple diagnostic tests we can take on a regular basis, or we continue chasing shadows...

But beyond diagnostic testing or coming up with a vaccine, there are more radical issues, changes dismissed by many as impossible. A new ecosystem implies a redesign, often radical, of many of our activities. Cities, restaurants, public spaces, travel, prisons, supply chains, health care, trade, education, work, communication… an enormous change that, obviously, the vast majority of the population has yet to imagine.

Most of us thought that once lockdown ended, we’d return to normal, albeit wearing masks, which for many people are an inconvenient, but temporary measure they can’t be bothered to wear properly. We’re seeing the results of this obduracy now.

There will be no return to normality. The pandemic requires us to redesign the economy, rethink our obsession with growth, find ways to protect the most vulnerable, use apps we can trust to trace our contacts, share research and learning, and redesign everything to put people, not profits first.

The only alternative we have — and I’m talking about the only alternative, not some kind of dilemma, is to redesign our lives based on a new reality that will be with us for many years...

>60 margd: Baseball players will want to live to play another day?

Marlins cancel 2020 home opener
Ely Sussman@RealEly | Jul 27, 2020

...The Marlins are unable to return home Monday to play the Orioles in Miami as an increasing number of players and staff members test positive for COVID-19. The game has been canceled, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.

The MLB season is “in jeopardy” of being suspended, Craig Mish tweets ( https://twitter.com/CraigMish )...

The Marlins pushed back their scheduled flight to Miami while awaiting further test results in order to fully understand the extent of the outbreak and quarantine all infected individuals. However, with 10 more people testing positive—in addition to Alfaro, Cooper, Ramirez and Ureña—Major League Baseball is unable to downplay the issue.

...So far, all known cases on the club are asymptomatic...

https://www.fishstripes.com/2020/7/27/21340025/mlb-news-covid-19-marlins-cancel-...

Delta Turns Flight Around After Multiple Passengers Refuse to Wear Masks
Rich Thomaselli July 26, 2020

...According to reports, two passengers refused to wear face masks during the flight – a mandate for virtually every airline – and the plane returned to Detroit Metro Airport in suburban Romulus.

A Delta spokesperson told the MLive.com media outlet that the flight was delayed because the passengers “were non-compliant with crew instructions.” The flight did take off again and land in Atlanta after being delayed by the return to Detroit.

...This week, the airline announced it will now require a virtual medical evaluation from passengers if they have a health condition that prevents them from wearing a face mask.

And if it isn’t possible, the carrier is asking passengers to reconsider traveling at all.

"We encourage customers who are prevented from wearing a mask due to a health condition to reconsider travel," Delta said in a statement. "If they decide to travel, they will be welcome to fly upon completing a virtual consultation prior to departure at the airport to ensure everyone's safety, because nothing is more important."

https://www.travelpulse.com/news/airlines/delta-turns-flight-around-after-multip...

> 76 14 baseball players test positive for COVID, contd.

This is terrible for the players and baseball in general. But even more important,
what does this outbreak say about reopening schools for in person classes?

- David John @dcjretiresecure | 12:56 PM · Jul 27, 2020

UN calls on youth activists to advise on climate crisis and Covid-19 recovery (Guardan)

Seven young people, aged between 18 and 28, will take on roles to “provide perspectives, ideas and solutions” to the secretary general, António Guterres, aimed at helping to scale up global climate action in the recovery from the coronavirus crisis and ahead of a crunch summit next year on the climate.

Guterres said: “We need urgent action now, to recover better from Covid-19, to confront injustice and inequality, and address climate disruption. We have seen young people on the front lines of climate action, showing us what bold leadership looks like.”

The new advisory group includes: a young woman from Sudan, Nisreen Elsaim, who is already a junior negotiator at intergovernmental climate forums; an economist, Vladislav Kaim from Moldova; Paloma Costa, a lawyer and human rights defender from Brazil; and from India, Archana Soreng, who works on the traditional knowledge and cultural practices of indigenous people...

GOP Corona bill:

Bill Kristol @BillKristol | 7:30 PM · Jul 27, 2020
The GOP coronavirus bill has
$1.75b for a new FBI building in its present location so as to block a potential competitor to the Trump Hotel, and
100% deduction for business meals (which would benefit Trump's hotels).
But not a cent for safe and secure elections this November.

Bill Kristol @BillKristol | 7:52 PM · Jul 27, 2020
It looks as if 100% business meal deductibility would cost the federal government about $4b.
Which is exactly the price for helping states and localities ensure safe and secure elections in November,
something the GOP bill omits.
Democratic slogan: Safe voting not fancy eating.

Bill Kristol @BillKristol | 6:23 PM · Jul 27, 2020:
The Republican Party.
$1000 “business” dinner at Trump golf club? Fully deductible!
$1000 in unemployment benefits per month? Too generous!

____________________________________________

Oh yeah, and protection from liability for employers and schools for workers whose benefits are being slashed...
Meat packers can tell us how that goes.

See map "Renter households unable to pay rent and liable to eviction as a share of renter households."
Range is 22% (VT) to 59% (WV)!

How the eviction crisis across the U.S. will look
Annie Nova | Jul 27 2020

...Massive unemployment has left more than 40% of renter households at risk of eviction, according to a new analysis* by global advisory firm Stout Risius Ross.

Some states will be harder hit than others, Stout found.

For example, nearly 60% of renters in West Virginia are at risk of eviction, compared to 22% in Vermont.

People of color are especially vulnerable. While almost half of White tenants say they’re highly confident they can continue to pay their rent, just 26% of African-American tenants could say the same...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/27/how-the-eviction-crisis-will-impact-each-state.h...

* https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNzRhYjg2NzAtMGE1MC00NmNjLTllOTMtYjM2NjFmO...

Tucker Carlson Rallies to Demon Sperm Doc’s Defense ~ Tuesday, July 28

Tucker Carlson seems to be drinking some kind of substance
(Trump kool-aid!) which causes unconnected dots to appear
in one's head. Each week-day night he tries to connect
them, but those pesky dots just don't co-operate. He has,
however, cornered the market of the most-misinformed-
prime-time audience members.

#75--I can't help but think if we had had a Medicare for All national health care system in place we wouldn't have really needed Trump to coordinate a national health response to the pandemic at all. That the medicos at the head of the system would have been able to do that themselves and we would have save thousands upon thousands of lives and not have had nearly as many cases. That the wreckage to our economy wouldn't have been nearly as bad either. Which brings up the Democratic National Committee's platform whose members (more like relics) voted down M4A overwhelmingly. If another pandemic comes along we are going to do the same shit all over again. Personally I don't think either party really wants to govern.

#82--how do you go about evicting 22% of your population let alone 59%? and before winter sets in? How are we going to create the massive number of jobs to replace those lost or reduced in some way during the pandemic? To keep the economy stimulated they are going to have to spend, spend, spend. Not spending means more things are going to die. There are about a handful of republican senators (and by handful I mean about the numbers of fingers on a hand) that seem to get that local economies everywhere in the country need to be juiced. That's about it for the republicans. There are more democrats that get it but I'm not sure enough of them get it well enough either. The Biden campaign is on record for almost no policy proposals about any of the crises facing the nation. When they do say something---it's no to M4A or no to defunding the police. He's really a conservative and always has been.

In lieu of a national school plan... Trump campaign would like to blame striking teachers, I bet, but parents might appreciate teachers standing up for health? Especially in Florida!

This Fall, Teachers Across The Country Are Prepared To Go On Strike
Sarah Midkiff | July 28, 2020, 2:39 PM

...On Tuesday, the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers’ union in the United States, announced that it would support its 1.7 million members should they choose to strike in response to school districts and states moving to reopen classrooms lacking enough health and safety measures.

The union proposes schools wait to reopen classrooms until virus transmission rates in the area fall below 1% and the average daily test positivity rate stays below 5%. Based on this measure, only two of the nation’s 10 largest school districts could reopen for in-person classes according to a New York Times analysis.

The union is also asking for effective contact tracing where schools do reopen, mask requirements for both teachers and students, as well as updated ventilation systems and procedures put in place to maintain six feet between each individual. AFT's president, Randi Weingarten, said in a speech last week that if the federal government can support the cruise industry and hedge funds during the health crisis, “they sure as hell can help working families, and can help educators ensure our kids get the education they need.”

With those thresholds in mind, the AFT says strikes should be a “last resort.” However, this support gives educators and school employees leverage to negotiate for adequate protection in a situation that has felt confusing and, at times, hopeless...

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/07/9936995/us-teachers-strikes-reopening-c...

Why African countries are reluctant to take up COVID-19 debt relief (The Conversation)

A debt service relief package has been approved by some of the world’s biggest lenders for more than 25 African countries. The arrangement includes the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the G20, the African Development Bank, and all Paris Club creditors. The goal was to free up more than $20 billion that governments could use to buttress their health services... But private creditors that hold commercial debt have not been willing to participate in debt relief. They have criticised the G20’s call for freezing all debt repayments...

Of the 25 countries eligible for the debt relief, only four have requested assistance – Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia and Senegal. The majority have either refused to apply, or have not yet requested a debt moratorium. The reasons for this are understandable. Poor countries know that the debt markets are not largely favourable to them. And they acknowledge the risk of being punished by existing creditors, prospective investors and rating agencies if they seek a debt moratorium...

Here are the reasons why most African countries are opting against participating in the multilateral debt suspension. First, there is an implication that countries that are requesting debt suspension have borrowed irresponsibly. They will be viewed as high-risk and irresponsible borrowers in the future. Second, countries will be in breach of the terms of Eurobond contracts that they currently hold... Third, governments fear that the debt moratorium would lead to credit rating downgrades... Lastly, there are concerns that the terms of the multilateral debt relief and loan packages will restrict future policy direction...

Muslims begin downsized Hajj pilgrimage amid coronavirus pandemic (6:10)
Al Jazeera • Jul 29, 2020

Hajj - the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca - has begun, but under dramatically different circumstances due to the coronavirus outbreak.

One of the five pillars of Islam, the Hajj is required for all Muslims who are physically or financially capable of undertaking it at least once in their lifetime and is usually one of the world's largest religious gatherings.

But this year, only up to 10,000 people already residing in Saudi Arabia will participate in the five-day pilgrimage, a tiny fraction of the 2.5 million pilgrims from around the world that attended last year.

"There are no security-related concerns in this pilgrimage, but downsizing is to protect pilgrims from the danger of the pandemic," said Khalid bin Qarar Al-Harbi, Saudi Arabia's director of public security.

Pilgrims will be required to wear masks and observe physical distancing during a series of religious rites that are completed over five days in the holy city of Mecca and its surrounding areas in western Saudi Arabia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztky7P_vGzM

See chart at website!

US economy saw record collapse in spring, early summer
Steve Benen | July 30, 2020

The question wasn't whether the GDP report would dreadful, but rather, how dreadful it would be. Now we know.

...the height of the Great Recession came in the fourth quarter of 2008, when the GDP was -8.4%. At that point, most saw that as evidence of an economy that had been hit by a truck.

In the second quarter of 2020, economic contraction was roughly four times worse...

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/us-economy-saw-record-collapse-spring-e...

Trump promotes a doctor who has claimed alien DNA was used in medical treatments (CNN)

President Donald Trump vigorously defended his administration's handling of the coronavirus on Tuesday, but it was a series of questions from CNN's Kaitlan Collins about Dr. Stella Immanuel, a little-known Houston-based physician featured in a video the President retweeted, that caused him to abruptly end his press briefing.

"Mr. President, the woman that you said is a great doctor in that video that you retweeted last night said masks don't work and there is a cure for Covid-19, both of which health experts say is not true. She's also made videos saying that doctors make medicine using DNA from aliens, and that they're trying to create a vaccine to make you immune from becoming religious," Collins asked.

The CNN reporter went on to press Trump: "It's misinformation"...

Understanding and Fighting Pandemic in the “Spirit”: Religion and COVID-19 in Nigeria (African Leadership Centre)

A survey once carried out by the BBC World Service depicted Nigeria as the world’s “most religious country”, with more than 90% of those sampled claiming that “they “believed” in God, “prayed” regularly, and were ready to “die” for their religious beliefs. It is thus not surprising that Nigerians turn “spiritual” when confronted with any major problem that baffles their imagination, or retire to fatalism for issues that may merely require deep critical thinking. The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest that has this thrown up a litany of religious responses across the country, and the ways these have manifested may in the future change the attitude of Nigerians to religion. This piece focuses on how religion has come into the ways Nigerians have understood and responded to the Coronavirus outbreak in the country. The need for a write-up of this nature becomes all the more necessary, especially now that religion is playing important roles in the ways many African countries, including Tanzania, Malawi and Burundi, are approaching the COVID-19 pandemic...

Vatican’s Academy for Life rejects charge its COVID doc isn’t Christian (Crux)

Facing criticism that its recent document on the coronavirus pandemic lacks a Christian perspective and vocabulary, the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life came to its own defense Wednesday, issuing a statement insisting it was trying to communicate “in a way accessible to all.”

“We want to enter human situations, reading them in the light of faith, and in a way that speaks to the widest possible audience, to believers and non-believers, to all men and women ‘of good will’”...

South African rhino poaching halves in six months thanks to Covid-19 lockdown (Guardian)

Killings fell by 53% in the first six months of 2020 as restrictions and disruption to international flights hinder poachers...

Maasai Mara migration: Few tourists see Kenya's wonder of world (Al Jazeera)

One of the natural wonders of the world is under way in Africa - the annual migration of hundreds of thousands of wildebeest. But unlike normal times, few tourists are able to see their journey from Kenya to Tanzania...

Government officials say two million employees in tourism have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic... the COVID-19 pandemic has already cost Kenya $800m in lost tourism revenue.

>88 margd: Economy collapse, contd.

US economy has worst-ever quarter with epic 32.9% dive in Q2 GDP (1:56)
Al Jazeera English • Jul 31, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrEW7jDubxI

v.

Eurozone GDP shrinks at the fastest rate in history, losing 12.1% in the second quarter
Saloni Sardana | Jul. 31, 2020

Eurozone GDP fell by 12.1% in the second quarter, its biggest decline in history...
This is significantly higher than the Eurozone's Q1's GDP contraction of 3.6%
Spain was the worst hit country, suffering an 18.5% decline compared to the previous quarter...

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/eurozone-gdp-contracts-12-in-q2-...

#93--hardly a surprise and it will continue to snowball if millions and millions of people aren't getting enough money to get by. The Trump administration has thrown up its hands and the Republicans in the Senate have decided to fuck off for home leaving millions and millions in a no man's/woman's/child's land wondering how they're going to pay for next month's rent and bills and it's not just going to be them that suffers consequences from that--more small businesses are going to go belly up and we're going to have a bigger snowball and this is abdication of their responsibility to at least try to govern.

Somehow half of the republican party has come to the conclusion that austerity is the answer which is insane even if you're an absolute ideologue.

Jim Jordan ~ actions at House subcommittee hearings during
virus era

Jim "tunnel vision" Jordan is a very creepy, twisted dude
(ditto for his pal Gohmert). JJ's tunnel-vision views
regarding anything related to Trump makes it more than
likely that he completely ignored anything the young men he
coached decades ago told him about the doctor the team had
at that time. Apparently in his gerrymandered district, he
mirrors the warped views of the voters there.

Not sure of the best thread for this, but it belongs somewhere!

Stephen Collins on flies in the house – cartoon Guardian, August 1, 2020

>93 margd: The US annualizes it's numbers when it reports changes to it's GDP. The actual number is around 10%. Are those European numbers annualized? I couldn't tell from the article.

>97 jjwilson61: Good catch. WSJ article outside paywall says Eurozone's GDP fell 40.3% on an annualized (basis?):
https://www.wsj.com/articles/eurozone-economy-contracts-by-record-40-11596191720

Where US citizens are allowed to travel this summer (map)
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1289630646130810881/photo/1

Oh the places we can’t go.
- The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 2:34 PM · Aug 1, 2020

(Town Hall) 2020's Swedish Surprise: Pandemic Fascism Isn't The Answer | by Nicholas Waddy | Posted: Aug 01, 2020 12:01 AM

Or, "What some people had figured out a good while ago."

Salvaging the Security Council’s Coronavirus Response (International Crisis Group)

Just over a month ago, on 1 July, the UN Security Council passed a resolution addressing COVID-19 that looked hugely ambitious on paper. Echoing an earlier initiative by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Resolution 2532 centres on a call for “all parties to armed conflicts to engage immediately in a durable humanitarian pause” lasting 90 days in response to the pandemic. This document will earn a footnote in histories of the UN, as it is the first time the Council has advocated such a global ceasefire. But beyond that, it seems unlikely to be widely remembered, as its practical effects have been all but nil. Only one conflict party – Colombia’s National Liberation Army or ELN – has explicitly cited the resolution in offering to suspend hostilities and the Colombian government rejected the overture. Elsewhere, governments and armed groups engaged in fighting have shown no sign of heeding the Council’s call.

Resolution 2532’s lack of impact to date is disappointing in part because, earlier in the pandemic, it briefly looked like the Council could lend momentum to Secretary-General Guterres’ aspirational but worthy ceasefire effort, and so play a part in the global response to COVID-19. Guterres first floated the ceasefire idea in late March, and he declared that armed groups in almost a dozen countries had responded positively by early in April. Yet rather than seizing the moment to back the initiative, the Council stumbled into three months of fighting about it, while many of the armed groups that welcomed the UN appeal resumed hostilities.

With Council members looking forward to an August lull in business – especially after the tedium of months of online meetings – it is time for them to take stock of what the Council’s halting reaction to the pandemic reveals about the body, and to consider how the Secretary-General and Council members might still salvage something useful from Resolution 2532...

I'm Proud of Kenya and Proud to be Kenyan, Diaspora Woman Pronounces After Traveling Home from Baltimore, Maryland (Mwakilishi)

More often than not, Kenyans in the diaspora express their displeasure over how things are done back home... But it appears Kenya is doing as well far as stemming the Covid-19 disease is concerned if the account of a Kenyan diaspora is anything to go by. The woman says she traveled from Baltimore, Maryland to Kenya last week and was impressed by the Covid-19 containment protocols Kenya put in place as international flights resumed on Saturday...

Edited to add: A Kenyan friend has just arrived back in Kenya from being stuck in UK for several months, and she also said that even in the few hours she has been back in the country she is impressed at how Kenya seems to be addressing the pandemic more seriously than UK.

See Feb and June maps of joblees rates in NYC and environs... :(

In These Neighborhoods, the Jobless Rate May Top 30 Percent
Quoctrung Bui and Emily BadgerAug. 5, 2020

The economic damage from the coronavirus is most visible in areas like Midtown Manhattan, where lunch spots have closed, businesses have gone dark and once-crowded sidewalks have emptied.

But some of the worst economic pain lies in other neighborhoods, in the places where workers who’ve endured the broadest job losses live. In corners of the Bronx, South Los Angeles or the South Side of Chicago, unemployment is concentrated to a breathtaking degree. And that means that other problems still to come — a wave of evictions, deepening poverty, more childhood hunger — will be geographically concentrated, too.

Data estimating neighborhood-level unemployment rates suggests that as many as one in three workers in these areas are jobless, deeply widening economic disparities within cities.

In New York City, it’s as if parts of the Bronx were experiencing the Great Depression while the Upper East Side faced only modest drops in employment, according to Yair Ghitza and Mark Steitz, analysts who have estimated unemployment at the census tract level based on national economic statistics over the last six months...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/05/upshot/us-unemployment-maps-coron...

How the Pandemic Defeated America (The Atlantic)

A virus has brought the world’s most powerful country to its knees. How did it come to this? A virus a thousand times smaller than a dust mote has humbled and humiliated the planet’s most powerful nation. America has failed to protect its people, leaving them with illness and financial ruin. It has lost its status as a global leader. It has careened between inaction and ineptitude. The breadth and magnitude of its errors are difficult, in the moment, to truly fathom...

No comment; this says it all.

“We’re kind of over this whole COVID thing. I won’t wear a mask unless I absolutely have to,” 21-year-old Veronica Fritz said. She added: “I am a very strong Christian and I know where I’m going, and I believe God will take me when I’m supposed to go. So if I get COVID and I die from COVID, it’s not my decision.”

— AP via The Globe and Mail

>105 librorumamans:

Indeed. She's totally oblivious to the fact that at least 50% of the purpose of wearing a mask is to protect others who might not be waiting for God to take them rather than to protect herself. And for what it's worth, that's one of the US fundamentalist evangelical images of God which I and many other mainstream Christians outside the USA would not share.

>106 John5918:

Yes; as a theology, it is delusional. I also consider it thoughtless, ignorant, and lazy.

#103--we have to keep stimulating the economy. Not everybody who gets $1200 check needs it. We really don't--we gave a lot of ours away to the Food Bank, a bit to Meals on Wheels, to the SPCA and the Ross Park Zoo---mostly to the Food Bank though. The $1200 certainly helps a lot of people though. What's even more important is the $600 extra weekly of unemployment that just expired. People who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and who really are looking at a dire and potentially virus dangerous job market.

#105--it's hard for me to be tolerant with that kind of mindset. Unless she's an orphan she could also bring it back to a family member. I swear some people are looking for any excuse to be a jackass. I have a sister who thinks Trump is wonderful and all the social distancing and masks is just an imposition on her. Basically I've told her to stay away from me.

A Kenyan COVID-19 notebook: The ‘mama mbogas’ and the path to recovery* (The New Humanitarian)

More than 90 percent of Kenyans have seen their incomes fall as a result of COVID-19, and nearly three quarters of families have had to dip into savings – typically money set aside for school fees... Nairobi’s skyline is impressive, but Kenya is still an overwhelmingly informal economy... Women traders – and it’s overwhelmingly women – in Nairobi’s Marikiti wholesale market have shrunk their businesses and are absorbing a roughly 65 percent cut to their pre-COVID cash flow... One in five Kenyans live in slums devoid of basic public services – from water to sanitation – as a result of systemic neglect...

“If you view cash transfers only as a humanitarian effort, then you're missing the point,” said Amrik Heyer, senior research adviser at FSD Kenya. “Cash transfers can play an important role as an economic stimulus to reboot consumption... It may take something of the magnitude of COVID to shift the ideas of the people in power – to force more attention on different economic models that are more inclusive and sustainable”...

“The only way to keep Kenyans alive as we work our way through the second and third wave is unconditional cash transfers,” said anti-poverty campaigner, Jerotich Sei. “You don’t need to waste time doing assessments – you know anyone living in Kibera needs to get an M-Pesa”**...

* "Mama mboga" is a woman who sells vegetables.
** Mpesa is the mobile phone money network invented by Kenyans, which has gradually spread to other parts of the world.

Coronavirus recession: How bad it could get and what it means for you (US)
Dale Smith | July 31, 2020

Over 1.4 million US workers (PDF) filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to the Labor Department, marking the 19th straight week with over 1 million unemployment applications. Prior to the coronavirus, the record was nearly 700,000 claims in 1982, the New York Times reported.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate, which had surged to 14.7% in April, fell to 11.1% in June (PDF), which is still higher than in any year since 1940.

The Commerce Department's latest numbers (PDF) confirm two consecutive quarters of economic contraction -- the definition of "recession" used by most economists.

According to the World Bank, humanity has experienced 14 global recessions since 1870, the last being the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009. The organization projects that this one will be the worst since World War II.

...the coronavirus recession, deemed the fastest recession in US history"...The US economy shattered records when it plunged 32.9% in the second quarter, according to data released by the Commerce Department (PDF) this week.

...new surge of coronavirus cases that erupted when states began to haphazardly reopen after lockdown.

If you find yourself among the millions of Americans who've experienced economic hardship as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, many of the economic safeguards put into place at the start of the lockdown have either dried up or will soon, making matters exponentially worse. A renewal of enhanced unemployment benefits and eviction bans are chief among the issues being debated in a second stimulus payment...

Where to find personal financial resources to help you prepare...

When will the recession end?
...Economists and experts agree that the economy won't recover until the coronavirus pandemic is contained -- without triggering another wave of infections when lockdown measures are released. That'll happen either through herd immunity, an effective treatment for COVID-19, a coronavirus vaccine or some combination of all three...

How the government has tried to bolster the economy
...$2 trillion stimulus package passed as part of the CARES Act in March...A debate over a second stimulus check is currently working its way through Congress, but still appears weeks away from being finalized. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has indicated it will continue to hold interest rates close to 0% for the foreseeable future, which often has the effect of encouraging more borrowing, which leads to more spending -- and more spending generally improves the economy.

https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/coronavirus-recession-how-bad-it-could-get...

Why deforestation and extinctions make pandemics more likely (Nature)

As humans diminish biodiversity by cutting down forests and building more infrastructure, they’re increasing the risk of disease pandemics such as COVID-19. Many ecologists have long suspected this, but a new study helps to reveal why: while some species are going extinct, those that tend to survive and thrive — rats and bats, for instance — are more likely to host potentially dangerous pathogens that can make the jump to humans.

The analysis of around 6,800 ecological communities on 6 continents adds to a growing body of evidence that connects trends in human development and biodiversity loss to disease outbreaks — but stops short of projecting where new disease outbreaks might occur...

#110--well I think we can forget about herd immunity.....and it would take way too long for us to get there anyway. I think to some degree we are going to have to get away from the idea of a merit driven workplace because we're not going to have nearly enough jobs to sustain the population which means it's time for some real social and economic engineering. Pretty much the last time that happened was in the 30's and 40's and WWII happening along helped to ramp up manufacturing and war production. Trump is not capable of thinking let alone thinking outside the box and FWIW neither is Joseph Biden so I think there's going to be at least a few years where people are wandering in the desert. Get use to the idea of food banks and socially distanced soup kitchens---they're going to be popping up everywhere. Shelter is going to become an issue too. You can't fight a pandemic when people are crowded together. Really who knows what is going to happen but generally our politicians are bereft of ideas that don't include how to get large donors to hand over campaign cash.

Spin and negotiating advantage, but no real help for struggling workers, unemployed, renters, students...
Social security, fire/hurricane victims, states could take a hit...

Here’s what is actually in Trump’s four executive orders
The details on payroll taxes, unemployment and evictions are not as generous as he made them sound.
Heather Long | August 9, 2020

He says he signed four “executive orders,” but in reality, only the one on housing is an actual executive order. The other three actions are marked as “memorandum,” which carries less heft.

1. He delays payroll tax collection for those making under $104,000
...it is technically a tax deferral, meaning the taxes will still be due at a later date...If the taxes were not repaid, it would lower the funds in the Social Security Trust Fund...

2. Unemployment aid is (sorta) extended at $400

...more than 30 million people on unemployment aid...had been receiving an extra $600 a week from the federal government on top of their state aid (which averaged $330 a week), but Congress set the federal funding expire at the end of July...

Trump’s memo calls for federal aid to restart at a level of $400 a week. But there’s a catch: The federal government is only paying for $300 of that. States have to kick in the other $100. Many states are currently cash-strapped as they fight the coronavirus, and there’s concern governors won’t sign on to do this.

...Trump is attempting to use...$44 billion of funding from the Department of Homeland Security’s Disaster Relief Fund that is normally used for hurricanes (2020 is predicted to be a busy year for hurricanes), tornadoes and massive fires...

Trump’s memo orders the aid to last through Dec. 6 or until funding runs out...$44 billion...isn’t enough money to make it to October, unless the number of people on unemployment falls dramatically.

3. Top officials can ‘consider’ halting evictions
...110 million renters, and many have been hit hard by the layoffs in retail, restaurants and hospitality during the pandemic.

...executive order does not ban evictions. Instead, Trump calls for Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield to “consider” whether an eviction ban is needed.

...Trump also didn’t provide any more money to help renters. The executive order calls only for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson to see if they can find any more funds to help out. It doesn’t promise more aid.

...moratorium (that expired on July 24) covered all renters living in places that had a federally owned mortgage. Many thought Trump likely did have the authority to extend at least that eviction ban, but he did chose not to do so.

...30 million to 40 million renters (could be) at risk of eviction in the coming months...compare(d) with an average of 3.6 million evictions a year before the coronavirus pandemic.

4. Student loan payments are deferred until Dec. 31

...The Education Department does have the authority to defer or even cancel student loan payments to the federal government, says Alexis Goldstein of Americans for Financial Reform.

Trump used this authority to temporarily cancel interest payments, which helps relieve the financial burden on millions of Americans. But the debt is not canceled forever. Principal payments are due on Dec. 31 and full payments are slated to restart Jan. 1.

5. What happens next

...court challenges...unclear how many states will want to participate in this enhanced unemployment program or how many companies will want to suspend payroll taxes for employees only to have to pay them in 2021...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/09/heres-what-is-actually-trumps...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/thousands-bikers-heading-south-dakota-161317138.html

South Dakota Native Americans not allowing motorcycle enthusiasts through their territory on their way to the annual Sturgis rally. South Dakota has not so far had the Covid-19 issues that other states have had. It is mainly a rural state and that helps but this kind of shit cheered along by Trump ally and South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is pretty much inviting it in and also pretty much inviting it in and then letting it loose all over the country when the rally is over. It is stupid, unconscionable and shortsighted. These knuckleheads willing to risk their health for a good time and just because they may feel they've been cooped up too long or also going to be risking others if they catch a dose of this shit. That apparently is not as important as their idiotic partying.

It’s time for centibillionaires to help pay the cost of Covid (Guardian)

In a dramatically unequal society, a one-off wealth tax provides a clear and decisive route to balancing the Treasury’s books...

Classic Wiley Miller cartoon from 2016:

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1292806618510286851/photo/1

Sundance librarians in the Age of COVID! (1:14) :D

https://twitter.com/jenfulwiler/status/1292548203603283968

>117 margd:. That’s great. Thanks for sharing.

Covid and sex: charity issues guidance on reducing infection risk (Guardian)

Wearing face coverings, avoiding kissing and choosing positions where you are not face to face are among the recommendations from a leading sexual health charity to reduce the risk of catching coronavirus during sex...

'Our generation's NHS': support grows for universal basic income (Guardian)

Insecurity caused by coronavirus has prompted more people to join UK groups calling for change...

Unbelievable. If another country kindly deigned to care for a sick American, insurance usually doesn't cover all costs out-of-country. So cancel citizen right of return, for no benefit to community health, risking a citizen's health and at potentially great cost to the individual. The malicious incompetence in the White House is staggering!

Trump considers a rule that would block Americans thought to have the virus from returning home.
8/10/2020

President Trump is considering new immigration regulations that would allow border officials to temporarily block American citizens and legal permanent residents from returning to the United States from abroad if authorities believe they may be infected with the coronavirus.

In recent months, Mr. Trump has imposed sweeping rules that ban entry by foreigners into the United States, citing the risk of allowing the virus to spread from hot spots abroad. But those rules have exempted two categories of people attempting to return: American citizens and noncitizens who have already established legal residence.

Now, a draft regulation would expand the government’s power to prevent entry by citizens and legal residents in individual, limited circumstances. Federal agencies have been asked to submit feedback on the proposal to the White House by Tuesday, though it is unclear when it might be approved or announced.

Under the proposal, which relies on existing legal authorities of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the government could block a citizen or legal resident from crossing the border into the United States if an official “reasonably believes that the individual either may have been exposed to or is infected with the communicable disease.”

The draft, parts of which were obtained by The Times, explicitly says that any order blocking citizens and legal permanent residents must “include appropriate protections to ensure that no Constitutional rights are infringed.” And it says that citizens and legal residents cannot be blocked as an entire class of people.

The documents appear not to detail how long a citizen or legal resident would be required to remain outside of the United States.

The draft memo says the prohibition on the introduction of U.S. citizens or legal residents from abroad would apply “only in the rarest of circumstances,” and “when required in the interest of public health, and be limited in duration.”

Still if Mr. Trump approves the change, it would be an escalation of his government’s longstanding attempts to seal the border against what he considers to be threats, using the existence of the coronavirus pandemic as a justification for taking actions that would have been seen as draconian in other contexts...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html

...

Sure, the Velociraptors Are Still On the Loose, But That’s No Reason Not to Reopen Jurassic Park
Carlos Greaves | May 6, 2020

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/sure-the-velociraptors-are-still-on-the-loos...

Americans, go home: Tension at Canada-US border (BBC)

As the pandemic continues to sweep the US, Canadians are getting more and more concerned about what American visitors could be bringing with them over the border...

While the border closure has had significant economic and personal repercussions for the millions of people that live along it or have loved ones on the other side, the vast majority of Canadians want it to stay shut...

>123 John5918: A friend who lives in Huntsville, Ontario (where Cdn with FL licence plates harrassed, filed a complaint) said it was bad up there--but permanent residents also resent people from TORONTO using their seasonal homes! (Toronto's COVID rates are not THAT much worse than Huntsville.)

We have equipment failure in my teensy business, and so will be asking to cross into Ontario for "essential business". Hoping my dual citizenship helps. If we are allowed in, we will quarantine for two weeks. Buying new Michigan plates that are somewhat similar to Ontario's so as not to attract unwanted attention. On US side, Trump's proposal to deny return of sick Americans may also become a factor--our health insurance won't cover all of our costs if we needed to be hospitalized outside the country...

AARGH!

>124 margd: The usual answer for out-of-country insurance: https://www.geobluetravelinsurance.com/product_overview.cfm

Not the cheapest, but it "just works"
By BCBS.
Good luck.

Almost half of UK charities for world's poorest set to close in a year – survey (Guardian)

Nearly half of the UK’s small charities working with the world’s poorest people expect to close within the next 12 months due to lack of financial support, a survey has found.

Despite most of them seeing a spike in demand for their services during Covid-19, 15% of the charities will be forced to shut their doors within the next six months, and 45% within a year, according to data from the Small International Development Charities Network (SIDCN).

The pandemic – predicted to force one in 10 UK charities into bankruptcy by the end of 2020 – has delivered a triple whammy to smaller overseas charities, according to SIDCN. British charities working abroad have not been eligible to apply for the UK government coronavirus community support fund, and many British funders have amended their giving criteria to donate to projects based solely in the UK.

The Department for International Development (DfID)’s merger with the Foreign Office and the subsequent £2.9bn cut to the 2020 overseas aid programme have left little room for small charities to function...

>123 John5918: While the border closure has had significant economic and personal repercussions for the millions of people that live along it or have loved ones on the other side, the vast majority of Canadians want it to stay shut...

Damn right, even though it divides my family! Take that enormous motorcycle rally last weekend in South Dakota as an example.

>124 margd:

It's that cottage-country hospitals don't have the capacity to handle the summer population, who in the event of another lockdown would have to remain in place.

>125 davidgn: Thanks, I'll check it out. Our Medicare-complement private insurance covers 80% of costs in foreign trips up to 60 days, which is usually acceptable risk. But in a pandemic, if Trump successful in preventing us from scooting back across the border if one of us came down with COVID, could get very expensive, I'm afraid. Years ago, a Cdn emergency room didn't even know how to charge us when young son knocked his head. They figured it out by time teenage son blew an eardrum diving in Lake Ontario, and they wanted payment up front... Too many Americans defrauded Cdn hospitals, I think, with friend/family's OHIP card which were flimsy pieces of paper back then (as were US visas...). Still, our Ontario township doesn't charge its American residents for using weekly nurse-practitioner clinic, funded with property taxes. (Donations accepted, and given, though.)

>127 librorumamans: Oh, I understand--hospital capacity is a concern in northern Michigan as well. (Kingston General Hospital, a teaching hospital where I was born, serves our seasonal home. Also, Hotel Dieu, where my mum worked as a young unmarried.)

I shouldn't complain, though. There are so many who have it so much worse than me, not least the 165,000 dead.

ETA:
Canada, U.S. continue border restrictions into September (21)
This is the fifth extension of the border measures that were first introduced in March.
LAUREN GARDNER | 08/14/2020
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/14/canada-us-border-restrictions-september...

Coronavirus: South Africa crime rate plummets during lockdown (BBC)

Crime in South Africa dropped by up to 40% during the first three months of its lockdown, official figures show. The police minister said most types of crimes went down between April and June - including sexual assault and arson...

If you’re worried about your freedoms being violated by wearing a mask,
let’s talk about all the freedoms you’re giving up by NOT wearing one...

0:36 ( https://twitter.com/heathergtv/status/1294798238877245441 )

- heathergtv @heathergtv | 8:48 PM · Aug 15, 2020
________________________________________

The virus will “magically disappear” after Election Day? Riiiiighhhtttt...

0:45 ( https://twitter.com/heathergtv/status/1294337616209309701 )

- heathergtv @heathergtv | 2:18 PM · Aug 14, 2020

Meanwhile, in Montana... :(

Cleavon MD @Cleavon_MD | 5:14 AM · Aug 17, 2020
COVID is deadly and spreading!
.@sharonstone shares her experience.
Her sister & husband are fighting for their life in #Montana and it's difficult to get testing.
People carry guns around the courthouse and say it's their freedom to not wear masks.

2:13 ( https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1295287959529254912 )
From Jay’s Not So Secret Diary

#131--the Steve Bullock Sharon Stone is talking about is a right wing democratic Governor who currently is running to unseat an even further to the right republican US Senator Steve Daines. Part of Schumer's idea of how to regain the US Senate. We need another Joe Manchin or Krysten Sinema like we need a hole in the head. Unfortunately we need Daines even less. American politics is a fucking clown show. Bullock also had an aborted Presidential run this time around and was toasted by and a frequent guest of Joe Scarborough on his MSNBC show who by the way is another right winger often mistaken for a reasonable moderate. Bullock like that dopey Hickenlooper (Scarborough buddied up to him too) from Colorado is absolutely 100% against Medicare for all.

Texas... :(
TV stations should post these as Public Service Announcements...

Cleavon MD @Cleavon_MD | 4:35 AM · Aug 17, 2020:
As an ER doc, I've seen countless people die from COVID19 and I'm terrified of the virus.
Sara Montoya, 43, posted this message before she died from #COVID,
"Please do not put your families at risk, I did the best I thought I could, It is not worth it"

2:02 ( https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1295277993699364865 )

John Prine @JohnPrineMusic | 10:14 PM · Aug 17, 2020:

Those We've Lost...In Memoriam
0:53 ( https://twitter.com/JohnPrineMusic/status/1295544673906327553 )

Thomas Kaine @thomaskaine5 | 5:28 PM · Aug 16, 2020:
HUGE STORY not getting much press. First time in USA history, the USA gov't controls stock prices.
The Fed and Mnuchin are buying $1,250,000,000,000 (yep Trillions) of corporate bonds
resulting in spikes in the stock prices of those companies."

TuneSmith @emptytunes · Aug 16
Yes. Anyone who doesn't believe this, pull up any 1 day stock chart and look what happens between 2 and 3 am.
This started around May 1. My theory - they'll keep it up until Oct, then let it crash, blame it on fear of Biden.
The Biden Campaign needs to be screaming about it NOW.

Bobby Dombrowski @bobbydombrowski · Aug 16
The rich will sell their stocks off at Trumps pumped up market highs,
convert stocks to cash and parachute out of America to the Bahamas, while the stock market evaporates.
This is no different than giving the .1% wealthiest a $2T cash advance from the national debt.

Nationwide transit workers put their lives on the line every day to keep cities moving.
Jason Hargrove, 50, Detroit bus driver posted this video before he died from #COVID.
A woman in her late 50s, coughed 5 times on the bus without covering her mouth.
RIP Jason

1:59 ( https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1295490568940695552 )

- Cleavon MD @Cleavon_MD | 6:39 PM · Aug 17, 2020

How they do it in France:

Pascal Jacquemain @jacquep 5:02 AM · Aug 18, 2020:

Guy refuses to wear a mask on board TGV (train)
Is fined 135€
Still refuses to wear a face mask
Train is stopped in the middle of nowhere and passenger is forced to step out

Coronavirus : il refuse de porter un masque à bord d'un TGV Paris-Nice, le conducteur le fait débarquer
17 août 2020
https://www.lci.fr/population/coronavirus-covid-19-pandemie-france-sncf-il-refus...

Donald Trump's having a go at the New Zealand Prime Minister--pointing out that New Zealand is going through a big surge of cases. And yeah for New Zealand 13 cases in one day is a lot.

How fucked up and butt hurt though can Donald be even going there? We all know what country is doing the worst--it's the one he supposedly leads which has gone past 5,000,000 cases--at least 19 states are over 100,000 cases--California's over 600,000 and heading for a million. Florida and Texas aren't far behind and New York's done better than 425,000 and there is no national plan and never has been and because of him and his abdicating ways. So he points out a pretty stellar record to compare his extremely shitty record to.

New Zealand as of today has had 1643 cases total--so fuck off Donald.

Right up there with his attempt to diss Michelle Obama's speech (more than 150,000 COVID deaths), by stating au contraire, there are 170,000 deaths! Way to own it, Comrade Trump.

#139--yeah I didn't watch last night or tonight for that matter either. I'd rather watch hockey even if my team is out. But apparently he's proud of having killed 20,000 or so more and wants credit for it.

How Indigenous communities respond to disasters (The New Humanitarian)

Nunavut, the vast Arctic territory in Canada’s north where more than 80 percent of the population identifies as Inuit, holds a key distinction: It’s the only province or territory in the country without a single confirmed coronavirus case.

Even though deaths have been avoided, the pandemic response has been burdened with a problem familiar to Indigenous communities across the globe – not enough Inuit people are involved at the decision-making level, according to Madeleine Redfern, the former mayor of Nunavut’s capital, Iqaluit. “It is primarily a non-Indigenous led response,” she said.

In recent years, humanitarian organisations and governments have slowly woken up to the importance of traditional Indigenous knowledge in preparing for and responding to disasters such as earthquakes, floods, storms, wildfires, and health crises. But Indigenous leadership and experience during disasters are still often overlooked or misunderstood...

>141 John5918: Nunavut is a self-governing territory, and both its Premier and Minister of Health look Inuit to me: https://www.gov.nu.ca/

Nunavut includes that huge, sparsely populated archipelago that reaches north way past Greenland, so one can see how federal reach could be useful. Pre-Nunavut, a cousin used to work for federal health authority, flying in to such places on bush planes. Oh, the stories! (Not least the eccentric white guys! Cousin once flew with pilot who survived previous crash by consuming nurse who didn't survive. "Pack a lunch," his colleagues advised my cousin. :)

From Euro perspective, great historical memoir from 1930s: Kabloona.

Great film on bush pilot transporting a sick native woman: "The Snow Walker" (2003). Based on the short story "Walk Well, My Brother" by Farley Mowat.

From my more southerly experience, while "traditional knowledge" is valuable in informing science and management, and executing policies, there's some weirdness right now in how some greens revere it, without really bringing native people into the decision process. A fish management group had great luck bringing in two treaty groups, though--benefiting both sides in reaching common goals through common science initiatives and management based on consensus. Took some statesmanship on both sides...

>142 margd:

In the humanitarian aid and development industry with which I have been involved for much of my life this New Humanitarian article really rings true. Bright young things from Europe and north America with an MA in development studies, on huge salaries and short-term postings, pop up in Africa as programme managers for big NGOs which are household names back in their home countries, and proceed to tell the local people what to do, regardless of the fact that the local people know the situation better than anybody and often have well-developed coping mechanisms. Despite their beautfully-crafted mission statements which insist that they listen to the needs of the local population, in practice there is little genuine consultation and local people are not brought in to the decision-making process, which usually reflects the agenda of the NGO and its government and institutional back-donors.

#141 + 142--I remember reading William Vollmann's The Rifles which is at least somewhat in part about the forced repatriation by the Canadian govt. in the 1950's (?) of indigenous Northern Quebec peoples into the Nunavut region. It's also in part about the 19th century Franklin expeditions to find the Northwest passage but also includes actual time and experiences that Vollman writes about his time spent in a place called Resolute Bay. Vollmann is interesting in that he seems to me to be a writer who has strong anthropological leanings or put another way he's very curious about other cultures and ways of life.

>143 John5918: From my resource management experience, I think we saw similar things.
It is not easy to accomplish truly consensual management.

>144 lriley: Thanks, I'll check it out!

Yep, Masks And Protective Gear Are Still Hard To Get — Especially For Small Buyers
Joel Rose | August 19, 2020

Churches, schools, businesses compete for same small supply
Deep pockets amass stockpiles of PPE, small buyers struggle
'The federal government should be coordinating this'

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/19/903612006/yep-masks-and-protective-gear-are-still...

>141 John5918:

That's interesting, John.

A little sleuthing turns up more on this:

An infographic (from early May, granted) from an organization based at Ryerson U;

From an academic at U of Alberta: "Why Indigenous communities are taking COVID-19 measures into their own hands" (July 28)

From a writer for the CMAJ: "Why Indigenous communities seeing few cases of COVID-19" (August 10)

>147 librorumamans:

Thanks for posting these - interesting stuff.

Conflict and coronavirus spark a hunger crisis in Burkina Faso (The New Humanitarian)

‘The situation is extremely alarming. It is pushing people to the limit of vulnerability’...

Schrodinger's NYC: is it dead?
https://nypost.com/2020/08/17/nyc-is-dead-forever-heres-why-james-altucher/

Or, perhaps, pick your death?
https://harpers.org/archive/2018/07/the-death-of-new-york-city-gentrification/

I was tickled this week to find that if I really wanted to, I could just about "afford" (in the NYC sense) an apartment near Washington Square now. (And if I were sharing, I could actually afford it.) ...

My hot take: Altucher's at least partly right. NYC is screwed for the next decade or two at the least. Hope for creative destruction?

Coronavirus pandemic halts life-saving UK cancer and heart disease research (Guardian)

More than 1,500 clinical trials of new drugs and treatments for cancers, heart disease and other serious illnesses have been permanently closed down in Britain in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, a further 9,000 have been suspended and most will need major cash injections if they are to be reactivated.

The figures highlight the catastrophic effect that Covid-19 has had on UK medical research, which has suffered a devastating blow to development of new life-saving treatments. Improvements in disease-survival rates are likely to slow, or stop, while the country’s next generation of researchers will have far fewer opportunities to train and develop fresh clinical expertise.

“This pandemic has knocked everything off track”...