Fearing second Covid-19 wave, Europe aims to train ‘army’ of medics

‘Europeans are enjoying the gradual easing of coronavirus lockdown measures, but in hospitals, they are already preparing for the next wave of infections. Some intensive care specialists are trying to hire more permanent staff. Others want to create a reservist "army" of medical professionals ready to be deployed wherever needed to work in wards with seriously ill patients. European countries have been giving medics crash courses in how to deal with Covid-19 patients, and are now looking at ways to retrain staff to avoid shortages of key workers if there is a second wave of the novel coronavirus.’

Read here (Straits Times, June 22, 2020)

Nobel laureate Michael Levitt on the lockdowns: “I think it is a huge mistake”

‘Q: What’s your view of the lockdown policy that so many European countries and states in America have introduced?

‘A: I think it is a huge mistake. I think we need smart lockdowns. If we were to do this again, we would probably insist on face masks, hand sanitizers, and some kind of payment that did not involve touching right from the very beginning. This would slow down new outbreaks and I think that for example they found as I understand, that children, even if they’re infected, never infect adults, so why do we not have children at school? Why do we not have people working? England, France, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, are all reaching levels of saturation that are going to be very, very close to herd immunity — So that’s a good thing. I think the policy of herd immunity is the right policy. I think Britain was on exactly the right track — before they were fed wrong numbers and they made a huge mistake.’

Read here (AIER, May 31, 2020)

China trying to divide and rule in Europe, EU foreign policy chief says

The European Union’s foreign policy chief has accused China of trying to exploit differences of opinion among the bloc’s 27 member states for its own ends, while promoting a unique version of multilateralism. Spaniard Josep Borrell’s comments came as President Xi Jinping said in a telephone conversation with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday that China “firmly supports the United Nations and World Health Organisation in fighting the pandemic” and was “ready to work with all countries” to control Covid-19, according to a report by Xinhua.

Read here (South China Morning Post, May 16, 2020)

From green backlash to reimposition of border controls, pandemic is accelerating tensions that could unravel the EU

‘EU leaders should not slacken in their efforts to tackle climate change. The east-west rift is alarming and cannot be resolved by tolerating disrespect for the rule of law. As for the north-south divide, the ECB may be able to do enough to keep Italy and other southern member-states in the eurozone. But the politics of an unresolved rift may turn very nasty, increasing anti-EU sentiment across the bloc – and could even trigger a country leaving the EU or the euro,’ says Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform.

Read here (The Guardian, May 14, 2020)

From Hong Kong to Britain, governments ranked poorly for their response to Covid-19

‘From Hong Kong to Britain, governments ranked poorly for their response to Covid-19. Survey of 23 economies finds ‘major cracks’ in self-belief across the Western world. China, Vietnam and India have impressed with their responses to Covid-19, while Hong Kong and Japan languish at the bottom.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, May 6, 2020)

Why has eastern Europe suffered less from coronavirus than the west?

‘Veronica Anghel, a Romanian political scientist currently at Stanford University, said some countries in the region “are being given more credit than they should” for their responses. “Timing of lockdown is a blunt instrument, and a bad measure for authorities’ success,” said Anghel. She praised the response of some countries, including Czech Republic and Slovakia, both of which have comparatively well-funded healthcare systems. “But Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria are on the edge; any increase in cases will tip the system over,” she said.’

Read here (The Guardian, May 5, 2020)

Coronavirus concerns are not a carte blanche to snoop: Europe Human Rights Commissioner

‘As more and more countries resort to using digital tools to monitor and track their citizens, those measures must comply with privacy laws, writes Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. She calls for a balance between privacy and health measures:

• ‘First of all, digital devices must be designed and used in compliance with privacy and non-discrimination norms. They must be anonymous, encrypted, decentralized, function on open source and be available to the largest number of people possible, thus bridging the digital divide. Their use must be voluntary, based on informed consent, restricted to the purposes of health protection, contain a clear time limit and be fully transparent. Users should be able to opt-out at any moment, deleting all their data, and be able to challenge intrusions into their private sphere through effective measures.
• ‘Secondly, laws must comply strictly with the right to privacy as protected by the laws of national constitutions and of the European Court of Human Rights.
• ‘Thirdly, government operations must be subject to judicial review, as well as monitoring by parliament and national human rights institutions to ensure accountability. Independent data protection authorities must test and approve technological devices before they are used.’

Read here (DW, May 1, 2020)

WHO/Europe publishes considerations for gradual easing of COVID-19 measures

‘WHO guidance includes 6 criteria for moving to ease lockdown restrictions. Countries must ensure that:

1. Evidence shows COVID-19 transmission is controlled;
2. Public health and health system capacities are in place to identify, isolate, test, trace contacts and quarantine them;
3. Outbreak risks are minimised in high-vulnerability settings, particularly in homes for older people, mental health facilities and crowded places of residence;
4. Workplace preventive measures are established, including physical distancing, handwashing facilities and respiratory etiquette;
5. Importation risks can be managed; and
6. Communities have a voice and are aware, engaged and participating in the transition.

‘Due to the complex nature of the COVID-19 situation, countries are at different stages. Some are beginning to ease restrictions while others are choosing to continue strict lockdown measures.’

The WHO also called for adaptability and a staggered approach.

Read here (WHO/Europe, April 24, 2020)

Coronavirus is accelerating eight challenging mega trends

‘...be in no doubt, as the long days at home seem to pass ever so slowly: in its effect on societies, politics and the distribution of power in the world, COVID-19 is on track to be the Great Accelerator.’

1. Eurozone existential crisis: ‘To put it crudely, Italians will not work as productively as Germans, and Germans will not agree to pay off the debts of Italians.’ 
2. Trans-Pacific tensions: ‘...the process of “deglobalisation” - more of what we consume being made closer to home, even if it is more expensive - will accelerate.
3. Greater rise of the Asian tigers: ‘[Asia] was already going to account for 90 per cent of new middle-class people in the next decade. Perhaps we can revise that up to 95 per cent now.’
4. Oil price volatility: ‘Countries dependent on oil production already faced forecasts that petroleum demand would peak and fall before 2030.’ We have in recent days seen negative oil prices.
5. Politics of inequality: ‘It will push to the forefront of politics fundamental issues about the taxation of wealth, the case for basic incomes provided by governments, and the responsibility of companies for their employees.’
6. Debts: ‘Political parties will campaign for debt forgiveness and write-offs, and for the cancelling by central banks of money borrowed by governments, with inflationary consequences.’
7. Data: ‘Once we are all carrying around an app on our phones to show where we have been and who we have met, pressure will grow to use that information for other purposes.’
8. Crisis as the mother of innovation: ‘More optimistically, they have one positive companion - the massive incentive this crisis provides for innovation’

Read here (The Age, April 21, 2020)

Swedish epidemiologist Johan Giesecke‘s forthright views on Covid-19

In this 34-minute interview, Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:

1. UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based 
2. The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only 
3. This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product” 
4. The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better 
5. The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact 
6. The paper was very much too pessimistic 
7. Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway 
8. The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown 
9. The results will eventually be similar for all countries 
10. Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people. 
11. The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1% 
12. At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available

View here (LockdownTV, Youtube, April 17, 2020)

Shockwave: Adam Tooze on the pandemic’s consequences for the world economy

This lengthy essay begins by painting the economic background of this crisis, covering the weaknesses of the globalised system and its over-dependence on government stimulus post-2008. There were detractors though. ‘True conservatives, as distinct from those merely wedded to the religion of the stock market, welcomed the prospect of a shakeout. It was time for a purge, time to slim down the businesses that had gorged on too much cheap funding, time for a return to discipline." However, as we know, it was not to be.

When Covid-19 hit, the three main economic blocs responded, strapped to the underpinnings of their own socio-economic systems. Many East Asian countries, notably China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, employed ‘the hammer and the dance’ by hitting the virus hard and fast. Europe ended up in an uncoordinated and dispiriting stalemate. ‘From the point of view of the wider world, what matters is that Europe does not unleash a sovereign debt crisis.’ In the US, ‘more than the flame-out of Trump, is the gulf between the competence of the American government machine in managing global finance and the Punch and Judy show of its politics. That tension has been more and more glaring since at least the 1990s, but the virus has exposed it as never before.’

‘If you swiftly declare an emergency and are prepared to interrupt business as usual, both the medical and economic costs of confronting the virus appear more reasonable, and the conventional priorities of modern politics remain basically in place... As the Europeans and Americans have discovered, once you lose control all the options are bad: shut down the economy for an unforeseeable duration, or hundreds of thousands die.’

Tooze concludes that ‘for those of us in Europe and America these questions [about opening up] are premature. The worst is just beginning.’

Read here (London Review of Books, April 3, 2020)

For the record: Two game-changing studies from Imperial College that affected Europe-wide policies

The Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team in London produced two studies that influenced policy in Europe in a big way. In particular, it helped push Britain to switch its strategy from one based on ‘herd immunity’ to that of "suppression".

(1) March 16: ‘Suppression the only viable strategy’

The first study, published March 16, 2020, concluded that ‘epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time. The social and economic effects of the measures which are needed to achieve this policy goal will be profound. Many countries have adopted such measures already, but even those countries at an earlier stage of their epidemic (such as the UK) will need to do so imminently.’

Read here (Imperial College, March 16, 2020)

(2) March 30: ‘59,000 lives saved in 11 European countries via non-pharmacologial interventions, between 7 to 43 million individuals infected -- as of March 31’

The second study, published March 30, 2020, said that ‘with current interventions remaining in place to at least the end of March, we estimate that interventions across all 11 countries will have averted 59,000 deaths up to 31 March [95% credible interval 21,000-120,000]. Many more deaths will be averted through ensuring that interventions remain in place until transmission drops to low levels.

‘We estimate that, across all 11 countries between 7 and 43 million individuals have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 up to 28th March, representing between 1.88% and 11.43% of the population. The proportion of the population infected to date – the attack rate - is estimated to be highest in Spain followed by Italy and lowest in Germany and Norway, reflecting the relative stages of the epidemics.’

Read here (Imperial College, March 30, 2020)

Coronavirus lockdown measures may have saved 59,000 lives in Europe already, says new study by Imperial College

 ‘At least 59,000 lives have already been saved in 11 European countries due to the social distancing measures introduced to stem the spread of Covid-19, new modelling suggests.

‘According to the analysis, 370 deaths have already been averted in the UK - where a nationwide lockdown came into effect just one week ago - while Italian interventions have saved 38,000 lives to date.

‘But the study also shows that the continent remains a long way from developing “herd immunity”, whereby the vast majority of people have caught, recovered and become immune to the coronavirus.

‘The modelling, published yesterday by Imperial College, London, analyses the impact of lockdown in 11 European countries, including the UK.’

Read here (Telegraph, March 30, 2020)