Three concessions from the West at G7: Britain, France and US

1. Boris Johnson pledges surplus to poorer countries at G7. Read here (BBC, Feb 20, 2021)
2. Macron proposes sending 4-5% of doses to poorer nations. Read here (BBC, Feb 19, 2021)
3. Biden pledges $4 billion for COVAX vaccinations program. Read here (DW, Feb 18, 2021)

A quite possibly wonderful summer

‘The summer of 2021 is shaping up to be historic... After months of soaring deaths and infections, COVID-19 cases across the United States are declining even more sharply than experts anticipated. This is expected to continue, and rates of serious illness and death will plummet even faster than cases, as high-risk populations are vaccinated. Even academics who have spent the pandemic delivering ominous warnings have shifted their tone to cautiously optimistic now that vaccination rates are exploding.’

Read here (The Atlantic, Feb 19, 2021)

Covid-19 cases are dropping fast. Why?

‘One month ago, the CDC published the results of more than 20 pandemic forecasting models. Most projected that COVID-19 cases would continue to grow through February, or at least plateau. Instead, COVID-19 is in retreat in America. New daily cases have plunged, and hospitalizations are down almost 50 percent in the past month. This is not an artifact of infrequent testing, since the share of regional daily tests that are coming back positive has declined even more than the number of cases. Some pandemic statistics are foggy, but the current decline of COVID-19 is crystal clear.

**Four reasons: social distancing, seasonality, seroprevalence, and shots.’

Read here (The Atlantic, Feb 17, 2021) 

More people died of drug overdoses last year than ever before in US

‘The data for the 12-month period ending last June showed 81,003 deaths, a 20% increase over the previous year. Separate research found that weekly counts of all drug overdoses were up to 45% higher in 2020 than in 2019.

• Stat: During Covid-19 pandemic, overdose deaths reached new heights 
• USA Today: Covid pandemic sends more people to ER for drug overdoses’

Read here (Kaiser Health News, Feb 16, 2021)

Anatomy of a conspiracy: With Covid, China took leading role

‘From Beijing and Washington to Moscow and Tehran, political leaders and allied media effectively functioned as superspreaders, using their stature to amplify politically expedient conspiracies already in circulation. But it was China -- not Russia – that took the lead in spreading foreign disinformation about COVID-19’s origins, as it came under attack for its early handling of the outbreak.

‘A nine-month Associated Press investigation of state-sponsored disinformation conducted in collaboration with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, shows how a rumor that the U.S. created the virus that causes COVID-19 was weaponized by the Chinese government, spreading from the dark corners of the Internet to millions across the globe. The analysis was based on a review of millions of social media postings and articles on Twitter, Facebook, VK, Weibo, WeChat, YouTube, Telegram and other platforms.’

Read here (Associated Press, Feb 15, 2021)

US and UK in a spat with China over WHO probe on Covid-19

• White House cites 'deep concerns' about WHO Covid-19 report, demands early data from China (read here)
• UK says it shares US concerns over WHO COVID-19 mission to China (read here)
• China fires back at US allegations of lack of transparency over Covid-19 probe (read here)

All reports on Channel News Asia, Feb 14, 2021

The pandemic has unmasked America’s deepest inequities: Covid’s disparate racial impacts, by the numbers

‘Covid-19 doesn’t discriminate, but the havoc wrought by the virus—the deaths, economic devastation, and intergenerational trauma—has disproportionately affected Black, Latino, and Native American communities. The Trump administration’s feckless response didn’t help, yet even proactive steps have reinforced preexisting inequities: Stay-at-home orders protected people with the privilege to work remotely while frontline workers, disproportionately Black and Latino, took on greater risk of exposure. People of color have also experienced more unemployment and financial insecurity. As Mary Bassett, director of Harvard’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, explains, none of this is caused by the virus itself: “It’s because of the social consequences of race in our society, which has been reinforced by decades, centuries of bad practices and policies.”

Read here (Mother Jones, Feb 12, 2021) 

Nonstimulus arithmetic: Why the American Rescue Plan has to be big -- Krugman

‘We are not in a conventional recession — a decline in output due to insufficient aggregate demand. What we’re suffering from, instead, is a partial lockdown, the result of both public policy and private choices, that has sharply curtailed high-infection-risk activities, like indoor dining.

‘Pumping up overall spending with fiscal and monetary policy wouldn’t send diners back into restaurants, nor should it. So we aren’t experiencing a normal output gap, something that should be closed by stimulus. It’s actually not clear whether we even want employment and GDP to be higher before vaccination gives us herd immunity.

‘What, then, is the role of policy? As some of us have been arguing all along, it’s not stimulus, it’s disaster relief: an attempt to shore up the living standards of those hurt by the temporary lockdown, as well as providing resources to deal with the pandemic itself. Or as I recently argued, you can think of what we’re doing as being something like fighting a war — special expenditure in the face of an emergency.’

Read here (paulkrugman.substack, Feb 10, 2021)

Tribal health providers have figured out the key to Covid-19 vaccine success. Here's their secret

‘It's important to note that there are 574 federally recognized tribes, making it difficult to broadly characterize how the vaccine rollout is going across Indian Country. Native people get their health care from a patchwork system of Indian Health Service facilities, tribally-operated clinics and urban Indian health centers, and vaccination efforts have varied from tribe to tribe and state to state.

Still, the successes of some tribal health providers offer lessons for communities struggling to vaccinate their populations efficiently. Here are some of them.

• They tailored their messaging to build trust
• They have the autonomy to decide who gets priority
• This health system is owned by its people
• They made big investments in health care
• Ultimately, success depends on the nation's vaccine supply

Read here (CNN, Feb 9, 2021)

Here's what Joe Biden can do about the Covid-19 pandemic starting on his first day as US president

‘If the pandemic unfolded in stages so too must it be contained that way. During the campaign, Biden promised swift action on such steps as testing, vaccine manufacture and distribution, and preventive measures like mask mandates. That, he’s said, will be followed by other steps like improving surveillance of emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2, extending unemployment benefits to people whose jobs were lost as a result of quarantining and lockdowns, extending the moratorium on evictions, and ensuring that people who contract COVID-19 and survive don’t face discrimination in insurance benefits. It would, the candidate promised, be nothing short of a stepwise, war-like mobilization...

‘If there’s a certainty in exactly how the Biden plan will unfold over the next 24 or 12 or even three months, it’s that there’s no certainty at all. Viruses are at once both mindless and clever—infecting and eluding, spreading and shape-shifting. It takes a set of policies that are equally adaptable, equally nimble to defeat them. The new president’s plan is an ambitious first step. A lot of sure-footed steps remain before the pandemic is defeated.’

Read here (Time magazine, Jan 20, 2021)

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) applauds NIH revised stance on Ivermectin for Covid-19

‘The National Institutes (NIH) has issued a new statement on the use of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19. Previously, it recommended against this treatment, but now states that its Panel “has determined that there are insufficient data to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19.”

‘The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) notes that there are now 49 ivermectin studies summarized on c19study.com, 100 percent of which show favorable results. In contrast, there are very few studies of the antibody cocktails now being used under an Emergency Use Authorization.

‘NIH concludes from its current analysis that “results from adequately powered, well-designed, and well-conducted clinical trials are needed to provide further guidance on the role of ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19.” The NIH may be responding to requests related to the testimony strongly favoring ivermectin in a Dec 8 Senate hearing before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.’

Read here (Globe Newswire, Jan 15, 2021)

Vaccines were a chance to redeem failures in the US coronavirus response. What went wrong?

‘The delayed and disjointed vaccine rollout is the product of poor coordination between the federal government and the 50 states and additional jurisdictions tasked with carrying out the most ambitious immunization campaign in history, likened by officials to the effort to turn back the Nazis in 1944.

‘With these problems thwarting the rollout, it is clear the United States has not learned from its fractured pandemic response and risks repeating some of the same errors.

“My peers in infectious-disease medicine and public health are all looking around saying, ‘How are you all handling these issues? What happens when we get airdropped vaccines? Who gets it first? How do we do it equitably?’ ” said David Aronoff, director of the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.’

Read here (Washington Post, Jan 12, 2021)

Too many Americans still mistrust the Covid-19 vaccines. Here's why

‘According to a December survey undertaken by the Pew Research Center, nearly 40% of Americans say they will definitely not or probably not get the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available to them. Gallup polls put the number at 37%. That’s bad news not just for the vaccine refusers themselves but for the public as a whole. Experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had previously concluded that achieving herd immunity—the point at which a population is sufficiently vaccinated that a spreading virus can’t find enough new hosts—would require anywhere from 60% to 70% of Americans to take the vaccines. But lately, he and others have been inching that number upward, now estimating that herd immunity could require as much as 85% vaccine coverage...

‘But most people in the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy camp are more rational, more measured—informed enough not to believe the crazy talk, but worried enough not to want to be at the head of the line for a new vaccine. “For first responders and for older people with underlying conditions it’s a godsend,” says Padgett. “But I do believe this was rushed. I’m reasonably healthy. Six months to a year just to get more data on it is what I’d need to be vaccinated.”

Read here (Time, Jan 5, 2021)

Feds may cut Moderna vaccine doses in half so more people get shots, Warp Speed adviser says

‘The federal government is in talks with Moderna about giving half the recommended dose of the company's Covid-19 shot to speed up immunization efforts, the head of the Trump administration's vaccine rollout said on Sunday.

‘Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Moncef Slaoui said there is evidence that two half doses in people between the ages of 18 and 55 gives “identical immune response” to the recommended one hundred micorogram dose, but said the final decision will rest with the FDA.’

Read here (Politico, Jan 3, 2021)

Dr Paul Farmer: Centuries of inequality in the US laid groundwork for pandemic devastation

‘As the United States sets records for COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations, we speak with one of the world's leading experts on infectious diseases, Dr. Paul Farmer, who says the devastating death toll in the U.S. reflects decades of underinvestment in public health and centuries of social inequality. "All the social pathologies of our nation come to the fore during epidemics," says Dr. Farmer, a professor of medicine at Harvard University, chair of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder and chief strategist of Partners in Health.’

View here (Democracy Now, Youtube, Jan 1, 2021)

Empty streets vs jubilant crowds: Stark contrast between NYC & Wuhan on NYE provokes envy & accusations

‘Side-by-side comparisons of how New York City and Wuhan, China, rang in the new year have sparked a heated debate on social media about whether the US should have embraced Beijing’s approach to handling the coronavirus pandemic. Photographs showing empty streets on Times Square, typically a hub of merry-making on New Year’s Eve, spread across social media on Thursday night, with several commentators noting that the mood was considerably more festive in Wuhan, the Chinese city where Covid-19 was first detected.’

Read here (RT, Jan 1, 2021)

Seismic change: How Covid-19 altered world events in 2020

‘The year 2020 has been like no other. The coronavirus infected more than 67 million people, impacted 80% of jobs, and placed billions in lockdown... Here are just four political issues, from four continents, which were altered by the pandemic:

1. The US election
2. Hong Kong's protests
3. Ethiopia's Tigray crisis
4. Israel's political crisis’

Read here (BBC, Dec 27, 2020)

Rapid Covid-19 home test developed in Australia approved for emergency use in US

‘A rapid, over-the-counter Covid-19 test developed by Australian firm Ellume has been given emergency approval in the United States. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Brisbane-based company’s 20-minute Covid-19 Home Test on Tuesday as the US battles the virus that has infected 16.5 million people and killed more than 300,000 people in the country.

“By authorising a test for over-the-counter use, the FDA allows it to be sold in places like drug stores, where a patient can buy it, swab their nose, run the test and find out their results in as little as 20 minutes,” the FDA commissioner, Stephen Hahn, said in a statement.’

Read here (The Guardian, Dec 16, 2020)

The institutional crisis and Covid-19

‘This is what an institutional crisis looks like. The most extreme claims of corruption become readily embraced by one faction and condemned by another. The belief that the presidency is corrupt becomes the framework of political life.

‘This goes beyond the political. I have written about the crisis of expertise, of experts who know their own field brilliantly but cannot comprehend the consequences of their actions beyond that field. The American government after World War II was built on the sanctity of expertise. That principle has since come under challenge in many areas, where the myopia of the experts undermined its depth.

‘The COVID-19 pandemic drove the point home. There were those who invoked the authority of medical experts as paramount. There were those who argued that, absent a cure, the solution the experts submitted – masks and social distancing – was only marginally effective and ignored the devastating economic and social consequences of the solution. There was no clear institutional authority that could strike a reasonable balance.’

Read here (Other News, Dec 8, 2020)

Tucked into the Covid-19 stimulus package? Protection for corporations

‘US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been one of the few Democratic lawmakers to spotlight what’s really going on. Last week, she tweeted: “If you want to know why Covid-19 relief is tied up in Congress, one key reason is that Republicans are demanding legal immunity for corporations so they can expose their workers to Covid without repercussions.”

‘The bipartisan initiative aims to obscure its Dr Evil level of depravity by superficially depicting the liability shield as merely temporary. But that seems like a ruse, as indicated by private equity mogul and senator Mitt Romney of Utah, who said the federal Covid-19 liability shield provision “provides a temporary suspension of any liability-related lawsuits, state or federal level associated with Covid-19, giving states enough time to put in place their own protections”.’

Read here (The Guardian, Dec 5, 2020)