America Drank Away Its Children’s Future
As the school year looms, the pandemic is still raging.
By Paul Krugman
A brief history of the past four months in America:
Experts: Don’t rush to reopen, this isn’t over.
Donald Trump: LIBERATE!
Covid-19: Wheee!
Trump officials: Here’s our opposition research on Anthony Fauci.
And we’re now faced with an agonizing choice: Do we reopen schools, creating risks of a further viral explosion, or do we keep children home, with severe negative effects on their learning?
None of this had to happen. Other countries stuck with their lockdowns long enough to reduce infections to rates much lower than those prevailing here; Covid-19 death rates per capita in the European Union are only a 10th those in the United States — and falling — while ours are rising fast. As a result, they’re in a position to reopen schools fairly safely.
And the experience of the Northeast, the first major epicenter of the U.S. pandemic, shows that we could have achieved something similar here. Death rates are way down, although still higher than in Europe; on Saturday, for the first time since March, New York City reported zero Covid-19 deaths.
Would a longer lockdown have been economically sustainable? Yes.
It’s true that strong social distancing requirements led to high unemployment and hurt many businesses. But even America, with its ramshackle social safety net, was able to provide enough disaster relief — don’t call it stimulus! — to protect most of its citizens from severe hardship.
Thanks largely to expanded unemployment benefits, poverty didn’t soar during the lockdown. By some measures it may even have gone down.
True, there were holes in that safety net, and many people did suffer. But we could have patched those holes. Yes, emergency relief costs a lot of money, but we can afford it: The federal government has been borrowing huge sums, but interest rates have remained near historical lows.
Put it this way: At its most severe, the lockdown seems to have reduced G.D.P. by a little over 10 percent. During World War II, America spent more than 30 percent of G.D.P. on defense, for more than three years. Why couldn’t we absorb a much smaller cost for a few months?
So doing what was necessary to bring the coronavirus under control would have been annoying, but entirely feasible.
But that was the road not taken. Instead, many states not only rushed to reopen, they reopened stupidly. Instead of being treated as a cheap, effective way to fight contagion, face masks became a front in the culture war. Activities that posed an obvious risk of feeding the pandemic went unchecked: Large gatherings were permitted, bars reopened.
And the cost of those parties and open bars extends beyond the thousands of Americans who will be killed or suffer permanent health damage as a result of Covid-19’s resurgence. The botched reopening has also endangered something that, unlike drinking in groups, can’t be suspended without doing long-run damage: in-person education.
Some activities hold up fairly well when moved online. I suspect that there will be a lot fewer people flying cross-country to stare at PowerPoints than there were pre-Covid, even once we finally beat this virus.
Education isn’t one of those activities. We now have overwhelming confirmation of something we already suspected: For many, perhaps most students there is no substitute for actually being in a classroom.
But rooms full of students are potential Petri dishes, even if the young are less likely to die from Covid-19 than the old. Other countries have managed to reopen schools relatively safely — but they did so with much lower infection rates than currently prevail in America, and with adequate testing, which we still don’t have in many hot spots.
So we’re now facing a terrible, unnecessary dilemma. If we reopen in-person education, we risk feeding an out-of-control pandemic. If we don’t, we impair the development of millions of American students, inflicting long-term damage on their lives and careers.
And the reason we’re in this position is that states, cheered on by the Trump administration, rushed to allow large parties and reopen bars. In a real sense America drank away its children’s future.
Now what? At this point there are probably as many infected Americans as there were in March. So what we should be doing is admitting that we blew it, and doing a severe lockdown all over again — and this time listening to the experts before reopening. Unfortunately, it’s now too late to avoid disrupting education, but the sooner we deal with this the sooner we can get our society back on track.
But we don’t have the kind of leaders we need. Instead, we have the likes of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, politicians who refuse to listen to experts and never admit having been wrong.
So while there have been a few grudging policy adjustments, the main response we’re seeing to colossal policy failure is a hysterical attempt to shift the blame. Some officials are trying to blacken Dr. Fauci’s reputation; others are diving into unhinged conspiracy theories.
As a result, the outlook is grim. This pandemic is going to get worse before it gets better, and the nation will suffer permanent damage.
Ross Douthat Shows Trouble With Arithmetic In New York Times Column on China’s “Decade”
By Dean Baker
Ross Douthat has good news for folks who don’t like China. His New York Times column * yesterday told us that China’s economy will run out of steam in a decade, and that the U.S. will again be able to reclaim world leadership after 2030. The problem is that the piece presents nothing to support this claim.
After telling readers that China is passing the U.S. for world leadership due to the inept presidency of Donald Trump, Douthat gets to the meat of his piece:
“It’s possible that we’re nearing a peak of U.S.-China tension not because China is poised to permanently overtake the United States as a global power, but because China itself is peaking — with a slowing growth rate that may leave it short of the prosperity achieved by its Pacific neighbors, a swiftly aging population, and a combination of self-limiting soft power and maxed-out hard power that’s likely to diminish, relative to the U.S. and India and others, in the 2040s and beyond.
“Instead of a Chinese Century, in other words, the coronavirus might be ushering in a Chinese Decade, in which Xi Jinping’s government behaves with maximal aggression because it sees an opportunity that won’t come again.”
The problem is that the cited piece for “China’s slowing growth rate” still has China growing close 4.0 percent annually. That is almost 2.0 percentage points faster than the 2.1 percent growth rate projected for the U.S. in the last five years of the decade.
Furthermore, the U.S. economy is started from a much lower base. In 2019 China’s economy was already more than 25 percent larger than the U.S. economy, while the U.S. economy is projected to shrink by 5.5 percent this year, China’s is expected to grow by 1.8 percent. It is hard to see how an economy that is starting from a lower level and growing at a slower pace, will pass a larger economy that is growing more rapidly. I guess it takes a NYT columnist to figure that one out.
One final point, there seems to be an obsession in the media with China’s lower birth rate and likely declining population. While the idea that this is a big problem for China is repeated endlessly, it really leads to the obvious question, why?
So the country will have fewer people. This will likely mean fewer people working in very low productivity jobs in agriculture and the service sector. And why exactly would this be a problem for China?
It’s Going to Be a Long and Harsh Recession: New York Times Warns of Skills Gap
By Dean Baker
When the unemployment rate goes up, a standard theme in the media is that workers don’t have the right skills. We saw that yesterday in the New York Times when an article * told us “The Pandemic Has Accelerated Demands for a More Skilled Workforce.” It tells us how the growth of telecommuting in response to the pandemic has led to more demand for skilled labor and less demand for less-skilled workers.
The key point in this sort of argument is that the problem is the workers, who don’t have the right skills, not an economy that doesn’t create enough demand for labor. Of course, we get this skills shortage argument every time the unemployment rate soars. In the summer of 2010, when the Great Recession was still near its trough, the NYT ran a piece ** telling us about the skills shortage in manufacturing. Over the next nine and a half years the sector added almost 1.3 million jobs (11.3 percent), without any notable improvement in the skills of the U.S. workforce. The overall unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, again without any major gains in skills in the U.S. workforce.
The focus on the skills gap is even more infuriating since even if there were an issue with demand for skills that would be the result of policy not technology, as the piece implies. We have lots of jobs in areas like computers and biotech because the government gives out patent and copyright monopolies in these areas. If we are worried that we are creating too much demand for people with advanced skills and not enough demand for people with less education, we can make these monopolies shorter and weaker, or perhaps not even have them at all.
The latter possibility should be a major topic of debate in the context of the pandemic. The government is spending billions of dollars to drug companies to pay for research and testing of various treatments and vaccines to combat the coronavirus. Incredibly, after putting billions of dollars upfront, and taking the big risks, the government is giving the companies patent monopolies to these companies, which will allow them to charge whatever they want for what was developed on the government’s nickel.
This will likely mean redistributing tens of billions from everyone else to the shareholders, top executives, and key employees in these companies. If we don’t want to see this upward redistribution (also from Black to white, since the beneficiaries in this story are almost certainly overwhelmingly white) the key is not more skills for our workers, the key is for the government not to be giving out patent monopolies for work it has paid for.
To be clear, this is not an argument against education and training. It would be good for workers and the economy if we had a better trained workforce. But the reason we have high unemployment today, and may have high unemployment for some time into the future, is not a lack of skills, it is a failure of economic policy.
” If we don’t, we impair the development of millions of American students, inflicting long-term damage on their lives and careers.”
PK
I’m sorrry, but this is way overstated. Granted, there will be some students who will suffer greatly from this closing. However, the vast majority will not.
Where is it written that there must be graduation every single year? take a year off. Not a big deal for most students. Particularly when all of theri classmates are doing the same.
Beijing tames new infections of COVID-19 in less than one month
— Beijing has effectively controlled its recent outbreak of COVID-19 infections related to a major wholesale market as the city reported no new confirmed cases for the eighth consecutive day on Monday.
— Thanks to timely and effective epidemiological investigations, Xinfadi was targeted as a high-risk location within 22 hours of the new outbreak.
— Beijing deployed targeted lockdowns instead of confining everyone to their homes that risked reversing the gains made after the resumption of work.
— More than 11 million people in Beijing, about half of the capital’s population, underwent nucleic acid tests between June 11 and July 6.
By Cheng Lu, Qiang Lijing, Luo Xin and Xie Hao
BEIJING — Beijing has effectively controlled its recent outbreak of COVID-19 infections related to a major wholesale market as the city reported no new confirmed cases for the eighth consecutive day on Monday.
From June 11 to Monday, the Chinese capital city reported 335 confirmed domestically transmitted cases, of whom 205 remain hospitalized and 130 were discharged from Beijing Ditan Hospital after recovery.
After the city saw a resurgence in locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, mostly related to the large Xinfadi farm produce market in Fengtai District, the municipal government adopted swift and targeted measures to curb the spread of the virus.
Here is a look at how Beijing has brought the new infections under control in less than one month.
TIMELY EPIDEMIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION
Beijing reported a new confirmed locally transmitted COVID-19 case on June 11 after the city had seen 57 days with no such cases.
An epidemiological investigation was carried out immediately, which traced 38 close contacts. All places that the patient had visited and may have been potentially exposed to the virus, including Xinfadi, were identified.
On June 12, environmental samples tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Xinfadi. At the same time, more epidemiological investigations were carried out as several new confirmed cases were reported.
To control the new infections, the disease control and prevention centers at the city and district levels organized more than 500 epidemiological investigators, who can be immediately dispatched to conduct investigations if any new cases are reported.
“We usually have three people in a group, two go into the quarantine area, and the third is responsible for support and disinfection,” 33-year-old epidemiological investigator Li Ruoxi said. He explained they communicated with the patient and his or her family about the patient’s recent activities and contact history over the 14 days before hospitalization.
Thanks to timely and effective epidemiological investigations, Xinfadi was targeted as a high-risk location within 22 hours of the new outbreak. Beijing immediately suspended the market, closed down nearby residential communities and conducted concentrated medical observation of traders from Xinfadi.
TARGETED LOCKDOWNS
To cope with the rebound in locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, Beijing deployed targeted lockdowns instead of confining everyone to their homes that risked reversing the gains made after the resumption of work.
Precise control measures have been taken by designating subdistricts and townships as low-, medium- or high-risk areas according to their epidemic situation.
In this way, the lives of people in low-risk areas would be minimally affected. With health QR codes showing their digital travel records, deliverymen and other service providers are allowed to enter residential communities, and residents can access certain public venues and travel in the city freely. Conversely, some key areas, apartment blocks and housing compounds in medium- and high-risk areas were put under closed-off management.
To prevent the spread of the virus, the city tightened the control of the flow of personnel to other places.
For example, those from medium- and high-risk areas and relevant people from the Xinfadi market were not allowed to leave Beijing. Previously, a negative nucleic acid test certificate issued within the past seven days was also a must for those who intended to leave the city. The certificates were no longer required for people from Beijing’s low-risk areas starting from July 4 as the epidemic situation improved.
Huaxiang Township in Fengtai District, the only remaining high-risk area in the city, has been downgraded to a medium-risk area after fewer than 10 local confirmed cases had been reported for 14 consecutive days, said Liu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, at a press conference on Monday.
After the adjustment, Beijing was cleared of high-risk areas for the disease, and it now has a total of seven medium-risk areas, according to Liu.
MASS TESTING
To contain the spread of the disease, Beijing launched a citywide campaign to trace people who had visited the Xinfadi market since May 30 via door-to-door inquiries, calls, social media platforms and other methods. People working in the related farm produce markets, residents of nearby communities and people who visited the facilities have been identified to undergo nucleic acid tests.
The city has also prioritized testing for people living in medium- and high-risk areas, medical staff and frontline personnel, and employees of banks, grocery stores, restaurants, courier enterprises, food delivery platforms and hair and beauty salons.
More than 11 million people in Beijing, about half of the capital’s population, underwent nucleic acid tests between June 11 and July 6, according to local authorities.
To cope with the surging demand for tests, Beijing expanded the number of nucleic acid testing facilities from 98 in early June to 184 as of July 7.
Three COVID-19 nucleic acid test laboratories named “Huoyan,” or Fire Eye, have conducted more than 1.2 million tests in Beijing in about three weeks. Two of them are mobile and inflatable labs.
As of July 11, the two inflatable labs have been dismantled. “After the removal of the labs, professionals will carefully disinfect the environment and the site can be used for other purposes,” said Xiang Fei from BGI Genomics, one of the developers of the labs.
Beijing has contained the virus within one month by adopting comprehensive measures, including raising the response level, conducting collective medical observation of close contacts, and carrying out mass screening, said Wang Hufeng, a medical researcher at Renmin University.
Although the epidemic prevention and control in Beijing has achieved remarkable progress, the novel coronavirus can cause complicated and varied symptoms and it is highly contagious, said Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Citizens should not relax their vigilance. They should continue to protect themselves from contracting the virus and clean and disinfect their living and work environment on a regular basis,” she said.
Chinese mainland reports 3 new COVID-19 cases, no new deaths
The Chinese mainland on Monday recorded 3 new COVID-19 cases from overseas, but no new domestic cases or deaths.
The total number of confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland stands at 83,605 and the cumulative death toll at 4,634, with 110 asymptomatic patients under medical observation.
One by one, the United States has hit at the core tenets of Xi Jinping’s vision for a rising China ready to assume the mantle of superpower.
In a matter of weeks, the Trump administration has imposed sanctions over punitive policies in Hong Kong and China’s western region of Xinjiang. It took new measures to suffocate Chinese innovation by cutting it off from American technology and pushing allies to look elsewhere. Then, on Monday, it tore up China’s claims in the South China Sea, setting the stage for sharper confrontation.
“The power gap is closing, and the ideological gap is widening,” said Rush Doshi, director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Brookings Institution in Washington, adding that China and the United States had entered a downward “ideological spiral” years in the making.
“Where’s the bottom?” he asked.
For years, officials and historians have dismissed the idea that a new Cold War was emerging between the United States and China. The contours of today’s world, the argument went, are simply incomparable to the decades when the United States and the Soviet Union squared off in an existential struggle for supremacy. The world was said to be too interconnected to easily divide into ideological blocs.
Now, lines are being drawn and relations are in free fall, laying the foundation for a confrontation that will have many of the characteristics of the Cold War — and the dangers. As the two superpowers clash over technology, territory and clout, they face the same risk of small disputes escalating into military conflict.
The relationship is increasingly imbued with deep distrust and animosity, as well as the fraught tensions that come with two powers jockeying for primacy, especially in areas where their interests collide: in cyberspace and outer space, in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, and even in the Persian Gulf.
And the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with China’s recent aggressive actions on its borders — from the Pacific to the Himalayas — has turned existing fissures into chasms that could be difficult to overcome, no matter the outcome of this year’s American presidential election.
From Beijing’s perspective, it is the United States that has plunged relations to what China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said last week was their lowest point since the countries re-established diplomatic relations in 1979.
“The current China policy of the United States is based on ill-informed strategic miscalculation and is fraught with emotions and whims and McCarthyist bigotry,” Mr. Wang said, evoking the Cold War himself to describe the current level of tensions.
“It seems as if every Chinese investment is politically driven, every Chinese student is a spy and every cooperation initiative is a scheme with a hidden agenda,” he added.
Domestic politics in both countries have hardened views and given ammunition to hawks. The pandemic, too, has inflamed tensions, especially in the United States. President Trump refers to the coronavirus with racist tropes, while Beijing accuses his administration of attacking China to detract from its failures to contain the virus.
“What cooperation is there between China and the United States right now?” said Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. “I can’t see any substantial cooperation.”
Both countries are forcing other nations to take sides, even if they are disinclined to do so. The Trump administration, for example, has pressed allies — with some success in Australia and, on Tuesday, in Britain — to forswear the Chinese tech giant Huawei as they develop 5G networks. China, facing condemnation over its policies in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, has rallied countries to make public demonstrations of support for them.
A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian, said on Tuesday that the American declaration would undermine regional peace and stability, asserting that China had controlled the islands in the sea “for thousands of years,” which is not true. As he stated, the Republic of China — then controlled by the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek — only made a formal claim in 1948.
“China is committed to resolving territorial and jurisdictional disputes with directly related sovereign states through negotiations and consultations,” he said.
That is not how its neighbors see things. Japan warned this week that China was attempting to “alter the status quo in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.” It called China a more serious long-term threat than a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Michael A. McFaul, a former American ambassador to Russia, said China’s recent maneuvering appeared to be “overextended and overreaching,” likening it to one of the most fraught moments of the Cold War.
“It does remind me of Khrushchev,” he said. “He’s lashing out, and suddenly he’s in a Cuban missile crisis with the U.S.”
A backlash against Beijing appears to be growing. The tensions are particularly clear in tech, where China has sought to compete with the world in cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and microchips, while harshly restricting what people can read, watch or listen to inside the country. …
(Leaving aside some incendiary comments about Covid-19…)
… Across the 2000s and early 2010s, China’s ruling party reaped the benefits of globalization without paying the cost, in political liberalization, that confident Westerners expected the economic opening to impose. This richer-but-not-freer China proved that it was possible for an authoritarian power to tame the internet, to make its citizens hardworking capitalists without granting them substantial political freedoms, to buy allies across the developing world, and to establish beachheads of influence — in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, American academia, the NBA, Washington, D.C. — in the power centers of its superpower rival.
Eventually, America responded to all this as you would expect a superpower to react: It elected a China hawk who promised to get tough on Beijing, to bring back jobs lost to the China shock, and to shift foreign policy priorities from the Middle East to the Pacific. But there was one small difficulty: This hawk was no Truman or Reagan, but rather a reality-television mountebank whose real attitude toward China policy was, basically, whatever gets me re-elected works. A mountebank, and also a world-historical incompetent, who was presented with exactly the challenge that his nationalism was supposed to answer — a dangerous disease carried by global trade routes from our leading rival — and managed to turn it into an American calamity instead. …
Looking to public healthcare systems, compare the workings of the Dominican Republic and Cuban systems, while considering that since 1970 per capita GDP growth in the Dominican Republic has been faster than any country in the Western Hemisphere, let alone not being constrained by continual sanctions as has the Cuban system.
Several Hard-Hit Sectors Reverse Previous Price Drops in June
By DEAN BAKER
Gasoline, hotel, and airline prices all rose sharply in June, partly reversing earlier declines.
The overall Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.6 percent in June, while the core index rose by 0.2 percent, both driven by sharp price increases in areas that had seen large declines in the first months after the pandemic hit. For the year, the overall CPI is now up 0.6 percent, while the core index is up 1.2 percent.
[Graph]
The biggest factor in the sharp rise in the overall CPI was a 12.3 percent jump in gas prices. This follows five months of sharp declines. Gas prices in June were still 23.4 percent below year-ago levels. Food prices rose 0.6 percent, but this is actually slower than the pace of the prior two months.
In particular, we are seeing slower inflation in the food at home category. The June price rise was 0.7 percent, down from 2.6 percent in April and 1.0 percent in May. By contrast, prices are rising more rapidly for restaurant meals. June prices rose 0.5 percent, compared with 0.1 percent in April and 0.4 percent in May. This likely reflects the fact that the restaurants that are open are passing on higher costs associated with maintaining a safe operating environment. We will likely see restaurant prices substantially outpace food at home prices in the months ahead.
Airfare prices jumped 2.6 percent in June after dropping by 15.2 percent in April and 4.9 percent in May. This reflects both some recovery in air travel — although flying is still hugely below year-ago levels — and also efforts to pass on higher costs due to lower capacity on planes.
Apparel is another major category with a sharp bounce back in prices as sales move closer to normal. Prices rose 1.7 in June, after dropping 4.7 percent in April and 2.3 percent in May. They are still down by 7.3 percent from year-ago levels. Hotels prices also rose sharply in June, rising 1.4 percent after sharp drops the prior two months. They are down 16.0 percent from year-ago levels.
Rent is one sector going in the other direction, with both the rent proper index and the index for owners’ equivalent rent rising just 0.1 percent in June. Both had been rising at annual rates of more than 3.0 percent before the pandemic. The last time the monthly inflation rate was this low was in April of 2011 for rent proper and July of 2013 for owners’ equivalent rent. Since most leases are for six months or a year, this figure likely indicates that many of the rents now being negotiated or renegotiated involve actual reductions in rent, as landlords try to keep units occupied.
New vehicle prices were flat in June after rising 0.3 percent in May. Demand for cars has been reasonably strong since the shutdowns were relaxed. Over the last year, new vehicle prices are down 0.2 percent, in line with their pre-pandemic price trend. Used car prices fell 1.2 percent in June and are down 2.8 percent for the year.
Medical care service prices rose 0.5 percent in June, roughly their pace over the last year, with prices now up 6.0 percent from year-ago levels. Health insurance (just profits and administrative costs) continue to be the most rapidly growing component. The index rose 1.0 percent in June and is up 19.4 percent over the last year.
Auto insurance prices rose 5.1 percent in June, after falling 7.2 percent in April and 8.9 percent in May. The sharp declines in the prior months were due to rebates insurers paid to drivers who were driving less during the shutdowns. Prices are still down 10.1 percent from year-ago levels, although large increases in future months are virtually certain as the rebates end.
The sharp upward swings in the June data in many sectors are not a surprise. Prices in sectors such as air travel and hotels plummeted along with demand in the months when the shutdowns were strictest. Business is now picking up in these sectors, which also must cope with higher safety-related costs. We are likely to see further price rises in these sectors, but this is not a standard inflationary pressure story. Rather it is a story of one-time, and presumably temporary, cost increases resulting from the unchecked spread of the pandemic.
Why a Pediatric Group Is Pushing to Reopen Schools This Fall
Guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics encourage “having students physically present in school.” Dr. Sean O’Leary, an author of that advice, explains why.
By Dana Goldstein
The American Academy of Pediatrics has a reputation as conservative and cautious, which is what you would expect from an organization devoted to protecting children’s health. But this week, the academy made a splash with advice about reopening schools that appears to be somewhat at odds with what administrators are hearing from some federal and state health officials.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, have advised that remote learning is the safest option. But the academy’s guidelines strongly recommend that students be “physically present in school” as much as possible, and emphasize that there are major health, social and educational risks to keeping children at home.
Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatrics infectious disease specialist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, helped write the academy’s guidelines. * He is a father of two children, 12 and 16, and a survivor of Covid-19 who is still experiencing some symptoms after he and his wife contracted the coronavirus in March.
“I absolutely take this seriously,” Dr. O’Leary said. “I’m still sick.” But he explained why the academy was emphasizing the need to get students back in classrooms….
WASHINGTON – Senior Trump administration officials have begun signaling their willingness to approve a narrow extension of the enhanced unemployment benefits helping tens of millions of jobless Americans hurt by the coronavirus pandemic.
In less than two weeks, the federal program that provides a $600-per-week increase to unemployment benefits will expire. Many economists warn the disappearance of this enormous federal stimulus, created in March, could hinder the economic recovery and deprive millions of Americans of a vital financial lifeline.
More than 30 million people are collecting what many recipients say is a crucial pillar of financial support right now. …
For months, President Donald Trump and White House officials have argued the $600-per-week unemployment bonus provides a disincentive to work and should be scrapped so that more Americans return to work as part of the economic recovery. But with the benefits soon set to expire and the economy showing new signs of strain, Trump administration officials have begun opening the door to accepting a narrower version of what Congress previously approved.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on CNBC last week that the administration’s priority was ensuring that future benefits amount to “no more” than 100% of a worker’s prior wages. Mnuchin’s comments surprised some congressional Republicans who thought he shared their strong opposition to extending the benefits, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal dynamics.
Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, told Fox Business on Monday that the administration is seeking “some unemployment reforms.” Kudlow had in previous weeks more aggressively bashed the $600-per-week increase. …
COVID-19 Planning Considerations: Guidance for School Re-entry
By American Academy of Pediatrics
The purpose of this guidance is to support education, public health, local leadership, and pediatricians collaborating with schools in creating policies for school re-entry that foster the overall health of children, adolescents, staff, and communities and are based on available evidence. Schools are fundamental to child and adolescent development and well-being and provide our children and adolescents with academic instruction, social and emotional skills, safety, reliable nutrition, physical/speech and mental health therapy, and opportunities for physical activity, among other benefits. Beyond supporting the educational development of children and adolescents, schools play a critical role in addressing racial and social inequity. As such, it is critical to reflect on the differential impact SARS-CoV-2 and the associated school closures have had on different races, ethnic and vulnerable populations. These recommendations are provided acknowledging that our understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is changing rapidly.
Any school re-entry policies should consider the following key principles:
School policies must be flexible and nimble in responding to new information, and administrators must be willing to refine approaches when specific policies are not working.
It is critically important to develop strategies that can be revised and adapted depending on the level of viral transmission in the school and throughout the community and done with close communication with state and/or local public health authorities and recognizing the differences between school districts, including urban, suburban, and rural districts.
Policies should be practical, feasible, and appropriate for child’s and adolescent’s developmental stage.
Special considerations and accommodations to account for the diversity of youth should be made, especially for our vulnerable populations, including those who are medically fragile, live in poverty, have developmental challenges, or have special health care needs or disabilities, with the goal of safe return to school.
No child or adolescents should be excluded from school unless required in order to adhere to local public health mandates or because of unique medical needs. Pediatricians, families, and schools should partner together to collaboratively identify and develop accommodations, when needed.
School policies should be guided by supporting the overall health and well-being of all children, adolescents, their families, and their communities. These policies should be consistently communicated in languages other than English, if needed, based on the languages spoken in the community, to avoid marginalization of parents/guardians who are of limited English proficiency or do not speak English at all.
The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a new warning for lawmakers and community leaders looking to reopen schools that they must follow “science” and “evidence, not politics.”
The group — along with educators and superintendents — wrote in an open letter posted Friday that though “children learn best when physically present in the classroom,” public agencies “must pursue re-opening in a way that is safe for all students, teachers, and staff.”
The letter was cosigned by the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and AASA, the School Superintendents Association. …
#Huawei 1/5 The UK has taken leave of its senses. This period will become famous in our history as an exercise in national suicide. We left the EU, our biggest trading partner. We now decide that China, the largest economy in the world, is our greatest enemy.
#Huawei 1/5 The UK has taken leave of its senses. This period will become famous in our history as an exercise in national suicide. We left the EU, our biggest trading partner. We now decide that China, the largest economy in the world, is our greatest enemy.
9:57 AM · Jul 14, 2020
2/5 We turn our back on Huawei, one of the world’s most innovative and important companies, and its 5G technology that is crucial to our future. We rip out all its technology in an extraordinary act of national self-harm, costing us, one suspects, 5-10 years.
3/5 And on whose orders? Those of the worst president in US history who is busy undermining America’s own future. The parliamentary Conservative Party is now in hock to a right-wing cabal who live in the past and have no sense of the future. They will never be forgiven.
4/5 China has been responsible for one-third of global economic growth since 2009. By 2030 it will account for around 30% of global GDP. China is the crucial player in the global economy and that will be true on a far greater scale in future. The UK has no future without China.
5/5 The Tory fossils talk about a great alliance against China. Forget it. Not even Europe will be with you. You are leading our country into the wilderness and irreversible national decline.
Why We’re Losing the Battle With Covid-19
The escalating crisis in Texas shows how the chronic underfunding of public health has put America on track for the worst coronavirus response in the developed world.
By Jeneen Interlandi
What should not be missed in all the political blaming, is that the American experience through this saddening epidemic reflects a poor public healthcare system. The work of Deaton and Case should have decisively told us this several years ago, but the work was both immediately criticized in the Washington Post then failed to be considered by policy makers.
After all, the failure to get coronavirus testing right from the beginning to now should be shocking. But, look to longevity in comparison with other developed countries, look to infant mortality, and know we have a healthcare system weakness.
Millions Have Lost Health Insurance in Pandemic-Driven Recession
A new study estimates that more than five million American workers lost their insurance this spring, a number higher than those in any full year of insurance losses.
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
WASHINGTON — The coronavirus pandemic stripped an estimated 5.4 million American workers of their health insurance between February and May, a stretch in which more adults became uninsured because of job losses than have ever lost coverage in a single year, according to a new analysis.
The study, to be announced Tuesday by the nonpartisan consumer advocacy group Families USA, found that the estimated increase in uninsured workers from February to May was nearly 40 percent higher than the highest previous increase, which occurred during the recession of 2008 and 2009, when 3.9 million adults lost insurance.
“We knew these numbers would be big,” said Stan Dorn, who directs the group’s National Center for Coverage Innovation and wrote the study. “This is the worst economic downturn since World War II. It dwarfs the Great Recession. So it’s not surprising that we would also see the worst increase in the uninsured.” …
Winter has come in the southern hemisphere and coronavirus cases are spreading through the hemisphere as flu spreads in the winter months. Of course, the coronavirus is spreading fiercely through the United States in summer but there is evidently no reason to expect a seasonal lessening in the northern hemisphere in winter.
Patients who recover from coronavirus infections may lose their immunity to reinfection within months, according to research released on Monday that experts said could have a “significant” influence on how governments manage the pandemic.
In the first study of its kind, * a team led by researchers from King’s College London examined the levels of antibodies in more than 90 confirmed virus patients and how they changed over time.
Blood tests showed even individuals with only mild COVID-19 symptoms mounted some immune response to the virus.
Of the study group, 60 percent showed a “potent” viral response in the first few weeks after infection.
However, after three months only 16.7 percent had maintained high levels of COVID-19-neutralizing antibodies, and after 90 days several patients had no detectable antibodies in their bloodstream.
When the body encounters an external danger such as a virus, it mobilizes cells to track down and kill the culprit.
As it does so, it produces proteins known as antibodies that are programmed to target the specific antigen the body is fighting, like a key cut for a particular lock.
As long as someone has enough antibodies, they will be able to snub out new infections, giving them immunity.
But Monday’s research suggests immunity cannot be taken for granted and may not last more than a few months, as is true with other viruses such as influenza.
Playing the lottery
Experts said the findings may change how governments plan for the next phase of the pandemic, including how they fund and organize vaccine research and development.
“This is an important study that starts to define the longer-term dynamics of the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2,” said Lawrence Young, professor of Molecular Oncology at the University of Warwick, using the full name of the virus strain.
“It further emphasizes the need for us to better understand what a protective immune response looks like if we are to develop an effective vaccine,” said Young, who was not involved in the research.
James Gill, an honorary clinical lecturer at Warwick Medical School, said the research reiterated the need for everyone to continue taking measures to mitigate the virus spreading, particularly at the start of Europe’s holiday season.
“In the same way that these patients were surprised to have antibodies to COVID-19, we should NOT be surprised if any protective benefit is mild, or at least transient,” he said.
“If you played the lottery and won 10 pounds, you wouldn’t immediately think that you had acquired increased natural luck, and used your life savings to buy further lottery tickets.
“Even those with a positive antibody test – especially those who cannot account for where they may have been exposed – should continue to use caution, social distancing and appropriate mask use.”
Longitudinal evaluation and decline of antibody responses in SARS-CoV-2 infection
By Jeffrey Seow, Carl Graham, Blair Merrick, Sam Acors, Kathryn J.A. Steel, Oliver Hemmings, Aoife O’Bryne …
Abstract
Antibody (Ab) responses to SARS-CoV-2 can be detected in most infected individuals 10-15 days following the onset of COVID-19 symptoms. However, due to the recent emergence of this virus in the human population it is not yet known how long these Ab responses will be maintained or whether they will provide protection from re-infection. Using sequential serum samples collected up to 94 days post onset of symptoms (POS) from 65 RT-qPCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals, we show seroconversion in >95% of cases and neutralizing antibody (nAb) responses when sampled beyond 8 days POS. We demonstrate that the magnitude of the nAb response is dependent upon the disease severity, but this does not affect the kinetics of the nAb response. Declining nAb titres were observed during the follow up period. Whilst some individuals with high peak ID50 (>10,000) maintained titres >1,000 at >60 days POS, some with lower peak ID50 had titres approaching baseline within the follow up period. A similar decline in nAb titres was also observed in a cohort of seropositive healthcare workers from Guy′s and St Thomas′ Hospitals. We suggest that this transient nAb response is a feature shared by both a SARS-CoV-2 infection that causes low disease severity and the circulating seasonal coronaviruses that are associated with common colds. This study has important implications when considering widespread serological testing, Ab protection against re-infection with SARS-CoV-2 and the durability of vaccine protection.
Chinese mainland reports 6 new COVID-19 cases, no new deaths
The Chinese mainland on Tuesday recorded 6 new COVID-19 cases from overseas, but no new domestic cases or deaths.
The total number of confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland stands at 83,611 and the cumulative death toll at 4,634, with 110 asymptomatic patients under medical observation.
Beijing recorded no new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases on Tuesday for the ninth day in a row. The Chinese capital’s total number of cases stands at 335 since a cluster outbreak was discovered at its Xinfadi wholesale market on June 11, the municipal health commission said on Wednesday.
An additional 14 patients recovered on Tuesday, taking the total number of recoveries from the local cluster to 144.
The health mission also reported no new asymptomatic cases in the past 24 hours, adding that the existing 18 asymptomatic people are still under medical observation.
The Stock Market and Modern Monetary Theory: The Dow Is Not Your Friend
By Dean Baker
It is standard for economic reporters to treat higher stock prices as good news. A rising stock market is often touted in the same way that job gains or GDP growth are touted, as evidence of a stronger economy.
This can be true. When the economy is growing at a healthy pace, the stock market is usually rising also. But the link is far more tenuous than is generally recognized. The market is in principle a measure of expected future profits. Policies that redistribute from workers or taxpayers, such as anti-union laws or a corporate tax cut, would be expected to lead to a rising stock market, even if they did not spur economic growth.
But even beyond this direct redistributive issue, there is another sense in which a rising stock market can be bad for the 90 percent or the population that doesn’t own much stock (this includes 401(k)s). Higher stock prices encourage rich people to spend more money.
To see why this is an issue we need to pull out our MMT or Keynesian handbook. (MMT is essentially Keynes. That is not an insult, the term “modern monetary theory” is taken from the Keynes’ Treatise on Money.) To my view, the main takeaway from MMT is that the limit on the government’s ability to spend is inflation. This goes against the line pushed by the deficit hawks, that we have to worry about the government borrowing too much, because at some point lenders will be unwilling to lend us money.
As those of us who are not part of the deficit hawk cult point out, the government can print money if no one is willing to lend to it. Of course, in reality, investors have been very happy to lend the government money. The current interest rate on long-term government bonds is less than 0.7 percent. That compares to interest rates in the 4.0-5.0 percent range back when the government was running a budget surplus at the end of the 1990s.
But suppose this changed and investors suddenly soured on U.S. government debt? Well, the Federal Reserve could just buy the debt that investors wanted to dump. It would pay for it the old-fashioned way, by printing money.
This is certainly a logical possibility, after all the Fed can print as much money as it wants. (It’s actually all electronic transactions, with bank credits, but that is beside the point.) The real problem that we could run into is that printing money keeps interest rates lower than they otherwise would be. As a result, demand from public and private investment, housing, and other forms of consumption will be higher than in the case where the Fed is not buying bonds. In an economy that is operating near its capacity (definitely not the current economy), higher levels of demand can lead to inflation. If the Fed keeps printing large amounts of money, causing interest rates to stay low and demand to remain excessive, we could see spiraling inflation, or in an extreme case, hyperinflation.
In this story, the constraint on government spending is the risk of inflation, which in turn is the result of too much demand in the economy. This is the story of why we have taxes. If there is excessive demand and we don’t want to cut spending, then we can raise taxes to reduce consumption spending by the people we tax. The tax revenue is not needed to pay for the spending in the way that stores need sales to pay wages, the tax revenue is a way to reduce demand in the economy to provide the room needed for the government to spend.
With this story in mind, let’s get back to the stock market. Suppose the market rises by 10 percent, not because of expectations of greater future profits, but simply as a result of irrational exuberance. Investors are just excited about holding stock, as was the case in the 1990s stock bubble and may well be the case with certain stocks now.
If we round up somewhat, the current capitalization of the U.S. stock market is $40 trillion, which means that a 10 percent increase would imply an addition of $4 trillion. There is a well-known stock wealth effect on consumption, which is usually estimated as between 3-4 percent.[1] This means that if the value of households’ stock holdings rise by $100, they will increase their annual consumption spending by between $3-$4. If we apply this wealth effect calculation to the $4 trillion increase in market capitalization, it would imply an increase in annual consumption of between $120 billion and $160 billion, or 0.6 to 0.8 percent of GDP.
This increase in consumption generates more demand in the economy. It has roughly the same impact in employing labor and other resources as an increase in government spending of the same amount. This means that if the economy was more or less at its capacity, so that additional demand would lead to inflation, and the stock market jumped by 10 percent, we would suddenly be facing a problem with inflation.
In that case, in order to prevent inflation, the government would have to do something to reduce demand to offset the jump in consumption from stockholders.[2] This could mean that the Federal Reserve Board would raise interest rates to reduce investment spending, housing construction, and other consumption. Alternatively, the government could raise taxes to reduce consumption. However, going either route means that someone has to spend less because stockholders are spending more. In other words, higher stock prices mean that people who are not stockholders have to spend less money.
This conclusion is pretty much an inevitable implication of the wealth effect, regardless of whether or not someone accepts MMT or Keynesian economics. If stockholders are consuming more, then there is less for everyone else, at least when the economy is near full employment.
For this reason, most people have little cause to celebrate when stock prices rise. Not only do higher stock prices not benefit the typical worker, they can actually harm them by forcing government cutbacks or tax increases, or higher interest rates from the Fed. The stock market may be the home team for the people who own and run major news outlets, but not for most of the country. When the market goes up, most people should not be cheering.
[1] While people often talk about issuing stock as being a mechanism for financing investment, in reality it is rare for companies to finance investment by issuing shares. The one notable exception to this rule was in the 1990s stock bubble when many new companies found they could raise hundreds of millions or even billions by issuing shares, in some cases without even knowing how they could hope to make a profit from their business. More typically, companies issue shares to allow early investors to cash out their holdings.
[2] In reality, any increase in consumption takes time. Stockholders are not changing their consumption based on day to day movements in the stock market, rather this wealth effect on consumption would be phased in over 1 to 2 years.
Trump Administration Strips C.D.C. of Control of Coronavirus Data
Hospitals have been ordered to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all patient information to a central database in Washington, raising questions about transparency.
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Israelis Fear Schools Reopened Too Soon as Covid-19 Cases Climb
Outbreaks in schools had infected at least 1,335 students and 691 staff by Monday since the reopening in early May
By Felicia Schwartz and Dov Lieber – Wall Street Journal
TEL AVIV—Some Israeli public-health officials are blaming the country’s decision to reopen schools in May for helping fuel a large new wave of coronavirus infections that has prompted authorities to shut down sections of the economy once again.
Trump to Weaken Environmental Rules to Speed Infrastructure Permits
By Lisa Friedman
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday is set to unilaterally weaken one of the nation’s bedrock conservation laws, the National Environmental Policy Act, limiting public review of federal infrastructure projects to speed up the permitting of freeways, power plants and pipelines.
In doing so, the Trump administration will claim hundreds of millions of dollars of savings over almost a decade by significantly reducing the amount of time allowed to complete reviews of major infrastructure projects, according to two people familiar with the new policy.
What may easily be overlooked is the extent to which the Trump administration is changing government structure and policy in ways that will be quite difficult to undo or modify with a new administration. The changes Trump is making are in domestic and foreign policy. Especially important may be a return to the Cold War, which has evidently been decided on but which changing could take years of danger.
Looking to public healthcare systems, compare the workings of the Dominican Republic and Cuban systems, while considering that since 1970 per capita GDP growth in the Dominican Republic has been faster than any country in the Western Hemisphere, let alone not being constrained by continual sanctions as has the Cuban system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/opinion/coronavirus-schools-bars.html
July 13, 2020
America Drank Away Its Children’s Future
As the school year looms, the pandemic is still raging.
By Paul Krugman
A brief history of the past four months in America:
Experts: Don’t rush to reopen, this isn’t over.
Donald Trump: LIBERATE!
Covid-19: Wheee!
Trump officials: Here’s our opposition research on Anthony Fauci.
And we’re now faced with an agonizing choice: Do we reopen schools, creating risks of a further viral explosion, or do we keep children home, with severe negative effects on their learning?
None of this had to happen. Other countries stuck with their lockdowns long enough to reduce infections to rates much lower than those prevailing here; Covid-19 death rates per capita in the European Union are only a 10th those in the United States — and falling — while ours are rising fast. As a result, they’re in a position to reopen schools fairly safely.
And the experience of the Northeast, the first major epicenter of the U.S. pandemic, shows that we could have achieved something similar here. Death rates are way down, although still higher than in Europe; on Saturday, for the first time since March, New York City reported zero Covid-19 deaths.
Would a longer lockdown have been economically sustainable? Yes.
It’s true that strong social distancing requirements led to high unemployment and hurt many businesses. But even America, with its ramshackle social safety net, was able to provide enough disaster relief — don’t call it stimulus! — to protect most of its citizens from severe hardship.
Thanks largely to expanded unemployment benefits, poverty didn’t soar during the lockdown. By some measures it may even have gone down.
True, there were holes in that safety net, and many people did suffer. But we could have patched those holes. Yes, emergency relief costs a lot of money, but we can afford it: The federal government has been borrowing huge sums, but interest rates have remained near historical lows.
Put it this way: At its most severe, the lockdown seems to have reduced G.D.P. by a little over 10 percent. During World War II, America spent more than 30 percent of G.D.P. on defense, for more than three years. Why couldn’t we absorb a much smaller cost for a few months?
So doing what was necessary to bring the coronavirus under control would have been annoying, but entirely feasible.
But that was the road not taken. Instead, many states not only rushed to reopen, they reopened stupidly. Instead of being treated as a cheap, effective way to fight contagion, face masks became a front in the culture war. Activities that posed an obvious risk of feeding the pandemic went unchecked: Large gatherings were permitted, bars reopened.
And the cost of those parties and open bars extends beyond the thousands of Americans who will be killed or suffer permanent health damage as a result of Covid-19’s resurgence. The botched reopening has also endangered something that, unlike drinking in groups, can’t be suspended without doing long-run damage: in-person education.
Some activities hold up fairly well when moved online. I suspect that there will be a lot fewer people flying cross-country to stare at PowerPoints than there were pre-Covid, even once we finally beat this virus.
Education isn’t one of those activities. We now have overwhelming confirmation of something we already suspected: For many, perhaps most students there is no substitute for actually being in a classroom.
But rooms full of students are potential Petri dishes, even if the young are less likely to die from Covid-19 than the old. Other countries have managed to reopen schools relatively safely — but they did so with much lower infection rates than currently prevail in America, and with adequate testing, which we still don’t have in many hot spots.
So we’re now facing a terrible, unnecessary dilemma. If we reopen in-person education, we risk feeding an out-of-control pandemic. If we don’t, we impair the development of millions of American students, inflicting long-term damage on their lives and careers.
And the reason we’re in this position is that states, cheered on by the Trump administration, rushed to allow large parties and reopen bars. In a real sense America drank away its children’s future.
Now what? At this point there are probably as many infected Americans as there were in March. So what we should be doing is admitting that we blew it, and doing a severe lockdown all over again — and this time listening to the experts before reopening. Unfortunately, it’s now too late to avoid disrupting education, but the sooner we deal with this the sooner we can get our society back on track.
But we don’t have the kind of leaders we need. Instead, we have the likes of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, politicians who refuse to listen to experts and never admit having been wrong.
So while there have been a few grudging policy adjustments, the main response we’re seeing to colossal policy failure is a hysterical attempt to shift the blame. Some officials are trying to blacken Dr. Fauci’s reputation; others are diving into unhinged conspiracy theories.
As a result, the outlook is grim. This pandemic is going to get worse before it gets better, and the nation will suffer permanent damage.
https://cepr.net/ross-douthat-shows-trouble-with-arithmetic-in-new-york-times-column-on-chinas-decade/
July 13, 2020
Ross Douthat Shows Trouble With Arithmetic In New York Times Column on China’s “Decade”
By Dean Baker
Ross Douthat has good news for folks who don’t like China. His New York Times column * yesterday told us that China’s economy will run out of steam in a decade, and that the U.S. will again be able to reclaim world leadership after 2030. The problem is that the piece presents nothing to support this claim.
After telling readers that China is passing the U.S. for world leadership due to the inept presidency of Donald Trump, Douthat gets to the meat of his piece:
“It’s possible that we’re nearing a peak of U.S.-China tension not because China is poised to permanently overtake the United States as a global power, but because China itself is peaking — with a slowing growth rate that may leave it short of the prosperity achieved by its Pacific neighbors, a swiftly aging population, and a combination of self-limiting soft power and maxed-out hard power that’s likely to diminish, relative to the U.S. and India and others, in the 2040s and beyond.
“Instead of a Chinese Century, in other words, the coronavirus might be ushering in a Chinese Decade, in which Xi Jinping’s government behaves with maximal aggression because it sees an opportunity that won’t come again.”
The problem is that the cited piece for “China’s slowing growth rate” still has China growing close 4.0 percent annually. That is almost 2.0 percentage points faster than the 2.1 percent growth rate projected for the U.S. in the last five years of the decade.
Furthermore, the U.S. economy is started from a much lower base. In 2019 China’s economy was already more than 25 percent larger than the U.S. economy, while the U.S. economy is projected to shrink by 5.5 percent this year, China’s is expected to grow by 1.8 percent. It is hard to see how an economy that is starting from a lower level and growing at a slower pace, will pass a larger economy that is growing more rapidly. I guess it takes a NYT columnist to figure that one out.
One final point, there seems to be an obsession in the media with China’s lower birth rate and likely declining population. While the idea that this is a big problem for China is repeated endlessly, it really leads to the obvious question, why?
So the country will have fewer people. This will likely mean fewer people working in very low productivity jobs in agriculture and the service sector. And why exactly would this be a problem for China?
* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/opinion/sunday/china-coronavirus-power.html
https://cepr.net/its-going-to-be-a-long-and-harsh-recession-nyt-warns-of-skills-gap/
July 14, 2020
It’s Going to Be a Long and Harsh Recession: New York Times Warns of Skills Gap
By Dean Baker
When the unemployment rate goes up, a standard theme in the media is that workers don’t have the right skills. We saw that yesterday in the New York Times when an article * told us “The Pandemic Has Accelerated Demands for a More Skilled Workforce.” It tells us how the growth of telecommuting in response to the pandemic has led to more demand for skilled labor and less demand for less-skilled workers.
The key point in this sort of argument is that the problem is the workers, who don’t have the right skills, not an economy that doesn’t create enough demand for labor. Of course, we get this skills shortage argument every time the unemployment rate soars. In the summer of 2010, when the Great Recession was still near its trough, the NYT ran a piece ** telling us about the skills shortage in manufacturing. Over the next nine and a half years the sector added almost 1.3 million jobs (11.3 percent), without any notable improvement in the skills of the U.S. workforce. The overall unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, again without any major gains in skills in the U.S. workforce.
The focus on the skills gap is even more infuriating since even if there were an issue with demand for skills that would be the result of policy not technology, as the piece implies. We have lots of jobs in areas like computers and biotech because the government gives out patent and copyright monopolies in these areas. If we are worried that we are creating too much demand for people with advanced skills and not enough demand for people with less education, we can make these monopolies shorter and weaker, or perhaps not even have them at all.
The latter possibility should be a major topic of debate in the context of the pandemic. The government is spending billions of dollars to drug companies to pay for research and testing of various treatments and vaccines to combat the coronavirus. Incredibly, after putting billions of dollars upfront, and taking the big risks, the government is giving the companies patent monopolies to these companies, which will allow them to charge whatever they want for what was developed on the government’s nickel.
This will likely mean redistributing tens of billions from everyone else to the shareholders, top executives, and key employees in these companies. If we don’t want to see this upward redistribution (also from Black to white, since the beneficiaries in this story are almost certainly overwhelmingly white) the key is not more skills for our workers, the key is for the government not to be giving out patent monopolies for work it has paid for.
To be clear, this is not an argument against education and training. It would be good for workers and the economy if we had a better trained workforce. But the reason we have high unemployment today, and may have high unemployment for some time into the future, is not a lack of skills, it is a failure of economic policy.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/business/coronavirus-retraining-workers.html
** https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/business/economy/02manufacturing.html
” If we don’t, we impair the development of millions of American students, inflicting long-term damage on their lives and careers.”
PK
I’m sorrry, but this is way overstated. Granted, there will be some students who will suffer greatly from this closing. However, the vast majority will not.
Where is it written that there must be graduation every single year? take a year off. Not a big deal for most students. Particularly when all of theri classmates are doing the same.
Wait ’til next year.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-07/14/c_139211869.htm
July 14, 2020
Beijing tames new infections of COVID-19 in less than one month
— Beijing has effectively controlled its recent outbreak of COVID-19 infections related to a major wholesale market as the city reported no new confirmed cases for the eighth consecutive day on Monday.
— Thanks to timely and effective epidemiological investigations, Xinfadi was targeted as a high-risk location within 22 hours of the new outbreak.
— Beijing deployed targeted lockdowns instead of confining everyone to their homes that risked reversing the gains made after the resumption of work.
— More than 11 million people in Beijing, about half of the capital’s population, underwent nucleic acid tests between June 11 and July 6.
By Cheng Lu, Qiang Lijing, Luo Xin and Xie Hao
BEIJING — Beijing has effectively controlled its recent outbreak of COVID-19 infections related to a major wholesale market as the city reported no new confirmed cases for the eighth consecutive day on Monday.
From June 11 to Monday, the Chinese capital city reported 335 confirmed domestically transmitted cases, of whom 205 remain hospitalized and 130 were discharged from Beijing Ditan Hospital after recovery.
After the city saw a resurgence in locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, mostly related to the large Xinfadi farm produce market in Fengtai District, the municipal government adopted swift and targeted measures to curb the spread of the virus.
Here is a look at how Beijing has brought the new infections under control in less than one month.
TIMELY EPIDEMIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION
Beijing reported a new confirmed locally transmitted COVID-19 case on June 11 after the city had seen 57 days with no such cases.
An epidemiological investigation was carried out immediately, which traced 38 close contacts. All places that the patient had visited and may have been potentially exposed to the virus, including Xinfadi, were identified.
On June 12, environmental samples tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Xinfadi. At the same time, more epidemiological investigations were carried out as several new confirmed cases were reported.
To control the new infections, the disease control and prevention centers at the city and district levels organized more than 500 epidemiological investigators, who can be immediately dispatched to conduct investigations if any new cases are reported.
“We usually have three people in a group, two go into the quarantine area, and the third is responsible for support and disinfection,” 33-year-old epidemiological investigator Li Ruoxi said. He explained they communicated with the patient and his or her family about the patient’s recent activities and contact history over the 14 days before hospitalization.
Thanks to timely and effective epidemiological investigations, Xinfadi was targeted as a high-risk location within 22 hours of the new outbreak. Beijing immediately suspended the market, closed down nearby residential communities and conducted concentrated medical observation of traders from Xinfadi.
TARGETED LOCKDOWNS
To cope with the rebound in locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, Beijing deployed targeted lockdowns instead of confining everyone to their homes that risked reversing the gains made after the resumption of work.
Precise control measures have been taken by designating subdistricts and townships as low-, medium- or high-risk areas according to their epidemic situation.
In this way, the lives of people in low-risk areas would be minimally affected. With health QR codes showing their digital travel records, deliverymen and other service providers are allowed to enter residential communities, and residents can access certain public venues and travel in the city freely. Conversely, some key areas, apartment blocks and housing compounds in medium- and high-risk areas were put under closed-off management.
To prevent the spread of the virus, the city tightened the control of the flow of personnel to other places.
For example, those from medium- and high-risk areas and relevant people from the Xinfadi market were not allowed to leave Beijing. Previously, a negative nucleic acid test certificate issued within the past seven days was also a must for those who intended to leave the city. The certificates were no longer required for people from Beijing’s low-risk areas starting from July 4 as the epidemic situation improved.
Huaxiang Township in Fengtai District, the only remaining high-risk area in the city, has been downgraded to a medium-risk area after fewer than 10 local confirmed cases had been reported for 14 consecutive days, said Liu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, at a press conference on Monday.
After the adjustment, Beijing was cleared of high-risk areas for the disease, and it now has a total of seven medium-risk areas, according to Liu.
MASS TESTING
To contain the spread of the disease, Beijing launched a citywide campaign to trace people who had visited the Xinfadi market since May 30 via door-to-door inquiries, calls, social media platforms and other methods. People working in the related farm produce markets, residents of nearby communities and people who visited the facilities have been identified to undergo nucleic acid tests.
The city has also prioritized testing for people living in medium- and high-risk areas, medical staff and frontline personnel, and employees of banks, grocery stores, restaurants, courier enterprises, food delivery platforms and hair and beauty salons.
More than 11 million people in Beijing, about half of the capital’s population, underwent nucleic acid tests between June 11 and July 6, according to local authorities.
To cope with the surging demand for tests, Beijing expanded the number of nucleic acid testing facilities from 98 in early June to 184 as of July 7.
Three COVID-19 nucleic acid test laboratories named “Huoyan,” or Fire Eye, have conducted more than 1.2 million tests in Beijing in about three weeks. Two of them are mobile and inflatable labs.
As of July 11, the two inflatable labs have been dismantled. “After the removal of the labs, professionals will carefully disinfect the environment and the site can be used for other purposes,” said Xiang Fei from BGI Genomics, one of the developers of the labs.
Beijing has contained the virus within one month by adopting comprehensive measures, including raising the response level, conducting collective medical observation of close contacts, and carrying out mass screening, said Wang Hufeng, a medical researcher at Renmin University.
Although the epidemic prevention and control in Beijing has achieved remarkable progress, the novel coronavirus can cause complicated and varied symptoms and it is highly contagious, said Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Citizens should not relax their vigilance. They should continue to protect themselves from contracting the virus and clean and disinfect their living and work environment on a regular basis,” she said.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-14/Chinese-mainland-reports-3-new-COVID-19-cases-from-aboard-S6UFmFfbqM/index.html
July 14, 2020
Chinese mainland reports 3 new COVID-19 cases, no new deaths
The Chinese mainland on Monday recorded 3 new COVID-19 cases from overseas, but no new domestic cases or deaths.
The total number of confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland stands at 83,605 and the cumulative death toll at 4,634, with 110 asymptomatic patients under medical observation.
Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-14/Chinese-mainland-reports-3-new-COVID-19-cases-from-aboard-S6UFmFfbqM/img/be750ef1a26e41dc81c44140ee070be5/be750ef1a26e41dc81c44140ee070be5.jpeg
Chinese mainland new imported cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-14/Chinese-mainland-reports-3-new-COVID-19-cases-from-aboard-S6UFmFfbqM/img/ce2b043b4f2345868128429a66f117bf/ce2b043b4f2345868128429a66f117bf.jpeg
Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-14/Chinese-mainland-reports-3-new-COVID-19-cases-from-aboard-S6UFmFfbqM/img/b33b56d054074d1ab944554154f9d6bb/b33b56d054074d1ab944554154f9d6bb.jpeg
Caught in ‘Ideological Spiral,’ US and China Drift Toward Cold War
NY Times – July 14
One by one, the United States has hit at the core tenets of Xi Jinping’s vision for a rising China ready to assume the mantle of superpower.
In a matter of weeks, the Trump administration has imposed sanctions over punitive policies in Hong Kong and China’s western region of Xinjiang. It took new measures to suffocate Chinese innovation by cutting it off from American technology and pushing allies to look elsewhere. Then, on Monday, it tore up China’s claims in the South China Sea, setting the stage for sharper confrontation.
“The power gap is closing, and the ideological gap is widening,” said Rush Doshi, director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Brookings Institution in Washington, adding that China and the United States had entered a downward “ideological spiral” years in the making.
“Where’s the bottom?” he asked.
For years, officials and historians have dismissed the idea that a new Cold War was emerging between the United States and China. The contours of today’s world, the argument went, are simply incomparable to the decades when the United States and the Soviet Union squared off in an existential struggle for supremacy. The world was said to be too interconnected to easily divide into ideological blocs.
Now, lines are being drawn and relations are in free fall, laying the foundation for a confrontation that will have many of the characteristics of the Cold War — and the dangers. As the two superpowers clash over technology, territory and clout, they face the same risk of small disputes escalating into military conflict.
The relationship is increasingly imbued with deep distrust and animosity, as well as the fraught tensions that come with two powers jockeying for primacy, especially in areas where their interests collide: in cyberspace and outer space, in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, and even in the Persian Gulf.
And the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with China’s recent aggressive actions on its borders — from the Pacific to the Himalayas — has turned existing fissures into chasms that could be difficult to overcome, no matter the outcome of this year’s American presidential election.
From Beijing’s perspective, it is the United States that has plunged relations to what China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said last week was their lowest point since the countries re-established diplomatic relations in 1979.
“The current China policy of the United States is based on ill-informed strategic miscalculation and is fraught with emotions and whims and McCarthyist bigotry,” Mr. Wang said, evoking the Cold War himself to describe the current level of tensions.
“It seems as if every Chinese investment is politically driven, every Chinese student is a spy and every cooperation initiative is a scheme with a hidden agenda,” he added.
Domestic politics in both countries have hardened views and given ammunition to hawks. The pandemic, too, has inflamed tensions, especially in the United States. President Trump refers to the coronavirus with racist tropes, while Beijing accuses his administration of attacking China to detract from its failures to contain the virus.
“What cooperation is there between China and the United States right now?” said Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. “I can’t see any substantial cooperation.”
Both countries are forcing other nations to take sides, even if they are disinclined to do so. The Trump administration, for example, has pressed allies — with some success in Australia and, on Tuesday, in Britain — to forswear the Chinese tech giant Huawei as they develop 5G networks. China, facing condemnation over its policies in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, has rallied countries to make public demonstrations of support for them.
A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian, said on Tuesday that the American declaration would undermine regional peace and stability, asserting that China had controlled the islands in the sea “for thousands of years,” which is not true. As he stated, the Republic of China — then controlled by the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek — only made a formal claim in 1948.
“China is committed to resolving territorial and jurisdictional disputes with directly related sovereign states through negotiations and consultations,” he said.
That is not how its neighbors see things. Japan warned this week that China was attempting to “alter the status quo in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.” It called China a more serious long-term threat than a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Michael A. McFaul, a former American ambassador to Russia, said China’s recent maneuvering appeared to be “overextended and overreaching,” likening it to one of the most fraught moments of the Cold War.
“It does remind me of Khrushchev,” he said. “He’s lashing out, and suddenly he’s in a Cuban missile crisis with the U.S.”
A backlash against Beijing appears to be growing. The tensions are particularly clear in tech, where China has sought to compete with the world in cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and microchips, while harshly restricting what people can read, watch or listen to inside the country. …
The Chinese Decade
NY Times – Ross Douthat – July 11
(Leaving aside some incendiary comments about Covid-19…)
… Across the 2000s and early 2010s, China’s ruling party reaped the benefits of globalization without paying the cost, in political liberalization, that confident Westerners expected the economic opening to impose. This richer-but-not-freer China proved that it was possible for an authoritarian power to tame the internet, to make its citizens hardworking capitalists without granting them substantial political freedoms, to buy allies across the developing world, and to establish beachheads of influence — in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, American academia, the NBA, Washington, D.C. — in the power centers of its superpower rival.
Eventually, America responded to all this as you would expect a superpower to react: It elected a China hawk who promised to get tough on Beijing, to bring back jobs lost to the China shock, and to shift foreign policy priorities from the Middle East to the Pacific. But there was one small difficulty: This hawk was no Truman or Reagan, but rather a reality-television mountebank whose real attitude toward China policy was, basically, whatever gets me re-elected works. A mountebank, and also a world-historical incompetent, who was presented with exactly the challenge that his nationalism was supposed to answer — a dangerous disease carried by global trade routes from our leading rival — and managed to turn it into an American calamity instead. …
Looking to public healthcare systems, compare the workings of the Dominican Republic and Cuban systems, while considering that since 1970 per capita GDP growth in the Dominican Republic has been faster than any country in the Western Hemisphere, let alone not being constrained by continual sanctions as has the Cuban system.
July 14, 2020
Coronavirus
Dominican Republic
Cases ( 46,305)
Deaths ( 910)
Deaths per million ( 84)
Cuba
Cases ( 2,432)
Deaths ( 87)
Deaths per million ( 8)
https://cepr.net/prices-2020-07/
July 14, 2020
Several Hard-Hit Sectors Reverse Previous Price Drops in June
By DEAN BAKER
Gasoline, hotel, and airline prices all rose sharply in June, partly reversing earlier declines.
The overall Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.6 percent in June, while the core index rose by 0.2 percent, both driven by sharp price increases in areas that had seen large declines in the first months after the pandemic hit. For the year, the overall CPI is now up 0.6 percent, while the core index is up 1.2 percent.
[Graph]
The biggest factor in the sharp rise in the overall CPI was a 12.3 percent jump in gas prices. This follows five months of sharp declines. Gas prices in June were still 23.4 percent below year-ago levels. Food prices rose 0.6 percent, but this is actually slower than the pace of the prior two months.
In particular, we are seeing slower inflation in the food at home category. The June price rise was 0.7 percent, down from 2.6 percent in April and 1.0 percent in May. By contrast, prices are rising more rapidly for restaurant meals. June prices rose 0.5 percent, compared with 0.1 percent in April and 0.4 percent in May. This likely reflects the fact that the restaurants that are open are passing on higher costs associated with maintaining a safe operating environment. We will likely see restaurant prices substantially outpace food at home prices in the months ahead.
Airfare prices jumped 2.6 percent in June after dropping by 15.2 percent in April and 4.9 percent in May. This reflects both some recovery in air travel — although flying is still hugely below year-ago levels — and also efforts to pass on higher costs due to lower capacity on planes.
Apparel is another major category with a sharp bounce back in prices as sales move closer to normal. Prices rose 1.7 in June, after dropping 4.7 percent in April and 2.3 percent in May. They are still down by 7.3 percent from year-ago levels. Hotels prices also rose sharply in June, rising 1.4 percent after sharp drops the prior two months. They are down 16.0 percent from year-ago levels.
Rent is one sector going in the other direction, with both the rent proper index and the index for owners’ equivalent rent rising just 0.1 percent in June. Both had been rising at annual rates of more than 3.0 percent before the pandemic. The last time the monthly inflation rate was this low was in April of 2011 for rent proper and July of 2013 for owners’ equivalent rent. Since most leases are for six months or a year, this figure likely indicates that many of the rents now being negotiated or renegotiated involve actual reductions in rent, as landlords try to keep units occupied.
New vehicle prices were flat in June after rising 0.3 percent in May. Demand for cars has been reasonably strong since the shutdowns were relaxed. Over the last year, new vehicle prices are down 0.2 percent, in line with their pre-pandemic price trend. Used car prices fell 1.2 percent in June and are down 2.8 percent for the year.
Medical care service prices rose 0.5 percent in June, roughly their pace over the last year, with prices now up 6.0 percent from year-ago levels. Health insurance (just profits and administrative costs) continue to be the most rapidly growing component. The index rose 1.0 percent in June and is up 19.4 percent over the last year.
Auto insurance prices rose 5.1 percent in June, after falling 7.2 percent in April and 8.9 percent in May. The sharp declines in the prior months were due to rebates insurers paid to drivers who were driving less during the shutdowns. Prices are still down 10.1 percent from year-ago levels, although large increases in future months are virtually certain as the rebates end.
The sharp upward swings in the June data in many sectors are not a surprise. Prices in sectors such as air travel and hotels plummeted along with demand in the months when the shutdowns were strictest. Business is now picking up in these sectors, which also must cope with higher safety-related costs. We are likely to see further price rises in these sectors, but this is not a standard inflationary pressure story. Rather it is a story of one-time, and presumably temporary, cost increases resulting from the unchecked spread of the pandemic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/coronavirus-schools-reopening-guidelines-aap.html
June 30, 2020
Why a Pediatric Group Is Pushing to Reopen Schools This Fall
Guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics encourage “having students physically present in school.” Dr. Sean O’Leary, an author of that advice, explains why.
By Dana Goldstein
The American Academy of Pediatrics has a reputation as conservative and cautious, which is what you would expect from an organization devoted to protecting children’s health. But this week, the academy made a splash with advice about reopening schools that appears to be somewhat at odds with what administrators are hearing from some federal and state health officials.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, have advised that remote learning is the safest option. But the academy’s guidelines strongly recommend that students be “physically present in school” as much as possible, and emphasize that there are major health, social and educational risks to keeping children at home.
Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatrics infectious disease specialist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, helped write the academy’s guidelines. * He is a father of two children, 12 and 16, and a survivor of Covid-19 who is still experiencing some symptoms after he and his wife contracted the coronavirus in March.
“I absolutely take this seriously,” Dr. O’Leary said. “I’m still sick.” But he explained why the academy was emphasizing the need to get students back in classrooms….
White House signals openness to compromise as enhanced unemployment benefits are set to expire
Washington Post via @BostonGlobe – July 14
WASHINGTON – Senior Trump administration officials have begun signaling their willingness to approve a narrow extension of the enhanced unemployment benefits helping tens of millions of jobless Americans hurt by the coronavirus pandemic.
In less than two weeks, the federal program that provides a $600-per-week increase to unemployment benefits will expire. Many economists warn the disappearance of this enormous federal stimulus, created in March, could hinder the economic recovery and deprive millions of Americans of a vital financial lifeline.
More than 30 million people are collecting what many recipients say is a crucial pillar of financial support right now. …
For months, President Donald Trump and White House officials have argued the $600-per-week unemployment bonus provides a disincentive to work and should be scrapped so that more Americans return to work as part of the economic recovery. But with the benefits soon set to expire and the economy showing new signs of strain, Trump administration officials have begun opening the door to accepting a narrower version of what Congress previously approved.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on CNBC last week that the administration’s priority was ensuring that future benefits amount to “no more” than 100% of a worker’s prior wages. Mnuchin’s comments surprised some congressional Republicans who thought he shared their strong opposition to extending the benefits, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal dynamics.
Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, told Fox Business on Monday that the administration is seeking “some unemployment reforms.” Kudlow had in previous weeks more aggressively bashed the $600-per-week increase. …
https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/clinical-guidance/covid-19-planning-considerations-return-to-in-person-education-in-schools/
June, 2020
COVID-19 Planning Considerations: Guidance for School Re-entry
By American Academy of Pediatrics
The purpose of this guidance is to support education, public health, local leadership, and pediatricians collaborating with schools in creating policies for school re-entry that foster the overall health of children, adolescents, staff, and communities and are based on available evidence. Schools are fundamental to child and adolescent development and well-being and provide our children and adolescents with academic instruction, social and emotional skills, safety, reliable nutrition, physical/speech and mental health therapy, and opportunities for physical activity, among other benefits. Beyond supporting the educational development of children and adolescents, schools play a critical role in addressing racial and social inequity. As such, it is critical to reflect on the differential impact SARS-CoV-2 and the associated school closures have had on different races, ethnic and vulnerable populations. These recommendations are provided acknowledging that our understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is changing rapidly.
Any school re-entry policies should consider the following key principles:
School policies must be flexible and nimble in responding to new information, and administrators must be willing to refine approaches when specific policies are not working.
It is critically important to develop strategies that can be revised and adapted depending on the level of viral transmission in the school and throughout the community and done with close communication with state and/or local public health authorities and recognizing the differences between school districts, including urban, suburban, and rural districts.
Policies should be practical, feasible, and appropriate for child’s and adolescent’s developmental stage.
Special considerations and accommodations to account for the diversity of youth should be made, especially for our vulnerable populations, including those who are medically fragile, live in poverty, have developmental challenges, or have special health care needs or disabilities, with the goal of safe return to school.
No child or adolescents should be excluded from school unless required in order to adhere to local public health mandates or because of unique medical needs. Pediatricians, families, and schools should partner together to collaboratively identify and develop accommodations, when needed.
School policies should be guided by supporting the overall health and well-being of all children, adolescents, their families, and their communities. These policies should be consistently communicated in languages other than English, if needed, based on the languages spoken in the community, to avoid marginalization of parents/guardians who are of limited English proficiency or do not speak English at all.
What the American Academy of Pediatrics really said…
Thousands of US pediatricians warn against reopening schools
The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a new warning for lawmakers and community leaders looking to reopen schools that they must follow “science” and “evidence, not politics.”
The group — along with educators and superintendents — wrote in an open letter posted Friday that though “children learn best when physically present in the classroom,” public agencies “must pursue re-opening in a way that is safe for all students, teachers, and staff.”
The letter was cosigned by the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and AASA, the School Superintendents Association. …
July 14, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 3,505,463)
Deaths ( 138,661)
India
Cases ( 936,368)
Deaths ( 24,314)
Mexico
Cases ( 304,435)
Deaths ( 35,491)
UK
Cases ( 291,373)
Deaths ( 44,968)
Germany
Cases ( 200,528)
Deaths ( 9,139)
Canada
Cases ( 108,155)
Deaths ( 8,790)
China
Cases ( 83,605)
Deaths ( 4,634)
Sweden
Cases ( 76,001)
Deaths ( 5,545)
July 14, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 3,506,213)
Deaths ( 138,680)
Martin Jacques @martjacques
#Huawei 1/5 The UK has taken leave of its senses. This period will become famous in our history as an exercise in national suicide. We left the EU, our biggest trading partner. We now decide that China, the largest economy in the world, is our greatest enemy.
9:57 AM · Jul 14, 2020
2/5 We turn our back on Huawei, one of the world’s most innovative and important companies, and its 5G technology that is crucial to our future. We rip out all its technology in an extraordinary act of national self-harm, costing us, one suspects, 5-10 years.
3/5 And on whose orders? Those of the worst president in US history who is busy undermining America’s own future. The parliamentary Conservative Party is now in hock to a right-wing cabal who live in the past and have no sense of the future. They will never be forgiven.
4/5 China has been responsible for one-third of global economic growth since 2009. By 2030 it will account for around 30% of global GDP. China is the crucial player in the global economy and that will be true on a far greater scale in future. The UK has no future without China.
5/5 The Tory fossils talk about a great alliance against China. Forget it. Not even Europe will be with you. You are leading our country into the wilderness and irreversible national decline.
July 14, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 3,519,707)
Deaths ( 138,848)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/magazine/covid-19-public-health-texas.html
July 14, 2020
Why We’re Losing the Battle With Covid-19
The escalating crisis in Texas shows how the chronic underfunding of public health has put America on track for the worst coronavirus response in the developed world.
By Jeneen Interlandi
What should not be missed in all the political blaming, is that the American experience through this saddening epidemic reflects a poor public healthcare system. The work of Deaton and Case should have decisively told us this several years ago, but the work was both immediately criticized in the Washington Post then failed to be considered by policy makers.
After all, the failure to get coronavirus testing right from the beginning to now should be shocking. But, look to longevity in comparison with other developed countries, look to infant mortality, and know we have a healthcare system weakness.
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/6_casedeaton.pdf
March 17, 2017
Mortality and morbidity in the 21st century
By Anne Case and Angus Deaton
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112
September 17, 2015
Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century
By Anne Case and Angus Deaton
July 14, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 3,529,622)
Deaths ( 138,969)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/us/politics/coronavirus-health-insurance-trump.html
July 13, 2020
Millions Have Lost Health Insurance in Pandemic-Driven Recession
A new study estimates that more than five million American workers lost their insurance this spring, a number higher than those in any full year of insurance losses.
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
WASHINGTON — The coronavirus pandemic stripped an estimated 5.4 million American workers of their health insurance between February and May, a stretch in which more adults became uninsured because of job losses than have ever lost coverage in a single year, according to a new analysis.
The study, to be announced Tuesday by the nonpartisan consumer advocacy group Families USA, found that the estimated increase in uninsured workers from February to May was nearly 40 percent higher than the highest previous increase, which occurred during the recession of 2008 and 2009, when 3.9 million adults lost insurance.
“We knew these numbers would be big,” said Stan Dorn, who directs the group’s National Center for Coverage Innovation and wrote the study. “This is the worst economic downturn since World War II. It dwarfs the Great Recession. So it’s not surprising that we would also see the worst increase in the uninsured.” …
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=sXuU
January 15, 2018
Consumer Price Index for medical care and Consumer Price Index for all items, 2017-2018
(Percent change)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=oaOI
January 15, 2018
Consumer Price Index for medical care and Consumer Price Index for all items, 2007-2018
(Percent change)
Winter has come in the southern hemisphere and coronavirus cases are spreading through the hemisphere as flu spreads in the winter months. Of course, the coronavirus is spreading fiercely through the United States in summer but there is evidently no reason to expect a seasonal lessening in the northern hemisphere in winter.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-14/Virus-immunity-may-disappear-within-months-study-S74ZKvNkVW/index.html
July 14, 2020
Virus immunity may disappear within months: study
Patients who recover from coronavirus infections may lose their immunity to reinfection within months, according to research released on Monday that experts said could have a “significant” influence on how governments manage the pandemic.
In the first study of its kind, * a team led by researchers from King’s College London examined the levels of antibodies in more than 90 confirmed virus patients and how they changed over time.
Blood tests showed even individuals with only mild COVID-19 symptoms mounted some immune response to the virus.
Of the study group, 60 percent showed a “potent” viral response in the first few weeks after infection.
However, after three months only 16.7 percent had maintained high levels of COVID-19-neutralizing antibodies, and after 90 days several patients had no detectable antibodies in their bloodstream.
When the body encounters an external danger such as a virus, it mobilizes cells to track down and kill the culprit.
As it does so, it produces proteins known as antibodies that are programmed to target the specific antigen the body is fighting, like a key cut for a particular lock.
As long as someone has enough antibodies, they will be able to snub out new infections, giving them immunity.
But Monday’s research suggests immunity cannot be taken for granted and may not last more than a few months, as is true with other viruses such as influenza.
Playing the lottery
Experts said the findings may change how governments plan for the next phase of the pandemic, including how they fund and organize vaccine research and development.
“This is an important study that starts to define the longer-term dynamics of the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2,” said Lawrence Young, professor of Molecular Oncology at the University of Warwick, using the full name of the virus strain.
“It further emphasizes the need for us to better understand what a protective immune response looks like if we are to develop an effective vaccine,” said Young, who was not involved in the research.
James Gill, an honorary clinical lecturer at Warwick Medical School, said the research reiterated the need for everyone to continue taking measures to mitigate the virus spreading, particularly at the start of Europe’s holiday season.
“In the same way that these patients were surprised to have antibodies to COVID-19, we should NOT be surprised if any protective benefit is mild, or at least transient,” he said.
“If you played the lottery and won 10 pounds, you wouldn’t immediately think that you had acquired increased natural luck, and used your life savings to buy further lottery tickets.
“Even those with a positive antibody test – especially those who cannot account for where they may have been exposed – should continue to use caution, social distancing and appropriate mask use.”
* https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.09.20148429v1
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.09.20148429v1
July 11, 2020
Longitudinal evaluation and decline of antibody responses in SARS-CoV-2 infection
By Jeffrey Seow, Carl Graham, Blair Merrick, Sam Acors, Kathryn J.A. Steel, Oliver Hemmings, Aoife O’Bryne …
Abstract
Antibody (Ab) responses to SARS-CoV-2 can be detected in most infected individuals 10-15 days following the onset of COVID-19 symptoms. However, due to the recent emergence of this virus in the human population it is not yet known how long these Ab responses will be maintained or whether they will provide protection from re-infection. Using sequential serum samples collected up to 94 days post onset of symptoms (POS) from 65 RT-qPCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals, we show seroconversion in >95% of cases and neutralizing antibody (nAb) responses when sampled beyond 8 days POS. We demonstrate that the magnitude of the nAb response is dependent upon the disease severity, but this does not affect the kinetics of the nAb response. Declining nAb titres were observed during the follow up period. Whilst some individuals with high peak ID50 (>10,000) maintained titres >1,000 at >60 days POS, some with lower peak ID50 had titres approaching baseline within the follow up period. A similar decline in nAb titres was also observed in a cohort of seropositive healthcare workers from Guy′s and St Thomas′ Hospitals. We suggest that this transient nAb response is a feature shared by both a SARS-CoV-2 infection that causes low disease severity and the circulating seasonal coronaviruses that are associated with common colds. This study has important implications when considering widespread serological testing, Ab protection against re-infection with SARS-CoV-2 and the durability of vaccine protection.
July 15, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 3,549,519)
Deaths ( 139,202)
India
Cases ( 956,992)
Deaths ( 24,703)
Mexico
Cases ( 311,486)
Deaths ( 36,327)
UK
Cases ( 291,373)
Deaths ( 44,968)
Germany
Cases ( 200,766)
Deaths ( 9,144)
Canada
Cases ( 108,486)
Deaths ( 8,798)
China
Cases ( 83,611)
Deaths ( 4,634)
Sweden
Cases ( 76,001)
Deaths ( 5,545)
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-15/Chinese-mainland-reports-6-new-COVID-19-cases-from-aboard-S8z2aCYkXC/index.html
July 15, 2020
Chinese mainland reports 6 new COVID-19 cases, no new deaths
The Chinese mainland on Tuesday recorded 6 new COVID-19 cases from overseas, but no new domestic cases or deaths.
The total number of confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland stands at 83,611 and the cumulative death toll at 4,634, with 110 asymptomatic patients under medical observation.
Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-15/Chinese-mainland-reports-6-new-COVID-19-cases-from-aboard-S8z2aCYkXC/img/a49d992cc762406098b4fca4e0923835/a49d992cc762406098b4fca4e0923835.jpeg
Chinese mainland new imported cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-15/Chinese-mainland-reports-6-new-COVID-19-cases-from-aboard-S8z2aCYkXC/img/5d175249954a45889d684a8205e298d0/5d175249954a45889d684a8205e298d0.jpeg
Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-15/Chinese-mainland-reports-6-new-COVID-19-cases-from-aboard-S8z2aCYkXC/img/0b34dbe9e51647ae9f84e709c9c3a812/0b34dbe9e51647ae9f84e709c9c3a812.jpeg
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-15/Beijing-reports-no-new-COVID-19-cases-for-9-straight-days-S8yNEZTXB6/index.html
July 15, 2020
Beijing reports 0 new COVID-19 cases
Beijing recorded no new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases on Tuesday for the ninth day in a row. The Chinese capital’s total number of cases stands at 335 since a cluster outbreak was discovered at its Xinfadi wholesale market on June 11, the municipal health commission said on Wednesday.
An additional 14 patients recovered on Tuesday, taking the total number of recoveries from the local cluster to 144.
The health mission also reported no new asymptomatic cases in the past 24 hours, adding that the existing 18 asymptomatic people are still under medical observation.
[ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcUAiKXVAAApdzB?format=jpg&name=4096×4096 ]
July 15, 2020
Coronavirus
UK
Cases ( 291,911)
Deaths ( 45,053)
[ The ratio of deaths to confirmed coronavirus cases in the United Kingdom is 15.4%. ]
Paul Krugman @paulkrugman
Covid-19 is now killing about as many people each day in FL as it is in the whole EU, which has 20 times as many people
8:38 AM · Jul 15, 2020
Also killing as many people in AZ as in EU, which has SIXTY times the population
https://cepr.net/the-stock-market-and-mmt-the-dow-is-not-your-friend/
July 14, 2020
The Stock Market and Modern Monetary Theory: The Dow Is Not Your Friend
By Dean Baker
It is standard for economic reporters to treat higher stock prices as good news. A rising stock market is often touted in the same way that job gains or GDP growth are touted, as evidence of a stronger economy.
This can be true. When the economy is growing at a healthy pace, the stock market is usually rising also. But the link is far more tenuous than is generally recognized. The market is in principle a measure of expected future profits. Policies that redistribute from workers or taxpayers, such as anti-union laws or a corporate tax cut, would be expected to lead to a rising stock market, even if they did not spur economic growth.
But even beyond this direct redistributive issue, there is another sense in which a rising stock market can be bad for the 90 percent or the population that doesn’t own much stock (this includes 401(k)s). Higher stock prices encourage rich people to spend more money.
To see why this is an issue we need to pull out our MMT or Keynesian handbook. (MMT is essentially Keynes. That is not an insult, the term “modern monetary theory” is taken from the Keynes’ Treatise on Money.) To my view, the main takeaway from MMT is that the limit on the government’s ability to spend is inflation. This goes against the line pushed by the deficit hawks, that we have to worry about the government borrowing too much, because at some point lenders will be unwilling to lend us money.
As those of us who are not part of the deficit hawk cult point out, the government can print money if no one is willing to lend to it. Of course, in reality, investors have been very happy to lend the government money. The current interest rate on long-term government bonds is less than 0.7 percent. That compares to interest rates in the 4.0-5.0 percent range back when the government was running a budget surplus at the end of the 1990s.
But suppose this changed and investors suddenly soured on U.S. government debt? Well, the Federal Reserve could just buy the debt that investors wanted to dump. It would pay for it the old-fashioned way, by printing money.
This is certainly a logical possibility, after all the Fed can print as much money as it wants. (It’s actually all electronic transactions, with bank credits, but that is beside the point.) The real problem that we could run into is that printing money keeps interest rates lower than they otherwise would be. As a result, demand from public and private investment, housing, and other forms of consumption will be higher than in the case where the Fed is not buying bonds. In an economy that is operating near its capacity (definitely not the current economy), higher levels of demand can lead to inflation. If the Fed keeps printing large amounts of money, causing interest rates to stay low and demand to remain excessive, we could see spiraling inflation, or in an extreme case, hyperinflation.
In this story, the constraint on government spending is the risk of inflation, which in turn is the result of too much demand in the economy. This is the story of why we have taxes. If there is excessive demand and we don’t want to cut spending, then we can raise taxes to reduce consumption spending by the people we tax. The tax revenue is not needed to pay for the spending in the way that stores need sales to pay wages, the tax revenue is a way to reduce demand in the economy to provide the room needed for the government to spend.
With this story in mind, let’s get back to the stock market. Suppose the market rises by 10 percent, not because of expectations of greater future profits, but simply as a result of irrational exuberance. Investors are just excited about holding stock, as was the case in the 1990s stock bubble and may well be the case with certain stocks now.
If we round up somewhat, the current capitalization of the U.S. stock market is $40 trillion, which means that a 10 percent increase would imply an addition of $4 trillion. There is a well-known stock wealth effect on consumption, which is usually estimated as between 3-4 percent.[1] This means that if the value of households’ stock holdings rise by $100, they will increase their annual consumption spending by between $3-$4. If we apply this wealth effect calculation to the $4 trillion increase in market capitalization, it would imply an increase in annual consumption of between $120 billion and $160 billion, or 0.6 to 0.8 percent of GDP.
This increase in consumption generates more demand in the economy. It has roughly the same impact in employing labor and other resources as an increase in government spending of the same amount. This means that if the economy was more or less at its capacity, so that additional demand would lead to inflation, and the stock market jumped by 10 percent, we would suddenly be facing a problem with inflation.
In that case, in order to prevent inflation, the government would have to do something to reduce demand to offset the jump in consumption from stockholders.[2] This could mean that the Federal Reserve Board would raise interest rates to reduce investment spending, housing construction, and other consumption. Alternatively, the government could raise taxes to reduce consumption. However, going either route means that someone has to spend less because stockholders are spending more. In other words, higher stock prices mean that people who are not stockholders have to spend less money.
This conclusion is pretty much an inevitable implication of the wealth effect, regardless of whether or not someone accepts MMT or Keynesian economics. If stockholders are consuming more, then there is less for everyone else, at least when the economy is near full employment.
For this reason, most people have little cause to celebrate when stock prices rise. Not only do higher stock prices not benefit the typical worker, they can actually harm them by forcing government cutbacks or tax increases, or higher interest rates from the Fed. The stock market may be the home team for the people who own and run major news outlets, but not for most of the country. When the market goes up, most people should not be cheering.
[1] While people often talk about issuing stock as being a mechanism for financing investment, in reality it is rare for companies to finance investment by issuing shares. The one notable exception to this rule was in the 1990s stock bubble when many new companies found they could raise hundreds of millions or even billions by issuing shares, in some cases without even knowing how they could hope to make a profit from their business. More typically, companies issue shares to allow early investors to cash out their holdings.
[2] In reality, any increase in consumption takes time. Stockholders are not changing their consumption based on day to day movements in the stock market, rather this wealth effect on consumption would be phased in over 1 to 2 years.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/trump-cdc-coronavirus.html
July 14, 2020
Trump Administration Strips C.D.C. of Control of Coronavirus Data
Hospitals have been ordered to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all patient information to a central database in Washington, raising questions about transparency.
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
July 15, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 3,572,828)
Deaths ( 139,521)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/israelis-fear-schools-reopened-too-soon-as-covid-19-cases-climb-11594760001
July 14, 2020
Israelis Fear Schools Reopened Too Soon as Covid-19 Cases Climb
Outbreaks in schools had infected at least 1,335 students and 691 staff by Monday since the reopening in early May
By Felicia Schwartz and Dov Lieber – Wall Street Journal
TEL AVIV—Some Israeli public-health officials are blaming the country’s decision to reopen schools in May for helping fuel a large new wave of coronavirus infections that has prompted authorities to shut down sections of the economy once again.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/climate/trump-environment-nepa.html
July 15, 2020
Trump to Weaken Environmental Rules to Speed Infrastructure Permits
By Lisa Friedman
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday is set to unilaterally weaken one of the nation’s bedrock conservation laws, the National Environmental Policy Act, limiting public review of federal infrastructure projects to speed up the permitting of freeways, power plants and pipelines.
In doing so, the Trump administration will claim hundreds of millions of dollars of savings over almost a decade by significantly reducing the amount of time allowed to complete reviews of major infrastructure projects, according to two people familiar with the new policy.
What may easily be overlooked is the extent to which the Trump administration is changing government structure and policy in ways that will be quite difficult to undo or modify with a new administration. The changes Trump is making are in domestic and foreign policy. Especially important may be a return to the Cold War, which has evidently been decided on but which changing could take years of danger.
Looking to public healthcare systems, compare the workings of the Dominican Republic and Cuban systems, while considering that since 1970 per capita GDP growth in the Dominican Republic has been faster than any country in the Western Hemisphere, let alone not being constrained by continual sanctions as has the Cuban system.
July 15, 2020
Coronavirus
Dominican Republic
Cases ( 47,671)
Deaths ( 929)
Deaths per million ( 86)
Cuba
Cases ( 2,438)
Deaths ( 87)
Deaths per million ( 8)
July 15, 2020
Coronavirus
Israel
Cases ( 43,668)
Deaths ( 375)
Deaths per million ( 41)
Cuba
Cases ( 2,438)
Deaths ( 87)
Deaths per million ( 8)
July 15, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 3,592,118)
Deaths ( 139,727)
July 15, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 3,611,046)
Deaths ( 139,999)